Dancing With Doubt

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Arcee is beginning to get concerned.
She had absolutely no idea her split decisions in Petrex would have such complicated and rippling after-effects. She just saw an opportunity to save a trapped mini, and things seemed to work out better than she anticipated.
And now, she gets dirty looks from Prowl, and...pretty much everyone else in the base who isn't named Sky Lynx. Yeah, she's screwed up, big time. So the Autobots can hardly blame her for not wanting to be in the base at the moment.
Arcee has gone all the way out to Sherma Bridge to sulk. Currently, she's seated on a trellis skirting the underpass, thinking about the ways in which she screwed up because she dared to care about Safelight. Maybe all the critics are right, maybe she's a rookie who can't think on her feet. These, and other thoughts circle her mind as she stares off into the distance.
And who else should come looking for her, other than that darned foreigner Phantom. He flies under the bridge, approaching Arcee on her left. 
"Hey!" he calls out. 
He protoforms and settles on the trellis next to her. He lifts her chin gently, making her look him in the optics. "What are you looking so sad for?" he asks quietly.
"Oh no!" Arcee flails in surprise when she sees Phantom, but she catches herself on the trellis just in time. The trellis she's seated on is not far from the ground, but it would probably still hurt to fall off of it. "I can't talk to you, Phantom, I can't talk to you anymore!"
He smiles disarmingly at her and hugs her (also perhaps keeping her from falling off the trellis). "What? Don't be ridiculous. Of course you can talk to me, you can talk to me anytime!" 
He pauses for a moment and sighs. "Oh, alright, if we cannot talk, at least we can dance, yeah? We don't need music this time." He grins, and climbs onto the bridge, taking her hand and pulling her up alongside him.
"Hey! Waitwaitwait!" Arcee protests a bit as Phantom pulls her up onto the bridge. "Look, I...know you're into a fun time. That's great. Maybe someday, there will be fun times again on Cybertron, but right now...we can't DO this. You know?" She smiles hopefully. "Why are you in with those Decepticons, anyhow? Seriously, you're such a delightful mech with a wonderful personality...they must hate you."
"No," he says good-naturedly, "no waiting. Come on! Surely, the dancing queen must dance. And look!" He gestures to the view from the Sherma Bridge, which Arcee may admit, is one of the few things Cybertron has left that still looks nice. "Yes, yes, having fun is good," Phantom insists, as if nothing else in the world mattered. "Why not? Anytime you can have fun, you should. Because the next time you could have fun might be... never." He takes both her hands and begins a simple two step, chuckling quietly. 
"I don't know!" he says, "but seriously? There are not so many who hate me. Only those with bad karma. They are jealous of me, because mine is good!"
"That really is a spectacular view," Arcee admits, feeling very uneasy. Maybe Prowl put a tracer on her and is watching this unfold right this moment from his office. Maybe the Sky Spy is directly overhead, filming them. Maybe maybe maybe. But wait, did he just say he has good karma? Maybe that will counter the horrible luck she seems to have at times like these. "Seems that what you did in Petrex is causing quite a stir."
Phantom stops dancing with her, and takes a step back, glancing out at the magnificent view from Sherma Bridge. He shakes his helm. "Ha.. maybe Quantum is right. I am always causing trouble." He turns to her. "What do you mean by I caused a stir?" 
His expression becomes more solemn, and he sighs. "I wanted to tell you, I may have almost died the other day, and it was a very curious situation..."
Arcee tilts her head, looking quizically at Phantom. "You almost died? Tell me what happened," she urges, as his tone becomes more serious.
He pauses for a moment, as if deep in thought. "There is something you should know about me." 
