AN: Since I'll be busy tomorrow and probably too tired to post you guys get yet another early post.

No poem this chapter since I can't remember if one inspired this and can't be bothered to go find one that might marginally fit.

Oh, now I do remember; it was music not a poem. "Arrival to Earth" by Steve Jablonsky (and no, the title had nothing to do with the content of this chapter, it was more the feelings the music gave me).

Yes it's movie music. I still like it.

Warnings: Really heavy on angst in the second part.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers.

Enjoy!

The first thing Sideswipe knew when he woke was pain.

So he said "Ow," or tried to at least.

His vocaliser felt like it had been used to shriek in the dulcet tones of Starscream, ripped out, taken apart and put back together again. Well maybe that was an exaggeration, but it was a good one. He could use it for another injury, he just had to change the analogy from Starscream's vocaliser. Starscream's aft after Megatron had fragged him? Sounded much better and was bound to get some interesting comments.

If he was ever able to move again. Seriously, it felt like his plating had been replaced by osmium weights. Well since the last thing he remembered was Brawl trying to stomp him into the ground maybe something odd like that had happened after all. At least he knew by the blinding orange shade of the Ark that he wasn't a Decepticon prisoner which was a considerable mood-booster.

Suddenly a splash of yellow entered his vision and he tried to croak out "Sunny!" through his vocaliser. Seeing as that thing was still not cooperating he switched to their bond. To his surprise, he found himself warded off by Sunstreaker. The only times Sunny usually did that was when he had something to hide and by the strength of the shield it must be important.

Sideswipe instantly wanted to know what it was. He was sure Sunstreaker could feel his need to know over the bond, but the yellow twin didn't respond at all. Huh. That was odd. Sunstreaker normally would at least have snapped at him for prodding at his secrets. He gave his brother a closer look, noting the tense posture and the grim line of Sunstreaker's mouth.

Okaay… so the secret was pissing his brother off. What else was new? Everything pissed Sunstreaker off at one point or another. It was a fact of life.

Red and white appeared within his vision and he made a sound with his vocaliser. It didn't sound anything like the delighted cry of "Ratchet!" he'd wanted to release.

"Don't try to talk. Your vocaliser is still calibrating." Sideswipe had expected the order; that was how Ratchet ordinarily told his patients he was happy they were healing. He hadn't expected the somewhat shaky tone that gave voice to the order. It didn't sound like Ratchet at all.

Sideswipe was beginning to feel no small measure of alarm, but as soon as he realised this, the machine next to him beeped and Ratchet said, "Calm down. Sunstreaker will explain things to you later. First we've got to go through all the checks." Ratchet's gruff tone was getting a bit better, but it was still too soft, too foreign for Sideswipe to identify it with Ratchet.

However he trusted Ratchet's words and he trusted his brother to explain what had Ratchet so… worried? Yes, Ratchet was worried. About Sideswipe. That didn't make sense because Sideswipe felt fine. Ratchet only worried about those who were dying and he was unable to help them.

Dying? Had someone died and that was what had got Ratchet into this mood. Oh, no. Bluestreak had been fairly badly injured when he'd faced off against Brawl; Sideswipe had seen the sniper collapse before Brawl had come over to fight him.

Oh frag. He couldn't ask Ratchet about it because his vocaliser wasn't working and it would be tactless anyway to ask a medic about someone who might (he was not going to automatically assume Blue was dead, no way) have died on his table. Sunstreaker was still blocking him for some odd reason, but he'd figure that out later. First on his list was finding out why Ratchet was so upset, second was fixing himself up. His brother's moods hung around for ages anyway, there would be plenty of time to figure out what had got his brother's panties in a twist (oh how he loved human expressions!).

Ratchet let the doors close behind him as he left the twins alone to talk things out. Sideswipe had regained some mobility and the use of his vocaliser, keeping up with his normal oblivious stupidity throughout the set of medical tests.

It hurt.

It hurt to see him and know he could do nothing to help; that his many years as a medic, as CMO to the Prime himself were not enough to help one mech heal.

It hurt more than those who had died in his medbay; he could let them go with time.

Sideswipe would always be there, reminding him of his complete failure.

Now he was waiting like a coward in his own office, unable to tell his own patient what was wrong with him. He waited for the outburst of rage at Ratchet's incompetence, for Sideswipe to tell Sunstreaker to hurt Ratchet. He wanted to hurt, physically at least. It was better than carrying around the weight in his spark that told him to fix this. Not only his spark, no. His base protocols, the medical ones, were screaming at him to fix the patient, the patient was not healed yet, Ratchet still had work to do. It wasn't like when a patient died and he could console himself that he'd done all he could.

It hurts so badly.

Caught up in his heavy thoughts, he didn't notice he had sunk to the floor and that his hand was clutching at his chest, trying to give him some futile comfort. Comfort he did not think he deserved.

Sunstreaker's sudden, desperate cry of "RATCHET!" shoved his self-loathing aside and he pushed himself up and sprinted back into the medbay. Sideswipe was lying limp on the berth and monitors were going haywire all around him.

He was still awake and looking around with despairing optics; they locked on to Ratchet's ones and didn't let go. Protocols snapped into place immediately; patient is panicking, calm down patient before they damage themselves. He went around silencing the machines, which were obviously exacerbating Sideswipe's panic-attack, telling Sunstreaker on the comm to tone down on his own panic, but not to block the bond with his twin as that could have an adverse effect on the latter.

A few minutes later everything had quietened down and Sideswipe was once again mobile. Silence stretched between the three like an invisible barrier that none of them were willing to break. Ratchet's guilt returned full-tilt and it was all he could do not to curl up around his aching spark.

He only managed it because he knew it wouldn't be fair to them. They weren't cut out for this sort of thing, had no idea what they were doing and were going to do. Their entire lives had been changed.

Of course Sunstreaker could go on as normal, doing everything he usually did, but where one went the other followed.

Having Sunstreaker go out alone on the battlefield would break their sparks.

So Ratchet had to be strong, no matter how much pain he felt or how much he wished it could be otherwise. He had to be able to respond to their cries to matter how desperate or dangerous the situation.

He owed them that because he had failed them.

AN: Yep, angsty Ratchet.

Is this technically filler with no bearing on the plot whatsoever. Yes.

Is the next chapter going to be more filler and character exposition. Yes, that too.

Could I technically write this fic in 10k words and cram it into one chapter. Yep.

But I don't want to, so next time you get "Bitter".

Review please (I like criticism, it makes way for great discussions).

Eli