Author's note: Age of Extinction brought to light an aspect of Optimus' character that I really wanted to play with.

A little note of warning: This fic is set after Following the Sun with bits of retconning here and there. It features the end of Optimus' life. He's an old bot who has lived an extremely long time. Don't mistake this as me quitting Danceverse, because I'm not. The plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down, and I felt I should share it. I call this the "here's where they eventually end up" fic because...well you'll see!

Bring a tissue box or two and enjoy the ride.

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Tin Man's Treasure

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"Please let my whole life pass always remembering You,
always remembering You.
My boat is in the worldly ocean,
ferry it to the true destination,
ferry it to the true destination,
ferry it to the true destination.
Let me go to the other shore, always remembering You,
always remembering You..."

- John Adorney and Daya Rawat, "Always Remembering You"

.o

Nobody foresaw the blinding flash that turned lush, beautiful Terra Secundum's atmosphere into a burning, toxic fog. An entire fourth of the northern hemisphere was wiped out as though a nuclear weapon went off. People on the opposite hemisphere woke up to find the sky on fire. The ozone layer evaporated within a week. Radical weather patterns razed the planet. Cities fell to violent tornadoes, coastal areas endured hurricanes and everything else baked in suffocating heat.

Radiation sickness took over quickly. The Homini species didn't stand a chance. They were techno-organic- but not "techno" enough to survive the deterioration of their organic parts.

Optimus Prime's family line died while he helplessly watched. Vixi Amo, the first dear friend he made since Earth's sun became a white dwarf, gave birth to a stillborn boy. Then she died an agonizing death a month later.

Unaffected by the deadly radiation, Optimus held Vixi's deceased body in his hands and looked around at the ruined civilization. The only survivors were the few thousand who happened to be off-planet at the time of the disaster.

He gazed at the traitorous night sky, where the now-spherical galaxy's starry core shone between two moons. Even the universe itself turned its back on him.

Mikaela... he thought bitterly. I failed to protect them. Forgive me...

Optimus buried Vixi under the remains of a forest. The acidic soil didn't hurt his fingers nearly as much as the loss.

He was done. Done with companionship, done with letting people in.

The last Prime left a signal beacon broadcasting news of the tragedy. Then, resolute, he fired up his leg boosters and streaked into the void. He wanted to know what happened and why.

Answers came. Not the ones he hoped for.

Terra Secundum's orbit crossed the pole of a "close" supernova less than one hundred light years away. The powerful explosion funneled all its fury into two narrow, high-energy gamma rays.

Returning to Terra Secundum wasn't an option. There was nothing Optimus could do, and he found the prospect of watching the planet slowly die unbearable. So he fired his boosters, slipped into stasis and left himself in fate's hands.

Six billion years later, oblivion lifted just quick enough to register an impact warning. The crash damaged the parts that became his left hip joint, which rendered transforming painful and limited his ability to walk.

Optimus made no effort to learn about the planet he landed upon. He'd crashed in a desert comprised of flat cliffs, sand and protomatter being cut into by a fast-moving river. Proof that here and there, Seeds were still floating around in space. That told him enough.

This world resided closer to the galactic center than Terra Secundum. Densely packed stars created a white haze filling the entire horizon at his left. Their cold glow lit the landscape like dim sunlight. An amorphous, billowing reflection nebula covered the overhead sky like thick wood smoke. Colorful new stars- true jewels of the night- were in varying stages of breaking through their gaseous envelopes. Their light created diaphanous shimmers of blue within the dark interstellar dust particles surrounding them.

The nebula was the last remnant of active gas from the Milky Way-Andromeda collision. Optimus estimated the young stars to be a mere ten to twenty light years away. In fact, he suspected this planet orbited a member of the nebular cluster. Such realization brought no comfort. The beautiful sky seemed empty and lonely.

Mikaela, Optimus thought sadly. He promised her long ago to look up at the sky after the Milky Way collided with Andromeda. He promised to think of her. But he never imagined doing so with such sadness.

White light lit the horizon. The planet's sun rose minutes later. Optimus felt the harsh A-type main sequence star's violent heat and intense ultraviolet radiation assault his sensors. Its fast rotation gave it more of an oval shape than a sphere, and it shone like a diamond in the blue-white sky.

Realizing he wasn't going to die that day, Optimus tested the protomatter and found it malleable. The silver metal became a white cube-shaped abode with windows, a door and a place to lay down inside.

Optimus nodded to himself. It would do while his body ran out of energon. He limped inside, slammed the door and wept. He cried inconsolably until exhaustion and his injuries plunged him into recharge.

.o

20,000 years later...

Two golden-hued bipeds crept over the windblown sand dunes. At eight feet tall, they resembled ancient wooden marionettes from a long-forgotten world. Except, instead of wood, their surface was coppery-gold metal. Secondary arms- little more than three-fingered pincers- protruded out of their waists. Their round, mechanical heads sported wiry dreadlocks that moved like snakes. The taller bot's black dreadlocks formed a Mohawk, while the smaller bot's blue-black ones grew willy-nilly in all directions. The shortest of the duo had a sharp, pointed nose, which she rubbed occasionally. She tugged her companion's arm. Her glowing green optics were thin slits adapted for the extreme sunlight.

"C'mon, Steo, I don't think we should do this. It's rude to go in somebody's house without permission."

Steo, the taller robot, flicked a dreadlock off his forehead. His orange optics blinked twice. He wiped the flat oval of his nose and frowned. "What's wrong, Eth? Scared that the big, bad Tin Man is gonna fly out of the canyon and eat you?"

"Maybe." Eth wrung her hands. Her pincers also clasped together, expressing her uncertainty. "Krya says he hates kids like us because we keep stealing his belongings."

"We can't back down now!" Steo bristled. He jabbed a secondary pincer at her. "A dare's a dare. I've gotta take a piece of the Tin Man's treasure to Brin, or he'll think I'm just a crawler."

Crawlers were mechanical millipedes that ate holes in rocks and ran way from everything, even their own shadow. Nobody liked being compared to one. Especially not the big, stupid boys who insisted on proving their bravery.

Eth huffed indignantly at her overzealous best friend. She peered over the next dune, and amidst the heat waves she saw the simple cube-shaped abode. It resided next to a shallow canyon. Just like the other kids at school said.

"He's not home." Steo pointed, "See? Fresh tire tracks going south."

He scrambled over the dune before Eth got another word in edgewise. She grumbled about the stupidity of boys and followed. Neither worried about their footprints- the brewing sandstorm would cover them up pretty soon.

The cube house was way bigger up close than it looked. Eth guessed it to be approximately forty feet wide by forty feet tall. Slanted windows marked all four sides and two silver steps led to the front entrace.

Steo checked the door. It creaked. He looked over his shoulder at Eth. "It's open."

Against her better judgment, Eth stepped into the dusty, darkened home. The Tin Man was rumored to be extremely tall, and the cool inside of his house proved that true.

Eth's green optics took in the simple environment. A computer station sat above a deeply recessed shelf in one wall. The opposite windowsill housed oil cans and tools. The back wall sported several tiny images stored inside transparent sleeves. Eth ventured closer to see them. A strange blue-eyed being from a race she'd never seen outside the Broadcast smiled back.

"Steo, look."

"Oh, perfect!" Steo jumped up, captured the bottom of the lowest sleeve and tugged it off the wall. In it, the same alien held a small, pink thing with a shiny blue cord dangling off its midsection.

"Hey! Those might be special to him!"

"He won't miss one."

"Steo..."

"I am not gonna be the school crawler, Eth!"

Neither noticed the pop-hiss and clanking noises outside. The triple cadence of footsteps, however, froze them in place. Both stared at each other, horrified.

Sunlight flashed on their faces when the door opened. A silver hand gripped the doorframe and its owner heaved himself inside. His optics were glowing azure pinpoints against the dirty horizontal plates making up his face. Two vertical protrusions stuck up on either side of his head. Hints of red and blue flames showed through the colored areas of his armor plating. Everything else appeared dull gray, its shine long gone.

People said the Tin Man walked stooped over, but he didn't. He stood upright to a towering twenty-eight feet tall- just slightly less than twice the height of adult Trillians. His left hip creaked, its rusted joint barely carrying his weight, and he leaned heavily on a humongous silver cane with a black palm handle.

The giant Tin Man pinged his cane on the metal floor of his abode. His silvery-black eye ridges formed a definite frown and his metal plated mouth pulled apart in a metallic sneer. He pointed his cane at Steo.

"Drop that photograph," he said. His command of the Trillian language was excellent and his smoky baritone voice might have been soothing if not for the icy note of warning.

Eth ducked behind Steo. Steo gasped and snapped a picture of the Tin Man with the lens on his thumb.

"Finders keepers, Tin Man!" Steo shouted, and bolted.

The Tin Man twisted to grab for Steo. His weak leg collapsed and he toppled, crashing onto the floor with a cry of pain.

Eth jumped over him to chase her runaway friend. "Steo! Get back here!"

"No way!"

"He's hurt, Steo!"

"So?"

Incensed, Eth dove at Steo and they rolled along the sand. She snatched the photograph out of his pincer. He glared. She glowered back and started towards the cube house, a hand raised to protect her face from the blowing sand. Wind began whipping at her dreadlocks.

"People aren't nasty for the fun of it!" Eth spat at her friend. "People like you are the reason he's so mean!"

Steo stumbled after her, coughing on the sandy air. "He's not a Trillian. He's only got two arms. That's freakish."

"Because he's an alien, you bolt-head. Maybe he landed on Trillia a long, long time ago."

"You're such a goody-good! Ugh, you know what? Take this picture back. I got proof that I met him." Steo stuck his thumb in the air and displayed the hologram he caught of the taller bot. It certainly made him look monstrous, as the flash emphasized his robotic sneer.

Eth grabbed Steo's upper left arm. "No, we are taking it back."

"Eth!"

"You started it!" She dragged him towards the shiny front steps.

