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[tenthtimeisthecharm]

There is a brief pause filled with audible clicks and thuds, followed by the slightly echoey acoustics that come from someone recording audio in a large room. "Hello hello! You've reached Dr. Velocity! Feel free to leave a message or a video or whatever here, and I'll do my very best to respond promptly! And if it this is about the stickers, Ratchet, I didn't do it! Love and love and love!"

text | voice | video | action

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[unapprovedtrash]

[ It's been a few days since the whole... volcano thing. Cal's gotten himself mostly patched up, though he still has to poke his heavily bandaged ear every so often to make sure it's Still there. After sleeping for like... twenty hours... there's something else that's been bothering him aside from the holes. He frowns and stares at his communicator for a moment before reaching over and tapping out a message. ]

Hi Velocity! This is Cal, we just met before the whole volcano thing. I was wondering if you had a minute or two to talk?

[tenthtimeisthecharm]

[Velocity winced and felt guilty all over again when her datapad chimed an alert, thinking it was Ratchet. She still felt all tangled up in the emotions she'd felt a few days ago, as if we're still happening right this minute, and the idea of talking to Ratchet after she'd shot him like that... it was too much.]

[Still, she couldn't leave him thinking she was ignoring him, so after waffling over it for a few minutes Velocity pulled over her datapad and was surprised to see that it was from Cal, instead. She stared down at where she'd curled around it, before finally dictating a response]

"Hi, Cal! I, um-" [She hesitated, wincing at the idea of leaving her room at all, then took a deep breath and deleted all of what had been dictated before starting over] "Hi! We can talk, absolutely no problem at all ever! Do you want to meet in person, or a video call, or, um..." [Another pause to look around at the untidy stack of untouched energon around her berth, then deleted the last sentence] "How about we meet in person at the observation deck?"

[She hit send before she could think better of it, turned, and buried her face in her pillow with a groan]

[unapprovedtrash]

Cal frowns at the datapad. Obviously he can't force anyone to respond or accept help or anything. But he is genuinely a little worried. But like, you know, he sent a text so she could reply at leisure, he can't expect an immediate response. So he focuses on something else, some light stretches and thinking about how to approach this whole thing.

The battle in the lava field went to chaos a little quicker then he'd have imagined but he saw what happened, and there are only so many explanations for it. It's something he's trained to resist. He's not sure how different a robotic brain is from an organic one so he's not sure how much he can...

Oh! She responded.

Sounds perfect! How about I meet you there in an hour?

[tenthtimeisthecharm]

Soubds wonderful and good! Meet you there!

[A little before an hour later (okay, she's been there since half an hour or more ago) she is standing in the observation deck, fidgeting her fingers into tangles and pacing around. Ratchet or another Cybertronian who knew what to look for would've been able to tell at a glance that she hasn't been refueling or recharging properly, but she was willing to bet that Cal, at least, wouldn't know what to look for. She just... has had trouble bringing herself to care about either of those things when she's been in such turmoil]

[She looks up at movement by the door and smiles, which is only half forced. She does like Cal, he seemed nice enough and had saved her life while out in the lava fields which was well worth a smile and the effort to meet him here today, it's just hard]

Oh, there you are! Hi! Thank you for inviting me, it's been a while since I've um. I don't know... walked around? [She lets out a wavering sort of laugh and sits down so she's closer to his height] Hi! Oh. Oh, I said that already...

[unapprovedtrash]

[ Cal may not be an expert on Cybertonian physiology but he does have eyes, and he can see she's been having a rough time. ]

Hey Velocity! [ He laughs a little, trying to put her at ease. ] And thank you for agreeing to meet me, I've actually been wanting to talk to you since the whole, you know. But I kind of took like a three day nap after all that...

[ There's a small droid on his shoulder who interrupts with a few beeps and a waggle of his antenna. ]

Oh sorry, this is my friend, BD-1. He kind of goes everywhere with me. Except active volcanos.

[tenthtimeisthecharm]

[Velocity did in fact relax a little when he laughed, although there is still a long way to go to ease the tension in her frame]

That's okay! I think we all needed a little time, you know? Maybe a lot of time. Or more than a lot, a whole heaping pile of time.

[She laughs a little to herself, the. gives a start when she is introduced to, and notices, BD-1]

Oh! Oh, hello! [She leans in closer to smile shakily at BD-1] Aren't you beautiful? You remind me of home, a bit, there were a few minicons running around who were just a bit bigger than you are. I'm so glad to meet a friend of Cal's!

[She glances back at Cal, somewhat uncertain but trying to keep her smile up] Um. What did you want to talk about? I'm an open book, you know? Anything you want to know I'm happy to talk about!