Disclaimer: All recognisable characters, places, etc. belong to HasTak and other copyright holders. I make no profit from this.

New Detroit, Earth - TF:A

Prowl flinched away from the touch that seemed to set off all his sensors, but hands held him down and after a moment he heard a familiar gruff voice amongst the babble.

"He's drained down to minimal levels, but he's not hurt."

"A good thing I caught Sari, or she could've been crushed!"

"Prowl wouldn't've crushed me."

"Are you okay, Sari?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It felt weird, but it didn't hurt. And he thanked me."

"Who did?"

"I dunno his name. The big guy."

"Well I'm just glad we're back where we belong. That was far too weird."

Prowl frowned. Back where we belong? Making an effort to focus his optics, he first saw two white blurs that resolved themselves into Ratchet and Jazz, and then beyond them he saw the familiar ceiling of their base.

"Don't try to move." Ratchet warned. "You'll drop into stasis if you don't get some energy in you soon. Jazz, keep him still while I get some supplies. The rest of you back off and give him some space!"

"Hey there, beautiful." Jazz purred at him. "How're ya feeling?"

Prowl twitched.

"I'd prefer you did not act so familiarly." he said stiffly.

Jazz cocked his head to the side.

"Seems t'me t'be the perfect time t'bring all this out inta the open. Y'know what I saw in this? I saw three other versions o'you. An' what was the one thing they had in common?"

"I'm sure you're ready to tell me."

"Me." Jazz said firmly. "Th'black an' white one..."

"Ivory."

"Whatever. He was never more'n a step from his Jazz, an' if they weren't lovers then I'm an organic, but none o'the mechs around'em were surprised or anythin' - it was just normal to'em.

"An' the silver one - didja see how he went straight to that other mech? Boy, the mechs round'em weren't pleased, but the two of'em didn't even notice. An' then he never even let the littler one outta his reach. An' then there was that other one you could see but I couldn't. But did you see there was someone behind him? I'd be willin' t'bet that mech's name sounded somethin' like 'Jazz'."

Prowl stared at him in shock, but he was not quite finished.

"An' then there's you an' me. We been dancin' around each other since we met, since we first saw each other. But maybe it's time we just stopped worryin' bout what other bots might think an' just get on wit'it, eh? I love ya, Prowlie. An' I don' care what anybot else thinks. Nothin's gonna change that. No-one, no way, no how."

Mt. St. Hilary, Earth - G1-AU

Prowl felt himself slipping offline but was unconcerned. He was just drained, not hurt, and he had a dismayingly comprehensive range of experience in being energy deficient. Shockwave's 'hospitality' had seen to that.

Perhaps he should not have attempted to be a channel for both Optimus and Rodimus. Rodimus had only been there because he had been with that other Jazz and was perhaps not needed for this. But it had felt right to include him.

"...least we're already in the right place..."

The voices faded in and out as he drifted on the edge of stasis lock.

Jazz was with him, holding his hand, and that was all the comfort he needed. Everything would be fine if he could just rest. When he recovered he would debrief to the others and pick apart what had happened, but he knew that the mech who had summoned them had had benign intentions. There had never been any danger.

"...Decepticon plot!"

"...out of my repair bay, Red, before I..."

Decepticons? He tried to rouse a little, worried that some other crisis was hitting them.

//Shh.// Jazz hushed him. //It's just Red bein' Red. Rest.//

Soothed, he did.

Limbo - G1

The two groups at either side had vanished, leaving only these dangerous-looking spiky ones and his own.

"I don't wanna go back." Jazz whispered in his own language, then turned towards the smudge that Prowl had told him was the mech in control here. "Please! Please, don't send me back. Not to where I was. It hurt too much. Lemme stay with Prowl."

"Prowl's dead, Jazz." Kup sighed, apology ringing in his tones.

//What is happening?// Prowl asked him, concern pulsing through the bond.

