Oh I'm all hyped up on excitement! Not only are we almost finished and I got some majorly awesome reviews, but I also saw Age of Extinction last night for the midnight premiere! It was so awesome! People were clapping and cheering when Bumblebee and Grimlock appeared. And it was on a truly ginormous imax screen so it certainly felt like I was an itty bitty human meeting sixteen ton robot dinosaurs... o.O

But I was pleasantly surprised by it all. I think the first is still my all time favorite, and I miss the original human cast (though these humans were good choices, good characters, and the bad guys were spectacularly evil), but 4 was sooo much better than 3. Though being worse in my opinion would have been...hard to do. .

Anyway! Thank you so much to Bee4ever, Abyss Prime (sorry I made you cry... n_n;), L.M.L., Jimmy 144, Nightwing101 (only one more chapter until you get your answer Nightwing ;3), and Ironhidesbabe. Especially Ironhidesbabe! Man you're so sweet! Thank you so much! You made me feel just so wonderful when I was feeling pretty dang miserable. So thank you a thousand times!

Now I hope you guys like the chapter! And don't feel like I coped out of the age issue...This is honestly how I thought life went for Atlantians, I swear! Probably watched too much of Disney's Atlantis as a kid... ;) Anyway, enjoy!

...

The Long Road Home

50 – The Obvious Conclusion – 50

Aria wasn't sure if things really changed after that first day on the Ark, but the tension between her and Nathanial was...altered after that. It was still there, but it was softer, more subdued. It still fed off their questions and insecurities after the loss of Cybertron, but there was just so much for them to do that there was only a limited amount of time to indulge them all.

For the first few weeks they didn't talk much; they still weren't trying to avoid each other of course, but Peg's death still hung heavy on their hearts. It was just so hard to make any kind of effort to be happy with her death so fresh in their minds.

It wouldn't stay that way forever, they both knew that, but it would still take time. Everything between them just needed time.

So time passed.

...and passed...

...and passed...

Peg was stamping and snorting in her grave by the time her humans finally realized they were in fact avoiding one another. But what could they do? Sure, they could bite the bullet and talk to each other, but since when did any good ever come of that? No, they just needed to figure something else out. And until they did, well, who really needed those awkward attempts at casual conversation anyway?

The day finally came when they didn't have a choice in the matter. Maybe Peg really was watching over them from the great beyond, maybe Hound just got tired of their pussy-footing around each other and 'accidentally' pushed a button he shouldn't have. Either way, Nat and Aria soon found themselves trapped in the most thankless, awkward-inducing contraption ever invented by man or machine.

They got trapped in an elevator.

Like everything else on the Ark, the elevator was old. Almost freakishly so in Aria's opinion. It moved so slow that it took half an hour to get from the bottom levels to the command deck, the gears ground obnoxiously every five levels or so, and it swayed in the most disconcerting manner if it went higher than level five. That and it always got stuck at level thirty-three for no reason anyone could find. Hound was supposed to have fixed that but...well he just wasn't a certified mechanic now was he?

Thankfully there was no music. That was the only thing that could have possibly made it any worse, Aria would reflect years later. Although it did make the silence rather loud.

They had stood there, each trying not to look at one other, but finding their eyes kept sliding towards their companion anyway. Of course then the person they were staring at without meaning to would look up and there would be that awkward smile that wasn't really a smile, the one that said, "Um, hi. Do I have something on my face or what?"

Embarrassed to be caught staring, the first person would give the answering, "No, you're fine, sorry," smile back and then quickly look away. They would fidget uncomfortably for the next few minutes and then the whole process would start over, only this time it would be the second person that started staring at the first.

After one long, grueling, twenty minute time frame of nothing but the above and only the vaguest assurances from Grapple that he would have the elevator running again in no time, Nathanial finally broke the silence.

"You, ah, you look nice."

If she'd been watching a movie and a man had said that to his crush, Aria would have cringed. As it was she tried to remind herself to make eye contact at least once in awhile so Nat wouldn't think she was actively trying to ignore him.

She looked down at her feet and nervously pulled her hair behind her ear. "Thanks." She mumbled, smiling anxiously. She didn't think she'd changed much in the few months since they'd left Cybertron, but then maybe she was wrong. It wasn't like the Ark had many mirrors...

Feeling the crushing need to say something else, Aria glanced over at Nat and made a vague gesture at him. "So do you." She mumbled.

