A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews! Just when I think I've done something to loose all the readers, I get the reviews and messages again, and words fail me when I try to express my gratitude. You all are so awesome for supporting this story and my ideas with it. Thank you all for reading, and as long as you read, I will keep writing. :D

I want to take a moment and apologize to anyone I have offended with this last chapter. I know it was very dark, and that I probably should have changed the rating to 'M' when I posted it. It didn't cross my mind to do that. I'm afraid that when I get into the so-called 'zone' when writing this story, I forget that what I'm putting down on the screen might offend or hurt other people. I get lost to the words and the muse and, well... it is what it is. So please, accept my apologies. I hope the next couple of chapters won't be so dark. ::glares at the muse:: We could use some lighter moments in the darkness.

I would also ask everyone to bear with me as the ongoing search for a Beta is continuing. All typos and issues are solely my fault. I have someone interested in the idea of being a beta for my Transformers fics. Hopefully ::crosses fingers:: she will put up with me enough to decide to take the job.

I want to take another moment and thank Hummergrey for her support, inspiration and friendship. And for not being offended when I randomly pop up in chat to poke, prod, or beg help with a plot piece here, or just need a kind word there. Thank you, thank you. A million times, thank you. :D

As always, I do not own Transformers and I am not making any money off of this. Please do not sue. This is just for fun.

Lydia drifted in darkness once more.

Though to be honest, she couldn't really call it a true darkness this time. Nothing termed as darkness could feel as sweet, as safe, as she felt in that moment. There was warmth, a soul-deep resonance that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It infused her, sinking past skin to the bone and even deeper than that. Parts of her that she never knew existed, parts of her that she was certain would never show up on any kind of scan, photo, or x-ray (whether human or Cybertronian in design), blossomed into joyous life in reaction to that warmth. They were parts that defied the physical world and it's puny rules and regulations, choosing instead to exist only in that place that gave birth to pure emotion.

Not six months back, she would have adamantly denied that such parts of a person could be real. For a former pilot-turned-accountant, affairs and matters of the spiritual or the heart were like... like phantom numbers or depreciation tables. They were concepts that threw normal conventions out the window and screwed up any spreadsheet calculation but good. and yet unlike depreciation schedules and negative numbers, there was nothing to prove such pieces of a human heart existed. She had certainly found nothing to support the theory. Her extent of knowledge in the area of love consisted of a string of one-night stands and a shameful yet never consummated emotional affair with her former captain. Not exactly the safest set of experiences to use to balance the financial equation of the heart.

But this? Now? Now this sensation gave her something greater to believe in than a washed out career, had formulated the proof that there was something more to life than growing old and retiring to obscurity. Now she was a true believer.

That scintillating feeling lit up the darkness. It changed what should have been a frozen and terrifying oblivion of numbness into something beautifully calm. That was the only way she could describe it. Just a pure, gentle calm that defied all definition. It felt as if someone had taken the emotion of peace and spun it out in tangible fibers, and then had mercifully wrapped her battered body in a blanket made of those magnificent threads.

"Thank you," she whispered aloud as she drifted, overcome by what she felt. Needing to express that emotion somehow.

"You're welcome," he answered gently.

His words—much like the warmth—seemed to come from everywhere around her. Like she was swimming in a sea made only of his voice. It surprised her to hear it, though deep inside, she knew that she shouldn't be surprised at all. He wasn't going to let her out of his sight again any time soon. And if that meant following her into her very dreams, so be it.

Still, she frowned slightly. "Ratchet?"

"Yes. I'm here."

A hand touched her hair, fingers sliding through unruly obsidian curls. Again, this should have alarmed her, feeling that touch. It felt like human hands, and not the thick-armored fingers she would have expected. And yet… there was something about that touch, something about the way it sent waves of relief through her. And when she meant through her, she literally meant through her. It was almost as if she could feel that loving tenderness start at her head and flow like fine liquid gold down to the tips of her toes.

There was no room for fear in that golden, liquid warmth. More than that, there was no reason to fear so long as she lingered in ocean of his voice. Here was safety, he had told her. Here was always safe.

"You can open your eyes," he chuckled softly, affection adding little tingles to the warmth around her.

Those tingles popped against her skin like minuscule bubbles made of laughter. And she couldn't help the smile that started to form on her lips. "I don't want to," she whispered back.

"Why?"

The warmth shifted slightly, and Lydia was aware that she was laying gently on her back, that she had one arm flung across her face to shield her eyes. Her other arm was outstretched, the fingers of that hand lazily swaying back and forth in a pool of that golden warmth. Every so often, the tingles of his amusement would pop and tickle against that hand, eliciting the response he wanted from her. Laughter. And when she did laugh, what felt like a silvery ribbon-like tendril of reverence would slide up her arm and bring with it a fresh wave of peace.

