Hi!

I'm pretty proud of how fast this got written :D

Notes:

Blu: I'm gonna go run and hide before I get smacked into next year :D glad ya liked that scene. Prowler's a cutie :D

IrresoluteSongbird: Glad the suspense is workin :)

Victoria-Blackheart: Thanks!

Moonlight Black Rose: Well… Sam did die, so…

Ryu433: You'll find out :)

Sipi3: I hope this chapter explains more..

Lookish: I'm glad it was so sad :) and that sure does sound sadistic.. thanks for your review :)

My Renji-kun: I sure do have a lot of suffering coming my way..

TarotCard87: sorrryyyy :)

Carebear1: You'll see :)

Aniay: I'm glad ya like it so much :)

Yellow Eggplant: Glad ya liked it :)

Obsydiandreams: Yeah, the mistletoe thing didn't work out as I would have liked. I'll have to add that random girl into the story earlier so it's not so out of the blue. And, by the way, I appreciate the honest review :)

Just a few points:

1. You guys and the whole concept of death…. If someone dies… they tend to stay dead. Hate to be the bearer of bad news…

2. Know what I realized? It's been a looooong time since I've written a disclaimer. So, for all the law-minded out there:

DISCLAIMER: this may not be entirely mine, but you know what? There's another story that IS entirely mine, and it's, imho, better. Eat that, Transformers Owners.

3. Heyyy on that note, I'm gonna shamelessly sell myself here- who knows a publisher/editor? Show of hands? :D

4. I'm kind of in a really babbling mood right now, and I found a new way to do my makeup, and that makes me extremely happy :D Gotta appreciate shallow happiness like that. Freakin' love it.

5. AND! I got this shirt… it says "wicked quick, built for speed" on it, and it has a pic of this Bot that looks like Ironhide! It's red (and okaaay… maaaaybe my 12 year old brother was the one that bought it and maaaaybe I just got it from him. But you can hardly tell it's a boy's shirt, and besides, any shirt looks good if it's fitted right and paired with little shorts or something!) and I love it!!!

6. Does anyone even read this? I get the feeling that people might just skip over this and get to the story.

7. Hey, if you buy this as a novel, you won't get these little author's notes! There! That's incentive! Sell this for me, and you can read it and I'll shut up in between chapters! Hahaha.

I'll shut up now.

Enjoy!

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One century wasn't so long a time.

In a Bot's lifetime, it was like nothing, give or take. Barely a measurable amount in their grand scheme. But time had been feeling endlessly longer to Bee, and every day that passed felt as long as it would to his human self, a self he hadn't been since the day he died.

He had already lost so much of himself, that last part didn't seem to matter much anymore.

All the Bots just thanked Primus he was still alive. Alive, however, only in the sense that he was still physically there. Emotionally, though, it was undeniable that death was impending, if not already closing in.

Even now, a hundred years later, Bee still looked up whenever anyone entered the room, as if, maybe this time, it would be him.

It never was.

Jacob had been practicing the fine art of sneaking into a room. He'd wanted to sneak up on Ironhide and steal back his sunglasses from their new home in Ironhide's jacket pocket, but he'd been given away already. The second his footstep's whisper hit the air, those amber eyes- so haunted, so solemn- had flickered to the doorway. But Jacob was used to this. For the life of him, he didn't know what caused the crushing disappointment on Bee's face every time he looked to see who was coming into the room, but he suspected it was all part of that unmentioned something.

He remembered the last time he'd asked; he'd gone to Optimus, frustrated with being told, again and again, that it was "nothing". "Nothing" was the explanation for a mute Bot, a forever vacant apartment, a dormant war, a missing Bot, a locked door in the restricted ward.

"I'm sorry, Captain Lennox" Optimus had said, "I'm afraid I can't speak about it either." That gentleness in his tone was reserved for Jacob alone, and he knew, just like every other Bot, Optimus saw the first Captain Lennox in him. For a while, Jacob had attempted to dissuade them from this view, but it taken a week of that to realize it was hopeless; Jacob looked nothing like his own parents, but everything like Will, his great-great grandfather had been at his age. From what he could gather, in the five generations since the famed Capt. Lennox, many of the boys had showed a lot of the same genes, and Jacob most of all.

