Title: Pushing Forward

Verse: Multi-Continuity AU

Series: Pursuit

Rating: T

Warnings: Xeno

Pairings/Characters: Jack Darby/Arcee

Notes: Pursuit-verse but post-Pursuit. In fact, this relationship won't even get introduced until the sequel unless we do a side story. So no backstory needed.

Prompt: Melee In March: #31 "My mind tells me to give up, but my heart won't let me."

Word Count: 1,728

OoOoOo

They've been together for over ten years now. Ten years, one decade, a small drop of water in the ocean of time to her people. A large chunk of a lifetime for him.

In those ten years he has said "I love you" exactly 27 times. Each time after an event that has altered the course of their relationship.

She has never said it in return.

You see, Jackson Darby is a 32 year old man from a small town in Nevada. His mother moved him to California in his late teens when she married his stepfather and became June Fowler. He likes the man well enough, and if they hadn't moved he never would have met her. He has a girlfriend, obviously, one he has been with for a very long time. His stepfather works on a government project that most people would give their right arm for. The same project he now works on. The project that threw her in his path.

And he is currently hiding from his girlfriend. Which is a lesson in futility, really. All of the agents on this particular assignment are chipped so they can be located if the enemy carts some of them off. If she really wants to find him all she has to do is ping his chip. He hasn't felt the tiny vibration of the ping, so she is either respecting his wishes and giving him his space or, more likely, she's pissed off at him still.

God either really loves him or has a very sick sense of humor.

Though that could be said about most of their relationship. The odds of them finding each other are unbelievable. He has a better chance of hitting the lottery in all fifty states than he did of finding her.

He was a 22 year old, a kid really, fresh out of boot camp. If it hadn't been for his stepfather's connections he never would have been given this assignment. Or maybe that's not true. He's always been good at mechanics and was one of the people not freaked out by the government announcement that there were aliens amongst them. As long as they didn't start trouble, were actually kind of helpful, he didn't care one way or the other. Autobot City was one of the safest places in the world to live, and he'd heard rumblings that a former classmate of his had become the Japanese ambassador there. It certainly could have been worse.

First day in the city and he'd gotten separated from his training unit. Commander Lennox was probably going to kill him. Well, if the big guy that had been introduced as the commander's right hand man, and what kind of nickname was Ironhide anyway, didn't beat him to it. This was before he knew about holoforms. Before he knew that bear of a man was actually a bear of a bot. He still, to this day, doesn't know which form scares him more.

The motorcycle had been leaning against a building; an innocuous piece of blue and chrome, a pretty little custom number. He'd always wanted a fast ride and this thing looked like it was built for speed. Warm under his hands when he touched the handles, probably left out in the sun too long. He couldn't help but climb on. He just wanted a taste, just for a moment. He wouldn't damage it and no one would be the wiser.

At least that had been his thoughts up until the moment the bike had shot off like a rocket, with him firmly gripping the handles and praying to every god he knew that he didn't fly off the seat. It had careened through the wide streets, tilting to the side to avoid the feet of a large silver alien. It didn't take a genius to figure out he'd accidentally hopped on one of their visitors and said alien Was. Not. Happy.

He had spotted his unit a split second before the motorcycle screeched to a halt, throwing him off. He landed in a pile at the feet of Commander Lennox and a large mech colored in shades of red and blue. A little scuffed up but otherwise unharmed.

"Arcee, explain this," the mech had grumbled at his pretty bike. The bike, Arcee, and what a beautiful name that was, had unfolded and left him staring at a creature that others would see as a threat. He could only call her magnificent.

Some things, he'd come to learn over the next ten years, were just universal. Even if femmes weren't really female they did have some very feminine characteristics. She'd jutted her hip to one side carelessly and placed a hand on it. With her free hand she pointed at him and his heart lurched. Not in fear, oh no, but something he couldn't have named at the time. "One of the new kids thought it would be a great idea to hop on a ride without checking the sentience first. I believe I was doing my part to cure him of it."

"As true as that may be, I can not condone any action that endangers a human being under my watch. Report to Prowl's office at once soldier, I will be sending him a comm letting him know to expect you." The red and blue did not seem pleased with his pretty bike.

He didn't understand it. No one had gotten hurt and he saw where she was coming from. He knew the aliens had something they called alt modes. He knew almost all of these alt mods could be mistaken for vehicles. It had been damned stupid on his part to hop on an unattended bike. He didn't know what it was about her, but all of his training went right out the window. "With all due respect, sirs, she should not be punished for something that was clearly my fault. I'll take the punishment for the transgression, sirs."

They had been impressed, Lennox and the mech he'd come to know as Optimus Prime, enough so that they agreed to lessen her punishment. A month of guard duty for both of them, to be carried out together.

Guard duty had turned out to be the most monotonous task in the city. Attacks from renegade Decepticons trying to retrieve their former leader were something of a rarity. It was much more common to receive a call that Barricade and Bumblebee had been spotted breaking curfew...again. Or that Megatron was missing and Starscream had just been spotted flying back into Autobot City airspace, would someone mind checking the impact crater that had just appeared on the equipment? But it had been a month of time he had used to get to know her. So not a month wasted, in his mind at least.

He had never been more nervous in his life than when he'd asked her if she wanted to hang out once their punishment was over. He knew a lot of the aliens had organic companionship. But not all of them. And some of the guys, human and bot alike, had hinted that she was a stone cold fox where humans were concerned. Use them once or twice, and he had to admit those few times on the floor of the guard house late at night had been worth it, and then move on. She had even told him she wasn't looking for anything past what they were doing in the moment. He had asked anyway, amazing himself that he didn't stutter once. She'd given him a once over and shrugged, telling him to lead the way.

Ten years later and he doesn't regret asking for that first "date", even though the first time hadn't really been a date. Oh, he has his regrets. There are many of them, most involving her, but that's not one.

He's fairly certain he can't keep this up for much longer, though. Arcee will stay young and beautiful forever. He will be dust in the Earth when she is still in the prime of her life. There's only one way to avoid that fate, but she doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't either, not really. He's sure he'll come off sounding like a vulture, and he never wants her to think he's only with her to get what she can give.

He hears her coming long before he sees her. This part of the base is very rarely used by the bots and it is quiet here. But even if he were sitting on the main drag he's pretty sure he could tell the sound of her peds from anyone else's.

The sun is going down, and he is impressed. Not just by the way the fading light sparkles off her frame, though that's making him rev in a way he's pretty sure has never been truly healthy, but by the fact she's let him have this much time and space to work things out in his own mind.

"Jack." She stops in front of him, voice soft and not just a little broken. He hates it when she sounds like this. Hates it when he's the cause of it. They've been having this same run around for nine years now and he knows this little play by heart. "I..."

"Yeah," he shrugs and pats the ground next to him. "Don't worry about it. It's my hang up, not yours. You told me years ago you weren't the bonding type. I stay with you knowing this, and if I don't like it I know where the door is."

She looks insanely grateful as she sinks down next to him, careful not to harm him in any way. Whether she's grateful that he is not pressing the bonding, that he is not mad, that he's staying under her terms even though he wants so much more with her, or something entirely different he doesn't know.

Right now he doesn't really care.

Oh, he knows he'll have to figure this out soon. He's still young enough he could hook up with one of the human women on base, or at least an organic alien, and have a family; wife, kids, pets, the whole shebang. His mind is telling him that this is a good idea, that he should give up his fool's paradise.

She reaches out tentatively to touch him, a small brush against his back and the closest he'll ever get to her saying sorry. Whatever plan his mind has been cooking up is smashed to bits by his heart.

And he can't find it in him to be upset about that.