Aftermath - Chapter 9: Ratchet
Jan. 12th, 2014 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silberstreifUniverse: Till all are one
Beta: Starfire201
Continuation: AU, G1
Genre: Adventure, drama
Characters: Ratchet, Wheeljack, FirstAid, Ironhide, Hook
Summary: "You said... when you threw me out, remember? You said, that if I quit with the secrets and working for them, you would take me back."
Ratchet had expected as much, but this was too close to his dreams to have considered it. "'Jack..."
9. Ratchet
"There's nothing to be scared of," he said more gently than any Autobot had ever heard him speak. "This is just a scan of your spark, yes?"
The youngling looked at him with big optics and nodded hesitantly after looking at his creators for reassurance.
"Good," praised Ratchet. "Please, open your chest compartements now." He waited, not showing any impatience, until the little one nodded again and initiated the sequence.
This was a huge sign of trust that most medics would never get and – thankfully – never need. Spark damage and spark diseases, which a mech could survive, were a rarity.
Yet, this one seemed to have won in the lottery of life. As the blue light spilled into the medic room, it became obvious to the plain optic that this little spark wasn't round and symmetrically formed. Instead it reminded Ratchet of a raw crystal, with sharp edges and strange cavations of light. It was beautiful. But was it deadly?
"You're doing great, Halftwist," he said. "This might tingle a bit, but it will do nothing more, okay?"
"Okay," whispered Halftwist, looking anywhere but at the medic and his own spark. His hands gripped the berth beneath him tightly.
Instead of commenting on it, Ratchet started the scan.
When he left the room a joor later, a mech waited for him outside it. Leaning against the wall, all of his attention was on a datapad on which he scribbled calculations and formulas Ratchet had only once tried to understand. The resulting processor ache had become legendary as it had contributed to him finally making his threat to rebuild Sideswipe into a screwdriver true.
"Wheeljack," he greeted warmly, "what are you doing here?"
The engineer looked up surprised, then his face, no longer hidden behind a blast mask, split into a grin. "Ratchet! I just wanted to see you and then I heard about your newest case and decided to come."
Heard. Right. Probably one of his assistants called him. Everyone knew how he took failure – and death was failure in his processor – and they anticipated that it would even be worse with a youngling.
"He'll survive," he said and the certainty of his own words came as a relief. "Just bonding and the whole slag is out of question."
"That's great, Ratch'." Wheeljack smiled and touched his armplate.
Ratchet ruthlessly crushed the desire to lean into the touch. Once he had wanted to bond with this mech, but reasons always came between them, until those became plain suspicions. He started to ask questions. Where have you been this night? Why don't you have time, you finished your project orns ago? What are you building?
Instead of answering, Wheeljack had always looked at the floor like a chastised youngling. Ratchet then had let the matter drop, just to notice something strange again a few orns later.
Wheeljack had no doubt noticed his struggles, as his joy had vanished. "I've heard you've got a break now. Want to grab a cube with me? I'll pay."
Ratchet blinked surprised. Since his ultimatum – your secrets or I, which he had lost – Wheeljack hadn't invited him anymore. "Sure, lead the way," he answered, not daring to hope yet.
Wheeljack's fans lit up a bit brighter.
Because Ratchet was the owner and chief of the hospital and the medic school connected to it, he couldn't just go. Wheeljack knew that and, without a word, led him to the rec room, which doubled as the entrance to the Administration Office. It was small, but comfortable and Ratchet was proud that the room had nearly no white at all. The room was unusually full, but quiet at the same time with mechs staring at the screen that every few astroseconds showed yet another picture about Prowl and Jazz. In between, one could hear the voices of Rook or Blaster commenting on various details of the trial.
Ratchet froze at the doorstep, for a long moment not able to look away from the screen.
"Ratch'..." muttered the engineer behind him, his field hesitantly touching the medics' to offer comfort. Another first for vorns now.
"It's over, right?" asked Ratchet and he couldn't hide the sorrow in his voice.
"Yes," answered Wheeljack. "The final verdict was spoken two joors ago."
Ratchet sighed. "Death?"
"Spark execution. They'll be the first mechs to be executed since..."
"Since Starscream ruled, I know." He forced himself to look away from the screen, his past friends and walked on.
This was the reason why he hated the Black Ops and Special Ops and secret anything during the war and after. They turned good bots into monsters. More often than not, he had been the one left with the results, with the scarred mechs, tortured sparks and mutilated protoforms. He knew that Wheeljack was a good mech, but his secrets, the avoidance to tell him what they were and the clear signs that he wasn't involved in it alone, had reminded him too much of the war and its darkest places.
Still, he had never thought that Wheeljack would choose his secrets above him, Ratchet. Yet, he had.
When he had finished, they left the building and walked next to each other down the street. Wherever they turned, there was always another screen showing the same pictures, another small group of mechs discussing them. Ratchet tried to not let it touch his spark, but before they reached the café he just wanted to mourn for the mechs he once called comrades and friends.
"Ratchet, here," said Wheeljack suddenly next to him, handing him a cube. Then the engineer walked around their small table and sat down in the chair across from him.
Ratchet took a grateful sip and had to smile when he noticed that this was exactly his most favourite blend. Wheeljack had remembered it. He looked to his former lover. "Thank you."
"No trouble." He smiled. "I don't like to see you sad."
Good, caring Wheeljack. But... "Doesn't this concern you at all? They were your friends, too."
