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Some time after the war, Skyfire opened an orphanage and free daycare center for any and all kids who needed it. It's all free, funded by donations and whatever Skyfire earned from his participation in the war. Any and all children, no matter the frame, alignment, or origin, he will welcome them all with open arms.
Skyfire himself may have birthed some bitlets of his own, finally. Or maybe he never did. Maybe he never forgave himself for what happened, or the pain just never went away, or he never got himself to.
Whatever the reason, he resigned himself to only caring for the children of others, and the children without anywhere else to go, and decided that that would have to be enough.
He opened his home and his spark, and welcomed in the first batch of sparklings with a smile as achingly empty as his frame.
Speed forward a few centuries.
The first generation has grown enough to graduate from his care. He hosts a farewell party with shamefully hidden tears and a proud grin for these bright new younglings. At the end, after they pose for a group photo, he asks for one last hug goodbye before they go.
One of them, as he holds them, whispers in his audial, “Thank you for everything, Carrier.” They give him one last smile before going to join all the rest.
He is left standing there on the threshold of his daycare. The sky is getting dark. A chill settles in the air, but it doesn't touch him. Once more, he is alone. Once more, he could do nothing but watch as his children went away.
But somehow, he doesn't feel so cold anymore.
The moon is high in the sky when he finally moves, locking the door behind him and making his way to his quarters in the dark. He sits on the berth, but doesn't lay down just yet. Instead, he looks at the crystal dome on his nightstand, and stares for a while.
There, suspended in preserving liquid within the hollow crystal, is a little grey egg. His egg.
His baby, whom he'd failed, and had died in his arms before they could even hatch and see the world. The only one left to him now, out of the dozen of his clutch.
He picks it up gently, cradling it with both hands, and holds it to his chest. His spark strains, reaching for something that isn't there anymore. Just like it always did, when he tortured himself like this.
He scoffs. Pathetic.
...maybe Starscream was right…
He stays like that for the rest of the night until it starts getting lighter outside. Just sitting there, holding the crystal, rocking slowly back and forth, his engines humming a steady, useless purr— as if to lull an infant to sleep, or perhaps just to comfort himself.
When he finally moves, it’s to reach into his subspace and take something out to put on the nightstand beside the dome. It's a small recorder, and when he activates it, it projects an image of a shuttle surrounded by smiling younglings.
It is the image they captured earlier, the group picture of the first batch of sparklings to have entered his care.
He thought back to that youngling’s words, whispered shyly with a smile.
Carrier... he closed his optics. Thank you… Carrier…
His smile is hollow, but it comes easier than before.
Speed forward a few thousand years.
Skyfire is known far and wide across Cybertron for his generosity and endless well of care. So known is he by his kindness, it is even said by some that the divine light of the Allspark itself shone through his soft blue eyes.
By now, countless sparklings have entered his care, and countless younglings have left it, grown and hale.
Although he never birthed any of them himself, he had raised whole generations of needy children, and will continue to raise whole generations more.
He may not be Creator to any bitlet, but no small number of young adults and sparklings both now call him “Carrier”, with carefree smiles on their faces and unconditional affection in their sparks.
It is enough.
He no longer feels the cold, even when he's alone, knowing he's brought warmth into the lives of so many bitlets out there.
He no longer has to fake a smile, knowing his world now thrived, home to carefree sparklings who frolicked and laughed and smiled so openly, free from the shadows of oppression and war.
And he had a hand in that. He helped to make this world safe for them. He helped make them smile.
He feels it every time a child comes to him freely with a question or a concern, and skips away later to continue playing with a grin, reassured. He feels it every time a former charge of his passes him by on the street and stops to greet him, taking the time out of their day to ask how he's been and what he's up to. He feels it every time familiar young mechs knock on his door with a smile and a pastry, a tea blend, a simple but personal little present, visiting for a while or briefly, simply missing their Carrier. He feels it when a femme hands him a hand-written envelope with a nervous grin; an invitation to a Conjugal Binding Ceremony, from a bashful femme to the Carrier she wants to grant the honor of handing her down to her bride.
