Title: Limitless
Fandom: Bayverse AU Pre 2011 Movie, not taking into account any tie-in comics or novels because I haven't read them.
Author: femme4jack

Betas: Aniay & Chai16 (thanks, you luscious lovely ladies!)
Pairing: Jazz/Mikaela
Rating: hard R
WARNINGS: Darkfic, Supernatural xeno (Spark/Soul), Human Het, Mech/Mech & Mech/Femme (PnP, Spark, Sticky) memories of graphic violence and character deaths, dubcon, attempted rape, snuff?, cussing
Summary: Mikaela is the unfortunate victim of Megatron's revenge, and finds herself lingering on, along with another being who cannot let go.
Notes: Written for the June 2011 challenge at the tf_rare_pairing community on livejournal, June 1st Prompt: Limitless. Also written as a little birthday pressie to myself. This bunny has been biting for awhile, and this is pure self-indulgence on my part.

Other Notes: I will be continuing Arranged by the Stars, most likely after Botcon. Just needed a little break before getting into the next section. Thanks for the inquiries! Please review review review. It feeds an author's soul ;)

Limitless

Mikaela opened her eyes and began shrieking in pain and terror the instant she saw the angular, silver face over hers, noticing neither that the pain was completely gone, nor that the face above hers was no longer that of her sadistic torturer who had decided, just for kicks, to send a little message to those she cared for in the language of her eviscerated body.

"Easy there, little lady, Ah'm not gonna hurt ya," the visored mech said, backing away from her and holding his hands to either side to show that he wasn't touching her.

Something wasn't right. Her eyes darted around, and she quickly realized she was no longer in the abandoned warehouse where she had had been "fixed" and revived repeatedly simply so she could endure more agony. The fact that she had limbs again was a sure sign that something dramatic had changed from the last time she'd been resuscitated. She scrambled to sit up, and found herself back on the familiar base where she had spent so much of the last three five years, as Ratchet's apprentice, in the hanger he had appropriated as Medbay.

There was something about the small mech who was sitting in an oddly human, cross legged pose on the same berth, grinning at her; something she was supposed to recall, but couldn't. Gingerly, she touched her legs, her arms, her stomach. She reached up and found that her hair and the skin of her face and scalp were back in place as though they had never been flayed from her skull. Was it all cybernetic? Or did Ratchet find some way to miraculously regrow human tissue? She knew the state that her limbs had been in; fixing them and reattaching would not have been a possibility.

"Did Ratchet...fix me? Turn me into some sort of bionic woman or something?" she finally asked, her voice echoing strangely amidst the buzz and hum of alien equipment.

"Sorry, but Ah can't say that he did. Think your frame was in worse shape than mine, t' be honest."

"Then why...," she started, before abruptly stopping, running her hands over her now intact limbs once more as a sinking suspicion began to settle in her suddenly whole gut.

"Jazz?" she barely whispered, his visor clearly brightening and a wide grin blossoming on his faceplates as she said his name.

"Ah thought ya'd forgotten mah designation," he said jovially. "We didn't have much chance t' chat, what with mah date with the defrosted devil o' doom an' all. But Ah've been watchin' ya ever since, an' feel like Ah know ya, but I get that ya won' feel the same 'bout me."

Mikaela opened her mouth to respond, but abruptly shut it. She got to her feet and strode purposefully along the berth toward the silver mech, smaller, but much deadlier in appearance than Bumblebee, and placed her hand on the very solid chestplates above his spark chamber, feeling the resonance within. "Jazz," she repeated his designation again in disbelief.

He gave her a bemused grin and winked his visor at her. "Ya usually aren't so short on words, Mikki," he said, poking her in the side on her ticklish spot which earned him an absent-minded slap as she worked out the puzzle.

Several emotions flittered across her face, from confusion to fear to anger, finally settling on a look of pure horror. "I'm dead," she whispered, touching her body again in confusion. "I'm fucking dead!" she shrieked, looking up at him defiantly as though somehow he was responsible for the condition. "What is this? Why are you here? Why am I here? What the fuck!"