The engineer flinched and then his face fell. "It does, but..."
"But what?" He had enough of secrets.
"Ratch', look," he fell back into his chair. "I do care about them, really, but I think they... they kinda wanted this."
He wanted to throw his cube at Wheeljack's helmet. "Wanted to be executed?! Don't be ridiculous."
Wheeljack's optics dimmed. "But that's how it appears, doesn't it? They don't defend themselves..." He sighed. "Ratch', let's just... talk about something else, okay? This is not how I want this to go."
But Ratchet was just getting warmed up and his old anger and disappointment only fuelled it. "How did you want it to go? Did you want me to just sit here, not think about anything while you hide your secrets and what you do in your free time? Or what you do even in your working hours, after all, I caught your more than once tinkering with things that were certainly not part of your work."
"Ratchet..."
"Oh, and let's not forget how you even stole my medical files. I could have you tried for this, you know?"
"I know, but..."
However, Ratchet wasn't finished yet. "I thought you had fallen in love with another bot, Wheeljack." The cube in his hand cracked. "But no, you just told me that you had to do a few things for Cybertron and everyone, but that you wouldn't tell me what! Slag it!" He sagged, as the old pain overwhelmed him again. "Slag you."
Wheeljack's face was full with regret. "I've never loved any bot but you, Ratchet." He sighed. "I've missed you constantly since you threw me out of our apartment. That's the truth, really."
An apartment Ratchet had sold barely three decaorns later, because it had been too big and empty and quiet.
"Really," repeated the medic bitterly. But he desperately wanted to believe it. "Why did you come today? It wasn't just because of the kid."
Wheeljack shook his head, not able to look at him – again. "No. I would've come anyway, but maybe a few orns later and better prepared."
"Prepared? For what?"
Wheeljack was quiet for a few seconds, his hands twitching as if he wanted to grasp and twiddle with something. He was nervous. "You said... when you threw me out, remember? You said, that if I quit with the secrets and working for them, you would take me back."
Ratchet had expected as much, but this was too close to his dreams to have considered it. "'Jack..."
"I finished my last work for them a decaorn ago and they'll leave me alone now. Not that I ever was forced to work for them, but... it's finished. The whole thing, and it was a good thing, and I would do it again. But losing you was nearly too much." Wheeljack took a deep breath. "So, I wanted to ask... if those words were true."
They had been true then. But now? "'Jack..." He shook his head. "It's not just that. It's the trust between us to." Trust he had once thought complete. "You didn't want to tell me."
"I wanted to," argued Wheeljack. "I just didn't want to hurt you."
"Hurt me?" echoed Ratched, believing he had heard wrong. "You did hurt me! All those lies and secrets hurt me!"
The engineer became smaller with every comment, his fins actually turned a rare shade of grey. "I know."
"Then why?"
"'Cause... I've seen you in the war. How you looked at those spies and agents that came to you. I swore to myself that I never wanted to see you like this again." He sighed. "Even if I had to be the one to hurt you."
For a long moment, the medic wasn't sure what to say. Those orns in the war Wheeljack was referring to had been the worst in his life. He had started to prefer the clean violence of a battle to the purposeful damage and pain of other beings, who would come to his medic bay begging for death and relief.
"Please tell me," he said when his processor started working again, "that you didn't... hurt someone." Not his Wheeljack. Primus, he loved that mech. Don't let him be wrong like that.
Wheeljack's fins turned into a shocked white. "Never!" He stared at Ratchet with wide optics. "I helped them to recover!" Then he registered his own words and shut his mouth again. Calmer he continued: "I've not hurt or helped to hurt any living being. I swear."
His sincerity was plain. Ratchet nodded, too relieved to say anything. For vorns he had lived with imagining the worst, so that this little snippet of information was like a boulder falling from his spark.
"Ratch'... about my question..." said Wheeljack hesitantly. "You don't have to answer now."
"Nonsense." He smirked. "You forget I know you. You wouldn't be able to leave me alone until you have an answer. And forgive me when I say I can live without a stalker very well."
Wheeljack chuckled embarrassed. "True."
Ratchet looked at his cube. Could he live with Wheeljack again? He had hungered after Wheeljack's little jokes, his smiles, his awkward demeanour and even his enthusiasm for work. He could listen to Wheeljack ranting about a new project for joors, just admiring him. So yes, he could. But could he bond to this mech? He wanted to. Wanted to fall into his spark and never let it go. He had just feared his secrets. Feared to not know this mech after all.
"If you're telling the truth, then yes," he said slowly. "I still want to bond to you."
The expression on Wheeljack's face could've powered Cybertron for the next decavorn.
When Ratchet returned to his work, he felt light and happy. A nurse bot made an error – he corrected him calmly. A patient refused the best way to treat his problems – he explained the matter a third time, until the mech understood the why his idea was better forgotten in the pit. His colleagues made a joke – he laughed and made one his own.
Before his shift was over, everyone was acting as if he would break any given moment.
"Ratchet?" asked finally First Aid, no doubt sent by the various medics lurking around the corner of the next corridor. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." Then he remembered Wheeljack. "Better than alright."
First Aid frowned. "But Halftwist?"
"Will live. Maybe never bond, but live a full and healthy life."
"Oh." First Aid smiled. "That's good."
"Very."
"Okay. And ... you're okay with the trial, too?"
Ratchet froze. He had actually forgotten about it. "Well... I guess. I have to, right?"
