Notes/ Wow this is late, late, late. I'm sorry for making you wait so long for an update. I'm still working on this story and yes I do plan to finish. I do hope the next update will be far sooner. I'll try my best.
40 chapters along... seems a good time to update my disclaimer. I don't own Transformers. Hasbro does. I'm just borrowing their characters and the planet Cybertron, etc. Speedbreaker, baby Cybershock, Firestorm, and various other OCs are mine.
Arcee had quickly taken her child gently back from Bumblebee, as soon as she had arrived back on base, running quickly among the rest of her team. Then there had been a few long moments of near complete chaos in the base, as too many things happened at once and too many bots moved in too many directions. But the bots were nothing if not efficient. And before she knew it, Starscream had been dumped, probably quite unceremoniously, into the brig, where he would stay until someone fond the time and motivation to further deal with him. And Wheeljack had been taken at once into the medbay, where Ratchet awaited him, set on getting started with major repairs without a moment to waste.
Miko, who had been unconscious in Knockout's hand when they had left the battlefield, had begun to regain consciously entirely on her own on the short trip back through the ground bridge. And by the time he had parked himself on the cart close to the wall and out of the way inside the common room, she was sitting up with little difficulty at all on the still extended palm of his hand and simply looked confused because she had missed the very end of the action.
Raf and Jack had taken up a place, sitting on their blankets on the floor in a far corner of the room, away from any danger of large and fast moving bot feet. But they ran quickly over to check on Miko and after some mumbling and nodding between the three of them, both of the boys had run to sit on or beside their own bot partners
Cybershock, still held by her carrier, began to fuss and then to wiggle and squirm, confused by the chaos. And Arcee sat herself down on a bench with the child in her lap, barely hearing either of the boys as she struggled to think a moment. Idly, she bounced the youngling a little on her knees until her fussing finally gave way to giggles and a tiny smile.
"What are we gonna do with him?" Jack asked, suddenly. The question pulled Arcee's attention slightly away from her child and to the human that now sat beside her on the bench. With his eyes and a subtle motion of one hand, she saw him gesture toward the lone vehicon trooper, who was standing in the center of the room, turning his head slowly to look around him. Quite clearly the bot was overwhelmed and near a state of utter shock at his own circumstances. "What's the deal with him anyway? Arcee… why would you bring a 'con trooper back here?"
"He's not going to be punished and taken prisoner like Starscream, is he?" Miko questioned then, from her place, now sitting up just fine on Knockout's right armrest, with her knees bent in front of her. Her eyes grew wide and she said in determination, "he saved Knockout's life, and probably Wheeljack's too."
"He willingly defected," Arcee answered, explaining. She shook her head just slightly, still struggling just a bit to get her bearings, with so much to think of at once. "And he was immediately off to a good start at proving whose side he might really want to be on." She chuckled slightly under her intakes, not because it was exactly suitable a time to do so, but because of the very strangeness of the situation, and how she still so recently might never have imaged it as possible. "He will join a fast growing number of willing defectors in need of Autobot assistance if they are really going to have a chance at starting over."
Arcee had barely given even a thought to the poor shocked trooper, who had indeed saved more than one Autobot tailpipe that day, until Jack had thought to question his presence inside the base in the first place. And she looked right at him now, turning with the youngling still in her lap, so that she could look him over far more carefully. The vehicon was dented and scuffed, bleeding energon from clearly minor tears in his frame. But mostly he appeared close to the point of fuel depletion, so clearly exhausted and holding himself up in a standing position was obvious trouble continuing to do so. Turning quickly to Speedbreaker, who stood close by, with a shocked and baffled expression of her own, across her faceplate, she quickly handed her the baby as soon as she had jumped to her feet. With that, Arcee hurried across the room, fetched a filled energon container from a storage cupboard below the dispenser, and walked quickly to offer it to the still baffled trooper.
"Thank you," the vehicon said, quietly and obviously hesitant. But he took the container and drank from it, before Arcee led him by the arm toward a bench against the side wall and shoved him gently down to sit on it.
"So," she said. She made a point of smiling a little and keeping the tone of voice almost friendly. "You got a name?"
"Vehicon J-563-NR-6," the trooper replied, still hesitant, but quicker to speak this time.
"So, J-5 for short then?" Raf muttered grinning, and Speedbreaker still holding Cybershock chuckled in agreement.
