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All of Cybertron seemed to be speaking at once, white noise dancing like static over Arcee's last functioning nerve. Her hands twitched for a weapon-- a blade, a blaster, anything at all that she could use. But, of course, no weapon would serve her here, now.
Her hands twitched again in spite of the thought and Greenlight caught one of them in one of her own, a better fit than any weapon ever had been. Maybe, Arcee thought, this was what she had been twitching for after all. She returned the grip and turned to find Greenlight smiling at her. Arcee felt herself relax but couldn't dredge up a smile of her own.
"It's alright to be nervous," Greenlight said, the murmur somehow cutting through the incessant background noise of the crowd. Her smile faltered and Arcee could see the flicker of a shadow beyond the love shining in the light of her optics. She hadn't known Brainstorm well but she had known him and the shock of his death-- his murder-- ran deep regardless. "Especially now."
"There was supposed to be more time," Arcee said, the words heavy with the topic she was speaking around. "I didn't expect--"
"Who did?" Greenlight's grip grew tighter, her face haunted. "Who could have?" She shook it off a moment later, leaning to press her forehead to Arcee's and reaching for Acree's other hand. If Arcee had been any less familiar with Greenlight's touch, she didn't think she'd have noticed the tremble. "But we're here now, one way or another. And soon," she tipped her head, and Arcee's with her, towards the platform at the base of the Pyramid, "she'll be here too." In a passable imitation of Proxima, she added, "'It always seems too soon until you've met them-- that's when you realize you couldn't have known them soon enough.'"
Arcee managed a dry huff of a laugh. "I've read the book, Greenlight." She shifted their grip so that she could hide her own tremors between Greenlight's fingers. "Which means I also read the part that says no plan survives first contact with the-- with your new ward." She nuzzled Greenlight and drew back to look at the stage. Orion Pax had raised his hands for attention so that he could begin his speech. It wouldn't be long now for their cue. "I don't understand how you're so calm."
She looked back in time to see Greenlight startle, as if nervousness hadn't occurred to her. "Well, I suppose it's because you're the newly assigned mentor here, not me-- I'm just here for moral support."
"What." Another laugh, this one higher than the last, found its way out of Arcee's vocalizer. "Greenlight, you're going to be as much of a mentor as I am."
The light of Greenlight's optics went pale and when she squeezed Arcee's hands again, she didn't seem to be offering comfort so much as asking for it. "I-- I suppose I didn't think about it that way--"
"We talked about this before I even applied."
"Yes, we-- but I just-- it--" Greenlight reset her vocalizer with an audible click and looked towards the still sealed door of the Pyramid with an almost desperate air. "It completely slipped my mind, I think. Like the memory file got buried under the-- all the excitement. You were the one whose application was selected, you were the one who got the call--"
"As if who I had beside me as a co-mentor didn't make any difference to my being accepted," said Arcee. She could feel a smile growing now as her spark danced in her chamber, spreading warmth throughout her frame. Greenlight's expression seemed to dance too; Arcee watched with no small fascination as Greenlight sped through what she suspected was every emotion she herself had felt since she'd been notified of her assignment.
Not for the first time in the last two kilocycles-- or even the last cycle, come to that-- Arcee found herself falling in love with her all over again.
"I'm going to be a mentor," Greenlight said as if in a daze. She turned that desperate look back on Arcee now. "Arcee, I'm about to be a mentor."
Arcee laughed, leaning back in to press their foreheads together again. A thought about the timing tickled her processor but she pushed it away, cast the light of the occasion against the shadow of the reason for it. Her new ward-- their new ward-- deserved a better welcome than that. She said, "We're about to be mentors."
Greenlight's expression smoothed back into a smile of her own, though her trembling was rather more obvious. "Together."
"As always," said Arcee, expression softening. She tugged on their joined hands and then shook them loose so that she could hold Greenlight close with a grip on her shoulders instead.
Hands falling to Arcee's waist, Greenlight nuzzled along Arcee's jaw to her audial and added, "As we were meant to be."
For a moment, they might as well have been the only two living beings on the planet. Then Orion Pax, booming and warm, announced them-- announced Arcee, at any rate, which was as good as announcing them both.
With a parting brush of lips, they separated and Arcee saw all of her own feelings, from her fear to her wonder, reflected in Greenlight's face. They joined hands again, intertwined fingers squeezing tight. Their plating sang as excitement made it shudder in rippling waves against their protoforms.
"That's us," Arcee said, laughing at herself as she did.
Grinning, Greenlight nudged her shoulder against Arcee's, urging her towards the stage. "Then let's go," she said. "Remember what Proxima says--"
"We can't meet her soon enough," said Arcee. She shook herself sharply and strode forward, tugging Greenlight along-- not that she needed to be tugged, really. Not once she saw-- and Arcee knew from her grip the minute she saw-- a lone little figure silhouetted by the light pouring now from the Pyramid doors. "Ready or not."