The little radio sitting on the nightstand is the only sound playing in the room. The melody is soft, slow, the piano keys resounding carefully one by one. And he's sitting on the bed, fingers interlaced, elbows on his knees, hands pressed against his mouth. Listening, but at the same time, not really.
/When you were standing in the wake of devestation…
When you where waiting on the edge of the unknown.
With the cataclysm raining down, insides crying save me now.
You where there impossibly alone…/
He knows he'll never be able to go anywhere alone ever again.
He's had too many close calls, too many rough incidents, too many bullets and missiles that went just over his head, too many plasma-cannon shots that were aimed just too high.
He wouldn't even be sitting here now if the Prime's hadn't had a higher purpose for him.
Sitting here, on his bed with the clean white sheets, the pale sunlight falling all around him and the sounds of the city almost totally muted through the thick walls, it's easy to forget. Forget that just across the country, Chicago still lays in ruins. That just down the street, the Lincoln Memorial is sitting without the Lincoln. The sunlight bleaches everything out of his vision, he can't see anything but the brightness. It's almost like heaven.
After Mission City, they wondered. The Soccent soldiers were concerned, the government officials paranoid, that he would have a breakdown, that he would never go back to a normal life, that one day he would stumble out onto the streets with glassy eyes, grabbing at people's shirt collars as they passed by and babbling about some alien robot spiraling out of the sky. But he had been adamant- all he'd ever wanted was a normal life, and damn well he was going to get it, no matter what any Decepticons had to say about it.
And then Giza had come around, and the concern doubled. World Fugitive Number One- the cause of seven thousand deaths. The boy who had gotten his brain scanned by a probe-bot and had litterally been at the claws of Megatron before barely being saved- and then had to watch his savior's spark get blasted out. Running through the Decepticon front line, finding the Matrix, dying- they had been certain he would be ruined.
But he wasn't. He was- if it was possible- changed for the better. He realized what he had mistaken as abnormality was the ability to be extraordinary. And he had accepted it.
But now? He's tried to go back to a life- three times. Third time's the charm? No, probably not. Last time was worst than the first, so he's given up on that department completely. If Lazerbeak hadn't crashed his wingspan in his office, he would have surely been dead, Big Plan or not.
And now, with around eighty Decepticons still on the loose around the world, being responsible for the death of Megatron (the first, anyways,) reigniting Optimus, and leading the first wave of resistance into Chicago, he knows he's prime target number one, and he knows that scares the crap out of Bumblebee. Optimus handles it better- but he still hasn't stopped paging him at least once a day, neither had Ratchet, and Sam's pretty sure Will has been having him followed.
He has seen enough destruction to shake the world. He's the human arch-enemy of any living Decepticon out there, because even though he's just a messenger, it's the messenger that always brings the first of whatever's to come, and not only that- he's a symbol, a symbol of union between their two species on one planet, and too close to the Autobots for anything to be coincidental anymore. He knows it, Bee knows it, Will knows it- hell, everyone does, except his parents, and that's only because he's knocked the fear of God into anyone who thinks of opening their mouths about it around them.
But here, sitting in the sunlight, it's so easy to forget. So easy to forget that he's in danger now more than ever- until every last Decepticon on Earth is hunted down. And that could take years, if they even ever find them all.
But he doesn't think about any of that, not right now, not completely. The stress, the pain, the worry from the last few days- it all fades. It's washed away in the brilliant sunlight, and his mind, working at a blissfully slow, almost crawl of a pace, only registers a half-thought or a flickering image, choosing whatever flits behind his eyes.
His cell phone buzzes, nestled between the folds of the comforter, and suddenly the peaceful world shatters. He ignores it, knowing without looking that it's probably Charlotte Mearing scheduling another follow-up in temporary political hell. He doesn't even glance at it.
After a while, the phone goes silent, and he knows that if he doesn't answer it soon, she'll have a search party out looking for him, thinking he's been abducted by Decepticons again.
He sighs. They never forget things like this that happen- if anything, the pain and the frustration and the worry teach them all something, about how precious everyday life is, and friends. He never really appreciated Ironhide's steady drawl, even after seeing Jazz get ripped apart, mainly because Ironhide was just so powerful and just there, it was like trying to remove a mountain. You just couldn't. And now, after Chicago, he knows that the friend's he's trusted before have an even deeper bond of trust that run between them; Epps following him all the way out to Chicago, Simmons taking him to that underground bar, Will jumping onto the end of that line with him…
They have been tried three times. And each time, they have come out stronger.
So no, it's not these kind of things he forgets in empty, peaceful moments like this, and it's not things like this that he ever tries to. Remembering the war makes the peace all the more wonderful. It's not even the endless briefings or follow-ups afterwards that he blocks out.
It's the danger that he knows he's always going to be in afterwards. It's the fact that he's more precariously perched in life than he's willing to admit; it's that he may never see any of his friends again if he makes one wrong move. He forgets it, Carly forgets it, even Bee forgets it sometimes, though eh remains ever-alert, because that's just the best way they can carry life on, and he knows it. You can't always remember things like that, can't always be thinking about them, or you'll go crazy. So he just sits there in the white sunlight, and though he feels like he's ignoring the due date of a test paper or the safety rules on a roller coaster, he lets it go. Builds a wall around it. Cause sometimes, that's what you have to do.
His phone comes to life again- only this time it's beeping, some weird glitch Bumblebee planted in it, so that no matter what Sam had it set on, he'll always hear that tone if the Autobots are trying to contact him.
Without a thought, he snatches up the phone.
/En route to the apartment. Get ready for 14:00 meeting. Want me to get you a cheeseburger?/
He smiles, and quickly sends a reply back. Yes- he's starving.
He sighs and snaps the phone back shut, and then slides it into his pocket.
Sometimes, it is better to ignore the world around you, and just focus on what's going down right here, right now, if only for a moment. He stands and stretches. Sometimes, it's okay to forget half of reality, that part that's the hardest to hang on to, if for only a second. It helps braving the storm and the dark that much better.
/Remember all the sadness and frustration.
And let it go…
Let it…go…/