Part 2
Disclaimers in Part 1
A rush of cheers met the little caravan as it pulled into the Green Zone. Sunstreaker was already there, in answer to Sideswipe's call, barely mobile himself. Both sets of twins carried Ironhide, metal slab and all, to Ratchet's corner of the parking lot, followed by several other people who wanted to know what had happened.
Ratchet made his way through the mob, yelling, "Get out of my way! I've got a patient over there! Can't you find something useful to do?" Once he had made his way through the crowd to Ironhide's side, he pointed at Chromia, Sideswipe and Diarwen, who were all covered with concrete dust. "Not you three! Unless you have something seriously wrong with you, hit the washracks and come straight back here."
Diarwen supposed "washrack" was a generic term. The bots had obtained a pump for river water, which, as iffy as it was, beat trying to recharge with grime and grit in every nook and cranny.
Still, she didn't fancy using it on herself.
She went back to her room, to find regulations in place concerning the use and disposal of water for bathing. She obeyed them, though they cost her a little time, and returned.
By then Jolt had already pronounced Chromia and Sideswipe unharmed. With her permission, he scanned Diarwen. "I am showing various scrapes and contusions that seem minor, as well as a moderate compression injury to your thighs. How would your traditions treat these?"
"The scrapes and bruises? I washed them already, and nothing is still bleeding. Mostly I will keep them clean and let them tend to themselves. Your 'compression injury' resulted from being hit by a lighting fixture on the bottom of a slab of concrete. I think if a bone were broken I should know that by now. Is the muscle actually torn or are there simply deep bruises?"
"It seems the latter, but in humans, sometimes the symptoms don't show up immediately. I have no data on anyone of your species to compare, but it seems prudent to be aware of possible complications."
"Then I will have you check it again in the morning—sooner if anything seems amiss."
The apprentice healer nodded. "Sensible."
Diarwen drew near to Ratchet, who was checking out a grumbling, cursing Ironhide. It had been the Sidhe's experience that warriors moaned and complained endlessly about minor injuries, and met more serious ones with stoic silence. Ratchet told his patient, "You're just lucky you were in a void. If that damn slab had come all the way down, you'd be as flat as a floor plate."
"Yeah, I knew it was a void when I went in there, didn't I?" Ironhide growled in a tone that probably would have shut up anybody else except Optimus.
Ratchet said, "You're the luckiest slagger I know, even when you don't deserve it," and went on with his work without missing a beat.
"I always deserve it."
They continued to scold one another, two old friends, friends in fact for longer than most of the rest of them had been alive.
Except Diarwen. With her legs aching she felt every second of her long years.
Ratchet paused for a moment to look at the scans that Jolt had taken of her and said to Diarwen, "You need to get off your feet. Keeping your legs elevated will help prevent complications."
"Off my feet sounds fine to me," she smiled. She regretted being unable to offer more help, but she knew she was hindered enough by her injuries to be a liability to other rescuers if anything went wrong. Since her usefulness was temporarily at an end, Diarwen returned to her room to get a few hours' sleep.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Pain and an empty stomach woke Diarwen as the day outside her window started to darken. By then, a bundle of clean clothing and towels had been left outside her door.
Since all the Decepticons had yet to be accounted for, she put her mail shirt on over its quilted padding and under her BDUs. She was thankful to have the lightweight mithril armor; it had saved her more than one serious injury. Especially with her magic taking its time to return, she wasn't about to leave it in the room.
On a whim Diarwen took up her harp as well, and made her way out to find everyone else.
It was a fine night among the ruins. A barbecue grill and a cooler of beer had appeared from somewhere, and though Lennox had limited the festivities to two cans each, morale was higher than it had been since Sentinel's attempt on Ironhide.
Betony came over and gave her a gentle hug. "I hear a parking garage fell on you."
"That it did! Ironhide and Sideswipe got me out, then Ironhide was trapped himself when the whole next level caved in. We were lucky. Did you sign on with the Red Cross?"
"Yes, it looks like we'll be driving for them for a while. We made a delivery and we had enough room in the truck for a few care packages for you and my bro. Are you sure you're all right?"
"My legs are bruised up fairly spectacularly. In a moment we will feel the wrath of Ratchet if I don't get off them." And indeed, she could feel the Ratchet-glower heating up her shoulder blades from across the gravel lot.
