You would never believe it, but I have been suffering from the most terrible case of the Fuck Its for several weeks now. Every time I tried to sit down to write, I couldn't bring myself to type even a single paragraph. It was like a terrible miasma was hanging over me, sucking out my will to write. Try as I might, no matter what story I turned to, I just couldn't seem to engage my muse. And then one day I sat down and started writing and suddenly I didn't want to stop. All of a sudden, I had a chapter written. Go figure all it would take was some pain, some suffering, and a dash of angst for flavour.
There's really only one scene to this chapter, as opposed to the multiple scenes I usually deal with. By the time I was done writing this one, I felt like there was nothing more I could say. Another scene would ruin the atmosphere of this chapter. I'll get to everyone else's pain and suffering later.
Major thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I can honestly say that all of your reviews delighted me beyond words. Your honesty, enthusiasm, and even your shock and horror, never cease to inspire me to write better and horrify you in new and horrible ways! Thank you so much to Flameshield, Faecat, Gamemice, Starfire201, Luinrina, femme4jack, CNightJoy, SafaiaFureia, holimacaroni, JenEvan, Phoenix51, Astsadi, StarscreamII, TransformersLover95, Frenzy5150, renegadewriter8, and Lecidre~! I love you all. *heart*
May We Never Let Go
To Reunions II
The sound of her feet pacing up and down the hall echoed hollowly in her ears, keeping beat with the nervous pulse of her heart fluttering against her ribs. Rough hands scrubbed at her face until the skin was raw. Her eyes were sore and blurry. Everything in her body hurt.
Looming ominously to her side was a massive door marked with the most innocuous designation: A3.
There was nothing special about the door. It was like every other door in the med bay. The only thing extraordinary about it was what it was hiding on the other side.
Hound was on the other side of the door.
Any minute now, Chase was going to vomit up every last drop of bile she possessed. It was a losing battle that she still fought valiantly. Her humiliating battle against Mirage and his decrees had met her humiliation quota for the rest of her lifetime, so she really did not have room for more humiliation at the behest of her digestive system. The Master Spy had not even bothered to pretend to put up a fight. Like the real bastard he was, he let her tire out with her punching and swearing, and then the moment her back was turned, he sucker punched her. Not only was Chase sure the knuckles of her right hand were cracked, her jaw was sore and swollen from being punched in the face. The joints of her jaw were screaming raw, a testament to having her jaw dislocated and then wrenched back into place moments later. Fun times for everyone.
Chase remembered nothing after Mirage had grabbed her jaw and yanked it back into place. She could only assume the pain had made her black out. After that, though, she assumed she had been drugged to make her a more agreeable hostage. The Master Spy certainly was not above drugging a lowly organic meat sack to make her easier to transport. A good old fashioned chloroform doping was the likeliest culprit, judging by the coppery tang left hanging on her tongue.
At least. Chase hoped she had been drugged with chloroform, because the alternative means of how and why she was tasting copper pennies was too horrific to consider.
After the traumatic ordeal of being in Mirage's presence for longer than five minutes, fighting with him, and subsequently being knocked unconscious, the next thing Chase knew, she was waking up in the hall of the med bay like a skanky hooker left on the side of the road at dawn. She didn't know how long she had been left on the floor, though clearly no one had been concerned for her if they had not bothered to move her. There was no doubt in her mind that the door she had been set in front of in front of hid the frame of the mech who had killed Mikaela. The message was clear: Go See Hound... Or Else. It was a bit abrupt, sure, but Chase had never known Mirage for his kindness toward humans.
And, to be honest, if the matter had simply be left at being assaulted, drugged, and left in a hallway to fend for herself, Chase could have dealt with that. Therapy would have helped. It probably would have given her an intense amount of joy to tattle on Mirage to the big bad Prime and get his sorry metal aft in a tonne of trouble just for the sweet taste of revenge. But Chase's humiliation did not end with a couple of felonies and one case of fleeing the scene. There was more to it, striking her on a visceral level of violation that made her skin crawl and ensured that she would require therapy for the rest of her life.
