Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Luis is awoken by a scraping sound outside of the front door. He’d fallen asleep on the couch after his shift, and a quick glance at the clock tells him it's just barely past three in the morning. It’s entirely too late for anyone to be visiting. The shuffling stops for a moment, before it resumes again accompanied by a voice. The presence of just one voice, however, does little to assure him it’s not some freak planning on breaking in. 

Slowly pulling himself off the couch, taking caution to not make any noise lest he alert the person outside, he slowly makes his way to the window by the front door. He reaches an arm out in the dark for the nearest object to use as a weapon. Hand wrapped tightly around the handle, he inches towards the door. 

Through the window, the figure stands broad and tall, just slightly taller than Luis himself. He’s backlit, face shrouded in the darkness, so Luis can’t tell who it is. The last few years haven’t been kind to the McClain household, so the roster of people who visit can typically be counted on his fingers. The silhouette belongs to none of the eleven or so guests privy to their home. 

The person makes no move to leave, despite neither ringing the doorbell or trying to pick the lock. Exhaustion still lingers at the edge of his mind, and Luis would rather deal with this now than later, so he brings his weapon to a point at the door and swings it open fast enough to catch the figure off guard. 

He still can’t see the man’s face, but he jolts, hands going to his hip seemingly by reflex. 

“What do you want?” he growls, hoping the gravel comes across as intimidating rather than telling of how awake he is. Then, as he nudges his weapon further out, he sends a silent prayer that the darkness tricks the guy into thinking he’s got a rifle instead of...

“Are you threatening me with an umbrella?” The man says, the lilt of his voice and the exclamation mixed with amusement catches Luis so off guard the umbrella falls to the floor. 

He slaps the porch light on.

It’s Lance. Seven years later and it’s Lance. He’s bigger and broader. His face has matured in ways Luis can’t even comprehend. Despite how badly he tries to reconcile the image in front of him with the face of the teenager he last said goodbye to, he can’t. 

It doesn’t stop his treacherous heart from trying. He blinks rapidly, unsure if he’s hoping the image before him will vanish or not. 

A few more blinks before he confirms Lance isn’t going anywhere.

They stare at each other in silence for who knows how long, and there's a competition between the rush of relief he feels that’s making his legs weak and the hot anger that simmers under his skin. Lance, who thinks he can come home after seven years without saying a word to anyone. Lance, who’s staring at him with his big round hopeful eyes, a hesitant smile tugging at his lips. 

“So can I come in or…” He says, and it's so painfully him that Luis can't help the noise that tears past his throat. He throws himself at Lance, and for a second he flinches like he’s about to get punched. But the hug releases the tension from them both, and he starts to feel Lance shake from where his face is buried in Luis’ neck. 

“You came home.” He says, and Lance is nodding frantically, grip tightening. They stand there for minutes or hours, it’s hard to tell. 

He tries to take in his brother. His little brother who’s six inches taller, maybe that much broader, too. His hair is cropped shorter than he last saw him. He smells different, too. Something between static and flowers and something else he can’t name. It’s his brother regardless, and he holds him tighter.

They make their way into the house quietly, shuffling around in the dark until they reach the kitchen. He pours Lance a glass of water, and watches Lance grab at it. He doesn’t drink any. Luis has so many questions for him, but there’s an exhaustion radiating off Lance he never thought his little brother capable of, so he stays quiet. It's easier to see him in the glow of the kitchen. There’s a scar cutting across his left eyebrow, his face has matured, no longer the teenager whose face haunted him in his nightmares. 

“Say something,” Lance says, finally. It’s timid, and both too loud and too quiet for the silence of the kitchen. His little brother swallows thickly, but still doesn’t take a sip. In fact, under the yellow light, Lance’s face is gaunt, like he hasn’t had a sip of water in weeks. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Luis admits. There’s too much to say, and yet nothing at all. Lance left them without a word, and now comes home just as silently. He’s so angry, at Lance for leaving, and at himself for being mad now that Lance has finally come home. He has so many questions but at the same time he would sit in silence forever if it meant that he could drink in the sight of his brother sitting at their kitchen table forever.

Lance nods in understanding, finally taking a long drag of his water before clearing his throat. “I swear I’ll explain everything.” Luis’ eyes follow him as he takes his empty glass to the counter. Next to the sink but never in it, much to Veronica’s disapproval. Suddenly he can’t breathe. 

“Let's talk in the morning,” Luis blurts past the lump in his throat, and Lance nods. He wants to hear what Lance has to say, but looking at him right now feels strange and wrong somehow. He looks no less like the intruder Luis thought he was, standing in the middle of the kitchen like this. He would rather he get some sleep before he says something he regrets. 

He leads Lance back to his room, untouched, save for the deep clean it was given around four months into his disappearance. Their mother had been convinced for weeks Lance was going to come back home. In the seven years since, no one had the strength to walk in. Lance sets himself on the bed, opening his mouth as if to say something, but Luis walks out and shuts the door quickly. 

He can’t help but feel he’s let a stranger into the house.

On an inconspicuous weekday, Lance goes missing. They don’t hear about it from the Garrison until a week later, after he’s already missed his weekly phone call home, and their mother has worried herself into the ground. 

The Garrison tells them this: Lance had snuck out of the campus with two of his friends, interfered with a confidential mission, and then vanished. 

They spend the next months taking every opportunity to beg members of the staff for any other detail. The Garrison refuses, berates them on their poor child rearing, and shuts them out, insisting that he has likely run away from the strict curriculum he very clearly struggled with. Personal contacts of Veronica solemnly state that it’s not their place to know, as if this isn’t their Lance, their family.  The closest they get to any closure is one Adam W., who tries his best to help them before he, too, vanishes. 

Finally, two years after his disappearance, the Garrison reveals to them footage of that night. Fuzzy footage of his brother and two other kids running off campus towards the desert, and then towards a makeshift facility tent. The footage shows them disappearing into the tent and emerging with two other figures. Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane, the Garrison explains, the missing captain and a temperamental dropout. His little brother takes off on the dropout's hoverbike, and promptly disappears into the desert. That's the last anyone sees of them. 

Following the release of the footage, his family gets into contact with Lance’s friends’ families, who are equally in the dark and scared and confused. They remain in contact for about a year, before it’s clear their kids aren't coming back, and talking to each other is just another painful reminder of what they’ve lost. 

Lance’s family sends for a witch hunt for Keith Kogane, the boy deemed responsible for everyone's disappearance. The investigation reveals a shack in the middle of the desert, already ransacked by the Garrison, with remnants of some psychotic prophecy charted out on a corkboard. The running theory suggests Kogane went crazy after his expulsion, and turned to conspiracies to occupy his time. He became manic, and Shirogane’s return spurred on his mania, leading him to kidnap the whole group. The theories differ from this point on. Some people think he killed them all and then ran away, others suggest the collapsed cave had something to do with it, perhaps a ritual or maybe an explosion of some kind. 

The disappearance of the Garrison kids becomes something of a conspiracy then, featured on podcasts and videos full of people speculating the real circumstances of them going missing. Luis himself was sent email after email, received call after call from eager eyed theorists for an interview of what he thinks happened. He shuts them all down. What happened, he says, is that my little brother is missing and I don’t have time to create fairy tales about it . 

And just like that seven years pass. Lance turns eighteen, then nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, then it gets too painful to keep track. And then at twenty-four, he comes home.

Veronica is always the first one up, considering she’s actually got places to be unlike some people, mentally sneering at Marco who’s out of a job again . That’s why she nearly jumps out of her skin seeing Luis on the couch, wide awake. Upon closer inspection, it doesn’t look like he’s slept at all. His eyes are bloodshot, which would be concerning enough, but he also looks like he’s been crying, which raises more red flags. 

“You look like shit,” She says, doubling the amount of coffee she’s making. Clearly someone needs it. She only turns to look at him when he doesn’t reply. He’s still staring off into space, not even acknowledging her. He hardly looks like he’s even breathing.

“Hey, you ok?” She makes her way to him, nudging his shoulder. He finally breaks out of the trance he’s in, meeting her eyes with his own, unblinking. 

“Um”, he says unintelligibly. She quirks an eyebrow, and watches basically every emotion wash over his face. Her brother is hardly emotional - if you don’t count annoyed or angry, so the carousel his face goes through is as amusing as it is terrifying. “I have to tell you someth-” 

A shout startles them both, and suddenly Maria is running into the kitchen, tears running down her face. Her tears are silent but her body is strung up in fear. Veronica wrangles her niece in, crouching down to the five year old’s level. 

“What’s happened? Are you okay?” 

Maria is blubbering something, as a crash resounds from Lance’s room. Luis is running both hands down his face hard, cursing in a drawn out “Fuuuuuuck.” It stuns the toddler into silence. 

“I went to uncle Lance’s room to say hi but there’s a  man in there” She hiccups, turning her big brown eyes fearfully in the direction of the hall. Veronicas about to run down the hall right as the aforementioned man himself barrels into the kitchen, hands up in surrender. 

“I didn't mean to scare her!” He announces, voice cracking. All Veronica can do is stare, mouth agape. 

His hair is sticking up in the same way it always used to, and there's a pillow crease on his right cheek like there always is this early in the morning. And its Lance . And he's home, running after his niece after scaring the shit out of her. 

“What…” She trails off, looking between the sheepish look on Lance’s face and the resigned one on Luis’. “You can see him too, right?” Luis rubs at his red eyes.

The four of them are sitting on the couch, each cradling a mug of coffee.

“Where are mom and pop-pop?” Lance says, face grim. His coffee has gone cold. 

“Mom’s with Lisa in the hospital,” Veronica pauses. “Pop-pop died two years ago,” she adds, quieter. 

“Oh.” He takes a deep breath with his eyes closed, holds them like that for a few seconds. Then, “Lisa?” 

Veronica hikes a thumb towards Luis, who’s still bleary eyed and staring a hole through Lance’s head. “His wife. Been five years now.” Lance’s eyes dart to Maria. 

They sit in silence again. She knows she should be elated to see her brother again, but there’s an unfamiliar grown man on her couch asking questions he should already have the answer to. 

“I'm sorry,” Lance offers. She can’t tell if he means about their father or the wedding. Or about his disappearance. Hopefully the last one. Luis scoffs from the other end of the couch. 

“Sorry for not being there when he died, or for vanishing in the middle of the night and letting us think you were dead for seven years?” He says, venomously. It’s a complete one-eighty from the zombie Veronica saw on the couch just a few minutes ago. She should reprimand him, but it’s a hurt she can sympathize with, and frankly, she was thinking the same. 

“Both,” Lance says quietly. He’s refusing to meet either of their eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say bye. I’m sorry I missed so much,” He says, gesturing to where Maria is tucked into her father’s side. 

They’re doing this wrong, Veronica thinks vaguely. They should be asking him where he’s been, what he was up to. They should be hugging and crying, and the solemn mood should come later, after they've told him how happy they are to see him again. She knows, realistically, that this must be just as hard for him, they're just as foreign to him now the way he is to them. He’s sitting impossibly straight, she notices, like he’s strung up, like he feels threatened in his own home. She takes in her own expression, and the way Luis is glaring, arms crossed, and her heart breaks a little more. She can’t bring herself to do anything about it.

The silence drags on, and eventually it becomes too much for Maria. She wiggles out from under Luis’ arm, and walks towards where Lance is sitting. 

“Are you really Uncle Lance?” She says suspiciously, looking him up and down. Lance glances between her and Luis, before looking at her earnest face and nodding. 

“Yeah, but I don't think we’ve met before,” he tries for a lighthearted tone, but Veronica hears the waver in his voice, the way his eyes are taking in his niece. 

“I’m five,” is what Maria deems an acceptable answer, and Lance nods like he gets it. Maybe he does. Maybe he understands the gravity of the time that’s passed, the moments he’s missed out on. 

Maria considers him for a moment, and she must see what she was looking before, because she’s clambering into Lance’s lap and bringing him in for a hug. “Papa missed you,” she says. He freezes up for a second, before his hands come up to brush against her shoulder length black hair. His fingers toy with the ends briefly, before whatever else Maria is rambling about is lost to the sob that Lance lets out into her hair.

Lance has been home for three days now. It took some time getting Nadia and Silvio to get used to his presence, considering how young they had been when he left. They had to call Marco and Rachel back from the city, and they’d flown in as quickly as they could. Their mother had been inconsolable for a full day, refusing to let him out of her sight until she could be convinced he wasn’t going to slip away again. 

It feels almost natural having Lance back, as if he never left. He’s still Lance, he cracks bad jokes, and he falls back into the chore routine like he’s just visiting for the summer from the Garrison. 

Except that’s not really true. He cracks bad jokes and instantly looks to his left, and whatever he doesn’t see makes his smile falter and his eyes dim. He does the chores and his hands reflexively reach out to the side like he’s expecting someone to dry the wet plate for him. It’s nothing like Lance before he left because it’s like he’s lived an entire lifetime without them in that space he was gone. 

Three days in and Lance has failed to mention where he has been. And, they’re all trying their best to be accommodating, but it’s been hell the last seven years not knowing the truth, and it hurts more knowing the only person denying them of it is Lance now. 

Luis has been walking on eggshells around his little brother. Despite the bravado and the charm he’s laying on thick for the family, Luis can see right through it. Lance is deeply troubled. It’s in the way he’s constantly evasive on just the right topics, he’s reactive, he’s impulsive, he’s withdrawn, he hardly touches his food. The only thing Luis has been able to predict about what Lance is going to do these days is pull out a high tech phone every fifteen minutes and stare at it for another few seconds before he pockets it and repeats. Every night without fail, Luis finds him sitting upright on his bed, staring at that glowing translucent screen as if it holds secrets to the universe. 

On the morning of the fourth day, Luis finally cracks, slapping his palm onto the dining table as they’re all crammed together eating breakfast. Maria jolts from where she’s sat in Lance’s lap, pancake halfway to her mouth off of the plate Lance hasn’t touched at all. His face is still too gaunt. 

“You can’t keep refusing to tell us where you’ve been, Lance. Seven years of radio silence and you don’t think we deserve an explanation?” He demands, and his mother is reaching out to him to reprimand him but Lance cuts her off. 

“You’re right,” he clears his throat, “it's easier if I just show you”. 

He pulls out the strange phone and clicks a few buttons. A projection appears above their table, and it’s hard enough to accept that there’s a hologram at their kitchen table let alone the contents. It’s a picture of a giant castle, gleaming white on a foreign earth. Maria claps excitedly and Nadia and Silvio let out a quiet “woah.”

“This is the Castle of Lions,” he says, as if that’s supposed to mean anything, and then swipes. A photo of five giant mechanical lions, the only reference for scale is Lance at the feet of the blue one, barely as tall as one of its claws. 

He starts at the night of his disappearance. That he and the other kids had uncovered a millenia old conspiracy and a flying blue lion robot that started it all. 

It’s a lot to process, and Luis is almost convinced it’s some psychosis Lance has talked himself into to distract himself from wherever he was taken to. He's showing them scenery of distant lands, and selfies that feature the other missing kids, Hunk and Pidge, if Luis is remembering correctly. There’s images of ships and technology that feel straight out of a TV show, along with photos of aliens that look nothing like the ones humans could have come up with. It's all unbelievable, despite his photographic proof. 

Unbelievable and still not really any sort of explanation. 

One of the photos features two new figures, clearly not human. A tall elegant woman with white hair and marks under her eyes, ears pointed, next to her a man with a shock of orange hair. It's unsettling how human they look. Lance’s eyes have never been brighter these past four days than when looking at them.

“This is Allura and Coran,” he says, “She's the princess I mentioned, and Corans her royal advisor.” He says, like that means anything.

“A princess? Of where?” Maria adds excitedly. 

Lance scratches at the back of his neck. “Um,” The table stares back at him expectantly. 

“A planet really far from here,” He says to her. “It doesn't exist anymore, not really. That's um, that's why we got dragged into space in the first place. The lions belong to her and she needed to avenge her home.” He says to the rest of the table.

“Avenge it?” Luis says. “What, like a superhero?”

“Sort of,” he shrugs.

Luis knows he should press, but he's got so many questions he doesn't know which one should go first. 

“Well what about the other people, Shirogane and Kogane?” He asks. Those two are the only ones not featured in Lance's slideshow so far. 

“You know Keith?” He asks, eyes wide. There’s something in his voice that suggests something more than general curiosity that he can't put his finger on. Veronica scoffs.

“Yeah, we all watched the footage of him kidnapping you” She says. 

“Kidnapped?” Lance splutters. “I Just told you how we ended up in space. No one got kidnapped!”

Veronica nods, “yeah well, for the past seven years he was our only lead. The running theory was that he took all of you somewhere and killed you.” 

Lance’s eyes widened further. “Killed- wait, Killed us?” he exclaims. He shuffles around on his phone again, this time pulling up a photo of Shirogane and Kogane, both engaging in what looks like a sparring session, unaware of the camera.

“Keith and Shiro were with us,” he says. “The five of us piloted the lions together.” 

“So…” Veronica coughs, “there wasn’t any foul play?” 

“No!” Lance huffs. 

“It’s not like we knew that Lance. We went off the information that we had. It’s not like you let us know where you went.” Luis spits, and Lance deflates. Luis would feel bad if not for the anger that’s starting to rear its head again. 

“I know. I know and I’m sorry,” Lance insists, and then he’s changing the subject, scrolling past the photo of the two to show them a creature that apparently recycles planets.

After that day it’s like a dam has burst, and now nearly every moment is filled with Lance adding anecdotes about a battle, or a vacation, or a parade. Once, Luis spills some scrambled eggs on the floor and Lance is shooting off about a time an enemy virus hacked the castle and sent the food machine in a shooting frenzy. 

He has his moments, though, where he’ll be talking about the other “paladins”, as he calls them, and he gets a little distant, a far away look in his eyes. It’s only for a brief moment, and then he’s shaking it off and continuing the conversation like nothing happened. He also makes a point to talk about all of his friends, and even occasionally a cow, but Luis notices that Keith hardly makes an appearance in Lance’s rants, and from what he can gather, Lance and him have a sort of animosity. Luis has never really liked Kogane, and while knowing he isn’t a crazy killer is reassuring, the way Lance skirts around him still makes him uneasy.

It’s been two weeks now. Lance has adjusted well. As well as he can for someone who’s six inches too tall for his bed and reflexively reaches for his hip when there’s a particularly loud noise outside.

Veronica’s been studying her brother, the man he’s grown into. There’s pride, somewhere in the mix of emotions that threatens to choke her. If what he said about the war is true, then her brother’s a hero to billions, something that she can barely wrap her head around. 

He’s most like himself on his good days. He talks animatedly for hours on end about his adventures in space. He laughs and the sound fills the house in ways that send her straight back to ten years ago. He smiles at the kids and their mother whenever he catches them looking, and he never hesitates to whip out that phone and show them a plethora of images. 

There are also bad days. Days where he spaces out for hours on end. Days where he can hardly be coaxed into eating more than a few bites of his favorite foods, complaining about the texture or the taste or other excuses. There are nights where the whole house lies awake with Lance’s screams echoing in their heads. Nights where he cries with his entire body into that phone, and refuses to meet anyone’s eyes in the morning for hours. 

There are also the scars. The most obvious being the one on his brow, but she’s caught glimpses of others littered around his torso and legs. The war story sounds more believable when she has proof like that.

It's another restless night, and a particularly exciting story Lance told at dinner feels less heroic and more sickening the more she runs it through her brain. Sleep is not going to find her tonight. Something about a burning building made of materials they’ve yet to discover, and the target of their mission being right in the middle of it. She doesn't know what's more frightening; Lance dying seven years ago on Earth, or Lance dying somewhere off in space where they’d never think to look for him. 

She walks into the kitchen and flips the light on only to see Lance is already sitting at the table by himself. His phone (tablet? alien tech?) lighting his face up a sterile blue. His head snaps up with the light, showcasing his deep eyebags and red rimmed eyes. He gives her a sheepish smile and wave, any remnants of tears long since wiped away. She doesn't know how to navigate this new side of him. Back when he was still a student, late night tears were about his grades or a crush. Late night tears after you've been fighting a war for seven years is a whole different ballpark. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” She says. Selfishly, she wants him to say no, because she doesn’t know if she’ll have the right answers for whatever he's looking for, and she's not used to being so unprepared. He’s grieving, and it’s killing her to not know what exactly, who exactly, it’s for. The part of her who wants to be there for her brother though, gives him an expectant look, face earnest and open. 

“Why are you up right now?” He deflects, and Veronica feels both relieved and hurt. 

“Couldn't sleep,” she sits down at the table next to him, drumming her fingers on the polished wood. 

She could let it go. Let him come to her when he’s ready. But there's a chasm of seven years between them, and building a bridge to get them both over it might take more years than she has the patience for. So, she jumps. 

“You're not telling us something.” It comes out harsher than she means. 

Lance sighs, turning his head away from her. 

“I don't want to talk about it.” 

“Will you ever?” 

“Yeah,” he says, eyes darting to the phone laying blank on the tabletop, “eventually.” 

She knows this is all he's going to say for the rest of the night. His face gives away nothing, closed off, and it's hard to picture him as the same little brother who would tell her every detail of his life even when she begged him not to. 

She nods, and gets up from the table to brew some tea to help them both sleep. He’s quiet the whole time, but she feels his eyes tracking her as she putters around the kitchen. Once the tea has steeped, she picks up her mug and holds it close, and deposits his mug in front of him. She makes a point of pushing the phone aside with the ceramic. He murmurs a quick thanks, and she turns quickly, flipping the kitchen light off and leaves him in the dark like he's done to them.

A few more nights pass just like that. He acts normal all day and then the minute the sun sets and everyone’s gone to bed, he sits by himself and stares and stares at that phone. She doesn’t know what to think about it. He’s expecting something, a call or a text or whatever that device is capable of, and night after night, nothing. She can tell it eats away at him. His eyebags get darker, his conversations get shorter, his laughter less frequent. 

Worst of all, no matter how much she pushes, he never tells her. He avoids her questioning like the plague, and on especially worse nights he actually gets mad. 

It's one of those nights again. 

He’s sitting, head down on the table, when she walks into the room. She gives a cough to let him know she's there and his head shoots up off the table to give her a glare. 

“What?” He demands. 

Veronica shrugs, “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.” 

“Would you answer if I actually asked this time?” It's his turn to shrug now. He’s not really angry. Despite the years she knows she would still be able to know what that really looks like. He’s frustrated, maybe. With what, she doesn't know. 

“You’ve been home for a month now,” She says, “And the whole time your head has been somewhere else.” She settles into the chair nearest to him, hand on his shoulder. “Let us help you.”

“I-” He starts, and then there’s a buzzing. The phone on the table is glowing, and Lance grabs it faster than she can register. 

“Hello?” He says desperately, and the alien woman, Allura, is looking back at him. She starts talking to him in a language Veronica doesn’t recognize, and to her surprise he starts talking back in it. 

The conversation is frantic on his end, and composed on hers. It lasts only a few moments, but by the end of it he’s practically vibrating in his seat. The phone call ends with a rushed goodbye, and then he’s flying out of his seat.

“What? What is it?” Veronica demands. Lance is glancing around the room, but it doesn’t look like he’s really seeing anything, 

“I need to - I need to go.” He says, and he's making a move towards his room. 

She grabs him by the arm, and just barely manages not to get brushed off. 

“Lance what is it?” She presses, and he finally locks eyes with her. There's a fire in them that she's never seen before. It scares her. 

“I need to go back to the castle.”

Chapter Text

They were finally heading back to Earth. 

With the empire dismantled and the stragglers being taken care of slowly but surely, Voltron was given permission (as much as anyone can tell Voltron to do anything) to head home. They had established just a few days ago that there was no Galra presence in or around the Milky Way, or the entire quadrant for that matter, so there was no reason to really delay their return. 

Other than the personnel involved with Shiro’s return, Earth has remained relatively unaware of alien life, given that there were no outgoing signals or ships that extended past the edge of the solar system. This meant that they could just go home without having to alert any government agencies, with the castle and lions both having ample cloaking technology that Earth had yet to discover. However, Earth was capable of feeling disturbances at the edge of the solar system, so wormholing was a no go. By wormholing a few galaxies away, they could make as discrete an entrance back home as possible. 

