Unfinished Business - part 2b/2
Title: Unfinished Business
It wasn't a city. Not yet.
The seventy-two mechs who had made Earth-fall might constitute a small town in the latter days of Cybertron, a mere village at the height of the Golden Age. General Lennox, Prowl knew, was shocked at how few of their people had made it to safety, a full twenty years after the call was sent from Mission City. The Autobot officers, who had seen the decimation of their race through eons of war, knew better than to be surprised.
Not that all hope was gone, not given the scales concerned - both in space and in time. A mere quarter vorn would only have brought the closest of their people to them. More would come, in time, although they'd never reach the numbers Lennox once expected.
In the meantime, the seventy-two were more than Prowl had dared hope for. He held his helm and door-wings high, his optics bright as they drifted from side to side. Buildings glinted in the sunlight. He let his servo-tips brush over the burnished surface of the nearest as he walked, revelling in a sight and sensation quite unlike anything created by this world's native humans. The settlement the Autobots had built, through the skill of their own servos, from materials they'd purchased by legitimate trade, might be crude, but it was nonetheless a wonder he'd not have credited just two decades before.
He'd put the broad, relaxed smile on Sideswipe's face in that same category.
"Hey, Prowl."
The junior lieutenant swept past on his pede-wheels, circling Prowl twice and setting a pair of birds aflight with the roar of his engine, before settling down to pace the tactician.
Prowl watched the birds circle, their plumage bright in the morning light. The organics danced through the air, an echo of the Seekers that once revelled in Cybertron's skies. This was different. Not better. Not worse. Just one more piece in the jigsaw that Prime was shaping into their new home.
"Sideswipe," Prowl acknowledged. "Good morning."
"Yep." Sideswipe turned on his pedes, arms widespread. The tactician smiled, enjoying the pleasure on his young friend's faceplates. Even now, it wasn't often the young officer was so carefree.
The thought brought another on its heels, one never far from Prowl's processor these days. "Have you seen Jazz this morning?"
"Nope." Sideswipe's grin faltered, just for a nano-klick. "Not for a few days now. Have you seen Ratch?"
Prowl raised a brow-ridge, tilting his helm in the swordsmech's direction.
"Ratchet?"
"He sent me looking for you a half-breem back. Says he's got something to tell us. Now."
It took Sideswipe a couple of klicks to notice that Prowl was no longer by his side. Prowl had stopped, his door-wings raised and his optics concerned. "Something that won't wait until the council meeting this afternoon?"
"Prowl?"
Prowl unfroze, and the frontliner found himself suddenly trailing. "Then it is either highly urgent or highly military. Either way, we should not keep him waiting."
"Hadn't thought of that."
Sideswipe caught up within a few metres, his arm blades slipping partway out of his arm sheaths. The village council might be a new initiative - one whose biggest concern of late had been debating names for the settlement itself - but Prime's officers supported and respected the endeavour. For Ratchet to be falling back on their old morning meeting pattern now…
The command centre was a new building, matching the old NEST hangar a few miles away for scale but worlds apart in aesthetic. Ornately moulded doors opened at Prowl's approach. Friezes lined the corridors, Cybertronian glyphs scattered between artworks and sometimes shaping them. Despite his urgency, despite the swordsmech skating behind him, Prowl paused in front of the one mural that always brought him to a halt. Raising a servo, he reached out to brush gleaming face-plates and a visor wrought in silver and sapphire.
"Y'know, that thing makes me blush, ev'ry time."
"It is only right that our people remember their sacrifices." Prowl's door-wings fluttered, his optics brightening. "And you cannot blush."
Jazz was pale. Prowl saw that at a glance. The frown on Sideswipe's face, the way the lieutenant glanced between his predecessor and the corridor lights, belied the tactician's faint hope that he was imagining the difference.
The erstwhile saboteur rubbed the back of his helm, a grin on his face not quite hiding the weariness in his posture.
"Jazz." Prowl nodded a greeting. "I was growing concerned by your absence."
For a moment, Jazz's visor met his optics, the deep blue glow searching. Prowl read the acknowledgement there, and then the moment when Jazz decided to make a joke of the whole issue. The spectre stretched, his lithe form ethereal under the harsh lights.
"Guess, 'm not as sprightly as I was. Couldn't miss today though. The Big Guy keeps droppin' hints." Jazz's visor winked, his smile irreverent. "Somethin' 'bout lovin' it when a plan comes together."
Sideswipe's engine gave a startled rev. "Lord Primus watches A-Team reruns?"
The expression on Jazz's face was grave and utterly serious. "Sideswipe, Lord Primus has been here since the dawn of time. He saw the show first time 'round."
Another time, in another place, Prowl would have stopped his friend and pressed for the truth. Here and now, they had a meeting waiting.
