Notes/ Long chapter… Oh well, probably better than too short. Again thanks for following me and the story this far.
"Knockout," Arcee mumbled with her face against her mate's shoulder panel again. Her voice aside from being slightly muffled by his armor, was unmistakably anxious. "We can not possibly be having this child today. She's early."
"We're talking a few days ahead of schedule," Knockout answered quickly. "Not nearly early enough to make a difference." He forced his voice to remain calm and collected and wondered all the while, how it was he was actually succeeding in doing so. "Soon we'll finally get to meet her. And she'll be perfect!"
Bulkhead chose that moment to leap quickly up from the bench he was sitting on against the far wall. And clumsily he tripped over his left foot with his right, jump barely managing to catch himself, as he hopped several times across the common room floor fighting with his own footing.
"Do the two of you need anything?" He asked quickly. The look of wide optic'd near terror on his face-plate was undeniably comical. "How can I help?" The green bot paused a second before he threw a hand up into the air as he exclaimed," Wait, I know. Someone needs to run for boiling water. I'm on it!" He turned, clearly about to run out of the room entirely, before he paused again and half way turned back. "Err… Knockout, how many pots of it do you need me to boil?"
At that, Knockout only narrowed his red optics in confusion, and for a second stared at his teammate without a word.
"Bulk', what the frag would I possibly need boiling water for?" he asked after a moment, and almost shaking his head.
"I… I have no idea whatsoever," the big green bot admitted slowly. His tone was almost sheepish and he gave a little shrug of his shoulders. "It always seems to work that way on Earth. Haven't you ever seen any classic television!"
Knockout only shook his head at that, and chuckled under his intakes with a roll of his optics.
"I'm hitting the wash station," Arcee said. Her decision made, she stood up from her chair, and turned to walk away in the direction of the living space she shared with her bondmate.
"Is that really a good idea?" Smokescreen questioned in alarm, sitting up straighter in his place on a bench across the room. "We need to get you right to the medbay!"
"Both of you are being ridiculous." Arcee shook her head before she gave a chuckle of laughter at her clueless teammates. "The youngling is not going to born this minute. It'll be hours. Maybe even tomorrow." She cast a firm look at first one of the panicked bots, and then the other. "I don't need to go the medbay and be bored for hours. What I need is to grab a quick shower, while I'm still perfectly able to do so."
"Knockout, I'm sorry," Speedbreaker said from behind the rest of the group. She came back into the common room through a far less used door, out of a corridor that led eventually to Ratchet's workshop in an out of the way part of the base. "I looked everywhere I could get to without making a complete mess of the workshop. I can't find a tire gauge anywhere. I have no idea where I might find an air compressor either."
"Don't worry about it, Speedy," Knockout said hurriedly. "The tire's fine for now. And Arcee has gone onto stage one spark separation."
"What?" The little orange and silver bot exclaimed. "No way!"
"Yes way," Arcee said quietly with a nod of her head. Her tone of voice still barely hid her lingering anxiety, but she smiled a little as well.
"You okay?" Speedbreaker asked her. And Arcee nodded again, smiling brighter now.
Knockout was both relieved and grateful, when Smokescreen stepped close to him and motioned his clear intentions of taking over his post at the monitoring station. With a quick nod of his head, he turned then to look back at his mate.
"I'll give you a lift," he said with a smile and a little laugh. He motioned with his right hand for her to climb up onto his lap, and when she did so, though with a bit of obvious hesitation, he rolled on heading back toward their living space.
Their wash station, tucked away behind a door in the far corner of their reasonably sized living space, was, like all others on the base, a bit of a cramped affair. And Knockout's very much necessary accessibility set up made it slightly more cramped and crowded than any other may have been. But Knockout had gotten very good with negotiating the tight space on the cart. And though he did not typically drive the cart very far into there – it was a very tight fit, and would require him backing out again because there was no way to turn around again, making it more practical to be lifted off the cart by somebot and left sitting on a shower bench – he could certainly do it perfectly well if he needed to. And sure enough he insisted on driving the cart right up to the edge of the little shower enclosure with Arcee still balanced and now laughing, on his knees.
When she got off again and stood to set the spray of the water, he motioned with his optics for her to sit down on the shower bench herself. With a chuckle of laughter and a slight shake of her head, she did so, instead of simply lifting the lightweight bench out to shove against the opposite wall as usual.
"Do you want me to leave you alone in here for a while?" Knockout asked. He hoped she'd say she didn't want him to, and when she shook her head, he inwardly felt glad of it.
"I was hoping to have a little time with you away from those two lunkheads we call our teammates," Arcee said, with a look that said it all.
She laughed a little under her intakes and rolled her optics a little to show her disbelief over the ridiculous overreactions of Bulkhead and Smokescreen. But another burst of energy flowed away from her spark, across her spark chamber and through the front of her frame a second later. And she learned forward a little on the shower bench, her face-plate frozen for a brief moment in a look of startled discomfort.
"You okay?" Knockout questioned.
"I'm fine," Arcee insisted. She reached for a bottle of cleaning solvent that sat hanging, in a little decorative basket from a bracket on the wall, and sat holding the bottle, silent and thinking while warm oily water poured over her, and drained away through a hole in the floor of the well designed shower set up.
It was a bit of an awkward reach, over the left side of his frame with his right arm and using his ever present measuring stick, but Knockout managed to reach toward the shelf he was parked badly up against, so that he could grab a wash cloth from the top of a little folded stack of them. And when he turned again, steadying his balance once on the cart with his bent right knee and still almost too weak left arm leaning on the arm rest, so that he could hand her the rag, the unintentional irony of it was not lost on her at all, after many months of diligently bringing washing rags to him morning after morning. The distracted and distant look left her at once and she smiled at him then.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked her, smiling back.
"We're really going to be parents," she answered slowly.
"Yeah."
"Think you're ready for it all?"
"Yes. Well mostly yes… almost. No. You?"
"Yes… no..."
"What are we going to call her?" Knockout asked, after both had been silent for a moment or two.
The two of them had considered names together a bit in recent days. And the team provided no shortage of mostly unasked-for advice on the matter as well. But still, they had never exactly settled on anything entirely.