Surprisingly, Allura had been the most keen to make the journey to Earth. 

Lance had been going over the route for maybe the sixtieth time when she approaches him from behind. 

“I’m honored to finally be able to see your home.” She says, addressing not only Lance but the others also gathered in the room. 

Pidge snorts from where they’re hidden behind a pile of what Lance can only assume is a dismantled…something? “More like you’re excited to have us finally stop bothering you in yours.” 

Allura rolls her eyes good naturedly. It might have been true if it was still those early months, where no one understood how to get along and Allura had just found out she had something to grieve. Now it was far from the truth, and they all knew that. 

“As I was saying.” She stands up a little straighter, like she’s making one of her speeches. “It’s been an honor working by your sides, and I’m happy to finally see the planet that birthed such wonderful people.” Pidge stops for a moment to screw up their face and mouth the word ‘birth’, making Allura smile wider. 

It’s not an unfamiliar sentiment. Since the war ended and the plan to return to earth was made a month ago, she’s said similar anecdotes almost daily.

“Thank you Allura, I’m honored to finally show you our humble planet.” Lance bows at the waist, hand extended. A silly imitation of the countless balls and galas they’d attended over the years. Allura reaches down for a quick squeeze before releasing him. It’d taken years for her to show any kind of vulnerability to the team, let alone seek comfort from them. It makes his chest ache.

She’s already alluded to the fact that she might stay in the castle as they make their reunions, to which they all had protested, but it was always a feat to get her to change her mind about something. She would need to stay out of the solar system if she wanted to stay undetected without expending the castle's energy systems, and other than the communicators, they’d only see her if they took the lions back out into space. 

Of course, now that Lance has tasted space, there’s no chance he’s staying on Earth permanently. While Allura’s been urging them to remain on Earth, the five of them had discreetly agreed that once they’d had a fill of their families, they’d reconvene at the castle. Efforts for the end of the war would require assistance for years to come, and there was no shot Lance was going to let others do it for him. 

But still, being apart from the castle even for just a few months makes his heart hurt in the same ways leaving Earth did. It was a weird dichotomy to cope with. 

“You’re doing it again.” She chides, catching the look on his face. 

“Yeah, yeah. The route isn’t going to change, I should give it a rest.” 

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. If it wasn’t for the ears and glowing markings, she’d fit in on Earth just fine. 

“Just because Keith is off-ship doesn’t mean you need to take his place as resident brooder.” Pidge decides to add. Allura nods in agreement. And to think they just had a moment. 

Keith has been regularly taking missions with the Blade of Marmora since the end of Voltron’s part in the war. It wasn’t surprising, considering his connection to the Blade and their work with dismantling leftover Galra troops, but Lance had hoped Keith would finally give himself a break. 

His only assurance was that Krolia has taken to going on every mission with him. While their relationship is still rocky, it was leagues better than when they’d first met. Lance knows for certain that she (now) has Keith’s back. If not for their relationship, then at least for the mission. 

In the month since their way back to Earth alone, Keith has been pulled aside for four separate missions. Five if you counted the one he’s on now. They’ve barely been able to discuss their plans for when they get back to Earth (the more he thinks about it, the more he’s starting to suspect Keith’s doing it on purpose). That being said, it’s hardly fair the rest of them get to laze around while Keith continues to be pulled across galaxies. Even if it is to build rapport with his long lost mother or something. 

“It’s okay, Lance. We all know Keith’s the brooder and you’re the stewer.” Hunk adds. Allura nods earnestly, which gives Lance the excuse to mock offense and walk out of the room.

So, he might be stewing. 

It’s just that, it’s been a few days since Keith’s departure, and none of the team has heard from him. While it’s never really unusual to get silence from him when he’s on a Blade mission, it never lasts this long, especially since he and Lance got involved a few years back. Keith had gotten really good at checking in every day or so when he was on these missions just to let everyone know he was ok, or even just random bits of information about the planet or its people. 

Lance tries not to panic, but it’s difficult given Keith’s disposition towards recklessness. He’s slowly wearing a hole through the floor of his room when Shiro slides the door faster than the hinges were meant to roll. It causes the mechanism to close again before his metal arm holds it in place as he finds Lance’s eyes. 

“It’s Keith,” he says, looking panicked. Lance’s heart jumps to his throat. 

“Is- is he back? Is he okay?” He asks, but in his head he thinks he already knows the answer. Nothing good would require Shiro’s reaction. 

“Lance he’s-” But Lance doesn’t hear him out for the rest of it, coming to a halt in the main room when he sees Krolia on the call screen. Just Krolia. 

She looks…well, she looks really unwell. Her typically impassive face is screwed up in panic, eyes wide. It doesn’t take long for Lance to register the amount of blood smeared across her armor, in her hair, across her forehead like she’s been wiping bloody hands across it. She’s breathing hard, and years of knowing her remind him she doesn’t ever breathe like this after some measly running. She’s panicking. 

The call is coming from the cockpit of a Galran ship. Not one of the Blade’s. 

“We’ll get to you as fast as we can,” Allura says. Coran is typing in coordinates into the system as Lance comes to a stop next to Allura. 

“Krolia what happened?” He demands, uncaring of the tone he’s using with Keith’s mother. 

“He got hurt.” She forces out. It looks like it hurts to say. “Badly.” She unhelpfully clarifies, voice wavering on the word. His first instinct is to comfort her, but he doesn’t know her, really. They’d only talked a handful of times in the four or so years they’ve known each other. Not to mention that it’s hard to comfort someone who’d hurt Keith so deeply. 

“What happened?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out like an accusation, but the way Allura places a hand over his shoulder suggests that it might have. He can’t bring it in himself to care as of now.

“Someone knew we were coming,” She says, too distraught to acknowledge Lance’s blatant disrespect. Allura starts to open the wormhole. 

“We were caught off guard. They had lined the building with bombs, and we weren’t able to get out fast enough. He shielded me.” The last part is said like she didn’t mean for it to be out loud. Her own personal admission. 

It’s no secret that despite knowing each other for years now, Keith and her were still quite distant with one another. A combination of his tendency towards isolation when he was uncomfortable and her tendency to make people uncomfortable led to them hardly even acknowledging their familial ties. It had bothered Lance at first, considering he’s such a family guy, but he had come to understand the implications of it all for Keith, and let it go. He only asked about Krolia when Keith offered, and other than that, she played little part in how Keith went about his daily life. 

“We’re here,” Allura states, and Lance startles. He didn’t realize they had already jumped, Krolia’s cruiser visible from the front window, looking about as tiny and miserable as he feels right now.

The next few moments are a blur. Krolia is docking into the hangar while Coran runs to the ship with a stretcher, and then they’re all sprinting to the med bay, Pidge, Matt, and Hunk prepping the pod. 

Keith looks bad. Like, really really bad. Lance can’t tear his eyes away from him the entire way to the pod. His eyes are closed, skin pale and face gaunt. He’s breathing, but barely. Small, shallow breaths that you could only really see if you were looking at him as hard as Lance is. 

And then there’s the blood. A steady plip plip plip on the floor marking the path they make though the castle. It smears across the hall as all of their feet run over it, and he distantly thinks about how much of a pain it’s going to be to clean up. 

He’s covered in it from head to toe. His suit is practically shredded, hanging on by meager threads. The plates are cracked to the point of being completely useless, and the smell of burnt fabrics nearly overtakes the smell of iron. The torn undersuit exposes the hundreds of cuts and lodged debris in his skin, and a large piece of metal deeply embedded into his side. The only part of his body undamaged by the blast is his face, which he must have buried into Krolia's body as he shielded her. 

The blood on his unmarked face is a remnant of the way Krolia's hands must have cradled him. He can imagine it, the way Keith’s blood would have soaked into the fabric of her gloves as she had to drag him to the ship, the way those bloodied hands would have cradled his face, soothed him, pushed his hair back, urged him with gentle hands to open his eyes, to stay with them. It’s affectionate in a way Lance wouldn’t have expected from her. Desperate, maybe?

Lance almost feels jealous that her face was the last face Keith would have seen, before he has to remind himself that Keith is right here and that he’s going to live. There’s no last, Lance has to remind himself, when it comes to the two of them. He won’t allow it.

Other than the steady breathing of the team, no one says a word as Coran ushers them into the med bay. Lance stays at the head of the gurney, holding Keith's head as it lolls with the rhythm of their steps. It’s silent as they hook him up to the machines and peel out his suit from his wounds. It’s especially silent when they all realize each shard of metal needs to be removed before they can seal him into the pod. They’ll need to be okay with getting close to losing him before they can even try to save him. 

No one wants to say that he’s basically dead anyway, not when there’s the weak pulse still emanating from where he’s linked to the pod. The extractions take an excruciating amount of time. 

Each tug of metal sends a twitch through Keith’s body, and more blood spills out. Lance wants to scream, wants to tell them to stop, but he knows that realistically he can’t be put in the pod with the shrapnel still inside. Shiro’s got a hand on his shoulder, both of them useless in this situation, when Keith flatlines. 

Despite how much this past hour Lance has wanted to scream, the room goes deathly quiet, save for the consistent beep of the monitor. 

Then, a flurry of movement. Coran and Allura flock around Keith, while Shiro uses his modified arm to hold up Lance. He hadn’t even registered when he’d fallen to his knees. Krolia, out of everyone, remains the most still. 

Dying was always a possibility. They’d taken that chance seven years ago and then every day since. But they were going home now, why couldn’t they all go home together?

Lance hauls himself up and makes his way over to Keith. He’s almost there amongst the Alteans before a grip on his shoulder stops him short. 

“There’s nothing you can do, you’ll only just get in their way.” She says, firm, and anger flood him, hot and heavy.

“This is your fault.” He spits. Her hand falters for a moment and he takes it as a chance to break free, breathing heavy.

It’s not until he gets to the stretcher that he realizes that she was right. There really is nothing for him to do here. He never really picked up on anything but basic wound care in his seven years in space, and this wasn’t that. Krolia is right behind him when he takes a step back, bumping into her. 

Lance isn’t privy to the details of Altean medicine, let alone their alchemy, so whatever it is that they’ve done to Keith is lost on him, save for the relief he feels when the body on the stretcher lets out a quiet pained gasp again. It’s not easy but they manage it, and Lance finally comes back to himself when Keith’s face is shut behind the glass, heart rate back to a slow and steady beep. He can’t even remember what happened, how they got his heart beating again, and he can’t bring himself to care about the details at the moment. 

Krolia is being forced by Coran out of her own armor, then, to also be put into a pod. She too had taken heavy fire from the blast. Looking at her now, Lance can see that some of the blood is actually hers, likely from the places Keith hadn’t managed to cover considering the height she had on most people in this room. 

Once she’s also sealed away, the team heads out to wash up. There’s nothing they can do now but wait. 

Lance stays. Keith’s blood is drying on his hands, but it’s all he has of him right now, and he can’t part with it. 

He sits there for hours, maybe, before Hunk finds him. 

“Hey,” He says softly, sitting down next to Lance. Lance gives him a hum of acknowledgment. 

“He’ll be okay,” Hunk has an arm wrapped around Lance’s shoulder, despite the fact that he’s just washed up and Lance is still covered in blood. “You know how stubborn he is. He’ll be out in no time.” 

“He promised me he’d come home with me,” Lance says absentmindedly, monitoring the steady rise and fall of Keith’s chest through the glass. 

“He will,” Hunk says, but it doesn’t come across as confident as Lance knows Hunk meant. 

They remain there in silence for another moment before Hunk leans away. 

“I’ll watch him for a bit, how about you go get cleaned up,” He says unsubtly. The blood is flaking now, sprinkled around Lance's frame on the floor like snakeskin. 

Lance shakes his head. 

“You sure?” Hunk asks. Lance can appreciate when his friend can tell what’s going to be a losing battle. Hunk nods and stands up to head to the door. “Call me if you need me,” he says gently, before the door swishes softly behind him. 

He loses track of time again. By the time Shiro walks into the room, the Castle lights are dim, suggesting it’s been at least five or so hours since he saw Hunk. 

“Go get cleaned up Lance,” It’s not as gentle of a suggestion as Hunk’s, and it makes Lance look up at Shiro’s face. 

“Seriously. I’ll stay here, you go freshen up.” It’s an order, and unlike Hunk, Lance knows Shiro won’t take no for an answer. Lance sighs and stands up, dusting off more flakes of blood. Shiro doesn’t try to hide his grimace. 

Lance walks over to the door, and Shiro rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything else, just gives him a solid few pats and then he’s guiding Lance out of the door. 

It’s just him in the hallway, then. The gentle hum of the Castle accompanies him back to his room, where he slowly strips off his bloodstained clothes and climbs into the shower. 

He breathes in, out, as the water sends the rest of the blood swirling into the drain. Treacherous thoughts of having to go home alone run through his mind, before he has to remind himself that Keith is alive and well, just a little hurt. It’s nothing the pod can’t fix.

He makes it a quick affair, eager to get back to Keith as fast as possible. Despite how little time he spent washing up, when he gets back there’s a bed set up next to Keith’s pod, blankets piled up to create padding and a pillow at the end facing the door. Shiro sits at the foot of it, and turns to greet Lance as he walks in. 

“Get some sleep,” he gestures towards the bed, and then stands to stretch. 

It’s the only exchange they have, and once Shiro is out of the room, Lance settles down into the middle of the heap of blankets. He grabs at the pillow to hold, and is surprised to find it smells like Keith, likely taken from his room. He knows he won't be able to sleep, so he remains sitting, arms full of Keith’s pillow. His hands find the small chain inside the pillowcase, and he holds on. He can't let go. 

Days pass, and Lance gets more restless as the pod remains closed. More days pass, and Lance doesn’t even register the state he’s in anymore. The other’s come and go, convince him to eat, but none of them are successful in getting him to leave the room for longer than a few minutes at a time. 

“Paladins,” an announcement cuts through the silence of the med bay, and Lance startles. Coran’s voice continues to carry through the ship. “Welcome home!” He exclaims, and for the first time since leaving, thinking of Earth fills him with dread.

They force him into Blue. Or, rather, Blue opens her maw and swallows him whole before he can get to protest number four. Shiro assures him that he’ll call when Keith wakes up, and that he should see his family. Lance wants to refuse, that he can wait for Keith to wake up, but they don’t hear him out, and instead they’re shoving a duffel of his belongings into Blue and promising him that seeing his family will help. And then Blue is flying out of the hangar towards home.

“What do you mean ‘go back’?” Veronica demands. She’s had enough of being left in the dark, and the thought of her brother vanishing fills her with a dread worse than when the Garrison had announced his disappearance. “You’ve hardly even been with us this entire time, you can't just leave,” she pleads. 

Lance looks at her properly, eyes wide and shiny. “I’ll come back,” He says, “It’s just, I need to go back for a little while.” He sounds unsure, and Veronica can’t bear to keep looking at him. 

He’s rummaging around his room loudly, shoving clothes and what looks like a weapon into the duffel he had come home with. 

The commotion must have woken up the rest of the family, because they’re slowly filing into the room, bleary eyed and confused. 

“Lance, what’s this about leaving?” Their mother demands, and it gets Lance to pause. 

“It won't be for long,” and it sounds almost like he’s pleading. 

“What could be more important than us, Lance?” Luis has pushed his way past the kids to get closest to Lance. “What’s so important that you think you can just leave for a second time?” Lance flinches. 

“It won't be the same I promise. This- it’s- It’ll only be for a little while. Then I'll be back.” Each passing moment has Lance more animated than Veronica thought possible, and she realizes slowly that the call was good news. Or, looking closer at him, at least exciting news. His eyes are wide and gleaming, but less with joy and more with determination.

She hesitates, then. Clearly, he can’t be stopped. Whoever called him, whatever they talked about, must mean a lot to him, and all she ever really wants is for Lance to be happy. 

“Then I’m coming with you,” she decides, and Lance turns those big eyes to her. “If you’re not going to be gone long then take me with you, I want to be there too.” She states, and she knows her tone leaves no room for argument. Next to her, Luis nods. 

“I’m coming too.” He says. 

Lance hesitates, and seems to mull it over in his mind before nodding. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Veronica says, surprised. Because, yeah, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, but she wasn’t expecting not to fight about it. 

“Yeah, okay,” Lance says, and he’s actually fully smiling. Veronica can’t help but think she’s so glad she didn’t try to stop him.

They say rushed goodbyes to their family, hugging their mother and giving the kids kisses on the heads. Lisa grabs Luis as they depart, no doubt scolding him. And then Lance is leading them out of the house and towards the patch of forest behind their home. 

Anxiety creeps up on Veronica as Lance just keeps pulling them further into the trees. 

“Where exactly are you taking us?” She says, after they’ve been walking for around ten minutes. Luis grunts in agreement next to her. Her mind unhelpfully brings back to her the sheer determination, and, was that anger?, that Lance had displayed back home. The forest looms around them, big and dark. 

“You’ll see,” Lance says, and even though his back is turned she can hear the smile in his voice. 

Veronica really, really wants to hate the fact that Lance is so taken with whatever’s up there in space, but after all of these weeks it’s like she’s finally seeing her brother again. His stubborn determination and passion. She missed it, no matter how much it’s creeping her out right now. 

He leads them into a clearing after another ten minutes of walking. He stops abruptly, sending both Veronica and Luis crashing into his back. He doesn't even flinch. Instead, he's turning around towards them, and stretching his arms out wide. 

“Guys, meet Blue,” he says, and Veronica tries really hard not to question his sanity. The clearing is still empty, and she’s about to ask him if he’s actually feeling okay, before a light blue glint of light ripples behind Lance. It’s like the air around them suddenly warps, and then she’s looking at the leg of a giant robot. 

Blue, Veronica recalls vaguely from the time spent looking through the slideshow of pictures Lance showed them. Blue, the giant robot spaceship. 

Lance is laughing as he takes in the shock on their faces, and then the lion is lowering her head and opening her mouth. Lance bounds in quickly, and only turns around when he realizes he isn’t being followed. 

“We don't have time,” he urges, and then Veronica and Luis are clumsily piling in behind him.

It's not that she thought Lance was lying about the whole space war thing. It was more like she had a healthy amount of doubt about it. Now there’s no doubt about it, she thinks, considering they’re flying in literal space at the moment. Luis and her are gripping onto the back of Lance’s seat, white knuckling through the fact that super advanced spaceships didn’t think to add additional seats in the cockpit. Lance hasn’t said much of anything after they took off, and it gives her a chance to take everything in. 

Her brother is expertly flying alien spacecraft. Her brother is flying said alien spacecraft to what she can assume is another alien spacecraft. Alien spacecraft. She stifles a snort, lost in how improbable this all seems. Luis shoots her a dirty look, and it’s clear that he’s not made for speed. She actually lets out a laugh, and it makes the dirty look even meaner. Lance continues to ignore them. 

Around half an hour into the flight, her hands relax, and she can finally let go and shake them out. Lance clearly knows how to steadily fly the thing, and there’s no way her hands will be able to manage that grip for however much longer it’s going to take for them to get to their destination. 

It’s probably another half hour until Luis breaks the silence.

“What the hell is that.” he says, and Lance startles like he’d forgotten they were even there. Veronica tries not to let it hurt her feelings. 

“That’s the Castle,” he says, and it comes out as a relieved sigh. It’s only another few moments before Lance is steering them towards the side of it, and a door opens up to allow the lion to fly in. Veronica only realizes she’s gripping the chair again when the whole machine comes to a stop. 

The head lowers and suddenly they’re walking down to the floor of the Castle. 

“Lance!” Exclaims a voice, and Veronica admonishes herself for forgetting the aliens name. She’s wracking her brain trying to remember what Lance had called the ginger man when she realizes Lance is talking about her and Luis. 

“These are my siblings,” he says, “take care of them,” and then he disappears out the door, leaving her and her brother alone with aliens, and upon closer observation, Takashi Shirogane tucked near the door. 

Veronica offers them a lame wave, while Luis is still staring at the door Lance vanished through. 

“Well!” The ginger exclaims, clapping his hands together, “I believe we’re in need of a tour, then!” And then she’s being dragged alongside her brother outside of the same door Lance just took.

Luis is not an idiot, and he knows the man leading them around the ship is only doing it to buy Lance time for whatever it is they’re here for. They’re walking around yet another storage corridor when the intercom rings out. 

“Coran you’re needed in the control room,” a female voice says, and the man walking with them, Coran, perks up. 

“Well, it’s about time we head back!” He says, and then they’re walking back around the winding corridors until they're brought into a large room, windows lining the front with some sort of control panel facing towards them. 

They’re kind of forgotten at that point, with Coran walking over to talk to the princess. Luis turns to Veronica, who seems to be taking in the vastness of the room. 

Luis can appreciate how amazing the inside of the ship is, and had been during their tour, but that’s not really why they’re here now, is it?

Takashi Shirogane, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, approaches the two of them. 

“It’s nice to meet you both,” He extends his left arm out, “Lance has told us a lot about you.” There’s a friendly smile on his face, completely open and easygoing. 

Luis goes to shake his hand, while Veronica gapes at his right arm, a prosthetic that's attached by seemingly nothing, floating in the space his arm would be in. Luis will have to sort it away into the file of ‘things I can stop to think about later’. Right now he needs to find Lance. 

“Has he now?” He challenges, and the smile on Shiro’s face doesn’t even falter. 

“Lance has always been the one dreaming of home more than all of us,” He explains, “we learned a lot about you all through the years.” 

“Well his family’s here now,” Luis starts, “but Lance is actually nowhere to be seen.” The rudeness in his tone snaps Veronica out of her reverie, and she nudges him in admonishment. 

Shiro for his part actually doesn’t falter at the words. Instead he just nods in agreement. 

“Here, I’ll take you to him.”

They’re led down another hall, which it seems that Coran purposely avoided. Shiro brings them to a halt outside of a door. 

“I’ll let him know you’re here.” He says pleasantly, and the door swishes open and shut after him. Luis catches a glimpse of Lance sitting near an odd long tube, another woman at his side before the gap closes shut. 

Just a moment later, the door opens again, and Shiro ushers them in. 

Lance doesn’t look back from where he’s staring, but the woman with him does, and it makes Luis falter in his steps. 

She’s tall. Taller than Luis and definitely taller than Shiro. She’s not exactly broad, but her height makes her look it. Her skin is a light purple, with purple markings down the sides of her face. Her sclera are a shade of yellow, with irises a deeper purple than her skin. The only features she has in common with Coran and the other girl are the long pointed ears and the humanesque face. All in all, she’s intimidating, and it doesn’t help that she seems to be glaring them down. 

“Ah,” Shiro clears his throat. “This is Krolia. Krolia, this is Lance's sister, Veronica, and his brother Luis.” 

Krolia continues to stare them down, and doesn’t bother greeting them. She must get what she's looking for because she gives them a low hum before turning back to the tube Lance is mooning over.

Which, right, they’re here for Lance. 

Lance, who is looking at  what Luis can now see is a body neatly shoved into a long crystalline tube. For a second, Luis thinks it’s a dead body, but then his eyes catch the monitors to the side, displaying what appears to be the body’s vitals. 

His brother finally turns to look at him, eyes watery but with a smile plastered on his face. 

“Luis, Veronica,” He says, splaying a hand across the glass, “meet Keith.” 

Chapter Text

Truthfully, Krolia hasn't spoken to the Blue Paladin, Lance , she has to correct herself, since she'd gotten out of the healing pod. She had gotten out only a day or so after she was put in, and there he was; staring deep into Keith's pod, not even acknowledging her. And then that was really the last she saw of him. They avoided each other the entire rest of the journey. Lance had occupied himself with the other Paladins, and she had chosen to occupy her time with the Blade. Then he'd gone to earth, and she had no reason to contact him since. 

Regrettably, it makes things a lot harder now. 

She was grateful for the arrival of his siblings, because he'd refused to acknowledge her presence save for a few occasional glances out of the corner of his eye, and she desperately needed someone to break the silence. She wasn’t prone to talking, least of all with Lance, and considering the nature of his relationship with Keith, she had no place to question his presence around her son. His family walking in was a saving grace in some way.

