A/N: This is our transition from Dark of the Moon to the upcoming film, Age of Extinction. Since Bay is setting out with an entirely new cast of characters, we wanted to give the ones so near and dear to our hearts a chance to say their farewell's to the Autobots. This is also our humble attempt to fill in the gaps between DOtM and AoE, namely to address what happened to NEST, all of its personnel, and, of course, our 'bots.

A fair warning there is a few references to other stories we have written, namely, "Aftermath", and "Who Drives You," as well as the inclusion of our OC, Elena ( please see our profile for Elena's background). As always, we tend to ignore what Annabelle's age should be and have made her a touch older than she probably would be; we hope you can forgive us for the change, dear reader.

Now, enough chatter and on with the plot!

All our Autobot Love, Epsilon & BumBee.

Disclaimer: We own and have the rights to nothing *sigh*, all rights to Transformers belongs to Hasbro.

THE CLOCK

Impassive god! Whose minatory hands

Repeat their sinister and single charge:

Remember! Pain is the unfailing bow,

as arrow after arrow finds your heart.

…each instant snatches from you what you had,

the crumb of happiness within your grasp.

Thirty-six hundred times in every hour

The Second whispers: Remember! And Now replies

In its maddening mosquito hum: I am Past,

Who passing lit and sucked your life and left!

Remember! Souviens-toi! Esto memor!

(My metal throat is polyglot.) The ore

of mortal minutes crumbles, unrefined…

Remember! Time, that Tireless gambler, wins

On every turn of the wheel: that is the law.

The daylight fades…Remember! Night comes on:

The pit is thirsty and the sands run out…

Soon it will sound, the tocsin of your Fate—

From noble Virtue…

Or from Repentance, last resort…from all

The message comes: "Too late, old coward!..."

(Baudelaire)

Annabelle climbed into the cab of her pick-up truck, enjoying the searing kiss of the sun baked, black interior. The flash of burning heat against her skin, soaking into her palms as she shut the door and then gripped the wheel gave her focus, helped her push her thoughts away long enough to listen to the thick growl of the engine before she turned onto the road. Pulling away from her high school, she turned the old Topkick toward home. She savored the rumble of the engine, despite the heat she firmly gripped the steering wheel to drink in its soothing vibrations. No, the navy blue Topkick was no living leviathan, no Uncle 'Hide to save her, but it was a comforting and familiar silhouette.

At first her father, to say nothing of her mother, was more than a little resistant to her choice of vehicles, but she had saved and saved, had considered so many makes and models for months. "I'm not trying to replace him, Dad." She had told him after the sales rep had given her the keys, "No one and nothing can bring him…or any of them back…but this, this helps me to remember him…and them…in a good way."

At the time, sitting beside her in the cab, Lennox had admired her resolve, but couldn't entirely dismiss his trepidations, "Remembering is one matter. And I could never ask you to forget them, I wouldn't ever want you to. But I don't want your memories of them to haunt you."

"It won't. I'll take care of this the way they took care of me."

And she had.

Each and every time she washed and diligently waxed her truck she remembered Bee's cheerful chirps and whistles. Whenever she tinkered with the engine, steadfastly maintaining it, Ratchet's grumbles echoed in her ears. Even when she parked it, so careful and cautiously, she knew Sideswipe would have been proud of how tediously she minded the paint. If she closed her eyes and stood in its shadow, she could pretend, if just a little, that it was Papa Bot looming behind her, protective and defensive. And every time she let the engine rattle and roar to life, letting it bellow and snarl, Ironhide was with her. The Topkick was her memorial to those she could never openly honor or reminisce about.

Now, just as always, with the road crunching beneath her Topkick's tires, Annabelle took no small comfort in the memories the vehicle evoked within her.

"Oh I miss you, Uncle 'Hide." She mused aloud to the lifeless dash, not for the first or last time, "I wish you could be here for this weekend." Annabelle smirked for no one, "You'd be grumpy, but you'd be proud. And I know you would have wanted to be the one to drive me to my graduation tomorrow…well you or Bee…but I don't think you would have let him."

Annabelle tucked a stray hair behind her ear, "Yes, Ratch I did check my mirrors before I changed lanes." She leaned back into the seat, settling in for the twenty-minute drive along the nearly empty stretch of highway. She had stayed late today, later than she realized, busy cleaning out her locker and signing yearbooks with her friends. Now, the sun was setting, turning the road that stretched before her into liquid gold and streaks of dusty orange. The rumble of a larger vehicle passing drew her out of her self-induced reverie and Annabelle flicked a casual gaze to the lane beside her, just in time to watch as a semi-truck passed her. Impossible to tell what color it really was in the descending dusk, but in the last rays of light, the semi's fenders winked at her in faded orange. Almost like flames…

Annabelle smiled, "Yes, Papa Bot…I know you wouldn't have wanted to miss my graduation either. Of course you would have been more subtle about it…you probably would have used your hologram to come and watch…" Annabelle's voice hitched, tripped over a sudden surge of sorrow, "…would have been nice to hear your voice…to hear your say 'congratulations, little one'…"

Annabelle took a deep breath to steady herself. "What the hell am I doing this for…they'd want me to be happy…to be excited…not to get all weepy."

