Author's note: Here's a little love from me to you, my dear readers, on this Valentine's Day. :) Hope you enjoy!

When the light faded enough for me to see, I was surprised at our surroundings. The Dynasty and I stood at the mouth of the caves I and my kin fled to at the very beginning of the War, but unlike when we took refuge here, the main cavern was brightly illuminated, and the light was refracting and flickering across the stone walls.

"I don't understand," I said after a moment. "Why here?"

"Why did you come here in the first place?" Alpha Prime retorted.

"Jazz knew of it. The composition of the stone in this region masks spark signatures and so it was possible to hide from Megatron here."

"Do you not see?" Stromancer pressed.

"Patterns, Optimus," Augur encouraged. "The planet beneath your pedes is a macrocosm of your physical frame."

Stone that hid Cybertron's spark, like a spark chamber… "Primus."

Augur's approval washed over me. "You fled to the place closest to the spark of the Hidden One and hid with him when your brother turned against you."

"Patterns," I answered, filling the brother-bond with appreciation. My spark warmed as I looked at the walls that had sheltered us with new understanding and awe. The Temple at Simfur was considered a sacred space, but I now realized it was nothing compared to this place. "Had I known…"

"You would not have come," Augur finished for me matter-of-factly. "You and your Autobots would have been killed and Megatron's thirst for power would have remained unchecked until, as The Fallen's pawn, he caught the attention of the Chaos-Bringer. With the Cube corrupted and Primus blind in his slumber, he would have been taken by surprise by Unicron and maimed. Cybertron itself would have been physically broken apart as a planet."

I vented hard in surprise. Until this moment, I thought that Cybertron's current fate was the worst-case scenario. I wasn't sure if I should be comforted or not that it could have been worse, though that fate was still possible. "Isn't Primus still blind? The Cube was destroyed."

"When the All Spark is housed within the Matrix of Leadership, it will again be Primus' sensors, even from Earth."

"From Earth," I repeated, confused.

Alpha Prime stated, "You have not yet fulfilled your destiny, Optimus. The Matrix will return you to the realm of the living. The Fallen was loosed by your death, and it is your fate to face him."

It frustrated me that I had to admit, "I still do not understand."

Over my brother bond with him I felt his sly humor. "You are neither the first nor the last."

No doubt this was the surprise Jazz had mentioned. Ignoring his amusement, I continued, "Augur prophesied that only a Prime could defeat The Fallen. I was the last living Prime. And yet the Matrix of Leadership will only respond to a Prime. You say that the Matrix will return me to the realm of the living, but the entire clan has been long-dead. There is no living Prime to use the Matrix."

If Jazz were with us, he would have made a joke about their inability to get the punchline right.

Stromancer shook his head. "The Fallen still lives."

"That is why I didn't experience his memories in the Temple," I realized.

"And why you must return to the realm of the living to face him," Seneschal clarified.

Alpha continued, "You are the last of our descendants. You are the last of our Dynasty of the Primes. It falls to you to defeat him."

"He will restore me to life?" I doubtfully asked.

"No."

"Then…how?"

"We are only the first Dynasty, Optimus."

Meaning there would be another. Perhaps more than one. The knowledge was both a relief and a blow – a relief because it meant my race had a future and a blow because it meant many of the things I thought I knew about my brothers were not true. Even with all I had learned, I still didn't understand.

Perceiving my thoughts, Alpha gestured to his Ancient brothers and said, "We do not know our full destiny, and we have had these many long cycles to observe and ponder. Our Dynasty is dead but another Prime was born on Earth and with him the new Dynasty begins."

"Sam," I remembered.

Alpha bowed his head in a grave nod. "Through you, this new Dynasty of the Primes will learn of their brothers who went before, and you will teach them how to wield the All Spark."

"Wield it," I echoed, confused.

"It is great power," Alpha answered. "But that power is double-edged, like a dagger. It gives life, but it can also harm the one who wields it."

"It is power too great." I remembered again Ratchet's reaction to the All Spark shard.

"It will not be yours alone to wield," Stromancer said, resting a servo on my shoulder. "Samuel will assist you."

My last memory of him was seared into my spark, standing before me bruised and shocked and astroseconds from death himself. "Prime or not, I cannot ask that of him." I had asked for his help just hours before my death and he made it clear he wouldn't come to my assistance for even such a relatively small thing. He would undoubtedly balk at the heavy responsibilities of a Prime, and I would not blame him. I didn't want to place such a burden on his young shoulders.

"You are not the one who will ask," Amicus assured me. "He will offer, and he will protect you from abusing that power. Your fates are intertwined."

I wanted to protest, to deny that Sam could be a Prime, to believe that I could somehow stand alone in the stead of Alpha Prime and not fall like my spark-brother did. Looking at the mechs who surrounded me, though, I accepted their words. I was the lesser son of greater kin.