Optimus Prime nodded a greeting to Jazz as well as Prowl and Sideswipe when they joined the party. Bumblebee warbled in surprise to see the saboteur, before throwing his oblivious companions a guilty glance. Ratchet, pacing between General Lennox on the human gantry and the bench where Bee, Dino and Roadbuster sat watching, didn't seem to notice their ghostly visitor.
Instead the medic singled out first Prowl and then Sideswipe for a pointed glare.
"Where did you go to find him? Cybertron?"
"Patience, Ratchet." Optimus Prime's murmur rumbled through the room and up through Prowl's feet. The large mech's optics rested on Ratchet, their slight dilation betraying his confusion. "Now Prowl and Sideswipe have joined us, perhaps you'd like to…"
"I had two mechs come see me this morning." Ratchet cut across Optimus with both his words and a sharp swipe of his servos. "They were worried about symptoms they'd both noticed so came together."
Optimus lowered himself onto the head chair in the chamber, his expression worried. Prowl knew the tremor in his door-wings gave away his own anxiety. Things had been going so well. The settlement was the embodiment of the safety and stability Prowl had worked for his entire life. For it to be threatened now…
He stepped forwards, arms crossed over his chestplates and optics intent. "How severe are the symptoms? What is the prognosis and the infection rate? Do we need to implement quarantine protocols?"
Ratchet's grin was wildly at odds with Prowl's staccato questions. He dismissed the intent Second-in-Command with a wave.
"Forget quarantine," he said, turning to Optimus with a warm rev of his engine. "We need to start padding corners, moving shelves up a few metres, securing the energon cookies…."
"Ratchet?" Bumblebee chirped a query, his optics on Prowl.
The tactician lowered himself onto the bench closest to Prime, his own optics wide and his door-wings trembling. Jazz's pale face seemed to fill his vision, a bright grin almost outshining the rest of him. The 'Big Guy' had something planned…? The tactician cycled his vocalisor twice before finding words.
"You don't mean…?"
Ratchet nodded. The medic laughed aloud, expression wondering. "Two! Two of them!"
"Two gifts of Primus?" Prowl insisted, needing to hear it.
Ratchet started pacing again, his excitement too vast to be contained. "It's impossible, but it's true."
"A miracle." Optimus Prime spoke in the same reverent whisper Prowl had used. "A blessing!"
"Optimus?" General Lennox's voice rose over the startled revving of engines from all six mechs present. "Want to fill in the gaps for the newbie?"
Prowl felt a smile play across his lip-plates, and suppressed it before it startled Lennox more. The general was hardly a newbie by human standards. NEST training had kept the man fit into middle age, his muscled frame still firm despite the added bulk age had brought. Even so, he was hardly the youngling he'd been when Prime first encountered him. Lennox had seen the Autobots grieve and celebrate. He'd seen them raise the settlement from barren earth, all but uninhabitable to human kind. He'd never seen them as shocked and happy as he saw them now.
"Soooo…. who's gonna give the organic the nuts an' bolts talk? Volunteers?"
Sideswipe sniggered, the reaction to Jazz's question earning him puzzled looks from half the room and amused frowns from the rest.
Prime rumbled a chuckle of his own before nodding.
"You are aware, Will, that the All-Spark has, since the dawn of time, been the source of new sparks in our population."
The reminder sobered Lennox and dampened the still tentative celebration of Prime's junior officers. The general nodded slowly. He looked around him, as if seeing through the walls and out into the too-small settlement beyond.
"You have no idea how sorry I am that it's gone."
Prime nodded an acknowledgement, the echo of old pain dimming his optics. Then his gaze fell on the still-bouncing medic and they brightened again.
"You are not aware, I believe, that there was a second, far less common mechanism by which a new spark could gain sentience."
Lennox bounced to his feet, the human's eyes widening in his incredulity. "And you didn't think to mention this before?"
Prime chuckled. "It appeared to me that a one in ten million year occurrence was unlikely to trouble our relatively brief acquaintance."
"Or two in ten million."
Attention turned to Sideswipe, eyes and optics alike. The tall silver-grey mech stood with his arms crossed and expression distant. Optimus nodded a grave acknowledgement.
"Or two. Sideswipe and his brother were the last gifts Primus gave his children."
Ratchet rolled his eyes, but he stopped by Sideswipe's side, patting the young mech's arm. "For our sins."
Sideswipe spared him a half-smile, before glancing around at the incredulous expression on the faces of Roadbuster, Bumblebee and Dino. The lone twin snorted, waving a hand in their general direction.
"And that would be why we didn't tell people. Can you imagine Sunny and me hanging around Simfur being venerated? Whatever Primus had in mind, it wasn't that. We just wanted to be ourselves."
"Warriors when we needed them. Humour and courage and hope when strength alone would not suffice."
Sideswipe's engine revved, comforted as much as embarrassed by the warmth in his Prime's words. The young swordsmech scowled at Prowl.
