Scene iii

Prime sprawled beside the gray Decepticon upon a lonely bench in a forgotten promontory overlook. With a contended sigh, he hooked his fingers behind his neck, and stretched out his legs in front of him with a hissing release of tension. Cybertron's two Co-Commanders often met here for a moment's peace and quiet at the close of a difficult operation. The place was almost always deserted, and the view out over the rising city was restorative to the soul. "All right, Megs old man," he said. "It's time for you to 'fess up. Why are you avoiding recharge? Bad dreams?"

Megatron grunted, but said nothing.

Prime gave the other mech a searching look. "I'm afraid you do not have the luxury of hiding this, my friend," he said. "When you run on low energy – repeatedly – it effects your judgment. And you know as well as I do that leaders can't afford to make mistakes. He put an arm around the other's shoulders. "Don't you think you'd better tell me what's been going on?"

"No," growled Megatron. "I don't answer to nicknames."

"I only call you Megs when you're avoiding difficult questions," replied Prime lightly. But then his tone grew stern. "I'm not above involving Ratchet, Megatron, if it comes down to that," he threatened. "You know you wouldn't let me get away with dangerous behavior like this." The boxy red mech leveled his blue gaze on the Decepticon. "I'm your bond-brother, my old nemesis," he reminded the gray mech kindly. "Stop trying to do everything on your own, and let me help you. We're supposed to be there for each other, remember?"

Megatron turned away, and huffed an angry cloud of dirty air out of his vents. Operating on a low charge for extended periods was indeed dangerous, and the effect was cumulative. His main engine was definitely running rougher – belts slipped, servos squealed, and gears ground. Worse, he'd begun to notice glitches in his central processor. Just this past orn it had taken him three full kliks to access the file on Blitzwing, and the triple-changer had waited in increasing confusion while Megatron tried frantically to recall his name and rank.

But telling Optimus about his dreams would mean admitting they were real. He would have but two alternatives: either he had finally gone insane despite all he'd given to avoid that fate; or the spark of his dead Second was in fact haunting him. Neither option looked inviting.

"What's got the Mighty Megatron so scared that he refuses to take recharge- Even at the expense of his own health?" Prime pressed, refusing to be ignored. "Come on, out with it."

"No," the gray mech whispered.

Optimus relented. He might not be able to read Megatron's thoughts, the way that Soundwave had; but they were bond-brothers, and there was little the Decepticon could hide from him for long. "Does this have anything to do with Starscream's death?" he asked. He knew that few things were more likely to be keeping the Decepticon from shut-down.

"His death?" Megatron growled in frustration. "If only it were that simple!"

"If not his death, then what?" persisted Optimus.

"He just won't fragging-well leave me alone!"

"Who are you talking about?"

The gray mech swore. "Starscream, of course," he snapped. "Who did you think?" Cornered, he turned to face the tall red Autobot, his optics blazing anger. "It's just not fair. There's nothing I can change. What can he possibly expect? He's. Fragging. Dead. And he ought to damn well stay that way!"

"Brother..." Prime propped his hands firmly on the other's shoulders, "What do you mean, 'he ought to stay that way'? His shell is lying in the crypt even as we speak."

"I know," replied the gray mech wearily. "I checked."

Prime's unmasked mouth opened, then shut again without a sound.

Megatron pressed his hands to his denuded head. "And yet-" He sighed, defeated, and admitted, "He visited my quarters during recharge." He looked into Prime's deep-set optics. "...And it wasn't for the first time."

Elita entered Megatron's quarters with her usual circumspection, and looked around her at the austere furnishings. Despite the fact that he had led his faction for millennia, he still lived like a simple soldier. He lived, in fact, like Prime had always done.

His gruff voice broke into her thoughts. "I found you a chair," he said, indicating a blocky, low-backed stool which looked as if it had been dragged from one end of the city-state to the other over the course of its existence. In some embarrassment, he added, "I usually just sit down on my bunk..."

"This will be fine," she told him. "I'll be quite comfortable, thank you." But she did not move to seat herself. Instead, she stood before him primly, her laced fingers the only clue to her unease.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked in sudden hesitation. "You don't have to, you know. I can't imagine that watching over my sorry hulk will provide much in the way of entertainment..."

