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Prowl's battle computer told him exactly what had happened on the adjacent sloping street (failure of the car's braking system, no driver), how quickly the car was sliding on the winter ice (too quickly to be stopped without damage to something or someone else), and the car's precise trajectory (right into the building entrance that Carly and Chip were exiting).
It also told him of Carly and Chip's top speed on the icy ground (too slow to get away from the impending crash), the resistance of the door they could go back behind (not enough to protect them from the impending crash), and his own top speed on the icy ground (barely enough to reach them while staying in control of his own trajectory).
The calculations (velocities, forces, time each action would take, resistance of materials) were easy, and the conclusion evident.
He sped and slowed down with precision, transformed back into root mode, and-
CRASH
"Prowl?"
…
"Prowl?!"
Something went through the fog of his mind. A word. His name. Slowly, too slowly, he onlined again.
"Prowl!"
The voice was carrying relief now. He forced his processor to boot up with more haste.
"Prowl, are you alright?"
Another voice. He could put names over it now. Chip. Carly.
With that, the events that had led to this situation slotted into place in his memory files. The out-of-control empty car. The impending grievous injuries, or worse, to his human friends. The decision he had made. Chip and Carly in front of him, their faces scared. The car crashing into his spinal struts, his door wings, his helm.
That explained the pulsing pain at the back of his helm.
"Okay, don't move, I'm going to go get help," Carly's voice said.
Moving? He didn't think he could.
Something shifted between his arms, something warm and solid.
"Well, I'm for sure not moving, my chair is totaled," Chip's voice said.
Prowl forced his voice box to turn on.
"My apologies, Chip. I will… get you a new one."
Was his voice weak, or were his audio receptors damaged?
A very small hand (a human hand, his processor decided) touched his arm.
"Don't worry about it, Prowl," Chip said. "Let's just get you home."
Home? He would like to be back at the Ark, yes. But this wouldn't do, how was Chip supposed to get back to his home without Prowl driving him back there?
"No," he managed to wheeze, "I need to… to get you home…"
His optics finally booted up, although glitching. His audio receptors, on the other hand, went out for a moment. He completely missed Chip's answer.
Chip was talking, he could see it. Chip's lips were moving, and his eyes were doing that thing that meant a human was plagued by emotions that they couldn't put to the back of their processor. The hand on his arm was pressing into him.
Finally, his audio receptors came back online.
"-with me, Prowl, don't go offline, please-"
He could feel something trickling along his helm. Then something dripped on the ground next to Chip. Fuel. His own fuel, his processor determined after a moment. That wasn't a good development.
"I… I'm online, Chip, don't worry…"
Chip? Chip was here, Chip was holding him, talking to him, but… Had Chip been alone?
"Carly-!" Prowl remembered.
Where was she? Had he been too late to protect her? Was she-
Chip's hand tightened around his finger.
"Carly went to get help, Prowl. I can see her, she's making a phone call from the hotel reception. The Autobots will be here in no time to help us both."
Carly was safe. The Autobots were coming. Good.
His vision grew darker, then Chip's voice reached his audio receptors again.
"Hey, can you answer something for me?"
A request for information? Prowl's processor put itself in gear before he even formulated the need himself.
"What is it, Chip?"
"I'm sure you did that because you thought it was the best solution," Chip said slowly. "But can you walk me through your thought process?"
Walk someone through something. A figurative human expression, used to request step-by-step explanation. A favorite of human teachers, particularly in scientific fields. Chip was trying to force his processor to stay online.
So Prowl explained. If he had stopped his driving to let Chip and Carly sit in him, the incoming car would have crashed right into him. In car mode his frame wouldn't have been sturdy enough to protect his passengers, so one or both of them would have been severely injured.
"You would have been injured too," Chip pointed out.
Beside the point. He was much easier to repair than humans were. It was precisely human fragility that had made him decide not to simply scoop Chip and Carly up. Either the velocity needed to reach them in time would have been too great not to hurt them, or the slowness needed to not hurt them would have meant that he would have been too late.
"Okay, I think I got the gist of it," Chip said.
Another potential course of action would have been to meet the incoming car himself. But the ice on the road meant that any collision of two moving bodies would have resulted in unpredictable trajectories. The possibility that Chip and Carly got hurt by either the other car or himself was low, but it existed, and he decided it was too dangerous to try.
"Don't burn yourself out either, Prowl," Chip said.
No, this was good. His processor was working, it meant he was online. That meant that he could still protect Chip.
Chip.
Drip.
Something was drip drip dripping next to Chip.
"It's your fuel, Prowl. You're injured."
Injured? How?
"…Don't you remember?"
Remember? Remember what?
Why did Chip sound scared?
"Okay, okay, we'll be fine, the Autobots are coming, they'll fix you-"
His helm was so heavy…
"-Prowl don't go offline!"
His processor was so slow…
"Prowl!"