Chapter Text
The last thing Sam Witwicky remembered was Optimus telling him to run from Cemetery Wind. He remembered his chest burning for oxygen as he pushed himself to run further and further before pain, then nothing.
A void. A blank space. Darkness as his mind drifted between conscious and unconscious.
He theorized that this was what death felt like. At the very least, the in-between. Of all the ways he could have died, he supposed being offed by the hands of Cemetery Wind wasn’t the worst way to go. He could have died in a plane crash or during any of the battles he endured. At least this way, he died doing something that mattered. For the Autobots’ sake as well as his own, for both their protection and for the Earth’s protection too.
He just hoped, no matter how vain that hope seemed at the moment, Optimus got himself out in time. That Bee was safe wherever he was, and maybe that his sacrifice, his actions, wouldn’t be as fruitless as he may have initially thought.
And so, Sam let his consciousness finally drift away.
RX-Alpha-1 was nothing but a barren wasteland. A tiny corner of the galaxy in the Centari System, home to very few species of life. The moon itself was just a plain rock with low gravity, with nothing but desert as far as the optic could see. The moon might be barren and empty, but it was safe, at least according to Solarflare. The moon colony was one of the very few Neutral refuges away from the Autobot-Decepticon war, away from all the suffering this civil-war had wrought upon her fellow mechanoids for deca-vorns. And here, the femme had spent the last vorn as an energon seeker for the only civilized base camp. There weren’t many deposits on this moon, but it was enough for the mechanoids on this here rock. The work was taxing, the orns were long, but Solarflare wouldn’t have it any other way, choosing a path of life instead of needless slaughter and dying for a cause almost long forgotten by conflict. It gave her a sense of contentment, something fleeting in this cold, unfeeling corner of the universe.
Being a Neutral was all she had. She couldn’t go back to being a Decepticon. And there was no way in the Pit that she was going to be an Autobot. She couldn’t escape one megalomaniac just to join the forces under a religious figurehead. This whole war was stupid, in her opinion.
But Cybertron, her home, wasn’t safe as long as these two sides had their spike-measuring contest. As the war dragged on, fewer and fewer planets in the Intergalactic Alliance offered refuge to Cybertronians. They rightfully feared that the war would come to their own planets if they housed the refugees. Because Cybertronians, no matter where their pedes stepped, only brought war and suffering. At least, that’s what has been told directly to her faceplate. She herself didn’t fully agree with the decision. However, it wasn’t up to her to agree with it, but to understand it, which she regretfully did. Instead, civilians, like herself, are forced to distant colonies such as this one.
In the meantime, and probably for the rest of her functioning, Solarflare was left to do her part in this small base. Like each and every orn, Solarflare prepared herself to take off toward the skies. Her recharge cycle was less than optimal, but that didn’t distract her from her task. Making her way out of the base, she nodded her helm toward the few working mechanoids as she passed by.
Bots from all different walks of life were doing their part to make this colony run smoothly. Despite their initial differences and the occasional scrap, it was much more peaceful than the alternative, with a ton of expectations at the very least. However, on this small little moon, they only had one colony, which was expecting her to do her part in finding more energon reserves.
Once out of the base, she jumped and transformed mid-air before taking off. She expected this patrol to be like every other patrol.
But Primus had a different fate for her.
Solarflare heard the thing before she saw them. It was a distant, echoing sound that caused her to stutter in the air. At first, she thought it was a glitch in her sensors, because why in Primus’s name would she hear crying all the way out here?
But ever so curious, Solarflare transformed back to root mode in a graceful flip before setting off to investigate the unknown. She knew she wasn’t armed and that this could very well be a trap. However, the sound was eerily sparkwrenching in a way that Solarflare had to know what it was. She brought up her sonar sensor in her HUD, eyeing it with suspicion.
There was a blip a klick due North.
Steeling herself, Solarflare walked toward the blip. It wasn’t long before she approached the mouth of a cave system. She stopped to consider herself.
Another cry echoed off the walls of the cave, this time louder and clearly emanating from the entrance. Determined, she went deeper into the cave system, keeping an optic out for potential threats in the rocks. She only made a few paces before she stopped in her tracks.
