Warnings: Character death

Notes: Just a little something for the season. The plan was to post the whole thing on Halloween, but, honestly, I don't think I can finish the entire fic by then and I want to get at least part of this out before November. New plan is to break the one-shot into 3-4 chapters and hopefully post it all by December.

Prologue

Salvo the Insecticon sentry had actually been having a decent orn. The endless tedium of guard duty had finally been interrupted, by an Autobot no less. He had engaged the enemy in combat and emerged victorious, then left to find her smaller partner before he could accomplish whatever the two had come to Kaon to do. Then things went bad. Staring at the horde of scraplets at the end of the hallway, he began to curse his haste. They hadn't seemed to notice him yet, maybe he could still escape—no, no he could not. The tiny Autobot—and just what was that covering it was wearing, to be totally ignored by the scraplets teeming behind it?—had grabbed a scraplet in its servo and hurled it towards him. Others in the swarm soon followed, and he could feel them gnawing at his plating. He could still try to run, but there was no way he would survive, not with this many already attached to him. There was only one thing left to do. He fixed his optics on the hateful little fragger that had actually dared to turn it's back on him, attempting to pry more scraplets away from whatever else they were chewing on.

If Salvo was going to die, there was no way he's let the one who orchestrated his demise outlive him. He rushed forward.

Optimus Prime sat alone in his quarters, feeling almost as lost as he had when Cybertron went dark. The death of Jack Darby weighed heavily on his conscience. Mrs. Darby had left the base before he returned, too furious and grief-stricken to face him. Fowler had had words for him, though. The agent had been terse in his anger. ("Why give the key to Jack? Why not me? If I'd gone, then—" and one more, unvoiced accusation, It's because you don't trust me, isn't it?)

Optimus! I'm not stopping until you listen to me.

At the time, giving Jack the key had been the obvious choice. He could have handed it to one of his soldiers, but Megatron would be watching their movements. The warlord wouldn't expect a human, though. Optimus had not even considered the boy's mother, he just didn't know her well enough to trust her with the key to Vector Sigma. Maybe he should have given Fowler the key, but the human was a government agent. What if he was ordered to hand it over? Better not to put him in such a position. The key had to go to one of the children; it had to go to Jack. It was not that he doubted that either of the other two children would do what had to be done, but Jack reminded him of Orion. In the end, that was what had prompted his decision.

I can literally keep this up forever.

The Autobots weren't taking Jack's death any better than the humans were. Bumblebee was clearly reluctant to take Rafael home, having already almost lost him to Megatron. Bulkhead had done his best to comfort Miko, who was blaming herself for Jack's death for some reason. ("If I hadn't talked him into coming back...") He, like the rest of them, was worried that the remaining two children would be separated from them. Arcee had disappeared into her own quarters as soon as she'd returned to base; she hadn't looked at Optimus since she'd restored his memories. ("Are you... certain I am worthy?" "...") Ratchet was as numb as Rafael had been, obsessively cleaning and reorganizing his tools to distract himself.

But I don't want to have to. Optimus, please...

Optimus stiffened.

Wait, did that just work? Optimus?

This was impossible. There was no way he was hearing Jack's voice.

If you can hear me, give me a sign!

What if something went wrong when his memories were being restored? Optimus stood up and left to find Ratchet.

Where are you going?

"Ratchet."

"Optimus, if this is about the Decepticon insignia—"

"I need you to scan me; I am experiencing auditory hallucinations."

You can hear me! Hey! I'm real!

The voice continued to protest Optimus's doubts while Ratchet ran his scans. "I can't find anything wrong, Optimus. Is it still happening?"

Yes, and it's going to keep happening until you talk to me.

"Yes."

Come on! Is this really any stranger than dark energon and zombiecons and the shadowzone, and Unicron?

"Well, maybe there's a non-obvious injury from the Decepticons. Get on the berth, I'll give you a thorough examination."

Look, I'm real, and I can prove it.

Optimus finished lying down and gave in out of morbid curiosity, How?

Yes! You won't regret this! I'll tell you stuff you wouldn't know, like the names of everyone in my class, and what happened to Raf and me after the science fair, and—

Something I can't just look up.

Okay, but you won't like what you'll have to do to confirm...

What?

You'll need to talk to my mom.

He needed to apologize anyway, Fine, just tell me what I need to know.