"Might have guessed you'd already know."
He cocked his head, glancing sidelong at Jazz with a question in his optics. The spectre too had settled onto a bench, although, Prowl judged, less through shock than his spark-deep weariness. The former Ops mech tapped his visor, cycling it in the equivalent of a human eye-roll. "Hacked your personal files before you'd been with us a decaorn, mech. An' I wasn't gonna keep juicy gossip like that t' myself now, was I?"
He nodded towards Prowl, laughing off the secret he'd kept for eons, from all but his closest friend. Sideswipe knew it too. His optics brightened in salute, before turning back towards the gantry. Lennox had raised his hand, the schoolboy gesture incongruous in the grey-tinged soldier.
"So someone's expecting another pair of twins?" he asked, eyes wide and face a little pale as his horizons expanded to embrace the concept.
Ratchet chuckled. "Nope. Two separate carriers. Two separate sparklings. An orn apart, at most."
Roadbuster broke off from staring at Sideswipe, to stare instead at the medic.
"That's fragging impossible!"
"Unlikely," Optimus allowed, his ageless optics glowing with an elation too intense to voice. "Unless…"
"Unless something's changed," Dino finished for him. The exotic Italian accent he'd adopted was strained and throbbed with a painful hope. Bumblebee patted his friend's back, his own optics searching the faceplates of their elders for confirmation.
"A new start?" he asked, using his own voice even as music swelled from his speakers in an echo of his more usual non-verbal communication.
Jazz chuckled, one servo tapping in time with the melody. Prowl gazed at his friend, his own happiness tinged with sorrow as his optics picked out the edge of the bench through the saboteur's pale frame.
"I love it when a plan comes together," he murmured aloud.
"Jazz."
Prowl didn't turn, didn't move. The mech was silent and invisible to Prowl's sensitive door-wings. Nonetheless, he knew the spectre was there.
In the distance, the sound of celebration carried from the settlement. The return of new life, of new hope, to their people was beyond any of their wildest dreams. The village would celebrate not only this orn, but every vorn to come, finding peace they'd not believed possible.
Prowl's spark sang for them, and ached with a grief and terror he'd last known two Earth decades before.
"Prowler."
Jazz moved awkwardly, his stiff frame a slow and clumsy contrast to his usual grace. The spectre settled beside Prowl with none of his usual banter. They sat side by side, perched on the edge of the rocky outcrop that had been their stargazing rendezvous almost as long as they'd been on Earth, the silence between them heavy with words left unspoken.
It was several breems before Prowl broke the stillness. "This is a wonderful day."
"Yep. Don't think I've ever seen Optimus so happy."
"He has endured much sorrow and led with such spark. I am truly pleased to see him joyful at last."
Jazz shifted, his pale visor reflecting the moonlight as he turned to face his companion for the first time. "An' I find you out here?"
The night sky was dark and cool. A chill breeze blew across Prowl's plating, its motion unimpeded by the spectre that glistened and wavered beside him.
Prowl tilted his helm back, seeking solace in the unchanging stars.
"I spoke to Sunstreaker before he left. I saw how he had to strain to extend his time here. I saw him fade into nothing." His optics dimmed, static flooding his vocalisor as he put words around a concept he'd scarcely dared think about. "Jazz, our people are safe. The Autobots are as secure as we can make them, the Decepticon threat gone for now, perhaps forever. Primus has granted us a new beginning, released us from the decline and fall that seemed our only fate." He paused, venting a deep sigh. "Our tasks are complete, Jazz, just as Sunstreaker's was. It hurts to see you struggle on. It hurts more that I still don't understand why."
Jazz's soft laughter held no humour.
"I know. An' you're right, y'know? This sparkling thing… well, I guess things change. Things like the rift." The spectre shifted, restless despite the weary ache of his frame. Jazz looked away, not meeting his friend's optics. "It's closing, Prowl. The Big Guy says m' time's just about up."
"Really, Jazz, such irreverence…"
"Prowl."
Prowl shuddered, his voice faltering into silence. He wasn't surprised his companion had seen his protest for the delaying tactic it was. He'd been dreading this conversation for years, if not decades. Venting deeply, he forced his door-wings out wide and steady, drawing confidence from the façade. Jazz needed to reach catharsis, and Prowl would accept any sacrifice to see he got it. Even one that threatened to tear his own spark apart.
"Prowler," Jazz repeated, his warm vocalisor tight with strain. His servo stroked across his midriff, curved talons flexing. "Back there… in Mission City… I was so angry, and so afraid. I yelled at Primus, at the All-Spark, at anyone that would listen. The Well was pulling at me, and I held on with all my spark."
"I know."
Prowl reached out in pure, instinctive comfort. His hand brushed Jazz's, and he shuddered again. His spark strained in his frame, reaching out for the other, trying to lend warmth where there was none.