The door was shut, a sign the Tin Man got up and closed it. Eth gathered her courage and knocked four times in rapid succession. When no answer came, she tried again.

At the sixth attempt, the door creaked open again and the Tin Man poked his head out.

"What do you want?" he barked.

"Sir!" Eth shrank back an inch. She kept a firm grip on Steo's arm and held up the pilfered photograph. "We came to return this. I'm sorry. Steo, apologize."

"S-s-sorry!" Steo gulped.

"Hmph!"

The Tin Man snatched the photo and disappeared inside. His heavy, scraping footsteps moved away from the door. A few minutes later, he returned.

"Get inside. The sandstorm is dangerous." He held the door open.

Steo stayed rooted to the front steps. "You're not gonna eat us, are you?"

The Tin Man leaned over, bringing his optics level with Steo's.

"I might," he said, his expression twisting into something resembling a smile. "I'll be happy to let you take your chances with the sandstorm if that is your preference."

Eth shook her head and entered the door being so graciously held open. She coughed up a small cloud of dust and shook it off her dreadlocks. "Come on, Steo."

Steo carefully skirted past the taller bot's long legs. "Thanks, Tin Man." His first unprompted polite words.

A bang signaled the door being shoved shut.

"Stop calling me that. I have a name."

"May I ask what it is, sir?" Eth gazed up at him in the dimness of his home.

The Tin Man grunted, sitting himself down on what she previously assumed to be a recessed shelf. "I told you."

"No, sir, you didn't."

"I could have sworn I did."

"Nope." Steo kept his back pressed against the door. "You told us to drop the picture."

The Tin Man rubbed at the bridge of his nose in obvious irritation. He gave his head a shake. "My random access memory is not what it used to be. My name is, ugh-" he coughed up dust, "-Optimus."

"Nice to meet you, Optimus." Eth curtsied politely. "I'm Eth, and the thief is Steo."

Wind howled past the window. Optimus pressed on the glass slats to close them and keep the sand out. He vented something like a sigh.

"You may stay until the sandstorm is over. Then, I expect you to get out."

"Fine with me," Steo muttered. "You might eat us while we sleep."

Eth elbowed her friend in the side with her upper right arm. His lower left pincer jabbed her back. She glared until he stopped snickering and returned her attention to Optimus.

"What are those pictures of?" she asked, gesturing to the wall of photographs.

Optimus folded one hand atop the other on the handle of his cane. "Someone I loved a trillion years ago...her name was Mikaela. The newborn baby in her arms was Elita, our daughter." Briefly, maybe a second, his expression softened. "I am keeping my promise to- don't touch those!"

Steo leapt back from the picture wall. "She looked weird."

"She was human."

At that, Steo's optics widened. "Just like that Broadc-"

"But you aren't human." Eth cut Steo off.

"Elita's presence in the universe was a stroke of luck, and it's a long story that I don't feel like telling. As for me? I come from Cybertron, a planet long gone. Just like Earth. I am a relic from a forgotten age, nothing more."

"Humans became Homini, who died in a gamma ray burst. Some survived to evolve...Homini became us Trillians." Steo's eyes widened. He grabbed Eth's lower pincers in his. "Eth! Those pictures are our race's ancient ancestors! Back before they were half machine! The old Broadcast is real! It's real, Eth!"

Eth didn't miss Optimus' surprised expression. Then he turned his head, avoiding their gaze.

"I was on Terra Secundum the day of the gamma ray burst." He wiped his hand down his face. "I saw everything burn. Just like Cybertron in its last days. Just like Earth when its sun swelled." Shaking his head, he sneered, "Stop!"

A gust of wind sent the window slats behind him banging. He flipped the lock to halt the clanking.

"Short-lived species have no idea how lucky they are." Optimus rolled his cane between his hands. He stared at it, his squinting optics haunted. "Humans lived mere decades. The lucky ones suffered loss only two to four times in their life...and I, I have seen billions. I'm tired of grieving losses. I'm old, I'm dying. I know how painful grief is, and I would rather not inflict it on someone else."

Steo finally stopped touching the photographs and turned around to face the seated robot. Eth cringed inwardly, expecting a smart-aleck statement, but none came.

"You're alone out here," he said. "Everybody else lives in the hover domes."

"I prefer it that way," Optimus replied. He set his cane aside. Suddenly, his optics flared and he grabbed his hip with a low hiss. The plates constructing his face scrunched together. "Krya comes once in awhile to clear the sand out of my joints. I know an amusing story regarding sand and vacuum cleaners, but you're too young to hear it. Now- augh..."

Eth grabbed the dirty oil can off the windowsill opposite to Optimus. He snatched it from her and jammed the spout into his hip joint. A moment later, the pain left his expression.

Eth and Steo looked at each other. They both grinned. He really did get stuck like Krya said!

"What I want to know..." Optimus got up without his cane and limped across the floor to plunk the oil can back in its proper place. He didn't speak until he'd seated himself again, "...is where this Tin Man nonsense came from."

"You don't know?" Steo asked incredulously.

"This computer keeps track of my gardening," said Optimus. He glowered at them. "It's not connected to the data net."

"Well, uh...it's from a really, really old Broadcast the domes picked up about twenty-thousand years ago. A human girl like your pictures is caught in a storm that takes her to a magical place. She makes new friends while trying to find her way home. A Scarecrow, a Lion and a Tin Man. The Tin Man gets stuck and needs oil...just like you."

Optimus' blue optics blinked. Much to their surprise, he chuckled. "I know that story. The Wizard of Oz. A tale of people seeking the qualities they already possessed. Their quest let them find themselves. Dorothy wanted to return home, the Scarecrow longed for a brain, the Lion sought courage, and the Tin Man..."

"...a heart." Eth finished for him.

Suddenly, the one called the Tin Man didn't seem so scary. He was just lonely and very, very sad.

Optimus huffed and dust escaped his intakes. "Cybertronians have fuel pumps, not hearts."

"We have hearts." Steo tapped on his smooth metal-plated chest. "They pump energon. They're the only techno-organic part of us. Us Trillians live around two thousand years, and it'll get longer in the future now that we can clone parts."

One of Optimus' eye ridges inched up. "Do your people transform?"

Eth glanced between Steo and Optimus. "Do we what?"

Optimus gave his head a shake. "Apparently not."

"You can change your shape?" asked Eth.

"Yes. What? Do you think I roll from place to place on my back?"

Steo giggled behind his hands. "Yes. That's what Krya says you do."

Optimus pressed his palm against his face. "Idiots...ugh!"

He glanced out the window, where the wind had died down. Now, the darkness was due to dusk.

"The sandstorm is over. Go home."

Eth checked her internal chronometer. She groaned. "The transports aren't running. They're closed for the night."

"How is that my problem?" Optimus grumbled.

"The nearest warp pad is ten miles away." Steo's dreadlocks wilted against his head. He scrunched his face up. "That's why we call transports, but they're closed for the evening."

"Oh, for the love of...come on. You are not spending the night here." Optimus gathered his cane and, wincing, pushed himself up to stand.

He hobbled down the front steps and transformed. Literally, before Eth's optics, his body completely reconfigured itself into a large vehicle. A truck, if memory served correctly. The triple pipes on his shoulders were the truck's exhaust pipes, and they spit gouts of dust into the air.

Finally, the passenger's side door swung open. "Get in. I want to get this over with. And don't touch anything."

Eth hesitated. Not out of fear, but respect. Optimus didn't have to offer this. And didn't it feel weird to him to have people inside himself?

"Whoa!" Steo raised his thumb and took a picture. "C'mon, Eth! A thousand years from now, when you look back on tonight, don't you wanna tell your proto-kids you took a ride? C'mon!"

He scrambled ahead of Eth to climb in the open door.

Optimus' interior still looked surprisingly clean, unlike his exterior. Eth's knee bumped a button on something. The glove compartment fell open, exposing a cylindrical gold object next to something silver, pointed and glowing. She almost reached for it, but the small panel slammed shut. The passenger side door soon followed.

Eth repositioned herself in the passenger's seat and politely kept her hands and pincers in her lap. She and Steo barely fit in the seats. Everything was built for nine foot tall Homini people. By adulthood, they wouldn't be able to sit this comfortably.

"Hey, what's this do?" Steo pulled a white cord near the driver's side window.

HOOOOONK!

Eth nearly leapt out of her plating. Steo flailed, covering his head with his hands.

"What part of 'don't touch' do you not understand?" Optimus barked.

Steo snatched his pincers back, yelping. "Sorry! I just wanted to see what it-"

"This is your final warning. Touch anything else, and I will eject you both. Is that understood?"

"Y-yes sir..."

Eth shot Steo a glare. How dare he pout when he almost cost them both a free ride!

Optimus lurched into motion with a creaking rumble. His engine clattered, smoked and sputtered, but he powered effortlessly across the sand.

.o

Having people around made Optimus remember the days he lost the best parts of his life.

Bless her soul, Mikaela lived to be hundred years old. Though her body withered with time, her mind stayed completely clear, evidenced by her razor-sharp wit.

"I'm the granny who can kick your ass off my lawn!" Mikaela used to say.

She beat breast cancer at age seventy. When the treatments made her hair start to fall out, she shaved it into a Mohawk and dyed it blue. She kept a great sense of humor about it. Having blue hair all over everything made her laugh, and she invested in a lot of hats.

Optimus hated taking her to the hospital for her chemotherapy and radiation- they made her so dreadfully ill.

Breasts were a major source of vanity for women. Yet Mikaela only mourned the loss of hers briefly. The scars made her more beautiful. No, not just the scars, her will to live. Despite the vomiting, diarrhea, pain and misery, her bright blue eyes never lost their flame.

When Mikaela was eighty-four, she fell on ice and broke her hip the day after Christmas. After a painful hip-replacement surgery and physical therapy, she got back on her feet with the aid of a snazzy floral pink cane. Optimus had a stair lift installed because she refused to have their master bedroom moved downstairs.

