Bumblebee eventually came conscious, a fuzzed image of Ratchet coming back into view. Bumblebee remained in a placid expression, blinking past Ratchet's visibly stiffening form. Everyone jumped suddenly in surprise to hear a shrieking scream coming back to the medical bay after they had dispersed moments later. Ratchet shoved Optimus to the side to avoid the thrashing debris of the medical table that Bumblebee had just previously demolished. Bumblebee, optics wide and scared, whipped his head around to see Optimus Prime. Optimus ran over to him, and placed a hasty hand on his shoulder, "Hey, friend. Are you...alright?"

Bumblebee didn't respond, rather stared at him blankly. After a few moments of silence, Bumblebee saluted Optimus, and stood at attention. Confused, all eyes turned back to Ratchet, who shrugged, "Maybe it's the...trauma?"

Prime nodded, and turned back to his scout, who seemed to be leaking tears in his stiff salute form. Prime finally gave him a salute in return, a saddened expression on his face. Bumblebee's arm swung back limp to his side. Still expressionless, Bumblebee left the room, and came into the main living room, still with its assorted items, lingering a coat of dust. Tears still streaming down his face, Bumblebee crossed across into the hallway, overlooking the cracked window assortment of the front lobby. Glittering unshed tears lingered in the optics of Bulkhead, who rubbed the back of his head in an uncomfortable pause. The rest of the team remained in a tense silence as Bumblebee re-examined the rooms inside the abandoned factory as their base.

Caressing a small picture frame no bigger than his palm close to his chest, Bumblebee swiveled both optics towards the still statures of his fellow teammates. His mouth opened with a trembling jaw, "Is...Sari gone…? Tell me the truth…"

Ratchet was the only one with strong enough courage to confirm, "Yes. She's gone…"

Bumblebee let his hand let go of the frame, sending it clattering to the floor. Darkly he stared at the shattered remnants, unwilling to look up at the empathetic eyes of Optimus. Bumblebee fought through Bulkhead's embrace, and stormed into the empty room of Prowl's. His steaming joints ground with a dry squeal as his knuckles tensed, tightening as they curled deeper into the metallic palms. Bulkhead entered the room, and saw Bumblebee's pained expression.

"Come on, buddy. Let's go do something else," Bulkhead urged.

Bumblebee didn't respond, and wriggled free out of the grip that Bulkhead had on his shoulder. Gritting his teeth together, Bumblebee stormed out of the room, and made it only a few painless steps before his knees locked, sending him crashing into the ground. Ratchet came instantly around the bend, a roll of bandages in his possession. Ratchet came up quietly behind the sparking yellow bot, "Hey, kiddo...Need any help?"

Ratchet lifted Bumblebee with Bulkhead's help back to the medical room. Optimus held Bumblebee steady while Ratchet bound him back to the table, and started work again. Bumblebee turned his head away from any other touch than Ratchet's, who finally knocked Bumblebee out to keep himself from freaking out. A few moments later, as Ratchet expected, Bumblebee uttered out another chilling scream, and broke free again. Ratchet activated the security shields about the scout, a green bubble keeping Bumblebee afloat from the ground. Bumblebee punched the rays around him in a fervor, but the shields only rippled in response, keeping him contained.

Optimus looked up towards his suffering scout, and back down to Ratchet, "Is this supposed to keep him safe?"

"Yes, Optimus. That mess of trouble should be unable to hurt himself or others in that field," Ratchet replied, putting both hands on his hips.

Bumblebee, for the next few hours, was kept company by Optimus and Bulkhead, cycling through patrol and break. Ratchet was a constant nag for energon samples, which was hard to put up a fight against a pulse ray stunning him every time. Bumblebee, in the meantime between sample checks, tugged relentlessly at his sensors, and attacked the sights of his reflection in the ray emitters. Leaving enough energy to cry silently, Bumblebee was finally released from his tight ball to be monitored inside the quarantine space.

Optimus, concerned, went to check on Bumblebee, "How is he, Ratchet?"

"Hasn't changed from the last time you asked me, five minutes ago. And even less so since he even stepped foot in there," A grumpy voice snapped back at him.

"Ratchet."

"What?! I am trying to take care of a mentally unstable scout here!" Ratchet's head appeared from behind a load of flickering screens.

"Ratchet. I only came to ask how his thought patterns were."

"Still haven't been able to decipher them yet. He is really stuck in deep thought mode. I need to catch him in a lighter thought processing load moment."

