A Small Dose of Ratchet Fever - A Transformers Bayverse Fanfiction

Chapter 7

It was impossible. Absolutely impossible. Work wasn't even an option. Not when I couldn't even stand up without coughing.

All because of that terrible idea of me sitting next to those soldiers with a cold again.

A knock came to my door. I couldn't get up to answer it. I dry heaved into the trashcan that sat near my bedside. My face was burning up.

Something happened as somebody opened up the door. I didn't even get the chance to see who it was.

~

"Is this very common for humans?" Optimus asked Ratchet in a low tone. Ratchet was working on a new serum for Sara, with an unconscious Sara laying on the cot in the medbay. She looked very pale, especially compared to her normal skin tone.

Ratchet partly blamed himself. 'She should not have had to work that long yesterday,' he internally scolded himself as he added a mixture of human painkillers to the diluted Energon mixture.

Optimus had to ask the question again, he didn't think that Ratchet had heard him the first time. "Is this very common for humans?"

"... Only about thirty thousand humans in the United States have this particular disease," he said lightly, trying to focus on the serum while speaking. "It is mostly found in caucasians. Asian descendents in particular are often not carriers, and it is very rare."

He hummed quietly. "I see. This disease, what is it?"
"It is the lack of a certain protein in the lungs that allows certain particles passage. Without the specific protein gene, nothing is allowed passage. Mucus buildup is an effect of this, and the risk of diseases worsening because of it, like the common cold or flu, worsens."

"Will she be alright?"
Ratchet let out a soft sigh as he injected the completed serum into her arm. "I hope so..."

He couldn't believe this. Just his luck, the one good medic assistant he could get his servos on had a terminating illness. One that at this rate would terminate her within years, maybe even within this year itself.

'She has so much to live for,' he thought to himself. 'Family to go back home to. She could be great things, both for me and for her own kind, if only she had the time to live and do so.'

He slept in the medbay that night, after saying a short prayer to Primus. 'Let her live.... Let her know that she has a right to live and have a purpose...'