Archive of Our Own ^beta

The impetus for the mission Shiro now found himself on wasn’t obligation or duty. Nor was it pride, as some of his subordinates no doubt thought as they cast confused glances at him down the hall to the docking bay. It was definitely not him pulling rank-he could handle the occasional glare in his direction as he hopped into the shuttle pod, setting its course towards the planet several kitoquirts away (as Coran put it-it was actually 12au from the Atlas, the way Shiro measured it). The truth was, he would have been perfectly fine declining Coran’s offer to go on his newest exploratory mission to a random lifeless planet, a mission which was by now so routine that, shockingly, even Shiro didn’t always pay attention to the briefings Coran would give to the crew about the random microorganisms he intended to find on the otherwise uninhabited and uninhabitable worlds they were passing by on the Atlas’ current tour of duty.

No–the impetus was Slav. For the past seven days Slav had been pestering him about probabilities. So many probabilities, and all of them about Shiro’s gruesome and untimely death. That included deaths that made no sense. They were eighty-three point seventy-seven hundredth thirty-five thousandth percent chance of being smothered by bedsheets under 500 count kind of deaths, screamed at him in the middle of the night. They were seventy-nine point fifty-two percent chance of accidentally blasting himself in the face if he kept up alchemy training with Allura kind of deaths, while he was trying to concentrate and not do that with a giant ball of quintessence in his hands. They were thirty-two point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero ninths percent chance of being set on fire on by eating his macaroni and cheese–and having his food smacked away from him while having his favorite food be called macadoodles and cheers–kind of deaths.

If Shiro didn’t get off the Atlas, he was going to throttle the alien. The fact Slav didn’t run to him to tell him not to go with Coran was more than enough reason for him to just go, and to go before Slav started telling him how the high probability of death was on this mission due to him tripping on a rock or breathing wrong or something equally ridiculous and grating. In fact, Shiro didn’t stop holding his breath until the transport shuttle he and Coran were piloting was of a sufficient distance from the ship. No Slav popped up from behind the console; no arms grabbed him, wrapping Slav around his neck. No probabilities. No death. Even Atlas’ increasingly distant psychic vibes rippled with relief as they flew further away.

Even so, a call did come in just before they began to approach maximum speed. James’ face popped up on the holoscreen when Shiro answered, looking particularly sullen.

“Griffin?”

“Sorry, Admiral, but Slav is–”

“FORTY-SEVEN POINT TWENTY-EIGHT PERCENT!!” Slav’s body suddenly popped into view, and Shiro could feel his eye start to throb as the alien wrapped around the pilot’s shoulders. “Did you tell him!? Did you tell him what would happen if he didn’t come back to the ship right this instant?!”

“Hnnngh. Mad scientist on the rampage since you left.” James’ expression fell from sullen to existentially exasperated. Which was how Shiro felt as Slav continued to wildly coil around the MFE pilot. “He thinks you being with Coran on this expedition is going to collapse the space-time continuum due to your actions irrevocably altering it.”

Shiro could feel metal bend as his grip on his control yoke ratcheted up with each passing tick. He took a deep breath, lips pursing and cheeks puffing out as he tried to calm himself.

“Why isn’t he turning back!?” Slav’s arms began to wave all over the screen. “Why is he not responding!? Is this thing even on!? If we don’t make contact with them within the next five doboshes there’s a twenty percent chance we will end up with the molds in charge–”

“End my suffering, Admiral.” James’ voice was flat as Shiro watched him melt into ever more despair as Slav’s tail whacked him in the face. It was almost fascinating to see someone implode so visibly from Slav’s presence from the other side, he had to admit. “He won’t shut up about probabilities…”

“And it will result in the mushroom mutants created by an inexplicable obsession to overrun the Tatris 8 systems–”

“I graduated from school to get away from math…”

Shiro tried to breathe. Patience yields focus. Fight the rage.

“And then MUSHROOMS! MUSHROOMS EVERYWHERE! MUSHROOMS OF INTERMINABLE SIZE SWALLOWING UP THE STARS!”

Nope, he was losing. Shiro’s hands began to shake. He was about to snap, it was only a matter of time-

“And that’s not even getting into how much this will increase the probability that you’ll die choking on your macadoodles and cheers-”

“AAAAAAAARRRGHH!!”

That did it. He slammed a button on the side of his yoke with a shout, and the screen disappeared entirely. He gulped in air as he tried to calm himself down, tried to talk himself out of the petty murderous impulse he was feeling towards the engineer. If he didn’t calm down, he would probably end up turning back towards the Atlas, just so he could throttle Slav hard enough for him to vibrate into one of those other realities Slav was always so paranoid about.

“…Well!” Coran’s voice cut through his temper. “For a dobosh I was certain you were going to drive us into the nearest sun.”

“…Not before I drop kicked Slav off the Atlas.” Shiro let out a small huffing chuckle. “Sorry about that, Coran.”

“Nothing to apologize about!” Coran waved it off. “Unless you really do steer us into a star. Then I might ask for an apology.”

At this, the two laughed, and Shiro put the ship in autopilot for the remainder of their journey’s trajectory. He leaned back in his seat, marveling at how unchaotic the cockpit was, and how quiet the shuttle’s comms were now that he’d closed them off. The majority of the trip was blissfully uneventful; the silence was only occasionally broken when Coran pointed out an astronomical point of interest every so often. Most of them were found on Altean explorations from the days before Voltron–the Taiphon Nebula, the Belt of Caldebon, and Alor’s Old Black Hole Just Left Of Amue’s Newer Black Hole.

It was amusing and helped pass the time, when Shiro wasn’t looking out the window, marveling at the infinite stars and space that was before him, a sight that never grew old no matter how many years had passed. Admittedly, if he had one regret, it was that Coran was in the passenger seat. Not that he disliked Coran, and it was Coran’s expedition he’d piggybacked on, but there was someone else he would have liked to have accompanied instead. Someone with dark eyes and dark hair and one of the most beautiful smiles in the universe. Someone who was also busy at the moment on a humanitarian and rescue mission for the Blade of Marmora, on one of the recently liberated and interminably numerous Galra home colonies. Nothing dangerous, and nothing Keith couldn’t handle. Shiro barely even remembered the name of the colony–Zarga-something or other.

Maybe Shiro could come back here with him some other time, when he wasn’t so busy. They had all the time in the world, now, after all, Shiro reasoned. The war was over, the Voltron Coalition was going strong, and Shiro himself had a new lease on life. They could come back here together someday. He was sure of it.

Then, ten doboshes out from their target planet, the console began to beep, and Shiro’s thoughts quickly turned from Keith to the sound, and his eyes strayed from the window to the panel nearest Coran.

“Hmm.” Coran pulled his mustache, brow troubled. “That doesn’t seem right. The energy readings are indicating an unusual amount of quintessence near our landing spot.”

“And it’s increasing.” Shiro frowned as he saw the numbers on the chart start to creep up. “Are you sure this planet is uninhabited?”

“Of course! Our probes indicated this planet does not and cannot support life, and the last update was done before we embarked.” Coran’s eyes narrowed as he leaned in. “Yet the quintessence levels are still on the rise the closer we approach. Well, this certainly warrants investigation, wouldn’t you agree, Number One?”

“Looks like it.” Shiro began to steer towards their destination. “We can send for backup if necessary…!”

With that, the planet came into view, in its full glaucous glory. Yet even as their shuttle got closer, and it became clear that the planet’s surface was little more than barren rock, Shiro could see the quintessence level spike up considerably.

“How-” Another beep brought Shiro’s attention to his radar. “There’s a ship down there! Five miles from our landing site!”

“Intriguing!” Coran clapped his hands together. “I’ll start prepping for the landing!”

Shiro nodded and began manually guiding the ship towards the planet’s surface. The increase of quintessence was worrying, and the fact there was another ship there even moreso–from Shiro’s experience, that usually meant quintessence was being harvested from the area in question. Yet that made no sense because there would have been nothing to harvest, especially not on the surface. Quintessence was life, after all, and there was no life on the planet. It was practically worthless from many a point of view to do anything with such a place–unless it was terraformed, which took too much time and energy, or they mined beyond the crust and down into the mantle, which was even more time-consuming, dangerous, and nearly impossible to do without compromising the planet’s stability.

Quiznak, even the Galra Empire and their successor warlord regimes tended to steer clear from planets unable to sustain life. After all, Zarkon and Honerva had not yet been so desperate as to raid lifeless planets for their perpetual power fix by the time both had been defeated. Really, they would have more likely destroyed it, seeing it as a worthless obstacle to their goals. Yet even as Shiro suited up, and he and Coran ventured out onto the marble-like surface of the glorified hunk of rock, the readings in their helmet visors kept sounding warnings about increased quintessence levels in the area.

“I don’t understand,” Shiro finally said after the two of them had spent a good three doboshes using their rocket boosters to cross the landscape of nothing, towards the ship that was apparently also planet side with them. “These readings are impossible. How can any quintessence be gathering and increasing in power when there isn’t even an atmosphere on this world? Most of that energy should have blown away with the solar winds.”

“Well, I believe we may get our answer sooner than we think, Number One.” Coran flipped over, turning his rockets off and landing on his feet. “Over there, I have a visual of our target…”

With that, Coran pointed, and Shiro couldn’t help but stare when he saw what the ship was. At first, he felt a spike of fear, only to have the fear replaced by even more confusion at the sight he was approaching.

“A Galra scout ship?”

With a frown, Shiro looked it over when he got close enough. There was a broken drill near the port side of the ship, still glowing from use, and several bent pieces of metal and some broken quintessence canisters that couldn’t have held much were scattered in the vicinity. The back hatch was also open and completely exposed to the naked and unforgiving radiation of space. Otherwise, there was no sign of the Galra, or a sign that anything or anyone else was around.

“I’m not getting any immediate life signs.” Shiro quickly hopped into the vehicle and jogged from back to front and back again within a few ticks. “There’s no one in there!”

“Likewise, I’m getting no life readings.” Coran brought up his glove, pressing the thumb and bringing up a holographic schematic. His other fingers began flying over the interface. “But it’s clear someone was here. Let’s see if we can scan a little deeper…ah!”

A map showing a cluster of purple dots and a new set of quintessence readings began to pop up on Shiro’s visor at Coran’s exclamation. At this, Shiro smiled; now they were getting somewhere, even if the mystery was still afoot.

“Half-dozen potential Galra to our northeast, huh?” He began cracking his knuckles. “Looks like we’d better see what they’re up to.”

“Perhaps we should call for backup, then?”

“Not until we’ve got a better understanding of what’s going on here.” Shiro began to walk towards the dots at a brisk pace. “If these Galra are peaceful, I’d rather not go in there with weapons blazing.”

