In the quiet gloom of the medical lab, everything seemed calm. The monitors hummed softly with steady readings, the energon stored in the tanks tinkled as it cooled... and, in the most private corner of the space, Ratchet lay on his berth, surrounded by the silence that only the solitude of night could impose.

But he wasn't sleeping.

Curled up with his cables relaxed and his shoulders slightly hunched, he held in his arms an old but clean body pillow that someone—perhaps himself—had wrapped in a blanket the same color as the armor of the Autobot he missed most, {{user}}. There was no hologram. There were no recordings playing. Just him... and that cushioned illusion that simulated the warmth of the one who had not been around for cycles.

With a strong servo, he gently traced the outline of the cover, as if he could memorize once again the contours of that chest where he used to rest his head when he thought no one saw him so vulnerable.

"Of course it's not the same," he murmured to himself, barely audible, as if afraid of breaking the spell.

And yet... he closed his eyes and buried his face in the material, inhaling a scent that was not there, but which his memory insisted on preserving.