A/N: It's all too easy for this story to devolve into All-Megatron, All-The-Time. He is by far the most attention-grabbing bot.

But I am not so good with writing Prime. The guy is an enigma - he's so practiced at keepin' on keepin' on that he sometimes doesn't notice that he's broken. He is the centerpoint, Polaris, the one unchanging being in all this. So I forget about him sometimes - just as he does. I forget to address fundamental things like what it means that the Matrix of Leadership is no more.

Optimus Prime: he is a busy bot. Too busy to take time to heal. Too busy taking care of others to take care of his own self.

And this is why he needs Elita.

Bits & Pieces

Optimus Prime –

He stands there, all majestic, ready and able to lead our people to greatness. And we all follow him unquestioning, because he is our Prime.

He's proven over and again that that he would die for any one of us. That he knows us, cares for us, will do what it takes to meet our needs... if needs be, at the expense of his own. He loves us, if I may use so archaic a word. And we can't help but love him in our turn.

So what, if our Creator is no more? So what, if our home is a molten lump of steel? So what, if our oracle is gone? Optimus Prime will lead us, safely, in this time of dying gods and changing planets. He'll lead us safely through the storm, into a glorious future.

"All is not lost," he says. "We will survive. We will rebuild." But I know. I know that it's himself he's trying hardest to convince.

We trust him with our future. I trust him with my soul. But as I look up now at the tall mech who stands on our poor vessel's bridge – as I watch him directing captains of hundreds and of fifties in the rationing of energy and shelter – I see not the Autobot Commander, not the soldier, not the beacon of our time.

I see the bot he was when we first met: a smaller, slighter, simpler mech. A student of the past who used to scan old datatracks even while he was loading crates down at the docks with me. An awkward, private bot with no notion of how the real world worked. A neophyte still awed by femmes, uncertain how to ask if I would meet him for refueling after shift.

I look at him, and see the untried newling asked to do a soldier's job – a leader's job – slag-damned hero's job: Orion Pax, who rose to the occasion, gave up all that he had been (the safe cushion of anonymity) and became someone else, someone we needed him to be: became the Prime.

I see a mech who's lost his Matrix and his Maker in one blow.

Every so often, he hunches in his shoulders just a bit – a little gesture unnoticed by almost everyone but me. But I see, and I know what the gesture means. I know what he is feeling when he rubs a knuckled thumb against his chest, as if to scratch an itch or plug a hole that never can be filled.

I want to reach out to him, hold him, comfort him as I used to. I want to hide him from the darkness. For we all are in the dark now. But he's pointing out the pattern of our next few quartex spent without a home. He's reassuring us that we've prepared for this, doing his best to give hope to all of us refugees. He's serving as our beacon, our linchpin; and he has no time for comfort.

For an instant, I remember how we used to go crawling through old tunnels, and come out, giggling, into whole new sectors with our servos gummed with garbage and out optics smeared with dust. Things were so simple then; the dark so much more friendly.

He accepted this burden, half-unwillingly, so long ago. He fought to give us freedom, and then gave his soul for peace. He's given us his all. And now his god is dead, his guiding oracle destroyed. I know my bondmate. I know my Orion. And underneath the mask he wears no longer, he is huddled in the dark, lost and forgotten and alone.

At least, he'll think he is alone. I mean, scrap, we're all alone. But I believe in him. I believe in Orion. I love him with my whole heart.

And as long as I'm online, he's not fragging gonna be alone!