To believe that this whole... situation, this... entirely unplotted deviation from the expected path of his life... started out with a doll.

It was a very beautiful doll, with clear porcelain skin, coloured an unusual grey, long, perfectly straight silver hair, and unnerving eyes the colour of blood...

And, oddly out of place on the delicate thing, a set of antique glasses perched on the end of it's nose.

Maybe... maybe it would be better said that it was the glasses that started it all... For the glasses were the item that led them to him... led the Cybertronians to him.

The doll...

The only thing he had left...

They hated him for it, for carrying it around, said he was a faggot, a pouf. They hit him, screamed at him, glared and whispered nasty rumours behind his back, but he'd never get rid of it because it was the last thing he had left.

His parents had died several years ago, burned to death, burned away just like the house they'd lived in, like everything they'd ever owned.

The doll was literally the last connection he had to his parents. Even his memories were fading, not being able to remember eye colour, hair colour, a smile, a laugh...

It was also the last item that was truly his...

"Samuel? Sam?"

He looked up at his only friend, smiling tiredly.

"Miles. Thought... you had... tutoring?"

His voice was hoarse, rough, damaged by smoke. Something that would be a constant reminder, another thing that refused to heal.

"Got done early, well, more like the teach said something like 'Out! If I have to deal with you for even three more seconds, I swear I'll-' and then I ran out the door."

The too skinny teenager laughed softly, shaking his head st his friends antics.

"Only... you, Miles. Who was it this... time?"

The taller teen looked at him sheepishly.

"Mrs Grady."

"Once again... Only you would be able to piss off... the most patient teacher in the entire school."

"Yep."

Miles plopped a brown paper bag on the table the two were sitting at, rummaging around before pulling out a small sandwich and an apple.

"There ya go," he said, handing them over to Sam, "And you better eat them this time. You are way too skinny."

He accepted them with a sigh, well aware that he wouldn't win this battle.

"Al...right. Just to make you... quiet."

"Good."

They at in companionable silence, just enjoying each other's company for a short, uninterrupted moment.

A moment that ended all too quickly for Sam's taste...

"Oi, freak!"

Trent DeMarco, King of the tiny little high school located in Tranquility, California, swaggered his way over to the near empty table that housed the two other boys.

"Still gotcha little dollie, fag?"

Sam stiffened, arms wrapped tight around the doll in question, head down.

Silent.

Always silent.

He never answered back if he could help it.

...After all, people quickly grow bored with an unresponsive victim...

"Well? Not gonna answer me, loser?"

The taller, heavily muscled teen wrapped a hand around Sam's thin wrist and tossed him onto the ground.

"Oi! Back off, DeMarco!"

DeMarco turned towards Miles, angry glare twisting his features.

"You stay out of this, Lancaster. This has nothin' to do with you, so BUZZ OFF!"

He shoved Miles backwards into a table and turned back towards Sam, grinning nastily.

"Yanno, I hate seein' you walk around here with that ugly doll of yours, loser. I might just have to... get rid of it."

In a flash, Sam was up off the ground, shoulders curled in protectively.

"You... leave it alone. Don't... don't you dare tou...ch it or-"

"Or you'll what? What could a scrawny, anorexic loser do to me?"

DeMarco reached, intent on grasping the doll and twisting its head from its body.

Within three seconds, he was on the floor gasping for air.

"I will kill you," Sam hissed, eyes narrowed in a blood- freezing glare, arm still outstretched from the judo move he'd used to slam the other to the ground.

His body was angled to the side, away from DeMarco in an attempt to protect the doll.

Also, unknowingly, giving a silver Pontiac Solstice a very good look at the antique, out of place glasses perched on the end of the precious item's nose.

:Uhh, Prime? I think I foun' what we're lookin' for...:

I started writing this after I realized that I'd be stuck in a condo, in palm springs, where the temp outside was an average of 117 degrees, for a week with no Internet. I also wrote a hell of a lot of other stuff, drew a bunch of pictures, and played Minesweeper about fifty gazillion times, and wrote. A lot.

Yep.