Hopelessness could be as definitive as death.

Alexis' life had become a nightmare. A terrible state that shifted in between shadows and reality, warbling past sanity and horrifying truth before settling into a surreality that blurred the boundaries of what was real and what she desperately wanted to be real.

It would have been easier to go mad.

She couldn't stop herself from the mantra in her head, a terrible little set of words that would come unbidden whenever clarity came, reminding her, even as she wished it was true, how much of a coward she was.

I wish I were dead.

Death would have been easier than facing the truth, than thinking about a future. She still couldn't believe how quickly Airaih died, how little time they had together, how God, despite her prayers, despite falling onto her knees in trust and supplication, could allow a thing to happen to someone she loved. A fate that felt so much worse than the loss of her planet. She really, truly had the faith that Airaih would live.

Vulnerable and torn, Alexis poorly coped. She slept as often as possible and avoided what had happened, refusing to talk about it more than she needed to. She hurt terribly, suffered every day that she woke up with the truth of her new reality of one.

She missed Airaih, couldn't stop thinking about him, the pain of loss shaking her foundation and leaving her bereft and hollowed out. Yes, she still functioned. Still felt things happening around her with an awareness that she could have done without.

She only agreed to go with Thundercracker and Sideswipe after she found out how dangerous the mission was going to be. And while she understood that Cybertronians were being killed because of The Line, she couldn't bring herself to feel sympathy, although strangely she wanted to help. Her emotions though, were far from normal. She knew that when she saw the Seekers on the Autobot ship for the time, realized that when she was told of the new planet that had been picked out. Withdrawn and somber, Alexis understood how hard it was to live, how cold and unrelenting the galaxy was. Apparently suffering had not been reserved just for the planet Earth, but the rest of the universe as well.

"I know things are hard for you right now, but once you have adjusted to life onboard The Relentless, you will find that your tragedy does not have to go unanswered."

Shoulders pinching tight, it took Alexis a moment to realize where she was, another for her eyes to focus. She was sitting on a couch in May's quarters, the older woman, who Alexis felt looked more like a child, sitting directly across from her. May was Asian in origin, shorter than Alexis by an inch or two, seemingly kind and entirely empathetic. May was one of a small group that was in charge of what happened aboard the stolen Deception war ship. She was also the one that had intervened during their arrival on the ship, allowing Alexis to keep her weapon under reasonable conditions. May had also been the one to first show them around the ship with an enthusiasm that felt more calculated than gracious.

Alexis didn't trust her at all.

This was the third time this week she had been invited to May's quarters. The woman talked a lot. The topics were so far away from what had supposedly brought Alexis to the ship that when her words finally registered in her brain, the undercurrent of malevolence hardening what was just said, Alexis' attention was gained.

"I lost my husband as well," May suddenly said, a grim frown straightening her mouth. There didn't seem to be even a modicum of sadness in her words, just a cold statement of fact. "He was captured and forced into one of the camps. He didn't last two weeks."

"What happened?" Alexis found herself asking.

"He tried to escape. He failed," May informed her. "The first Decepticon that got introduced to The Line was the overseer of that camp. He did not receive the mercy killing that my husband did." A flicker of a smile stretched the woman's mouth, a sharpening of brown eyes.

Alexis could have stayed on the Autobot ship and grieved and tried to move on. Instead, she was with people whose hearts were marred with revenge and hatred. Alexis shivered, feeling the unpleasantness of it all, cringed when she felt a momentary longing for such reprisal.

May's comm device went off. She stood to her feet after answering it. Grabbing some bottles of homemade nutritional supplement, she handed them to Alexis.

"Be sure to drink these, Alexis. You are far too thin."

Alexis took the bottles and wandered the long dim corridors of the ship until she reached her provided quarters. Putting the bottles on a small table next to other unused ones, she slumped on a cot and curled inside herself and waited.

Alexis didn't have many activities on board the ship. Nor did she involve herself with much that happened. Didn't join the others to eat, although she really did try at first, got as far as the dining hall before the sounds of voices and activities had her returning quickly back to the quietness of her quarters. It wasn't like she wanted to eat anyway.

To find the area she was in now took three days. The spacious room was dark, ominous and never used. She now knew when activity on the ship waned, which was when she left her quarters to walk through mostly empty corridors. The ship's hallways themselves were dark, and even with lights added it was apparent that Decepticons preferred their ship to be veiled in darkness.

Activating the cylinder holo-device, her heart rapped tightly against her chest when the form of her husband materialized and stepped forward. Airaih had created several tutorials for her when he had been away from her trying to catch and stop the Decepticons on Renth. The lessons were interactive and the sound of his voice telling her to extend her staff as he took a defensive position and waited for her to do the same was enough for liquid to build in her eyes, for her hands to shake.

Alexis had almost completed his thorough teachings. When she was done, Alexis would repeat them again. If she allowed herself, if she looked at the projection just so, he looked so real despite the subtle transparency of his form. So many times she had frozen his form and stood before him and desperately tried to touch him.

