Future Tense - Chapter Three

Disclaimer: As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

The heap of old recycling was prickly and uncomfortable against Skywarp's heat-damaged wings, but it was also cold, and he couldn't bring himself to try and get up. Not as if he was going to get anywhere, after all. The lack of lower left leg had rather put paid to his overall mobility – couldn't stay in the air, and couldn't walk either. He could always make up an excuse if pushed; better to stay here and make it easier for his wingmates to find him, right?

Plus, he wasn't leaking any more, now he'd finally persuaded his self-repair systems to pinch off the damaged fuel lines, and any residual energon left in the lines had crystallised off. Wasn't going bleed himself completely dry, grey out, and blend in with the rest of the rubbish.

What were you trying to prove, anyway, huh? he scolded himself, settling down for what might be a looong wait. Going underground? You should have known it'd all go to Pit even if you managed not to freak out – fliers going burrowing about in the undercity? Some kinda blasphemy, surely. And why didn't you just go up, when you realised that thing was gonna blow? Not as if you didn't teleport anyway! Just a microsecond more thinking would have saved you from all this.

The contrails streaking through the sky reassured him; two glittering snow-bright lines across the velvet dark. At least the guys are all right. Didn't get caught in the blast.

He set up an automatic subspace beacon to ping his whereabouts to any machines in the general vicinity, and offlined his optics, settled into a doze to preserve what fuel he had left. Could be here a while, he reasoned. Stupid transmitter seemed to have taken some heat damage, his range was limited to maybe a couple of hundred yards at most. Oh well. Wasn't as if he'd be here for long, he mused, feeling his abused, stressed-out systems gradually click over into a pleasant dormancy. Patrols usually came past the recycling facilities, wouldn't be long before someone found him. His 'lurid, horrible' purple colouring wasn't the best camouflage either, so it wasn't like they wouldn't be able to spot-

"Hello!"

A rustle in the junk and an unexpected little voice startled him out of his energy-preserving doze, and he onlined his optics to find a smiling little face with bright blue optics gazing down at him from somewhere above his head.

"What are you doing in there?" the little femme went on, curiously.

"Stargazing," he replied, more gruffly than he intended, wondering where the little brat had magically appeared from, because she looked suspiciously like a sparkling and they in turn usually meant nosey guardians. Great.

She perked her head and frowned at him, confused.

"I fell in," Skywarp clarified, tiredly.

"Is that how you hurt your leg?" She peered down at his knee.

"No, my hurt leg is why I fell in. Couldn't stay airborne."

"How did you hurt it?" She disappeared from view, apparently to examine his damaged knee.

Skywarp sighed the stale air from his core. "Listen, do you have parents anywhere? Do you think you could maybe… fetch them, or something useful?"

"I can get my Day!" she agreed, rustling about. "He's nearby. Day?"

"Oh, there you are. Come on, Blink, come away from there," a distant (and strangely familiar) voice called out. "We need to get you to auntie before my shift, remember?"

"I know, but I'm talking to the mech in the recycling," the little femme protested. "He needs us to help."

"We don't have time for make-believe today, bitlet, I already told you I was running late. Come on. Please?" The voice gradually got louder as its owner approached. "We can play later, after my shift."

"But you're always too tired after work, Day," the sparkling reminded, sadly, turning to watch her carer approach. "And we need to help this Seeker. He's been hurt."

"Seeker?" As Skywarp had half anticipated, from the soft male cadence he could hear in the distance, the owner of the voice turned out to be Whitesides. The bike's optics met his own for a fraction of a second, before he leaped away, as though someone had jabbed him in the side with something sharp. "What in Pit-" he blurted, involuntarily. "Skywarp? H-how did you get there? Where have you-"

"Look, it'd be really nice if you stopped gawping at me, and just called TC," Skywarp interrupted, tiredly. "My transmitter's broken."

"Um, uh, yessir, okay sir! Right away. Uhh." He glanced down at his sparkling – 'Blink', the teleport figured – who was watching him expectantly. "Okay, bitlet. You stay here and look after mister Skywarp, all right?" He stroked her 'bunches', distractedly. "I need to call for a paramedic…"

"Yes, Day," the sparkling agreed, cheerfully, butting her small head up into his palm.

