I am so sorry about the long wait, this one's extra long to make up for it :) though I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this one; it's supposed to set up a lot of stuff to come, and, well...I'll let you guys be the judges of it.
Chapter Seven: From the Ashes…
Smoke curls upwards. Fire burns. The sound of jets screams overhead, echoing in the suddenly very fragile mind of a twelve year-old girl.
It should've been simple…
A tug on her arm, a pull away from the place filled with the stench of burning flesh. All she sees are the faces she knows she will never see again.
"They're circling back! We have to go!"
Suddenly they're running, and all she knows is the pain in her lungs as she struggles to breathe past the smoke, all she knows is the pounding of hers and Kicker's footsteps as they run for their lives because theirs are the only ones left to save.
Low-risk…easy…
She feels the rapid approaching of their enemies' Sparks, and fear grips her as she longs for the comfort of Bumblebee's and Ratchet's life-forces instead…longs to know that she is safe…
But it is only long after—when wounds are bound and tears wasted, when new names are ritually carved into hearts as surely as they are into stone—that she realizes she'd never known what it was to be safe at all.
Titania felt like she was twelve years old again, hiding in a dilapidated, half-collapsed warehouse with shattered windows, the pulverized glass—as fine as dust—glittering faintly on the cracked, concrete floor. She could still remember that warehouse very well; she and Kicker had spent several days hiding inside, far from the battlefield where their recon squad had been wiped out. She could remember staring at the scorch marks on the walls and floor from battles—or maybe massacres—long past, thinking that their shapes reminded her of ghosts from the old storybooks she'd once read. She could remember holding her breath and pressing herself flush against the walls as Decepticon flyers patrolled overhead, visible as mere specks through the gaping hole in the ceiling, the distant, phantom-like feel of their Sparks a terrifying blight upon her steadily worsening mental state at the time. Most of all, though, she remembered the ever-present fear that, at any moment, something, yet again, would go horribly and terribly wrong, dooming them both.
Despite the safety of her current location, it was that same fear that plagued her now. It was an entirely irrational fear, she tried to convince herself as she lay awake; she was safer now than she had been her whole life. Even so, it continued to persist, yanking her back into consciousness whenever she began to drift off, with visions of burning worlds and corpses lurking at the edge of sleep like vicious predators waiting to pounce once her guard was down.
Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore; she kicked off the covers and fumbled for the lamp switch beside her bed. The brightness burned her eyes, and, as she blinked rapidly in an attempt to adjust, she noticed that the digital clock told her in taunting, red numbers that it was already three in the morning.
Her gaze didn't linger there for long, however; she had gone many nights without sleep in the past, and she didn't doubt she would suffer through many more restless nights in the future. Almost immediately, her eyes fell on the softly lit yellows, whites, and reds of the nameless flowers that stood vigil at her bed side.
Agent Fowler had brought them to her the previous day, also carrying a bag of food the likes of which she'd never seen. The "hamburger and fries," as they were called, had turned her stomach hours later, but it had been some of the best food she'd ever tasted.
When he had first walked in, he had greeted her with stilted words and an unfamiliar look in his eyes (pity, she thought it might be; it bothered her) that made her want to look anywhere but at him…and so her gaze had settled on the brilliant colours, and, as an inkling of what those marvellous, strange things might be trickled into her mind, she had found herself gaping in awe.
"Are those…are those flowers?" she had asked, stunned. They looked more beautiful than she'd ever imagined they could be. Fowler had clearly been thrown by the question, and spent a moment just staring at her in bafflement before realization—aided by the memories of the photos of a dreary world he'd hopefully never see with his own eyes—swiftly back-handed him.
"You've never seen flowers before," he had stated, voicing his epiphany out loud. She had shaken her head without a word, and then, with a brief moment of hesitation, had reached for the vase.
"May I?"
"Of course," he had replied, and handed them over, watching as she settled them in her lap and simply marvelled at them with a child-like awe she had not felt since her father had awoken her that night, long, long ago, and given her a plant.
"Your father picked them out for you."
At that statement, Titania had frozen briefly, finger just barely brushing against a silky red petal as she suddenly found it hard to breathe. She had closed her eyes and pinched at her nose, taking in a deep, ragged sigh before turning to look at the agent once more; they had stared into each other's eyes for several moments then, a silent concession passing between them.
