He wandered the
halls, contemplating what was said to him, not sure what he would do
as he let his feet carry him where they pleased. He
sighed, feeling confused and even more embarrassed than he had been
before he talked to his superior. He wished slightly that
he could go back and erase what he had done, for he was sure that the
cop had managed to see past his words.
Jazz's mind kept flitting
to different circumstances and with every new thought it made him
more and more uneasy about what he had wanted to do. Only
a tiny portion of his conscious told him that Prowl would accept what
he wanted to tell him, while the rest of him was filled with doubt
and regret. The Porsche wanted badly to tell Prowl how he
felt, but was afraid of the consequences, afraid that his feelings
would tear apart their friendship.
'That won't happen,'
argued a voice in his head; did robots have consciences? 'You've
been friends with him forever, why would he reject you?'
'This
is strange,' he argued back to the voice. 'Prowl's my best
friend; if I tell him it could destroy what we already
have. Besides, he doesn't like me that way.'
There
was silence for a moment before the voice answered. 'Only one way
to find out, is there?'
Jazz shook his head, knowing that the
voice in his head was just his own doubt. "I could never tell him,"
he mumbled.
"Tell who what?" a voice from behind him spoke
quietly. Turning, Jazz saw that it was Tracks, the blue
Firebird smug as always, a strut in his gait as he walked toward the
young mech.
"Oh, good morning to you too, Tracks," Jazz smiled
lightly. "Nothing really, just something that's on my
mind."
Tracks looked at Jazz with an air of pleasant curiosity,
a small smirk across his red lips. "Oh?" he asked in that same
quiet voice. "Care to share?" he cocked his head as he said it,
his hands placed behind his back.
Jazz shook his head. "No, not
really. It's kind of private…" he trailed off as
Tracks began to walk toward him, that same smug look painting his
features. Jazz looked uneasy again as he began to walk
backward; something about the Firebird's nature had always made
Jazz uncomfortable.
The Porsche's back bumped into a wall,
startling him and halting his backward movements. Raising
a hand, Tracks placed it on the wall above Jazz's head, the
Firebird's head no more than a foot away from Jazz's. "Ah, come
on, you can tell me…" The Firebird exuded an air of something sly
as he inched closer to Jazz, the Porsche pressed up against the wall
looking slightly frightened. Jazz's optics had to work
to keep Track's face in focus.
"No, I'd rather not…"
Jazz mumbled, his optics shifting around him as he tried to scoot
along the wall to get away from Tracks' gaze. The
Firebird had always made him weary and this sure was no exception to
the matter as Tracks' optics relentlessly watched him, unmoving
with that smirk upon his face.
Tracks leaned in even closer to
Jazz than he was before, the smug look getting worse as their faces
were now mere inches apart. "Tell me…" he mumbled through that
creepy smile of his. "What do you see in your best friend that
drags you to him?" Jazz's optics widened at Tracks' sentence,
and in turn the Firebird's smirk got wider. "What makes your
friendship with him… tick?"
Jazz dodged under Tracks' arm
and backed up, wanting feverishly to put as much distance between him
and the blue mech as possible. Tracks watched him go off,
the smirk still upon his features as he turned and went in the
opposite direction humming a cheerful
tune.
A slight
tapping motion had come to Prowl's fingers as he worked, tapping
the rhythm to a song that his subconscious remembered from a time
long ago. Throughout his work that day, he kept getting
interrupted by other thoughts, despite his efforts to block him
out. He had a data file for the ark's updated security
system in front of him and he was supposed to hand it in to Optimus
Prime for approval when the leader came back from his assignment that
night, but the report wasn't anywhere near completion. Prowl
grumbled, taking another sip from the cup next to him and grimaced
slightly as the bitter Energon filled his mouth.
His optics
wandered around his desk, laying, once again, on the sheet of browned
paper. Picking it up he turned it over, hoping to find a
name on the back, but no such luck had availed him. Sighing,
he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, knowing full
well the amount of work he had to get through, but the more he
thought about it the less he liked it.
An idea struck his fancy
and he lifted his head to look at the paper again. The
notion of asking Ratchet about the slanted handwriting had presented
itself again, this time, though, it was like the idea was more of a
demand as Prowl was determined to find out who was leaving the
nameless notes for him to find. He would find the medic
and ask him straight out, not letting anything get in his way,
positively determined to get his answer, be it the one he wants to
hear or not.
The
medical officer was in his office pouring over those insanely boring
health notes that he hated so much, staring moodily at Sunstreaker's
record. He hated going over this mech's record because of
the amount of data he always had to go over. "I swear," the
medic said to an empty office. "I will melt you down for spare
parts one of these days..." putting the pad down, he entered the
data in his main server as he heard a noise in the Medbay. Looking
up, he saw Prowl slowly walking toward his office.
"Morning,
Ratchet," the cop said lightly as he reached the medic's office
door. "Mind if I bother you for a few minutes?"
Wondering what
could be going through the mech's head when he knew that Prowl had
plenty of work to do, Ratchet nodded. "Sure, Prowl." Motioning to
a chair opposite his desk, the white mech smiled. "What can I help
you with?" Taking the chair offered him, Prowl smiled at Ratchet,
silent for a while. The medic laced his hands together and
waited for his long-time friend to speak.
"Someone has been
inadvertently leaving noted for me to find," the cop began, looking
slightly confused. "The handwriting was slanted and very scrunched
together. I figured you get to see everyone's
handwriting so I thought you might be able to help me."
Ratchet
cocked his head at this odd request, confused slightly himself. "A
bot's writing style…?" he muttered slowly. "Strange request…
But I don't know right off-hand…" he looked at Prowl with
curious optics. "What did the note say? Anything in
particular?" He watched Prowl's face flush red and noted that the
cop was fidgeting slightly at the question.
"It's… kind of
private…" Prowl stated quietly. "I've come across
the note twice, first on my room's wall then in a drawer of my
office desk," he looked up at Ratchet. "Can't you find out for
me?" His face looked desperate, and Ratchet was suddenly interested
at why Prowl wanted this particular information.
He went into a
screen in his desk, quickly importing data. "Well," he said. "I
don't really have any 'slanted writing' in here…" Prowl
looked thoroughly disappointed at the news. Ratchet didn't
want the mech to leave empty-handed, so he continued quickly. "But
I do have one bot whose letters are very squeezed together." that
got the cop's attention, his optics wide. Spinning the
screen around on his desk to face Prowl, he let the mech examine the
words on his own. He watched as the cop's face lit up, a
smile spreading slowly across his lips and a tinge of red appearing
on his cheeks as he read some of the words on the screen. He
looked ready to speak when a furious hammering came to the Medbay
doors.
Both bots jumped in alarm as the doors flew open to admit
Ironhide, a moody old gunslinger. Ratchet's medical
programming was racing as he saw the heady wounds and even a missing
arm as the soldier spoke out feverishly.
"Decepticon…
Seekers-!" the red bot gasped, his voice extremely strained.
"Autobots captured-!" he fell over and collapsed, fainting on the
hard floor with a dull thud.
