@earthsprime
Following his encounter with Starscream and that human girl, the one who knew just a little too much about the Autobots and Decepticons, Ratchet had very wearily faced the realization that the only way to get the answers he was looking for around here would be to hunt them down himself. The organics in Old Yesteryear were at least somewhat helpful in that regard, meaning that if a very large robot grilled them very intently on the location of any similar-looking beings they did tend to give him approximate directions as far as which way the other had wandered off towards.
Was that really so difficult? The so-called Magician could afford to take a few notes on how to foster proper communication ( he's never had so many of his questions deflected in such a short timeframe before ). It takes a couple of stops, a few more interrogations, and a bit of driving around lost amongst the streets and back and forth across various bridges before he finally catches up to at least one of the other supposed resident Cybertronians.
And the thing is, Ratchet had already briefly entertained the thought that perhaps he was dead.
Last they had seen of Starscream, the jet had flown off somewhere into the ruins of Cybertron, never to be found. For him to have appeared here, with no realistic means of arriving... well, frankly, the only wrench in the theory is that last Ratchet checked he was still very much alive.
Now, though? He's not so sure again. The dead are standing right in front of him.
"Optimus?" It can't be anyone else, no one else has a frame quite like that, and even if he looked different - even if his own optics weren't functioning in the slightest - Ratchet has to figure he would have recognized him all the same. Impossible not to, after all this time ( and all the additional time spent running through his memories of the last time he had seen him ). But it can't be him, either, because - because it can't be him. "But... how?"
