TFP - Freezing Absence

7. Drained

Her screams woke him from his berth. It was illogical and ridiculous, because the small femme didn't sleep near enough that her vocalizer should be capable of reaching him. Yet it did, and the sound haunted him, prodding at his processor as he shot up from his cot, striding out the door immediately as he rushed down the hallway, incapable of thinking clearly.

Outside the door to his sparklings living quarters, he stopped. The sound had stopped. It was silent again, and with a slow vent, Megatron turned on a heel, slowly walking back to his room, trying to rationalize his decision to go to the room in the first place. What would his soldiers think? He was weak for going to her in the middle of the night, wasn't he?

It wasn't the first time. So many times he'd awoken in the night to the sounds of her screams. He'd changed his living quarters so many times, trying to get further and further away, trying to escape the noises that woke him in the night when he was desperately trying to recharge. It was a terribly exhausting thing to endure.

He could never open that door. The warlord simply couldn't bring himself to do it. He was afraid of what he'd see in that room. The depictions of war and slain Cybertronians weren't anything that a normal sparkling should create. It destroyed him that he'd caused her to create them in the first place. It destroyed him that the war he'd started was the reason he was in this situation.

But how could he stop at this point? Would peace ever be an option?

Certainly not. Despite what Optimus may do, the Autobots as a whole could never accept the Decepticons. Their loyalties and ideals were simply too different. It just wasn't possible.

But sometimes, just for Flare, Megatron wished it was.

However, the war would continue regardless. The warlord had a goal to reach, and despite whatever fleeting emotions he may have surrounding his sparkling, he would not relinquish what he'd worked so hard for for so long. With a hand to his helm, Megatron sat back down on his berth.

"Wretched child," he muttered, wishing he could shake her screams from his mind. He didn't want to move his quarters a third time. Why was it so damned impossible to escape her sounds? It was impossible to deal with her.

The warlord couldn't stand it any longer. He clenched his fist and struck the wall behind him, screaming out his rage, not caring who heard anymore. Why had Unicron cursed him so with this mockery of sparkling that couldn't possibly be any further from normal? Why couldn't he have had a soldier of a young mech that would one day fight by his sire's side, and if the time came, take over his sire's cause?

Why had he been given a sparkling at all if it was going to end like this?

~~~

Flare lay in her cot still, trembling as fluid rushed from her optics. It was nights like these that terrified her beyond belief. It was ridiculous. She understood that and felt it tremendously, but still, she couldn't stop herself. Whimpering, she curled up tighter into herself. The longer she lay there, the longer she gazed at the images she'd drawn on the walls nearly a full vorn ago, the more they made sense.

ScatterFlare wasn't even sure how the horrific images made more sense, she hadn't seen any of the things she'd depicted, but the images became clearer every time. They weren't just drawings anymore. They were alive.

Flare didn't just see the white lines. She saw the energon that spilled as explosions shook the Earth and the ship she slept on. She saw the fire and swords and the severed cables of Autobots and Decepticons but Cybertronians all the same.

Desperately, she just wished she could make the images go away.

"Daddy, please," she muttered quietly. "Please," she whispered, her voice cracking as she squeezed her optics shut. "No more war, Daddy. Make it stop. Please just make it stop."

And then, against everything she'd always been, Flare broke. Because he father refused to return her affections, even when she was in pain, because her carrier had passed, because her spark had given so much and now she just felt . . . empty. Nothing was left inside her except her vocalizer and its ability to produce noise.

So she screamed.

Utterly broken and devastated, the pieces so small she couldn't find a way to even begin piecing herself together, Flare screamed so loud she could swear it shook the ship.

She didn't care about what noise she might make. No one would hear her anyway. If they did, they wouldn't care. So Flare indulged herself in this small relinquishing act, so tired she swore she could sleep for an eternity if they would just let her.

Feeling gutted and hollow, it was a while before Flare quieted again. Even as the shrieks subsided, her sobs began, and the world felt like it was closing in. Flare lay there a long while, just letting the darkness wrap over her like a blanket.

"Shut up," she muttered, curling tighter as she pulled her knee servos to her upper chassis. "Shut up," she repeated. "Of course he cares. ... He can't hear me, that's why! ... Don't say that, he'll be all right! ... He does not deserve that! He won't! He can't! Stop. Stop! STOP!" Flare shot up where she lay in bed, lip trembling as her optics wavered, sending a death glare around the room. "Don't ever say that again! He's a good mech! He's my sire! Don't insult Daddy! He's just confused and misunderstood and you can't say that about him! ... I said so, that's why! I'll-! I'll stop talking to you if you don't leave him alone!"

Silence. Absolute silence.

Flare began to sob again, quietly this time. She'd left the drawings in her room untouched for quite a while now, But she couldn't take the image flashing in front of her optics any longer. Flare found one of the old rocks and began etching a new image on the wall, in one of the only blank spaces left.

Wiping her optics, Flare drew the lines in greater detail than she had last year, trying not to shake as she created the image that haunted her.

It was her sire, being slain by an Autobot, his spark beating one last time before he left this world. Overcome with sorrow, Flare merely wrote the words 'Don't die Daddy' over it.

However, she knew if he continued on this path, that scenario would become an absolute reality,

And it broke her spark.