Chapter 23

Denial

I wake up with bad feelings, so I look around quick-quick. Ironhide is here, and I'm leaning on him. Prowl is here, lying motionless. Chromia is here, sitting against the wall and looking partially asleep. Someone came in at some point and cleaned up, I know, because the empty energon cubes aren't around her now. They're all gone.

Auri is gone, too. That's the bad thing. And I don't know how to handle it.

I look up at Ironhide, and he just looks so sad. Like he wants to fix something that can never be fixed. He looks broken himself. But Prowl looks even more broken. I look at Prowl. Maybe he is thinking about Zephyr, his first spark-mate. I would think about that if that had happened with me. The Cons killed her, I know. But Soundwave wouldn't kill Auri. He loves her and was her guardian when she was little. He won't harm her, and he won't let anybody harm her, and he'll make sure she's happy.

"She'll come back," I say before I mean to.

"The frag she will," Chromia snarled. I looked at her with shocked feelings in me. First, I didn't know she was awake, and second… the tone. "That fragger issin gonna let her. He juss… does… whatever... whatever the frag he wants. Glish everyone else."

I look at her. It's obvious now that at least a couple of those cubes that had been lying around her had been high grade cubes. They'd been small, but still, that was sort of lot of high grade.

I look at Ironhide. He always frowns a little at Chromia when she uses rude words, but he doesn't this time. He doesn't even seem to notice that she's saying anything at all. Or that she's full of high grade.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't even know what to think.

I don't say anything then. I just settled my helm back against Ironhide to wait, I guess. I guess I'll just wait. I don't know what else to do.

I wait for a while. Maybe half an hour. And then I need breakfast. Nobody has moved the whole time. I don't know if it'll bother them if I move, so I wait a little longer, and then I move very slowly. Ironhide looks at me.

"I need breakfast," I say. He looks like it takes a moment for him to process the words, and then he nods slightly. "Do you need breakfast, too?" I ask. If he says 'no,' I'll still probably bring him a cube. Bots need to eat, even when they are sad.

He thinks about it slowly. "Guess I'd better," he says, also slowly.

"I'll bring you cube," I tell him, and then I get off the berth and stand on my pedes. Even with me moving around a little, Prowl doesn't shift at all. I look, and his optics are open, but they're unfocused. They don't do anything when I touch his cheek very softly. I kiss his helm and still nothing. I'll have to wait a longer while for him to do anything, I guess.

I look over at Chromia. She's sleeping now, or at least she looks like she it. Her optics are shut, and her helm is tilted and leaned against the wall. I hope she'll be okay soon, and not difficult. I really hope she'll be okay. I really hope Prowl will be okay, too. I think Ironhide will be okay, but maybe I don't know. I have to be okay. I don't know what will happen if I'm not.

Quietly, I go down the hallway and slip into the medics' lounge. Ratchet and Uplink are there, sitting across from each other at one of the tables. Both of them have energon cubes sitting on the table in front of them. Uplink's is halfway full, and she has one hand on the cube. Ratchet's is mostly full, and he has one hand on either side of it, resting a finger and a thumb from each hand on the sides of the cube. That isn't a good sign.

"She'll come back," I say, and they both look up from their energon and look over at me.

Uplink shakes her helm slightly. "It's not very likely," she says in a quiet tone.

I go and get an energon cube. I don't really want any spices or anything in it, but I always usually have spices or something, so I put in a few spices and a drizzle of sweet oil, following one of my memorized recipes. Maybe I should have done a different one. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter which one I do as long as I do one. I make another one for Ironhide. Then I put away the spice tray with its spoons and wipe off the oil dispenser and put it away, too. I do everything like it's normal because I need to.

I take a cube in each hand, but then I go sit beside Uplink because she looks at me.

"I think she will come back," I say. I don't know why I keep telling everyone when they don't believe me.

Uplink sips a little energon. She puts the cube down on the table, carefully. She looks sideways at me and then back at her cube.

"Would you give Starlight to some Decepti-?"

"NO!" I stare at her. I feel too many feelings at the thought of doing a horrible thing like that, and I want to scream. "Why say that?" I choking. She never saying awful things at me before this. Something breaking, so I grabbing my panic pillow from subspace and crushing it and biting it.

