Transformers/Beast Wars 1. Chapter 1: The Wake

Right, I've had this on my computer for over a year now I think. It's just something I thought would make an interesting idea that spiraled into a long story that I put to the side since I was still right smack in the middle of _The Long Road Home_. I'm interested to see what you guys think of it.

It's a TF Animated AU, that much is obvious pretty fast. As for details, well I'll let you guys sort things out before I say anything spoiler-y. ;) Hope you enjoy it!

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Shattered

The Wake

It was a peculiar feeling, watching your own wake, one the femme had never thought she would experience.

She was standing in the shadows of the shops clustered near what had been her home, watching her family through the large side windows. She had wanted that house just for those windows. They made up the wall of the west side of the building and when the sun was setting light poured through them and illuminated every corner of the main room. And while the buildings across the plaza from her former home hid her with their shadows, there was nothing to obscure the sun from showing her her family.

She could see them through the big windows. It was easier now that most of the guests had left. Only a handful of old friends still lingered around the main room to try and comfort her son and sparkmate. Little Leo was wrapped in the arms of her old friend Chromia, her closest friend since they'd gone to school at the Autobot Academy. She hadn't seen the blue and white femme for orns now, since before she'd left for her latest mission.

_"Figures the next time I see her was my funeral." _The femme in the shadows thought to herself, but even that thought took some time to pick its way through the mists floating about in her processor.

A few feet away Leo's father sat in one of two chairs, slouched forward with his head buried in his hands. He'd been sitting like that ever since the last group of well-wishers and condolence-givers had left some time ago. Ironhide, an elite guard member under Ultra Magnus like her bond mate as well as a close friend of theirs, had been standing next to him for just as long. He hadn't said much, but then the red mech had always been a bot of few words, and from the glare she had seen her mate give the last bot that had said, "I'm sorry for your loss," she figured Ironhide's silence was appreciated more than anything he could say.

A sea green figure suddenly walked briskly into the room, small hands randomly shooting out and snatching bits of trash left behind from the wake and tossing them unerringly into the trash bin in the far corner. Another friend from her academy days, it had always amazed the watching femme that, no matter how often she tripped and stumbled and fell over her own two stabilizing servos, Moonracer never failed to hit what she was aiming for, be it the trash can or the shooting target.

But now the small femme was zigzagging crazily across the room, like a drone without its guidance systems. Her blue optics darted this way and that, locking onto unimportant things like the leftover debris or the crooked lampshade, which she straightened with quick, fidgety movements. Moonracer didn't stop moving even when she carefully put a hand on the grieving mech's shoulder and she only slowed down to lean over and kiss Leo's small head. Then just as quickly as she had entered, the restless femme flitted into the back room she had come from.

As the femme watched from her hiding place, Ironhide looked over his friend's slumped shoulders at Chromia as Moonracer reappeared and finally stopped her restless cleaning long enough to sit next to her and Leo. The blue and silver femme sent her new boyfriend an equally concerned look as Leo lifted his head just enough to look over at Moonracer and reached his little arms out to her.

Unquestioningly, the light green femme picked the mechling up and pulled him close, placing another kiss on his forehead as the little boy buried his face against her shoulder. Moonracer stared vacantly at the air in front of her, her naturally large optics even wider then usual as she rubbed Leo's back as restlessly as she had cleaned a moment ago. There wasn't much more she could do for him.

The watching femme felt her spark clench in its casing. That should be her holding Leo. He was _her _son. _Her son_. And he was crying because Ultra Magnus himself had come and told him that his mother was dead.

_"And I should be."_

The femme slowly looked down at her hands. They looked…strange. Sharp, darkly colored digits had replaced the long, bright ones that had been hers for so long.

_ "These aren't mine."_ She heard herself think as what was left of her systems kicked up a notch, along with a thumping somewhere in her chassis she didn't recognize. _"These aren't my servos. By Primus-" _the thought choked off in her head, _"by Primus what _happened _to me?"_

She wished she couldn't remember, but that wouldn't have helped her any in the end.

Behind her, the sun sank lower in the sky, making the shadows stretch farther across the ground. Inside the small house, timed lights kicked on, making the windows glow from the inside as the sunlight sank and ultimately disappeared behind the horizon line. And as the shadows crept closer to her home during the course of the afternoon, so had she.

By now she was only a few yards away from the side of her house. It was at once too far and too close. It wasn't safe standing this close. Someone might recognize her. Someone could just look up and see her outline lingering in the shadows. Chromia or Ironhide or, even worse, Leo or Op-

Her spark mate suddenly looked up, dulled optics automatically turning towards the window.

She felt her systems threaten to stop cold as their optics met. She took a half a step back as he shot to his feet, making the other bots in the room apart from Leo look up at him. No doubt they were asking him what was wrong now. Fortunately they were all so busy watching him that they didn't turn to see what he was staring at.

She back pedaled into the safety of the deeper shadows, her optics never leaving her mate's.

She saw his mouth move, telling Moonracer to watch Leo for a minute, that he just had to check on something for a klik. And then he walked out the door, long stride carrying him quickly from the house.

Through the windows, she was dimly aware of her friends' confusion and the hum of their low questions through the glass, but she wasn't paying them much attention now. They weren't the ones she had traveled so far to see.

She heard the front door open and close. Then hurried footsteps quickly making their way across the small plaza that sat in front of their house. For a brief klik, when the strange new beating thing was thumping wildly in her chassis, she wanted to run away, fast and far. Even farther then she'd just come. He shouldn't see her like this. No one should see her like this.

But she couldn't make herself leave. The piece of her that wanted to run was quickly overpowered by the fierce desire to have her family back. To not have to face this alone.

She didn't have long before running was no longer an option. Soon the familiar frame of her love appeared in front of her, looking startled and desperate with hope that his optics weren't just fooling him.

He stopped a few yards in front of her, but she could still hear his ventilation systems working hard to restore some kind of normalcy to his body.

For a long moment those systems were the only sound between them. That and the panicked, unfamiliar thump pounding in her audios.

Finally something else intruded on the taunt silence, a word, a familiar name-

"Elita?" He whispered, the unspoken question obvious as he took a cautious half step towards her; Was she really here?

She felt herself tense. She'd like the answer to that question herself quite honestly. As soon as she had caught sight of her reflection in the side of her space ship she had thought that maybe she was trapped in some kind of punishing afterlife. That the Pit was tormenting her somehow.

But even if that was true and she really was offline, she obviously still looked enough like herself for him to recognize her, but what if this change was as horrifying to him as it was to her? What if…

Her mech took another step towards her, arms automatically reaching out to welcome her. She took a half step back, not sure if touching was such a good idea.

The disbelieving smile that had started to show on his face abruptly froze in place, dying as it did. "Elita is that-are you-" his vocal processor broke slightly, "_please,_ it's gotta be you." He begged softly, hands still not lowering away from her.

She wanted to fling herself at him. To finally know that she was _safe_. That nothing could touch her here when she was surrounded by his arms and their friends. But what if she was the contaminate? What if she damaged them just by touching them with her poisoned frame?

But she couldn't just stand there watching him with fearful optics either. She had come here for a reason, right? If she couldn't trust her mate, well then who _could _she trust?

So she nodded, just once.

A held in batch of air left his vents in a rush. She saw how badly he wanted to close this ridiculous gap between them, but he remembered how she had moved away from him last time, so he remained still, albeit with difficulty.

"How-" he started to ask, "Why-what _happened_?" He finally formed a whole question. "They-Ultra Magnus- told us you'd been extinguished." He said with difficulty, rubbing at the back of his helm with a rough hand. "That the entire team but Glyph had been killed by natives."

Cautiously, Elita nodded. She remembered those natives very clearly. A disgusting piece of them had followed her here.

Her silence was starting to make her mate nervous. "Elita what _happened?"_ He pressed again. "How did you survive?"

Elita felt her optics flick towards the dark ground. But after being so close to death, she couldn't keep them away from his face for long, so she just as quickly flicked them back. He was still watching her with bewildered optics.

"I-" she started, voice just as unfamiliar as her servos, "I'm not sure I did." She admitted.

She saw him freeze across from her, his silhouette going rigid against the backdrop of the lit windows. She knew what he was thinking because she had thought it herself many times during the long trip home. _Was she really alive? Or was she just an apparition come to taunt his already broken spark?_

She had traveled alone and she'd never been brave enough to approach anyone before now, so she didn't know the answer to that question. But her mech wasn't about to let the question lie as long as she had.

He closed the gap between them with two long steps and immediately his hands found their familiar places on her body, one against her waist and the other cradling her cheek. His hands were warm and familiar and solid. She leaned into him with a relieved sigh. He was here. She was real. She wasn't some ghost haunting her old life. But then that meant that everything else that had happened had been real too.

She started to cry, as much from fear as relief, as she leaned against his solid frame, letting him keep her upright as the coolant tears finally ran free.

"Elita," he said her name as he wrapped her more securely to him, "I thought I'd lost you for good." He mumbled against her head as he ran a hand up and down her back, digits running across the strange, new appendages there and the scraps of cloth she'd used to conceal them.

"Elita what-?" He started in some confusion, but the whoosh of the front door opening and a familiar voice calling through the darkness stopped him from finishing the question.

"Optimus!" Ironhide called out from the house as he searched for his friend in the dark. "Hey mech, you alright out here?"

Elita froze against her love's side, suddenly afraid. Facing her mate was one thing, but even revealing her existence to an old friend like Ironhide was out of the question, at least not until she was sure of how he'd react when he finally saw the monster she had turned into.

"You can't tell him!" She hissed up at Optimus, turning fearful blue optics on him. She kept her voice low enough that the ambient noise of the city covered up her words, just as the night swallowed up her mate's bright colors and completely hid her own darker ones. "Not any of them!"

Optimus blinked down at her in surprise. "But Elita-" he started.

"_Please!_" Elita begged, pulling at the collar of his armor. "Not even," she stumbled, "not even Leo."

She half expected him to ask why, but another worried, "Prime?" from Ironhide reminded him that now probably wasn't the time.

"Alright," he conceded slowly, "come inside when they're gone, after Leo's gone to bed." He told her, then quickly pressed a kiss to her forehead and left before she could argue.

She vaguely heard Optimus call out to the other elite guard member as he exited the shadows and slowly walked back towards the house.

"Ya alright out here Optimus?" Ironhide asked again in his odd accent, concern for once obvious in his voice.

Optimus' answer was low, helping him to sound still bereaved for a dead mate that he now knew was very much alive. "Yeah," he answered, "yeah I just," he paused, trying to piece together what to say, "I just thought I saw something out here." He told the other mech.

From her hiding spot in the dark, Elita watched Ironhide put an uncertain servo on his friend's shoulder. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but a familiar cry cut through the thoughts of all three adults.

"Daddy!" Leo's little voice carried out the still open front door. "Daddy!" He cried more urgently.

Optimus sped up, darting towards the door as Elita watched her son through the window as the frightened mechling thrashed in Moonracer's grip. "_Daddy!_" He screamed again, despite Moonracer and Chromia's reassurance that his daddy would be right back.

Optimus suddenly appeared in the room and swept up his son, holding him close and murmuring to him to try and calm him down. Elita didn't need to hear him to know what he was saying. Every nightmare, every scrape, whenever little Leonek was scared it was always the same, comforting words.