"He's not my father, yet; so don't call him that," she had pointedly reminded him then, and a grim attempt at a smile had twisted his lips as he replied.
"Of course."
She knew, though, that his reference to her father—Jack, she told herself with exasperation—was the closest she would get to an apology from him, and for that she had actually been relieved. She didn't want to hear him say sorry for simply doing his job; she didn't want to hear him say sorry because she knew that the word wouldn't apply to just the fact he hadn't believed her. It would mean "I'm sorry for what you've been through, I'm sorry you lost so much, I'm sorry we couldn't stop it the first time; I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
She didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her.
So, pushing the thought of her father—how am I going to survive seeing him again, when it isn't even him?—far from mind, and simply nodding to show Agent Fowler she understood his meaning, she asked: "Where's the dirt?"
"Dirt?" the bewildered agent had repeated in confusion, as much at the turn of conversation as at the question itself. Surprised that he didn't seem to comprehend something so simple, Titania had gestured to the flowers in her lap.
"You know; how are they supposed to survive without dirt?"
She could almost hear the click of sudden understanding in his brain.
"Oh! Oh…uh, well, ya see, these flowers are just for special occasions, when you wanna brighten a place up for a little while or somethin'…they're uh, kinda meant to die…"
"Meant to?" she had repeated, deeply unsettled by such a foreign concept. Something in her expression must've hinted at that fact, as the agent had hurried on to speak again.
"We can always, uh, get you a planter; I mean, it won't help those flowers at all, but—"
"It's fine, Agent Fowler," Titania had interrupted, feeling vaguely irritated by the uncertain display the man was putting on; Uncle Bill would've known what was bothering her and addressed it, even if she didn't quite understand it herself, "I guess I'll just have to enjoy them while they last."
Any attempts at conversation had essentially halted there, and after he had provided her—once again with stilted words—with the food apparently also bought by her father, he had turned to leave, telling her over his shoulder that the door would be left unlocked now, but she should get some rest because they had a lot of work ahead of them tomorrow and Nurse Darby would have all their heads otherwise.
And so that had eventually led Titania to now; suffering from insomnia at three in the morning.
Running a hand through her hair, Titania stood up and, putting on the housecoat—ignoring the ache in her body—strode across the large room to the door and peaked her head out to look both ways down the corridor before exiting. The last thing she wanted was one of the Autobots trying to order her back to bed—I am not a child!—and, with her sixth sense still irritatingly blind, she had no way of knowing if they would suddenly turn a corner or not.
She wandered the corridors aimlessly for at least half an hour, memorizing each hallway and which rooms they led to; the floor of the silo was cold against her bare feet, and she found herself eventually wondering where all of her things were. She had no doubt her armour probably needed some minor repairs at the very least.
Pausing in the middle of a hallway, Titania reached a hand up to the bare expanse of her throat, suddenly acutely aware of the absence of the Autobot dog-tag that she had worn constantly from the moment her mother had given it to her. Her skin tingled where the chain usually rested, and, smothering the brief voice of panic insisting she had somehow lost it, concluded it was most likely with the rest of her things, wherever they were. She was overcome with the urge to find it, to hold it in her hands and feel its reassuring weight against her chest, if only just to remind herself why she was doing this—why she was forcing herself to suffer at the hands of long-dead ghosts, and be painfully reminded at every moment that they were not them.
After another half-hour of searching, finding nothing, and subsequently wondering where everyone on base was—she knew the Autobots only needed to recharge once every four days, so long as they weren't wounded or energon-starved—Titania found herself in what she could only assume was the command-centre.
She immediately tucked herself into the shadows of the corridor when she saw Ratchet at the med-berth, studying a rusty-looking object—an Omega Key, she realized—intently, as he muttered indecipherable words under his breath, and poked and prodded at the relic with a number of various tools.
Over at the monitors, the impressive form of Optimus Prime stood, occasionally glancing over to Ratchet's workspace, especially in those moments when a particularly vile curse was muttered after receiving the inconclusive results of yet another test.
