Grgh. Nothing profound to say. I just wanted to say thanks to those who've read and reviewed, and that I do want to do some review replies, but...Mrgh. But, I SO owe you a PM, Vivienne Grainger, for many reasons. I'll get to it soon, I swear! :D

But in the meantime, onward. I had no intention of involving Starscream any further in this "story." But...What can I say? He's a brat and an attention whore. *laughs* Besides, I decided that some things needed to be said between him and Thundercracker, so here you go...

Unexpectedly, Starscream met Thundercracker in the docking bay. Thundercracker gave him an odd look as he transformed and landed.

"I thought you might appreciate a bit of a briefing about what you're in for," Starscream said, explaining his unexpected presence without Thundercracker having to ask.

Thundercracker nodded expressionlessly and then asked, "How is he?"

Starscream shrugged mildly and then turned toward the docking bay doors. He began to walk toward them, knowing that Thundercracker would follow him.

"He's reeling," he reported, matter-of-fact, as Thundercracker fell into step with him. "Like everyone else."

"Except you," Thundercracker observed dryly.

"Except me," Starscream agreed with an amiable nod. "And except you, so far as I can tell. But with him…You really should have talked to him before now. Delaying only made things worse."

Thundercracker sighed, and he answered irritably, "You know, I really didn't come here to be lectured by you. In fact, I didn't come here to see you at all."

"I know that," Starscream answered coolly. "And I'm not lecturing you. I'm…informing you. I'm informing you that Skywarp's had several weeks to just think about things, and that that's all that he's been doing. And you know how very good he is at thinking, in general. And in this case it's so much the worse because he's been Skywarp-thinking without having any actual facts to draw from."

Thundercracker snorted at that.

"You could have told him something," he peevishly pointed out.

Starscream gave Thundercracker a sideways glare, and he answered, "I am not getting in the middle of this. I have enough things to deal with. Besides which…I think that he should hear all of it from you, not from me."

Thundercracker sighed.

"You're right," he admitted.

"Of course I am!" Starscream scoffed, and Thundercracker snorted again. "In any case, he's been Skywarp-thinking for weeks now, and he's not himself. At all. He's quiet, for one thing."

"Quiet?" Thundercracker echoed, bewildered

"Mm-hmm," Starscream confirmed. "Other than when he brought himself to ask me to talk to Swoop about you contacting him, I don't think he's said fifty words in the ten days since I've been back here, and that's including saying 'yes,' 'no,' or 'whatever' when asked a direct question."

"So he's…not angry?" Thundercracker asked hesitantly. He had expected fury. He could deal with a furious Skywarp. He'd dealt with a furious Skywarp many times in the past, and he knew exactly what to do to settle down a furious Skywarp and then douse the flames. But a quiet and possibly morose Skywarp was new, uncomfortably new, the very concept fraught with the unknown.

Starscream snorted, meanwhile.

"I imagine that he was angry. Weeks ago," he said pointedly. "Maybe on some level he still is, and maybe that's why he chose to pick a fight with the Stunticons the other day, so maybe that means there's still some hope. Because otherwise there's just a very creepy silence and an even creepier listlessness. I don't envy you."

Thundercracker sighed again.

"Great," he muttered.

"Like I said, delaying—" Starscream began.

"Like I said," Thundercracker interrupted him gruffly, "I'm not here to be lectured."

"Fine," Starscream snipped. "I don't envy you…but I certainly don't sympathize with you, either, you know. You brought this on yourself. In all sorts of ways."

And Thundercracker suddenly veered off-course, turning toward Starscream, colliding with him, and then shoving him up against a bulkhead before he had time to react.

"Don't go there," Thundercracker snarled threateningly into Starscream's face before Starscream could say anything. "Don't pretend to be all angelic and blameless. Because I am not in the mood to hear it, understand?"

Starscream scowled and struggled a bit against Thundercracker's hold on him. That only prompted Thundercracker to press him more firmly, uncomfortably firmly, against the bulkhead, so he subsided for the moment. He glared at Thundercracker and answered, calmly, "It's not my fault that you—"

"What part of 'not in the mood to hear it' did you not understand?" Thundercracker snarled again, thumping Starscream's back against the wall once, and not gently, for good measure. "If it weren't for your weirdness," he growled before Starscream could answer, "then he and I wouldn't be in this situation at all. So I'd say that it's partly very much your fault."

