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Chapter Text

The radar blipped. Emily frowned down at the screen. 

It was 4:28 PM on a Wednesday. The sun was setting, there was a cargo plane trying to land on runway 22R, and an American Air flight to DFW was pushing off their gate. Other planes were moving around her, but those were her three main concerns right now. That, and how she only had less than a month before she got to go on maternity leave.

The radar blipped again. 

“I don’t understand it,” Amir said, pointing at the two unidentified aircraft in the corner of their radar screen near the thirty-six-degree mark. “They appeared out of nowhere, they’re going as fast as fighter jets, but one of them is way bigger than a fighter jet.” 

“You tried hailing?” she asked, leaning over the desk. They were approaching them fast. 

“Only on one frequency. They didn’t pick up,” he said. 

She thought for a moment. John was senior on shift but he was in a meeting which put her in charge of making the call. “Land the cargo on 22R and help the American pushing off of gate A12. I’ll handle this.” 

Amir nodded as she walked back to her own station, bringing up the radar. She began switching between frequencies, asking, “Bogey aircraft, this is Detroit ATC tower, please identify yourself, over.” 

She got a couple of confused pilots, whom she told to ignore her call. She made her way through six frequencies before landing on one where she caught someone talking mid-sentence. 

“—fragging idiot! At least I’m not the slagger who crashed the Nemesis into a moon! I’m going to—”

“Bogey aircraft, this is Detroit ATC tower, please identify yourself, over,” Emily interrupted. 

The line went silent and for a moment she wondered if she had lost the signal. Then she looked down on the radar map and saw that both aircrafts had inexplicably stopped midair and were holding their positions. The only aircraft she knew could do that at that speed and altitude belonged to the Air Force. It occurred to her then that this could be an Air Force drill that no one had told them about or had veered wildly off course. 

“Bogey aircraft, please give your Air Force ID, over,” she said. More silence and the crafts continued to hover where they were. Her back hurt and she needed to pee which explained why she snapped, “Bogey aircraft if you do not identify yourself immediately I will alert the US Air Force. Identify yourself now or you will be labeled as hostile.” 

More silence. Just as she was about to yell at them again, the two dots began moving at extreme speeds. Directly at the tower. 

She stared in shock for a moment before whipping around and shouting to everyone in the tower, “Clear the air space! We have two hostiles coming up on our asses!” 

Panic had already begun consuming the room, the other operators all screaming into their mics. The frequencies were taken over by panicking pilots who were yelling about the swiftly approaching aircraft and being worried about mid-air collisions. She flipped to the frequency for the Air Force long enough to ask for help before switching back to the frequency she found the hostiles on. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed at them. “I know you can fucking hear me! I’ve got the Air Force on the way now so think hard about your next move!” 

“Frag off human scum!” she heard one of them say. It was the same voice that had been talking when she initially found the frequency. 

The Air Force jets appeared on her radar screen. They had gotten almost everyone out of the air and the airport was grounding all aircraft and moving everyone inside into sheltering positions. Emily looked out the window in the direction of where the hostiles were coming from. She could see the noses of their jets rapidly approaching, becoming more clear by the second. 

“Evacuate the tower, now!” she screamed. Operators rose to their feet, rushing for the stairway. It was like the hostiles could sense they were evacuating because their speed shot up. Before she could even get her headset off, the jets were passing by at high speeds, their images consuming the windows, the roaring of their engines the only sound in her ears. She watched them in terror, her hands pressed over her belly, as the whole tower seemed to shake with their passing.  

It was only when they had passed by, shooting away, out of their sight and soon out of their radar, being chased by Air Force jets, that the fear was replaced with rage. 

“Did they just buzz the tower?” she said. Her ears were still ringing and she could feel her face flushing in anger. She flipped her headset back on to the right frequency, ignoring Amir tugging at her arm as she yelled, “Did you just fucking buzz us?” 

She suspects that the message didn’t go through. Generally, aircraft beyond their radar were also beyond their communications. But it was good to get off her chest. 

It’s only when she’s rushing down the stairs that her brain processes what she saw. Puzzle pieces began to link together: fast-moving jets that defied all laws and abilities of human aviation, bright colors adorning their exteriors, and chatting over the radio, which every pilot knew not to do. Halfway down the tower, she gasped out, “Oh shit, I think those were Decepticons.” 

“One was beige and purple, the other was green and purple,” she said. It’s an hour later and she’s on the tarmac giving the Autobots as much information as she can. The police and Air Force had already talked to her and she was now she’s being directed to repeat it for the third time to Optimus. “One looked like a jet and the other looked like a bomber plane, I think. I don’t know, they went by really fast.” 

“Did they say anything to you or did you hear them say anything about what they were doing?” he asked. He was polite enough to be down on one knee so she didn’t have to crane her head too far up. 

“One of them told me to ‘frag off,’ whatever that means,” Emily replied. 

Optimus winced. “That’s, er. That’s a Cybertronian insult.” 

“The closest human translation is ‘fuck off,’” Ratchet said, half-listening to the exchange while looking out over the airfield. 

Optimus gave him an annoyed look before turning back to her. “Sorry, you had to hear that.” 

She shrugged. “I’ve heard worse dealing with Navy pilots.” 

The Autobots leave them their number and ask that they report any further sightings to them. The Air Force responds that they’ve lost the Decepticons and are keeping an eye on their own radar. John tells Emily she can head home early if she wants since she was able to handle the situation so well and she takes him up on his offer. 

When she gets home, Tom is on the couch playing video games, his scrubs and surgical shoes in a dirty pile by the washing machine. He doesn't look up when she comes in, just asks, "What's for dinner?" 

She makes something quickly, still lost in thought from the events of the day. She sets it down on the table and tries telling her husband about her day but he hums in response to everything she says, obviously not listening, before complaining about his own day and his patients. He goes back to playing games as soon as he's done and she cleans up by herself. She tries to tell herself that this is just a small rough patch in their marriage and once their daughter gets here everything will get better. 

Emily lies awake that night thinking about her day while Tom snores beside her. Her fingers are tight around her stomach and she can feel her daughter doing somersaults. She should be terrified of the Decepticons. Giant alien robots who could turn into fighter jets and go ten times the speed of regular craft should make her want to pack her bags and move across the country. 

But instead, it makes her pissed as all hell. 

Every flight had to be grounded, all planes evacuated, pilots sent into other air spaces including Canada, all so two douchebag robots could buzz their tower. Countless connections were missed, other airports were thrown into turmoil due to late flights delaying necessary flight crews, Canada called to ask why American flights were on their radar, pilots nearly ran out of fuel in the air, planes nearly collided with each other, not to mention the Federal Aviation Administration would inevitably stick their nose in and tell how they were supposed to handle it as if they had experience handling giant alien fighter jets. 

Fuck them, she thinks to herself. She had their radio frequency. If they ever showed up on her radar again, she wasn't holding back on telling them exactly what she thought of them.

Chapter Text

They got a week and a half of blissful silence. No weird blips on the radar, no random voices over the radio, not even the appearance of any colorful jets. The airspace over Detroit is still tense, pilots wary of entering and leaving it. Word had traveled fast and airlines were hesitant about sending anything their way. 

Emily didn’t blame them. She’d never done it, but from what she understood flying was like driving a car in a 3D space with no windows, no rear mirrors, and only a tiny portion of the windshield available while having to determine where you were using numerical readings and praying it wasn’t goose migration season. 

The Air Force kept three jets on standby at all times. She watched them, the pilots meandering about the crafts during their breaks, stretching their legs, and watching the skies. She kept working, landing planes and enduring the rushes and lulls that came with air travel. 

It was 12:14 PM on a Friday when it happened. The FAA had told them that Detroit would be deemed unsafe airspace if they had two more instances of unknown or unidentifiable aircraft and emergency clearing as if they could possibly control that. She and Tom had gotten into a fight that morning over him not doing the dishes the night prior. It went from being snappy at each other to full-on screaming in a matter of minutes. That led to him leaving for work an hour early in a huff and her crying in the drive-through of a Biggby Coffee on the way into work. Needless to say, she wasn’t in the best mood at the moment. 

A small blip in and out of the radar. The first time it happened she chalked it up to the Boeing 717 she just had take off. She kept one eye on the radar and one ear on the frequency. Then it happened again, this time a little closer. 

She could tell other operators had seen it too by the way everyone tensed. She flipped to the frequency she had found the Decepticons on initially. “I swear to god, if you’re back, I’m gonna have the Air Force fry your asses.” 

The blip dropped down to their level and divided into two. She could tell instantly that it was the two from before, but this time, as they began descending, she could see that they were in their robot forms. 

Emily could hear everyone else running about and yelling, telling the Air Force to mobilize, telling planes to get out of the skies, telling the airport to put everyone into a shelter in place, telling the Autobots to get out here as soon as possible. But she could only focus on the two robots hovering at the edge of the tarmac, too far to make out any distinct details besides colors, daring them to do something, daring them to move at her, to say anything to her. She was at her breaking point and it was all about to come out. 

“Clear the airspace and then evacuate the tower! I’ll try and stall them!” She shouted back at everyone. She checked again that she was on the right frequency before saying into her headset, “Get your shiny metal ass out of my airspace, fuckface.” 

“Frag off, you pathetic organic glitch!” one of them replied, the same from the last time she had talked to them. She couldn’t tell which was talking, both of them too far away to see their mouths move, but she could see the smaller of the two, the purple and beige one, raise an arm and point at her. That was who she was probably talking to. 

“Go fuck yourself,” she replied. She heard the voice scoff in disbelief and she continued, “You think that just because you’re some oversized hunk of junk you can come into my airspace, harass my pilots, and throw off everyone else’s schedules? Try it! I dare you! I have the Autobots on speed dial and two Air Force pilots ready to scramble! And I saw how much our government put towards our military this year. You really wanna mess with a group that has four commas in their budget? Now make like a tree and fuck off.” 

She saw the purple and beige one briefly move towards the tower and did flinch back a little before the purple and green one grabbed him and yanked him back. The Air Force jets had mobilized by then, swooping in low and letting off shots at them. She watched as they pinged off the Decepticons, making them wince, but not doing any real damage. They chased after the jets, weaving about the airfield and getting dangerously close to the tower at times. 

“Emily, now would be a good time to go,” Muhammad said from where he was crouched and peering over the desks. 

But she didn’t listen to him, still staring out the window, hearing the Decepticon yell at her, “I will find you and mash you into a paste, you fragger!” 

“You think I’m intimidated by someone getting their ass handed to them by a rookie pilot in an F-15 Eagle?” she countered. “You would think for a giant alien robot who literally turns into a jet, you’d be better at dogfighting.” 

“Blitzwing! Stop arguing with the pathetic human! We have a mission to complete for our glorious cause!” 

That voice was new. If she had to guess, it was likely the bomber plane that was with him. She glanced over to him briefly before looking back at the purple and beige bot—Blitzwing?—and watching in horror as he smacked the wing of an Air Force jet hard enough to tear it off. The pilot ejected safely, the Decepticon instead focused on trashing their jet. The other jet was already in a pile on the tarmac and the pilot was running for the safety of one of the hangars. 

She felt the ground shake as the Decepticons began walking to the tower. Distantly, she could hear sirens approaching. Muhammad grabbed her by the waist and hauled her down and into a crouch under the desk, hidden from view.

“Blitzwing! We must leave now! The Autobots approach!” the large one yelled, seemingly hanging back by the loss of the sound of one set of heavy steps. But the other set continued to rumble the ground and Emily found herself genuinely terrified. 

“Human! Show yourself now!” Blitzwing yelled. Emily looked over, the other ATC operators all hidden beneath their desks, shaking their heads at her, mouthing no and don’t at her. 

“Now human! Or I knock this whole structure down!” he yelled. 

Emily took a deep breath as she scooched out from under her desk and rose to her feet. 

The window was consumed with a bright red face that was almost too human for her liking. In place of eyes there was a visor and what she could only assume were teeth, gritted in anger. She glared right back, fisting her hands at her sides to keep them from shaking. 

“The fuck do you want?” she asked, still using the headset as she knew her voice wouldn’t travel. 

“To see the look of terror on your face as you finally die!” Blitzwing said with a smirk. 

The sirens were growing louder. Emily stood her ground. “What, you gonna smack the tower? Will that finally make you feel big and strong?” 

“Silence, you piece of slag!” he yelled. 

“I just watched you chase an F-15 around the tarmac for a good five minutes before finally catching it. I would have grander death dying from an out-of-control scooter than from you,” she said. 

