After so long with only Bee (and Soundwave I guess) as canon, it makes me nervous adding other canon characters to the mix. But alas this is how the story concluded when I wrote it not too long ago, and so it shall go. Cue the emotional drama. Kind of.

Chapter 8/Epilogue

Optimus' comm. link was busy, again. Bee didn't bother wondering if he ever wasn't busy- he already knew the answer was no. Hopefully, he was at a meeting with Ironhide nearby.

The scout pinged the weapons specialist. For a moment, he thought the other wasn't going to respond when abruptly the comm. burst into sound.

"-Bee! Is that you?! Where've you been, kid?! We've been worried! We sent out a search party after we lost communication-"

"Ironhide." Bee attempted to interrupt, but the weapons specialist kept talking.

"-We couldn't find you but we did manage to take out that ambush you warned us about-"

"Ironhide!"

"-Where are you kid? Just tell me where and I'll bring the whole army to come and get you-"

"IRONHIDE!"

"-…Yeah, kid?-"

"I don't need the whole army, just you. I'm outside the secret entrance on the south side of headquarters. Could you come and get me?"

"- Be there soon. Hang in there, kid!-"

After a brief moment of thought, Bee crawled over to lean against a piece of rubble beside, not in front of the door. He didn't want to get crushed by Ironhide on his way out.

True to his word, the weapons specialist burst through the door in barely a minute. He spotted the scout immediately and moved to his side where he crouched down next to him.

"Primus kid, what happened to you?" Ironhide's normally gruff tones lightened, his concern overlying his initial excitement.

"It's a l-long story and I'd rather only tell it once. C-Can you help me up?" Bumblebee did his best not to sound pitiful, but he felt terrible and it was Ironhide he was talking to, so it didn't really work.

"Sure, kid," the weapons specialist easily hauled him to his feet. It was a temporary thing as the moment he was up, his stabilizers unbalanced and he was leaning heavily on the larger mech before he realized it.

"Wow, Bee, you're really beat up. Is that a crack in your chassis? We need to see Ratchet, now." Before the scout could protest, Ironhide scooped him up in his arms and entered the base, the door automatically closing behind them.

"Wait, 'Hide! I h-have to see Optimus f-first," Bee tried to protest, failing to squirm locked in the larger mech's firm grip.

"Well good thing for you they're both in the same room," the weapons specialist said with a sly grin.

The scout looked at him, momentarily disoriented by pain, then he was confused another moment before he realized, "Y-You just left them in the m-middle of that m-meeting didn't you?"

"Yep," Ironhide replied, grin still in place.

"D-Did you even t-tell them anything?"

"Nope, but you should have seen their faces when I jumped up during the middle of one of Optimus' lectures."

"They p-probably think y-you've finally lost it." The weapons specialist laughed heartily at that and Bee couldn't help but join in, ignoring the pain for a moment.

It made him feel glad to be back.

"I d-don't suppose you're going to let m-me walk through the door on my own?" The scout asked when he realized they were nearing the meeting room.

"I don't suppose you can walk?" Ironhide countered.

"It's a d-definite...possibility," Bumblebee reasoned.

"Then no," Ironhide said with finality. "If your answer's not yes, then my answer is no."

They rounded the last corner and finally approached the door, which they paused at as it had to be opened with a pass-code.

"See? If you put me down then you can enter the code and we can walk in together," Bee suggested.

"Not a chance, kid," Ironhide easily shifted the small yellow mech into one arm, inputing the code and rebalancing him again in both arms before the door even opened.

"I'm back!" Ironhide announced loudly as he entered the room. "And I solved the missing mech problem."

Those who were at the meeting, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, and Jazz turned to the door in surprise.

Jazz was the first to react and he sprang to his peds with a cheerful cry of, "Bee!" He darted up to the mech who was still in the weapons specialist's arms. The scout gave him a smile, but before he could say anything, Ironhide walked past him further into the room.

"This is for you," the weapons specialist said to Ratchet as he deposited Bee abruptly into the medic's arms. The scout hissed in pain and Ratchet quickly readjusted his grip on the mech, before glaring up at Ironhide.

