Family Matters

Chapter Ten

The descent from the plane was not as bad as I'd feared, but the impact was much worse. Magnus and I land a dune apart in the sand, but where he kneels with the landing to absorb the energy I stagger from a stabbing pain in my chassis and roll twice. Something bursts and begins leaking, though at a slow rate. On my back in the hot sand, I run a quick diagnostic and find the sparkling mercifully unharmed by the fall, though its mass compressed an umbilical line against my spark chamber and has split it. It's a small problem that can wait, though convincing Magnus of that is likely to be an uphill battle.

Severing the parachute lines and getting to my feet, I take a moment for the sun's warmth to take the edge off my nausea whilst I locate the humans. Though controlled, the parachutes have still spread them out though my scans tell me that they are all unharmed. Magnus jogs to my side as I turn my attention to the leak in my chassis, pressing on the part through my armour to stem the flow. Before he can say anything I hold up a hand. "It's fine, Magnus, just a small puncture. Mikaela can repair it at the pyramid."

He looks far from convinced, optics bright and fixed on the diluted energon seeping through my fingers. It is possibly the least severe injury he's ever seen on me. "Are you sure, Prime? It may trigger the sparkling to-"

"The sparkling is due in twelve days, not twelve hours. Stop fretting," I break in flatly, not regretting the irritation apparent in my tone. There is no time for coddling or excessive care. Seconds later I'm, what Sam would phrase 'eating my words', as the sparkling unleashes a volley of hard kicks to my abused internals. It's enough to put me on my knees again, my arms wrapped about my chassis as if it might help.

It doesn't reassure Magnus, whose hands are on my back running a myriad of scans. A rush of air through his vents and he shakes his head, optics wide on me. "I can feel it. Prime, I can feel it moving within you."

My response is ground out through my dentals as my son continues to play merry pit with my innards. "Yes, I can feel it too. It's a blessed miracle." A groan escapes me and I bow my head, forcing down the sickly need to purge. "He kicks if I move suddenly – amongst other things. I'm being punished for the landing."

"I see. I didn't think." He falls silent kneeling at my side, watching the humans congregate as they come towards us. I make to stand but think better of it, realising that I'll only need to kneel again to speak to them when they get here anyway. Magnus drums his fingers against my backstrut before withdrawing his hand, resting it across his thigh. "They don't realise how hard this is, do they?"

I know that it is not only the exhuming or butchery of our ancestors of which he speaks. Magnus was always astute, and tactful enough not to say it outright. "They don't need to know. I'm carrying, not mortally wounded."

Magnus smiles a little, sympathy laced with something I don't recognise. "You are not invulnerable, even if you are Prime. If there's anything I or any of us can do to help, please do not hesitate to ask it."

The gentle request reminds me that sometimes even token gestures of aid can be rewarding when one can't be of significant help, and that I should accept them from friends as it's as much for them as for myself. "I'll keep it in mind," I assure softly, shifting my weight now that the sparkling has satisfied its sadistic whims and stilled once more.

Lennox jogs up the dune to my feet with Epps, leaving Sam and Mikaela behind thanks to his rigorous physical training, and doubtless the trauma of the jump. He raises his hand as a shield against the sun. "Are you alright, Optimus? Bad landing?"

I find myself glancing to Magnus before looking back to the concerned soldier. "I'll need Mikaela's assistance to repair a damaged line when we reach the pyramid, but it is not urgent."

His stare lingers, scrutinizing me for which I keep my facial plates absolutely still. Finally he nods. "Okay. Thanks for being upfront about it. We're only a few clicks from the pyramid."

I exchange a glance with Magnus, finding him giving me a smile that is almost a smirk. A hand pressed to my side, I ignore the look and begin to slowly follow Lennox as the other humans gather behind.

The security cordon around the pyramid had been extended by a quarter of a mile as those protecting it didn't have the clearance to know what was in it – let alone witness the arrival and work of two Autobots. The Prime's tomb was in an ancient structure a little way from the semi-destroyed pyramid itself, and Optimus found his gaze lingering on the shattered peak as he lay still on the flagstones. Lennox's men were setting up lights and containers around the broken-in entrance whilst Mikaela worked inside his chassis.

"Magnus, can you bring the light closer?" she called out from under his chest plates, led on her stomach in the overalls and welding gloves Optimus had brought in a storage hatch.

The big mech shifted accordingly, bringing the bright lights on his chest down to penetrate the shadows in Prime's chassis. Uneasy and respectful, he averted his optics from the sight and noted with a sigh that Sam and Lennox did not. A soft click from Optimus summoned his attention.