Her optics trailed downward toward the cave floor. She brightened her optics, lighting a soft beam of light in its wake. She couldn’t believe it. Her vent systems stuttered as she let out a gasp of surprise, but there was no doubt in her processors. In front of her was a sparkling. A dirty, little sparkling, intermittently letting out harsh cries that echoed off the cave walls.
Oh, Pits, this got really complicated.
Death sucked; scratch that, it sucked balls. Sam wanted to return to the peaceful emptiness of the void, the in-between, the peaceful slumber of floating. Because all Sam felt now was pain. Pain, pain, pain, pain.
His body was freezing, as if he were in the Arctic like his great-great-grandfather. He couldn’t tell anything apart from the freezing pain in his mind(?) In his body(?) He didn’t know, nor did he care at the moment; he just wanted it to stop.
No matter, his consciousness split into two, with each pole vying for a relief he didn’t have. He couldn’t do anything but drift, letting himself ride the waves of biting pain.
The waves oscillated between biting cold and immense pressure.
He couldn’t fight against it, his will to fight having been sapped from him already. He couldn’t force himself to stop; he couldn’t pull himself together long enough to push back.
If this were death, this must be hell.
He didn’t know how much time passed, if any, before he suddenly felt a push in his mind. Gentle tendrils of something bright brush against him. He had half a mind to fight it, to push away the touch, but the phantom brushes left immense relief in its wake. He chased after it, wanting more.
Anything for the pain to stop.
He slowly gathered his thoughts after feeling the warm relief, and then he pushed and pushed.
He felt like he was being caressed, like something fragile and precious, before a final push broke through.
His mind exploded with bright colours before muting to dim lights. The pain he felt suddenly washed away like a receding tide. He let out a sigh of relief as the freezing torture finally stopped.
The gentle caress told him he’s safe now, so after fighting for so long, his mind finally gives in, and he rests.
Once the sparkling was secure in her cockpit, no longer a crying mess, Solarflare booked it for the base. Her processor fired off a million thoughts per nanoklik, but one rang true.
The sparkling needed medical attention, and fast.
It happened so fast that she didn’t understand what she was doing until it occurred. She didn’t know what she did with her EM field, but it felt right. She did what she could to soothe the newspark, but she knew it wasn’t enough. The sparkling’s field was erratic, bristling with static in nature, pushing away any sort of comfort the seeker was willing to provide.
She didn't know what happened, but suddenly, the young one calmed down enough for Solarflare to nudge him to rest. It bought her time, but it clearly wasn’t enough. She may not be a medical expert, but she knew sparklings weren’t supposed to be cold to the touch like this one was.
In fact, they were supposed to be the opposite, if her memory files served correctly.
Wasting no time, she made it to base, carefully transforming around the little one as she held the newspark close to her own spark. She quickly hurried through the camp to the east side of the base, paying no mind to the attention she stirred in her wake.
She made it to the small clinic, run by a single bot named Paramadic, pushing her way through the door before rushing down the cramped halls. She barged into the only examination room where she called, “Paramadic!”
Startled, the green and white mech dropped his forceps. Annoyed at the interruption, he made the effort to speak before stopping, his blue optics drawn to the bundle in Solarflare’s arms. “Is that-”
“Yes! No time to explain. He needs help, now!” Solarflare shouted, her vocalizer on the verge of desperation.
Optics steeling with determination, he pushed aside the instrument cart and gestured to the medical berth. Solarflare followed the medic’s instructions and stood back, letting the mech do his job.
She watched on as cables started flying from the mech’s ports, sensors periodically beeping. She felt utterly helpless as she stared at the still sparkling on the medical berth. Servos clenched in something the seeker couldn’t quite place at the moment, she settled on fear being the only logical thing pulsing through her EM field.
Mindful of the medic’s concentration, she asked in a soft voice, “What’s wrong with them?”
“The mechling’s spark signature is too faint,” came the reply. Paramadic spooled one of the cables back into his arm guards. “Was he alone when you found him?”
