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The starfield shimmering across the viewport looked brighter and closer than it ever had on Cybertron, with the swirling outline of a brightly colored nebula just barely visible beyond it. Without the atmosphere to distort them, the stars seemed to glimmer different colors, hints of blue and red and gold tracing through the brilliant silver points. It was undeniably beautiful.
Lancer couldn't bring herself to enjoy the view.
It's gone. Our home is gone.
Somehow, she had always believed that Cybertron would be restored, even as the war tore its way across the landscape and more cities turned to rubble. She and Greenlight had talked about the rebuilding process after the war every time they found themselves searching through the ruins.
“Maybe we'll find someone who still remembers the original architecture. That way we won't lose all the pre-war artifacts.”
“And if we can't?”
“Then we'll rebuild it in a totally new form. Post-War Golden Age Cybertron. We'll bring it back, one way or another. You know the Prime won't let the planet stay like this forever. When the war's over, we'll fix it.”
Greenlight had always been the more optimistic of the two, but Lancer had believed it too. Cybertron had existed for eons before any member of their species had been sparked. She couldn't imagine a universe where it didn't outlive them, and she had clung to that belief right up until the ship's ramp closed behind her, cutting off her last view of her home.
The stars shimmered, cold and unfeeling. They were still the same constellations she remembered seeing from Cybertron, but there was nothing reassuring about this view of them.
She felt Greenlight's presence a moment before Greenlight pressed up against her side, a warm point of familiarity amid all the chances. Lancer held her sparkmate close with one arm, optics still fixed on the sky.
“You all right?” Greenlight's voice sounded very small and soft, with a barely-disguised quiver.
Lancer opened her mouth to say that she was, and stopped in mid-word. There was no point in trying to offer a comforting lie when Greenlight could feel perfectly well through their bond that she was not all right.
“I don't know.” She fought the urge to look back over her shoulder. Cybertron had long since faded into the other stars stretched out in the wake of the ship. “I...I don't know.”
She felt a ripple of concern and sadness across the bond, meshing with the grief in Greenlight's open EM field. “Me neither. I always thought...I always thought we'd go home someday. I never thought Cybertron would...” She trailed off before saying the word die.
“Neither did I.” Lancer closed her optics for a moment and tried to picture Cybertron as it had once been, all towers and lights and brilliant streets lined with happy figures. Images of ruined cities, smoking towers, and shattered glass swirled through her memory instead, drawing a slight shudder. “I thought we'd...I thought we'd be rebuilding. I know I always said you were too optimistic, but I never thought we would ever leave.”
Greenlight had to swallow several times before answering, field flaring and fading sadly. “You were right. I was too optimistic.”
“We all were.” Lancer hugged her tighter, and the two stood in sad silence, gazing off at the glittering stars.
When Greenlight finally broke the silence, it was in a whisper, as if she was afraid of who might overhear. “What is the Prime thinking? How can we abandon Cybertron?”
Lancer had thought over those exact questions a hundred times. She hadn't come up with any satisfactory answers. “I don't know. I...I don't know.”
“Maybe we'll come back someday.” Unlike the times they had talked about the future on Cybertron, when maybes and what-ifs had always been tinged with bright enthusiasm, there was no hope in Greenlight's field or the bond now. She didn't believe what she was saying, and Lancer couldn't blame her.
But she couldn't say that aloud. The thought of never returning to Cybertron, that it was gone forever-
No.
“Aye. Maybe we will.” She tried to inject a hint of reassurance into the words, though she wasn't sure it worked. “We can rebuild it together. Just like we always planned.”
She turned her attention back to gazing out at the distant stars, held Greenlight closer, and sent out a prayer to whatever ancient Prime or AllSpark might hear her.
Please let us go home someday.
