A/N: A special Turkey Day treat for all of you free from work and school! Thanks to SuperNova 42, knocks, Vivienne Granger, GemDragon22, and gillian of arenal for their reviews! And of course thanks to those who've added this story to their alerts and favorites lists.

Chapter III

Silverbolt came back to consciousness feeling very relaxed. And cozy. When he bothered to delegate the processing power towards it, he felt a hand petting his helm, and a couple pairs holding his hands and stroking them. Then apparently his CPU decided something beside touch might be useful, and he could hear some beeping monitors and murmuring voices.

"Silverbolt, Silverbolt?"

"Fireflight, shh!"

"It's fine, Skydive." Silverbolt slurred out.

"Coming online, is he? Let me in, let me in." By the time Silverbolt on-lined his optics, Ratchet had wormed his way in between Air Raid on his right and whoever continued to pet his head.

"What's going on?" Silverbolt asked blearily. Ratchet was holding a scanner of some sort over his chest plate-oh. His memory cache finally spit out the events right before he passed out. He groaned. "Now I remember…"

"More importantly," Ratchet ignored his question, "how are you feeling? Any queasiness?" Silverbolt considered for a moment.

"No…I feel really calm, actually."

"Good. I'm pretty sure the reason you ejected your tanks," Ratchet gave a snort, "was because I hooked you up to that energy line with regular energon. I changed it to density closer to what your converter had been producing. I've also got you on a mild sedative program to keep you calm. Now, do you want to chat with your brothers a moment before we get into nuts and bolts, or should I just kick them out now?" Silverbolt rolled his head around to get a good look at his gestalt mates (for some reason they seemed to have again dulled the bond). Air Raid on the right hand, Slingshot pacing with crossed arms at his feet trying to feign disinterest, Fireflight on the left side, so that must mean Skydive behind him. Then he just let his gaze rest on the ceiling for a moment. Then he turned to look up at the serious face of Ratchet and said,

"You don't have to kick them out. Just tell me…whatever you need to. I don't really know anything about this." Silverbolt wasn't quite sure, and couldn't spare the care, for how to best phrase it. Ratchet gained a bit of a rueful expression.

"I'm beginning to realize we seemed to have missed an important data download," he said.

"All of you paying attention now?" Ratchet fixed each of the gathered Aerialbots with a stern look. "Short story is: interfacing can make sparklings!" Fireflight innocently raised one hand.

"What's a sparkling?" Ratchet seemed briefly flabbergasted.

"A sparkling is an infant Cybertronian."

"Like a baby!" Fireflight said, pleased with himself.

"Only, metal, I guess?" Air Raid's face clearly showed that trying to imagine this was causing some difficulty. Ratchet was just shaking his head and frowning grimly.

"What this fragging war has lead to…" he muttered darkly. "But yes, a sparkling is comparable to a baby. When you interface with someone, energy can be accumulated and then directed through spark casing cables that when two sparks merge one of them absorbs the excess and then splits into genitor and progeny. Eventually, the genitor's nanites, normally directed towards self-repair, will build from scratch a small body for the new sparklet to reside in." Silverbolt could tell all this was leading towards something very important, but his sedated CPU just couldn't make the connections necessary for him to know what.

"So what you're gettin' to is, Silverbolt's gone and gotten preggers." Slingshot bluntly summarized. He seemed more than disturbed by this. Silverbolt couldn't blame him.

"Yes, that's one way to put it. But there's more we need to discuss." Ratchet regarded him gravely. "Silverbolt, as I said before: you're not just carrying one sparklet. You're carrying five. Normally, I would give you the option of terminating the sparklet if you didn't feel capable of caring for it; this is war, you're young, it would be an understandable decision. Alternatively, the sparklet could be carried for a period and then transferred to Vector Sigma for storage. To activate you all, the Protectobots, and the Dinobots we used sparks brought with us on the Ark taken from Vector Sigma." Here Ratchet paused. His expression grew even more ominous.

