So, here's a new chapter, and I hope you all enjoy it! Also, there is important information at the bottom, please read it when you're done!
Chapter 11: Promises
He just watches her breathe as he sits with his back to the cave wall, her bandaged chest rising and falling, every breath passing through her lips with a wheeze indicative of the lung puncture caused by just one of the many shards of shrapnel he had struggled to remove. He should be somewhere else—doing something more useful than waiting—but he can't bring himself to leave, and he counts the seconds between each breath to make sure it stays steady.
His hydraulics tense when her breath catches, and an oh Primus, no passes through his mind and goes out again as soon as her breath levels out once more. The tension in his hydraulics eases, and the medic settles himself back down.
Suddenly, her quiet, tired voice reaches out to him as her eyes crack open the slightest bit.
"Uncle Ratchet?"
He'll never admit to the sheer relief that sweeps through him as the stubborn fifteen year-old struggles to lift her head for the first time in days, and he sharply orders her not to so much as twitch.
"Do you have any idea," he growls as he pokes at buttons on his scanner, and refuses to look her in the eyes as he does so, "how close we came to losing you?"
She tries to lift her head yet again, rasping; "Ratch…"
"Don't move, slaggit!" he snaps. She stares at him for a moment, as though trying to determine how important it is to him that she follows that order, before settling her head back down.
After a long moment of silence between them, she finally asks the question he's dreading.
"How many?"
He cycles air through his vents heavily; "You're the only one."
She closes her eyes tightly and swallows thickly, and he looks away to give her a moment of privacy as she forces back the tears.
"How do you do it Uncle Ratchet?" she asks, suddenly, voice wavering, "How do you go on?"
He looks back to find her eyes pleading with him for an answer, and quickly shifts his gaze away again.
He doesn't say a word.
The command centre was quiet as Ratchet meticulously cleaned his surgical tools with a large rag, occasionally glancing over to the med-berth where Optimus lay unmoving in stasis. One might have thought the Prime was dead if not for the steady beat being displayed on the hooked up Spark monitor.
Ratchet glanced up at it frequently while he worked, as though afraid it would flat-line while he wasn't looking and would fail to set off the failsafe in his own subroutines that would alert him to the emergency. He knew in his processor that the Prime would be fine; he'd gotten lucky, again. Somehow Megatron had missed the main fuel line, and Ratchet had clamped the torn secondary and tertiary lines shut quickly enough to prevent him from bleeding out. Unfortunately, his cogs, transformation gears, and nerve wires in that area were completely slagged and had to be replaced along with several shafts, not to mention that an in-depth scan had revealed that one of his motor gears, located just above and opposite the gaping wound, had popped slightly out of alignment due to the straining of a nearby hydraulic cylinder.
The medic had already taken care of that problem, replacing the motor gear entirely—it had been cracked by the resulting strain—and he had also spent the past seven hours reconstructing the damaged section of Optimus' internals entirely, and had applied just the right amount of medical nanites to speed the integration process. Ratchet couldn't help but lament the inferior materials he was forced to use however; even with the nanites slowly converting up to seventy percent of the foreign metals into cybertanium on an atomic level, that particular area would always be structurally weaker than anywhere else now, not to mention the fact that, once he ran out of nanites, the quality of repairs was going to fall even further.
Ratchet sighed as he set down the last of his freshly cleaned tools and then set the tray they were resting on inside the diagnostics chamber, which doubled on decontamination duty. He activated the decontamination cycle, glancing over his shoulder to survey the command centre as the hot, white mist sterilized the tools.
Smokescreen was on monitor duty, and it seemed that he, too, was now in the habit of glancing over at Optimus every so often. His optics were dominated by concern, but Ratchet could see the lingering disbelief at the sight of Optimus so wounded.
Well, he had needed to learn Optimus wasn't invincible sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, Bumblebee was standing off in a corner near the ground-bridge, and Ratchet raised an optic-ridge as he watched the scout's head slowly dip towards his chassis, optics flickering, only for him to abruptly abort the power down and jerk his head up, looking around as though to see if he had been caught in the act.
