15: Relativity

In some ways, Swoop reflected, it was just nice to be outside. She'd had little opportunity or occasion to fly over the past couple of months, and so it was nice to do so. It helped that it was a warm and cloudless day in her current location, three-quarters of the way down the Baja Peninsula, meandering her way toward the agreed-upon rendezvous location, some uninhabited spot on the western coast of Central America. The sunlight was pleasantly warm on her wings, her body, and she always appreciated warmth. She was flying low, mostly to stay out of the main commercial flight paths, and when the whim struck her, she dove down to skim the placid surface of the ocean beneath her, keeping an eye out for pods of dolphins, which were always fun to play with.

The excursion would have been nothing but pleasant, were it not for the knife of uncertainty and nervousness that was twisting her innards.

Whether or not to contact Thundercracker had been a difficult decision to make, and Swoop had ultimately required counsel, a sounding board, in order to make it. Her favorite sounding board was and always had been Snarl. He was an individual of very few words, was instead a listener and a deep thinker, although for the longest time only Swoop had been aware of the latter quality. Once Snarl had listened to and thought about a problem, Swoop had long ago discovered that he tended to dispense excellent, if laconic and tactlessly-delivered, advice. And so she had sought him out yet again.

She had been determined to be vague with Snarl, to give him only enough detail that he could understand the problem at hand and the decision that she needed to make. But as usual, she had ended up helplessly spewing absolutely everything at him instead, holding nothing back, reiterating much of what Starscream and then Prowl had told her down to the last detail. Snarl had heard her out quietly, his face entirely impassive, never interrupting her, and then he had taken some time to digest what she'd told him.

And then he'd said, very quietly, "I know you, Swoop. If you don't contact him, the not knowing will drive you crazy."

And Snarl had been right; the not knowing had already been driving her crazy, but she had apparently needed someone to point that fact out to her in order to nudge her into action. So, she had decided to contact Thundercracker right then and there, before her courage left her and before she could think too much about the decision. Snarl had stayed with her for moral support, if nothing else, and Swoop had been glad of his silent, steady, supportive company.

The conversation, such as it was, had been very brief. The tone of Thundercracker's voice had made it very plain that he had been utterly shocked to be hearing from her, of all people, but he had quickly told her that he couldn't speak freely at Decepticon Headquarters, and they'd made arrangements to meet in person the next day. When the conversation, such as it had been, had ended, Snarl had immediately offered to go with her, but Swoop had declined his offer, immediately determined to go alone. Although Snarl had thought going alone to be a very bad idea, given who she was, he knew better than to try to dissuade her when she'd made up her mind about something. The most that he could do was to help her to slip out of Autobot Headquarters that night since leaving unseen was easier to do at night than during the day. And that was exactly what Snarl had done. He'd distracted the sentries while Swoop had slipped out and silently flown off into the night, carefully avoiding being detected by the surveillance cameras.

Swoop had known that she would be missed the next day, but she had put enough distance between herself and Headquarters overnight that she hoped to be able to complete her clandestine meeting before she'd be located and retrieved. So far, she was still alone, and she'd already turned off her comm so that she couldn't be contacted or tracked that way.

And it wasn't long before she reached the rendezvous location. It was a lovely but lonely stretch of shoreline, rocky and turbulent, waves crashing rhythmically and unceasingly against unyielding rocks in plumes of glittering white spray and foam. She found Thundercracker sitting cross-legged on top of a large and mostly flat outcropping of rock, bright and warm sunlight glinting off of his azure armor. He was far enough from the shoreline that he wasn't getting wet, and he was staring out over the surf, at the horizon, apparently deep in thought, so deep that he didn't hear Swoop approach. When she made a small but deliberate noise to announce her presence, he started violently, and as his gaze settled on her, his eyes narrowed at her questioningly.

"You look different," Thundercracker announced without preamble.

Swoop frowned in confusion, but then she nodded; she sometimes forgot all about her new body.

"It was…necessary," she answered quietly.

