The dim of the bay pressed in around the medic, dusting the corners with shadow while he worked. The beds lay empty for the first time in weeks, their monitors bowed like sleeping sentries beside them, resting for a time while the silence held. The silence never held, not for long, but it was good while it lasted, and Ratchet soaked in the restive peace of the bay as he checked the last of the other Autobot's systems.

"And your linkage?" he asked, his voice echoing softly in the still.

"Fine," Sideswipe shrugged, and leaned back on his arms. Sitting on the edge of the berth, he swung his legs slightly, his heels just clicking off of the metal sides of the bed.

"What about your transform relays?" the medic frowned at the monitor's display. "You said you were having some trouble with those."

"Fine," Sideswipe answered again, and gave off an exasperated little sigh, not that Ratchet blamed him really, since the medic had been repeating his questions long after he'd been satisfied with the results. He didn't know what made him do it, but there was something about the red warrior's final diagnostic that Ratchet just couldn't let go. There was just a finality to it, something that Ratchet just couldn't let pass, and it made him want to keep the warrior in the bay indefinitely, though he knew that just wasn't sanity talking.

With a headshake and a sigh, he set the monitor down on the table, and looked Sideswipe over visibly, perhaps for the tenth time that evening. "Reflexes?"

"Fine."

"Headaches gone?"

"For three weeks."

"Nightmares?"

Sideswipe uttered a sharp sigh, and looked off toward the far wall, obviously not wanting to answer this one. He hated this one. Ratchet had made a point of asking him the same question every week for the last two months, but no matter how often he asked, he always got the same macho, posturing answer. Red chestplate gleaming in the halflight, Sideswipe puffed himself up and said with almost convincing nonchalance, "I don't have nightmares."

"You did," Ratchet countered, cranky now, and frankly as tired of this conversation as Sideswipe was. The warrior had progressed nicely since the incident with the boulder, and even more nicely since that whole mess with Sunstreaker and the nightmares had been cleared up, and now all the medic had to do was this last cursory check-up, and he could pronounce the warrior free and clear of all obligatory diagnostics. At least until the next time he got himself plastered all over the landscape, which would probably be sooner than Ratchet cared to think, and that thought made him all the more eager to kick the warrior out of the bay and consequently out of his blessed sight for at least the next twelve hours.

Except that he couldn't. He didn't know why.

Again, Sideswipe gave off an almost theatrical sigh. "Ratchet, I'm fine. I don't dream. I beat Sunny in two sparring matches out of three yesterday, and I'm back to my old self." He gave the medic an almost pitiful look. "Really. Honestly. Honestly with sugar on top, plus a few kittens and all other things nice. Now can I go?"

"Don't be impertinent," Ratchet grumbled, and leaned back against the other berth. Hand scrubbing at his face, he gave Sideswipe another visual once-over, looking for Primus-knew-what, while the warrior watched him with a slightly wary expression.

A long moment passed. The shadows grew thick in the corners as silence rolled over the room, eddying like a fog around the soft hum of the far console, around himself, and around the fidgeting warrior before him. Away down the hall, somewhere in the lounge, Ratchet could hear the muffled sounds of laughing and carrying on, but the noise seemed miles away, so far removed from himself and the other mech that it seemed they were in a different world. Quietly, Sideswipe watched him, waiting, and the warrior's infinite patience with the medic made Ratchet feel all that much more remote. He was sure another Autobot would have spoken up by now, would have asked him what was wrong, or at least just said his name to prompt him out of his reverie, and that would have brought him back to his normal, brisk, and comfortably businesslike self. He would have shaken himself from his trance then, ejected the other Autobot from his bay, and busied himself with finding a friend and a laugh and a good, stiff drink.

But Sideswipe did not speak up. The lad never did.

"Is it all settled, then?" Ratchet heard himself ask, and it took him a good moment to make sense out of his own question.

"Settled?" Sideswipe asked, and even bothered to look convincingly blithe.

Ratchet looked up, and brought the warrior into focus. He looked at him, measuring him, wondering just when this particular one had wormed his way into the medic's list of patients who had names. Not to be misunderstood - Ratchet knew all of their names, or at least most of them. Some he'd only scraped back together in the middle of a battle - nameless lads whose circuits he'd stitched back into working order just long enough for them to go out and get slagged again - and in a way, those were the easy ones. Harder were the ones he knew, the ones who could make him laugh one minute, and show up all bleeding to hell the next, while they stretched out their mangled fingers and pleaded for mercy. Oh yes, those ones were zesty fun alright, and it took all the concentration he had to block out their panicked faces long enough to patch them back to life. But the winners…the winners were the ones with names. They were the ones he couldn't block, no matter how he tried, and though he wouldn't admit it to anyone but himself, it was those names that sometimes made his hands begin to shake.