Annabelle had used to laugh at how this made the Bots double-take at first, how her nephew responded to the name "Will"; she used to laugh a lot, and he knew the Bots, Ironhide most of all, saw her spirit in him too, the spirit of a family member Jacob had never met.

The Bots had seen the progression of Lennox's family line, had known Annabelle and her brother, their children, their children's children, and, finally, Jacob. Maybe it was fitting, that the descendent who most resembled Will would be the first to join the military and become a Captain too. The Bots seemed to see him as some sort of déjà-vu, déjà-vivait. Already lived. He wondered if his earlier relatives had felt the same, like they were seen as someone they weren't, offered a world already shaped for them, but they couldn't know; they hadn't willingly joined that world, hadn't received the haunted looks.

So for the moment, he had no explanation why Bee looked disappointed to see it was just him. He'd used to take this personally, but had since learned that it wasn't just him, it was every single person or Bot, seemingly in the world.

This glance, however, alerted Ironhide to Jacob Lennox's presence, and he conveniently slid the glasses further into his pocket.

"Why, hello, Captain," Ironhide smirked, snapping him a mock salute. "I'll get out of your way now." Jacob rolled his eyes and held out his hand impatiently.

"Don't pull that rank shit on me. You aren't going anywhere until you give me back my glasses!" He could see this failing already. Ironhide took far too much amusement in using the "ranking officer" defense to conveniently remove himself from the room whenever Jacob wanted something from him. "Besides," Jacob said triumphantly, "if we're gonna go rank, you're higher up!" The smug grin this got told him he'd picked a useless defense.

"In that case, these are now mine. And that is an order." Ironhide said. Lennox huffed at that, pulling out a chair at their table and sitting down, arms crossed over his chest.

"Be that way." His gaze slid to Bee momentarily, but, as always, Bee said nothing. Lennox had inquired about that once.

Once, the Bots had said Bee wouldn't talk, but in the past half century, that had turned to couldn't, and it couldn't have been more true. If not for the Bots' ability for thought projection, he would have been rendered completely voiceless.

Lennox realized that Bee had silently said something when Ironhide nodded and bid Bee goodbye. Once Bee had left, Lennox turned back to Ironhide.

"So, what've you been up to today? Besides petty theft?"

"Spent this morning begging Ratchet to come back, because that new medic is getting on my last nerve." Ironhide said. Lennox arched an eyebrow.

"Who?"

"That useless guy who walks around with a stethoscope even though half his freakin' patients are Bots."

"No, Ratchet. Who's that? Is he the medic that left?"

"Yeah." Ironhide toyed with the sunglasses in his hand, "He went off about a hundred years ago for some research thing. Hear from him every now and then. He says he doesn't know when he'll be back and won't say what he's doing."

Not that Ironhide hadn't asked. He'd begged Ratchet to know what he was doing, but Ratchet had denied telling. Ironhide suspected Ratchet was trying to learn the medical techniques he'd never gotten a chance to learn from Inlay, the techniques that could have saved him.

"But what resear-" Lennox started, but then he heard a door slam from down the hallway, and moments later, Sideswipe appeared in the rec room doorway.

"What is it this time?" Ironhide called out. Sideswipe crossed the room, drawing out a chair and sinking down into it.

"He thinks he's always fuckin' right, but you know what? He's not!" Sideswipe snapped.

"Funny, that's just what he said about you last time."

"You see?" Sideswipe crossed his arms over his chest, "He is always wrong! And you know what else?!"

"I think I'm gonna have to find out." Ironhide rolled his eyes, but Sideswipe didn't take any notice.

"He thinks 'vettes aren't the sexist car around! He's just- fuck, he's just wrong!"

"And you're gonna go prove him wrong?" Ironhide guessed, propping his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. "Right?"

"Hell yes I am!" Sideswipe shoved his chair back again, stalking back across the room and leaving again.

"Whoever said sex didn't solve everything didn't know those two." Ironhide sighed, "because they've been trying to prove it wrong for Primus-knows-how-long."

"Is it wrong?"

"Who knows? No matter how many times they try it, everyone knows they make up beacuse they love each other. Although, someone once said it was all about 'facing."

"And? What happened to them?" Jacob asked, and Ironhide laughed.

