Transformers belongs to Hasbro/ Takara.

The Dark Horizon

Chapter 33: Confessions

I was still groggy from recharge, but an unusual noise interrupted my rest cycle. If I wasn't mistaken, it was the sound of my door closing quietly. Before my processor could power up fully to see if there really was anything out of the ordinary going on, I felt a hand being pressed on my back between my shoulders. I drew in a massive amount of air and tried to turn around to face my aggressor, but whoever it was kept holding me down, not granting me any leverage against him.

I started to panic, struggling in his grip.

"Don't-"

"Ssh. It's alright, it's just me." He said, his head so close to mine our cheek- guards were touching. I knew that voice only too well.

"Barricade?! What are you-" The words got stuck in my vocal processor when he climbed onto the berth and his full body weight descended upon me from behind.

"No- NO! Get off!" I was terrified by his unwanted proximity- and by what he obviously had in mind.

"Keep it down. You don't want to wake the sparkling, do you?" Indeed, Blackspin was for once recharging peacefully, but I would have very much preferred a wailing sparkling to this. I tried to buck and scream, but he would have none of it, clamping his hand over my mouth and pulling my head back against his shoulder painfully. Now all I could do was jerk beneath him, my yells and curses muffled by his hand.

I kicked my legs uselessly, infuriated as he nuzzled my neck.

"Now, don't be like that. I know you want this, too." He slid his hands between my thighs. At that point, I stopped fighting him, going completely still. This was worse than Ramjet, worse even than Prime or any of the Autobots. It hurt on a whole different level. I had trusted him. And yet here he was, violating me. He wasn't even being overly brutal about it, but in a way, that made it even more terrifying.

Barricade took his hand off my mouth when he realized I wasn't putting up a fight anymore, merely sobbing quietly while he had his way with me.

I opened my optics, venting harshly while fully booting up and stiffly pushing myself into an upright position. There was no one in the room besides Blackspin and myself, no one pinning me down. I moved until my back hit the wall at the head of the bed, shivering. I stared at the door fearfully. It was closed, just the way I had left it. I kept watching the door, tightly wrapping my arms around myself, but nothing happened. Never letting it out of my sight, I got up and blocked the entrance with the large, locked crate I kept in my room. It wasn't nearly heavy enough to stop a mech from kicking in the door if he really wanted to, but at least it made sneaking in impossible.

The crate made a hideous noise as I shoved it across the floor and it was loud enough to wake Blackspin, who of course started wailing. Well, after that dream, going back to recharge hadn't been an option anyway.

XXXXXXXXXX

Bata-6. An uninhabited planet. Well, uninhabited as far as civilized life forms went. To the Decepticons, it was of interest because of one single thing: energon. Below its organic surface, Bata-6 was bristling with energon ore, ready to be mined. However, as Megatron made sure to remind everyone on the ship, this would not be an easy task.

Free of any form of civilization the planet may have been, but for a reason. Firstly, radiation was interfering with electronic signals. That was technically not a problem for heavily shielded hardware like our processors - at least not when the time of exposure was limited - but it would severely impair the function of most sophisticated machinery. Energy- based weapons wouldn't work, neither would commlinks or the heavy mining drills we had.

Secondly, predators. No, nothing cute like a turbofox or a polar bear. Huge beasts, cybernetic like we were, larger than the average Cybertronian, hunting in packs and armed with massive fangs and claws.

No one, Megatron had emphasized, was to go anywhere on their own and every bot was to carry a heavy-calibered projectile rifle. We were divided in groups and appointed different jobs. There would be miners, guards and a transportation team operating the tippers. I had volunteered to help on the surface because I really needed to get off the ship and, admittedly, I needed a break from Blackspin as well. Still, I didn't pay that much attention to the big boss as he talked. My thoughts were elsewhere. I looked up and to my left, where Barricade was standing at the far end of the room. Our optics met, I turned away.

I had avoided him very thoroughly for the past few solar cycles, even though he had repeatedly tried to approach me or at the very least make me answer his comm messages. But after what had transpired so recently, the mere thought of talking to him was nauseating.

