Reunion Chapter Two : Problems, Solutions, and Questions
I do not own Transformers (sigh). Repeat: The explanation for how Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were separated is taken from Glances into a Spark by Saesama, Chapter 28, used with permission (check out the fanfic, it's good).
Sam left of the infirmary the next morning with a deep sigh of relief, and headed for his add-on. He slept for six hours,woke and escaped a night of boredom only because Ronnie, his youngest son, came by and volunteered to fetch his laptop. Ronnie visited after uneventful investigation with Bumblebee. Along with the laptop, he brought clothes, after a tightly worded promise from his father that Sam would remain in his infirmary room until he saw the doctor the next day. Sam grumbled, but he finally promised. Over a meal at the cafeteria, Sam told Ronnie about the trip to the meadow, meeting the new arrival, and the fight with Megatron. "Those twins have been apart for at least a century, and they still fought like a team," Sam said.
"I've seen Sideswipe fight, and he's good," Ronnie said. In the search for Sam after his capture, his family found that 'crackpot killer robot' sites sometimes posted true sightings. One resulted in Sam's rescue, and a new engineer for the energon plants, but there were other hits. In addition to his position as Ironhide's partner liaising with the military, Ron investigated sightings with Bumblebee, whose scout training proved more useful that Ironhide's firepower.
"Yes, but Sunstreaker was the one who covered the escape, according to Bluestreak," Sam said. Minnie did a lot of small repairs for the bots at her 'garage' at the energon plant, and with Bluestreak kept up with the lastest sutomotive news. For that reason she heard all the bot gossip, and passed it on to Sam. "Sideswipe brought Jolt, the other Twins, and the trine with him when he arrived, probably the largest group that came together." Ronnie yawned, and Sam sent him home to his family. Back in his hospital room, Sam instant-messaged with Bumblebee.
"They were some of the best fighters the Autobots had," Sam's guardian confirmed. "Sunstreaker was more ruthless and Sideswipe more the thinker. You've heard what Decepticons did with prisoners." Sam said he did; what the Decepticons did with captured Autobots made his experience seem like a walk in the park with roses. "The researchers were interested what you would call psychic bonds. Getting the group out and then getting all of them to a level of functioning that kept them alive made Sideswipe into more of a leader. We all thought Sunstreaker might be dead, but Sideswipe wouldn't give up." Bumblebee signed off to report. Sam leaned back and considered the situation. Then he spent the rest of the night working; the familiar routine soothed him after the stress of dealing with Megatron.
In the morning, his doctor appeared before breakfast came around. "Go home and rest for at least two days," Dr. Sheena Anderson told him. "And I don't mean work on the computer all day! Give your nerves and your reserves a break." She looked over his tests. "Can I talk to Poppy?"
"Poppy and Optimus, if they ask. I'll call Annabelle," Sam said, resigned. Poppy called earlier on the hospital phone, saying she would meet him with the cell phone in about two hours. He told her he to meet him at his add-on. The add-on was built after his rescue, partly to help Sam (and the Autobots, though they would never admit that) feel safe, and partly to be sure any manifestation of the 'presence' could be contained. Sam began the download into the prototype Cube again. He went every morning, and spent an hour. The prototype was growing, and the symbols were becoming clearer. Sam looked forward to the time when the download was complete enough that no matter what happened to him, the Cube would be complete enough to function for the Autobots, which would be a few years. For the process to finish completely would take at least a decade, maybe longer. He went into the infirmary, spoke briefly to Ratchet, who waved him to the room, and settled himself.
An hour and a half later, Poppy arrived at the add-on and discovered her father was not there.. She checked to see if Sam was in the apartment, using her own key. No t finding him, she headed to the infirmary. Ratchet did not see her. Used to having free run of the infirmary all her life, she looked around for her father until she saw an odd light in a door window and peeked in. For a moment she was alarmed. Sam lay on a comfortable couch, his hand on something vaguely square that glowed just a little. Close by was a computer with two screens. One showed odd symbols, which she recognized as Cybertronian. It took her longer to see the other, as it moved in a blur. Then it froze for just a moment, and she figured out what it was. "Oh, Daddy," she said in a choked voice, not seeing the yellow bot approaching her with his sword out. The sword was gone when she turned, her face streaked with tears. On seeing him, she gave a sharp intake of breath with a frightened look. "God, Sideswipe, you made me jump!" She looked closer, wiping at her face. "Hold on a moment, you're not Sideswipe, your color is different. Are you the new one, Sunstreaker?"
