Notes/ this one is short. But it's kind of a bonus chapter. This one would not leave me alone, for the most part, it pretty much wrote itself. Hence, the little update in only a couple of days. And this is emotionally all over the place again. Haha, be warned.
After dumping the oily water from the baby washtub down the wash station drain, Arcee crossed her small shared living space, with a her very wet youngling in her arms. When her foot clipped the corner of a shelving unit, and her knee banged hard against it, he muttered a most indecent obscenity before she could stop herself. Limping badly the rest of the way toward the recharge station, she clamped her hand over her mouth, more than well aware that Cybershock would soon begin to recognize such language, and may just one day copy it herself.
"Oh, that's so not funny," Arcee exclaimed to the baby, when Cybershock burst into giggles, more than likely over the look on her carrier's face-plate.
Arcee's foot came down not two steps later, on the wrong end of a rigid metal youngling toy, and she forced back a second round of cursing, as she went to involuntary hopping on the foot that didn't hurt, while she struggled not to loose her grip on the wet and squirming baby.
"Okay, most definitely not funny," she exclaimed in near disbelief, when Cybershock's giggles became little squeals of laughter.
"Well Cybershock clearly disagrees with you," Knockout said from his place, sitting up on their recharge station, and barely even holding on to either of his grab bars. "She thinks you're hilarious."
The way he said that simple thing, the all too casual tone he used to do so, and that silly joking smirk on his face-plate, it only served to antagonize Arcee. And without a second's warning, she had bent to grab the offending younging toy – which of course needed to be picked up anyway -and flung it at him with a smirk of her own.
"Hey," Knockout exclaimed with with a laugh under his intakes. He didn't manage to catch the thrown thing of course. After an endless time of trying, he could still barely catch anything, and that was when he was expecting it to be thrown. Instead it only hit his body armour, across his lower left shoulder panel, bounced and hit the recharge station. He smiled though with a shake of his head. "So we're playing that game now?"
He managed to pick up the little toy with his stronger hand, from where it had landed near him, and he waved it in the air a little, as if to hint that he would throw it right back at her. But Arcee shook her head just slightly, brushing off the mock threat, knowing fully well that he would never do it because she held the baby. Cybershock burst again into squealing laughter, quite clearly certain her creators were both quite insane. And she clapped her little hands with amusement, as Arcee dropped her onto the towel she'd set out read on the recharge station, and began to quickly dry her off.
Before she could pick her back up again, taking her along to return the towel to the wash station, Cybershock rolled quickly to the left, and just as quickly she did so again, making her way lengthways across the recharge station, in silly little baby barrel rolls, and laughing hysterically while she did it.
"Get back here," Arcee cried, alarmed at the child's sudden speed, and she gasped with relief, when Knockout's right foot, flung to the side just enough and just in time, stopped the baby before she could get to the edge.
"Good save," Arcee said, laughing despite her dismay. She scooped up the youngling again at once, held her in both arms as she squirmed to get down again, and used a couple of her fingertips to grab the towel from its crumpled heap on the recharge station. She took two steps back, moved to turn around, and promptly tripped right over the stand that supported the youngling's recharging basket.
"We are running out of room in here," she mumbled in frustration, using one hand to steady the basket and stand before the whole thing fell over, and thus struggling again with the squirming baby one-handed.
Indeed as Cybershock grew slightly older, her own needs had grown greater it seemed. And slowly but surely her creators had accumulated a still growing collection of baby things for her. A play mat was required, where she could lay playing on the floor, and to set that up in the far corner of the room, beneath the window, had meant moving the shelving unit closer to the music player. And then her own growing collection of toys and blankets, and datapads filled with pictures and stories and silly simple music she so loved, meant a need for her very own shelving unit to store such things. And that had been shoved into tightly against the wall close to the only place the mobility cart could park to charge. A little toy box, built and gifted to her by Bulkhead was something she could not yet use, but still it took up space against another wall, and had meant the recharging basket be moved two feet toward the centre of the room. Slowly but surely baby things were filling up a room already more crowded then it should have been because of mobility equipment.
"Cybershock is old enough to recharge by herself now," Knockout said. "She could very well be happy in her own room."
