Life returned to the Scout like the blaze of a fire.
The distance from Cybertron to Earth was as nothing next to the crossing point between Life and Death, though the difference between the two was no less shocking. For so long he had floated, somewhere between death and sleep, existing but not truly being, suspended between two realities and belonging to neither, detached without knowing or caring or remembering a time when he had done anything. There was not pain or fear in it, but there was likewise no joy or peace. There was just nothing, an endless void, a sense of emptiness and absence without truly recalling what had once been.
And then, after a time Bumblebee could not judge for in that plane of nonexistence time had no meaning, he was yanked jarringly back into being, pulled from darkness into light. It was as if he'd been drowning for his entire life and never known what breathing was until suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed him, hauling him to the surface, into the air for a sweet yet agonizing breath.
He was unaware of the terrified yowl that escaped him as he thrashed free of the life support system that had held him, didn't notice when he collapsed, twitching into the supporting arms of the Prime. He wasn't cognizant of the Medic running scans on him, or the fact that he clung to the arms holding him as if they were a life-raft, his unfocused eyes staring about wildly at nothing and everything while burring out words in basic speech that failed to form anything resembling a coherent sentence.
In a tumbling, frantic rush, his memories reasserted themselves, all at once, forgetting for a moment their context and order, overwhelming his processors and leaving him flailingly helpless, sickeningly disoriented, and harrowingly lost. And then the voice, and the three words he'd waited so long to hear.
"Well done, Scout."
It was the Prime, at whose orders he had left Cybertron, leaving all he knew and everything he loved to explore a world he did not understand and did not care for. The Prime, whose word he had heretofore treated as Law, even to drawing a weapon on his fellow Autobots. The Prime, in whom he had placed all faith, all trust, all loyalty of which his spark was capable.
The words seemed scant reward for all that he had done, but to Bumblebee it was as if they were all he had ever craved. The sound of this voice meant that his lonely exile was over, the long vigil as the primary protector of Earth was at an end. He knew, somewhere deep within, that his time on Earth was not over, but he also knew that from now on the Prime would make the hard choices. The Prime would keep the Autobots protected, and make sure their needs were provided for. It was not Bumblebee's burden anymore. The years-long mission was at last complete, and he could safely rest.
Shivering more from not fully believing relief than physical weakness, Bumblebee managed finally to make his eyes focus and look up at the face of Optimus Prime. The Prime's piercing gaze seemed to cut right through him, but it didn't hurt and he wasn't afraid.
{I couldn't...} he managed shakily, {… couldn't keep them safe. Couldn't stop the Decepticons. Couldn't-}
"I believe that you did everything you could to the best of your ability, Bumblebee," The Prime's strong voice rumbled reassuringly, "No one could ask more of you than that," he repeated himself then, something he was not prone to doing, "You did well."
Bumblebee wanted to argue, wanted to explain all the places he'd gone wrong, the mistakes he'd made, the times he'd lost his sense of balance and self-control. He wanted to report all that had been done to him and by him, all at once. He wanted to explain, in exhaustive detail, everything that other Autobots had accomplished and invented. He wanted to explain his every defeat at the hands of the Decepticons. But he did not protest. The deep respect he held for Primes, and specifically this last member of that noble and dying breed, silenced him.
Now, as always, if Optimus Prime said it was so, then Bumblebee must believe it. That was the choice he had made so long ago when he became one of the Autobots.
He had not known then what it would truly mean to serve under the last of the Primes, did not know then that Optimus would be the last of the Primes. It was a choice he had made before he understood what choice he was making. But from the moment he made it, to the moment of his death, it was a choice he would abide by. He would not always do so well at it, would not always manage to listen and do as he was told, for a feral sort of independence ran hotly under his metallic shell, but in the end he would always follow wherever Optimus Prime led. That had been his choice.
It was a simple choice, though not all that had followed it -or those which were still to come- were so.
Diff and Rim were gone. They had survived the battle that had nearly taken out Bumblebee, but were killed in a later engagement. Most of the Decepticons Bumblebee had come to recognize since coming to Earth had also been killed. But more had arrived on both sides, some of whom Bumblebee remembered from before, others being strangers to him.
The extensive and repeated killing of the first arrivals to Earth made for a very different playing field from the one Bumblebee had been on. Earth was now the last great source of energon – energon which neither side knew the location of because there had been no records made and those who had hidden it were dead. The planet was also crawling with humans now, to such an extent that Cybertronians -Autobots in particular- had taken on vehicle modes that matched man-made vehicles so that they could travel unnoticed. It was a different world from the one Bumblebee had learned.
Ratchet's advice was for Bumblebee to rest, to take his time. He was still recovering from having been effectively in stasis for so long. Bumblebee appreciated the concern, but he had work to do. He had an internal map that desperately needed updating, and friends he needed to mourn. For him, that would mean some long driving hours, preferably alone, at least for a little while. Ratchet protested, but Bumblebee turned the matter over to Optimus. The Prime understood, and he did not forbid Bumblebee's excursion, only stipulating that he must check in often.
He knew that, in addition to his own needs, Bumblebee had seen the needs of the few Autobots left. Bringing Bumblebee back had required practically flooding his systems with energon, but his fellow Autobots were on limited rations. He needed to use the energy he had to spare while he had it, and he chose to do what he did best: Scout the lay of the land.
Bumblebee wasn't just going for an aimless drive. He was starting the process of building a new map. At the same time, he would be checking any old potential energon cache sites he knew of. He'd report back if he found any energon, but his outdated map would make it nearly impossible to tell anyone else about the locations he knew of, he would have to go there himself. Maybe those sites were already empty. Maybe they'd never been filled. Bumblebee was going to find out. He was the only one who could.