She suffered a mild heart attack at ninety-seven. Nothing major, but enough to require medication for the rest of her life. She took it religiously.

But that day in August...

It started like any other sunny morning. Mikaela got up, dressed herself and rode the stair lift downstairs. Optimus was contentedly finishing the book Elita bought him for Father's day. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. He flipped the page and squinted at the final passage before flicking the book shut.

Optimus heard Mikaela call Elita's cell phone and leave a voicemail.

"Hi, Elita. I just want to say I love you. Bye."

"Mikaela?" Optimus beamed his hologram downstairs. "Is everything all right?"

Mikaela leaned on the countertop, her loose silver ponytail splayed across the back of her red and white striped summer blouse. She turned to face him. Something about her looked off.

"Let's dance, Optimus."

Optimus shifted inside his uneasiness. "If that is what you-"

"Yeah." Mikaela caught his hand when he came closer. She was breathing as if she just ran a marathon. Her heart pounded so wildly he feared it might escape her chest.

They fell into a rhythm, aided by Berlin's Take My Breath Away.

"Optimus, listen to me..." Mikaela cupped his face between both hands. "I'm having a heart attack. Don't stop dancing!"

"Mikaela..."

"I'm going to die."

The sentence crashed into Optimus like a battering ram to the Spark. His internals spun wildly and coldness filled his energon lines.

"Don't call an ambulance. I won't make it, and I don't want to die hooked up to tubes in a hospital. Please..." Tears brimmed in her eyes. "I love you, Optimus. I love you so much."

Optimus' optics overflowed, briefly blurring his vision. He blinked to clear it. Whatever Mikaela wanted, he would do. He wrapped his left arm more fully around her waist and gently cupped the back of her head. Leaning forward, he kissed her. Tenderly. Telling himself not to break down yet. She needed his strength.

"I love you, too, Mikaela. Thank you. Thank you for everything." He rubbed his mouth plates against her clammy, sweaty cheek. Every instinct within him screamed to seek help, to selfishly keep her here, yet he knew.

Mikaela pulled his face forward and kissed him on the mouth again. Her wrinkled lips never lost their softness.

"Optimus..." she whispered.

Pain filled her eyes- the same look she had the day she gave birth to Elita. Her legs gave out like a puppet with broken strings.

Optimus scooped her up bridal style without breaking eye contact. He made love to her with his gaze. There was nothing to say because they never left anything unsaid. So he swayed, slowly, dancing with her in his arms.

"You are an amazing woman," Optimus whispered. He made himself smile despite the painful pull in his Spark. "It's all right. Let go."

Mikaela's eyes rolled back and her mouth opened wide in a terrifying spasm. Optimus felt her heart start to fibrillate. He numbly wiped away the white froth gathering at the corners of her lips. She made gulping motions like a fish out of water, but the little air she took in wasn't enough to make her chest rise. Her skin blanched and her mouth quickly turned blue.

"You are so brave, Mikaela," Optimus spoke in her ear. Organics died in stages. Hearing was the last sense to cease functioning. "I'm right here. I love you. With all of my Spark, all that I am, I love you."

That face didn't resemble her...that gasping, gaping white face, lips sunken in against her teeth and tongue pushing outward...

Optimus' expression contorted in silent distress. Mikaela was the person he ran to and cried on when his Spark grew too heavy. And now, a moment where he needed her more than ever, he couldn't cry on her shoulder. He didn't dare let her hear him weep for fear of prolonging her death throes.

"Shh, Mikaela, my wife, my bonded, my love...it's all right to stop fighting now." He paused to stifle another mechanical sob. "It's all right."

Mikaela's tongue fell back into her mouth and her whole jaw relaxed. Optimus waited for the next inhale that never came. Her heart muscle stopped quivering. Asystole, as the humans called it. The activity in her oxygen-starved brain- the electric energy of her soul- faded away the moment he kissed her goodbye. When he drew back, he saw an empty shell devoid of the light that animated it.

Everything within him collapsed like a hypernova. He didn't know how he remained standing. One second she was alive, the next, she wasn't.

Optimus solemnly carried the woman he loved upstairs to her bed. He smoothed her ponytail and lovingly applied her makeup the way she wore it whenever she wanted to look nice. Especially the red shimmer lipstick- it covered the purple of her lips.

He closed her eyes and mouth the best he could, but her eyelids didn't stay completely shut.

"Hello! I'm here to rob you," Elita called from downstairs. She was eighty years old, yet her voice still sounded young. The front door banged shut. "I got your call, mom! Thought I'd stop by! Love you, too!"

Dread filled Optimus' fuel pump. He could hear Elita open the refrigerator and the snap-click of a Snapple bottle top hitting the counter. When the rummaging fell silent, indicating she'd plopped across the couch, he finally left Mikaela's side.

The staircase seemed two miles long. Optimus could've easily beamed his hologram, but chose to walk instead. To stall.

Elita wore her gray hair short and spiked and fancied big, dangly earrings. Perfectly-applied makeup hid her true age- she looked no older than sixty-five.

She worked her way up to be the head CEO of Kinetic Solutions Incorporated and got her daughter, Hayley, to work directly under her. Optimus was her chief advisor.

Elita's position let her choose which Cybertronian technology was reverse-engineered, thus preventing Earth from making the same mistake as Joshua Joyce many years previous. Nobody touched protomatter without her say-so.

The moment Elita had control of it, she started working on its medical benefits. Within four years, she patented protomatter replacements for missing limbs that rendered cumbersome prosthetics obsolete. People began using wheelchairs capable of transforming into exosuits, which let them climb stairs and reach objects normally unreachable from a seated position. Hospitals obtained tiny surgical robots capable of working inside the human body. Surgery became safer and less invasive. Research for pairing protomatter with stem cells to grow replacement organs was still ongoing.

She also blew the cover off every Autobot hiding on Earth by saying they were the people who helped save it. Exposing their presence forced humanity to accept them. A bold move. Humans and bots eventually started working together. Reluctantly, sometimes grudgingly, but every step forward was progress.

And for all Elita had done, Optimus found it difficult to look at her through the lens of a painful new reality. Like Mikaela, she shone with a powerful inner light. A light destined to be gone too soon for him. He sat beside her on the couch and folded his hands in his lap.

"Hey, dad," Elita scooted over to lean on his side. Her touch sent needles through his circuitry. She didn't yet realize a piece of her world was gone. Saying it aloud meant making it real.

Optimus' fingers curled into fists. He grimaced, optics pressing tightly shut. True Cybertronian weeping happened without tears. He couldn't stop the low, coughing grind of his vocal unit- humans called it 'sobbing.'

"Dad?" Elita wrapped her arms around him. A second later, she stopped cold. "Oh, God, it's mom, isn't it?"

"She...she..." Optimus finally met her bright blue eyes. By the Allspark, he didn't want to tell her. "She had a massive heart attack. She did not survive. I-I'm sorry...I'm so sorry."

The words were swords escaping his mouth. He watched them cut Elita in half. She crumbled, grabbing onto his wrists, her eyes almost totally blank.

"No," Elita whispered, "Please, God, no. Please, God, no! She just called me- she just- oh God! Mom!"

Optimus caught her before she could bolt upstairs. Now that the truth was out, he needed to hold her. All her life he sought to protect her, yet nothing would shield her from this. And that nearly killed him.

"We were right here...I held her. She was happy," Optimus spoke into Elita's hair. "It happened so fast. She didn't suffer."

"Mom never liked to mess around." Elita sniffed. She clutched tightly at him. An unconscious gesture from her childhood- she did that to feel safer. "Oh, my God...oh, my God...I need to call Hayley. How the hell is she going to tell Phoebe her great-grandma just died? No...wait, no, they're at Disneyland... I can't ruin that."

Optimus rubbed his daughter's back, calming her. "I will monitor their GPS and inform you when they are home. Would you rather I call them?"

"I'd rather do it myself. I just- shit...shit...gotta call Cade, Tessa and Shane, too. I-I have to see her. Dad, I have to see her. Is she still in the house?"

"Yes. I laid her on the bed."

They headed upstairs together.

Mikaela might have looked asleep if her eyelids weren't half-open. Her pupils were dilated like black holes, stealing the beautiful blueness of her eyes.

Elita made an inhuman noise and turned away. Then she climbed onto the bed to press a kiss against Mikaela's cheek.

"Mom. Oh, God, mom...I love you so much, mom."

Another knife drilled into Optimus' Spark. Elita sought his arms again. He held her tight. They cried together. Hard.

Two years later, Elita started to lose weight without even trying. Then she developed stabbing pains in her abdomen. A doctor's thorough examination revealed stage four ovarian cancer. Tumors the size of oranges were pressing on nerves and disrupting her digestive system. The cancer had already metastasized to her lymph nodes and spine. Too late to treat.

Elita bravely put her affairs in order right away. A good thing: The doctor said six months. She lived for only three more weeks. Her last seven days were spent in agony. Hospice arrived five days before her death. The morphine helped, but it also knocked her out and left her mostly unresponsive.

Elita and Optimus never had a final conversation, but they didn't need to because nothing remained unsaid.

Her last coherent sentence, "Dad, it hurts," echoed endlessly in Optimus' processor.

Hayley and Phoebe visited to say their goodbyes. The aft-face Elita called an ex-husband didn't pick up his phone. Optimus made no further efforts at contacting him.

Hours stretched and weighed like the snow that bowed tree branches down. Elita lingered on, fighting for every moment.

Optimus laid in bed with her the whole time. He never left her side. She withered to nothing more than skin wrapped around a skeleton. Frail and breakable, her breathing weaker by the hour.

The death rattle started at eleven o'clock on a snowy Tuesday night in January. Listening to the secretions bubble in her throat and chest was torture, like hearing her drown, but the elderly hospice nurse said she didn't feel it.

Optimus spent the night reading her favorite books aloud while he held her. The last conscious movements she made- grasping his thumb and kissing his cheek- tore his Spark into splinters.

