Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For a while, it felt like you were falling. Or, at least, dreaming about falling. You couldn’t tell. Your senses weren’t working as they normally did.

There was a steady amount of commotion outside of your unconscious bubble. You were only able to pick out a bare minimum of words that came close enough to the edges, however any attempt to reach out further was always overcome with a wave of fatigue.

Occasionally, you had dreams. Just loose events and feelings carelessly mangled together, like scraps of fabric from over the years sewn together into a misshaped blanket. If you were lucky, you could probably find threads anchored to a dream that resonated like a memory. However, the exact details were fuzzy, like the edges of a cloud on a summer’s day or an impressionist painting of a scene you vaguely recognized.

The last thing you remembered was being handed a broken canister of sorts. It had been leaking a strange green substance, some of which dribbled onto your hands. A similar sensation to warm water being poured onto your fingers, until they tingled with a strange numbness.

Then, someone pushed you, flinging you from reality, before you had a chance to wipe it away.

You tried to keep hold of these vivid details, of your name, your existence, and your life. You grasped onto them tighter than roots in soil, to remind yourself of who you were. They were some of the only things you brought with you as you kept falling, falling down, through an abyss you did not belong in.

==

Earlier, Arcee and Jack had been informed of an energon signal not too far from Jasper. A faint signal, Ratchet had told them, one that seemed more like a glitch in a system than anything. But, it was usually better to check them to avoid drawing the attention of the Decepticons.

When they were near the location, Jack couldn’t see anything unusual from the rust-colored desert. Since they were pretty close to a road, he decided to hop off to get a closer look, while Arcee stayed in her vehicle mode.

However, just as Jack approached two large rocks, he heard a low resonating ringing. A bright light, similar to that of a groundbridge, burst from the ground like a green firework. From the impact, large gusts of wind carried handfuls of dust, circling around him like a tornado. He had barely heard Arcee call out to him.

The next moments passed like a forgotten nightmare. He remembered he could not see through the tears as sand and dust blew onto his face and that he was wheezing and coughing. Arcee must have transformed at some point because as soon as the winds began dying down, Jack saw her looming over him protectively.

“You okay?” She tentatively asked. He nodded.

As the sand and dust settled, they saw that the light had disappeared. In its place was a human.

Slumped over the rocks, they looked like they were sleeping. Besides the dust covering their back, their clothes were relatively sand free. However, there were several rips and tears in the cloth that did not seem like a fashion choice. 

That’s when Jack noticed the blood seeping through the fabric. 

Arcee and him tried to wake the person up. Yet, they were met with silent indifference, and the person stayed still, unmoving. Jack was suddenly very aware of his own heartbeat.

“Arcee, what… what do we do?”

Arcee’s expression hardened. Then, she transformed into her alt-mode and gestured for him to get on.

“Load them on quickly. We need to get to a human hospital as soon as possible.”

Jack nodded. He picked up the person as gently as possible, positioning them so they wouldn’t fall off of Arcee. Soon, the three headed off as if they were fleeing Decepticons.

Along the desert of Nevada, Arcee pushed against her limit as she raced against the setting sun. Jack held on tightly, heart skipping as he saw the outskirts of town. 

They got to Jasper just as the sun’s edges were kissing the horizon, and Jack was able to get the attention of several paramedics standing outside the hospital. 

They asked him several questions ranging from who he was, where he found the unconscious person, and why he was out in the desert alone. He answered the best he could, trying to follow the paramedics while they transported the person into the building in case he could learn about their well-being. However, someone reached out an arm and stopped him from going in.

“Young man, it’s best if you head back home. We’ll take it over from here,” a paramedic said. Jack lingered long enough to see the person being carried into the hospital. Behind him, Arcee rolled up as hospital staff began trickling back into the building.

“Come on Jack. It’s already getting dark. Your mom is going to worry.” 

He tried to swallow the lump that formed in his throat, slowly nodding as he got back on. As they drove towards his house, he glanced over his shoulder. 

Later that evening, Arcee pinged the base of a report. Though there hadn’t been anything of Cybertronian origin, she detected a faint energon signal from the human they found. 

The next morning, the signal re-emerged at the hospital.

==

You found yourself in a blank void.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t empty, as there was an array of orbs surrounding you. Most of them had blended into the background, thrumming a faint, colorless light. If you hadn’t nearly bumped into one, you wouldn’t have known they had existed.

As your vision adjusted to the brightness around, you noticed one of the orbs, a few rows away from you, was vibrating a tinted red color.

You had taken several steps towards that orb. Up close, you noticed it was constantly moving, rotating upon itself. It looked a bit like a tiny star. You had waved a hand over and underneath it, to see if there was anything holding it up. There was not. 

Faintly, there was a voice coming from the orb, but far too muffled to be understood. It was much noisier compared to the colorless orbs, which hummed like soft electricity.  Interesting.

You reached to touch the orb.

It reacted like static, immediately jumping to make contact with your hand. 

Its voice grew louder, much clearer, in an unfamiliar language that you weren’t sure was possible for humans to speak.

A warmth spread to your fingertips. Then, a surge of sensations and experiences rushed through your mind.

The smells of smelted metal and the silhouettes of giants melded into your mind. Pain, sorrow, anger, at the fading thrums of lost lives laid before you through memories of someone else.

Briefly, your eyes matched with their burning, blue ones.

Overwhelmed, you woke up.

==

Your first sight was a hospital room, surrounded by medical machinery. The ceiling lights buzzed and the heart monitor beeped.  

Someone with a white coat walked in. Instinctively, you tried to sit up to greet them, failing as your lack of energy made it difficult to focus. 

More people seemed to enter the room. Words and phrases flew past your head, and you did not catch them at all. You responded to questions with nods and head shakes, but you could not remember them in your drowsiness. The only thing you wanted to do was go back to sleep.