"All right! Shape up, you two!"
Thundercracker in "Countdown to Extinction"

Skywarp stuck his head tentatively into the room, squinted into the darkness with a perplexed frown on his face. Finally noticing me sitting on the floor, he loudly demanded of me, "Why's it so damned dark in here?

It was dark, of course, because I hadn't yet gathered the presence of mind to think of turning on the lights. It was also dark simply because I wanted it to be dark. Darkness, at least for me, facilitated ordered, rational thinking which in turn tended to calm me. And at the moment I needed calm.

I told none of this to Skywarp, though. I merely stared back at him through the dim lights of our quarters. So, since I hadn't seen fit to answer Skywarp's first question, he sighed at me and then apparently decided to enter the room and ask me another one, maybe thinking that he'd get a more satisfying reaction out of me. He knew that if I was sitting in the dark, then I was probably busy thinking…and he knew that, of late, I had been given to pondering rather unpleasant topics.

"Where the hell have you been, Thundercracker?" Skywarp plaintively asked, as he paced like a caged black panther back and forth in front of my spot on the floor. "You were supposed to be down in the Rec Room two hours ago!"

I knew that. I knew that I was supposed to be meeting Skywarp in the Rec Room for some mysterious reason known only to Skywarp. Since I was always instantly wary whenever Skywarp tried to convince me that he needed me for something but at the same time refused to specify exactly why he needed me, I'd ended up dawdling in my quarters instead. And because of that, I unfortunately had ended up being a vicarious witness, yet again, to the commotion that had just occurred in Starscream's quarters.

Starscream's quarters were just across and down the corridor a few doors from Skywarp's and mine. His quarters were close enough to ours that, unfortunately, if something loud was happening in his quarters, we were usually able hear it in ours. Lately, very loud things seemed to be happening in Starscream's quarters more and more often. The latest episode, in fact, had just ended a moment ago, and that was what had triggered this latest thinking spell of mine. And it occurred to me, as Skywarp stood over me, staring down at me demandingly, that he had to have known what was going to happen and that that was why he'd wanted me in the Rec Room with him rather than here, alone in our quarters. Sneaky…

Sneaky or not, though, I realized at that moment that I should have had the sense to leave my quarters and join Skywarp, that I should have had the sense to leave my quarters as soon as I'd heard Megatron heading purposefully down the corridor. I should have done what Skywarp had wanted me to do. But instead, I had stayed.

I had stayed, and I had heard Megatron's loud, distinctive footsteps marching slowly down the corridor that ran outside my quarters. His steps had been heavy, stomping, and rhythmic, and they had clearly conveyed Megatron's simmering anger with Starscream. They had passed my quarters and had then halted, as I'd known they would, outside of Starscream's quarters, to which Megatron had banished Starscream as soon as we'd returned to base after the whole Negavator fiasco. Megatron had entered Starscream's quarters…and the noise had started shortly thereafter.

There had been a brief argument between the two of them. I could hear the tone of their voices, could even occasionally make out some of the vicious, heated words they'd yelled at each other. But the argument had quickly devolved into a spate of high-pitched yelping that, although the actual words had been muffled, had seemed to me to be more like pleading than arguing. Then there had been several loud crashes that could only have been a body thrown against a wall and that had made me cringe in empathy despite myself, followed by a sudden, all-consuming silence that had, contrarily, spoken volumes. And then, just a short time later, Megatron's footsteps had marched back up the corridor and past my door again, only this time his steps had been quite obviously lighter than they had been earlier, as if tossing Starscream around the room and doing Primus knew what else to him had served the purpose of suddenly putting Megatron in a much better mood.

I should have known that the confrontation between Starscream and Megatron was going to happen. After this latest incident with the Negavator and Starscream's apparent collusion with an Autobot, Megatron had been in a rage, worse than I'd ever seen him, even after the Nightbird affair months ago. He had needed to vent that rage upon something. Or upon someone. That someone, naturally, was Starscream. I had known that it was going to happen, although I hadn't exactly expected to be something of a spectator of that venting. That was what had sent me reeling into a flurry of disturbed and disorganized thoughts. That was why I'd ended up sitting on the floor of my quarters as if rooted to the spot, trying desperately, on the one hand, to forget what I'd just overheard while on the other hand trying in vain to understand it.

