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Rodeo and Juliet
If there’s ever been a greater love
Thoust hasn’t found it yet
What’s to be or not to be
Is anybody’s bet
Rodeo and Juliet
— Garth Brooks, Rodeo and Juliet
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She was trapped in the tall glittering spires of Kaon. Enemy territory. The crystals glittered in the light of Cybertron’s dying sun and in the fires of war-fueled industry. The edge of the tower fell in front of her, a fatal drop interspersed with painful, torturous spikes that promised to impale anyone foolish to believe that to be an escape.
Behind her was the Decepticon army, tense and waiting for her to violate her parole. They didn’t trust her, of course, but for the sake of their mutual ally they were willing to allow her to roam the halls as long as he escorted her. She wasn’t foolish to believe that Cliffjumper was the only one here keeping an optic on her; he was just the only friendly face and voice to be found and the others, the ones that lurked out of sight and watched through cameras and microphone pickups and who knew what else were simply careful not to be seen.
The spoke english. Paranoid as she was, she didn’t want the Decepticons listening in; Cliffjumper simply humored her.
“… and Starscream is Megatron’s most loyal soldier?” Arcee's question practically dripped disbelief. In her experience “loyal” and “Starscream” were two words that didn’t even exist in the same solar system of each other.
“Pretty sure he’s got a crush,” Cliffjumper said, probably just to see his partner twitch violently. “He painted these little gold glyphs on his wings, the way Towers mechs used to do when they were advertising that they wanted to court someone and is prancing around showing them off to everyone, and when Megatron’s around he just, I don’t know… flutters them so they sparkle.” Arcee's optics were huge and round with disbelief. She looked about ready to crash from the sheer impossibleness of what she was hearing. Cliffjumper grinned. He’d always said that if anyone needed to spend some stress-free time in lala land via logic crash it was his way too serious Arcee… not that he’d ever managed to crash her. “Everyone thinks it’s a huge lark, laughing their tailpipes off. Apparently he’s done it before, when Megs needed to laugh before he had a nervous breakdown or something, but… I think he means it this time.”
For a moment it was all Arcee could do to just sit there and blink. The words refused to process then she shuddered. The mental images were just… horrifying. She turned her attention to the battlements of Darkmount and the rest of Kaon beyond. Her mind just kept trying to overlay the sparkling industrial city and its clearly defensive siege towers with the ruins she knew.
And imagined, far off in the distance, she could see the smoke rising from the depressing war-torn city she’d been told Iacon had become.
“Hey…” Cliffjumper leaned into her, bumping her gently. “You okay?”
“I suppose I owe Shockwave an apology.”
The orange bot laughed. Arcee remembered the bright yellow Con she’d assaulted coming through the groundbridge portal. The color had barely made her hesitate. “Yeah… no. Shockwave’s the forgiving sort,” Arcee practically heard a relay in her processor go fzzzt! even as Cliff kept talking, “and everyone’s heard my stories about my old partner so when a blue and pink version of Arcee with a weird altmode comes bounding out of a really wonky ground bridge… Shockwave’s first thought was to call me. He does’t blame you.”
That… that was just too much.
Fortunately Cliffjumper seemed to think so too. “So, enough about the weirdness that been my life for the last five years, How’re you and the other bots getting on?”
“We won.”
His vents hitched and he nearly fell over before catching himself. Good thing he did… it was a long way down off the Darkmount tower they currently were swinging their feet over the edge of. “What! Really?”
“Really,” her voice was as dry as the Nevada sands.
“Wow.” He coughed and his engine sputtered as he got his vents back under control. “You couldn’t have mentioned that sooner.”
She shrugged. “It hadn’t seemed like the right time.”
Cliffjumper looked out over the Kaon cityscape, a bit haunted himself, and Arcee knew the last five years hadn’t all been gossiping about Starscream’s antics and trading jokes with Shockwave. It hadn’t slipped by her that all he’d said about this universe’s Autobots had been They ain’t very nice people, Cee and had actively shied away from mentioning her alternate at all. “Yeah. I get that. Bit crass to brag about kickin’ Con tailpipe here.” And that sounded like the bitter voice of experience. He took a deep vent in, held it, then let it out. “I need to know, Cee.”
He sounded haunted and so she cautiously began telling him about the last five years. Mourning for Cliffjumper, meeting Jack, fighting Decpticons, Unicron and losing Optimus, getting Prime back, tracking the artifacts, Smokescreen (“Impulsive? Really?” “Greener than grass rookie too.” “Wow. Never woulda guessed.” “What’s his alternate like?” “Slagging tactician. Bot’s never without a clever plan. It’s creepy. If Pr—their leader wasn’t always beating him and throwing him in the brig for trying to overthrow him, we’d have lost a dozen times over.” “Smokescreen!? We are talking about the same bot, right?” “Uh… No. We aren’t. That’s kinda the point.”), Starscream betraying Megatron… then trading info with the Autobots… then trying to kill Megatron… then betraying the Autobots, scattering after the Nevada base fell, Ultra Magnus (this time she ignored Cliffjumper’s shudder at the name; she didn’t want to know), predacons, Predaking, Bumblebee killing Megatron, Unicron, Prime’s final sacrifice.
He cocked his head, uncharacteristically quiet as he contemplated the news. She leaned against him, reveling in the warmth of his systems. She’d thought him lost, gone. When Ratchet had told her about the groundbridge records he’d found in the Nemesis’ logs, told her there was a chance Cliffjumper might still be alive, she hadn’t believed him. Then she’d refused to believe him. The thought that her partner, all this time, had been trapped in some dimensional pocket like the Shadowzone and she hadn’t even looked for him… it had nearly broken her.
Jack had talked her into taking the chance that Ratchet was right.
Of course, the last thing she’d expected coming out of the modified groundbridge portal was a yellow Shockwave, but… and the rest was history, as they said on Earth.
Her chono dinged, breaking them both out of their reveries. He looked at her.
“Ratchet said he’d give me twenty-four hours to find you, then he’d open another ‘bridge for us to come home.” She said it like they’d all believed that she’d find Cliffjumper alive and well and willing to come home. She didn’t say that they’d all thought it most likely that she’d find only a starved, grey shell but that it would be better to know for sure their comrade’s fate than to be left in a logic loop of endless speculation.
He shifted uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head, the gesture so familiar it was almost painful. “About that…”
She should have guessed. “You’re not coming home.”
“I… It’s not like you need my help kicking Con tailpipe anymore. I’m a warrior; I ain’t one for putting things back together.” And the Decepticons here still needed warriors. “And you! You’ve gotten yourself a new partner it sounds like. It’d just be awkward having me around as a fifth wheel.” He touched her, scarred, gentle and familiar. “You’ll be alright without me.”
He’d never repaired his broken horn, was all she could think. She still had the tip. Both, she thought, served of reminders and mementos.
Reminder… but a broken one. Both of them had broken that day. They’d patched and welded their sparks back together, moved on, and fought their wars, but nothing was ever going to go back to what it once had been. They’d both mourned and moved on. She was the one digging at the past in the name of closure.
And — the thought made her shudder, but she didn’t deny the truth of it — the Decepticons here needed him.
“Alright,” she said. She wouldn’t sob; she was not going to make it harder for him. He grinned at her, relieved she wasn’t going to argue. “Since we still have an hour, and I’m not going to spend it running back to the bridge site with a hoard of scraplets on my tailpipe, you are going to tell me just what else is topsy-turvy in this whacky mirror’verse.”
He laughed. “Well… funny you should mention scraplets…”
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fin