For The Race: Protection.

Summary: When Sam is turned into a femme for his/her own good, she is almost immediately kidnapped by the Decepticons. When she eventually finds out why, it is not for the reasons that she expected.

Continuity: Michael Bay Movieverse.

Disclaimer: Never has been and never will be mine. Transformers and all canon characters belong to Hasbro/Paramount, and I gain no financial or material benefit from writing these stories.

A/N: I amaze myself with the variety of different scenarios I can get out of the "For The Race" concept, and this one took me completely by surprise.

For The Race: Protection.

Chapter One.

Ratchet, Bumblebee, Ron, and Judy all stood around Sam's bed, Ratchet as his physician, and the other three as family and friend. So far, Sam was still more awake and lucid than asleep or feverish, but Ratchet knew that was likely to change, and more so as time went by. What Ratchet found the most difficult about the situation was his inability to control it.

He had already been through the 'What if?s' and 'if only's, - what if he'd scanned Sam earlier? If only he'd checked Sam had no physical ill effects that could have been caused in the Mission City battle, and re-checked him regularly - and had even said as much to Sam's distraught parents. However, it was them who had pointed out that such sentiments would not bring Sam back, and that with hindsight, yes, he could have done more, but hindsight was called that for a reason. Nobody could go back in time and change anything, so they would have to deal with it as best they could, and nobody was to blame. Ratchet found it strange that it was Ron and Judy, who had the most to lose, were the ones comforting him and telling him that he should do what could now for Sam, which was to keep Sam as heathy and pain-free as possible.

He reflected that after the battle, Sam had seemed somewhat traumatised mentally, which was only to be expected. Optimus had volunteered to help counsel the teen, and had, in fact, been doing a remarkably effective job. When Sam had called off one appointment in the second week, citing a cold or maybe 'flu, nobody thought anything of it.

It had been Bumblebee who, three weeks after Mission City, had noticed that Sam was looking pale, and noticed blotchy purple bruising on his arms, and he had immediately, over the teen's protests that it was 'probably nothing much' brought him to see Ratchet. Ratchet recalled the day, for he wished Bumblebee had found reason to bring him in much earlier.

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"What is it, Bumblebee?" Ratchet asked, as he walked into the medical bay with his young charge clasped in his hands.

"It's Sam, he doesn't look well and he has severe-looking bruising on his arms, I was wondering if you could make sure it's nothing serious," Bumblebee said.

"Aw, c'mon, Bee, I probably bashed myself up when I slipped a few days ago," Sam said. "We may be fragile, but we heal up okay from minor scrapes, in a couple of weeks there probably won't even be any sign they were there."

"Well, Sam, better to check, don't you think?" Ratchet asked, hiding his concern because Sam, to his eyes, didn't look as healthy and alert as usual. "How long have you had them?" He ran a scan as he talked to the human.

"Not sure, maybe a few days, or a week, remember them just being itchy and dry, but then they began to scab up," Sam said. As the results of his scans began returning, Ratchet gave a small jerk, his attention firmly on his scans.

His scans were reporting an increased heart, breathing, and perspiration rate, but that could have been the so called 'white coat syndrome' where humans were nervous in front of their doctor, which could occasionally skew results. This was not the area of concern, however, and Ratchet now thought that Sam looked healthier than he had any right to.

Sam's systems were chaotic. The biochemical readings Ratchet was receiving were those of someone who's biochemistry was balanced on a fine edge, but teetering towards greater instability? His blood system was showing signs Ratchet accessed the Internet to look up, and he felt his Spark flicker as he realised Sam's results were consistent with the early signs of aplastic anaemia, the 'bruises' were a form of internal haemorrhaging, and as for his digestive system, from top to bottom, the lining seemed to be breaking down inside.

"Sam, have you noticed any bleeding of the gums? Or blood from the rectum, or brown or black movements? Any pain?"

"Yeah, my gums have been bleeding for a bit now, and, um, yeah, I've had red blood from my bottom, and brown stuff that's not, you know, poop, and yes, it hurt, though it was worse immediately after the battle, I was going both ends if you know what I mean, guess it was the shock of the battle, Captain Lennox said puking and pooing were common amongst soldiers after fighting."

"I'm going to give you another kind of scan, Sam, hold still," Ratchet said as he scanned for energy and residual traces of certain types of energy. His results both did and did not surprise him.

"Sam, do you remember that the AllSpark, when it touched Megatron's dark-matter Spark, seemed to blow up in a controlled fashion?"

"Yeah, spectacular, but it seemed contained. Didn't you say that Megatron's Spark force field may have directed much of the blast back towards his Spark, shielding me but dooming him? I mean, my hands weren't burned, though I did get sunburned, even under my clothes!"

"Sam," Ratchet said, wishing he'd considered this before, "what you saw was only the parts of the explosion in the human visible light spectrum. More was emitted than what you saw and felt, and the Spark force field may not have been sufficient to protect you." He paused. "My scans suggest you are suffering from radiation sickness. I can treat you and there's a good possibility of survival, thankfully, your exposure level was not in the one hundred per cent lethal range, although death is still possible."