Him. The sparkling was a him. Okay, focus on his health, and hopefully answer some of the questions. “Yes. Why?”
The medic looked concerned as he considered Solarflare, eyeing her with disbelief. “Because he shouldn’t be online if he was. All his levels are low. It’s a miracle he’s even functioning now.”
“Can you do something about it?”
At that, the medic’s optics cycled, clearly running through the possibilities. Placing a servo on the young one’s chassis, he said, “His spark needs a stronger spark to act as an anchor.”
“Are you saying…”
Paramadic’s gaze hardened as he looked to the femme. “If he is going to survive, he needs a Creator bond to stabilize his spark.”
Creator bond? Slag. There weren’t any Creator bots on this side of the galaxy.
“Can you do it?” To her knowledge, sometimes medics can establish emergency bonds to stabilize patients. This couldn’t be any different, right?
The medic’s optics shuttered. “I… I can’t.” He sighed as he looked over the sparkling.
“Why not?” Solarflare questioned.
“He needs a compatible spark. From what I scanned, he has an imprint attachment. If I override the thread in his state, it could terminate him,” Paramadic tiredly explained.
At that, Solarflare’s EM field momentarily flared in anger-desperation before she reined it back in. “But he was alone! Are you saying his Creator left him alone?”
“Perhaps. Unless he imprinted on the first adult spark he came across,” Paramadic surmised.
Considering the situation… Solarflare put the pieces together rather quickly, “Then… that would be me.”
Paramadic disconnected the other cable attached to the sparkling. He sidestepped to the counter of materials before calling out, “You need to decide, Solarflare. I can’t operate on him, nor do any repairs until his spark stabilizes. If it’s not you… well…” He didn’t need to finish that thought for her to understand the implication.
Solarflare froze. She considered the sparkling on the medical berth. Under all the dust and grime, she could see that he was a tiny, chubby thing. His plating was a light grey that eerily matched the protoform underneath, no doubt from his colour nanites being too nutrient-deficient from neglect.
He was dying, unless Solarflare had something to do about it.
“Do I look like I have a choice?”
Hesitantly, she laid a servo on the little one’s spark chamber. Paramadic hovered behind her as she urged the plating to open up, opening her own spark chamber in the process. The faint blue of the little one’s spark spun lazily in its chamber, contrasting with the noticeably faster deep amber sphere of Solarflare’s own. Finding it too late to back out now, Solarflare nudged the little one’s spark toward her own as tiny zaps bounced between them. She didn’t have to wait long until a resounding snap registered within her.
Like that, the little one’s spark quickly spun a brighter blue with tinges of orange within its chamber.
“Is it…”
“It is done.” Paramadic moved to close the little one’s spark chamber. He plugged his cables back into the sparkling’s medical ports, scanning over the results. He looked over to Solarflare, relief in his expression. “His vitals are stabilizing.”
“Will he survive?”
“Only time will tell, but it looks good. For now, let me work on repairing him.”
Sam did not like being dead. Not one bit. In fact, for being dead, Sam surely felt a lot of something. A dull ache in his body, a massive headache that threatened to split his skull, Sam felt more like he had the hangover of the century than having crossed over the realm of the living. He thought the point of being dead was that you got to rest, not feel pain, aches, and soreness for the rest of your eternal rest.
And despite all of the pain, there was this strange and consistent beeping sound that kept going. Why the fuck was it still beeping?
Blearily, Sam opened his eyes.
Wait… he shouldn’t be able to do that if he were dead. Unless he wasn’t dead… But that was crazy. Completely nuts if he said so himself. He remembered dying. He remembered everything going lights out. So why the fuck was he awake again in what looked to be a cramped ass hospital room?
He tried to sit up. But his body felt heavy in a way it didn’t before. His only range of motion seemed to be reduced to just moving his head side to side. Drugged, perhaps? He looked around the room, finding that he wasn’t alone as he stared at the back of an unfamiliar green and white bot.
He froze.
Was… was he back in Decepticon hands?
Feeling the start of a panic attack, Sam urged himself to move. He needed to leave before the bot found him awake.
