Thundercracker was human again, and Alexis, she was the same. He went to her and she embraced him, taking the protection and comfort that he offered without any objection. Thundercracker spoke to her, soothing her, his voice low, his words shifting languages as she eased against him.

"You speak French?" she asked at one point, by then the two of them were in a bathtub. She was leaning against his chest and listening to him speak to her, her small body comfortably placed between his knees. There was no water, but that didn't seem odd, nor did the idea that Alexis was stroking his legs, her fingers tracing lines down them, fingernails provocatively scraping.

"I can speak any language you want," TC husked. His hands shifted down her arms, balancing on top of her own. He began to speak Russian and then Italian, then went into a moment of ancient Hebrew as he thought of her origins before easily shifting back into English. "Tell me which you prefer."

She leaned her head back, bringing one of his arms more snug against her waist as she drew closer against him. "It doesn't matter," she breathed while taking his hand and moving it along. Alexis moaned and heaved out a tight breath. "No matter how you say it..." she shifted again, her hands clenching his wandering fingers tight before releasing them. "... it makes me tingle all the same."

Alexis turned around to face him. He pushed the hair out of her face, one of his fingers swiping along her lower lip before his mouth took its place. She was eager and Thundercracker needed her. And when they joined, he was careful but insistent. He had her as a Cybertronian, his energy moving and pushing as his pulsing human body remained hot and still against her own. So focused on having her, it wasn't until the pleasure mounted and the release came that he remembered that when humans came together as they physically were that they had motion and friction to reach their conclusions. He became unsettled that he might not have pleased her properly, uneasy when he realized he didn't know how to go about it. But his human body seemed brimming with instinct and had gotten him this far, and the Seeker had seen enough human coupling in some of the camps he had to go to to understand the underlining concept.

His thoughts tumbled out of his head when he saw his reflection on the nearby wall. His face stared back at him, but it wasn't his own. It was someone he had never seen before, and yet he knew whom it belonged to... Starscream.

And when she whispered his name in encouragement, no, not his name, but his trinemate's, he found his point of view swapped out and changed as he was forced to watch what Starscream was beginning to do.

Understanding where he was, he terminated his recharge cycle.

Thundercracker wasn't prone to dreams. But leaving Earth had broken something inside of him, opening a level within him that allowed his subconscious thoughts and fears to wrestle through him as he recharged.

He couldn't stop thinking about her. And it was when he did manage to, or convince himself that he had, that the dreams came.

Mostly, he worked out his unresolved tension he felt toward her, and had been forced to control as Timothy. Being around Alexis, touching her, talking to her, feeling her squished against him, or breathing lightly against his neck, he didn't know how he dealt with it so reasonably, but then, he had her near him and that had been enough.

Now, now he felt unhinged. He hadn't minded the dreams at first, not when the lust he denied for too long was allowed free rein. Cybertronians didn't dream like humans though, their processor dealt with it just as if they were awake, handled it as if it was real. In a way, it all was.

And he saw her there. Felt her there in more ways than he had allowed himself to imagine. His recharge cycles became longer as he lost himself in the world he had created into his head, a place where she lived and breathed with him, a place where she shared his berth and had forgotten about his deception. It was enough, at first.

But the more he dreamed, the more distorted and disturbing the dreams became, and being with her as Starscream shattered his addiction and allowed his logical yet suddenly underused portion of his mind to break through the self-delusion.

"Are you leaving again?" Rivet questioned Thundercracker.

The Seeker hadn't recharged in well over two weeks, and he wasn't going to until he was able to manage his downtime better. His separation from her was straining his circuits, but he would learn to manage. He had to. What he did to her was of his own making, and even if everything got well out of hand, it made him understand certain things about himself, things he thought himself incapable of.

"Yes," Thundercracker addressed the medic.

The doctor had remained onboard Thundercracker's cruiser since they departed the Supremacy. TC now knew more about the medic than he did then, both from research and because Rivet had a gregarious nature that was growing the farther they got from the Decepticon army. He loved to talk and didn't mind departing personal information either.

He wasn't the only one residing on TC's ship. His personal squadron that had remained onboard while he had been assigned to Earth still resided there, giving him the ability to leave when he needed to, while knowing he always had somewhere to return. But the ship hadn't been his home in some time, and while he didn't feel out of place, it was just taking longer than he would have thought of to adjust.

"Alexis is alive, you know," the medic offered Thundercracker the encouragement, even as the Seeker saw his observant optics sweeping over his form.

"Yes, I know, you told me yourself."

"I don't understand then. You've been on edge of late, what you need is..."

Thundercracker cut him of with a wave of a hand and a grimace, "You are a guest on board this ship, not the residing medic."

"I just want to be of some use," Rivet shrugged his shoulder panels, hands folding firmly over his chassis.

"Then find whatever you are looking for and depart this ship."

Those stern words silenced the doctor. TC had an inkling of what the medic was looking for, and used it as a weapon. He could not have Rivet intruding into his life, not with what he needed to do.

"I could go with you this time," Rivet offered. "I know this planet. I was here thirty mega-cycles ago with..." his optics dimmed, and he cut of his words. Frowning hard, he looked back up. When he spoke next his words were guarded and unconvincingly light. "Maybe you're right. I will stay here. There are so many things that need straightening out and cataloged... how many years has it been since you were here?"

"Enough," TC allowed. "There is no need to maintain orbit, make sure that you leave as soon as I land."

"Are you going somewhere after this?"

"Yes."

"No, I don't have any Trinolixx," the thin gray vendor said. Like all humanoids, he was small, but his six pairs of arms gave him a larger quality that seemed to amplify his jarring voice. Three eyes lifted and suspiciously washed over the Seeker, landing on his insignia that resided on his left wing. "And I don't do business with Cons." He pointed high up while jabbing his thick finger forward in the air several times.

