Holy crap, this is the end! This took longer to complete due to real-life responsibilities, but I'm really happy to share it with you. Thank you so much to all of you who followed me through this little story. Cadenza ends here, but I don't think I'm done with Sonata. Real life has gotten busier, though, and I have other fics to update, but we will see!

For now, thank you all again. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Soundwave woke slowly.

He curled his long fingers, and twitched his heavy, tired feet. He didn't online his optics, or his visor, trying to register the dull processor ache and the weight that seemed to have lifted. It dawned on him that his energon reserves had been replenished—he felt odd because he was no longer dying, deep in the Shadowzone.

Presences reached him, familiar but not and stabbing straight through his spark. One was surely Laserbeak's, and her weakness was the push to make him online fully. Unconscious, re-energized, but so very faint. On instinct he reached out, to her, and someone took his hand. And he remembered.

Soundwave sat up so fast that his head spun, and a figure (no, Sonata, his Sonata, his starsong), steadied him, guiding him gently down again. He became aware of the small, sunny room, the thermoblanket over his legs…and shelves, floor to ceiling. Stuffed to overflowing with books and notepads. Soundwave had never owned so many datapads in his life.

"Don't move too much," Sonata said. Soundwave took in the voice, nothing like the sparklet he'd known. "You were repaired and re-energized, but you need rest. You were…" Sonata paused. Now his vents hitched. "You were gone a long time."

Laserbeak was at his other side, wires and tubes from far more places than was comforting. She was still—but alive. Soundwave looked, slowly, from her to his son. He would catch himself looking past that frightened face, waiting for his sparklet to run in and ask what had takenhim so long.

Sonata's hand shook in Soundwave's as they watched each other. Soundwave could take in the details now, of this adult son he had not seen grow up. A blue visor (to hide what?), long (normal, fully jointed) fingers, wings pressed against his back and angled down (completely unlike a Seeker, thank Primus).

Handsome, sharp features and a tall, lithe frame. Not so skinny as Soundwave had become, but tall. Maybe able to meet optics with his sire.

Soundwave's vocalizer spit static, and he registered Sonata's panic just as he found the words.

"Sonata," he murmured, in his real voice. Unmodulated, hoarse. "Starsong."

Sonata went stiff. His mouth twitched, and his expression screwed up in anguish. It hit Soundwave in a torrent and he reached out. Sonata's head ducked down and he shook, taking Soundwave's other hand and steadied on the berth by his elbows.

Soundwave didn't register anything else. He couldn't. Overcome by the real, living world and his beautiful, grown son, he went silent again. He waited for both of their shaking to stop.

It took some time for coherence to return. In the time Soundwave spent lying down, hands clasped in Sonata's, Laserbeak did not wake up. He realized that this must be Sonata's own room, his own berth. His books, lining every available wall and piled up where they didn't fit on the shelves.

He also realized that this was not Cybertron, that this was a human-built warehouse he was resting in. It was Earth sun that blazed through the wide window. He kept his questions to himself. Sonata was still slumped, head bent over Soundwave's hands as if in prayer.

Finally Soundwave eased his hands away, and Sonata looked up. Slowly, his son sat up, and stood. He crossed the room to a counter, and poured energon on out slowly. Small cubes of low-grade, something Soundwave could keep down.

Soundwave reached for the clasps on his face, and Sonata watched in silence as he removed his visor. He set it on his chest, six optics blinking in slow unison. There was no Laserbeak to tease him as he did. He knew they must be wide as Sonata approached him, settling back into his seat. He reached out for one of the cubes—and his hands shook, clacking against its sides. Weakness, from years—years!—without real energy.

Sonata tilted his head up and helped him drink. It had been a very long time since he'd taken energon without a siphoning straw, or an injection. It didn't matter.

After, Sonata drank his own in silence. Soundwave could not quite pick out what he turned into, but it was almost certainly an Earth mode. When Sonata was finished, Soundwave raised a brow.

This place?

"Oh," Sonata said, looking around at the room. "Yeah. I've been on Earth a long time."

Such a soft voice. Certainly not inaudible, but shy. It had been so long since they had spoken to each other, and his son had grown without him. In other directions.