Thundercracker nodded, and then he slid off of the outcropping. He stood there for a long moment, still as the black rocks that surrounded them. He regarded Swoop silently, staring at her, studying her long enough that she eventually had to fight the urge to fidget nervously. And then, when she was certain that she could bear his scrutiny no longer, Thundercracker finally spoke again.

"I suppose that I should come right to the point," he rumbled at her, barely loud enough to be heard over the surf and the fitful onshore wind, "since we probably don't have much time before one or the other of us is missed."

"True enough," Swoop answered with a nod, going for calm.

Thundercracker slowly stepped closer to her then, slowly enough that she didn't feel threatened, until he was practically within arm's reach. He was close enough that he could further lower his voice when he spoke, yet she could still hear him over the background noise.

"To my knowledge," Thundercracker informed Swoop levelly, "I was the last person to be…with…the queen before she was…before she died. Given that, there is an extremely high probability that you…are my offspring."

In response, Swoop could only stare up at him in baffled shock, her mouth opening and closing ineffectually as she fought to think of something, anything, to say. But words completely failed her, and Thundercracker found himself adding, almost bitterly, "I was…a favorite of hers, and she wanted another child. She didn't believe that any of her daughters were…worthy. That she chose me was her way of honoring me, I suppose."

Swoop continued to stare at him for a long moment. Unbidden, she suddenly recalled what Mirage had told her about their mother being so very certain that she would be a flier; suddenly, her mother's certainty made much more sense…

"I don't…" she started to say, finally finding her voice, but then she interrupted herself. "No, I do understand," she said. "I understand what you're saying. But it's…this…This is something of a…surprise?"

Thundercracker gave her a wry little smile, watching as she moved to hitch herself up onto the same outcropping that he'd been sitting on because her knees were suddenly feeling a little weak.

"No more of a surprise than it is to me, I assure you," Thundercracker answered her very seriously. "I had pretty much given up all hope that you had survived. It's been so long, and the chances that you were still alive somewhere, somehow, were…were…"

Swoop drew her knees up into her chest, shivering uncontrollably, the constant wind and Thundercracker's revelation having chilled her. The sudden and emotion-charged tremor in Thundercracker's voice as it trailed off surprised her, and she stared up him, conflicting emotions coursing through her as well. He had always been her enemy, mostly because she had been told that he was. But she had never felt any strong, personal animosity toward him, in particular, not the way that she did toward Starscream and pretty much any other Decepticon. The lack of such a feeling toward Thundercracker had always seemed strange to her, but now, perhaps, it actually made sense.

"Most of the sparks in the stasis vault where we hid you were destroyed during the course of the war," Thundercracker was saying meanwhile, "and I didn't know whether or not the sparks that, so Prowl told me, the Autobots had taken with them from Cybertron were still viable at all. I often had thoughts of contacting Prowl and asking him about that, but…it was better not to know, in some ways." At the questioning look that Swoop gave him, he elaborated, "If I didn't know…then there was still hope. And then even when you Dinobots appeared…Well, forgive me, but you weren't generally given credit for having sparks at all, amongst us…"

Swoop grimaced at that.

"I'm hardly surprised," she said with a derisive snort. "Until all of this happened with me, I'm pretty sure that some of the Autobots still didn't give us that much credit …" She paused then as her voice trailed off, thinking, and then she added, trying to sound more collected than she felt, "Well, at least now I know why you did what you did. I didn't understand it at all, when Prowl told me, and he refused to explain, said that it wasn't his place. He said that I had to ask you about it, and I guess now I understand why he insisted on that."

Thundercracker gave her a haunted look, and then he, too, hitched himself onto the outcropping that she was sitting on. He sat himself near to her but not touching her, and he turned toward her so that he could lock his gaze with hers.

"I could not sit by and let Megatron do to you what he wanted to do," he said quietly but very intensely. "Even if it ultimately turned out that you weren't…mine, it wasn't…It wasn't right."

Swoop blinked at him, surprised by his deep and vehement conviction. She was about to say something to him when he slid off the outcropping again and began to pace, his movements restless, almost frantic.