“You pitiful excuse for a creature!” he yelled back. He pulled a fist back, aiming it at the tower. Gasps of shock and fear rose around her, the operators quickly trying to file out and down the stairs to safety. “Eat slag and die, human.” 

Out of the corner of her widened eyes, she could see the Autobots arrive on the scene, and watched as Optimus transformed, leaping through the air with his axe in his hands. It didn’t take a genius to see where he was aiming. 

“Eat shit and live, Blitzwing,” Emily said. 

He began to move his fist forward when Optimus collided with him, the blade sinking into his shoulder. A spray of pink gushed from the wound, coating the windows and casting everything inside in rosy hues. The tower shook when both of them hit the ground just outside and she could hear and feel the commotion of their fight. 

Hands grabbed her arms and pulled her backward on shaking legs towards the stairs and away from the conflict. She let them pull her away, down the stairs, towards safety. 

It took only fifteen minutes for the Autobots to chase the Decepticons off. That’s fifteen minutes of Emily sitting, her mind bouncing between being terrified and being proud of what she had done. She had put herself and everyone else in the tower in danger but she had also put a giant alien hotshot in his place. They went through the same routine as last time of talking to the Air Force, police, and Autobots. 

“I overheard some of what you said,” Optimus said to her. He was sitting on the tarmac getting patched up by the medic of their group. “You’re either the craziest human I’ve ever met or the bravest.” 

She laughed. “I think I’m a little bit of both.” 

He chuckled in response. He gestured to her and asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, what’re you having?” 

If it weren’t for the insanity of the day, she’d question how he knew about human pregnancy. But she had gotten cussed out by a giant alien robot less than an hour prior, so it couldn’t be too far-fetched for him to know about human reproduction. 

“A girl,” she replied, rubbing her stomach. “I’m due in about twelve weeks. Her name is Alexandria.” 

“Good job,” he replied, which she thought was a weird response, but everything else had been weird that day, so she just thanked him. 

By the time they were done, it was coming up on two in the afternoon. 

What happened must have hit the news because when she finally checked her phone, she had multiple missed calls and texts from her mom, her brothers, her sister, her dad, both sets of grandparents, her in-laws, and almost all of her friends. But amid all the frantic voicemails and worried texts, she noticed one person missing. 

Her husband hadn’t called or texted her once. 

She chalked it up to him being in surgery and took John’s offer to leave work early. The drive home was spent thinking over what she had done, wondering if it was the right thing. The FAA wouldn’t be happy about what she did, but the FAA could go fuck themselves. The Air Force had appreciated her being able to hold them back from attacking long enough to get the pilots into their cockpits. Optimus had said he was glad she was able to keep them talking to keep them on the tarmac and away from the airport. 

Emily got home to a seemingly empty house as she expected. Tom wouldn’t be home until later so she decided on ordering herself pizza and taking a well-deserved bubble bath. 

But her plans and her mind both came to a screeching halt when she walked into her bedroom and found her husband naked in bed with another woman. 

Chapter Text

Perhaps the worst part of the whole shitshow was that Tom hadn't even tried to lie. He confessed then and there that he had been cheating on her for four months. Four whole months. 

The other woman, to her credit, didn't know Tom was married. She looked confused when Emily started yelling at Tom but as soon as she had shouted about being his wife, the woman looked enraged at Tom and began screaming at him as well. 

Tom had stumbled out of the bed, trying to pull his pants on, and began trying to blame Emily for it. Blamed her morning sickness, her gestational diabetes, her low sex drive, her sore back, all of it, he claimed, pushed him to infidelity. Emily had responded by picking up one of his shoes and throwing it at his head. 

He ducked and it left a smear of dirt on the wall. 

Emily had sat in the nursery, listening to the woman scream at Tom as he packed a bag. She held one of the many stuffed animals they'd bought for their daughter close to her chest and just wept. The slam of the front door and the sound of a car engine was the only indicator that Tom had left. He didn't even say goodbye. 

The other woman popped her head into the nursery long enough to apologize, introduce herself as Teresa, and say she left her number on a piece of paper on the nightstand in case she needed to be contacted. Emily had stared at her blankly for a long moment before thanking her and telling her she should leave. She left without another word. 

That had been two weeks ago. The skies had been blissfully clear and her home life had fallen apart. It had been a flurry of phone calls and crying sessions and lawyer recommendations and pleading texts from her soon-to-be ex-husband and getting the terrible details about the affair from Teresa. 

She couldn’t even sleep in the master bedroom, instead sleeping in the guest room. Every time she went in there to change the sheets, she would find herself staring at that smear of dirt on the wall. She knew she should clean it off. But she always just left the room behind, still yet to be cleaned.

Emily carefully counted the days to her maternity leave kicking in, both anticipating and dreading that encroaching date. She would be free from work and would have time to get everything ready for when Alexandria got here. But she also would be doing so in an empty house with everyone she knew asking her uncomfortable questions she wasn’t yet ready to answer. 

Her second to last day before maternity leave kicked in was when shit hit the fan. 

It was her third bathroom break in an hour and her lies about pregnancy bladder could only stretch so far. It's not surprising when she emerges from the bathroom with red eyes and flushed cheeks to find John waiting in the hall. He's shifting from foot to foot and looks worried. 

"Hey! Sorry to corner you," he said, drawing a little closer but still giving her plenty of space. "I just wanted to ask if you were okay?" 

She stared at him blankly for a moment as she fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. "I'm fine. Just, you know, fluctuating hormones." 

He frowned, seemingly discontent with that answer. "Are you sure? I mean, if something is going on, you can tell me. I won't tell anyone else. I just want to make sure that you're okay and you're safe." 

She stared at John for a long moment. He was in his early fifties, had a loving husband at home, two cocker spaniels, one daughter in college, and one son in high school. He'd been her boss since she started and he never once gossiped about any of the controllers she worked with, but he would gossip about the pilots and cabin crew he'd encountered in his time. If there was anyone at work she could talk to, it was him. 

"My husband cheated on me," she blurted out. In the empty hallway it sounded impossibly loud despite her not raising her voice. "That day that I yelled at Blitzwing, when you let me go home early, I found him in bed with another woman. He'd been cheating for the past four months." 

John stared at her in shock, his mouth agape. "Oh god, Emily, I'm so sorry. Are you safe?" 

She was reminded of the tense conversation she'd had with her obstetrician during her first trimester. How the number one cause of death for pregnant people was homicide. 

"I'm okay. Tom has sent me a couple of pitiful texts and whiny voicemails since he moved out but nothing threatening. Funny enough, my in-laws helped him move out and berated him the whole time," she said with a forced laugh. She'd appreciated them for it. How her mother-in-law's first words to her after finding out about the affair were that she was always welcome at their house and her father-in-law apologized for not raising Tom properly. 

John nodded slowly. "You know, you could take some of your sick time before your leave kicks in. I know you're not technically allowed to do that, but I can pull a few strings for you." 

If she left today, she'd be going home to an empty house missing half its contents. She could always go to a friend's house or her sister's place, but she really didn't want to be around someone who knew about her situation right now. She wanted to be somewhere where the main talking points weren't what do you do now and when are you starting the divorce process and how are you splitting custody. 

"Thanks, but, no. I like being here and having something to do other than research what lawyer to hire," she replied. 

"Okay, yeah, of course," John said nodding. "But if you want something less intensive to do, and since Tuesday is always pretty slow, you could drop off some paperwork at different offices for me." 

It would give her a chance to get out and stretch her legs and not stress over if she was missing a plane. "Yeah, I can do that." 

He gave her a stack of forms that all needed to be dispersed to the various airline offices around the airfield. She got the keys for one of the general-use cars and set off. Most airlines had their offices within the airport and flashing her badge at the security guards allowed her entry into the upper portion of the building. She gave all the appropriate forms to everyone and repeated over and over again that she was having a girl, her name was Alexandria, and she was due in ten weeks. 

The last stack of forms had to go to the Delta repair and storage offices on the edge of the airfield. They were a series of massive hangars, some of which contained planes undergoing repair and others contained massive reserves of jet fuel and hydraulic fluid. The hangars themselves doubled as offices, with elevators and stairs leading to upper levels tucked up against the ceiling with railings looking out over the vast expanse of the hangar. 

She drove there without incident and walked into Hangar 18 and straight into the elevator. The lights in the office level were all on, but the hangar was dark. There was no sign of anyone there, no doors open, no cubicle lights on, but the desks were obviously well used and had various knickknacks and pictures. She wove in and out of the maze of office and conference rooms, looking about, before finally deciding she'd have to go to one of the other hangars to find someone. 

Emily had turned to leave when she heard something fall over and clang against the floor of the hangar. 

Hangar 18 was used as storage for jet fuel and as such, the balcony that allowed people to view the hangar was sealed off from the office portion with a large wall of plexiglass and one single door. It allowed for protection from the chemicals in case of a spill or a fire broke out. 

She heard the muffled sounds of someone cursing and while she couldn't make out exact words she knew the tone well. It occurred to her then that there likely was someone in the hangar, but they were on the lower level working. Why they chose to work without the lights on she didn't know but she also didn't know much about jet fuel safety precautions. 

The light from the office bounced off the plexiglass and obscured her view, even when she cupped her hands about her face and peered in. She could see something on the hangar floor moving about, although she had no clue what it could be. The thought that someone could be in there and injured spurred her forward and she opened the door. 

Emily expected to get hit by a wave of jet fuel fumes. She'd only smelled it once before, but it was enough for a lifetime. Yet there was no such odor in the hangar. 

But she did find herself freezing in panic as her eyes adjusted to the dark. There were two massive shapes in the hangar, one standing, the other bent down with his back to her. Colors began to register in her brain and she realized the massive red glow coming from across the hangar was not an emergency shut-off button. It was an eye. 

She shoved her hand into her pocket and pressed the power button on her phone three times, sending out an SOS message to her emergency contacts. She began slowly and carefully stepping backward in the hopes of leaving the way she came. 

Blitzwing stood up, obscuring her view of the other Decepticon. “Why humans insist on rounded storage units I’ll never understand. Cubes would work better.” 

Emily’s back was pressed to the plexiglass and she reached for the doorknob. She simply had to open it and get to the elevator in the back. From there it was a quick ride down and into the car. Then she could drive a safe distance away and call the tower or the Autobots or the Air Force or— 

Her ringtone pierced the silence of the hangar. She fumbled for it, futilely trying to silence the violins and chimes ringing out, furiously swiping to decline her mother’s call. It was already too late when she realized her best bet would be to just run for it as when she looked up to bolt, she found herself being gazed at. 

The bot before her was Blitzwing in every aspect except the face. The beige and purple armor and helmet-shaped head and broad shoulders were all there. Yet the face was blue and far more slender than the angry visage that had screamed at her. One eye was narrow and angular with a pupil in the center of the red glow while the other was a perfect circle, glowing as bright red as the other. 

She had the brief terrifying thought that this may not be Blitzwing but a fellow soldier or clone who looked akin to him. Perhaps there were more Decepticons on Earth than they thought. 

But that thought was jolted from her mind as the slender blue face seemed to spin about within the helmet. A clunk was the only warning she got before a jack-o-lantern-like face with a jagged red mouth lunged at her, cackling, "Look at what I found!"

Chapter Text

Emily fumbled backward, back slamming into the plexiglass. She reached out with her hands, dropping her phone to the metal floor as she searched for the doorknob. But the Decepticon grew nearer and her hands found nothing but a smooth barrier. 

She broke her stare to find the door was just to her right, only a few feet away. She began to lunge for it when one massive metal hand came down on the balcony and blocked her. The metal of the whole floor whined in protest at the weight and Emily had the sickening thought that this whole structure could come crashing down. 

The jack-o-lantern face drew closer to her, laughing maniacally and she retreated back into the corner where the plexiglass met the cold metal walls of the hangar. When her back meets the corner, seeing her phone still ringing loudly on the metal floor many feet away from her, a giant metal alien approaching her swiftly, Emily realizes she was going to die. There was no way out of this. 

Tears are streaming down her face and her hands are shaking as she grabs at her stomach in a futile attempt to protect her child. She's trying to take deep breaths, the advice of her doctor about avoiding extreme stress in her third trimester lest she accidentally induces labor. Through the stinging tears and a flushed red face, she manages to choke out, "Fuck off." 

The face cackled at her. "Oh human, you're not quite in a position to say such things to me! Where's your precious little Air Force to save you now?" 

In her fear and frustration, Emily did the only thing her mind could rationalize doing. She pulled one of her boots off and threw it at him. 

Of course, it was a stupid idea, but the sound of it wracking against his cheek and the stunned look he gave her were satisfying and got him to back up a bit. His face spun about again as it had earlier and landed on the red angry one that had confronted her in the tower. 

