Chapter Text
Everything about integrating Mervus into his Blade work had been going mostly smoothly, so far. After that disastrous near miss on Doran, Keith had started announcing that he had a kid with him on approach. Sometimes Keith's instincts told him to leave Mervus with Kosmo on the Denebola, expecting heated negotiations, or air that wouldn't be safe for her to breathe (he'd gotten her her own custom space suit very early on, just in case, but she didn't like wearing it unless it was absolutely necessary), or something else that just made Keith feel like she'd be safer away from the action. It meant leaving Kosmo behind,which always caused Keith's own anxiety to flare up. He'd gotten used to having the wolf at his back in case anything went wrong, and suddenly that wasn't an option. It was still worth it, if it meant not leaving Mervus alone, even if Kolivan disagreed.
But it was still nice to take breaks, as well. Mervus seemed to adjust well enough to being carted around the universe, but Keith still tried to build in stops where they could both relax and where Kosmo could run around and get his energy out. So during a jaunt between the Trisona and Belldri Systems, Keith parked them on Triw's moon for a few days. Breathable air, vegetation he could forage while Mervus rode around on Kosmo's back, giggling the whole time. A nice chance to stretch their legs and not worry about diplomacy for a bit.
So Keith was a bit peeved when he tried to lay down against Kosmo's side for an indulgent little nap and was rudely awoken by someone pounding on the Denebola's door.
He really wished people would stop ambushing him like that. He had a datapad for a reason.
"Kosmo," he grumbled, still half-asleep, and the wolf obligingly poofed outside to see who their unwelcome visitor was.
It took Kosmo several minutes to return, during which time Keith got progressively more concerned that he'd gotten the wolf into more trouble than he could handle, but finally he reappeared in a shower of sparks.
There was a note tied around his neck, but what drew Keith's attention more were the two bows attached to his ears.
"What the f...." Right. Child on board. "...fudge."
Mervus looked over in confusion. "They gave him fudge?"
"No, it's..." Keith hesitated. Did the Evalüir even have a concept of 'swearing?' Besides, she'd probably heard worse with Treptor. Not that that made it okay.
"Never mind. No fudge," he settled on, finally pulling at the note at Kosmo's neck.
Ah. Well, that explained a few things.
One of them pounded on the door again. He might as well let them in before they started trying to shoot out the seal, because he knew they would. Eventually.
"Who do I have to thank for giving away my coordinates?" Keith asked in greeting as he yanked open the ship's door. Ezor immediately crashed into him, all but screaming in his ear.
"YOU HAVE A CHILD!"
"Ezor, calm down," Zethrid said from behind her. Keith was momentarily grateful, before Zethrid herself stepped up to hoist Keith into the air and shake him. "This is a better interrogation tactic," she explained.
"It was Kolivan who gave away your coordinates," Acxa said, still in the doorway, waiting politely for Keith to actually let her into his home.
Of course. Keith had eventually figured out that it was Kolivan who had spilled all the unhealthy beans to Pli about Keith's misadventures during the war. Apparently this was just the next step in Kolivan's plan to... Keith wasn't sure exactly what Kolivan's plan was.
"YOUR CHILD!" Ezor yelled again.
Keith debated lying and saying Mervus was sick or with Krolia or something, but he was pretty sure the sooner he let them examine her, the sooner they'd all go away.
And besides, Mervus wasn't doing much to hide away; she was mostly staring at them in abject confusion from across the room, which at least meant that no one had any murderous intent.
Small mercies.
"There you are!" Ezor said as she pounced on Mervus. "My name is Ezor," she explained, gentler, as she knelt down to get closer to Mervus's height, while Zethrid looked on with what Keith could only describe as 'besottedness.' "You have such beautiful hair!"
"We brought gifts!" Zethrid said, producing a large sack of toys, games, and candy like she was a Galra warlord version of Santa Claus.
Keith wondered how Krolia would feel if he told her that Lotor's former generals were better with kids than she was.
Best to just not tell her that.
"I tried to explain to them that you would have preferred a warning, but they thought you'd escape if you had advance notice," Acxa said as they both watched from the sidelines as Ezor, Zethrid, and Mervus all began to get on like a house on fire. It was probably true enough.
