Bright drops of azure clung furtively to the Scout's right hand, energon from those he had slain.

Since the deaths of Axle and the others, Bumblebee had done nothing except hunt the Decepticons. He had seen the cargo ship coming in, and had heard the call on the Autobot communications frequency. He had not answered, though he didn't know why. What he did know was that the Decepticons had seen the ship land just as he had, and that they would be coming. The same thing had happened several days earlier with another ship. It had been his intention then to get there first, but he hadn't managed it. He'd been faster this time, but not quite as fast as he would have liked, because the attack was already underway.

After that... he hadn't really known what he was doing. It was just motion, violence, a series of moments viewed as if they had happened to someone else, as if he had been merely a spectator. But the lifeblood on his hand told a different story. It said that he had killed.

Hazily, he remembered chasing three Cybertronians into the forest. Reluctantly, his memory told him that he had killed two of them, that they'd never even had a chance to defend themselves. He had believed they were Decepticons, but now he stood faced with what he thought must be the third, but this was an Autobot. The thing that scared him most was not that he might have killed two Autobots without realizing it, not that he'd been so far gone he couldn't tell friend from foe, but the fact that some part of him wanted to kill this Autobot standing before him now.

There was no reason for it, in truth he didn't even feel any particular anger or hatred. Just a cold numbness, a quiet voice in his head that simply whispered: Kill him.

The energon in his veins felt like it was turning to ice, as that quiet voice reminded him of all the traitors he'd been sent to weed out of the Autobot ranks, how they had all seemed like upstanding, reliable sorts until he uncovered proof of their treachery. Ruthlessly, his memory pitched in and brought to the forefront that night when he had stopped Jax, and the voice pointed out that had been a crossing point, where an Autobot chose to become a Decepticon, because of his own arrogance.

They are all like that, the voice seemed to say, Sooner or later, they will all turn on you. They will all try to destroy you. But not if you destroy them first. Kill them. Kill them all.

It sounded easy. It sounded simple. Beyond any reason, Bumblebee knew that killing was a heated affair, and that doing it would melt the internal frost that seemed to be creeping steadily towards his spark. There was also nothing in the moment of a kill but death. In that moment, he'd forget the doubt, the horror, the fear, the blame. There would be nothing but the crush of metal, the splash of energon, the sound of a spark stopping. No reason, only a burst of violence, followed by blessed silence.

Death was the end of all things. Funny, that didn't sound so bad right now. All the struggling, all the fighting, all the shedding of lifeblood, and the only thing they had to show for it was a dead planet, and a valley on an alien world filled with their dead, dead who would never be able to go home.

If he did this, he knew the fear and horror would fade from his mind. There would be no turning back. The madness felt welcoming. After everything, it felt right. But then a new voice spoke, a voice that wasn't inside him. A voice that was real, which had weight. The voice belonged to the Autobot Bumblebee now faced, and the words he spoke were perhaps the only ones he would have listened to now, the only words which still meant anything.

He said, "I know you."

The three words hit with the impact of a shot, and it felt like something in Bumblebee's head exploded. Physically, he remained motionless, but inside he was reeling, the ice inside shattered like glass, spinning all through him, cutting deep slashes as it spun itself out. It was all just in his head, but the pain felt real, as if those words had actually injured him, as if the internal cold had somehow become external, the broken shards within no longer metaphorical but all too real.

His mind reached back, across the boundaries of time, through the bloody fields of distant memory. Beyond the killing and the death and the loneliness and the pain, past the orders of the Prime which had sent him to this place which had been forsaken by the Allspark, through the dark shadows that had hung on him like a weight and nearly drowned him after the loss of his voice, and the thick fog in which his spark had wandered, lost and frightened, hurt and angry during that time. There, there he found the truth of the words. And he realized just who it was that he had considered killing.

Bumblebee flinched.

"I remember..." the Medic said, slowly easing towards Bumblebee as he spoke in soothing tones using a voice never designed to sound gentle, "I remember wishing I could have done better... could have done more. That I could have... made you whole again."

The wildness that had taken hold of Bumblebee wanted to run. The killer in him screamed at him to move in, to finish the kill he'd started. It felt like the signals were being sent to his limbs, but they only twitched, and he remained rooted where he stood, unable to move.

"What you endured was more than anyone should ever have to," it wasn't clear if the Medic was speaking of the recent past, or something from longer ago, "Especially alone."