The cold of the night was nothing to the chill of the grave.
Jazz drew in a choking vent, his visor flickering. It was a long few klicks before the spectre drew back, breaking the contact between them.
"Jazz…"
"I didn't come back for Optimus."
Jazz shook his head, wrapping his arms around his frame.
"Primus knows I believe in our Prime. This," he waved a hand, gesturing back towards the village, "all this, it's like a dream. It's what I was always fightin' for." He vented again, drawing air into a frame with scarcely more substance. "But, y'know, I never doubted Optimus could pull it off, with or without me." The saboteur shrugged. "I'm not big-helmed enough t' think me hangin' around was gonna change things. Would've been nice t' take old Megs out, won't deny it, but the kid was doing a fair job of that. An' Prime had Ratch, an' Hide, an' Bee… and he had you."
Prowl blinked at his friend, confused and concerned.
"Nah. Primus himself was holding th' door open, offerin' t' let me rest, offerin' me peace 'til I got sent out for another go 'round. It was temptin', believe me." Jazz still wouldn't meet his optics. His fists opened and clenched, his words spilling into the night in a soft stream.
"But you stayed." Prowl's processor raced, trying to make sense of what he was hearing, trying to parse Jazz's meaning.
"I stayed. Because, Prowler, I stood there, standin' on the edge of the Well, and all I could think of were th' things I never said t' you. I looked at infinity, and knew it would mean nothin' without you."
Prowl's vents stalled. He stared, the world trembling around him and his wing-tips trembling with it.
At last, Jazz looked up. His visor gleamed in the night, searching Prowl's faceplates. Slender, curved servos came up to rest over a pale chest. "So I clung on, Prowler, because this spark wasn't mine t' give away, not even when it was Primus askin'. My spark is yours an' always has been. So I've gotta ask… because I've gotta know… is there any way y' can find it in y'self t' feel the same?"
Prowl gazed down into Jazz's face, one hand rising to hover above a blue-white cheek. Sunstreaker thought he'd find the question difficult. The once-golden twin had warned Prowl not to listen to his processor, not to get in his own way.
Sunstreaker had been wrong.
Prowl had watched Prime shape their new world, and he'd helped every step of the way. He'd fought when fighting was needed, negotiated, traded, planned and prepared. He'd lived through the worst war in the history of their people, and the dawn of a new peace. He'd done his duty from first to last. Jazz knew him well enough to allow him that. Jazz knew his all.
Now he let one servo-tip trail down the saboteur's faceplates, turning his hand to caress a pale cheek. For once in his life, there was no conflict. There was no guilt. For the first time since Praxus fell into ruin he felt truly free. His processor and spark, his duty and desire, were in perfect accord.
He felt the distant resonance of Jazz's spark and his own cried out to close the distance between them.
"Jazz… " Prowl looked into the upturned visor and gave voice to the nightmare that had haunted him almost since they first met, and the dream that he'd clung to for just as long.
"Jazz, I've tried to imagine my world without you. I've tried to pretend life could go on without you by my side." His door-wings trembled. "One short week believing it must almost destroyed me. My duty compelled me to stay. My spark did not know how." He smiled, the expression gentle and glad. "When you returned, I was overjoyed for my own sake, and sorrowful for yours. I would have seen you safe to the Well, if that's what you desired. I'd have given everything for you, and not grieved to do so, even if my spark faded, bereft."
"Prowler…" Jazz shook, the movement barely detectable under Prowl's careful servo-tips. The helm in front of him was almost transparent, just a glimmer in the starlight.
Prowl's chestplates shifted, the music of transformation dancing on the air. The tactician bared his spark chamber without shame or hesitation, giving it freely to the mech who had long since taken possession in spark. "Bond with me."
"I… We can't… The twins… Sunny had to break their bond… Sideswipe… you saw what it did to him..."
A single teardrop slipped from behind the visor, shaped of light and grief. Prowl brushed it away, calm at last.
"Our bond will not break. Not now. Not ever. If you must face eternity once more, you will not do it alone."
There was so much more to be said, and so little time. Words were meaningless now. Jazz's frame was already wavering, losing its form. Prowl dimmed his optics as the saboteur leaned forward against him, the wandering spark drawn home at last.
"Prowl?"
Exhausted, drained both physically and mentally, it had taken him an hour to stumble to the edge of the village. He didn't have much longer. Already his frame was weak, faltering under the burden of supporting two sparks instead of one. His gait was unsteady, his vision narrowed. Moisture had condensed from the night air onto his plating, tiny droplets making his frame shimmer and glisten in the light of their optics.
"Prowl, are you unwell?"
Prowl's servo hovered over his chestplates as if it could capture the warmth there, the love that flooded his all.
He looked up into Optimus Prime's worried expression with optics that radiated joy.