"Most of the troopers who have already defected, have chosen new names for themselves," 'Bee explained with a laugh of his own. "Real names for the first time in their lives. That's far better than calling each one by just letters and numbers."
"I.. I have never thought about..." the trooper started to say when both bots and humans alike all turned to look in his direction. But he didn't finish the thought out loud, and instead simply finished drinking from the container he'd been handed.
"Quickshot," Miko suggested, her voice excited as she looked in the vehicon's direction and grinned. "You're pretty quick your blaster. I mean come on. You're the one bot that finally managed to take down Starscream in his jet mode!"
"I like it," the trooper said after a moment in which he appeared to consider while looking at the floor.
"So," Jack mumbled thoughtfully. Still sitting close to Arcee and the child she held on her lap, he reached out, smiling to gently touch the armor plating on the baby's little sliver foot. Cybershock giggled and kicked and promptly she reached to grab him curiously. "What happens next?"
Looking around the room at gathered bots and humans, Arcee considered the question silently a moment. But there was so much to think about at once. Almost too many. Wheeljack would live. Ratchet would see to that, though the repairs would surely take much of the night, and it seemed a blaster beam had missed his spark by only millimeters. The old medic would no doubt want to look over Miko as soon as he could, though Knockout had already done so quickly, declared her most probably fine, and there was so little they could have done for her themselves in any case. But still medics were medics and no doubt he would do his best just as Knockout had, much to Miko's protests. There was the trooper; Quickshot. He was still in need of housing, however temporary, somewhere on base. Arcee made up her mind to solve that problem first since it was indeed a simple one – the housing of defectors was nothing new to the base lately. And she decided then and there on an empty room she would show him to later. He would need be shown to the medbay at some point too. Then there was Starscream, confined in the brig – still, at least the last she had been told – laying exactly where Bulk' had thrown him, in the furthest corner of the furthest of the cells. He would need to be interrogated after his own repairs were complete. Arcee had to admit she had no real idea of what to do with him, now that he had finally been captured. And she wondered almost in passing, if perhaps she ought to be worried about the fact that the bot was clearly badly damaged.
"We'll figure it out as we go," Arcee answered slowly. And he gave a little chuckle, which her youngling quickly mimicked for no clear reason at all. "Just like Autobots have always done."
"The war is really over then?" Raf asked from his place, sitting on Bumblebee's shoulder. "Little really totally over completely for good?"
"The war officially ended today," Arcee confirmed. And as much as she tried to say so in a serious and no nonsense tone, as she knew a few other great Autobot commanders she could name might have done, she instead found herself grinning suddenly, and laughing, and couldn't help it.
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"You sure you're up to this, right now?" Bulkhead questioned slowly, as the lift doors slid closed. He tapped a huge hand against the 'down' button, and turned his head slightly to the right.
"I'm good Bulk'" Arcee answered quickly. Almost too quickly. And she glared at him with optics full of stubborn determination. A second later though she sighed, and moved slightly as thought she was going to learn against the wall of the lift. But she didn't. "In all honesty, no. No I'm not up to this right now. I'm in a pretty slagging good mood tonight. As I we've all got the right to be, considering the war is really over. And just the thought of dealing with Starscream right now, is about to ruin it for me. But someone's gotta deal with him eventually. We can't just leave him to rust."
"Ya sure about that?" Bulkhead remarked, as the lift came to a stop on the lower level.
"Don't we both just wish." Arcee chuckled under her intakes and shook her head, mildly amused, as the doors slid open.
Starscream was sitting, slumped forward on the metal bench at that far side of his cell and scowling with rage when Arcee peered in Plexiglas window near the top of the cell door. The Autobot motioned silently for her teammate to follow behind her, and she dared then to walk right in to the cell without a word about it. Starscream raised his head just enough to glare with rage at both of them, but she stayed where he was, close to the wall and seated.
"Look alive, Screamer," Arcee demanded, forcing her voice into a tone that almost too friendly on purpose behind her obvious sarcasm. "I think its time we had a chat."
Starscream only glared at both her and Bulkhead, and said not a word. And Arcee, though she knew full well that her enemy prisoner's weapons had surely been disabled as soon as he had been hauled in, stood at the ready to activate her own blasters anyway on a second's notice if anything were to go very wrong.
"You stand accused of war crimes and of crimes against Cybertron and its people," she said seriously, daring to return his terrible glare, while inwardly she cringed fought back the urge to back away closer to the door as it shut behind her.
