So why'd you really do it?

by Dreamingsinger

The last thing the Autobots expected was that Knockout would ever switch sides to join them. But why'd he do it? It's out of character. There are bound to be a few trust issues. But when he is badly injured, saving his team without even thinking about it, the 'bots begin to discover that their suspicious defector is far less confidant than they thought, and far more broken.

36. Chapter 36

Second try at posting this tonight! First time I reposted a duplicate earlier chapter my mistake... If all goes well, I've now got it all sorted out.

So I took some very good advice from MadnessJones, on the last chapter. It was pointed out in a review, that the start of the chapter does kind of ruin the tention ofr th erest of it. And after thining it about it, I decided to rearrage things just a bit. Still the same chapter. Just a new scene order. And thanks a heap pointed that out. I fully reallized, you're right.

When Arcee awoke from her recharge, she found herself alone on the recharge station. The blue covering was pulled loosely around her, but the far side, usually occupied by her bondmate, was both empty and had cooled off in his absence. She remembered that she had fallen into recharge early and without him, trying hard to wait for him but unable to stay awake. She was vaguely aware though of having half woken up more then once in the night, and each time she had, her frame had been warm, pressed against the familiar warmth of his much larger frame.

Sitting up slowly, she wondered to herself when exactly he had been helped off the cart. And for that matter when he had been helped back on again, and by who. Just the fact that she hadn't woken up either time, made her wonder if perhaps she ought to be at least slightly concerned. And she shook her head a little, looking around the room, ashamed of her sleepiness.

CyberShock recharged soundly in the tiny basket next to the recharge station. She was flat out on her back, with two little legs bent slightly at the knees, one arm flung to the side, and a tiny silver hand in a loose little fist and shoved partly into her mouth. Arcee had put the baby in there before she lay down herself, and she realized with amazement, that the little one had clearly slept through the entire night.

"Knockout?" Arcee called, whispering so as not to wake her daughter from her recharge. Looking around the room again, she spotted a pair of thin trails of water, leading out of the wash station across the room and toward the door out to the hallway. And Arcee shook her head again, taken aback, realizing they roughly matched the width of the rubber tires on Knockout's mobility cart.

She moved slowly to swing her legs over the side of the recharge station, but before she could do so, the door to the living space slid open. Knockout rolled into the room driving the cart with his usual awkward efficiency at it. On his lap he balanced a small stack of data pads, and on top of those sat two full energon containers. He steadied the whole lightly wobbling stack with his right hand, and a silly grin spread across his face-plate.

"I brought you your morning fuel," he said, so clearly pleased with himself. He rolled around to her side of the recharge station and held a container out to her, with hand movements just barely coordinated enough to not knock the second container off the data pad stack in the process.

"Thank you," Arcee answer with a tiny laugh, as she took a quick sip from her container while sitting on the recharge station with her legs comfortably out of front of her. She resisted the urge to make a face, once she discovered from the unexpected taste of the energon, that he had brought her an over concentrated near medical grade mix that she had never exactly liked to drink. With another laugh she added lightly, "you do know though that I'm perfectly capable of walking to to get my own energon..."

"I know you are," Knockout grinned back. He lifted his own container from the top of the data pad stack, and set it down on the nightstand beside him so that he could then pick up the pads one at a time and set then down on the edge of the recharge station, before he picked up his fuel container again to drink from it. "But you need rest, so let's let you rest a while longer. Besides the baby is recharging. Let's let her recharge. I'm just as capable of rolling to get it as you are of walking anywhere."

"What did you bring me?" Arcee questioned with a laugh and a smile, as she moved to look over the pads.

"My photo album!" she cried, excited when she recognized the one on the top of the little stacked pile. "Thank you for bringing that for me."

"I thought you might want it," Knockout replied smiling right back at her. "I know how much you love looking at those photo files." He gestured to the rest of the stack explaining, "a couple of fiction books. You don't enjoy much reading I know. But that should give you something to do for a while anyway. And… I brought you some work. This week's status reports to catch up on. If I'm honest, I don't like the thought of you in here busy with pads upon pads of Autobot military business all over the recharge station, you know full well you're supposed to be resting on instead. But Ratchet warned me you might just go mad if you don't at least have something..."

In her little recharging basket, CyberShock began to fuss a little under gentle intakes while her free hand waved and wiggled, and she sucked lightly on the one in her mouth. Still sitting on the recharge station, Arcee took one more quick sip from her fuel container, and leaned to peek over the side of the basket, as the little's one's optics half way opened.

