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Jazz pretended to slip out of the room quietly. But not so quietly that Optimus wouldn't still hear him and wake from recharge.
"Jazz," Optimus said. His own voice sounded groggy to his audio receptors and his optics weren't even fully online yet.
He heard Jazz walk back to the recharge bed and kneel next to it. "Go back to recharge, OP," Jazz said softly. "You need it."
"I need you," Optimus said.
Jazz took the offered hand that came from the recharge bed and held it. Even the absence of light in the room couldn't hide his smile. His soft sad smile.
"Can't you stay?" Optimus asked next.
Jazz's nimble fingers continued stroking his hand lightly. "Wish I could. You know we all agreed this was for the best."
"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Optimus pointed out.
Jazz snorted a bit at that. "You miss me so much already that you try talking like me?"
Now more awake, Optimus brought his other hand to brush against the vents framing Jazz's faceplate.
"I do," he said, and faced with the playful, almost interrogative tilt of Jazz's helm, he added: "I miss you already. I will miss you every day until your return."
"Optimus? Are you... Okay?" a small voice brought him out of his memory files.
Jack, Rafael and Miko were looking - Optimus's optics zoomed in on their tiny faces - slightly worried. Next to them, Bumblebee was listening in too, and a bit further, Ratchet was pretending not to.
The question had been quite standard, just some polite request for knowledge of the children's new friends' past. They couldn't have expected Optimus to get lost in his own memories. He hadn't expected it either.
"My apologies, Jack. I'm afraid the rest of this conversation will have to wait."
The shuttle was inching closer to the space bridge. At such a small size, a ship needed to be exceedingly prudent when crossing a bridge, and everyone aboard the Ark was well aware of how delicate of an operation this was.
Optimus would have vastly preferred not to send any shuttle into a space bridge, but even his reservations had to be put aside. A small team needed to go through that bridge, and a shuttle was the only option. And they had to hurry, lest the Nemesis caught up with the Ark and attacked the near-defenseless shuttle.
"It's all clear, Prime, the space bridge looks good," Sideswipe indicated.
"Alright," Optimus said. "Shuttle team, you can go through."
"Thanks, Ark! See you all soon!" Jazz grinned from the other side of the screen, from his seat at the small shuttle's controls.
Miko's sleepover-storytime night had resulted in the children staying awake later than they maybe should be. By now, the sky over the base was darker already, almost night. The first stars had began glistening.
It was always both a comfort and a torture to look at the Earth sky. Both a very familiar sight, and a cruel reminder that his own sun and planet weren't even visible from here. A reminder of how vast and empty space really was.
Optimus heard the elevator groan to a stop behind him, and well-known footsteps came to him. Ratchet sat down next to him, close enough to touch if he wanted to, far enough to give him space.
Ratchet waited, looking at the empty sky, looking at Optimus, looking at the empty desert all around.
Then he finally spoke, with a voice much softer than he usually let himself use.
"I miss him too, you know. I miss them all."
"Prime!!" Bulkhead shouted all of a sudden. "The Nemesis is here!"
Optimus turned around immediately, looking at the proximity sensors, and there it really was. Megatron had finally reached the Ark.
"Shuttle team, go through now!" he ordered. "We'll hold them back!"
On the screen Jazz scrambled for the controls of the shuttle, firing up pre-heated engines and bringing online what little weaponry the ship had onboard. "Understood, going now."
The shuttle rushed towards the space bridge, a clear line with no obstacle.
"Is the bridge still holding?" Optimus asked, while he forced half of his processor to focus on the upcoming fight with the Nemesis.
The bot next to him glanced at his screen. "Yes, it's fully functional, they shouldn't have any issue-"
"MISSILES!!" someone shouted.
Optimus braced himself.
The explosion didn't come.
"Where are they heading?!" he yelled, to be heard over the blaring alarms all over the Ark's bridge. On the screen, the shuttle had almost reached the space bridge. In a matter of seconds, it would go through and be safe from the fight-
"…Oh no," Bulkhead said. Optimus's lines froze in sudden fear. "They're firing at the space bridge."
No, Optimus thought. Not that. But on another screen, the trajectory of the Nemesis missiles was clear. It would hit the space bridge just when the shuttle was going through it.
"No!!"
He could only watch, as both space bridge and shuttle exploded.
Optimus forced himself to expel from his vents and take in colder air. Ratchet had told him about that small hack a long time ago, and it had served him well so far. But tonight it felt useless to calm his mind.
"Ratchet?" he said.
"What do you need, Optimus?" was the immediate answer.
"…Do you think any of the crew is still out there somewhere?" he asked before he doubted his own question too much.
There had been nothing left of the shuttle, or the space bridge.
"We can only hope so," Ratchet answered, then, softly: "What are you seeing, Optimus?"
The fiery explosion from long ago, that had taken a dear friend. A small burned out piece of another ship's hull, that had taken two others. Countless faceplates of bots lost in battle, and countless others now lost in the immensity in space. How many dead now?
Ratchet's hand touched down softly over his. "Do you remember what we talked about?"
Right. Try to focus on the good memories, instead of those that hurt.
So Optimus forced his processor to let go of the images of the explosion, cycled air again, and remembered Jazz's smile.