Soundwave reached, with shaky fingers, back towards his visor. Sonata was there in an instant, helping him set it back in place, clips locked in. When it was in place, Soundwave met his son's gaze with a red, glowing question mark. Sonata smiled. He reached over, to Laserbeak's little berth, and stroked the top of her head.

"You missed so much," he said, and Soundwave's spark skipped. "Not just with me," Sonata said quickly, turning his way again. "Cybertron's alive. People are coming back."

Soundwave tilted his head towards the window. Sonata shrugged, looking out at the desert sun.

"Ratchet took me in," he said finally. "He—how do you look so surprised with that visor? He lives here."

Soundwave had never imagined his son as social, in their old world, but he had never had reason to imagine their future. Keeping him alive had been enough. On his visor, he brought up an image of old Cybertron, one teeming with life in the war's early days. Sonata smiled.

"I've been," he said. His fingers no longer twitched so much; he was beginning to relax. "Plenty of times. I don't think I'll ever quite fit in. Ratchet says we're alike."

So the old medic did remember. That, Soundwave supposed, was something.

Sonata deserved normalcy. Sonata deserved affection, and friendships, and real education. All things Soundwave had never had, not in the normal way. He looked normal enough. Tall and lithe, but well-proportioned. He had clearly not been in his final frame long, with the way his limbs gangled and his wings twitched. But...he had been taken in. Cared for. By an Autobot (and there must be more to that story), but he had made it this far.

You should not have been alone.

Sonata tensed, looking away, and his pain curled in Soundwave's spark. Laserbeak would have pushed him to a better apology, a real one, but her spark pulsed so weakly. As he turned back to Soundwave's steady gaze, a soft click pulled back his visor, and-

Soundwave stopped. Sat up on his elbows to get a better look, and felt the urge to pull off his own mask to be certain of it. Sonata was lucky. He was a sparked mech with flight codes, could choose any form he liked if his spark matched the size.

Two pairs of blue optics flickered out at him, the lower row narrow and angled beautifully on his face.

"I forgave you a long time ago," Sonata said quietly. His hand reached up, seemingly without thinking, touching the corner of one optic. "Well, I think I did. There are only so many ways for me to remember you by."

Soundwave was overcome. His own mask crackled to life as he tried to respond. The visor was, evidently, not for Sonata himself. His spark jolted, his energy swirling so violently that he watched Sonata tense up again, reaching towards him. He watched those optics widen, and brighten in concern.

"Are you in pain?" he asked, touching Soundwave's arm. "Your systems aren't full capacity yet. I should let you rest."

Soundwave's fingers twitched. He shook his head, almost impossible to notice. Stay, starsong.

Sonata sat back slowly. He nodded, and managed another shy smile. Soundwave stored it away and tried to sleep, but all this was still trying to settle, and Laserbeak's spark pulsed weakly, so worrying. There were more questions, but he was unsure he was even ready for the answers. He was disconnected from any useful information networks, something he was entirely unused to. Eventually he really did start to doze.

At some point, when Soundwave's visor was offlined, he heard his son get up. There was the sound of a book being tugged free, and Sonata returned with it, leafing aimlessly through the datapad. Soundwave did not online his visor. It would distract him from his reading, and Sonata's company was already more than he deserved. Later he heard footsteps leaving, dozing off again in the quiet. He did need it.

It was some time before they returned. A third spark, one on the edge of Soundwave's consciousness, brought him fully awake.

"She'll be fine," Sonata said. His voice was firm. "Don't look at me like that. She will."

Soundwave onlined his visor to sit up, and see who had intruded on their sanctuary. He was abruptly pushed back down by clacking—paws?

A familiar old noise jolted his consciousness, loud purring that he had only ever heard from—

Ravage shuddered, and so did Soundwave, as the black form finally registered and enveloped him. Ravage dropped down on his chest, the way he'd used to do to irritate him, and Soundwave was not in the least bit bothered. His shaking fingers stroked Ravage's chin, and already he could feel their bond mending, cementing itself back together.

Your frame's thinner, Ravage said. His ridiculous, joyful purr was deafening. I see where your son got it.

