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“Commander?” Marissa knocked on the frame of Prowl’s office door, hoping to draw his tacnet’s attention and wake him up. When that didn’t work, she called again, slightly louder. “Commander?!”
Prowl still didn’t move, aside from the trembling his wings had been doing since Red Alert woke her and sent her down to check on him. Red was right, whatever was wrong with Prowl was probably bad.
Marissa stepped into his office, took a breath and almost shouted, “Prowl!”
The Autobot shot upright so quickly that the tablet on his desk flew off and landed in front of her. Prowl stared with wide, over-bright optics and cycled his vents loudly enough that she could hear his normally whisper-soft system. “Lieutenant? Is everything all right?”
She could hear the tremor in his voice that indicated she had been right to wake him. “I think i should be asking you that, sir. You didn’t answer Red Alert when he pinged you, and I had a hell of a time waking you up just now.”
“Ah.” Prowl blinked and reset his optics, and then rolled his shoulders and forced his wings down. It was like watching him put on his usual personality as he moved, and that worried her even more. “I was… Trapped in a memory loop.”
“A memory loop? Like a flashback?”
“Something like that, yes. Closer to a nightmare than a true flashback, tonight.” He cycled his vents in the way he sighed and stood up. He came around his desk and walked over to her, crouching down to pick up the tablet and meeting her eyes. “Thank you for waking me. It is… it is not a pleasant memory.”
“Anytime, and I mean that.” She gave him as much of a smile as she could, though she was still worried for him. “But you know it’s 0230 and you’re not even supposed to be here.”
“Yes, I came down to try and take my mind off of Jazz’s mission. I seem to have failed, however.”
Ahhh, he was worrying about his partner. She should have expected that, really. They were close, and had only gotten moreso since Prowl had helped bring the mech back online after the Battle of Mission City. “Yeah, that’s what happens when you spend your time thinking too much. Come on, let’s go for a drive or something and actually take your mind off it. At least some of your mind, anyway.”
“I shouldn’t.” Marissa raised a brow at his automatic protest. “But, perhaps this once. Sunstreaker said that there was a nice path through the canyons?”
“Oh yeah, both sets of twins have been racing out there. I think they even got Jolt to come out yesterday.” She nodded. “Sounds good to me, let me just grab a jacket.”
“I have your spare in my desk,” Prowl repled with a very small smile.
Through her earpiece, Red Alert whispered, “Excellent work, Lieutenant Fairborne.”