Author's Note: For those of you who are interested in the song in the beginning, it's "Don't Wake Me" (Pull Remix) on the Awake and Remixed album.

The Energon signal that came across his sensors was fresh, but weak, most likely due to the recent rainstorm that had blanketed the area. The rainstorm that sent the people of the town into their buildings. It also reminded him of the reason that he was out in this area in the first place. Changing course to head towards the direction the signal was coming from, Ratchet had to take it slower than he wished due to the slick roads and mud the ground had become from the fast passing heavy rain. By the time he had spotted the lone vehicle in the distance the rain had calmed to a steady, but gentle fall. Over squelch of his tires pushing through the muddy ground and the soft patter of the rain drops he heard music. Slowing down to a crawl as soon as it became clear to his audio receptors, Ratchet just listened to the melancholy tune. The lament of the singer was one he felt himself. He had transformed into his robotic form and walked up to her as quietly as he could, so he wouldn't startle her too much, but she didn't move as he approached.

She was reclined back on her bench seat, her head resting on the top of the seat while her arms and body just lay limp as if she was unconscious. There were no other tire marks in the mud and the way her wet clothing and hair clung to her human frame told him that she had been out here when the storm rolled through. What worried him the most, aside from the lack of reaction as he approached, was the glowing blue streaks that ran down her cheeks. Had she become injured and unable to get into the compartment to avoid the rain?

Ratchet wouldn't deny that she startled him when the music suddenly stopped and her eyes popped opened, staring right at him for a few moments before she simply sat up. "I, um," he started, his optics darting around nervously as she continued to look up at him, but when she looked away he was able to relax a bit. He watched silently as Elita wiped her cheeks with the palm of her hands and sigh as she looked at them, the soft glow of her Energon tears staining them. She looked wounded again, the last time he had seen her cry was when they were paying their respects at her parents' grave.

"What are you doing here, Ratchet?" she asked, not looking up at him just yet.

After a moment to think, he answered, "Checking on a friend. She seems to be hurting."

"I'm fine," she said, almost snappishly. With a sigh she peeled off her jacket and began to wring it out over the far tire well. When she had gotten as much water out of the material as she could she tossed it over the back of the bench seat with a wet plop before she pulled off her shirt. Her back was still too him, but he could easily see her Autobot marking and the black support piece that she had taken to wearing. Her boots and socks were the next to be emptied of water, soon to join her other clothing. It was as she was about to pull her pants free that she stopped and half turned to look at him, her eyebrows raised up. "Do you mind?"

Remembering that humans were shy around one another while they changed their clothing, Ratchet muttered and apology before turning his back to her. He just wasn't sure why she was being so with him. It's not like he hadn't seen it already. Also it was dark, since the sun set a while back and the clouds were only now starting to break up so that hints of moonlight peeked through. He could hear the water splattering into the mud before another wet plop indicated that her pants had soon joined her other clothing. One of her side storage compartments popped open, she muttering thoughtfully to herself as she dug around in it before she pushed it shut.

"Alright, I'm covered."

Turning around, Ratchet was a bit startled to see her standing on the bench seat; her hands on her hips, wearing a long white cloth that was wrapped around her torso and tied to the left side of her neck. It easily reached down to her ankles and left her back open. It looked very similar to …

"Is that a bedsheet?" he asked, shocked to see her utilizing a similar fashion she had subjected him to in the beginning of their shared dream.

"It is," she admitted easily. "But it also makes a quick dress when you don't have anything else."

"So you just carry around a random sheet?" he asked, a smile quirking his lips. "Any plans to go with it?"

"Never know when you'd need something like it," she replied. Then Elita gave him one of her playful smirks. "Plans? Really Ratchet, I'm not the one that carries around my own bed."

It took him a bit to catch her meaning, but it let them laugh it off. As they calmed, the medic noticed that she was shivering a bit. The desert was hot during the day due to the lack of cloud cover, but it was the same reason that it got really cold quickly at night. With the recent rainfall it felt even colder.

"I need to head back to the base, the guys are probably worried." Elita said on a sigh as she dropped her hands from her hips to keep from rubbing her arms.

"How about I give you a ride?" Ratchet offered. "You're already freezing as is and if you ride back how you are you risk making yourself sick." He wasn't completely sure about that last part; it was just something he heard June telling Jack one time. When she took her time to think it over Ratchet worried that she might refuse, so he was pleasantly surprised when she said:

"Yeah, sure."