Soundwave's vocalizer bleated static. His hands shook. Sonata closed the door softly and stared, his visor back over his optics.

How?

Ravage's tail swished. A very long story. And what do I come home to, finally, but you two missing and your Megatron-grown sparklet. Honestly.

Soundwave asked, silently, after Rumble and Frenzy. Ravage said nothing, and sent the awful memory of their lifeless frames. That was that.

"He was found in deep space," Sonata said quietly. "Deep stasis. They woke him up and took him back."

And I haven't left, Ravage said.

He could feel exactly what Ravage meant, and couldn't even feel guilty. Ravage was only slightly more sympathetic than Laserbeak to Soundwave's failings. Still, he had not stopped purring, and despite the discomfort of a panther on his chest, Soundwave didn't move him.

"I wanted to tell you earlier," Sonata said. He shifted awkwardly on his feet, hands behind his back. "But you already had a lot to take in. So we waited."

It took everything I had. Ravage laid his head down and huffed. Believe me. Someone had to tell you what a fool you'd been to get trapped.

Where Soundwave had pared his frame down, Ravage had bulked up. Or maybe it was his weakness, making Ravage's weight sit so much heavier on his chest. His plating ached.

But their bond, deeper than the spark, had reformed. It pulsed strong within Soundwave, nostalgia from when he and his symbiotes were many.

Sonata dropped into his chair with a soft, satisfied noise. Soundwave really did rest.

He was bothered by medics in the next few days. Soundwave was not entirely surprised to see Knock Out around, though the Autobot symbol was new. He seemed happy enough to see Soundwave alive, and Sonata only seemed to be slightly uncomfortable that his room had been invaded.

"I've spent far too much time on this planet because of your son," Knock Out chided, checking Laserbeak's vitals on a scanner. "First his upgrade, now his whole quest to get you…still. It'll be good for him." Knock Out raised a brow in Soundwave's direction. "He's been in here since upgrade looking for your signature."

"You insisted on coming for my upgrade," Sonata said from his desk. Soundwave could hear the smile in his voice. "Something about how 'that old mech' would mess it all up."

"Well, he would have," Knock Out said irritably. "You would have gone nowhere in life if you weren't handsome."

Sonata shrugged, still turned towards his window. "Where else am I going?"

Knock Out huffed, turning to Soundwave, squinting at his visor. He was stronger now—sitting up was no longer a chore. His steps still wobbled, so at Sonata's insistence he stayed in the berth. A moment's thought of boredom and Ravage would be there in a second with one of Sonata's books. Always one he would like, always information he hadn't quite known. Like nothing had changed.

Ratchet was quieter, and his visits were less exhausting. Sonata allowed himself to be fussed over, and took medical grade when Ratchet deemed his biolight glow sallow. Soundwave couldn't tell if Sonata's discomfort in him was from Ratchet himself, or the situation. That bothered him.

As for Soundwave, he seemed begrudgingly pleased with the progress. There was no mention of their years of fighting, or the time before that. Still, Sonata seemed relieved when he left.

He wanted to triage Laserbeak out, Ravage said to him that night. Relax—I get it. Sonata lost it, so the old mech put her on spark support.

Soundwave didn't recharge well after that, and Ravage seemed guilty about it, lying against Soundwave's legs. Moonlight shone in, over Soundwave and over his son, recharging on a cot.

Sonata says he was good to him, Ravage said finally. Soundwave's silence, wide awake, had gone on long enough. After Prime died and no one else wanted him…I don't know, though.

Soundwave stroked Ravage's head, and was rewarded with a soft, contented purr.

There is tension.

Ravage flicked his ear. You'd feel it better than anyone. It's older than Laserbeak, but there are things your starsong won't tell me.

Soundwave chose to ignore Ratchet after that, answering for yes and no and taking the medicine he was left. Sonata was more comfortable when he was gone. Which was not much more comfortable, if he was honest. His son was unsteady in adulthood.

And unsteady around Soundwave, if they were all honest. Laserbeak could have helped bridge the gap, but she was still so faint, and silent. Soundwave had gleaned Sonata's life story from records, Ravage, and what Sonata was willing to disclose. It wasn't much: his shuttle found on Earth's moon, and Sonata protected from human authorities.

