Medbay—One week after Maggie's arrival

He was watched very carefully, the first weeks after his resparking. It was always a questionable process, whether mechs who were brought back in this way were really all 'there.' Some were fine, whole and complete and themselves again, while others… well, others simply did not want to be back and soon gave up and offlined again, despite Ratchet's best efforts. Not enough to live for, the spark was damaged somehow, that part that made every mech unique from every other had already moved on, Primus himself stepped in to reclaim them, and so on and so forth. Those were the prevailing theories, but it was always hard, so hard for the medic to step back, and let his patients go back to wherever they had been. It was not in him to give up, not easily, and certainly not without a fight.

Jazz did come back and did seem himself, to everyone's relief, but questions remained, and so for those first weeks he was seldom alone, not even to recharge, which occurred in the Medbay under Ratchet's supervision and the monitors' steady humming.

-o- -o-

Ratchet finished his adjustments. "All right. Slowly now." He stepped back to watch while the saboteur stretched.

"Feels fine, Ratch. Thanks." Jazz's movements turned vigorous. "Yeah, feels real- Ouch!"

"Are we learning yet?" the medic asked sardonically. "I said slowly."

"Stop that," he ordered when Jazz commenced rubbing at his waist. He brushed the smaller mech's hand aside and opened the plating to reveal a kinked cable. "Now hold still, or you'll be spending the evening right here, instead of at your party. Mikaela, take a look and tell me the steps you'd take to correct it."

The little femme moved across the exam table to where Jazz waited, and peered at the cable in his side.

"This one with the knot in it?"

"Yes."

"Look's like he's got a cramp."

Jazz started smiling, the glow from his visor flickering rapidly as he accessed the internet. Ratchet looked at his student. "He's got a what?"

"A cramp, you know, muscle cramps? It looks painful, too. I'd either give him some Motrin or have him stick his hand in and start working it out."

"Motrin," the medic repeated slowly as he conducted his own internet search. Jazz winked at the small femme and Mikaela grinned. Ratchet caught the exchange and huffed, not in the least amused.

"This is not a muscle, making Motrin a wildly inappropriate choice, Mikaela. Your second course of action would be more suitable. The cable has involuntarily and forcibly contracted due to strain, and a gentle massage should correct the problem." The medic crossed his arms and scowled at Jazz. "Along with the threat of dire consequences if the glitchhead does it again."

Jazz gave him a cocky grin and began working out the kink. "Heh, that's nothin', 'Kaela. He used ta threaten ta offline me himself, but ol' Megs beat him to it."

Ratchet glared at him. "That's not funny! Do you know… do you have any idea what I… how we all…?" The medic's vocalizer cut out on a burst of static. A tremor shook the larger mech, naked pain flared in his optics. He turned away abruptly, but not before Jazz saw the crack in the gruff exterior. Mikaela made a soft noise on the table next to him. He looked down to see her mouth rounded in an 'oh' of surprise. Jazz expelled air in a sigh. It wasn't often the medic's professional manner slipped, but when it did, he was liable to blow like a volcano with all the pent-up emotions.

Jazz went to him and laid a hand on his friend's arm. "Ratch. I'm back. That's all that matters now. Let everythin' else go, 'kay? Ya did great." Ratchet shook his head, muttering, and Jazz patted him cajolingly. "Come on, doc. No long faces at my party tonight. We're celebratin'.

"In fact, why don't we go check on the high-grade and make sure we have enough? And hey, there's no harm samplin' ahead of time."

The medic's head came up at that. "Where the frag did you get high-grade, Jazz?"

Jazz tsked. "Now ya know that's my little secret, doc. Or don't ya remember?"

Ratchet stared. "Of course, I remember, but how… where… Oh, never mind," he grumbled. He waved a hand at the silver mech. "I'm convinced. It's really you. You're fine. I'm clearing you for full duty and you can recharge in your own quarters from now on." The medic pulled him into a quick hug, then released him with a little push towards the door. "Glad you're back. Now get out of here, and take Mikaela with you. Optimus is meeting me here in a few minutes."

Jazz cleared his vocalizer. "Oh, yeah. About that, Ratch. I forgot ta tell ya."

"Tell me what, Jazz?"

The saboteur shifted uncomfortably beneath the hostile gaze and held up both hands. "Hey, don't shoot. I'm just the messenger here. Prime had ta schedule a conference call with the SecDef and the President. He's not sure how long it'll take, so he said not ta wait on him."

There was dead silence for a moment, and then,

"I see."

Jazz winced at the flat tone and the medic's suddenly icy demeanor.

"Uhhh, right. I should go now. Come on, 'Kaela." Jazz scooped up the startled girl in one arm and beat a hasty retreat.

