Title: Twinkle Little Star
Prompt: Star light, star bright.
Warnings: character death, angst
Written for the prowlxjazz December 2010 celebration

"Show Powl!"

"Sh, little one. You'll see Prowl tomorrow when you have a playdate with him."

"Show Powl!"

"Tomorrow, Jazz. Recharge now."

The little sparkling clung to the sides of his recharge berth, tears trickling down his face plates as he clutched his new toy. His creator bent over the side and nuzzled his face gently.

"I promise, tomorrow. But you need to recharge first, alright?"

Sniffing, the sparkling sank down, rolling onto his side and curling up. His creator pulled the cooling blanket over him and patiently waited until his systems powered down to recharge status. He backed out of the room and joined his mate in their common room.

"He's finally down."

His mate handed him a container of mild high grade, which earned him a smile.

"He's just excited. Prowl's his best friend and he wants to share."

"Yes, I know. He'll have the chance tomorrow. Now, what were you saying about spending some quality time together?"

Their quiet murmurs developed into a more basic communication as their sparkling continued to recharge in the other room.

"Prowl, wait up!"

The youngling turned, waiting for his friend. Jazz jogged up, clutching his school pads to his chest. "Didja hear? I won!"

"I did hear. Congratulations, Jazz. You'll do well at the Academy."

Jazz was bursting with plans. "It'll be great! We're both going, you were sure to win but I wasn't so sure about me, but I got it and now we'll be together there and we can still be best friends and help each other! It won't be so bad, going to a new school 'cause we'll have each other!"

Prowl continued walking, his head drooping. Jazz closed his mouth and caught up to his friend. "Prowl? What's wrong?"

Prowl lifted his shoulders, then dropped them again. "I can't go. We can't afford to send me."

Jazz stopped walking, stunned. Prowl continued on his way. Watching his best friend walk away snapped Jazz out of his frozen stance and he ran to catch up with Prowl.

"We'll…we'll help pay for your tuition!"

Prowl just looked at him. "Your creators have been saving since before you were protoformed to send you to Iacon Academy. My creators barely make the rent every month. I can't use the money you've saved for me."

"There are scholarships. Something! Prowl, I don't want to do this without you. Please tell me you'll try to find a way instead of giving up."

Prowl looked at his friend and was helpless to resist the pleading in those optics. "Alright. Let's…let's go talk to the Dean of Student Affairs right now."

Jazz's grin was as bright as a sun. "Great! Wait, we have a Dean of Student Affairs?"

"Jazz…" Prowl said warningly.

"Just kidding! Let's go!" Grasping his friend's arm, Jazz started dragging his friend toward the administration building.

Prowl hesitated outside the doors that led to the student infirmary. His hands were shaking, and he clenched them to hide that fact before pushing the door open.

A student medic came toward him. "Where are you injured?"

"I'm not," Prowl replied, "I'm here to see a friend of mine."

"Are you Prowl?" The medic asked him.

Surprised, Prowl answered, "Yes, I am. Why?"

The medic allowed a small smile to grace his face. "Well, our patient seemed awfully sure a mech named Prowl would come."

"As soon as I heard," Prowl said. "Where is he?"

"Follow me," The medic led him to a small room in the back of the infirmary. A mech was stretched out on the berth, the lights were set on dim, and a clear cover was over most of the mech's face.

Prowl stepped forward and lightly touched Jazz's hand. Jazz turned his hand over and securely grasped Prowl's hand.

"Hey, Prowl. I knew you'd come."

"The astroclick I heard, Jazz. What happened?"

"We were learning about chemical reactions, and you know that I like to be in front?" Jazz said.

"Yes, I know." Prowl was examining his friend's face through the shield. There was a mass of melted metal and wires on one side of his head, with a fairly large hole into his helm just behind his optics.

"Yeah, well, I don't think the professor expected someone to jostle that big workbench, but they did and another chemical fell over and some got in the beaker and BOOM." Jazz's voice was getting softer.

"Oh, Primus." Prowl said softly. The damage he could see was making more and more sense as Jazz spoke.

"They can't fix it. The silicon dioxide fused to my visual circuits. They can't get it out, so I have to go to the medical center. I'm just waiting for transport." Jazz was only looking up, not at his friend.

"I'll get notes from your classes for you." Prowl reassured his friend awkwardly.

Jazz gave a short laugh and replied, "Thanks, Prowl. I'm glad you came." He continued to look up at the ceiling of the room. Finally, he slowly turned his helm toward Prowl. Horrified, Prowl realized Jazz's optics were completely blank. "I'm blind, Prowl. What if they can't fix it?"

Any awkwardness Prowl felt melted away in the face of Jazz's distress. He dropped into the seat next to the berth and grasped Jazz's hand even harder as he buried his face in their clasped hands. "It wouldn't matter, Jazz. You'd find a way to get around the obstacle, just like you always do."

