"Come on Optimus, loosen up" Jack told Optimus Prime.
"I am comfortable where I am." Optimus told Jack.
"Come on, have a little fun." Jack said.
"No, I am fine" Optimus said walking away from Jack. Optimus wasn't even considering their proposal, usually he thought about it a minute before shooting it down.
"Come on Optimus" Miko said walking into the room. "It'll be lots of fun."
"My definition of fun is comparatively different than yours" Optimus said.
"Optimus it's only for a few hours it's not going to kill you." Miko whined.
"I am sorry Miko but there is something else I must do tonight." he said cryptically walking out of the room and not looking back at the two teens.
"What's up with him?" asked Jack, Miko shrugged her shoulders. She was just as curious to know what was going on with the Autobot leader.
"We better get to the others, we don't want to be late." said Jack heading toward the exit. When they got their all Raph and all of the other Autobots were waiting for them, they had even managed to talk Ratchet into going. When they got there the first thing Miko said was-
"What's up with Optimus?"
"What do you mean?" asked Bulkhead
"He's acting weird, like depressing weird." said Jack.
"That doesn't sound like Optimus" said Arcee.
"By the All Spark!" Ratchet suddenly shouted.
"What's wrong Ratchet" Bulkhead said jumping into action and getting out his weapons.
"It's today, I can't believe I forgot" Ratchet said, sounding horribly guilty.
"What's today?" asked Arcee. Bumblebee beeped something and all of the bots eyes widened and their face were suddenly covered with grief.
"I don't think we should go to the drive-in today" said Bulkhead shaking his head.
"What! Why?" questioned Miko. They had been planning this trip for a month.
"Excuse me" said Raph. They all turned to the small boy. "Who's SeaRose?"
All of the bots cringed at the name. But Ratchet's reaction was the worst. His face was covered with pain and he fell to his knees.
"Ratchet are you okay?" asked Jack completely freaked. Ratchet never acted like this, was something hurting him? Didn't look like anything was hurting him physically. What was going on, who's SeaRose?
"Ratchet, maybe you should go be with Optimus." suggested Arcee placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Ratchet nodded and slowly stood up and walked away somberly.
A few moments later after Ratchet was out of hearing range, Miko asked what was on all of the kids minds.
"Who's SeaRose?" The bots looked at each-other silently trying to find a way to explain the question. After a while Bulkhead decided to speak.
"SeaRose was an autobot." he said, not really giving them any information.
"Was?" questioned Raph.
"Yeah" Bulkhead said looking like he wanted to cry, which wasn't like him at all, actually all three of the bots looked like they were going to cry. SeaRose must be a really delicate subject for them.
"Can you give us a bit more info?" asked Miko, not realizing how much the subject was hurting the bots. They all looked at each other.
"Should we tell them?" Arcee asked the other two.
"Tell us what? Why are you so secretive about this SeaRose?" Miko demanded. She wanted to know what was going on, and when she wanted something she'd go to hell and back to get it.
"It's better they know so that they don't bother Optimus and Ratchet about it." said Bulkhead. Bumblebee beeped something which seemed to sound like an agreement.
"Okay kids here's what's going on, 10 years ago today, something happened." said Bulkhead. "It hurt us all, but it nearly killed Optimus and Ratchet."
"What happened? Was it a bad Decepticon attack?" asked Miko.
"Let us explain." said Bulkhead sighing deeply. "This is what happened-"
10 years earlier:
Chirp,chirp,chirp
The tiny femme sparkling said trying to communicate to one of its creator. A large mechanical hand came up and stroked the sparklings back trying to quit it down.
"Shh" the large mech whispered to its child.
"Chirp, chirp?" questioned the sparkling, not understanding its parent. The mech slowly rocked the femme until she slipped into a deep recharge.
He gently laid the small femme on the rock floor of the cave they had seeked refuge in. He stood up and immediately felt a sharp burning pain in his side, he grimaced and leaned heavily against the cave wall. He slowly walked to the mouth of the cave, each step making it feel like a flaming sword had been stabbed through his side.
"Ratchet to Optimus Prime" Optimus breathed a sigh of relief, they fixed the comm.
"Optimus Prime here" he answered.
"What's your status" Ratchet asked.
"I am badly damaged, how fast can you get here?" he asked.
"It will be a few hours, can you hold out that long?" Ratchet asked.
"Yeah"
"Is SeaRose okay" Ratchet asked sounding a bit worried.
"She's fine Ratchet. Don't worry, our daughter is not going to be hurt. I took care of the Decepticons that were after us." Optimus said reassuring him.
"That's good, we're leaving right now. We'll see you in about 3 hours. Ratchet out." Optimus shut off his com and looked at the expanse of Cybertronian desert before him. The black soil and rocks gave the place a feeling of grim death. He didn't want to stare out at the bleak moonscape for 3 hours. He slowly turned and made his way back to his daughter. He could hear the crash of thunder and almost immediately heard the cry of his sparkling.
He walked a bit faster toward his wailing sparkling. He finally got to her and picked her up and held her close in his arms.
"Shh,shh, little one, it is only thunder. He told her softly, rocking her back and forth. Her loud wails soon quieted down to small hiccups. But it didn't seem like she wanted to go back to sleep.
