AN: Uber short chapter. Between Writing this, deciding to rewrite it, having it deleted, rewritten, only half saved, laptop busting and life….well you get the picture. Originally this chapter was much longer and extended into what will now be the following chapter. I just wanted to get this out there to spur me on, and where it ends seemed like a good point upon review.

Katea-Nui: Because Primus hates him?

Crazygrrl XD: Haha Jazz would be jealous! Keep in mind…there is a whole Decepticon ship full of mechs to test, and some NAILS (term from comics) too!

SunnySidesofBlue: Awwww see you're evil just like me! Just consider, have you ever offered to help someone then not wanted to do it? Usually we just grudgingly do it because we said we would, didn't think we'd actually be taken up on the offer. Now imagine there is a .001% chance you'll be taken up on that offer, but it's the one being asked of the crew now, you get scanned just to humor everone but turns out you're the lucky match. Do you do it or bow out? Not so easy.

Qwertzu: Ratchet the Hatchet…attending physician and carrier? Poor First Aid, his patient would be the worst to deal with!

Emi: Thanks so much, the stories are just a fun pass time (when the above AN doesn't happen of course.)

Nebula: Hehe glad you like! Here is a short update to hopefully tide you over. Laptop is back in action so I should be back on track with hammering out these chapters (should they not disappear again and make me rage face.)

There was silence in the meeting room-they weren't seated in the official Command Center which was a room off the bridge that was nick named the 'War room'. Far too much time had been spent in that room, plotting and planning against enemies who had become their greatest and tentative allies in a battle against the very Unmaker himself.

Instead, the group of officers had met in one of the smaller, but still suitable rooms reserved for meetings of various departments.

Who were they all kidding? They were meeting here because the hologrid in the War Room frightened Silverstreak, Jazz and Prowl's sparkling. And as they all knew what upset the sparkling, fragged off his creators, and no one, NO ONE wanted to deal with that.

That was beside the point of course, as Ratchet had just dropped a bomb on the group, which was made worse by the happy comments, jeers and snickers at the knowledge that the twins were expecting. Jazz had happily informed the sparkling in his lap that he'd have another playmate soon, Ironhide grumbled something about how they better not have twins but there was no ire in his tone. Hound and Mirage were more subdued, but even they shared a look that spoke volumes, new life was always to be welcomed and celebrated. Prime himself chuckled with the hope that this sparkling would give the twins a taste of their own medicine as the human phrase went.

Only four seemed unhappy with the news.

Red Alert was to be expected, and though he didn't seem to harbor negative feelings towards the situation, he did groan at the thought of a twin created spawn loose on the ship.

Which left Ratchet and Wheeljack, both knowing where this was going, and the ever observant Prowl.

"Ratchet." His voice was calm, soft as ever, some said that Prowl never raised his voice on purpose, so that when he finally did, mechs took notice. Even little Silverstreak, a wonderful combination of silver and black markings, looked over to his carrier from where he was sat on Jazz's lap. "Why did you call this meeting?"

That, suddenly, had the attention of the entire room. A new life was a joy, and something that would require the officers to be aware of, schedules would have to change, allowances would need to be made-there was nothing worse than a protective creator when his or her mate wasn't feeling well. While a meeting was a great way to tell everyone the good news at once, never before had the announcement of new life been done in such a fashion.

The medic vented slowly, inwardly making a note to be ever so attentive the next time Prowl needed his systems flushed. Truthfully he didn't hold the tactician's quizzical nature against him, but he needed someone to blame.

The white and red mech was subdued as he explained the situation; that alone, kept anyone from comment until the story was done. Ratchet was loud, forceful and most of the time vulgar, he didn't do subtle and serious very often.

When Ironhide told Ratchet to just find a surrogate the medic gave him the full weight of his glare before explaining the difficulty with it.

By the end of the meeting most of the staff was in a somber mood, Prowl had taken over at some point and come up with a schedule of time slots the various crew members could reserve to get themselves checked out by Ratchet, that way the medbay wasn't bottlenecked all at once. Ratchet didn't want to be that hopeful, to think that so many would come to help the twins like this. This wasn't just asking a favor, this was asking someone to risk their life, or be stuck as a surrogate carrier to a creation that wasn't their own should the twins not survive.

Ratchet couldn't bring himself to look at the schedule, his spark ached enough watching the twins mope around the medbay, seeing an empty list would have made that even worse.

Still, he could be a little hopeful right?

Prowl had requested one day to get the notice out to the entire crew, to upload the schedule to Teletran and start arranging for mechs to have shifts off sooner in order to fill those positions, if they volunteered. Despite fearing the worst Ratchet had his scanner ready, still loaded with the necessary information to locate a match for the newling Sideswipe carried.

What he didn't expect was to see Jazz and Prowl strolling in only minutes before the first time slot, sparkling cradled in the silver mech's hold.

"Jazz, Prowl." He greeted simply as the scanner was set aside in favor of moving towards the couple, very few things brought both of them to the medbay, "Something wrong with Silverstreak?" His built in medical scanners were already checking.

"Naw, he's a lil' bundle a'happy." Jazz offered, snuggling his creation who giggled at the attention.

Thankfully Prowl spoke up before Ratchet could question them further, "We're your first appointment." When he saw the medic's optics narrow in something that was probably close to anger or agitation, Prowl smartly stepped half behind his mate and their creation.

"No." Was the flat out reply to an unasked question.

Still feeling safe from his place Prowl attempted reason, "This is a volunteer basis, you can't deny u-"

"Oh yes I can. You both understand the danger involved. Don't think I'm going to risk losing both of you as well. I don't know what Primus forsaken idea you've got lodged in your helms but you're wrong. I won't do it."

Jazz, who'd been happy enough to let Prowl dig himself a ditch gave a slight smile, "Ratch', no disrespect or nuttin' but it ain't really yer choice." He really meant that, they weren't doing this to spit the medic, that wasn't the point.

Ratchet was tempted to throw something, but managed to subdue his anger, if only for the sake of the sparkling's presence. "Why? You know the risk, you know that if either of you are a match there's a high chance you won't survive. Why risk what you have?"

There was silence for a moment, and briefly Ratchet wondered if they honestly understood the gravity of the situation.

Of course they did, they weren't Prime's second and third for no reason-and no one quiet knew which of the mechs held which position.

"Because, they risked their lives through the whole war for all of us." Prowl answered and Jazz nodded, thinking along the same lines as his mate.

"They gave us the chance ta have Silver. Ain't sayin' they're the only ones who saved another durin' the war, but we owe 'em."

The larger mech continued to glare at the couple, wanting to argue more but reluctant to do so in front of the sparkling. "If I'm going to do this I'm putting you both into stasis and scanning your sparks, both of you get too defensive and I can't do that while you've got him." Jazz and Prowl were notoriously bad at handling each other's spark being examined in any way, they took the term bondmate to the extreme sometimes.

This seemed to put a kink in the couple's plans, at least until twitchy doorwings indicated Prowl and his overactive processors had come up with something. "Where did you say the twins were hiding?"