"You refuse to answer?" he questioned, a slight playfulness to his tone. It felt as if his voice was somehow closer as he whispered. "I have ways of making you talk."

That whisper had parts of her trembling, and not with fear. "I just bet you do."

He laughed at that, and she realized it was the first time she had truly heard that sound come from him. She'd heard him chuckle, of course, but there had always been a sad quality to the sound. Like all his joy was smeared with a thick layer of pain he couldn't quite chip away completely. She had heard even what one would consider a rowdy and rough guffaw echo from his vocal processors. Though normally that sound was reserved for when he was discussing something with Wheeljack or Ironhide, when he thought she or any other human wasn't around to hear. Most likely it had something to do with Cybertronian humor or a war story with elements way over any human head to understand.

But this? This laugh was like the first breath of spring over the winter ground. And wasn't that how she described him once? It felt like a lifetime ago that she stood at the gates to the main Autobot hangar on Diego Garcia. She in jeans and a t-shirt, he in armor as always. But what made that night so different from all the others was the look on his face plates. He had had this admiration dancing across his optics as he had gazed at the sunset, replaying a remembered moment that must have filled him with reverence. She remembered feeling a quick stab of jealousy for whatever or whomever he watched from behind his optics.

"Whatever it is you see behind your eyes, I'm jealous of it."

"Just thinking," he replied, tipping his head to the side. "Why would you be jealous?"

"Every female in the world—Autobot or human—would give almost everything to have someone stare at them like that."

"Like what?" he snapped.

She leaned in close, lowering her voice. "Like she was the first deep breath of sweet life a male had taken after centuries of breathing shallowly."

Impossibly, the warmth that surrounded her somehow filled with that much more elation. And he chuckled again. "I, too, cherish that memory."

Lydia gave a start of surprise. "You heard my thoughts?"

She got the impression that he was nodding. "I did. Just as you hear mine in this place," that hand slid through her hair again. "Why will you not open your eyes?"

A thorn of fear poked at her from all that delight, and on reflex she bit her lower lip before she realized she was doing it. She tensed on reflex, expecting a jolt of misery from the action. Weren't her lips battered still? The fact that she felt no pain, that her torn lips were smooth between her teeth, added another thorn of fear and washed across her with relief at the same time. "I'm afraid," she whispered.

"Of what, dear one?"

"That this is a dream," she sighed, rolling over onto her stomach, her hair flowing down around her shoulders and over her face as she did so. Though her eyes remained closed. "That I will wake up and realize this is all a dream. Or that I'll never wake up at all, and that I'm in some kind of coma or brain-dead state or something. Because this feels so perfect, so magical, that it can't possibly be real. And I'm afraid that I would rather live the rest of my life in this one unreal moment, than face the pain of reality without you."

"That is a fear you will never have to carry in your spark, Lydia."

Hands slipped through her hair again, brushing the locks back from her face with tenderness, and she knew with sad certainty that this had to be a dream. Because her body was broken and in pain, her hair was mostly gone, burned away in the manic attempt to save Josh's life. In reality, it would have been impossible to flop over on her stomach like she was without mind-blowing agony, and her lips were little more that swollen pieces of torn tissue. They couldn't smile like she was. It was a dream. It had to be.

"If it's a dream, then let yourself enjoy it. Please, my Lydia, open your eyes and see me."

Slowly, timidly, she did as he asked, peering through a protective net of eyelashes. That one glance was enough to have her eyes flaring open. She was lying on his chest, but it wasn't the massive ten plus feet of warm metal that she knew and loved. He was how she would have imagined him as a human, how her mind's-eye would fashion him in flesh. His chest was broad but not massive, muscled more like an athletes than a bodybuilder. Scars criss-crossed that deeply tanned firm muscle, scars that depicted and told the tale of the many, many battles he'd endured.

His arms were the same, thick but not bulging. The hands that slipped through her hair were calloused, slightly rough, and bore their own fair share of lines and creases from scars. His hair was dark, dark brown but beginning to silver at the temples, his face squarish without being rugged, a couple of days worth of stubble along his chin and upper lip. But those eyes were the same, blue beyond reason and filled with intelligence and compassion in abundance. It all added together in a recipe of perfection to her mind. Hands and body roughened due to his duty, and yet tempered with tenderness in this moment.

Tempered and motivated by love. Like his laugh. Like this moment of warmth and peace.