When the books ran out, he told her all about the day she was born. He could honestly call it one of the happiest moments in his lifetime.

"...and there you were, in my hands...a perfect, brand new human being that I helped create. You were a fantastic Prime, Elita. I'm so proud of you. I'm so glad you were mine." Optimus took Elita's hand and rubbed it. "I'm here if you need me...and if you feel ready to join your mother, go to her. Don't hesitate. I'll be all right, sweet-Spark."

I'll be all right. The biggest lie he ever told himself.

Nothing prepared Optimus for Elita's last breath. It happened while he was turning her over in bed to make her more comfortable. Like Mikaela, she exhaled and never inhaled again. Her mouth and eyes stayed wide open. She looked deflated, empty, nothing more than a shell.

Optimus noted the time. Noon, on a blustery, cold Thursday.

Elita's death shattered something inside him. For over an hour, he whispered to her like she was still alive and able to answer. When the funeral home came to pick the body up, Ultra Magnus had to pry him away from her tumor-poisoned remains.

The massive funeral garnered worldwide media coverage. Every television on Earth watched twenty-eight foot tall Optimus Prime get down on his hands and knees and weep over Elita's white casket. He used to be excellent at concealing his true emotions. But this grief, this overwhelming pain, crushed him inside.

A photo of his agonized face ended up on the cover of a Time magazine because a shrewd photographer captured the moment he broke down.

Losing Elita so soon after Mikaela hurt more than the loss of Megatron. Her existence came from a piece of his. Seeing her light slowly wither away...he couldn't bear it.

Damn human diseases, damn them! They took people far too soon.

Consciously, Optimus knew these days were coming. Nothing prepared him for the hellhole of living them.

.o

Eth tried the driver's side door for the fourth time. "Optimus, we're here."

Optimus didn't respond when spoken to.

"Hey!" Steo tapped the side window, "Let us out!"

Suddenly, both doors flew open so violently that they rebounded and almost closed again. Eth swore she heard a weird, mechanical whining sound escape the stereo speakers.

"Optimus?"

The doors slammed shut. "Get going."

Optimus drove away in a cloud of dust, leaving Steo and Eth next to the round, iridescent green warp pad. The Trillians looked at each other in befuddlement before stepping onto the shiny green disk. Their bodies disappeared in rainbow pixels and reappeared miles above the planet's surface.

Hover domes were giant disk-shaped structures under domed force-fields to keep the wind from destroying everything. Antigravity boosters held the massive sky islands aloft. They varied in size from a few miles in diameter to over a hundred miles in diameter. Cities consisted of several domes tethered together via giant electromagnetic generators. They resembled flowers when viewed from directly above or below. Main city buildings comprised the smaller domes around the outer edges while housing, schools and hospitals existed towards the larger central domes. Extremely rich Trillians had entire domes all to themselves.

Living in hover domes meant a minimal impact on the planet below. While most of it was desert, small spots of vegetation cropped up here and there. Besides, the domes had much more vegetation than the planet. There were entire domes dedicated to growing forests and other pretty things.

Trillian buildings were marvels to look at. They favored hexagons and pyramids in all their architecture. Schools were great, sprawling hexagonal rings. The Emerald dome where Steo and Eth lived sported a green crystal structure reminiscent of the Emerald City in the Broadcast. Someone rich built it to honor the long-extinct race responsible for the ancient signal.

"Well..." Steo smiled shyly. He turned towards the nearby monorail station. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow."

Eth nodded once. "I hope we don't get in trouble for this."

"Bah, trouble? We're gonna be the coolest kids at school! Just you wait!"

She wasn't convinced, but she waved a lower pincer anyway. "See you later, Steo."

The next day, Steo showed off the images he captured the previous day.

"So there, I did it. I was in his house." Steo proudly proclaimed to the older boys who issued the dare.

Brin, the tallest, had red and black dreadlocks to match his ruby optics and the black racing stripes painted on either side of his spiky Mohawk. He pushed Steo backwards.

"Holograms can be faked. What about the treasure?"

"Yeah!" Zeto's yellow optics narrowed and his long, matching dreadlocks twitched. "A picture's nothing. We all know he exists. We want his stuff."

"He crawler-ed out." Kek, the smallest, only had two dark green dreadlocks falling onto his brow. His orange optics squinted accusingly at Steo and Eth. "Crawler! Crawler!"

"Why are you so mean to him?" Eth glared back at the group.

"The Tin Man is a freak," said Zeto. "Freaks don't belong here."

"You stupid bolt-heads! He has feelings just like ours!" Eth yelled at them. Her dreadlocks bristled as she crossed her main arms and secondary pincers. "I talked to him. He's not a monster. You are."

Brin laughed and pointed a sharp finger at her face, "Shut up, proto-baby. Nobody asked you."

Disheartened, Eth walked away. Steo didn't follow. He stayed with the boys. Fine! Let him! Boys were stupid!

Eth threw her hands in the air at it all. She left her peers to be idiots while she climbed onto her hover scooter and rode towards a shop near the southern edge of her home dome. The allowance credits she earned through chores were just enough to get what she wanted. With her purchase stashed in a sand-proof cylinder, she journeyed to the warp pad. The hover scooter erased her need for calling a transport vehicle- it flew up to a hundred and ten miles per hour if she used the boosters.

High noon sunlight burned down, transforming the planet's landscape into a wobbly ocean of heat waves. Extreme temperatures rarely bothered Trillians- they were built for it. Eth squinted and powered her scooter between two violent dust devils spinning across the sand dunes.

Optimus didn't answer the knocks on his door. She peeped in the windows and found his house empty.

His tire tracks were still in the sand, mostly. Tracking the tire marks took the better part of an hour, but she persisted. Her scooter carried her over the lip of the canyon and down a long, rocky ramp leading towards its shaded river-floor. A shallow waterfall flowed through a tall protomatter tunnel.

Eth gulped and plunged inside. An entirely different world awaited her on the other side. Trees, vines and the blue sparkle of flowing water graced her optics. Sunlight shone down, but the high canyon walls offset its harshness. Looking at it reminded her of the ancient Broadcast, save it lacked a yellow brick road.

Optimus knelt to wash the mud off his hands, his tallness dwarfed by the largest of two smooth-bark wither trees flanking the stream. They were called that because their bushy, drooping branches with chains of round, purplish leaves appeared withered at the height of health. Seeing them somewhere other than a hover dome took Eth by surprise. Trees that wide were thousands of years old!

Between the two trees, brownish-black grass and iridescent red and blue flowers grew by the handful. The reds- flame blossoms- were cup-shaped, and the blue ones- night jewels- resembled five pointed stars. Night jewels were bioluminescent and often planted to light hover dome walkways after dark.

A roaring subterranean waterfall emerged from a wide cave in the canyon's silver-brown south wall. Its mist created a rainbow as it poured itself into a scintillating lake. The lake narrowed to become the stream feeding the oasis. The stream formed the second waterfall exiting the cave Eth used to enter. That waterfall created the raging river still shaping the broad canyon floor.

The combination of water and the giant robot's cultivating hands created a fantastic hidden paradise.

Optimus settled back against the tallest wither tree. His cane was at his side, perfectly in arm's reach if he needed it. He ran his hand along the grass and smiled. A real smile, not the twisted parody from yesterday. He didn't look so mean then.

Suddenly, Eth realized she intruded on his private space. She twisted the handlebars on her scooter, but the engines chose that moment to wheeze. Being halfway in the tunnel amplified the sound. When she glanced back and saw Optimus' smile becoming a scowl, she froze.

"I-I'm sorry! You didn't answer your door, so I followed your tracks. I'll go if you want."

"Hmph." Optimus went back to leaning on the tree. "You're here. You've seen my garden. It doesn't matter now."

Well, that wasn't the "get out" Eth expected. She hesitantly dismounted from her hover scooter and approached Optimus with the cylinder in her hands.

"I brought you something. It's kind of an apology for Steo being a big bolt-butt." She held up the container. "Here."

Optimus eyed her with a frown. He took the cylinder, which seemed small in his large hand, and examined it closely. Removing the lid, he dumped out the smaller cylinder inside. The second one had a silver center and flat, green tips. "How do you work it?"

"Hold the green parts and twist. The left side twists towards you and the right twists away."

He did so. A clear, rectangular screen unfurled from the center.

"What is it?"

"It's a Memory Recorder," said Eth. "Look at the screen and remember something, and it'll get recorded on this device. Pretty neat, huh? It's how the older generations pass what they know to the younger ones. Try it out?"

Optimus emitted that strange, mechanical sigh of his. Images began to appear. Quick flickers and blurs of color. After a moment, he squinted at the small screen, sneered and twisted the device shut again. He pressed a hand to his face. "It isn't working. My mind is too muddled."

"It's okay. They take some practice."

"You didn't come all the way out here to give me this. You expect something back from me, don't you?"

Stung, Eth hung her head. "I was just trying to be nice."

"You're trying to lower my guard. You want my belongings!"

"No! No, Optimus, I'm-"

"Don't!"

Optimus struggled to his feet and reached for his cane. He chose to walk in the shallow stream rather than step on the delicate flowers. Once he'd passed them, he transformed.

Maybe the boys were right after all! She tried to be nice and he...he...

Eth scrambled for her hover scooter and zoomed ahead of Optimus. She wanted him to see her leave. Sunlight lit her dreadlocks and face as she rose above the canyon wall. A brown line at the east foretold an oncoming sandstorm. Extreme afternoon heat always brought them on, but she had enough time to beat it if she zoomed full speed to the warp pad instead of dawdling.

Eth's gaze happened across Optimus' cube home. Horror gripped her at seeing footprints everywhere outside. The door was wide open. Steo sat in the doorway, holding his stomach, his plating dirty and green oil leaking from his mouth. Behind him, the inside of Optimus' house had been ransacked. His meager knick-knacks littered the floor. And the photographs...all but the highest two were gone.

"Steo!" Eth leapt off her hover scooter before it reached a complete stop. It coasted until it bumped into the side of the house.