Well, this must explain why the bike was sneaking around in this unfamiliar part of the district. Hiding the sparkling from his room-mates. One fling too many, huh? Skywarp wondered, privately, giving the constable a suspicious look. Guess it had to happen sometime.

Blink treated him to another of those huge smiles. She didn't look very old at all, Skywarp realised – maybe just a full solar orbit, at most. A little older than his twins had been, when they had shown up in Vantage's lap, while he was still, ah, 'working' (in the loosest possible interpretation of the word) on that horrible mud-ball world, but certainly not anywhere near being an adult. "Skywarp," she greeted, as though practising his name. "Where did you come from?"

"I live here."

She perked her head. "…in the recycling?"

"No-oo, in Deixar."

"Really?" Her face creased in a curious smile and perked her bunches – most likely little external sensory boutons, and probably why she'd picked up his signal so well. "When did you move in? I've never seen you before. You'll get on well with the other jets here, Day says they get very lonely."

"Ugh, tell me about it." He didn't bother to correct her that he was one of the other jets.

"Where did you come from before here? Because you're very big, for a Seeker," she pointed out.

It figured that the product of Whitesides' spark would be chatty, Skywarp considered, uncharitably, wondering if she'd pay any attention if he explained he just wanted some peace and quiet? "Not really," he demurred, tiredly. "No bigger than the other guys."

"Maybe it's all the bits you're laying in making you look bigger," she agreed, although her little brows were pulled together in a frown. "You're definitely more boxy, though." She scooted herself through the scrap and fetched up by the point of his shoulder. "Your guns are on the outside, too." She patted the closest of his cannons.

He gave her a suspicious look. "Your imagination is way too active, kid."

She giggled. "I know. Day says so, too," she agreed. "But I'm being serious, this time! Aren't I, Day?" She looked over at her parent. "He's bigger than your boss, isn't he?"

Whitesides made a face, and avoided the question.

"You kept her secret," Skywarp pointed out, watching as the smaller mech halted nearby. "Who've you been mucking about with?"

Whitesides looked down at his feet and mumbled something unintelligible, before adding; "Ambulance will be here soon."

"O-kay…" Skywarp gave him a curious look. Either the kid was a sore point, or he was disappointed at finally being rumbled. "Where do you stash her when you have a shift? Back with Ama, or what?"

Whitesides just made another of those awkward, meaningless noises and got himself settled close to Skywarp's thrusters to wait for the ambulance. Blink was the one to answer, in his stead, settling into the uncomfortable Policebot's lap. "It's just me and Day. I haven't got an Ama." She didn't look particularly bothered by the revelation, though. "My aunties look after me when Day can't."

Whitesides refused to meet Skywarp's probing gaze; he fussed with the strands of ribbon tied around the sensory boutons on the sides of the little femme's helm. "You're making a big deal out of nothing, sir." His words came out as a quiet mumble.

Skywarp quirked a suspicious-curious brow. "Right. Of course. Totally unimportant." As much as he wanted to grill Central Station's resident drama-hound for juicy gossip, he knew from experience that it was going to take some imaginative sneakery to get it out of him if he was involved.

After a breem or two of reluctant half-discussion, the whuu-up! of sirens announced the arrival of a paramedic. The rugged little green all-terrain vehicle unfolded itself into a stocky, smiling little mech, bristling with built-in medical equipment. "Hi!" he greeted, with a wave. "Someone called an ambulance?"

Whitesides went out to greet him, looking relieved to have got away from the touchy subject of his offspring. "No offence, but I hope that's not you, Braze," he said, dryly. "Because he's pretty large."

"Nono, I'm just here as First Response. Flatliner's following me, but he's a bit further back, got held up just outside the depot." The medic jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Where's the casualty?"

"Over here…" Whitesides waved an arm in Skywarp's direction.

The medic scarcely even blinked at the sight of the downed flier. "Hello there, sir," he greeted, with a friendly smile, acting as if it were the most natural thing ever to find a Seeker with an amputated leg in a heap of old garbage. "You must be the one we need to get to hospital, eh?"

Skywarp just made a face at him, lips pursed in an irritable pout. I-don't-want-your-small-talk fairly oozed out of every vent.