"Hey, are you still with Veronica?" Keith asked.
"If by 'with,' you mean..."
"Child present," Keith reminded her with a raised brow.
"Yes, Veronica and I are still together. She has begun hinting at an Earth marriage."
"Yikes. Good luck." Keith admittedly didn't know most of the McClains well, but he could imagine how extravagant one of their weddings would be.
"Thank you. But I can imagine that you had another reason for asking?"
"Can you... not tell her about Mervus?"
It wasn't that Keith cared so much about Veronica's thoughts and opinions. Keith had liked Veronica, what little he'd interacted with her. The much larger problem was that Veronica would undoubtedly tell Lance, and that just didn't sit right with Keith. Lance would either drop everything and show up, likely with the other Paladins in tow, just so he could tell Keith he was a horrible parent and whisk Mervus away. Or Lance would do absolutely nothing.
Keith wasn't sure which option would be more painful. Best to just avoid it altogether.
Acxa's face told him she was reading him as well as Mervus could, but she eventually nodded.
"No one will hear of Mervus's existence from me. I will pass on that message to those two, as well," she said, nodding toward where Zethrid was lightly tossing Mervus into the air and catching her while Ezor looked on with glee. Kosmo had several more bows in his fur.
"Thanks," Keith said. As strange as it was, he could trust these three.
"We have some gifts for you, as well," Acxa said, but before she could continue, Ezor had inserted herself between the two of them.
"Why didn't you tell me I was an aunty?" she cried, crocodile tears already on her face.
"Remember, Keith had to go through the Astoriaxkar first," Acxa said, lightly shoving Ezor away for some breathing room.
"Astoriaxkar?"
"It is the period at the beginning of Galra parentage, during which you and your child become accustomed to each other and you attack anyone who comes close," Zethrid explained. "You embrace your feral emotions to protect your kit."
Huh. Maybe that was why he'd been more pissed off about Kolivan's visit than normal. The whole adoption process had been a bit unorthodox, and while Keith called Mervus his child, she still called him "Keith" (given her former experience with parents, Keith had no desire to push for Mervus to refer to him as anything else). But maybe there were some things about this that were normal for Keith's Galra side.
"Still," Ezor said. "Hurtful, Keith."
"You'll get over it," Acxa said. "Anyway, we should give Keith his gifts before he kicks us out of the ship."
"You guys really didn't need to get me anything," Keith tried.
"Of course we did! Here," Ezor said, spinning around him and draping some kind of heavy blanket on his shoulders. The moment it fully settled, some combination of warmth and pressure squeezed into all his sore muscles, and Keith's breath punched out of his chest in surprised relief.
"That's supposed to be for new nesting mothers, but we figured you could use a bit of stress relief, too," Acxa said. Keith could only hum vaguely in response.
"Your other gift is that we're taking over your parental duties for today," Zethrid informed him. "Cleaning, making dinner, everything else. You can just go relax with your blanket while we take care of you. You are a fragile new parent, after all," she finished with a grin.
Keith didn't even have it in him to argue that he wasn't a 'fragile new parent.' Hell, maybe he was.
"How do you feel about that, Mervus?" he asked.
"I am intrigued. They are entertaining," she said. That was high praise, coming from her.
"Okay," Keith relented. "Don't set my ship on fire."
Keith wondered, as he shuffled his way down to his room to continue his nap, whether this counted as that "personal interaction and connection" bullshit Pli was talking about. And then wondered what it meant that his "peers" were former imperial warlords.
Maybe it made sense? They'd all been abandoned and hurt, in their own ways. Like attracts like, after all.
He'd worry about it when he woke up.
Little by little, Dr. Xenarien teased at the pieces of Mervus's past and experiences over the course of several sessions. Keith was present for most of them, but sometimes she (or, very rarely, Mervus herself) asked for Keith to give them some privacy. Keith's own therapy continued to be more of a punch to the face than anything else, but at least one of them was making progress. Now, in addition to Mervus blurting out Keith's emotions, or Krolia's, or those of the aliens Keith was called on to visit and assist for Marmora missions, Mervus would occasionally inform Keith of her own. It was a little stilted, and the first time Mervus sat there during dinner and said "I am content" Keith almost teared up. But it was a lot of progress.