I felt…violated, perhaps, as if whatever had been inflicted upon Starscream had somehow been similarly inflicted upon me. In the aftermath, I felt dazed, confused and, in the end, angry. I was angry not on Starscream's behalf, but simply because I had been subjected to what I'd overheard when I had wanted no part of it, when I had wanted to simply be able to ignore the two of them in favor of minding my own business. But that, it seemed, was impossible for me.

I wanted to talk to Skywarp. I needed him, wanted him. I wanted him to just gather me up, carry me away, and make it all go away, make it all better. But…I just couldn't tell him that, even though he was right there in the room with me, staring at me as if he thought I was some kind of lunatic. I just felt…frozen.

Skywarp, meanwhile, was growing impatient with my lack of response to his questions. He grumbled something under his breath and then stomped over to me and crouched down in front of me. Then he grabbed my chin none too gently to get my attention, forcibly and demandingly raising my downturned gaze to his.

"Hey!" he barked as he stared into my eyes. "Anyone home in there?"

"I'm here," I murmured after a moment spent staring dully at him. My voice sounded, even to me, a little on the slurred and shell-shocked side.

"Well then, answer the question. Where've you been?" Skywarp repeated, exasperated.

"I was here," I answered Skywarp quietly, vaguely, in the same dull, stunned sort of voice I'd used before. I looked across at him, and I noticed that he was quite clearly exasperated with me. That didn't seem to sink into my head, though; I had absolutely no idea, at that moment, why in the world Skywarp would be exasperated with me. I was too busy trying to stop my head from spinning as my mind tried to assimilate all that it had just absorbed. "I was…thinking," I elaborated when Skywarp said nothing in reply to me.

"Oh, what a shock!" was Skywarp's sarcastic and, to my audios, somewhat miffed response as he plopped himself unceremoniously onto his backside in front of me. "What was it this time?" he wanted to know. "Pondering why humans drive on parkways and park on driveways?"

His sarcastic tone of voice had the effect of wrenching me firmly back to reality. My thoughts, which had been spinning and fuzzy, were suddenly clear, almost to the point of being rational.

"No," I replied evenly, which was all I said for a long moment. But then, after gathering my nerve, taking a deep preparatory breath, and looking Skywarp straight in the eye, I dove headlong into the issue at hand. "No, this time I was actually thinking about Starscream and Megatron."

It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to overhear what I'd just overheard and not subsequently think about the two of them. It just seemed to me that, this time, I couldn't think straight about them. I couldn't comprehend what I'd just heard, the reason that it had happened, or the reason that something very similar had happened on numerous other occasions – and more and more frequently – in the recent past. Most of all, I couldn't comprehend the reasons why Starscream would tolerate the punishments that he received from Megatron and, worse, why he sometimes seemed to deliberately provoke Megatron into giving him such punishments. In this particular case, with the Negavator incident, Starscream had to have known that Megatron would have somehow found out about his clandestine dealings with an Autobot, and he had to have known what the consequences of his actions would be when – not if, when – he was found out. Yet, he hadn't seemed to care.

Starscream wasn't stupid. That much I knew. There was usually a distinct method to even his most outrageous madness. Perhaps he had thought that the possible result of his actions – getting rid of Megatron – justified the risks involved with the plan he'd devised. But somehow…I didn't think that was the case. Something else seemed to be driving Starscream lately, making him do all sorts of flamboyantly crazy things that he had to know would only have unfortunate consequences…but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that was compelling him to be even more outrageous than usual.

Whatever was driving Starscream, though, I'd noticed a definite cyclical pattern in his and Megatron's relationship of late, a pattern that overhearing their latest confrontation had made crystal-clear to me. Starscream would go through a period of relentlessly provoking Megatron, to the point that Megatron had to retaliate against him. Megatron would then react, lately with increasingly brutal violence, and then Starscream would afterwards be chastened and quiet and obedient…for a little while. But he'd eventually go right back to provoking Megatron, starting the whole cycle over again. And, as if that wasn't enough, I'd also noticed that if Starscream wasn't regularly doing any provoking, then Megatron would do something that would set Starscream up for a fall so that Megatron, in turn, could retaliate against him anyway.