"I still have no real idea," Arcee admitted.
And Knockout only shrugged slightly, still calm as ever, in reply. "I'm sure we'll know exactly what her name should be when we finally meet her." He paused a second, chuckled and as an after thought added, "let's… just make sure Bulkhead and Miko have no real input..."
"Ha," Arcee answered, laughing now. She set down the wash rag down on the edge of the shower enclosure, and just sat again with the water falling over her. "I don't care how much either one of them insists they predict a new youngling naming trend, with us as trend setters. 'Danger-bot Destruction', is not a cute or even appropriate name."
"I can't say I much care for the notion of 'Metallic Powerhouse,' either." Knockout shook his head with a slight roll of his optics.
Still chuckling a little, Arcee reached behind her to turn off the spray of oily water. And then she stood up, far more careful than usual not to slip on the wet tiles of the floor. A sudden energy pulse through her spark chamber and spreading fast through the front of her frame, made her pause in the middle of climbing over the low edge of the shower, and with her optics suddenly wide with surprise, and pained discomfort, she finished climbing over moving very slowly, and leaned forward for a second against the opposite wall.
Knockout managed with the usual degree of moderate difficultly, to back himself on the cart part way out of the wash station. And only when she had stood back up again and tuned to follow him slowly, did he back up the rest of the way into their living space. Arcee crossed the room, and stopping to right a data pad that had fallen over at some point on a shelf, she went to stand next to the little recharging basket that sat set up near the recharge station, closest to her side because they had both decided together that by far made the most sense.
"Tomorrow night we're going to have a little one recharging with us," she said, as she gestured with her optics to the little recharging basket. She chuckled a little then and added, "or, keeping us both out of recharge..."
"Our child, cry all night and keep us up? Never! She will be perfect. She is ours after all." Knockout gave a look of mock upset over the thought of their youngling being anything less. And immediately Arcee laughed loudly, while she shook her head.
"How's your foot?" Arcee asked suddenly. Her question was so out of nowhere and seemingly had nothing to do with anything, that he just looked at her blankly for a second. Her optics though, he saw in the next instant, were staring right down toward his left lower leg and foot, which, as typical rested at an odd angle on the mobility cart's foot rest,. He'd been struggling slightly, for the past minutes they'd been talking, to move it the tiny bit it could move, in order to relieve growing tension on the wiring again.
"It's fine," he said calmly. Indeed it wasn't exactly not fine.
But Arcee slowly and carefully lowered herself a seated position on the floor of their living space, from which she could lift her mate's dysfunctional limb, support the leg lightly on her lap and slowly bend the ankle joint. It had always been easier for her to do it while he was laying down on the recharge station, but with enough time they had both learned to improvise, and doing it the way she was now, had worked well more than once.
"Arcee, you shouldn't be..."
"I'm not completely helpless and dying, you know," Arcee mumbled, chuckling with a shake of her head. But not a second later, she let go of her mate's lower leg, and moved to lean forward a little, with both of her hands bracing her weight on the floor of their living space.
"Just… gimme a second..." she explained, speaking quietly and holding her position a second more before she slowly moved back to sit straighter again.
"You alright?" Knockout questioned, well aware that he was uselessly fretting.
And Arcee only nodded then smiled a little. "I'm good. Though… strangely I feel like being down low to the floor might just be helpful." She smiled again, but she was quiet. And slowly the smile left her face-plate, to be replaced by a look of anxious worry and nerves. She dropped her optics, and stared at the smooth tiles she was sitting on. A long moment passed, dragging on, without her looking up again, or saying a thing.
"Arcee," Knockout said. He reached out with his stronger and functional hand, and though it was almost too long of a reach, he just managed to gently grab one of hers. And when he did so, she finally looked at his optics again. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." Arcee smiled along with her simple fast reply. But Knockout knew her more than well enough to not buy it for a second.
"Please, talk to me," he said, still smiling his assurance as he looked her in the optics.
"It's gonna be a long night," she mumbled slowly. "I know that much. But I don't know what to expect exactly. You know I never liked complete unknowns."
Knockout nodded in understanding, and wished in that moment more than ever, that he could lift her from the floor, place her gently onto the recharge station then lay down on there beside her and hold her close to his frame while he talked with her. But he couldn't do that. Not without help, and there was no one close by who could help him. So he settled instead for just sitting where he was and letting her sit looking up at him with her nervous blue optics.
"How do you feel right now?" he asked her, patiently.
"It's… not too bad. The last energy pulse was a bit worse then the one before that, and there's always a steady little dull aching pain besides. I'm sure it's going to get worse though."
"Judging by time between energy pulses, progress might just be going pretty fast."
"Is that good?" Arcee's optics continued to look at her mate's.
"Well, its not entirely bad," Knockout said still smiling.
"Okay," Arcee mumbled slowly. Her tone said that she trusted him and his answer. Another second though and she said hesitantly, "please don't tell me you want me to go right to the medbay."
"No," Knockout shook his head, and smiled his assurance at her. "It's too early. Nothing to do and we'd both only be bored and nervous in there. We'll go back to the team in the common room, until we really need to move to medical."
"Thank you," Arcee said. But then she fell silent again.
It was at that moment, while watching her as she watched him with those same nervous optics, that Knockout finally thought he understood her true concern. It was an instinctive thing really. A hint of an idea he picked up on when he tried hard enough, through the connection he shared with her.
"You couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to," he said.
Arcee nodded, smiling her thanks, as she slowly stood up from the floor. She waked toward the door, with her mate right behind her, but stopped again near the door, turning slowly so that she could pause in her tracks, with a hand on his shoulder panel and the one one on the cart's armrest.
"I'll comm Ratchet," Knockout decided with confidence after his mate had stood back up straight again, and looked him in the optics to tell him she was still okay. He rolled his cart at slow speed back down the corridor. Arcee walked slowly beside him. As much as he wanted to carry her again sitting on his lap while he drove, he sensed how she preferred to walk instead, how much walking a bit felt far better to her at the moment. "I don't doubt for a second he'll scrap the mission and bridge straight back when I tell him what's happened."
