This chapter will be a lot of thoughts... very depressing thoughts. Would It Matter is a depressing Skillet song.

And it has a suicidal theme, this chapter. You have been warned.

Quickshadow leaves her room as quietly as she can and heads up to the Firehouse garage. With sensitive hearing, she can hear Kade snoring away in his room. She wondered if it was possible for Heatwave's snoring to rub off on Kade, or vice versa.

The white femme chuckles as she leaves the garage and stands in the driveway, looking around. Where should she go? Fracture had to be living in the woods. Maybe in a cave in the mountains. He was bound to attack the Rescue Bots and Burns family to attract her… perhaps she should stick around and keep an eye out for him.

Satisfied with her course of action, she heads into the woods to wait for the bots to leave. As she passes the Firehouse, she feels a twinge of pain in her spark. Looking up at the window, she wonders if she should say goodbye to Cody. The boy would be sparkbroke—heartbroken. "Perhaps he would prefer the term sparkbroken," Quickshadow thinks, amused by the thought. Cody would be hurt when she left, even more so if she didn't say goodbye.

Quickshadow shakes her head. It would be better if he forgot about her. If everyone forgot about her. If they forgot about her, they would forget to be hurt by her absence. Alas, she couldn't erase their memories. But she could avoid them and distance herself from them.

She sighs, pained by the thought of leaving them. She never realized how attached she had gotten until she decided to leave. She might not see them again…

"No," she shakes her head to clear it. "You're protecting them. You're doing the right thing."

Set in her ways like a stubborn mule, she heads a few feet into the woods surrounding the firehouse and sits down. She places her bag inside her cockpit and activates her camouflage mode. As a stealthy snow leopard, her upgrade allowed her to go invisible. Well, almost. She was really more of a chameleon, changing the color of her metal to blend in with her surroundings. But the camouflage worked so well, she might as well be invisible.

Stilling herself, she waits for hours until morning. Blades and Dani took off for their morning patrol as did Chase and Chief Burns. Cody leaves for school while Boulder comes out to water his flowers.

All is still and quiet when Heatwave tries to talk to her through their sparkbond. She refuses to answer or even allow him to send his thoughts through. She completely ignores him. As Boulder moves a mere couple yards away from her, Heatwave runs out into the driveway. Seeing Boulder, he runs up to him. "Have you seen Quickshadow?"

"Not since last night," Boulder shakes his head. "Why?"

"She's not answering me," Heatwave says. "Sparkbond or com."

"You don't think she was serious about leaving, do you?" Boulder asks.

"Oh, she was totally serious," Heatwave nods. "Where could she have gone?"

"Mountains? Woods?" Boulder suggests. "Another place on Earth?"

"What's going on?" Chief Burns asks as he sees Heatwave looking around. He and Chase had just arrived from patrol.

"Quickshadow's gone," Heatwave says. "I can't find her. She's still convinced that leaving is the best solution!"
"Do we have a 10-49?" Onca asks, coming out of the Firehouse with the humans.

"10-4—that is code for a possible homicide," Chase frowns.

"Yeah, I guess that doesn't apply," she shakes her head. "What I meant was do you think it was a suicide?"

"What makes you think she killed herself?" Kade asks.

"With all that talk about how she's a danger, I wouldn't put it past her to try to offline herself," Onca says grimly.

"No, she's still alive," Heatwave says. "She's just not answering. We have to find her before she does something irrational."

"Heatwave, trust me, you're not going to find her unless she wants to be found," Tigress says. "She's the best out of all of us at hiding."

"We'll ask the town folks to keep an eye out for her," Chief Burns says. "Until then, I'm not sure how effective a search party will be. Dani and Blades will keep an eye out for her from the skys, anyway."

The rest of the day, Quickshadow follows around the group, particularly Heatwave and Cody. There was no sign of Fracture. In the town square, she overhears Heatwave voice his concerns to Chase after another attempt to talk to her. "I want to know where she is."