By now the two humans wished there really was bad elevator music playing. Anything had to be better than this painfully awkward silence-

"Do you," Nathanial started hesitantly, "want to have dinner tonight? With me I mean." He added quickly. "Naturally you'll want something to eat before tomorrow and, erm-"

Before he could babble any further Aria quickly put in, "Sure," then she stopped and added a bit slower, "sure that, um, that'll be fine."

It was not fine. It was so far from fine that only a date with Megatron could possibly have gone any worse. And as Aria trudged back to her room after the abysmal first re-date, she couldn't help but wonder-

"What the frack are we doing?"

She slumped and sighed. Truth was she just didn't know anymore. She had been so angry when Nathanial had told them about the dark energon lens, and even though she'd come to an understanding about the whole situation, when she thought about how she had reacted, about all those horrible things she'd said...

The shame snuck up on her and she wrapped her arms around herself as if that could ward off the sadly familiar feeling. It didn't.

She continued her long shuffle towards her room – an empty crevice in the ship's layout that Grapple had since walled off and given doors for her convenience. He'd done something similar for Nathanial on the other side of the ship, ostensibly because it was set next to the living quarters for the rest of the mechs.

Aria didn't know if that was why he'd put so much space between the two of them or not, or if he just saw the writing on the wall she didn't want to make out. Either way it made for a long and lonely walk home that night.

Aria withdrew farther into herself at the stinging word. Lonely. It had been on her mind a lot lately, especially with the cold places in her spark where Chromia, Elita, Arcee, Val, and Wheeljack were supposed to be.

"Because that's what it really boils down to," Aria thought as she walked, eyes unable to look away from the floor in front of her, "we're going to be out here a long, long time. The only organics in a crowd of mechanical life. Alone together."

She huffed a laugh, not really finding it funny. "That's what it is, isn't it? We're alone together. Of course we would end up together. What other choice do we have?"

Aria's autopilot suddenly disengaged and she came to a sudden stop in the center of the hall. She stood there, not noticing, eyes watching her shoes without seeing them.

"Even if we do get back together," she thought slowly, "how will we know – how will we ever know – if what we're feeling is love or just...loneliness?"

And that's what all her fear came down to, she realized. It hadn't mattered before he'd come to Cybertron because she'd been the only human around. And while she loved her bots, she knew she wasn't in love with any of them. She couldn't even imagine how that would work honestly. But now...

How did she know if she loved Nathanial or if she just didn't want to be alone anymore? How would they know the difference when it was just the two of them out here?

Feeling cold and empty inside, Aria finally arrived at her room. She swiped her hand in front of the reader Grapple had installed for her so she wouldn't have to worry about losing keys or having the twins rummaging around in her private space. It recognized her as an organic and the door slid open with the barest of sounds.

Aria slumped inside, not comforted by the machinery's smooth operations. She missed her old door, the one you had to twist the knob and throw your shoulder against to get it open because it had started to stick.

"It's all probably just splinters now..." She thought glumly.

The door closed automatically behind her, cutting off the light from the hallway. She slapped one hand at the wall right of the door, fumbling for the lights. And then sighed in aggravation as she remembered the controls in her new living space were on the left.

Her fingers finally found the smooth control panel and the lights came up fast enough that she snapped her eyes closed to keep from being blinded. Aria muttered to herself as she fumbled for the controls again.

"Stupid knob thingy..." she grumbled to herself as she dimmed the lights to half power.

She blinked her eyes open when she was out of danger of being blinded. Frustrated and disheartened by everything that had happened today, she looked around at her room with flat eyes. A broad expanse of gray greeted her. The walls were gray. The furniture was gray. Heck, even the clothes strewn on the floor and hanging out of the half open drawers were turning gray from too many washings. The only smudge of color around were the dark blue sheets and the smudge of pink that was her ipod sitting on her bedside table.

"At least it's not orange." Aria grumbled for the sake of grumbling. "I wouldn't be able to sleep surrounded by that glaringly-ugly orange color."

Feeling miserable, Aria slouched across her room, scooping down to pick up the sheets she'd dragged to the floor when she'd rolled out of bed that morning. Tossing them to the foot of the bed, she flopped down on the springy surface of her mattress and lay there for a long minute face down in the pillow.

When she came to the edge of smothering herself, she rolled over. Her face was red and too hot, but cooled quickly in the chilled air. If there was one thing she liked about her new living space it was that the a/c worked almost too well.

She sighed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling like she was drowning in a sea of non-color. There weren't that many personal touches in here and Aria knew she probably wouldn't get the chance to change that any time soon. She had her journal and old diabetes equipment in here somewhere, but that was about it. No pictures on the dresser. Nothing on the walls...

