No Rest For The Weary

Optimus Prime's systems powered up as soon as the morning light hit his armor under the temporary shed that had been built. Ratchet was some twenty feet away, just beginning his startup routines, emitting an audible groan as his sensors took note of how cold it was. Days in the high foot hills of the northern Rockies were hot and dry, but the nights and mornings were cool and damp as was evidenced by the thin sheen of dew on his and Optimus' armor.



Iron Hide was waking to the right of the two, grumbling about his armor getting water spots on it. Chromia, who had taken the form of a sparkling silver Mitsubishi Concept CT MIEV, grumbled about being woken up by Iron Hide's grumbling. "Then go shake it off. I'm trying to sleep in...IRON HIDE!!!" The mech in question chuckled with satisfaction as Chromia was now dripping with the dew water he had shaken off. "Are you happy, now?"



Iron Hide harrumphed, settling on his suspension. The mech sighed in contentment as Chromia got up and walked off. Not paying attention, Iron Hide slipped back into recharge. It felt good to have nothing pressing to do immediately. No Decepticons to fight, no crisis to avert. Unless one considered Chromia using a water hose to thoroughly soak Iron Hide with the highest pressure a crisis. The resulting scream from the large Autobot woke the entire base to two mechs wrestling in the mud trying to gain control of the water hose.



"I do believe that I have not had to deal with antics such as this since the Twins were still younglings," Ratchet chuckled, backing up slightly as a rather large mud pie came sailing his direction. "What do you think, Optimus? Do we step in or let them learn the hard way?"



The Autobot leader chuckled, driving a few dozen feet away from the growing mud pit. "Let them be. I have not heard Iron Hide laugh for a long time and would not want to be the one to break up his fun. Even if he will be trying to get mud out of every crevice for the next vorn." The two watched Iron Hide and Chromia laughing, the water hose forgotten as each tried to get the other as dirty as possible. The two had taken to scooping up large hand fulls of mud, flinging them at each other. Most of the mud balls went into open areas, some splatting up against buildings harmlessly. Chromia picked up a rather large ball of half dried mud, aimed carefully and threw with all her strength straight at Iron Hide's face.



The bulky Autobot ducked at the last moment, laughing at Chromia's aim when the femme gasped, her hand over her mouth in a very human gesture of shock. Iron Hide turned around and felt his energon go cold. "oh, Slag..." Both bots backed up slowly as Ratchet transformed, his entire front end, legs and part of his arms covered in thick mud. His face was hard as he took two steps toward the two retreating mechs. "She threw it!"



"What?! You ducked!"



You're the one with the aim of a half-built protoform!"



Iron Hide and Chromia had descended into arguing over who was at fault and failed to notice that Ratched had gained control of the water hose. "I see you two are not going to wash anytime soon," the medic droned as he brought the water to bear on the two Autobots. Both were frozen to the spot, afraid to move or protest as the ice cold water made its way into their armor. "I will save myself the work of mowing the turf that is sure to grow inside both of you unless you get that mud out of your chassis. And I refuse to prune any trees that decide to grow out of your armor." Ratchet smiled, narrowing his optics as he increased the pressure and shoved the water hose down the main structural void in Iron Hide's torso. "And Primus help me if either of you turn into a compost heap because I will use what is left of you to grow corn. At least the corn will have the 'ears' to listen to Medics who tell them not to get into dirt filled with micro-organisms that would make short work of your energon conduits."



"You know," Sam startled Optimus who had been engrossed in watching Ratchet hose Iron Hide and Chromia down. "it could have been a lot worse."



"I fail to see how, Sam. If these two knew about half of the organisms trying to feed off of their pneumatic actuators, their processors would fry in their brain cases."



"Oh yea. It could have been a lot worse, Ratchet. They could have been two giant monkeys."



"Again, I fail to see your point."



"What do monkeys throw, Ratchet?"



The Autobot Medic did a quick Internet search, a low chuckle bubbling from his chest as his engine revved in humor. "Yes, I do feel like that poor zoo keeper getting pummeled with Chimpanzee excrement." The slightly confused look on Sam's face brought forth more amused chuckles from the Medic. "You Tube. You humans have the most interesting ways of entertaining each other. Some clips, I will admit are questionable, but informative none the less." Iron Hide had taken to crossing his arms over his chest, tapping one foot irritably in the mud around them as Ratchet finished hosing the two off. "There, I managed to get both of you relatively clean. You will submit yourselves for a scan in two day's time to ensure that nothing has taken a liking to your systems." That last part was an order and the two Autobots agreed, sulking off to dry their soaked systems.



"Ah, speaking of monkey poo, Lennox has arranged for me and Mikaela to finish our last few weeks of school on base." Sam made a face by sticking his finger in his mouth, mock gagging himself. "As if I need something else trying to pound my brain into a bowl of gray jelly."