"All right, then." The paramedic – Blaze? Braze? Whatever his name was – was obviously used to seeing patients on a bad day because he acted like the teleport had agreed, not sat and glared. "Let me just get this in place…" he plucked a silvery brace out of his subspace, "…so you don't get any more dirt in there, then we can get you out and fixed up. Sound fair?"

"So long as you quit gabbing and hurry up about it." Skywarp levelled a glare at his helper, but it didn't quite have the desired effect. He lifted his injured leg (trying not to concentrate too hard on the amputated body part), and watched as the smaller mech carefully brushed away the loose bits of grit and broken plate before fastening the cup-shaped device around his knee. The soothing chill of inbuilt coolant relieved the worst of the bristling hurt.

"Feel okay?" the medic prompted, holding out his hands.

"Just help me up," Skywarp grumbled, slithering through the recycling in his effort to stand. "I'm not an invalid." And I don't need any over-eager Autobot groundling with a lunatic grin helping me, either. "I can still walk."

"Well, all right, if you think so." The paramedic sounded doubtful, but took an arm and helped him carefully back to his wobbly remaining thruster anyway.

Skywarp propped himself up on a convenient bit of old scaffolding and glared hard enough to 'scare' his medic away a step or two. Okay, so… huh. How was he supposed to walk? Yet again, you fail to think these things through, Warp. He studied the ground and clung to his crutch. This wasn't going to be easy. At least he didn't have a lot of ground to cover – the scuffed little green flatbed ambulance that had arrived to carry him to hospital had got as close as it could.

Braze endured watching the dark Seeker attempt to hop/hobble for only a few moments; long enough for him to catch his crutch on his wings and almost fall over twice in as many steps. "Come on, sir." The stocky little mech slotted himself under the Seeker's arm and walked carefully with him to the flatbed ambulance. "No offence, but it'll take you all day to get to hospital, at this rate."

Skywarp glared, for emphasis, but accepted defeat and let himself be helped, figuring it was better than having to swallow his pride and ask for assistance. It'd probably be more wounding to his dignity if he went flat on his face in front of the Policedork and his brat, anyway, because they sure wouldn't let him forget it.

Whitesides followed close behind them the whole way to hospital, with Blink sat on his back, clinging to his forequarters with an ease that belied long practice. Skywarp watched her out of the periphery of his vision, wondering why he'd never seen the little one before – wasn't as if she was a shy, retiring little sparkling that spent all its time hiding behind the furniture, after all. If stashed somewhere secret, from what he'd seen so far he had no doubt at all that she'd probably find her own way out. And if she stayed with "aunties", well, Squeaky wouldn't have been able to keep something like that secret for long…

Blink noticed him watching her, and waved. Skywarp made an awkward face and wiggled his fingers, briefly.

The ambulance finally drew up at the rear of the district general; a couple of bored, uninterested nurses were chatting quietly outside on their break, and a harassed-looking security guard stood nearby, wreathed in vapours and sucking busily at a flashstick, but that was it. Skywarp hid his little sigh of relief that he wouldn't have to endure the attention of dozens of nosey Autobots. He might technically not be a Decepticon any more, but there were still a lot of bad feelings on both sides, and having to endure and the sneery, holier-than-thou expressions would only push him into a rage. That was guaranteed to make him fall flat on his face.

He pushed himself to his feet, and managed to stand unaided for all of about an astrosecond before his wings pulled him off-balance and he had to grab Flatliner's cab to stay upright. Braze cheerfully helped him hobble through the back doors into the emergency department and over to the closest empty berth, and made sure he was comfortable before heading off to call the senior on-duty medic.

The sudden quiet as soon as the paramedic pulled the privacy screen closed was a blessed relief. If not for his poor, painful wings, which made it really hard to lay back, relax and gather his thoughts, it would have been easy to ignore the little murmury voices outside and get some well-deserved recharge.

Soon as he was back in one piece, he resolved, he was going to grab a remote camera and go look for that whatever-it-was in the rift. Fragging dare they blow him up.

"Sir?"

Skywarp shook himself awake; one of the nurses he'd seen outside had put his head around the privacy screen. "What?" The words came out more surly than he'd intended, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for it.

