Work Text:
Pharma wasn’t a mech known to forget. He prided himself in his memory, from steps in surgical procedures he did years ago to the exact amount of times he’s made Ratchet smile.
Yet, Pharma could not remember what he was doing here.
One moment, he was trotting down a Delphi hallway, tiredly expecting to walk into the break room and find First Aid hunched over an issue of Wreckers: Declassified. It was painfully routine, he would snap at the nurse to fix his posture and weren’t there mechs in the ICU that needed to be checked on?
As he waited for the door to slide open, though, a loud crack filled the air, then an impossibly bright flash of light and most likely a boom. But at that point Pharma had been knocked unconscious by the explosion’s force.
Pharma wasn’t a mech known to forget.
But now? He was laying on his back in a field with absolutely no memory of what got him there.
The turf was made of a scratchy green organic material that a bio-scan told him was grass. Pharma decided he was not fond of grass.
A quick glance at his internal chronometer told him it had been around 20 cycles since he’d last been online. He cursed under his breath and sat up, wincing at the sharp ache that shot through his entire frame.
He brushed off the pain, right now he had the priority of finding the others. Primus knows First Aid and Ambulon would be absolutely lost without him.
He brought up his comm contacts. First Aid: Offline. Ambulon: Offline. Both of them had their locations off (granted, his was off too. Why would they ever need their locations on when they were always in a 10 mile radius of each other?) He groaned and shot them both a sharp worded comm.
\\Where are you two? Comm me back.\\
He hung his head back to stare at the sky, flinching as he found another sore point in his neck. If they didn’t respond, it was their responsibility to find him .
Right now he had to figure out where he was and what exactly was wrong with him.
Lucky, that should just mean a physical checkup, unless he managed to impale himself on the vast nothingness around him.
He took his time damage checking, flexing his arms and legs while looking over them, before following the same steps with his servos and pedes. A diagnostic scan told him he was right in his assumption, he had no internal damages. There was a glaring issue with his scan, though. A giant red alert saying his left wing was heavily damaged. Probably a faulty system, he scoffed and sent the alert away.
Still, as soon as he tried to flex his wings, white-hot pain shot from his left throughout his entire frame, sending him keeling to the side and back into a lying position. He glanced over his back, soaking in the sight of the mangled and energon-crusted mess that should have been his left wing.
That was going to be a glitch to repair. Especially on his own.
Changing his attention away from the negative and sitting up, he let out a relieved vent. Aside from his busted wing, it appeared he was only superficially damaged. Easy repairs, he could do them with a piece of scrap metal and optics off. Granted, if he could find any metal in this grassy wasteland. There was a comically small building in the distance, but that too seemed to be made of flimsy organic material.
He might as well check it out. First Aid and Ambulon still hadn’t onlined (that or they were ignoring him. But they would never do that.), and without his alt mode, he was a sitting duck.
His only real options were to sit around doing nothing like a helpless medibot that needed someone like Ratchet or Impactor, or to bring back the holomatter avatar he hadn’t used in ages to find someone dumb enough to help him. As if the first was even a viable option. He rolled onto his side, flinching as the turf touched his wing. Funny how he was hyper-aware of it now. He spared no time offlining and projecting.
The second Pharma came to in her avatar, she fell. Well, she lost her balance and failed to recover it before she was face down on the turf. Grass was even less enjoyable in this form. She got up and brushed off with her hands, scowling at the green stains already on her knees. She took a long moment to facepalm and sigh deeply. First Aid would have never let her live that down.
She took another step and nearly fell again, righting herself just in time to stay on her feet, if in a strange position. She scowled at her shoes. The heels were impractical even for a hospital’s floor, much less an uneven and grassy field. Who would ever wear them? She tugged them off and left them in the grass, continuing to the building with much more ease.
She approached the door and held up a fist to knock and ask for help, but jumped when a loud HONK sounded from behind her. She whipped around to glare at the offending car and took a double take when she saw the person in said car waving excitedly.
She cleared her head and watched as the woman parked and approached her with an exhausting bounce in her step. She had thickly curled dark hair tied up into a haphazard ponytail. She wore an identical white coat to Pharma’s, but opted for more functional clothes. Pharma pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.
“Hel-” She was almost instantly cut off.
“Hi! Sorry for honking, it’s just that no one visits me,” The woman began.
“Not surprising.” Pharma grumbled
If she heard the rude comment, she didn’t care.
“If you wouldn’t mind me asking, who are you?” The girl held out her hand.
“Pharma of Ky-Alexia.” Pharma said, coldly shaking her hand.
