Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee were out with their human friends, while the rest of the Autobots were on patrol (even though Smokescreen's patrol consisted pretty much of speeding and getting away with it).
That meant it was only Eclipse and Ratchet left at base.
Eclipse sat on top of a teetering pile of boxes, watching Ratchet tinker with various scraps. The boxes she was sitting on had held materials the government shipped in for Ratchet to use to build… well, whatever he was building. Eclipse wasn't really sure, as his projects were always changing, depending on whatever one could be the most useful in the coming days. She swished her long tail as she watched him weld two pieces of metal together.
It wasn't unusual to see Ratchet engrossed in his work; Eclipse didn't know why she felt the urge to stay with him. The other Autobots had tried to get her to come on patrol with them, but she had simply climbed up onto her perch on the boxes and stayed there until they decided that they should leave her alone. She could feel their cautious sympathy, as it wasn't every day they met a bot like her… a bot that had been tortured and left to die, if it wasn't for the hard work of Team Prime. And even though their sympathy was kind, it left Eclipse feeling rather empty in the spark chamber. The Autobots had good intentions, but that seemed to be all that they had.
Well, excluding Ratchet.
She didn't know why she was so drawn to him. He wasn't exactly the most fatherly figure; he was actually kind of cranky and stuck in his ways. He was also easily the most competent bot of Team Prime, as he was a very good medic, although his demeanor didn't exactly lend itself to the career. His impressive knowledge of Cybertronian systems made him an incredibly important asset to the group. And even though his work sometimes verged into the experimental area, he was as dedicated as anyone to the planet Earth.
Experimental… The word brought a sour taste to Eclipse's glossa. Those were the days she really didn't want to remember- the countless hours of pain, of suffering, of being nothing more than a vessel for "success" as Scorpio tortured her and her mother, Shadow.
But as hard as she tried, she couldn't help but think back to the dark memories lurking in the depths of her processor. She remembered that fateful day, when the aching feeling in her unfamiliar organs had prompted her to scrounge around for something to eat, when she felt a sort of queasy satisfaction after she had gulped down those tools, and the result that followed: Scorpio's terrifyingly polemical reaction as he beat and screamed at her for eating his precious torture devices, the diatribe that had almost made her give him back the tools in a pool of bile. His vicious tirade had hurt her… but after that main event, she finally got the chance to hurt him back- for everything. She remembered the sudden surge of confidence she had felt when Scorpio's damaged servo dangled from her mouth, his energon dripping down her chin, and the burning relief she felt when her appetite for retribution was finally sated. It was called revenge, she knew that now; and even though she felt a comforting finality as Scorpio's lifeless body crumpled to the floor, he still haunted her in her dreams, spawning her paranoia, hiding in the shadowy corners of her powerdowns. Somehow, in her head, he would just be there, whether as a mangled manifestation, two glowing optics, or merely as a bad feeling in the pit of her strange stomach. Sometimes she wouldn't see him for weeks on end, and she almost forgot her fear of him, but then suddenly, as soon as she was making progress, he would spring up again and leave her shaking and whimpering on the concrete floor.
Eclipse's tail began swinging more quickly, her sparkbeat pattering faster as each repressed memory bubbled to the surface. She tapped her digits on the top of the box- a habit she had long ago realized was her subconscious' way of trying to calm down. Scorpio was a goner, she thought, with a guilty lack of conviction; he can't hurt me now.
Ratchet rose from his worktable and moved across the room, muttering to himself about the lack of intelligent technology the humans had supplied for him. As he walked, Eclipse fascinatedly watched his shadow, the dark blur that followed him around in perpetuity. It was a darkness that was always advancing, always echoing movements, always glued right to his pedes. Wherever the light couldn't stretch its omnipotent fingers, a shadow filled the void. And as stupid as this sounded to Eclipse, she couldn't help but be entranced as the shape reflected every one of Ratchet's diminutive subtleties.
But, out of the corner of her optic, she could've sworn she saw another, very, very, familiar shadow rushing swiftly towards her as Ratchet turned around once again to work.
Eclipse leapt from the tower of boxes in a flurry of shrieks and limbs, toppling to the floor. Her processor was screaming at her to transform, but all she could hear was Scorpio's sadistic laughter as he ran at her with a glinting scalpel.
