Drift stares back up at him helplessly, at a loss for what to do with Ratchet's quiet reassurances, the hands clasped warm around his own, and his spark falters in his chest, air hitching in his vents. He doesn't know what it means that Ratchet's looking at him like that and he's not on his deathbed.

He doesn't need to wait for the memories to come back to him, because they're already there -- the sickening tangled mess of shame and defeat and terror and anger on behalf of everyone else that Tarn had left with him is still there, has been all along, hadn't gone anywhere while Drift had been unconscious. It knots low in his tanks, settling in and dragging his spark down with it. Drift can still feel where Tarn had etched the brand into his plating even if he can't see it, a weight pressing down hard on his chest.

Drift shifts his hand in Ratchet's grip, palm-to-palm, tries to thread shaking fingers with Ratchet's, his thumb pressed to Ratchet's wrist. He doesn't know if Ratchet's chirolingual, it's never come up, but he has no voice, no other way to speak. Drift swallows and it burns, but his optics are still fixed on Ratchet's face as he presses in to stimulate the nervecircuits in Ratchet's hand.

How long?