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Chapter Seventeen – Almost An Accident
She'd been told that Optimus's office was in the same massive building that Ratchet's Med Bay was in, Hangar Two. She, Atari, and Olly hopped into the Jeep, and she relished in the sound of the engine growling and roaring as it started up – she hadn't heard that sound in almost four months, and though it wasn't that long to some people, to someone who was used to hearing it every day and multiple times a day, it seemed like forever.
She pulled over in front of the building, turning the Jeep off and left it parked right beside the main door, about ten feet back as to not have it in the way. She kept the key in her pocket as she got out, and collected Olly and Atari's leash in case she needed it, and the Greyhounds walked alongside her as she attempted to make her way through the building. She was only in there for about five or ten minutes before she found herself to be lost – there was so many hallways, so many turns, that she couldn't really remember how to get around.
After an unknown amount of time, she found herself in front of a small, human sized door that was sitting beside a large, Cybertronian sized one. She knocked on it softly, and heard a gravelly 'come in´ from the other side that prompted her to walk in, only to realise she was in the wrong spot.
In the giant room she walked into there was multiple large, super sized medical beds lining one wall. Opposite of the beds were numerous cabinets and cupboards around a long counter along the wall – it looked like a medical bay, and with all the medical cross symbols around the cupboards, and the Autobot symbols around the wall, she was confident that she wasn't far off that guess.
"Uhm… hello?" she called out.
Olly trotted off in front of her, making sure that he was within the twenty foot circle but sniffing the ground to locate all of the new scents as she looked around.
"Jessica?" a gruff voice called out.
She looked over to see the CMO sitting on bench that was sized for his real self – he had some stuff that she couldn't really make out sitting along the counter in front of him.
"Uhm, hey Ratchet." She smiled awkwardly at him.
"What are you doing here? He asked. "Are you okay?"
She nodded. "I'm, I'm-uh… I'm looking for Optimus's office."
He smirked. "Did you get lost?"
She blushed. "I think so."
He chuckled. "Well, you're close but you're not quite hot yet. Come with me. I'll show you how to get there from the entrance of the building."
He stood and walked slowly as she trotted after him with Olly and Atari right behind her.
"Wait, so is this the back entrance for the Med Bay?" she asked.
He nodded to her, but she was too busy watching where she was going and making sure she didn't get stepped on to look up at his head. "It is. This building is our main building, all of our bedrooms are in here, our personal rec area, our showers, and most of our offices, so the Med Bay has multiple entrances, just to be safe. We have the large entrance that faces the tar mac for if someone gets hurt during trainings or while out on a mission and needs immediate attention, but this entrance is for if someone gets hurt or needs me for any other scenario."
They made it to the entrance and as they did the sound of tires squealing and fighting with a roaring engine, and an airhorn blaring out angrily echoed throughout the tar mac, effectively pulling both of their attentions over to where they watched as Optimus narrowly avoided getting smashed head on by… her Jeep! The Jeep wobbled side to side as whoever was driving it yanked on the steering wheel and lost control, then regained it before the jacked up four by four could tip over. Optimus, on the other hand, started skidding around the tar mac. The semi truck almost lost complete control, his left side tires lifting off the ground completely before landing back down roughly as his brakes fought against his engine that had been pushing him faster only moments ago. A giant cloud of black smoke came out of his smokestacks, and she watched as a thin line of black smoke trickled off from his form for a minute – that wasn't good.
"Optimus." She said, sounding worried as she watched the semi truck sit there and shake.
"Get in." Ratchet's voice invited as he transformed down and popped the driver's side door open for her.
Olly and Atari hopped into the front of the vehicle, and Jess followed suit. The door closed as soon as she was in and Ratchet raced over
X0X0X0X0X0
Ratchet's alt mode came speeding over to the almost-accident scene, but much to everybody's surprise the driver's side door popped open and J.J hopped out. The CMO opened the passenger door for the dogs that now accompanied the young girl got out, then he transformed up once all three organics were clear of his feet.
"What happened?" Jess asked.
"Who got hurt?" Ratchet asked.
"Nobody, yet." Lennox grumbled. "We're fine."
J.J's eyes hadn't left Optimus though, worry evident on her face, and it didn't take her very long to flock to his side.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, placing a hand atop his grill.
"He didn't manage to hit me." Optimus confirmed.
"That isn't what I asked." Her voice was soft and gentle, but firm in her statement. "Can you do me a favour?"
"Anything" he agreed.
"After everyone leaves here, come with me to the garage please. I wanna look you over, make sure you're okay."
"I am okay, J.J, you don't have to worry."
She gave him a pleading look. "Please? Just to give me a little peace of mind? Semi trucks aren't supposed to be able to stop that fast, even if you are a super advanced non-robot."
Had he been standing he would have nodded. "Okay."
She nodded, taking her hand off of him, and turned around. Ratchet watched the interaction in silent amusement, trying his best to hide the smile that was attempting to sneak on to his face.
J.J stayed silent and stood beside Optimus as the two got scolded, with Olly sitting at her heels until Lennox walked over.