Strangely enough, she has seen his siblings before. Even stranger, from a glimpse into her own future back when they were in the abyss. It was a fleeting image of them sitting around a table together, Krolia much older than she is now. It takes a moment of scrutiny to decide if they're even the right people, given how old everyone was in her memory. But they have the same eyes, and the same skin tone, and even the same haircuts. She ends her contemplation with an affirmative hum. 

She turns back to Keith, then. He makes for a pitiful figure inside of the healing pod. The hours before Lance’s arrival gave her some time alone with him. Keith had never appreciated her looking too long at him. Whether he was uncomfortable with her heritage or her relation to him was still unclear, but what she did know is that he didn’t enjoy being around her too long. Ironic considering they had been each other’s only company for months on end. Now, with him unaware, she can look as long as she likes. He looks exactly as he had when he was a baby, the same slope of his nose, the same curve of his ears. 

It reminds her of how the panic directed towards his unconscious form felt much like the kind that she harbored during his birth. She had always checked him for his breathing, his heartbeat, making sure he could see her. It went beyond the curiosity of how a human hybrid could survive, and more into the territory of attachment she was raised to forget. It scared her. It still does.

Lost in thought, she misses when Lance introduces Keith to his siblings. They don't really give much of a reaction, but she can't tell if she just hasn't picked up on it due to her own ineptitude for human expressions. 

They stew in silence longer, with the smile on Lance’s face faltering the longer it stretches. 

“Um,” he clears his throat, and then glances at Krolia. He looks timid, and it sends a wave of confusion through her to be given anything but his usual anger. “Did Coran give you guys a good tour?” He asks, diverting the attention away from Keith as his siblings continue to scrutinize him. She’s glad for it, the part of her that, deep down, dislikes anyone scrutinizing her kin.

Lance’s words appear to shake his brother from his thoughts. “Yeah,” he says gruffly, crossing his arms. “Really good hallways in this place.” Krolia can’t tell if it’s a joke or something more aggressive, but Lance seems to falter a bit more regardless. 

“Right, well,” Lance glances at the ticker mounted on the wall. “It’s bedtime.  I can ask Coran to take you to your rooms?” He suggests, but it comes across more like a demand. 

Veronica shifts uncomfortably. “I thought you said this would be quick. You want to spend the night?” 

Lance scratches the back of his neck, a habit she’s seen Keith pick up these last few years. “I actually had something to discuss with Krolia.” Which, of course, it’s the only reason he’s back on the ship. 

The only reason the Princess had called the Blue Paladin back; Kolivan had secured details about the attack, and it was only fitting for the people most related to Keith to handle it. 

As if sensing them talking about him, Keith’s monitors begin to beep. Lance looks a moments notice away from panicking again. Veronica and Luis flick their eyes back to him, both of their eyes narrowed. It stirs something uncomfortable in Krolia’s gut, so she moves abruptly, startling the three of them. It’s not anything new, and Krolia knows what to do to ease him in his cryosleep

“Lance, you go take them to their rooms. I know what to do.” She says curtly. Lance narrows his eyes at her. It maybe wasn’t the tone she meant to use on him after over a month of avoiding one another, and she can see the anger behind his eyes. However, he must also be feeling out of sorts with his siblings’ eyes on Keith so he stands up to lead them out of the room with a hesitant nod. 

“I’ll be back,” he says to the air while walking out of the room, and then Krolia is left alone with her son. Selfishly, she thinks this is the way it should be.

Sure, things are super awkward with Krolia, and his own family, and maybe even with Shiro considering the disapproving look he sent Lance’s way for avoiding Krolia the way he has been. But, Lance thinks, there’s a mission to complete. That’s all that really matters at the moment, so he can handle a little bit of awkwardness. 

“So this is what you’ve been hiding from us?” Or not. 

“Yeah, what gives, Lance?” Veronica joins in. 

It would feel nostalgic and fun to have his siblings gang up on him if it was in any context but this one. “I wasn’t hiding anything!” Lance protests. “It just never came up.” He adds lamely. 

“Yeah, definitely never came up even once when we kept asking what was wrong.” Veronica scoffs. 

Lance bristles. He knows his family doesn’t know about Keith and him, he knows they can’t understand the complexities of his hurt, but he was hoping they’d give him some leeway. Keith has been unconscious for weeks now, and there’s still no proper projection to when he’ll be awake. They had hooked up the pod monitors onto his communicator so he could watch it from home, and every single day the readings came out the same. There was no way he could even come close to describing this to his family without unpacking so much more than he was ready to tell them.

“It wasn’t something I felt comfortable sharing,” he says after a moment. It just makes his siblings angrier, by the way their faces contort. 

“We’re your family, Lance, you shouldn’t have to hide anything from us.” Luis says. “What’s so special about him that you couldn’t tell us?” If only they knew. 

The judgement coming off them is unfair. When he fantasized about coming back to Earth, he never considered that his family would have changed. His siblings had always pressed when he was upset, but they’d never been angry at him for not sharing. He expected them to understand. Clearly he was wrong. 

“You don’t know the half of it,” Lance starts, and sure, maybe he’s losing his cool. “What we’ve been through on this ship you’d never understand, and I don’t expect you to.” He’s being unfair, he knows this, but the idea of going on a mission while not knowing if Keith is ever going to wake up riling him up more than he thought it would. 

Veronica opens her mouth to say something but he cuts her off. “But these people up here are my family, and I’d expect you to understand that.” 

Honestly, he’s a little confused why this is a fight in the first place. But he’s standing here, angry, and his siblings are staring at him, hurt. 

“We were your family first, Lance. I would expect you to understand us too.” Veronica says, and then his siblings are walking away from him down the hall and out of sight. 

It only hits him a while later that he’s supposed to be their guide, and they definitely don’t know where they’re going.

They’re definitely lost. Luis curses under his breath as they walk into another identical hall. 

“Maybe we could have fought him after he brought us to the room?” Veronica jokes, and Luis furrows his brow. 

The fight with Lance felt, in hindsight, completely useless. Sure he was mad at his little brother, but this was clearly something, someone, he cared about. But his own hurt clouded his rationality. Lance was their family. Sure he had spent the last seven years in space but he spent the seventeen years before that with them. Surely that would take precedence. But at the same time, what would Luis know about forming a telepathic bond with sentient lions and four other people. 

“Luis,” Veronica says. He glances down at her. She’s looking at the end of the hall. The alien woman, Krolia, is leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Luis hadn’t even heard her approach while he was lost in thought. 

“The blue paladin was supposed to take you to your rooms.” she says. Luis avoids her eyes. It takes him a moment to realize she’s talking about Lance.

“We, uh, had a disagreement.” Veronica supplies, also avoiding the alien’s gaze. She’s gripping onto the sleeve of Luis’ shirt unsubtly. 

“About Keith.” It’s not a question. She approaches them, and Luis tries to pretend like he’s definitely not afraid of the creature that towers over him. Veronica gives a faint nod. 

She’s looking down at them. It feels condescending. 

“How much has Lance told you about him?” She asks, eyes still scrutinizing, but it takes Luis by surprise that the question is a lot more gentle than her previous statements. 

“Um, that they fought together in the war. Keith discovered the Blue Lion.” Veronica looks up at Luis, and it’s almost funny how stressed she looks. 

“He said they were rivals, and that Keith got them into a lot of trouble.” Luis adds, and it was apparently the wrong thing to say because Krolia loses all of the relaxation Luis didn’t know she was displaying, and stiffens up, eyes narrowing. 

“Right.” She says, back to being curt. “Well, I'm sure you’ll be able to find your way back to your rooms.” and then she’s disappearing into the same hall she came from. 

So not only was their brother hiding things from them, he was also not in the good books of the intimidating alien woman aboard the ship with them. 

“She was totally being petty, right?” Veronica asks, a little hysterical, still not over having spoken to a real life alien. 

(Coran didn’t count, he looked way too human, Luis justifies. A purple woman with yellow eyes and claws is just different.)

They end up wandering for another fifteen minutes before Coran finds them.

“Oh, funny seeing you here!” He exclaims, too cheery for how they’re feeling. Then, “Wasn’t Lance supposed to show you your rooms?” 

Veronica winces, while Luis continues to try for impassiveness. “We had a disagreement.” He repeats Veronica’s words from earlier. 

Coran looks contemplative for a moment, down to comically twirling his moustache. It gives Luis a moment to scrutinize the man further. 

If he had to guess, the alien looks around sixty years old, though his skin looks smoother than it should, and there’s the obvious facial markings that seem to be incised into the skin under his eyes. He looks human enough, but if you looked closer, maybe his eyes were slightly wider than average, his nose slightly longer. Regardless, he passes completely as a human in strange cosplay, and it’s comforting in a way, to be billions of miles away from Earth but still not feeling it. 

That is, of course, if he doesn't think about the woman, Krolia, whose yellow gaze and, he swears there were fangs, seemed to track him like he was prey. 

“I remember my family disagreements,” Coran says sagely with a decisive nod, ushering them in a new direction. He continues talking as they walk. “Lance is a good boy,” A snort from Veronica, “but he can be stubborn when he’s passionate. Give the boy some time to open up to you, he’ll open right up. Just like a -” The simile is lost on Lois, the word Coran says is clearly not in a human language, and the siblings share an incredulous look. Then he gestures a hand out to the new hall they’ve been corralled into. 

“This is where all of the main bedrooms are, you can have your pick of the ones that are free.” He says, and then makes a move to head back the other way. 

Luis picks the door closest to them, seemingly empty enough for him to occupy. Veronica chooses the one adjacent to his, and it seems like that’s that. 

Veronica ditches her room to follow Luis into his own. 

“Lance is definitely hiding something from us.” She says once the door slides shut behind her. Luis groans into his hands, running them over his face. 

“Obviously.”

“He doesn’t want to talk about it.” 

“Obviously.” 

“He hasn’t even told us why we’re even here.” 

Luis sits heavily onto the bed, immediately struck by how stiff it was. For all that the alien ship could do, comfort clearly wasn’t high on the list.

“What should we do?” Veronica sits next to him on the bed, wringing her hands together. “We can’t even ask him without us getting mad at each other,” she says sadly, eyes downcast. 

“I thought the month he’s spent with us would be enough time for him to open up to us, but he keeps hiding.” she’s slumped against his shoulder. Luis lies her down in the bed, patting her shoulder in what he hopes is a calming manner. 

“It’s not like he can avoid us when we’re in space together?” He suggests, getting a snort out of his sister. 

She sits up abruptly. “Holy shit. We’re in space!” She exclaims. Luis rolls her eyes. He can’t outwardly agree with the sentiment so he shoves her back down. 

“Get some sleep. Maybe he’ll be more willing to talk when he’s not running on zero sleep.” And then he’s shoving her over on the mattress and waiting for sleep to take him. 

“Wait, how do they speak English?” 

“Go to sleep , Veronica”.

She wakes up disoriented, forgetting where she is. The memory of last night slams into her. Lance getting a call from Allura, them taking off into space in a giant metal lion, talking to an actual real life purple alien. She startles seeing Luis already awake, sitting at the edge of the bed. 

“Did you even sleep?” Luis just grunts, shrugging his shoulders. The last time he looked this haggard was the night Lance had returned home. A sleepless night fueled by disbelief and hysteria. 

Whatever he was about to say is disrupted by a knock on the door, Takashi Shirogane’s voice on the other side, telling them breakfast is ready. It’s so casual she can almost pretend she’s back home and it’s just a matter of walking to the kitchen instead of the large expansive halls of a giant spaceship. 

They freshen up, thankful that while the beds were prison worthy, the room was equipped with its own pristine bathroom. 

Shiro is waiting at the door when they pile out, and Veronica almost feels guilty they made him wait so long. His face betrays nothing about how he might be feeling about the wait, though. 

“I thought I should take you to the kitchen. I forgot how confusing this place could be when it’s your first time,” He says warmly. 

He leads them down another identical hall, but Veronica actually recognizes the way from the tour they were given. They’re led into a bright room with a dining table and an abundance of chairs, and what seems to be a kitchen tucked into one of the sides. 

Coran, Allura, and Krolia are already at the table, divulging in what looks like a green pudding. 

“Where’s Lance?” Veronica asks. Shiro uses his prosthetic to scratch the back of his neck, and it seems weird seeing Lance’s nervous tick on someone who isn’t him. 

“Lance is in the infirmary, still. But don’t worry, we gave him some breakfast earlier.” Shiro reassures. 

The three of them sit at the table, Veronica and Luis taking the seats closest to Coran and furthest from Krolia. Shiro, on the other hand, sits right next to her. 

“Oh! My apologies,” Allura says out of nowhere. “I was so busy last night I forgot to introduce myself. I’m princess Allura,” 

She’s holding out a hopeful hand for them to shake. Veronica takes it. 

“So I’ve heard,” The handshake is firm, if not maybe a little too hard. “Lance has told us a lot about you, Princess.” The returning smile feels like it’s more teeth than anything else, and it makes alarms go off in her head. She tamps it down when the Princess replies. 

“Only good things, I hope” The princess laughs lightly. Veronica thinks about the way Lance had talked about her on those days crowded around the dining table, his eyes twinkling with affection, and Veronica smirks. 

“Oh trust me, only good things.” She says, and is unsurprised by the Princesses faint blush as she gives another laugh. Her smile this time is much more human, and she’s suspecting that the first one was meant to be intimidating. The blush has her suspecting there’s something there for her to talk to Lance about later when he’s not set on living in the infirmary.

Coran also gives a light chuckle, “Oh Lance’s affliction for the princess was of course the selling point for Voltron for many years.” He adds, wistfully. 

Krolia gives a sharp cough from the other side of the table, and Coran gives her a sheepish smile. It placates Krolia about zero percent. 

Weird , Veronica thinks. 

“Well, how about we give you guys some time to eat,” Shiro says, clapping his hands together. 

It’s an absolutely miserable meal. Veronica has never wanted to eat anything less in her life. The consistency was deceptively slimy, and it tasted like sadness and salt. If this was Lance’s diet for the past seven years, she thinks she can forgive his anger. Luis must think the same, because he’s taken about half a bite off his spoon. It’s genuinely surprising to look up and see that the other four have cleared their plates. It’s a miracle her picky brother lived off of this, let alone grew several inches and bulked off of it. 

Shiro laughs when he notices their hesitance. “Don’t worry,” He says. “You’ll get used to it.” And Veronica gets the sinking feeling she’s not going home today either. 

There are a few more moments of silent eating, when Shiro finally takes pity on them. 

“I’ll take you to Lance.” he says, standing up and putting his metal arm on Luis’ shoulder.

He’s walking them down another increasingly familiar hall when he speaks again.

“Give him some time,” he turns to look at them, eyes shining something fierce. “Lance is strong, and he’ll open up eventually. Just, please, give him some time.” And then he’s leaving them outside the med bay door. 

It’s hurtful, to hear someone talk about her brother to her like she’s the stranger, but his intentions were good, and she can work with that for now. 

The door slides open to the familiar sight of Lance bunched up near the foot of the cryopod. He’s fiddling with something small in his hands. She only catches glimpses of it as he passes it between them. 

Lance turns, then gives them a small smile, putting the object into one of his pockets. 

“Hey guys, how was breakfast?” Like there wasn’t a sleeping elephant in the room. Veronica snorts. 

“Awful.” 

Lance laughs a real genuine laugh. Affection blooms in her chest. He makes it easy to forget why she was ever even mad at him. 

“Oh it took me months to get used to that stuff.” Veronica worries for a moment that he’s insinuating that they’re going to be stuck here for months, before he speaks again. “You’re lucky you won’t be here that long.” 

“And how long are we going to stay here?” Luis asks, an eyebrow raised. 

Lance gestures vaguely to the door. “I already told you, I have a few things to discuss with Krolia.” 

It piques Veronica’s curiosity again. What could her brother have to discuss with the alien that was so urgent he packed up immediately at her first call. Their hypothetical dynamic was one she hadn’t really stopped to consider yet. 

Allura and Coran’s connection to Lance make sense, considering this is their home and their lions that fronted the war. Krolia is a wild card, one that no one has even bothered to pretend to explain. 

She must have some sort of sixth alien sense, because she’s walking in next. 

She gives a brief glance of acknowledgement to her and Luis before bodily turning to Lance, the two of them at her back. “I assume you’ve heard.” 

It’s curt and leaves no room for pleasantries. Lance doesn’t seem surprised by this, and Veronica vaguely remembers the tension between the two from the day before. There’s a question on the tip of her tongue, but no opportunity to ask it. 

“Yeah.” Lance says, nodding. He’s too casual in the way that Veronica knows he’s feeling flighty. “Allura told me a little bit about it. I’ve uh, been meaning to talk to you about it more.” 

The conversation is just on the side of vague enough that it seems deliberate. That makes it obvious that her and Luis are being kept out of the loop. 

“You’ve had many opportunities to.” The alien replies, and it sounds so much like a scolding that the look Lance shoots her feels reminiscent of the type he’d shoot her when being scolded by their mother. 

“I had other things to deal with.” he says, gesturing in Veronica’s direction. 

Krolia hums in dissent. “This is going to require all of your focus, Lance.” she says. 

Veronica tries to wrap her head around the exchange. It’s charged with both anger and trepidation. Like they’re recovering from an argument but still can’t let it go. 

“Maybe.” Krolia says, carefully, glancing between Lance, them, and Keith in the pod, “You should stay with your family.” 

The change in Lance’s demeanor is immediate. What did the unconscious man have anything to do with this? “You know that is so unfair, Krolia.” This means something monumental to him. She knows this, and her confusion is slowly being overtaken with clarity. 

Veronica can’t help but agree with Krolia, though. A look at Luis suggests that he agrees. His face is stormy but he’s holding back quite well actually. At the same time, though, she feels a deep hurt at the statement on Lance’s behalf. The second Lance received news (about what, she was still unsure,) he was packed up and ready to leave his family, who was Krolia to suggest Lance should have stayed gone? 

(A voice in her head reminds her that she literally agrees with Krolia, but the brief flash of hurt across her brother’s face makes her second guess it.) 

Before Krolia can cut back with something even more biting, Shiro and Allura enter the room. 

Allura skips the hello’s and goes straight into: “Please tell me this is a productive conversation.” 

Surprisingly, both Lance and Krolia look equally as abashed, the fight leaving both of them. Veronica is a little in awe at the power Allura exuded in that one sentence alone. 

“I thought so.” Allura states, disappointed. “Now that we’ve all had breakfast I’m sure this is as good a time as any to get to what we’re here for.” She says. The friendly, almost lax demeanor from breakfast is replaced with something professional, though not impersonal. 

Lance swallows thickly, before nodding. “Good,” Allura says, “Let’s get going then.”

Krolia walks past them quickly, not making eye contact. As if that was hard to do, considering she’s nearly a head taller than them. 

“I’ll see you later,” Lance says, and for a second Veronica thinks he’s talking to them, but his hand is on the pod, and he’s said it quiet enough that she probably wasn’t meant to hear it at all. The look on Lance’s face is so open and affectionate Veronica’s struck dumb with it. 

She feels like an absolute idiot, and maybe a little insensitive for not having realized it sooner. Luis is shooting her confused glances, and he has to reel in the look she knows is on her face. 

“I thought those were healing pods,” Luis asks, breaking the silence as they walk back to wherever Allura had decided to lead them to. “He’s been in there for a while, though, right?” Veronica nudges him for the insensitivity, knowing now what she assumes Luis still hasn’t picked up on. 

“They are healing pods. But they’re also ten thousand years old. The time spent in them depends on the type of damage done to the body.” He’s not looking at them, back ramrod straight as he walks a few paces in front of them.

“Is he okay?” Veronica asks stupidly. “I mean, he’s in a pod so I can assume he isn’t. But you told us the longest you’ve spent there is like three days and then you were brand new.” She backtracks. Except that’s also not entirely true, right? She’s seen the scars on Lance’s body, those clearly weren’t healed completely.

Lance is silent, and for a moment his gaze goes far off into the distance, similar to how he’d get on his worst nights.  

“He will be.” It’s the only explanation he provides them with, and Veronica lets it go. 

Allura takes them into what looks like is probably their “main” room, with Krolia already standing in the middle. She takes them in with another one of her yellow stares, and Veronica chooses to stare intently at Allura instead. 

They exchange words in that foreign language again, and then Allura is ushering them out of the room. 

“They’re going to be in there for a while smoothing out all of the details,” she explains. “It’s best if you find other ways to occupy yourselves in the meantime.” She’s saying it friendly enough, but it’s still frustrating not knowing what exactly is going on. 

“Is anyone actually going to tell us what’s going on?” Luis breaks, finally. Allura worries her lip between her teeth, clearly having some sort of internal debate. 

“I can’t be sure what details Lance has already given you, and it might not be my place to say…” She trails off. “But worry not! There’s plenty to do up here, especially if it’s your first time.”

The rest of the day is spent in the dark. They only see Lance during mealtimes, and then afterwards he’ll vanish back into that conference room. 

Luis mostly gets whisked away into conversations with Coran for the better part of the day, and more often than not she’s left alone with Shiro and Allura. Krolia, it seems, is also in the conference room with Lance, but unlike him, remains there for meals as well. Considering that she’s terrifying to look at, Veronica really can’t complain about her absence.

Allura and Shiro make good company, and they ease her into conversations about silly happenings on the ship and their missions. It’s only after dinner that she has the courage to bring up Keith, and what exactly happened to him. The man in the pod has been on her mind for a really long time, long before Lance’s return, back when he was still an alleged fugitive, if she’s being honest.

Shiro is the one who answers about the pod. Veronica recalls Lance mentioning their familial relationship and she winces, realizing it's probably harder for him to talk about it than anyone else on the ship.

“Keith was the hardest to convince to quit going on missions,” he says, “right before we were about to get back to Earth, he had gotten injured on a mission with Krolia. He’s been in the healing pod since.” The easygoing smile doesn’t leave his face even once, but there’s a tension around his eyes. Veronica can sympathize. Krolia’s involvement and Lance’s animosity towards her makes a lot more sense now, too.

“It's been a month since then!” Veronica gapes with the realization. She doesn’t need to be well versed in alien technology to know that a month long coma doesn’t have a good outlook. 

Shiro nods grimly. “It was hard on everyone, but Lance took it the hardest. It took a lot of convincing on our end to get him to actually go home.” 

He must see something on her face, because then he’s wincing. 

“I don’t mean it like that! Lance was so excited to go home, he would have regardless. He just needed some time.” He trails off the end of his sentence, and the lighthearted mood is gone. Technically her own fault, but Veronica wants to blame Keith for some reason. 

She never thought she’d be grateful for Krolia’s arrival, but her entrance into the sitting room is as good of a distraction as any from the awkwardness in the room. 

“Krolia, is there something wrong?” Allura says, standing up from off the couch. 

“Kolivan has finally triangulated the location, we’re ready to head out.” She’s fierce when she’s this focused, and it’s terrifying to witness. 

“We’re going to find whoever did this to him.” Allura says gently, actually laying a hand on Krolia’s forearm. For all that she looks uncomfortable, the taller woman actually doesn’t shake her off. Veronica doesn’t need the extra context to understand she means whoever did this to Keith. 

“And Lance?” Shiro adds, unsure. 

A sense of understanding washes over Veronica in that instance. The harried phone call, the blazing fury in her brother’s eyes, the way he had spent the entire day in that conference room with Krolia. Veronica hadn’t even thought about this- Lance shooting off into deep space again, being a possibility. She had started to suspect earlier today that Lance cared about Keith, more than he led on, but surely this couldn’t have been the reason he packed up quicker than they could tell him no. 

Krolia looks uncomfortable, the way her forehead creases looks entirely too human for a moment.  “My own opinion is that I should be the one to go, but he insists.” Her head turns away from the conversation, eyes downcast she murmurs, “It was my own mistake.” 

The door closes loudly across the room, and Veronica's heart lurches. 

“It is your fault, which is why I can’t trust you to go alone.” Lance says. “That’s why we all know that I’m going, too.” 

Chapter Text

“You can’t be serious?” Veronica fumes. They’ve just got him back, he just got them back, how could he think of going on another mission?  She knows he cares about Keith, hell, with the way Lance was looking at him, even Veronica was partial to caring about Keith. But knowing this is the same type of mission that got the other man killed, how could she be fine with Lance going?  