"None of what happened then was right," he said as he paced. "Not what she did…and not what we did. But I couldn't stop it, not by myself. I knew that there were a few others, including Prowl, who weren't entirely happy with all of the…details…of the plan, too. But there weren't nearly enough of us, certainly not enough of us to do anything about it before it was far too late. But then I realized that at the very least I could try to keep you out of Megatron's hands."

Swoop nodded, more to herself than to Thundercracker.

"And so you spoke to Prowl about it," she said quietly, "knowing that he was…unhappy in some ways, too."

"Yes," Thundercracker answered with a nod, his pacing slowing and then halting. He turned to face Swoop as he added, "I had thought merely to take you someplace far away, someplace safe. Prowl thought it a better idea to make it look as if you had been accidentally killed first, collateral damage, so that Megatron wouldn't keep looking for you. But as it turned out…"

Swoop nodded absently.

"I know," she said. "Things didn't go entirely according to plan."

"That's one way to put it," Thundercracker muttered.

Silence fell between them then. For long minutes there was just the wind, the crashing waves, and the occasional cry of a seabird. Swoop was trying to untangle the knot that her thoughts had become, and Thundercracker… When she looked at him, Swoop didn't know what to think at all.

She had known, distantly and in a clinical sort of way, that she had to have a father. However, she also knew that when it came to royal offspring, the fathers weren't deemed important, were merely seen as necessary but ultimately inconsequential donors. And usually, they neither had nor particularly wanted any contact with their offspring. From her reading, she had learned that most royal offspring didn't know, much less care, who their father was. And as for her own father…Swoop had simply assumed that he no longer existed. It had been a long time, and the war had certainly taken its toll, so simple probability had shaped her assumption. It had also occurred to her that, possibly, even if her father still existed he might have no idea that he had fathered her at all. Given all of that, she had also come to think of her father as inconsequential, or at the very least she had quickly come to the conclusion that she would never know who he had been.

And yet again, she'd been wrong. So very wrong. And, obviously, Thundercracker took far more of an interest in her and her welfare than was common for those who fathered royal offspring, enough so to have risked his own life to remove her from a situation that would have been very disagreeable for her and that he considered to be wrong. Of course, it was possible that Thundercracker was mistaken…but somehow Swoop knew that he wasn't mistaken. She wasn't sure from where that sudden and certain knowledge was stemming, but it was there, palpable, and it was very strong. And even if it hadn't been there, the relationship was an easy-enough thing to confirm or disprove. A few scans and…

Except that it wasn't likely that Thundercracker would be willing to accompany her to Autobot Headquarters to run such scans. Because he was her enemy. Or their enemy, at least; suddenly, Swoop wasn't quite so willing to consider him an enemy, an inclination that was fueled by her suddenly-held knowledge. And she was curious, too. Given what she now knew of him, many things that she had taken for granted about Thundercracker, and many of the things that she had been told all of her life, suddenly made no sense. Foremost…

"Why did you stay?" she asked Thundercracker quietly, curiously. "With Megatron, I mean," she clarified when he gave her an odd look.

The question caught Thundercracker off-guard, even though he supposed that it shouldn't have surprised him that she would ask. It was a reasonable, logical question, given what he'd done.

"I had…have…a few personal reasons to do so," he answered as quietly as she had asked the question. "But mostly," he continued, "I thought it best to remain in a position where I could keep an eye on Megatron and the things that he did in the future. If he had any of the sparks from the vault where we hid you joined, then there was a chance that…"

"There was a chance that he would eventually find me," Swoop finished, understanding, as Thundercracker's voice trailed off. Thundercracker nodded solemnly and, attempting to lighten the mood a bit, Swoop added, "I'll bet you had some tense moments after the Stunticons were created. And the Aerialbots, too, I suppose."

Thundercracker smiled faintly and said, "I've always tried to go a little easier on the latter, just in case. Funny how it never once occurred to me to go easier on you and the other Dinobots…"

Swoop smiled.

"Oh, we're pretty tough cookies," she assured him sincerely. "No serious harm done, really."

"I'm glad," Thundercracker answered, smiling back almost warmly. "Truly," he added sincerely. He paused then, thinking, regarding her appraisingly. "But…I have a question," he eventually ventured, hesitantly.

"Shoot," Swoop answered, shrugging.