She stared into his eyes, her chest filling with the warmth around her, warmth that swelled as she watched him take in her form. She was draped in yards of white satin, like something out of her ancestral home of Italy. He reclined on a chase of some kind, hands making their delicious, caressing way down her shoulders, over her back. Around them the liquid gold-like warmth shimmered and resolved itself to a paradise scene of old Rome. Fountains spilled silvery water into immaculately carved basins. Trees of all kinds spilled spring-green foliage across emerald grass. And flowers, her favorite flowers—carnations and lilies—dotted the countryside in bursts of unbelievable color.

The air was alive with spring, with life blossoming anew from the cold heart of winter.

And still his eyes roved her body in quiet awe, as if he could not get enough of her, afraid to look away without memorizing every breath she took. She had to wonder what his processors recorded, her heart yearning to see herself through his eyes. As if in response to that desire, her vision started to flash and blur. For the briefest of seconds, she saw herself as Cybertronian. Her frame was midnight blue with hints of silver metal beneath, and curved as if to fit his to perfection. Across her paint were little silver specs of light, like the stars in the heavens, and her optics burned a fiery passionate jade color.

It was only a moment, though, and she felt him pull her back into this portion of their shared dream.

"No," he said firmly but gently, his hands cupping her face. "Does it matter so much how we see each other physically? Or does it matter that we can see each other for whom and what we truly are?"

She let herself reach out to him, her fingertips caressing his lips. He was as warm as she remembered, his lips oddly as strong and yet giving. He was still Ratchet, still the sum total of his life force no matter what substance made up his physical form. And she was still Lydia, still the woman that loved him beyond reason if only because of the sum of his total life. And he was right. It didn't matter that her mind played them out as human and his processors spun images of them as Cybertronians.

It mattered that they were together, and for this one blissful moment, they were without pain and creating a light so bright and warm as to chase away the personal shadows that haunted each when alone. They were glowing in each other's arms, a golden-white radiance enveloping them both until it blotted out all other images, all other thoughts.

"I love you," she whispered, slowly leaning forward until her lips were inches from his, her hands resting comfortably on his shoulders. "I think—no, I know—that I've loved you since the first moment we met. I've been too stubborn and prideful to admit it until now."

"A trait we share in common," he murmured with a devilish smile, slowly leaning upward.

She grinned impish when her lips were millimeters from his. She didn't need to share his thoughts to know what went on in those processors, what lurked behind that smile. "Well, that means the world is doomed, isn't it? Too stubborn souls like ourselves coming together as one. I don't think this planet can contain that."

The light that flashed through his optics sent shivers through her, made her pulse speed up and promised her hours of pleasures beyond imagining. "Not my concern at the moment, human," he grinned all the more at the laugh that brought from her mouth. "I've got more pressing matters to attend to."

"Like me?" she breathed against his lips, her tone almost innocent.

His answer was to take her in a soul-blending kiss, and all reason fled her. The golden liquid warmth of their surroundings rose up like a tidal wave, crashing down on them both and stealing the breath from her body. It blinded her again, this pleasure, cast her adrift. She cried out into his mouth, the sound having nothing to do with pain and everything to do with pleasure. He was everywhere again, surrounding her with the light, filling her until she thought she would fly apart at the seams. And still she begged for more, couldn't get enough of him.

Wanted… no, needed to be consumed by him.

The pleasure built again and again, growing ever higher with each crashing wave. It built within her chest, a pressure against her heart that burned and pounded, demanding release. It bowed her back, stole any sound she could have made with her body. Instead, it transformed those sounds into the words of her heart and cast them to the ocean surrounding them.

And she heard him answer her call. She heard his thoughts, his pleading… and his fear.

Something was wrong, dangerously wrong.

She struggled against the sea of ecstasy, fighting until she found her body again, pouring herself back within her dream-flesh until she could feel him beneath her once again. "Ratchet?" His eyes were closed this time, his body rigid with barely contained control. It was as if he were fighting some war inside his body, something she could not see and did not know how to help. "Ratchet!"

"Can't," he gritted out from behind clenched teeth, the frantic words coming from the light and not from his lips. "Lydia, I am so sorry. I can't hold it back. I can't stop the bonding sequence. I don't… I didn't mean for this to happen... now... I don't know what will happen. You have a spark now, and I thought my control was stronger… I can't… don't want to force you to bond… I…"

She could feel him slamming emotional doors between them, shutting off her mind from his, trying with every once of his being to stop the sequence she could hear like a song in the back of her mind. Walls of metal and concrete rose around those doors, trying in vain to block her from him, from what he feared would be an unwanted mating. But it was more than that, she realized. He wanted to protect her from himself, from the eons of pain and loneliness that would surely come pouring across that bond once it was in place.