"Well it would seem she wants to refuel with us this morning," Knockout mused with a laugh, as his mate lifted the youngling from her basket, and held her tightly against her frame, bouncing her slightly in her arms.

"It's hardly surprising," Arcee answered back, smiling while she held their child. "She did recharge through the night. She's got to be hungry by now."

When Knockout reached into the little carrying basket mounted on the side of his cart, and pulled out a bottle she hadn't noticed that he'd been carrying with him, Arcee blinked her optics in momentary surprise. Talking the bottle from him, when he handed it to her, she looked at his side basket, and finally noticed its entire contents – a second already mixed bottle of the youngling's specially made energon formula, a folded pink blanket ready to wrap her in, and a soft fluffy rag they used to wipe her face-plate and mouth with, plus his drawing screen and a couple of pens.

Arcee nodded toward the full carrying basket, impressed, and smiled as she offered their child her fuel. Cybershock sucked on the bottle top with a half sparked effort for a second or two, before she began to fuss again with far greater urgency than before. Arcee adjusted the child's position, tilting her slightly more upright and offered the bottle again. A couple more half sparked little sucks, and she was fussing again, two tiny legs kicking while she cried her long robotic little cry.

"Here, let me try to feed her," Knockout offered, calm and still smiling. "You really need to refuel too."

Arcee was about to protest. To argue that she could take care of the little one just fine. That she wanted to do so. But she knew full well that he was right. She was still recovering, and as much as she may not have wanted to admit it, she was still in a weakened state because of it. Somewhat reluctantly, she moved to sit on the edge of the recharge station so that she could settle the youngling onto his lap, her little head against his bent left arm. And when he then reached for the bottle she passed it to him quickly.

When he glared at her in mock warning, with a badly hidden smile on his face-plate all the while, she took a fast hint, pulled her legs back up onto the recharge station, and sat back against the pile of extra pillows that had been stuffed behind her head. When he continued to do it even after she had sat back, she picked up her fuel container from it's place on the night stand and took a drink from it. And she stared in dismay as CyberShock snuggled happily against her creator's left arm, and began to suck hungrily on the top of the bottle he offered her.

"She likes you far better than me." Arcee said. Immediately she took another drink from her container, hoping to hide the disappointment she felt at that. But Knockout only smiled assurance as he fed their child.

"She likes you just fine," he said. "Of course she does. You're her carrier. She just knows me better is all. Or at least she's far more used to taking a bottle from me"

"I'm practically a stranger to my own youngling..." Arcee mumbled. A strange sense of dread and anxiety began to build, as she began to imagine the damage her days of unconsciousness and incapacity following the youngling's birth, may have done to any relationship she might have with the child.

"You aren't a stranger to her at all. Not like you might think," Knockout said smiling, as he explained. "She sat with me every day in the medbay. I'd hold her on my lap for hours, sitting beside your recharge station talking to you and wondering if perhaps you could hear a thing I was saying. And she'd stay awake for a while, with her optics wide open, staring at you with this strange look that I could swear was understanding. And she'd make a strangest, sweetest little noise each time I took her to see you, and the saddest little sound when we left again. Everyday, Ratchet would pick her up off my lap and try to put her in your arms for a while. Obviously you couldn't hold her, and sadly it never seemed like you noticed at all. But he'd hold onto her lightly to keep her from falling after he'd moved you so that both of your arms wrapped around her little body. And she'd close her optics and stay like that as long as we'd let her, and I always felt just how much she loved you."

"I… never knew about any of that."

"It's all true. And Cybershock is only six days old. These times, these early days, they will disappear quickly from her conscious mind. She'll know you as a carrier like any one else's. But still, on some level she will always recall the love she knew from the start."

Arcee, nodding gratefully and smiling herself by then, finished her morning fuel. The youngling finished the bottle a moment later, leaving not a drop of it in the bottom, but clearly content and not wanting to eat any more either. Knockout held the little one for a moment more while he struggled a little to put the empty bottle back in his side basket and then let her grab at his fingertips while he laughed a little. Then finally he gestured with his optics and a slight motion of his arm, for his mate to take the child from him again.

This time, the tiny bot snuggled against her carrier as soon as she was in her arms again. The little one's optics closed slowly, as she gave in to her need for more recharge. Arcee, smiling as she lifted one tiny hand and let the perfect set of tiny fingers wrap slowly around one of her own, let her love for her child flow through the carrier-creation link shared by their sparks. And the little one smiled a sleepy little baby smile in her near recharge, babbling and murmuring trusting contentment.