"Not to mention what you did to Miko," Bulkhead added quickly. He stepped forward to stand next to Arcee with his hands forming fists. And the look on his faceplate did nothing to hide his desire to punch the 'con commander clear into unconsciousness. "Stupid move, Screamy. Stupid, stupid move."
"I've got rights, Autobots," Starscream mumbled at them. But still he did not move and his optics only kept right on glaring at them both.
Arcee was about to snap at him, to threaten him with force if he did not comply at once with the demand she was about to make that he shut his mouth. But she knew he was right. He still suffered unrepaired damages, and had not yet even been seen by a medic. He was in need of fuel and none had been so much as offered. This was the first time he was officially even hearing his changes.
"Ratchet will be in to see you as soon as he can," Arcee explained, with slightly more patience then she had felt seconds before. "And I'll call someone to bring you fuel as soon as we've finished talking."
"I'll never beg you for my life, Autobot," Starscream said, glaring. "I'll face execution if I must for your ideals and your ridiculous democratic rule of new Cybertron. But I will never ever beg you for a thing."
"Execution was never exactly on the table," Arcee answered seriously. "Capital punishment never was the Autobot way exactly."
Sighing out loud and resisting the growing urge to walk away, slamming the door in frustration, Arcee took a moment to collect herself before she pulled a data pad from her storage compartment. She tossed it, quite unceremoniously onto the metal bench, where it landed face up. Starscream appeared to hesitate a second before he reached to quickly snatch up the pad. And powering it up with a quick touch of his fingertip, he stared a moment at the screen, first frowning and then scowling.
"It's a blank pad," he exclaimed, glaring again with narrowed optics. "What is it you expect me to do with a..."
"Write a confession. Write an appeal. Anything you want to share with us and a jury chosen from among the refugees, that may just help your case," Arcee said pointedly. She retrieved a pen from her compartment, and offered it to him, while still struggling strangely hard to keep her temper in check. "Or I suppose, I could bring you a keypad interface, if you prefer to type on there."
Starscream roughly snatched the pen from between her fingers, but at nearly the same second he grabbed it, the pad he still held flew from his other hand and hit the floor of the cell with a little thump before it slid a ways toward Bulkhead's big green feet. On her guard at once, Arcee snatched the pad from the floor with optics never leaving a prisoner she suspected at once may just have been trying some trick or other.
"Knock it off, Starscream," she said, with threat clear in the tone of her own voice. She held the pad, unsure now if she should return it to him then or not.
"You think I did that on purpose, Autobot?" Starscream answered, in a voice suddenly close to yelling loudly. The low menacing tone he'd spoken with until then was gone entirely, and instead he sounded strangely almost afraid of what he had done.
"Of course I think you did," Arcee snapped at once. She topped herself before she could go any further, and she shook her head a little. She was missing something, and she knew it. But she could not place it and she couldn't afford to stand still and reason it out right then, while she stood inside a cell with a bot she knew full well was dangerous enough to kill both her and Bulk in seconds if she stopped paying him her full attention.
"We'll be back to bring you fuel," she said, matter of fact, and backing toward the door. "Ratchet will be here sometime tonight to see you. I need whatever it is you are going to write, written and signed in two days."
Arcee slammed the cell door to lock it once more just as soon she she had stepped out of there with Bulkhead right behind her. And as soon as the door was closed and locked behind her, she turned to stomp off down the corridor with clenched fists and optics that burned with anger.
"Hey, you alright?" Bulk' questioned, as she hurried after her and just as soon as he had managed to actually catch up, right before they had come to the lift. And Arcee only glared at him for a second, reflecting in dismay on the ridiculousness of his asking such a thing when he could see that so clearly she was not exactly fine.
"I don't think I've ever hated a anybot as much as I hate that one, Bulk'" she answered honestly, after a moment spent simply calming down enough to see that her teammate was hardly at fault for her anger. With fists still clenched tight and optics glaring at the closed lift doors, she felt her entire frame tense with her frustration. "I think I hate Starscream far more than I hated Megatron. And that's gotta be saying something. I can't believe that stuck up, spoiled coward had the nerve to throw that datapad at me..." Arcee shook her head for the second time in minutes and conctined to stare at the lift doors, only to avoid letting her teammate see the upset she knew had suddenly overtaken her face-plate. Suddenly far more miserble and confused than actually angry anymore she mumbled under intakes, "I can't believe I'm upset because Starscream threw a datapad at me, of all things… Didn't do it on purpose? Slagging lying tinhead!" Angry again, Arcee punched the closed doors with enough force to leave a small dent, and enough of a bang that Bulkhead was obviously shocked and startled by it.
