Ep. 0.5 - Intervention - Closed

They'd all had a long talk before calling Shadow in. Recapping what they knew and didn't know, what precautions needed to be taken to make sure they didn't do anymore damage while trying to help her. One thing that Jazz had been concerned about was how she was seeing them. Did she see any of them the same way she'd seen Labyrinth? As someone absolutely not to be refused anything, no matter how small?

No matter if it was a question as seemingly beneficial as "do you want to join our cohort?"

Jazz had suggested taking it slow, getting a feel for how she felt about them first, not pushing.

Then Shadow had fallen apart (as he'd feared she might, given what he'd rightfully suspected were her terribly warped ideas of what a cohort should be), and Ironhide had been Ironhide....

Or we could do that, Jazz thought, watching as Hide and Blue wrapped Shadow in their arms and all but imprinted their collective cohort frequency on her spark. Whatever works.

And it WAS working. Painful as it was to watch Shadow so upset, he couldn't miss how she'd calmed under the press of Ironhide's ironclad certainty. Worked so well that Jazz was a bit leery of even approaching. This was twice that he'd tried to talk to Shadow with the most tact he could muster and it'd ended up with her upset, afraid, and confused. He'd thought about letting them calm her even more, slip away and try this again some other time, but then she'd looked at him, calmer but still afraid, as if she expected him to be angry with her.

It's something about being CO. Ironhide slipped under that somehow, Blue is more an equal, but I tripped her CO filter. Does she expect me to be the disciplinarian here, enforcing the rules Labyrinth beat into her? Of course she does. She's got it in her head that those rules are universal, that we should hate her for even...frag.

Never let it be said that Jazz couldn't change directions in the face of evidence. There certainly weren't many ways he could frighten her more than he was right now.

Aw, frag it. What Would Ironhide Do?-mode, go.

There wasn't much of Shadow not covered by protectively flared plating or Bluestreak, but Jazz rose up on his knees, leaning into the tangle of limbs to press his helm to Shadow's. Cohort, he sent, dropping every authority modifier he could and instead using the inclusive cohort-equality modifiers. Connection-support-affection-care-inclusion-protection.

He opened up his field wide, letting her feel his worry and sincerity. "M'not mad at you, Shadow. I'm not here to punish you at all. S'last thing I want. We're different than your old cohort, and by our rules you've done nothin' wrong. Remember when I said I wanted you to be happy? I DO. You're important to 'Hide and Blue and we ALL want you to be happy. We want you here, and if you want us back, then that's all we need. You don't need to do anything else...you just have to ask. That's all."