"He whose life is so short will have the task of using the Matrix to create new life," Paraclete explained. "You who endure will have the task of sustaining life by harvesting energon from the Matrix."

I opened my mouth to object that I was not worthy to wield the Matrix that way, but then I remembered drawing energon from the fountain with my own hand. Instead, I looked at Paraclete and said, "Patterns?"

He nodded. "You drank in that power, and it is part of you now. It will be able to flow through you into the realm of the living as energon. Once, that power freely radiated from the Cube, but as part of the Matrix, it can only be bought now." His fraternal pride swelled across our bond into my spark. "You have already paid that price."

Instantly we were in a different wilderness, one of crumbling Terran sandstone. I knew this place from my brothers' memories: the tomb they had made sacred with their sacrifice. When Amicus had sealed the tomb, the Matrix was resting in Alpha's servo, but it was empty now.

"It is gone," Alpha confirmed. "The Matrix and fate are both in Samuel's hands."

Stromancer gestured toward the west, and I saw an Egyptian pyramid rising from the plains in the distance, but overlaid with my modern knowledge was that of my ancestor. "The solar harvester." The stone had been torn apart, revealing the ancient device within.

"He means to turn it on," Amicus softly said, "to spite us. To spite the humans whom we chose over his – our own brother's – will. For energy. For power."

"He can't do that without the Matrix."

"He cannot," Alpha agreed. "It has taken a form that no unworthy being can wield, but it cannot stay in that form and still bring your fate to pass. Like you, Samuel must earn the right to wield it."

In the way of bond-visions, I was abruptly in the middle of a battle. All around me humans were fighting Decepticons, and I saw my friends among their organic allies. They were woefully outnumbered, and my spark burned with a fierce desire to stand with them.

"Where's Optimus?"

I turned at the sound of my name to see Sam, Mikaela, Iron Will and Epps pinned down against the questionable shelter of a ruined wall. Despite the fact that he'd turned away from me in the cemetery, despite the fact that I failed him with my death, here Sam was in the middle of a pitched battle – searching for me.

"He's right over there across the courtyard," Will answered, pointing.

I looked and had the odd sensation of seeing my lifeless frame sprawled out in the sand.

"I gotta to get to him right now," Sam said.

Will shook his head. "No, we've got an airstrike coming."

But Sam was insistent. "I have to get to him right now!"

Knowing my clan as I now did, it was easy to see the greatness in his strength of will and courage. He was again the boy of a Prime who extinguished Megatron.

Their argument was cut off by an approaching Decepticon. Helpless, I could only watch as the ancient Seeker – Aerie's son – entered the fray and was gutted by Scorponok. And then Sam and the others were running, sprinting across the sand, but I could see what they could not: Megatron closing in.

"Die," he growled and shot at Sam as the boy broke away from the others, running toward my empty shell. The force of the blast literally sent him head over heels.

NO! "SAM!" I shouted, but he couldn't hear me. Again, I could only watch as the medics fought for his life, as Mikaela grieved. He was extinguished. This couldn't be! The Second Dynasty and all the hope I hadn't known before – and now could not exist without – were resting on him. My fate was resting on him. Surely the destiny of this human Prime wasn't to simply die!

"Wait," Alpha counseled, and then he and the rest of my brothers were gone.

Elita was suddenly beside me again, her servo clasping mine. I looked to her for answers, but she only whispered, "We are one spark and that will never change. Don't look back. Don't regret your choice. I won't, though I will miss you dearly." She reached up to lightly caress my face. "Hold fast to hope, dear spark."

Light rose from her, swelling to brilliance, and then I was on the field of battle again, though my brothers and Elita no longer stood with me. The human medics had given up on Sam, but I perceived what they could not, the pulse of his heart. Alive! Sam was alive! But that was only half my amazement. Flecks of the Matrix were literally part of his flesh and blood now, flitting like light through his veins. He was more than just a Prime; Sam was the Matrix-bearer as no Cybertronian could ever be.

The Matrix took form at his feet – the All Spark remade, part of Primus himself – and Sam stooped to pick it up. It flared to life in his hand, acknowledging him as a Prime, and my spark swelled with awe. Staggering to standing, he limped to my frame and raised the Matrix over the wound where my spark once burned.

Abruptly I was looking up instead of down – and I was in pain. But pain meant life, and life meant a human Prime to wield the Matrix, and a human Prime meant hope for my kind. The knowledge flowed in a torrent from my restored spark to my battered processors.

We had both crossed the threshold of death, but it was his hand that brought me back. His destiny, dictated by his choice, was to be my savior. My processors remembered then the profound truth the Dynasty had taught me: all Primes are brothers. Rolling to my side, I looked on him – our hope literally made flesh – and sensed the truth of those words in a tentative bond Sam and I now shared. Brother. My spark swelled in stunned adoration. "Boy, you returned for me!"