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Ratchet slowly drifted back to consciousness, optics powering on in a steady bootup that he hadn't truly experienced since before he'd started school in Praxus. He sighed and blinked, focusing his optics to take in the room around him. For a long moment, he was disoriented. Where was Spec yelling at him to wake up? Where were the noisy mechs of his barrack in Kaon? And then he caught sight of Rung, still hunched over Perceptor, and sighed in relief.

He was safe.

Carefully, he sat up, though all manner of aches and pains felt substantially lessened from what he remembered. It was amazing what a real recharge could do. Stifling a yawn, he got to his feet and walked over to the berth. Perceptor was still in stasis and Rung was hooked deeply into his processor, his optics blue-white while his fingers tapped away at the console, tweaking and guiding the autorepair program.

Ratchet frowned and checked his chronometer. He had slept for a little over a full cycle, catching up on all of the sleep he had lost. As he looked at Rung, he could only hope that the mech had taken some time off from the task as well. He debated touching the mech's shoulder to get his attention, but he was afraid of jerking him out of his work too suddenly. Surprising someone when they were tinkering with someone's processor was always a bad idea.

Instead, he looked around the small office, trying to find an energon dispenser. He was near red on energon levels and was starting to feel sluggish because of it. The room was sparse. The desk and storage chest had all been pushed against the wall to make room for Perceptor's medberth to access the computer in the corner, while the cot he had slept on occupied the other wall. Needless to say, there was no room for an energon dispenser in the cramped space—in fact, he wasn't entirely sure how Ultra Magnus managed to fit comfortably.

With one last hesitant glance at Rung, he ducked out of the cramped doorway and into the network of tunnels that made up the base. He wasn't able to synch his GPS up to the base network without authorization, so he went blind, keeping track of which tunnels he took as best as he could. It wouldn't do to get lost and not be able to find his way back to Rung and Perceptor.

A murmur of voices echoed down the natural corridor and Ratchet followed the sound. He turned the corner and saw Ironhide walking with his back to Ratchet. Accompanying him was a mech he didn't recognize—or at least that's what he thought at first glance. The paint job was perfectly inverted, white where there used to be black and black where there used to be white, but in the split second where the two of them turned into a branching vein, Ratchet saw his face. A red visor had been replaced with a blue one, but that face, that self-assured smirk left him no doubt.

For a moment, Ratchet froze, and a jumble of thoughts and actions all fought for his attention, making his processor lag. One moment, he was taking a step, braced to run and the next, his fist was connecting with the side of Meister's very surprised face. Ratchet caught him before he could fall and slammed the mech against the wall of the metal vein, his rage boiling off of him in a visible heat that warped the air around him.

"You son of a glitch, WHERE IS HE?" he bellowed and Meister winced, his visor cracked and sparking.

Surprisingly, the mech didn't fight him and when Ironhide raised a gun and pointed it at Ratchet's helm, Meister held up a hand. "It's cool 'Hide. I owe him a couple answers," Meister said, his vocals cracking with static. "But ya gotta let me go first, Ratchet." One black hand rested on Ratchet's wrist, right over a sensitive plate that said he could make him if he didn't comply.

It took Ratchet a moment to push aside the anger enough to loosen his fingers from around the mech's neck, but no amount of willpower could stop his frame from rattling with barely repressed emotion. Meister reached up and felt the damage to his visor, fingers lightly tracing over the cracks before trailing down to touch the dent that had been left behind on his cheek. "I probably deserved that," he said lightly and winced before letting his hand drop again. He looked at Ironhide and said, "I'll catch up with you."

"Yeh serious?" Ironhide asked in disbelief.

Meister sighed. "Yeah, I'm serious. I'll find you," he said.

Ironhide still looked dubious, but kept his mouth shut. He cast one last glare at Ratchet before turning and heading back down the corridor, disappearing in a matter of moments in the darkened passage.

Meister looked back at Ratchet and sighed. "First things first, I'll appreciate you keepin' these tidbits I'm gonna share with yah to yourself. I'm breaking protocol just by talkin' to you."

"Who are you," Ratchet snapped, too impatient for roundabout explanations.

"My name's Jazz," he said. "I'm a Special Operatives agent. You don't need to know any more than that I am an Autobot even if I don't wear the insignia."

"Special Operatives," Ratchet repeated. "Does that usually involve kidnapping sparklings?"

Jazz smirked. "Ain't usually in my job description, no. But aren't you glad I did? Bluestreak's safe. He's in Iacon and he's being taken care of. Would you have been able to do better in Kaon?"

Ratchet scowled. "Of course not," he snapped. "But for all I fragging knew, you were planning on selling him to slavery to make a quick credit! It seemed your style."

Jazz chuckled at that. "Mech, you don't even have a hint of what my style is," he said. "I may as well be a stranger to you for all you know about me. And it's best we keep it that way. The less you know about me, the safer you are."

