Author's note: If you're interested in mood music I often listen to Linkin Park's The Catalyst remix by NoBrain when writing this fic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers.

Subroutines blipped online, performing a complete systems check after suffering a full and unexpected shutdown. The results of the scan were bundled and shoved to his attention, listing off system wide damages that his unconscious mind assessed - some of the damage was critical, but stable enough to trigger primary operations. The climbing buzz of his internal hardware reached their height, his pain receptors flared onlined with his optics, and no one had bothered to place a temporary lock on his nervecircuits.

Thundercracker wasn't conscious of his actions as he lurched out of stasis, thrashing at an enemy that was no longer there. He took one step off the recharge berth and his knees buckled, unable to support his tremendous weight. Plating screeched against his joints as he came crashing to his hands and knees, an explosion of pain ripping through his wing struts and midsection. Heat radiated from seemingly everywhere as red warnings popped up across his HUD.

A muffled, "You shouldn't be up yet," was the first thing he consciously heard above his own rapidly spinning cooling fans.

Thundercracker's optics flickered upwards as awareness finally filled them, and he registered a dully lit berth room through his hazy vision.

A distinctly feminine chuckle surprised his audials. "I would help you, but I have the feeling you would just tear my arm off."

His optics finished calibrating, drawing the room – dusted with rust and decay – into sharp focus, and for a moment he thought his systems had glitched. Standing in the door way with one bluntly clawed servo clutching the door frame was a femme seeker. He hadn't seen the likes of one of those in over a hundred vorns.

Her frame was unmistakable, tall and lithe, built for flexibility and speed with sweeping wings mounted to her back struts. Her paint was dull from neglect, but he could tell she was mostly black with patches of grey and aesthetic touches of crimson. The colors weren't that of a typical drone – black and purple – and her optics were an intriguing violet hue that glowed off her silver cheek plates.

"Am I-am I in-the med. bay at Darkmount?" His vocals ground unpleasantly as he struggled to form a coherent inquiry for the drone.

"No, you're in my home," she said easily. "I found you on the battle field and repaired you, sort of. You're not in danger of offlining anymore, but I don't have the equipment or medical skills to make you recover quickly." She appeared more perturbed than regretful about her shortcomings, and though she hadn't answered him outright, it was clear enough that the answer to his question was 'no'.

Thundercracker stiffened. His battle computer was still whirring when his fist clinched and his arm mounted blaster unrolled from subspace. He lined her into its sight, shifting his massive weight on his knees and other hand. The movement sent lacing pain up his side and he ground his denta plates together as he struggled to maintain his pitiful defensive position. He didn't trust letting his guard down to this drone - there was something off about it.

"Then what are you? An Autobot, Decepticon? For what purpose have you brought me here?" He snarled through hoarse vocals that ended in a coughing fit, splattering old, congealed energon on the floor.

The femme seeker canted her helm at him like an intrigued creature, studying his struggle against his own damaged frame. "Neither of your assumptions are correct. I'm a Neutral so I have no interest in your factions. You're here because-" She hesitated, glancing about the room before studying his battered frame as if debating whether or not to reveal something she wasn't supposed to.

It wasn't logical, drones didn't ponder or show signs of emotion; she must have been lying. He had run across a few fliers on the Autobot's side - the Aerialbots. Their design was always inferior, but the enemy could have finally created a suitable imitation of a seeker, at least at a glance. Though, he couldn't see any faction symbols which helped back her Neutral claim. Perhaps it was a part of their ruse.

"I wanted to talk, to know your designation," she confessed with a quirked half smile, looking as if she didn't believe the answer any more than he did.

Thundercracker evaluated her, looking for anything that would give her away as an undercover Autobot. Her design was flawless, identical to what his memories banks could recall of femme seekers – purposely more speed and maneuverability as opposed to the mech version's brute strength, tall, and predatory in design. Her arm blasters were retracted into subspace and her wings were sticking straight up, twitching every once in a while with otherwise hidden nervousness to his critical assessment and lack of verbal input.

When he didn't answer she took a cautious step into the room. Thundercracker raised his weapon higher and a grunt of pain escaped him as he nearly collapsed under the pain that seared through his circuitry.