"Hey, were you over at Hangar Two?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, I was trying to find Optimus's office, but I ended up in the Med Bay by accident, I kinda got lost. But I took the Jeep's key with me, I don't know how they started it." She confessed.
Lennox's brows stitched together. "They said they found the key above the wheel."
She looked confused for a moment or two before realization dawned on her face. "I keep my spare under a big piece of tape on the bottom of my fender flare, and the tape is glued down by super glue to keep it from letting go when I go mudding."
"So they would have had to go looking for it?" he asked.
She nodded. "Its under black tape, you don't see it easily, and its hard to get the tape off because I use a lot of super glue to keep it there. It isn't something they could have just pulled out easily."
He nodded. "Thanks. If you want, you can take it with ya where ever you're goin'."
She nodded. "You sure? You don't need it for any kind of, like… evidence or anything?"
He chuckled. "No, they're just gonna get charged with extra duties. Go ahead."
She nodded. "Okay," then looked behind her at the semi truck that hadn't moved from behind her. "I'll meet you there."
"Only if you insist –"
"I do." Her interjection was adamant, making it clear she wasn't going to take no for an answer.
"Then I shall follow you back there."
She nodded. "Okay. C'mon Olly, Atari."
The Greyhounds followed her past the group of people who had gathered and had yet to disperse and hopped into the Jeep, then she got in and since the vehicle was still running she pushed it into drive and took off across the tar mac, towards the garage.
She pulled up to the shut doors and punched her code into the pad, unlocking the bay doors from the outside for only a few moments; it gave her enough time to yank the farthest bay door all the way open. She got back in to the Jeep and drove in, moving it into a different spot in the back of the building, allowing Optimus enough space to get in. She passed him softly, yanking the door shut behind him, then strode to the front of his grill.
The look she wore was a mixed of confused and concerned, but before he could ask her anything she took a step forward and splayed her arms against the metal of his grill – she was trying to hug him.
"Thank you," she started in a mumble. "Thank you for going home. Thank you for being so kind to my Mom, thank you for listening, really listening, to me. Thank you for thinking about me, and thank you for trying. I appreciate it so much."
He took a moment to relish the feeling, her closeness to him. His spark sang in content.
She pulled back and rubbed her eyes dry of the tears that had welled up in her eyes, butterflies flying around in her stomach.
"Thank you." She whispered again.
"Anything for you." He mumbled quietly.
She sniffed slightly and nodded. "Okay, pop your hood. I'm gonna see if I can find any codes that popped up."
He nodded, "Yes ma'am."
She pulled her hair into a bun as he did, and he watched her pull her sleeves up her arms, revealing the tattoo that danced along her skin.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
She looked at him over her shoulder. "Pardon?"
"Your arm," he explained, "What does it mean?"
She looked down at the tattoo along her arm, from her shoulder all the way down her bicep and forearm, past the top of her hand down to her knuckles.
"Well to me there's no personal connection to it, but the design of the main dragon itself stands for wisdom, peace, prosperity, longevity, strength, and power. But if you look closely, there's two other, smaller dragons around the side of the big one – ones red and ones black and gold, so I went with those colours for the main dragon too. The little red one is for luck and happiness, and the little black and gold one is supposed to represent the balance between negative and positive."
He listened to her words carefully. "Which culture?"
She shrugged. "Not really sure, dragons are traditionally found in a lot of Japanese and Chinese folklore, but I don't know which one is which. I didn't really care, I just knew what they stood for. And once the artist drew it up I knew it was perfect," She turned and looked at him. "What about yours?"
"Why would you think I have tattoos?" he asked.
"Your holoform. Your arms are littered with different tattoos."
He hadn't even thought that his holoform would reflect what would be their version for tattoos. "Most of them stand for the different parts of the oath I took when I became a Prime."
Her lips pursed together as Olly settled down beside the big tool box that he found J.J revolved around while in here, and Atari moved to sit in front of the tool box. "Ooh, became? I wasn't aware your name meant you were given a title. You had to take an oath, that sounds super serious."
She plugged something in somewhere, but his attention wasn't even close to being on himself right now; he watched as she looked down on to a screen, but she shook her head. "No codes, okay. That's good."
"What do you think it is?" he asked.
She shrugged, and sucked on her teeth for a second. "I mean, I'm worried about your transmission. Your suspension looked like it took a little bit of a hit too, and I thought for sure you were gonna have clutch issues. I figured at least one code was going to pop up."
"My suspension?" he asked.
She nodded. "I mean, I'm sure its not too bad, and I know that suspensions are there for a reason, but your whole left side came off the ground, that's a big hit for one suspension system when you landed back on your wheels. Especially when all of your weight came down. You aren't exactly as light as a feather."
He made a rumbling sound. "Are you saying I'm heavy?"
She smirked at him lightly. "Maybe. But we love a big man, so its okay." She joked with him.