“Woah! That’s a super interesting name, were your parents into fandom or something?”
“I-”
“Sorry that’s super invasive of me to ask. My name is Amelie! Doctor Amelie Slate.” She beamed as she brushed past Pharma, unlocking the door and making a grant gesture to invite her in.
Pharma stepped into the house with a quick ‘thank you’ nod.
“I’m a doctor, too.” Pharma commented as she gingerly explored the house, inspecting little trinkets and the books stacked nearly everywhere. She noticed Amelie perk up in her peripheral.
“Oh! That must be why you’re here! I didn’t see you at the hospital today, do you start working soon?” Amelie’s innocent questions sent a shock down Pharma’s spine.
“Oh, no no. I’m from… out of town. I don’t work here.” She paused. “If you wouldn’t mind me asking, where exactly is ‘here’ ?”
Amelie shot her a puzzled look. Pit, this was going to be difficult.
“We’re a few miles out from Findlay, Ohio!”
Pharma turned from her small inspection to shoot Amelie a questioning look.
“Bigger than that, please?”
They stayed like that for a second, confusedly staring at one another.
“The United States,” She finally spoke. “North America. Earth.”
Pharma held out her hand, hopefully a ‘pause’ gesture as she pulled out a datapad to figure out what that meant.
Earth: 7.4533 light years from Messatine.
Pharma blinked at the datapad, squinting as she read it again.
Prowl was going to have her head.
Pharma scrunched her face up, pitching to the right and losing grip on the datapad. Amelie rushed to help her stay afoot, flinching as the datapad loudly clattered to the floor.
“Are you okay? ” Amelie stage whispered to Pharma as they returned to standing.
“Yes. I was just surprised.” Pharma snapped at the young doctor. She softened when she saw the worried expression dancing across Amelie’s face.
“Sorry for worrying you,” She almost mumbled. Almost.
“It’s okay!” The worry that shot through Amelie seemed to evaporate as soon as Pharma proved she wasn’t going to collapse. Still though, she guided Pharma with a hand on her waist to the closest sofa.
Amelie sat down as well and shuffled a little to give her some space.
“Are you really okay?”
Pharma dropped her face into her hands. “I’m... not entirely sure if i am.”
“Then debrief me? We’re both doctors, I’m sure if we go back and forth long enough we’ll figure out if you’re okay and if you could be okay-er,” Amelie scrunched up her nose. “Is okay-er even a word?”
Pharma giggled. She slapped a hand over her mouth. Amelie stared at her in shock. Then the brunette broke into a grin and started shaking Pharma’s arm with giddy excitement.
“Did you just laugh ? That wasn’t even funny !”
“I did not!”
“I was starting to doubt if you knew how to express joy!”
Pharma puffed out her cheeks to keep a straight face, which only made Amelie laugh harder. Shooting a glance at her, Pharma shattered and started laughing too. Damned domino effect. Every time the laughter died down, they would make eye contact and start laughing from nothing again. Pharma desperately grabbed her abdomen and doubled over, but screamed when whatever she did triggered a sharp pain that shot from the left of her back through her entire body. Amelie fell silent.
“Amelie? Are you okay?”
The brunette gingerly reached out to Pharma.
“Are you okay? Healthy people don’t scream when they bend over. Are you hurt? Did something happen to you?”
Pharma sighed.
“Yes.” She looked away, at the decorated walls and book titles, anything that wasn’t Amelie’s concerned face. “But I need to know I can trust you before I specify.”
Amelie made a confused noise and Pharma made a vague swooping gesture in response.
“You know? To not rat me out to your government or world leaders or something.”
Amelie laughed.
“What are you, an alien?”
They stared at one another in silence.
“Oh my God you are?”
Pharma nodded.
“My real body is out in your front yard. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it.,” Pharma said. “It has a broken wing that I can’t repair without metal and once I do I’ll be out of your way.”
Amelie shook out of her shocked transe, jumping up.
“I have some metal sheets in my shed, and I think a blowtorch! I’d be happy to help!” She took a few strides toward the door, before whipping around. “You can walk, right?”
Pharma nodded. She pushed to her feet and gingerly followed Amelie outside.
+++
In the end, Amelie had 7 sheets of metal sitting in her shed, which seems like far too many metal sheets, but it would be perfect for a quick patch up of the wing.
Pharma carried 3 of the sheets, leading the way to her offline real form. Amelie lugged the other four, stumbling to keep up as Pharma marched on.
Pharma tossed the sheets onto the grass and turned to wait for Amelie with a hand on her hip. Amelie dropped the metal on top of Pharma’s pile with an echoing clang that made them both flinch.
