"Good morning, June. I hope you're feeling better today." Arcee sat across from her at the picnic table and Jack took the empty spot beside his mom.

June stared off into the distance with bleary eyes.

"Hey." Jack put a hand on her shoulder and she glanced at him as if just now realizing he was here. "You okay? You look like you didn't get much sleep."

"None. I just … every time I started to fall asleep, I remembered the … well, you know." June stared at the table. "I keep seeing the back of Sokolov's head explode. And I'm the one who pulled the trigger."

"Saying this might not help, but you didn't do anything wrong." Arcee patted June's hand. "He'd already killed a lot of people, including kids, and he intended to kill Jack. If you hadn't wasted him, I would have, even if it cost me another limb."

"I keep telling myself that. It hasn't helped. I'm a nurse … and I took a life."

"That doesn't make you a bad person, Mom." Jack put his arm around her shoulders. "Miko and I have done our share of killing since we got involved in all this. So has Arcee and the other 'Bots, and Ashanti and her team."

"Most of those were in the heat of battle during a war. With you, it was an accident. You didn't mean to kill that guy, you were just defending yourself." June shook her head slowly. "This was a choice. Sokolov wasn't going anywhere. Once Miko got her hands on him, he was finished. He wouldn't stop threatening you and something in me just snapped."

"June ... " Arcee shrugged. "I wish I knew what to say to make this better. I dunno, maybe this being so painful for you is a good sign. If everyone hurt this much after taking someone's life, the history of both of our planets might not be filled with warfare. And mine might still be alive."

Footsteps in the distance caught her attention and she glanced over at the mess hall to find Ashanti's team, Miko and her parents, Clayton, Rosalina, and the human-sized bodies of Bulkhead, Khalilah, and Strika approaching. Arcee smiled and waved.

Just in time. Maybe they can talk June out of her funk.

Everyone greeted them and sat. Arcee noticed Terwilliger waiting for Strika to take a seat before hurriedly plopping down beside her, as if going out of his way to be near her. It reminded her a bit of how Jack had acted around her before she figured out how they felt about each other. Except in this case, Strika seemed unlikely to be anything but oblivious to Terwilliger, or to understand his crush on her even if she was aware of it.

Clayton placed a tray of drinks beside June and took the empty spot beside her. He held a cup out to her and said, "I brought cocoa."

"Thanks." She managed to smile as she accepted the cup.

The ground-shaking footsteps of a full-sized Cybertronian drew Arcee's attention again and she glanced up to find Bilby making his way carefully across the parking lot toward the tables. He lifted a hand, hesitated, and waved as he reached them.

"I, uh … hope you don't mind me joining you for a while. After what happened yesterday, I …" He shrugged, glanced down at June, and sat cross-legged on the pavement nearby. "I don't know. I thought you might need some reassurance."

"We all thought the same thing," Roz said. She smiled and reached over to pat June's shoulder.

"Glad to have you here," Arcee said. "June's in serious need of cheering up."

"I'll try. I've been a 'glass-half-empty' kind of person for a long time, so stop me if I make things worse." He chuckled nervously and glanced at Arcee and Strika. "I hope your repairs are coming along."

"Arcee's getting her replacements first, since she lost both arms yesterday. The parts we need have already been fabricated, and I'm next in line. In the meantime, I decided to use my miniature body to join the others in offering Ms. Darby whatever support she needs."

"It's much appreciated," June said softly. "I could really use something to help me live with myself."

"June, you did the right thing." Roz kept her hand on June's shoulder. "You may feel like you did something horrible, but … well, you know the other Pretenders and I were on the wrong side of the war for so many centuries. You did what you did to protect your son. We … the things we did were unforgivable, and we did them for no other reason than being power-hungry and insane. By the time we came to our senses, our homeworld was a casualty of war." Roz shook her head and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "I did things that I can never tell Lucas or Bobby about. If I did, they would hate me, and they'd be right to."