"You don't seem very surprised."
Ratchet's mouth turned into a grim line. "Who do you think got their victims?" he asked bitterly, for a moment fighting to suppress the energon-pink images his mind provided. He hadn't needed to provide any witness statements – it had all been in the formerly sealed files. "Spark execution is not a nice way to go, First Aid. But I've seen worse."
The medic nodded carefully. "I understand..."
His former student was clearly not inclined to go. Ratchet sighed, irritated, and saw with satisfaction that First Aid didn't take a step back as the other wanna-be-medics he was teaching every vorn. "I'm fine, First Aid. Really. Wheeljack has just asked me a question."
"A question? That's all?" He seemed sceptical.
"Yep." And the warm feeling returned and he had to smile again. "We – he wants to come back."
First Aid stared and then – before Ratchet could step back – he had hugged his teacher. "Congratulations! That's wonderful news!"
Awkwardly, he stood there and nodded. "Yeah..."
First Aid released him. "I have to tell the others!"
"How do you even know I said yes?" muttered Ratchet, but First Aid only grinned and nearly ran back to his colleagues.
If this news needed more than a joor until even the last patient knew, Ratchet would be deeply disappointed into his hospital's rumour mill. Wheeljack and him, back together. Maybe bonding after all. It was a strange thought. It was a thought he wanted to become true.
The last vorns without Wheeljack had been too lonely.
He ended his shift on time – a fact that made his chief nurse nearly as happy as himself – and walked home. His apartment was small, and now that he looked at it critically kind of impersonal. In fact, it was clinically clean. He had brought his work home, or rather he hadn't left work for more than his berth.
Sometimes not even then.
If Wheeljack came back and they bonded, this would change drastically. Wheeljack brought colour and chaos to everywhere he went. Ratchet loved him for it. Primus, how had he lived without that mech?
::Chief medic Ratchet, are you available at the moment?:: a voice suddenly asked over his comm line, tagged as highest priority.
Immediately, he tensed. ::Ironhide, I haven't heard from you in a long time. What happened?::
::I need you on Luna Two. Now.::
Luna Two. The prison. Prowl and Jazz. This couldn't be good. Not when the medics on Luna Two weren't enough. ::I'm coming.::
::A shuttle is on the way.:: A deep breath. ::Ratchet... thank you::
::Always, Ironhide. Always:: He felt the cool wall at his back and slumped against it, shuttering his optics, pushing his feelings down. They were just patients, just mechs, just things he needed to fix. He hadn't needed that mantra since the Great War. ::Tell me the details.::
Only a joor later, he was rushed into the prison cell.
The hallway in front of it was already overcrowded with mechs and at the doorway to the cell Ironhide greeted him with a sharp shake of his head. Ratchet gritted his denta, refusing to let his emotions show. Instead, he nodded back and entered the cell.
A green and purple mech was already inside, kneeling next to the berth. Without looking up, he said: "Hello, Ratchet."
"Hook," he answered. He wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. Instead he stepped next to the Constructicon and forced himself to look at the berth.
Prowl was lying on his back, wings spread and his face peaceful. His arms were around his smaller mate, who was snuggled on his front in a way that had to be uncomfortable. Both were utterly grey and dead.
Primus. Ratchet felt his hands trembling and a huge hand choked his spark just as Megatron once had. This couldn't be true. It simply couldn't... They would never...
"Poison," said Hook suddenly. "I even recognise it. Mixmaster developed it during the war so that discovered Decepticon agents had a quick way out. It works very fast, affecting the spark directly through the energy buffers around the spark chambers. It deactivates them, which leads to an uncontrollable and unstoppable destabilisation of the sparks. As far as we were able to deduct, it's not a painful way to die. One of Mixmaster's better inventions."
Ratchet wished for nothing more than that he would stop talking. Every word made reality even sharper and more hurtful.
"The poison was in that game of theirs. The poison capsules are small, created to be hidden in small spaces and not to be visible in a scan. Scrapper designed them, of course. One would've had to take the game entirely apart to find it."
Soft footsteps alerted them to a mech behind them. It was Ironhide. "Which we didn't," the Chief Enforcer explained quietly, every word a confession of failure and guilt. He looked as if all strength had left him. "Because it would've erased the several hundred vorns old memory. We checked it, there were over a million saved games and scores on it. They must've put the poison inside the game before the war had ended."
Which made a certain kind of sense. But Ratchet would rather be damned before he said that.
"Anything else?" asked Hook, coolly professional.
Ironhide shook his head. "Nothing that concerns you. They've left a last message on one of the book files, but it's with experts for programming now."
Hook nodded and looked around in the room as if to find further explanation for this. Ratchet followed his gaze, but all he could see was a prison cell with two standard berths, a few forgotten personal book files on the other berth, a destroyed game on the floor and a terminal in the corner.
What a sad, little, impersonal room.
Ratchet knew he was stalling. The medics of the Enforcers had already declared them dead, and Hook had too, but he was the last instance. As the highest ranking medic on Cybertron his word would count.
But this was Prowl and Jazz. Strong. Indestructible in their opinions, if not in their frames. The mechs which he had followed when everything had seemed dark.
Suicide.
It didn't compute. It wasn't them!
They had deserved so much more. Deserved to die surrounded by friends and family. Through age. Yet, here they laid. Alone and broken through a trial that had managed what the Great War never did.
