Awarness flickered in the back of his mind.

On then off, repeatedly like someone flipping a switch in his head. His head throbbed, his body ached, and he was starting to feel hot and sweaty and nauseous. His skin tingled and itched, his chest hurt, his pelvic bone felt like it was broken. Yet he couldn't recall doing anything to damage it in such a way.

He tried swallowing, but his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Water. He needed water. He pushed himself upright and looked around the hanger, wondering if there was anywhere close by where he could get some water.

He slowly eased his feet to the cold concrete floor and tested to see if his legs would support his weight and sighed in relief when he didn't collapse. He walked a step or so from the thing he'd been laying on and looked around again, looking for any signs of a restroom or water fountain and almost started crying when he couldn't find one.

He closed his eyes and tried to think. The hanger felt a little familiar to him, though he couldn't be sure that it was the same place he was thinking of. And if it was the same place then there was a door-

He did a quick sweep of the large building and found what he was looking for about twenty or so feet away. He made nearly inaudible sound and half walked half staggered towards the door knowing that somewhere beyond it was the water he was so deasperately seeking...

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Several hours later-

Bee was the first one to come online and decide that four hours of being offline and having nightmares, was enough for him. He disconnected himself from his berth and sat up and did a slow sweep of the hanger, making sure that everyone was still asleep and offline. He didn't want anyone to see how shaken he was by his nightmares as he buried his face in his hands and shuddered for a second before slipping from his resting place and quietly (as quietly as a thirty five thousand pound machine could) krept away from the others.

They still had an hour or two before they would be hitting the road. And as painful as it was for him, Bee wanted to spend some time alone with Sam.

To say some things that he had never really said before. Ya know, to tell the human that he'd really liked being his friend and such.

He walked to the far side of the hanger where Sam's coffin was and started to sit down when he noticed that the coffin lid was pushed completely back and Sam's body was missing. He blinked his optics and rubbed them then blinked again before letting out a loud high pitch shrieking sound.

Effectively waking everyone in the hanger.

Hot Shot jerked awake so quickly that he fell out of his berth and hit the concrete floor hard enough to pulverise the stone under him as Ratchet, and ironhide and Optimus all jumped up from their berths and hastily disconnected the wires attached to the back of their necks and armed their weapons as Bee started shouting "Red alert! Red alert! We have red alert!"

Optimus put his weapon away and made his way over to Bee and put his hand on the smaller bot's shoulder. "Bee. Why are you freaking out? Did you have a nightmare?"

Bee looked at him and shook his head no then reached up and framed Prime's face in his hands and turned his leader's head so that he was looking at the empty coffin. Optimus got a sort of shell shocked look on his face and blinked his optics as the others made their way over to them.

Each of them taking turns looking at the coffin while Ratchet scanned it to make sure that Sam's body hadn't somehow been reduced to particals by the weapon that had killed him. "Ratchet? Was Sam-"

"No." Ratchet replied as he stopped the fifth scan of the coffin abruptly and looked at Optimus who frowned.

"Are you sure that he was dead?"

"Yes. There was no traces of a pulse, or air being pulled into his lungs."

"But couldn't that have been just for a minute or so?" Hot Shot asked curiously.

Ratchet turned his head and glared at the younger bot then growled, "His insides were shredded. There was no mistake."

"But...human's aren't like us. They can't be revived! They don't have sparks!" Ironhide said and Optimus stiffened a bit where he stood and tried to think. Could the energy from the piece of his spark that he had given to Sam somehow have brought the boy back to life?

No. No, that wasn't possible. It was just wishful thinking on his part. Sparks and humans were incompatible.

And though a human could share a small piece of a spark given by a transformer, it was impossible for a deceased human to be resurrected by the energy contained in a spark fragment. Optimus closed his optics and opened a path of communication to his mind.

The surest way to know if Sam had somehow been brought back to life by his spark fragment was to try deep listening and see if he could catch some small, faint thought or feeling from Sam's mind. It took a second, maybe two. But he caught the faint almost phantom sounds of a heart thudding in his ears followed by the overwhelming sense of warmth and discomfort.

Sam? Optimus tried speaking to the boy as shock filled his being. Sam? Can you hear me? Optimus tried to get a response from the human and caught only the vaigue delirous thought.

Hear? Hear who? Hot... Hurts to move. To breathe- Then he heard nothing.