Note/ Another short 'mini chapter' again. Only slightly related tot he overall plot and one that could almost have been a stand alone piece at first, and that I instead decided to tie into this larger story. This one ended up centered almost entirely around Ratchet and Bumblebee. They are interesting characters and I like writing for both of them so along came this...

I better put in a tiny little warning, just to be safe. There is slight medical related graphic description in here.

"It's so quiet here with so few of us around," Bumblebee commented between sips from his energon container. He glanced around the common room of the small Earth base.

Ratchet made a slight huffing noise as he sat down with a container of his own. "No more kids racing around. Makes all the difference I'd say." The old bot huffed again, looking up to the human area behind the upper railing – now free of children, inflatable mattresses and the noisy game system. He signed in relief, but the sigh was so clearly over the top with exaggeration.

"Ah come on Ratchet," 'Bee answered, with a grin. He propped both of his feet up on an unused work surface in reach of the bench they sat on. "We all know full well, you love those kids as much as any of us do. As much as you want to pretend they were always just in the way."

"Tell no one," The old medic said, with a look on his face-plate strangely somewhere between a scowl and a smirking grin.

Bumblebee laughed once, and finished his container. With a sneaky look about him, and almost inching over some toward the farthest end of the bench he remarked, "Ha, and who would I tell? The Cybertronian coalition for cranky old Autobots?"

"Watch it," Ratchet warned, with an almost grin, that he tried as obviously as ever to hide behind a serious expression. He pointed a finger toward the younger bot. "I'm not so old I can't still knock your doors clean off, kid. And git your feet off of there!"

'Bee moved his feet back to the floor in compliance at once, but still he laughed under his intakes.

"It's not just that the kids are gone home though," the young Autobot said, thinking, noticing. "It's that half our team is gone too. The place suddenly feels so big, quiet, empty…"

"'Bee, splitting up the team was a choice made out of necessity..."

"Oh, I know. I never thought it was the worst idea. It's just weird still being here. You enjoy being stationed here, with no other bots around for months?"

Ratchet considered for a moment, and then finally gave a small nod. "I do mostly, yes. Funny, I wanted to go back home so badly. Probably more than any of us did. But working here, by myself, I think I like the quiet. The American forces gave me a new contract down here. Two years and then from there I decide what I'll do. Anyway there's always a lot of work to be done. Endless research mostly. And then there's the comm to be manned. We never know when a refugee group's communication signal might be routed through our comms here instead of home base on Cybertron. The space bridge needs to stay maintained, and I'm not about to let a bunch of human engineers go poking around in Cybertronian technology, and either blow themselves up, or break our still much needed bridge, in their efforts to help us with its maintenance.

Bumblebee got up to carry his empty container away to a specialized sanitation machine across the room, so that it could be washed with others and recycled back into use. He took Ratchet's too and then spent a couple of minutes loading and starting the machine. He went back again to take a seat on the bench.

"Ratchet, can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked. He was serious now and looking the old bot in the optics.

When the medic nodded silently, Bumblebee spoke honestly. "I know you asked that I be kept back when the team split up, because you wanted me in the capacity of medical assistant down here..."

"Indeed I did."

"Yeah, I guess everyone is saying now that I'd make a good medic some day. I always liked learning, helping out. Honestly, I've really thought about it, at least a few times."

"Bumblebee, everything is changing and fast now. Our world is alive again. You have a whole future ahead of you. You were always good within the warrior class, but if I might be honest I've so often felt like it would be a waste of your potential, for you to never do anything else. If the conflict starts back up again, Primas forbid, the Autobot forces will be in constant need of good field medics. And if the war is really over this time, we will always need good bots running the clinics. I've steered some decent, smart, determined bots away from this work more times than I can count. It's not too often I find one I'd love to see go in that direction instead."

"Wow. Ratchet, I didn't know you felt that strongly about it..." 'Bee looked at the floor, suddenly unsure what to say next.