Bloody useless he was then, too. Fear would do that to a mech - would wipe him out if it could. Fear was a real, living thing, and Ratchet believed that with all his core. Which was why it made his life so damn, bleeding hard when it came to the insufferable Sideswipes of the world.

"Yes, settled," Ratchet replied with a bit of a grumble, after looking the red mech over a bit. "With Mirage, you cheeky little glitch, and stop side-stepping me."

"Mirage?" Sideswipe managed a look of pure virtue.

"Oh, knock it the slag off!" Ratchet slapped a hand down on the table, and watched with satisfaction as Sideswipe jumped a little. Fidgeting, the warrior gave him a dubious look, while Ratchet leaned in to level the warrior with a stare. "Now you tell me, you dodgy little shit, whether it's settled or not."

Sideswipe opened his mouth, but paused at Ratchet's look, and Ratchet was quite certain he was weighing the risk of trouble with Prowl against the surety of trouble with Ratchet. Jaw set to the side, the warrior regarded the medic, and Ratchet could all but see the neurons firing as the warrior tried to process whether Ratchet was setting him up. Prowl had tried for weeks to unearth the truth surrounding all the 'incidents' following Sunstreaker's betrayal, and though every Autobot knew that Sideswipe was all but honor-bound to wreak revenge on the traitors for his brother's sake, there was nothing Prowl had been able to do to prove that Sideswipe had done a thing. This had naturally irritated the tactician to no end, especially since his own pride was taking a beating over being outmaneuvered by Sideswipe, and Ratchet knew Prowl would love nothing more than to finally catch the warrior in admitting what he'd done. Which meant of course that Sideswipe knew this as well, and would suspect the medic of playing rat. He opened his mouth again, optics a little skeptical, and said carefully, "I don't have anything to settle with Mirage."

"And you better as hell not, you sparking bag of crap. I swear to Primus," Ratchet narrowed his optics, engine rumbling menacingly, "if I so much as see one non-battle-inflicted scratch on Mirage's sparkling white patina…"

Sideswipe leaned back as the medic leaned in, optics widening ever so slightly. "Woah, Ratchet, I never touched Mirage."

"Don't you 'woah Ratchet' me," the medic snapped, and leveled a finger between Sideswipe's optics. "And you better not lay a driver on Mirage, or I will have your head as my newest and shiniest Christmas ornament. Comprende, Paco?"

Sideswipe knitted his metal brow, and Ratchet straightened, glaring. "Yes, Ratchet," the warrior offered, his tone almost a query.

The medic crossed his arms and leaned back as the silence descended again. Sideswipe stared at him, optics a steady blue, betraying nothing. Even his impatience had disappeared, as the warrior constructed his careful poker face. He was distinctively good at it, Ratchet noted, but the medic hadn't been hatched that spring, and he'd been around long enough to know that when Sideswipe's blithe mask was at its impenetrable best, it meant he had something to hide.

Arms still crossed, blue optics narrowing, the medic grunted a low, unconvinced 'mmph.' "You didn't touch Mirage."

"No."

"Funny," Ratchet said, "how you've all acted like everything's square between you."

Sideswipe, had he been a bit less wise, would have rolled his optics. Instead, he only gave his shoulder a little, insouciant shift, just shy of a shrug. "Like I said, there's nothing to settle with Mirage."

"Mmph," was the medic's reply, and they both knew what he meant by that.

"Look, Ratchet," Sideswipe sat forward a bit, and laced his fingers, elbows on his knees, "what do you want? I didn't do anything to Mirage, and I have no need to do anything to Mirage. It's not like I plan to send you any new customers. They screwed Sunny, they're sorry now, and it's over, alright? Over."

"Oh, it is," Ratchet gave the warrior a scathing look.

"It is," Sideswipe assured him, and sat up again, chin high, optics a frosted blue.

It made Ratchet want to hit him, that look. It held all the arrogance of a creature who saw nothing wrong with filling the medic's bay with suffering, demoralized Autobots. He'd set Powerglide on fire, for Primus' sake, and by the time Ratchet had gotten all the corrosive out of Warpath's systems, the minibot had been all but insensible with shrieking. He'd heard what Sideswipe had done to Cliffjumper and Tracks, too, and though Ratchet was at least relieved to know that he wouldn't have to physically put those two back together again, he could see in the way they hung their heads that Sideswipe had gotten to them on a deeper level. If any of them had missed the point that they were traitors of the worst kind, Sideswipe had ironed out their confusion. The red warrior was frighteningly good at getting straight to the bottom of things, and Ratchet had a feeling those five Autobots would be a while picking themselves back up again.

