Hound returned, rolling to his feet next to Trailbreaker, and they both watched in silent concern as the two Autobot medics frantically worked on Bumblebee. Arcee turned to Samuel, her voice urgent. "Primes…The Cube could heal. The Matrix might, too."
Samuel looked doubtfully at Optimus and some silent communication passed between them.
"Please," the femme pleaded, interrupting them. "As his mate, I implore you, Primes."
Optimus seemed surprised. "You'd commit to him?"
Her head jerked once in a nod. "Yes."
After a few eternal seconds, Optimus opened a compartment on his frame and gave Samuel the Matrix of Leadership. The human Prime solemnly accepted it and then turned to Bumblebee, his expression uncertain, like he was listening closely to something he could barely hear. "What would you sacrifice for him?"
"Anything," she immediately answered. "Everything."
Coming to a decision, he walked over to the crumpled 'Bee, telling Arcee, "Open your spark chamber."
Instantly, her armor began rearranging itself, sliding and peeling back until a brilliant blue light was pulsing in her chest, open to the sky.
"Put your servo on my hand," Samuel ordered. I guessed that most of the time only Primes were allowed to touch the Matrix because Arcee blinked once in surprise before stepping closer and laying her hand over his. Together, they placed the Matrix crossways over Bumblebee's faltering spark. The brilliant light coming from Arcee became blinding, and I winced against the afterimages.
"Don't touch her," Samuel and Optimus said at the same time. I still couldn't see what was going on.
"Sam," an unfamiliar voice said almost reverently. Then, "Where are Spitfire and Firebrand?"
Mirage's blue and silver suddenly appeared above me. I was so confused!
"Primus!" Evac exclaimed, his base form kind of visible around the blurs in my vision.
"Annabelle!" Mrs. Witwicky shouted, panic in her voice. "Sarah!"
"They are still anesthetized by the nannites Ratchet had me inject them with," Mirage explained. "They are conscious but not suffering, Warrior Goddess."
I guessed I wasn't dead after all. I tried to focus on other things - like blinking - as Evac closed in, already whipping out a different set of tools. We'd probably been invisible this whole time. Mirage's presence explained why the 'cons didn't see us, but it still didn't explain how I'd seen my own corpse…although Hound and his mad hologram skills probably did.
"I can control the blood loss so it's not life-threatening." Evac prodded me with an instrument of some kind. "But Firebrand needs more advanced care than I can give. I don't know if even Ratchet…"
"Edwards Air Force Base," Samuel suggested.
"Another five minutes, Prime," Evac answered.
My vision was finally clearing up. I was still paralyzed, but from the angle I was at, I could see Optimus. And I thought his normal robotic form was intimidating. He was looking down at Bumblebee – broken no longer. "Are you okay, Arcee?" the yellow mech asked as he helped her to her feet. He had his voice back!
She chuckled for some reason and then answered, "Yeah, I think so." Then she caught sight of me and Mom in Mirage's hands and hurried over. "The bone..." she murmured as her hands transformed into what looked like surgical tools.
"I know," Evac anxiously answered. They worked together in tense silence for what seemed like forever.
"Stop tinkering," she eventually snapped. "Transform and get her out of here." But Arcee kept working on me.
Evac didn't even answer – just stepped away and shifted into his helicopter form. His holoform flickered into existence and pulled a gurney out from the rear of the cockpit. Mr. and Mrs. Witwicky rushed to help him with the second one.
"The more weight I haul, the slower I'll have to go. I should carry no more than the two of them," Evac's holoform declared as Mirage gently placed me and Mom each on a gurney.
"Go," Samuel said firmly. "The rest of us are safe now. Get them to the help as quickly as you can."
The holoform nodded and secured me and Mom with Arcee's help. "Hang on, you two," she said softly. "We'll see you on base."
…
I'm embarrassed to admit that I fell asleep on that flight. I mean, here I was flying with an Autobot and I conked out. What a waste! But I woke up screaming. We were on a helicopter pad at a hospital and they were pulling me out of Evac's alt form. The pain I hadn't felt since Mirage's nannite injection came rushing, throbbing, grinding back, and tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision.
"Sedate her!" somebody ordered, and I blacked out again before we made it through the emergency room doors.
My next memory was of Ron Hatchett throwing a world-class tantrum in my hospital room. "What do you mean?" he was snarling, and I heard something metallic clang against the floor. His back was turned to me and I couldn't see who he was chewing out. "You think I'm going to let you take away her ability to walk because you fraggers don't trust me? I've been her family physician since she was two!"