Elita grinned roguishly. "I suppose I could tamper with the output levels a little," she teased, "Give you some really exciting dreams..." She saw him wince, and in response lost some of her own reserve. She took a single step toward him. "Don't worry, Megatron," she said. "I'll keep you company. We femmes aren't like you mechs, always spoiling for action. It'll only be for two or three cycles. And sometimes I find it pleasant to have some time to order all my thoughts."

Elita had come here in compromise. When Prime had finally gotten all the truth from Megatron, he'd volunteered immediately to stay with the old mech while he recharged. He meant it as a measure of comfort; but he also wanted to assure himself that Starscream was not actually visiting his bond-brother. The idea of a spark refusing to join the Matrix after termination caused him more concern than he was willing to admit. He hated to think that any force could bind a spark to this dimension so strongly that it was unable to escape into the freedom of the next.

He'd been all set to come. But Megatron had declined emphatically. "You're a big part of the problem now yourself," he'd said to Prime.

"How can I be?" the red mech asked. "I wasn't even there!"

"You were," the warrior replied, "And you're here now."

And as he'd met his brother's hollow optics, and recalled the things he'd learned of the Decepticon's connection to his Second, Optimus had seen what Megatron had meant.

And so they'd told Elita. Optimus had been somewhat surprised at Megatron's willingness to let her in on his humiliation. But after all, who else could they confide in? Long before they'd asked her, Elita said she'd do what was required.

But once the Autobots had escorted the spent Decepticon down to his quarters, Prime began to have some second thoughts. He was reluctant, when it came down to it, to leave his bondmate in a place where Starscream – terminated or otherwise – might get the chance to blast another hole in her chassis. He paced around the room three times, carefully inspecting every corner. He reminded her to hold her laser pistol ready, "Just in case." It was only when Megatron threatened to drop dead of exhaustion that the red mech finally agree to leave. "Get me on the comm if you see anything," he told Elita firmly. "I will not be far away."

"Don't worry, Love," she reassured him, smiling. She pressed her palm against his chestplate in a promise. "You're not going to lose me again."

"I'd better not," replied Optimus gruffly, as he cupped his hand over the femme's light fingers. He touched his brow to hers in deep affection, then strode off down the long corridor toward the Command Center.

Alone now, and facing misgivings of her own, Elita looked up into Megatron's fading red optics. "Well?" she said. "Let's get this over with."

He met her gaze a bit shamefacedly.

Elita promised him she would not leave three times, before the gray mech finally flipped the switch, and shut down for a full recharge.

He glanced at her in pleading just before the final gleam faded out of his optics, and dropped a tentative hand onto her shoulder. She hadn't removed it, although even Ratchet would have told her that Megatron would be unable to sense anything during recharge. She understood his hope that some reminder of her presence might follow him into shut-down, to reassure him that he was not alone if he were once again faced by a ghost-Seeker in his dreams.

Now it was half a cycle later. Time had passed slowly and without incident. Grown slightly bored, Elita tipped her chair against the berth so that her head could rest comfortably against Megatron's broad torso. She propped her feet up on a battered storage locker the Decepticon had shoved against the wall of his small room.

The Autobot femme sat still in the darkness; alert, and yet at ease. How many cycles, she wondered idly, had she spent in guarding Optimus's battered frame, not knowing whether he would ever come online again? By contrast, tonight the quiet syncopation of the charge unit and the recumbent mech's idling systems made a pleasant, oddly comforting music. So far, there'd been no change in the somnolent patterns. Everything here was at peace.

"Prime'sfemme?" Starscream's face was twisted, almost ugly. "And yet you have the gall to call me coward!"

Megatron sat up quickly, and looked around the room. Although every light was lit, he couldn't see Elita anywhere. She'd lied to him and left him. In that first instant of cold panic, he hated her.

The hand that he'd laid on her shoulder gave a grasping, futile spasm; then he rose abruptly from his bunk. Rapidly he strode around the small room, searching everywhere for some small trace of the pink femme. He paused, remembering the way he'd last seen her – calmly waiting in the dark – and forced himself to think rationally. She'd promised.

He shook his head. His dreaming optics might show him an empty room, but Elita wouldn't have abandoned him. Not ever. He slowed his racing engines, crossed his arms, and raised his gaze to face the ghost of his Lieutenant.

With a quick start of alarm, Elita raised her head to peer into the blackness around her.

