Ratchet sighed, taking in a slow and calm intake as he stepped outside, through the sliding door of the hospital. It had been a long day – much of it inside the walk-in clinic. But he'd seen to at least two dozen bots that day – returning refugees mostly – looking over badly twisted wires and a couple of rusted joints, treating hissing intake pumps and blurring optics... And by now the sun was setting on his world.

The old medic hummed to himself under his intakes – pleased with the day and the work he had done, despite his exhaustion. And leaning lightly against the handrail of the ramp leading up to the hospital's door, he took a moment to simply enjoy the cool evening air as it blew in the slightest of breezes against his painted frame.

"Ratchet!"

The voice spoke up, completely unexpectedly, as he began to walk again, heading for the sidewalk. And the old bot's hand moved to rest against his chest panel and his now pounding spark that it protected, as he looked around him quickly.

Shortwave!

The bot in question stood, mostly hidden in the shadow of the building, standing close to the wall and holding tight to her smallest youngling, who she carried in her arms. And Ratchet would not have seen her at all if she hadn't spoken.

"Well, you're certainly not the first bot to have almost given me a spark attack," the medic huffed, sighing at the easy understanding that she certainly hadn't intended to have startled him at all, or even been hidden.

"Now I know where Soundwave learned to..." he began to make the comment, with a lighthearted chuckle. But he stopped, the sentence unfinished, when his optics fell again on Lightwave – unusually still even for herself, in her carrier's careful hold.

"Is she alright?"

The question was calm but urgent – asked out of his centuries of medical programming. And he was immediately relieved when Shortwave nodded.

"Just sleeping," the flier explained, confidant. But she stepped closer to the medi-bot, with her optics full of some urgent need regardless.

"I... I came to speak with you." She spoke quickly – just as though her very existence depended on it now. "I'm sorry. I'd hoped to catch you before the clinic closed..."

"It's quite alright," Ratchet told her, smiling assurance as he led her gently back in through the sliding door. He never could deny a bot in possible need of anything – despite now lacking any clue as to what was actually the matter, and with whom. Shortwave herself, on one hurried inspection, as they walked together into his office, looked perfectly alright.

"I've had a lot of time to speak with Firestorm these past few days," Shortwave said, wasting no time in trying to explain herself just as soon as the medi-bot had sat himself down behind his desk. She sat down herself - her little bot still held snug as ever in her arms – only after Ratchet was gestured, insistent to the chair across from himself. "With Soundwave still very much recovering from his own injuries... and me helping with the baby..."

She hesitated then for a moment, appearing to consider her words carefully now, instead of simply rambling on so helplessly. Lightwave woke up in that moment too – her optics looking around the small office, as she otherwise remained still and silent.

"Firestorm told me more of her own story," Shortwave said, finally speaking again. "She explained so much about cybermatter, and..."

Her optics fell on her youngling daughter then, hopeful, desperate, and filled with the look of a carrier just daring to hope her last hope. And though she never did finish her sentence, Ratchet understood at once why she had come to see him.

"You want Lightwave in the trial..."

"Yes," the Autobot navigator's words were hurried again, urgent as ever. "Yes, I do. I know in my spark, after talking to Firestorm..."

Ratchet's spark dropped at once – because he'd dreaded this very conversation for just long enough to have almost let himself forget about the possibility of it happening entirely.

"I'm sorry," he said, sincerely. "I don't think that's possible."

He fully expected helpless despair in response to his answer. Or frustration, disappointment, and a bot asking 'what now?' But he certainly did not expect anger – not from the quiet and sometimes still so uncertain bot who sat across from him, with her helpless daughter in her lap. Anger, however, was exactly what he got – even if she did so obviously try to hide the worst of it behind a calm, collected expression.

"You were supposed to have been different," she said. And the calm facade left her just as soon as she'd begun to speak. "I watched you with her when we first arrived... just as happy to hold and assess a red-optic'd child as any other one! I wouldn't have thought you, of anyone would abandon a youngling to die, because of where her carrier came from. It's not like she herself even had a choice..."

