I watched them try to repair the boy, feeling utterly helpless as no medic ever should. All our technology could do nothing for Sam now. I could see what they could not, even though humans are so alien to us. His life was extinguished. Turning my back on his body, I turned my guns on those who had killed him.

Mikaela's cries turned from anguish to joy, and I glanced back to see the impossible – Sam rising to his feet.

Even the battle raging around us was temporarily forgotten. What was happening here? What…magic was this? There was no such thing. The All Spark was gone, and besides, it never could have restored the function of an organic's body.

Bumblebee projected his shock at the object in the boy's hand. /The Matrix of Leadership! It was a sock full of dust!/

Ironhide overheard us, even as he provided cover fire. /Bumblebee, report!/

Not bothering with quaint linear explanations, he threw an info dump at us. My optics were glued to the boy, but I was seeing so much more than just him as I sifted through Bumblebee's files. Jetfire revived by the All Spark shard no one had known existed. That perverted little…little…

/Chihuahua of a Decepticon,/ Ironhide spat as he processed the same scene.

The truth we'd long felt finally confirmed: Optimus was genuinely a Prime. The riddling words that gave faint hope. The broken mural that hid the Tomb of the Primes. Sam's…faith.

And then he raised the Matrix and drove it into Optimus' chassis. Optimus Prime, our leader in battle and moral guide – our spark – moved. With senses unique to my build, I saw a life reignited for the second time in one day. Optimus coughed and shuddered, then struggled to rise.

The Fallen teleported in, plucked the Matrix from Optimus' chest, and teleported out before anyone could so much as move.

Sam shouted encouragement, but as I did a quick medical scan, I grimaced. What had we all expected? It wasn't like this was part of whatever human magic had restored Sam. Optimus had been killed in battle. Even with his spark restored, the Matrix had been removed and his damaged frame hadn't had a chance to heal. He was in no condition to fight, and the parts I'd stockpiled over the last two years were still back in our hangar at NEST.

"Take my parts…"

I watched in horror as the old Seeker Jetfire literally tore his spark out. My spark lurched, but my medical protocols engaged and I was already processing it all and shouting directions out loud. "Jolt! Electrify!"

Don't let the energon decay. Integrate Jetfire's parts. Honor his last wish. Make his spark part of a living Prime. Channel his energy into Optimus' repair systems. Showing shock or grief would dishonor the nobility of this deed.

I uploaded my directions to Jolt, the parts that I wanted, where and in what order. "Transfer those afterburners!"

I stepped aside, watching our handiwork. It wasn't unheard of, in the desperation of the battlefield, to cannibalize parts from the dead. I'd done it myself, from time to time, but it was not something I did lightly.

Never in my long life had I done a patch job like this, though. I knew my leader's mechanical workings better than any other Autobot who had ever lived. Even so, I felt almost like fate guided me in those brief, critical seconds. Jolt and I made Jetfire live again in Optimus Prime – his flight and offensive abilities, even his slightly quirky boosters.

Prime transformed as easily as if he'd used these parts for millennia and flew to engage both The Fallen and Megatron singlehandedly. Flew!

The pyramid erupted in flashes of weapons' fire, and I knew he'd destroyed the solar harvester. Earth was safe. Only then did the full magnitude of what had transpired hit me like a plasma blast and the lump of cold, hard grief that had frozen my spark for days melted and flowed as joy. Optimus lived!

Even that knowledge wasn't enough to disengage my medical protocols, however, and I moved on to assess Ironhide. One look told me he was in no shape for battle, and I immediately began triage. "Jolt, Bumblebee. Look for survivors. We need to back Optimus up."

Before I could get even Ironhide ready to roll again, Optimus strode into view, shaking off the Seeker armor. Both battle and medical protocols disengaged when I realized Optimus had been victorious. For the first time in I didn't know how long, I felt genuine hope.

Optimus transformed and drove back to us, and as he drew closer that hope and joy started giving way to first dismay and then anger. His parts were all mismatched, with the dull black of Jetfire's stealth exterior mingled with Optimus' normally-bright finish. He'd flown off by himself and exerted himself who knew how to fight Megatron and The Fallen and any other Decepticons who backed them up, all with unfamiliar parts and a patchwork spark chamber.

Primus be slagged, I was going to kill the mech myself!

My anger was irrational, a small part of my processors recognized. There had been no time for a decent repair, no time for me to get the rest of us Autobots fixed up and ready to roll, no time for the humans to provide better support. He had only done what was truly necessary.

It was still stupid and self-sacrificing of him and... and slag the mech, Prime or not! After all our grief and sorrow, he had no right to abandon us like that!

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Ironhide rumbled, and I looked to see he was watching Optimus drive closer.

"That I want to beat the glitch within an inch of his life?" I growled.

"Yeah, that," he agreed. "Except you have me immobilized for repair," he pointedly added.

"Which is why I get the privilege of beating his helm in this time," I retorted and walked off leaving him right where he was. He wouldn't stasis lock in the few minutes it would take to remind the Prime that we needed Optimus too, not just a figurehead.

As he approached my triage, he slowed and then transformed just far enough away that he'd have time to duck any wrenches or other hardware I might throw at him. This was not the first time he'd been thick-chipped enough to anger me, and even though I wished it was the last time, I knew him better than that. I strode closer, and as I expected, he held his ground. "Ratchet," he greeted. "What is our status?"