Please! I ended you! Her frenzied thoughts shouted. I don't deserve this-
"Gotcha!" Ratchet exclaimed as he dove for the falling Eclipse. Her body collided with his arms in a resounding crash as he caught her, bringing her back to reality. She steadied her quaking circuits as she tried to focus on the things in front of her. Ratchet. The Autobots. Earth.
She shook her head as if to clear it of its contents.
No more Scorpio.
Ratchet looked at her with wide optics. "Are you alright, Eclipse?"
Eclipse gulped and nodded, her servos still shaking.
He looked at her with concern. Out of all the Autobots, Ratchet was the one she expected to care the least about her, due to his fervent dislike of change. But for some reason, the old medic seemed to see right through her. And even though he didn't always have the right thing to say, and he wasn't really that huggy, Eclipse felt that he was easily the bot she connected most with.
She wondered if he felt the same way.
Ratchet gave her a look, perhaps an unspoken question as to why she had such an outburst. And Eclipse knew she could tell him what happened. She knew she could trust him. In fact, all she wanted to do was just jump into his arms and cry and let him cheer her up again, like she was still an adorable little sparkling. His adorable little sparkling. But who was she kidding? She was a freak- nobody would think she was cute, and she knew it. Scorpio knew it. Her foreign organs knew it, as did her strange alt mode and the deep gashes in her posterior.
And, she noted with a heavy spark, Ratchet probably knew it too.
She remained silent and averted her optics, hoping to deter his tacit inquiry. She was fooling herself if she thought that he actually wanted to know what went wrong. A long, heavy pause passed between the two as they had their silent exchange. Even so, Eclipse swore she saw some disappointment in Ratchet's optics as he began to speak."Would you like to see what I'm making?"
Eclipse paused. "O-okay," she replied, guiltily issuing an unspoken thank-you to him for not making her divulge the cause of her embarrassing fall.
Ratchet smiled slightly and moved over to his worktable, gesturing for Eclipse to follow him. She did, albeit a little cautiously, because as much as she trusted this dear old mech, certain mechanical experiments brought back memories that caused her to be… on edge.
"Here we are," Ratchet said as he handed his work of to Eclipse.
It was… something.
The spherical object fit neatly into the palm of Eclipse's servo. She turned it over, observing the myriad of multicolored wires that protruded from its side, and the two teeny tiny lenses that were implanted into the top of it. There were small gashes in its side, most likely markings that Ratchet had gouged to make his work of cutting the metal that much easier. Its plating was hastily constructed; that was what Ratchet had just been welding, and he hadn't gotten far enough into the construction to sand the messy edges down to smoothness.
"Do you like it so far?" Ratchet asked expectantly, searching for a reaction on Eclipse's face.
Eclipse turned it over once again, staring into the shining metal. Something about it impressed her. Even though it was unfinished, she could tell that it was crafted by the servos of a skilled and experienced inventor.
That didn't change the fact that she couldn't make heads or tails of it, though.
She could tell Ratchet was growing restless of waiting for her response. "I, um…" She started, for lack of a better explanation.
Eclipse looked down into the object's metal side, trying to buy herself some time to think. She didn't want to offend Ratchet by asking what the device was, especially because she feared he would take it personally, and not as an honest question from a very incompetent person. She couldn't help but fret; not only would Ratchet see her as a freak, he'd see her as a stupid freak. The only thing she could focus on was the fuzzy outline of her dark blue helm and the two halos that were her optics, reflecting back at her from their place in the dusky metal.
But… there was something else there, too…
"EEEK!" Eclipse hurled the device across the room. It hit the wall and fell to the ground with a clatter. She could feel the panic rising in her spark chamber as Ratchet's expression changed from shocked to offended.
He was dumbfounded. "What the slag did you do that for?" he exclaimed, racing over down to the dented object. "Eclipse! I needed that! Why did you-"
He looked around the base and stood up.
"Eclipse?"
Eclipse tore down the road outside of the Autobot base in Jasper, Nevada. Why couldn't she run any faster? She wasn't going anywhere!
With a grimace, she leapt up and transformed into her alt mode, a dark blue metal dragon. Although the pain had lessened greatly from the time she had originally transformed with her new organs, it still was an awfully uncomfortable process that involved much squelching and squeezing in unnatural ways. A silent curse at Scorpio, though, and the pain almost went away.
Almost.
Eclipse flapped her wings and slowly ascended into the vast sky. She didn't know where she was going to go, but she did know that wherever she ended up, she wanted to get there quickly.
