Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.

Enjoy. ^-^

Chapter 19

Ironhide had heard more than his fair share of things that made his spark hurt over his long and hard life.

Hearing the sound of energon gurgling in his carrier's throat as he choked to death on his own life's fuel while their tribe was slaughtered all around him. The cries his sparkling brother had made as he clutched him desperately to his chest to try and stop the ache surging through both of them when every one of the bonds they knew went cold in the wake of their way of life being deemed wrong by someone else. The scream that had echoed in his own throat and in his audios when that same sparkling brother along with his friends vanished from him and his family for what they thought would be forever. The sound he made when his spark broke into a billion pieces in the face of losing Mia and Whiteout. The horrible whines Bumblebee had made wheezing because of Virus Viper venom when he still fit in Hide's palm. The sound his battleship home had made crashing down in a rain of fire, and probably a whole pit of a lot more if he was bothering to think about it at the moment.

Words though, words were rarely overly painful for him.

He was a mech of action.

Built to take a hit in every way that mattered. His spark was normally one of those things. Life had made it hard. Walled off from all but a very few and very rarely bothered by things that brought others low.

For he had been born to a world of harsh realities and no second chances. He was one of the last of the tribes, the last of the powerful nomads that had fought for their right to exist until only a pair of youngling were all that was left of them.

The desert didn't accept weakness. It would strip you bare out of sheer spite.

Soft sparks had never lasted long in the way his coding had formed.

Little things like words were very rarely something that cut deep enough to truly hurt him.

He should have known though.

He should have at least been aware it was likely to happen.

That the one being in his life that was capable of cutting him straight to the spark with a few simple mumbled words would be the mechling that fell into his life and made him feel again. That pulled the cold, shivered with the hardship of life, spark of an old, tired, warrior out of the shadows and forced him to love something again. After the damned life source had long since given up on feeling much of anything ever again after he lost one sparkling and a mate that he had dared to give everything to.

One tiny, burning, brilliantly bright ball of life made Ironhide live again a few dozen vorns ago.

It was the same little life that nearly killed him of a fraggin' spark attack every time he seemed to so much as breathe.

It was worth it though.

For there was nothing in this universe that the old, battered, tribal brat loved like he loved this mess of a youngling.

Maybe that was why those fear filled words hurt so very much, or maybe it was the sting settling low in his chest that taunted and sneered that maybe he didn't know his youngling like he thought he did.

That that little ball of life had been . . . scared to tell him something.

Scared of him.

If he'd been able to do more than stare, the big ebony colored mech likely would have sat there with his jaw hanging down somewhere around his barrel chest, but instead he just stared. Watching the little naturally yellow youngling, striped now in Hide's own dark black, sitting there in the sand between his knees with those sensory wings of his tucking low behind his back, his stubby antennas folding down into the groves the very rarely hid in atop his head, shoulders hunching up while he shrank down there in plain sight. Fingers tangling together in a clench while those big, wide, baby blue optics flickering nervously about the many sets of blue staring widely back at him.

A heavy sound, deep in powerful flight engines snapped those baby blue orbs away from the wary glancing around him he was doing. Twisting, cold and quiet in his chest, he pinned those fear filled orbs up just in time to watch Dustoff rattle his rotor blades behind his back.

A look the little mech didn't know how to even begin to figure out flickering across those pale red optics. Then, lips, thinning Dustoff turned away from the circle of them. Locking his optics back across the sand where Wardrums still stood poking at the head of a dead Shark.

"War," He called, voice low and even. It gave nothing away but there was something about the set of those massive shoulders, the tense stain in the long black blades running down his back, and the pinch of protoform around his optics that wasn't right.

"I'm a little busy at the moment, Dust." The shuttle snorted back, kneeling down next to the heavily leaking slab of sharp metal and protofrom.

Dust's optics narrowed, voice dripping into a dark pitch that made Bee shrink a little bit more where he was huddled. Dust had gotten sorta mad once already since the young mech had stumbled into the pair of them, but he hadn't sounded cold before.

It was . . . less than reassuring.

"Get over here."

