Notes/ Another long one. Two in a row now, and this one written and edited in about a week. This was a compromise between trying to hurry this one, because it really did seem a bit mean to eave it hanging where I did, and at the same time, not posting complete nonsensical garbage writing. As always thanks for the reviews and feedback on the last chapter. Once in a while I'll get a review that truly surprises me with just how invested a few readers are in this little fanfic project of mine. And I certainly got a couple of those this week.
Knockout had wandered out into the fenced in courtyard out a rear door of the base. And he sat in it's furthest corner, parked on the mobility cart near the heavy high fencing that surrounded the place. The colorful youngling lay in his lap, head against his stronger and functional arm. And he might just have mistaken her for sleeping because of her stillness, had her optics not been open and gazing around the slightest bit.
"You like a bot in need of some company," Wheeljack's voice said from somewhere outside of the line of his sight.
And Knockout turned the cart slowly, to see the white wrecker in the doorway between the base and courtyard and taking a hesitant step forward. With a tiny shrug and then slight and tentative, he used his left hand to gesture as well as it could, roughly toward a bench near the place he had parked. The wrecker wandered over and immediately he sat himself down.
"Ratchet mentioned that you might just have forgotten your morning fuel again. He said he found last night's untouched on a worktable in the medbay too." Wheeljack was not exactly judging him. He seemed the last bot that would ever have bothered to judge anyone. But he certainly did sound concerned. His optics moved toward the youngling in her creator's lap. "You're no good to that kid if you drop from energy depletion."
"I'll refuel this evening," Knockout answered, meaning it. He understood at once that his teammate was right. And while he had no interest in fueling for his own benefit – he'd tried more than once and it only seemed to leave him feeling oddly sick – he would try in a second for the benefit of his child.
"Ya know we're gonna hold you to your word on that. No one around here is gonna let you just run yourself down. You're part of our team."
"Thank you."
"I'm surprised to find you away from the medbay."
"I needed some air. And it won't do her a bit of harm either." Knockout gestured with his optics and a nod of his head toward the youngling, now beginning to squirm on his lap.
The child was proving to be a quiet little bot, content to spend much of her waking time just curiously looking at anything could see with big blue optics. She was carried most of the day by her creator, and it was clear that she was perfectly happy with that arrangement, napping in his lap when she needed, staying warm against his body armor. She mostly cried only when she was hungry, and even then it was not by far the loud and obnoxious, steadily increasing screams generally associated with new younglings.
And sure enough, she now began to cry a little, a steady but not all so terrible kind of mechanical whine. Still almost calmly, she took a soft intake and then started over with another long robotic cry from her body, before she promptly shoved a tiny hand into her mouth, and made a now muffled crying sound around it.
"Ha. I never was much for younglings. But I gotta admit, that's just fragging cute," Wheeljack said with a slight laugh.
With a half-sparked smile on his face-plate over his teammate's comment, Knockout carefully shifted the child awkwardly with his right arm, so that eventually she lay resting on the left instead. He then reached down over the side of the cart with his right hand, and reached into a little basket that Speedbreaker had hung from the side of it, just behind the brake. He pulled out a bottle, capped and ready, and filled with a mix of specially refined energon and added liquid metals.
"Would you mind giving me a hand?" he asked. And Wheeljack, however obviously hesitant and unsure exactly what he was doing, reached over to grab the baby gently around the sides of her upper body so that he could shift her slightly more upright on her carrier's arm.
Knockout promptly stuffed the bottle top gently into her mouth, and she just as promptly began to thoroughly enjoy its contents. Her optics half closed as she drank happily.
"Any new word on Arcee?" Wheeljack asked. He leaned back a little on the bench, and looked from the red defector to the tiny child, and back again. His optics were suddenly sad.
"Still nothing new," Knockout shook his head slowly. It made him anxious just to be asked that question. And the fact that he was a medic, did little to make it easier to answer it honestly. Not when it was his own beloved bondmate he answered for. "Vitals are still stable. She's got basic processor function. She's not in danger of offlining right now, which is good. But she's still completely unresponsive, and she's showing no sign of waking up." He fell silent a moment, while he stared down at his little one, who still sucked weakly at her bottle while she fell into recharge. Slowly he spoke again, not bothering to hide the despair behind his words. "Hard to believe it's been three days already. One day's just kind of blurred into the next since…. Ratchet's told me that the longer it is until she wakes up, the less chance she will at all. Of course, I know that all to well myself, but I guess he thought he was helping somehow. There's always the risk of a sudden turn for the worst..."
"So," Wheeljack questioned slowly, looking at the little one again, and mercifully changing the subject. "What's her name, anyway? It's funny I never thought to wonder about that yet, but with all the chaos and everything that's happened..."
"She hasn't got a name yet," Knockout answered. The very fact made him anxious and almost ashamed. And to say it out loud, only made him feel stranger still about it. "Arcee and I just assumed we'd know what her name should be once she was born. Ratchet says she really needs a name, and of course I agree with him. I told him to give me the few more days, and if I have to, I'll do the best I can to choose a name by myself that I think Arcee would like."
