A/N: Yeah, I'm seriously evil for leaving the last chapter like I did, but here is the next one to make up for it. As always, thank you for reading/favouriting/following this story and special thank you's to my reviewers, you guys really make me smile! This chapter is the aftermath of the last, with a twist somewhere in the middle. I hope you enjoy and please review!

-AnAshBlackSword

Phoenix's POV

The med-bay is in absolute chaos, blackened shells of healing instruments strewn everywhere from the aftermath of the explosion. She's regained some of her hearing and she's aware of someone screaming as Ratchet attempts to shock Prowl's spark back online.

Somewhere the thought registers that it's her.

Ratchet shocks Prowl for the second time, and she and Jazz watch and wait. She can hear the other bot's pounding on the door and she's certain that's Ironhide's voice even though it sounds much quieter than she should be.

The door bursts open as Ratchet shocks Prowl and the monitor starts up again. Phoenix inhales deeply, unaware that she had been holding her breath. Ironhide, Prime, the twins and Arcee rush in and it's Ironhide that removes her from the floor and places her on the nearby berth. Wheeljack finally rushes in and both he and the twins help Jazz down, Wheeljack beginning to hook him up to the various monitors whist Ratchet and Prime lift Prowl onto another.

"Wheeljack, twins, take Jazz and get him stable. Prime, get Bumblebee and Mikaela, I need her hands and his servos for this. Ironhide, get what I tell you to get, there are spare tools in the office. Arcee, make sure nothing is wrong with Phoenix." Ratchet says quietly, but with a tone of steel. Arcee scans her and she feels the odd tingle that happens when she gets scanned.

"I don't know that much about humans Ratchet." She says after a pause.

"Keep her talking then and get Lennox."

"I guess we didn't really meet properly earlier did we? I'm Arcee." Distracted, she looks away from the mangled body of Jazz and the seemingly lifeless one as well.

"Phoenix."

"What kind of stuff do you like?" Arcee prompts again, but all Phoenix can think of is Jazz.

"Will they be okay? Ratchet can fix them right? They won't offline again will they?" She questions rapidly and Arcee blinks in surprise.

"Ratchet I think she's in shock." She wants to tell Arcee that's nuts, she's not in shock she's just worried about Jazz and Prowl but she can't seem to get the words out and so she remains silent.

"Oh for the love of Primus!" Ratchet snaps as he grits his denta and tries to fix a wire whilst watching her and Jazz at the same time.

"Swap with me Arcee, I'll deal with this." Ironhide growls and she's vaguely aware of being passed from Arcee small hand into Ironhide's massive one. Ironhide twists her so that she's looking at him instead of Prowl and Jazz.

"Does it hurt sparklet?" He asks softly, in a much gentler tone than she's ever heard him use. He gestures to her human arm which has lots of glass sticking out of it and blood pouring out. She registers that yes, it really hurts.

"Mmm-hmm, but not as much as Prowl 'n Jazz will." She mumbles out and he nods.

"Don't worry about them, Ratchet is the best medic we ever had on Cybertron. He can fix them. Right now we need to worry about you. From a scale of 1 – 10, how much does it hurt?"

"Umm.. 6? My ears hurt more though and I can't hear anything properly."

"My scans indicate you have minor hearing damage but nothing that cannot be fixed." Well, that's a relief at least. She twists her head around to see Jazz, but Ironhide catches her face with his fingers and tilts it back to him. "Eyes on me smallspark." He says, removing his finger and tapping his faceplate. "Are you scared?" He asks, and she considers the question. She wasn't scared in fights at school, and she wasn't scared when she saw Elita, and she wasn't even scared when she woke up with a metal arm.

She was afraid when she was taken by the 'cons though, and maybe she's scared now, for her guardian and his brother.

"A little." She gets out. "Are you?"

"Perhaps, but it is okay to be afraid sometimes." He replies. She turns her head as the man she recognises as Lennox arrives with some men and a tall girl with long black hair that must be Mikaela steps out of Bumblebee as he transforms.

"Ratchet what happened?" She asks and he lifts her up beside Prowl.

"No time for questions, just start repairing these lines. Bumblebee, I need you to apply pressure on these wires."

"But… she's a child and she's bleeding!" Mikaela gestures frantically at her.

"Mikaela, what do we always do first in the med-bay?" Mikaela looks between Phoenix and Prowl, torn between her own race and her mentor's instruction. Finally, she decides and turns back to Ratchet.

"Always stabilise the most critical patients first." She replies quietly and goes over to Prowl chassis as Ratchet begins to tell her which wires to fix first. Lennox runs up the stairs and along the berth with a first aid kit. Ironhide places her down and activates his holoform.

"I shall assist you, Will."

"Appreciated 'Hide." He replies, and she is told to lie down as Lennox injects a painkiller into her skin. She winces slightly as the long needle goes in and then he gets another. "We need to sedate you for this."

"No wait! But Jazz… and Prowl…." She protests and attempts to struggle away, but Lennox gets her with another needle full of a very strong sedative, and she doesn't even get to finish her sentence before slipping under.

Ironhide's POV

He can tell that his human partner is deeply concerned for the youngling's wellbeing which is probably something to do with the fact that he is a Father himself.

"We need to get the glass out of these wounds." Will says, handing him a pair of tweezers and he begins to carefully remove the glass from her arm, scanning to make sure he gets all of it. He and Will work quickly and efficiently, as do Ratchet, Wheeljack and their respective teams.

