Where are you?
Footsteps move swiftly down the corridor toward Thundercracker's private rooms.
Why aren't you here?
The blue seeker's telemetry has gone haywire, and Megatron dreads what he will see when he enters Thundercracker's private rooms.
I feel so alone.
Echo is on her way but gets held up by a client.
Can't feel you.
"I knew it," He grumbles when he stops outside the door. Thundercracker isn't ready to face this last obstacle. The spark-deep trauma the blue seeker has suffered regarding the sires belonging to his frame type is still too raw for him to handle, even after this long a time. And why wouldn't it be?
Why?
Facing sires belonging to his frame type only refreshes the painful memory of the countless sparklings that have been stolen from the blue seeker during his enslavement.
It hurts.
Composing himself, Megatron takes a deep breath and opens the door.
"Thundercracker?" He asks as he steps inside, looking around. Activating the light on a low setting, he searches the main room.
It is empty except for the neatly stacked datapads on a small table. Everything in the room is in perfect order, as Megatron has come to expect from the blue seeker, and he moves towards the smaller rooms connected with the main room.
When he finally finds Thundercracker, the blue seeker is huddled into the far corner of the berth room, clutching his chestplates and midsection painfully while whispering nonsense.
"Thundercracker?" He murmurs as softly as he can. Despite the urge to go to the seeker, he remains at the door, knowing that his presence only will worsen the situation. At times like this, he feels so useless, which is why he is coddling the seeker, as Echo tends to say, to prevent it from happening in the first place.
"Where is she?" Thundercracker whimpers, looking up at Megatron with his bright pain-filled yellow optics.
"Echo is on the way," He answers powerlessly, knowing that it isn't the psychologist that Thundercracker is talking about.
A few minutes later, there is a gentle knock on the outer door as Echo arrives. Megatron shares a glance with the psychologist before he slowly withdraws from the doorway to the berth room and allows Echo to get to Thundercracker.
Retreating to the main room, he sits down at the small table. Thundercracker is in good hands, and Megatron can only wait to see if Echo needs his assistance with anything.
It isn't the first time this has happened, but it has been a while since the last seizure had happened. It is a frequent occurrence among the clients that they get flashbacks, some of which can get rather violent and require immediate intervention to prevent the clients from harming themselves, which is why they monitor them so closely.
The minutes tick by while he patiently waits and more than an hour has passed when Echo finally emerges from the berth room.
"He is recharging now," The psychologist states softly.
"I told you that this would happen," Megatron growls in a low whispering voice as not to risk waking Thundercracker.
"I know, and I expected it to happen," Echo answers calmly. "It is a part of the recovery phase. Until now, he has buried everything regarding the loss of his sparklings. When he chose to become Skywarp's mentor, he finally began to open up. It is not an easy process, and he has buried a lot of pain that he now has to face."
"How can we help him? And is he even able to function as a mentor for Skywarp?" Megatron asks in frustration.
"I intend to work on Skywarp and Thundercracker simultaneously," Echo explains with a small smile. "There are still some weeks until Skywarp has to meet his assigned mentor. In those weeks, I will be running various tests and simulations to see how Skywarp reacts in specific situations. He is unaware of his surroundings during those simulations, and Thundercracker can meet him on his own terms without having to go into a direct interaction."
"And if he still isn't ready?" Megatron adds, still not convinced that Thundercracker can overcome his worst remaining trauma.
"Then I have Serenity as back-up for Skywarp," The psychologist says and touches Megatron's shoulder reassuringly. "This is Thundercracker's choice, and you know that the recovery process isn't linear. Issues will arise and we deal with them as they come. He is going to be fine."
"I hope you are right," Megatron sighs.
In a different section of the rehabilitation facility, Skywarp is settling in.
His talk with the director had gone well despite his surprise at the sight of Megatron. He doesn't know what he had expected, but to be met with someone who can subdue even the most troublesome gladiator from his time at the arena was not it.
Megatron had brought a chair with him, and the large sire had sat down on it and casually slung his feet on the chair in front of the desk, adopting a calm, non-threatening appearance.
And then they had talked.
Megatron had after a while slowly steered their talk away from Skywarp's hope for the future and into the more painful questions about what he had experienced. He had reminded Skywarp that he at any point had the option to refuse to answer if it got too painful. While they talked, Megatron had patiently taken his time to answer Skywarp's curious questions, and he had learned that Megatron had been a gladiator at a Senate-sanctioned arena before he got offered to become the director of D-14.
"They had plenty of psychiatrists and psychologists, but no one who knew what the victims might have experienced." The director had explained, and at his following words, a fond smile had slowly formed on Megatron's lips: "On my way to the meeting where I had intended to say no to the offered position, I practically floored a light blue seeker that walked straight into me. I met him again at the meeting and, to my surprise, learned that he had been a victim of slavery. When I heard his history, I could not say no, and D-14 was a reality."
A few hours after the talk, Sonar had informed him that he would be moved out of the detention center and into more permanent accommodations. A few more hours had passed, and then Sonar had been there to unlock his door and lead him to his new location.
Stepping outside the detention center, he had been surprised to see the desert in every direction he looked. And he had been even more surprised to realize that SD-394, under which jurisdiction D-14 functions, is an airbase.
"D-14 is specialized in rehabilitating flight frames." Sonar had explained while Skywarp had stared mesmerized at the fliers soaring in the air.
Lying down on the berth and staring out of the window in his berth room, he slowly enters recharge to the peaceful sight of the star-filled sky and a spark-deep feeling of hope for the future.