Crash and Burn

Chapter 1-Acquaintance

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. They belong to Hasbro and Takara. I am merely taking them for a short spin.

Home was a nice place to be. Even if it wasn't technically his home, Leo Spitz was glad for the chance to be someplace else than school. He stood on the sidewalk, holding his stuff, staring up at the house.

"Nice place," Leo said, watching Sam as he joined him, carrying his own bags.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Wait 'till you see the backyard. The pool is supposed to be done."

Sam started up the walk, gave the car sitting by the curb one last look.

"Behave yourself, Bee," Sam said.

"Like he's the one we have to worry about," Leo said, following Sam.

"Uh huh," Sam said. "Before I left for school, he destroyed half the house and at Thanksgiving. . ."

"How many times does the bot have to apologize?" Leo said.

"Sure. Take his side and you weren't even here," Sam said, unlocking the front door. He let himself and Leo in. "My room is at the top of the stairs. The guest room is down the hall, to your left. And whatever you do, watch out for Mojo and Frankie. Keep 'em off the couch. And Frankie likes to lay at the bottom of the stairs and trip people as they come down."

"OK," Leo said, stopping in the living room. The place was covered in Christmas decorations. "Don't you know decorations go outside?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "But wait until it gets dark. You can probably see this place from space. Hey--that's something we can do later. Fire up your laptop and let Bee and Arcee see if they can 'borrow' a satellite and see."

Leo grinned. "Are you serious?"

"Why not?" Sam said, starting to drag his stuff upstairs. "Make yourself at home. I don't know when my parents will be back, but we might as well get comfortable."

Leo nodded, taking a look around. It was going to be an interesting holiday break.

------

Two hours later, the boys were watching television in the living room when the dogs started barking as the front door opened. Sam stood, ran to help his mom carry in packages, but tripped over the bulldog. His dad shooed the dogs out of the way while Leo helped Sam up. The rest of Judy Witwicky's bags hit the ground as she hugged her son.

"Oh Sammy, why didn't you call when you got here? We would've come straight home," Judy said.

Sam shrugged. "Didn't want to ruin the surprise," he said.

She gave him one last kiss on the cheek as she moved on to Leo. "Hey handsome," Judy said, hugging Leo. "It's good to see you too."

"Hi Mrs. Witwicky," Leo said. "Bake any brownies?"

Ron shot Leo a look, trying to tell him to shut up. But Judy only smiled.

"There's some in the kitchen," she said. "Unfortunately, they aren't eco-friendly."

"That's a good thing," Leo said.

"You have no idea," Ron said. "How was the flight?"

"Long and cold," Sam said.

"The Army didn't have to offer to fly you guys home," Ron said.

"It was in the belly of freezing cold C17," Sam said.

"Quit complaining, Sammy," Judy said. "At least you're home earlier than you would have been otherwise."

Sam knew she was right. The C17 was actually one of NEST's, and they'd offered to pick up Sam and Bumblebee and fly them to Nevada before heading back to Diego Garcia. The plane had been at McGuire Air Force Base anyway, dropping off soldiers so they could go home for the holidays. Arcee had come along for the ride mainly to help Bumblebee keep an eye on Sam and Leo.

"OK--Bumblebee is where I can see him, but where's the other one?" Ron asked.

"Arcee is in the garage," Sam said.

"Good," Ron said. "Don't need them running around tearing up the place."

Sam frowned.

"Dad, I don't think that'll be an issue," he said.

"Yeah, whatever," Ron replied. "What do you guys want for dinner? Anything you like. We're ordering out."

-----

Leo woke with a startle when he heard the sound of something hitting his window. He crawled out of bed, looked out the window until his gaze landed on the reason for his return to consciousness. Arcee. She looked like she was getting ready to lob another pebble at his window, but he opened it, waved down at her.

"Don't," Leo said. "I'll be down in a minute."

He grabbed his shoes and a hoodie, headed downstairs. When he reached the backyard, the femme was staring at the pool.

"This thing seems like a waste of a valuable resource here in the desert," Arcee said.

"Don't let Mr. Witwicky hear you say that," Leo said. "What are you doing out of the garage like that? You get caught, it's both our heads."

"I was bored," Arcee said.

"Nice reason to wake me up," Leo said.

"You're off from school, so you can sleep later," Arcee said.

Leo rolled his eyes. The femme bot did have a point.

"You're not just bored, are you?" he asked.

"I thought you would enjoy the chance to speak in person for once instead of online," Arcee said.

