TFP - Freezing Absence

24. Reverie

~~~

Her screams woke him from his berth. It was illogical and ridiculous because Flare's room wasn't 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.

Flare.

Outside the door to his sparklings living quarters, Megatron 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 room 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.

Megatron could never open that door. The warlord simply couldn't bring himself to do it. He was afraid of what he'd see inside that room. The depictions of war and slain Cybertronians weren't anything a normal sparkling should create.

And for one that was already deceased to be continuing her art after she'd died . . .

Those drawings would be the least of his nightmares if he opened that door to see her bloody and broken body all over again. If she could scream loud enough for him to be woken, then he wouldn't be surprised if he saw a vision of her death again.

Truly, Megatron believed he must be losing his mind.

And Flare's spector lay on that cot, staring at her drawings from before her death and after, her spark feeling tremendously empty.

And so the sparkling screamed, certain no one would hear her as they never had before, completely unaware that her sire had been standing outside her door each time she did, afraid to come inside and relive that nightmare.

~~~

Flare concentrated at Soundwave's command, her image flickering in and out of focus. As it wavered, she became visible to the average spectator before vanishing again.

"Try harder," he told her, playing back Ebony's voice. Flare remember her carrier, remembered when she'd been told to try harder in her training. Pulling her spark together again, Flare's image solidified.

Tired. She was so tired from the effort. But she was solid for the first time since her passing. Flare looked up at her guardian, walking to him slowly, and as she lifted her hand, it grazed his knee servo's armor.

And a nervous smile spread across Flare's faceplate. "I-I did it." But at the lack of focus, Flare's image wavered again. Afraid of vanishing again, Flare focused, pulling herself back. It didn't take much longer before it took hardly any thought at all for Flare to make herself visible, touchable, so much so that she seemed real.

"I have to go to him," Flare whispered, looking up at Soundwave. "He's been so sad. I promised Mommy I would love him forever."

With a small nod and silence, Flare smiled faintly up at her guardian. With a quick embrace, she left him behind, determined to find her sire.

It didn't take long for her to find him. In her invisible hours, Flare had noticed that Megatron spent much time alone in his quarters now. Passing through the wall silently, Flare entered to find him sitting on his berth, helm in his hands.