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"Hey Ratchet."
Drift sat down, back to the plinth, cold metal against barely warmer metal. He leaned his head back against the inscription and looked up into the night sky where the stars still burned bright. The air whistled across the open plain.
"It's been awhile."
He pulled his knees in, wrapped his arms around them.
"I meant to bring you something, but I..."
He looks back up to the sky and the stars in their perfect clarity over the dark plain. There never was a Dead End in Rodion, not on this planet. There was thus never a clinic on the outskirts of that neighborhood that didn't exist. They'd wanted the memorial here anyway—a meeting in the middle between the place they'd met and where they'd lived out their lives together.
Well, the tiny sliver of their lives they'd gotten to share.
"Do you remember," Drift asked, "how I used to think Primus spoke to me? I believed he was sending us on a quest. You had an explanation—time travel and telepaths and a lot of science that sounded like magic."
“Primus started talking to me again. And I don’t have you to explain that away any more.”
He sat for awhile, rubbing his thumb over a bit of flaking silver paint on his forearm. "Do you know what he said to me, Ratch? Primus, lord of the Guiding Hand. Do you know what he told me?"
"He told me to go talk to someone. And I said I didn't want to talk to anyone but you. And so he said I should go do that. And so here I am."
Drift shrugged.
"And you're still dead."
He came again at daybreak, when the suns tilted pink over the blue plains. This time he brought a flower, blue blown glass with little silver accents.
"Hey Ratchet."
He laid the flower on the memorial, atop all the trinkets left by well-wishers and passers-by.
"Primus told me to get up this morning. So here I am. Talking to a hologram."
He shook his head, turned away.
"Hope you like the flower."
"If I renounce religion do you think Primus will shut up?"
Drift flopped down beside the memorial and cradled his face in his hands.
"I know, if you were here, you'd be asking me how I know it's really Primus talking to me. And not just my subconscious trying to save me from myself. Well, I don't know. Maybe I am going crazy. Maybe I miss you so much I invented an imaginary friend."
He reached up and laid his hand over the inscription on the memorial. "I just know that when I asked his name he said he was Primus. And his voice was familiar, like I'd known it all my life somehow and it had just...slipped away from me. He said his name and I believed it."
"He's an incredibly demanding imaginary friend, you know," Drift said. "First it was "get up in the mornings" and then it was "leave the house". Then he was nagging me to refuel and go to the washhouse and attend services again. And now, you won't believe this, he's on about making me go to therapy. Therapy."
Drift snorted.
"It’s ironic hearing your words out of his mouth."
"Hey Ratch."
"Did you know they've legalized relinquishment clinics again? Not the body-swapping kind, the...the other kind."
Drift reached for the hologram, ran his fingers through the light of the projection.
"I brought home one of the pamphlets. And I guess Primus is watching everything I do now, because we got in a fight over it." He laughed. "You'd think telling Primus he should frag off would be enough to get you smited."
"He says I have to keep living. But if life really is forever, that means I have to live forever without you."
Drift waved his hand at the inscription. "Without love, there is no meaning. You knew it. You chose it. But I have to—why am I the one—why am I always the one who gets left behind?"
"All I asked of you—all I ever asked of you was that you take care of yourself! I would have done anything to stay with you," He buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I told you I'd be strong but I want you back so badly."
Something buzzed. Drift startled, then flipped open his comm. "What is it?" He asked, voice staticky. He cocked his head in confusion as he listened to the answer.
"Riptide?" Drift repeated. "What? You were talking to who? I don't think I know them, I'm not—what?"
He paced away from the memorial. "I am not a danger to myself. I'm fine. No, you do not have to come down here. I'm fine. No, I'm not in the apartment anymore anyway, you wouldn't be able to find me I'm—are you stalking me? Who the hell is Rung?"
He listened in silence for a moment. "Well tell Primus I don't care what name he uses. If he wanted to be my sliver he should have interceded a little sooner. Back before he let Ratch—" He clamped his mouth shut until he recovered his composure enough to speak over Riptide.
"No, I told you, I'm fine. I'm going to hang up now, Riptide. Tell Primus to get out of my life—"
Drift flicked the comm closed and bit down on his arm to muffle the sound as he screamed. He stood there, back to the arms that couldn't hold him anymore, shaking as he cried.
The jet engines overhead pulled him out of it. He tracked Cyclonus’s descent, through the night air, wiping the wetness off his face.
"What are you doing here?" Drift spat.
Cyclonus held out his hands, palms up. "Riptide called me—I was the one who could get to you fastest."
"I don't need an intervention," Drift said.