"You don't suppose," Arcee mumbled, with another shake of her head, to shake off annoyance she knew was misplaced. His statement was one of the obvious and she knew he knew that. But what could they do?
"I'm sorry," she muttered, turning to her mate with a smile of sincere apology. And with a smile on his own face-plate Knockout used his right hand to place his left back against his grab bar, so that he could hold it tightly again to hold himself up with full stability. And promptly he reached out to her with his right hand extended. He hugged her tightly with his stronger arm, when she leaned close to him, and held into her a moment with their youngling tight between them, wordlessly forgiving her for the slightest frustration she fully wished to blame herself for.
"You probably want to get up," Arcee mumbled with understanding into her mate's armour, her annoyance quickly fading. And she realized how late it was into the morning.
"Yeah," Knockout said smiling. Slowly he let her go, mostly because the youngling wedged between them, had begun to squirm yet again.
"This base is not close to being filled to capacity," Arcee mused out loud, while her processor thought over just who to best call for help, wondering who it was that might not be otherwise busy at that moment. "The room next to us on the right, is empty. Maybe no one would mind if we took a second room for Cybershock..."
"Can you bring my cart over here?" Knockout asked suddenly, bringing her back from her musing as he gestured to the space next to his side of the recharge station.
Quickly she pushed it over, kicking the charging cord out of the way under the shelving unit, sure, considering the morning she'd so far had, that she would only trip over that next. She watched as her bondmate, still holding tightly to his grab-bar with his weak left hand, using the wrist hooked through the bars, to stabilize himself somewhat awkwardly, threw his right arm over his frame so that he could reach with his stronger hand over the side of the recharge station. With somewhat of an obvious struggle to do it, he managed to pull up on the right armrest of his cart, so that he could then drop it down, so it sat folded near the handbrake. Arcee wanted to help him, and for a moment it was all she could do not to hurry around the recharge station in order to drop the armrest for him – whatever his reason may have been for wanting to move it in the first place. But she knew well the look she saw in his optics. The look that told her to let him try. So she stood, holding the baby, smiling at her mate, hoping beyond all hope that he would not fall off their recharge station, and sighing with silent relief when he didn't.
"Bulk' should be around this morning," she said, when Knockout sat himself back up straight with the aid of the grab-bar. "I'll comm him to help you up."
"I don't think we need him," Knockout answered, surprisingly A strange smile flashed across his face-plate. His optics went then to his mobility cart siting well placed beside him, and Arcee understood to her dismay exactly why he had dropped its armrest. "I think... I think I can do it myself."
"Make fragging well sure your handbrake is locked," Arcee reminded him. Her processor cried silently that her advice should actually have been, 'wait for Ratchet to help you with this,' or 'practice this in rehab.' But Knockout did things in his own time. He always had. And if she told him not to try, he'd only laugh it off and ignore her anyway. Arcee turned quickly to plop Cybershcok down in her recharging basket, a place she was perfectly safe, and quickly she ran around to the other side the recharge station, ready to help if she needed to, and warning nervously, "don't you dare let go of your grab-bar until you're sure you've got your balance again."
Knockout looked like he might just say something to her. But he didn't. Instead he just nodded a confidant nod, and with a move he had only just begun to practice in daily rehabilitation, he used his right foot to bump his left leg hard off the recharge station he was still sitting on, under the grab-bar, and over the side of the cart. The placement of the grab-bar itself was an ideal placement for use in simply sitting himself up. But in this new situation it was clearly awkward. When another bot helped him in transferring to the cart, someone would simply drop the bar with a locking latch underneath it, so that it came to sit folded near the floor. He could not simply drop it himself though, partly because he felt he might fall, and mostly because he was sitting partly under it. So instead he pulled his stronger leg underneath it too, following the first, let that foot drop to the cart's footrest, and supported just as much of his own weight as he could, however little the might have been, before his left hand let the bar go, and the right, reaching so awkwardly now over the left, grabbed the cart to balance himself.
"That actually worked," Arcee exclaimed. The intake she'd been holding was finally released as a loud sigh that turned quickly to a laugh of amazement.
