Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Transformers.
A/N: Hi! New story for ya'll. :) Sat down and wrote it all in one go, which is quite odd for me.
I have not seen any of the Transformers animated series, and while I have seen both movies, this fic does not contain any spoilers (I don't think).
This fic is sad; I have no idea where it came from. Come to think of it, a lot of my writing is sad lately... I wonder what's up with that?
Anyway, back on topic, I hope you enjoy my fic!
Warnings: This fic is SAD. It contains a CHARACTER DEATH, which is pretty obvious as soon as you read the first section. It also hints at SLASH of the Sam and Bumblebee variety. It's very low key, and could be taken as a brotherly/friendship bond if you so desire. It's meant to be slash though. :) If you do not like any of that, please push the back button now.
Thanks!
~o.0.o~
A Mere Moment of Fragility
~o.0.o~
It was a sunny day.
The sun was shining, the sky was clear and the sweet smell of spring was in the air.
Bee thought it all so terribly unfair.
It wasn't supposed to be a happy, sunny day. Sunny days were the days that he and Sam would go for a drive out in the country. These sorts of days were theirs, theirs to do as they pleased. Theirs to spend together, revelling in each others' company.
But not this day. This day was supposed to be dark and stormy. The entire sky itself was supposed to be protesting the unfairness of it all. But it wasn't, and Bee felt like crying, if only he could.
Sam was dead. And there was nothing he could do to change it.
He had known that this day would come eventually; a humans' fragile, organic body was simply not made to last long. Just a few years; barely a moment to the Cybertronians. Then the bodies of flesh and bone broke down, and could no longer house the soul that they had supported for that fleeting moment.
Bee knew this; he had, if not accepted it, then at least acknowledged it, and thought that he could handle the inevitable with dignity – both his and Sam's – intact.
But he was supposed to have more time. Only a little more, but more all the same.
Sam was not supposed to be dead at the tender age of twenty-three.
~o.0.o~
It had started subtly; Sam feeling a little more tired, a little more unwell. Suffering a few more headaches than normal, and fainting a few times when previously he was just fine. He had tried to pass it off as the stress of University, and Bee had let him, for a while anyway.
How he hated himself for it.
When the headaches and dizzy spells escalated, Bee finally kidnapped him and took him to the doctors. Several tests and a couple of weeks later, Sam was officially diagnosed with cancer.
In the beginning, there was hope. A couple of operations in an attempt to remove the tumour, several rounds of chemotherapy, and Sam's future was looking bright.
It was during the chemotherapy that he and Sam had begun taking off whenever they could together. Sometimes it would only be for an hour or so before Sam began to tire, or they had an appointment they had to keep, and they would have to turn back. Other times they would stay out for hours, Bee driving to random destinations. Sometimes they would talk, other times not. They never mentioned the cancer.
It was only three months, fourteen days and six hours after Sam had officially been given the all clear when the tumour came back, and with a vengeance.
One week later, and the human doctors said that there was nothing more that they could do. Sam had mere months, weeks, to live.
~o.0.o~
Reactions to his imminent death were varied.
Ron and Judy, their psyches already fragile from stress, broke. Ron withdrew, rarely talking, always quiet. Judy cried. Randomly she would burst into tears, and the times in between was spent spouting meaningless chatter. They both became clingy, rarely letting Sam out of their sight.
Sam's friends, of whom Mikaela and Miles were part of, were devastated, of course. They tried to be supportive, tried to be strong. But they were only young, and didn't always succeed. They didn't know what to do.
It was from Bee that Sam sought solace.
~o.0.o~
Their drives became almost daily things, and, more often than not, they were spent in silence.
At first, Bee had tried to get Sam to talk, to let all of his emotions go.
Sam had snapped. He screamed and raged, and Bee did nothing but drive. It wasn't long before Sam cried, leaning despairingly into the wheel, and Bee felt helpless.
The rest of the ride was spent in silence, until the very end.
"It's not fair, Bee." Sam's voice was hoarse and barely more than a whisper as he stepped out of Bees' confines. He swayed as he got out, and clung so hard to the door that his knuckles turned white.
Judy was there then, ready to support him, and chiding, questioning as she went. Ron waited just inside the door for them, staring out. Both his and his wife's eyes were read and puffy, and their skin pale. They seemed to have aged years in only a few short weeks.
As Sam was led away, none of them looking back, Bee found Sam's words echoing around his mind, and settling somewhere deep inside his spark.
It's not fair.
Never, ever fair.
~o.0.o~
It was only five and a half weeks later (such a short, tragic, second of time) that he and Sam were driving silently along an abandoned road, neither saying anything. It didn't matter that nothing was said, or that their sorrow, fear, weighed heavily upon them both and thickened the air until it made it hard to breathe. There was peace in sharing emotions, yet saying nothing about them. Peace that was so rare these days.
So it surprised him when Sam started to talk.
"I'm scared, Bee."
His words echoed a little in the cabin, the sound so loud coming out of a silence.
"Sam?" Confusion, uncertainty. Fear.