Aria stopped and blinked as something finally registered. There was something on her wall now, hanging above the head of her bed. If she tilted her head back she could just make out the thick bottom edge of whatever it was.

She sat up and twisted around to see what it was. "That wasn't here when I left this morning."

Aria got to her knees and shuffled closer to get a better look. She couldn't make out many details in the dim light. Just that it was rectangular and close to two feet long and half as high. She thought there was something carved into its surface, but it blended in so well with the shadowed walls that she couldn't be sure...

Aria came to a stop in front of the headboard and peered at her new decoration. There were familiar craggy lines carved in its surface. They were glyphs, she realized, made out of wavering lines like they'd been made by a five year old.

The read 'Jie Mei'.

Aria stood there in shock. It was her Jie Mei. The one from her bedroom wall. The one Arcee and Bumblebee had made for her good house. But...how had it ended up here?

The obvious answer hit her a second later as she ran disbelieving fingers over the craggy edges of the glyphs.

"He did this...for me?" She mumbled the words out load before she realized it. And she laughed, a sound filled with relief and happiness and what felt like a thousand other things. He couldn't have made himself clearer if he'd written 'I LOVE YOU' in bright red, capital letters.

Aria jumped off the bed, nearly landing on her face when her foot got stuck on the edge of the mattress. She managed to free herself in time and tripped towards the door before finally getting her balance back. Forgetting the lights, she smacked the door open and took off down the hall back the way she'd come.

She found Nathanial just where she expected him to be; in the Ark's wide hanger space talking with Air Raid and Fastlane about some modifications they might need to better handle space flight. Nat might not be able to fly anymore, and Peg never would've stepped hoof in the void even if Nathanial had wanted to try, but with Wheeljack absent, the organic mech had become the Ark's resident engineer. And after so much time with Peg, he knew almost as much as Wheeljack, although he did lack the mech's more explosive tendencies.

Nobody really minded that last part.

Aria wasn't really thinking about any of this as she ran across the room, focused on the lone human like she had blinders on.

They finally noticed her when she was a few feet away.

Nathanial looked surprised to see her. "Aria? What's wron-oof!"

He was cut off as she ran into him, arms wrapping around his neck as she knocked them both to the ground in a half-sitting sprawl. Between her gasping for air and the effort she was putting into trying not to cry, it took Nathanial a moment to understand what she was saying.

"Thank you," she kept gasping, arms wrapped around him tight, "Thank you so much Nat, thank you."

She was dimly aware that she was babbling as tears slid down her face and soaked into his collar. "And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about everything I said and I just-"

Aria suddenly ran out of things to apologize and thank him for so she just stopped talking and shook her head against his shoulder without looking up. She hated to think of the state she must be in by now.

Nathanial had sat there quietly while she'd babbled her sorries and thank yous, either stunned by Aria's sudden appearance or her abrupt change of heart Air Raid couldn't tell as he watched the two organics on the floor.

From his taller height, the Aerialbot watched as Nathanial finally registered what had happened, closed his eyes, and wrapped his arms around Aria.

Air Raid couldn't help but grin and he didn't even try to hide it. The organics had just been so miserable since Tyger Pax, even more so since they'd boarded the Ark. It was nice to finally see them stop being so...stupid.

Fastlane must have been thinking along the same lines because Air Raid heard a not-so-quiet, "Well it's about freakin' time," behind his shoulder.

Aria and Nat didn't hear him, but the older mech turned before Fastlane said anything else that might distract them. "Come on you," he muttered, turning the young Seeker around and shoving him from behind, "leave 'em alone will ya? Unless you want to see your older sister make up with her mech friend."

Fastlane made a disgusted face, tongue sticking out and everything. "Oh gross. Thanks for putting that in my memory banks Air Raid!" He grumbled, but headed towards the door without many more complaints.

Aria and Nathanial hardly noticed their departure where they sat, faces so close together their foreheads were touching.

"Sorry it took so long to put it up." Nat told her, voice quiet, "I had Sunny smooth down the edges so it wouldn't look like a piece of wall. You know how picky he can be about his work."

Aria huffed a still breathless giggle. She did know. But it didn't matter it had taken Sunny so long to make the glyphs presentable. What mattered to her was that Nathanial had brought them at all. Just to try and make this the slightest bit easier for her.

All the doubts she'd had before went silent in the face of this proof. And all of her questions vanished, except one.

"Do you want to try this again?" She asked sheepishly.

Nathanial's relieved smile was enough to make her spark-heart flicker. "Dinner and a movie tomorrow." He told her. "I think Percy's got a screen we can use."

