Yellow Ribbon - Chapter 10 of 11
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Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9
Ratchet - Last Chance
The humans had a saying ‘A week is a long time in politics’. It confused Ratchet the first time he heard it. Few things on Cybertron moved slower than Senatorial wrangling, and even amongst less exalted mechs, a human week - a mere half-orn - wouldn’t be considered enough time to properly assess most situations, let alone act on them.
As a medic, Ratchet was used to thinking a little faster than that, but even so medical conditions tended to divide straightforwardly between those over and done with in a matter of breems and those he could take a few orns to think over. Before coming to Earth, he’d have had no hesitation in assigning this case to the latter category. After all, Jazz and Prowl were safely home and every mech on the Ark knew who they were, on paper at least. The Autobots were soldiers, their officers’ orders would be honoured, the mechs themselves offered due courtesy even if respect, trust and friendship would take rather longer to follow.
But Earth changed all of that. Here on Earth the weather, the wildlife, their human friends - all could change in a spark-beat. Even the Decepticons seemed infected by that urgency, their skirmish rate rising noticeably. There was no way the Autobots could avoid its effects. Two years of living every minute had done more to bond this crew into a close and interdependent fighting team than the dozen vorns that went beforehand. There was a level of trust between members of the Ark crew that Ratchet had rarely seen, and only then between brothers or life-long friends.
The pace of life here, the immediacy and urgency with which humans lived their lives, had changed them all. It had reshaped colleagues into friends, and friends into family.
Jazz and Prowl should have had that family’s support to bring them back from the trauma of their capture and mistreatment. Instead they’d had not only been robbed of the deep trust they’d come to expect, but were confronted daily by a cruel mockery of it. Within an Earth week the mistrust and doubt they faced had been reflected back in a growing insularity, depression and paranoia, the speed of their decline understandable to the Earth-based medic where it would have baffled a Cybertronian doctor.
Ratchet dreaded to think just how far it might have gone without Smokescreen. The mech had been working no fewer than three distinct jobs in the seven days since he was roused from stasis. Each and every day, he’d pull a full shift in the tactical office, effectively become Prowl and Jazz’s liaison to their Prime and their own crew. That much everyone knew. No one but Prime knew he’d also spend near an hour beyond that closeted with Ratchet, and few mechs appreciated the work he put in during long evenings coordinating the ‘leisure activity’ he’d so carefully orchestrated.
No wonder Smokey was looking tired.
Ratchet shook his head, venting out a sigh as a shadow fell across his doorway. End of the first rotation. The psychologist was right on time for their unofficial and unadvertised daily conversation. For a change, Ratchet was looking forward to this one. But first, while he was on the topic of Smokescreen’s pet project…
“I swear, Smokescreen, if one more mech knocks himself out on a low-hanging stalactite, I’ll put a dent in your helm myself,” Ratchet grumbled, hefting his favourite wrench and fixing the younger mech with a malevolent gaze.
“All in a good cause, Doc. All in a good cause.” Smokescreen shrugged, leaning against the doorframe for a few klicks before slipping further into the room and letting the door slide closed behind him. His disarming grin slid off the medic’s armoured plating, and he changed tactics, schooling his face into a serious look. “I mean, the volcano and these caves are in our back yard, and you guys hadn’t done more than take a quick look around and block a few of the bigger tunnels. That’s a big tactical problem right there. The project had to be done sooner or later.”
Ratchet didn’t bother to repeat Red Alert’s offended observation that the volcano was so far within the Autobots’ outer, median and inner perimeters that the battle would be lost by the time any Decepticon reached it. No one, Smokescreen included, was taking his insistence on a ‘proper’ survey of the Ark/volcano cave system at face value. For most of the mechs it was just a fun challenge to fill their downtime. For the more perceptive officers, it was obvious Smokescreen had an ulterior motive. Ratchet dreaded to think what Jazz and Prowl thought, or how much extra paperwork the frequent caving incidents were generating for the pair of them.
The medic just shook his head. Turning away, he reached for his tools and inspected them for damage, before he laid them down and set to work clearing up the last detritus of that afternoon’s self-inflicted rock-fall fiasco. “Have Beachcomber and Hoist worked out what went wrong yet?”
Now Smokescreen’s shrug turned rueful. He rubbed a hand over his yellow chevron before drawing it down his face. “The usual - a weak stratum, inadequate shoring and a mech who didn’t think through the consequences. Seriously, whose idea was it to give Sideswipe of all mechs a pile driver? I mean… Sideswipe?”
Ratchet couldn’t help responding to Smokescreen’s helpless little smile with one of his own. “If you ever find out, by all means let me know. I’ve got a special wrench waiting just for them.”
A tension drained from the conversation. As much as Ratchet hated patching up the crew, and the Lamborghini twins in particular, and as grumpy as it left him, there was no point in railing at Smokescreen for the twin’s antics. Besides, he grudgingly had to admit, the Ark-wide spelunking kick was serving its purpose - or purposes rather.
He cocked a brow ridge, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s quiet in the Rec Room these days. No one wants to be sitting around while everyone’s busy.”
It meant less time for the mechs to brood, less pressure and fewer eyes on their isolated officers, and that had been pretty much top of the list of priorities the psychologist presented Ratchet with almost a week ago. It was good progress. Ratchet managed a flicker of a smile as he went on.
“Pretty much the only folks I see in there most days are Chip and Prowl poring over their chessboard.”
The return of the humans was Smokey’s doing too. Spike, Chip and Sparkplug were more than happy to renew their acquaintance with the Ark, and the easy enthusiasm with which they’d greeted Jazz and Prowl had caught the attention of more than a few mechs.
Smokey grinned. “I’m not surprised those two get along.” He shrugged, aware that he was in the minority in that opinion. “Prowl looks hard sometimes, but he’s got a soft spot for folks who are willing to push themselves, willing to put their best into something, even if they’re far from guaranteed a win.”
“So…” Ratchet let the word stretch out, willing to let his junior take the lead for now.
“Yeah.” Smokescreen’s lip-plates quirk into a tired smile, open relief in his expression. “It’s working out pretty well. Everyone’s really starting to get into the cave thing, Ratch.” Smokey paused dramatically. “Even Jazz wondered down to pitch in on his day off today.” It was a breakthrough, on more levels than one. “Guess ‘Comber and Hoist talked him into it - Hoist paired him up with Hound, apparently, and sent them off with a map and instructions before first shift. No one’s seen them since.”
Ratchet leaned back against his work bench, tilting his head a little uncertainly. Smokescreen waved off the mild concern.
“Neither of those mechs could get lost if they tried.” He chuckled. “‘Comber called the tactical office just before I came down, getting a bit nervous. Prowl told him there’s a forty-two percent chance Hound found a new life-form to study in one of the underground streams, and fifty-six percent that Jazz found an echo he liked and is too busy experimenting with his speakers and music to head on home.”
“And the last two percent?”
“Limb-rending injury, processor damage, destruction and deactivation,” Smokescreen grinned. “With Decepticons as an outside bet, whatever Red wants to think. But Prowl didn’t seem worried, and that’s good enough for me.” He vented, the air humming out between his denta. “He kind of mentioned that it might be worth reviving Blaster, to see if we can do anything about communications through all this rock.”
