What Once Was Lost

by J.M.Spellbound

Jynx was a lot of things; a murderer, a thief, a liar, a cheat, a mistake, a psychopath, but of all the things she was an Autobot was definitely not one of them. If these glitches actually thought this was a good idea then they were crazier then she was. No matter though, in the end they were just a way to get what she wanted, at least that was how it started out. SS/OC/SS

25. Scary Similarities

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.

You guys are awesome. Your reviews are just wonderful.

And these blogs are seriously just fueling the fire for this story. Jynx just would not stop this chapter. So here you go.

---

Chapter 25

Scary Similarities

Well, they wouldn't shoot her.

They also wouldn't lock her up in that cage in what was left of the prison in the basement, so here she was. Standing there with what few pitiful objects to her name she had tucked away in her subspace on the roof top watching a battle cruiser full of a battalion and two big idiots fly off into the horizon Jynx couldn't help but curse to herself.

Because this was utterly ridiculous.

What was she doing?

Picking at a speck of clumped nanites on her arm Jynx stared out over the city until the ship faded out of sight.

And after that she kept staring.

Because the moment she stopped she'd turn around to find that stupid silver saboteur and his mate waiting for her to get a grip on her rattling emotions.

Because this stupid occurrence had upset her for reasons she didn't want to think about. Reasons she didn't want any of them to know. So she had to pretend it didn't.

Jynx was very good at pretending though.

She had to remind herself of that.

That this was all just a game she was playing. That there was still an end game in mind for all of this. That she shouldn't care that she'd changed hands among these mechs. They didn't mean anything in the long run.

None of it did.

It . . . she . . . she wasn't being left behind again.

She wasn't.

And she didn't care even if she was.

It wasn't the first time. Surly it wouldn't be the last.

It was time to suck it up and deal with it. Stop acting like some sparkling she'd never been. The two big idiots didn't matter in the first place. It wasn't like she trusted them. It wasn't like she was starting to sort of feel okay around them.

Because that was the most idiotic idea in the history of ever.

Sensors flicking in their grooves Jynx turned to find the pair of mechs she was stuck with now watching her closer than she was okay with. The two big warriors were one thing. They saw a lot, she knew that very well, but there were still things they didn't see. Under the cold calculation that was the Praxian's optics and the wildfire of insight that lived behind that blue visor Jynx's secrets stood far less of a chance.

She knew that as plainly as she knew the scars under her plating.

"Come on, sweetspark." Jazz smiled.

The little femme narrowed her optics behind her dark as night visor, but there was little arguing she could do at this point. With a simple nod Jynx hopped down from her perch on the railing, trailing back down stairs after a pair of stiff doorwings and a fluid skip that looked as far from compatible as physically possible. She supposed it should annoy her that they were being stupid enough to allow her their backs, but she didn't do anything about it.

What was there to do?

This was the Chief of the Enforcers and the Shadow of the Autobots.

She was a damn fool if she thought digging her claws between that slight gap in doorwing hinges and the protoform they linked with underneath was a good idea. Just like she was a damn idiot if she thought she could get close enough fast enough to slide her claws through the vulnerable wiring of the silver mech's neck.

A decacycle ago she wouldn't have hesitated. Even when she knew she wouldn't win. Now was not a decacycle ago though.

And it was starting to seem likely she wasn't even the same Jynx.

So she followed.

For whatever reason it was, she followed. With a nervous twitch in her claws and unease swirling in her spark she did as she was told pretending that didn't make her sick to her tanks as the two mechs lead her through the compound. Only there was something wrong with this trip she noticed. They weren't going the right way.

She'd sort of figured that the mate's quarters were up in the higher levels like many of the others were. They weren't climbing that way though. They weren't even getting in an elevator. They walked east across the compound until they turned a hallway and Jynx suddenly realized where they were.

This was the cafeteria the twins usually took her to.

The pair of mechs strolled right on into the empty room without even checking to see that Jynx was padding on along after them like the compliant little fool that she was. She paused, confused, however when they fetched energon plus one extra.

Sensors pinned tight in their grooves and plating locked together on instinct Jynx really didn't know what to do with herself when the silver mech produced whatever it was that the medic must have given to him as well that tinted the energon in the cube she assumed was for her spark.

Jazz looked back at her with that smooth smile of his only for it to falter when Jynx sneered at him, tucking her chin low while her claws flexed at her sides.

Sighing the saboteur glanced toward Prowl but the two-tone Praxian simply flicked his left doorwing at him in a manner of telling Jazz to do what he thought was best. The bond between them was as bright as ever, a river of thoughts and emotions between them, but there was not an answer to be found there from either of them.

Optimus was right when he said they still needed two bots capable of holding their own against her, should they have too, that were connected in a way that let them think and react in a way she couldn't read.

But Prowl was not convinced that shoving her off into their care after the progress she'd been making with the twins was all that good of an idea. If for no other reason than it was backtracking.

He knew what Optimus was hoping for in allowing this though.

That she would come to realize that she was safe among them. That she could trust all of them. The problem with that though was they weren't even sure she was trusting the twins yet, and if she had been starting too this could destroy that.

She had been thrown from the pattern she'd grown use too and was now going to have to come to be okay in this one or else.

At this very moment though, she was scared.

Scared of the two of them.

Scared of what she didn't know would happen next.

Scared of all of it most likely.

The Praxian figured a eighty-four percent possibility that she'd relapse back into that wild, reckless creature she'd been when she first came to be here in less than two orns if they couldn't show her that she had no more to fear from them than she had the twins. That they would not harm her just as the twins hadn't.

In short, they had their work cut out for them.

---

Trailing after the pair of them again Jynx kept her optics low and her plating tense. Even from the four feet or so she trailed behind them Jazz could practically feel the anxiety coming off of her in waves. Her field didn't need to be open for that to be broadcasted. Every fiber of her being was on fire with uncertainty.

Maybe this hadn't been one of his better ideas.

It was too late to back out of it now though. Megatron needed the twins and Jynx needs somebot around to make sure she didn't jump off of any roof tops or slaughter somebot while nobot was looking because they looked at her wrong.

A glance over his shoulder told enough of a story. Looking forward again he sent a pulse through the bond to Prowl. The Praxian just sent him a feeling of patience. He wouldn't have agreed to Jazz's plan if he didn't think it could work, but they were going to have to play this right. Too much too soon, or too little too long and this would blow up in their faceplates. This was going to have to be one step at a time if they were going to convince her that her pattern of normal could extend beyond wasting time with the twins.

That she could begin to trust the rest of them as well.

Step one of that was get her to their quarters and get her to calm down.

If the later part was even possible they'd yet to figure out. She was going with them though. That had to mean something. She could have out right refused—she hadn't been happy about it sure—but one stern glance from Optimus had shut her up faster than either mech would have thought possible.

If she was willing to go along with it they were willing to give her every chance to prove she really was changing. And to prove themselves to her that they were not like the ones she feared.

The path she followed them down took them up to one of the highest floors—in all honesty she wasn't paying much attention to more than the mechs in front of her—down a long hall with only a few doors, where they eventually came to the end of and a large black metal door. Optics scrutinizing, Jynx watched the silver mech key in the pass code only to find his claws moved a little too fast for her to track.

Stupid Special Ops master.

The heavy door slide back with a groan that made the femme's sensors twitch, though she tried to hide the curious note in her optics at the world that was laid out on the other side. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Maybe something along the lines of the twins' room?

Only less random. After all, from what she'd put together about the Praxian he was just about as stiff as stiff could get. Then again she probably should have taken into account that he was mated to this flamboyant play-mech. So there had to be something about him she wasn't noticing yet.

This though, this was throwing her prediction way off.

It was the sheer shock of the sight that had Jynx slowly creeping forward, past the two mechs, and into the room. Her optics darting this way and that to take in the shine of pale blue painted walls that somehow shimmered in the dim glow of lights. It was nowhere near as bright as she figured it would be.

Though she wasn't all that sure why she thought it would be bright.

Something about the Praxian just seemed to scream clean, crisp, bright, and white. Along the lines of a medical bay. Maybe it was that line of thinking that had her fearing being stuck in a room that reminded her of a lab.

This was the furthest thing from it though.

In fact . . . it sort of reminded her of the only apartment she'd ever really thought of as home.

That thought was shoved away quickly and harshly however, only for it bubble back up when she caught sight of extensive sound system that took up the wall of shelves over the large berth sprawled under the window at the far side of the large room. She'd never see such a collection of tangible—real—sound disks. Most didn't bother with them. Preferring to keep all their data digital.

Except one mech she knew.

One that composed all the disk that lined his walls.

She shook that thought away too. Turning from the stereos, the walls of music, the light guitar propped by the side of the large berth. Only when she met the other side of the room she found shelves and shelves of books.

Like actual . . . books. Hard copy datapads of what looked to be novels and other things. The large binding of the hard frames and glyphs sprawled down the side giving away just what they were from a distance. But Jynx only knew what they looked like from things she'd been told. She'd never actually seen a real datapad book before.

Ever.

Carefully she stepped across the room, glancing around the whole while to take in the rest. There was no vid-screen. Not even a little one. And instead of chairs and a couch sprawled in some kind of coherent circle like the twins had there was only three medium sized chairs placed around the tall shelves that held the books. Across from her, on the right side of the room she found a door that from the look of it lead to a washrack. Smaller than the one the twins had, but still much larger than anything she'd ever had in her life.

Her focus was still zeroed in on those books though.

Which was probably why she found herself standing there at the bottom of the shelves staring up at the vast collection. Gazing up at the pretty painted glyphs that lined the sides only for the truth to catch back up with her like a sucker punch to the gut. A hard breath rattled through her as her optics pinned on the floor.

What the frag was she thinking?

"You may read any that you like. All I ask is for you please not break any of them and put them back when you are done." The Praxian's voice shook Jynx from her thoughts leaving her turning to look back as the mechs shut and locked the door behind them. Jazz made his way over the music system while Prowl walked closer to her. Arms laced in a bored fashion behind his back, wings still stiff but falling slightly, as if the sight of her so interested in the books intrigued him.

She huffed at him.

Turning away from the shelves, arms crossed tight over her chest, and visor darkening as she glared. The change in posture stopped Jazz from where he was fiddling with his sound systems and it had Prowl's doorwings arching higher and tighter again. They were fools to think she didn't flip back and forth like a switch.

"No." She huffed, keeping her optics low. Even if the prospect of what those shiny things might say fascinated her . . . she couldn't.

"Well if you don't want to no bot is going to make you, Jynx." Jazz shrugged at her. "It was just an option. You looked interested."

She was.

But she lied.

"I'm not."

Even if her optics lowered to the floor she could almost hear the optic ridge lift above the rim of his lighter visor, the flicker of a doorwing was more audible.

