First fanfic I've written in a long, long time. Hopefully, it's decent enough to be posted.
I had few problems with the formatting. I'm hoping that's been fixed now. I'll learn more as I go along.
I'll be keeping the rating at T for now. I'm not too sure where this is going yet either.
Anyways, without further ado, here's the first chapter!

Four Million Years Later

Chapter One:

Distress Signal

He was lonely.

Starscream didn't like to ponder over such weak thoughts or emotions, but in the silence of the Harbinger and with little else to do, Starscream had come to a realization.

He was lonely.

It was an odd thing. He'd experienced countless other emotions while on the Nemesis. Rage, fear, distrust, malice, doubt, accomplishment, and plenty of times, failure. Yet, never once had he experienced loneliness.

He wondered if his Seeker programming was finally making him go insane.

Of course, that was unlikely. With all that had happened over the course of time, he supposed he should've gone insane long ago. Maybe he truly already had, and he just hadn't realized it yet. He hadn't flown in months, and yet only felt the slightest tinge of restlessness. He'd gone much longer without flight than this however. Much longer. They very idea of being grounded could break most seekers, but Starscream was a patient mech. He'd fly again soon enough.

Starscream had not spoken of his trine mates in vorns either. Not voiced their names in centuries. Long before Cybertron had become a worthless, dark husk. It had been long before they'd abandoned their dead homeland for this wretched planet.

The bonds that held them together had long broken and had long left their scars. Starscream knew how trines worked. If one member fell, the others could survive. The loss would hurt like the pit, but they could survive. Heal, and eventually take on another member to fill the void. If two went down, the third would soon follow.

He'd lost both his trine mates long ago.
Yet, here he was.
Still alive.

He wondered if Primus was still mocking him even now.

The Decepticons had been quiet as of late. So had the Autobots. Starscream expected he'd missed out on all the excitement and action of the remaining relics during his trek on the bottom of the ocean floor.

The Apex Armour hung in his resting quarters, prepared and ready if he ever had need of it again. His first use of it had certainly been…fruitful. An all out battle between himself, stupid, righteous Prime, and Megatron's new buffoon of a SIC, Dreadwing. Skyquake's brother apparently. Twin brother to be more correct. Starscream would've mistaken the two if it hadn't been for Dreadwing's different colour scheme.

Dreadwing was as loyal as a fleshling's mangy mutt too.

With the armour, Starscream had had an advantage over both of them. Not only intelligence wise, but now with added brawns, and pure, good old fashioned invincibility. Starscream could've pounded them both into scrap metal if he'd had the 'd relished in the newfound power. Almost gone mad with it, he'd realized now. He'd let it go to his head, and in turn, had underestimated his opponents.

Without his T-Cog, they'd been able to blast the ground from underneath him, and had blown him down, down under the arctic ice and into the frozen depths below. Without flight, he couldn't escape the dark ocean that surrounded him. Even if he had been able to fly, Starscream knew the water's pressure would easily crush and mangle his precious wings at that depth.

So the Prime and buffoon hadn't been so stupid after all.
Interesting.

So he'd walked, already low on energon as it was, desperately trying to reach shoreline and be rid of the unending expanse of dark blue. The trek however, hadn't been a total set back. Down in the deep depths, Megatron's hungry reach for resources hadn't yet made their mark. In the ice, Starscream had found an untouched energon deposit. Not a small one either. Unmineable from above, but not from below. Not from where he was standing.
If it hadn't have been for the suit, Starscream would've never been able to carry back as much as he had. He had enough energon to last him for months now.

He had enough energon to successfully replace his T-Cog.

No matter how badly his wings itched for flight, he'd known it was still too soon to take to the skies. He didn't want to overstress his body or take things too quickly. Starscream didn't want to find out what the consequences would be if he did. He'd try his weapons first.

The first few test transformations had failed miserably. Nothing had responded. His hands and arms remained the same. The one time they had responded, pain had flared through his systems, and he'd stopped the process immediately.
Starscream hadn't tried again since then.

That had been a while ago. He'd given himself ample time to heal and repair, and Starscream figured it'd be safe to make another attempt. He prepared himself, and tried again.
The transformation was a slow process, but the pain had vanished, and eventually Starscream was fully armed, his blasters out and functioning at full capacity. He couldn't help but grin in triumph, as the transformation back was twice as fast.

Flight would be next. His wings shivered in anticipation. Soaring in the open air again. The wind roaring past him at immeasurable speeds, high above in the sky, finally leaving the way of life that the pathetic groundlings–

Pain, sharp and deadly, flared angrily. Not in his arms like it had been the previous time, but in his chest.

Starscream let out an audible gasp, one hand clawing at his chest for it to end, the other wildly reaching out for some form of support as he stumbled around, knocking over vital equipment as he went. He legs gave out from underneath him, and Starscream tumbled into a miserable heap on the floor. If he'd been able to think straight, Starscream would've been thankful there was only him on the ship to witness his unsightly predicament.

He didn't know how long it took for the pain to pass. In time his intakes calmed, and the sharp pain mulled away, a dull throb in its place. If he expected it to completely fade away, Starscream found he was sorely mistaken.

It continued. Clear and steady. It confused him. Greatly. It was persistent and rhythmic, as if trying to capture his attention. Strong enough for him to be constantly told it was still there. Almost like a–

It dawned on him.

Sweet Primus–

No. No.
It was impossible. It'd been too long.
Yet there it was. Finally pulsing away after all these years.

It was a distress signal.

The distress beacon specifically meant for Starscream and Starscream only.
The distress signal coming from him.

Him.

It'd been four million years. Four million years ago.
How had he–? Why now?

Four million years.

Starscream had certainly never forgotten about him. He couldn't. No matter how hard he'd tried to forget, something wouldn't let him. So Starscream had locked him up. Locked him and all the memories that revolved around him up in a tight box, and buried it far away in the blackest depths of his mind where it couldn't hurt him. Now, that box had sprung open, and the memories flooded back quicker than he could push them back down.

Starscream still had nightmares about the crash. The frozen wasteland. The storm. The blizzard that had taken them both by surprise. The ice that had pelted down mercilessly on them both. The cold that had burned him straight down to the core.
He'd searched for him, for a long, long time. No matter how long he'd cried for him, the howling winds and unbearable silence that accompanied were the only things to ever respond.
He'd never found him.
He'd left him to die in that barren land of white.

There was a reason why Starscream hated the cold.

Thundercracker and Skywarp's deaths had certainly left their marks, but his was different. This reawakened an old wound, an ache deep in his spark he'd long tried to bury.
No matter how hard he'd tried, for some reason, this wound still kept coming back to haunt him.

Him.

It was a name that had caused him so much grief. So much pain and trouble. The name rasped up his throat, and felt foreign on his tongue. It slithered past his lips in a hoarse whisper.

It was a name he'd not allowed himself to utter in over millennia.

"Skyfire."

Thoughts?

I wasn't too sure about the time-line here. I know that in G1 that Skyfire had been trapped in the ice for over four million years; they all were in stasis for that long while on the Ark aswell, but Skyfire had crashed long before that.

Reviews are always wonderful.