TFP - Freezing Absence

3. A Flare In The Night

~~~

“What’s wrong with her, Sire?” Flare questioned of Lord Megatron, staring at the femme’s still form on the med bay, her vents coming slow and shallow, form for the most part unmoving, her optics only half open, roving around the room emptily.

“Your carrier is a sick femme, Flare,” Knockout informed her, knowing full well by the warlord’s clenched fists that he was in no mood or state of processor to explain this. “Soon enough she will be leaving us for the Well of AllSparks. I suggest you say your parting words to her while you can.”

With a nod, the tiny femme released Lord Megatron’s digits from her grip, striding over to the femme that lay so still on the table, looking up at her with wide optics. “Can you hear me, Mommy?” She whispered, refusing to let her voice loud enough for Megatron to hear. Her discovery had come late in the night hours, while she was unsupervised, and she’d become rather affectionate of the word that was unused by her kind. It felt closer to the affections she felt for her carrier and creator.

Slowly, the femme let out a vent, her deep blue optics drifting down the distance to her sparkling and where she stood, her nearly teal optics twinkling brightly as she looked up. “Misbehaving femme . . . You know better,” she murmured, shuttering her optics for a few slow moments, trying to focus on relieving what bit of pain she could.

“Sorry,” Flare whispered again. “Do you really have to go?” She questioned, reaching for her carrier’s hand, gripping onto a couple of her digits, not even an ounce of her willing to let go of the femme who’d nurtured her and defended her on this ship, the only home she’d ever known. “I don’t want you to go, Mommy.” Flare repeated the word, disregarding her carrier’s subtle warning, though a part of the femme adored the title, and that her sparkling had used it. It meant that she had succeeded in something more than just being a warrior.

“I can’t stay, Flare . . . I’m so sorry . . . I just can’t . . . I prayed to Primus that I could and that he would allow me to, but our creator isn’t feeling quite so kind to me after all I’ve done . . . Do better than me, Flare. Do more. Be a good little femme for me . . . I love you so much . . .”

“Will you at least hold me one more time, Mommy?” Slowly, the older femme vented, her optics temporarily rolling into the back into her helm. “Mommy?” Flare pressed, tugging at the larger set of digits. “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded quietly. “Please.”

“Give me a moment . . . With your sire, Flare . . .” She instructed, and Flare nodded quickly, kissing the back of her carrier’s hand before grabbing those of both Knockout and SoundWave, pulling them desperately out of the room, a part of her sensing the clock ticking down, an ache already settling around her spark deep inside her chest.

Hushed voices emanated from inside the room, one flustered and upset, the other calm and tired, the voice of someone who was tired of fighting, the other refusing to give up. Flare stood outside as the voices got a bit louder, squeezing tightly at SoundWave’s hand as she fought the urge to run back in and share a final moment with both her carrier and her sire together, despite the fact that she hadn’t had all that many moments with her sire at all, but the ones she’d had . . .

They were nothing like this.

Briefly, in her panic that her carrier would pass while she was away, Flare looked up to SoundWave, his blank screen looking back at her. “I don’t want to lose my Mommy,” she whispered, just moments before Megatron swept out of the room that held the femme who was growing fainter by the second, each vent becoming a battle in itself.

For a second, Flare watched her sire storm off, upset that he could be like this in the wake of what was to come. Then she rushed back into towards her carrier, scurrying over and taking the larger femme’s digits into her hand again, squeezing tightly. “Mommy?” A pause followed, and for a minute, Flare’s spark raced, believing she’d lost her mother in the moments she’d been gone. “Don’t go,” she murmured, squeezing harder at the narrow digits, that she’d personally witnessed gut fully grown Cybertronians in her defense.