Ratchet didn't share any of his humor, his dentals still bared angrily. "You kidnapped him and you left me," he snarled. "You left me there! If you're such an Autobot, how could you leave me there to be interrogated?"

Jazz sighed at that, a flash of remorse crossing his face. "I tried everything I could to avoid that for yah," he said. "With that collar, I couldn't take yah with me, no matter how badly I wanted to and believe me, I wanted to. I told ya Bluestreak would be safe though- it's your own slagging fault you didn't believe me. The best I could do at the time was pin you with an emergency beacon so your medic friend could come get ya."

Ratchet opened his mouth to retort but he realized the mech was right. The fogged memories of that encounter were still no clearer to him, but that detail stood out. "You planted the emergency beacon?" he asked and Jazz nodded. He ran a hand over his helm, his helm aching as he tried to remember. "What... happened that day?" he asked.

Jazz grinned at that. "You don't remember? What's the last thing ya can recall?"

Ratchet gave him an odd look and thought back. "I... I remember seeing the Rust Sea, and I remember Bluestreak screaming," he said. "And... and that's it. Next thing I knew, I was back in Kaon and Spec was yelling at me."

Jazz whistled. "Slag, I clocked you good," he said, sounding far too proud of it. When Ratchet pegged him with another heated glare, he continued, "I hit you on your left posterior plate- directly related to sight and short term memory. I had hoped it had worked- slagging Trailbreaker popped up way quicker than I told him to. You weren't supposed to see him."

Ratchet frowned at the name, the inklings of a memory prickling at the back of his processor. He remembered what Rung had said about processors autorepairing corrupt memories in patches, and the stark image of the bright Autobot symbol resurfaced. The memory seemed to break through the veil- the impossible mech unfolding behind Jazz, the Autobot symbol that stood out on his chassis like a target, and the single word he had uttered before unconsciousness had claimed him.

"Oh slag... Trailbreaker's really alive?" Ratchet asked, optics wide.

Jazz grinned and nodded. "He just relocated to Polyhex," he said. "He told me about how he met yah. Shoulda taken that leap of faith, Ratchet. Would have saved you a lot of pain."

Ratchet's optics were wide as he stared at him, all of the memories piecing back together. "Primus..."

"If it means anything to ya... I really am sorry," Jazz said. "I didn't want to leave you behind, but there wasn't a way for me to bring yah along. Yah had that collar and I didn't have a way of taking it off without risking both of us. As much as I don't like it at times, my mission is more important than any one mech."

Ratchet nodded. It was a hard pill to swallow after harboring so much anger towards the mech, but now that he had the full story, it was a little easier to accept. "Where is Bluestreak now?" he asked.

"He's at a youngling center in Iacon," he said. "They're gonna be some of the first to be evacuated, due to the bomb threat. Probably to Polyhex."

"He really is safe then," Ratchet said and ran a hand over his helm.

Jazz nodded and when Ratchet fell silent, he said, "My turn."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. "What?"

"I need some questions answered," he said. "You said Soundwave interrogated you. I didn't think he'd get that paranoid—I leave a lot without telling him, but apparently I was wrong. What happened? And I need details, as many as you can remember."

Ratchet shuddered, the memories flooding back, unbidden. "I was on sick leave from where you'd hit me. You caused a short in my optical sensors and I had to wait until autorepair took care of it," he said. "I had gone down to engineering to find Wheeljack... and we started talking. We started talking about you," he said. "He was the one who helped me make the connection with your maintenance updates. And there was this... mech that must have been listening to us. This black thing, looked like some sort of turbo-cat."

Jazz swore. "Ravage," he muttered and a pained look crossed his face for just a moment. "So he overheard everything- everything about your speculations."

Ratchet nodded. "They've pegged you as a deserter and they're speculating that you may have possible Autobot loyalties—they saw all my memories about your maintenance updates. Megatron gave him the order to rip your processor apart and find out for certain if you came back to Kaon," he said. Jazz shifted from one foot to the other and Ratchet looked at him. "You aren't planning on going back to Kaon, are you?"

Jazz didn't answer and Ratchet's optics widened. "Meis—Jazz, you can't! That mech will tear you apart! You didn't hear them talking—whatever cover you had is blown."

A dangerous look slid over the mech's face, edges of his lips quirking up into a smirk. "Don't you worry about that," he said. "I got the story of my absence all laid out and I may as well have Soundwave in my subspace."

Ratchet swore quietly. "They knew your comm. was active—they tried hailing yo—"

"I know they did," Jazz interrupted. "And I told ya, I got a story laid out. Seriously, don't worry about me."

"What makes you so sure?" he asked.

Jazz grinned his mysterious grin. "Classified info, m'mech," he said. "Just know that that mech Soundwave will never dare hurt me, no matter what Megatron thinks." His tone sounded so assured, the expression on his face so certain that Ratcht was inclined to believe him. The medic pushed whatever remaining doubt he had aside. Like Jazz had said, he knew nothing of who this mech was. Maybe he was right.