"See," Knockout grinned. "She loves you. I told you so."

"How'd you get onto your cart this morning?" Arcee questioned, curious. "I never even heard anyone come in..."

"Ratchet come in to help me," Knockout explained. "We just moved quickly and carefully, trying not to wake you up, which I guess we didn't. I told him I could do things from there by myself, and he was happy enough to let me try..." He looked then in the direction of the wash station and at the now nearly dried little water tracks his tires had made. "I guess I made a bit of a mess..."

"It's only water," Arcee smiled back. In her arms the little one wiggled slightly, and murmured happily once again, as she drifted fully into her recharge.

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When the commlink in her living space indicated an incoming comm call from Jack, Arcee was overjoyed. And she crossed the room quickly to connect the call, before sitting down comfortably in her armchair in the corner. One look at the strange expression on the young humans face though, showing over his webcam as soon as the call had connected, told her something was clearly wrong. Her spark fell a little, but as much as she wanted to, she did not let herself launch right into questioning him about it, in fear that she might only push him away.

"Hey Jack," she said instead, keeping it simple and light, trusting that he might talk when he wanted to, if indeed he wanted to at all. "How's school?"

"School's okay," Jack answered. His voice was hesitant, and he looked around anxiously while his hands on the desk in front of him and just visible in the range of the camera fidgeted far too much. "It's so different being out here. Living on Rhode Island is nothing like Nevada. It rains a lot, and there's often a cold wind off the ocean." Jack continued to fidget, until he lifted a soda can and took a drink from it. "It's almost winter now, and the weather is getting bad. I'll see snow any day now."

"Raf would love that," Arcee commented, with a smile.

And Jack just laughed, a nervous laugh under his breath and looked around the room uncertain again. "Yeah. I sent him a text the other night. He sent back 'no fair.' I got a call from Miko last night… she said Knockout comm'd her on the weekend... said you have your little bot..."

The youngling bot lay in her recharging basket near her carrier's chair in the corner. She was quiet as ever, but fully out of recharge and simply looking around, curious as usual, while she murmured little noises and wiggled slightly in the basket. Arcee nodded at her human friend's words, while she smiled at her child, and watched the tiny bot smile right back.

"Would you like to meet her, Jack?" Arcee asked, smiling again when she saw him nod toward his webcam.

She lifted her youngling from the basket slowly and carefully, and then she sat back down in the armchair again, with the little one laying in her arms happily. After a moment she shifted her a little so that she faced more toward the monitor, and when the little one settled again, murmuring more soft little sounds under slow intakes, Arcee looked back at the monitor. Jack looked back at her, with amazed wonder so clear on his face.

"She's cute," Jack said. "I hard time even imagining what a baby Cybertronian would look like exactly." He smiled a slow and hesitant smile at the youngling, who only blinked and babbled and wiggled to snuggle against her carrier.

"This is CyberShock," Arcee said, gesturing with her optics toward the youngling in her arms

"I can't believe you actually have a baby."

"I almost can't believe it either."

"I never honestly saw you as the baby raising type... you were just too good at scrapping 'cons..."

Arcee laughed a little. Then her expression turned serious and she said, "We want the same things in life that you humans do. Cybertron was not always a world of endless war… I never knew I wanted a youngling though. Never gave it any real thought. Then this one happened, and instantly I knew I loved her more than anything..."

The door to the living space slid open, and Arcee turned to look toward the door, smiling as Knockout drove his cart into their room, with a container of refined energon in his right hand.

"Arcee," he admonished gently, as he rolled up close beside her. "What are you doing up? You're supposed to be resting."

"I am resting," she answered with a laughing smile back. "Okay yes, I'm up. But still I'm resting."

He reached forward as far as he possibly could, in order to set the container down, just barely balanced on the edge of the little end table next to the arm chair. And then he moved again, so that he could use his now free hand to gently turn her head toward him. For a second he carefully studied her optics as he'd done so many times in past couple of days, before he nodded with a smile on his face and gestured toward the container he'd just put down. When she only stared at the container making a face, he picked it up again, careful not to knock it over with his less than perfectly working hand, and shoved it gently into hers.

"Can't I just drink regular energon?" she asked, pretending to whine and pout a little as she made another face.

"Just refined for today. Tomorrow we'll see if you're getting enough energy from regular fuel." Knockout backed himself up close to the recharge station behind him and reached over awkwardly in order to grab the spare covering that had been left in a pile at the end of it, and did his his best, struggling, to pull it over her lower body. "Ratchet wanted you on near medical grade one more day. I convinced him to let me give you refined instead."