But Arcee only held up a hand quickly and with it she determinedly waved off his suggestion. "No. No. We can't drop this mission now. Any steps toward peaceful agreements with the 'cons are needed ones. And if Ratchet can persuade Shockwave to defect today, save us possible energon-shed, in conflict with him later..."
"Arcee..."
"You called us the winning team when you yourself first defected," Arcee said. Her steps were still slow, but her face-plate was determined and serious all the same. "You think we got to be the winners by running when we just have been minutes from having our next win in the bag? There's still time. We… we'll be okay."
"What should we tell him?" Knockout asked her, as soon as she had finished speaking. He didn't like this a single bit. But she had been an Autobot since day one of her military career. He was a still recent defector to the team she had served in the role of helping to lead into it's unlikely success. And now, despite her present 'status,' both her tone and look on her face-plate told him that she had fallen fully right back into officer mode.
"We don't tell him anything," Arcee said, still walking in slow but steady steps back toward the common room. "If and when the team updates us with a status report, no one say a word about this. If Ratchet hears about this now, his medical protocols will come first and he'll scrap the mission. You're right about that. We may never get another shot at making Shockwave an ally instead of an enemy. We can't let Ratchet get distracted now. It's too important!"
"Arcee. I can't say I like this much."
"I'm not asking you to like it. I'm asking you to go along with it anyway." Arcee paused suddenly as the pair got closer to the common room. And she turned a little to let her optics stare into his a moment as she considered. "Knockout. In your medical understanding, how long can we wait?"
"It's impossible to say. There's so much room for variation from one carrier and newspark to the next. It could be six hours, or it may be all night before anything much really happens!"
"Okay. Just… say nothing yet. Let him work."
"I'll agree to that… for now." Knockout's agreement was tentative, conditional, and he knew that she knew it too.
"Can we take the long way back around?" she suggested. "I want to walk a bit. Ratchet did say recently that if possible I should walk..."
"Carefully. But yes, of course we can," Knockout smiled back.
The pair made it back to the common room, just in time for another energy pulse to cause Arcee to stop dead in the doorway. (Two had made her stop during their long-way, walk back too.) She moved as if she were about to turn again to face toward her mate, but instead she turned to the door frame, which was closer to her, and rested against it, awkwardly, knees bending slightly under the weight of her horrible forward slumping. When she lifted her head again after a moment to look to her mate, who had paused beside her, he so clearly saw the pain flashing across her optics, though she said not a word about it.
Speedbreaker had been sitting on a bench in an out of the way corner exchanging so clearly awkward and curious looks with Soundwave, as he stood in another doorway opposite her. Immediately she leapt onto her feet, and Knockout watched her hurry toward them. Speedy stood a second nearby, until she could gently grab Arcee as the energy pulse reached its end, and died away. Walking slowly, arms around her and supporting part of her weight, she helped her the closest bench in front of the nearest wall, and motioned for her to sit herself down. Knockout shot the young bot a grateful glance, as soon as he had rolled himself over so that he could park in front on the bench facing his mate again. Speedbreaker, sitting down beside her and smiling slightly, nodded her silent understanding.
For a while the small small team of Autobots and Speedy, sat in the common room, conversing idly about nothing of any real importance at all. Bulkhead kept watch over the monitors, and listened for comm frequencies, while he listened to the pointless but still amusing stream of conversation, and joining in here and there. Arcee joined in too, sharing a quick anecdote, when the talk turned somehow to the long gone days of Autobot training camp. She laughed along with the others, when Bulkhead recounted a little tale of his own, and explained how it had of course in typical Bulkhead fashion, gone comically bad. Clearly she was glad for a little distraction from her growing state of discomfort. And the entire group was glad for a little distraction from their concern for their teammates that had not yet returned to base.
Once, in the middle of some random story Smokescreen had began to tell regarding his experience with elite guard boot camp, and some bot called Taillight, Arcee moved to sit forward on the bench, her frame tense with pain and her optics wide with the shock of it so clearly getting so quickly worse than before. Smokescreen stopped speaking at once, and for a second he and Bulkhead exchanged looks of near complete terror over the whole thing. Knockout saw but completely ignored the reaction of the two entirely, far too concerned with caring for his mate then with the ridiculousness of his teammates. Reaching forward as far as he safely could on the cart, he held a hand out to her, smiling with more confidence then he sudden felt, when she slowed moved to grab for it. And for another moment both of them just stayed that way, unmoving and with no one saying anything. After another moment she sat up straighter again, and with a look of something clearly meant to be assurance at the team, she gestured with her hand for Smokescreen to go on with the story he had been telling. Far more uncertainly now, he slowly did.
Smokescreen finished the story he'd been telling, and the conversation changed directions entirely then, moving to some talk about construction and impending completion of the latest high rise housing structure to be built. But no more then a few minutes into the new topic of idle discussion, Arcee tensed and leaned over, and this time braced her upper body on bent elbows that rested on her knees. Speedbreaker, still sitting beside her on the bench, quickly placed her arms around Arcee's frame and pulled her friend against her carefully. With the blue bot leaning still nearly ridged with pain, against her front plating, Speedbreaker met Knockout's optics with a serious look.
"You've got to comm Ratchet," she said. "I know he's got a mission to lead, but can't the team come back?"
"You're right, Speedy," Knockout answered slowly, conflicted where he felt he shouldn't have been. "I told her I wanted to comm him already. And she won't let me." He moved the cart a little, so that he could look at his mate's face, over the top of the little orange and silver's bot's shoulder panel. Calmly he asked her, "think we can comm him now?"
For a second, Arcee only shook her head, waving his begging question off with one hand helplessly without a word. But then the pain and tension let her frame again, and she slowly moved again, to turn and look around the room a little and settle back onto the bench.
"No," she said quickly, as soon as she had once again found her voice. "Don't comm and bother him yet. We need this mission. I'm okay, I'm okay."