Titania briefly debated turning around and leaving neither of them the wiser to her presence; she hadn't spoken to either of them since they had first interrogated her, and, irrationally so, she didn't think she could stand to speak with Ratchet at the moment.
Coward, a voice hissed at her, while another, full of agony and quiet resignation, reminded her that this Ratchet hadn't watched her grow up, and he wasn't the one who had stood by her tired and ragged twelve year-old self the day she and Kicker had seemingly returned from the dead, having finally made their way back to camp; he wasn't the one who had watched with relief as she scratched out her own name from the canyon wall that carried the list of the deceased.
He wasn't the one who had taken her aside, and, for just a moment, let her see how much he actually cared as he ordered: "Don't you ever make me carve your name into that slagging rock again."
So she had no right to expect him to behave as though he had done all that and more, and no right to resent him for behaving otherwise.
Steeling her determination—remember to breathe, girl—Titania stepped out of the hallway and into the room.
Ratchet, being closest, was the first to notice her, and their gazes met for only a moment before he looked away, his words echoing in the once silent room; "You should be resting."
She merely shrugged, but underneath her nonchalant exterior, was trying not to remember the same voice screaming at her to go.
"I'm an insomniac," she told him truthfully, and the medic seemed to take a moment to ponder the word before frowning slightly.
"Chronic inability to sleep…" he muttered under his breath, as though having just looked the word up in a dictionary; he straightened from his position leaning over the Omega Key, pushing the suspended…whatever it was (microscope?), off to the side, where it bobbed slightly on the folded in form of the metal arm that held it. "There are a number of medications for—"
"No!" Titania vehemently refused the moment she deduced what he was about to say. A bolt of fear shot through her for only a moment as her mind flickered back to the image of an unassuming pill sitting in a smaller, younger hand, and then to the long, never-ending string of nightmares from which she had been unable to wake. Optimus' gaze—formerly pinned to the monitors despite his knowledge of her presence—snapped over to her, optics unreadable but for the vaguest suggestion of concern.
Ratchet's optics, on the other hand, widened for a moment at her outburst, and it wasn't until he narrowed his gaze at her and gave a slightly indignant huff, turning his back on her to adjust a piece of equipment—an achingly familiar sign of dismissal from what felt like another lifetime—that Titania realized she had inadvertently taken a peace offering and had essentially held it between finger and thumb at arm's length, gagging while she pinched her nose as though it were terribly smelly trash.
Why can't you do anything right? A voice in her mind demanded of her in an exasperated tone.
"I…" she began hesitatingly, feeling she at least owed him an explanation, and glanced between Ratchet's exposed back and the Prime, who she knew that, though he had turned back to the monitors and now seemed to be utterly absorbed in his work, could still hear every word and was likely only feigning otherwise out of respect for their privacy.
She lowered her voice despite knowing that Optimus would hear her words anyway.
"I don't react well to those," she informed him, and watched as he momentarily ceased movement, turning his head only slightly to indicate he was even listening at all, "Thank you for the concern though."
He snorted before grumbling, "Concern has nothing to do with it."
"Ratchet…" Optimus interrupted warningly from his post, blue optics boring into the medic with something like exasperation, while Titania felt the barest hints of a bittersweet smile disappear from her face before it could begin to form; those were words she had heard her Uncle Ratchet say many times.
Ratchet met his Prime's stare for only a moment before grumbling likely unflattering words under his breath in Cybertronian, and then finally turned around to face her once more.
"Insomnia or not, you still shouldn't be on your feet," he told her bluntly, and folded his arms across his chassis, shifting his weight slightly from foot-to-foot, "you're only going to strain yourself."
She rolled her eyes, "Relax Doc," she pretended not to see his optic ridge twitch at the nickname, "I've suffered much worse."
It was only after the words slipped out—so casually, as though they were merely swapping stories of teenage hijinks—that she realized it would have been better not to say them. The tension in the room suddenly spiked, and for a moment, it seemed that everything was absolutely still and even the quiet, ever-present, nearly unnoticeable sounds of cycling vents and tiny, shifting gears were gone, as though each individual part of their being had stopped to devote all their power to trying to comprehend how she could have ever survived something worse.
Optimus was staring at her again, and, for a brief moment, his face was no longer impassive, though the emotions it did show were unrecognizable because of the mess they made when fused together. Ratchet, in contrast, looked anywhere but at her, fumbling for words under his breath.
