Many years later…

"Sir?"

The attendant's quiet murmur didn't draw William Lennox's eyes away from the aircraft window. The man's voice hardly even registered. Running a hand back through his grey-tinged hair, Lennox shifted a little in his seat, trying to get a better view through the small, round-edged window pane.

"General Lennox, sir, we're coming in to land."

He knew that, of course. He knew the journey back to base better than the one to his family home. Even after a month away, the muscles in his back had relaxed moments before the flight started its descent. The aimless doze he'd fallen into on take-off had cleared and his eyes had turned towards the window for the first glimpse of home.

That's when a frown had creased his lined brow, and his still-lean, still-muscled form had stiffened in his seat.

"General?"

He fastened his seat-belt with no more than a short nod of acknowledgement. The tug he gave it, settling it against his waist, was an echo of a lifetime in service and far too many bone-shaking helicopter rides. He found himself reaching for shoulder straps before reminding himself he wouldn't find them. It was almost a decade now since he'd stepped back and let younger men lead the field missions but his body remembered.

They landed with a bump that jarred his clenched jaw. The 'plane taxied past the hangars and barracks, the vast complex that had developed around the single command hangar they'd started with. Grim faced, Lennox was waiting at the aircraft door even before the ground crew had manhandled the steps into place.

He'd waited long enough to take a decent break. The aftermath of Annabel's wedding had been the perfect excuse for the month-long cruise. He'd needed the time to re-evaluate his world-view, to reconnect with his wife after surrendering his only child into the care of another. It had been easy to convince himself that NEST would hardly notice he was gone. Major Tyler and his alpha squad were easily as competent as Lennox himself had been at their age. The 'bots had their work down to a fine art. Even with Prowl restricted to limited duties, Optimus hadn't so much as blinked at the idea of his co-commander being absent for a mere two orns.

It should have been fine.

Dropping his bag onto the dusty tarmac, gazing stone-faced at the command hangar, Lennox swallowed back his doubts and premature self-recriminations.

"Soldier?"

"Sir?" The nearest of the ground crew – a man Lennox recognised from years of take-offs and landings – snapped to attention, releasing the controls of the cargo hoist he'd been using and bringing his hands sharply to his sides.

"The control hangar…" He'd seen it as they circled before landing, and now it was unmistakeable, tall and ominous as it loomed in front of him. "How long has it been closed?"

"Sir, Optimus Prime's order, sir! No access without special permission, sir. Three weeks now, General, sir."

Lennox frowned. He rubbed a hand through hair that was rapidly passing beyond salt-and-pepper towards a proper grey. Half a lifetime in Ratchet's care had left him in better shape than a man ten years his senior. Even so, the aching concern in the pit of his stomach was spreading into bones that felt old and stiff.

In all the years he'd worked with the Autobot armed forces, he'd seen the command hangar door pulled closed against human access a bare handful of times. There wasn't one of those occasions he'd choose to remember.

"Has there been a battle? Anyone hurt? Report!"

The soldier was a NEST veteran, maybe not a marine assigned to frontline combat duty, but a trained serviceman hardened by years of exposure to the Autobots. He wasn't going to be easily flustered, even by so sharp a question. The man shook his head, quick and certain.

"No, General. No Decepticon activity reported in over a month, sir." The certainty faltered, a trace of concern flickering across the man's face.

Lennox seized on it, catching his soldier's eyes with an insistent question. "What is it?"

"Well, sir, no one's seen Commander Prowl for a while…."

Lennox felt his stomach clench, the remnants of his in-flight meal solidifying in his gut as his shapeless fears coalesced.

"Prowl's been cutting back on duties." Had been for a few years now, so slowly that Lennox hadn't even noticed the turn-around. It had taken a visit from Bobby Epps and a worried mutter from his former second in command before Lennox realised just how draconian Ratchet's restrictions had become and how much time Prowl was spending in recharge. That was six months ago now. The quiet tactician had hardly been out of the hangar since. He opened his mouth to say as much. The soldier's expression stopped him.

"Sir… the last duty roster came out with Ironhide's name on it."

Lennox didn't wait to ask any more. Usually on his return to base he'd take the time to drop off his bags and grab a shower before tracking down Prime, and young Tyler, for an update briefing. Today he left his bag where it had fallen, trusting it to find its own way to his quarters. With a nod to his serviceman, Lennox strode across the tarmac on a far more pressing errand.

The hangar had been designed for servicing full-size cargo planes, back in the day. Despite the additions, extensions and modifications, there were still echoes of that old function surviving in its structure. Of those, the full-height, full-width hangar doors were perhaps the most obvious. The concrete pan in front of them was grooved and scuffed, by heavy pedes as much as by the door sections that folded halfway open and then slid the rest of the way on oiled rollers.

For as long as Lennox could remember, they'd stood open, allowing Autobots entry and egress in either mode, and preventing the vast but still human-scale building from being claustrophobic for its new inhabitants. Now, the metal door panels stood tightly closed, shutting out the base and the wider world. A few Autobots, Bluestreak and Sunstreaker amongst them, were parked outside. On another occasion, he'd have stopped to chat with them, or even fished for clues about what waited behind those doors. With Blue and the volatile twin there he wouldn't dare, even if he hadn't known his questions were properly directed at Optimus Prime.

The human-scale door, set into one panel of the larger barrier, was locked too. Lennox tapped his security code into the electronic panel with a growing knot in his throat. There was a click. A buzz. Lennox pulled the door open with a quick gesture. He stepped through, one hand holding it open behind him as he blinked rapidly to accustom his eyes to the gloom inside.