"Lights on!" she commanded. But she saw nothing in the room that might explain the feeling of explosive, fiery rage that had suddenly borne down upon her. There was nothing here to see but metal walls, the recharge berth, her stool, and the locker on which her small feet rested. She glanced at Megatron. His shell rested in offline stillness. But the quiet hum of his internal motor had risen in its pitch.

Elita-One shut down the lights again. She didn't want her sight befuddling her other senses. She did not need to see things to believe them.

She tightened her hold on the hilt of her pistol. But Elita didn't fool herself into thinking the weapon would do her any good. Whatever it was that had come in here, it was not likely to be effected by something as corporeal as laser-fire. She felt its hatred beating against her with a force that threatened to wither all the fire in her resolute white spark.

"So," the undead Air Commander sneered. "I see it wasn't enough for you to get with Prime. You had to hook your grapnels in under his femme's armor as well."

Megatron lunged to his feet with a roar. "Shut your mouth, Starscream. You are disgusting."

He glanced down, and had the strange experience of seeing his own body lying still upon the recharge berth. The pink femme leaned against it, looking wary. She could obviously sense something, although she did not appear to see or hear the two mechs standing right in front of her. He watched her thumb the dial on her laser pistol, flicking restlessly between the settings. Tense and alert, she let the front of her chair fall soundlessly to the floor. But as she did, she reached to grasp the hand of his offline form before it slid off of her shoulder. And Megatron loved her for it.

Starscream watched all of this, his insolent smile broadening into an obscene grin. He threw a glance at Megatron, then strode around beside the wary femme, and leaned over her, leering. "I suppose I shouldn't blame you," he declared. He waved a hand theatrically down Elita's frame, as if he were showing off the femme to a prospective buyer. "Look at these curves! Mechs just don't have this kind of grace, do they?" He smirked up at his leader. "I suppose, what with there being only four or five female bots left in the world, the temptation must have been almost irresistible. I mean, who'd want to pass up a chance at getting under this pretty pink plating?"

Megatron's fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. "Shut up, Starscream," he snarled, despite his resolution not to let himself be goaded by the Seeker's baiting words.

Starscream grinned triumphantly at his former Commander. He ran an impudent finger along the backrest of Elita's chair, and watched the femme hunch blindly away from him. "Maybe you're right," he said, but with a mocking lilt. "Perhaps I've gotten it all wrong."

He bent and peered down unto the little femme's unseeing face. "I can't imagine Prime's a very attentive mate, what with his commitment to his 'more important' responsibilities." He straightened, and gave Megatron a long, appraising look. "I suppose she might have been induced to look farther afield in order to satisfy her desires..."

He pursed his lips. "You know, I used to wonder why so few Autobots came to sample my services. Perhaps the answer is they didn't need to. Not with her around..." He stretched a hand out toward the pink femme's shrinking torso. "Slag, if I had known she was so free with her affections, I'd have propositioned her myse-"

Megatron's black fist smashed into the Seeker's leering face. "You will never... touch her... again!" he shouted, as he bore the flier to the ground in pieces.

The ancient gladiator set himself squarely between Elita and his fallen Second. With a vicious kick he sent the sprawling jet skidding into a corner. "Say whatever you want to about me," he growled. "But never, ever speak her name without respect!"

Laboriously, Starscream lifted himself onto his hands and knees. He shook his head as if to clear it; and his unhinged lower jaw swung crazily. "Now this right here, Lord Megatron," he gurgled through a flooded vocalizer, "Is what I find so difficult to understand." With grunts and clicks, he patiently pressed small components into place, as energon dripped down between his fingers. "All this time, I thought you always broke the things you touched. You never gave me reason to believe anything else. I never had much hope that you could love without inflicting pain."

He staggered to his feet, and leveled a hard look at his Commander. "But even so – and scrap me for an empty sewage-eater – I accepted that," he said. "I craved your love in spite of it. After all," he added, "You'd promised to take care of me."

The red Seeker retrieved a final bolt from off the floor. He threw the gray Decepticon a mirthless, crooked grin out of his shattered jaw before he clicked it into place.

"You're a cruel, vicious murderer, Megatron." He indicated the gray mech's offline body with a hand. "Yet here you are, cuddled happily up with a femme who's put herself in harm's way for your sake!" He gave the nearest wall a vicious kick. "You don't deserve any of this. And neither does Elita! She told you she would try and love you. And instead of crushing her spark for it, you warble over her in a way that's downright disgraceful! What happened to the Decepticon Creed that you beat into us over all those countless vorns?" The Seeker took a careful step forward, and peered into the deep red optics of his former leader. "You love her, Megatron," he said. "Don't bother trying to deny it."