Betony jerked a thumb away from the bench he occupied, and Wheelie let out an indignant modem-noise squawk. "Hey! I was here first."
"And Diarwen needs to sit down," Betony replied.
"…Oh. Why didn't ya say so in the first place?"
She dragged over an empty crate for a footrest. "I mentioned a care package. I'll get it from the truck."
She ran to it on the far side of the lot, and having seen Diarwen's harp, also brought back her bodhran. They contributed a few sets of upbeat pub music to the party, and by the time they stopped for a rest, and dug into burgers and beer, Diarwen had all but forgotten the ache in her legs.
She examined the large bag that Betony had brought her. All natural toiletries and treats from an organic grocery were very welcome indeed, as was a box of her favorite tea, and a bag of assorted herbs.
"I tried to guess the herbs you'd need the most."
Diarwen smiled. "The goldenseal and arnica will help immensely! This was very thoughtful, Betony."
"Will told me he adopted you. We Lennoxes stick together."
Diarwen laughed. "I'm getting stiff sitting here, but I really don't want to deal with Ratchet's nagging if he sees me walking around. Come up to my room with me."
Betony took the bag and the harp, and followed her up. "This isn't so bad for roughing it. The Red Cross people have tents in that park by the stadium," the younger woman said, looking around the hotel room.
"I should think you'd seen enough of that place."
"It was the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me, but I've been out where everything is still normal. It's like a tornado hit, you know? It's awful, but the damage is confined to right here. It's like Ground Zero was. I had to pull over and let Jaime drive into the city, I was crying so hard for these poor people."
"I don't know how they are doing what they do...we thought of the survivors as victims, but so many of them are out there in hard hats now, cleaning up the mess. I am in awe of them."
Betony nodded. "You should read some Carl Sandburg. Chicagoans are strong people."
"That they are."
Her friend looked critically at Diarwen. "You look like you could use some rest."
Shades of night, would she be nannied by members of two separate species? "I already slept, though I'm tired again. I need to make use of some of your herbs first in any case."
"I'll help you," Betony said, as Diarwen opened her hotel room door. "Where can I wash my hands?"
"There's some of that waterless hand sanitizer over there. Otherwise we have to bring wash water up the stairs."
"That'll do just as well," Betony replied.
Diarwen found that it was good to have someone with her who knew what she was doing. Betony began to crush herbs, and add them, together with a few drops of essential oils, to an olive oil base, which she gently warmed over a tinned lavender travel candle.
She also winced when she saw the iron burn.
"Some 'Con slapped me into a piece of rebar," Diarwen explained.
"Ouch."
"He thought so, a few minutes later."
Betony used the oil mixture to treat her friend's iron burn as well as all the other cuts and scrapes she found. Diarwen found herself relaxing as the gentle fluid extinguished the fire of her injuries.
"Oh, wow!" her friend said, stopping for a moment. "Those are some bruises on the backs of your legs. What do you want me to do for them?"
"Do you have any witch hazel?"
"I think I bought a bottle."
Betony's sure hands brought enough relief from the pain that Diarwen fell asleep in spite of herself. She awakened in the small hours of the morning, lying in lavender-scented darkness on top of the bedspread, covered by a sheet and blanket.
When she roused enough to move, paper crackled under her hand.
Diarwen called a spark to the candle's wick, and read Betony's note in its dim light.
Dear Diarwen, Jaime and I are going to the staging area in Gary to pick up another load. Hope you sleep well. Rest those legs another couple of days and keep having them checked. I should be back through soon. Love, Bet.
Diarwen smiled, and folded the note.
She had no watch, but it was pitch dark out; she went to the window, and found that a slender crescent of the waxing moon kept watch over the wounded city. Diarwen smiled again, and raised her hand as if to touch it, a child reaching for her Mother.
She dressed and, rather than wander into the gravel lot next door, where she would likely have to deal with Ratchet, she went down the riverbank, in the other direction.
A pair of auras on the other side of the hotel were Ironhide's and Chromia's. She doubted that Ratchet knew Ironhide was moving around, but it was none of her business if he wanted to chance the medic's short temper. Giving them their privacy, she kept walking.
The street ended a block away in a crater which had filled with river water. By then Ratchet's wisdom in telling her to stay off her feet for the sake of her bruised legs had made itself apparent. She sat down on an overturned planter to watch the sky.