"Don't throw junk at me, you pathetic glitch!" he yelled. 

"What the fuck else am I supposed to do?!" she yelled back. She wiped at her face as she sighed, "Look, if you're going to kill me, please just do it in a way that spares my daughter." 

"Lucky for you, organic scum, we have been forbidden by our pitiful temporary leader from willfully and knowingly eradicating human life!” a voice shouted from the other side of the hangar. Emily could see that the large red eye was attached to the purple and green Decepticon that had harassed the tower alongside Blitzwing. He had risen, standing much taller than Blitzwing, the top of his head nearly grazing the top of the hangar. 

“Yes, unfortunately, we have. Starscream said that dead humans bring too much attention," Blitzwing grumbled. His face spun about again and the slender blue face reemerged. He backed away from her completely and his hand left the balcony. The indent on the metal he left behind worried her. 

He drew her attention again by gesturing to her phone, still ringing out as call after call came rolling in. "I presume that's a communication device. You've alerted someone to your location haven't you?" 

It was more a statement than a question and Emily nodded slowly. Blitzwing sighed heavily. "Wonderful. So much for a quiet and quick mission." 

"If you let me get my phone, I can just tell someone that I triggered the SOS on accident and to just disregard it. It won't be the first time I've done it on accident," she pleaded. "And then I can just leave and we can act like this never happened." 

"You're not leaving, human. If anyone is leaving, it's us," Blitzwing said. "But I will allow you to silence that infernal contraption."

Emily saw this as her opportunity and surged forward, bypassing her forgotten boot, and snatching her phone from the ground. She ignored the missed calls and went straight to the messages. John had texted her Are you okay? What's going on? a few minutes prior. She swiftly typed back Hangar 18 send Autobots before silencing her phone and setting it on the ground again. Her best bet at this point was not to run but instead avoid enraging the giant robots any further and convincing them to leave. 

"There, it's silent," she says as she retreats backward. She lowers herself to the floor carefully and puts her boot back on. 

Blitzwing wasn't looking at her. Instead, he had a distant look and a hand pressed to the side of his head. "Police are coming to this location. Stay quiet." 

Emily didn't bother nodding. She knew the police would do a quick sweep, find nothing suspicious but the car, and leave. They likely wouldn't even open the hangar door and take a peek in. Instead, she shuffled along the floor until her back pressed against the cool plexiglass. From here she watches her phone’s screen light up with an incoming call from someone before briefly going dark and then lighting up with another call. She read them off in her head, trying to ignore how much her back hurt. Mom, then her sister, then one of her brothers, then John, then Dad, then Mom again, then her other brother, over and over again, the names of her family and friends and coworkers flashing up, desperately trying to reach her, to talk to her, to contact her, to confirm she was alive and in one piece. 

Blitzwing and the other Dceeptiocn were talking to each other but in a different language now. The words were metallic sounding and her brain couldn’t fully comprehend what she was hearing. They likely had switched from English to whatever alien language they spoke. It wouldn’t be too farfetched for them to be using translators rather than actually learning the language. 

She watched her phone idly as their conversation became background noise. But she froze up with panic when she saw Tom’s name appear on an incoming call. In the chaos of the last two weeks, she had completely forgotten to remove him from her emergency contacts list on her phone. And now here he was, calling her. 

She knew what would happen next. He would find the closest person or camera or news anchor and sob about how he was such a loving husband and how much he loved her and worried about her and how this whole situation stressed him out. Just like he had every other time something had gone wrong. He would cry about how it wasn’t his fault and Emily would have to swallow her complaints and bend to his will just to get him to shut up. 

She needed to contact her mom or her dad or someone and tell them not to let Tom near anything with a camera lens. But that would require picking up the phone. 

Emily kept her eyes locked on the back of Blitzwing's head as she carefully slid across the floor. Neither of them were looking at her and the only sound she produced was her quiet pants and the sound of cloth sliding against metal. 

Her fingers patted softly against the floor, her eyes still locked onto the robots. She felt the cool plastic of her case and picked it up slowly, her grip so tight her knuckles had gone white. For a moment, she found herself frozen, the overwhelming fear that diverting her eyes would somehow alert the robots to what she was doing, make them snap about and face her, smash her into a bloody pile as punishment. 

It was only when she heard the sound of Blitzwing’s faces shifting and then what sounded to be an argument between the two that she willed herself to look away and down at her phone. Her fingers shook as she tapped on her texts and she hurriedly punched out a message to her mom, full of typos and random numbers, but clear enough to insist that she not let Tom talk to the news. But before she could hit send, another call came through, blocking her access to the texts. She swore quietly under her breath and desperately tried to decline the call. 

“The human moved!” 

It was the larger robot, the one she didn’t have a name for. She looked up to see they were both looking at her, the large one with an arm raised, pointing blunt claws at her in accusation. 

“Shit!” Emily yelled, scooting back rapidly but still clinging to her phone. “Wait, wait, I can explain!” 

But it was too late. Blitzwing’s angry face was lunging at her, one massive outstretched hand reaching for her. She expected this to be the end. She would be smashed up against the plexiglass or swatted down against the metal floor. There was no way he would be calm about this despite his earlier promise. 

But instead, the hand created a barrier about her, caging her against the plexiglass but not gripping her. The angry face snapped away and the calm one took over. His agitation and impatience were clear as he simply said, “Explain now.” 

“I needed to get to my phone to text my mom and tell her not to let Tom talk to the news,” she said. She could feel tears back in her eyes and bit down on the inside of her cheek to try and hold them back. “Because if Tom talks to the news, he’ll do that shitbag thing he always does and make this whole situation about himself and try to look all pleading to the cameras and act like a good husband like I didn’t find him balls deep in—” 

“Okay, wait, hold on,” Blitzwing said. “I only caught some of those words and understood even fewer.” His face spun again, this time landing on the jack-o-lantern, and he cackled, “And I thought I was the one with problems!” 

“My ex-husband, er, well not my ex-husband yet, but he’s going to be, he cheated on me with another woman and has been cheating on me for four months, which is more than an entire trimester of my pregnancy, and I caught him doing it. And I needed to get to my phone to tell my mom not to let him talk to the news because he does this thing where when he knows he’s in the wrong, he finds a way to make himself look innocent and not at fault and turn people against me. He’s done it in the past and I need to stop him from doing it again,” she explained. 

Blitzwing had switched back to the calm blue face and was simply staring at her with an unreadable expression for a long moment. He finally broke the silence, asking, “What’s a husband?”

Emily held back the urge to scream in frustration. She didn’t even know where to begin explaining this to him and she didn’t even know why she had to. 

As she collected her thoughts, a glint of light caught her eye. There was a shine on the metal of Blitzwing’s palm, a patch of light that bounced over it for a moment, coming from behind. She turned to find that it was a flashlight beam bouncing through the cubicles of the office behind her. She could hear footsteps and muffled talking and radio static. 

Before she could say anything, two police officers emerged from behind the wall of cubicles, into the room just beyond the plexiglass barrier. One spotted her, looking concerned, and taking a step towards her. The other spotted Blitzwing and grabbed the first by the sleeve, his eyes wide, and mouth forming a silent scream. The cop that had spotted her lifted his gaze just slightly and did scream out, “Oh fuck!” 

Emily couldn’t conjure up a reaction as she watched them turn tail and run back the way they had come. They were screaming into their radios about hostage situations and giant robots and Autobot backup. She half-expected Blitzwing to plunge his other hand into the offices and drag the two officers out kicking and screaming. 

Instead, he surprised her by groaning a very exhausted sounding, “Oh frag.” 

“I’ve intercepted the radio transmissions and the puny police are declaring this a hostage situation!” the other robot yelled out. “Shall I call Starscream for backup?” 

“No, he’d just make everything worse,” Blitzwing said. He had his free hand up and was rubbing at his eyes in frustration. “I hate this fragging planet so much.” 

“Can I just leave now then?” Emily asked hopefully. “That’s usually how hostage situations work, you know, I leave and then you get to leave, and we all get to go home.” 

“Or we use you as a bartering chip,” Blitzwing said. His face snapped about to the jack-o-lantern again as he cackled, “Ooh, I wonder if they’d give us the key in exchange for you!” 

Emily wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she didn’t have to as Blitzwing’s calm face took back over and he sighed, “Besides, it would be best to act carefully and rationally rather than rashly.” His face spins again to the jack-o-lantern and he laughs, “Didn’t think I’d be the sane one in any situation!” 

His hand is still boxing Emily in. Her phone is still flashing with calls and messages. She hesitantly turns her attention to it, finally hitting send on the text to her mom. 

“Hey! I didn’t say you could use your communication device!” 

She sets her phone down and glares up at his angry face. “I’m already a hostage. The police are here and the Autobots will be here soon too. It’s not like I can do anything else but sit around and let everyone know I’m alive.” 

He pointedly glared at her but finally retracted his hand. Not like it gave her any more freedom. Even if she had the energy to flee back into the office area, she didn’t want to at this point. She’d just be running out into the cold and the Decepticons would likely wreck the building, sending jet fuel everywhere if not outright igniting it, and the FAA would be on everyone’s asses again. So she stayed sitting down, responding to texts and letting everyone know she was alive and a hostage and that at least the hangar was warmer than outside. 

The feeling of being watched made her look up to find Blitzwing’s calm face staring down at her curiously. The other robot had started prying open and consuming cans of jet fuel, seemingly content to work by himself. 

“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” he simply stated. 

“What question?” she asked, looking back down. Her sister was sending her a barrage of messages asking if she was okay, did she trigger early labor, and had she been harmed. She could feel Alexandria idly moving about, shifting in discomfort when she started pushing a foot into her stomach. 

“What’s a husband? My translator can’t find the correct word for it,” he said. 

She hesitated for a moment, trying to think of how to explain it to him. “A husband is a man who is married. Marriage is a legal bond between two or more people who all love each other.” 

“Oh! It’s a conjunx endura,” the other robot said. He walked over to them with ground-shaking steps, offering a barrel of fuel to Blitzwing, who took it. He stared at her, his massive red eye casting a slight red glow over the platform. She found it odd now that she wasn’t terrified, wasn’t begging for her life, wasn’t desperately trying to escape. It wasn’t so much that she had given up or resigned herself to her fate but rather decided that her best choice at this point was to simply stay where she was and ride this whole situation out. 

“So why were you so distressed over your husband talking to someone?” Blitzwing asked. 

“Ex-husband,” she corrected him. “And it’s because I found him cheating on me and he does this shitty thing where if he has an audience he’ll cry his eyes out in front of them and make himself look all innocent and caring as a way to get me to ignore whatever he did wrong. Because if I don’t ignore it, if I stand my ground, I look like a bitch and I’ll never hear the end of it from everyone else. And I know this is going to make the news tonight so the last thing I need is him getting in front of a WXYZ camera talking about how much he loves me and misses me because I know it’s all bullshit.” 

She could feel her cheeks getting flushed with anger as she talked. She knew that discussing her personal life and issues with giant alien robots likely wasn’t the best idea, but at the same time, she so desperately wanted to. She wanted to talk to someone about this whole situation when that someone barely knew her, didn’t know her husband, and wouldn’t ask prying questions. Who would just sit there and listen to her tell them about all the shit Tom had put her through and would just agree with her that he was a selfish asshole. 

And by the widening of the larger robot’s eye and Blitzwing’s engaged expression, she guessed they would be more than willing to be her audience. 

“We have nothing but time until the Autobots get here,” Blitzwing said as he popped the top on his barrel of fuel. “So start from the beginning.” 

For the first time since finding out about Tom’s infidelity, Emily grinned as she gleefully started in. 

Chapter Text

It was five minutes after Teresa Nguyen's shift ended that she heard the news. 

She was fresh off an extra shift she picked up for a coworker. It was only seven hours instead of her usual twelve, but after three twelve hours shifts back to back the days prior, she was ready to pass out for a solid day. 

The Autobots had come by to repair one of the bridges by the hospital after a scuffle with someone. She honestly couldn't remember. But their presence at the hospital always drew crowds and it was times like these that she was glad she wasn't working on the peds floor. One of her patients, a mom delivering her second child, was on hour ten of labor and still stuck at seven centimeters. So when she asked to walk to the window to see the Autobots, Teresa was more than willing to go with her. 

It's not like robots were a marvel to Detroiters. Everyone who had spent at least a day in the city had seen a Sumdac Systems robot. But those robots were always stilted and moved with jerky motions, and their AI was simple, giving pre-programmed responses and being unable to make new responses. 