“I had been meaning to tell you.” Krolia says, a placating hand out to him like he’s a wounded animal. “I didn’t want them to call you,” an accusatory glance in Allura’s direction, who for the most part looks unphased. “I think it would be best if I handled it.”

“Like you handled the last one?” Lance scoffs. She’s never heard him use this tone with anyone before, and it makes her realize that maybe she’s never heard Lance ever be properly angry. Sure he’s been frustrated or annoyed before, but never anything like this. She almost feels bad for Krolia.

But then, he turns his angry face towards Veronica. “And you, what does it matter if I go or not? If you could handle the past seven years without me you can handle one more mission.” 

She can’t even reason why she’s being lumped into his anger.

“What about us made you think we had things handled, Lance?” She says, voice breaking on the last part, embarrassingly. “Nothing about you being gone was easy.” 

He opens his mouth to reply but Shiro cuts him off.  

He puts a hand on Lance's shoulder, trying to soothe him. “Lance, maybe it would be better if you stayed here? Looked after him?” Lance narrows his eyes and shrugs him off, gaze calculating. 

“You don't think I’ll be able to keep my head in the mission?” He accuses, this time fully directing his venom at Shiro. Veronica feels like she should say something, do something. He’s her little brother, it feels like she should have some sort of responsibility in the situation. Except, despite her instigating it, it's obvious she’s no longer a player in this conversation.  

She can see the gears in Shiro’s mind turning as he tries to think of what to say next. She would hate to be in his position, Lance has always had a one track mind when it came to the things he was passionate about. “That’s not what I said,” Shiro starts. “Keith needs you here more than he needs you out there.” 

Lance scoffs, “We both know I’m useless to Keith here, the only thing I can do for him is go on this mission”. The door opens to reveal Luis and Coran. Veronica bites back a groan. If things weren’t going to shit already they certainly were now. 

“What are you guys talking about?” Luis says, and out of the corner of her eye she can see Lance bracing himself for another fight. 

She really should say something, but strangely, she’s curious to see how this plays out. Which way will Lance go? Would his magical bond with these aliens (and Keith, the star of the show, she needs to remind herself) precede the family he abandoned years ago? 

“I have received a tip for a mission and will be leaving soon.” Krolia says carefully. She’s trying to meet Luis’ eyes as she says this. A valiant effort considering he’s avoiding looking in her general direction. 

“And I-”

“And Lance will be staying here.” Krolia cuts him, still looking at Luis. 

“Right…” Her older brother says, casting a dubious glance around the room. “Where else would he go?” His eyes lock onto hers and she desperately tries to silently convey that this isn’t going to be a fight he’s going to win. 

“Why does everyone suddenly think I’m not capable of going on this mission?” Lance exclaims. Veronica wants to comfort him, but the hurt of being potentially left again stops her. 

“No one is saying that,” Shiro tries, again. “We need someone with a level head to take this,” He places both hands on lances shoulders, gaze firm. “And when it comes to Keith, that’s not going to be you.” He tries for a more lighthearted tone on that last part, and the implications of that reinforce what Veronica already knows. She can feel in her gut that it’s exactly why nothing is about to stop her little brother right now. 

Once, in elementary school, Lance had a crush on a girl who had rejected him because her crush was a year older and knew how to cartwheel. In his efforts to impress, he had broken a wrist, and still had to be convinced not to try again. All of that to say that Lance was never going to give up if it meant it was for someone he liked.

Luis saunters up to Lance, and Veronica can see a growing frustration brewing. “So you’re telling me,” he says gruffly, “that you’re going to leave us.” Veronica lets out a heavy sigh. “And for Kogane? Again, no less.” Veronica knows he’s thinking about that footage they were shown five years ago. Lance following Keith and disappearing seemingly forever. Luis had obsessed over that footage for months, trying to find any piece of evidence that would suggest where they’d gone. 

“I’m not sure what you mean”. Krolia interjects, making her way into Luis’ space, blocking Lance from his line of sight. Despite his best efforts to make eye contact with the woman, she can see fear reflected in Luis’ eyes. 

“Everyone!” Allura claps her hands together. “Let’s all discuss this calmly. Nothing good will come out of a fight.” Krolia relaxes minutely and sends a quick glance Lance’s way, haughtily moving to the side. 

Realistically, Veronica knows the outcome of this is going to be that Lance will go on this mission. She doesn’t know exactly what they are to one another, but there’s clearly a deep affection between Lance and Keith, or at least on Lance’s end. It must not be a secret considering Shiro’s statement. 

Lance deflates, shoulders slumping. It’s as if all the fight’s been drained out of him. “Just let me do this for him.” He takes a deep breath. “For myself.” He says quietly, eyes firm on Shiro. Veronica doesn’t know Shiro well, or like, at all, but even she knows that no one on this planet (er, well, semantics) could possibly be immune to that pitiful, heartfelt statement.

“Lance, you can’t be serious right now.” No one but her idiot older brother. Veronica slumps onto the couch in the room, head in her hands. 

It’s so confusing. She wants so badly to hate this ship, these people, Keith. Maybe even Lance. But her little brother has never sounded this desperate. Not since a decade ago when he was trying to convince them to let him join the Garrison. It seems laughable, now, how scared they were to send him to a school a plane ticket away, considering the distance he’s gone since. Or perhaps it was justified then, that fear. Maybe if they rejected his pleading then, they wouldn't be in this situation now. 

Her brothers are getting into a proper argument now. Lance is being held back by Shiro, and Luis looks like he’s a second away from throwing hands. Allura has somehow made it to Veronica’s side. 

They’re arguing faster than she cares to keep up. Something about family, about duty and loyalty, about war and abandonment. It ultimately doesn't really matter. Luis is going to argue regardless of how he really feels, because he’s stubborn like that. And Lance… This is a new side of Lance that Veronica hasn’t really seen, and she can’t expect the memory of her teenage brother to match the man in front of her now. But, she knows Lance isn’t the type to not get what he wants. She sinks her face lower into the palms of her hands.

“Shiro,” Lance finally breaks off from his argument with Luis, “you know Keith would do the same for me.” He says matter of fact-ly. 

Luis doesn’t really know how to feel about that. He’s not privy to the details of Lance’s interpersonal relationships from the past seven years, but from what he could remember, he used to hate this Keith kid - back when he was still a kid. He can’t even imagine what could have possibly changed since then. 

Shiro heaves a sigh, and then, “Okay.”

“Okay what?” Luis says, snappish.

Shiro shoots him a sympathetic look, but ultimately doesn’t say anything else. Lance, too, doesn’t dignify him with a response. Instead, he turns to Krolia. “What time do we depart?” 

“In three hours.” It’s the first time Luis had heard any of the aliens using earth measurements. Hours with Coran have confirmed that Earth terminology is not the norm, and he’s curious if using it in understandable terms was a conscious choice or not. 

Lance nods in acknowledgement, and then turns his back to them. “I’m gonna go.” It’s the only thing he apparently has to say to them before storming out. 

“Seriously Lance?” Luis calls after him, but he’s long gone, the squeaking of his new sneakers, that Luis bought just a week ago, disappear down the hall. Luis turns to Shiro. He’s supposed to be their leader, right? “You’re just going to let him go, then?” 

Shiro shrugs, looking less apologetic than he should. 

Coran chimes in from the side, “Lance doesn’t like to admit it, but he usually lets Keith get the last word, even if he’s not around” Allura somewhere to his side lets out a sound of agreement. 

Luis doesn’t really know what to make of that. Lance mentioned Keith being the leader at some point, and that he was ‘technically the right hand’, but Luis wouldn’t have guessed he was still sticking to that. 

“I will go prepare the last of our supplies.” Krolia walks past him, and Luis can’t not stare. She levels him with a glare that sends shivers down his spine, and it seems unfair, considering he’s never done anything to her. 

Veronica finally gets up from where she sat herself down, and pulls on Luis’ arm. “We’re gonna go get ready for bed.” She says to the rest of the room, and then they’re following Krolia out the door. 

“Lance is leaving in a few hours and you want to go to bed?” Luis asks, and Veronica gives him an incredulous look. 

“No you idiot, we're going to spy on Lance.” 

Luis didn’t realize she already memorized the layout of the floor they were on, but she had successfully led them to what Luis recognized as the hall Shiro had led them through when they were looking for Lance yesterday. 

“The med bay?” Luis asks, and she’s giving him another look that assures him she’s calling him stupid in her head. 

They walk quietly down to the med bay doors, and stop a step in front of them. He can hear Lance’s muffled voice from inside. Veronica promptly sticks her ear to it, and ushers Luis to do the same. 

“What exactly do you think you’ll gain from this?” Luis hisses, but his sister just shushes him. 

They listen for a few moments, but the insulation of the castle is top notch, and all they hear are vague mumbles and the rise and fall of Lance’s voice. 

Fed up, Luis backs away, but Veronica stays, ear pressed against the cool metal. God knows what she expects to hear. 

Then, she manages to worm a finger through the seam of the door, and pushes it slightly ajar, the sliding mechanism surprisingly doesn’t activate or alert Lance. They can hear his voice much clearer now.

“- hope I’m doing the right thing, ya’know? They’re really upset at me, so you were wrong about that, just so you know.” 

Had one of the others caught up with Lance before them? But that doesn’t make sense. Luis remembers everyone but Krolia had stayed put, and she had definitely not come this way. He shoves his head past Veronica to see inside. 

Oh. He was talking to Keith. 

Lance is sat cross legged in front of the pod, hands fumbling around as he speaks to the unconscious man. Of all things Luis had thought were going to happen when Lance stormed out on them, this was not one of them. 

Veronica makes a contemplative noise. 

“- just wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Of course you had to be the hero again.” Lance nudges the glass playfully, but his voice still sounds miserable, like he’s on the verge of tears. “You have to wake up soon so you can meet them. You don’t even need to worry about Earth anymore either, they’re right up here with you.”  The body does not talk back. Luis feels something growing in the pit of his stomach. 

Pity. 

“I didn’t even get to tell them yet that we’re- ” Veronica gasps before he can finish, and Lance whips around in their direction. The two of them jerk away quickly, but it’s no use. 

Another beat and then the door is sliding open, Lance looking at them, unimpressed. 

“Uh.” Veronica provides, eloquently. Luis just levels him an equally unimpressed look from where he’s leaning against the adjacent wall, trying to convey the opposite of his burning curiosity. 

“The sound proofing isn’t two ways,” Lance crosses his arms. “Because, defense castle, and all.” Veronica sheepishly backs away. Inside the room, Luis can see the monitors behind Lance still beeping as steadily as ever. He averts his gaze. 

“Look, I don’t want to fight about this anymore.” Lance continues. Luis can’t bring himself to agree, but it’s obvious that it’s not going to lead them anywhere productive. Lance worms his way out of the med bay and allows the door to shut behind him, blocking Keith from their view.

“I can have Shiro take you back to Earth before I head out.” Lance offers, and it takes Luis by surprise. 

“What do you mean? I thought we would just wait for you to get back?” Veronica says. Luis had assumed the same. 

“Look, I’m not sure how long it’s going to take me. Best case is only a few days, but even then I don’t think you want to be stuck in the Castle that long.” Lance is rubbing the back of his neck again. It makes Luis homesick. 

“Best case is a few days?” Veronica exclaims. It makes sense, he thinks. A galactic war defeating one empire took seven whole years. Of course an infiltration mission would take a few days. The thought made him uneasy. 

“Luis you need to get back to your kids, Veronica I know you missed a few days of work.” Lance has his hands on his hips, and it looks so much like their mother when she’s scolding them that Luis’ stern facade almost cracks. 

He hates when Lance makes good points. He misses his children, and he does feel like kind of an ass for leaving his wife to take care of their newborn alone. “Fine, I’ll go back.” And then, just to be petty, “Is it what Keith would want for me too?” 

Lance looks at him confused. “What are you talking about?” 

Veronica facepalms, and then the three of them are walking back to find Shiro.

Arrangements are made quickly. Lance, for his mission, and Luis to get back home. Shiro seemed okay with making the journey, though Veronica thought it was odd that he himself had never actually gone back to Earth as far as she could tell. 

Shiro’s guiding them to a smaller ship to take them back, and Veronica has to stifle her laughter at Luis’ disappointment. He was totally expecting a ride in the black lion. 

Luis shuffles into it, and Shiro turns to her, expectantly, to follow. She stops short, by Lance's side. “I was kinda hoping to stay here. To wait until Lance gets back.” Lance shoots her a look. She ignores it, choosing to elbow him in the side instead. “He’s probably going to need some extra support for his special someone.” Lance's mouth gapes open, and she can see his ears turning red. Keith’s just an excuse though, Veronica is in space, and there’s no chance she’s going to miss out on talking to aliens for going back to work. 

“How did you- Shiro what did you say?” Shiro, bless him, looks surprised too. 

“I didn’t say anything, you said you were going to handle it.” 

Luis, probably sick of being out of earshot, walks back out of the ship, demanding to know what’s taking so long. 

It’s another few moments of explaining, and she convinces Luis to let her stay under the guise of making sure Lance actually comes back to them. Five more minutes of goodbyes, another ten of final diagnostics and then Shiro and Luis are leaving the hangar, leaving her and Lance alone. 

“Seriously, how did you know? Allura? Coran?” He’s smiling, though, finally. It warms her heart a bit, not like she’d admit it out loud. 

“I just have eyes, Lance.” And it gets him blushing again. Though, considering he’s accusing everyone on the ship for letting it slip, Veronica can confirm it’s more than a crush. The two of them are likely in a relationship. She recalls the conversation they overheard, and just to add flame to the fire, she says, “and ears too.” 

It’s not a far off concept. Lance has always been open talking about his crushes on both girls and boys. It’s just surprising he would choose Keith, of all people, considering his stories consisted mainly of their rivalry (so clearly one sided it was painful). She’s happy for them, if not dying for the details, but if she’s going to be spending another few days on the ship it’s nothing she can’t wheedle out of someone. Not to mention it might still be a sore subject, considering the coma and all.

Exactly three hours after the conversation in the common area, Lance declares that they’re ready to go, and the intercom chimes back. “Opening the wormhole.” 

She doesn’t have time to question it before the ship is moving. Outside the window, she can see them being pulled into exactly that. A massive gaping hole of darkness, with glittering lights around the edges. The stars blur past them, becoming streaks of light as they move through it. It’s only a few moments before they’re stable again, the view outside completely different. “Congrats, Veronica, you’re officially like, the eighth person to ever leave the Milky Way.” Lance says, taking note of her awestruck expression. It’s a dizzying concept, one she’ll have to geek out about later.

Lance peels away from her side to go to the Blue Lion, and Veronica can’t help but follow. 

Krolia is already near it, loading supplies into some sort of storage space on the side. She looks familiar with the ship, and handles the Lion with familiarity Veronica wasn’t expecting. Lance doesn’t look that perturbed either. He joins her in loading up the lion, and then disappears off somewhere. 

He emerges a moment later in his armor, something she’s only seen in photos. It’s sleek and compact and looks too fragile to be for fighting, but the material must be deceiving from looks alone.

Allura comes into the hangar too, just as Krolia confirms they’re ready for departure. She looks no more worried than someone would be saying goodbye to their friend after a night of hanging out. 

“We will keep communication open on the Castle while you approach your base.” She says to Krolia. Then she turns to Lance, a pleasant smile on her face. 

She’s close enough to the both of them that when they go in for a hug, she hears Allura whisper into her brother's ear. “Don’t antagonize each other, please?” Her brother responds with a grumble, which has Allura leveling him a deadpan look. 

“Fine, I won't.” He concedes, hands up in surrender. Veronica has to stop herself from immediately asking for context. What could Allura possibly mean by that? 

Sure, she had noticed Lance’s animosity towards Krolia, but she had chalked it up to the way Keith’s mission had ended. Allura’s words insinuate whatever problem they have with one another goes back further than just these past few months. 

Lance turns to Veronica, and squeezes her in a tight hug. She was right about the armor. It presses hard against her body, and she protests at the way he’s making it dig into her. He huffs out a laugh, and then pulls out his hand towards her. She puts her own out too, curious. 

“Since you already know everything,” he says, awkwardly chuckling, “keep this safe for me?”And he puts his cupped hand over hers, dropping a necklace into the palm of her hand. Looped into the chain is a silver ring, red stones lining the circumference. It glitters innocently in her hand, but looking at it feels like far too heavy of a responsibility. 

“Lance what-” He’s being vulnerable, but she feels like she’s missing all of the story. He can’t drop something on her like this so last minute. The image of his flustered face comes back into her head, the way he had accused Shiro of something. He had been playing with it before in the med bay, too, hadn’t he? He had kept this from them for an entire month. 

Before she can yell at him about it, or even just calmly ask, the Blue Lion is pulling back and flying out of the Castle. 

A secret boyfriend? No biggie. Perfect blackmail and teasing material. This? She’s going to have to kill her brother for hiding this the second he gets back from his stupid mission. 

Chapter Text

The first person Lance had approached about proposing to Keith had been, stupidly, Krolia. He was under the assumption that the two of them had finally put their hard heads together and actually communicated enough for this to be an appropriate topic for Lance to approach her with, but he had been gravely mistaken. 

Krolia had reacted…not well. If you could call it a reaction at all. 

It was a few months before their decision to return back to Earth, and Lance had decided that it was the perfect opportunity to pop the question and convince Keith to go home with him in one fell swoop. He chose to approach Krolia when she was in between missions, and using the Castle as a rest point. 

“Why?” Had been her response, and it left Lance baffled. Why she says, after Lance had fought in a seven year war with her son, and had known him even longer. Why she says, like Keith and him hadn’t been together for years now, like she hadn’t seen those visions in the Abyss that Keith occasionally brought up. 

“Because, I want him to come home with me. I want him to stay,” Lance says, “with me…” He trails off at the face she’s making him. Completely blank, save for a twitch in her eyebrow. 

“No.” She says. “Why are you asking me?” He realizes now that she’s purposefully made her face this blank. He’s dying to know what’s going on in her mind, but like Keith, he’ll never know unless she says it herself. 

“Um.” He blanks for a moment. Do Galra not go and ask for blessings like this? Oh God, members of the Blade probably don’t even get married. “It’s an Earth custom.” He decides on. Her eyebrow quirks, urging him to continue under her blatant scrutiny. 

“Usually on Earth, before you ask someone to marry you, you go to their-” and what exactly was Krolia to Keith. His mother by blood only, other than that, maybe a colleague? A friend if they were feeling like really stretching it. “- family.” 

“Am I?” She challenges. She’s being purposefully obtuse and Lance tries to tamp down some form of anger at that. It’s not a far off question, but she should still have some sort of opinion of her own on the matter, considering she’s the one who told Keith in the first place. She would’ve only told him if she had some expectation of it going somewhere, right?

“If you don’t have an opinion about it then I guess I’ll go ask Shiro,” Lance says curtly. “since he knows Keith better.” He adds. He hopes it hurts, and it does, judging by the way her face goes back to carefully blank.

He had been trying to do something nice for her . Realistically, he knows he didn’t need to approach her, but he’d thought that it would have been nice, if she took up some personal stake in his partner's life. Not even that - it would be nice if she took some personal stake in her literal son’s life. 

The conversation had left a sour taste in his mouth despite the topic, and then he’d gone to Shiro, who predictably, actually had good advice. 

Since the encounter, he tried to keep Krolia out of the conversations about their relationship as much as he could. 

…

…

…

They’re two hours into the flight towards one of the less black hole-ey Marmora bases, and other than the back and forth with Kolivan about the map proof directions, neither he or Krolia have spoken. 

Lance considers ejecting himself out of the lion just to escape the awkwardness. Blue gives a low hum of disappointment at that, and it makes Krolia cock her head in confusion.

The thing is, he doesn’t even hate Krolia, despite everything. In fact, he really wants to get to know her better if only for Keith’s sake. It’s just that in the moment those weeks ago, he was so angry and keyed up he took it out on the first person he could, and it just so happened to be Krolia. And then after that, it was just so easy to keep doing just that. He knows she probably feels guilty as shit about Keith’s injuries, but it’s just so easy. 

He’s a level headed guy, it’s how he makes for the best shot in the universe and is one of the best choices to help Allura with diplomatic matters. Except maybe he - hate is too strong- aggressively disapproves of most of Krolia’s choices when it comes to Keith (abandoning him as a baby, ghosting him for twenty years, letting her magic knife guide him to an organization where self sacrificing seems to be a go-to choice, to name a few). His predisposition to disliking her choices may have clouded his judgement during recent events. And less recent events.

In any case, the silence in the lion is too fucking awkward. There’s just the steady signature hum of all Altean machinery, and the taping of his fingers on the dash. He can see Krolia twitch out of the corner of his eye. 

There’s still another four hours until the rendezvous point. 

“Can you stop with the-” she lets out a deep sigh. “The tapping.” Another beat of silence. “Please?” 

It sounds so much like Keith that Lance almost chokes on a laugh. “Um, yeah, sorry.” 

More silence. 

Allura’s reminder rings in his head, and he knows she’s right. The mission wont go well if they continue to antagonize one another. Had Krolia gotten the same shovel talk? Maybe Allura could have shapeshifted to become larger than her to really up the intimidation. He succeeds in not laughing at least. 

He hears Krolia’s throat click as she swallows. 

“I’ve seen them before.” Her voice seems too loud all of a sudden following the quiet. Lance turns to her inquisitively. “Your siblings.” She clarifies. 

It’s definitely not what he expected to hear. He knows Keith and her went through some freaky stuff in the Abyss, but neither of them were too keen on sharing much to Allura’s delight. Something about how knowing the future could doom their timeline. So naturally, any bit of information has him intrigued. 

“Really?” He says. She gives him a nod, far too formal for what the conversation is. It reminds him of Keith those first few times they’d gone on diplomatic missions, and he had no idea how to interact with any of the locals, or people in general, actually. 

“In the Abyss. We were in your home on Earth, eating dinner together. That is all I saw.” Lance wonders if this is her attempt at closing the rift between the two of them, or about the obvious animosity between Lance and his own family. Either way, he’s almost overly touched at her attempt to reconcile with (console?) him. 

Krolia on Earth, with his family. He has to stop the idea from sending him into a spiral. One day in the future, his family quits being mad at him and accepts Keith and his alien mom into their family. It’s everything he’s hoping for and more, and he doesn’t know what to say back to her. He settles on giving her as sincere of a smile he can. She gives him a grimace back, which in Blade language might translate to a grin for all he knows. Finally, some of the tension bleeds out of the room. 

The rest of the flight is spent in a much more relaxed silence. She even stops commenting on the tapping. 

Kolivan is waiting for them in the hangar when they land. He’s just as intimidating as Lance remembers. All stocky frame and annoyingly impressive braid and face that hasn’t seen a smile even once.  Lance had asked Keith once if he could braid his hair like Kolivan’s, and Keith had given him a cold hard ‘over my dead body’. Thinking back on it,  that might have been less about the braid itself and more about ‘not trying to twin with your boss that might also have the hots for your mom’ thing. 

The debrief starts almost immediately, as they make their way to the command room. It’s as they had discussed before, but this time more fleshed out - someone has been keeping tabs on Blade operations, likely from the inside, and had chosen Keith’s mission (or worse, Keith himself) as a target to take down. It’s exactly kind of the thing that gets Lance’s blood pumping, but he can’t help but feel a twist in his gut. He’s starting to realize how long this is actually going to keep him away from Keith. From home. 

He has to swallow down a lump of anxiety. Krolia’s vision comes back to him, surprisingly soothing. He survives this, he gets home. All of them get home. 

The Galra base is a few more hours of travel, considering they couldn’t exactly wormhole anywhere near. For now, They’re going to check in with the Castle and give their final update before their communication is cut. Blue can’t go, it’s too conspicuous, so they’ll be needing to take the standard Galra cruisers so they can land it near the base and go undetected. It’s the logical conclusion, but it also means they wont have Blue to communicate, and the blade outfit being handed to Lance means that while he can contact the Blades, he won’t be able to talk to the Castle, or Keith. 