"It's okay," he always said, "you're okay. Everything's going to be alright. I've got you."

Elita clung to those words as she hunkered down at the base of an out of the way building and waited for everyone else to leave.


	2. Chapter 2: Archa-7

Alright, so I've been staring at this for weeks ever since I put up chapter one and I can't take it anymore. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes and I hope you like it anyway. The next chapter didn't drive me bonkers as much so it should be up faster.

Right! So the AU-ness was hopefully pretty obvious in the first chapter. Pretty much this story is a giant 'what if'. As in, 'what if Elita, Optimus, and Sentinel didn't go to Archa-7 when they were younger?' What if instead, Elita and Optimus bonded and had a sparkling before Sentinel led a team to the organic planet with Elita-1 and a femme named Glyph (who is canon, just not widely used as far as I can tell)?

And the answer to these intriguing questions continues in chapter two! Thank you for your patience and hits! And especially thank you to Sarahdoll165 and KHGiggle for your reviews! It's always exciting to hear one of my stories has potential. Or at least, it's always nice to know I wasn't the only one who thought it did... ;3

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Fractured

2\. Archa-7

Half the night passed before it was safe to go near the house. Leo fell asleep against Moonracer's shoulder as the adults around him talked about his mother, trying to keep her close to them in some small way.

Little did they know, Elita-1 thought where she sat, one shadow out of a million that night, and watched them through her own windows.

Eventually, after Optimus had reassured their friends numerous times that he would be fine and would see them at some time tomorrow, Moonracer carefully peeled Leo off her neck and handed him over to his father so the little mech could be put to bed.

Elita waited another half cycle before daring to approach the house. It took her that long just to convince herself to go. After all, it had been dark when her bond mate had seen her, he hadn't been able to see most of the damage. Most of the…alterations. What if they disgusted him like they disgusted her? Or worse, what if Leo saw her? Would he even recognize her as his mother?

She was just about to turn around and leave when the back door suddenly swung open, revealing Optimus standing on the other side. He looked worried.

He released an anxious vent of air when he saw that she was still standing in the dark. "I checked the front door and you weren't there," he said, by way of explanation, "so I figured you must have come around back." He stepped aside and waved her in.

For a nanoklik, Elita didn't move. This was it, she thought in joint-freezing fear, one step inside and he wouldn't be able to unsee her.

But he was watching her with such concerned optics. "Elita?" He asked softly as he stepped closer. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Elita crossed her arms over her chassis and shook her head but couldn't find the words to speak. Slowly, she stepped inside the house that they'd shared since they'd bonded. They'd seen lots of changes in this house. Optimus' promotion to the elite guard team under Ultra Magnus himself. Elita's transfer to the exploratory team led by their old academy friend Sentinel Prime. Heck, she was ninety percent sure their son had been conceived in this house, on that little spot of floor behind the couch. He had certainly grown up here, playing and laughing in these little rooms and halls.

"Sweet Primus Elita-" Optimus breathed when he finally saw her in the revealing light of the hallway.

Elita couldn't bring herself to watch his face as he looked at her, so she stood there, just listening to the silence after those first three words as she kept her optics - all four of them now - glued to the sharp servos that weren't hers.

She thought she could feel his optics as he looked at her and tried to absorb what he was seeing; that this was _not _the same femme he had known for most of his life. His Elita wasn't some half Cybertronian, half organic _freak _with four spindly legs appearing out of her back or four optics, two on each side of her now black head, or organic fangs peeking over the edges of her lips. Even her paint job had changed, black and purple replacing her natural yellow and turquoise.

Elita crossed her arms over her middle and hugged herself. Why had she let him see her like this?

He lifted a hand to her altered face and she shied away, squeezing her four diamond shaped optics closed. "Don't." She said quietly.

She felt rather then saw him draw back. But then much to her surprise, she felt his digits under her chin as he tilted her head up so that she could meet his optics.

"Elita," he said softly, "Elita look at me."

Carefully, she opened her altered optics.

He was watching her with optics that were no more or less worried about her than before. But, she noted with no small amount of relief, that he didn't look afraid or revolted by her new techno-organic shell.

"It's going to be alright," he told her, "we're going to fix this."

A half sob, half laugh escaped her mouth. "_How_?"

She saw the cloud come over his optics as he thought as quickly as he could, but it was hopeless. She already knew that. But she also knew that her Optimus would never accept that as an answer.

"I don't know," he admitted with obvious pain. But then his optics cleared and he gave her a gentle shake. "But we're going to find a way."

He put his hands on either side of her face, not shying away from her new eyes and organic tissue. "Just," he tried to sound calm, "tell me what happened."

As much as her new frame sickened her, Elita lifted a clawed servo to hold onto Optimus', not wanting him to let go of her quite yet.

A small, sad, moan drifting out of the door behind her mate reminded Elita that they weren't alone in the house. Rising on her stabilizing servos, she looked over Optimus' shoulder at the cracked open door.

That strange thumping began again in the area where her spark should rightly be even though it had quieted some after Optimus had gone back inside earlier.

"How is he?" She asked quietly.

Optimus vented a long sigh. "Distraught." He told her, turning to look at his son's bedroom door. Elita noticed that he didn't let go of her hands which comforted her some. "He thinks you're dead 'Lita." He said in an even quieter voice.

Elita looked over at Optimus and saw the question in his optics. Why lie to Leo? Didn't he deserve to know that his mother wasn't dead? That there had been some big, stupid mistake instead?

Elita looked down at her self. Her mutated, half organic, self.

"I don't want him to see me like this." She whispered before looking back up at Optimus. "I-I don't even know if I _am _myself anymore." She whispered, afraid.

The fear he saw in her four optics made his spark ache. Carefully, mindful of the strange modifications that had taken over her head, he leaned his forehead against hers. "I recognized you," he reminded her, "and Leo would too. You're still you Elita." He murmured, believing it unquestioningly.

Elita still wasn't sure about that, but until some proof appeared that she wasn't really _her _anymore…well she'd just have to muddle through on the assumption that she was still herself.

"Come on," Optimus mumbled, not moving away quite yet, "you can explain everything in our room. That way we can let Leo rest. Unless you want to wake him up with the good news that his femme creator's only a few feet away from him now?" He raised his optic ridges hopefully to go along with the question.

But that same spark clenching fear appeared in her chest and made the thumping worse. Elita shook her head. "No," she whispered, "not right now. Not until we know something more about what's going on."

Optimus sighed, but didn't argue any further. Just took her hand and led her towards the back of the house to the room they shared.

She was a little surprised that it hadn't really changed. Sure, it was a little messier, a little dimmer without the light coming through the window, but it usually ended up like that whenever she was assigned an off world planetary exploration trip.

"Do you need anything?" Optimus asked as he closed the door behind him, leaving it open only a crack in case Leo woke up in the night. "When's the last time you refueled?" He asked, finally noticing the dirt coating her legs and the other travel stains on her discolored frame.

Elita glanced at the dirt, distantly noting that it must have come all the way from Archa-7 with her, and then shook her head. "I'm fine." She told him as she rubbed her servos together nervously and, carefully, sat down on the edge of the recharge berth big enough for both of them.

Watching her, as if he could still hardly believe that this wasn't some kind of dream, Optimus sat down next to her and automatically placed one hand behind her shoulder.

A distressed laugh threatened to escape Elita's mouth, but she swallowed it down. She had noticed early on in their relationship that he did that to try and convey comfort when she was upset. The familiar gesture at once put her at ease and made this ten times harder then she had expected.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Optimus asked softly a moment later when she didn't speak.

Elita nodded to tell him it wasn't a classified issue. "We," she started hesitantly, "we landed on the planet with no problems. The charts said it was called Archa-7. It was immediately obvious that it was an organic planet. There was dust and rocks everywhere along with this peculiar crystalline structure that hung in webs between the canyon walls. It was very pretty, especially when the sunlight caught it." She added, almost absentmindedly before continuing on.

"Sentinel said that we were there to investigate the rumors about Decepticon energon stockpiles stored there during the last Great War," she told him, "apparently they had a ship full of the stuff and it either crashed there due to some circumstance we don't know about or they hid it there on purpose."

"Then why didn't they ever go back for it?" Optimus asked.

Elita nodded vaguely. "Yes, that's what I was wondering. There are still Decepticon stragglers out there. Why don't they retrieve the energon? But," she shook her head, "but that's not really the point right now. The point is, we knew the 'cons hid energon on deserted planets and there were rumors that there was a store there."

She sucked in a deep, cooling cycle of air. "So we investigated." She said, optics focused on the wall in front of her. "Glyph's readings quickly led us underground. There were," she spread her arms to demonstrated, "these _huge_ tunnels down there that all looked like they'd been bored out by some simple machine or tool. It must have taken ages." She murmured softly.

Optimus waited a moment as her thoughts wandered back to the strange planet Archa-7.

Soon her optics, all four of them, narrowed with memory. "But we found out pretty quick that we weren't the only ones down there." She said, voice hard.

Optimus frowned. "The natives?" He asked.

Elita nodded sharply, once. "Glyph's readouts led us through the maze of tunnels, but we didn't leave any physical markers to show us the way out."

"You thought you wouldn't need them." Optimus guessed.

Elita nodded again. "After awhile we came across this huge cavern. I mean it could fit the council hall five times over easily," she told him, looking at him briefly before the memories consumed her vision again. "And there it was," she said, sounding somewhere between impressed and surprised.

"What?" Optimus asked after a moment.

Elita gestured with a servo again. "The ship." She told him simply. "That dang, blasted, Primus forsaken ship. And the rumors were true, it was loaded with energon. I swear it was sitting in piles eight long and five high at _least_." Elita marveled.

But then her optics drained of all amazement. "And there were these oval sphere things on them. They were all over the ground and the energon, laying in little clusters surrounded by that same crystalline web stuff we had seen outside.

"Only these were fresher, suppler, they hadn't had time to crystallize yet. I touched some of the stuff to see what it was and it stuck to my servo like bonding agent. I tried to fling it off but it just gummed up the joints in my digits. It took Glyph and Sentinel's help to finally get the stuff off of me." She told him.

"What did it look like?" Optimus asked, optic ridges drawing together in thought.

Elita shot him an anxious look, and then slowly raised her far arm off of the recharge berth. Before Optimus could ask what she was doing, a glob of wet, whitish string span out of her palm and stuck to the wall with a splat.

Optimus jerked back slightly, startled. All the while Elita's optics never left his face.

"It looked like that." She whispered.

For a moment it looked like Optimus would say something. His jaw fell open, he stared with wide optics at the muddied white string clinging to his bedroom wall, and he sucked in air through his vents.

But then he closed his mouth and carefully took hold of his love's hand, almost as if he was afraid he would break it. He ran wary digits over her palm, feeling for whatever opening had spat out the sticky thread. But when he didn't find anything, he gripped her hand in his and looked up at her.

She could see he was struggling with this new information, but he asked anyway, "What happened next?"

Elita thought about cutting off the narrative there. True, he hadn't thrown her out of the house or anything, but if he had that kind of trouble with the web, what would he say when she finally told him what had happened to her?