Sucking in a deep breath, straightening her back and releasing her staff with a quick twist of her wrist, she began her lesson.

She should have been startled to find Thundercracker in her quarters after leaving the shower. But one of the things that had been decided was the door that joined their rooms was to be left unlocked and usually open, a precaution for where they were and the danger of their task. Alexis hadn't argued when that decision was made, and still found she couldn't bring herself to care.

Walking past him, she sat on her bed and began to comb through her wet hair.

He stayed where he was and watched her. Several minutes passed like that, enough time that when he spoke she had forgotten that he was there.

"You aren't eating."

Pausing for a flick of a second, Alexis continued to braid her hair.

He took a step closer.

"You need to eat," he said, his voice more firm.

Alexis finished up her braid and stood with intentions of making him leave. Black spots assaulted her eyes, worse than when she had left the hot shower. It wasn't until everything seemed to shift backwards that she felt the press of hands on her back that kept her from falling completely. Her hands flailing out wildly, Thundercracker was forced to release her. Alexis slumped to her knees.

"Leave," Alexis managed, her tongue felt thick and her mouth was dry. Her order was ineffective.

"I will leave once you eat something," he informed her calmly.

Huffing at that, Alexis slowly, awkwardly got to her feet. She had felt this way before, but not so intense. She sat back on the cot. Thundercracker didn't move, his focus unrelenting.

"Go away," Alexis insisted, covering her eyes with her hands so she didn't have to see him, so that he would get the idea to go away.

"Once you meet my conditions, I will."

This wasn't the first time Sideswipe or he tried to get her to eat something. This time, however, she knew it wasn't going to be as easy to get rid of him. Lying on the cot, Alexis closed her eyes tightly.

Sleep was elusive. Thundercracker remained. She felt him like an unrelenting fog. She tried to ignore him, but agitation merely grew. Sitting back up, glaring at him, Alexis grabbed one of the provided supplement drinks, unscrewed the cap and drank it like a glutton, the liquid spilling down her chin. She ignored his warnings and didn't sip it as he told her to.

The liquid was too sweet, too thick, it's fragrance a form of assault on its own. Managing to finish most of the bottle before her now shrunken stomach protested, she threw it at TC. He caught it with unrivaled dexterity.

The world was spinning again, no, her stomach was. She had just enough time to get to her feet and fall in front of the toilet before everything she had just drank expelled violently out of her mouth.

If she wasn't sleeping, training, talking to May or exploring the ship, she was settled on the viewport near where she practiced, staring out into space. For reasons unknown, doing so helped immensely. She had to arrange some of the crates and boxes she had found in the room to be able to reach the rim of the window, but it had been worth it.

Alexis could stare out of it for hours. She could fall asleep doing so, and when she did her dreams were almost comforting. A week and a half had passed since she and the others came onboard the ship. She felt physically better because for the last couple of days she had been forcing herself to eat since she didn't want to repeat such exhaustive throwing up, or continue having people hounding her.

"Why do you do that?" Sideswipe had found and asked her just that morning, startling her. She felt completely unnerved in his ability to find her, making her paranoid and question whether anyone had followed her to where she practiced. The intrusion would have been too much.

"I want to float away," Alexis told him.

"Where to?"

"Away," she repeated.

"Away from what?"

"Everything."

There was a thick pause. For a moment she thought he was going to come up to where she was. He didn't, and for that Alexis was immeasurably grateful.

"I, that is..." he began, his words strangely lacking cohesiveness. She turned and looked down at him. His attention seemed to be on his boots, his hands clenching along his legs. "About Airaih, I never told you how..."

She didn't listen to the rest of his words. Alexis had heard them too many times from too many people. And even if it was coming from him, and in a more roundabout manner, him whom she would have never expected them to come from, she started to wonder how many had spoken such consolatory words and actually meant them. She was sure that he did not. Perhaps he was sorry for what had happened to her, but not that she was now alone. Alexis didn't miss the way he looked at her when he thought she didn't see.

Now back in her room with her tablet lit up, she stared at the stretch of shadows it created that seemed more diverting than the book she had been trying to read.

Her thoughts were far away when the soft pinging from the adjoining door was heard. Shifting so that her back was facing the door, she turned her tablet off and feigned sleep.

"I have something for you, Alexis," Sideswipe said through the door. "Can I come in?"

He knew she wasn't sleeping then.

"Alexis?"

She wasn't so far gone that she could ignore him this time. Alexis stumbled to her feet and waved her hand in front of the sensory panel. The door slid open.

He and Thundercracker shared a room. She thought one would have killed the other by now. But their desire to end The Line obviously outweighed their always tangible malice toward one another. Both had done far more regarding The Line than she had and it made her feel as if some sort of personified key that only served to open a door. Alexis could have made more of an effort, she knew that, but right now getting out of bed was hard enough.

"I made something for you."

He came toward her all eagerness and energy. He sat down on the cot with her and lifted his palm outward, a small vial resting on it.