"She is your sparkling, and you want to keep her, no?" Uplink saying, very quiet-quiet. "Soundwave views Auri as his sparkling, and he wants to keep her. That's-"

"No!" Interrupting.

"Let's not talk about this right now," Ratchet saying, standing up. He coming over, sitting, holding me, blanket on my helm.

Ratchet stays holding me. Uplink says nothing for a long while until she says, "I'm sorry I upset you, Praxus," very quietly. I nod my helm to accept that.

After a little while, I remember my energon, so I move the blanket off my helm and pick up my energon cube. I drink a little. I should have done a different recipe because this one does not taste very good. It doesn't taste like I remembered it. It tastes so bad. But I still drink it.

"I mixed the other energon cube for Ironhide," I say because Ratchet and Uplink are so quiet that I can hear the air going through every intake vent in the whole room.

"That was good of you," Ratchet says. Uplink nods. We could have strung a conversation off that, but they don't try.

"Chromia had a bunch of high-grade, I think," I say next. "Her words were slurred, and some were rude."

"Yeah," Ratchet says. I feel him pull himself together a little with a small sigh, and then he says, "We're probably going to have some difficulties with her. Elita's busy right now, but she'll come over when she can. If anyone can manage Chromia, it's Elita. And Ironhide…" He didn't add "but Ironhide's holding onto Prowl," but I guess that was probably implied.

"I think Elita can handle just about anyone," I say.

Ratchet nods. Uplink is just staring at her energon cube.

"Yeah," Ratchet says after another moment.

I think about a few more things I could try to say, but then I guess that trying to get anyone to talk just isn't going to work right now. I drink some more of my energon, and then I shift a little. "I'm going to take Ironhide his cube now so he won't wonder if I forgot to bring it back to him," I say.

Ratchet hugs me. "That's our good Praxling," he says. He probably thinks Ironhide doesn't even care if he gets energon in the next hour. That's probably true, but I will pretend to not believe it. Uplink reaches over and pats my arm. I touch her hand, and then I take my partially full cube and Ironhide's cube and leave.

When I go back into the room with Ironhide and Prowl and Chromia, I look at them, and it looks like they didn't move at all while I was gone. I don't know what I'm going to do about them. I go and set the two energon cubes on the berth with Ironhide and Prowl, and then I climb up to sit beside them again.

"There's your energon," I say to Ironhide, handing him his cube.

He shifts his helm just slightly to look at it, and then he slowly reaches over and takes it from me. He cycles a little air through his system.

"Thank you," he says after a moment, just above a whisper.

"You're welcome," I say. "Drink up," I say next, lifting my own cube. "It'll be good," I tell him, but I don't know if that will actually be true since I mixed mine like normal and it doesn't taste good. I'm not sure if I should tell him about that or not. But, for right now, I think I could probably lie very obviously to him, and he wouldn't say or do anything about it. So a little statement that could turn out to be an unintentional misstatement is probably okay. Just for now.

He takes a drink of the energon and swallows it. I think maybe it might taste bad to him, too. Maybe it's just a whole batch of off-flavor energon.

"Thank you, mechling," he says softly, though, before I can decide if I should ask about it.

I look up at him. "You're welcome," I say. I watch him a little and then decide that if I couldn't get Ratchet and Uplink to talk, I definitely won't be able to get him to talk. I still try, though. I try two times, carefully, gently, prompting. It doesn't work.

I think about trying a third time, but he puts a hand softly on my helm.

"Not right now, Prax," he says, very softly, gentle. "We can talk later," he adds, and he always keeps to what he says, so I know we'll talk later.

I settle against him to finish my energon and then wait.

It's a morning where not much happens. I wait and wait. After a while, I go do some chores. I do some extra chores since Ratchet and Uplink are still sitting in the lounge with their energon cubes not finished, even though it's been an hour.

Then I come back and wait with Ironhide some more. I think about trying to see if it's the later where we can talk, but while I'm looking at Ironhide's face, searching to see if I can read anything about it, he shakes his helm a little. It's not that later. He doesn't want to talk. So I just snuggle against him and rest a hand on Prowl and wait.

