Healing Hearts

Chapter 22

Harry jolted awake from his nightmares, his heart pounding in his chest as he looked out into the darkness. Feeling a heavy weight holding him down, the healer started to panic and struggle. He didn't want to go back to that underwater grave. The broken body haunted his dreams, it's empty eyes accusing him of hurtful things as whips struck at his body in anguish.
"No, please," Harry whimpered as the weight turned into hands, holding him immobile. His magic reserves were still horribly low. Whatever magic he used to revive Optimus had left him emptier than ever before. "I-I can't..."
Beams of light suddenly appeared, shining up towards the sky, and the wizard froze in surprise. He looked up at the end of the light beams, only to see the ceiling of the hangar. Harry relaxed minutely, before he tried to figure out where he was. The Arcane Healer quickly spotted a glowing pair of eyes staring right at him, and Harry relaxed even more when he recognized Optimus' face in the shadows.
Looking down at himself, Harry flushed in embarrassment to see that he was being cradled to Optimus' chest as they laid in the medbay.
"Are you alright, Harry?" The large Autobot asked softly.
Harry sighed heavily, running a hand over his sweaty face and feeling a sharp twinge of pain in his side. Grimacing, the wizard whispered back, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry for waking you, Optimus. I'll just go-"
The hands surrounding him applied a gentle pressure to his legs, stopping Harry in his tracks and keeping him from being able to get up from his sitting position.
"...I'd prefer if you stayed," the leader admitted softly, his face an indescribable mixture of emotions in the low-light.
Harry smiled lightly at the Prime's earnest words before he frowned to himself, realizing he really didn't have anywhere else to go, even if he wanted to. He had been sleeping inside Megatronus' spark chamber whenever his 'spidey senses' gave him a break. Otherwise, his magic kept him awake and healthy. The wizard flinched lightly when he realized that he hadn't eaten in a while either. The last time he ate was when Megatronus had taken him to that small town a few months ago. He still had all of that food sitting in his pouch. Why hadn't he eaten?
A soft rumbling broke Harry from his thoughts, and the male looked at Optimus in quiet surprise. The mech had his eyes closed and head reclined back down on the large pillow, but Harry knew he wasn't sleeping. The mech's lips were parted and his chest was vibrating softly. As the rumble started changing between tones, the healer realized the mech was humming in his own, alien way.
Finding comfort in the soft rocking of Optimus' chest, Harry pushed his worrying thoughts aside and relaxed back down onto the Autobot leader's warm metal. Optimus servos moved slowly to relax back over him like a weighted blanket, and Harry fell asleep with a small smile on his face, surrounded by the soothing warmth.

