Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Any second now, Pidge! I can’t cover forever!” 

Lance tries to not sound desperate as five more Galra sentries round the corner of the hallway, doubling their advantage over him and Keith. He’s in a protective crouch behind the wall, picking them off one by one through the sight of his blaster. Every time their metal bodies seize and drop with a noisy clank, more appear to replace them.

He glances back at Keith behind him, who is scowling down at the panel on a cell door.

“Got it!” Pidge’s voice rings through their comms, snapping Lance back to his task. He picks off another two, easy, while behind him he hears the plinking of Keith pressing a few buttons on the screen. Lance takes out another sentry, and Keith makes a bursting sound of triumph as the door slides open. 

The whole Keith-is-part-Galra thing had certainly thrown most of the team for a loop, but Lance had to admit, it sure as hell had its advantages when it came to interfacing with their tech during missions

The win spurs Lance to pick off the last three sentries as he rises and backs toward the holding cell after Keith, trusting the sound of Keith’s footfalls to guide him. 

“We’re both in,” he hears Keith relay to Pidge, both through his helmet and at his back. Lance sighs in relief when the door slides shut in front of them, cutting off the enemy– for now. 

“I can’t hold them forever. You’ve got about… three minutes, maybe four before they manage to get past my communicator scramble.”

“You know me, always punctual,” Lance replies brightly, and he can feel Pidge’s eye roll from here.

The prison transport ship already left something to be desired in lighting, but it was even darker in the Galra holding cell; Lance’s eyes take a moment to adjust. It’s small in here, that much he can tell, and there’s a chill to the air that feels like an intentional measure of added cruelty. The air is stale, and with the sudden isolation from the chaos outside, his and Keith’s breaths feel jarringly loud.

As his vision swims into clarity, he can make out that pressed into the furthest corner of the metal walls is a huddled shadow.Her arms are wrapped around her chest, her knees drawn in toward herself. Even in the dark, he recognizes the features of her that are Galra. There’s an unnatural golden flash from her eyes, cutting through the dark, reminding Lance of the stray cats at dusk when the day’s heat retreated back home. She’s tall in stature compared to a human– even hunched over like this– but as she raises her attention to the paladins, he can see the sharp, malnourished cut of her cheekbones.

He instantly recognizes her from the mission debrief photos; an important scientist that had been leaking Galra information for years from the inside to the Blade before being discovered. She had been exposed by a Galra data interception nearly a year ago, and all contact from her went dark. She’d been assumed dead by the Blade, an unfortunate casualty, until Hunk and Pidge had managed to hack into some Galra prisoner files. They cross referenced their identities with the Blade membership registries, and just like that– they might have someone who had the kind of invaluable information about the inner-workings of the empire that could help them defeat Zarkon.

Keith, it seems, has had no issues adjusting his vision to the darkness. All valiant and hero-like, he’s already approaching her, holding out his hand to help her up. Lance scowls, but doesn’t comment now, not with the remaining minutes on their mission ticking down.

“Valka?” Keith asks. “I’m Keith. This is Lance. We’re here to rescue you.”

“Paladins,” she breathes in recognition. The relief in her voice is palpable. Lance feels it’s a little premature.

There’s a loud boom, and the ship shudders around them, making Lance’s heartbeat rise in his throat. Something feels off about all of this, has felt wrong since they flew over in Red together to minimize risk of losing a lion, yet he can’t think clearly enough to pin down why. The fog of adrenaline and pressure presses in, tells him to run now, analyze later.

“Uh, I think we might be a little short on time for introductions,” Lance says, readjusting his bayard.

“Hey, guys? Little problem,” Pidge’s voice rings in his ear, high-pitched in a way that affirms the bad feeling twisting around his insides.

Valka takes Keith’s hand and rises shakily, still oddly holding one arm and… something to her chest. A weapon, maybe? As she rises to a standing position, she favors one leg considerably.

"I figured out why they’re only sending sentries. All Galra life form readings have vanished from the ship. I don’t think they were ever there at all. I think… I think they set it to self-destruct.”

“Shit,” Lance hisses, rushing to Keith and Valka. “How much time do you think we have?” 

