A/N: I'm calling this... AU: G1. Here's why: Many of the characters are, indeed, G1. And the setting, especially in the beginning is G1. However, it's AU because in later chapters, it's going to pick up after the movies, probably post RoTF. Even then, it will still be AU, because if I liked a character, then they didn't die. See? Also, be warned, I will twist either canon as needed to get my jollies and fit my story line.

Also, the inspiration for this story came from my head. I've recently re-discovered that I'm a Prowl fangirl, in addition to being a 'Cade fangirl. I think it may be because Prowl is an awesome name. What? It is. And I don't think the Prowl/Cade pairing is a common one. Though, if it is, someone point me in the direction of those fics. And yeah, ya'll may start wondering about the whole 'pairing' thing, after reading this, but I swear, that's later on after 'Cade is all grown up, and I've already figured out how to do it without it being gross or weird.

Xen

I Will Come Back

Chapter 1: Making a Difference

Cybertron, early stages of the war...

How was it, exactly, that he was supposed to relax in the middle of a war? Prowl's stiff door wings twitched slightly in irritation. That was Sentinel Prime's newest order, relax, even if it's just for a few cycles an orn. Why was it so hard for the mech's around him to understand that when Prowl was on duty, when he was doing something worthwhile, like say, serving his faction, his WORLD, he was relaxed. Or, he thought, as close as I can get to being relaxed, anyway.

He marched restlessly up the streets of Praxus, his home city. It wasn't, after all, that far away from Iacon, and after being forcibly removed from duty for the rest of the orn, Prowl was lost. Home, Prowl mused, is where, when you go there, they have to take you back. Right. He came here, all right. But now, well, now what? He'd briefly considered going to see his Creators, but decided against it. He'd be welcome... No, he thought, I, Prowl would not be welcome. I, Sentinel Prime's Chief Military Advisor, would be more than welcome.

Visiting his Creators would most certainly NOT be relaxing. He could see that clear as day-cycle. Jetset, would of course, remain in his study, barely acknowledging Prowl's presence, if at all. Silvermoon, however, would insist on dragging him off to visit each of her high-society friends. "Our little Prowl, advising the Prime, whomever would have guessed?" Prowl snorted derisively to himself. One Creator that didn't care at all, and one that only cared about what his position in life could do to advance hers... For one brief second, before Prowl brutally crushed it under his logic processors, a feeling of despair welled deep within his spark. Would it be too much to ask to have someone, anyone, care about him for him. For Prowl? He'd had only a few friends as a sparkling, but he remembered their Creators, and how much different they'd been from Prowl's own. Warm and affectionate, as opposed to cool and indifferent. They seemed to care about their sparkling's happiness, what their sparklings wanted, where as Prowl's own Creators were at best indifferent to his wishes, and in most cases, plain didn't give a-

"Frag!" Prowl peeled his face off the light pole he'd walked right into, earning himself more than one odd look from passerby. A few mechs, he noted, even picked up the pace a bit, like maybe he wasn't all that stable in the CPU.

Well, maybe I'm not, he thought as he pulled the flimsy poster off of his chevron. Evidently, the poster decided his face was far more suited for it than the pole. He gave it a quick look, already reaching up to reattach it to its original display area, then stopped.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE, MENTOR A SPARKLING!

Prowl stared at it. The flimsy ruffled slightly in the breeze, seemingly un-fazed by Prowl's scrutiny. Still reading, his pedes carried him off in the opposite direction, quickly eating up the smooth sidewalk underneath them.

Prowl knew of course, that many sparklings had been orphaned by the war, and as a result, many Sparkling Care Facilities had cropped up across Cybertron, even here, in Praxus. He'd heard about the mentoring program that was recently being put into action—sadly, many of the facilities were understaffed and underfunded, and in an effort to make the sparkling's already difficult lives easier, the SCF's were openly advertising for volunteers to spend time with them, like a big brother or big sister.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE, MENTOR A SPARKLING!

That's what he wanted, right? To do something worthwhile with his time? Well, if Sentinel had declared Prowl needed to relax... maybe he could do this. It wasn't work, after all. Not work. But still, a difference. Snapping out of his woolgathering, Prowl took in his surroundings. Evidently, his pedes were brighter than his processors, because he was already most of the way to Sparkling Care. He quickened his pace—now that he had a plan of action, he was eager to get started. Making a difference. And maybe, just maybe, he thought, deep in his subroutines where his processor barely noticed, maybe a sparkling won't care about my status. Maybe a sparkling would just like to be around me.