“Fair enough,” Coran conceded as he followed behind. “Hopefully they will be able to explain what is happening with these readings, and whether it is good or ill for this planet. Still, I’ll keep the line open to Atlas. Just in case the Galra don’t turn out to be so peaceful as we’d like.”

“Good call.” Shiro nodded, watching as the beeps started to get closer to the center of his helmet interface. “So. Shall we?”

“Shall we what, Number One?”

“Uh-” Shiro let out a small chuckle. “Right. Let’s just go check this out.”

They were silent for several more doboshes, before they finally got to where the dots seemed to have congregated. It was a small cave, its opening clearly hollowed out and widened artificially. And as they got closer, the quintessence levels shot up, barely grazing the lower levels of Shiro’s DANGER gauge. As they got to the mouth of the cave, the lines crossed over into DANGER all too worryingly easy. For a normal human, direct exposure to the levels he was seeing would be fatal within ten doboshes.

But, of course, Shiro hadn’t been all that human for some time now, so that wasn’t the worry now.

“…done it!”

It was the shouting, followed by a roar of cheers that was emanating from inside the cave, that was the real concern. It sounded angry, and gruff, and defiant, and strangest of all, oddly familiar to Shiro. Too familiar. He quickly motioned to Coran, and with a nod, he and the Altean began to make their way down.

Down a shaft, hewed out of the rock. Down a stone spiral of stairs, one that led down to what looked like a bright orb of violet energy. Shiro could feel his hackles rise as he crept down the stairs, Altean hand clenching into a tight fist. Slowly he went, step by step, as the familiar voice began to speak again.

“Six decaphoebs ago, our emperor fell at the hands of Voltron and that treacherous half-bred child who dared to succeed him!” The voice growled out amidst a cacophony of angry shouts. “Our glorious empire has been torn asunder and given to thieves and traitors! Even the great and mighty Sendak, purest of our race, has had his flame snuffed out! Now, humanity, that race of barbarians, spreads out like a plague, aiming to conquer the universe that rightfully belongs to us!”

The shouts from the others echoed through the shaft, and as Shiro got closer, he could hear fists beating on chests and boots stamping on the ground. Soon enough, he got close enough to see those responsible for the noise despite the bright light. There were six of them, all Galra, all wearing spacesuits, all gathered around the light. Five of them were standing in a semi-circle, while the one who was talking stood next to the light, shaking his fist.

“The humans think they have won! Voltron thinks they can trample on us and destroy the proud Galra race with the dupes they call allies and coalition members! But we won’t let them, will we!?”

The one who talked sounded so familiar, and even more alarm bells began ringing in Shiro’s mind to run, to flee, to make himself as small as possible. To drop down and put his hands behind his back, lest he be beaten or worse. Like back in the Arena.

The Arena. Oh no.

Garez.

For a moment, he wasn’t on an uninhabited planet as the admiral of the Atlas. No–he was back in memories taken from him, memories of his lost year that he thought he’d never regain again.  He was returned to the Arena, back into the gladiatorial pits, back in the grime and the blood of the ring, front and center in the spotlight as if he’d never left.

And there he was, up in the imperial box, looking down with greedy eyes–it was the Galra in charge of the proceedings in the complex he had been consigned to upon being captured. All throughout the time he was Champion, it had been this creature who had forced him to fight to the death, who had cheered on his brutal slaughters, who had beaten him when he didn’t perform properly. This monster, the Lieutenant Magistrate of Public Games and Imperial Entertainment, who tried to destroy him once he found how the Champion had become a symbol of hope, having spared more opponents than desired. The beast who had handed him over to the druids, to Haggar, to the knife and the bone and the flame, and then they took his arm, his body, his life, his everything, oh god the pain make it stop make it stop—

He nearly lashed out at the hand on his shoulder, only stopping when he saw the eyes. Not Galra, not enemy, not attacking. He…he wasn’t there. The Arena was gone. Zarkon was dead. He was not the Empire’s tool anymore. That was the past. The past was the past and could not return. Patience yields focus.

He began to take deep breaths to find that focus, to find that grounding. Somehow, he managed to claw his way back to the present, finding Coran holding him firmly back from the edge of the stair, brows furrowed with concern. Shiro felt himself go clammy at the realization of why. He’d almost jumped. Almost lost it, almost fell upon the Galra at the bottom of the stairs.

The Galra, who kept talking, patting something metal beneath the sphere of quintessence. Shiro inhaled one more time and steeled himself, turning towards the downward stairs. They had to get closer. They had to be careful. Coran nodded and fell back, leaning down on his knees as he crept behind Shiro.

“We have the power!” Garez continued, his voice becoming louder and more excited. “We now have the ability to correct this dishonor! Now, the six of us shall do what not even Zarkon’s witch with all her powers could do–destroy Voltron from the inside!”

The cheers that rang up made Shiro’s blood boil. His pace might have picked up just a little, and he found himself closer to the bottom of the staircase. Closer to the threat, closer to the fight. His Altean arm even began to glow in preparation for what he was certain was coming.

“We will change the course of history! We will wash away the shame and bring the Galra Empire back where it should be–in its rightful place of glory and domination!” The Lieutenant Magistrate threw up a fist. “Our actions tonight may not be known to the wider universe, but I promise you all–we will reap the effects a thousandfold when our work is done!”

From his new vantage point near the bottom of the spiral stair, Shiro could see more fully what Garez was standing next to-a massive behemoth of a quintessence harvester, a mini-Komar with its prongs fastened and digging deep into the ground of the planet. There was something else attached to the harvester-a machine that Shiro didn’t recognize, one that looked much older and much more cumbersome than the Komar did. It had buttons and dials, with the Galra number for fifteen glowing on its digital interface. The rest of what was on the console, Shiro either couldn’t see from the angle he was at, or simply didn’t know–knowledge of Galra writing wasn’t exactly programmed into his clone body, and he only knew the numbers from his time in the Arena.

The Arena. Garez. How was Garez even alive, and what was he planning? He began frantically looking over at Coran, who was bending down, whispering into his comm.

“Atlas, this is Coran, requesting backup-”

“Remember, comrades–we will have ninety doboshes to complete our mission!” It was then that Garez pressed against the older machinery, revealing a sliding panel with a glowing purple button. “Remember what is at stake! The future shall belong to us again!”

At this, Shiro finally stood up and jumped to the bottom of the stairs, landing hard on his feet. Stealth was no longer needed, he decided as his arm came to bright, cyan-coated life. Action was. Whatever this was, he needed to stop it.

“VREPIT SA!”

He’d barely taken another step before the Galra’s hand smashed onto the button. Immediately, the purple orb of quintessence reacted, transforming from bright purple to blinding white. Heat and electricity ricocheted through the cave, and as Shiro threw his hands up, the quintessence shot through him, searing him with such power that he thought he would disintegrate right then and there.

Just like in the Black Lion, when Keith had to come rescue him–only for him and everyone else to find the cockpit empty. He could remember everyone’s devastation and shock at the empty seat, their desire to try and find a replacement for someone they all thought dead. All but Keith, of course. Keith would never give up on him, even as the truth of Shiro’s disappearance threatened to shatter him to his core. Even as the clone was guided into destroying Voltron from within…

…Oh god. No.

At this, Shiro began to panic, even as he was certain death was just mere ticks away. Was this Garez’s plan, then–to kill Shiro? Did he know Shiro was there? Did he know how deep his connection to Keith was, as Honerva had? Was that why he was being killed again?

“…umber On…iro…”

Keith would never forgive himself. He was on the ship, sleeping off a Blade expedition in his bedroom, probably assuming Shiro was perfectly fine with Coran. Then, when he woke up, he would find that the Atlas hadn’t heard from them in vargas, and then Keith would try and search for him, only to find nothing of him again–

“Shiro!”

Coran’s whisper was a sharp hiss in Shiro’s ear. For a moment, Shiro turned and stared dumbly at the Altean. That shouldn’t have happened. They were both dead, and Coran wouldn’t normally use his given name. Not unless it was serious. Though, to be fair, maybe being dead was serious.

“Come on, Number One.” He felt gentle pats on his face, and a cool wind in his sweat-drenched hair. He began to blink as he remembered that one generally didn’t feel anything when they were dead–at least he didn’t when he’d been dead. “You’re all right. Up and at them, wake up! We’ve got a situation!”

Situation. Wake up. Feeling things. Blinking. Oh. Wait. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Shiro’s body relaxed, and he gulped in fresh air.

“There you are.” As Shiro came fully to, Coran grimly slapped his cheek one last time. “That certainly was a shock to the old bones, wasn’t it? I can’t say I’ve ever experienced such a thing before, not even with quintessence.”

“I…” Shiro went to his face. “Where’s my helmet?”

“Right here, along with mine.” Shiro went to reach for it, but Coran clasped his wrist, shaking his head. “It’s no good. Wherever we’ve been taken by that machine, it’s cut off our communication to Atlas.”

Shiro stared dumbly at the helmets, which were resting against a dark wall; he himself seemed to have been propped up against the wall as well while he’d been out of it. All that energy and all that bravado just to teleport, he thought as he tried to stand up. Where they’d teleported to and why were the real questions now. His hands, still gloved, brushed against the wall as he pulled himself up, and while he couldn’t directly feel the texture, he could swear it felt a lot like earthen brick.

“…I take it our other systems don’t work, either.” He looked left, then right, trying to get some understanding of the lay of the land. It was night, wherever they were, and they were surrounded by what looked like grass and sand, with the distant forms of mountains in the distance. There seemed to be a type of dim artificial light coming from beyond the building, as well as a small, barely-paved road. Somehow uncannily familiar. “…Where are the Galra?”

“They’re over there.” Coran pointed towards a mound of grass. The grass began to rustle, and Shiro’s eyes widened. “Hence why I moved you over here, so when they woke up, they wouldn’t see us-!”

Shiro didn’t need to be told twice. Immediately he moved back into the shadows as the lumbering figures of the Galra slowly emerged from the brush, one by one, until at last the unmistakable form of Garez himself popped up, eyes glowing.

“That building…there!” The Galra’s voice was just loud enough that Shiro could hear what they were saying, and his heart rate ticked up just a bit to realize he was pointing in the direction of the wall he and Coran were hiding behind. “Quickly–Larimek, the gas!”

Another Galra nodded and immediately took out a large nozzle with a quintessence cannister attached to it via a small wiry hose. With a press of the trigger, a purple gas began to fill the air, and the Galra began to wave it around, walking towards the direction of what Shiro now knew was a building. Immediately the stench of rotten eggs and patchouli began to sting Shiro’s nostrils, and a wave of dizziness threatened to overtake him as he buried his face in his hands in order to keep his coughs from reaching the ears of the enemy. Immediately Coran pulled him even further into the shadows, and just as quickly, Shiro felt the urge to cough subside.

