Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro, no me.

Thanks: To my lovely beta Dinogrrl! I think I forgot to mention you before the last chapter and I do feel so sorry about that. But you're amazing! *huggles*

Frozen

By Uniasus

Chapter 5 - Ratchet (Again .)

Eighteen years had not made Ratchet's guilt any easier to bear. It had been especially hard to handle when Mikaela had still been around, working her grief and then helplessness off by learning his trade. But she had left now, claiming something about blood being thick and her first priority being to her father.

Watching her break down and cry several times during the year and a half she studied under him had turned him into an awkward and self-conscious mech. He had caused that, that pain and guilt. The first time she cried in the med bay, Ratchet had had to walk out. Bumblebee consoled her instead.

He could not say for sure if it was the tears that stabbed his spark the strongest or watching her live her life. Mikaela grew up, physically and mentally during the year and half she kept near daily Autobot company. Every time Ratchet saw her moving and alive he was reminded of the cold, still body not fifty yards away. It hurt and yet relieved him to see her go.

Mikaela had a family now, married for eleven years with three kids; Sam was nine and the twins, Erin and Liz were both five. It was something Sam Witwicky would never have. But it was something Ratchet might.

That was the only thing that kept him from telling anyone what was hidden and frozen in the floor of his med bay quarters.

He watched little Sammy and the twins grow through pictures; saw Annabelle Lennox mature through brief glances, but mostly heard about her development from the stories Will and Ironhide passed around. Ratchet watched the human sparklings grow up from a distance, and it only increased his desire to have one of his own to watch grow up from day to day. He wanted to feel the love and pride that was so evident in Mikaela's and Will's eyes when they talked about their sparklings. Ratchet had never experienced it before.

But Sam was not cooperating. Every three years the medic would slowly bring lower the temperature in the cryogenics chamber, check vitals, and ask questions. Sam showed an amazing amount of knowledge for a human, knew great bounds of Cybertronian science too. He would most likely be able to hold in depth conversations with Perceptor and Wheeljack if the two scientists ever answered Prime's call. But as to how to access the All Spark's power, how to ignite a new spark and pump fuel into a new protofrom, the human did not know anything.

Ratchet knew it could be awhile before Sam's knowledge of the subject was unlocked, that was after all why he was using cryogenics to prolong his life, he still could not help but wonder if not keeping the human's brain on ice would have meant a quicker revealing of the information. The cold temperature of the stasis chamber could be slowing down the surfacing of knowledge to Sam's conscious mind. It was too late now anyway, Sam had been in the cryogenics unit for eighteen years and there was no letting him out.

The first time Ratchet had woken up Sam to test his knowledge the human quickly went from confused and scared to angry and desperate. To keep him manageable the medic had had to sedate the teen. It was now a precursor to every waking and a ritual reminder of his guilt; Sam did not want to be his current position. But if Ratchet released him now after Sam knew what happened, the human would leave without a second thought and take all answers with him.

And then there was the added complication of whether Sam would go quietly or let the others knows what he had done. Bumblebee would most likely attack the medic with the help of Mudflap and Skids because those three had been the closet to the human and Prime would no longer trust him. Ratchet did not know what the others would do and he did not like to dwell on the possibilities. He did not want to go through all that could happen and so keeping Sam a secret was a must. And really, what he was doing was for the good of his race. Plus Sam no longer had to worry about being a target for the world's governments or the Deceptions; it was hard to take revenge on someone you thought was already dead.

That did not stop the guilt that sometimes prevented him from recharging. Sneaking back into his own med bay after the others had settled into their berths did not either. It was a necessary step though; he could not risk someone walking in on him while he was questioning Sam. The process took a good couple earth hours as well; Ratchet usually had to start the defrosting the night previously to enable the human to answer his questions. Both the warming and cooling had to be done gradually to do the least amount of harm.

Ratchet typed in the password to the recharge berth he had set up if he needed to be close by to monitor a patient. So far, it had never been used for its intended purpose. Giving a quick glance around the medical bay with both his scanners and optics, Ratchet stepped in and the door closed behind him. He hunkered down on the floor near the berth and reached a hand underneath for the keypad he had installed. From his wrist slid out an import jack, it connected to the keypad and started relaying the necessary passwords.

Just shy of a breem later, Ratchet got an 'access acknowledged' pop up on his HUD and scooted out of the way to allow the floor to open up and reveal the stasis kept human. He should have known something was wrong when the fog that usually rolled out of the chamber failed to appear. As it was, he did not really notice anything amiss before it was staring at him in the face.

The cryogenic chamber door was open and there was no human youth inside.

Frag. That was the only word his processors could articulate before they froze for a moment and then jumped back into real time with a restart. Quickly, Ratchet checked the computer connected to the unit and found that it had be accessed with in the year; Sam had completely thawed about eight months ago and left.

Trembling, Ratchet pulled himself up so he was sitting on the edge of the berth. Someone on base had found Sam, and did not tell any one. Some one on base might not have approved of what he had done, but understood; he had not been approached about keeping the human and lying. But who would do so?

He could think of comrades who might understand, others who might keep quiet, some that would release the human, and still others that would most likely do nothing. But an Autobot who would do all four? The most likely person he could think of was Optimus Prime himself, but Ratchet could not fathom why the leader would not approach him about it. Especially after most of an Earth-year had gone by.

Did Optimus actually forgive him, want to make it seem as if this entire fiasco never happened? Was he to angry to talk about it? Or maybe he did not say anything because it contrasted with mantle of Prime he carried?

Ratchet suddenly found himself able to sit up straighter, felt the weight at the bottom of his spark casing diminish and the darkness at the edge of his processors retreat. They were still there of course, and they always would be with this added touch of loss. But at least it was manageable with this silent, unvoiced semi-support of his leader.

Fin

A/N: *cringes* I know, I know! I'm sure a lot of you hate me right now because the big show down of Ratchet v. the rest of the world is no where in site. You're welcome to curse me out, I deserve it.

I originally wrote this fic simply to answer a 'what if question'. Thus, it originally ended with chapter four. My sister did not agree and thus this final, fifth chapter was born. In addition, another ficlet idea I had morphed into....a sequel. That's right, there will be a sequel. It wasn't intended, but my sister and all of your reviews, straight from the first chapter, made me realize that I needed one. I'm all for ambiguous, ohmygod endings that promote tons of conversations to follow *Avatar Movie Spoiler Alert* (I would have been fine if the movie Avatar ended with the destruction of Hometree -- see how messed up I am?). *End Spoiler* And the more I think of it, the more I see it as a great challenge to work on my characterization skills. So yes, a sequel will appear.

However, it will be a while, the plot is not even entirely fleshed out. Plus I have three on-going stories at the moment and I would love to reduce that to just one, Beast. A lot of my time and energy will be focused on my other two which are closer to being finished and sadly for you guys not in the Transformers universe.

Also, there were a couple of question about just how Sam went from Autobot base to Simmons house, to which the answer is -- luck. If that doesn't satisfy you, you're welcome to read another Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah gift I have created for you guys, Thawed.

Review, comments, rants and raves, or even gift bragging may be done by clicking the button below. You guys may be hard pressed though to beat my PS3. Unless you're my little cousin, my mom got him Bee's arm cannon. I want one! ;_;