Author's Note: This story is completely written. I will be uploading one chapter per day. It is potentially slightly AU, but not on purpose. It was originally a four chapter flashback in another story I wrote titled 'The Serpent's Song', but it has here been expanded into a full stand-alone story. I wrote this for my entertainment (and partially in response to a request for it), and I am publishing it here for yours. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
It was a sunny, flawless day at the beginning of summer.
School had finally let out, the Decepticons had been quiet for weeks, and Rafael and Bumblebee had taken full advantage of this by going on long, meandering drives, playing video games or just hanging out together. Sometimes they simply sat in companionable silence and watched the world go on around them, other times Raf would tell Bumblebee about Earth, the things he thought and felt and experienced. Other times, Bumblebee would consent to tell a story of a particular battle he'd fought in.
It was Raf's opinion that Bumblebee was an engaging storyteller, and many exciting things had happened in his life. While he was young for an Autobot, he was many decades older than Raf, though Raf had never managed to pin down exactly how many. In any case, his life had often been rather action-packed, and there seemed to be no end to the stories he could tell about missions carried out for the Autobots.
Yet there were times when he would wax silent, sometimes for minutes or hours. At those times, he would speak only with prompting, though always he seemed to have heard anything Raf said to him. It wasn't as if his mind wandered, so much as his spirit grew quiet. Raf always guessed that some dark memory or other was at the root of it, but -rather unlike Arcee- Bumblebee seldom shared tales with unhappy endings. And he never spoke of his time in the clutches of Megatron.
Always Bumblebee was willing to engage in some activity intended by Raf to distract him, but it was ever apparent that his spark just wasn't really in it during these off times.
On this warm, seemingly perfect day, Bumblebee fell into one of these moods. He and Raf had been taking a drive across the desert. Raf had been talking to Bumblebee at length about certain members of his family, when he suddenly sensed a change in the Autobot Scout. He knew Bumblebee was still listening, for he was always listening. But he also knew that the Scout's spark was elsewhere just now, turning to some inner or historic darkness which troubled him.
Raf remembered his previous attempts to distract Bumblebee had not gone well. Bee had gone along with the distraction easily enough, but it hadn't seemed to genuinely distract him. Perhaps, Raf thought, it might be better not to "change the subject" as it were, and instead ask what was bothering Bee, or what it was that had arrested his memory.
He suspected that just asking straight out would probably result in Bumblebee's trying to dismiss it, to say he wasn't thinking about anything. The Scout might even try to provide a distraction for Raf. Raf suspected it wasn't that he didn't want to share, so much as the fact that he didn't believe anyone would want to hear any of his stories that didn't end happily, or at least successfully.
Bumblebee was considerate that way, trying not to make other people feel bad. But it was also personal. Because of his handicap, Bumblebee tended to go to extreme lengths to make sure no one thought of him as lesser or pitied him. Sometimes he felt sorry for himself, just like everyone does, but he didn't want anyone else to feel sorry for him. Not ever.
Thus, Raf was uncertain how to approach it. If the problem had been his own, he would have had no difficulty. Bumblebee was always willing to listen, without judgment or opinion. This was something Raf had initially not fully believed, but Bumblebee had gently prompted him when he was reluctant to talk about something for fear of ridicule or simply being ignored, and had expressed a genuine interest in whatever he said. If asked, Bumblebee often did have insights of his own, but he seemed to understand the value of simply being heard by another, without having to worry about what that other might think of you, or worrying that they might offer some unwanted advice.
But, while he knew silence had its place, Raf knew also from experience that saying nothing would not lead Bumblebee to eventually open up about what bothered him. Bee took silence as encouragement to say nothing. They were strange, these moods of his, for they were unlike his typical attitude, yet they were as much a part of him as his wheels or fenders.
Today, on some impulse or insight, Raf hit upon an idea.
"Bumblebee," he said, and waited for an acknowledgment.
{Yes?} Bumblebee burred softly, when it was apparent a response was being waited for.
"You've been on Earth a long time, right?" Raf continued.
{By some definitions, I suppose I have,} Bumblebee replied.
"What was it like?" Raf asked, "First coming here, I mean. It must have been scary, to leave your home on Cybertron to come here, to Earth."
{Yes,} Bumblebee conceded quietly, adding after a moment's pause, {It was.}
Something in the tone of Bumblebee's response told Raf that he'd hit on the right thing. But he wasn't sure if he'd prompted Bumblebee enough. He knew, because it was a similarity they shared, that if he pushed too hard for answers, Bumblebee would shutdown or evade the questions. But if he didn't nudge quite hard enough, Bumblebee would not tell him this story, around which Raf was now quite certain these odd moods revolved.
For a long number of seconds, they continued to drive on in silence. The scenery swept by, the starkly beautiful red desert stretched away seemingly to infinity, though Raf knew that was only an illusion. Even the desert, enormous as it seemed to him, had an end that could be reached. Beyond were the million wonders of the Earth, more than Raf would ever live long enough to see and experience.
Hard to believe this was only one inhabited planet floating in space. Somewhere out there was Cybertron, dead now, but once -not to long ago, cosmically speaking- very much alive. And surely these two could not be the only such planets. Surely there were others.
The enormity of the universe was staggering to contemplate. It was a subject in school that Raf had paid attention to, but it seemed like nobody in his class -not even the teacher- really had a feeling for the true size of the thing they were discussing. Talk about the universe typically centered on just a few nearby planets, and especially on the ones known to most directly affect Earth itself. The Earth was the center around which all discussion revolved, as if the Earth were the center of the universe itself. But nobody knew that was true, or even knew enough to theorize convincingly that it was.
But even though nobody seemed to have the remotest grasp of the size of the universe, what little they seemed interested in was enough to overwhelm and confuse them. Raf didn't really have a conscious awareness of his depth of understanding of the universe, and wouldn't have believed it had anyone pointed it out to him because of the limitations of his own experience. But it was true nonetheless that he perceived and understood on a different level from most humans.
With no explanation, no excuse or apparent reason for it, he understood Bumblebee when no other human did. He personally counted this as less significant than the fact that Bumblebee understood him. Even though he spoke English, almost nobody around Raf seemed ever to understand or even hear him much of the time. Bumblebee did, without fail, every time. To Raf, this was nothing short of miraculous. The rest of it he simply accepted without question.
Finally, Bumblebee spoke again.
{I knew Cybertron was dying,} Bumblebee began slowly, the buzz in his voice wavering a bit more than usual, {I think everyone felt it, they just didn't realize it at the time.}
Sensing that anything he said right now might derail the story, Raf said nothing.
{I didn't know Optimus Prime well back then. Not personally. But he knew me. And he realized that the war would not end with the death of Cybertron, and that the time had come to prepare a place for us to go when we eventually had to leave. I didn't understand, then, why he would choose me, other than because I was a Scout in his army. Truth be told, I didn't really care either. Not then...}