-1The day was turning dark, night spreading its blanket across the land. The energy lamps in the base turned on and everyone began to head for a recharge cycle or two. Jazz was on night patrol duty, and Sarah was tired; as tired as could be. She was dead on her feet but she refused to go to bed. No, she wouldn't sleep. Jazz walked down a hallway and found the restless girl wondering stumblingly down the hall. Jazz walked over to her. "Hey, you should get to bed, little lady." Sarah shook her head. "N-no, I don't want… want to sleep," she mumbled drowsily. "The dreams… the dreams'll just…" The Autobot was confused. "Dreams?" Jazz asked concerned. "Come on, Sarah, what's wrong?" Those last words were spoken as he took her gently into his hand. "…I don't wanna… dream about the war again," she murmured. "Every night, they… thousands of 'em.…" Jazz became more worried. He began to walk towards Optimus's office. "What are you talkin' about, girl?" She blinked up at him sleepily. "They die," she slurred out, halfway asleep but really fighting for it. "Every night, they die… Thousands." There was a pause. "No, not thousands," she abruptly corrected herself. "Billions. Bloody lot of 'em, anyways… All 'cause of me." Jazz shook his head at that. "Don't be stupid, Sarah, you didn't do anything to anyone," he tried to assure her. Finally coming to a giant door, her knocked on it. Her voice, when she responded, was barely a murmur. "And Bee… every night, I… I see it. Like it was me doing it. I take his voice." Jazz was very confused. "Well, it's true Bee's vocals were shot before Ratchet fixed him, but you didn't do it."
Optimus finally opened the door. "What's wrong, lieutenant?" Jazz merely held up the babbling Sarah. She quietly regarded them both, nowhere near all the way there. "I don't… don't wanna hurt ya again, Jazz. Every night, it's me. Not him. Me. You said I can't understand… not until I know what it's like. Every night… it's me that rips ya in half…" With that last mumbled comment, she was out like a light. The nightmares began immediately and she shivered in his hand. Optimus and Jazz watched the poor girl shiver in her nightmares, both exchanging concerned looks and not knowing what to do. "N-no, stop it… I don't… don't wanna…" She sobbed, clawing at some unseen foe. "Bee… Jazz… everybody, I… I'm sorry…" Optimus looked at her with pity, gently took her from Jazz and went down the hall to go see Megatron, the other Autobot following.
A light clatter heralded the arrival of Ravage, who let out a soft meow and tagged along behind Jazz. Jazz looked behind him and saw the metal cat. "What do you want, hairball?" Ravage mewled again, tail twitching in agitation. "I don't know what's wrong with her, she's just… I don't know," he finished unsurely, looking down at his feet. Sarah whimpered again, murmuring something about ice, and about being trapped. Optimus looked down at the girl, confused. He did not know what she meant by it until he remembered Megatron having been trapped in ice when he got to this planet in search of the All Spark. She shivered as if freezing. "Out… lemme out… get away from me, dammit… get you for this, I'll… all of you…" Ravage mewled a third time, voicing his concern for her. Then, perking up as if having an idea, he turned and ran off like a cat on a mission. Jazz watched the robotic cat run off. Optimus reached Megatron's door and knocked. "Megatron?" Sarah had curled up into a ball, still shivering as if she were in the process of freezing to death. Her shaky voice showed no small amount of hate. "…Worms… Don't deserve… deserve to…" None of them had ever heard her sound this angry before. She sounded… hateful. Megatron opened the door and looked down at the feverish looking human in Optimus's hands. "Sarah?" She didn't notice, merely squirming slightly as she continued to murmur in that same angry voice. "…give it to me… give it to me now…" Ravage reentered the area with Rumble on his back, both of them being absurdly quiet. The fact that they didn't make a huge ruckus upon entering showed all of them that the two were downright panicked about whatever was happening to Sarah. All five of them watched Sarah as she squirmed and grumbled in her sleep, saying random things, some over and over three times before she went onto something else. They all watched as she finally laid on her back and laid still. "Give it to me, boy… I may not… may not kill you," she growled in a very good approximation of Megatron's voice.
