Prowl's View:

Starlit was released after Ratchet made it clear she was not to leave her room for the rest of the night and she was to stay in the base. For the next two weeks she was to be confined indoors. He hoped staying in a familiar place would help keep her calm and keep any glitches from happening. He'd run more tests tomorrow, but for now she needed to rest. I knew that it was really to keep her locked up. We had no idea if she really was truely back to her old self or not yet either. Ratchet was afraid to probe her processor too much more until her system had the chance to heal.

It was also unclear what she remembered but we had confirmed she didn't remember anything about the last few weeks. She remembered Sideways kidnapping her the second time but so far nothing else after that. She thankfully remembered who we were, but there were some gaps in what she remembered about each of us. She also seemed to have forgotten her crush on Bumblebee. She didn't flinch or blush when he sat on the berth with her.

For the rest of the night I was awake with thoughts and worries of what she did and didn't remember. Mostly, I worried if she remembered our Creator. It broke my spark to think she might forget about her and her teachings and never truly achieving her goal of becoming an engineer. Starlit had once confided to me she might follow Nautica's footsteps and continue her work. But now, there was a chance she could be stuck on a repair crew for the rest of her life because of what Sideways had done.

I also worried that she might remember that she was to one who killed him. She had a genteal spark and never really had a mean streak. It would crush her to know she'd taken a life, even if they deserved it.

I clenched my fist in anger. He may have been offline now, but the damage he had done unfortunately hadn't gone away with his death. At least for now, she was safe.

Starlit's view:

I laid in my berth and stared at the wall. I have no idea how much time passed as I laid there; I was trying to scan my memory files to see what I remembered. I remembered everyone, my brother, his team, Sari and Nautica. Nautica was Prowl's and my creator...she was murdered by our Sire. I was brought to Earth because of that and met everyone here. Up till the point we met Sideways the second time was pretty clear, the rest…was fuzzy.

Did I threaten everyone? Was the faint feeling of dread because I hurt someone, or something else? Prowl had been rather vague about everything, but maybe he didn't want to overload my processor with everything. I hoped he wasn't hiding anything from me.

After a few cycles, I blinked and snapped myself out of my daze. I rolled over and looked towards the ceiling. I wasn't tired, though I should be and something nagged at me to apologize to Bumblebee. Did I hurt him? I don't remember seeing dents or marks on him from earlier. So what was this feeling? Then I kind of remembered something; I remembered him being against a wall, but why did I have him pinned? I guess it didn't matter too much, except he…had kissed my cheek!? At least I remembered something and I intended to figure out what that was about!

The base was quiet. Everyone was in their sleeping quarters for the night, but knowing Bee though, he was still up playing games. Now was the perfect time to ask him. Prowl wouldn't get in the way this time.

I just have to ask him! It won't be that hard…I told myself and started towards his room. "Bee, we need to talk"…no…"Bumblebee, did we...did we kiss?!" Primus no! This is gonna be harder than I thought…I was thinking too hard to notice I ended up in front of his door and had knocked already. Good one… I had no idea what to say.

"Come in!" I heard him call. I took a deep breath and opened the door to find Bee playing some kind of dancing game. I'll admit I got kind of caught up in watching him. I blushed a bit after realizing I was staring to long and went to sit on the arm of the couch in his room. What's wrong with me?

He stopped the game and came to sit by me. "What's up?" He sounded a little worried.

"Um…I remembered something." I admitted, now the hard part. "It had to do with us." I watched his optics brighten a bit.

"Oh yeah? Did it have to do with when I beat you in a race? Or when you first saw my awesome moves?" I could tell he was hedging around something.

"No. I'm not sure where we were but…" Here it goes. "You…kissed my cheek?" The blush one his face told me he remembered.

"Oh…that one…" he looked nervous. "Do you…uh…remember any of it?" I shook my head. "Well…basically it was…well you admitted your feelings…in a slightly unconventional way and I…wanted you to know it was ok and I liked you too." By the time he was done, his cheeks were bright red.