Mirage had seen it fit to strip her of her dirty clothes and replace them with the most simplistic human outfit he could find. It might have been done as a kindness for Hound - to pretty up his present and tie it with a bow - though it crossed the line on so many levels that Chase could not help but hate the universe a little more than she already did. The selected ensemble was a dress Hound had bought on one of his world touring adventures. Easy to get on, easy to get off. Beyond the eye-bleeding colours and eccentric patterns, the material was thin and allowed for the chill of the med bay to sink into the marrow of her bones. She was disturbingly naked under the dress, denied even the sanctity of a bra and panties, so parts of her body sagged unflatteringly while other wider body parts stretched the material uncomfortably.
Her kidnappers' only saving grace was the fact that she still smelled bad and her hair looked like shit, meaning neither Mirage nor Punch had seen fit to attempt bathing her nor combing her hair. Chase chose to take this as evidence that God did exist and he did not hate her completely.
One wrong step on her bandaged foot caused Chase to stumble, hissing one long, low curse that, unfortunately, did not help with pain management. Nor did it happen to help with taking her mind off the fact that there was only a foot worth of flimsy metal separating her from the mech who had murdered her niece.
What was she supposed to feel about something like that?
Without anyone around, Chase had been able to rot in the bile of her anger and rage, all that bitterness and hatred, confusion and incomprehension over how the universe could be so cruel. Her mind played out those last scenes of Mikaela's life with disturbing clarity. The vividness of her blood, the stark lines of her veins standing out beneath her paling skin. The way her eyes had glittered with tears as she peered up at Hound and smiled.
That's what killed Chase. Mikaela had smiled. She had comforted Hound in those last moments before she died. Who in their right mind told their killer that everything was going to be all right?
It wasn't all right. None of it was. All it left was a huge gaping hole in Chase's chest where her heart used to be, and a massive amount of confusion over whether or not she was supposed to hate Hound. If Mikaela could forgive him, did that mean Chase was just supposed to get over this and welcome him home with open arms?
No.
No, the world did not work that like. Chase wasn't ready for this. Not yet. Probably not ever. The mere thought of crossing through that doorway and looking into Hound's optics inspired such dread in her as to make her heart bleed.
The only option open to her was to run. Her feet obeyed her even before she fully accepted her own cowardice. Despite the pain in her foot with every treating step, she forced the distance between herself and the Hound to grow. The space between them turned hollow and empty. She rounded the nearest corner, only to nearly bowl over the man walking the opposite direction. Chase drew up short so close that her short hair blew back.
Sam blinked at her with weary alien eyes. At first, he didn't recognize her. It took a moment to see past the hair and the dress. Maybe it was the smell that finally clicked her identity into place. His soft frown deepened as he realized who she was. There was sadness in his glowing blue eyes.
"Mirage finally brought you, huh?"
Chase swallowed back the sudden lump that tightened in her throat. "Coming here wasn't exactly my idea." She sucked in a quick breath, and then said, "You know that you're glowing, right?"
A humourless laugh fell from between his lips. "Yeah, I noticed. Don't worry about it. It's just a..." he paused, thinking carefully about what he might say. It gave Chase the opportunity to really look at the kid, noting the weariness that radiated from his gaunt figure, the greyness seeping in under the dying hue of his skin. He was tired and hollow looking. A moment later, he appeared to give up. Shoulders sagging, he continued, "It's just a stupid side-effect."
"That's what you get for being an alien's lab rat," Chase countered.
Sam offered another humourless laugh, his eyes turning sadder.
"So, uh..." Sam's gaze travelled over her ragged hair and incongruous dress, his brow arching higher with everything he saw.
In a self-conscious bid to cover herself, Chase wrapped her arms over her chest. "Eyes up here, boy."
Sam snapped his gaze to well above Chase's shoulders.
"It's, um... a nice dress."