In their watching they had become oblivious to anything else around them, including sound, but what came next not only brought their senses back, but also scared the absolute heck out of them. It wasn't a scream, but a gasp of shock and utter agony. She stiffened in Optimus's hand, clutching at her chest as if she'd been stabbed through the heart. "No… he… I…" Everyone around her looked at her with confused, horror-stricken faces, all of them rendered completely speechless by her sudden outburst. She shuddered as if in an obscene amount of pain, clawing at her chest, hard enough to rip her shirt and draw more than a little blood. "…burning… it's burning me… out, get it out… s-so hot… I… no!" Screaming in mortal terror as if beholding her own death, she bolted up to a sitting position before she was even aware that she was awake, blood from her torn-up chest flowing over her fingers. Optimus nearly dropped her out of sheer terror at seeing her rip at herself and spill her internal fluids. Megatron nearly screamed at the sight. "Sarah, no, stop, you're hurting yourself!" She shivered like a frightened child, seemingly unaware of where she was, her fingers clenched tight, digging ever deeper into the bloody wounds she'd carved into herself with each violent shudder that ran through her.
Megatron reached out and gently grabbed her hands and gingerly, so as not to hurt her further, moved her arms and hands away from her. Her eyes opened. "I… I'm… alive?" She seemed to be surprised at that. "Yes, you're alive, Sarah," Megatron said softly. "What happened to you, you…" he trailed off as he looked at the bloody mess on her torso. The stain was spreading slowly but visibly. "Not again," she said in an embarrassed voice. Had any of them been able to recognize scar tissue, they would have realized that the wounds she had just inflicted on herself were merely the latest in what seemed to have become a gruesome nightly ritual for her. The wounds she had just given herself crisscrossed the wounds from the previous night, and the night before, and the night before… Jazz asked the question that was on all their minds at that point. "What's wrong with you, Sarah?" Looking up at him sadly, she managed a wan smile. "I know more than you think, Jazz. I walk on battlefields each night. I live his memories." Speaking that last sentence, she pointed to Megatron. "Every night it all ends in Mission City with the All Spark's destruction… and what feels to me like my own!" She paused. "You said I couldn't understand unless I'd lived the eons of warfare your people endured. Does this count?" Jazz was speechless, not knowing what to say. She had, judging by what he saw, lived through the nightmarish world of their war. But, he still didn't know how he felt about Megatron. Did he forgive the evil Decepticon for his hellish doings, or did he hold on to the hatred he felt for him and try to kill him off without killing Sarah? He was at a loss, not just for words but for what to think and how to feel.
She looked down at the spreading stain on her ruined shirt. "Now do you see why I didn't want to sleep?" He nodded his head shamefully. "Sorry, Sarah." If he knew that her going to sleep would make her do this, he would never have told her to, or forced her for that matter. "…Jazz?" She tried to force a smile. "If you ever get to want to do that again, leave him out of it and just come after me, all right? With nights like this, hell, you'd be doing me a favor!" Jazz looked at her with a surprised expression. "I can't kill you, Sarah, even if that would kill Megatron." She just looked right back. "Then something tells me I'll just end up doing it myself. I see billions of deaths each night, and each is by my hand. What's one more, especially if it's mine?" Optimus reacted to that with great sternness. "We will not allow you to self-terminate, Sarah. We'll find a way to help you, even though dealing with dreams isn't exactly something we really know how to do."
"…That makes both of us," she said truthfully. Her shirt was almost saturated now, and any moment she would begin to drip. The bleeding didn't show any signs of stopping, and if she dripped she would drip on him, so she asked him to place her on the ground. Optimus complied and set her on the ground. "We need to get you to Ratchet, before you lose any more blood," he said and called the medic over his com link. "I'll be all right," she tried to reassure him. "This is just another night for me." He objected. "But your wounds could be infected, we can't take the chance, Sarah," he told her as Ratchet rounded the corner. "I'd be lying if I said I felt like a million bucks, though," she said, stumbling slightly. Ratchet scanned her and with a concerned expression, quickly, but gently, scooped her up and jogged to the medical bay. "I'd really appreciate it if you did that, Jazz…" she called back to him softly. Jazz felt his spark fall out of its chamber at that. Wondering why she wanted to be terminated, he knew that she was in pain with the dreams, but would she get better? Jazz looked at Optimus for some sort of guidance. Optimus looked back at him and shook his head. He didn't have anything to tell him.
