Disclaimer: Not mine.
Original Author's Note: Considering that normally one song is all it takes to inspire me to write a fic, I'm rather staggered by the sheer number of songs that have gone into this one. There's at least 15 at this point...I think I'm gonna blame Prowl and Hound and just leave it there. :P
- Stairway to Heaven : Chapter Two -
"Ratchet, get the frag down here!" Jazz's almost hysterical voice followed on the heels of Prowl's alarmed cry, startling Ratchet from his report to Prime on Prowl's injuries.
"Where exactly is 'here'?" Ratchet snapped over the comm system, already out of his office and gathering basic tools.
"Prowl's office, he just crashed!" Jazz replied, sounding somewhat calmer, but still a lot more freaked out than he would have been if it was one of Prowl's usual logic lock-ups. Which meant it was probably due to Prowl's injuries. Ratchet cursed and transformed, speeding through the hallways and barreling past mechs, focused on getting to Prowl as fast as possible. It was unlikely Prowl was in any lethal danger, but when it came to his charges' processors, Ratchet preferred not to take any chances.
He ended up being glad he had, as the first thing his gaze settled on when he stepped into Prowl's office was the data pad still in the tactician's hand. He swore vehemently - he had little doubt that Prowl was still connected to it.
"Jazz, out, now. Go get Perceptor, tell him I'll need him in the med bay immediately." Ratchet ordered. Jazz seemed uncommonly shaken, but did as asked, heading out at a dead run, while Ratchet headed over and began taking scans. He heard voices behind him, but didn't pay attention as he attempted to finish what appeared to be an aborted disconnect from the pad on Prowl's part. The medic spared a moment to wonder how on earth Prowl had gotten into this mess when he was aware of a large presence behind him.
"Good. Since you're the reason he's injured, you can take him to med bay." the medic declared, turning to glare at Optimus. The matrix-bearer winced, looking regretful. "Just because I said it's your fault doesn't mean you're allowed to feel guilty about it. Now get moving!" Ratchet snapped. Optimus quickly did as ordered, never mind that Ratchet couldn't actually order him to do anything in this situation.
The hallways were surprisingly clear of mechs, but Ratchet reminded himself that everyone in the Ark probably thought Prowl's processor had just locked up again. Only the medics and Optimus knew how serious this could be - Ratchet had discussed the risks of wiring Prowl's visual center this way with Optimus before doing it, but they'd both agreed that Prowl was a sensible enough mech not to get in exactly this sort of mess. Considering the evidence on hand, however, Ratchet considered Prowl's record for idiotic behaviour still clean and was blaming Jazz instead.
"Ratchet, what has happened?" Perceptor asked, joining them in the corridor worriedly.
"Preliminary scans show his entire visual center is overheated, and possibly suffering a critical system crash." Ratchet said succinctly.
"Oh my." Perceptor murmured.
"Oh my indeed." Ratchet said with a snort as they entered the med bay. Optimus was a smart enough mech to set Prowl down on the intensive care berth, which had all the various systems support equipment hooked up to it, not to mention every type of scanner Ratchet could ever possibly need. Then the big mech got out of the way, likely herding Jazz, Bluestreak, and the twins back to their jobs. Those four always tended to drop what they were doing when they found out Prowl was hurt somehow, even if it was just a processor lock-up. But then, Inferno and Ironhide always appeared out of the woodwork when Red Alert fritzed out, too. They didn't just drop what they were doing and coming running like the other four, though.
Ratchet shook his head, pushing aside his random musings about the habits of certain mechs to come running when other mechs were injured, and focused on the task at hand. Perceptor was already at work, doing what he could to stabilize and support Prowl's systems, leaving Ratchet to find the root of the problem and solve it. So, with a sigh, Ratchet set to work.
"Good morning, sunshine!" Prowl almost flinched at the cheery tone - he'd heard from Sideswipe that Ratchet could get worse than 'welcome back', but this was the first time he'd experienced it. "Congratulations, you managed to fry your entire visual center. If you could see right now, I'd give you the smoldering lump of slag that's all that's left of it to inspect. However, you can't see, and due to a shortage of parts thanks to your unique cranial structure, you won't be able to see until I get the parts I need from Cybertron, and Wheeljack manages to build some of them from scratch, without ever having had any experience in building such parts before." The cheerful tone turned progressively more sour as the medic continued, until Prowl could almost see the medic's scowl. Tentatively, he tried to activate his visual center, just to confirm what he was hearing, and groaned when his CPU didn't just send back a 'unavailable' message - it asked him what exactly he was looking for and suggested running a diagnostic on his cognitive subroutines.