"I dunno," Bulkhead mused. Quickly he'd bushed off his dismay at Arcee's outburst, and he took a step closer to her, while reaching with one hand to gently steer her onto the lift as its doors slid open. When she looked up at him, waiting to hear more, he went on quickly. "Arcee, I'm not sure he actually did that on purpose."
"You really think…?"
"It looked to me like flew right from his hand, like he'd lost the ability to hold onto it for a second. Arcee, when we were out there on the battlefield yesterday, Starscream managed to nearly hit the rocks while flying… twice."
"Ha," Arcee scoffed. Suddenly she found herself resisting a strange urge to laugh. "Well, serves him fragging right. He was probably showing off instead of watching where he was going!"
"I dunno… centuries of fightin' and we've never seen him make a mistake. Not in the air. He's one of the best fliers cybertron's ever seen. Now I'm not sayin' it oughta matter much. I hope to see the bot rust in prison as much as anyone. But we can't fault him for throwing that pad."
"Fine. We already have enough on him to keep him locked up for life. And scrap do I ever wish I could throw that key into a smelting pit. I suppose we had better send Ratchet a memo about the whole nearly scraping himself on the rocks thing..."
"Already done it."
"I still hate him. Whatever might be the matter with him."
"I know," Bulk' nodded his understanding. "And I share your feelings on that more than ever since he decided it was a good idea to go and grab Miko..."
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Sitting alone inside his office, behind the medbay, Ratchet finished drinking the last of his morning container of energon, while he scrolled idly through a datapad containing a medical text book. It seemed to him a lovely day to open a window, and he took a moment away from his reading in order to stand up and open the one above his desk. Outside the window, a pair of bots, no longer quite younglings obviously, but not exactly adults either, and both apparently having hopped the high fence that surrounded the base, walked a fast shortcut across the courtyard. They stopped somewhere I the middle of the yard in order to good around together, kicking around a hunk of metal over the ground. And Ratchet, sure he ought to run them both off with a shout out the window, only stood watching in surprising amusement over the whole thing. They were, he decided, just harmless kids. And refugee neutrals. They were most certainly trespassing. But it wasn't exactly hurting anything.
"Ratchet," Bumblebee's voice said somewhere behind him, and the old bot turned to see his young teammate in the doorway, a data pad of his own under his arm and a bemused look on his faceplate. He had to have been standing in the doorway for a minute of two, and Ratchet shook his head a little when he realized he had never even heard the door slid open, let along the footsteps behind it, in the midst of his daydreaming.
"Come on in here, 'Bee," Ratchet invited with a wave on a hand toward an extra chair that sat in the far corner of the small cramped office. He chuckled to himself, watching as the younger bot reached immediately into the dish of energon sweets in bright foil wrappers, that occupied a place on the corner of the desk, and carefully opened one as he sat down on the chair.
"Are you alright," the young bot questioned slowly. "You looked… distracted again."
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Ratchet mumbled, as he moved to sit back down in his chair after reaching into the dish of sweets himself. "I've been thinking, perhaps it's time we tore down that surrounding fence. Hospitals don't exactly need such security, and the refugees are already just climbing on over it anyway sense we've disarmed it. That's a lot of metal, better used for building."
'Bee nodded with a smile of agreement over that, and gestured with his optics toward the pad he'd brought with him and which now lay on his knees.
"I finished the material you asked me to read over," He said with clear hesitation. "Processor Circuitry Rapid Degradation Syndrome… I must say I was surprised when you asked me to research an actually medical disorder already, but I tried. I'll be honest, Ratchet. I couldn't find much of anything on the disorder to read and learn from. A few pages in this text book, plus a line of two here and there in only a couple others..."
"That is, unfortunately, all there is to be found now," Ratchet mused with a saddened shake of his head. "You may well have found a bit more, perhaps even a couple of whole, if not short, chapters on the condition, along the texts in the medical section of the hall of records, before the place was destroyed by the war. Still even then that would have been it, and you'd know next to nothing just from reading..."