"I might die?" Sam said nervously.

"With our technology, we can reduce that risk to less than a five per cent chance," Ratchet said. At the time, he had believed it, had worked out how to make the necessary arrangements, and then he had got back the results of his other scan.

Sam had AllSpark energy inside him, and it was continuing to expose him to dangerous radiation, including one form that was unknown to most humans but still dangerous to his body. Oddly enough, Ratchet wondered if the energy still had some form of very basic consciousness, because in a Cybertronian, the emissions would be promoting healing and health. Unfortunately, organic tissues just became damaged, atrophied, and died. He could heal and mitigate the effects of the original exposure, but he could not stop the current exposure, and this ongoing irradiation would be likely to kill Sam. All Ratchet could do was to give palliative care, and pain relief.

Which is why they were here, two weeks on, watching Sam fade away. He was bed-bound, for the AllSpark radiation had atrophied his muscles and made his bones too fragile to support himself. He was propped up with pillows, and he moved his hand carefully to touch Judy's hand. She nearly startled, because his skin was so warm to the touch, which only meant one thing; he was about to drop into one of his sudden fevers again.

Ratchet could not explain the fevers. They came on suddenly, and in them, Sam seemed to hallucinate, having one-sided conversations. In one, he had been arguing with Miles about who had won a computer game, and in another one, he had told the recently-deceased Megatron exactly what he thought of him, which in less dire circumstances would have been highly amusing.

"I love you, Mum, Dad, and Bumblebee. Ratchet, I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, I thought it was nothing, and then that it would pass." He drew another breath as if to continue speaking, but then his skin flushed and his eyes rolled back in his head as he dropped limply against the mound of pillows propping him up; the fever Judy had felt building had struck.

Ratchet called for Cliffjumper to bring sheets and ice, and he put the sheets beside Sam's body, heaping ice cubes inside them and wrapping them up so Sam had ice either side to cool him down. As was usual during these episodes, Sam began having a one-sided conversation with himself.

"Hello?" A pause. "Who are you?" Obviously in this hallucination, he didn't know whoever he was talking to. There was a longer pause. "Really?" Pause. "Well, maybe I should apologise for what I did in Mission City." There was another long pause, during which Sam's breathing coarsened, and he began to sweat. Then "Yeah, I get that, but I guess we're too different. You're a life source for mechanical life, but death to life like me." Ratchet raised his head: it seemed Sam was this time hallucinating the AllSpark, and one that could talk, at that.

There was a pause so long that they thought that was it, and then Sam said "Really? You could?" There was another pause, and then "I guess, I wouldn't object, it's gonna be weird, but better than the alternative, right?" There was another long pause, and then Sam said. "Solves both our problems then, and I can do something for my friends." He relaxed, exhaled and inhaled, and then sat bolt upright with a shout of "Get back!", throwing his arms out in front of him. Ratchet heard bones crack at the unexpected violent movement, but he scooped Ron and Judy up in one arm and grabbed Bumblebee's shoulder and back-pedalled violently, his scanners whirring as Sam opened his eyes, which were blazing white-blue pools of light. Ron and Judy began to shout, wanting to know what was going on, but Ratchet tuned them out, focusing on Sam.

The next moment, Sam's body was engulfed in the same blue-white light, which Ratchet identified as AllSpark energy. He was surprised, he had thought the AllSpark was done with Sam, had thought the AllSpark gone for good. He was obviously wrong on both counts. He wondered at the conversation; had this one been not a hallucination, but a real conversation Sam had had, or was what he'd heard and what he was now witnessing not linked at all, the two happening one after the other just one massive coincidence? He briefly shook his head: coincidences like that were rarer than inexplicably linked events,

Tendrils of the light shot out from Sam, contacting metallic objects nearby; one touched Bumblebee, who was briefly haloed by the light, but then the light retreated from him and hit a stack of metal girders, which began to look as if they were dissolving. The other tendrils transferred to the girders, which began to visibly shrink and sag. After a short time, all the tendrils became re-absorbed into the light that occupied the space Sam had sat in. The light itself began to shrink and coalesce, and then disappeared, leaving a slender silver form where Sam had been. The figure groaned, rolled over, and sat up. Bumblebee and Ratchet, who had planned to check on Sam, took one look at him and were rendered speechless and motionless by what they saw.

"Well, that was different," the figure said, looking at the others. When there was no response, the figure blinked and looked at them again.

"Hi Mum, hi Dad, it's me, Sam." And then the figure addressed Bumblebee and Ratchet.

"What are you staring at?" A long, slender arm flourished at the body it was attached to.

"Haven't you ever seen a femme before?"

A/N: I feel I have written enough of these with a shocked/freaked out Sam, I wanted to write one where he's not too freaked out (though as you will see, he has dark thoughts about what it means later.) I will update this as and when I can: I have so many other stories clamouring for updates, I will have to do what I can when I can.

Any thoughts, ideas, or comments will be most welcome.