His optics met Ratchet's and he quickly looked away, shifting nervously. The medic promptly crossed the room, mentally checking through the shifts to see who was supposed to be getting some recharge in tonight.
Unsurprisingly, he found that it was Bumblebee.
"You should be in recharge," he stated once he came to stand before the yellow and black mech, folding his arms across his chassis as he waited expectantly for a response.
Whrrr—beep-blee—brrr.
"What? Bumblebee, we are in a top secret facility," he began incredulously, tone coloured with a vague sense of irritation, "You hardly need to stand guard."
The scout bristled, door-wings hiking upwards as he leaned into Ratchet's space and jabbed a digit in the direction of the corridor which led to the rest of the base, angrily buzzing at him.
"I heard what she said, but that doesn't mean—"
Whzzz—ee—brr—bzt!
"Bumblebee, the Decepticons do not know our location yet, and Optimus is going to be fine; but we can't afford to have exhausted soldiers while he's out of action. So, as the chief medical officer, I am ordering you to get some recharge."
It seemed as though Bumblebee wanted to argue, but the fight abruptly drained out of him as he saw Ratchet's point, and he gave a low beep of agreement before reluctantly leaving the command centre, though not without casting one last, concerned glance at the Prime.
Ratchet sighed and dragged a servo across his faceplate, turning around to find Smokescreen staring at him. At the sight of his glare, however, the rookie quickly turned around and went back to staring mindlessly at the monitors, door-wings tensely dipping low in a sign of passive submission to the medic's unspoken will.
Feeling the sudden, inexplicable need to be alone with his thoughts, Ratchet checked over Optimus' injury—the medical mesh was almost done being hardened into a thin, but durable and flexible under-layer by the nanites—and looked over the Prime's vital statistics before calling out to Smokescreen.
"I'll be in bay five, call me if anything changes," he didn't mention that Optimus' vitals were already linked to his onboard monitors, and that he would be alerted immediately if anything changed, but it was good to have a back-up if one of the medical programs spontaneously crashed.
Ratchet walked a little ways down the hall, thoughts consumed with worry and paranoia despite the reassurance he offered Bumblebee. He knew none of them could afford to start second-guessing themselves, but it was so damn hard not to. He felt like he was trying to solve the Synthetic Energon formula; he could see the bigger picture from the corner of his vision, but turning to face it showed him all the little spots he hadn't noticed were blank.
What if the future was so terrible because of something he had done? Because of something he hadn't done? How was he supposed to fix a mistake he didn't know he was making?
The medic came to a stop in the middle of the hall, and it was only because he was alone that he permitted himself to lean against the wall, shutter his optics, and cycle a shuddering gust of air through his vents. He wondered how much Titania had already changed, if events were already unfolding so differently from what they had once been that her knowledge was already quickly becoming useless…he clenched his servo into a fist.
Primus. He hated feeling so completely lost.
Ratchet looked up at the sound of a quiet cry of anguish, so quiet that he doubted human ears would have been able to hear it. He stared at the two doors in front of him, one human-sized, and the other nothing more than a Cybertronian sized, sliding sheet of metal installed into a hole they had cut into the concrete walls long ago.
He hadn't realized he had stopped right outside Titania's room, and he listened for any other sounds.
There weren't any, but he watched as a light flickered on, shining through the gap under the door. He checked his chronometer; it was one in the morning, and Nurse Darby had told him Titania had successfully fallen asleep when she left, which was only three hours ago. He wondered what had woken her.
He hesitated there a little while longer before, with the narrowing of his optics and the squaring of his shoulders, he lifted a servo to knock on the door, and then slid it open without waiting for an answer. He was the medic, after all, and she was still a patient under his care.
Ratchet was greeted by the sight of her sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her hospital bed, cradling her head in her hands. She looked up as he entered, not seeming surprised, and the dark circles under her eyes seemed more pronounced than before, especially against the stark white of the bandages all along the left side of her face.
For a moment, the CMO lingered in the doorway, completely unsure of what to do or say considering how broken her bent shoulders looked (even as she straightened them proudly before his optics). He wasn't good with comfort—something he knew Rafael could certainly attest to—and he had half a mind to simply apologize for the interruption and then walk away. But the thought of that didn't sit right with him either.
