Hi, guys, this is my new story. I thought I might try romance, despite how much I usually hate it. In my opinion, romance has to be angsty or there really is no point. Oh well, you can ignore my rambling.

Enjoy, and review!

Prologue: Optimus

I had never really thought about how to describe this last year. Ever since I rose up from the Well of All Sparks, I had thought that we finally had peace. But, of course, nothing had ever been this easy. So much has happened since I returned, and if I had found a way to describe this period of time in one word, I would say it was like a dream.

Sometimes I online and I think that everything I had seen in this year was a figment of my imagination. Maybe it was. Because it seems too far from what should be the truth: that the Autobots and Decepticons are still at war, and everything was the way it should have been since the last few millennia. But then I realise that the memories are far too real, and far too solid, not mist-like and certainly without a dream quality to them, for them to not be real. And that makes it hurt even more, because if I can just believe that it had all been a dream, it would have been the loss of a simple longing, not the loss of something that had once been mine.

It was almost frightening to think that a war which only lasted one year could have done more damage to me, and terrified me, striking pain and fear into my spark, and had me more on edge than the millennia of war could ever have.

I guess that I could most definitely have been stronger, and less likely to fall apart if I had watched him die as an enemy and as a cause of his own evil ambitions rather than to watch him die as my sparkmate and love as a cause of my own faults and foolishness. But it was inevitable that this year-long war led to this death, because war will always have casualties. But I would have chosen any other alternate ending to this one which will only bring me sparkache and grief. I should have been relieved that he was no longer my enemy, but in the end, it only brought more pain and suffering on my part than it otherwise would have done, when everything drew to a close.

Sometimes I let myself go, and just watch the tears fall from my optics, because there is – and was – absolutely no way I could think about it, or dream about it without falling into pieces. It would have been much easier to declare this past year as a dream, something I fantasized about. But that would be far from the truth.

He has brought in the worst of me, because I have, for the first time, hidden myself away from my team mates, and away from the world, leaving just a scar, and a crack in my usually hardened countenance. They believe that I have let him go, but the truth is that I can never do that while I know that the death was a result of my carelessness and stupidity. And that was a high price to pay for my one act of foolishness. I could never repay the debt just by mourning.

And it seems almost ironic that of all the times he had been close to death, he had not died. He had always found a way to survive. But not this time. When he was at his most selfless, at his most willing to finally give up his spark for our, my good, he hadn't made it. It was almost ironic that of all the times I just wished he died, he stayed alive. And when I wanted him to online those beautiful crimson optics, and look me in the optics once again, he didn't. There's no way of me finding that beautiful form, no matter how broken and destroyed it is. There's simply nothing left for me to find.

I don't remember when I dream. But sometimes I online feeling so happy and so wistful – before I give way to tears because I know that I can't have those dreams anymore; they have been stolen from me like a thief in the night. It is like a blissful feeling has given way to something more painful and something that steals sobs from me, because I online feeling as though he's still there beside me, and that he'll comfort me whenever I feel so lonely and so hurt, but then I realise with a pang that he's not there, he's offline, and he's never coming back.

Sometimes I wake up screaming because my dreams are not full of happiness and seeing him there and alive; they are nightmares, and I see him before he deactivates all over again. And the feeling of knowing that I watched him leave me, makes me break down. Sometimes I almost scream. I have now secretly put soundproof walls within my room to avoid any concern or worried looks from the rest of my team. I don't need it. I don't need pity or words of comfort from anyone but him, and he's terminated. Pity and comfort makes me feel worse.

And right now, I'm trapped in one of those nightmares that means I cannot run and cannot hide, that I have to watch what is my greatest fear, and I'm screaming as I'm doing so, and I can't cycle any more air, and it's not until everything fades into black at which I finally online, and realise that I've broken again.

The road ahead of me tore up, the dashed yellow line cracking and splitting underneath my wheels. I know now that the inevitable has come, and I'm crying and screaming at nothing, because I can't remember, and I can't feel, see or hear, because there is only one way I know that everything is going to be okay. And that means going forwards, towards the almost-destroyed road.

