Disclaimer: Transformers; do not own. His Dark Materials/Golden Compass; do not own.
Summary: Oneshot, semi-crossover. Ratchet was a medic. He was supposed to make mechs and femmes and cassettes better and send them on their way.
After
Ratchet
If one were to talk to Jazz, Ironhide, and even Optimus, they would say that the war began when Megatron, leader of the Decepticons, betrayed them. Though this was true in one way of thinking, Ratchet knew better. In many ways, Ratchet saw war as a kind of disease. With an immune system that was strong enough, an invading pathogen did not ravage the body. In a healthy, functioning, and united world, war did not spread, enslave, and consume.
The truth was that though Megatron may have been the breaking point and the outcome, Cybertron herself sowed the seeds of war in soil fertile with fear and water rich in sorrow. But no one would admit to that; it was not in them to blame their children, and they would be sent to the fiery realms of the Pit before they ever blamed the Allspark.
Ratchet had been a medic's apprentice, and as such, followed his mentor to all sparkings. He probably spent more time around the Allspark than the Lord High Protector. As time went on, more half-sparks were produced. No matter how advanced the programming or how well thought-out the design, there was something inherently wrong with the half-sparks, and this flaw infected the resulting mechs, femmes, and cassettes.
The humans were so like the half-sparks, and yet thankfully, joyously, beautifully different.
Ratchet works to organize his newly built work area into something that actually resembles a med-bay. He opens up a gigantic cupboard, puts in some items, closes the cupboard, and then turns to his table. He pauses, optics shuttering a few times, and then turns around, opening the cupboard again.
"Samuel? What are you doing in there?" The boy is sitting, back resting against a giant bottle full of metallic patches that functioned both as an antiseptic and a band-aid for Autobots. Only a few weeks with the twins, and already Ratchet had gone through five bottles. His dæmon is curled up beside him, and greets Ratchet with a dip of her head.
"Extreme hide-and-go-seek with Bumblebee," Sam says with a smile. One hand is on top of Tristanne's head, stroking her gently. Her eyes are half-closed, and she purrs softly.
"Hide and go seek?" Ratchet repeats, baffled.
"Extreme," Sam reminds him. Ratchet scoffs.
"What's so extreme about hiding in my medicine cabinet?" Sam rolls his eyes, and Tristanne gives a quiet laugh.
"Well it was extreme getting up here, let me tell you that," he says. Ratchet thinks about that. The cupboard was stories off the ground, and several feet above the countertop below it. Come to think of it, how had they opened the cupboard door in the first place?
"I don't want to know the finer details of your foolish escapade," he declares, automatically scanning the miscreants to check for any injuries-due-to-stupidity. He notices that the boy tenses and his dæmon stops purring, but they stay still for the scan. At Sam's request, he closes the door again, leaving a crack so that the boy and his dæmon could breathe.
The Allspark had been malfunctioning. No one wanted to admit it back then and even right now, but like an obsolete program, the Allspark was malfunctioning.
The little earth-made 'cons were half-sparks. They had not lasted more than a human's quarter-year. The Autobots had found their bodies.
To make matters worse, the Allspark's malfunction was almost immediately followed by a parts shortage. Earth had the circle of life. Cybertron had a cycle of recycling. Drones harvested the spires and the metallic terrains for parts, soldering them on and grafting them on themselves and progeny in order to pass on programming as humans passed on genes. The Cybertronians, in turn, hunted down drones to use their parts and metal for their repairs and for their sparklings. And when drones and Cybertronians passed on, their parts were returned to Cybertron, melted down in her core to return as spires and metallic terrain.
The half-sparks were weak. There were questions. Should they be using parts when the Allspark was not working? Should they be using parts for sparklings who died so quickly when parts were needed elsewhere for repairs? What was ethical? What was right?
It was, all in all, not a good time to be a medic.
Ratchet sighs, wondering why of all places, Sam and Tristanne had to choose his medicine cabinet as a hiding place, even though there was the little detail that Bumblebee couldn't reach the cabinet door…Well, whatever! Ratchet still had a med-bay to clean up.
Taking some more tools and analogous surgical utensils, he opens up a drawer. He had closed the drawer when he realizes that he had caught a glimpse of faded blue jeans and jet black fur.
He opens the drawer again. Mikaela and Adair look up innocently at him.
"What are you doing in there?" he demands.
"Extreme hide-and-go-seek with Bumblebee," Mikaela answers sweetly. Adair stretches luxuriously before pressing his head against her hand.
"Hide-and-go-seek?" Ratchet repeats, baffled.
"Extreme," she says pointedly.
Ratchet sighs again. He hasn't adopted a lot of human mannerisms, but he finds sighing so very useful.
"What's so extreme about hiding in my drawers?" he demands.
Mikaela and Adair chuckle. "Well, it was extreme getting in here, let me tell you that," Mikaela finally says. Ratchet thinks about this. The drawer was several feet off the ground, and how in the universe had they opened the slagging thing in the first place?
"I do not want to know," he declares, automatically scanning the miscreants to check for any injuries-due-to-stupidity. Mikaela blinks in surprise and Adair gives a displeased growl, but they are otherwise still for the examination. At Mikaela's request, Ratchet closes the drawer again, leaving a crack so that the girl and her dæmon could breathe.