"Yes…well…that…" he fell silent, gesturing uselessly and then picked up the nearest tool and began fiddling with it simply to occupy his hands; before either of them could think of something to say, Titania cleared her throat uncomfortably and spoke up.
"Uh, yeah…anyway, where's my stuff?"
It was a horribly abrupt way to change the subject, but she noticed the slight—so slight as to be nearly non-existent—easing of the tension from Ratchet's frame.
It was Optimus who answered though: "In storage bay five. I will accompany you there," he turned to his chief medical officer, "Ratchet, if you would—"
"Man the monitors, yes, yes," the medic waved him off, putting down the tool he had been pretending to calibrate and heading over to the station with only the briefest, hesitating glance back.
Optimus approached her with great thudding footsteps that instinctively made her step back—the only mechs his size that she had ever seen in her life had been Decepticons—and she saw his hand twitch and the weight of his body shift, but, before he could even begin to kneel down and offer her his hand as she sensed he would, she—feeling her pride as a soldier demand it—took another step back and stated, in no uncertain terms, "I'd prefer to walk, thank you."
She didn't mean for it to come out as rudely as it did, but something about the Prime's presence made her feel some need to prove herself beyond even the smallest iota of doubt that she was stronger than Cybertronians gave her species credit for. She felt some desperate craving to have him see her, not as a small organic child who had suffered too much (she could tell from the look in his optics that's what she was in his eyes), but as a soldier who was to be respected as such and treated like one.
He didn't seem to take offence though, and hesitated for only a moment before his regal voice rumbled out, "Very well," and he began leading her down the corridor.
When she realized he was keeping his pace deliberately slower than usual so she could keep up rather easily, she purposefully quickened her own and ignored the burning in her legs that it caused. She could hear her Kicker's voice echoing in her mind as surely as though he were walking beside her and talking at that very moment.
"You an' your damn pride."
She found herself answering him silently, but even in her mind, the words sounded defensive: I have a right to my pride.
She could imagine the ensuing, exasperated response so clearly it made her muse for a moment that, perhaps, travelling back in time had been an anaesthesia-induced hallucination, and she was really in Uncle Ratch's cavernous med-bay with Kicker—stoically bearing the pain of a Cybertronian presence—standing at her bed-side and keeping up a rather one-sided conversation with her, punctuated only by the occasional slurred response that often made very little sense.
"I never said you didn't."
The imaginary conversation—similar, yet so different from the ones in her memories—came to a halt as soon as Optimus did, the Autobot leader pausing to lift the Cybertronian-sized garage door that blocked off the storage bay from the corridor.
Titania followed him inside, sparing only a moment to wonder what was hidden within the enormous crates before watching as Optimus picked up a small, black, heavy-duty storage container from on top of one and knelt down to place it at her feet. Titania realized then that it wasn't as small as Optimus' size—which ultimately dwarfed everything—made it out to be, and the container easily reached to her waist.
"Agent Fowler ensured all of your possessions were securely placed inside," Optimus informed her, "in order to keep the more…curious of our charges from happening upon any more sensitive materials. The code is S-one-seventeen."
Titania nodded in understanding, secretly appreciating the consideration; the last thing she needed was to deal with the questions that could arise from either of her parents turning out to be too nosy for their own good in their younger years. She punched the code into the electronic lock and marvelled at the quiet click. She couldn't remember having anywhere to secure her possessions before; the best she'd ever had was a beat-up wooden jewellery box with a broken lock where she had kept the tiny knick-knacks she'd picked up over the years, and that had been lost when the headquarters were destroyed.
She flipped open the lid, eyes roaming over the contents; armour, backpack, body suit—
Titania saw a near-miniscule patch of dark green amidst the blacks and greys of her only possessions, and eagerly shoved the rest out of her way as she leaned in to reach the dog-tag that had slipped to the bottom of the storage container.
The cold weight of it in her hand—however slight that weight was—felt like she had embraced a dear, dear friend she hadn't realized she'd cared for as much as she did until they were gone. She straightened, and let it slip through her fingers; it bounced as it jerked to a halt on the end of its chain and then swayed dizzily to and fro.