Wanting nothing more to do with this mech, I quickly made myself scarce after being assigned to the transportation of the ore.

XXXXXXXXXX

The landscape on this planet was beautiful. Soft hills only just merging into steep mountains, lush rainforest overflowing with life in vibrant colors. It would have looked so idyllic, had we not burnt a broad path of vegetation to make a clear and safe landing spot for the shuttles and a path to the entrance of the mine. A precaution to avoid being ambushed by whatever was lurking in the forest. Not that I would have cared about some burnt planetary surface right now.

I had little reason to enjoy my life at the moment. A conversation I'd had a few years back came to my mind. Had it really ended here, on the Nemesis? The abuse? I didn't think so. I may have, in a way, agreed to this at metaphorical gunpoint, but the fact that I was allowed armor, training and weapons couldn't hide the obvious. To the Decepticons, I was nothing more than a laying hen, maybe I even qualified as a fuck toy. Oh, they would lament my death, not for me, but for the sparklings I would never produce for them. I stopped the tipper and gazed at the forest.

"Come on femme, move it!" Long Haul harshly called from behind before he simply drove past me, annoyed. Before yesterday, I might have been able to ignore such comments, but now it just added to it all. I scowled at the Constructicon's backside as he drove off. I was tired. Tired of being used as a breeder, tired of being seen as a prize to be battled over, tired of drawing everyone's attention wherever I went. And I was tired of people turning on me when I thought I could trust them. I checked whether any of the guards were currently looking in my general direction and when I found they weren't, I transformed and sped off into the forest.

I transformed back into bipedal mode as soon as I reached the dense vegetation. Ripping up the ground with my rough tires wouldn't do, I might as well have been firing signal rockets. I didn't want to be found again. This felt almost familiar, slinking along my path between the trees and shrubs. The plants were of course all different, but in a way, it was almost like earth.

I'd walked for about two miles when I started feeling like someone- or something- was watching me. I kept turning around and scanning the area around me, but I couldn't spot anything. Whatever was living on this planet was probably fully capable of killing me, I had known that beforehand, but I was still growing anxious. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure I wanted my life to end like this. There were certainly better ways to go.

Cautiously and with increasing nervousness, I still carried on. Until something beneath my foot suddenly gave in and my whole body was yanked up high into the air by a snare around my ankle. I yelled in shock. Since when did feral beasts use traps?! Upside down, I was still bouncing a little in the snare which was fastened to a high branch- that was until a touch to my back stopped me and I was rotated 180 degrees. The being I was now optic to optic with made my breath hitch. But it was neither feral, nor a beast. It was Barricade.

"What the frag are you doing here?" I yelled at him. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, a large rifle slung across his back. The look in his optics was stern.

"I knew you would do this, even though I hoped you wouldn't. Treating me like slag is one thing, but suicide? Seriously?" There might have been a witty response to this, but if there was one, my processor simply wouldn't come up with it. Frankly put, he wasn't even that wrong. Not that I would have admitted that. Instead, I changed the topic, still fuming.

"How did you even… I mean what the hell?" Barricade's eyes darkened a little at that. Not only had he found me, he'd also gone several steps ahead, somehow knowing what path I would be taking and even setting a trap, for Primus' sake.

"I've hunted down quite a few bots in my lifetime. And you were making so much noise I could have caught you blindfolded." Ouch. I exhaled heavily, glaring at the mech in front of me.

"Okay, cut the crap. Let me down."

"Why should I? You ran away, so you're practically a deserter. You are aware of the official penalty?"

I sighed. I was very aware of it, even if I knew that no one would even think about sentencing me to death, which would have been the standard procedure. No, my punishment for deserting would certainly be much, much worse.

Without saying another word, I extended my heel blade and cut through the snare around my leg. I brushed the dirt off my armor after I landed and started walking away from Barricade. He went after me, of course.

"Stop following me!" I yelled at him, kicking some dirt and fallen leaves in his general direction. Barricade, too, was beginning to lose his patience.

