The Diego Diaries: Force (dd6 345)
-0-Processor Hospital, The City
"I don't know."
Ratchet stared at him a moment, his compassion button heavily compressed. The mech beside him was stripped of support and he was laid bare. "Have you been talking to the counselors here? I asked them to speak to you."
"They can't help me. I don't think anyone can," Waldeen said.
"No one can unless you let them. Tell me things. Tell me what's on your processor right now. What are you thinking about, Waldeen?" Ratchet asked gently.
He stared at the door for a moment, almost for too long a time, then he vented a sigh. "I never even felt Them before during Festivals or anywhere. I never met anyone so old. It was Them, right?" he asked as he looked at Ratchet.
Ratchet nodded. "Yes, it was Them."
"They never gave the Blessing on Cybertron. My genitors and grand genitors said they never felt or saw it from Them or the Matrix, not even when Zeta was Prime." He glanced at his servos. "They hated Zeta."
"Why?" Ratchet asked.
Waldeen thought a moment. "He was more like Optimus Prime than Sentinel. They really liked Sentinel." He sat back. "I never met him, Sentinel. I just heard a lot from the family."
"Mostly good stuff then?" Ratchet asked.
Waldeen nodded. "Good stuff. Our stuff."
"He never did a good thing, Waldeen. There's talk that he tried to kill Nominus for the Matrix," Ratchet replied.
"I heard that. I don't know. I never heard that he did or didn't," Waldeen said. "It was a blur then. A lot of things have happened since."
"What do you want to do with your life? You're young, smart and strong. You can be pretty much anything you like if you want to do it," Ratchet asked.
Waldeen stared at his servos. "I don't know what that is. We wanted our own way. We wanted our old life. I miss it. I miss the order and the neatness. I miss knowing what I was supposed to do and believe."
Ratchet squeezed his arm gently. "All of us did. But most of us hated it."
"I don't know about that. I never knew. I lived and never knew," Waldeen said.
"You and your sister … you sort of lived in the bubble then," Ratchet asked.
He considered that. "I suppose you could call it that. I just … I lived. Everyday I lived and then … I was just … I was living."
Ratchet considered the kid and his shattered affect. "What did you think when you saw Them?"
"I didn't believe it but I also believed it. I thought I was dreaming but I knew I wasn't," Waldeen said as he sat back. "I knew it was Primus. He was so loving and good. He came out of the sea and … He was there."
"He was. He was loving. He loves all of us, even those of us who frag up. He loves you, too, though I don't think you know that." Ratchet sat back, settling in more comfortably.
Waldeen stared at the far wall. "I don't know. He was going to kill me. I knew it in my spark. I knew that He was going to recall us and we were going to die."
"It scared you?" Ratchet asked.
He nodded as he stared. "Uh-huh. I knew He would. Then He did. That was when we died, all of us."
Ratchet considered the kid, then scanned him. Several levels that regulated emotional equilibrium were low. "Waldeen … you were always safe. The others? They went back to the Matrix with the Pantheon. No one is punished. No one is harmed. You judge yourself and then you find a way to come back in another life and make things up. Not everyone is like Optimus. I've seen him die 18 times and he always came back as himself. Everyone comes back eventually. How will we ever learn to love unconditionally unless we come back to try again."
"He killed us," Waldeen said in a flat tone. "He waved his hand and we died."
Ratchet considered the kid. "Your old life died. You're right here. You're waiting to feel really alive again. What you were before was a sad empty thing. Now you know what it means to feel alive. You're waiting for that."
"Am I?" Waldeen asked as he glanced at Ratchet. His optics were dull with drained emotion and he was dull in his affect. This had hit him like a low flying Seeker.
"You are. Now you know what's the reason we're here for. Now is the time to grasp it by the horns. We're here to learn, to love and care for each other. When the refugees come … when you came, it made things just that much better everywhere. You're tired. Once you rest and we fix up your levels, the idea of how much you're loved just as you are will be easier to be believed. You don't have to have anything to be loved. Chances are, it helps you even more when its so."
"Nothing I believe is right. They said so. They said They would recall us if we didn't change. I don't even know what He means. I don't know what He wants me to do," Waldeen asked.
"Then that's where we help you," Ratchet said. They talked a bit longer, then Ratchet stood. "I'm going now to talk to your doctors. I want them to know that you're sad and you need some treatment for that. I'm going to tell them how that'll work and soon, very very soon you'll be feeling better. Until then you should talk to your doctors as much as you can and a priest. They can help you with the sadness."
Waldeen stared upward at Ratchet, then nodded. "Will you come, too?" he asked.
Ratchet nodded. "I will. I will come to see you everyday for a while. It may take a while to get here some days but I will. We're taking in refugees, a lot of them. Everyone of them is a new page in our story, just like you were. Don't despair. Nothing happens by accident. This was meant to be."
"Why?" Waldeen asked dully.
Ratchet stared at him imagining the little infant he once was. "Because everyone deserves to be loved." Ratchet squeezed his shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow." With that, he walked out, chatted with the desk nurses, talked to the doctors and watched as they and a counselor walked into the room where Waldeen sat all by himself. The door closed behind them, so Ratchet walked back out into the world again.
-0-Later that afternoon
Ironhide peered inside the office and grinned. "You still pretending to work?"
Ratchet sat back with a grin. "You still carting that baby around a war zone? Come here so I can el kabong you with my ped."
