Title: What it Means

Fandom: Transformers

Pairings: Well….blinksblinks Thundercrackers and Skywarp are Companions and wingmates, Starscream used to be their wingmate, and I have an unhealthy fascination with the Screaming One and Megatron. Does this count?

Summary: Thundercracker is recovering from his crash and learns how he managed to survive at all.

Date Posted: Saturday, March 26, 2005

Part 2

"…Afterburners shot…lucky son of a…."

Huh?

"-vels are low….Hook, c'mere…"

A low whistle. " Did you see….sheared right off…"

Scrapper….I'm in the repair bay…

"-think he's coming round. Thundercracker?"

"…when I get a hold of the son of a 747 who shot me down, I'm gonna pull his tail wings out through his cockpit," Thundercracker groaned, letting his optics flicker open. Bright light greeted him painfully, and he slid his optics shut again, whimpering as his sensors registered a formal complaint. "Oww…"

"Come on you big baby," teased Scavenger. The miner 'Con took pity on him though and lowered the lights. Thundercracker took a second chance on opening his optics and was rewarded with Hook and Scrapper staring him expectantly in the face.

"What?"

"How do you feel?" Hook asked practically. "We had to do almost everything short of a complete overhaul to get you back in shape. I thought we were going to have to send Longhaul out to get a new bodyshell."

Thundercracker ran an internal scan, seeming to exhale when there was almost no pain in the relay. Hook noticed his almost palpable relief and chuckled.

"Yeah, we spent nearly 7 hours just fixing your internal sensors. Watch your hands and wings though – we haven't quite finished."

"So why am I out of stasis?" Thundercracker was a little disturbed at the raspiness of his voice. Apparently the Constructicons hadn't gotten around to repairing his vocal unit either. His wings were blessedly numb, as was the majority of his framework – external sensors must have been next on the Constructicons list.

"You were coming out of it on your own," Scrapper shrugged. "Your system obviously felt you'd been out long enough."

"How long?"

"Almost 15 hours total," Scavenger chirped. He had something in his hands; Thundercracker craned his neck to see and winced as he recognized it as part of his wing structure. Scavenger grinned at him. "Oh relax – once we weld it back on and repaint ya, you'll never even know the difference."

"Sit up," Hook instructed him, and Thundercracker did so, wincing a bit as joints creaked in protest.

"I'm going to go tell Skywarp you're still among the functioning," Longhaul said. "He's been as antsy as a fledge with ants in his carapace." He disappeared through the large bay doors at the end of the room. Thundercracker blinked as something triggered his memory unit.

"Why isn't Starscream here?" A quick glance revealed the other repair units were empty. Thundercracker frowned – he was positive that Starscream had been injured. Why else would he have sent Thundercracker to make his report? Speaking of which…"And I have to talk to Megatron."

"Relay your report via the radio, 'Cracker," Hook said briskly, applying the soldering gun to the framework of his wings. "Megatron's busy right now, but Soundwave can forward it on."

"Busy?"

"Yes."

Thundercracker was more then confused now. The report was fairly important – it contained the last remaining bits of information they'd managed to recover from the power plant they'd taken over before the Autobots had shown up. Starscream had obviously suffered injuries that had prevented him from flying, and Thundercracker himself had been apparently damaged almost beyond repair. Yet Starscream wasn't in the repair bay, which meant he couldn't have been as injured as he thought. What was going on? Scavenger saw the look on his face and took pity on him.

"Starscream's in his personal quarters. He's in deep recharge and—"

"Scavenger!" Hook said sharply, cutting the miner off in mid-sentence. Scavenger gulped and darted away to get another section of metal for Hook to reattach. Thundercracker scowled at the technician.

"What's wrong with you? At least someone feels like telling me what's happening." He harrumphed, flinching slightly as sparks flew from the soldering gun. "That fink Starscream – he tried to make me fly back to HQ with all my parts leaking energon and he's not even that badly hurt? I'm gonna borrow your torch and weld him to that damn recharge unit!"

"Who said he wasn't injured?" Hook asked casually, leaning around the seeker to grab a smaller torch. "He was almost dead when Astrotrain got him back here."

