June Darby [Being Human AU] (Transformers: Prime)

Chapter Nine | Recuperation

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."

~Rose Fiztgerald Kennedy 

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June collapsed onto her knee servos the moment her pedes hit solid ground, Optimus putting a comforting servo against her back while she vented heavily, coughing up the strange liquid. Her frame shook whilst her processor spun, trying to understand what had happened.

Megatron . . . Shockwave . . . they turned me into this.

Fuzzy memories danced across her processor, recollections of her time as a naive Predacon. She remembered Predaking, the others - ones she now recognized as the Decepticons and Autobots - her missions, her struggle to understand who she was.

Ripclaw.

She shuttered her optics, shaking her helm. There was a second presence within her processor, brushing against her but not invading. A Predacon from hundreds of millions of years past, roaming the Earth before the "Great Cataclysm." Providing her memories from deep within her CNA, the Predacon taught her of might and power, tragedy and war. Ripclaw was the gentlest, most maternal of the Predacons, yet was aloof and took no one, male or female, as her partner. She was a strong, independent femme, who needed no mech to protect her.

"June," Optimus rumbled, his voice slow and careful. "Are you alright?"

Pulled from her reverie, the femme's blue optics focused on the Autobot leader.

"I don't . . . I don't know . . ." She whispered. Memories of the Autobot leader broke through her haze. Optimus, flying into the cavern to protect Shovel and Wheeljack from the wrath of Predaking - and her. Optimus, engaging Megatron after the Decepticon leader had ordered her to -

Oh god. Oh Primus, what have I done?

"Mom!!" Jack bellowed, his voice filled with relief, pain, and sorrow, Miko shouting a warning as the young man began clambering down the side of the Omega Lock, the former human too preoccupied with his mother to worry about falling into the Earth's atmosphere. 

"Jack," she stood on shaking legs, Optimus keeping her supported until Jack could run to her. June was significantly taller than her son, and almost taller than the Autobot leader, though Optimus suspected that she had unitentionally used mass displacement when transitioning from her Predacon form to her bipedal, Cybertronian mode. Regardless, it did not stop the small family from embracing, June clutching her son tightly as he did the same to her in turn, her digits gently touching the back of his helm.

Jack buried his faceplates into her shoulder, venting heavily as his spark stung. Despite her Predacon base, June looked very much like she did in her human form; the coloring was off, as there were no black accents with which to mimic her hair, but her heart-shaped face, hint of a widow's peak, and slender yet filled form was all the young man needed to know this woman was truly his mother. 

"I'm sorry," June felt her optics begin to sting, energon flowing down her faceplates. "I don't know what happened to me, Jack, but if I had any control, I would have never - "

"It's okay, mom," Jack parted from her, wiping her tears away. "I know. Megatron told us that he used memory suppressors; it's not your fault."

She nodded, still very much upset, wondering how she had not been able to break through. The threads of thought she had chased so many times before - why had they gone to dead ends? Why did she not just try harder to free herself? The femme felt robbed, and used.