"Yes. You are Sam's daughter?" She nodded. "Yes," she said, remembering that he might not know the gesture. "Mind telling me what happened yesterday? I know that Optimus took Dad and the bot babies to the meadow, and left," the disapproval dripped from her voice," and then you came?" She started to walk toward the infirmary. Sunstreaker gave her a short summary. "Damnation. Now those slagging glitches will watch the meadow. There goes Daddy's peaceful retreat." They reached the main room of the infirmary, and Ratchet, bent over one of the tables, saw her.
"When did you get here, Poppy, and where were you just now?" the medic demanded. "I'm still looking at the results of those tests, Sunstreaker, so just be patient. Sideswipe will be back after a time." Ratchet stood straighter, and Poppy could see he was holding one of the sparklings. Seeing her, the sparkling squealed and wriggled to get down.
"I got here just a moment ago, looking for Daddy," she said, as the sparkling raced over to her, clicking at first, but finding his English as he danced around her.
"Poppy come see Sam, Sam okay? Poppy play with balls?" he begged, and she laughed at its antics.
"Yes, Sam's okay, and yes, I'll come play for a bit until Sam's finished. Ratchet, I spoke to Sheena earlier and she said that Daddy's nerves were inflamed last night, worse than usual, but he was fine again this morning. Ronnie saw him last night, said he slept about six hours altogether and was beginning to get cranky when Ronnie showed. Ronnie is one of my brothers," she told Sunstreaker.
Ratchet said, "Go on out to Jolt, and Poppy will be there in a few moments," to the sparkling, who dashed out. "Why were you crying?"
She cursed under her breath, and wiped at her eyes again. "I saw what was on those screens, where Daddy is," she admitted. "It was Mom, back when she was young, when they were young. And now we can't go back to the meadow again, not without watching our backs every minute now, can we?" she went on. "Like Daddy needs to be boxed in any more than he already is. Can I leave my purse here for a while if I'm going to play with the kids?"
"You know where to put it," Ratchet said, and she nodded. A few moments later, she followed the sparkling, and from the courtyard nearby they could hear her shouting as the sparklings squealed, clicked, and occasionally yelled back. "When she was born she was smaller than the first joint of my finger," the medic said, "and her mother kept her here while she worked with me. In a quarter of a vorn she was grown, and soon after on the battlefield."
"What happens when Sam dies?" Sunstreaker asked. While the question sounded cold, Ratchet knew that all new bots asked it sooner or later. The Cube lasted for millennia. Now the All-Spark was housed in a short-lived, fragile human. "She spoke as though Sam needed to have more freedom, but doesn't he have to be protected?
Ratchet put up the tools that he used for maintenance on the sparkling, and considered how to explain. Speaking in Cybertronian, the bot said, "Until a year ago, no one was sure that Sam held the All-Spark. We suspected. Even Megatron gave orders that Sam was to be captured, not killed. We knew he had the knowledge from the Cube, and that sometimes he would become very focused on a project. Usually it had to do with us, and turned out to be important. He built the energon plants, and the company that pays our way with the human, and he has always spoken for us to the governments. He could go into a deep sleep, and sometimes get answers for us, but no more than that." Sunstreaker paid close attention.
Ratchet looked out to watch the sparklings and Poppy in the courtyard, Jolt watching nearby. "Then one of us came back with material he found on a meteor. It was the same material the Cube was made from. Sam found a way in those memories to build a prototype that could download information from the Cube into the prototype. He was obsessed with the project. Optimus and I did what we could to slow him, because we were afraid that the attempt at the download would kill or drive him insane. It did not. He was suffering from losing Mikaela, who was not only his wife, but closer to him than you were to Sideswipe, and somehow beginning the download eased that suffering." There was laughter from Poppy and Jolt, as one of the sparklings bounced the ball off of another's head.