"You're a bad liar."
An absent hand scratched at the back of Sam's neck. "Sorry. Did you... did you get dressed up for Hound?"
At the mentioning of his designation, Chase's heart gave a painful wrench. "No, I... Nevermind. You think I'd look like this on purpose?"
"I guess not," Sam reasoned with a shrug. "You don't even have shoes on."
"That happens when you're kidnapped and dragged somewhere against your will."
Blue light flashed from the boy's glowing irises. "Mirage kidnapped you?"
"He's not exactly the most upstanding, human-loving Autobot there ever was. He's not above kidnapping."
"No, I guess he's not." His expression shifted from weary to something else. Dawning realization, and then clouded by a troubled frown. "Since he kidnapped you... you didn't want to come here?" There was no disguising the sudden hurt that layered his voice.
Again, Chase's insides wrenched painfully. "No, kid, I didn't want to come here."
"What about Hound?" There was a helpless quality about his voice that was too heartbreaking to listen to.
"It's too soon to see Hound," Chase admitted between gritted teeth. "I... I need more time."
To prevent any more painful words being exchanged, she attempted to brush past him. She only got so far as an arm's length before hot fingers touched her wrist like a white hot brand. She jerked away from the searing heat. Sam recoiled like a spring, bracing his hand to his chest to prevent further contact.
"Sorry," he croaked.
"Don't worry about it," Chase sighed, rubbing her new burn.
"I just wanted you to wait for a second," Sam said. "I didn't mean to burn you."
"I thought you'd be cold," Chase commented offhandedly, scrutinizing the boy. It was the blueness about him that gave off the illusion of the cold. You expected him to feel like ice, like Mr. Freeze from Batman. Instead, he was like touching a live wire.
"Well... I'm not," Sam said lamely.
Chase took a deep breath, looking her new company up and down. His clothes were bedraggled, the same with his hair. He looked like he hadn't bathed in a while, though he was lucky not to smell like it. Chase wished she had that kind of luck.
"You wanted to say something to me, kid?" she prompted.
"I..." Sam seemed to deflate as he looked at her, growing smaller by the second. The sadness in his eyes seemed to be sucking the rest of the energy out of his body. Chase was a reminder of what he had lost. She probably looked enough like Mikaela to make him miss her all over again.
Chase's spine stiffened at the thought.
"Okay," she breathed. "Maybe this was a mistake. Never mind, Sam. Whatever you're going to say, save it until next time." She took a determined step to the left and pushed past Sam for a second time, prepared to barrel her way out of the building and off base. She'd walk all the way home barefoot if she had to.
"Wait!" Sam cried in panic, this time wrapping his burning palm around her wrist to stay her - completely forgetting about what his touch might feel like to her.
"Sam!" Chase swore, reflexively jerking her arm but failing to be released.
He closed his eye, sucking in a shuddering breath. The temperature of his palm slowly cooled to a manageable searing burn. "You can't go yet."
"What do you want, Sam?" Chase sighed wearily, jigging her arm in hope of freedom. No such luck for her. "Just say it so I can leave."
"I saw him just minutes after I woke up," Sam rasped, his grip tightening.
"Who? You mean Hound?" Chase nailed the boy with a glare, only to realize that Sam really wasn't a boy anymore. He was a young man with eyes that looked so much older than they should be. He was big enough to stand on his own. He didn't need to hide behind his alien robots or his girlfriend anymore. Chase couldn't really glare and push him around anymore.
"Yeah."
Despite the twisting knots her guts were churning themselves into, Chase straightened her spine and braced herself against it. She wasn't about to break down in front of the boy... young man... Sam.
"So?"
"You think I wanted to go see him?" Sam continued hoarsely, the heat of his voice matching the burn of his palm on Chase's skin.
"About as much as I want to go see him," Chase countered, attempting to free herself. "Now let me go."
"No," he growled, anger beginning to simmer beneath the surface. "I'm not going to let you walk away this time. You are going to hear what I have to say."