"Seriously, Ratchet. I'll be fine," Jazz added with a wry grin. "Now, I'm scheduled to leave tomorrow and I'm not about to let a cheap shot by you stop me." He tapped the crack on his visor. "Think you can fix this?"

"Great Autobot army my aft, can't even supply a proper medical facility," Ratchet ranted as he searched the multiple crates for anything he could use. Jazz leaned against one of the vacant berths, a grin quirking up the corner of his mouth. Ratchet could almost feel the mech's optics watching him, as well as a few of the medical staff that were on duty, but he ignored them all as he continued his rampage through their supplies.

"Um… sir? Can I help you find something?" a voice asked. Ratchet looked up and recognized the femme that had helped him with Perceptor when he'd first come here.

"I need some sealant and a small welder—as fine as you have," he said before really registering what she had called him. "And don't call me sir."

The femme looked slightly puzzled. "What… should I call you?" she asked even as she went to one of the crates and pushed it open, grabbing the supplies he'd asked for.

"Just call me Ratchet," he said.

She handed over the bottle of sealant and the welder. "If you say so, Ratchet," she said with a shrug before retreating back towards the two other medibots that dawdled in the corner.

Ratchet heard their quiet whispers and had to ignore the strange discomfort of knowing they were talking about him. He walked over to Jazz and tapped the berth. "Sit," he said.

Jazz sighed but didn't protest. "You could get to know some of the mechs around here—especially the medical staff," he pointed out. "They could use your help."

"No slag," Ratchet muttered and finished setting up his supplies on the table next to the berth. "This camp is a disgrace. I've never seen such a poorly stocked and operated medical facility—wartime or not." He tapped Jazz's visor. "Does this come off? I want to take a closer look at what model you have."

Jazz sighed at that. "Yeah well… it's not their fault that Command's considering Charr a lost cause," he muttered. "Most of 'em are enlisted mechs that have been given basic medical training. Forcep over there—that femme you talked to is the closest they got to a trained EMT." Jazz reached up, fingers pressing against his visor, right near where it connected to his temples. He put pressure on either end, bending the stiff material of his visor just slightly so it snapped out of the ports in either side of his helm.

The visor lost power as soon as it was disconnected and went dark. Visors usually indicated that their wearer wanted extra visual sensors—night vision, infrared, some even had x-ray capabilities, mechs sometimes got them just to make their HUD easier to read, but as Jazz pulled the visor away from his face, he knew that wasn't the case with him. Seeing the mechs milky white optics revealed, Ratchet realized that the mech was blind without it.

Jazz's entire demeanor shifted and without his visor to hide his face, Ratchet realized that he was young—closer to Perceptor's age than his own. The black and white mech hunched a bit closer against the med berth and kept his helm lowered, right side quirked towards Ratchet as though he was listening to every move he made as he held out the visor to him. "Ya can stop acting so surprised now," Jazz muttered.

Ratchet took the visor and looked away, though a part of him knew Jazz wouldn't be able to see him do it. "I'm sorry—I just didn't realize—"

"Few do and I want to keep it that way," Jazz said. "It's a programming glitch—I've always been like this. My optical feeds don't connect to anything. My visor gives me a sort of live feed, patched directly into my processor. I don't see like you do, but I've come to realize that y'all miss a lot when you're just paying attention with your optics. My hearing's better'n any mech I've ever met and it's saved me more times than my sight has."

Ratchet looked back up at the mech and realized that even without his visor, he knew exactly where everyone was. As one of the medibots walked the perimeter of the room, the tilt of Jazz's head followed him, tracking his progress with his audios as one might with their sight. "That's incredible," Ratchet said, his fascination evident. "Programming glitches are… incredibly rare. One in a million, at least." As he looked at the visor his hopes sank. "It also means that I've never seen a visor like this before. I'm not sure if I can fix this."

Jazz rubbed his blind optics. "Can yah try?" he asked. "I got a spare, but those things ain't cheap and they're getting' harder and harder to order."

Ratchet sighed and looked at the strip, wishing so badly that Wheeljack was here. He could fix it in no time, no matter what sort of technology he was looking at. Ignoring the onset of guilt and sorrow, he examined the damage he had done. "Was it shorting out at all when you were wearing it?" he asked.

Jazz shook his head. "Nah, just noticed a jump in the feed where the cracks are," he said.

Ratchet hmmed thoughtfully. It didn't seem like he'd done any damage to the inner workings of the visor, simply cracked the protective cover. "I'm going to try and put some sealant on it- we'll see if that patches the feed," he said.

Jazz's head jerked up in surprise. "Hold on there, Ratch," he says.

Ratchet looked around the medbay warily. "What?"

"I think your friend just woke up," he said.

Ratchet frowned. Perceptor was in a completely different room from them. "How can you tell?"

Jazz tapped his audio. "I just heard him scream."