The cuts are jagged and nasty, but soon they have all of the shards out and they move on towards cleaning the wounds with antiseptic to kill any bacteria to prevent infection. Finally, Will bandages up her arm. He requests a blanker from one of his men, who brings forward a thermal blanket and he wraps Phoenix in it to keep her warm and more comfortable.

When they are done, Ratchet requests that the rest of the men leave so the med-bay is less crowded, but Will stays, sitting with his knees up by his chin and Ironhide can tell that something is bothering his human partner. He waits, and it pays off because Will begins to speak in undertones so as not to disturb Ratchet.

"I'm supposed to be taking this one home to meet Sarah and Annie sometime next week."

"Really? Since when?"

"A couple of days ago. I was in the meeting when the government wanted her in their custody to see what the decepticons had done to her, and when Optimus persuaded them into letting her stay on base, she needed a legal guardian."

"You volunteered."

"Yes, she doesn't seem like a bad kid and it would be nice for Annie to have an older sister. I haven't had a chance to even speak to her yet about meeting Sarah and Annie, or even meet her properly and this happens." He finishes with a regretful sigh.

"She will recover and you can talk to her."

"I guess." He says, but Ironhide knows Will is in Father mode and not Soldier mode now which means he will probably brood about this for a long time. He nudges the man will his holoform.

"Don't brood." He tells him and Will snaps himself out of it and watches as Ratchet and Wheeljack work on Jazz and Prowl. They sit together in silence until first Jazz, then Prowl are stabilised. Ratchet stands and comes over to Phoenix, scanning her to make sure she is stable too, before looking around his wrecked med-bay.

"Slag." He says simply as he looks around the damage. "Something tells me the budget won't cover this one."

"I'll make them handle it." Will says darkly, and Ironhide knows how his partner can wrestle funds off of anyone if need be. He isn't a Captain for nothing. Ratchet places Mikaela beside Phoenix so Mikaela can satisfy herself that Phoenix is fine. Eventually, she takes a seat beside Will and Ironhide helps Ratchet to tidy up what he can of the med-bay, picking up and removing ruined tools. The walls are damaged, and he'll need new windows but the damage should be repairable, if a little expensive.

"What do you think happened Ratchet?"

"Shockwave did something to the back-up routers connected to the spark. When they bonded, the extra energy should have dissipated throughout Prowl's frame harmlessly, but somehow Shockwave re-wired it to look normal, but send the energy back into Prowl's spark instead of dissipating. It built up and up, and exploded, sending shockwaves through Jazz and himself. I do not know if the bond will still be successful."

"What was the point in that though?"

"My guess is that the point was to kill Prowl and Jazz as he knew they would try to rebond. It's a dirty trick to say the least." Ratchet explained, grumbling the last part and proceeding to mutter about how much he hated Shockwave. The other 'bots helped Ratchet as he tidied, until Ironhide received an emergency transmission from Epps.

"There's decepticons outside the base!" Was the panicked message and Ironhide relayed it to every bot within a matter of seconds. The main priority was to protect the med-bay at all costs and prevent the decepticons from getting there, or anywhere in the base. All the Autobots, Lennox and Mikaela headed out of the med-bay, leaving it unguarded as Ratchet would be needed in battle in case of anymore casualties.

Phoenix's POV

When she awoke, the med-bay was completely empty. The other 'bots were nowhere in site and there was some kind of alarm going off in the base.

"Ratchet? Are you there?" She called out, but there was no reply. Going down to the floor level, she looked around the med-bay for anyone, but everyone was gone. The black soot on the walls, floor and berths showed she hadn't imagined the explosion.

Nervously, she retrieved a smaller instrument from the floor that was used for smaller 'bots like Bee. It was about the size of a crowbar, and slightly longer. Creeping up to her guardian, she could have sworn she heard scalpel the spider laughing quietly, but she couldn't see him and so she figured it was a side-effect of the painkillers or the sedatives.

She placed her hand on her guardian's cheek and confirmed he was alive because the metal was warm to touch. Sighing with relief, she looked over his body before there was another cackle, this time slightly louder.

Maybe she wasn't hearing things after all.

"So, ze Autobots, zey have attempted to fix zheir friend? Shockwave vill be displeased, but no matter. Ve vill fix ze experiment vonce he has been taken but to ze warship." She stiffened and looked over to Prowl's berth, where she spotted a silver spider crawling about. It appeared Scalpel was here after all.

Judging the distance, she guessed she could probably jump it and she did, using the tuck and roll to break her landing. Soundlessly, she crept up on scalpel who was too busy gloating over Prowl to notice her. Then, with a wild war cry, she attempted to bring the crowbar-like object down on his head and smash the spider to pieces.

He moved out of the way just in time.

"I zee you have survived. No matter. Ve vill take you back to ze ship alzo."

"Like pit you will!" She cried and swung it violently towards him, sending him spinning off Prowl's chassis and onto the berth about 5 metres away. He clicked several times before rushing her, and she tried to smash the little bot with the bar, but he was too fragging fast and she kept missing, eventually getting disarmed and knocked over by the 'bot. He was heavier than he looked for sure.

"And now, ve vill examine ze specimen yes?" He said, and she struggled as he activated his blades and brought them down to her other arm. As a last resort, she screamed and screamed. Scalpel just laughed. "Zat vill get you novhere, human."

But just as he brought the blade down to her arm, he was ripped from her and thrown against the far wall, where he collided loudly and dropped to the floor, seemingly lifeless before jumping up scuttling off, but leaving a couple of limbs behind. She looked to see the very welcome face of Jazz's holoform, brandishing the dropped bar and looking like he'd just won the lottery.

"An' tha' mah friends, is how ya take out the trash."