"Geez. Slipstream didn't have to chew us out that badly," Skywarp grumbled.

"You're right," Thundercracker said, coming up beside him in the air. "We didn't deserve any of it. You were the one who spiked the energon supply."

The black and purple seeker snickered. "Oh, come on. Even you thought it was funny when Cyclonus was dancing on that table."

At their head, Nexus laughed, adding, "And when you convinced Dirge that he could fly if he just flapped his wings really hard? Priceless."

"Pretty sure he was fragged up before he even drank the high grade," Skywarp said.

"Will you two focus?" Thundercracker scolded them. "We're only out here in the middle of nowhere because of that stupid stunt. I was looking forward to relaxing in an oil bath all day."

"Aw, lighten up, TC." Skywarp tapped his wing playfully. "I'll give you a nice long wing massage when we get home. And maybe a little something more if you're good." If Skywarp's alt mode could wink, he'd be doing it. But frame language doesn't really get through when it's locked in place.

"No, thank you." Thundercracker raced ahead of them.

Skywarp did the flying equivalent of sidling up to his other trinemate. "Eh? You in?"

"We'll see," Nexus said good-naturedly. "Let's just focus on locating that energon vein, for now."

"A maybe, huh? I can work with that." With a happy burst from his engines, he hurried to catch up with Thundercracker.

Nexus puttered away behind them, then remembered. "Hey! I'm supposed to be leading this mission. I should take point." He shot up and swerved around his trinemates, who fell into formation behind him.

Nexus wished he could be more like Thundercracker. Why Slipstream had ever chosen him to be their leader over his trinemate, he would never know. The blue seeker held his helm high even as she had belittled him for his "weak" spark. In Nexus' opinion, he had the strongest spark among them. He had to live in a tiny little tube for centuries and then survive a transfer process that could have easily killed him. It seemed unfair that that was considered "weak" because of that.

"Alter course ten degrees west," Nexus ordered.

As Nexus banked, the sunlight caught something on the ground. It was a tiny flash, but unmistakable. Only well-kept metal like plating would reflect like that. "I think I see something." He started to descend.

"We're nowhere near the energon vein," Thundercracker said. "We should keep going."

"We're meant to report suspicious activity," Nexus argued. "We're in the middle of nowhere. There shouldn't be any life out here."

"All the more reason to not investigate. It could be a turbofox. Or a sparkeater. The point is, we don't know and it could be dangerous."

"If it's a sparkeater we need to document it. It could be in Iacon in a few solar cycles."

"And aren't you curious?" Skywarp called, coming up just behind Nexus.

"No. I'm not curious. We don't know what it is and that makes it unpredictable." He swooped below his trinemates and back up. "Come on. I refuse to put you two in unnecessary danger."

"We're landing," Nexus decided. "That's an order."

Thundercracker made a frustrated noise. He landed a little after his trinemates, faceplate a deep frown. "Nexus, I highly advise against this," he said.

"Noted." Nexus put his back to a rough bit of metal sticking out of the ground. He peered around it and looked towards the spot he had seen the flash. He heard nothing but his own ventilations and a bit of wind as it picked up. Everything seemed to be in order. He whispered to his trinemates, "I'm going to get a closer look."

Thundercracker grabbed his shoulder and hissed, "No, you're not. We'll observe from a safe distance."

Nexus grabbed his trinemate's wrist and pried his servo off. "I make the orders, Thundercracker," he reminded him, "and until I join the Allspark, that's the way it will stay."

"If you don't listen to me I will be making the orders!" he whisper-shouted. "May I remind you that, as leader, you aren't meant to abuse those privileges by leading your trine into unnecessary danger! You're meant to make the tough choices in the event we end up in a dangerous situation!"

Nexus tossed his trinemate's wrist away. With finality, he said, "I make the orders." And then he was tiptoeing across a flat stretch of ground, optics on the next outcropping.

"Nexus!" Thundercracker called, perhaps a tad too loudly for stealth.

"Chill, TC," Skywarp said, definitely too loudly for stealth. "Nexus knows what he's doing."

On the furthest reaches of his audio receptors, Nexus heard Thundercracker say, "So did they."

"They?" Skywarp queried.