Skyfire is content.
Speed forward. The Seeker Purge.
Skyfire is flying, fleeing, pushing his engine as far as they could go, even as his frame starts steaming and overheating.
His home is far behind him now, reduced to smouldering debris. He'd just barely managed to gather up all the little ones and take off before they broke down the door and set fire to his home. His home. His sanctuary, his sparklings’ haven.
His home, where his egg was left behind, still on the table beside his bed, right where he always left it. He didn't have time to take it with him, and now it was gone. It was all gone. His baby is gone.
Again. And it was all his fault. Again.
Something whizzed from below, and he banks, letting a harpoon shoot past, the three following projectiles widely missing his broad frame as he twirled sharply to the left.
No, it doesn't matter now. He can't afford to linger in the past, all of him must be here, right now. All that matters are the living bitlets in his hold, scared and defenseless, completely dependent on him to keep them safe. All that matters is getting them to safety. He has to get them out of there.
He must carry them.
Inside him, he can feel them. Huddling together in his carrying hold, shaking. They are afraid. His sparklings are afraid.
Behind him, he can hear them. The sound of gunshots and bloodthirsty hollers, and the smell of plasma and gunpowder, fills the air. The so-called Hunters, glorified murderers who mindlessly slaughter any and all flightframes they come across. Stuck to the ground as they are, they are fast, and they have weapons; even if Skyfire still has any on his frame, he can't afford to turn around and retaliate.
He has to get away. He has to get them away.
He spins through the air, spiraling forward, neatly dodging an explosive round, which arcs down, turning into a massive fireball on the rocky ground far below.
The sparklings scream in his hold at the sudden maneuver, and Skyfire shudders, platings bristling in indignation at the little ones’ distress. He really wishes he could comfort them. To gently rock them, cradled in the safest place on his frame, and sing to them a lullaby.
But he can't right now. He can't and he hates it. His carrier hold must be uncomfortably warm by now, what with his overtaxed engine, and he can't just stop weaving around the hail of ammunition raining up at him. The best he can do is hum and murmur reassurances, but he's not even sure how audible any of it is, what with the explosions all around and his frame screaming through the air.
Skyfire growls. He couldn't think of anything he hated more in his life.
No matter. He just has to keep flying. Keep going. Just a little more, and they'll reach safety. Just a little more, and the bitlets can have all the comforts they need.
Just a little— *BANG!*
NO!
Skyfire screams, spiralling uncontrollably downwards. White flashes before his eyes.
He curses.
An armor-piercing bullet, specifically made to get through Carrier armor. Only recently invented for this demented mech-hunt. It had clipped his left wing, sending him spinning uncontrollably. Thankfully not an explosive round, otherwise he might have been grounded for good.
He tries to regain control, but the world turns hazy, and an insidious numbness is setting into his extremities.
“No…”
Cold seeps in.
“NO!”
He shuts of his optical sensors, steels himself, and wrenches his nose up, shakily and violently righting his trajectory—
Just as another bullet punches a hole through his right wing, sending him spiralling down once more.
He screams.
Through hazy sensors, he sees it; a snowy mountain right in front of him. His destination, the safe haven. The local Seekers have set up a base within the mountain itself, utilizing the cliffs and higher ground to their advantage. These havens were set up all around the planet by the Seekers when the purge started, for fellow flightframes to hide away in until transport arrives to get them off the planet and to one of the many hidden Seeker colonies across the galaxy.
All he has to do is get there. That's all he has to do. Just a few hundred feet left, and he'll make it. His sparklings will be safe. His sparklings…
His thrusters sputter. He manages to right himself out of the spiral somehow, but he wobbles in the air now with two damaged wings. He's dropped too low already. He'll never make it. Either he smashes flat against the mountain wall, or he crashes to the ground, and he’ll be helpless but to watch as the bitlets are wrenched from his carrier hold— watch as his babies are stolen again, taken away from him please, not again, thrown to the cold no no nonono—, icy ground and— and—
NO!
No. This can't be. This can't be how it ends.
Not again.
Not again.