"Of course not." Prowl's monotone spoke volumes of how much he didn't believe her. He knew interest when he saw it, and as strange as it was she had a few similar tendencies to somebot that he was use to. The truth was she was very interested in what was on those shelves. Just as Jazz's music had intrigued her. She simply didn't want to admit these things to the likes of them.

For she didn't like them.

She didn't trust them.

And she really, very obviously, didn't want to.

That was the problem.

She bristled at his respond. Plating flaring and then tightening back down when her visor snapped up almost burning with the glow of her optics on the other side. The Chief's plating tightened on instinct, even if Prowl tried to think himself above responding to the rise in her. Responding would only give her more reason to do it. He just couldn't help it.

He had no shortage of experience with creatures such as Jynx. He knew how she was most likely to react. His list was constantly growing check marks along the things he was assuming about her.

That however was not necessarily a good thing.

"What do you know?" She hissed at him.

"I know interest when I see it, little femme."

Her fangs glittered when she peeled her lips back in a sneer at him, but the little bot surprised him once again when the look fell away as quickly as it appeared and she sagged there on her peds. A sigh puffed past her lips while her arms tightened around herself. She glanced back to the wall of books and even through that tinted visor both Prowl and Jazz could see something along the lines of longing on her faceplate.

Silence reined while Jynx battled with the truth and things she knew she shouldn't say. Because it was none of their business. It didn't fraggin' matter either.

And yet . . . .

"I can't." She whispered. Optics falling away from the shelves, locking onto her clawed toes, and refusing to move another inch.

The mechs paused at the words. A glance shared between them before Jazz spoke up.

"He told you that you could, Sweetspark."

She lifted a glare his way. "That's not what I meant!"

"Than what did ya—"

"I can't read!"

It was like the whole room just sort of slid to a stop. Not that it had had much going on in it in the first place. Just the three of them standing around staring at each other. Only when those words came out of her mouth the two mechs seemed to freeze.

Prowl's doorwings pressed higher—not that she had thought they could—and Jazz's normally upturned lips slid down into a hard frown. They stared at her. Quietly. For a long while leaving Jynx to fidget there uncertainly. The lingering silence making her want to sink down into the floor and just disappear.

She wanted to kick herself from here to the next orn for saying that. How could she be so Primus damn stup—

"You can't . . . read . . . ?" Jazz muttered, stepping away from his music and closing the distance across the room. He stopped beside Prowl when Jynx shrank away from his movement. Effectively backing herself into a corner between the book shelves.

She kept her optics down again. Claws picking at her plating in a nervousness that made Jazz want to cringe.

So scared.

Every time she opened her mouth to do something other than snap it was like . . . like she thought the moment she said something she thought, a truth, or anything it was going to come back to bite her.

Like they'd hurt her because she said something.

A cold feeling settled in the bottom of Jazz's tanks leaving him sighing there staring at the small femme.

Because, of course she thought that. Was it really all that hard of a guess to figure that Jynx had been punished a good many times for saying things she shouldn't in the optics of those that had spent some much time and energy into making this battered little thing the way she was?

No.

It wasn't.

And another item got added to both the officers' lists.

She shook her helm slightly, but her voice pitched a growl when she answered. "Really? You're surprised? Tell me Autobot who would have ever fraggin' taught me, huh? Lab rats and playthings don't really need to be able to now do they?"

Jazz swallowed hard at that. For the anger in her voice and the truth in her words. It should have accrued to them before. But it hadn't.

"We simply thought—" She bit the two tone off.

"I know what you thought." She snapped. "You were wrong."

Silence invaded the room once again. Leaving the only sound being the humming of their systems, air cycling through vents—a sound that was more strained then it should be from Jynx's, Prowl made a note to tell Ratchet—and the soft sounds of the complex itself breathing around them.

Until Jazz's curiosity got the better of him. "You can't read at all?"

She snorted. "I can read a little bit. Some things I've taught myself over the vorns. But . . . ." A glance to the books. "I can't read anything like this."

She could read music. Far better than any glyphs of real words.

That detail was something she wasn't sure she could let slip from her tongue though. That was a fact she kept close to her spark, as was the mech that taught it too her. They didn't need to know that.

Nor did they need to know that her teaching herself was really more along the lines of Nook teaching her when he could. There just hadn't been a lot of time for him to do those things.

"Would you like to learn?"

Jynx spun around like he slapped her. Helm swiveling back so fast something in her neck popped, but she hardly felt it as she took to stare at the taller mech behind a visor that was rapidly clearing to revel though bright silver orbs on the other side.

"What!?" She hissed at him.

Her voice held her confusion, her disbelief, and Prowl didn't let the hiss rattle his plating. He simply kept his face as unreadable as ever, optics calm and collected, while he offered her a small shrug.

"You're going to be stuck with the two of us until the twins return. And since we don't have the free time to allow you to play in the hanger all orn you're going to be spending a lot of your time sitting around watching us work. Unfortunately, that is the way things must be. I admit I was hoping you'd take an interest in the books if for no other reason as you could occupy yourself while we could not. If you can't read however that point is rather mute. Unless you'd like to learn."

"You . . . want to . . . teach me . . . to read?" She stared at him. "Really?"

Jazz grinned. "Would you let us try? Because ya know, that would mean sitting around for long periods of time without getting snippy. Listening and talking all the same. To us."

She just stared at him for a long handful of klicks before a knot twisted in her tanks and a memory settled badly. She looked away again, visor darkening as quickly as it had cleared.

"No."

And just like that the hope of possibly getting somewhere faded out of the two mechs.

But really, they were fools to think it would be that easy. They were lucky she was evening speaking to them. Nothing was going to change that quick. It took the twins orns to get her to stop itching for a fight with them. She'd only been with Jazz and Prowl a breem now maybe.

There was no way it was going to be this easy. Still, she'd said more this evening then either mech ever thought she would. That was more process than they could have expected. It was time to let her settle down now though.

These two knew better than anybot the consequences of pushing the line too far too fast.

A sigh heaved through Jazz vents before he nodded. "Alright, Sweetspark. Nobot is gonna force ya to do anything ya don't want too."

Primus she was getting so tired of hearing all these idiots say that!

"Where do I fraggin' recharge in this place?" She bit without looking up.

The mates shared another glance before Jazz walked to the blank space of wall beside the main door. Jynx watched him warily as he tapped a panel she couldn't see only to gasp a little under her breath when a bunk of sorts folded out of the wall to revel a medium sized berth already made up with grey blankets and a set of matching pillows.

Jynx blinked.

A question jumping to her tongue before she could stop it. "You have an extra berth hidden in the wall?"

Jazz smirked over his shoulder. A fond look glittering in his optics when they landed on Prowl for a moment longer than Jynx could see without looking away again. She missed the fond smile that danced up the Praxian's lips the likes of which she'd never seen.

It was Prowl that answered when she went back to glaring at her toes.

"Yes. We do."

Though who it was for she probably didn't need to know as of yet.

"That is weird."

"Nah, it's not really." Jazz laughed patting his claws against the plush surface. "This is what you'll be calling home though until the twins go save the orn again and come gallivanting back with some new trophy of sorts."

"They're like robo-cats bringing home the dead glitch mice they catch." Prowl rolled his optics.

"Oh come on Prowler, they haven't brought home a mechs helm in vorns. Besides, it's the terror twins. You should be use to all this by now."

"It is still unprofessional."

"And you sound like Magnus."

"Well Magnus is right."

"I take it back." Jynx muttered, watching them with wide optics as they turned their attention back to her. "You two are what is weird."

Jazz snorted a cackle. "Oh that we are."

That was when something he said at the beginning of that little . . . thing . . . she wasn't sure how to define was caught up with Jynx's whirling processor making the small white femme straighten up like they'd hit her or something.

"Wait a klick." Her voice dropped into a growl. "You want me to recharge . . . here. In this room. With the two of you right over there?" Pointing a claw back the direction of their large berth.

Prowl's left doorwing twitched. "We have nowhere else for you to be."

She glared a moment longer, claws flexing in anger, processor reeling with the ideas of just how far she might be able to get before one of them stopped her from pulling the others spark out through his mouth, until finally Jynx just bowed her helm.

How did they do it?

How did they pretend that this wasn't scary? That this was completely normal? That they weren't scared of what she was capable of and she shouldn't be scared of them in return.

How did that work?

We're they really that stupid?

Or did they really believe themselves that capable of dealing with the creature that had made those two big frontliners leak more than once?

---

Back pressed hard to the wall, covers pulled tight around her still slightly shaking form, pillow angled just right where she could glare across the dark room without actually having to put much work into it, and claws flexed on the ready Jynx stared across the blackness to the two shapes over on that berth.

They were idiots.

Fraggin' idiots.

Did they not realize she could kill them both with a flick of her wrist? Did they not realize that she wanted to.

Because they terrified her.

Because of the things she had heard . . . because of the things she remembered when she looked at them.

The Shadow of the Autobots. The side-jumper who left the Decepticons after he tortured his way out of the gutters of Polyhex. This mech had been everything these slaggin' goody mechs stood against and yet here he was. He was part of this weird family she found herself being subject too.

He was laying in a berth next to the last real relic of everything Praxis was proud of.

He was mated to him.

He was trusted here.

He had been a monster, a monster Jynx had admired the stories of, and yet here he was. He was one of them.

And that was completely petrifying.

Then there was the last real relic of Praxis.

This damn doorwinged, chevron wearing, cold, calculating, killer that left Jynx with a nervous trembling in her fingers and a need to run the opposite direction. He was a type of monster that could stand in a crowd and look normal. This was a mech that didn't have the air of a murderer but had never seemed to have a problem ordering out death sentences for those that unconvinced his case.

Oh all the mechs in this place it was probably him that Jynx feared the most for the most reasons.

For she couldn't figure him or his calculating processor.

She couldn't read him. Couldn't predict him.

And while she had no way of knowing at this point that was the same problem Prowl was having with her it was this very reason that disturbed Jynx so.

She'd grown up around murderers and thieves. She knew just what bots were capable of. It in no way surprised her even the slightest bit anymore. If anything it was something of a relief. At least after the pain had been inflicted Jynx knew what to expect from a bot. She began figuring ways to handle it. By either killing them or running from them.

It was a reliable way of living her life.

It worked well—when she wasn't fragged off and was still thinking—and it had saved her more times than she would like to remember. Only there was none of that to be done with this mech. There was no way for her to read his empty optics. Not even her knowledge of doorwings did her much good with him.

And maybe that was the underlying factor of it all.

Maybe it was because he looked so similar to the only one she had ever trusted with her whole spark and yet was so utterly different it physically hurt.

Because it really did.