"You think I'll just let you walk off to get yourself killed!?" He stopped me by grabbing my shoulder and turned me around forcefully. I tried to punch him, but he blocked my attack without letting go of me. "Get your processor out of your tailpipe, femme! What the frag is wrong with you!?"

"EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH ME!" I screamed at him and got rid of his hand on my shoulder with a violent rotation of my arm. "And I'm sick of it! I just can't take it anymore!"

"It's because of me, isn't it."

I snorted and tried to walk away again, but he wouldn't let me.

"What? Do you think I'll try to rape you now? Is that what I look like to you? Like a rapist?" I stopped. I remembered my most recent nightmare and a chill went down my spine. This hit way too close to home.

"Alpha, please-"

Barricade grew silent all of a sudden. I was instantly alarmed.

"Take the safety off of your rifle. Now." He whispered with clear urgency, scanning the forest intently and drawing his own weapon.

"Barricade?"

"Do it." For once, I did as I was told and moved a bit closer to him. "We're surrounded." There was only dense rainforest around us, some leaves were rustling in the wind. I had no idea how he could even tell there was anything there.

"I don't see them." I said nervously.

"There are three of them. One is right in front of you." Squinting, I tried to find a pattern in the vegetation, an irregularity, a slightly off color. When I spotted the dark green eyes staring back at me, my venting hitched. I took a step back silently. I still couldn't see its body, but as far as I could tell from the eyes, this thing was big. Very big.

"When I give you the sign, you'll transform and drive back to the Nemesis as fast as you can. Don't turn back." Barricade ordered quietly, as if he were concerned the predators lurking in the forest would hear and possibly understand what he was saying.

"What?"

"I'll keep them busy." He obviously didn't think we could just fight them off, or otherwise he wouldn't have told me to flee. In conclusion, he didn't think he would survive this, either. We weren't granted the opportunity to argue though, as all of the beasts broke free of their hiding spots at once to attack.

I did not transform and run.

Instead, I fired three shots at one of them, but that didn't even slow it down. I yelled for Barricade to watch out. Next thing I knew he ripped me down to the ground with him, the two of us only just avoiding a huge pair of jaws loudly snapping together above our heads. The following seconds were pure chaos of claws, fangs and massive metal bodies. It was little short of a miracle we got out of this mess with only a few scratches. We ran, the apex predators of this planet hard on our heels.

Suddenly, the ground dropped and we were facing a steep slope. There was nowhere else to go and we couldn't have stopped in time anyway.

"Jump!" Barricade yelled. I jumped and we fell. I was quick to transform midair. My altmode was designed for rough terrain, still my shock absorbers nearly broke and I had to bite back a scream when I hit the steep, rocky ground. I couldn't slow down, merely fighting to stay clear of any trees or large rocks as I drove down the slope, jolting and jumping. My left headlight was smashed when I grazed a rock wall, but other than that I reached the bottom more or less in one piece.

Barricade however had taken quite a pounding. For him, it would have been even worse had he transformed into his Acura NSX alt, but even curling up in bipedal mode hadn't saved him from getting dented pretty good. He dug his hands into the ground near the bottom to slow down and get back on his feet.

But it wasn't over yet. For the first time, I now got a proper look at what was hunting us. Their matte green bodies moving swiftly, they climbed down the slope after us. They were four-legged, sleek and powerful looking, the biggest of them at least forty feet from snout to tail. Dark stripes covered their legs and rows of thorny spikes ran along their backs.

While I readied my gun and took aim, Barricade fired a few signal rockets high up into the sky to call for help, but in the bright sunlight, they were barely visible. One of the beasts stumbled and fell when one of my shots hit its foot, but it quickly got back up. We didn't have much time to prepare defending ourselves before they attacked us again.

Despite their enormous mass, they were fast and I knew I wouldn't last long at this pace. One tried to pounce on me with a gigantic leap, but I quickly got out of the way, only to almost be trampled by another one. I drew my sword and swung it at the beast's face. It avoided the blade by merely jerking its head back. It lashed out at me with its front paw in turn and I was hit in the chest, having underestimated its reach. I landed on my face and turned around just in time to see it approaching to deal the death blow.