So, instead, he shifted his gaze off to the side, cleared his vocalizer, and quite awkwardly asked; "Well, uh…how are you?"
An incredulous, half-amused scoff drew his gaze back to the time-traveller, who was looking at him with something like disbelief.
"Tell me you did not just seriously ask that."
Ratchet felt self-defensive irritation rise up as he huffed irritably—what the frag was he supposed to ask!?—half-turning to go as the briefly sympathetic thought of she needs somebody to be here abruptly fled his mind; "Well then, I'll just leave y—"
"Wait!"
He stopped and looked back at her just soon enough to catch a flash of very real longing in her eyes as she jumped to her feet. What it was for, he didn't know, and her cheeks flushed that strange shade of pink that he thought might be a sign of embarrassment.
She seemed to fight with herself for a long moment after that, reaching her good hand up and tugging it through her charred, uneven hair.
"Was there something you needed?" she finally asked, though he had the impression it was not the question she originally intended to put forth.
He found himself hesitating again, floundering for an excuse that wasn't I was worried. They were useless words.
"I…uh, noticed the light was on," he began, "I came to see if you needed anything."
She stared at him for a moment, then opened her mouth to speak, only to hesitate and seemingly change her mind as she shook her head. "No, I'm fine. How's Optimus?"
Ratchet was relieved to change the subject, at least he knew what he was doing when answering a question like that; "He's fine, he'll be back online by morning. I would say he'll be combat-ready in a month, but knowing him, it'll be a week."
She pursed her lips thoughtfully and rocked back on her heels. "That's too long."
Ratchet gaped at her incredulously before narrowing his optics in anger; "Excuse me? You can't expect him to just get up and walk around like nothing happened!"
Titania scowled at him, "Of course not, Ratchet! That doesn't change the fact we don't have time to wait around for him to be combat-ready. How long do you think it'll be before Soundwave realizes we skipped one of the coordinates? We need to get the other Omega Keys before then!"
Ratchet bristled at her words, more at the fact that she was right than anything, even as he continued to argue; "And just how do you expect us to fight the Decepticons without him?"
She had to pause there, because she knew as well as he did that the only person who stood a chance of beating Megatron was Optimus. Bulkhead could hold him off in combat long enough to cover a retreat, but actually beat him? No, not likely.
However, it was at that moment—and she could almost kick herself for not noticing sooner—that she realized they were missing someone.
"Wait. Where's Wheeljack?"
Ratchet's optics narrowed and his jaw set stubbornly as he let out an angry huff and folded his arms across his chassis, "We are not calling him."
"Why not? We fragging need him!"
"No, we don't! He's a loose cannon, completely reckless, insubordinate, and, above all, a bad influence! That's not even to mention his complete lack of teamwork!"
"Well, he works just fine with Bulkhead from what I've heard!"
"He almost got Bulkhead killed! Not to mention your mother! He can fracking stay rogue!"
"Damn it, Ratchet! He died for this team!"
Ratchet paused—his retort fleeing from his processor—as his angry expression slackened into shock; "What?"
Titania looked away, folding her arms across her chest. "It was the same day Optimus died; he was defending the base, trying to buy everyone some time. His ship was shot down. From what I understand, he survived the crash but…" she bit her lip, "He was injured, the Decepticons finished him off when they found him."
The medic felt a sense of irrational guilt niggling at his Spark as he clenched his optics tightly shut, and then—coming to a decision—finally stepped fully into the spacious room, closing the door behind him before seating himself cross-legged on the floor in front of her.
"What about the others?" He finally asked after a long moment of silence, "Did anyone else survive the attack?"
The time traveller shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose; "Don't ask me this Ratchet…"
His voice was hard when he asked again; "Did anyone else survive?"
"They're alive now, Ratchet, that should be what—"
"Damn it, Titania—did anybody make it!?"
She pursed her lips and stared up at him, eyes dark and closed off as she seemed to search his face for some sign of whether or not he could handle the truth.
"Yes," she replied at last, drawing the word out as she continued to hesitate. "They survived that battle."