She tried not to think about it as she lowered her head and continued talking. "Glyph and I took samples of the webbing and some broken bits of the oval pods while Sentinel inspected the energon piles. He told us they were unstable, hardly useable, but that we should probably bring back one or two for Perceptor to study anyway, along with one of those oval things so we could find out what they were.

"Glyph didn't think it was a good idea. She told us she was picking up life readings from inside the little things. Maybe not very strong or advanced ones, but still, life signs all the same. She was afraid that messing with them would either damage them or anger whatever creature was within them."

Elita slowly swung her head back and forth with a grim smile on her face, showing off more of her new fangs. "But you know Sentinel. He just couldn't comprehend that there was something out there that could give _him_ trouble."

She vented a sharp, soft laugh, but Optimus noticed the morose overtones in her low voice.

"So he chose an oval for sampling." Elita eventually told him. "And as soon as he picked that thing up, a monstrous clicking sprung up all around us."

A small click appeared from seemingly nowhere, and it took Optimus a minute to realize it had come from Elita. He wasn't sure if she had meant to make the sound or if it had been an unconscious thing, but it was still unsettling. Vocal processors weren't supposed to make that sort of sound.

"It echoed all throughout that huge cavern until I thought it would vibrate my processor to pieces," she continued on in a soft voice, unaware of Optimus' thoughts, "We had grouped together as soon as it had started, but it took the spiders a couple of kliks to get close enough for us to see them, much less get within Glyph's scanner range."

"What's a spy-der?" Optimus asked.

Elita rubbed at the back of her left hand with her empty right one. "The natives Glyph told you about." She answered softly, not meeting his gaze now. "They were immense, but only rose to about half my height. They had eight legs, two body segments including their head, and," she tapped a digit below her new optics, "eight optics all around. They scuttled about on the ground, but with all those legs they could move awfully fast."

She shivered slightly, like she was cold even though the room was fairly warm. She rubbed at her arms, but it didn't seem to help. Optimus wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"They were everywhere," she went on, voice barely above a whisper now as she looked at something far away, "not just on the floor, but on the walls, the ceiling. They must have had," she tried to think, "I dunno, some kind of natural adhesive on their servos because they could cling to every surface in that cavern."

"They surrounded you." Optimus guessed.

Elita laughed sharply. "We were always surrounded. We just didn't know it until then." She told him bitterly.

She stared off into space another klik, but then shook her head and rubbed at the side of her face, almost poking herself in one of her new optics in the process.

"They weren't too happy with any of us, but they were focused most on Sentinel. With the way they were watching him and all that hissing and clicking Glyph figured we were in some sort of nesting ground-"

Understanding lit up Optimus' optics as a piece of the puzzle fell into place. "And the ovals housed their young."

Elita nodded, glad with all the interruptions. It was almost impossible for her to spit these words out in the first place. And the more Optimus put things together himself, then the quicker this narrative would end.

"They went after Sentinel first of course since he still had the offspring, but when Glyph and I tried to help him, they turned on us too. They weren't exactly technologically advanced," she said, "but their pincers were strong enough to pierce armor. The first one went right through Glyph's shin guard like it was made of tinfoil."

Optimus nodded. He had seen that wound when she'd come with Ultra Magnus to give him the news about Elita.

"She went down. For a moment I couldn't see her over the spiders clamoring over her, but I could hear her screaming. I downloaded Sentinel's ability and managed to fling one off of Glyph. I hauled her to her feet and Sentinel ordered us back to the ship. Said he'd be right behind us, so I got an arm under Glyph and started to hack our way through the spiders back the way we'd come. Once we made it to the cavern exit, they thinned out and Glyph and I were able to get back to the ship."

She sighed, bracing herself. "Unfortunately the inhabitants of Archa-7 had gotten there first and the pilots were dead. The spiders had trashed the main ship to get at them, but the exploration pod was still in tact. I got Glyph fixed up as best I could and into the ship. The last I saw of her she was trying to raise Cybertron command on the ship's communication for help."

Optimus narrowed his optics in thought. "Longarm never reported getting any emergency communications. Something must have happened to the signal -"

"I know!" Elita shouted, shooting to her feet with her arms held stiffly at her sides. "For heaven's sake Optimus _I know!_"

Optimus drew back, surprised by the raging vehemence in his spark mate's voice. He could count on one servo how many times he'd seen Elita this furious and this only made magic number _two_. The first time this had happened she had nearly taken Leo's teacher's head off for insinuating that her son wasn't progressing at the 'normal level' like most other younglings in his class because he'd been sparked by co-creators rather then coming from the Well of AllSparks like almost every other bot online.

Now _that _had been a parent-teacher conference to remember.

And this looked like it might even be a more spectacular demonstration as the darkly colored femme stood there shaking as all her anger suddenly boiled over. Even her blue optics were starting to turn red near the bottom.

Optimus sat very still, not sure what to do. Across from him, Elita did the same, trying to shove down her sudden fury.

_"It's not fair,"_ she growled in her processor, _"this isn't me! I don't deserve this!"_ It was all she could do not to scream.

Before the sound could escape from her mouth though, a very different sound slipped through the crack in the door.

"…mama…."

The small word was followed by an equally small whine. Leo's little voice came again, more desperate then the first, before Optimus and Elita could as much as look at each other.

"Mama?"

Optimus looked over at Elita. He gestured towards the cracked open door. "'Lita aren't you-?" He started to ask.

But Elita was already backing away. She shook her head, but it was nothing compared to how badly the rest of her was shaking. She wrapped her arms around her middle to try and keep herself together. Her four, spider-like limbs unconsciously did the same.

"But-" Optimus tried again, reaching out a hand towards her.

"No," Elita said in a small voice, "I-I can't. Not like this." She looked down at herself, and then looked away, unable to stand the sight of her mutated frame.

Frustrated, Optimus leaned forward without realizing it. "But he's our Leo." He tried again, wishing not for the first time that she wasn't so dang stubborn all the time. But then, he supposed in the back of his mind, that if she wasn't, she really wouldn't have been the same Elita he knew and loved.

"_Mama!"_ Her young son started crying in his sleep.

That blasted thumping reappeared in her throat and Elita froze. Would Leo even recognize her if he saw her like this?

She couldn't remember how to move before Optimus vented a frustrated sigh and spun out of the room. A nagging sense of guilt joined the stupid thumping as she listened to him stalk down the hall to their mechling's room.

"Leo?" She heard him whisper to their youngling. "Leo, buddy, wake up. It's just a nightmare." He told him. Elita didn't have to see her boys to know that Optimus was gently shaking the child awake.

There was a start and then a whimper and she knew Leo was opening his optics to see Optimus sitting next to him.

"Daddy?" Leo asked, voice soft and scared. "Where's Mama? She was here wasn't she?"

Elita heard Optimus' disheartened sigh and she hugged herself tighter. He had always been so adamant about telling the truth. It was one of the things she could always count on from him; his honesty. She had used to think that there was nothing in the universe that could convince him to lie. Nothing at all.

But it turned out she was the one bot alive that he would lie for.

This new truth did nothing to make her feel better.

"I," Optimus said slowly to his three year old. "I think you were dreaming Leo," he said carefully, managing to stay away from an all out falsehood.

"But I heard her!" Leo protested.

"I know Leo," Optimus said. There was a shuffling sound as he scooted over and pulled the little bot onto his lap. "I know. I hear her too."

Elita squeezed her optics shut. She was being a slagging _coward_ and she knew it. But her fear was real. And how could she expect them to still love her when she couldn't even _stand _herself?

With a shudder, she sank back onto the berth and tried to keep herself from shaking to pieces on the floor.

She was still sitting there, hunched over slightly, four optics gazing unseeingly at the floor, when she heard Optimus return some time later, after Leo had fallen back into a fitful recharge. The room dimmed briefly as he stepped through the door, his broad shoulders cutting off the light from the hallway for a moment.

Only Elita didn't see the light return as he came and sat next to her on the berth again. She was back in that blasted cavern, the only light coming from the flickering glow of the unstable energon cubes. The light cast a sickly pink glow over the bulbous bodies of the spiders, making them appear even more grotesque.

She was skidding through the cavern's large entrance, one arm already transformed into her service weapon, the other held ready incase her download powers suddenly became useful.

The spiders were everywhere, on every surface like she had told Optimus. Hoards of beady, red optics leered at her from the pink tinged blackness, making her spark shudder. They were hideous, ugly even by organic standards. Primus how she hated them…

The energon light flickered as the hoard turned on her. She heard a masculine scream from the middle of the cavern blackness that sent a spasm of fear shooting to her very core. She tried to help him, but then the hoard turned towards her. Almost immediately, their hairy bodies blocked out the light entirely. She felt herself shriek as she fought back, but there were too many. One leg gave out from under her because of the combined weight of the spiders on top of her, and the other was quick to follow. She was covered by a mound of hissing, biting _things_. She tried to find something to help her, anything she could download, but something must have glitched because as soon as she activated her power a burning spread fast as lightening up her circuits.

And after that…nothing.

"Sentinel fell." She said softly, knowing Optimus could still hear her. "I fell. The spiders took me down with their venom. On instinct I tried my downloading power, but it didn't work on the organics. I remember blacking out. I thought I was a goner," she huffed a sad laugh, "and then, when I woke up," she looked down at her black, claw like servos, turning them over slowly, sadly, to stare at her black palms, "I wished that I had."

Thick, blue digits wrapped around hers, interrupting her dejected staring. She looked up into the familiar optics of her mate.

"_I'm _glad you did." He said simply. "I'm…more relieved then I can put into words. We got the news an orn ago that you were…just _gone_," he said with a rough voice, optics lowering for a moment.

"It was the longest orn of my existence." He told her softly. "I could hardly drag myself out of recharge every day. Outside it was like nothing else had changed," he said sharply, "but going on orbit after orbit without you…it was unbearable.

"And Leo," he added after a brief pause to get his voice back under control, "Hearing that you were gone nearly broke his spark. He cried for days. He panics whenever I leave the room. I can't make you tell him, and I won't do it for you," he said quickly, frowning slightly now, "but 'Lita…" he trailed off for a space of time before looking up at her again, pinning her with strong optics, "Elita he needs you. And no matter what happened to you, no matter how this infection has altered your frame, you're still our Elita, and we love you, more then anything."

Elita stared silently at her servos held tightly in his. Her own self loathing kept her from believing him entirely. How could they love her when she had turned into this…half organic freak?

"We'll figure this out." Optimus told her, briefly tightening his grip on her servos. "We'll find someone that can help find out why this happened, how to reverse it if that's what you want."

"Of course that's what I want!" Elita cried, optics widening as she looked up at him again. "You think I want to stay like this forever?!"

Optimus watched her silently. And then slowly placed a kiss on one blackened palm. "No matter what happens, just know that we still love you. That _I_ love you, no matter what."

He leaned up to kiss her forehead again, but Elita moved and caught his mouth with hers at the last moment.

They stayed that way a long moment, unable and unwilling to pull apart so soon after believing for so long that they would never see each other again.

Even after they separated some time later, Optimus leaned his forehead against hers. They were still another long handful of cycles.

"You should get some rest." Optimus eventually murmured, still not pulling away quite yet. "You've been traveling for awhile now. You're probably exhausted. We can sort things out in the morning."