"So, in other words, we need to distract him…"

"There is nothing un-normal with the way that he has been behaving lately...Prime...just to let you know…" Ratchet said, as Optimus turned his back to the facility.

"I know, old friend...I know…"

Bulkhead had enough of this silent nuisance. When Ratchet was busily angrily over a fried circuitry board, he snuck into the quarantine room. Seizing Bumblebee by both shoulders, Bulkhead hauled him off, wheeling him away in a fast-motored pace towards a secluded shed.

"Come on, buddy! You can't leave me yet! Wake up!" Bulkhead shouted into the blank face, shaking the yellow body hard.

Bumblebee didn't respond, but waited for Ratchet's angry punch to the side of Bulkhead's face to do the trick. Bumblebee slid back down, and followed Optimus to the base. The sun began to sink below in the sky, casting broken rainbows across the cement flooring. Tears began to flow down Bumblebee's face again as he knelt in silent grief next to the broken frame that he had previously dropped. He looked back towards the bleeding horizon, watching it fade back into a dead, silent dark. Bumblebee wasn't accompanied by anyone during the first night shift, but by the second, Optimus joined him with a towel in his nervous grasp. Bumblebee silently took the towel, and rubbed his eyes hard with it.

Optimus smiled faintly, and drew his scout closer to him. Watching the stars come out gave Optimus the courage to start a conversation, "Bumblebee...I...just want you to know that if you want to say anything, or talk about anything...you can talk to me."

Bumblebee looked back down at his oil-stained towel, and shed a couple more silent drops onto it. Bumblebee looked back up to Optimus, and shook his head, glancing back down shamefully.

Optimus seemed to get the gist, "So...another silent oath?"

Bumblebee shrugged, so Optimus continued, "Well...if that is what you wish, then you may remain silent. I don't think your annual voicebox replacement should be an issue now, to put a silver lining on things...Please though, I wish to ask one more thing...in your own words I mean...is there anything else that I should know? Anything that I can help you with?"

Bumblebee hesitated, looking back to the stars. He shook his head, but was stopped by Optimus, "Please...I just..."

The yellow form escaped his grasp, and headed towards his dorm in the back of the hallway. Bumblebee closed the door on himself, and barred the light from shining in through his window. He transformed too quickly for Bulkhead's entrance, who looked down sorrowfully at Bumblebee, then left the room again. Bumblebee was woken back up by a light hammering on his car hood.

"Wake up, Bee! Time for your voice transplant!" Ratchet demanded.

Bumblebee powered back on, and transformed back into his bot mode, Ratchet's hand still firm on the back of his neck. Wordlessly, Bumblebee allowed himself to be dragged to the clinic.

"I hate to say this Bumblebee, but can you talk for me in order to assess your voice box?" Ratchet asked.

Bumblebee shook his head, and looked down at his greasy front plate.

"Ah, looks like you are too sore to talk, let alone cry some more out...right?" Ratchet nervously chuckled.

Seeing Bumblebee's face, Ratchet cleared his throat, and pushed the recline button for the medical table to lower back down to a horizontal position. Ratchet felt along the tense throat canals, and found them to be squishy and moist with oil to the touch.

"Looks like you've been doing a lot of cryin, Bee…"

Bumblebee still didn't respond, but allowed Ratchet to drain out the extra tears, "Now! We can replace that chatter box of yours. Much as I hate to say it, your voice is a very cheerful thing to have when we've lost so much…"

Optimus came upon them, and grimaced at the last remark. Coming in, and preparing for the worst, he placed a gentle hand on Ratchet's shoulder. Knowing this reaction, Ratchet turned around, his faint smile dropping back to his frown. Bumblebee nodded to him on the table, and Optimus opened his own mouth, "Ratchet...you won't need to replace his voice box…"

Dropping his instruments in open shock, Ratchet finally understood. Nodding to the both of them, he released Bumblebee from the examination table. Aheming to excuse himself to the back shadows, Bumblebee left Optimus to comfort Ratchet.

"Why! When I do everything to restore his voice box, why does he have to obligatorize silence! Why does he choose now to be quiet!" Ratchet complained.

Optimus fumbled for his own speech to kick in, "Friend. This is Bumblebee's way to recover from everything that he had just lost. His friend, Sari, was just killed for his own sake. Prowl is also gone, and was a great motivator to him as well."

"Prowl was a motivator for all of us…" Ratchet moaned, placing his head in his shaking hands.

"So, please respect his decision to go silent...it is his way of saying goodbye."

Ratchet looked up at his leader, "Then, in that case...summon him back in. I will start at once."