The sight of him stung some part of Jynx's spark that had yet to let go of what she left behind. Which was stupid. A sparkling whim that needed to be crushed down and ignored, but it was there all the same.

For he never truly left her. Just as he promised he never would.

Nook was there.

In everything.

Except reality.

But that was her fault . . . and that was something she'd have to live with.

Still, she missed him, and no bot in this damn pit was helping that! If anything they were all making it worse.

So she had to hate them. She had to be afraid of them. Because if she didn't who the pit knew what was going to happen?

She'd been down this road before. That path of learning to trust somebot. Of thinking things could be different. Of thinking that maybe she might possibly get what she wanted for the first time in her life.

There was nothing at the end of this road. Nothing but pain. Pain that just like before would be all her fault.

And the truth was, Jynx really just didn't want to hurt anymore.

---

"She's still awake." The words drifting through the sparkbond had Prowl fighting off the urge to open his optics, but unlike Jazz his would cast a glow against the darkness. Both the femme and his mate's visors would allow them to look through the dark and not seem like they were. He had no such thing.

"Are you truly surprised?"

"Well things were like, really good there for a klick."

"Yes a grand total of four before we pushed too far." Prowl retorted. "We've played this game before Jazz, you know it's harder than it looks."

"Technically, you're the one that has played it. I was in her peds."

"Which is why you thought of this in the first place. Because you think you have a better chance of relating to her."

"Yes," Jazz scooted closer under the covers to snuggle into the warmth that was his sparkmate. "But no more so really than the twins. I guess. I mean, they were gladiators. Somebot just had to watch her. I figured we could make good use of it. But if she won't play along we have a problem."

"Even if she does play along we might still have a problem, Jazz."

"Yeah . . . I know."

Silence settled around them apart from the familiar song of their own resting systems. That and the over stressed ones over in the corner on that extra berth.

She even sounded like she was in pain. Vents rattling with cycled breaths too fast to keep up with yet because of systems that had been as violated as the rest of her. She needed another trip to see the medics, but that was most likely the last place she would go at the moment.

The notion pained Prowl.

The femme was nothing more than a youngling. Grown in vorns or not. The little thing curled up in the corner probably glaring death treats at their backs was nothing more than a scared little youngling that had been broken and used in every sense of the terms. She had no reason in the universe to give a damn about the idea of trusting them.

Becoming slightly relaxed around the twins, and trusting them, Prowl knew very well was two different things. And now they'd shattered what ease she had come to understand here.

Jazz's plan had merit.

It was a good idea.

But laying there in the dark knowing the chances of her trying to attack them were slim—otherwise he wouldn't have allowed this—but also knowing that if they pushed just an inch or so further there was only one way in all of pit she would react.

And that was badly.

"Tomorrow is another orn, Jazz. And we will try again." Prowl assured him. "Go to recharge. If you can tell she's awake she can tell we are."

"She won't recharge Prowl. If I was in her peds again I wouldn't."

"I know." He sighed. "But us being awake is not making it any easier. Did it make it any easier on you?"

"No." And with that the silver mech snuggled into his pillow and closed his optics.

---

She was perched in the middle of her berth, helm tilted down, visor clear, sensors tall, and focus entirely on the shiny object in her lap.

Jazz actually stalled at the sight when he pushed himself up from the berth.

She didn't even notice.

Didn't even twitch their way when Prowl pushed himself up at well, doorwings fluttering behind him to shake off the stiffness of recharge only for the appendages to go abruptly still when his optics caught sight of what was glittering in the little femme's lap.

"Where did you get that?"

At Prowls' question Jynx startled so bad the crystal went flipping out of her hands only for her to stanch it back up and yank it to her chest as she spun around to stare at them through wide and frightened optics.

Only, as quickly at the fear appeared it vanished behind a mask of a glare.

"That stupid science nerd gave it to me. What do you care?"

"Wheeljack gave it to ya?" Jazz muttered a moment before he laughed. "That sounds like something he'd do."

Prowl, who's optics watched the crystal glitter brightly throwing rainbows against her pale plating couldn't help a smile. It had been a long time since he saw a crystal behave like that. Though the sight of it made a whole new list of questions rush to his processor.

"It likes you." He stated simply and judging by the confusion that took the place of the glare Jynx had no idea what he was talking about. Now was not the time for that though. First he must watch some more. Find out just why a Praxian crystal glowed the way it did for this volatile thing.

"What are you talking about?" She hissed at him, confusion never setting well in Jynx's tanks.

"Oh nothing." And with that the two tone Praxian got up from the berth, strolled across the room, and entered the washrack shutting the door behind him. Apparently that was highly amusing to some because Jazz just about keeled over laughing on the berth. A silky yet sort of raspy sound that struck somewhere in Jynx's spark and held on.

To what purpose she didn't understand.

Nor did she really get why it relaxed a rattled part of her and had her sinking down lightly into the softness of the berth just holding her crystal and watching the silver mech laugh loudly. When that bright visor came her way however, Jynx sneered at him and looked away. Processor whirling with things she had no idea what to make of.

That had been six orns ago.

And she still couldn't believe she was doing this.

Yet here she was.

Perched in a chair in the corner of the room glaring across the too freaking neat space watching the Praxian key away at his computer while the spy sat on the corner of his desk with a stack of datapads beside him piled up almost as tall as he was scribbling away with a stylist or thumbing through the information with a claw.

They were rather boring, the two of them, when one got right down to it.

At least with the twins she got to burn some energy. The most she got to do with these two was walk the stairs between their offices and their berthroom.

And she felt like going out of her damn helm because of it!

If it hadn't of been for the sketchpad in her lap she probably would have.

That was the only thing that was keeping her even the slightest bit civil. Though she still wasn't all that sure why she was even bothering with that.

Really. She had no idea.

Why was she being led around like some pup?

Why was she not smashing their helms together or pulling their sparks out when they so stupidly recharged in the same room with her? Why was she playing this game.

None of the rest of this screwed up place had so much as looked at her since the twins left.

Why was that?

Why the frag was she missing those two fools too?

None of it made any sense!

She was being good though. For whatever reason. She was.

She sat quietly, didn't speak, didn't ask, didn't growl. Not unless that silver idiot turned her way and started pestering like he did.

Normally it was with questions like 'still okay, sweetspark', 'want something to eat, sweetspark', 'wanna go for a walk, sweetspark', or 'wanna go back up to the roof tonight, sweetspark'.

Jynx was pretty sure if the fool called her 'sweetspark' one more time she was going to use his internals as paint for her stupid drawings. Only she never did. He just kept calling her that while the Praxian hardly uttered a word to her.

They were so slaggin' weird.

And damn it all to pit she just couldn't make herself stop wondering over them.

That, she hated them for as well.

The Praxian for what he reminded her of in more ways than one, and the spy for all that he stood for that haunted her memories, but she couldn't make herself hurt them.

Which was odd.

Because when had hurting bots become something Jynx had to force herself to do?

The snap of charcoal snapped her from her processor leaving her to look down in shock at the dark smear that was now scrapped across the sketch she was drawing. The sketch she hadn't been really paying all that much attention too.

The sketch of those two mechs at the desk.

When the noise drew both sets of blue optics her way Jynx slammed the book shut, straightening under their gaze, not even noticing when the other half of her now broken last charcoal stick went rolling to the floor. It 'pinged' to the ground, sounding far louder to her than it probably really was but Jynx shuttered at it and waited for the snap to come.

It didn't come though.

And after a moment of silence following her flinch she peaked her optics back open to find the mates watching her with a look in each set of optics that she really didn't quite get. It looked . . . sad.

In fact, when they thought she wasn't paying attention—please she was in a room alone with two mechs, when was she ever not paying attention, she hadn't recharged in six orns—that was often the look they gave her.

Jynx hated it.

She didn't want their pity.

The look didn't stay long though, after her gaze settled back on them Jazz glanced back to Prowl before he twisted the datapad that was in his hand in her direction and beckoned her with a tilt of his helm.

She stared.

Because did this fool think he could summon her to his side like she was some kind of cheep pet? If he did, Jynx could assure him it would be the last thing he would ever think again.

"Oh come on, sweetspark." And there it was again. "It's been six orns, you've got to be running out of pages in that book."

No.

She wasn't out of pages.

She was out of pencils, not pages. Then again. Jynx had painted with energon before. What was to stop her now?

Oh yeah.

For some reason the idea made her slightly sick.

What the frag was happening to her?

"Am not." She huffed, looking down to her lap. The huff was followed by a tired hiss of her vents. She might be use to little to no recharge for long periods of time, but these new and improved repairing vents and other parts of her inside were not. They were tired.

And it sucked.

Jazz lifted an optic ridge over his visor at the sparkling like response, but also to the sounds of her tired frame. Did she really think they didn't know she wasn't recharging?

She spent most night laying in that bunk glaring at them and then they'd wake up to find her watching that crystal as if it held some kind of answers.

She wasn't getting any recharge. She was too afraid of them to let her frame shut down. Which meant Jazz's little plan was becoming rather pointless. She was going to make herself sick if she kept it up.

The silver mech already knew what was going to happen when he had to comm Ratchet and tell him the femme collapsed from exhaustion. Yeah. He could already feel the sting of that wrench upside his audio horns. He was in no way looking forward to that.

But he knew better than most in this place there would be no forcing Jynx to realize none here would harm her. That was a conclusion she was going to have to come to on her own. She just needed time. A little more time.

That was what he was hoping at least.

"If ya say so," He drawled, watching her fidget under his gaze with a glare and a huff. "But," He went on. "It's gotta be gettin' boring."

She liked to draw. It helped her think. Helped her sort out the things that were messing around in her helm. However, this silver idiot didn't need to know that.

"You two are the boring ones." She snapped at him. "All you do is sit around and stare at those fraggin' screens all orn."

Jazz chuckled. "That's not all we do."

"It's all you've been doing."

"Well that's because there is a battle going on out there that we can't be a help in besides making sure all the needed supplies and resources are where they need to be. That requires this lovely little spawn of Unicron called paperwork."

"And you two are the only sorry fools dumb enough to get stuck with that much of it in this whole place?"

This was the most he'd heard her say in orns, and while she was steadily insulting them Jazz remembered the path to progress very well, and so did Prowl. Neither rose to the challenge. There were no treats. No danger in her words. She was only going about things the only way she knew how.

That was acceptable.

And it was better than her pretending they didn't exist.

"No." Prowl shook his helm, chevron catching the light and beaming. "Optimus, Elita, Ratchet, Magnus, Rodimus, even Megatron all do their fair share of reports, paperwork, and log keeping. Even the twins have been known to do their fair share. Especially log keeping. Surprisingly they have a lot to say."

Jynx didn't know what 'log keeping' was. Nor did she know why they needed to do things like send supplies request though reports.