X0X0X0X0X0
At first Optimus's bill of health, according to Jess's standards, came back clean despite her insistence to take a look underneath and make one thousand percent sure everything was alright. But when he went to move, he found it somewhat uncomfortable and agreed to let her take a look, and then she found what had happened to him.
"Your axle looks fucked. Makes sense, but I didn't even think about it." She concluded. "But I don't know what to do, let me call Ratchet."
"Don't bother, I'll tell him – it'll be faster."
He opened a private comm with Ratchet.
{:: Prime. ::} Ratchet said in greeting.
{:: J.J's found something she thinks is worrisome, but she isn't sure how to handle or fix it, would you be able to visit the garage when you get a free moment? ::} he asked.
{:: I'm on my way. ::}
The comm line shut, and his attention turned back to J.J, who was busy petting the dog she'd just reunited with. The dog attempted to reach up and lick her face, and she laughed as she pulled back, placing a kiss on top of the dog's head, rather.
The dog turned and trotted away to go smell the rest of the garage.
"Ratchet is on his way." He announced quietly.
Her attention was pulled to the custom painted semi that was sitting in her garage, and she nodded. "Okay," She nodded as she approached the massive truck, and leaned her back against his grill softly, leaning most of her wight into him. Her arms crossed over themselves, and one foot crossed over the other. "Do you feel okay?"
He took a deep breath in. "I can tell something isn't… quite right, but I'm not in pain."
She seemed to pause for a second. "I guess that's better than being in pain."
A deep exhale came hissing out of his grill slowly, enjoying the moment as much as he could – having her touch him, care for him, care about him, wanting to be around him. He couldn't be happier right now.
"Is he supposed to be that large?" he asked.
She looked over her shoulder at his grill. "Who, Olly?"
His head popped up upon hearing his name. She smiled as she watched his ear flop over.
"No, he and Atari come from the same litter, and both of their parents come from racing Greyhound lines. Olly looks like a taller version of their Dad except with a white chest and a thin strip of white down the middle of his face and around his nose, but for whatever reason he just kept growing when he should've stopped. Average male Greyhounds stop at about two, two and a half feet, he grew all the way to three feet. Atari looks like a lightly brindled version of their Mom, same height, same 'pity-me' look all the time. She's fast, though. I mean, Olly's really fast, but once you get Atari running she'll kick his ass in a race."
The sound of the door opening pulled both of their attentions over to see Ratchet's holoform entering the room. His eyes landed on the pair and he smiled softly, and Olly barked at him twice once it came to his attention that another person had entered the room.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
J.J nodded, "It'll be okay. This axle is about to break though, and I don't know if I can just replace it like normal. I don't want to touch something that I think is fine that's actually something important to you guys."
She pushed herself off of Optimus and headed to one of the back tires, the one in question right now. Ratchet followed her, and crouched down to look at what was wrong.
With a single finger, he reached behind the tire and touched something, and got no reaction. "Does that hurt, Prime?"
"Negative." The voice rumbled from the front of the vehicle.
"Okay." Ratchet mumbled, then steadied himself again and moved his hand.
This time when he touched whatever he did, the entire vehicle that was the object of their attentions jerked sideways in reaction to a flare of pain that came from there, and the sound of him groaning in discomfort came from the front of the grill.
Ratchet smirked. "That does though, doesn't it?"
"Yes." Was the answer.
Ratchet nodded, and stood up. "It'll be fine. His repair nanites are already busy at work fixing it. Try to stay in bipedal mode as much as possible, driving around won't necessarily help."
"Copy that, Ratchet." The leader agreed.
"Wait, what's a repair nanite?" Jess piped up.
"Are you aware how when you get an injury, a gash, a broken bone, you have white blood cells, plasma, and other components of your body and systems that rush to the injury in order to fix it? Like how when you get a cut, the platelets in your blood use different nutrients you've absorbed to pack together and make a scab, and when you break a bone your body uses red blood cells and healing tissues to connect the bones back together and help essentially glue them to one another."
She nodded. "Yeah, of course."
"Repair nanites offer a similar operation. They're single and only function is to fix any kind of injury we get before it takes a more intrusive form of help to fix it, such as surgery." The CMO explained.
"Well… what if I just replaced the axle?" she asked. "Would that not fix it?"
Ratchet shook his head. "They would fix it before you could get the parts in, and even if by some chance you had the parts on hand, the nanites are still going to show to help avoid any kind of infection that could occur once you do replace it. And I'm not completely sure if you'd be able to do such a process without running into something that you wouldn't understand – our internal systems and processes coexist with the ones that you'll find in every other human vehicle."
"Okay," She sighed, eyebrows furrowed in concern. "He'll be okay, though?"
Ratchet nodded. "Within a few day the injury will be gone. Its only minor, probably just a little swelling."
Jess seemed to conclude her racing thoughts with a nod. "Okay."
Ratchet nodded. "I'll leave you two alone, then. Again Optimus, just try to stay off of it. Two legs only. And check in with me once a day just to make sure everything's okay."
"Understood, Ratchet."
FIN
Date Started: October 9, 2020
Date Finished: October 10, 2020
Last Edited: February 5, 2021