"Whatever you did," Strika said, "it pales in comparison to the things I am responsible for, if only because I'm so old and was involved in the war for so long. It took the death of our homeworld to show me the cost of my … misjudgment of everything. But we cannot change the past. All we can do is try to make up for it now, even though we'll never … wash the blood off our hands, to use a human phrase." She offered June a very slight smile. "Sokolov was determined to kill your son. There's no guarantee that he wouldn't have escaped later and followed through on his threats. You did what was necessary to stop him. That makes you a good person. Far better than any of us."

"See, Mom?" Jack smiled and put an arm around her shoulders. "Try not to let it get to you."

"Easier said than done, but … I'll try. Might take a while, though."

"Well," Arcee said, "one way to think of it is that Sokolov was to you what Airachnid was to me, in a way. Taking her out didn't make me feel as triumphant as I expected it to, and it didn't bring back the friend she murdered, but now she won't hurt anyone else."

"Fair point, I guess." June took a slow sip of her cocoa. "Sometimes … you have to put the rabid dog down, right?"

"Exactly."

"I just hope I never have to do it again."

"I'll understand if you don't want to continue your training," Ashanti said. "It'd be a shame to lose you, but if you keep going on missions, sooner or later you might end up in that position again."

"I've been thinking about that all night." June stared into her cup for a long moment. "I need to keep at it. I need to be there to protect Jack as long as he's determined to stay in the fight."

"Okay. Take as much time as you need and let me know when you're ready."

"Today will be fine. Right after breakfast." June managed a brief grin. "Maybe another long workout will leave me exhausted enough to actually get some sleep tonight."

Arcee smiled. "Glad to still have you on the team, June."

Ashanti's phone vibrated and she took it out of her pocket and glanced at the text message on the screen. She smirked and turned to Miko.

"The woman you knocked out finally woke up."

"Just now?" Terwilliger turned a wide-eyed stare on Miko. "Wow. When you knock someone out, you don't fuck around."

"It's the robot arm." Miko grinned and held up her metal hand. "I hope she and her girlfriend aren't in too much trouble. They seemed like they didn't really want to be involved in the shady shit MECH's been up to."

"Yeah, they seemed to be more interested in working with alien technology than anything else." Ashanti shrugged. "They'll have to go through a lot of questioning and background checks, but if they pass everything, they could end up working here on the base, if they want to. We gave the Vehicon defectors and the Pretenders a second chance, so why not?"

"Even though we don't really deserve it," Bilby muttered. "I mean, after everything we've done …"

"Well," Khalilah said, "something I've recently begun to figure out is that hating each other just keeps the war going. Our planet is dead, so all of us lost. There's no point in fighting each other, but if we can't forgive each other and move past old prejudices, we'll never stop. The wheel just keeps turning."

Jensen grinned and slipped his hand into hers. "I accidentally got her hooked on Doctor Who and one of Capaldi's speeches seemed to stick in her head. Wasn't much else to do while I was in the infirmary, so I used some of the time to catch up on shows I'd been missing."

"Heh. Yeah. Several of those scenes hit close to home, in fact. They just reinforced a decision I'd already made, but yeah. Some of that stuff really put into words what I've been feeling."

Khalilah held his hand between hers before continuing.

"Maybe Megatron and his inner circle had some sort of endgame in mind, way back then, but those of us on the front lines fought the Autobots just because we hated them. We'd seen them kill our friends, and I understand now that they saw us doing the same to theirs. What took some of us a long time to realize was how those in the top ranks just threw us at the 'Bots and didn't care how many of us were slaughtered."

She looked up and met Arcee's gaze, then glanced around at Ashanti's team.

"What really drove it home to me was seeing your team board the Nemesis and use its fabricators to make parts Arcee needed to survive. You didn't go there to kill us. You didn't attack us out of hatred. You did it to save a friend. All of you risked your lives to save one friend. Some of you died in the battle and Bulkhead was nearly killed, too, but you thought it was worth the risk. That's the moment I knew I had to get out of there and join you. I needed to be part of something that mattered. I needed to be among people who were willing to risk it all for a friend, and I needed to be able to do the same for them."