"NO!" Barricade tackled the large creature from the side with full speed before it reached me, both of them tumbling across the ground. I only saw a few seconds of the resulting fight, but it was enough to make me wonder which opponent was more ferocious.

But I had enough problems of my own. Coming to my sensors again, I rolled out of the way before huge claws dug into the gravel where I had just been lying. The beast tried to bite and only narrowly missed me.

Grabbing on to one of the spikes on the back of its short neck, I swung myself up onto its back. With my blades powered up, I rammed my heels into its flanks. It gave a howl of pain and started bucking and running in tight circles, but the blades anchored me to its body, tearing into the metal brutally. With one hand still holding on to the spines, I started flailing at its neck to decapitate it, but even though my sword was sharp and I was hitting it with all I had, the plating just wouldn't give. It kept twisting and throwing its head about to get a hold of my leg, but couldn't quite reach me. At some point, my sword got knocked from my hand, but the furious ride continued.

I then heard a scream and when I looked up, I saw Barricade being smashed into the ground, his leg caught in the jaws of one of the predators. My grip on the animal below me loosened and with a full stop, I was catapulted off its back and into the dirt. I quickly crawled back and pressed myself into the gap between a rock and a decomposing tree trunk. Whatever these trees were made of, it was hard enough to not give in immediately when the infuriated monster in front of me tried to get to me. In the few seconds it gave me, I pulled out a grenade and activated it.

I jumped forward and shoved the grenade right down its throat. The creature reared, wound its head from side to side, retching and attempting to get it back out. The detonation threw it on its back, bright blue goo and pieces of metal splattered across the surrounding area as its entire head was torn to bits.

The other two froze, startled by the noise. Barricade was barely visible beneath the paw of one of them, lying on his front in the shallow water of the small creek flowing along the bottom of the slope. I transformed and raced towards them, honking to draw their attention. It worked and they were soon running after me. Barricade had mangled them pretty well already, but they still didn't seem to consider retreat. The one I had killed had been the smallest one. Probably the youngest, too. But these two seemed to be more tenacious and cunning.

As of yet, I had no plan on how to get rid of them again.

However, I remembered I had two cubes of energon somewhere in subspace and that gave me an idea. I accelerated to top speed on the river bank, swerved and did a 180 degree turn. Then I accelerated again, transformed, kicked myself up into the air above the charging predators and threw the cubes at their backs, where they broke and spilled their contents, the liquid sticking to their plating.

The grenade I threw in between them exploded with a ball of fire, lighting up the fuel on their metallic skin. I watched as they literally screamed in pain, panicking and taking off into the forest, still ablaze.

I was shivering, my jaw clenched so hard it hurt. Energon seeped from my multiple wounds slowly, a few parts of my armor had been ripped off. I didn't feel the pain though, still too pumped by the fight. I looked down at myself. There were deep scratches across my chest plate. Had my armor been any thinner, I would have been dead.

Behind me, Barricade groaned. I turned around. He was pushing himself up on his arms, out of the water, which was discolored with his energon. I rushed to his side and dragged him ashore.

It was then that I saw the full extent of his injuries. The main strut of his left leg had been severed below the knee and the whole limb was practically shredded from mid-thigh down, his back had been ripped open by the beast's huge and razor-sharp claws. I wasn't overly squeamish, but seeing him like this made me feel sick.

With this kind of damage, he wouldn't be able to walk. We were in the middle of nowhere with no means of communication. I had to get him back to the Nemesis, there simply was no other way. I cursed myself for not bringing any luminous ammo.

"I thought... you wanted to run away." He ground out. I snapped out of my momentary shock and looked at him.

"I... what?"

"You were just about to run away. Disappear in the wilderness to find the way of dying that suits you best." He was growling hoarsely now, and it held an edge which left me shaken. Barricade snarled at me, growing furious. "Well!? Go on, go! If this is what makes you happy, I'm not going to stop you!"