He scrambled for a happy thought. Wheeljack. It made it bearable.
With him in his mind, he knelt and took one of his crudest tools out of his subspace. It was heavy and he despised it. As he put it into position on Jazz, he flashed back to the youngling only joors before. The trust in those blue, alive optics, the hard, colourful armour that had revealed delicate plating, that slid aside to bare the most fragile of metal petals, which finally smoothly had opened themselves around the spark chamber.
This time there was no smoothness and no trust. Metal was screeching as he forced plate after plate apart, savagely tearing through the most intimate parts a mech possessed. Behind him, mechs were turning away, not able to watch the violation. Ratchet felt his own tanks rolling, his sight blurring and he wished he could do the same.
Finally, he had the spark chamber in front of him. A few tests – it remained dark and dead.
"Empty," he whispered.
No Jazz anymore. Never again.
He wanted to keen when he realised that Jazz wasn't lying by chance as he did, but that he had positioned himself directly above Prowl's spark. Protecting
him until the very last moment. The faces of the mechs around him turned even grimmer, as they realised the same.
Gently, Ironhide and Hook put Jazz's corpse on the floor, then Ratchet started on Prowl.
"Empty," he repeated his diagnosis. And only felt empty himself.
Why? Why now?
It made no sense. He stared down at the chamber which remained as it had always been, just without the one bright thing that had mattered. That hadn't changed...
Wait a moment.
He remembered every spark chamber he had seen in his life. Every single one was unique in its smallest details. And something... he tilted his head. Then, tilted it back, spark spinning in sudden excitement.
There was no mistake.
This was not Prowl's spark chamber, but the one spark chamber which he would recognise everywhere. This was Wheeljack's.
"Ratchet? Is everything alright?" asked Ironhide behind him.
"No." Ratchet straightened. "But you knew that already, right?"
"Yeah." Ironhide sighed. "I think Blaster was right after all... they felt too guilty."
Ratchet nodded, agreeing automatically. "They always did the most terrible things and then..." How to describe the moments when he had to force Prowl to refuel, because the mech refused until all of the soldiers hurt in the last battle were provided for? Or when Jazz sneaked into the med bay and asked, clearly concerned, after the very mech he had just tortured for joors? He shook his helmet. "I think it's better when I go now."
His old friend agreed and on his wink a mech called Stungun escorted him back to the shuttle.
On Cybertron, he stumbled out of the spaceport, determined and feeling more like himself than he had in a long time.
::Wheeljack?:: he commed. ::I need you.::
::I'm coming.::
++++++++
Next chapter: Bluestreak and a bit more insight what happened before the trial...
I hope you liked this.
~silber
Beta: Starfire201
Continuation: AU, G1
Genre: Adventure, drama
Characters: Ratchet, Wheeljack, FirstAid, Ironhide, Hook
Summary: "You said... when you threw me out, remember? You said, that if I quit with the secrets and working for them, you would take me back."
Ratchet had expected as much, but this was too close to his dreams to have considered it. "'Jack..."
9. Ratchet
"There's nothing to be scared of," he said more gently than any Autobot had ever heard him speak. "This is just a scan of your spark, yes?"
The youngling looked at him with big optics and nodded hesitantly after looking at his creators for reassurance.
"Good," praised Ratchet. "Please, open your chest compartements now." He waited, not showing any impatience, until the little one nodded again and initiated the sequence.
This was a huge sign of trust that most medics would never get and – thankfully – never need. Spark damage and spark diseases, which a mech could survive, were a rarity.
Yet, this one seemed to have won in the lottery of life. As the blue light spilled into the medic room, it became obvious to the plain optic that this little spark wasn't round and symmetrically formed. Instead it reminded Ratchet of a raw crystal, with sharp edges and strange cavations of light. It was beautiful. But was it deadly?
"You're doing great, Halftwist," he said. "This might tingle a bit, but it will do nothing more, okay?"
"Okay," whispered Halftwist, looking anywhere but at the medic and his own spark. His hands gripped the berth beneath him tightly.
Instead of commenting on it, Ratchet started the scan.
When he left the room a joor later, a mech waited for him outside it. Leaning against the wall, all of his attention was on a datapad on which he scribbled calculations and formulas Ratchet had only once tried to understand. The resulting processor ache had become legendary as it had contributed to him finally making his threat to rebuild Sideswipe into a screwdriver true.
"Wheeljack," he greeted warmly, "what are you doing here?"
The engineer looked up surprised, then his face, no longer hidden behind a blast mask, split into a grin. "Ratchet! I just wanted to see you and then I heard about your newest case and decided to come."
Heard. Right. Probably one of his assistants called him. Everyone knew how he took failure – and death was failure in his processor – and they anticipated that it would even be worse with a youngling.
"He'll survive," he said and the certainty of his own words came as a relief. "Just bonding and the whole slag is out of question."
"That's great, Ratch'." Wheeljack smiled and touched his armplate.
Ratchet ruthlessly crushed the desire to lean into the touch. Once he had wanted to bond with this mech, but reasons always came between them, until those became plain suspicions. He started to ask questions. Where have you been this night? Why don't you have time, you finished your project orns ago? What are you building?
Instead of answering, Wheeljack had always looked at the floor like a chastised youngling. Ratchet then had let the matter drop, just to notice something strange again a few orns later.
Wheeljack had no doubt noticed his struggles, as his joy had vanished. "I've heard you've got a break now. Want to grab a cube with me? I'll pay."