War must have heard something in that tone that Bumblebee couldn't understand for the huge mech stilled in his angry poking with claws at leaking metal. Sitting very still for a nano and a half before twisting his head to the side. Those fire colored optics shifting and lifting to find the almost as equally large form of his mate. The long, thick, powerful black wings folded down his back with the angled tips standing out at his shoulders shifting in a motion that might be called a shiver, if a mech of that size and caliber would admit to shivering at a tone of voice.

Whatever it was, it made Wardrums push himself to his feet. Hydraulics hissing in a testament to age that Bee very much doubted could be commented on and the speaker left alive. Fully upright, long claws twitching at his sides, War turned and walked toward them. Weight shifting the sand beneath his feet like liquid rolling away while it muffled the force behind those steps. However, sitting on the ground like he was Bee could still feel the waves of weight shift through the ground beneath him.

Even pinned down behind his back his winglets and doorwings were not shy in informing him of the things going on around him. He knew how the twins shifted behind Ratchet, he knew the medic was sitting there with his fingers curling in the dirt, he knew Jazz was rubbing at his sensor horns, he knew Optimus' engine was turning over and he was trying to hide it, just like he knew Hide vocal processor was choking on subsonic static.

And all that wasn't even counting what he could pull from the bonds he was slowly trying to slip closed while he curled further and further in on himself.

Head tilting back to keep those fire burning red optics in sight, he still managed to keep his chin tucked while he did it. So he was more of less staring at them from under the rim of his optics.

War's fire red optics skimmed over him, then held a little longer on the expressions around him he didn't want to think about, before finally settling on Dustoff when he came to a stop just a few paces away from them. Optic ridge lifting in question the shuttle turned an expectant look toward his sparkmate.

For a klick, Dustoff simply stared back at him with that pinch still in the corners of his optics that made War's wings twitch ever so slightly behind his back. Then, Dust lifted one long arm to hover in the air somewhere over Bee's hunched up spot in the sand, claw pointing down to a bowed helm.

"You code is apparently stronger then you think."

That optic ridge climbed a little higher in that black colored face.

Dust's rotor blades ruffled like feathers behind his back. "Seer."

War's optics widened in a pure expression of shock, the likes of which Bumblebee had yet to see the huge mech make. As soon as it was there it was gone again though. Those pools of flickering orange and red narrowing into thin slits as they snapped down to find those bright blue ones that belonged to somebot else in their terms, but now no longer could.

Burning into those lighter pulls that lowered away just as quickly as they caught. Lingering a moment longer after the youngling looked away until they snapped back up to catch hold of Dust's much paler ones.

"Come again?"

The helicopter mech's lips pulled tighter. "He. Is. A. Seer."

"Yes," Wardrums drawled, shoulders tightening. "That was the nonsense I thought you said. You are joking right? This is one of your attempts at humor. Please say it is. Because I've got a Sand Shark big enough to be as old as the last Prime with no age lines on it, which means we have a serious problem and you're telling me the runt is a Seer!?"

"Yeah." Dust drawled right back. "Of course I'm joking, War. Because that's a thing that can be joked about. Obviously. You know, considering there hasn't been one besides you in, oh, I don't know, something like six millennia."

The mates glared at each other for a long moment more, and then.

"NO! I am not joking! Why would I joke about that!?" Throwing his hands over his head Dustoff growled. "I might have little more than a wisp of your gift because of the bond, but I do have a little bit of it, War. Or have you forgotten that, considering how long its been since you opened your optics? Did you forget that I can see the other side shift in and out every now and again? I can no way do what you do, as you know, but I can see enough to focus on a reality shiver when I see him staring at something that seemingly isn't there. I saw him do it. But you know what, don't take my word for it, why don't you do the reasonable thing and talk to the mechling you just saved?!"

Fire optics narrowed just a tad further while Wardrums blew out a long, hard snort. Turning his glare away from his very tense mate to pin it down on Bee again.

Bee—who was kind of wishing the sand would open up once more to swallow him, and maybe this time no bot catch him—crindged a little bit more back from that burning look. Not sure what to do under its scrutiny even before. Now he was pretty sure the massive mech was just going to shot him to be done with what he deemed annoying, or . . . well . . . Bee actually wasn't that sure.

Because the mech had saved him.