But Autobots were different. Their motions were as fluid as anyone. They were fully sentient, being able to respond to any question, and giving their own informed opinions and likes and dislikes. Teresa had only seen them from afar or on TV and had never had a conversation with them. Now, standing at the large observation window at the end of the L&D unit, was the closest she had ever gotten to one. 

The green one, who she thinks is named Bulkhead, waves at the window and she can hear the cheers of the pediatric floor below. Up close, she noticed details she hadn't before. Like how their eyes glowed and there were points on their metal exterior that bent in ways she didn't expect the metal to bend. 

"They're pretty amazing, huh?" her patient said. "My wife is a firefighter so she works with their leader a lot. Says he's very polite." 

She hummed in response, eyes still locked on the robots beyond the glass, watching them work. She’s jolted out of her thoughts at the sound of the charge nurse behind her calling, “Teresa, your relief is here. You can give report and head home.” 

She’s passing through the emergency department on the way to catch the train when she overhears the arguing. Just her luck in trying to avoid it, she walks right into it. 

Standing between her and the staff exit is the section head of the emergency department and none other than Tom. They were yelling at each other and as she began to reverse to leave the other way, she catches what Tom is shouting. 

“—my wife! She sent me an SOS message and I need to get out there and fast!” 

The section head gives him a doubtful look. “Tom, I swear to god, if this is another excuse to leave your consulting shift early, I will fire you.” 

“Emily’s in danger?” Teresa says before she can help herself. She knows she shouldn’t be getting any more involved than she already is. But she and Emily had been talking to each other, mostly Emily giving her evidence for a quick and easy divorce, and Teresa couldn’t help but feel guilty and in desperate need to help the other woman in any way she could. 

They both turned to look at her and she repeated herself, “Is Emily in danger?” 

“I’m sorry, who are you? And, Tom, I thought you weren’t married?” the section head asked. 

But Teresa was close enough to get a good look at Tom’s phone from here. The screen was open on a text message that read a brief and generic SOS message along with an address somewhere at the airport. That was all she needed to see. 

She pushed past both of them and out the door, into the parking lot. She didn’t have a car but she had another way of getting out to the airport. 

“Hey!” she shouted at the Autobots repairing the bridge. They looked down at her in surprise, all but their leader, who was standing off to the side, seemingly taking a call. “I need one of you to take me out to the airport. It’s an emergency.” 

“Excuse me?” the red and white ambulance one asked. She’d heard of the misfortunes EMTs had dealing with him. 

“Airport, now!” she yelled back. 

"Are you one of the medics responding to the situation at the airport?" 

She turns to find their leader crouched down so he's a little closer to eye level with her. 

"No, I'm not, but I know the person in trouble and she's seven months pregnant and I'm an obstetric nurse so I can help if anything happens to her," she rambles, holding out her nurse badge as if that would help her case. 

The leader doesn't even bother reading the badge, just nods his head and gestures to the red and white one. "Ratchet, you take her and any necessary medical supplies. Everyone else, roll out!"

Teresa watches in wonder as the robots transform around her. She'd seen it on TV, but up close was so much different. There was a robotic sound she couldn't even begin to describe and within seconds they had gone from being massive robots that were at eye level with the L&D floor to automobiles. She watched them leave, peeling out into traffic with lights flashing and sirens blaring when she realized the medical one hadn't transformed. 

"Got everything you need?" he asked. 

She was carrying her backpack, which contained an empty coffee thermos, some dirty tupperware, an unopened energy drink, her keys, her wallet, her charger, and an assortment of personal care and beauty items. Regardless of how unhelpful her inventory was, she nodded at him. There were bound to be multiple ambulances on the scene and she could always raid an EMT bag if she really needed anything. 

He transformed, folding down into an older-looking ambulance. The driver's door popped open and she clambered inside. To her surprise, the interior looked exactly like every other ambulance she had ever seen, albeit on the older side, with a clunky-looking radio set up and cracked plastic upholstery. 

"Don't leave anything in here, and don't make a mess, got it?" he said, his voice coming from the speaker system. 

“Got it,” she replied as she buckled herself in. She felt the massive wheels begin to roll forward and the siren whined all for it to come to a crashing halt as he slammed on the brakes. She slammed chest first into the steering wheel, setting off the horn. 

“Get out of the way!” Ratchet yelled. Teresa groaned in pain as she looked up to find that Tom was blocking their way out of the parking lot. He stood in front of the ambulance, arms outstretched, and looking pissed. 

“Teresa, I can explain,” he began, only for her to slam the horn. 

“Fuck off!” she yelled as she rolled down the window and leaned out to glare at him. 

“You need to take me with you! This is my wife we’re talking about here!” he yelled back. 

“Your wife that you told me died three years ago? Your wife that you couldn’t bear to get rid of her stuff? Your wife who walked in, very much alive and pregnant?!” she screamed back. 

“We don’t have time for this,” Ratchet grumbled, and inched forward, bumping into Tom. “Move, I have an emergency to get to!” 

“Blocking an emergency vehicle is a crime, Tom! And you have your own fucking car!” Teresa yelled. 

Tom opened his mouth to speak again and Ratchet responded by yanking himself backward, nearly colliding with a light post, and taking a sharp turn away from the human. He did, admittedly, have to briefly drive over some of the decorative foliage at the front of the hospital, but in no time he was merging into traffic, lights on, siren screaming, and ignoring the human he left in his dust.

Teresa watched his image disappear behind other cars and buildings before she sighed and slumped back against her seat. 

"You wanna explain what that was about?" Ratchet asked. 

"It's a long story," Teresa said as she rubbed her eyes. This was turning out to be a long day.

"Think you can tell it in twelve minutes or less?" the ambulance asked. 

Teresa could see the ATC tower peaking over the horizon in the distance. "Sure, but it'll have to be the abridged version." 

“I’m all ears, kid,” he replied as they merged onto the interstate. 

Teresa took a deep breath and started in. 

"I met Tom when I was fresh out of my FAA program and beginning to work with ATC. I was in a weird place in life. Fresh out of a five-year-long relationship, left working as a teacher because I hated the stress of the job, and questioned if I should move out of Detroit. He was starting his residency at DMC and at first, we hit it off super well. We'd go out on weekends, text each other during weekdays, and spend time together constantly. We moved in together after only four months of dating which I realize now probably wasn't a good idea.”

Emily pauses for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

“It's weird, he's kind of old-fashioned even though his parents aren't. He insisted I do most of the house chores because he worked so much which I don't think was fair but whenever I tried to bring it up, he always brushed me off. I knew we were moving too fast but I didn't know how to pump the brakes. We got into a huge fight one night, like so bad the neighbors came over to make sure we were okay, and then the next day he took me to a nice restaurant and proposed in front of everyone. See he does this thing where he makes himself look good in front of other people after we've had a fight so I have to forgive him. And I made the mistake of saying yes and telling myself it would get better.”

Emily looks up, surprised to find how intensely she’s being stared at. They both look like they’re hanging onto every word, Blitzwing’s calm face in charge and patiently waiting for her to continue while Lugnut—well if she’s being quite honest with herself it's hard to tell what expression he’s emoting.

“I think that’s all the background you need,” she says. “Now let me get into the messy stuff.”

By the time they arrive on the tarmac, Ratchet is muttering about how he should’ve hit Tom when he peeled out of the parking lot. 

“I think it’s best you didn’t. He would’ve enjoyed the attention from ER staff too much,” Teresa says, rolling her eyes. “Besides, a bruised ego is better than nothing.” 

“Still should’ve at least tapped him,” Ratchet grumbles. “This is your stop kid.” 

She slid out of the driver’s seat and onto the tarmac, taking in her surroundings. They were a little bit away from an unassuming-looking warehouse. The other Autobots were gathered together and talking to each other. Teresa beelined over to the clump of police officers, announcing her presence by saying, “Hey! I need to get in there.”

One of the officers, a disgruntled-looking older man whose badge proclaimed him as Captain Carmine Fanzone, looked at her incredulously. “I know medical just arrived, but I thought saying ‘no one goes in’ was a straightforward order.”

“I know the woman in there. She’s seven months pregnant and high-risk,” she says. That last part was a lie but Teresa knew she wasn’t getting in by telling the truth alone. “I need to make sure she doesn’t go into early labor. Unless you can get an obstetrician out here in the next five minutes, I'm going in to check on her," Teresa insisted, glaring at Fanzone. 

"You're not trained for hostage situations! We're sending in our guys and you're staying to the side. We’ll call medical when we need you," Fanzone said to her. Before she could argue he was walking away, muttering something about how annoying EMTs were.

Teresa stood, fuming, but went quiet and shuffled back to stand by one of the ambulances. Now, if she's being completely honest, she's not much one for risk-taking behavior as it pertains to medical situations or her career. A good nurse followed orders from their superiors and didn't deviate from the norm. 

But, she decided, as she eyed one of the EMTs' unattended fully stocked medical bags, she could risk it. Just this once. Besides, worst case scenario she argues that she wasn't thinking straight. 

She slides the strap of the bag over herself, tightening it so that it's resting snugly beneath her backpack. From the ambulance she's got a clear shot to the door at the back of the warehouse she can only assume Emily entered in. She'd have to run past two police cruisers and sprint across the asphalt without being caught. But the Autobots have their backs turned and Fanzone is screaming into a cell phone so she figures this is as good a go time as she's going to get. 

Teresa takes a deep breath before lunging into a sprint. For a moment, she's unseen, no one reacting to her. But then she can hear shouting behind her that only makes her race faster. 

She reaches the door and fumbles briefly to get it open. She can hear someone shouting to grab her behind her but she pays it no mind. She doesn't even spare a look back as she closes the door behind her and scrambles for the stairs. 

“I went through three rounds of IVF for this pregnancy. Three! And I know you probably don’t know how pregnancy works, but the sheer insane amount of money we spent and the time I spent in the doctor’s offices, and the injections I did. And all for what? For him to fuck some random nurse?”

Lugnut’s expression is one Emily could only describe as slack-jawed while Blitzwing looks shocked.

“I mean don’t get me wrong, I’ve met Teresa and—”

“Wait, so you know the human he cheated on you with?” Blitzwing asks.

“I mean if by know you mean met her for the first time when she was ass naked in my bed, then yes,” Emily explains. She can see the anger on their faces and quickly adds, “But she didn’t know that he was married!”

“He lied to her about being conjunxed?” Lugnut gasps.

“Yes, he lied about being married! You know what else he told her?” Emily says, leaning forward a little.

“That he wasn’t conjunxed?” Lugnut asks.

“That I had died!” she exclaims.

“No!” Blitzwing shouts. Lugnut’s jaw drops and one of his claws goes up to cover his mouth in shock.

“He told her that I had died due to birth complications years prior and the reason all my stuff was still in the house was that he ‘couldn’t bear to get rid of it’,” she says, exaggerating her air quotes a bit more than necessary.

Blitzwing’s faces spin for a moment before his calm one takes over and he says, “This all seems very suspicious.”

“You have no idea,” Emily says, shifting back. Her lower back was beginning to ache and, as horrible as the thought was, she was going to need a bathroom sooner rather than later. “Oh god, I haven’t even mentioned his bullshit about his stupid ass keto diet.”

By the time Teresa reaches the top of the stairs, her lungs are burning and she's gasping for air. She briefly collapses on the landing, her ears roaring with the blood pounding through her. She hasn't run that fast for that long since high school track and L&D only requires quick sprints across the unit. She's drenched in sweat, her scrubs clinging to her like a second skin, and she has to fight down the urge to puke. 

When her heart rate finally drops below a hundred and twenty beats per minute, she clambers back onto her feet and stumbles forward. The whole area appears to be an office, with lots of chairs and desks and dividers, but no sign of Emily. She pushes forward, finding a clear wall in the back and, without thinking or checking, opens the door to the balcony. 

Teresa's oxygen-deprived brain processes the sight before her piece by piece. The first piece is Emily, sitting on the floor and looking surprised. The next thing Teresa registers is a weird red glow coming from beyond the railing of the balcony. And the third thing that has her stumbling backward in fear is her brain registering that the glow was not from lights, but rather from multiple massive robotic eyes staring down at her. 

“Fuck," she gasps out, fumbling backward, only to fall so hard she wonders if she's broken something. 

"How did we get another one?!" someone behind her yelled. 

Teresa jumps at the feeling of a hand resting on her shoulder and looks up as Emily asks, "Teresa? What the hell are you doing here? Are you okay? You’re really sweaty." 

“I ran up the stairs,” she gasps. “And from the cops. And the other robots. I’m here in case you needed medical.”  