Knockout put a finger of his right hand into CyberShock's tiny hand, and smiled at her when she gripped it at once, smiling her crooked baby smile back and babbling a little, while Arcee finished pulling the cover over her legs to make her mate happy.

"Jack is on the comm," she said, uncertain and looking back at the monitor.

Arcee had almost expected disgust and anger on the young human's face. But instead he was looking at his webcam, with a strange look that she could not quite interrupt. Shock? Regret? Both and possibly more? She remembered then that while Miko talked to Knockout over the commlink more than once, the other of their human friends never had. The bot had been near offline in the medical bay at Earth base last time any of them had seem him. Jack, though Arcee had tried to explain it simply once, had no real idea just how things had turned out for him.

"Hello," Knockout said, as boldly as he clearly dared to, while he turned the cart slowly so that he could face toward the monitor across the room. He made a good try at the small wave with his right hand, and sat a second, looking at the human with an uncertain smile on his face-plate.

"H… hello," Jack answered back quickly. And Arcee could see his eyes open slightly wider, as she stared a second in clear disbelief. "You look… uh… better?"

"Yes. Much," Knockout replied, his own uncertainly more than clear. He nodding to the monitor, and smiled just a little. "Thank you."

"You still need to be scanned quickly, but that can wait a bit," he said to his mate, turning back to give her his full attention again. He reached forward and gently took her hand in his. For a second they both just sat silent and smiling at each other, before he added, "I'll be back in a while with a scanner. You two have a nice chat." With that he turned and drove the cart back out of the room again.

"Jack?" Arcee said, when the human continued to sit, staring at his webcam, blinking his eyes slowly with a far away look forming on his face.

"I've… never seen a bot disabled like that before," Jack finally blurted out after several more seconds. "Miko said once it was pretty tragic. You tried to explain it once, but I was too busy just being angry..."

"It is pretty bad," Arcee admitted slowly. She considered her words as she spoke. "I barely give it any real thought. But to really stop and think about how shocking it would be to anyone who just doesn't know… Still, he's come so far this year. If you only knew how bad it was at first… How hard he worked just to relearn to hold his own fuel container, then to hold his seated balance well enough drive that cart without needing to be tightly strapped in. This base is going to be converted into a medical center. The Autobot army will slowly disband, and the planet will a hospital for a growing population more than it will need a military base. Ratchet has already announced that he will happily take the position offered to him, running the place, as chief of medicine and head physician. He's already offered Knockout a job, practicing again in his field the best way he still can, in charge of medical consultations."

"I guess I just didn't really want to believe Miko, when she told me once how he'd obviously loved his job." Jack mused, clearly startled by the fact.

Acree nodded silently, watching as Jack made silly faces over the monitor, at the youngling who watched him curious and smiling. Slowly she spoke again, serious and sadly. "It doesn't matter what side you serve. War is always so hard on the medics. To see their people time and again in medical bays injured... And Knockout is so much younger than Ratchet is. Practicing in the middle of a war was all he knew for most of his life. Still, the passion he had for medical science, the tendancy to just fall right into medibot mode no matter what it was he'd been doing before whatever it was that caused the need for his help, had happened..."

"The two of you really do love each other," Jack observed, clearly only really understanding that for the first time.

Arcee only nodded, and looked at him intently over her monitor, wordlessly urging him to go on, while she held her youngling.

"I..." Jack said, hesitantly, while he looked at her both sadly and seriously. "I… should have trusted you to know what you were talking about, when you tried to explain to me how and why this happened. You were right when you said the war was more complicated then it ever seemed. All I knew was that the 'Bots were good guys and the 'Cons were bad, that we want to scrap the 'cons because they want to scrap you. Maybe it's not always that simple. 'Bee told Raf once he grew up never knowing exactly what it was he was fighting for, only that he had to fight or die. Miko's said that Bulk' once told her much the same thing. It's seeming more and more like so many of you just want to move on and see what a united Cybertron could be. And all I've done when you wished I'd support you, one of my best friends, in a first step toward that dream, is judge and demand justice for a bot who may just have suffered as much as anyone."

"You know I'd forgive you in a spark beat, Jack."

"Thanks, Arcee."

"Hey, you're young. You're impulsive. You're learning..."