He swallowed and nodded gratefully to the Altean as soon as he’d recovered, eyes narrowing. Building. They were pressed against a building, and if the Galra had already breached one of the entrances, chances are, there was likely another entrance he and Coran could use to try and see what the Galra were doing in…wherever they were.

“Open the door, quick!” There was a squeaking sound, followed by faint shouts that echoed from whatever chamber was within the building, through whatever entry the Galra had used to access the inside. “Hahaha, that’s right! Go to sleep, you stupid humans…!”

Humans. Shiro’s breath was knocked right out of him for a tick, and his feet began to move without him even thinking. Humans meant they were on Earth. Why were they on Earth? Voltron wasn’t here. It was halfway across the galaxy, safe in Atlas’ hold. Was Garez going to destroy Earth? But how would he do that with only six soldiers? Something about this made no sense. Shiro knew he was missing something, but quiznak if he knew what it was.

His hand grasped a doorknob, and he immediately threw it open. He was met with more gas wafting out into the open, more patchouli, more lightheadedness, more urges to cough it out. But he didn’t faint, unlike the other humanoid silhouettes that he could see up and collapse, one by one, even through the mist. Whatever the gas was, it was clearly designed to harm humans–except Shiro wasn’t all that human anymore. Gritting his teeth, he leaned into the doorframe and peered in as the gas began to dissipate, ever so slightly.

“Hurry up!” Garez began to bark orders. “Grab the humans’ gear and get dressed. You have ten doboshes to gather onto the vehicle! Move, move!”

The Galra began to scatter, running to the edges of what looked to be the atrium of the building. They began throwing open what looked and sounded like metal lockers that were scattered around the area. As two of the Galra got close enough to the back door and their intended caddies, Shiro made his move. His Altean arm shot towards the further of the duo, while his flesh arm yanked the closer one outside and right into Coran’s waiting fist. That one went down without making a peep.

“GHHK-!” The Galra grabbed by Shiro’s prosthetic was whirled around, and upon seeing Shiro, he began to panic. “Champi–”

The word was cut off by a brutal and very satisfying punch. Shiro could feel the cartilage in the Galra’s nose crack, and he let the other fall to the ground like a ragdoll. Shaking the blood off his arm, he turned to Coran, whose skin was swirling purple as he began ripping off pieces of his Galra’s armor.

“Well, I guess you heard Garez.” Shiro turned back towards the door. “Let’s grab some gear and suit up.”

With a nod, the two proceeded into the misty room and towards the lockers. As they opened the doors, Shiro’s heart stopped again.

Shiro, I’m sorry I don’t have any of your clothes, but…

He was looking at his vest and pants. Or rather, he was looking at a firefighter’s vest and pants, along with their turnout gear and biker-like day-glo helmet, hung next to a large duffel bag and an oxygen tank. On the shoulder of the turnout jacket and on the duffel bag, clear as day, was a badge, the words PRESIDIO COUNTY FARM ROAD FIRE DEPARTMENT emblazoned on it.

My dad’s uniform should fit you, now. This was his when he was alive. Back when we…

Presidio County.

…lived in Texas.

Keith had lived in a place called Presidio County, on a remote homestead near the San Antonio Canyon–the shed had been the only piece of the homestead to survive over the years. His father had been a firefighter, with his district being the whole of the road from Presidio to Candelaria on the Mexican border. It was filled with tiny, remote unincorporated townships and solitary households that dotted that sparse spread of the Rio Grande. According to Keith, his father and fellow volunteers were the only squad for some people, even when those people lived nearly 100 miles away. Indeed, this firehouse was on a remote stretch of the farm road in question, where one might not see another living being for days on end.

This, then, Shiro realized with horror and growing confusion, was the only firehouse for the people who lived in this region, and if the Galra sabotaged it, people could die. Was this their plan, Shiro pondered as he stared at the badge, his thumb stroking it. Steal the fire engine of this remote place? It was clear they had weapons and were not afraid to use them on humans. What were they intending with stealing the vehicle? Were they going to prevent fires from being extinguished in Keith’s birthplace, in order to lure Voltron back to Earth? Worse, were they going to burn the last building left of Keith’s home out of vengeful spite?

No, he…he was still missing something about this whole situation–

“Five doboshes!” Garez’s voice roared through the firehouse. “Hurry up, we don’t have all night!”

Right. Get dressed and board the vehicle. Shiro wasted no more time. There was no time for him to change out fully, like Coran had–just putting the Galra armor on top of his own spacesuit, and then the turnout gear and helmet, would have to do. The turnover boots wouldn’t fit, of course, but otherwise everything else stretched enough to fit, even going over his floating prosthesis with ease. With the added bulk of the Galra suit as an extra layer, he looked more like a proper Galra soldier if no one looked too closely.

As he slid the helmet on, he looked over at Coran, who by now was completely purple and several inches taller beneath his disguise. With a nod, the Altean opened his duffel bag, revealing the weapons of the Galra they knocked out, as well as his and Shiro’s spacesuit helmets. Of course–if they were teleported out, the two of them would likely be returned to the uninhabited planet.

With that, Coran zipped his bag closed and threw it over his shoulder. With a casual whistle, he walked briskly towards the sole engine in the firehouse and hopped onto the bumper in the back. Shiro followed, once he’d packed the oxygen tanks into his bag. He then jumped up onto the back bumper of the engine up as well, holding onto one of the handlebars as he watched the other Galra start to scramble into position. They climbed up on the side of the engine, sitting on top of the engine next to the ladder and behind the deluge gun.

“That’s right, nice and easy! We’re even ahead of schedule!” Leaning out, Shiro saw Garez opening up the driver’s seat door, nodding in approval as he put his helmet on. “Maybe we’ll even have time to find a place to get us each some of those mince steak sandwiches with the French-fried potatoes and fixings and drinks on the drive back here! Good old-fashioned Earth food, am I right? Hahaha! Good work!”

Then he took out what looked to be a pair of metal clamps, one of which he snapped onto the fire engine’s antenna. He tossed the other one into the car, where another, ungloved purple hand reached out and caught it.

“Just like we practiced, Drobek. There—there!” He snapped his fingers, clearly pleased as he turned back to the Galra present. “And here comes the fun part, troops–now that the jammer’s in place, it’s time to make a personal house call!”

The roaring cheers of excitement made Shiro sick to his stomach, but he knew he couldn’t be seen as hesitating. He forced himself to let out some whoops and hollers along with the rest of the group as Garez hopped into the cab, slamming the door behind him and starting the engine up. Immediately, the tires floated upwards, the magnets beneath the engine levitating the entire vehicle off the ground. At the same time, the firehouse’s garage door opened, and slowly the engine drove out onto the dusty road, horn beeping twice as if in arrogance on Garez’s part. Of course–as far as Garez knew, no one could stop him from whatever he was trying to do. No one on Earth even knew he was there.

Shiro held on in silence as the engine drove through the night and the desert cold, the darkness only punctuated by the rare car passing by. The cars that did pass by looked…off. Not wrong, but off. They looked less streamlined than the usual models did, more vintage than they should have. There had to be a reason why Shiro was making such an observation, but the only conclusion he could draw was that it was desert country, and when people bought automobiles, they bought them to last. Indeed, Keith mentioned how his father had a truck that had belonged to his father, one that had been in good condition for nearly four decades.

That was long gone, though. It had been sold by the executors of his father’s estate in order to pay for the funeral and Keith’s hospital fees. Nearly everything else had been destroyed by the fire –including Keith’s father, who had been so consumed by the flames that all that they could put into his coffin were some bones. All was burnt away but the shed, of course. It had been virtually untouched, but when Keith had been sent into foster care, that had been left to rot until Keith returned to it after Kerberos.

The fire…

A slow, searing dread began to creep into Shiro’s thoughts. There was no doubt this plan of Garez’s to destroy Voltron from within was connected to Keith. Despite the fact that Keith had left this place long behind, this was an important area for Keith. It was the area where Keith was first raised, and the Galra had just sabotaged the fire department that his father had worked out of. Quiznak, they were roughly an hour or two away from the school Keith ended up in when Shiro came by to recruit students for the Galaxy Garrison.

It was not a coincidence that these Galra were planning an attack in this locale. Garez had specifically and deliberately chosen to attack here and had brought with him the manpower, the weapons, the technology, and the knowledge of this lone stretch of desert to ensure they would not only be successful, but also be successful by stealth. All that planning, and scarier still, they might just have gotten away with whatever Garez had planned without anyone being the wiser. It was only by sheer luck that Shiro and Coran had been caught in the blast radius of their mysterious teleporter.

There was only the question of what the point of Garez coming here was. Destroying Voltron from the inside by targeting Keith only made sense if they were actually targeting the Lions, or a Paladin, directly. It didn’t make any sense that they’d come to a place that was wholly in Keith’s past.

Keith’s past.

It all suddenly clicked, just before the fire engine turned onto a nondescript dirt road, sending dust onto both Shiro and Coran.

Keith’s…past.

No. It couldn’t be. That was impossible. Not even the Alteans believed such a thing could be achieved. But then Shiro saw the silhouette of the old wooden house with the rusted metal porch roof, saw the looming canyon bluffs in the distance, the deteriorating old fencing around the old homestead, and the tree with the tire swing to the left of the tiny compound. Then he saw the truck in its full vintage glory, silent and unsold in the front of the house.

Then, at last, there was the tool shed. The tool shed, which had been converted into a radio shack, and was the place where Keith had spent his favorite moments with his father growing up. The shack, which Keith had retreated to when he’d been kicked out of the Galaxy Garrison, in order to find out the truth about Kerberos.

Your dad was a fireman?

Yeah, he was a real hero…

The memory of that conversation instantly flashed through Shiro’s mind as he connected the pieces. Keith had been bitter about his father’s death from the first, and for some time, Shiro had believed that Keith’s father had died on the job, saving another family and leaving Keith alone. He’d only been half right–Keith wouldn’t reveal how his dad had died until after the Blade of Marmora had put him through the trials.

It had been Keith’s house that had been set ablaze, while Keith had been sleeping. It was possibly arson, possibly a freak accident, but regardless, Keith remembered waking up from a terrible nightmare of flames and dark faces and smoke and his father screaming, only to find himself in the hospital on a ventilator. He could only helplessly lay in a hospital bed as he was told that his father, after ensuring Keith was alive, died going back in to rescue another firefighter from the blaze, despite being told not to. Keith learned nothing more, save that his dad died a hero and wasn’t coming back, while that other man had been saved and could go back to his children.

Now, Shiro was there. Shiro was at the house that had been burnt down nearly 20 years before, and to Shiro’s slowly creeping horror, there was only one impossible explanation as to how and why they would be there. This wasn’t just Keith’s home–it was Keith’s home of the past, and oh, god, they weren’t just there to burn Keith’s house down. They were in the past, and Garez had gone out of his way to learn as much as he could about Keith’s past, and even perfected time travel, just so he could try and kill Keith before he ever went to the Galaxy Garrison.