She looked up in time to catch the flash of curiosity and surprise that passed through Optimus' optics as they settled on the green Autobot symbol.
As she clipped it around her neck, she decided she may as well enlighten him: "It was my mother's."
"I have not yet seen her with it."
"Is that so?" she murmured under her breath, trying not to think about her mother's younger self—what the hell is she like anyway?—and then frowned as she noticed the absence of two particular objects from her belongings. She glanced up at Optimus, brow puckered slightly.
"Where are my guns?"
The Prime remained stoic as he slowly rose from his kneeling position, but Titania thought she saw something shift in his optics, as though a door she didn't realize was open had swung shut.
"They are in storage bay seven," he informed her after a moment in which he seemed to choose his words carefully, "and for the sake of the children, I would prefer they remain there, as they will not be needed."
Titania couldn't help but notice that there was no particular length of time mentioned, and that, technically, "children" could very well be intended to include her. She narrowed her eyes up at him in response and folded her arms across her chest, straightening her already ramrod straight posture as she did so.
"I'll get them back during missions, of course…" she trailed off, allowing him the opportunity to either confirm or refute her statement, which he took, confirming her nagging suspicions in the process.
"You will not be accompanying us on missions," Optimus told her bluntly and, before she could say a word of outraged defiance, continued on, "The information you carry is too valuable to risk losing, and the Decepticons would be certain to attempt to obtain it from you—by any means necessary—if they were to somehow learn of your origins."
For a whole minute, Titania stood stock still, staring up at the towering titan before her in disbelief; somehow, during all the preparations that had been made, during all the plans that had been carefully laid out, she had failed to take this into consideration. She knew Optimus saw her as a child who had suffered more than any being had a right to, she knew he was protective of the human race, especially when it came to children, and would not condone even a single human casualty no matter the cost to the war—"It was their war after all," she remembered her father saying once, "and sometimes I wonder if it was actually the guilt he probably felt for involving our race that kept the human element out of their battles for too long."—so how was it she had somehow failed to realize that protectiveness would automatically extend to her? At the very least, however, he seemed to respect what she had endured enough not to cite her age and species as the primary reasons he was trying to keep her out of the fight, no matter how big a reason they were.
Titania pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply to calm the rage spilling from the cracks of the soldier's pride he had inadvertently wounded with his implications. Before her, Optimus seemed to be preparing himself to stoically bear through an angry tirade, and she was determined to prove she was not the child he thought she was; and, quite simply, she had too much respect for this stranger—"He sacrificed a whole world for us, Titania."—to show that much disrespect over something she should have seen coming…
But there was no way she was going to stand for this. No. Fracking. Way. Not even if it was Optimus friggin' Prime.
"With all due respect sir," she began with a serious, even voice, though Optimus could tell that there was anger—righteous, offended anger—trembling beneath the surface as it fought against her control, "I think we both know the real reasons, so let me clarify something; I am a soldier first and foremost and I expect to be treated as such. Not as a woman, not even as a human, and certainly not as a child," her voice shook slightly when she spoke her next few words, despite her best attempts to keep it steady; yet, somehow, it still managed to stay strong, its message passing from her voice box loud and clear, "Uncle Ratchet, Uncle Bill, Uncle Raf…they sacrificed their very lives to get me here; they entrusted their hopes for a new future to me, and I'll be damned if I don't fight until my last breath and heartbeat for it."
The Prime's face turned grave as he stared down at her, and she thought she saw the guilt her father had spoken of flash through his optics.
"Titania, I am sorry for your losses," he told her—she flinched at the word "sorry"—with his voice rumbling in an aggrieved, yet comforting baritone as he knelt down once more, "and while I will confess that your young age and the things you have undoubtedly endured—things which no one in your species should have ever had to—may have heavily influenced my decision, the fact remains that the information you retain is invaluable and I would not be able to guarantee your safety on a battlefield."