"Listen," Ratchet said, seriously. The younger bot looked him in the optics again. "No one can tell you what do with your life. No one ever should. But we can all advise and encourage and help a young bot find a worthy path that will make him happy. It sounds like you really were thinking it over, and now I think I sense a 'but, coming any second."

When the old medic chuckled a little 'Bee nodded, almost embarrassed. "I don't think I'd be any good in the field. Yesterday, you had me help you when you woke Knockout up. Honestly that was horrible. He was just screaming so much, and fighting and freaking right out, and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to run for it, instead of waiting until there was something I could do."

Ratchet nodded again, with an understanding that surprised the younger bot. "Yeah, I probably should not have put you into a situation like that. But I needed help and you were the most obvious choice. I… I've been doing this work for so long, and I've seen so much, I almost forget that most bots don't on a daily basis. At the very least I should have told you it would likely be pretty horrific. Honestly though 'Bee, if you were seriously considering this field of work, don't let that be the thing that makes you think you would never be any good. It's the fact that such things do bother you that makes me think you could do it, actually."

"Really?"

"Sure," Ratchet gave a little laugh and shook his head, with a look of dismay. "I had an instructor, back in my training days, I interned under him for awhile. Very good at what he did, and he even made a decent teacher too. But I realized quite early on, just how much he seemed to favor knocking bots into power down. Now granted, there are plenty of cases where powering down is the best choice, or even the only way to even think about working. But this old fellow – he could barely weld a simple seam on a bot while they were conscious and talking! So finally one day I asked him why. I knew it it was more than possible to avoid such measures and work on a conscious bot. I'd seen others do it just fine. Ha, most of the injured patients I'd seen worked on, would simply chat about their last vacation, assuming they were calm enough, and they trusted you? There will always be many that scream, or cry, or even pull a weapon out of fear or confusion as to where they are and who we are. The screaming is pretty gut wrenching... the weapons are terrifying! But it gets easier. It all becomes just another days work, and if I'm honest I cant decide if that's a good thing or not. "

"So why did he say he did it that way? The instructor and the powering down?" Bumblebee questioned, interested.

Ratchet shook his head, harder this time. Clearly after so many years the matter still aggravated him. "Well he explained that when a bot is unconscious, you are basically working with a pile of metal and parts. It's easy to work on metal and parts, when you know how to do it well. But when they are awake, talking to you, questioning, and in a worst case, possibly screaming. When you can see their optics looking back at you, counting on you to keep them alive… well apparently that's when it gets to be too much to deal with."

'Bee's mouth dropped open and for a second or two he just stared, blinking in disbelief. "That sounds like a terrible medic. That's just so… cold."

"Oh, it is! I've long held the belief that anyone entering the field with a mindset like that, is likely far better suited to working on simple machines. I learned a great deal from that instructor. Most of the Cybertronian anatomy lessons were the ones I remembered the best when I started out on my own. But it was also from him that I learned exactly the type of medic I never wanted to be."

"I doubt you ever were." As soon as Bumblebee had said that he fell silent entirely and stared down at his own knees. He felt suddenly uneasy, and he considered a slight change of topic, to back himself out of the track his mind had gone down without him wishing it too. But instead, still looking down with his intakes increasing slightly he said, "I remember the first time I met you. Back in the field hospital on Cybertron."

"You do?"

'Bee nodded slightly and still his optics stayed low. Almost unconsciously he pulled his arms in a little, in a gesture of self protection, and preservation. He spoke again, but was it was quieter now. "Well I do, a tiny bit. I remember waking up at some point in some dim lit room. There was this light overhead, but it just kept flickering on and off. Someone somewhere else was yelling something about rerouting the power before it all went dark. Someone else was cursing out the 'cons, yelling about how troopers had blown one of the generators. I must have brushed a hand against my face, at some point because when the lights flashed on brighter and I looked at my hand and saw that it was covered in energon. My hand did hurt, but it wasn't bad, and I knew all that wasn't coming from there. I realized I could feel it running all over my face, and I panicked a bit as I realized my lower face-plate was just gone… I know for a second I had this sick understanding that my hand was sore because I had cut my fingers on the jagged edge of whatever was left of my own face-plate. I decided in that second for whatever reason I was absolutely not going to cry my optics out."

