Orion was working cheerfully in the office that Megatron set up for him. He had learned to refer to his mate as Megatron and not Megatronus. It was a preference, apparently. He didn't mind. He found himself liking the new name that his mate had given himself.

He heard the door open and when he turned, he expected Megatron to be standing in the doorway. He purred as he turned. "I've nearly gotten the first three codes decoded…." He hesitated when he saw a Seeker standing in front of him. He recognized him as Starscream.

"Optimus Prime!?" He dropped the cubes he was carrying (was he stealing them?) and he pointed his weapons at the data clerk. Orion's optics widened and he held up his servos.

"My name is Orion Pax," he murmured. He dropped his gaze and studied the Seeker's heeled pedes. "I am far from being a Prime." He looked up and saw Starscream's stunned expression. "So why did you call me a Prime?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because I am a data clerk."

Starscream lowered his arms and he tipped his helm to the side. Orion watched him, shifting anxiously. Megatron had told him that Starscream had been extinguished by Ratchet, the warlord of this war, though Megatron had referred to him as the Doctor of Doom.

"What are you doing here?" Starscream was the first to break the silence.

"I'm researching, for Megatronus… I mean, for Megatron." Orion blushed. He never stuttered before. So why was he stuttering and stammering and making a fool of himself now?

"Ah…" Starscream made the sound that he understood completely, but his facial expression said otherwise. He was completely lost, but he wasn't going to confess that. Orion smiled slightly.

"Megatron had said you had been killed…" Orion needed to know the truth. His mate couldn't have been lying, but maybe he got his truths mixed up. He was a busy mech, after all.

"Megatron says a lot of things, and only part of which are true," Starscream muttered as he waved his servo, dismissing Orion's statement.

"Do not accuse my mate of speaking lies." He was getting offended. Megatron would never lie to him.

Starscream laughed, as if the whole thing amused him. "You really are being kept in the dark, aren't you? I bet he said that he loved you, and that you were never going to be separated ever again. I bet he told you all of that while he bundled you against his chest…and stroked your helm…kissed your broken wings…" Starscream's optics got cloudy before he gave a firm blink and a shake of his helm. "He's lying to you, Orion, and you're playing right into his claws. He's using you!"

"Megatron would never do that," Orion growled. He had to protect his mate from this Seeker. "Who do you think you are that you can just accuse people like that? Megatron is a good mech, and he wouldn't do anything bad, or mean, or cruel to anyone."

Starscream's wings twitched up and Orion saw the scars. The Seeker's wings were battered, and had obviously been broken several times. They looked like they had been torn off a dead Seeker and stitched carelessly to Starscream's body. Orion backed away, shaking his helm.

"Take a good look, mechling. This is what your mate is capable of, and he wouldn't hesitate an instant to give you the same treatment."

Orion grabbed him before he can turn away. "You have to tell me what you mean. Why is Megatron like this? Why doesn't he love me? Does he love me? What happened to me? Why can't I remember anything?"

"And, in return for all that information?"

Orion couldn't offer anything, because at that moment, the door opened and drones ran in, aiming their cannons at Starscream. The brave Seeker ducked behind Orion and hid.

"Hold your fire! Please!" He thought that since he was Megatron's mate, he should have some sort of sway with the troops, but they just ran after Starscream and chased him out into the hall. Before he could follow them, two drones stopped him.

"Stay here, Pax. It's dangerous."

"But, I…"

"Megatron's orders," the drone snapped. "You wouldn't defy his orders, would you?"

Orion backed up, shaking his helm firmly. "No, I would not…"

Megatron came to check on him later. Orion had been caught roaming the halls and he saw something happen to a blue motorcycle. She had screamed for someone called Optimus, which is what Starscream had called him earlier.

Orion was feeling very confused, and who was supposed to help him through such confusing times?

His mate.

Unfortunately, Megatron told him to forget the whole incident happened and suggested that he should return to his project of decoding the Iacon database. Orion felt less like his mate and more like his clerk. He frowned at his mate, but he nodded slightly and walked back to his post.

He tapped the keys absently, stopping half-way through a code. He had been researching on his spare time, trying to figure out what had happened during his absence.

He got up the courage to search for Optimus Prime in the data entries. What he got was a strangely familiar mech, and high security codes.

"Optimus Prime," he read, "is the leader of the Autobots." He frowned at that one sentence. "But Megatron told me that Ratchet was the leader of the Autobot aggressors. Someone is not telling the truth…"

He had spent a good three hours researching the Autobots, and he wasn't closer to figuring out what had happened to him than when he had started. The Autobots didn't sound like the kind of Cybertronians to kidnap and hold a prisoner hostage. He felt strangely…drawn to them, as if they would know the answers to his many questions.

He had to find them, with or without Megatron's permission. But for now, he had to pretend the whole incident didn't happen, like how his mate had suggested.

He turned off the computer, stretched slightly, and then padded down to Megatron's room. Before he could open the door, Soundwave opened it, stepped out, and gave him a small nod before he walked down the hall to his own quarters.

Orion felt a surge of jealousy, and then betrayal, but it all washed away when Megatron purred for him to come in.

"Have you succeeded today, my dear?"

"I have decoded four Autobot codes… I am rustier than I had previously thought."

"We are allowed for a small margin of error. Come, lay with me?"

Orion reluctantly settled down with his mate, but it didn't feel right. It was as if he didn't belong there.

As if he belonged somewhere else.