"Optimus, I truly believe I've never been better."
It wasn't a city. Not yet.
The seventy-two mechs who had made Earth-fall might constitute a small town in the latter days of Cybertron, a mere village at the height of the Golden Age. General Lennox, Prowl knew, was shocked at how few of their people had made it to safety, a full twenty years after the call was sent from Mission City. The Autobot officers, who had seen the decimation of their race through eons of war, knew better than to be surprised.
Not that all hope was gone, not given the scales concerned - both in space and in time. A mere quarter vorn would only have brought the closest of their people to them. More would come, in time, although they'd never reach the numbers Lennox once expected.
In the meantime, the seventy-two were more than Prowl had dared hope for. He held his helm and door-wings high, his optics bright as they drifted from side to side. Buildings glinted in the sunlight. He let his servo-tips brush over the burnished surface of the nearest as he walked, revelling in a sight and sensation quite unlike anything created by this world's native humans. The settlement the Autobots had built, through the skill of their own servos, from materials they'd purchased by legitimate trade, might be crude, but it was nonetheless a wonder he'd not have credited just two decades before.
He'd put the broad, relaxed smile on Sideswipe's face in that same category.
"Hey, Prowl."
The junior lieutenant swept past on his pede-wheels, circling Prowl twice and setting a pair of birds aflight with the roar of his engine, before settling down to pace the tactician.
Prowl watched the birds circle, their plumage bright in the morning light. The organics danced through the air, an echo of the Seekers that once revelled in Cybertron's skies. This was different. Not better. Not worse. Just one more piece in the jigsaw that Prime was shaping into their new home.
"Sideswipe," Prowl acknowledged. "Good morning."
"Yep." Sideswipe turned on his pedes, arms widespread. The tactician smiled, enjoying the pleasure on his young friend's faceplates. Even now, it wasn't often the young officer was so carefree.
The thought brought another on its heels, one never far from Prowl's processor these days. "Have you seen Jazz this morning?"
"Nope." Sideswipe's grin faltered, just for a nano-klick. "Not for a few days now. Have you seen Ratch?"
Prowl raised a brow-ridge, tilting his helm in the swordsmech's direction.
"Ratchet?"
"He sent me looking for you a half-breem back. Says he's got something to tell us. Now."
It took Sideswipe a couple of klicks to notice that Prowl was no longer by his side. Prowl had stopped, his door-wings raised and his optics concerned. "Something that won't wait until the council meeting this afternoon?"
"Prowl?"
Prowl unfroze, and the frontliner found himself suddenly trailing. "Then it is either highly urgent or highly military. Either way, we should not keep him waiting."
"Hadn't thought of that."
Sideswipe caught up within a few metres, his arm blades slipping partway out of his arm sheaths. The village council might be a new initiative - one whose biggest concern of late had been debating names for the settlement itself - but Prime's officers supported and respected the endeavour. For Ratchet to be falling back on their old morning meeting pattern now…
The command centre was a new building, matching the old NEST hangar a few miles away for scale but worlds apart in aesthetic. Ornately moulded doors opened at Prowl's approach. Friezes lined the corridors, Cybertronian glyphs scattered between artworks and sometimes shaping them. Despite his urgency, despite the swordsmech skating behind him, Prowl paused in front of the one mural that always brought him to a halt. Raising a servo, he reached out to brush gleaming face-plates and a visor wrought in silver and sapphire.
"Y'know, that thing makes me blush, ev'ry time."
"It is only right that our people remember their sacrifices." Prowl's door-wings fluttered, his optics brightening. "And you cannot blush."
Jazz was pale. Prowl saw that at a glance. The frown on Sideswipe's face, the way the lieutenant glanced between his predecessor and the corridor lights, belied the tactician's faint hope that he was imagining the difference.
The erstwhile saboteur rubbed the back of his helm, a grin on his face not quite hiding the weariness in his posture.
"Jazz." Prowl nodded a greeting. "I was growing concerned by your absence."
For a moment, Jazz's visor met his optics, the deep blue glow searching. Prowl read the acknowledgement there, and then the moment when Jazz decided to make a joke of the whole issue. The spectre stretched, his lithe form ethereal under the harsh lights.
"Guess, 'm not as sprightly as I was. Couldn't miss today though. The Big Guy keeps droppin' hints." Jazz's visor winked, his smile irreverent. "Somethin' 'bout lovin' it when a plan comes together."
Sideswipe's engine gave a startled rev. "Lord Primus watches A-Team reruns?"
The expression on Jazz's face was grave and utterly serious. "Sideswipe, Lord Primus has been here since the dawn of time. He saw the show first time 'round."
Another time, in another place, Prowl would have stopped his friend and pressed for the truth. Here and now, they had a meeting waiting.