//I don't wanna leave you.//

The silver mech jerked in alarm then whistled something incomprehensible to his companions. The tall one stepped forward and looked towards Kup and Rodimus.

"Please." he asked in English. "Would you permit your Jazz to come with us? We cannot spare Prowl, our numbers are so low, but I would not choose to separate them again now they have found one another."

"Prowl?" Rodimus echoed. "This is Prowl? He looks nothing like the mech we knew."

"An' I don't look like the one they knew." Jazz argued. "But it is him. Please, Roddy. I can't bear it. Please let me go."

Prowl moved to stand beside him and dipped to Rodimus' level.

"You do not value him as you should." he accused the shocked Prime. "Nor did you value my counterpart. His absence from your team will cost you little, but his presence will cost him dearly. And I too, cannot bear it. If you will not grant his absence, then I will steal him from you."

"Not like you." the shorter, green spiky mech grunted.

"I have not been me since Jazz's death." Prowl reminded him archly. "In this moment, I am more alive than I have been in too long. I would rather perish than return to that agony."

"And how will I explain your disappearance to your friends?" Rodimus asked Jazz. "To Mirage, to Blaster?"

"To Bluestreak. To Goldbug." Kup added. "Just because you stopped talking to them, lad, they didn't just give up on you."

"I know. But they didn't understand. An' they'll get over it. I need this."

"Go, then." Rodimus sighed. "Go, and be happy."

The Hub

Jazz lay on the berth on his side, staring pensively at the mech beside him.

Paximus was resting calmly for the first time since taking on the burden of the Matrix, charging normally on the berth in the Prime's own chambers. The Matrix was once again at peace and the priests could once again hear its song.

The original uprising had been quelled by the sheer devastation caused by the merging of the two power sources, and now that the crisis was over there was peace. The damage done during the intervening period was terrible, but much of it could be repaired. Life could return to normal.

Well, for everyone except them.

"It ain't that I ain't grateful." he murmured.

"If you hadn'ta taken it, Optimus pro'ly woulda died without a successor quick enough t'save us all. An' I'm proud, so proud o'ya for doin' what Optimus couldn't, what no-one else coulda thought of.

"An' this rank... it was more'n I coulda ever earned m'self. 'Fore I met you I was just a lowly fac'try worker wit' some unsocial habits that shoulda got me locked up vorns ago. I always thought I'd used up all the luck I was ever gonna get by catchin' your attention an' spark. You're built to the rank, but not me, an' no-one questions it now 'cause o'the Matrix.

"But in the end... In the end, haven't I already lost ya? Please, Primus. I never usedta pray, always said that was the job o'the priests, but I... I need him back. I need him."

"You have me, Jazz." Paximus spoke up, startling him.

"Sir. I apologise for waking y..."

He stopped as one hand caressed his face tenderly.

"Not sir. Not here. Never here."

"If I don't practice, I'll slip."

"Not you. You're cleverer than that." He sighed. "I'm not who I was, it's true. But a part of me still is. And I still love you, Jazz. Just as much as ever. The Matrix will be part of me for the rest of my life, and nothing can change that, but now that the crisis is over it will return to dormancy. The direct influence on me and on my behaviour will lessen. Primes have been bonded before, we can make this work. Trust me?"

Jazz took a moment to consider. It was not as though he had any real choice: he could accept this change in their relationship, or he could deny it and live in misery. Still, it helped to know that Paximus understood and was ready to try to make it better.

"Yeah." he agreed finally. "I trust ya."

It would take time to get used to, he mused as he snuggled in closer to the frame that was larger than he was accustomed to, but they had time.

And if nothing else, today's effort had proven to him just how much Primus loved them both as a pair. Five worlds, including their own, and in every one there was a Prowl and a Jazz who loved each other.

He smirked smugly even as the charging subroutines began to take hold. Five worlds, each so similar, each so different, but none quite like his own. Those other Jazzes may have their Prowl, but he had a Prime. Maybe this was not so bad after all.

The end.