Title: Amnesia

Warning: Nonconsensual medical procedure (within the context of war), definite dubcon as a result

Rating: R?

Continuity: MTMTE AU

Characters: Pharma, Tarn, Ambulon, First Aid, Prowl, Ratchet

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt): FelixFellow made a gorgeous picture of Pharma kissing Tarn. I had to reason out how this could happen. Things got a bit out of my control.

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Part Eleven: "What do you love most?"

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He didn't like talking about it. Rung made a note and politely didn't stare at the massive ex-Decepticon sitting uncomfortably on his couch. That wasn't correct, however. Tarn had never been a Decepticon, at least in his mind. Referring to him as an ex-'Con promoted an outside stigma Tarn himself didn't feel. So far as Tarn knew and felt, he was an Autobot and had always been one. He just didn't remember how or why.

Rung hadn't understood that, at first. He knew only what was in Tarn's file, and that had been heavily edited before being passed to him.

Normally he wouldn't accept that when taking a new patient, but Prowl had pressured him. He'd only agreed to taking Tarn as a patient after several of his other patients' appointments disappeared off his schedule, mysteriously reassigned to duty instead of the sessions vital to their mental health and recovery. The psychotherapist fought that ridiculous abuse of power via official channels, but the point had been made. Prowl really wanted him to meet with Tarn.

Well, Rung took sessions with the Wreckers. The former leader of the Decepticon Justice Division couldn't be that much different.

He knew better, now. He should know better than to hold expectations of new patients, at his age. Rung had gone into the session feeling somewhat uneasy, expecting to meet a mech suffering the usual side-effects of losing a fundamental core belief, either by intent or outside circumstances.

Tarn glowered at him for approximately two minutes before confessing that he'd come to the appointment of his own will instead of Prowl's orders. Pharma had agreed with the idea of seeing the psychotherapist. Rung had taken notes furiously at that, because even just speaking about Pharma changed the huge tank from a potential Decepticon threat to a lovesick Autobot. Just a mech like any other, pining after someone he loved with all his spark. One of the most powerful mechs in either faction, someone whose involuntary defection had probably changed the course of the war, and he turned to putty in the hands of a medic. An immensely talented surgeon, true, but a medic nonetheless.

Because Pharma respected Rung, Tarn respected Rung. That made things considerably easier. Opening up about how he felt and his perspective on events surrounding him didn't take much more than some gentle guidance. Tarn wanted to trust him. Pharma believed psychotherapy would help him, and therefore Tarn's natural distrust of someone he didn't know fell beneath the approval of his beloved surgeon. Some delicate probing into what the tank's own opinions were uprooted a disturbing lack of self underneath the adoration of Pharma, but the absence of development could have been a side-effect of memory loss.

Tarn had a core of steel to him, however, that was all his own. He had an obsessive personality, prone to addictions and fanatic faith in singular beliefs. From what Rung knew about Tarn, leader of the D.J.D., the Decepticon Cause had been the center of his life. Megatron had been his idol. Tarn, Autobot and amnesiac, believed in Pharma. Only and just Pharma. Even his transformation addiction had been rerouted, until abstaining from indulging became an act of devotion.

The glowering, as it turned out, had been because Tarn resented the implication from some of his handlers - and Ratchet - that his adulation of Pharma meant he was brain-damaged. Oh, did he take offense at that.

Part of Rung's orders explicitly stated that he never imply it went the other way: the mental damage had resulted in this complete love-struck worship of Pharma.

Instead, Rung brought up Tarn's acceptance into the Autobot ranks, and the tank was positively happy to talk about that. With Pharma's encouragement, of course, but getting problems out into the open one way or another was definitely helping the former Decepticon's mental stability. He and Rung went through session after session where Tarn could finally speak with someone who listened. Pharma apparently talked with him, but communication with the Delphi Clinic was infrequent. Suspiciously so, as Rung noted but didn't mention to Tarn.

"Do you tell Pharma about these problems?" They were problems. Tarn poured out a list of frustrations over being guarded, being spied on, and being treated like a traitor or threat wherever he went. "I'm sure he could speak with someone, if you feel that no one is paying you any mind." No one seemed to, perhaps because Tarn stayed aloof from the other Autobots. But how much of that was because they treated him like a pariah?

Tarn shifted uneasily on the couch. "They're not important."

"Is that your opinion, or has Pharma told you that?" The surgeon, from what little Rung recalled, was a bit of a walking ego. Underneath the pride lurked a genuine care for his patients, but it was difficult to see through haughty arrogance. Then again, those with true talent but low self-confidence often put on a cold front. A medic who watched over a patient this dependent on him wouldn't push aside issues like this.

Big hands turned upward, and Tarn started to say something before cutting himself off. He wouldn't meet Rung's optics. "I…don't want to spoil what little time I do get to talk with him."

The slender orange mech frowned slightly and made some notes. Either that means Pharma didn't want to hear about Tarn's problems, or Tarn was intentionally keeping his surgeon in the dark. Neither option supported a healthy relationship between these two.

"Don't tell him," the tank commanded, suddenly aggressive, and Rung flinched back in shock. "It's not - he doesn't know I talk about him with you. I think he'd be - he wouldn't like it." The aggression disappeared as suddenly as it came, and Tarn fidgeted nervously. "He already calls so rarely."

Blinking, Rung wrote down a quick notation on what he'd just written. For all his size, Tarn had insecurities larger than he was. "Of course I won't tell him. What you and I talk about here is strictly confidential.

With your permission, I would like to see if something can be done about your schedule." Namely, that orders confined Tarn to quarters unless accompanied by a guard detail. That was excessive, even offensive.