"Just checking if you were awake." The nurse ducked in through the screen; he looked like a kind of skinny, dark blue version of Forceps. "Doctor wanted me to see if you needed any painkillers before they assess you."

"I tore half my leg off, what do you think?" Skywarp gestured irritably at his knee brace.

"I figured as much." The mech smiled, apologetically, and unspooled a temporary fuel rig. "Sit tight and I'll give you a shot. We'll try get some fresh energon into you, while we're at it." He hunted a suitable fuel line close to the surface, across the top edge of his patient's wings where the plating wasn't quite so solid. "Once you're stabilised, the doctors can see about getting your knee fixed up."

Skywarp put up with the gentle manhandling with a sullen patience. Some energon would be nice, he resolved. Probably could stand to be kinda grateful.

Before the nurse was finished, a skinny, smiling little green protoform pushing a trolley of equipment appeared from behind the privacy screen – Skywarp felt his lip curl, involuntarily. Just what he needed, another inane grinning idiot to heckle him.

"Hi," the newcomer greeted, ignoring the Seeker's sour look. "My name's Fine-tune, but most folk here call me Patches. I'm going to just check you over, make sure you're stable before they come down and collect you for surgery, all right?"

"Are you lot gonna try and talk me fixed, or something?"

Patches forced a smile, and bent to carefully unclasp the brace. "So what's your name?" she wondered, picking a wash-bottle off her trolley and carefully rinsing the last slivers of energon crystal and broken plating out of the damaged knee-joint.

Skywarp gave her a hard look. "Are you really that stupid?"

Her optics visibly brightened, alarmed. "Uh, n-no sir, just-… wanted to know who I was treating."

"Well go suck on someone else's sump, I'm not playing any stupid Autobot games." He folded his arms. "Just fix me and let me go home."

"Of-… of course, sir. Uh-…" She straightened and wiped her hands, awkwardly. "I, uh, I think I'll need to call Resector down to take a look at you. Might not be so easy to fix if we don't have the components."

Skywarp wrinkled his lip. He remembered Resector well from the Blue debacle; a very pure-sparked, holier-than-thou Autobot surgeon suffering from a severely overinflated opinion of himself. "Well that blousy old glitch isn't coming near me," he asserted. "I'm not having him sabotaging me. Go ask if Sepp'll do it, or something."

"Um, sir?"

"Forceps? She does work here, right? She's a friend, I'm sure she won't mind too muh."

"Uh-… in a manner of speaking, yes. Uh-"

The nurse picked up on the awkwardness and helpfully redirected the conversation. "Your wings are very blistered, over the back," he pointed out, attempting to examine them without touching them too much. "Have you been attacked? Is that why they found you in the recycling division?"

"No-o. Just caught in an explosion at the rift." Skywarp gave him a little glare and shifted his shoulders, uncomfortably. Something was getting… strange, about this whole situation. His insides felt funny, like he was about to need to defend himself against something. "You must have heard it, come on, it's not that far away and it was a pretty massive bang."

The doctor arched a brow and swapped a funny look with the nurse.

"What? Primus, what is it with guys being cryptic today?" Skywarp gave the nurse a half-hearted shove, annoyed. "Just gimme a painkiller, fix me up, and get me out of here. How hard is that gonna be to do?"

"Well, um, I'm not sure how easy it'll be to repair your leg, the damage is fairly extensive. Your wings don't look too good either." Patches tapped her lips, thoughtfully. "How about if we were to maybe just take them off for a little wh-"

"No!" Skywarp sat up straight, alarmed, and the cannula the nurse had just succeeded in getting into the side of his neck jogged straight back out again. Bad memories of poor smashed-up wingless Thundercracker made his own back ache. "No. My wings stay attached."

"They'll be easier to fix, and you'll be a lot more comf-" the medic tried to explain, but her patient interrupted again.

"No, no no, wings stay on-"

"But-"

"Don't make me punch you in the face, Autobot."

Patches hastily backed off, involuntarily covering her nose with her hands. "I-I'll go get the surgeon."