"Do not worry my SeaRose. Ratchet is on his way, your daddy is coming to get us." he spoke to her. Though he doubted he understood. She chirped happily for a second, but coward in fear as another strike of thunder struck.
He held SeaRose close and kissed her head slightly. This was the softer side of Optimus that only SeaRose and Ratchet could ever bring out. It was so unbelievable that such a tiny thing could open his eyes so wide and make him love her unconditionally with his whole spark.
She looked up at him with bright blue optics that reminded him of the Seas that had once covered sections of Cybertron. The bright red metal armor that covered her body was a shade similar to the rose that grew on the planet Earth.
But she also represented his only fear. The only fear Optimus Prime had was that he could not protect his sparkling. She was his light, his everything. More thunder crashed around them and SeaRose cried out.
"Do not worry it will be morning soon, and that is when Ratchet will get here." he whispered softly to SeaRose. She cooed happily at hearing her other father's name.
Two hours later:
The sun was just peeking over the horizon, Optimus sat at the mouth of the cave, and he knew Ratchet would be here soon. SeaRose had fallen asleep again about twenty minutes earlier and Optimus was enjoying the quiet.
He saw dust flying far off in the distance and suddenly heard the faint roar of an engine.
'Ratchet made great time' he thought.
About 40 meters from him he realized, it wasn't Ratchet. He tensed and brought out his weapons even though it made his wound feel like a fiery inferno by doing so.
The automobile suddenly transformed, into a Decepticon. The one he wrongly believed he'd scrapped earlier.
"Starscream" Optimus growled.
"Well, hello prime." he sneered. "I see the wound I inflicted on you earlier is even worse" he said gesturing to the wound which was covered in dried energon.
"Leave now, Starscream. I have backup that will be here any second." Optimus threatened,
"No, they're a good 20 minutes from here, that's more than enough time for me to kill you." he said pointing a missile at Optimus. Optimus stood there ready to fight him to the death, when he noticed Starscream malicious grin widen considerably. Optimus glanced behind himself and saw SeaRose had crawled to the mouth of the cave and was a few meters behind him.
"No!" Optimus yelled.
He charged at Starscream determined to keep him from his sparking. His body felt like it had been set on fire, but he ignored it. Starscream shot the missile, and it barely missed Optimus.
"SeaRose" He screamed. He turned around, just in time to see the missile collide with the cave. Shaking it and sending piles of rocks on top of SeaRose, crushing her.
"You bastard!" Optimus screamed at Starscream. Starscream grinned and with one hard kick Starscream sent Optimus flying. He landed in a heap on the ground nearly unconscious. He could see the pile of rocks where he knew SeaRose was and he desperately wanted to go to her. Suddenly a large mech blocked his view.
"I cam here with every intent to kill you. But I think this pain will be worse than any physical one I could give you." he kicked Optimus in the face and Optimus fell into unconsciousness.
"Optimus" "Optimus" he hear the familiar voice faintly. His optics slowly opened and he came eye with Ratchet.
"Don't worry you're going to be fine." Ratchet told him." "Where's SeaRose?" he asked looking around. Optimus suddenly felt his optics water, as he remembered what happened. Ratchet's eyes widened at his reaction to the question. Optimus glanced over at the pile of boulders and Ratchet followed his gaze.
"Bumblebee, Ironhide over there!" he yelled to the two mechs. Optimus saw them run to the rocks they threw the boulders away as fast as possible. But when he saw them freeze and Bee begin to cry, he knew they'd found her, dead.
"Ratchet" he whimpered. Ratchet slowly stood and walked over to the two mechs. He glanced at where they were looking before collapsing onto the ground.
"No,no" he could hear Ratchet crying, and he wanted to comfort him desperately. Ratchet suddenly stood and walked over to Optimus.
"Who did this" he practically seethed.
"Starscream" he managed to croak out before his vision blurred and his world went black.
"Oh god" Jack said, sitting down on the ground. The kids looked absolutely mortified.
"He just killed her, just like that!" Miko said completely outraged.
"I can't believe we never knew" Raf said.
"It's always been hard on Optimus and Ratchet, so we don't talk about it." Arcee told them.
"I can see why, Starscream killed their child!" Jack said frustrated.
"We never even knew they were a couple." Miko said.
"Yeah, it's weird, I never thought of them as anything more than friends." said Jack, and Raf nodded in agreement.
"They don't show their feelings for each other anymore, because they think it will make them look weak. But back before SeaRose was killed, they openly showed their love for one another, and truth be told they are the closest thing to soul mates I've ever seen." Bulkhead told them honestly.
"So what do we do?" asked Miko.
"Don't do anything, don't even bring up SeaRose. They'll know we told you about her, and they'll be okay with that. But for their sake just leave them alone today, and go about your normal things tomorrow. Just be normal, keep their minds of SeaRose, that's what we've been doing for years." Arcee told the.
"We can do that" Miko said in her normal chipper tone giving them a thumbs up.
"Why don't I take you three home" Bulkhead said turning into his vehicle form. The kids nodded in understanding and piled into Bulkhead.
The kids never brought up SeaRose to Optimus and Ratchet, and everything returned to normal the next day. Jack didn't like how they acted like SeaRose had never existed, but he knew that was how they coped with it. For the rest of his time with the Autobot's, no one ever brought up SeaRose again.