Ironhide walked in, sat, then pulled out a wide opticed little femme. Putting her on the desk, she lay swaddled and smiling at both. Ratchet slid her over, then began to remove her garments. When she was free, he helped her sit up. "ADA!"
They both gulped at her diction and volume, then Ratchet handed her a toy he kept in his desk just for moments like this. "By the way, Alternative Megatron is transporting an alternate Fort Max in a joor just for us. Among others."
Ironhide stared at him with surprise. "How? What are we going to do with that slagger?"
"Hold your horses, cowboy. Get this. In their universe, Fortress Maximus is the size of Ultra Magnus. So is Tennyson and The Dire Wolf. Not all of the metrotitans here have the same sized counterparts over there. Black Shadow and Sixshot are bringing them in by ship through a bridge at the specialized lockup in just a bit. Wanna go?" Ratchet asked with a giant fake smile.
Ironhide gave him one back. "SURE!"
They both laughed loudly. Halo who was chewing on a teething ring made of steel looked at both. "BAI!?" she asked as she pointed at Ironhide.
Ratchet grinned. "I don't know. Ask him."
She smiled at Ratchet, then looked over her shoulder at Ironhide before falling backward onto the table top. She frowned at the outcome, then continued to teeth in the ring.
Ratchet laughed. "She has a round bottom just like the others."
"Little femme isn't fazed by falling. Took it like a champion," Ironhide said as he pulled the little garments and his daughter by the ped closer. He expertly dressed her, then slid her into his hold. "Come on. I want to see a permanently small Max and Wolf. This might be funny."
Ratchet rose, then walked around the desk for the door. "It might be something but I doubt its going to be fun."
-0-At the landing pad at the specialized lock up for alternative universe prisoners
Gee-Gee and her crew including a fully loaded group of security stood with Prime, Blackjack, Alor, Hard Drive, Raptor, and Prowl. Others were there but they weren't deployed. They just came along to watch. Springer, Drift, Hercy, and Kup were there to handle the hand off. Black Shadow and his crew were due back on their own Cybertron as soon as possible. They were hunting other riffraff for capture.
"What do you suppose a short Fort Max is like?" Springer asked.
"I don't know. Why don't you ask that one?" Drift said as several big mechs began to walk down the pathway to the tarmac together. They included Metroplex, Metrotitan who was courting a small flirty femme mini-con who had cavorted around the last football game in which he and his frame had come out to resolve on field. They were a pair to draw to as Smokescreen might say. Tennyson and Caminus were with them along with a smirking Xantium.
"Look what the cat dragged in," Springer said as they joined the group. "What brings you here?"
"A dance off. We're having a dance off, Springer, with the bad guys," Xantium said as he smirked at a mech that he loved.
Everyone hit the internet, then laughed loudly. Prime grinned as he watched a big ship coming in, one that bore the new sigil for the reunited alternative Cybertron. A new symbol of unity showed on the ship as half an Autobot sigil was joined to half a Decepticon one. It was an interesting blend and reflected the effort at reconciliation that Megatron and Prowl were working on.
The dust kicked up as the big ship landed, then the hatch opened. A beam of light touched the ground, a bridge for those inside to walk down. One of them did followed by two others. Pausing at the bottom to look around, the three big mechs walked toward Prime. They were Black Shadow, Blue Bacchus and Sixshot.
It took all that some of the Autobots had not to reflexively shoot the three of them between the optics. They walked to the group, then halted together. "Prime," Black Shadow said with a nod.
"Black Shadow," Prime replied. "Your prisoners are with you?"
"They are. Lord Megatron sends his greetings," Black Shadow said.
Prime nodded. "Give him mine in return. I am told there might be others as well."
The big black mech nodded. "There are. Some of them have to be coaxed out of hiding and maybe they'll do us all a favor and provoke a shoot out."
"We can but hope," Hercy said with a smirk.
Sixshot grinned. "My feelings exactly." He looked at the ship, then Prime. "We can bring them if you're ready."
"We are," Prime said as he glanced at Gee-Gee who nodded.
They walked back to the ship whereupon Bacchus and Black Shadow climbed back up. Sixshot waited with his guns poised for them to come back down again. When they did, more security followed as big mechs, surly and angry were led down to the tarmac. They were roughly formed into a line, then marched toward Prime. They reached the welcoming group, then halted as they looked around. Fixing on Prime, alternative Metrotitan smirked. "You're a fragger here, too, it seems."
Sixshot cuffed his helm. "Shut up, Tyke. You're done being a slagger. Time to go into the cage."
"Frag you," Titan said with a dark tone. It was then that he found himself flat on his back with his arm bent tightly backward. Standing over him with a slight smirk, Gee-Gee held him fast.
"That wasn't very nice of you, Metrotitan. You're mine now. Do what I say and we'll get along just fine," she said.
"AND IF I DON'T?!" he bellowed mostly from rage, not pain. His frame could take a lot of punishment.
"A femme," alt Fort Max said with a snicker. "You got dumped by a femme."
Titan struggled, but gave up as Gee-Gee held him pinned to the ground. She stepped back and he clambered upward. "I'm going to kill you, fragger," he said to her.
She struck him hard and he went down on his knees. Striking him again, he fell forward to lay on the ground groaning. She stepped back, then grinned. "Who's next, tough guys?"
It was silent for a moment.
-0-TBC 5-3-18 edited 6-4-18