~blah~ is comm-speak ; blah is Cybertronian

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters, places, etc. belong to HasTak and other copyright holders. I make no profit from this.

Epilogue: Back to normality

4 weeks later

It was the middle of a quiet shift when Jazz appeared at the tactical office doorway.

"You wanted t'see me, Prowl m'man?"

"Yes I did." Prowl responded, not looking up from his work. "Have you seen Skyfire's report yet?"

Jazz didn't answer, heading over to Pinpoint's empty desk and sitting in the chair.

"Hear you moved this one on. Had enough of him, then?"

"Grapple required an administrative assistant for his new project."

Jazz smirked.

"An' did Grapple think he needed the help?"

Prowl ignored the question.

"Have you read Skyfire's report?"

"Nope. Haven't seen it."

"I sent it to your terminal at the beginning of last shift."

"Ah. Haven't been at m'desk. Anythin' interesting in it?"

Prowl pointed to a particuar datapad on his desk, knowing full well the special ops officer could not have read his own copy or he would have heard about it. Jazz sighed.

"Couldn't y'just tell me?"

Prowl considered trying to force him to read the dry report, but decided it was not worth the effort and leaned back in his chair.

"The third target was Cybertron. Skyfire saw Soundwave, Skywarp and Thundercracker go through."

"An' he didn't think to report it sooner?" Jazz demanded, jumping out of the chair to snatch up the pad and scroll through the content for the details he was now very much interested in.

"He claims to have tried to, but been unable to make contact." Prowl continued to summarise. "He did speak to Cosmos who told him that one of the Decepticon satellites had moved into a low orbit and was transmitting a jamming field in the direction of the Ark. He waited for the transmission to end, but while he was waiting the Decepticons returned and headed directly back to the Nemesis. Cosmos disabled the satellite then returned to his assigned orbital post. Given that their actions did not appear to be directly hostile, and since the main cost seemed to be to themselves in losing the use of the satellite, he decided that it was unlikely to be urgent to pass on the information until he returned. It is, after all, only an orn later and he does still tend to apply Cybertronian time units."

Jazz was silent, now intently absorbed in reading Skyfire's report, and Prowl took the opportunity to simply look at his bondmate. He had barely seen him since Ratchet had come online after that first bout of surgery; once it was established that the medic would almost definitely make a full recovery, there had been much to do.

A working party had been organised to go and help with clean-up at the battle site, and he had been assigned to lead it while Jazz had his own missions. He was not privy to the details because they were not official missions, but he had his suspicions that the saboteur had been doing what he did best. Between cleaning up messes and getting things back in order, they had both been busy. Now things were settling down again, though that did not necessarily mean more contact between the two of them, so quiet moments like this were important.

Jazz finally raised his head again ten minutes later.

"You want this investigated?"

"I believe it may be prudent to attempt to discern the purpose of recent unexplained events, yes, but I understand it may be difficult at this late stage. I suspect we have missed our opportunity. If there was an immediate threat, it would have been established by now: Megatron is rarely patient with his grand schemes."

"True." Jazz mused, setting the pad down on the desk and turning it off. "Well, we'll see. If I dig anythin' up, I'll let you know. So. Anythin' else?"

"Perceptor is working on the final section of archiving Optimus gave him. He has also completed the extra duties I had set him. I believe this matter is concluded?"

Jazz shrugged.

"Sounds fair enough. Aid doesn't seem t'be holdin' a grudge so no reason why anyone else should."

"Good. Then that is all."

Jazz nodded and turned to leave.

"See ya later, Prowler."

Except, of course, he wouldn't. There had been too many close calls, recently. Jazz would keep his distance.

The door closed and Prowl turned back to his own work without so much as a sigh. This was the life they lived, and there was work to be done.

Hoist gave a soft whistle of approval as he entered the repair bay.

"Wow. You must've been at this for hours."

First Aid looked up from where he was giving a workbench a final coat of polish. Around him, all of the surfaces were sparkling.

"I had some help. My brothers, and the twins."

"Both of the twins? Wow."

"Yeah, but I didn't think I should question it. How did the armour replacement go?"

"You haven't seen him yet?"

First Aid just gestured around the room, and Hoist nodded in understanding.