Optimus saved them both from an argument with his approach. When he reached the medic and his patient, he met the scout's dimmer than normal optics.

"Bumblebee, my friend, what has happened to you?"

The yellow mech didn't immediately reply; instead he pulled the memory card from subspace and offered it to his leader. "I g-got this f-for you while I was away. C-Can I t-tell you where I g-got it later? I-" Bee paused in speaking, the pain from the online half of his sensors heightening to a point that he could hardly bear.

"Optimus, I must request that reunions and explanations happen later. He's deeply injured now and I must take him back to the med bay," Ratchet intruded, easily seeing the discomfort growing in the smaller mech.

"Of course Ratchet, you may go immediately. Please keep me updated on his status. And Bumblebee, heal well." The medic nodded and in his arms Bee sketched a shaky salute before they both departed from the room.

"Bumblebee, how bad is the pain? Is it something internal or external?" Ratchet asked as he carried the scout quickly towards the med bay.

"I d-don't know. I c-can't tell," Bee's voice was a bit more than a whisper. "W-we didn't have a m-medic so they turned off h-half m sensors instead."

The medic cursed and walked faster until they finally reached the med bay. He put the scout on the farthest berth, immediately hooking him up to some monitors.

"I need to run a deep scan to see how badly your internal systems have been damaged," Ratchet explained and walked over to a console beside the bedside. He was calibrating the system for the scans, Bumblebee knew, but- large, dark blue servos reached for the console, the pain spiked and echoed through him- he felt like he was being torn up, ripped into little pieces, and all he wanted to do was die.

Bumblebee couldn't contain a whimper brought one by the sudden onset of bad memories, and he lifted his knees to his chassis and buried his faceplates in his servos.

Ratchet was by his bedside in an instant, "Bumblebee what's wrong? Does something hurt more?"

"N-No, n-no, n-no…" But the scout had began shaking uncontrollably, and his feeble assurances weren't persuasive at all. Ratchet reached for him hesitantly, one large servo placed on his undamaged right shoulder while the other gently grabbed one of the servos covering his face.

"Bee, it could be something serious. I need you to tell me," the medic requested calmly.

"I-It's not s-something physical. It's m-mental, a m-memory," the small yellow mech replied, trying to persuade the medic into going back and doing his scans, but the mech remained steadfast.

"Bee, I'm your doctor, and whatever it is physical or emotional…" Ratchet trailed off, his servos wandering over to the damaged parts of the small mech's frame; when he began pounding the dents out of the injured shoulder, the action was almost subconscious.

"I was in Kaon," Bumblebee said both suddenly and clearly. "And in Kaon, consoles are used to change what level of pain you are about to experience. And when it's Soundwave at the console…"

And Ratchet understood, he knew trauma when he saw it, but still he was at a loss for words. There was silence for a while in which time both avoided each other's gaze and Ratchet had moved down to soldering lines at a lower point in the same arm.

Bumblebee suddenly reached for the medic's servo and Ratchet quickly retracted his blow torch to prevent burning the servo now grabbing his own.

"Ratchet, you need to take those scans, because I'm probably going to die if you don't."

Still, the medic hesitated, knowing the reaction he might cause when calibrating the machine. The fact that such deep scans were usually unpleasant did not help him.

"It's okay Ratchet. You can do it. I trust you." Bumblebee said it with conviction.

"I know you do, Bee. I'll have you fixed up in no time," the medic found his words and went back to the console.

I trust him. The scout thought about those words and realized that he knew they were true inside, no matter how damaged his internals may be.

It was then Bumblebee knew everything was going to be alright.

FIN

ooooooo

So that was my last chapter/epilogue. The long awaited reunion of Bee and his fellow Autobot was especially fun to write. All is not well that ends well, but nothing ever really has an end.

I actually have a few drabbles based not long after this story that I will probably post soon. They're more of friendship/hurt/comfort than action, but they do show how I perceive the other Autobots and their relations.

Thank you for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it.