Keith’s already gesturing for her to cast an arm around his shoulder, but when Lance motions for her to do the same on the other side, she makes no move to do so.

What, did he smell or something? Because even if he did, he’d just fought off like three dozen sentries and he was doing her the kindness of saving her damn life and–

That’s when her arms make an indignant squeak.

No, not her arms, what’s in her arms. Lance stupidly realizes he might be about as observant as a houseplant as a little hand pokes out from a blanket in her arms, splayed toward Valka’s face like a dimpled starfish. At least when he looks over at Keith, his mouth is hanging wide open too. The blankets shift enough for him to see the soft, pudgy slope of an infant’s cheek, and he feels the panic start to rise anew. 

Okay. Okay, they hadn’t budgeted for this. But hell, what of his life wasn’t a series of curveballs anyway? It wasn’t something they could dwell on right now.

“--Lance? Keith? Hello?” 

He realizes Pidge is talking to them, and he shakes himself. “Sorry, Pidge. We hit a bit of a speed bump here, but we got it under control and we’re on our way out. How long?” 

“Now ninety-six seconds. By my estimate. Could be less.”

“Jesus, to get all the way back to–? Yeah, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” 

Pidge gets the memo, and the door opens on cue. Lance gives up on being a second support for Valka and the baby, since she can’t use one of her arms, but hangs close, blaster at the ready. 

His heart hammers against his ribs, and as he shoots a couple more robotic sentries, he feels like they should have realized this was a trap sooner. Since when did they ever break into a Galra ship and not see a single one of them in the flesh? Hell, since when did prisoner intel appear out of nowhere?

It’s slow going, much slower than is going to be necessary to make it out alive. Valka is clearly in a lot of pain, teeth bared. Even with Keith’s help, she sags against him from the effort of being upright. In the brighter light of the hall, she’s pallid, lavender skin so pale it could rival the bright white of their paladin armor. 

“You have to keep going, come on,” Keith urges Valka, both of them nearly tumbling over a tangled pile of robot limbs.

“Thirty seconds!” Pidge squeaks, and Lance feels true panic break free in him. An icy, awful sensation floods his veins, and he thinks he might be sick. This could be it, they could die here unless they made a new plan, stat.

“We have to run!” Lance yells, going to loop an arm around Valka’s waist. Maybe– maybe they could carry her or something. They can see the end of the hall from here, with the airlock containing Keith’s lion.

“Wait,” she breathes, chest heaving from effort.

“We can’t wait!” Keith cuts back.

“I’m not– I can’t–” she pants, then shoves the baby, holey blankets and all, into Keith’s chest. 

Keith’s eyes are wider than a black hole. 

“What?! No, we are getting you out of–”

“Twenty seconds! Move, you idiots!” Pidge interrupts.

“Her name is Cassia.” She brushes her hands through the downy hair on top of the infant’s head one last time, then falls back toward a wall, and Lance can see there are tears starting to spill over. Has Lance ever seen a Galra cry?

“Fifteen seconds!”

“Take her to Delion Three. Leave me behind, I won’t make it. Go!”

Keith is the first, as usual, to react, decisive and ready to do what needs to be done. He takes off in a sprint down the hall, arms clutched so tightly to his chest they look as though they disappear in front of his torso. A split second later, Lance runs after him, but he casts one more glance to Valka.

For a moment, time slows. There’s a haunting pain in her face as she collapses, more pain than he knows how to decode or understand. It reaches out to wrap around him, too, squeezing around his ribs and forcing the air from his lungs. They lock eyes, and–

The door to the airlock whooshes shut.

“Move it, dumbass!” Keith roars, yanking him hard away from the door.

Lance turns and dives after Keith into Red’s mouth. An explosive rumble roils at the end of the ship, then is followed by a heavy boom, then another, then another, working their way in toward them. 

The baby is shoved into Lance’s arms as soon as they’re in the cockpit, and Red lights up in response to her paladin, humming to life under their feet. Keith slides into the pilot’s seat and punches it so hard into a dive away from the ship that Lance and their newfound charge are pressed up roughly against the back wall from G-force. The lion rocks with the force of three more explosions, and the cockpit floods with blinding light.