"I tried to stop them...they took the photographs and beat me up! Brin and Zeto. Kek was tagging along." He covered his face and sobbed, "This is my fault!"

"You bet it is," Eth snapped. If he wasn't already hurt, she would have slapped him across the face for being such a fool.

Clanks sounded as Optimus transformed. His cane popped out of his back. Eth pulled Steo aside while the old robot hobbled up the front steps and looked inside his ruined home. He kicked aside the downed oil can. Then he collapsed to sit beneath the empty photograph wall, his hand caressing the empty space.

"No...Mikaela, Elita...no..." Optimus' face plates scrunched and he squeezed his optics shut. Grinding noises escaped his throat. He pulled his weak leg around and curled himself up into a ball. "No, no, no...don't leave me again!"

The noises he made sounded like crying.

He wasn't a monster after all. He was sick, old and tired of grieving.

"Optimus..."

"Get out," Optimus whispered. Stronger, he bellowed, "This is why there can never be peace. It's people. People ruin peace. Get out of here. Go! Leave!" His optics widened and flared, a frightening, crazed look. "I said get the hell out! Now!" He smashed his fist into the ground. "Out! Out!" He grabbed his oil can and hurled it. "Out!"

Eth blocked the projectile with her hands and brought her secondary pincers up to protect herself from other thrown objects. Tears beaded on her optics. Rage and pain almost threw her inner cogs out of sync. She grabbed Steo's upper arms and hauled him to his feet.

"Get the hell out!" Optimus shouted again. He flung his cane next, which successfully shoved the door shut. Steo stumbled and fell since he'd been leaning against it.

Plaintive weeping filtered through the closed door.

"We've gotta get those pictures back." Steo wiped his optics and spat on the ground. "That way Optimus will know I'm really sorry for this."

"You'll be lucky if he trusts us ever again." Eth grabbed the afterburner of her hover scooter and gently lowered it to her level. "How long ago did they attack the house?"

"Uh...twenty minutes, I think."

Eth's optics noted the footprints. Reaching a warp pad on foot took at least an hour, more if there was a sandstorm. And the wind had already begun blowing.

"Eth, why're we doing this? He's mean to people! You saw how he acted back there."

She glared daggers at Steo. "He's nasty because people like you and Brin are cruel. I tried to give him a present, and he thought I was tricking him! Why do you think he acts that way? For fun?"

"Eth, I-"

Memories of fire and broken glass flashed through Eth's mind. Her voice reached a shrill note as she shouted, "You had to show those pictures at school, didn't you? Who's the Tin Man here? It isn't Optimus! Grr! I'm going to get them for this! Stay here, crawler."

"I am not a crawler! Wait up!"

Eth reluctantly let Steo climb behind her on the hover scooter. Once he secured himself, she zipped away. She knew she'd overtake the bullies if she fired the afterburners at full burn. Just like she expected, she rounded the huge dune and found the bratty thieves dawdling around in the sand. They were swapping photographs and taking turns laughing at their contents.

"Lemme get the drop on them," Steo told Eth.

"Hurry. That sandstorm is almost here." Eth lined her hover scooter up with the group of three boys, all of whom were too busy to look her direction. "Ready?"

"Uh-huh...no. But do it anyway."

"Okay. One, two..." Eth zipped towards the group. "Three!"

"GYAH!" Steo threw himself off the scooter and landed across Brin and Zeto, knocking them to the ground. Kek greedily scooped up all the photographs.

Eth parked her hover scooter in the smallest boy's path. Kek shook his head, both sets of arms full of Optimus' prized possessions. "They made me do it! Honest!"

"Give those back and I won't punch your lights out," said Eth. She squinted and raised her fist, making her threat real. "Well?"

Kek threw the pictures at her and ran away, crying. Eth had no time to chase him down. The wind started to blow the tiny pieces of paper and plastic away. She rushed to capture them.

Someone slammed into her back as she grabbed the last picture. She curled up in a ball, trapping the photographs against her chest, and flailed her pincers.

"Give those back!" Brin snarled. "The Tin Man's treasure is ours. We won it!"

"No!" She screamed, "You can't have these. They belong to Optimus!"

"Eth!" Steo coughed. Zeto had him pinned down. Their pincers were locked together- he wasn't getting up any time soon.

Eth kept herself tightly packed in a ball. Brin kicked her once in the small of the back. Pain shot through her shoulders, but she refused to relinquish her grip.

"You're not taking these! No way," she hollered. "No! No, no, no!" Every blow made her hold on tighter. Sandy wind whipped at her dreadlocks and blasted her face.

"Eth! Eth, are you- oof!"

"Shut up!" Zeto slugged Steo's stomach.

Eth flailed her secondary pincers again. She felt one connect and Brin leapt backwards, holding his cheek, but she didn't dare relax for fear of losing her precious cargo to the wind.

"That's it!" Brin backed away, readying himself for a running kick.

Eth squeezed her optics shut in preparation for the pain.

HOOONNNK-HOOONNK!

The sudden sound halted Brin's advance. Immediately following it was a familiar knocking engine. Then came a hiss and several successive clanks. A hand reached out of the blinding sand to snatch Brin by the waist. Another one captured Zeto. Kek kept running for his life.

Optimus held the two boys aloft and dropped them on their metal butts at his feet. His azure optics burned right through the dark sand blasting past his face.

"Oh!" Brin scooted backwards along the ground. "He's bigger than they say he is!"

Zeto crawled on his belly. "No kidding! Hey! Don't eat me! It was just a joke!"

"A joke?" Optimus planted his left foot in their path. His stomp shook the ground. "You call assaulting a little girl a joke? You call taking my dearest possessions a joke?" His voice dropped like thunder. "Perhaps you will assume my chewing your faces off is a joke."

"No! P-please!" Brin suddenly didn't sound so tough anymore.

"Don't eat us!" Zeto wailed. "Kek! Kek, get back here! Hey, what about Kek! He did it, too!"

"I'm not interested in him. He is too puny for my taste. You, on the other hand..." Optimus scooped Zeto up as if to make good on his threat. Then he stopped, dropped him and turned away. "I lost my appetite." He picked up his cane. "Bah. Get off my lawn, brats! Scram!"

"What's a lawn?" asked Brin.

Zeto bolted towards Kek. "I dunno, I don't wanna know! Let's go!"

"Cog-butts!" Eth shouted after them.

"Crawlers!" Steo joined in.

Eth looked up at Optimus amidst the blowing sand. He was already hobbling back towards his home. She climbed to her feet, her back sore from being kicked, and followed him. No way he'd hear her call him over the noisy wind. She forgot about her hover scooter, which had already been buried by grit.

"Steo, c'mon," she said.

Steo fell into step with her. Even with his limp, Optimus' stride still let him reach his house long before they caught up. They made it seconds before he opened his door. He glowered at them.

"I meant all of you when I said 'scram.'"

Eth froze. "Yes, but..."

"But what?" growled Optimus.

The wind reached a strength that swayed even him. Steo had to squat and Eth bent forward.

"I saved your pictures!" Eth cried over the howl.

Optimus blinked once. Twice.

"Get inside before you blow away," he grunted. "Ugh."

Eth and Steo scrambled up the steps. Steo sat in the corner, rubbing his dented cheek. Eth finally uncurled her aching arms to reveal the entire collection of photographs still intact. She placed them gently in Optimus' outstretched hand.

The look in his optics when he saw the pile...

He coughed out huge clouds of dust, his intakes wheezing while he thumbed through the images. One by one, he replaced them where they belonged on the wall. His fingers lingered on each photo like a caress, and he fussed until every single picture hung straight. Then he pushed himself onto his knees, his head hanging low. Light from outside glinted off his dull, dusty helm.

"Do me a favor...pound on my back."

Hesitant, Eth moved behind him. "Um...you sure?"

"I have sand in my intakes. It hurts. Please, just..."

She looked at Steo, shrugged and slapped Optimus' back.

He hacked several times. Somehow, the sand came out of his shoulders, the spaces in his face and his neck. Then his weak leg gave way and he collapsed sideways against the wall.

"Why?" he asked. "Everyone else claims I'm a monster."

Eth stared at her feet as though ashamed. Not even Steo knew the secret she was about to tell.

"My family died in a dome crash. Those don't happen anymore with the new safety boosters...but I'm the only one who lived. All I had was a doll sculpted by my mother-maker, and someone stole it from me." She wiped her optics without looking at anyone else in the room. Ten years, and she still had trouble talking about it. "I know what it's like to lose everything. Nobody deserves that."

"Oh, Eth," Steo's orange optics widened. He looked away, dreadlocks falling limp. "Optimus, I'm sorry for taking your picture. It is my fault."

"Yeah, it is," said Optimus, his voice cold.

The boy shrank back, shoulders hunched and secondary pincers locked together.

Optimus struggled to rise, but his gimpy leg wasn't taking any more abuse for awhile. He finally let Eth assist him to the recharge berth by the window. A strong wind gust sent the slats flapping until he flipped the locking lever.

"Can we atone for this?" Steo asked once Optimus got settled.

"Mmh..." Optimus picked dust off the corners of his optics. He took the oil can Eth offered and lubricated his painful hip. "I suppose there is a way."

"Anything," Eth said.

His hard azure optics stared at them. Then he laid back, groaning a bit from the sand still caught under his armor plating.

"I'm tired. Get out when the sandstorm passes. Eth, your scooter is still out there in the sand. I assume it will get you home again safely, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then come back tomorrow." Optimus exhaled heavily, sending more dust into the air. His optics snapped shut and a weird rattling noise started issuing from his intakes.

Steo jumped up, flinching, and stared. "Is he dead?"

"No. Dead things don't make noises. I think he's asleep."

Even at rest, Optimus' expression remained sad.

They looked at each other. Eth grasped Steo's hand, her serious green optics gazing into his orange ones.