Ratchet blinked surprised. Since his ultimatum – your secrets or I, which he had lost – Wheeljack hadn't invited him anymore. "Sure, lead the way," he answered, not daring to hope yet.
Wheeljack's fans lit up a bit brighter.
Because Ratchet was the owner and chief of the hospital and the medic school connected to it, he couldn't just go. Wheeljack knew that and, without a word, led him to the rec room, which doubled as the entrance to the Administration Office. It was small, but comfortable and Ratchet was proud that the room had nearly no white at all. The room was unusually full, but quiet at the same time with mechs staring at the screen that every few astroseconds showed yet another picture about Prowl and Jazz. In between, one could hear the voices of Rook or Blaster commenting on various details of the trial.
Ratchet froze at the doorstep, for a long moment not able to look away from the screen.
"Ratch'..." muttered the engineer behind him, his field hesitantly touching the medics' to offer comfort. Another first for vorns now.
"It's over, right?" asked Ratchet and he couldn't hide the sorrow in his voice.
"Yes," answered Wheeljack. "The final verdict was spoken two joors ago."
Ratchet sighed. "Death?"
"Spark execution. They'll be the first mechs to be executed since..."
"Since Starscream ruled, I know." He forced himself to look away from the screen, his past friends and walked on.
This was the reason why he hated the Black Ops and Special Ops and secret anything during the war and after. They turned good bots into monsters. More often than not, he had been the one left with the results, with the scarred mechs, tortured sparks and mutilated protoforms. He knew that Wheeljack was a good mech, but his secrets, the avoidance to tell him what they were and the clear signs that he wasn't involved in it alone, had reminded him too much of the war and its darkest places.
Still, he had never thought that Wheeljack would choose his secrets above him, Ratchet. Yet, he had.
When he had finished, they left the building and walked next to each other down the street. Wherever they turned, there was always another screen showing the same pictures, another small group of mechs discussing them. Ratchet tried to not let it touch his spark, but before they reached the café he just wanted to mourn for the mechs he once called comrades and friends.
"Ratchet, here," said Wheeljack suddenly next to him, handing him a cube. Then the engineer walked around their small table and sat down in the chair across from him.
Ratchet took a grateful sip and had to smile when he noticed that this was exactly his most favourite blend. Wheeljack had remembered it. He looked to his former lover. "Thank you."
"No trouble." He smiled. "I don't like to see you sad."
Good, caring Wheeljack. But... "Doesn't this concern you at all? They were your friends, too."
The engineer flinched and then his face fell. "It does, but..."
"But what?" He had enough of secrets.
"Ratch', look," he fell back into his chair. "I do care about them, really, but I think they... they kinda wanted this."
He wanted to throw his cube at Wheeljack's helmet. "Wanted to be executed?! Don't be ridiculous."
Wheeljack's optics dimmed. "But that's how it appears, doesn't it? They don't defend themselves..." He sighed. "Ratch', let's just... talk about something else, okay? This is not how I want this to go."
But Ratchet was just getting warmed up and his old anger and disappointment only fuelled it. "How did you want it to go? Did you want me to just sit here, not think about anything while you hide your secrets and what you do in your free time? Or what you do even in your working hours, after all, I caught your more than once tinkering with things that were certainly not part of your work."
"Ratchet..."
"Oh, and let's not forget how you even stole my medical files. I could have you tried for this, you know?"
"I know, but..."
However, Ratchet wasn't finished yet. "I thought you had fallen in love with another bot, Wheeljack." The cube in his hand cracked. "But no, you just told me that you had to do a few things for Cybertron and everyone, but that you wouldn't tell me what! Slag it!" He sagged, as the old pain overwhelmed him again. "Slag you."
Wheeljack's face was full with regret. "I've never loved any bot but you, Ratchet." He sighed. "I've missed you constantly since you threw me out of our apartment. That's the truth, really."
An apartment Ratchet had sold barely three decaorns later, because it had been too big and empty and quiet.
"Really," repeated the medic bitterly. But he desperately wanted to believe it. "Why did you come today? It wasn't just because of the kid."
Wheeljack shook his head, not able to look at him – again. "No. I would've come anyway, but maybe a few orns later and better prepared."
"Prepared? For what?"
Wheeljack was quiet for a few seconds, his hands twitching as if he wanted to grasp and twiddle with something. He was nervous. "You said... when you threw me out, remember? You said, that if I quit with the secrets and working for them, you would take me back."
Ratchet had expected as much, but this was too close to his dreams to have considered it. "'Jack..."
"I finished my last work for them a decaorn ago and they'll leave me alone now. Not that I ever was forced to work for them, but... it's finished. The whole thing, and it was a good thing, and I would do it again. But losing you was nearly too much." Wheeljack took a deep breath. "So, I wanted to ask... if those words were true."
They had been true then. But now? "'Jack..." He shook his head. "It's not just that. It's the trust between us to." Trust he had once thought complete. "You didn't want to tell me."
"I wanted to," argued Wheeljack. "I just didn't want to hurt you."
"Hurt me?" echoed Ratched, believing he had heard wrong. "You did hurt me! All those lies and secrets hurt me!"
The engineer became smaller with every comment, his fins actually turned a rare shade of grey. "I know."
"Then why?"
"'Cause... I've seen you in the war. How you looked at those spies and agents that came to you. I swore to myself that I never wanted to see you like this again." He sighed. "Even if I had to be the one to hurt you."
