AN:

Hello again everyone! I must apologize a hundred times over for making you all wait so long for this chapter! Starting my second year of my double degrees has been far more intensive and between work and uni I literally don't have enough time to even sleep properly. My health has been steadily declining as well since I can't seem to keep my blood sugars in order and I have a nasty chest cough that won't seem to ever go away. I've never used an inhaler in my life until this cough started making it so that I could hardly breathe some nights. My doctors say I don't have a chest infection or anything that they can prescribe medication for, but I'm going back this week to see if anything has changed since I'm not getting better.

Anyways, enough about me! I'm going to just get on with the chapter and forgo responding to reviews this time. Don't worry though, I have read all them and they seriously make me wonder how I got such amazing readers for this story! Thank you so much!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not and never have or will own The Transformers or any of the transformers characters and franchise. I only own my OC Alexis and the plot.

Beta read by my amazing sister, subterraneangem!

Always

"Time is always harder on the quiet days,

Brings back up that old sacrifice:

You've cost me more than I ever knew before,

And looking back I cannot deny."

- Phildel, Mistakes

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Starscream felt the slight whisper of change in his spark mere astroseconds before all pit broke loose and it was still far too late. His spark screamed in a confused mixture of terror and delight and utter confusion that was enough to nearly make his short a processor.

The sound of crashing metal and the stale scent of burnt ozone told him who it was just a moment after his spark lit up.

His brothers were here.

Alexis.

Starscream had reacted on instinct, throwing her to the side just a click before he found himself at the bottom of the heap of seekers suddenly occupying the room. His spark froze at the sound of her screams and he frantically fought to push his brother's off of him.

The trine bond was alight with chaos.

Pain. Sickening fear. Rage. Confusion. Curiosity and caution.

Thundercracker moved first, the slight disorientation from the warp doing little to hinder his function, and struggled to push Skywarp over to free him and his brother.

"Get off!" Starscream screeched, his tone nearing panicked. "Get the slag off me!"

Thundercracker moved swiftly, his processors catching up to the tidal wave of emotions sweeping through their bonds. It was too much, too soon, after being completely blocked off. Skywarp lurched and the purple seeker purged weakly to the side, his still recovering processors unable to handle the chaotic imput of the bond in addition to the after effects of the warp.

Concern flooded Starscream's spark. How were they even here? Skywarp hadn't even come out of stasis when he had left, how the pit had he managed to warp all the way to fragging Earth?

Finally free of most of Thundercracker and Skywarp's weight, Starscream was able to move and shoved Thundercracker the rest of the way off.

"Why the pit are you here?!" He demanded furiously.

Thundercracker's faceplates darkened in a glower as he supported Skywarp, "Don't you mean why the pit are you back on Earth?" He snapped back coldly as he scooped Skywarp mostly into his lap to cradle the weaker brother.

Skywarp reacted little, groaning slightly and curling up tightly to his brother -leaching what bit of comfort he could from the rampant waves of emotion seething through their bonds. Starscream froze in the middle of his demands, feeling Skywarp's spark latch onto his with a hesitant touch. Ever since they had found him back on Cybertron, he had been able to feel Warp's presence, but it had been too weak to fully reconnect their bond.

Starscream's optics softened just the slightest as he fed reassurance and tender feelings through the bond until the purple seeker settled completely.

The two seekers shifted uneasily in the silence, the bond twisting and writhing underneath the perceived calm layered around their brother.

Thundercracker broke the quite first.

"Look, Star, I don't really care why you decided to come here." The blue seeker started, sounding tired and stressed. "All I know is that you weren't there when we needed you -when Skywarp needed you."

Starscream refused to look his brother in the optic at his words.

"When Skywarp woke up he went ballistic when you weren't there. It took me nearly a joor just to get him to recognize me enough to open his end of the bond." Thundercracker continued, not trying to guilt trip his brother, but try and get him to at least understand what he was doing to them.

Whether he realized or not, he was tearing them apart -tearing himself apart at the core.

Thundercracker paused, his faceplates twisting up into a pained expression. "Then we felt something else," he swallowed thickly, subconsciously pulling Skywarp closer to him. "Someone else in the bond."

Starscream stiffened, his processor's running faster and faster until he could feel a helm ache coming on. It took him half a klick to pull himself together. How did he even begin to respond?