He quickly transformed and pulled in front of her before opening his back doors, but with his mirrors he could see her looking around and hesitate a bit. "What's wrong?"

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea. There's an awful lot of mud here and you'll have it inside of ya."

"That's alright. It'll wash out," he assured her.

"You sure?"

Her voice was tentative, as if she was treading carefully with him to not upset him. It made his fuel pump clench as he knew why she was being cautious. He slowly backed closer to her to give her a bit a nudge.

"Come on, climb in," he said softly. "It's only getting colder."

The gurney that he usually kept in his back compartment had folded away into his frame. Her human form climbed over her front wheel and into his back, allowing her to lift up her front half with her smaller form and set it on the floor. Her back wheels shifted down and in under her frame as she pulled herself in, slimming down enough to where her human body could close the doors. Once that was accomplished she went through the small doorway that lead up to the front, climbing over her front wheel to do so, and sat down in the passenger seat, curling up her legs as she wrapped the sheet and her arms around them and looked out the window. Turning the air vents on her side towards her, Ratchet activated the heat and had a gentle breeze going.

Turning off the overhead light, Ratchet slowly started to pull away from the area to keep from sinking into the mud. Even in the faint moonlight that was starting to come through his windows as the clouds overhead moved away, he could see her face reflecting off of the window and his mirrors. She looked so tired, sad, … alone. The scar that she had gained the day they had lost their original base on the planet was still pink, but not raw as when he first laid his optics on it. He did not recall it being there during their dream. That should have been his first clue that it wasn't real. Well, maybe him waking up as a human should have been, but he had seen her do some amazing things that he wouldn't have put it past her to have been able to do that.

"Elita," Ratchet said after a long silence that had settled around them. "We… um… I…"

"Look, Ratchet, I get it," she snapped. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to control my subconscious while I was filtering Energon for you. I'm sorry that you had gone through all of that. I'm sorry I wasn't able to control my base desires and in turn did inexcusable things to and with you. I'm … sorry…" Her voice weakened, giving out as she brushed the glowing blue from her cheeks with part of the sheet she was wearing as she curled up tighter, resting her face more in her knees to hide them.

"That's not what I was going to speak about," Ratchet admitted after a while. "Well, maybe not directly like that."

Again silence surrounded them, only slightly interrupted by a sniffle from the human in his compartment once in a while. She seemed so vulnerable. Lost. Just the way she looked when they had first found her. He hated it back then, just like he did now, but for a completely different reason. When she first joined them he couldn't stand it; she was just another human meddling in Cybertronian things. And, dang it, he hated seeing Miko cry so when Ellan was emotional, though she didn't directly show it to him often, he hated it even more simply because he didn't know what to do to stop it. Right now he wanted to comfort her, but how?

"I saw the boy," he admitted. "Him and his parents, the ones from our dream. The child was older."

Elita uncurled a bit, wiping more tears away with the palm of her hand. "Yeah… I had come across them shortly after I moved to the base. They had broken down on the side of the road on their way to the hospital and I helped bring little Joshua into the world."

"So it was not really an idle thought, but was a memory for you?" he asked.

"There were a lot of memory attributes to the whole thing. How food tasted, the feel of how things are on the skin…"

"The burn of soap in the eyes? And belching from overly fizzy drinks?" he asked playfully.

She gave a teary giggle, "Yes, even that."

"And the library?"

"Books that I've read, though I never realized that it was so many."

He slowed to a stop, mainly because his tires started to sink deeper into the mud. "Elita …"

"Please, Ratchet, I just want to forget it."

Going silent again, the medic realized that he couldn't. He had buried himself in his work to try to forget everything that had happened, try to forget the pain of her avoiding him again, try to forget the moments of joy he felt during that dream, but it always came back.

"Are you sure you want to? What if I don't?"

"That's not up to me."

"I think we always made a pretty good team, and I … enjoyed the dream more than I had let on," he admitted. "I never thought food would taste like that. Or pain could feel like it did. Or how the rain felt against my skin. Or how wonderful kissing you would make me feel."

"It doesn't matter," she whispered powerfully. "It can't matter. Not when everything is said and done."

Music and a woman's voice suddenly burst from the back.

What about love? Don't you want someone to care about you?

What about love? Don't let it slip away.

Elita quickly twisted off of her seat, kneeling in the floor as she looked back at her bike form. "Traitor!"

It quickly changed to a male's voice, the music changing to fit the somber lyrics of the song.

Don't wake me, 'cause I don't wanna leave this dream.

Don't wake me, 'cause I never seem to stay asleep enough.