Maybe it was because she was a fool and becoming more of one as every orn went on, but for some reason Jynx shifted a little in her chair, scooting forward slightly and asked a question.

"Why do you have to file stuff like that if the warriors need things? Why don't they just say they want it?"

"This is how they say they need it." Prowl replied, but the way she looked at him said enough that she didn't understand. So he went on. "There are around three hundred warriors in Tyger Pax at the moment, including three commanders—two of which are princes—four more elite officers, another battle battalion out in the ruins of Polyhex, the various scouting patrols we have circling the planet as we speak, not to mention all the Enforcer patrols that are doing the same. At this very moment the command element of this whole order has over three thousands lives outside these walls that need to be constantly accounted for and kept up with. They must have enough energon, enough medical supplies, enough everything to keep them going and we must also be keeping up with to make sure who is still alive and who has died. That does not include the same needing to be done for the colonies, or this city. Thousands of bots who all report in with status at least three times a decacycle. More if things are needed. All of that must be kept up with. Sorted through, and managed. Normally this task is split between all of us of the command but half of our element is out on the battlefront leaving those of us that are left to pick up the extra slack."

She blinked at him in something akin to awe. He went on.

"I assure you, Jynx. If you went to find Optimus or Elita, probably even Ratchet in Arcee if they're back from the trip to the clinic they will be doing much the same thing Jazz and I are now. These reports can mean the difference between a bot living and a bot dying. They are not a joke. Nor are they a burden. They are simply a truth of trying to rebuild a world and fight a war none of us really want to classify as one. It is a responsibility we took on. So we will do it, and we will not complain about it."

"Well," Jazz shrugged. "Roddy will complain."

Prowl rolled his optics. "Yes. He will, but that was not the point."

"Considering she's yet to even meet Roddy, yea."

"I doubt she has the patience for the speedster yet."

"This is probably true."

"Roddy," Jynx repeated the name with a funny face. "That's Rodimus Prime right? The half brother to Optimus and Megatron."

Now that got the two officers' attention.

"You know that?"

"I'm not stupid." She narrowed her optics.

She knew him alright.

She knew because she'd heard Blackice talking about him the last time he'd paid her a visit in the desert. He'd thought she'd already been passed out when his vid comm rang.

She hadn't been.

That had been a long while ago though.

She wondered . . . .

"Is he out there in that battle? Right now?"

Jazz gave her a funny look, but he answered. "Umm, yes."

A strange feeling came to life in Jynx's spark.

She had no idea what to make of it, nor was she sure why it made her open her mouth. Why did she care what Blackice had planned for the youngest prince she had never even seen? Why did she care that after what she did in those tunnels Blackice was going to be pissed and that little idea he'd had back then might just become a reality very soon?

Why in the world was she remembering this now?

Would they even believe her when she told them?

"You should probably change that." She told them evenly.

The two mechs' optics narrowed at her, but it wasn't in anger. It was in calculation.

Jynx wasn't sure which she was more afraid of.

"What do you mean we should probably change that?" Prowl echoed.

"I mean, Blackice is planning on killing him. You know, as a political stunt."

---

That night an urgent comm reached Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, and Megatron. A comm that said Roddy might be in specific danger.

The mech had rolled his optics and said they were in the middle of a war—that they were winning by the way—and that they were all in danger. That he would be fine.

But something about the warning, or more importantly where it came from itched Megatron under his plating. He ordered his youngest brother to change residence in the makeshift command base they had set up out there. Rodimus thought he had lost his helm, Magnus had argued were they really trusting this whim of the little psychopath. Argued that why hadn't she said anything about it before?

When Megatron turned to him and asked was he willing to put his mate's life on the line because he mistrusted this whim Magnus had quieted, Rodimus had protested, and the two moved quarters all without any notice being made outside the three commanders.

That same night a RED bomber snuck past the guards—which later were found out to be spies, who killed themselves with poison capsules halfway though Megatron 'interrogating' them for almost getting his youngest brother killed, that let him in—into the base, and blew Magnus' and Roddy's old room sky high. They had been marked down as off shift. They should have been in that room deep in recharge. They never would have seen it coming.

They would have been killed.

But they weren't.

And it was all because of Jynx.

Which was why the next morning somewhere before dawn in the breems of time that Jynx's over tired frame thought should be outlawed the little white femme found herself standing before the Prime as he paced angrily—though the dawn colored femme that was standing a few steps from her kept trying to assure her for some reason it wasn't at her—around his office, snarling to himself and muttering things Jynx could quite make out with a processor as tired as hers was at the moment. For some reason the medics were here, as was Jazz and Prowl—because they had to bring her obviously—and every one of them was far more awake than she was.

But considering she was standing in a room full of sparkbond fools she was pretty sure systems half locked in tired loops was better than being aware of what was really going on around her. Mainly because she still had no idea what was going on. Considering none of them had bothered to tell her yet that she probably just saved the youngest prince's life that really wasn't all that surprising.

"Just—how—frag it all—why—" And then the massive red and blue mech trailed off into another string of growling that made Jynx's sensors twitch as she watched him walk in circles. Another klick of that went by before the femme turned to Jazz and huffed.

"Why am I here again?"

The saboteur, who's arms were crossed over his chest and his weight was lent to one side, didn't look much happier than the Prime but when his optics landed on Jynx the look softened.

She wasn't sure if she was okay with that.

"Some suicide bomber tried to kill Roddy about three breems ago."

Jynx straightened, optics widening behind a rapidly clearing visor, suddenly she was very awake. She stared at him dumbfounded for a good few klicks before she pulled a face and looked to her toes.

"Huh," She muttered. "Didn't think I'd be that right."

"Didn't think you'd—" The Prime almost shouted at her as he spun around, startling Jynx from studying her toes and look up to his optics with a frightened step back. He didn't seem to register the fear that came to life in her energy field. "Tell me Jynx," He growled. "Are there any other coming assignation plans you'd like to share with me!?"

"Optimus!" The snarl that came out of Jazz's throat was enough to stall the towering mech back into just what it was he was doing but not before Jynx's claws had flexed, her plating had tightened, and the fear in her optics as she cowered back under his height turned to something far more akin to rage.

"What?!" She hissed back, pulling herself to her full height. Mad that he scared her. Mad that she let it show. Mad that that stupid saboteur had to snap for her so she didn't fall back crying. But more than anything, she was mad he dare turn her to fault for this. Of all the things she blamed herself for in this life at this point in time who Blackice decided to kill—at least in this stupid Autobot and Decepticon family—was not her fault! "You think just because I'm his Primus damn whore I know everything that sick bastard has planned!?"

And didn't that rock Optimus back on his peds so much he looked like a kicked puppy.

Jynx felt a bit of growing satisfaction with that.

However, she was far from done.

She was stressed, she was tired, and she was scared out of her processor about what was going on around her.

So in true little crazy glitch fashion she did the only thing she knew to do at this point. She started screaming at him. For at least if she was screaming she could keep herself from whimpering.

"Get this real fast you over grown soldier-mechling. Just because I'm his favorite plaything doesn't make me all knowing about all those fraggin' glitches all the damn time! I know what I know about the Underground because I've slaggin' survived long enough in their berths! Because Blackice for all his many horrible attributes is something of a pompous blow hard that really, really loves to brag! Get the picture!? I've spent vorns under his fraggin' claws! I know him! I know how that twisted, fragged up, power hungry, and never been denied anything in his whole fraggin' life, processor of his works! I know how he likes to torture. I know how he likes to kill. I've had to watch him do all of it! I've had to be it! You see, he has this sick little fascination of making those he gets his claws on, or piss him off, suffer in the worse ways possible. But oh no, it's not the worse way's he can think of to make you suffer. No. It's the things you're afraid of! He figures them out. He tracks them down, hacks them out, or simply wrings it out of you screaming. He finds out what your biggest fear is. What it is that terrifies you the most and then he gives it to you! Over, and over, and over, and OVER AGAIN!"

Catching her breath Jynx choked on her rabid vents for a moment watching the shock, horror, and pain glitter in those bright optics that towered over her. But the little femme was on a roll as she seemed to so often do in Optimus' presence. So with a vibrating growl that rattled all of her little self she went right on along on her tirade.

Because he wanted to know?

Than by all slaggin' burning rings of pit he would know!

"So do me the pleasure of picturing this you honor bound idiot! Blackice hates you. You and your stupid older brother and your stupid Enforcers and you stupid, stupid-ness! Why I have no idea really. After all, it was you who jetted off world and left him to take it over with his gang of cruel fools. Really. He should be thanking you. But then again you did all come back on your shiny new ships from whatever it was that happened across the universe all buddy, buddy again and went about pretending that Cybertron still belongs you and your damn lineage. Honestly, that's the only reasoning I think he has. You insulted his pride when you thought you could take what he claims as his—" She wondered for a moment if that included her, but she had to remind herself that he didn't know where she was. He couldn't. Not yet at least. "—and he's going about screwing with all of you while he plans to slowly kill each of you in whatever way he figures out would be the most damaging. Will have you begging him to tear out your spark before he's done."

Her sneer curled up into a dangerous smirk that Optimus hadn't seen since she'd been magnetized down to that chair the first orns she was here.

"So let's think about this logically," A jabbed glare in the Praxian's direction, than her optics slid back to the Prime. "for a moment shall we? It's you we're talking about oh high and mighty ruler of our race. What do you think he would be scheming that might be the way to go about hurting you the worse? Would make you ache and hurt and break before he ever even lays a claw on you? Well that's not too hard to guess now is it? Even a drone could probably figure this one out. It's this comedy act you have the audacity to call a family. If he were to slowly pick away at the lives you hold most dear around you. Like kill your youngest brother, the one that you hid from the world his true identity for so long trying to protect him so he wouldn't be a target, for example. That would rattle you to your core wouldn't it? To find out he got killed out there on a frontline you sent him to and was targeted because you finally gave him the title that was his birth right but was taken away from him because you were scared for him. That would hurt wouldn't it?"

That dangerous smirk grew into a full on grin, the kind of grin that sent shivers down mechs' backstruts. A smirk that lit up her whole faceplate and brought to light again the withering monster that was locked under the surface. The monster that allowed Jynx to do whatever the slag she needed to, because the monster was not afraid.

Not afraid of anything.

It didn't have the sanity to be.

Jynx relished in it.

In the ability to stand ped to ped with a towering mech and have him back up a step at the look that glowed in her screwed up optics. It made her feel like she had some kind of control over her life. That she wasn't what she really was.

That it wasn't all a fantasy in her helm that she stood a damn chance making it out of any of this still breathing.