"It's alright, Magnus. I've learnt once over already that sparkbaring comes at the cost of some dignity," Optimus assured softly, trying to draw the mech out a little. Truthfully what Mikaela was doing hurt and worried him, and he could use the distraction.

"And some energon," Mikaela chimed in as she shifted back out between the metal plates, holding her energon-coated arms away from her. Both mechs frowned at the amount of it, and her own frown didn't ease them. "Are you sure it's a burst line, Optimus? I can't find it."

After glancing to Optimus for permission, Lennox climbed up onto the broad chassis and knelt beside Mikaela, taking the pocket flashlight from her to see for himself. "So where's the energon coming from?"

"I felt the line split." Shifting his gaze upwards, he touched at his finial to project a simplified model of his upper chassis. The sparkling lay encased in a silver cocoon of cables and wires, tucked beneath and below the Matrix and with his own spark chamber above it all. He summoned a red light onto that convergence. "There. It was crushed against my spark casing."

Mikaela sat back on her heels when the hologram blinked out, her lips pressed in a thin line. "I can't get around the sparkling to reach up there. I guess you're too far along."

"So what now?" Sam asked from the lying mech's shoulder, one hand resting on his armour in a gesture of reassurance.

Optimus glanced to the pair on his chest to make sure they were out of the way before beginning to reseal the parts, a clear indication that the attempted intervention was over. After they'd slid down his ribstruts he sat up, subtly pressing his fist into his back. "It leaks. It's not a significant rate and we will be returning to the Base, and subsequently the Medbay, in a few days."

Lennox ran a hand through his hair, forcing his expression to remain neutral. They'd just gotten here and already there was a problem that, no matter what Optimus said, they were going to worry about. "Can't you just shut off the line?"

The mech shook his head, resting a hand on his knee to push up to his feet. "Not without cutting off the sparkling entirely. It's a separate framework that I don't have full control over."

Magnus shifted his weight, optics narrowed. "Prime, perhaps it would be best if-"

"No," Optimus cut him off, harsh and flat. "I am at no risk of running dry and all of the Autobots are at risk of death if we do not do what we came here to do."

A thick silence before Magnus nodded. "Yes Sir."

With a quick glance across the humans that conveyed the same firm message, Optimus stepped past them to the hole in the wall that had been made two years ago. The soldiers had taken down the boards covering it and now lights and generators were gathered around the entrance. No one had gone inside, as ordered.

Expecting Magnus to follow, Optimus knocked a few fistfuls of stone inwards to make the entrance big enough before ducking inside. The lights did little for the expansive room, and he lit his own and watched the angular shadows sway when the other mech did the same behind him. The bodies were all taller and thinner than him, twisted and hunched to form a cage around an artefact that was no longer found on the central stone. Their faces were at once anguished and determined, and he bowed his head beneath their darkened optics.

Beside him, Magnus descended to one knee in the old sand. "Primus, forgive us for what we do."

"If it were for anything less than our survival, we would not," Optimus uttered softly, feeling as if no words above a murmur could be spoken here.

Stepping forwards, he hesitated a moment before laying his hand on the arm of one of his ancestors. It felt sturdy and emanated a foreign coldness. His fingers traced upwards and across, hooking over rib struts and finally stopping on the protomatter between that had hardened with a pitted surface. He stepped back and took in the circumference of the room the bodies made, finally looking to Magnus. "There's enough, but we'll have to cut it out."

Instinct pressed Magnus to rebel and refuse, as it no doubt did for Optimus. However he simply nodded and extended a cutting saw from his arm. He hesitated to apply the blade until his commander had sunk his own into a Prime's chest, optics dark and narrowed with concentration.

Outside the tomb, Lennox and Epps stood at the doorway and watched as their soldiers moved into position around the tomb to stand guard. Sam sat on one of the generators for the lights, staring into the flickering darkness though he couldn't see the mechs working. Mikaela finished stripping off the protective clothing and wrapped it in a tarp, leaving it on one of the crates to sit beside Sam.

Lennox waited for a break in the shrill sound of sawing to ask her: "How serious is that leak with Optimus? Really."

She ran a hand through her hair with a sigh. "I don't know for sure. He's right about it not being a lot of energon lost, even over a few days. It's the where that's worrying me. I don't know if this is like a graze for a pregnant person or a ruptured placenta. Ratchet threw a lot of information at me but a leak I can't patch wasn't covered."

"Well, what did he tell you?" Sam asked, resting a hand on her back and beginning to rub her spine in slow strokes.