It bothered him, seeing that Sideswipe was capable of such a precise and professional kind of cruelty. What bothered him, too, was that of the five, Mirage alone showed no trace of what Sideswipe had done to him, and that left Ratchet feeling just a little bit uneasy.

"You know, it's funny," Ratchet said at length, "when I asked Mirage about it, he said the same thing."

"What's that?" Sideswipe asked.

"He said," Ratchet shifted, resettling himself against the berth behind him, "that there was nothing to settle between you."

"Well, good for Mirage," Sideswipe said evenly, "because there isn't."

"Dammit, Sideswipe!" Ratchet snapped, losing hold of his composure. "This is not a game!"

Surprised, the warrior drew back the slightest bit, optics clouded, and Ratchet at once swore at himself for losing his grip. He should have been able to drop it. Should have been able to forget.

But he couldn't. And he seethed instead, and stared at the warrior before him, who stared back through guarded optics, and said in a surprisingly light, straightforward tone, "Oh yes, it is. You badger me till I leak something, then run to Prime, and next thing we know, I'm standing in front of the review board with my hands chained behind my back, and my ass on fire from getting lit up by all of Prime's guilt-mongering."

Ratchet opened his mouth, choked, and stared, too many retorts jamming themselves at once in his vocalizer.

"Funny how things always come full circle, isn't it?" the warrior pressed. "And how it's always Sunstreaker and me that get stuffed with the bill for the party."

There was an angry gleam behind the warrior's blithe mask, and a cutting, honest sort of light to his optics that told Ratchet he was banging away at a nerve that the medic hadn't realized was still so raw.

"Oh, you think so," he countered, then stopped short, musing that it was still thus with the warrior: that though Sunstreaker had found a certain kind of peace throughout this whole affair, Sideswipe hadn't yet come to terms with what the others had done to his brother.

Frowning, Ratchet sat back again against the berth behind him, and wrapped his fingers around the ledge at his sides. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, while the warrior watched him with the look of an animal that's been baited out of safety, and backed against a precipice.

It was a horrible place to be, Ratchet knew with sudden clarity. He saw in the warrior's optics the look of someone whose friends had turned on him. He saw someone whose twin (and how could any of the Autobots even begin to know what that meant?) had stood in danger of being condemned by trial, only to be later condemned to execution by those who should have been his friends. No amount of toil from Sunstreaker could make up for what he had done, but when his punishment had been paid in full, how much did they still hate him? Enough to try to pay for his crimes themselves, with Sunstreaker's life. And Sideswipe had walked in on that, walked in and seen.

The medic shuddered inwardly, thinking on that day. He remembered being summoned to the scene, only to find Sunstreaker laying in a pool of his own fluids, watching with faraway optics as a battle raged overhead. Ratchet also remembered the disquieting look on Sideswipe's face, and the terrible calm with which he'd sat and held his brother while they waited for the medic to arrive. Ratchet remembered, though he'd tried not to thereafter, how the twins had suddenly looked so deserted there in the debris. Some burnt-out shells, some frag, a slick of fluid lay around them like a kind of moat, and the first thing Ratchet noticed, (and which he had tried so hard to forget afterward), was that Sideswipe had looked at him as though he'd never known him at all.

Prowl had gone back to the battle, leaving repairs in the medic's hands, which would be logical after all. And Ratchet was at once alone with a hunted warrior who looked at him with strange optics.

It wasn't as though Sideswipe didn't recognize him. He did. In fact, it was the fact that he did recognize Ratchet that suddenly seemed to make the medic such a terrible, ugly threat.

He was in shock. That, Ratchet could see. "Alright, let me see," the medic had heard himself prod, trying to use his ages-honed brusqueness to punch through the shock barriers and allow him to get to work.

But Sideswipe was having none of it. Kneeling in fluid-stained mud, fingertips balanced against Sunstreaker's chestplate, Sideswipe seemed to hover between offense and defense. He said nothing, but his optics were blanched of color, and glowed white as a moon at dusking.

"Come on," Ratchet motioned with his fingers for Sideswipe to move aside, and made to step forward, but the look on Sideswipe's face made him suddenly freeze, as the medic at once realized that there was now more than a moat of blood between himself and the red warrior.