He pauses, and looks away for a moment, before continuing. "I am not from here. Not from this Cybertron. A different one. When I came here, I had this feeling deep inside me, that fate, or Primus, or Unicron, or whatever you want to call it, did not like me to be here. I am not supposed to be here." He sighs. "But I came here anyway, and I cannot go back. But, because I am not supposed to be here, sometimes weird things happen to me. Like.." He phases his hand through a strut on the bridge. "I can control it. There are other things I can do -- like, I will disappear. Because I am not supposed to be here. But when I come back, I don't remember some stuff." His expression becomes distant. "I cannot control it all the time. And I never decide to make myself disappear on purpose, unless, there is a worse fate to have. Because, I have this feeling, that one of those times, it's possible I'll never come back. Because I am not supposed to be here." 
"The other day, I was in Kaon, and I suddenly disappeared. My brother Swindle told me, 'I thought you did that on purpose, because you told us you would!' I thought that was very strange, have you ever heard of something like that? A person, like me, who loves life a lot, to almost kill himself like that? It's very weird.."
He takes her hands and stares into her optics, his expression compelling. "You must help me. I am afraid it will happen again."
Arcee listens to Phantom very carefully. So far, other than siding with the Decepticons, he's given her few reasons to doubt him. This particular story, however, is a difficult one to grasp. "You understand that there's a war going on here, right? A very contentious war. If...if I can get help for you, then you'll need to leave your 'brothers'. And if you do that, then they might come after you."
"So you know about it, then," he says. He sighs. "Of course I know that," he says quietly, his expression growing distant. "Tell me then, why did I not act myself? Can you at least answer me this?" he says. "It is an innocent question." 
"I am trying to see if it is possible for me to keep existing here."
"Well..." Arcee pauses pensively. "When you had the...incident, like the one you had in Kaon, do you retain any memories? I'm not talking about the memories you can access; obviously you're not able to access them, but they *might* still be there in stored access form. And if they are, you can better fill in the gap of lost time, and determine whether you really did say the things Swindle claims you did...and also, how much of yourself remained here and...and..." She falters. "I'm not a scientist," she admits. "But I can certainly understand that you love existence, and that you want to continue existing."
"No..." Phantom's expression suddenly becomes hard to read. 
"I don't think so. When I am gone, I am gone. It is like I never existed." 
He steps towards Arcee. "There is another reason why I believed Swindle. When I came back, I instantly felt something was wrong. It was not like any of the other times I disappeared. I did not know what was wrong. But there was something not right, and I felt it." He frowns. "I spoke to all the other people I had seen before, and they are all clueless about this. But you, you did not tell me to see a medic, and you did not say no to whether you know about it or not. Or about why I did not act myself. You are the one, are you not? The one who did something to me."
Arcee frowns slightly. "But...wait, what did I do to you?" He couldn't possibly know about the prototype. It seemed impossible. She wasn't even certain that she had hit him with it, anyhow; she had fired it just to be able to tell Prowl she had 'field-tested' the blasted thing.
But Phantom wasn't from this plain of existence. Maybe the prototype did something to him that was much more serious.
"Of course, I don't know," Phantom says, "I am waiting for you to tell me what you did to me. I almost killed myself, you know? That's very odd, and I have never done anything like this before in my life. I have talked to my brother, he also agrees. Something isn't right, that's all." 
Then he smiles kindly at her. "But don't worry, you can tell me. I am not angry with you at all! Whatever it is, I forgive you! Of course, how could have known? And how can I not forgive the dancing queen? She is amazing!"
"I don't know," Arcee admits, looking more distraught than before. "I really don't have any idea." Now, she was getting very panicky. This was bad. This was REALLY bad. It seems impossible that Phantom knows...and yet, he does. Just when she thought things couldn't possibly get worse, they have taken a sudden turn for the catastrophic. "I'm really, really sorry, but I don't know what happened."
He grins, taking her hand. "Nah, you are a bad liar," he says, squeezing her hand gently. "Don't look so frightened. I am going to help you, okay?" He smiles and pats her. 