The nagging little concerns they'd left him with meant it was very difficult to actually enjoy the silence when the medics finally left him and his painkillers in peace. All the little "wrongnesses" were adding up in a way Skywarp very much didn't like. He sighed and shifted his shoulders, awkwardly, and boosted the gain on his hearing.

"So… what do you think?" Among the vocalisations he didn't recognise, Skywarp recognised his nurse's tones, and the mech sounded… uneasy. "Is it actually him?"

"Looks like it. Not many are going to match that description-"

"Has anyone notified the Superintendent?"

Patches' nervous, reedy voice spoke up. "I was just about to, now I'm satisfied he's stabilised. I just didn't want to get anyone's hopes up." Beat. "Does anyone know the frequency?"

"I can do that," Whitesides offered, quietly, in the background – Primus, what was he doing, still here? Wasn't he grumbling about being late for his shift, earlier? "I have a direct frequency to get through to my inspector, he's the superintendent's attaché for central station. Probably best going through us than letting the entire station know by asking Whisper to relay a message."

Skywarp sighed, and flopped back to the surface of the berth; an abstract sort of pain shivered up off his wings at the impact, but it was a dull hurt, mostly masked by analgesia, and he ignored it. Those few short breems of relaxation he'd been hoping for had promptly evaporated. Last thing he wanted was for Hardline to be giving him a hard time too. Stupid idiot, wasting police time, why did you even go underground in the first place, you should have known it'd go to Pit, because you're an moron who doesn't know his own limits and you always frag it up.

"What about Footsie? Braze?"

"I'm, uh... I've held off telling her," the paramedic replied, as though it was some terrible giant admission. "I kinda wanted to preserve the peace in here for a while, you know? Just while you guys got him checked over. I mean, in case he, ah, wasn't him."

Footsie? Gotta mean Lou, Skywarp mused. Didn't realise she knew the grinning idiot. Didn't think she had much cause to come here, even. Perhaps she'd been her usual idiot self and broke something (or got something stuck somewhere), and had to sneak in to the Emergency Department to get fixed, without telling anyone.

Skywarp tried to banish his gloomy thoughts, but the idea of parallel universes was swimming around in the front of his cortex. Was that where he was, right now? All that chatter about him not being him, or whatever they'd said. What did that actually mean anyway. Who else was he gonna be? Unless there was no Skywarp here. Or he'd been killed in the war. Or, or… something.

Don't be stupid, Skywarp. He covered his face with one hand. Why would you have suddenly accidentally teleported into a different universe after all those millions of years of not doing so? But then he'd never felt that weird, cold, almost nothing sensation when transitioning between places before, either. He couldn't put a finger on what it felt like, aside from… well… nothing.

There was a high-pitched squeal of glee and a ripple of alarm from the medical team, but before anyone could move to intercept the approaching little green blur that had rudely crashed through the privacy screen, it had collided with Skywarp hard enough to almost tumble him clean off his berth. He teetered dangerously on the edge for an instant, before his nurse spotted the problem and lunged to catch him.

The 'something' turned out to be a smallish dark green femme with vibrant blue-green optics and broad wings. Paramedic? Skywarp wondered, recognising (when it stopped moving long enough for him to get a good look at it) the same colour scheme as his own rescuer had been wearing. He was pretty sure there were no fliers he didn't know in the district, though, and this little one had a very strange root mode; skinny and lightweight, with an unfamiliar propulsion system – her little feet did have in-built thrusters, sure, but there was no way they'd be strong enough to get her in the air.

No time to think about that now, though. His lap was full of paramedic and he needed to get her off him because she was making his wings hurt-

"Oh Primus it's you it's you it's really you-!" Words bubbled in an uncontrolled flood out of her vocaliser. "I thought you were dead or trapped or something, gone forever and Primus, you're back you're back oh thank Primus-"

The broken jet winced and peeled her off his chassis, holding her at arm's reach. "Do I know you?" Her static field felt very familiar but he couldn't tell why.

The excited grin plastered across the pale grey face suddenly became less enthusiastic; a sort of confused smile. "Don't-… don't be silly," she instructed, still trying to hug him.

Skywarp felt his brow furrow, irritably. "Either you explain it, you little psycho, or you get off and go away now."

"But… it's me, Day…" Her smile faltered, became uncertain. "It-... it's Footloose."