Not again.
With a gut-wrenching roar, Skyfire pushes his frame even further, past the limit, past the point of no return.
Slowly, painfully, he rose.
Higher, higher, inching ever painfully slow up to that ledge.
Closer now, just a little more. Distantly, Skyfire feels something within him pop, sputter, and buckle out of place. He pushes himself even further. Something is smoking, dark puffs escaping through his seams into the clouds all around. Closer. Red warnings almost blind him as they pop up in his vision almost quicker than he can mindlessly dismiss them. Just a little more.
Just when he sees the landing pad— *BOOM!*
He blacks out.
When Skyfire comes to, he doesn't know how long it's been. A few seconds? Days? Years? He doesn't know. His optics are glitching, all he sees is static. His frame is simultaneously numb and in pain, and he can't feel his wings.
His carrier hold—
Empty.
Skyfire jolts. Although unable to move his frame, the burst of panic gives him just enough energy to get his optics online.
What he sees makes all the fight drain out of his frame.
The landing pad, he—
He made it.
Skyfire can feel the tears pooling in his optics. Then he sees his sparklings right in front of him, and the tears overflow.
There they were, all twelve of his little ones, a bit jostled up but none the worse for wear. They were still huddled together, but not so tightly now that they were safe and out of his hold.
Around them stood three familiar flightframes, some of the oldest he'd raised, two of them having been among those who kept in touch and still called him “Carrier” even after all these years.
These are people he can trust. They can look after the bitlets. They can protect them.
Skyfire, now completely numb, smiles.
They're speaking, he belatedly realizes, they were saying something, although Skyfire can't quite make out exactly what.
Oh dear me, how rude. My apologies, dear children.
Skyfire can do nothing but watch, unable to move his frame to so much as lift a servo.
He doesn't need to. He watches as his little ones, big and small, move closer to where he could see them better. His bitlets. His babies are… they are…
They are crying.
“Carrier,” they are calling him, he realizes. They are calling him, begging for… something.
A sigh wheezes out of his smoking vents, involuntary. It feels ominously final.
He realizes he's drifted off some, refocusing his vision, though with much more effort now.
They were sobbing, his bitlets. Oh no, don’t cry.
“... my… little ones— kkkkrrrrshhhh...—” he tries to comfort them, only managing a pathetic, barely audible whisper from his vocalizer before it sputters out, drowning the rest of his words in harsh static.
Still, they hear him, and cuddle closer to him, trying their best to wrap tiny arms around as much of him as they can..
He tries to smile. He can't feel his frame.
He tries to feel them against him, but he feels mostly numb.
The cold is setting in. Snow is slowly drifting down from the sky, but he knew that cold, and this is not that. This feels… different, somehow. His attention is stolen by a pressure around his servo.
It’s Sunstream, a bright, speedy little thing. She is hugging his digits, small enough to sit in his massive palm. A palm that is beginning to turn grey.
Another bitlet joins her, grasping at his pinky finger. Cloudweaver, a stocky young shuttle with a penchant for music, gentle yet reserved, usually preferring his own space to the company of others.
And yet another joins in, looking up at him with big watery optics— and another, huddling closer, and another, wrapping around their batchmates when there's no more space on his servo to grasp. Outcry, with a mind as sharp as her clever tongue, already showing the signs of a leader. Stormwake, an assertive little healer-to-be, always worrying about everyone around him. Laughtrack, a mischievous prankster, friend to many.
“My babies.”
He knew them. They are his bitlets. They are his.
He pours all his focus on that one servo, and finally, he can feel them.
They're warm.
“My babies…”
They're alive.
“My…”
They're okay.
“...”
The children watch as the light fades from his optics, and the gentlest blue turns grey.
They cried. They wailed, they sobbed, they begged. They held each other, held on to his frame, mourning the loss of a mother.
It's a meager comfort, but at least he went with a smile.
Little Outcry walked up to his faceplate, kind and comforting even in the cold grey of death, and leaned her helm against his.
He was their Carrier. He kept them safe. He kept them warm until the very end.
They will never forget him.