Prowl never even noticed when he started to run.

The outside of the building looked clinical and efficient. Dreary. It kind of reminded Prowl of home. Granted, his Creator's home lived up to the standard of all upper-class homes, but Prowl didn't need his logic processors to tell him that sometimes one's feelings about a place could taint one's view of a place.

After being in such a spark-driven hurry to get here, Prowl found himself pacing back and forth in front of the entrance. He wondered if his logic center had briefly crashed. Or something. He didn't know the first thing about sparklings. He didn't know what they ate. What they liked to do. He wasn't even sure he could hold one properly. That would just be perfect. He'd make a ton of difference after he dropped some poor sparkling right on its head. His processor was starting to ache. He stopped his pacing momentarily and put a servo to his helm.

"You look like a mech that is trying really hard to come to a decision."

Startled, Prowl glanced up. Standing in front of the SCF's plassmetal doors was a sleek blue femme. What was his problem today? Everything was sneaking up on him—poles, femmes. What kind of soldier was he?

"Umm." Apparently, a very eloquent one. Primus, the blue femme probably thought he was some kind of pervert or something.

She stepped forward, extending one delicate blue servo, "Chromia."

He shook her hand, "Prowl."

"Advisor Prowl, I thought that was you." At his surprised look, she added, "One of Praxus' own that becomes an advisor to the Prime during war is a very big deal, Sir. Most everyone here probably recognizes you, even if they choose not to mention it."

Great, so everyone knew it was Sentinel's Chief Advisor that ran into a pole earlier. Prowl schooled his features into the cool mask of efficiency he was known for. "I see." Eloquent, and deep. "Please, just Prowl."

Chromia grinned, and Prowl found himself wanting to relax in her presence. "Ok, Just Prowl, were you considering mentoring a sparkling?" She looked pointedly at the flimsy still grasped in the hand she hadn't shaken.

"I was..."

"But?"

"I believe I must have fried a logic circuit. I know nothing about sparklings."

Chromia's turn to be deep. "I see. Well, I must confess, I was startled to see you outside our doors. I wouldn't think someone in your position would really have much free time."

Prowl grimaced. I didn't, he thought, until today. "Prime seems to think that if I don't relax a few cycles an orn, I will burn myself out. I was looking for something worthwhile to fill my time."

"Well, mentoring is definitely worthwhile, though, I'm not really sure it qualifies as relaxation." Chromia eyed Prowl carefully. He seemed, on the outside, to be cool and somewhat distant, at least, if you only looked at his face, but his body language... That was an altogether different story. He was standing at a slight angle, almost as though preparing to bolt, but his door wings were slightly uplifted. Hopeful. "I'll make you a deal, Just Prowl. How about you come in and take a tour with me, and make your decision after. No pressure. If you decide mentoring isn't for you, that's fine, maybe you can send someone else our way."

After a moments hesitation, Prowl nodded. It was only logical to look at what he might be getting himself into before he could make any sort of informed decision.

The interior he followed Chromia into was much like the exterior. Clinical. There was a small gray reception desk, and a few hard chairs in the visitors waiting area. The walls and floors were gray plassteel, however, many drawings, presumably done by sparklings, papered the walls, lending them some color at least. He followed her through a door marked Staff Only, and they passed a few tiny office cubes. He peeked inside a few with open doors as he passed, about the size of closets, they all seemed to have one thing in common—clutter.

As she walked, Chromia talked. "As you can see, this is one of the smaller SCF's. It's nowhere near as big as the one in Iacon, or the one in Kaon. A blessing and a curse."

"How so?"

"Well. Since we're smaller, we don't have as many sparklings, which means more individual care; however, we lack the funding that the bigger SCF's have. We get enough credits to cover their basic needs of course—sparkling grade energon, bedding, things of that nature. But, everything else, toys, night lights," she waved at the drawings littering the walls, "art supplies, mostly the staff pays for that out of pocket."

Prowl frowned. He'd never really had any toys when he was growing up. He was only allowed a few, specifically chosen because they were educational. At first, he'd been allowed drawing pencils and the like, because, who knew? Perhaps Prowl would grow up to be a famous and rich artist. That didn't last long though. As much as he'd enjoyed drawing and coloring, his Creator's deemed his much slaved-over drawings of his family as 'unworthy and not creative'. His drawing supplies had been taken away, to be replaced by an educational data pad on the history of Cybertron.