The half-sparks were loved by the mechs and femmes and cassettes that made their bodies and programmed their processors, but they were shunned by the rest of society. Ratchet always thought it curious, and he knew that Perceptor had found it morbidly fascinating, that their race would almost worship spark-split Cybertronians (which didn't help in Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's vanity in the least), and yet be so afraid of the half-sparks.
Their fear stemmed from the fact that they could not understand. Ratchet, being an Autobot medic, was not quite like human doctors. Human doctors were quite used to seeing 'sick' humans, humans that were different because it was the way that the humans had been born. For a race and indeed an entire world based on genes and chance, slight malfunctions and glitches were a normal, accepted, and sometimes surprisingly joyous part of society. If malfunctions and glitches didn't occur, then evolution would not take place.
But Ratchet was used to dealing with a race who complained of missing parts or paintjob scratches or cannon back-ups. Malfunctions and glitches occurred, but they could be removed through proper programming and virus screens. They weren't supposed to be ingrained in the very spark.
The human race had been and still was strange to him, and sometimes inexplicably saddening. Yet, though there were similarities, there were so many things that reminded him that humans and their dæmons may have been half-sparks, but were not like Cybertron's half-sparks.
Maybe that was the basis of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's deeper-than-normal scorn, Prowl's farther-than-normal distance, and Ratchet's own unease.
Shaking his head, Ratchet turns, and his optics shutter once in surprise. Ironhide was standing at the doorway.
"What have you done now?" he demands.
"Shoulder cannon not working," Ironhide grunts reluctantly. "Can't reach it. I think it's stuck or clogged or something."
Ratchet looks up once, trying for patience.
"Let me take a look," he says. He takes Ironhide's cannon and looks into the nozzle. His optics open in surprise, and he turns away, shaking his head.
"What's the matter, doc?" Ironhide demands. "Tell me. I can take it."
"I know why your cannon isn't working," Ratchet says grimly. Then he grabs Ironhide's cannon again, glaring into the nozzle. "Miles!" The boy and his capuchin monkey dæmon look at Ratchet smilingly, Miles crouched inside the barrel of Ironhide's gun, Delaney on his shoulder with her tail wrapped around his neck. Ironhide is simply stunned. "What are you doing in there?" Ratchet continues. "No, wait, don't tell me—"
"Extreme hide-and-go-seek with Bumblebee," Miles and Ratchet say in unison, the boy cheerfully and the medic tiredly.
"Hide-and-go-seek?" Ironhide asks, enraged.
"Extreme," Miles repeats, Delaney peeking out to give Ironhide two thumbs up.
"What's so extreme about hiding in my plasma cannon?" Ironhide demands. Ratchet gives him a blank look. "What?"
Ratchet barely restrains himself from banging a few heads against the table.
As first a medic's apprentice and then as a medic, Ratchet saw many half-sparks. Each of his patients, sometimes occurring in two bodies and sometimes in one, was engrained in his very processor.
He remembered the sparklings of Optimus and Elita. They had not been allowed to touch them when they were first sparked. Ratchet's mentor and then Ratchet himself had been the first to touch them.
They were so tiny, as most sparklings were by that time. The poor things had not lasted a vorn.
Whatever whispers there were of Optimus tampering with the Allspark, whatever suspicions any desperate and ignorant Cybertronians had about their Prime, they had died along with Optimus' sparklings.
When the war broke out, the already weak half-sparks were the first to fall. Though they were more numerous than real twins and sometimes single mechs in some places, in the third vorn of the war, all the half-sparks were gone.
Ratchet, having removed a certain boy and his dæmon from a certain weapons specialist's shoulder cannon, allowed himself to relax at his seat.
Sam and Tristanne were hiding in his cupboard.
Mikaela and Adair were inside his drawer.
Miles and Delaney were inside him.
"Hi, Ratchet," Bumblebee greets, coming into his med-bay. "Have you seen Sam, Mikaela, or Miles around?"
Ratchet looks at him, and replies with a simple, "No."
"Oh, okay," Bumblebee says, disappointed but trusting. "Thanks, Ratch," he says, going off to look elsewhere.
"He's gone. I think you win," Ratchet says, unamused, to the room. There is no answer. Alarmed, he pulls open the cupboard door. Sam is fast asleep, with one hand resting on top of Tristanne's fur.
He pulls open the drawer. Mikaela was also asleep, her head resting against Adair.
He does an internal scan. Miles is asleep inside him, he and Delaney curled up with one another.
Ratchet debates whether or not to call back Bumblebee to tell him to take his elusive quarry back to their quarters for some proper rest, but then decides against it. He gathers them in his arms, taking Sam and Mikaela out gently and gently ejecting Miles, making sure to pay heed to the great taboo. They shift position a little, and their dæmons do not wake.
Ratchet takes them to their quarters, making a mental note to tell a still-searching Bumblebee that his game was postponed.
He also made a mental note to put "Extreme hide-and-go-seek" on the black list.
The humans shifted in his left arm, pressing against his spark-chamber in their search for warmth. In his right arm, their dæmons curled up with one another, a tangle of tawny limbs and black fur sandwiching a happily sleeping capuchin monkey.
Ratchet was a medic. He was supposed to make mechs and femmes and cassettes better and send them on their way.
But, he thought as his spark warmed a little, it was neither possible nor right to fix what wasn't broken.