Ratchet rested his hands on hers firmly, and all without disturbing her still barely moving child. He sighed, relieved when she instantly ceased her heated rambling – blinking her optics at him for a second instead, in a clearly startled apology.

"Please, understand and believe me when I say this has nothing to do with such a silly thing as optic colors," the old medi-bot said. And he shook his head just a little, reminding himself that too many bots still actually noticed such a detail when he himself barely did anymore.

He stood and reached out with both hands – entirely expecting that Shortwave, in the final hints of her quite understandable anger, would protectively pull her child closer to her own frame. But she didn't. And instead, she just gave one sad, regretful – though still so clearly uncertain – sigh, and handed her youngling over to him carefully. Ratchet sat back down again, assessing the little bot with his optics, before reaching for the scanner he'd stored in his desk drawer.

"You've met the lead youngling medic," he reminded Shortwave calmly. "And I do think you've at least seen his daughter at a glance. It was only by sheer chance that her own pair of optics is blue, you know. And I can assure you with every bit of confidence that she would have been the same little bot, with the same lovely spark had they been red like her creator's. And I know it!"

Shortwave's own grand-creation's optics were red. Ratchet recalled that only when he'd thought about it for a moment – mental images of each newborn he'd seen in the past handful of years filtering quickly through his processor. And he understood only then that that fact concerned her – it concerned her just as much as Firestorm so naively loved that the baby looked just like his creator!

"The trial is currently suspended," Ratchet said. And quickly he explained, because Shortwave was on the verge of helpless, desperate tears now. "We were fully successful with Firestorm, yes. But there were also... unexpected complications. And those were enough to make me hesitant to even seek out any further volunteers."

"Light' is off-lining," Shortwave's voice broke with her tears now as she spoke up again. And she looked helplessly at her youngling daughter still held in the medi-bot's arms. "If her spark doesn't somehow fail first, then her processor will. I know that as well as you do. She might have a few more years if we're lucky, and I know that too."

She looked the medic in the optics then, sadness and the full extent of her own hope-filled desperation clear in her barely blinking gaze.

"I know you have no younglings of your own," she said. "But please, understand that I would try anything, just for the slightest chance to save my own!"

"I do understand," Ratchet told her urgently.

Lightwave had lived for years, when the medi-bot so easily reasoned that it should have been days if even that long. She was so lacking in any measurable function that he couldn't even make a fair guess at just how functional she was - Ten percent maybe? Fifteen at best, surely. This youngling might well be better off offline - and Ratchet had most definitely never once dared to even think such a thing of a patient before, let alone a youngling one!

"I may not have my own younglings, but still... I understand..."

"I couldn't save Soundwave..." Shortwave said. For a brief second her optics showed every bit of her horrified shock at her own words. And Ratchet knew in an instant that she hadn't meant to speak that thought out loud. She had spoken it though. And since she had, she hesitantly continued on speaking. "I did try. I did! If I'd tried harder we both would have died. I... had just enough hope that he might survive in the fighting pits to force myself to just start over. I have other younglings now. And this time I can't ever give up..."

It was far too soon to be back to his work. And Soundwave knew it. He limped badly, trying his best to hide his sorry state and failing, as he passed a couple of his fellow police-bots, on their way out of the station – presumably to run a patrol of the streets, as the sun went down. He nodded his thanks as one of them held open the station's sliding door by resting a foot on its track. And for an uncomfortable moment, he stood with them both, politely exchanging quick, mumbled pleasantries, before the pair hurried off on their way.

Soundwave stepped inside, just as quickly as his still-sore left hip joint would allow him to. And sighing his relief at running into no one else, he limped toward the lift. Leaning too heavily against the wall as he rode down, he fought a little for an intake – winded from the effort of just getting that far without resorting to catching his balance with a hand on the nearest wall.

