Killing Me Softly - Epilogue
I started a story for week 4 of the 2011 prowlxjazz anniversary challenge with Killing me Softly, and continued it in Lost and in three other chapters. The thing seemed to be crying out for a (very) short epilogue, and, since I was loading it up on fanfiction.net, I thought why not stick it here too...
Title Killing Me Softly - Epilogue
Author: zea_taylor
Rating: T
Verse: G1, pre-Earth Characters: Prowl/Jazz
Warnings: angst?
Epilogue
No one programmed the Rec Room computer to play that song at that particular moment.
They weren't even sure even who'd selected the random playlist, or who programmed the music in the first place. Until the first notes floated across them no one had noticed it. The rec room’s bustle spilled out into the corridors of the base, laughter and conversation drowning the background music… until the song brought with it a flood of memories and an eerie quiet. Other, darker corridors floated in front of their optics: a mural cast into shadow like the once-great city it represented, a base abandoned, and too many echoes of the fear and grief that had almost claimed their sparks.
For long klicks, the Autobots gazed into nowhere with sombre faces and dimmed optics. Without even thinking, most turned, their gazes drawn by the unaccustomed tremor in a pair of raised doorwings.
Slender black finger-servos brushed white servo-tips across a table surface. They reached up, trailing along the top edge of a doorwing, as their owner stood. Prowl’s doorwings flared, pressing up into the touch, straining after it as it retreated. His helm tilted back, optics locking onto visor with a look more intense, more private, than any the Autobots had seen since the day the pair returned to them.
Mechs flinched, knowing they should look away, unable to do so. They froze, captured by anguish writ clear, a shared expression that spoke of two sparks pushed almost to their limits, and the sacrifices made on behalf of every mech watching and countless others.
The moment passed. Jazz moved smoothly, the last awkwardness gone now as his new knee assembly integrated. His frame swayed, his thigh speakers throbbing as they picked up the rhythm. His rich voice rose, crooning the words they remembered so well, changing them as he went on, reminding them of a cause they’d lost sight of and a hope they’d almost forgotten. Visored optics picked each mech out in term, warmth and joy shared in the gaze, and if they lingered longest and most intently on Prowl, then that was only right.
Deep inside, where they hadn't admitted it even to themselves, every Autobot knew that their officers walked a harder path than most in the war they shared. They knew that Prowl and Jazz made choices no other could in the service of their Prime. Sunstreaker’s fists clenched by his side, Sideswipe gave a sharp nod, others mirroring them with gestures or murmurred oaths as Jazz’s laughter banished the silence. A new resolve grew between them - a determination not to forget the lessons they’d learnt, or take for granted the commitment they’d never appreciated.
The Autobots' world changed, there in a room filled with light and laughter. And they changed too, as they listened to Jazz reclaim his song for each and every one of them, their sparks burning brighter with each loving word.
The End