It was like watching a bad dream, in which everything suddenly turns wrong, and the turbodog who knew you and loved you and who slept at your feet had in the blink of an optic turned to put its teeth at your throat. Later, Ratchet realized it was just that Sideswipe had only been in shock, but that did nothing to get rid of the sick feeling that had so suddenly swept over him, or to erase the image of Sideswipe as he quite suddenly and unexpectedly raised his rifle.

Ratchet did not move. Jets screamed overhead, while volleys of canon fire sounded just over the rise, and a lone medic stood on just out of sight on the hillside, and tried very hard to stand still. They turned on us, the warrior's optics told him as plainly as if he'd spoken. They turned on us, they turned on us, they turned on us…It was like a shout on the frozen surface of the warrior's optics, stalling him, etching within him the primal law that he must savage or be savaged. And you…those optics said…you are just like them…?

There was the slight question behind the warrior's sheer dread - a slight hesitation - that showed Ratchet something he had not truly known before. He realized much later on how very much these warriors were creatures of instinct, not so far removed from the eat-or-be-eaten world from which all Transformer kind came. But he realized also - and was grateful to Primus and heaven above - that had it not been for the purity of their kind of instinct, he may not have had a chance to get past Sideswipe to help Sunstreaker before it was too late. Because although Sideswipe had become a panicked creature, and capable of great violence, he showed that barest look of recognition that told Ratchet of a most basic kind of trust. For it seemed that somewhere along the way, somewhere within the years of patching and re-patching the red warrior, Ratchet had, on some very basic level of the red warrior's programming, gained Sideswipe's trust. Because just at the edges of the warrior's panic, just there, at the rim of his shock, three words had also been coded into Sideswipe's very way of processing; and they said, Ratchet will fix.

It was a strange realization for Ratchet to have, to think that the warrior had come to trust him on so primal a level. But he did not think of that then. He'd only lowered himself slowly, inch by painful inch, until he sat on his heels just out of the warrior's reach. Sideswipe had bristled at this, rifle steadily trained between Ratchet's optics, but the medic took care to move gradually, and to keep his optics on the warrior's face.

"Ok now…" he murmured, keeping his voice low despite the thundering of the battle overhead, and knowing he must not hurry. "Woah, Side...ok…"

Sideswipe didn't shake, or pant, or give any indication that he'd been spooked into his state of shock, but he remained unnervingly poised, and Ratchet could see how very afraid he was. Beside him, Sunstreaker only looked into the sky overhead, optics reflecting its same blue, face calm with waiting. Ratchet will fix. Ratchet always fixes.

Slowly, the medic reached out one hand.

A sharp hiss. The warrior had moved to a crouch without the medic even seeing.

"Woah, Side, woah…" the medic paused, fingers sketched in plea, mid-air, "…woah…"

Fingertips rested lightly on the trigger, the warrior tensed, ready to fire. But his head was cocked now, as he listened, and hesitated.

Slowly, Ratchet reached a little further. "Woah, Side…it's ok…"

There came a small glimmer in the warrior's optics, a faltering, and the tip of the rifle lowered just so.

"It's ok," Ratchet soothed, and reached out the rest of the way. "It's ok…I'll fix it."

The medic never told the others about that part. They'd all run off like Prowl had told them to, and mired themselves later in guilt, so afraid of what Sideswipe would do to them that they'd forgotten already what they'd done to Sideswipe. They had remorse for Sunstreaker, sure, and after that business, everyone treated Sunstreaker rather better. In fact, some even muttered between small groups that what the Guilty Five (as everyone had come to call them) had done to Sunstreaker had actually been for the better, since now everyone secretly felt that things were square, and the Autobots' world could go back to a state of peace. The tension had been let off, like air out of the proverbial balloon, and everyone felt better.

Except for Sideswipe.

Oh, sure, everyone knew he'd deal out a little bit of payback; that much was expected, tolerated, and even looked on by some as necessary. There was no surprise, no feeling of shock. Even was even, and Sideswipe was only smoothing out the rifts after all. Besides, the Five had it coming.

So while the Autobots enjoyed the benefits of what the Five had accomplished (peace through tyrannical action), and Sunstreaker for once enjoyed no longer being the target of utter loathing, and the command structure enjoyed the fact that this whole debacle seemed to be over, there still remained Sideswipe, unresolved.

And the medic.

It suddenly struck Ratchet now, as he stared at the warrior before him, how much he truly did not know him. How much he did not understand what kept this mech before him so constantly in tune with his most primary instincts. Instant gratification, action without reason, pleasure without consequence: these were the things Sideswipe had always taken without apology. And yet…here he sat, patient as a stone, while he watched an old medic muddle through his troubled thoughts. And why?