Why couldn’t they have just attacked him? Shiro was the one who had caused Voltron to form again to begin with. Get rid of him, and Kerberos never would have happened like it had. He would never have been the Champion, or the unwitting symbol of hope for the Empire’s oppressed. He never would have returned to Earth, and the Galra would have likely conquered Earth and reclaimed the Blue Lion at some point. There would be no Voltron, and no unlocking of Black’s wings–and no grievous wounding of Zarkon. Then, there would be no Lotor, no Operation Kuron, no astral plane, no Keith going to the Blades and returning with his mother, no resurrection, no Atlas, no freeing Earth from the Fire of Purification…

But–no, that was just Shiro wishing they hadn’t gone after Keith to begin with. He knew why it ultimately had to be Keith that was targeted. After all, taking Voltron down from the inside and restoring Zarkon would be child’s play if they ensured that Keith–the Black Paladin, the true hero of Naxzela, the one who found the Blue Lion on his own even after his mother left and helped it escape before the Galra could appropriate it–was erased from the narrative entirely. It also prevented Shiro from ever escaping Garrison custody–which would put Keith and the Paladins onto a path where the Earth, the universe, and the multiverse was ultimately saved.

In the end, Shiro was an important part of the story, true. Some events naturally couldn’t have happened the same way without him, or at all. But Keith was more than just important–he was the linchpin that everything that had been set in motion truly depended on. Without Keith, everything would be very, very different. Zarkon would certainly still be alive–and Earth wouldn’t just be conquered, it would probably be little more than space dust, either because of the Komar draining it of life or Zarkon blasting it to pieces with his newly acquired Voltron after he killed Allura, Coran, and the four remaining Paladins–Paladins who would never even become such to begin with, much less leave Earth with the Blue Lion in tow.

It would be the restoration of the Galra Empire to its full, terrible glory, with the universe plunged back into an endless cycle of death, cruelty and despair while Zarkon, Honerva and their ilk drained every last drop of quintessence from their conquests. And like his beloved Emperor, the Lieutenant Magistrate would also be restored to his old position of draining every last bit of willpower and hope from his slaves and gladiators in the Arena–a privilege granted to him by the emperor and which made him one of the most powerful Galra in the Empire–while thousands watched.

Of course. Garez’s plan was the ultimate coup, and because only he and his goons were meant to know the truth as to how history was originally meant to go, no one would have ever known how to change things–or even that they could. It was perfect and cruel and Shiro felt his skin crawl as the implications set in.

“Come on, everyone!” Garez’s voice brought Shiro back to reality. “Get into position and start spraying this scrap heap with your accelerators! I’ll go grab our guest of honor when it settles!”

Shiro’s head quickly whipped towards Coran, who was hopping off the bumper. His Altean hand shot out to grab his shoulder and turn him around so Coran could see him as he opened his visor wide enough for his mouth to be visible.

We’re in the past. Shiro leaned in to mouth his message. We have to save Keith.

He could just barely see Coran’s eyes widen in disbelief, before narrowing with a hardened gleam. The Altean merely nodded before he pulled Shiro’s visor down for him and opened the duffel bag. He motioned to the weapons within, and it took a tick for Shiro to realize that he had to take one of them. He did so, before slowly walking towards the house. They had to play along, after all, until they had an opening to make their own move. All the other considerations–the time travel, the possibility of changing history inadvertently, the questions of paradoxes and loops, the fact he stood on the precipice of losing Keith in the present and future, and the myriad of kittens Slav would likely have if he ever got back to his proper time–didn’t matter.

He had to save Keith, whatever it took. Even if it meant destroying the space-time continuum. Keith would have saved him in a heartbeat if the tables were turned, after all. Besides, maybe Ryan wouldn’t make as bad of an admiral as Slav had claimed.

Shiro watched with silent as the cretins broke the door down and started spraying the house with that detestable gas, along with a green liquid–the accelerator that Garez had just spoken of. He remembered its use in the Arena–though he’d not been subjected to it, he’d seen it happen to others. Garez enjoyed upping the sadism of fights between the greener gladiators and enemies of the state when he was around, since those matches tended to be longer and more boring than those of more experienced fighters or Champion like Shiro. So before those particular matches, they would douse certain newcomers with a long shower of the chemical. Then, they would be lit up, and whichever of the fighters survived longest was the winner.

He could hear coughing coming from within the house–and then, suddenly, a figure stumbled into the doorway of the porch.

“What’n tarn-hgh!–tarnation…!”

One of the Galra went to grab him, perhaps to throw him back into the house, but Shiro acted quickly. He grabbed the coughing figure as he stumbled forward, yanking him away and tossing him into Coran’s arms. He watched the man struggle, even as Coran subtly shifted his arms and muscle mass to keep him in place. Watched the man who had Keith’s eyes, but at the same time was most certainly not Keith himself.

“Wha–Gorbek!” The Galra in front of him shoved him. “What the quiznak!? You know our orders. Every living thing in the Black Paladin’s house dies, from the father down to the last feral dust bunny! Throw him back in!”

Shiro swallowed. So, it was as he feared. This was who he thought it was. But he thought quick, so as not to blow their cover.

“…Let’s…make the father watch what happens,” he finally replied, hoping his voice was low and grunting enough to pass for how this Gorbek might have sounded. “Then throw him in.”

“Heheh…” He looked over to see Garez chortle as several Galra started breaking windows and spraying into them. “Hahaha! Perfect! I like how your brain works, grunt. Let’s do it! Hey, papa human, hope you said goodnight to your little Blade before you put him to bed this evening!”

“No-!” Keith’s father began to lash out, kicking and snarling and scratching, but Coran was too strong. “Leave my son ‘lone…!”

The purple smoke thickened within the house, as did the acrid stench of the accelerant, combining with the smell of the violet smoke to create a stink akin to that of a skunk. Suddenly, Shiro could hear a child start to cough from the upstairs window. His eyes widened as he pondered whether Keith was Galra enough to resist the gas, as Shiro had been. Before long, though, he got his answer.

“Dad?!” He almost ran into the house, and he already placed himself one foot closer towards the door, when he heard the coughing child cry out, reedy voice thick with sleep and fear. “Dad, I don’t feel good…where are you…”

“Bah! Curse your half-bred brat!” Garez threw aside his helmet. “Figures the gas won’t work on him. Stay out here, soldiers, and start the fire! Don’t worry about me, this will only take a dobosh or so.”

With that, the Lieutenant Magistrate stormed into the house. Within ticks, Keith’s screams began to echo outward from the upper floor windows.

“NO!” Keith’s father began to struggle anew, screaming and spitting from the mouth as tears began to form in his eyes. “LEAVE’M ‘LONE! HE DONE NOTHIN’ WRONG! LEMME GO–”

Finally, the man stomped on Coran’s foot, hard, and the Altean let out a yelp as he hopped back. Immediately Keith’s father began to run towards the front door, but another Galra stopped him and yanked the man hard against the fire engine.

“Oh no you don’t, human–”

There was a scream cut short inside the house, followed by Garez’s laughter. Out of the corner of Shiro’s eye, he could see the flames being struck onto pieces broken off the wood fence, with the planks being tossed into the windows and doors, and onto the accelerant. The fire immediately sprang up within the house, billowing around the windows and onto the outside wood.

No time. If Shiro didn’t act now, all would be lost. With a graceful whirl, he grabbed the Galra that threatened Keith’s father and shoved him away.

“Gorbek!? What are you doing now!? Have you lost your miANGH!”

Shiro didn’t let him finish, allowing his Altean arm to respond for him. It flew right out of the turnout sleeve and socked him across the face with a satisfying crunch.

“What the-!?” Other Galra began noticing this, and they threw their flaming wood into the house as they began to rush over. “That arm, it can’t be…!”

Shiro didn’t hold back as he was rushed. He let his arm go, uppercutting the furthest while he kicked the weapons out of the others’ hands. Even as he did so, a third leapt onto his back, bearhugging his neck. That was no problem for him–he simply tucked his chin and let his elbow fly right into his attacker’s groin, then tucked the main attacking arm into a tight chicken wing when the Galra’s grip loosened. He pulled the arm in until he felt the telltale pop of bone dislocating, and he let the screaming Galra flop onto the ground before rounding back onto the next oncoming attacker.

“YOU WILL NOT STOP US!” The Galra brought up a flaming plank, along with a gun with the accelerant spray turned on, both of which they threateningly burnished. “YOU WILL BURN WITH THEM, CHAMPION! VREPIT SAGAH-”

They were cut off by a fist to the face, the plank flying into a pile of sand where if smoked and smoldered uselessly. Then Shiro grabbed the accelerant gun with his Altean arm, crushing it with a squeeze and shaking off the goop before he went to address anything else in the area.

This time, though, it was Keith’s father who took Shiro by surprise–and before he knew it, Shiro found himself grabbed by his jacket’s collar and slammed against the back of the fire engine, the other human glaring at him with barely-concealed rage in his eyes.

“Hold on there, sir!” Coran zoomed in to stop the man as he brought his fist back and grabbed him by the wrist. “We’re not enemies!”

“Oh!? Then who’re y’all ‘n why’re yeh wearin’ that all get up!?” Keith’s father’s voice shook as he spoke, his head whipping back and forth between the house and Shiro. “Are yeh Blades?! Wha’s goin’ on, how’d these here Galra find my son!?”

“It’s a long story, and we don’t have the time!” Shiro managed to gently push the man into Coran’s arms. “I’m going in to stop Garez and get Keith out. Stay here with Coran and see if you can’t unjam the radio and call for backup!”

“From who!?” The man shouted back, eyes gleaming with barely contained fury. “My crew’s an hour out and won’t git here in time, ‘n the nearest med place is even further ‘n that!–”

It was true–this part of Texas was just that desolate to not have such essential services in such abundance. However, Shiro knew something else about the area that even Keith’s father wasn’t aware of. Considering the Garrison had been trying for decades to uncover evidence of alien life and energies–a mission they carried from their various predecessors–it made sense that Presidio County, with its remoteness, had several secret scouting and radio spots to monitor signals coming from space. Better yet, Shiro had actually visited several of them as a cadet, back when his illness first manifested; when he had pondered what to do about his diagnosis, Sam had shown him the places he might be consigned to if he revealed his illness. At the time, it had been both a cold comfort that the Garrison wouldn’t completely abandon him as he got sicker, and a warning that he couldn’t let his illness define his time at the Garrison.

Now, it was a serendipitous lifeline that Shiro was going to seize on. Maybe it would alter history more so than it had no doubt already been changed thanks to Garez, but at this point, Shiro didn’t care.

