It is not easy to repair something broken. When a glass falls to the floor and shatters, its pieces scatter far and wide, winding up in places you would never think to look for them. The fragments are so numerous and small that it often is preferable to simply throw it away and get a new one that is not broken. Even if you do manage to find all those scattered pieces, they will never fit together quite the same as they did before, the lines where the broken pieces were put together will always be there.

Unfortunately, we have the same tendency to do that with the people in our lives. We may care very much for a person, but it's easier to avoid them than to help them carry the weight of their baggage, easier to help them pick up the shattered pieces of their lives only when it is convenient for us to do so. To only be around them when it is pleasant for us, rather than when they are most in need. It is easier to pretend not to see, than to realize that shattered lives aren't made whole overnight. A single breakthrough is not a complete cure. But the reality is that none of us are whole. Not one of us is without scars, and nobody lives that never has a bad day.

Smokescreen and Bumblebee had only just begun to try and pick up the pieces of themselves that they'd lost to the NIWE device. Some days were better than others. Even some minutes were better than others. Sometimes Smokescreen felt like he could take on anything, others he felt like the slightest breeze would break him all over again, leaving him where he'd started. And there were setbacks.

When you're surrounded by darkness, it's easy to lose sight of the light. And, the longer you stay in the dark, the harder it is to believe that light was ever really there at all. Even when you know it's real, it can seem so far away as to be unreachable, and then the very sight of it becomes more discouraging than the doubt about its existence. In the darkest places, sometimes the hope feels like it's more painful than the nothing that fills the void of its absence, and it's easy to start wondering if the struggle is worth that pain. And that's not a question anyone can answer for you.

Even though Smokescreen knew he and Bumblebee had the same struggles in common right now, and even though the other Autobots were there to help them, to catch them if they stumbled or fell, he knew that he was also very much alone. And so, for that matter, was Bumblebee. Nobody could face their battles for them, they had to do that for themselves. It began to seem like he was fighting the same battle every time, like he wasn't actually gaining anything.

In the few days since he and Bumblebee had fought their way from the brink of death, it seemed like he was as close to that jagged edge as ever, and the hope was just as small as it had always been. Even though he knew it was true, it was difficult for him to realize that things really weren't as bad as they'd been. He really did have a few positives that he'd lacked before. He really did have something to fight with now, instead of having nothing with which to face the endless tide of emptiness inside.

It still felt like the difference between having no weapon at all and having a handful of small rocks instead while facing a horde of Decepticons with fully functional blasters. Like now he could vaguely annoy his opponent instead of doing nothing. But when the thing you're annoying is inside you, you feel that frustration and irritation for yourself, because it's also a part of you.

Bumblebee was coping better than Smokescreen. Bumblebee knew what it was to wait, with only the barest scrap of hope to use as a life-raft. He knew what it was to be in a deep, dark pit out of which he could not climb, with nothing but the distant light at the top for company.

When he had been captured and tortured by Megatron, Bumblebee had precious little hope to cling to. Nobody had known where he was, or even that he was in trouble. No one was looking for him. Even if they had been, there was no way that anyone could fight their way into Megatron's stronghold. That was where Bumblebee had first met despair face to face. Eventually, death had seemed preferable to the pain. He had no chance of escape, and no one was coming for him. He was utterly alone, without hope of rescue. Oh yes, he had met despair. And he knew the true extent of the meaning of the word "alone".

Having met before with the demons of despair, self-pity, and the sort of anxiety that makes you ask the question "What if I can't stay silent another day?", Bumblebee knew them to be liars and cheats, stealing what little comfort he could find in the arms of hope for the light, faith in endurance, and love for the ones that his silence was protecting. And he knew the feeling that those demons would never leave, that there would never be anything else for the falsehood it was.

It did not make him immune to the weight dragging him down, but experience had prepared him to be patient in the face of seemingly endless torment, made him stronger, and he was able to bear up under the strain better than Smokescreen was.

But it wasn't just that. Smokescreen had to have faith in someone he barely knew. Bumblebee had firsthand experience with Ratchet. After Megatron was done with him, Bumblebee was left for dead. If it hadn't been for Ratchet, Bee would not be alive now. He had never forgotten this, and now he held to that knowledge because it gave him hope, but also made him think realistically. Yes, Ratchet had saved his life, but the medic could not save his voice. Sometimes you had to realize that things could not be the way they had been before. Sometimes the cracks in the glass were all too plain to see.

Because of what he'd already been through, Bumblebee understood that he might have to live as someone less in some ways than he'd been before. If this was all he would ever have, then he must come to terms with it, accept it, and find a way to live with it. He was prepared for that.

Smokescreen wasn't.

{I don't know how to help him,} Bumblebee confessed to Raf one afternoon.

He was parked under a tree, and the boy was seated on his hood, ostensibly doing homework, but actually enjoying the view of wide open spaces and distant mountains. Bumblebee had been unspeakably relieved to find that he was able to appreciate the beauty Earth had to offer once again. He hadn't even realized how much he'd missed seeing the world around him for the miracle it was. He'd continued to believe, and to understand it, but that was far different from actually experiencing the unfathomable wonder of it all for himself. He'd seen, without really seeing, for far too long.

"I don't think you really can," Raf told him after a long moment of thought, "except by being there for him when he needs you. Like you're always here for me."

{I'm not his Guardian,} Bumblebee pointed out, {I can't just follow him around.}

"That's not what I meant," Raf said, pausing to try and think it through, "But you're always there. You always listen to me, and you come when I need you. I know I can count on you, no matter what."