It was much cooler up in the clouds. Condensation coated her wings as she caught an updraft and soared almost vertically into the sky. She felt so free, flying above all the tiny houses. There was no one to judge her, no one to oppress her, no one to tell her what to do- and she loved it. The sky was the only place where she could be alone and be happy about it.
Scorpio couldn't touch her up here.
She hated him now, and she hated herself for still being afraid of him. He was gone- he couldn't hurt her anymore, whether it be through a dream, a shadow, or even a reflection in a… well, whatever that thing was.
Scorpio was gone.
Eclipse did feel a little bad about breaking Ratchet's device, though. She had watched him work tirelessly on it all week, avoiding unnecessary conversation and sorting out wires instead. She still didn't have a clue as to what it was, but she could respect the amount of work that went into it regardless. Ratchet never seemed to stop inventing, even as the other Autobots patrolled and trained and bickered around him. There was something so admirable about his intense concentration- how he could be so calm and absorbed even when there was so much going on. Ratchet somehow had the ability to push away all thoughts and distractions and just… work.
Eclipse envied him so much for that. If she could stop thinking about her past, maybe she'd be able to create like he did.
She shivered suddenly, the droplets of water on her wings feeling like ice. The memory of Scorpio was a lingering one, like an awful stench that never went away, even after eons and eons of scrubbing. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't simply wipe the memory away.
As she flew, Eclipse realized that maybe her shivering wasn't completely Scorpio-induced. At her altitude, the temperature had dropped considerably, and the condensation on her body was actually getting close to freezing into little bullets of ice.
She proceeded to circle the sky awkwardly, looking for a place to land among the red rocks. No, too open. Humans could see me from a mile away. No, too narrow- I don't want to be in a tiny crevice of a canyon. No, too- there!
Eclipse folded her wings and dove toward the ground, opening them up again like a parachute just before she landed. Her pedes hit the ground, and she transformed back into bot mode, walking over to sit on a secluded cliff in the sunshine.
She took a few deep, steadying breaths to help her calm down. Scorpio was a shadow- he couldn't touch her here, in the kind world of the sun.
She sat there for a long time, thinking about nothing, contentedly letting herself defrost in the harsh sunlight. It felt fantastic- Eclipse couldn't even remember a time when she felt this relaxed, this uninvolved, this removed from her immense problems. There was nothing to worry about because there was nothing to do. There was nothing to do because there was nothing to worry about.
It was a wonderful fantasy, and a wonderfully false one at that.
Her audio receptors picked up the faint din of a faraway engine. The soft purr of it almost lulled her to sleep, until she realized - too late - that the noise was growing nearer.
She heard the metallic sound of a transformation, and then the steady clunk of pedes as Ratchet moved towards her.
Eclipse's body tensed. Oh Primus, what was she going to say to him? She couldn't just run away again. But she felt so terrible about the device, and she had no doubt that Ratchet would be mad at her for breaking it. He yelled at Bulkhead for destroying his things all the time; all Eclipse could do was to try and brace herself for the coming onslaught of exclamations.
With a sigh, Ratchet settled into a seated position beside her. The two of them stared, wordlessly, off into the sky, each trying to figure out how to word their opinions.
Eclipse was unable to take the pressure of the awkward silence any longer. She opened her mouth to speak. "I-"
"It's okay," Ratchet said, optics still focused on the vast blueness in front of him.
Eclipse turned to look at him, a mixture of surprise and caution on her face. She blinked. What?
"No, really, I'm-"
"No, it's fine," he cut her off again, looking in the opposite direction. The space between them grew tense as another long pause filled the air.
Eclipse didn't know what else to say. Ratchet seemed to have read her mind, but the ability wasn't mutual. Why in the world would he decline her apology? She did something wrong- she wanted to let him know that. But even though she tried, he wouldn't let her.
Why?
Ratchet made an odd noise. Eclipse glanced over at him, confused.
The noise grew louder. It was kind of a grating, rusty noise, and it was only until Ratchet stopped shaking and turned around with a wry smile on his face that Eclipse realized the sound was… laughter.
Ratchet shook his head good-naturedly. "Y'know, that was going to be a toy for you."
Eclipse's optics widened. A toy? She had smashed a gift? How much worse could this get?
"...So that's why there were little lenses on it," she murmured. Those must've been supposed to be like optics.
Ratchet turned to look at her. "Yeah."
