Notes: This was a one-shot written for 31days on May 7 2006 to the prompt "Came out of their trance into time again." A sequel is pending, because it has been requested.

Disclaimer: HasTak owns all proper nouns and pretty much all the flashback events. I own my interpretation of those events and, of course, the events of this fic.

Threshold

Starscream shivered slightly, his optics flickering for a moment, as Megatron plunged into the Energon star and was destroyed.

Where was he? Megatron, that was Megatron that had died, wasn't it? And where was Alpha Q? He worked for Alpha Q, didn't he? No… Alpha Q was dead. He worked for Megatron now. No, he didn't just work for Megatron; he lived for Megatron. His entire function revolved around Megatron…

No, it didn't. Starscream froze mid-flight, staring in bewilderment at the star before him, much closer than was probably healthy.

What made him think he lived for Megatron? He was… he was… he was Starscream, wasn't he? Yes, that's what Alpha Q had said. But who was Alpha Q, then? He'd resurrected Starscream, after he'd died.

Died?

Starscream remembered being absorbed into Unicron. He remembered excruciating pain. He remembered a blinding flash shooting at him from the sky. He remembered shooting at the sky. Telling Galvatron to work alongside Optimus Prime. Being run through with the Star Saber. Fighting Galvatron.

He remembered fear, not knowing which side he was on. The humans, so easily fooled when he said he had joined the Autobots even when he couldn't fool himself. Being abandoned in the rain, even his Minicons working against him. Trying his best to please Megatron, only to be shot down again and again, knowing it was because he only wanted to please Megatron so that he could kill him. Landing on Earth. Finding the Minicon's signal on Cybertron. A paralyzed war where neither side gained anything without the assistance of the Minicons. Deciding Megatron was to blame, and the only solution was to betray him.

Betray Megatron? But… he lived for Megatron! Never!

Never what, betray him or live for him?

Starscream stared blankly into the sun, utterly confused. He noticed that it was growing larger, hotter, and closer, the result of Megatron's collision with it. Conflicting triumph and agony ripped through him. He really was too close to the sun, he now realized. He hadn't even gotten this close when Inferno had grabbed him and tried to pull him to the sun made by Unicron's head, with Alpha Q inside…

Alpha Q! He had been working for Alpha Q when he ran into Megatron. Megatron had made him into a Decepticon. Forced him! The trickster! The liar! He would never work for Megatron. He was Starscream, and with Primus as his witness, he swore he would never let anyone take away his identity again.

Lived for Megatron? Lived for Megatron, indeed! Hah! Starscream would never do that, at least not as long as he was aware of who he really was. He was free now, fully conscious and able to do anything he wanted.

What did he want?

Starscream's triumph was halted by the simple fact that he wanted nothing. His desire to lead the Decepticons, even to truly be a Decepticon, had died when he had run to the Autobots. He had stopped caring about the factions when he had had to choose between destroying an entire planet, Earth, and remaining a Decepticon, and found he couldn't choose. And he had given up on everything else in his life seconds before he'd shot at Unicron; forcing himself to let go was the only way he could make himself do what he thought he needed to do. His new life had given him no new goals, except to serve Megatron, and hadn't he just sworn that he would never do that again?

And what did that leave Starscream with? Zip, zilch, zero. He could return to Cybertron, but he really didn't feel like there was anything he particularly wanted to do. And if he did return, he would probably be arrested the moment the Autobots' radars detected him. He could fight back, but why bother, if jail didn't take away anything he wanted to do? He felt tired.

If he got much closer to the Energon star, it would kill him. It had stopped expanding, so he wouldn't be swallowed by it. But this was Autobot Energon; if he stayed here too long, the exposure would kill him anyway. At least the star would shrink some, as soon as Megatron had been… digested. It wouldn't kill Starscream if it were just a little farther away.

His last goal before Megatron had died had been to follow him into the star. Starscream didn't want to follow Megatron intentionally, but if he stayed here long enough and died, what difference did it make?

Perhaps he could gamble with himself. If the star stayed expanded like this long enough to kill Starscream, well, that was that.

But if it contracted enough to let Starscream live, then he'd have to go get a life. Alpha Q had made many unpopulated planets here, so it would be easy for Starscream to pick one and completely disappear, at least long enough for the Autobots to forget him. Perhaps Circuit Planet, he thought as the Energon started causing his wings to send of sparks. It would have plenty of fuel, and there were probably millions of hiding places between all those roads…

Or perhaps Alpha Q's own planet, the one with the palace? The Autobots probably wouldn't want to disturb it, and that would be one frell of a hideout. Fitting for Starscream, former second-in-command of the Decepticon army.

Starscream. Star-scream, his name. What did it mean? After all, he should know. "He who screams at the stars" or something. Defying fate and higher command to do one's own thing. And yet, here was Starscream, sitting passively and waiting for his own death. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Megatron had said that when he died, it would be by his own hands. Starscream would be slag if he didn't top that. He wouldn't sit here, cheerfully waiting to see whether or not he died. He would die by his own choice and no one else's. And he wasn't going to follow Megatron just yet.

He spun around to stare away from the star, alarmed at how much effort it took. He received two surprised; the first was that even though he was surrounded by Energon on all sides, when he looked away from the star he could still see the blackness of the sky and the planets, as if they were right before him. The second was that the star was not, as far as he could see, going to contract again. Megatron had permanently caused its mass to grow. If Starscream didn't move now, he absolutely would die.

He transformed, despite the protests of his joints and wires, and tried to fly away from the sun at full throttle. But he was more fatigued than he'd thought, and realized it was because he'd been subconsciously pushing himself away from the star's gravity, trying to keep at a constant distance. Now, with the Energon additionally draining on him, he didn't know if he had enough fuel to escape the star's gravity.

He frantically tried to increase the power, sensing that he wasn't really moving. What if he went sideways and tried to slingshot himself around the star? He turned sideways and started to gain momentum.

Starscream's mind started to grow fuzzy, saturated with the Energon. But not, unfortunately, in a happy over-energized way. He strained to calculate what speed he would need to be at to slingshot himself away; at the rate he was going, he might fall into stasis before he'd be able to escape. It would probably take only seconds now before he had taken too much.

Starscream struggled to positioned himself for escape. If he made it out, he wouldn't be conscious to know for several hours, while his self-repairs fixed his systems. He may have been absorbing Autobot Energon, but it was still Energon, and if he wasn't exposed to it like this his systems would be able to use it long enough for him to recover and land on a planet.

If he didn't make it out, he would slip into stasis before he'd know, and be dead in a few seconds when he would be pulled into the star and his momentum would fling him directly into the sun.

Starscream strained for one final burst of speed, wanting every advantage possible, hoping it wouldn't throw him off-course. Starscream hadn't fought this hard for anything since he'd fought against Galvatron with the Star Saber, and that fight had ended when he killed himself. He had no idea what his odds of survival were now, but the feeling of fighting again was as good as surviving would be. He was still gathering speed, his body shrieking with pain like needles hooking through every inch of dermaplating and trying to tear it off, and he was almost euphoric with the thrill of the battle.

His vision darkened and disappeared into static. His pain was easing, but whether that was because he was finally going into stasis or he was moving away from the star he couldn't tell. His body went numb, and his thoughts slowed and stopped.

Starscream went into stasis nanoseconds before he could see the end result of his efforts; whether he escaped the gravity and soared outward to space, or he slowed on the edge of freedom and fell down into the star. The rest, whether he liked it or not, was in the hands of fate.