I didn't understand it at all. Any of it. It was a pattern that profoundly disturbed me not so much because I really cared about either of the individuals involved or about what they chose to do to each other in private, but rather because it seemed to me as if both of them were obsessing so much about each other that nothing else was being accomplished.

I knew that I should probably talk to Skywarp about whole issue. He was the person to whom I always turned whenever I had a problem. I depended upon him for that. But in this case, Skywarp was…Skywarp, of course. He was and always had been fiercely loyal to Megatron. Megatron always came first; he'd told me that more than once. At the same time, he had always been extremely competitive with Starscream, neither of which made it likely that he'd be able to discuss the issue that was plaguing me with anything resembling objectivity. He'd brushed off my concerns after the Nightbird incident, and I was certain he'd do the same now. Nevertheless, I knew that I needed to talk to someone, and Skywarp was the only individual in the entirety of Decepticon Headquarters who might listen to me, even if it was only because he might feel obligated to do so. And that was all I needed, really. Just someone to listen to me when I talked. I didn't expect anyone to do anything about the problem, really. I knew, after all, that there really were no answers and solutions to the issue at hand, short of killing either Megatron or Starscream. The issue was simply way too complex for one or two people to solve.

So, I had brought up the subject in a rather point-blank kind of way. I was curious to see what Skywarp's reaction would be to my revelation that it was Megatron and Starscream who were plaguing my thoughts. As it turned out, he reacted pretty much as I'd thought he would react. For a fleeting moment, his expression went completely blank, as if that was the last answer in the world that he'd expected to hear from me. But then comprehension dawned on him. He rose to his feet then and looked as if he wanted to pace around the room but found that he was oddly frozen to the spot. So he looked down at me and spoke to me in a calm and detached voice, as if what was happening between our leader and his second-in-command was no big deal at all.

"So they were at it again, huh?" he said neutrally. "In Starscream's quarters?"

"Yes," I said bleakly, rising to my feet as well so that he wouldn't be able to continue looking down at me, as if he were…judging me. "Yes, they were. For almost an hour."

Skywarp sighed exasperatedly. In fact, if he were he human, I'm quite certain he would have rolled his eyes at me.

"Thundercracker, why are you letting them get to you so much?" he asked wearily. "I told you to just ignore them. That's what I do."

Skywarp's response was irritating, mostly because, deep down, I wished that I could just ignore Starscream and Megatron and their…oddities. My life would be infinitely easier if I could just ignore them. I could just do my job like I was supposed to do and just not worry about anything else. How much more enjoyable my life would be if I could just do that! But I couldn't do that. It wasn't in my nature. My nature was to contemplate, to rationalize, to explain, to convince myself that something was or was not right. In this particular case, it just wasn't easy to do that, and that frustrated me. Unfortunately, that frustration came out quite clearly in what I said next.

"Well, ignorance just isn't as easy for everyone else as it seems to be for you, Skywarp," I sniped, folding my arms defensively across my chest.

There was quite a bit more acid in my tone than I'd intended it to have. After all, I was more annoyed with myself than I was with Skywarp. It wasn't his fault that I couldn't simply ignore the situation and let things be, as he could so easily do. So, I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth and especially after Skywarp aimed a genuinely irritated – and hurt – glare at me. He was often teased about being just a little bit on the air-headed side, so he was somewhat used to it. He could usually laugh off such taunts or at least come back with some well-aimed barbs of his own. But he wasn't at all used to hearing such taunts coming from me. In fact, I wasn't used to hearing them coming from me, either. Still, I felt that some important things needed to be said, and I wasn't going to get sidetracked now by attempting to mollify Skywarp's bruised ego.

"Don't you see what's been going on around here, Skywarp?" I asked plaintively of him, hoping against hope that he did see things as they were and that he'd be willing to talk to me.

Of course, that was too great a hope…

"Oh, yeah," Skywarp answered me, angry sarcasm dripping from his voice as he stiffened his back and crossed his own arms over chest, mirroring my determined stance. "Yeah, I've seen you being all weird and broody ever since that whole Nightbird thing a few months back. That's what I've seen going on around here."