"What do you mean unconventional?" And feelings?! Oh slag… That was apparently pretty embarrassing but he sighed and told me.

"Prowl told you about the reprogramming already so…you know. Uh…you were kind of reprogrammed but you...told me how you wanted to... get fragged by me." He was looking at the floor now, avoiding looking at me.

I was so embarrassed that I had even said something like that! My face felt hot and I felt like my processor was about to crash.

"But I knew it wasn't the real you!" Bee quickly looked back up to reassure me and put a hand on my knee. "And like I said…" I put my hand on his.

"Star…I like you, more than a friend and I hope you do to." He was finally able to look me in the optics as he said this. He leaned in a bit, silently asking to kiss me.

I leaned in with him and we kissed. He cupped my cheek with one hand and deepened the kiss. I remember kissing one other time, I don't remember with who, but I was still pretty new to it. Bee had to reteach me on what to do, and taught me how to use my glossa while kissing.

His glossa slid over mine, asking me to join. I was hesitant at first. He was obviously skilled at this and I didn't want to fail. He encouraged me by running his thumb over my cheek. I followed his lead and after a few awkward kisses, I got it down. I had no idea kissing could be so…nice. I don't know when it happened but I ended up in Bee's lap, straddling his hips. We broke the kiss and blushed at our position.

"Umm…" Bee laughed nervously. "M-maybe we should call it a night." He was stopping this from going too far.

Without really thinking I said "What if I don't want to?" I bit my lower lip and looked away shyly. I can't believe you just said that…I sighed to myself. I could cause myself to glitch doing this!

"T-Then we don't have to." He made me look back at him. "Are you sure though?" His optics had dimmed a bit, but the sincerity in his optics shined through. He would stop if I asked.

"Yes." I felt completely safe with him, and I wanted nothing more than to be with him right now. He motioned for me to get up so he could move.

Wordlessly he got up, took my hand and led me to his berth. He had me sit and gently pushed me down to lay on my back. He kissed me once before running his hand down my right side, testing if this was all ok. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him down to kiss me again. I accidentally brushed the horns on his helm with my finger tips while we kissed. Apparently these were pretty sensitive and caused Bee to break the kiss and gasped. I shivered, wanting to draw more sounds like that from him. I gave it a gentle pinch and felt him shiver against me as he bit back a sound.

"Star…please…they're really sensitive." He begged.

"I won't hurt you." I purred and ran my thumb over the other, making him shiver again. He moved to kiss my neck, allowing me to stroke his right horn while my other hand was free to run up his side.

Bumblebee's view:

For being inexperienced, Starlit was a quick learner. She'd already figured out my audio horns were a hot spot. It took my last partners forever to figure that out. Not…that I had that many.

Her other hand was really close to another but she kept ghosting over it. She needed to learn her own before she could find mine. I mimicked what she was doing to me on her, but dipped my fingers into her seams, stroking her sensor nodes inside. She moaned and bucked her hips into mine when I hit one in her hip seam and nipped her main energon line at the same time.

She caught on and dug her fingers a bit deeper and started finding my sensor nodes.

"There…mm…yes Star like that." I encouraged her. "Ow…not too deep."

"Sorry!" she stopped, which I didn't want her to do. I didn't mean to scare her.

"No, it's ok." I looked into her optics. "Don't be so timid, you're doing fine." She blushed and smiled softly.

After she learned how to do it correctly, I got lost in the pleasure. We could've spend the whole night exploring each other's bodies, but I could tell she wanted more. I wasn't sure if she was ready for that though. Not only that, but we risked overloading her processor and causing more damage. I didn't want to push her too far either and scare her off.

"Star…" I said between kisses. She stopped and looked up at me, her beautiful optics had dimmed to an emerald green. "W-we should hold off. Just for now, until you're completely cleared." She looked a little hurt by this. "It's not that I don't want to do this, I'm just worried…" She nodded after taking a nano click to think about it.

