If this is absolution, Arcee's not quite sure she's ready for it. She doesn't quite know how to react to so genuine and warm -- for Optimus, anyway -- a relief from her duties, and she buckles under it, her optics dimming. She's not sure what to say to that, in what context to take his words. There could be layers and layers of meaning, or there could be very little to it at all.
Things were supposed to be easier once Optimus came back.
"Thank you," she says, and she does mean it. "It's...good to have you back, sir."
She means that too, but differently. It's too hard to sort out all the tangled tendrils of feeling about Optimus and Orion and who she'd missed more, who and what she misses now and why. It's not for here or now. There are more important things to worry about, she tells herself. That's an armor, in and of itself.
"Now that you're back," she says then, although the choice of words doesn't seem quite right, but she straightens up again, military discipline always an easy fallback, "maybe you can debrief us on what happened with Unicron." Orion hadn't known anything about it, and getting the Matrix back had seemed a bigger concern at the time.
OH NO THAT ICON
Things were supposed to be easier once Optimus came back.
"Thank you," she says, and she does mean it. "It's...good to have you back, sir."
She means that too, but differently. It's too hard to sort out all the tangled tendrils of feeling about Optimus and Orion and who she'd missed more, who and what she misses now and why. It's not for here or now. There are more important things to worry about, she tells herself. That's an armor, in and of itself.
"Now that you're back," she says then, although the choice of words doesn't seem quite right, but she straightens up again, military discipline always an easy fallback, "maybe you can debrief us on what happened with Unicron." Orion hadn't known anything about it, and getting the Matrix back had seemed a bigger concern at the time.