For a long moment, the medic wasn't sure what to say. Those orns in the war Wheeljack was referring to had been the worst in his life. He had started to prefer the clean violence of a battle to the purposeful damage and pain of other beings, who would come to his medic bay begging for death and relief.
"Please tell me," he said when his processor started working again, "that you didn't... hurt someone." Not his Wheeljack. Primus, he loved that mech. Don't let him be wrong like that.
Wheeljack's fins turned into a shocked white. "Never!" He stared at Ratchet with wide optics. "I helped them to recover!" Then he registered his own words and shut his mouth again. Calmer he continued: "I've not hurt or helped to hurt any living being. I swear."
His sincerity was plain. Ratchet nodded, too relieved to say anything. For vorns he had lived with imagining the worst, so that this little snippet of information was like a boulder falling from his spark.
"Ratch'... about my question..." said Wheeljack hesitantly. "You don't have to answer now."
"Nonsense." He smirked. "You forget I know you. You wouldn't be able to leave me alone until you have an answer. And forgive me when I say I can live without a stalker very well."
Wheeljack chuckled embarrassed. "True."
Ratchet looked at his cube. Could he live with Wheeljack again? He had hungered after Wheeljack's little jokes, his smiles, his awkward demeanour and even his enthusiasm for work. He could listen to Wheeljack ranting about a new project for joors, just admiring him. So yes, he could. But could he bond to this mech? He wanted to. Wanted to fall into his spark and never let it go. He had just feared his secrets. Feared to not know this mech after all.
"If you're telling the truth, then yes," he said slowly. "I still want to bond to you."
The expression on Wheeljack's face could've powered Cybertron for the next decavorn.
When Ratchet returned to his work, he felt light and happy. A nurse bot made an error – he corrected him calmly. A patient refused the best way to treat his problems – he explained the matter a third time, until the mech understood the why his idea was better forgotten in the pit. His colleagues made a joke – he laughed and made one his own.
Before his shift was over, everyone was acting as if he would break any given moment.
"Ratchet?" asked finally First Aid, no doubt sent by the various medics lurking around the corner of the next corridor. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." Then he remembered Wheeljack. "Better than alright."
First Aid frowned. "But Halftwist?"
"Will live. Maybe never bond, but live a full and healthy life."
"Oh." First Aid smiled. "That's good."
"Very."
"Okay. And ... you're okay with the trial, too?"
Ratchet froze. He had actually forgotten about it. "Well... I guess. I have to, right?"
"You don't seem very surprised."
Ratchet's mouth turned into a grim line. "Who do you think got their victims?" he asked bitterly, for a moment fighting to suppress the energon-pink images his mind provided. He hadn't needed to provide any witness statements – it had all been in the formerly sealed files. "Spark execution is not a nice way to go, First Aid. But I've seen worse."
The medic nodded carefully. "I understand..."
His former student was clearly not inclined to go. Ratchet sighed, irritated, and saw with satisfaction that First Aid didn't take a step back as the other wanna-be-medics he was teaching every vorn. "I'm fine, First Aid. Really. Wheeljack has just asked me a question."
"A question? That's all?" He seemed sceptical.
"Yep." And the warm feeling returned and he had to smile again. "We – he wants to come back."
First Aid stared and then – before Ratchet could step back – he had hugged his teacher. "Congratulations! That's wonderful news!"
Awkwardly, he stood there and nodded. "Yeah..."
First Aid released him. "I have to tell the others!"
"How do you even know I said yes?" muttered Ratchet, but First Aid only grinned and nearly ran back to his colleagues.
If this news needed more than a joor until even the last patient knew, Ratchet would be deeply disappointed into his hospital's rumour mill. Wheeljack and him, back together. Maybe bonding after all. It was a strange thought. It was a thought he wanted to become true.
The last vorns without Wheeljack had been too lonely.
He ended his shift on time – a fact that made his chief nurse nearly as happy as himself – and walked home. His apartment was small, and now that he looked at it critically kind of impersonal. In fact, it was clinically clean. He had brought his work home, or rather he hadn't left work for more than his berth.
Sometimes not even then.
If Wheeljack came back and they bonded, this would change drastically. Wheeljack brought colour and chaos to everywhere he went. Ratchet loved him for it. Primus, how had he lived without that mech?
::Chief medic Ratchet, are you available at the moment?:: a voice suddenly asked over his comm line, tagged as highest priority.
Immediately, he tensed. ::Ironhide, I haven't heard from you in a long time. What happened?::
::I need you on Luna Two. Now.::
Luna Two. The prison. Prowl and Jazz. This couldn't be good. Not when the medics on Luna Two weren't enough. ::I'm coming.::
::A shuttle is on the way.:: A deep breath. ::Ratchet... thank you::
::Always, Ironhide. Always:: He felt the cool wall at his back and slumped against it, shuttering his optics, pushing his feelings down. They were just patients, just mechs, just things he needed to fix. He hadn't needed that mantra since the Great War. ::Tell me the details.::
Only a joor later, he was rushed into the prison cell.
The hallway in front of it was already overcrowded with mechs and at the doorway to the cell Ironhide greeted him with a sharp shake of his head. Ratchet gritted his denta, refusing to let his emotions show. Instead, he nodded back and entered the cell.
A green and purple mech was already inside, kneeling next to the berth. Without looking up, he said: "Hello, Ratchet."