"And let me assure you of this, Optimus Prime, he's nowhere near done. Just because this one missed doesn't mean he won't try again. Off Road is dead and you blew up one of his tunnels. He's blaming you for that. He's going to take it out on you in any way he can think of to make you suffer. Well, that is until he figures out who really is to blame. Until he figures out all of this is because of me. Until he figures out that I've betrayed him. Because believe you me, honorable prince, when he finds out I'm the one that's told you all of this. Pit! Not even your pretty, high, walls are going to be enough to stop him."

With a self satisfied flutter of her sensors Jynx giggled through her smirk up at the massive mech as she watched the weight of her words settle onto his shoulders and into his spark. The mighty mech that was Prime took another step away from her as his optics lowered to the floor, flickering with thought, even if they still watched her with vorns of hard learned instincts.

But he didn't say anything.

Didn't react—maybe he couldn't—he just lifted those optics again and stared at her until the sensors stopped fluttering, the smirk slipped away from her lips, and the giggling came to an end. After that it was the silence of the room that had her plating tucking back down tightly to her protoform. Because she realized, somewhere in the middle of all that screaming at him she just did because he was a royal fool she admitted just a little bit more than was too much for her cope with.

Oh pit.

Maybe it was the fact she had recharged in over six orns now—which even for her was pushing it a bit—or maybe it just was a full blown panic attack once again because she just admitted to this idiot just what the pit she really was and admitted the truth she was afraid of. Who know? But whatever the reason one moment she'd been standing there staring up at the towering mech and then . . . blackness.

---

Groggy wasn't a good enough word.

Not really.

Her processor felt more like it was a jumbled up bowl of curdled energon or something as she slowly came back to the land of the processing. However, it was with a sharp intake of air that her optics refused to open and she lay there on a too stiff medical grade berth. The sharp smell that rolled over her olfactory sensors that stalled her opening her optics was the too clean smell of a medical bay and the sterile environment in which it created.

That and the hushed argument that suddenly rushed over her audios.

"How could you have fraggin' let her go without recharge for six orns!?" The medic. And he didn't sound happy, but he did give Jynx a clue of how long she'd been out. Not long apparently.

"What were we supposed to do, Ratchet? Force her to recharge?" The saboteur bit back.

"You could have slaggin' told me! I could have given her a sedative!"

"Oh yes, Ratchet." The Praxian huffed. "Like she would allow herself to be drugged in a room with us. She wouldn't recharge because she was scared of us. Do you really think she'd have let herself be knocked into that kind of compliant state?"

"She fraggin' fried a stabilizing circuit in her processor from it!" The CMO snarled. "I'm still trying to build up her fraggin' reserves and her fraggin' immunity! She needs rest and she needs energon! Regularly! She obviously hasn't been getting enough of either!"

"And now she's laying in this bay again." That was the femme medic. "I'm sorry Jazz, but your plan isn't working. It's making her worse."

"Her being with us is not the reason she chewed into Optimus." Jazz snapped. "Idiot had it coming. He should have slaggin' known better than to start yelling at her. She saved Roddy's fraggin' life and he starts yelling at her? Has he lost his mind!?"

"He was upset." Arcee countered.

"Oh gee that makes it better." The spy hissed. "I take it all back!"

There was a moment of silence in which Jynx could almost tell the medical femme was glaring at the silver spy before there was a sharp vent of a snort and she deadpanned. "Tell me, Jazz. Are you yelling at me and Optimus because she glitched or are you yelling because of what she said and what it implies?"

Another pause in which Jynx felt her spark still in her chest.

What?

There was a slow snarl that rose up in the silver mechs chest though before with a huff and a sweep of metal it sounded as if he went to pacing.

"Don't play coy with me, Cee." He growled. "I don't have the patience for it right now."

"Does it look like I care?" The femme growled right back at him. "You have no more right to be angry about all this than any of the rest of us do."

"Just because you look at her and see the twins does not make you right about this." He replied.

"We don't look at her and see the twins." Ratchet retorted. "She has a lot of similarities. She's scared, untrusting, and volatile but no more so than you were. None of her is going to be solved by doing what we did in the past. It's a good reference point sure, but it's not going to fix this."

"And switching her around to stay with you two after she was just becoming comfortable with the twins was a mistake." Arcee added.

"They're soldiers," Prowl responded. "They have a duty to do. It is not to sit around and sparkling-sit the femme in the play hanger for the next vorn."

"You can't expect her just to magically decide to trust you two because you want her to, Prowl." Ratchet shot back. "You of all mech's should know that."

"I thought we weren't comparing her to me or the twins." Jazz sassed.

"We're not." The CMO's tone grew to a warning. "But if you're going to be a negative influence of the gaining of sanity to one of my patients than Chief of the Enforcers and Head of Special Ops or not I will take her away from your stupid afts."

"And do what with her, Ratchet?" Prowl's even voice picked up his own warning. "She's just as terrified of the medical bay as any of the rest of this place."

"Yeah, and the medical bay has needles." It was then that Jynx opened her optics. Looking through the curved glass to have them all swing around and stare at her while she shifted around to curl on her side away from them. "And my helm and spark hurt so can you all please shut the frag up so I can go back to recharge and not think about how much of an idiot I am?"

Well when all else failed she guessed sass would do and with that she closed her optics.

It was a fake peace that didn't last long though, and before she knew it Ratchet had given another set of medical slag to put in her energon she was supposed to actually drink and she was supposed to actually recharge.

Ha.

Yeah.

Sure.

But she found herself back in the two stupid sparkmate's room again all the same later that evening. It appeared that Optimus had decided it was best to leave her alone again—for some reason she had a feeling Jazz might have something to do with that—and she was back to wasting time. Though there was a put in question from Jazz as the night settled down. The Praxian and the spy seated in those chairs around the shelves with a book each. Jynx was in 'her bunk' playing with her crystal when the saboteur spoke.

"Is there anything else you know that might save some lives in the near future, sweetspark?"

The question drew her from her helm to slowly lift her optics to him. She snorted. "Yeah. Stop pretending you can beat Blackice at his own game."

Quiet answered her for a moment before the Praxian spoke.

"We have no other idea of what to do about him and his terrorist."

"Well that makes three of us, doesn't it?" She snapped back.

Another long stretch of silence in which Jynx figured they were either talking over their bond—and didn't that make her want to run—or contemplating her responses down to the very syllables that made them up—that scared her too—after she said them.

"He didn't say it, because he wasn't thinking beyond his anger to the whole situation," Prowl started. "But Optimus does thank you for what you told us. We all do. You saved not only his brother and his close friend but our friends and brothers as well."

"Well yeah, you're all a stupid family."

"Yes." He agreed. "We are. And that means we look out for each other."

"And we'll look after ya too, Jynx." The use of her actual name from his lips made her pay a little more attention to the mech and what Jazz was saying. "I know you don't believe me. I know ya have no reason too. I know nothing I say will make that change until you are ready for it to change. I know because I've been where you're sitting. Honestly, I have. But femme, please, understand this. We are not going to let any of those bastards hurt ya anymore."

The crystal made a soft 'clank' when it fell from between her fingers and landed in her lap. Jynx didn't pay it any mind though. She was too busy staring at the mech and his bright—earnest almost—visor and the optics that shown behind it.

He wasn't lying.

She had no idea how it was that truth settled in her spark as fact while she stared at this mech she should fear on principle alone, but it did.

She believed him.

If for no other reason that she actually thought back to all that had happened since she came here. This mech and the twins hauling her back to the medical bay after she took a dose that nearly killed her, the twins saving her from a repeat of something she feared above almost all else in that bar, the twins bothering to try and figure her out if for no other reason that they no longer scared her all the time, the . . . the all of it.

Her saving Jazz.

Because she was scared of watching the Praxian know what real pain was.

Her not wanting to hurt the twins anymore because when she was with them she didn't want to be a monster anymore.

That same idea rolling over to her not wanting to gut these two while they recharge.

Even if by every hard learned lesson that had been beat into her over the vorns of her pathetic life she knew she should be running for the hills from these sentimental fools. She wasn't running though.

She was talking.

She was listening.

She was . . . beginning to believe them.

She didn't answer him that night. She just scooped up her portable rainbow, clutched it to her chest, rolled away from them, burrowed under her blankets, and . . . recharged.

---

It was another four orns—a whole decacycle she'd been with them now, and the twins had been gone—when something beside the mundane questions and comments of energon, roof, recharge, and checking on her was broken again. She was—since she'd broken her last drawing tool and didn't know how to go about asking these two if they knew where she could get another—playing with her crystal in what had become her designated spot in the corner of whatever office it was the mates shared for the orns work when suddenly Jazz went to cackling.

It was a sound that startled her so bad she almost dropped her crystal when she sat up straight in her chair. Attention suddenly locked on Jazz who was draped lazily, and in a sideways kind of slouch, in a chair next to the side of Prowl's desk. It seemed the laughter was unexpected even on the other mech's front as he lifted his cool optics to Jazz's mirth filled ones.

"What is it? Jack requesting another shipment of C4?"

Jazz's cackling turned into something of a giggle that Jynx once again wasn't sure why soothed her in some weird way. "Nope." He popped the 'p', turning his attention to Jynx and her perch at the side of the room. The attention made her stiffen slightly, but not as bad as it had a few orns ago. He smiled that lazy smirk of his before flipping the datapad in his hand around and offering it to her.

As usual she blinked at him strangely for a few klicks but then eventually the little femme slowly uncurled her sculpted legs from beneath her and padded carefully over to him. This whole 'believing him' thing was still being worked out in her processor and she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to make of it or how to act. So she was just going to go on doing what felt right at the time and at that very moment it wasn't a completely horrifying thought for her to walk over and see what it is that he found so funny that she needed to see.

Of course it was only after she took the pad from him and looked down to the sprawl of glyphs on the screen she realized that she had no idea what in all of pit it said. Her optics narrowed only for her notice that that wasn't entirely true. She knew what some of these symbols meant. Like her name. It was in there. Along with a few other words she had grown to recognize over the vorns. Though it wasn't enough for her to know what the whole rather long sprawl of text meant.

Glancing back up to Jazz she huffed and shoved the thing back at him. "You know I can't read that."

He smiled at her and waited.

He and Prowl were learning faster than she might think they were and just like he knew she would she muttered a low note and went on.

"What does it say? My name is in it."

"It's from the twins." He responded.

Jynx perked up, and then tried to hide the fact that she did.

Prowl seemed to find this a bit of information interesting as well however, for his left wing twitched behind him as his helm tilted to the side ever so slightly.

"The twins?"

"Yep." Another pop of 'p'.

"What do the twins need they are finally a report about? Has one of them broken a dueling blade again? Or is this a medical report that should have gone to Ratchet?" The Praxian inquired.

"Oh no." Jazz assured him. "They seem quite alright if the boasting is anything to go by. But ya know, it's Sideswipe's writing so you always have to take everything he says with a hint of over exaggeration."