Ratchet went on, "Somehow the Decepticons found out about the project, and put in a pretender-a bot whose alt mode is a human form. We got suspicious, and brought the prototype here. The pretender was driven out of the research, and did not know we had taken it. So one day, when Sam went back to speak to the researcher again, we got attacked here and at the energon plants. We were pinned down. In the town, Bumblebee, Sam, and his grandson Oscar put up a good fight. They off-lined Barricade permanently, melted Starscream's foot into the pavement so it could not fly, and off-lined the pretender, but Megatron showed after the humans exhausted their weapons and Bumblebee was already injured. Megatron intended to take Sam and the prototype, and kill him near it, forcing it to transfer and create a new Cube. Finding out it was on the base, which Megatron did not have enough troops to break into, he took Sam instead. We could not find him for weeks going into months."
" Barricade, Starscream, and Megatron, plus a pretender would have been tough to fight together," Sunstreaker admitted. "Megatron called Sam 'pet,' and I wondered why. Did they break him?"
"Yes, in three days," Ratchet admitted, "which was a day longer than we expected him to last. That was how we found out Fixer was still alive." Sunstreaker growled. "They did not do permanent physical damage. But to Megatron he was a prize, and to Fixer he was a pet, and they treated him accordingly. It did not matter that the All-Spark manifested in him to heal him and to make the sparklings. Sam told Optimus and no one else how the sparklings were made. I know it had something to do with Fixer's research, and that it almost killed Sam. And Sam knew they were hunting the prototype, and that they would kill him if they found it. "
Sideswipe appeared in the middle of the story. "Sam started doing things he'd never been able to do before after he got back from the Decepticon base," the silver bot confirmed. "After we got Starscream down, one of the troops was after Ronnie, and none of us were close enough to reach him. There was one hell of a big lightning blast, and that trooper was fried. I think Sam pulled the lightning down on him. Then he healed Optimus in front of all of us, Autobots and Decepticons alike. But every time he does stuff like that, he's hurt. He was flat on the ground after calling that lightning, and he couldn't move for a night after he took care of Optimus. I always wondered what they did to him. He used to need Bumblebee to guard him all the time, and now we rotate it because he almost never leaves the base anymore, and when he does, he goes to the energon plants or the meadow."
"I think Poppy's right about the meadow," Ratchet commented. "When we rescued him, Sam told Optimus that he would not ever go back, that he would die first, and he meant that. He has been extremely cautious for the last year. But that is Sam's choice and it always has been. We protect him, but he is our ally and not our possession. We can't tell him when to come and go."
"And I promise you, brother, that he will absolutely tell you off if you forget that," Sideswipe added. The conversation moved to a discussion of alt forms. Sam came in while they were arguing over different choices. The twins wanted to match, and they had at least narrowed the choices down to three, but from there they could not agree. Not yet noticed, Sam watched Sunstreaker closely. In download for over two hours, when the human Cube woke, he found information he had not expected. Seeing the purse and the bag beside it, he knew Poppy was nearby. He heard shouting and squeals, and knew where Poppy was. While the discussion got a little heated, he slid over to the bag. Poppy alreadey activated the phone. He texted Ratchet, who sent a response. Sam texted again, nodded at something he saw, and looked up at the medic again.
"Done?" the medic said aloud. "I wondered if you'd just gone to sleep." He came around the table, putting himself closer to Sunstreaker. "Which reminds me, I thought you promised me you would limit the healing until I asked for help."
That broke the argument off. The twins looked over at Sam and Ratchet. "I promised unless the bot was close to a permanent offline," Sam said firmly. "Sunstreaker's spark was wavering." Sam could see this news disturbed Sideswipe and startled Sunstreaker. "I see Poppy brought me my phone."
"What happened to the other one?" Sideswipe asked.
"Sunstreaker stepped on it." Sam said, moving toward the bot in question.
"You turned it into a drone first," Sunstreaker protested, annoyed. Looking up, the new bot saw Ratchet and its brother look at Sunstreaker and then at Sam. There was a moment of charged silence.