When asked about Prime's Autobots, Sonata shrugged, and left it at that. Soundwave was satisfied—they were far too soft to hurt a sparklet. Mention of Optimus himself made him wince.

Megatron was gone, and not mentioned. Soundwave kept his grief to himself.

Ravage had more to say. He had been here years already, Sonata's unofficial guardian. Optimus was going to adopt him as some…I don't know. Some show of forgiveness to Megatron, I think.

Mention of their lord made Ravage tense more than Soundwave himself. The only mech who had succeeded in more tasks than Soundwave was this symbiote, and he had believed so firmly in the cause. Caring for Sonata seemed to have softened him. Soundwave certainly understood that.

Sonata's time with Optimus had not lasted long. He had used his own life to reignite their planet, and a sparklet's anguish at being left behind, again, was a small price to pay for fresh hot spots and energon mines. Ratchet had taken him instead, almost certainly for Optimus's sake. Soundwave tried to imagine that lonely interim for a child. Books were not companionship. They certainly weren't a carrier.

He thought about Laserbeak, and how she was going to kill him when she woke up.

"My concerns are growing," Ratchet said. He had just injected Soundwave with an energon enricher, and he could already feel the ache coursing through his arm. Soundwave cocked his head at him, regarding him with his visor. As if they were not?

On his screen, he brought up Laserbeak's vital signs. Her sparkpulse was weak, but consistent. Many of the energon feeds and wires had been removed, but there had been no change. Ratchet sighed, irritable and tired.

"I can't promise she can stay that way much longer. Eventually her spark will get erratic."

Soundwave addressed him directly. At his desk, hunched over, Sonata's wings twitched in discomfort.

She will wake up.

"For your sake, I hope so," Ratchet said curtly. As Soundwave sat up, making for the chair nearest Laserbeak, Ratchet pushed his shoulder back down. "I don't think so. You're recovering well, unlike your symbiote—so for your sparklet's sake, you should rest."

Sonata looked up, his visor dim. His grip was too tight around his datapad. "I haven't been a sparklet for awhile," he said.

Ratchet huffed. He shook his head as he turned back to Laserbeak. "Not even alive one century and thinks he's grown up."

Sonata's steps were too heavy after he left, and his spark flickered with temper until Ravage demanded he get some fresh air. Soundwave listened to him stomp out of the old hangar, then to his engines roar to life as he transformed and took off.

Ravage huffed. Teenagers.

When Soundwave could walk again, he started looking for a ship. There would be no leaving until Laserbeak's recovery, but he wanted to be ready. The thought that Sonata might choose to stay on Earth gnawed at him, but he ignored it. If so, than he and son would simply own a useful ship.

It took some convincing—Soundwave no longer had the power of being Megatron's most loyal. In fact, he had no power at all. Being at the mercy of others was disconcerting, but he had put up with worse for Sonata.

Still, Knock Out managed to point him in the direction of a shuttle that had been working for Earth. Cybertron High Command wouldn't miss it, and the vague illegality of it all was...comforting. Familiar and Decepticon.

They just want us out of the way, Ravage said. If we're in deep space or on a colony, how convenient for them.

It was while he was looking over the specs that he heard Sonata's voice raised. They had not spoken often since Soundwave recovered. That did hurt, but his presence was enough. It would be enough.

"-this could have all been prevented-"

"As if High Command would have let us bring him back, boy! Do you know what kinds of favours Knock Out and I called in for you? For this?"

"I don't care! You lied! If you had told me, we could have tried something! You should know what it's like to be alone! Everyone you love is dead or gone!"

A long, terrible silence. There was the sound of two mechs stomping off, and Soundwave walled up against their anger. Sonata did not return until morning.

When he did come home, he dropped hard into his chair. Every part of him seemed to sag, and Soundwave waited. He would not press, however much it hurt to realize he was now a stranger.

"I shouldn't treat him like that," Sonata said quietly. His visor was off, and his optics were dimmed. "He lied about you. Where you were. They knew all that time that you were trapped."