Back on Cybertron, back in Vos, for a trine member to introduce another to the bond without permission or knowledge of the entire trine was a taboo beyond words. It just didn't happen. Trines were the most sacred of seeker bonds and the foundations of most Vosian culture. To break that trust by bonding with another was unspeakable.

And here, he was, struggling to defend just that.

But, he argued with himself, Alexis was not Cybertronian and different rules applied to the situation. The bond they shared was piecemeal and fragile, nothing even remotely similar to the full bond shared between him and his trine.

This was completely different.

Right?

Starscream wasn't so sure his trine mates would be so willing to understand. Pit, most of the time he was willing to understand.

"It's -it's not what you think it is TC, I swear to Primus." Starscream vented, his optics unconsciously sliding over the Alexis's still form hidden in the tarp's in the corner.

A wave of concern washed through him, he hadn't meant to throw her so roughly. What if he had hurt her or damaged her permanently somehow? He wouldn't be able to check on her until after he had dealt with…

Frag.

Thundercracker.

Starscream clamped down on his end of the bond with an iron grip, flinching at the cold look of betrayal his brother shot at him. His optics were like ice despite their red glow.

"Explain. Now." Thundercracker demanded, his vocals stony.

Starscream stayed moodily silent.

"If it's not what I think it is, then you best start by telling me what the slag that just was!" The navy seeker told his brother, his tone raised and his words lurching with the threat of this betrayal.

"It…" Starscream fought for the right words, but the words that would always come to him to speak so smoothly never came. They never did, not where his trine was concerned.

It was a mistake.

There was a gasp in the corner and Starscream's helm snapped around to look at the child just barely conscious staring at him with teary brown eyes. It was then that he realized he had spoken the words aloud.

Alexis was only just aware enough to hear and instantly latch onto Starscream's voice, her only source of comfort while her head felt like someone had split it open and then hammered it back together. But the moment she found enough focus to understand the words, it felt like getting hit upside the head all over again.

"W-what was a mis-stake?" Alexis struggled to even whisper the words.

Starscream's spark churned uneasily, a slow burn setting in far more painfully than anything else he had experienced in the short time he had claimed the girl.

Thundercracker had also noticed the human child, how could, did he not when his brothers bond was broadcasting so loudly he could hardly feel his own feelings on the matter. Feelings that normally would have included shock, a reasonable amount of distaste, and primarily confusion. For the moment however, all he felt was fear.

What had happened that Starscream could be so attached to a human?

How the flagging pit was it even possible to be attached the way he was? He could feel the human, the source of all the indistinguishable... static for lack of a more fitting term, flooding their trine bond since who knows how long.

It had been there ever since they had first reunited.

Thundercracker had assumed it was some type of side effect from having been so disconnected for so long. He hadn't even begun to think that his brother, the Starscream of all the mechs in this tiny galaxy, would have somehow bonded with a human child.

There were no words for his current state of mind.

He looked to his brother and waited to see what his move was. He didn't dare cross him. Not now, not with the echoes of guardian protocol ringing through the bond.

Starscream shuddered slightly and reached towards Alexis, his servos shaking imperceptibly to anyone who didn't know him.

The girl flinched away, wincing at her own movement.

"NO!" She was angry now, and hissed at him lowly and crouching into herself slightly. Defensive. Ready to run.

Starscream recognized it clearly.

"What was a mistake!?" she asked, her pitch choked and tight. Her eyes flicked briefly from Thundercracker and the unconscious Skywarp and then back to Starscream, her posture wound even tighter than before.

The seeker cringed, "That doesn't matter now scraplet, all that matters is that you are okay." He attempted to soothe.

"I'm not okay!" Alexis bit out tersely, glaring darkly.

Starscream's systems choked, his spark rumbling unhappily.

Her next words, though, we're what finally spurred him into action.

"I'm a mistake..."

The barely whispered words sent Starscream's spark reeling and the feedback was enough to make Thundercracker flinching backwards in shock. The slightly larger seeker glanced at his brother in abject confusion, not understanding where this depth of emotion even came from.

Starscream swooped down in one swift motion, cupping Alexis tightly to his chassis. She struggled vainly for a few short moments, hissing unhappily before going limp and simply sobbing.

"Oh scraplet." He shushed awkwardly.

There was nothing he could really say to calm her and he wouldn't try. She was a mistake. She was his mistake.