Mikaela looked between the three men, and though they were all wearing sunglasses it was obvious that all attention was on her. "Stuff I didn't think I'd actually have to use," she admitted finally, though was uneasy to go on.

Lennox came to squat in front of her, elbows resting on his thighs. "Like what?"

Her jaw tightened as if her mouth were sealing the words in. Truthfully it wasn't a secret, but saying it aloud felt like inviting it somehow. "How to manage a labour, or a miscarriage. He said those were the two worst-case scenarios whilst we were out here."

"I thought he was almost two weeks off being due?" Epps asked, his tone coming off as more accusing than he'd intended. "And isn't the thing about machines that they're reliable about details like that?"

"Well, yeah, but these machines are alive," Mikaela replied with raised brows, as if that were an obvious fact. "No one can predict that. If his systems decide that the sparkling is better off out than in, then it'll start the labour sequence and that's unstoppable."

Lennox pinched the bridge of his nose in a gesture he knew full well he'd picked up from Optimus. "Okay, so worst case scenario the babe wants to come early. What are we talking about here? Is this like a Twix dropping out of a machine or human childbirth?"

Despite the seriousness of the subject, Mikaela's nose crinkled with a laugh at the comparison. "Somewhere in the middle. Like how a woman needs to dilate and the baby turns to face down first, his components will have to rearrange so that the sparkling can come out."

"So, worst comes to worst he can do it on his own?" Epps asked, looking between Lennox and Mikaela. "I mean, he's done it once already, right? With Tempest."

Sam shook his head with a groan, sitting back a little. "That was more like an emergency C-section in the middle of a battlefield whilst Megatron was stomping across to shoot them and take the baby."

"And Ratchet's said that that was a rushed job before the labour sequence had had a chance to finish. It nearly killed him," Mikaela added, clearly recalling how Ratchet had described those events to her. As part of her training as an assistant medic, Ratchet had deemed it important for her to know how things worked at their worst as well as in optimum circumstances. In a Medbay with a trained medic, delivery was straightforward and over quickly after the sequence had run, which in itself took about eight hours. In a hostile environment without the luxury of time, it became in equal parts a race against leaks and an application of pure brute force. She shook her head, reassuring herself once more that that wouldn't happen.

"Sam."

Optimus's voice made them all jump and Sam flashed a guilty smile before jogging inside the tomb. Stepping past the trailing leads of the lights and then deeper, he stopped with his arms wrapped about himself a little way from Magnus's foot looking up at the slightly taller mech. This place gave him the creeps on a fundamental level, let alone whilst they were effectively cutting away body pieces to take back with them. "Yeah Optimus?"

Unaware of the conversation he'd been the topic of outside, the mech knelt and held out a house brick sized chunk of protomatter. "Please take this outside. I wish to know if it remains intact."

Taking some comfort from the fact that the chunk looked and felt a bit like a cinder block, Sam obligingly took it to the threshold and, after a pause, stepped out onto the flagstones. The protomatter in his hands promptly disintegrated into ash which dispersed in the breeze up into his face. Sam's stomach twisted as he coughed. "Dead Prime… in my mouth." An exchanged look of horror with Mikaela before he doubled over, still coughing. "Oh Christ..."

Heavy footfalls didn't halt his coughing fit though he did back away and look up, meeting Optimus's troubled optics. The mech held a proportionally sized chunk in his own hand and held it out through the gap, further than Sam had taken his sample. The protomatter remained solid and he sighed, lowering his hand to deposit the piece in the first open container. His backstrut was already hurting. "It seems I'll have to physically remove it from the tomb myself. This… could take time." A thoughtful sound before he vanished back through the doorway and into the tomb, followed by Magnus's cutting saw falling silent as the news was relayed.

"Great," Epps drawled, rubbing his forehead and walking to the edge of the flagstones. "Not only is the boss now leaking and on the verge of giving birth, but he's doing all the heavy lifting." A glance over the apparently-endless expanse of desert. "Yeah, this is gonna go swell."

When night comes I find myself too worn to combat Magnus's insistence of rest to continue working as I had planned, sitting against the wall outside the tomb with the desert before me and absorbing blackness speckled with stars above me. He and I harvested from two sources (the only wording that doesn't completely twist my tanks to describe what we're doing) today and the substance was flown out by helicopter an hour ago. It will land and the containers will be loaded onto a plane to be flown overseas and back to the Base, where hopefully Starscream and Ratchet will be able to use it immediately. Based on how much we removed today and how much Starscream told me he needed, I approximate another four Primes.