"Starscream," Thundercracker said.

"Ah," Swoop responded, immediately and almost reflexively looking away.

"He was acting very strangely before he…left," Thundercracker persisted. "And now that I know about you, and…and thinking about how I used to feel and behave when, uh, under the influence… I'm seeing some similarities now, in hindsight, and I have to wonder…"

Swoop looked back at Thundercracker, meeting his curious and questioning gaze squarely.

"I imprinted on him," she told him calmly enough, "when I had been captured a while back."

"I see," Thundercracker responded flatly, automatically understanding every one of the implications of what she said…and not wanting to think about them at all.

"We…met," Swoop continued awkwardly. "Megatron had ordered him to destroy me, but he decided not to, for whatever reason, so we went our separate ways afterward. But there was a…complication." When Thundercracker just frowned at her, she added, "The imprint didn't break, and that's why he was acting so strangely. And ultimately it was why he left. Well, that and Megatron finding out that I was still alive, which as I'm sure you can imagine Megatron was…less than happy about."

Thundercracker grimaced at that.

"I'm sure," he murmured.

"So…Starscream's at Autobot Headquarters now," Swoop finished. "We've been trying to treat the…uh, condition between us, but nothing has worked so far."

"But why didn't the imprint break?" Thundercracker asked after a moment of thought. "I've never heard of such a thing."

Swoop sighed a long and weary sigh.

"It's…a very long story," she said. "Involving things about Starscream that…I'm really not at liberty to talk about, actually, given that he's sort of a patient, in a way. And besides, I'm not even sure that my thinking is correct."

Thundercracker opened his mouth to persist in questioning her, but then he subsided. And then he moved to settle on the outcropping next to Swoop again.

"Well," he said quietly after a moment spent staring out over the crashing surf. "I'm glad that he's safe, at least."

Swoop turned her head to give him an odd look, surprise liberally mixing with confusion.

"Really?" she asked.

Thundercracker smirked.

"Whatever the Autobots might have told you," he said ruefully, "we actually don't all hate each other. Starscream is a gigantic pain in the afterburner, sure, and he has a singular talent for annoying me. But he is my wingmate. and he has been for a long, long time, and I do care about what happens to him. So I was…worried."

Swoop smiled slightly at him.

"I'll tell him you said so," she said lightly.

"Oh, please don't," Thundercracker answered with a snort. "I'll never hear the end of it."

Swoop chuckled, and then another silence, this one almost companionable, fell between them. Swoop closed her eyes and canted her face upward, appreciating the warmth of the sun on her face for a few moments, but then she felt compelled to murmur, without looking at Thundercracker. "You could be safe, too, you know."

"Excuse me?" he answered distractedly.

Swoop shrugged.

"It seems to me," she said, "that Megatron could connect the dots pretty easily if he set his mind to it. I'm sure that, like Starscream, he believes that what happened is entirely Prowl's fault, but if he puts just a little thought into it… You could be in danger."

Thundercracker frowned.

"I doubt it," he said. "He hasn't 'connected the dots' yet, and it's been thousands of years now. He…seems to believe that I am a mostly-loyal subordinate. I've learned to play the role well enough."

"But he didn't have any reason to suspect that I was still alive for most of that time," Swoop insisted. "Now that he knows that I am alive…he's bound to wonder why at some point. Isn't he?"

Thundercracker thought about that for a moment.

"I…suppose," he said slowly, uncertainly.

Swoop turned toward him then in sudden urgency, insistently holding his gaze as she said, quietly but intensely, "Come back with me. We can confirm our…relationship, and I promise that no one will harm you, just as no one's harmed Starscream. And then I'll know that you're…safe."

Thundercracker stared at her, surprised and touched by her concern for him. He hadn't expected that, not at all. He'd expected her to disbelieve him, even perhaps to be angry. He'd expected that she would hate him, an enemy, and that she wouldn't be able to see beyond that. He'd half-expected that she would be too stupid to understand what he told her, long-ingrained propaganda being the hard-to-overcome thing that it was. But most of all, he'd expected her not to care. He'd been prepared for that, prepared to accept that he would always care about her and want to protect her but that she would not return any kind of sentiment, that she would likely, in fact, rebuff him entirely since he was beneath her. Royals were very arrogant and very cold that way; family beyond their mother and their siblings meant little to them, and those outside of their caste were generally seen as merely useful tools, at best.