There was no point of trying to tell her otherwise.

"It's… difficult to explain, scraplet. Finding you was never a mistake, the mistake was mine." It was his mistake was letting her live at all. His mistake for keeping her around. His mistake for coming back. But he didn't give voice to these thoughts. He knew them well enough from how many times he had told himself within his own processes. Not that he ever managed to convince his spark of it.

"But mistake or not you are mine." Starscream told her as softly as he could. He struggled to be gentle with her, gentle was not in his nature, but he did he best despite his fumbling and lack of knowledge. "Do you understand?"

He looked down at the tiny girl in his hands and how she struggled vainly to wipe the tears from her face with the dirty hem of her hoodie. Her hollow face was streaked with watermarks and accumulated grime, but her eyes still carried a haunted for of innocence.

Alexis nodded even though she didn't understand. Not anymore than she understood anything these days.

She had thought that maybe things would make more sense the longer she went, she'd thought that if she just toughed it out that things would get better and things would be explained to her if she just waited long enough. But she'd been waiting almost a year, a very very long time for a nine-year-old to spend the majority alone and things didn't make anymore sense then they did the first day she remembered meeting Starscream.

But she was nodding despite this.

Starscream was everything to her. So she kept nodding and looked up to his glowing red optics that seemed just that little bit less harsh when they were looking at her.

Nothing else mattered as long as she was with him.

She had decided that long ago.

"You have three kicks to start explaining things, Starscream, before I take Skywarp with me and leave." Thundercracker finally spoke up, his bright red optics cool and calculating.

Starscream realized belatedly that this was not an idle statement. TC did not intend to come back. If he let his brother leave now, then they would both be lost to him again. Thundercracker was giving him a challenge and an ultimatum.

"TC," Starscream started, struggling to keep his vocalizer from cracking. "This is Alexis. She is my charge and is under my protection." He opened his servos to display the tiny human girl to the ever so slightly larger seeker.

Alexis squeaked at this betrayal and leapt to hide behind Starscream's thumb, clutching it tightly.

"I found her after wandering a few days in the ruins after the battle." He paused watching his spark claimed sparkling speculatively. "I, I cannot explain her connection to me... only that my spark has laid claim on her."

Against my will.

The words were not spoken, but Thundercracker heard them all the same.

A new understanding dawned on him, but he was still wary all the same. This was not normal, nor was it an easy thing to accept.

It was wrong.

He glanced again at the tiny human child clinging tightly to his brother's servo. She was a curious little creature he thought idly, contemplating her newfound existence in his life.

Alexis, finally giving up on her stare-down with Starscream, she looked back at the strange new seeker and the other one he had in his lap.

This seeker was just a little bit taller and slightly bulkier than her guardian and he was a dark blue colour all over. The seeker he held was even bulkier and probably shorter, but she couldn't tell since he hadn't stood up at all, and he was purple and black.

She hid back behind Starscream's thumb when the big blue one saw her looking at him.

What was it that Starscream called him?

TC!

She was pretty sure that was it. Maybe.

She peaked out to look at him again. He was still staring at her. She stared back curiously, her head tilting at an angle as she watched him.

"Hi?" she squeaked out shyly.

Thundercracker didn't move. He just keep staring.

Starscream prodded the bond roughly, urging his brother to respond. There was no response from there either.

Alexis frowned and a small scowl flickered across her face.

"I said hello! You're s'pose to say 'hi' back!" She told him vehemently.

By now she had come out from behind Starscream's servo and was standing stiffly on the end of his thigh.

She waited for a short moment for a response and got none and her fists balled up tightly by her sides. She turned to Starscream for help.

He just shook his helm.

He knew what his brother was doing now. He didn't approve, oh no he most certainly did not approve. But he did understand.

Thundercracker was testing her claim on his spark. If she passed she would be accepted without any qualms. If she didn't, then she would never be welcome in his brother's optics.

He just hoped that Alexis would figure it out as well.

Alexis let out another high pitched squeal of frustration and stomped off in a rush, fuming with anger and betrayal.

The small girl stormed off and headed straight towards Barricades unconscious form. He never asked her to do stupid things!

Well… Except for that time he dumper her in a hole and told her to climb out on her own. And when he made her search for him in the ruins in the dark. Okay so Barricade had made her do lots of dumb things, but she had to admit that even though she mostly hated him for doing them, she had learned a lot.