Elita nodded. She was tired. She'd hardly closed her optics since she'd patched up the main ship and put in the course for Cybertron. But she made sure to pull Optimus onto the bed after her as she scooted over.

"You're not in any better shape." She told him at the questioning look in his blue optics.

They settled down on the flat surface, systems quieting down in preparation for sleep. But it wasn't until Optimus wrapped an arm around her and Elita found the familiar spaces between his armor that they managed to shutter their optics and actually find some rest.


	3. Chapter 3: Asking Around

Today's awful and I like this chapter. I hope your weeks going better than mine. Please read and review. Thanks.

...

Fractured

3\. Asking Around

"Hey Prime, you sure you're ready to get back to the job so quick?"

Optimus shot his old friend a sharp look. Ironhide hadn't been the first bot to ask him that question today and he had the bad feeling he wouldn't be the last. He'd been on leave for the past orn after Ultra Magnus had given him the news that his spark mate's team had been extinguished on a planetary exploration run. And apparently every other bot in Iacon thought it wasn't enough time to be left alone in his misery.

Only there had been some mistake. Elita _wasn't_ offline. By some miracle he was grateful for with his entire spark, she was still alive. Changed, but alive.

She just refused to let everyone else know that.

Optimus slanted another look at the red bot walking next to him. Like all of their other friends and family, he still thought Elita was gone. And it was turning out to be a whole lot slagging harder to keep that particular secret to himself then Optimus had thought.

"I'm fine." The taller bot ground out through clenched teeth. "But if you don't quit asking then I'm going to have to pound you into scrap metal." He grumbled.

Ironhide snorted and shot him a look of his own as they turned a corner in the complex hallway system. "Oh yeah, because _that_ sounds like something you would normally say."

Optimus glared at the annoying bot following him, but didn't answer. Just kept making his way through the halls of the elite guard's half of the central administration building.

He still didn't understand it really, why Elita insisted on keeping her existence a secret from bots that were so close to them they might as well be family. He _knew_ they would understand her predicament once they explained it to them just like he knew they wouldn't condemn her for being infected with organic material. If anything he thought they'd be more than willing to help her find a cure, a way back to her original frame.

But no. She refused. She was so terrified that they'd despise her for what she'd become on Archa-7 that she wouldn't even tell their own son that she was still alive.

Optimus bit back a growl as he stomped around the next bend in the white hallway system. That was the part that irked him the most. On some level he could understand why she might not want her friends seeing her like this. But her own son? Their only offspring? He knew she loved little Leo, and he supposed that was why she was so afraid of telling him the truth, but Optimus couldn't help but wonder…would she have told _him_ that she was still online if he hadn't seen her outside the window?

Optimus shook his head. Now was probably not the best time to be thinking about that anyway. He was almost to his destination.

"Hey Prime, ya forget yer way around already? Ultra Magnus' offices are this way." Ironhide jerked a digit back the way they'd just come.

Optimus grunted but didn't turn back. "I know. I've got to see Alpha Trion about some paperwork before I report in." He told his friend. It was an excuse really since the paperwork was merely a formality that could be taken care of later, however he wanted to see Alpha Trion as soon as possible. He was one of the oldest bots on Cybertron and he hoped that the older mech might be able to at least give him some idea of who to talk to about Elita's…condition.

Walking a step behind him, the other mech slanted a suspicious look at his friend's back. _"Paperwork my aft," _he thought, _"first ya freak out at 'Lita's wake – scarin' all of us half to the Pit and back thank ya very much – and then ya shut yerself up in her house alone for an orn, leavin' Leo with Moonracer when the only bot he wants to see is _you_." _Ironhide's engine revved slightly as he followed Optimus down another arbitrary corner. _"I'm tellin' ya, Chromia may think yer only grieving, but I know better. Yer keepin' sumthin' from me and I'm gonna find out what it is if it's the last thing I do."_

Unaware of Ironhide's inner monologue, Optimus continued walking, wishing his friend would just leave him alone for at least a little longer.

Then he stopped so abruptly that Ironhide nearly ran into him. Fortunately highly trained elite guard members were on the whole fast enough to keep from railroading their annoying friends.

Optimus whirled around and glared at Ironhide, which was strange enough to make the other bot stop in the first place.

"Did you need something from me? Or are you just planning on following me around all orbit like a lost cyber-ducking?"

The red mech stiffened at the harsh tone. "Ya know what? Fine! Keep whatever secret that's makin' ya go all haywire! See what I care!" He snapped back before stomping away.

He turned around about five steps later and stomped backwards long enough to shout back, "Oh! And by tha way, Ultra Magnus wants to see ya when yer done with old Alpha Trion!"

Then he spun back around and stomped around the corner.

Optimus watched him go, glaring all the while. What did Ironhide think? That he wasn't capable of taking care of himself? That he actually _needed_ some youngling-sitter to make sure he was still in his right processor so that he could go through reports and official papers?

Optimus only made it a few more steps before he stopped cold in the hallway.

_"Slag," _Optimus thought sourly. _"Just one more thing I need right now..."_

But dealing with Ironhide would have to wait until later. Right now he needed to go talk with Councilor Trion.

With a rough sigh Optimus started walking again towards the invisible line that separated the elite guard's section of the building from the high council's.

Alpha Trion's offices were set in one of the more out of the way hallways instead of the highest floor where all the other council members had taken up residence where Optimus had gone to first.

_"Unusual," _Optimus thought as he approached the door after descending twenty levels, taking a right, backtracking when he realized he was supposed to have taken a left, _"I wonder why he doesn't keep his offices near the other council members."_

The tall bot shook his head to clear it before pulling himself together. He unconsciously straightened his shoulders and settled into a more military stance before raising a servo and knocking sharply on the door.

He must have surprised whoever was on the other side because a muffled clatter came through the closed door. "Wha-oo!" Somebot shouted before he was drowned out by the clattering of many metallic objects falling and hitting each other.

"What the-?" Optimus muttered as he raised an optic ridge at the door. Councilors weren't that clumsy…were they?

The door was suddenly opened by a young femme, probably the councilor's intern. She seemed to have an all around pleasant demeanor, but she did look somewhat confused by his presence.

"I'm, uh," Optimus tried to remember what he was here for, "I'm here to see Councilor Trion."

She gave him a look that said, 'well _that_ clears things up,' but before she could tell him to go away, an ancient sounding voice appeared over her shoulder in good humor.

"Let him in Ariel, maybe he can figure out how to get this contraption off me."

Optimus resisted the urge to lean to the left just a little and see who was trapped in what. The pink intern, Ariel apparently, just sighed and stepped out of the way.

"Well come in," she said, sounding tired, "feel free to take a seat, if you can find one in this mess." She mumbled the last part under her breath as she turned back to trying to get the councilor out from under the clutter he'd gotten himself tangled up in.

It took Optimus a cycle to understand just what he was looking at. At first he thought maybe he was looking at one of those abstract sculptures Sideswipe's brother was known for creating, but then he saw that the rectangular thing supporting the wires and their circular baubles was actually a foot. It took him another cycle to realize that one of the wires dangling off the foot wasn't a wire at all. It was a ridiculously long mustache that had gotten tangled in the wires.

Eventually the rest of the councilor appeared out of the mess of wires, spheres, and data pads that had fallen on top of him. He had landed upside down, shoulders smashed against the floor with the weight of the mobile base that was sitting on his thin chest. His arms were spread against the floor for balance while his other foot was propped against the wall.

Alpha Trion tried to look up at his guest, but the wires had practically tied his chin to his chest. Although that didn't stop him from being a proper host.

"Well don't just stand there," he told the bot standing in his door, "come in! Have a seat while I figure out how to get out of here without taking my leg off. Yes, just shove that pile of reports to the floor. They don't deserve the chair anyway. They're quite annoying as it is." He wriggled in his wire bindings, making the baubles jingle.

"Uh-huh…" Optimus muttered, not sure what to say. And then, not knowing what to do either, he waded through the fallen clutter in the general direction Alpha Trion had said the chair was.

"How does he _find_ anything in this mess?" Optimus muttered to himself as he shuffled past a stack of data pads as high as his elbow. "If all the other councilors' offices are like this then its no wonder they took forever to debate matters. It's a miracle they can find their reports at all!" He carefully moved aside what looked like a miniature planetary system model standing on top of another stack of reports out of the way against the wall. Optimus groaned when he saw that there was another wall of _stuff_ on the other side. "And where is that stupid ch-?!"

_Crack!_

Pain lanced up Optimus' shin as it smacked against something hard in the clutter. "Oh," he muttered in strangled words, "there it is."

Behind the councilor's desk, the pink femme laughed lightly. "Just be glad it wasn't the cyber-cat's tail." She muttered as she sorted the data pads she was holding into the two main stacks on the desk.

"Yes," the councilor agreed where he was still stuck upside down in his project, "that's what started this whole mess in the first place." The spherical baubles dangling on the wires gave a slight jingle as he tried to shake his arm free.

"No Granddad," Ariel said patiently as she threw another data pad on the smaller pile, "that was this one knocking on the door." She tilted her butterfly shaped helmet in Optimus' direction before throwing another data pad on the desk.

"Oh," the old mech took another moment to wriggle, "yes, quite right."

Optimus watched in some confusion as the strange pair fell silent. For the next handful of cycles the only sounds in the room were that of the councilor's slight incoherent grumbling as he went about his wriggling and the staccato clack of the data pads as Ariel threw them into their respective piles.

Eventually Alpha Trion realized that his visitor was still standing there.

"Aren't you going to sit?" He blinked up at him from his upside down position.

Optimus eyed the hodge podge of clerical and scientific debris surrounding the chair like a volcano about to erupt and decided he'd stand instead.

"Uh…I'm good." He told the old mech before settling further into his 'at ease' position.

Alpha Trion sighed and looked back at the wires pinning his arm to his chest. "You military bots, so serious all the time, won't even sit down when there's a perfectly good chair just taking up space. I don't remember bots being this stubborn when I was younger-"

He continued his muttering as Optimus looked over at Ariel. She seemed rather unconcerned by the councilor's actions at any rate.

"Is this…" he tried to think of a diplomatic description, "normal around here?"

Ariel hardly looked up from her sorting. "Oh he hasn't even gotten started yet." She told him, not bothering to keep her voice down. "And if you're not going to sit you might as well make yourself useful and help him out of that web of his. Grandmother tells him not to keep something like that in the house so what does he do? He takes it to his office where it's not only likely to fall over, it's guaranteed." Another data pad hit the stack with a sharp clack.

Optimus was beginning to see that muttering ran in the family, so he quietly made his way past the clutter to the wall where the councilor was, er, tied up.

Somewhat haltingly, he bent over to be more at the councilor's optic level and asked, "Can I, er, help you sir?"

Alpha Trion looked absurdly calm about being upside down and tied up in his own creation. "Yes, if you don't mind just pulling that wire right there and I think I'll just slip right out-"

"This one?" Optimus asked uncertainly as he reached for one of the wires pinning the bot's arm.

"No no no _that_ wire-" Alpha Trion jerked his chin at another cluster of wires. Or at least, he tried to…

"You mean this wire-" Optimus tugged at a different string.

"Yes yes yes now just pull, yes just like that-"

"Are you sure it won't-" _Tug tug._

"Not like that! Ow-"  
"Sorry I'll just-" He let go abruptly.