Bumblebee waited to return until he saw Optimus wave a gesturing hand. Laying back down on the table, and before being sedated, Bumblebee plugged his ears, and uttered his final word. Ratchet gritted his teeth, and didn't look. Bulkhead was beyond his own words when he saw Bumblebee's voice box removed, then placed gingerly underneath a cloth. He swiftly approached Ratchet when he was done, "Ratchet! Don't pack up yet! I want to be like my friend!"

Ratchet, surprising Bulkhead, was on the verge of releasing bottled up tears, "So I can silence another bot! No thanks! I have had my share of voice removal and replacement! I want more than just me to be able to speak every once in a while to someone else! I want someone to share insults with me, even if they ticked me off the edge...I wanted..."

Bulkhead understood, and helped the sobbing Ratchet to his feet. Bumblebee didn't acknowledge their presence, still a bit nervous on how they would react. Bulkhead instead smiled at Bumblebee, and set Ratchet down on a couch. Bumblebee gestured to a deck of cards. All of them gathered to play a last game in silence, feeling a bit more comfortable to talk again tomorrow.

"Shame that you won't be able to talk to us, Bee," Bulkhead remarked.

Bumblebee turned a small lip upwards, but shook his head, instead gesturing in symbols with his hands.

"I have no idea what that means…" Bulkhead complained.

Ratchet suggested, placing down the winning card for the pile, "Why don't I teach you? We have a long time to learn."

"And a long time to catch up with some decepticon fugitives," Optimus replied, shuffling the deck, "Another round?"

Bulkhead was the first up the next morning, looking over the security scanners. Grumpily, he switched between camera channels until settling on a random street corner, still black with shadows. He sighed, and swiveled in his chair a couple of times around. Just then, the alarm sounded on the sensory com. Still dizzy, Bulkhead stood up and examined the issue. Seeing a flurry of motion, Bulkhead shook his head to clear it, and rewound the recording. Minutes later, Optimus' office's door was banged off, clattering to the floor.

Surprised and alarmed, Optimus whipped around, "Bulkhead?! What's-"

"No time! Look at this!" Bulkhead shouted, thrusting Optimus back down into the consul chair.

Bulkhead rewound the recording of the shadowy street, and jabbed a harsh finger into the screen, "Look! It's Prowl! He's alive!"

Optimus squinted, "I can't see anything..."

"Might be just a screw loose in your head!" Ratchet grumpily snapped, coming from behind the door, "Don't you know that other bots are sleepin here!"

Ratchet shoved aside the chair, and looked at the blurred movement on the screen player, "Ah, I see nothing but shadows, Shadows! In my opinion, you must've spun too many times in that chair. We might have a dizzy and crazed out bot here on our hands, Prime."

Optimus shook his head disappointedly, "He's not crazy, just...grieved. Prowl's got no chance against surviving such an explosion as he had…"

"I am not crazy! Please, listen! I know that is Prowl, just give me a chance!" Bulkhead protested, seizing Ratchet by both shoulders.

Ratchet nudged him aside, "And risk our cover being officially blown! By my sparkless-"

"Ratchet! It won't hurt to check," Optimus cut in.

"But, Prime! He…"

"It's final, Ratchet," Optimus said, holding up a hand.

Bulkhead danced around, "Yes! I can prove that he-"

"Is dead!" Ratchet shouted, "If it weren't for-"

Bumblebee's presence shut Ratchet's spewing mouth. Bumblebee, sad, looked down at the floor, and left.

"Oh, great! Now we hurt his feelings again!" Bulkhead complained, "Way to go doc, way to go!"

Ratchet huffed, and walked outside the room. Bulkhead ran outside with the prime's arm in close reach, transforming, "Go, go!"

Optimus followed, his semi-truck form blazing down the street beside a musty green military van. Coming onto the coordinates, the two autobots scanned the area closely, but found no trace of anything except what was normal.

"I...I promise...I did see him here!" Bulkhead said, pounding both fists onto the wall closest to him.

"I know, my friend. I know that you saw something, but that doesn't mean that it was Prowl. I know that he meant a lot to you...to us, as a team. He is well and in a better place. I promise you that," Optimus reassured.

Bulkhead nodded slowly, and turned around, but something hard and heavy was blasted into their frames, hurling them backwards into blackness.

"P...Prowl?" Bulkhead managed to say into a glinting pair of eye protectives before fading.

