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‘Fragile’ was not a word one would generally ever apply to Hot Spot, but Groove felt his spark clench with worry as his brother and gestalt commander wrapped a trembling arm around him and rested their helms together with a weary sigh. Hot Spot had been so sick, for so long, and then he’d pushed himself to the limit and past it...and they had failed. Failed to get back to First Aid in time. Failed to save him. The collision of their shuttle with the strange Decepticon weapon, followed by First Aid flickering out of the gestalt bond, not just silent, but gone...for a long while they had only been able to hold tight to Hot Spot’s frame and wait to join First Aid in the Matrix. That hadn't happened though. The shuttle had wrenched itself inside out and back again, and yet somehow held together, drifting somewhere in space. Hot Spot, eventually, had woken up.
“Readouts?” Hot Spot asked, his voice a whispering rasp. He was talking, although his strength could only manage one word at a time. Attempting, however broken he was, however broken they all were, to go through the motions of life, planning, doing...something, if only out of habit. For whatever reason, they weren’t dead. Not yet.
“We’ve got them, such as they are,” Streetwise answered, after a sparkbeat, though Groove had done most of the analysis. Groove was too busy panicking to answer, the ground falling away from under his pedes, the loss and threefold pain from his brothers echoed and reechoed and wrenching him apart. Only for a few moments, Blades and Streetwise and Hot Spot pressing him on all sides, back together again, enough so he could exist a little longer. Hot Spot held him tighter, his engine catching softly in his chest while Groove drew atmosphere through his vents. Calm and center, love in love out, back and forth between them. As long as they all four didn’t fall apart at once, they’d agreed. One at a time, take turns, and they’d carry on just a little bit longer.
“And?” Blades asked, dragging himself up to press himself against Groove’s other side, tugging a willing Streetwise away from the monitors and into their pile. None of them could bear to be apart for long, their minds so tightly entwined they might as well be Defensor, except for the empty place that had been First Aid’s. Defensor might be all that was keeping them alive and sane, Groove thought, leaning into his brothers, mind, soul, and frame. Groove let the results of his analysis diffuse through the gestalt bond, not trusting himself to words just yet.
“Lost,” Hot Spot whispered. Groove nodded.
“Lost as in…” Blades started.
“Lost lost,” Streetwise confirmed, with a weary sigh. He burrowed himself a little deeper into their pile.
“Nothing matches up,” Groove found words again to say, leaning harder into his brothers. “We’re nowhere near the right galaxy.” The age distributions of the stars, the distances between the galaxies. Everything was wrong. “We’re not...I don’t think we’re even in the right universe.” In a tiny shuttle with no fuel, drifting in a vast empty space between unknown galaxies. And maybe...the thought coalesced among them all, an impossible hope so painful it felt like torment. Lost enough to break a gestalt bond? No one knew how far in time and space one could reach; they’d never been separated by more than a planet’s width before.
“But...that would mean…” Blades’ voice wavered and cracked, “...if he’s in the Matrix, then we can join him, but if he’s...not, if he’s…alone, he must be so...we’re not there, he would think we’re dead and we can’t get...” Blades broke then, unable to bear it, the thought of First Aid alive and so far separated as to completely sunder the gestalt bond, in pain and danger so hopelessly out of reach, maybe worse than the thought of him dead, where at least they knew they could find him, join him in either wholeness or oblivion. They held Blades tight while he sobbed, and then braced one another in exhausted silence for awhile.
“If Aid…” Hot Spot spoke finally, drawing a ragged vent as his voice wobbled on the name. Groove’s spark would have broken at the way Hot Spot was clinging to them all so desperately, struggling to continue, were it not broken into a thousand pieces already. Hot Spot took another deep vent, drawing strength from Primus only knew where. “If he’s in the Matrix...he’ll be so busy checking up on all the patients he’s ever lost...he’ll be ok if we don’t join him for awhile.” It was the longest he had spoken since they’d woken up. Streetwise and Blades and Groove couldn’t help but laugh-sob at the image despite themselves, First Aid bustling industriously about the Matrix, finally able to get his hands on those that had slipped from his grasp in life. There were a lot of them, and First Aid remembered every single one, they knew.
“And if he’s not there?” Blades asked hoarsely.
Hot Spot nodded, answering with another question. “Can we bear it?” Hot Spot knew what he was asking of them, asking of himself, asking, perhaps, of First Aid. Even best case scenario, it would take vorns to get to the nearest isolated star, the nearest dense star cluster or galaxy even further. Vorns of not knowing whether Aid was alive or dead, and even then...
“No,” all of them sighed or thought. It was beyond impossible. They could not bear it; it could not be done. They would do it anyway. Hot Spot almost smiled, gathering them close in the gestalt bond, torn and tattered as it was, and Groove felt his spark break all over again with helpless love for him.
//He won’t be alone, if he’s alive// Hot Spot’s thoughts were beginning to feel rambly and wandering as recharge pulled at him, his exhaustion and weakness pushing him straight past grief into something resembling peace, or hope. //Silverbolt will watch over him, and Wheeljack, Optimus and Ratchet and Ironhide, Slingshot, Skydive, Air Raid...Fireflight, Fireflight will make sure...will make sure he doesn’t lack for hugs...//
“Rest,” they tried to urge their gestalt commander. They could feel that Hot Spot was at the very end of his strength again, to the point of involuntary shutdown, but he would not rest, not just yet.
“Street?” Hot Spot murmured faintly, though his optics were shuttered, his helm tucked under Blades’ chin. Which way should they go? Hot Spot would not let himself shut down until they had taken a first step, picked a direction through the void. There was no reason to believe any direction was better than another, but Streetwise could pull answers out of a vacuum sometimes. Rather than letting Streetwise extract himself, they glommed their whole pile closer to the monitors, so Streetwise could reach them.
He pulled up the readouts, and then they all held Streetwise tightly as he dropped his helm and wept, at the sheer vastness and terror and impossibility of it all, at the weight of responsibility and always always the achingly empty place in their souls that had been First Aid’s. Without his deep river of calm to anchor them, they were all adrift. //My turn to panic// he managed to think a little wryly in the bond, even as they poured into him all the comfort and faith they could spare. It was enough to let him find his way back to functional, eventually. Streetwise kept his helm resting on the monitors, borrowing a little of Groove’s stillness as he determinedly sought out the empty place, listening, feeling, reaching with all that was in him, adding together every tiniest hint and impression and memory of their tumultuous journey here. They all stayed quiet, watching, stilling their minds as much as possible so as not to distract, a steady background hum of support. There was nothing. There could be nothing...and yet…
Streetwise lifted his helm, more optic fluid trickling down his face as he brushed a hand tenderly through the readouts, pausing at a point no different from all the many millions of possibilities.
“This way,” he said.