The ancient warrior crossed his arms defiantly, but said nothing in reply.

Starscream shook his head, perplexed. "There was a time I could have given you a love like hers. You grovel to Elita for it. Yet me you despised. I just don't understand it. Why did you always treat me with such violent contempt," he asked, and pointed to the way the sleeping mech's black hand still rested on the pink femme's huddled shoulder, "...When you are capable of this?"

"What did you want me to do, Starscream?" Megatron broke his long silence acerbically. "Should I have showered you with praise whenever you managed not to making a mess of things?" He scoffed. "You never gave me the opportunity!"

He jabbed at the ghost-Seeker with an accusatory finger. "I know how much you wanted to have a share in some mech's soul. But did you ever really think I'd have made myself into such a laughingstock? You were a pathetic little waste-pot, and everybot knew it!"

"Well what the slag did you keep me around for, then, oh Mighty Megatron? What in the Destroyer's name did you think you were trying to prove?"

Starscream rounded angrily upon his former leader, fists clenched tightly at his sides. "From the first moment you met me, you knew that a single harsh word was enough to wound. Don't bother to deny it," he spat, "I know that grease-rag Soundwave must have told you." He paced fitfully back and forth across the tiny room, as if it were a cage he could not escape. "And yet you never once spoke to me without insult! Would it have killed you to be kind just once?" he demanded.

"It might!" returned Megatron hotly.

"Nothing you've ever done to me makes any sense, Megatron!" he shouted. "You knew I was more sensitive to pain than the others; but you took a particular pleasure in striking me down. You valued my dexterity in the air; and you knew that such skill was only possible because I refused to make myself into an unfeeling block – the way you had. Yet you repeatedly attempted to torture me into insensibility! What the slag did you think you were doing? Did you even know?"

The gray Commander still said nothing, but there was a flicker in his optics. He knew he'd never been quite rational in his treatment of this particular lieutenant.

The tetrajet paced back and forth across the small space at the foot of his Commander's berth. "I loved to feel, Megatron! I loved the rush of air across my wings. I loved the heat and cold, the pressure of an atmosphere, and the hungry emptiness of space. I loved the wash of sensory input through all my systems..." Starscream whirled around, and jabbed a finger at his leader. "But you-! You tarnished all your sensors long ago. By the time I met you, you couldn't feel anything softer than a hammer-blow. But you had no right to demand that from the rest of us." His optics blazed out in the liquid fire of hate. "I would have been a better leader, slag it! And I sure as smelting would have taken better care of my soldiers than you did!"

"Oh, you think so, do you?" Megatron scoffed. "You never fooled me, Starscream. You'd have only used your underlings to further your own petty, short-sighted ends. The Decepticon Army requires a general to lead them; not a self-serving washout. You never would have led them anywhere but to oblivion."

Starscream stopped his pacing, turned, and spoke in a cold, controlled voice. "It doesn't matter what I would or could have done. I'm dead. The only reason I'm still here is my own Primus-damned obsession with you."

He glared across at the broad gray mech, and his mouth gave a sardonic twitch. "There was one thing that you did succeed in burning out of me, Megatron," he said. "And that was any gentleness I could ever have given you."

Starscream leaned forward until his face was only inches from the Decepticon Commander's own. "I cringe when I think of how much I used to admire you," he said. "I did everything I could to get your attention. I made myself into the fastest, cruelest killer in your army. I stood up to you when no one else would dare to. I gave you everything I had to give. But you never respected me for any of it. The more I tried to please you, the more you detested me."

"Like I said," retorted Megatron, "You were a pathetic little waste-pot."

"And yet you clung to me," hissed Starscream bitingly. "I tried to leave. But you refused to let me go, despite the contempt in which you claimed to hold me. After all, I was 'like part of your own spark.'"

With sudden weariness, the red jet sat down heavily upon the battered lid of Megatron's storage trunk. The bright lights dimmed, and in the dream Elita and the offline shell of the Commander faded from the room.