Those fire optics gave nothing away though. At least nothing that wasn't contempt.

"You can't just be a normal little bastard runt, can you?" War finally sighed, something heavy seeming to come to rest on his shoulders, or at least it appeared that way when his powerful shoulders dropped like they did. Long wings twitching once behind his back before they went still as he crossed thick arms over his chest.

Bumblebee wasn't quite sure how to respond to that.

After all, what exactly was a normal 'little bastard runt'? Or at least, what was War's definition of it?

However, Dust saved him from having to answer. "Not with your code he can't."

"Oh," War huffed back at him. "Is it my code that did it? You don't think there might be another contributing factor to all that?"

Dust's optics narrowed slightly. "None that matter at this present moment."

War just huffed again. "Besides, he's Mercy's not mine. He got the code from her."

"Technically speaking, yes." Dust conceded the point with a nod of his head. "But you were the only sibling with the dominate code-gene. Kind of makes it more you, then anything else."

"Oh mute it with your medical slag." Rolling his optics—and if Bee was reading it right—amusement flashing across a slight tilt of his lips before it vanished again when they focused in on Bumblebee's once more. "So . . . you're a Seer, huh?"

Plastered down doorwings twitched against his back, but he didn't let them pull themselves back up. "Umm . . . ."

"You've got no real idea what that is, do you?" War went on, as Bee searched himself desperately for an answer.

A quick shake of his head while he muttered. "Dust said . . . seeing things . . . ."

"Yeah." The shuttle snorted again. "Kind of goes along with the name Seer, doesn't it?"

Dustoff smacked him in the arm.

He was ignored.

"So, anyway," The big mech grumbled. "Can't say I saw that coming, but well, you're already an abnormally big annoyance for something you size. Can't see where the universe would have any problem with making you more of one."

Unsure whether or not he should be offended by that or not Bumblebee just blinked.

"Life is a glitch though." War went on. "Can't do nothin' about that. Might as well just work with it."

"Yes," Dustoff huffed, amusement finally creeping back into the way the tan mech glanced between them. "Because it won't be helpful or anything. Seeing as our long lost space rock you so helpfully misplaced is defending itself again. This time with giant Sand Sharks. You're not going to need help or anything like that."

"Mute it." War snapped back without so much as glancing at the other. "That is not presently relevant."

"It's not?"

"No." The shuttle snorted.

They glared at each other again, but there wasn't much heat in the look this time.

Bee was oh so very confused.

If he didn't know Mia and Hide could bicker with the best of them, rile each other up, shout and slam, and then be curled around each other nanos later he wouldn't believe these two to be mates.

They were though.

Mates that had been tied together so long they likely didn't need to so much as assess each other to know what was really going on with the other anymore. On the surface, Bee watched a petty bickering match filled with glaring and huffing, but under all that—if he dared look—they felt very different.

Energy reaching out and brushing constantly.

Pulling and pushing.

Tiding and reseeding.

So tied together after so many vorns of being part of each other, neither spark so much as remembered what it was like to be without the other. Neither source of life could so much as comprehend being without the other anymore.

Like each other all the time?

Pit no.

They've lived tied together too long for that.

But loving each other more than anything else, no matter what?

Oh yes.

It was written oh so very clearly in the energy that pulsed between their sparks in hardly there little electrifying streaks of blue. In tiny waves of lightening that no one else every seemed to see dancing back and forth. Not like energy fields—for all bots could every now and again see those—but like the spark bonds themselves that if Bee focused hard enough on he could see dancing this way and that through the blackness of the cosmos.

Every now and again, in the simple still air as well.

Like right now.

Sitting there hunched in on himself trying to pretend he couldn't feel and sense the tension and confusion around him. So instead he focused in on the puzzle that was Wardrums and Dustoff.

Because really, he was still trying to figure them out.

They were like nothing else he had ever known.

And they knew something.

What . . . Bee wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure why it was he thought that. Not really. There was just . . . something.

Something in conversations that started and then ended very differently than the energy between them wanted it to. In long looks, and hard stares. In the anger and then the pain that flowed so quickly in and out of context around them.

Dust was easier to understand, even if the wisdom in those old optics threw Bee every time he tried to look deeper into them.