"That battle?" he repeated suspiciously. She sighed deeply, and then, to his surprise, walked towards him and skillfully—with the ease of a lifetime of practice, it seemed—scaled his legs to climb into his lap and perch herself precariously on the edge of his knee.
He froze as she did so, startled and feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the sensation of such a fragile being crawling over his frame. He was not a fragging jungle-gym for Primus' sake! Did she not realize how easy the smallest of accidents, of twitches, could kill her in this position?
She either did not realize, did not care, or trusted him enough to prevent such an outcome. It did nothing to settle his unease, not to mention that the proximity of her contact felt far too…personal. Cybertronians in general weren't as touchy-feely as humans, and unnecessary physical contact was rare. Ratchet theorized it was because they didn't have family units as humans understood them. They had "siblings," which were usually just mechs or femmes who had discovered that rare, kindred spirit they understood intuitively—true spark-bound siblings were rare, and twins even rarer—and they even had romantic relationships; but they lacked the same stages of life as humans—infancy, and toddler-hood namely—which facilitated the growth of a desire for intimate physical contact such as hugs for the purpose of comfort. All Cybertronians emerged from the Well fully formed and functional, independent from the moment of their "birth,"—though young, inexperienced, and full of so many damn questions—and gestures of comfort or support were typically limited to placing a servo on a shoulder. Master and apprentice relationships were the closest any of them came to forming what a human might call a parent-child relationship, and gestures of affection were rare even in those. That wasn't to say they didn't form deep bonds with each other—he dared to say that their bonds ran even deeper than the human equivalents—but physical contact on the same level that humans generally sought out was relatively unheard of.
Of course, that hadn't stopped Bulkhead and Bumblebee from letting their respective charges crawl all over their frames. Those two had adapted quite well to human behaviours—and Arcee hadn't needed to because Jack seemed to have no such need for it—but Ratchet continued to be baffled by the humans' persistent touching.
But then, Ratchet was considered to be even more uncomfortable than most with physical contact. Optimus was probably the only one whose servo he wouldn't simply shrug off, but that was only because their friendship stretched back so far that the Prime had earned that right.
As such, he came close to simply plucking Titania off and setting her back on the floor, and most likely would have if not for the fact he had some vague notion or instinct telling him that such an act would have unintended, negative side-effects—because humans instinctively sought contact for the sake of comfort, he reminded himself—and so he reluctantly resigned himself to serving as her impromptu perch and bearing the proximity.
He just prayed to Primus no one else would ever find out about this.
"Everyone else except Wheeljack and Optimus survived that day," Titania began at last, distracting the medic from his thoughts, "but everything just…fell apart. Smokescreen never made it to the rendezvous, I'm pretty sure he was hunted down shortly after the base was destroyed, but the Decepticons didn't leave a body behind. Everybody held out for a little while after that, constantly on the move and trying to get the support of the military, but the Decepticons had broken down all conventional communications. Soundwave was monitoring everything and jamming whatever he wasn't watching; it took you and Uncle Raf three years to finally develop some kind of cipher system that blocked him out, but the cipher had to be changed every week to keep it that way. But every major military base in the world was targeted and wiped out way before that, and all heavy artillery seized, so there wasn't really any kind of effective army left to coordinate with.
"Arcee died about four years after the base was destroyed. She, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee were in a skirmish with a Decepticon patrol and their luck went sour. Dad never went into details about what happened, and I knew better than to ask."
Ratchet felt his Spark steadily clenching as she spoke, furling in on itself into a tight, shuddering ball of grief and anxiety, and Titania abruptly fell silent once more, her gaze staring right at where his Spark chamber was located in his chassis. He wondered if, with that apparent ability to sense energon and Spark signatures that Nurse Darby had told him about in confidence, if she could possibly have grown to learn what the oscillating waves and shifts in energy meant.
It seemed so, if the fact that she looked up at him then with such a penetrating, knowing stare was any indication.
"Ratchet…"
"Who else?" He interrupted, he couldn't even explain to himself why he needed to know.