And then Thundercracker waited for the excuses, the habitual lies, and the fervent protestations of blameless innocence to spew out of Starscream like an exploding geyser. But they didn't come. Instead, Starscream merely looked at Thundercracker, his expression suddenly and oddly thoughtful. He nodded to himself and he said, very quietly, "You're right."

Thundercracker, shocked by the admission, quickly stepped away from Starscream. He blinked at him and he answered, almost dazed, "I am?"

Starscream snorted and pushed himself away from the bulkhead. His expression was vastly annoyed, but he said, still very quietly, "Yes. You are. I can't say that I'm at all happy about it, mind you, but…you are."

And then, before Thundercracker could think of anything at all to say in response, Starscream was moving again, striding purposefully down the corridor, his pace not at all the leisurely stroll that it had previously been. Thundercracker stared at his back for a few moments before shaking himself and then hurrying to catch up with him.

"I've had cause to…do some self-examination lately," Starscream explained once Thundercracker had fallen into step with him but before he could say anything. "A certain individual who shall remain nameless but who occasionally fancies herself something of a psychiatrist has informed me that doing so is good for me."

"And she can be very persuasive," Thundercracker said gravely, with a knowing nod.

"You noticed that, did you?" Starscream agreed, also with a nod.

"Oh, yes," Thundercracker answered ruefully.

"Well, persuasive or not…she was right," Starscream admitted. "Examining myself has made me realize some…things. Things that I might be wise to change." He stopped again suddenly then, and he turned to regard Thundercracker, who was in turn giving Starscream a silent but very odd look. And Starscream finished pointedly, his voice lowered as if he was afraid that someone might overhear what he said, "But some things I simply can't change. Some things I couldn't change even if I wanted to change them. Some things are just…what I am."

Thundercracker bit his lip as he thought about what Starscream had said and its implications. They began to walk again silently, side by side, and they walked that way for quite a while before Thundercracker finished thinking and spoke up again.

"It's all right, you know," he offered quietly. "All things considered, it's not a bad place to be." As Starscream turned his head to give him an odd, possibly surprised, look, Thundercracker amended with a shrug, "It's not ideal, certainly, but…it's not bad, either."

Starscream nodded slowly, acknowledging the half-hearted forgiveness behind his wingmate's words. He smiled slightly and said with quiet reluctance, "I…hope that this doesn't break you. Either of you. Both of you."

Thundercracker shrugged again, and he said with far more confidence than he felt, "We'll work it out. We've had how many years of practice now?"

"Far too many," Starscream answered with a wry half-smile. "Just…be careful."

Thundercracker half-smiled, too, as he said, "Always."

They walked along in comfortable silence after that, slowly heading toward the section of Decepticon Headquarters where the living quarters were situated. After a few moments of companionable-enough progress, Thundercracker began to feel uneasy, and he knew that it was because Starscream had spoken of Swoop. It wasn't the fact that he had spoken of her in general that was troubling Thundercracker so much as it was the way that he had spoken of her, the tone of his voice and the expressions that had crossed his face. He'd spoken of her casually. With familiarity. With, almost worst of all, rather obvious fondness.

Thundercracker had at first tried valiantly to put the two of them out of his mind. When that had failed, he'd tried to convince himself that theirs was just a business relationship of a very strange sort, that it was a necessary but otherwise impersonal sort of arrangement, with absolutely no emotional attachments on either side. He'd been able to convince himself of all of that fairly easily…until he'd seen the way that Starscream had kissed Swoop, possessively and very passionately and in full view of everyone, when he'd left for Decepticon Headquarters. Until he'd seen the look on Swoop's face as she'd watched him fly off into the clear desert sky and the way that she had wistfully stared after him, long after she couldn't actually see him anymore. Until he'd observed, in the days that had followed, how she would sometimes fall into staring off into space, and he'd known exactly what – or rather, exactly about whom – she had been thinking. And until she'd gone and confirmed it herself, out loud, when she'd told him that she didn't mind the 'link' that she shared with Starscream.

It was troubling, and perhaps the most troubling thing about it was that Thundercracker knew, deep down, that he had no right to be troubled by the situation. He knew that Swoop was her own person and that she was entirely capable of making her own decisions. He knew that he had missed out on her entire life so far and that she could do with the rest of it exactly as she pleased. He knew that he was in no position to be judgmental of her and that in any case he wasn't "supposed" to feel any attachment to her at all. Nothing that she did or said or felt for anyone else should trouble him in the slightest. He knew all of these things. Intellectually, he knew them.