War was . . . well he was War. Bee thought the big mech hated him for things he hadn't done and then something he kind of had, but then he saved him, and then he dropped him like it was nothing. He acted like nothing at all had went on. And Dust said the big mech didn't hate him.

But then . . . why.

Why to so much of it.

And how.

Like . . . how was it they had a word for it.

A word for the thing Bee did that no bot was supposed to know about. The thing Dust had spilled all over the sand between them. The secret that Bee had wrapped up tightly around his spark and shoved down deep where no bot would ever find it. That little thing that he did that wasn't right. That wasn't normal. That he knew others didn't do. That they would likely freak out about if they did know he did it.

But then . . . apparently . . . War could do it to?

"So," War's deep drawl snapped Bee's attention from the thin lines of blue lightening flickering back and forth between the two mates. His attention shifting from them was enough that they faded back out of sight so when he tried to glance back they really were gone. "You can see the dead, huh?"

Bee blinked while Hide choked more than a little bit behind him. The mechling did his best not to cringe anymore then he already was.

"Umm . . . I . . . maybe?"

"Maybe?" War's optic ridges furrowed. "There is no maybe. You either can, or you can't. I doubt that is something you'd be confused whether or not you were doing. You either can see though the vale or Dust is losing his touch. So which is it?"

"I . . . uh . . . well . . . ."

Growl bubbling low in his chest War crossed his arms tighter over his chest while he shifted his clawed feet slightly as he bit out an order that the tone of demanded obedience. "In the cave, runt. What did you see in the cave?"

"Risk." The word tumbled out before he could help it.

"Risk?" War glanced at Dustoff as if seeking an explanation or at least a clarification.

"It was a robo-cat." Dustoff shrugged. "What I could make of one at least."

"A robo-cat?" Shock flickered in War's fire optics for a moment when they shot back to Bee. "You see a dead cat?"

"He was my cat." Muttering it kind of defensively, Bee felt his doorwings lift slightly behind him in annoyance.

He didn't like the tone the big mech used to talk about his first friend. His only friend for a good long time. The one that had died to keep him safe.

Risk wasn't something to be talked about that way.

"Well I figured it was something tied to you. The dead have no use for the living unless they are tied somehow." War said it with an optic roll and a heavy snort, like Bumblebee should have already known that. Like it was a thing that should be possible. As if it wasn't completely crazy!

But then . . . .

If these two didn't seem think it was so bad . . . maybe . . . could it maybe . . . not be?

Of course that was when the other mechs grouped around him collectively having some kind of silent panic attacked seemed to get their voice back. Well, at least two of them did.

"You see what now!?" Sideswipe and Sunstreaker speaking together was not a new concept to Bumblebee. He'd heard them do it countless times over his life. When he was young it had amused him to no end to hear those matching voices belonging to one spark split into two different frames sync so easily back into flow with each other.

Now though.

Now it was more than a little intimidating for those deep voices to be pitched low and dark like that.

Doorwings snapping back down behind him from where they had risen slightly he twisted slightly in the sand to be able to stare up at the brothers hoovering there just to the side of him. Dark blue optics glittering with emotion that Bee didn't look at too long as he pinned his gaze back down into his lap where his fingers were clenched.

"Umm . . . Risk . . . sometimes. Sometimes I see Risk." He muttered.

Cutting the twins off with a low growl, War spoke again. "And is that all you see? Just your cat?"

Antennas flickering slightly but refusing to rise back up, Bee shook his head slowly while he whispered out. "No."

War grunted a kind of sound that spoke of how much he figured that was going to be his answer. However, there was something softer about his voice as he spoke now. "Alright, what else do you see then?"

"I saw Cyber once." Bee whispered.

Ironhide made another static choke behind him, but this time those long black legs shifted with it. Bee curling into himself and away from the movement of the big mech pushing himself to his feet. Ratchet was moving too, along with Jazz. All the mechs getting themselves up.

Bumblebee did his best to disappear into the sand without moving.

It didn't work so well.

"And who is Cyber?" War pressed, that deep tone of his voice still resonating and powerful, but that softer quality had taken up residence in the undertones of it.

He didn't seem . . . angry anymore.