"Arcee, the energy pulses are obviously only minutes apart already," Knockout protested. "And you're obviously already in far more pain than I've ever seen you in." He looked around at the other bots in the room, desperately begging silently and with only his optics, for someone to please offer him some back up on the matter. Bulkhead and Smokescreen were once again exchanging looks of shock and terror, and Smokescreen on top of that looked almost about to make a mad dash away from the room and the team at any second. He had half stood up from his seat, and was poised to run for it. Soundwave was standing as still and silent as he had been all the while, not helpful in the least, but at least not a hindrance or distraction either. Speedbreaker sat nodding her head slightly yet firmly, as he she sat, ready to move to help and support Arcee again at any second she was needed.
"Arcee, we need to comm Ratchet," Speedy said firmly. She took her gently by the shoulder panels and encouraged her to look her in the optics a second, which she did.
"Knockout," Arcee questioned of her mate, as she slowly turned slightly to look at him instead. "How's it looking?"
Knockout didn't even bother to turn around as he asked for somebot to bring him the med scanner again, intending this time to keep it with him. The noises he heard behind him, told him that Bulkhead had jumped up fast to get him one, after Smokescreen had indeed made a dash for it right out of the common room and away down a corridor eventually leading all the way to the lift. Bulk' was quick with his hurried errand, and Knockout grabbed the scanner awkwardly and without even turning around.
"Newspark is still almost fully attached, but the surrounding field is breaking apart," he announced with a mix of unease and excitement, as soon as he had scanned her and quickly interpreted the data he saw on the little screen. Almost carelessly he dropped the small machine onto the footrest of the cart, right behind his right foot. "This would be stage two already then."
"Ratchet will make it back in time," Arcee said. She was strangely calm then, and her expression was one of confidence. But she moved again then, this time pulling her knees up on onto the bench with her, and turning slowly toward Speedbreaker, with unmistakable dread written all over her face-plate.
From somewhere behind him, Knockout heard Bulkhead mumble something about going after Smokescreen. Then something about how a good match down in the gym might settle his young friend's nerves. There were heavy footsteps moving in another direction then and strangely Soundwave finally spoke up with an uncertain offer to man the comms. Arcee gestured her wordless assent to the offer without looking at him, at the very second Speedbreaker pulled her against her frame again, just in time for the next hard energy burst.
Knockout backed himself and the cart up a little, and carefully he locked his brake in place. Speedbreaker, thankfully understood at once what it was he wanted to do, without him even needing to explain anything. And when Arcee had once again looked up and was struggling at little to sit up, the young bot moved carefully, urging and helping her to move slowly so that she could sit on the floor in front of the bench. Just as soon as she had managed to move, wordlessly following directions without a protest, Arcee deliberately fell against Knockout's legs, in their still, sitting position on the cart, and with her head resting on his knees. In another moment she lifted her head to look up at him, smiling a little, shakily.
"It's okay. You're alright," he said gently, and with his optics never leaving her for a second. Trusting himself to know the right thing to do, he moved his right arm so that he hand could rest against the back of her shoulder panel. And he pulled her gently back into her position against his knees. Immediately through the connection their shared connection, he felt a hint of her relief at that, and again he spoke to her. "Please, tell me what you need me to do?"
"Don't leave me," she answered back unexpectedly. One of her hands grabbed urgently for his left one, which had remained helplessly resting almost useless near the hand control. And once she had it, she was so clearly in no hurry at all to let go again, as he did the best he could to squeeze back a little. "Please, don't leave me!"
"Leave? Arcee, why would I leave? I already told you, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried." Rubbing his hand gently against her back panel, Knockout was aware of just how warm her body armor was, as her frame began to heat up from inside.
"Knockout, I… I can't… I don't want to..." Arcee mumbled almost incoherent against his bent knees. She stopped her mumbling then without finishing, and barely having formed her thought at all. But behind her mumbling he felt a strange intense fear that bordered almost on panic, and that he knew at once was not his own.
"You're alright," he repeated, slow and quiet, as an energy pulse far worse than any yet spread across her spark chamber, and through her frame. Her free arm wrapped tightly around the backs of her knees, she buried her face-plate tight against his armor, while he went right on rubbing the back of her still warming blue plating. "There's nothing to be scared of. You're fine. Both you and our little one."
Knockout had decided initially that the fact that things were moving so fast in Arcee's case, was not entirely a bad thing exactly. And indeed it wasn't. But she was moving so fast through the process of spark separation, reaching within only a couple of hours, a point that on average would have been three times as long. Her poor little body had so little time to adjust to the terrible amount of physical stress it was under. And her processor had barely had time to even try to get used to a pain that only grew rapidly worse. The process in her case may have so far been quick. But it had still been a while, and that was long enough for the physical stress to began to tire her quickly. And with a good while yet to go, and the certainly of it only getting still far worse, she was fast becoming overwhelmed. And Knockout sensed so clearly that that was responsible for the greatest part of her now ever present near panic.
"Speedbreaker, I need you to comm Ratchet. Give him a brief status report, and let him know we need him back here as soon as he can get back," Knockout said. Someone had to make the judgment call that Arcee was no longer quite in a clear mind to make, and as much as the very unerstanding of it made him suddenly uncomfortable, the neutral status of both Speedy and Soundwave, made him the only bot let on base officially cleared to make such judgment calls. There were still Bulkhead and Smokescreen of course. But they had both made their discomfort with the situation, and their urgent need to run away from it, quite abundantly clear.
Speedbreaker, was still sitting on the same nearby bench, calm and paying attention, ready to help with anything whenever she was asked. And in the corner of his vision, while he continued to sit unmoving, holding and supporting his bondmate the best way he could, he saw her jump up quickly from her seat nodding silently with relief clear on her face-plate.
"Their mission…. Meeting…. Too important to bother him just yet..." Arcee mumbled a mostly coherent sentence into his armor. "We still have time..." She raised her head from its place on his knees, where she was apparently oddly comfortable. Her optics burned into his with her determination to win in a situation she could only see as just another battle in a life she'd devoted to long to endless battles. But looking past her sheer stubborn determination he saw the little coolant tears of pain forming in the corners of each optic.
"Arcee. We need to get him back here, now." Knockout's tone was firm, though not without love and kindness either.
"Okay," Arcee answered, giving in with a sigh that signified her hidden relief at the matter taken from her hands. She put her head right back down onto his knees not a second after that.