Debris hits the side of my passenger door, scratching the paintwork and gouging deep lines across my hood and windscreen. But I don't care. There is only one thing on my mind. I have to finally face it, and not be a coward, like I have been for the Great War between us. I can't lose something after I had just got it. It's that thought that spurs me on. I continue to drive, regardless of the number of .coms I'm getting; from Ratchet, from seemingly everyone, begging me to return, because I'm driving straight into the midst of danger, but I don't care; it simply feels so good to be here, wind whipping around me.

I almost forget where I am. I see the barbed wire, tangled and coiled with razor-sharp spikes jutting out at irregular intervals ahead of me, and I'm prepared to run straight through them, with no care or heed to the consequences. I almost like the new me – reckless and brash, everything he had taught me to be. In the midst of danger and almost death, you should die uncaring for yourself – noble and a selfless act of defiance. I like it.

I also see the building in front of me: tall, shapeless from the wind, mist and fog that is currently shrouding it. Not to mention the fact that my windscreen is cracked from the pieces of road that have smashed against it repeatedly, weakening the glass. I might have died, but I didn't. It is one of the advantages of being a Prime. But I don't see him. I don't see the bot that has risked almost everything to end this war – despite having loved war so much before. I don't see the sleek, beautiful jet streaking out from amongst the greying clouds, shooting everything down in its path. It is graceful yet deadly – a perfect combination of deceit. I don't see the streaked, angular lines coming down from its streamlined form, its perfect wings tilting both ways as it avoids everything that comes to it. I don't hear the familiar crack, as my jet breaks the sound barrier once again, defying all laws of nature with such a simple movement. It has always been natural to him, but impossible and a sight of awe to me.

I don't get to see much of the greyish building in front of me before it gives way to a streak of scarlet and orange, a blur of fire. Then I feel a searing hot pain on my side, and I flip clumsily through the air, crashing down onto the destroyed tarmac – but not for long. I'm only there, tasting the pain for about five seconds, when a secondary blast lifts me into the air – I've always hated being airborne with absolutely no control over my frame – and I'm thrown backwards into the sky, thinking that I've failed, and this is it – this is how I'm going to die.

Then my world spins like a top, and I'm thinking that maybe I'll see him in the Well of All Sparks, where we will finally be together, then I'm falling into blackness, and I feel nothing and see nothing, and I think nothing at all.

My optics online so fast that anyone would have thought I was always there, watching them the whole time. I catch my breath, realising that I had been screaming, and let out a stifled sob. It isn't as bad as it normally is. I've had this dream so many times, but though it always hurts in the same way, I've learnt to control the stinging pain that ignites my spark.

I've had more nightmares than dreams lately, and I'm worried that if I have too many, I'll forget the times when he was by my side, and I was thinking that it was too good to be true. Of course, happiness never lasts. It gives way to sadness and fear, just like Primus did to Unicron. But because I'm so worried that I'll forget who he has become to me, I'll go back to when I finally rose out of the Well of All Sparks back to the present. And maybe, when I've remembered the whole story, it won't hurt as badly.

I'm just lying to myself really. It'll hurt more. But it would be worth it, making sure I don't forget, because I know that I never will be able to forgive myself if I do. I owe it to him really. I have to honour his memory.

My servos fumble clumsily on the side of my berth, and my digits clench gently around a piece of silver Seeker metal, taken from the wing. It is no longer shiny, sleek and streamlined; the explosion that had taken its owner had transformed it into a crumpled, scratched, dead, twisted metal that felt rough in my hands, so different from the wings that I had once fingered so delicately. But it was all I had managed to salvage from the wreckage. It is all that I had left, really. It is all that is left to prove that everything I saw, felt or heard in the past year was not a dream. That it is my reality.

And just in case I ever forget who he was to me, I tell my story, our story here, in words, though words could never represent the love I felt to him.

These are our words; this is our story.