Twenty hours later- exactly one planetary rotation- they were knocking on Optimus' door again. Both fidgeted and nervously awaited the rude bark to get lost. So it was quite surprising when Optimus quietly opened the door and beckoned them inside.

They bumped into Krya during her noisy exit. Her knee-length white dreadlocks twitched irritably. "Next time you inhale a sandstorm, I'm takin' yer head off!"

"Hmph!" Optimus scowled after her.

Krya eyed Eth and Steo on her way past. Her dark purple optics practically pinned them to the spot. "Bunch o'troublemakers, you lot. Argh."

Steo covered a rude giggle. Eth politely let the older woman pass. Krya overturned her vacuum device to dump the desert sand back where it belonged. With a final huff, she hopped into her silver wedge-shaped hovercar and sped away.

Inside Optimus' house, two small blocks were set up under the window opposite to his recharge berth. The perfect size for two young Trillians to seat themselves.

Optimus regarded them for their full attention. He held the Memory Recorder by its ends. Without any preamble, he started talking, and the screen came to life as he spoke.

"Before time began, there was the Cube..."

.o

50 years later...

Optimus almost forgot how wonderful it felt to share of himself. He tried not to like the two alien children who grew up before his optics. Telling his story was repayment for their kindness. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet, each day, he anticipated their company. He tired quickly, so he kept his storytelling sessions to one hour a day. His tale spanned such vast time periods that it took five decades to tell it all.

Optimus didn't normally feel the ten year leaps. Centuries, yes, but decades were short. Now? All his joints ached at the slightest hint of sand, and his left hip hung on the verge of failing completely. Standing perfectly upright took more stamina than it used to. And walking long distances? Forget it. His vehicle mode attained a lot of new mileage.

He still insisted on visiting his canyon oasis, which now sported four wither trees and enough flowers to rival Earth's remembered poppy fields. The garden was his only reason for getting off the recharge berth. His energon reserves ran lower every day. It wouldn't be long before the last of his fuel burned away. Then he'd be able to safely disconnect his Spark chamber and leave everything behind.

Except my Spark is not a human soul...I cannot join Elita and Mikaela. We always knew that. But my pain will be over. I won't feel the sorrow I feel now. There is no sadness in the Allspark...

Rapping on the door roused the old Autobot from his morbid thoughts. He knew that knock.

"Eth, Steo...come in."

They weren't children anymore. Steo reached ten feet-ten inches in height and his Mohawk grew to an impressive mid-back length. Next to him, at ten feet even, Eth sported a full head of dreadlocks hanging to her waist. Two shorter ones framed her face in a manner considered attractive by Trillian standards.

The looks the two exchanged reminded Optimus of himself and Mikaela.

"The stories are finished," Optimus said grumpily. Old habits died hard; they knew he didn't really mean it. "Why are you nosy brats still coming here?"

Eth clasped Steo's hand. "Because..." She grinned, "We want to tell you something."

"We're getting married under the stars tomorrow night," said Steo. Just like humans, his voice now had a lower pitch than his youth. Though, unlike organics, this was a modification applied at physical maturity. "You've become special to us, Optimus...we'd like you to be there."

Ugh, they want me out in public?

"I'll think about it." Optimus shifted, wincing, and settled again. Both his hip and knee complained often now.

"It'll be in the Emerald dome one hour after sunset." Eth lightly touched his hand. He opened his optics to glower at her. She regarded him gently. "We understand if you can't make it. I know your leg makes things harder."

"Mmhmm." Optimus grunted noncommittally. "Go on, scram before the dust ruins your polish."

Steo and Eth exchanged fond looks and touched their lips together in a kiss. Then they quietly departed without letting the door crash shut. Finally, they learned not to slam it.

Recharge evaded Optimus for the next two hours. He finally tapped his rarely used communications line. "Krya...yes, this is Optimus. I require your assistance."

The next day, he endured the long trip to the warp pad and the indignity of a cleaning stall. He stayed in vehicle mode until he was out of sight- surprisingly easy to do with the tall walls and buildings.

And for the first time in thousands of years, he could see the red and blue flames of his paint job again. His silver parts shone in the sun like mirrors. He'd almost forgotten how he used to look in his youth.

Krya played the part of a driver. Trucks weren't entirely unusual in the domes. By late afternoon they pulled into the massive Emerald dome. It looked like an exact replica of Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz movie. The roads were even made of yellow bricks!

Was this entire civilization's mythology based around an ancient human film from the nineteen-thirties? The prospect almost seemed ridiculous. Yet Optimus remembered how Elita loved fantasy and stories about warriors, kings and knights. She became especially fond of tales that ventured into science fiction. And she immensely enjoyed The Wizard of Oz. Optimus preferred the novels over the movie, but he always kept his mouth plates shut on the issue.

Besides, the green crystal towers were quite impressive.

The ancient Autobot kept himself hidden until a few minutes before the ceremony, which was slated to take place next to a silver energon fountain. Seeing it sent Optimus' battered systems screaming with something similar to hunger. An unpleasant sensation easily overridden by shutting down the monitoring program.

"Don't go fallin' asleep on me." Krya slapped Optimus' side. She spoke as Trillians did nine centuries ago- a time when women were laborers while men maintained homes.

"I am wide awake, Krya."

"Then look it."

"Hmph!"

Optimus transformed while the sun dipped below the reddening horizon. It hurt. Every transformation pained his old joints. He sat down on the thick, raised rim of the fountain and rolled his cane between his palms to distract himself from the agony in his leg.

A group of Trillians stopped and stared.

"Tin Man!" shouted a child. His mother hurriedly whisked him away, nervously glancing over her shoulder. Did she really expect someone so decrepit to give chase? Hah!

"You're here!"

Optimus turned, regarding Eth with curious approval. Gold ribbons dangled from the ends of her dreadlocks and sparkling red slip-covers decorated her dainty feet.

"Eth, you look...lovely," he said. More to be polite than anything- he didn't understand the beauty standards of these people. Then again, the same issue occurred the first time he danced with Mikaela.

Eth giggled, clasping her hands together. "Thanks. So do you. Wow, you look completely new!"

Chuckling a little, Optimus glanced at his own hands. "I don't feel it...but thank you." He pointed his cane straight ahead. "Steo seems nervous."

Steo stood at the end of the walkway, keeping his back to the fountain. Segmented silver cuffs adorned his wrists, pincers and ankles. They stood out due to Trillians having a coppery-gold surface. A black cord tipped in red baubles hung off his middle-most dreadlock. The little red ornaments swung as he looked to and fro without turning around.

"He's not supposed to see me until the ceremony. I'm not looking at him either." Eth touched his hand. "I'm really glad you're here."

For once, Optimus' expression softened a half-degree. He moved his thumb, gently grasping her hand in return. "I appreciate the invitation."

She leaned in and kissed his cheek. He closed the optic on that side, anticipating a poke from her pointy little nose, but somehow the angle of approach let her miss it by a scant inch.

Moments later, the ceremony began. Optimus took out the Memory Recorder while he watched Eth and Steo exchange words of love. His gaze wandered skyward. The galactic core glowed on the eastern horizon, and the blue reflection nebula still shone brightly above with even more stars illuminating the cold, distant void.

Optimus surfaced above his thoughts every so often to notice the lengthy wedding vows. Seeing such devotion in the way Steo and Eth looked at each other warmed the coldest parts of him. He remembered Mikaela holding his gaze like that. Watching someone else share the same thing he felt eons ago awakened his fondest memories.

Her life was so short, but she existed. She was lightning and he happened to be the tree she struck. The love he felt for her still bloomed like an ever-reaching blossom beneath this vastly different sky. Though the very core of his Spark ached with missing her, he closed his optics and lifted his head. His newly clean face reflected the stars. He was smiling.

He smiled because Mikaela happened.

.o

The night was especially clear. Eth's optics easily made out all the sparkling details of the spherical galactic core.

Brutal spring sandstorms kept her and Steo off Trillia's surface for nearly a week. Optimus departed their wedding right after the ceremony, thus skipping the massive party of a reception, and they never got a chance to thank him for coming as a unit.

Eth wrung her pincers together while she sat in the passenger's side of the teardrop-shaped hovercar. Optimus was very close to death. She could tell by the way his optics flickered and his heavy, shuffling footsteps, and she desperately hoped they weren't too late.

"Almost there," said Steo. He steered the red-framed vehicle down towards the dirty cube building.

Steo carefully landed the hovercar. Eth squeezed his pincer with hers before jumping out. She ran up to Optimus' door, where she found the filled-to-capacity Memory Recorder and a note adhered to the latch. He'd written a list of instructions in Cybertronian- she didn't read those. Her gaze went right to the dots and curls of Trillian text at the bottom.

Tonight is the night. Goodbye.

Coldness spread through Eth's internals. She shoved the door open, expecting to find a corpse. Instead, she saw an empty house.

"He isn't home!" She scrambled back outside. While Steo read the note, she said, "I know where he went. We need to go to him."

"Where is he?"

"I'll show you."

They stashed the Memory Recorder and Steo drove like a mad-Trillian. The trip that took Eth an hour in her childhood only required fifteen minutes because she memorized the path. Steo didn't argue about directions for once and gracefully parked the hovercar inside the protomatter tunnel leading to the hidden oasis.

Tears beaded on Eth's optics when she exited the vehicle. Optimus was lying facedown on the grass. His feet dangled in the stream and his extended right arm indicated he tried to catch himself. Eth spotted the muddy gash where his cane slipped on the stream's edge. The lost mobility device lay trapped under his legs. Worst of all, he wasn't moving.

Steo waylaid Eth by extending his arm. "Optimus?"

Optimus jerked his head up and scowled at them. His optics were bright, twinkling pinpoints.

Eth and Steo rushed to his aid. His left hip hung partially out of its socket. Torn wires glimmered in the starlight. He stiffened and his leg shuddered each time those wires arced.