But he also knew that he had a weirdness just as much as Starscream did. His was that he was attached to Swoop when he wasn't supposed to be. He had felt very strongly attached to her since before she'd been born the first time around. He'd tried to put the attachment aside, but he hadn't been able to do so at all. That inability on his part had been the driving force behind all that had happened with her, which in turn had set off the extremely improbable chain of events that had ultimately led to the current situation that they all faced, including Starscream. So in a way, Thundercracker was fully aware that the attachment between Starscream and Swoop was strangely, ultimately, and entirely his own fault. His own weirdness had much more far-reaching effects than Starscream's could ever have, and Swoop and Starscream were both casualties of it. He acknowledged that it was wrong of him to hold that against them. Either of them.

On the other hand, Thundercracker unfortunately knew Starscream very well. He knew how he could and happily would use people, about how he'd lie to them and lie about his motivations, all as easily and sometimes every bit as often as he breathed. He knew that Starscream had a talent for ingratiating himself with others. He knew that he habitually used the individuals that he charmed and sweet-talked to further his own aims, and that when they were no longer useful to him, he casually discarded them without the slightest qualm and without a single backward glance. It was true that Starscream had just surprised him with his spate of self-examination and his little confession about the effects of his weirdness…but it was also true that Starscream had been known to make just such carefully-constructed and carefully-timed confessions on occasion, whenever it suited his purposes and furthered his aims to do so.

Thundercracker found that he could not tolerate the notion of Starscream using Swoop. He could not tolerate the notion of anyone, but especially not Starscream, hurting her in any way. The fact that Starscream might be willing to do exactly that, that he might even be planning to do so, was tearing at Thundercracker mercilessly and had been doing so for weeks. The thought of it was robbing him of peace and inhibiting his efforts to move on with a life that was suddenly on an entirely different course than the one it had followed for thousands of years.

And so Thundercracker kept giving Starscream surreptitious looks now, as if he believed that he could ascertain what was really going on in Starscream's processors just by doing so, as if Starscream would be stupid enough to allow his true intentions and motivations to show plainly on his face or in his body language or in anything that Thundercracker could see and read. Thundercracker knew that his effort to ascertain Starscream's true thinking and his true motivations was entirely futile, that Starscream was a master of deception, of lies, of misdirection, of talking but saying nothing. Most of all, he was a master of adroitly concealing anything real about himself. Still, Thundercracker kept glancing furtively at him anyway. He couldn't seem to help himself.

After noticing a dozen or so such probing and speculative sideways glances that Thundercracker aimed at him, Starscream stopped in his tracks and huffed a demanding, "What?" at him.

Thundercracker stopped with him, deliberated for a moment…but then he demurred in a mutter, "It's nothing."

"It's not 'nothing,'" Starscream insisted. "I know what's bothering you, so stop giving me looks and just say it."

Thundercracker glared at him, deliberated some more, and then grumbled, "Fine. Yes, I'm having difficulty with the whole concept of you and Swoop. All right? Happy now?"

Starscream didn't answer. He just started walking again, slowly. His expression was a thoughtful one, and once Thundercracker fell into step with him again, he said, very quietly, "Neither of us had any choice in the matter, you know."

"I know," Thundercracker answered evenly and just as quietly. "Believe me, I know exactly what it does to you. But…it happens, and then it goes away. You go your separate ways. It doesn't not go away, and you certainly don't develop any kind of…of relationship because of it."

Starscream heaved a light little sigh, and with an enigmatic little smile he murmured, "So they tell me."

And this time it was Thundercracker who stopped in his tracks. He gave Starscream a narrow-eyed, searching, penetrating look, and then he accused, very unhappily, "You are enjoying this far too much."

Starscream scowled back at him, his own eyes narrowed peevishly.

"Would you prefer that I not care about her, then?" he asked pointedly. "Would you feel better if I viewed being with her as a loathsome chore and then treated her accordingly? Would you be happier if I resented the entire situation and then took out my resentment of it on her on a regular basis?"

Thundercracker blinked, taken aback. Starscream's tone was not one that he'd heard from him often. It was sincere in a very annoyed sort of way, as if he truly wished that he could simply not care about Swoop, as if he wished that he could resent her. Somehow, that made his words, the words of a known consummate master of lies, ring suddenly very true to Thundercracker.