After a little while, Chromia wakes up and looks at us and then looks sick. Then she looks around, looking for Auri or high grade cubes, and neither are in sight, so she looks even more sick and then pukes on the floor.

She sort of looks at the puddle like she didn't make it and like it just appeared to bother her.

I feel Ironhide cycle through a very tiny sigh.

"I'll clean that up," I say, shifting. Nobody answers, and I go get some cleaning stuff. Chromia looks asleep when I come back with the stuff, but I have a damp cloth for her mouth. "Here, Chromia," I say gently, holding out the cloth.

She opens her optics. The light in them is dull, and her expression is rough.

"Here's a cloth so you can wipe your mouth," I say. I say it softly because I don't know what else to say. She takes the cloth without a word and cleans her lips and chin while I start mopping up the puddle. I really want to say encouraging and nice things, but I don't think she wants me to say anything, so I keep quiet.

I finish cleaning the floor, and then I put all the cleaning stuffs away. I get a tiny cube of low grade and add some cleansing oil. I feel some doubt as I think about Chromia might respond, but I take it back to her anyway.

I crouch beside her, and she looks like I've bothered her. Usually, she loves me, but now I think she'd prefer to lock herself in a closet than see me.

"This will taste pretty gross," I say, holding out the tiny cube, "So I only brought a little amount. It'll help you feel less sick from all the high grade."

She doesn't respond. No words, no new expression, nothing. I move the cube closer to her, and she pushes it away in a slow, smooth motion.

"You'll feel worse if you don't drink it," I coax.

She opens her mouth, pauses, and then says, "Leave me alone."

Obviously, I don't want to do that. I sit on the floor, still holding the cube ready. She shuts her optics and leans her helm against the wall again, so I guess she doesn't want to cooperate at all, but I'm patient, so I just wait.

I'm still waiting when Elita comes in about 24.8 minutes later. Her bearing still looks the same, poised commander, ready to give orders and manage everything, fight when need be. But when I look in her face as she comes over to me, I can see that she is tired and holding back grief.

"Praxus," she says, putting her hand on my shoulder, instead of saying "good morning." Nobody thinks of saying "good morning" on this day.

"Hi," I say. I want to complain about Chromia not letting me help her with a tiny cube of energon and oil, but I don't have to. Elita kneels on one knee beside me and holds out her hand for the cube. I give her the cube and then something in me says I should probably move away, so I scoot back a bit as Elita puts her other hand on Chromia's shoulder.

"Chromia," Elita says. Her tone is gentle but very firm.

"I dun-" Chromia starts in a growl.

"I know." Elita stays calm and firm. "All I'm asking right now is that you drink this tiny cube so you won't feel worse later."

"I'll feel worse whether or not-" Chromia starts angrily.

"Chromia."

"Get fragged."

I think Elita knows Chromia doesn't actually mean that, but I think it still hurts her a little.

"Drink this," she says quietly. "That's an order from your commander."

I don't know if it's the order or that Chromia feels ashamed about swearing at Elita, or it's probably both, but Chromia doesn't argue or fight anymore. She sighs and looks at the cube, and then she takes it in both hands and takes a sip.

She gags but swallows. Then she mutters something that I don't catch, but it's probably something I didn't need or want to hear anyway. After looking at the tiny cube for a few moments, she finishes the rest of it in one gulp. Then she gazes at the empty tiny cube until Elita gently takes it away and passes it to me.

I think I need a nap.

I take the empty cube to the lounge and stick it in the sink to clean later, and then I go to Ratchet's room and curl up on his bed, pulling every blanket on top of me. Maybe I cry a little bit, but then I sleep for a while.

It's the afternoon when I wake up, and I don't feel well. It's that empty lost spark feeling. I feel like crying a little, but I tell myself that Auri will come back, and I get up and go to find the other bots to check on them.

Ratchet is in his office, staring at his computer screen but not reading it. Uplink is sitting in another chair in Ratchet's office, and she is idly and semi-automatically doing exercises with the fingers of her rebuilt hand.

"Hi, Praxling," Ratchet says once he finally realizes that I'm in the doorway. I stood there for like 47 seconds before he noticed.