Both bots were silent for a while. Each one sat still thinking his own thoughts and looking around at the courtyard around them. After some time, Wheeljack got to his feet.
"You take care of yourself, hey," he reminded Knockout, waiting for the red bot to nod his acknowledgment before he began to slowly back toward the doors that led inside.
But after a few hesitant steps, and clearly, as an afterthought, the white wrecker turned around again, and walked to sit back down on the bench he'd just left.
"I never talk about my family," he said, out of the blue. "It was always a right, slaggin' mess." He looked from Knockout to the youngling in his arms again, and shook his head slowly before he settled on looking down at the ground. "There were always data pads filled with pictures in the house I grew up in, and when I was a little bot, I'd constantly steal the pads from the shelf in the living room, so that I could look at the pictures. I always knew from those pictures that my creators had been so happy. Ha. You and Arcee always reminded me of everything I saw in those old pictures since the day you had so obviously gotten together." He was quiet for a moment, clearly appearing to gather his thoughts before he continued on talking. "My carrier died the day I was born. Complications of spark separation. I guess I was resented for it because I was the little bot my creator liked to beat up every night after he'd had too much to drink. My brother was still little when I came along. But I guess he learned a lot from creator, because he was bullying me since I could walk. We were still just little kids the day he shoved me out our fifth-floor window..."
Knockout stared down at his tiny youngling, now in light recharge on his lap, while he struggled a little to put the bottled back into the cart's side basket. She made tiny little noises for a second or two, while her hands waved around slightly, in slow meaningless movements. Her little mouth opened a little and then closed again, and she made a face that her creator was fast learned meant displeasure because she seemed to make it every time he moved to much when she wanted to nap. He marveled at just how much of himself he could see in the child, while at the same time, seeing just as much of his mate too. Her tiny head piece was particular impressive, and he thought that it, in particular, made her look like him, right down to the pointed ears sticking out on the sides. But her entire head and face, were Arcee's lovely light blue, and his bright red made up mostly only her lower arms and legs. And the purplish pink that covered each mid and upper limb in wonderful swirling patterns, was an obvious result of the codes for their combined colors mixing where they just as easily may have stayed entirely separated over the whole frame.
"You worry I'll only live to resent her if the unthinkable happens..." Knockout's words were partly a question and partly a statement.
"It's not unheard of. Listen; You and I may have gotten off on a bit of wrong foot not long after you first defected. But Arcee is my friend, and I like to think, you are too. I'd never tell a friend how to live their life. Who the frag I am to judge? I just wanted you to know there's always options and help out there if you need it. She's a beautiful innocent child and you've proven yourself a pretty well decent bot. We all know 'Bee and Speedy are slated to take possession of their own housing assignment soon enough. And they'll undoubtedly be bonded any day… If I know them, they'll have a house full of younglings before we know it. Surely if any bots have room in their sparks for just one more, it's..."
"I appreciate your advice and concern," Knockout replied, cutting him off before he could finish.
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
Arcee awoke in a world different from anywhere she had ever been. Her optics opened quickly and she found herself looking, from a semi-reclined and comfortable position, out across a field of shimmering colors as far as she could see. A heavy layer white fluffy clouds lower lower then she'd ever seen, made puffs of think mist that was tinted slightly but beautifully by the colors of the ground. Turning her head very slightly, making the tiniest of motions just to see at first if she could move, she caught a glimpse of cliff faces and wide overhanging ledges that jutted out from the heaviest part of the cloud layer. And there was a road too. That, she saw when she turned with slightly more strength, to look the other way. A smooth and perfect sleek and wide metal roadway that rolled and twisted off into the cloud layer with a high and wonderfully designed guardrail on both sides.
The place was not on Cybertron. She knew that much at once. Yet still it was recognizable, or at least vaguely and somewhat so, in it's design. Most certainly, some part of one of the many possible metal planets in the universe somewhere. Calm and curious, and aware only somewhere near the very edge of her consciousness that such feelings should not have made sense, she glanced around again at as much of the scenery that she could see, with a smile on her face-plate.
Her back was against something hard and smooth. She slowly came to understand that much. And whatever it was behind her, she was leaning half sitting against it, with both of her legs stretched out across the ground in front of her. It was not altogether uncomfortable, and it was with no great hurry that she slowly lifted an arm experimentally, before reaching her hand behind her to investigate without bothering to move enough to turn and look. Her fingers gently touched rough rubber and thick tire tread, and surprised she reached up to feel the curve of a wheel well, and the smoothness of a sleek metal form. Arcee moved then, still smiling and calm, to turn to look behind her.
She sat on the ground, now facing a parked red and blue semi-truck, and she understood at once that she had been sitting against the huge right front tire, with her head resting against the fender above, right over the shining chrome plate that followed the curve of the wheel well. She closed her optics then in disbelief at what, or rather who, it was she was seeing. And for a second she put off opening them again, fearing that when she did, he would no longer be there. But she did open them again and sure enough he was.