Though, to be honest, Bee wasn't sure if that was a thing he should be glad of or scared of.

"A mech I knew when I was little. He died in a raid trying to protect me."

"Huh." Making a low noise deep in his engines War rubbed his claws over his chin. "Sensing a bit of a pattern here, aren't we?"

Bee shrank a little bit further down, but it was more because of the burst of feeling erupting from his family then anything else.

"What the frag do you mean you saw Cyber!" Ironhide probably didn't mean for it to come off as angry as it sounded.

Bee knew that.

He knew his sire very well, he liked to think.

Anger was just a default of Hide's confusion a lot of the time. He was a trigger happy, cannon touting, hot head; Bee would be the first to admit it, but he loved Bee like no bot else did. That was never a concept the young mech had been confused about.

That didn't mean though, that that harsh bite of words didn't sting.

"When the ship crashed." Bee whispered, optics lock firmly on his hands bunched up in his lap. "When I woke up by myself. I sorta . . . panicked . . . a lot . . . . When I couldn't feel anybot. Sorat went off running and shouting. I would have got myself caught by some seekers if Cyber hadn't suddenly show up. He . . . he was . . . just there. All wispy and sorta hard to see. Like looking through thick fog that's being blown or something. Kind of transparent too, but he was there. He made me be quiet, made me look up. Realize what was going on and who was up there. He never said anything, just shushed me with a finger and pointed up. When I looked back he was gone."

"The dead do not speak to the living." Wardrums said almost softly. "That law remains even for those that can see them."

Bee dared to glance at him.

Because somehow, he had known that.

Not that he was sure how.

He just . . . knew.

His doorwings twitched.

Hide made another static sound in his chest but War's voice cut him off again.

"And this cat of yours. You saw him before the Sharks attacked, yes?"

Nodding slowly, Bee admitted in hardly a whisper. "I've seen him more than that though. Not a lot, but a few times."

"Before something important, no doubt?"

Bee nodded again.

Because yeah, you could say that, he supposed.

Humming deep in the back of his throat, War spared a glance at his mate who was smirking ever so slightly back at him.

If Bee didn't know any better, he'd have sworn Dust looked smug.

War's gaze flickered back to him, ignoring all the gaping and sputtering going on around them. "Anything else you so obviously haven't told your caretakers?"

Bowing his head a little Bee muttered. "I didn't saying anything because—"

"Because you thought there wasn't something wrong with you, right?" War cut him off, optic ridge lifting.

Bee curled a little bit tighter in on himself.

War huffed. "Old coding does not make you wrong, runt. It simply makes you different. Now tell me what else you are hiding."

Bee's head snapped back up. Confusion and shock ripping around him like waves while the same emotions swam in his optics as they snapped up but to War.

The shuttle didn't look impressed.

"As I'm sure you know, seeing and hearing things goes a little bit beyond just the dead. Now tell me the rest of it."

"I . . . ." A glance was shot at Ironhide, Optimus, Ratchet, Jazz, the Twins, before he pinned his gaze back on his lap. "I can talk to . . . well . . . sparks others can't . . . I suppose . . . ."

"Animals?" Wardrums pressed.

Bee nodded.

"He can do that to, little one. Part of the code. Whole thing is basically a spark more in-tune to the energy around you to begin with. When you look at it like that it isn't that much of a stretch now is it?" Dustoff's smooth, rich, deep voice chimed in quietly, but Bee could hardly make himself look up at him.

He was too busy peeking about his family.

War opened his mouth again, after giving a hard look to Dust, but it was Jazz's voice croaking out that made the huge mech pause in whatever he was going to say.

"You . . . Bee . . . you," The abnormal stammering from a mech so normally smooth and collected made Bee turn enough to stare up the silver mech again. The wary expression on his faceplate making the silver mech choke on his own tongue for a moment before he managed to squeeze out. "You . . . talk to animals . . . ?"

"Scout and Echo." Bee admitted quietly. "Yeah. Not like . . . it's not like talking to you. They can't . . . speak . . . not like we do at least, but, well, their sparks. We talk . . . like bond talk."

"Talk." Ratchet breathed out. "You talk to your hounds?"

Another slow, wary nod.

