Pain, fear, and the chance of being offlined was beginning to seem like more of a mercy to Lockdown as time went on. Sighing, he carefully leaned against the rocky brig cell's wall. Three slaggin' months since Megatron had found out that the bounty hunter was a carrier by accident. Though he had heard rumors of the Decpticon leader wanting an heir, he had hoped it won't involve him. He was wrong.

Sighing again, Lockdown reached into his subspace and pulled out a slightly ruined book and a datapad. Smiling, he reread the title to himself, Alice in Wonderland and Alice's Adventures through the Looking Glass. He was halfway done with putting the second part onto the datapad, considering that he was rarely let out of the cell unless it involved checking on the developing sparkling or Megatron's lust…

The sparkling… A life that, if he was in control of things, wouldn't be here right now. If he had gotten away the first night, it would have been terminated at the spark-bud stage. It was too late for him to think of doing that now. Lockdown's servo, hook long gone, moved to his chest-plating subconsciously and ghosted over it. He was hoping it was a femme, he had always wanted a daughter. Megatron wanted a son. Sighing, he began the rest of the transcribing, hoping to be done with it by tomorrow. The book had turned into a sanctuary for him. He had never gotten to thank that organic child for it, but he knew she hung around the Autobots and he wouldn't have been able to.

A few days later, Lockdown felt even worse than before. He realized the reason that Starscream hated the warlord so much; being sent to the med-bay by him was the worst part of this whole thing.

"I could help jou, jou know." Lockdown glanced at Blitzwing, the tan and purple flier not facing him. There was sincerity in those words though, and Lockdown wanted out. For him and the child.

"Why?" His vocalizer was definitely damaged beyond what Blitzwing could do here. The flier turned to face him with a sad smile.

"Because, zat sparkling dezerves to be raised avay from Megatron. He vould offline jou und her…" Blitzwing handed Lockdown a datapad. "Zere's coordinates for a ship on zat. Take it und go now."

Lockdown didn't need to be told twice. His cloaking was working and he turned it on before running out of the med-bay and into the night that lay outside the mine. Following the coordinates, he reached the ship in a few hours. He took off, with just one glance back at the planet as the ship rocketed into the inky blackness. He was free.

It was a long time before he realized just how far into the future Blitzwing had planned this out. A medical drone had been placed aboard, along with plenty of fresh energon. Both were helpful when the sparkling was finally brought into the world, so to speak.

Lockdown smiled as he held her, his free servo just brushing over her helm. It was one of the few things that her coder had given her, the helm shape and her lower arm-plating… there was no way he could call Megatron her father. The rest of her, from the pretty white face-plates to her wheeled pedes was from him.

The sparkling whined as she grabbed hold of a digit, her grip tight so it wouldn't escape and she could find out what it was. Blind. Lockdown could care less about that, though. She was perfect. His little angel, his… his Alice.

"My angel, my Alice… He'll never find you, I promise darlin'…" Lockdown whispered as he held her close and kissed her helm. The sparkling, no… Alice, smiled at the sound of her carrier's voice and chirped, oblivious to who this "he" Lockdown was talking about was. All that mattered anymore was her safety and her future. Anything else would have to wait.