Right, I've had this on my computer for over a year now I think. It's just something I thought would make an interesting idea that spiraled into a long story that I put to the side since I was still right smack in the middle of The Long Road Home. I'm interested to see what you guys think of it.

It's a TF Animated AU, that much is obvious pretty fast. As for details, well I'll let you guys sort things out before I say anything spoiler-y. ;) Hope you enjoy it!

...

Shattered

The Wake

It was a peculiar feeling, watching your own wake, one the femme had never thought she would experience.

She was standing in the shadows of the shops clustered near what had been her home, watching her family through the large side windows. She had wanted that house just for those windows. They made up the wall of the west side of the building and when the sun was setting light poured through them and illuminated every corner of the main room. And while the buildings across the plaza from her former home hid her with their shadows, there was nothing to obscure the sun from showing her her family.

She could see them through the big windows. It was easier now that most of the guests had left. Only a handful of old friends still lingered around the main room to try and comfort her son and sparkmate. Little Leo was wrapped in the arms of her old friend Chromia, her closest friend since they'd gone to school at the Autobot Academy. She hadn't seen the blue and white femme for orns now, since before she'd left for her latest mission.

"Figures the next time I see her was my funeral." The femme in the shadows thought to herself, but even that thought took some time to pick its way through the mists floating about in her processor.

A few feet away Leo's father sat in one of two chairs, slouched forward with his head buried in his hands. He'd been sitting like that ever since the last group of well-wishers and condolence-givers had left some time ago. Ironhide, an elite guard member under Ultra Magnus like her bond mate as well as a close friend of theirs, had been standing next to him for just as long. He hadn't said much, but then the red mech had always been a bot of few words, and from the glare she had seen her mate give the last bot that had said, "I'm sorry for your loss," she figured Ironhide's silence was appreciated more than anything he could say.

A sea green figure suddenly walked briskly into the room, small hands randomly shooting out and snatching bits of trash left behind from the wake and tossing them unerringly into the trash bin in the far corner. Another friend from her academy days, it had always amazed the watching femme that, no matter how often she tripped and stumbled and fell over her own two stabilizing servos, Moonracer never failed to hit what she was aiming for, be it the trash can or the shooting target.

But now the small femme was zigzagging crazily across the room, like a drone without its guidance systems. Her blue optics darted this way and that, locking onto unimportant things like the leftover debris or the crooked lampshade, which she straightened with quick, fidgety movements. Moonracer didn't stop moving even when she carefully put a hand on the grieving mech's shoulder and she only slowed down to lean over and kiss Leo's small head. Then just as quickly as she had entered, the restless femme flitted into the back room she had come from.

As the femme watched from her hiding place, Ironhide looked over his friend's slumped shoulders at Chromia as Moonracer reappeared and finally stopped her restless cleaning long enough to sit next to her and Leo. The blue and silver femme sent her new boyfriend an equally concerned look as Leo lifted his head just enough to look over at Moonracer and reached his little arms out to her.

Unquestioningly, the light green femme picked the mechling up and pulled him close, placing another kiss on his forehead as the little boy buried his face against her shoulder. Moonracer stared vacantly at the air in front of her, her naturally large optics even wider then usual as she rubbed Leo's back as restlessly as she had cleaned a moment ago. There wasn't much more she could do for him.

The watching femme felt her spark clench in its casing. That should be her holding Leo. He was her son. Her son. And he was crying because Ultra Magnus himself had come and told him that his mother was dead.

"And I should be."

The femme slowly looked down at her hands. They looked…strange. Sharp, darkly colored digits had replaced the long, bright ones that had been hers for so long.

"These aren't mine." She heard herself think as what was left of her systems kicked up a notch, along with a thumping somewhere in her chassis she didn't recognize. "These aren't my servos. By Primus-" the thought choked off in her head, "by Primus what happened to me?"

She wished she couldn't remember, but that wouldn't have helped her any in the end.

Behind her, the sun sank lower in the sky, making the shadows stretch farther across the ground. Inside the small house, timed lights kicked on, making the windows glow from the inside as the sunlight sank and ultimately disappeared behind the horizon line. And as the shadows crept closer to her home during the course of the afternoon, so had she.

By now she was only a few yards away from the side of her house. It was at once too far and too close. It wasn't safe standing this close. Someone might recognize her. Someone could just look up and see her outline lingering in the shadows. Chromia or Ironhide or, even worse, Leo or Op-

Her spark mate suddenly looked up, dulled optics automatically turning towards the window.

She felt her systems threaten to stop cold as their optics met. She took a half a step back as he shot to his feet, making the other bots in the room apart from Leo look up at him. No doubt they were asking him what was wrong now. Fortunately they were all so busy watching him that they didn't turn to see what he was staring at.

She back pedaled into the safety of the deeper shadows, her optics never leaving her mate's.

She saw his mouth move, telling Moonracer to watch Leo for a minute, that he just had to check on something for a klik. And then he walked out the door, long stride carrying him quickly from the house.

Through the windows, she was dimly aware of her friends' confusion and the hum of their low questions through the glass, but she wasn't paying them much attention now. They weren't the ones she had traveled so far to see.

She heard the front door open and close. Then hurried footsteps quickly making their way across the small plaza that sat in front of their house. For a brief klik, when the strange new beating thing was thumping wildly in her chassis, she wanted to run away, fast and far. Even farther then she'd just come. He shouldn't see her like this. No one should see her like this.

But she couldn't make herself leave. The piece of her that wanted to run was quickly overpowered by the fierce desire to have her family back. To not have to face this alone.

She didn't have long before running was no longer an option. Soon the familiar frame of her love appeared in front of her, looking startled and desperate with hope that his optics weren't just fooling him.