I sighed wearily and rubbed at my forehead, instantly regretting bringing up the whole subject with Skywarp. I had known that he'd turn the argument into an attack against me. When it came to discussing anything regarding Megatron that I disagreed with, that was always Skywarp's favorite defensive tactic. Usually, it worked; I'd retreat into a defensive little shell and skulk away with what was left of my dignity in the wake of his withering sarcasm. But this time I was determined that I wasn't going to allow Skywarp's favorite tactic to work against me.

"This isn't about me, Skywarp," I replied with a weary sigh. "This is about them."

Skywarp snorted derisively and retorted, "How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through that thick head of yours, Thundercracker? They've always been…the way they are."

"No, Skywarp," I countered quietly. I began to pace around the room while continuing, "No, that isn't true. I know it isn't true because I've seen them change myself. Maybe you don't see it, or maybe you do see it but just don't want to acknowledge it. Or whatever. But they have changed. They weren't at each other's throats nearly as often back on Cybertron. Don't you remember? How it used to be? Back on Cybertron? We used to be successful, Skywarp. We used to rule Cybertron. All of it. People lived in fear of us. The Autobots were practically extinct. But now look at us. We cower under an ocean, and we're thwarted at every turn. Megatron's plans since our arrival here have ultimately led to nothing but failure. The humans outwit us! And I can't help but wonder if that isn't at least partly because Megatron seems to have his mind more focused on other things than on the overall Decepticon cause."

"They've always…poked each other," was all that Skywarp said to me after that long speech. "You know that. You've been there all along to see it."

I stopped pacing then and turned around to face Skywarp, wondering if he'd heard a word that I'd said. I knew that he could be defensive, even protective, when it came to Megatron, but I never expected that he'd not even be willing to see reason when someone carefully laid the facts out in front of him. I resolved to try to make my point even clearer.

"Yes, I have been," I conceded. "But I don't think you even heard what I said, Skywarp. Yeah, they poked each other back on Cybertron. Sometimes. But those occasions were not nearly as frequent back then as they are now if only because, half the time, Starscream was halfway around the planet from Megatron back then. There was physical distance between them that they can't have now since we're all stuck in this damned tin can. But even back then, even with the occasional flare-ups, they worked well as a team, and we often won back then. We don't win now, Skywarp. We never win. Ever stop to think about why that might be so?"

Skywarp didn't answer me for a long time. He just stared at me, his expression half thoughtful and half baleful. When he did finally speak up, though, his voice was low and quiet. It was, for him, the very first sign of genuine anger. So, I knew then that I was treading on dangerous ground…but for some strange reason, I felt that I had to keep going.

"There could be any number of reasons why we're not winning right now, Thundercracker," Skywarp was growling at me, meanwhile. "This is a different planet, a totally different environment, and it's inhabited by billions of hostile natives. Individually, they're of no threat to us, but when there are billions of them underfoot…Well, that calls for some different strategy. Megatron just hasn't found the right one to use yet and so we've had some…setbacks. But that doesn't mean that he's become so obsessed with Screamer, or whatever the hell it is that you're implying, that he doesn't care about the cause anymore."

"Oh really?" I retorted. "Just some 'setbacks'? Well, answer me this, then, Skywarp: Why are Starscream and Megatron getting worse when it comes to fighting with each other, to the point of physical violence like…that?" I asked, waving at the wall in order to indicate what I'd just overheard in Starscream's quarters.

"Because Screamer's getting dumber by the day and insists on bringing it all on himself," Skywarp immediately and scathingly shot back. When I only speared him with an irritated glance in reply, he continued, "Hey, if he's stupid enough to do that, then as far as I'm concerned he deserves whatever the hell he gets. I mean, this time he openly plotted against Megatron. With an Autobot! Is Megatron supposed to just overlook that? Pat him on the head and send him on his merry way?"

"No," I replied as calmly and patiently as I could, coming to rest in my pacing in front of Skywarp. "No, of course he isn't supposed to overlook that. Not if he wants to remain a respected leader."

"See?" Skywarp said with a triumphant grin, as if his reasoning explained everything.

Ignoring him, I added, "But he also isn't supposed to set Starscream up like he did."