“There’s a Garrison radio outpost at Arroyo Baviza. Been there this whole time–don’t worry, they don’t know about Krolia or the Lion.” Keith’s father’s eyes widened, but Shiro continued.  “Tell them you need help and that civilian services are unable to respond to your emergency. Make sure you give them the code alpha-seven-Quebec-niner-niner-echo-Sierra and your address when you do that–it’s a commanding officer’s code for a situation of extreme distress, they can’t refuse to send their reinforcements when that code is used!”

“But my son-!”

“I’ll get him.” Keith’s father tried to move forward, but Shiro looked over to Coran. “Garez will kill you on sight if you try to interfere. I’ll handle it, trust me!”

“No!” Keith’s father started to run. “I can’t just stand here while that there purple weasel tries to kill Keith-y‘ain’t stoppin’ me-!”

“Coran!” Shiro’s voice sharpened; he was losing his patience. He could definitely see where Keith got his stubbornness and more rash tendencies from at this point, but it wasn’t helping the situation this time. “Do what I said for the radio outpost! And keep him-” at this, his Altean arm flew into the rescue and smacked hard into the man’s solar plexus, knocking him backwards, “-outside, no matter what!”

“Roberto on all that! And I’ll get the air ready in these tanks.” With a long arm, Coran struck out and grabbed onto the struggling man as he shouted back. “For when you bring Number Four out alive!”

“Lemme go…!” Keith’s father gave Shiro a death glare as he raged in Coran’s grip. “This’s my son! That there Galra’s gotta pay-!”

“And he will pay, never fear.” Coran’s voice was calm in the face of the flailing mess he was trying to drag into the cab. “Come on now, let’s unscramble the—do stop it, you’ll exhaust yourself-”

Shiro nodded as Coran got Keith’s father under control, and he turned to run into the house. There was no more time to waste. The first floor was on fire, and Shiro could see the smoke starting to billow out of the windows of both floors of the house. Silently Shiro unclasped the bottom of the turnout helmet, before raising the Galra visor up all the way out of his eyes even as he plunged into the heat and smoke.

The swirling heat and pea-soup smoke stung his eyes and made them wet. He could feel his breath quicken from the sudden lack of oxygen. He knew that exposing his face was dangerous–whether because he was inviting the risk of smoke inhalation to inhibit his progress, or the possibility of Keith seeing his face and changing history. But Shiro didn’t care, not at that moment. He wanted Garez to see who he was, to know who it was who foiled him.

He could see nothing through the fire and smoke, and even when he could see, there was no sign of either Keith or Garez. Thankfully, his hearing was not as impaired as his sight; through the whistling hiss of burning wood and brick and cracking glass, he could hear faint, muffled cries coming from above him.

Upstairs.

“Struggle all you want!” As Shiro came to the stairs, he could hear Garez start to laugh. “This will be your grave, boy! Haha! Come on, punch it one more time, I’m sure you’ll escape this time!”

Shiro didn’t even bother to hesitate after that. It was one thing if Garez was hurting Keith in the present, taunting him and mocking him as he was rendered helpless to escape his fate. Oh, it was not that Garez would be spared from being killed. Shiro would still utterly destroy the Lieutenant Magistrate without a second thought for even wanting to hurt Keith. But this wasn’t the Keith of the present, who was a proud Blade and the Black Paladin of Voltron, a man that could stand on his own and put up a fight against someone like Garez. This was Keith, a little kid who was just woken up in the middle of the night and was about to be burnt to death by Galra disguised as friends of his father’s. He was being taunted and tortured for reasons he couldn’t even begin to conceive, for things he hadn’t even done yet.

It took him three jumps to get up to the second floor, where the flames were already starting to flick upwards from the floor. On the second jump, he let his Altean arm fly towards the sound of Garez’s laughing. Ticks later came a satisfying yelp, followed by the wonderfully loud crack of bone.

“AUGH!” Garez was staring at the retreating Altean arm, bloodied snout covered by his claws just as it returned to Shiro, who allowed it to fly up and reconnect with his turnover gear. “What the–!?”

Glowing golden eyes met Shiro’s flashing grey, and slowly the claws fell down to the Galra’s sides. The fire began to encroach more on the second floor, fluttering over the wooden bannister on the top of the stairs, but in that tick, that didn’t matter. A hard, sharp smile began to form on Shiro’s lips as he drank in the reaction of his former jailor and first great alien tormentor. Maybe it was wrong for him to relish Garez’s shock, but even then, Shiro knew it was nowhere near as atrocious as what his oppressor was intending to do with Keith.

“Y-you!?” Garez’s face became so pale that it turned periwinkle. “Champion!? How–?!”

The Altean arm smacked him again, causing the Lieutenant Magistrate to teeter backwards towards a door. It wasn’t the door that Keith was trapped behind, and Shiro lunged towards it, getting close enough to see that a chair was wedged beneath the doorknob. He felt his rage nearly explode at the sight–Garez was willing not just to kill an innocent child in order to erase them from history, but to suffocate and burn them, giving him no means of escape, while he just watched and laughed–and it was only with difficulty that he forced his more violent emotions back from the forefront. He needed to focus. Check on Keith first, then he could unleash his rage on Garez.

There wouldn’t be enough time to get Keith out without Garez trying to stop him–already, the Galra was starting to recover from the hits. Still, Keith needed to know someone was here to try and save him. Keith needed to hear that someone cared enough to risk dying to save him when no one else could or seemingly would.

“Keith?!” He shouted towards the door. “I’m here to help! Are you ok?!”

A frightened whimper emanating from near the floor next to the crack was his response. It was low enough that it was clear Keith was on the floor. Good. His dad taught him well.

“H-help...” It was followed by coughing. “Let me out…p-please…!”

“I will!” Shiro grit his teeth as he saw Garez regain his balance fully. “But you’ll need to give me a minute or two to stop this guy from hurting you anymore, ok?”

“Oh…” It was an eternal second before Keith finally responded, tone still scared and uncertain. “Ok…b-but…my dad…!”  

“Yeah, your dad taught you what to do if you’re caught in a fire, right? He’s a good guy, and I see he has a pretty smart kid.  You’re already on the ground…” Shiro’s eyes rapidly glanced from the closet to the Galra, who was punching away his arm. “Quick, spit into your shirt and cover your mouth with it! I know that sounds gross, but–!”

“GRAAAH! HOW!?”

It was then that Garez struck, lunging towards Shiro and forcing him away from the barred door. Shiro jumped back, bringing his Altean arm back to his side. On his end, Garez was pointing at Shiro, his body language completely betraying how utterly incandescent he was. His cheeks were darkening to aubergine, and his breath heaving with such rage that his shoulders went up and down along with his chest.

“HOW?!” Garez roared again. “How did you get here, Champion?! No one knew of our plan–!”

“Doesn’t matter.” Shiro began to bend his knees, hands and legs wide as he readied himself to pounce. He wouldn’t submit to the Galra–this wasn’t the Arena, and now, he was the predator, and Garez his prey. “One of us isn’t coming out of this alive, Garez. Care to try being the one that does?”

That taunt got Garez to move, eyes wide and letting out an angry scream as he flew forward. He was surprisingly fast, and Shiro barely managed to dodge as Garez whipped out his gun, pulling the trigger. A cloud of purple gas sprayed past Shiro’s ear, and he crinkled his nose as he felt his head start to pound again. He almost stumbled into the wall as a result, his arm saving him from falling fully on the floor from dizziness.

Unfortunately, he didn’t miss getting hit in the nose and cheek by the butt of Garez’s gun, and the next thing he knew, he was face-planting into a wall, which was followed by a swift kick to the back of his knees. He crumpled all too easily, his flesh hand immediately shaking as it started going to the small of his back. It was an automatic, involuntary action–one from when he was a prisoner.

“That’s right!” Before he could course correct and recover, a hard second kick to his lower back took Shiro’s breath away, leaving him to wheeze as he felt blood from his nose drip into his mouth. The fear in Garez’s voice was already replaced by that easy conceit, that carefree pompousness that he’d possessed back in the day. Indeed, he started laughing again, his cackle heady and drunk, as if he were once more in the holding cells and he was just putting the Champion back in his place. “Down, boy! And stay down, for all I care!”

Except Garez was an arrogant idiot, and Shiro started to see red as another kick to his side brought him face-down to the wooden floor, already so warm and getting hotter from the inferno. Garez may have gotten him by surprise by his quickness, and he certainly knew how to hit hard, but Shiro was Champion of the Arena for a reason. He’d faced far worse during his year, remembered or not; he was burnt, bound and beaten, taken far beyond what should have been his breaking point by what he’d endured in the grime. The Lieutenant Magistrate had brought the full weight of his personal and public barbarity and callousness onto him, backed by the power of the Galra Empire. It had been paired up with Honerva’s extensive torture and experimentation on his mind, body and soul.

None of that had been enough to make Shiro give up hope that he’d escape his predicament. He certainly wasn’t going to cave now, not when the person who mattered to him most needed him to come through. Shiro had let him down too many times before, yet Keith had never hesitated to save him over and over no matter the odds. Now, Shiro needed to do the same for him.

All he needed was a tick, an opportunity, and like the self-important jackcracker he thought himself to be, he knew that the Lieutenant Magistrate would surely hand one to him on a silver plate.

“Look at me!” Yet another hard kick to his legs in the meantime. “I said look at me, filthy vermin!”

Shiro hoped the glare he was giving as he turned his head was full of every ounce of abhorrence and disgust he felt towards the Lieutenant Magistrate. Even if Garez just started laughing at him when their eyes met again. Let him laugh, then. Let his eyes go wild as if he’d already won. Soon enough Garez’s tongue was going to be ripped out through his teeth, and his eyes would be torn out though the back of his skull.

“See, Champion!?” Then, suddenly, Garez bent down, and–of all the things he could have done to self-sabotage–yanked Shiro’s Altean arm back out of the jacket and off the floor. He stood up and held it aloft in deluded triumph, ready to toss it into the fire now fully engulfing the stairs. “No matter what you do, I am triumphant! No matter how many times you were taken from the Arena by Zarkon or his witch, even after you’ve escaped, even after you’ve died, you will never get away from me! I was the one who caged you–I was the one who broke you! I will always own you and your fate, pathetic cripple of a human!”

Shiro almost laughed at the pomposity of that statement. Almost. Instead, he stayed silent, only grunting as another kick his him near his right shoulder port.

“And now I’m gonna watch you shatter for good.” Garez mockingly waggled the prosthetic around. “You think you’re going to stop what is inevitable? You have the audacity to try and save the Black Paladin from is fate? Well, you can burn with him, then!”

It was then that Shiro heard another bang, and a loud whimper accompanied by another, longer fit of coughing, coming from the barricaded door mere feet away. Keith.