Pharma thanked Amelie and gave a small nod, watching her trek back to the house. She glanced at the massive form of his body, at her hands, and back to Amelie’s retreating form. She swept away the sadness and turned to focus on the wing. Then a gust of wind almost knocked her over. She scowled at the sky before glancing down at her hands. They were shaking. Inhale. Exhale. She wasn’t sure she could do this on her own.
She turned back to see Amelie one final time, surprised when they made eye contact. She waved, beckoning. Amelie made a gesture she assumed meant ‘what?’. Pharma just beckoned harder. Amelie took off sprinting towards her again. Pharma smiled.
“I think…” Pharma started talking as soon as Amelie stopped running. “I think i need your help.”
She grimaced at the declaration, but Amelie just smiled at her.
“I’m a surgeon by profession, so this isn’t exactly out of routine for me, but I’m not exactly as dexterous in this form.” She held out her hands to showcase how unstable they were. “I need someone like you to do the operation while I direct you or I could frag up my entire circuit system.”
Pharma looked up from her arms to see Amelie almost blankly staring at her, eyes widening. She snapped in front of her face, effectively snapping Amelie out.
“Did you hear me?” She lashed at Amelie.
“Yep, something not dexterous something something surgeon-” Amelie faded out. “ You want me to operate on you ?” Amelie practically shrieked.
Pharma nodded.
Amelie quickly looked from Pharma to Pharma. A smile crept over her face.
“Sure!”
+++
Several configurations later and the pair settled on an awkward-if-effective way to get the most out of Pharma’s anatomical prowess and Amelie’s dexterity. Amelie sat on the ground next to the wing with Pharma practically hugging her, holding her wrists to make sure she was making the right motions.
They had both teamed up to clean the dried energon and cut the necrosed metal from the frame, so all that was left was to weld and shape a new wing.
Easy.
Pharma squeezed her eyes closed and shoved down the nervousness. She’d replaced wings before. She’d done self surgery like this before. Amelie was experienced. They could do it.
The following 15 minutes was heavy with anxious silence as Pharma guided Amelie’s hand, warping the metal into a cohesive Wing shape. When they started welding the new wing on, Pharma twitched, and made Amelie flinch. Pharma cursed as they almost ruined the entire operation. She glared at the back of Amelie’s head, ready to lecture her for flinching.
“It’ll be okay,” Amelie said. “It’ll be okay, Pharma.”
She bit her tongue and calmed herself down before continuing to guide Amelie’s hands.
+++
It was only a 15 or 30 minute long procedure, but when it was over, Pharma fell back into the grass and let out an exhausted sigh.
“Thank you,” She warmly smiled at Amelie, despite them not being able to see each other’s faces.
Pharma closed the avatar and she fizzled out from where she laid on the grass, blinking into his larger and newly repaired form.
He sat up with a jolt, making Amelie shriek and jump back.
“A warning would be nice!” She scolded up at the mech.
He glanced away and muttered an apology.
“It’s okay,” Her expression grew warm again. “You’re okay.”
He smiled down at her and fluttered his wings. They still hurt, but nothing like the white-hot agony of before.
“Stand back.” He called down to Amelie. she ran back a few meters and gave him a questioning thumbs up. He nodded back.
With a loud tsche-che-che he transformed into a jet. He only felt a mild discomfort around his left wing. Success.
He transformed back just for good measure, before returning to his jet mode and then back again.
“Thank you. Again.”
“It was really no problem!” Amelie beamed up at him.
“Well,” He fired up his engines. “I guess this means I’ll be going?”
“What? No!” Amelie crossed her arms and pouted at the mech. “You can’t just leave!”
Yes, I can?” Pharma cocked his helm to the side. “That was always the plan, wasn’t it? You help me and I get out of your way.”
Amelie’s pout only deepened.
“I never agreed with that second half! Of course I want to help you do whatever it is you need to do.”
Pharma was shocked into silence.
As he tripped over something to say, a comm from First Aid saved him.
+Somewhere called Quebec? I’unno.+
\\Spelling, First Aid. You aren’t a sparkling.\\
He glanced to where Amelie still stood.
“Even if that meant going to Quebec?”
She uncrossed her arms and broke her pout into a smile.
“Abso lutely ?!” She exclaimed.
Pharma let out a shaky sigh and transformed into a jet, inviting Amelie into the cockpit.
As she clambered in, Pharma released the tension he’d been building up since he onlined.
Sometimes good things can come from a jet and a doctor meeting in the vast nothingness of Ohio.