The lift opened in the next brief moment. And Soundwave stepped back out again - pausing in front of it as the door closed again behind him – to survey the row of holding cells on the basement level.

'Lock-up' was a busy place that evening, with two out of the fourteen cells left empty. And Soundwave could hear the noise of angry, foul-mouthed, and belligerent bots carrying on endlessly as soon as he walked into the basement.

The bot in cell 'one' was stumbling drunk. And he stood (or at least tried to) at the barred door, badly singing some old folk song with the lyrics mostly back to front and reworked into utter filth besides. And Soundwave, quite uncharacteristically lost his patience with the prisoner entirely by the time the offender had reached the second verse. He banged a closed fist against the bars in warning, shooting him a glare, as the drunk glared back. Even injured though, Soundwave was nothing if not intimidating to so many of the refugees of Cybertron. And the drunk bot backed down quickly, stepping back from his door, to flop down instead onto his bunk – his singing now replaced by his silence.

"Hey!" One of the pair held in cell 'five' bellowed. And hardly as easily put off as the drunk down the row, he pointed a finger through his bars furiously in Soundwave's direction. "You! Come'ere. I got rights to be heard out, yeah?"

Soundwave obligingly stepped closer to the cell – his every instinct warning him against it while his training reminded him of the need to do so anyway. He was hardly surprised when an empty energon container – flung through the bars by the other of the cell's occupants, hit him directly in the side of his head. The pair started to laugh in instant mockery, along with several bots in neighboring cells.

"Knock off the nonsense everyone," Soundwave said, in warning – and plenty loud enough for the entire corridor to hear over their own ruckus. And in the back of his own processor, he groaned in frustration, simply wanting to be home with his family.

"Yeah, frag you!" Somebot yelled somewhere. And Soundwave simply ignored him, limping instead toward the silver-painted sliding door at the end of the row.

He slid his security card into the lock, further tuning out the sound of shouts and endless taunts behind him from the cells. And just as quickly as his still injured state would allow, he stepped through the door just as soon as it had slid open.

The high-security unit, which he'd just stepped into was so much quieter than the chaos he'd just left. And it was almost entirely empty.

Soundwave walked on again, using the wall now for support as the steady ache in his damaged hip evolved into shooting pains through the wiring of his leg. And he stopped, gratefully and winded all over again when he reached the one occupied cell – at the far end of the unit.

"Astrotrain!" he snapped at the cell's lone occupant. He looked inside, through the plastic window in the middle of the heavy double-bolted door, to see the mentioned bot laying on the thin mattress of his narrow bunk, reading something on a datapad. "Open your window!"

The bigger bot complied at once, crossing the small cell in a few short steps, to slide the plastic window open before he simply stood, looking out through it.

"I was told you wanted to see me," Soundwave said, not even bothering to hide the frustration that never had left his processor. "Ultra Magnus said you wouldn't speak to anyone else."

"You've been... injured," Astrotrain observed in a statement of the truly obvious. And Soundwave huffed, fighting back a wave of instantaneous and pressing anger.

"Yes, I have," he said, doing nothing to control his tone. He leaned against the outside of the cell door, as angry with his own physical weakness now as with the bot in the cell. "Beaten to within inches of my own life, by scared and confused young refugees. And all because they lost any sense of trust and safety, amid the madness you caused on our world."

When Astrotrain only stared at him, silently, through the plastic window, Soundwave opened his storage compartment. He pulled out a few datapads and held them in front of the opening.

"I brought these for you," he said. "Ultra Magnus tells me you've been reading in here, mostly."

'Though it surprises me to have learned that you actually know how.' He thought to himself of the bot so commonly known for stupidity. But he certainly didn't say it out loud.

"Thank you." Astrotrain sounded truly sincere. He paused then, just staring through the little window with a faraway look in his optics. And it was only after Soundwave had assumed he might not speak again at all, that he did.