She heard small scuffling sounds close to the building, which proved to be an opportunistic rat taking advantage of the lack of streetlights and traffic to look for a meal. An owl flew across the moon, sending the rat scurrying for the cover of an overturned car.
It wouldn't take long for nature to move in if these steel-and-concrete canyons remained empty of humans for much longer.
Then movement far too close behind her had her on her feet, sword in hand. She put it away to Optimus' deep laughter.
"For someone your size, my friend, you move more quietly than many cats!"
"I saw you out here alone, Diarwen, and grew concerned."
She smiled at him, this enormous being who was among the kindest she had ever known. "Well, I slept myself out, but over there I'd have well-meaning people telling me what I must and must not do."
"I understand that," was his rueful reply.
"If you are recovered sufficiently to sneak up on me, then you must be healing."
"I think so, but Ratchet is being Ratchet."
No further explanation necessary, he made himself comfortable nearby, and they watched the sun rise over the lake in an easy, warm silence.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
When Diarwen and Optimus went back to the others, their FEMA liaison was talking to Sideswipe.
Prime deliberately hung back. Optimus trusted the silver front-liner implicitly on the battlefield. As his 3iC, off it, the young warrior was intensely uncomfortable with the political aspects of his job.
With both Ironhide and Prime himself on the injured list, Prime felt it was a good time for Sides to learn by doing. They were still handy to give advice if something out of the ordinary happened, though that was unlikely to be anything unfixable in the aftermath of the battle. Government agencies were genuinely motivated to help rather than obfuscate, which was also a safety net for the young 3iC.
Will and Mearing came over to join the discussion, gravel crunching under their feet.
There was a brief commotion near the NEST vehicles. Optimus recognized several NEST troops from the Diego Garcia and Mission City bases unloading rucksacks from the back of a hummer and distributing them to their owners, men and women who must have come in during the night.
Epps and his boys were around, too, in uniform again after they had been offered their old jobs back. A few who had chosen to remain civilians had gone home, having responsibilities there. Most planned to collect truckloads of donations and return with more volunteers as soon as they could arrange to be away.
Optimus knew that Bobby had left the agency reluctantly, and only because his wife had put her foot down about taking care of their tribe of children on her own. The smallest was now in preschool. He figured that, and two years of a bored Bobby Epps underfoot, had convinced her to give him her blessing to re-up.
Alistair Graham was still Will's 2iC, and Epps hadn't said a word about it. The ex-SAS officer had been in his element in the thick of the fight.
Will put Bobby in charge of logistics, which kept him on the same team with his friends, the Wreckers. They were presently working with the city to get the main roads cleared and restore electricity to the hardest-hit areas.
There hadn't been the sneak attacks from Decepticon stragglers that Optimus had expected. That told him someone had taken command of them, and gotten them out of the area.
Starscream, Shockwave, and Soundwave were all confirmed dead, as were most of the other 'Con front-liners. There was no way of knowing who was in charge now, or what their next move might be.
Megatron had not encouraged any combination of ability and ambition that might challenge his own authority. That created a situation where those who possessed both those qualities hovered just outside the inner circle, awaiting a moment which had now arrived. However, it was still too early to tell who might rise to the top.
His comms activated as Sideswipe pushed out assignments for the day to all the bots who weren't on sick list. Lennox meanwhile issued orders to his troops; various NEST hummers were dispatched, all in different directions.
The Sisters were to take Lennox, Mearing, and FEMA Director William Fugate on a tour of the city to inspect the damage. Before departing, they took a moment to look in on the injured bots. While Will and Chromia visited with Ironhide, Flareup said good morning to Sunstreaker, and Arcee and Mearing introduced Director Fugate to Optimus.
"The President asked me to make sure your people have everything that you need, sir."
The Prime quickly commed Ratchet, and had Hide check with Will, to make sure there were no critical shortages that he didn't know about. "Please convey my thanks and tell him that we do."
"I have busloads of civilian volunteers waiting in Gary and Cicero. Do you feel that the Decepticon threat is mitigated enough to justify bringing them in?"
"Director, there could be wounded 'Cons hiding anywhere, and your people have a saying about cornered rats. My best guess, though, is that most of the surviving Decepticons who were able to do so fled immediately after the battle. I would advise you to bring in your volunteers, but only with the understanding that their safety cannot be guaranteed. We don't have the numbers to escort every work group."