"Well at lease neither of them has gone and broken themselves. Ratchet is already in a mood." Prowl replied.

Jynx was just confused. "What does this have to do with me?"

Jazz's smile slid back to her. "At the end of all their braggin' about how much of a breeze the Ground is they have added in a very specific question; how is Jynx?"

She just went on staring at him.

Jazz seemed to find this amusing. "Would you like to answer, sweetspark? Or do you even give a frag?"

She shifted nervously. Standing there in front of a mech that even though was lounged about in a way that she could probably slit his throat before he had time to move she felt exposed and vulnerable. Mainly because she knew very well just how much of her and how she was he and his mate saw, but also because she was intrigued by a question they had asked not too long ago.

She scooted, just a tad closer, following Jazz's gaze that watched her but not in a way that made her plating crawl or feel as if he was waiting for her to snap. He just gazed easily at her while she brought herself closer at a sideways angle and peered down at the pad that he had again.

"Umm," Her voice wavered a bit, but she went on pointing a slightly shaking claw at the screen and the glyphs that had a home there. "Could you . . . tell me . . . what it all means?"

Jazz's smirk became something less lazy and more of spark felt emotion as he nodded and patted the bare space beside him on Prowl's desk between the endless stacks of datapads. For some Primus forsaken reason, Jynx did as the motion suggested. She ended up perched in a ball leaning over Jazz's shoulder while he went about pointing out glyphs and connecting them to words for her.

She was unaware of the triumph flare that was spinning around Jazz's spark sliding through the bond to Prowl who was listening to his mate's silent happy dance in his spark with a small smile of his own. Watching through the corner of his optics, wings held carefully still so they wouldn't display what was going on in his own processor. While that small smile grew a little more when he went back to filing the energon shipment to the battlefront as their first real progress with the little femme in the form of a reading lesson went on for another three joor.

---

That same night, as the washrack ran, and the mates left Jynx to her own devises while they shared the act of cleaning—something Jynx hadn't done in a very long time, something that made her spark ache a little more than it had been which was why she was sipping at her medicine filled energon while she sat perched in one of their winged back chairs with her crystal in her lap and a datapad in her hands that she was doing more spinning around at odd angles and staring at as she flicked through the digital pages. She was doing more picking out glyphs she knew than actually trying to decipher what it is the text said. She'd picked up quite a few things with Jazz this afternoon—a lot that left her wondering if the twins really were just that good of fighters or if Blackice's forces were playing with them all a lot more than she thought—she read through more than just the twins though.

Well she didn't really read them.

Jazz did the reading, and showed her each glyph and how it went together with the next to form an actual meaning to come to life from the symbols. She listened, and she asked questions, and . . . nothing bad happened. There was no taunting. No cruelness.

Jynx was still trying to figure that out, but considering she had nothing else but time to think—and that still was a scary concept—so she was trying to occupy herself. The sounds of the washrack running in the background was a nice constant fight to the silence not only around her but inside her as well. So that was the reason she was blaming the sensors atop her helm being allowed to stand tall. It was because she wanted to hear the cleanser splattering. It was not because she felt at ease enough to let their vulnerability be free.

Nope.

Not at all.

And it also wasn't because there was a dull throbbing behind her optics again that was giving her a helm ache. It was just . . . because. That was all.

So that was what she was going to go on telling herself as her crystal shone brightly in her lap and she flicked through the book she couldn't even read the name of.

That went on for around thirty klicks before the sound of the shower ended. Jynx didn't pay it much attention though. She'd found a paragraph she almost could make complete sense of—context clues and all that—and was trying to figure out what in all of Primus a panda was. The only way she knew what the whole word was because it was spelled out in each letter glyph separately and she could put it together.

She was so busy trying to figure out how a organic creature could be 'colored a lot like Prowl' and why in the world that would be in this book that she didn't realize the mechs had returned or that Jazz was grinning as he leaned himself over the side of the chair, optics dancing over the screen she was tilting back and forth while examining.

"Havin' fun are ya, sweetspark?"

She squeaked a very sparkling like sound, flailing sideways and probably would have fallen out of the chair had Jazz not reached out and carefully caught her by the wrist pulling her back upright before just as quickly letting her go and stepping back.

"Sorry, darling." He chuckled a little in an almost embarrassed manner. "Gotta stop forgetting I can't just appear with you like I can everybot else."

"Why?" Prowl responded. "You don't seem to mind that reaction when it comes from everybot else."

Now that had Jazz cackling again like mad, bending over and clutching at his sides as his engine purred with the rich sound. It was the sound—added to the words—that allowed Jynx to settle back down in her seat to glance between the mechs as Prowl offered a rare smile to his mate and Jazz tried to not fall to the floor with his laughter.

"You know," He sputtered through his laughter. "I really do love ya, Prowler."

Her sensors tucked a little with that admittance, and she looked away from the warmth that was for some reason displayed before her. It made her uncomfortable and she'd really like it to stop. The easiest way she knew how to make that happen without starting a fight she still wasn't sure why she was so against now was to look back to the datapad and ask a question.

"What is a p-a-n-d-a?" She didn't know how the word was meant to be said, so she simply spelled it out in the letters. "And why does it look like you?" She poked a claw in Prowl's direction.

That seemed to surprise them both and stopped the exchange only to have Prowl step forward and stretch out a hand asking for the datapad. Jynx handed it over with little thought only to watch in surprise when the mech took one look at the words written on the side and his small smile returned. He handed it back to her with little more than that smile before he answered.

"That is a copy of one of the accounts Blue has written."

Was that supposed to mean something or make sense to her?

Well it seemed to make sense to Jazz because he huffed a laugh and grinned broadly back down at her.

"Ya picked one of Blue's books? Seriously? Of all the books on that shelf." He laughed, but it wasn't a mocking laugh. It was almost a purred kind of happy sound. "Well ain't that an interestin' thing."

She was still confused.

It was a wonder it didn't show on her faceplate. It might have for all she knew, but they weren't seeming to pick up on it so Jynx just figured she go ahead and ask before it annoyed her that they were talking above her helm.

"Blue? Who is Blue?"

"Oh yeah," Jazz seemed to realize something when he looked back down at her from is height. "You haven't met Blue yet."

She shook her helm and the flick of a doorwing from the other mech said enough to her that that wasn't an accident. The Praxian had kept this bot, whoever they were, away from her.

That . . . was most likely a smart decision.

Considering she still wasn't all that sure her being around these two was a good idea. At least she was still telling herself that.

Jazz looked the other mech's way as if wondering if he wanted to share whoever this Blue was. It took a moment, but then Prowl set his cool optics on her.

"Bluestreak is my apprentice of such. Though he really is no longer an apprentice. He was the only other mech that survived Praxis, but unlike me he was there the night it was attacked. We pulled him from the ruble."

Jynx simply stared.

She could do nothing else.

For if she reacted she knew very well just what she'd give away. And that was one secret she wasn't yet ready to share. So she stared. Biting back the response that wanted past her lips until she looked back down to the pad in her lap. Focusing on the book and the text in front of her she pushed back the realities in her spark and asked another question.

"So he wrote a book?"

"He's written a lot of stuff." Jazz answered, sitting down in the chair that was sort of beside her while Prowl sat across from them looking for all the world that he wasn't really sure this was a discussion he wanted to have with her. However, she was talking, asking questions, and this was what they wanted after all. If talking about this was the path that lead to her opening up. If this was the path that would lead her to telling them her secrets, what she was scared off—even if by now they were all knew a lot of it—than this would be what they talked about.

"Oh." She responded.

This seemed to confuse Jynx even more. Because it did. She guessed she shouldn't be surprised. Why couldn't a mech sit down and write if he wanted to write? It wasn't the fact that he wrote she found weird, it was that she couldn't read it. So she didn't understand it.

"But what is this thing he's talking about?"

"An organic creature from Earth." Prowl said. "Blue took a liking to them. He often visited a place the humans a zoo so he could see them. There was one in a decent distance from one our bases while we on that planet. That book you have there is a part of his thoughts of that planet. The things he saw and felt."

"He writes about how he feels?"

"It is how he copes with things." Prowl explained.

Even if the words were spoke coolly with little more than a monotone they sent a knife right through the middle of Jynx's spark and she had to fight to keep herself from gasping and looking away at the pain that came to life. Instead, she reached for her energon cube again and took a deep drag hoping the black tinted liquid would help.

All because that . . . that right there that he had said.

That was eerily familiar.

And it hurt.

A claw slid across the screen to turn it off and she sat it on the small round table beside her chair. She was done with things written by this other Praxian named Bluestreak.

"Okay." She said, and desperately needed something else to talk about. Now. Like right now. Before she did something stupid. Like start talking.

The two mechs picked up on the stress that suddenly came to life in her, a glance being exchanged as she went to nervously playing with her crystal in a fidgeting way that made Jazz and Prowl both uneasy, until Jazz spoke up again.

"I heard Wheeljack made you something else." He stated, drawing Jynx's silver optics—visible behind the not so tinted curve of glass—to him.

The words threw her for a moment, her processor rolling with so much that it took a moment to try and figure out what he was talking about.

Oh.

The game.

She glanced down, as if she could see into her subspace pockets like this where the game was put away. "Yeah."

"Grand Design, right?" Jazz pressed.

She nodded slowly, than something accrued to her. "Sideswipe said you two play it."

He grinned. "Oh yeah, we play."

They'd been playing for very long time. They'd owed that game more than the femme could possibly imagine.

"It's a neat game." She replied. If she was fishing for the chance of maybe playing again—with these two—as something to take her processor off the path it was headed, than who really care?

"Wanna play?" Jazz beamed.

Her answer was a rather quick dip into subspace.

---

She seriously got her aft kicked too.

Same team as Jazz or not, Prowl was fraggin' smart. It didn't help that Jazz did little more than watch as she placed her pieces and started the game either. The damn Praxian guessed all her important pieces besides her flag ship in the first blind rounds. She was left with a bunch of useless elites and her flag ship.

She lost horribly and Jazz had found that incredibly amusing.

And oddly enough, so had Jynx.

She hadn't been so outclassed in a game of wits in a very long time. A portion of her spark twisted in pain at this realization, but another was fascinated. It was the fascinated part that won out too. Which was why, now, another three orns later Jynx was perched in her chair—now scooted over not really next to either mech but close enough she could ask questions without really having to ask them—with another datapad in her lap focusing intently on some glyphs she was sure were taking her way to long to figure out.

She was afraid to ask if she might be right though. In thinking that this might be harder than it should be . . . because of things that were in her helm she couldn't tell any of them about. So she kept her mouth shut about it and just stared harder trying to make herself understand the symbols for what she knew were words but wouldn't translate right no matter how much she was sure Jazz had already told her what it was this sentence said.