Reaffirming that fact also reaffirms my protoform-deep exhaustion, and I rest my helm back against the stone. The soldiers not on watch duty are asleep in tents, as are Sam and Mikaela, Magnus has elected to work inside the tomb for another hour, and I have been left in peace. My processor is too restless for recharge, though, as much as it is sorely required.

The leaking in my chassis has not ceased or slowed, but has remained such an insubstantial trickle that I pay it little mind, especially as it seems that it is doing no harm to the sparkling. My son is incredibly active, though, far worse than Tempest was during his final weeks. I can only guess that it is all the physical drama of late and that he will settle again soon. I hope so, at least. Without Ironhide's presence it is more pain than agitating discomfort.

We had decided not to leave the bond fully open between us whilst I was here, worried that the transmission of pain and anxiety over a distance impossible to close again with any immediacy would be both distracting and torturous. As I'm supposed to be recharging, and at this hour in the time zone Ironhide should be too, I send a gentle nudge to him.

His response is immediate and startled. :Optimus? What's wrong? Did something happen?:

I can't help but chuckle a dry laugh. :No, everything's fine. It's going well. The first shipment of protomatter is on its way and should be in Starscream and Ratchet's hands by tomorrow night.;

A sigh of relief, significant enough for me to perceive over the relatively soundless connection. :What about you? Are you and the sparkling okay?:

It's only a momentary thought to tell him about the split line, but it is such a trivial thing that he will doubtless transform into a disaster simply because neither he nor Ratchet can get to me. Shuttering my optics with a smile, I settle for, :Both in good shape. He's been brutal in his punishment for all the travelling we've done.:

:Glad to hear it: he grunts, a wash of concern and love underlying the words. :One of those processors had to have some sense.:

The sparkling twists to roll again, using the Matrix as a brace for its feet. I grit my dentals and rub over the already-bruised area just as he grinds against it. :How's Tempest?:

:Missing you, but me and Screamer are getting by with him. He's holding up alright to the necrosis where Ratchet was all scared for him.: A pause as he seems to simply enjoy the feel of our bond reopened, and I too relax into the warm sensation. :All the Seekers' had their wings removed, which helped.:

Given the sensitivity of those parts, I can perfectly understand why. :I see.:

A shunted laugh. :Fun times.:

Magnus's cutting blades have gone quiet inside the tomb, and I make to get up but a savage kick into my spark case has me rethink the move. I will likely be admonished by the well-meaning soldier for not recharging, and it's been too long since Ironhide and I have spoken. :How're things at the Base?:

:As expected. Frequently too loud, occasionally unsettlingly quiet, only with everyone sick. A few bots, like Jazz, are pretty much stuck in the Medbay now.:

I can imagine it, and it makes me glad that we've already sent one shipment of protomatter back. :What about you? How's your leg?:

:I've got a brace on it. That helps. I can put up with it for a while yet.:

He won't expand on it more than that, I know, and I rub my optics. :Hopefully Starscream will make quick work of figuring out how to use the Primes' protomatter.:

:Don't doubt it. He's figuring out on his own protomatter first.:

His tone, both certain and a little admiring, surprises me infinitely more than the fact that Starscream is experimenting on himself. I had hoped for an amicable working relationship between them, but it sounds like Ironhide is finally coming to respect Tempest's guardian. :That's…:

:Starscream: he interrupts with a 'tuh' that is far more characteristic of their relationship.

Silence aside from the low drone from the winds across the sand dunes and the schlucht of our son fidgeting. I look up to the stars, knowing that my sparkmate would be seeing the same ones if he were outside. :I miss you.:

A rumbled purr from his engine. :I love you.:

I smile, tapping back to the sparkling when he kicks. :That too.:

:How's Magnus holding up?:

My smile turns dry and I roll my optics habitually. :Fretting worse than you, if that's possible.:

:Glad to hear it: he replies, and it's clear in his voice that he is. His tone drops again, coming into my mind softly. :You sound tired. You should be recharging.:

:I was waiting for that.: The whine of the saw begins again from the tomb and I suppress a shiver at the image of Magnus sinking it into another Prime's body . :We should shut the bond again.:

:Yeah. We should.: It's an agreement softened with reluctance.

Bringing my knee up and resting my wrist on it, I settle against the stone wall again and press back against the sparkling. :Rest well, 'Hide. I love you.:

:You too. Both of you.:

We both linger silently with the open bond before I take the initiative and seal it from my end, feeling the presence of his mind fade immediately afterwards as he does the same. Evidentially tired from its exertions and finally comfortable in the increasingly cramped space, the sparkling stills with what I estimate to be its shoulder against my hand. With a final scan over the vicinity, I shutter my optics and sink into recharge.