Several pairs of optics cycled back at him, picking out the human form silhouetted against bright sunlight. Amongst them were the pair belonging to a tall, elegant figure, standing between Optimus Prime and the control gantry.

"Prowl!" The name spilled from his lips in a rush of relief and a backwash of adrenaline. Prowl's doorwings flared, an unreadable expression crossing the tactician's faceplates. The tactician looked weary, his colours a little dull even in the half-light. Lennox couldn't have cared less what the mech looked like, hardly even cared about the incredible electronic screech that seemed to erupt from nowhere in response to his cry. After the concerns that had nagged at him for months, and burned their way into dread out there on the tarmac, it was enough to see the worrisome mech alive.

The screeches were going on, an unholy cross between an unanswered fax machine and a computer hard drive having a meltdown. It was attracting attention now, mechs gathering from throughout the large space, a handful of humans amongst them. Prowl had turned away, reaching for something on the gantry behind him. Optimus Prime looked from his lieutenant to his human counterpart with open concern. The Prime's deep voice never lost its even tone but carried a note of urgency.

"General Lennox, if you would close the door….?"

Lennox jerked it shut with an abrupt motion, his battle-trained instinct to secure an escape route fading in the light of Prime's request. Optimus nodded gratitude, his optics already turning back to his second in command.

The tactician peered down into the palm of his own hand. He spoke in a low, melodic tone, the tips of his free servos stroking whatever it was he held.

"It's alright. You're not hurt. It's alright." He looked up, his expression a little defensive as he accepted something from Ratchet, before looking back down at his burden. "Here, sweet-spark. Ratchet has another visor for you. Remember, I told you about visors?" He shook his helm, his tone becoming more normal and his door-wings shrugging as he glanced back at the medic with an odd, almost embarrassed, smile. "I don't know where he's hiding them."

Lennox took a step forward, and stopped, startled, when Prowl's helm, Ratchet's and even Sideswipe's swung abruptly towards him in apparent reaction. Prowl's servos curled a little, shielding whatever he held in his palm from view. The tactician cycled his optics again, his vents easing down, before he gave a brief nod of acknowledgement.

"My apologies, General. Inheriting over-sensitive optics can be something of a trial. Until he learns to mute their sensitivity and retain hold of a visor, I'm afraid unfiltered daylight is rather painful. Waking to the sensation distressed him."

Lennox blinked up at the tactician, lost almost from the first word. The screeches had faded into something that sounded like a high-pitched, intermittent keen. Even that was gradually calming, interspersed with the kind of chirps and warbles Lennox had heard, rarely, from a few of the younger mechs, and only in deep distress.

The general hadn't moved from where he stood just inside the door. Now Prowl moved slowly towards him instead, both Ratchet and Sideswipe ghosting just within reach of the tactician as if they half expected to have to catch him.

Lennox stared, astonished and deeply concerned, as Prowl actually eased down onto his knees just in front of him. The tactician had been holding one servo close against his chest-plates as he walked. Now he lowered it towards the concrete floor, his finger-servos uncurling as he did so to reveal what lay within.

The Cybertronian form was obvious from the first moment. Its metallic shell shimmered in the dim light, hints of black and red and silver-white picking out reflections from the few active screens. A blue-lit visor small enough to fit in Lennox's hand was framed by a sleek helm, with equally tiny horns standing proud on either side of it. They angled back towards what was frankly the cutest pair of miniature door-wings Lennox had ever seen.

He'd met small mechs before – Wheelie, Brains, any of Soundwave's crew. They had been armoured, sturdy little 'bots, ready to give as good as they got. None of them had looked quite like this. The tiny creature swayed unsteadily on Prowl's palm. Its vents were still irregular, punctuated now and again with weary little keens. Its bright visor flickered and refocused, fixing on Lennox. Those little door-wings wavered, and the helm cocked to one side, a curious warble sounding as its servos reached out towards him.

Prowl placed it on the ground with infinite care, proving a supporting finger as it wobbled to its pedes, cupping a servo behind to prevent it falling on the delicate door sensors, but careful not to let it get any closer to the stunned human.

"Please forgive his curiosity. His neural net is eager for training data." Prowl shook his helm ruefully. "It took some time to get him into recharge before your arrival."

"I woke the baby?" The words escaped Lennox before he thought about them. It was only as they passed his lips that he heard them and realised the truth in them.

Ratchet snorted. "Helm horns and door-wings? Coding for top end sensor suites from both genitors? A leaf falling in the next county could wake that infant."

"That… he really is a baby?" Lennox stared, looking up at the control gantry to take in the soft smile on Optimus Prime's face-plates and to ignore the smirks of the few privileged NEST personnel present. Turning back to Prowl, Lennox knew that all the years of concern and private fear for the tactician were playing in his unguarded expression. "All this time… all these years you were pregnant?!"

"My bondmate entrusted me with a task. Now it is completed, and yet newly begun." Prowl looked tired, but his optics rested on his child with an expression Lennox had never seen on the reserved mech before – one of open love. "And it carries its own reward."

"He's yours and Jazz's?" Lennox took a tentative step forward, peering closer and feeling the soft joy that filled the hangar beginning to sink into his own heart.

"He is his own, and it will be my privilege to guide him as he discovers that." Prowl laughed softly as the infant reached up toward him with guileless adoration. "General Lennox, I'd like you to meet Jester."

The infant purred in response to his name, rubbing his little helm against his genitor's servo.

Jester smiled. A laugh bubbled up through him, warmth spreading on the sound as if reaching from the core of him to touch something inside each person listening.

And spark or soul, with bright optics or laughing eyes, every human, every mech, smiled back.

The End