"How is the youngling that was injured on the racetrack?"

"Recovering well as I understand," Soundwave uttered the response – surprised both by the question, and the true sincerity of it. "I... do not know her well, despite her always having shown me kindness. But... her family tells me she'll soon be fully functional."

"I truly didn't mean for that to happen – for a youngling, or anybot to be damaged. I honestly believed that was still an unused space with no designated purpose, and no reason to be occupied."

"I... Think I believe you. Though... I haven't fully decided yet..."

"One large single blast was only meant to gain attention – a signal to any remaining Decepticon forces to regroup at the blast site. Any still loyal to me would instantly have understood."

"You miscalculated, Astrotrain."

"I did." Astrotrain huffed, staring again through the window just as if he were seeing nothing. "It really is long over then? The Decepticon forces have fully disbanded or defected?"

"Yes. All but a few scattered here and there throughout space. Leaderless scavengers now, and aimlessly existing. And there is every hope that they will simply defect themselves any day when given a new directive by the Autobots."

"I believed for centuries that we were in the right... that a world controlled by Autobot rule would be a world in which I was better off dead."

For the briefest of moments, Soundwave wanted to sympathize with his former colleague – a bot so truly lost to his programming that he could barely even comprehend an alternative. But he couldn't sympathize with even that – not anymore. Not when he loved a bot more than life itself, who so loved Cybertron as it was now – not when he'd learned to call the Autobots his friends and neighbors, and they'd supported him as much as they always had each other.

"We've been finding explosives all over the city," he said instead, his tone firm and serious. "A rare few were caches left over from the war, yes. But the rest of them – we've managed to trace back to you. I fully understand they weren't meant for the refugees to find. But intent does nothing to change outcomes."

Astrotrain said nothing then. And Soundwave glared at him, his frustration returning in an instant.

"Refugees have been playing with explosive devices in the streets," he said pointedly. "Damaging property and seriously injuring themselves and others, because they don't understand the level of danger. The bot who is now my own bondmate – she nearly off-lined years ago to this very nonsense. I've seen bots with limbs blown off! I've seen processor damage! Incident reports involving explosives land on my desk so frequently that I've come to dread reading through my reports at all. I can't say I'm not relieved that the primary source was finally caught!"

"The council has called for my execution." Astrotrain's voice was as serious as ever. And Soundwave nodded, slowly.

"The majority could not overlook the fact that a youngling was hurt, and badly so – or the majority of the public all screaming for your termination. I abstained from the vote because of personal conflict of interest, as a Decepticon defector. But I can't say I disagree regardless."

"Only nine days from now I'll be offline," Astrotrain was near emotionless, despite the seriousness of his comment. "At any moment now I might fully grasp the reality of that..."

"You'll have one chance to submit an appeal to the council," Soundwave told him – his own tone just as void of any emotion now. "Someone will bring an empty datapad and a keyboard interface to you by this evening. I suggest you think hard about your words... become relatable as a fellow Cybertronian who made a terrible mistake. The council is far from entirely sparkless. If this works, someday you can only hope that youngling will forgive you herself for what you did."

"No." The word was the last one that Soundwave expected to hear. His former colleague paused again to consider his words. And slowly, he began to speak again.

"Even spared from death, I'll never be freed – at least not for centuries. And that's long enough in this fast-changing world to be left behind entirely to progress. Even today I'm among the last true Decepticons – a bot without a cause or purpose, and a relic from some recent time the world only wishes to forget. Let me offline, Soundwave. Because that's better than anything this new world could offer..."

Astrotrain ended the conversation there – turning around without any warning to sit back down on his narrow padded bunk. And for a good long moment, Soundwave only stared in through the still-open little window between them. Finally, he just turned away, walking several steps back down the corridor through which he'd come until he reached the unit door. There he stopped again, staring at the locked metal door in front of him, for another good moment, until he punched it just as hard as it could, in sudden, unexplainable rage.