Skywarp frowned quizzically at me then, as if I'd just said something completely nonsensical. Of course, to him what I'd said probably was nonsensical. He had the blind faith and the worshipful attitude that Megatron always did the right thing, or at least that he always had a logical reason for everything that he did, even if Skywarp himself couldn't follow the bouncing logic ball.

"I'm not following where you're going here," Skywarp answered me after a long while spent frowning at me, as if he was trying to decide whether or not I'd lost my mind. "Set him up? What, you think Megatron somehow put the idea to turn traitor into Starscream's little head and then just turned him loose to do it?"

"No, I think Megatron's way more subtle than that," I replied bitterly. When Skywarp just gave me a disbelieving – and slightly betrayed – look in response, I elaborated, "Oh, come on, Skywarp! He left Starscream behind! Alone! And you can't tell me that Starscream did anything wrong or provoked Megatron that time. I mean, if anyone should have been left behind, it should have been Ramjet, since he was the one who actually screwed up!"

"So he left him behind," Skywarp answered with a dismissive shrug. "Screamer's a big boy. I'm sure he could have found his way home just fine. Besides, whatever Megatron did and whatever reason he had for doing it, it doesn't give Starscream a license to go off and find an Autobot to pal around with and plot with and Primus knows what else. It doesn't give him a license to be a traitor."

I got the sudden sense that Skywarp wasn't listening to me anymore, that I'd strayed into a topic that he didn't even want to contemplate, much less discuss, and he'd completely closed his mind to what I was saying. He might as well have covered up his audios and begun singing, La la la…I can't hear you! I realized at that moment that my efforts to make Skywarp see what was going on were probably going to be spectacularly futile. Nevertheless, I had to reply.

"No," I said with a resigned sigh. "But it does make it a hell of a lot easier for him to decide to become one."

Skywarp just looked at me askance then, his head tilted inquisitively to the side, like a befuddled dog. He had no idea what I was trying to say. That might have been because I wasn't explaining myself very clearly, but more likely, it was because Skywarp truly didn't want to understand what I was trying to tell him. Skywarp had his opinion of Megatron, and he didn't want to have to change it. Skywarp liked the status quo, and I was trying to make him see that the status quo absolutely needed to change. Normally, I would have given up in the effort when I realized that Skywarp was no longer listening to me. Continuing to try to convince him would be completely useless, like beating my head against a wall. But this time I felt that the issue was important, perhaps more important than any issue we'd ever discussed before. I felt deeply compelled to get through to Skywarp, to convince him that he needed to think about this issue and its possible repercussions for all of us, for the entire Decepticon organization. So this time, I didn't give up.

"Don't you see, Skywarp?" I elaborated imploringly. "Megatron deliberately put Starscream into that situation, and he knew exactly how Starscream was going to react to it, too. He knew that Starscream would act against him in some way. In fact, I'd almost say that he wanted Starscream to act against him, just to give him an excuse to do…that," I said, waving at the wall again. "Otherwise," I finished, "why would Megatron have had Ravage go back to find and follow Starscream? Not to retrieve him, of course, but just to spy on him? Obviously, Megatron did that so that he would know exactly what Starscream was doing at any given moment while he was gone. So that Starscream could suffer the consequences when he returned."

My logic seemed to have no visible effect on Skywarp's attitude. He simply stood there, his arms still folded tightly over his chest. I could tell that I'd angered him. He was now displaying all his usual symptoms of anger, not just the low, growly voice. His posture was rigidly erect, and it seemed to me that if he gripped the datapad he held in one hand any tighter, it would be crushed in his grasp. He was scowling fiercely, and his eyes were narrowed, glimmering a dark and baleful red in the dimness.

"Did it ever occur to you," Skywarp was grinding out around an angrily clenched jaw, meanwhile, "that maybe Megatron just wanted to see if he could really trust Starscream? That maybe Megatron's considering replacing Starscream with someone else, and he wants to see if it's really necessary to do so right now? I mean, there could be a billion reasons why Megatron did what he did, even if he did 'set up' Starscream. And whatever the real reason is, I'm sure it's a logical one. Because what you're suggesting is just…sick."

After that pronouncement, a long, chilly silence sat between Skywarp and me. It was like a thick but transparent wall, and we stared at each other through it, as if daring each other to be the next to speak. It was a standoff, one from which I, under normal circumstances, would have backed away. But this time, for once, I was the one who picked up the gauntlet.

