A/N: I apologize for yet another long absense. For those of you who have stayed with me, thank you so much and please forgive me? College is killing my free time and my social life. ::falls over with extreme fatigue:: But at least I managed to get another chapter out. I hope you all like it. I also hope that my psychology class didn't show through too much and make this chapter hard to understand. Please let me know if it is, and I'll go back through and correct it.
FF has changed some of the symbols it allows on a line. Normally I would use "~*~*~*~" to indicate a break in the story somewhere. Alas that is no longer recognized, so I am using "~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~" instead.
As always, much love to my betas: Razorgaze and Hummergrey. They are fantastic and their writing amazes me. Check out their stories. The links are in my profile page.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. Please don't sue. This is only for fun.
I did not like the medic, though that had nothing to do with him at first and everything to do with my own fears.
Decepticons did not have 'medics.' They had 'upgrading stations' instead of medical facilities. And it was considered a good idea to use an upgrading station after a battle with the Autobots, not to repair some damaged system but to 'update and improve a malfuctioning system' in order to ensure you could kill your opponent in the next encounter. No Decepticon in thier right processors would admit to having an injury. Because an injury meant a weakness. And asking for help was most definitely out of the question. The only reason a Decepticon would let another of his kind anywhere near him with his defenses down was if he was permanently offlined. Because then the scavenging would begin, parts and pieces of armor literally raped from the lifeless.
It was the Decepticon way. Admitting you were hurt was a definite weakness. Worse, it was a like announcing to the known universe that you were tired of existing.
I had heard stories of what happened to drones that had been broken but not offlined. They ended up in the claws of Scalpel, the wicked little scientist bot who had no qualms about ripping the weak to pieces. Though I was bigger than Scalpel, stronger than him even, I was not as smart or as crafty. And, before I had kissed Sam, Scalpel had had the one thing I had lacked: a spark.
That status alone vaulted him miles above me in the chain of command.
Even Megatron walked carefully around that psychopathic tiny bot, never knowing when he would tire of his current experiments. Or perhaps, tire of his status in the Decepticon hierarchy and try for something more. Thundercracker once confessed to his trine-mate, Skywarp, that on more than one occasion, Starscream had come out of recharge with a nasty coding virus in his mainframe. Though no one could truly point a servo at Scalpel as the culprit, everymech knew he had done it.
No one else had the ability to bypass all the security protocols the paranoid Seeker had in place while he recharged.
So facing what I assumed was the Autobot version of Scalpel did little to calm my frizzling circuits. If anything, it engaged my reflexes triple-fold. Ratchet seemed to notice my distress at his appearance, though in retrospect it really wasn't that hard to take note of. I was almost crawling over Bumblebee's shoulder in my haste to get away, keening at the top of my vocal processor in my terror.
"Please," I begged, switching between Cybertronian and English with every other word. I couldn't concentrate enough to hold one language in place, nevertheless take the time to process translations when one set of words couldn't meet the demands of what I wanted to say. "Please, no! Don't! I'm still online! Don't scavenge me! Please! My parts are fine! PLEASE!"
To his credit, 'Bee hummed and crooned, twisting this way and that in an attempt to hold me still. Part of me felt bad for not making this easier on my would-be savior, but that part was buried under the internal klaxon call of panic. I had just come to sentience. I was just learning the wonderful things that having sentient thought meant. I couldn't be scavenged yet! It wasn't fair!
It took Hound reaching over and grabbing my hair-like tendrils. I let out one final screech as he pried me loose from 'Bee's armor, flopping and squirming in his hands like an organic fish out of water. "Stop, little femme! Listen to me, you are going to be fine. He's not going to hurt you. I promise. Now fraggin' stop it!"
And just like that, the fight left me. I couldn't run away from these three bots, not to mention the huge black mech named Ironhide that looked on with vague annoyance in his optics. I knew him, and his reputation with his cannons. I was willing to bet any earthly sum that had I succeeded in escaping 'Bee and Hound, I would be nothing more than a smoking crater in the ground. He would not have let me get away, neutral or not.
I was still keening in little blips of sound as Hound held me out to Ratchet. My optics shuddered, going offline at my request. I did not want to see the parts of me coming out. Feeling the pain as sensors were ripped and torn was quite enough for me. Quietly, and for the first time in my tiny little life, I said a silent prayer that my end came swiftly. And that maybe, possibly, I might become one with the Matrix.