Ratchet’s eyebrows rose. “It’s a logical step,” he noted. Just as reviving geologist Beachcomber and structural engineer Hoist had been logical when starting the cave survey, and just as Smokescreen himself had been a logical backup for the tactical office. It had nothing to do with the fact that Prime’s lieutenants were doing far better with even a small complement of mechs who knew, liked and trusted them around. Or that those same amiable mechs were lending the rest of the crew a reassuring calm in the presence of their officers. Nothing at all.
“Yeah.” Smokescreen hesitated. He cycled his vents, letting his casual mask drop. “Seriously, Ratch, it’s worth thinking about. Jazz has always been a sociable mech and this isolation’s not good for him. What we’ve got going here - it’s a good start, but that’s all it is. Adding another friendly face to the mix has got to be a good thing, and Jazz and Blaster always got on well - as Prowl knows full well.”
The two mechs’ eyes met, an acknowledgement of the still-serious situation there in their gaze. Ratchet broke off first.
“Worth thinking about…” Ratchet’s vents cycled quickly. He reached behind him for a datapad lying on the work-bench. He’d been looking forward to telling Smokescreen about this all day, even if his gruff demeanour gave away no sign of his excitement. “…if this doesn’t work.”
Smokescreen’s vents stalled. The psychologist had been in the process of pushing himself up to perch on a med-berth. He slipped back onto his pedes, optics burning, his hands reaching out as if grasping something tangible rather than a mere concept.
“You’ve found it? A cure?”
The sheer intensity of the question set Ratchet aback, literally. He retreated a step, frowning.
“Wheeljack finally tracked down the key code lines,” he allowed. He snorted, shaking his head. “A problem that could’ve taken us vorns and ‘Jack turns around mid-afternoon with “Hey, well will’ya look at that?” as if he’s just noticed a mech with a new paint job!”
“Ratch…” Smokescreen pressed, groaning as the medic paused.
“I’ve spent the last few days re-engineering the virus to retrace its steps, and only its own steps. Everywhere the old code deleted a memory from the registry, this one will recover whatever it can of the data.”
“And it works? It’s ready to go?”
Ratchet frowned at his subordinate, surprised by the urgency in his voice and the tremble in his usually-rigid blue door-wings.
“It won’t be a hundred percent. Any of the dormant memory that’s been overwritten in the last month is probably gone for good, but the bulk of it… Yes, it should work. It’ll take a while to process through the crew, of course. When it comes to it, we should probably stagger the process so only off-duty crew are infected with the modified virus at any time. But another week or two of testing and - ”
“Weeks?” Smokescreen’s expression shut down, his hostility tangible and thoroughly confusing. Ratchet had expected Smokey to be pleased, or relieved at the very least, not fuming with suppressed fury. “Slag it, Ratch! You didn’t mention this yesterday, or the day before. I know slagging well that you wouldn’t have told me now if you weren’t already pretty damn sure!”
“The standard tests for a new virus - ”
“Standard tests.” The psychologist gave a hollow laugh, shaking his head. “And if it was Prime in this situation? If it was Wheeljack, or Ironhide, waiting for your verdict on a matter of life and death, you’d keep them waiting while you ran the ‘standard tests’? A set of antiquated procedures, dictated by some ancient medic in the Academy’s crystal towers, while the Golden Age shone around them?”
Ratchet found himself backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively. Smokescreen’s door-wings were held high now, quivering with his rage. His anger was blended with a fear that suggested the younger mech had been sandbagging all along, hiding the worst of his concern even from Ratchet. Flummoxed, the medic seized on the most emotive of his junior’s words.
“Life and death? Okay, so they’re not happy, but Jazz and Prowl…”
“Slag it to the Pit, Doc. Another few orns and they might stop jumping out of their plating here on the Ark. A year, and I might just persuade the rest of the crew to stop looking at them like unwelcome intruders. Maybe, just maybe, if I persist for long enough, I’ll eventually persuade Prowl to attend the officers-only poker games I have in mind and start to build bridges there. There’s even an outside chance I can talk Red Alert and Prime into coming along too. Given, oh, a vorn or two, Jazz and Prowl are in with a chance of earning back the trust and respect they deserve. Even then it won’t be the same. They’ll never get back the lives they lost.”
Smokescreen had flung up his hands as he talked, turning to pace the Medbay. Ratchet vented out, glad of the room.
“I’m talking about a couple of weeks here, Smokescreen. I hardly think…”
“Do you think the Decepticons are going to give Jazz and Prowl a vorn?” Smokescreen went on as if Ratchet hadn’t spoken and then stopped, looking at him seriously. “Do you think they’ll even give us a few days?” He broke eye-contact, turning back to his pacing. “I’ve looked over the tactical logs, Ratchet, and, okay, Jazz, Bee and Mirage left them licking their wounds, but quite honestly, given the frequency of attacks here on Earth, I expected to hear from them already. Prowl thinks they’ll be on the offensive within the next seventy-two hours, and I’m not second guessing him, no matter how much Prime wants me to. The chances of Megatron and Starscream leaving us alone for another two weeks? Well, I like a long shot, but those are odds even I wouldn’t take.”
Smokescreen spun back around, glaring. “Just how long do you think our officers will last in battle? It’s all very well for Prime to stick to his ‘pretend it’s not a problem and it’ll work out fine’ policy and give them back their ranks - Primus knows, it’s just about the only thing keeping them sane! - but being told someone is trustworthy, and believing it, processor and spark, when it matters…? They’re very different things. Tell me, Ratch, in the heat of battle, with a dozen voices shouting out warnings and instructions, would you take the word of Prowl, who you’ve known for dozens of kilovorn, over, say, Bumblebee or Inferno who joined this crew barely a decavorn ago?”
The younger mech shook his head, door-wings drooping. “Jazz is Special Ops. It’s his job to be where no one expects him, doing dangerous things, and he can’t do that if he can’t rely on his backup or the battle-plan they’re acting on. The last thing he needs - likely the last thing he’ll ever see - is some trigger-happy Autobot acting on instinct when an unfamiliar saboteur appears out of the blue.”
Ratchet couldn’t hide his wince, or pretend, even to himself, that the scenario was unlikely. Smokescreen ignored him, his projections pounding out of him with a relentless brutality.
“Prowl’s strategies rely on nanoklick responses, on total trust and total commitment. Do you think he’ll get that? How long before Sideswipe and Sunstreaker throw orders out of the window and break rank? How long before some of the mini-bots decide they can do better and set out on their own? When Optimus gets a chance to grapple Megatron, do you think he’ll even notice he’s leaving a pair of mechs he doesn’t know exposed? Would Ironhide guard their flank when there are a dozen warriors he cares about embroiled in a melee in front of him? Jazz and Prowl are going to end up watching each other’s backs through sheer necessity, and that’ll leave them both open, both vulnerable. We already know they’re sure as the Pit both targets.”
The shake of Ratchet’s head wasn’t denial, but rather dismay. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Trailbreaker and I are tacticians too, Ratchet. We’re not as good as Prowl, not nearly as good, but we’ve talked it over and neither of us is happy with Prowl and Jazz being on battle duty right now.”
“But… Prowl has to know that, right?”