Lance numbly thinks about cracking a joke about seatbelts. He finds he can’t muster it.

* * *

Once they are safely away from the explosion zone, Lance’s brain shudders back to a normal pace.

Keith, being Keith, is of course doing everything perfectly as a paladin should. Getting them out of there, scanning for ships, contacting the team. Lance can’t help the shame that tugs at him that he can’t simply handle things in the way Keith does.

After confirming his and Lance’s (relative) well-being, Keith is explaining what happened in a rough voice over the comms, the faces of the other paladins, Allura, and Coran displayed on a holographic screen. Lance half-listens as their mission is recounted, but when the part comes up with trying to get to the lions, he needs to distract himself. He focuses on a closer examination of Cassia.

She’s certainly part-Galra, but she looks more human, too, than he’d expected. Her eyes are a sunset shade of gold, like most Galra, but contained in a human-like iris and pupil. Her skin is a soft, pale lavender, like her mother’s, with a shock of dark, downy hair on the top of her head that’s starting to curl at the back of her neck. The tops of her ears come to a soft point, not as drastic as Allura’s or Coran’s, but certainly far from the rounded shell of a human’s. Ten fingers, he counts as he checks her over for injuries, and ten toes. Her humanoid anatomy comes as a small relief, at least it’ll take some guesswork out of her care. She’s small, maybe the size of a few month old human baby, but Lance had no idea where to begin aging an alien hybrid infant. 

Cassia fusses in his arms, clearly dissatisfied with his attention. This was usually the point at which he’d passed off his nieces or nephews back to their respective parent; Lance was good with kids, sure, but he was more of the fun uncle type who roughhoused once they were big enough and sneaked popsicles to them in the summer. There had always been someone else around to do the important stuff, or at least the promise someone more responsible would be home soon.

Lance tries to hold her to his chest to soothe her, realizing belatedly that he was still clad in full battle gear. Her nose crinkles, and she pushes at the hard armor– yeah, okay, fair enough. 

As he carefully unclips the white and blue armor and slides out of it, down to the more forgiving skin-tight suit beneath, Keith finishes recounting the mission with an unceremonious, “So… yeah.”

Cassia gives another discontented squall, but settles into soft whimpers when Lance raises her again to rest against his now de-armored chest, tucking his chin over her head.

“Well this is… unexpected.” Allura speaks first after a beat, cautious. Lance can tell, even from here, she’s holding back. Maybe even a little freaked out. Lance does not like that.

“Right now,” Shiro says, “the safest thing for everyone is to get back to the Castle. We can work out a plan for it once we’re there. Hurry– the Galra may not have gone far, stay vigilant.” There’s a finality to it. 

Keith agrees, gives a half-hearted “see you soon”, and the holo-screen retracts into nothingness. He checks something on the control panel, then turns to regard Lance and Cassia, expression unreadable.

“You’re both really okay?” Keith asks, tone just as guarded as his expression.

“Peachy,” Lance manages. 

Keith’s eyes narrow, and Lance realizes quickly that this is not the time for sarcasm if he wanted to stay peachy.

“I checked her over, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Lance then says, hoping to alleviate some of Keith’s irritation. “She’s freaked out and upset, and, you know, same, but she doesn’t seem hurt at all. What about you?”

Keith rolls out his shoulders and neck, frowning, as though it was the first he’d thought to check in with how he felt. “Fine. I think. I should’ve recognized from the beginning that it was a trap.”

“Keith, man, come on. You had no way of knowing.”

“I convinced Shiro you and I could do this mission without the rest of the team. He would have recognized it immediately, there were signs, and if I’d only paused for one second–” Keith runs a hand over his face.

“Stop it , you can’t think like that. What happened, happened and… you know. It could’ve been worse.” He nudges the shoulder upwards that had Cassia perched on it, making a silent case for their win, however bitter.

Keith looks entirely unconvinced, and eyes the infant with so much trepidation, that under different circumstances it might have been funny to see him so afraid of a fucking baby.

“Right,” he mutters, then turns back around to focus on the controls, even though both he and  Lance knew full well Red could take them home on autopilot at this point. “Let’s just– get back. And deal with this problem.”