"Yeah, but like tomorrow, in the morning, when I've had a chance to sleep," Leo said.

"Suit yourself," Arcee said, rolling back toward the garage.

"Wait. . .it's OK. Talk," Leo said. Again, Arcee was right. He did want the chance to talk in person. They hadn't since the boat ride home on the carrier in September, when they'd hit it off. He and the female Autobot had chatted online at least twice a week since. He talked about school, his life in general, and she talked about life on the base. And they managed to do it without giving away any details about the fact she was actually an alien from another planet.

Sharsky and Fassbinder gave him hell when they found out he was chatting with an online female because their own dorm was stacked with pretty girls. "Stacked" was an understatement. He'd even gotten asked out on a few dates. But the Web site and classwork kept him busy.

"Do you regret not going home to see your own family?" Arcee asked.

Leo shrugged. "I saw 'em at Thanksgiving, and I might see them a couple of days after Christmas if my sister decides to not go home," he said.

"And how does your family celebrate this holiday?" Arcee said.

"Besides a big argument every year?" Leo said. "Usually out on my grandma's farm in Kearny, Kansas. Out in the middle of nowhere, for Kansas. Not like Diego Garcia middle of nowhere. Six hours from my hometown, Lawrence. Flat land. Nothing but cows and wheat for miles. I'm always disappointed each year there are no crop circles. . .anyway, my aunts, uncles and cousins come, we eat lots of food, exchange gifts, watch every college bowl game known to man. Although this year I am gonna miss baking cookies on Christmas Eve with my cousin, Rooney, and taking my sister's new boyfriend cow-tipping."

Arcee raise an optic ridge.

"Cow-tipping?"

"Where you sneak into a field and try and tip over a sleeping cow," Leo said. "Except cows don't sleep standing up. Horses do. It's fun, as long as nobody gets hurt. Last year. . .you'd think Ava would know better by now. . .but it wasn't my fault."

"What happened?"

"Ava, my sister, dared my cousin Dylan, and well, they both ended up in the emergency room," Leo said. "Ava had to get stitches in her leg and Dylan dislocated a shoulder. Ava ripped her shin open on wire crawling under the fence and Dylan hurt his shoulder when the bull tossed him over the fence."

"And this is supposed to be fun?"

"It can be," Leo said. "If it's just cows. Normally they just run. But not last time."

"Humans do seem fond of activities involving riding large hoofed mammals," Arcee said.

"No kidding," Leo said. "But enough about me. How are things on base? Find any bad guys lately?"

"No," Arcee said. "We've been looking, but nothing since Egypt. It has been quiet too long, I fear."

"I know," Leo said. "Anything interesting going on?"

"The new arrivals are finally settled in, Chromia and Ironhide have finally resumed their relationship, Sideswipe and Jolt are fighting over Moonracer, Skids and Mudflap have been assigned to Agent Simmons in Washington, Mr. Galloway finally apologized to Major Lennox and Optimus and speaking of Optimus. . ." Arcee trailed off.

"What's wrong with Optimus? He OK?" Leo said.

"He's fine. Annoyed, but fine," Arcee said. "He's just having problems with one of the new arrivals."

"What kind of problem?" Leo asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Arcee said.

"Arcee, c'mon. You can't leave me hangin' like this," Leo said.

"I can. It will give us something to talk about tomorrow," Arcee said.

-----

Optimus Prime was annoyed. Very annoyed. He walked out of the Autobot hangar, shot Ironhide an angry glare, but his weapons specialist only sniggered behind his hand as his leader passed by. It was his duty to protect all life, including the humans he'd sworn to defend, but he was considering making an exception. One teeny, tiny exception. One and only one. He promised himself it would just be the one single human. . .no more than that. Now he just needed to find out the identity of that sole human. . .

Optimus felt a tiny slap on his lower leg. He looked down. Epps was staring up at him.

"It's not a big deal," Epps said. "Trust me. It's just a friendship-type holiday ritual."

The Autobot leader refrained from telling his friend what they could do with their human rituals.

"You're going to miss your plane," Optimus said.

"I got a few minutes," Epps said. "Besides, don't you want to know who explained our little human holiday ritual with mistletoe?"

Optimus leaned down. "I would be most interested in hearing the name of the. . .culprit."

"Graham."

"Thank you, Sgt. Epps," Optimus said. "Enjoy seeing your family. I have something I need to go take care of."

"You're welcome," Epps said, grinning. He knew he'd just signed the SASF soldier's death warrant for him. Oh well. Ol' spit and polish needed something to keep him busy while he was in charge over the holidays.