A/N: Hey, it's been a while. I went through a lot of my old work over the weekend and fell back in love with my Change series. So for now I'm starting to write again. I also wanted to thank everyone who wished that my life could get on track after I said shit hit the fan. I'm not going to lie, everything's not completely fine, but things are never going to be the same again, and I just have to make the best of things. Still thank you to all of you who were hoping things got better. That means a lot to me. Now on with the chapter.

"Wait. You're Bumblebee?"

I nodded with a small jerk of my head, my eyes glued on the young woman I had considered a close friend for the past six years. Laura was silent for a few seconds, before she broke into a huge smile. She practically pounced on me as she flung her arms around my neck.

"That explains so much!" I couldn't help but stand there and blink.

"~You're not - angry?~" I asked this through my radio, and Laura jumps slightly, obviously not expecting that. She still smiles and laughs though.

"I'm not angry. Ever so slightly perturbed you didn't tell me sooner, but I understand why you didn't." The blonde paused for a moment and let out a small laugh as she swept her hair out of her face. "My best friend is an alien from the stars that's been posing as a human for the past several years… This is awesome!" For a second her shoulders sagged and the smile fell from her face. "My dad would have loved this…" It was at that time Elita stepped up into our conversation.

"Laura, it's nice to see you again. I hate to cut your conversation short, however I need Bee for a little while."

"I'm off for the rest of the day. May I come along? Unless I don't have the clearance of course." Laura stood a little straighter as she asked this, and my mother narrowed her eyes at her for a second before relenting.

"It's fine with me, and if it's okay with Bee then I don't have a problem with it. Right now it just seems to be a bit of a family problem." As my mom says this, Laura turns to look at me. Immediately I give her a thumbs up, and motion for her to follow. As Elita starts leading us through the base, Laura looked at me with a smirk.

"I just realized you completely denied your own existence on your first day of school." I gave her a sheepish smile in response and she playfully rolled her eyes. Before she could say anything else, we could now see where Optimus was just sitting in his alt mode in front of the piece we brought back from Chernobyl.

"I will say that he's not normally like this. He's been waiting for the higher ups to get here. He doesn't like explaining things more than once." Laura nodded in understanding to my mother's words as she came to a stop to just stare at where my father was sitting.

"~Don't look now~" I play this quietly as I pointed to Charlotte Mearing who was quickly making her way towards Optimus while chewing out Lennox at the same time. Wheeljack seemed to notice her at the same time, handing the gun he was holding off to Ironhide, telling him it was the perfect invention.

"Ah, you're here. My name's Wheeljack, and I hope you have some answers for him. I've never seen him so upset." The woman ignored Wheeljack as she continued to practically march towards Optimus.

"Optimus, you remember Charlotte Mearing… The Director of National Intelligence…" Lennox seemed at a loss, having always gotten some sort of response in the past.

"He's in a bad mood. He's not talking to anybody." Mirage said this and I could practically hear Mearing roll her eyes at this. Instead she looked towards Lennox, obviously expecting an answer.

"What is this? The silent treatment?" While the other Autobots in the area discussed the fact that this was not the silent treatment from Optimus, Laura leaned over to me.

"Bee, are you sure I have clearance for this?"

"~You'll be fine~" I waved it off and turned my attention back towards my father as Ironhide approached him.

"Prime! Make something of yourself!" As he said this Ironhide gave him one firm hit, and immediately my father started to transform. "He's pissed." Ironhide muttered this oh so helpfully. I was however surprised that Mearing just stared at Optimus, completely unimpressed and unafraid.

"You lied to us." My eyes widened a little at that. It was a serious accusation, and everyone around here knew it. "Everything humans know of our planet, we were told, had all been shared. So why was this found this found in human possession?"

I once again took a moment to study the part that was sitting on the table. It certainly was a cybertronian part of something, but I wasn't quite sure if this was as big a deal as my father was making it out to be. But at the same time, I'd never known my father to exaggerate anything before.

"We were in the dark on this also. It was director only clearance in Sector Seven. Until now. The bag." Mearing glanced over her shoulder towards her assistant, and I immediately felt bad for the young woman as she tried to sort through the numerous bags she had in her arms.

"Which bag?" The assistant asked this quietly, and shrank back a bit when Mearing glared at her. She spat out something which I assumed was the type of bag, and the assistant hurried forward to pass the bag she had finally picked to Mearing. She dug something out of the bag as she started to speak again.

"This is a secret few men know, and fewer still remain alive. Allow me to introduce to you, two of NASA's founding Mission Directors and Astronaut Doctor Buzz Aldrin. One of the first two men to step foot on the moon." Mearing walked over to the men who were walking in, giving the astronaut a firm handshake as she introduced him. "Sir, Optimus Prime." The astronaut nodded his head as he took a step forward.

"From a fellow space traveler, it's a true honor." In response Optimus knelt down to be less intimidating towards the man.

"The honor is mine." I rolled my eyes slightly when I heard Laura let out a little squeak from beside me. Mearing quickly took the floor back as she started talking again.

"Our entire space race of the 60's, it appears, was in response to an event." Surprisingly enough she actually let one of the other men talk about what was going on.

"Our astronauts investigated a crashed alien ship. No survivors on board." At that point the astronaut, presumably one of the first few to actually get a look at the crash spoke up.

"We were sworn to secrecy by our commander and chief."

"A total of thirty five people knew the real plan at NASA."

"Soviets managed to land unmanned probes. Somehow they must have picked up that fuel rod." The third man said this while Mearing got something up on the screens she was standing by.