“Ops know it too. Bumblebee says Jazz hasn’t even tried to suggest a Special Ops tac-outline for our battle projections. He knows damn well that Bumblebee and Mirage can’t function as an Ops team without being a hundred percent, unfailingly sure of their leader, and has already told them to count him out rather than risk throwing them off stride. He’ll improvise and back them to the hilt, whether they anticipate it or not, but he’s not counting on them to return the favour. He’ll have told Prowl that.”
Smokescreen shook his head. “But they’re not going to back off.” His fist slammed down into the open palm of his other hand. “They could have walked away, left the Ark, found a way back to Cybertron even. They’re good enough to make it work. But they’re not going to let the Decepticons have that victory. More than that: they’d never forgive themselves if someone fell in battle because they weren’t there, any more than you or Optimus would. They’re going into this with their eyes open, throwing the dice and waiting to see how it lands. They know just how slim their chances are.” Smokescreen looked down at his hands for a few moments in silence, before looking back up, his gaze sombre. “And I’m not sure they care. Ratch, if you’d just been torn apart, physically and mentally… if you were grieving a lifetime worth of friendships, haunted by what you’ve lost, knowing it’ll take another lifetime to even come close to what you had… wouldn’t you err on the reckless side too?”
Ratchet’s vocalisor whirred, trying twice to speak before his processor cleared enough to give it proper instructions. His systems ran cold. He looked down at the data-pad in his hand, its access port open and ready.
His companion followed his glance, shaking his head. Smokescreen hesitated, catching Ratchet’s optics before pressing on relentlessly. “Doc, be honest with yourself. If you had a nanoklick to choose between patients, with no choice a good one and a member of the Ark crew on your right, would you ever turn left to treat Prowl instead?”
He paused, letting that sink in.
“If it was Optimus or Ironhide in the Decepticon’s sights, fighting their way back to sanity, with battle imminent, their life on the line and even the chance of salvation being gradually eroded away, would you make them wait while you ran the ‘standard tests’ ad infinitum?”
The psychologist folded his arms, optics intent and expression grim.
“I’m sorry, Ratchet. Sorry for not talking this through with you before, but until you can answer those questions truthfully and without hesitation, you’re just another part of the problem. My patients deserve better.”
The Pit of the thing, the slagging Pit of it, was that Smokescreen was completely, a hundred percent, right.
There was a whir of servos in the quiet of Medbay. A panel slid aside on the medic’s arm, a cable snaking out and towards the data-pad without further hesitation.
“If this doesn’t work, you’ll need to call Wheeljack back here. He’ll - ”
Smokescreen’s optics brightened in alarm. He stepped forward, catching Ratchet’s arm. “Whoa! I said two weeks was unnecessary and too long. I didn’t mean you had to - ”
“You were right,” Ratchet interrupted simply. He looked down at the data-pad, certain for the first time in weeks what he had to do. “I’m ‘pretty damn sure’. It’s passed all the initial tests and half the advanced ones already. The standard test sequence is a formality, a safety net to catch mistakes. Wheeljack and I have taken this thing apart and put it back together again line by line over the last orn. There’re no mistakes. I’d stake my processor on it.” He paused venting a heavy sigh. If he didn’t trust his own systems to this, there was no chance he’d try it on anyone else. “I will stake my processor. Jazz and Prowl deserve that much.”
He completed the data connection before Smokescreen could dissuade him, assuming the mech would even try. Already he could feel the alien code fighting his medic-grade firewalls, the sensation making him queasy and a little unsteady on his feet.
“Ratch?” Again, Smokescreen caught his arm, for support this time. “Talk to me, Doc. Is this normal? How long will it take?”
Ratchet managed a nod, waving his free arm vaguely as Smokescreen helped him up onto a med berth. “Few breems,” he gasped, leaning back on the berth and powering down his optics to block out the unwanted stimulus.
He lost track of time after that, the viral worm taking all his attention as it logged recovered data file after recovered data file with his central registry. His systems stilled, his processor working through a partial reboot in order to reinitialise his memory algorithms with the new data.
He was feeling kind of odd, light-headed and heavy with knowledge all at the same time, when he became aware of his surroundings once again. His optics cycled sluggishly before fading to darkness once more. It could have been hours since he accepted the infection or mere nanoklicks for all Ratchet knew. Time had no meaning compared to the thick weight in his processor.
Someone was moving beside him, pacing. The movement broke off, replaced by a vehement profanity and a worried voice.
“Slag it! Smokescreen to Wheeljack: I need you in Medbay, now!”
“Smokescreen?” Ratchet blinked, rebooting his optics to bring the blue mech into view. “What…?”
He broke off, frowning, suddenly aware of the urgent realisations fighting for his attention. Optics faded, his attention turning inwards once again. Memories streamed past. At first it was just one or two, chance meetings, a lop-sided smile here, a twitch of door-wings there. Then more, a lifetime of them, the sheer magnitude of what he’d almost lost overwhelming. And then, finally, a smaller, more recent set of memories trickled into his helm, coloured by different emotions, a different perception entirely, to the flood that came before. His spark stuttered as his processor reinterpreted those last memories in a new context. The medical detachment he’d felt towards his patients, the professional curiosity and interest, shattered. His vents stalled, a creeping horror and desperate anxiety fighting for superiority.
A hand thumped his back, hard, retriggering his vents, before dropping to his shoulder.
“Ratch?” Wheeljack’s concerned voice and gentle touch broke Ratchet free of his tortured memories. “Primus, Ratch! What were you thinking?” There was a peculiar irony in hearing Wheeljack of all mechs scold him for his impulsive action. Rachet was in no condition to appreciate it. “Talk to me, Ratchet. I need you to tell me what’s happening.”
Ratchet realised his face had dropped into his hands. He lifted it with an effort, looking up into his friend’s blast-mask.
“Frag!” he swore, putting all his horror and dismay into the word.
A tingle ran through him - Wheeljack’s inbuilt scanner - and the engineer glanced up at the medical readouts above the berth before looking back down at Ratchet. He hummed thoughtfully, head tilted to one side. “The new virus works?”
“It… it did.” Ratchet pushed himself upright, aware of Wheeljack steadying him on one side and Smokescreen on the other. “The things we put them through!” Ratchet shook his head, still fighting the bitter realisation. Wheeljack was giving his old friend a concerned look, surprised by the strength of his reaction. Ratchet could only stare at him, unable to articulate the shame and distress that Wheeljack himself would feel soon enough.
Smokescreen’s grip on his arm tightened, the psychologist still worried and not entirely sure that all was happening as it should. Ratchet shook his helm, trying to clear it, as if he could shake the last few memories back into place. He looked up at Smokescreen, at the familiar door-winged silhouette, and felt an urgent need to confirm with his own eyes that Jazz and Prowl were safe back, that his friends were coping and that they hadn’t thrown their lives away in some skirmish out of simple despair. “Where are…? No.”
No there was something more important. Something he needed to do for his fellow officers that they’d appreciate far more than a rough embrace from their medic. Ratchet reached for his internal com.
“Prime,” he snapped. “Get your aft down to Medbay! Now!”
Wheeljack managed to reboot a full minute before Optimus Prime. The engineer shook his head, lost for words, his head-fins flashing a sickly grey in shock and distress. Ratchet steadied his friend, understanding the strong emotion roiling through him. He still felt it deep in his own tank.