"'Bee," Ratchet looked almost horrified at the story he was hearing recounted. "We don't need to talk about..."

Bumblebee shook his head slightly. "No, It's alright. I'm fine with it." It was surprising even to him, but he actually was. He looked up then and met the medic's optics, as the older bot put a hand on his shoulder panel in assurance.

"I remember at some point you had your arms almost over top of me, as if you wanted to protect me from something. Your armor was dirty, scratched, dented. And your optics looked so strange. A mix of rage, compassion, exhaustion, and just a look of 'will there be no end.' And you were yelling toward the door across the room, 'frag you! I won't just leave this kid to die. I would never...' Then you put your hand against mine and said 'I want to power you down now. Squeeze my hand if you're ready, kid.' I remember I tried to, but I don't know when I let go again."

"Are you alright, 'Bee?" Ratchet never broke optic contact with the younger bot.

"Yeah. But thanks. I've always remembered that tiny bit of it. I know there has to have been a lot more, but I don't remember any of that."

"I… I had no idea you remembered anything honestly."

"I guess I just never told you I did."

"I think you're still blocking most of it out," Ratchet said. His optics looked thoughtful. "That's not exactly a bad thing. Well not always. It depends on the case. But in yours I've never been terribly concerned. You might never remember anything more about any of that, and honestly that's probably good. The first day I saw you again after so many years and so many quite forgotten patents though the field hospitals, I knew who you were in seconds. The first I clearly remembered that day was how as soon as I'd given you my hand and you went quickly into power down, it was a bit of a job to make you let go again."

"I always felt so bad seeing how much you blamed yourself," 'Bee said after a moment. Ratchet looked slightly confused first and then a second later, surprised and then dismayed as he realized what his young teammate was talking about. But the younger bot went on, anyway. "I've heard others saying at least a couple of times how the two of us ending up together stationed in the same base here, just reminded you of your own failure in the field. Ratchet, you didn't fail me. I was just some kid you didn't even know once. I probably didn't even have a name to you then, and still you did the best you could. Do you have any idea how sad I was some nights to think I was stationed with a great old medic bot who inspired me to get interested in his work myself, and yet still blames himself for not doing enough?"

The old medic looked somewhere between tears and a smile as he looked down slightly at the young Autobot. After a speechless minute he said slowly, "I suppose it did all work out just fine eventually. I still have no idea what happened that day you were knocked into the pool of cybermatter. I would have thought once that should have killed a bot. But then there's never been a known case of such a thing ever happening before, so I would have only assumed... I have no idea even what the matter did to you, other than that it was clearly a positive thing."

"I gotta admit I was more than a bit surprised that you never once tried to so much as scan me. I had expected your scientific and medical curiosity would have made you do at least that." Bumblebee laughed, but all the same he knew he did have a fair point.

The old medic looked him in the optics again. "Oh, I've wanted to of course. How could I not. I'm a bot of science after all. As you can well imagine, it was only a day or two before my processor was spinning with the possibilities for research in anything related, that could one day hold any benefit to medical science. You better believe, I wanted to grab my scanner and then haul out far more equipment just as soon as we had the time to work on this."

"But you didn't..."

"No, I didn't," Ratchet shook his head, this time with some urgency behind the motion. "You're alive. You're perfectly fine. So we don't exactly have a problem then. Ne some level I suppose I figure maybe since you are now exactly what you should have been in the first place, you can somewhat forget you were ever so damaged. How fair would it have been of me to give you that reminder instead of hoping you'd just forget about it and live?"

"I wouldn't be against it, you know. I'd be more than willing to let you run a few scans."

"Any of it would be simple, completely noninvasive of course."

'Bee nodded in willing agreement. "Hey no problem." He was silent for a long moment, considering his next words more carefully. "I was never always just about to break, you know. As much as you always made sure, along with the rest of the team, that I was just like any other bot, because of course I am, I think you more than any of them always worried I was at that greater risk of losing it or something."