"She couldn't have left the island," Chase reasons. "So she is still here. Somewhere."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Heatwave groans. "I want to know where she is pacifically."

"As opposed to atlantically?" Chase asks sarcastically, making fun of Heatwave's grammatical error.

"Don't correct my English," Heatwave sputters.

"You can correct mys," Onca says, passing by Chase.

"Mys is not a… ha, ha, you got me," he says with his monotone voice, rolling his optics.

"Maybe she's Indian," Kade laughs. "Instead of Pacific.

"If you keep this up, I'll make sure you're Arctically," Heatwave retorts.

"Maybe she's Antarctically," Boulder says.

"How about Panama canalically ?" Dani asks.

"That is not an ocean," Chase argues.

"But it's a body of water," Dani shrugs.

Heatwave sighs loudly.

Quickshadow chuckles. Oh, how amusing her team was. Looking around, she realizes her attempts have been futile and decides to proactively hunt down Fracture instead of waiting for him. She stealthily treks through the woods for the rest of the day, searching for clues. Her searching is fruitless, minus the couple of times she ended up on a wild goose chase. She doesn't recharge that night and continues to search vigorously. Heatwave constantly tries to talk through their sparkbond, but she only gives him cold silence.

As she treks through the woods, alone with her thoughts, Quickshadow's mind spirals down a depressing rabbit hole. "I will probably die in my fight with Fracture," she thinks. "That might be the only way to defeat him. If that's the cost of my family's safety, then I'll take it."

The more she realizes that she might not come back, the more she wonders if anyone will care. Watching the townsfolk as she searches, Quickshadow sees that they didn't care. Although they were on the lookout for her, they weren't concerned at all. There were no signs that she was on their mind. "That's all right," she thinks. "That is to be expected. Why would they care? I'm merely a backup Rescue Bot and a gossip topic. Beyond that, I'm nothing more to them. The only thing they'll mourn is a happy-ever-after for Heatwave."

The thought is depressing. "Yes, I am but a trinket in their minds; a gift of happiness to Heatwave. A bot they actually care about. Who cares if cold, aloof Quickshadow is gone. Heatwave is upset and that is all that matters."

Quickshadow feels a twinge of hurt at the thought. It was painful to think about how much Heatwave was worrying. He would be crushed when she died. She hated making him hurt. But it was better that way.

The white femme felt guilty about it, but she was slightly jealous about how the town seemed to view her. She was just another face on the team, she didn't mean anything to them. Even Blurr for Primus's sake was more important! "It's not as if they've done anything wrong," she reminds herself. "I'm cold and aloof and don't ever come over unless it's for emergencies. I stay away from them and don't allow them to create a relationship with me.

"I don't allow anyone to create a relationship with me," she thinks sullenly. She pushed away everyone. Would her team even mourn her? Would they care? How fast would they move on? "Do they care? I was mean to them. I kept my distance. How could one care for someone they truly don't know?"

Being alone in the woods allowed Quickshadow to wallow in her misery. "When I die, will anybody care? Would they be happy I was there the little bit I was? Would they lose sleep over the loss of me? I'm so hard and hollow, nobody would miss me."

Quickshadow spends her second night awake and tracking as well, not caring how much recharge she missed. She had gone longer without it. It allowed her to contemplate her relationships with everyone and wonder who would care. She thought it was pathetic, the sulking she was doing, but she couldn't stop the thoughts. "Would Heatwave care? He loved me, but will he still love me after I left and ignored him? I hadn't even told him what Pardus did before I had to. What I did…"

A thought hits her and she almost misses tracks that might be Fractures. After following them for a bit, she discovers they are merely Blades's tracks and groans. "Why should anyone care? I made a fatal mistake that cost us our world. I'm such a mess."

Quickshadow feels Heatwave trying to talk to her as she sits down on a rock. Again, she ignores him. It had been two days since she left in search of Fracture, and all she had done was sulk and go on wild goose chases. "You mess up everything. You messed up Cybertron. You messed up your family life. You messed up everything."

