Chapter 2

The med bay was completely trashed. There were bubbles everywhere; sticking to the floor, to the beds, to the ceiling…everywhere. When Bertha and Sprocket entered, they had to catch each other from slipping on the stuff.

“Are you sure this is a good way of cleaning the medical equipment?” they asked. Ratchet hunched his shoulders. “Apparently, Sunstreaker did. The twins are always doing something to get under my wires. You get used to it after a while. I’ll start cleaning--you two! Get comfortable.” It seemed for a moment that the good doctor was a broken man, but then his posture corrected and he grabbed a towel and started to sweep the bubbles away. It was a tiny towel compared to the robot’s size, but to a human, it would have been like a blanket.

“It’ll be like new in no time,” Bertha said, laying her hand on Sprocket’s. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he seethed. Just then a loud coughing noise came from Ratchet, who doubled over, slipped on a wad of bubbles, and fell. The noise reverberated around the room, but Bertha was by his side in no time.

“Doctor, doctor. Can you hear me? Ratchet. Ratchet, come back online.” She turned his head towards her, waving her fingers in front of his optics. Patting his helmet, she decided he was not coming back online and was fully unconscious. “Sprocks, help me lift him up to the table. I knew something was wrong with him!” As worried and motherly as she sounded, Sprocket knew Big Bertha had everything under control. And to think, he was here as a patient! He tried not to chuckle as he lifted the ambulance-bot to a bed.

Bertha was over Ratch in seconds, one hand’s fingers flying over the built-in computer scanning system while the other hand felt sensitive wires under his head. “Computer says there’s a clot. We’ll need to go in.” Sprocket couldn’t believe it! Here was the best Autobot medical personnel saying that he was practically one-step into the trash heap, but it was really the doctor himself who was falling apart! “I think he’s learned a lesson, Bertha. Let’s get his own medical team to work on him. No need to rub it in his face, so to say.”

Bertha’s blue eyes flared and she spoke to her friend in a way she hadn’t spoken since the Big Wars. “Sprocket, you aft. That’s the lowest thing I’ve ever heard you say. You take this bot’s helmet off, or by golly, I’ll give you world of pain, honey, you bet your sweet aft I will.” If Sprocket were a dog, he would have had his tail between his legs.

He carefully slid his fingers under Ratchet’s helmet, searching for a release button so he could take the thing off with ease. Click! He pushed it and took off the helmet, cringing as Ratchet’s secondary CPU was exposed. He felt like he could purge right then. Bertha saw the sick look on Sprocket’s face and smiled. “Sorry, honeybunch; but at least it was here in the secondary CPU and not the first.” Raising the metallic plates above his eyes, Sprocket asked, “You know….I’ve always wondered about that. Where do we keep our main functioning systems?”

“Baby, you don’t wanna know.” The white femmebot turned to the equipment cabinet, returning with dastardly looking devices. Sprocket felt faint and promptly sat down so he himself wouldn’t be rendered unconscious. It must have looked awful silly; a war hero, a Commander, a bot who had a whole fleet of Autobots under his command during different stages of his life, brought to his knees, sick, because of one little glitch.

Bertha smiled softly. She was pushing her way carefully into deep wiring and circuits within Ratchet’s brain. Every now and then, she’d bump a sensitive wire and Ratchet’s body would quiver, his finger digits twitching. “Sorry sugar,” she said softly. “You’ve got it bad in here. Sprocks,” she said. “I don’t have a free hand. You need to do something for me. It’s very important. I want you to inject this sedative into him. I can’t have him waking during the middle of this; we could loose his spark due to trauma if we did.”

“Me? You know I’m not qualified to do that, Bertha,” Fidgeting, he eyes the syringe on the table by Bertha. “It’s empty,” he said. “I know. Go fill it. The medicine cabinet is opened. You’ll want to put Q-X 221 in it. Fill it up to the number 4. That should be plenty.”

“Is it safe?” A quiet whimper. “I don’t want us to...” “Do it, Sprocket! Please,” A plead. Sprocket nodded. If this went wrong, Primus only knew how close to the Pit they’d get when Optimus Prime found out. How would they explain it? Oh, yes, sir! We operated on your medical officer, sir, and he died flat on the table while an unqualified nurse’s aid and a warrior injected him with god-knows-what and tried to remove an energon clot from his CPU. We can go jump in front f Megatron’s firing line, Mister Prime? Gladly, Mister Prime. Sprocket shook these thoughts from his head. He wasn’t a coward, damnit. And….

He looked down at Ratchet, who was taller than Bertha and himself. Yet he looked very much like a helpless sparkling, laying out on the table like that. Bertha’s optics pleaded with him. “Go, Sprocket. I have faith in you,” they seemed to say. For Primus sake, he wasn’t going to let this man die because he was scared! If all his war buddies could see him now, what would he want them to see?

He filled the vial and came over to Bertha. She was holding a bulging wire. It had a peculiar glow to it from the energon gone bad. “Insert the needle here,” she said, pointing just below Ratchet’s shoulders. Upon those shoulders were the human’s symbol for health and well being--a symbol that stood for people who always helped, no matter what: the Red Cross. Forcing to keep his optics opened, Sprocket found the main vein and inserted the needle into it, gently but quickly. He didn’t want to linger. He knew how painful shots were when the doctor lingered. Ratchet clenched his teeth. Sprocket gasped, but then he saw that the Autobot was relaxing. He seemed to be asleep.

Bertha explained everything as she went along. Although Ratchet was asleep and couldn’t hear her, it made her feel more at ease, and she knew Sprocket was relieved to know that she knew what she was doing. Within the half-hour, the clot had been removed and the wires put back together and into their proper places, and, wiping her brow, Bertha smiled. She didn’t sweat, but the wiping of the brow seemed to be a sign: it was over. Things are normal now.

Before putting back on his helmet, Bertha reactivated the CPU. Clicks and whines whirred and as she and Sprocket re-attached his helmet to his head, Ratchet opened his eyes.

“What…?” he whispered. “What have you done to me?” He rose up, angry as all Pit. “You have no permission to ever do medical procedures on those who outrank you, Lieutenant Berth--” Bertha smiled. “You’re welcome, Doc. We just saved your life.”

Ratchet put his head in his hands. “You…you what?” His voice was a gentleman’s now. “You--what was wrong? The last thing I remember was the bubbles.”

“Yea, we have to clean those up yet,” Sprocket said, clapping his gigantic hand on the medical officer’s shoulder. “You, however, should be feeling much better now.”