Ravage growled. Soundwave silenced him with a hand on his head, but his spark flared in anger. Autobot kindness was limited. But he now had someone else to blame should Laserbeak die.

Sonata sighed, heavy and tired. "The last of Ratchet's humans passed on some time ago. And the descendants don't really associate with him. He just holes up." Sonata shrugged. "I think…he's just another sad carrier who lost his children."

He asked Ravage, rhetorically, where his son had inherited such compassion. Ravage flicked his ears, glancing Sonata's way.

Empath. He hasn't learned how to block it out yet.

Soundwave regarded his son in silence. Finally he reached out his hand, and Sonata looked up.

You told me I am forgiven, he said. I need reassurance.

Sonata stood up, and as he crossed the room Soundwave caught a flash of a smile. Ravage's soft, sleepy purr started back up.

"I want to get to know you," Sonata said. His voice was firm, and he squeezed Soundwave's hand. "I know I've been distant. But I mean that."

Yes, Ravage said. The bird would never put up with your nonsense.

Sonata's smile grew sad. Soundwave did not let go of his hands. Knowing each other again would come, he decided. Ravage purred his reassurance, and Soundwave's spark ached. He had missed this.

When Knock Out finally cleared him (to Ratchet's chagrin), Sonata took him flying. It felt odd, to be in the air without a real task at hand—even stranger to know Laserbeak wasn't somewhere at his side. Ravage's new alt mode could latch into Sonata's back, but he chose to stay behind. Soundwave suspected him of harassing the wildlife (something Ravage had denied with a feather between his fangs).

Sonata flew well—awkward still, but he had millennia to improve. Soundwave followed his lead, and found himself enjoying the air over his wings. He had rarely flown for flying's sake.

They paused to rest on a mesa, well out of the humans' views. Sonata looked over it, visor off and hands on his hips. He sighed.

"Earth's okay," he said. "I hate the crowds on Cybertron."

As did I.

Sonata smiled, but it was gone as quickly as it arrived.

"Do you think about Megatron a lot?" he asked suddenly.

Soundwave stiffened. But, he told himself, honesty was key. With his son, always.

Every day.

"Would you want to see him again?"

Soundwave was silent. The wind rustled the Earth flora, and Sonata waited for him to speak. Finally, he nodded.

I grieve for who he was. How he hurt you.

Sonata winced, and Soundwave waited a beat. If he lives…once more, starsong. I would see him.

"I…I'd like to speak with him, too," Sonata said quietly. "I'm useful now. I want to show him."

That fire he'd felt once in Sonata's spark was still there. It was a hot coal under ash, and he and his symbiotes would have to stoke it again...but it had kept him grounded. The loneliness had bred goals, one of which stood before Sonata now. His son's optics blazed bright for a moment.

"Let's go home," he said quickly. He transformed and shot into the air, Soundwave close behind.

He had gotten access to those final records, of Megatron claiming he'd lost his taste for war and simply...going away. He didn't think about it for long, as when they returned they found that their shuttle had arrived. It went straight into a hangar, of course. Laserbeak had still not moved.

Still, they packed. Sonata would have had few possessions, filling only one small box, if not for his books.

"They're all coming," he said firmly, already easing datapads down from the highest shelf. When Soundwave reminded him that the ship had a subspace hatch, Sonata shook his head. "I like them in sight."

Ravage flicked his tail, curled in the free part of Laserbeak's berth. The important things haven't always stayed close. Have they?

Soundwave had forgotten how cutting he could be. He ignored him, and continued packing datapads into a box. For such a closely guarded collection, Sonata's books were disorganized and haphazardly stuffed onto shelves. Soundwave's shelves had been tidy; he only kept what was most dear.

He collected and sorted gently, in the way Sonata had clumped them together. Soundwave understood having extensions of oneself. He suspected reorganizing would only make Sonata anxious.

Not that he was getting it right. He watched, patiently, as Sonata opened a box back up and reorganized his books, again. Ravage admonished him, but Soundwave could see him being tuned out as he spoke. He nudged Soundwave as he padded out of the room instead.

He's turning into you.