"Your weapons are offline. Let me help you back onto the berth, you're straining your already overtaxed systems." She stood off to the side, willingly subjecting to his silent scrutiny until he made up his mind.

Thundercracker was disgusted by the position he had been placed in, he couldn't even get off the floor by himself without collapsing back in pain. There wasn't much of a choice but to cautiously accept the femme's help.

"F-fine," he sputtered shakily.

She approached slowly, heeding his pained growl with healthy hesitation and a concerning amount of captivated intrigue. She bent down in front of him and slung an arm around his waist, mindful of the mending tear in his midsection and avoiding contact with his sore cockpit. She was the most conscience about not brushing his throbbing wings. With her support he stood, leaning most of his weight on the smaller femme seeker as she helped him slowly back to the makeshift berth where he was carefully laid on his back.

He tightened his grip on her shoulders, using her for support as he bit down on his denta plates. The pressure the position put on his wings hurt like slag, but was undeniably the best he could do since his cockpit was in an even more fragile condition. If he were to lie on his stomach his own weight would crack the newly mended glass and damage the sensory equipment inside.

The femme didn't comment as he rode out the pain and flaring warnings of an eminent stasis lock. She merely grunted in discomfort as he clutched her armor until it bent under his servos. When his exploding pain sensors faded to a manageable burn, he released his hold and she backed off with several shrugs of her shoulders in an attempt to shake off the bruising pain he had caused.

Her voice came off a bit strained. "You're in pretty rough shape, but better than before. Your repair nanites have been taking care of most of the damage so it's slow going." Despite the news being a massive damper on any plans of escape, she appeared pleased, almost smug as a lopsided smile graced her mouth plates as she peered down at miserable state.

"Why? If you're not a Decepticon, why help me?" The only logical explanation was she was an Aerialbot digging for information.

"Are your processors glitching?" she asked with all seriousness. "I didn't see any damage to your cranial." She moved in for a closer look, but refrained from touching him as if uncomfortable to do so, or it could have been the pointed glare he was giving her.

"Why would my designation be so important?" Thundercracker backpedaled to avoid changing the subject entirely.

"Just wondering if you have one, other than a number, that is" she shrugged, still wearing that unreadable half smile. "You are a seeker, correct?"

Red warnings returned to scream over her words, drowning his aching processor with their chimes. His systems were shutting down despite his valiant attempts to belay them as they prepared to drag him into stasis.

"Maybe," he muttered groggily as he was pulled into another stasis lock.

He was denied resting in the blissful nothingness of a full systems shut down, he woke often from a repeating memory glitch of his last battle, and each time he optics onlined he worried he was suffering a hallucinatory glitch.

The fight that had placed him in such a sorry state was an assignment that started out simple enough. The Autobots were supposedly transporting a large cache of supplies and he was designated to lead a small strike group to retrieve whatever could be found. He had dived in, ordering his squad of seeker drones to engaging the caravan with the intent of leaving no survivors. The fight went as expected- scrambling Autobots dropping left and right under his superior fire power – until the enemy received unexpected back up.

A traveling squad of former Elite Guards happened to stumble upon the skirmish and blindsided him while he was thrusters were on the ground. There was no room for escape as they quickly rendered his flight capabilities useless. It was all he could do to get away with his life while the drones provided a distraction.

The whole ordeal was embarrassing; starting with the surprise attack that thwarted his ambush to the continual taunting of the enclosed walls and almost ghost like femme seeker that drifted in and out at odd times. There wasn't room for the itch of flight to burn through his circuitry; they were too preoccupied with the pain that wracked his whole frame. In a way it was something to be thankful for, he might have gone insane otherwise.

The room was too quiet, and Thundercracker had lost track of how long he had been cooped up between each stasis term. There was no Skywarp or Starscream there to bother him – he had slammed the bond closed after receiving his first grievous injury – and no Stunticons or other unruly Decepticons rampaging through the halls. He even almost missed the ominous scrape of Soundwave's symbiots as they prowled the halls, relaying all they saw and heard to their master.