"You appear... shocked by that," Knockout's reply, the tone in which he spoke as all too matter of fact. And that only caused Arcee to burst out laughing, while she shook her head, and tried to mutter that she was though at the same time she wasn't.
Knockout was entirely capable by then of course, of buckling himself into the cart with his lap belt, or at least he was most of the time, assuming he could reach both ends of the thing and was not siting on either one. And he'd even taken recently to taking his own safety belt off during extended periods of siting on the cart while it was not moving. But still, determined to help him, to be of at least some use that moment, Arcee moved to lean over so that she soul grab the belt and buckle him in. And he simply let her, waving assent with a motion of his hand, understandably tired simply from moving on his own, and taking a moment to recover.
"Ready to roll?" she asked, smiling, as he moved, somewhat awkwardly as ever to put his left hand onto his hand control, in order to drive the cart. She hurried back across the room, to retrieve the youngling, who despite no real understanding of how significant a thing her creator had finally accomplished, grinned a wide grin and giggled hysterically in response to both of her parent's happiness.
"Ready to roll," Knockout confirmed with a grin, just as soon as Arcee had placed the baby in her favoured place on his lap where she would stay while he drove.
Knockout, driving the cart forward, toward the door leading out to the passageway beyond, had barely started moving, when a strange loud and unexpected squeak under his machine made him stop in surprise.
"What the...?" Arcee mumbled, close behind him.
Knockout backed up, slowly and careful, and Arcee watched and listened carefully, concerned for any number of possible odd problems with her mate's much needed mobility cart. The machine backed up just fine, the wheels and the hand control seemingly fine as ever. But sure enough the thing that had squeaked, did so again as he rolled backwards.
"Back up a little more," Arcee said, shaking her head with a tiny laugh, as she looked down with concern at the bottom of the cart. "There's something under your front wheel."
When he backed up just enough, she reached around and underneath the right front tire of the mobility cart. She stood up again, shaking her head slightly as she held up one of Cybershock's tub toys, now quite clearly busted, and the one small toy the youngling had been given that had contained a squeaker. She understood at once that she must have accidentally brought the thing with her from the wash station, bundled in the towel, and she'd flung it accidentally across the far too crowded room, when she'd struggled with the wet and squirming youngling.
"You realize Ratchet might just have your head, for that independent transfer move of yours, right?" Arcee said, as she walked behind down the corridor behind her mate, pausing only a second to toss the tub toy, broken beyond hope of repair, into a trash bin. But she was nevertheless laughing and proud, and her joking tone indicated that so clearly. Her tone turned serious then as she continued on. "You could easily have fallen on your face and possibly hurt yourself."
"I can't live my life afraid of falling," Knockout answered. And to Arcee's dismay, he turned the cart around suddenly, only to began driving down the hallway at low speed in reverse, grinning with confidence – or more than likely, overconfidence – as he did so. He gave his close approximation of a shrug of his shoulders and rolled on – still backwards – smiling at her. "Yeah I might fall one day. I have fallen already... a lot. Surely you remember just how many times I ended up flat on the landing mats in the training gym, just trying to stay sitting up. Or the many falls from benches in the common room, and those of course were always much worse. I've come to feel like I'd much rather try; and maybe I'll fall, but at least I'll still have been trying when I did."
Arcee wanted to say something in reply to his words. She wanted to tell him how his motivation made her proud, but then she was sure he already knew. She wanted to warn him again to be careful, to always take a few good risks, because that was how one made progress, but to never be reckless with risks either. And she was just as sure he knew that too.
"Do you have even the slightest idea where you're actually going, driving backwards like that?" she questioned, with another laugh, settling on that question instead.
"Vaguely, yes," Knockout answered. He gave a bright grin at her. But he was still looking right at her, instead of even trying to see a thing behind him – not that he possibly could have, had he been trying. "I know this hallway. I've used it daily for ages already... I could do this with my optics closed. And I know there's a bend coming up, here..."
He turned the cart, still in reverse of course, far too late to round the sharp turn he'd been talking about. And he smacked backwards into a wall roughly the archway he should taken, and the door to Ratchet's living space, which was in the passageway that continued on past the turn.
