The Witch and the Robot (ABANDONED STORY)

Chapter 12 - The New Routine

Alice dreamt of home that night, dreaming that everything was as it should have been, that she had not been disrupted from her home and life before. When Alice woke up to the sound of loud metallic footfalls, she would turn in her cot and place her pillow over her head, trying to drown out the noise, though to no avail. She had gotten practically no sleep when there had been bots moving around, and to wake her with the truth so abruptly from such a nice dream was just rude. Realizing that she probably wasn't going to get much more sleep, as the bots seemed to be coming back from their vigil, Alice would shoot up in realization. She was missing school.

Alice would start putting together her bag before Ratchet would pipe up, having noticed her bustle. "And where do you think you're going?" He would ask as she tried to brush her hair at least so she could make it there on time, morning breath be damned.

Alice would stop for a moment, slowly starting to wonder if she was even allowed to go to school anymore, which would be a bummer if she couldn't, as she was so close to graduating. "Getting ready for school?" Alice said with a questioning tone, not to imply that Ratchet couldn't observe that, but more as if she was indirectly asking if she was allowed.

Ratchet would look back to his monitor before him, having just woken up himself, and would pinch between his eyes for a moment. "I don't think you're allowed to go, Alice. Agent fowler said specifically to keep you under constant observation, meaning someone would have to sit outside the school, you would need to have an active comm link on you that I would have to waste my time monitoring it and your location." Ratchet complained some, shaking his helm at her for wanting him to do some extra work for education he thought was somewhat useless.

"Oh come on, I'm so close to graduating. I'm not going to let this little bump in my life get in the way of my future! I want to go to college for marketing so I can open up my own store for witchcraft supplies one day, and I'm not going to let you not wanting to listen in on my conversations and lessons, and occasionally having to make sure I'm still at the school, get in the way of that." Alice protested as a couple of the other bots looked on. Alice had a point, and education seemed to be important to humans for the sake of their future. They weren't at war like they were.

"Activate your comm and leave it on. If you turn it off, I'll have to interrupt your lessons to call you back. But I'll take you." Arcee would pipe up out of nowhere, it would be odd if someone saw her missing from the school anyway, and afterwards Alice could catch a ride back with Bee like she usually did. Ratchet however was about to protest, that she needed to be under constant observation, and that it would only count really as partial, Arcee would roll her eyes some at the medic. "Education is severely important to human lives, so unless Fowler can grant her a graduation, or whatever it's called, or we plan on taking her to cybertron with us when this is all over, she's going to need some kind of plan for her future here on earth." Arcee would argue, having heard many conversations between Jack and his mother, June, on the matter of education, and having spoken with Jack on it too, she and Bumblebee probably understood it the best.

"I'll make sure my link stays on, things just might get muffled but I'll do my best. I do have to put my phone away for some classes, so it will have to be in my bag, or I'll get in trouble and it will get taken away. I'll even sit near the window in every class so that Arcee can see me if she drives past." Alice tried to assure Ratchet, who looked like he wanted to argue more on the matter, but dropped it after a stern look from Arcee that mildly suggested that they could take it up with Optimus later.

As much as Alice hated motorcycles, she would get ready rather fast and Arcee would drive her to school, where she would dart inside to get to class, even though she was already late. She was only a few months away from graduation, and she wasn't going to let Fowler get in the way of it. Alice did as she said she would, keeping her phone on and the call active so no rules were being broken and sitting near the windows, though back at base, when Optimus woke up, he would look around for his charge, wondering where she had gone off to. He knew she couldn't have gone far on foot, nor would she have left so much of her stuff here if she had gone.

"Ratchet, where has Alice gone?" Optimus would ask his medic, only to hear the comm link active and note Arcee was missing. He could hear what sounded like a human lesson going on, and for a moment, thought Ratchet had actually taken an interest in learning human ways, only to see that he had Alice's comm active.

"She's at school, Arcee is monitoring her through the windows and she has her comm link constantly active. She insisted on going, not wanting Agent Fowler messing up her future, whatever that's supposed to mean." Ratchet grumbled, shaking his helm while he tried to get some work done despite the unrelated, very basic lesson going on in the background. Optimus would smile a little at Ratchet, happy that in his absence, the rather hardened medic had made a compromise for someone else's benefit. He knew that Ratchet was capable of such things, it was just unfortunately a rare occurrence since the war began.