No…Ratchet knew why. Now that he thought of it. And he knew why he couldn't quite yet let Sideswipe go.

Ratchet will fix.

"You never gave them the chance to be sorry," Ratchet spoke up without even knowing what it was he would say.

"They are sorry," Sideswipe countered, voice flat. He didn't deny anything this time.

But the medic shook his head. "But you never asked them."

"I didn't have to." Sideswipe's optics flattened to the color of slate.

"But you could have."

The warrior frowned, not ready with a response to that. He stared back at the medic, chin not quite high, shoulders not quite rigid.

"You could have asked," Ratchet stated quietly. "Then you would have known."

"I don't ask for apologies," Sideswipe informed him.

To this, the medic shook his head. "No, you don't. But you can wait for them."

The warrior blinked at him, trying to follow him to where he was going, though Ratchet knew it went against the warrior's programming to do so. Bite the hand that betrays you; this is the thought of an untamed thing. Preservation through annihilation. If you cut down those who would cut you, they won't come back to hunt you in your sleep. This was how a true warrior was programmed, and Ratchet knew it. And yet, Sideswipe remained here in this bay, listening. And it struck Ratchet not for the first time how very much the red warrior trusted him.

"Because if you wait for an apology," Ratchet spoke up again, voice ringing softly in the still, "you'll know it's real, and not just something you intimidated out of someone."

Sideswipe narrowed his optics, either thinking, or angry, or both, and he asked, "Oh yeah? Well, what if there never is one? An apology. What if they're never sorry? What then, Ratchet?"

Ratchet will fix.

The medic looked at the warrior, watched the lines in his face grow less hard as he dropped his mask a bit, and showed a glimmer of the helplessness he felt there. "Well, that's just it, son, isn't it?" Ratchet replied, metal brows knitted a bit. "That's not up to you. And that's what's eating you." He watched the mask slip a bit further, and saw a flicker of emotions there, something between fury and hopelessness.

"Nothing's eating me," the warrior muttered.

Ratchet crossed his arms.

"Besides," Sideswipe continued, optics a little brittle as he stared the medic in the face, "It was my right. Sunstreaker is my brother."

"Sideswipe," Ratchet put in as gently as he could, and only because he saw no other way to say it, "no mech has a right to vengeance."

"Thanks, Prime," Sideswipe snapped back, "I'll be sure to stick that in my craw next time a bunch of my noble Auto-pals decide to throw Sunstreaker to the wolves."

Ratchet held up a hand, knowing he was blowing this, and knowing he had no choice but to keep going. "I'm not trying to lecture you, Sideswipe. I know it sounds that way…"

"Scragging hell, it sounds that way," Sideswipe snarled, optics darkening. "A slagging lot you know what it feels like to have a brother, either. Pain in the ass son of a bitching brother. Don't act like you know how I feel."

Ratchet narrowed his optics, knowing he was supposed to snap back, knowing this was Sideswipe's way of squirming out of talking about what was really bothering him. But like hell if he was going to let him go that easily. "You're right," he told the warrior in an even voice, "we don't know how you feel. Because you never told anyone. Instead, you demoralized and injured those Autobots you think are so guilty, and you've started the cycle again. Because you just had to have your revenge."

Sideswipe's optics flashed. "So the frack what?"

"So, trash mouth," Ratchet replied smoothly, "you don't feel any fracking better. Do you?"

Sideswipe glared at him, all ice and hate.

"Do you, son?" Ratchet pressed, in a tone that demanded a reply.

Sideswipe dropped his head to look away.

Ratchet leveled him with a look, catching the corner of the warrior's optic. "Menasor hurt you, so Sunstreaker hurt Gears. So the Guilty Five hurt Sunstreaker, because Sunstreaker hurt Gears. Then you hurt the Five, because they hurt Sunstreaker. And now, who will come hunting for you?"

"I can take care of myself," Sideswipe mumbled.

"No," Ratchet shook his head, optics sad, "you can't. You can't even stop hurting now."

"Whatever."

"You know, you talk about the cycle with such righteous conviction," Ratchet told him, "and it's not like you're wrong, either. But you don't have the whole of it, son. You don't understand that you're just as much a part of your own cycle of hate as all these Autobots and Decepticons around you."

Here the warrior should have made some nasty retort, and Ratchet even waited, just to give him a chance. But Sideswipe said nothing, and only stared down and to the left.

"And who really gets the bill for the party, as you put it?" Ratchet went on. "You think it's you and Sunstreaker who pay, and a lot of times you do. But Mirage paid. And Cliffjumper. And the others. And Gears paid. And even the Decepticons pay. And all because of this never-ending feud of the clans. Decepticon clan hurts Autobot clan, and Autobots make war. Autobots make war, so Decepticons fight back. Or was it the other way around? Who knows, and who gives a slag?"