"Hello," Uplink adds.

I nod in acknowledgement. I don't feel like they want to talk, though, so I leave them and go to the room Prowl was in earlier.

Prowl has not moved at all, and Ironhide is still there. Ironhide has at least moved his arm, though, since the cube of energon I made for him is empty. Climbing onto the berth, I sit with them for a little while, and we don't say anything. I don't know what to do.

After a little while more, I decide to intercom Sides.

::Hi,:: I intercom him.

::Hi, Prax,:: he intercoms back after a few seconds.

I think for a couple moments. ::What are you doing right now?:: That seems like an okay question to ask.

::Not much,:: he replies. ::Just watching Sunny demolish stuff on the practice field.::

::Oh,:: I say because I don't know what else to say. Maybe Sides doesn't know what else to say either because there is a long pause after that.

::You can come join if you want,:: he offers after the long pause.

I think about it. I don't like demolishing stuff, and I don't particularly like watching stuff get demolished. ::Not right now,:: I eventually reply, which is a softer way of saying "no."

::Okay,:: Sides answers.

I try to think something else to say, but my processor doesn't come up with anything, so I sign off after a few more moments.

I look at the corner. Chromia isn't there.

"Where's Chromia?" I ask Ironhide, shifting so I can look up and see his face. His expression is the same as earlier, though. Still sad, broken, unable to fix anything.

"Mm…" Maybe he doesn't remember. "She left with Elita," he says slowly. "I think." He shifts his optics from Prowl to me, apology in his expression, though I don't know why.

I just nod in acknowledgement. Maybe I'll go see Elita and Chromia.

I think about it for a few minutes, and then I tell Ironhide. "I'm going for a walk. Maybe I'll go find them at Elita's office."

"Okay," Ironhide says. He gives a single nod.

So I get off the berth and give Prowl's helm a gentle touch. Prowl does nothing, so I kiss his helm and then leave, going through med-bay and out the front door. I haven't gone more than a few steps when Jolt comes out of the same door and hurries to catch up with me.

"Hey, Praxus," he says, standing there, I guess because I'm just standing here now.

"Hi, Jolt," I say. I look at him with curiosity. He seems sad like everybody else I've seen so far, but he also seems determined.

"Where are you off to?" he asks, motioning that we can walk instead of stand around.

I'm not sure what he doing, but I'm certain he's doing something. I just shrug a wing, though, and start walking up the street. He walks beside me.

"I'm going over to Elita's office to see if she and Chromia are there," I tell him.

"Is your intercom down?" Jolt asks. Now I'm getting a curious look from him.

"No. I just forget about intercoms a lot, you know," I remind him. I feel sort of annoyed because I'd intercommed Sides just a little while before deciding to go find Elita. "A walk will be good for me anyway, and I want to see her face."

"Okay," Jolt says. He wasn't trying to annoy me, I can tell from his tone.

I still feel a little… maybe it's not annoyed. But I feel off. My mood feels off. And Jolt…

"And where are you going, Jolt?" I ask him. Am I feeling paranoia?

"I'm going with you to make sure you're okay," Jolt answers gently.

I stop. I don't feel annoyed or paranoid. But I feel like a scream is waiting inside me. I'm not sure why. I want to say "I'm okay," but I'm not sure that's true. It probably wouldn't be true if I said it. Nothing is okay right now, if I really think about it. I don't.

"I guess I did have a serious episode yesterday," I say. I don't even remember it, so it must have been bad.

"Yeah," Jolt says softly. Some of his pieces of armor have a different sheen than the others, which means they're pieces from his other set of armor. His optics are steady and concerned when I meet them. I might have hurt him yesterday, but he's still here. The scream backs away, not ready to come out yet.

I reach over and brush my fingers on Jolt's arm. "Thank you for looking out for me," I say.

He nods. "I try," he says, and I think he might break down, but he doesn't want to break down.

I take his wrist lightly and give it a little tug, letting go as I start to walk again, and he walks alongside me.

"We'll intercom Elita if she's not in her office," I say, working on a plan. "And we can stop by and see Ultra Magnus since he's probably in his office, and that's nearby."