"Man, how vicious do you take them for? Chromia said it, and Sideswipe hasn't talked to her since. But she hasn't been murdered or anything."

"And how long ago was that?"

"Umm..." Ironhide paused, "Must'a been about... I'd say six hundred years or so? He can be pretty good at holding grudges."

"Man, you guys have killer memories" Lennox shook his head, "Do tell me you use that for good and not evil, at least sometimes?"

"It can come in handy, I guess." Ironhide said, but, try as he might to hide it, it was obvious he was thinking of something else. Lennox heaved a sigh, putting his face in his hands.

"Not another thing you guys won't talk about!"

"What're you going on about?"

"Everything" Lennox sat back in his chair, ticking off on his fingers, "There's an apartment that will never, never be rented out, they locked up one room in the hospital even though it's obviously empty, the new medic sucks but no one can get the old one back, and he's still called the 'new' medic even though he's been here for over twenty years, Bumblebee can't talk, and that one time I said something or other to him, he looked at me like I had just told him the fucking world had ended, all of that! Hell, you guys even freak out if I talk about any of this stuff, so I know it's all related."

"What did you say to him?" Ironhide, as always, picked up on what Lennox saw as the most useless part of his diatribe.

"I ran into him outside the gym, and he said- well, you know, thought-said- that I may as well camp out there because I've been spending so much time there," Jacob said, and Ironhide snickered at that; Lennox had been frequenting the gym because Ironhide had been teasing him about how he used to lack muscle, "So I said, 'well, I'm stronger than you are, show me your guns.' and-"

"Holy Primus. You didn't." Ironhide was staring at him.

"I did…" Lennox frowned at the horrified look this earned him, "Please, please, please tell me what's going on, Hide! I keep fucking myself over and don't even know where all these minefields I keep running into are! Please! For my own survival!"

Ironhide sighed at that, thought it over for a while before nodding.

"Fine. But there are rules. First, never, never, never talk about it. Second, never, never, never mention it to Bee. Got that?" Lennox just nodded. "There was… there was a human-"

No one had spoken that name, not since the day Ratchet left. Primus knew Bee hadn't been able to.

Lennox listened in silence as Ironhide told him about what had happened, when a heart had broken and a world ended, a human lost and a Bot never again truly found.

"No one's ever talked about him." Lennox said. He'd never heard the name of the human who had held such importance, back in that time he'd never seen but was somehow defining him. "What was his name?"Ironhide looked at him, but like he was looking right through him.

"Sam."

His name hadn't been spoken for lifetimes.

"And Bee loved him?" Lennox asked softly, but Ironhide shook his head no.

"Bee still loves him."

Sometimes, Lennox thought Ironhide and all the other Bots would look right through him, and see back to the time of the first Captain Lennox, and the entire world he'd lived in.

And Lennox knew the Bots all wished they still lived in that world.

zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Even the most advanced beings fell back on the most archaic methods.

At the moment, Ironhide was swearing up a storm because he'd picked the short straw. (The short pen, to be exact; the original plan had been pencils, but when none could be found, they had taken a handful of pens, and Sideswipe had snapped one in half to serve as the shorter one). Ironhide frowned down at the stain of ink the broken pen had left all over his hand and plotted to replace Sideswipe's alt form's window-washing liquid with ink.

Ironhide, Prowl, the twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had snuck into an unused conference room so they wouldn't be found, having received the news from Optimus the previous day and come to the realization that they truly needed to break the news to the only Bot left out of the loop.

"Do I really have to?" Ironhide finally asked helplessly. He glanced at Prowl, standing beside him, but Prowl merely offered a sympathetic, apologetic look and didn't help. Across the room, Sideswipe was leaning back against the desk, next to Sunstreaker, and was likewise silent.

"Someone has'ta" Skids contributed, less than helpfully, as his twin nodded his agreement.

"Besides," Sunstreaker added, "you'd be one of the best to do it, right?" He didn't say the best, of course. The best would have been Ratchet, the second best Sideswipe.

Ratchet's location had been unknown for a century, and it was highly unlikely that he was going to show up and save Ironhide from having to do the task.

Sideswipe had quietly been removed from the limelight on the situation; it had quickly become obvious to all the Bots, not just Sunstreaker, that dealing with Bee's heartbreak left him reliving his own five centuries of agony, and no one wanted him to break any more.