"What happened?" Prowl asked, sifting through his databanks and trying to figure out how he'd gone from doing paperwork to frying his visual center.
"Technically? Sensory overload and an aborted disconnect caused a massive system crash, the feedback from which fried your visual center. If you want to know how said system crash was triggered, I don't know, though Jazz was apparently with you when it happened. I would suggest asking him." Ratchet said. Prowl frowned - he vaguely remembered Jazz entering his office, but it was very...disjointed. He shook his head as attempting to remember caused his processor to ache.
"I will have to do that." he said. "I take it I'm off-duty until this is fixed?"
"Of course. Also, Prime has a briefing scheduled in a few hours to inform the senior officers of your temporary disability, and will be sending out a memo to the rest of the crew afterwards." Ratchet said.
"Ah. Do you have any sort of an estimation as to how long it will be before you can build me a new visual center and install it?" Prowl asked warily, prepared for Ratchet to blow up at the question. The medic, thankfully, didn't.
"Two weeks. Minimum. Considering the reliability of our ability to get supplies from Cybertron, however, it could be up to three months." Ratchet stated flatly. "And once I install it, you'll be on light duty for another week to allow your systems time to acclimatize to the new center."
"Oh." Prowl murmured.
"And you're confined to the Ark for all of that." Ratchet added.
"Of course." Prowl said with a bit of a sigh.
"On the plus side," Ratchet continued, "This whole thing also fried your port for direct linking."
"How is that a plus?" Prowl asked in confusion.
"I had to replace it, and I gave you a better one, with specific filters already installed. It will prevent the type of system damage that caused this crash." Ratchet said, then added somewhat snappishly, "And if you're wondering why I didn't give you one before to prevent this from happening, it's because Wheeljack lost the box they were in and didn't remember where it was until yesterday."
"Well...at least I have it now." Prowl observed.
"Indeed. It will allow you to access data pads, but Prime has agreed with me that you're still to be off duty until I can install a new visual center." Ratchet said. "I'm not quite sure how you could damage yourself more while doing simple paperwork, but I must remember that you're only this injured because you managed to mess up while doing paperwork in the first place."
"You make it sound like I'm prone to getting injured." Prowl said defensively.
"I believe I already mentioned how I considered you completely melting your visual center to be too remote to consider a viable possibility?" Ratchet said icily. "Now, do you want me to call someone to take you back to your quarters until Prime's briefing, or would you rather stay here?"
"I might as well stay here. You're going, I assume?" Prowl said after a moment, somewhat grouchily.
"Of course I am." Ratchet said with a snort. "And if you're going to stay here, I suggest you lie there and try to remember how you got into this mess, because I don't keep data pads on hand to amuse bored tacticians."
"I wouldn't expect you to." Prowl said.
"Good." Ratchet said, followed by the sound of his footsteps heading away. Prowl's sensors informed him the medic didn't go far, but it was still disconcerting. The information from his sensors, without his visual center, was...less than helpful. So instead of thinking back as to how he got into the med bay in the first place, Prowl decided, first, to go through his sensors and deactivate the ones giving him useless data that was unprocessable without a visual center. In the end, almost half his sensors were deactivated, and while he wasn't technically anymore blind than he had be when he started, Prowl swore he felt more so.
"Ready to go?" the question startled Prowl, and he fought hard not to jump off the berth. Focusing his sensors in the right direction, he relaxed as they registered Ratchet, waiting a decent distance away.
"Time for the meeting already?" Prowl asked with mild surprise.
"Technically it started five minutes ago, but Prime is still looking for Jazz." Ratchet added the last almost as an afterthought, so it took a moment for it to register for Prowl.
"Looking for Jazz? Is he missing?" the tactician asked curiously, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the berth.
"Apparently he disappeared after he got Perceptor and nobody's seen him since." Ratchet replied as Prowl stood up and the two headed out of the med bay, Prowl's sensors providing him with enough information to walk without running into or tripping over anything, though he couldn't tell exactly where he was going. "He's not answering his comms, either. Frankly I think he feels he crashed your visual center and is off feeling guilty somewhere."