Moments went by without so much as a sound. No hand came at me, no lazer-sharp agony as the cutting began. Not even a ghost of wind against my metal shell to let me know there was movement above or around me. There was… nothing.
Had I already offlined? Was this kind of quiet what it meant to be in the Matrix? Cautiously, I turned on one optic, lifting the guard…
… and found myself optic to optic with the source of my fears.
He lifted an eyebrow ridge. "Are you finished, little one?" he asked, a touch of annoyance in his tone and yet it was still soft. Still non-threatening.
My tendrils, so much like the long hair human femmes had on their head, slithered and snaked around me, twitching to show the fear that continued to consume my spark. What could I say to that? Why was he waiting so long to get on with it? And then a horrible thought occurred to me. What if he was worse than Scalpel? What if he wanted to hear me scream, make me watch as he took me apart piece by tiny piece?
It didn't matter, I had to force myself to admit. So what if he wanted to listen to me scream? Was there anything I could do about it? No. There was nothing. Not one tiny idiotic thing I could do. I lowered my head, tendrils going slack and lifeless around me.
"Yes," I whispered, utterly defeated. "Just please, tell Charlotte that I'm sorry. Tell her that Zoe… that her friendship with me meant so much."
Ratchet blinked, his eyebrow plates drawing down in a frown. And then my words must have finally sunk into his processors. The huge mech vented air in a sigh and reached both hands out to me. When I didn't move, Hound carefully placed me in his open palms.
"Is Zoe your human designation?" Ratchet asked.
I nodded in return. "It is what I call myself. Charlotte was nice to me, she… she welcomed me and gave me food. Human food, but still… the gesture was there. Please, spare her? Let her live her human life in peace. I… I won't fight you in return, okay?"
"Fight me? No, little femme. You misunderstand. I'm not going to hurt you. On the contrary, I want to see what I can do to help you. Tell me, what is your true designation?"
My spark clenched painfully in its chamber. "I… I don't have one."
"She was at Iacon, Ratchet, of that much we have been able to learn," Hound put in gently. "It's possible that she blocked those pieces of memory after that tragedy, up to and including her designation. It has been done before."
Ratchet nodded once, his optics still on me. I felt the first scan go across my protoform, and a blip of sound left me again before I could stop it. The scan didn't hurt at all. It was just… unusual. Something I never thought I would feel from another of my kind. Not unless they were doing it to hurt me, or unless they thought I was lying. Thundercracker used to use his scans to…
I pushed that memory away. I wasn't his drone anymore. I was Zoe, a neutral.
"You have a few minor coding deviations within your mainframe, Zoe," Ratchet replied, again sending another scan my way. "And there are a few tiny repairs that would improve your functionality. May I perform them?"
This time I blinked at him, optics going wide with surprise. "You are asking me?"
"I am not a Decepticon, little one. I will never invade your shell without your permission, unless it is to save your spark."
I glanced over at Bumblebee and Hound, received murmurs of encouragement in return. I nodded to the medic, trying not to tremble as I was placed back into Hound's hands and Ratchet transformed his fingers into the tools he would need. "Then, can I go back to my roommate?"
Ratchet hesitated a moment, shooting a glance to the hulking Ironhide. They must have exchanged a private comm. as Ratchet appeared to nod to himself. "Let us finish the repairs. We will talk about that afterwards."
What else could I do? I let this strange mech play with my systems.
~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~
Ratchet and Ironhide stood some distance away, engaged in a rather visibly animated but otherwise silent conversation. It was one thing I noted distinctly that humans and Cybertronian's had in common. No matter how quiet we could communicate, we both used gestures and motions to articulate the degree of our emotional state when worked up about something. Humans did it with much more noise and fanfare, having to actually speak to be understood.
Cybertronians took it to a whole new level.
Ironhide didn't like me, and that bit of social revelation had nothing to do with my own fears and everything to do with the glares he sent my way. I tried to look as non assuming as possible, lowering my optics when I felt his scraping across the whole of my being. The gesture was meant to be one of respect, one to show that he was more powerful than I, and that my little spark was nothing in comparison to his.
It should have made him happy, the display of submission. Instead, it just irritated him all the more.
I stared down at my tiny three-pronged hands from where I sat on Hound's shoulder, trying to loose myself in the wonder of realizing that these were my hands. I was aware that they were my hands, and I could make them do what I wanted. Of course, I had always acknowledged that I had appendages for with to perform the various tasks I was assigned. I was a drone after all, programmed with at least a slight awareness of self. But never was I independent enough to want to do something more than what I was assigned.
