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"He said yes." Sunstreaker stares out the window, frowns when all he sees is darkness and stars. Everything makes him think of them – even now, he imagines them in a nursery with a view of the stars, but he doesn't know where they've been living, just knows that if he'd kept them – if he'd kept them, that was what they would have had. He could have given them a tiny berth below the window that overlooked an endless array of stars, instead of losing them among all those stars. He can't even think their names anymore, because all he feels is that aching emptiness where memories should have been, and all he has is pain.

Sideswipe seems to sense the sullen train of Sunstreaker's thoughts, even if he can't see the same wrenching image, and maybe it's better that way, if he can't feel what Sunstreaker does. Sunstreaker wouldn't be able to bear that.

"Yes is good," Sideswipe says carefully, circling in closer behind him, almost close enough to touch. "What?"

"Nothing," Sunstreaker snaps back, shrinks away from Sideswipe's touch. Some part of him is still afraid that just touching him will somehow allow Sideswipe to see what Sunstreaker's thinking, that he'll have to feel the way Sunstreaker does. That would be the one thing worse than this – putting Sideswipe through it too. "I'm gonna go look around, haven't gotten a chance to see the place yet."

He stalks out before Sideswipe can so much as touch him, because the fear is as real as ever, because the day Sideswipe sees the images he does – things that should be beautiful but instead are painful like a poison that burns and breaks, images like their tiny faces and little hands, and the cool serenity of the nursery they would have had – will be the end of him

The Ark II is the almost same as the Ark that was their home, would be a perfect carbon copy if it wasn't missing the things that made the Ark their home. The dents with stories behind them, the decorating disaster cover-ups, just the thought that they were exactly where events had unfolded to become memories. Now, Sunstreaker stands at the doorway of the rec room, and he doesn't feel like he's in the same spot where he once shoved Sideswipe up against the door and whispered I love you. It's like being on one of those movie sets on Earth – standing somewhere that looks real, looks the way it's supposed to, but knowing that one glance around will prove it different, prove that the walls end and the floors fall away, and it's all just a copy, a fake.

It's close, though. It's close enough that one day, it'll be like picking up where they left off. While Earth was always going to feel temporary, this, Sunstreaker knew, could someday feel like home.

And then he hears it.

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It's nearly impossible to function. Ratchet can't think, can't do anything, because every single moment is pounding of emptiness, some black hole in his chest that withers everything inside him. It's like losing himself, feeling parts of himself go, following Wheeljack into the only oblivion more vast than all of space.

He wants to disappear into his quarters forever, pretend like Wheeljack will come back someday, and he tries, tries so hard. Every time, though, eventually there comes the knocking on the door that he tries to ignore. Today, he lets it continue for a good long while, before dragging himself over to open the door.

"Hi, Ratchet." Inlay is as cheery as if he'd only been standing there a short time, "Just had a quick question for ya." His 'quick questions' are always long and involved, and keep Ratchet in the medbay all day, cross-referencing charts and being dragged into discussions laden with eons' worth of combined medical knowledge.

"What."

"Oh, I was just wondering about this chart program thing," he was taking a few steps back, trying to lead Ratchet to the medbay, where he would be ensnared for hours.

"Wondering about, as in you have a question, or would like to reformat the entire thing?" Ratchet grumbles. Inlay grins. "No."

"I have a much more efficient idea in mind!"

"Just- oh, fine," Ratchet growls, and Inlay lights up even more, if that's even possible. "Show me, I suppose."

Inlay is already racing for the medbay, babbling at top speed about some project he has in mind, far more complex than he led Ratchet to believe.

If he blocks out the words, it's almost like listening to Wheeljack. But screening out the words doesn't last forever, and when Ratchet forces himself to tune back in, it's jarring, disorienting.

"-and, well, if the whole thing were to fail tomorrow, there'll be backups! And then, even if the whole ship went down in like, flames – pretend there can be fire in space for a second – then, even then, there would be a backup! And anyhow, I think we should have a quick-reference option. Quicker than the other one, which, while fast, at any minute could wipe all the information, and then what if-" Ratchet had to adjust every time he listened to Inlay. It was like having reality shoved in his face, by force and against his will.

Instead of accepting it, he just tunes out the words again, nodding along, and in his mind, all the words rushing at him are about some new science project that defies common sense and necessity, something built for no reason at all.

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Bee loved Sam as a human, there was no question in his mind about it. He'd loved that Sam was so miraculously different from him that it was awe-inspiring. He'd loved Sam's infinite patience at sometimes being treated like a science project, the way he'd laughed at Bee's outright shock or downright amazement.

So much of the human element was gone now. There was no more sudden amazement and following shared laughter, no more simple bewilderment or wide-eyed awe. And some small, secret part of Bee had been deathly afraid. He's never been good at accepting, identifying, or sharing his emotions; he's always been afraid that a closer examination would reveal him to be terrible and hateful. That part of him wondered in silence whether he just loved Sam for being a human. Whether that was it- that now that they were somewhere else entirely, now that so many mysteries were gone and would maybe one day be forgotten, he'd find out that his love was only fascination, and that it would disappear, vapid and distant now that there was nothing left to discover.

He was wrong. Thank Primus, Bee was wrong. Now that there's little he doesn't know about Sam, he hasn't stopped being fascinated. Now, he can compare them, all the similarities that bind them even closer together. And in the absence of human differences, there's the new fascination with finding new experiences for both of them, to see what Sam thinks, what he feels.

That will never go away – this fascination to know everything Sam thinks now, what he feels about everything, to know him on an ever-deeper level that increases daily, with the endless multitude of things they experience together.

Bee loved Sam as a human, but now he loves Sam for Sam, for every little part of him, and all the parts that don't exist yet, thoughts that unfold with every new day.

Sam makes every new experience newer, more exhilarating, infinitely more beautiful.

"So," Bee says, turning from the window to look at Sam. "What do you think?"

Sam's eyes are full of the stars before them, and that's all the answer Bee needs.

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