Her level of pain had so clearly been high for a while already. The stronger and stronger energy pulses that continued to tear across her frame, were clearly closer and closer together now, and from her perspective would have felt almost constant already with few brief brakes between. And even between hard pulses was the constant growing ache of discomfort that had never stopped for hours. Yet through all of that she had so far never really made a sound at all, aside from the times she still spoke with considerable coherence. Her head remained, for the most part, tight against her mate's body armor, while she remained slumping in a partly kneeling but now mostly sitting position on the floor. One of her hands had not let his go since she'd first grabbed hold of it, and her free arm stayed tightly wrapped around the backs of his knees. But still, she was quiet.
Knockout was therefore taken aback when, with her head on his knees and her face-plate tight against his body armor plating, she suddenly screamed loudly. His spark dropped at once, and his calm demeanor, more and more of which he'd been faking for her sake, threatened to shatter in seconds. With a fair percentage of her body pressed against his, he could feel her plating heating up further.
"Intake," he said slowly and quietly, reminding her as her intakes hitched and struggled through her vents badly enough for him to notice it himself. "Nice slow intakes. And once more. Good job. Just keep intaking."
"Knockout," Speedbreaker's small and suddenly uncertain voice, startled him away from his intent focus on his mate. And slowly, without disturbing her, he moved slightly, turning his head just enough that he could look at the young bot, standing at his right shoulder. The look of dread he saw on Speedy's face-plate made his spark drop, before she even finished speaking. "I can't reach Ratchet on the comm. I can't reach Bumblebee or Wheeljack either. I just get static."
"Oh scrap." Knockout thought he should have known what to say, far less ridiculous than that useless response. But he didn't.
"Unreachable?" Arcee mumbled into her mate's plating. This time she didn't even bother to lift her head again. "Static? The… the comms may be down…."
Soundwave, still seated at the monitoring station, where he'd been silent and nearly forgotten for a good while already, began suddenly to type furiously on the keyboard in front of him. His long and delicate fingers tapped against the keys with precision, while he appeared to stare straight ahead of him looking though his face-shield as endless lines of text and code scrolled fast across the monitoring screen. With more fast taps against keys, maps appeared in front of him, turning over and folding in on themselves as the next one replaced it on the screen. Then there was more fast scrolling text, and other map and lines upon lines of code, flashing in blue over the screen. And Knockout still giving his mate the greatest part of his attention, watched his former crew mate work from the corner of his field of vision, and reasoned without needing to ask or be told, that Soundwave was working for their benefit and not against them.
"Steady intakes, steady intakes," he patiently reminded his mate, turning his full attention back to her, as she began to tremble against his knees from the relentless shock and stress on her body, and she seemed to forget all about intaking again.
When the next energy pulse torn through her frame only seconds later, she opted this time to loudly shout cybertronian curses that might just have made even a wrecker blush, instead of screaming again. Knockout moved his hand slowly away from its position on her back panel, and reached slowly down toward the med scanner that sat at his feet and that he not possibly manage to retrieve himself. Speedbreaker, grabbed it quickly and handed it to him. Then she kneeled on the floor beside Arcee.
"Come over to me for a second, so that Knockout can scan you," she told her calmly. Arcee only nodded once, lifting her head a little before she managed with a bit of help to move herself over to lean against the other bot.
After a quick scan and then a second one just to be sure, Knockout sat on the cart staring at the scanner's little read out screen with a falling spark and a wildly dropping tank. Arcee, her face-plate turned away from him and sadly caught up fully in her own discomfort thankfully did not see as he shook his head, while his calm facade nearly left him entirely. But speedbreaker did see it. And she looked up at him with unspoken questions in her optics.
"Protective energy field is all but gone now," he explained, shaky and hoping it would never show. "But still, no sign of spark separation."
If Arcee had even registered him talking at all in his hushed tones, she gave no indication. Instead she only buried her face-plate against Speedy's bright orange armor. The look on her face-plate, only partly visible past her friend's armor, and the general tension of her body itself, reviled just how stubbornly she refused to scream anymore. But she did mumbled another good string of a few choice words against Speedy's paneling. Speedbreaker, clearly more startled then offended, cringed lightly for a second, but she regained her wits quickly, and gently helped Arcee back over to sit against her mate again, as soon she she weakly reached for him urgently.
"Comm status – fully operational," Soundwave said from his post across the room. His voice was as usual quiet and nearly without any emotional it all. It sounded almost wrong in the midst of the current situation. "Comm links – active. Location of team – inside the center of the mountain."
"That could well explain why the comms aren't working," Speedbreaker said, trying hard to be helpful, though she clearly knew she was stating the obvious.
"Too much interference from the mountain itself," Knockout nodded, agreeing.
Time dragged on for what seemed like ages, while Soundwave worked hard, pulling all the stops he knew, to boost the comm signal. And dreadfully soon Arcee, quickly becoming exhausted by the merciless physical stress and horrible pain, sat almost entirely unmoving, head on her mate's knees, one harm tightly wrapped around the backs of his folded knees and the other hand refusing again to let go of his. Weak and helpless, she only sobbed with pain silently against his red paneling, while her body first began to tremble, and then to shake with the stress of it all.
"Remember that night up on 'our' cliff?" Knockout said, speaking to her calmly and deliberately. "You told me what we'd gone and done, and I looked at you like you had lost your mind. But you were so happy. We both were." He went on speaking, trying to make her listen to him, to hold her focus more on his words and less on her own still increasing pain. He tried hard and desperately to make her smile even slightly, to make her try to laugh so that perhaps she would steady her intakes again. "None of this will be for nothing. She will finally be here soon enough. You'll finally know what color she will be. What her optics will look like. That tiny frame will be a real person, with her own hopes and dreams..."
"Knockout..." Arcee mumbled, barely audible into his armor, and again not bothering to lift her head and look at him. "Please… shut up!"
He might have been startled, and he was certainly a little shocked. But nevertheless, he shut his mouth at once. He and Speedbreaker exchanged look after worried, panicked and dread filled look, as Arcee's state appeared to quickly grow even worse, and with Speedy entirely unsure what anyone could do, and Knockout's state of severe physical disability preventing him from doing any of the things he knew to do as a medic.