Bumblebee's optics rotated, and he made a final, weak-sparked attempt to flee, managing to stumble back with one foot, while the other refused to move. Then he gave it up. He didn't even know what he was trying to run from, or fight off. A moment ago, reason had not seemed to matter. But the moment had passed, and the Scout, the survivor, the fighter, the soldier, had reasserted control. Any action taken without purpose was a waste of energy. Energy that could be put to better use.

The strange paralysis that had held him was broken, and he slowly began to straighten up from his crouch, eyes on the Autobot Medic, lest his actions be misinterpreted as hostile. The Medic stopped talking, and stopped moving towards him, but didn't seem to feel threatened. The possibility of their killing each other seemed to have gone by, and now Bumblebee didn't understand why it ever had been a possibility in his head. He felt guilty for what he had thought of, what he had intended, even though he had not acted on the impulse in the end. It scared him to know that was in him, and so near the surface.

So easily could he lose sight of the reason for killing, and simply kill because he could. So easily could the loyalty he'd thought was such a part of him be corrupted and turn to hatred. So easily could reason depart, leaving only madness in its wake. That scared him. It scared him a lot.

But after the fear came the wave of exhaustion, as the trauma of what had happened- what he had almost done, what he had lost, not just in the last few days, but over a number of years, before he'd ever even come to Earth- hit him. He let out a low buzz that didn't have words, was more a moan than anything, and his knees suddenly buckled under him.

He would have fallen, but the Medic caught him on the way down. They both dropped to their knees, but the Medic kept Bumblebee from falling all the way to the ground. Overcome with weariness at the horrors of what he'd seen, where he'd been, what had happened, what he'd done began to settle over him, Bumblebee started to shake, burring incoherently. The Medic just held him, and let him go through it.

So many would have tried to placate him by saying it was okay, or that he was safe now, or that it was over, or any one of a hundred other phrases that were equally untrue and ultimately meaningless because they were nothing more than an attempt to stifle the grief that seemed to pour out of him with each wrenching shiver, to stop the tumultuous flood of jumbled, mixed together emotions for which there could be no name, and for which there could be no words.

In his silence, the Autobot Medic showed that he understood. He'd been here before. Not to Earth, perhaps. But here. Drowning in this rage and fear and pain, not even really knowing why, or which tiny sorrow it was that had been the last straw, which moment of agony had been the one where he'd lost his grip and started to fall. A gulf had stood between Bumblebee and Axle, Throttle, Jax and the others, but he sensed that it didn't exist between himself and the Medic.

Separated by time and space, Bumblebee had at times half wondered if he was even still really an Autobot. Never more than when there had been actual Autobots here with him, and still he'd felt alone. The Medic had not been here on Earth until today, and he was older than Bumblebee by eons, but it felt like there was no distance between them. He understood, as none of the others had. When he finally spoke, it was not to deny the power of what had overcome Bumblebee inside, but to reaffirm the bond between two Autobots, two soldiers on the same side in an endless war.

"You're not alone," he said quietly, "Not anymore."

Bumblebee looked up at him, and the Medic met his gaze forthrightly. Dimly, Bumblebee was aware of the fact that the Medic's optics were strange. They were just a slightly different color from most Autobots, and constructed differently too. They were not like Bumblebee's optics but, like Bumblebee, the Medic saw the world differently from how others saw it. Not only on a psychological level, but on a physical one. He had not only been to war, it had changed him on a fundamental level.

Like Bumblebee, he could not be as he was before. Perhaps nobody could.

Finally Bumblebee found his words again, {I couldn't save them. Any of them,} he whispered, then his damaged voice took on a note of hysteria, {I killed them. All of them. All but one. That one got away.}

"There will be more," the Medic said, seemingly almost against his will.

Bumblebee shuddered, and began to make pitiful moaning noises that didn't quite translate into anything. Before the Medic, he felt no shame in making the agonized sound. He knew the Medic had not only heard it before, but made it himself. He had lost family to this war too. And he too had nearly gone mad from the grief. He knew what it was to be alone. He understood.

{It's my fault they're dead. I knew the danger was there and I did nothing.}

"You are just one," the Medic reminded him gently, knowing it needed to be said even though Bumblebee knew it as fact in his head, and even though his spark would not accept it as the truth, "You couldn't have made a difference."