"Or... possibly not," he mumbled, shaking his head and laughing off embarrassment at his own poor judgment.
Cybershock, who'd been sitting in his lap the whole while he'd carried out his ridiculous antics, may well have been startled badly by the sudden hard impact. And for a second Arcee worried that she would cry because of it. Fully expecting just that, she moved closer to her mate and his cart, intending to quickly grab the baby. But before she could take a single step, Cybershock looked up at her, from her creator's lap. The bright grin clear across the baby's little metal face-plate, gave way to loud squeaks of laughter, while her legs kicked and she clapped her little hands together.
"Arcee!" Knockout exclaimed unexpectedly a moment later. He'd driven forward, away from the (thankfully undamaged) wall, and continued on a short ways down the corridor. His bondmate, who'd been behind him again, hurrying to catch up, so that she could walk beside him through the wider section of the corridor. But he stopped suddenly, lifting his foot from his power pedal entirely. And Acree, again to her great dismay, found herself nearly flying over the cart, after she'd banged right into the back of it, as he too quickly wheeled it around with the hand control to face her. His optics were so very bright with sudden excitement, that she wondered in all seriousness, if he had any idea at all that he had nearly tripped her up in the first place.
"How would you feel about living in our very own apartment together?" he asked quickly, his grin bright and filling his face-plate. "The rest of the bots left on this base are due to go to their own housing assignments any day now. I say we get ourselves on the list, get one of those apartments for ourselves. We'd have a balcony, and a view, Cybershock could have her own room. We'll paint it pink, fill it with toys and datapads, and her little basket can go by the window...!"
"We'd need an accessible wash station for one thing," Arcee said, brushing his enthusiasm off with a dismayed shake of her head. "Every door needs to be wide enough for your cart, not to mention adaptations to any cabinets and several things I can't even think off right this second..."
"Transferring by myself from recharge station to cart and back again was the one thing that truly held us back from independent housing," Knockout answered, smiling. "Now granted, I've done it one way, only once and I've never even tried to go back from cart to recharge station. I'll try that one tonight. And from here on, its all just practice makes perfect really. So it takes weeks longer for Ratchet to deem me good enough at this to be ready... It'll take far longer than that still to get the housing assignment, and then fit the place with accessibility adaptations!"
"You're... you're serious," Arcee said after a moment in which she had simply stared at him, blinking. And she realized for the first time, with her spark pounding away behind her chest panel, that indeed he was.
"Of course I'm serious," Knockout answered firmly. His silly grin was gone now, and his optics burned into hers with the familiar look he gave her, when he was truly determined to do something he wanted to do... when his mind was made up and he knew exactly what it was he wanted. His right arm and hand kept a firm hold on the baby, and they had since he'd left their living space with her. But he lifted the left one, just as much as he could up from his hand control, even if that was not much at all, motioning for his mate to give him her hand. And when she did so, he took it lightly, holding on just as well as he could do with uncoordinated and barely bending fingertips.
"We talked about our future home when we were first bonded," he said, gently reminding her. "You said we would never live on this base forever. That we'd have an apartment up in the high-rises, just like anybody else. And we wanted that so much. So let's do it, Arcee. I say our time is now."
"Okay" Arcee said back. The tone of her voice was lower now, serious and thinking all the while. "You keep it up with independent transfers for the next several days. Convince both me and yourself that you can really do this and you aren't going to hurt yourself, and we'll get us on the housing list."
"It'll be amazing," Knockout proclaimed. His level of enthusiasm was over the top again again. And he let go of Arcee's hand suddenly, placed his hand back on his hand control, whipped the cart about a full half turn to face the direction he should have been pointing to begin with, and raced off down the corridor, his youngling in his lap and his bondmate hurrying behind him. "It'll be just like we planned it. We'll have simple well matched furniture, tasteful grey paint for the walls, the hallway lined with photo displays. Arcee, it will ten times better then we we first planned it all, because we have our wonderful baby girl..."
"Knockout, watch out!" Arcee cried suddenly.