"Calm down," the other person ordered, "or I'll call security."
"I'll call my team's security," Ron Hatchett fired back, "and I can guarantee you Ironhide will win that contest!"
"She's awake," another voice said, interrupting the fight. Eventually I focused enough to realize it was Cam.
I was numb and loopy, but a part of my mind knew I was in a lot of pain, even if the anesthetic was blocking it for now.
"Ron Hatchett is my doctor," I tried to say, but the words were mumbled.
"There! You see!"
The human physician ignored Ratchet and worked his way to my side. "How do you feel?" he kindly asked.
"Okay, I guess," I whispered. "For now."
He glanced at Bumblebee's holoform. "Can you let her parents know?"
"They're already on their way," he answered.
The doctor nodded at that and then turned to me again. "You're in pretty rough shape," he began, and drugged or not I could feel the sugarcoating he was trying to put on it. "You've been in surgery for a good twenty hours."
"I won't walk again?"
He glared daggers at Ron Hatchett, who elbowed Cam away from my side. "Firebrand, you have been heavily damaged. The right half of your pelvic bone and the top portion of your femur were crushed, including the hip ball and socket."
"The Autobot brand?" I whispered.
Hatchett nodded. "You'll need grafts to replace that skin. They can give you a prosthetic that, with time, might allow you to walk with crutches or a cane, but that is about all mainstream medical science can do for you in the long term."
"What can you do?" I mumbled.
"Experiment on you," another voice flatly answered, and my drugged brain didn't place the sound until I saw him. Senatorial Liaison Joe Marshall. "You said once that Ratchet would slag anyone who tried to make you anything less than 100% organic. But now here we sit with him more than willing to implant their technology in you. Revealing his true colors."
"I hate you," I said, feeling the heaviness of sleep pulling on me again.
His lips twitched in a brief, bitter smile. "The feeling is far from mutual, Miss Lennox. I'm here to protect you from being a human subject for alien medical experiments. A little appreciation is due, I should think."
Ratchet growled, but just then the door swung open, and Dad pushed a wheelchair into the room. Mom was sitting in it, her ankle in a brace and elevated. "Annabelle!" she said, nudging the human doctor out of the way so she could grasp my hand. Dad crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at the other two humans. "Get out."
The doctor nodded respectfully and moved toward the door, but Marshall insisted on losing a glaring-match with Dad before making his retreat. Idiot.
"You okay, Mom?" I murmured, fighting to keep my eyes open.
She half-laughed, half-snorted. "I'm fine – a few broken bones that will heal in a matter of weeks. It's you everyone's worried about."
"Where am I?"
"We're at the hospital on Edwards Air Force Base, sweetheart. Pretty much everyone from Diego Garcia is here."
"I'm tired."
"Sleep all you want." I blinked and then couldn't seem to find my eyelids to open them, but Mom's gentle fingertips brushed across my forehead. It felt nice. Safe.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I trust Ratchet."
"I understand," she answered, a smile in her voice.
…
It was dark outside when I woke up again, but I was so loopy I wasn't sure if one day or ten had passed. This time, it was Aaron Hyde who was keeping watch over me, along with Evac's holoform Evan Call. "Hey," Hyde greeted me, his expression neutral.
"Hey." And then I frowned at him. "No hug?"
He shook his head like he didn't believe I would ask. "There's no safe way to hug you. Smashed hip, broken ribs, internal bleeding – you're a mess, Annabelle. In traction." He scooted his chair closer and slipped something into my cold fingers. A cell phone. I'd bet anything this one was Autobot-enabled, too.
I half-smiled, grateful to be connected, and reached for his hands. "You're warm."
Hyde took my hand in both of his, and the touch felt heavenly. He nodded to Evan, who came around to the other side of the bed to warm my other hand.
"It's because of the pain medication," the Autobot medic explained, nodding to a button beside my bed. "You can self-administer as needed, and this system won't let you overdose. It does lower your heart rate and blood pressure, though, which in turn decreases your circulation."
"Leaves me with a fuzzy head, too."
Hyde ignored the medical talk. "You're gonna pull through, Firebrand. You're one tough little fighting femme. When I heard Bumblebee's last transmission…" He kind of choked up, and I realized that even though Bludgeon hadn't killed me, he got his revenge anyway. He was tormenting 'Hide right now.