"I'm scared," Sam repeated, then; "What will it be like Bee?" His voice was thin and weak. Small. Fragile.
There was no need for Bee to ask what he meant, no chance to say anything but the truth.
"I don't know Sam. I don't know."
Sam nodded his head, unsurprised, yet disappointed, and silence settled between them again.
It was true; for all that Bee had seen death, for all that he had dealt it, for all his age and intelligence compared to humans, he did not know what happened after death.
Before coming to Earth, the Autobots had thought that death was just that; an end. Once the optics had faded, and the Cybertronian had offlined, that was it. Their life had been lived and it had diffidently come to a close. No more words would be spoken, no more ideas thought of, no more actions undertaken. Their 'soul', to use a human term, ceased to exist. Gone.
But humans... they had their own theories and varied opinions on what lay after death. Bee, as well as the other Autobots, had found the ideas interesting and new.
But Bee was of the opinion that death was an end. It just wasn't a proven, set in stone, fact.
"Bee?" Sam's voice, so terribly small.
"Yes, Sam?" Pain, sharp, burrowing deep into his spark.
"We'll see each other again, right?"
"...What do you mean, Sam?" Confusion, fear; so much fear.
"In the next life. We'll see each other again, right?"
Silence descended as he thought about that one.
Reincarnation was a purely human belief, though Bee could see why some of the humans would believe in it. He could see why they wanted to; his own spark fluttered and ached at the thought; that this was not the end. That he would see Sam again.
But logic said that it wasn't possible. The same soul could not change bodies. If it could be done, the soul would change anyway; outside influences would change it. He could not see how a soul could be reborn; let alone how two souls would find each other again, especially in a universe as large as theirs.
Bee was about to say this when he saw Sam; truly looked at him for the first time in a long while.
Sam's skin was pale and sallow, stretched over jutting bones and looking almost transparent. He ate little these days; nearly each and every bone could be seen. His hair was thin and scraggly, and he smelt strongly of sickness.
It had never been more obvious that he was dying.
Bee felt like crying then; like screaming at the universe in impotent pain and rage and fear. Only one thing stopped him.
Sam's eyes were brown and glowing as they stared at Bee's dashboard. Maybe they were a little too bright, a little too dry, but they were brown – such a beautiful brown – and they were so uniquely Sam.
And seeing him, seeing Sam, Bee found a lie (or was it the truth?) slipping into the silence using his voice.
"Of course, Sam. Nothing could keep me from you." Not even death.
And seeing Sam smile; seeing his entire face light up and the pain and fear vanish, Bee felt his own spark glow. Somehow, for that small moment, Bee almost believed his own words.
~o.0.o~
It was that same night when Sam went abruptly downhill.
He was rushed to hospital, but there was nothing anyone could do; just make him comfortable. The inevitable had come.
The Autobots rolled into the hospital car park barely an hour after Sam was admitted, and parked beside Bee. Prime was on one side of him, Ratchet on the other; offering comfort when Bee had no will to receive it. No one said anything, and Bee was glad for that small mercy. None of them left until the vigil was over.
The next day and a half saw everyone who knew Sam come to say goodbye; Mikaela came and then left, cradled by Miles, crying so violently that she could barely breathe. Mile's eyes were burning.
Will Lennox and his wife arrived and left within an hour. They were silent as they drove away.
Ron and Judy never left their sons' side.
It was one day, eleven hours and twenty-three minutes after he had been admitted that Sam Witwickey died.
Bumblebee, who had all of his scanners trained on that one room, on that one human boy, was the first to realise it. Sam's heart was beating one minute, weak and thready but undeniably alive, and then it wasn't.
That was it. Sam was gone.
He would never smile or laugh or cry ever again. He would never speak or yell or whisper; Bee would never see his eyes - such a beautiful brown – ever again.
He would never again tell him that he loved him.
Suddenly, Bee felt so very empty and alone.
[Bumblebee -]Optimus' voice (sorrowful, pitying) sounded over the link that the Autobots shared, before Bee roughly forced the connection closed.
With a painful squeal of his tyres, Bee sped out of the car park, leaving the other Autobots – and Sam, Sam (brown hair, tanned - pale - skin, brown – beautiful brown – eyes) – behind.
~o.0.o~
It was a sunny day.
The sun was shining, the sky was clear and the sweet smell of spring was in the air.
Bee thought it all so terribly unfair.
It wasn't supposed to be a happy, sunny day. Sunny days were the days that he and Sam would go for a drive out in the country. These sorts of days were theirs, theirs to do as they pleased. Theirs to spend together, revelling in each others' company.
But not this day. This day was supposed to be dark and stormy. The entire sky itself was supposed to be protesting the unfairness of it all. But it wasn't, and Bee felt like crying, (screaming, raging), if only he could.
Sam was dead. And Bumblebee was alone.
~o.0.o~
Fin
~o.0.o~
Authors Request: Please, if you could take a moment to leave a review, I would very much appreciate it. I want to improve my writing, and the only way to do that is to get feedback. :)
Thank you!