Notes: This was written for CasusFere who has a fetish for leaders/seconds. XP Not Optimus/Prowl I'm afraid, or even overtly slashy I'm afraid.

Disclaimer: Not mine, nor am I making any money off of this. All I own are the twisted ideas circulating in my mind.

Warnings: Some spoilers for Megatron Origin #4

"My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul"

-- William Shakespeare

When Prowl looked at Optimus Prime he found him lacking.

The young leader of the Autobots was nothing like his predecessor in temperament or abilities and the tactician found himself missing his leader so acutely it made his spark ache. Until Sentinel had died, he hadn't thought it possible for something to hurt so much it physically affected the spark. But now he knew better. And it'd give anything to take back that knowledge and have his leader at his side again.

But Sentinel hadn't listened to reason. He never did. The famous Autobot leader had always been stubborn and the type to charge into danger without pausing to consider the consequences.

In the end, that had been his downfall.

And Prowl had been helpless to stop the inevitable. He wasn't sure what had drawn him to the crypts tonight. It was always a depressing walk to see the epitaphs of fallen friends and the holograms of grinning faces long gone. Prowl didn't consider himself a religious mech or even particularly afraid of deactivation of it always sent a chill through his servos to walk through this veritable garden of the dead.

The pull was too strong tonight and he found himself drawn to Sentinel's marker. Unlike many of the others, the former Autobot commander wasn't smiling. The imposing strength of his forceful personality seemed to radiate from the very hologram itself. Prowl found himself transfixed and held in sway by the light of Sentinel's artificial optics and the impeccable expression on that grim face like always. Nothing had changed, he still managed to affect Prowl's programming and twist his spark around even from beyond the Matrix.

"You were a fool." Prowl's voice sounded harsh and tiny even to his own audios. He'd never been able to force those words out when Sentinel was alive. They'd always been buried beneath the surface and had never quite managed to fight free of Prowl's stranglehold he kept on his emotions. Air hissed through his intakes in harsh, angry puffs. "You slagging son of a glitch." Now that he'd started, all the anger and grief was bubbling up like festering energon in a wound left untended too long.

"Why didn't you listen to me? What's the fragging point of having a tactician if you're going to ignore him!?" he was snarling now, a low, angry sound of a wounded animal. "Why did you keep me there if you were just going to ignore me?" It came out more like an accusation. Prowl did not understand the full extent of his feelings. He just wasn't programmed with the ability to differentiate between emotions like that.

The stripped emotional protocols was what made him such an asset on the battlefield. A mech ruled by emotions would have panicked or lost it on Kaon when Sentinel's crushed and mangled chassis had been dropped at his feet. Prowl had been able to remain collected and had gotten his troops out of there like a good leader did. He'd thought he was over it, that even Sentinel's death couldn't affect him.

He was wrong. He wasn't over it in the slightest. And now that the cork had been removed, the roiling emotions were overwhelming and sent his head spinning. Almost against his own will, the servos in his knees weakened and he sagged to the ground as his legs refused to hold his weight. It wasn't possible for a machine to cry but the choked sounds fighting free of Prowl's vocalizer sounded suspiciously like muffled sobs. His entire frame was shaking by now and he felt as though a single jostle would send him shattering into a million pieces.

"You slagging fool, I hate you. Do you hear me? I. Hate. You." The tacticians's door-wings suddenly pinned back in tight, painful arch and Prowl found it hard to even support himself on his clenched fists as he curled into himself. It was a mockery of kneeling but he couldn't help himself, it felt like gravity itself had doubled and was intent on bending him to its will. Unbeknown to Prowl, it was the weight of his un-mourned grief that bore down on him. "Why did you go alone? Why didn't you wait for us. We could have helped you." Prowl's optics were glassy and unseeing. Everything felt dulled and muted. Colors were grey, he could barely feel his shaking limbs and even the sound of his own accusations were distant and tinny sounding to the audios.

"Why didn't you take me?" he was done raging now. With the emotional outburst waning, Prowl felt dull and for the first time since Sentinel had been killed, the constant gnawing ache from his spark was receding beneath the balmy sensation of nothingness.

"Why did you leave me behind?" Prowl wasn't sure if he was talking about the battle or something else. Something that he shied away from on an subconscious level.

And from behind Prowl, standing deep on the shadows of the monuments, Optimus Prime stood there. He often came here at night to mediate and to try and find a way of holding the pieces of their steadily fraying army together. Much like Prowl, he found some comfort in the strength and confidence that radiated from Sentinel Prime's marker.

It disturbed him to see the normally collected tactician reduced to a sobbing wreck. The young, impetuous part of Optimus wanted to run forward and try and comfort the other mech. No one should have to suffer through something like this alone. But the wisdom of the Matrix had him pausing. Perhaps he was able to gain extra insight from Sentinel's essence since he'd known Prowl so well but Optimus knew the worst thing he could do at the moment was disturb the tactician. It would only sent him deeper into his emotionless shell and the grieving process would never be completed.

Everyone grieved in their own way and Prowl was long overdue if this outburst was any indication. With a grimace, Prime withdrew and slipped silently back out of the memorial. His thoughts were darker and more complicated then they'd been before and his conscience was weighing heavily on his shoulders.

When Optimus had first taken on the role of Autobot Supreme Commander, he hadn't felt comfortable keeping Prowl on as his second in command. After all, the tactician had let his leader charge into a massacre without even trying to stop him. And what was worse, he hadn't seemed the least bit affected by it.

Optimus hadn't wanted such a cold-sparked son of a glitch as his second.

Now….now Optimus didn't know what to do. Prowl had accepted his demotion without a word of protest and Optimus had thought that the end of it. This unpleasant insight into the tactician was raising all sorts of questions and doubts within Optimus's mind. For the millionth time since attaining the Matrix, Optimus wished he could just ask Sentinel and the other Prime's for some sort of wisdom or insight but it didn't work that way. A Prime had to make his own way and his own decisions.

As he walked through the silent hallways of the Autobot base, Optimus made the decision to give Prowl another chance. Surely he couldn't be all that bad? If he was a complete emotionless husk then surely Sentinel Prime wouldn't have trusted him as deeply as he did, right?

He'd just have to wait and see. With that uneasy thought, Optimus headed towards his office to draft up the orders.