Jazz's smile turned into a grimace and he vented in an approximation of a sigh. "That ya are, sweetspark, at least near as Ah can tell. Ah've been hangin' round here ever since..." his hands mimicked pulling something in half, and he rubbed the plating underneath his spark gingerly. "Ah saw 'em bring in what was left of yer frame. Ya were followin' 'em, bitchin' somethin' furious and tellin' 'em that ya weren't dead yet, 'cept it wasn't your body that was doin' the bitchin'. Then ya crawled up on this berth and cried yourself t' sleep. Remember any of that?"

Mikaela silently shook her head in denial. "I'm not dead. Dead people don't sleep, and I still have a body. See?" she held up her hand to him as if to prove it.

"Yeah, that. Well...seems like when they off ya here, ya keep the form that's most familiar for awhile. Ah looked like mah frame 'til Ah realized that Ah wasn't a frame. Ah was me...mah spark, ya know? But Ah made me look like this again so ya'd recognize me an' not freak out about some bright silver orb floatin' 'round an talkin' with ya. Ya can make yourself into pretty much like anything when ya get used t' it. Possibilities are limitless, within' a few limits, 'course." Jazz explained patiently, his visor dimming.

"Within...limits. And those are?" she asked skeptically.

"Ah, well, ya can't communicate with the livin'. Believe me, Ah've tried. When ole Ratch was tryin' t' revive me with the shard, Ah told 'im not t' do it. Ah saw what a mess ole Megs was when he went back. He was nearly sane on this side. Ah didn't wanna risk goin' back an bein' some sort of nightmare an' hurtin' mah cohort, ya know? 'sides that, what if somethin' happened t' Prime again? They need him more than mah pretty aft. Didn't matter, though. Shard didn't have 'nough life left in it."

"Ratchet tried to bring you back?" Mikaela asked incredulously. "He didn't tell me that."

"Didn't tell a spark or soul, Mikki, not e'en Prime. Didn't wanna get their hopes up, ya know?"

"Wait...you said Megatron was nearly sane...you saw him when he was dead?"

"Every mech who was deactivated hung 'round for a bit. Wouldn't talk t' me, though. Then they just...sorta...faded, their sparks blew away like mist. Megatron was the only one who went back t' his frame, but somethin' ain't right with 'im. Ah mean, more not right than he was before. He's not really livin'. He shouldn't be back among the functionin'."

"And the other humans who were killed?" She asked, going from fiercely emotional to analytical in a not-beating heartbeat. "Any of them hang around?"

"You're the first that's stuck 'round, sweets. The rest jus' seemed t' dissipate when they passed," he explained softly, almost hesitantly. "Ah've been alone for awhile now. Ah'm glad t' have some company," he admitted, reaching out a clawed finger to brush back her not real hair that was hanging over her not real eyes.

The mechanic froze and backed away from the touch, unsure of what to make of it, and certainly not ready to deal with the sudden hungry, needy look that had appeared on the dead mech's faceplates. It was a look echoed in the the energy field that she realized she could feel around him.

Jazz gave her a knowing smirk and suddenly that field was surrounding her, pushing into her, making her gasp at the erotic intensity of it.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, her knees going weak from the strength of it, forcing her to sit. She slid back to the very edge of the berth to get away.

Jazz instantly pulled in his field and looked contrite. "Ah'm sorry, little lady. Ah've...been alone too long. As much as Ratchet's taught ya, there's stuff ya don't know 'bout us. We ain't meant t' be alone like this...start t' get a bit glitched after awhile, if ya get mah drift."

Mikaela hugged her knees and looked at him skeptically, trying to ignore just how disconcertingly good it had felt to have that energy pressing into her. But before she could ask him to explain what the fuck was going on, the door to Medbay slid open and two sets of familiar hydraulics echoed through the large space. It was Ratchet, followed closely by Optimus. The medic's normal, slightly irritated and world-weary expression had been replaced by a look that was stricken.

