She's Just a Human | Transformers

4: Midnight Talking

Very few things would've made less sense than imagining myself covering a broken window with unfolded plastic bags with the assistance of an Autobot. If this morning someone had told me this would happen, I would've probably laughed on their faces. And yet, here we are.

"Alright, let it go."
Bumblebee takes his digit away from the plastic I just taped to a broken piece of glass. The last one to seal, as best as possible, the hole left by our little stunt from earlier.
I still can't believe that happened, far less that I made a deal with the Bumblebee to help me cover it up. What an absurd image. What would my father say? Well, actually he would be the most supportive of the idea. He always had a way of interacting with the 'Bots. It came natural to him. And he always treated them like any other friend, despite the size difference.

"~Good as new?" A sheepish voice comes from the radio. I let out a breath.

"You know what? Yeah. Good as new." I offer a tired smile, but for now, it's enough. Fear has a way of leaving you tired once it's gone, and I seem to have run out of energy to worry about this godforsaken window. That's a problem for tomorrow's Caelyn.

"~I'm sorry for scaring you." Bumblebee adds, whirring and offering me the backpack with the toolkit I left on the ground earlier.

"Hey, you scare me, I break your optic. I'd say we're even." I tease, taking the bag from his digits and beginning to pick up the remaining plastic bags and tape.

"~Fair."

He follows me as I walk around the corner of the house, towards the back door. Night has fallen, crickets and the forest's night life have woken, making their own type of silence, one that sometimes manages to tune out the noise inside me. I go up the small steps to the door, where I half open it to place the things inside, even if messy, that's something else I can deal with tomorrow. Right now there's a certain someone I can't just ignore.
I turn back around to find the yellow and black Autobot standing there, looking out to the forest ahead.

"Do you want-?" I stop myself. "Wait. Sorry. I was just about to offer you something to drink. But, well. Yeah. Force of habit." I shake my head. Bumblebee shifts in acknowledgement, but doesn't turn around to look at me. A pang of fear stings my gut. "Hey, you okay?" I give a wary step towards him, eyes frantically looking around, trying to find something in the trees, in the darkness, anything that might indicate that something is wrong, that there's something out there. Or someone.

"~I like it here."

Oh.

"Really?" I take a seat on one of the small steps to the back door. He whirrs in affirmation.

"~It's quiet." He continues. "~A nice kind ~of quiet." He turns around, gives a couple steps and sits down on the ground to my side. "~and there's so much ~of this." He runs his servo through the grass and the dirt.

"Nature?"

"~Exactly." He watches as his metal digits make small drag paths on the ground. "~It's different."

"I'm guessing you don't get to spend a lot of time in places like this, huh?" I softly say, crossing my arms over my knees, resting my chin on them.

"~We're usually stationed ~on cities and military bases." He continues, looking back up towards the trees.

"I remember." I add, reminiscing. "My family and I, we spent most of our time in an apartment in Chicago after NEST was founded, but here... this was our home, you know?" I smile.

"~I can see why."

I look towards the tree line, taking in the cool night breeze and the starlit silhouettes of the trees. It had been a while since I'd simply sat here and watched the forest without having the glass of a window between us, specially at night. I had missed it. I suppose that even glass can give you the illusion of safety.