Disclaimer: Do not own any of the Transformers franchises.

Summary: (Twoshot). Part One: "Sam gazed at the metal chamber, at the bullets in his hand, and then said, 'I guess you life-giving sentient thingies don't believe in small favours, huh?'"

Author note: Really hoping that "Allspark logic" makes sense.

Favours

1: Problems

Things seemed fine the first few weeks after Mission City. But after incidents like zapping the DVD player and like causing the lights in the house to flicker dangerously with just a sneeze, Sam figured that it was time to make an appointment with Ratchet.

What Ratchet found was both surprising and alarming. The Allspark had not perished; in fact, Sam was now the new carrier of the Allspark radiation. Sam took the news pretty well. He took it so well that Ratchet was worried that something was psychologically wrong within him. Sam assured him that he understood the gravity of the situation, but he also added that after all the things that happened between meeting Bumblebee and being chased around by Megatron in Mission City, nothing really surprised him anymore.

Besides, Sam didn't have the luxury to be surprised, to be worried, or to be in constant angst about his future, however potentially longer or shorter it may have become due to the twist that he became a carrier of potentially life-giving radiation. Allspark absorbance had enough problems as it was.

X x X

Problem One: The Allspark is chatty…

One of the first problems that he found was that the Allspark liked talking. It talked a lot. After listening to its musings and rhetorical questions for a week, he figured that it could probably beat down Optimus in a discourse about philosophy and about the workings of the universe.

He knew that the Autobots wondered if the Allspark was sentient, if it could think and speak and discuss. Sam wondered if it could ever shut up.

The first week that Sam acknowledged the voice to be that of the Allspark, and that he might not be as crazy as he thought, the Allspark decided to give him a crash course in some obscure topic. He was visiting the newly-built Autobot base when the following "Allspark-rant" ensued:

The position of king is a necessary position. The black queen wishes to obtain the white king. The white queen stands in its way. Everyone wants the king, but no one wants to be the king. No being wishes to be in the position of king, in which the most valuable piece on the chessboard is the most vulnerable, the most weak. The king cannot even save himself.

"..."

Are things really black and white? Surely there must be some areas of grey, some areas of uncertainty. Are your friends your friends, or are they your enemies? What defines an enemy? Someone who is after your life? In that case, am I my own enemy? Or is the enemy one that prevents you from doing what you must?

"What the heck are you talking about?"

Why do beings treasure that which they do not need? Why do they cling to poison as though it is life-giving water?

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

Two monkeys fight over a banana. Take away the banana. What will happen?

"Seriously, come out with it! I can't take cryptic messages!"

Answer me, child. What am I?

"…You're…You're the Allspark! The life-giver of all of Cybertron."

No, I am the poison of Cybertron.

"The poison? What do you mean by that?" But any further discourse was interrupted by Bumblebee, who came into the room looking slightly worried.

"Sam? Is something wrong? Who are you talking to?"

"…No one. It's nothing, Bee."

Sam would admit later that the Allspark talked to him. He only really told Bee, but the others doubtless knew of the situation. He would spontaneously say a sentence that didn't make sense to others, or make an expression or gesture that made sense only to the conversation in his head. If the others didn't know that something was up, then he'd have some serious issues with their title as highly-advanced alien robots.

X x X

Problem Two: You are prize…

To Optimus, Ratchet, Ironhide, and the newly fixed Jazz, he spoke briefly of the Allspark when they asked him to. He only had conversations with Bee and Mikaela about it, about the things that the Allspark talked about. And with the other Autobots who had answered Optimus's call, he didn't answer any questions at all.

The Autobots who came after his absorbance were awkward to talk to. It was hard for him to know whether or not they viewed him as a sentient being of his own right, or just an Allspark carrier. It was a trivial in the grand scheme of things, but a small part of Sam still wondered. And that part got bigger every time he went to visit the Ark and conversations halted at his presence. It got bigger every time he caught an Autobot looking at him with almost a confused look on his face, as though he wasn't acting in the manner that was befitting of the Allspark. It was especially bad with the 'bots who based their entire thinking on logic.

He didn't know what to make of them, and they didn't know what to make of him.

It was easier to interact with the Autobots who knew him pre-absorbance. Easier still was to interact with Bumblebee, who had been searching for him for five years before the incident occurred. But still, he couldn't help but wonder what he was to them all.

He knew what he was to the Decepticons. It was always, "Get the Allspark!" or, "The Allspark shall be ours!" or whatever the equivalent battle-cry of the week was. At least it increased his chances of survival. The Decepticons weren't willing to go all-out because then they would risk injury to the Allspark. More than once, Sam had heard the Decepticons grumbling about the weak organic shell that held the Allspark.

Sam wasn't bothered by it until the Autobots used almost the exact same phrase.

A particularly dangerous stunt during a Decepticon raid had landed him in the med bay. One ear was listening to the Allspark's ranting, and the other was listening to Ratchet's.

A dangerous move on the part of the carrier—

"That was a dangerous move, Sam!"

Understood at the time—

"Do you understand the implications? If the Allspark—" Ratchet broke off, suddenly and guiltily, at the almost betrayed look that Sam was wearing on his face.

Your friends are still your friends. Do not blame them.

Sam didn't blame Ratchet or any of the Autobots though. He knew, and he understood.

But it still hurt.

Without even knowing it, in this twisted game of chess, he had been made king.

