AN: Hah. Well it's been awhile hasn't it. *rubs back of head sheepishly* Sorry to take so long between posts, but school had to take priority. Speaking of, did everybody else get through the semester okay?
In any case, thank you to everyone who took the time to read and review the last chapter.
To PrancingTiger86, Elita One, Hot Rod's Girl, Blood Shifter2, Mirage Shinkiro, xStarSaber, TammyCat, Dejavu, DitzyMusicLover, Deepseadolphin11, Gimme-Chan, and Hiezen. Thank you for all the nice comment and reviews. As always you guy are the best motivation I have.
Specifically to Independent.C.- Thank you not only for the nudge to get this chapter typed up, but the inspiration for the Bonus scene as well. I hope this is close to what you wanted to see ^_^
Disclaimer: For the record, Transformers is not, and never has been mine. Darn.
This chapter brought to you by summer. It's finally here! Yay!
Making Sense of the Illogical
Chapter Twelve
KIlick- About One Earth Second
Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes
Cycle-One Earth Hour
Joor – One Earth Day
Orn - About Two Earth Weeks
Vorn - About 83 Earth years
It was very late in the joor when Prowl finally finished going over the last of the reports that had been sent from the various Autobot outposts that were scattered around Cybertron.
Signing his name to the bottom of the last report (a list of requisitions from the bases scattered around Iacon), Prowl put it down on the large stack of finished reports on the left side of his desk and scanned his desktop one last time for anything he had missed.
Spotting one last data-padd on his desk, Prowl frowned, internally debating whether or not he should turn it on and examine the contents.
He knew that most of the bots on the base would laugh themselves into asphyxiation if they knew that he was cautious (maybe overly so) of the little black padd.
The plain truth of the matter was that he had been receiving one data-padd every joor for the last six orns. And no two padds had been the same.
From reports that had bots had forgotten to complete, to graphics featuring various scenes, to simple words of advice, these mystery padds had started showing up in his office without warning one joor and no matter how hard he had tried to find the culprit (or culprits) who had been breaking into his office every joor he had had no success at apprehending them.
And so he was left with the mystery of the daily data-padds. He had already spent many cycles trying to puzzle out who would leave them and the reasoning behind them.
Though, technically, the data-padds themselves weren't the problem. In fact if he was totally honest he would have to claim that they were extremely helpful to him. They always contained some useful information that he could use.
No, the data-padds weren't the problem. It was the mech (or mechs) leaving them. The data-padds themselves were so innocuous that it really shouldn't have been much of an issue for the bot (or bots) who was leaving them to drop them by on his office hours.
As it was the mysterious mech (or mechs he reminded himself for the fourth time) was specifically waiting until he left his office (his triple security locked office) to leave the data-padd's.
At first he had thought the padds that were being left on his desk were a prank (In fact the twins faces had immediately flitted through his processor) but all he had found on the first padd had been Grapple's overdue maintenance report. The second that had appeared on his desk had contained a chapter of one of the harder to find dissertations on organic planets, the third had contained an audio recording of one of his favorite songs.
It had become almost routine for him to enter his office after his duty shift and find the little black padd waiting for him. Always in the center of his desk, always accompanied by a cube of fresh energon.
He really didn't want to encourage this kind of behavior in any of the mechs on the base but it was a gesture that he could vaguely appreciate, even if it puzzled him exceedingly.
Shutting down his optics, Prowl let his CPU run through a few probabilities about the contents of the newest padd.
If asked he would have to admit that he had developed a liking for trying to guess what information the padds would contain every joor. He liked to keep his processor occupied and this had developed into a somewhat entertaining game, all worries about who was leaving them aside.
Deciding that he had spent enough time putting it off, Prowl on-lined his optics and activated the screen.
He almost laughed out loud at the picture that appeared. There in the small display were a majority of the mini-bots (all very much intoxicated) wrestling with one another.
Shaking his head at their drunken antics Prowl shut down the data stream and stood up from his desk.
If he ever actually managed to catch the culprit (or culprits) that was leaving him these he would have to thank them profusely.
-TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORME RS_TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORMERS-
It wasn't until he was sitting inside the mess hall taking in his assigned ration for the day (despite many attempts they still hadn't found any new sources of energon and had started rationing their energon one orn ago to every bots extreme dismay and displeasure) that Prowl finally took the time to ponder the other problem that was occupying his processor these joors.
Jazz.
Just thinking about the saboteur made his spark start pounding erratically.
Amazingly he had somehow managed to completely avoid the third-in-command over the last couple orns. In fact it was almost as if Jazz was purposely avoiding him now instead.
At first Prowl had tried to convince himself that this was not the case. That Jazz would still somehow randomly appear in his work center, or outside of his quarters to see him. That Jazz would still try to seek him out somehow, someway.
But despite many hopeful moments where he had anxiously anticipated the appearance of the sub-commander he always found himself sorely disappointed when it was always (always!) one of the other bots on the base instead.
Prowl sighed into his cube. How had this happened? He knew that he been avoiding Jazz, that he was in fact the one that had caused the situation that he had found himself in, but that still didn't help to alleviate the total helplessness that he felt over the whole sorry state of affairs.
The plain truth of the matter was that despite his behavior over the past couple of orns, he missed Jazz terribly.