"Mmmm...my favorite flavor: Moan and groan with just a hint of procrastination." Mikaela came out of their shared barrack carrying the Calculus book they were using to study with. "You know what will happen if you do not pass this test, Sam. Your mother will force you to move into their barrack. With no computer, no peace, no quiet."



"Gah!" Sam fell backwards onto the ground, rubbing his face with his hands. "Any more of that book and my head will explode!"



"Come on, Sam. Calculus isn't that hard if you just stop trying to force your brain out of your butt." Mikaela plopped the book onto Sam's belly, making him huff.



"I'm not kidding, Mikaela. I have a headache as big as Prime's left lug nut!" The Autobot leader literally scoffed, sounding like a radio emitting a burst of static.



Mikaela rolled her eyes, plopping down on the ground next to Sam. "You know you are going to have to tell someone about the headaches," she said softly. "and the shaking and the scars and the nightmares." Sam's only response was to groan with his arms over his eyes. "Either you do," Mikaela lowered her voice to a low whisper, "or I will."



This got Sam to open his eyes. He looked over Mikaela's face, noting that there was nothing amusing about her expression. Prime watched the exchange with slight amusement. He wondered if he had anything that qualified as a 'lug nut' in his entire body and whether it was in the location the phrase suggested it was. Though, despite the low voices, he was able to hear the one sided conversation. His curiosity was piqued at the mention of scars and shaking. What was Sam hiding from them? Ever since the battle in Mission City, Sam had been followed and pestered about every symptom no matter how mundane. Ratchet had, as Sam put it, 'Snipe Scanned' him at every opportunity, making the boy irritable. It was quite amusing when Sam had wrapped his torso in aluminum foil to hinder Ratchet's quick scans. The medic had been in a foul mood all that week and it got worse when Sam decided to accessorize by making himself a tin-foil top hat.



Of course, Ratchet had not built himself the medical facility he now boasted. The only thing that remained was their actual quarters and those were being put on hold by the sheer amount of metal needed to construct such a structure and the question of how to hide such a structure once finished. The United States may have been wealthy compared to most other nations but being an open government meant that they had to justify every penny spent, especially with a war going on. Though the conflict seemed to be winding down as both sides lost their fire for producing mass casualties, the task of making relations better with all involved was taxing the government with midnight sessions and constant revisions to already heavily revised bills. Defense Secretary Keller was being pulled in two directions at once on good days. Right now he had to split his time between his Portland office and the main office in D.C. Ellie's parents were with the Secretary as he debriefed the top brass of every branch of the military of the reality of what they were facing. And the fact that the Autobots had been given Asylum status meant that he had that much more paperwork for each one that showed up.



Optimus sighed as Sam got up and marched over to the Autobot CMO, gritting his teeth as he announced that he would like Ratchet to give him a full physical. Mikaela's goading had worked. Sam would rather tell Ratchet himself than have someone else get everyone all upset over nothing. The young man looked as though he was walking to his own execution, trudging behind Ratchet as the medic led them over to a hanger big enough to fit the Goodyear blimp into. Prime looked back at Mikaela, watching her read from the open book, thumping her fingers on her forehead as she held her hair out of the way. Despite Mikaela looking like 'arm candy', she was actually quite smart. Calculus was one of her best subjects along with Physics and Advanced English. Ratchet had even had Mikaela help him put together most of the equipment in his lab and had even gotten started in the second set of labs that were meant to be Wheel-Jack's once he made it to Earth. Optimus smiled, things would get interesting pretty quickly with the inventor on the base.

Ratchet stood at the entrance to his lab, watching as Sam climbed up onto the human sized exam table right next to the Autobot sized one in the middle of his med-bay. "Before we begin, Sam, may I ask what suddenly convinced you that you needed a full physical," Ratchet asked as he walked over to the table, manipulating a control to bring up the low safety bars on either side of the bed before raising it up to a level Ratchet could work with. "Because if this has anything to do with bringing Bumblebee into your relationship with Mikaela, you aught to know you have nothing to fear physically from such a decision."



Sam scoffed, his train of thought thrown completely off course, crashing down a ravine before exploding into flames. "No, it's got nothing to do with that." Sam half expected Ratchet to launch into a lecture about maintaining certain mores and codes and some such muckety muck.



"Do not misunderstand me, Sam. I do not mean to dissuade you from your decision. What you, Mikaela and Bumblebee do is your own business and is not our place to judge." This was getting off course from what Sam wanted to talk about, but he welcomed the distraction. "What you have is nothing new to us, Sam. The feelings between you three are mutual and strong. So long as none are harmed within this relationship then you have nothing to fear from us. Your parents, however, are a different matter. Though I highly doubt that you would confide something of this nature in them. After all most humans seem to hold relationships between pairs higher than those between three or more." Ratchet seemed to catch himself as he was about to launch into an explanation of bonding between mechs. "Excuse me, but you wanted to speak to me about something other than your personal life?"