A gentle nudge poked at his mind. Confused, he pushed back. It was then that another bot entered the room, with a presence Sam could only describe as brilliant.
Sam didn’t recognize this bot. He’s sure he would have remembered if he had, considering their paint job. The bot sported an orange, lithe frame with piercing yellow optics that threatened to cut down any opposition. Their face held a severe expression that made Sam almost want to pee himself. His eyes trailed downward until they landed on a bright pair of red wings that were attached to the bot’s back.
Wings. Holy shit, he was back in Decepticon hands. If he didn’t die then, he was for sure going to die now.
The green-and-white bot stopped what he was doing and turned to the orange one. “Solarflare, I thought I told you to-”
“He is online.” The bot—Solarflare—pointed their head toward Sam, their voice a pleasant, feminine tone.
The green-and-white bot (he really needed to come up with a name for him. Greenie, maybe?) turned around, staring at Sam with confusion.
It was belatedly that Sam realized they weren’t speaking English, but he understood it all the same.
Greenie tilted his head as he walked over to Sam. “That shouldn’t be right. He should be in stasis until his self-repair routines complete.”
Solarflare cocked their (her?) hip, waving a hand in his direction. “I felt him online early. I take he is no longer in danger of termination?”
Sam didn’t like that they were clearly talking about him without directly addressing him in the face. He made a move to shout, to scream, to say anything, but only a series of beeps left his mouth.
Beeps? As if this situation couldn’t get any weirder. Frustrated that he still couldn’t sit up, Sam elected to just wiggle himself until something happened. He then felt himself being supported by the butt until he was in a sitting position. It was then that Sam looked down at the rest of his body.
A series of beeps rang as Sam screamed in horror at the sight of metal where there should be human flesh.
No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening.
A touch in his mind attempted to soothe him, but he wasn’t having it. This wasn’t right. None of this was right. What the fuck was happening?
“What’s happening with him?”
His hands were metal. His arms were metal. His everything was a grey metal.
“I admit I don’t know much about sparklings, but he could just be fussy?”
What the fuck was a sparkling? Is that what he was now? This “sparkling?”
“He won’t calm down, Paramadic. His EM field is too violent to soothe.”
Paramadic? What kind of name was that? He’ll stick to Greenie. Haha. Greenie. Maybe this was all a sick dream.
“I don’t know! Use your Creator bond!”
Maybe if he just went back to sleep, he would be back in the land of the dead. Yeah, that’s right.
“... that feels invasive.”
He wanted someone, anyone. Optimus. Bee. Hell, he’ll take his parents!
“He’s a sparkling! The longer he cries in this state, the more damage he is going to do to himself!”
Was he crying? Huh, he guessed he was. Didn’t feel like it was him, though. More, further away, if anything.
Amidst the chaos, Sam felt a nudge within him. A sort of warmth spread throughout his whole body. He was upset… But why was he upset again? Suddenly, it didn’t matter as much anymore. The warmth surrounded him like a cocoon. His panic started to recede until he was floating in a sea of calm.
Where was he again?
“There, there. That wasn’t so bad, huh, you little mechling?”
He didn’t like that voice. The cooing. But he couldn’t find it within himself to care at this point.
“I… I don’t want to do that again.” The orange bot (what was her name again? Solar? Solar-something?) stared at her hands, glaring with a vitriol that Sam immediately wanted to wash away. She shouldn’t have that expression on her face.
“Solarflare, I think you’re going to have to get used to it since you’re a Creator now.”
“It’s not like I wanted to be one in the first place.” The bot turned to leave, calling out over her shoulder, “I will leave you to it.” As she walked away, something inside Sam snapped. Something that wasn’t human, but something… something more primal, more basic… clawed within him. He didn’t want Solarflare to leave. He didn’t want to be in the presence of Greenie any longer. He wanted whatever Solarflare did to calm him.
Greenie, who was apparently holding onto him, adjusted his grip on Sam, maneuvering him to a different position. “At least stay for the rest of the exam,” he said, “I don’t want to deal with a fussy sparkling.”
“Alright.”
The sparkling was a strange little thing. Not like she had much experience on the subject matter, but the sentiment was all the same.