"Come here, Ratchet" Optimus commanded in Cybertronian, though the fact that she understood the hissing, clicking language did not register to Mikaela because she was transfixed by Prime's grill, which had unlocked and opened an inch to reveal the blinding white light of his spark.

Ratchet gave an electronic growl, but took two long strides toward Prime, allowing his broad frame to be held by the taller mech who began pressing comforting magnetic pulses into his back struts.

"If I just had insisted she stay on base, or at least insisted that a guardian be with her..." Ratchet began, his own chestplates remaining stubbornly closed.

"Then we would have lost a human friend and a fellow mech," Prime said with certainty. "There would be two tortured, empty frames rather than one."

Ratchet made a sound like a strangled modem. "Then I should have kept her here," the medic stubbornly insisted. "Slag it, Optimus! It is almost like those children are part of our cohort now, in everything but sparkbond.

"They are part of our cohort," Prime confirmed, running a hand along the seam in Ratchet's chestplates. "They were from the moment Bumblebee chose to stay with Sam, you chose to train Mikaela, and Ironhide activated his guardian protocols for the Lennox family. They are the closest things to new sparks that we've had since we sent the Allspark to space."

Ratchet again made the strangled, static sound, but instead of speaking, he gripped Prime's shoulders, and his own chestplates began to split down the center.

With instinct long trained by Ratchet, Mikaela scrambled down from the berth, intending to flee before she was exposed to the lethal energies of a sparkmerge. The members of Prime's personal cohort were all bonded, and merged with one another frequently. Once she had started spending regular time on base, she learned quickly when to make herself scarce. There were certain moments when her friends were no longer aware of the dangers they posed to those around them. But as soon as her feet hit the floor, she froze. She didn't have to worry about her blood being boiled alive by alien lovemaking. She looked up at Jazz, still sitting cross legged on the berth, who was staring at the scene with a haunted expression.

She turned back toward Optimus and Ratchet, watching, entranced, as the two pulsar-like miniature stars, one bright white and the other sky blue began to synchronize in rhythm with one another. Like she had felt Jazz's energy field, she now could feel the emotions pouring off of the two mechs who were beginning to merge: guilt, grief, and shame and helplessness from the one, while from the other she felt a sense of a near fathomless loyalty, compassion, loss and devotion. A series of cables snaked out from both mechs, plugging in to ports in their chests around their sparkchambers, while the chambers themselves slid forward and opened, a corona of ethereal fire emerging to lick at the fire in the other's chest. Suddenly, the two sparks flared, and each frame pulsed with light from helm to pede. Mikaela instinctively looked away from the blinding brightness, up toward Jazz, but he was no longer there

Looking back at Optimus and Ratchet, she saw a third spark, quicksilver, flitting around them, pushing against them, but unable, as hard as it tried, to join the merge of the two larger sparks that were now fully absorbed into one another as they dimmed slightly and then brightened again to a blinding flash, repeatedly. The quicksilver spark seemed to scream in frustration, and suddenly rushed her, pushing her into the floor.

~ needtoconnectneedtoconnect please! needtoconnect! ~ she was filled with images and emotions, rather than words, but there was no doubt what Jazz was asking her.

"How!" she yelled over the buzzing, modem-like shrieks and rumbling groans of pleasure coming from Optimus and Ratchet. The silver orb just kept pushing against her, trying to get inside her chest. "I'm not a spark, you fucking moron! I can't merge!"

The silver orb flared and suddenly became a tall, naked man, lean but muscular, with milk-chocolate skin and almond shaped brown eyes. His long, thick, dark hair was plaited in hundreds of thin braids and held back with a silver clip. His eyes were blazing with blue-white light as he came at her, grabbing her and kissing her fiercely, pinning her between himself and the concrete floor. "Your way then," he moaned when she broke the kiss and tried to pull away from him. "Please, for the love of Primus, Mikaela, Ah need t' connect! Ah've been alone for too long!" He emphasized his words by pulling up her shirt and rubbing his hard, hot length against her abdomen

It was too much. Memories of what had recently happened to her under the claws of Megatron's minions welled up, and with a primal scream she pulled herself away from him, far stronger than she would have been in life, and suddenly, she was no longer her body, but a bright red light, slipping out of his grasp.