I looked at his face, at his injuries, then back at his face and fell right onto my bum when he shoved me. I was confused. He needed my help so desperately right now and yet he was trying to chase me away? I got up, but didn't move otherwise, which only served to aggravate him further. I was at a loss for words.

He tried to get up as well but couldn't. "Frag off already!" he yelled. When I still didn't move, he grabbed the nearest stone he could reach and threw it at me; it hit my chest plate with a heavy clang. It stung and the force of his throw made me take a couple of steps back, still I didn't leave. I couldn't just let him die here, could I?

Snarling, he started bombing me with everything within his reach: sticks, stones, dirt, sand. "Leave me alone already you- you-!" his voice wavered, I thought he was about to cry.

In that moment, as he was throwing all that stuff at me and shouting at me, I realized I had gotten it all wrong. And now, Barricade had enough.

"I. SAID. FRAG. OFF!" Running out of things to throw, he dug his hands into the dirt in front of him and ripped out patches of the small plants covering the ground before he threw that as well. Maybe he would have shot me, but it seemed he had lost his rifle.

And then, not knowing what else to do, I just turned around and left. I walked into the forest stubbornly and without aim, watching neither my surroundings nor my step. I didn't care if I was being noisy, growing more and more irritated as I walked. Roughly two hours passed.

Stupid mech. He wanted to die? Fine. His choice. But I would certainly not fare any better in the end. This wasn't a nice and cozy rainforest on earth where nothing could harm a Cybertronian, this was Bata-6.

My next step made me stumble as the ground was suddenly a bit further away than previously. I looked down. I'd stepped into a large, clawed paw print. I stopped and took my rifle from my shoulder to check the ammo. Five shots was all I had left. Maybe enough to scare off a single one of those beasts, should it decide I would make a formidable meal. Death within the next two solar cycles wasn't only a possibility, it was a certainty. Barricade? He wouldn't last the cycle. Maybe he was dead already.

I flinched, feeling so very cold all of a sudden despite the tropical heat. That thought pained me more than I had imagined possible. There was no way that he would make it back to the ship on his own.

He was doomed.

I shook my head. This was the first time he had actually shown open aggression towards me and that was disturbing. But on the other hand... in all the time I'd spent with him on the Nemesis, he had always treated me kindly and with respect. Barricade had always been there for me. He was my closest friend. He'd risked his life protecting me. He was hurt in more ways than one and all because of me.

And me? I had been a complete asshole ever since I'd found out about exactly how important to him I really was. I had pushed him away because I had been scared and because it was all I knew. All of this was my fault. I turned around and made my decision. Barricade needed me now and he would get my help, whether he wanted it or not.

I turned around and started walking in the opposite direction, then I transformed and kicked it. A sinking feeling spread from my spark, the same fear I had felt when the arachnid had been holding my son hostage. I feared for Barricade's life. I should never have left him. Why hadn't I put a sign on him saying "free buffet"? Oh God. If he was being attacked right now... I needed to go faster. My pistons were pumping furiously now, my rough tires ripping up the ground and crushing the vegetation beneath. Branches were whipping my hood as I ran over small trees and shrubbery.

I'd spent most of my life running away from things, but where had it gotten me? I had even tried to run from him. Now I was running again, but this time, it wasn't to save my own hide.

My cooling system was working with full capacity, my engine screaming, my suspension pummeled by the uneven ground, every single muscle cable in my body felt like it was on fire. Still I kept going, praying it was not too late. If I lost him, I would never be able to forgive myself.

However, when I reached the river, he was gone. The ground was still torn open from the fight, making it hard to determine whether the two remaining beasts had returned or not. I transformed again and walked over to where I had left him. The energon still hadn't dried in the humid air and there were tracks. He must have dragged himself forward, using his uninjured leg and his arms. I quickly reached the remains of a young tree, namely the stump and the branches, hacked off rather messily. He'd made himself a crutch of sorts. Still he couldn't have gotten too far.