"Arcee," Jack said, hesitant again. He began to fidget suddenly with a soda can that was sitting on his desk. "Miko told me Knockout was crying his optics out the night he called her. She said she never knew a bot could beat himself up verbally half as bad he he did over the commlink. You could have died? You almost did? He blamed himself..."

"I could have died," Arcee said honestly. "But I didn't." She smiled for a second at her human friend, and added in a tone of confidant assurance, "It'll take far more than a medical crisis to put this Autobot offline. As for Knockout, Ratchet's told him twice today alone that it wasn't his fault… I think he finally believes him now."

The door across the room slid open again, and Knockout rolled the cart back across the room, toward his mate in her armchair. This time he carried a med scanner in his right hand, and used it to quickly scan her while she stayed sitting where she was. He was obviously happy with her sparkrate and energy level, because he nodded his head slightly and smiled as he shoved the scanner carefully into the little basket mounted to the side of the cart. Still smiling, he reached again with his functional arm for the youngling in his mate's lap.

"My turn," he said, grinning at the little one, as she reached to grab the fingertip he extended to her.

Chuckling, Arcee stood up from the chair carefully, so that she could just as carefully put the youngling on his lap, setting her again his bent left arm in such a way that he could still easily use that hand to drive the cart, while his right hand was kept freed up. Knockout turned to roll away, back toward the door, presumably to carry the baby back to the common room. Because, as Arcee had learned, there were always a few of their teammates who could not wait to gently snatch the baby up from his lap, in order to hold and play with her, every time she was brought out into the base. But instead of going straight back out the door. Knockout paused, and appeared to consider for several seconds, before he turned instead to face toward the monitor.

"Jack, may I speak with you a moment?" he questioned, with obvious uncertainty, as his optics met the eyes of the human on the other end of the commlink.

"Uhh…. Sure." The human had certainly been surprised and startled by the request. But he was not angry either.

"I'm sorry about my behavior toward your mother and that agent of hers," Knockout said, seriously.

When Jack opened his mouth to speak, obviously trying to form a reply, while momentarily unable to make a sound, the bot held up a hand, and instead went on speaking himself. "I was never going to kill either one of them. I never enjoyed killing anybody. I had myself convinced once that that made me so much better than Megatron, or Starscream. And I had myself almost convinced for a while that because I wasn't planing on killing, or even hurting either one of the humans I stuffed in my trunk, that I was simply harassing them mostly for a laugh and a couple of points with the boss, that somehow made it close to being okay."

Knockout looked down a second at the tiny bot on his lap, smiling at her as she smiled at the monitor and the human on the other side of it. Slowly, he spoke again. "I looked out for me once. Wanted what I wanted… or what I thought I wanted. Life was nothing but due credit among a group of bots that promoted the strong and the terrifying, my own pleasure and freedom, and about survival. Then I of any bot, found myself with my own family. And I understand it now… that connection and loyalty between a child and their parent. I think I understand exactly why you would have scrapped a twenty foot Cybertronian, if you could have, just because it was your mother he chose to mess with."

"You were at war," jack answered back, with surprising understanding. "I spent over a year hearing the endless war stories from the Autobot side. I… I can only imagine how things must have been fighting for the 'cons. Serving under some tyrannical warlord that just won't tolerate failure or see reason… Miko told me more than once, you would have died if you'd only shown compassion. I think I should have listened to her, and maybe understand exactly what that meant."

"The war is so close to over… I can learn to be exactly what it is I should have been, even if will likely take a very long time. We're rebuilding more than just a planet. That's the easy part. Just a lot of clean up and construction. Tens of thousands of broken sparks, and bots that never a life filled with anything but fighting and surviving. That sort of rebuilding will take centuries."

"Miko says Soundwave may have defected a while back," Jack said, in a tone somewhere between making a statement and asking a question.

"He did," Arcee said, joining back in the conversation. She wanted to say more. To explain that the newer defector was just another surprisingly broken bot. But she didn't know exactly how to explain all that or even if she should. So instead she just nodded silently for a second, before finally adding with a tiny laugh and hoping to get some point across. "And Soundwave can talk, Jack. Conversation just for the sake of it, is a skill he may not likely ever perfect, but I think he likes trying sometimes."

Everyone fell into silence again, and for a while Jack made funny faces at the youngling, who smiled at him, until her smile finally turned into her first real grin. And Arcee laughed loudly as soon as she saw that, grinning herself, and realizing just how much her child's big and happy grin looked exactly like her creator's.

"It would seem, CyberShock likes you," Knockout said to the human on the other side of the commlink.

