Protectors Of The Young.
Chapter Five.
Several Months Later.
Elita was manning the gatehouse when the Autobots returned from their latest battle, carrying with them a seriously injured Seeker: injured severely enough to need substantial repairs to his back and wings, but not so injured, it appeared, that it did not protest and swear at the mechs holding him.
She opened the gates and watched as the swearing Seeker - she thought it was the one designated Thrust - was borne into the Base. It was Ratchet who turned to him and said "For the love of Primus! Anyone would think you were going to be tortured, not repaired! Shut the Pit up and let me repair you! If you want to leave after that, then you can, but not before!"
Thrust's response made Bumblebee make a querying noise and look to Ratchet curiously.
"Language, Thrust!" Ratchet snapped. Then he looked at Bumblebee.
"No, I will not tell you what that means, so don't even think of asking," he told the scout who subsided, arms and door wings drooping in disappointment.
When Ratchet got Thrust into his med bay, he lay him on his front, at first not questioning why the Decepticon suddenly ceased to struggle, nor noticing his fixed stare at a certain area within the medbay. It was only as he damped down the wing area and began to tidy up the tattered remnants of the Seeker's wings that Ratchet noticed the tilt of Thrust's head and looked in the direction of his stare.
One of the newer sparklings had woken, rolled on its side, and was peering through the plastic wall of it's cot-berth at the medic and his patient, one little hand gripping the top to keep it on its side. Looking back at his quiescent patient, Ratchet saw the Seeker had torn his optics from the sight of the sparkling, and was looking at him pleadingly.
"Can I hold it? Please?" Thrust asked as he saw Ratchet was looking back at him.
"I don't see why not, - but only once I've fixed you, so you lie right back down!" Ratchet said, pushing down on Thrust's shoulder vent, for at the first part of Ratchet's reply, the Seeker had begun to scramble to his feet eagerly.
Thrust did comply, and managed to lie relatively still for the rest of Ratchet's ministrations, only an occasional twitch belying his impatience.
The moment Ratchet said "Okay, you're fixed," Thrust rolled to a seated position and held out his arms expectantly: Ratchet went over to the sparkling and picked it up. It cooed at him, but stopped when Ratchet put it in Thrust's waiting hands.
"It's okay, he won't hurt you." Ratchet said confidently. Thrust looked at the small mech he held, and abruptly tipped it onto its back, running tickling fingers up and down its abdomen. The sparkling stuttered and clicked in laughter, kicking and wriggling. Thrust's face was alight, a rare smile on his face as he played with the sparkling.
"Thrust?" Ratchet called to get the Seeker's attention. He had to call three more times before the Seeker looked up.
"Yes?" he said, then indicated the sparkling he was holding. "I think he may be hungry. Can I feed him?"
Ratchet knew by now from Starscream and his trine's uncanny knack, that Seekers seemed to be able to pinpoint a sparkling's need before it got to the stage where the sparkling would cry for it, so he did not query Thrust's statement, but got him a formula bottle from the fridge and opened it, handing it to the Seeker.
Thrust began feeding the sparkling, which suckled eagerly. It was only halfway done before Ratchet called to the Seeker again.
"Yes?" Thrust said.
"You may recall that when I brought you in, I said that when you were repaired, you could go." Ratchet reminded him.
Thrust's face seemed to crumple and his wings drooped.
"I…I'll finish feeding this one, and then I'll…I'll leave." he stammered. Ratchet realised that Thrust had taken his words the wrong way, as an order, not an offer, and rushed to rectify the situation.
"No, Thrust, you don't have to. Let me put it another way: your repairs are finished but you are not our prisoner. If you want to leave, you can, but if you want to stay, you are equally welcome to do so."
Thrust's wings twitched back upwards and he raised his face from the looking-away posture he'd assumed.
"I…I can?" he asked, his voice sounding hopeful, his optics wide and pleading.
"Yes, but you must promise not to betray our trust. Looking after the sparklings for us comes with a promise that you will not betray us or help the other Decepticons break into our base," Ratchet said.
"Sparklings?" asked Thrust, immediately seizing on the plural. "How many do you have?"
"Last count, thirty-seven and we have three more expecting," Ratchet told him.
"Thirty-seven…how do you look after them all?" Thrust asked. Ratchet grinned.
"We pulled nursery-shifts. Then Starscream and his trine showed up unexpectedly one day. Now, we still pull nursery-shifts, but the Command Trine insist on doing most of them," Ratchet explained.
"So…when your carriers give Spark, there'll be forty, between three Seekers and your Autobots, alongside their normal duties?" asked Thrust. Ratchet nodded.
"We split them into three roughly equal-sized groups." Ratchet said. "With the new ones, two groups will end up with thirteen, the third with fourteen in their group."
"Wouldn't it be easier if another were available? Then you could have four groups of ten," Thrust said. Smiling, Ratchet nodded once more.
"Yes, Thrust, that would be good for all of us, but be aware, there is the oath and energon-promise to be taken."
Thrust's response was to bite open a minor line and extend his wrist, all without disturbing the now-slumbering sparkling in his other arm.
"So?" he said. "That is only to be expected. I'm staying. Count me in."
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
A few minutes later, once the witnesses had been assembled, Thrust took the oath and then went back to stroking his little charge. Ratchet took time to enquire if there were any further injuries for him to repair, but it turned out that any injuries were minor and already self-repairing.
Ratchet found he was tired, and could see that Thrust was happy enough with what he was doing. He told the Seeker that there was an energon dispenser around the corner, and announced his intention to recharge for a few hours.
"If I'm needed, turn the dual to zero to rouse me," he said. "I think I can trust you to keep an eye on the sparklings and the medbay for a few hours?"
Ratchet went off into recharge, not realising that he had made a decision he would regret upon waking up.
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
He woke, and the first thing he noticed was that all four sparkling-cots in the medbay were empty. The second was that three more empty feeding-receptacles had joined the first: it seemed Thrust had fed the other three sparklings currently in the medbay: all winglets, the recently-sparked offspring of the Command trine. The third was that although he could hear Thrust murmuring, and the occasional giggle and splash from behind the partition, he could not see either Thrust or the sparklings.
He headed for the partition, but when one of his feet encountered a slippery wetness, he looked down, and his Spark flickered in sudden dread.
The pink puddle he had just trodden in was unmistakably energon.
Ratchet's processors whirled at what this could mean. Seekers were sparkling-protective, they wouldn't harm them, surely their programming would preclude that? A nasty little thought popped up in Ratchet's processors: 'They might if they have been grounded long enough to go insane.'
Ratchet had no idea of Thrust's possible mental state, but he cursed himself for not thinking to check. Seekers could be notoriously unstable, and it was something he should have thought of, something he should have considered, checked for with all the Seekers. What if he had been lucky with the Command Trine only to have been complacent about the Conehead Seeker? As he rounded the corner, he saw a sight that made his Spark gutter with dread and fear.
Thrust was sat in the middle of a pink pool of energon, with rivulets and splashes of the sticky pink fluid all over his body. There was no sign of the Command Trine's winglets. Thrust's arms were raised, and clutched in his hands was a small silver form, dripping with and covered in energon.
As Ratchet watched, Thrust opened his mouth to catch some of the drips falling from the sparkling he held aloft, and laughed out loud.