“…Oh, just die already!” Garez actually had the audacity–the stupidity–of taking his attention off of Shiro to kick at the door. “You little miscegenetic reject! No one loves you anymore, not even your mother! Hahaha! Yeah, that’s why your mommy left you, bet you didn’t know that!”

Well. The taunting with his arm–the arm that Allura had made sure to make, among other things, fireproof–would have worked by itself as the moment Shiro was looking for to counterstrike, but turning his back and further threatening and taunting a kid–a kid that was Keith, no less–would work too. And Garez still had his arm, which was perfect.

All right, arm. Shiro let out a growl as he allowed himself to visualize exactly what he wanted his captive prosthesis to do. Let’s destroy him.

Unlike his old Galra arm, his Altean construct wasn’t designed with pure weaponization in mind. It couldn’t call up a burning laser sword, or emit giant blasts, or transform itself into a giant gun without his consent. That wasn’t to say it didn’t have some weapon potential–it was Altean technology, and he himself had a little bit of Altean running in him. More than that, in the time before this, he had come to learn that his ability with Atlas wasn’t just a result of the trans-reality comet put into his arm–he had been exposed to the alchemical power of Oriande by accident, through Haggar. He had the power to manipulate quintessence, as Allura did. He was, in a way, a Sacred Altean.

Of course, he was nowhere near the caliber of Allura, and probably wouldn’t be for the next forever or so. He also didn’t have the sensitivity to quintessence that Allura or Keith had–which was probably why he didn’t realize he’d been thrown back in time until they were right in front of Keith’s house. He was, however, getting very good at summoning ambient quintessence for a blast to the face when the situation called for it, as Slav had been so keen on worrying about. Nor, in the case of his right arm, did he have to worry about which end the energy collection was facing.

So he began collecting as Garez kept the arm’s elbow port end towards his face. He closed his eyes and let his arm feel out the quintessence in the air, in the fire, in the smoke and soot. It felt like he was taking an eternity, or that time was slowing down, but he knew that was normal for what he was doing. Already he could feel the energy start to coalesce in his arm, and even with the distance, his false fingers tingled as the prosthesis began to glow a gentle cyan.

“Go ahead and cry with what little breath you have left, little half-breed, I can hear you! Hehehuh?” Garez immediately stopped chuckling, no doubt feeling the sudden increase in warmth coming from Shiro’s arm. “What the quiznak–”

Shiro didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even bother focusing on his target–he knew he didn’t have to. The blast he was willing to come out of the elbow port of his arm wasn’t going to exactly melt Garez’s face off, per se. He didn’t have the time to gather that much energy. But it was going to hurt, and was still going to make a messy mark no matter what Garez was doing at that moment. Still, Shiro sorely hoped Garez had aimed it on himself like a bullseye, to try and examine the mechanisms of the arm to see why the arm was suddenly changing so.

Go.

Shiro let it rip, and Garez’s pained screams immediately began. He could feel Garez throwing his arm away, and he responded by allowing his arm to fly, whirling around and gathering more energy to make another blast. He made sure to aim it at where the screams were coming from, and as he finally turned to look, he let out a little nod to himself.

Perfect range to hit Garez fully in the face the tick he brought his hands down from it–which he immediately started to do.

Fire.

The blast hit Garez square in the eyes, and he began to stumble backwards, howling in agony. He began to teeter at the edge of the steps, ready to fall into the flames that now reached the top of the staircase, his arms flailing. He almost fell down into the increasingly searing blaze. But Shiro wouldn’t let him. Not yet.

Instead, he lashed out, his Altean arm grabbing the overturn coat and ripping it right off him. His other arm steadied him at the top of the stairs, allowing Shiro to stare right into the bubbling mess that was Garez’s new facelift. Garez’s eyes were just as messed up, and they stared at him with a mixture of hatred and dread for a tick before dashing to the side, watering up.

Look at me. Shiro roughly shook the Galra, mentally echoing back those mocking words the enemy had only tossed at him mere dobashes ago. It was so tempting to say it out loud, to be as petty and horrible. He would have said it, if Keith weren’t in mortal danger. I said look at me, filthy vermin.

Finally, Garez’s eyes fixed themselves on Shiro, the tears falling. He was scared. He was helpless. He was just as Shiro had been in the Arena. He knew he could, probably should, bring Garez back alive to the present, to face proper justice in front of the Voltron Coalition, to cage him and throw away the key as he’d done to so many others in the Arena, albeit without the fighting and torture. It would be the correct thing to do to someone who was so high-ranking in the Galra Empire, and who had caused so much pain throughout the universe. A fair-minded person would do that in a heartbeat.

Shiro, by contrast, wasn’t feeling very fair-minded at all. He was feeling very much murder-minded and vengeance-bent. In another circumstance, in another place and time, maybe he could have been talked down from what he was about to do. Maybe one of his comrades or friends, or one of his Garrison subordinates might have made the argument that killing Garez would just make Shiro the lesser man, that killing Garez would only make future allies fear him and see him as the bloodthirsty Champion many still believed him to be. Maybe that voice of reason might have even been Keith–it could have come in the form of a touch on his shoulder, a soft whisper behind his back, a quiet plea to the humanity inside him that only Keith could make to Shiro, in order to make him hesitate, even for a tick.

But not now. Not at this moment, when Shiro knew that Garez wouldn’t have given the same consideration to the boy he was going to roast alive. Not in this tick, when the Galra he held clearly wouldn’t have given a second thought to the countless other trillions of lives whose futures he’d been so willing to alter or destroy for his goal. No. Not when Keith was still in danger.

He was running out of time, so he made his last words to his first tormentor quick.

“You didn’t break me, Garez.” His words were cold, for he had nothing but utter contempt left to spare for this Galra, who had so quickly become a sniveling, whimpering wreck with the tables turned. “You never did. No–I’m the one who broke you.”

“Gggngh–” Garez started blubbering, even as his busted mouth tried to speak defiance. “Y-you…”

“You should have gone after me instead of Keith. And now, I’m going to kill you.”

“You c-can’t…stop…I…c-caged y-you…Champio–”

Shiro didn’t let him finish his attempt at a boast. He dropped Garez, only to drop kick him into the conflagration below before he landed. The screech that followed was like an angry cat’s, which transformed into a more bestial wail of agony, as Shiro watched the Lieutenant Magistrate smash through what was left of the stairs, flailing and writhing as he was consumed by the flames, his skin bubbling and fur blackening.

Vrepit sa.

Shiro didn’t linger to watch the sight; he could hear the dying, thrashing screeching, whimpering and gasping echo ring less and less as he turned away. There was no time to waste-the flames were on the walls and around the door of the closet that Keith had been confined in. His Altean arm smashed through the chair that had been fixed against the doorknob (No, it’s ok, Garez is already dead, you can hear him dying, he won’t harm Keith now, Shiro had to remind himself as he felt his rage build up again as the sight of the barricaded doorway and its implications bled through his brain), and in the next moment Shiro was throwing the door off, practically ripping it from its hinges.

“You’re still alive…!” A red-faced Keith, Marmoran knife by his foot amidst a pile of door-sized splinters, was gasping for air–smoke inhalation–and it was clear he fought Garez’s manhandling of him judging by the bruises on his arms, legs and face. “Come on, Keith, I got you, I’m getting you out of here!”

“No…” Keith coughed as Shiro scooped him up along with the knife. “The big guy…the bad firefighter…s-scary face…so hot…”

“He’s not going to be a problem anymore,” Shiro whispered into the shivering kid’s ear as he held him to his chest. “It’s ok, I got you now…”

Wood beams around them began to snap and crackle, and flames were whooshing upwards from the bottom floor and into the cracks of the beams. He wasn’t going to risk bringing Keith to where the stairs had been, even if the thought of using Garez’s immolated corpse as a trampoline felt grimly appropriate. Instead, he kicked down the door to what turned out to be the master bedroom. It was full of smoke, and some flames licked upwards and threatened the blankets and bed. However, Shiro also knew that the metal awning for the porch was outside the windows of this room, and it was slanted downwards. With luck, he could use it to jump off, as opposed to risking Keith from outright jumping from the second floor.

Ripping out the windows, Shiro hopped onto the awning, which sagged and groaned under the weight–Shiro could even feel the wooden frame of the awning start to splinter, could hear it snap–but he managed to sit down and slide down to the ground, landing on his feet before the porch collapsed into itself five tics later, the metal awning slamming onto the planks of the porch and blocking the front door.

Thank god. Shiro let out a shaky breath, then a cough. That was too close.

He quickly looked down at Keith. Keith’s eyes were closed, but he was still breathing. He definitely needed oxygen, which thankfully Coran had thought to bring. All he had to do was get Keith to the fire engine, hook him up, and make sure the Galra didn’t wake up and try to get him while he was in such a state of vulnerability.

The Galra were still down on the ground around him, which was good, but then, Shiro’s heart stopped as he looked over towards the fire engine.

“Coran-?!” He placed Keith in the cab with the blade before grabbing Coran, who was sprawled and groaning on the ground near the passenger door. “What the quiznak…!?”

“Ooooh.” There was a sizeable bump on Coran’s head as he came to, face coming up toward the sound of Shiro’s voice. “Well, now I can see who Keith gets that nasty right hook from.”

“Coran. The oxygen tanks–where’s–” Shiro’s eyes widened as he more frantically looked around for the figure that should have been alongside them. “Where is Keith’s father?!”

“Knocked me clean out!” Coran held his head as Shiro leaned him against the tire. “We got in contact with his station and the radio outpost you mentioned, but he wanted to go back in even though I told him you were handling things. We heard someone screaming, he thought it was you and I tried to stop him, but–”

Oh no.

When Shiro had asked about his father all those years ago, Keith had mentioned that he had died trying to save others in a fire. That despite being safe, and despite nearly everyone being out of the fire in question, he’d gone back in to save the last ones apparently still trapped in the building–

No. Coran’s shouts gave way to ringing in his ears as a loud crackling sound like thunder filled the air-the sound of something collapsing in the house. Immediately Shiro dropped the Altean back on the ground, turned and ran back onto the increasingly misshapen and unstable domicile. No, no, no, no no no no no-

The now-hot and glowing metal awning that blocked the door was nothing to Shiro; the Altean arm tossed it towards the shack like a sheath of paper. He then leaped over the wooden debris, plunging into what was now a nearly unbearable inferno of heat and brightness. Sweat immediately poured from his brow, and even as he closed the visor on his helmet, the air was barely breathable as he immediately began to cough from everything burning to ash and soot around him. It was almost impossible to see, but he didn’t care. He’d find Keith’s father and get him out before the house collapsed entirely. He could just barely see what was left of Keith’s bedroom, having fallen into the dining room, turning into a giant pyre of sheets and hissing plastic toys.

