TFP - Freezing Absence

25. Remembrance

Flare was still shaking in the darkness from where she sat next to her sire's berth. It wasn't unusual for her to stay near him during the night. She just let herself fall back to invisibility and stayed silent. But being pulled into her sire's nightmare . . . That was something new.

She was still shaking a bit when the red glow of his optics created a soft light as they opened.

"Flare?" He called for her quietly as he shifted on his berth.

"Yes . . . ?" She answered, pulling herself together just enough to be a fuzzy image, to make her voice audible.

A silence followed, the large silver mech venting slowly in the darkness. His optics closed, the red glow vanishing, and after a few moments, Flare wondered if he'd fallen back into stasis.

"Why are you here?" She nearly jumped at the sound of his voice, shaking a bit more strongly for a few moments before calming herself again.

"Because I love you," she whispered, part of her afraid of the strike that might come, but unwilling to hide the truth. She was too tired to try.

That question haunted Megatron every day. His sparkling's presence was the only thing keeping him from indulging completely in his grief, but knowing she was not at peace . . . Primus, she deserved peace more than any Cybertronian he'd ever known.

~~~

"Sire!" Flare shouted for him as she ran onto the roof of Nemesis, her optics scanning rapidly for Megatron's form, searching for the battle she'd been told was occurring.

But the sounds of a struggle had vanished, and Flare could spot no one on the deck of Nemesis.

"Sire?" She called out, voice dropping as she walked out into the open. Fear seized her as she realized that perhaps she'd been too late. Maybe he'd already been offlined. She hadn't even told him she loved him earlier in the night, when he had asked her, yet again, why she was still here. She'd just been silent, tired.

And now . . .

"Well, hello there, ScatterFlare," he drawled slowly, small peds stalking towards her. Panic immediately rose in her, and her control over whether she was solid or invisible was fractured. Before she could turn to face him, he struck, sending Flare sprawling across the deck, her metal scraping as she tumbled. Clawing at the metal beneath her in an attempt to stay on board, Flare barely managed to bring herself to a stop at the edge of the ship.

"You . . . You were . . ."

"Shoved off the ship without my wings, yes," Starscream answered, the words slow and full of venom. "Such a shame you're not a flier. I don't have the pleasure of removing your wings. But such is life. If only you had joined your carrier in the Well, you wouldn't be in this predicament, would you?"

Knockout hadn't lied to him. Flare was not of this world any longer. Her presence was made from her own desire to stay. It was obvious from the way she sometimes flickered in and out of focus.

"H-How do you have wings?" Flare stammered, recalling the last time Starscream and Knockout had worked against her. It had ended poorly.

But Soundwave and her father weren't around to intervene this time. They were in recharge.

No one would hear her scream out here, even if she tried to make it reach them.

~~~

When Flare collided with the planet below, she flickered in and out of solidity for hours.

The impact. The impact had hurt. Why did it hurt?