"Hello, Arcee," the voice, speaking from somewhere within the front of the semi-truck vehicle mode, was one she would have recognized anywhere.
"Optimus Prime," she exclaimed in disbelief, right before she burst into tears of overjoyed amazement.
The truck reversed slowly away from her, so that he could transform into his bot mode. And once he had done so, he stepped closer to her again, and reached down, offering his hand to her. She took it at once and found herself pulled easily to her feet, by the much larger bot.
"I… I don't know what to say..." Arcee said. She wiped ridiculously at the tears on her face-plate, sure she more closely resembled a sniffling youngling than an Auotbot soldier and commander. Yet somehow she couldn't find it in her to care exactly.
"I had imagined you likely wouldn't," Optimus replied with a chuckle under his intakes.
He actually laughed. Arcee found herself amused by that.
"Where are we?" she asked, looking around again. On her feet, she could see just slightly further over the endless field of color and low cloud over.
"Inside the well of the Allspark. Far more specifically the north-east region of the realm of the Primes."
"I can't possibly be allowed to be here..."
"I challenge you to name one bot that's never broken a single rule." Optimus Prime, chuckled again lightly, and slowly he began to walk forward, leading Arcee along beside him gently by an arm.
"Point taken," Arcee conceited, easily enough. And she laughed slightly herself, amazed by his laughter. Walking across the ground with slow and leisurely steps, she was suddenly amazed at the solid and real surface under her feet. The place and the state of being she was in now, was just as real and physical, as the world and the state she knew. And she wondered silently why it was that that didn't bother her when she knew on some level it should have.
"We all miss you," she said slowly as the two of them walked together out across the field of colors. The bright metals reflected the light of the sun above all around them, giving off the illusion that she walked through endless little bands of color and many tiny light prisms. "I'm sure most of Cyberton does. You were a true hero to your people. Team Prime and the Autobot army among them of course, but it extended so much further."
"That may well be so," Prime answered, in a tone of confidence that was so familiar it nearly made her cry again. "But the Autobots have done so much on your own. It's a new age for Cybertron now, Arcee. My wish was always that the people would simply enjoy it, and make it a wonderful age indeed. History need not be doomed to repeat itself. Always remember that on behalf of our world."
The cloud layer in the place they currently walked was lower then usual. Barely twice the height of Arcee's head from the ground. And through she knew it was impossible, she knew that even those impossibly low clouds were oto far to reach, she reached up with her free arm, extending it and the fingers of her hand as far as they could go, giving a silly giggle of amusement as she pretended like a child to reach for the clouds. Most unexpectedly, the Prime lifted her from the ground, arms lightly around the middle of her body, before he shifted his weight and the position of both his hands, so that he could quickly catch her feet on his upturned hands and shove her up and forward, sending her flying.
Arcee had used such a move along with her team, for years in combat situations. And she'd always found some sense of quiet amusement at being uniquely small enough to be the one of them able to be easily launched into air for impressive flying flips with blasters firing. But now there was no call for her weaponry – and she didn't know if her currently state of being even had active weapons. Instead she extended both outreached hands as soon as she'd pulled her frame into a perfect mid air flip. And with both hands reaching while she flew as long and as far as physics would allow for as a grounder, she touched the think white puffs of the clouds. It felt exactly as she'd thought it would. Like barely anything impressive at all. Just heavy water vapor and humidity that clung momentarily to her body. But she landed on the ground, absorbing the impact on bent knees, laughing at the simple fact that she of any bot, had done that.
"I'm bonded to a 'con defector," she said, a second after the two had begun to idly walk again, with no obvious destination in mind and only more colors and mist all around them. She wondered if it mattered, slightly feared it may, and hoped it would not. In any case, disclosing the information honestly at that exact moment felt both right and important.
"I'm well aware," Optimus answered at once. He glanced down at her while they walked. But his blue optics showed no hint of any disapproval of the matter. He nodded his head a little, and appeared to consider his words just as carefully as ever, before he spoke again. "I must say, Knockout has both impressed and somewhat surprised me with his success in starting over on our side." He paused, standing still and stopping Arcee along with him, with his gentle hold on her arm again. He gazed down at her with a look that was clearly amazement on his face-plate, before he said "I'm entirely convinced, that it was his genuine love for an Autobot that took him as far as he's gotten."
"There was a little one," Arcee said, remembering that for the first time. And a sudden sadness invaded her happy amazement at the entire strange encounter. "It all went badly. I… I don't know what became of…."
But sad and lost as she had quickly become, Optimus Prime only placed a big strong hand on her small shoulder panel, he chuckled again with a tiny grin forming at the corner of his mouth.
"It's safe to say, Knockout loves that tiny girl, just as much as he loves you," he said simply. "He can't do much for her, without a bit of help. But still, holding the youngling the best he can, letting her grab his hands, and hearing her cry… those are the moments he can still smile today."