The word problem hangs in the air.

Lance tries not to read into it, but feels himself returning to the word over and over again.

* * *

“A baby can’t stay in the Castle. It’s impractical,” Shiro states, arms folded. The metal fingers on the Galra hand twitch against his bicep as he speaks, glinting in the overhead lights of the lounge.

“It is our responsibility to assist any living being in need of help,” Allura counters evenly, although she doesn’t look particularly thrilled by the prospect either. 

“In a war? We’d be doing the child a disservice by keeping her here, anything can happen at any time. This ship is the number one target in the whole universe for the Galra. We’ve placed a target on her.”

“ Especially in a war. This is the best protected ship in the galaxy, all the paladins of Voltron live on board. She deserves to be reunited with her family. We’ve helped plenty of people with that in the past–”

“Adults. Who knew the risks and made the decision to trust us.”

“Can we not be trusted?”

There’s an awkward silence following Allura’s question. It goes unsaid that someone died today. Plenty more have died before.

Lance is still holding Cassia and in half-armor. She had mercifully fallen asleep, although Lance finds himself wishing she hadn’t, wanting for anything to busy himself with that wasn’t this conversation. The other paladins are sitting with him in a ring around Allura and Shiro’s argument (which had quickly taken to standing), looking equally uncomfortable. Pidge fidgets with their sleeves. Hunk’s eyes dart between Shiro and Allura. Keith is still in his full armor, engaging in a staring contest with his boots.

“Well– how far would we have to take her?” Hunk then asks, clearly casting about for a compromise. 

“Delion Three,” Lance pipes in.

Coran frowns from behind one of the couches, leaning his weight into his hands on the back of the seat. “Delion Three?” he echoes contemplatively. “I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

Lance shrugs. “I mean, it’s a big universe, right?”

Coran is already crossing the room and fiddling with something on a table. A few seconds later, a large celestial map is projected overhead, slowly rotating around an unseen axis point. He punches something into a holographic keyboard in Altean. It makes a distinctively negative double beep.

Stroking his mustache thoughtfully, Coran emits a hum. “It would seem that there are no records of Delion Three. Nor Delions One through Ten, nor a Delion star, nor a solar system, asteroid field, quasar, black hole, comet… ”

“Well, the map is ten thousand years old, right?” Pidge addresses this to Allura, over Coran’s rambling. “Maybe it needs updating.”

“Maybe,” Allura concedes doubtfully. “However, it’s matched with the other current maps we’ve referenced. The Alteans may be ancient now, but they were well-traveled. We could cross-check with the maps you’ve obtained from the Galra systems?”

“There’s no… I don’t know, Google Universe for this sort of thing?” Hunk asks.

“I’m afraid not.” Allura says this in a way that betrays that she has no idea what Hunk is talking about.

“... nebula, cluster, neutron star, or circumstellar disk,” Coran finishes brightly, oblivious.

“Can’t we– ask around or something?” Lance then asks. Cassia shifts against him and makes a snuffling sound– he’d almost forgotten she was there, the air was so thick. “See if anyone’s heard of it? Maybe it goes by a different name or something.”

“We can try.” Allura nods.

Shiro is quick to add, “But if it doesn’t uncover anything fast, we need a plan B. A planet that might not be hostile to taking in an orphan Galra.”

“No.”

Everyone turns. It’s Keith, the first time he’s spoken since they got back. His eyes have lifted from their staring match with the floor, dark and intense in a way that grips the room’s attention. 

“No,” he repeats. His voice is hard and raw and dangerous; Lance’s hair stands on end. “We are not– dropping her somewhere. Like she’s cargo.”

Something pained flickers in Shiro’s expression, and his arms fall to his sides. His voice softens. “Keith, nobody’s saying she’s–”

“Her family’s on Delion Three? So we find Delion Three.” Keith stands now, and the set of his shoulders are so rigid that for a moment, Lance wonders if this is going to come to blows. “Can’t be the hardest thing we’ve had to track down, right?”

Allura’s lips press into a thin line. “No. But, Keith, it might not be as easy as–”

“We fucking find Delion Three . End of story.” Keith glares at her, then Shiro, then Lance (what the hell had he done?!) and storms out of the room.

