Thunder rolled away into the scarlett dusk as an AC-130 gunship flew back towards it's airstrip. The battlefield it left behind was pock marked by bomb blasts and fallen corpses of Cybertronians and humans alike.
An unsettled respite consumed the desert around the decimated Autobot base. Thick black smoke coiled upwards from smoldering military vehicles that lay scattered and charred. Part of the entry hangar had collapsed under the power of the Decepticon assault, billowing dust and smoke into the air.
Cries for medics mingled with cries of agony across the field. Medivacs raced against the setting sun to try to save those that the Autobot base did not have enough supplies to treat.
The personal quarters of the Autobot team were all made available for triage. In the Med Bay, Hoist frantically worked to abate the hemorrhage of energon from countless wounds on a stasis-locked Arcee. Bumblebee lay unresponsive on another medical berth, tracks of lightning burnt across his chest.
Sadiyah and Cole huddled together in silence in the level four triage berth room. Deep lacerations oozed along their skin, but none of their injuries were life threatening. Tommy shuffled down the bustling hallway in a daze. His bullet wounds had been treated in a level three unit, and now he was sent to wait in the level five.
In the level one unit, medics desperately tried to save Archer. His left arm had been almost entirely shredded. To conserve precious seconds, they were forced to apply a tourniquet to allow a chance to save his life from the myriad of other mortal wounds. Heather and other military medical staff were in similar frenzies, tirelessly attempting to stabilize as many patients as possible despite their own injuries.
Functionally able despite some dents and gashes, Ironhide, Mirage, and Optimus patrolled the outer perimeter in case of a return attack. In their COMs, they dismally considered where they could go now that their location had been compromised, and even possibly the nearby military base due to the high traffic from today between the two.
Earlier, Danielle had pulled herself from Heather's embrace and numbly followed Optimus when he had moved Bumblebee from where he'd fallen in the ARC hangar to the Med Bay. Staying out of the way, she waited for the Prime to leave and Hoist to finish checking on Bee before she climbed up the berth.
Seeing Bee so still and dark nauseated her. Gingerly, she walked to his head and laid her hand on his yellow helm. Her face contorted in distress, her lower lip trembled, but a growing hollowness in her chest dammed the tears that burned pinpricks behind her eyes.
Her subconscious felt an echo of a need to chase a fleeing something. It felt like trying to grasp the leading edge of an ever-expanding galaxy. It prompted her to climb his shoulder onto his chest. Her vision swam as she realised the warm haven she could always find there was gone. Deep pain blossomed around her heart, dropping her to her knees. She couldn't understand it. It stole the breath from her lungs and the strength from her bones. Gasping, she collapsed to her side and curled up on the crypt-cold chest plates as blackness cloaked her world.
An inky void swirled around her, the only light to be seen was her own lavender glow. This place was unfamiliar but her body felt like a long lost memory. Looking down, there was a sinuous white ribbon that sprouted from her and disappeared into the darkness. Where it began, there was a dull pressure, an ache she couldn't explain. It seemed to flick a tendrel of uncertainty into her mind, while also pulling her towards the empty horizon where darkness met oblivion.
With no other course of action to be taken, she followed the wisp into the unknown. There was no sense of time to be had here but the journey continued. At some point, the ribbon began to glow ever so slightly. There was a tug from the far flung end of it, nearly imperceptible. Rippling feelings of confusion mixed with curiosity rolled from it.
She continued to follow where it led.
The ribbon grew brighter, scintillating softly. Another tug, stronger this time, and a mounting anticipation flew at her from the horizon. In the distance, she could now see that the other end of the ribbon was sprouting from a hovering white ball of light enshrouded with blue ether. It did not approach or flee. Closing the distance, the white strand between them broadened before tugging them together. Upon contact, there was a knowing, each of the other.
She was Danielle, and she was bound to Bumblebee.
Hoist wiped his hands of energon after he finished the last suture to stabilize Arcee. She remained in stasis lock, but would come around in her own time. He knew his work would not be over anytime soon, so he pressed on.
Turning to see what, if anything, he could do for the scout, he was shocked to see a small human lying on the chassis. With a handheld device, he scanned the small creature to find she was alive but not conscious.
"Quite odd…" he said to himself, tapping the screen in attempts to clear a possible error. "How am I getting two readings? Ah bugger, it doesn't matter." Setting the device aside, he made his way to the storage area to gather enough fresh energon infusion to hopefully bring the bot back around. The shock from Soundwave hadn't terribly damaged anything vital, but it had knocked his circuits around the bend and disrupted the spark's natural frequency. While very faint, it still remained, and all it needed was a little jumpstart.