Bumblebee always felt uncomfortable with things like this. Having his good qualities pointed out just embarrassed him, and made him want to explain that he wasn't as great as he was being made out to be. But he didn't say anything. This wasn't about him right now, it was about Smokescreen.

{So?} he managed to ask through the various self-deprecating remarks that were trying to escape.

"Smokescreen hasn't been on Team Prime for long," Raf said, "He probably still feels like an outsider. I kinda think that's why he always acts so eager, he's trying to fit in, and prove he's worth something."

{He has nothing to prove,} Bumblebee replied, {He's one of us.}

"I know that, but does he?"

{Optimus himself welcomed Smokescreen into our ranks.}

"But does he understand what exactly that means?" Raf pressed.

Bumblebee paused at this. He remembered that Smokescreen had talked about having faith in his fellow Autobots. But he'd spoken in terms of what they could do, not what they would do. Those were two very different things. It also occurred to him how much emphasis on himself Smokescreen placed when he talked about defeating the Decepticons. It was arrogance, certainly. But was it also insecurity? Did he think of himself as being separate from the rest of the Autobots, unable to rely on them? He believed they were capable of just about anything, but did he also believe that they would do everything in their power to help him, just as they helped one another?

He realized how long it had taken him to understand it for himself. When he had lost his T-Cog, Bumblebee had felt worse than useless. He'd felt completely worthless. Somehow, he'd felt that he had to earn his place among the Autobots every day, that he constantly had to prove his value to them. In retrospect, he wasn't entirely sure why that was. They didn't have to prove their worth to him. He never stopped to think about what each of them had done for him lately to decide whether or not they were his friends. He knew that wasn't how it worked.

Friendship -real friendship- is offered freely, with no price tag attached. Bumblebee had known some bots he'd thought were his friends who only seemed to like him so long as he went along with what they said, or did something they wanted, or pretended to be someone he was not, and were nowhere to be found when he needed help, and abandoned him at the first sign of his needing to lean on them. It had taken a lifetime for him to finally discover that those weren't friends, that he was not the problem. Real friendship was not based on convenience, and it wasn't reliant on what either party had done to earn it. It simply was. And real friends would help you, no matter how hard or inconvenient it might be for them.

Bumblebee knew that. But did Smokescreen? And did Smokescreen know the other Autobots counted him as more than just another set of blasters? Once accepted by Optimus, Smokescreen became family. He was their brother, even if they were unsure as of yet whether any of them could count him as their friend. And family, Bumblebee knew, wasn't about blood. It was about taking care of one another, working together, helping each other, protecting, trusting and supporting each other; not keeping a record of what they'd done wrong lately or marking down whether anyone had done enough right to be worthy of their place in that family.

Bumblebee had thought of Smokescreen as a lot of things, but he'd never considered from this angle. The constant loneliness of believing that you had to continually prove that you were worth caring about was unimaginable to one who hadn't experienced it, and unbearable to those who had.

Bumblebee remembered feeling like he had to carry every burden himself. He wanted others to know they could come to him with their problems, that he would help them, but he hadn't felt like he could do the same with anyone else. His problems seemed too big to ask for help with, the burdens of life too heavy to ask anyone else to carry. He was scared to let anyone help him, for fear that one day they'd just decide he was too much trouble and walk out on him. He knew the fear and shame of that kind of existence, and now wondered if Smokescreen might not suffer from the same isolation.

Bumblebee realized he'd become silent as he contemplated all of this when Raf suddenly snapped his textbook shut and said, "You want to see if we can find Smokescreen and hang out with him for awhile?"

He smiled inwardly, relieved that he could feel gratitude. Without Bumblebee's having to say anything, Raf had figured out what he was thinking, and offered a helping hand, saying -without the use of words- that he understood what Bumblebee was feeling and thinking.

{Yes,} Bumblebee replied, opening his side door so that Raf could get in, {Thank you, Raf.}

"It's okay," Raf told him, "I know what it's like to feel lonely. Nobody should have to feel that way."

Knockout knew exactly what it was like to be alone.

Megatron had no interest in gluing broken glasses back together. If something no longer served its function, he would get rid of it without a moment's hesitation. Thus, though Knockout's emotions were still rather wobbly and he was prone to unpredictable mood swings, he had to do his best to conceal that weakness, or else Megatron would throw him away like a piece of scrap. He also needed to hide his weakness from the other Decepticons, who would be quick to take advantage of any opening they saw which might allow them to increase their own power or strengthen their position in the ranks.

He didn't know how Soundwave was coping but, as for himself, he felt exhausted at the end of each day, just from trying to pretend he was back to normal.

As far as he could tell, he had access to the full range of positives. But his mind and body didn't entirely know what to do with these feelings anymore. His systems had been almost entirely shut down by the time he'd found the reversal, and now the negatives were coming back twice as strong as before.

He sometimes thought he might just spontaneously combust from all the emotions that were crammed inside him. He'd felt empty before, but now he felt over full, and nothing seemed to be in the right place. He was amused by things that weren't funny, frightened of things that weren't scary and upset by things that didn't normally bother him in the slightest. He couldn't trust his own internal reactions to tell him how he felt about anything. It was like his systems had forgotten how to operate and were just firing off random impulses in the hopes of hitting the right nerve.

At the end of the day, he'd find himself holding his head in his hands, trying to fend off a headache and shut out the very noisy place his mind had all of a sudden become.

He almost missed feeling empty...