Jazz's fingers moved minutely against Prowl's, seeking reassurance which Prowl instantly and gladly gave. "You'll still be my friend?"

"Always, Jazz. Forever and always." Prowl told him.

"Jazz, I want to try something." Prowl looked at his friend in their shared common room of the dorms. Their other roommate, Red Alert, looked up from his studies.

Jazz was upside down in one of their seats, his helm resting on the floor as he absorbed the information on the datapad plugged directly into his processor. The visor that hid his blind optics glinted in the light as he turned his head toward Prowl.

"Sure, Prowl, what do you need?"

Prowl checked his datapad. "I think you can do better on the obstacle course than you've been doing."

Jazz sighed. "Prowl, I'm blind. How am I supposed to maneuver when I can't see?"

Prowl looked at him seriously. "By using the other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum your visor feeds you instead of the narrow band of visual light you've lost."

Red Alert looked thoughtful as he said, "Well, I suppose that would work. You could use infrared to map warm bodies, meaning mechs, and ultraviolet to map the locations of objects, with radio waves mapping larger objects."

"Wait, what are you saying?" Jazz asked, gracefully righting himself.

"You're restricting your definition of 'sight' to visible light, when the medics have fitted you with a visor that can 'see' through the entire spectrum. You need to rethink your definition of vision to include these other resources. Let's go." Prowl stood, joined by Red Alert and finally, by Jazz.

It took them a couple of orns, but Jazz did finally start figuring out how to use all the frequencies his visor provided his processor and amazed his professors by making it through the obstacle course on the next test.

Their next test of their friendship was the conflict that became the war. Prowl had joined the militia, rapidly rising through the ranks to become the right had bot of the Prime. Jazz had shunned the militia, instead using his unique talents to start a club that played popular music and provided entertainment for the mechs trying to escape the chasm their society was falling into.

"I'm sorry, Jazz, I can't make it then. We have a strategy meeting." Prowl told his friend.

"Argh! These meetings are sucking your life away, Prowl! You have a meeting for this, that and the other. We hardly ever get to see each other!" Jazz waved his arms in frustration.

"It's important. I thought you'd understand. Megatron…" Prowl said.

"You know, some of what Megatron says makes sense," Jazz said, very quietly.

"Yes, I know. His methods, though, are wrong," Prowl said, "and if Sentinel ever asks, I never said that."

Jazz grinned, "I hear ya. He sees everything in black and white, doesn't he?"

Prowl agreed, "There is very little grey in Sentinel's world. Which is fine; it gives him focus. I'm just worried that we're not making the situation better, we're making it worse."

Jazz nodded thoughtfully, turning his container of energon around on the table. He looked at Prowl and confessed, "I've thought about helping Megatron's forces."

Prowl rocked back a little bit, absorbing the blow before asking, "Why haven't you?"

"Because you don't believe they're doing the right thing," Jazz said, "and I trust you more than I trust Megatron or the Prime."

Helplessly, Prowl said, "Jazz, you should make up your own mind, not do what I do because we're the best of friends."

Jazz gave a short laugh. "Prowl, I did make up my own mind. You just have a lot of weight when I decide things."

Prowl, thinking now that the shock had passed, looked shrewdly at Jazz. "Plus, they did something to you."

Jazz laughed shortly. "Can't hide anything from you, can I? Yeah, they raided my place two days ago."

"Why?" Prowl wanted to know.

"They were sure I was hiding Neutrals, helping them get off-planet," Jazz said, "and, of course, I offer comfort and aid to the Autobots. I pointed out that I offer comfort and aid to anyone that has enough credits. They kind of destroyed the place."

Prowl looked around. He really hadn't noticed, because when he'd walked in, Jazz's energy field had been so jagged and rough all he'd thought about was getting his friend to sit down and tell him what was wrong. There were significantly few tables around the place, the chairs were mis-matched with the tables, there were two burly mechs guarding the doors, and the bar's stock of energon was amazingly low.

Prowl returned his attention to Jazz. "When you've got the last of them out of your basement, get your aft to my office. We're packing up, pulling out of the cities. We make them too vulnerable just by being around and we're afraid the Decepticons are going to start attacking them. I came to say good-bye to you, but I think you should go with me."

Jazz nodded. "The last ones are heading out tonight. I'll be there tomorrow morning."

Prowl reached over and touched Jazz's face. "Be careful."

Jazz nodded and watched as his friend left before shaking his head and returning his attention to what he needed to do.

Of course, Jazz fit well with Prowl and was soon on a rapid rise through the ranks of the Autobots and when the conflict became an actual war, he became the premier saboteur for the Autobots, capable of sneaking in to Decepticon bases and leaving very nasty surprises behind. Then Sentinel was assassinated and a new Prime arose in his place. Both Prowl and Jazz liked Optimus, the new Prime, very much and admired his desire to be fair, even if they could see that Optimus' view of fairness was very narrow and excluded some mechs that were forced to join the Decepticons since they wouldn't be accepted in the Autobots. This caused Jazz some distress, but he and Prowl talked about it and made the unhappy decision that the Autobot cause was really the lesser of two evils.