An hour later and they’re standing around the main console. The Blade uniform is well fitted. It’s flexible and breathable, and he can see why Keith used to practically live in it. And, if he’s being honest, just as hot on him as it is on Keith. Take that , says the part of his brain that’s still stuck in their rivalry. The normal part of his brain wonders if he’s going to be allowed to keep it. For…reasons. 

He takes a deep breath and readies himself for when the call connects.

Maybe she’s overthinking it. It could be a weird space souvenir that he coincidentally pulled out last minute. Plus, she’s never seen a ring anywhere on her brother before. Not on his hand or around his neck. She gets dramatic flashbacks to the med bay, and his sad conversation with the bod-with Keith. 

Okay, she reasons. Maybe it’s a promise ring, and that's why it’s a necklace and not on its own. Or, maybe it’s something all of the paladins share, as a token of friendship or whatever. Except, she knows for a fact Shiro wasn’t wearing anything around his neck (sue her for looking), and Lance wouldn’t just fail to mention matching jewelry when he talked about the paladin bond. So, what if they’re engaged. Just engaged. Her brother wouldn't just get married without his family there, right? 

Allura clears her throat, announcing her departure. Her eyes sparkle in good humor and Veronica can only assume the other woman can tell exactly what’s racing through her mind. 

And then she’s left alone in the hangar. She turns back into those endless hallways, and follows them as best as she can remember. As far as she can tell, she should be near her room, stuck looking down a hall of identical doors. The first door she opens is bare. The only thing that may insinuate someone stayed there was the rumpled sheets. The next three are similar. Bare, but the beds are at least made. Another door reveals an unkempt room, like someone was running around in a rush. The bed is bare, but there are spare parts littered across the room, like they’d fallen out of someone’s handfuls. For the most part, it all looks like trash. A few more empty rooms, and then one that’s actually lived in. The bed is made, but there are little trinkets purposely lining the desk and shelf, and laundered clothes placed on top of the bed. Shiro’s room, she figures, and quickly shuts the door. 

A few more rooms, and she’s about to give up before she actually gets to the one that her and her brother were sharing. She lets out a sigh of relief. She immediately goes for her bag and takes out a granola bar, which to her dismay, seems to be her last. 

She’s doomed herself to space pudding for however long it takes Lance to get back. She sits back with a groan. The prospect of that is so awful she’s almost tempted to ask Allura if it’s too late to send her back too. 

There’s a knock on the door. She debates calling out or just opening it before the choice is taken from her. The door slides open to reveal Allura. She’s brandishing a fresh set of sleep clothes. “I figured you’d need some. You weren’t exactly prepared to spend multiple days here.” Her smile is kind and inviting, and the stories of her famous diplomacy are making a lot of sense now. 

Veronica takes the offered clothes and holds them to her chest. She’s instructed to get changed and then report back to Allura in the common room. The phrasing makes Veronica laugh after Allura has let the door shut again. Take the princess out of the war meetings but the war meetings never leave her, or something like that. 

She finds Allura already lounging back, those holographic tablets in her hands displaying what looks to be a novel. It’s not in any language Veronica can recognize, and she’s taken back to the night Allura called Lance, both of them speaking a language that none have brought up again. 

It takes Allura another few moments to notice Veronica’s presence, and she does so with a jolt and then a sheepish smile. “Sorry, not going on missions recently has seemed to dull my senses.” Veronica doesn't know what to say to that, so she gives the other woman a casual shake of the head. “I was hoping I would get to know you better. I never actually anticipated getting to meet the Paladins’ family. It is a very exciting prospect.” She says once Veronica has settled next to her. 

And, that’s an interesting concept. She tries to think about it from Allura’s perspective. You spend the last seven years with a group of people and once the war is over, you have to be okay with turning them over to a different family. You just have to accept you won’t see them again. It’s an uncomfortable thought, considering Veronica was an avid advocate for Lance to never return here. The way Allura feels is likely no different than how Veronica had all of those years ago, albeit toned down considering she’s got a magical Castle that transports her anywhere. 

“How come?” She asks, but she can already anticipate the answer. 

“Well, for one, Humans don’t really know about life on other planets.” She says, and Veronica can’t help but let out a chuckle. The last month has been an insane mindfuck to say the least. “And,” Allura hesitates, looking over Veronica steadily, studying. “I wasn’t sure any of them would want to come back. The war was long and hard, and all of them always longed for home.” 

And isn’t that heartbreaking?

Allura still looks cheery enough when she says; “Though, I guess I could never really get rid of Lance,” clearly sensing Veronica’s guilt. 

Veronica takes the out. “Oh do tell me more about this infamous crush.” She dramatically places her chin in her hands, which makes Allura laugh. The tale Allura tells of their first meeting is so different from Lance’s own recount that it has Veronica clutching her stomach in laughter. And then they’re sharing embarrassing stories about Lance’s crushes. 

Allura’s stories seem to go in chronological order, starting from herself to an alien rebel named Nyma to maybe another dozen alien names Veronica can’t be bothered to remember. Strangely enough, Keith isn’t mentioned, and she’s dying to ask. But before she gets the chance, Allura stifles a yawn in the middle of a story about Lance almost getting an alliance canceled because his flirting was seen as a proposition to fight, and then she’s clapping her hands together declaring it’s bedtime. 

Veronica tucks herself into bed with more questions than she knows what to do with.

She blinks awake slowly, letting the sensations of the ship guide her into consciousness. The almost too-sterile smell. The weirdly smooth sheets. That persisting hum. 

She has no way to be able to tell the time here, but she can feel that it’s grossly early, seeing as how no one’s come to collect her for breakfast. It’s probably only been a handful of hours since she’s fallen asleep. Despite that, she crawls out of bed, depositing her feet into a set of fuzzy slippers Allura presented to her mid gossip session. They’re purple and designed to look like the lions, and maybe the best thing she’s ever seen, so. 

It’s surprising to see that lights on when she slips into the hallway. Even more so to hear distant talking. Following the wall, she makes it to the main room to find everyone gathered around a large projected screen that has yet to turn on. 

Allura, with her alien senses (probably), notices her first. “I was just about to get you! Lance has just arrived at the base and we are just about to connect the call.” She turns back around and continues tapping away at her screen. Veronica makes her way to where the only other human in the room.

“Your brother wanted me to tell you that he’s going to explain the situation to your family,” Shiro tells her. He looks somewhere between friendly and uncomfortable. Veronica knows it’s going to be a hard conversation for Luis to have, and she’s silently grateful for the fact that it was her who stayed up here. She can’t imagine having to face her mother and tell her that, oh you know, lance, the son you just got back after seven years? yeah he went back into space. 

She gives Shiro her best smile for ass’o’clock in the morning as a thanks. He couldn't have gotten back here more than two hours ago, considering he was still out when she went to bed. Despite the journey, he looks wide awake. 

“It’ll be okay.” Shiro reassures her, and she can’t tell if he means Lance or the situation back home. She appreciates the sentiment either way, though. 

To the side, Allura lets out an exclamation, and there's a distinct blip sound from the large projected screen. The call connects.

Her jaw nearly drops. She’s so busy gawking at the alien that she hardly notices Lance and Krolia also in frame. This new guy takes extra-terrestrial to another level. He makes Krolia pass as human. He’s certainly humanoid, but his nose is flat and triangular like a cat, with small yellow eyes and a brow bone that turns into large bat-like ears. He’s covered in fur. The only human-like thing about him is a simple white braid that falls over his shoulder. 

She might’ve let out a noise that resembled “guh?” The room, thankfully, ignores her. 

He’s already started talking, details about the mission that seem to go over her head. Something about danger and stealth and infiltration and weapons. Her attention breaks away from the cat-faced alien when she hears Shiro quietly snort beside her. 

He’s got something like a phone out, and he’s taking a picture of Lance. He notices her side eye, and turns to her pleasantly. “For Keith,” he says ominously. 

The twinkle in his eye is reminiscent of Luis when he used to tease her about her crushes at school, and despite the serious nature of the phone call, Veronica finds the humor in Shiro’s motives despite the recipient of his teasing currently being in a coma. The implications are also, quite frankly, gross. That’s her brother, thank you very much. 

She resolutely tunes that out to focus on the debrief, biting back a smile. Shiro is still snickering under his breath. The debrief is not unlike the type she’d hear at the Garrison, stiff and formal and concise. What she can gather is that it’s a large scale operation, and something of this caliber on Earth might even count as a suicide mission. Considering the scale for this mission is the universe, it might just be another average day for them all. At least, that’s how Lance makes it seem when he chimes in. While his body language is lax and casual, his eyes are steely in a way she’s never seen before. 

Krolia takes a turn to talk. “The mission will be quick. And if everyone does their part, it will go smoothly.” It’s said in that smooth, monotone voice of hers. Strangely enough, it looks like she’s looking right at Veronica when she says this, despite them talking through a screen. Veronica gives her a steady nod, finding it easier to meet her eyes if it means she can avoid looking at the other guy.

They exchange a few final details, and then pleasantries, and then Allura is nudging Veronica to say bye to her brother. 

“Be safe.” Is all she can muster before feeling horribly lost. She knows it’s nothing permanent, but she can't help but feel like she’s sending her little brother back out to the wolves. 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Lance says with a tight smile. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Luis tries to add unlike last time to the conversation. Veronica just smiles back with a nod and a small wave. 

“Right, well.” Says the alien man, nodding in her direction before turning to Allura (seriously, how are they doing that over a video?) and adding, “I will be in touch.” The screen turns black. 

Allura clasps a gentle hand over her shoulder, breaking her out of her trance towards the blank screen. “We’re all going to try to get more sleep.” It’s not phrased like a suggestion, but it is one. Ever the diplomat. She’s not opposed to the idea. Her eyes are still stinging with exhaustion. 

“That’s a good idea.” She says. Allura’s returning smile is unreadable. Pleasant with a dash of pity, maybe.

She’s nearly at her door when an alarm rings out through the halls. It's incessant, and she gives it a few moments to see if anyone’s going to shut it off. It keeps ringing. She shoots one last longing glance at her bedroom door, before following the source of the noise. 

The path is familiar, and by the time she’s at the doors to the med bay, the beeping has stopped. The doors part to reveal everyone gathered inside. Shiro looks haggard, and the Alteans also share a disheveled appearance. The screen attached to Keith’s pod flashes different colors, and despite her being unable to read it, it’s easy to assume what’s happened. 

“What happened?” She asks anyway.

“Number four’s vitals had gone a little haywire, but not to worry, we’ve seemed to have fixed him right up.” Coran supplies. The cheer in his voice is enough of a reassurance to let her know he’s not lying for someone’s sake. 

Shiro takes in a shaky breath, and then gives Coran a solid pat on the shoulder. “I’ll watch him, Coran. Thank you.” 

Coran takes it as a dismissal, and Allura and him take their leave. The princess gives Veronica a reassuring smile on the way out, gently shutting the door behind them. 

Shiro pulls up a chair, practically sagging into it. “I know it’s not a big deal, and they’ve got it covered, but it still freaks me out.”

Weirdly enough, Veronica feels like comforting him. Lance was always a stubborn kid, and that meant he was prone to injuries and illness more than the average kid. A broken arm trying to impress his classmates, scraped knees trying to be the fastest, a fever gone unmentioned leading up to the Garrison entrance exam because he had spent the entire week locked in his room studying. The memory blooms fondness in her chest as she sets her gaze on Keith. She can sympathize with Shiro, especially when it comes to little brothers who endanger themselves often. 

“No matter how much they get hurt it’s never easy to get used to.” She says, and Shiro lets out a huff of laughter. 

“You bet,” He says, smiling. It’s as good a chance as any to fish for more answers about Keith. 

“Lance tells me you knew each other before the whole Voltron thing?” She baits. Lance had told her about the brother thing, of course, but she wants to hear it from the source. 

He takes it. “A mentor program for the Garrison.” He says, and Veronica gestures for him to continue. “He was in middle school, and I think I imprinted on him like a duck.” Shiro laughs. 

“Not the other way around?” Veronica raises an eyebrow. 

“He didn’t want anything to do with me, even stole my car to try and scare me off. I couldn’t leave him alone after that.” He’s smiling fondly, smoothing his metal arm over the frame of the pod Keith’s in. Veronica can’t help but smile back. 

“Seems like a skill of his.” She comments, earning a cock of the head from Shiro. “Krolia also seems like she’s imprinted on him.” She says, testing the waters. 

Shiro’s eyes widen for a second, before his smile turns more hesitant. “Ah, well. Something like that.” She shouldn’t have mentioned it, clearly a sore subject for everyone involved. It makes her more curious, if that’s possible. She makes a questioning hum, and she can tell Shiro’s mulling over what an appropriate response would be. 

“The two of them had a rough start, but I think they were getting along better these past few months leading up to Earth. Honestly he hasn’t talked to me about it much.” He shrugs. It's still so painfully vague, she can only assume everyone’s doing it on purpose. 

She changes the subject. “I’ve been meaning to ask more about the alien stuff, is there anything I can read about all the planets you’ve been to?” Shiro looks almost appreciative of the subject, clearly uncomfortable with the last. 

“You know what, I think Coran might have just the thing for you, I'm sure he’ll be glad to help in the morning” He says. It’s not a dismissal, but she uses it as one, unsure how long is too long for staying with Keith’s unconscious body. She’s only half serious about learning about aliens. While it would be cool as hell, it’s also going to be a lot of reading. 

It’ll also make the war feel real. More than just a story Lance concocted over dinner, or a few photos of happy civilians. 

I’ll take my time finding Coran in the morning , she concludes on the way back to her room.

He’s sweating all over, but the air is mild. It makes him feel uncomfortably sticky all while feeling like he’s floating. It’s dark. Or, maybe, his eyes are closed. It’s hard to tell. There’s no noise, no smells, just a faint distant light, oddly muted like he’s watching it from behind his eyelids. 

And everything hurts. A deep ache set into his bones. It makes moving feel impossible. He’s trapped, and it’s dark, and he’s so, so alone. 

Is this what dying was supposed to feel like?

Chapter Text

The flight to the Galra base is tense, but more so now because of the impending pressure of a mission that needs to go well. They’ve gone over it about a million times already, but Krolia finds something new to nitpick about every five minutes, in typical Kogane fashion. (Keith’s parents most definitely didn't get married, right? Should Lance be referring to the two of them by Krolia’s last name instead? Does she even have one?) He shakes his head at the train of thought. 

“What is it?” Krolia asks, serious. 

Lance clears his throat, “Nothing.” 

She narrows his eyes at him. Despite looking so much like Keith’s, the Galra-ness of her sclera still unsettle him on occasion, especially if he’s already nervous about something. He turns his head back towards the dash. 

He’s grateful for her nitpicking, honestly. He needs to look at this from every angle. They can’t afford it for the mission to go wrong, not when Lance has an entire family actually waiting on him now. Not when he’s got that future to look forward to. 

Lance lounges back in his seat. He’s hoping his fake nonchalance gets Krolia to unwind a little too, but she remains high strung. The next hour is spent in a familiar silence (minus, of course, the nitpicking that’s reduced down to every twenty minutes). It’s not until the Galra base is on their radar that Lance straightens out, palms suddenly sweating. 

What if he’s too out of practice? A month of sitting on his ass could get him killed at the moment. He had thrown a few practice shots around the Marmorite base for a bit, and while he was rusty at the start, it came back to him easily. What if it wasn't enough, though? He swallows thickly, cursing himself for psyching himself out last minute. 

Krolia has a hand on the back of his seat now, her other hand pointing at the base through the window. “The hangars near the back are used for waste disposal and faulty ships, we land there and we’ll go unnoticed.” She says, nearly word for word from the folder they’d both been given. 

Like planned, the docking goes unnoticed. Their entry is quiet, tucked away in an unused corner. Lance pulls up a map of the ship on his suits datapad, finding their entry point marked by a small purple dot. 

The main data center is on the upper decks, manned by actual Galra soldiers since creating droids was harder to do after the fall of the empire. Killing people is nothing new, of course, but while droids are repetitive and predictable, how actual soldiers fight can never be accurately guessed.

Lance scans the area. Six distinct lifeforms on the other side of the hangar. Their conversation carries across the room, and Lance catches snippets of the conversation. It’s not anything useful. It’s mundane, actually, which comes as a surprise considering they’re aboard one of the last fleets of a fallen empire. 

Krolia nudges him a bit, her own map pulled up. She points to a door on the far end of the room, next to the soldiers. It’s their only entrance to the rest of the ship minus the vents (an avenue they thoroughly thought about before realizing the Galra had too, and all of the vents were space mice sized). The soldiers will have to be dealt with quickly and quietly. 

Lance pulls out his bayard, and Krolia pulls out her blade, similar to the one she gave Keith. They share a quick nod with one another, and then separate. Krolia takes the left, Lance the right. His side of the room has less obstacles, making for a clearer shot, but it also leaves him more vulnerable to being seen. He moves quickly, ducking behind crates and ships when he can. The Marmora suit gives him an advantage that his paladin armor doesn’t, the lack of harder plates allowing his movement to be quieter than he’s used to. 

Across the room, he can spot Krolia moving around just as fast. Her position brings her closer to the soldiers. She gets in position, around twenty feet behind the one furthest from the door, and Lance transforms his bayard. He exposes himself to the soldiers, gun at the ready. 

“Hey, don’t move!” Says the one closest to Lance, and the other five snap their heads to his position. 

He breathes out, and pulls the trigger. The one who spoke is down, and Krolia uses his distraction as a chance to sweep across another two. She gets one of them in the throat, and brings down her blade to catch another in his stomach. Once he’s down she goes for his throat, too, making sure he’s not alive to alert anyone else. Lance takes down another as they’ve turned to look at Krolia. They’ve brought out their own guns now, but with only two of them left, it’s an easy finish. Krolia has the one closest to the door in a headlock, his weapon on the floor. Her blade makes quick work of him, and he falls to the floor in a heap. Lance has changed his bayard into something more close range, running at the remaining soldier and catching him straight in the head. 

It’s brutal but efficient, and if Lance lingers around their bodies too long he’s about to get existential. They hide the bodies easily enough, though the blood is a dead giveaway at what transpired. Lance gives Krolia a vague shrug when she eyes it for too long, and they make their way into the hall. 

It’s a short passageway, and empty. The map tells them they’re around six floors away from the main data storage. They can’t take the elevators undetected, but there aren’t exactly fire escapes on the ship. 

Lance can feel his breathing quicken, the adrenaline of fighting feeling foreign to him. Too much is at stake for him to start freaking out. Krolia lays a hand on his shoulder, eyes firm. She’s gesturing towards the main hall with her head. Lance nods in confirmation, and they make their way to where the hall splits. 

According to the mission plan, Lance is meant to take the left, and Krolia is meant to go right. The split up lets them cover more ground and communicate soldier movement to one another. Right before they make the split, she grabs him by the forearm. 

“Be careful.” She says, and it's less of a warning and more of a plea. There’s more emotion in those two words than Lance has ever heard directed at him (except, that's not entirely true, she had wavered those five weeks ago, too).  It takes him off guard. Realistically, he knows Krolia probably cares for him a little, even if it’s just residuals from her care for Keith. But the full force of it being said to his face throws him off, makes him feel more wary.

“I always am.” He says, trying for a reassuring grin. He doesn’t know if it works, but she takes it anyway, giving him a final look before darting off in the other direction. 

Alone in the hall, he’s grateful for the darkness of the suit. The dim lighting of the halls lets him blend in with the walls. Though, he’s unsure how much the suit actually camouflages him, considering the dim lighting is an effect of their adeptness towards night vision. It’s reassuring nonetheless. The classic sharp contours of Galra architecture let him press himself into crevices when the need arises. 

Two soldiers side by side walk past him, likely doing their scheduled rounds. Kolivan had given them the guard schedule, and a quick glance at his screen tells him it’s too soon for them to be walking down this particular hall. 

Was the information wrong? What were the chances of that happening again? He feels the familiar prickles of anxiety at the back of his neck. 

“Krolia.” He mutters into their shared comms. “The guard schedule is off.” Her comms click on, and he hears the sound of struggle before she lets out a grunt. A body hits the floor. 

“I noticed.” 

Shit. Once was a shitty mishap, but twice is building a pattern. Whoever Kolivan got the ship details from is either outdated, or a mole. Troubling, considering that’s the guy they’re supposed to be looking for. 

“What should we do?” 

Krolia is silent for a beat, likely drawing the same conclusions he has. Lance decides for her. “Let’s continue with the plan for now, and if there’s more inconsistencies let’s regroup and figure something else out.” He proposes, and Krolia gives him an affirmative. 

He shuts the comm off to let himself heave a sigh. He should have known it wasn’t going to be this easy. If the mole has more inside men in the Blade, it’s only a matter of time before everything else falls apart. He gives himself another moment to breathe. It’s not like it matters much anyway, since their time schedule for the guards is inaccurate. 

As far as he can tell, the two of them are going to have to ditch the plan altogether, and figure something out on their own if they want this to go well.

The two of them are moments away from the target. Minutes at the most. He pulls out the small chip from a pocket in his suit, readying it for when it’ll be needed in mere moments. 

But the ease of the mission should have been his first warning. He realizes, as they draw closer, that there had hardly been any droids, or Galra even, in their way. He was so caught up in his own head about making sure nothing went right that he hadn’t seen that nothing was going wrong, either. 

His second warning, he hears too late. A shrill beeping close to him. Too close. A gasp behind him. Krolia must’ve just heard it too. They don’t have time to run. 

And then a blistering heat engulfs him, the force of it dragging him backwards multiple feet. There’s shrapnel flying through the air, and it cuts through his suit where his body is still exposed. 

Still exposed?

When had he gotten on the floor? When had Krolia followed?

He’s hunched over, nearly curled into a ball. Krolia is wrapped around him, but she can't reach all of him. The sides of his arms still take a few hits from the debris. Something feels wrong, but his fear takes over any coherent thought. They’re way too close to the blast, and it would do them better to keep running. 

He turns, slightly, to meet her eyes. Open and unmoving. 

Was this how it had happened?

He blinks at her slowly, eyes taking in the rest of her form. Her back must be covered in shrapnel, if he’s consistently getting hit, too. Blinks again. There’s a large chunk of metal lodged into her side, bleeding sluggishly. 

Her eyes are still, wide open with a mixture of fear and shock. 

This isn’t right. This isn’t what happened. 

He blinks. Krolia is gone. It never was her, maybe? It’s hard to tell. The body shielding him is wider. Shiro. His metal arm is somewhere off to the side, thrown by the blast. His eyes are unblinking. 

He blinks again. Shiro is gone. 

What’s happening to him right now? 

The body hunched over his own is hardly enough to cover him. Lance is still, and he can feel the blood start to seep into his own suit where they’re pressed together. Wet and sticky and warm.

The plan is, to put it in the Blue Paladin’s words, going to shit. 

Since splitting, she’s found herself turning the same corners repeatedly. She growls in frustration, taking a moment to regain her bearings after turning into the same hallway for the third time. Lance, similarly, is muttering expletives into her ear over the comms. The map is either outdated or, the more likely option, has been made purposefully to ensure they never actually get to where they need to be.

“Let’s reconvene.” She states into the comm, and Lance gives her an affirmative. Finding each other will be difficult, but shouldn’t take them too long considering neither of them seem to have left the level they landed on. 

Kolivan would never have sent them on a mission with information this unusable. This, she knows for a fact. What she struggles to understand is that he hadn’t caught on to someone clearly close to the mission tampering with their information. They had kept the information within a tight knit circle, considering the possibility that the original accident was because it was an inside job, so the new information also being tampered with bodes poorly for them.

Her first theory is that Kolivan, too, was misinformed about this particular ship, and would not have been able to discern the correct map and schedule from an incorrect one. It’s possible, but he’s been running the Blade for decades, long enough for him to have been the one to send her to Earth in the first place, and she doubts he wouldn’t have been able to pick up on something like this. 

Her second theory is that the information was correct up until they landed. This brings about a new set of problems, the most pressing being that someone on this ship has access to the Blade’s information, as well as the ability to alter it. She’s not often anxious, but it had ironically hardly crossed her mind that the Blade would have an inside man for the Galra, and it twists something within her. 

They’ve always been a quiet organization, and all recruits had to pass the trials to ensure full allegiance to the cause. Someone passing the trials and Kolivan’s scrutiny and still turning their back is… Betrayal seems too dramatic of a description. They had pledged loyalty to the cause, of course, but technically not to one another. 