"We believe the Russians deduced that the rod was a fissionable fuel assembly, believed they had it mastered, and then tried to harness it at Chernobyl."

"We manned six missions in all. Took hundreds of photos, and samples. We locked them away forever. Then the moon program was shut down."

"Well, did you search the crash vault?" Ironhide asked this like it was the most obvious question in the world. And I agree with him, but I also knew the humans wouldn't have known where to search.

"The ship's name was the Arc. I watched it escape Cybertron myself." I perked up as my father started to talk and followed near his pedes as he took a couple of steps forward. "It was carrying an Autobot technology which would have won us the war. And it's captain." I frowned at that, I didn't ever remember having a definite hope of winning the war like Optimus seemed to be talking about, and could only guess it must have happened when I was really little. I also had a bad feeling about who the captain was.

"Who is this captain?" Mearing asked this urgently as she leaned closer to where my father was gently gripping the railing.

"The great Sentinel Prime," My tank dropped at this, and tried not to let it show. "The technology's inventor. He was commander of the Autobots before me. It's imperative that I find him before the Decepticons learn of its location. Our Autobots spacecraft has the ability to get there, and you must pray it's in time." With that Optimus turned away from Mearing, leaving her a little pissed.

"And what if we say no?" Mearing called this after Optimus, who didn't even bother to look back at her as he responded.

"I would like to see you try and stop us." Obviously not knowing how to respond to that, Mearing let my father leave. Not wanting to be left near that woman, I grabbed Laura's hand and took off after my father.

"Bee, I'm still not sure I had the clearance for that conversation." I rolled my eyes at the blonde's obvious worry about this.

"~They're the ones ~ who decided to ~ talk in the ~ hanger~" Laura's shoulders slumped slightly at my answer, but seemed to take it in stride.

"I guess you're right… So, what's the deal with the radio talk?" As she asked this, I glanced around, slightly uncomfortable with the number of other new recruits. Deciding I didn't care that much I answered.

"~It doesn't really work.~" I motioned towards my neck as I 'said' this, and dropped my hand afterwards. "~I like ~ having a voice ~ even if it's not ~ really my own~" In response she gave me a sad smile, and I smiled back.

"Ya know what I really wanna know? I wanna know what the secret to perpetual youth is. You still look like you're fifteen."

"He is still fifteen." Both Laura and I jumped slightly when Optimus joined our conversation in his human form. "Each of your years is approximately one of our months. His creation day hasn't passed yet, although if our calculations are correct, then it should be in later November three years from now." I giggled slightly as my father pulled me into a one armed hug. At the same time I noticed Laura frown ever so slightly. Then she caught herself and smiled but I could tell that it didn't reach her eyes.

"You know Bee, you don't really look like your dad, so I guess you take after your mom?"

"~Actually ~ I'm adopted ~ I wasn't kidding ~ when I said ~Optimus ~ took me in ~ after an ~ attack ~ I don't remember ~ I was ~ really young~" Laura nodded in understanding, and Optimus gave me a slight squeeze before letting go of me.

"I have to go make sure the preparations are going smoothly." I nodded in response and my father started to walk away. As soon as he was far enough away, I let out a sigh.

"Bee is everything okay?" My friend asked me this as she set her hand down on my shoulder. My response was to shrug.

"~I hope ~ I'm worrying about ~ nothing~" Laura's reaction was to frown.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" I shook my head and she simply nodded in understanding.

"~So, how have you been?~" I asked this as we walked towards one of the rest areas in the hanger.

"Same old, same old. My mom still doesn't approve of my choice of a military career, but I kinda stopped caring what she thought a while ago." Laura said this as she flopped on the couch in the corner.

"~What about ~ your dad?~ what does he think?~" To that Laura put her head in her hands and let out a sigh. "~That bad?~"

"No, I'm sure he would be supportive. He always told me to follow my dreams. It's just, he died. It was two years ago, but it's still really hard sometimes. Like seeing you and your dad…" I shifted uncomfortably, remembering the time my own father had died.

"~Remember the ~ fiasco ~ spring of ~ our junior year? ~ During that ~ mission ~ I watched ~ my dad ~ die. ~ Worst moment of my life. ~ I know how you feel.~" Laura looked up at me and when our eyes met she immediately pulled me into a hug.

"Oh Bee! I remember how shaken you were when you got back. I had no clue." At the end she pulled away but still kept her hands on my shoulders. We both gave each other an understanding smile, and then our peace was interrupted. On either side of us sat down one of the terror twins.

"So, how long have you two been dating?"

A/N: Once again thank you to all who reviewed last chapter.

Read: Thank you, it's nice to know people still like this.

Witch08: I'm back, and will probably continue this, but I'm not entirely sure when updates will come out, I am in school and that comes first. I also have loved your support from the very beginning, it means a lot to me that you've stuck with me, even with my huge leaves of absence. I probably won't be continuing the dragonformers story, I have no real clue where I was going with it. I also don't know how I feel about giving it to other writers.

silversliced-rain: Glad you liked the chapter.

artranger 27: It's nice to know you love the Change series. The family moments are my favorite moments too.

doglover11: Thanks for the hug. I definitely took my time posting another chapter.

Savvy Orion childofcommander: Thank you for your support, as I said earlier things are looking up, but they can't really be righted. Writing has definitely helped me through it. I just didn't really return to this story.

HeartsGuardianSol: I'm glad you stumbled upon my stories, but it's unfortunate you had to do so while in the hospital, hope you're better now.

Andrea: Sorry it took so long to write the next chapter.

Guest: Glad you liked it.

I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out. School takes up a lot of my time, but hopefully I'll update semi soon. Until then!