Sarah just relaxed. If things kept going like this, she'd probably end up disobeying Optimus at some point. "No, I won't," she murmured to herself, feeling a little light-headed. "My duty comes first. Yes, I'll return life to that shattered land, and then…" There wasn't so much as a momentary pause. "If you're about to say what I think you are, I'll have to say I can't allow you to do that, Sarah," Ratchet said caringly as he placed her on the hospital bed and looked at her wounds, quickly looking for something to clean them and then something to cauterize them so they could heal. She smiled. "…Then my job will be done." Ratchet smiled. "We will do the best we can for you, Sarah, please hang in there," he said as he began to work on the wounds she had inflicted on herself. It stung quite a bit.
A few hours later, Sarah walked, wobbly, out of the medical bay. Her chest still looked cut up, but the wounds were shut and the bleeding had stopped. She did her level best to hide that she was still dizzy, trying to look as though she was perfectly fine. Megatron was sitting against the wall just outside the door and saw Sarah, nearly jumping to his feet as he saw her. "Sarah, how are you feeling?" His voice held a note of franticness. "B-been better," she smiled a little shakily. Megatron slid a hand gently behind her and picked her up. "Well the good thing is that you're all right now," he said with a small smile. "Just glad that you're all right," he whispered, more to himself. She smiled back a little weakly. "Sorry to worry you…" she said, just letting him carry her. "No, I'm sorry, If it wasn't for me, you would not be having those dreams," he said. Her chest was still fairly sore, as was visible from the way she hunched forward slightly. This gave him a question. "What did Ratchet say about your wounds?" They had to be very painful, he realized. "They'll heal, in time," she said with a shrug that drew a wince. He only had one thing to say to that. "You shouldn't transform into your other form until they're healed." That was more an order than a suggestion. Seeing the point, she nodded. "I tried that… Can't concentrate." Megatron nodded. The two were silent for a moment, until he finally spoke. "What would you like to do today? Optimus gave me the day off so I could take care of you." She blushed slightly at that, at knowing that this powerful being, who had seen so many things and knew so much, was so concerned about little old her. "…I don't know." She was trying her hardest not to let on that she felt downright awful. Sarah hoped she wasn't as pale as she thought she probably looked. Things weren't spinning too much now, though. She just wished she didn't feel so darn weak. Megatron kept his eye on her so she didn't fall off his hand, feeling through their link that she was still quite weak. "Maybe you should lie down." There was a pause. "I don't want to fall asleep," she said like a sullen toddler. I can understand that, he thought. "Maybe sit, then. I don't want you to fall."
Sitting down, she relaxed. Nightmares or not, she was tired. Megatron sighed. "I wish I knew what to do, Sarah. It pains us all to see you like this," he said with melancholy. The idea of sleeping suddenly didn't seem so bad, not with him there. She recalled his nightmare immediately after the events on the mountaintop. Her presence had soothed him, driven the nightmares away. Perhaps… just perhaps… Megatron looked down at the girl in his hands, topless, seeing as Ratchet had disposed of the blood drenched shirt. He turned a corner and made his way towards her bedroom, stopping at a door, then walking inside. "I thought you might want to put a shirt on," he said. She accepted, stifling a yawn. A moment later she was sound asleep in his hand. Curling up like a kitten, she was actually sleeping peacefully for once. His presence filled her mind, chasing away the terrors of the night. Megatron was about to wake her so she didn't have a nightmare, but saw that she was not tossing and turning or saying things in her sleep. He smiled, thankful that she was getting some rest. He grabbed a random shirt she had gotten before going to McDonalds with Sam a while ago and left the room, the girl still sleeping soundly in his hand.
Thus ended Sarah's nightmares, and her sleepless nights. Ratchet alone wasn't surprised by this or by how it was achieved, since he had already seen how each of them benefited from being in close proximity to the other. Megatron, for his part, didn't mind that this new development meant he had to share his quarters with her by night. That was a small price to pay in order to keep her from having another one of those horrible nightmares.