Eclipse felt the energon rush to her faceplate. Why was she so stupid? That was so obvious!
Ratchet began his rusty laughter again as Eclipse mentally kicked herself. She just couldn't seem to do anything reasonable today. "Now," he said, his tone growing more serious, "I have to ask. Why'd you chuck it across the room?"
Eclipse froze. What would he think of her if she told him the truth? She bet she would be a freak in his optics, just like everybody else saw her. They would never say it aloud, of course; the Autobots were too polite to do that. But she knew it now, in a feeling that hit her deep in the spark chamber, that her status and past was the only thing that bred their undying sympathy. If it had been another bot who refused to go on patrol, there was no way they'd let them stay at base. But for her, they made an exception- because she was different, special, in her own freaky way.
But, she thought, Ratchet's not like the other Autobots. Eclipse had felt that way before, but she had just lumped him into her generalization because she was afraid it might be true. But now, as he looked at her with concern that ran so much deeper than just sympathy, she realized that her first instinct had been right.
Ratchet cared about her. He really did. And he wanted her to know that she could trust him with anything.
Their optics met and Eclipse gulped, her throat feeling tight. "I… I…"
Ratchet's kind gaze helped her coax the words out of her voicebox. "I… I thought I saw Scorpio."
She shut her optics and braced herself for the laughter.
But it never came.
Cautiously, she opened her optics. Ratchet hadn't even blinked at her reason, still staring intently at her. "Go on," he said, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. "What did he do?"
Eclipse was shocked. He isn't laughing. "He- he- he was just there." She swallowed, the lump bobbing in her throat. He's still not laughing. "He was- he was in the shadow- and he was laughing- and then- then he was in the toy- he was right behind me- he…"
Ratchet seemed to understand. "A shadow," he mused. "Is that why you fell off the boxes?"
Eclipse nodded, feeling her optics fill with tears. She clutched her servos together in a futile attempt to make them stop shaking.
Ratchet nodded back at her. "And then in the reflection, too. You saw him in there." He laughed wryly. "Primus, I'd have been just as terrified."
Eclipse jerked her head up. What?
Ratchet smiled at her surprise. "I don't know how you do it," he said in admiration. "If someone had done those things to me, like what Scorpio did to you, I'd… I don't think I'd ever be able to spend an hour without screaming." He gulped, a little embarrassed. "Really, Eclipse, I have no idea-"
Eclipse wrapped her arms around him in a sudden embrace, tears spilling over her optics. Ratchet was momentarily stunned, but he soon pulled Eclipse in to his torso in a caring hold.
"He- he-" Eclipse sobbed uncontrollably. "He had- he had a scal- scalpel-" she took a ragged breath- "and then he- he ran at me- and- and-"
"Eclipse…" Ratchet felt himself getting slightly emotional, too. "Eclipse, shhh. Shhh, it's okay. Don't worry, don't worry. Scorpio's not going to hurt you."
Eclipse nodded against Ratchet's body, feeling the warmth emanating from his spark. She felt secure here, in his arms, crying like a little sparkling. He was right- Scorpio wasn't going to hurt her. Not here, not ever.
"I won't let him hurt you," Ratchet said quietly. And somehow, even though the statement was so simple and terse, it made Eclipse feel safe, as if she had finally found the solace she had been searching for her whole life.
Her weeping slowed to small sniffles. Scorpio can't hurt me. Ratchet will be there to protect me from him.
Eclipse let out a shaky sigh, the last of her tears falling from her optics. She rested her head on Ratchet's chest. "I love you, daddy."
Ratchet froze, his arms becoming stiff and awkward around Eclipse. The content smile on Eclipse's faceplate became replaced with a look of embarrassed shock as she suddenly realized what she had just said.
She pulled away from the hug quickly. Scrap! What are you doing, Eclipse? "I mean- um-"
She looked away, trying to think. Daddy. Daddy! Why in the world did you have to say daddy? "Ummmmmmmm…"
Eclipse slowly looked back up at Ratchet, her face glowing with humiliation. She wasn't sure how she was going to get out of this one when suddenly, she realized that Ratchet's astonished expression had changed to a small (albeit somewhat confused) smile.
They locked optics for a brief moment.
Ratchet pulled Eclipse back into a sudden embrace. "I love you too, my daughter," he said, planting a kiss on her helm.
And finally, for the first time in her life, Eclipse didn't feel like a freak.