His surroundings never changed, no matter how much he willed it to – the same neat piles of scrape lined the aged confines, and an ancient desk stood out as the only other real furniture in the space. He was often alone, but the femme would appear periodically to check he was still functioning and to ask more absurd questions that he either never answered or fell into stasis before he could.

She fed him energon, sparingly, and he was almost too weak to refuel under his own power. It was as if she was trying to draw out his recovery as much as possible, forcing his body to repair itself at a snail's pace. He wanted to smash the femme drone that held him captive into the wall, to dent her wings so she couldn't follow, and escape this Pit that was messing with his processor. But he couldn't; his servo circuits wouldn't support his structure weight, his wings were too tattered to withstand flight, and he would fall unconscious before ever making it to the door. He was trapped.

"Look what I found!"

Thundercracker had been meditating with his optics offlined, contemplating on how soon he would be flight worthy when the femme seeker came crashing into the room like an excited sparkling.

His battle computer whined to life, searching for an immediate threat, and all his recently repaired sensors could find was the femme balancing a tower of filled energon cubes, glowing bright pink against her wild grin.

"You won't believe how much energon I found! You should have seen the stash I took them from. The Autobots were transporting a shipment full when Decepticons attacked and I managed to snatch some while they were busy slagging each other."

She carefully placed her spoils on the ground by the door, trying not to send the tower of cubes flying, and picked up one of the containers.

"They'll still have to be rationed, but at least now we won't offline from starvation."

She handed him the cube and he took it with bemused optics. Her suddenly perky demeanor was new, she often preferred to silently observe while throwing off beat inquiries into their limited conversations, and he'd never seen anyone but Skywarp so excited over a cube of low-grade energon.

"Go ahead; you can have the whole thing, it might give your systems the kick start it needs." Her smile fell a bit. "I regret that your recovery has been so slow; part of it is because of how little energon I have to spare. I was already stretched thin before you came along and guzzled nearly all of it."

It was true that in between his confused awakenings and stasis she had appeared to be wasting away. It was a textbook example of the condition a mech would be in – rapidly fading paint sheen and dulling optics when their systems were nearly depleted of energon and on the verge of starvation. He couldn't fathom why she would take him in if she knew there wasn't enough energon to support them both, it was illogical.

He noted how her optics were brighter than the last time he saw her, she must have already consumed some of the new supply. He took the energon to his mouthpiece, not even caring if it could be drugged or otherwise tampered with. His systems were starving, and once the first drop found his glossia, he couldn't help but chug the entire cube.

"Feel better?" She asked from her new perch on the desk.

His reply had come to be expected. "Why are you keeping me here?"

He couldn't tally how many times the question had left his vocals, ones that were now functioning at optimum capacity. Most of his wounds were healed over, but still tender. His systems crash had messed with his inner chronometer as well. He didn't truly know how long he had been cooped up in the room, but since rebooting, nearly five months had passed.

Though her voice was carefully neutral, he could still detect the miffed undertone. "I'm not forcing you to be here. Your own injuries are keeping you berthridden. As soon as you're able to leave under your own power, you can. I'm not your jailer." Her answer was also somewhat expected. She always defended he was allowed to leave whenever he saw fit, but it didn't mean he believed her.

The femme's wings sagged a bit and a lonely expression took up her facial plates despite her earlier cheer. She recovered quickly though, shifting her seemingly conflicted emotional state at a speed that he would have had trouble keeping up with if he hadn't known a seeker with similar personality quirks. She couldn't have been one though; she was nothing but an Autobot spy.

"You know, you've been here for a while and I still don't know your designation."

Thundercracker managed to look offended while he had his face stuck halfway inside the empty energon cube, his optics glaring through the bottom of the clear container. His half full tank churned, begging for more, but it was obvious the femme was having trouble coming by energon. He understood the need to ration, even if his systems protested the opposite.

"And you'll never get it, so quit asking."

She seemed to be oblivious to the fact he was a part of Megatron's command trine, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Stubborn," she muttered and turned to stack the energon, opening a hidden panel in the wall of the room to place them inside.