_Snap!_

"Ow!"

"Sorry…"

Across the room, Ariel put down her sorting with a sigh. "Oh for heaven's sake…" she muttered before crossing the room with decisive strides. A tricky feat given all the clutter.

She stopped in front of her upside down grandsire and the bot trying to help him and propped her servos on her hips to frown at them.

"Really." She said, sounding put upon as she reached out and expertly looped one string out from where it had been cutting off the older bot's circulation to his head.

There was a sudden jangle and crunch as Alpha Trion landed in a heap on the floor, the wires falling off into a loosely tangled mess on the floor around him.

Optimus stared unblinkingly at the jumbled heap of councilor on the floor.

The muffled words, "Thank you my dear…" drifted out of the middle of the jumble.

Ariel just huffed and went back over to the desk. Optimus noticed she was shaking her head.

With a groan, the councilor finally made his way to his feet, Optimus hovering uncertainly nearby. Was it more polite to help old councilor's to their feet after seeing something like that, he wondered, or was it best to pretend the last ten cycles just hadn't happened?

Unsure of the answer, Optimus looked for a change in subject instead. "So, ah, what, what was that?" He pointed at the loops of wire now on the floor. The spherical baubles that had been strung on them were now rolling away in all directions, most never to be seen again.

Alpha Trion vented a disappointed sigh as he rubbed his sore head and looked down at the remains of his project on the floor. "It was supposed to be a working model of the Sirenia sector, with the planets moving along their orbits and everything. But Triton here," he nudged one of the larger spherical baubles with his stabilizing servo and sent it rolling into the corner, "upset the whole balance when it drifted into Attina there." He nodded at an empty spot on the floor and blinked in confusion. "Eh? Where'd she go?"

"She disappeared under your last project," Ariel spoke up from across the room, "you remember, the one that was supposed to make my job easier?" She asked with a sarcastic kind of grin as she threw the last data pad onto its pile, nearly upsetting the whole stack and sending it to the floor.

Alpha Trion looked sheepish. "Oh, right…" he mumbled.

Ariel sighed as if she had resigned herself to the fact that there would always be Tritons and Attinas getting lost in corners after tying up her granddad and making him stand on his head for several cycles.

Alpha Trion seemed to shake himself out of whatever thought his processor had gotten lost in and he looked over at his granddaughter. "Wait, what are you doing here today? I thought you were on vacation so you could spend time with that new mate of yours." He asked, scratching at his helm as if he was wondering if he was remembering right or if he was just losing his processor altogether.

Optimus had his own opinion on that matter himself, but didn't think it a very polite thing to add at the moment.

"I _had_ only come in to get my purse," she held up a pink clutch that matched her paint, "but then I saw you messing with that thing and knew that if I didn't stay to save you from its clutches when it finally got you, then you'd be here standing on your head all orbit." She leveled a flat look at her grandfather.

Alpha Trion brushed it off with a wave of his servo. "Nonsense," he told her sounding very sure of himself, "this nice young mech would have come around and helped me out eventually. Wouldn't you, erm," the older bot stopped cold in his words as he looked over at Optimus standing next to him, "and just who are you again?"

Optimus resisted the urge to sigh, although he noticed that Ariel didn't. "Optimus Prime sir. I came to speak with you about returning to service."

Alpha Trion nodded as if this jogged a memory, but Optimus got the distinct impression he was faking to make his granddaughter feel better. "Ah, right, yes. You see Ariel?" He turned back to the pink femme watching them with one servo propped on her hip. "I would have been perfectly safe if you hadn't come to get your little bag thing. Now go on," he waved her towards the door, "shoo now. Have a nice day doing things that doesn't involve Ratbat demanding to speak with me when I'm dangling upside down from the ceiling fan."

He continued shooing her towards the door, grinning like a grandfatherly kind of cyber-loon, but Ariel only smiled back at him, so Optimus assumed this was also usual for the old bot.

The pink femme only paused long enough to murmur to Optimus, "Try to keep him away from the window if you don't mind…" before slipping out the door.

Alpha Trion ignored her parting words as he waved from the doorway. "Tell Orion I said hello." He called after her before finally turning to where Optimus was still standing awkwardly near the wires on the floor.

"Now," Alpha Trion said as he straightened up, "what are you here for again young Prime? Something about returning from leave?"

Optimus clasped his arms behind his back. "Yes sir," he answered, then paused, wondering how he should go about asking the old bot for advice when he couldn't tell him just what he needed advice about…

But the old councilor was shrewder then the Prime had first thought given that whole being-tied-upside-down-by-his-own-planetary-mobile thing, because as he sat down and leaned back into his chair, he fixed sharp blue optics on the younger bot.

Optimus resisted the urge to fidget and stared at the wall behind the councilor's head instead.

Alpha Trion made a thoughtful noise in the back of his vocal processor before leaning forward again and pulling the data pad Ariel had left on his desk closer for his inspection. He reviewed the document a moment before signing his name at the bottom.

"There," he said, setting the data pad aside and leaning back into his chair again as he leveled a thoughtful gaze at the young commander, "now what did you really want to talk with me about young bot?"

Optimus' optics flicked to the old mech automatically. "Excuse me sir?" He asked, taken aback.

Alpha Trion's sharp optics didn't leave the bot standing stiffly in front of him. "Pretty much anyone in my office could have done that for you. It's not like they don't go about signing things all day anyway, that's their job. So then why did you want to speak with me directly?" He asked again, resting his hands on his chest as he sized the young mech up.

Optimus looked down at the floor, looking more like a youngling that had gotten caught in a lie then a Prime.

Alpha Trion waited.

Finally Optimus found enough words to answer. "I was hoping that you could…assist me sir." He managed to force the words out.

"Oh?" Alpha Trion asked, raising one white optic ridge at him. "And what were you hoping I could," a small ironic smile appeared under his long mustache, "assist you with?"

Optimus shifted his weight nervously, and then stopped when he realized he was doing it. "I," Optimus tried to think quickly and suddenly found he could barely keep the reason why he was here in his processor. He had always found it difficult talking to higher ranking bots. What if he said the wrong thing and only made things worse?

He snapped his mouth closed and mentally shook himself. _"I can't back down now." _He told himself. _"If he can tell me how to help Elita then it'll worth a few cycles of embarrassment."_

He strengthened his resolve and met the old mech's searching optics.

"One of the exploration teams has just returned from an organic planet. They passed preliminary health exams, however after a few orbital cycles they began to fall ill. Further testing showed they had been…" he hated this word, but he could think of no other, "infected with organic material. It's begun to change their basic circuitry. I was hoping, with your advanced-" he hesitated.

Alpha Trion raised that same white optic ridge. "Age?" He suggested coolly.

Optimus felt his systems kick up a notch in response to his stress. "Knowledge," he managed to say instead, "that you would be able to help them. Or at least," his words slowed as he reached the end of his speech, "point us in the direction of someone who can?"

Optimus tried to fidget again as the old councilor fixed his surprisingly knowing optics on him. It felt like he was trying to ferret out the truth of the young Prime's statement just by staring at him. Optimus wasn't sure if Alpha Trion really _could_ see the lies he was telling, but it sure made him uncomfortable.

He was just beginning to feel his servos start to shake from how stiffly he held them behind his back when the councilor finally leaned forward in his chair and steepled his digits in front of his mouth plates thoughtfully.

"And organic infection hm?" He asked more of himself than Optimus. "I can see why this is so important to you. Any kind of contagion is of course dangerous to society at large, however an organic one such as this poses numerous other complications to worry about as well."

Optimus felt his shoulders stiffen. "It does?" He asked carefully.

Alpha Trion nodded, seemingly absentminded as he stared off into the middle ground. "Yes," he said gravely, "we as a cybernetic race with practically no contact with organics are entirely unprepared for an organic infection like the one you speak of. If it were to be transmitted between bots with ease, it could well turn into a plague the likes of which we have never dealt with before. Have any symptoms appeared in the staff currently taking care of your infected members?"

Optimus' first thought was for his son. As young as he was, little Leo was more susceptible to illness. However apart from his obvious depression at his mother's 'death', he hadn't shown any symptoms like spitting that strange, sticky webbing Elita suddenly had or growing any more optics then usual. Of course, he hadn't had direct contact with his mother since she'd returned from Archa-7.

"No sir, none that I've noticed." Optimus told the councilor.

Alpha Trion did not look relieved. "That you've noticed? Then you've seen them for yourself?"

Optimus nodded once sharply. "Yes sir."

"And have you felt anything out of the ordinary since you've come into contact with them?"

Optimus' brow furrowed thoughtfully. No, no webbing or extra optics here either.

"No sir, I feel…fine." Truthfully he was miserable, confused, and he felt more helpless then he'd ever felt in his life, but those were all internal issues. Not what the councilor was asking for. Physically he was just as healthy as the old mech sitting in front of him. Maybe slightly more so since he hadn't spent the last half mega-cycle standing on his processor.

Alpha Trion pinned him with a bright optic, like a strange, lanky, mustached bird. "I see…" he said slowly as if he saw more then Optimus would have liked him too. "Well then, there are two names that spring to mind that may well be able to help you and your…friends."

Optimus shifted hopefully. Maybe this could still be resolved easily. Maybe Elita would be back to her normal self by the end of the lunar orbit. Maybe they could move on and forget this had ever happened in the first place…

Alpha Trion pulled a data pad out of his desk and wrote two names on its screen. "Wheeljack and Ratchet are a scientist and a medi-bot respectively and they are both brilliant." He finished signing the two bots' names with a flourish. "But I would start with Wheeljack. He'll probably be easier to get a hold of at the moment."

"I've never heard of them." Optimus said in some confusion. If they were both so brilliant then why had Ultra Magnus never asked them to assist with some of the more sensitive elite guard projects?

Alpha Trion's sharp optics turned hard. "Most veteran bots like them have seen enough action for five life cycles, much less one. They each prefer to be left in peace young bot." The councilor told him somewhat sharply. "However given the stakes, this makes for as good an exception as any."

Optimus stiffened to attention, realizing he'd hit a nerve. "Yes sir." He snapped out. "Thank you sir."

Alpha Trion stared him down a moment longer before picking up the data pad with the names on it and holding the device out for Optimus to take.

"I suspect their experience will be especially helpful to you as well." Alpha Trion said as Optimus took the data pad from him.

Optimus blinked in confusion. "Experience sir?" He asked carefully. He didn't want to hit another sore spot again. Not only could offending the councilor prevent anymore help for Elita, but Optimus had never liked creating tension between him and others. It didn't exactly create a helpful working environment.

However this time Alpha Trion did not look offended. Instead he looked a little…disturbed.

"Your friends are lucky that they caught this infection now, rather than during the war." He told the elite guard commander, his optics drifting as old memories floated to the surface of his mind. "Back then command was interested in the idea of an organic disease for the same reasons I mentioned above-"

"Our susceptibility and unprepared state sir?" Optimus asked to be sure.

Alpha Trion nodded slowly. "Yes, and they had several bots working on ways to create one that could be used against the Decepticons."

Optimus frowned slightly. "Including this Ratchet and Wheeljack sir?"

Again, Alpha Trion nodded. "Yes, back then, your friends would have been used as test subjects so they could observe how the organic-ness affected our systems. It would not be, to put it politely…a pleasant experience."

