Author's Note: Greetings! This is dedicated for my wonderful friend, blackstar822, who really deserved this. Similarly, Wheeljack/Ratchet deserves more attention, at least in my opinion.

Also, a quick warning, this is my first Transformers fanfiction, and I am rather new to the fandom. Any reviews, correcting or otherwise would be much appreciated, especially at this point. Your opinions will be duely processed, and will hopefully contribute to the growth of this story as well as my growth as a writer. Thank you very much.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Transformers, nor do I pretend to be.

So without further ado, enjoy your story concerning the affairs of giant transforming toy robots.

...

The entire Ark reeked of smoke. It was a thick, heady odor, mixed with equal parts heated metal and something distinctly chemical. It could probably compared to the fumes emitted from a barbecue grill, familiar, commonplace, yet slightly different every time. Unfortunately, just as the smell of grilling burgers gains a certain unpleasant tang when one knows that a pyromaniac is operating the cooking equipment (perhaps due to the incredible likelihood of charred, inedible patties), the same foul association comes to mind when one knows the implications of smoke in the Ark.

Therefore, the last things that would ever cross the Commanding Medical Officer's processor at such a time were the unusual qualities of the aroma surrounding him and the possible metaphorical connections of this situation one involving human culinary equipment under the hands of a mentally unstable chef. No, as Ratchet moved as quickly as his weighty legs could carry him through the hazy hallway, he was far too preoccupied with the incredible likelihood of a charred and inoperative engineer.

-Indicative-

In retrospect, he shouldn't be this solemnly frantic every instance there was an accident of some sort in the lab. Disaster was a somewhat common occurrence and he was trained to patch up, rewire, and rebuild almost any heap of mangled circuitry that used to pass for a mech. Especially a white, gray, green, and red heap of mangled circuitry. In fact, he had become so efficient with that particular piece of machinery that rebuilding him had become somewhat of a cyclic process: boom, fear, repair, scold, fret, boom, fear, repair, scold, fret...

No one was completely sure exactly when this cycle started. To most Autobots, the process had dulled down to something natural, like the rotation of a cooling fan or the revolution of a planet (well, at least one that was not drifting off through the vacuum of space due to the planetary-scale violence of a civil war) around a larger stellar body. To the medic, however, the cycle was always on the forefront, thrumming through his cranial wiring like a war chant. Boom, fear, repair, scold, fret, boom, fear, repair, scold, fret, boom, fear...

One would think that over the millennia, the frequent explosions and injuries would lose their horror, but every time was just as jarring as the last, maybe even more so, because it is only a matter of time before his luck runs out. For that reason, he began the tradition of running panic-stricken to the site of the mad scientist's latest catastrophe, unable to rid himself of images of a lifeless frame, spark extinguished by the uncaring caress of flame.

"Dammit, Dammit, Dammit, DAMMIT!" he hissed emphatically through gritted dental components, cursing the slowness of his bulky form. If only he had some more efficient method of travel.

"Primus dammit!" he swore now with even more conviction, this time cursing his stupidity.

Quickly reverting to his alt mode, he barreled towards the source of the smoke, sirens (or as Ratchet called them, "get the frag out of my way signals") blaring to warn anyone in his path that he was not stopping on their account and the last thing he wanted was another injury to tend to. His wheels screeched to a halt adding burring rubber to the array of acrid fumes lingering in the vicinity and he transformed back to his more versatile form.

"WHEELJACK! You moronic excuse for a scrap collector!"

Not particularly expecting a response, the red and white bot began fervently tossing detritus aside as he waded through the wreckage. Shards of metal, concrete slabs, barely recognizable equipment, none of that mattered. This was worse than usual, the lab would take months to return to something useable, however, this was none of Ratchet's concern. What he was looking for was- there! An all too-recognizable wing was poking out of the sea of debris. That was it, he was so close! He scrambled to the object, junk tossed every which-way in his wake, and gave the gray metal a firm tug, dislodging the wing from its smoldering prison. Unfortunatly, there was no body attached to it.

Roaring the foulest of obscenities, he let the severed protuberance clatter to the unforgiving metal below. It was replaceable. It wasn't vital. It wasn't Wheeljack.

Raw terror gripped his spark with a primal claw, squeezing out all rational thought and he dug. Frantically burrowing through the warped remains of scientific progress, decorating his scrabbling hands with lacerations and the black powder of fresh carbon. He didn't notice. Nor would he care if he did. Fear pounded the back of his helm like a mallet being swung repetitively into a gong, the nagging melting from "what if he's injured?" to "what if he's gone?"

"What if he's dead?"

But, then he felt something, as soft as a breeze, but as powerful as a titanium chain tugging on his very essence. It was something that he would describe as a spiritual experience, if of course, he didn't find such things to be utterly stupid. He let the flow pull him, pushing aside rubble on autopilot. Digging, tossing, scraping, all in a trance. And then, a glimmer caught his optic sensors; not so much a glimmer, but a flash, a flash of color, a flash of familiarity,

"Wheeljack."

He pulled the inventor out from under the mess flipping him upright automatically to check his vital signs. A heavy puff of air exited his vents as Wheeljack turned his head towards his rescuer with his eternally half-smiling optics glowing and the the fins on either side blinking weakly.

"Hey," he choked out hoarsely, the searing, viscous air interfering with the thin filter on the speaker of his vocalizer. These could be his final words, his last thread of existence, a secret, a confession, anything... "What's up, Doc?"

"You idiot." Even on the brink of annihilation, he still had it in him to make a lame pass at humor. "You better not offline on me, do you know how much shit I had to go through to get you out of this mess?" The medic's voice lacked its usual caustic tone; he just could not will himself to muster up any anger.

"Do you know how much I had to go through to get myself into this mess?" the wounded contriver countered, still with a hint of mirth despite growing closer to fading into oblivion. Ratchet carefully picked up the slightly smaller mech, noticing, for the first time the fire licking the walls and yellow sparks, whipping through the air like illuminated dust before fizzling out against his plating. He held his friend close against his chassis as he exited what was once the lab, barely noting Inferno spraying flame-retardant foam in a wild attempt to douse the blaze. Everyone on the scene was looking in a different direction, yet every one of them failed to see the bigger picture, the over-arching theme.

"Just don't die on me," he whispered "just don't die." There was no audience to witness this vital piece of the puzzle being snapped into into place, no analyzer to realize that this was a milestone in something far greater; "for both of our sakes," no observer to sit on the medical Officer's shoulder as the inventor drifted down into unconsciousness, "please" no interprerter to devise that every event in this cycle, every action, has been indicative of something powerful, something right, something that had always been there, "don't die," and thankfully, there was no fool to laugh at a phrase's unintentional double meaning.

"I need you to live."

...

Author's Note: this IS going to be a multi-chapter fic, and the second charter is currently being written; do not fear.