"Hey," I whispered. "Don't. I'm okay. It's all going to be okay."
They both fell silent, and I couldn't understand why. "Ratchet will find a way for me to walk again," I assured them both.
"Ratchet thinks too much," Hyde gruffly answered.
"Marshall's been arguing with him," Evac explained, his voice soft. "And Ratchet's starting to listen. As much as he wants to heal you, Firebrand, he doesn't want to reduce you to an experiment. While there's an extremely high probability that he can calibrate our technology to be compatible with your body, there are still risks. And as Mr. Marshall is quick to point out, all of this is untested, even on a lab rat."
"So I'm volunteering," I answered, starting to get annoyed.
"You're underage," Evan answered.
"Frag it to the PIT!" I grumbled. "Get that medic's fat aft in here now."
Evan's gaze was distant as he commed Ratchet, but Hyde chuckled. "Your mom would wash my mouth out with soap if she heard you cussing like that."
I weakly smirked at him, glad to see him laugh.
Ron Hatchett appeared in my hospital room. "You called for my fat aft?" he drawled, looking coldly furious.
I refused to be intimidated, or at least, that's what I told myself. "Yes. Stop listening to Marshall. I'm volunteering. I trust you. Give me a life worth living. Let me walk again."
His jaw clenched once before he let his breath out in a frustrated whoosh. "It's not that simple, Annabelle."
"Don't 'Annabelle' me, Ratchet. You're talking to Firebrand."
"Fine, Firebrand. Your hip strut was smashed so thoroughly that you would have bled to death before Evac could get you here had there not been two Autobot medics on hand to treat you. We spent hours pulling out all the bone slivers and then hours more stabilizing pulverized blood vessels. I assisted in this, as did Evac and Arcee. Had we not, the barbarians you humans call doctors would have amputated your leg. You have a prosthesis in right now, but it's only a temporary one to allow the muscles to heal in the proper shape. My initial plan of treatment would have been a Cybertronian replacement. I'm a medic and swapping out parts is what I do. And I'm slagging good at it, if I do say so myself. I am aware of the frailty of the human body and took this into account. However, after consulting with your parents, Optimus, Mr. Marshall, and some medical experts in the military who have dealt frequently with injuries similar to yours, I have reconsidered my initial plan."
"Slag it, Ratchet."
"Quiet, youngling," he archly cut me off, and I shut my mouth. "Marshall is right that it would be…a perversion of medicine to implant alien technology in your body just because I'm too emotionally attached to think clearly."
I actually gulped at that one. Ratchet too emotionally attached? For being so cold and clinical, his declaration that he cared about me made tears well up in my eyes.
His hands clenched into fists and he looked down at them. "I will find a way to fix you, Firebrand. But I'm not going to make you a target by loading up your body with implants and then turning you loose to get captured by either conniving humans or curious Decepticons a few years down the road. It's because of the brand we placed upon you that your body is so damaged. Our thoughtless act." He looked up at me, determination blazing in his eyes. "You are an Autobot, but you are a human one and if I can't find a way to repair you that will keep you human, then I don't deserve the title of medic. Now if you'll excuse me, my fat aft is needed down in the repair bay."
I blinked and he was gone. Stunned speechless, I stared at the spot where he'd stood.
Hyde chuckled again. "You fragged him off good, Firebrand. You must be on the mend."
Dad rolled Mom's wheelchair into my room, and she looked at Hyde. "Who's fragged off?"
Hyde stood, yielding his side of my bed to her. "Ratchet."
"Seems to be his base state these days," Dad muttered. "How are you feeling, Annabelle?" he asked me, leaning on the back of Mom's wheelchair.
"Better, I think. Or at least, not any worse..."
"I'm glad you're not hurting," Mom said, taking my hand in hers to warm them like Hyde had.
Realizing what she was doing, Dad glanced over at Evac, who readily gave up his seat.
"You're in good hands now," the medic said, "so I'm going to report to the med bay for a few minutes." Then his holoform blinked out.
Dad took my hand in his, and I searched his eyes. "I want to walk again."
"No one is giving up hope," Mom insisted, but the anguish in his gaze said otherwise.
Author's End Note: If you're curious why Ratchet's so keen to return to the med bay, you'll want to read "Creation," which I started posting today. It's a companion fic of sorts to this chapter.