Hi everyone!

Thanks soooo much for all the wonderful reviews! Again, I'm sorry this has taken so long to update. Been so busy with the whole college/boyfriend/hockey/friends thing…

HI SUNNY!

So, here we are! Update, at long last!

Enjoy!
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Sideswipe has a recurring dream and recurring nightmares. It's one of many things he won't admit to Sunstreaker. There are always very few variations. In the nightmares, he's always begging Sunstreaker to understand, pleading I never left, I didn't, I've always been here and I've always been yours. Sunstreaker always says the same thing, so broken, you never came back, you're not even here now. Sometimes Sideswipe can't even find him, just searching this planet and the next and the next, and sometimes Sideswipe argues, screaming his defenses, but Sunstreaker never hears him. Sometimes Sunstreaker just cries. Those are among the worst. The nightmares are extensions of memories, a torment he feels he's deserving of. The dream, though, tears into him in a way the nightmares never could.

In the dream, Sunstreaker is leaving him, two steps from walking away. In the next instant, there's a mech Sideswipe doesn't know, carrying something small in his arms, and he stops Sunstreaker at the door, hands something to him. The mech disappears, and something dark and impenetrable between Sideswipe and Sunstreaker does too. Sunstreaker holds two tiny sparklings, and when he looks at Sideswipe, it's like they're still in that perfect time, the one neither of them seems able to remember. It's where they belong, though, it's so obvious, it always is, from that look on Sunstreaker's face and the way Sideswipe's spark just melts, it's where they belong and they're finally home.

"They're ours," Sunstreaker whispers, "we lost them, but they're back now. They're back now. It's okay." Sideswipe knows then, knows like he once thought he did, that Sunstreaker's going to stay, he's never going to leave, he's going to stay for him, for their sparklings.

Sideswipe can't even believe in his dreams that Sunstreaker will ever stay just for him. He wakes up feeling empty and stranded. Sunstreaker sleeps beside him, still and tense, tangled in the bedsheets. His human holo has always been unreasonably gorgeous, like it's simply the element he exists in, breathing in beauty. Sunstreaker's fist is clenched in the pillow, his jaw tight. Sideswipe has never asked what he dreams of. He's always wondered what it'd be like, if they shared not only emotions and memory fragments through their bond but dreams as well; he isn't even sure if he wants to know. Sideswipe has always had the haunting suspicion that he couldn't handle everything Sunstreaker goes through.

There's always been the guilt¸ that he's the half that got let off easy, that he's the one who hasn't suffered nearly enough. Maybe that's why he's Sunstraeker's other half- Sunstraeker is his flaw, his fault.

Sunstreaker's words from last night still echo in his mind, as Sunstreaker nuzzled against him and made him think that, maybe, they never left that perfect time. Why do you always kill me like this, Sideswipe had murmured, and Sunstreaker had only looked at him for a moment. I never could, he'd finally whispered back, you're my other half. I'd die too.

It worries Sideswipe, that if Sunstreaker someday falls apart, that he'll feel it, that he won't be able to save them, but even more, he worries that something in Sunstreaker has already died and that, somehow, he didn't feel it. Sideswipe knows that, already, he has failed Sunstreaker. Sometime along the way, hope for becoming whole again turned into a mere wish to know where they went so terrible wrong.

[Sideswipe?] Prime's comm. resonates through his mind, [could you report to Engineering as soon as possible?]

[Right away,] Sideswipe sends back. He lingers for a minute more, to brush his lips over Sunstreaker's cheek and wonder if Sunstreaker could feel his touch. One last look, and then he disappears.

Sideswipe finds Prime outside the main room of the Engineering complex, and before he can puzzle over the roar of activity from inside the room, the look on Prime's faceplate stops him short.

"What happened?" he asks, even as he wants to beg, plead, don't tell me, don't make me know.

"Half the shields are down," Prime says, something dangerously like sympathy in his voice, but Sideswipe doesn't want that, doesn't want to need that, "the decepticon signal monitor is completely dismantled. The security system was hacked."

"No," Sideswipe is pleading now, wants to fall to his knees and sob, "he was with me, he was with me-"

"The complex records Autobot signals," Prime says softly, "Sunstreaker was the last bot in here, and only we have access to this system. This time- I can't believe he's innocent, this time."

You didn't believe it last time, either, Sideswipe can't say, it's always like this. It's not, though, not exactly like this. He's never been on the verge of losing Sunstreaker quite like this.

"It can't-" he whimpers, "I can't be wrong about him."

Prime says nothing, as if he knows an apology would only confirm what Sideswipe already knows.

O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"I just… I love you, Bee. That's it. That's what I wanted to say." Sam wasn't expecting the radiant smile he received, hadn't expected Bee would light up like Sam had given him a reason to live.

"Sam, Sam…" Bee reached for him, gentle hands twining with his, "I love you."