My hands were my own now, and if I wanted to draw with them, or create or just stare at them in wonder, I could do that.
"You must have been through a lot," Hound murmured.
I went utterly still, the only way I knew how to show surprise without drawing attention to myself. Hound was staring at me out of the corner of his optic, watching the way I wove my hands, flexed my fingers. Those same fingers grasped a handful of my tendrils, drawing them closer around myself like a shield as I tried to make myself smaller, more inconsequential.
"Easy, Zoe, I meant no disrespect," he said quickly, frowning a bit at my reaction. "Just talking out loud. You don't have to answer."
Silence would have been prudent. In fact, silence would have been the Decepticon thing to do. But I wasn't one of them anymore, and I felt that I owed it to these gentle mechs to at least attempt to repay their kindness. For as much as I feared the big yellow and green medic, and as much as my spark nearly fritzed to pieces when Ironhide swept a wary gaze my way, I did know a kind of safety in their company.
Don't ask me how I knew it, but I truly believed that they weren't going to hurt me. And contact with my own kind held a certain allure I could not deny. Maybe it was a throwback to being a drone, to being used to the fact that when my usefulness was done, I would be stored in some random compartment on Thundercracker's frame. Still, contact was contact, and safety – whether the relative safety of knowing very few who would challenge Thundercracker and thus I would not come to damage in his compartment, or being in connection with Hound and Bumblebee – was safety.
"I'm…. sorry," I replied softly. "I… I wish I had a way to explain. The things I've experienced…"
"No need, little femme," he smiled sadly. "I was there, too. And I don't like to talk about it, either. I guess I wanted you to know that, if you wanted to, you could talk to me. I won't judge, not after surviving that same massacre."
I lowered my head again, feeling an entirely new sensation thrumming through my spark: shame. I was letting them believe that what I had witnessed at Iacon was horrible to me, that I was a survivor of that attack and not part of it. Not that I had willingly and gleefully slaughtered so many of my own kind. But how could I tell them that I had been a drone, ordered and programmed to kill, and yet after one kiss with that human I was no longer mindless and obediant? Did I even understand that?
Yes.
No.
Maybe if I tried to talk about it, it would somehow make sense?
"There was light," I said at length, trembling on his shoulder armor, letting myself remember that one brush of holographic lip to human lip. "There was so much light and it was everywhere. Invading my frame, my circuits, the very core of my processors. I couldn't block it out, and no amount of protective protocols or battle routines could stop it. I was powerless and afraid as the light consumed me."
I felt 'Bee's fingertip touch my back plating, sliding in a gentle smooth line down my spinal structure. Comforting me as I spoke.
"It changed me," my voice trembled. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It changed me and I had awareness for the first time in my entire life. I was aware of pain and agony and how actions could ricochet out and touch other lives even if we don't mean them to. If I could take it all back, all the past and regret, I would. I'd give it all up to undo the harm that was caused in the name of taking and giving orders."
"We all would," Hound agreed. "I would trade my spark in an astrosecond to bring us back to the brink before the war. I have a feeling you would do the same. And events like Iacon change us all. You should have no shame in that. It's the pain and the memories we carry that firm our resolve to never let that kind of thing happen again."
He was missing the point, and I curved in on myself even more. Here I was, trying to explain that I was very sorry for trying to kill Sam Witwicky, that I had been ordered to do so. But in attempting to follow through on those orders, I had touched something inside their human friend, something that was more than his memories and greater than the sum of all our sparks together. They all thought I was referring to the devastation of Iacon. Was that my fault? Was I explaining it wrong? Feeling 'Bee cupping me between his palms, not trying to lift me but trying to provide comfort and shelter, let me know that I was.
If they knew what I had done, if they knew what I had tried to do to Samuel, those hands would be snapping together and crushing me like an organic bug.
I was saved the further humiliation of trying to put words to abstract concepts of energy and life that I didn't understand myself as Ratchet and Ironhide finished their conversation. Heavy thumps of angry treads on the soft earth had me jumping in spite of my resolve to stay small and non-threatening. Hound turned to look at his commander, 'Bee letting me go but still placing that comforting finger against my back.
"Optimus Prime would like to speak with you," Ironhide rumbled.
And I thought I had experienced fear before. I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.