*I don't own Transformers or anything affiliated with Transformers. I only own my original characters and plots. All rights go to Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.*

It was about nine in the morning, and I honestly had no clue why I was even up. Wait, yeah I did. During the night I had completely forgotten about my injured arm, and I wound up hitting it on my bedside table. It hurt like a bitch, so I've been up for the past three hours trying to find a way to take my mind off of the pain. Also, I was still stuck on everything Optimus said to me before we pulled into base yesterday, so I was up thinking about that as well. I still couldn't quite comprehend just what he meant by it all. I mean, why on Earth would he be so keen on protecting me? I know my dad asked him to, I know he did it out of the goodness of his heart or his spark or whatever, and I know that he's a bot of his word, but even so, he could've already passed me on to another Autobot. I know that if I were in his position I probably would have already done so. I mean, he's been watching over me for the past four months, and even a few months before that; I would have already gotten sick and tired of me by now, but he hasn't, and I'm quite confused about it.

Now, don't get me wrong. If Optimus were to just up and decide that he didn't want to be my guardian anymore, it would seriously devastate me; it would probably hurt me more than I could handle at this point. I've been with him for over a week, and he's been the only one there to take care of me and to keep me safe. He was the only source of comfort I knew at the moment, and without him I'd probably just fall back into the person I was over a week ago: lonely and on the verge of wanting to end her own life. Without him I would be nowhere, but that still didn't dismiss the questions of "Why hasn't he left yet?" or "Why was keeping me safe so important to him?". I wanted to know his reasons so badly, and I would definitely be asking him the next time I saw him.

A knock on my room door ripped me out of my thoughts, and I granted whoever it was access before even so much as thinking about who it could've been. It was probably Optimus though. He was the only one who ever came up here to see me or talk to me. If I did talk to any of the Autobots it was always downstairs in the hangar.

"Brenna," a deep, baritone voice echoed. It was Optimus, of course. I called it.

"In the kitchen." I was now thinking about what I had just said to myself not only ten seconds ago. Man, I hoped I had enough courage to do this.

The sound of footsteps coming into the kitchen caused me to look up from the granite countertop. Optimus's holoform strolled towards me and only stopped when he was facing me behind the counter. It was now or never.

"Please tell me what you meant when you were talking to me yesterday. I've been thinking about it all freakin' night, and it's driving me crazy," I blurted out. He seemed to be a bit startled by my sudden outburst. In all honesty, he was probably hoping that I would've forgotten, but I remember mostly everything. Everything important, anyway.

"Um, I do not believe I should speak with you about that particular issue just yet," he responded nervously. Wait, since when did Optimus freakin' Prime get nervous?

"Why? Why are you so nervous to talk to me about it? You're Optimus Prime. You can't be nervous," I remarked with a small laugh.

"I am not nervous, per se. I am just hesitant."

I groaned. This was a lot harder than I thought. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything to him in the first place.

"Why?" I whined.

He absentmindedly placed his hand over top of mine, and I calmed down almost immediately, but the fluttering in my stomach did not.

"Please listen. This is not an issue that needs to be discussed at this time, Brenna. There is far too much going on, and I do not need either of us to be distracted; I'm only doing this to protect us both. I do promise that I will inform you on the matter soon, though. It is nothing you need to worry about at the moment," he explained to me. I only heard half of it, considering the fact that I was so focused on the way his synthetic skin felt against my organic skin. It may sound incredibly weird to most people, but to me it just sounds right.

"O-okay," I stammered.

Optimus finally noticed his hand overlapping mine and quickly removed it before clearing his throat.

"I have actually come here to retrieve you," he said.

"For what?" I nearly whispered. I was still in a bit of a funk over the feeling I just received from his hand on mine.

"Lennox has requested to see you. He claims that he has some very important news to disclose with you regarding the files you found inside your home," he answered.

I just nodded and got up from my seat as carefully as I could without disturbing my injury. The pain was slowly seeping away and I was more than happy about that. Hopefully it would stay that way.

"How is your arm? Are you feeling well this morning?" Optimus asked as we walked out of the room. I hadn't even bothered to change my clothes. I was wearing a pair of black sweats, a long sleeve black shirt, and a pair of black Nike socks, and that's probably how I would remain the rest of the day.

"It's okay, and yeah, I guess. I was woken up by the pain, but it's kind of going away now," I told him.

"And was this pain caused by you punching a bedside table item in your sleep?" the Autobot leader chuckled. I may have left out one little detail; I punched my lamp out and almost ripped a stitch. That's the reason why I was in pain. I have very violent dreams sometimes. My question, though, was how could he possibly know that?

"Yes, but how did you know?"

"I tend to check up on you during the night to make sure you're resting well and not having nightmares. If I'm going to be completely honest, you worry me more during your slumber than when you're awake," he replied with a small smile. The fluttering in my stomach has now returned.

"Well, thank you. I really do mean that," I smiled. And I did mean it. I don't think I have to explain why either.

