Disclaimer: I own nothing. I believe "Transformers" belongs to Hasbro but I think Mikaela's character began in the Michael Bay Movies so *shrug* on the rights front.
A/N 1: Title is a song title by the band First Aid Kit.
A/N 2: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Chapter Nine: This Old Routine

And then It happened.

Not escape, not rescue. No, something much different.

The very room shakes (this far underground?) and they can hear vague noises from far above.

Mikaela is sitting cross legged on the floor with all four circled around her at the time, she is reading to them as she tends to do each day. "The Little Engine That Could" is the chosen book - and she is quite a ways past feeling embarrassed at doing voices and making sound effects, like train noises, by this point. Especially when it delights her little ones so – and seems to encourage them to mimic her with their own little hooting sounds which is just to cute for words. At the unexpected interruption to their routine, she slowly sets the book down, purposefully remaining still and calm even as her heart races.

"Try and listen, Lovely," she demanded urgently when the sounds continue, her own ears much too inadequate to hear anything clearly at all. And for a moment her eldest looks startled because Lovely never attempted to listen outside this room, seeming to rarely go farther than voice level because of the pain many frequencies still caused her. But Mikaela had always had the inkling that her sensors were extremely strong – that if they were on the outside this room, she would eventually be trained to be a Scout. (Thinks Bee, however young in Cybertronian years, would have delighted in having a student to teach the basics to.)

She runs a hand over Diane, Bruce, and Clark in turn – soothing them – as they tensely wait for her scans.

"Something happen on surface. Fight. Explosion. Damage to facility. People injured. Dr. Pratchett dead. Evacuating," Lovely finally says, her words more sounding more mechanical than normal but still stumbling over themselves a bit (and her glowing optics seemed to squint with the strain).

"Mikaela," Diane asked, "Dr. Patchett – bad man from before?"

Before she could puzzle that statement out the electricity shut off and Mikaela automatically darted to her feet. The only light of the room now were four sets of glowing optics that suddenly came closer to her quickly in fright. They were all quiet as they waited, the loudest sound seemed to be the low hum of the ventilation system that was apparently still active (probably on a different circuit – but at least I still have air, the thought ran through her mind wildly).

Mikaela tried to ignore all of this though, she just kept staring at the door for several minutes, tensely anticipating the moment it would open and someone would come to evacuate them.

Time seemed to lengthen, and eventually all sounds, from outside, stopped.

And no one had come.

No one had come.

That sunk in hard, settling deep in her chest, and leaving her startling blank, taking a long moment for her to even realize the implications.

They had been left.

Left.

Left in an abandoned facility underground where no one knows where she is.

Not only kidnapped, but abandoned.

Underground. In a single room with no electricity and four baby transformers.

"Mommy?" Clark asked, clutching onto her leg tight.

"What?" She blinked down stupidly, her mind still going in circles.

"Clark," Bruce hissed at him "we don't call her that. We have not asked yet." He looked up worried, before his bright optics darted down again.

She crouched down and picked up her most wary little one – at times she hadn't been sure he had even liked her very much. "Is this what you want?" she asked, the conversation she had with Lovely (what felt like a lifetime ago now) rose up in the back of her mind. She did not think she was a good choice as a mother - but it was their choice.

He held her tightly and whispered almost too quietly for her to hear, "Please."

Mikaela thought she felt her heart crack.

"Please," she heard Clark say from where he clung to her leg.

"Please," Diane echoed emphatically, tugging at her other pants leg almost hard enough to rip it.

She felt Lovely nimbly climb up her back with ease, "Please," she whispered, right in her ear, and Mikaela blinked hard to stop herself from crying.

"Of course you can call me that," she said hoarsely, holding Bruce tight and trying to look at all of them, in the dark, as she said this. "I've been your Mother since the moment your ice melted."

And she hated to break the moment but there were very pressing things to deal with. Her food for the day had been brought that morning – so she could try to ration it out for a while (but how long? A voice asked and she squashed it mercilessly.)

It was her dear little bots she was most holding down panic about though – they needed energy to survive. None of them wanted to go back to...sleep. And she desperately did not want that for them either.

"I need you all to listen to me now. This is very important. We need to be careful in what we do. Check the generator," she urged, "see if it's full – if it's not see if you can mange to pull any energy into it. If it is, take your naps now and try to get as much from the electrical recpticals as you can, I'm not sure if you'll be able to after today."

When they were asleep, she let her eyes adjust to the dark as best she could, and checked a few things for herself.

She placed all of their extra blankets next to the bed. And compiled her stash of food - the bits she had not eaten different days - and placed it within easy reach. It wasn't a lot but she might be able to spread it out over some time (she had gone times with very little food before). Another worrying factor for her had been water (she had no idea how long the plumbing would last with the electricity down so she filled the tub and any containers she could find up with water.

All Mikaela had left after that was to wait for her children to wake up. To sit in the dark and try not to let her thoughts swallow her whole - to hold her own climbing anxiety by the throat as she scoured her brain for anything that might help them survive this.

Take each moment as it came, walking the tightrope of planning carefully while trying desperately not to think very far into the future. Because Mikaela might be a realist, but even she knew some things had the power to crush her if she examined them to carefully, and those small forms sleeping so trustfully needed her.

Mother, they had called her. Only now, alone in the dark, with no optics on her (no cameras monitoring her), did Mikaela allow herself to cry. To break just a little - to want. To remember.

She was lonely, so lonely. The dark, the quiet, only heightened that feeling. Lovely, Clark, Diane, and Bruce filled a whole, created a joy she had never known before. And most of the time, she could throw herself completely into their care, ignore her memories.

Most of the time, it was enough.

It was only when she was the only one left awake that her mind brought thoughts of the others to the fore. That blue optics instead of white smiled at her, bantered with her, taught her. That a brave boy who always seemed to have trouble believing he was a hero, reached out to her with a gentle hand.

As much as this hurts, she welcomes this nightly ritual - goes over each of her friend's faces and frames carefully, mouths their names in the dark. Because Mikaela fears forgetting, knows that unlike her Cybertronian friends, she is not machine, is organic and fallible in memory (among many other things).

Sam. Well, time has made simply thinking his name hurt less. Made it feel like less of a wound. Mikaela know she should now trust anything Dr. Pratchett said the first day she was placed in this room (and she feels a savage twist of satisfaction deep in her gut at the knowledge that he is dead), but the words are still there, still internalized. That it would be easy for Sam to accept that she would leave, to accept the forged note.

Mikaela does not to let those sorts of thoughts take root, she stops it whenever they try. She, dries her eyes with rough hands, after all, she has more than enough to worry about in the present inside this room without letting what ifs take up space in her mind.