Yanking a wrench out of subspace, I winged it at him. He flinched to duck away but froze and took it in the shoulder, probably because he realized at the same astrosecond I did that there was a group of humans behind him. By then I was close enough to grab the idiot by his chassis and pull him down to his knees. His engine rumbled in protest, but he didn't resist when I brandished my saws and torches. "Open up," I ordered, thumping him with my fist on the armor directly above his spark. "I need to see if you damaged that fragging Frankenstein of a spark chamber."

He complied and I began a deep medical scan on the seams between Jetfire's spark chamber fragments and his. There was fury in my silence, and I knew he heard it.

"Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster," he mildly said after several moments.

I cuffed him hard enough that it left a scratch on his right antenna. "Don't get smart with me, you glitched pit-spawn of a fragger." Glaring, I growled, "Don't you ever, ever do that to us again, do you understand?! Ironhide almost blew up the whole of New Jersey in a fit of rage, Bumblebee had to defend Sam from both Megatron and his own people with no one but the reject twins to back him up, and I was left as the only reasonable mech on a planet teeming with humans. Don't you ever abandon us like that again!"

He looked down, and I grabbed his chin-array, tipping his helm up and making him meet my gaze. "Do. You. Understand?" I repeated.

"Yes, Ratchet," he meekly answered.

I released his chin and stepped back, and he immediately closed up his armor again. "It looks like those welds will hold for now," I grudgingly admitted. "For being dead less than twenty minutes ago, you're in remarkably good shape."

"I'm cleared for light duty, then," he asked just a little too calmly, and I narrowed my optics at him.

"Yes, but if I hear of you pulling even one more stupid, self-sacrificing stunt, I'm going to put you in stasis until we're back on Diego Garcia and make sure the entire chain of command knows why."

"Understood," he rumbled as he again rose to his feet, and slag him if I didn't see a hint of humor in his optics as he walked off to join the rest of the Autobots.

…

Arcee was dead. Though she'd been severed from me and her other sisters' mates, she'd invoked the oath-bond of sibling privilege. She was the last tie Optimus, Ironhide, and I had to our mates and to each other. Now she was gone, too, and the scars on my spark ached anew. I sent the broken-sparked Bumblebee in search of a covering for her in keeping with the traditions of this world.

When I went to report her death to Prime – our actual, living Prime – that profound hope filled me again, driving out the last lingering irritation. The Matrix had restored Optimus to life; why not Arcee?

"Optimus, I need to speak with you," I said, interrupting his conversation with Iron Will. The human seemed to welcome the interruption, however, and quickly excused himself.

"Yes?"

"Arcee has been extinguished."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "She has honored both Sam and myself with her sacrifice."

"It doesn't have to be that way," I said, surprised that he didn't already see it. "The Matrix restored you to life. You can do the same for Arcee."

He hesitated for a moment, looking up at the wreckage that had once been a pyramid, and then shook his helm. "It is not my place to use the Matrix in that way."

"What do you mean?" I demanded, frustration filling me again. "You're our Prime! You are the Matrix bearer! Or maybe you missed that memo?" I snidely added.

"I am a Prime and heir of the Dynasty," he confirmed, not rising to my barb, "but the Matrix is still in the solar harvester. I am not the Matrix bearer."

"Not yet," I huffed, "but if you are truly a Prime, then it's still yours to hold and protect. So you'd better fly your aft back up there and retrieve it before some human gets their grubby little hands on it."

His firm gaze held mine with an irritated intensity I didn't understand. "I will retrieve it, but know that if Arcee is to return to us, it will be by the hands of a grubby little human, as you put it."

"Sam?" I doubtfully asked.

"Yes. It falls to him to use the Matrix in this way."

"I don't understand."

Bumblebee approached with a covering for Arcee, and Optimus dismissed me, leaving me even more irritated. Optimus' reasoning made no sense to me. The boy was a human. Granted, he'd done remarkable things, but this was an Autobot matter. Waiting to restore her to life until we could honor the boy for his contributions seemed a poor excuse to leave Arcee dead.

After I spread out the cloth and got the other mechs started on helping me gather her parts onto it, I took a moment to give Sam a quick, external scan. His bandaged hand was filthy now and the wound would probably become infected. I'd need to speak with the NEST medics about that. Scanning his hand deeper to check for harmful bacteria or viruses, my intakes faltered and my processors froze. Foreign matter was in his body, but it wasn't anything that would sicken him.

Dust from the Matrix of Leadership now flowed through his veins.

The legends were old, but they ran deep in Cybertronian society. There were many Primes anciently but only one Matrix bearer. And Sam now carried part of the Matrix in him. The magic that brought him back wasn't human; it wasn't even magic. It was the Matrix.

Holy. Slag.

The boy was one of us, and I realized with startling clarity that Optimus already knew. That's why he denied he was the Matrix bearer. He knew Sam was also a Prime and that his use of the Matrix wasn't an accident. This primitive, limited, fragile, young being of flesh (who was currently dribbling water down his chin as he drank from the canteen Epps had given him) was a Prime. 'Amazed' didn't begin to describe how I felt. Even 'awed' was an understatement. 'Thunderstruck' probably came close.

The boy was a Prime.

He was not only one of us; as a Prime he stood at the head of our race. All that I felt toward Optimus, the loyalty and friendship and willingness to serve, expanded to include Sam. Sam the Prime. No, that didn't feel right…Samuel Prime.

I shook my head, shook off my stunned stupor, and turned back to the now-quiet triage. I had a kindred-femme to repair, but I needed to honor Jetfire's final wish first. Prime he might be, but Samuel was still only human. We would lose him sooner or later – but we could not lose Optimus again. Jetfire gave Optimus an invaluable gift, and I was not about to waste it.