He feared for her life, her fragile state in her injury. And he feared so desperately that they both would die in the process of trying to bond. His death he was prepared to handle, but hers? He wasn't going to risk it, not for the world. And yet, if he tried to stop now, something horrible was going to happen. She just knew it.

Spiral's voice came back into her thoughts again, echoing across time from that wicked poker game like a prophecy about to be fulfilled. Love him. That word needs to stay present tense, for your sake as much as for his.

The light between them grew brighter, the pressure in her chest nearly doubling. She stared down… and into the light of the spark within her heart. She felt her own fear wash away. "I have a spark," she whispered, and then gave him a lop-sided grin. "Ratchet, I have a spark in me, and it's mine. I'm not just a carrying case like Nova said. I have a spark in me, and it wants to be with you."

It was her hands that caressed his face this time, slipped into his hair. The gentlest of kisses she placed on his lips. "Ratchet, I love you. Just let go," she said tenderly, remembering that wonderful advice from the woman she regretted never getting to know. Janet, I owe you so much for this. I wish I could tell you just how much. "Just let go. Don't try to puzzle it all out. Don't try to make it fit with the life you remember. Just enjoy the fact that we are here. Just… for once, let go."

He did, and the lights between them—the light emanating from their sparks—became one and swallowed them whole.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lydia was laying in his hands when she opened her eyes again. The pain that she had feared was there, her lips still cracked and swollen, her chest feeling like it had been cut open and her insides ripped out. Her arm hurt just to think about, and her head felt as if someone had remodeled the inside of her skull with a sledgehammer. It was all muted, of course. Ratchet had ensured that she was filled with the maximum safe dosage of the best drugs the pain-killer world had to offer. But that couldn't completely erase the throbbing agnony. She winced, and couldn't help it. But she also smiled, too. Another thing she couldn't help but do.

"Was it real?" she asked, looking up into his optics.

What she saw there, reflecting back at her, was answer enough. What she felt in her spark, and heard in her mind, drown out the pain far better than any narcotic ever invented.

"As real as you want it to be," He replied, mouth plates curving in a slight smile.

She tried not to smile more, and couldn't stop herself. "My nephew is going to be pissed. So is Arcee and Grimlock and everyone else, for that matter."

That earned her a raised eyebrow plate. "What for?"

"Human customs require an engagement ring, an engagement party, a bridal shower, a wedding rehearsal, a rehearsal dinner, a huge white dress and a wedding ceremony before two can be considered mated."

Ratchet rolled his optics, snorting at the thought. Though he knew she could see right through that action now. And he felt her delight echo across his spark. "I highly doubt that your catering companies supply energon-flavored meals, nor have a chapel large enough to accommodate Autobot guests. And why you humans put so much stock in planning for a ceremony that lasts less than a fraction of that prep time is beyond my processors to calculate."

He slid off the recharge berth, carrying her carefully back to the human-sized hospital bed.

"Don't you Autobots have mating rituals?" she asked.

"Yes, and we just completed ours."

It was her turn to lift an eyebrow, that lopsided grin he so loved appearing on her lips. "You don't have family near, nor have parties to celebrate the joining?"

He watched her settle herself back against the sheets, and the smile that tugged at his lip plates threatening to banish his gruff countenance once more. Mated. They were safely mated now, their sparks thrumming as one. He didn't need a scan to tell him that, nor to ask to know that she understood that too. The elation that poured from her spark into his was more than enough confirmation.

"Family, yes," he continued, acting as though they were discussing simple calculations and not a sacred custom. "We have meetings of families to discuss the status of the mating, if the two involved are doing so out of a pure intent to bond, and whether both clans will accept the union."

"Hrm," She watched as he attached the various monitoring devices to her again. "Well, by that definition, we need to sit down and have a talk with Arcee, Wheeljack, and Grimlock."

He stopped what he was doing, staring down at her. He did not like where this was going, and eyed his new sparkmate warily. "Why?"

Lydia managed to give him her best innocent expression, nearly blowing it at the tickles of suspicion echoing back at her from him. "Because the only family I have left is my nephew in California. And I think of Arcee as a sister and Wheeljack like a crazy comforting uncle. And Grimlock is like an overprotective dad at times," she paused at that, and a mischievous light glowed in her eyes. "You know, according to human customs, you would need to ask Grimlock's permission to marry me."

He stared at her with wide blue optics.

Just. Stared.

And she felt it when comprehension filtered its way into his primary processor. She couldn't help the laughter that bubbled past her lips when the cursing began and the first wrench slammed into the wall.