Alexis made a short sound of frustration and heaved herself over Barricade's armour to plop herself heavily on his shoulder. She glared daggers at the two mechs across the room and huffed when they weren't even looking at her to see how much she disliked them.

Especially Starscream. He should be helping her, not taking sides with this… this blue dummy!

She didn't understand what they wanted from her! How was she expected to know what they were thinking? It wasn't like she had a comlink in her head like they did!

Wait a second…

Maybe she did.

Alexis's brow furrowed at this thought and what it would mean. Starscream refused to explain who this other seeker was to him, instead he just showed her off like some kind of trophy. She didn't like it.

A sour feeling welled up in her stomach and her throat tightened.

What would it mean for her if she could actually feel him too? Not just Starscream?

Alexis didn't know.

Cautiously, she probed at Starscream, grappling internally for the string that seems just beyond her reach. There!

Starscream stiffened and turned from where he had been watching Thundercracker to the small child sitting on Barricades shoulder guard.

Waves of immense fear and anxiety washed through his systems. Doubt and frustration following like an ebbing tide and Starscream began to understand what his sparkling was trying to covey. His optics narrowed, landing on his glitch-afted brother who was stubbornly refusing to meet his gaze or respond to his barrage on their bond.

Starscream sent a blanket of comfort to Alexis, pointedly making a point to let Thundercracker feel it.

Because whether he was responding or not, Thundercracker could feel everything going on in the bond, and Starscream fully intended to take full advantage of that.

Alexis basked for only a short moment in the comfort he sent her, returning with questions and insecurity.

Ah. So that was her problem. Starscream could have laughed at his jealous little sparkling. Humans seemed to be such possessive creatures he was realizing with no small amount of amusement.

The small girl glared daggers at the seeker from across the room and Starscream sobered marginally, but a small smirk lingered on his mouthplates.

Technically he came first scraplet, Starscream told her dryly through the bond.

Her response was the equivalent of a pout before she let the threads go a day her presence became more of a muted echo.

Alexis sighed, breathing deeply and feeling very tired all of the sudden. Bond talk was not easy on the small human and never failed to make her exhausted beyond reason.

But she wouldn't give up yet.

Not when she still haddock to prove herself to Starscream's... Starscream's what? She didn't quite understand what these two were to each other, except that they were very close. And then there was the third one who was unconscious or in recharge or something. Alexis wasn't sure where he fit in either, but she got the feeling he was connected to her guardian and TC as well.

Either way, she had a feeling she wasn't going to be so alone anymore if she went through with all this.

And that was the thought that finally spurred her into action.

She couldn't be alone anymore.

So she reached.

She prodded deeper than she ever had before, a pressure building in her chest like nothing she had felt before as she strained for the connection that whispered at the edge of the already watery bond between her and Starscream.

Alexis jerked slightly when she felt the solemn presence echoing in her mind, feeling its unfamiliar identity and pushing further still.

~Hello?~

The unspoken word was heard ringing tentatively and Thundercracker's optics widened, his attention fully focused on the tiny human girl. Starscream smirked unashamedly at this, leaning comfortably against the wall as he watched the scene unfold before him.

Thundercracker would have shot his brother a glare, but he was far to attuned to this human in the bond to be bothered.

/Hello, sparkling./

Thundercracker would never understand where the word came from or why he used it to address a human, but it felt right, so he decided not to question it. He had enough to question already, and Starscream certainly would be doing some answering in the near future.

Alexis let out a very inhuman sounding squeal that echoed sharply within the confines of the alcove that almost had the two conscious mechs wincing at its pitch.

Moving from where she had fallen, Alexis ran headfirst towards the blue seeker and launched herself into his upper leg with her full bodyweight and clung to him like some type of mentally challenged scraplet.

Thundercracker was in shock, both confused and seriously tempted to start laughing. He shot his Starscream an expression of utter helplessness and an emotion very much conveying a 'what the slag?!' through the bond.

Starscream just shrugged, knowing just how easy it was to earn the child's affections. It seemed that for all that she was wronged, all you had to do was be there and you would have her love without question.

The blue seekers optics narrowed and he glanced back to the girl clinging limply to his leg.

He wasn't entirely certain what this was, but he wasn't necessarily opposed.