"I look forward to meeting her in person, anytime you both bring her to visit Earth," Jack answered. Knockout nodded slowly. But beside him, Arcee smiled in relief at the implication of the human's words.

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Soundwave had been on the blaster range for a good while, fully absorbed in shooting at fast moving targeting lights, when the door, unexpectedly slid open with a rattling creak, and settled to a quick stop with a distinct little thud. Slightly frustrated and anxious over the interruption, and just as guarded as ever the bot stepped backward, closer the door and turned slowly, lowering the targeting blaster he held in his hand. He stepped to his left then, and slammed a hand quickly onto a button on the control board, in order to pause his training session. And he turned around, to look behind him and see who it was that had wandered in, he was surprised to see Ratchet standing in the doorway.

"Are we so busy with repairing a planet, that we can't find a single minute to repair one worn out door in our own base," the old medic mused, chuckling a little under his intakes and gesturing with his optics down toward the track the creaking door slid on. He stepped slowly into the baster range, and cringed a little when the door rattled and creaked again while closing behind him.

"Industrial repairs – not high within my skill set and knowledge base," Soundwave answered, entirely unsure of the medic's reasoning behind his comment, and able only to assume it was an indirect request for him to help with the matter himself.

"Nor mine I'm afraid," Ratchet said, with another little laugh. "Bulkhead will fix it quick when he's got a minute. I'll leave him a note about it in his duty log."

With that the old medic walked the few steps to the shelf at the edge of the room, and picked up one of the targeting blasters, from it's place plugged into a changing port, with a green light on the top to indicate that it was ready for use. Holding the blaster in his hand, he promptly turned to the control board, so that he could program the blaster range's commands. Then he turned to look back to look at Soundwave, and with his optics he gestured vaguely to the blasters that they each held.

"Perhaps you are awaiting a challenger?" the old bot said in obvious invitation.

The bot was certainly not young by any means. And he was a medical officer, seemingly far more suited to a clinic then a targeting range. But Soundwave knew well to not be fooled by either of these circumstances. He may not have been known to have done so much of it in the final decades of the war, but Ratchet could fire a blaster as well as any Autobot. Better in fact then many. Soundwave, for one, had been significantly relieved to find the old Autobot retreating over time from any presence on the battle field, as it gave his side one less significant threat to concern themselves with. It was not the reputation of the old bot though, but instead only his own anxious uncertainty, at utter lack of any grasp on any possible motivation, that made the black and purple bot slowly move to decline the match.

"Ha. What's the matter?" Ratchet taunted, with a loud laugh, as Soundwave stepped slowly backward, meaning to walk close to the wall and return his blaster to it's changing port on the shelf. "You aren't afraid an old bot like me might just beat you…?"

"Challenger – appreciated," Soundwave answered at once. Because even he could not overlook the necessity for action, that that sort of pointed taunting presented.

The targeting program Ratchet had selected, was a simple enough set up of small lighted rings appearing at random, projected onto the walls to the sides and front of them and moving at varied speeds. And the scoring of points was determined by success in shooting directly at the centers of the rings. This was not too difficult a thing to do, in practice. And Soundwave noted to himself that he was rarely missing, even when an increasing number of light targets appeared to move at a far higher speed then he typically used in his own practice sessions. Ratchet, though he was more than good enough to surprise most bots with his level of skill, was missing perhaps fifteen percent of his targets.

"It's been too long since I've done any real training in here," the old medic said, after he had missed again, and this time by a considerable distance.

Soundwave was focused almost entirely on his own targeting and shooting. But he did notice almost in passing, as the old bot shook his head a little, while he tracked a target himself. In the same second the old bot mumbled with a chuckle under his intakes," I like your training style. The both feet on the floor and calmly turning your head and upper body thing… Most of the bots on this base… jumping, spinning, flipping in the air. Arcee is particularly good at that, and thus hard to keep up with. Ha, I mostly just let the young ones have their fun these days."

"Seemingly careless Autobot battle style – surprisingly efficient and dangerous," Soundwave said, as he quickly grew more comfortable in his present social situation. The tone of hs voice remained even and serous. But inwardly he laughed slightly. And at the edge of his vision, he saw the Autobot smile just a little, and heard him laugh again, clearly seeing the intended humor where so many would have missed it entirely.

"I wasn't only looking for a shooting match and a decent opponent when I came in here," Ratchet admitted after the two bots had fired their blasters in silence for a while. He aimed for a fast moving targeting light on a path toward the ceiling, missed it, and chuckled again musing lightly. "Though clearly some good practice can only do me good. And a good match with a skilled opponent can only keep me on my toes as they say." he aimed again, and Soundwave saw him hit the next seven dead on, before he said still casually, "I'd like to have a word with you."