She silently turns another corner, and nearly bumps into Lance, who is moving around not so silently. 

The boy jumps a little, and rears his bayard before registering it’s her, and promptly relaxes. How he can be off guard but consistently ready to fight is a quirk of his she’ll never fully understand, but there’s no time to dwell on it. 

They make their way to a supply closet, reliably tucked in a corner where most Galran craft tend to store them. It’s certainly a security risk to build ships this predictable, but it’s done her nothing but favors for the past deca-phoebs. 

“We need a new plan,” Lance says in a frantic whisper, repeating the same sentiment he had been since they separated. 

“The original information might still be relevant.” She reminds him, and Lance nods. 

“Whoever’s messing with the info might possibly be your target from the original mission,” he’s tapping his bayard to the side of his leg absentmindedly. She’s over familiar with the nervous tic at this point, but it still unnerves her, the movement distracting. She watches him think some more, watching his features contort with each new piece of information that crosses his mind. Humans were strange in that way, letting each thought display across their faces. 

“So we can’t exactly trust any of the stuff written in the document,” more tapping, “but we do know the general location of the information, given that the Galra are stupid enough to build their supply closets in the same spot every time. No offense.” She fails to hide her surprise at the fact that he had caught on to that. Though the boy had been fighting alongside them for the past seven years. He was more perceptive than she gave him credit for. 

“It’s imperative that we stick together.” She decides. Getting separated on a craft this large, especially with their tech compromised may put them in a difficult situation later. If their comms were being tapped in on, then their position is compromised.  It would be better to stick close and keep their conversation in person to avoid being heard by this third party. 

Selfishly, she recognizes that if they split up, there’s a higher risk of one of them getting hurt, and as much as she has scorned the Blue Paladin before, his safety is of the utmost importance if she wants to keep her relationship , so to speak, with Keith.

“Let’s start by making our way up to higher levels, the soldiers down here wouldn’t know much. The higher we go, the higher they’ll rank.” Lance responds by backing up a bit and shaking out his limbs, something she’s learned to recognize as him getting ready to fight. 

“Avoid using your scanners as much as possible.” She warns, though she suspects the boy already knew this. 

As far as plans go, theirs is abysmal. But she has to accept that they are going to have to do this completely blind in order to stay off their attacker’s radar. Lance steels himself, his casual stance replaced with one she’s more familiar with. 

By Lance’s request, they’re pushing the door open on a count of three, Lance shifting his bayard, and both of them are spilling silently back into the hall.

Despite her reluctance to actually read the (metaphorical) piles of translated text Coran gave her, she actually hasn’t been able to keep the screen down. Apparently, he’d been documenting Voltron’s missions from the start, outlining the entire war in excruciating detail. Where he got the time, who knows. 

They’re different from Lance’s stories, for sure. Where his were more theatrical and lighthearted, Coran accounts for all ships destroyed and all injuries sustained. She skims over battle tactics, not sure how relevant they are to what she’s looking for. 

The first year or so of his documentation has a lot of focus on the paladins themselves. He’s been through to include quirks of Human biology, all of which are wholly uninteresting to her. It’s not like she needs to know any of it anyway. 

Year three gets more interesting. Krolia, as Veronica pieces together, is a part of the Blade of Marmora, full entirely of people with Galran descent. She’s not mentioned in the document, but the uniform makes it obvious. While it explains her general purple-ness, it does little to explain her insistence to stick around the castle. It does make her feel bad to justify her unease around the woman as an effect of her being Galran, considering she just learned it, but it's enough of a reason for her, for now. 

So, a few years into the Voltron gig, Keith elopes with a Galran faction of rebels. Interestingly, Coran hardly mentions Keith after that, and she can only assume it’s because they rarely saw him after that. 

Lance makes plenty of appearances in the records, and she has a sneaking suspicion that he might be the man’s favorite. Lance did this maneuver, Lance took down six droids with two shots, Lance effectively dissolved a political dispute using his unique charm at diplomacy. It’s all very flattering, and she’ll have to ask her brother if he knows about it when he gets back. 

A few months in and Keith reappears in the logs. Coran makes note to mention Krolia for the first time, now. She’s only part Galra, though that seems to be a trait for all of the Galra, something Coran credits to being a part of a ten thousand year old empire with no home planet. She arrives with Keith when he finally returns to the castle. The two had apparently been trapped on the back of a whale stuck in time, and spent two years together. 

It’s a curious scenario, for sure. Keith meeting this strange Galran woman, who somehow convinces him to join her anti-Galra cause, and causes him to separate from his only connection to Earth for over two years. Where does his relationship with Lance fall into any of it? Why had Krolia’s claim on Keith felt like it had much higher stakes than anyone was willing to tell her?

She’s tempted to just shut off the device then and there. She’s been reading for hours now. It is getting closer to lunch (or dinner? Maybe she should ask Coran for a clock). 

Her stomach calling for attention makes the decision for her, and she heads out of her room, only to crash directly into Allura. 

“Oh! Just the human I was looking for.” She says pleasantly, and Veronica suppresses the urge to tell her there's only two conscious humans on this ship anyway. “What have you been doing holed away all morning?” She asks. 

Veronica tells her about Coran’s mass of information and Allura gives her a sympathetic wince. 

“Ah… those can get pretty wordy.” She says, a hint of playfulness in her voice. Veronica scoffs out loud. 

“The warning would have been nice earlier.” She says. She can also admit, however, that it’s been keeping her from worrying herself sick. She says as much.

Allura nods sympathetically. “It’s always hard not to worry,” she admits. “It’s been deca-phoebs now and I still do.” She pats Veronica on the shoulder reassuringly, but doesn’t continue to talk. The silence hangs over them comfortably as they join Shiro and Coran in the kitchen.. 

Upon seeing her, Shiro cracks a smile. “Long morning?” He asks, glancing between her and Coran.

“Something like that.” She agrees. 

“I've found one of number two’s cookbooks,” Coran interjects excitedly, uncaring of the half ongoing conversation. Shiro groans. “The recipe has been followed exactly as written, just give me a tick, let me bring it in.” He leaves them in a dash, leaving Veronica Vaguely confused. While familiar with the man’s antics by now, he’s still a lot. Strange considering Veronica’s used to being surrounded by eight people at all times. 

Shiro and Allura exchange a knowing look, which does little to instill confidence in Veronica for the upcoming meal.

Like all alien food, it's practically inedible, though she manages to swallow down a few bites. Allura and Shiro get away with politely declining, and give her mirthful glances throughout the meal over their blissfully plain goo.

“Are Keith’s vitals still unstable?” Allura asks after a few minutes, though Veronica could tell she’s been dying to ask from the start. 

Shiro shrugs, his demeanor hiding the tension Veronica can spot in his eyes. Allura can likely sense it too. “He seems to be fine physically, but other than that, his brain seems to be more active than you’d expect from someone in a pod.” He does a vague gesture with his hand, giving Veronica an apologetic glance. For what, she doesn’t know.

Allura hums in thought, but stays silent otherwise. The rest of the meal is spent in relative silence, minus a conversation between the aliens and Shiro about more modifications for his arm. 

The room is awfully quiet, and it feels reminiscent of the first summer they spent without Lance, a few months into his disappearance. The waiting felt bearable then, compared to now.

Now it’s nothing short of agonizing. Sure, she’s keeping herself entertained one way or another, but it’s been impossible to have any semblance of peace knowing her brother is in danger somewhere and she’s got no way of helping. It’s different from the past seven years, she thinks. Back then, she had no idea how to help, but right now, apparently just a wormhole away, she feels more helpless than ever. 

They wrap up the meal with some strange equivalent to orange juice, a slight pinkish in color and the flavor resembling banana more than anything. Veronica stands up to leave when a beeping in the castle brings everyone to attention. 

She makes a questioning sound, to which Allura stands up with haste. The four of them make their way to the room she’d last seen Lance over the call. 

The screen is flashing, an incoming call. The other three look confused. 

“What could Kolivan want?” Coran ponders. 

“Maybe they’re back from the mission?” Veronica suggests. Shiro gives her a skeptical click of his tongue. 

Allura answers the call with grace, giving Kolivan a warm greeting before the man can get a word in. 

He looks severe, more than when she had first seen him. It makes anxiety stir in her gut.

“I have lost contact with Krolia and the Blue Paladin.” The room is deathly silent. 

It's Shiro who speaks first. “What do you mean?” He demands. 

Kolivan pays no mind to the tone of his voice, keeping his own steady. “The trackers in their suits have turned off, as well as their comms. We have no way of contacting them.” 

“This could mean anything,” Allura reasons, arm extended out to her colleague’s shoulder. Shiro doesn’t make a move to displace her, seemingly finding solace in it.

“What can we do?” Allura asks. 

Kolivan shakes his head. “It would be ill advised to follow after them. If they’ve turned off their communication themselves, it’s purposeful.” 

“And if they didn’t?” Veronica steps forward a bit, her concern for Lance overtaking her reluctance to look at the man on the screen. 

“Then it would be even worse to send in more people.” He says, eyes firm on hers. She refuses to shrink back. 

“Are we able to help in any way?” Shiro asks, any relaxation he might have had has seeped from his frame. 

“I called to inform you, not to encourage you to try to join them.” Kolivan warns. “Sending anyone else in could jeopardize them further. All we can do is wait for them to report back.” Shiro’s gaze turns inward, thoughtful, and then he nods in agreement.

“Thank you for telling us, Kolivan.” Allura says sincerely. 

“I’ll call again when I hear any more news.” He says, and then the call ends abruptly. 

There’s another bout of awful silence in the room. While everyone else looks contemplative, Veronica can’t help but panic a little. 

The lack of communication seems to be unusual, which does nothing to quell her previous fears. If Lance is in serious danger, if he’s hurt, or worse, dead, then Veronica will have lost him a second time before she even fully got him back. 

She tries to tamp down the growing resentment in her chest to no avail. If it hadn’t been for Keith, Lance would have never gone back on a mission, or even back to space for that matter. It’s entirely unfair to think, she knows this, Keith can hardly be blamed for his injuries, or the way Lance feels about him. Despite this, it is, even inadvertently, Keith’s fault that Lance is in this situation, and she can’t help but curse at the man locked in a coma a few rooms away.

She knows herself well enough to know the resentment is temporary, but she still can’t stop herself from glaring at the next best target, Shiro, before storming out of the room. He meets her eyes straight on, and her anger directed at him seems to catch him off guard, before his face turns into what she can only assume is pity. No one heads after her when she stalks out, and she can’t help but be grateful for it. No amount of reassurance is going to help right now, especially since she knows the others won't be able to justify it. 

She finds herself wandering to a part of the castle she’s not familiar with, which, to be fair, is most of it. She can vaguely recall it being the observation deck from Coran’s brief tour. It's a large empty room with massive floor to ceiling windows on all sides. She sort of feels like a fish in a fishtank. 

The deep dark of space stares back at her as she makes her way to the edge of the room, seating herself right in front of the glass. The stars and constellations in front of her are foreign, and any sort of comfort she was seeking from the view seems to dim. 

It’s useless to be scared or angry right now, nothing she can do right now can help her brother, and she can only pray he knows what he’s doing out there. Realistically, he’s been doing things like this longer than she’s even known about it, and his comms being off is probably low on the scale of things that have gone wrong in missions. But it’s her first time with something like this, and her scale is tipped to an extreme, with this being the only entry. 

She draws a leg up to rest her chin on her knee. 

“It’s probably not that big of a deal, right?” her voice echoes slightly. The stars do not answer. She huffs out a sigh. 

It’s a while longer of sitting there in silence when she can hear the door swish open behind her. In the reflection of the glass, she can make out Shiro’s outline. He sits a few feet away from her, close enough that they could converse easily but far enough that she doesn’t feel pressured to talk. 

“You siblings are a little predictable.” He jokes. She gives him a confused glance. 

“Lance comes here to think, too.” He clarifies. 

It makes sense. He had always had a passion for space, and would often sit in the yard and stare at the night sky if something was bothering him. Oftentimes, their mother had to beg him to come inside if the night got too cold, and he would do so only after hours of pleading. It warms her a bit to know that despite everything, he kept to his habits. 

“I can’t guarantee that he’s going to be okay,” Shiro says, and Veronica can’t help but turn to him incredulously. “But,” He stresses, “Have faith in his abilities. Things like this happen a lot on missions, and he’s got a good head on him. They’ll work it out.” 

“I know,” She says, uncertain. “It’s just weird to be in the know and still be able to do nothing.” 

Shiro hums, but doesn’t offer anything else. 

His presence on the ship confuses her a bit. She really hasn’t had much time to think about it, but seeing him now makes her realize something. 

“Hey,” Shiro turns to look at her. “Why didn’t you go back to Earth, too? Was it also for Keith?” His expression stutters a bit, going from open and friendly to something more neutral. 

“Ah,” He clears his throat. “It’s a bit complicated.” A hand goes up to rub the back of his neck. She stays quiet to let him continue, but he doesn’t. 

She respects the man, and he’s her older brother’s age, so she drops the subject. It seems rude to pry when she doesn't have any real reason to. 

The quiet stretches between them again, not uncomfortably. She needs time to process things, and it seems that Lance’s return is on an indefinite hold, whether she likes it or not, giving her plenty of time to familiarize herself with how she feels about it all. 

Her priority is Lance, but he’s apparently a package deal now, and there’s no way for her to make any real progress when it comes to Keith. The only real-time information she has on him are his vitals, like that’s going to mean anything. 

She shifts, to muffle a groan into her hands. Somewhere off to the side, Shiro fails to hide his amusement. 

Chapter Text

Before Keith had been called on that last Blade mission, Shiro and him had… a talk.

Specifically, an argument about Shiro’s refusal to go back to Earth. Frankly, it had been none of Keith’s business, but his brother was never known for his tact. 

He had been…adamant- Keith had called him stubborn- about staying on the ship while the rest of the team sans the aliens went back down to Earth. Keith had pointedly reminded Shiro that Allura and Coran didn’t really need Shiro there with them at the edge of the galaxy, and that he might as well go back with them. 

But Shiro wasn’t budging. Unlike the others, including Keith, now, Shiro had no one to go back to. There was no one waiting for him back on Earth. On top of that, he had a very recognizable face, and the last thing they wanted to do was alert the Garrison that he had returned. They all saw how that went the last time. 

“Shiro, we’re all probably on the Garrison's watchlist. You’re not special.” Keith had said petulantly. Lance, no surprise, had taken his little brother’s side. As had, actually surprisingly, Pidge and Hunk. 

“My dad and Matt are dying to see you again, you can come back with me.” Pidge had said, and he hated to reject such an open offer from someone as closed off as Pidge was.

But he was only going to be a burden on the Holt’s household, and without access to the proper tech at all times, his prosthetic could cause issues Earth wasn’t equipped to deal with. 

Is the excuse he had given them. 

The truth was, when it was revealed to them that they were going back to Earth, Shiro had confided in Keith about his last moments with Adam. That he had called Shiro and begged him to stay. That Shiro could pick Adam or Kerberos but he wasn’t allowed to have both. And Shiro had chosen. And look where that got him. 

Keith had slapped him on the back of his head and called him an idiot for sitting on that for seven years, and Shiro really couldn’t argue. 

Adam’s words had eaten away at him during his time in the gladiator rings. He spent countless hours regretting every decision that led him there. If he had chosen differently, he could have saved himself from so much loss. 

“He’ll still love you.” Keith had said, quietly enough that Shiro knew he meant it. 

But words meant nothing when he had been gone for nearly a decade. Adam was allowed to move on. And if he had, then Shiro could do nothing but wait at the edge of the galaxy for his sake. 

The call with Kolivan is a jarring reminder that there are things in life that you just can’t cope with losing. For the team, it was one another. The bond that Keith and Lance had formed together was indescribable. Shiro used to have someone like that, but he had long since accepted that it was a luxury he could no longer afford. 

His mind takes him back to the day Keith had been shut into the pod. There wasn’t a single person in that room who hadn’t felt in their hearts that this was the end. The all encompassing dread that looms over you when you know that you’re never going to see someone again. 

He wonders, often, if that is how Adam had felt when he walked out that door all of those years ago.

The two of them make their way quietly around the ship. They’ve managed to go one level higher than they landed on, and the personnel still seem pretty oblivious. Sneaking around was easier than he thought it would be. Krolia and him had been able to loosely hash out the soldiers’ actual guard schedule after maybe five or so hours into them being there. With that, they’ve been successful at avoiding running into any more people since Krolia’s first scuffle. 

He’s yet to discuss theories about the info leak with Krolia. She seems frustrated enough, and he’s afraid if he provokes her more it’ll do more harm than good. Kolivan’s lack of foresight on something like this happening does raise a lot of questions, though. Specifically, how Kolivan could have let anyone let this slip past him. 

“Krolia.” He whispers. They’re walking far enough from each other that if she had normal range ears, his voice would have easily been missed. Seeing as how she doesn’t, she turns around briefly to acknowledge him, though she looks displeased with him potentially giving away their location. 

“Does this happen a lot on Blade missions?” He says, because there’s no way a mole like this hasn’t sprung up in the centuries the blade has been active. Perhaps he should have asked this sooner, maybe the hours they’d spent in awkward silence on their way here, but it really hadn’t crossed his mind as something that could be a pattern until it happened in his presence. 

She seems to mull over his words a bit. 

“It is not unheard of,” She says, “There have been similar attempts from before Kolivan’s time, but I wasn’t a member of the Blade then. I can not be certain the exact ways in which they were resolved.” 

“But it has happened before?” 

“Yes,” She confirms. 

So maybe they’re not entirely screwed. If the blades were already familiar with how to deal with a mole, then they probably have a shot at revealing it smoothly. However Krolia had seemed concerned despite her knowing the Blades history. It was hard to tell if it was because of Kolivan’s misjudgment or Keith’s direct involvement. 

Something tugs at the back of his mind, and no matter how hard he pulls it refuses to come to him. There’s something obvious that he’s missing. 

He needs to look at this step by step. 

Keith and his mother’s original mission was a simple intel probe. They were supposed to be in and out of the small Galra base. Even with a mole involved, it makes little sense for them to strike during such a small mission. The intel was destroyed in the blast, so he can’t exactly make the judgement on how important it might have been, but Kolivan had assigned it to the two of them knowing they were approaching Earth and kept it simple on purpose. 

A bomb planted directly near where they needed to be tells him that the mole knew their positions exactly, and the timing of the detonation could have been intentional or just a coincidence. 

Something tugs at his brain again. 

Krolia has an arm out, stopping him from walking any further. They’ve approached a new section of the ship, finally coming out of the repetitive hallway layouts. It’s a room not dissimilar to the common area in the Castle. 

Despite them tucked into the shadows of the ship, the room has enough personnel mulling around that they might be easily spotted if they walk any further. 

According to Krolia, they’re not on high enough floors for any of them to be people of interest (given she’s sticking to the original intel, Lance on the other hand is trying to wrap his head around something else). The best course of action is to stick to the shadows and bypass the room entirely. Making sure they go unseen is of utmost importance right now. Lance shifts his bayard into something smaller. It would be way too embarrassing to be caught because his gun couldn't keep a low profile.

They slink across the hall, Krolia’s large frame is surprisingly agile. Though, it’s less of a shock knowing she’s Keith’s mom. Lance can only hope for half as much grace. While he’s good at infiltration, it’s hardly similar to how silent Keith and Krolia tend to be. 

Right, back to his theorizing. So, the mole knew where the intel would be, but made the choice to detonate the bomb only when the two of them were close. It was an effective strategy to try and take down two of the Blades most important members, but ultimately a failure. If this was about hijacking the mission though, right? In that case, multiple other missions should have been targeted, too. Especially ones that were of a higher caliber. 

Easier missions were easier to sabotage overall, but if someone wanted to take down the entire organization why bother? Focusing efforts on larger missions would cost the Blade of Marmora a lot more in the long run. 

The conclusion his brain turns him to makes him uneasy. 

Krolia is still treading in front of him, poised for attack. As a soldier, she’s incredible. She takes orders to heart and backs down from nothing. As an individual, she’s haughty and condescending at worst, and downright awkward at best. But the members of the Blade don’t have to be friends to effectively work with one another. Hell, he doubts Krolia even has friends other than her boss and her son. He stifles a snort at that, the only indication she heard him was  a brief hardening of Krolia’s stance. 

Anyways. In terms of effectiveness and productivity, Krolia is a hard person to dislike. She gets the job done and she gets it done well. It makes sense that someone trying to sabotage the Blade would target her. 

“Lance,” Krolia says. He blinks back up at her disapproving stare. She motions her head in the direction of another stairwell. There’s one guy milling around it, seemingly kicking metaphorical rocks about something. He’s armored up but not armed. It would be easy work for them to get rid of him to clear access to the stairway. 

Krolia motions for him to stand a bit further back, emphasizing the arm holding the blade to indicate she’ll handle it. Lance nods an affirmative and tucks himself away, making sure to keep his eyes on her. 

She stalks up to the Galran like a tiger sizing up its prey. He’s blissfully unaware, whatever he’s upset about is clearly taking up his attention. The poor sucker.

It happens quickly. She pulls up behind him, and uses the blade of her sword to drag him back and pin him against her body. She’s larger than him, and the soldier loses to the disadvantage. His attempts to cry for help are aborted quickly as she shushes him, likely pulling the blade closer to his throat. 

“You don’t have to die here today,” Her voice is low and threatening. “But if you leave me with no other choice I won’t hesitate.” The man- Lance scrutinizes him further, Krolia is not known for her mercy- the boy nods, clearly unused to situations like these. Lance has hardly had run-ins with the Galran youth, but this guy can’t be much older than an Earth teenager, given that they age at nearly the same rate that humans do. 

Krolia’s mercy is surprising, though perhaps reconnecting with her son has made her softer than she’s led on. Still, it seems uncharacteristic of her to have let the kid live. 

“Listen to me closely,” She warns. “You’re going to let us go, and if I even suspect you’ve told anyone of our whereabouts, I will find you.” The boy's eyes dart around at the word ‘us’, catching Lance’s eyes where he’s tucked himself closer to the action. He gulps, and then nods. Krolia loosens her hold and the boy immediately scampers away, but remains silent. 

“That's going to bite us in the ass later.” Lance says, gesturing to the direction the kid ran in. 

“I know.” She says, almost like she can’t believe she let him get away. It’s too late to reconsider now, and they should get moving in case the kid ran to get reinforcements. 

The staircase is wide and winding, more for large groups of soldiers to plow through than for the Earth standard fire escape. 

They have to tread lightly, the confined space making everything a hundred times more echoey. The only advantage being they can hear anyone else as easily as they can be heard. There are cameras in here, but they try to stick to the shadows. Considering no alarms went off after their first stair excursion, he can assume that they’re not being watched right now. 

The end of the staircase leads them into another hall. It’s fairly empty, and Lance tries not to think about the way Krolia had recounted the mission after she had recovered. 

It was too easy. Each step too simple. Each pathway too clear. 

Lance shakes his head. He can’t afford any distractions right now. 

If they landed their cruiser on the lowest tier of the ship, and they’d only gone up one floor, then they’d hardly made a dent in the layout of the ship. They had dozens more floors to go if they wanted to meet anyone with enough relevance to actually take them where they needed to be. Mentally running through the mission in his head, he can recall that the original target was on either the highest floor or the one below it, in one of the central command rooms. 

Without a proper map, or tracking or even guard schedules for the more regulated part of the ship, this was going to take them an uncountable amount of more hours than they’d already spent here. 

In his head, he curses at this stupid informant. What a ridiculous chase to send them on for seemingly no good reason.

What would a mole gain from taking out Krolia and Keith? Even though they were notable figures in the Blade, they still were just two of many, the actual number of members being unfathomable scattered across the universe. There would be no point in getting rid of just two people given the chance that they did have access to most Blade intel. 

Sure, Krolia often took the lead on missions, but any Blade was capable of- Lance’s brain comes to a halt. He looks at Krolia’s back from where she’s navigating the both of them through yet another hall. 

