"Oh, where do we begin, the rubble or our sins?"
-Bastille, "Pompeii"
There was a note stuck to the door of Chromedome’s hab suite:
CD —
Please meet me on the third level rear observation deck. I need your help.
Chromedome pulled it off the door and examined it. No name, and the handwriting wasn’t familiar — not that he knew the handwriting of everyone on the ship. Rewind would have been able to recognize whose it was. It was pretty tidy handwriting, not Magnus tidy…
He looked back along the hallway, both ways, but of course no one was there.
He stood for a moment, the door still closed, the note in his hand. Wasting time thinking about it when it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have anything better to do. There was no one waiting for him inside, just more sitting in the darkness, listening to…
He folded the note, stashed it, and headed for the third level rear observation deck.
— — —
Trixter watched as Upstart disintegrated before her eyes. She lunged for him without thinking, and maybe it would have only made things worse if she had been able to reach him, maybe they’d both have been pulled in instead of her pulling him out, but now Solus help her but she wished she had died with him instead of her hand passing where his had been, her eyes catching his, wide and terrified as he dissolved into dust that sparkled briefly in the dim light and her sparkmate ceased to exist and she fell to the floor under the weight of the realization that what she had done could never be undone.
Now, here, outside the glass of the third level rear observation deck: stars in interstellar blackness, reminding her of that last glimmer of all her love had been as he died. She’d hoped keeping to their plan to travel with the Lost Light would help her move on, but all she could see was him, disappearing into stardust, and she ached to go with him.
She’d found this secluded spot a few days after coming aboard, wandering aimlessly because she couldn’t just stay in her new hab suite being miserable forever but she couldn’t quite bring herself to hang around Swerve’s trying to make herself be social. She’d tried, Swerve had even given her a free drink because he said she looked like she needed it, but she wasn’t ready to be around so many happy people getting on with their lives. He’d listened to her that night, though, and as she started to leave he slipped her a note with a name on it, someone who he said might be able to help — no promises, he might say no, but it was worth a try.
— — —
Chromedome didn’t think he’d ever been to this part of the ship before — it didn’t look like anyone had. It was a glorified hallway from one barely-inhabited section to another, notable only because it ran along the hull and a wall had been made transparent to provide a view of the starscape beyond. He wasn’t sure if the lights were dimmed to provide a better view or just to save power.
There was someone there now, though, presumably his note-leaver, standing halfway down with — her? He was getting “her” vibes — her forehead against the viewing wall. He didn’t know her, though he thought he’d seen her around. One of the newcomers they’d picked up back on Cybertron, a returning neutral from the Cybertronian diaspora. NAILs, Prowl had called them, because Prowl was an asshole. This one was blue-gray and white, blue optics with a barely-tinted visor over an otherwise uncovered face. A little on the short side, with what looked like a car altmode but with retrofitted wings on her lower back that would have made a Functionist rupture his spark.
She looked up at the sound of his footsteps. Chromedome had a feeling he knew what she wanted, and he almost turned and walked right back the way he’d come. His fingertips itched at the thought.
He knew he shouldn’t.
But he couldn’t resist.
He held up the folded note between his index and middle fingers, his other hand on his hip. “This came from you, I assume?”
She nodded. She was… not okay. He could see it in her eyes, just like his own when he looked in the mirror lately. Like some vital animating part of her had been leeched out.
He joined her at the window. She seemed to prefer addressing his reflection to looking directly up at him. “I…” Her voice was low, soft, conspiratorial. “Um. My name is Trixter. Swerve said you might be able to help me.” She looked away from his reflection, out at the stars, and shrugged. “Or maybe you’d say no.”
His fingertips itched again, and he flexed them to rid himself of the feeling before balling his hands into fists. Thanks, Swerve. “He says a lot of things he shouldn’t.”
She squared her shoulders, seemed to steel herself, and then turned away from the window to look up at him. “A few months ago I lost my conjunx endura.” She hesitated, glancing back out at the stars. “Swerve said you could erase memories. That you could help me forget.”
And he understood, maybe more than she realized, maybe more than Swerve had told her. So he felt like an absolute hypocrite when he said what he knew he should say: “You don’t want to forget them. Maybe you think you do, but you don’t.”
She looked up at him in surprise, then shook her head vehemently. “No, that’s not… I don’t want to forget him, not completely.”
Chromedome put his hands up defensively, feeling like a jerk. “Okay, sorry. What do you want to forget? If I could help you.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and turned around to lean her back against the window. “We were exploring Iacon, and we found some kind of abandoned science lab off one of the underground tunnels. I was the one who wanted to go in.” She told the story like it was a memory worn smooth and flat from repetition. “I didn’t mean to activate whatever it was. I didn’t think anything there had any power, I thought the whole place was shut down. But I hit a button, and he was standing in the wrong place. And he disintegrated.