She had been in the midst of laughing happily at her bondmate's excitement. But she'd stopped that abruptly when a door flew open close by in the corridor and up ahead – a backdoor, that lead, in a round about way, eventually to the common room. Bulkhead hurried out out the door, huge feet tramping along with loud steady thumps and his face-plate turnied looking upward, clearly almost oblivious.
The cart was not very heavy a thing, relatively speaking; designed more for ease of handling and day to day transport than for anything involving any real power and force. And Bulkhead was a very large and stocky, solidly built bot indeed. But Knockout had been driving, perhaps faster than he should, have been indoors. And Bulk' had been in mid-step, when he'd walked right out into Knockout's path.
There was a loud ensuing bang, a nearly comical yowl of surprise from 'Bulk, a muttered string of curses from Knockout, and one more much louder bang, as time itself appeared to roll on in slow motion. Arcee, managed to stop the momentum of her own feet, just in time. And she watched in horrified dismay, as 'Bulk's feet left the floor entirely, the moment the cart's front and footrest hit his lower left leg, with an audible thump. The big green bot, clumsy as ever, managed somehow to fly right over top of the cart, which was still moving forward, while Knockout struggled, in shock, to lift his foot from the pedal quickly. Bulkhead landed behind it, close to face-down, and shaking his head in confusion, beside Arcee, who had barely managed to leap out of the way.
It looked of course, for a moment like the cart, might be knocked backwards. But it managed to rock just slightly on its wheels and steady again. 'Bulk slowly rolled himself over, winded slightly and groaning under his intakes, while Arcee, dazed, and shaking her head yet again, offered him a hand up. Her bondmate, still thankfully belted firmly into the cart with his lap belt, sat looking horrified, but otherwise okay. And it downed on her hard in the next second, that the youngling was still on her mate's lap, and she'd now taken one more, much more jolting impact. But after all that, Cybershock promptly burst out laughing again.
"And they say grounders never fly," Bulk exclaimed, with a chuckle of his own, a moment later, just as soon as he'd finished collecting his wits and standing upright.
"My fault, I fear," Knockout quickly admitted, still clearly embarrassed. He looked down at the youngling instead of making any optic contact with his teammate. "I was distracted and having a bit too much fun..."
"Well, I'm afraid, your too much fun morning might just be over for both of you," Bulk looked from Knockout to Arcee and back again, before he shook his head a little with a serious expression on his face-plate. "Ratchet's been hoping to talk to you guys. That mining disaster the other day... Looks like there's some bad news..."
Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
Firestorm knew perfectly well that a clifftop was far from the safest of places for her to be all alone. And she stood so dangerously close to the edge, besides. But still, Firestorm didn't feel like it was innately as unsafe as she may have been told. She knew, at least in general, when she might reboot within a moment or two, and in that moment she certainly did not feel a single sign of a reboot coming on. The young bot, kneeling on the ground for greater ease of movement, shuffled just slightly closer to the cliff's edge, and dared a look right over, and down to the yellow field of sulphur far below.
The wind picked up, suddenly. And it whipped over the cliff on which she sat, blowing hard against her frame from behind her, as though threatening to simply push her right off the edge.
Windstorm was dead. Offline, and gone forever, when once he'd said he'd never leave her. She'd quickly decided already that of course she didn't blame him for it. It never had seemed right to her to blame the dead for dying. And it certainly wasn't his choice or his fault. Ratchet had called for her earlier. He'd brought her to the little office he kept, tucked away beside the medbay. He'd chuckled while she snatched up a sweet from the little dish he kept on his desk. And the way he kept on chuckling, wringing his hands while she saved the sweet in her storage compartment for later, she'd known then his news was bad news he was putting off sharing.
Firestorm had supposed for all of a second that she could just blame Ratchet for her loss. He was the medic after all. Why had he not done enough? And when he thought he had, why had he not still done even more? But he had done everything he could, and she truly knew that. The old bot had quickly come to remind her of the grand-creator she had never had - an old bot prone to bad moods and aggravated muttering, but most often laughed and hummed old songs and told old stories to anyone who would stop to listen to him, and who truly did love what he did in life. No. It wasn't his fault. And she supposed it wasn't anybody's fault.