"She… she survived?" Arcee's optics lit up at that, and the Prime nodded confirmation.
"She did. And she'll surely be a fighting little fireball, just like her carrier.
"I… I never even got to meet her…." Arcee said, coolant coming to her optics as the realization hit her. Crushed by her sudden grief. "Her spark was quickly dying in her frame. I… remember screaming for a minute… then I couldn't hold my optics open and somewhere a monitor alarm was ringing..."
"I think it's time I sent you back home," Prime said. His voice as stern and determined as she remembered, but his optics were kind and understanding as always.
"I could go back?" Arcee whispered the question, looking up at him in surprise, through her coolant tears.
"Of course you can go back." He chuckled again. "Full on spark arrest is never a condition to be taken lightly. But you know Ratchet more than well enough to know his tendency for refusing to fail. Your frame is doing a fine job of recharging, and no one knows for sure if you are going to live or not. Only you can answer that question for them all now. But no, you haven't taken that last finally fall yet."
"Strange to think that not so long ago, with cybertron at the height of the war, going back there again would have been the very last thing I might have wanted..."
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
"You know, I think I'm gonna miss living here," Bumblebee mused as he walked the corridor, hand in hand with Speedbreaker, and with Bulkhead tromping along behind the two of them. He glanced around at dingy gray walls and wondered for a second if perhaps he was out of his processor for thinking such a thought.
"What's there to miss about a base of operations?" Speedbreaker questioned with a laugh. "And a small and outdated one at that." She turned so that she could walk backwards down the corridor, quickly taking the other of his hands in her free one. And playfully she pulled him forward as she walked. "Our place will be out first home together. And it will be ours!"
"Your new apartment will be the first time 'Bee's ever had a real home," Bulkhead said.
"It's true," Bumblebee explained. "Because I was born on Cybertron after the war had started, and because I joined the Autobots so young, I moved from a youngling center right onto a military base..." He felt on some level like he ought to be sad. But he'd never been that type of bot, and besides, in his mind, things were what they were.
"We'll make our place beautiful," Speedy said smiling. And 'Bee laughed at once grinning a little.
"We'd have a much simpler time making it beautiful if we only had some furniture and decor. Speedy, why haven't you picked anything out yet? That's what our start up allowance is for."
"I don't care about picking out nice furniture, 'Bee. You know well I'd settle for any old junk, at least for now."
"I promised her creators I'd give her the best life I could," Bumblebee said to Bulkhead, with a shake of his head. "That I'd give her everything she's ever wanted within my means to do so, if they'd only give us their blessing. And wouldn't you know it, she doesn't let me give her a thing."
"I don't need things," Speedy said, with a giggle and grin, before her look turned serious. "I've never had things. All I need to really be happy, aside from having you of course, are scraps and tools to work with and somewhere to build and experiment."
"Then you shall have all of the above,"'Bee answered. He swung their joined hands between them, as they kept on walking.
"Two young bots, starting out on your own, building a life… It's been too long since anybot had the chance just to do that much," Bulkhead mused, oddly thoughtful. He grinned then and smacked 'Bee playfully, if not far too hard in his upper arm with a big green fist. "I for one am happy for the both of you. When exactly are you moving anyway? Of course I'm plannin' on helping ya move stuff."
"Thanks 'Bulk," Bee answered. "The place is ours in ten days." He considered a moment and his voice turned serious as he added slowly, "we were going to postpone our move, because we still don't know what's going to happen with Arcee. She's pretty much my sister, and Speedy is one of her best friends… But Ratchet told us both we can't just be putting life on hold, and we decided he's right."
Rounding a bend in the corridor, the trio of bots spotted Knockout slowly coming toward them on his cart, with a far away look on his face-plate and the tiny youngling on his lap. Speedbreaker waved, and both 'Bumblebee and Bulkhead nodded greetings to him. But the red bot was clearly too distracted even to notice any of them at first. It was only when he came closer and nearly nicked Bulkhead with the side of the cart, causing him to stumble sideways, and nearly bang into the wall before he could catch himself, that he noticed any one of them. Knockout mumbled an apology with a little shake of his head.
A second later though, his distracted, far away expression turned to a frustrated near scowling look. And he stared down to the floor, over the frame of his sleepy child, and mumbled, "don't ask."
"Don't ask what?" 'Bee questioned, both concerned and confused. He wondered quickly if perhaps he must have missed word about a situation he should have been aware of already. "Knockout, what's happened?"
"Nothing's happened," the red defector mumbled. He didn't exactly look up, but at least he wasn't so close to full on scowling at any of them anymore. "Just… don't ask. Don't ask how I am. If I'm okay. If I've remembered to refuel this morning. I've quickly gotten tired of giving the same old polite and half way to lying answer to every bot I see lately. Even Soundwave asked this morning. That was just...odd."
"We won't ask," 'Bee said, instantly understanding the reason for his teammate's frustration. He suddenly felt some slight remorse at realizing his himself had just just as guilty in the past five days, of the very thing that had finally driven the bot to annoyance. "But if you want to tell us, without the lying for the sake of social politeness..."