"Shh!" Nexus shot back at his trinemates. He strained the range of his audials to try and hear around the outcropping as he came up to it. Everything was quiet. Even the wind had ceased for a moment. Cautiously, keeping one servo to the metal, he crept around. At every step he expected to see claws coming for his faceplate. He spun his t-cog slowly, ready to fly away at a moment's notice. But as he came around the other side, all he saw was an expanse of barren land.

"There's nothing here, Nexus," Thundercracker's quiet voice came through his commlink. "Let's leave before something happens.

Nexus circled back to the other side, yelling back, "If there's nothing here then there's nothing that can hurt us. Get that-"

"Nexus, look out!" Thundercracker cried.

He turned much too slowly. A prod jabbed his side and with a jolt of electricity, he was on the ground. He groaned as he was tossed into someone's trailer.

"Get your servos off of him!" Thundercracker cried out.

"Take care of them, will ya?" the transport bot rumbled beneath Nexus.

Nexus heard the sounds of a struggle, then a pained groan from each of his trinemates in turn.

"Go, go!" A femme jumped into the cab beside Nexus and the transport sped away.

In the distance, through warbled audials, Nexus thought he heard Thundercracker's voice calling for him. "Nexus!" He let his optics shutter as fatigue took over his frame. A moment before he fell offline, he heard his trinemate's voice again on the wind. This time, a devastated whisper, "Not again."

Nexus onlined with a scream. His leg flinched away from the plasma cutter, but because of the bonds around his ankle, it wasn't enough to get out of the stream. He cried out until his vocalizer gave out with a pop. He arched his back and strained, but the cuffs held.

"I'm so happy when that happens," the femme currently removing his appendage said. "I hate going home with ringing audials."

"Speak for yourself," the transport bot from before, in root mode now, said. "I lull myself into recharge with the memories of their screams."

"You don't have to listen to it as long as I do," she grumbled. "It gets old real fast."

"Heh. You should have heard his trinemates. 'Get your servos off of him. Nexy nooooooooooooo.'" She snickered, a piece of her trailer bed shaking loose and clattering to the floor. Her blue optics turned furious. "You said this would fit me perfectly."

Nexus almost felt like thanking her when she grabbed the femme by her collar and lifted her in the air. His whole frame shook as he craned his neck. He knew he wouldn't like what he saw, but he had to know. Just below the knee, and halfway through his leg, was a jagged cut. It was wide enough that he could see wires and parts that were never meant to see light. The only solace he had was that the wound had cauterized, so he wouldn't die from energon loss. The pain, on the other servo...

"P-probably just needs a spot weld," she said.

She squinted at her. "You should hope so." She dropped her and crossed her arms.

The femme got back to work with an uneasy glance over her shoulder. Nexus ground his denta together until they cracked. Energon dribbled into his mouth and down his throat, making him cough. It was almost pleasant to feel a new, less excruciating, sort of pain.

A voice came through the transport's commlink. "Treads-"

"You will address me as 'ma'am,'" she shot back.

"Sorry, ma'am-"

"Don't apologize. Just don't frag up again."

There was a long pause. "Ma'am, you're needed in storage."

Treads spoke into her comm as she left. "If Locker's lost the medical servos in her subspace tell her that I will personally cut hers off and throw them in to look for them." She called back to the bot plasma cutting, "She-ar, notify me when you're done."

Shortly after the heavy steel door swung shut behind Treads, She-ar made it through the last bit of Nexus' leg. He felt a weird nothingness beyond the stump that was now his leg as She-ar tucked her plasma cutter into her arm and took his calf over to an energon-stained table.

"She-ar," Nexus croaked out. His vocalizer grated with each word. "That's your name right?"

She-ar groaned. "Please shut up. It will be easier for both of us."

"Where are we?"

"Ha! You think I'm that dumb?" she said. "I'm not gonna be the next plaque."

She-ar went to grab something from a cabinet. Behind where she had been standing was a helm mounted on a plaque. Energon had dripped down over the inscription: This is why I only work with femmes.

Nexus warily glanced over at it many times as he spoke through the pain. "What are you going to do with my-" He sucked in a quick, painful ventilation when he accidentally moved his stump. "Leg?" He tried to watch her as she worked, but he couldn't see much from his vantage point.

