(Epilogue III—We'll Walk In Fields of Gold)

(Disclaimers in Chapter 1)

(2030—Diego Garcia)

Georgie and Sunstreaker walked through Diego Garcia's large open-air market. In the last five or ten years, it had really grown. One end catered exclusively to humans. Food, clothing, things that didn't interest bots unless they were buying something for a human. The other end had shops that sold to bots. Most were the businesses of skilled artisans who did upgrades of all sorts, artists who did paint jobs, that sort of thing. In the middle were the interesting places that appealed equally to both.

Kids of every size and shape crammed the sidewalks and dashed back and forth to the beach. Some teenage girls in bikinis excused themselves past two small girls in modest clothing and headscarves riding double on a young femme's little motorcycle alt.

Some young men were lounging around smoking cigarettes outside a club from which loud music pulsed. The dance floor was large enough for bots, while human-sized tables alternated with bot seating around the walls.

A weapons shop was doing a brisk business. Most of the military people, both from Diego Garcia and the US Navy, had their own personal weapons, and nearly all the civilians joined the island's volunteer militia to keep their skills sharp. The general wisdom was that a Decepticon or an Acolyte would just as gladly kill an unarmed human as one with a weapon, so you had might as well shoot back. Of course all the bots were armed, after so many vorns of warfare it was ingrained in their culture that they all needed to be able to defend themselves. There was a crowd in there, with a shooting contest coming up. There was always a fierce competition between the militia, Black Team, NEST, and the US Marines from the port.

Sunny led her to a new shop. An old miner had set up a toy store. There were all kinds of human toys imported from all over the world, that both human children and sparklings enjoyed, as well as Cybertronian toys that the owner built. Sunny led her to a counter in the back where robotic pets were sold. "Back on Cybertron, these little guys used to be everywhere. But as the war went on...it was just no place for them anymore. Now..."

"Pets are part of life getting back to normal," she said.

"Exactly."

"Are they bots like us?"

"Yes and no, they're like Scramble."

The owner shouted as a cyberkitten launched itself from a shelf and landed on Georgie's shoulder. She turned her head to stare in shock and raised a shaking servo to stroke its back.

She turned to the shopkeeper. "How much for this kitten?"

"Seventeen, with the take-home kit. Now he won't get too much bigger than that. I sell a lot of that size to humans. But he seems to have already decided he's your cybercat."

She counted out the coins and subspaced the box of cat things he handed over. "Sunny, how did you know-?"

"I didn't, I just hoped they would have a pet you'd like. You need to bond with him as soon as possible. He needs the security to be happy."

"Let's take him home." Once they were out of the crowd, they transformed, Georgie carefully curling up around her new little friend. They went in the side door nearest her quarters and sat down on the berth with the kitten.

As soon as she let the bond form, she knew. "Welcome home, little guy. Can't call you Fleabag this time around, can I?"

"You mean he's really-?"

"I can't be positive, of course, because organic bonds are subconscious. They're real but they aren't as tangible as ones we have with each other. But this kitten and I sure as pit know each other from somewhere. I'm sure it's him."

"Why did you name him Fleabag in the first place?"

"That damn landlord didn't allow pets. Fleabag got in under my feet while I was bringing in groceries, and made himself at home. He got my whole place full of fleas. I ended up setting off bug bombs in every room, and I had to give a flea bath to a big mean alley cat. I looked like I lost a fight with a barbed wire fence by the time I got done. And then I had to find a new place where I could keep a cat! Fleabag was probably about the nicest thing I called him."

"I'd say that relationship got off to a rocky start."

"That's the truth." The cybercat purred and brightened his now-blue optics. His long whiplike tail wrapped around her wrist and he started chewing on her arm. "Yeah, he used to do that too. No."

"That's what he's going to think his name is," Sunny teased her.

She laughed. "Most likely. If he acts like an organic kitten, he's going to be crazy for a few months. If he keeps up the scratching and biting, I'll have to at least partially disable his claws and fangs until he's old enough to know better, or he could really hurt one of the humans."

"You can forbid him from initiating combat except with his toys. They come with a default instruction set but there are others you can pick from. It won't change his personality or anything, that wouldn't be right. But you can set behavior parameters."

She popped one of her own claws to slit the box top and removed it. There were two data chips, one with the cybercat's programming and the other an information packet for her. She slotted that one and read it in the background while she unpacked everything else and put out his toys and small berth. She poured out a small dish of energon, and the kitten was meowing and winding around her ankles before she could put it down for him.

For safety's sake she did set limits on what he could attack, but she left him free to defend himself. Other than that she didn't make any other changes, figuring it would be better to let him develop normally.

She and Sunny spent most of the afternoon playing with the kitten and talking about anything and everything. When the cyberkitten settled down (on her berth, of course, ignoring his) to recharge, they went out to the common room to hang out for a while before Sunny went on duty in Ops.

When they got there, news came in from Mars Base that Dragonfly and Shaker's daughter Skydancer had been born. Georgie looked around at her celebrating clan and wondered if one day not too far away, she and Sunny might be welcoming their own sparkling to the universe. She had the strong feeling that they were sparkmates. Maybe it was time to find out.

How different was this place of hope and new dreams from the shattered, grief-ridden band of refugees that had survived Chicago by courage, skill and string of miracles. She wasn't sure where nineteen years had gone so fast.

Optimus and Elita looked so much younger and happier now, together with their little Jazzie, who was sitting on her mother's lap half in recharge.

Skids, Mudflap, and several NEST soldiers were playing an Internet Call of Duty tournament against some team in Japan. The latest version of the game finally had bot characters, so the composition of their avatar unit was pretty close to real life. It sounded like they were doing fairly well.

Kenoi walked by and stopped to watch the tournament for a little while, then got involved in a conversation with Iceblade and the two of them went over to a wall terminal to check on something. Georgie smiled when she noticed how close together they were standing, something to which the two of them were still oblivious. Kenoi was one of those ageless warriors who seemed to be honed by the passage of time rather than weakened by it.

Arcee and Rodimus went outside together. Their relationship was progressing slowly, but there clearly was something there. They were happy to let it grow at its own pace.

Russ Michaels-Banes paid no attention to the usual chaos in the common room as he lay on the floor near his mother's chair reading a homework assignment on his data pad. Kaela was talking to Que on her cell phone. She abruptly squawked, "My experiment did what!" And took off toward the lab at a flat-out run. Russ just shook his head and kept studying.

Georgie leaned forward to set her empty cube on the table. Sunny took advantage of the opportunity to put his arm behind her, to no objection whatsoever.

She thought about an old song. They truly were walking in fields of gold. As her Baptist mama in her previous life would have said, the seeds that they had sown in tears, they now reaped with rejoicing. Georgie settled a little closer to Sunny with a profound sense of gratitude and peace.

The End

A.N.: Chapter title from Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy. My deepest thanks to all the readers who have stayed with me throughout this long story. I'm sad to see this one end, but I think this tale has come to its natural conclusion. These characters have become very near and dear to my heart over the past few months, though, so I will probably write more in this fandom if I come up with ideas for side stories or sequels. /A.N.