Her back was turned to him, seemingly unaware of the danger he poised even while injured, and especially with his weapons now online. He hadn't been sure whether to believe it or not when during one of his more lucid awakenings he found his overridden defenses – that were locked down by a high ranking medical officer's codes that certainly didn't belong to the femme – unshackled. It made him wonder if there was another mech around, but he hadn't traces of another transformer and the femme seemed confident that they were the only ones inhabiting the bunker. It's possible the codes were stolen, but he would be researching this Archer mech that was mentioned in the command, later.

The femme was almost finished placing the energon cubes into the wall compartment when Thundercracker needled her for the umpteenth time, trying to get the fake seeker to blow her cover.

"What do the Aerialbots call you?" He asked darkly, poised to read the minutest of unconscious movements his question stirred.

She looked over her wing, confusion knitted across her facial plates. "The what? What are Aerialbots?"

She didn't even twitch, not a jump in her systems when he asked. She really had no idea.

"Flying Autobots, a petty imitation of seekers," he scoffed.

The femme abandoned her stocking of the energon cubes and took a chair that sat next to his berth and perched upon it.

"Autobots can fly now?" She asked with a cant of her head, intrigue filling her optics once again. "Are they drones, too? Were they made the same way as Seekers?"

She was like a curious youngling hungry for her first download instructions on how to spar. Thundercracker didn't see how satiating her curiosity could harm anything, this time anyway, and he might learn something about what she was.

"All I've heard are rumors, but supposedly they were mechs reconfigured with avian frames. They aren't true fliers."

The news made her wings wilt, sweeping back and pinching together while disappointment flitted across her face plates.

"Not seekers then," she solemnly confirmed.

"You have an unhealthy fascination with seekers," Thundercracker rumbled dryly.

She looked at him as if the answer should be obvious. "We'll, I'm one myself. Isn't it natural that I would seek out my own kind?"

His logic processor stuttered, torn between telling him it was impossible and connecting the links he had been observing over his stay that molded her words into truth. It couldn't be possible, the chance of a seeker retaining their personality core and resisting the drone coding that destroyed it was so infinitesimal that it couldn't be given a percentage. The only seekers in existence that had won against such odds were him, his trine, and one other seeker unit. For one out of the thousands of seekers that had been built, to be one of those few lucky sparks that Shockwave had deemed a glitch, a femme no less, was near mythological. It was even more impossible that one retaining their personality could have slipped beyond Shockwave's reach without notice, or did he already know?

Her build wasn't so surprising, there were femme seeker drones still existing, but only a few. After Megatron had given the order to destroy all femme's, Autobot and Decepticon alike, he had switched to making only mech seekers. Femme seekers were becoming increasingly scarce, like the rest of their gender, despite being spared from the genocide because of their mindless drone function. They had even participated in destroying scores of femmes and sparklings across the planet. It never bothered Thundercracker how many of the mindless models he found dead, they weren't really living.

Yet, out of seemingly nothing but the ashes of this stale war, a burning gem has managed to crawl out from under the ruins of Cybertron; a mythical creature that if real shouldn't be allowed to scrape on their hands and knees, desperately surviving on its own. It wouldn't have mattered if she were a mech; any seeker with a retained personality core was something to be treasured.

Thundercracker sat up and scooted to the edge of the berth, sitting so close that his knees nearly touched hers as he leaned in to study her optics. The femme sat frozen, watching him cautiously as her cooling fans kicked in, no doubt her battle computer warming up in surprise.

"You are a Seeker?" He asked doubtfully, slowly raising a pointed claw to place under her chin for inspection.

"Affirmative." Her voice was nearly a whisper, but deadly serious as she allowed him to move her head with the light yet demanding pressure of his single servo.

He looked into her violet optics, taking note of her awareness, a searching gaze that peered his own, yearning for him accept her existence.

"Why are you not a Decepticon?" he growled with a threatening rev of his engine, verbally striking one last time to make sure this wasn't all a trick.

She pulled away sharply, fueled by instinct as she fling away and to her feet, curling her fists into a defensive stance that had been ingrained into her circuitry's memory. She relaxed after realizing he wasn't coming at her, but only marginally. He was still watching with accusing, blood thirsty optics. The moment her defenses failed, and her real intentions were revealed, he would rip her to shreds.