He missed interacting with him, he missed doing duty shifts with him, he missed talking to him, and he missed being Jazz's friend. He missed Jazz!
Somewhere in his processor he knew that the voices were taunting him incessantly for letting the situation get this bad.
And really he would have tried to resolve the situation long before now if he could have. It was just that he didn't know how to approach it. He had now avoided Jazz to such an extent that he would feel extremely awkward just going up to the saboteur and acting like the last ten orns hadn't happened.
And even worse was the thought that if he did do that, he would still have to explain to Jazz why he had started avoiding him in the first place.
And how embarrassing would that make the situation, if he had to confess that seeing Jazz kissing Trailbreaker had just about ripped his spark in two?
Really, how could he approach Jazz when he didn't even know how he felt towards the third-in-command anymore, let alone what Jazz felt about him?
Though at least when Jazz had been chasing him he had had some opportunity to gauge how the saboteur might be feeling towards him. It had (secretly) given him some comfort to see the saboteur, even if he had also been trying to avoid him.
Which just brought up another point. Could Jazz have started to ignore him because he had somehow managed to hurt his feelings because he was avoiding him?
Prowl was mech enough to admit that that was probably it exactly.
Letting out a slight groan Prowl slumped in his chair. He hadn't meant to hurt Jazz. He had just needed some time to think about how he felt and to come up with an appropriate response. He would be the first person to admit that emotions and how to handle them were not one of things he was very well versed in.
He had always had Jazz by his side to handle this kind of situation before.
And not having Jazz to turn to in this situation was just making it all that much harder to figure out.
There was a noticeable Jazz shaped hole in his life, and no matter how he tried to fill it with work and other distractions it refused to close up.
There was also now no denying even to himself that he missed Jazz, much as he had tried to over the last joors.
Prowl's spark clenched again, painfully.
Shifting in his seat Prowl pondered his self-made problem and the multiple questions that that line of thinking brought up.
How did he go about fixing the situation? What could he do to apologize to Jazz and restore the status quo? Was it too late to salvage their friendship? Did Jazz even want to fix the situation now?
The real problem was that he'd never really ever found himself in this kind of situation before and just didn't know how to handle it. Which meant that he desperately needed some outside help.
But who could he talk to? He wouldn't be comfortable talking to any of the mechs on the base…
Mechs…
Suddenly his processor presented him with an option that he hadn't considered before.
Hastily gulping down the last half of his cube Prowl pushed himself away from the table and exited the room, practically jogging the rest of the way to his quarters.
-TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORME RS_TRANSFORMERS_TRANSFORMERS-
-BONUS SCENE 2-
Optimus Prime on-lined his optics slowly as his personal vid-screen chirped at him incessantly, alerting him to the fact that he had an incoming call. Checking his chronometer, the Autobot Commander moaned at the fact that it had only been two cycles since he had lain down for some recharge.
Getting up from his recharge pad, Optimus made his way across the darkened room and sat down at his desk.
"Hello?" he greeted fuzzily when he turned on the communications device, staring at the screen without really seeing it
"Optimus!" came the enthusiastic reply from the other end in a voice that he was very familiar with.
Shaking his head to clear his CPU Optimus looked properly at the screen and drank in the image that he was looking at.
There on the screen was the (rather beautiful) sight of a smiling femme commander.
"Elita?" Optimus yawned through his intakes. "is something wrong? Why are you calling? Do you need assistance? Can we…"
"Optimus!" Elita bit out again trying to hide her chuckles. "Calm down, everything's fine on our end."
"Then why the call?" Optimus asked, expressing his confusion.
"And do I need a reason to call?" The pink femme said innocently, putting a stern pout on her face.
"No." Optimus was quick to reassure her. "Not at all. It's just…"
Optimus ended his explanation as the femme gave into hysterical laughter.
Waiting out the femme Optimus sat at his desk as Elita collected herself.
After a few klicks of silence Optimus prompted his pink counterpart again.
"Elita?" He asked. "The call?"
Taking in a breath of air the femme commander looked at her spark-mate with curiosity shimmering in her optics.
"The reason for my call is that I just got another call from your base." The femme explained. "From Prowl."
"From Prowl?" Shock inscribed itself onto Optimus' faceplate.
"Yes."
"What did he want?" Optimus asked, intrigued.
"He wanted some advice." Elita bit back a giggle and rocked back on her heels.
"Dare I ask what the advice was for?" Optimus asked dryly.
Shaking her head the pink femme stared at her mech for a moment before a mischievous look entered her optics.
"Relationship advice." She said.
"Relationship…." Optimus broke off, clearly startled.
The femme nodded her head decisively, letting the anticipation build for a moment before speaking again.
"Yes. Apparently Prowl likes Jazz." The femme commander said, emphasizing the last two words.
The look on Optimus' face after she revealed that would be a source of amusement for Elita-One for many vorns afterwards.
And there you have it. I had to drag this reluctantly out of my brain. Apparently I've gotten so used to writing Jazz's POV that to switch back to Prowl was more than my imagination could take. Whatever. I hope this made some sort of sense at least. Once again, thanks to Independent.C. For the inspiration for the bonus scene, it was fun to write. Catch you all later (Though not too much later…) KG.
*Edited for content, grammar and spelling on July 4, 2013* - Reposted on November 10, 2013*