"Jazz, what is it? What's wrong with Ratchet?" Mikaela asked as they hurriedly exited the medbay.

"Ya know that calm that comes b'fore a storm?"

"Yeah, so?"

"That was it."

Jazz paused and cocked his head in a listening pose. The sound of something very large and very heavy hit the wall of the Medbay with a resounding crash, and Mikaela flinched and uttered a shriek.

"An' there's the storm."

Jazz looked down at the wide-eyed little femme clutching his arm. "Ya won't want ta go back in there for a while. Let's go find Maggie and get lunch."

-o- -o-

Ratchet sat slumped at his desk, staring at the broken mess littering the floor, and wondering how it had happened. He'd spent a millennium fighting an endless war, watched thousands of mechs die, wandered over half the universe searching for the Allspark, and finally settled on this tiny ball of dirt off the beaten path in this galaxy's back of beyond. And still… still… he ended up in exactly the same situation he'd been in for more vorns than he cared to remember, and a million light years from where he'd started out, not with Prime, but another mech, long ago…

-o- -o-

Flashback

Ratchet sat at a table outside the energon dispensary, head propped in his hands, optics shuttered, too drained to even get his ration. Anger, pain, frustration at his own failure crackled through his processors, disrupting the normal, steady rhythm of his systems.

A calm voice intruded on the maelstrom of emotions. "Here, you look like you need this more than I do."

He stared at the hand sliding a cube of energon in front of him.

"I've been told I'm a very good listener, if you feel like talking."

Ratchet looked from the cube to the large mech taking the seat across from him at the small table. Tired optics narrowed at the stranger.

"Are you a medic?"

"No, I'm not. I'm an-"

Ratchet cut him off. "Then you wouldn't understand." He waited for the hasty departure in response to his rudeness, but the mech didn't move to leave. Instead, he settled more comfortably into his seat and regarded the intern steadily.

"Try me," the mech replied calmly, and the intern shot him a startled look, but said nothing.

"You know, I've seen a lot of young medics come to this dispensary over the last several vorns," the mech said quietly, "and quite a few of them look just like you do now." He paused to nod at the cube in front of the medic. "You should drink that. It'll help."

Ratchet barely bit back an irritated reply, settling instead for a rub of his optics and a long sigh. The mech acted a little odd, but he'd brought him a badly needed cube and seemed to mean well. He would just let him talk, nod politely while he drank down his ration and then make his escape.

"I've heard that faith is always hardest to come by for medics and scientists."

Ratchet groaned to himself. Oh, blasted Pits. A fanatic. Now he'd be forced to listen to a rehearsed pitch about religion, get a bunch of holy datapads thrust into his hands, and be pestered mercilessly about coming to a meeting or gathering or some such nonsense. The intern rolled his optics and let out another weary sigh. The large mech raised an optic ridge in polite query.

"I take it you don't believe in Primus?"

"No." the intern replied shortly, watching the contents of his cube swirling slowly. "I'm far too busy trying to save lives. If I'd wanted to waste my time on ancient history and stories about some almighty being told to comfort frightened younglings and dying mechs, I would have become a priest or an archivist."

He heard a muffled sound and looked up at the larger mech. The mech's optics were crinkled with amusement, his lips twitched.

Ratchet frowned. What in blazing Pits was wrong with this mech anyway? He snapped out an irate, "What?" in a tone that usually sent lesser mechs ducking for cover.

This one however, merely sat there, his lips curving into a full smile, the muffled sound becoming a deep chuckle. Nice smile, was the intern's brief thought, and then cringed mentally as the mech's answer sank into his processors. "I work in that tower right over there. As an archivist."

Ratchet flushed and dropped his optics, staring down into his cube in embarrassed silence, waiting for the large mech to demand an apology, to start yelling, to stand up and leave, anything but what happened next. The other mech reached out and touched his hand. Ratchet stared at it in astonishment.

"I'm Orion, by the way. Nice to meet you. And you are?"

Ratchet looked up into those amused optics again, his processors stalling for a long, confused moment. "Uhhh…"

Orion's lips quirked and he chuckled again. "That's an unusual name."

Ratchet shook his head, his processors struggling to keep up through the haze of weariness. "Ratchet," he mumbled. "The name's Ratchet and I'm an intern, not a full medic yet." He reached for the cube before him and took a long swallow, sighing with relief at the surge of renewed energy through his systems.

"Ah, I see. Well, as I said before, I've seen a lot of young medics with the same look about them come through here. But you look like you're taking it harder than most."