{Never again.}

"Don't be foolish," the Medic said, "You know full well that is not a promise you can keep."

Bumblebee snarled, his eyes darkening as he repeated, {Never again.}

In the days that followed, Ratchet relied heavily on Bumblebee. Diff and Rim had been badly injured in the battle with the Decepticons. Adjusting to all the peculiarities of Earth was hard enough for them, they were young and it was not their job to come up with medical solutions to organic induced problems with limited equipment.

Ratchet abhorred Earth from the first, and time did little to dull this first impression. He hated the pouring rain, the scouring wind, the burning sun and the gritty dust, all of which threatened finish and armor, not to mention more sensitive places beneath. The plans he had brought to solve these minor difficulties either required equipment that had been destroyed in the raid on the base, or else they didn't work. He spent most of his time when not tending to his patients trying to resolve these issues.

Bumblebee, in the meantime, patrolled for Decepticons. At first, it was only the survivors of that first battle, now ragged and frightened, their ranks depleted and their confidence shattered. But in time more Decepticons came, looking for the energon they knew had been brought here.

By then, Rim and Diff had recovered sufficiently to unload the cargo ship and conceal its contents. The Autobots had known the Decepticons would be back, and in greater numbers. The cargo ship had provided not only shelter, but adequate repair stations, a computer and database for Ratchet to work with, and -though its transmitter was hopelessly mangled- a way to hear any Autobot radio chatter in the area. But when the reinforcements for the Decepticons arrived, they had to abandon it. Regardless of the advantages it presented, the fact remained that the Decepticons knew where it was.

Again, they relied on Bumblebee, whose intimate knowledge of the land kept them several steps ahead of the searching Decepticons. And the Decepticons were hunting them, not just for the energon they possessed, but because -whenever they weren't running- the Autobots were finding ways to strike back. Using Bumblebee's expertise as a Scout, and Ratchet's knowledge of Wrecker-esque tactics, the few Autobots organized and executed missions to confound, maim or kill the Decepticons.

The Autobots were lacking in many areas, but one thing they did have access to was explosives. Raw energon was good fuel, and it didn't take a lot to make one helluva explosion. The Decepticons were easily lured in by energon, and often pitched camps near the stuff if they found it. Setting up traps ahead of time, or slipping in and rigging something while the Decepticons rested was the primary tactic of the Autobots now.

But as Ratchet, Diff and Rim relied on Bumblebee, so too did Bumblebee rely on them.

Ratchet provided more than merely physical repairs to the damage Bumblebee sustained during one of these missions; he found ways to heal old wounds inflicted by the Earth itself, and developed ways to prevent it from happening again. Since he had come to Earth, rust had been Bumblebee's chief enemy. Ratchet's place was no longer the field of battle, he knew it and the others knew it, but his value to them was inestimable, beginning with the defeat of rust, and continuing with ways to increase energon efficiency, allowing the Scout and Warriors to fight harder for longer with less energon consumption.

Energon was the basis for all of their weapons, particularly explosives, as well as being their lifeblood, and so they had to use it as sparingly as they possibly could. It was not a resource they could replace. They had no idea when more Autobots might be coming, or even if there were any Autobots left.

It was a strange hierarchy that was in place. Medics were not granted military rank, standing apart from it, able even to command a Prime when it came to medical matters. They did not lead armies. Scouts were below Warriors in rank, and commanded no one. Yet Diff and Rim deferred to Bumblebee, making him effectively Ratchet's right hand. All four were wise enough to realize that military law had little place here. Here, experience counted. Ratchet and Bumblebee had it; Diff and Rim did not. Moreover, Diff and Rim had sustained damage in that first attack that would not heal on its own, because it was mechanical damage, and Ratchet -for all the medical wonders he was capable of- lacked the facilities necessary to effect those repairs. Bumblebee lacked only a voice; Diff and Rim suffered limited mobility, and required more energon to fight and fire their weapons.

It was a ridiculous way to fight a war, they all knew, and ultimately victory could not be obtained in this manner. But Ratchet was a survivor of the Great War. He knew the value of holding on one minute longer. Certain romantic types said that was the stuff of heroes. Ratchet knew it to be the creed of the survivor. Just hang on. One more mission. One more hour. One more minute. One more second. If, in the end, help did not come and you found your essence returned to the Well of Allsparks from whence it had come, at least you could say you did your best.

Inevitably, however, there came a time when their best was not enough...