Optimus Prime nodded a greeting to Jazz as well as Prowl and Sideswipe when they joined the party. Bumblebee warbled in surprise to see the saboteur, before throwing his oblivious companions a guilty glance. Ratchet, pacing between General Lennox on the human gantry and the bench where Bee, Dino and Roadbuster sat watching, didn't seem to notice their ghostly visitor.
Instead the medic singled out first Prowl and then Sideswipe for a pointed glare.
"Where did you go to find him? Cybertron?"
"Patience, Ratchet." Optimus Prime's murmur rumbled through the room and up through Prowl's feet. The large mech's optics rested on Ratchet, their slight dilation betraying his confusion. "Now Prowl and Sideswipe have joined us, perhaps you'd like to…"
"I had two mechs come see me this morning." Ratchet cut across Optimus with both his words and a sharp swipe of his servos. "They were worried about symptoms they'd both noticed so came together."
Optimus lowered himself onto the head chair in the chamber, his expression worried. Prowl knew the tremor in his door-wings gave away his own anxiety. Things had been going so well. The settlement was the embodiment of the safety and stability Prowl had worked for his entire life. For it to be threatened now…
He stepped forwards, arms crossed over his chestplates and optics intent. "How severe are the symptoms? What is the prognosis and the infection rate? Do we need to implement quarantine protocols?"
Ratchet's grin was wildly at odds with Prowl's staccato questions. He dismissed the intent Second-in-Command with a wave.
"Forget quarantine," he said, turning to Optimus with a warm rev of his engine. "We need to start padding corners, moving shelves up a few metres, securing the energon cookies…."
"Ratchet?" Bumblebee chirped a query, his optics on Prowl.
The tactician lowered himself onto the bench closest to Prime, his own optics wide and his door-wings trembling. Jazz's pale face seemed to fill his vision, a bright grin almost outshining the rest of him. The 'Big Guy' had something planned…? The tactician cycled his vocalisor twice before finding words.
"You don't mean…?"
Ratchet nodded. The medic laughed aloud, expression wondering. "Two! Two of them!"
"Two gifts of Primus?" Prowl insisted, needing to hear it.
Ratchet started pacing again, his excitement too vast to be contained. "It's impossible, but it's true."
"A miracle." Optimus Prime spoke in the same reverent whisper Prowl had used. "A blessing!"
"Optimus?" General Lennox's voice rose over the startled revving of engines from all six mechs present. "Want to fill in the gaps for the newbie?"
Prowl felt a smile play across his lip-plates, and suppressed it before it startled Lennox more. The general was hardly a newbie by human standards. NEST training had kept the man fit into middle age, his muscled frame still firm despite the added bulk age had brought. Even so, he was hardly the youngling he'd been when Prime first encountered him. Lennox had seen the Autobots grieve and celebrate. He'd seen them raise the settlement from barren earth, all but uninhabitable to human kind. He'd never seen them as shocked and happy as he saw them now.
"Soooo…. who's gonna give the organic the nuts an' bolts talk? Volunteers?"
Sideswipe sniggered, the reaction to Jazz's question earning him puzzled looks from half the room and amused frowns from the rest.
Prime rumbled a chuckle of his own before nodding.
"You are aware, Will, that the All-Spark has, since the dawn of time, been the source of new sparks in our population."
The reminder sobered Lennox and dampened the still tentative celebration of Prime's junior officers. The general nodded slowly. He looked around him, as if seeing through the walls and out into the too-small settlement beyond.
"You have no idea how sorry I am that it's gone."
Prime nodded an acknowledgement, the echo of old pain dimming his optics. Then his gaze fell on the still-bouncing medic and they brightened again.
"You are not aware, I believe, that there was a second, far less common mechanism by which a new spark could gain sentience."
Lennox bounced to his feet, the human's eyes widening in his incredulity. "And you didn't think to mention this before?"
Prime chuckled. "It appeared to me that a one in ten million year occurrence was unlikely to trouble our relatively brief acquaintance."
"Or two in ten million."
Attention turned to Sideswipe, eyes and optics alike. The tall silver-grey mech stood with his arms crossed and expression distant. Optimus nodded a grave acknowledgement.
"Or two. Sideswipe and his brother were the last gifts Primus gave his children."
Ratchet rolled his eyes, but he stopped by Sideswipe's side, patting the young mech's arm. "For our sins."
Sideswipe spared him a half-smile, before glancing around at the incredulous expression on the faces of Roadbuster, Bumblebee and Dino. The lone twin snorted, waving a hand in their general direction.
"And that would be why we didn't tell people. Can you imagine Sunny and me hanging around Simfur being venerated? Whatever Primus had in mind, it wasn't that. We just wanted to be ourselves."
"Warriors when we needed them. Humour and courage and hope when strength alone would not suffice."
Sideswipe's engine revved, comforted as much as embarrassed by the warmth in his Prime's words. The young swordsmech scowled at Prowl.