He considered instructing her to comm Bulkhead and Smokescreen. To the pit with their ridiculous unease and discomfort over the situation. Arcee needed them and they were going to help. He made up is mind at once that he would indeed instruct her to comm both of them. But before he could open his mouth and find his voice to speak. The comm link mounted on the monitoring station across the room gave out a familiar beep, which made him dare to feel relief.
"Knockout!" Ratchet's voice called, cheerfully over the comm. "Send us a bridge. We're coming home!"
"Groundbridge – activating."
"Soundwave?" Ratchet questioned over the commlink. His concern at hearing a very different bot than he's assumed he would hear, was all too clear.
"Ratchet – required at once to attend to medical emergency."
"Medical emergency?" Ratchet questioned quickly as soon as he had run through the groundbridge, the second it was activated in a corner of the common room.
He took less than a second to look around, making assessments and piecing together what it was he was looking at, before he knew exactly what had happened. He was on the floor at once right beside Arcee, and grabbing the scanner from it's place dropped half carelessly next to Knockout's foot pedal, he struggled to scan her while she sat still silently crying into her mate's armor.
"You should have comm'd to call me back as soon as she went into second stage spark separation," the old medic scolded anyone that might have heard him say it. He shook his head slightly, with his focus mostly on juggling holding the scanner and trying to gently coax Arcee to sit up a bit. "I would have come right back, and to the pit with the mission!"
"Come on," he said to Arcee, speaking kindly where in countless other situations he might only have been frustrated instead. "You need to move a bit, so I can scan you."
"This is not good," Knockout said, speaking again in hushed tones. "This happened too fast. She's not doing well. Pain levels far higher than we might have expected. No more remaining protective energy field at all, but the newspark has barely even tried to separate itself from from hers yet."
"Ratchet, what…. do we do?" Bumblebee questioned, uncertain and standing close by.
"Let's try turning her around," Ratchet decided firmly. "Always try the simplest things first. And a change of position, a change her from staying bent so far forward like that, may just be enouhg to trigger the newspark to began to quickly detach itself." The old medic's first instinct was to simply do his job, quickly and without a word to any aside from his patient. But years of teaching long before the war, had equipped him with a strong enough teaching protocol, that it kicked in at once. And he began to simply educate the young bot as he worked just as quickly.
Arcee, giving in to Ratchet's gentle and persistent coaxing, finally lifted her head off her mate's knees. And for a second, she started up at Knockout with big and wide open coolant filled optics.
"I'm sorry for being so mean to you," she said, with her voice almost steady again.
"You weren't being mean to me," Knockout answered back. He smiled a little, as he moved, shifting positions as well as he could, so that he could gently help to urge her to move. "You think, in years as a 'con, serving on the warship, I've never been told to shut up before?"
Ratchet chuckled a knowing little laugh at the pair's little exchange, as he helped Arcee into a new position, facing forward now with her back against Knockout's right knee and the frame of the cart. Carefully he moved her arms so that both hands hung reaching toward the floor beneath her and let her lean her head back a bit. She glared her displeasure at him, so obviously not liking this new position at all. But still she went along with it and for that he was relieved.
"I feel like I'm going to purge my tank," Arcee groaned, but at least the tears had stopped.
"Do you think you will?" Ratchet questioned her seriously. And Arcee only shook her head the little bit she could still bring herself to move.
"No. I just feel like I'm going to." The coolant tears had stopped, but still she looked beyond miserable.
"How'd it go out there?" she still somehow managed to ask after a moment in which she nearly screamed again. Her optics stared up at the medic expectantly, as she mumbled, "did Shockwave see reason?"
"Shockwave has defected," Ratchet answered simply. He gave her a smile along with his fast and simple answer.
And when he scanned her again, after he'd waited a short while, Knockout, 'Bee, and Speedy all looked at him with silent expectation. The old medic only shook his head, still looking intently at the scanner in his hand, when he had not seen any new sign of detachment. Arcee, catching the looks exchanged by the others, clearly looked disheartened and then slowly crushed and anxious. But they waited, no one saying anything at all. Another slow wave of the med scanner over her small body and Ratchet looked at the group again, this time with unquestionable seriousness on his face-plate, before he began to stand up from his place kneeling on the floor.
"I think it's about time we move to the medbay now," he declared, his tone calm but urgent nevertheless. He put his arms under her frame in one fast and well practiced move, and scooped Arcee right up into his arms as he stood.
Endless centuries of practice at such things, allowed the old bot to speak in a calm, even tone, and one that was even leaning slightly toward cheerful. But there was no disguising anything completely where his team was concerned. The small close group knew each other far too well for that. And Knockout was a medic himself and had proven more than once incapable of missing a beat. In fact, he stared at the old bot with a look of concern, begging for answers. And that look from her mate, made Arcee began to question too, with her own silent frightened optics.
"Wheeljack," Ratchet, casting a stern look at the white wrecker who had paused uncertainly at the edge of the common room and just looked like a bot in need to direction amid the sudden slight chaos. "Go to my workshop and retrieve the youngling frame. Give it a quick coat of protectant oil, and bring it to the medbay. When you get it back here, lay it down on the repair table I'll have ready closest to the recharge station I'm putting Arcee on."
The wrecker stood where he was for a brief moment longer, looking dazed. Finally he snapped out f it, shook his head slightly as if to shake off his shock over bridging into unexpected pandemonium, and turned away to run for the workshop across the base.
"Is there anything I can do?" Speedbreaker asked, quite unexpectedly as she bent down to help Knockout unlock his brake with his suddenly fumbling nervous right hand, and Ratchet inwardly shock his head in disbelief at having forgotten all about her entirely.
"Possibly," he answered quickly. "Come along then, assuming of course that Arcee and Knockout don't mind. No doubt you'll be useful at some point."
"Ratchet, what's happening?" Arcee questioned, as soon as she was placed gently as possible on a recharge station inside the medbay. She spoke weakly, barely finding her voice again, right before so obviously nearly screaming out loud with pain. Her blue optics were dull with her tiredness and she continued to constantly shake and tremble with shock and physical stress on her frame.