Chromia glanced back at Prowl, catching the frown on his formally aloof features. "Hey, it's not all bad. I mean, we don't mind buying the stuff, and we do catch some breaks. First Aid treats the sparklings probono..."

He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I was not being judgmental. I was thinking." And slipping. He was known for being cool and somewhat distant, and yet, it seemed like the past cycle, he'd let every emotion he felt plaster itself to his face.

"Oh. Do you always scowl when you think?"

Prowl curved one corner of his mouth in a faint grin. "It depends on what I'm thinking about."

She grinned back at him. "Come on, let's go see the sparklings."

Prowl followed Chromia around a corner, and down another short corridor, ending in one large room. To the right a doorway, and directly in front of them, stretching the length of the wall, a large clear, window of plassmetal. The window looked on a large playroom. Low shelves filled with second-hand toys and used books lined most of the walls, others held soft mats for nap-time for the older sparklings. In one corner, a little over a dozen sparklings were gathered around a young-looking mech sitting in a chair, reading them a story. One of the sparklings sat a little off to the side, obviously listening to the story, but distanced from the other sparklings, playing by himself with blocks. Prowl stood there silently, watching.

"They can't see you. The plassmetal is one way."

Prowl glanced at her, quirking an optic ridge in question.

Sadly. "It keeps them from getting their hopes up."

Prowl said nothing, but his door wings drooped slightly. He watched them, feeling as though his spark was splitting into tiny shards. They had so little. Not even hope. Prowl knew nothing about raising sparklings. Absolutely nothing.

"Ya know," Chromia whispered, "You don't have to be perfect to make a difference, you just have to be there."

Prowl let that sink in to his logic center. He supposed that was true. They didn't seem to come with instruction manuals, and if they did, his Creators sure hadn't bothered to read it. He didn't know anything about raising sparklings, but thanks to his Creators, he had over half a lifetime's experience in how NOT to raise them. "What do I need to do to become a mentor?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Chromia led him back up the corridor, to an office that was slightly bigger than the other cubes, but even more cluttered, canceling out the larger size. He noticed the nameplate holo on the desk. So, he'd been given a tour by the director. Interesting. He wondered if she frequently gave tours, then quickly decided she probably did. Chromia waved him to a chair in front of her desk, then quickly took her own seat, sifting through some data pads. While he waited, he picked up a silver magnetic badge with the letters TF emblazoned on the front. He was curious, but he didn't want to distract her from her seemingly futile search.

"Triage Foundation." She'd noticed somehow, without even looking up. "We're supposed to wear them whenever we go into disputed territory. Like, Kaon for instance. It's mostly Decepticon occupied now, but TF is trying to stay neutral, and provide aid to refugees to both sides. Sparklings, especially. It's not their fault what faction their Creators belong to."

Prowl nodded his approval. "True."

Another klik of searching, and Chromia waved a data pad at him triumphantly. "I need to get some personal info. We know who you are obviously, I've ignored no less than three comm. messages asking if you're really Advisor Prowl, but we need it for our records anyway." Prowl nodded. The questions were basic, name, address, occupation, Creator's names, emergency contacts, and references. "And now for your preferences."

"Preferences?"

"Well, yes. Mech or Femme? Although, we don't actually have any femme sparklings at the moment—optic color, things of that nature."

Prowl felt confused but kept his face neutral. "I fail to see why optic color would matter."

Chromia shifted slightly in her uncomfortable looking chair. "I agree. However, as I'm sure you are aware, Decepticon's have made red optics their standard, and since then—we've found that many mechs are reluctant to adopt or even mentor a sparkling that has red optics."

Prowl started to say, 'I see', but bit his glossa. He didn't see. Sparklings were Created with all different colors of optics, it wasn't something they had a choice about. "I do not have preferences."

Chromia flashed him a brilliant smile. Apparently, she approved of his attitude. "Well in that case, I have the perfect sparkling for you." She rushed to the door, only to turn back around, "Excuse me, I almost forgot. Since you don't know much about sparklings, I thought you could have your first visit with him here, so I can give you a few pointers on taking care of him." Prowl nodded his acceptance gratefully. "After that, though, you will be welcome to take him outside the SCF for planned activities, as long as we know where he's going, he's back before his night-cycle, and we have a comm. number to reach you with." Prowl nodded his acceptance once again, and Chromia rushed out the door happily, throwing a quick 'be right back' over her shoulder.

