To Have a Spark
Reasons Why: Arcee
"Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life."
-The Fray; How to Save a Life
Arcee paced. Like a caged lioness, she couldn't keep still. Her mind whipped back to the past, grappling with the present. She knew what it was to lose someone called a brother. She knew it almost as well as the Prime himself, but there was one key difference. She could hit back. She could scrap Airachnid, she could take Airachnid's spark out and avenge Tailgate. She could do the same to Starscream and avenge Cliffjumper. She had concrete foes and a concrete cause. You couldn't go after something you couldn't hit back.
And that disturbed her. She was lucky. But what would she have done if Cliff or Tailgate had been killed by a virus? She couldn't punch a virus. She couldn't shoot a disease. As the others had dispersed to think on what the Prime had suggested, the femme avoided looking anywhere near the medical bay. It was unsettling, calling everything she knew into question. Freedom was the right of all sentient beings, but did that freedom extend to ending one's own life? Did it extend into simply giving up? Was this human giving up on anything? Arcee finally caved, walking directly to the Prime's private chamber and knocked on the door.
"Come in," Optimus' voice was low and subdued. Arcee noted her leader's posture as he sat on the edge of his berth. The Prime looked as troubled as she felt even as he offered a comforting almost-smile.
"Optimus, I don't understand this. I don't-" the blue two-wheeler found herself on the verge of rambling.
"The actions of a desperate, grieving human?"
"Desperate?" She sat beside her Prime and gazed up at him. Her confusion showed, with an undercurrent of distaste.
"Yes, Arcee. Did you not hear Agent Fowler?" His tone became gentle, long-suffering.
"We all did. This Leonard person died from a sickness. And the human reacted. Why? It seems too much like giving up to me."
"Giving up on whom, Arcee?" Optimus turned just a bit, twisting a hip to let his back arch down just so. So the towering mech could look her in the optic.
"I...Himself? The world around him?"
"Arcee. Let me ask you this. What did you do when Tailgate and Cliffjumper were taken from us in battle?"
The femme shuddered at the question. Optimus forever had that habit of getting right to the painful heart of whatever matter he addressed. It was almost creepy in the way he did it. Letting out what equated to a sigh, she thought back. Arcee spoke, ignoring twin tracks of diluted blue tears making their way down her face plates.
"I shut everything out. I had missions to complete. There was a war going on..."
"Exactly. You had objectives. What would you have done without those objectives? What would you have done if you truly believed there was nothing left?"
Arcee fell silent for a long while. This question was one she had wanted to avoid asking. One that forced her to stare at herself and scrutinise. What would she have done? Would she still be here? Would she have fallen into a state so low that indeed, Arcee of Crystal City, would not be here? She didn't like what she learned in the silence of her own processor. Were it not for the missions, were it not for the fact that she could hit back, were it not for Team Prime... Arcee let the Prime embrace her. He let her weep until she pulled back, wiping her optics.
"The human has no mission. No objective to complete. He can't face it down. He can't hit back. No way to..."
"No, Arcee, he does not."
The Prime watched his warrior rise and leave the room without another word. He didn't stop her, knowing that it was something only an individual could wrap his or her own mind around.