She didn’t realize how… loud they were. In her memory bank, she remembered sparklings as little bundles of joy that laughed and giggled at the tiniest of things. This little one, however, has done little else but cry his spark out ever since coming out of stasis. Not only was he physically loud, but he was mentally as well. She supposed it was because he hadn’t learned to establish his firewalls yet, but it was still unsettling to constantly feel his presence pushing back on her own whenever she brushed fields with him.
Despite the newness of the situation, Solarflare couldn’t really fault the tiny mechling. And so, she took the prodding.
She didn’t want to think about the insecticon in the room: the Creator bond. The amount of power she had over the newspark, the amount of control she could exercise, scared her. While necessary at the time, something in her didn’t feel right about using it to calm the newspark the way she had.
Maybe she’s biased, but there was something different about this sparkling. Sure, she didn’t have much experience with them in the first place, but this little one’s presence within the bond space felt… more mature than his young spark would expect.
It was confusing. She needed to investigate further.
In the meantime, she stayed as Paramadic checked over the newspark a final time. The little one managed to fall into recharge after that whole ordeal.
“-flare?”
Hey, Flare!
Solarflare’s optics cycled as she considered the medic. “Yes?”
MEMORY: DELETE
“I said that I assume you don’t have the resources for a sparkling?”
She cocked her helm in confusion. “Who would in this colony?”
“We might not have sparkling-grade energon, but bot-processed energon should work in the interim. That is, until I can find a way to get the supplies.”
“Bot-processed?” Solarflare tilted her helm, further accentuating her confusion.
“Let me show you.”
And so, Solarflare got a crash course in Sparkling 101. At least, to the best that this colony could offer. She learned how to process energon from her own lines to make a more dilute mix for sparkling consumption. She also learned how to settle the sparkling’s tanks after refuelling to prevent spit-up. Overall, it was a whole lot of information overload, but Paramadic was kind enough to ping her a small datapack with everything she needed. For the physical care of the sparkling, at the very least.
Everything else, though… she was on her own.
With the sparkling still in recharge, Paramadic let her and the little one go with the promise of another check-up in a few orns time. And so, she returned to her humble habsuite and made a beeline for her berth, setting the sparkling down on the covers.
She stood there for a few kliks, letting everything sink in, before heading to the washracks.
She needed a shower.
Sam was no stranger to nightmares. Nightmares and he go hand-in-hand with the life he lived. God knows how many he had after Mission City, Egypt, and Chicago. But he normally wasn’t alone in the aftermath. He always had someone to take solace in. More often than not, that someone was Bumblebee.
Oh, Bee…
The thought of the Autobot almost made Sam want to cry again, but there was no use. Wherever he was, he was alone. And he would need to get himself out of this situation alone. Whatever happened to him, it doesn’t matter. He just needed to get the hell out of Dodge before finding someone familiar…
Someone… like Optimus.
He needed Optimus. But how to get to Optimus? How to get back to Earth?
But first, he needed to get up.
He opened his eyes to find a quaint little apartment(?) Well, it looked like an apartment. He was lying on a metal bed, but he could see some other furnishings if he strained his head a bit more. A coffee machine, maybe? A robot coffee machine. An energon machine?
Nevermind that. He had to figure out how to get up by himself first. He didn’t see either bot that he had grown accustomed to in the room with him. Maybe, just maybe, he was alone again. Which was good. Very good.
But before he could enact an escape plan, a feeling of discomfort panged through him.
Oh shit. It couldn’t be that he was… hungry? Did robots feel hunger…? (He never stopped to consider if the Autobots felt sensations like hunger and tiredness. Guess he’ll never get the chance to ask now.)
No matter, he clearly felt hungry. And inexplicably, the discomfort within his tummy made tears well up in his eyes. Before long, there was a pressure within him that erupted. He started crying in a series of beeps and boops again.
Why the fuck was he crying? He didn’t know. He never cried from hunger before, but there was something inside him that compelled him to. And besides, everything else in his life had gone to shit. Crying from hunger was only adding a drop into an ocean, so to speak.