He didn't launch himself after her, but looked up at her pathetically, reaching toward the red orb she had become. "Mikaela, please, sweet spark, Ah'm sorry. Ah've been here too long without connectin'. Ah'm not gonna hurt ya. Ah just...please...mah kind aren't meant t' be alone like this. We have t' connect. We spend our entire functionin' connected with others, sharin' thoughts, pleasure, love 'n loss. If we lose a cohort, we find or build another. When we cease t' function, we're supposed t' go back to the Well an' be one with Primus an' every spark there. But the Allspark's gone, an' Ah didn't get t' the Well fast 'nough before the way was shut. Ah can't get where Ah'm s'posed t' be, an if Ah don' connect, Ah'll just fade into mist like the rest of 'em. Please!

Mikaela barely noticed that Prime and Ratchet had settled on a berth, their chests still open, but their sparks back in their own casings. They would both have been oblivious to her and Jazz even if the she and and the silver mech had been alive. Cautiously, she moved toward the brown-skinned man and hovered in front of him. She wondered if she she could talk in this form.

~This is completely fucked up! I just found out that I'm fucking dead, and you are propositioning me,~ Mikaela lit into him, watching him flinch and back away with deep satisfaction. ~Do you have any idea how completely fucked that is, you silver bastard? Do you have any idea what they didto me before I died? And now you were going to what? Force yourself on me? What kind of Autobot are you?~

"A glitched one," Jazz said softly, reaching out his hand as though to touch the pulsing red orb that, Mikaela had to assume, was her soul, but then pulling his hand back quickly. "Ah...ya better just go away, Mikki. Ah don't think Ah can hold myself back now that there's someone here Ah actually could connect with. Ah'm too afraid t' fade away like the others. Ah don't want to cease t' be. Ah need to get t' the Well, an' the way is gone, so Ah have to connect with what Ah can."

Mikaela could imagine herself closing her eyes in sympathy, and abruptly she was in her body again, standing so close enough to the human image Jazz had chosen that she could feel heat radiating off of his impossibly smooth skin. Damn, he looked amazing. It would be so easy just to take two more steps and kiss him. He was far taller, and more muscular than Sam, and she'd forgotten just what that did to her.

"I didn't think dead people got horny," she muttered with a shiver, her eyes drawn to the very erect length that Jazz had wrapped an elegant, long-fingered hand around, stroking slowly, invitingly. She could only imagine what those hands...and that cock...could do to her. Especially in a world without limits. "This is a totally fucked up afterlife," she added, before licking her lips and moving forward one more step.

"Sure is," Jazz said in a sultry tone, removing his hand and giving a suggestive pelvic thrust to emphasize the point. "Totally," thrust, "fucked," thrust, "up," thrust.

"Fuck you," she practically moaned, closing the space between them and hungrily wrapping her own hand around his hot length.

"Primus, yes," Jazz hissed, pulling her close in his muscular arms and devouring her mouth in a claiming kiss, his slick tongue thoroughly laying siege to her mouth, sliding against her own and exploring her like he was eating his favorite flavor of ice cream, with hums of appreciation to accompany it. Her mind immediately went to just what else that skilled tongue would be capable of, and she moaned into him, her body suddenly shaking with need. She wasn't sure when it happened, but suddenly she was naked, and her skin was moving against his in pure, sensual bliss. He lifted her, pulling her legs around his waist, and carried her to a silk covered bed that hadn't been there before, laying her on the firm, yet giving surface in a single, graceful motion, never separating his mouth from her own.