"But wait, there's more," Ratchet continued, when Sideswipe said nothing. "What about the clans within the clans? Clan Lamborghini steps on Clan Minibot. So Clan Minibot declares war, scores a hit, and Clan Lamborghini gets its vengeance. Are we starting to see a pattern here? And how long has this been going on? Days? Weeks? Millennia? You tell me, son."

The medic's tone once again demanded a reply, and Sideswipe, compliant as ever with the medic, answered in a flat tone, "It's always gone on."

"That's right," Ratchet agreed, then said with utter conviction, "Sideswipe, I want you to listen to me. Look at me." The warrior obeyed, and lifted his head. "When you stop taking vengeance, vengeance will stop taking you. Vengeance belongs to Primus. Let it go."

Sideswipe opened his mouth, optics darkening. But he said nothing, and closed his mouth again, face set in stone.

"You won't find peace until you do," Ratchet told him.

The two stared at one another. "They owed me," Sideswipe said plainly.

"Yes, but who are you to make them pay? They owe you," Ratchet said, "but you can let them go. Let them off the hook. And let them answer to Primus himself for what they've done."

Now Sideswipe fell truly quiet, and looked away again. He sat for a moment, utterly still in the way only a warrior can be, before asking in a small voice, "And what do I do if I've already taken vengeance?"

"Change your mind," Ratchet answered him simply, wondering where he'd learned all this himself. "So that even if someone takes revenge on you, you don't answer it with vengeance. Vengeance uninvited can't come back."

Sideswipe uttered a soft snort. "What, now you want me to live a life of turning the other cheek?"

"Well, Primus forbid that you should find true nobility as an Autobot," Ratchet came back, "but yes, I do."

"But Sunstreaker's my brother," Sideswipe gave his argument one last try, "and I can't-"

"Can't break your infamous cycle you keep going on about?" Ratchet asked him. "You want the moral high ground? You want to rant about always getting stuffed with the bill for all the ugliness that goes on at the Ark? Fine. Then take the bill, and don't dish a bill back out. Because then you really will be innocent. And you'll be able to slagging sleep at night."

"Primus," Sideswipe muttered, and scrubbed a hand over his face, looking suddenly weary.

"Sideswipe," Ratchet said, "I know he's your brother, and I know what he means to you. So defend him. Fight alongside him with all you've got. But just don't take revenge for him, because you can mark my words when I say that revenge has never saved a single soul from pain."

And that was the truth, clear as the silence around them. And he could see that Sideswipe understood. And then, just as Ratchet thought the warrior would do his best to sidle away and escape out of the medbay, he did instead the most startling thing. He looked the medic in the face, and he began to talk.

He told Ratchet about that day on the hillside, as if the medic hadn't been there. He told him, in broken words, how it felt to be so shocked. To see the merry blue sky, and his friends standing there, cheering with their backs to him. He told Ratchet about the shock of cold that went through him, and how he hardly remembered what he did next, except that he was pounding and pounding away at the Decepticons, even though what he really wanted to do was to pound and pound away at Mirage, and Tracks, and Cliffjumper, and Powerglide, and Warpath. He told Ratchet, how their names had been etched into his processor, as if in lines of cold light, and how quite suddenly his world had been turned upside-down, and he no longer understood who he could trust, and who he couldn't.

He seemed ashamed, somehow, of those moments. The warrior seemed to think that he should have kept himself together, shouldn't have gone into a panic, shouldn't have lost all senses and feeling. But who can explain what it is to be a brother? So he didn't even try, and just told Ratchet what it was like to see the medic approaching, as if Ratchet hadn't been there. He told Ratchet - and the medic knew then that Sideswipe held him in utter faith - of how he had been afraid.

It was as though the warrior was speaking in a trance, and it would not have been so strange, except that the whole time he was talking, he was looking Ratchet full in the face, as though his life depended on it. He told him, without flinching, of what he'd done. He described how he'd waited, how he'd felt nothing but a cold, cold hate, and how he'd watched for just the right time. And then he told Ratchet, step by step, what he did to each of them. How he burned Powerglide and took away his wings. How he sabotaged and humiliated Tracks. How he'd tormented Warpath, and crushed his pride. How he'd demoralized Cliffjumper and taken his dignity. How he'd destroyed Mirage.

And as he talked, Ratchet could see the burden fading from his optics just a little, and what was more, he could see the warrior's face grow less like that of a cornered animal, and more like the face of an Autobot, who has character, and who knows the line between right and wrong.