The tension abruptly left Aria's shoulders as she gave Nathanial a small, answering smile. "Sounds great."

...

Things got decidedly better after that. No more doubts, no more worries about why they were together. Aria knew what she felt and it wasn't because Nathanial was the only man she had seen for the past who-knew-how-many vorns. The simple truth was that she loved him. And in the time that followed, she only became more and more certain of that.

It was kind of strange in a way, how normal their relationship was after that. They went on dates, they had jobs, they even got caught making out in closets on occasion, much to their embarrassment and Fastlane's trauma...

Alright, so 'normal' was still a stretch, but it was as close as they could come when some of those dates they went on took place on populated organic alien planets. And after those last few months living on Cybertron, any kind of normality (no matter how stretched the definition was) was a great and tremendous relief.

And with the amount of effort they put into having a normal relationship, it really shouldn't have surprised Aria when one night, after an unusually extravagant dinner of actual organic food they'd picked up a few orbits ago, Nathanial pulled a small box out of his pocket, got down on one knee and asked Aria to be his wife.

Aria stared at him. Despite everything she was surprised. And her reaction was anything but average.

An undignified, strangled off squawk escaped her mouth before she clapped a hand over it. Eyes wide – why had she done that?! – she stared at Nathanial still kneeling in front of her, an uncertain look on his face now.

She felt her face turn red as he watched her anxiously. "I'm...sorry?" He managed to say. Obviously that wasn't the answer he'd been hoping for.

It wasn't exactly what Aria had expected herself to say either.

She wanted to stand and pace, but couldn't bring herself to move other than the anxious wringing of her hands in her lap. Nathanial watching her from where he still knelt on the floor didn't help anything.

"I-" she stuttered, heart pounding, "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Nathanial looked like she'd just kicked him in the stomach. "What?" He managed to strangle out, but Aria couldn't make herself say it again.

Nathanial finally looked away. Not sure what else to do with the ring, he put it down on the table. "I don't understand," he finally said, "do you not want to get married?" He asked in disbelief. This was not how he had pictured this evening going.

"Of course I want to," Aria said, somewhat defensive, "it's just, I'm not exactly-" She fidgeted in her chair and blew out a frustrated sigh before deciding to just rip the Band-aid right off, "I'm older than you."

Nathanial stared at her, wondering if this had some other meaning on Cybertron that he didn't know about.

"What?" He asked again.

Aria sighed again and bit her lip. "No, I mean," she gestured nervously with one hand, running the other through her hair anxiously, "a lot older than you." She tried again. "Like I can't even count how much older."

Some understanding began to creep up on Nathanial. And then, scaring Aria half to death, he started to laugh.

"I'm not kidding!" She said loudly, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward to take his hands firmly in hers, her face filled with concern. "Nathanial I've been here a long time. A lot longer than you can probably believe. I had this auto-immune disease called diabetes back home and when I came here they had to make medication just for me. It lengthened my lifespan and then when they gave me my spark to revive me-"

She got no further. Nathanial managed to get a hold of himself enough to finally stop her. "Aria," he spoke over her, grinning widely, "Aria I know all that."

Aria went still. "You...you do?" She said very slowly.

Nathanial smiled and nodded at her. "Yes." He told her, and then shrugged one shoulder. "Well, admittedly I didn't know about the illness, but I got a pretty decent idea of how old you were when you told me you had a spark." His face suddenly turned a little red. "Talking with Ratchet later only confirmed my suspicions."

Aria eyed him, not liking the idea of him asking Ratchet about her age at all, but she let it go in the face of the larger discussion. "So...you're alright with the fact that I'll outlive you?" She asked. She had kind of hoped he wouldn't be because she still wasn't sure how she felt about it. Yes, yes so she would still have sixty or so years with the man, but what about after that? Would the time of one average lifespan make his inevitable loss worth it?

Nathanial was still grinning, although he was trying to hide it better now. "What makes you think you'll outlive me, huh?"

Aria fidgeted, not liking this line of questioning. "Well," she started, not able to meet Nat's optics as she fidgeted again, "considering I stopped counting how old I was at fifty vorns – and that vorns are longer than years although I don't know by how much – I thought it was a pretty safe bet."

Nathanial shook his head and laughed again, making Aria frown at him. "This isn't funny Nathanial." She tried to sound stern but it came out more anxious than anything. Her stomach was all in knots. "Just because you won't have to worry about anything in another fifty vorns doesn't mean I won't have to!"