"I was never with the Decepticons. I was raised, hiding with my creator," she said matter of fact.

Thundercracker glared, his own battle computer placing his weapons on a hair trigger. "Seeker's don't have creators."

"I know that," she snapped. "He was a surrogate creator, but just as good as a real one. Don't you ever insult him or I'll personally rip your wings off."

Thundercracker's engines revved louder this time. The twin thrusters on his heels itched to take off so he could bodily slam her into the wall where she would shatter.

The femme dropped her stance by another fraction, anger burning in her optics and vibrating her frame, her own engine was now growling at him.

"You seem well enough. The energon must be kicking in. If you're feeling so well then why don't you take your leave?" Her words were bitten out with poorly concealed tension. They were both ready for a fight.

She swiftly turned her back on him with a jerk, intending to leave before they both snapped – big mistake. Thundercracker lunged with a furious roar even as his frame loudly protested the sudden movement.

He barreled straight for her, the cables in his arms and legs taught as he aimed to punch her to the ground in a powerful swing where she would be rendered defenseless, and he could tear her frame to pieces. It was as if she had eyes on the back of her head, or the acute sensors of a seeker. The femme leapt out of the way, using her thrusters to spring sideways down the outside hall. Thundercracker collided with the wall just outside the room, ramming face first into the unyielding surface. His optics fritzed and his processor jarred at the sudden impact that made his wounds burn in a tearing sensation.

"Feel better?"

He turned on the femme with seething optics, but the fire from moments ago had been snuffed out, replaced with tired contempt. The recent, yet small dosage of energon had quickly zapped frame and freshly repaired damage was still dragging down his functioning capacity. The energy to fight had fled him, but he still had an unsuitable burning need to transform and escape on his wings. From his earlier assessment he calculated that if he went slowly enough - even with his injuries - he could make it to Darkmount under his own power. All he had to do was find his way out of the pit hole.

His optics must have betrayed his thoughts, pleading with her to release him because she dropped her defensive stance all together with a heavy vent.

"You really should go, it's not healthy to stay cooped up so long. Follow me; I'll take you to the surface."

She turned, placing her back to him with confidence that he would fallow as she sauntered down the hall.

Thundercracker stood slowly, testing his footing. When his equilibrium returned, and his pedes remembered how to hold his weight, he followed her with his wings held tightly above him. His optics traced the back of her leading form, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what she possibly was while the rest of his attention was torn on his renewed longing for the sky, and his trine. His spark ached to be with them, he could have called out orns ago for their assistance, but he had kept their bond clamped firmly shut, wanting to spare them the agony of his wounds – and he would never allow himself to be rescued from such a pitiful state. He would make it back under his own power.

True to her word the femme led him up through an ancient underground bunker void of any life forms besides themselves and to the outside. He hadn't even known they were underground. It explained the uncontrollable itch to fly that he had pressed down on him every time he was half way conscience. The uncomfortable pressure lifted marginally as he finally looked up at the sky, drinking in the ribbons of purple and green cosmic clouds that ghosted over the stars above.

"So, this is goodbye." Disappointment dripped from the femme's quiet words and made Thundercracker take pause of his new found freedom, just within reach, and look down at his captor for the past few months. His processor felt clearer with the empty sky above. He had been lying to himself; she never had any intention to keep him against his will. She had never strapped him down to the berth and had even onlined his weapon, allowing him to keep his defenses, a powerful gesture in itself. Even if her intentions had originally stemmed from something other than a burning curiosity, she never followed through with it.

Cybertron's sky called to him again, his wings and thrusters ached while his spark wrenching in its casing in anticipation to take flight. He resisted, if only briefly. If she was what she claimed to be, a femme seeker with an intact personality, he was about to leave with the looming possibly of never seeing her again.

"Thundercracker."

Her sleek helm shot up, her violet optics piercing him with restrained anticipation. "What is that?" she asked despite knowing exactly what he meant, yet unwilling to believe it.

"My designation is Thundercracker."