"We can work something out, yeah?" He sits down on the edge of the bridge, pulling her to sit down next to him. "Look, I will promise not to tell anyone that you did something weird to me. In fact, whatever you did to me, you can do it again, as long as you tell me! I will prepare myself, and then it will be okay! I will not tell anyone that you are doing that to me. But, you must tell me what it is, at least, so that if you want to do it to me again, I will know how to be ready for it, yeah?"
Arcee has a seat beside Phantom, and seems more distraught than ever. She glances over at him, and begins sobbing, covering her faceplate with her hands. "No, see, that's just it, that's it though, I...don't know what it /is/. Or what it did to you. I'm not saying I'm not responsible, but I can't undo what it did because I don't /know/ what it did..."
Phantom wraps his arms around her, stroking her arm softly. "Hey," he says softly, "it's okay, it's okay.. " Phantom reassures her, "please don't look so sad, it's making my core shatter into many pieces! I forgive you, I forgive you." 
"Look, you have me here for right now, that is good enough for the moment, right? Listen to me. You can find out. I will give you a clue. It seems to make me act like I am not myself at all, probably in a way that can hurt or kill me. Then you can come tell me, and once I know what it is, it can be fixed. Do not be sad. I... might still be here tomorrow." 
He withdraws, his expression withering. "Or I might not be. I might disappear forever, never come back, ever." He stands up. "Are you ready to say goodbye to me like it is the last time you will see me in this lifetime?"
"N...not really. Please, stay positive about this," Arcee pleads. "It wasn't my intention at all to put you in this bind. You've been very forthcoming with me, so there's no reason for me to lie to you about it." She's sworn to secrecy, but she can at least take blame for his predicament. It's the least she can do. In the meantime, she has no idea what she can do without giving away the entire sordid plan, and she promised Prowl she wouldn't. It's almost too much for her to bear.
He frowns, looking puzzled. "Well, you must be," taking both of her hands gently. "Because it will be really bad for you, if I disappear the next nano-klik, and never come back." He gives her a sad smile and strokes her helm affectionately. "Don't worry," he says, "whatever you did, I already forgive you for it. Even though you are a bad liar..." 
He pauses. "I guess I should think about how I am never seeing you again, never. I do not want to disappoint the dancing queen." He hugs her tightly. "But if this is last time I will see you, I want to ask you a last question!"
In spite of herself, Arcee gives Phantom a hug. She feels very responsible for the predicament he's in now. "Well...okay, let's hear it. I'll try my best to give you an answer. You have to understand one thing, though...maybe I'm rotten at lying...but I'm NOT lying when I say that I'm very, very sorry this is happening to you, because I am."
"I remember the first time I met you," Phantom says, "it was like a dream. I walked into that bar, and I saw you and thought, 'Wow!'" He grins. "She looks just like a male!" 
"Then I kissed you, like how I think is normal, and you said that it was.. it was flir--flirt--flacious..What is that word?! I don't know what it means and you did not tell me what it meant."
Arcee smirks. "Kissing someone you've just met may be 'normal' where you're from, but here, it has a different meaning," she explains, relieved for the change in topic (because she has absolutely no idea what she's going to do about Phantom's predicament at this point). "It means you have a 'special interest' in that mech, you see. And yes, I remember, you said I looked 'like a male'. I don't even know what to think about that. You're very unusual."
Phantom still looks entirely confused. "But I do have a special interest in you," he says, "you are a very nice lady and the only one who is very kind to me all the time, why would my interest in you be.. not special?" 
He grins at her. "I still think you look like a boy. But that's okay," he says, "since this is could be the last time I see you, let's have a last dance, yes?"
"Alright. Last dance. BUT..." Arcee is still feeling paranoid that Prowl is probably watching this entire exchange. "Under the bridge. Sky Spy might be passing over soon."
He laughs and taps her nose, just before he wraps his arm around her waist and jumps over the edge of the bridge, his antigravs activating as they descend so as to cushion their fall. 
Once they're under the bridge, he leans in close to her, grinning. "Why don't you go dancing more often~?"