“I saw… everything, I saw him die, and I can’t…” Her voice cracked. “I can’t stop thinking about it, about the way he looked at me, how terrified he was, and then he was just…” She let out a little frustrated growl. “It was my fault. It was my idea to go in there, he didn’t want to be down there, he didn’t even really want to be on Cybertron, and I was the one who pressed the damn button, who turned whatever it was back on. And I can’t keep going, knowing all that. Knowing this happened because of me. I wish I could have just died with him, and he… I’m pretty sure he would have wanted me to want to live. So I want to try to want to live. Because right now I really don’t.”
Chromedome let the needles come out, telling himself he wasn’t committing to anything, he was just… looking at them, in the dim light of the third floor rear observation deck. Imagine using these to actually do some good, instead of just fucking everything up. To actually help someone. Rewind would approve of that, right? “Did Swerve tell you about my conjunx endura?”
“Rewind.” She eyed the needles. “Yeah. Not… details, but he told me that you lost him. That you’d understand.”
“I do. So you know I’m serious when I ask you this: If I tell you no, if I tell you you’d be better off talking to Rung, or that I just think it’s a terrible idea… are you still going to be here tomorrow?”
Trixter closed her eyes. “By the time the call came to return to Cybertron, Nocenti — our little colony — was barely surviving. The Galactic Council made it nearly impossible to get any legitimate trade going, we had to depend on what little the planet still had left and the few aliens willing to go black market for us. I was repairing shuttles for smugglers as barter for supplies. And we thought all that was over. But we got back to Cybertron, and… it was what it was. I’m not one of those neutrals who came back ready to kick every Autobot and every Decepticon off the planet, but… there was a tiny spark of hope, coming back, and then it was gone. Coming on this quest with him, that was a fresh infusion of hope, a new dream we could cling to.” She slammed her fist against the window. “And then I ruined it. Me, personally, directly, through my own fucking actions, I ruined it.” She sighed. “Maybe if I wasn’t carrying that, I could make new friends here, move on. But right now, all I see in others is more pain waiting to happen.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “So honestly? No promises.”
Chromedome sighed and retracted the needles. I’m sorry, Rewind. But you wouldn’t want me to just let her die, would you? “This isn’t something I do lightly, I want you to know that. I keep swearing I’ll stop, but…” He shrugged. “But then people keep needing it. So… your hab suite or mine?”
— — —
Trixter hadn’t thought about how her hab suite would look to anyone else until Chromedome followed her through the door and she realized how pathetic it was. Most of the personal possessions she’d brought were still in boxes, stacked where they’d been left when she’d arrived. No souvenirs or knick knacks decorated the shelves or the walls. Upstart’s things were still mixed in with hers, and she couldn’t face going through them.
“I’ve got to be honest,” Chromedome said, not unkindly, as he looked around the room. “This is a bit pitiful, Trix. I literally pity you. You haven’t even unpacked?” He nodded toward the second, unused recharge slab. “You were both signed up to come with us? It was that recently?”
She walked over to the slab by the window and sat down, looking out at the stars. “The accident happened just a few days before the launch. I thought about staying behind on Cybertron with the others who came from Nocenti with us, but it seemed like a waste. And it was hard to face them after what happened.”
He knelt in front of where she sat on the slab, his face level with hers. “Well, it’ll help that it’s a fresher memory. It’ll make it easier to remove that one moment without taking anything you might want to keep. Older memories can start to run together sometimes.” He held up a hand, fingers splayed, needles out, and cocked an eyebrow. “You’re sure you want me in your head? Last chance to change your mind.”
She half-smiled ironically. “Are you sure you want to be in my head?”
“I promise you I’ve been in worse. Ready?”
She grabbed his hand. “Wait.” She closed her eyes and let it hit her again — Upstart’s eyes, his fear, that feeling of falling that didn’t end with the floor, that still hadn’t ended. “I’m so sorry, Ups…” She tightened her grip on Chromedome’s hand, opened her eyes to meet his and saw so much sympathy there that for a moment it overwhelmed her.
She pulled his hand to her neck and closed her eyes. “Do it.”
— — —
The first memory Chromedome found wasn’t technically real — it was a metaphorical memory, a dreamlike construct formed from pure emotion. He’d encountered them before, usually formed by intense trauma. It wasn’t a great sign.
They were in a… box, a room, a cell? A cube, with only enough room for him to stand. The dim, sourceless light revealed words scrawled on the walls, the same words being murmured in Trixter’s voice all around him. “Just let me die,” it said, “I don’t want to live, I can’t do this anymore, please just let me die…”
He knew this place. He was sure there was a place like it in his own mind, whispering in his own voice.
Trixter sat on the floor in a corner, curled in on herself, knees pulled up to her chest. A light shimmered in her hands, held close to her spark. Her hands bled from a hundred tiny cuts like the light itself was wounding her, and energon dripped between her fingers.
Chromedome sat in front of her and gently rested a hand on her shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m here to take that for you.”
She slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were voids, spilling shadow like thick fog past her visor and down her cheeks. “I can’t let go of it,” she rasped. “I don’t deserve to.”