When at last he'd talked himself out, the warrior sat still again, tired and still troubled, though only a little. "So…" he offered a weak shrug, then trailed off, though he still looked Ratchet in the optic.

Ratchet supposed he should have wanted to give the red warrior a good beating for what he'd just admitted to. But he supposed that would have defeated the whole point of what he'd just been telling him. Besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't already known the truth - it was just hearing it out loud that somehow made it more real, and made the medic's finger's twitch a bit, with the loving wish to wrap themselves around the warrior's neck.

But he did no such thing, of course. Because, in the end, though he wouldn't admit it to a soul, Sideswipe meant a hell of a lot more to him than most of the other Autobots combined, including those Guilty Five. Which was why he hadn't been able to let him go tonight. He'd known there were things he'd needed yet to fix. And maybe it should have been Smokescreen's job, because Ratchet was just no good at this sort of thing. But somewhere along the way he'd sort of adopted this warrior, or maybe the warrior had adopted him; he didn't know. But he did know that, somehow, this sorting out of the warrior's wounds was a job meant for Ratchet, and Ratchet alone. Somehow, at some point, he'd accepted that responsibility, and he knew now it was one he'd have until the day he was deactivated.

Well, hell, he'd rebuilt the mech from the ground up more times than he could count. He may as well have been the warrior's creator. And may as well see to him as though he were.

"So now what?" Sideswipe asked, when Ratchet had said nothing for too long. "You can rat me out to Prowl if you want, I guess. I deserve it."

The warrior was being truthful, but there was that questioning tone again. "What do you think?" Ratchet asked, watching him.

The warrior shrugged. "Like I said, I deserve it."

Ratchet tipped his head just a bit. "There are the Five to think about, too."

"Yeah," Sideswipe said, and dropped his gaze, nodding, knowing what he needed to do.

"Sideswipe," the medic said, "I'm not bringing all this up just to be a pain in your ass."

"Yes, you are," Sideswipe countered, though he didn't mean it.

"It's more like you're a pain in my ass, if we're being honest," Ratchet came back.

The warrior looked up. "I'm just providing you with job security, Ratchet," he said with a perfect mask of innocence.

"Likewise, you little shit."

"Touche."

Ratchet smirked, and pushed away from the table. "And now I've kept you from your double life as a villain for too long." He flipped his scanner back into its compact form, and put it away on a nearby table. "Go on. You're cured. Hominus dominus."

Slowly, almost hesitantly, the warrior got down from where he'd been sitting, and stretched himself a little, before giving himself a thorough shake. "Think you'd miss me if I was gone?" he asked unexpectedly.

Ratchet snorted, mostly to cover his surprise. "No, I wouldn't miss you, you slag-faced little punk, because I wouldn't let you die. I've brought you back from the dead more than once, and I'll do it again."

He was a little surprised at the heat in his own voice, and even Sideswipe let out a low whistle. "Wow. Good thing you don't have a Primus complex or anything."

"Shut up, Sideswipe, you little pipe-sucker."

Sideswipe backed away, hands up in mock defense, a little grin stretched across his weary face. "Yes, master Jedi."

Ratchet grunted, and busied himself with cleaning a set of spotless tools. "Get out of here, slagging Padawan learner."

"Yes, master," Sideswipe repeated himself, offering a mock bow before he turned for the door, though of course he stopped just at the threshold, as he so often did when he had just one last thing to say. Fingertips lightly on the door jam, he turned back, and stood for a quiet moment while Ratchet labored uselessly at his tools. "I'm sorry, Ratchet," he said, after a pause.

"I know," Ratchet replied, without looking up.

And then, with a soft hiss of the door, Sideswipe was gone.

Ratchet never did tell Prowl about what the warrior had said. He knew the tactician knew the warrior had done those things, but if he'd had proof, he could have finally given Sideswipe the punishment he deserved. But somehow, in the medic's estimation, punishment wasn't what Sideswipe needed just then. So he kept their conversation to himself, and even though Prowl obviously suspected what the medic knew, Ratchet never said a word.

He also never knew if Sideswipe had actually come right out and apologized to the Five, and he didn't feel like asking. But he did notice, one day, a conversation between Sideswipe and Powerglide, as the warrior asked the mini-bot plane for tips on flying. He was also seen listening to Warpath's war stories with what looked like a convincing amount of interest, and was witnessed to even listen with a straight face as the mini-bot gave the tall warrior advice on close-combat. Tracks seemed to be trickier, and Ratchet never did see whether Sideswipe approached the blue warrior or not. But Raoul suddenly began appearing at the Ark again, and Tracks seemed a whole lot happier, not to mention greatly relieved, as though the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders. And the same was true for Cliffjumper, who had finally begun to build some of his old bravado back up again. Ratchet never knew what Sideswipe might have said to him, but Cliffjumper's old strut came back, and before long he was as loudmouthed as ever.