"Oh," she says. She looks between the nurse and the robots. "I mean, other than being a little hungry and needing a restroom, I’m fine.”

She begins rummaging through her stolen medical bag and pulls a crushed but intact protein bar and a bottle of water out. “Here. And I think I passed a bathroom on the way here.”

“Thanks,” Emily says as she accepts them. She extends her arm, letting Teresa slide a blood pressure cuff on and a pulse monitor onto one of her fingers. “I have gestational diabetes.”

“Feeling light-headed or weak?” Teresa asks as she jots her vitals down onto a pad. When Emily shakes her head, she asks, “Mind if I take a blood sugar reading?”

“Go for it,” Emily replies. She lets the nurse fuss over her, taking the monitor and cuff off, wiping down one of her fingers with an alcohol prep pad, and warning her of the prick before pushing the needle into the pad of her finger. She wrapped a bandage around the small wound as the glucometer measured her blood.

“You’re coming in at eighty-nine so you’re all good there,” Teresa says, writing that down as well. “Kiddo moving around?”

“Yeah, she’s been kicking me in the stomach for the past hour,” Emily complains. It was as if Alexandria could sense this and responded by planting her foot into one of her kidneys and stretching.

It occurs to Teresa then that she’s being watched not only by Emily but by her robotic audience. She glances up to find both of them staring down at her curiously.

“What are you doing, puny medic?” Lugnut asks, stepping closer. Teresa doesn’t miss the way his steps make the ground shake a bit below them and the lights hung from the ceiling sway. She would really rather not think about the sheer scale of the robot right now.

“Taking her vitals,” she replies. “This is a pretty stressful situation so I just want to make sure everything is okay.”

“This is not that stressful,” Blitzwing protests, crossing his arms. His faces spin, making Teresa jump in shock, as a jack-o-lantern face takes over and he cackles, “But I can make it that way if you want it!”

Teresa looks over at Emily, shocked to find her looking calm. She pats the nurse’s hand as she reassures her, “You’ll get used to the face thing.”

They do both flinch back in surprise as Lugnut breaks from his serene standing to lunge forward at them.

“Human! How dare you bring reinforcements!” Lugnut shouts, pointing an open claw at Teresa.

She frowns in confusion. “What? I didn’t bring anyone I just made a break for it. Not my fault if one of the cops tries to come in after me.”

“So you were not accompanied by another human in medical garb?” Blitzwing asks. Two of his fingers are pressed to the side of his head, where Teresa guesses there must be a communicator of some kind. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had managed to listen to the police radio.

She shakes her head but before she can say anything else, a loud bang from the floor of the warehouse draws their attention, Blitzwing and Lugnut looking down in surprise. Teresa surges to her feet and rushes over to the railing while Emily stays sitting behind her, asking, “What was that?”

Near the large rolling door of the hangar was a much smaller one, obviously intended for people only. None of them had paid it much mind and it was on the other side of the amassing of emergency services and Autobots. It flew open so hard it smacked the wall beside it and a man walked in, drenched in sweat and wearing scrubs.

Teresa recognized him instantly. “What the fuck, Tom?!”

Chapter Text

Multiple things happen all at once. 

Emily gets up and steps over to the railing. Tom steps farther into the warehouse while saying something. Teresa shouts over him. Lugnut glances between them looking confused. Blitzwing stares at Emily. 

Emily looks up and meets his eyes. His blue face is staring back at her and she swears she can see a malicious smile behind his cold front as he asks, “Is this the Tom?” 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Emily replies with a nod. 

His face snaps and spins at that, his jack-o-lantern face taking over and cackling excitedly. “Lugnut it’s him!” 

He drops to his knees so suddenly the whole building shakes. Emily watches as Blitzwing pushes his face in close, inching towards the man until he’s cowering against the wall. “We’ve heard so much about you!” 

“What? I—Emily, what the fu—” he shouts only to be cut off as Blitzwing grabs him, holding him in his fist like a child holding a doll, and rises to his feet again. 

“Quit squirming or I drop you,” Blitzwing says, his calm face having taken control again. He walks to the center of the warehouse, Lugnut watching curiously, far enough from the railing for them to be heard but still too far to touch. 

“Emily, what’s going on?!” Tom shouts. His left arm is pinned in Blitzwing’s fist, his head and right arm popping out of the top, and the bottom half of his legs and feet dangling. 

“Hostage situation,” she replies cooly. Teresa is standing by her, looking between everyone. It was clear she had something she wanted to say but was holding back. 

“This is actually my first time holding a human and I must say, it’s very peculiar!” Blitzwing says. “I thought you would be squishier but it feels like there’s something rigid in you.” 

Tom lets out a pained squeak as Blitzwing’s grip tightens. Emily winces. "Don't squeeze him too hard. I need the alimony to help pay my mortgage." 

Blitzwing’s grip loosens a little. Tom pants, as he's held up before Lugnut who mumbles, "How odd that such a small creature can cause so much misery." 

"And how insignificant looking!" Blitzwing complained, his face switched to the red one. "One human causing so much chaos!" 

"I—what?" he gasps, glancing between them before looking back at the railing. "Emily, what're they talking about?" 

She smirks. "I caught them both up to speed on our situation." 

"You what?!" he shrieked. "Why would you do that?" 

"Why not?" she snaps back. 

"Because they're giant alien robots! And it's none of their fucking concern!" he shouts back. His face is getting red. "This situation is between just the two of us!" 

"And her," Emily says, pointing at Teresa. "But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't be surprised to find out there were more nurses I should be contacting!" 

"And telling me she was dead? What the fuck kind of excuse is that?!" Teresa shouts, stepping forward a little. This didn't feel like her argument to join, to participate in, but she couldn't help it. "Any other excuse could've worked! You're divorced, you're separated, the feminine shit is your sister's, whatever! But dead?" 

"It's very suspicious," Blitzwing says. 

"Seems to be quite a calculated excuse for such a pitiful creature," Lugnut adds. 

"Almost like you had a plan in place," Blitzwing muses. 

"No, I think he's too dumb and organic for that," Lugnut concludes. 

Tom whips his head between them both, looking confused and frightened but whips it back to the railing as Teresa continues, "Also, I'm so sorry to take over this conversation Emily, but I have a question for him." 

"Oh you are more than welcome to interrogate him right now," Emily says. 

Teresa smiles at her before turning and glaring at Tom. "What the fuck was your plan for when she went into labor? I assume you were going to bring her to our hospital, you know, the one where we work. So what the fuck was your plan if I got assigned your very much alive and very much pregnant wife as my patient?" 

"And let me just add, Teresa, lemme just add that I was the one who made a birth plan but he was the one who insisted I come to your hospital to give birth," Emily says. 

"That makes it worse," Teresa gawks. "Tom, you understand how that makes this worse right?" 

"Listen, obviously weren't going to come into L&D when you're working—" he begins. 

"You don't control the schedule," Teresa immediately counters. "And you sure as shit can't control when a baby comes." 

"I mean, I figured that there would be an awkward confrontation, but obviously because of HIPAA and doctor-nurse-patient confidentiality, nothing terrible would occur," Tom says. "Alongside that, you know I could get called into an emergency surgery at any moment!" 

"Your plan was to miss the birth of your daughter to go to a bullshit made-up surgery?" Emily gasps. 

"Not bullshit! And what, you think giving birth is more important than saving someone's life?" 

"Yes!" she screamed. "Tom, you're a fucking orthopedic surgeon! None of what you do is life-threatening!" 

His face went red. "Don't you dare talk down about my job! Do you know how hard I've worked to get to where I am? How much I've dedicated myself to this?"

"Oh fuck off! All you do is hip replacements and bone realignment!" she yelled back. 

"And you just stand in a silly little tower and land planes all day while I'm saving lives!" he yells in return. 

"Didn't you have three patients go septic in the past month alone?" Teresa adds. "Not to mention they had to call a code blue on one of your patients because you insisted on operating even though cardiology said it wasn't safe." 

Tom sputters as Teresa continues, "Oh, and you left a scalpel in a patient, yelled at multiple OR nurses, and called obstetrics a 'bunch of whiny bitches' or so I've heard through the grapevine." 

"That's not true!" he protests. 

"You think I'd believe you?" Teresa snaps. "After the sheer amount of lying you've done? The shit you've told people?" She turns to Emily. "Did he tell you that he didn't tell anyone at the hospital that he's married? He doesn't wear a wedding ring and his primary emergency contact is his mom." 

"You don't know my emergency contacts without breaking privacy rules!" Tom shouts. Blitzwing tightens his hand minutely and he wheezes. 

Teresa rolls her eyes. "Oh no, you're gonna tattle to the hospital. Who's gonna support your claim, dickwad? The two giant robots or your soon-to-be ex-wife?" 

She looks over at Emily as she says this and freezes up. The woman has one hand gripping the railing so tight her knuckles are white and the other pressing against her mouth. Her eyes are red and watery and her shoulders are trembling. 

Before Teresa can say anything, Emily chokes out, "I need to go to the bathroom." 

She rushes past, through the plexiglass door, disappearing into the office space behind. Teresa watches her go before turning back to Blitzwing. "Don't kill him yet!" 

Teresa rushes out before anyone can say anything else, through the door and into the office space. She finds the bathroom easily but hesitates briefly. 

She knows logically this isn't her place to be. She knows she is overstepping big time. Yet she can't help but want to help, whether it be to soothe her own concerns about being part of this mess or simply because she wants to help. 

She opens the door slowly and calls, "Emily? You okay?" 

"I'm fine," she replies. She's in the stall at the far end and Teresa can hear the way her voice is scratchy and tight from crying. 

Teresa cautiously walks in. "Are you okay with me waiting by the sinks?" 

"Yeah. I just needed a minute," she replies. After an awkward pause, she adds, "And I did really have to pee." 

Teresa laughs softly at that. "No problem. Totally understandable." 

The toilet flushes and Emily opens the stall and walks over to the sink. As she washes her hands, she says, “I love my daughter, I really do, but I am so excited to have my pre-pregnancy bladder back.” 

Teresa gives her a smile before glancing at the door. “Not to get too serious here, but what’s the plan from here?” At Emily’s confused look she continues, “Like, realistically, we can’t stay in here forever. We have to leave at some point.” 

“I know, but this hangar is storing jet fuel and oil. If a firefight breaks out, we’re fucked, for lack of a better term,” she says as she dries her hands. 

They both turn their heads at the sound of shouting coming from the hangar and rush back out to the balcony. Blitzwing is shouting something, one hand pressed to the side of his head as it had been earlier, the other flailing around, a very nauseous-looking Tom still contained in his fist. Lugnut stands there, staring at Blitzwing, his whole body tense. 

“What’s wrong?” Emily asks as she rushes to the railing. 

“Our foolish temporary leader Starscream has decided we are taking too long and is en route to aid the situation!” he announces, his voice booming across the hangar. 

Teresa looks at her in confusion and Emily frowns. “Who’s Starscream?” 

“No!” Blitzwing yells, catching all of them off guard. He’s still got his hand pressed to the side of his head. “Starscream, we are surrounded! If we move too fast, everything could go up in flames! Do not come here, we will come to you! Frag you, I am not disobeying a superior officer you slag-eating glitch!” 

Blitzwing yanks his hand away and his angry face snaps back to his calm one. “Frag. Starscream is ten cycles out.” 

“We must move then! And swiftly!” Lugnut shouts before leaning over to begin collecting barrels. 

“Emily, other human, it’s been lovely, but it’s time for us to go,” Blitzwing says. Teresa immediately moves to begin collecting everything into her medical bag again. Blitzwing locks eyes with Teresa as he raises Tom in one hand. “What do you want me to do with this?” 

“What?” she asks in surprise. 

“Well, technically speaking, no one truly knows what occurred in here. You two are the only humans who can recount a truthful summary of all events. And considering how small humans are, how fast they move, and how stressful the situation is, it’s not unlikely for me to have ‘accidentally’ stepped on one of you, especially if they were on the ground near my pedes,” he explains. She can see a malicious smile slowly inch over his face as Tom goes deathly pale. 

Emily would be lying if she said she didn’t consider it for a moment. In her eyes, having a dead dad could be better than having a deadbeat dad. It would save her a lot of time with the divorce process and child custody mess if she was a widow. 

But in the end, she just sighed, “No, he doesn’t have life insurance and I can’t handle the mortgage on my own. Don’t kill him.” 

Tom went from pale to red-faced in an instant. “Is that all I am to you now? A fucking checkbook?” 