"Well, I'm certainly glad you joined us." Jensen slipped his arm around her waist and then glanced up at Bilby. "We should thank you and the others for helping us out, as well as offer our condolences for the loss of your friend."

"Thank you. I didn't know him very well. Casualties racked up so quickly during the war that we eventually learned not to get too attached to each other just to avoid even more pain. I don't know, maybe that made us worse … made it easier not to care about anything but surviving the next battle. And then it became more difficult to even care about that."

Ah. That might explain why he seemed to keep trying to get himself killed during the last couple of battles. Ashanti held in a sigh. We need to figure out a way to help him before he succeeds - and takes someone else with him.

"I can understand that," Arcee said. "After losing my closest friend, for a long time I didn't care if I lived through the next battle. I just needed to remain operational long enough to achieve the mission objective, but once that was done, it didn't matter. If I fell, someone else would take my place."

Jack clasped her hand and she smiled.

"I finally found a few reasons to stay alive, though."

"Good. Too many people have already died." Bilby stared at the pavement in front of him and fell silent. Ashanti took a slow breath.

"We should set up a … therapy program, I guess. I've been through my share of trauma, but I can't even imagine what it must be like to endure thousands of years of warfare. If talking to someone might help, a lot of people are here to listen, including me."

He continued staring for nearly half a minute before he seemed to snap himself out of it and glance down at her.

"I, uh … I don't know, I've never told anyone this before …"

"Several of us have noticed that you seemed to go out of your way to put yourself in danger in recent fights. That could endanger the people fighting alongside you, and it could have an effect on those who care about you."

"I hadn't thought about it that way. I'm sorry, I don't want to accidentally get someone else hurt. I just … it's …" He wrung his hands as he tried to continue. "Before I transferred to the Nemesis, I was stationed on Messatine."

Huh. I've heard that name before. Wait, wasn't that what they called the planet the Decepticon Justice Division was based on? A shiver ran up her spine. From what the others said about the DJD, it's no wonder he's so fucked up. He probably witnessed a lot of people being tortured to death.

"I've never been there," Khalilah said. "The stories I've heard about the place were more than enough to make me want to stay far away from it."

"I wish I had," Bilby almost whispered. "The things I saw were … well, there are no words to describe how horrible all of it was. But one in particular was … it was the most brutal thing I've ever seen. I feel like I could delete my memory of it all, and it would still haunt me."

Jesus. Ashanti glanced at June and wondered if this was what she needed to hear right now. Bilby seemed to pick up on it and shook his head quickly.

"I'm sorry, I'll probably make everything worse if I keep talking about it. And I don't know if I'm ready yet, anyway, after keeping it to myself for so long. Maybe if you set up that program you mentioned …"

Ashanti nodded. "I'll do whatever I can to help. And any time you want to talk about it, my door's always open."

"Thank you," he said softly.

Everyone glanced around at each other as the awkward silence stretched out. Finally, Clayton took a sip of his cocoa and motioned at June.

"Well, maybe certain people need to hear something a little more upbeat."

How do we shift gears after hearing that? Jack held in a sigh, reached across the table, and laced his fingers between Arcee's.

His mom stared at her cocoa for another long moment, then took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through whatever was on the screen, probably just to have something to do. She finally rolled her eyes and took another sip of her cocoa.

"I've been ignoring all the texts I got this morning, and it looks like I was right to." She glanced at Jack. "A bunch of them are from Grandpa."

"The one on your dad's side or your mom's side?"

"Guess."

Judging by her expression, he didn't need to. "Your dad's. Wonderful."

"You, uh, don't get along?" Arcee arched a brow plate.

"Never have." June sighed. "He's always been a bigot and a misogynist as far back as I can remember. The thing I remember most about him is how he liked to throw around the N-word and say women should shut up and get back into the kitchen where they belong."

