Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. All recognizable characters are the property of HasTak. All unrecognizable ones are the intellectual property of yours truly; their theft is punishable by severe voodoo-induced pain in any and all sensitive organs of the body, followed by eternal damnation.

Because, you know, stealing is wrong.

Title: Juxtaposition

Summary: Transformers AU. She saved his life... and did not even know it. A series of unrelated events results in an earth-shattering meeting between species, cultures, and minds that is merely the beginning of so very much more.

Rating: T

Warnings: Mild language and violence. Some possible mature themes. Other warnings will be posted on a chapter-to-chapter basis.

Author Notes: Yes, it's a dreaded OC, and I can't really bring myself to care. This is my 'for fun' story, my playtime in the Transformers universe. No guarantees on regular updates. I can say that I have quite a long plot ahead, and I'll try to make it as interesting as possible.

Mild revisions as of 7/8/17. Now cross-posted to AO3.

Transformers: Juxtaposition

Prologue

All of us are crazy in one way or another. -Yiddish proverb

"You say... that you've been hearing voices?"

The doctor was in his fifties, intelligent eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses and dark hair just beginning to gray at his temples. His pen moved across the notepad with a series of rapid sweeps and slashes that seemed unnaturally loud in the small office. Evelyn's eyes tracked the movement as though the pen were something small and poisonous that she would very much like to squish.

"Voice," she corrected with a tense sigh. "Singular."

"Voice," the doctor echoed. The pen skritch-skritched another note, and Evelyn glanced up at the wall clock: twenty more minutes until freedom. "You've been hearing a voice. Do you want to tell me about it?"

"A guy's voice. Sometimes it says stuff to me. Mostly it sounds like someone thinking out loud. Loudly. At length."

Skritch-skritch. "Does this voice tell you to do things?"

"No." She rubbed at the light medical glove that covered her right arm. "When I watch TV, sometimes it wants me to change the channel. It wants to watch Discovery."

The doctor sent her a strange look before recovering his normal air of placid neutrality. Skritch-skritch. "You... argue with it?"

"Not really. I like Discovery."

A pause. "Do you think that's significant?"

It was Evelyn's turn to give him a strange look. "Liking the Discovery Channel?"

"That you share the same interests."

"If watching documentaries gets it to shut up, I'm all for it."

The doctor took a moment to reread through his notes. "I see. Can you pinpoint a time when this first started?"

Evelyn touched the glove again, frowning. "Four months ago. I was in an accident."

Red and white and blue swirling and sparkling on falling rain. Sirens as a distant, annoying buzz and shadowed figures moving at the edges of vision. Metal looming to one side, crumpled red and black, and a tire beside her head, shredded. Cold water above and muddy grass below, fire in her arm, burning in her chest, shards of glass stabbing behind her eyes as voices called and hands prodded, and everything was confusion and pain, pain, pain...

"You mentioned that in your intake forms, I believe." The doctor flipped through her file and skimmed one of the sheets near the front. "April seventeenth, correct? Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Nothing much to tell." Evelyn uncrossed and crossed her legs, hiding a wince at the movement, smoothing a fold in her skirt and taking the opportunity to rub at her thigh. "The police say that someone T-boned my car at an intersection. Cracked some ribs, tore some muscles. Gave me this." She gestured at the glove. "I woke up in the hospital two weeks later."

"And that's when you first heard the voice?"

"It reamed me for taking so long to wake up and complained about being bored."

"I... see."

Skritch-skritch.

Evelyn tucked the prescription note into her purse and pulled out her sunglasses as the afternoon sunlight assaulted her eyes. She looked between the five short steps leading down to the parking lot and the long, roundabout wheelchair ramp. With a sigh, she made her careful, limping way down the latter, hand hovering over the metal handrail.

'Exactly how often are you planning on coming here?'

She pulled her keys from her purse with perhaps a little more force than was needed, jaw clenched as she scowled down at the cracked cement. A subdued-looking couple gave her an odd look as they passed her on the sidewalk, but she ignored them and continued into the parking lot.

'And you're ignoring me. How many times do I have to say I'm sorry? I didn't plan this, you know.'

The key grated into the lock of the battered, out-dated four-door that had taken the place of her much beloved and dearly missed Taurus. Sitting was a relief for her thigh even though the interior of the car was muggy as hell and twice as hot, and she turned on the engine and cranked the vents on high. After making the usual visual checks and fastening the seatbelt, she pulled out of the parking space.

'How do you organics stand this? It's like a smelting furnace in here, and you don't even have interior coolant systems.'

Evelyn sighed, braking at the exit of the parking lot. And mother wondered why I thought I was insane.

'You're not insane.'

"So says the voice in my head." She flicked on a turn signal and waited for a break in traffic, relieved when the air-conditioning finally began to blow cold.

'That's really rude, you know. You can't keep calling me "voice" forever. I told you my name.'

Giving you a name completely undermines my going to a psychiatrist to try to get rid of you. She waited for a dirty pickup to pass and pulled onto the street. Afternoon traffic was thin and mild in the downtown area of Mason but steadily thickened as she drew nearer to the main thoroughfare. I'm not having this conversation.

'You don't have to give me anything. I have a name. Come on, say it.'

Shut up. A left turn onto Broad Street, and then two blocks until Highway 19. She was abruptly facing the sun and pulled down the visor to shade her eyes.

'Say it! You know you want to. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! You can do it... One little word...'

It's not even a name. It's an accident, like the one I'm going to have if you don't shush! She signaled a lane change and slid into the turn lane outside the pharmacy parking lot. Cars whizzed by on both sides, and she darted quickly through a gap, scraping the undercarriage on the uneven pavement at the parking lot entrance. Finding a space was ridiculously easy in the near-empty lot.

'Say it and I'll be quiet.' The voice chortled like a little kid who knew that mommy was one please away from breaking. 'Say it, say it, say it!'

She climbed out of the car and slammed the door, digging into her purse for the prescription slip before she even neared the doors to the pharmacy.

"Shut up, Sideswipe."

End Prologue