[Scene: An abandoned barn-turned-hideout. The walls are reinforced with whatever scrap metal the team could find. Outside, rain lashes the earth. Inside, tension and silence linger like a storm waiting to break.]

Ratchet sat hunched over a metal table, silent, hands trembling as he clutched one of Wheeljack’s tools—still stained with energon. His optics, usually sharp and calculating, were red-rimmed and unfocused.

Optimus: (quietly) “I was supposed to get him out… I gave the order. And now Wheeljack is… he’s in that place because of me.”

Ratchet: (voice cracked, low) “You told him to go. And he listened because he trusted you.”

Optimus: (turns, guilt etched in every line of his frame) “I know. I thought we had more time. I thought the intel was solid. I—” (pause) “I failed him.” …”

Ratchet: (suddenly slamming the tool on the table) “He could be dead, Jazz! Do you understand that?! Slaughterhouses don’t keep prisoners—they process them!”

Jazz: (quiet, walking toward him) “I know, old friend… I know.”

Ratchet: (voice breaking now, optics darting) “I told him not to go on that mission. I told him! And he just smiled at me like he always does, said, ‘Don’t worry, Ratch, I’ll be back in a flash.’ Like it was nothing. Like I wasn’t about to lose him.”

Optimus: (barely a whisper) “I’m so sorry…”

Ratchet: (snaps, standing abruptly) “Sorry won’t bring him back! Sorry won’t erase the image in my head of Wheeljack on a cold slab, carved open like some… thing!”

Jazz: (moves fast and pulls Ratchet into a tight embrace) “Shhh. Ratch. You gotta breathe, mech. I got you.”

Ratchet: (shaking, broken) “I can’t lose him… I can’t… not again… not after everything we’ve survived. He’s all I have…”

Jazz: (resting his helm against Ratchet’s, voice low and steady) “He’s not gone. We don’t stop until we get him back, got it? You hear me? We don’t stop. And if it means tearing down that whole damn farm and every building in it—we do it together.”