Titania glowered at him, her tenuous control over her temper straining, her mounting frustration helping to drive it to the breaking point, "I don't need you to 'guarantee' my safety when I can damn well protect myself, Optimus. One of the first things we were ever taught as children were all the weak points in a vehicon design, which we had to memorize better than our abc's. Our whole lives, my parents, Uncle Bee, Uncle Ratchet, Bill, Raf…they taught us exactly how to kill those fraggers, and I have killed them. Repeatedly. My armour," she jabbed an angry finger in the direction of the pile of scorched metal, "was forged from the scraps of the first Decepticon I ever killed. So don't tell me I need the guarantee of your protection to survive when I've been keeping myself alive for years."
The last word of her impassioned speech echoed off the walls of the large room, distorting with every rebound until it sounded like some heart-rending whisper reaching for them from another place in another time.
For several long moments, silence followed the lamenting cry and was broken only when Titania finally broke eye-contact—he's seen too much; I let him see too much—and let the lid of the storage container fall shut with a thud.
She pushed herself up onto the container and sat there, staring at her hands as she rested them in her lap. She could feel the Prime's optics on her, and she refused to allow her shoulders to slump with the bone-deep, emotional exhaustion that was quickly taking the place of her anger. Instead, she tossed back her hair—uneven and still faintly smelling like smoke—and then folded her arms across her chest and, with tightly pursed lips, stared searchingly up into his stoic face.
"If it's really the information you're worried about, fine," she crossed her legs and lowered her hands to her sides, tapping a finger lightly against the container as she spoke again, "let's talk the future here. We'll worry about my involvement when I'm actually in battle-ready condition; even I'm not stupid enough to charge headlong into combat while injured."
The Prime simply stared at her with an evaluating gaze for a long, long moment, and it took everything in her power to meet his optics unwaveringly. For the second time that day, she felt like she was twelve again; she felt as though Kicker had, once again, come into her tent despite the fact she'd shouted at him to go away, and had stood there staring at her curled up, clearly haunted form with calculating hazel eyes, trying to figure out if what he had come to say would help fix her cracked insides or finish shattering them.
And, just as Kicker had decided not to say a word (instead, he had waited with open arms for when the breakdown inevitably came), Optimus chose not to pick at the myriad of fresh wounds and old scars she had bared to him in a brief moment of vulnerability.
Titania was more grateful for it than she would ever admit, even as the memory of Kicker—why was I never there for him like he always was for me?—made her breath hitch slightly, and her sense of purpose take a brief hike.
"Very well," Optimus stated, optics shuttering briefly; it was as clear to him as it was to her that their previous conversation was by no means over, but, ultimately, there were more important things to be discussed, "I believe we should begin with the last of the relics; the co-ordinates you have provided will give us a head start on the Decepticons. I must admit, however, that the relic retrieved from Smokescreen is not one I am familiar with; are you aware of its function?"
The time-traveller nodded—shaking away useless regrets in the process—and her brow furrowed slightly in contemplation as she tried to take into account every variable she was aware of, "Yes, I am, and, for the time being at least, I'd prefer if what I'm about to say remains strictly between me and you."
The sixteen year-old got back to her feet and began to pace, mind working carefully through every shred of information stored within it as she spoke:
"It's called an Omega Key; there are four of them all together, and, individually, they're absolutely useless," she clasped her hands behind her back as she walked, "but together, and with the Omega Lock, they can restore Cybertron." She paused, turning to catch a glimpse of the Prime's startled expression; it seemed, for a moment, that he hardly dared to believe what she was saying. He considered his response to that revelation carefully, and she could almost see him struggling to smother the hope she knew he must be feeling.
"Are you…certain of this?" He questioned.
"Positive," Titania turned to face him fully, folding her arms across her chest, "Unfortunately, the Omega Lock also has the power to Cyberform other planets, and Megatron attempted to use it on Earth in my timeline. Fortunately, he was stopped," she sighed and ran a hand through her hair, "Unfortunately, it was only because you chose to destroy the Omega Lock, and it still wasn't in time to prevent the construction of Megatron's fortress in Jasper."
"Jasper?" Optimus repeated cautiously, "Do you mean to say…"
"That the Decepticons figured out the location of your base? Yes. In fact, if I were you, I'd talk to Agent Fowler about moving to a new base, a-sap. Uncle Ratchet wasn't able to figure out when they pinpointed the exact location, but I'm sure they already have a pretty good idea of where to look."