Ratchet looked up to the ceiling where Bumblebee stood, "My war wounds are achin' again. Somthin's not right here…"

Bumblebee only blinked placidly, but nodded with a firm agreement. Ratchet smiled sadly at him, "Could go for one of your catch phrases right about now…Anyways, we should go look for them, might still be at the street corner."

Bumblebee patted Ratchet's shoulder, and headed towards the exit. Upon arriving at the desolate scene, Ratchet soon got the suspicion that this wasn't a normal disappearance, "I don't like this, 'Bee…"

Bee shared the same wary face, unable to get a tickling chill to escape his spine. The two drew close, back to back. Ratchet extended his wrist magnets, readying a red haze about the emitters. Retracting his hands, Bumblebee formed two stingers, which drilled into the thick skull of the attacking decepticon. Shouting in pain, Ratchet prepared the final blow to one behind him. Quickly overrun, Ratchet called out to the fighting blurr of yellow behind him, "Run! We are outnumbered! I will hold them off, run!"

Bumblebee hesitated.

"Go!"

Bumblebee had no choice but to abandon Ratchet to the hoard of decepticon bodies. Some tried to pursue after the yellow hot hatch car which was speeding down the decimated highway under reconstruction, but were blasted off of the fender's trail, allowing Bumblebee to blend in with the traffic down below to safety.

"Come and get me, you creeps!" Ratchet yelled before being dragged down an opening hatch into darkness.

Ratchet fell through a small hole after being shoved down the hatch, clunking and clattering his way to the feet of a bound Optimus.

"Hello, friend. Here to join us?" A tired-sounding Optimus asked.

"Depends on how long…" Ratchet said, before knockout gas flooded the room.

Bumblebee made a sharp turn down into an alley, ducking past the views of shadows above him. Glimmering optics momentarily paused near where Bumblebee was, before turning back. Releasing a tense breath silently, the yellow scout stealthily crept along the pooling shadow corridors. Looking past his shoulder, he noticed a group of huddled guards around a certain shaft in the wall. Sticking out his neck a bit further, Bumblebee caught sight of a new face, one that had the looks of a dark sneer towards Bumblebee. Bumblebee quickly snapped his neck back into the shadows, but still could hear the approaching footsteps.

Hurriedly, Bumblebee scurried up the wall, and grabbed hold of a vent cover, placing it behind him as he crawled through the tight tunnel made of floppy metal. He tried to keep his movements as quiet as possible, but still felt his spark beat harder and faster, thudding against his chest plates. Preening his audio receptors to full external volume, he could detect some groanings of pain a couple of feet away from him, coming through with tiny specks of light. Peering through the grate, he could see a figure pressed close to an unconscious form of Bulkhead. Shoving Bulkhead to the side groughly, the shadow heels of the figure left, slapping the cell door closed.

Bumblebee gripped to the side of him, and drew out a lengthy cord of rope. Crawling on his stomach, he peered through the hole, and saw no other occupant besides Bulkhead. Silently, Bumblebee knocked on the grate above, hoping to get the green bot's attention. The green figure's optics eventually fuzzed back on with the constant knocking, "Bee? Is that you?"

Bumblebee nodded, and proceeded to pry off the grate using his rotating stingers. After the sparks faded off, Bumblebee made the effort to climb down into the cell to break off his chains, but Bulkhead stopped him, "Bee, the others are in bigger trouble than I am! I will be fine. Go! They're in the experimentation room!"

Bumblebee looked down at Bulkhead's glowering arm, and rippled in an unsettling way. The shattered end fragments of the once friendly green chrome, was now stripped away to reveal the internal cervos and wire connections. A large, jagged edge of a blade was mounted on top of the wrist joint, obviously done in a hasty manner.

"Oh yeah...I don't know what this is, but that crazy lady put it on me! She is psychotic! She made me attack Ratchet earlier with it...I couldn't control myself, and yet...she was laughing through the whole thing! Psychotic!" Bulkhead exclaimed, looking around the room scared, "But I am fine...go get the rest of them!"

A chilling thought swept through the yellow blur as he pushed himself hard, sliding at top speed through the vent. Bumblebee peered through the cracks in the blinds, and noticed Ratchet and Optimus' suspended bodies on top of laboratory tables. Unhesitantly, Bumblebee gripped his rope again, and after a couple of swings about his head, smashed the vent door open, and silently caught the falling piece of metal as he landed noiselessly on the tile surface. Glancing around at the tables again, he walked over to the first one, which held Ratchet's semi-sparking body.

Bumblebee tried snapping into the audio receptor of Ratchet, which was gradually responded with a muffled grunt, "Wha-oh...Bee?"