"Hook," he answered. He wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. Instead he stepped next to the Constructicon and forced himself to look at the berth.
Prowl was lying on his back, wings spread and his face peaceful. His arms were around his smaller mate, who was snuggled on his front in a way that had to be uncomfortable. Both were utterly grey and dead.
Primus. Ratchet felt his hands trembling and a huge hand choked his spark just as Megatron once had. This couldn't be true. It simply couldn't... They would never...
"Poison," said Hook suddenly. "I even recognise it. Mixmaster developed it during the war so that discovered Decepticon agents had a quick way out. It works very fast, affecting the spark directly through the energy buffers around the spark chambers. It deactivates them, which leads to an uncontrollable and unstoppable destabilisation of the sparks. As far as we were able to deduct, it's not a painful way to die. One of Mixmaster's better inventions."
Ratchet wished for nothing more than that he would stop talking. Every word made reality even sharper and more hurtful.
"The poison was in that game of theirs. The poison capsules are small, created to be hidden in small spaces and not to be visible in a scan. Scrapper designed them, of course. One would've had to take the game entirely apart to find it."
Soft footsteps alerted them to a mech behind them. It was Ironhide. "Which we didn't," the Chief Enforcer explained quietly, every word a confession of failure and guilt. He looked as if all strength had left him. "Because it would've erased the several hundred vorns old memory. We checked it, there were over a million saved games and scores on it. They must've put the poison inside the game before the war had ended."
Which made a certain kind of sense. But Ratchet would rather be damned before he said that.
"Anything else?" asked Hook, coolly professional.
Ironhide shook his head. "Nothing that concerns you. They've left a last message on one of the book files, but it's with experts for programming now."
Hook nodded and looked around in the room as if to find further explanation for this. Ratchet followed his gaze, but all he could see was a prison cell with two standard berths, a few forgotten personal book files on the other berth, a destroyed game on the floor and a terminal in the corner.
What a sad, little, impersonal room.
Ratchet knew he was stalling. The medics of the Enforcers had already declared them dead, and Hook had too, but he was the last instance. As the highest ranking medic on Cybertron his word would count.
But this was Prowl and Jazz. Strong. Indestructible in their opinions, if not in their frames. The mechs which he had followed when everything had seemed dark.
Suicide.
It didn't compute. It wasn't them!
They had deserved so much more. Deserved to die surrounded by friends and family. Through age. Yet, here they laid. Alone and broken through a trial that had managed what the Great War never did.
He scrambled for a happy thought. Wheeljack. It made it bearable.
With him in his mind, he knelt and took one of his crudest tools out of his subspace. It was heavy and he despised it. As he put it into position on Jazz, he flashed back to the youngling only joors before. The trust in those blue, alive optics, the hard, colourful armour that had revealed delicate plating, that slid aside to bare the most fragile of metal petals, which finally smoothly had opened themselves around the spark chamber.
This time there was no smoothness and no trust. Metal was screeching as he forced plate after plate apart, savagely tearing through the most intimate parts a mech possessed. Behind him, mechs were turning away, not able to watch the violation. Ratchet felt his own tanks rolling, his sight blurring and he wished he could do the same.
Finally, he had the spark chamber in front of him. A few tests – it remained dark and dead.
"Empty," he whispered.
No Jazz anymore. Never again.
He wanted to keen when he realised that Jazz wasn't lying by chance as he did, but that he had positioned himself directly above Prowl's spark. Protecting
him until the very last moment. The faces of the mechs around him turned even grimmer, as they realised the same.
Gently, Ironhide and Hook put Jazz's corpse on the floor, then Ratchet started on Prowl.
"Empty," he repeated his diagnosis. And only felt empty himself.
Why? Why now?
It made no sense. He stared down at the chamber which remained as it had always been, just without the one bright thing that had mattered. That hadn't changed...
Wait a moment.
He remembered every spark chamber he had seen in his life. Every single one was unique in its smallest details. And something... he tilted his head. Then, tilted it back, spark spinning in sudden excitement.
There was no mistake.
This was not Prowl's spark chamber, but the one spark chamber which he would recognise everywhere. This was Wheeljack's.
"Ratchet? Is everything alright?" asked Ironhide behind him.
"No." Ratchet straightened. "But you knew that already, right?"
"Yeah." Ironhide sighed. "I think Blaster was right after all... they felt too guilty."
Ratchet nodded, agreeing automatically. "They always did the most terrible things and then..." How to describe the moments when he had to force Prowl to refuel, because the mech refused until all of the soldiers hurt in the last battle were provided for? Or when Jazz sneaked into the med bay and asked, clearly concerned, after the very mech he had just tortured for joors? He shook his helmet. "I think it's better when I go now."
His old friend agreed and on his wink a mech called Stungun escorted him back to the shuttle.
On Cybertron, he stumbled out of the spaceport, determined and feeling more like himself than he had in a long time.
::Wheeljack?:: he commed. ::I need you.::
::I'm coming.::
++++++++
Next chapter: Bluestreak and a bit more insight what happened before the trial...
I hope you liked this.
~silber
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 06:04 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 11:57 pm (UTC)I did find the change of the point of view not as jarring as I expected. Everything else was rushing toward the verdict, and then we are focused on two friends trying to just sit and talk, with the final important moment of the verdict a side note in the background. Almost a footnote to reality. Not the earth shattering critical bit of healing need for every member of society. Everyone had already knew the verdict. The trial had been interesting because of what the two on trial had not done. But now the court did as expected, and their would be two more dead. After a war that had killed millions. As I said, a footnote.