“Yeah,” she replies cooly. At his shocked expression, she continues, “I’m sorry, did you expect me to still care about you once this was all said and done? You cheated on me, claimed I was dead, and then was going to bail on me when it came time to give birth. At this point, you are nothing more than a legal loose end for me to tie up.” 

Tom stares at her in shock. He opens his mouth to say something when Teresa approaches the railing and asks, “Actually, can I request something non-lethal?” 

Emily nods and the nurse turns to Blitzwing and says, “Break his right arm!” 

“This one?” he asks, two massive metal fingers grabbing Tom’s free arm. 

“Yeah! It’s his dominant hand!” she shouts. “Grab above the elbow and squeeze just until you hear a crunch!” 

Tom is screaming now, trying to yank his arm free, looking at both women pleadingly. Blitzwing’s face has switched to the jack-o-lantern one and he cackles, “How sadistic! I love it!” 

His calm face snaps back into place. “Before I do, Starscream is three cycles out so I advise both of you to hurry up and get out of here. Go out the back way, we’re going this way.” 

He jerks his head backward and Emily nods. Teresa is holding onto one of her elbows and gently pulling her back. Before she budges, she says, “Goodbye, Blitzwing, Lugnut. It was nice meeting you and talking to you.” 

“Nice meeting you as well, puny human!” Lugnut says, waving one of his clawed hands back and forth at her. 

“Trust me, Emily, we’ll see each other again,” Blitzwing says with a smile. 

She turns then, following Teresa into the office space. When she stops in front of the elevator, Teresa’s jaw drops and she gasps, “I didn’t have to take the fucking stairs?!” 

When they emerge from the hangar, they’re greeted with the sounds of police radios and shouting. Emily glances up as she hears the roar of jet engines begin to approach, hoping quietly that it’s the Air Force. But the way the Autobots look panicked and frightened confirms that it’s not. 

She and Teresa are sitting in the back of an ambulance when the hangar door explodes outwards in a rain of shrapnel and fire. She watches as a jet and a bomber plane emerge in a blur of color and shoot off into the sky, followed soon by the fighter jet. 

She gets questioned by the police and EMTs and Autobots alike, although they all vary from “are you okay” to “did you get any info about the Decepticons” to “why is your husband laying on the ground with a broken arm claiming you tried to get the robots to kill him.” She wasn’t ashamed to admit she lied about that last one, with Teresa backing her up. 

When everything is said and done, John is patting her on the back and insists she can start maternity leave right this moment. Teresa had been following her this whole time, clearly unsure of what to do. When they’re standing by Emily’s car she says, “Well, uh, you have my number so I gotta get going.” 

“Did you drive here? I can drive you out to passenger parking,” Emily offered. She got the benefit of using the employee parking lot and knew how far of a trek it was to even get close to short-term parking. 

“No, I caught a ride with Ratchet, the medical Autobot,” she says. “But it’s fine! I was gonna catch the train at the airport stop and then ride it home.” 

Emily frowns. “The airport train takes forever. Let me give you a ride, it’s no trouble.” At Teresa’s hesitation, she adds, “Consider it payment for providing medical care and more evidence for my divorce.” 

That got a smile out of the woman. “Yeah, alright.” 

The ride into the city is a quiet one. Traffic is light due to it not being peak time and the radio plays quietly as Emily follows the directions on her GPS for Teresa’s apartment. When they’re halfway there, the nurse breaks the silence, asking, “Can I ask you an awkward question?” 

“Go for it,” Emily says. 

“You mentioned needing Tom for alimony for your mortgage. And I know this probably isn’t the best proposal, especially coming from me, but my lease is up at the end of the month, and I still haven’t found a place I like yet, so if you’re willing, I could move in for a little, until I find a new place, and pay whatever to help with the mortgage and the bills and stuff,” she says. “You can totally say no though! I know it’s sorta a weird question.” 

Emily thinks about it for a minute. She barely knew Teresa, but the current mortgage rate was valued on a double income, not hers alone. While alimony would help with it, it would be a long time before she saw any of those checks arriving. Plus, Teresa seemed genuinely remorseful and willing to help, had lied with her, and was a labor and delivery nurse and she was a few weeks out from having a baby. 

“Throw in some childcare every now and then and you’ve got a deal,” Emily replies. She glances over to find Teresa smiling. 

“Wonderful! My sister is gonna be so glad I’m not crashing on her couch,” she says. 

“You have a sister?” 

“Yeah, her name is Mai, but I call her Jojo, and she hates it. She’s a chemical engineer, I think she’s working at Sumdac Systems right now? I can’t remember. We’re only two years apart but total opposites,” Teresa explains. 

“Really?” Emily says, prompting her to continue. 

They talk the entire car ride and for an additional twenty minutes after Emily has pulled and parked outside of her apartment. Teresa went to U of M for her BSN, bounced around the country for a bit as a travel nurse before settling in Detroit to be closer to family, like her sister who also lived in the city, and her mom who lived in Lansing. Emily couldn’t help but giggle when she described her sister, how she wore all goth all the time, and how much that juxtaposed with Teresa’s perfectly maintained balayage and her floral printed headband. 

It was dark when she arrived home. Teresa would call her tomorrow and they would figure out the logistics of the move and where her stuff would go. Obviously, she’d be staying in the guest bedroom, but there was also the issue of where to put her couch and bookcases. It would get figured out in the end. 

Emily walks into her bedroom for the first time in quite a while. Everything is how she left it. Dirty sheets on the bed and a smear of dirt on the wall in the vague shape of a shoe. 

Alexandria rolled and she patted her stomach reassuringly. 

She went into the adjoined bathroom, grabbed a sponge, and wiped the dirt off the wall before stripping the bed. As she threw the sheets into the wash, she thought about ordering pizza and taking a bubble bath. 

Chapter Text

Teresa's move-in goes far smoother than Emily had foreseen. 

Her sister, Mai (or Jojo as Teresa referred to her), isn't exactly what Emily had expected. When she hears the word goth, her mind went to white foundation and drawn on black eyebrows and black fishnet tops. Instead, the woman lugging boxes into her house is dressed in a chunky black cable knit sweater and black jeans. Her hair is solid black, pulled into a low ponytail with a bright pink scrunchie, and going down to her lower back. The only thing unusual about her appearance was her heavy platform boots. 

"Sorry for not living up to the crazy reputation my sister gave me," she says sarcastically when she notices Emily staring. "I swear, the way she describes me makes it sound like I'll show up in corpse paint with a goat skull around my neck." 

"But you never wear color!" Teresa complains from the kitchen. She's trying to find space for her plates and dishes. 

"Yeah I do, it’s called black, it’s what happens when all wavelengths of visible light are absorbed, duh," Mai shoots back. 

The sisters banter with each other in a way that has Emily reminiscing about being young and messing with her own siblings. They get everything moved in swiftly and Mai sticks around to help unpack some stuff and for her promised reward of dinner. 

Emily gets looped into ordering delivery with them even though she insists otherwise. But Teresa insists she eats and Mai threatens to neutralize all the cleaning chemicals in the house, so she concedes. 

It feels so odd to sit at her dinner table, listening to the sisters bicker over something insignificant, eating her order of hunan beef. It's clear she's not being excluded, as Teresa and Mai keep looping her into their talks. 

"So what's the kiddo gonna be named?" Mai asks between mouthfuls of noodles. 

"Alexandria," she replies. 

"Ooh, like the library," Mai says. 

"Do you have a middle name chosen?" Teresa asks. 

Emily hesitates. Alexandria's middle name had been a hot topic between her and Tom. He'd wanted her middle name to be Tiffany, the name she had shot down for their kid, while she had wanted something family related. 

"I'm thinking about Zinnia. It was my granny's name and it's a flower," she says. 

"Oh hell yeah!" Mai exclaims. "Ooh, she could go by Zin-Zin!" 

"Doesn't that mean crazy in certain languages?" Teresa asks with a raised eyebrow. 

"Yeah but we live in Michigan, so like no one is gonna know," Mai replies with a wave of her chopsticks. 

Teresa rolls her eyes at her sister but smiles at Emily. "It is really pretty." 

Emily blushes a little as she thanks her. 

Teresa blends into her house and life easily. The extra furniture gets shuffled around or stashed in the basement. She's very clean, often giving Emily the pleasant surprise of an empty sink and freshly emptied dishwasher first thing in the mornings. She's almost terrifyingly quiet and often offers to make dinner for them both. She does her own laundry and vacuums at least once a week. 

Emily thinks about proposing to her. 

(She's joking. At least she thinks she is.)

Emily is on hour five of labor when Megatron emerges and the Autobots begin fighting the Decepticons. 

Her water broke a day early, blessedly while she was standing in the kitchen over tile. Teresa, who was thankfully on her three days off, drives her to the hospital while she texts her family and friends. 

"Teresa! You wanna clock in and get some overtime?" one of the nurses teases when they're getting settled in the delivery room. She rolls her eyes at him.

Emily settles in, her hospital gown showing off an embarrassing amount of her bare ass, snow falling lightly outside, and her nurse confirming she's started dilating. She settles in for the long haul, family members coming in and out of the room. Alexandria's heart rate beats alongside her own and she breathes through the contractions. 

She hears the explosion first. A loud rumble shakes the windows and sends everyone scrambling to get a glimpse of what's going on. 

"What happened?" she shouts. Her heart rate jumps a little. 

"Autobots are fighting the Decepticons, but there's four of them," Teresa says. 

"Four Autobots?" 

"No, four Decepticons. Lugnut, Blitzwing, and two others I've never seen before," she replies. She turns from the window, looking worried. Emily's mom is by her side, squeezing her hand tightly. 

"Do you think we'll have to evacuate?" her mom asks, her voice tight and tense. 

Teresa shakes her head. "I don't know. I'm gonna go see if they need my help." 

Teresa does end up clocking in, wearing a pair of borrowed scrubs two sizes too big for her. Nurses get moved off Labor and Delivery and down to the Emergency Department for the oncoming wave of injured civilians caught in the crossfire.

She comes in and out of the room, adjusts Alexandria's heart rate monitor, and assures everyone they're monitoring the situation. Emily watches her, in awe of how she had been able to go from mild-mannered roommate to efficient and calculated nurse with a simple clothes change. 

(She also tries to not think the very embarrassing thought about how her new roommate had now not only seen her naked but had also done a cervical check on her.)

Alexandria is born with no complications, coming in at seven pounds and ten ounces. Emily is sure the endorphins in her system are skewing her vision because her daughter is the cutest baby she's ever seen. 

"Holy shit," she murmurs in amazement as her daughter is lowered onto her bare chest. She's crying, a good sign she knows, but one that still makes her heart hurt a little. Teresa helps guide her shaking hand as she cuts the umbilical cord. 

The next few hours pass in a daze. She gets through after birth with no issue, save for cussing out Teresa when she had to do fundal massages, and her bleeding stops nicely. Alexandria gets weighed and measured and poked and prodded and declared to be in good health. At some point, a lactation consultant comes in and Emily elbows her in the face. In her defense, the woman's hands were freezing cold and she grabbed her bare boobs without asking. 

By the time shift change rolls around and the sun has long set, Emily is sitting up on her bed, clean sheets and gown, Alexandria asleep in her lap, watching the news report about the earlier battle. Her family had left to get dinner and Teresa had flopped down into one of the chairs. 

"Fucking crazy, huh?" the nurse asks, watching as the camera pans over the wreckage left in front of Sumdac Systems. They had duked it out there for a bit before moving to the lake. After a fight there that produced a blast of energy so large some feared it was a nuclear explosion, everything went quiet. Optimus had appeared before the press, battered-looking but standing nonetheless to announce there was nothing to worry about. 

Emily just nods in response. Alexandria has one tiny fist wound tight around her finger and she's sleeping peacefully. She glances up at the TV in time to watch a video someone had taken of Blitzwing and Lugnut standing in front of Sumac Systems. 

"I know they destroyed a good chunk of downtown, but I wonder how they're doing," she says, mostly to herself. 

"Probably fine, since, you know, they're giant alien robots made of metal," Teresa says. "I'm more worried about the big bad they released." 

"Yeah, the air space is going to be a nightmare to deal with," Emily sighs. Teresa laughs at that. 

She leaves the hospital the next day, Alexandria bundled up in her car seat and Teresa drives them back to the house. If she's being honest with herself, the first month was a blur of waking up every three hours to feed, changing diapers, and cleaning spit up. It's not until the second month rolls around that she becomes aware of how much Teresa is helping her. The laundry always got cycled through the machines, the dishes always got cleaned, everything was always organized well, and extra portions of breakfast, lunch, and dinner were always labeled with her name in microwavable containers in the fridge. 

