Midas Touch.

Epilogue.

Ten days later.

"Okay, Jazz should now not just look fully functional, he should be fully functional." Ratchet said as he finished up microwelding some wires in the silver mech's hips.

"I thought you fixed him up earlier?" Sam asked, looking at the silver mech while still keeping his hands on the energy-collecting device Ratchet had built to help bleed off excess Allspark energy. "Once he's asked what we were staring at, you swore at him and offlined him. Why?"

Sam had, through Bumblebee, been communicating with the Essence, explaining that the collection devices would help with controlling the energy the Essence seemed to generate by merely existing. After a few translation issues – different terms for the same process, for example, and one instance where the human expression was not understood by the Essence – the Essence had realised what Sam and his Autobot friend were trying to explain, and had readily agreed to Ratchet building the units, and Sam discharging into them.

"I didn't swear at him, I swore in general, and I fixed him up enough to look good, to seem functional enough above the waist, but I didn't fully repair the systems that I thought wouldn't be needed-like joints and servos." Ratchet told him. "Not only would his legs have been unable to bear weight if he'd tried standing, but he risked overheating, leading to critical systemic cascade failure of his body and processors if he had stayed online for more than fifteen minutes. I had tied off his damaged coolant lines, but not refilled them, not thinking I needed to. Now I've done all those little repairs that seemed pointless to do because I thought he would never function again. Now he can go back online – at least for a bit."

Ratchet re-onlined Jazz, and the silver mech's optics shuttered and unshuttered several times before he looked at Ratchet, Sam, and Bumblebee.

"I've been here before, I've done the 'where's that slagger Megatron' bit, but you offlined me." He was looking at Ratchet. "What was up, wasn't my reaction good enough, d'ya want me to try again? What happened to Optimus Prime?"

"That was ten days ago, Jazz, I'm sorry it took so long to get you back to full functionality again, but I needed to build those collectors for Sam." Ratchet said.

"Ten days? Did that misbegotten Pitspawn of a so-called Lord High Protector frag me up that bad?" he asked. He looked down at one side. "You've done a good job on my paintwork, thanks."

"You could say that." said Sam, unable to hold his tongue anymore. "Jazz, he killed you, you were dead."

"Wha? What' d'ya mean, dead?" He stared at his hands and arms. "I've never felt better."

"You were torn in half, Jazz, your Spark chamber was ruptured. You were deSparked, you can't get much deader than that." Ratchet said. Jazz's optics shuttered and unshuttered once.

"Then how come I'm still here?" he asked. "This ain't the Pit, Bumblebee's too good to end up in the Pit, and it ain't the Matrix cause you're….." he tailed off. "Cos it's not good enough to be the Matrix." He finished.

"You were going to say because I was here, weren't you, Jazz?" Said Ratchet, sounding gruff, but Sam could see the corners of his mouth turning upwards. "Well, you can exercise your sarcasm programming all you like in twelve hours, but first you need a full recharge." said Ratchet. He reached over and re-offlined Jazz before he could pass comment, then stooped to pick him up, cradling the little saboteur in both arms. He strode over to a recharge berth and placed him in it, closing the canopy and turning the dial the whole way.

"Don't worry, in twelve hours' time he'll be back to making mischief again, the cheeky little glitch." Ratchet said. As he turned back to where Sam was still discharging, there was a commotion, as a sheepish-looking Cliffjumper, who was followed by his father's Porsche, who was carefully carrying Ron Witwicky in her hands, came in.

As Sam had suspected, his father had begun looking on the Porsche as a daughter, as far as giving her the name Natalie – the name Sam would had if he'd been born female – and had become rather protective of her. Sam looked at his father, who seemed annoyed, and looked in the direction of his father's scowl. Just what had Cliffjumper done, he wondered, to anger his father?

"Can I help you, Mr Witwicky?" asked Ratchet.

"Can you scan Natalie, and see if I'm understanding correctly what she means by telling me that she's been 'sharing energy' with him? he asked, indicating Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper spread his hands.

"She knew what she was doing, she was agreeable, I asked her to make sure. I wouldn't have if she hadn't known what she was doing or wasn't agreeable, Mr Witwicky, I swear!" said an agitated-sounding Cliffjumper.

Ratchet scanned the Porsche, although Sam had already worked out what he thought had happened. Ratchet scowled, and looked at Cliffjumper, who cringed.

"Natalie, have you shared energy with anyone except Cliffjumper here?" asked Ratchet.

"No, only him." She said in a soft feminine voice. "Why is my human parental unit angry?"

"Did you know what it entailed, what it could lead to?" asked Ratchet.

"Oh yes, and it was as good as the data I was given about it said it should be." Natalie said. Ratchet turned to Ron.

"You've heard her, and you are correct as to it's meaning, but she has been given enough data to enable her to make up her own mind." Ratchet told him.

"It looks like you are about to be come a grandparent. Natalie is carrying."

"What about him?" asked Ron. "Is he going to do the decent thing?" Ron asked.

"I'll help look after her and the Sparkling if that's what you mean." Cliffjumper assured him.

"Dad, I don't think Cybertronians have 'marriage', not as we understand it." said Sam. Ratchet sighed.

"Cliffjumper, take Ron and Natalie up to Optimus, tell him what's happened and ask him to explain Cybertronian relationships to Ron." he said. Cliffjumper beckoned to Natalie, and the two Cybertronians and one human left the room. There was a slight silence after they left, broken by a confused-sounding Bumblebee.

"Why do humans say a mech-human has got a femme-human "into trouble" when it seems to be the mech who gets blamed?"

Sam sighed. "Sit down, Bumblebee, time for you to learn some human history." he said as he took his hands off the energy collector and tried to get his head around the fact he was soon to become an uncle to a Cybertronian, a youngster that was likely to start off being bigger than he was himself. Then he gave a sheepish smile as he remembered how this whole situation had started. Technically, he was already a father to many, including his own non-human sister.

If anyone ever had to draw the Witwicky family tree, to include his non-human relatives would be very, very complicated….