As usual, a little forenote before a long-overdue continuation. My mood has gone up and down constantly for the past few months, but with school out for the summer and some other stress causes gone I think I can finally say I'm getting better.

Thank you everyone who expressed concern for me, and had the patience for sitting through all my absences. I realise with taking so long between chapters people are bound to lose interest in the story or just forget plot details all together, but I hope to mark this as a new period where I'll be able to get new chapters out as often as possible.

I remember some people asking questions in reviews but I can't exactly remember what they were, so if there's any concerns just send me a message about them and I'll aim to get them resolved :)

xx

"I ain't gonna ask how you did it Prime- hell knows I want to, but..." Agent Fowler shook his head with a chuckle through a wide smile. Optimus always thought it strange how humans liked to combine their positive and negative expressions in such a way. Organics seemed to share a penchant for taking leaps with their logic.

"This what you came to the island for? To catch Silas?" Fowler went on with furtive glances at the bandaged leader on the gurney, waiting to be airlifted to his new cell block home. Grimlock had caused a lot of damage and blood loss, but the man's internals were mostly intact at least. Fowler also hadn't asked how Silas had gotten so many injuries.

Optimus tried to keep his own optics off of the defeated human. "We conducted a brief survey of all the possible base locations and found traces of human activity here. I elected to investigate further, and found a M.E.C.H base at the center of the island."

Fowler nodded in approval. "Not bad for a day's work. My boys'll have the base searched, with any tech confiscated and far away from nutjob hands. Any idea where the rest of the goons went to?"

"I assume they would have other bases of operation established over the country," Optimus surmised. "They may retreat to any one of them, but the absence of their leader should sufficiently demoralise them."

Fowler huffed in agreement as an updraft suddenly buffeted him from the helicopter hovering overhead. He glared at Silas as he was trundled past.

"Not so tough now without your bug-eyed army and stolen guns, eh, Bishop?" he chuckled loudly over the noise of the helicopter's rotors. Optimus wasn't sure if he approved of taunting a patient, but he still had much to learn about human culture. Perhaps it was common among them.

In any case, Silas didn't seem affected by Fowler's mockery. Only one of his eyes could see through the swelling (ironic, considering the mark they left on Breakdown), and it focused intently on Optimus. Even from so far below it made the Prime feel uneasy, as if he was caught in a spotlight.

Silas' breath hissed through gauze as he gave a muted warning. "Keep a close watch on your family, Optimus..."

A team of paramedics hooked the gurney up to cables hanging down from the copter, and panic only started to grip Optimus when Silas was but a dot in the distance.

Fowler seemed to sense a change in the mech's disposition from how he patted his ped. "Hey, don't look so worried, Prime. He can't do squat to the Autobots in a prison cell."

'He was not referring to the Autobots...' A comm ping tore through Optimus' cloudy subconscious, and he allowed it to distract him from the new slew of problems falling down on him.

"The human's President just commed in to congratulate us on neutralising 'the M.E.C.H' threat," Ratchet informed him with a curt tone. "I assume you weren't just checking in on the femmes and their pet?"

With a cautious look down at Fowler as he talked with a group of soldiers, Optimus moved closer to the tree line for some privacy. He decided to leave out Airachnid and Scorpia's kidnapping, instead going for the same lie he passed on to Fowler. He couldn't tell if Ratchet believed him from his contemplative huff.

"It's a weight off our shoulders, certainly, but M.E.C.H is resourceful, for a bunch of humans. Being leaderless may set them back, but it won't be long before we'll face them again."

"As tenacious as the Decepticons," Optimus mused.

Ratchet huffed in agreement. "At least when they didn't have Megatron they had the sense to not attack directly. We can only hope the humans follow their lead in that." There was a pause filled with the chirp of evening cicadas. "There were no other... complications?"

Optimus vented air. "None to report."

"Very well. The humans were asking after you today, Rafael especially, but whatever it is can wait for tomorrow."

Optimus clicked off his comm with a weary sigh as the exertions of the day crashed exhaustion down on him. He sat himself on a rock just outwidth the grasp of the forest, casting cautious looks into the undergrowth where Grimlock and his family was hiding. Either the sunset was playing tricks on his optics, or red optics were watching him.

xx

Optimus' return to Helix Gardens took place during noon, when the smoke was thick enough to block out the skyline and any curious Seeker optics from above.

He was only a mech during his first visit, drunk on the wonders of the city and dwarfed by the night and all its stars. Now he was a Prime, with the fate of the planet perpetually crushing down on him no matter how his strength held. He couldn't stay long even here, with every klick punctuated with an incoming comm ping of a new battle report or a request from his officers.

But his duty today was more important than scout patrols and supply lines.