"Sam turned it into a drone," Ratchet said with an air of careful control. "Just when were you going to mention that little fact, Sam?"
"Eventually," Sam admitted. "I've never done it before. I heard Megatron in jet form, right after I finished the healing, and I panicked. "
"And what else happened? Dr. Anderson said your nerves were worse than usual," Ratchet prodded. None of them saw Poppy come in, flushed from running.
"We reinforced the shield," Sam said. "When I saw Megatron aiming his cannon at the shield, and knew he was going to shoot, the presence poured power into the generator. The shield held," he added defensively.
"Is that why you screamed?" Sideswipe asked. Sam nodded. "The shot bounced off and hit Megatron," the bot told Ratchet. "Did quite a bit of damage, too."
"Daddy?" Poppy said, coming further in the door. Sunstreaker reacted immediately, starting to pull a sword. Poppy jumped aside and threw. There was a "plink" and Sunstreaker froze. Sideswipe grabbed his arm, shoving back the sword, while Ratchet grabbed the other arm.
"Good move, sweetie. Go tell Jolt to keep the sparklings back," Sam told her. She turned and ran as Sunstreaker recovered, cursing and struggling. Sam stepped up and placed hands on Sunstreaker. His hands glowed just slightly. Sunstreaker stiffened, held in stasis; then the other two bots stiffened as well. Sam let go and stepped back to lean against the table. The bots moved, a little awkwardly at first. Sideswipe and Ratchet let Sunstreaker go.
"You said you'd do a removal of the virus on Sunstreaker," Ratchet said, "but I got something." The medic was doing something internally. From the look, the twins were as well. "Oh," Ratchet said, a little weakly. "That's – thanks, Sam. "
"What was that?" Sunstreaker demanded. "I've never attacked anything like that before! I could have killed her!" Sam understood; that was Decepticon behavior. While Sam could see the arrogance rising in Sunstreaker, he knew that like all Autobots, he valued life.
"You didn't," Sam said. "Ratchet, was I right?" The medic nodded. "You had a virus when we fixed you before," the human Cube went on. "Instead of purging it, the presence deactivated it. Just now I got the way to reverse it, when I was downloading. I didn't understand a lot of it," he admitted, "and I know it's the first time I've ever tried that, but it seemed a lot like doing the fixing, and it didn't hurt nearly as much!"
"Since it involved information instead of power," Ratchet guessed, finished with the internal look. "Sunstreaker, you had a virus that programmed you to see humans as threats. When it activated, and we grabbed you, it started to transfer to us. When Sam downloaded the program to stop it, that program came to Sideswipe and I as well. Not only that, but we can transfer the fix to other bots now, all of us. The program adapts for prevention if the bot doesn't have an active virus."
"Thought it would," Sam said wearily. He started to move to the door. Ratchet slid a foot in front of him and pointed to the bed. "Poppy's going to have half the base in here in a moment, Ratchet!"
"Only me," Optimus said from the door. Poppy was on his shoulder, and the sparklings were behind him, clicking to each other. "Go back to Jolt," Optimus told them firmly, "Sam will see you later." Complaining, they obeyed. "I take it the situation has resolved?" At agreements from all beings in the room, Optimus put Poppy down and waited for her to reach Sam before the Prime came into the room. "I believe that I am entitled to a report." He held a hand out to Sam and Poppy, and placed them on the table. Sam talked, with Ratchet, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker speaking up as needed.
"So the virus transmitted by touch when activated," Optimus said in a grim voice. "This is a vicious weapon indeed. Ratchet, this fix needs to be passed to all bots as soon as possible. Can you do so?" Ratchet responded by holding out his hand. Optimus stretched to meet it, and was still, as the others had been. "I see. Sam, we owe you thanks once again. We will see that the fix is delivered. I believe you were ordered to rest?"