"Might have guessed you'd already know."
He cocked his head, glancing sidelong at Jazz with a question in his optics. The spectre too had settled onto a bench, although, Prowl judged, less through shock than his spark-deep weariness. The former Ops mech tapped his visor, cycling it in the equivalent of a human eye-roll. "Hacked your personal files before you'd been with us a decaorn, mech. An' I wasn't gonna keep juicy gossip like that t' myself now, was I?"
He nodded towards Prowl, laughing off the secret he'd kept for eons, from all but his closest friend. Sideswipe knew it too. His optics brightened in salute, before turning back towards the gantry. Lennox had raised his hand, the schoolboy gesture incongruous in the grey-tinged soldier.
"So someone's expecting another pair of twins?" he asked, eyes wide and face a little pale as his horizons expanded to embrace the concept.
Ratchet chuckled. "Nope. Two separate carriers. Two separate sparklings. An orn apart, at most."
Roadbuster broke off from staring at Sideswipe, to stare instead at the medic.
"That's fragging impossible!"
"Unlikely," Optimus allowed, his ageless optics glowing with an elation too intense to voice. "Unless…"
"Unless something's changed," Dino finished for him. The exotic Italian accent he'd adopted was strained and throbbed with a painful hope. Bumblebee patted his friend's back, his own optics searching the faceplates of their elders for confirmation.
"A new start?" he asked, using his own voice even as music swelled from his speakers in an echo of his more usual non-verbal communication.
Jazz chuckled, one servo tapping in time with the melody. Prowl gazed at his friend, his own happiness tinged with sorrow as his optics picked out the edge of the bench through the saboteur's pale frame.
"I love it when a plan comes together," he murmured aloud.
"Jazz."
Prowl didn't turn, didn't move. The mech was silent and invisible to Prowl's sensitive door-wings. Nonetheless, he knew the spectre was there.
In the distance, the sound of celebration carried from the settlement. The return of new life, of new hope, to their people was beyond any of their wildest dreams. The village would celebrate not only this orn, but every vorn to come, finding peace they'd not believed possible.
Prowl's spark sang for them, and ached with a grief and terror he'd last known two Earth decades before.
"Prowler."
Jazz moved awkwardly, his stiff frame a slow and clumsy contrast to his usual grace. The spectre settled beside Prowl with none of his usual banter. They sat side by side, perched on the edge of the rocky outcrop that had been their stargazing rendezvous almost as long as they'd been on Earth, the silence between them heavy with words left unspoken.
It was several breems before Prowl broke the stillness. "This is a wonderful day."
"Yep. Don't think I've ever seen Optimus so happy."
"He has endured much sorrow and led with such spark. I am truly pleased to see him joyful at last."
Jazz shifted, his pale visor reflecting the moonlight as he turned to face his companion for the first time. "An' I find you out here?"
The night sky was dark and cool. A chill breeze blew across Prowl's plating, its motion unimpeded by the spectre that glistened and wavered beside him.
Prowl tilted his helm back, seeking solace in the unchanging stars.
"I spoke to Sunstreaker before he left. I saw how he had to strain to extend his time here. I saw him fade into nothing." His optics dimmed, static flooding his vocalisor as he put words around a concept he'd scarcely dared think about. "Jazz, our people are safe. The Autobots are as secure as we can make them, the Decepticon threat gone for now, perhaps forever. Primus has granted us a new beginning, released us from the decline and fall that seemed our only fate." He paused, venting a deep sigh. "Our tasks are complete, Jazz, just as Sunstreaker's was. It hurts to see you struggle on. It hurts more that I still don't understand why."
Jazz's soft laughter held no humour.
"I know. An' you're right, y'know? This sparkling thing… well, I guess things change. Things like the rift." The spectre shifted, restless despite the weary ache of his frame. Jazz looked away, not meeting his friend's optics. "It's closing, Prowl. The Big Guy says m' time's just about up."
"Really, Jazz, such irreverence…"
"Prowl."
Prowl shuddered, his voice faltering into silence. He wasn't surprised his companion had seen his protest for the delaying tactic it was. He'd been dreading this conversation for years, if not decades. Venting deeply, he forced his door-wings out wide and steady, drawing confidence from the façade. Jazz needed to reach catharsis, and Prowl would accept any sacrifice to see he got it. Even one that threatened to tear his own spark apart.
"Prowler," Jazz repeated, his warm vocalisor tight with strain. His servo stroked across his midriff, curved talons flexing. "Back there… in Mission City… I was so angry, and so afraid. I yelled at Primus, at the All-Spark, at anyone that would listen. The Well was pulling at me, and I held on with all my spark."
"I know."
Prowl reached out in pure, instinctive comfort. His hand brushed Jazz's, and he shuddered again. His spark strained in his frame, reaching out for the other, trying to lend warmth where there was none.