"That is hardly like Jazz." Prowl pointed out. The saboteur was more likely to completely disrupt the Ark with his over-the-top attempts to apologize if he felt guilty.
"Well I don't think he's angry at anyone, and that's usually his reason for running off like this." Ratchet said dryly. "Then again, maybe you two had a fight and that was why you crashed?" the dig for information was obvious, and Prowl shook his head, mildly amused.
"It's all still very blurry - too much sensory information has corrupted the memory files." the tactician said. "I am attempting to sort it out, however."
"Good. Because I'd love to know why Jazz will be getting his newest dent when he appears." Ratchet replied. The conversation ended there as they reached the briefing room, Ratchet opening the door for them to enter. Stepping inside, Prowl did a quick sensor sweep, disappointed to find Jazz missing, despite Ratchet's prior warning. A nagging voice at the back of his CPU was telling him the saboteur needed to be here to hear this. There was nothing he could do to get Jazz there, however, and Prowl reluctantly took his seat, feeling the curious gazes of the other attendees - Prime, Ironhide, Red Alert, and Wheeljack - as he moved.
"Now that we're mostly here." Prime began, sounding just slightly annoyed over the missing Jazz. "I'm sure you've all heard of Prowl's recent trip to med bay. What you probably don't know is just how serious it was. Ratchet?" There was a heavy thunk on the table that caused Prowl to jump slightly, glaring in Ratchet's direction.
"That is the remains of Prowl's visual center." Ratchet stated, ignoring Prowl's glare, as he always did. "Sensory overload and an aborted disconnect caused a massive system crash, the feedback from which did this." There was a moment of silence.
"Aborted disconnect? What was he connected to? And what on base could possibly give him sensory overload?" Red Alert asked tensely.
"I was unable to completely repair Prowl's optics from the last battle, so I rerouted his sensors through his visual center to allow his optics time to self-repair." Ratchet replied. "Thus, he had to directly connect to a data pad to read it. That, plus the strain of his sensors suddenly going to maximum because a certain saboteur had cracked the lock on his office door, resulted in sensory overload and an aborted disconnect. Or at least that's my best guess. Prowl's memory files prior to crashing are understandably corrupted, and the only other one that could explain is mysteriously missing." With the facts laid out like that, it didn't take Red Alert long to wonder if Jazz was turning against them, purposefully crashing Prowl's CPU, and the meeting quickly degraded from there. Prime called it to order, allowing Wheeljack to explain what he'd need to build Prowl a new visual center, including a trip to Cybertron. The meeting concluded with Ratchet informing them all that Prowl was off duty and confined to the Ark until his visual center was replaced, and then Wheeljack and Ironhide went off to find Smokescreen to make plans for a mission to Cybertron to get the parts to engineer needed.
In the briefing room, Optimus stayed behind as Red Alert and Ratchet left, quietly offering to walk Prowl back to his quarters - clearly Ratchet had informed the commander that Prowl would not be able to navigate on his own. Prowl accepted the offer with an uncomfortable 'thank you', which Prime brushed off.
"We haven't needed 'thank you's for a long time, Prowl." Optimus said, sounding somewhat weary.
"I...suppose not." Prowl replied, understanding what the Prime was getting at. They walked the rest of the way in awkward silence, but despite that, Optimus offered to stay and keep Prowl company once they'd arrived.
"I'll be fine." Prowl reassured his leader, knowing Optimus had work to get back to, and the Prime hesitated only a moment longer before accepting the goodbye and leaving. Prowl sighed as he entered his quarters, glad that Optimus had chosen to leave - the last thing he needed was an attempt at socialization from the one mech on the base who was perhaps worse at it than he was. Especially when said mech was doing so because he felt guilty about Prowl's situation.
Inside his quarters, Prowl found himself glad that he'd bolted all his furniture to the floor in a pre-emptive defense against Jazz and Sideswipe. His main navigation system may be tied into sensors that were either inoperable or deactivated, but it wasn't hard for him to remember the layout of his room when it had been that way for vorns. So he carefully made his way around his room to the shelf he kept his recreational data pads on. They were a mixture of Cybertronian texts and human ones transferred onto data pads, and Prowl had actually collected a fair number of them. He didn't have much time to read, but he would keep running across things he would like to read, so he'd made a habit of just collecting the things he did want to read, in the hopes he'd have the time to do so. Well, now apparently he had time.