But Swoop wasn't cold, perhaps because she had not been raised as a royal, had in fact been surrounded mostly by civils for her entire life as she knew it, and so she did not seem to have the typical superior royal-caste mindset, and that actually gave Thundercracker pause. He had always been told that their mindset was the royal caste's birthright, that it was ingrained, simply a property of their collective being…but that obviously wasn't the case because he could already tell, even from very brief exposure, that Swoop was like no royal that he had ever known. So obviously, the mindset was instead merely a result of upbringing, not something inborn at all, as he'd always been told, and this made him faintly and illogically angry at likely long-dead individuals who spread such misinformation. And it had definitely given him something to think about…

And Swoop obviously wasn't stupid, yet she seemed to believe and to accept with odd and completely unexpected equanimity what he had told her, even though as far as he knew she had no real reason to do so. She wasn't angry, she apparently didn't hate him, and she apparently cared about his welfare. And Starscream's, which was perhaps the most surprising thing of all.

And Thundercracker wasn't sure how to react to any of it, and he certainly wasn't sure how to answer her offer. He simply stared at Swoop.

"There's no reason for you to keep an eye on Megatron anymore," she was saying. "There's no reason for you to stay there, in potential danger, even if it's just a remote chance of danger. Come with me," she repeated imploringly, "where I know you'll be safe."

Thundercracker blinked at her, but then he shook his head. Sadly. Regretfully.

"There is a reason for me to stay," he said quietly. "I appreciate the offer, Swoop, I really, truly do. And, honestly, I'd…love the opportunity to get to know you. But…I can't leave Skywarp behind to deal with the fall-out of Starscream and me leaving. That wouldn't be fair to him."

"He could come, too," Swoop offered immediately, insistently. "We'd just have to contact him, and—"

"I don't think that he would want to come," Thundercracker interrupted her sadly, quietly. "He's…very loyal. And in order to convince him…I would need to explain some things to him that would be very difficult to explain and even more difficult for him to accept. So I'm—"

Thundercracker's words cut off abruptly as he jerked his head around. Swoop stared at him, confused, and then he turned back to her and asked, urgently, "Do you hear that?"

Swoop cocked her head, listening intently…and then she heard it. The telltale whining rumble of Seeker engines; the sound had been masked by the surf.

"Yes," she said, meeting Thundercracker's gaze in dismay.

"Get out of here," Thundercracker immediately ordered, his tone of voice brooking no argument. "I'll hold them off as long as I can."

Swoop hesitated, loath to leave him to what was surely his doom, but then she moved to obey. But it was too late. What seemed to Swoop to be mere milliseconds later, the sky was littered with a squadron of unfamiliar Seekers, Megatron was landing…and Soundwave, although she tried to evade him, had her firmly in his grasp. And Thundercracker, after a brief but valiant fight, ended up restrained by two of his Seeker comrades…but at least he was alive.

Megatron approached them once it was all over, a disturbingly delighted smile on his face.

"Well, Thundercracker!" he boomed jovially. "When Soundwave detected that odd, incoming, not-quite-encrypted-enough signal yesterday, I thought that you'd be heading out to see Starscream." He leveled an ambiguous and measuring gaze on Swoop and said, almost lightly, "Imagine my surprise." He approached Swoop then, halting a few paces away from her, staring appraisingly down at her. "For such a small thing," he eventually informed her, "you have become a rather large nuisance, Dinobot."

Swoop glared back at him, her eyes narrowed and her chin raised defiantly, refusing to be frightened.

"I'm thrilled," she growled.

Megatron smirked and then circled her, still appraisingly, taking in her new body.

"You are Eclipse," he eventually murmured to her, "are you not?"