"Kid, I don't want to get into this in the middle of a hospital," Chase warned with false bravado.
Sam's grip tightened with an unspoken threat, the temperature of his palm rising by several degrees. The hairs on the back of Chase's neck prickled. Fear spiked her blood. On the most primal level, she knew the boy... the man that Sam had become could hurt her. He wouldn't do so with his fists. He wouldn't fight her hand to hand. It was whatever lived beneath his skin, whatever it was that made him glow and made him so damn important to the Cybertronians, that was dangerous. With a single thought, he could use it to hurt her.
"I woke up five days after Mikaela had died right before my eyes, and it was like waking up seconds after she... left. To me, she's only been dead for a few hours," Sam admitted, heat and sadness mixing in his tone. "Do you think the first thing I wanted to do was go save the life of the one who had killed her? I try to be a good man, but that was asking too much."
With a sudden burst of panic inspired by the knowledge of what Sam wanted to talk about, Chase pinwheeled backwards. Her arm jerked out of its fleshy shackle, leaving red score marks from nails across her wrist. She stumbled stupid backwards, landing the wrong way on her injured foot. Pain shot up that leg, forgotten moments later when Sam swooped in to capture her again. He wasn't as tall as she was, but he was angry and strong enough to hold her against the wall. The length of his forearm pressed warningly across her chest.
"You don't get to run away anymore," he said darkly, mourning madness lighting the depths of his eyes. "Fuck, Chase – for once in your life, listen to what someone else has to say."
Startled by the outburst and sudden physicality, Chase sucked in a panicked breath. The air tasted ionized on her tongue, almost burnt.
As emotional as both parties were, tempers were quick to flare like an open flame over a tanker of gasoline.
"You've always run away," Sam spat angrily. "Things get hard, you leave. You don't like the way something is, you ignore it or tell it to go away. Something bad happens in your life, you drink it away! What's that gotten you so far, Chase? What do you have in your life to show for all of it?"
"You shut your mouth, kid!"
"Big tough Chase doesn't need no one or nothing. Isn't that right? You don't need the world," he sneered – though it wasn't as mean as it could have been. He was too sad to be entirely mean. There was something pitiful and desperate about his words. He was furious enough to bring himself to tears. Liquid glistened at the edges of his eyes. "How do you think the rest of us have been dealing, huh? While you lock yourself in your house and drink away every misery you've ever had, did you forget all the people in the world who still need you? Mikaela was family to more than just you! It's not just you who lost something!"
"I said shut up!"
Sam neither shut up nor released his hold on her. If anything, his grip tightened.
"I lost two people I love to this fucked up game Nemesis is playing! You think it's bad enough to know Mikaela is gone? I woke up to find out Bumblebee was gone too! He handed himself over to Nemesis! He did it out of love for me and everyone else. He sacrificed himself to give us time to fight back! How do you think that makes me feel, huh? I'm the reason Mikaela is dead. I'm the reason Bumblebee is gone! And if we don't stop Nemesis soon, I'll be the reason a whole lot of other people are going to be massacred!"
His rage made the strength of his forearm against her chest weigh like a lead weight.
"It only took the loss of the two people I loved most in this fucked up world to teach me that I can't bottle things up any more! I can't do this alone, and neither can you! We're not strong enough for that! No one can just lose their family and be alright! No one can fight a war all by themselves!"
"I'm not fighting a war," Chase snarled, bucking against his hold. "I'm the only one sane enough around here to stay the fuck away from the war!"
"You might have turned your back on the Cybertronians' war, but you've been fighting a war with the world for as long as I've known you! It's time you give up, Chase. Start letting other people in."
Her body bristled, continuing to buck futilely against the fury-fuelled strength Sam pressed down on her.