I looked up the steep hang we had fallen down earlier. It was the direct way back to the Nemesis, but he couldn't possibly climb it in his condition. Barricade would have taken a different route, one that bypassed the steep passage. As the dense forest was in the wrong direction and hardly passable by an injured bot, I guessed he may have used the river bed as a path to find another way. I started driving again.

I thought about calling for him, but I doubted he would have answered.

Where the river bent to the side and thus further away from the ship, I found his footprints on a muddy patch by the shore, leading uphill, but I still didn't see him anywhere. I wasn't exactly a skilled scout, so I lost his tracks several times only to find them again a few minutes later. One thing I had to admit: despite his injury, he had covered quite some ground.

Still it didn't take much longer until a dark shape came into view in between the trees, collapsed on the leaf-covered ground. I ran towards him, both relieved and worried. Carefully, I turned him over and, kneeling beside him, pulled him into a sitting position, resting his head against my shoulder. He seemed delirious.

"Barricade? Can you hear me?" He seemed to notice my return, his partly closed optics opening a bit and brightening when I brushed some dirt and leaves off his face. He looked horribly weak and exhausted.

"Alpha..." he rasped quietly, I shushed him.

"I know. I decided not to listen." For a moment his red optics shone up at me dimly, then they closed. I knew he was relieved I had come back for him.

"We need to go." I said, looking around. This patch of forest consisted mostly of large trees and some small shrubs and was therefore relatively easy to overlook, but we needed to at least find some kind of shelter before the sun set, which would be rather soon. The shadows were already lengthening. "If we stay out here in the open, we won't survive the night."

"I..." he looked up at me again, frowning. I knew what he wanted to say.

"Yes you can. I'm here. I'll help you. So come on now, get up." I stood up and grasped his forearms firmly, but paused. Cooperation still didn't seem to appeal to him too much, but I wouldn't give up that easily. I would get him back to the ship even if I had to carry him all the way.

"Please, Barricade." He hesitated, but eventually grasped my arms back. With one strong pull, he was up on his remaining foot and I braced his weak side with my shoulder so he wouldn't fall. He wheezed as the movement sent a new wave of agony through his body.

Very, very slowly, we started walking. Unless any of the others found us, it would be a long and burdensome way back.

XXXXXXXXXX

Removing the dirt from his wounds completely was impossible with what little first aid equipment both of us had with us, so I had to settle for plucking out what I could with my fingers. The bleeding had slowed considerably, but the wounds were numerous and deep. I had a few patches with me to close the gashes, not nearly enough, especially not with his self-repair systems further draining him.

We were still far from the Nemesis. At least I had found us a shelter for the night. I hoped the narrow crack in the cliff we were huddled up in would keep the natives from getting to us. At dusk, it had started raining and I had dragged some branches in to build a makeshift roof above our heads. It was far from waterproof, though.

I looked up, our optics met. His were only glowing dimly, a clear sign he had lost way too much energon.

"I'll put the rest of the patches on now, alright?" He drew in a shaky vent and nodded. I could imagine how much it must have hurt to put them on. After all, they had sharp, barbed bolts which would dig into the area around the wound, holding the center in place. An integrated cartridge would then inflate the rubbery bottom side, sealing off any leaks. I wouldn't have blamed him if he had screamed, but Barricade was nearly silent while I closed the worst of his wounds.

I didn't quite know what to do with him after that was done. There was no way to replenish the energon in his body. He probably needed a transfusion, surgery and should have been put in stasis, but none of that was remotely possible out here and I was not a medic. He was very obviously close to losing consciousness. And if that happened, I feared he would never again wake from it.

I kept talking to him to keep him awake and distracted. That seemed to work for a while, but as the temperatures dropped even further during the night, I realized he was indeed not going to last much longer. Speaking obviously had become laborious to him and he was having trouble keeping his optics open.

"Barricade. Hey, stay with me." I touched his forearm. His plating felt icy.

"You're going to be okay. I'm taking you back to the Nemesis and they'll fix you up. Everything's going back to normal, alright?" Desperation and fear were clearly audible in my shaky voice and I couldn't have sounded very convincing.