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At first, Sam thinks he's remembering the present, and there's a momentary feeling of relief, that he's finally caught up, that there are no more years left forgotten between them. It's only once he's waking to see Bee's concerned amber eyes on him that he realizes.

He's remembering more of their past, and he only thought it was the present because what happened so recently already happened before.

"Bee?" Sam manages, stares at Bee as something chilling races through him, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Bee looks more afraid than anything, something he can't quite hide on his face.

"Bee," Sam says slowly, "we used to be together just like we are now, weren't we?" Bee bites his lip, looks down. "And you didn't tell me."

"I didn't-" Tears well up in Bee's eyes and he blinks them away, succeeds only in looking miserable despite his efforts, "I was scared you wouldn't feel that way anymore. I didn't want to force you to feel a way you couldn't remember, I didn't know if- if you still- I mean, you forgot about me, so…" He wipes away tears with his wrist, turning away. Sam catches his hand, squeezes his fingers.

"I'm sorry I forgot, Bee," he says quietly, "I don't care that I forgot the whole world, the thing I really wish I always remembered was you. I didn't- I didn't know-" Didn't know Bee had been living in an entirely different world from him all along. Didn't know that he'd forgotten everything that had ever happened between them. "I'm sorry," Sam whispers, "I hate that I did that to you."

Now that he remembers, it seems impossible that he could ever forget, that he had absolutely no recollection at all. Everything- from the first time Bee kissed him, to every day they spent together, to that time when they lay in the dark and Bee whispered I love you in his ear and meant it more than Sam had ever thought anyone could. It's part of him, it defines him, and somehow, somehow, he forgot it all.

"It's okay," Bee smiles, leans in to kiss him, "you're back now, it's okay, it's okay…" he kisses Sam like gratitude, like finding that his entire world, once thought lost, is completely intact, has merely been hidden from him, kept safe and far away.

Sam knows what it's like to lose the entire world. Never before has he been able to see someone get their whole lost world back.

It's the breath that saves him from drowning.

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Sunstreaker left the city as soon as he heard that the security systems hack in Engineering had been discovered again. It doesn't take long before even the lights of the city have faded from view, no time at all to go far enough that the radar scanners won't be able to find him. It's only when he can see mountains on the horizon that he stops. He can never hide, never, but he can run fast and far enough that he can live in the time before everything else catches up.

Everything is always his fault. Even- that- Sunstreaker hates to think about it, but there's nothing else, nothing besides the frosted feel of the sunlight and dark, jagged line of the mountains in the distance. He's been alone so many times, and yet, it never fails to feel just a shade different each time. Solitude always finds a new way to manifest itself, like a virus that can never be beaten because it adapts, changes, forces its way in despite all defenses thrown up against it. Sunstreaker always tells himself that wasn't his fault. He tells himself it was Jazz's, but that's impossible, because he had nothing to do with the last day Sunstreaker was truly whole.

Sunstreaker was the one that sent Sideswipe away.

It was never because he didn't love Sideswipe. Sunstreaker loved him more than he could ever have possibly expressed, and maybe even all they shared between their bond couldn't communicate that, because Sideswipe didn't say no. When Sunstraeker told him to leave, Sideswipe didn't refuse. It would have been Sunstreaker's saving grace, and it never came. He proved, just like Sunstreaker has always known, that they can't be true sparkmates. Sideswipe is too good for him. Sunstreaker knows, has always known, that he will ruin Sideswipe. He wasn't good enough, and watching Sideswipe with Jazz had seemed only to prove the belief. Seeing Sideswipe with someone else, it was freezing in the agonizing pain before death, tearing out his spark and waiting for himself to die, waiting and knowing it was all his fault.

Sideswipe came back to him. He came back before they rejoined the Autobots, before Jazz was killed, and still, Sunstreaker doesn't believe Sideswipe could have come back just for him. He failed Sideswipe too terribly for that, even counting only the misery Sideswipe is aware Sunstreaker is capable of inflicting. If he were to know everything Sunstreaker has done to him, Sideswipe would never forgive him. Would cross the universe only to live far from him, where Sunstraeker can't hurt him anymore.

Part of Sunstreaker hopes that, somehow, they aren't true sparkmates, because then, it would be harder for him to hurt Sideswipe so deeply. He hates that it's the deep pain he causes his lover that proves their bond. They can never be anything but a perpetual destruction, a constant breaking, and it's entirely his fault.

As the sun drowns in the horizon, the light vanishes, as if the sun breathes it all in, last gasping breaths before the world goes dark. Sunstreaker always wishes he could escape the memories, even during daylight hours, but he is no safer in the light than he is in the dark. He can never escape because he'll never be forgiven.

For as much as he failed Sideswipe, he failed them even more, failed them irrevocably, unforgivably, with a finality that has destroyed him. Sunstreaker has no hope left, knows he will never be whole again. He can still hear their screams, the harmony to his own silent cries, an entire symphony of despair no one will ever know.

He can still hear them.

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Hope everyone liked that!

Please review!

Love ya,

Sunshine