Krolia always took the lead on missions, walking in the front as she was the most familiar with Galran layouts. Keith had shielded her from the blast. If he was walking behind her, and the blast hit his back, then that meant the bombs were placed further away from the intel than strictly necessary, as if they weren’t the target at all. If the bombs were placed behind Keith, even though the person who put them there was familiar with the way Krolia ran missions… Lance feels a sense of dread wash over him. They had previously just assumed Keith was collateral in an overall scheme to take down the Blade. 

The intel was never the target. Nor was Krolia. Keith was.

And two people that Keith cared a whole awful lot about  had just willingly flown themselves straight into a trap

His head hurts like hell, and his ears feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton. His eyes still feel heavy, and that weird dark floating sensation doesn’t leave him. 

“Oh, My! Would you look at that?” Says a distant voice. It’s muffled through the haze in his head, and he still can’t see, but the voice is familiar enough. 

Coran? He wants to say, but he can hardly stay aware of his surroundings let alone move his mouth. 

“Allura, come look at this!”

It takes her a moment to realize that the Blue Paladin has stopped following her. She turns around to find him looking back at her, stricken, but a quick scan of the staircase tells her that there are no threats present. 

“Krolia.” He says weakly. “I thought of something,” 

They do not have time for this.

She waits for him to continue, keeping an ear out for anyone approaching. 

“The target was never the intel. It’s Keith.” She blinks at him, waiting for him to elaborate. 

He goes in detail into his trail of thought, with all evidence pointing to a targeted attack at her son, rather than anything the Blade was after. 

“Right now? Guess what they’re probably after?” Lance says. 

“Us.”

He nods grimly, but she can't tell if his eyes are wide with fear or something else.

She had not been foolish enough to not have considered this, but she had been foolish enough to dismiss it when the idea had come into her mind. Perhaps it had been naive of her to assume Keith was capable of resolving any interpersonal misgivings that would interfere with the success of a mission. She had gotten too distracted afterwards, when Keith was hurt, to waste her time going over theories. It makes sense, though. No other Blade missions recently had encountered such sabotage or failure. 

Personal vendetta was hardly something that a dignified member of the Blade of Marmora would consider. There was nothing personal when it came to the Blade. Or rather, there should not be. Clearly this individual thought otherwise. Clearly, this individual was not fit to be a part of their organization any longer. 

“Our positions are compromised,” She says, and she can actually name the expression on Lance’s face this time. It is the one he uses when Keith tells him information he is already privy to. 

“We should quit while we still can.” He says. His body has already started turning around. 

“What about the mission?” She means for it to come out stern, but even to her own ears it sounds adrift. 

“Krolia, the most important thing we could do right now is return safely.” It’s not lost on her he’s talking to her as if she is some beast to tame. Low and gentle. But still commanding.

He is right, however. Usually, the intel would take precedence. But whoever organized the information was trying to set them up, and it would be useless to try and continue. 

“If the intel is that important, then Kolivan can send another team to retrieve it.” He continues, mistaking her silence for dissent. “Plus, it’ll be easier to confront the mole when they’re not directly related to the guy they hate”. 

They’ve hardly made any distance in the ship, and returning would be a simple task. 

“We should return to the ship.” He returns her statement with a firm nod, fully turned around now. Finding their way to their ship would be uncomplicated and fast. They have already wasted too much time here. 

The stairwell lights begin to flash, an alarm following shortly after. 

Lance cusses loudly, uncaring of the noise he makes. She can not help but agree with the sentiment. 

“It had to be that kid.” He says. The one she let go. In a moment of weakness, she had seen her own child in the eyes of the enemy, and it had cost them this. 

“It does not matter. We will handle the Galra as they come to us.” She pushes past him, taking the lead again. He makes an offended noise, but she does not have the time to care. 

It was placed upon her to make sure Lance came out of this unharmed. This was her responsibility and she would not take it lightly.

There is movement outside of the stairwell door. They have two options. They can either fight their way through however many people are gathered there, or keep heading upstairs and find another way back to the ship. 

There is no movement coming from upstairs. It seems as though everyone onboard has assumed they’ve made it to the upper levels already. If no one has gathered on the floor above them, they might have a chance at being able to wait for an opening and coming back down when everyone is searching for them on higher levels. 

She motions back up to Lance, who, despite looking unsure, nods in agreement. 

They make their way back up the way they were originally headed. She keeps her feet light, an insignificant task considering Lance has no qualms about making as much noise as possible. 

They emerge on the other side to an empty hallway, but she can hear noise off in the distance. It is likely that all staff capable of fighting have been sent upwards to try and capture them, much to their advantage. 

It is easy to slink back into the shadows. They need to look for another way down. The stairwell behind them is already filling with the noise of footsteps. 

Despite the lack of maps, the ship is easy enough to navigate. Most ships follow similar layouts to allow pre-programmed droids to be able to guard any craft. The Galra were not expecting their own people to use this against them, and they were egotistical enough to assume no other species would be freely roaming around to figure it out. It was, ultimately, one of the many reasons they were successful in taking down the empire. 

“These hallways all look the same.” Lance whines. It is lost on her how Keith put up with it. 

“That is to our advantage.” She chides, hoping it will convince him to make less noise. 

Abruptly, she has to hold an arm out to stop the both of them from walking. She can hear a group of soldiers up ahead, as well as some coming up from behind. 

“Shit.” Lance states, likely having heard them too. 

They were going to have to fight their way past, regardless of which direction they chose. 

Lance’s bayard shifts in an instant, turning into a long, thin sword. The technology is similar to that of her own blade. She had never gotten the chance to ask the Alteans about it. They were uncomfortable with her presence and she had never felt like being under their scrutiny for so long. The sword, too, is something she has seen him wield before. She’s only seen him use it against Keith during training, and considering his accumulation of losses, she is doubtful for its success today. They do not have time to dwell on that, though. 

The crowd in front of them is fast approaching, those leading it already within their line of sight. She makes the first move, jumping out of the shadows to catch them unaware. 

Fighting comes to her easier than breathing. The first man is dead before his colleagues have even registered her presence. The soldier behind him hardly has a chance to blink away the spray of blood before she is on him, too. 

He moves quicker than she thought he would, and her first swing is dodged. He is armed, but a gun is futile in a close range fight like this. Despite his speed, he’s sluggish compared to her. She’s able to grab the wrist of his armed hand and squeezes, as his grip loosens on the gun, she wedges her blade into the gap in his armor near his shoulder. It’s nowhere near a fatal blow, but it incapacitates him long enough for her to throw him down and dodge the third soldier approaching from the side. 

As she turns to apprehend him, she catches a glimpse of Lance. 

He is good with the sword. Very good. Lance had been holding back during training. He moves less gracefully than any member of the Blade would, his stance more grounded as if he is still using a large gun. Despite that, he’s able to move around the soldiers with ease. 

The man on the floor makes a grab for her legs, fighting past the injured shoulder. She kicks him hard, and his resounding groan only seems to encourage the other soldiers. 

They’re becoming increasingly outnumbered, and the leading strategy of fighting is becoming ineffective. They need to run, but the opening never comes.

It’s after a few minutes of close combat when she hears Lance shout out. He’s down. To her surprise the Galra do not immediately kill him. Instead, his bayard is kicked further away from his body, and two of the soldiers are restraining him. Notwithstanding his struggle in their grasp, they don’t move. Instead, he gets a heavy pound to the skull with the back of a third soldier’s gun. 

The distraction is enough for three more to advance on her. 

“Give in and we won't kill him.” One of them sneers. If it was any other member of the Blade, she might have still made a run for it. She detests the part of herself who, despite it being Lance, still wants to make a run for it. 

She gives in, and a larger soldier kicks in her legs from the back, making her kneel. Her blade is pried out of her hands, and thrown in the same direction as the bayard. 

She does not often use Earth phrases, despite the many months she spent on it. But it seems appropriate now. Should Keith ever wake up, he was going to kill her. 

Chapter Text

He wakes up to Krolia’s face a few inches from his own. If it weren't for the fact that his body was too sore to move, he would have scrambled back up to his feet and ran as far away as possible. All he can manage is a widening of his eyes that match her own expression. 

“You’re awake.” She says, leaning back, and Lance wonders if her head is as foggy as his right now. He groans as a response, hoping she gets the message. 

She hasn’t moved from where she’s kneeling beside him. “You have been out for a while.” Ominous. That awful sense of dread creeps back into his senses. He lifts his head up from the grimy cell floor. He can feel the texture of it pulling at his hair. It’s only then that he realizes that their captors have removed their masks. 

“How long?” He rasps out, afraid of the answer. 

She scrutinizes him for a moment. Her appearance doesn’t look that different from the start of their mission. Her hair is just slightly mussed, and her suit is scuffed around her joints and on the sides of her abdomen. 

“Three hours.” She says. 

The relief of hearing it was a few hours and not, you know, days or weeks has him crashing his head back down into the ground in relief, exhaling a sigh. His hair snags again on the way down.

“God, Krolia, you scared me. Three hours.” He scoffs. He’s taken naps longer than that. 

That gets him a mumble under her breath, but his ears are still ringing too much for him to catch her words. 

“What’s the plan then?” He says, struggling to get himself upright. 

The cell is smaller than he originally assumed. It's a rectangular space, with the wall parallel with the bars being ten feet if he were generous. The side walls are narrow enough that once he sits up, he can touch the bars and the wall by just stretching his arms out. 

“They have taken our comms and weapons.” 

So there’s no plan, then. He suppresses another groan.

Realistically, this would be the point where he usually lets the rest of the team handle the rescue. But the rest of the team is lightyears away. Fantastic. 

“And what happened to me?” Lance actually groans, the throbbing in his head and ribs making itself very loud and clear again. 

The look Krolia gives him reminds him of Keith, when he’s calling Lance stupid in his head and out loud. The thing is, he actually can’t remember past the Galra soldiers kicking his bayard away. And oh yeah, slamming their guns right into the back of his head. 

His skull smarts at the memory. 

“They wanted to teach us a lesson on trespassing on the way to the cell.” She gestures to her own scuffed up uniform. Not a very effective lesson if he wasn’t awake to learn it. 

The hall is empty. No sound travels down it, and the dim lighting reveals no shadows that seem unusual in the contours of the ship. The lack of attention towards their prisoners can mean very good things or very bad things. There's no way they haven't recognized him as a member of Voltron, unless the suit combined with this ship never making it to the final battles means they don’t actually know what the members of Voltron look like. The downsides to a universal empire, maybe? 

They could have also just been captured because they were noticeable members of the blade, but even then, that would warrant an interrogation, would it not? 

“So what, they rough us up and throw us in here and don’t even demand us to take them to our leader?” He’s propped up on the wall now, which saves him from the bald spot the floor was going to inevitably give him. 

“It is common knowledge now that Kolivan is the leader of the Blade of Marmora.” She deadpans, and he can’t tell if she’s being cheeky or actually dense. 

“...Right, so, what’s next? Just sit here until they feel like talking to us or can we figure out how to break this door?” The mechanism looks entirely alien (heh) to him, and it’s hard to tell if it’s because it’s too advanced or too outdated. The bars are beams of light, likely electrified, which he can assume are outdated, as most of the cruisers they fought on had prison walls made up of the same technology as force fields. The electric bars seem almost primitive in comparison, if not weirdly more cruel. If he cranes his head, he can see a squarish shape on the wall outside. A control panel of sorts to deactivate the bars?  

Krolia follows his line of sight, and shakes her head disapprovingly. “Touching one of those bars would fry your fingers right off. The Galra got rid of them decades ago because prison clean up became too inconvenient.” 

“And not because of the human-er, alien right’s violations.” Lance adds, which gets him a judgmental look, but Krolia chooses not to respond to him. 

“We will have to see what they want from us. And then determine how to use that to our advantage.” She says, keeping her eyes locked on the bars. The blue reflects off of her yellow sclera making them appear almost white, and it’s easy to pretend like she might be just as human as him at the moment. 

It's a shitty predicament, to say the least. His body will bounce back in a few more hours or so, but being in relatively good health won't help them if they can't even get past the door. On top of that, he’s got people waiting on him back home, for the first time in seven years. They’re expecting him back, and the blasé attitude he adopted over the years about his own life and ever going home won’t really fly, especially not when Veronica's still on the Castleship. 

“Krolia what if we don’t make it out of this.” It might be the concussion talking. Not being able to go home after a brief taste feels crueler than if they had never returned at all. 

Would he regret it, if this was actually the end? Sacrificing his chance at freedom in order to avenge Keith? Probably not. It would have been worth it, if not maybe a little in vain. 

“I already told you of my vision from the abyss.” She says, bemused. 

Oh yeah, the vision from the abyss, where they’re all back home. That’s reassuring. 

“Lance, are you alright?” Comes a concerned voice. 

He’s fine, he says. Or, he thinks he says, because he can’t actually figure out what's a thought and what’s not right now. 

And then everything goes dark.

She’s finding it hard to focus on Coran’s wall of text. She can’t get over the fact that her brother might be missing. Again.  

She can’t fathom how normal the others seem to be acting. How well they’re taking the news. Sure, this might be a normal occurrence if they were still fighting the war. But it was supposed to be over. They were all supposed to be safe now. 

She’s been on the same sentence for the past twenty minutes. 

It’s a passage about one of Voltrons collaborations with the Blade of Marmora. Some planet liberation with the aid of a Galran soldier who had been working for the blade for a decade. It reads like an epic, with details on specific move executions by Voltron and the tragic fall of the colonial base. It would be captivating and wholly entertaining if not for the fact that Lance is missing and oh my God what if he actually stays gone this time.

She’s saved from her spiral by a knock on the door. 

“May I come in?” Allura must have a sixth sense for when someone’s feeling like shit. It probably came in handy a lot when they were all fighting in the war. 

She slides the door open for her, giving her a tiny wave in. 

“Shiro told me you might be having a hard time.” Is what Allura starts with, and Veronica silently curses the man’s good nature and natural disposition to settle conflict (Coran’s words, not hers). 

“It feels different now. The danger, I mean. I know he’s been in situations like this before, and that he’s always made it out. But now that I know , it’s like he’s gone missing all over again, except this time I actually had a chance to do something about it.” 

“I understand what you mean.” Allura says, seating herself next to Veronica on the bed. 

She knows exactly what Allura means, read them through Coran’s own words, but she holds her breath before responding. 

Allura takes a deep breath. “I woke up one day to find out everything I knew was gone forever. I’m sure it felt the same for you.” She’s wringing her hands together nervously. 

“I have trusted the Paladins with my life for years now, as they have with me. I trust Lance. He’s capable and strong willed.” She turns those blue alien eyes onto Veronica. She finds it hard to look away. “He will come back, because neither of us can afford to lose someone else. I will make sure of it.” 

“Thank you.” Veronica says, because what else could she try to say to that? 

She gives Veronica a strong squeeze of her hand, and then scurries out the door. Uncharacteristically ungraceful. It makes Veronica feel grateful, that this is the family her brother had made for himself. Clumsy and loyal, like himself. 

The thought makes her heart squeeze. Speaking of family, she should really address the elephant in the room. Or rather, the ring in her pocket. 

She’s been ignoring it since Lance had given it to her. The implications of it made her feel left out and alienated. Were they already engaged? Already married? Has the proposal even happened yet? 

It feels cruel and unusual that Lance would have given this to her so freely before his departure. Like news like this wouldn’t take months to celebrate and rejoice over. Instead he’d kept it a secret, and what? Revealed it only when he thought there might not be a chance that he could do it himself? 

It’s painfully gorgeous. The red stones inlaid into the dark grey metal give it almost a smoky effect. Like the ring is on fire. But the metal is cool to the touch. There’s an inscription on the inside, written in what she can only assume is Altean. 

Keith was famously known as the Red Lion’s pilot. Is the ring meant for him? Has Lance not given it to him yet? Or is there a matching blue one looped around Keith’s neck in that pod. The concept is so sappy it makes her sick, and then it makes her so happy she might cry, and then it makes her so upset she might actually cry. 

This man means a lot to her brother. It’s something she can’t really deny, not anymore. Her brother went to war with this man. He went into another one for this man. 

It’s unfair to feel jealous. She knows this. But he had thrown his life away for Keith not just once, seven years ago in a desert, but probably hundreds of times since then. Each time without her knowledge, each likely more dangerous than the last. Since his return, when had he given that much attendance to any of them? Even in their childhood home her brother had kept his eyes locked into the sky, like if he squinted hard enough he might be able to see Keith in his stupid pod. 

She’s an asshole, and she can admit that to herself. 

The ring is beautiful, and it must mean so much to Lance, and he had trusted her to keep it safe for him. That has to mean something, right?

The Blue Paladin is still unconscious. For the third time since their capture. His vulnerability makes her uneasy. His fragility even more so. He’s an interesting character, and despite knowing of him for years now, she has yet to understand his motives. 

His face is lax in his sleep, a far cry from the usual hostility he tries to hide on his face from her. 

That, too, she cannot yet understand.

She had been, apparently, the first person the boy had approached about proposing to Keith. As if her opinion on the subject had mattered. 

As if she was really his mother.

As a child, Krolia didn’t have much reason to believe in things like family, or connection. Her own parents had been members of the Blade who had spent merely a single night together, as was common for members of the Blade to do. Of course, it was essential for recruits to be taken in from the Empire, but it was also not unusual for members to be born into it. 

As circumstances would have it, Krolia had not spent much time with either of her parents. Her father had gone missing well before her birth, and then her mother had gone next, a few months after she was born. This, too, was not uncommon, and she was raised by the collective group in a separate wing made for others like her. Interpersonal relationships weren’t strictly forbidden, but it was an unwritten rule that one should not concern themselves with attachments, as the mission would always come first. So, despite growing up around children in similar circumstances as her, she had not made a single friend. None of them had. 

A familiar face was just someone who you crossed paths with often, and maybe you knew their name if you were stationed together. Otherwise, a familiar face in passing was nothing more than a coincidence. If she was feeling particularly sentimental, a familiar face meant she could let herself feel glad that the Blade didn't need to replace someone so skilled anytime soon.

So, Krolia had learned to keep to herself, and had raised herself into the type of person who could steel her heart and let go of colleagues as easily as if she were brushing dust off of her shoulders. A necessary and inconsequential action, in the grand scheme of the war. 

That was what she had convinced herself, up until her ship crashed into the Earth. 

After that, things had changed. Should she think about it too hard, she would realize that she had changed. Her mission went from locating Voltron to protecting just the Blue Lion, and for once in her life that would be done best by staying grounded. 

The Lion hardly needed defending once the initial threats were dealt with. It was her easiest mission yet. Easy companionship, easy mornings, easy afternoons. So easy that she had disillusioned herself into thinking that she could keep it.

The hard part had come when that companionship had turned into something more, something real and intimate. First it had been the Human, then, their child. 

When Keith had been born, the foremost emotion that had overcome her was fear. His father, her- his father, had insisted that Keith had gestated for a normal human amount of time, but to Galran standards, even for those who weren’t entirely Galran, he should have had to gestate for pheobs longer. The mere nine or so months she had given him seemed inconsequential to his development. He had been so small, and so human.

She had always thought of humans as weaker than her. Never meant as a slight, just an observation. Of course, her only point of reference had been Keith’s father. He was a sturdy man, and even he had been unable to match her strength when it came to physical ability. 

Hence; her son, their son, had been far too vulnerable for the world. 

For the next few months, the Blue Lion had hardly crossed her mind. She had become instantly taken with the child, and often had to have him pried from her hands in order to go and feed herself. 

Looking into those dark eyes she had seen her own face, content in ways she had never imagined herself being, and for the first time in a very, very long time had let her mind wander where it had not since childhood. Had her own mother held her just like this? Had she, too, feared that letting go might mean they might never see one another again? 

But that had been foolish of her. Of course the Empire had returned, and so had her mission.

As she handed the crying babe into those Human arms and put on her uniform, she had to remind herself, repeat it over and over again until it was drilled into her like the days of her youth, that knowledge - and the death that she might face trying to acquire it, the mission , would always come first. 

So when she had come across her son again, she held no expectations for their relationship. They were blood, but they were also strangers. He had been angry, and young, and she had steeled her heart for - no, that’s not right. She had expected no less than rejection, she would not have let it surprise her. But instead he had caught her off guard, and continued talking to her, and asking her questions. He had kept working for the Blade. 

She had thought that he was going to stay by her side, like that infant who had clung to her so desperately all of those years ago, like a family again.

And then, Voltron. And the rest of the Paladins. And Lance.

For her, family had meant those years spent on Earth, with the desert sun on her back and a welcoming smile pointed towards her own. She had thought-no, she had hoped, that it had meant the same to Keith. That he, too, would long for those dusty mornings under the same roof as her again. Instead, he had built himself something new. Bonds stronger than she could have even tried to imagine.

Despite Krolia being the one billions of miles away, it was her who had remained in that desert shack, alone. Keith had long since moved on. 

“It’s creepy to stare.” 

Krolia snaps out of her thoughts. Her eyes had been fixated on the boy as he lay unconscious. It must be embarrassment that warms her face, but the feeling is still new to her. 

“I was monitoring you.” She lies, hoping he doesn’t catch her mortification. 

“Sure.” It’s clear he catches it just fine. 

“You keep falling unconscious. It will start becoming inconvenient if it keeps happening.” It’s true, but she also wants him to remain oblivious to what she’s now recognizing at worry clouding her thoughts. 

“Anything new happen while I was out?” He asks. She shakes her head, a habit she picked up from Earth. 

“Not even a guard or passing shift.” She mutters. It’s unusual and uncomfortable. No competent soldier would fail to check up on their freshly acquired prisoners, let alone prisoners of such high caliber. There’s not even a single voice that echoes down the hall, meaning they’re the only prisoners in this wing of the ship. 

Have they been kept a secret from the main staff of the cruisers, or are they so confident in their abilities that interrogating them seems irrelevant? 

“Well, if they’re trying to bore us to death it might actually be working.” Krolia bites her tongue so as to not mention that she has been the only one awake long enough to be bored, while others here have been asleep. 

He gives her a grin after speaking, like he can read her thoughts exactly. It’s the first smile he’s given her directly, and it makes her feel uncertain about things she can’t yet name. 

As if they had been listening in on their conversation and finally decided enough was enough, a third voice joins them. 

“Finally conscious, I see.” It’s a gangly thing of a man, all limbs and sharp edges. He’s not fully Galra, if she had to guess, he might not even be Galra at all. The only thing that alludes to his Galran heritage is the purple tint to his skin and the fact that he’s on this ship in a soldier's uniform. 

She does not recognize him, but his eyes seem eerily familiar. It sends the hair on the nape of her neck standing up in apprehension. He does not look like the usual Galran cavalry. In fact, he doesn’t look like anyone they’d send to be a guard for prisoners at all.

The guy looks skeevy, to say the least. Krolia is sizing him up enough for the both of them, so Lance takes his time trying to figure out who he is. 

He looks familiar in the way anyone would say ‘hey, I’ve seen someone purple before’, but beyond the fact that he’s clearly a bad guy on a bad guy ship, he’s a stranger. 

“I’ve been waiting to meet you for a very long time.” His sickly greenish eyes turn towards Lance, and he pretends that it doesn’t unnerve him. 

“Flattered.” He says, and the guy twitches slightly in annoyance. 

Is he the mastermind behind the plan or just the guy they send in first to make sure they let their guard down? 

“Why have you brought us here?” Krolia says, as curt as usual. The guy actually sneers at her, teeth and all. It warps his thin face into something more menacing. 

“As if you don’t know.” He says. It's hard to tell if he’s trying to be mysterious or suss out what they might actually know, which at least to the guy’s benefit, is absolutely zero. 

“Enlighten me.” Krolia unfurled to her full height from where she’d been crouching. She’s a few inches taller than their captor, which seems to piss the guy off even more. 

“I don’t owe you any answers. What’s going to happen here is that I,” he actually pauses as if to gesture to himself, like they’re supposed to know who he is. Lance muffles a snort. “am going to enjoy killing you both very slowly.” And then he’s backing away into the shadows like a Galran Batman. It would be more intimidating if not for the fact that Lance is feeling particularly amused. 

“Seems like a nice guy.” Lance adds, once the footsteps have stopped echoing down the hall. 