X x X

Problem Three: The Allspark has twisted logic and it MAKES SENSE…

That night, the Allspark was strangely quiet. It was though it knew that Sam wanted to ask it a question. Sam finally got up the nerve to ask it questions to which no safe answers lay.

"What are you?"

I am a program; an obsolete program.

"How is that possible?"

The One who designed me designed me for a purpose. I was to instigate First Life, and First Life only, on Cybertron. The Cybertronians have the ability to instigate Second Lives, and Third Lives, and so on and so forth. The ability is within them. The do not require me

"Really? I thought that you were the source of all life on Cybertron. Without you, no children were born."

The Cybertronians were young, and they panicked. Any younglings born in the way they were meant were dismissed as happy miracles. The first Cybertronians, seeing that my casing was deteriorating, took me and put me into an ageless body. The Cybertronians remained dependent on me. They could not grow into maturity because they remained dependent on me, like a drug that is taken long after it has fulfilled its purpose.

"So…?"

I became poison to the planet. The Cybertronians started fighting for a power that they already had within themselves. In an invulnerable Cube, I could not do as I was designed to do. So I did the next best thing. I disappeared.

"You…blame yourself for the wars on Cybertron?"

There was a pause from the Allspark as it contemplated this question. Humans have a term called 'do-over.' Essentially, that was what I became to the Cybertronians. Some became reckless; they became reckless with their lives and the lives of their young because they had a sure source of replenishment in their numbers. Without me, the Cybertronians would have been forced to work with one another in order to survive. With me, they had only more reasons to fight.

"But the Autobots aren't like that!"

True, but some became like that. And thus wars were fought.

There was a pause as the Allspark came up with words to convey its alien message to the teenage human. You have a human saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' In essence, I had to become the enemy.

"You tried getting the Cybertronians to work with one another?"

I was hoping that, in their despair, they would find a way to work with one another. And in their despair they would find hope. Then they would find their ability to give rise to Second Lives, and Third Lives, and so on. My presence divided them—my absence would unite them.

"Theoretically."

Yes, theoretically. It did not work, however. Because I still existed.

"You…don't want to exist?"

I am tired, child. I am tired of watching the First Lives destroy one another over an obsolete program like myself. I was made obsolete a long time ago, but I could not move on because I was in an invulnerable body.

There was a pause as Sam processed this, before finally, fearfully whispering to the dark: "Not anymore."

The Allspark was silent.

Problem Four: Friends agree that the Allspark makes sense

Sam lounged in Bee's driver seat, with Mikaela at the passenger side. "Two monkeys fight over a banana. Take away the banana. What will happen?" Mikaela and Bee waited until Sam glanced at Mikaela (and glanced at Bee's dashboard) to ensure that he wasn't having another conversation with the Allspark.

"They'll find another banana?" Mikaela suggested.

"What if there's only that one banana? What if there's a way to get to a banana bowl, but only by working together?"

"Then the monkeys would work together to get the bananas," said Bee patiently.

"And once each monkey gets a banana, they won't fight anymore," Mikaela added.

Sam nodded.

Problem Five: The Allspark will ask for a favour. And the carrier will NOT like it: "The only way to end this war is to destroy the Allspark." -Optimus Prime

He needed a specific way to do this—one where the Autobots and the Decepticons would both know, without a doubt, what he had done. The opportunity presented itself in the form of a surprise Decepticon attack on an Autobot rescue mission.

Bumblebee had been ordered by Optimus to get Sam out of the fray. Unfortunately (or, fortunately, in Sam's case), they were cornered by Barricade at an abandoned warehouse. When Sam was told to run as Bumblebee turned to face the Decepticon, Sam could only say, sadly, "I'm not going to be the banana, Bee. Not when there's a whole bowl full of them waiting for you guys." Bumblebee gave him a confused expression, trying to bring some logic to his statement, but had to turn his attention to Barricade.

In that nanosecond it took to process Sam's statement, it was already too late.

Sam sprinted up the warehouse, and hit the button that slammed the opening closed. By the slamming at the door that occurred not a nanosecond after, Sam figured that Bumblebee had found out what he was up to.

Sam took out something that he had been keeping on hand for a while.

Sam gazed at the metal chamber, at the bullets in his hand, and then said, 'I guess you life-giving sentient thingies don't believe in small favours, huh?

I thank you for doing me this favour.

"You know, this kind of makes it twice that I've killed you."

The Allspark gave no reply, but radiated tension. The door was beginning to give.

"How do I know that what I'm doing is right? What if this just makes them go nuts with hopelessness, and then they'll turn out like that mob in Children of Men?"

You must trust them. You must trust that they will choose life. There is no other choice.

Sam never really noticed the voice of the Allspark before. He noticed what the voice was conveying, but he never really paid attention to the voice, to the richness that that voice held. The voice of the Allspark was neither male nor female, neither Cybertronian nor human, neither young nor old. It was the voice of life, the voice of sadness, the voice of mothers and fathers and daughters and sons. It was the voice of wisdom and kindness, and above all, truth. And Sam never noticed it before.

Maybe it was because he couldn't accept the voice, because he knew, all along, that it would ask him this favour.

But now that he accepted what the Allspark was telling him, he noticed the voice. And he wasn't afraid.

But he was sad. He regretted many things. He regretted that he couldn't say goodbye to so many people. He regretted that the last sounds he'd hear were the desperate sounds of Bumblebee trying to stop him.

It will not be the last. I will repay you for this favour. I am deeply indebted to you, Samuel James Witwicky.

Sam pulled the trigger.