"Um… yeah," Jolt says, searching for words. Unlike the others, he tries to pull together some sort of conversation. "Ultra Magnus hates getting interrupted while he's working, but you seem to usually be in his good graces, so maybe he won't mind."

"That's what you think," I tell Jolt. I'm going to tease now. "He adores me and is going to adopt me as his only son," I say, making it up and pretending to look important.

Jolt halfway chuckles. "Yeah?" he prompts. "How's that going to go?"

"There might be a few hitches," I say, "But it will otherwise be fabulous." Then, as we keep walking to Elita's office, I build a nonsense story about being adopted as Ultra Magnus's son. It's a definitely absurd story, but Jolt listens and helps with a few details.

While I ignore them, I keep noticing that more humans than usual keep looking at us. And they look for a longer amount of time, too. Usually, unless they are new to the base, humans just briefly glance at bots to check that the bots aren't coming over to step on them or something. Maybe we have a new batch of humans on base, but I'm pretty sure I've seen these ones before.

When we are almost to the office building door, I decide to stop ignoring all the staring humans. I guess it sounds like there were a lot of them when I say it like that, but it wasn't really. There were three on one street, four on the other block, three on the last block, a few more other places. Not really a lot, but it kinda felt like a lot with their squishy eyeballs staring so long at my metal body.

When two humans by a Jeep stare at Jolt and me, I turn my helm deliberately and stare back with no expression. They pretend that they hadn't been staring. They pretend they are busy.

"What-" Jolt says as I stop walking. He puts a hand softly on my arm as I turn to face the humans with my whole frame.

I switch over to speak the English language. "Why everyone staring at us?" I demand, not checking the grammar before verbalizing.

The humans sort of wince.

"We… we heard about Auri," one of them says. "Um…" It makes a helpless motion. "We're really sorry. She was a friend to many of us, and…"

I realize something and stop trying to understand the English. The humans also think she's not coming back.

"She is coming back!" I tell the humans, and they flinch. I guess because I spoke loudly and in Cybertronian. And interrupted.

Jolt sort of hugs me then, gently, as the humans start to get into the Jeep calmly but somewhat quickly. Jolt says something to the humans, also gently, as I hug him back. That seems to surprise him a little. Actually, he might be holding me away from the humans rather than hugging me.

"I didn't mean to scare them," I tell Jolt as I realize that that's probably what I've done. I don't want to scare humans. I don't like them, but I also don't want to scare them. Jolt translates this into English for the humans, and they slow down.

"It's okay," one of the humans says. "You've been through a lot."

I don't know what it means by that, so I don't say anything, and both of them look awkward.

Jolt says "Thank you for your sympathies," and then he nudges me toward the office door. I go. I go rather quickly. I don't want to be around humans. Especially humans that think Auri isn't coming back.

When we reach Elita's office, Jolt moves his hand to tap on the door, but there's a loud smash-crash sound on the other side of it. I jump back, but Jolt decides to just barge in to where Chromia is swearing in very loud tones. I'm not that sort of brave. I hang back, waiting and listening.

I can't tell if Jolt and Elita say anything to each other because Chromia doesn't stop swearing in very loud tones. I also can't tell exactly what Chromia is saying because she's switched to her original dialect. But I'm pretty sure it's swearing.

I peek in. Elita looks like she is mad enough to swear like Chromia, but she is very still. Chromia is pacing, though, plainly furious. There is a fist-sized dent in Elita's desk, and there is a little energon seeping from one of Chromia's hands. The screen of Elita's computer is out of place, knocked askew, and Jolt is looking at it silently.

Nobody says anything to me as I go over quietly to look at the screen with Jolt. I don't say anything either as I look at the screen. It has a picture of Auri in a room I don't know, and she sitting on a rug on the metal floor. She looks very happy, pleased, smiling up at the camera as she shows off a data-pad with learner-unsteady characters written on it: I'm learning Kaonic. It has a timestamp from earlier this afternoon. It doesn't seem right to me.

"It's from Soundwave," Elita says, her tone a low snarl-hiss that I've never heard from her before. I have to back away from her because it scares me. It scares me very much.