"One more test."

Ratchet's cold glare looked down at the human girl strapped to the table, her arm covered in burns.

Megatron's cruel smirk grew wider as he thought of what he wanted, and Ratchet soon complied, his welder changing to his amputation blade.

Everything inside told him to stop, he tried to retake control over his actions, to try and stop this, but the dark energon linking him to Megatron-a thought that made him shudder inside-was too powerful.

He watched in horror as his charge looked up at him, her eyes wide. He knew she knew what was going to happen next.

And with horror, watched as his blade came down, and crimson blood splattered it.

"No!" Ratchet yelled, his helm snapping up. It took him a minute to realize where he was; the Autobot base. He rested a servo on his helm. It was the middle of the night, and he probably fell into recharge again while standing in front of his monitor.

He hated it.

He hated recharging. The memory always haunted him.

He killed his charge, with his own amputating blade.

The other Autobots tried to let him know that it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't in control of his actions. Even the kids, but at the same time, they had kept their distance. Ratchet never blamed them.

The medic hadn't left the base since the incident a few weeks ago. He hadn't recharged much, he couldn't. Her face terrified him every time he closed his optics.

His charge's sister had come to the base once, only to yell at the medic through hot, angry tears. Ratchet simply stood there and accepted it. What was he going to do, yell back? That would make things worse.

Much worse.

He shook his helm. This was going to haunt him for the rest of his life cycle. He knew it would. He had a charge. And not only did she get hurt, she was killed.

And he had done it.

In his frustration, guilt, and anger, he had tried to surgically remove his amputation blade late at night after he was rescued and the energon was expelled, but Optimus discovered what he was doing and stopped it.

"It is the external wounds which heal the quickest," he had told him. Ratchet was tempted to glare, but couldn't. Not to Optimus.

"I killed her," was all he replied back with.

"Ratchet, you were not in control of your own actions. You were a pawn in Megatron's twisted game."

"I killed her," the medic repeated. Optimus was concerned, and that's when they decided Ratchet needed closer supervision until he was...mentally stable.

Even now, Arcee was on "guard duty", watching him closely to see what he would do. It was weird, Bulkhead had accidentally broken a tool of Ratchet's right in front of him, and he didn't even get so much as an "I needed that". He wasn't grumpy, he was just...empty. She wondered if he would ever get over it. But it didn't look like it would be anytime soon.

~~~

Hahaha well this was all over the place

Well so is Ratchet's processor right now so I guess it's a little fitting.

Anyway, this is an alternate ending, not the one I was thinking of that would have led to the sequel, but an alternate ending nonetheless.

Hope you enjoyed.

Or died of feels

One of the two.

-BP