"It's already been five days," the red bot mumbled. The despair was more than clear in his tone, and when he finally looked up again it was just as clear in his optics. "Arcee's still not showing a single sign of waking up, and I know she should have by now. More than once, I've heard the good old line about how at least she's still alive and that's always good news. Yes, it is good news. Of course! Every day for the last five days, I've thanked Primus that she hasn't taken that feared turn for the worse, gone back into spark failure and gone offline on us all. But every day she stays in this unresponsive state of not dying, but not exactly living either, the more we need to face the reality that her processor may well be damaged. We can't know if it was, and if so how badly until she wakes up." Knockout sat a second on the cart, silent and considering is words, while his optics began to burn with rage that each bot knew was not directed at them or anyone in particular. With his right right, he held his youngling closer to his frame, gently in spite of his inner raging, just as though he feared he might just lose her too at any second if he dared to let her go. Finally he spoke again, and this time his words were far less mumbling and far more something that bordered on shouting. "More than one bot on this base has told me at least that would be better than her being dead. Ratchet's said it more than once. I want to think they're right. But no one really knows what it's like. They don't live it. How could I hope she lives even if it means a state for her that could be far worse than mine!"
"I'm not about to tell you I think I understand, because we all know not one of us really does," 'Bee said, simply.
"Wanna know what I think?" Speedbreaker put in. Then she took a step closer to the parked cart, with an optimistic smile on her face-plate, answering before the red bot even answered her. "I think there's little sense in worrying about your greatest fears coming true before you know for sure they already have. If they do, you face it then and cross the bridge together that's now in front of both of you. And if the thing you fear most never comes true, then you were wrong in a situation where it was great to have been wrong. And you get to walk… or roll… away relieved because it's all good when it could have been terrible."
Knockout just stared at the little chrome and orange bot for several long seconds, taking in her words, processing and so obviously understanding her very fair advice. He smiled a little, as he nodded his head in silent thanks to her for it, before his face-plate began once more to show his frustration.
"Some days..." he mumbled, looking each of the three bots in the optics in turn, "I just wish I could throw things."
The child snuggling sleepily on her creator's lap, opened her half closed optics wide. And her little mouth opened in a huge baby yawn that appeared to momentarily consume the entirely lower half of her tiny blue face-plate. All four of the others chuckled at that. Even Knockout, in his despairing mood, was unable to help himself. And the baby began to babble the simplest of noise, while she wiggled and looked up, curious.
"So why don't we?" Bulkhead said thoughtfully, interrupting the momentary quiet.
"Why don't we what?" knockout questioned, looking up at the big green bot. Now it was his turn to be confused by an out of nowhere statement.
"Why don't we go somewhere and throw things?" Bulk' elaborated, considering.
"Bulkhead," Speedbreaker mumbled at him under her intakes, "he can't possibly..."
"I'm not so sure he couldn't," 'Bee said back quickly. He actually laughed then as he looked his damaged teammate in the optics, took a second to smile at the youngling, and then turned a strange look on the others. Immediately he turned back around, grabbed Speedy playfully by the hand, yanking her gently forward as he took off at a near run through the corridor.
"Come on," he urged as he kept right on going. Speedbreaker of course hurrying behind him and laughing, since he still held her by the hand. But Bulkhead and Knockout took a second to exchange looks of baffled confusion before each of them silently shrugged and moved to follow.
Bumblebee lead the little group of his friends outside of the base, and along a narrow trail that led out behind and away from it. He hurried uphill, following the path, and checking twice on the way to assure himself that it was indeed, as he had assumed, suitable for Knockout's cart. The gradually upward leading path, he discovered, was not only safer and even more well suited to the cart when he had thought. But Knockout navigated it so well on the cart, while holding his youngling, that it appeared he already knew, strangely, where he was going.
The incline evened out again at a place that stood on flat ground close to the edge of a cliff that overlooked the fast expanding city of returning bots. And 'Bee exchanged a look of triumph and a grin with Bulkhead, who now clearly knew what it was he'd been thinking, when he'd lead them all there. And behind rolling up beside them hesitantly, to park a seemingly dangerously short distance from the cliff's edge, Knockout only gave a baffled look.
"Arcee showed me this place," the red bot said, explaining while he shifted his child slightly, just as thought he she might want to see and comprehend the place herself. "This was always 'our' cliff. Our place to run off and be alone to talk and plan and daydream. She told me she was carrying one night up here…"
"I never knew you had a 'place,'" Bulkhead said. His voice was serious for a second, before he just as quickly broke out in a laughing grin. "Ha. I think me and 'Bee found it first, long before Arcee. This is the place we used to come all the time, just to chuck rocks."
"Why would you want to be chucking rocks?" Knockout questioned them both. His expression was both curious and confused.
Bumblebee shrugged, before he sat down on the ground, close to edge.