Together, the Trillians grasped Optimus' arms and helped him crawl to the tallest wither tree. Optimus assisted them the best he could, though pain nearly paralyzed him. Turning him over to sit made something in his hip snap. His left leg went instantly limp. He hollered, clutching the irreparably damaged joint.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry!" Eth covered her mouth with both hands.

"You didn't-" Pain cut Optimus' voice off before he finished.

Eth noticed his chest armor was open, which exposed a slit of something star-like that made rhythmic zap-zap noises.

Optimus' left hand went to his chest, where he must have been trying- and failing- to disconnect something for quite some time. Tremors took over whenever his fingers got close. They wouldn't grasp. He growled and smashed his head against the tree behind him in frustration.

"Should we call Krya?" Eth asked, wincing.

"No." Optimus' upturned eye ridges and squint expressed more than words. "It's the end for me. Please, you should leave. You don't want to see this."

"Optimus..." Steo began.

"Go away!"

Eth met Steo's optics. She swallowed over the prickly heat building in her throat and slipped her arms around Optimus' neck. Pulling him close, she spoke past the catch in her vocal mechanisms.

"No. You're Optimus Prime. You're a hero. You, of all people, deserve to spend your last moments in the arms of someone who cares about you. We're staying. Yell at us all you want, we're staying." Eth set her mouth plates in determination to keep the tears out of her voice.

"You are watching me self-terminate. Or, rather, my failed attempts..."

"Then tell us what to do." Steo also struggled to stay strong. "We'll help."

Trillians believed in helping loved ones end their lives when they grew so ill that their existence was pure suffering. Once Eth saw how much pain Optimus endured to be at the wedding, she knew he'd reached that point. His physical agony matched his emotional torment. Nothing short of rebuilding his entire body and wiping his memory would restore his health.

"No. I can't place such a burden on you." Optimus' hand faltered again when he tried to reach inside his chest plates. "My motor skills are deteriorating faster than I anticipated. I can't. Blast it, I can't..." He closed his optics and a grinding, mechanical sob escaped him. This time, he shed actual tears. "I-I want to go home. And I can't...I never will."

Eth rubbed his shoulder. "Shh, I know. I know."

"Why are you still here?" Optimus bristled. The corners of his mouth turned down. "I told you to leave!"

Steo's face fell and his pincers lowered. He exchanged looks with Eth and wrung his hands in a helpless gesture.

Optimus was a selfless warrior who fought for freedom, justice and peace. Even in the depths of his own misery, he considered others before himself. The trait still lived on, evidenced by his attempts to spare them the sight of his imminent demise.

"You can't make us leave," Eth whispered. Bolder, she went on, "Please, you've done so much for others. Let us do this for you."

Steo knelt at the ailing robot's side. Almost a bow of respect, except he maintained eye contact with him. "Eth's right. You're a hero. I still remember how you scared the cogs out of Brin, Zeto and Kek to save us- you didn't have to, but you did it."

"Mm...yes...it was- nice- to be a Prime again."

"You never stopped being one," said Steo. Static crackled in his voice. "Not to us."

Optimus blinked slowly, his optics faraway. He stopped reaching into his chest. The mechanisms in his throat moved and he coughed up dust. He gripped his left hip, grimacing.

"T-There are six bundles of orange wiring around my Spark chamber...they are arranged like the radiating spokes on your hovercar's tires. Can you see them?"

Eth peered into his chest. She saw exactly what he described. Clear, hair-like filaments flanked each wire.

Steo nodded once, wiping at his optics. "I see them."

"Me, too," Eth added.

"They connect my Spark to...ungh...the rest of my body. My energon is completely depleted...so I will die almost instantly when all six wires have been cut."

"What if we don't cut the wires?" asked Steo.

"I will go into stasis lock indefinitely. Stasis-lock is oblivion...and I was already living in it while wide awake. I might have spent the rest of my life that way, but you two troublemakers showed up and ruined my plans."

Optimus smiled with genuine affection, offering a glimpse of his long-past youth. Then his hip arced again and pain crossed his expression. He shifted where he sat, a vain attempt to get more comfortable.

"Eth, Steo...thank you for making my last years bearable. I feel honored to call you my friends. I'm...I'm sorry for my rudeness towards you."

Friends. He said friends.

Steo's face contorted and he hid it behind his pincers. His hands stayed on Optimus' shoulder armor, gripping it tight.

"Pain makes people angry. I never held it against you." Eth turned her head so Optimus wouldn't see her mouth plates shaking. Once she regained control, she met his dim blue optics. "We wanted to thank you again for coming to the wedding. Your being there made it special."

"Mmh, you're welcome." Optimus blinked and looked down at himself. His head bobbed and he jerked it up again like someone trying to stay awake. "Please...I can't delay stasis much longer. I want to be fully conscious for this."

Eth wiped dust off the Prime symbol on his helm and touched her lips to it. She felt Steo's arm join hers in supporting Optimus' head. Their optics met and they slowly lowered one pincer into their robotic friend's chest. The solid, thick wires were easy to identify through touch.

Together, simultaneously, they cut the first two. The tough wires required a strong twist-squeeze that tore the smaller surrounding cables. Optimus stiffened with a low moan.

Steo hesitated, shaken. "We're hurting you."

"It's all right," Optimus' voice sounded pinched. "Do you remember...when I told you how human childbirth is painful? This...is similar. The pain is forgotten...once you see the end result. I'm tired. Please...Steo, Eth...set me free..."

Eth and Steo both pressed closer to him and reluctantly cut the second and third wires. Optimus' face plates scrunched together. The zap-zap of his Spark slowed considerably. At the fourth and fifth, a mechanical whine escaped him.

"I'm glad we knew you," whispered Steo. Emotion choked his voice off. He let his forehead touch Optimus' shoulder, "I promise you won't be forgotten."

Optimus opened his flickering optics and touched Steo's upper arm. The look on his face said goodbye. He focused on Eth next and managed a slight smile.

Eth smiled back despite the pain in her throat. She stroked the side of his face and placed her hand on his. He moved his hand and laid it atop hers, his thumb folding inward against her palm. She grasped it tightly- that seemed to bring him peace. Then he turned his optics skyward.

"Do it."

The command left Steo struggling to control his emotions. He clung tightly to Optimus' armored shoulder. Eth steeled herself, oblivious to her own tears. They positioned their pincers in Optimus' chest. His Spark illuminated the sharp edges about to release him from the mortal coil.

Eth swallowed a sob. "Goodbye, my friend."

Optimus' hand tightened around hers. That gesture gave her the courage to close her pincer. Steo squeezed at the same time. They pressed and twisted, severing the final wire. The zap-zap noises stopped instantly.

"Elit-a-a-a-a..." Optimus' voice wound down like an electronic device losing power, "Mi- k-a-a-a-a-e-la-a-a..." His optics faded and his head slumped back into the arms waiting to catch it.

Eth didn't know what force she prayed to when Optimus' limp hand fell off hers, but she did it fervently.

"Please..." She embraced him with her pincers. "Let him find peace."

.o

Blackness closed in, and he escaped himself like a kite string unraveling from its spool. The separation hurt. A discomfort quickly forgotten.

Optimus couldn't be sure how long the darkness lasted. He was startled when every single data track within his CPU opened simultaneously. The memories stretched further than he could see. His awareness drifted through the calm tunnel of his lifetime. The mistakes he made took up one side, his triumphs had the other, and he slipped seamlessly between them.

Seeing Megatron's image made him smile- yes, he still loved him. Memories of Mikaela and Elita crossed his path, their familiar faces comforting within this great unknown. He picked up speed until time, space and his recollections became a giant fractal blur.

Something captured him. The swirling sensation abated. He saw the Matrix of Leadership rotating above his head. Its power washed through him, and then...

Light.

The sun's glare gave way to open highway and white skies. Hot asphalt crackled beneath his huge tires. Magnificent flower fields lined the hills on either side. The Autobot symbol on his silver grill gleamed. He was a Peterbilt 379 again. Wait, when wasn't he? For all he knew, he'd been rolling on this road forever.

"It's about time you woke up."

A soft hand settled on the bottom of his steering wheel. He knew that hand. That voice. The weight of the form seated in his driver's seat. Her brunette hair and bright blue eyes. Even the clubbed thumb tapping casually on his gear stick ached with familiarity.

She wore the same denim outfit she had on when they first met in an alley...how long ago?

He dared speak her name.

"Mikaela."

Mikaela squeezed his steering wheel affectionately. "No, it's the Easter Bunny."

Optimus eased to a stop. He materialized inside his sleeper- the newer hologram that went with the other truck mode. Confusion wrote itself across his face when Mikaela twisted to wink at him. He stared at her, shocked.

"Optimus, hey." Mikaela climbed past the seat and embraced him. The electrical vibrations he used to sense around her heart and brain now encompassed her entire surface. She was pure energy.

His gaze went to his rear view mirror, where he glimpsed two alien beings embracing something broken lying against a tree. Their presence barely lasted a second in his memory, yet he remembered the kindness they offered. He blinked and the reflection vanished, leaving only his silver-plated face staring back.

"Prima called me up," Mikaela remarked.

"Oh? Why?"

"He said to tell you the Matrix of Leadership gave you one more transformation." She grinned, playing with the strap on his left leg. "It sensed how much you needed me, so it turned your Spark into a soul."

"A soul..."

"Yup." She interlocked her fingers behind his neck, her thumbs creating a pleasant tingle around his ear finials, and peered up at him through her eyelashes. Her blue irises appeared iridescent in his optical sensors. By the Allspark, he melted every time she looked at him like that. "And I'm glad it worked, because I really need you, too."

Wiper fluid blurred Optimus' vision. He willed it to, because he wanted her to know how happy he was to hold her again. Then he wondered why kept wanting to weep with joy when they hadn't been apart more than a few minutes.

"Mikaela," he whispered to her. "I have something of extreme importance to tell you."

"Yeah?"

Optimus' emotions consumed him like fire spreading across gasoline. He gathered the blaze, bent forward slightly and passed it to her.

"I love you."