So much had changed, yet this one constant remained: whoever controlled the energon controlled the world. As things stood now, nobody was actually winning. So little energon was in play that any and all fighting that went on was explicitly over it. It was a strange situation, where Decepticons and Autobots passing each other would actually pay no attention to one another unless they were carrying energon. Neither side knew where the majority of the caches were, so all were hunting, and there was no percentage in one following the other because the other knew no more than the one.
Over the next few years, things would grow steadily more quiet, until at some point neither side would be entirely sure that the other still existed. The search for energon would become all-consuming. Whenever a cache was found, it had to be carefully rationed to (hopefully) last until the next time one could be found. Any cache was worth fighting over. Small skirmishes like that slowly ate away at the reduced ranks of the Autobots (and the Decepticons as well). Even minor wounds could be fatal. On such restricted rations of energon, just a few drops lost could kill. Any leak was a potentially deadly wound as a result. Many Autobots walked away from a fight, only to later collapse because of what would once have been a minor injury.
Ratchet designed steadily stronger armor for the Autobots who remained. It looked pretty much the same, but it was harder to get through to the soft interior. He also worked on lighter armor. The lighter the armor, the less energy it took to move. The less energy spent, the less energon used.
As a consequence of circumstance, the Autobots who survived long-term were often smaller, lighter and more agile. They didn't pack as much of a punch, and maybe couldn't take as much of one either, but they were damned hard to hit in the first place. Their small size and light build meant it took fewer resources to build better armor for them, and that they on average used less energon when they fought. Only a scant few large Autobots survived, and them mostly because their time in the field was restricted. Even Optimus Prime, with all of his power, often remained at base, leaving exploration to Autobots who expended less energon when they moved.
With the invention of the Ground Bridge, nearly all Autobots of significant size stayed at base, only to be deployed in the event of battle. It wasn't laziness, it was a matter of survival, not just as individuals, but for the Autobots as a whole. Big, heavy Warriors were needed for battle, but when it came to roaming the lands in search of lost energon they were thoroughly inefficient.
A long silence descended over the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. It was not a cease fire, only a tense waiting. Both sides knew there would come a time when the war would reawaken in all of its fury, and each did what they could to prepare for it. But until they met again with at least one side in good enough condition for battle, there was nothing but a grim and lonely road ahead, tensely wondering what the other side was doing. Hoping not to find out because that would breathe new life into the war, but also knowing that the not knowing was dangerous.
There was a brief re-ignition of the flames of war, resulting in the first human-Autobot alliance. To the humans, it had been a major catastrophe, one that involved governmental coverups and a permanently assigned agent to liaison with the Autobots. To the Autobots, it was a handful of skirmishes and one larger, more decisive battle, barely a blip in the annals of history.
Humans, short-lived as they were, could not conceive of a war like that between the Autobots and Decepticons, with its long years of silence and inactivity, followed by brief, densely packed periods of violence.
It was such a long silence that the original agent assigned to work with the Autobots retired. A new man took his place, a long-term government serviceman. He was good at what he did, but he had never seen the Autobots in action, never seen a Decepticon at all. Bumblebee found him to be mouthy and irritating, like a young Warrior who'd just gotten his stripes.
Optimus was not concerned. It mattered to him only that the agent had humanity's best interests at heart. Time and experience would take care of the rest, he assured Autobots nervous about the disposition of this new human, or annoyed by his arrogance.
For the most part however, the human contact was Optimus Prime's problem.
Bumblebee spent the majority of his time in the field. He spent days or even weeks at a time away from the base, his only contact being the radio chatter, which he usually kept out of. The few Autobots left were all senior to him for one thing, and his damaged voice didn't come over the primitive human tech spliced into the systems very well for another. So he mostly listened. Most of the airtime was filled by a Warrior named Cliffjumper, whom Bumblebee knew well from the old days. He was a never-ending supply of stories, mostly directed at his partner, Arcee, who seemed to tolerate them only grudgingly. When she and Bumblebee got together, sometimes they would joke about what it would be like if Cliff would just shut up for one day. She and Bumblebee both understood companionable silence; Cliff... not so much.
But the day Cliffjumper's voice was finally silence forever was one of grief and profound loss, most particularly to Arcee. Much as he annoyed her, she'd loved Cliff, as much as any of her partners. Though she and Bumblebee had become close as family over their years on Earth, he could do nothing to comfort her or ease her pain. She wouldn't let him, and he didn't really know how anyway.
Despite all of his own losses, Bumblebee had never really had a partner, and had spent most of his time working alone. He'd grown fond of Cliff, of course. Cliff was the sort you either grew fond of or tried to strangle. But it wasn't the same between him and Cliffjumper as it had been between Cliff and Arcee.
Sometimes Bumblebee thought that if he had been the one who'd died, Cliff would have known how to comfort Arcee. Cliff had always had this light, this energy, this life about him. And then, after years of hearing his voice over the radio, he was just gone. Like that, in a flash. So many had gone before him, but it never got any easier. Always Bumblebee was left wishing he could've somehow done more.
If only he'd been faster. If only he hadn't listened when Cliff said he didn't need backup. If only... but none of that would bring Cliff back. It wouldn't restore Diff and Rim. It wouldn't save Axle, Throttle or Jax. There was nothing for it but to move forward, to keep going, to keep fighting for what the fallen had died for. The fate of the Autobots, and the Earth, lay in the hands of those who remained.
Cybertron was dead. But Earth still breathed. Earth could still be saved. In the name of those who had died, it was the duty of Bumblebee -and of every Autobot still standing- to try. Earth had once been the farthest planet from home. But now it was the only home they had left. And Bumblebee would keep fighting for the planet he had learned to love, and the future he still believed in.