Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is a giant blue furry beast staring down at Keith. It is not exactly how he thought he would die.

"Good doggy," Keith whispers, "good doggy, good... horsey...."

The giant wolf snuffles into his hair and whines at him, licks his face, whines some more, and eventually Keith decides the thing isn't going to eat him. He tentatively pats its nose, and it snorts at him and then licks him again.

It isn't the strangest thing that's ever happened to him by far. He's been stuck in the astral plane for years, even if the memories of that experience are already getting fuzzy. A monster randomly appearing on the barren planet Keith materialized on is nothing.

And then the beast teleports him into the middle of the Atlas and Keith nearly throws up from the weird, unexpected movement.

Once he's recovered, he notices that Pidge and Matt are in the room with him, but they're too busy working out something on Pidge's datapad to notice him.

Keith clears his throat.

"Oh, hey, you're back," Pidge says, but there's no urgency. She immediately returns to the datapad. Matt barely even looks up.

It hurts a little. Maybe time was weird in the astral plane? Maybe he's barely been gone at all from their perspective.

And then Shiro walks into the room and Keith can't help but launch himself at the man.

He's stopped short before he can make it, Shiro keeping him very carefully at arm's length.

"You know you're not supposed to let Kosmo just teleport you onto the ship without clearance," Shiro says, a hint of reproach in his voice.

Cosmo?

"I missed you," Keith says, trying to worm his way out of Shiro's hold so he can finally just kiss the man. "I've been gone for ages from my perspective."

"You've interrupted my one free night this phoeb with Curtis."

"Who?"

"Curtis? My husband?"

Cold dread and hot shame floods into Keith's veins. Shiro has a husband. Shiro has a husband who isn't Keith.

"I'm glad you were able to move on," he says, trying to keep his voice from wobbling.

Shiro doesn't appear to understand what he's saying.

Lance comes into the room, too, then, and it's at least a distraction. He's alone, which is odd, since he and Allura are generally attached at the hip, but maybe she's taking care of some kind diplomatic Altean thing.

"Are you wearing makeup?" Lance asks. "Where's your scar?"

"What scar?" Keith asks without really thinking about it, and the Paladins around him freeze.

"What do you mean, 'what scar'?" Shiro asks, his grip turning slightly painful.

Keith has many scars, picked up from their time with the Lions and his aid work after the war officially ended. None of them should be visible while he's wearing his Blade Armor.

"I don't know which one you're talking about," Keith tries.

"The one on your face?" Lance says. Shiro narrows his eyes.

Keith does not have a scar on his face. There have been several times when he's come very close to taking a hit there, but someone (usually Shiro) had always been there to stop it.

"Something's wrong," Keith says.

Pidge comes as close to Keith as Shiro will allow, inspecting him without a lot of concern for Keith's personal space. She taps in rapidfire at some kind of readout, and it isn't exactly the way Keith would expect her to act. She'd gotten a slightly better bedside manner after the whole thing with with Matt being captured by the Druids.

Ah. Actually...

Keith turns to Pidge and says, "alternate reality" at the same time she does, and it's an enormous relief.

But yikes, he feels sorry for this universe's Keith. What had happened between them that Shiro had married someone else? Keith doesn't even know a Curtis, except for that one guy who works comms sometimes when Veronica is busy.

The others mostly disperse now that the mystery has been solved, and Keith already feels lonely. He's used to group debriefs and the near constant comradery from the others. This version of them feels cold in comparison. They must have things to do, he supposes. But don't they care about getting their own, correct Keith back?

The giant wolf thing has stayed, at least. Keith has no idea what to do with it, but given the way it keeps whining at him and nudging him, it must have some kind of connection to this universe's Keith.
Keith is just about to turn toward where he hopes his room is and maybe get some rest when he turns and realizes that Lance is still there with him.

"Hi," Keith says, unsure.

"Allura," Lance says, and then cringes at the bluntness. "Is she... I mean... is she there?"

Keith has no idea what he's asking.

"Alive," Lance says eventually. "Is she alive?"

Oh.

That explains a lot about Allura's absence, then.

"She's alive," Keith says. "She and Lance - my universe's Lance - got married a few phoebs before I got sucked into the astral plane. It was a whole big intergalactic event."

"They're still together?"

"Yeah. Lance kept calling them the universe's ultimate power couple. Allura looked just as confused about that title as I felt but she went along with it because it made you happy."

Keith's memories of his time in that astral plane are already disappearing like smoke, but he thinks maybe Allura was there. Maybe even this universe's version of Allura? He's not going to tell that to this version of Lance, though. Not until he knows more, both about the situation and how this Lance will react to the possibility that she's out there, somewhere.

"Is there somewhere I can get some rest?" Keith asks instead. "My brain feels like mush."

"Yeah, of course," Lance says. "You can take Keith's room. I mean, your room. His room?"

That's going to get confusing, isn't it?

When Lance brings him to the room, Keith wonders even more about this universe's version of him. The room is bare, and it looks hardly lived in. It reminds Keith of his quarters during his brief stint at the Blade of Marmora headquarters. There's no personality, no mementos. Just empty space.

Well, empty space and a giant wolf thing.

"What is..." Keith asks, and then trails off and just waves at it. He doesn't even know how to characterize the beast.

"What, Kosmo? Oh man, do you not have a version of Kosmo?"

"Is it Keith's?"

"Well, sort of. He disappeared for a bit and then came back two years older with this wolf following him everywhere and we never really asked. Kosmo's a good boy, though. He won't hurt you."

The story sounds completely unfamiliar. Keith wonders where the break is - what event changed the course of the experience he knows and whatever happened to this Keith?

It's too much to think about this early in the process. Keith just mostly wants to go home, and Lance seems to get it.

"I'll let you get some sleep. Tell Kosmo to find me if you need anything, okay? I don't know what your version of the Atlas looks like."

And then Keith is alone, save for the giant wolf already lying on the bed and looking at him sadly.

It's most definitely not the homecoming Keith was hoping for.