Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

I flinched when Ratchet snarled over the commline, only my hands remaining steady as I closed of fuel lines.

"Hurts." The mech under our hands whimpered as we worked to remove shrapnel from his chassis.

"I know." I soothed as I pulled out another chunk from his shoulder, patching the torn circuitry as I went. If we could knock him offline we would have done, but the explosion had polarised electromagnetic fields as it swept over the battlefield. Usually a few tweaks would adjust it back to normal, but his neural circuitry had been hit hard and letting him go into stasis with a fluctuating field was a risk we couldn't take.

:Aid, keep his attention on you.:

:What's wrong?: I asked over the comm., something in his tone sending shivers down my spinal struts.

One of the energon coated hands curled around my leg as he stared up at me, optics pleading. "Will I be ok?"

"You'll be fine." I reassured him as the fingers abandoned my leg to clutch at my hand. I gently unwound his fingers, I needed my hands free.

:Just keep talking to him.: Ratchet said as he shifted, leaning over the mechs chest.

"Didn't think this'd be where I extinguish, on a primitive organic planet in the middle of nowhere."

"You're not going to extinguish."

"No? And I'm a 'Con." I winced as his voice bled into static at the end of the sentence, optics flickering weakly.

:Ratchet!: I whipped my helm up from focusing on the mechs shoulder to see what he was doing. He must have accidentally caught a major energon line for us to be loosing the mech so quickly.

There, I reached across to gather the two ends before a hand curled over mine, stilling me. :Let him go.:

:But.:

:He was beyond saving.: Ratchet's comm. tone was filled with sorrow as the light in the optics went out, the paint greying.

"Why?" I could have reattached the line, could have stopped him from bleeding out.

One red hand brushed across the spark chamber, tugging a shard free that had been buried in the side of the chamber itself. "We couldn't have got that out."

I frowned beneath my blast mask, "but the energon line..."

"It would have taken hours for him to fully extinguish through loss of spark containment as his energy field collapsed, and every moment would have been agony." He lifted his other hand that had been curled into a fist, a laser scalpel sitting innocently in his palm. "Sometimes mercy is all we can give."