"Exactly," I pronounced flatly, emotionlessly. Skywarp, after all, had hit the nail on the head, as far as I was concerned. "'Sick' would be a very good word for it, Skywarp. And it's a sickness that's going to destroy the Decepticons."

Skywarp stared at me for a long moment after that, his expression an odd mixture of outrage, disbelief, and a perverse kind of amusement. And then, completely unexpectedly, he laughed out loud. Once he'd caught his breath after that short outburst, he spat scathingly, "Destroy the Decepticons? Oh, riiiiight, Thundercracker!"

"I'm serious!" I shot back. "Their…their thing…is ruining morale. I see signs of it all over the place, even right now, right here between you and me. People are tense, overly-sensitive, too quick to argue and fight. We don't function as a unit anymore. We don't even seem to have a real cause anymore. And that is what will destroy the Decepticons in the end. Because the cause is the only thing that really holds all of us together. Without that, we'll just be at each other's throats. And where will that get us?"

For a moment that seemed to last for hours, Skywarp just shook his head disbelievingly at me. There was a look almost of pity on his face, as if he pitied the unknown, insane person who stood before him. Behind that, though, there was…rage. It was a rage like I'd never seen in him, especially because he'd never directed rage at me before. He'd been annoyed with me often, irritated with me occasionally, even genuinely angry at me for a brief time on half a dozen occasions. But this was…different. Different because I'd never openly criticized Megatron so vehemently before, not in all the many long years that I'd been with Skywarp. Skywarp, in some weird, twistedly protective way, considered criticism of Megatron to be criticism of himself…and Skywarp generally didn't take well to criticism. So, I'd always known what would happen if I had ever decided to voice my displeasure with anything Megatron did or ordered. I knew that Skywarp would be enraged if I did so, and I had never thought any voicing of my thoughts to be worth that consequence. So I'd always avoided the topic, kept it to myself, bottled it up in order to keep the peace. But now I'd reached my limit. Skywarp couldn't handle that.

"You want to know what I think?" Skywarp uttered flatly, uncrossing his arms and taking a couple of steps toward me so that he could belligerently poke me in the chest with one finger. "I think," he continued without giving me any time at all to reply, "that you've gone so crazy that you're seeing things that aren't there. I think that you can't even think straight anymore because of all those damned voices that I know are swimming around in your head. In other words, my dear Thundercracker, I think you're completely…out…of…your…mind," he finished, punctuating each word with a hard poke at my chest. "And I don't have to put up with that."

With that, Skywarp tried to turn away from me. His next step, I knew, would be to storm away from me in an overly dramatic show of disgust. He'd done that a couple of times before, on the very rare occasions when we'd had a loud argument that he thought I might win. He'd run away from me. But I was determined not to let that happen this time. As Skywarp turned away from me and began to take a step toward the door, I reached out and grabbed his arm. His momentum snapped him around to face me again and, since he was knocked off balance, I was able to pull him close to me, so that we were eye-to-eye.

"You want to know what I think, Skywarp?" I hissed, snarling in his face. "I think that you're so blinded by loyalty to Megatron that you can't see what's going on right in front of your face. I think that you're willing to overlook and forgive and justify to yourself anything that he does so long as you're not forced to change your opinion of him. I think that you'll do anything, so long as he stays happy with you. I think that you're quite happy to be whatever he wants you to be, that you don't care if he manipulates you into doing and thinking exactly what he wants you to do and think. And in that, I think you're not at all different from Starscream, and that maybe that's why he grates on you so much. In other words, my dearest Skywarp, even if I'm crazy at least I can think for myself, which is more than I can say for you."