Firestorm opened her storage compartment to retrieve the wrapped energon sweet she'd put in there earlier. Fumbling a little, her hands constantly shaking as usual, she unwrapped it and put it quickly into her mouth. Iron flavoured. She remembered just how Windstorm had always hated the flavor as much as she loved it. She recalled instantly the look he would give her every time she choose that flavor, one of her favourites, in the little sweet shop at the edge of the city – how his face-plate would all but scrunch up entirely, in an over the top expression of just how much the flavor put him off. And she surprised herself by chuckling just a little at the memory of him that she knew she would never forget.
The wind gusted again, harder even then before, and Firestorm scooted back a little, away from the cliff's edge, almost fearing that the wind might just cause her to overbalance and to stumble dangerously. And as she moved, shuffling with practised efficiency across the ground backwards, on her backside, over the howling of the wind she heard the beat of wings. She looked up toward the sky, leaning oddly half backward in order to feel safe in doing so. And finally she spotted Laserbeak, who flew in wide and steady circles high above the cliff top and the path leading up to it. Firestorm, despite the general sadness she felt in her spark at her great and crushing loss, felt at least a small bit of excitement at the appearance of the bird. And she waved a slow greeting, sure that Laserbeak could indeed understand the gesture.
A bot followed the bird a moment later, a flyer with a strange jet mode like nothing she had ever quite seen before on Cybertron. And at once, she noted the dark purple and navy blue colours. Soundwave. She'd known he was a flyer. It was just vaguely obvious in the shape of his body – plus, he had no wheels. But it was never quite so easy to imagine what his alt form might have looked like exactly. And she had never seen him fly. He landed near the place where she sat, transforming as he did, probably because hes imply lacked a runway. And with one arm instantly extended before him, he caught his bird as she dove toward him with a cheery shriek.
"Firestorm – desiring of companionship?" he questioned slowly, hesitantly, in that usual strange yet somehow intriguing speech pattern of his.
He sat down on the ground, his long legs bent in front of him,, when she slowly nodded up at him. And Laserbeak hopped about a bit on the ground herself, likely just exploring, before she dove for the sky again and made another wide circle overhead.
"I'm sorry... 'bout tha otherday," Firestorm said, finding her voice and mumbling a bit more than she suddenly might have liked. She looked up at the larger bot, finding the rough place is optics must have been behind that face covering of his, and looked intently as she spoke. "Iupset-ya somehow... didn't mean ta."
Soundwave said nothing. But he did nod his head just a little, and his hand made the slightest gesture of assent. And she knew his intent to brush off her apology as unneeded. She smiled a second in undersanding.
"What ya doin' uphere?" she questioned, mostly curious, but slightly concerned at same time.
"Soundwave – seeking out Firestorm."
"Ya lookin'for mee?" Firestorm blinked her optics in surprise. "Why?"
"Intent – expression of condolences." It was obvious what Soundwave was trying to say. But it somehow sounded so strange and awkward. And Firestorm knew at once that he must have known it too. Because he lowered his head a little, his own optics probably looking back at her now, and he tried again. "I have heard the news about your brother. I'm sorry to hear of it."
She'd heard such things all day. Heard how so many bots were somehow sorry, how the knew the news was so obvious bad news, how they would help her however they could. It wasn't that she wasn't grateful. She was. But she'd heard it and heard it again until she'd grown so tired of hearing it, and she dreaded having to hear it yet again. And in fact, she;d come to the cliff top, partly just to get away from needing to hear it anymore. Somehow though, in a way she could not begin to understand, from Soundwave of any bot, it was different. From him 'I'm sorry' felt like it truly meant something.
"Thanks," she mumbled at him, meaning it.
"Soundwave – capable of listening..."
"I... I jus'still shocked by this Iguess," Firestorm spoke slowly, thinking a minute about what she should say. Realizing then that thinking could never work when she tried to speak only from her spark. "Three days'go Windstorm went off'ta work. He didit evr'y day. Thisone seemed no differ'nt. That'day tho... he get hurt, and twodays later he's dead. Ratchet says he prob'ly didn't feel any'ting. He didn't wakeup after he went ta powerdown." She sat quiet on the ground a moment, just looking up at the other bot, before she finally gave sad shrug of her shoulders and smiled just a little with her own understanding. "That's some'tin Iguess. Windstorm's sparkchamber wasnearly crushed complete'ly. Ratchet sayshis spark just fianllystop... of course itdid. Hewas hurt toobad to make it. Still... Ihopedso much..."