"I'm not here to stop you from doing what you need to do," Cyclonus said firmly. "I'm here to support you in your decisions." He reached out and, after a moment's hesitation, laid a hand on Drift's shoulder.
Drift tipped his chin up. "And if I want to die?"
"Then that is your right. But I would ask you not to make that decision here. Bravespark, we should not have left you in your grief." He looked over Drift's shoulder at the memorial, met its eyes and turned away. "I believed you needed space, that you had closer friends that would support you. But you should not have been left to carry this alone."
"I didn’t want you here. I didn’t want anyone."
"And he would not have wanted this for you," Cyclonus said. "You are not a ghost, and living like one does not do honor to your love."
"I don't want the pain to stop," Drift admitted. "Because then he's really gone. But I don't know how to live with it."
"You will come with me. Stay in Tetrahex for a while."
"I don't need a nursemaid—"
"No. You need your friends," Cyclonus said. "And we can hardly all fit into a bunkhouse in the lower city. You will come with me, stay a while. See if your grief can become something you can live with."
Drift looked back over his shoulder at the memorial, hesitating.
"He is not here," Cyclonus offered. "He is not anywhere on Cybertron. He travels with you."
And so they left.
For a long time after there were no visitors at the memorial. But:
Elsewhere (Tetrahex)
"Hey Ratchet. It's been awhile."
He stepped out onto the roof, blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of hot energon in his hand. He looked up, because where else were you supposed to look when you were talking to a ghost?
"I've been busy. I mean, they've been keeping me busy—Riptide and Cyclonus and Tailgate. We're prepping the house for the guests who are arriving soon and...well, I hadn't done a renovation project since you and I opened the clinic."
"So, Riptide told me a funny story. Once upon a time, you were friends with god. His name was Primus, but we all knew him as Rung. Everyone forgot he was god, and after we figured it out he died helping us defeat the Functionist Council. And then everyone forgot him all together. So I guess, not such a funny story after all."
"For some reason Riptide remembered him." Drift set his mug on the balcony. "And for some reason the both of us could speak to him. I asked Rung why and, well, it turns out being god doesn't actually make you all-knowing. Neither does being dead."
"Anyway, god's my therapist now. Officially. God is dead and he's my therapist."
Drift chuckled. "I thought you'd get a kick out of that. I love you Ratch. Talk to you soon."
"Hey Ratchet." Drift whispered it into the warm air in the Spectralist temple. "I love you."
It was quiet; the congregants had gone home and the afternoon lecture series wouldn't start for hours yet. The main hall was still heady with scents and smoke, but the terrace garden was open to the morning air. Drift stepped out into it and sat down on the sun-warmed bench.
"I still feel like I'm just going through the motions but Rung says that keeping a routine will help. It feels weird, coming back to Spectralism now that I know him. He says he likes it—so many religions, each one a little window into our emotional needs and culture. And he says the cloaks are nice."
"Whirl moved in, so the house has been chaos. It's like living in a whirlwind, pun intended. You'd hate it."
He smiled ruefully. "Who am I kidding? You'd love it. But you'd certainly pretend to hate it."
"Did you mean it as a message? Was that supposed to be a message for me?" Drift asked. "Without Love There Is No Meaning. You didn't specify what kind of love."
He looked over the assortment of empty glasses all piled up on the counter, ready to be washed. Through the door there were the sounds of voices.
"So, when Percy and Brainstorm came to visit I mentioned the dream to them. You know," he wiggled his fingers theatrically. "The dream. They called up Nautica and Minimus and it's been an engineering conference in there ever since. Just think—solar trawlers supplying our refineries, sustainable power for our future. No need to worry about population limits, we could be a haven for mechanical species everywhere."
"I think Nautica about collapsed when I suggested rebuilding the ship. Nobody's asked her to do quantum mechanics in years."
"I love you. I miss you. I wish we'd done this before you'd passed—you should have gotten to see the family back together again."
"Hey Ratchet. Long time no see."
Drift set another blue flower down on the plinth and sat down on the ground. "I wanted to see you one more time before the launch. We're leaving tomorrow—the ship's ready to go. We're short a captain, but...well, we did a vote. Cyclonus should have won but, well I hope it wasn't out of pity."
He smiled. "Captain Drift. That's a new one."
"There’s a lot of refugees out there in the galaxy—a lot of people left without a home because of the war or the Galactic Council. What was it you’d said about joining the Lost Light, way back? That you wanted to do some good in the world, find the lost mechs and bring them home? That’s the plan. Of course, the first lost mech on my list is a stubborn aft who’s refusing to answer my messages…"
"So, what do you say, Ratch? Ready to go see the stars again?"