"To help you float away."

He was watching her intently, waiting for her to grab the liquid-filled apparatus. Not moving, he pressed his thumb down on the tip. A needle extended.

"I can..." He motioned toward her person, indicating her arm.

"You've made me... narcotics?" She looked at him, shifted away and frowned hard.

He nodded his head vigorously, confusion settling on his face.

"You said..."

"I know what I said," she interrupted him, staring at him again, because really, truly, he thought he was doing something good. Blue eyes lit up under her scrutiny. "But this..."

The confusion increased. Sideswipe's shoulders lifted and his body stiffened from the tone of her voice. "I made it myself. It won't hurt you, and if you only use it when needed, dependence will not set in," he explained to her, believing that was why she hesitated.

"Sideswipe..."

At the sound of his name leaving her mouth, he shuddered and stilled. When he spoke again, his words were bitterly soft, "Why do you not let me help you? You listen to Timothy. You allow him to help you. Why is my help so blatantly rejected?"

"That's not true."

He barked out a laugh at that, his fingers clenching over the small cylinder.

"He got you to eat again. It was even he, was it not, that convinced you to come here at all?"

Now knowing where he was getting all that from, she shook her head.

"Just because I don't want to take drugs does not mean I don't..." She stopped because what she was about to say would be a lie. Alexis tried again, "I'm having a hard time accepting anyone's help right now. Really, all I need is to be left alone."

"No." The cot creaked as he turned to face Alexis better. "I will not leave you alone." The intensity in his suddenly warmed inflections was unexpected, the blaze in his eyes distressing. "I can't pretend to know what you are going through right now, but I know that this is not the answer. And maybe forcing you to come here was entirely self-serving, but we could use you. You think I want to be here with Timothy? I do not. And you staying in your room dejected all day is getting us nowhere. If you actually helped..."

"I got you here," Alexis cut him off, and tried to speak further but he didn't allow her to.

"Airaih is dead, Alexis. Nothing you do, no matter how you feel, he isn't coming back. Purge your recollections of him, bury them, do whatever it takes for you to move past what you went through. No one is worth such self-designated misery. And I..." He floundered in frustration and made a motion of reaching for her hand. She tugged it back. Sideswipe flinched and scowled, a hint of a growl emanating from his throat.

If he didn't leave, she was going to start crying in front of him, and Alexis wouldn't allow that, not with the cruelty of his words that still echoed in her head.

Sideswipe didn't leave. His unnecessary persistence galvanized the trembling in her limbs, her mouth opening with a firm command, "Stop this!" The words came out a hiss, and she found herself standing on her feet, her gaze narrowing on the Autobot as if a target. "Airaih was kind. He was good. I've never met someone as purehearted as he. He gave without asking. He was a part of me, and him dying was like my heart was carved out of my chest, like my soul was splintered. You don't forget someone like this! You don't erase them out of your memories!" she half shrieked, the shrill sound of her voice unfamiliar.

She took another step closer, forcing him to look up at her. His bright blue eyes narrowed on her form. He gulped hard.

"The misery? It's all I have left. And as much as it hurts and tears me apart, as much as it drags me down and drains me out, at least at the worst of it I can feel him. You really should think things through before you say things, some day..."

Suddenly, like a coiled snake, he sprang up and toward her. Alexis stood her ground with the strength of her anger.

"Think things through?" he scoffed at her words, bitterness crackling along his statement. "I've done my research. You need to face what's happened to you, not deny it or divert it. And If I didn't think things through I would have you on that excuse for a recharge birth trying to figure out how to press my body inside yours. Because it's reassurance that you need, confirmation that you are..."

Alexis tried to push him back and walk away only to be thwarted by Sideswipe catching her arm. His eyes flickered to where his fingers bunched around her elbow, then to her mouth and then her eyes. He dropped her arm and backed away.

"I only want to be of some assistance," he finally offered, the words coming out as if he couldn't believe them himself. Sideswipe stepped away, picked up the vial and turned back around to face her. "Apparently though, I don't know how to go about this," he relented, his inflections troubled and remarkably gentle. "I've never been good at social interactions, at empathy or even sympathy." His tone sharpened. "But I am trying, Alexis. With you, I want to try."

"I... I know."

At her unexpected acknowledgment his hands squeezed so tightly around the slim rod he was holding that she expected it to shatter. He refused to look at her, as if his previous words had exposed something raw and precious.

"You're really not like your brother," Alexis suddenly said.

He frowned at that, then slowly leveled his overbearing attention on her. "He and I are more alike more than you could possibly understand, Alexis." His words were cold and crisp and jagged, almost sounding like a threat. But she heard a strain in his utterance. "It's how we approach things, how we respond..." He frowned harder, as if he wanted to explain something. His fingers twitched through his raven hair, the reddened highlights muted under the low lighting. He looked uncomfortable, something that in the next blink of an eye Alexis was sure she had imaged. But with the way he excused himself and left her room, his movements rigid and graceless, maybe she hadn't.