Swoop couldn't quite prevent the surprised look that bloomed on her face, and in response Megatron elaborated as he continued to circle her, "I've had some time to consider the issue at hand, and it's the only thing that makes sense. Queens do not come from nowhere," he said. And then he stopped his circling, leaned toward her, and lowered his voice to a more menacing level as he added, "And I watched all nine of your sisters die. And your mother, of course. But not you… No, I only saw your body and heard lame excuses from Prowl," he spat, the name a derisive epithet, "about why you were dead. It all makes sense, now. Well, except the part about why."

And with that, he suddenly lurched around and focused his speculative and angry attention on Thundercracker, who didn't so much as flinch under Megatron's penetrating glare; Swoop had to give him credit for that. He regarded Megatron with outward calm, at least, and said nothing.

"To an extent," Megatron said to Thundercracker, his voice low, taunting, "I can understand what Starscream did. Allowing this…creature to live certainly has the potential to undermine me, and he lives for that. I should never have allowed him to…meet…with her without sending along some insurance. I see that now, but what's done is done. But you…What part do you play in this, Thundercracker? Why are you here, now, with her? And why did she contact you?"

Thundercracker merely continued to stare levelly at him.

"You would do well," Megatron advised him when it was clear that Thundercracker had no intention of answering his questions, "to answer me. I can find out the answers to my very simple questions, of course, but that won't be at all pleasant for you. It would be so much easier, on all of us, if you would just speak up."

And then Thundercracker said, slowly and quietly, "I would imagine that you're going to kill me because I know about her now. So why should I tell you anything?"

"Oh, this doesn't have to end in anyone's death, Thundercracker!" Megatron answered, almost lightly. "Not yours. Not hers," he added, gesturing at Swoop, "and not even…oh, Skywarp's." He paused then, looking for a reaction, but was frustrated again. Thundercracker was silent, stone-faced, for a long moment, then:

"Unlike Starscream," he said evenly, "I don't bargain, much less grovel, for my life. And she," he continued, gesturing with his chin at Swoop, "is far more valuable to you alive and unharmed, as I'm sure you're aware, so I know that you're bluffing by threatening her. And Skywarp," he finished with impressive calm, "means nothing to me beyond the fact that he is a competent-enough wingmate. So…care to try again?"

At that, Megatron snarled, his face a ferocious scowl, and backhanded Thundercracker across his jaw with enough force to stagger the Seeker. He would have fallen if not for the restraining grasp of his comrades.

"I see that you have learned insolence quite well from Starscream," Megatron growled at him. "Really, I'm surprised that you'd be stupid enough to emulate him, given what you've witnessed over the years. I've always given you credit for being the brains of your trine, Thundercracker, but perhaps it's been Skywarp all along."

"No," Thundercracker answered still levelly even as he worked his aching jaw. "No, he's just the blind one, is all."

Megatron growled again, but physically controlled himself.

"I will deal with you in a moment," he snarled, the words an ugly promise. He turned back to Swoop then. "Or perhaps," he said, regarding her speculatively, "I can simply find out from you, my dear. In fact, I could find out many interesting things from you, couldn't I? Of course, what Thundercracker said is true; since you refuse to die, you have managed to make yourself valuable to me…until you produce a successor. But after that…"

Swoop glared at him, resolving to be as calm and at least as seemingly unafraid as Thundercracker had been.

"Do your worst," she growled mutinously, her face a sneer.

Megatron smirked at her, leaned in very close, intimately close, and whispered, "Oh, don't worry. I intend to."

And then suddenly, somehow, Swoop's world started to go black, as if she'd been drugged, although she hadn't felt anything. Then again, since it was Soundwave who was restraining her…She wasn't at all sure what he was capable of. No one was. No one wanted to know, really. All Swoop knew was that she was losing consciousness and that it really didn't matter how or why. She could do nothing to prevent it, however, and the last thing she heard as she was lowered with incongruous gentleness to the ground and then as the blackness completely enveloped her like a thick shroud, was the sound of repeated fusion cannon fire, the dull clang and thud of bodies falling lifelessly against rock and sand, and then Thundercracker starting to scream helplessly…

Well! I hope you all enjoyed Thundercracker's Darth Vader moment… The things I do to the poor guy… :)