"You don't have to do all this," Emily says one day. She's on the couch, feeding Alexandria, some cop procedural show providing background noise on the TV. Teresa is sweeping the dining room, popping in and out of sight as she moves around. 

She pauses and looks surprised. "Do what?" 

"You know," Emily says, waving her free hand around. "All this. The cleaning, the laundry, the dishes. It's not your job." 

Teresa gives her a look of faux annoyance. "Emily, you just made a human being and shoved it out of you. And now you're working hard to keep that human being alive. The least I can do to help is clean." When she opens her mouth to protest, the nurse adds, "No arguments. You can start taking over some of this when kiddo is old enough to let you sleep eight hours straight." 

She keeps an eye on the news when she can. She remembers when the Elite Guard ship touched down in Detroit and the pictures and videos of their massive ship. She gets alerts on her phone and texts from friends and family about various robot sightings downtown and battles between the two sides. 

Her first day back at work is suspiciously quiet. Everyone is excited to see her and coo over pictures of her baby. But they land planes as usual. No unusual radar blips. No Decepticons buzzing the tower. Not even a weird spot in the sky. 

Most of the action stays downtown or out on the lake, which Emily is grateful for. Makes her job easier. 

Emily’s divorce is finalized when Alexandria is six months old. 

The papers had been signed, the amount of child support had been agreed upon, visitation times had been chosen, and Tom had begged for a second chance all the way up to the end. The whole ordeal would’ve been done sooner had it not for the courthouse being closed for repairs after yet another Autobot-Decepticon scuffle. 

Teresa comes home with a bottle of whiskey that Emily just knows is ridiculously expensive. They have a drink on the back porch after Alexandria goes to sleep, sitting in comfortable silence, listening to the faint noises of traffic and insects chirping in the spring night. 

“So, now that child support and alimony is gonna start coming in, I’ll start looking for a place,” Teresa says after a while. 

Emily glances over at her in shock. “What?” 

“You won’t need help with the mortgage anymore,” she points out as she takes a sip from her glass. “So I will get out of your hair.” 

“I—wait, no,” Emily says, sitting up straighter. A whopping nine months sober and only occasional sips of wine here and there for the past six have destroyed her alcohol tolerance. She’s only two drinks in and feeling dizzy. “No, no, you don’t have to go. You can stay.”

Teresa gives her a look her fuzzy brain deciphers wrong and she quickly adds, “Unless you want to leave, which I totally get! I know living with a small child isn’t ideal and—”

“I like living here,” Teresa interrupts her. “I like it here. I like the house. I like the location. I like Alexandria. I like you.”

They both go silent for a long moment, just staring at each other. Condensation drips off the side of Emily’s glass and onto the wood below. Teresa’s hand is shaking ever so slightly from where it rests on the arms of the chair.

The honk of a distant car breaks the silence.

“I—uh, it’s good that you like it here,” Emily says, turning away to stare down at her feet.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Teresa adds, her voice wobbling ever so slightly.

“I mean, you’ll get to pay less in rent, which is nice.”

“Super nice.”

“I’ll use the extra cash on renovations, I guess,” Emily murmurs.

“I would like that,” Teresa replies. “I would like that a lot.”

They split shortly after, Emily headed for her bathroom and Teresa promising to take care of the remaining dishes.

Emily lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering why her stomach had twisted so tight and her brain had been rendered useless at Teresa’s words. Yet there had been so much emotion behind them. She didn’t say it casually, like someone commenting on a meal at a restaurant or a pair of shoes. No, there was something in her voice there. Something she hadn’t heard from the woman before.

She digs her palms into her eyes and groans. She shouldn’t be thinking this over that hard. After all, the situation was weird to begin with. The woman her ex-husband had been cheating on her with had moved in as her roommate. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she could be attracted to her.

At least, that’s what Emily told herself as she begins to drift off to sleep.

Shit starts to hit the fan shortly after that at work. 

It begins small. Random blips on the very edge of the screen. Pilots report seeing fast-moving jets at impossibly high altitudes. Occasional chatter on some of the radio frequencies. 

Emily watches it all like a hawk. Her hand itches over the radio a few times. Her eyes scan the edge of the skies. 

Blitzwing and Lugnut know not to get too close. But they’re not the ones she’s worried about. 

If the news is anything to go by, there are two others she needs to be concerned about. The big bad, Megatron, and another named Starscream. There aren’t as many reports on Starscream, beyond he apparently keeps changing colors, and she vaguely remembers him being mentioned. Something blips on the edge occasionally. 

It’s a Thursday afternoon when she notices something going way too fast on the very edge of the radar. She grabs her radio, turns to the frequency she found had worked with Blitzwing, and says, “Bogey aircraft, this is Detroit ATC tower, identify yourself, over.” 

The aircraft stops dead in its tracks. Something that should be impossible for any manmade flightcraft. 

“Deja vu,” she mutters to herself. Amir glances over at her screen and chuckles. 

“I’ve got it,” she says to him before flicking her mic back on. “Bogey aircraft, please be advised that this is protected airspace. I don’t care which side you’re on, but for our safety, for your safety, and to save me a mountain of paperwork, I will advise you to fly at a higher altitude and avoid this area at all costs.” 

Emily waits for a response. The aircraft stays in place. To her surprise, she’s not terrified or pissed. She’s honestly more annoyed than anything else. 

She’s opening her mouth to respond when she hears someone reply, “Very well. Thank you for informing me, human.” 

The aircraft disappears off the radar instantly. She frowns in confusion as she takes her headset off. 

“Something wrong?” Amir asks. 

“Nah, just weird. Definitely a robot, but he sounded kinda British,” she says. 

Emily finds herself downtown on a Friday when she comes face to face with Blitzwing again. 

She had lucked out, managing to get both the day off from work and have her parents watch Alexandria, leaving her free to treat herself. She’d woken up when Teresa had woken up for work, more out of habit than anything else, and went about her usual morning routine. 

“Aw, you look cute!” Teresa exclaimed when she walked into the kitchen. Her usual business casual had been swapped out for loose jeans and a worn Detroit Tigatrons t-shirt. She had also had the time to curl her hair and apply more than the usual workday makeup as Alexandria had slept in.

“Thanks,” she had replied, hoping she wouldn’t notice the blush that rose on her cheeks. 

Her mom arrives at around nine to take her granddaughter and Emily departs for the city soon after, thinking about things to do. 

Unfortunately, she manages to get half a block away from the parking garage she’d left her car in when she hears the sirens. She turns in time to watch as Optimus drives down the street, lights flashing, and sirens wailing. Close behind him is Blitzwing, his jack-o-lantern face grinning maniacally as he runs after. He fumbles, falling forward onto his knees, and as he scrambles to get back up, they lock eyes. 

“Emily!” he shouts and lunges for her. She flinches back and hears someone on the sidewalk nearby scream as giant metal hands gently encase her. The world gets a little topsyturvy and she blinks as sunlight hits her eyes again. He’s holding her in his palms, grinning down at her despite the approaching sirens. 

“It’s been so long! How have you been? You look less bulbous!” he cackles. 

“Oh! I’ve been good! Could you keep your hands steady?” she asks, trying to find somewhere on his palms to cling to. “I don’t I could survive a fall from this height.” 

His face spins to his calm one. “Ah, apologies.” 

He brings his hands closer to his chest and she feels more stable. “What happened to you? You lost quite a bit of mass. Were you in an accident?” 

She stares at him in confusion before it clicks and she laughs. “No! I had my baby. Here, I have pictures.” 

Emily fished her phone out and began swiping through pictures of Alexandria. The most recent one was of her gnawing at a sliced strawberry, her two teeth putting in overtime trying to mash it down, and her front covered in pink drool. 

“So small,” Blitzwing murmured. “You made that?” 

“Yeah,” she replies as she tucks her phone away. “And she’s not going to stay small. Babies grow more once they’re out here.” 

Blitzwing opens his mouth to say something but is cut off by the sound of a shot blasting past him. They both turn to find Bumblebee standing at the end of the street, eyes wide in shock, and Optimus scolding him for shooting at a hostage. 

“Ah, time to go,” Blitzwing says as he tucks his hands even closer to his chest and begins to lightly jog down the street. 

“Where are we going?!” Emily shouts. 

“Just putting some distance between us and them,” he replies. “I’ll drop you off here.” 

Before she can say anything, he’s gently dropping her onto a rooftop bar. It’s blessedly deprived of people save for the bartenders and barbacks who gawk at her. 

“It was nice to chat. Wish we had more time to catch up but you know how it goes,” Blitzwing says as he waves at her. 

“Bye! Be safe and stay out of the fucking airspace!” she shouts back as she clambers to her feet. 

She hears him cackling as he turns away, transforming into a jet and rocketing off toward the business district. She leans over the railing and watches the Autobots chase after him in a flurry of lights and sirens, none of them even sparring her a glance. They likely recognized her and saw her being dropped off. That’s a level of fame she wasn’t expecting. 

Emily turns to the shocked looks of the employees situated behind the bar and it occurs to her then that she must look crazy to them. She dusts herself off and runs a hand through her hair before approaching the bar and asking, “Could I just get a glass of water?” 

The whole debacle hits the news and by the time she gets home that afternoon, her phone is buzzing nonstop. She goes through messages, replying to friends and family that she was safe, everything was fine, no she wasn't targeted, it was all a coincidence, yes her mom could bring her kid back, no the giant robot didn't know where she lived. 

She sets her phone down only to have it buzz at her again. She huffs as she picks it up but pauses at the text and smiles. 

[Teresa Nguyen 5:34 PM]: Saw on the news about your stupid expensive Tüber 

[Teresa Nguyen 5:35 PM]: Want me to grab dinner omw home? I'm thinking pizza?

She shot back an affirmative and her order before flopping down on the couch. Her mom brought Alexandria back with a full stomach and plenty of new clothes and Teresa arrived soon after with dinner. 

"He just wanted to chat? That's it?" the nurse asks around a mouthful of pizza. 

Emily nods as she helps Alexandria stab a tiny piece of watermelon with her little fork. She didn’t have enough teeth for pizza yet so she got her own separate dinner. “I showed him pictures of Alexandria and it seemed like he wanted to talk more but he was in the middle of a fight with the Autobots.” 

“Huh,” Teresa says. “Kinda cool having a giant alien robot bestie.” 

“I wouldn’t call him a ‘bestie’,” Emily says. “More like ‘former kidnapper turned acquaintance’ or something like that.” 

“Still pretty cool,” Teresa sighs.

If Emily had to pinpoint any specific day to say as the day things started to change, it would be the day that a massive wave of energy exploded across Detroit. 

It had been a normal day, nothing unusual, when suddenly every electronic in the control tower started malfunctioning at once. The lights seemed brighter, the radars screamed at invisible targets, all radio connections were lost, and the control panels practically buzzed with excess electricity. 

Then everything went offline for thirty tense seconds before popping back online like nothing had happened. 

The news later reported it was due to a minor explosion in one of the old mines out on the outskirts of the city. Emily worried over it for a bit before falling back into her normal routine. 

Other notable events happened. The construction robots stole a bunch of oil. Two flying Autobots entered the airspace and nearly caused them to ground all flights because they wouldn’t listen to ATC. There was some sort of showdown in Tigatron Stadium. A massive explosion out on Lake Erie created a shockwave so strong windows of buildings along the shore were blown out. 

“Em! Your bestie got arrested!” Teresa calls out to her from the living room. 

She had been standing in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine, and walked into the living room not knowing what to expect. She had briefly thought about who she knew who was most likely to get arrested until she saw the news report on the TV. 

The Autobot with a big chin and blue armor was droning about finally managing to neutralize threats but she didn’t pay attention to him. Inside she looked to the side of the screen where the network was showing pictures of the Decepticons captured. A blurry picture of Blitzwing came up briefly before being replaced by an equally blurry one of Lugnut and then others she didn’t recognize. 

“They said they’re taking them all back to stand trial,” Teresa explains. 

“Damn,” Emily sighs. “Didn’t even get to show him up-to-date pictures of Alexandria.” 

Despite the joke, she couldn’t help but feel bad for the robots. She didn’t understand what was going on between the Autobots and the Decepticons and it seemed that Earth was simply the battleground for it all. She knew this would mean fewer blips on the radar and therefore less stress at work. But she also knew that she would miss them in some way. 

Winter came without fanfare. There was the whole thing around Christmas where small robots had taken control of a bunch of people and the Autobots rampaged downtown, but Emily couldn’t really remember much about that since she had been working when it happened. 