The most precious resource they had (beside the lives of each of the mechs under their command) was energon, which was rapidly depleting under the demands of war. Optimus Prime made the decision to send ships out to search the universe for more sources of energon and some of the deep space exploration vehicles were modified for this purpose.

Optimus Prime chose several contingents, leaving the femmes under Elita-1 to fight the war on Cybertron. He took one of the ships himself, and was attacked by Megatron. The Nemesis and the Ark, locked together, spiraled out of control and crashed. All the mechs, Autobot or Decepticon, were in forced stasis until they were shaken out of it for some unknown reason. They continued their war on this planet, fighting each other. The Autobots attempted to protect the native species, but in Jazz's opinion, their presence caused more Decepticon attacks. Finally able to make contact through the space with Cybertron, it changed the dynamics of the war, though not the intent.

Then came the fatal shuttle ride, and the light went out of Jazz's life with Prowl's death. After the battle against Unicron, when they were back on Earth, Jazz had to deal with a new Prime, Rodimus, and a new command structure that he was not a part of. He found himself sidelined from the decision-making and not missing it at all, since Prowl wasn't there to share with. Jazz lived, but didn't enjoy it. He did the tasks requested of him without the spark of happiness that had always been his, instead brooding upon his losses. The entire structure of the Autobots had changed, and mechs like Jazz that were part of the old command chain were pushed aside for the new mechs surrounding the new Prime.

One day, Jazz was sitting on the bank of the river near Autobot City when Arcee and Daniel came up.

"Oh, Jazz! It's good to see you. Hey, would you mind watching over Daniel while I go check out an anomalous reading? Daniel, that's OK with you, right?"

"Sure, Arcee! I can fish if Jazz doesn't mind hanging around."

Jazz shrugged. "I don't mind. Go ahead, Arcee."

"Thanks, Jazz!" Arcee transformed and headed away. Daniel laid down his tackle box and put his fishing pole together. Jazz merely watched quietly, although he did increase the frequency of his scans. If anything happened to Daniel, Arcee would tear his spark out and use it as a light over her door in Autobot City. He laughed to himself that such a fate was more of what he wanted now than the life he was living.

Arcee was gone for a long time and dusk was falling as the planet rotated them away from the sun. Daniel put away his fishing gear and came over to lean against Jazz's warmth. He looked up to the sky, just as Jazz was doing.

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight." Daniel said.

Jazz cocked his head. He was unfamiliar with this particular Earth expression, probably having wiped it from his processor to make room for more important data. So he asked.

"What is that, Daniel?"

"Oh, it's a rhyme my gramdad taught me. You make a wish on the first star you see, and it comes true!" Daniel told him.

Jazz looked up at the point of light Daniel had wished upon. Nodding, he made his wish, enjoying the small moment of peace such an action brought him.

When Arcee came back, they made their way with Daniel back to Autobot City. Being with Arcee meant that the check-in guards were less thorough than normal, since she could vouch for Jazz. Once inside, they parted with waves and Jazz wandered back to his quarters, cycling open the door and entering the small, dark room. He pulled a partial ration from the dispenser on the wall, then tidied away the small messes he'd made through the day before lying down for his recharge cycle.

Once down, he asked the room to dim the lights and thought about his wish, so simple and yet so profound. I wish I could see Prowl again had been the only wish he could voice.

Sighing, he cycled off his optics and initiated his recharge, letting go of everything as he did so.

The next morning, when he didn't report for his duty station, Kup led a team down to throw him in the brig for dereliction of duty. The old mech was tired of the lack of respect for his friend, Hot Rod, since he'd become Rodimus Prime and he blamed the old crew for the petty shows of disrespect. He'd decided to take action and at least have them show the proper signs of respect.

Kup entered in the override code and Jazz's door cycled open. Automatically, the lights came up to show the greying form of the mech on the berth.

Hoist was called to check him out, but Jazz was gone. Hoist reported to Kup after checking Jazz's body over.

"He died of spark break. There was nothing we could do for him; he's never been the same mech since we lost Optimus Prime and his command team, and this may have been the best solution for him."

Kup nodded, watching as Jazz's body was loaded on a gurney so Hoist could strip it for spare parts. The war may have been won, but Rodimus Prime was taking no chances and everyone had standing orders to stockpile materials from any available source. Hoist sadly took charge of the body, wishing that the new Prime could have found a better way to work with the old crew but knowing that it wasn't his place to say such things. He walked beside the gurney, lightly touching Jazz's face.

"I hope you've found Prowl, and you're happy now, Jazz. Primus bless you."

Far away, in some other dimension of space, two lights danced around each other in unrestrained joy.

The end.