"If you must speak please just beg for your life or something," She-ar said. "I'm not good with chit chat."

"I'm not one to beg for anything," Nexus said.

"Then shut up."

From what Nexus could see, She-ar had his pede hooked up to a machine. She typed commands in and then turned to look at his pede expectantly. After a moment of riveting nothingness, she grabbed the fore of it and slammed her fist into the side. Trial and error at its finest. She growled, annoyed, and typed a new set of commands in. Still, nothing.

"Something wrong?" Nexus provoked her.

"I thought I told you to shut up." She ripped the wires from his pede and tapped her comm. "Quaa. My initials tests are giving me, let's just say, less than satisfactory results." She nodded as the voice on the other end spoke. Unfortunately for Nexus, he couldn't hear them. "Of course I tried that!" She-ar snapped. "Yes, and that. No. Look, we can't all be scientists. Can you just help me out here?" She-ar's red optics flared with rage. "I am the best fragging Scrapper out there!" She hung up angrily.

"Scrapper, huh?" Nexus said. "Not just a myth, I see."

"Do you want me to rip your voice box out?" she yelled.

Nexus gave a weak smirk. "Maybe you should work on getting the first part you took from me operational first."

She-ar reared up over him, clawed servo raised to strike his throat.

"She-ar!" Treads had returned. She stalked over to her subordinate and forcefully lowered her servo. She-ar still shook with anger. "Tell me again, why don't we attack with our bare servos?"

"Because you're too cowardly?" Nexus put in smugly.

Treads shot him a look and then her optics went back to She-ar. "Well? I'm waiting."

She-ar sighed the frustration out of her frame. "Scratches and dents leave CNA."

"Very good," Treads said coolly. "Now, do me a favour and bring that leg to Quaa. I'm sure she will be successful where others have not."

She-ar looked like she was deciding whether or not she should leave CNA on her leader. She thought better of it. "As you wish, ma'am."

Treads watched She-ar's every step. Her optics swept back across the room to Nexus' frame only after the door had closed. "So," she began, somewhat cheerfully, "I see you're a tough mech to crack."

"I know your M-O." Nexus spat out a wad of energon. "Never seen again, unless you count finding their parts attached to someone else 'seeing them.' But you're too good for that. Or else you'd have been found out vorns ago. So if that is to be my fate, why should I deny myself the pleasure of getting a few jabs in?"

The Scrapper leader grinned. "I like you," she said. "But then, I like the value of your frame more."

"And how much does a seeker go for these solar cycles?"

"If I told you, you'd try to sell your own frame." Treads circled around to the back of the slab Nexus was on, and out of his sight. "Seekers are a work of art," she said. "They have the smoothest running fuel pumps of any Cybertronian I have ever seen. Their plating is light, but durable. But the true prize..." She trailed a digit down his wing with a dark chuckle. "Is the wings. Harvested and cut correctly, they can be used to make artificial erogenous zones. Don't ask me why bots want that. I just know that they're willing to pay through the, heh, nosecone, for them." When Treads pinched the tip of his wing, Nexus flinched and she laughed. "Yours seem to be particularly sensitive. We'll get a good haul out of you."

"I bet you would," Nexus agreed. "If She-ar weren't so incompetent, that is."

"You've got guts, kid. I'll give you that. But I don't keep She-ar around for her processor. She's got brute strength and is a maestro with a plasma cutter. Quaa more than handles the scientific angle for her. In short," she got right in his faceplate then, "I'm allowed to insult them, you aren't."

"You're a lot less pretty up close," Nexus sneered.

"I'm not in this business to be pretty. I'm in this business to make credits."

She-ar kicked the door open and deployed her plasma cutter. She gave a few angry bursts as she stomped over to her dissection table. "Quaa has requested that I bring her the other leg," she said. And then, with thinly veiled sarcasm, "And I would never disappoint her."

Treads pulled up a chair, leaning forward until her faceplate was level with Nexus' stump. "Get on with it," she ordered.