Thundercracker was many things, but ignorant was not one of them. He also was not so naive as to think that anything good could come from this in the long run.

Humans did not live long. He knew this. Starscream also knew this. Thundercracker didn't not understanding why his brother would waste his time on this tiny wisp of a life when he had no qualms slaughtering hundreds more of her kind just weeks ago. But then, when he looked at the tiny girl who now appeared to be in recharge against his servos, when he felt the bond she inexplicably shared with his brother and now himself, he found he could not bring himself to follow the logical course.

TC sighed with resignation.

Starscream smirked, feeling his brothers turbulent thoughts.

/Soft touch/

Thundercracker rolled his optics. /Looks who's talking/

Starscream hemmed softly in response and moved slightly to gently remove Alexis from his brothers leg and settled down close to him and pulled part of Skywarp's weight onto his own legs before cupping the girl in his servos close to his spark.

Thundercracker vented softly in amusement and shifted ever so slightly closer to Starscream, his em field brushing comfortably against his trine mates. The two were silent for a long moments before Thundercracker spoke.

"How do you think Skywarp will react?" He spoke out loud, vocals rumbling lowly.

Starscream sighed and absently brushed his free servo against the purple seekers helm, "There is no telling. I suspect with the both of us already connected to her, he should accept her with open arms."

It was left unsaid that they honestly had no idea if their third trine mate would even be the same person they had known before. Before the accident. So far, the only time that Skywarp had been awake was just long enough for him to keep warping back to Starscream.

And while that was a positive sign that Skywarp was still in there somewhere, that his bond with them was still stable despite the time and distance, it didn't tell them much about what might be going on inside his helm.

Put simply, Starscream worried. And he only ever worried about exactly three things in his life; his trine, how to kill Megatron, and Alexis.

Not a very long list of things he cared for, especially considering Alexis had only been around a few orns.

But even then he cared.

Cared as much as he ever had for his brothers.

His spark pricked him uncomfortably and he shifted his grip on the small human, his systems settling even as he felt Thundercracker slip into a low-charge mode.

He smiled, a small genuine smile at the sight they made. He had his trine mates and he had Alexis.

They were together now and that was all that mattered.

The rest could be dealt with at it came and Starscream was sure that with the three of them to protect her Alexis would be safe. So with that thought in mind his processors were lulled into recharge by the comforting purr of his own spark and that of his brothers.

"Slaggin frag it all to pit." Barricade moaned as he came out of recharge.

He well and truly felt his injures now more than ever. Barricade hated temp patches and he hated the sluggish feeling his systems took on while undergoing repairs. He preferred pain. Pain was simple and pain was a clear feeling. It was far easier to push through pain, embrace it even, than the dull, ache of healing.

The black and white mech cursed several more times before deciding move.

"Primus glitchin' fraggit…" And then he really started swearing. He also decided that maybe moving wasn't what he wanted to do just now.

Instead he looked around to see what he'd missed in his recharge.

He mouth plates fell open for a klick before closing, then opening again as he struggled to formulate a correct response to the sight of not one, but three seekers sitting next to each other peacefully in the corner.

Eventually the black and white mech just vented heavily and scrubbed a servo down his faceplates.

"Frag."

He closed his optics and pretended to go back to recharge.

One klick.

Two klicks.

Three klicks.

Slag it all.

He rebooted his optics and looked back at the sight in front of him.

It might have been a tender sight to any other mech, but frankly, Barricade couldn't give a frag. The last thing he needed was two more seekers going glitchy over a tiny human fleshy.

Sure, he had grown… accustomed to the girl's presence in the past few ornaments, but she was nothing to fret over like he had seen Starscream fret over Alexis.

He knew well enough that she could take of herself.

He taught her after all. And surprisingly, she learned quickly and adapted well to whatever the environment was presented her. But that didn't mean that he would risk his cables to stick around with three seekers hyped up on guardian protocols. That never meant anything good for the general populous.

No, slagged systems or not he was out.

He wouldn't stick around to get caught up in the rest of this glitch-fest.

So he pushed past the pain and stood, venting heavily and leaning against the wall for support, but he stood.

And then he left.

He didn't bother looking back and he didn't feel any guilt. The girl would survive. She was strong and she had the elite trine on her side to top it off; she never really needed him.

Barricade simply felt no need to stay and babysit now that the full trine was here.

They would manage just fine.

He would manage just as well.