"Thank you for that information, sir. I'll pass it along."
The three sisters and their passengers left the lot, Diarwen bidding Chromia a fond farewell. Optimus radioed the rest of the bots who were out on their work sites that a VIP inspection was headed their way, and asked them to keep watch over the visitors as they traveled through their areas.
Then he turned to Ratchet, and braced himself for the day's bad news. "How does it look?"
"If I thought you could stand being in alt form that long, I'd put you on a C-130 and fly you back to Washington to take care of it properly. All I can really do out here is keep it clean and let your self-repair systems do their job," Ratchet said, scowling. "Is the pain manageable?"
"More or less. I have my sensors turned down."
"If you can, it would be better to turn them up once or twice a day and let me run a diagnostic. There's really no better solution to letting nature take its course out here, but killing your pain sensors can mask problems with reintegration."
Optimus bit back a curse. Sunstreaker was nearly as badly injured, and the only thing he was complaining about was his paint. Ironhide was complaining about being forced to stay in camp. Diarwen, still on her feet by his side, had no option but endure her injuries, yet her only objection had been to Ratchet's nagging. He allowed the healer a hardline port and onlined the sensors.
It hurt every bit as much as he had anticipated, centering on the shoulder joint but radiating down his arm and into his chest.
Ratchet worked as quickly as he could, and then reduced the sensitivity to ten percent with a healer's override.
"Well?" Optimus said.
Ratchet said, "It's still early days yet. But I wish I had you back in DC."
"Is it going to self-repair?" Optimus asked bluntly.
"Not completely, and probably not enough to fully reintegrate the arm," Ratchet answered, just as matter-of-fact.
Diarwen asked, "Then shouldn't we try to get Optimus back to DC?"
Ratchet swung toward her, then returned to his patient. "The problem is transportation. He'd have to travel in alt form aboard a cargo plane. There's no room to transform or even change position before we land. I'd have to put him in stasis for everyone's safety, and that would be a very bad idea in terms of his eventual prognosis right now."
"I'll have to get myself back," Optimus said. "It isn't as if I'd have to stay in one position for hours, or even stay in alt form for that matter."
Ironhide said, "Wait a few days until I can go with you."
"We may not have a few days if the 'Cons decide to try something. They're not going to get a better chance than right now, with the three of us all laid up at once," Sunstreaker argued.
Diarwen said, "If I may go with you, Optimus, I would at least be another pair of hands, and I still have that cell phone, so I would also be another line of contact. If we take an unpredictable route, we should be fine. Safer than here, for all that. Without Soundwave, they have no easy way to locate us, is that not true?"
Optimus was furious with himself for not realizing sooner that his presence, wounded as he was, painted a huge target on their command center: until he was again able to do his own fighting, he was a liability. "You're right. But you need not accompany me."
"Nonsense. I can accomplish nothing here. I might as well make myself useful with something that I can do, as Ratchet has ordered, while sitting down."
Ratchet smiled. Nothing made his life more difficult than bored, convalescent fighters. They inevitably turned idle processors to planning pranks. Sunstreaker was going to be bad enough; Ironhide, too, would become a handful if Chromia couldn't keep him occupied.
The Sidhe was a wild card, but the old medic was willing to bet his last cube of energon that she, too, would be trouble when boredom overcame common sense, and he leapt at the chance to make her feel useful. "It's too dangerous for you to travel alone. We can't spare an able-framed bot. What if you need assistance and can't call for help?" he said to Optimus. "Diarwen's is the best solution. When you're a few hours out from base, let me know, and I'll meet you there."
Ironhide said, "Makes sense and you know it, Prime."
"It does," the Prime said with a rueful smile. Turning to Diarwen, he added, "And I will be grateful for the company. Since this will reduce the danger to all of you, we will depart as soon as Diarwen can be ready to go."
"I need only get my things from my room, Optimus, and leave a message for Betony with Will Lennox."
"Good! We can be on the road in an hour, then?"
She nodded.
"What do you and I need to do to make this happen, Ratchet?"
Ratchet shut his mandible. He'd forgotten how focused Optimus could be, when the need arose. "Take your alt-form, please. You're going to be traveling slowly, and resting often. Understood?"
Diarwen smiled at their healer-patient relationship, and went to get her things from her room.
