Eventually Optimus Prime and Ironhide came back in to collect him. He explained that he would still be returning to the Decepticons, as if they didn't already know. They still seemed disappointed somehow but had nodded and escorted him back to the brig.

He sat down in the cell and stared at the wall, finally alone with his thoughts.

The past day had been grossly unfair. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this could have happened to anyone, but it just so happened to happen to him. He hadn't been captured in eons, what had made this time any worse? He could blame Megatron, as easy as that was, but they had actually been on relatively good terms lately. Just a few friendly assassination attempts between old friends. Nothing major.

It had been the Lamborghini twins who had officially grounded him, he remembered. Can't really blame them either, they had actually been good this past battle, he thought begrudgingly. Can't really blame his own people either: Skywarp and Thundercracker had obeyed his orders to retreat, and they hadn't realized he was in danger. Everyone had done their part; he had just been unlucky.

He supposed some anger could be reserved for Jazz and Prowl for cooking up this scheme in the first place. But even that felt forced. They had tested it on themselves and did not understand the historic implications of the drug.

He wrinkled his noseplate. He knew that pacification was a program that removed the desire for violence and the ability to do so, but there had been rumors that it also made you just generally more agreeable. He supposed it wasn't enough that he lacked the ability to defend himself, he had also be happy about it. Starscream felt that he should be rancorously angry, but in place of that emotion was just huffy annoyance. That can't be right.

Maybe forgetting what he used to be wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

He suddenly didn't want to be alone.

"I would make one request of you," he said to the empty brig, but knew that there was a camera observing him intently. "Can you let me talk to Skyfire one more time?"

The shuttle was quickly produced.

"Starscream. I am… sorry," he said slowly. Skyfire sat on a chair just outside the bars, looking carefully at the seeker.

Starscream nodded. "Yes. It is unfortunate what your friends did to me."

Skyfire frowned. "I know you are hurting, but I had hoped-"

"I… I'm sorry." Starscream said. "For shooting you. At least twice." He waited for Skyfire to say something in return, but the shuttle had just closed up his mouth. Starscream sighed. "I… don't even have time to tell you what a fragging piece of slag you are," he said laughing bitterly. "My memory will be erased when I arrive back at the Decepticons. I won't remember you."

Skyfire looked bereft. "Wait. Wait, what? No."

Starscream watched the shuttle, almost feeling touched. He looked genuinely surprised. Apparently the Autobots had not seen fit to tell him. Just as well, he supposed. "It makes sense. I can't be forced to divulge information if I don't know anything. I'm somewhat surprised your Autobots haven't already tried to get something off me now. Must be their idiotic sense of honor holding them back."

Skyfire stood and started pacing around the room.

"We could… run away."

Starscream furrowed his brow. "What?"

"We could. We could just leave, find a planet somewhere. Exile. Leave this slagging war behind us."

Starscream was amused. "How would we refuel?"

"Oh, we could build energon converters! It'd be just the two of us, and it'd take a while, but we could do it. Trade with some alien races or something."

"And what about our shelter?" Starscream said, tilting his helm back against the wall, allowing the fantasy to play out in his mind.

Skyfire nodded. "We'd build a tower. Something tall and big enough to land on, like the eyries of Vos. Something ridiculously fancy and shiny, just how you like it."

Starscream smirked and offlined his optics. "And what would we do all day?" He realized again that he was being agreeable instead of yelling at Skyfire like he thought he wanted to. Was this from the tacere-avem? Or was it more because of the clock clicking down on the life as he knew it?

"There would be so much to do! Studying the local flora and fauna or we could be inventing ways to make our homestead better. We could add on to the tower, make it more like a mansion or a palace. We could invent new energy sources. And… well, get to know each other. Again."

Starscream's smirk broadened as he looked at the shuttle again. Skyfire's face was lit up with hope and maybe a touch of desire. "You've clearly thought about this a lot." He saw the characteristic blush that he would get when he was being remotely romantic. "Two berths or one?" Starscream said, his ruby optics dancing in the dim lighting of the brig.

"Two," Skyfire said, smirking. "One for us and one for the sparkling."

Starscream felt his smile pinch and then his mood shifted immediately. His wings sagged and he turned away from Skyfire.

"I wish we could. But someone would find us. Find me," he said after some time. "Megatron is right, I have a lot of knowledge that would be… damaging. At least with memory erasure, I won't know what I'm forgetting about," he said lowly. "I'm sorry you will still remember."

Skyfire stared at him, deciding something. Then he quickly looked up at the camera in the brig and walked over to it, reaching up and crushing it in his servo.