"Inquiry – intended subject of discussion?" Soundwave replied. He wondered if perhaps he ought to be concerned, as he aimed at and hit each of a quick succession of lights.

"Since the restoration of Cybertron, nine ships of it's own citizens have returned home. The population is in the low thousands now. And Primus only knows how many more ships might still be out there, still due to make their way home someday. Already our first new city is booming, even as we continue to build. And there is clear interest from some in moving out to both the east and the west, starting up settlements that will become towns and then cities for their own. We are going to need a real government, long before we imagined such a thing would be all too important."

At the old bot's words, and the implication he saw hidden behind it, Soundwave blinked behind his face-shield. And the reaction he had to it, was almost enough to make him miss his next target.

"Your desire – to recreate the high council?" he questioned pointedly. He voice was even, only because he forced it to be so, just as always. But inwardly a nearly instinctive anger began to surface, and it made him tremble with slightly. He knew full well that the medic had once enjoyed a carreer in the political arena right along side a booming medical practice. "Cybertronian high council – drove the common population into the ground with its corruption."

"I don't disagree with you," Ratchet said. And Soundwave found himself genuinely wanting to believe him. He concentrated some of his attention back on his near perfect aim and reaction time, because that was at the moment the easier thing for his processor to think about. While he went on firing his blaster though, he still actively listened with interest.

"I'm not looking to rebuild anything of the sort. Yes, we need governing leaders. That's a given. No civilized world can run for long without that. And military rule, by the Autobot forces is hardly desirable, or even feasible in the long term. But to have a ruling government again doesn't mean having to let it fall again into corruption and self interest. It will naturally fall to the Autobots as the victors in a war that lasted far too long, to establish a new system of governing the people. And among them all, it seems I'm the one bot most are shouting at to take a strong hand in doing so now. Remember, Soundwave, we once wanted the same things on the most basic of levels. Freedom, equality for the people, an end to the centuries of watching bots suffer and die just for the crime of existing in the lowest castes, or of lacking a function that was understood as useful to the turning of the political wheel..."

Soundwave let one lighted target fly right past him on the wall across the room. And then he missed another and two more, not even trying to fire anymore. Finally he simply lowered his blaster and simply stood where he was, in the middle of the blaster range, just thinking his thoughts. Finally after a long moment or two he asked in genuine curiosity, "Inquiry – your motivation speaking to me about this?"

Ratchet, standing much closer to the control board, hit the red button to end the training session. He looked at the readout on the screen, and nodded toward his opponent, with a quickly muttered, "well, looks like you won that match."

"I only mention the forming of a new ruling council because I hope you would consider serving on it," the old bot continued. The tone of his voice showed that he was entirely serious.

"Choice left to me by former high council policies - serve in fighting pits for their amusement or stave and die in the street. Street – built on near slave labor," Soundwave said, struggling to verbally communicate a great deal of words and several related thoughts at once, while also inwardly fighting back sudden emotions behind the safety of the face-shield. "Ratchet – served on very council I gave everything I could give for dream of overturning. Inquiry – why should you think I would now wish to serve..."

"Something you might already know about me, but you probably don't," Ratchet sighed, leaning against the wall of the blaster range. He shook his head slightly, and stood silent for a moment, obviously choosing his words well. "There was a time, not so long before the war I suppose… I was on, well let's just tell it like it is. I was on a path to self destruction. "I held down a top position at a top hospital, and everyday I turned away sick and damaged bots I knew I could have helped, all because they clearly lower class and could not pay. Everyday I would run off bots holding their deathly sick youngings. Because rules were rules and I dared not break one. After work I'd go off to rub shoulders with Cybertron's chosen elite and those that had been born to be successful. And I'd drink high grade with the rest of the council bots, discuss polices and politics, and smile when I wanted instead to punch someone simply for a functionalism supporting, elitist waste of metal. Id go home every night and I'd let myself get so drunk, that It was morning before I knew Id even fallen in some crumpled heap somewhere on my near my recharge station. And I'd drink a little more before I went to work. Never enough that I couldn't still practice medicine, or at least convince myself and my patents that I could. But certainly enough that turning away all those little babies to die, only bothered me about half as much."

"Inquiry – what happened?" Soundwave questioned. He was unable to help but be curious, and he was certainly shocked and surprised at the information he was learning. "Lifestyle – clearly unsustainable over long term."