Soundwave looked at his son, cross-legged on the floor and leafing through a distracting volume. Intent as he had ever been, or as focused as Soundwave ever was on his work. He started to reach out, to cup his son's face as easily as he had long ago…and stopped. Pulled back, and returned to his pile.

"It's awfully bare in here these days," Knock Out said one morning, strolling around Sonata's space. He had briefly returned to Cybertron since Soundwave's recovery—his mod business was booming. Sonata's shelves, now empty, had been dragged aboard too—they would need a place for the books.

Sonata shrugged. "Time to go, I guess."

"Mm. But you still haven't left?"

Sonata pointed, silently, at Laserbeak. Knock Out's shoulders shifted.

"No change, I see," he said. His gaze was critical.

"Ratchet would have told you as much," Sonata said flatly.

"I don't need Ratchet," Knock Out snapped. He squinted at Laserbeak's spark frequency. "I need to see for myself."

Knock Out fussed over Laserbeak for some time, but the prognosis remained the same. Soundwave thought of her fading offline, as they waited so patiently, and his spark shuddered again. Ravage looked up, and stared at him, hard. Even Soundwave's resolve had begun to crack, after so many weeks. She had lived off his energon for so long. And he had dropped her.

The old strength between Soundwave and Sonata would not right itself without her. She had felt the spark grow, greeted him at birth in ways Ravage had not.

Soundwave was exhausted by this wall. Sonata had built it back up as soon as he could. It seemed the meaning Soundwave's renewed presence had not been thought about until he really was present.

But he couldn't blame his starsong. Soundwave leaving had drafted blueprints, from which Sonata built his walls. Soundwave's return had not brought Sonata back to him. Not yet.

Soundwave woke to a familiar press against his spark. For a split second, he decided he was dreaming. It had been long ago since he had carried Sonata.

Then it hit him, like a wave, that the presence was familiar, and he sat up straight in an incredibly undignified way. Soundwave found himself on his hands and knees, shoulders shaking minutely, as he stared into one of Laserbeak's bright, beady optics.

She turned her head and looked around, slowly, at Sonata's walls. I take it this isn't the Afterspark.

Soundwave shuddered. He reached out, his fingers twitching.

Your recovery was…uncertain.

Laserbeak's optics flickered, and she pushed forward, to rest her head against Soundwave's hand. I feel you. I feel Ravage. I have never felt so good.

Eventually, Soundwave found it in himself to rest Laserbeak in his lap and let her recharge again, mindful of the tubes. Her spark was strengthening already.

Soundwave's was as whole as it would ever be.

Ravage and Sonata scrambled over the berth when they returned, as ridiculous as Soundwave had been in their effort to get close. Laserbeak indulged them, exhausted and simultaneously wide awake as she took in their existence.

Look at you, she'd say, over and over. Her words crackled their bond, tumbling out without thought. Look at you both.

A little anticlimactic, Ravage said, in one of their old codes. Purring as loudly as he ever had. I thought it'd happen just as the old medic switched off the machines.

You're one to talk, Laserbeak shot back. Waltzing in here like you weren't dead for two million years.

Soundwave watched his son, visorless and smiling. Warmth curled around his spark as Sonata looked up and turned that smile on and bright, as close to those childhood smiles as he was going to get.

"We should go over the ship's specs again," he said. "Now that we're free to go."

Soundwave listened to Laserbeak and Ravage, already arguing about something inane, until Sonata's adult frame was mentioned and they began to exclaim their affection. Ridiculous, these emotions. They were entirely un-Decepticon, and his symbiotes appeared to have stopped caring.

Behind his visor, Soundwave's mouth twitched. Sonata pointed at the catches.

"Let me see your face," he said. That old game. "I know you're happy under there. Let's see."

Soundwave reached up to oblige. He thought about Sonata's quiet distance, and Laserbeak's silence. He thought about Ravage, proof that not everyone really left

He thought about devotion, as he showed them all his face and his smile turned shy. He found himself not caring at all what Megatron would think of this display, because it didn't matter.

Maybe they would see him, he thought to himself. Out in deep space, living a lonely penance. Maybe he would finally find Sonata useful. Or maybe they wouldn't, and would explore every colony and more.

It didn't matter. Soundwave had found others to trust in.