"Please, Hide. He needs to hear it from one of us, not find out on his own or from someone who doesn't care about him." Sideswipe's plea was one Ironhide couldn't dispute. Sunstreaker was obviously thinking that as well, remembering how Sideswipe had heard his life-ending news from a liar, and slipped an arm around Sideswipe's shoulders, leaning in to whisper something to him and brush his lips across Sideswipe's jaw.

"Fine, I'll go tell him." Ironhide turned to leave the room, tossing the ink-bleeding pen into the trash on his way out, "just make sure no one else gets to him first." The other Bots followed, until only Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were left in the room.

Sunstreaker wanted to ask, but knew asking would only reopen wounds he never wanted to have caused. Outside, rain was drumming against the windows, cold, relentless, even as a sparkbeat.

"Maybe I should've volunteered to tell him." Sideswipe said quietly.

"Would you have been able to?"

They hadn't talked about it in a long time, it might have been years; most of the time, Sideswipe all-but refused to. He would rather pretend it hadn't happened, even though they both knew that it had left him a completely different Bot. Sunstreaker wanted to, but couldn't push the subject, not when he blamed himself. But he desperately wanted to know if Sideswipe was going to ever recover, wanted to know if he'd broken his lover for good, wanted to know how he could make it better in any way.

But Sideswipe never wanted to talk about it, as if he didn't know that his silence on the subject was speaking for him.

Sideswipe wiped away tears, wouldn't look at him.

"No. I-" his voice broke, "fuck. No. I couldn't. But I want to. But I can't- can't-"

This was the evidence Sunstreaker had wanted, but now, now he just didn't. He didn't want to see the pain Sideswipe had gone through, was still going through.

It had been almost a century since Sideswipe had cried about it.

Sunstreaker pulled Sideswipe into his arms, promising through his touch that he wasn't going to leave ever again, that he was going to do everything in the world to make it better.

"I'm sorry." Primus, but it killed him to see Sideswipe cry. The Bot was about the strongest he knew, even emotionally, and he hated that he had the power to cause such heartbreak. The tears that trickled into his skin may as well have been burning, smoldering, for all the pain he felt. He wanted to somehow give Sideswipe himself back, reverse the destruction done by the sparkbroken aloneness, but no one ever could, "I'm so sorry..."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Ironhide stared down at the designs the ink had stained across his fingertips; it was easier than seeing that horrified look on Bee's face, than remembering that the last time Bee had smiled was lifetimes ago.

"Just yesterday" he said softly, "they found another one. A human the Allspark has ingrained itself into. A shard, or something."

The words made Bee stare at Ironhide, wordless.

Ironhide had no way of knowing if Bee's memories of him were sweet or painful, or if all were forever bittersweet.

[I don't want to meet them.] Bee stated flatly, turning away. Ironhide's gaze remained at his back.

"Bee, it's been over a hundred years and-" and as his voice echoed dimly in the high-ceilinged room of the engineering complex, all at once, just who he was talking to flashed in his processor, blissfully in time, "-and I know it's been unbearable. We're definitely not asking you to- to start over, or forget him. No one would ever ask you to do that. This isn't... this isn't a repeat of last time." He drew in a breath, couldn't look at Bee, "I'm just saying that there's a human the Allspark has reappeared in. They don't even want anything to do with us. We're just going to meet them, copy it, erase their memory, and let them leave. It's a girl. Her name's Susan. Nothing like him, not at all." He was begging now, like somehow, if he could get Bee to meet the new Allspark human, he would be one step closer to reclaiming himself, "Please?"

[I honestly don't think I could do it.]

"Just think about it" Ironhide pleaded, "Please?" Bee said he would consider it, but no promises were made.

Ironhide almost said we all want the Bee we used to know back, but that would have been sprarkless.

They all knew Bee wanted himself back too.

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Ironhide had decidedly avoided any further emotional conflict all afternoon since talking to Bee, and had thought the day would end without further anguish, but he wasn't so lucky.

Prowl had all-but vanished for the day, having been handed the assignment to choose a new software program to update on all the computers, and Ironhide had hoped this would put him in a good mood.