"Bulkhead died nine months before I was born," she replied, holding his gaze still, "an Insecticon patrol had caught the Resistance's scent, and he made sure none of them reported back to Megatron. Uncle Bee…" it was here that Titania's voice hitched, and Ratchet couldn't help but notice it, feeling a stab of guilt as he remembered he was talking to a girl as scarred by war as he was, asking her to relive excruciating memories when he, personally, would have responded with a wrench to anyone who had asked the same of him.
"Don't," he muttered quietly, feeling more emotionally exhausted than he had when the Ark had first left Cybertron, and a simple look out the view-screen had shown him Cybertron in all its ruined, corpse-ridden glory. "You don't need to say it. I…"
He didn't even dare ask about his own fate, he could see the pattern in her narrative clearly enough that it was entirely unnecessary, and he had seen the fate of Cybertron reflected clearly enough in the images of a ruined Earth that Optimus had imparted to him.
He felt a silent keen of despair forming deep in his Spark at the thought. He wasn't sure he could go on if they lost another world.
Titania stood up from her seat and walked further along Ratchet's leg until she slid down to settle in the crook of his hip, curling up and pressing against his side.
"I promised you Ratchet," she told him, and he knew that "you" was "him" from another time. "We'll change it together. You'll see."
He hesitated, wondering if he could bring himself to believe her as he thought of Optimus lying in stasis in the command centre, coming so close to having died so much sooner than he had been meant to in her time.
He sighed heavily, "I hope you're right, Titania."
There was no reply, and he frowned slightly before looking down at the small figure curled up against him. Her breathing was steady and her eyes were closed.
She had fallen asleep on him, and he felt a flash of incredulity as he realized he was stuck in this position unless he chose to wake her. She was far too light of a sleeper not to wake if he tried to move her.
Ratchet considered moving her anyway, only to pause with his servo hovering over top of her hesitantly as he remembered the cry that had first drawn his attention towards her room, and the fact that uninterrupted sleep was apparently a rarity for her. He struggled with himself for a long moment before giving in with a sigh, lowering his servo back to his side.
He couldn't believe he was being used as a fragging recharge berth! Primus, he hoped she would wake up before anyone decided to come looking for him. The thought of being caught in this position was embarrassing.
His prayers went unanswered as, four hours later, Arcee relieved Smokescreen of monitor duty, and the rookie paused outside Titania's room as he noticed the light under the door. Bursting with more than a few questions of his own to ask, Smokescreen slid the door open and peered inside, jaw dropping at the sight.
Ratchet looked up at his entrance, and, despite the warning, murderous look in the medic's optics, the rookie couldn't help but grin as he realized what he was seeing was, in fact, real, and he teasingly quipped:
"Aw, you do have a Spark!"
And then he promptly received a wrench to the face.
X
So, lots of Titania and Ratchet interaction here. I hope Ratchet is in character here; I usually don't have a problem writing him, but this chapter was a little difficult. Also, added a little humour since everything's been getting dark and gloomy lately.
On another note, I've realized that in asking for you to vote for either redemption or death for Megatron, I haven't exactly given you enough information to make an informed decision. I know I said it won't affect the events of this story too much—which it won't—and it won't affect the overall plot of the sequel, but it will seriously affect particulars and several possible subplots, so I've decided to provide you with sneak peeks at a post-war world both with and without Megatron. I have deliberately tried not to give anything about the plot of this story or its sequel away.
Redemption:
"…I'm only saying, Prime, that I question the terms of our arrangement with the humans. I fail to see how it benefits Cybertron and our people…"
Megatron was annoyed as he stood impatiently by Optimus' side, and not bothering to try and hide it as he openly glared at the senator who had accosted them in the corridor. The mech seemed oblivious to it—the fool—and continued to ramble. The former warmonger kept his servos clasped behind his back in an attempt to restrain himself from roughly manhandling the senator out of their way because of sheer irritation.
The Prime, in the meantime, appeared to be actually listening to the senator's concerns (complaints, more like), though Megatron could see his exasperation in the tenseness of his frame, and his habit of only slightly curling his digits openly indicated his frustration. The latter was a trait that still lingered from his time as Orion Pax, and Megatron knew it well. They weren't as close as they had been before the war—probably never would be again—but they had still been brothers once, and there were some things about each other that no amount of enmity could stop them from knowing.