A silence followed Alpha Trion's words, one that made Optimus go all cold inside.

"And," the younger bot said slowly, suddenly terrified out of his mind, "and now?" The elite guard wouldn't really take away one of their own so they could study her…would they?

Alpha Trion's sigh did nothing to comfort Optimus.

"Ratchet and Wheeljack both understand when to speak out," Alpha Trion fixed meaningful optics on the young bot in front of him, "and when to stay silent. I would not worry trusting them, but the rest of the world…" He trailed off.

A shudder crawled down Optimus' spinal strut. A horrible image of Elita – his Elita – strapped down to a hospital gurney with her internal's packaged and labeled in medical jars on the counter next to her while medi-bots argued over what to study next flashed through his processor. Instinctively he felt his servos curl into fists. He would send them all to the scrapheap before letting them lay one filthy servo on her.

Slowly, Optimus managed to shove the image away. In the back of his processor he was glad that he still had his servos behind his back where the councilor couldn't see them shaking with equal parts fear and anger.

"I see." He said when he thought his voice wouldn't give away his extreme emotion. "Thank you Councilor Trion. I'll make sure to keep that in mind."

He didn't look up in time to catch the thoughtful expression on the councilor's face. All he saw when he finally met Alpha Trion's optics again was an old mech mildly concerned for a group of bots he had never met.

"Good," Alpha Trion said, "in that case you are free to go. I'm sure the sooner Wheeljack learns of your predicament, the sooner your team will be back to normal."

Optimus smartly saluted the councilor. "Yes sir, thank you sir," he snapped out before turning on his heel and leaving the room, data pad in hand.

Alpha Trion watched him go, one servo thoughtfully covering his mouth as his mind wandered to a darker time when it had been more acceptable for the ends to justify the means. Cautiously he began to wonder...could it be happening again?


	4. Chapter 4: Promotion

Hey there! Sorry for the delay but I want to thank all of you who have been reading Shattered and keeping up interest. I'm afraid a lot of my focus has been on an original story I'm posting (which I sincerely hope you guys will check out; the link is in my profile) but as for this story let's get some more fun in there quick! Not that I don't love OP and Lita and all their angst, but there's only one bot that can add some humor to this plot line and I think you all know who that is! Jazz was so great in Animated that not including him now would just be plain wrong. Hope you enjoy the chapter! ;D

...

Fractured

4\. Promotion

His meeting with Councilor Trion took longer then Optimus had thought it would, because it was early afternoon by the time he reached the elite guard commander's office. He had the nasty feeling that he was late as he knocked on the door. He tried to shake the feeling away, telling himself that the commander hadn't set a specific time to meet with him, but that didn't help chase away his sudden anxiety.

"Enter," came the somber voice of the Magnus from beyond the door. Steeling himself for the encounter, Optimus opened the door and stepped inside.

He was a little surprised when he saw that there were two bots in the room instead of the usual one. The tall and imposing Ultra Magnus was standing behind his desk, the Magnus Hammer in its usual place in his left hand. But standing across the desk from him was a bot Optimus had never seen before. He was predominately white, with a few racing lines in red, blue, and gray. Unlike the Magnus, or even Optimus himself, this bot was rather lanky, though he hardly looked weak or out of shape. From the way he stood and addressed the Autobot commander, Optimus got the feeling he wasn't a researcher or scientist, so that left him to assume he was a warrior of some sort. Although, Optimus frowned thoughtfully, he noticed that the new bot didn't have any of the insignia of the elite guard on him…

Behind the desk, Ultra Magnus looked up briefly to see who had come in before looking back at whatever was on his desk that he was going over with the new bot. Optimus hoped he had only imagined the annoyed set to the commander's optics.

"Optimus Prime," Ultra Magnus said, not looking up again, "I see you've finally found time to join us. At last."

Nope, he hadn't imagined it.

Optimus straightened and stared at the far wall. "My apologies Commander. I had to speak with Councilor Trion before I could return to service." He said without inflection.

The older bot rumbled unhappily, but didn't say anything else on the matter. Optimus felt stiff joints loosen slightly in relief when the commander silently motioned him forward instead.

He joined the two bots at the desk just as Ultra Magnus put away the records he and the new bot had been studying. Optimus didn't try to see what they were. He was a records bot, despite serving directly under Ultra Magnus. True, it hadn't exactly been his career of choice back at the Academy when he'd still had dreams of becoming a renowned field commander, but in the end, sitting behind a desk all orbit rather then being away for months at a time _did _ensure that he actually knew Leo rather then just hearing about him from Elita and their friends.

"Optimus Prime, meet Jazz, our new intelligence bot." Ultra Magnus was saying as he gestured to the lanky white bot. "He has just returned to Cybertron after completing his training under Master Yoketron."

Optimus couldn't quite keep the interest off of his faceplates as he looked at the new bot again. "A cyber ninja? What are you doing back on Cybertron? I thought cyber-ninjas were all about silence and solitary journeys and, ah," he hesitated, catching sight of the flat look Ultra Magnus had turned on him, "well, that sort of thing."

Optimus felt whatever confidence he'd woken up with that morning wither up under his commander's stoic look. It was only now, _after _he'd opened his fool mouth up, that Optimus remembered that before he'd become the Autobot commander, Ultra Magnus had trained under Master Yoketron as well.

Fortunately Jazz just laughed off the stereotypes. "Nah, I wasn't built for solitary anythin'. Give me a hoppin' planet over that whole 'vastness of space' junk any ol' orbit. Ya dig?"

Optimus blinked at the strange word formations. "Er, dig what?" He asked, confused.

Jazz snorted a laugh, but it was Ultra Magnus that addressed the young prime. "Jazz has already spent several stellar cycles traveling throughout the galaxy in order to complete his training. It's also where he picked up some rather…unusual habits."

Jazz shifted his weight and propped a servo on his hip. "He means my funky speech patterns. Heard it from some cool cats livin' off in Sector Seven. I'm tellin' ya, those cats knew how to groove!"

Optimus wasn't sure what that meant, but from the admiration in Jazz's voice, he _thought_ this 'grooving' was a good thing.

"That's-" he started to say. Unfortunately that's as far as he got since he knew practically nothing about Sector Seven, much less what to say about its 'grooving' cat-like inhabitants. Running out of words – _again_ – he cleared his vocal processor and turned back to his commander instead.

"You needed to see me sir?" He asked, straightening to attention.

Ultra Magnus gave a slight nod. "After the…tragedy on Archa-7," he spoke slowly on the matter, overlooking Optimus' withdrawal when he spoke of the failed mission to Archa-7, "I've decided that Jazz will take on Sentinel Prime's position. However, being so newly returned to the planet, I thought it prudent to make sure he had someone that could answer any questions he had."

Optimus blinked. "You want me to be his…tour guide?" He asked slowly. _That _was his new assignment? Really?

Ultra Magnus' leveled that same withering look on his subordinate. The effect of making Optimus feel like he was now three inches tall was instantaneous.

"Do you have a problem with that Optimus Prime?" The older bot asked stiffly.

Optimus straightened again. "No sir. I was just…making sure I understood your orders."

Ultra Magnus narrowed his optics at the younger bot. "Good." He said, aged voice low. "In that case you are dismissed. I want those reports from Rodimus' team on my desk in a mega-cycle." He snapped, returning to his usual brusque ways.

"Yessir!" Optimus said, snapping off a salute before turning around and briskly leaving the room.

He held in a groan of irritation when he noticed that Jazz followed him. Fortunately for Optimus' sanity though, he didn't say anything until the door had closed behind them.

"So I know it tanks and all bein' turned into a guide bot," he said as he followed Optimus into the smaller office area just outside of the commander's office, "but thanks anyway fer doin' it mech. I'm more lost when it comes to directions than an elephantech on an energon farm." He waited to see if the other bot would crack a smile, but when he didn't, Jazz added in a more serious tone, "So what do I call ya?"

Optimus' optics flicked up to the cyber-ninja as he took his seat behind the room's small desk. True, he hadn't heard a rank attached to the other bot's name, but as Ultra Magnus' new second it was undoubtedly higher then prime. Jazz could technically call him whatever the heck he wanted.

But somehow that didn't seem like a good answer. Somehow he felt like he was being asked some kind of trick question. "Prime is fine sir." He told him, thinking it was a safe answer.

Jazz screwed up his faceplates in distaste. "Yeah…" he drew the word out, "I don't do 'sir' OP. Just call me Jazz. And if you don't mind I'd rather call ya Optimus."

"If you want." Optimus agreed by default.

Jazz nodded. "Sweet." He said.

Thinking that was an end to the conversation, Optimus turned toward the monitor in front of him that let him view the data net. Rodimus should have sent in his reports by now-

It took him a moment to realize that Jazz was still standing there. Optimus was about to ask him what he wanted, but stopped when he saw the uncertain look on the other bot's face. He may not have known him long, but he hadn't pegged Jazz as 'unconfident'. In anything.

"Listen mech," Jazz finally said a moment later, looking at the floor as he did, "I heard that yer spark mate was part of the team ta Archa-7," he said slowly, "and ah'm, well ah'm sorry," he stopped, then added, "that she didn' make it back."

Optimus stared at the flooring beneath his stabilizing servos. A part of him wanted to tell this bot – stranger or not – that she _had _made it back. But then, another part of him wanted to agree with the bot standing next to him.

Optimus quickly shook his head. He couldn't think like that. Despite the changes caused by the organic venom, she was still his Elita. She hadn't…evaporated or anything when she'd changed. If anything he was grateful that she _had _come back, extra legs and all.

But he was still damning Archa-7 to the Pit as he answered the other bot.

"Thank you Jazz."

Optimus Prime didn't see much of Jazz the rest of the day. It seemed that while the city at large might confuse the new bot, he still knew his way around a command post. Which Optimus was immensely grateful for.

It wasn't that he disliked the bot. In fact he thought – under more normal circumstances – they probably would have made good friends. But these were _not_ normal circumstances to say the least.

...

By the time his shift was over, even Optimus' circuits were tired. He just wanted to go home and get some rest.

_"Maybe Ironhide and Chromia'll watch Leo for me for a little while,"_ he thought as he slouched his way towards the main exit, _"and I can get a nap in since this new bot isn't going to be as high maintenance as I first thought he would be-"_

An unwelcome shout behind him cut his thoughts off.

"Hey OP! Wait up!"

The hall was practically empty at this time of orbit, so there was no mistaking the white and gray bot quickly making his way towards him.

Optimus stopped and sighed. _"Or maybe I spoke too soon…"_ he added as he waited for Jazz.

When he finally joined Optimus standing in the middle of the hallway, the cyber-ninja gave him a subdued grin.

Optimus did not return the gesture. "Can I help you with something?" He asked, harsher then usual. Fatigue seemed to be grinding down on whatever patience he had left today.

Jazz must have had some gloom-proof armor because he didn't so much as flinch at Optimus' flat optics boring into him. "Yeah actually. What with U.M. saying yer the bot to ask about findin' stuff in this messed up city, I was kinda hopin' you could show me a way back to my pad that didn't involve me getting' lost for megacycles." He grinned wider as he flashed Optimus the address he'd stored away on his data pad.