When they had all completed their various preparations, they chose to wait until the Sisters returned so that Optimus could inform Mearing and Lennox.
Heavy as it was, Diarwen brought all her kit with her into Optimus' cab because, when they stopped for a rest, she didn't want him to be stuck in alt form in a parking lot. With the kit, she was self-sufficient, and they could break for a rest anywhere. From summers spent playing the Faires and exploring, she knew a lot of secluded places throughout the Midwest and Northeast where they might make camp more or less undisturbed.
Mearing, learning of their plans, made a phone call, and soon supplied them with a list of military-owned places that they could use with nothing more than a phone call to get the gate unlocked.
Ratchet said to Optimus, in a tone which warned him not even to think about disobeying his medic, "I don't want you on the road more than two hours without a break. Six hours a day total."
"Very well. I won't exceed those limits." He was used to humoring Ratchet.
Ratchet snorted. He was used to front-liners promising anything to get the Pit out of medbay, then doing as they pleased, and ending up right back in said medbay. Prime wasn't as bad about it as some twins he could mention, but he had the tendency all the same.
An hour later, Optimus and Diarwen found that from the green zone to an area just north of the stadium, there were several places that were absolutely impassable in alt form. Wreckage and deep, water-filled craters blocked the way, as did the as-yet unrecovered remains of two Decepticons—the dead had to wait until rescue of the living was completed. Still, it made for a scene out of nightmare.
Prime traversed the area in his root mode, Diarwen at his side.
Once they reached the stadium, however, two lanes of the Dan Ryan had been cleared, the northbound bringing in workers and supplies, the southbound taking out empty trucks and buses full of refugees.
On either side, the wrecked cars and rubble had been shoved out of the way; removing the refuse would come later. An army of volunteers in day-glow orange vests wielding flags and light-sticks were directing traffic and ensuring that work crews, tasked with moving disabled vehicles to the side, were quickly notified of new or newly-found breakdowns.
Diarwen said, "This is amazing. I have never seen such organization following a disaster."
"Unfortunately, Will tells me that the government has had a great deal of practice in dealing with such things after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina."
"Yes, I should think they would feel that they have something to prove, after Katrina. I was in Afghanistan then, but some of the stories I heard were shameful."
"Things that could be called shameful will undoubtedly happen here. In any situation of mass disarray involving this number of people, mistakes will be made, and of course those who are not...honorable...will have the ability to exercise that trait. I have not yet been involved in any evacuation that was not plagued with confusion."
Diarwen said, "Oh, aye, but the aftermath of Katrina was worse. From what I was told, getting help to those who most needed it seemed to be delayed by racism and class inequities. That simply cannot be excused."
"If that proved truly to be the case, of course not," he rumbled. "It does seem that the oversight this time is strict enough to be sure that won't be a problem."
"I would hope so. Chicago is where the President came of age. He began his political career as an activist here, and his ties to the city are still strong. I suspect that just as many prayers for the lost and the missing are going up from the White House as from any other home in the nation."
Optimus forgot his pain for a long moment as he realized something: all his family were alive, and he knew where they were. Under the circumstances, that was nothing short of a miracle from Primus.
Miracles continued to manifest as they drove. They passed a bus leading a line of trucks and RVs proudly flying the banner of a carpenter's local from Mississippi. A hand lettered sign on the side of the bus proclaimed, "You were there for us after Katrina, we are here for Chicago now!"
Behind them were a couple of church buses with tents and bundles of supplies lashed to the top; their signs said they were from Birmingham. And then came two department store trucks full of donated supplies. Following them were a couple of flatbeds bringing construction equipment, and a caravan of pickup trucks full of workers—another union local.
Optimus and Diarwen found themselves stopped in traffic near a news truck, and the reporters aboard recognized Optimus. That lucky news team got their lead story when the Autobot leader gave them a short interview, while Diarwen promptly cast a glamour over herself: she was ignored, and in fact the cameraman never could say why he consistently framed his shots to exclude such a striking woman.
Still, the fact that Optimus had been seen headed south would help prevent a raid on the camp by those hunting him. Or so he hoped.
Before their questions became rude or intrusive, the volunteer traffic patrol told the reporters they had to get their truck moving. Optimus bade them farewell, camera and sound operators lingering long enough to film his transformation, then running to catch their ride.
End Part 2