So much for the distraction. Sam sighed, the headache threatening to turn into a migraine unless he got this off of his shoulders. "Yea...gimme a sec," Sam sighed as he relaxed, feeling the pain in his temples fade away into nothing. He sighed, his eyes closed as he savored the feeling for a few seconds. "I noticed this a few weeks ago. It's like I opened a flood gate, or something. At first it was hard to deal with all the...information. But it's getting easier. Now it hurts if I try to force it down." Ratchet was about to ask what the slag the boy was talking about when Sam opened his eyes, azure meeting sky blue in total silence.



Ratchet opened his mouth to say something, but clicked his jaw shut with a metallic clang. "Stay still, perfectly still," the medic commanded as he briskly walked over to a set of machines to Sam's immediate right, the med-bay filled with their hum as they powered on. Ratchet stayed behind the machines for a good five minutes. Suddenly he walked over to a second area to activate the equipment there. He felt a familiar tingling wash over him. It felt like Ratchet's scans, but much more powerful, feeling like something warm pressing against his chest. The discomfort built until it suddenly alleviated, leaving Sam to sigh in relief. "What other symptoms have you noticed over the past few weeks? Have you had any changes in appetite? Cravings for odd things, decrease in urination or bowel movements?"



Sam listened, his eyebrows raising. "Well...yea. I don't go to the bathroom that much anymore. I think the last time I took a piss was...three days ago. And what exactly do you mean by 'craving odd things'?" Sam followed the medic around with his eyes, noticing that he was now talking to himself in Cybertronian, sounding like guttural curses grinding themselves between two big rocks. "I swallowed a couple of pennies a few weeks ago. I haven't seen them since." Sam started, noticing how Ratchet stopped what he was doing, watching him with narrowed optics before going back to grumbling again. "And when my dad was cutting the metal tubes for the fountain in our back yard...I, er, ate the metal shavings. I don't know why, it just seemed like a really good idea at the time." Sam decided to play dumb to get Ratchet to stop pacing between machines and grumbling. "What? Do I have a metal glob blocking me up? Am I about to shoot a metal turd the size of a cannon ball out, or something?"



Ratchet snorted, his nostrils flaring almost until the plates of his face came apart. "Hardly, Sam. All of that metal you have been consuming has been going toward replacing the calcium as the main material for your bones and inner structures. I do not know how you have been going through these changes without me noticing or even having any outward symptoms other than your eyes, or rather optics coming online. The headaches are being caused by you shutting your optics off and forcing your eyes to work when they are being slowly dismantled by your body. Do not ask me how this is all happening, because I am having trouble understanding it myself."



Sam laid there, staring at the medic, his brain feeling slow on the uptake. "Are you saying...that my body is, well changing? Into what?" Ratchet stayed quiet for a few more minutes before he turned a large monitor around so that Sam could have a good view at what Ratchet had been studying.



"This is the scan I just took of your internals. There should be a heart, lungs, intestines and such in your body cavity. However as you can see, they are MIA at the moment. What you have 'acquired' instead is a pump not unlike ours. Your pump seems to have borrowed it's designs from your own systems, which are quite efficient at their use of energy. The blood that should be flowing through your body has shifted into something like the energon that flows through our systems. This is the means by which your body is slowly exchanging metal for organics and why you have not needed to take in as much water as you normally would." Ratchet pointed toward where the scan would normally show the shape of his bowels. "You have a tank here as well. Your intestines, at least what they are now are dedicated to manufacturing energon with the food you have been taking in. The only reason your body seems to need water or normal food right now is to give it a means with which to carry the exchanged wastes out of your body. Even the cells of your body have started to change. For example, you have two kinds of cells that live on your bones. Ostioclasts and Ostioblasts. As their names describe, one builds bone another destroys bone. These seem to have become similar to the nanites that populate our bodies. They are facilitating the exchange going on as we speak." Ratchet shook his head, looking tired all of a sudden.



"We seem to be walking into uncharted territory with every second. I will not know definitively what is going on until the process that has started, finishes. This may take as long as a few years or as little as a few months. But I will ask you to be as forthright with me about any and everything that is going on. There are so many things that could have and should have gone wrong that it frightens me that you have kept all of this to yourself." The medic sighed again. "You do know that everyone involved will have to be informed of your...condition? I need them to observe you constantly in case the changes take an unfavorable turn."



Sam had done his best to turn three shades lighter than pale as Ratchet explained everything to him. This had turned out to be far more than just the checkup and reprimand for not telling him about all the little things he had been expecting. Sam laid back, trying to think of the best way to tell his parents when he felt like someone had just shoved a stereo into his head and turned it on full volume. "Autobots! Battle stations, we are under attack!" Optimus' voice grated into his skull with all the subtlety of a rampaging hippo. The med-bay shuddered as a pair of large feet landed on the ground. Ratchet lowered his bed, ordering the boy to the back of the med-bay as he charged out of the doors, the lights flickering and finely going dark as the sound of Starscreams cackle filtered in.