"Hope – not always a bad thing," Soundwave said.
"You'right," Firestorm smiled slightly again.
"Inquiry – where will you go?"
Where would she go? She'd asked herself that question several times so far, and still the answer never seemed to come to her. The Autobots had made it clear that she could stay on their base, and no one ever have given a time frame on that offer. But it hardly seemed a viable option long term. The apartment she'd lived in, cared for by her brother? She not could possibly live there by herself. Far too dangerous and she knew it. No. The place would soon be empty, their belongings packed up and most of it sold, and the apartment then reassigned to someone new. Bumblebee and Speedbreaker had hinted already, that she might wish to stay a while with them in their small home. It almost made sense. 'Bee was a medical student. Surely he could help her in her next bad rebooting episode... But they had a youngling on the way, and their place really was too small... Bulkhead had implied quite pointedly yet vaguely that his own housing assignment was due to come up any day, and that he might have been considering taking on a housemate. Bulk' was decent and all, a bot would would protect her at any cost and she knew it. But he chummed around far too much with Wheeljack. And that bot, while surely he would never do her any harm either, was loud and vulgar, and just plain bothered her much of the time. Besides, Firestorm could not imagine large amounts of her time spent in the company of a couple of ex-wreckers and their 'wrecker behaviour.'
"I... Idunno tha'yet," Firestorm mumbled. A sudden fear welled up inside her frame as she realized she truly didn't know. "tha'choice I guess is really upta me now... tha' one and somany other...
"Life decisions - not yours to make before?"
Soundwave's sudden, unexpected question, made Firestorm pause for a long moment, while she considered the answer. Funny, she realized slowly; she never had before then.
"'Course theywere..." she started to explain. But then she stopped again, and started over. "Well, yes an'no. Windstorm took'care 'a'me. Iaways, did wha'he tell metoo, go where he' say. Didn' go outmuch... not myself. An' I've neva worked... I want'd too. I usedta beg'im lemme have a job like you have..." Firestorm shook her head a little then, confused, unsure entirely of how to feel about the whole matter, now that she;d explained it. Finally she looked back at Soundwave again and mumbled with assurance, "Windstorm, meantwell. Ever'one men'well... 'cause they care for m'safety."
"Firestorm – have your own life's ambition?' Soundwave's next question was so strangely worded. But Firestorm thought at once she understood exactly what he'd meant.
"Ya'mean like do'I have a dream?" She asked quickly, confirming.
He nodded silently, and she just sat for a moment, looking out over the cliff's edge as a new gust of wind kicked up fine bits of metallic dust around her.
"Paint'n finish detail," she mumbled, smiling as she spoke of this out loud. "Allbots need repaintin' event'aly. And who doesn'tlike some polishin' shine. Thisnew city doesn' have a placeyet for any'a'this."
"Firestorm – business minded."
"Yeah... I'guessso. Maybe... If I'been differ'nt, not be'danaged..."
"Inquiry – would you let that be the circumstance that stopped you?"
Firestorm looked back out over the cliffs edge again. And for a long and dragging moment, she just sat like that, thinking, questioning silently. She asked herself it it really did matter as much as she'd always just assumed. And she wondered to herself if maybe she could be someone on her own. Her optics travelled slowly back to Soundwave again, and she watched him slowly lower his head a little, obviously in some silent thought of his own. And she blinked up at him, confused, when he slowly moved to take the reflective darkened cover from it's place over his always hidden face-plate.
She blinked again, in shocked dismay, at the state of whatever remained of the bot's utterly destroyed face-plate. Parts of it were melted away to bare and charred wiring. The mouth was so close to completely ruined, she wondered if he could smile, and wondered in amazement at the idea that he could still speak perfectly well. One optic blinked against the sunlight and closed almost at once, while the other just stared without focus roughly in her direction.
