Family Secrets.

Chapter 13

The base was.. quiet. Oddly so. Aside from the tapping of the cybertronian keyboard, the scribbling of a pencil on paper, small almost silent feminine sighs, and pistons shifting, releasing air from between the cracks of armor on a cybertronian. Bulkhead and Miko had gone dune bashing, Bumblebee took Raf the next town over to watch a race, Arcee had taken Jack for a leisure drive, and Optimus had busied himself with a personal drive.

June had been overworking herself for reasons Aurora didn't know, which left said 18 year old and the medic alone in the base for a few hours. At first, she'd wanted to ask him umpteenth million questions about cybertronians, but she held herself back and decided to do some EMT homework. Despite wanting to stay far away from it for once.

That day in her EMT class hadn't been a good one, and she was doing her best to hide how mentally exhausting it had been on her.

She kept peering at Ratchet, before going back to scribbling answers down on the 15 page worksheet. It was the 11th time she'd looked at him when Ratchet had caught on to her curious gaze and turned his attention to her. "Yes, Aurora?" He asked, cerulean gaze locked on her smaller form.

"N-nothing-." She quickly stammered, embarrassed that she'd been caught.

She honestly couldn't help it, she was naturally curious about different things. It's what ultimately led to her applying for the EMT courses.

"You know, if you're curious you can ask me questions." He stated, still not looking away from her.

"..I have so many you'd get annoyed and send me to the arctic for some peace." She half joked, looking slightly guilty when he glared at her for the joke.

"It wouldn't be any different than when I give Rafael small lessons when I have some off time." Ratchet said, this time his tone a little softer.

Her mind flashed to earlier that day, when a male med student had lashed out at her in pure hatred because she and the instructor had been having a debate about different blood taking methods. She was always the curious one, and loved debating which methods were most effective and why.

An insecure aura surrounds Aurora, and when she spoke she felt as though she sounded two feet tall. "..Are you sure?" She asked.

In response, Ratchet walked over to her and raised his servo to the platform, a 'come here before I pick you up' look crossed his faceplates.

She didn't waste time, putting her homework down and scrambling over the railing and plopping into his surprisingly warm servo.

Ratchet brought his servo up to his chassis, and Aurora slid from his servo and onto the space between his shoulder armor and his neck cables. Ratchet then walked the short distance back to the large computer, beginning to work diligently again.

Aurora gawked at the symbols that showed up on the screen, trying to make sense of the alien language displayed before her. "What's those bold symbols up there?" She asked, pointing to a set of bold symbols in the upper left hand corner.

"Coordinates." Ratchet answered simply.

"For an energon spike or one of the bots locations?" She asked again.

"Unspecified for the moment. That's what I'm digging for, by sliding them into different translators and then entering them into an English translator so I can search it on the internet. If it's an energon mine we'll see the location of a cave. If not, then it'll be one of the bots or a relic." Ratchet explained in detail that time, making Aurora's eyes light up in wonder.

They sat like that contently for a few hours, Aurora asking questions and Ratchet answering them.