He stopped a few yards in front of her, but she could still hear his ventilation systems working hard to restore some kind of normalcy to his body.

For a long moment those systems were the only sound between them. That and the panicked, unfamiliar thump pounding in her audios.

Finally something else intruded on the taunt silence, a word, a familiar name-

"Elita?" He whispered, the unspoken question obvious as he took a cautious half step towards her; Was she really here?

She felt herself tense. She'd like the answer to that question herself quite honestly. As soon as she had caught sight of her reflection in the side of her space ship she had thought that maybe she was trapped in some kind of punishing afterlife. That the Pit was tormenting her somehow.

But even if that was true and she really was offline, she obviously still looked enough like herself for him to recognize her, but what if this change was as horrifying to him as it was to her? What if…

Her mech took another step towards her, arms automatically reaching out to welcome her. She took a half step back, not sure if touching was such a good idea.

The disbelieving smile that had started to show on his face abruptly froze in place, dying as it did. "Elita is that-are you-" his vocal processor broke slightly, "please, it's gotta be you." He begged softly, hands still not lowering away from her.

She wanted to fling herself at him. To finally know that she was safe. That nothing could touch her here when she was surrounded by his arms and their friends. But what if she was the contaminate? What if she damaged them just by touching them with her poisoned frame?

But she couldn't just stand there watching him with fearful optics either. She had come here for a reason, right? If she couldn't trust her mate, well then who could she trust?

So she nodded, just once.

A held in batch of air left his vents in a rush. She saw how badly he wanted to close this ridiculous gap between them, but he remembered how she had moved away from him last time, so he remained still, albeit with difficulty.

"How-" he started to ask, "Why-what happened?" He finally formed a whole question. "They-Ultra Magnus- told us you'd been extinguished." He said with difficulty, rubbing at the back of his helm with a rough hand. "That the entire team but Glyph had been killed by natives."

Cautiously, Elita nodded. She remembered those natives very clearly. A disgusting piece of them had followed her here.

Her silence was starting to make her mate nervous. "Elita what happened?" He pressed again. "How did you survive?"

Elita felt her optics flick towards the dark ground. But after being so close to death, she couldn't keep them away from his face for long, so she just as quickly flicked them back. He was still watching her with bewildered optics.

"I-" she started, voice just as unfamiliar as her servos, "I'm not sure I did." She admitted.

She saw him freeze across from her, his silhouette going rigid against the backdrop of the lit windows. She knew what he was thinking because she had thought it herself many times during the long trip home. Was she really alive? Or was she just an apparition come to taunt his already broken spark?

She had traveled alone and she'd never been brave enough to approach anyone before now, so she didn't know the answer to that question. But her mech wasn't about to let the question lie as long as she had.

He closed the gap between them with two long steps and immediately his hands found their familiar places on her body, one against her waist and the other cradling her cheek. His hands were warm and familiar and solid. She leaned into him with a relieved sigh. He was here. She was real. She wasn't some ghost haunting her old life. But then that meant that everything else that had happened had been real too.

She started to cry, as much from fear as relief, as she leaned against his solid frame, letting him keep her upright as the coolant tears finally ran free.

"Elita," he said her name as he wrapped her more securely to him, "I thought I'd lost you for good." He mumbled against her head as he ran a hand up and down her back, digits running across the strange, new appendages there and the scraps of cloth she'd used to conceal them.

"Elita what-?" He started in some confusion, but the whoosh of the front door opening and a familiar voice calling through the darkness stopped him from finishing the question.

"Optimus!" Ironhide called out from the house as he searched for his friend in the dark. "Hey mech, you alright out here?"

Elita froze against her love's side, suddenly afraid. Facing her mate was one thing, but even revealing her existence to an old friend like Ironhide was out of the question, at least not until she was sure of how he'd react when he finally saw the monster she had turned into.

"You can't tell him!" She hissed up at Optimus, turning fearful blue optics on him. She kept her voice low enough that the ambient noise of the city covered up her words, just as the night swallowed up her mate's bright colors and completely hid her own darker ones. "Not any of them!"

Optimus blinked down at her in surprise. "But Elita-" he started.

"Please!" Elita begged, pulling at the collar of his armor. "Not even," she stumbled, "not even Leo."

She half expected him to ask why, but another worried, "Prime?" from Ironhide reminded him that now probably wasn't the time.

"Alright," he conceded slowly, "come inside when they're gone, after Leo's gone to bed." He told her, then quickly pressed a kiss to her forehead and left before she could argue.

She vaguely heard Optimus call out to the other elite guard member as he exited the shadows and slowly walked back towards the house.

"Ya alright out here Optimus?" Ironhide asked again in his odd accent, concern for once obvious in his voice.

Optimus' answer was low, helping him to sound still bereaved for a dead mate that he now knew was very much alive. "Yeah," he answered, "yeah I just," he paused, trying to piece together what to say, "I just thought I saw something out here." He told the other mech.

From her hiding spot in the dark, Elita watched Ironhide put an uncertain servo on his friend's shoulder. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but a familiar cry cut through the thoughts of all three adults.

"Daddy!" Leo's little voice carried out the still open front door. "Daddy!" He cried more urgently.

Optimus sped up, darting towards the door as Elita watched her son through the window as the frightened mechling thrashed in Moonracer's grip. "Daddy!" He screamed again, despite Moonracer and Chromia's reassurance that his daddy would be right back.

Optimus suddenly appeared in the room and swept up his son, holding him close and murmuring to him to try and calm him down. Elita didn't need to hear him to know what he was saying. Every nightmare, every scrape, whenever little Leonek was scared it was always the same, comforting words.

"It's okay," he always said, "you're okay. Everything's going to be alright. I've got you."

Elita clung to those words as she hunkered down at the base of an out of the way building and waited for everyone else to leave.