"You can tell me when it's over,
If the high was worth the pain,"

»«

Ratchet watched as Dana slowly limped around the cell they were in, feeling his spark ache a bit as she struggled to keep going, her legs giving her pain.

"You should rest." He said, finally breaking the silence. "Pushing yourself may only strain and hurt you more than it would help."

"I've found that moving makes them feel better." She muttered in reply, feeling fire shoot up her left leg in particular, kneecap burning. "I don't understand why it hurts."

"You haven't used them in a while." Ratchet reasoned. "They may have atrophied."

His charge finally sighed in defeat as she began breaking out in a cold sweat and feeling nauseated from the pain. She limped over to her guardian, who sat down and gently picked her up in his bound servos.

"So much for getting out of here," she mumbled.

"We tried, and we managed to contact the others. That's what counts." Ratchet frowned a little, letting her lean on his digits to support herself in an upright position. "What you did with Megatron, it was incredibly foolish. You could have gotten hurt."

"I'm not in the mood, Ratchet," came the reply, her hand on her stomach as she combated the nauseated feeling, wishing for an Advil or Excedrin. "I'm not feeling well, my legs feel like they're on fire, and my left kneecap feels like it's going to break."

Ratchet furrowed his optic ridges. "Not feeling well?"

"It's just the pain." Dana grunted as she shifted her legs into a more comfortable position. "Sometimes, especially during certain times in my menstrual cycle, the pain is just so deep and intense that it's nauseating. Kind of like carsickness, I guess. My brain doesn't know what to do, so it decides making me throw up is the answer."

"And your kneecap?" Ratchet could recall hearing about that from Nurse Darby, but he couldn't remember why Dana's meniscus was having issues. He was more concerned with other pressing news at the time.

"I don't know," She bent her knee and held it in her hands, looking at it. "I feel like a well-placed fall would snap it in half, though."

"Your meniscus," he recalled, "Nurse Darby said it was damaged to the point of total replacement. A metal replacement."

"And I've been walking on it?" Dana replied incredulously. "How has it not just given out on me?"

"Don't tempt fate." Ratchet ordered. "Stay off of that from now on unless absolutely necessary. The last thing that needs to happen is the destruction of an important joint in the midst of an emergency."

"Yes, doctor." She rolled her eyes a little with a smile. The blue streak in her hair was beginning to fade, becoming a white-grey color. It looked a little odd amongst her otherwise brightly coloured features, a whitewash out of place.

There was some silence between the two of them, not sure what else to say, or plan. The guards outside their door had left after making sure the door was sealed completely, leaving the prisoners no way to escape except with outside help. The soft glow in the room provided the most light, yet Ratchet's optics still shined brightly and illuminated around his face.

"Why would you finish the synthetic energon formula to come see me?" Dana asked.

Ratchet ex-vented softly, realizing he had not told her the entire story. However, he still felt that he could not bring himself to tell her. What would she think if she realized a little piece of him was tapped into her nervous system?

"I . . . I'm not entirely sure." He confessed. "Mostly just to see you were safe, and the Decepticons had not hurt you. My calls were going unanswered, it had been weeks and there was no sign of you on the Nemesis, and we had left one another without, well, setting things right. Officially. I was worried, and I was most concerned with us never seeing one another again on such terrible terms."

Dana tilted her head, gazing at him. "I thought we had made up. I told you, Ratchet, I listened to all of your messages. I forgave you long before I even remembered who you were."

In his spark, Ratchet felt a sense of relief, the guilt of his harsh words and their bitter argument lifting from his shoulders. "Oh. I'm glad . . ."

His audio receptors picked up on her chuckling, her eyes sparkling at him with a familiar, mischievous glint.

"All this time, and you were worried about a stupid argument, which you were right about." She shook her head, wrapping an arm around his foremost digit and resting her head against it, in an almost hug-like fashion. "Humans may hold grudges, Ratchet, but if we care enough about the person we eventually grow up and let it go. And I care about you, I think as much as you do about me. I may have ignored you, I may have been a child and been bitter with you, but I would never let that be the end of us. I . . ." She paused, then shook her head slightly. "I don't want to lose you either."

Ratchet nodded, accepting the answer, but in his spark he knew Dana meant differently. Yet she knew their boundaries, the thin glass which separated one another due to morals, logic, and common sense. And he did too.

"Thank you, Dana." He replied quietly. "I am glad we can put that all behind us, now."

A banging at the door made them jump, Ratchet scrambling to his pedes and tucking his charge close against his chest plates as a dent appeared in the door, then another, the medic barely jumping to the side as the door flew off its hinges and soared across the room. Bulkhead appeared on the other side, his mace out from having just beat the door, the Wrecker looking quite proud of himself.

"Hey, looks like third time is a charm." Wheeljack spoke as he walked around his larger buddy to make his presence known. "And I wanted to blow this one up with a few well-placed grenades."

"You couldn't have just pushed the button?" Ratchet muttered, pointing to the console just to the left of the two Wreckers.

"Oh." Bulkhead looked at it, baffled, then back to his fellow Autobot. "Uh, I guess so."

"Where is Dana?" Wheeljack questioned as he went up to Ratchet and tapped on his bonds, making them disappear. "Prime said she was somewhere on the ship-"

"Here." Dana smiled as she popped up from behind Ratchet's fingers, waving. "It's good to see you guys again."