"Lots of reasons I guess. To curse the pointless war that we thought might never end. To curse the 'cons, and the mess both sides had made. To curse our lives and the childhoods we'd never had."
"Thowin' rocks is better than thowin' punches and breaking stuff..." Bulkhead said, thoughtfully. "Definitely better than just staying mad at stuff you can't change."
The big green bot bent to grab a large heavy jagged chuck of metal from the ground at his feet, and standing up again, he turned his body so that he stood in a direction not right in the path of the city below. And after winding up for a good throw, he hurled the thing over the cliff, sending it flying through the air, before they all heard it eventually land with a little thump some great distance away. He snatched up the youngling carefully from Knockout's lap, and carrying her a few steps with the awkwardness of a bot that had clearly never even touched a tiny youngling in his life, he handed her to Speedy, who immediately held her tightly against her frame, with a glare of disbelief at her friend's terrible carrying technique.
Bulkhead bent again, to grab another metallic rock from the ground close by, and this one he pointedly placed in Knockout's right hand. Few bots would ever have been able to throw a rock of that size as far as Bulk' had done. And Knockout was still barely able to throw a lightweight ball, and he'd never tired with anything heavier than that. But still he was not entirely incapable of it. The rock flew away from his hand after he had pulled his arm back as far as he could and let it go. It hit the ground not far from his feet, and proceeded to bounce over the edge of the cliff, to disappear somewhere below. Immediately Bulkhead grabbed another one to hand to him, and he flung that one over too.
Bee' joined in, if only because he saw no reason not to, picking up a decent sized chuck of metal and flinging it over the cliff as hard as it could. He grabbed another one and threw it further than the first. Bulkhead picked up two more, one in each of his big hands. One he handed Knockout, and the other he threw with all of his might. For a while the three of them just stood and sat by the edge of the cliff, each silently flinging rocks as hard as they could. Bumblebee's and Bulkhead's flying far off in into the distance somewhere, and Knockout's just sort of lighting bouncing, though the effort was for him, just as great as the effect of either of the others.
"I should have known she was in trouble," Knockout finally yelled at no one, as he tossed this forth metallic rock further than he'd managed to yet. "I listened when she told me she'd be fine and let's wait to comm Ratchet. She was already in serious trouble and I never knew. Her and the baby could both have been dead, and it could have been my fault!"
"It wasn't..." Speedbreaker said quietly behind him. But Knockout only shook his head, tossed the rock that Bulk' handed him, and sat on the cart, screaming incoherently into the air in front of him for a second while coolant streamed down his face-plate.
"It might have been," he mumbled, angry and despairing again all at once. "Everything I knew about carrying and reproductive medicine… it was all just theory memorized from years of studying data pads. No youngling had been born on Cybertron for three centuries before I ever worked in the field. I can tell you, real life is not a fragging pile of information on a data pad."
"Hey. Ratchet's been working Arcee's entire case with me nearby and training," 'Bee said, seriously. He grabbed Knockout by his shoulder's and made him look him in the optics. "He's never once implied anyone was ever at fault at all, least of all you. He said there was no way anyone could have known…."
"Why does the world just not get to be fair," Knockout mumbled in reply to that. And the others knew at once that he spoke not only of Arcee and the unexpected turn their child's birth had taken, but of so many other things too.
The red bot threw another rock, this one slightly heavier than the others he'd been handed, just as soon as Bulkhead handed it to him. And soon the other two joined back in again as well. All three yelled their frustrations, the destruction of their world, the destruction of their innocence long before its time, the loss of countless loved ones, the death of their dreams… And after a good while of this all three stopped where they were, tired of the physical exertion, and rid of anything else to rage and shout over.
For a while the little group just sat and stood around on the cliff top, looking out over the landscape of slow going but steady repair work, and the growing city. And they chatted calmly but serious about tragedies and possibilities. Speedbreaker held the youngling a while longer, sitting on the ground, with the baby cradled snug and happy in her arms. Knockout clear didn't mind at all that she continued to hold her for him, once she'd made a joking comment about how she promised she would give her back. She sure enough handed her back after another minute or two, settling the youngling gently into her creator's lap and smiling as the child snuggled in against his arm and his body armor. Speedy joked then about wanting her own, and 'Bee laughed along with her, wondering all the while if she was truly only kidding around.
He may have asked her outright, if she'd been serious. But he was not sure he was ready to hear that answer just yet. It was a sudden and unexpected beeping from his personal comm link that saved him from needing to just then.
'Bee. Please tell me Knockout is with you, or that you at least know where he is,' Ratchet's voice said urgently over the comm. 'It would appear he's turned his commlink off. I need to reach him at once.'
'He's with us.'
'Good. Tell him I need him in the medbay, the second he can get here, and to bring the little one with him. Let him know this is not bad news! And 'Bee, tell that bot to keep his fragging comm link turned on. We have 'em for good reasons!'