Optimus frowned at the numbers indicating Jazz's living quarters. He knew the place well enough. He passed it every orbit on his way home.

He vented a harsh sigh, realizing he didn't have a good enough excuse to tell the new bot no.

"Fine," he grumbled instead, "but I've got to stop on the way to pick up my son."

Jazz raised his arms almost in a sign of surrender. "Sure thing mech, as long as I don't have to go on another joy ride 'round town on that public transit thing again it's all good t'me." His grin appeared again, eagerly jumping onto its usual place on Jazz's faceplates. "I don't know how y'all stand it. That thing's a menace ta society." He joked.

Optimus looked at him with no emotion. "It's one of the best public transit systems on the planet." He informed him dully.

Jazz shrugged. "Then I've been off world too long. The only public transit we had at Master Yoketron's was called walkin'." He laughed at his own joke.

Optimus didn't. Just turned around and started walking to the building's main doors. "Exit's this way. From there you just catch the north train towards the city's edge."

Jazz followed him. "If you say so mech."

Optimus couldn't keep in the tired sigh as he left the building, Jazz following cheerily right behind him.


	5. Chapter 5: Waking Nightmares

:) I want to thank all you guys who've been reading and faving my story these past few weeks. Things have been pretty busy, so your interest is a nice little pick me up amidst all the busyness. Thank you and I can't wait to here what you guys think the next chapter. See you next time! :D

...

Shattered

5\. Waking Nightmares

It was dark. The cavern was always dark. Except for where she stood, in a halo of nauseous pink light that turned her yellow paint purple and her turquoise plating black.

_Skitter skitter skate_.

She looked up, out at the darkness her optics could not penetrate. She could hear them moving around her. She could always hear them moving, but she could never see them. She didn't want to see them. But at the same time she did so she could at least face her demise like an elite guard warrior, rather then sitting shivering in the dark like a youngling afraid of the monster in the storage unit.

_Skitter skitter hiss._

She felt her pump pound as the pattern of the darkness changed. It wouldn't be long now. It wouldn't be long until-

_AHHHHHHHHHHHH!_

The joint screams of Glyph and Sentinel suddenly bombarded Elita on all sides, filling her audios and rattling around in her processor until she thought they must either sink into her core and shatter her from the inside out or tear her processor apart at the seams.

_Hiss hiss skitter hiss, _the spiders went.

Elita's determination broke. The screaming and the hissing were too much for her. She bolted into the darkness, leaving the halo of pink light that discolored her frame until she couldn't even recognize herself.

As soon as she did the spiders were on her, biting, hissing, pulling her apart as all around her the screaming continued in one long, breathless, cry.

Elita barely heard her voice join them as the organic spiders continued to bite her, mandibles cutting through armor like it was tin, digging into the softer circuitry underneath before injecting their venom into her.

The change was instantaneous. She could feel the spider venom soak into her systems and begin to change them into something less like her and more like them, eating away at her hardware until she was nothing but revolting soft tissue. The screams of her teammates continued to echo around and inside her head, choking her, pressing in on her spark until it hurt so bad she wished she couldn't feel anything. She opened her mouth to scream-

-and shot straight up in her bed, nearly falling to the floor in the process.

Elita clapped her servos over her mouth to keep the scream of terror in. The last thing she needed, a distant part of her processor thought, were the neighbors calling the authorities to investigate someone screaming in what was supposed to be an empty house.

For a long, silent moment she sat there, systems – organic and cybernetic – working overtime to cool her heated frame down and restore some kind of balance to her body.

When that infernal organic thumping no longer felt like it was going to climb up her throat, she took her servos away from her mouth and leaned forward with a shaky expulsion of air from her vents.

_"It was just a nightmare," _she told herself a she leaned her elbows on her knees and hung her head between them, _"the same fragging nightmare you've had every night since you got back. Nothing to stress over."_ She told herself.

Her body didn't quite believe her, but she thought it needed to be said anyway.

_Skitter skitter hiss._

Elita froze as the terrible sound drifted through the partly open bedroom door. It had come from the living area she thought. For an awful second she thought that the spiders had followed her out of the dream. That they were here, in her house…

But her logic centers quickly shoved that thought aside as they shook off the haze left behind by her recharge. There were no organics here on Cybertron, much less Transformer sized spiders lurking somewhere in her living room.

_Crash!_

But that didn't necessarily mean she was alone.

Silently Elita rolled off the bed, stabilizing servos hitting the floor without a whisper. She cocked her head and listened.

She remained perfectly still and, after a long handful of cycles, was rewarded with a faint scuff coming from the living room. She wasn't sure but she thought it was a stabilizing servo knocking against one of the chair legs.

Her biggest concern though was that the intruder was slowly shuffling their way to her bedroom.

Quickly, Elita looked around the room. There was nowhere to hide and the window would take too long to open. That meant the only way out of the room was the door, and aside from the short hallway that separated the sleeping quarters from the rest of the house, there was nothing to keep the intruder-bot from seeing her when she made her escape. Not unless…

Elita looked up at the wall next to her, an idea forming in her head as bits of memory, distorted by her dark dreaming, floated to the surface of her processor. Experimentally, she laid a servo flat against the wall and tugged gently.

Her servo stuck firm.

Elita felt herself smirk. It seemed this half organic frame still had its uses after all.

Quickly, silently, Elita climbed the wall and made her way to the ceiling. Her extra limbs made no sound as she clambered over the door frame towards the kitchen. It was next to the living room, but there was a short section of wall that separated them. With a look to make sure that the intruder (or perhaps intruders) wasn't looking her way, Elita scrambled across the hall upside down towards the half wall where it ran against the ceiling.

_ "Maybe not the best hiding place,"_ she thought as she hunkered down behind it, flattening her body to the top of the room, _"but it'll do."_

After a moment where nothing happened, Elita peeked around the side of her hiding place.

There was a figure standing in her living room. She couldn't tell who they were, or what they wanted because there was some sort of distortion field around them, making it impossible for her to discern anything of importance about the intruder.

All she knew for certain was that they were small – perhaps a head shorter than herself – and they knew enough about her home to get past the securities she and Optimus had installed when they'd moved in, which implied that they either had been watching them for some time, or they had been here before.

Elita's four optics narrowed at the disguised figure looking around her living room. Now that she thought about it, there was something slightly familiar about them, although for the life of her she couldn't tell what…

She suddenly ran out of time as the intruder looked up, light blue optics latching onto Elita almost instantly.

The femme gasped as the familiarity of those large optic struck her again-

-just as the intruder pulled out a high powered stun gun and opened fire on the techno-organic clinging to the ceiling.

...

It took Optimus and Jazz about fifteen cycles by train to reach Leo's preschool. Most of the parents and guardian-bots had already come and retrieved their charges, so the building was fairly quiet what with the lack of screaming younglings, happy or otherwise.

Leo ran up to his dad as soon as Optimus stepped into the room reserved for Leo's age group. Optimus smiled at the little bot as he smoothly knelt down to pick him up. It was a weaker version of the smile he had had before, but it was real, and that was good enough for the small mech.

"Hey buddy," Optimus said as he hugged the little bot. "Were you good for Miss Starchaser today?" He asked.

The teacher in question came up to stand behind her young student. She was a slender femme, with thin legs and light green arms that were faster then they appeared. She had a sweet face and expressive blue optics, but right now they looked rather sad as she watched Leo and his father together.

"Yes Daddy," Leo answered like he did every orbit before peeking around his dad's broad shoulder to stare at the bot standing behind him. "Who's that?" He asked in his small voice.

Optimus half turned to see who Leo meant before looking back at the youngling. "He's a new bot where I work," he explained, "and he needed help finding his way home today."

"Soo…" Leo said as he peered at Jazz again, "work's following you home now?"

Optimus actually managed to laugh. "Yeah, I guess so. Now you ready to go home young bot?"

Leo smiled and chirped a yes before Starchaser stepped in.

"Excuse me Optimus, but can I speak with you before you go?" She asked, optics darting between Leo at their feet and Jazz standing behind Optimus. "In private?" She added in a soft voice.

Optimus looked up at the slender green femme and thought that this probably wasn't about Leo's math project, which he'd forgotten to do last orn.

"Yes, of course," Optimus told the teacher bot, "Leo, why don't you go play a cycle while I talk with your teacher, alright?"

Leo nodded, optics already sliding away towards the building set he'd been playing with before his dad had arrived. "Alright," he said before running off.

Optimus stood up and followed Starchaser into the office, leaving Jazz by the door.

The ninja-bot vented a slow sigh as he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chassis. With nothing else to do he found himself looking around the large playroom, logging away weak areas of the structure and probable points of entry in his processor. Personally he thought this place needed a serious upgrade in the security department. Why, a Decepticon could just crash through those windows at the east end and snatch one of the kids before the teacher could even scream. Or-

Jazz shook his head when he realized what he was doing. "Man I've _got _to find a place to chill around this joint but soon or I'm gonna end up blowin' a circuit." He mumbled to himself.

"Are you talking to yourself?"

Jazz frowned and looked up at the little voice. Across the room, Leo had fastened bright blue optics on him, building blocks temporarily forgotten on the floor in front of him.

Jazz grinned at the mechling. "Yeah kid, it's a super secret technique I learned a long time ago. Keeps me from losin' my processor." There was a slight _Dink! Dink!_ as he tapped a digit against the side of his head.

Leo blinked at him. "Mama would say that talking to yourself means you already lost your processor." He chirped, and then went back to stacking blocks.

Jazz stared at the little bot, taken aback by the quick comeback. Most kids he knew were either too shy or too loud to make for decent company.

And now the kid was ignoring him to boot.

Curious now, Jazz made his way across the room and crouched down next to the little boy. For a moment he watched him carefully stack blocks on top of each other.

"It's gonna fall." Jazz told the kid after awhile.

Leo, in the process of putting the roof onto his little structure, frowned at the grown up bot. "It is not." He defended his handiwork with childish stubbornness.

Slowly, like a SWAT member deciding which wire to cut on a ticking bomb, Leo lowered the roof block onto the walls.

They collapsed in a wooden heap as soon as he let go.

"Aw…" Leo mumbled in disappointment. "It wasn't supposed to do that. My blocks at home are betterer."

Jazz looked at the pouting mechling and decided that telling him that 'betterer' wasn't a word just wasn't worth the effort right now. Maybe in a few vorns when the kid had learned a basic understanding of proper grammar.

"Probably." He agreed instead on the block issue before glancing up at the large windows between the playroom and the teacher's office. He could see Optimus and Starchaser talking, but the angle was awkward enough that he couldn't tell what they were saying.

"Hey," he nudged the child sitting next to him with a digit. Leo looked up and Jazz jerked his chin toward the window. "What'd'ya supposed they're talking about in there?"

Leo looked over at the window too. Then turned back to his blocks with a small shrug. "I dunno. Grown up stuff I guess." He mumbled as he laid two blocks on the floor for the base of another house. This one was going to work, he just knew it. And it'd have _two _stories instead of just one like before.

Jazz gave the kid an unimpressed look. "'Grown up stuff'? Is that all you can think of?"

Leo just shrugged and started putting up the walls of his house.

Jazz sighed. "Aren't you at least a _little _curious about what they're talking about? I mean, for all we know, they could be talking about sending you off to military school." He suggested.