And then one night as Keith was charting their course around an unexpected solar storm, he was suddenly shot through with debilitating terror.
Something was wrong.
Something was wrong!
Keith made his way to Mervus's room as fast as his unsteady legs would carry him. It felt like the ship was being tossed from side to side, throwing him into the walls, even though Keith had just checked all of their headings and knew their flight pattern was stable.
He crashed to the ground when he reached her room, legs too weak to support him, fear clawing at his throat. It was dark, but he could see a huge, shadowy figure at the side of her bed. He needed to get up, grab his knife, protect her, but he couldn't.
Kosmo, finally roused from his own nap, darted into the room, but then faltered, whining in confusion. Keith pointed at the shape hovering over Mervus with a raspy command to attack, but all Kosmo did was follow Keith's hand and then snap back to Keith. Could the wolf not see it somehow? Maybe it was some kind of shade, something that was invisible to animals?
There was another stab of fear, and he found himself desperately wishing his dad were here. He wanted to be wrapped in his arms and protected and...
That didn't make sense.
Why his dad? Against a weird shapeless space monster, Krolia would be a much better candidate, and someone who could feasibly appear.
Oh, fuck.
Keith thought he understood what was going on, why Kosmo couldn't see anything. There wasn't anything there to see. It wasn't his panic that was choking him...it was Mervus’s. She must have somehow projected her fear onto him, and that was new and might be a problem but in the meantime, he needed to figure out how to wake her up. That would hopefully snap her out of whatever this was.
Only he was too terrified to think straight, even knowing what the cause was.
"Bed," he managed to gasp, and Kosmo immediately took the order in the way Keith intended it, wrapping around Mervus; not close enough to touch, but close enough for Mervus to recognize him as a source of warmth and safety.
Ever-so-slowly, the all-encompassing panic faded away, and Keith slid all the way to the floor in relief.
Mervus, thankfully, seemed to have slept through the entire thing. He wasn't sure how he would have explained his fear to her.
There was a very large part of him that wanted to crawl into his own bed and hide under the covers, but that would have to wait. He needed to know what this was and be prepared in case it happened again.
But all his searches turned up absolutely nothing. Given the cultural contexts on Evae, it might be that only the empaths who felt emotions could project them like Mervus had. If that was the case, he was basically stumped.
He considered, for a brief moment, contacting Coran, who, even without the Castleship’s databases, seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of alien races. But Coran was a busy person, and probably had too many other things to take care of already, and besides, Coran would inevitably make him feel guilty about the fact that he hadn’t seen him or any of the former paladins in years.
Dr. Xenarien, then. She had said to contact her in case of emergencies, and this definitely felt like an emergency. She probably wouldn't know anything more about the mechanics of why this was happening, but she might have some tips for dealing with the aftermath.
She picked up the videocall almost immediately, clearly alert and awake despite what Keith was pretty sure was the middle of the night for her timezone.
"Is everything alright?" she asked.
The residual panic made it hard to explain, but he managed to give her a basic account of what had just happened.
"Empathic projection is, as you probably know, unheard of among the Evalüir. However, there are some races that do experience this phenomenon in more documented ways. I'll look into the research on those and ask around, and I'll send you anything that seems like it might be helpful, either for preventing or mitigating these projective events."
"Thanks," Keith said. Already, it was helping just to talk to someone who had an actual plan as opposed to aimless fear.
"How are you feeling?" she asked. "This must have been a shock."
That was one way to describe it.
"It was rough, but I'm getting there."
"Good. I think this is all the help I can offer for now, but I'll send you anything useful as soon as I find it."
They disconnected the call and Keith moved around the ship feeling like an emotionally wrung out zombie, checking things that didn't need to be checked until he felt calm enough that sleep might be possible. It still took hours, but eventually he started to fall into a half doze.
It wasn’t until he was almost asleep that he jolted up with the realization. If he was feeling Mervus’s emotions, and he had imagined wanting his father, did that mean….?