They remain silent for a moment after he’s gone. 

“Sounds like we have some research to do,” Shrio finally sighs. “Pidge, do you think you could modify the Galra maps to interface with the library records…”

Lance zones out almost immediately, numbly staring down at Cassia sleeping tight to his chest. Her mouth is pulled into a terse frown, and she’s curled into a defensive ball, her tiny muscles tense and jumpy. Her fist curls and loosens in the fabric near his shoulder, and she keeps shifting while making a low, whining noise, like she can’t get comfortable. 

He’s not who she wants right now. Who she needs.  

All he can think is that she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t understand , and it’s all his fault she’ll never feel the safety of his mother’s arms again.

Chapter Text

The Castle has a decent amount of usable supplies for Cassia buried in the back of the storerooms. Since the war with the Galra had kicked into full gear, they’d ensured that they always had enough to move and care for any groups of people they may need to transit in an emergency, including children. Lance has never been more grateful for Allura’s insistence they always keep these topped up, and makes a mental note to apologize for every time he whined about supply runs. Her foresight has meant they have the basics for Cassia, including diapers, small clothes, a blanket, and a light blue powder that Allura insists is a sort of formula that should be compatible with her physiology. Lance had swirled it around skeptically, and informed Allura that she will be held liable in court if Cassia spits up blue and ruins his favorite clothes.

A quick checkup in the medical bay with Coran confirms that, thankfully, Cassia seems relatively unharmed. A little small, a bit malnourished, yet nothing that they couldn’t readily address. Lance nods along as Coran babbles on about the possibilities of several species for the non-Galra half of her heritage, but his thoughts are far off as soon as he knows she’s okay, racing with more pressing questions. 

What if they didn’t know enough about her and took care of her wrong? What if they couldn’t find Delion Three? And the darkest: how had she survived this long on a Galra prison ship? What had that cost her mother? Or did it suggest that even Galra captors had their limits on cruelty? 

They all attempt to pitch in on researching and helping with Cassia from the bridge, all except Keith, who remains conspicuously absent the rest of the day. It’s surely dawned on everyone that they could find somewhere to put her down, let her play or nap while they worked, and yet nobody suggests it. Lance would personally rather snack on glass before denying her human touch any more than necessary and it seems the other paladins share the sentiment. However, the skill level varies drastically in execution.

Pidge holds her exactly once, seeming to take it as a sort of challenge. They make it an impressive twenty seconds or so before all-but-begging for a hand-off.

Hunk is next, and while he’s gentle, he also holds her like she might explode at any second. His relief is palpable when Shiro suggests he take a turn next. 

Shiro is surprisingly good with her– though he starts out nervous, he takes to it quickly. By the time he stretches and says he needs a break and is going to take a walk, it’s been an hour and he seems as comfortable as ever. Lance is about to ask if he’s going to bring Cassia (not in a paranoid way , just… curious), but stops short when he sees the look on Shiro’s face. There’s something distant and worried in his eyes that tells Lance he’s probably going to go looking for Keith, and having Cassia in tow for that would be catastrophic.

Shiro gives Allura the next turn. Allura surprises Lance the most; she’s normally quite warm with children, all bright smiles and charm, every ounce of the princess and diplomat promised by her family name. The warmth was genuine, too, she practically glided through the air and smiled for hours after good interactions with a planet’s little ones. Hell, he’s even seen her well up over a cute alien baby or two.

Now, however, she stares down at Cassia with an icy indifference. Her jaw is wrought and shoulders wound, and a dark shadow crosses her expression. 

Lance decides immediately he doesn’t like it, and thinks up an excuse to speedily vault over his chair to reach the princess and take Cassia back. Already, he hasn’t been able to relax the entire time or focus on the star map data he’d been assigned to, one eye on Cassia as she rotated through the room, there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep his cool if Allura’s over there silenlty associating war crimes with a baby who had nothing to do with any of it. 

So he scoops her up without asking, and declares he needs a break too– it’s not like he’s doing anything but getting in Hunk and Pidge’s way, they were probably moments from giving him the boot anyway for being dead weight. When Cassia’s warmth is settled back against his chest, he feels something inside him loosen a little bit. He wanders to a quiet part of the Castle, chooses a nice window in one of the common rooms to sit in, stare out, and try to remember how to breathe.