His fingers sought out hers and gently removed her hand from his cock, and then grasped both of her hands, bringing them to either side of her head, held definitively, in a show of dominance Sam had never been capable of. She gasped and moaned as he broke the kiss and began to suck and bite on her chin and neck, marking a path toward her breasts.

"Ah know exactly what ya like," he murmured, his breath hot against her neck, "an' how ya like it. Ah'm gonna give ya what ya need, just like I used t' do for mah cohort. Gonna connect with ya an' make ya feel things ya never dreamed ya could feel." She felt his knees sliding under her spread thighs, lifting them. She was already so wet he could have slid right in with no effort. But instead, he let go of one of her hands and brought his own between her legs, fingering her and then rubbing her own slick fluids against his cock, which he began to slide along the top of her folds. Two of his fingers slid back in and pressed up hard on her g-spot, massaging it while his length slid rhythmically over her nub.

At the same time, he began licking and sucking on her nipple, then blowing on it to take away the sting. Her moans and cries echoed through Medbay, where the two large, living mechs lay unheeding, oblivious to what was happening. Her body felt like it was on fire, desperate for something more...not simply sex. Tingles began to run through her limbs and up and down her back, and something hot in her chest was strained to get out. The not-man above her gave her a knowing look, and then went to work even more deliberately, teasing her wet, soft folds with the smooth, hot tip of his length, pressing in just past her threshold in tiny, teasing thrusts, while his fingers rubbed clit.

She tried to move her hips, to pull him in all the way, but he let go of her other hand and pinned down her thighs, continuing his teasing, tiny movements when what she wanted was to be taken hard by a strong, dominant masculine force of nature who would make her feel alive. But it was the fire in her chest that was making her cry out the loudest. Something there needed something even more than she needed his cock to sink into her body.

Her vision seemed to split, and she was no longer simply underneath a strong, gorgeous man, but under the mech as well, and his chestplates were parting with a distinct hydraulic sound, the same way that Prime's and Ratchet's had earlier.

"Ya know ya want it," his mech form said in a low, seductive voice. "Ah've seen how ya look at 'em, the same way Ah do, wanting somethin' ya can't have but that ya need more than energon. Connect with me, an' I'll show ya what ya miss as a human."

Without waiting for her response, he sank into her, but it was something more than a hot, thick cock filling her but never quite giving her enough by the cruel trick of fate that was human female anatomy. It was connection. With his body in hers, she could feel his field, not just pressing into her from the outside, but inside of her as well, stroking every nerve, a force of thought and emotion as well as physical sensation, all of it wanting everything that was uniquely her.

She threw her head back and gave a low moan, letting go of any illusion that this was normal sex. The fire in her chest lunged at him, and suddenly she was no longer a human, but a sleek, black, deadly-looking femme, and her own plates were opening to him, revealing the living red orb in her chest.

Jazz made a strangled sound and rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him as cables sank into one another's ports in addition to the long, thick one that was already seated in her valve. She didn't question any of it, just keened for more, for connection, for the fierce, fiery paradise of being one. He pulled her smaller chest into his own wide open plates, and her soul touched his spark with a bright flash, and then was absorbed by it. It was as if his relentless presence was filling every crevice of her being, hungry to know her, to feel every memory, to know first hand the rush of ocean waves against thin organic skin or the way the a bird song sounded to her simple organic ears. He wanted to know everything there was to know about being human, from her earliest memories to the horror of the her final days of life. From the most mundane to the most brilliant moments (the Peterbilt broke into a million pieces of insanity and reformed into a towering robot with glowing, emotion-filled blue eyes who knelt down so close she could feel the hairs on her arms dancing in the wind from the air moving through his vents). Jazz wanted it all.

The fire in her chest burst and then gushed through her like electric-charged liquid in the most fantastic release she had ever known, as spiritual as it was physical. And riding along the entire time was Jazz drinking in all of it, making it part of his own spark until everything went dark.