"No… I'm done for… I've seen enough bots die to know." His voice barely rose above a whisper by now. I bit my lip and wondered how this could be happening while at the same time cursing myself over and over again. I didn't want to imagine a life without him, without those quiet moments we used to share, the comfort we'd always found in each other's company. The trust and feeling of belonging.

He coughed up energon. I wiped it off his lips.

I loved this mech. And now that I had realized that, he was about to die here in my arms.

"Don't you leave me alone, Barricade. Please… I don't know what to do without you." I begged. But deep down I knew he really wouldn't live to see a new dawn. Looking up, I saw nothing but the darkness of the cloudy night sky. No one would find us in time. He was lost.

"You'll manage… you always did, somehow… you're such a smart femme…" My gaze went back to Barricade once more. There was a smile on his face, gentle, almost serene. The look in his flickering optics said more than a thousand words. It was an honor to have someone look at you like that, I thought woefully.

"I… know you don't want to hear it but… I'll tell you anyway while… while I still can." His hand was trembling terribly and smeared with energon. With great effort, he raised it to cup my cheek gently, still looking at me like that with dim optics. His vents were making a horrible rasping noise. "I… I love you… Alpha… and… and I'm so, so proud of you…" His hand felt so cold on my face. I was shivering, but not because of the cold. "My sweet Alpha… it's… alright…"

I sat by his side helplessly, watching him die. I wanted to cry, to scream and rage and smash my fists into the rock around us until they bled. He was getting too weak to further hold his hand up to my face. Before his fingers slipped off though, I lifted my own hands to hold his hand in mine. His optics were getting dark.

"I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry…" I whispered soundlessly. If it hadn't been for me, none of this would have happened. Beneath his chest plates, his spark was slowly fading away.

But then, like a divine afflatus, a memory, obscured and blurry, snuck its way into my processor and realization hit me. I looked up and grasped his hand tighter. I knew how he was feeling. I had been there myself. And I had come back.

With a flicker of hope lighting up my spark, I released his hand and started trying to figure out how to open the armor covering his upper torso. I knew how to transfer enough energy to compensate for his energon loss, to give him a boost. There was a way to save him.

"Stay with me, Barricade. I need you to fight now, just for one more moment, okay?" Finally, I managed to get his dented plating to part and reveal the most vulnerable part of his body: his spark chamber.

Now, I could really see he didn't have much time left. The blue ball of energy within him was almost extinguished, getting visibly smaller and darker with every second, the expansion and contraction phases irregular, shallow and slowing down. I quickly opened my own chest plates. For a moment, I was afraid. It was like standing on top of a diving tower, being about to jump but only just having realized that it looked much higher from above.

I took him in my arms and pressed our bodies together. My spark reached out for his. At first, I feared it was too late, only feeling a delicate, feeble connection. But Barricade made a choice of his own. He chose to live and his spark fought to keep holding on to mine. And in the end, with a great mutual effort, our sparks merged fully.

We were engulfed in light. All that both of us had known until then were parental bonds, but this was something else altogether. We weren't just two connected sparks anymore, we were one soul, one consciousness, lingering between two bodies. The emotions built up in the course of two distinct lives mingled, both good and bad, each completing the other and creating a range a single individual would never be able to reach.

One thing was clear: there was nothing more intimate, loving or sacred in the entire universe than being united like that. We were Alpha and Barricade. We were everything we had ever gone through, had ever felt, at the same time. And we had never been so alive.

When our sparks separated again to return to their respective bodies, neither of them were the same as before. A part of me was now Barricade, just as a part of him was now Alpha. Only then did all thoughts and emotions condense back into comprehensible realms again. We became aware of the physical world and our existence as two separate beings once more.

I was still holding him close after it was over. We looked at each other silently. Barricade's optics were bright and wide, his mouth slightly opened. Feeling he was so stunned he simply couldn't believe what had just happened, it was only then that I really understood what I had done. I hadn't only saved his life. I had bestowed the greatest gift a bot could give another. I had bonded with him.