He was interrupted in the middle of his sentence, by the sound of the door, as it slid open again on its track. And he turned to the door a little in his chair, to see Knockout, sitting in the doorway on his cart, with Cybershock happily grinning at something only she likely understood such amusement in, on his lap. Knockout held her against him with his right arm while she wiggled and lightly kicked her tiny legs, still grinning.
Ratchet, taking a moment to grin right back at the little one stood back up and stepped over the quickly lift her up from her creator's lap and into his arms, where she settled quickly, still grinning at him.
"The condition is, unfortunately, one a medic tends to learn when he's forced into a crash course by coming across it in his work," Ratchet continued on, seriously against while holding the baby, and addressing 'Bee, while he gestured at the other of his teammates park himself in the other empty corner – which, in the cramped space had always seemed to be the only corner in which he could turn himself around to face forward. And he gestured vaguely in his direction as his damaged teammate, did sure enough turn to face the others after he'd maneuvered around past a shelving unit and the desk. "I wonder if Knockout here has ever even seen the condition before."
If any doubt had remained in Ratchet's mind, as to just how much a lifetime of medical programming, and a passion for his chosen field of work, had stayed functioning in the processor of a now very damaged bot, the look of curiosity and interested need to know at once, that he saw on Knockout's face-plate, would have crushed all of such doubts in a second.
"Processor Circuitry Rapid Degradation Syndrome," he explained, catching his teammate up on the conversation he had missed, and allowing a moment for him to shift through his own base of knowledge.
"Um.. once," Knockout answered, hesitant and thinking hard about the matter. "I was left once by my instructor, to diagnose a bot, a patient of his, suffering from what turned out to be the second stage of the condition, back in the final few years of my academy days."
"From the little was able to find to read up on the condition, it seems it would have to be a terrible disorder," 'Bee commented. "Fatal in the end I can only assume..."
"Not necessarily," Ratchet answered back. He found himself falling at once right back into teaching mode. And he almost smiled a little at finding that the more he taught the young bot the more he remembered how he had missed teaching. "If we catch it early enough to the third – and usually final stage – treatment is often still an option. Though the chances of patient survival do decrease dramatically if caught that late."
"My instructor's patient lived," Knockout added. "Granted, she was only in the second stage. But still I do believe that even later she would have still had a fair enough chance."
"PCRDS is slow to progress at first. And the symptoms are vague, minor and easy to let go unnoticed. Ratchet answered seriously. He shook his head, and went on. "It's also, unfortunately, a terribly frustrating thing to deal with from a medical perspective. The earliest symptoms, are usually behavior related mostly. Increasingly poor judgment calls, a growing tendency to ramble, while losing track of one's stream of thought… things like that are easily symptoms for twenty different and far more common problems. And a good handful of those are not even medical at all."
"I think I'd just assume a bot like that was crazy," 'Bee commented, he laughed slightly, but his laugh was clearly a nervous one by then, and he looked down down at the datapad, serious again at once and paying attention.
"Many would," Ratchet explained. Still supporting the weight of Cybershock's small body on one arm, he reached out with one pointing finger and waved it a little with emphasis meant to make his point. "But. This is where it's so important to never cling to the simplest assumption as correct as any cost. In this particular condition, yes, it would likely look at first like you you've got a crazy bot on your hands. Maybe he's had a bad year and the stress is taking its toll. Perhaps he's just angry lately because why not, and in his mind it's perfectly okay to behave that way. He's certainly not sick. He's just a bot with a bad attitude. Or perhaps he's got a had too much too drink. Maybe that happens far too often in his case. But then things unexpectedly get worse. The bot's basic coordination goes sideways. Anything he's not dropping he's knocking over. He has more and more trouble walking in his bot mode, and in his alt mode, he cant seem to drive or fly in a straight line. He's all over the road, or he's all but falling right out of the sky. If he's a fighter armed with weapons systems, his targeting is gone entirely. And he's hitting everything but the thing he means to hit. And if he's not, then still so much can go wrong in any systems that just let him live a day to day life safely. He's now well into stage two, and fast. That's where the 'rapid' in its name comes from. And because it is indeed so rare a condition, it would never occur to you to consider it soon enough, if you were not at the top of your game and paying attention to details."
"You picked this condition, of any of them, to teach me for a reason," Bumblebee said, in obvious realization. He looked at at the old bot, with confusion on his face-plate, trying apparently hard, to figure it all out. Ratchet watched 'Bee exchange looks once with Knockout across the office, and the damaged defector only returned his baffled look, obviously clueless himself.