When it's you I'm dreaming of, I don't wanna wake up.

"That is enough out of you."

This time a male and female voice in the form of a duet, an almost symphonic tone to the music with a guitar lead.

'Cause I'm broken when I'm open

And I don't feel like I am strong enough.

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right when you're gone away."

"No more."

Again, a male voice with a lead guitar and rock sound took over.

Come feed the rain, 'cause I'm thirsty for your love

Dancing underneath the skies of lust.

Come feed the rain, 'cause without your love my life

Ain't nothin' but the carnival of rust.

"No coffee for a week if you don't stop." It made her larger form suddenly silent, but she was still blushing, not wanting to look back into the cab. "Sorry," she finally said, still not moving to sit back in her seat or to even look forward. "I'm still tired and have trouble controlling it when I get this way."

He knew better, she knew he did. Ratchet better than anyone else could tell that her larger form reacted to her subconscious, her emotions, her idle thoughts if she didn't keep herself focused. Right now he just accepted it as her, what was it that the humans called it? Her heart? Yeah, her heart was in control of her Cybertronian body and it wasn't wanting to stay silent anymore. Unless threatened with the lack of coffee it seems. Now she just sat there, staring back at her larger body in what looked like a cross between horror and embarrassment, her body shaking like a leaf in a storm that he couldn't tell if she was still cold or if it was fear.

The icon on his steering wheel began to glow softly, an image forming in the driver seat before it. He had no real reason before to have created a holographic projection, not that there were any real features of humans that he could or wanted to put together that would have passed for a convincing one in the first place. Now he had a solid image in mind, one that he hoped she would find pleasing.

"Elita," he spoke through the image.

Hearing the soft tone in his voice, she slowly turned, her mouth open slightly as she saw the very same man that she had shared the dream with, wearing a pair of blue jeans, black boots, and a white shirt, with a red jacket over it. As she still stared at him in shock he reached over to cup her cheeks gently in his hands, only for them to pass through her. He frowned, thinking that he would have to find a way to fix that. Not only to be able to physically interact with her, but to make sure he had the tactical information that went with it.

Swallowing her tears, Elita fought the urge to out right weep again when he couldn't touch her. It was as if the system was telling her that it wasn't meant to be, and she had to remind herself why again. "It won't work between us, Ratchet. We're both too stubborn to give up what we need to to make the compromises that the relationship would need to survive." It wasn't the main reason, but it was the one he would understand.

"Could we at least be friends again? Go back to how things were before I grew careless about the children's care and ended up shoving my tires in my mouth about it, and see how things progress from there?"

It was a start, a beginning, again. Smiling up at him, Elita could only nod her answer. It hurt to avoid him for so long, a pain she'd rather not feel again. But she chose how she wanted their relationship to be to keep him from having to deal with a worse pain.

"We can do that," she admitted, "and see how things progress, after we get Cybertron back in working order."

He hoped that it wouldn't take that long, but he also knew that he needed to be patient. They had a lot to work through and now the chance to do it with. Watching her sit back in the passenger seat, her hands folded in her lap, Ratchet just smiled at her as he started to move again, the tires grabbing a hold of firmer mud and allowing him to pull himself free. First things first, they needed to hit a carwash.

~Fin

Author's Notes:

I do not own Transformers Prime! Thanks for reading!

Thank you all for reading my little side story. Sorry it's taken so very long to complete. Like I said before, I wanted to make sure that I got the emotions right and that things felt as natural as they could. I've personally missed this pair and with the hiatus of the other story can't write for them like I'd wish to. This was a little tid bit that I've kinda had in my head for a while before I had started writing it, though I had thought of using part of it in other ways in the main series originally. That might still come about, if I can ever get TexMECHs and I on the same pages and time frames to actually write.

I know the using the songs to communicate was utilized in the Bay movies with Bumblebee, but I've always had song parts randomly pop into my head during a few real situations in my life, almost as if they could speak better for me at that moment in time. Elita uses a lot of music in her own life, so I thought it was a natural thing for her to go through to. She just couldn't keep the music in her own head though, now could she?

"What About Love?" is by Heart, on the album Heart.

"Don't Wake Me" is by Skillet, on the album Awake.

"Broken" is by Seether, featuring Amy Lee, on the album Disclaimer.

And of course, "Carnival of Rust" is by Poets of the Fall, on the album Carnival of Rust.

2K19 edit: Couldn't get TexMECHs on the same page, so I had decided a while back to continue on with my ideas for the story.