Jazz and Prowl had been through the Pit in the past two orns. Worse, they were still trapped there, devoid of the support of those closest to them. Ratchet’s processor had known it, but on an emotional level he hadn’t felt anything but a mild intellectual concern. Now his spark cried out for his friends, his family, and the abstract concern had been replaced by a turmoil that mixed horror, pity, deep anxiety and more than a little shame. He’d thought he was a better mech than this. Now he knew the truth all he could do was try to be the best friend possible to Prowl and Jazz.
And that meant pulling Prime through this. If guilt was troubling Ratchet, and apparently Wheeljack too, then it must be near crippling Optimus.
“Prime?”
The big mech blinked up at Medbay’s orange ceiling, his optics unfocused, his battle mask hiding his expression but not the tension wracking his body. “I… I ignored them, set them aside… I didn’t… couldn’t trust them with the lives of my… I didn’t see…”
Smokescreen was at his Prime’s elbow. The younger mech gave a decidedly inappropriate snigger.
“Gee, and there I had credits on ‘It’s all my fault’.”
Optimus’s cycle of blame and self-loathing broke into irritation. The dazed expression on his hard-to-read face morphed into a frown of disapproval. He pushed himself up to sit on the berth, glaring at Smokescreen, although whether for the gentle sarcasm or the implicit gambling was hard to tell. The diversionary tactician gazed back at him without apology, distraction accomplished and expression becoming serious.
“Optimus, there was nothing you could have done about this,” Smokescreen said, with more apparent calm than anyone else in the room felt. “It wasn’t your fault, and sure, that’s not going to stop you feeling guilty as the Pit. You can brood later, but you’ve got something more important to do. What matters is making sure Jazz and Prowl know it’s over.”
He shook his head, folding his arms across his chest, door-wings flaring.
“Slag it, Prime. Your second and third are doing an impossible job, holding on to their authority through force of will alone. The crew are tense and confused. No one’s going to cope with you falling to pieces right now - Prowl and Jazz least of all.”
Optimus cycled his optics and then his vents, unable to hide his dismay. He sat in silence for a long moment, searching for calm, before nodding. “I’ll go to them now.” His deep voice rumbled with tightly-controlled emotion, his optics dimming as he looked up at Ratchet. “Where…?”
The soft whir of motors caught every mech present by surprise. The door slid aside on the whisper of sound, leaving two familiar black and white forms framed on the threshold.
“Really, Prowler, I don’t need…”
Prowl’s level voice cut across Jazz’s protest, firm and just a touch amused. “I imagine Smokescreen is still engaged in his daily conference with Ratchet. We can let him know Hoist has asked for him, and allow Ratchet to assess your scrapes at the same time.”
Jazz, paint scuffed and marked with the dull orange streaks that suggested a close encounter with the local geology, opened his mouth to answer and froze.
Ratchet imagined that they made for a startling sight: Optimus Prime seated on a berth with Smokescreen close beside him, Wheeljack and Ratchet standing by another berth and both looking a little ill. Certainly the fleeting, barely-there expressions crossing Prowl’s face made for interesting reading.
Surprise first, and confusion. Concern for whatever troubled Optimus, followed rapidly by pain and resignation as he realised that, as a near-total stranger, it wasn’t his place to ask. Deeper melancholy as he glanced away from the senior mechs in the room, neither seeking nor accepting eye contact, and resentment as his gaze came to rest on Smokescreen and he reassessed the assembly not as a medical check-up but rather as a conference centred on the psychologist and his current subjects.
The second in command’s expression shut down, smoothing out into a neutral mask as he nodded an acknowledgement to his Prime. His wings flared from a low droop at his back to stand erect above him, and he angled his body, putting the wall behind him, insofar as possible while moving closer to Jazz.
The saboteur was harder to read. His expression never changed, fixed in an amiable smile, and his visor obscured the focus of his optics. His head moved infinitesimally, letting that concealed gaze sweep the room. It took a trained eye to realise that his attention had moved from Smokescreen to Optimus, his body tensing as he reached the conclusion that he’d been under discussion. His posture changed, his limbs relaxing into a deadly readiness he usually reserved for the training mat or battlefield. A small bounce on the soles of his pedes loosened the cables in his legs and moved him closer to and slightly in front of Prowl, compromising his ready stance for the sake of mutual protection and comfort.
So defensive! So much pain and emotion from them both, and most of it visible only to those who knew them best. Friend or not, most of what Ratchet saw would be passing over Wheeljack’s head, and even Smokescreen wouldn’t be getting more than the general gist. Prime saw it all though, his optics dimming. Like Ratchet, he’d been learning to read these two mechs long before the human race was a spark in the eyes of its deity.
Like Ratchet’s, his expression was one of pure, spark-broken empathy.
Prowl noticed it first, his door-wings slumping a little from their defensive display posture as he tried to make out the thick atmosphere of the room.
“Optimus?” he queried, a faint frown starting to gather on his brow.
“Primus!” Wheeljack’s exclamation shattered the silence. The green and white engineer rushed forward, catching Jazz in a tight embrace as he let loose an apologetic babble that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from Bluestreak.
The analytical part of Ratchet took a moment to appreciate the control Jazz had over his instincts and the fact that he’d managed not to disable, kill, or otherwise incapacitate their best engineer. Then Jazz slipped Wheeljack’s hold, his visor bright as he pressed closer against a stunned Prowl, fending off Wheeljack’s continued apologies to them both.
The two black-and-white mechs stared, not moving as Smokescreen stepped forward, ushering Wheeljack past the pair of them and out of Medbay entirely. Only when they were gone did Prowl’s optics refocus on the two remaining occupants. The ever-confident gaze was hesitant, almost frightened.
“Optimus?” he repeated. “Ratchet? What…?”
“Prowl.” It shouldn’t be possible for so deep and loud a voice to also be so gentle. Optimus Prime managed it. “Jazz. I am so sorry for all you’ve been through. From Decepticons… from Autobots… from me.” He paused, raising a hand towards his friends in a gesture at once apologetic and beckoning. His rich voice rumbled through their frames like the voice of Primus as he spoke two simple words: “We remember.”
Prowl’s optics flared, his engine rattling as it raced to support his strained systems.
Jazz remained silent, pressed tight into Prowl’s side. For a few seconds the only sound audible in the Medbay was the harsh noise of his vents, and then his visor retracted, revealing optics that spoke of exhaustion, fear and a painful vulnerability.
Ratchet wasn’t usually given to tactile displays. He was more comfortable with a wrench in hand and a rough word on his lip-plates. This wasn’t the time for that.
The mechs in front of him were officers and warriors. They’d survived an ordeal Ratchet shuddered to think of and hadn’t broken. Even now, they stood tall and with an undeniable power… but their strength was a brittle one at best. Their postures were still defensive, their emotions under tight control, as if they daren’t risk believing, not yet.
Ratchet understood. Just as he had needed to see them himself, despite knowing they were safe, so his friends needed to see proof before they would believe. Proof that Optimus and Ratchet truly knew them, truly valued the friendships and the mechs themselves. He gave a brief hum, sweeping forward slowly enough not to spook Jazz, not saying anything until he stood in front of the two younger mechs and laid a reassuring hand on the shoulder of each. It wasn’t quite an embrace - the last thing he wanted was to unsettle them still further - but he drew the pair a little closer, squeezing gently as he tried to convey all his affection, concern and apologies in the simple gesture.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” he told them, determined to make it true.
Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9
Ratchet - Last Chance
The humans had a saying ‘A week is a long time in politics’. It confused Ratchet the first time he heard it. Few things on Cybertron moved slower than Senatorial wrangling, and even amongst less exalted mechs, a human week - a mere half-orn - wouldn’t be considered enough time to properly assess most situations, let alone act on them.
As a medic, Ratchet was used to thinking a little faster than that, but even so medical conditions tended to divide straightforwardly between those over and done with in a matter of breems and those he could take a few orns to think over. Before coming to Earth, he’d have had no hesitation in assigning this case to the latter category. After all, Jazz and Prowl were safely home and every mech on the Ark knew who they were, on paper at least. The Autobots were soldiers, their officers’ orders would be honoured, the mechs themselves offered due courtesy even if respect, trust and friendship would take rather longer to follow.
But Earth changed all of that. Here on Earth the weather, the wildlife, their human friends - all could change in a spark-beat. Even the Decepticons seemed infected by that urgency, their skirmish rate rising noticeably. There was no way the Autobots could avoid its effects. Two years of living every minute had done more to bond this crew into a close and interdependent fighting team than the dozen vorns that went beforehand. There was a level of trust between members of the Ark crew that Ratchet had rarely seen, and only then between brothers or life-long friends.
The pace of life here, the immediacy and urgency with which humans lived their lives, had changed them all. It had reshaped colleagues into friends, and friends into family.
Jazz and Prowl should have had that family’s support to bring them back from the trauma of their capture and mistreatment. Instead they’d had not only been robbed of the deep trust they’d come to expect, but were confronted daily by a cruel mockery of it. Within an Earth week the mistrust and doubt they faced had been reflected back in a growing insularity, depression and paranoia, the speed of their decline understandable to the Earth-based medic where it would have baffled a Cybertronian doctor.
Ratchet dreaded to think just how far it might have gone without Smokescreen. The mech had been working no fewer than three distinct jobs in the seven days since he was roused from stasis. Each and every day, he’d pull a full shift in the tactical office, effectively become Prowl and Jazz’s liaison to their Prime and their own crew. That much everyone knew. No one but Prime knew he’d also spend near an hour beyond that closeted with Ratchet, and few mechs appreciated the work he put in during long evenings coordinating the ‘leisure activity’ he’d so carefully orchestrated.
No wonder Smokey was looking tired.
Ratchet shook his head, venting out a sigh as a shadow fell across his doorway. End of the first rotation. The psychologist was right on time for their unofficial and unadvertised daily conversation. For a change, Ratchet was looking forward to this one. But first, while he was on the topic of Smokescreen’s pet project…
“I swear, Smokescreen, if one more mech knocks himself out on a low-hanging stalactite, I’ll put a dent in your helm myself,” Ratchet grumbled, hefting his favourite wrench and fixing the younger mech with a malevolent gaze.
“All in a good cause, Doc. All in a good cause.” Smokescreen shrugged, leaning against the doorframe for a few klicks before slipping further into the room and letting the door slide closed behind him. His disarming grin slid off the medic’s armoured plating, and he changed tactics, schooling his face into a serious look. “I mean, the volcano and these caves are in our back yard, and you guys hadn’t done more than take a quick look around and block a few of the bigger tunnels. That’s a big tactical problem right there. The project had to be done sooner or later.”
Ratchet didn’t bother to repeat Red Alert’s offended observation that the volcano was so far within the Autobots’ outer, median and inner perimeters that the battle would be lost by the time any Decepticon reached it. No one, Smokescreen included, was taking his insistence on a ‘proper’ survey of the Ark/volcano cave system at face value. For most of the mechs it was just a fun challenge to fill their downtime. For the more perceptive officers, it was obvious Smokescreen had an ulterior motive. Ratchet dreaded to think what Jazz and Prowl thought, or how much extra paperwork the frequent caving incidents were generating for the pair of them.
The medic just shook his head. Turning away, he reached for his tools and inspected them for damage, before he laid them down and set to work clearing up the last detritus of that afternoon’s self-inflicted rock-fall fiasco. “Have Beachcomber and Hoist worked out what went wrong yet?”
Now Smokescreen’s shrug turned rueful. He rubbed a hand over his yellow chevron before drawing it down his face. “The usual - a weak stratum, inadequate shoring and a mech who didn’t think through the consequences. Seriously, whose idea was it to give Sideswipe of all mechs a pile driver? I mean… Sideswipe?”
Ratchet couldn’t help responding to Smokescreen’s helpless little smile with one of his own. “If you ever find out, by all means let me know. I’ve got a special wrench waiting just for them.”
A tension drained from the conversation. As much as Ratchet hated patching up the crew, and the Lamborghini twins in particular, and as grumpy as it left him, there was no point in railing at Smokescreen for the twin’s antics. Besides, he grudgingly had to admit, the Ark-wide spelunking kick was serving its purpose - or purposes rather.
He cocked a brow ridge, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s quiet in the Rec Room these days. No one wants to be sitting around while everyone’s busy.”
It meant less time for the mechs to brood, less pressure and fewer eyes on their isolated officers, and that had been pretty much top of the list of priorities the psychologist presented Ratchet with almost a week ago. It was good progress. Ratchet managed a flicker of a smile as he went on.
“Pretty much the only folks I see in there most days are Chip and Prowl poring over their chessboard.”
The return of the humans was Smokey’s doing too. Spike, Chip and Sparkplug were more than happy to renew their acquaintance with the Ark, and the easy enthusiasm with which they’d greeted Jazz and Prowl had caught the attention of more than a few mechs.
Smokey grinned. “I’m not surprised those two get along.” He shrugged, aware that he was in the minority in that opinion. “Prowl looks hard sometimes, but he’s got a soft spot for folks who are willing to push themselves, willing to put their best into something, even if they’re far from guaranteed a win.”
“So…” Ratchet let the word stretch out, willing to let his junior take the lead for now.
“Yeah.” Smokescreen’s lip-plates quirk into a tired smile, open relief in his expression. “It’s working out pretty well. Everyone’s really starting to get into the cave thing, Ratch.” Smokey paused dramatically. “Even Jazz wondered down to pitch in on his day off today.” It was a breakthrough, on more levels than one. “Guess ‘Comber and Hoist talked him into it - Hoist paired him up with Hound, apparently, and sent them off with a map and instructions before first shift. No one’s seen them since.”
Ratchet leaned back against his work bench, tilting his head a little uncertainly. Smokescreen waved off the mild concern.
“Neither of those mechs could get lost if they tried.” He chuckled. “‘Comber called the tactical office just before I came down, getting a bit nervous. Prowl told him there’s a forty-two percent chance Hound found a new life-form to study in one of the underground streams, and fifty-six percent that Jazz found an echo he liked and is too busy experimenting with his speakers and music to head on home.”
“And the last two percent?”
“Limb-rending injury, processor damage, destruction and deactivation,” Smokescreen grinned. “With Decepticons as an outside bet, whatever Red wants to think. But Prowl didn’t seem worried, and that’s good enough for me.” He vented, the air humming out between his denta. “He kind of mentioned that it might be worth reviving Blaster, to see if we can do anything about communications through all this rock.”
