Oh, sad day. I never even noticed I spelled Ratchet wrong. Thanks for the mention, Autohumans. And when I went back and corrected it I added an outer office to Ultra Magnus' cause I noticed I'd missed/forgot it. Oops. Meh, now on with the story!

Chapter 10: While You Were Gone

.

The next time Optimus onlined, his systems were fully functional and he immediately recognized his surroundings as the medical bay on Omega Supreme. He wasn't entirely surprised by it, given his rescue by Ratchet, but he had expected Ratchet to be hovering to some degree. Instead, when he looked around, no other bots were to be seen. Briefly, he wondered if instead of getting better he'd simply gotten worse and could no longer see other bots, but his systems check informed him that the device had indeed been successfully removed. The area surrounding where the device had been jammed was numb, and Optimus realized Ratchet had probably had to surgically remove it so his parts would be sore for a while.

When he attempted to sit up, metal arms emerged from the walls and gently pushed him flat on his backplates again.

"You should not move until Ratchet clears you." Omega Supreme informed him, and Optimus relaxed his frame, knowing it would be useless to try to fight Omega Supreme on this matter. He would just end up pinned to the berth if he tried.

"Where are we?" Optimus asked, noticing that, even when he relaxed, Omega Supreme had left the arms in contact with his chassis, although not exerting pressure. Ratchet must have left him in charge of watching over him, which was a job Omega Supreme seemed to be taking very seriously.

"We have returned to your Earth base of operations." Omega Supreme's voice rumbled through the small space. "Ratchet and the others are briefing Cybertron."

Optimus nodded acknowledgement, knowing Omega Supreme's sensors would detect the movement, before he shifted his attention to examining his own frame. He noticed that the dents he was certain to have acquired in his fight were no longer visible, and only a few scratches remained visible. Several cords ran from dataports in his arm and from under his chest armor to the monitor consoles along the wall. The direct monitoring of his spark made him uneasy, and then he noticed the nanite infused energon feeding directly into a line in his shoulder.

"How long have I been out?" Optimus asked, concerned.

"1.32 megacycles." Omega Supreme answered him immediately.

Optimus frowned. That was not nearly long enough to need medical energon. "Then why am I being given medical energon? It's not necessary for such a short stasis."

"You were held captive for over three solar cycles." Omega Supreme told him softly. "Do you not remember?"

"WHAT!" Optimus would have sat straight up if Omega Supreme hadn't been restraining him. "Three solar cycles?"

"Optimus Prime please calm down." Omega Supreme commanded him gently.

"But how could it have been three solar cycles? I don't…" Optimus trailed off as his systems relaxed against his will, his processor becoming fuzzy. It took his clouded processor a moment to realize that Ratchet must have anticipated him becoming upset at some point and readied a sedative for Omega Supreme to use on him if necessary. The sedative wasn't enough to knock him offline, but the sluggish responses from his sensors indicated it would be difficult to move in this state.

"I apologize." Omega Supreme spoke up, "but you are to rest until Ratchet returns."

"I understand." Optimus managed to vocalize. "And I apologize as well. I did not react well." Although he had apologized, Omega Supreme did not let him up, not that he was surprised.

They stayed relatively silent for several cycles. Optimus had almost fallen into recharge when the door opened to admit Ratchet. He focused when Ratchet started speaking.

"I see you had to sedate him." Ratchet looked a bit grumpier than usual.

"I'm sorry Ratchet. I did not realize telling him how long he was held captive would upset him so much." Omega Supreme sounded a bit upset himself.

"Oh, it's alright. I wouldn't have prepared it for you if I hadn't intended you use it if necessary." Ratchet smiled a little and patted an arm that was still pinning Optimus as he walked up to the berth. "Although I had hoped you wouldn't make that necessary, Prime."

"I'm sorry." Optimus offered quietly.

"Hmph." Ratchet groused. "Can't say I wasn't entirely expecting it."

"Was I really there three solar cycles?" Optimus asked hesitantly. "I don't remember…I thought it was just one solar cycle."

Ratchet observed him thoughtfully for a moment. "Might need to check you for hacking."

Ratchet tapped his helm paneling at the base of his headfin, indicating he should open the scanning port there. Optimus carefully opened it, new concern entering his processor. He didn't like the thought of possibly being hacked, especially by those clones.

He tried to calm his rampant processor as Ratchet connected and began the scans. Ratchet was doing an in-depth coding scan which compared his current coding to Ratchet's last recorded scans. Likely, Ratchet had updated them while Optimus had been recovering in the Central Infirmary, so he wasn't likely to show updated code as hacking.