When she woke, they were still in Medbay, and she was not in her own imaginary human flesh. She was the lithe black femme, her field intertwined with his as he stroked her with magnetic pulses along her joints and seams. She reached out with new instincts, given to her during their merge, knowing exactly how to run her own hands over his plating, where to linger, and just where to shimmy her long, thin fingers under his armor. They made love slowly, in the way of his kind, sharing memories, emotions, and long, stroking touches as they repeatedly built and then bled the charge off of one another's frames before joining soul to spark. This time, when he opened his chestplates, his spark was noticeably brighter and did not fully absorb hers, but rather seemed to slow dance with it.

"Ah was fading," he admitted after. "Ya brought me back from the brink."

"How do you know that isn't the way you'll go to the Well, to be one with Primus? Maybe you're...just afraid to let go," she suggested gently. "Sam went to your version of the afterlife, when he died, and he came back. It didn't cease to exist with the Allspark."

Jazz shook his head. "Sam was in the Matrix," he said, "not the Well of Allsparks. Not the way he described it. The Ancient Primes have a place all their own. They remain with the Matrix. The way to the Well is gone with the Allspark. That was our only connection t' it. Without the Allspark, we just dissipate.

"Maybe you're just scared," she pushed. "Maybe you have to let go of your connections here to be connected there."

Jazz answered her with a growl, and then abruptly vanished, leaving her confused and alone.

He didn't return the first day, nor the second. By the third she was beginning to panic. She became the floating orb that she was coming to associate with her real self, though she was sure that it, too, was some sort of projection. She followed the others around base, pestering them without being noticed, talking back to them without being heard. By the fourth day, the burn that she felt when she and Jazz made love was constantly present, a hunger and ache that she could do nothing to fill. On the fifth day, she noticed that the red orb of her soul, or spark, or whatever the hell it was, appeared more diffused, lighter in color, its edges indefinite, and that she was very tired. She was terrified of falling asleep, or whatever the state was called when she was oblivious, without Jazz there to wake her. What if she never woke again? What if, like he believed, all that awaited her was turning into a mist and blowing away with a breath of wind?

On the seventh day, she was frantic. It was like nodding off at the wheel, but she felt like she was nodding off on her very existence. Looking over Sam's shoulder to distract herself, she saw the date on his laptop screen and figured out that she had 'slept' for nearly six months after the first time she and Jazz and merged. The next thing she noticed was that Sam was emailing another girl, and that it was full of all of the kinds of promises and endearments that she'd had to wring out of him.

"Who the fuck is Carly! You sure didn't wait long, did you, you fucking bastard. I was tortured by Megatron for days before I died because I was your fucking girlfriend, and you couldn't even give it a year? Well fuck you, Sam Witwicky!" she screamed at him as he cluelessly typed on.

Jazz did not show up for another month. She had fallen back into whatever dreamless state she entered shortly after telling off an oblivious Sam. Jazz had found the dim red orb hiding under Sam's bed. She'd had every intention of telling Jazz off the way only a dead and jilted Banes woman was capable of, but instead they made hot and angry love as humans in Sam's own bed to get back at the college senior for moving on when she could not.

Jazz had apologized repeatedly, explaining that he had, like her, fallen into a state of non-awareness, far deeper than recharge, and when he'd woken, had been mortified by how long he'd been away.

He made it up to her. For the next several days, or perhaps it was years, she had the most soul-blowing sex even her new, limitless self could imagine. They'd gone at it as orbs, pure energy merging more than just their consciousness, but their very souls. But not all of it was that ethereal. They'd tried it as women, as men, as various combinations of the two (she enjoyed sinking her cock into his warm, slick tightness more than she cared to admit). They'd taken the form of other organic creatures, from Earth and beyond (dolphins really did do it better, she decided). He'd helped her take the form of various builds of mechs and femmes, and she'd learned that Cybertronian interfacing was as complex and varied as the mecha themselves. She loved towering over the silver mech from the same height as Prime, with his mouth just at the right height to give her panel his incomparable attention. She learned that femmes had spikes and mechs had valves and most had both and some had neither, and that what for humans was supposedly the pinnacle of physical intimacy was, for Jazz's kind, a quickie to rid oneself of an annoying charge in order to get back to the business of functioning during a war. But that didn't mean having sensors inside her valve wasn't a real step up from what she'd been used to as a human.