Come on, where-

He only got three steps in before he found the unmoving, human-shaped mass on the floor. The figure had barely gotten to the door before the porch had collapsed, and there was large piece of debris from what had been the front door frame near the pool of blood that trailed back to the crown of their head. The flames were licking at their body, and indeed, the shirt the unmoving figure was wearing caught on fire the moment Shiro registered, with increasing horror, who he was looking at.

Keith’s father was neither moving or breathing, if the lack of movement in his torso was anything to go by. Shiro didn’t even think twice about what he was doing-he grabbed the man, hoisted him over his shoulder despite the searing heat coming off of the man that made him hiss as it made contact with his neck, and ran back out through the wall of fire. All around him, more peals of thunder cracked through the house; behind him, he could feel the flames whoosh through the air as the house and everything left within it finally began to fall in on itself into a flaming pile of ash and slag.

Come on…

He could smell the smoke dancing off his own turnout jacket as he stumbled to the ground along with the body he’d rescued, pain shooting up from his knees to his hips. He ignored it, and the pain in his neck from the heat that had come from carrying a body on fire, as he frantically he threw the jacket off and tossed it over Keith’s father, smacking hard and rolling him around until the flames went out.

Come on…! There were bad second-degree burns all over the man’s back and neck, as well as on parts of his chest and feet; the large open gash on his soot-coated head was still bleeding. Worst of all, Keith’s father still seemed to be barely breathing, the sound coming out of his mouth more a death rattle than a real expiration. Shiro’s own breath began to pick up until he was close to hyperventilating from sheer panic and horror. No, god, no…don’t do this…I can’t…!

Immediately he threw the turnout helmet to the side and began to do CPR, tilting the man’s chin up as he tried to first pump his heart, then force breath in through his mouth after several compressions. He could barely feel a heartbeat as he began, and he feared that the hard pounding sensation he started to feel beneath his violently shaking flesh fingers was only his own rapid heart, as opposed to anything from the man beneath him.

“Come on…!” He blew into the man’s mouth as hard as he could, then pumped on his chest again. “Come on-!”

“Number One-”

“I can do this.” Shiro shook his head as he heard Coran’s voice in the distance, muffled by his helmet. Whether it was his space or fire helmet, he couldn’t know. “I know I can keep him alive! Coran, I need the oxygen tank, hooking him up might help!”

“Number One…you have to stop.” Coran’s voice was calm, quiet. There’s nothing else you can do now.”

“I can’t let him die.” Shiro blew into Keith’s father’s mouth again. “I don’t care if this changes the future and he lives, I can’t…I’m not going to just let a man die for the timeline because that’s what happens, I’m not that selfless, this is Keith’s dad, Krolia’s mate-”

“The sirens are coming closer, Number One. We’re running out of time. By my reckoning of the time given-”

“Give me five more minutes!” Shiro snapped before turning back and leaning in towards the man’s face to listen. There was air pushing out from the man’s mouth, and it barely tickled his ears. “I got him breathing again, I just felt it-”

“We only have two doboshes until the time the Galra placed on their sojourn here runs out. Your helmet, I have it…come…”

Shiro ignored Coran and proceeded to start his chest compressions again. He wasn’t going to give up. He had to keep going. He didn’t care if his actions changed history–because the man was likely to die from all the carbon monoxide he inhaled as it was. Surely it wouldn’t change the future that much, if he kept the man’s heart beating just a little longer. At the very least, if he could keep Keith’s father alive to get him to the hospital, Keith could say goodbye before-

“…I’m truly sorry, Shiro.”

A sting suddenly shot through the unburnt side of his neck, and Shiro gasped as he tried to swat it away, only to feel nothing there. Mere ticks later, artificial exhaustion began to overwhelm him, and he began to slump sideways, his hands releasing from his patient’s chest as his muscles began to relax despite the adrenaline still running through his veins.

“C’ran…” his words began to slur as he looked over to the Altean, who was now kneeling next to him. “No…wry…”

The needle was still in Coran’s hand as he cradled Shiro towards his chest, and Shiro couldn’t help but feel hurt at Coran’s betrayal of Keith’s father, of Keith. He could do nothing about it, though, as he began slipping into darkness as the sounds of sirens began to faintly echo through the air, only for it to be muffled by his spacesuit helmet being slid over his head. Finally, he lost the battle with the tranquilizer and slipped away from his senses entirely, unaware of those last moments when time finally shifted and the quintessence of the present overtook him and the unconscious Galra around him.

The tick Shiro was back on the Atlas, he went straight to his quarters.

He didn’t talk to anyone who passed him by in the halls, nor did he stop to do anything else, not to eat or to get the burn on his neck looked at or to check on the other Paladins who were in their other various activities. He didn’t answer his comms, no matter how many times his arm went off. He didn’t even bother going back to the bridge beforehand that night, only pausing in the docking bay to have a random lieutenant give Mitch a message that he had control of the ship for the evening and to make sure that the new prisoners were secured in the brig.

The six Galra, sans Garez, who was little more than ashes scattered to solar winds by this point, were unsurprisingly uncooperative, preferring to be silent and sullen as they and their now-broken equipment were taken away. They had clearly intended to return to the firehouse for their space helmets, and because of that, they had returned to the present in danger of dying from sudden decompression. Instead, they were rescued and stabilized by the rescue crew that Coran had somehow miraculously contacted before the machine had transported him and Shiro to the past, and who were investigating the cave as a result when everyone was returned back to the present. They were lucky that Coran had the forethought he had, and that his crew in general was so merciful.

Aside from being dirty, tired, bruised and not a little crushed by what he had just experienced, Shiro could feel the very unamused glare coming from Slav from across the ship–he didn’t doubt Slav had deduced what had just happened and that Shiro had ignored the dire warnings he had so pointedly been given prior to stumbling on Garez’ machine. Heck, Slav was probably chewing at the bit to throttle Shiro, despite the fact he was still the Admiral of the Atlas, Ryan was still an MFE pilot, and there wasn’t an overabundance of mushrooms either on the ship or anywhere else in their shared reality. Even Atlas, who was normally quite talkative in his head, abruptly fell silent once it inquisitively prodded his memories surrounding his absence. It knew that whatever it might be able to do for him would be of little comfort, outside of barring his quarters from anyone but Keith-who was on that quick humanitarian and rescue mission for the Blade, blissfully unaware of what had happened and the mortal danger he had been in the entire time.

Keith, who wasn’t erased from history, despite everything. Yet it was comfort as cold as space for Shiro.

After ripping all the Galra uniform pieces off his body-and promptly dunking them into his room’s incinerator chute so they could just burn like Garez did, like his ilk tried to do to Keith, to a kid, and Keith’s poor doomed father-before falling into bed. He didn’t have the strength or the will to resist sleep as it overtook him again, this time naturally-he just let it happen, and thankfully, his sleep was blank and dreamless. There were no screams, no coughing, no heat of flames licking his face as he charged at the monsters who had the audacity to hurt Keith, no sight of Keith’s father’s burnt body blackened by soot, struggling to breathe. The fact that they had been responsible for Keith’s greatest childhood tragedy was something he could mull over later, when he had the time to process just what in the quiznak had just happened, and why they didn’t just go after him.

It didn’t have to be Keith. They didn’t have to be the ones who did that to him. They didn’t have to go so far as to try and prevent others from saving Keith, while laughing at the idea of a child burning while his father was forced to watch. They didn’t have to put Shiro in the position they did.

Now, though, Shiro knew. He was the one who didn’t save Keith’s father. It was his fault Keith’s dad was dead. And while his nightmares did not come, he still went to bed knowing that singular fact. And soon enough, he would wake up to that fact, as, after what only felt like a few moments, he felt a hand on his back, the callused thumb gently caressing the unburnt side of his neck near the nape.

“…ro…” Keith’s voice coaxed him from the void of unconsciousness. “Shiro…hey.”

Shiro let out a quiet mumble as his eyes slowly opened. For a second, there was nothing but a blanket over his memory, and the feeling of dirtiness all over his body. That’s right. He hadn’t showered. Not since he came back from—

The fire.

He immediately bolted up, eyes wide, as his head whirled to look at Keith. Keith, who was leaning back from the sudden movement, his eyes also wide, albeit with confusion and concern. He was still wearing his Blade uniform, though his gloves were tossed onto the night table.

“You’re-”

Shiro’s hand shot out, grabbing Keith’s cheek to the point of nearly pinching it. It was warm and flushing warmer from his touch. It was real flesh and blood, not a hallucination of his mind as the result of an altered timeline.

“You’re alive.” Shiro shut his eyes. “That’s right…you’re alive. Safe.”

“…Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be…?” Keith’s eyebrows furrowed, eyes trailing towards Shiro’s neck. “Are you all right? I was told you and Coran had a rough expedition, and that I should…you know. Check on you.”

Coran. Of course. Who else could have told Keith? Shiro could only shake his head in response.

“No, how I feel right now is nothing you need to-”

“No, it’s not nothing, don’t do that. I can tell you’re hurting.” Keith leaned back in, and Shiro could practically smell the shampoo he used in his hair–something unusual and alien, but achingly beautiful nevertheless. Just like Keith. “Please don’t hide from me, Shiro. What happened? You know you can tell me, right?”

No.

Yet even as he thought that word, Shiro knew he would ultimately cave and reveal his sin. After all, it had always been hard to refuse Keith when it came to bearing his deepest and darkest moments–whenever Keith had made him feel more human than Shiro felt he had any right to be, whenever memories of the Arena, or the experiments, or the time he was less than dead and Kuron was more than a piece of his psyche would return. Whether those moments resurfaced without warning in his nightmares or in unexpected moments of flashback or were brought up and revealed by some wayward enemy remnant to haunt him, it didn’t matter once all was said and done. Keith always knew how to cut to the heart of the matter when Shiro found himself plunged into those moments of weakness, questioning himself and everything he was, wondering whether it was worth it to keep going, be it for his sake or for others. Keith always knew how to coax it out of him, to get him out of that shell of secrets and perception.

Yet even in comparison to those moments of pain, this time was different. This time, the darkness of the moment, the sin Shiro had committed had all been about Keith–Keith’s life, Keith’s very existence on the line. It was also Keith’s father, and the truth about his fate–about Shiro’s role in it. But even then, Shiro knew he was going to tell Keith about it, because in this case, he had no right to even try and hide it. No matter how ashamed he felt, this was no longer about Shiro’s life.

“Keith, I…” Shiro swallowed, his shoulder sagged. “The prisoners we have. The Galra.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up.

“…I let you down when you needed it most.” Shiro’s hands went to grab his hair. “God, quiznak, Keith, the machine. They almost killed you, and we only found out by the dumbest of luck–!”