"Starscream," Ratchet said sighing. He finally sat back down in his chair behind his desk, and shifted the baby around in his arms so that she could sit semi-upright in his lap. "There was a little note sent to me about how he may have nearly crashed into the cliffs twice while in battle against our team, got my attention. Then Arcee called me mad as a scraplet, saying something about a thrown datapad last night. You see now where its important to pay attention to anything, that may seem so tiny and not so out of place at all..."
"The day we took him down..." Knockout mused, shaking his head now in his own obvious realization. "He was acting so strangely. Yeah, he's always been a crazy one. Loud. Obnoxious… But that was weird even by Starscream standards. The endless ranting on and on, and not making any real sense… screaming in rage…"
"I've heard all about that from the bots that where there," Bumblebee said. "Me and Smokescreen had a laugh about it all. I just assumed he'd gone and lost what little of his mind he haven't lost already. Now, you're saying Starscream could have a serious medical condition?"
"I'm certain of it."
"He's treatable though," 'Bee said. His tone revealed just how little how little he knew he was even supposed to feel about the unexpected situation. "Isn't he? Anything late into stage two, and early into stage three…"
"When I say the final stages are rapid in progression I mean exactly what I say," Ratchet shook his head, allowing himself to feel his own confused emotions about it all. "He was brought here only three days ago, and obviously well into stage two already, in hindsight. I saw him this morning again. Third stage is now so apparent its impossible to mistake for anything but medically serious now. I could still save him. Or at least I believe I could. I'd give him perhaps a seventy percent chance. And that's not bad. But he's refusing treatment."
"Can he… can he do that?" 'Bee questioned, uncertain and still shaking his head, while he and Knockout exchanged glances again.
"Even as a prisoner of war, he's still got rights," Ratchet explained. He bounced the youngling on his lap slightly, when she began to fuss a little. She settled at once and even smiled, oblivious to the seriousness of the conversation in the room. "Any bot can refuse treatment. Even though we'd so obviously like it is they didn't. As for the state of his processor and his ability to be allowed to make that call himself, well sure. His systems may be failing, processor included. But that doesn't mean he can't still think, can't still reason and make a medical decision."
"So… what do we do with him…?" Bumblebee looked to Ratchet for an answer, and in his optics the old bot could so clearly see his confusion and dismay. He knew full well that he'd thrown his young teammate into situation of complicated life and death ethics, and it was soon to get far worse than simply that. He knew just as well that it was so early in the young bot's training to have done that. But given the circumstances, he saw little choice but to simply throw him right in anyway.
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Arcee was quiet that night, sitting on the familiar clifftop, leaning against the side of her bondmate's mobility cart. She held Cybershock, half way to recharge, comfortable on her folded knees, and looked out over the cliff as the sun began to set over the city below.
"What are you thinking about?" Knockout asked, after slightly too long had passed in her silence. He reached with his right arm, so that he could put his hand over her shoulder panel. And slowly, distracted, she moved to look up at him without jostling the baby.
"Almost every one of the Autobots hated Starscream," Arcee said. ""We couldn't wait to see that fool finally fall. An end to the war. And end to all the wondering what it was he was up to, somewhere off….plotting. I didn't think in a thousand years it would end like this."
"He'll never stand trial," Knockout mused. And he shook his head over the fact. "He won't live long enough to."
"True. But it's more than that I think. I wanted to see him sentenced. I hoped the elected jury would make him pay for wanting continued war when all anyone else ever wanted now was peace. But still… I guess I never imagined he would just die one day."
"Me neither."
"You two served on the same side once. Yeah, things did get bad and I know. Starscream was your fiend once. Before you became the target of his growing rage, and he tried to kill you once, obviously. It's gotta be a bit different for that it is for me, or really any of us..."
"I don't know. I tend to think my opinion is more 'Autobot' than you would think. A strange confusing mix of 'still sad, no matter who it is' and 'good riddance.' For me though there's still the medical programming… that hope that there might still be some way to save him..."
"Have you talked to him…?"
"No," Knockout shook his head and then stared off into the distance for a moment. "I felt today like maybe I should… but he tried to execute me for defection..."