"Right," Poppy said. "Come on, Daddy." Sunstreaker stepped forward and held out a hand to each of them. Sam did not hesitate, and after a moment Poppy stepped forward as well. The humans left, Sam moving somewhat slowly. Soon after, Ratchet vaccinated both Jolt and the sparklings. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker went out to pass the vaccination on to leaders, who passed it on to their chain of command. Jolt took the delighted sparklings to do the same. Optimus spoke quietly to Ratchet after the twins left.
"The meld is advancing," Optimus said.
"I know," the medic said. "The question is, what is it doing to Sam?"
There were times when Sam desperately needed to walk and think. Unfortunately, the only place he got privacy was his add-on, and there was no room to walk there. From the time he left college, Sam only needed four hours of sleep a night. He tended now to sleep early, get up in the dark morning, and get things done when most other people slept. Ironhide arranged a daily guard. Sam kept the bot informed of his whereabouts, and the bot acted as his vehicle for the day, and his guard if he went off-base. The bot arranged an escort if they went off base. However, during the day the bots tended to shadow him if he was not actually in a building or at the add-on, but once they left him at the add-on, their duty ended.
So at night, Sam could slip out the back door and walk around the huge building in the dark, soaking in the cool air and the quiet, and let his mind roam. At this moment, however, he wondered how much Optimus had not told him about the new bot.
He suspected there was quite a bit.
The Autobots and Decepticons scattered across space after the All-Spark disappeared. The numbers here grew steadily, but Sam suspected that the highest percentage remained in space. He believed Megatron's main base was in space. The troops that guarded him and comprised the front lines came from the Fallen's hatchlings, brought out when Megatron stole enough energon. Sam wondered how many were left after sixty years. Breaker was typical of them, stupid, impulsive, and fond of fighting. Sam believed that Megatron wanted sparklings with intelligence to raise as personal followers, replacing the ones like Barricade that he kept losing. Sam admitted that he was very glad Barricade was permanently gone.
But Sam also suspected that pockets of neutrals existed, bots tired of fighting who hid in space to stay out of the war. He suspected that Sunstreaker stayed with them for a neutral he met on Earth tended to be paranoid, and like Sunstreaker, they believed that anything given freely involved obligation. Energon remained scarce, so the resouces of neutral staye stretched. Sam knew that Decepticons gave any unallied bot two choices- join or be killed. He heard something about a virus that converted bots from Autobots to Decepticons, and wondered if they had just encountered it again. They could vaccinate their own, but for their own safety, he felt that the neutrals should at least be warned and offered the chance to get it. After all, there was no cost.
That led to the other concern. The presence qasserted itself a lot more now. Once Sam got the information in bits and pieces during deep sleep or deliberate trance, but now he got it in downloads. Decades ago, when Barricade got Sam, it took a beating that almost killed him and certain knowledge of imminent death to bring the presence out to defend him, and he passed out before it came through. Now the presence sensed a need, like a healing or the need to reinforce the shield, and when he was in download, read the need and sometimes provide a solution.
I need to talk to Optimus about all this, he decided. I need to know if they could communicate through the Cube before. I know the Prime told me I was a lot easier to communicate with, but now I wonder. The Cube certainly responded to Bumblebee, when it shrank into the small box from the huge square. God,I was so young then and so very naïve… He turned the corner and leaned back against the wall, looking blindly at the sky above his head and seeing it not at all. He knew now that the All-Spark transformed itself into him then, and lay dormant until he found the shard of the original Cube in his clothes. Touching the shard activated the All-spark in his brain. At that time it came close to driving him insane, trying to communicate, and literally driving him to his death. Yes, the Dynasty revived him, and he in turn revived Optimus. From then on he accepted he was part of them now, and the craziness stopped for a while.
Sam believed that his own organic sentience enabled the presence to sense the world through Sam. He knew that the presence could have jumped from him to the prototype and let him die. At the time, he did not care; that meant he would have joined Mikaela that much sooner. He began to walk again, slowly, remembering Mikaela. The teenage who shot Frenzy with a nail gun and hot-wired a tow truck to pull Bumblebee, legless, out of danger, only to drive them both back to save the soldiers who would lead NEST later; the young woman who refused to say 'I love you' first, only to scream it at his dead body, and have him miraculously wake to say it back; the lover who worked with him to make treaties for the Autobots; the wife who held their first baby for the Autobots to see; and the lifetime partner who fought her cancer grimly to stay by him, knowing that sometimes she was sometimes the only thing keeping him anchored to the human world. He remembered their last night.