"Do you want to know what I did just hours ago?" he asked breathlessly, panting by now from the effort of his words. "I stood over Hound's body while I could still see Mikaela dying. He was dying, Chase. I felt it inside of me – all that energy flooding out of him like a massive haemorrhage... I had the choice to let him live or let him die." He cast a harsh breath out his mouth, sucked another one back in through his nose. "Do you have any idea what that's like? To stand over someone who you've known for years, who you know is loved by so many of your friends, and you have to fight to save him because he is also the one who killed someone you loved?"
The weight of his body was like a small mountain crushing Chase's front, burning through the thin material of her dress. The lights high above them in the vaulted ceiling flickered from ambient power. Tears fell from the corners of Sam's eyes as pent up emotion finally burst their damns, streaking down his cheeks in frightening streams of bright blue. Energon seeped down his chin, over his clothes, dripping to his shoes, burning everything it touched.
"For a moment, I almost let him die," Sam admitted in agony. "You have no clue how much it hurt to put my hands on him, to bring him back from the brink of death, knowing that I can't bring Mikaela back the same way."
Chase squeezed her eyes shut to force back the burning acid of her own tears.
"It only took a second to bring him back, but it felt like a million years while I touched him. I might have brought him back from the brink of death, but he's still dying inside. What Nemesis did to him was nothing compared to what Nemesis forced him to do. It broke him inside – it took away a light in his spark that has kept him going even during the darkest parts of the war."
Finally, the tears Chase fought against broke free from her restraints and spilled down her cheeks freely. They really did burn like an acid, as if all the alcohol she had drank in her entire life had been concentrated in her tear ducts and now spilled out over raw wounds.
"He loved Mikaela, Chase. Do you understand that? He loved her as much as you loved her. As much as a father would," Sam choked out on a rasping sob. "It never mattered to Hound that we are different species. He never cared about the differences between organic and inorganic. All he saw in Mikaela was a brilliant, funny, strong woman who he treated like a daughter, and you..." He choked again, his whole body shuddering. "He loved you more than you deserved. All three of you were a goddamn family, but you were too stupid and stubborn to ever let it be like that!"
That hit exactly where it hurt the most. Right in the bleeding place where Chase's heart was. A strangled noise fell past her lips. It took all the strength she had in her body to finally shove Sam away, letting him stumble backward and land flat on his ass on the floor. He stayed like that, sprawled across the scuffed metal. Chase's legs shook like brittle twigs in a cold winter breeze, threatening to collapse and let her body crash. She gripped the wall with all her strength to keep herself from kissing the floor.
Sam stared straight ahead at the ceiling, letting go of another mirthless laugh.
"Hound needs you right now, Chase, and you need him."
"I can't," Chase breathed.
"You mean you won't," Sam countered flatly, sounding like the fight had finally drained out of him. "Stop being so selfish. You don't need to forgive him right now, but he needs someone to anchor him to this world before he lets his spark fade out. Just to go him. Be with him."
"And pretend that everything is okay?" Chase spat, lips trembling.
"No, don't pretend anything. Sit there and don't say anything at all," Sam offered quietly. "Mourn, like everybody else has been doing." He sighed, bringing an arm up to sling over his eyes to shield him from the jarring glare of the lights above. "Deep down, you know what he did wasn't his fault. He's not the one who really killed Mikaela. Nemesis did that. Hound is as much the victim here as Mickey... and maybe he's the worse off of the two, because he has to live with that he's done."
Silence fell.
Chase ruminated on the words, letting them sink in. If she wanted to be perfectly honest with herself, she knew who the real monster in all of this was. But knowing who to blame did not take away the hurt in her heart. It did not stop anger from blooming as she recalled the plasma blast that incinerated Mikaela's body. All of that anger she felt, the bitterness and rage that had been churning inside her and eating up all the goodness... even that had not been enough to burn away the part of her that still loved him.
Despite everything, there was a part of her that still loved Hound.
The change in her was enough for Sam to see. Acceptance and resignation weighing on the hunched slope of her shoulders. Sadness and humility swimming in her black eyes.
"You're going to go see him now?" the boy asked, pushing himself up from the floor.