"I've been around a long time. I've seen bots fall completely off the deep end, thanks mostly to the war. And their issues were so often caused by much less. To be scraped so bad, when you were almost still a kid… you've never read your file."

"You've never let me. Bulkhead said once you hid the report away somewhere."

Ratchet nodded slowly. "I did. It seemed like the right thing once. Hmm…. I'm not sure it seems so anymore. If you want I will retrieve that report for you to read at some point before you go back to Cybertron."

Bumblebee nodded silently. After a minute though he spoke again. "I always realized you know, that everything you did, like hide that report, you did to protect me. That always meant everything. Maybe if I could have gotten away from my own self inflicted mindset of needing to be an unsentimental fighter class bot, I might have told you that years ago."

"I'm glad to hear that…." Ratchet's reply was cut short, as the human sized door – off in a corner of the base, a ways from the huge hanger doors – was yanked open.

Agent Fowler stepped inside with a stack of files and loose papers in his arms. He balanced a take out coffee cup and a small brown paper bag on the top of the little pile. Without putting down his little load, he nodded to the bots.

"Ratchet, Bumblebee. Good morning."

"Agent Fowler," Ratchet nodded once back, but said nothing more.

"Hey, uh, is Arcee around here? It was a little unclear if she was going back or staying here. I promised her I would drop off a bunch of photos that Jack left with me on a flash drive. I guess it's all pictures Miko took this past week. Arcee was going to add them to a data pad or something."

"I'll take the flash drive for her Agent Fowler," Bumblebee said. "She stayed here. Knockout made it clear he wanted her to stay with this team, and it didn't look like she wanted to leave either…" He gave a momentarily baffled look when the human agent put the tiny device into the palm of his hand. For a second the bot was genuinely unsure of how to carry something that small without breaking it. Finally he settled for gently holding it between a thumb and one finger, and making certain he didn't press on it hard."

"Hmm… so how is your sick teammate doing?" Fowler may have had his somewhat mixed opinions about the issue of the 'con defector among the Autobots. But he had showed genuine concern since he'd first been informed of a medical situation that had lead to use of a contingency plan.

Ratchet considered his answer for a second and then said, his tone serious as usual, "He's stayed stable for the last day at least. But his condition is still not exactly as good as I would like. He's still so sick, it's impossible to make a full assessment of his functions and motor skills, comprehension, and so on. In all honesty, Agent Fowler we don't know how bad this is, until he gets a little better."

"My higher ups over at HQ..." Fowler struggled a little with the files, so that he could keep them balanced with one hand and take a sip of his morning coffee with the other. He nearly dropped the whole stack. "I sent word to them that I had agreed to keep part of your team here for a while longer, due to a medical emergency. You should have heard some of the confused phone calls I got at home most of yesterday afternoon. Military types, mostly of high authority and mostly decent educations, all completely and utterly baffled as to how in the Sam Hill a bot can possible have a medical emergency! I tried to explain that you aren't machines, that you most certainly can and do get sick and that this time it sounded very serious. Last night I had a Major call to ask if perhaps he ought to send over a very good heavy duty mechanic. He actually thought that might do a hint of good!"

Fowler frowned, and both bots immediately did the very same.

"Thank you for the photos, Agent Fowler," Ratchet said after a moment. "I think Knockout will enjoy looking at them as well once Arcee gets them into the data pad."

Fowler dismissed himself and made his way up the staircase toward his office on the second floor. He turned around though midway up, and again, he nearly dropped his stack of files. "Oh, while I think of it, someone will be popping of tonight to repair that stair rail."

Ratchet nodded absently and when Fowler's office door closed, the old bot muttered under his intakes, "Just a bunch of machines… send over a mechanic for a sick bot… ooooh if I were younger and stupider I'd give those humans at HQ a good earful myself."

Note/ Yeah I know several finfic writers these days are tending towards tying their TFP stories into the RID story line, and of course had I done the same, the set up would have been to have 'Bee consider police work, ect, instead of considering the medical field. I'm just obviously not aiming to tie this into RID.