Without so much as a smile, She-ar removed Nexus' other leg. It was just as painful, if not more so, the second time around. But he did his best not to show how agonizing it truly was. Treads watched gleefully, and the last thing Nexus wanted to do was show her a good time. They'd dismantle him, yes, but her sadistic needs were not going to be met that solar cycle.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. He had originally used his recharge schedule to keep track, and that had worked while the Scrappers removed his external parts. Once they started removing internals, they put him under anaesthesia. Nexus was just coming back online after a fuel pump transplant, more confused than ever. He didn't even get to see who was receiving his part. Their fuel pump whirred away under the third scar he had had inflicted upon him. He wished the glass of his cockpit were still there to cover the mesh, but they had removed that ages ago.

"Your frame has been so cooperative," Treads praised.

"How are those thrusters treating you?" Nexus said. "Still nothing?"

Treads' top lip quivered and her optic ridges turned down.

"I'll take that as a yes." Nexus shuttered his optics. He felt himself slipping into power down when the door opened.

"Ma'am," a new voice said. It wasn't She-ar.

"Quaa," Treads said, a little warily. "What's the status of his thrusters?"

"Unfortunately, I have some bad news. I'm afraid Nexus' seeker components will only respond to his coding. We won't be able to sell his propulsion system. Or much else, for that matter."

There was a long pause. "What can we sell?"

Nexus heard a bot tapping on a data pad. "Beyond what we've already taken? Just his t-cog. Everything else is either a seeker component or would kill him."

"Frag. Not even the wings?"

"His neural circuitry needs to be connected to his processor. Otherwise, they're as good as scrap metal."

Treads growled and sat back down. "Tell She-ar to meet me in my office. And give Needles a comm. Tell her it's urgent. We need to move to a different location before anyone gets wind of our operation."

"Of course." Quaa's pedesteps echoed as she left.

"Dammit," Treads hissed to herself. Nexus flinched as her fists came down on the slab, but she didn't notice. "Slaggin' firewalls. Older seeker models weren't nearly as protected."

A lot of time passed. Nexus had to keep himself from squirming. He imagined Treads glaring down on him. He wanted to smile at how useless he was to her. Eventually, she, too, left, and Nexus peeked open an optic to make sure he was alone. He blinked his optics rapidly to force the fatigue away.

Stretching his neck just beyond its usual limits, he hit his comm switch with his denta. "Skywarp?" he whispered. "Thundercracker?" Nothing, like usual. The Scrappers weren't ones to leave loose ends, apparently. "If there's any way that either of you can hear me, know that I love you. And I'm going to get out of here."

"Hey!"

Nexus felt the back of a servo connect with his faceplate. He groaned and went to cover the source of the pain, when he remembered his arms were bound.

"Good. You're up," She-ar said. She grinned. "You're going to meet someone very special today."

"More special than you?" Nexus mocked. He adjusted as much as possible in his restraints. He turned his pede in a more comfortable direction. It didn't register at first that he hadn't had pedes for the last few solar cycles. His helm shot up, mouth hanging open. "My pedes!" He stared a while longer, lip curling up in disgust. "What the frag did you do to them?" he roared.

She-ar laughed, long and loud, holding her middle. "I think these look much better on you."

Nexus tried to kick, but the bonds held. "Where are my thrusters? You can't use them!"

The femme kept laughing, thoroughly enjoying his panic. "Oh, I gave them back," she said. "All of your flying is behind you." She kept snickering as she cleaned up her workspace.

Nexus scowled and jabbed his shoulder up, but all he managed to do was hurt his back.

"Don't struggle too much," She-ar advised. "The welds could crack."

"Welds?" Nexus' optics grew wide. All of the cuts on his front had been healed for at least a few solar cycles now. "What's on my back?"

She-ar's smile somehow spread further. "I said I gave your thrusters back."

"Can I still transform?" His voice trembled.

"Oh, I don't think you'll have to worry about that." She-ar picked up Nexus' t-cog from the table. Her grin was reflected a dozen times in its gleaming spokes. "This will fetch a high price. It's hardly been used. Tough luck, rookie."

The welds felt like they were burning anew. The entirety of his pedes hurt. It felt like his frame was rejecting his modifications. "Please," Nexus begged, as much as he hated doing it. "How much would you sell that for? I'm sure I have enough."