Hooking a long needle into a line in Bumblebee's wrist, Hoist began an energon infusion that would hopefully be enough to stabilize the spark's energy and, with any luck, reanimate him in due time.
Are we dead?
No, I don't think so.
Then where are we?
I hesitate to believe it, but I think this may be a bond...
What does that mean? Is this a place?
It's like sharing one mind, but I've only ever known it to be between Cybertronians... How did you get here?
They put you in the med bay after the attack. Something made me chase you. I remember a feeling in my chest, like fear set on fire, then nothing.
...I'm no longer so sure that we are not dying...
I am. This feels nothing like the last time we met in nothingness. It's different, comfortable almost… but can we ever leave?
Most likely, though I don't feel like I have anywhere else to go yet. If I haven't offlined, my body must be recovering, and I'll have to wait for that.
Silence passed between them and the endless darkness.
What does this mean, for us? A bond?
...I don't know. For my race, a bond is life long and typically only occurs between creators and sparklings, siblings, or sparkmates. It allows a connection and sharing of emotions beyond any sense humans organically have. If you and I are bonded, somehow my spark has connected to you, and we both must have desired that on some level. It… I think it may have happened when I told you about my ordeal with Megatron. I couldn't talk, but I remember wanting nothing more than to make you feel understood, and now I think it worked beyond what I'd ever expected.
Now that you mention it, yea, I remember somehow experiencing your fear and anger like it was mine, but I could tell it was yours.
Falling into quietude once again, Danielle wondered how far this connection could go. If she had passively felt what he did, while not even trying, what could happen if she dedicated her entire being to hearing him?
Pushing everything else out of her mind, she focused only on the incoming feelings that radiated from Bee. Like stepping through a doorway into an open room, she found an implicit joy and a congenial stillness. Exploring further, she could sense heavy emotions and memories with faint ideations of war and loss drifting from them. They sat in the corners, unshielded and accessible if only she tried to touch them. She felt his surprise as he noticed her nudging the bond before he pushed her back gently.
It only works if we are both open to the other. I know you trust me already, this would never have happened otherwise, but you have to take down your barriers. I can feel your presence and minor emotions, but I also feel you preventing me from seeing beneath the surface.
There was a tender pry against her mind like a finger pressing carefully against a door left barely ajar. It went no further than to simply ask permission.
With an uneasy apprehension, she wondered if exploring the bond was worth exposing herself to him in a way that she could not hide anything from him. From her happy childhood to the darkest nightmares, all would be laid bare. It was dizzying to know that he already knew that she was afraid.
She also wondered what it meant to have bonded while still feeling like she was supposed to distance herself from him. If she let him in, he would know that she wanted him to find someone else, someone he deserved. What sort of damage would it do for him to discover such a connection only to find that, deeper down, it was in the process of being severed?
He felt her fear sing across the bond, startled by the intensity of it.
Stop. Danielle, stop. You do not have to share anything, please believe me. If you are uncomfortable, we should not go any further.
The fear subsided significantly, and he knew she wasn't ready. But his body was, and they couldn't stay down here forever.
This may be new for both of us, but I do understand it better than you. I want you to take all the time you need to decide how much, or even if, you are willing to let me see. There can be dire consequences on both sides for forcing a bond open, and you should know by now that I do not want that for you, for either of us.
She felt a sense of security wrap around her like an intangible hug. Then the void shimmered around them before the blazing white lights of the Med Bay assaulted their vision.
"My, my, welcome back you two!" said Hoist as he busied himself cleaning up around the room. He had only recently removed the line from Bee, seeing him coming back around.
Bumblebee felt the small heat print on his chest. He lifted his head from the berth enough to see her waking up, slowly rolling to her hands and knees with a disoriented huff. She met his gaze and they exchanged that knowing nudge; they were both grateful the other survived.
Suddenly, confusion overwhelmed Danielle before pain seared through her right arm. She looked down to see blood trickling through her sleeve from her bicep down to her fingertips. Dark red smudges and a handprint looked almost black against Bee's yellow armor.
A cacophony of emotions ran amok across her face as she looked back up at Bee. He experienced her pain as an image of the sun compressing into a marble and boring slowly through her flesh.
Hearing metal scraping across the berth and heavy steps running from the room, Hoist looked up in time to see the scout rush out with the human in his hand. He managed to catch a glimpse of her scratching desperately at herself.
"Oh Primus, she's been shot. Must've missed that." he said with a cringe to a still unawake Arcee.