"However, when a sparklet is terminated, some amount of damage can be caused to the genitor spark from their connection. You're carrying five sparklets. Do you understand? If I tried to terminate them all, the cumulative damage…I could kill you." The little private room he'd been moved to grew deathly silent. Fireflight fiercely gripped his hand. Silverbolt felt numb fear, but clearly the sedative was having its intended effect, and a distant part of his CPU was telling him that when it wore off his emotional processors were going to have a lot of backlog to work through.

"As you are no doubt also aware," Ratchet continued, "We don't have access to Vector Sigma*, and the probability we'll locate Cybertron by the time the sparklets are ready for transfer is nil. The Ark, in its damaged state, cannot store any more sparks, let alone juveniles. Silverbolt," Ratchet rested a hand on his shoulder, "I'm afraid our best option, for your health and that of the sparklets, is to attempt to carry to term. This could have its own complications, but I've considered and I think it carries the least risk. Is this entering your CPU?" Silverbolt nodded, wide-eyed.

"It's…it's a lot to process." He finally stammered. Ratchet awkwardly pat his shoulder.

"Don't worry Silverbolt!" Fireflight said earnestly, "We'll help however! We'll get you ice cream and pede massages and everything!" Skydive groaned, while Ratchet just shook his head and touched the base of his chevron.

"At least I know I'll have bots looking out for you; I hope this means they'll make you follow my directions. Alright, I think that's enough data dump for one night." Ratchet began unhooking him from the energon feed. "I think you'll be fine off of this, but I am going to keep you overnight for observation. I'm not trying to scare you, but you need to hear it straight. Neither I nor Wheeljack have ever seen something like this before, so I'm going to be keeping a close optic on you, got it?"

"I understand," Silverbolt replied. "I know you'll do your best," he added.

"One last thing. The sparklets, for the moment at least, have remarkably similar resonances, which implies to me that they've all got the same sire. Perhaps they're all even from the same event. I'm not going to force you to tell him, but I am going to suggest you at least tell me who you suspect it to be, so that I can be prepared for any possible congenital complications." Ratchet paused in his ministrations at the almost fearful look the Aerialbots collectively bestowed upon him. Even Slingshot ceased his restless pacing, faceplates slack in dawning realization.

"Ah, Ratchet," began Skydive as smooth as possible. Not particularly smooth, actually. "How old do you think the, uh, sparklets are?" Ratchet considered this, eyeing them warily.

"Very young. Less than an orn, maybe even less than a week. By Primus' spark, if you're all that prolific, it's amazing you haven't been in here before!" Need to remember to give a talk to the other Earth-made bots as well, to prevent any other unforeseen complications. "And energy diverters for all of you before you leave in the morning, rust!"

"What!" Skydive sputtered, "No, Ratchet, it's not that at all. Well, sort of. I mean, usually we just play around with each other, and that hasn't done anything, and, beside the point!" He concluded that side-train. "I just, I think I know who the other sire is."

"Oh? I suppose there are few secrets among gestalts, but it's still up to Silverbolt to tell me." Ratchet responded.

"No, you don't…" Silverbolt started but dropped off quickly. How were they supposed to explain this? "They didn't, they didn't find out peeping when we combined or anything like that. Actually, we were combined." Ratchet expression slowly morphed from deadpan to comprehension.

"Superion...?"

"…and Defensor." Air Raid winced, Fireflight played with his fingers, and Silverbolt couldn't be sure, but the grip Ratchet currently had on the edge of the berth might be trembling.

"Oh, boy." They stood in silence for a while longer, letting everything sink in. Ratchet. His vents let out a huff, he gave a little jerk of the helm, and a characteristic frown returned to his faceplates.

"That probably explains why you're so crowded in there," he quipped. "My advice still stands: You should tell them. First Aid is certainly going to get to know your insides intimately, and they're not stupid. Regardless," he punched some final instructions into the console above his berth, "you should be cycling down to recharge. I would suggest the rest of you go back to quarters to get some real rest in, but I know that's not going to happen, so just make sure you don't drop off in front of the doorway." Ratchet then walked over to said entryway, turning once more before slipping out.

"Recharge, hear?"

*For the purposes of this fic, Earth bots have had no contact w/ Cybertron.

AN: I know there's a lot of conversations going on, but I like my pregnancies to make as much sense as possible, so some of this stuff just needed to be said. Plus, characterization yes/no?