"What are you doing?" Starscream said, confused.

"We don't have a lot of time," the shuttle said quickly.

Skyfire stepped back and smiled one more time as the door to the brig was busted open by Ironhide and Red Alert who were both angrily yelling at him for destroying the camera. Skyfire just kept smiling and nodding when they told him he would need to be court marshaled and gave a final wave to Starscream who waved back, biting back a smirk himself at the stupid shuttle. Ironhide pulled him out of the room, angrily yelling curses about how big and foolish the shuttle was.

Red Alert looked back at the seeker, demanding answers as to what happened. Starscream shrugged. "I don't kiss and tell," he said with a waggle of his optic-ridge. The Security Specialist seemed to go into anaphylactic shock, sputtering with surprise and blushing. Starscream thought that might be the end of that conversation.

Already he could feel the last few minutes of time was receding from his mind. Whatever had just occurred, he didn't quite remember, but he was left with a feeling of trust and maybe a twinge of hope.

Eventually they all left him alone with his thoughts. Things were still grim, but there was a little bit of that fire back in his spark.

The exchange went over quickly. Despite his behavior just a few cycles before, they had to use Skyfire to help ferry them all to the predetermined site where Starscream would be handed back over to Decepticon care. Starscream smirked at the shuttle despite the situation and could almost feel Skyfire smirk back.

They had not cuffed him because there was no point. He merely sighed and walked back over to the Decepticons waiting for him, being Megatron, Soundwave and his trine. Skywarp and Thundercracker looked beyond incensed and twitched with the desire to fire on the Autobots but held still after a glare from Megatron.

The gunformer gave Starscream an appraising look from head to toe and then gruffly told them to take to the skies.

Starscream felt the itch to flee. He could fly off, and attempt to outrun them. But he also knew that he would then be alone and without anyone to help him. Megatron had been right. Even an organic fleshling was more equipped than he was, and despite hating the thought that he would lose his memories, he also knew that surviving was better.

They returned back to the base without comment.

He had expected jeers, taunts, and other unsavory quips, but his walk to the repair bay was like a parade of the damned. He saw much of the Decepticon army as he was escorted, mechs he had fought with and against all these years. Their faceplates were arranged in a strange kind of mute respect or maybe it was pity? Starscream wasn't sure. At this point all he felt was numbness.

When they reached the repair bay, Starscream paused at the threshold and looked to Megatron. "Do… we have to do this now?" he asked quietly and without meeting Megatron's optics.

He could feel Megatron's gaze on him. "Yes. We will do this now." He opened the door to the repair bay and lightly pushed Starscream inside.

Hook and the other Constructicons immediately swarmed him, subjecting him to various tests and questions as they guided him to the berth. Starscream normally would have physically attacked them for how close they were to him, and how they were not respecting his usual bubble of personal space, but of course he could not do this now. He merely felt annoyed and exhausted.

They asked him a lot of questions about the interrogation itself with Jazz; what he had felt and when. He described it in detail and without embellishment, which he knew was odd for him. But he also felt like there wasn't much point anymore. They explained they needed to know what to look for in the future and he aided them as best he could. Hanging in the back of the repair bay listening to his tale was Megatron, Soundwave, and his trine, watching mutely. He also noticed a few other helms poking around the corner of the door, looking into the room.

"I highly doubt it was an accident," Scrapper said as he pulled out another scanner. They were treating him with such concern and gentleness, he had a moment of confusion. Did he actually come back to the right faction?

"They seemed genuinely surprised that it was permanent, as they had tested it out on themselves first, or so they said. Something about how it had been altered in their computer and the references to its effect on flightframes was removed," Starscream recalled, looking at the scanners as they showed no difference in his usual biometrics. He was the same, just… declawed.

"When did you know something was wrong?" Hook asked, looking over a scan of his processor on the screen. Starscream felt a little exposed with the map of his processor on the screen for everyone to see but didn't comment on it.

"I had heard of the program before," he said. "And that the idea that it wasn't just physical but mental as well. He, uhm, got very physically close to me and I couldn't move to stop him."

That seemed to spur his trine up out of their seats. "What did he do?" Thundercracker said defensively.

"We will absolutely destroy them," Skywarp said, with heat blooms coming off his null-rays as he let his temper flare.

Not for the first time since he had discovered his condition, he felt touched. He had been wounded before, severely damaged, but never before had he seen such a desire to avenge him as he did now. He felt his optics soften. "It was merely a peck on the lips and a slap to the faceplate. Nothing more."

