Pantora's eyes browsed the pictures on the shelf. Cheetor's old war relics. One of Blackarachnia, she noticed...at least, she thought. It looked old; she looked strange, but it was her. A picture of Optimus with Cheetor, when he was younger. Beast Wars time, blue sky. Planet Earth, and the sights she was only starting to get used to. She lifted the photo, meeting Cheetor's gaze.
"You were cute."
He looked a little embarrassed. "Gee..." "Still are."
He'd somehow expected that.
Pantora's optics drifted sideways a little, to another image, somewhat newer. The commander looked more like himself, as he looked today. Happy, in the photograph. And with another female: feline, female. Touchy subject, but Pantora was never able to resist curious questions. "Tell me about her."
"No. That's all right. You don't wanna..."
"Was she your first love?"
Cheetor laughed. "No, not hardly. But she, Tygress... she was... special." He laughed again, somewhat fondly. "She and Daybreak used to fight over me."
"Really?" Even Pantora suspected exaggeration.
"Different times. Nothing like that, now." Now that he was thinking about it, it came easily enough, as if it was only a story he was remembering instead of events that had actually happened. "She was Predacon originally, believe it or not. Switched to Maximal for the benefits. She handled security systems on the ship, before the Preds shot us down at V4." He looked a little sad for a moment, as he realized that the story, however distant, was real. "Rough couple of solars." He gestured to another picture, a crystal-green Maximal with grey-white wings. "The other's Moondust."
"And I suppose SHE had a crush on you, too?" Pantora teased, lounging and stretching, cat-like, on Cheetor's cot.
"No. She tagged on for different reasons. Matrix reasons." He shook his head. "She was CONVINCED I was Hot Rod. If I had to hear 'light our darkest hour...'"
"Seriously?" Pantora looked a little aback. "Are you?"
"I don't THINK so."
"I met him."
"You WHAT?"
"I...err... Saw him." Pantora remember the casket at Iacon, and the body, still, ruined by time, large, but, somehow, so small. "He's... dead, of course."
"Right."
Pantora's gazed drifted back to the shelf, then down. "And now, Edge, too. Your old crew... You miss them?"
"A little. Espec—" He stopped, interrupted himself. "BUT, we've brought Klatuu and Miriam on-line, and they've been welcome additions."
Pantora rolled her eyes. "Never know WHAT you're going to get from a stasis pod."
"Hey, watch it now." Cheetor said, half-teasingly. "Those are my troops you're insulting."
A laugh. "I know."
"Hard sometimes to get them to fall in line." He sighed. "Oh, well. No time for lack of confidence. Duty awaits."