Optimus was also reminded of the fact that he would be undergoing detailed virus scans once he returned to Cybertron, and those he was not looking forward to. Virus scans carefully analyzed every bit of coding and file within a bots processors before scanning through every wire and circuit in their frame, looking for potential addons and other virus tags. They were, at the very least, uncomfortable and invasive.

Several cycles later Ratchet finished his scans and disconnected. "No signs of hacking." Ratchet announced, and Optimus vented in relief. "But it looks like the Systems Scrambler had attached coding to knock out your external communications and confuse your chronometer."

"But, Ratchet, I onlined at midday, then Slipstream knocked my processors for a loop and I onlined again at nightfall!" Optimus was beginning to become upset again, struggling against the sedative and Omega Supreme. "How could that be three solar cycles?"

"Calm down." Ratchet ordered, placing his servos on Optimus' shoulders, pushing back when Optimus shifted up. "The discharge when the Scrambler was pushed into your frame was powerful enough to fry a good deal of your energy transfer circuitry before the surge protections engaged. It would have been strong enough to knock you offline for a two solar cycles. That hit to your processors is nothing to ignore either."

"Two solar cycles?" Optimus asked, fighting to calm himself. "How can you be that precise."

"Because you showed up while Slipstream was trying to negotiate terms for your release." Ratchet told him.

"Wait, you were on the comm. then?" Optimus asked, a bit embarrassed that they had seen him in such a poor fight.

"Omega Supreme was showing the visual, but we weren't actively involved in the call." Ratchet informed him.

"But…" Optimus sifted through the horribly recorded memories. "There were two screens active…weren't there? If it wasn't you….Decepticons?"

"Yes, there were two screens, and no, the other bots weren't Decepticons. Your team was on one, and Ultra Magnus on the other." Ratchet informed him. "Now, I've got some circuits to replace."

Optimus felt his systems heat with embarrassment when Ratchet told him that Ultra Magnus had seen that. It was bad enough he'd gotten captured, but captured and then unable to free himself while his commander watched, that was even worse.

"How much did he see?" Optimus asked barely above a whisper.

"I suppose I should just tell you the whole story." Ratchet grumped, venting a sigh as he started opening Optimus' armor, using his EMP to block the pain signals from the circuitry he would be working on.

"That would be nice." Optimus responded, glad that Ratchet was offering instead of him finding out in bits and pieces later.

"Well, we all got the distress signal, and when it cut out we tried to figure out what direction you were last heading. Didn't take long to realize you'd been in the air, and when the humans in the area told your team they'd seen a jet grab you, well, it was pretty easy to figure out you'd been taken prisoner." Ratchet's optic enhancers slid into place as he spoke, leaning over the delicate work. "A megacycle later, your team got a recorded message with an image capture of you indicating that you were unharmed and would remain so if they turned over the remaining AllSpark bots."

"But we didn't have them." Optimus interjected, getting a glare from Ratchet.

"I'm telling the story here." Ratchet chastised him. "As I was saying, they sent the message. You were still in your Earth mode at that point, so very little damage was visible. Gave a frequency to respond on when we were ready to hand them over. We immediately contacted Cybertron and updated 'em on the situation. Ultra Magnus immediately had us contact them on a shared line. Basically told 'em we couldn't verify your condition unless you were transformed and wouldn't even consider the deal until then."

Optimus was fairly certain that he was going to be thoroughly embarrassed by the end of this briefing masquerading as a story. He couldn't imagine that Ultra Magnus wass very pleased with the whole situation and Optimus couldn't find a reason to blame him.

Ratchet paused as he retrieved more wiring and then continued, growling. "Slaggers could've offlined you forcing a transformation with this much damage to your energy systems. Be glad you weren't online for that." Ratchet stopped talking for a few nanokliks, a dark look on his faceplates. "Glitches then fragging ordered us to go out and find Dirt Boss and Wreck-Gar."

Optimus thought that it was probably a good thing Omega Supreme had chased the seeker clones off instead of letting Ratchet go at them. He knew at some point he should probably review the footage as the Autobot Second in Command, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. He has seen forced transformations before, and watching his friends and comrades negotiate for him didn't sound appealing.