"But you can't get revenge back on him now. Or… you don't even want to," Skywarp said sullenly. "That's on a new level of disgusting," he said.

Thundercracker looked to Megatron as he added, "It's one thing to take a hit at us, it's another knowing that the mech can't return the favor later."

Starscream's optics glanced to Megatron who was glaring off into nothing, while Soundwave watched him carefully. Everyone was behaving oddly today.

The Constructicons finished their final scans. "We will be monitoring you through and after your procedure," Scrapper said.

Starscream nodded once indicating he understood. They vacated the room and closed the doors behind them. Thundercracker and Skywarp walked up to him and it seemed they could not stop themselves from giving him a hug. "You will always be trine," Skywarp said. "Even if you can't fight with us nomore."

Thundercracker nodded. "We will make sure you are safe. All the seekers will. This was an affront to all of us."

Starscream felt himself taken with emotions he didn't realize he had. It was with some bitterness that he realized he had now the respect and admiration he had always wanted, but he was destined to lose it all.

"Thank you," was about all he could muster as he hugged his trine back. Reluctantly, they removed themselves and left him with Soundwave and Megatron.

Starscream felt his anxiety ratchet up a few levels but tried to force himself to relax as they approached him. Still, he felt bold enough to try. "Are you sure this is the only way?" Starscream asked plaintively. "It appears I actually have a lot to lose, I just didn't realize it," he said tilting his helm back against the berth.

Megatron looked at him and sighed. "It would be for your own safety," he said. "The Autobots are not the only ones who would attempt to do you harm for the knowledge you possess. Even the humans would not be above hurting you, and you would be powerless to stop them." Then he allowed a small smile to creep into the corner of his lips. "It will certainly be quieter around here."

Starscream stifled a chuckle. "I'll still find ways to annoy you."

"I'll see you on the other side, Starscream," Megatron said, giving a signal to the Constructicons that it was time to start.

Starscream felt a tug on his mind as Soundwave knocked gently with his telepathy. His field was strongly sending calming emotions as Starscream started to panic. "Will this hurt?" he asked quietly.

"Affirmative," Soundwave replied. "However, we will attempt to block pain receptors for you. It will be unpleasant, but not terrible."

Starscream exvented, feeling terrified. But then he started to feel drowsy. He looked at Soundwave who nodded, and Starscream surrendered to the emotions that Soundwave imposed upon him.

He felt them insert the cortical patch into the back of his helm, his limbs feeling heavy. Soundwave was likely enforcing this sedate mood on him, he thought. He had not realized the telepath had this ability. Eventually the Constructions gave him additional sedative that did not fully put him out but did relax him further.

It was good that he was relaxed for this. Usually a cortical connection of this kind was done under very strict rules and parameters, where encryptions and passwords and firewalls prevented any unauthorized access. Starscream realized that he had none of these protections anymore. Someone could just walk up and view or alter his memories as they saw fit. He worried distantly about anti-virals and his ability to fight off hacking attempts. Likely with the same ineffectuality.

He felt the process begin, starting with his most recent memories. They unspooled in his mind, spinning out like an unseated hard drive. He watched them as they whited-out batches of memories, and entire battles and events were erased from his mind. There was a monitor nearby where they spot-checked every once in a while, knowing how far they had gone back. Eventually entire mechs disappeared from his mind.

That was when things started to hurt.

He hissed as everything from Earth had disappeared into blankness, and then they started to pick through the war. These memories were older and more heavily carved into his databanks, so they required more effort to scrub them from his mind. The early war had a lot of formative pieces to it, and it was dragged out of his processor with more than a little pain. He distantly thought that this process was happening faster than he had expected, but then he realized he didn't understand what was happening and why this was occurring in the first place.

He actually whimpered when Megatron was completely erased from his mind.

Then there was his trine, their antics, their faces. It was ripped out of him and he felt his breathing come out in ragged, terrible gasps.

He wanted to ask them to stop, but he didn't remember who they were anymore or what they were doing. He didn't know where he was or why they were hurting him, just that he was in pain.

"Just a little more," said one of the mechs, patting his servo. That was oddly comforting, but he didn't know why.

Then there was Skyfire and losing him in the ice. That memory was blessedly let go, but then there were others of him at the academy and meeting Skyfire for the first time. Now his optics started to overflow with cleaning fluid.

Then there was not much left.

Then there was nothing.

A/N:
God I'm sorry, this fic DOES get happier, I promise lol. THANK YOU ANON FOR TELLING ME TO KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK ;)