30 Minutes
Some day, they would return to Cybertron, these warriors fighting desperately in a far-away time and place. 'Some day,' so vague and impossible to pin down. There's no definition for 'some,' no calendar for 'day.' Just 'some day,' and they waited because at least that gave them a hint of the future.
Some day, it wouldn't matter if they were Maximals or Predacons. 'Some day,' as if they grasped at hopes that would, under the uncertain terms of that phrase, not slide completely from their hands. Some day never really had to come, but as long as it was phrased so carefully, it seemed as though it eventually would. It slipped over their common sense like a blindfold on reality, and they said it again. The war could end, some day. How generic a statement, told in the cautious, inoffensive language of a fortune teller mass-producing according to a zodiac sadly out of date...
Some day, the lies they told themselves would muffle the truth and they could believe what they said. 'Some day,' some far-off, distant point in the nebulous future that might occur if they'd stubbornly stick by the statements, deep down, they only wish they could believe. There's no doubt in an exact date, but if they avoid it they can gain some wiggle room and hold on to naivety in the ambiguity of 'some' and 'day.'
Some day, they'd see each other again. Some day, it wouldn't matter who or what they were, only that it was 'some day,' and none of the problems of the present would exist in the speculative future. They could defy expectations and outside pressure and try something new in the freedom, some day.
The problem with 'some day' is that nobody knows when it expires until it's too late. There's only the dim hope in the repetition, and suddenly the real future has arrived and is staring them in the face.
One day, Tigerhawk plummets from the sky.
One day, Blackarachnia looks up at him, at it, at her, at the sparks entwined in that Vok-created chest.
Silverbolt's hands settle on her shoulders. Inside Tigerhawk, what had been Tigatron curls inquiringly around what had been Airazor. Neither male understands the betrayal of something that had never been. Neither understands that their concern--and, perhaps more importantly, the acceptance of one pincer raising to lay over Silverbolt's hand and the flip of a feathered wing on tiger paws--only makes that betrayal harder. They had been waiting for a 'some day' that never came, and while they waited, one day, something else happened.
One day, they'd realized that they could wait forever for 'some day,' or make up something new that wasn't a dream and didn't have a distant point in the future where something might finally turn out right. Some things are worth the wait. Others, well, they got it right, one day, and now they wouldn't have to wait at all.
One day--just one, a definitive date in time, in the present and not somewhere in the future--erased all the might-have-beens that never were. One day, they look into a void between them where they'd wished something could have been, and it isn't there, because what 'some day' could have given them just isn't the same as what they'd gotten, one day.
Some day, they might forgive themselves for that.
The title comes from the song by T.A.T.U., since this seems to belong to the same storyline as the "All The Things She Said" ficlets. Airazor and Blackarachnia face each other with everything they'd said and felt hanging between them, unreachable.