Quickshadow rests her head on her fist, contemplating her options. It was highly unlikely that Fracture would be found anytime soon. He was an excellent hider, and had done a pretty good job hiding his tracks. She couldn't keep on trekking through the woods without recharge, and she wasn't about to let herself be vulnerable when Fracture could be around. And the longer he was out there, the closer he came to achieving his goal: destroying her family.

"He's playing a mind game," Quickshadow thinks. "He knows my thought process. His ultimate goal is to break my spark. The only way I'll win is…"

She thinks and thinks, trying to come up with a way to win. If he got her family, he won. He killed her in battle, he would win, too. He wanted to kill her. But as long as she was alive, he would hunt down her family…

"The only way to win is if I die on my own terms," she realizes. The thought was not at all unfamiliar to her; she had had suicidal thoughts before during flashbacks. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that that was how she won. "First off, Fracture would have lost, because he didn't kill me or kill my family. And there's no reason to go after my loved ones after I'm dead. Second, I'm a danger to my loved ones with my flashbacks. I won't be able to go crazy and harm them when I'm offline. Third, I won't be able to destroy anything else when I'm in the Allspark. The universe would be safe from me. Fourth, Heatwave could find someone else who would return his love. He would find a better sparkmate."

Quickshadow sighs. Hopefully Heatwave could forgive her. It was better that he found someone else, someone sane who could love him without the fear of the past looming over their heads. He deserved someone who would love him and not hurt him every time he did something her messed up mind perceived as a threat. "Someone who could return his love unconditionally," Quickshadow thinks. "Someone he doesn't have to fix to love."

It would hurt him. Boulder was still reeling from his sparkmates death. Quickshadow could only hope that he wasn't traumatized for life. He seemed to be the type of mech who would only fall in love with one femme and stick with her for life. There was a chance that if she killed herself, he would be too afraid to fall in love again.

The Cybertronian groans. Why couldn't she have just left well enough alone?! Why did she have to go and fall in love with the firebot? "Maybe if I had tried to be better friends with Fracture, he would've stayed," she wonders. "Maybe he would've felt too guilty. Then again, I'd be stuck with him if he did."

Heatwave tries futility to connect to her. Quickshadow can feel his desperateness, and still pushes him away. "Please, Heatwave, just forget about me!" she grits her dentals. "Forget about me! It would be better for all of us!"

Still, he persists. After a few minutes of no contact, he gives up. Of course, he would try again later. He hadn't let up for the past two days. "Oh, Heatwave, you deserve someone better," Quickshadow thinks sullenly. "Oh, snap out of it, you wallowing prat! You've wasted two days sulking and being miserable! Accept that you will never see your loved ones again, and whether they mourn you or move on does not matter. You are doing this to protect them, and acting like a wanker will not help! You haven't found Fracture because of your incessant sulking! Snap out of it and get the job done!"

Quickshadow pulls out her knife, ready to slit her wrists. "You are about to lose, Fracture. You can't destroy me after I'm dead, and you wouldn't have killed me. You lose."

A smirk appears on her face. "If you can hear me, I wish you would rot with Unicron."

Just before she cuts herself, she feels an odd feeling in her abdomen. Odd enough to make her stop. "Faulty internal combustion?" she wonders. "Wait, that's what Heatwave called it. What do the humans call it? Indigestion? But my systems are working just fine…"

She feels it again. Like a strange flutter from inside her. She had never felt anything like it. It was almost as if she had stage fright, but too physical. It wasn't spoiled energon in her systems, that was too painful to be this. Was she sick?

Quickshadow places her servos on her abdomen. She feels a small thump against her hands. Confused, she tries to see if the irregular movement would happen again. The thumping, kick-like feeling happens again.

"Kicking…" Quickshadow thinks as she begins to tremble. "No, no, no, no, no…"

The kicking persists, and Quickshadow drops the knife, coming to the horrifying realization that she's carrying a sparkling.

Next chapter: It's Not Me, It's You