Sunstreaker made a sound low in this throat that was a little too much like a whine to be called anything else while Sideswipe mumbled. "How . . . how long have you been . . . doing . . . that exactly?"

Optics lowering again Bee whispered with a self-deprecating twist to his lips. "Umm. Sorta . . . always?"

Optimus' engine turned over in a way that couldn't be healthy.

Hide made that static sound again.

Bee stared hard at the sand as he rushed out. "Not . . . not the ghost thing. Th-h-hat hasn't been always. That started just a little while ago. I've still been trying to figure out what was going on. I was . . . I was scared . . . I didn't know what was happening. Scout and Echo didn't seem to think anything was the matter. They acted like it was normal or something. But I mean considering they were talking to me in the first place then that itself wasn't normal. The thing with the talking to animals though, that, yeah, that was, uh . . . kind of an always thing. I . . . I didn't think anything was weird about it at first. Really! When I was little, I didn't know it was weird. I thought it was a thing every bot did, but after a while with the pups I figured out you all weren't ignoring them, you just couldn't hear them. I was the only one that could. I figured out it was just me. I . . . I didn't know I was different at first. And the ghost thing, that's so new. I . . . I didn't know . . . I . . . I just . . . didn't know."

His rambling trialed off into silence for a few long breaths after that until Ironhide managed to choke out.

"You were scared." His sire said with halting syllables. "You were scared of something going on right in front of all of us, that we had no idea about, and you wouldn't tell me."

Wings pinning down tighter, Bee glared at the sand trying very hard not to cry at the wounded tone his sire spoke in.

"What was I supposed to say?" He whispered, hardly a breath, but it boomed in the audios of the mechs that had raised him. "Something like, 'Hey, Hide, how was your shift? Good? Good. That's great. Oh, by the way, I sorta started seeing my dead cat in the hallways and I have no idea what is happening inside my own damn spark. Just thought I'd let you know. You know, like I never told you I can talk to my hounds. Or the fact that I see more of sparks then I think any of you actually realize.' Was that what you wanted to hear, Hide? Was that what I should have done?"

Silence answered him.

Tight, and heavy, and fully of loaded words holding the power to tear down everything any of them had ever really cared about.

Biting back the sniffle rising in his throat Bee choked out again.

"I knew, okay?" And Primus damn it there were tears in his optics! "I knew! I knew I wasn't normal. I knew I wasn't right. I knew the things I did weren't what others did. I knew there was something weird about me. Not always, but I figured it out." He choked out a bitter laugh that was full of more tears now then anything else. Pulling a hand free from the tangle he had them in to scrub harshly at his now wet cheeks. "I'm not that naive. I just . . . I didn't want to be different. I just . . . I didn't want you to think something was wrong with me . . . ."

It ended on a hiccuped breath that tore through him loudly and without his consent. Tears pooling in his optics no matter how hard he squeezed them shut. Sliding down his cheeks in long ribbons of blue. He scrubbed at his cheeks, sniffling and trying to hide it even if he knew there was really no point. He was doing a pretty good job of blocking out what he was reading, but he knew he had to be broadcasting his own emotions at this point.

He had never been very good at hiding his emotions.

He'd never had much need to.

At least, no real need.

It wasn't easy for a spark like his, as open as it was, to hide what it was feeling. Not from the ones it clung so very desperately too.

Especially not now.

Not when he was spilling out the secret he had kept locked up inside him for . . . well his whole life really.

That one scary, terrifying, life altering concept he had worked every orn of his life as far as he could tell, to keep hidden.

The fact that he wasn't what they all thought he was.

That he was . . . different.

That he was pretty sure there was something very wrong with him.

Normal bots didn't talk to animals, they didn't see ghosts, and they didn't share head space with a talking ball of light that had stole the form of a dead pet and could apparently do much more than just talk to him when it spoke through him before he locked it up deep within him and hadn't dared look at it again yet.

And yeah, he's very aware he hasn't thrown that little tid-bit out there yet.

And no, he doesn't have any plans to at the moment either.

Seeing dead things verse talking to weird friend things in his head that has been there since he could remember.

Yeah.

He was going to stick with the dead things and the talking to animals bit right now.