I still had one of Skywarp's arms clenched in a tight grip. Through that grip, I could feel him trembling. I'd known that what I'd said to him would enrage him. Eons of my frustration with Skywarp's loyalty-at-all-costs attitude had come flying out at him, right in Skywarp's face. As I'd said the words, I'd felt, quite simply, that he deserved to hear my ire. After all, what Skywarp had said was quite true; sometimes the voices in my head, each advising me to take a different action, could drive me to distraction, to the point that I'd be reduced to complete inaction simply because I couldn't decide what, precisely, to do. I feared that, one day, the voices would take over, that I would truly be irretrievably insane. I'd known other Decepticons who'd traveled down that road to complete psychosis, and I didn't care to follow them. It was my greatest fear, one that was even more intimidating than my fear of losing Skywarp. Skywarp knew all this, and yet he'd still chosen to poke me in that one exquisitely sensitive spot, knowing that it would do the most damage in the shortest time and with the fewest words. So I had retaliated by poking him back in what I knew was his weakest area. I knew that doing so was petty in the extreme…but it sure felt good.

As good as it felt, though, I knew it had been a mistake to provoke Skywarp in that way when Skywarp emitted a low growl and then, completely unexpectedly, he raised his other arm to me, the one that I didn't have held in a firm grasp, the one that still clutched the datapad in a tight fist. For a moment, it didn't register with me what Skywarp was intending to do. I didn't understand that, in that moment, he'd decided to give me a good backhanded whack in return for what I'd said. Instinctively, I cringed, pulled away from Skywarp, turned my face away from him to protect it from the blow that I suddenly knew was coming…and then belatedly realized that it never came.

I cautiously peeked at Skywarp then, only to see that his arm was still drawn back, prepared to deliver a blow, but also that his face was frozen in horror. It took me a moment to realize that his horror wasn't directed at me for what I'd said but at himself for what he'd been about to do. Stunned, he slowly lowered his arm, staring at his hand as if it had betrayed him, as he took a shaky step backward, away from me. The silence that followed after that was broken only by the sound of the datapad that Skywarp had been holding in his raised hand clattering to the floor after he'd dropped it. He backed a few more steps away from me, only to stumble into the chair that was behind him, nearly losing his balance, but managing to catch himself before he fell in an extremely undignified way. And then he sank heavily into the chair, staring at me wildly for a moment before slouching forward so that he could bury his face in his hands.

"What's happening here, Thundercracker?" he asked after a long moment spent motionlessly slumped over in his chair. He didn't look up at me as he asked the question, and his voice was muffled because he was speaking through his hands.

It was a strange question to ask, I thought, and for a long moment, I just stood there, not knowing exactly how to respond to it or to Skywarp's behavior in general. On the one hand, I was glad that he hadn't hit me, of course. I wasn't sure that I would have known how to handle that, although I was fairly certain that I would have retaliated in kind and then who knew how things might have gone after that. Likely, it wouldn't have been pretty at all. But Skywarp's current behavior was in some ways more perplexing than his previous behavior. I'd pushed him, and he'd reacted. His reaction had been unexpected, yes, but not unprovoked. But now…now he seemed to be wallowing in something that seemed strangely like guilt. It occurred to me that perhaps Skywarp hadn't expected to hit me either and that now he didn't know what to make of what he'd almost done.

Hesitantly, I knelt down in front of the chair in which Skywarp was sitting. I didn't touch him; I just stared at him, sitting back on my heels. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to say to him; I was still quite angry with him for what he'd said, and I wasn't sure that I actually wanted to speak to him further. But in the end, I noticed that all the rage seemed to have drained itself from Skywarp, and I had always found it difficult to be angry with someone who refused to reciprocate. And he'd asked a question, so I figured that I had to at least attempt an answer.

"This is just what I mean, Skywarp," I said quietly after a long moment spent calming myself, stowing the anger safely away again, as I thought about how to answer him. "I'm seeing it all over the place."

Skywarp looked up at me then, the perplexed expression back on his face. "Seeing what?" he asked bleakly.

"Just…this sense of…repressed anger…all over the place," I answered hesitantly. "And sometimes it comes to the surface when you least expect it. Like now, with the two of us. And remember the other day, when Hook and Scrapper were in the repair bay, yelling at each other and pushing each other around?"

"They always argue," Skywarp countered, shrugging one shoulder in careless dismissal.

"But not like that," I countered. "And they're not the only ones. Look at us, Skywarp . We don't usually argue. Not like this."

"I'm sorry, Thundercracker," Skywarp said, with genuine remorse. He leaned back in his chair, stared up at the ceiling with a dazed, faraway expression on his face. "I wanted to hit you. I wanted to hurt you."