"The newspark has gone into slight distress," the old bot admitted. He kept his tone cheerful, encouraging calmness from her. He held up a hand a little, indicating through the gesture that he had more to say, and quickly he indeed went on speaking. "Her spark pulse has slowed down more than I'd like. But it was still reading as steady when I scanned you, which is what we want."
"Slow but steady is generally much better than fast but erratic," Knockout said to his mate, understanding Ratchet's explanation and its implications at once. He rolled the cart close to the recharge station, the second Ratchet stepped aside slightly in order to let him.
"There's been so little progress with spark separation from the start," Ratchet said. He spoke kindly be serious all the same. "If nothing much has happened this far into stage four, I'm not hopeful it will, at least not in reasonable time. And now with the newspark distressed we are out of time."
When Arcee made not even an attempt to speak, but instead only looked over at him with her wide frightened optics clouded with pain, groaned with terrible discomfort and tried to turn herself to the side a little, futilely seeking an even slightly more comfortable position, Knockout reached for her hand and squeezed it a little, urging her wordlessly to stay put. Ratchet quickly attached her to monitors and an energon line. But she barely appeared to notice, and only stared at her mate, begging him with her optics for answers, while he only appeared hesitant to say a thing.
Ratchet talked quickly, remaining in his calm professional role of medic, finding the balance without much thought, between appeared too detached entirely and appeared far too invested in the situation, though he indeed was. He explained quickly how the mild dose of medication he was currently giving his patent through the energon line would certainly cause her to feel detached and strange, but assured her that she should be fine anyway and otherwise coherent. He explained just as quickly how he would then fast as possible access her manual override, so that he could open her spark chamber quickly, and with use of the small collection of tools, inside the drawer in gestured toward, so that 'Bee could retrieve the needed items for him from a lower cabinet, he could carefully cut the connection between the sparks of carrier and youngling. He would not have expected that Arcee would almost immediately and quite unexpectedly burst into a good fit of coolant tears, which quickly filled and further clouded her already blurred optics.
"Hey, it's fine" Knockout said slowly, still calm and smiling. His functional hand let go of his mate's so that he could reach in a half pointless attempt to wipe the tears from one side of her face-plate, with a finger tip. "You remember we discussed possible routine interventions a while back? How Ratchet and I both assured you that such eventualities aren't any cause for any great concern."
Ratchet was busy both with preparing for a simple but still urgent and important job, and with still taking the opportunity to educate his young student. But still for a second his optics met Knockout's, and he saw the exhaustion, concern, and determination on the red painted defector's face-plate. Knockout was in a far better state than the old medic had secretly worried he may be long before then. The red painted defector, had been cried on, told off, and probably screamed at repeated for hours by a mate not in her right mind, and he had simply accepted it all. He would never hurt Arcee. There was no worry over that, and the very idea had not even entered Ratchet's mind. It was doubtful to him that he would even snap at her once. But the bot had not even begged for a moment away to think, and many bots did that. Ratchet met his optics once again fast, with a single nod of approval, just to let him know he was impressed and thankful.
"It isn't that..." Arcee said, still oddly upset. Her pain levels were greatly decreased as the medication took effect, and that was entirely obvious to anyone just from simply observing her. But still coolant continued to stream down her face-plate. "I… I feel like I've failed her..."
"Oh no, no," Knockout told her at once, and without needing a second to think over a reply. When her hand grabbed for him, uncoordinated from the effects of the medication, and missing to nearly smack him on the chest panel instead, he grabbed it and smiled with assurance again. "You haven't failed anyone, least of all our little one. She's ready to come and see the world, to meet you, meet both of us…. But some newsparks just need a bit more help than others..."
Wheeljack hurried into the medbay to set the youngling frame carefully onto a repair table, just as he'd been asked to, before he quickly ducked back out again, his arrival and departure barely noticed. But Arcee turned her head a little to look intently at the frame as soon as it was dropped off. Now, finally for the most part, out of pain, she was able to smile again. And slowly she did, if not with some hesitation, and while her frame still shook and trembled as ever.
"It'll take a minute or two after Ratchet retrieves her little spark and releases it into her frame..." Knockout explained, talking his mate through the process. His expression was unmistakably one of excitement now, and he was more then likely holding onto her hand as tightly as he was, as much due to his own emotion as to be of any help to her. "Then she'll wake up, and we'll see her optics light. She'll be disoriented, a brand new bot who's got no idea what she is or what it all means to be here, and no doubt she'll make a right lot of noise because of it. But Ratchet will sit you up a little bit as soon as he can, so that you can hold her."
"Our very own little youngling..." Arcee said. Her voice was sightly muddled by the effects of sedative medication, and her optics were more tired than ever. But still she smiled with the wonder of her own child.
"First newspark born on Cyberton itself itself in seven centuries," Speedbreaker said, in her own amazement. She stood close to the head of the recharge station, with a firm hold on Arcee's other hand, and a grin on her face-plate.
"Come here, you," Ratchet mumbled chuckling lightly to the newspark while he worked to grab it gently with a specialized tool meant for exactly that. It would certainly not hurt the little one in the least, but still the flaring of the bright white energy field around the tiny lavender colored ball of light, let him know she still didn't like it. The tiny spark spun slowly, before a weak try at flattening itself out against its carrier's own spark, wanting the warmth of the known and familiar.
"And…. Gotcha..." the old medic exclaimed in relief. "Well aren't you a feisty little thing." He turned toward the tiny new frame with its open spark chamber cover, and took a step forward before he gave a cry of surprise, and his optics opened wider.
"She gave me a shock!" He explained, shaking his head just a little, before he gently lowered the glowing spark into her body.
"A shock…?" Bumblebee mumbled his question, dumbfounded as he waited for any further direction on what to do or hurry to fetch for the old bot. "You mean like an electrical..."
"A spark is mostly just energy," Ratchet explained quickly. He laughed slightly with amusement, as he shut and sealed youngling's delicate spark panel, over her tiny chamber, before turning to do the same for Arcee's. "I don't see why one couldn't give a bot a good zap. Though this is the first I've ever had one do it."
"Ratchet," 'Bee said after a second. The young bot's urgent and hushed tone brought him out of his cheerful musing at once. "The optics don't seem to be lighting up."