Ratchet sighed again, as he moved to plug his blaster back into its charging plug, in it's place on the shelf. He held out a hand to take his opponents from him, and plugged that on too. Then he looked up at him, shaking his head a little.

"You're right, Soundwave," he said, moving toward the door, in order to leave the range, and inviting with a polite hand gesture for the other bot to walk with him. I admitted to the higher ups within the council, that I had a bit of a drinking problem and I knew it. They offered to bury the problem, hide it from the people, from my patients. That answer didn't sit right with me, and eventually I resigned my council seat. I lost my position at the hospital so soon after that, of course I know it was no coincidence."

"Cybertron was a fast changing world back then," Ratchet continue, as the pair walked slowly across the empty training gym. He chuckled a little under his intakes. "You'd remember those days too, even if perhaps from a very different perspective. Orion Pax had recently been named Prime. The first time the Matrix had chosen anyone at all in centuries. The high council was already beginning to slowly crumble when I left, and finally so time after I left, it of course fell entirely. There were whispers in the streets, threatening civil war, but it was still only whispers then. Our new prime was still just a baffled and overwhelmed young bot, was no real grasp on why it had been him of any bot, but still nonetheless determined to make the world a better place. I spoke to him once night of my own wish to help the sick and dying among the truly needy of our city. And seeing my vision at once he ordered the building of fully stocked and equipped clinic meant mostly to serve the needs of the bots in the slims. The job of running it fell to me. One night not long after, I gave up the drinking. Smashed a container of home brew on the sidewalk, promised myself 'no more' and that was it. A century later the whispers of coming war became louder, and soon gunfire was raging through the city. My small clinic was a safe heaven for naturals and kids running from the endless fighting, until one day it was blown away. We were now a world at war, and I was now a field medic. I guess you know the rest. Or at least most of it."

"Request – tell me more about the new council," Soundwave said, with enough hesitation that it was impossible to hide it entirely. And looking at the old medic again, he saw him smile a little at the request.

"Democratic rule. I've seen it work on Earth. It could work on Cybertron too. We set up the first ruling government. We rule for ten years, with a promise to the people, to let them speak, to let them form their own opinion of their leaders and our ways. Then our terms come to an end. We let the common people run for our seats. Cybertron hears each one out, votes for its leaders in a fair and just system. From the energon miner to the clerk and bartender, the scientist to the soldier, all get a vote and a say. We need only to show them first that we are truly all one people, a united Cybertron where all bots hold value. For this to work, the first council needs to be made up of bots of all walks of life and who fought on both sides or the war, as well as many who never fought for either."

"Soundwave – intended to be Decepticon representative?"

The two bots reached the door of the gym, and just as slowly, they wandered out into the empty hallway, turning in now great hurry to walk in the direction of the lift, a ways away up the corridor. And Ratchet nodded slowly. "That was the plan. It's recently become a consideration to ask Shockwave as well. Though I almost imagine he'll be even more hesitant to accept than you. Then there are a number of bots from among the 'cons common troops, with qualities certainly worth considering..."

"Not Knockout," Soundwave questioned, surprised that his teammate's name had not come up in the discussion. In his mind, a council position would be an ideal job for a bot that could do so little when it came to physical work. Besides, he was far from lacking in intelligence, and likely fr more suited to a political career… "Decepticon medic – charismatic. A good talker."

"Knockout is not politician," Ratchet chuckled, with a clearly almost assumed shake of his head. "If this new way is to work, we need far more then simple charisma in our leaders. And Knockout talks almost too much! This base will be overhauled once everyone is moved onto to housing assignments. It's slated to be purposed into new Cybertron's first medical center. A real hospital, eventually capable of treating anything possibly treatable; a place of hope and saving lives. And Knockout is going to help run it with me. He's got some growing up yet to do. Ha, I think we both know that. But if he wants to go in that direction, I can easily see him in the role of chief administrator one day."

"Perdiction – reasonable," said Soundwave, after he'd thought about it a moment. And Ratchet nodded again, before he stopped in the corridor and turned to look at him with a strange, determined look on his face-plate.

"You're a leader," he said. His hands were positioned in front of him, almost as thought he was going to grab Soundwave, by the upper arms in exactly the way one tended to grab another when they wanted to emphasize a point. But his hands stayed there and he never did actually touch him. "You only wanted to live your life, as bot in the background, a loyal and devoted supporter of something bigger than yourself. But still, whenever you took action, bots stepped out of your way, and many paid attention."