From another room that Sam didn’t see until now, the orange bot—Solarflare—ran into the room with an alarmed expression on her face. Seeing that he was crying, the bot set forth to pick him up, as if to soothe him. Which, totally inappropriate, lady! Couldn’t a man cry himself to sleep in peace?!
Gentle tendrils of calm brushed against Sam’s mind that he pushed away with vitriol. He did not want to be calmed down again, thank you! He wanted to be put down now. He wanted Optimus. He didn’t want to be here.
“What is it that you want? Hmm?” Solarflare held Sam out in front of her, the latter’s leg dangling like a string from the lack of support. It was then that Sam realized that his body looked an awful lot like a chubby baby body. A robot chubby baby body. God, was he a robot chubby baby now? Who the hell decided that? God? Primus? Someone?????
He tried to say what he wanted, but no words agreed to come out of his mouth. Instead, it was just that incessant beeping sound. He was starting to get fed up with the sound of that beep. He felt an anger that he couldn’t process. His head started to pound from pressure until he just released it.
A gentle prodding enveloped him like a warm blanket. “I know you’re upset, little one.” Solarflare’s expression awkwardly melted into something akin to concern as she looked to Sam with pleading eyes. “But I can’t help you if I don’t know what is going on.”
For one, lady, his name wasn’t “little one,” but he digressed.
Solarflare adjusted her hold until she was rocking Sam back and forth in her arms. “Do you need refuelling? Paramadic did say your fuel levels were lower than he would have liked.” Sam felt himself being moved again until he was flush against Solarflare’s chest. Holding one arm under his butt, she held the other out in front as the arm guard unsheathed to reveal delicate, bright blue lines. Two tubes unfurled from the space, snaking until they were directly in front of Sam’s mouth. Wait… was she expecting him to drink from her? Nope. Nada. Nein. Nope. He would like normal food, thank you very much!
Solarflare nudged the tubes closer to Sam. “I can tell that you’re in need of fuel, little one. Please?”
Without fail, Sam dodged the fuel lines like the plague. No way in hell was he going to drink the mysterious blue Kool-Aid (that he was pretty sure was energon).
“Why are you fighting this?” Solarflare’s voice was terse with annoyance.
“Oh, I don’t know!” He screamed, “Probably because I don’t want to drink mysterious things from mysterious women!”
However, all that came out was a series of beeps.
“Please, little one?” Sam felt himself being rocked back and forth again. Solarflare shifted him to her other shoulder when she sighed, “You don’t leave me with much choice in the matter…”
With that, Sam felt a touch within him. A sensation of calm-pleading-desperation filled his being. He felt it so visceral that he pushed out his own feelings of helplessness-anger-hunger. Suddenly, Solarflare’s eyes brightened as a sensation of understanding-pity flashed through him.
“I see, little one.” At the name, he once again pulsed a sense of displeasure through this new connection, seeing as the bot seemed to understand him through it.
“And what is it that you want to be called instead?”
He was Sam. Why couldn’t anyone understand that he was Sam?
Frustrated, Sam attempted to speak through the weird sensation thing, as it was his only mode of communication at this point. But nothing. So, he screamed into the void.
His name was Sam.
Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam. SAM. SAM. //-aM. SAM.//
“Sam? You want to be called Sam?”
//yES.//
“Understood… Sam. In that case, I need you to refuel from my lines or else you’ll run on empty and terminate. Can you do that for me? Until I can find something else, if you prefer?”
//nO.//
“‘No’ as in you won’t drink from me?”
//YES.//
“Would you prefer it if you drank from a cube?”
Sam considered it. If he had to drink this energon to survive, he would. He just didn’t want to drink it from a living, breathing (well, you know what he meant) bot. It was… weird.
//YES.//
“Understood. Let me set that up for you.”
And so, Sam was whisked away as the bot walked toward the kitchen(?) area. Her arm guards still unsheathed, Solarflare single-handedly adjusted the tubes until they were within a cube-looking glass. Gradually, she let her lines flow until the cube was roughly a third full before furling the tubes back into her arm, sheathing her arm guards shut again.