Bumblebee nodded, and gestured to the room. Ratchet let his eyes sink half way down, "You know, I miss that voice box of yours…I totally understood what you meant."

Bumblebee rolled his optics, and started to cut Ratchet loose. Ratchet, with one arm free, tried to help Bumblebee cut the rest of him free, but that was before a faint pink gas started to cloud the room's air vents.

"Go! You are going to be knocked out before you finish with us! Leave, and come back later!" Ratchet hissed.

Bumblebee only had moments to avoid the first shot from a shadowed creature in the background, but a shot of cold drummed through his circuits from his left shoulder, leaving him numb. Coming back with a blinding light forcing to open his optics, Bumblebee groaned, half unwilling to wake up so soon from his coma.

"Follow me…"

Bumblebee felt disillusioned, and was helped up by an icy hand. The room was sliding and slipping in weaving currents of color. The same hand held him up underneath his armpit, assisting him towards a door. Tripping over his own pedes, Bumblebee took a head dive down into a bit darker room encasing.

"Rest here...You are okay…" The same voice cooed.

Bumblebee simply obeyed, and fell back down into his sleep.

Ratchet pounded the door open to Bumblebee's recovery room, retrieving the limp figure, "Come on, Bee! We gotta go!"

Bumblebee remained unresponsive, a bandage wrapped around his optics. Bulkhead regained the strength to assist Ratchet in lifting Bumblebee up and onto a transformed Optimus as his semi-truck form. Bulkhead clumsily helped lift the bot up onto the trailer, hoisting his heavy blade up.

"You sure that you can't remove this before?" Bulkhead complained

Ratchet turned a deathly expression towards Bulkhead, "And risk everything? We don't know what that decepticon did to Bumblebee, and his pulse readings are off the charts! We can fix it later!"

Optimus struggled to start his engine, the gears grinding in unfamiliar joints, "Ow...I can't...start…"

"Oh for the Primus' sake!" Ratchet exclaimed, and placed one of his bandaged shoulder plates against the back of Optimus' truckload, and began to push, before he was stopped.

"You are foolish to leave right now…" A voice echoed from behind a corner, revealing a bot of a painted dark design.

"And you are foolish for bringing us here! What is the allspark did you do to us?!" Ratchet shouted.

"I did what I saw that needed to be done…" A smile curved a bit upwards on a hidden lip.

"And what did that include?!"

The Decepticon symbol flashed in the light, but beneath it, lay a chipped and peeling Autobot symbol. Uncertain, the team backed away from the figure in front of them, "An Upgrade…but, unfortunately, I am not done with your yellow friend..."

Bulkhead looked nervously back towards Bumblebee, who showed signs of reviving. Optimus transformed, holding the stirring Bumblebee. Optimus started to walk casually towards the opposite side of the hall, much to the surprise of the two.

"I trust that you will take care of him, Upgrade?"

Upgrade nodded, and wrapped her spindly fingers around the shaking Autobot, who moaned in distress. Optimus let a final finger slip away from the golden frame, "Anything else?"

Upgrade didn't respond, but walked away, secluded back behind the experimentation doors.

"Why in the Allspark did you just trust that criminal with Bumblebee!?" Ratchet hoarsely shouted.

Optimus only gave him an unreadable expression, but still kept an eye on the shadow stooped over on the workbench.

Bumblebee felt forced from a pleasant sleep, feeling his optics open back up to a bright light. Groaning in the sudden explosion of white, Bumblebee tried to lift up his arms to shield his eyes, but could only feel tiny pricks of long fingers touch his face.

"There we go...all finished…"

Bumblebee shot up in the darkness, trying to face Upgrade, but found himself back on his berth. Confused, he looked around, but nothing was there except the looming shadowed night. Bumblebee heard the faintest grunt from the room next to him, Optimus' pacing feet as he spoke, "Good thing that I got that power balancer upgrade, otherwise I don't know what would've happened…"

Ratchet's grouchy voice cracked, "I don't know why you trust her so much, I mean, she's a decepticon! Just look at what she has done to my shoulder plates...And to Bumblebee...hasn't he suffered enough?"

Optimus only h'mmed softly in reply, "We just have to wait and see...Bumblebee should be up in a couple of Groons…"

"Those two hours seem to take forever in human time...Bee won't be happy when he finds out…"

Bumblebee shot up, and after hearing the last phrase, decided to flee the coop, via smashing the window and driving off into the cloaks of night, turbo boosting himself into the blend of city traffic.

Fin