Next time: Ouchies for poor Swoop, I'm afraid. The things I do to her, too…

Annnnnd since I haven't done any in a while, have some review replies:

Felina Fullstop: Yeah, the Prowl who lives in this AU is quite different than your average portrayal of him. Heck, he's very different than my own general portrayal of him. I generally give him an angsting-behind-the-cold-façade flavor, but in this…Well, there's no façade, for one thing. What you see is what you get. And he sees things in a very black-and-white kind of way, befitting one who is supposed to be dedicated to/ruled by logic, so the body that he wears suits his personality very well. But anyway, I have noticed a general trend of writers making him "young" lately, but honestly I've never seen him that way. And in this particular AU, he has…quite the backstory. I'm really looking forward to writing it. :D

But yeah, I wish that I had more of an opportunity to address Jack's and Ratch's whole take on all of this mess, as well as some of the other characters' thoughts, too. Especially the other Dinobots. But since this story was originally written in two-perspective first person, it didn't leave me an opportunity to really address that in this story, and I didn't want to shoehorn stuff in there after I decided to change it all to third person. So…that's what other stories are for, yes? Given the revelation in this chapter…Well, obviously Wheeljack and Ratchet will be having stuff to deal with. Lots of stuff, in fact, the real doozy of which hasn't happened yet but will, shortly.

But anyway, I'm very glad that you're enjoying the story, and I hope that you continue to do so. And I know how you feel in terms of being caught up. This thing was just meant to be a few vignettes when I first conceived of it; now, it's a whole friggin' continuity, if I choose to write it al, because it sucked me in, too. And I'm extremely happy to know that I've been conveying the story well enough that other people can feel caught up as well…

Starfire201: Yep, yep. 100% Shiny Autobots and 100% Evil Decepticons bugs me to no end, to be sure. No one is really all one way or the other; everyone is some shade of grey. And the backstory of this AU gives me a chance to tarnish a bit here and polish a bit there, as I see fit. But it's a very fine line to walk. You don't want to make the bad guys too good or the good guys too bad because then the characters start to ring untrue. However, one of the fun things in this continuity, for me, is attempting to incorporate/justify some of the stuff that's in, for instance, the characters' canon profiles. Like, for this continuity, I decided that I wanted to give Thundercracker a concrete and logical reason for his nebulous canonical "doubts," and thus the whole thing that's revealed in this chapter was born. But in any case, it's one of those delicate balance kind of things.

But anyway, in this case, I think that Swoop as a "new" and strangely impartial being when it comes to her species's history has an interesting perspective on many different things, and it will continue to make those around her think, as it did Prowl.

And…Well, you know Starscream. He gets things sort of right most of the time, but hardly ever all right. :) This is no different. And Thundercracker…Well, I guess it's a good thing that he's the "quiet one." It means that he has less of a chance to screw up and cause others to be suspicious of him. *laughs*

Ebony Kain: *laughs* Yeah, I'd say that Swoop could use hugs, definitely. And she'll get them…eventually. But not quite yet, I'm afraid. I have more Very Mean Things to do to her first because I'm a very evil abuser of those who live in my head…

Supermoi: I'm very glad that you like the story! It's a very fun one for me to contemplate/write/turn into a giant epic continuity. *laughs* I have dreams about it, even. I hope that you will continue to read and enjoy. And you know, it's strange: Now, having written this story and a few other (much shorter) stories in this continuity that will come along after this one is all done/posted, I find it very difficult to NOT see and think of Swoop as a girl. I actually have to be really, really careful about what pronouns I use to refer to him when writing other stories that include him…her…whatever. *laughs*

And you're right about the uncle. Apparently, I wasn't as subtle as I thought. *sigh* I thought that Thrust's canonically yellow eyes might be a red herring, but…apparently not, since you're at least the second person to figure it out. Ah, well. I guess I should be happy that people are thinking and wondering about it at all! ;)

Shadir: *laughs* Everything I write is a soap opera! ;) But yes, this whole story is all about revealing stuff about Swoop and her having to deal with it all, poor thing. So it is kind of like a detective story, in a way. I'm just surprised that she isn't completely insane by the end of it…