Ratchet’s eyebrows rose. “It’s a logical step,” he noted. Just as reviving geologist Beachcomber and structural engineer Hoist had been logical when starting the cave survey, and just as Smokescreen himself had been a logical backup for the tactical office. It had nothing to do with the fact that Prime’s lieutenants were doing far better with even a small complement of mechs who knew, liked and trusted them around. Or that those same amiable mechs were lending the rest of the crew a reassuring calm in the presence of their officers. Nothing at all.
“Yeah.” Smokescreen hesitated. He cycled his vents, letting his casual mask drop. “Seriously, Ratch, it’s worth thinking about. Jazz has always been a sociable mech and this isolation’s not good for him. What we’ve got going here - it’s a good start, but that’s all it is. Adding another friendly face to the mix has got to be a good thing, and Jazz and Blaster always got on well - as Prowl knows full well.”
The two mechs’ eyes met, an acknowledgement of the still-serious situation there in their gaze. Ratchet broke off first.
“Worth thinking about…” Ratchet’s vents cycled quickly. He reached behind him for a datapad lying on the work-bench. He’d been looking forward to telling Smokescreen about this all day, even if his gruff demeanour gave away no sign of his excitement. “…if this doesn’t work.”
Smokescreen’s vents stalled. The psychologist had been in the process of pushing himself up to perch on a med-berth. He slipped back onto his pedes, optics burning, his hands reaching out as if grasping something tangible rather than a mere concept.
“You’ve found it? A cure?”
The sheer intensity of the question set Ratchet aback, literally. He retreated a step, frowning.
“Wheeljack finally tracked down the key code lines,” he allowed. He snorted, shaking his head. “A problem that could’ve taken us vorns and ‘Jack turns around mid-afternoon with “Hey, well will’ya look at that?” as if he’s just noticed a mech with a new paint job!”
“Ratch…” Smokescreen pressed, groaning as the medic paused.
“I’ve spent the last few days re-engineering the virus to retrace its steps, and only its own steps. Everywhere the old code deleted a memory from the registry, this one will recover whatever it can of the data.”
“And it works? It’s ready to go?”
Ratchet frowned at his subordinate, surprised by the urgency in his voice and the tremble in his usually-rigid blue door-wings.
“It won’t be a hundred percent. Any of the dormant memory that’s been overwritten in the last month is probably gone for good, but the bulk of it… Yes, it should work. It’ll take a while to process through the crew, of course. When it comes to it, we should probably stagger the process so only off-duty crew are infected with the modified virus at any time. But another week or two of testing and - ”
“Weeks?” Smokescreen’s expression shut down, his hostility tangible and thoroughly confusing. Ratchet had expected Smokey to be pleased, or relieved at the very least, not fuming with suppressed fury. “Slag it, Ratch! You didn’t mention this yesterday, or the day before. I know slagging well that you wouldn’t have told me now if you weren’t already pretty damn sure!”
“The standard tests for a new virus - ”
“Standard tests.” The psychologist gave a hollow laugh, shaking his head. “And if it was Prime in this situation? If it was Wheeljack, or Ironhide, waiting for your verdict on a matter of life and death, you’d keep them waiting while you ran the ‘standard tests’? A set of antiquated procedures, dictated by some ancient medic in the Academy’s crystal towers, while the Golden Age shone around them?”
Ratchet found himself backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively. Smokescreen’s door-wings were held high now, quivering with his rage. His anger was blended with a fear that suggested the younger mech had been sandbagging all along, hiding the worst of his concern even from Ratchet. Flummoxed, the medic seized on the most emotive of his junior’s words.
“Life and death? Okay, so they’re not happy, but Jazz and Prowl…”
“Slag it to the Pit, Doc. Another few orns and they might stop jumping out of their plating here on the Ark. A year, and I might just persuade the rest of the crew to stop looking at them like unwelcome intruders. Maybe, just maybe, if I persist for long enough, I’ll eventually persuade Prowl to attend the officers-only poker games I have in mind and start to build bridges there. There’s even an outside chance I can talk Red Alert and Prime into coming along too. Given, oh, a vorn or two, Jazz and Prowl are in with a chance of earning back the trust and respect they deserve. Even then it won’t be the same. They’ll never get back the lives they lost.”
Smokescreen had flung up his hands as he talked, turning to pace the Medbay. Ratchet vented out, glad of the room.
“I’m talking about a couple of weeks here, Smokescreen. I hardly think…”
“Do you think the Decepticons are going to give Jazz and Prowl a vorn?” Smokescreen went on as if Ratchet hadn’t spoken and then stopped, looking at him seriously. “Do you think they’ll even give us a few days?” He broke eye-contact, turning back to his pacing. “I’ve looked over the tactical logs, Ratchet, and, okay, Jazz, Bee and Mirage left them licking their wounds, but quite honestly, given the frequency of attacks here on Earth, I expected to hear from them already. Prowl thinks they’ll be on the offensive within the next seventy-two hours, and I’m not second guessing him, no matter how much Prime wants me to. The chances of Megatron and Starscream leaving us alone for another two weeks? Well, I like a long shot, but those are odds even I wouldn’t take.”
Smokescreen spun back around, glaring. “Just how long do you think our officers will last in battle? It’s all very well for Prime to stick to his ‘pretend it’s not a problem and it’ll work out fine’ policy and give them back their ranks - Primus knows, it’s just about the only thing keeping them sane! - but being told someone is trustworthy, and believing it, processor and spark, when it matters…? They’re very different things. Tell me, Ratch, in the heat of battle, with a dozen voices shouting out warnings and instructions, would you take the word of Prowl, who you’ve known for dozens of kilovorn, over, say, Bumblebee or Inferno who joined this crew barely a decavorn ago?”
The younger mech shook his head, door-wings drooping. “Jazz is Special Ops. It’s his job to be where no one expects him, doing dangerous things, and he can’t do that if he can’t rely on his backup or the battle-plan they’re acting on. The last thing he needs - likely the last thing he’ll ever see - is some trigger-happy Autobot acting on instinct when an unfamiliar saboteur appears out of the blue.”
Ratchet couldn’t hide his wince, or pretend, even to himself, that the scenario was unlikely. Smokescreen ignored him, his projections pounding out of him with a relentless brutality.
“Prowl’s strategies rely on nanoklick responses, on total trust and total commitment. Do you think he’ll get that? How long before Sideswipe and Sunstreaker throw orders out of the window and break rank? How long before some of the mini-bots decide they can do better and set out on their own? When Optimus gets a chance to grapple Megatron, do you think he’ll even notice he’s leaving a pair of mechs he doesn’t know exposed? Would Ironhide guard their flank when there are a dozen warriors he cares about embroiled in a melee in front of him? Jazz and Prowl are going to end up watching each other’s backs through sheer necessity, and that’ll leave them both open, both vulnerable. We already know they’re sure as the Pit both targets.”
The shake of Ratchet’s head wasn’t denial, but rather dismay. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Trailbreaker and I are tacticians too, Ratchet. We’re not as good as Prowl, not nearly as good, but we’ve talked it over and neither of us is happy with Prowl and Jazz being on battle duty right now.”
“But… Prowl has to know that, right?”
