Fandom: Transformers G1, season 3
Author: gatekat
Chars: Jazz, Prowl
Rating: PG
Codes: AU, lots of canon dead, Friendship (shocker, I know)
Summary: He's alone, he cold, he's miserable, and he doesn't believe that anyone is likely to notice.
Notes: The AU comes from Prowl being alive. Not going into how or why here. Not relevant.

This Winter Won't Last Forever

Ya'know, sometimes ya have to get somethin' taken away from ya before ya recognize its value. I'm ashamed ta say that's true with me. It's just not with what everybody thinks I miss, but with how much a certain mech was part of my daily functioning. He was always there, always pushing me, pushing everyone, to be better, to not accept good enough, always pushing himself until Ratchet got involved and knocked him out.

Then there were those insane few orns that did more to change the balance of power in the galaxy than millions of vorns worth of our petty little war, and he was gone. So many mechs, good and bad, were gone overnight. It was just starting to sink in just how much and what was gone when he staggered up to Autobot City. The new bots assumed he was in shock, numb to the losses because of his own damage.

I knew better. I saw the way his doorwings quivered, the way he didn't hold himself as our SIC anymore. Like he knew what none of us would find out for days yet. He wasn't SIC, I wasn't TIC or head of Special Operations ... the last of old guard quickly demoted and pushed aside in favor of mechs the new Prime already trusted; Ultra Magnus and Kup in this case. Even expecting it was coming, it stung. Prowl and I, we'd both put nearly our entire functionings into rising through the ranks, in becoming the best at what we did. Now all our skill, experience and connections are left at the wayside in a way that Optimus never did.

When Prowl came out of medbay, he looked as lost as I felt. I made up my mind then; if we couldn't be the Prime's support anymore, we'd be our own. What's left of Optimus Prime's command will be there to see his vision complete. There's really just Prowler and me now. A few others from the Ark are still around, but they're busy with settling into their new roles. Blaster got promoted from Comms to the head of Autobot City. Perceptor's taken Wheeljack's place as head of sciences. Bluestreak and Smokescreen are around, and they give Prowl some comfort, a small connection with a society he's never really been part of, but they have their own lives to deal with and Prowl is a full-time effort. Just like Red Alert is now, but Inferno's taking care of him, not that I expect to see Inferno around much even after Red Alert extinguishes from the stress of the failure no one else really blames him for.

It's a feeling I know all too well right now.

The mech below me is broken in ways not even Ratchet would have repaired, but maybe I can. Maybe he can help me too. Primus knows we both need it. I'm at least as broken as he is, maybe more so. I gave up a lot more to become what I am, after all, and there's no way for me to go back. He ... Prowl was always a reserved mech, a tactician, he'd killed long before the war in the line of duty as an enforcer.

Me ... me, I've got nothing. The mech I was is so long dead I can't even bring up a ghost of him anymore. I can't remember enough to count what's changed. If I'm going to move forward, I'm going to have to reinvent myself again. What better place to start than being a friend to the mech who probably needs it most?

It's cold, though I hardly feel it. I foolishly believed that I was beyond the shock and horror of war. Beyond the pain of loss and the fatal numbness that follows it. I could not have been more wrong.

I knew the moment I was informed that Rodimus Prime existed that there was a 92.7% chance that I would be replaced as second in command. I found it so unlikely I did not even calculate it that I would also be removed from my position as chief tactical officer. He said that I deserved a break, time to recover from the loss. I know what he meant, however. It could not have been more clear. He is the new Prime, was a young mech before he became Prime. He wants those around him that he is close to, and even more, he does not want those who served his predecessor nearby.

If he had truly been concerned with my mental health, he would have left me with my tactical position. Those were the orns I was most content; when I had important work to do but few leadership duties outside my own, small, department.

Now I have nothing to distract myself from the fact that my frame is aging, my spark weakening, and I have given nothing to the future but the destruction of our world and so many others. I can not even return to my pre-war duties, as their are no enforcers to return to, not in any city.

So I sit here with a human officer in the driver's seat, though he never drives me. None of them do. I'm on duty far more than any human, after all. I have nothing else to do with my time.

It is a tiny thing, to spend a shift each day with an officer patrolling the streets, stakeouts, assisting as any other officer would. My only request to them was respected. I was not to be part of PR of any kind. I was not here as an Autobot ... I've taken my insignia off ... I was here to find myself in what I did so long ago.

I suppose I was lucky. The chief had been deployed twice and understood what war does to the spark, the spirit, of any person. He had smiled when I gave my terms and welcomed me on board. I had an assignment for second shift, the evening shift. No one recognized me. My partner knew he was sitting in Prowl, in a Cybertronian, but he was respectful and asked me no questions.

It was dull. It felt ... good. Cleansing in a way I refuse to contemplate too much.

It's cold tonight. The wind biting as painful as a blaster shot at times. Mostly the bottom of my pedes, exposed as the rear of my alt.

A car is coming, a mech, following all the rules and thus quickly removed from active concern. He parks behind me, but remains silent, so I continue to ignore him.

We sit there in silence for over a joor before my human partner finally speaks.

"Which one is he?"

I have to soft reset my processor to answer him, after I scan the form behind me to learn the answer.

"Jazz."

"Must be a good friend, shielding you from the wind on a night like this," he says quietly, his eyes on the quiet city around us. "Not many wives are that good. You're lucky."

"Lucky?" I hear myself repeat the last word, buying myself time to think.

Silence comes again, broken by the low rumble of an idling Cybertronian engine being revved. Warmth radiates from Jazz's front bumper into my rear one, making cold-abused systems hum pleasantly in relief.

Still he says nothing. Jazz isn't usually a quiet one.

::Autobot Jazz. Is there something wrong?:: I ping him on a general band, unwilling to use the Autobot frequencies I no longer feel I have a right to use anymore.

::Just Jazz, Prowler,:: he replies smoothly, but there is none of the cheer, not even fake cheer, in his voice. ::I'm no more Autobot than you are, after ... you know. He took everything from both of us.::

::Why are you here?:: My battle computer refuses to let it go.

::You and I are all that's left, Prowler,:: his voice is quiet, full of pain and loss, everything my spark is full of. ::I want to see Optimus' vision through.::

::Rodimus rules now,:: I can't help but remind him, desperate to push him and all he represents away even as I'm desperate to have him closer, to have him parked at my side and not my tail.

::I know, Prowler. .I know. But ... I can't become something new, something that'll survive being a Neutral, a civilian, without someone to center it on.::

He leaves the obvious, that he wants to rebuild himself around me, unsaid.

It warms me more than his engine.

It's terrifying on a level I've never felt before.

It's far worse than being completely alone.

::I know I'm asking a lot of ya, Prowler,:: he fills the void uneasily, shifting on his wheels. ::I'll go ... if you'd rather be alone.::

My choice. I know, as surely as I know I'm no longer an Autobot, that he will leave and never come back if I tell him to.

But I want to live as well.

::Jazz.::

::Mmm?::

::Stay.::