Arcee slowly wraps her arms around Phantom, and draws close to him. "Because we're at war," she mentions quietly. "We're not supposed to dance, or sing, or enjoy life anymore, we're supposed to fight for what few resources that remain on this world. And we have to hold painful secrets, and struggle to understand what the truth is, and what this all means...it's how things are. A long time ago, there was more fun, more openness...now, not so much."
Phantom chuckles softly, embracing her softly and swaying the two of them to an invisible slow beat, pressing his helm against hers. "Who said that? No one can tell you not to dance, or sing, or be happy. Yes, there have to be times where we have to fight and kill. But, when there is a moment enjoy something simple, like a good drink, a good song, or a last dance, you must revel it. These things, they will hold you together in this time that is so hard and full of bitterness. It is why you /have/ to do these things when you can during wartime. They will take you back to a time when you could do those things, and give you something to hope for when the war is over."
Arcee finds herself feeling increasingly guilty for what she's done. As she's standing there swaying slowly with Phantom, she tries not to feel too much despair. Maybe there /is/ a reverse switch on the prototype. She'll need to study it further back at the base. It's difficult for her to keep her personal feelings out of this situation; she couldn't help but like Phantom, as unflappable and positive as he is. "You're right, of course. The good times do carry you through the bad ones. The good memories sustain you in times of despair."
He smiles, pulling her closer. "Yes, yes, my sweet dancing queen, think about good things, don't look so sad. This place is like white soil, don't think about the war when you are here," Phantom says softly. "Forget about it for now, all that matters is just this moment, you and me, and dancing.."
Arcee knew she shouldn't be letting her guard down, especially not with a charmer like Phantom, who could probably use such charms to his advantage. But he's lulled her into a place she wants to be: feeling comfortable, away from the bad situation at the base and the cruel realities...how could he not hold a grudge against her for what she's done to him? If the tables were turned, she'd be furious. She stares into his optics, looking for any sign of doubt.
She won't be able to read anything from him, really, his optics are somewhat opaque and very reflective. The only thing she'll see in his optics is.. herself. He touches her face gently, giving her another disarming smile. It might seem like he's about to kiss her again, this time on the lips. 
But who is anyone kidding? Phantom is as clueless as toddler at daycare. He still can't even pronounce the word flirtatious right. Hopefully Arcee doesn't follow his lead.
She knows she shouldn't, but Arcee does it anyway. All that 'enjoy the spur of the moment' talk influences her to close the distance and give Phantom a brief kiss. Afterwards, she moves back, and mentions, "And /that/ is why it's called 'flirtatious'." She pokes him playfully in the side. "Go home, you shouldn't be talking to me and you know it."
Phantom doesn't react the in the way she might have expected though. As soon as she kisses him, he shoves her away, looking confused and angry. "What the hell?!" He looks around, as if expecting someone to jump out of the shadows and attack him. He backs away from her, like she's going to stab him or something. 
"Are you setting me up?? You should /not/ do that!" He shakes his a finger at her, appearing afraid. 
He transforms and hightails it out of there as fast as his jet engines can carry him, leaving Arcee to think whatever she will of his.. peculiar reaction.
Arcee is too stunned to react at first...but then as Phantom runs off, she smirks, and suddenly begins to chuckle. "Not funny, it's not funny," she scolds herself, but the turborat is out of the bag; she just can't help herself.
For a long while afterward, she enjoys a good chuckle at Phantom's reaction. Arcee's taking his advice, now, she's just savoring the fun moments. She's tired of being in trouble, of feeling guilty and not good enough. Phantom flipping out over getting a kiss is just plain FUNNY to her.
"Don't dish it out if you can't take it," she mutters quietly, shaking her head. Then, Arcee begins thinking about things she wants to get done back at the base, about more serious things such as the effects of the prototype. Phantom may be silly at times, but she doesn't think he deserves to die because of a field experiment gone awry. Something needs to be done about that...but what?
She heads back toward the road, deciding she'll drive around a bit and think things over.