“Ops know it too. Bumblebee says Jazz hasn’t even tried to suggest a Special Ops tac-outline for our battle projections. He knows damn well that Bumblebee and Mirage can’t function as an Ops team without being a hundred percent, unfailingly sure of their leader, and has already told them to count him out rather than risk throwing them off stride. He’ll improvise and back them to the hilt, whether they anticipate it or not, but he’s not counting on them to return the favour. He’ll have told Prowl that.”
Smokescreen shook his head. “But they’re not going to back off.” His fist slammed down into the open palm of his other hand. “They could have walked away, left the Ark, found a way back to Cybertron even. They’re good enough to make it work. But they’re not going to let the Decepticons have that victory. More than that: they’d never forgive themselves if someone fell in battle because they weren’t there, any more than you or Optimus would. They’re going into this with their eyes open, throwing the dice and waiting to see how it lands. They know just how slim their chances are.” Smokescreen looked down at his hands for a few moments in silence, before looking back up, his gaze sombre. “And I’m not sure they care. Ratch, if you’d just been torn apart, physically and mentally… if you were grieving a lifetime worth of friendships, haunted by what you’ve lost, knowing it’ll take another lifetime to even come close to what you had… wouldn’t you err on the reckless side too?”
Ratchet’s vocalisor whirred, trying twice to speak before his processor cleared enough to give it proper instructions. His systems ran cold. He looked down at the data-pad in his hand, its access port open and ready.
His companion followed his glance, shaking his head. Smokescreen hesitated, catching Ratchet’s optics before pressing on relentlessly. “Doc, be honest with yourself. If you had a nanoklick to choose between patients, with no choice a good one and a member of the Ark crew on your right, would you ever turn left to treat Prowl instead?”
He paused, letting that sink in.
“If it was Optimus or Ironhide in the Decepticon’s sights, fighting their way back to sanity, with battle imminent, their life on the line and even the chance of salvation being gradually eroded away, would you make them wait while you ran the ‘standard tests’ ad infinitum?”
The psychologist folded his arms, optics intent and expression grim.
“I’m sorry, Ratchet. Sorry for not talking this through with you before, but until you can answer those questions truthfully and without hesitation, you’re just another part of the problem. My patients deserve better.”
The Pit of the thing, the slagging Pit of it, was that Smokescreen was completely, a hundred percent, right.
There was a whir of servos in the quiet of Medbay. A panel slid aside on the medic’s arm, a cable snaking out and towards the data-pad without further hesitation.
“If this doesn’t work, you’ll need to call Wheeljack back here. He’ll - ”
Smokescreen’s optics brightened in alarm. He stepped forward, catching Ratchet’s arm. “Whoa! I said two weeks was unnecessary and too long. I didn’t mean you had to - ”
“You were right,” Ratchet interrupted simply. He looked down at the data-pad, certain for the first time in weeks what he had to do. “I’m ‘pretty damn sure’. It’s passed all the initial tests and half the advanced ones already. The standard test sequence is a formality, a safety net to catch mistakes. Wheeljack and I have taken this thing apart and put it back together again line by line over the last orn. There’re no mistakes. I’d stake my processor on it.” He paused venting a heavy sigh. If he didn’t trust his own systems to this, there was no chance he’d try it on anyone else. “I will stake my processor. Jazz and Prowl deserve that much.”
He completed the data connection before Smokescreen could dissuade him, assuming the mech would even try. Already he could feel the alien code fighting his medic-grade firewalls, the sensation making him queasy and a little unsteady on his feet.
“Ratch?” Again, Smokescreen caught his arm, for support this time. “Talk to me, Doc. Is this normal? How long will it take?”
Ratchet managed a nod, waving his free arm vaguely as Smokescreen helped him up onto a med berth. “Few breems,” he gasped, leaning back on the berth and powering down his optics to block out the unwanted stimulus.
He lost track of time after that, the viral worm taking all his attention as it logged recovered data file after recovered data file with his central registry. His systems stilled, his processor working through a partial reboot in order to reinitialise his memory algorithms with the new data.
He was feeling kind of odd, light-headed and heavy with knowledge all at the same time, when he became aware of his surroundings once again. His optics cycled sluggishly before fading to darkness once more. It could have been hours since he accepted the infection or mere nanoklicks for all Ratchet knew. Time had no meaning compared to the thick weight in his processor.
Someone was moving beside him, pacing. The movement broke off, replaced by a vehement profanity and a worried voice.
“Slag it! Smokescreen to Wheeljack: I need you in Medbay, now!”
“Smokescreen?” Ratchet blinked, rebooting his optics to bring the blue mech into view. “What…?”
He broke off, frowning, suddenly aware of the urgent realisations fighting for his attention. Optics faded, his attention turning inwards once again. Memories streamed past. At first it was just one or two, chance meetings, a lop-sided smile here, a twitch of door-wings there. Then more, a lifetime of them, the sheer magnitude of what he’d almost lost overwhelming. And then, finally, a smaller, more recent set of memories trickled into his helm, coloured by different emotions, a different perception entirely, to the flood that came before. His spark stuttered as his processor reinterpreted those last memories in a new context. The medical detachment he’d felt towards his patients, the professional curiosity and interest, shattered. His vents stalled, a creeping horror and desperate anxiety fighting for superiority.
A hand thumped his back, hard, retriggering his vents, before dropping to his shoulder.
“Ratch?” Wheeljack’s concerned voice and gentle touch broke Ratchet free of his tortured memories. “Primus, Ratch! What were you thinking?” There was a peculiar irony in hearing Wheeljack of all mechs scold him for his impulsive action. Rachet was in no condition to appreciate it. “Talk to me, Ratchet. I need you to tell me what’s happening.”
Ratchet realised his face had dropped into his hands. He lifted it with an effort, looking up into his friend’s blast-mask.
“Frag!” he swore, putting all his horror and dismay into the word.
A tingle ran through him - Wheeljack’s inbuilt scanner - and the engineer glanced up at the medical readouts above the berth before looking back down at Ratchet. He hummed thoughtfully, head tilted to one side. “The new virus works?”
“It… it did.” Ratchet pushed himself upright, aware of Wheeljack steadying him on one side and Smokescreen on the other. “The things we put them through!” Ratchet shook his head, still fighting the bitter realisation. Wheeljack was giving his old friend a concerned look, surprised by the strength of his reaction. Ratchet could only stare at him, unable to articulate the shame and distress that Wheeljack himself would feel soon enough.
Smokescreen’s grip on his arm tightened, the psychologist still worried and not entirely sure that all was happening as it should. Ratchet shook his helm, trying to clear it, as if he could shake the last few memories back into place. He looked up at Smokescreen, at the familiar door-winged silhouette, and felt an urgent need to confirm with his own eyes that Jazz and Prowl were safe back, that his friends were coping and that they hadn’t thrown their lives away in some skirmish out of simple despair. “Where are…? No.”
No there was something more important. Something he needed to do for his fellow officers that they’d appreciate far more than a rough embrace from their medic. Ratchet reached for his internal com.
“Prime,” he snapped. “Get your aft down to Medbay! Now!”
Wheeljack managed to reboot a full minute before Optimus Prime. The engineer shook his head, lost for words, his head-fins flashing a sickly grey in shock and distress. Ratchet steadied his friend, understanding the strong emotion roiling through him. He still felt it deep in his own tank.
