Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R!

(Woah, it's been ages since I posted anything. Here's a quirky little one shot to entertain you all while I get cracking with my multichaptered fics! Enjoy!

Thanks to Ice Fata for looking this over!)

There has always been an alien in his great grandmothers garage.

It was a simple fact of life, his great grandmother, still wobbling on at the tender age of 107, could still drive her old Datsun Fairlady that she had bought after winning a sum on the lottery back in her late middle age. The local police knew her by sight after having pulled her over once or twice on suspicion of not driving with both hands on the wheel. Amusingly they always left the side of the black and white car with promises of cookies being sent to the station for being very good and diligent 'boys and girls'.

When Sam had been five years old he had snuck into his great grandmother's forbidden garage, playing hide and seek with Miles. Many times had the silver haired woman grumbled at him to stay away from the door to the garage or be faced with a good and proper smack on the bottom with her walking stick.

The Fairlady's engine, upon Sam entering and skittering across the clear space had roared like a dragon, it's headlights flashing on full beam and wheels screeching on the floor, smoke billowing from the rubber.

Sam never entered the garage again, terrified after having ran screaming about aliens straight into his grandmother who had hobbled as fast as she could at the sound of her precious car having a fit.

"See here, boy." She had snapped, stamping her cane on the carpet, "You leave that poor Dear alone. He's a good old soul that needs his peace, you hear?!"

Sam had babbled a number of apologies and had diligently posted a small air freshener to his great grandmother every year for her demonic car in apology.

Now here he was, several years and air fresheners later, outside the 107 year old lady's door with a team of NEST operatives shadowing his every move. "Just had to open your mouth didn't you, Miles?" He sighed to himself, running a hand through his hair as the skeletal woman answered the door.

"Samuel!" She cried in her wispy voice, her pale wrinkled fingers stretching for his face like something out of a horror movie to bring it closer to her sparkling green eyes, examining him like she would a prime cut of beef at the supermarket, pinching his cheek between two sharp digits.

"You're too thin, boy." She nagged, grabbing his wrist an dragging him over the threshold into her painfully floral wallpapered hall, teeming with heat from the old radiator chugging in the corner. "And you don't visit half as much as you used to."

"Sorry Nana." He mumbled, rubbing his wrist after she released him to balance on her cane, slowly following after the old lady whose bones he could swear he heard creaking as she moved. "So uh, how are you?"

She turned a hawk like eye on him, shuffling into her living room where the stuffed family dog from the 1970's was mounted on top of a case filled with valuable whiskey. Sam couldn't help but shudder, feeling his skin crawl at the sight of the vacant eyed Jack Russell as he sank into the nearest seat.

"Oh I'm fine as any spirited lady would be at my age." She preened like a peacock, lowering herself to sit in her favourite armchair that seemed to swallow her diminutive frame in its cushions of vibrant orange that clashed horribly with the pale pastel colours of the flowers on her walls. "I beat Betty-Ann at Bingo on Monday. Smug old bat she was until I ripped the thunder out of her cloud!" Old Granny Witwicky cackled like a witch.

"Uh, Nana, as much as I like hearing how you one up the neighbours, I have to ask you about something very important." Sam interrupted with a grave 'I'm completely serious here' voice. "Do you still have your Datsun?"

"Of course, dear, I'm not like you hot shot youngsters changing your cars every two years, I much prefer my Old Reliable, he's never broken down in all the time I've had him." The old woman let out another odd cackle, wheezing and rattling, prompting her to screw up her face and lean over the arm of her chair into her open knitting bag, grabbing a blue inhaler from among the multicoloured wool and various sizes of needles before inhaling deeply as she breathed in the atomised medicine. "Blasted asthma, try and take me, I dare you!" She cursed waving a fist at the ceiling.

"Does he ever, uh, talk?" Sam asked, hoping feverishly that the incident when he was five had all been in his head. He really didn't want to explain to the old lady that he would have to take her beloved car.

His great grandmother ceased her antics, hawkish features zeroing in on him with a laser like intensity, turning his blood to ice. "Now tell me boy," she grumbled gravely, hands folding over the ivory pommel of her lacquered walking stick as she leaned forward to survey him better, "Are you on drugs?"

"Gran!" He yelled scandalised, the ancient eyes flickering up and down his form before shrugging in dismissal.

"Just asking, Sammy."

"Regardless, I'm being serious Nana." He almost whined, desperate for her to acknowledge the gravity of the situation.

Great Grandmother Witwicky snorted on amusement before heaving herself into her spindly legs and began to shuffle towards the kitchen, "Well go see for yourself boy while I make us a cup of tea. I'm sure I still have some of that jasmine and mint stuff your father got me for Christmas in the cupboard."

Wincing at the thought of another of his Nana's peculiar tea blends, he rose from his chair once he heard the kettle click on and the rattle of bone china being set out.

The halls were as nauseatingly bright as they always had been, floral and stripe patterns turning the simple hallway into a fun house of dizzying illusions. The door that led to the garage was well used, the bright emerald carpet underneath the heavy wood flattened in a wide arc where daily wear and tear lightened the dark fabric.

He opened it nervously, a slow peek round the corner into the gloom, before he took a deep breath and fully entered the dark, hand rising for the pull string switch of the light.