"Yeah, kid," she coughed dryly. "You convinced me."
This time, when Sam laughed, it was almost humoured. For a fleeting moment, he looked like a boy again.
Chase was careful to lever her weight to her undamaged foot as she stood away from the wall, using one arm for continued support in case something decided to collapse and leave her stranded. Her free arm splayed across her chest, drawing up the collar of her ugly dress to hide the long welt Sam had left behind from the intense heat of his skin. He didn't need to see what he had done.
She only got as far as the first door to come up before realizing that Sam had yet to move from the floor. When she looked back at him, he was where she had left him. By now, he had brought one knee up to prop his elbow on. His shoulders were hunched inward, head bowed until his chin pressed into his collarbone. Although his back was to her, Chase knew pain when she saw it.
"You okay, kid?"
"Nothing I can't handle," Sam grunted hoarsely.
"Is that right?"
"Just those side-effects I was telling you about."
Chase rocked back on her heels. "You want me to go get someone?"
Sam raised a hand, fist clenched so tightly that his nails dug past the skin of his palm. A rivulet of vivid red ran down the swell of his flesh. Fast like lightning, he opened his palm to release... a ball of light? It moved too fast for Chase to get a good look. The brightness of the light left her retinas scarred with a brilliant streak of colour. A moment later, it was gone. Sam's hand dropped to the ground like a leaden weight.
"Someone will be here for me in a second," Sam murmured.
"Uh, yeah... right." Chase scratched the back of her neck where her newly cut hair kept itching at the skin. "You know... Sam..."
Sam's shoulders arched up. "Uh-huh?"
Chase felt even more awkward then before as she offered a lame, "Sorry for your losses."
"Same to you," he sighed.
Not knowing what else to do, Chase lurched around on her sore foot and managed to hobble her way back to Hound's door. A single human was too small for the sensors in the door to recognize her presence, so she was required to tap on the control panel set low on the wall next to the door frame. It was a long minute of staring at the panel before she bothered to put her hand on it. Cool air breezed over her body as the door ushered open with its typical pneumatic hiss.
The inside of the room was like every other room in the med bay built for a Cybertronian. It was plain and made of metal, a single large into set into one of the walls, and one large berth took up a large around of space. There was no missing the massive green giant that lay unmoving atop the berth.
Chase hesitated before cautiously taking a step into the room. She squinted up at Hound's form, struck by how... unchanged he looked. Every detail was the same as she had last saw him hale and whole at home. In fact, maybe he looked better. There was not a scratch on his forest green paint, nor were their dents to mar his heavy armour. No dirt smeared his frame. No scars as a testament to his recent torture. There was no sign of Mikaela's death of him anywhere... and it was not until that moment of seeing him did Chase realize she had been expecting Hound to look different after what he had done.
Now that she thought about it, she wasn't even sure what she had expected him to look like. Dirty? Wrong? Was he supposed to look like someone else?
It hurt to climb the ladder that hung from the side of the berth, but she did it anyways. Gritting her teeth and blinking back a wash of tears, Chase made it to the top to sit on her haunches and pant fiercely. The bandage around her foot was grey from the dirt of the floor, while a spreading patch of red announced that the wound underneath had split open and was freely bleeding again. Out from underneath the saturated bandage was excess blood that drip, dripped to the berth top.
Up close, the massive metal alien looked so painfully familiar. He looked like Hound. Just Hound. No more, and no less.
"Hound?" Chase called, searching for any sign of movement. "Hound, it's me..."
If he really were awake, he would have known it was her from miles away. His scanners would have picked up her bio-signs. Hound either would have been waiting for her or hiding from her.
A trembling hand reached out to trace the side of Hound's faceplate, finding the metal cool. Strangely inanimate under her touch. It wasn't the same lively hum of living metal that she was used to. Something was missing.