"I know," I said coolly, neither accepting nor rejecting his apology for the moment. "I know you did. And this is exactly what I mean, Skywarp. Look, personally, I really don't care if Megatron and Starscream choose to obsess over each other and to beat the hell out of each other on occasion. If they were anyone else, their perversions wouldn't matter. But they're our leaders, Skywarp. They set the tone. They set the example for how we're all supposed to behave, how we're all supposed to treat each other."

Skywarp nodded his head, but he didn't say anything. His expression was still rather dazed and distant, so that I couldn't tell if he was agreeing with me or not. But the fact that he nodded meant that he was at least listening to me…

"But they don't seem to realize that," I continued imploringly. "And they don't seem to care that the Decepticons are falling apart. We're losing the war, Skywarp. Everything we try fails, and all they seem to care about is how they can pick at each other next. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of it. The whole thing… it scares me. I feel like I've dedicated my life to a lost cause that even the leaders don't seem to care about anymore. And if they don't care about the cause, then why should you and I – why should anyone – care about it? And what's worse is that the…hostility that they feel for each other is rubbing off on all of us. Even on you and me, now."'

Skywarp nodded absently at me.

"I noticed, "he said, his voice a bit hoarse. "And…I'm sorry," he apologized again.

"Accepted," I murmured.

"I don't want to feel that way ever again, Thundercracker" he said vehemently, with a shudder that ran through his entire body.

"I know," I assured him. "Just…remember that, all right? Because I think things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better…"

Skywarp didn't answer me for a very long moment. He rose from his chair and began to wander aimlessly around the room. For a few minutes, he seemed completely absorbed in inspecting his entire large collection of various weird knickknacks that he'd collected over the years, both from Cybertron and Earth. Eventually, he wandered over to the little porthole in the outer wall, the one that looked out on nothing but the abyssal darkness beyond it, and stared meditatively out of it, as if he was utterly fascinated by the cold and completely featureless blackness outside. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I had no facial expression to go by since he had turned away from me, and even the bond between us was quiescent; Skywarp wasn't projecting anything to me through it, deliberately hiding his thoughts from me while he sorted and sifted through them. But then, finally, Skywarp turned around to face me, and I saw that his expression was deeply troubled.

"You're right, you know," he whispered, his voice so raspy and quiet at first that I could barely hear him. He hesitated for a moment before repeating himself, louder and perhaps surer of himself this time. "You're right. About everything. Everything you said. I know you're right, but…it's hard. It's hard for me to…to want to believe it. "

"I know," I said softly, understandingly.

"Just…give me time," he added. "I'll get there…eventually."

"I know," I repeated yet again, this time with a little more warmth in my voice. I knew, after all, that he would come to understand and accept all that I'd said, eventually. Skywarp could be air-headed at times, yes, but once given enough time to come to the right conclusion, he usually arrived at it, even if he did so via a more circuitous route than I did.

"So… What do we do now?" Skywarp was asking me, meanwhile. "I mean, what do we do about them? Or about all of this…stuff?" Skywarp asked me softly after a moment that we spent staring at each other in silent, mutual understanding. It was a question I was dreading that he'd ask because I had no answer to it. In fact, I wasn't completely sure that an answer existed. So, I was left with no alternative but to answer Skywarp truthfully, as usual.

"Nothing," I said quietly, with a long and sad sigh. "I wish it weren't so, but there's nothing we can do about any of it right now. I just… I think I just needed someone to talk to, is all."

A wan smile crossed Skywarp's face as he replied, "And I was the lucky someone, huh?"

"You always are," I replied, smiling softly back at him. "Thank you." The last few vestiges of my anger with Skywarp, after all, were gone, washed away with understanding. I reflected, as I stood there watching him, smiling at him, that the confrontation we'd had had probably been a good thing. It had certainly brought my feelings, which I'd been self-destructively bottling up inside of myself, out into the open, and it had made Skywarp think. Skywarp could be a slow thinker, yes, but once you got him started, he generally kept at it. I knew that I hadn't entirely convinced him of my position on the matter, but I'd gotten the wheels in his head turning. They were rusty and probably protesting at suddenly having to do their job…but they would do it. Skywarp would not forget what I'd said or what had just happened between us…and neither would I.