The Prime sighed deeply enough for her to hear the strain the sudden and excessive cycling of air briefly put on his vents. "Agent Fowler will be returning in the morning, I will make the arrangements then. Please continue."
"Right, well…that's basically when everything went to the Pit from what I've been told; you split up the Autobots through the ground-bridge with orders to regroup as soon as possible, and then stayed behind to destroy the ground-bridge computer so they couldn't be followed. The Decepticons used the Nemesis to destroy the base, and you died," she paused, folding her arms once more and staring at the ground, thinking, "At this point, it would probably be best if the others didn't know what the purpose of the Omega Keys is, or even about the existence of the Omega Lock; Megatron only found out about the Keys' capabilities because they used a cortical psychic patch on Smokescreen when he was captured. Our best shot at one-upping those bastards is to make sure they stay in the dark as long as possible."
Optimus didn't frown, not outwardly, at least, but she could tell the idea of keeping secrets from his team did not sit well with him. "With the co-ordinates you have provided, the retrieval of the Omega Keys will be significantly expedited, and our chances of retrieving them before the Decepticons do will be much higher; so while I understand your concerns, I do not believe it is strictly necessary to keep this information from the others."
"It is," Titania insisted as she looked up at him, her eyes pleading; this had been the one point in their plan that her Uncle Ratchet had been absolutely adamant about, "Optimus…I don't want to risk losing my world just because one too many people knew the truth. None of us have any way of knowing how much is going to change just because of my presence alone; for all we know, this time around, Megatron might learn more than just the purpose of the Keys from some captive Autobot, and maybe, instead of humanity dying out over the course of decades, Megatron might succeed in Cyberforming Earth, and wipe us out in a single day," She clenched and unclenched her fists. "It's bad enough that, if Smokescreen is captured again this time around, Megatron's more likely than not to find out I'm from the future."
For a moment, the Prime's stoicism slipped as he sighed, and he reached up to rub at the edges of his helm-crest in a distinctly human gesture that startled Titania with the sheer amount of exhaustion it seemed to communicate.
"I…understand your reasoning, and will respect your wishes in this matter."
Titania sagged with relief, "Thank you."
"Is there anything else you feel I should know at this point in time?"
The sixteen year-old pursed her lips thoughtfully, brow furrowing as she stopped to seriously consider the question; there was Dreadwing giving the Autobots the Forge of Solus Prime for some reason he had never bothered to tell them in her timeline. Chances were, they'd have to find a different way to get their hands on it this time around, but that was a bridge to be crossed when they came to it, and she didn't see the need to bring it up yet, if at all. But there was still the matter of—
"Starscream," Titania hissed, surprising—and worrying—Optimus with the amount of venom she managed to put into the former air commander's name, "he's the reason Megatron got his hands on all four Omega Keys, and he's the one who decided to use my parents and Uncle Raf as hostages to get you to hand over the keys when the team managed to get them back. At the end of the day, it's that bastard who doomed this planet."
Optimus watched, with growing trepidation, as Titania's eyes darkened; he had seen the look on her face many times throughout the course of the Great War, and it had always been as his soldiers stared down the one mech or femme that was the source of their greatest grief. Seeing such burning rage—such an obvious desire for vengeance—on the features of a human so young filled him with worry, as well as a vague, nagging sense of foreboding.
"Starscream has always been a mech it is unwise to underestimate," he informed her, attempting, in his own way, to reassure her, "he will be treated with the caution his former rank merits."
Titania merely gritted her teeth and nodded, barely stopping herself from snapping out: "Where was that caution the first time?"
Things would be different now, she had to remind herself; the events in her timeline wouldn't come to pass. With a tired sigh, the sixteen year-old pressed the heel of her hand into her eye, rubbing at it in a futile attempt to drive away the exhaustion she wasn't willing to admit she felt. It seemed, however, that Optimus was well-versed in human body language, as he held his hand open before her and stated: "Come, you require rest. You have put yourself through enough strain for one night."
"Insomnia," she muttered at him.
"Not all rest requires sleep," he reminded her in turn, and Titania glanced from his hand to his face, and quickly realized he wasn't going to relent this time.