I don’t deserve to. That was familiar too. All of it was, in concept if not in detail. “You don’t deserve to suffer, Trix.”
“He loved me.” She gazed into the light with her empty eyes. “He was so scared. He loved me and I should have died with him. I should have caught his hand and turned to stardust with him. It’s all my fault. I have to hold on to it, no matter how much it hurts. Because of how much it hurts.”
If he’d been in the mind of an enemy, he would have just powered his way through this, forced his way into the real memory this depression construct was protecting. But he wouldn’t do that to her. He wished he’d listened more to Rung. He wished he knew what to say.
Well, Domey, what would you need to hear?
He lifted her chin and met her empty eyes. “Upstart wouldn’t want you to hurt like this. He would want you to want to live. Let me take this memory for you so you can heal, for him.”
Her resolve wavered. “But I hurt him.”
“And I know he would forgive you. Because he loved you, right? That’s how it works.”
He reached out with a thought and brushed through her other memories, trying not to intrude no matter how tempting it was, just looking for something that felt cherished until he found one that seemed like it might work.
They were in a medbay, and Trixter lay on a slab, hooked up to monitors, her eyes dark. Chromedome assumed the bot keeping vigil next to her was her Upstart. He was bright red and blue, tall with signs of a jet altmode, and had expressive yellow optics that showed every bit of the fear and worry he was feeling as he stared at a tiny vial of innermost energon he held between his fingers.
And he was talking, though at first Chromedome couldn’t hear him, like his volume was turned down. He realized the start of this memory was the point where she’d woken up, and it had taken a moment for her hearing to come online.
“-lized I… I need you. I can’t imagine going on without you. I can’t imagine never seeing your smile again, never hearing your laugh. Never going flying with you. Never teasing you for your slow flight mode. I can’t lose you, Trixie. I don’t even know who I am without you. I love you.” Those last words came out as little more than a soft whimper, but in Trixter’s memory they were as clear as a nuclear detonation.
Chromedome looked down at the depression-construct Trixter beside him, making sure she was watching.
“I love you too,” the Trixter on the bed whispered in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used for days. Her optics flickered to life, and she turned to smile weakly up at him. The shock on Upstart’s face made her laugh. “Or were you talking to the nurse?”
Upstart smiled sheepishly. “Um… no.” Then, hopefully: “But… you do?”
Chromedome turned to the other Trixter. “I’m sorry you lost him. You seem like a really good couple.” He used the dream-logic of the metaphorical memory to turn this better memory into another ball of light, then offered it to her. “How about you give me that one and hold on to this one instead? I know it won’t fix everything, I know it won’t bring him back, but maybe it’ll help you want to live. Because if you die, this will be lost forever.”
Slowly, hesitantly, she opened her hands and released the memory. He gave her the better one in its place, setting it carefully in her cupped palms. She didn’t magically heal, but he knew better than to expect her to. That would still take time. But this was a start.
Chromedome could have just snuffed out the memory of Upstart’s death right there, but something Trixter had said made him curious. So he went inside it to take a look.
And there it was: A nearly-intact lab from the Kimia Facility, now a wreckage of broken and burned-out equipment, but still familiar even by the dim light of Trixter’s lantern. And here was Trixter, examining a shattered control panel. And Upstart, standing on a conspicuous round mark on the floor, looking around like he thought he’d seen a sparkeater in the shadows. Not noticing the machinery overhead, aimed at that very spot.
It had been less of a wreck when Chromedome last saw it, but he knew exactly what this had once been. How much did they tell Iacon’s new residents about what the city used to be? Do the neutrals even know about the Kimia Facility? Do they know what we did here?
He watched the memory that had tormented Trixter play out: She examined a big, central button on the console, then pressed it, experimentally, as though she didn’t expect it to do anything but click. The machinery above Upstart whirred to life, suddenly humming with energy, bare-metal arms spreading and spinning and lenses focusing on the spot where he stood. He looked up at it in wide-eyed fear, calling out her name, but he didn’t move out of the way fast enough (and Chromedome wondered how brief their lives would have been in an actual war with reflexes like that), and as Trixter spun around Upstart reached for her just as his hand disintegrated, followed by the rest of his body, dissipating into sparkling particles as Trixter lunged for him and fell through him to the floor.
Chromedome would have spared a moment to let his spark ache for them, but he recognized that sparkle, and the darkness between the stars as Upstart came apart. Of course Trixter had thought he was dead, she didn’t know what this thing was. But Chromedome did. This was one of Brainstorm’s toys, and it wasn’t even a weapon.
— — —
“Was that it?” Trixter asked uncertainly as Chromedome disconnected from her. “I’m not sure it worked.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I feel a little different, but…”
“I didn’t remove it yet. We might need it.” He took her hands in both of his to make sure he had her full attention. “I know that lab you were in, and — brace yourself— I don’t think he was disintegrated. I’m pretty sure he was teleported. And there’s someone here on the Lost Light who might be able to help us find him.”