They would merge, and then she would sleep again. Each time she woke, he was there, with the knowing smirk she had come to love because he knew her better than anyone, and knew she couldn't resist what he could offer.

Years went by, unheeded, as they explored the limitlessness of their existence. They explored every ecosystem on the Earth, from the volcanic vents deep under the sea to the tops of the highest mountains, and to the solar system beyond. He took her to Cybertron, and recreated for her a vision of what it had once been, leaving her gasping at its alien beauty. They made love, un-singed, in the center of a star.

But it always came back to connecting, to merging, to Jazz's fierce, hungry presence inside her very soul, always finding more to know, more to understand, more to eagerly make part of himself. While the more surface merges left her buzzing with energy, the deepest merges left her exhausted, and she always slept after. She had no choice, really. Oblivion was a relentless force after the kind of pleasure they achieved when her soul was absorbed by his spark. One time, as she drifted off, it occurred to her, finally, to wonder why, when they merged so completely, he knew everything about her, but she still knew so little about him? It was so good to feel known, loved, desired and accepted that it hadn't occurred to her wonder why she didn't know him as well as he knew her.

The time between her awakenings lengthened. He would merge with her the moment she woke, but in a different way, infusing her with himself rather than absorbing her, and after, she felt better, and was herself again. Jazz was at a loss to explain her long slumbers, but was clearly distraught, having been alone and unconnected for too long. He was protective and possessive of her, never leaving her alone, afraid she would slip back into oblivion without having merged and absorbed her essence first so he could carry part of her with him while she was unaware and unable to connect.

There came a time when she woke and found that not just a few months,or years had passed. Nearly three centuries had gone by. It took time for her to become more than dimly aware, like her thoughts and emotions were swimming through wet concrete. Her first true awareness were the emotions flowing from the silver orb, a turmoil of fear and possessiveness. Slowly it came to her that Sam and Carly, along with generations of descendants were long gone. Prime and the other survivors of the long war had established a base on the moon, and it had grown into a giant Cybertronian city with a stunning view of the blue, green and white world below.

Once she was fully aware, she knew something was very wrong. Nothing would make her weariness leave her and she begged Jazz to merge with her and infuse her with his strength as he normally did, hoping it would revive her, but he refused.

"Ah already tried, while ya slept," he admitted. "It nearly made ya fade completely. Ah don't dare try again. It will put ya right back in stasis, and ah can't bear to see that spark so dim, so close t' fadin', Mikki."

She was confused and frightened. She could not even find the strength to take different forms. She remained the dull red orb with diffuse edges, giving off a very faint light. Jazz, however, was brighter than ever. He would take a physical form and stroke her, and her light would undulate in gentle pleasure, but nothing like the passion they had shared for far more than a normal human lifetime.

It was not long after that awakening that she finally, truly died. Jazz had likely thought her too weak to go looking when he left her with frantic orders to stay put and not exert herself. But she had silently followed him by feel, connected with him on some level that told her exactly which direction he was headed and how hungry he was to get there. In a completely different section of the city she found Jazz at the bedside of one of Sam's descendants, a technorganic, who had spent his entire life on the moon. When the elderly man finally passed, the brilliant silver orb extending warmth and welcome to the diffused green light that emerged from the man's entire body, and then coalesced into a much smaller orb, brilliantly shining like she once had. She saw the orb hesitate briefly, then rush into Jazz's waiting spark to be fully absorbed and never leave, making him shine that much brighter.