Ratchet snorted faintly and took another swallow of energon. They'd just met and this mech thought he could read him like a datapad. Pits, but he was odd. "So tell me, Orion, since you seem to know all about me. Just what is it I'm taking so hard?"

Orion paused consideringly. Large, clear blue optics gazed into his, then moved up and down in a slow, thorough perusal. When the mech's optics moved back to his, Ratchet felt himself flushing again. It was not a suggestive look, but he had definitely been weighed, measured, and something in him was lacking, or missing or-

"You lost."

"I- What?"

"You lost a fight today. A big one. Maybe the biggest you've faced so far. And now you're sitting here, tired and angry and blaming yourself for your personal inadequacies, when really, all that's happened is that the mech you worked so hard over, the one you think you failed, the one you couldn't save, has gone home to Primus."

Anger flooded Ratchet's systems. Optics paled, narrowing on the mech sitting calmly across from him.

"That is so fragging easy for you to say! You can't know! You weren't there! You didn't see his face, the way he looked at me, so hopeful just before he offlined. They tell us to say it you know, that everything will be all right; they'll be fine. Gives the patient something to hope for, they say, a reason to hang on. But Primus! I hated saying it! I hated it!"

Intakes heaved ragged breaths of air, his vocals thickened with static. "Because I knew, we all knew, there was no hope for this mech. His spark was flickering, guttering out, and I couldn't stop it! Nothing I did could stop it! And then he was just…gone. And Pits, I see his face every time I close my optics. I'm afraid I'll never stop seeing it. That scared, hopeful look. He was afraid to offline, he wanted to live. He thought I would save him, he trusted me. But I couldn't save him! I couldn't!"

Ratchet pressed his hands to burning optics, trying to stop the images crowding in. What the frag was he doing? If he hadn't needed to recharge so badly, if every meter of his frame wasn't aching from stress, if he hadn't been so slagging tired from almost an entire cycle spent on his feet working frantically to save his patient, Ratchet would have gotten up and left.

Instead, he continued to sit, slumped into his chair with his head in his hands, hurting and doubting and wondering why in the universe he had just spilled his internals to a total stranger.

He heard the other mech get up to leave, and wished perversely that he would stay. Any company was better than being alone right now. Then a large hand clasped his shoulder in a comforting grip, and Orion spoke very softly next to his audial. "Primus, Ratchet. I'm sorry."

And with those few words, Ratchet was undone. A small keen left his vocalizer before he managed to lock it down. Pain dug fiery trails into his processors, grief twisted his systems into knots. His frame shook as he bore the agony in silence. Through it all, Orion's hand never left his shoulder. The larger mech remained, a solid, comforting presence next to him.

The pain finally began to ebb, and Ratchet gratefully patted the hand on his shoulder. "Thank you," he whispered.

Orion gave an answering squeeze and reached around to pull his seat closer to Ratchet's. He shook his head. "Why thank me? I'm the one that brought this on. I am sorry if I seemed complacent or unfeeling. If I had any idea just how hard you were taking this… Well, there are no words for what you're going through."

A processor was starting to ache, and Ratchet rubbed at it tiredly. "No, it wasn't you. It's me. My supervisor is constantly at me about not taking everything so hard. But slagging Pits, I don't know that I can. He may as well tell me not to think or feel. Everything in me tells me to fight, and fight hard for my patients."

"Then don't listen to him," Orion said simply. "It's in your nature to be passionate. You can't suppress it. But... do you have anyone to talk to about all this? You really should."

Orion's optics dimmed uncertainly but his gaze remained steadily fixed on the young intern. "I'm here most days, Ratchet, if you'd care to talk to me."

Ratchet blinked. Primus. Most mechs would have been eager to leave after witnessing a display of his temper, but not this one.

"Why not," Ratchet found himself saying, and Orion stood up to get his own ration cube, his smile gentle and pleased.

-o- -o-

Ratchet checked his chronometer and slumped a little further into his chair. No chance now that Optimus would come before it was time for Jazz's party, and he was leaving right after to attend to some urgent situation somewhere, leaving the medic once again brushed aside. Everything and everyone else, it seemed, was still a higher priority to the Prime.

Ratchet rubbed absently at the nagging little ache in his chest. Maybe he was wrong. They had a new home, and the hope of a new start. There was time now, and maybe that was all Optimus needed. Time to realize that things were different. Ratchet got to his feet with a sigh and began cleaning up.

A/N: I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my lovely betas, Lady Dragon2-she's here on FF too; go check out her stories!-and to LB82 on DA. You both are wonderful, and yes, it really does take all three of us to pull this thing together. I could NOT do it without you! And to everyone who has reviewed, fav'd and alerted this story, a huge Thank You! The encouragement is so very much appreciated! ;)