-

Optimus vented as he set down yet another data pad on the pile growing on his desk in his berthchamber. He had been researching for the past several days while he watched over Harry, but the Prime could still not find the answer he was seeking. Nor could he afford to waste any more time researching this. He had to get back to his team.
"You should really take a break, Optimus," the wizard murmured from where he sat meditating on the large Autobot's shoulderplate. He, too, had been searching for answers. Though Harry could only look inside of himself to find them.
"Ratchet says much the same," Optimus murmured back as he picked up a new data pad, silently enjoying the companionship they had developed over their time spent together.
"Then perhaps you should listen," Harry sniped back calmly.
Optimus hummed noncommittally as his optics roved over the lines of Cybertronian glyphs contained in the priceless tablet. The healer did have a point, but there was a stray piece of code interfering with the Prime's CPU. It wouldn't allow him to properly switch processes until his question was solved. The battle between his need to go help his team and his desire for an answer left Optimus tense as he continued reading.
"Well, if you can't stop, then I'll just have to help you," Harry decided randomly, causing Optimus to look up from his reading and over at the wizard. "Perhaps we'll get it done faster then."
Harry jumped down from Optimus' shoulderplate, and the large mech's servo twitched as he restrained himself from trying to catch the small healer. His protective protocols were, unfortunately, still out of his control.
Slowing his descent to land softly next to the data pad Optimus had been looking at, Harry stared at it silently for a few moments.
As Optimus' HUD display reverted back to normal, he spied the human squinting at the glowing blue tablet sitting in front of him and remembered that humans did not have the ability to process languages at the same speed Cybertronians could. "I greatly appreciate your offer of help, Harry, but all of our data pads are written in Cybertronian. It would take much longer to translate them all for you than it does for me to read them myself."
The wizard turned to look up at Optimus with a bright smile as he waved his hand causally in the air. "Don't worry, Optimus, I can read it just fine. So you're looking up something to do with Primes, the Allspark, and this..." Harry turned back to the data pad for a second, "'Matrix of Leadership'? Why?"
The Autobot leader stared down at one of the greatest assets he had ever found for a few kliks before he accepted the reality that was staring back at him beatifically.
"Yes," Optimus confirmed as his back paneling twinged uncomfortably. "Truthfully, I am researching a technicality that is not important in the grand scheme of things, but... not knowing the answer is creating bugs in my systems," the leader revealed as he looked down at his scraped servos guiltily. He wanted to find answers, but why? It was not important, and he shouldn't be wasting his time this way.
Suddenly, memory files he had thought long lost, presented themselves readily in his CPU in response to his musings. "Researching used to be a passion of mine..," Optimus muttered in thoughtful surprise. It was well-known that Primes were commonly reserved and stoic- had he not just read in one of the data pads that it was a mechanism put in place by the Matrix? Strong emotions and a majority of the memory files a mech or femme had were locked away upon ascension to the status of Prime to assure that they could make informed decisions unclouded by emotional programs and past attachments. Optimus could even confirm that he had acted within these parameters ever since he was chosen by the Matrix to save the Cybertronian race so many millennia ago. So why now did it seem that this mechanism had failed? It was not because he was no longer a Prime- his warrior frame would have disengaged, leaving him with the leaner civilian frame he had before his ascension if that were so. Could it have anything to do with his re-sparking by the small being standing before him?
"Well it's good that you're indulging yourself then. It never ends well when a leader tries to do everything at once. It's no wonder your brain was in danger of shutting down; it's under too much stress and you refuse to give it a break," Harry huffed as he stared up into Optimus' optics, annoyed.
Optimus shuttered his optics at the healer in surprise. It should be impossible for a Prime to overwork themselves, but it was also considered impossible for a Prime to be re-sparked without the Matrix of Leadership. Had he been too hard on himself? It was true that he didn't get to relax often, and searching through the data pads, as tense as he was while doing so, was a nice feeling. But just thinking about taking any amount of time off had the idea of Cybertronians out in the vastness of space fighting for their very sparks rise, unbidden, in his processor. He couldn't just stop, not when his race was depending on him.
With no audible response, Harry continued brightly, "alright then, it's settled. We're going to read through these leisurely without fear of being missed, until we figure out the answers to your questions. So, what's the big idea that's been bothering you?"
Optimus vented as he made up his processor and stood up, scooping a surprised Harry gently into his servo and leaving the data pads behind. He would check up on his team to make sure everything was going smoothly and then talk to Sam. He had been meaning to ask the young human something important anyway. "I apologize-"
Optimus abruptly froze where he stood, facing the doorway to his berthchamber, his HUD a sudden mess of glitching images as his systems were suddenly overrun with massive amounts of electric charge. The Autobot leader's optics were wide in a mix of emotions under the onslaught of currents, glad his mouthplates were frozen as well, for fear of what would escape them if they could operate normally.
Optimus struggled heavily to have cohesive thoughts the longer he stood under the exquisite charges coursing through his body. The large mech couldn't make sense of what he was seeing, but he just barely managed to decode the messages his audio finials were picking up. Harry was speaking to him.
"-hear that you can't relax with your people still fighting. You'll be no good to anyone stuck in a coma due to working yourself into the ground! Stress will only make your reaction times slower and your judgement poorer. I should know, I've been in your shoes before. Thus, you're going to put your butt right back in that seat and enjoy your research or Morgana help me, I'll bring Ratchet in here and he can have at you with that wrench he's so fond of!"
Optimus would have choked at the idea of Ratchet seeing him like this, if he could control his voice box. Harry couldn't mean that. The Autobot leader tried desperately to see the healer. To make sense of the blurry pixels of his servo. To plead with him to stop this. But he could not focus long enough. It was impossible. He was too close. His overload was imminent.
After a few moments of silence where the Prime's control grew weaker and weaker, Harry released him from his full-body bind, oblivious. Optimus immediately crashed to the ground, shuddering and gasping for breaths that he didn't need even as the delicious sensations disappeared. His whole body felt alive but uncomfortably bereft as he arched against the ground. Steam started to lazily drift out of his smokestacks, and extra electricity currents sparked along his outer wiring. Optimus was mortified to hear the clicks, whirs, and whines escaping his voice box once his CPU managed to get into some semblance of order. He had been so very dangerously close...
"Merlin's balls, I forgot about machinery and magic! Oh, Optimus, I'm so sorry! Err, I'll go get Ratchet! My healing will probably only make this worse," Harry exclaimed as he turned from where he was hovering to go search for the medic.
"N-no!" Optimus gasped out, trying to force his systems back into order. "I-I jus-t n-need a... a m-mo-ment." He couldn't let anybot see him like this. It was only lucky that Harry did not know the difference between Cybertronian signs of pain and pleasure.
Harry flew closer, concern shining in his brilliant optics. "Are you sure, Optimus? You don't look too good, and the sounds you were making earlier..." The healer trailed off, an uncertain look on his faceplate.
The Autobot leader vented heavily and pushed down his embarrassment to shakily sit up from the floor. Gaining control over his voice box once more, Optimus replied calmly. "Yes, thank you, Harry, but I am fine. Truly. The energy from the spell you used did not in any way damage my systems, though it interfered with my control over them," Optimus reassured the small human with a smile.
Seeing Harry's dubious face, the Autobot leader got to his pedes to prove his point, and, although he was still shaking, he did not falter.
Harry hummed as he landed back on Optimus' shoulderplate. "Well, I guess arresting control over your body is what the spell is supposed to do," Harry mused. "All of your systems must be somehow included in the 'body' portion of the spell then. Optimus, you don't feel that sensation when I heal you, do you?"
The Autobot leader shuddered at the reminder of what he had just felt, but shook his helm in the negative, his body rapidly cooling down without the outside stimulants present. "No, your healing energy is quite different from this kind."
Harry nodded as he fell deep into his processor.
Optimus gingerly sat back down at his desk, deciding that checking on his team now would not be a good idea. His panels were still jittering, and that was an obvious signal as to what his recent- however unwilling- activities were. There was no doubt in the large mech's processor that Ratchet would pick up on it too. The elder Cybertronian knew that Optimus was embarrassed to talk about interfacing, due to his preference and past experiences, but that would only encourage the surly bot to make a sly comment to further mortify him.
Optimus vented quietly as he pushed away his errant thoughts and picked up the discarded data pad. If he was to stay in his berthchamber, then he would attempt to relax, as Harry had suggested.