As for Mirage, things had gone better for him from the start. Unlike Sideswipe, Sunstreaker (yes, Sunstreaker, if you can believe it) had actually grasped the concept of forgiveness long before Sideswipe's conversation with the medic, and the yellow warrior and the spy had seemed to patch things up almost as quickly as they'd fallen apart. So for Mirage, there hadn't been any real lingering effects of what Sideswipe had done to him, except, perhaps, for all the broken things in his room.

It was late one evening, after Sideswipe had pulled a double shift on guard duty, that Ratchet happened to catch him sitting with Mirage in Wheeljack's lab. The inventor was just as pleased as pie, helping with this suggestion for glue, and that suggestion for improving a power source, while both Sideswipe and Mirage listened and worked attentively under his instruction on how to rebuild what seemed to be some kind of broken timepiece. Leaning against the door jam, Ratchet paused to watch, and quietly, Optimus Prime paused to watch with him.

"Interesting," was the commander's soft comment, and Ratchet quirked a half-smile.

"You could say that." He watched Sideswipe fiddling clumsily with a delicate plate of what looked like gold, trying with all his care not to bend it, while Mirage and Wheeljack both hovered and scolded. Patiently, Sideswipe held the plate in place, enduring with utmost calm a most uncharacteristic tirade from Mirage, who wanted it positioned just like that.

"Never figured Sideswipe for a fine-scale artisan," Prime commented.

Ratchet snorted. "Me either." It was fairly obvious that the warrior wasn't cut out for this kind of work. He didn't have the hands for it, to begin with, and that wasn't even mentioning his brand of patience which, while suited to long hours of war or pain or mind-numbing guard duty, did not prepare him for holding this thin sheet in gold in perfect alignment for sixty seconds while the adhesive dried.

"This is your doing, I suppose," Prime said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ratchet retorted.

"Uh huh."

"Sideswipe…Sideswipe, no," Mirage was saying from inside, his rich baritone rife with concern as he corrected the warrior's grip, his fine, noblemech's hands trying vainly to show Sideswipe's poor, oversized fingers how to delicately affix a piece of gold wire and solder it gently into place. The warrior's hands were meant for tearing down, not building. But he tried.

"Heh," Prime smiled behind the mask. "This is actually sort of funny."

It would have been, to be honest, if Ratchet hadn't felt so secretly proud of Sideswipe just then. "You want funny?" he snapped, feeling the moment deserved a bit more respect than Prime was giving it. "How 'bout I shove my foot up your ass? How'd that be for funny?"

But the Autobot commander only chuckled, and gave Ratchet an amused look. "My friend, I'm not laughing at Sideswipe."

Narrowing his optics, Ratchet regarded the commander sideways.

Eyeing him back, Prime's optics crinkled at the corners. Ratchet could tell he was pretty well pleased with himself. "I was just wondering," he said airily, "when you'd become such a denmother."

"Kiss my ass, Prime," Ratchet scowled, and went back to watching the other Autobots work.

"No, really," Prime pressed, obviously amused, and sounding as though he were only half joking, "did it happen all at once, or did it take some time for the Autobots' most hardened criminal to worm his way into your cold, black spark?"

"Eat slag and die, Prime," Ratchet growled, arms crossed.

"Because the Ratchet I know," Prime went on, ignoring the medic's darkening look, "would have said he was a medic, and not a damn shrink."

"Oh, is that so?" Ratchet snorted, arms crossed as he glared up at the commander.

But Prime was watching the others again now, with that soft, tired kind of expression he often wore at the end of the day. "He'll be ok now, won't he?"

Ratchet sighed, and looked back into the engineer's bay, where Sideswipe was doing his best to fix the things he'd broken. "I think so," the medic said.

Prime straightened, put a hand on Ratchet's shoulder. "Well done…" he said, then canted his head to give the medic a most wicked look, "…Padawan."

"Padawan?" Ratchet retorted. "And just who the hell are you calling a Padawan, you mangy-plated dock worker?"

But already Prime had turned away, and was sauntering down the hallway as though another great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Turning a corner, he glanced back at the medic, winked, and disappeared. Though before he was gone, Ratchet would have sworn to his Maker he heard the commander whistling.