She-ar scoffed. "We've already got a buyer. He's into changing shape. Keeps burning through them. Lucky for him, and for us, he's got credits coming out his aft. So why would I jeopardize my place on this team, not to mention my life, for whatever measly amount you'll pay?"

"I'll pay double. Triple. Quadruple. Please."

"Sorry, babe. You'll have to get used to being grounded. Not that you'll miss the sky much."

Nexus could hear bots approaching the room. He swallowed and composed himself as best he could just before Treads came in, followed by a femme he didn't recognize. The Scrapper leader made her way to She-ar and said, "Good work." She looked at Nexus. "And I see you managed to salvage enough plating from what was left."

"I leave him in your capable servos," She-ar said. "I'll take this to Locker."

"See that you do." Treads gave her a congratulatory pat on the back before she exited. She turned to Nexus. "You're looking well," she commented.

Nexus nodded his head toward the new bot. "Who's this," he asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"This is Needles," she answered. "One of my finest."

"Your name's 'Needles?'" Nexus said with a laugh.

Needles stared, unblinking.

"You won't get under her plating like you did with She-ar," Treads said. She got real close to him then. "Did you really think any of use our real names? And may I remind you that my previous statement about insulting my femmes still stands." Treads clapped her servos together as a way of changing the subject. "Now, you've learned quite a bit about us. A little too much, actually. And normally, our product doesn't, well, make it."

Nexus kept his optics on Treads, but his focus was on Needles, moving behind his helm. Small mechanical sounds came from above him, and beyond his field of vision.

"But the occasional mishaps have arisen," Treads went on. "So, we give Needles here a comm. And she's very good about tying up loose ends."

Nexus felt digittips on his forehelm, and when he strained his gaze upward he saw Needles' skinny digits. "It is best if you do not move. I cannot guarantee that this will be painless otherwise."

"What won't be?" Nexus squirmed despite the warning.

"Not that you'll remember it, but Needles here is going to give you a new lease on life. You see, we can't have your useless parts on us. If you were important enough to make them worthless to Scrappers, you're important enough to search for. And if the cops find even your remnants, they might trace you back to us. And I, for one, am not going to jail because of some cocky seeker."

A tiny saw started up above Nexus' helm.

"Needles is a mnemosurgeon. She's going to erase your memories in lieu of more favourable ones. For us, anyways."

"What!" Nexus struggled some more, trying to see what was happening at his helm.

"Treads," Needles said in her eerily level tone. "Do you have something to keep his helm still? I cannot work with him thrashing about."

"I'm sure I can find something."

"Something" ended up being a metal bar Treads had She-ar weld to the table. Nexus was thoroughly strapped down now. He didn't have a hope of getting away before Needles was cutting into his helm. And while he didn't feel any pain, he felt nauseated from the idea of being cut open. He didn't know which he would have preferred.

"Seeker plating cuts so nicely," Needles said, slight enjoyment in her voice. "Much better than the lower class bots I usually deal with."

Nexus' ventilations came nearly as fast as his spark was beating. He would have worried about overcooling his systems if he weren't worried about the bot sawing into his helm. He scored his claws into the table, making new marks and deepening old ones. He shut his optics and cursed himself for the millionth time. He should have listened to Thundercracker. This was why he should have been made leader. What kind of leader can't even protect himself?

The tinkling of a tiny piece of metal alerted Nexus. He opened his optics and looked around, but of course he couldn't see anything. But he did see Treads nod, and felt Needles' steadying servo shift position.

And then Nexus was reliving his life. For the first few memories, mostly of meeting and getting to know Thundercracker, he thought he had offlined. But Needle's voice cut into them, poisoning what his trinemates had left.

"These are all very pleasant memories," she remarked. "Leader of your trine. Top of the academy. It is unfortunate that you were unable to harvest from him, Treads. He would have yielded top of the line parts."

"Don't remind me," Treads said.

"These two are in just about every memory you have," Needles said. "You must love them very much." Her optic ridges barely twitched up. "And what a healthy interface life. You will certainly miss that. If you could remember it."

"No, please!" Nexus cried out. "Let me have them! They mean everything to me!"

"You won't remember them. You should thank me. I am taking your pain away."

