Disclaimer: As per usual, the good things in life are not mine to have, but belong to someone else... in this case Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I've forgotten…
Feedback makes friends. Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.
He jerked out of recharge, fuel pump stuttering. He sat up and leant against the wall, drawing in air fitfully, still struggling to make sense of the dream.
"Prowl?" The question came softly, almost hesitantly.
"I'm fine Jazz."
"'Kay man…" The voice trailed off, still heavy with the lingering effects of coming out of recharge abruptly. Prowl sighed; there would be no more recharge for him.
It didn't matter that it was years ago, that no one else seemed to remember save him. It still affected him. The memory still lurked in his data banks, regardless of how often he tried to purge them. He couldn't forget.
It had been dark; a power outage that should have been their first clue to the horror that lay ahead. But no one expected the carnage that followed. No one expected that the Decepticons would attack a civilian city. A Neutral civilian city.
He'd been far younger then. And far more innocent. He hadn't seen a Decepticon before, let alone been shot at by one. Everything had changed that day.
He had been found lying among the debris that had been his home, the only sound he made a soft whimpering.
He had lost everything, but it had made him who he was now. Determined to out-think the Decepticons, he turned to strategy and tactics. They kept him functioning and stopped a fair few Decepticons from functioning until he found himself outside the gates to the Academy, a heavy hand on his shoulder and a voice that told him this was the best place to learn and the best way to get back at those who had destroyed the life he knew.
He couldn't help himself; sitting there in the darkness, he let the memories overwhelm him and drawing his knees to his chest he wept.
"Prowl." He heard the voice, but couldn't force himself to answer through the haze of relieved memories and pain. The hand carefully placed on his arm served as enough of a link to the present to allow him to lift his head slightly; blurry unfocussed optics meeting concerned optics through a visor.
"Jazz?" More movement as Jazz sat down next to him, as close as he could without being too intrusive.
"You ain't alone no more Prowl." Prowl actually managed to smile at that. And at the same time wonder how exactly Jazz could read him so easily.