"Ultra Magnus ordered us to split up. Search for the AllSpark bots and continue our search and rescue attempts. We followed the trail of your distress signal and headed out in that direction. Omega Supreme set up several trace programs so that if we got into contact again we might be able to trace their signal. Didn't get anything until the middle of the next solar cycle." Ratchet moved from working on his torso circuits to his arms. Optimus wondered if Ratchet already replaced any near his spark since those were the most delicate and potentially dangerous to work on, especially when a bot was conscious and might move.

"That one started like the last. Demands for you, demands for the AllSpark bots. Claims that the AllSpark bots were missing." Ratchet wasn't looking up so he didn't see Optimus' look of surprise.

"Claims?" Optimus asked, curious now. Did they find Wreck-Gar? I know they wouldn't have turned Dirt Boss over. They couldn't have. They knew what the clones would do to him.

"Oh, that's right. You wouldn't know. Before that contact, Bumblebee and Brawn found Wreck-Gar. Managed to convince him to go with 'em to the space bridge with promises he would get to explore the galaxy. And likely spread garbage. He was sent to Cybertron as quickly as possible." Ratchet did glance up at him for a moment as he added, "he should be safe for now. Likely will get to 'explore the galaxy' in some sort of protective custody."

Optimus relaxed the cables he hadn't even realized he had tensed.

"Now, where was I?" Ratchet rhetorically asked. "That's right. We got another call from 'em. After exchanging 'pleasantries' you interrupted with that grapple stunt. For a moment we all though you'd managed to get free and were going to yell at you for being a glitched aft and going after the seekers yourself, but it became obvious pretty quick you were barely in control of your own chassis. They cut the feed pretty quickly after that. Red Alert and I agreed that it was likely a Systems Scrambler." Abruptly Ratchet straightened up and glared pointedly at him. "You should've known better than to fight like that. Systems Scramblers aren't commonly used, even by Decepticons, because they tend to de-stabilize sparks, especially when a bot fights it."

A shudder ran down Optimus' frame. He hadn't known that. Autobot Academy didn't really cover contraband items. Maybe it should, just so a bot knew what to do if one was used on them.

"I didn't know that." Optimus closed his optics. "Did I…was my spark…?"

"It was unstable, but not critically so. Still, it was a delicate operation to remove the Scrambler without fully de-stabilizing your spark." Ratchet went back to fixing him. "And now you know. Really should teach bots about these things."

After a cycle of silence, Optimus quietly prompted Ratchet to continue. "So you saw a bit of the fight…"

A grunt, then, "Omega Supreme couldn't trace the signal back completely to its source, but we got a better idea of where you might be. We carefully staked out the area. In the middle of the night the seekers appeared in our tracking radius. Couldn't follow 'em without tipping 'em off, so we laid in wait." Ratchet moved to work on his other arm, venting a soft sigh. "Took nearly a solar cycle to catch their signals again. Omega Supreme followed as close as he could back to their base. Caught their last transmission and used it to track 'em to an exact building."

Optimus considered that for a moment. "They found out about Wreck-Gar, didn't they?"

Ratchet nodded, carefully shifting the last of Optimus' armor back into place. "Don't know exactly how, but they got enough information to realize we'd already found and secured him."

"And that's when they…" Optimus trailed off.

"Threatened to blast your spark?" Ratchet finished the sentence. "Yep. She's lucky she didn't actually try."

"How many bots saw?" And how slagged am I? He wondered.

"You don't need to worry about being kicked outta the Guard." Ratchet told him. "Ultra Magnus' been around long enough to know about spark defenses. The team, on the other servo, probably won't let up about it until you explain."

That wasn't something he was looking forward to.

Wolf Prime: Glad you liked it, and yep, OP got better. To answer your question, no, Slipstream never intended on forcing a sparkmerge. She was merely threatening to shoot him directly in the spark which she thought would be a good way to get Wreck-Gar. Too bad he was already gone and OP isn't killed easily that way. :P Thanks for the review!

Optimus'girl: Just FYI, the Crystal Reversion Matrix is more like a shield around his spark, not a characteristic of his spark itself. Since it deflects energy he has to be able to retract it to be intimate. It'll probably come up more in the fic. Rescued OP is good. Thanks for another review!

Sounddrive: LOL I suppose he has been out of it a bit much, but it was necessary to fix OP. Won't be happening again (at least for a while methinks.) Glad you liked my plot hole filler. :D And the Dinobots are still online. Since they aren't powered by AllSpark shards they are relatively safe. And since they like Dinobot Island, they'll stay there for the time being. Thanks for the review!

scrin99: Glad you liked my plot hole filler too. And I like my nice rabbit hole. It has many many furry critters to entertain me...except when they start biting. :D Thanks for another review!