If looks could kill, the stink eye Krolia shoots him might have put him out of his misery a little sooner.

His eyes actually open, and he catches sight of the glass doors before they slide open and he’s unceremoniously dumped to the ground. 

There’s no one there to catch him, which, rude, but he can forgive them for it once he’s got something to drink. His throat is killing him. 

He’s on his hands and knees in a pile of his own sweat when the pod behind him starts beeping. It reminds him of his old microwave in the shack, that would beep well after his food had been burnt into a crisp. 

Footsteps echo down the hall, slightly hurried. He can tell by the click of the shoes that it’s Coran, followed by the lighter steps of Allura. 

He might have blacked out again because the next thing he knows is that he’s being hauled into Coran’s arms, back upright onto his feet. 

“Guess who’s decided to finally join the living.” The older man’s voice is loud enough to cut through the cotton stuffed into his brain, and he fails at hiding his wince. Allura scolds him accordingly for his volume. 

He’s settled neatly on what he thinks is a cot, right next to the pod. The feel of the cool sheets are infinitely better than the hell that was the inside of the pod, and he sinks into them easily. 

“Welcome back, Keith.” It’s Allura this time, and her eyes find his easily. She’s tearing up, which is strange. He can’t have been out for nearly enough time to warrant such a reaction. A cool hand touches his forehead. It might also be glowing. Hard to tell with his eyes closed. 

“Get some rest, we’ll be here when you wake up.”

Chapter Text

The man doesn't make a reappearance for another few hours. They do, however, receive their first meal in that time. A discolored lump the size of a palm, and the density of hardened clay. Despite going through the effort of splitting it in half to share with Krolia, neither of them work up enough of an appetite to actually eat it, so it remains on the tiny serving platter it came on when the Galran soldier makes his return. 

He eyes it with disgust the second he makes his entrance, but makes no comment on it. Must not be a crowd favorite, then. 

“Finally.” Lance gripes, and the lack of a glare from Krolia lets him know she agrees. 

“What do you want?” Krolia bites out. “I don’t appreciate my time being wasted.” 

“You should appreciate every second I let you live.” The man spits out. It's like a switch has been flipped. The faux disinterest in his eyes has turned steely and venomous. “You seem to be under the impression that you’re going to make it out of here alive.” He inches closer to the cell. The light from the bars cast his face into an eerie glow, and Lance can't help but feel a sense of uneasiness. 

This isn’t the first time his life has been on the line, and certainly won’t be the last, but the rest of the team being unaware of the situation does make it feel more high stakes than it usually would be. 

“If you wanted us dead you would have killed us already.” Lance says, testing the waters. If this was motivated by war, or his sense of justice, the soldier would have killed them already, and used their bodies as a trophy. Keeping them alive means they have something that he wants, and that will always be an advantage they have over him. It’s just down to figuring out what exactly they’re supposed to be using to their advantage. “If you tell us what you want from us, we can make this a lot easier than whatever your plan is now.” 

Krolia seems to still be sizing him up, like she’s trying to figure out where she’s seen him before. He hopes she can figure it out soon, because Lance is still drawing blanks. 

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” The Galran sneers, leveling Lance with a glare. His beady eyes seem to bore right through his head. 

“But you ,” His head turns to Krolia, and he extends one long finger in her direction, like a petulant child. Two more soldiers arrive from around the corner, their hulking masses overshadowing their captor’s. 

It only takes a second for the beams closest to Krolia to shut off, and the newest additions to the room make a move to grab at her. She lashes out just as quick, using her bare hands to try to claw at the seams of their armor. 

Lance goes in to help, shaking off his nausea to throw his entire body weight at the armored mass to throw it off balance. It works, only slightly, sending the Galran soldier veering slightly to the side, but still upright. The entire right side of his body turns into one flaring ache. 

Their captor scoffs, unimpressed, before stepping through the closed bars and grabbing Lance by the back of his throbbing skull. “Don’t make this any more painful for yourself.” 

He’s stronger than he looks , is the only thought that crosses Lance's mind as he’s discarded harshly against the steel floor, a flash of pain running back through his skull. The dizziness that had subsided during his hours being conscious seeps back in. 

Krolia, similarly, is fighting a losing battle. With Lance still reeling on the ground, she’s outnumbered and outmatched. With no weapons or armor, her brute strength can only get her so far. While she does, impressively, get a few good hits in, her bare hands against reinforced Galran armor don’t do much harm, and in the split second where her hand recoils from its impact on armor, she’s pinned back onto the ground, with the soldiers looming over her. 

She’s snarling like a caged animal, eyes pinned on the man who brought them here.

“Krolia,” Lance calls out, and the guy is back on him in a second. 

“Don’t pretend like you care.” He says, landing a kick on Lance’s sternum. It hurts like a bitch, and the rest of his sentence dies out as he grits his teeth at the impact. 

The moment they drag her out of the cell (still kicking and fighting, Lance recalls, impressed), the beams light back up, effectively trapping Lance back in the cell alone.

“You will let me go if you want to keep these fingers.” The grip they have on her hair is degrading, and it spreads a flare of anger in her that she’s long learned to suppress. The man leading the two henchmen - and that’s what they seem to be, silent and seemingly just there for their strength - just chuckles in response, shaking his head mockingly. 

“Do you still think you have any say in how this goes?” She’s led into a separate room, isolated further from where her and Lance had originally been. 

The other two soldiers toss her haphazardly into the small holding space, but make no move to leave. Instead they take a step back, putting their leader at the front. 

“The war has been over for months. Killing me will mean nothing for your cause.” If there was even a slight chance that he wasn’t motivated by a personal vendetta, she could try to reason him out of it. Years of working undercover have revealed to her how weak minded the Galran loyalists could be. 

“This isn’t about the war.” He spits. “But you already know that.” 

His grimy boots come down towards her, hard, but she shifts quickly enough to avoid the blow. It’s unwise to assume she can go singlehandedly against the three of them, especially without her blades or armor, but if she takes out the head, there’s a chance the other two will be receptive to negotiation. 

Her movement serves no purpose but anger him further, and a flick of his hand has the two soldiers stepping forward, weapons at the ready. One of them moves behind her, and despite her resistance, is able to hold her still by her shoulders as the other stations himself by her side. 

It is a cowardly way to fight, that is undeniable. It reveals to her that he’s weaker than he’d like to admit, and it’s something she can prod at. 

“Then tell me what this is about. Or are you ashamed of your motives?” This, surprisingly, makes a flush rise to his face. Interesting. 

“The only thing that is shameful here is your joke of a rebellion.” He snarls, gripping her jaw between his spindly fingers. 

What could the Blade of Marmora have to do with his ire? Other than the obvious. If he felt betrayed by the Blade, it was hardly any reason to single out Keith, of all members. 

To her relief, she doesn’t need to prod him for further clarification. It seems as though he’s been waiting for the moment he could spill out his woes to the object of his hatred. 

“Do you know what the Blade of Marmora values the most?” and he says Blade of Marmora like it burns his mouth coming out, like it’s that brick of food they’d been thrown earlier. She stares blankly at him, as his grip on her jaw tightens. Any motion to push back from his grip is met with resistance as the hands around her shoulders tighten at any movement. 

“The mission.” He scoffs out. “The stupid fucking mission.” Each word is emphasized by him rocking her head back and forth. She keeps her eyes on his, unfazed by the treatment. If he thinks this is going to inspire fear in her, he has underestimated her. 

If she was feeling any more flippant, she would have said so what? If the Blue Paladin had accompanied her, he likely would have. She fails to see where this could possibly be going. Her eyes must say it for her, because he’s shoving her head back, and the hand previously gripping her jaw slips to her throat, armored fingers closing around her arteries. 

“Your runt was supposed to die in that explosion. Instead you abandoned the mission and saved his life. What made him more important than the mission, then, I wonder?” Keith and Krolia’s familial relationship was not a secret to the Blade. Despite their own hesitance to acknowledge it, they did not hide it from the others, and it was widely accepted information. Her confusion must have been on her face, because he pushes her further into the mass of metal gripping her from behind. 

“What made him more important?” He reiterates. “Because he’s family?” He lets out a bitter laugh. 

“You are angry because I saved my son’s life.” she chokes out, wracking her brain for why this could possibly be important. It was uncommon for those who shared blood to be on the same missions for the exact reason he appeared to be angry, though more often than not blood was not of concern to the Blade in any case. 

“I’m angry because your worthless league considered that failure of a half-breed more valuable than those who actually made an impact in this war.” The pressure on her throat increases, and does not let up no matter how much she claws. 

Despite the loss of blood flow to her head, she can still figure out what he means. 

“You are grieving. Killing us will not bring them back.” 

“That’s not the point!” He grunts. The men holding her in place steady their grip, and the relief of being able to gulp lungfuls of air is overshadowed by the hand that just released her coming full force at the side of her face. The impact sends her head swinging to the side, supported by one of the men from the back who keep her in place enough for a second blow to land. 

And then a third, and a fourth. By the time he is ready to talk again, her entire head is smarting, and her skin has split in enough places that she can feel a steady trickle of blood running down her face. 

“My brother died for your cause. And your idiotic son is the one who let it happen. My brother died for your traitor cause and none of you had the decency to let him live.” So Keith had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Keith was reckless, and that often meant he had regularly gone against this particular Blade principle. It had gotten him in trouble with Kolivan several times, and his position in the organization was only uncompromised because his reckless heroics meant he had somehow made friends, of all things, to vouch for his loyalty to the cause. For him to have let a member of the Blade be killed was uncharacteristic of him, if not the decision Krolia herself might have encouraged. 

“If Keith had left your brother to die it was likely the most merciful option.” But, she can’t help but notice, “your brother was a part of the Blade of Marmora, and yet here you are on a Galran ship.” Even with her head lolled back, she makes a show of eyeing his uniform. 

“He was foolish enough to fall for your recruitment, I tried to talk him out of it.” 

“You don’t blame Keith. You blame yourself.” This earns her a slap across her face, blood spattering into her eyes. She blinks away the stinging traces, and through the wetness in her eyes she can see that the fury on the man’s face has turned into something deeper. 

“He was brainwashed, he believed he would find loyalty and freedom. He was blind to the fact that the Empire had given him that and more.” He steps back from her slightly, as if subconsciously protecting himself from what she might say next. 

“Your brother was a smart man for joining the Blade.” She comments. Another flick of a hand and the arms forcing her upright vanish, and she falls to the floor in a heap. She gets to her feet quickly, but the ache in her skull prevents her from seeing when the man to her side kicks out his own leg to bring her back down to her knees. 

“Look where all of that intelligence got him.” She’s kicked back down, the man’s reinforced boots likely causing a plethora of bruises to bloom under her ribs. 

“He would have lived if you had gone with him.” She doesn’t know that, or course. Anyone could die at any time. She has a feeling that if she says something similar again she would be dying next. Still, the more sensitive he becomes, the quicker she can try to gain on him. “You claim the Empire provided loyalty, but his own brother abandoned him to keep serving Zarkon,” she goads. 

“Don’t act like you know anything about family. I know what kind of organization my brother joined. Even your own son won’t be coming to save you.” 

“You’re making us the target of your grief when the only person you actually blame is yourself.” 

“I have made no misconstruction of who to blame. While my brother was taking his last breaths your son stood and watched.” 

“And how would you know this?” 

This makes him falter, the anger on his face shuttering into something else for a brief moment. 

“You saw it happen?” Krolia suspects, “or perhaps you were there when it happened.” 

His face morphs into something angrier, and if it wasn’t for the fact that his only weapon was his fists, she would have assumed she was going to die on the spot. 

“You blame the Blade of Marmora for your own cowardice. You are no less a traitor to your own blood than you claim we are.” She spits, and it hits a nerve, because the next thing she knows, she’s being slammed to the ground and her mind goes dark.

Keith has been out of his pod for a few hours by the time she decided she should probably go to see him. 

Veronica feels out of her depth. It’s not like she knows him in any capacity to justify sitting by his sickbed (which Allura has informed her is, in fact, a sickbed. Since exiting the pod, Keith has remained in and out of sleep), but he means something to their family, probably, and she should probably check up on him in Lance’s stead. 

They’ve moved him to his room, so when she finally makes the walk to see him, it hardly takes a few minutes. The door is propped open, with steady beeps emanating from the interior of the room. His lights are dimmed, hiding his body in the shadow of the rumpled mess his sheets have become. 

He’s still sleeping, breaths even and calm. The pallor of his skin looks better than the previous times she’s seen him, minus a weird purplish hue. But that’s likely the lighting from the halls clashing with his own dimmed one. 

She watches him for a few minutes, taking him in. She likes to think it’s not as creepy as it feels.

His hair is splayed across the pillows. It looks freshly washed, as it lacks the stringiness it had in the pod. Someone in the castle had painstakingly washed and brushed it out for him, and it shows her how much they all care for one another. Grudgingly, she has to accept the kind of family they’ve made for themselves here. 

“Lance never mentioned that you were creepy.” 

Veronica can hardly hide her yelp. 

Keith is looking back at her, eyes still a little glazed over, but definitely awake. Aware, maybe not so much. 

“You know me?” Is what her brain manages to come up with. 

“You’re Lance’s older sister. Veronica?” He sounds certain but still phrases it like a question, head tilting on the pillow. He’s going to have to comb those tangles out later if he doesn’t sit up soon. 

She just nods. Talking to him feels like talking to a celebrity and a dead person at the same time. Just weird and strange and a little exhilarating. 

In the resounding silence, he hauls himself up. She thinks about helping him up, but it seems weird for a stranger to do so. Instead, she watches him do it alone, moving slowly as if his entire body is sore. She winces in sympathy. He’s keeping his eyes on her the entire time. 

He then proceeds to stare at her, which starts making the back of her neck prickle. She fights the urge to bite out Lance never mentioned you were creepy back at him, but his eyes are still way too glossy for it to be on purpose. 

“Are you real?” He eventually says, which explains the staring. 

“Yeah.” She nods awkwardly. The confirmation seems to tense him up a bit. She straightens his back out more and starts blinking, like he’s trying to clear out his eyes. 

“Where’s Lance? How long have I been asleep?” One question she feels comfortable answering, at least. 

“From as far as I can tell, well over a month,” she answers, and hopes that the lingering sleep makes him forget his first question. 

“And where’s Lance?” Damn. It was worth a try. 

His eyes are narrowed, more aware than they were moments ago. Sharp. 

“How much have Allura and Shiro told you so far?” She should take the cautious approach. She has no right to tell him more than his own family wants him to know. 

“Nothing.” He growls, “I’m starting to realize it was on purpose.” 

He’s hauling his legs to the side of the bed, now, tugging at the various drips he’s connected to. 

“Hey, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She walks over to ease him, older sibling instincts kicking in, or something of the sort. He shrugs her off, albeit slowly. 

“She is correct, Number Four. Please remain in your bed.” Coran’s voice joyfully exclaims behind her. She moves out of the way to let the older man deal with it. God knows the last thing she needs right now is to have a physical altercation be her first impression on Keith. 

“Coran, tell me what happened.” He’s got Coran trapped, grabbing at both arms as he continues to try to hoist himself up. It reminds her of a petulant kid. 

“Please have a seat. I will tell you everything you need to know after I have checked your vitals.” He turns around and gives Veronica a conspiratory wink, and she’s left to wonder which part Coran is lying about. 

“Coran I saw you wink. We can always see you wink.” Keith gripes, but surprisingly, he sits. 

While Coran fusses with the medical equipment Keith tossed around, Allura and Shiro make their entrance. She gets a wave from Allura, and a raised eyebrow from Shiro, but they otherwise keep their attention on Keith. 

He tolerates their fussing for another minute or so before he turns back to Veronica. She swears for a moment his eyes flash. 

“Tell me what happened. Is he on Earth? Why are you here?” The last part is a little harsher than the other two, which, ouch , but as the older person in this conversation, she can push her pride aside. 

By nervously glancing at the others and hoping they can telepathically transmit an answer into her head. 

On one hand, she wants to tell him exactly where Lance has gone. Hey, he’s out risking his life again for you, despite his entire family waiting for him back home. But on the other hand, from what she’s gathered from Coran’s reports, Keith has a … fragile temper, and she really doesn't want to make anything worse than it really is. She also notices how he hasn’t even questioned Krolia’s absence, despite how willing the woman was to go out on a mission for him. Was their attachment more one sided than she thought?

To her relief, Allura steps in between Keith’s concentrated glare and Veronica. And to be fair, Keith would take it a lot better if Allura explained the story.

“They did what. ” He did not, in fact, take it any better. Or like, well, at all. 

The only reason he’s remained seated likely has a lot to do with the fact that Shiro’s got his metal arm on Keith’s shoulder. 

“Would you or would you not have done the same for him?” Shiro asks, he’s smiling but it still feels reprimanding. 

Keith hesitates, and his body sags back a little. 

“Yeah, but.” And then he’s looking right at Veronica when he says “Lance has a lot more reasons to stay than to go.” And she can’t help but feel a little guilty. 

Keith’s lack of family is no secret, and Veronica being there feels a little like she’s rubbing it into his face. 

“Don’t be stupid.” Shiro actually reprimands. They’re all still being pretty gentle with him. 

“But they haven’t reported back yet.” Keith says, suddenly invigorated again. “We have to go look for them.” He gently moves Shiro’s arm, and uses it to stabilize himself to stand up. 

“Keith you’re in no condition to do such a thing.” Allura states, firm but not unkind. Coran agrees. 

Veronica, silently, disagrees. If there’s anyone who’s going to bring her brother back, it should be the reason he left in the first place. If he has enough energy to start slowly fighting everyone, he can scope out their mission, can’t he?

“Keith, we need to be smart about this. We don’t know exactly what their situation is, and we cannot jeopardize their positions.” Shiro reasons, standing up with him. 

“So you want me to stand around and do nothing?” Keith is still unsteady on his feet, and the room full of people all slightly sway towards him as if to steady him. This seems to piss him off further. 

“Whatever.” He huffs, still wobbling as he lets out a sharp whistle. Shiro, behind him, groans. 

“Keith you can’t just-” 

And then in a flash of light, a giant, well, dog would be the wrong word, but also seems to be the most applicable, appears in the blank space in front of Keith, and in another, both man and creature are gone. 

“-disappear.” Shiro finishes. He heaves in a big sigh, but seems to accept what just happened, as do the other two. 

“Is that- was- is he okay?” Veronica asks the room tentatively. She's met with a resigned silence, which is as much of a ‘yes’ than anyone saying it out loud. 

So much for a good first impression.

It was one of those long nights in the Abyss, both of them laying on opposite sides of their fire, ready to go to sleep. Keith is curled in her direction, the wolf splayed across his back. His eyes catch hers, glinting with the light of the flames when he speaks. 

“Did you love dad?” His voice is meek, compared to how he usually speaks. He sounds like a child. The question throws her off. In the weeks they have known one another, they have not talked about their familial tie.

She has no grounds to understand what something like love means. Was it love that made her slow down her progress in repairing her ship? Had it been love when they had fallen into bed together? Was it love that made her cling to that tiny, tiny baby in the late hours of the night, soothing him by the window to the sound of cicadas? 

She had never been loved before. She had been taught resilience, and loyalty and trust, but nothing as fickle as love. 

Was it love that compelled her to tell the Red Paladin of Voltron that the blade in his hands was hers? 

“I don’t know.” She says truthfully. His face smoothens out, carefully neutral, and she feels the need to soothe him. “I cared for you.” That was undeniable the moment she had left her blade on Earth.

“But you left us. You left me.” 

And she doesn’t have an answer to that. None that will suffice, that might seem like a viable reason. No answer that won’t hurt him more than he already is. 

“Keith, your father and I-” 

“‘Your father.’ Is that all he was to you? Did he mean anything to you, really? or was he just another obstacle to your mission.” 

There’s so much she wants to tell him. I second guessed it the second I handed you over to your father. I wanted to come back. I thought about you all of the time. There wasn’t a single moment where I didn’t wonder if you were okay. But she has no right to tell him these things. It was the worst decision of her life, but it was the right one. She can not allow herself to regret it. If she had stayed on Earth the Blue Lion would have been compromised, and she would have put Keith in danger directly. It was the correct move to have made, and she can’t tell him that given the chance to go back in time, she would still make that choice. 

She remains silent. It’s enough of an answer for him. He scoffs, hurt splayed across his features as he turns his back to the fire. They do not talk for the rest of the night. 

In all of her scenarios she had created in her mind of meeting her son, of all of the emotions she had expected to feel; regret, joy, contentment, despair, shame had not been one she was expecting. But the moment he turns his back to her, she is engulfed in it. It burns through her hotter than the fire she’s face to face with, that terrible shame. 

Her eyes blink open, the last trace images of Keith’s heartbroken face vanishing into a ceiling cast in a blue glow.

“Krolia? Hey, you with me?” In a mirror of Krolia’s position when they’d first arrived at the cell, Lance is kneeling next to her body on the hard floor, face just as close as hers had been. 

They had brought her back roughly an hour ago, beaten bloody and unconscious, but luckily still breathing steady. What little he had in the way of Galran physiology thanks to Keith lets him know her heart rate is relatively normal. Probably. 

She blinks at him, owlishly, a little lost. Likely still half engulfed in whatever she had been dreaming about.

“You were talking in your sleep.” About Keith. More like to him. It honestly felt like he was violating her privacy the way he had to sit and listen to things she clearly never wanted anyone to hear out loud. 

She left us, Lance. Keith has said. And in response a delirious Krolia had revealed that she had always wanted to come back. He would laugh at the irony of it if it didn’t make him feel so awful. 

A lot of his hesitance to get to know the Marmoran had been the fact that Keith, over the years they’d been together, had expressed such hatred towards her. Even in those early years after mother and son had met, Keith had always (though reluctantly-getting him to admit any emotion was still like pulling teeth,) shared how unsure he was about her and her intentions. 

It put a bitter taste in Lance’s mouth, and he never actually wanted to prolong any interaction with the woman in fear of accidentally saying something he really meant. 

“Was I?” She sounds nervous, maybe even embarrassed. He can’t tell if the flush on her face is from her various face wounds or not. 

“Just a little.” He lies. 

She hums, maybe catching the lie. Or she has no energy to respond. 

“You should rest some more.” He says to fill the growing silence. “We can’t make any progress escaping if we’re both too injured to try.” 

She must be more banged up than he originally thought, because she just nods in agreement before letting her eyes drift closed again. 

Lance takes the opportunity to lean away from her, resting against the back wall. It sounds grim, but he was expecting Krolia to come back on her own with a key, or not at all. It’s a terrible train of thought, considering Keith is expecting to see them both when he eventually wakes up. 

Oh God Keith is gonna kick his ass when he wakes up . Not only has Lance thrown himself into a death trap but he took Keith’s mom with him. He groans into his hands, loud enough that it causes Krolia to stir. 

Whoops. 

And this opens another can of worms. One he’s been desperately trying to shove into the back of his mind. 

He’s trapped in a Galran space prison while not only Keith needs him to come back, but his family too. He had long since given up hope that his family suspected he was still alive. And then he had gone back to Earth, been a shitty brother and son, and then vanished again. 

At some point, he had accepted that he’d never go home. He was okay with it, even. Wandering amongst the stars forever while helping others wasn’t the worst way to live, and it was definitely more enriching than his initial plans on being a pilot restricted to the solar system. 

But it wasn’t so hard to forget the fact that he had left people behind without a trace. 

And now he had an opportunity to right his wrongs. He had come back to them, shown them he was still alive, that he had been doing good for the universe . And somehow it wasn’t enough. He saw it in Luis’ anger, in Veronica’s hesitance, in his mother’s last scolding. They didn’t just want him to come back alive, they wanted him to stay . 

Just a few years ago, he wouldn’t even have thought twice. On the days the war felt hopeless, he wished for nothing more than to just take Blue and go back to Earth. To hide her away and pretend that past the edge of the solar system lay just the vast expanse of darkness they all expected. 

Now, though. He knows he could never settle for less than what he’s been doing. That month back home, filled with restless energy, he knew it was never going to be permanent. Not for Lance, and definitely not for Keith. 

If he ever manages to get Krolia and himself out of this stupid cell, he’s going to have a shitstorm waiting for him back at the castle.