Checking her mirrors again, Annabelle sighed, "Though it's kinda hard to know what they'd want when they're not here…when they didn't even stick around long enough to say goodbye…" Briefly her eyes flicked back to the semi-truck; dusty, dirt-sore, it looked tired to her. No longer passing her, it had reduced its speed, content now to rattle a comfortable pace behind her Topkick. It was only by squinting could she discern the faintest silhouette of a driver behind the dull windshield. Annabelle absentmindedly began to chew her lip even as her thoughts began to likewise chew at her. With no one else to see or to hear her, Annabelle spoke aloud again, this time sending her words not to the dash in front of her, but rather directed them at the lifeless semi-truck trailing her.

"My Dad always told me that you were one of the fiercest of fighters he had ever seen. He said that so long as you stood beside them, no one was ever afraid, not even in Chicago." With the silence of the rode stretching before her, Annabelle lost her inhibitions, letting her thoughts tumble from her tongue as swiftly as the Topkick's tires consumed the miles.

"I never saw you…or any of the other Autobots in battle, but from what Uncle Epps and Uncle Sam, even Auntie Elena told me…I believed them. I believed you and the Autobots weren't afraid of anything." Of course it wasn't the leader of the Autobots driving so meekly behind her, it couldn't and wouldn't ever be. But for now, suspended in the possibilities of the fading light, it was enough for Annabelle to pretend. It was enough to wish it really was him, following her, checking up on her, always ready to defend, to protect…to listen.

Betraying her emotions, her lip trembled, her voice wavered with her ache for her wish to come true, but Annabelle merely tightened her grip on the steering wheel, allowing the engine's vibrations to center her, to steady her. Perhaps it was graduation looming before her, mere hours away, perhaps it was knowing that soon she would have to say goodbye to all of her friends, or perhaps it was understanding that she was about to leave the life she knew behind so that she could start a new journey and begin college. Whatever it was, whatever pushed at her now to purge her pent up feelings, Annabelle let it take the reigns, she gave in and let her words flow unrestricted.

"I believed in you…so did my Dad…and Uncle Epps…and Uncle Sam…we all believed in you…so w-why did you leave us, Papa Bot? Why did you take the Autobots and disappear without saying goodbye? You didn't have to see the hurt in my Dad's eyes when he had to tell us about the transfer orders…about NEST disbanding…you didn't stay to explain anything…you ran away, you ran away from us Papa Bot…and here I believed that you would always be the unstoppable force, the immovable object, the one being who would never run away…especially not from us…but you did…"

Annabelle forced herself to stop looking back at the semi, forced herself to stop looking for what wouldn't be there…for who wouldn't be there. Instead, she squinted ahead to the road before her. Allowing herself one last rambling weakness, she spoke again to the quiet expanse of freeway before her: " Uncle Epps was so mad, Papa Bot…it took him so long to speak to you again after Chicago…and when you left…"Annabelle blew out a breath of air, "I didn't think he'd ever forgive you…I'm not sure even now he has…I know…"Annabelle's voice faded to a whisper-hush, "…I know my Dad hasn't…I know he's still angry, still hurt…and I…I…" She caved in, yielding to the impulse to glance back to the mute semi truck in her rear-view mirror, her pretend-Papa Bot, "…I just wish you could have told us why…that's all, Papa Bot. Why did you run from us?"

The only reply she received was the sound of the wind, buffeting against her windows, a curtain of hollow noise bereft of answers. For many long minutes, she listened to its empty strains, content with the numbness of the wind. She let it soothe her, scoop away her messy emotions, let the vacuum of sound purge away the last of her sorrows of unanswered questions. But it did not last, and sooner rather than later she began to find the rasp of wind against the cab deafening as it was defeating. Just when she considered turning on the radio to defend herself against the silence, she saw it: the over sized billboard beside the road. Sure, the billboard had always been there, displaying one advertisement or another. But today, today it was different. Today it had been changed.

It only took her moments, long screeching, agonizing moments for Annabelle to see the billboard, absorb what it said and then drive past it. But even when it was miles behind her, its words—so blatant and blaring—were seared into her memory forever, inexorable.

"Remember", it challenged in big, bold letters impossible to ignore or deny, "Remember Chicago. Report Alien Activity."