Thundercracker saw right through his words. The Bvendailian did not come meet him in the middle of some organic overgrown jungle to let him know he had nothing to sell.

"I can pay double."

The vendor thought about that momentarily. "No. Doing business with Cons isn't business at all. The last time I dealt with one of your kind, they got the merchandise and then stole back the Creds. I understand now why you didn't let me see you on the Vid screen."

"I can pay in water."

"What grade?"

"Ninety-eight percent pure."

The Bvendailian shook his bulbous head, one of his hands slicking his long hair back. Water was a rarity among his people, but his kind were not adaptable or smart enough to figure out how to produce the liquid on their planet that did not create the substance on its own. But they used it in religious ceremonies and the rich drank it like wine. It was highly sought after.

"There are no water sources in this sector," the vendor said with hardly masked suspicion.

"Maybe as far as your ship can go," TC said, looking down at the small dilapidated craft that didn't deserve the right of flight.

"How many units?"

"Enough to fill your ship to the brim. Now, do you have Trinolixx, or not?"

The Bvendailian grinned, understanding that he was about to be very rich. "No, but I can get some."

TC had been lucky finding the Trinolixx so easily. Finding the rest of what he was looking for was going to be anything but. And continuing as he was wasn't going to work either. Soon enough, someone would put together what he was acquiring and maybe, if they were astute enough, even understand what he was trying to do with it all. Getting everything was going to take a lot of resources and time. Fortunately, he had contacts he could put into use, and Creds hadn't been a problem since he became an Elite Seeker.

Thundercracker would finish getting the components, maybe even manage to upgrade his ship with them before anyone got any wiser. What he was doing was necessary now, and worth the dangers it involved. He would not stop until it was done, or he was terminated.

Having a goal in his mind helped him get through each day, having a purpose helped him forget about how isolated he had become. He would make it an obsession if he had to, anything so that he didn't have to keep seeing the human female everywhere he looked.

"What is that?"

Thundercracker looked down, astounded by what he saw. They were three sectors over and too many light-years away from Earth for what he saw to be real, but by the sound of them, they were.

The female glanced up at him, noticed who and what he was, and then brought her head back up with a pronounced snap of the neck. "I... they are..." She stood to her feet, nervously shooed her children away from her outside marketplace table and became to lightly tremble.

"A group of hewmans came through a week ago and traded with me, they left these..." She crossed her hands over her lean chest, violet eyes burning with fear, her blue flesh turning an off colored green. Managing a quick exhaling, she calmed herself. "...dawgs."

"Dog," he corrected.

"They are very soft... my lord, and I am told they can be trained, and are smart... for animals." She stroked one of their heads; it nipped at her finger and wagged its tail. The other three joined in, pawing at the Rinolhahx female to get attention.

One of them wagged its tail more than the others while staring at him with an intelligence that shouldn't have been possible. He bent forward and swiped a hand over the small crate. Three of the puppies whined and cowered, one peed in the corner while the smallest kept his tiny brown eyes fixed on Thundercracker, tail wagging so hard that it beat a rhythm against the metal bars of the pen.

"How much," he pointed at the smallest who was now boldy licking his extended digit.

"I... I..." The Rinolhahx heaved out a shaky breath. "Free, for you, my lord."

"No."

Her head shot up, fear growing as she grabbed hold to the edge of the table. In the shadows behind her, he noticed the children peering out with interest from behind a draped backroom. "No? I..."

"I will pay."

The dealer was astounded by the suggestion, but she managed to shake her head and pick up one of the animals.

"No, that one." He pointed down at the smallest.

"That one is a female, my lord."

"And?"

Not foolish enough to argue any further, the female picked up the small dog and placed it in a box and on the table. Leaving the box, he picked up the animal and brought it up to optic level. It was small, too small. But now that he had it, he was going to have to return to the ship.

"You leave for three weeks and you return with a dog?" Rivet stared at the overstimulated bundle of fur that ran back and forth on his examining table. TC never gave the medic permission to clear out one of his empty rooms for a medical bay, but now he was starting to see the benefit of having a medic around.

"It's a German Shepherd. A just weened female. It will need shots, and it will need some food. I have already researched exactly what kind and how much. For now, you will see to it. It will also need to be trained for proper waste disposal."

The doctor gaped, and his servos dropped limply along his sides. "Waste disposal?"

"Yes." TC managed a small smirk. "As in any mistakes it makes, you will be cleaning up."

"Wait a minute, you get an animal, and I have to take care of it?"

"You wanted something to do. I am giving it to you. I will return shortly with some needed supplies and then will take over the training myself."

"You're serious."

"Yes." He handed the doctor a data pad. "Here is the info on this breed's personality traits and capabilities, study it, and you can't fail."

"You are serious. I wouldn't have expected this of you, although I never expected you to..." he smartly stopped with his out loud reasoning. "I will take care of her." He shrugged his shoulder panels. "Can't be harder than taking care of destructive Decepticons. By Primus, if I had a Cred for every injury I had to repair that could have been avoided." Rivet stepped closer to the table and stuck his digit out. Immediately, the dog went up to it and sniffed it. Sneezing, the animal returned to the area of the table where Thundercracker stood nearby.

"What's her name?"

"Does she need a name?"

"To help in training, yes."

"You choose."

With that, Thundercracker carefully touched the dog one more time on the head. When he walked away, the puppy started to whine immediately. Feeling strangely eased by the sound, the Seeker banished his questions regarding his attainment of the seemingly insignificant dog.