Nathanial quickly wiped his grin away. "Alright Aria, sorry, sorry." He told her as he squeezed her hand and got to his feet just long enough to take the seat next to her. Aria eyed him. She could still see he found something about this conversation outrageously funny. What she had no idea...

"Aria," he said after a moment of thoughtful silence, "do you even know how old you are?" Nathanial asked.

Aria scowled at him, brain still trying to process what was happening. "Of course I do. I'm..." she hesitated, needing to add up suspected numbers in her head, "I'm a hundred and forty-two vorns."

She nodded smartly, outwardly sure of her statement.

Nathanial did not look impressed. "According to Ratchet you're a hundred and forty-three."

Aria's face fell and in an obvious attempt to change the subject she grumbled, "Oh man, I missed a birthday!" She prodded her boyfriend in the side. "You guys so owe me presents."

Despite the fact his gut was tied in knots because Aria still hadn't given him an answer to his proposal, Nat smiled. "What do you think those earrings were for?" He asked her. And then after pausing long enough to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, he asked, "You have no idea what a vorn means in human years, do you?"

Aria looked up in mild embarrassment. "...no." She finally admitted.

He hung his head and laughed. "You are the first woman I've ever met that doesn't care how old she is."

Aria frowned. "I do to care. What do you think I forget so often?"

"I think we're getting off topic." Nathanial reminded her.

Aria felt her spine go rigid. As if she needed a reminder. "We are not getting off topic. This is the topic and we are squarely on it." She told him firmly.

She was avoiding him and he knew it. "I thought we were talking about how you were going to agree to marry me." He said, rather hopefully.

"I thought we were talking about how that might not be such a good idea." Aria mumbled, feeling like her heart was going to twist itself in half.

Nat smiled as he turned to face her more. "Aria," he said slowly, that grin still trying to escape from the corner of his mouth, "I'm one hundred and twenty-four vorns old."

Aria blinked at him, face blank. "...no you're not." She finally managed.

Nat nodded slowly, smiling more openly now. "I'm pretty sure I know how old I am." He told her. "Although you're right, it does get hard to keep track after awhile. That's why we start counting in vorns after the first hundred years or so back home."

Aria still hadn't processed this information yet. "But," she tried, "you can't be! That's like, I dunno, a thousand Earth years!"

Nat snorted. That wasn't even close to either of their respective ages. But he saw how much difficulty this was giving her so instead he went for the vague answer. "More, but we can come back to that later." He patted her hands where they still sat in her lap. "My point is, in the grand scheme of things there isn't much of an age difference between us. And unless the Decepticons catch up with us, I've got just as much of a chance to be around in another fifty vorns as you do."

Aria was still staring at the space in front of her, her mouth hanging open slightly. "But...how?"

Nathanial shrugged. "I'm not sure how it started exactly," he admitted, "but there must have been some kind of gene mutation in one or even several of our ancestors back on Earth and it spread to their descendents and later onto the rest of us that now live on Atala. That's one of the reasons my great-grandfather's generation left Earth. Their longevity made the rest of the people...uneasy.

"That plus the technological advances such as nanites and limited energon exposure brought about by our contact with Nexus Prime, lengthened our life spans even further. I asked Ratchet and he said his tests showed my projected lifespan runs relatively close to a Cybertronian," he grinned and squeezed Aria's hand again, "and, consequently, you."

A thread of hope made Aria's spine tingle. "So," she asked in a quiet voice, turning wide blue eyes on Nat, "I won't outline you?"

Nathanial's face softened. "Well you might," he told her gently, "but not because you've got part of a spark and I don't."

Aria looked down at her spark where it glowed dimly through her nice blouse. For awhile now she'd been afraid to think about how much older she was compared to Nathanial, about how much longer she'd live after him. She'd even been dreading this night because she'd thought-

She shook her head. It didn't matter what she'd thought because she'd been wrong. All this time she'd worried over nothing...

Nathanial shifted next to her, pulling her attention towards him again as he took both of her hands in his nervously. His quiet voice was no less anxious when he spoke. "So with all that in mind," he said, very aware of how hard his heart was beating in his chest as he leaned closer just slightly, "Aria, will you marry me?"

Aria stared at him, blue eyes going over the by now familiar sight of his face and taking note of the little things there. Like the slight tightness of his mouth at the corners and how he watched her with no small amount of hope.

He was nervous, she knew. So was she, she realized.

"All that time worried over nothing..." she thought.

She didn't really have to think about what to say now that she knew that and her answer escaped her as a single, quiet, eager word.

"Yes."