Alexandria turns one and they have a small party at home. Honestly more of an excuse for all the adults to come together and catch up rather than a full-blown child’s birthday party. Alexandria rips apart the small cake given to her, delighted as she shoves fistfuls of frosting into her mouth and smears it across her cheeks.

Tom does show up (to Emily’s surprise) but stays for about five minutes, deposits a toy meant for three-year-olds on the gift table, and disappears without saying goodbye (not to Emily’s surprise). She shares an eye-roll with Teresa and laughs as the nurse scolds her sister for flipping the man off as he pulled out of the driveway. 

Spring comes and it’s eerily quiet. But it was always calm before the storm. 

The Battle of Detroit happened on an unassuming Wednesday. It was actually the Air Force that alerted them first. John had come rushing into the control room after taking a phone call outside and shouted that the airspace needed to be closed and cleared immediately. Everyone scrambled to do so, redirecting planes to other airports, getting planes on the ground as soon as possible, holding aircraft on runways, and alerting the FAA. 

It’s only when Emily overhears John calling in a lockdown for the airport that she finally asks, “What the hell is going on?!” 

Her answer comes in the form of three very large and very fast blips on the radar. She gets a glance at them, familiar purple and green flashing through the sky and heading downtown, but bigger, impossibly big, and in triplicate. 

“Air Force detected them entering the atmosphere and beelining it for the city,” John says. “I don’t know what it is but it isn’t good.” 

Emily feels her heart going light-speed in her chest. Teresa had the day off from work and offered to babysit for Emily. She had mentioned taking Alexandria into the city to visit the children’s museum. 

The rest of the day passes in a panicked blur. Emily spends most of it on her phone, desperately trying to get into contact with family and friends. She fielded texts and calls and jumped on the device every time it buzzed. 

She gets one text from Teresa the whole time. It simply read We are safe but bad signal.

Emily held onto hope even as she watched the giant robots rip through the city. She had been told that the epicenter of the city had been evacuated completely with other parts poised to flee if needed. She watched everything from the tower, insisting on staying behind just in case the airspace needed help. 

She flipped the radio on and scanned through the channels. She heard nothing but silence. 

There was a sudden flare of energy downtown about an hour later and that seemed to mark the end of the battle. After that, they started getting calls from the Air Force saying the airspace would be reopened soon and she watched National Guard trucks driving into the city. She watched texts coming from loved ones saying they were all okay but she waited patiently for one specific text to arrive. 

She jumps when her phone vibrates and hits answer before even looking at the caller ID. 

“We’re okay!” Teresa says on the other line, frantically, like she knew that the was first thing Emily would ask. The woman can’t help as she breaks down crying, slumping against the chair she was seated in, scaring John and Amir and everyone else into thinking she had received horrible news. 

Alexandria has tear trails down her cheeks and dried snot around her nose when they reunite but otherwise looks unbothered and more fascinated with the decorations suspended from the ceiling of the airport. Teresa doesn’t even try to hide that she’d been crying, her mascara smudged and tear lines forged into her concealer and foundation. 

She yanks Emily into a tight hug, babbling about how glad she was that she was safe and okay and how terrified she was. She pulls away briefly to plant a kiss on Emily’s cheek, leaving a smear of lip gloss in the vague shape of her lips. Before Emily can react she’s getting pulled back into a hug as Teresa tries to explain what happened in between sobs. 

It’s dark out when they’re finally cleared to leave and head home. The drive to the house is silent as Alexandria and Teresa both fall asleep the second they exit the airport gates. Teresa snaps awake the second the car turns off and stumbles out of her seat and into the house. Alexandria drools on Emily's shoulder as she carries her upstairs and doesn't even wiggle when she lays her down in her crib. 

Teresa is passed out on the couch when she gets downstairs so Emily busies herself with a shower and pointedly ignores the news. She could catch up the next day. 

Clean-up is slow and whole swathes of the city are shut down for months to repair everything. No human deaths were reported but the property damage was well into the millions. Teresa spends long hours at work, floating between units as they deal with loads of injured patients. Work is eerily quiet for Emily as commercial airlines were hesitant to send anything Detroit's way. 

But life continues and eventually, she's back up to a full workload and Teresa is back to a normal schedule. The only thing that really changes is how much more affectionate the nurse has become, pulling her into hugs and pressing a kiss to her cheek before leaving for work. Emily doesn't mention it, too worried that simply stating the occurrence out loud would bring it to an end. 

Alexandria is on the cusp of turning two, babbling right along and running on sure legs when the first Quintesson attack happened. It happened at three in the morning so everything was pretty blurry for her. She woke to her phone going off and Teresa shaking her shoulders, saying they needed to get down into the basement and hide. Alexandria sobs herself back to sleep in Emily’s arms as Teresa makes panicked phone calls, trying to figure out what was happening, was everyone okay, what should they be doing. 

By the time dawn peeked over the horizon, whole chunks of the city were just gone. Nothing more than smouldering rubble. 

They both still had to go to work, Teresa putting in additional hours bouncing between units and Emily directing aid planes and medical evac helicopters. Their evenings are quiet and solemn. Emily says nothing when Teresa breaks down crying at night, she just steps into her room, sits on the edge of her bed, and rubs her back until she falls asleep again.

“It was the fucking energon,” Mai tells them. She’s over at their house a week and a half after the attacks, having dinner and looking exhausted. “There were these energon crystals that started popping up after the big Autobot vs. Decepticon battle. We thought nothing of them except, y’know, ‘oh cool, a potential new energy resource!’ That’s what the Quintessons were after.” 

Emily tried to keep up as she listened. “What about the Autobots stationed here? Surely they were supposed to help.” 

Tears well in Mai’s eyes as her face twists in anger. “They didn’t. They got orders to not engage and flee back to Cybertron.” 

Teresa gasps and Emily chokes on her bite of food. Mai continues, “And it’s such fucking bullshit! We were sharing that fucking energon with them! They got seventy-five percent of whatever popped up. But the second shit hit the fan, they fucking fled.” 

Alexandria had been listening intently to the whole conversation from her high chair. As a tense silence lulls over the adults, she grins and chirps, “Shit!” 

Mai looks horrified and Teresa and Emily both laugh. Emily snorts, “I should’ve warned you. We are officially at the parroting age.” 

“Ah, I’m so sorry,” she says, flushing red. “I don’t know baby development at all.” 

Announcements come from the governor and president swearing to rebuild and prevent the catastrophe from happening again. Emily gets phone calls and texts about possibly moving elsewhere. Teresa’s mom even drives out to them for a visit and begs them to move to Lansing, swearing it’ll be safer. But Mai just shakes her head at that, explaining that the crystals are spreading, likely to begin popping up all over Michigan unless they can figure out a way to contain them. 

By all accounts, it wasn’t a question of if the Quintessons would be attacking again. It was a question of when. 

The next attack comes a little over a month later. It’s eleven something in the morning and Emily is directing a passenger plane to one of the gates. A good sign if she’s ever seen one, albeit half empty, and likely people who live here returning here. 

She sees it on the radar first. Far too many blips approaching far too fast. She turns to shout at John and finds him already on the phone, looking pale. He pulls the receiver away long enough to shout, “Clear the airspace and then get down to the shelter!” 

Clearing the airspace isn’t hard. After all, not many people came to Detroit after its reputation of being blown apart so often got around. But there was one plane left, a smaller passenger plane that had been arriving from Canada. John is yanking on her arm even as she desperately tries to direct them into an emergency landing. She’s so focused that she’s got tunnel vision and sees the giant alien ship far too late. 

In all honesty, she’s not sure what she was expecting Quintesson ships to look like. The one she does spot is bulky and a drab gray and brown. It shoots out a laser shot that blows the left wing of the plane clear off in a fireball and she can’t stop the scream that escapes her. 

The pilot is panicking in her ear, still trying to land the plane even as it lurches and begins a death spiral into the ground. She can’t move, even with the grip on her arm, even with John begging her to get down to the shelter. She can only watch as the Quintesson ship gets closer, clearly intent on eliminating the plane completely despite being harmless and wounded. 

As she’s sure she’s about to watch a tragedy happen, a flash of something cuts through the Quintesson ship. A fireball engulfs it, sending it to the ground in smoldering chunks, and the failing passenger plane gets enveloped by a blur of purple and beige. 

Emily watches in shock as the whole plane gets hauled to the airport and gently set down and her brain screams Holy shit, that’s Blitzwing. 

She watches in awe as he sets the plane down (albeit upside down, but intact) and turns back to the battle. He hops up, seamlessly transforming into a jet, and shoots off into the oncoming onslaught of ships. 

Emily flips through her frequencies frantically until she lands on the right one and yells, “Blitzwing?!” 

“Oh frag! Is that you, Emily?! Are you in the tower? I’m waving at you, can you see me waving at you?” 

She looks out to find him standing atop a burning and crashing ship and waving a hand at her. 

“Yeah I can see you,” she says. 

“Lugnut! Emily is here!” he says. 

A blur of green and purple shoots by in between clouds of smoke, effortlessly weaving through ships in a way no bomber plane should be able to. “The pitiful human with the unfaithful conjunx?” 

“Yes! She’s in the tower! Oh I’m so excited you’re alive! I thought you had died since humans have such short lifespans!” he says. 

John tugs her arm again and reality snaps back to her. “Listen, I have to go now, but I’ll be back up here once they call an all-clear okay?”

She doesn’t get the chance to wait for a reply, yanking her headset off and bolting down the stairs to the shelter. 

The all-clear signal comes a meager twenty minutes later. Teresa had stayed home with Alexandria and informed her that everything was fine and they were waiting it out in the basement. She steps out of the tower and onto the tarmac, surprised to find Blitzwing waiting for her there. He’s covered in green goop and smudges of ash and smells like an industrial fire, but his palms are clean as he offers them out for her. 

“It’s been so long! How have you been? How has your little sparkling been?” his jack-o-lantern face cackles as he lifts her up to his eye level. 

Emily can hear John shouting for her to get down but ignores him as she pulls her phone out. “I’ve been good, Alexandria has been great. She’s walking now! And talking, kind of.” 

She pulls up pictures of her daughter and shows them to him, his face spinning to the calm blue one. “Ah, so much larger and less wrinkly than when I saw her last.” 

The ground shakes as Lugnut approaches, equally disheveled, followed by another robot about his size but maroon and orange. She stretches her arm out, extending the phone towards them so they can both squint at the tiny screen. 

“Human sparklings are so tiny and weak,” Lugnut mutters. He refocuses his eye on Emily. “Ah, how rude of me! Human, this is my beloved conjunx, General Strika. My terror, this is the human Emily we had told you of.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Emily says and nods at Strika because she is genuinely unsure how else to address her. 

“I’ve heard quite a bit about you,” she replies, red eyes widening in joy. “Have you killed your traitorous ex-conjunx yet? If not, I am more than happy to be of assistance.” 

Emily opens her mouth to reply but quickly shuts it again as another robot approaches. From the way everyone tenses and snaps into proper posture, she can assume he’s important. It’s only when he gets closer and she hears his armor pinging as it cools and sharp red eyes does she realize she’s being held before Megatron. The same robot who had trashed most of Detroit and had now presumably saved it. 

(Or maybe he intended to enslave them all? Not unrealistic but at least she could pull some strings by being friends with one of his soldiers.) 

“You must be the human Emily,” he says. His voice is smooth and she thinks he has a bit of a British accent. 

Her mouth moves faster than her mind as she says, “You were in the airspace that one day!” 

He looks surprised but chuckles. “Indeed I was. What was it you said? For me to leave so you didn’t have to do a ‘paper mountain,’ or something like that?” 

“Something along those lines,” she says. Her phone buzzes in her palm but she ignores it. There’s a question that’s been nagging at her and she needs an answer sooner rather than later. “What are you doing here?” 

At his confused look she explains, “I’m just confused. You show up out of nowhere after destroying most of the city and take down the Quintessons. Why?” 

“You didn’t hear about the deal?” Blitzwing asks. 

She shakes her head and Megatron explains, “I’m not surprised. It was made in quite a rush. The deal is that in exchange for all of the energon crystals blooming up about your city, my army will protect this area of Earth. As much as I loathe to be back on this mudball of a planet, resources are resources.” 

Blitzwing’s face spins to the jack-o-lantern. “Isn’t this wonderful! We’ll have so much time to catch up!” His face spins again, back to calm. “Ah, but for now, we need to go meet with your governor. We can talk again later.” 

He gently sets her down and she watches as the four of them leave, even waving goodbye to them as they transform and head toward the Air Force base. She stands there in shock for a moment until a buzz from her phone snaps her out of it. She looks down to find Teresa calling and taps the green icon without hesitation. “You are never going to believe who I just ran into.”