If his family was going to disown him, might as well be for the less freaking slag, right?

"And this," War's drawl was the last thing he expected after that little ramble, the shock of it snapping his wet optics up to find the big mech glaring at . . . Optimus? Really? Why was he glaring at Optimus? Oh. And jabbing a sharp claw down toward his stupidly sniffling self. "This is why your damn sire is the bane of my existence. Which is saying a lot, you know, considering how long I've been alive and who all I hate. But destroying every fabric that was left of our races history. That's on your sire's bastard head. If he hadn't been such a functionist glitch maybe there would still be some idea left among you idiot younglings that now for some reason rule this planet about just what coding can do in certain bots. Maybe then your foundling wouldn't think he was some kind of freakish anomaly."

Optimus reeled back like he was struck.

Bee choked on a half-formed sob glancing wildly between them before pinning his focus on those fire optics as they pinned him back.

"And you," War huffed, optics dancing over his crumbled features and wet sobs. Despite the harsh bite of his tone though there was no longer anger in his words. There was almost . . . desperation? "Stop your fraggin' blubbering. There is nothing else you could do that would make you more Primus damn useless. So stop it right now, and listen to me. There is nothing wrong with you! You are made up of coding that hasn't been seen in this planet's history, yes, but that does not make you wrong. Different? Yes, hate to break it to you, runt, but you will always be that. Nothing anybot can do about it. You just are. Get the pit over it. But that does not mean something is wrong with you. If there had been a shred of sense left in this damn race maybe there would have been some text left around to prove that to you. However, since there is none, I'll spell it out for you now. Dormant traits of a forgotten time do not make you broken in some idiot way. You want to get technical about it, it actually makes you a whole the pit of a lot more than any of these damn fools around you. In my age Seers were honored, they didn't hide behind irrational fears. So stop fraggin' crying about it. There should have been somebot to explain that to you, but unfortunately all your caretakers are idiots."

"Well it wasn't like you were around to say anything! He never said anything! How were we supposed to know what it was anyway!?" Jazz sudden snarl came before Bumblebee could so much as think of a response to that, to the way War shifted uneasy in the face of tears of a tiny little mech.

All that somewhat hidden apprehension was gone in a blink though as those fire red optics blazed back to their normal anger when they snapped up to hold Jazz's visor.

"Oh?" The massive mech snarled. "Would you have rather I kept the mechling so he could have never been your foundling?"

His family went rather ridged.

"Might have made everything easier in the long run that way. Now that I think about it."

"War," Dust's voice wasn't so much of a warning as it held a kind of reminder. The tone sparking between the two like the energy Bee could see flex in and out. "Many things you are, my mate, but a sire has never been one of them. You never wanted to keep him, it was not the way of things. Do not start a fight over what would have never been. Please. Don't we have enough at risk here?"

The shuttle huffed hard, fire optics narrowed back into Ironhide's cold, dark blue ones while cannons whirled and turbines spun. Bee sank down all the more in between the two rising tides of anger while Hide growled out.

"You gave him up!" The ebony mech spit out, fist clenching at his side while the heavy cannon barrels at his arms rotated and whirled with the heating plasma they were starting to glow with. "You blew that chance vorns ago. He's my mechling now!"

Wardrums' lips curled back over his fangs. "Mercy made a choice. I was never a part of it. I never wanted him to begin with. But at least I would have been able to tell him he wasn't insane."

"Then maybe you should have been around to do such." Optimus growled back, fist clenched much like Hide's while his own engine turned over in a low, dark growl.

A snarl tore through War again, claws flexing at his sides while his fangs sparkled on display, but Dustoff snaking a hand out to latch hold of his upper arm stilled him. Long, tan claws curling around a truly thick bicep hard enough to squeeze thick armor.

The huge shuttle looking away from the glaring he was doing down at the grown mechs in favor of casting those fire orbs over to Dust again.

Bumblebee didn't know what that look in those pale optics meant, but War seemed too. For he let out another heavy breath that made flight engines and turbines spin a few more times until he finally looked away from those pale optics. Gaze skirting over the bristled up mechs around him before settling back down on Bee still huddled up there in the sand.