"What?"

"You didn't know?" Hook scoffed. "Come on TC – didn't you notice the patch job he did on you?"

"Patch job?" Thundercracker thought maybe his cranial gyros were off-kilter, the way he kept getting knocked for a loop with every sentence to come out of Hook. "What patch job?" A flicker of memory returned to him – something about his main fuel line, and a patch along it that didn't match his exactly. Was that what that was?

"Your chest plate was blown open down through all four layers of derma and metal plating. Half of your sensors were destroyed, and whatever it was you hit, ripped your fuel line loose and severed through eighty-five percent of it."

"That was big ol' hole," Scrapper snickered.

"Starscream managed to patch your fuel line with a section of tubing from his auxiliary fuel lines," Hook continued. "He had to reroute some of his own to do it too – man he was a mess! And to do a transfer on top of that, well, he's lucky he's alive, really."

Thundercracker's gyros were whirling again. "A transfer?" They couldn't possibly mean what he was thinking.

"You had almost no energon left in your system – your cardiac unit was pumping you dry. Starscream had to transfer some of his to yours, as well as a portion of his life energy to keep your mind from crashing. Whatever it was he did, gave you just enough energy to fly—"

"-or stagger-" put in Scavenger.

"-back to headquarters," Hook finished.

"It's a good thing Skywarp and Astrotrain found you two as quickly as he did," Scrapper said with unusual solemnity. "Both of you almost terminated right here. Starscream's still not out of the woods yet."

Thundercracker was relieved when Hook announced he was finished repairs to his wings which meant he could lie back down and wait for the world to go back to its regular order. He was shocked over the information he'd received – Starscream had performed a transfer? On him? While there were some loyal units among the Decepticons, Thundercracker had never been particularly close to Starscream, and he never would have thought the neurotic Air Commander would ever risk himself like that. Come to think of it, he couldn't think of anyone close enough to Starscream to do something like that.

TC didn't know what to think, honestly. Starscream's actions simply didn't match his more selfish personality, and Thundercracker didn't like the thought of being in debt to someone who had a habit of sticking knives in the back of their commanding officer. Though that would explain why he would perform such a risky move – who knew what the manic seeker would have him do in repayment…

Thundercracker looked up at Hook who was settling himself in for a long haul on his internal circuitry. The other Constructicons were gone, presumably to get more material with which to repair him. "What's Megatron so busy with?" he demanded to know. "We risked a lot to get his precious report back to him." More then we planned on risking, actually.

Hook eyed him oddly. "He's…" he paused, and Thundercracker scowled.

"I outrank you, " he reminded the Constructicon coldly. Hook's optics narrowed.

"Megatron outranks you," he pointed out gruffly. "But he didn't say not to mention it to you – just not the lower ranks." He shrugged and flicked the on switch on the torch. "He's with Starscream."

"So I don't have to give a report," Thundercracker finished. That was good. Megatron was always in a foul mood, and a negative report would just make it worse.

"Wrong, flyboy. I told you – give it to Soundwave."

"Why can't Megatron get it from Starscream?" Thundercracker asked in exasperation.

Hook would have sighed if robots had lungs. "Do you know what is required in a transfer, Thundercracker?"

TC shook his head.

"In the rare event that a life energy transfer is needed, the donor Decepticon is monitored to make sure they don't exceed safe levels. This way, if a recipient needs more life energy then what is safe for one donor to give, which is a rarity in itself, another 'Con can jump in. The thing is, the Decepticon in question should be of a higher power level to prevent that from happening. Under normal circumstances, Starscream would be an ideal donor for you or Skywarp, being of the same design yet a higher power level. However, in this particular event, Starscream was already injured and low on energon from giving his to you. But you were still in danger of dying, so he connected himself to you and shared enough of his life force to pull your spark back from oblivion." Hook paused in his work on Thundercracker's chest plate. "It should have killed him, but somehow, he's still alive."

"And he's in his quarters and not here because…"

"Privacy issues. He needed a transfusion of his own and Megatron is the only one whose power and life force exceeds his own."

Thundercracker was speechless.