“It’s not the most sparkling-friendly, Sam, but it should do.” She held the cube up to his mouth. “Now, drink, slowly.”
Look, he still didn’t want to drink this shit, but his tummy grumbled in protest. And so, with much reluctance, Sam drank the energon. To his surprise, it wasn’t an abhorrent taste. It was rather pleasant, actually. Like sweet water. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until he drank the whole thing, waiting for more.
Sam felt himself shake a bit as the bot holding him dared to… laugh at his revelation. “Oh, now you’re hungry, you little scraplet.” At that, she patted his back until an ungodly burp erupted from his small body.
Sam sent pulses of annoyance-anger toward Solarflare. “Indeed. Not too much. You will get more later.”
//NOW.//
She clicked her tongue(?) in reprimand before setting Sam down on her rather spartan couch. Surprisingly, it was a soft thing, unlike the metal bed. Now that his tummy was full, Sam started to feel a little sleepy despite having just woken up. But the softness of the couch had Sam snuggling into the material before long.
A voice above him said, “Go recharge, Sam. It is alright, now.”
So, off to dreamland he went.
Solarflare was fragged. Completely and utterly fragged. Now that Sam (still a strange name the little one had taken for himself) had taken the time to take another nap on her couch, she estimated that she had about half a joor to herself. Hopefully. So, she took the time to make herself a cube of energon, sipping it slowly as she watched over the sparkling like a cyber-hawk. She should have moved him to somewhere more comfortable, but it was not like she had sparkling-grade furniture in her habsuite.
The reality was that Solarflare was not equipped to raise a sparkling. She might have bonded with him to save his life, but she wasn’t anywhere near Creator material.
Creators were gentle beings with sparks larger than life itself. They knew how to calm a crying newspark, how to feed a sparkling. They weren’t her.
She had to be realistic. The sparkling needed a proper bot to raise him until his final upgrades. He clearly wasn’t big enough for even his first upgrades. He was so terribly young. But despite that, the little scraplet was clearly opinionated and headstrong. A Neutral colony in the middle of Primus-forsaken nowhere was no place for a sparkling to be raised, despite being away from the war.
She had no supplies, no trine, no nothing. She was alone.
But where could she bring him? Autobot or Decepticon, it didn’t matter. Both sides were rife with war and suffering. That was also no place for a sparkling. However, unlike the Neutral colonies, the war effort had supplies… proper Creator bots even.
Speaking of which again, she still didn’t even know where the sparkling had come from. He looked as if he just emerged from the Well, yet clearly that wasn’t the case on RX-Alpha-1. Solarflare wasn’t religious by any means, but it awfully seemed like a story straight from the Simfur Temple. Something something the AllSpark miraculously onlining a sparkling to test an awaiting worthy bot.
But Solarflare wasn’t a worthy bot. Pit, she couldn’t even take care of herself most orns. And now, she had Sam to worry about.
Creator bots were typically of the upper caste. Most of the upper caste, similarly, gravitated toward the Autobot side of the war once push came to shove.
So there was a logical conclusion.
But she couldn’t just hand Sam over to just any bot. This sparkling was special; she could feel it. He needed someone worthy.
Someone like… her.
Solarflare nearly choked on her energon as she laughed at the thought. Her. She hadn’t thought about her since their less-than-amicable split, since right after the bombing of Praxus. Solarflare was pretty sure the other would be less than pleased to see her after all these vorns, but she couldn’t think of any other bot perfect for the role.
Strum.
Come with me, Flare.
She shook her helm at the memory file. She thought she deleted that, but clearly she hadn’t purged the memory from her systems. (Not like she had the strength to delete everything related to Strum. The coward.)
She looked to the couch where the little one recharged peacefully, the sounds of him venting at regular intervals soothing the seeker.
Strum had wanted to be a Creator before everything. She would have been an excellent one if given the chance. She always liked taking care of things. Maybe… this was a chance to atone. A chance to make things right.
Solarflare steeled her optics. She made her decision.
She had to be quick. The sooner she could get to the Autobots, to Strum, the sooner she could go back to her regular life.
For Sam. For Strum.
And so, she started packing.