"What is, is what is." He said heavily, voice neither angry nor calm while his optics swept over the little mech. "Can't undo the past. There is nothing wrong with you, settle that within yourself. No one but you can do it. For now, have a conversation you should have had a long time ago. We'll address the rest of it later. It appears I have a lot to teach you. That code is a gift, but any gift can be a curse if it is not handled properly. You're no where near knowledgeable enough to deal with it on your own. The dead are not meant to exist for the living. Seeing the other side comes at a cost."

And with that, the big mech turned away. Armor rattling down from the bristle all over him that it had been. Heavy peds shifting the sand like waves around him only to freeze up when Bee quietly squeaked out.

"I-i-i-is that what Star is?"

Every strut in Wardrums' back stiffened up. His back armor flared while his wings hiked upward from his shoulders before he managed to make them relax back down. Those shoulders didn't loosen though. Not even when he slowly turned back around to stare down at the little yellow mech huddled up in the sand.

Bee didn't know what Dust had done at the words. Didn't notice the way his rotor blades flared out behind him, spinning one full circle before he managed to get them back under control. That pale red gaze snapping back down to pin on him.

He didn't pay any attention to his family shift and stare.

He just watched War slowly turn himself back around to stare at him. Fire optics blazing, but not with anger. They were glowing with something Bee wasn't sure he wanted to understand.

"What?" War rumbled, voice tight, deep, and dark. Blazing optics pinning Bee in such a way that the couldn't look away now even if he wanted to.

He had thought it best to keep that last little secret locked up. Star had gone quiet, after all. He hadn't so much as pulsed in Bee's spark since that little episode in the cave.

Bee had been quite content to not so much as think of his little friend again. Well, until he undoubtedly came back at least.

But then War had said that, and a fear deep inside Bumblebee rose up before he could stop it. Wrapping around his spark and searing his vocal processor without his consent. He'd spoke before he meant to.

Now, there was no taking it back.

And there was no searing feeling through his spark like last time he'd tried to say the words.

It appeared Star couldn't or wouldn't stop him this time.

"Star." He whispered, mindful of the moment the name made those inferno optics blaze bright only to be smoldered out when he clenched his fists.

"Yes," War rumbled. "That is what I thought you said."

Bee swallowed hard.

"What exactly do you mean, runt, when you say Star?"

"I . . . I-I-I . . . I'm not sure." Bee admitted quietly. "He . . . It . . . no, no, I'm almost positive he's a he. If you can call an imaginary voice inside my head that stole my dead cat's form when I was a sparkling a he. Can you call that a He? Is that normal? Is that part of the . . . Seer thing?"

Please. He whispered to himself. Please, let that be what you say is okay too.

The way Wardrums and Dustoff were staring at him wasn't getting his hopes very high up there though. For the mates just stared at him. Two very different shades of red staring deep into his own bright blue with the sound of slightly heavier than normal vents in his audios. He wasn't sure if they were his or if they were theirs.

He couldn't make himself focus on enough of anything to find out.

He could only stare.

Scared.

Shivering.

Huddled up tightly in on himself.

Waiting for an answer he was terrified to hear.

War didn't give him an answer though. Because as soon as the huge mech opened his mouth, optics blazing, lips twisting, only for him to snap his jaw back together when a heavy droning lowly came over the silence of the desert.

Optics widening slightly War threw his gaze up to the sky, Dustoff, and Bee's family doing the same. Bumblebee daring to tear his optics away from the huge shuttle in favor of trying to figure out what it was the mech was looking at. That low droning, heavy, hard, and pulsing not something the young mech had ever heard before.

Bright blue optics flickering this way and that at the sand and then the sky. Trying to figure out what it was only for a flicker of black among the grey clouds to catch his attention.

Snapping his glancing back to that spot he watched, confusion swirling in his chest and processor as a massive sharp bow cut through the drifting clouds. The form of a ship darkening the clouds behind that cutting bow until they broke them. Surging through the bright sky and cloud cover like a dark arrow.

Bee had enough time to blink, think to himself our ship isn't black, and then laser fire rained down on them.

The little mech's luck just keeps getting worse doesn't it?

Poor sparkling.

I can't wait to see what you thought! ^-^ See you next chapter.

-Jaycee