He answered, somewhat lamely, "Well…no."

"Well," Starscream answered with a satisfied nod as he started to walk again. "There you are, then."

They walked on in silence for a while, and Thundercracker found himself chewing on what Starscream had said and how he had said it. When he stopped walking again, frowning in thought, Starscream made an exasperated noise and halted as well.

"So…" Thundercracker ventured hesitantly, "you…care…about her, then? Truly?"

"Well, of course I do, stupid!" Starscream answered. "Without her, we're a doomed species." And then he tried to move on, but Thundercracker reached out with lightning quickness and grabbed his arm, restraining him and then pulling him closer so that he could lower his voice when he spoke.

"That's not what I meant," he said quietly, not letting go of Starscream's arm. "And you know it."

Starscream scowled at his wingmate for a long moment, giving the black hand that was tightly clutching his arm a very displeased look that didn't faze Thundercracker in the slightest. And then he heaved a long and weary sigh.

"Your daughter," Starscream informed Thundercracker, "is an amazing individual. Frankly, I give Wheeljack all the credit for that, because I know that it can't have been you, her mother, or Ratchet who made her that way."

Thundercracker smirked at him and answered, "Nice attempt at diversion. Very tactical of you. Now answer the question."

Starscream huffed in irritation, and he finally yanked his arm out of Thundercracker's grasp. He leveled a narrow-eyed glare at him, and then he admitted in a growl, "Fine. If you must know, the answer is yes, I care about your daughter, Thundercracker. On a wide variety of levels. All right? Happy now?"

Without waiting for an answer, Starscream started walking again, and Thundercracker watched him walk away for a long moment. Again, Starscream's entire demeanor was one that Thundercracker had never seen in him, one that was full of reluctant sincerity, and again it was the reluctance that made his words ring true.

When Starscream was a dozen or so paces down the corridor, Thundercracker called out after him, "Actually, yes. I am happy."

Starscream stopped in mid-stride and then turned on his heel to regard his wingmate in surprise. Thundercracker was giving him a look that was a mixture of relief and amusement. Starscream frowned in confusion at him and he said, intelligently, "You…are?"

Thundercracker shrugged mildly.

"Well, you certainly wouldn't have been my first choice," he answered honestly. He took a moment to stroll across the distance that separated them, his hands clasped serenely behind his back, and then he continued, "But like you said, choice wasn't exactly involved here. But if you're not lying to me, and you really do care about her…then that means that you won't hurt her. In any way. And if you don't hurt her, then I won't have to hurt you. And that makes me happy."

Starscream folded his arms over his chest and scoffed, "Was that supposed to be a threat?"

Thundercracker shook his head, shrugged, and answered mildly, "Not at all. Just a promise."

"Hah!" Starscream scoffed again. "It's not as if she needs help when it comes to retaliating when she's been hurt. You saw what she did to Megatron. Besides, if I were to hurt her, I'd have four very large and very displeased Dinobots breathing down my neck, and one of them would be doing so with fire. One of them, much less four of them, could do a lot more damage than you could do even in your wildest dreams."

Thundercracker grimaced and said, simply, "True."

A moment of silence stretched between them, and then Starscream murmured, his voice lowered in such a way that no one could hear what he said other than Thundercracker, "You needn't worry, though. Any of you. I have no intention of hurting Swoop in any way. In fact…I do believe that I would die for her," he finished, and the look on his face was odd, as if he'd just at that moment realized that he would do exactly that.

In response, Thundercracker simply gaped at him.

"Oh, why the shocked look?" Starscream irritably asked of him, chafing at his amazement. "Dying for her is what I'm supposed to do, isn't it?"

And with that, before Thundercracker could say anything, Starscream spun away from Thundercracker and stalked off down the corridor. This time, Thundercracker didn't follow him, and he didn't say anything to stay him, either. He just gaped after Starscream for a long time, standing there in the middle of the corridor. A few stray passersby gave him odd looks as he stood there, still thinking long after Starscream was out of sight, but he ignored them all. And then, eventually, he slowly shook his head at no one and nothing.

"Well, well," he murmured bemusedly to himself. "My daughter is an amazing individual, indeed." And then with slightly lighter steps he, too, continued down the corridor, off to see to his next distasteful task.