I laid beside her and let her rest her head on my chassis. I guess everything finally caught up with her because she was out before I had my arm around her.

Maybe she didn't feel safe alone. I wondered as I watched her for a click before hitting the remote control that shut my lights off. I'd deal with Ratchet's rants and everyone's judgement in the morning. I didn't want to move her back to her room. Like her, I didn't really like sleeping alone either.

Starlit's View:

I was awoken by movement under me. I slowly opened my optics and saw yellow. It took my processor a few nano-clicks to reset and remember where I was. The warmth around me and under my helm was Bumblebee. I smiled softly and closed my optics again as happiness spread through my spark. After a while, Bee started to stir. He must have detected my energy field changing.

I pretended to be asleep, holding on to the last few moments of this closeness. I felt him run his finger tips over my helm and down the back of my neck before I decided to "wake up."

"Hey." He smiled at me, voice still static laced from recharged. "Sleep well?"

"Hm, yeah." I said and stretched a bit before cuddling back into him.

"We should get up before someone comes looking for you." He said pressing his forehelm to mine. "I don't want you to get in trouble for staying with me."

"Why would that happen?" I asked. It wasn't like he would hurt me.

"Um…you and I are…um…well 'cause we slept together." He blushed.

"What do you…oh..." It dawned on me after a second. If anyone saw us leaving his room together, they would assume we interfaced. He chuckled and kissed my forehelm.

"Come on, lets go get some energon."

Just because my processor's memory files weren't working right didn't mean I was stupid. As the base awakened for the day, I noticed everyone but Bee was being cautious around me. At first I thought it was because they didn't want me to glitch out, but it was Bulkhead's reaction that told me something was off. I had walked behind him going to the monitors while he was getting energon and he totally freaked. He jumped and nearly dropped his ration. It was like he expected me to attack.

"Ok, why is everyone acting weird around me?" I crossed my arms and waited for someone to answer.

"What do you mean?" Prime asked from the monitor station.

"Seriously?" I turned and gave him a look that I was tired of their slag.

"We're just worried about you is all." Optimus tried.

"Yeah! And I just didn't hear ya come up behind me." Bulkhead scratched the back of his helm. He was lying too.

"Is anyone going to tell me the truth?" I was getting angry. I saw static for a nano click and a flash of someone's face.

"Starlit, listen there's…" Bumblebee started but Optimus glared at him which shut him up.

"What are you hiding?" I looked to him back to Prime. There was tension in the air between him and Bee. The yellow mech obviously wanted to tell me something but our leader wasn't going to let him.

Bulkhead let out a stressed cry before spilling everything. "You're Sire didn't fall from the rafter like we said!" He shouted. "I mean he did but he wasn't fighting. He had Bumblebee and you came and saved him! But to do that you had to throw him off the walkway!"

Prime looked annoyed Bulkhead had let it slip that I was the one who killed Sideways. My processor reeled and purged random clips of memories that didn't make sense. One was Sire screaming to his death, then to last night's kiss, to Creator and I making sweets and other clips that I wasn't sure if they were real or not. I guessed they were the forgotten files.

Bee ran to my side and helped keep me stabilized. "Starlit?" He sounded worried but my vision went to static again for a second which caused me to completely lose my footing and fall into his chassis. Luckily he was ready to catch me.

"No…I-I didn't…" I said as I steadied myself again. "I couldn't have…" I couldn't accept I had killed someone. At some point both Prowl and Ratchet had come in to see what was going on.

"Starlit?!" Prowl had worry laced in his voice. I'm ok…I told him through our bond.

"What happened?" Ratchet asked.

"Bulkhead let it slip what really happened to Sideways." Optimus sighed. While he was talking my vision went out again. More forgotten files flashed before my optics. One struck me and froze my spark. Creator was being raped…I was hiding in the closet again and watching in horror. It quickly stopped and turned into a flight with the jet twins. When I came too, Ratchet's light was in my optics. When did he sit me down? And when did we get to the med bay?!

