I'm here

Chapter 6

The trip back to the scrapyard had been a silent and a troubling one. Sideswipe walked out in front of Jazz with his arms folded and his head hanging down, almost forgetting where he was as he stomped through the forest. Jazz had tried to speak to him but Sideswipe refused to acknowledge him out of spite. The young mech was trapped in a tornado of emotions, he was upset, angry, scared and bitter and Jazz couldn't pull him free no matter what he said. How could he? He had just been told told things that caused him a whole deal of stress.

His mood didn't improve when they returned to the Earth team's HQ. Bumblebee and the rest of the team were waiting for them, all of them hoping for some good news to come out of the trip to Jazz's shuttle. They all greeted them with a smile and reassuring words but Sideswipe suddenly lashed out at all of them, calling them every name under the sun before running off to his private hideaway and leaving his teammates stunned and confused. Jazz stepped forward to explain why, knowing it wasn't going to make anyone happy.

"He's carrying."

It was the news everyone anticipated but what no one wanted to hear. Fixit fainted, Strongarm looked mortified, Grimlock began to needlessly panic and Bumblebee slumped in disbelief. "This is my fault," groaned Bumblebee miserably, "I wasn't quick enough."

"Bee, I told you this before," stated Jazz, "it ain't your-"

"What are we going to do!?" Grimlock was flaying his arms around in a panic, "I don't know how to deliver a sparkling! I know nothin' about sparklings! I got arrested for almost stompin' on one!"

"Grimlock calm down before you-"

"Fixit wake up," snapped Strongarm as she shook the unconscious minicon in a vain attempt to wake him, "you're the only qualified medic we have here on Earth! Sideswipe needs medical attention stat!"

Jazz looked at the chaos that unfolded before him and sighed heavily, rubbing his aching brow as he tried to calm down and focus. Taking in a deep vent he stepped over before Bee and gave him a few quick but hard slaps to the face to knock him out of his depressed trance.

"Bee focus," snapped Jazz, "your team needs a leader and your son need his father right now."

It took a few seconds before Bumblebee recomposed himself and faced his panicking team. "Strongarm, Grimlock, stop panicking right now," he ordered. It took them a moment to get themselves back into a somewhat calmer state but the dread in their optics remained. "We spoke about this guys, we discussed that this was a possible scenario," reminded Bumblebee despite forgetting about it himself a moment ago.

"Wait, does that mean Sideswipe is gonna... leave?" Grimlock looked like he was about to cry.

"He has to Grimlock," sighed Bumblebee, "he needs proper medical attention and we don't have that here."

"We have Fixit," stated Grimlock with a hopeful look.

"True but Fixit can only fix physical damage, he can't fix what happened to Sideswipe," stated Strongarm with a frown.

Grimlock slumped and his lips quivered. "How long will he be gone for?"

"It depends," replied Bumblebee, looking over at Jazz with concern. "I don't suppose he said what he was planning on doing with... you know."

Jazz shook his head. Right after he told Sideswipe the results of the scan the young mech burst into tears and ran out of the shuttle. Jazz chased after him, desperately trying to reassure him with kind words but Sideswipe didn't listen. He eventually stopped crying as they walked back to the base but the heavy cloud of misery continued to loom over the young mech.