"It's good to see you too." Bulkhead gave her one of his best grins. "C'mon, Ratch. Optimus has everyone on the bridge, we're about to witness the revival of Cybertron!"

"The fight is already over?" Ratchet sounded suspicious. "What happened? Did everyone make it out okay?"

"All the Autobots, yeah. Oh, and you're not going to believe who got better!" Bulkhead exclaimed excitedly, imagining the look on Ratchet's face and grinning with glee.

"You said all the Auotbots. What about the Decepticons?" Dana asked.

"Well, Screamer and Shockwave managed to escape. We captured Knock Out, and the kids put Soundwave in the Shadowzone." Wheeljack explained briefly. "And Bumblebee managed to snuff Buckethead's spark. That little scout won the war."

"He what?" Ratchet's jaw dropped, disbelieving.

Dana felt a cool chill start at her fingertips, and spread across her body. Megatron is dead, she realized, the shock causing her to freeze in place. She thought that such a thing was nearly impossible, or she would at least know about it if it happened . . . But no, it happened without her knowledge, while she was reconnecting with Ratchet and reassuring him that their past argument was no longer an inhibiting factor in their relationship.

Ratchet tuned Wheeljack and Bulkhead out as they launched into a grand story, having felt Dana become unnaturally still, looking down at her with concern. Her eyes were staring off into space, glassy and seeming to be in another dimension. He worried she was going to have another fainting spell, but she didn't collapse or really move at all. His thumb gently prodded her, and she jerked back to reality, smiling at him.

"Are you okay?" He asked, not longer listening to the Wrecker's.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." Her smile, and tone, did not convince him. "Now what's taking so long? Let's watch Cybertron's revival!"

»«

Ratchet did not blame Dana when she watched the planet come back to life with half-faked enthusiasm and enjoyment. Her mind was somewhere else, possibly back to Megatron, if he had to guess. His sudden termination had a shocking effect on her, leaving her feeling like she had lost something important, a piece of her missing. The medic found it somewhat ridiculous, as Megatron had been nothing but a terrible monster to her, but he let the human feel what she wished. He only hoped it would make her get better.

Two days later, and Dana had her knee completely replaced, but the woman refused rehabilitation, instead opting to take a schedule and do the workouts herself, letting Ratchet help with support. The medic's colder bedside manner proved immensely helpful in pushing her to do better, and heal. There were occasional banters back and forth, and one real fight, but the two of them made up in no time.

The other Autobots watched from afar, on Cybertron. While they had gone to rebuild their planet and called for other fellow Autobots - and Decepticons wishing to change sides - to come and help them, Ratchet felt in his spark that he was needed more on Earth. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he wanted to remain with Dana, and to help her relearn how to walk properly again. He defended her from nosy scientists, threatened to murder anyone who so much as thought of poking around her, and glared at any nurse or doctor who gave her an odd stare. It was most unlike the doctor, as he had wanted more than anything else to return to Cybertron in the early days, but, as he claimed, Earth had grown on him.

Optimus Prime could not help but smile, as he knew better. Ratchet and his charge had formed a bond that they would not allow to be strained by distance. It was not a spark bond, or a bond between intimate mates. They were close friends, partners, that could no longer live without the other at their side. The wise Autobot leader allowed for the relationship to continue, because Earth and Cybertron were so intertwined, he felt it best to allow a sort of liaison for their species. Ratchet was not the best choice, due to his mannerisms and pride, but Prime hoped that it was his partnership with Dana that would bring the humans to see that the Cybertronian race could indeed work with humans, and vice versa.

By the end of the week, and Dana was functioning rather normally. She still couldn't stand for more than a few hours at a time without feeling some pain, but it was an improvement from before. And now, she felt she was ready to see her family again. But she didn't just want to see them.

"I want you to meet my parents." She spoke to Ratchet as he worked at the computers, not leaving any room for protest as she added: "Agent Fowler already got approval from the Pentagon, and he passed that approval to me. We set up a meeting time and place . . . I know you think it's a bad idea, just by looking at your expression, but I can't explain myself without you."

"Explain yourself?" He questioned.

"I don't want to lie to them, not anymore." She confessed. "And, well, how can I explain the mechanism on my back without giving away your existence?"

She had a point, and Ratchet knew it. He also sensed that she missed her family, after almost a two months of not seeing them, barely contacting them. They were probably worried sick about her, and she them.

"Alright." He relented, knowing it was very much going against being "robots in disguise," however if Agent Fowler allowed it, it was probably because he trusted the family to not say anything. "When are we meeting?"

"In ten minutes."

"What?!" He panicked, looking at his screen. "Where? I can't just leave the base unattended!"

"Jack will babysit." She shrugged. "He's on his way right now, with Miko and Raf. They're practically interning here now." The last part was a tease, however it wasn't far from the truth. "They'll let us know if something is wrong."

Ratchet pinched the bridge of metal between his optics. "Alright. Give me the coordinates and we can bridge there."

"We can actually drive." She replied. "The meeting place is just outside the military base, by about ten minutes. So, if we go now, we'll be on time."

Ratchet grumbled something under his breath, which sounded suspiciously like "you will be the death of me," before he transformed and opened his car door for her. "I don't like spontaneous drives."

"With me you do." She grinned, hopping in the driver's seat. "Let me drive?"

"No. Way." He replied, then exited the base and followed her directions. He was both nervous, and little intrigued.

He would finally be able to puzzle out where exactly Dana got her personality from. Or, he supposed, who.