"I've been waiting to hear him squeal," Treads said gleefully. "He toughened up too much. You could scarcely get a reaction out of him."

"You must have loved ones," Nexus tried to bargain with Needles. "Bots you'd never want to forget about. Please. I would never tell anyone what happened. Just please let me remember them."

Treads laughed. "Needles doesn't much care for 'love.' Believe me. Been there, tried that."

"Your trinemates will have to deal with the pain of your loss," Needles told him, the way someone would while trying to comfort someone else. "You will have the luxury of not remembering them." To her employer, she said, "I will make him think that the High Council ordered this."

"Just do it," Treads ordered gruffly. "And make sure his new assignment is truly degrading. This guy has way too much pride. He already looks like the malfunction of Cybertron, but I want him to live it."

"Good-bye, Nexus." Needles' expressionless words did not carry the weight they should have. They were like a coworker's passing farewell to their superior as they finished their shift.

Nexus felt like he should feel the needles stabbing into his processor, but all he felt were memories slipping away. Skywarp, Thundercracker, his status, his... No. I am Starscream. My legs hurt because I broke them and they had to be fixed. That was a foolish thing to do and I will not damage the High Council's property ever again.

"Starscream!" Thundercracker's voice broke into the memory. "Starscream, what's happening? Are you okay?"

"Thundercracker!" Starscream came to on the hard floor. His pedes weren't sore, and after a quick test, he determined that his t-cog was present and functional. After a few deep ventilations, he said, "Yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"Oh, thank Primus." He heard his trinemate give a sigh of relief. "He's alright." Farther off, he heard Skywarp give his own relieved sigh. "You saw them too, then?" Thundercracker assumed.

"The memories?" Starscream held his throbbing helm.

"I wish I could hold you," Thundercracker admitted. "Skywarp and I both miss you very much. And now, there are no doubts. You are Nexus."

"Don't call me that," Starscream said. "Nexus is gone. He was taken from me." He pulled his knees into his chest. Then, his gaze hardened and he unfurled himself. "I am Starscream. A rightful seeker. They can take my name and alter my memories, but I am Starscream. I will always be Starscream."

Silence crackled on Thundercracker's end for so long that Starscream thought they had been disconnected somehow. Then, he chuckled. "You are Starscream. But they failed to take all of Nexus' spirit."

"What did you see?" Starscream asked.

"You. And Skywarp. How we met." His voice wobbled with his next words. "When you were taken. Primus, that was painful."

"It's in the past." Starscream tried to comfort his trinemate, but it was difficult when he needed his own comfort. Thundercracker had no idea of the memories he had to endure.

"Did you..." Thundercracker didn't finish his question, but Starscream could guess what he wanted to ask.

"Yes. I was taken by Scrappers."

"What happened?"

Starscream rubbed his temples. He glanced over at the empty berth and pulled himself into it. He felt more alone than ever, but at least he knew his trinemates were still there. In both their physical forms and intact in his memories.

"What do you think? They wanted whatever they could get from me." Starscream pulled the heating cover over his frame. He didn't know how long he had been out, but it was dark now and the cover frigid. He turned the dial up to max. But it couldn't compare to the internal warmth his trinemates brought him.

"But, you're alive. No one walks away from a Scrapper alive."

"Apparently, I was an exception," Starscream explained. "They couldn't use my parts so they used Shadowplay to make me forget everything. Guess it backfired. But I have no idea why I'm remembering all of this now."

"Well..." Thundercracker giggled and Starscream heard the smacking of lips from his comm. "We just finished bonding when we had our memories. I think having all our sparks connected triggered it."

Starscream wanted to be happy. But all he could think about was the millions of vorns he spent on the brink of termination. And not once had his trinemates come looking for him. "Where were you?" he accused them. "Why didn't you come looking for me?"

The blissful noises on his trinemates' end ceased. Thundercracker let out a huge sigh. "You were presumed dead. Slipstream ordered that we have our memory wiped of what happened and when we came to they told us you had died. I..." A fizzle of static garbled his words. He vented deeply. "I think they wanted us to give up all hope of finding you. We probably would have done something stupid."