The sign knocked the breath from her lungs, made her hands tremble on the wheel. But to her credit, Annabelle kept some semblance of composure, kept it that is, until she passed another billboard. This one splayed with the message: "Only you can prevent another attack. If you see something, say something. Keep Earth human." Worst of all, were the silhouettes emblazoned beneath the hateful message. No mistaking those outlines of angles and edges, a painful kind of familiar: Bumblebee and Optimus.

Annabelle chewed her lip, tried to blink back the tears that suddenly sprang to life and bit at the backs of her eyes. All of her frustrations and disappointments that had malingered in her musings before now vanished, evaporating instantaneously at the signs accosting her. Because even if the Autobots had truly run away from them, even without the blessing of a farewell, Annabelle would never, indeed could never, see the 'bots as anything less than family. And to see their images used in such a hateful way was more than she could stand. Bumblebee. Optimus. Her Bee…Her Papa Bot…

It was then that Annabelle lost to her tempest of emotions; her foot trembled on the petal, slipped and faltered. The Topkick, slowed then wobbled on its course, edging toward the shoulder of the road, the tires beginning to slide from the carefully paved edge. However her lapse of focus didn't last long. The sudden blare of a deep throated horn accosted Annabelle, setting her tumbling back into the moment, yanking her from the precipice of memory and an entrenching bog of feelings. Immediately, Annabelle corrected and set her Topkick once more safely within the lanes. Knuckles white against the wheel, Annabelle let her nerves settle, took deep, calming breaths.

She lifted her gaze, freed it from the dead, straight-ahead stare it had been locked in. Now, she glanced around purposefully, looking for the driver who had clearly prevented her from making what could have been a costly mistake. Hopeful, she was quick to look in her rear-view mirror, but was surprised to find it empty, devoid of any view of the big rig. That was when she felt it, a rumble of a louder, deeper engine close beside her. Annabelle again felt her gaze pulled to the lane beside her, finding once more the semi-truck emerging from her blind spot. Another quick glance at her other mirrors confirmed her suspicion that aside from herself, the big rig was indeed the only other vehicle on the road. The truck driver was clearly the only one who could had been thoughtful enough to intervene with a well timed horn blast when it had become apparent her attention had wandered too far from the road ahead.

Perhaps it was the manners her parents had drummed into her, perhaps it was mere impulse, or the sudden surge of gratitude that she hadn't driven her precious Topkick off of the road; whatever it was, Annabelle followed the feeling and rolled down her window, intending to wave to the truck driver an embarrassed—and apologetic—thank you. Even as she lifted her hand, Annabelle half expected the other driver to return the gesture with an annoyed or even angry look, a part of her even expected the truck driver to merely ignore her. But what she didn't expect was the countenance that surged into view as the semi pulled up beside her. As the larger big rig's shadow fell over her, time seemed to slow down; impossibly sluggish it suddenly allowed her to see everything in painful clarity within the span of a few heartbeats.

The driver was older, more so than her father, yet somehow his weathered expression was kind, gentle in a sagacious manner. It was a face that belonged to a man who had endured too much throughout his life. Dressed in a faded red shirt, jeans and with a tan Stetson hat perched atop his head, he met her gaze boldly. He didn't return Annabelle's wave, but instead a small smile turned up the corners of his lips and he lifted one hand to tip the brim of his hat down in a salute of sorts to her. And his eyes, an unearthly blue, they sparkled when they met her gaze. It was his eyes and the unfathomable expression within them that knocked the air from her lungs in a wheeze; she knew that gaze, could never and would never, never forget it, because she knew that gaze even when it was diminished in his hologram. Sure, it looked different without its usual guise of a military dress uniform, but civilian garb or not, there was no way she could ever mistake that gaze, such an ethereal, almost electronic blue.

"Papa Bot!" She gasped, the wind whipping through the open window sucked away her words, her air, "Optimus!" Even as the syllables of his name slipped away, something sad veiled the man's gaze, dimmed his smile. And just like that, the moment was gone, shattered as time resumed its normal pace. Before Annabelle could react, the semi sped up, changing lanes and widening the distance between them. Numb with shock, all she could do was watch as he drove away, turning onto an off ramp that carried him out of sight.

She didn't for a moment doubt herself, didn't doubt what she had seen. She knew it was him, knew that she had indeed seen her Papa Bot once more. Her certainty shed clarity onto what she had briefly beheld. Now, returning to the recent memory, she was sure the semi's paint had been blue, brutally faded, but still blue. Just as she was sure the fenders had boasted of those familiar flame decals, not longer as brilliant, but certainly still enduring. Yet her surge of joy and relief at knowing he was alive was trampled under the equal certainty that he did not want to be followed, and had not intend to stop for her.

Her Papa Bot had run from them…again.

A/N: Thanks for reading! More chapters to follow, Please R&R!