She wasn't really aware just how much either mech was watching her either. She didn't know it, but ever since she started this new little twist neither mech was getting a whole lot of work done. They were both a bit distracted by this side of Jynx they'd never seen before.

Was this the femme that the twins had relaxed around? Was this the creature Sideswipe had said off hand while passing in the hall was alright?

They knew the violate creature from before, the one that reared its fanged smile even recently, was born out of fear. It was her coping mechanism. It was how she protected herself in a world that seemed to have destroyed every shred of what she was really meant to be. It was not something either could blame her for. For when it was brought down to the basic truth. One only really had to do a quick sweep for the thoughts to surface.

Just how in the pit had she made it this long . . . ?

Just what else was she still hiding?

Prowl still had too many variables to the equation, even after more than a decacycle that she'd been curled in Bluestreak's bunk in their room.

Jazz still couldn't slide his way in with smiles and ease to find the reality under the fronts.

She was making them work for every centimeter of ground they gained in this. They shouldn't be surprised, they weren't really, but it was still a hard thing to wonder over.

Than the wondering was going to come to a rather abrupt end this afternoon because the door to Prowl's office slammed open rather suddenly startling even the mates from their musing only to calm when the explanation was found in Bluestreak's gleeful, silvery voice.

"PROWL!" He all but sang as he ran into the room. "Prowl! Prowl! Prowl! Prowl! You've never gonna believe what I just saw, Prowl! Primus. Never, ever, ever! It's so freaking awesome! You'll never guess! Oh Primus this is so cool! I almost can't believe it! I wouldn't, really I wouldn't. Not if I hadn't of seen it! But I did! Oh Primus this is so COOL! Prowl it's—ah this is so awesome—"

Of course that was when it all went horribly wrong.

Because that rush of words as he banged into the room spilled out in a grand total of about two and a half nanos and that was the time it took in which Jynx—who so stupidly had allowed her chair to be faced away from the door—all but came out of her plating at the bang, at the suddenness, at the voice, at it all.

Sadly, little old harmless—outside of a battlefield—Bluestreak scared her bad enough the noise that left her vocal processor could only be described as a screech that turned into a choked off scream as she bolted out of her chair that went toppling back to the ground only to get caught up in her own spinning around trying to figure out what was going on. An action that had her crashing to the floor in a bang that was hard enough to bruise the protoform under her plating when she crashed down to her aft. However, the panic didn't stop there.

No.

Jynx was caught somewhere between her processor and reality and didn't stop scrambling until her back hit the far wall at the back of the room and her scrambling peds kept scrambling until she'd worked her way back upright, claws screaming against the wall as her fast movement had them cutting into the surface leaving deep grooves. That noise accompany the frantic hiss that bloomed from instinct leaving her panting, quivering, somewhere between rational processing and someplace far darker as she stared back across the room in terror.

Now that too all happened in about the span of two nanos in which Bluestreak came to a quick stop. Wings flaring out high and startled behind him as Jazz and Prowl came to their peds in a breath all optics focusing on Jynx as Jazz threw up and hand to quiet the already quiet Bluestreak as the Praxian's wings fell behind him when he realized what he'd just done. The appendages tucking low and shameful when his neon blue-sky optics found the fear glittering in the silver ones across the room that were staring back at him like he was something from the pit itself.

For a few nanos there was nothing but the sound of panting vents and a low warning hiss—a noise that sounded like it belonged more to a feral, scared, and trapped Silver Saber than it did a bot—that Jynx wasn't even aware she was making before Blue feel back on the only thing he knew to do.

Ramble.

"Oh frag." He muttered lowly, but oddly at something close to the speed of sound, as his optics went to darting between what was his closest family and the little femme they were watching. "Oh slag. Oh pit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot she was here. I'm sorry. Prowl, Jazz, I'm sorry. I didn't mean too. Frag it. I didn't—"

"Blue," Jazz didn't yell, yelling was the last thing that needed to be done right now. He didn't take his optics off of Jynx either as the sound of the younger mech's voice caused another terrified hiss to rise out of her as she flinched a bit more back into the wall only to realize she had nowhere else to run too. That seemed to make it worse.

The silvery-grey sniper slammed his mouth shut at the wave and the warning Jazz did blindly behind him, bottom lip clamped between his teeth to forcibly stop himself from doing what he did when he got nervous. Which was talk more. All he could do now was try to remain still and keep his wings from trembling with worry as his optics kept darting. Between Jazz's now stung tight frame, the spy balanced on the balls of his peds, ped claws dug into the floor, ready to react if he had too and Prowl who's wings were so high and tight behind him Blue knew they ached while his own plating had tightened together, his own optics locked on the quivering thing across the room.

It was Jynx that ripped at the youngest mech's spark though.

Because she looked like she thought they were about to kill her and all that was his fault.

He bit down harder when a whine—the start of a word—made its way through his vocal processor. Jazz hushed him quickly, and a little harsher this time to keep him still and keep him quiet as the silver mech quietly muttered.

"Easy Jynx," He started, his voice hardly a whisper but all her focus snapped to him so fast something creaked audibly in her wound form. Blue tried not to flinch at the painful sound let alone the full focus of that scared gaze landing of Jazz. "Easy, easy,"

Jynx wasn't seeing him though. She wasn't hearing him either.

On no.

Fear was a powerful thing and through the fog of half reality half memories she pinned up her lips in a snarl, flashing fangs, and hissing loudly at him. But there wasn't anger in that sound. There was only fear.

Jazz swallowed hard.

Frag.

This was bad.

This was very, very bad.

For it was a terrified Jynx that was capable of the most damage. That they knew well. That fear would turn to anger and that anger would turn to action. Action that would end in energon. Lots and lots of energon and one of them would have to be the one to stop her.

And that would rip away every shred of progress they'd made—maybe even the twins had made—to nothing. The second one of them laid a hand on her to harm her, even if it was only trying to stop her, it would all be for nothing.

They would prove themselves just what she was still trying to believe that they weren't.

It would be over.

Before it even really began.

Processor scrambling, grasping at straws, trying to call up every fraggin' detail they'd put together Jazz searched for anything. Anything he could think of that would snap her back down for her realize nothing was wrong.

Prowl's quick processor beat him to the answer.

It was a with a resonating bass that the elder Praxian kicked up a noise down deep in his chest, radiating out from his engine and his vocal processor. It echoed like thunder around the eerily still room and just as quickly as Jynx's gaze snapped to Jazz it found Prowl. The two-tone didn't so much as flinch when the hissing and narrow optics feel to him. He just pitched the sound a little deeper, standing still as a statute as the whirlwind of emotion in those silver orbs raged at him.

Her processor wasn't in the now. That was the problem. That much he was sure of, but sound had worked more than once in similar situations. Jazz had shared this, the twins had shared as well. It was time to test the theory again.

His battle computer was screeching at him; the odds, the percentages, the facts not adding up. The only think that did add up was the eighty-six percent chance that this was a fool's notion and he'd be trying to pry her claws out of his neck in less than four nanos.

But then, suddenly, something in those scared orbs changed.

For on the other side of them, just for a moment, black and white paint flashed neon yet deep green and gold and her processor slid from the fog just enough that she shook her helm to clear it trying to see if the image in front of her was real. Only to find when it cleared it wasn't.

It was Prowl.

It . . . it was . . . Prowl?

Reality swam back in like a tidal wave and it hit her just as hard, knocking Jynx down to the floor when her peds fell out from under her. She slammed back into the floor with a hard sound blinking rapidly to try and figure out what the pit just happened. Only it didn't even make sense to her so she just sat there.

Blankly.

On the floor.

Knees drawing up to her chest as uncertainty lead to instinctual actions to be as small and unnoticeable as possible while wide optics stared unknowingly at the floor. And there she stayed. Still quivering a little in a quiet rattle of plating against protoform with optics as empty as dead stars.

The quite hiss and grind of hydraulic lines and relays was what eventually stirred her from her processor. Much like had been done by the crimson twin not long ago Jynx found the shiny form of Jazz crouched carefully down in front of her. Though he made no sound, instead watched her worriedly through a bright visor while he balanced carefully on the balls of his peds trying—it seemed—to make his own size on her seem a little smaller while he crouched there beside her.

He was trying not to scare her.

Ironically.

A soft murmur started up in his chest and when Jynx didn't jerk away he went on. "Easy, sweetspark, it's okay."

Her claw clutched a little tighter at her knees, but Jynx didn't go anywhere. She only lowered her helm a little more and muttered back at him.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, much to Jazz's surprise. "I . . . I-I didn't mean to."

She was still afraid, only now it was punishment she feared.

"Hey its okay." Jazz quickly shook his helm at the apology. This wasn't her fault. It was just an accident. "No harm done, see?" Glancing back to the two Praxians he shifted slightly so that she could see them as well. Prowl stood tall and stiff as he always did though his flicking wings told a different story. Bluestreak on the other hand was tucked in on himself with wings pinned low and broad in an expression of shame and apology that Jazz hadn't seen in a very long time.

He didn't wish to see it either, but it was a pure scream of frame language that surely Jynx understood. He'd already noticed she read wings rather well. She had to know the pure and honest mistake and regret that was pouring out of the young mech—though who was a good deal older than her most likely—that had shattered the calm that they had worked so hard to grasp at.

"Everybot's fine." He looked back to her, bright optics shining with the will for her to come back down to reality fully. "Really. Are you alright?"

"I—" She gulped, optics sliding around the room until they landed on Bluestreak. "I wasn't expecting . . . ."

Jazz had to chuckle a little at that. "Yeah, we weren't really either."

"I-I-I'm sorry." Blue squeaked slightly, sounding more like the young orphan of a catastrophe than he had in a very long time. "I-I-I di-di-dn't mean to scare you. Really, I didn't. I just forgot you were here. I'm sorry. I'm not use to having—well I'm just really sorry."

Those silver orbs stared hard at the tucked frame. The quivering wings. The shorter than the other Praxian's, duller yet still shining red chevron and those beaming sky blue optics that were dimmed with the emotions rattling through him.

Her voice caught in her vocal processor at the sight of him.

It had been a very long time since she'd seen doorwings do that.

This sting of pain that went along with that memory had her grasping for the change of that posture as quickly as possible. Because she'd caused it. Again! She was the reason for that.

"Its," She had to force herself to hold his gaze and not go bolting away from the memory he caused. "Its . . . okay . . . ."

The forgiveness wasn't really forgiveness. She was too busy blaming herself again to put blame elsewhere. So that meant it came off her tongue easily and surprised the mechs around her a good deal. Though what they thought was a learned acceptance that no harm was meant was really Jynx just desperately trying to convince herself that everything was all right. To pull herself from her helm and squish her memories down.