The garage was immaculate as it always was and had been, shelves organised neatly and the air smelled of his Nana's favourite lemon cleaner. The work bench that had once held his great grandfather's toolbox and various other DIY contraptions was free of clutter with a small clean space where a spare knitting bag and a large stack of wool balls were placed. A well worn office chair completed the set up, tucked safely away under the bench.

The car lingered beside the desk, it's flawless black and white paintwork reminiscent of the old police cruisers that were scrapped decades ago. It didn't budge at his arrival, not a headlight wink or the subtle rumble of its engine humming into life. Frowning, he made his way to the garage door, heaving the metal sheet upwards to let in the daylight that shone through the windscreen of the old Datsun. "Maybe it isn't a Cybertronian." He wondered aloud, second guessing himself and his memories of the scary encounter.

The young man then proceeded to scour the framework for the familiar brand of the Autobots or Decepticons, poking at the grill and rear end of the car. Then, he looked under the hood.

The engine was an advanced mess of alien parts, glittering and new.

The car sprang to life with a roar, the hood popping down of its own accord to reveal nothing but a madly spinning steering wheel beyond the windshield.

And suddenly his wobbly old Nana was in front of him, walking stick clicking on the floor as she got between him and the enraged automobile. "Reliable, stop this nonsense and be polite." She barked, loud and annoyed, puffing through her hooked nose in exertion at the half hobbling run she had achieved to get here.

The car quietened, before its doors opened and slammed closed with an equal annoyance. "Apologies, Eliza, I was recharging, he startled me." A deep monotone floated out of the innocent looking Datsun, engine giving a soft splutter. "Greetings Samuel, I believe this is our second encounter..."

"Woah, Miles was right?!" Sam gawked, "You are Cybertronian!"

"Indeed. In human terms, my name loosely translates to 'Prowl', though your Great Grandmother here insists on that ridiculous pet name." The car introduced itself blandly.

"It suits you deary." Old Eliza Witwicky smiled fondly, petting the black and white paintwork. "Now what is this talk of you being a Cyber-what's-it?"

"Nana, you've had an alien in your garage for decades!" Sam accused in mortification, already speed dialling a lingering Bumblebee that was the next block over with Lennox, Epps, Ironhide and a recently resurrected Jazz.

"Is that so?" She cackled with amusement, "Well then, don't you have some explaining to do, Reliable?"

"Please stop calling me that, Eliza," Prowl rumbled, almost sulkily, "You're just like Jazz. Always giving out odd nicknames."

"I've had you for near on thirty years dear, I'm not going to stop now just because your friends are coming round for tea and biscuits." The grey haired woman laughed in her odd witch's cackle, beginning to shuffle back towards the kitchen, "Make sure to come and get your tea when your friends get here Sammy!"

So here Sam was, squashed onto the three seater sofa between two awkwardly smiling military soldiers while his Nana served them her most likely lethal blends of tea, with homemade brownies while alien robots held a meeting in her garage.

"Umm, you do realise what this means ma'm," William Lennox said, sipping from the bone china tea cup politely, his face going through a mixture of 'Oh my God, did she just give me poison?!' expressions before he put down the tea gently as Robert Epps snickered at his misfortune disguised as a cough.

"As long as me and the ladies can get a lift to Bingo and the local supermarket, we can do anything you like," the old lady shrugged, tapping her cane against the floor. "Me and Reliable have a routine boys, we've been doing this for thirty years and no whippersnapper is going to ruin it."

"I second Eliza's motion." Prowl rumbled through their headsets ear pieces, making the soldiers jump, loud grumbling coming from Bumblebee and Ironhide in the background, "Optimus has approved of my staying here for the moment."

"Prowl means that he blackmailed the boss bot into doing what he wanted again." Jazz cackled gleefully over a separate frequency, "I knew there was a reason I loved you Prowler!"

"That settles it then." Sam's Great Grandmother smiled after they told her and she had signed all the 'I know nothing' forms, "I'll just keep my alien in the garage."

===1 Year Later=Winter===

==Secret Autobot Warehouse==

==Mainland USA==

"Prowl?! What the frag are those?!" Jazz gawked in wonder at his lover's doorwings as he transformed from his new Alternate form, the sleek sensory panels covered in a patchwork of colourful wool.

"Doorwing mittens." Prowl said with the tiniest sliver of pride in his voice when a passing Bluestreak began to gush about how cozy and pretty they looked on the way to his shift trailed by the ever grumpy Sunstreaker, "Eliza and her knitting group were ever so kind as to make me a pair after I had to go to Ratchet about the ice and grit last year."

"Wait! Old lady Witwicky did what?!" Simmons yelled up at them both as Jazz ran his hands over the cozy stitched masterpieces, the names of all the old women that had contributed woven pristinely into the mittens. "She can't keep telling people about you! What part of 'Big Government Secret' doesn't she understand?! Dutch, where are the 'Official Secrets Act' forms?!" He turned on his ever present assistant who scurried off back into the depths of the base to search for the relevant paper.

Prowl shrugged down at the irate human as Jazz rubbed a cheek against a doorwing with a pleased purr, begging Prowl across the comm lines for a knitted scarf or hat of his own. "That is what we employ you for is it not, Mr Simmons? How am I supposed to keep an old lady in check?" He smiled slyly, "I am merely her alien that lives in the garage."