"All these vorns," Starscream said, "you were out there, waiting for me to emerge from the Well." His voice took on an angry tone. "All these vorns! They had me dancing on tables and interfacing just to keep myself alive! They kept me from you! And for what? A few spare parts?" He punched the wall and immediately regretted it. His fist throbbed and now there was a dent just above the headboard of their berth.

"Please don't hurt yourself," Thundercracker said. His voice was strained with the knowledge that he couldn't stop him himself.

"Too late," Starscream said through grit denta.

"Then please stop at that."

The image of Thundercracker's sad optics was enough to stop Starscream from doing just about anything. Which was fortunate, because as the pain receded, his desire to injure himself rose. But every infliction would hurt his trinemate more. And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt him.

"Please tell me you're coming home soon."

"Well, we did miss our reception," Thundercracker admitted. "But we haven't been to see Slipstream yet."

"I don't care. Training can wait." Starscream curled back up into a ball. "I just need to know you're real."

"We're real, Starscream. We're real and we miss you and we love you. And we're coming back to you. We would be there now if we could. You know that."

Starscream's optics widened and tried to look at everything all at once. "What if all of this is just another Shadowplay? What if I'm just reliving every memory I had with you? Only to forget it all again. And I'll never know. Because they won't leave anyone to miss. Or what if I'm still there? Strapped to that table. This could all be an elaborate dream I created to-"

"Starscream! Starscream, please, stay with me." Starscream could almost imagine his trinemate's servos on his frame. They would pull him in and stroke his wings and make everything okay again. "I swear this is reality. We'll be home tomorrow if all goes well. Just hold on for a little longer."

Starscream put his faceplate in his servos and clenched his denta. They weren't cracked. His pedes were there. He took a strange comfort in feeling only the injuries Megatron had inflicted. He did his best to stay in the now.

"There were good memories," Thundercracker said softly. "Meeting you two is now one of my fondest. And training with you. Just... everything we did together."

Nexus focused on his ventilations.

"We were just as inseparable back then. And you seemed so excited to meet me," Thundercracker said away from the microphone. "With your faceplate pressed up against the glass. It was cute."

"Cute? Psh. You were hot," Skywarp said. "I was just thinking about 'facing with you."

Starscream felt himself smile. It felt like it had been ages since he'd done so. Both as Starscream and as Nexus.

"He was talking about how much he wanted to kiss you," Starscream couldn't resist ratting him out. "You were all about the 'smooches', Skywarp."

On the other end, Thundercracker laughed while Skywarp, probably blushing, told him to shut up.

"Yeah, well, I hadn't seen a spike before that," Skywarp's distant voice said. "I can guarantee that's what I would have been thinking about if I knew what it was."

"Admit it," Thundercracker said. "You love us for more than just interfacing."

"Shut it." Skywarp's voice sounded closer now.

Starscream's processor seemed Pit-bent on keeping his thoughts on the negative side of things. "Why did you never tell us about your past trine?" Starscream asked.

His trinemate's laughter ceased and an awkward pause ensued. "I wanted to," Thundercracker said. "But while you are their reincarnations you aren't them. I know that. And I didn't want you to think that I was imposing their memories onto you. Because while I see a lot of similarities, I also see a lot of differences. And I would hate to see those differences changed because I miss my old life. I'm a different bot too. You're different from Nexus, even if biologically you're the same."

"Biologically," Starscream said. "If you don't count my fuel pump, t-cog, and everything from the knee down. And a myriad of other parts. I'm not biologically anything but a freak."

"You're not a freak. Your parts don't make you."

"Says the seeker who abandoned me because I was missing one." Harsh, but true.

"I'm sorry, Starscream. I was wrong."

"I know. You already said that."

"Can we just be happy that we're together and all of this is behind us?" Thundercracker asked.

Starscream was ready to argue and to keep his guilt train rolling. But they had all been punished enough. Thundercracker especially. So, of course, he gave in. "I suppose so."

The sun had barely been in the sky for a few cycles when a door-shaking knock sounded, startling Starscream. Megatron's gruff voice said, "You're needed, Starscream." Apparently, this was the command the seeker had been awaiting.

"I've got to go," Starscream whispered to Thundercracker. "I love you both." He shut his commlink off before Thundercracker asked where he was going.