"Ah." Miko shook her head. "So, he was a dudebro before there was an official label for it?"

"Among other things, yeah." June lifted the phone for a second. "A few snippets of interviews we did with Tenesha have been released on the evening news. Stuff that didn't have anything classified in it, just a few puff pieces to help the public get to know the Autobots and hopefully defuse some of the panic people have been going through. Anyway, Gramps went on a long rant about Jack dating one of the giant alien robots."

Jack rolled his eyes and then grinned. "You should tell him Arcee and I have started fucking, just to see if his neck explodes."

June snickered. "Then he capped it off by saying I need to drop some weight and find a man to cook and clean for."

"What?" Clay gaped at her. "Aside from that sexist bullshit, you're one of the slimmest people I've ever met. Does he need glasses or something?"

"I have put on a few pounds in the past few months, but I think it's an improvement. I was so skinny because I hardly ever had time to eat much thanks to working such long hours at the hospital in Jasper and then being on-call when I wasn't there. Things are a lot better on this base, with the General's policy of running four six-hour shifts per day. Having that extra time makes all the difference in the world." June poked at her phone's screen. "But Gramps is a hypocrite. I mean, telling me to lose weight when he could lose my entire body mass and still be three times my size. He just thinks it doesn't matter because he's a man. Here, take a look at this."

She loaded a photo on her phone and held it out to Clay. His optics opened even wider, as did his mouth.

"Wow. He's got no business telling anyone to lose weight. He's so - uh, sorry. He's part of your family, so I should just shut up. Don't want to overstep …"

"Oh, no, he's a total asshole, so let 'er rip."

"Well, in that case, he's so fuckin' fat, Thanos had to snap his fingers twice."

June burst out laughing, and most of the others did, too. Jack laughed so hard that he had to lean on the table and catch his breath.

Wow. I'm totally saying that to his face if he gives Mom any shit in front of me.

He took a few more deep breaths to recover from the light-headedness. When his vision cleared, he noticed his mom reaching over to clasp Clay's hand. A huge grin almost split Jack's face.

It's about time she had a chance at a social life.

Once June was able to breathe normally again, she flicked an enormous grin of her own at Clay.

"That's exactly what I needed."

"You sure you want to do this, June?" Ashanti paused at the door to Silas's cell block.

"Don't really want to, but I think I need to." June took the tablet from Ashanti and loaded the photo they'd decided to show Silas. It was a still taken from Kefira's helmet camera capturing the instant June had blown the back of Sokolov's skull off. The half-dozen bodies she'd strung up hung in the background. "I think it'll help me get past … what I had to do. And in case Silas is planning to go after Jack if he ever manages to escape, I need to make him understand what a bad idea that would be."

"Okay. I'll be right behind you if you need me." Ashanti unlocked the door and let June walk through.

An idea popped into June's head as she tried to get back into character. She pulled her knife out and strummed it across the bars of each cell on the way to Silas. When she reached him, she found him standing in the middle of his cell, hands clasped behind his back, smirking at her. She spun the knife the way Ashanti had taught her and slipped it back into its sheath.

"Ah, I see you've survived."

"So have Jack and Arcee."

"I'll be sure to remedy that at the first opportunity."

June took a moment to stifle her sudden anger before taking a step closer to the bars. She held the tablet up and his smirk vanished.

"The last time some asshole threatened my son, I fucking killed him. If you're stupid enough to try to contact someone on the outside and send them after Jack, or break out of here and take a shot at him yourself, I won't even give you the dignity of a bullet in the head. I'll beat you to death with my bare hands and drink your fucking blood." She handed the tablet over to Ashanti. "I just wanted to be the one to tell you that MECH is over. They're done. They've all been arrested or killed, and if there are any more lurking somewhere out there, as soon as they show their faces, I'll blow their heads off. Just like I did to your lapdog."