She felt the silver orb's attention shift to her as soon as he was finished feeding, for that was precisely what he had done. The energy that had been Andre Witwicky had been fully consumed by Jazz even as the human soul had rushed into a light he believed was his afterlife. She should have felt horrified, but instead she realized that she had known. She had always known. She just had not been able to admit what it was that had been keeping both her and Jazz from fading away.

Jazz took the form he'd had when alive, his visor regarding her intently, unapologetically, challenging her to say something.

"To keep yourself from fading..." she began.

"Before Ratchet tried t' revive me, Ah was normal, ready t' fade and face whatever came after, or whatever didn't. Ah was at peace with lettin' go. After...it was like Ah was half alive again, always needin' energon, but had no frame to fuel. It was mah spark that needed t' feed. Ah needed t' be alive, t' be bonded with mah cohort again, but Ah couldn't have 'em. When Ah found the sparks of the extinguished, Ah tried t' merge with 'em instead, but they sensed somethin' was wrong with me, an' stayed away. First time Ah saw an organic who'd passed, mah spark acted on instinct. Lured it in and absorbed its entire existence.

"And you planned to do the same to me?" she asked, feeling strangely at peace despite the betrayal

He quickly shook his helm in denial. "Ah never planned t' fully absorb ya, Mikki. No matter how much the hungry part of mah spark wanted ta. Ah wanted ya t' be part o' me, makin' me strong, helpin' keep me from fadin', but not at the expense of ya bein' self aware. Yer part of mah cohort, the one Ah can't have no more. Yer all Ah have of it, and Ah'd never do that t' ya. But Ah can't bear t' fade. Even if Ah fade and find myself in the Well, what kinda welcome would Ah have? Ya have any idea the kinds of things Ah did when Ah was functionin'? And now, Ah've been consumin' organic souls just t' stick 'round and not have t' face the music. There's no place for me."

"And...when I was asleep?" She asked, already knowing the truth, but filled with sick curiosity to hear his admission.

"Ah didn't consume the others jus' for me. Ah could give ya some of the energy, while ya were unaware, t' keep ya here with me, then give ya more t' wake ya, and even more t' keep you awake longer. But your spark stopped takin' it this last time. Refused it. That's why ya slept so long. The last time Ah tried, Ah almost lost ya completely. There's really only one choice now. Ah can't let ya fade. Ya mean to much t' me. Ah'll absorb ya like Ah do the others, an' you'll be part of me forever."

"No, Jazz. You won't," she said with surprising calm, now that she knew the truth. "You'll let me fade. It's what I'm supposed to do, what I want to do. What I should have done in the first place. I'm exhausted because I'm hanging on, refusing to let go of life. You'll let me fade and you'll stay the hell away from me. I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid like you are."

"Ah can't let ya, Mikki. Ah'll be alone again! With ya in mah spark..."

"If you don't want to be alone, then quit hanging on to an existence where you are so fucking lonely! You don't know what happens when you fade! You are terrified there will be nothing for you, or something worse. But you aren't alive! You are living off of the lives of others, and they deserve to be released. This isn't some limitless afterlife, Jazz. This is a prison, for you, for me, and for everyone you've absorbed. You need to let go!"

The silver mech became the large, bright silver orb and lunged at her, but it was like a hand passing through mist. She was already too far gone, her awareness was slipping. It was just a matter of going to sleep, and waking somewhere new, or not waking at all. It was no longer terrifying. It was exactly what she was supposed to do.

Then she saw it. A thin ribbon of prismatic light connecting them. The energy, both what he'd taken from her and what he'd infused her own soul with could not be separated. Without knowing it, he had created a bond between them, a bond he couldn't sense, but which she could hold on to. What the shard had done to his terrified spark was not his fault. But his half living spark was not capable of letting go. She, however, had enough will for both of them. All it took was a gentle tug, and she pulled Jazz, and all that he had consumed, with her into the comforting, soft blanket of darkness, not knowing whether she would wake again, and realizing it didn't truly matter. She felt a brief burst of terror from him as he realized his mistake, followed by resignation which faded into gratitude and peace until they knew no more.