All Optimus did was smile in return, and soon enough we were headed into the conference room. Lennox and Epps were the only two soldiers in there, and I began wondering why until I sensed the heavy amount of emotion radiating off of them. There were too many coursing through their body at once, so I couldn't exactly figure out what exactly was wrong. I figured it had something to do with the three folders and the multiple papers scattered in front of them.

"Hello," I greeted the two of them.

"Good morning, Brenna. Good morning, Optimus," Lennox replied. He or Epps didn't even bother to look up from the table.

"What's the mater with you guys? You look very disturbed," I chuckled as I sat down at the table. The two of them finally looked up from their papers to look up at me.

"Well, we are," Lennox started before looking back down at the various papers.

"Care to tell me why?"

"Are you familiar with the state of Vermont?" Epps asked me this time.

"Yeah. My grandparents live up there, but I haven't been there in like six years. Why do you ask?" I furrowed my eyebrows. Why on earth would they be asking me about Vermont?

"Uh," Lennox started. He picked up a small, hard-cover notebook and slid it over to me. "That's for you."

I picked up the notebook and just flipped through the pages. I recognized the handwriting almost immediately; it was my dad's.

"What is this?"

"It's a notebook or a journal, whatever you like to call it. Your dad wrote it for you, and we shouldn't have read it, but we kinda had to," Lennox told me.

"He wrote down a lot of information, and he also wrote down just a lot of personal things. We tried our best to avoid those certain entries, but there's one that we couldn't avoid," Epps followed shortly.

I just gave the both of them questioning looks. They were confusing the living hell out of me.

"Turn to the final two pages and read them. There's some information in there that you may want to read. He definitely knew you were going to find this, Brenna," Epps told me.

I glanced over at Optimus, who was standing against the wall, and he gave me a slight nod. I just sighed and did as I was told. I began reading almost immediately, more than ready to find out what this information was. I just wasn't exactly ready for what I was about to read.

Brenna,

I know that you won't see this for a while, and who knows? You may not see it at all, but I have faith that you will. Now listen, I know these past few months have been incredibly difficult for you. I know how lonely you've been feeling, and I know how much pain that you're in, but I want you to know that it won't last forever, sweetheart. I promise you that. There's a perfectly good reason for this too. And you'll find out later on in this little note. But for now, I just wanna talk about how proud I am of you. You've handled this entire situation well, or at least from what I've heard and seen. You may not be handling yourself as well as I'd like you to, but when you meet Optimus I just know that you're going to feel one hundred times better than you do right now. He's one of a kind, Bree, so don't ever take him for granted. He does what he does for you out of the goodness of his spark, and that's mainly the reason I asked him to look after you in the first place. His dedication to helping the people he truly cares about is stupendous, and I wouldn't put your safety in the hands of anybody else. Now, I need to address a very important issue. I should have told you this the day the incident happened to keep some of your pain away, but I was incapacitated and you ran off so quickly. Now's a better time than ever, I guess. But, I'm okay, Bree. I'm more than okay, and I just want you to know that. I'm not dead. Between you and I (and Lennox, because I know that nosey bastard is gonna read this), I used this weird sleep paralysis on myself the day the Decepticons came for the family. I did to make it look like I had killed myself. I knew there was nothing I could do about your mom, Brandon, or Bella, and I wasn't going to leave you without your entire family. I know you must be confused at this point, but it's okay. I would be too. Just come to your Pop-Pop's and your Nana's house in Vermont, and I'll fix that confusion right up for you. I have to catch my flight now, but I will see you soon. I love you so much, Brenna.

P.S. I'm sorry for stalking you for the past two and a half months. It's a dad thing.

I couldn't help but laugh as I finished the long entry. It took me about five minutes to even finish reading it in the first place. My tears had become quite the obstacle for me throughout this entire entry. From the sad tears, to the memorable tears, and finally...to the increasingly happy tears. I finished reading it an entire thirty seconds ago, yet I still couldn't believe the words I had just read. I didn't even know whether or not I should believe it.

"Oh, my God. Is he really alive? Is he okay?" I cried.

"It appears so," Lennox assured me.

Just to reassure myself, I looked at the date he wrote the entry. It read May 13, which was just a little under a month ago.

I closed the notebook and put my head in my hands before letting out a loud, but happy, sob. I just couldn't believe that my dad, my best friend, was actually alive. It was like a weight had been lifted off my chest, and I just felt such an abundant amount of relief because of this new information.

"I can't believe this," I started. I got up immediately and turned around to look at Optimus who was still in his spot by the wall. I ran over and looked up at him before speaking. "Will you please take me to him? Please?"

He nodded. "Of course I will. If you want we can leave tonight."

I didn't even respond. I was just so happy at the moment, so I just engulfed Optimus is a bone crushing hug, not even bothering to worry about my injured arm. He was surprised at first, but after a few seconds he wrapped his arms around my small frame. The feeling of his arms wrapped around me, and the feeling of finding out that my dad's been alive this entire time just completely flushed every single bad emotion out of my body. This is the greatest I've felt in four months, and I honestly wouldn't want it any other way.