Picking one at random, since he couldn't tell them apart anyways, Prowl went over to his berth and settled himself comfortably before using voice-commands to get Teletraan to lock his door and comm him should anyone try and enter. When Teletraan sent back an affirmative, Prowl tentatively hooked into the data pad, and when he felt the security of the new port, and had explored it a bit and discovered that Ratchet was right, there would be no repeat, Prowl began reading.
Prowl's quiet was only disturbed much later, when Ratchet thought to bring him some energon, and check to see if he'd remembered anything about what had caused him to crash, considering Jazz was still missing. The medic was now sounding concerned, but Prowl was still clueless, and told Ratchet so. The medic left disappointed, but ordered Prowl to get a good night's recharge on his way out, and Prowl agreed equitably as he sipped at his energon.
Once Ratchet had left, Prowl didn't pick up the pad again as he usually might have, however. Ratchet's visit reminded him of the holes in his memory, and he focused on it, trying to sort things out carefully. He got little for his attempts except frustration, however, and in a last ditch effort, activated a defragmentation program for that particular section of his memory and went into recharge while it ran. It meant he'd probably be out longer than normal, but it wasn't like he had duty the next morning.
Apparently Ratchet was still watching out for him, however, as Prowl woke to the medic poking at him.
"One day off duty and already you're over-recharging? Really Prowl. I had no idea you could be so lazy when you weren't being a workaholic." Ratchet sounded entertained as he gave Prowl a cube of energon.
"I was running a defragmentation program on the memories from right before I crashed." Prowl explained.
"You what!" Ratchet growled. "You know how dangerous that is without medical supervision Prowl!"
"I coded it specifically for the precise time frame that was disrupted, and closed access to the rest of my memory." Prowl responded calmly. "There was no risk." Ratchet growled again.
"Only you would treat a possible self-induced vorn-long coma so lightly. Why did I ever think you'd be able to manage your sensors routed through your visual cortex without trouble?" the medic grumbled.
"Perhaps because I could have, had Jazz not come along." Prowl replied easily, then froze as soon as he said that, the comment suddenly making him realize that the defrag had worked.
"Prowl?" Ratchet asked curiously, seeing the tactician freeze. "Did you remember?" the medic guessed after a few moments of silence.
"Yes...I did." Prowl said softly, sounding surprised even to himself. "It's still...broken, but I think that's the way it was when it started out."
"So what happened to make you crash?" Ratchet asked, clearly curious, but there was also a hard tone in his voice that obviously wanted to know what to rant at Jazz about. Prowl remained silent for a long moment - what had happened wasn't any of Ratchet's business, really.
"Jazz surprised me." Prowl said finally.
"That's all?" Ratchet asked in disbelief.
"That was quite enough, given the situation." Prowl replied shortly, and Ratchet got the hint. The medic may have seemed socially crippled, but he was more observant than most mechs gave him credit for. He made some more small talk with Prowl, mostly about the data pad Prowl had been reading before Ratchet had brought him energon last night, before excusing himself for his duties. When he was gone, Prowl turned his attention to his memories, feeling something like wonder wash over him.
Most of it was still a blur, giving him only vague impressions, but there was one part that was crystal clear, and frankly, that was the only part Prowl cared about, anyways. Carefully, Prowl examined that one intact part of the memory, knowing that the desire to keep the memory perfect was what had truly caused him to crash - despite what Ratchet thought, Prowl really was at fault. Had he continued the disconnect, he would have been fine, but he'd allowed himself to get...distracted. And so gloriously so. The tactician felt a wide grin cross his face as he remembered the sensation of Jazz kissing him, and basked in the knowledge that there was at least something there.
Pleased, Prowl picked up the data pad he'd been reading the day before and set about finishing it - Ratchet had said he'd bring him energon again that night, and Prowl could ask him if Jazz had appeared then. It wouldn't be proper for Prowl to seem too interested in Jazz's whereabouts, after all. Almost humming to himself, Prowl connected to the pad and turned his CPU to the story, feeling more cheerful than he had in almost a vorn.
- TBC -