Title: "Forever"

Summary: A short story on how Lennox doesn't take Ironhide's death too well.

Rating: PG

Notes:

To properly experience this story, please read it while listening to "Hurricane" by 30 Seconds to Mars, featuring Kanye west. Thank you.

There isn't a real reason behind my writing this. I took Ironhide's death very badly, mostly because I couldn't stop thinking of how the others were going to handle it. I can't do everyone, but seeing as Ironhide was Lennox's guardian and there wasn't much time for the soldier to have a moment for himself- this was written.

It's primarily for emotional impact, not pretty writing. If you shed a tear, tell me; I like to know if I'm doing something right.

The silence of the area settled over William Lennox like a warm blanket, covering the unfamiliar experience of an empty mind. Carefully he made his way through the thick forest, his breath almost unaffected by the hike thanks to years of hard physical training. The steep incline was nothing for the soldier, green eyes squinted against the damp air as it raced down the slope below him. Reaching up and gripping his hat, the major slid it off his head and shoved it into the depths of one pocket, not bothering to do it up. With an uncharacteristically absent expression, an unusual distance in both green hues, nothing seemed to penetrate anything below his immediate instinct to simply iwalk/i. To walk as long and far as he could from anyone, from anything, to just escape. That's what he was doing; escaping.

With his jacket flapping on either side, the zipper left undone despite the black clouds hanging overhead and threatening the storm of the century, Lennox continued his ascent towards solitude. Absolute, unconditioned loneliness; the one thing that appealed the blank slate of his mind. Trees passed by unheeded, animals scampering around and dashing back and forth to prepare for the coming downpour and paying him as much mind as he did them.

Eventually, the forest thinned out, and finally he left the tree line behind. Breaking apart from the depths of suffocating comfort, Lennox felt his breath finally begin to accelerate, the open area around him tempting the unbidden thoughts he had been suppressing to begin surfacing. Swallowing, his Adams apple bobbing lightly, the soldier padded to the tip of the precipice, standing on the edge of the cliff and staring down at the valley below. Not noticing that the drop went on for hundreds of yards in either direction, he slowly turned away and moved back towards the forest, stopping halfway between the two worlds.

"What do you mean, you can't!"

His breath hitched as the first distant rumble of thunder rolled across the sky, fading as it drew nearer. The clouds seemed to darken with the sound alone, their malevolent force weighing down on him. Too much weight. In that moment, the weight of everything seemed to press against his shoulders, trying to drag him to the ground and break him.

"I'm sorry..."

Lennox turned his face skyward, swallowing hard as he blinked back the anguish that threatened to spill over. Grief shone in both green orbs as the skies stared back with emotionless indifference. His heart seemed to stumble, tripping itself up and rolling into a physically unprovoked race.

"That thing, the... the matrix. It has to. It did before."

The skies opened up.

The rain fell, soaking the ground in record time. Droplets ran down the soldier's face as he squinted his eyes against the falling beads, parting his trembling lips just slightly as he gasped in a breath of air.

With the weight of hundreds of lives, he had moved on. With the lives of dozens of subordinates on him, he had lived with the responsibility. With the lives of many friends lost at his expense, Lennox had survived.

"He's gone."

Tears spilled over, streaking down his cheeks as Lennox stared at the sky, eyes hooded. With his breath rattling in his chest and his heart pounding, the soldier crumbled, his control shattering and falling around him with the rain. He clenched his fists, letting the ran mingle with his tears and trying to lose the pain in the mixture.

"No."

"No," he whispered. The word seemed to tear everything down, and without meaning to the man broke what little he had left to hold on to. Lennox sank to his knees, unable to turn his face away from the pouring skies. Thunder thrummed in the air, a deep sound that shook his bones. Without nature's assistance, the soldier's body trembled, his fists clenched tightly enough to whiten his knuckles and pierce the skin of his palm.

"No. No, no, no." Lennox dropped his head, his chest heaving as he struggled for an easy breath of air. Water dripped from his hair as he tears fell from his eyes, staining the ground below for only a moment before it was absorbed into the ground along with the rain. He saw nothing.

The memory flooded his mind, replaying again and again that moment. Each time the line was crossed, he couldn't breathe. Every instant he knew, his vision blurred and fresh tears spilled over. Without conscious thought, he whimpered, slowly lowering himself to sit back against his boots and doubling over. His arms wrapped around his waist as he squeezed his eyes shut, his breath catching as he finally let loose a strangled sob. Without attempting to swallow the sounds, Lennox passed himself over to carnal grief, crying out in desperate agony.

He'd been a fool. He had done so many things, pushing the moment to the back of his mind to sharpen and ripen, always banishing it with the certainty that it wasn't permanent. It hadn't been permanent before; Sam had brought Prime back. Prime had brought the crashed leader back. It was possible. He had given himself over to blind knowledge to continue fighting.

A howl tore through his throat as he slammed his fist into the ground, his hand shaking as the rain soaked him through and chilled him to the bone. Nothing around him penetrated the bubble of oblivious torment that had finally spread from inside his tight chest and encompassed his entire body. His head throbbed, his throat raw and sore and thick as he tried to breathe and cry and speak and scream. His entire body shook, his spine arching as he felt the unconditional, absolute misery flush through his body. He dug his toes into the ground, pushing his forehead against the ground and remaining bent at the waist as his vision danced, darkened and blurred before him. Hyperventilating, trying to breath in the awkward position and through the pain in his throat, Lennox shook his head weakly, sobs fading into gasps and pants for air.

The world was saved. The Decepticon leader was destroyed. The human race was saved.

The traitor was killed.

No. Nothing was alright. Nothing was okay. Lennox tightened the grip he held on his sides, tears streaming down his cheeks as he cried into the ground. His best friend was gone. The one who had mattered so much to him, gone so quickly, betrayed by someone he had trusted perhaps more than Lennox himself. Killed. Murdered.

Dead.

Gone, forever. His body had broken down, disintegrated, even as his spark had flickered and faded from existence under the damage he had suffered. Static obscured whatever words he had tried to speak as his optics went offline, fingers blowing away in the wind even as he watched, the last thing he would see.

Ironhide.

Ironhide.

No. Please. Not forever. Not forever.

No. No. No.

Lennox screamed; an agony, a torment, a suffering that spread through his entire body and conquered every crevice of his mind, a pain that filled all of his conscious thought, released in that one terrible cry.

The echo faded, the sound drowned out by the thunder crashing and the lightning streaking the air.