But for these two, they just wanted to ignore it all. Because for these two, they had already lost the future they hoped to had, not to Prowl and Jazz, but to their own choices. Wheeljack of all mechs chose secrets to his relationship with Ratchet. It sounds like that had literally broken Ratchet's spark and shattered his world. He didn't trust Jack to be doing things for the greater good but be unable to share those secrets.
But very interesting that Jack shows up today of all days. And VERY interesting given the ending. What was he trying to tell Ratchet. He only every helped bots, he said. Wow, what were they all really up to all those years?
The poison was in the game, planted a long, long time ago. So that begs the question. What did Raj drop off in their cell? And they were planning this for a very long time. I wonder if they thought about it every time they played, helping them accept the outcome a bit more? Or where those the moments which helped them process the bad times during the war. Because how illogical is it to carry poison around in a game otherwise? It can't be reached in a fast and timely manner. Only in a situation such as this.
Ratchet only commented on Prowl's spark casing...nothing about Jazz and his casing. Does that mean that Jazz is well and truly gone? Or perhaps it would have been too suspicious to go back and double check the casing for Jazz, so Ratchet is just going to act rather than worry about a reconfirmation. Because he surely knows the sparks of his friends are no longer here. But where have they gone? Will he at least forgive Wheeljack if he is involved as he must be - it's his sparkcase after all?!!
All I can stay is Bluestreak!!!!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 06:00 pm (UTC)Ratchet has figured it out, yes. :) There are some hints in the beginning of the chapter within the youngling scene. Spark chambers are *very* private things. Would Wheeljack know how the sparkchambers of Prowl and Jazz look like?
And who besides Ratchet would be able to discern the difference between all three?
Yes, everything was rushing towards the verdict, but... it was clear what would happen right? So the verdict was no surprise. I wanted to show the outside perspective of normal mechs a bit more. Life doesn't stop because of the trial. But it's still touched by it.
I love Ratchet and Wheeljack as a pairing, but I don't think they would have a relationship without problems. Even if there is peace... I wanted to show how there are still wounds and things that need healing.
And thought the end of this chapter is a bit unexplainable at the moment, I assure that Wheeljack was real and that for these two the war here finally truly ends. They finally get to be together without the shadows of war looming over them. In many ways the most hopeful chapter... if you ignore all about Prowl and Jazz. XD
You're spot on about the timing. Wheeljack literally rushed back to Ratchet the very *second* he could. What he was up to, will probably become clear in chapter 10.
The game was the hidden game changer... so to say. XD I think they didn't exactly think about it every time the played, but then it was always reassuring probably.
In the beginning Ironhide mentions that they had probably hidden weapons everywhere. He was spot on with that observation. I think they were kind of paranoid in that regard and hid weapons in... well everything. I *bet* that Prowl has a stylus that doubles as a small dagger. (cause it's cool.)
Mmh, I'm really worried, because it seems no one saw the plan here. I might have to write another chapter, to explain what happened. XD Or simply explain it in Soundwave's story...
Anyway, Raj dropped off the very thing Ratchet saw as strange.
It's both their spark casings. I admit that was a bit ambigious.
I think Ratchet will press out of Wheeljack what he was doing all these years. And Wheeljack will tell. And yes, Ratchet will forgive, because it was a truly good thing.
Bluestreak! The one chapter that gave me the most trouble *ever*. No kidding. I have more versions of this chapter lying around than this story has chapters.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 05:35 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment!
How?
Date: 2014-01-13 07:46 pm (UTC)Re: How?
Date: 2014-01-13 09:15 pm (UTC)There is some explanation in chapter 10, and some more in another story that will also play in this universe. Also some oneshots about Wheeljack and what exaxtly he was doing.
So, more to come. ^^
no subject
Date: 2014-01-15 03:20 am (UTC)I've been waiting, and waiting, and hoping for you to play a trump card like this! Every chapter, I've been going "Okay, it can't actually end up like it's heading towards" and treating this story like a trainwreck--don't want to stare, can't turn away because I wasn't sure how you were going to play this out! I love and dread your chapters, seriously I do!
I will have to confess I didn't see Wheeljack coming, but it's believable the way you do it. And your handling of the whole Ratchet & Wheeljack connection strikes me as rather accurate--doable, enjoyable and ultimately solid, but definitely not without a few rough patches.
Well. Guess I have to go re-read everything and try to puzzle out where you're headed with this even more. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 08:40 pm (UTC)I often do not know myself how it would play out. There was a serious chance that they would simply die, through execution or suicide. I was tempted. ^^ But then, they simply said 'no' to me. It wasn't in their personality to simply sacrifice themselves.
I love Wheeljack and Ratchet. I think they're perfect for each other, but also that they exasperate each other. They were fun to write, and I will definitely write them again. They have their own dynamic.
For the next chapter, I think the most important hints are in chapter 5 - Ravage. ;) Everything that is not explained then, will have its own story or oneshot.
Thanks for the comment!
~silber
no subject
Date: 2014-01-17 03:59 pm (UTC)Please update as soon as you can, when you can ;)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-18 01:05 pm (UTC)I'll probably update today. :) Sadly, we're near the end. It's always bittersweet...