"How long have the blackouts been happening?" Was the first thing he asked. He must have seen the panic on my face.

"What?" I didn't understand what was happening.

"You're memory processor is glitching. When did they start?" He was using his monotone doctor's voice on me. He only used this when he was really worried.

"Just started." I answered him as I looked around. The only bots in the room were me and the doc bot. That was odd.

"I don't want anyone causing another glitch." He answered as if reading my mind. "They're waiting out in the rec room. What do you remember?" A lot more than I thought…

"I…don't know if they're real…" I admitted.

"Not the memories kid, our conversation in the rec room." I stared blankly at him.

"Ok…it's alright. Don't try too hard. You freaked out a bit about something but wouldn't say what it was. Do you remember what made you panic?" During the memory purge the only one I clearly remembered was the one with Nautica in it.

"There was…I was watching…I sa…" He stopped me for a nano click to calm down before I told him what I saw. I hoped it was just my mind playing tricks, but it felt real.

"Oh boy…" Ratchet sighed and wiped his hand down his face in frustration. "You do know he is gone, right?" He sounded calmer and his tone was much softer as he spoke. "He can't hurt cha any more. And I suppose we shoulda told you the truth from the beginning, but we were afraid of what would happen. In fact, it happened just like I thought it would. Problem is, I can't fix it. No one can. Sideways damaged your memory core. I was just able to slow it down for a while."

I suddenly felt hollow. I'm glitched? Static filled my vision of back in school. Some mechs found out I was part 'Con and were calling me a glitched freak. I blinked and it was gone.

"W-will I have this forever?" His silence followed by a sigh told me he didn't know.

"Kid, there's a small chance this will fix itself with time, but I don't know how long it could take. The good news is, the memory purges will start to become more common at night rather than during the day. For now, you processor is trying to gain a bit of control to contain them. For now, you cannot leave base."

As Ratchet said, my processor was just trying to gain control on the new way it worked. The next few days were a blur. Half of the time I was aware what was going on, then the next I'd be in a new room with no idea how I got there. Ratchet told me it would take some time to adjust but I wasn't sure I could live with this. I sat on the couch in Bee's room and tried to concentrate on the game Bee was playing. He wanted to get good at this new racing game before Sari came over later tonight. He said something to me but I didn't hear him.

"Huh?" I turned my head.

"I asked if you wanted to play." He was facing towards me and apparently had been trying to get my attention for a while. He looked slightly frustrated but it was slowly turning to concern.

"Sorry…" I looked away from him. I hadn't really talked to him much since I learned of my glitch. I didn't want him to get involved with me anymore. What if one day I forgot him? It would break his spark and hurt mine just thinking about it.

"What's wrong? You've been…distant." He paused the game and set the controllers down as he talked. "Are you ok?" I bit my lower lip, holding back what I really wanted to say. No, I wasn't ok! I was slowly forgetting things and remembering unimportant memories! If my core didn't start to heal on its own soon, I might not remember my friends within a few stellar cycles…

"I'm fine…" My voice was shaky. Slag that wasn't supposed to sound like that!

Bee quickly pulled me into a hug, pulling my face into the crook of his neck. I slowly wrapped my arms around him and felt coolant fill my optics. I tightened my hold on him and cried. I hadn't cried like this since I was a sparkling.

"I'm here for you, Star…" Was all he said to me as he held me. After a few clicks I calmed down a bit and he let me go but kept his hands on my upper servos. "I can't imagine what it must be like, and if I could I'd fix it for you. But I'll be right here. We all will. I won't leave you to fight this on your own." He put his forehelm against mine. New tears formed but these weren't sad ones.

"Thank you." I gently pushed against him and closed my optics. I felt safe for the first time in a long time.