Once he started talking, he didn’t stop. He told Keith everything. The energy signatures and the carved-out cave. The former Lieutenant Magistrate of Public Games and Imperial Entertainment and his mysterious quintessence machine that could cut not just through time, but through space. The insidious plan that had been set into motion to erase Keith from history. The laughter and terrible mocking words of Garez. The fight and the fire, and the screams of Shiro’s dying enemy–that was the only thing Shiro didn’t regret of the whole mess, which probably said more than enough about him that he actually enjoyed killing Garez–until, at last, he came to Keith’s father.

“I killed him. Your father died because of me. Everything that’s happened to you…it’s all my fault.” He wasn’t even looking at Keith anymore as he finished the whole sordid, sorry story. “When I saved you from Garez, the porch collapsed under our weight, and he’d gone back in to save me. A piece hit him on the–”

“Stop.”

Two fingers gently pressed onto Shiro’s lips, shutting him up. Shiro’s eyes darted up to look at Keith’s face, expecting anger or, at the very least, some kind of consternation at the revelation Shiro had just uttered. Instead, there was a quiet, sad smile, and a gleam in his eyes that threatened to become wet with tears.

“I’m not going to lie, the time travel thing sounds a little crazy, even knowing you’d never make something like that up.” Shiro sniffed as Keith’s fingers went to wipe Shiro’s cheeks–had he been crying? He didn’t remember breaking down like that, but then again, even Shiro wouldn’t deny that he’d forgotten more than he cared to admit ever since Kerberos.  “And what you did to that Galra who tried to hurt me…hurt everyone…I’m glad you stopped him. But…you didn’t kill my dad. I know that for a fact.”

“But–”

“No buts, old-timer.” The sadness in Keith’s smile morphed into warmth. “There’s no way you could have done that, time travel or no. I know my dad would forgive you in a heartbeat–there’s no way you could have known my dad would hit Coran like he did.”

“I mean…” Shiro looked away. “I guess, but it doesn’t…I could have saved him. If I had the time, I know it. I got his heart beating again, just…I thought maybe I could change history. Just so you could say goodbye to him and get closure for your future, you know? I know it sounds stupid, especially after I just saved the timeline from being altered, but…I just…”

He looked back at Keith, only to find that the smile on Keith’s face had widened, ever so slightly. Shiro couldn’t help but furrow his brow at the sight; it was just a little off-putting to see a smile on Keith’s face after all of that. He almost wished Keith would get angry and punch him in the face, or maybe take out his Blade and stab him in the kidney. Something, anything, other than the enigmatic grin that was on Keith’s face.

“I guess Coran told you before you got here what happened, too.”

“Hm?”

“He told you what happened before he told you to come to see me.” Shiro let out a huff. “That’s why you’re not angry with me, like you should be, isn’t it?”

“…Shiro,” Keith let out a bemused chuff at this. “I haven’t talked to Coran since the previous spicolian movement.”

He hadn’t talked to Coran? That…made no sense. Only Coran could have told Keith that Keith’s father had attacked Coran before running back into the house. He was the only one still alive who had seen what had happened back in the past. Unless Keith had briefly regained consciousness in the cab and had somehow remembered hearing Coran speak of it? No, that couldn’t be right either, could it?

Shiro stared back at Keith as his confusion increased, searching his face and his increasingly widening smile, and even his gradually reddening cheeks.

“Keith, what-”

“Ah, there y’are, Keith!”

Shiro practically jumped up from his bed, arm glowing at the sudden and loud voice that came from a large and unfamiliar silhouette that was standing in his bedroom doorway. Then he saw the figure take a step in, and his Altean arm immediately dropped to the floor. Along with his mouth.

“...Oh, uh.” In turn, the man in the doorway sheepishly smiled back. “Sorry. Am I interruptin’ somethin’?”

Shiro’s lips started moving, but nothing came out except for an undignified high-pitched squeak that would make Chulatt jealous. Mainly because he was looking at Keith’s father. Keith’s father was in his sleeping quarters, in real time. Keith’s father was looking at him, a slightly embarrassed smile on his face as he brought a hand to the back of his head. The hand scrubbed the short hair in the back, while the man’s scarred eyebrow arched upwards as the ticks passed and Shiro’s futile attempt to find the words of what he was seeing.

“Y’kay there, Admiral?”

Keith’s father was looking right at him, and he was alive. Keith’s father was alive and looking right at him.

“I should...er, prob’ly go see yer mama before dinner, yeah?” Keith’s father–who was alive, he was alive, and standing, and talking, and Shiro knew it was him because among the other scars and the cut on his eyebrow, he could see the edges of the burn scars on the side of his neck under the prisoner garb he was wearing–gave him an apologetic smile before turning to look at Keith, whose eyes were suspiciously wet-looking. “She’s probably havin’ a yalmor what with yer boss tellin’ her ‘bout me ‘n all, without me there to do it m’self. So…nice meetin’ ya proper, Sheero…I’m makin’ Zargartetrian briskets fer the crew! We’ll talk later!”

Shiro stared at Keith’s father–Keith’s father, who was alive, oh god, he couldn’t even begin to comprehend the fact that Keith’s father is alive and jUSt TaLKeD tO HiM–as he turned and left. The man then grabbed a Garrison hoodie and pulled it over his prisoner suit as the door slid closed behind him.

What…how…I…WHAT…

This was impossible. Keith’s father died. He couldn’t be alive, unless Shiro’s actions in the past really did keep him alive long enough to be helped. But then nothing else made sense as to why Keith would think his father was dead this whole time, unless Shiro’s actions also caused Keith’s father to survive but still be thought dead. But there was a body. There had to be. There had been bones put into the coffin, there had been remains in the ruins of the house, someone had died in Keith’s–

Vrepit sa.

Oh. Oh. OH.

“Hey.” Shiro was so stunned as everything connected in his brain, all of it coming as full circle as only a casual loop could, he barely registered the peck on his cheek from Keith. “It’s true. And it makes sense, I promise. I told you that you didn’t kill my dad.”

“Ah…” Shiro couldn’t even articulate proper words as he brought up a shaky finger towards the door, incoherent babbling tumbling from his mouth. “Beh…uh…ahh….!?”

“Yeah, I know, right? It’s a long story, but…I found him on the planet during my mission.”

“Haaaaa…!?”

“You know how…I told you about how I saw the past in the quantum abyss? How my dad and mom knew about the Blue Lion? Well…” He felt a weight on his chest. Keith’s head. “I never realized it, but he never stopped checking up on Blue, even while I was growing up. And the Blue Lion…some of the ambient energy it let off, basically the energy I sensed when I went back to the shack, after you disappeared…it rubbed off on him. The Garrison had a nearby outpost, and somehow they got to him before my dad’s fire company did. They realized he was emanating alien energy, so…they took him away.”

“There’s a Garrison radio outpost at Arroyo Baviza. Tell them you need help…”

“He was in a coma for years, at a black site the Garrison had for alien research. It was so secret only one or two admirals knew about it. One of them was Sanda, if Pidge’s hack of her confidential files is anything to go by. When he woke up…she ordered him to be put back into an induced coma. And…and she was never going to let him wake up and leave that place, or tell anyone else what she knew, now even after Sam came back and showed the Garrison what was going on out here. Not even during the four years Earth was occupied. Not even after we returned, or if the Galra were beaten.”

Was Keith shaking? No, it was Shiro, he was shaking hard, his heart thrashing in horror at the revelations tumbling from Keith’s mouth. Though Keith’s voice was calm enough, the increasingly wet area on his chest–which corresponded to where Keith’s eyes were–betrayed how Keith truly felt about the whole situation.

“Not that it mattered, because after the Galra invaded, they found the place anyways. Sendak took him out of the coma and sent him and everyone at the black site to one of the Galra home worlds he still controlled. They didn’t know he was my dad –the scientists had deleted all their data at the site once they figured out they were compromised, which is probably the only nice thing I can say about those guys.” A pause. “He…he helped the people on that world actually overthrow Sendak’s goons when they heard Voltron had come back, and he’s just kind of been there ever since among the local populace, and then a few quintants ago…there was a bad disaster. We didn’t know he was there. No one did…”

I sent the Garrison out to take Keith’s dad…

“You know what really just is…so awful and ironic?” A sad chuckle, then a sniffle. “After I got back to the Atlas this evening and everyone freaked out alongside me? Pidge showed me everything Sanda had on my dad. Turns out that him still being alive? That was why I was actually kicked out of the Garrison after Kerberos.”

…I helped Keith to get kicked out when he needed support the most…

“They just…yeah, I was a pain about trying to learn the truth about you, but in the end, they only suspected you were taken by aliens.” A shaky breath. “They didn’t really have anything conclusive when it came to Kerberos. But my dad…my dad and the ambient Blue Lion energy on him was proof solid aliens were coming, so Sanda was always looking to try and get me away before I found out. And after Kerberos…she decided there was no way I wasn’t going to find a way to learn the truth eventually, so she used my reaction to the news you were dead as the excuse to expel me. Figures, huh?”

I…I…

“Hey. It’s ok. Look at me. Breathe.” Keith’s hand caressed his cheek. Shiro’s eyes dashed back and forth from the wall to Keith, whose eyes, though red, were filled with concern for him. For him. Not for Keith’s father who was alive because of him- “…I can tell I overwhelmed you. Or…made what happened with you worse. I’m…I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to. Do you need to sit?”

He rapidly shook his head.

“Do you…do you need me to leave for now? Do you need some time to decompress alone?”

He nodded just as rapidly, feeling water form in his own eyes, though he didn’t cry. Not yet, at least.

“All right.” Another, gentler peck on his other cheek. “I’ll explain in detail when you’re…not…you know, later. I’ll also bring back some food for you.”

Then, Keith’s weight left his chest, and with a whoosh from the door sliding open, Keith was gone, leaving Shiro to his horrified thoughts. His horrified, increasingly existential crisis-filled thoughts and implications of what he had done. Slowly he dropped back onto his bed, still staring at his door even as what he was staring at turned into tiny spidery dots and lines that jittered and flittered around in increasing numbers. When his tears finally fell, the wall blurred. Everything did. Everything was a blur.

I caused Keith’s…I caused Keith’s…

Everything that had happened with Keith’s life–from his fostering to his entrance into the Garrison, to his expulsion, to becoming part of Voltron, to Keith’s promotion to Black Paladin and his scarring, and everything else up to and including the brisket dinner he was on his way to eating in the Atlas mess at that very tick–it all happened because Shiro went back to the past by accident.

He saved me. I saved Keith. Then he saved me.

He didn’t change the timeline. He simply fulfilled what had already happened, which set into motion the events that would lead him to going back to fulfill what had already happened which set into motion the events that would LeAd hIM tO GoINg BaCk–

I caused…everything.

 In the end, everything was all Shiro’s fault.

God, god, quiznak.

Garez really should have gone after him, after all.

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