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"Ratchet did say the news is not bad news," Knockout mumbled to the youngling he carried while he drove the cart, supporting her securely with his one functional arm, just as he'd quickly gotten good at doing since she'd been born. He mumbled to her, talking to her just as he would if she'd actually been old enough to understand a word he said, mostly to simply assure himself with his own words spoken out loud. The tiny bot's big blue optics opened wide in response to his voice though of of course his words themselves were meaningless. And she gazed up at him smiling her first smile.
"Well, here goes," Knockout said to the little one. And as the child went right on smiling her little baby smile, of perfect innocence, he asked himself exactly what it was he feared he might find behind the door.
It slid open as he rolled closer to it, and he rolled into the medbay. Without even a need to think about it anymore, he took the path he'd spent the last five days taking time and again. Along the right side wall, past repair table's five and seven, around recharge station two, and careful to not roll over the curtain that hung down onto the floor, and surrounded recharge station three, closed although that cubicle was not occupied. In the far back right corner was another closed curtain surrounding another recharge station – number five. And it was behind there, inside the little cramped cubicle it made up, that he'd spent so much of the past days, sitting on his parked cart, keeping his youngling warm against his frame, taking endlessly to his mate who never showed a single sign of hearing him.
At that moment, the curtain moved quickly, pulled and tugged on by somebot on the other side of it. And Ratchet hurried out into the open space of the medbay to meet him. The grin on the old bot's face-pate was unmistakable, and Knockout only stared at him a moment, wide optic'd, hopeful and speechless.
"Arcee woke up a short while ago," Ratchet said. He chuckled just a little and continued to smile about his wonderful news. "I was busy, doing some maintenance on her fuel line hook up, and she opened her optics, and mumbled at me to leave her alone."
"She's a bit sleepy as you can imagine," He continued. "But she can talk and understand. I did basic assessments of processor function and she passed each one perfectly. I'll do a far more advanced assessments when she's stronger, but I'm pretty confidant she's perfectly functional. She was a bit disoriented, probably still is a bit. But you know of course that's quite understandable. She was asking me repeatedly at first where you were. I was able to get her to co-operate and work with me a bit in her disoriented state, still waking up state, by promising that surely you were on your way." The old medic stepped aside then, pulling on the certainly slightly, so that Knockout could easily maneuver the cart through the gap left at a corner.
Arcee lay on the recharge station, just as she had for previous days. But unlike anytime before, her optics were open and she smiled sleepily as soon as she saw her bondmate roll himself on the cart, into her field of vision.
"Ratchet told me you'd be right back," she said, clearly and with that same sleepy smiling look on her face.
"Of course," Knockout answered, calmly returning her smile. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you woke up."
"That's okay." Arcee was able to gave a tiny laugh under her intakes, and she just kept on smiling at him. "I think I can forgive you just this once." The smile quickly left her face-plate then, and she groaned softly while she blinked her optics as if to shake of a fog of confusion. "I… I think I might have threatened Ratchet. Told him I was going to blow his head off, and I'm pretty sure I might have punched him in the face. I think I mistook him for a 'con or something..."
"You'd hardly be the first bot to ever deck a medic, and threaten his life. And you'll hardly be the last I'm sure. He didn't seemed bothered about it in the least. He didn't even mention it to me."
"Ratchet said it's been days since..."
"It has been. How do you feel?"
"Not so bad at all. I guess I should almost feel much worse than I do, but I'm quire okay."
The last traces of Arcee's disoriented state had faded away while the two of them talked that little bit. Far more awake now, she moved a little, shifting her body around on the recharge station getting comfortable and frowning a second at the monitors wires still connecting her to machinery somewhere behind her. When Knockout purposefully backed the cart up a bit, a grin spreading across his face-plate as he did so, she watched him until finally she could see the quiet and curious newborn in his lap.
"That's… our baby," she mumbled, amazed.
Knockout only sat nodding his head silently and grinning.
"And he's been doing a fine job with her too," Ratchet exclaimed, the second he walked back in past the just slightly opened curtain. He smacked the red defector on the shoulder panel lightly in approval.
"I wanna hold her," Arcee said pleadingly.
Knockout had no way to hand the youngling off to anyone. His functional right arm was not strong enough to hold the child balanced on it to in order to do so. And anyway that never have been entirely safe. When anybot wanted to take her from him, they all just tended to carefully snatch her up from his lap, and carry her around or sit with him awhile, before they leaned down to out her back into his lap again, where he could support her again with his arm without the ability to reach to grab her. He sat for a second wondering with a falling spark how it was exactly he could pass her to his bondmate, while she lay on the recharge station, presently incapable of a reach any less awkward than his, thought for a very different reason. But Ratchet came to their aid at once. Lifting the child gently and placing her gently into her carrier's waiting arms as soon as he had tipped the top section of the recharge station up a little into a reclined sitting position.
She held the child tight against her frame immediately. And for a moment she just stayed that way, as though she were memorizing the feel of the tiny bot's weight against her body. After several long moments, she shifted her again so that the baby lay face up in her arms, and she just studied her features, with coolant tears forming in the corners of her optics.