Jazz and Prowl had been through the Pit in the past two orns. Worse, they were still trapped there, devoid of the support of those closest to them. Ratchet’s processor had known it, but on an emotional level he hadn’t felt anything but a mild intellectual concern. Now his spark cried out for his friends, his family, and the abstract concern had been replaced by a turmoil that mixed horror, pity, deep anxiety and more than a little shame. He’d thought he was a better mech than this. Now he knew the truth all he could do was try to be the best friend possible to Prowl and Jazz.
And that meant pulling Prime through this. If guilt was troubling Ratchet, and apparently Wheeljack too, then it must be near crippling Optimus.
“Prime?”
The big mech blinked up at Medbay’s orange ceiling, his optics unfocused, his battle mask hiding his expression but not the tension wracking his body. “I… I ignored them, set them aside… I didn’t… couldn’t trust them with the lives of my… I didn’t see…”
Smokescreen was at his Prime’s elbow. The younger mech gave a decidedly inappropriate snigger.
“Gee, and there I had credits on ‘It’s all my fault’.”
Optimus’s cycle of blame and self-loathing broke into irritation. The dazed expression on his hard-to-read face morphed into a frown of disapproval. He pushed himself up to sit on the berth, glaring at Smokescreen, although whether for the gentle sarcasm or the implicit gambling was hard to tell. The diversionary tactician gazed back at him without apology, distraction accomplished and expression becoming serious.
“Optimus, there was nothing you could have done about this,” Smokescreen said, with more apparent calm than anyone else in the room felt. “It wasn’t your fault, and sure, that’s not going to stop you feeling guilty as the Pit. You can brood later, but you’ve got something more important to do. What matters is making sure Jazz and Prowl know it’s over.”
He shook his head, folding his arms across his chest, door-wings flaring.
“Slag it, Prime. Your second and third are doing an impossible job, holding on to their authority through force of will alone. The crew are tense and confused. No one’s going to cope with you falling to pieces right now - Prowl and Jazz least of all.”
Optimus cycled his optics and then his vents, unable to hide his dismay. He sat in silence for a long moment, searching for calm, before nodding. “I’ll go to them now.” His deep voice rumbled with tightly-controlled emotion, his optics dimming as he looked up at Ratchet. “Where…?”
The soft whir of motors caught every mech present by surprise. The door slid aside on the whisper of sound, leaving two familiar black and white forms framed on the threshold.
“Really, Prowler, I don’t need…”
Prowl’s level voice cut across Jazz’s protest, firm and just a touch amused. “I imagine Smokescreen is still engaged in his daily conference with Ratchet. We can let him know Hoist has asked for him, and allow Ratchet to assess your scrapes at the same time.”
Jazz, paint scuffed and marked with the dull orange streaks that suggested a close encounter with the local geology, opened his mouth to answer and froze.
Ratchet imagined that they made for a startling sight: Optimus Prime seated on a berth with Smokescreen close beside him, Wheeljack and Ratchet standing by another berth and both looking a little ill. Certainly the fleeting, barely-there expressions crossing Prowl’s face made for interesting reading.
Surprise first, and confusion. Concern for whatever troubled Optimus, followed rapidly by pain and resignation as he realised that, as a near-total stranger, it wasn’t his place to ask. Deeper melancholy as he glanced away from the senior mechs in the room, neither seeking nor accepting eye contact, and resentment as his gaze came to rest on Smokescreen and he reassessed the assembly not as a medical check-up but rather as a conference centred on the psychologist and his current subjects.
The second in command’s expression shut down, smoothing out into a neutral mask as he nodded an acknowledgement to his Prime. His wings flared from a low droop at his back to stand erect above him, and he angled his body, putting the wall behind him, insofar as possible while moving closer to Jazz.
The saboteur was harder to read. His expression never changed, fixed in an amiable smile, and his visor obscured the focus of his optics. His head moved infinitesimally, letting that concealed gaze sweep the room. It took a trained eye to realise that his attention had moved from Smokescreen to Optimus, his body tensing as he reached the conclusion that he’d been under discussion. His posture changed, his limbs relaxing into a deadly readiness he usually reserved for the training mat or battlefield. A small bounce on the soles of his pedes loosened the cables in his legs and moved him closer to and slightly in front of Prowl, compromising his ready stance for the sake of mutual protection and comfort.
So defensive! So much pain and emotion from them both, and most of it visible only to those who knew them best. Friend or not, most of what Ratchet saw would be passing over Wheeljack’s head, and even Smokescreen wouldn’t be getting more than the general gist. Prime saw it all though, his optics dimming. Like Ratchet, he’d been learning to read these two mechs long before the human race was a spark in the eyes of its deity.
Like Ratchet’s, his expression was one of pure, spark-broken empathy.
Prowl noticed it first, his door-wings slumping a little from their defensive display posture as he tried to make out the thick atmosphere of the room.
“Optimus?” he queried, a faint frown starting to gather on his brow.
“Primus!” Wheeljack’s exclamation shattered the silence. The green and white engineer rushed forward, catching Jazz in a tight embrace as he let loose an apologetic babble that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from Bluestreak.
The analytical part of Ratchet took a moment to appreciate the control Jazz had over his instincts and the fact that he’d managed not to disable, kill, or otherwise incapacitate their best engineer. Then Jazz slipped Wheeljack’s hold, his visor bright as he pressed closer against a stunned Prowl, fending off Wheeljack’s continued apologies to them both.
The two black-and-white mechs stared, not moving as Smokescreen stepped forward, ushering Wheeljack past the pair of them and out of Medbay entirely. Only when they were gone did Prowl’s optics refocus on the two remaining occupants. The ever-confident gaze was hesitant, almost frightened.
“Optimus?” he repeated. “Ratchet? What…?”
“Prowl.” It shouldn’t be possible for so deep and loud a voice to also be so gentle. Optimus Prime managed it. “Jazz. I am so sorry for all you’ve been through. From Decepticons… from Autobots… from me.” He paused, raising a hand towards his friends in a gesture at once apologetic and beckoning. His rich voice rumbled through their frames like the voice of Primus as he spoke two simple words: “We remember.”
Prowl’s optics flared, his engine rattling as it raced to support his strained systems.
Jazz remained silent, pressed tight into Prowl’s side. For a few seconds the only sound audible in the Medbay was the harsh noise of his vents, and then his visor retracted, revealing optics that spoke of exhaustion, fear and a painful vulnerability.
Ratchet wasn’t usually given to tactile displays. He was more comfortable with a wrench in hand and a rough word on his lip-plates. This wasn’t the time for that.
The mechs in front of him were officers and warriors. They’d survived an ordeal Ratchet shuddered to think of and hadn’t broken. Even now, they stood tall and with an undeniable power… but their strength was a brittle one at best. Their postures were still defensive, their emotions under tight control, as if they daren’t risk believing, not yet.
Ratchet understood. Just as he had needed to see them himself, despite knowing they were safe, so his friends needed to see proof before they would believe. Proof that Optimus and Ratchet truly knew them, truly valued the friendships and the mechs themselves. He gave a brief hum, sweeping forward slowly enough not to spook Jazz, not saying anything until he stood in front of the two younger mechs and laid a reassuring hand on the shoulder of each. It wasn’t quite an embrace - the last thing he wanted was to unsettle them still further - but he drew the pair a little closer, squeezing gently as he tried to convey all his affection, concern and apologies in the simple gesture.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” he told them, determined to make it true.