Chapter Text
I now know I want you,
It's a secret I try to hide.
I wished you wanted me,
But I have to let you decide.
Optimus P.O.V
I had lost track of how long I had been sat here on ''our'' little beach, looking at the stars and the water. I had finished my patrol a few joors ago and contemplated joining the others at the party, but something held me back. I did not have the spark to assign patrol to another, they had all earned a break, so I simply sat here, scanning the area every few moments for any issues and letting my team enjoy each other's company.
Watching the water lap at the sand, my processor drifted back to days of old on Cybertron when I had not long taken over the mantel of leadership, the few precious times we celebrated a small victory with extra energon rations - the laughing, comradeship permeating the team. Until the light of the next solar cycle brought with it renewed death and slaughter. I shuddered at the memories.
Eventually, the sound of laughter and music at the party tonight faded away and I was aware of the party coming to an end. I had hoped they enjoyed themselves. My mind turned to Orianna and I wondered what she was doing now.
I had not seen her all day; our paths had led us in opposite directions. I gave a snort of derision. /How true that was lately!/. I sat there unable or unwilling to move from my spot on our beach as I thought about her.
It was in that moment that I heard what had come to be a comforting sound to my spark. The rumble of Orianna's car Relda as it approached. I allowed a small smile to form on my dermas.
Orianna parked her car beside me and had carefully climbed on top of the hood, no small feat given what she was wearing. I took note of the colour of her dress – dark blue, coupled with her long black locks and red highlights. My smile remained.
After exchanging perfunctory greetings, my spark both clenched and beat faster when Orianna made it clear by her tone and accusations that she had missed my appearance at the party. I could not truly explain to her why I had decided not to come, the reasons had not been clear to me either.
However, Orianna, would not be deterred in her interrogation and I could feel my ire and irrational irritation rising as she pressed me for an answer. /Why can't you leave some wounds to scab over?/, I thought angrily to myself until she asked me what I was afraid of?
I could take no more. I am ashamed to say I turned on her, unleashing the pain and anger that had been lurking beneath the surface as I had sat here pensively all evening.
As I felt the venomous words leave my dermas, I thought surely, she would turn and flee. But she didn't. She stood her ground, even reaching out to comfort me. My spark ached to reach out and receive comfort from her – but I could not bring myself to do it as my own words echoed in my processor, /''Growing closer to someone only causes you more pain…. when you lose them''/. Who was I referring to here? The countless soldiers and friends I have lost under my command, or a certain woman I had lost to another?/.
I gazed at her, taking her in. Her form, though minute in stature in comparison to myself, had come to bring so much happiness and comfort to me. Again, my thoughts mocked me, /''I did not want to be reminded of what I could lose… of what I have lost already''/.
/Why do you grieve what was not yours to lose?/. Before I could follow that grain of truth, Orianna had changed the subject in a most unusual manner. I managed to squash down those thoughts and feelings to examine at a later time.
She had begun to make one of her very insightful observations, though truth be told, what she was saying about my ''being on a pedestal and being almost perfect'', stirred within me feelings of gratitude, pride, and a great deal of embarrassment, a bizarre concoction of emotions to ingest.
Though I had wanted to interrupt her and beg her stop, she was not to be deterred and seemed to ignore my apparent discomfort. I was both mesmerised and captivated by her frank and brutally honest appraisal. Only my closest friends, Rachet and Ironhide, dared speak to me this way. The fact this woman, extraordinary as she was turning out to be, dared to do so was – refreshing - and I felt myself drawn to her even more.
And then Orianna said something that I had never dreamt I would hear her say, sentiments I had not heard uttered for millennia. The words then had been spoken by another femme who had been as bold, intelligent, compassionate, honest and wise as the one who stood before me earlier with her hand over her heart. ''You Optimus Prime, deserve to be held here,'' as she patted the place above her spark.
My world had been blown apart and I was furiously trying to piece it back together again under her keen and penetrating gaze.
I was vaguely aware of how ridiculous I must have looked. The leader of a giant race of sentient robots, capable of almost anything, brought low by a heartfelt, honest observation and confession by a human woman.
Fresh waves of turmoil washed over me as Orianna made some flippant comment about ''not asking me to marry or spark bond with her''. It was only when Orianna, mercifully, bid me good night that I recovered some of my senses and was able to help her down.
As I offered her my servo and she climbed on, the touch of her hand on my digit burned pleasantly on my metallic ''skin.'' I took note of the reaction and knew I would examine this later at my leisure when I was alone with my many thoughts. Watching her drive away had stirred feelings of both relief and bereavement.
Sitting on our beach long after Orianna had driven off into the night, the first hint of dawn began to smudge the horizon. My processor was in overdrive sifting through my emotions and memories of our conversation and recent events with her.
I examined each memory as though it was being played out on a projector screen in my mind's eye, images of; the moment Orianna stood before me begging to join my team on Diego Garcia as she was all alone in this world, Orianna screaming in anger at me on Turtle Cove sharing her hurt and pain and our mutual healing. Of Orianna and I sitting right here under our stars talking and laughing, the moment I saw her hand captured by Chase and brought to his lips, the moment Orianna admitted falling in love with him, the way she lit up when she saw him, the feel of her soft lips against my dermas in that chaste kiss and the vision of her standing before me tonight, hand on her heart telling me I deserved to be loved and held in one's heart.
My spark twisted and ached. Though I felt the familiar shadow of loneliness descend over me, a small smile tugged at the corners of my dermas. For just as the light of day slowly crawls across the land, the dawning comprehension of what Orianna had come to mean to me slowly coalesced in my processor.
She was my light - true and comforting.
She kept the darkness that threatened my soul at bay and surrounded my spark with warmth and joy. She was my ray of sunshine. Recalling the memory of her driving off early this morning, my dermas clamped together in a thin line of pain and I closed my optics. /She was busy casting her glow on another/.
In the depths of my spark I felt a coil of cold jealousy begin to wind itself about my spark, trying to constrict it. I fought to tamper it down into submission with cold hard logic that I whispered to the morning breeze. ''This is ridiculous! She is a human, you are a Cybertronian. She is flesh and bone and blood courses through her veins, you are metal and cables and energon flows through your lines. Her life span is but a heartbeat, yours, an endless strand of time stretching out forever. Her heart belongs to another, your spark is damaged and broken.'' My voice rose in frustration as I reached the inevitable conclusion to my argument, ''It CAN NOT and WILL NOT be!''
I stood slowly to greet the new day, ex-venting deeply, willing myself to find calm and focus as my processor reeled. A flame, small as it was, had been lit within my spark. /I would have to be diligent in extinguishing it lest, in time, it burns so brightly as to put the sun to shame/.
I cared deeply for her, maybe even lov…. ''NO!'' I growled out loud as I shook my helm roughly to rid myself of these ridiculous and illogical thoughts. I ''sighed'' out loud. I wanted her to be happy. She deserved happiness, even if that meant mine was lost.
I closed my optics, my resolve strengthening within me. With that last thought, I took one last look at the rising sun and I turned to walk back towards the hanger, steeling myself to face whatever this new day would bring with it.