Like the fact that, no matter how annoying the senator was, Optimus wasn't going to just punch him in the face and be done with it.
"…they're such primitive creatures as it is, not to mention the destructive tendencies they've so clearly inherited from Unicron—"
"Excuse me?" Optimus' deep voice rumbled out dangerously, digits curling fully into fists and his optics narrowing only by a millimeter.
The senator was more than happy to repeat himself, not seeming to understand that he was treading in dangerous waters. Megatron turned and raised a questioning optic ridge at Optimus, as though asking, are you going to do it or shall I? For a moment, the Prime did not seem to understand the implications of the look, but his slightly confused expression shifted into a dawn of realization just a second too late.
Megatron decked the senator right in the face.
He crumpled with a yelp of pain and Megatron only too happily stepped over him to continue down the corridor. Realizing Optimus was not following, he looked over his shoulder and frowned disapprovingly at the sight of Optimus offering the senator a hand and pulling him to his feet.
"Perhaps you should go see Knock Out," the Prime suggested, voice a little less concerned than it would be with anyone else, and, with a servo held against his dented and cracked face, energon dribbling from the corners of his mouth, the senator could only nod and hurry on his way.
Optimus watched him go before looking up at Megatron with a mixture of disapproval and resigned exasperation; "Was that really necessary?"
"No," Megatron admitted, and flexed the joints of his servo as he sneered, "but it was satisfying."
Death:
"He actually said that to you?" Ratchet demanded incredulously from the receiving end of the video call in his quarters at the Cybertronian embassy on Earth.
"Indeed," Optimus confirmed, and Ratchet could see well enough the irritation and righteous anger the encounter had bred in him.
Ratchet scowled, "Tell me you dealt with it."
Optimus did not smile, but there seemed to be a note of satisfaction in his voice as he spoke, "I may or may not have informed Sideswipe afterwards…"
The medic paused for a moment, but then snorted, "Wish I could be there to see the result of that."
"I doubt he will be a senator much longer," the Prime remarked knowingly, and then changed the subject, "How is the project coming along?"
"As well as can be assumed," Ratchet replied, folding his arms across his chassis with a sigh, "Dr. Jones and I are still working on getting the new power grid up and running, but it's turning into a political nightmare." He rolled his optics, "You would think the humans would be happy that we're finally ready to move ahead with it. They've only been breathing down Jack's neck about it for the past ten years."
"They just wish to make sure it is safe, Ratchet."
"Well, I don't know how many more safety tests it's going to take to convince them," he grumbled unhappily.
"Speaking of old friends, Ratchet…" Optimus began hesitantly, "How is she?"
Ratchet had been expecting this question—Optimus always got around to asking it eventually—and smiled reassuringly.
"She's fine, off in Paris doing Primus knows what. She seems happy from what they tell me."
The Prime relaxed fractionally, like just a little bit of a larger weight had been lifted from his shoulders, "That is good to know, thank you."
Someone called his name from off-screen, and Optimus looked away briefly, "I must go, Ratchet, I will be seeing you shortly."
"Of course."
The screen went dark, and Ratchet sighed, wondering if he should have told him…
Since I want your decision to be informed, I will tell you this: no matter what you choose, Sideswipe (along with many other G1 favourites) WILL be appearing in it.
I realize that some of you may wish to change your vote after reading these (there is currently only a four vote difference), as such, I have reset the poll. (I apologize if any of you find this inconvenient or annoying.)
Now, onto the anonymous reviews!
Guest: No need to fear! Jack and Titania are going to have plenty of time to get to know each other…in fact, they're going to have quite a bit of screen time next chapter, though I offer no promises that it will be up any time before mid-May.
LadyBarricade: O.O You. Are. Psychic….or I'm predictable; one of the two. Depending on what the voter's choose, that remains very much a possibility.
Thunderweb: So glad you enjoyed the chapter! And I'm flattered that Titania is your favourite OC! We didn't get much of a look into her thoughts this chapter, but we'll be moving back to her point of view for some important parts during the next one.
I think I got everyone, and I hope you all continue to enjoy it!