"You're asleep, aren't you?" Chase asked, breathing a sigh of relief. It was easier to face him while he was recharging. Her touch grew more confident, petting him gently in long, slow strokes from the side of his flat olfactory sensor to the place where his cheek met the rest of his helm. Soft whirls of lukewarm air cycled out of the vents in his neck, caressing along her bare legs while tossing the skirt of her dress. The deep, muted purr of his idling engine was like an old lullaby that soothed Chase until her heart only hurt when it beat.
"You probably did this on purpose, didn't you?" she wondered softly, watching the progress of her hand as it moved up and down along his faceplate. "You knew I was coming, so you put yourself in recharge just so you didn't have to talk to me."
Of course, there was no answer. Just the murmuring quiet of Hound's resting frame and Chase's soft breaths. It was a bit like the first time they met – Hound laying there unconscious while Chase kept up a one-sided conversation with herself.
The corner of Chase's mouth moved, though it could not quite be called a smile. "If I were you, I probably would have done the same thing." She sighed, closing her eyes and letting her tired body sag heavily. "Actually, I still don't want to be here, but... I don't have much of a choice."
Her arm dropped back to her side. She watched him for a long moment, taking him in, absorbing all the details.
"It hurts to look at you," she finally said. With each word, her heart ached. A new set of tears leaked down her face.
Hound's frame continued to whirr softly while he recharged uninterrupted.
"I was scared to come here," Chase admitted. "I know that what happened wasn't your fault... Mirage showed me what happened. I saw what Nemesis made you do, but I'm still... I'm still angry. I don't think I can forgive you just yet." She rubbed at her eyes roughly to dry them of their offending tears. "When you wake up, if you could just give me time... if you give us time... maybe we can get through this together."
She felt like an idiot and a liar for speaking those words out loud.
"H-how much time... do you think you'll need?"
Startled by the hesitant question, Chase spun in the direction the voice had come from. At first, there was nothing but thin air. Chase's eyes were drawn to movement as a single small figure stepped out from behind the bulk of Hound's right arm. He was shaking from head to foot, his arms wrapped around his torso as if it were the only way to keep himself from falling apart. Everything about the newcomer was painfully familiar, from the shade of his skin to the lines of his body, but there was brokenness in the way he held himself that had never been there before. The vibrancy of life and hope had been syphoned away, leaving a dried out husk in its place.
"Were you there the whole time?" Chase breathed.
"Yes," Hound replied, choking on the word. His accent was gone. Maybe it was dead, like other parts of him.
"How...?"
Hound ducked his head, turning away from her. He was the same height and bulk his hologram has always been, but somehow he looked smaller. "Wheeljack came by in the middle of the night while I was just laying there. He knew... he knew that after the things that had been done to me, I wouldn't want to be in that frame anymore. There's too many reminders of... things." His voice cracked. "I can't reformat right now, so he gave me another way out."
One hand unhinged its death grip from around his body, delving into the matrix of the hologram to fish around. When he withdrew his hand, a small device came with it. Hound turned back to Chase in order to offer his hand palm up and show off the prize he had caught. It was no bigger than a computer mouse, though thinner in design; its complexity exceeded the design of a mouse by a thousand times.
"It's... a portable emitter," Hound breathed, quickly returning it to the inside of his hologram when his image began to flicker.
Chase felt her mouth opening, though no sound came out. She could only stare in morbid fascination.
Hound continued on quietly, still unable to meet Chase's eyes. "Wheeljack said he was inspired by a Star Trek episode... He figured he could build one. Said it might come in handy some day."
"So you're a... portable hologram now?" Chase wondered cautiously.
"I guess I am. Wheeljack really put a lot of effort into the programming - funny how this is the most human I've ever felt as a hologram, but... I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would." He sighed, twisting his hands together. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop on you - while you were...talking to me. I was scared to... to see you again so soon. I figured you would hate me now... so I hid."
"I don't hate you," Chase whispered. "I don't know what I feel right now."
He nodded, flinching under her unblinking stare. "I heard you out in the hall."