Cybershock, sleepy a moment ago and dropping into recharge, was suddenly wide awake and looking around with wide-optic'd curiosity, while she waved her arms and kicked her little legs, and smiling, babbling. Carefully, holding her against her frame, so as not to loose her grip on her, Arcee stood up with the child in her arms and turned so that she could hand the baby off to her mate. Then slowly she turned further, looking away from the cliff's edge and watching the three human children, a fair ways down the pathway, all busy inspecting small metallic rocks. Seeing her turn around beside him, Knockout turned the cart slowly while holding the baby, and faced the path himself.
"The humans really find rocks that amusing?" Knockout questioned, with a laugh and a shake of his head.
"Well Cybertronian rocks yes," Arcee chuckled back. She took a step backward so that she could lean lightly against the armrest of the cart. "Really, what human wouldn't want to bring home rocks from an alien planet?"
She stood, silent again for a while, watching the tiny youngling as she fell into recharge, laying on her creator's lap. He'd shifted his position a little, so that she lay flat, sprawled over his upper legs, with her head against his frame and the support for the cart's left armrest. Arcee chuckled a little, as she wondered how the little bot could possibly be comfortable, recharging in such a position. But obviously she was. The bots turned out their front facing headlights, on their front panels, and down the path, the human's began to use a couple of bright flashlights they'd brought with them.
"I might just have killed you for your recent little act of of Autobot heroics, if she didn't love you quite so much," Arcee told her mate, mostly joking, as she watched their tired youngling.
"And thank you, by the way, for deciding to spare me," Knockout answered, laughing only slightly himself.
"In all seriousness..." Arcee said, optics that reflected just that, but a hint of a smile still on her face-plate. She looked again in the direction of the young humans, all three of them sitting and kneeling on and near the path. They picked up and inspected the smaller loose bits of metallic rock and crystal scattered over the ground. Most they would toss back again, but a few they placed carefully into the pockets of their clothing, obviously intent on keeping them. "It was a great and heroic thing you did… if not just a little bit beyond insane."
"Do they know anything yet, about…?" Knockout started to ask, changing the subject. He looked toward the young humans himself, but he never did finish the question.
"About the situation with Starscream?" Arcee said, finishing the question for him, when he could not quite manage to do so. She nodded slowly. "The reactions were varied, as you would imagine. Raf wasn't sure exactly if he was he was supposed to think the news is bad news or not. Jack is… well Jack. He got the idea once that he should hate the 'cons probably more than any Autobot ever did. He says he'll be glad to see him gone, and that was pretty much that. Miko was the strange one yet again. Reasoned and hoped that perhaps he only went as far as he did to nab and kill her because his illness made him prone of such behavior. She actually wanted to visit him. I told her not a chance."
"Miko once talked to me, only because someone told her 'no'" Knockout reminded her, with an odd mix of laughter and concern on his face-plate.
Arcee laughed a little at him for that comment. But quickly her face-plate turned serious again, as she questioned in a contemplating tone, "so what do we do in the case of rapidly failing terminally ill bot, anyway?" She knew her question may just have been almost a bit of a strange one. She was the one known for knowing exactly how to handle situations. And even when she didn't, she could fake it just fine. But such a situation was not one she ever encountered before. She sighed and leaned lightly against her mate, letting him support a potion of her weight, as she knew he could certainly do. "It just gets even more tricky and complicated when that bot is one of the most dangerous bots on Cybertron, and is a prisoner."
"Ratchet would like to move him out of the brig, and into the medbay, preferably tomorrow. He and I discussed the matter today. He wanted my opinion… Starscream may have done a few too many terrible things in his life, but he's still a bot. Still a fellow Cybertronian. And he's not the only one to ever go so bad. The war changed everybot."
"Some days I hate it when you're right."
Arcee sat down comfortably on the ground then, and looked up at her mate, with conflict in her bright blue optics. Slowly she went on speaking, her tone serious again. "Ratchet explained to me today that this condition, PCRGS, or something like that, is usually triggered by repeated hard blows to the head and upper frame in bots already carrying a usually dormant code for it…"
"PCRDS," Knockout corrected her slight mistake. Then he leaned forward a little and nodded slightly. "There can be other triggers in rare cases, but yeah…"
Arcee sat for a while on the ground, quiet and just watching the humans on the path collecting rocks, and her youngling, in recharge on Knockout's lap. For many long moments she just thought her thoughts saying nothing. But slowly the humans drifted away from their collecting and standing up, they just ideally chatted themselves. And Arcee stood up again herself, looking down the path in the grow of her headlight.
"It's late," she said. "We should all be getting back to base."