"Wh... wha' happened to...?" Firestorm began to questionslowly, speaking with an even tone, and fearing only for her companion's own inner conflict – as she knew at once he surely must have had some then.
"Undefeated in the fighting pits of Kaon – One day I lost."
Firestorm, born and raised on a small refugee ship that sailed the stars, still new to life on her own home world, had been hidden away from the war. And the long age before that, was all just history to her. She'd heard a great deal of those times yes. But it was always only stories. Tales of conflict and corruption,and civil unrest, told by old bots that had left the planet when they were already old enough to remember it well. Sometimes she would listen intently, with wonder in her optics, and those times long past sounded so amazing, exciting and almost glamorous to her. Other times, she would feel only fear at the stories. And she'd sit at the feet of those old bots, hands over her closed optics, listening still because the fear of at all still thrilled her somehow.
She heard about the pits of Koan too, somewhere among so many other stories of the past. She'd thought it was sad, but still it was what it was, and it was also long past by then. But hearing of it now, hearing it from some bot who had lived it, survived with the damage that would effect his life forever... she felt a new feeling of rage at the very idea. Her rage gave way to tears of coolant, which mixed fast with new tears, for her now dead brother, who she knew might have taken her away by now, only to protect her from something he thought might scare her. And she cried a couple tears more at just understanding that if he were still here, if he had done just that, she might told him no that time.
"Ya fixable?" she questioned. The evenness of her voice considering her crying, surprised her. And she wiped quickly at the few stray tears with the back of one hand.
"Ratchet – believes repair possible."
"Tha'good news..." Firestorm smiled then, but Soundwave did not react. Strange. He'd not seemed to react in the least to her tears either.
"Greatest source of personal fear – invasive medical repairs."
"Oh. We... we'll workit'out. Ratchet canhelp ya. Hegood a'that..."
Soundwave said nothing in reply to that. But he did nod slightly in what she could assume may have been thanks. He moved then to place the covering he still held in his hand, back over his face-plate.
"Doesn' disturb me'any," Firestorm said quickly, trying hard to make sure he knew it truly didn't, because somehow it felt like that was important. But strangely from here, he shook his head, while his hand made a conflicting gesture that may have meant agreement. It mattered, yet it didn't? She blinked again in confusion.
"Wait..." she mumbled realization at last, as Soundwave finished replacing his face-plate covering. The small clues she should have picked up on and had not caught up to her at last, and she almost laughed at her own bafflement over it all. "Ya can'tsee... wellnot without your..."
She understood then, what it was he'd meant to prove to her in his unexpected action. His own survival, high in rank among a faction known only for its brutally, while damaged himself, and also blinded... It spoke to her of true determination, of refusing to give up and simply die, where many bots may have. And she smiled up at him again, in silent thanks.
Shuffling carefully across the ground a little, to sit much closer to him, she watched in sad dismay as he moved just slightly himself, his frame growing tense, just as though he would quickly move away. But he didn't. Moving even slower, sensing a strange kind of uncertainty from him, Firestorm reached for his left hand with her right. And she sat closer now to the cliff's edge again, holding gently to his fingertips, and smiling for a moment.
"I called ya'good the otha'day," she said slowly. "Iguess that upset ya some'how. I can'tsay I knowwhy yet... but still Imeant it..."
Soundwave nodded once in clear understanding.
"Thank you, Firestorm," he said simply, long after she had stopped thinking he may say anything at all.
The wind gusted yet again, howling for just a moment over the top of the cliff, blowing up more dust than before all around their seated bodies. And for some reason, one that made no sense at all to her, that gust of wind and the billowing of fine metal dust, was just enough to make her sad again. She remembered suddenly that her brother, who had cared for her, and had practically raised her from a youngling, was really gone forever. There had been just a few tears moments before yes. That that was hardly enough to overcome her feelings. And before she could help it, she cried again. This time it was a steady stream of coolant, that flowed from both of her blue optics, enough that the view of anything around her quickly blurred. Her body trembled from far more than just her processor damaged and she felt as though her spark might break in seconds.
And with his own uncertainty clear in his slow, hesitant movements, Soundwave pulled her toward him, wrapped his arms tightly over her small, and just sat saying nothing while she went on crying.