Silas glared at her, unflinching but without his usual smugness. She mirrored his smirk from a moment ago.

"We know about their plans for Damocles, too. The satellite has been dismantled and we're keeping a close eye on everyone who was involved in its planning and construction. Oh, and I know where your family is. All of them. And if anything happens to Jack or Arcee and I even suspect you might be responsible, I'll be paying each of them a visit before I come for you."

Silas's brows dipped even more, a vein on his forehead throbbed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. June cranked her smirk up a few notches before walking away.

"Enjoy the rest of your stay, Leland."

Once she'd followed Ashanti through the door and paused while the colonel closed and locked it, she slumped against the wall and let a long breath rush out.

"I'm so glad that's over!"

"I think he bought it. You were convincing enough to chill my blood."

"Well, as fun as messing with him was, I'll be fine if I never have to see him again. I didn't feel that way before … well, before yesterday. But now …"

"I understand. Any time you change your mind about continuing your training, just let me know. I won't think less of you."

"Thanks." June followed her down the hallway. "It's kind of like what Tomoko said about facing Airachnid again. If she didn't, she'd always be afraid. If I don't keep going with this, I won't be able to be there for Jack. After missing so much of his childhood because I was working, I need to do this."

"Okay, then." Ashanti smiled and gently clapped June's shoulder. "I'll meet you in the dojo. Bring your armor. I'll get you started on the basics of using your suit thrusters in a fight. Miko's … inventive use of hers gave me a few ideas."

"Speaking of Miko, is there any news about whether she'll be allowed to stay?"

"Last I heard, her parents are working it out with General Sanchez. They're still worried, but she really seems to want this, so they're not standing in her way."

"I should be against it, myself, but after seeing how badly Jack wants to stick around, and seeing how serious Miko has gotten about it, well, I couldn't bear to dash their hopes. I'll just do everything I can to keep them safe." June took a slow breath. "So, I'll see you in a few minutes."

"See you then." Ashanti smiled and held the door open for her. June stepped into the parking lot and found a familiar blue motorcycle waiting for her.

"Hey, Arcee. Back in one piece, eh?"

"Yep. Ratchet finished attaching my new arms a few minutes ago. I figured you could use a lift over to the dojo."

"Thanks." June put on her helmet and climbed on.

"Jack's waiting for you there. He's still catching up on his schoolwork, but he wanted to hang out with you while he toils away at it."

"I'd like that. It'd be nice to spend a few hours with him that don't include being shot at." She chuckled, gripped the handlebars, and waited for Arcee to accelerate slowly.

"Yeah. My mini-me is with him, so we can both cheer you on."

"Glad to have the company. Just don't let him post any video of me making a fool of myself on Facebook, okay?"

"Aw, you'll do just fine. You've already proven you can handle whatever gets dished out to you."

So far, at least. "We'll see. As cool as working on a spaceship would be, I'll be relieved when all this crap with the DJD and Unicron is finally over."

"Me, too. But hey, once we've dealt with all that stuff, we'll still have the spaceship, and more will probably be built. I never really had time to appreciate the sights during the war, but there's some pretty cool stuff around the galaxy. And the galaxy is a big place. My people haven't explored and colonized that much of it. I'd love it if all of us could see the rest of it together."

Huh. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd actually be an astronaut. But I'm starting to see this the way Jack does. Once the last gasp of this war is finally over, it could be the beginning of a whole new era for both of our peoples. It's the kind of adventure no one on Earth has ever had the opportunity to go on. How could I pass that up, especially when my own kid wouldn't miss it for anything?

"That would be fantastic!"

"Oh." Arcee's voice took on a mischievous tone. "And Clay just showed up in the dojo."

"Even better." June found herself grinning as the dark cloud hanging over her finally began to dissipate. Whatever's in store, we'll face it together and we'll survive it. And then the adventure can begin.

She gripped Arcee's handlebars and leaned forward, silently encouraging her to increase her speed.

Keep moving forward.