Ep 1 - Scars (open)

“Christ’s sake,” said June under her breath as she turned around with a completely unnecessary blanket, which she looped fussily about Soledad’s shoulders. “If Optimus Prime is going to keep calling me every time there is a transformer-related crisis in the middle of the night, I plan to charge it out of Fowler’s wallet. Hi, dear. I’m June. Forgive me, women encountering Decepticons in the night is something I’m familiar with and I might fuss a bit. Forgive me.”

She produced, also, a small cooler which she popped open and was full of juice packs, fruit, and a variety of bagged sandwiches. There was a thermos as well which she set on the gurney next to the girl. Her med-kit was already on the gurney, though, from the tone of Optimus Prime’s call to her phone – Jesus Christ, she had alien robot semi-trucks calling her goddamn phone in the night – Soledad wasn’t in any immediate danger. Not like Catherine. The line of June’s mouth tightened thinking of Cat, thinking of herself, thinking of Ray, thinking of Jack and Miko and Raf.

But Shadowrunner was hovering, in that kind of withdrawn way that the chrome and black muscle-car tended. Looking at Shadow, it was hard to remember sometimes she was a femme, that ambiguous word, until she spoken and her voice was just (only just) feminine enough to pin that classification. Shadow had rescued Soledad, like Arcee had rescued her. Autobot femmes, looking out for their squishie counterparts. Once again, she decided she liked Shadow.

“Soledad, can you tell me what happened? Anyway that you are hurt that I should know about? If you’re hungry I have food, let me know if you have any allergies. I’m here to help.”

Soledad glanced over at Shadow one more time, well aware she was being ridiculous. But Shadow didn't seem to mind - she gave Soledad smile, faint but infinitely reassuring, and Soledad found herself returning it gratefully. At least I'm not alone.

"Shadow bought me lunch," she informed the nurse, but dug into the cooler for a juice pack anyway. "And I'm not hurt, really. The worst hurt is this." She tapped the top of her thigh, where the split in her jeans showed the cut across the skin, now a dark, broad scab. "It healed over okay," she said, "and I don't think there's any infection." She figured she'd know by now if it was - as things stood, the cut only hurt if she moved her leg wrong.

"As for what happened..." Soledad tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders, feeling suddenly haunted. "Long story short, I was kidnapped by a Decepticon named Starscream, and used as a guinea pig of sorts. That was..." She frowned, trying to count the days in her head. "Maybe a month or so ago? I'm not sure. What's the date today? Anyway, Shadow sneaked back onto their warship and rescued me." Another quick smile for Shadow. "I'm sorry they got you up in the middle of the night for this, ma'am. I'm okay, I promise, it probably could have waited until morning."

All in all, Smokescreen had decided that he rather liked humans.

He wasn't really sure if his fellow Autobots felt the same way. Maybe he was alone in this. Perhaps the others merely looked upon the tiny species with amused tolerance, or acceptance, or even a mild form of dislike. It didn't seem likely, but it was admittedly a bit of a mystery to him. All he knew was that by and large he liked the natives of Earth, even the little bastards that keyed his paint or drugged horses or tried to put a bullet hole into his rear lights because he might have cut them off a bit in traffic. Eesh.

So when he had heard - through a combination of swiftly roaming gossip and his own general nosiness - that there was a strange human on the base, a former captive of the Decepticons, he had quickly packed away his work and decided to go for a walk. Captivity could be difficult on even the hardiest of sparks. Or souls.

Very difficult, sometimes.

Now, he could hear soft voices echoing up ahead - female voices. Unfamiliar ones. Smokescreen stepped from the corridor and looked around hesitantly. He gently rapped on the wall with his knuckles.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said with an apologetic smile. "I don't mean to intrude, but... I heard we have a guest, and I wanted to drop by and say hello."

Soledad leaned back against Shadow's hand, relaxing into the warm support, and only after that thought to wonder how comfortable someone made of metal could be, or that she should be so comfortable in the hand of a giant robot when her only previous experience of such had been with Starscream. She should, by all rights, have been pulling away, feeling her skin flinch, painting on a plastic smile while praying for a wall to sprout up between her and whoever was touching her. Yet she was as comfortable as she could ever remember being around other people, and there was no logic to it but she liked the feeling.

Shadow's words themselves, offered with casual assurance, were a different kind of logicless warmth: not a guest, but a new arrival. As though Soledad were already one of them, without question, without having to earn her way in. Nestling into Shadow's warm palm, Soledad stored up that warmth in her heart, and tried without success not to hope for too much.

The smile she offered Smokescreen was small and tired, but genuine. "Hey," she greeted with a languid wave. "Nice to meet you. Sorry, I'm not at my best right now, hence the late-night checkup." She jerked a thumb at Nurse Darby.

June shot the new bots a look that suggested they could jump out a window for distracting her patient while she was asking her a question. She’d heard that there were new Cybertronians on base and this Smokescreen guy was clearly one of them. She decided didn’t like him. She supposed this was based entirely upon that fact that she was working and he interrupted and however polite he’d been about it he’d still interrupted and…

And now there were two.

“Okay, everyone who is not a doctor or Shadowrunner kindly take a few steps back and commiserate on… I dunno, something for five minutes. Privacy please! Shoo! Cept you, Shadow, you just stay right there. Okay? Kay. I will call Ratchet in here, I swear to God, if the other two don’t back up.” And, supposing that this threat would have the desired effect, June turned her attention back to Soledad and very busily took her blood pressure and pulse. “Soledad, is there anyone you need to call or get in contact with? Anyone who is missing you?”

Soledad grinned back at Shadow, mischievous and bright-eyed, just tired enough to let down her guard a little bit in the safe circle of Shadow's hands. "That's right," she announced, lifting her chin as if daring the newcomers to contradict. "I am the Wax Ninja Master! When I'm done with you, you're shiny enough to confuse satellites."

Mostly, she was just having fun, trying to make people laugh. Partly - she was avoiding answering Mrs. Darby's question. She hadn't really come up with a good explanation yet. But something about Nurse Darby's eyes told Soledad she wasn't going to let it go. ...And she'd already blurted out "There's no one" to Shadow and Jazz before, idiot that she was. God only knew what conclusions they'd jump to.

"Nobody's missing me," she told Mrs. Darby quietly, and there was a good chance that at least was true. "There's nobody to contact. Don't worry about it."

This lie, at least, was easy. She'd practiced it in every bus station she'd visited.

"Just turned eighteen, ma'am." The words came out smooth, easy, looking into the nurse's eyes like it was no big thing. She hadn't quite meant to smile, but found it emerging on her face anyway - but that was no big deal. She could say she was just excited about finally becoming an adult.

It would be true in two and a half years, she reasoned. Until then - she would do what she had to do in order to (stay with Shadow, her brain inexplicably supplied) survive.