However, when he finally located Prowl back at the Bots' apartment, it became clear that something was wrong. Anyone else, and Ironhide would have balked at dealing with it, didn't want to face another sparkbreak in that dreary, rainy day, but… but Prowl's pain made the world cease to spin.

Prowl was staring down at the envelope in his hands, grey eyes filled with tears.

Primus knew enough tears had been shed that day; Ironhide had hoped, perhaps selfishly, that his own lover wouldn't fall victim as well.

"What's wrong?" Ironhide couldn't see the return address or anything else as he joined Prowl in the sitting room, but somehow, he got the feeling that Prowl didn't see it either. He brushed away a tear on Prowls' cheek with his fingertip, "Please?"

"I just... just realized. It's over." Prowl shook his head, wiping away tears with one hand, "Primus, I always scoffed at them for getting all upset over a stupid era, but...but..."

Ironhide realized what it was then, that it was perhaps the worst thing that could have befallen them.

The age of paper was gone, the envelope Prowl had found merely a memory of a time before electronic contact, but more was missing, as personalization and human contact faded out of sight until the day now that Prowl realized it was truly gone. Personalization had been traded for efficiency, uniqueness given way to uniformity, and the last planet that had mastered the concept of true human contact was rendered unrecognizable, now just as cold as other faraway worlds.

"I just... it's gone. I didn't even... didn't even realize it, but... but now, no one cares about anyone else anymore." He bit his lip, tears welling his eyes again, "This was the last planet where all that mattered and now... now it's gone..."

Ironhide had always known it would be inevitable for Prowl, that he would lose a time, and even as Prowl sobbed into his neck, clinging to him so tight it was as if Ironhide was his last link to what was now gone, lost without his last hope for humanity, Ironhide was just thankful Prowl wasn't alone.

"I liked this planet... I thought.. I thought it'd stay like that forever." His hold on Ironhide tightened, as he felt his world slipping away, further, further, until it was out of reach, where it would always, always stay. "All the people I was working with today... they don't remember it. I don't know if they even know what paper is. I just... I just want before back..."

They all did. Prowl had finally joined the ranks of the grieving, and Ironhide knew, regretted, but knew, he couldn't have saved Prowl from that inevitable fate.

"We all do, Prowler. But you'll be okay."

If he'd ever had any doubts about how much Prowl trusted him, he never would again, because when those tear-filled grey eyes met his, there was a faith he'd missed seeing for all the time he'd known Prowl. Faith like he could change worlds, or move mountains.

Or ease what felt like, to Prowl, a fatal pain.

"I promise."

But he had to wonder what was truly impossible to promise.

After all, hadn't he promised to always be with Bumblebee?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The world was still burning, enough fire to devour everything he'd ever known, and what would have been left then?

They had been lucky last time. Last time, the world hadn't ended.

This time- this time he was now alone, he'd never wanted to be alone, not like this, not after finally finding him.

But he hadn't been able to do a thing, as fire and fate together destroyed everything he'd ever loved, tore at him until there was nothing left for him to live for- and now- now, what was left?

The room wasn't empty.

He had always thought it would be void of any evidence of life, blank and faceless- but he had never truly imagined he would end up anywhere like here, that things would ever get this bad, that he would be here.

But he had no idea where here was, just saw all the whiteness, bleeding in from the walls and ceiling and sheets, and heard a hum of computers and the click of keys. When he closed his eyes, he could hear something, singing in his ears, so faint he could barely catch it, but his heartbeat had never sounded quite like that. There was a quick, pulsing pulse, and, as his anxiety rose, so did its pace, faster until the pulses faded into a charged hum. The beeping from a nearby monitor drowned out the sound. Only a voice could truly pierce the smothering cocoon of empty silence, but that silence- how everlasting had it been? He couldn't live in this empty silence any longer. He craved its destruction like never before.

"Sam?"

His thoughts raced, tumbled over themselves, reeling from the assault of memory, and it was all silent, so silent, but- where was he? He wasn't here, he couldn't be, where? He couldn't have lost him- but hadn't he already?

That voice wasn't his lover's, he hadn't heard this voice in so long.

Where? Where? Where?

"Sam?!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hope everyone enjoyed that!

I love it when you guys review :D

Love ya!
Sunshine