The young bot held a med scanner in his hand, and he scanned the child once quickly, and then slower and deliberately. The look on his face-plate was terrible, and he shook his head clearly helpless to understand what it was he was reading on the screen. But still he knew it was bad. Ratchet grabbed the scanner at once and scan the little one again. His tank flipped and his spark dropped. He felt the energon in his lines heat a little with his own determination, as he scooped the tiny frame up into his arms and flipped her over, so that she faced to the floor, laying over his bent arm.
"Ratchet…. what's happening?" Bumblebee questioned. He kept his voice down, continued to speak in the same hushed tone, aware enough to stop cause a panic just yet.
"The spark is not integrating with the frame," the old medic explained, in a hushed tone to match his student's. Balancing the little one as he was, he used his free hand to take hold of and let go of each of her her tiny limbs, taking a second to run each hand and foot in turn, with firm gentle pressure. Under his intakes he mumbled, "simplest things first, 'Bee remember. Let hands and feet feel warmth and touch, and the spark might reach out to it, becoming responsive."
"If this doesn't work..." Bee mumbled back, not daring to finish the thought before it could even become a question. Without needing to be told, he took one tiny metal foot in his hands and rubbed gently himself.
"Then we move on to slightly more drastic measures." Ratchet flipped the tiny frame over so she lay facing up again, only hoping all that movement would be enough to jar the spark into a response. "If we can get her responsive and starting to integrate within minutes, the little spark will not likely survive… We are not going to think about that yet."
"Ratchet, what's happening?" Arcee cried, loud over the whispers from too near by. The old bot didn't turn around. He couldn't take his attention from his tiny new patent for a second. But out of the very corner of his vision, he saw her struggle to move enough so that she could see something past her mate's should as he sat, still facing her parked on his cart. "Knockout! What's wrong with our youngling?"
"I'm… not sure yet," the red bot answered slowly, hesitant, but not exactly telling her a blatant lie.
"Please, tell me she's okay," Arcee said, begging, crying, the shaking that had began to subside starting again worse then before.
It was at that second that the tiniest of cries filled their corner of the room. It was barely a cry at all. More a tiny squeaking whine, that barely would have made an impression at all, have every bot near her not been so desperate to hear any sound from her at all. Ratchet gasped with relief, at the tiny frame beginning to move, though weakly in his loose hold of her. 'Bee sighed in clear and obvious amazement. Speedy, grinned a wide bright grin, and Knockout sat on his cart staring at the floor with tears of relief pouring from his optics.
But Arcee said or did not a thing in response to it all. Ratchet turned to find her flat on her back on the recharge station, both hands fallen from the grips of those that had held them, optics closed, and her entire body hopelessly limp where it had settled.
"Knockout," Ratchet demanded at once, as with barely a thought about it, he shoved the cart and its occupant backward a ways with a strong shove with his heavy left foot against the bottom of its frame, and gently but hurriedly placed the newborn on the red defector's lap. "You need to hold her. Keep her warm. She's still not in good condition."
"Arcee!" The red bot cried in shock. Nothing was right. It was all going bad, and fast. His optics traveled desperately in panic from his suddenly very ill mate, to his equally unwell new youngling, and where he knew he should have known far better what he should do about any of it, he instead just sat stunned on the cart, open mouthed in disbelief, head shaking with denial.
Ratchet had reached the side of the recharge station before anybot had even noticed, and he looked up from a quick scan of Arcee's frame, just as the monitor he'd attached to her not so long before, began to chime a dreadful warning. The old medic, actually cursed out loud, before, in a sudden small fit of rage at circumstances, he sent a nearby work table to the ground with one hit of his heavy strong fist. Then he cursed again once more, and nearly pulled cabinet door off accidentally in his desperate haste to gather more equipment.
"This can't happen," the old bot mumbled under his intakes still loud enough to be clearly heard. "Not her. Not now."
Knockout sat, staring down blankly at the child laying on his lap. In some distant corner of his own awareness, he saw Speedbreaker approach him quickly from the left side of the cart. He was vaguely aware as shifted the baby against his bent right arm so that he would hold her, and he was aware only then just how close he'd been to letting her fall. As the young bot backed up again, her own look of shock, grief and terror on her face-plate, he finally let himself look down at his newborn. She was tiny and beautiful. Big blue optics, lighted now, and they shown with surprising brightness. He allowed himself a tiny moment of joy to see that the optics were indeed the blue that he and his mate had both so hoped for. But she was still weak and unstable and her tiny arms and two tiny legs waved and kicked only slightly, while she cried softly with displeasure until he slowly tightened his hold on her.
"Ratchet, what's happening?" 'Bee's horrified voice filled the room, but somehow he sounded miles away.
"Arcee's spark is leaking its energy." Ratchet said back, in a clear mix of anger and devastation so unlike any old bot medic who might have succeeded in distancing himself. "She's already in spark arrest. I need to stop this. Now, or it's all over."
Knockout felt a strange and tiny movement against his bent arm, and before he consciously understood that he had even offer it, he felt the tiny youngling garb his extended finger. He made hmself focus again, and look down at the baby. Her frame had begun to take on it's colors now. A bright mix of very red and muted light blue, broken up beautifully by the strangest of swirling wide lines of pinkish purple.
He stared at her, transfixed and shocked, devastated, amazed, terrified and shaking. And the youngling, appearing to grow stronger as she warmed against his frame, gazed up at him with innocent, optics that appeared to stare at him, baffled by the chaos.
'If something terrible did happen… Knockout, please say you would love her more than enough for both of us, raise her to be strong and smart and as funny as you are. Please say that you would always do your best...
The words of his mate echoed through his processor like a speeding starship, and he wanted to yell out loud that he couldn't, that he wouldn't and that he didn't know how. He wanted to scream his denial, his terror and refusal of any of this as coolant tears fell unrelenting down his face-plate. But he made himself stop before he'd even opened his mouth, as he knew full well that a fit of his own rage and terror would help no one then.
'Love her more than enough for both of us…'
Silently he pulled the child closer against him with his good arm, and wordlessly he promised that he already did.
Notes/ Okay, please, PLEASE don't kill me! All I can say for myself is trust me on this…