Leo's head snapped up at that. For a minute he looked worried that this might be true, but then he scowled at the ninja-bot.

"Hey!" He shouted. "They are not!"

Jazz slanted an optic at him. "And how do you know huh?"

Leo puffed his little chest out fiercely. "Because Daddy wouldn't send me away like that!" He said louder.

"But you don't know for sure that's _not_ what they're talking about." Jazz pressed.

"I do to!" Leo shouted back.

"Ya do not."

"Do to!"

"Not!"

"To!"

And then Leo stuck his tongue out at Jazz.

"So there!" Leo said decisively.

Jazz looked at the self decided winner and did the only thing he still could.

He made a face at the little bot and said, "_Nyah!_"

Leo gave a startled blink. And then burst out laughing.

Jazz propped his chin on one servo and waited for the little bot to get himself under control.

…and then waited a little more…

…and a little more…

Finally he rolled his optics behind his visor. "Alright kid it wasn't _that_ funny." He drawled, but he couldn't quite keep the smile off of his faceplates.

Leo's laughter finally died down. "It was too," he said as he rubbed at his face.

Not wanting to start this whole thing over again, Jazz rolled his optics again and said, "Whatever you say kid."

Leo grinned victoriously and squirmed in his seat on the floor.

"Ya know what," he said after a cycle, "you're an okay bot." But then he leaned closer to Jazz and added in a conspiratorial whisper, "For a grown up anyway."

Jazz chuckled. "Better be careful with that kind of talk kid. Yer classmates will all think yer a traitor for sidin' with us treacherous grown ups."

But little Leo didn't seem phased. "But they're not here right now. All their mommies and daddies came and got them mega-cycles ago. Miss Starchaser only lets me stay late 'cuz Daddy can't stop working at the same time as the other daddies."

Leo suddenly stilled as a thought struck his young processor. Jazz watched with some concern as the block Leo had picked up stalled about halfway through its journey off the floor.

Then, in a small voice, he told Jazz, "Mama used to pick me up when Daddy couldn't, but she can't come get me anymore."

The little bot stared at the blocks in his servos as if he suddenly didn't know what to do with them. Jazz watched him, spark suddenly heavy.

Before the older mech could say anything Leo suddenly mumbled, "I threw some blocks in school today. I threw 'em hard cuz they weren't doing what they were s'posed to. It made a big mess and one'a the blocks hit Cloudraker in the head. He cried and his brother Fastlane hit me a'cuz of it. That's what Daddy and Miss Starchaser are talking about right now." Leo admitted, sounding ashamed of himself.

Jazz sat and watched the withdrawn bot. He hadn't known a little kid like him could sound so guilty about something he'd done. Most younglings Jazz had come into contact with were spoiled rotten brats that thought they could get away with anything. But obviously Leo knew better.

Jazz put a servo on the little bot's back, hoping it made him feel at least a little bit better.

"I think yer Daddy and Miss Starchaser understand why ya did it lil mech." He told him in a low voice.

Leo glanced up at Jazz with big, watery optics. "I still shouldn'ta done it." He mumbled.

"No," Jazz sighed, "probably not."

Leo turned his head suddenly and rubbed at his optics where he thought Jazz couldn't see. He sniffed loudly as the coolant tears started to slide down his face.

"Ya miss yer mama an awful lot huh?" Jazz asked him gently.

Leo nodded his head a little and sniffed again.

"I had a dream a little bit ago," the little bot spoke up again a cycle later in a voice barely heard even in the silence of the empty room, "before Daddy had ta go back to work. It was a scary dream at first, because it was dark and I couldn't find Daddy anymore. But then Mama showed up. I couldn't see her, but she put a servo on my head like she used to do when I was dreaming something scary and it made me feel better."

From the way the little bot turned so Jazz couldn't' see his face, the older bot thought Leo wasn't feeling better anymore.

_"Poor little guy," _Jazz thought, _"It ain't right for a bot as young as him to have to know what death is."_

But right or not, Leo did know, and nothing could restore his ignorance. Even if his mother had appeared right then and there to hold him.

A moment later a door opened and Optimus stepped out of the teacher's office, Starchaser behind him.

Jazz heard the little bot give a small, distressed whine as he jumped to his feet and ran over to his dad, arms held out to him. This time he didn't say anything as Optimus picked him up and said something that only the boy could hear.

Leo just wrapped his small arms around his dad's neck and put his head on his shoulder. The only sound he made was the occasional sniff as coolant slid out from under his optic shutters and trickled down his face.

Optimus said something to Starchaser that Jazz couldn't hear. As the ninja-bot stood up and walked over to them, the teacher laid a soft hand on Leo's back before saying goodbye.

Leo just turned and buried his face in Optimus' neck without saying anything.

"We'll see you tomorrow Starchaser. Thanks for giving me the heads up."

Starchaser nodded and folded her hands in front of her white and green frame. "Of course Optimus." She murmured.

"Alright then little mech," Optimus said as he hefted Leo higher against his frame so he wouldn't slip right out of his arms, "let's go home."

Leo just nodded as his dad walked out the door and into the strong sunshine of the late afternoon.

Jazz followed a few steps behind. He didn't want to intrude on their family grief.

...

They walked the handful of blocks to Jazz's building in silence with Jazz following at a distance to give them some space, but not far enough that he lost sight of them on the heavily populated street corners in the shopping district.

"Well," Optimus murmured quietly as they approached the gray colored building Jazz had left that morning, "this is your stop. Hopefully you can find your own way from here."

Jazz nodded. "I hope it wasn't too far outta yer way. Where you two headed from here?" He asked just as quietly. He wasn't sure since the little bot still had his face buried in his father's neck, but he thought Leo had fallen into recharge somewhere between here and the preschool.

Optimus half turned to look over his left shoulder. "Just around the corner. We don't live far from here."

Jazz nodded, then pointed to Leo. "Tell little mech here I said I'll see 'im later then."

Optimus nodded as a little voice squeaked out, "Bye Jazz."

Jazz smiled a little. "Later kid," he told Leo as he reached out and ruffled the little bot's helm.

Nodding a goodbye to Optimus, Jazz turned and headed into his apartment building. The elevator was busted, so he took the stairs.

All twenty-eight levels of them.

It didn't really bother him like it would most other bots. They'd obviously never had to spar with Master Yoketron or they wouldn't be complaining. For an old bot, he sure knew how to kick aft still. And besides, walking up the long flights of stairs gave Jazz a chance to think.

His predecessor – this Sentinel Prime that had led the botched mission to Archa-7 – crossed his thoughts more then a couple of times. And of course from there it wasn't a big jump to the other members of the team, one femme in particular and the two bots she had left behind.

He had just made it to the flat landing between floors fourteen and fifteen when he heard a familiar little voice come through the window next to him. The building's coolant systems must have been busted too because the window, along with the fourteen others he had already passed, was wide open to try and thin out the stifling air inside the apartment complex.

"_Daddy! That's our house!"_

Jazz turned and looked down at the street to see Optimus and Leo standing in the middle of the public walk beneath him. Even the distance couldn't hide their shock as they stared, probably open mouthed, in the direction of their home.

Jazz quickly saw why. On the other side of the row of buildings across the street from him, a plume of gray-black smoke was rising into the air, like a charcoal smudge against the sky.

Below him, Optimus took off running towards their street, Leo held securely in his arms. Off in the distance, Jazz could just make out the sirens that signaled the fire department was on their way.

Optimus and Leo would get there well ahead of them and, fearing what they would do after suffering a blow like losing a spark mate and a mother, Jazz did what he thought was best-

-and jumped out of a fifteen story window.

He hung in the air for a split-klik before gravity got over its surprise and began to pull him down. Arms held out for balance, knees drawn up like he had been taught, Jazz let it.

Then as he passed the third floor, with the ground rapidly looming up to crush him flat, Jazz reached out and caught hold of the electrical line that spread across the street.

He only stayed there long enough to change the angle of his flight by kicking out to the side until his stabilizing servos came in contact with the pole that the wires connect to. It wasn't much of a spring board, but it was enough to get him to the other side of the street, where he landed effortlessly on the top of a small store.

Without pausing, Jazz ran across the roof of the store and leapt over the edge down to street level. After dropping the twelve stories from his apartment building, the one story to the ground was nothing. After that it was a straightforward matter of running up the street to the smoking house.

He reached the building just as Optimus and Leo did. For a brief nano-klik, Optimus stared at his home, optics wide and mouth hanging open. Jazz however, kept his optics on Optimus instead; more worried about the other bot then the building.

"Sweet Primus," Jazz heard the other bot mumbled, "Elita."

Jazz felt his optics narrow. Elita? Like the late Elita that had perished on Archa-7? Had Optimus' processor just snapped from the burden of a burning home being added to the grief of losing a mate?

The fire must have been worse then Jazz had thought, because a sudden explosion made them both duck, Leo protected by his dad's body covering his. The sound of shattering glass and the roar of fire incensed by the sudden oxygen told Jazz that a window had just blown out.

"No!" Optimus shouted in something akin to total panic as he stared in horror at the flames. Off in the distance, the sirens of the emergency vehicles were growing steadily louder, but they were still too far off for Jazz's liking.

"What the-" Jazz said as a quivering Leo was suddenly shoved into his arms.

"Take him!" Optimus ordered. And then before Jazz could shout out more then a few words, Optimus turned and darted towards the burning building.

"Daddy!" Leo screamed.

"OP! _Wait_!" Jazz tried.

But if Optimus heard either of them, he didn't respond. Just ran to the window and leapt through the roiling smoke into the house.

Distantly, Jazz heard the thump as he hit the floor and rolled. And then curiously enough he heard something else. The shriek of…a weapon of some sort firing quickly followed by a cry of pain. A strangely feminine cry…

Ideas began to accelerate across Jazz's processor. He was naturally a very curious bot and Master Yoketron had taught him mental prowess along with the physical. Those were probably the main reasons he was now an elite guard intelligence bot, but just because he was off duty didn't mean he stopped trying to piece things together.

Like why he was now hearing the sounds of struggle coming from inside the house.

And why a femme was one of the combatants.

And why Optimus had stared in such horror at the flames boiling out of his home.

And especially why the first thing the other bot had said was the name of his deceased mate.

Supposedly deceased mate, Jazz internally corrected himself.

"Oh Primus!" A high voice gasped next to him, shaking Jazz out of his thoughts. He turned to see a sea foam green femme with the elite guard insignia on her shoulder armor standing next to him. Like Starchaser, she had large, expressive optics and a slender frame. Right now though, her servos were clasped over her mouth as she stared at the burning domicile.

"Who're you?" Jazz asked the startled femme bot.

The femme turned to look at him with her wide, sweet optics. "Moonracer," she told him, "I live next door. Optimus isn't in there is he?" She asked in horror.

Jazz felt his mouth thin. "'Fraid so," he told her and then plunked Leo into her arms. She scooped him up automatically.

"What are you _doing_?" She yelled at him as he turned and ran to the door, smoke pouring out of the cracks provided by the doorjamb.

Jazz didn't slow as he shouted back at the femme. "Making sure he doesn't get his fool self killed!"

And then without question, he kicked open the door and dove straight into the burning internals of the house after Prime.


End file.

Transformers/Beast Wars, Hurt-Comfort, Tragedy