"Fine," she grumbled in defeat, barely willing to admit to herself that the pain of her injuries was becoming a bit more than a mere discomfort at this point. She climbed into his hand with the ease of someone who was quite familiar with this form of transportation; Uncle Bee had often carried her about in this manner when she was a child—she had loved being able to see over everyone else's heads—and Ratchet had often had to do so whenever she was sick or merely due for a check-up (she had always tried to run away from those as a kid).
Optimus stood up once she was carefully situated—her hand gripping the smooth metal of his thumb—and Titania felt a sudden wave of vertigo as she rather belatedly remembered that the Prime was a lot taller than either Ratchet or Bumblebee. It passed quickly though, and she sat down in his palm, legs dangling daringly over the edge. She was careful not to give into the temptation to reach her fingers in between the interlocking pieces of his thumb, where she would be certain to find a better handhold, but also certain to lose the fingers of her only good hand if his thumb moved even the slightest bit.
They both left each other to their own thoughts as the Prime walked down the corridor, each uncertain of where they stood with the other, and neither quite sure how to make any sort of casual inquiries considering the sheer gravity of what they had just discussed.
Eventually, Optimus came to a stop just outside her room and slowly kneeled, lowering his hand to the floor as he did so. She eased herself off, feet touching the cold stone floor, and turned to stare up at him. Even kneeling, he carried himself with an aura that made her almost dare to believe he could never fail, could never be wrong, and that his strength would always be there for her to fall back on when her own was not enough. At the moment, it was so, so tempting to let herself put all her faith in him, to hand off all the responsibilities that sat on her shoulders and take a seat on the sidelines where she could breathe for a little while…she could tell, as she stared into his optics, that he was offering exactly that as he continued to wait for her to say something. He was willing to carry the burden for her if she didn't want it anymore—and, Primus, she wanted it gone so, so badly—all she had to do was drop it at his feet.
For a moment, she was so close to doing it too…but she couldn't bring herself to forget that he had failed, in another life long before her own had begun, and that his strength had never been there to steady her footsteps when they faltered. It wasn't his fault, she knew, and she certainly didn't hold it against him—he had died for his team, her parents, Rafael, and damned his own planet for theirs, after all; what right did she have to expect any more from him?—but it didn't change the fact that the life she had lived proved he wasn't infallible, and she refused to let herself fall into the trap of believing that he would always, no matter the odds, be there to pick up the pieces and make sense of them again.
But, if Titania was being completely honest with herself, it was also a reluctance to part with the only thing she had left that prevented her from accepting the unspoken offer. This burden was her purpose, and, without it, she knew she would be lost, set adrift in an unfamiliar place and time, surrounded by nothing but reminders of all that had been brutally ripped out of her life and that would never truly be hers again. Perhaps it wasn't exactly healthy that she was willing to cling to it so desperately despite the agony it caused her, but holding on seemed to be the only thing she knew how to do anymore.
"Optimus," she began as she looked away from him and stared at the door before her, shoving her hands into her housecoat pockets as she did so, "promise me you'll at least consider what I said before."
He let out a loud sigh, "Titania—"
She cut him off, "Promise me."
There was silence for a long, tense moment, and she felt the Prime's optics boring into her—seeing right through her—as he replied.
"I…will consider it."
Titania still heard the unsaid words: "But I will not likely change my mind."
She let out a ragged sigh that helped, very slightly, to expel the mounting frustration from her body before muttering, "I guess that's all I can ask for."
She opened the door and slipped inside without glancing back, hurriedly closing it behind her to shut out the knowing gaze that followed her. As she leaned her head back against the door, she felt all of her anger, grief, and insecurities threaten to overwhelm her, and she reached up for the dog-tag at her throat, clasping it in her hands and reciting her mantra, trying to draw strength from it as she had a thousand times in the past; strength from the Wrecker who had made it, from the battles it had seen in her mother's possession…battles that would never take place, and a mother that might never be her mother.
Titania slid to the floor, pressing her closed fists against her forehead, and reached for an inner strength she wasn't sure was there.
Well, that was a very big look into Titania's psyche this chapter (I'm sure you can all tell she's suffering from PTSD) and I'm sorry if I made Optimus behave slightly OOC (I don't think I did though?) We'll be getting a look into his thoughts about this next chapter and, ooh, action! ...hopefully.
