Thunderburst and Orion had split paths, as the femme wanted to find her sword before she would join Orion in returning to Autobots. There were few rooms she wasn't allowed to go into, so she was going to search those first. As she ran through the hallways, she had to duck behind outcroppings in the wall to avoid being seen.

She finally made it the room that her sword was being held in, and was about to grab it when she was grabbed from behind. Electricity tore through her veins, and she screamed. She was dropped to the floor, and before her vision went black, she saw a blank visor.

~~~~~~

When she woke, she was placed back in her room. Everything remained the same, even her datapads. She got up and pressed the button that allowed her out of the room. Minutes passed but no one came to her door. She whipped around, and glared around the room.

"I'm not stupid, Megabutt, I know you have a camera in here. Now get your aft over here and fragging talk to me because I'm pissed, and you really don't want to keep me contained with this much anger in my systems."

There was no response, but she went back over to the button and pressed it every five minutes, waiting until someone showed up. And finally, after two hours, someone finally did.

Megatron stood outside her room, standing up to his full glory. Thunderburst didn't even flinch before she punched him in the abdomen. He grunted, but her punch didn't affect him all that much.

"What do you want, Thunderburst?" he asked gruffly, refusing to look at her optics.

The femme glowered at him. "I want you to put me back in the brig."

That took Megatron by surprise, and he looked down at her in shock. "Why in the allspark would you want that?"

Thunderburst's glare hardened, but her spark was saying something different. "Because then it'll be easier for me to be angry with you."

Megatron's optics softened, and he turned his helm away. "I can't do that."

"Why not?" Thunderburst demanded, placing her hands on her hips. "Why can't you treat me like any other Autobot? Like my brother?!"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE MY SPARKMATE", Megatron snapped. He closed his eyes. "I can't bring myself to hurt you."

Thunderburst scoffed. "That means nothing. Maybe you won't hurt me physically, but psychologically or emotionally- you have no problem with that."

Megatron looked at her, a question in his eyes. "How have I hurt you?"

"Oh, let's see- you abducted my brother when he was not his true self, and manipulated him into helping you, and then when he realized your lies, you decided to use me! Me! Your own sparkmate! Who the frag does that?! Someone who is messed up in the helm! I don't even know why I ever thought something could happen between us. Or why I thought that maybe, just maybe, you wanted to end this war!"

Megatron refused to look at the femme, and he tried to open his mouth to speak, but nothing worked. Finally, he managed to say something.

"I'm sorry." With those words, he left, the doors closing on their own, leaving Thunderburst alone in her room. She stood there, mouth agape. So many emotions flooded her body. She knew he meant that genuinely. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. There was no manipulation, nothing that could suggest that he didn't truly mean it. Thunderburst's legs couldn't hold up her wait anymore, and she fell to the ground, staring at the place her sparkmate had been just moments before.

All of the hopes that she had had before came flooding back, and though the logical side of her said that she shouldn't believe what her spark was telling her, she found herself ignoring that.