"Thundercracker," she repeated as if the word was alien. "My designation is Razgriz."

He continued to stare, not sure how to respond, but his attentive presence was enough recognition for her.

A mischievously quirked smile slowly spread over her mouth plates. "Don't land yourself in more trouble on your way back to the Decepticons. I won't be there to find your sorry carcass."

Thundercracker glared, his wings sweeping high in offense as he resisted the urge to angrily rev his engine. She only grinned more, both sides of her mouth now turning upwards.

"Never again," he ground out before transforming and jetting off into Cybertron's sky before she could say something else to fluster his logic processor, flying away from the mythical creature and the underground tunnels he hoped to never see again.

Thundercracker briefly wondered if it were possible to forget how to fly after being grounded for so long. His illogical fears were scattered the moment artificial wind swept over his wings and his thrusters propelled him forwards at a maintained speed. Despite numerous internal warnings he had to remember to pace his flight and not allow the urge to return to Darkmount to eat up his fuel reserves. He couldn't jet towards his destination as quickly as he had left the strange creature behind him, so he cruised – simply enjoying the weightless feel of flight and the freedom it provided his body and mind.

His frame still ached fiercely; his systems were pestering him by throwing cautions across his HUD, reminding him how frail his wounds still were. He had been through worse; he had just never healed with only the help of his own repair nanites before.

As much as he was enjoying his first flight since before his injuries, the moment he was within twenty-cerses of Darkmount, he focused inwardly on his closed off bonds. His spark wouldn't be denied any longer, and he decided he was close enough to no be considered a failure at returning under his own power.

He gently probed the two intertwined bonds that were unique to a trine, and it was all he could do to stay air born when they exploded open.

Panic and rage flooded his spark from Skywarp and Starscream, both wingmates slamming him with silent demands that had been bottled up until now. He let their tidal wave of emotions swallow him as he provided his own relief, and slight amusement to which neither took very well. Thundercracker wasn't the least bit surprised when the air above him distorted and a bang that sounded like a gunshot echoed across the sky. He transformed midair, pausing to hover on his thrusters as Skywarp came careening into him with a murderous fire in his optics.

They collided, Skywarp's fist finding purchase on Thundercracker's facial plates with a resounding bang that vibrated the surrounding air and sent them into a spiral that was easily corrected with their thrusters.

"You slagging fragger- rust for processors- no good- fragged up-" Skywarp raked his optics over Thundercracker, throwing scan after scan on his trinemate.

Thundercracker wordlessly placed a hand on Skywarp's shoulder, catching his wingmate's optics and halting the fruitless scans. Skywarp melted into him, wrapped his arms around Thundercracker's midsection and crushed their chassis together in search of the familiar pulse of his spark.

"Why did you keep the bond closed? Why the frag didn't you let us know where you were? We-I thought you had offlined."

Fear, anger, and pain both physical and mental poured from Skywarp through the shared bond. Starscream was also worried, but it was apparent he was trying to hide it behind a scolding wave of annoyance.

Thundercracker washed comfort and assurance over his trinemates as he had often done in the past while rubbing Skywarp between his wings. "I had things under control," he rumbled confidently.

"You're a horrible, lying glitch!" Skywarp pounded a fist into Thundercracker's side; denting metal plating that had only just healed, causing a sharp flare of pain that made him crumple inwards. Skywarp felt it through the bond and sent a wordless apology that only barely outweighed his rage while nursing the re-damaged wound.

"There's no way you had things under control!" Skywarp barked again, but with less force. "You were in so much pain, you needed help, but you slammed the bonds shut making it impossible to find you. We tracked your last location, looked for your residual energy, but all we found was a dead end at a pool of dried energon and deactivated drones. We thought you had been captured."

Thundercracker crooned to his trinemate, trying to quell his worries. "I'm right here, nothing happened that couldn't be fixed. I was never captured by Autobots."

"I still don't believe you, and I know Starscream won't." Skywarp growled as he tightened his hold on Thundercracker. The air around them rippled, distorting as if they were surrounded by steam. Thundercracker braced himself as Skywarp warped them back to base where their third trinemate was anxiously waiting.