The Seeker huffed and rubbed a hand across his face. "I hated you for what you did to me," he said, sounding exhausted. "But I loathed myself for never hating you enough." He looked blankly up at Megatron. "When I finally realized, vorns too late, that you would never give me your acceptance, I sought to overthrow you. I thought, if you were powerless, I might not care so much for your esteem." He shrugged, and gave a shadow of his old familiar smirk. "And on the other hand, perhaps if you were left alone, without an army to surround you, who knows? You might have turned to me."

He shook his head. "Of course I failed. From the beginning, your will held sway over mine. I couldn't defeat you; I couldn't kill you; I couldn't even leave you. Your very existence was pain to me. And yet here I am, still following you around, even after I am dead." He laughed mirthlessly. "I was a fool, just like you always said."

In life, whenever Starscream demonstrated his incompetence, Megatron would be enraged. This time, however, he sat down upon his berth without a word. He could not rail against the truth – truth spoken by a ghost whose form had faded now until the seams in the steel walls behind showed through its tissue-frail wings.

Starscream looked back at his Commander, and shook his head again. "Bonded with Prime!" he snorted. "After fighting to overthrow him all this time...!" He slapped transparent knees with dull finality, and stood. "Well Megatron, congratulations. You spent a lifetime building up a dream of Decepticon expansion. Now you've thrown it all away. I hope you're happy. You're nothing now but a deluded relic. You've betrayed every one of us who gave our lives to you and to the Cause."

He walked over to the small, square window, and looked thoughtfully out of it into the starlit sky. "There's no way of getting back the time I squandered chasing after you. Looking back now, I don't know why I ever thought it was important to please you. I don't need you. I never did." He straightened, stretching out his wings. "I'm leaving, Megatron. I suppose that's one good thing about being dead. I never have to see your face again!"

Megatron watched as the Seeker transformed abruptly, and flew out through the impossibly small window. Then the world swirled around him, and dissolved into the insistent beeping of the charge-end signal.

He sat up, blinked his optics once or twice, and squeezed Elita's shoulder gently. "So, how much of that was real?" he asked her flatly.

She turned her chair around to face him, and he shrank back from the black look that she gave him. "I'm going to give you my report," she said without inflection, "And then I am going to go curl up in Optimus's arms and make sure he does not let go of me for four breems at the least. So listen well, because I'll only tell you once."

Megatron wanted to reach out to her, to shield her against the darkness he read plainly in her face. But her rigidity spoke clearly of the brittle hold she had over herself; and he knew his touch would break it.

"Did you see him?" he asked quickly.

"No."

"But you could hear-?"

"I couldn't." Elita pursed her lips impatiently.

"It's obvious that you sensed something, though."

"I did."

"Was it Starscream?"

She paused, and the Decepticon saw her suppress a shudder. "I don't know. But it felt like Starscream's energy." Unconsciously, she scratched her chest as if it ached within. "I've never felt such hatred, Megatron. Not even from you."

But the big mech wasn't listening. "So his spark is still online somewhere?" he asked.

"I don't know!" she said again. "Perhaps his spark is finding a way from the Matrix dimension back into this one. Perhaps some force is preventing him from leaving our world. I'm not an authority on these things."

"So, these dreams aren't just my damn processor glitching."

"No." She stood. "Megatron, I don't blame you for not wanting to face him. But do not ask me to sit with you again. This burden, I'm afraid, is yours." She saluted formally, turned smartly on her heel, and strode out of the room.

The gray Decepticon sat stiffly on his bunk and watched her go. Then he buried his head in his hands, and shook until his armor rattled.

Elita held her head high as she marched down to the Archives. She greeted passing mechs politely, and listened to their small talk. She knew the bots meant well with their attentions; most of the Autobots cherished their remaining femmes. But right now all she wanted was to be with the one mech who did not treat her as if she were a priceless treasure to be handled with something approaching worship. Well, Optimus did all that, but he did it out of love for who she was, not out of respect for the rarity of her programming. With Orion, she could finally fall apart.

She stopped in front of the familiar entry, keyed in the access code, walked in, and shut the door behind her. She leaned her back against it, sagging in abrupt relief.

"I told you to comm me if you felt anything!" the red mech barked, dropping his datapad. He rose up anxiously from the small desk where he'd been working. "Why didn't-"

Elita silenced him without a word. Once in his arms, she put a finger to his lips, and shook her head. "Optimus," she whispered, "Just shut up and hold me."