#TFFicPartner

[starsheild]

Partner: Part 3

"Officer Prowl?"

The woman voice was hesitant, and she maintained a very healthy distance from the silent police cruiser parked at the end of the line-up.

Prowl scanned her instantly. "'Good evening ma'am. Is there something I can do for you?"

The woman shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable with speaking to someone that she didn't know was and to her mind coudn't really see as person. "The chief said not to bother you with this, but I know this isn't usual. Well, as much as anyone can know anything about Officer Hunter, I guess."

Prowl waited quietly, not wanting to scare the woman off. Prowl knew that Sierra didn't have a lot of friends. She refused to get involved with any of her coworkers on anything more than a professional level, and they as a whole seemed to know very little about her personal life. He listened, when they talked around him, since so many of them forgot that he was more than he appeared.

"Today is her day off. She takes the same day every year. It's the only day she insists on having off." The woman was rambling, but Prowl wasn't about to stop her. He was learning things that he should know about his partner. "They wanted to call her in today to cover someone else shift and she's not answering her phones. The chief said she's fine but…"

"Thank you. I will go check on her."

The woman nodded, and Prowl called after her, by name. She jumped in place, turning to eye him very warily. "Thank you. Officer Hunter needs far more help than she is willing to admit."

Relaxing, the woman nodded in agreement, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder and making her way quickly out of the garage.

Prowl waited until she was far enough that he would not disturb her by following her out. The woman had obviously stepped very far out of her comfort zone, and ignored an implication, if not an order, to not share this. There was no reason to make her more uncomfortable.

Prowl rolled from the garage and headed along the familiar route to Sierra's apartment. He would check there first.

The apartment was dark and empty, Prowl didn't even need to scan very thoroughly. So he sat quietly outside of the building, working through what he knew of Sierra. She rarely spoke of doing anything outside of work. He knew where she usually got her groceries- more than once Prowl had stopped at a small local supermarket on the way to drop her off at night, but there was no way she would have spent a whole day there.

Coffee. There was a coffee shop where she liked to stop when they were working on a difficult case or she just felt like they were going to have a difficult shift ahead of them.

The first time she had predicted a difficult shift Prowl had told her that it was illogical. There was no way that she could know when one shift was going to be any more busy then the other, not when there was no constant, defining pattern to her feelings.

After the third time she was correct Prowl had just started pulling into the parking lot, ignoring the small, familiar laugh in the back of his processor that he could never hear again. The friendly laugh of a mech long gone.

Prowl cruised the parking lot, but there was no sign of his human partner anywhere, and as he turned back out on the main street he considered other possibilities. He knew where the other officers went when they were off duty. None of those places were places he could imagine Sierra frequenting. Except…

Making a smooth and completely legal u-turn Prowl headed for the other side of town.

The sun was setting by the time Prowl pulled into the largest local metro park. Families were packing, preparing to be gone by closing time, and Prowl slowed down carefully, aware of the unpredictability of human younglings. His spark hummed happily as the some of the children waved at him, and for a moment he felt slightly empty.

Sierra always waved back to the children, sometimes even stopping to talk to them for a few minutes when they were not busy. This park was one of their usual patrols, and he had almost forgotten her comments about how pretty it was and how nice of a place it was to go for a run.

There was a small lot and a shelter deep in the park. They had stopped there one day for Sierra to take her lunch break, and even Prowl had to admit that the view in early spring, with all of the flowering trees in bloom, was worthy of study.

He pulled into the lot, and on the surface the place looked just as abandoned as it was supposed to be. But even if they didn't know much about each other beyond a professional level, they knew each other very well on a professional level.

"Prowl."

"You always know that it is me." Prowl commented, slightly amused and very relieved to have found her.

"Sorry to disappoint, but you still don't have the engine sound down right."

Prowl stopped behind the boulder she was sitting on, going quiet. "That is good to know."

"I hate cars."