It took some assurance that word wouldn't get back to Pharma, but Tarn eventually agreed. Rung, in turn, spoke with Prowl about his concerns. Tarn wasn't a potential weapon about to blow up in the Autobots' faces; this was a new Autobot trying his best to do what he was told and not understanding why he was reviled for doing it. The psychotherapist didn't directly bring up Tarn's haunted nightmares or the fact that he had difficulty recharging at all. Rung had urged him to speak with his attending medic on base, however. The more stressed Tarn became, the worse the side-effects of his amnesia became.

Besides recharge difficulties and bad dreams, Tarn was beginning to suffer waking malfunctions. The muddled fragments of memory remaining in Tarn's databanks gave him splitting processor errors more and more frequently, and everything he thought about or saw during those errors came to him as if through a thick fog.

"I recommend you transfer Pharma to his location permanently," Rung said quietly when Prowl consulted him on Tarn's growing instability. "And no, I'm not saying I agree with what Pharma did to him. That doesn't change the fact that it's already been done. What's left behind is no longer Tarn of the D.J.D. This is a mech who is heavily dependent on Pharma for his mental health, and Pharma has not done anything to wean him from that dependency." Neither had Prowl, for that matter, but Rung settled for a reproving look. "Without extensive reprogramming to modify Pharma's original work, however, that dependency will remain hardwired into him. Separating them like this does nothing but destabilize him more day by day. His mind will collapse without Pharma's support, and I can't say how the snap will affect him." Violently, perhaps, but Rung's opinion was that the tank might simply degenerate into a staring drone unable to process anything beyond a yawning need at the core of his being.

"Ratchet believes Tarn is addicted to Pharma," Prowl stated, but it was a question.

That would explain why the Autobots had limited Tarn to sips of contact: vidscreen calls and audio messages only minutes long. They'd been trying to control an addict by controlling when and how he got his fix. Rung had been called in because they hadn't gotten the expected results.

"You're afraid he's showing signs of quitting the addiction," Rung said quietly, fixing Prowl with a hard gaze. "You're not concerned about the effects of addiction on him. You want to encourage the addict to keep needing the addiction."

Prowl didn't bother to deny the accusation. "Is Ratchet correct?"

Rung stayed silent for a moment, but the damage had already been down. Repairing Tarn was beyond the scope of his abilities. The best Rung could do at this point was help what Tarn was now. "No. The symptoms are similar, but this is something beyond a program habit or physical craving. His base programming has recentered completely around Pharma." His expression settled into grim professionalism. "You don't have to worry about him shaking the habit. The signs of 'quitting' you've seen are, in fact, intense physical withdrawal and mental confusion. His mind is shutting down without Pharma here, Prowl. He'll collapse."

Prowl seemed pleased. Rung wondered if anyone had bothered to inform Pharma of the trap the surgeon had laid for himself. Tarn needed the surgeon, and the Autobots wanted to keep their shiny new weapon functional, so Prowl would procure the medic for him. Pharma might only realize he was a pawn in Prowl's wider game after he'd been transferred.

Then again, Pharma was probably well-aware of Prowl's manipulations by now. They were how Tarn had come to Delphi Clinic in the first place, after all.

Rung had done what he could to help his patient outside their appointments. That still left him doing everything possible inside them, and that included finding how much Tarn really thought about his sad, delusional need for Pharma. A leading question here, a specific observation there, and Rung listened to the results attentively.

The answer surprised him a bit. Tarn put a lot of thought into his obsessive love.

"His mind," Tarn said now, and Rung leaned forward to give him his full attention. "I…he's brilliant. He's ruthless and brilliant. He took down the entire D.J.D. with a virus alone." He seemed so proud of that. Rung's spark twisted in his chest as the former leader of the Justice Division looked at him as if eager to inform him of Pharma's accomplishments. "All I did was hold them off from the mines for a few months. Pharma's the one who destroyed them." The tank looked down, and Rung could see a tender smile behind that fearsome mask. "The Red Rust was brutal, but he set it loose without hesitating." Earning him a permanent malpractice mark on his record, the entire Autobot Medical Division's disgust and fear, and Ratchet's censure.

Rung wondered how much of that Tarn knew, because the tank folded his hands together in his lap and sighed. "He did what he had to in order to protect us, but…"

Tarn looked up, giving the slender orange Autobot an earnest look. "I don't think anyone else ever saw what he went through making that virus. Ambulon said it was nothing less than the Decepticons deserved, and First Aid said Pharma was a hero for doing it, but it wasn't easy on him. He didn't let anyone else see it, but I think it drove him a little mad. He's a surgeon. He's the best surgeon on Cybertron, and he had to kill a whole base full of Decepticons. Mechs, just like you or I. He didn't - say anything. He's very proud of his skill, justifiably so, but there were times that even when he talked about how the virus wouldn't hurt the rest of us, his wings shook."

Rung stared at him. That was not something included in any of the reports about the Messatine Massacre. It wasn't, but it made a terrible kind of sense. Pharma was a proud mech but an exceptional medic. Breaking his medical oaths in the most brutal way possible must have been hard on the surgeon.

He made a mental note to make counseling mandatory for Pharma when Prowl inevitably transferred him here. The surgeon's pride meant he would never seek the help he obviously needed.

How sad that a former enemy had to point out how much pain Pharma's own faction had put him through.

Rung needed to talk to Ratchet very soon about this.

Tarn looked down again, hands unfolding and refolding again. "He let me see that madness. He came to me as if I could protect him, and he - he relied on me." That notorious voice wavered just a bit under intense emotion. "No matter what anyone else thinks about what I feel for him, I truly believe he feels something for me in return." Defiant, he stood suddenly as if to glare down the world. "Say what they want, nobody can tell me that's brain damage talking."

Strangely, Rung had to agree.

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