Jazz relaxed back on his heels at her words that easy smile of his coming back. Jynx tried not to look like that made her a little more queasy inside.

She was good at lying though.

Some of the time.

"I guess introductions are in order." Prowl's voice rose up from where he looked as if he relaxed slightly as Jazz and even Bluestreak did. The grey Praxian's wings were rising behind him and it was that that allowed Jynx to uncurl from her trembling ball. Not any of the rest of it.

"Yea," Jazz chuckled. "Now that we all know no bot is gonna kill each other."

It was with that that the saboteur held out his hand in offering to help Jynx up. Now that the wings were less of a grading tax on her memories the small white femme found herself taking the offer and allowing the mech to pull them both back to their peds. Thankfully, it only took a slight tug for him to let her free again once they were upright. He even stepped away a good step so she wouldn't feel crowded.

Claws linking together in an uneasy manner she still huddled in on herself some as she glance warily between them all. This did not go unnoticed and Jazz took another step back before he tried to ease her further by motioning to Bluestreak.

"Jynx," He started. "This is Bluestreak. The mech we told you about the other orn. Blue, you already know who Jynx is."

"Umm," He laughed a little nervously. "Yeah. I do. Who doesn't? Well, beside everybot outside of the compound. Yeah. Other than that. Well I guess they do know you. You are a wanted criminal and all that. But not anymore right? Oh. I'm rambling again. Damn. Uh, hello. Officially."

She gazed at him like he was completely insane, than after a while she uttered a soft. "Hi." Back and her rapidly shifting world changed all over again.

---

Another orn passed.

Though this one was filled for a whole lot more chatter. The first breem or so of it Prowl had been afraid Jynx might just snap and try to throttle Bluestreak. The fears were not unjustified. The mech did talk an endless babble that most of the time made absolutely no sense whatsoever to Jynx and the not knowing sort of did make her want to take him by his short chevron and slam him repeatedly into a wall.

At least for a few breems.

However, when she started to stop worrying about trying to keep up with his endless sounds and dramatic talking with his whole entire frame she found there was something to be said about a mech who could take up the silence in her spark and processor and fill it with something else.

Even if it was mindless noise that most of which she didn't understand. It was something. It was a distraction in a place she was running out of them. With no twins to entertain her, no more drawing tools, and since there as only so much staring and trying to figure out words she could do before she wanted to hit that against something it wasn't so bad that he sat and talked in seemingly endless circles once he figured out she wasn't going to go running scared again.

So he did.

Blue talked.

On and on for joors; he talked through their meals, he talked through the other two mechs working—they didn't seem to mind, if anything Jynx hadn't seen Prowl's lips tilt up in what might possibly be a smile so much . . . ever—he talked through the afternoon, and then he followed them along to their berthroom still chattering away as he strolled beside Jynx looking down at her with some kind of interest that was too innocent to scare her. Much as it was with the yellow mechling of a mech.

Jynx found within a very short amount of time—just as it was with Bumblebee—she couldn't make herself be afraid of Bluestreak. Praxian and all he reminded her of or not. Terrified her out of her plating the first klick he met her or not.

She wasn't afraid of him.

If anything, she found herself relaxing the longer he went on talking. Because there was never any digging in what he said. He never once asked her for an answer to anything. Mainly because he went right on with his own thoughts on things before anybot could hope to answer most times. He seemed to have a billion and one things to say about anything at all.

It didn't matter.

He just went on talking, and it took about four joor into it that Jynx figured out why.

It was a comfort tool.

It hit her like a sucker punch right while he was in the middle of tell her something about some place called a 'national park' he saw on Earth and how he wanted to try and make one here at home that Jynx realized. He was talking, endlessly chattering, because he too was scared of what would great him if he let his processor stop.

Prowl had said it.

He said that this mech wrote because it helped him.

Well if he wrote anywhere as much as he talked it made perfect sense.

He was just like Jynx in a very scary way.

He was scared of the silence of something that wasn't hard for her to put together, so he filled it with the only thing he knew to do.

Just like Jynx . . . .

She relaxed even more after she came to realize that. She even stopped picking nervously at her plating when he waved his hands or flapped his wings. For in that moment she felt she understood him. Felt she could relate to him in a way she hadn't been able to do in a very long time.

It was after that moment, that Jynx started talking back.

---

"And what's a . . . ." She glanced down to the datapad again trying to figure out what these letters might say. Blue took the liberty of leaning forward across the space between their chairs—the extra one he'd fetched from somewhere yesterday that he now sat in—at the other side of Prowl's desk while the mates worked away at the same thing they had been doing all morning.

"A lion?" Blue supply.

Jynx shrugged, glancing back and forth between the glyphs and him. "Yeah, I guess that's what it says."

"It does. L-i-o-n. Lion. It's an Earth animal. They were really cool. They lived in these family groups called prides and they all looked out for each other. They shared the work and helped look after all their little sparklings, that were call cubs, and they really were neat. I wrote a lot about them in that part right there that you've got. Would you like me to read it to you?"

He'd been doing a lot of that to over the last two orns.

He seemed to liked to read, even if it wasn't some of this stuff that he wrote, and oddly enough. Jynx didn't really mind all that much listening.

"Maybe." She answered, before flipping a page. "Why did you like them so much?"

He chuckled, and neither saw Jazz and Prowl cast another warm glance over their way since they were so fixed on the words. "Because they sort of remind me of the twins. In a strange way. I don't know. It's hard to explain."

"They remind you of the . . . twins?" Lifting her optics from the screen she raised an optic ridge over the rim of her remarkably clear visor.

"Yeah." He laughed. "I have no idea why. They just sort of fit them to me. Well, Sunny more so, but you know if one is one I guess they both are. Foxes kind of fit too, Sides anyway. Oh! Did I already show you the stuff I wrote about Earth foxes? They're a whole lot like our trubo-foxes. Only fluffier obviously."

She nodded.

Because yes, he had.

"Oh well, I guess we watched the videos than huh?"

Another nod.

"Okay. You wanna watch the stuff I have on lions?"

What would it hurt?

The mech and his fascination with alien fauna made for a rather good distraction.

"Great!" He beamed. "Here, umm, let me just borrow that for a moment." He gently took the pad from her and went to flicking and clicking rather swiftly, however, before he reached the information he was after Prowl spoke up.

"Bluestreak," The voice quickly had Blue snapping his focus up to grin brightly at his mentor-might-as-well-be-brother. Jynx's optics followed as well.

"Yeah Prowl?" He asked.

"Put your lion lecture on hold for a breem, it's about time Jazz and I took a break as well as it is time for Jynx to have another bit of energon."

"Oh, alright than Prowl." He nodded quickly, setting the pad down on the desk and standing. "We can watch the video when we get back."

"I'm not hungry." Jynx tried to argue, and she wasn't really but more so than that she just didn't want to go sit in that empty mess hall. It was big and cold. She liked it in this office far better. She liked listening to Blue ramble. She liked hearing the steady clicking of Prowl's fingers on keys and Jazz's almost silent snorting when he found a request or report funny while he tapped almost nonstop lightly against some surface with the pen in his hand.

Prowl's look her way was no-nonsense though which was why she found herself rising to her peds even before he started talking. "Ratchet wants you to double up on that latest medicine he has given you so that means another bit of energon. A bit extra will not harm you, Jynx. If anything it will help build your reserves which is what Ratchet is after in the first place."

"Okay," She shrugged, trailing along after the mechs while Bluestreak started up another round of his chatter. This time about how he wondered why it was the stuff Ratchet was giving her that Wheeljack made actually helped heal a bond. Prowl had input on this so they were talking back and forth in a manner that left Jynx wondering how it was bots could process that fast—it just seemed to amuse Jazz—as they walked along the halls heading for the cafeteria.

They had started taking more direct paths these orns—though not because Jynx was supposed to be on any of the main floors—but because apparently somebot named Red Alert panicked a good deal about them finding out there were more spies so Optimus was allowing him and some other bot called Inferno to sweep the less traveled halls for bugs and such.

Jynx wasn't sure how any of that made sense, but hey whatever the Prime wanted she guessed. He was leaving her alone again. No more questions about assassination attempts, because honestly, she didn't know. She'd been guessing the first time and she'd got lucky. He must have figured that out because once again he was allowing her to just sort of ideal until he could find another use for what it was she knew.

However, this stroll that took them though main lobby was not going to end like all the others. They were halfway across the large expanse of relatively empty space since the compound was closed to civilians at the moment when a harsh smell caught Jynx senses. A smell that could only be described as burning air—as weird as that was—and only came from one thing that she knew of.

Warping drives.

This was the smell of bending universe and distance. This was what came before a warp and the being that made it appeared in a space.

Jynx stopped.

Confused, glancing around at the smell trying to figure out what might be going on when Prowl and Bluestreak abruptly cut off their conversation having smelt it as well the same time Jazz stilled as if in dread. A klick of nothing and than a blistering flash and suddenly a hand grasped hold of Jynx's arm yanking her from where she'd been standing and crashing her back into Bluestreak as the mech scrambled backward.

Than Jynx found herself staring at the full mass of two very large seekers come crashing down in the exact space she'd just been.

One was a towering mech—larger than the other by a good few feet—with sky blue plating splashed with white and a bit of red in a few places. He screamed warframe, though most seekers did, with powerful long wings sweeping out behind him and burning, intense red optics. The other was a deep black tinted in purple and highlighted in the same with his own powerful wings and yellowish optics, but there was far less direction or purpose in those for some reason very wide orbs even if Jynx could tell it was him that the waves of a warp were coming off of.

For a nano she was confused as to why in the world they suddenly crashed into the lobby, but then she saw it.

The prone forms in their arms.

Forms she'd grown to recognize rather well.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.

Covered in . . . energon, blackened by scorch marks, torn, cut and blasted but it was the gaping hole that took her breath. The huge empty hole right through the middle of Sunstreaker's chest that the massive blue seeker was trying to be so careful with that really knocked Jynx into making since of it. That and the fact that she noticed the normally bright colors that marked their plating were dull and graying fast.

Her jaw fell open as Bluestreak's hands were suddenly very tight against her plating. She would realize later it was because the mech was suddenly try to hold her up as her peds fell out from under her, but at that moment all she could process was the loud cry that tore through the black and purple one's vocal processor as he tipped his helm back and bellowed while both seekers took off at a dead sprint for the direction she knew to be the medical bay.

"RATCHET!" The mech's voice bounced off the walls, vibrating some suddenly very scared and shriveled part of Jynx's spark as she watched them sprint away with the . . . graying forms of the twins . "WE NEED HELP!"

---

Well, I think I'm going to go hide now.

Hope you guys liked it. :) Feel free to tell me.

-Jaycee