Prowl sat in his chair and forced himself to not fidget. He was starting to wonder if he'd made a mistake in his lack of preferences. Whatever sparkling Chromia had in mind, she seemed awfully happy to have a mentor for him. Perhaps he was a problem sparkling. Prowl figured with his luck the sparkling was probably defective and drooled uncontrollably. Wonderful. Most likely, he'd get a drooler, and one day, be called away suddenly on an emergency and have to present himself to Prime covered in oral fluids. Sentinel would probably start wondering if Prowl had taken to moonlighting on street corners in his off time.

Another few breems went by, and Prowl was definitely worried. The walk from here to the play room hadn't been that far. Most likely, they'd found the sparkling in a veritable pool of drool, and had to take the time to hose it off or something. Just as he was about to go check and make sure everything was alright, Prowl heard slow steps in the hallway, and the office door opened.

Chromia didn't look quite as happy now. In fact, she looked tired. She held determinedly to a squirming sparkling, her body drooping slightly. Air cycled rapidly and wheezily through her intakes, trying to cool down her overheated frame. Prowl immediately rose, and helped her to the chair opposite of him. "Are you ok?"

Chromia accepted his help, settling in the chair. At the sound of his voice, the sparkling stopped squirming and hid his face against Chromia's shoulder. She nodded, then (forcing the words out between ex-vents) said, "He's... shy... small... for his... age. But... really... fast."

Evidently, the sparkling had given her a run for her credits. Prowl managed to suppress a laugh, but snorted a little, which he valiantly tried to cover with a cough. He got a mock glare from Chromia, and the sparkling, peeked at him from against Chromia's chassis. Ahh, red optics, that explained it.

Finally getting her venting under control, Chromia said, "We call him Runner. We don't know his true personal designation, and he doesn't remember it. Red Alert said it was probably caused by trauma. As far as we can tell he's around six vorns old."

Prowl crouched to the side of Chromia, so he could see the sparkling. He was small. Kind of pointy looking, too, with black armor. One red optic still peeked at him shyly. Wait—no, make that two. What looked like one solid optic was actually two, once Prowl looked close enough. Huh. Mechs with four optics weren't unheard of, but they were rare. Runner turned his head, openly staring at Prowl with all four optics, sizing him up.

"Like I said, he's shy, so you'll probably have to work to get him to trust you."

Prowl was ok with that. He wasn't afraid of work. Quite the contrary, he'd long since discovered that anything worth having required work, and—then his thoughts were interrupted, as he hurriedly leaned forward and reached out to catch Runner. The sparkling abruptly reached out towards Prowl with both arms, throwing himself toward the tactician, and as neither himself nor Chromia anticipated it, Runner nearly hit the floor.

Primus. I haven't even been around him for a cycle and he's already narrowly avoided falling on his head, Prowl thought. This does not bode well. Without any real thought, Prowl pulled Runner closer, holding him to his chassis as he'd seen Chromia do. Tiny silver talons clung to his armor and Prowl moved his hands from under Runners arm struts, wrapping them gently around his back.

"Right. He's never done that before. But, evidently, you don't have to work that hard after all. I like you much less, now, Just Prowl."

Prowl smiled at her teasing tone, and lifted himself and Runner back into his own chair. Runner snuggled closer, making himself comfortable. Prowl felt his spark give a little tug. Runner didn't care what he did with his life, or about his status. He just, for some unknown reason, liked Prowl. Just Prowl. Not, Advisor Prowl.

"He likes to be rocked. And if you feel along his dorsal arch, just under his armor, there's a neural line. If you stroke it gently, it calms them down. Comforts them... it's like, insta-calm for sparklings."

Prowl did as he was instructed, rocking slowly in his chair, carefully stroking the cable running the length of Runners back. Prowl could feel him relaxing, slipping into recharge. Hesitantly, Prowl lowered his head, resting his face lightly against the back of Runners helm and shoulder. He in-vented, smelling the light clean smell of Runners external joint lubricant. He smiled to himself. Not a drop of drool in sight.

Prowl felt... relaxed. And for once, not alone. Ironic, he thought. I set out to make a difference in a sparkling's life. I didn't think he'd make a difference in mine.

A/N: Yeah, another one. For any of you that were hoping for a Skate Park update, I haven't forgotton about it, I'm re-writing. So just hang in there. =)