[Adapt... Over the years and hardships, Ratchet had learned much. Oh, he'd adapted; he'd had no choice but to adapt. He'd even learned his was not the only species capable of it. But one of the hardest things he'd ever had to learn was what life was like without Optimus Prime, and that he could live through that as much as through anything else. Relief could not begin to describe the revelation that he didn't have to.

There were so many things he wanted to say. There were so many things he'd gotten a second chance to, and still hadn't said - he'd somehow been fool enough to think that he'd have all the time on either world to find them. For all the adaptations...

Just like that, his shaky resolve to stand strong and stoic broke.]


I had thought you lost to us once. Eventually...yes. Necessity dictated adaptation, if not acceptance.

But now, I had... I had hoped I would never...


[If he'd only been there; that was what he told himself then. If he'd been there, if he hadn't left, he could have taken action. There had to have been something he could have done.

...But he had been there for this.

And there wasn't...]