Mikaela's face softened. Her eyes reflected the flame they shared ever since their first dance. She brushed the teardrops off his eyelids and rubbed her lips side to side against his parted mouth plates. Her best approximation of a Cybertronian kiss.

"I love you, too, Optimus."

They started dancing. Slowly. Gently. Just like her prom night. He lost himself in her eyes.

"I can't wait to get back." Mikaela spoke without breaking their rhythm. "Elita has the whole gang ready to meet us. It's gonna be a heck of a reunion."

Optimus' optics lit up at the prospect of embracing his daughter again.

"We won't be long." He kept Mikaela close, his forehead touching hers. Being in her arms made everything right again. "I'm...I'm home."

Her breath tickled his throat. "Welcome home."

A subroutine commanded his truck self to drive and an array of navigation sensors kept him centered on the highway. Driving via autopilot took no more thought than twitching a finger.

The sun rode low on the horizon directly ahead. Everything started emitting its own light.

Optimus twirled Mikaela before drawing her to his chest once more. She embraced him again. He clasped his hands on her lower back and eliminated the last distance between their bodies.

"Now we are one," said Optimus. He took her hand. "Forever."

"Forever." Mikaela grinned against his cheek. "Let's finish this dance."

He smiled and gracefully dipped her as infinite white consumed them.

.o

Three shooting stars streaked eastward and vanished. Nothing made a sound. Everything was stillness.

Eth nearly leapt out of her plating when Steo moved his arm out from behind Optimus' head.

"Eth...I-I can't look." He kept his optics tightly closed. "Is it over? Did he go?"

Eth guided Optimus' head to rest against the tree and studied him closely. No light glowed in his wide-open optics. His mouth hung slack like a void. He looked fragile and empty, a battered tin soldier left on the shelf after its owner finished playing with it.

"Yeah," she whispered, petting his hand, "he went."

A pained noise escaped Steo's vocal unit.

Eth eased Optimus' eyelids and jaw shut with a pincer. She pressed her forehead to his ear finial. Watching him die hurt more than she anticipated. At the same time, tiny glimmers of joy bloomed inside her sadness because she knew he wasn't suffering anymore.

Steo squinted and patted Optimus' shoulder. "We only knew him fifty years, but feels like longer, doesn't it?"

Eth couldn't hold her crying back anymore. She moved from Optimus' side and embraced Steo, sobbing into his shoulder. He hugged her tightly in return. His arms trembled.

"Aw, Eth..."

"The last wire didn't hurt him," Eth choked, "There was no pain at all."

Steo's pincers joined his embrace. He gave great quadra-hugs. "I know. I know, shh, it's okay. He's okay."

Both Trillians spent several minutes collecting themselves. Eth fished Optimus' cane out of the grass and laid it on the ground beside him.

Optimus' final note contained instructions written in Cybertronian. He taught Eth and Steo his native language while sharing his story with them. Eth suspected he did that in preparation for this event.

"Let's prepare the ashes," said Eth.

"Okay."

Steo extracted the empty Spark chamber. Without the wires holding it in place, it came out easily. Eth found the tiny gold urn and something else inside the empty alcove.

"Oh...the Matrix of Leadership. Steo, look at this."

The instant she lifted the silver artifact to show Steo, it disintegrated into glittering stardust that fell between her fingers. She covered her face, recollecting her shaken emotions.

"Eth..."

"I-I'm okay, Steo."

Steo studied the small urn closely before twisting off the lid. His optics met Eth's. She nodded once, taking hold of the Spark chamber and using her thumbs to keep the doors open. Steo removed the plastic bag in the urn and emptied its gray contents into the black sphere. The cremains behaved like sand, and sank into the thick, plasmatic fluid at the bottom of the chamber. Eth released the doors and they sealed shut with a resounding snap.

"Optimus wanted his body laid to rest in this oasis." Eth peered over at Optimus, who looked like he'd only settled down to recharge. "Let's leave him right where he is. Nobody knows about this place, so nature will cover him up eventually."

"An old-fashioned Trillian burial. Yeah, perfect. I think he'd like that." Steo gathered the Spark chamber and Memory Recorder to his chest. "I'm gonna take these things to the hovercar. Will you be okay?"

Eth wiped her optics. "Yes. Let me close his chest before we go."

Steo kissed her cheek and headed towards the hovercar. Eth reverently tucked the cut wires in and closed Optimus' chest armor. She folded his hands in his lap while taking a long look at his contented expression. His shiny red, blue and silver armor plates reflected the stars like mirrors.

Optimus had a heart just like the real Tin Man from the Broadcast. Maybe not a literal heart, but it carried love just the same. She felt honored at being able to see it for herself.

Steo's lower pincer wrapped around her waist. She leaned on him, grateful for his comfort.

"Let's go," she said.

Neither spoke when they emerged from the hidden oasis. They drove the short distance and parked outside Optimus' house to complete the instructions he'd so painstakingly written out.

Eth ached at the memories echoing in the walls, the floor and the ceiling of his humble abode. She began systemically taking the photographs off the wall. Behind her, Steo tugged a hidden panel off the floor and reached inside. The object he removed looked like a small flying saucer. Six gold spokes around the sides contained rolled-up solar sails. When deployed, they would resemble flower petals.

"Oh, he built a quantum vacuum plasma thruster! Eth, check this out, he must've worked on this for centuries!" Steo showed the device to Eth.

"It's beautiful. And look, that's his family sigil on top," Eth said, pointing to the intricate engraving on the container's lid. "See? I saw the same symbol inside his Spark chamber when you poured in the ashes."

Wan smiles bloomed on their shiny faces. Optimus' Spark chamber fit perfectly inside the tiny vessel. The note didn't call for it, but Eth tucked the photographs into the container, too. Those were his treasure.

Steo carried everything outside and puzzled over the diagram for activating the propulsion systems. Eth gazed softly at her husband- he loved sticking his blunt little nose into new technology.

"Can you hack it?" she teased.

He made a face. "I've got this. His instructions say it'll use oxygen first and vacuum fluctuations once it's outside the atmosphere. So it's going to take off fast once I get it started." Glancing up, he asked, "But which way should we aim it?"

Eth grasped his lower left pincer with hers. "Straight upward. The same direction he was looking when he died."

"Mm. Here we go. Safe journey, Optimus." Steo connected two wires, twisted the device's entire outer rim and activated a blue line of LED's that slowly darkened one at a time.

"Goodbye, Optimus," whispered Eth. She backed away from the device as Steo set it down in the sand. "Hey, there's something on the back of his note."

Steo unfolded the dirty paper. "It's a quote from a novel called..." he squinted, sounding the title out, "The Thorn Birds."

The last light on the flying saucer blinked while he read the passage aloud.

"Let the cycle renew itself with unknown people. I did it all to myself, I have no one else to blame. And I cannot regret one single moment of it. The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it."

Eth quietly interlocked her fingers with Steo's. They watched the flying saucer blast off. In moments, the tiny payload was just a glimmer of light against the billowing blue nebula spanning the sky.

The reality of Optimus' death struck her. No more hearing rude barks to get off his property. No more of his stories. No more oiling him when his joints locked up. No more holding his hand while he writhed in pain on his recharge berth.

She gazed at Steo, her optics misty. So were his.

"Let's see what he left us on the Memory Recorder," said Steo. Always trying to lighten the mood a little. He was good at that.

Nodding, Eth sat down on the cube house's front steps and twisted the ends of the hollow cylinder. Steo seated himself at her side. The screen's glow lit their golden-hued faces as they watched their own wedding from Optimus' point of view.

He never knew the Memory Recorder also recorded emotions. Eth and Steo experienced Optimus' deep and endless love for Mikaela- a love just like their own. They smiled, wiping the tears off each others' cheeks.

The Memory Recorder's final entry, a view of the stars, broadcasted how much Optimus cared about them.

.o

1,000 years later...

"Wow. Mother-maker! It's so pretty here!"

Time and erosion widened and deepened the craggy crack known as Tin Man's Canyon. The little oasis went wild with new sunlight to feed it. Vines, flowers, grass and trees created a shady, hidden paradise.

Eth sat beside the young proto-child standing barely four feet tall. Her curious son stared up at the tree before him, which grew over and through the mechanical being sitting against it. The old robot had rusted almost completely away, leaving behind fragments of a support frame. He was part of the garden he loved so much.

The boy's azure optics shone bright in the shade. The one dreadlock he'd grown in gleamed blue-black in the harsh sunlight.

"Welcome to the secret oasis, Optimus." Steo patted the boy's head. He met Eth's optics with a genuine smile. "Your mother-maker and I knew the person who made it so beautiful."

"Really?" Optimus blinked, unaware the pieces of metal in the tree were once his namesake.

"Yup." Steo grasped the Memory Recorder he brought along and sat down in the grass. "There's a reason your name is Optimus, kiddo."

Eth's hand found Steo's. They looked at each other and nodded.

"Since you're such a big boy now, we brought you here to hear a story." Steo twisted the cylinder, which sent the screen inside popping out. "One that needs to be carried on when you grow up and have proto-children of your own."

The boy's sole dreadlock twitched. His expression relaxed into a seriousness much like his father's. He sat down, hands and pinchers folded in his lap. "Is it a long story?"

"Very long," said Eth. She wrapped her arm around Optimus' shoulders. "Ready?"

"Uh-huh!"

Steo grinned and activated the Memory Recorder. Warmth washed over Eth's heart at the sound of a familiar baritone voice.

"Before time began, there was the Cube..."

Brilliant sunbeams streamed through the wither tree's round leaves. Eth and Steo happily watched their son experience the Tin Man's treasure for the very first time.

.o

.o

.o

"Let my breath come to an end,
always remembering You, always remembering You.
May nothing stand in the way, may nothing stand in the way
to reach my true home again, to reach my true home again.
Please let my whole life pass always remembering You,
always remembering You.
Remembering, remembering, remembering, remembering...
Always remembering You, always remembering You."

- John Adorney and Daya Rawat, "Always Remembering You"