"Some part of me actually believed the gardens would be left intact," Elita admitted in a sad, muted mutter as she looked over the scattered, shattered crystal shards. The war had taken a heavy toll on the brightness that usually filled her optics, and there was a permanent sheen of ash and dust over her heavier, combat-grade armour. Yet she was as beautiful as the day Optimus first caught her rosy gleam in the sunlight. It almost hurt to look at her, knowing she deserved better than this.

"The Decepticons do not discriminate much in their targets," was all Optimus could bring himself to say. Praxus had almost been wiped out as the Decepticons fell upon it, overwhelming what little defences it had with missles and bombs. All the indulgent citizens could do was run and hope the armoured Enforcers would hold the 'Cons off long enough for them to escape. Prowl had stayed in his quarters for a decacyle after the news of his home city's destruction reached Iacon.

"And here we thought Megatron would save us." Elita didn't laugh at the irony so much as bark out a sob barely muffled by her servo, pretending to cough into her hand instead. She was a shadow of Ariel, the one Optimus fell in love with, but perhaps that was for the best. Optimus wasn't sure if Ariel could have survived this far- Orion certainly wouldn't have been able to.

"Perhaps he wasn't meant to lead in the first place," he tried, already knowing it was an obvious sentiment. "If this is how he reacts to a power he can't have, I dread to think of what he would do with one he could have."

Elita gave a neutral nod in answer, leaning over the broken railing of the smashed bridge spanning what used to be a geode chasm. Now it was packed full of the broken frames of dead Praxians. Her breath wafted over the grave as she forced it out in a sigh.

"Primus chose you personally, didn't he?" she asked, looking over at him as if they were on different planets. "Did... he make all this happen on purpose?" She gestured not just to the gardens but up at the sky, where only the most stubborn stars managed to break through the eternal fog of war. "What does he get out of seeing his children fighting and dying for him?"

Once again, Optimus felt small next her. It was a feeling he never got used to, knowing her processor had much deeper depth than his own. He didn't mind it- if he got used to it, he might stop being amazed by her. "I do not know, Elita."

There must have been something apologetic in his voice, from how she lowered her gaze and servos. "I'm sorry, Orio-Optimus." She was still getting used to his new name, just like himself. "I'm not blaming you for it. I know... you never wanted the Matrix in the first place. But I wouldn't have anyone else being our Prime."

Elita looked up at him with a softness he'd been missing for vorns, closing his spark in a cocoon of pure love that not even the unusual presence of the Matrix could hold back. It threatened to cut off his vocaliser as he tried to speak. "And I wouldn't have anyone else by my side." His hand molded into hers, and the opportunity seemed too perfect not to take.

"Elita... I want you to be my sparkmate."

She blinked, slow at first and then rapidly, as she confirmed what she just heard. Her digits tightened in his grip and her optics were suddenly reluctant to look directly at him. "Are... are you sure?"

Optimus almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. "You are the light and love of my life, the only joy I have in the universe. I've never been surer of anything else. You would honour me with your spark, if you'll let me have it." He hoped his words would compensate for the unromantic-ness of the venue, but if Ironhide could propose to Chromia in the middle of a battlefield then he supposed he was already doing better than him.

Elita almost said something, but then glanced down at the wrapped bundle he left in her palm. She prodded at the hastily tied ribbon around it, raising an eyeridge up at Optimus. "What's this?"

When he smirked, he was Orion all over again. "Is it not traditional for a mech to give his love a gift first?"

A gasp filled Elita's vocaliser as she unwrapped it, and her optics danced with the light of the jewels inset within the grey rock. She carefully held it up to her optics. "It's beautiful, Optimus..." she whispered, catching the light of the jewels on the silver of her faceplate. "Where did you get it?"

"I... acquired it before... all this started. From an old gem seller in Iacon." He recalled the same one Elita had pointed out during their after-work recon, wondering if he'd managed to survive the hurricane of combat that swept through the city every solar cycle.

Elita stared at the gift, rolling it in her digts, sighing to herself and only looking at him after a few long klicks. "Optimus... I love you too. More than I thought I could love anything else. But... I need time to think about this. Time that I'm not sure I have left for much longer."

Optimus shuttered his optics for a klick, trying to fight back the sadness threatening to spill in them. When he opened them, he let the safe emotionless of Primes before him take over. "I would never force you into anything you weren't comfortable with, Elita. Take as long as you need to decide and whatever your answer... as long as you are happy, that's all that matters to me."

Coolant filled Elita's optics, blinked away a nanoklick later before they could betray her. She closed the rock over in her hands, squeezing gently on it before slipping it into her subspace. She looked at Optimus with more than just gratitude, and her helm lay nestled in his neck as she embraced him.

"Take me home, Orion. Please."