"What's it like to die, Sam?"
"It was quick. Like everything just-stopped. It was peaceful, no noise, no pain, just-being there in the dark. Then everything lit up, and the Dynasty spoke to me, all of them leaning over me, and telling me the Matrix of Leadership had to be earned and we had earned it, and to put the Matrix in Optimus' Spark. Then I woke up and you were screaming you loved me and crying on my dirty shirt. It was worth hurting like hell to hear you say it first, even if I had to die for it."
"It was such a silly game we played. I was afraid you'd lose interest if I said it."
"I was afraid I'd chase you away."
"I don't want to leave you, Sam, but I hurt so much."
"I'll be all right."
"I'll wait in the dark for you. Until you're ready. " She was having trouble saying the words, her breathing labored. "Don't hurry. Be there for the kids. "
"I know you'll be there for me. I'll be all right. I love you."
"You said it first this time. I love you." Silence for a time. Then, "Sam? I'm so glad I got in the car- with-you."
Then watching, dry-eyed because he was cried out, as the children clung to each other and to him and wept, as the laser burst out from the Autobots- he was pretty sure it was Ratchet, who worked with her for decades- and burn the casket and its burden to ashes that blew into the air and settled into the grass of the meadow, letting the cycle of life and death begin again.
God, he still missed her. Not desperately, not with the aching void that haunted him before, but with a sad pang. She would wait for him as long as necessary, and when it was his time, he would go to her. The thought comforted him.
Then he heard clicking Cybertronian, and looked around. The twins stood down the street, talking, and he listened as he watched them. In the dim light, the colors shone bright, silver and gold.
"You know it must be the twin bond thing again," Sideswipe argued. "Why else would we be targets? "
"Megatron didn't say you, though," Sunstreaker said, and Sam could tell he was troubled. "He said I was one target and that Sam wasted his strength healing me, that I couldn't stand against him, and something about Jazz. Then that I was special but nothing without my twin, but Sam could make more sparklings if his plans worked out. Sam said he would never do it."
"Remember making the sparklings almost killed him," Sideswipe reminded his brother.
"Yeah, but Megatron said then that Sam could hear them screaming, and he couldn't stand it, and that he wouldn't be able to hold out this time either. What did he mean? And what happened to Jazz?"
"We'll have to ask Sam, like Optimus said, and hope he'll tell us," Sideswipe said, troubled in his turn. "Jazz died in the first battle, at Mission City. Megatron killed him. That's all I know. But Sam doesn't talk much about what happened when he was being held."
"Blame him?" Sunstreaker said bitterly. "I fought and fought after you left with the others, and when I got away, I never wanted to fight again. Until Sam fixed me, I forgot what it was like to be whole. And not even that would have brought me if I knew I had that filth in me! I would have infected all of you in the meadow as soon as you found me if Sam hadn't found me first." The gold bot snorted. "And I wondered why he asked me not to take him from his friends!"
"I know all that," Sideswipe said steadily. "But now we have a fix, Sunny! It's okay now, it's better now. Prime told you that, and so did Ratchet." Sideswipe pulled Sunstreaker back to look at him, and as he did, he saw Sam.
"Hi, Sam," he said in English, and Sunstreaker turned. "What are you doing out here?"
Sam raised his eyebrows. "Now just where did you get the idea I couldn't take a walk if I felt like it?" he asked, his voice just a little cold. "My legs work just fine, last time I looked." The twins looked a little sheepish, as well they might. "Walking helps me think sometimes," he added, "so don't let me interrupt your discussion." He turned to walk off, wondering if they would pull him back or join him. He was fairly sure his solitary walk was over.
Sure enough, Sunstreaker said, "Sam, I-we-have some questions. Optimus said it was up to you to decide if you wanted to tell us." Sam turned, and considered.
"Not on the street," he said. "Prefer the courtyard by my add-on or the balcony? Both should be private right now."