"That was mostly Sam yelling," Chase reasoned, failing at scarce humour. "I didn't get much in edgewise, which is probably a good thing. The kid's had it rough."
"He didn't want to save me," Hound croaked. "He was going to let me die."
"Sam wouldn't have let that happen. He said those things in anger – it was the heat of the moment," Chase countered, crossing the space between them without thinking. She laid her hands to his shoulders, stunned to discovered the holographic flesh was more real than she had ever felt it before. It was hot, firm, and trembling with so much emotion that he might explode at any moment.
"Hey," Chase called, drawing Hound's chin up so that she could look him in the eyes. His gaze had turned as hollow as empty glass balls. "Hey, Sam is a good kid. He never would have let you die. He's just confused – like I am. It's all really hard to take in right now. Mikaela being gone is... a lot to adjust to."
A choked sob filled the air. "I didn't want to kill her."
"I know."
"I would have died to save her."
"Shhhhh, I know that too. You love her, Hound. No one can take that away."
"I'm really sorry, Chase. I'm really, really sorry."
"Just give it time," Chase rasped hoarsely, cupping his cheeks gently in her palms. "We all need time."
Hound sputtered, choking on noise. Had he been human, he might have choked on saliva. His eyes reflected so much pain as he met her black gaze. The Hound she had known before had never possessed a gaze so impossibly sad. There was no light left inside.
"I wish... I wish Sam never saved me," he whispered. "I wish Nemesis had finished the job."
Chase's heart gave one last terrible churn in her chest before it felt like it burst.
"Don't wish that," she pleaded. "Too many people here love you. They would never wish to see you gone."
He shuddered, leaning into her touch. His eyes closed in one single moment of solace. "What about you?"
"Me?" Chase croaked.
"Do you want me here?" he whispered.
"Oh, Hound..." Chase swallowed hard against the painful lump in her throat, fighting against a tide of emotion that wanted to vomit out her mouth. The hands on his cheeks tightened, drawing his face down to her level, bringing it down until her lips could brush against his forehead with such a compassion she had not known herself capable of. This was probably one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life, but Sam was right - it was the right thing to do. No matter how her mind rebelled, it was her stupid heart that was winning out. Hound needed someone to desperately hold on to, and she was the best candidate for the job, ugly dress and all.
The words she spoke next were as honest as they were painful to say:
"I love you too much to want you to be anywhere else."
Hound's sobbing worsened until the words were warbled. His shoulders shook as the dams came down, letting loose with every volatile thing trapped inside of him. Real tears leaked from his holographic eyes. An inhuman wail fell from his lips that haunted the air as it lingered in echoes.
Chase found her arms moving around Hound's body, helpless to do anything other than hold him. He curled into her, his arms locking around her body as if to anchor him to the world. The weight of his hologram slowly dragged them downward until Chase was sitting on the berth and Hound was sprawled across her lap. She pet his head while he cried. The more he cried into her chest, the wetter Chase's eyes became in response.
They cried together until they had nothing left to give. Their tears fell until their spirits were rung dry and their bodies were too sore to move. Chase was left sprawled against Hound's large metal side, while Hound's hologram remained limp in her lap. It was still awkward between them while guilt hung between them like a ghost. Neither could ever fathom their relationship going back to the way it was. But for now, they took Sam's advice. They said nothing more to each other, content to mourn silently in each other's presence.
It was sometime later - maybe hours, possible days - that Chase finally managed to say something.
"I hope no one comes in here."
Hound levered his head up, his expression bleak. "Are you ashamed to be seen with me now?"
"No," Chase sighed, running the tips of her fingers through his shaggy raven hair. The corners of her mouth turned up in a gesture that maybe was a smile, but not quite there yet. A ghost of humour sparked in her obsidian eyes, a remnant of their old selves and maybe just a hint of what they could have again if given the time.
"It's just that your portable emitter didn't come with clothes."
"Oh," Hound breathed, peering down at himself absently. "I knew I was forgetting something."