The cold of the night was nothing to the chill of the grave.
Jazz drew in a choking vent, his visor flickering. It was a long few klicks before the spectre drew back, breaking the contact between them.
"Jazz…"
"I didn't come back for Optimus."
Jazz shook his head, wrapping his arms around his frame.
"Primus knows I believe in our Prime. This," he waved a hand, gesturing back towards the village, "all this, it's like a dream. It's what I was always fightin' for." He vented again, drawing air into a frame with scarcely more substance. "But, y'know, I never doubted Optimus could pull it off, with or without me." The saboteur shrugged. "I'm not big-helmed enough t' think me hangin' around was gonna change things. Would've been nice t' take old Megs out, won't deny it, but the kid was doing a fair job of that. An' Prime had Ratch, an' Hide, an' Bee… and he had you."
Prowl blinked at his friend, confused and concerned.
"Nah. Primus himself was holding th' door open, offerin' t' let me rest, offerin' me peace 'til I got sent out for another go 'round. It was temptin', believe me." Jazz still wouldn't meet his optics. His fists opened and clenched, his words spilling into the night in a soft stream.
"But you stayed." Prowl's processor raced, trying to make sense of what he was hearing, trying to parse Jazz's meaning.
"I stayed. Because, Prowler, I stood there, standin' on the edge of the Well, and all I could think of were th' things I never said t' you. I looked at infinity, and knew it would mean nothin' without you."
Prowl's vents stalled. He stared, the world trembling around him and his wing-tips trembling with it.
At last, Jazz looked up. His visor gleamed in the night, searching Prowl's faceplates. Slender, curved servos came up to rest over a pale chest. "So I clung on, Prowler, because this spark wasn't mine t' give away, not even when it was Primus askin'. My spark is yours an' always has been. So I've gotta ask… because I've gotta know… is there any way y' can find it in y'self t' feel the same?"
Prowl gazed down into Jazz's face, one hand rising to hover above a blue-white cheek. Sunstreaker thought he'd find the question difficult. The once-golden twin had warned Prowl not to listen to his processor, not to get in his own way.
Sunstreaker had been wrong.
Prowl had watched Prime shape their new world, and he'd helped every step of the way. He'd fought when fighting was needed, negotiated, traded, planned and prepared. He'd lived through the worst war in the history of their people, and the dawn of a new peace. He'd done his duty from first to last. Jazz knew him well enough to allow him that. Jazz knew his all.
Now he let one servo-tip trail down the saboteur's faceplates, turning his hand to caress a pale cheek. For once in his life, there was no conflict. There was no guilt. For the first time since Praxus fell into ruin he felt truly free. His processor and spark, his duty and desire, were in perfect accord.
He felt the distant resonance of Jazz's spark and his own cried out to close the distance between them.
"Jazz… " Prowl looked into the upturned visor and gave voice to the nightmare that had haunted him almost since they first met, and the dream that he'd clung to for just as long.
"Jazz, I've tried to imagine my world without you. I've tried to pretend life could go on without you by my side." His door-wings trembled. "One short week believing it must almost destroyed me. My duty compelled me to stay. My spark did not know how." He smiled, the expression gentle and glad. "When you returned, I was overjoyed for my own sake, and sorrowful for yours. I would have seen you safe to the Well, if that's what you desired. I'd have given everything for you, and not grieved to do so, even if my spark faded, bereft."
"Prowler…" Jazz shook, the movement barely detectable under Prowl's careful servo-tips. The helm in front of him was almost transparent, just a glimmer in the starlight.
Prowl's chestplates shifted, the music of transformation dancing on the air. The tactician bared his spark chamber without shame or hesitation, giving it freely to the mech who had long since taken possession in spark. "Bond with me."
"I… We can't… The twins… Sunny had to break their bond… Sideswipe… you saw what it did to him..."
A single teardrop slipped from behind the visor, shaped of light and grief. Prowl brushed it away, calm at last.
"Our bond will not break. Not now. Not ever. If you must face eternity once more, you will not do it alone."
There was so much more to be said, and so little time. Words were meaningless now. Jazz's frame was already wavering, losing its form. Prowl dimmed his optics as the saboteur leaned forward against him, the wandering spark drawn home at last.
"Prowl?"
Exhausted, drained both physically and mentally, it had taken him an hour to stumble to the edge of the village. He didn't have much longer. Already his frame was weak, faltering under the burden of supporting two sparks instead of one. His gait was unsteady, his vision narrowed. Moisture had condensed from the night air onto his plating, tiny droplets making his frame shimmer and glisten in the light of their optics.
"Prowl, are you unwell?"
Prowl's servo hovered over his chestplates as if it could capture the warmth there, the love that flooded his all.
He looked up into Optimus Prime's worried expression with optics that radiated joy.
"Optimus, I truly believe I've never been better."