"Oh, well last I heard he's still grumbling about it, but I think he's happy. It's not likely anyway, but there's no way he's going to have the same problem again - he's now got more armour round his CPU than most mechs have around their sparks. And I managed to do it without changing his design specs: that new alloy of Wheeljack's is wonderfully strong. Prime wants me to do the same for all the officers, then other key personnel including the gestalts so that's you too."

"Good idea. Next time we mightn't be so lucky. Did you hear whether...?"

The question was dropped as the door opened and they both turned to see Ratchet stride in. For a moment the senior medic just stared about himself, then he grunted.

"It'll only last until the next time the twins walk in, I'm sure. What do you need, Hoist?"

"Just checking out the clean up job. Welcome back."

Ratchet gave him a long look then grunted again and headed into his office, muttering something about schedules. Hoist grinned at First Aid.

"Remember this day. It's probably the only time you'll ever see Ratchet speechless."

"Just so long as I never again see him injured, that's good enough for me."

There wasn't actually anything to do at the repair bay today. Everything was spotless, and the maintenance schedules had been handled by First Aid who was showing remarkable competence. Perhaps it was time to start letting the Protectobot have more opportunities to work solo, he mused. In any case, after half an hour of sitting in his office doing nothing, Ratchet got up and headed away to the far end of the corridor to Wheeljack's lab. The inventor was fiddling with something at his bench, and Ratchet watched him silently for a moment before speaking up.

"I see everything's been put back in order here too, then."

"Ratch! I... uh, it's okay, nothing's going to blow up. At least, I don't think it should. I'm just trying to upgrade the speakers for the rec room stereo for Blaster."

"Carry on, Jack."

Wheeljack looked down at the components before him, doing nothing at all for a few moments, then shook his head and looked up again.

"Would it help if I said sorry again?"

Ratchet put his hands on his hips and frowned.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"If you don't stop this whole guilt-trip you're on soon I'm going to have to hit you. Hard."

"Oh." Wheeljack considered, then brightened. "Oh! Heh. Okay. Then we're okay."

"Yes, you glitch, we're okay."

"So I'll see you after your shift then?" Wheeljack asked hopefully.

"Actually, I thought I might leave First Aid in charge for a few hours and take a break. Primus knows I never do get away from here. Feel like going for a drive?"

"Yeah! I'll just finish wiring this up and I'll be right with you!"

Ratchet turned away and headed for the Ark's entrance to wait in the sunshine. Everything was fine. In fact, it was pretty much back to normal. Except...

Boom.

He stopped, flinching.

"JACK!" he bellowed, not turning to look.

"'m okay." a muffled answer came. "Be right with you. Um... just need to find my arm..."

He offflined his optics for a moment. Yes, everything was definitely back to normal. Turning on his heel and brandishing his favourite wrench, he strode back down the corridor.

"Oh I'll find it for you, you glitch, don't you worry. And then I'm going to use it to tear the rest of you apart!"

Optimus nodded slowly, looking around.

"Yes, this looks good. Have you spoken to the land owners?"

"Yes."

"And they have agreed?"

"Well not exactly." Grapple mumbled, then continued quickly. "But it's a perfect site for the designs, particularly if we are really going ahead with the idea of a sparked fortress which will need both a stable foundation and easy access to energy stores..."

"Is this really a good idea, Optimus?" Ironhide asked uneasily.

"We do need more space. The Ark was never intended to be a long-term base, and certainly not in the way we are using it now."

"No, but still. If we build a fort here, we'll have to permanently staff it. The Cons'll never stop attacking it."

"I understand your concerns, old friend, but as Prowl and Red Alert have both pointed out, the humans will be no safer if we leave without building such a structure. We owe it to them to do this. Besides, I believe it is time that..."

He broke off as he received a text message from Prowl. Mindful of what the last one led to he opened it with some trepidation, then chuckled at the content.

"Prime?" Ironhide asked as Grapple gave him an annoyed look, likely finally realising no-one was listening to his sales pitch.

"It seems things are back to normal."

"Normal?" Grapple sniffed.

"Yes. We are needed back at base - Wheeljack has blown up his lab again."

"Not another accident already!" Ironhide groaned.

"No injuries, just a mess." Optimus assured him, then raised his voice so that the others around them would also hear. "We return to the Ark. Autobots - transform and roll out!"

The end.

A/N: ...except, it kind of isn't. Because there are several sequels planned, starting with "Pride" which should be up in the next week or so. So don't go away, I'll be right back with more!