"She looks so much like you," Arcee said to her mate, laughing a little.
"I always thought she looks far more like you," Knockout answered, slowly. "She's even got your optic color."
"What?" Arcee looked again at the little one's face, and as she did, as if on cue, the youngling turned her head, opening both of her optics wide in her typical strangely curious look. "Oh! They're blue!"
"We did both hope she'd have your blue optics..."
"She's so beautiful. You were right. She's perfect. I know we were so close to losing her..."
"She sure showed us! Little thing just needed a bit to get her barrings and she was just fine. She's eating like crazy. And you see how curious she is! I never knew younglings this new noticed the world like this…."
"What's her name?" Arcee asked, interpreting her mate's proud rambling. Ratchet stepped closer to her again, and obviously feeling confidant in doing so, he began the process of unhooking her from the monitoring set up. He reached once carefuly and calmly around the tiny child she held, in order to keep on working without any trouble at all. And she only sat quiet, a look on her face-plate showing anticipation of an answer.
"I… I haven't named her yet," Knockout said with sudden hesitation.
It occurred to him for the first time, to wonder how exactly she would feel about the matter of a still unnamed child at five days old. Would she be let down and annoyed with his not simply making the important decision of a name himself, because of course a child did really need a name. Or might she be relived that he had waited, and not chosen without her. But Arcee only shook her head in obvious disbelief over it.
"A youngling needs to have a name," she muttered in a statement of the obvious, and continued to shake her head a little. With another smile, she finally took her optics away from the baby, to look back at her mate again. "If you had named her without me – which you probably should have done, but I think in your place I would have waited too – what would you have called her?"
"CyberShock," Knockout said, surprisingly decisive. It was the name he'd began to consider the most, as time dragged on and the need to decide on one by himself seemed to loom closer. Quickly he explained. "Named partly for our world itself. The world we are rebuilding, and where she can grow up without a fraction, and simply be Cybertronian..."
"And then her first ever independent action, was to zap the medic good, before she was even in her frame…" Arcee laughed her understanding. Her optics went back to their youngling again, and she smiled at her. The baby smiled right back.
"I love the name," Arcee said, considering a moment. "It's powerful, bold, one of a kind… all fitting for her. And judging by that smile of hers, I'd guess that she likes it too."
"If you'd like an old bot's opinion, I think it's a fine name," Ratchet put in with a chuckle under his intakes.
"That settles it then," Arcee smiled at her teamsmates and the youngling each in turn. "She has an official name we can add to the registry." She sighed and leaned back against the back of the recharge station. "It''ll be wonderful just to get out of here. Recharge in our recharge station, right beside the youngling basket. We'll talk her for a walk, read her stories of old Cybertron. I can't wait to feed her and see how much she likes a bath..."
"Oh no," Ratchet exclaimed, before Knockout had the chance to do so himself. "Now don't you go getting into such a hurry! I'd really like to keep you here to rest a few more days."
"A few days?" Arcee cried. Her optics opened wide with unexpected dread and it appeared she would almost cry. "Ratchet no! I'm not sick. I'm not hurt or damaged. I've missed days already and I just want to go and take care of my child."
Knockout had been so close to seconding the old medic's opinion. He'd have given it himself first, had he not been beaten to it. But now, looking at his mate, with the desperate look on her face-place, as she held tightly to the baby, he reconsidered his first instinct about her care. He turned a little on his cart, and grabbed the old bot gently by the arm with his right hand.
"Let me take her back to our living space," he said seriously. "She can just as easily rest in there, and I'll see to it that she does. There's so much I can't do, and I know that. But I do have medical training. I'll know if she needs to come back and if she does I'll make sure that's exactly what happens. Arcee doesn't want to be here, and we both know we can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do. She'd only violate your medical orders…."
"She's certainly headstrong. I won't deny that," Ratchet mumbled in reply. He looked her over once with his optics, as she looked at him, pleading silently.
The old bot huffed under his intakes and declared, "fine. I'll offer a compromise – and only because I know I can't exactly keep a carrier away from caring for her youngling. But..." he held his hand up then to indicate that he was far from finished, and glared at her, in a look that could easily have made the most battle hardened of bots tremble, "you are staying long enough for me to do a complete and detailed assessment of processor function first. And then you are going to refuel. Then you can go. But you're going to be careful. Rest. Lots of it. No risky behavior. No training. No running. No transforming. No shooting. No lifting of anything even slightly heavier than your baby. I mean it!"
"Ratchet, thank you," Arcee mumbled, meaning it. Her nodding head showed that she agreed to follow his list of conditions of her discharge.
"Don't mention it." The old bot grumbled, frowning. His cranky expression quickly dissolved though into one of his rarely seen grinning smiles, and he stood facing her with both of his arms out streatched unexpectedly. "Now, give me that youngling for a minute. I want a turn at playing with the newest little Cybertonian, before I get you to stand up and then walk a straight line, to be sure you actually can, instead of me just assuming so."