Arcee smiled to herself as she walked through the hospital lobby. Because despite her unease over just being back in that place – given the time she'd spent in it with her bally damaged daughter – it felt wonderful to finally smile that day. She paused for a moment, looking out through a huge window at the street – busy with the traffic of bots in their vehicle-modes all going, and with others still in bot-forms walking here and there on the sidewalk. She smiled brighter, sure she would never grow tired - as long as she existed – of simply seeing Cybertron alive again.

She walked on, quickly, hurrying on through the cheerful, light green-painted lobby. She reached the closed door of Ratchet's office. And her cheerful mood made her tap lightly on the door in a light-sparked tune with metallic fingers, instead of simply pressing the buzzer.

"Umm... hello?"

The old medi-bot's voice, inside the office was uncertain, obviously surprised by the tapping. And Arcee just chuckled a little under an intake, as the door slid open, regardless.

Ratchet was seated at his desk, with a dark blue painted youngling – an all too obviously weak and helpless one – laying on his lap. And Arcee refrained from hurrying back out the door again, only because the old medic chuckled a little, waving an already occupied hand to dismiss her concerns.

"I offered to take her from her carrier for a while," he said, and his optics gestured toward the window – where Arcee looked out to see Shortwave idly kicking a ball around with her other youngling bot in the courtyard. "She's on her own with those younglings, and this one is so damaged... only logical she needs a break sometimes, and I insisted on her taking one this morning."

He looked around then, his optics showing every bit of his uncharacteristic unease as they darted anxiously around his office.

"I... called you here this morning to sincerely apologize," he said seriously. And he paused, choosing his words carefully before he spoke again. "I should never have been drinking at work, and I know how wrong, not to mention utterly reckless and irresponsible it was of me. You catching me drunk was the smack in the head that I truly needed that night... I could make the same old excuses again. But they are just that – excuses for something that's well beyond inexcusable."

It was Arcee's turn now to so carefully consider her words – and more so her reaction. Because the old bot was right in choosing 'inexcusable' to describe the worst decision she'd ever seen him make. Still, she respected him fully – how could she not? And so finally, she smiled again sighing a little under her intakes as she stepped closer to his desk.

"What kind of Autobot would I be if I couldn't forgive an almost understandable mistake?" She said in reply. "You swear that you didn't touch a single patient?"

"I swear it to you on on the Allspark itself."

"Okay." Arcee's answer was simple. But she said it with a growing smile on her faceplate. And considering a moment longer, she spoke up again, confidently. "If you ever need someone to talk you off that cliff next time before you turn to a high-grade container, you know my comm-link is always on."

"I know." The old medic's rely was sincere and grateful. And Arcee could feel his relief in the room around them, as she turned her attention to the youngling bot in his lap.

"This is... Lightwave?" Arcee asked of the youngling. And she struggled for a moment to recall a name she'd heard just a few times before.

"Indeed she is." Ratchet struggled a little for a moment, fumbling through his desk drawer with one hand, while doing his best not to lose his hold on the helpless youngling. Finally, after a moment of his, he looked up at his teammate. "Could you take her for a moment? Shortwave won't mind at all if you hold her youngling."

Arcee nodded at once. And with some hesitation – the youngling was just so badly damaged and helpless, that it left her uncertain – she lifted Light' into her arms carefully, before sitting in a chair against the wall.

"She really is a beautiful child," she said looking her over carefully – seeing then how the child, despite her almost full lack of any real function, was otherwise outwardly perfect. Her optics fell then on little pink and white striped painted hearts – an Earth design now so popular on Cybertron in recent years – on each of the tiny damaged bot's shoulder panels. And she smiled again, grateful on the voiceless youngling bot's behalf to any bot who had put the effort into painting her.

"Firestorm's wonderful handiwork, I believe," Ratchet said, nodding toward the painted designs. And Arcee was not a bit surprised.

"This one is older than I thought," she mused out loud – because that fact was obvious then, as she looked her over closely.

Lightwave was roughly Cybershock's age – hardly the first-frame she'd too easily guessed at without ever asking. In a perfect world, she'd be well past early youngling-hood now – a student in a classroom, who could read code and giggle on her fueling break with classmates, and state her opinions, and have her own hobbies. In that perfect world, this youngling would love music as much as any others did. And she'd go off on her own to the sweet shop or the playground, and she'd do that by now in her own small vehicle mode.

She should be a small airplane! The realization struck her hard as she looked at the youngling's tiny wings... She should be flying now – loving her freedom to glide through the open air, just as much as Cybershock loved to drive!

'And she would have been another one of Cybershock's friends..' The thought made her smile, just as much as it made her optics fill with coolant.

"This youngling is loved," Ratchet said, interrupting her thoughts just as though he'd read them. He smiled then, and Arcee knew he'd not taken the little bot back from her, only because she herself did not want to hand her back. "Her brother, Blastwave... he talks to her constantly, fully convinced that she understands language. And I don't know... maybe he's right. Maybe she can. And his carrier..." Ratchet turned toward the window again, his optics gesturing toward the carrier and youngling still kicking the ball around as they carried on a laughing conversation. "She'd do anything just to give this little one the slightest chance... she came to see me last night actually. Begged and pleaded for a restart to the cybermatter trial, just so she could have the chance to get her daughter in..."

Cybermatter?

Arcee hadn't thought much about that near-abandoned project in years. Because despite it being the very thing that had saved her own bond-mate's life once – life had simply moved on so fast since then. She thought about it now though, her processor racing with the possibility as she heard the tiny youngling in her lap make tiny whirring noises for barely a moment.

"Are you going to?" she asked – so genuinely shocked when the old medi-bot shook his head firmly.

"I simply can't risk it." Ratchet's answer was as firm as his shaking head – but he sighed then, slowly, regretful, and with his resolve just barely beginning to crack as he considered again. "It worked out for Firestorm. But she could have just as easily died! And anyway, even if we'd had a larger pool of badly damaged bots to have tested this on... and if those had been successes..." he paused, looking out the window again and clearly despairing. "Lightwave herself can't exactly consent to be tested on! Yes, she's a youngling. But she's still a living Cybertronian, and one old enough to have that right, with guidance from her carrier..."

He was silent again, and for a good while this time – staring back outside through the window, where Arcee followed his gaze to see Shortwave and Blastwave now sitting on a bench. The youngling bot said something that Arcee could not hear, given the closed window. And Shortwave instantly laughed, hugging her son to her chest panel and laughing harder when he wiggled away from her hold – every bit the stubborn youngling fitting for his age, despite his known awkward shyness, and so few words often spoken to anyone that he made Soundwave seem chatty.

"Ratchet?" Arcee began to ask her question with some increasing urgency. "What do you think, in your medical opinion? And in your spark? Is Lightwave self-aware? And can she understand, even though she'll never speak?"

"I don't..." the medi-bot began to say. But he stopped then instead, looking at the younglings Arcee held in her lap - really and truly appearing to study her intently as he looked into her open, drifting optics.

"It is... possible," he said, with hesitation.

"I don't doubt for even a second that you would bargain with Primus himself for the life of that child..." The words spoken to her recently in what wasn't quite a dream, echoed through her processor, like the sudden flipping on of an audio player. And as she looked intently at the carrier outside – saw every hit of the helpless pain in her optics even as she laughed with her functioning youngling – she knew full well that the words were so easily meant for not only herself.

"Ratchet," she said, determined as she turned back around – Lightwave fully silent again and still as ever in her arms. "With all due respect, I'm not sure you should give up when you've still just barely tried..."

Notes/ Yeah, this one is just plain dialogue-heavy. This story has always relied heavily on dialogue. But this chapter ended up being almost entirely conversations between characters. I will absolutely try to get a bit more action in the next one...