This was fine. She was just an unexpected part of the mission. They’d get her home. This was probably only for a few days. This was fine , he was fine, he knew what to do and he could handle it. He was a goddamn paladin of Voltron and he was not going to cry just because he was overwhelmed–

It gets him through. Cassia, thank the stars, remains easygoing for the rest of the day. She seems too worn out and confused to fuss beyond food or a change, and Lance uses this as his reasoning at dinner to be the one to take her for the night, interrupting Shiro, who, with good intentions, was trying to give Lance a break. “ I’d rather she be around someone familiar when she wakes up, you know?” he had reasoned, flashing a brilliant smile, like it was nothing at all.

Really, though, the thought of separating from her, even for just the night, gives him an aching, guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He and Keith were entrusted with her care, and… well, Keith wasn’t here, still painfully absent come dinner time. So that meant he was the one responsible for her, because he was responsible for not saving her mother.  

He pretends to focus on his dinner to swallow down the tightness that rises in his throat, and tell himself over and over again that he was really, actually, completely fine.

* * *

All of Cassia’s exhausted sort of calm evaporates the moment bedtime closes in on the Castle.

They’ve managed to cobble together something that works as a bed for now, some kind of space moses basket, which Lance has been painstaking about trying to ensure is as safe as possible for her. It’s now been abandoned in favor of Lance’s arms.

She wails. And wails and wails and wails. Her tiny chest heaves with the effort, her entire body shakes with it. She won’t take food, she’s changed, Lance is pulling out the stops of every technique for comforting her that he can imagine. He paces, he rocks, he hushes, he even sings. 

His heart breaks.

Lance knows what she wants– who she wants– and it’s something he can’t be. Nor is it something he knows how to help someone live without.

It’s been about two hours now, according to his clock, and Lance is feeling as though the walls of his room are suffocating him. They close in the cries, makes it all he can see and feel, and he needs some air to clear his head. Maybe Cassia could use some too.

He does his best to ferry them quickly through the hall where everyone shares living quarters– he’s pretty sure after the fireworks incident that they’re fairly soundproof, but Cassia’s got a set of lungs that rival the Grogox birds they’d encountered on Telbor D a few months back. Her volume and projection was undeniably impressive.

They pace the quiet castle together, and Lance narrates as he goes in what he hopes is a soothing tone. This is the bridge. I threw a shoe at Keith once from here for being a di– for being mean to me. I hit him, by the way, I’ve got great aim. This is where Pidge spends a lot of their time. You remember Pidge? Yeah it’s not your fault, I don’t think Pidge has ever held a baby. They’ll realize you’re cool soon enough. This is the kitchen, we got in a killer food fight in here once. Actually, I think you might be a future asset there– if you spit up with good enough timing…

It helps, he realizes, as he continues to give Cassia the grand tour. She still whimpers, and full, crackling sobs still escape her if he lapses between sentences for too long, but her warm, gold eyes fix on his face, and she presses a pointed ear to his chest. Some of the tension in her tiny body seems to ease.

And thank God. This, he can do. If Lance has one talent, it’s talking.

They wind through the corridors, Lance monologuing about their day-to-day lives in various places on the ship, until they come to a large set of doors. 

“Cassia, this is the Training Deck. Not a whole lot of stuff in there for babies, but it’s still pretty cool. This one time, when we were drilling as a team, I shot one of the holograms from the tippy top of the deck right in the–”

The doors slide open. Lance startles so hard that Cassia jerks too, and begins to wail.

So much for progress. 

Keith looks equally as surprised, eyes going wide and mouth open. He’s in that skin-tight, black top and pants he likes to train in. His bangs are plastered to his pale forehead with sweat, the rest of his dark hair sticks out in every direction, and his cheeks are flushed bright pink.

There’s a heat rising in Lance’s face too, unable to help the very objective observation that Keith looks good like this. It’s hardly a new thing he’s noticed (it’s not like they didn’t train and fight together just about every damn day), but he feels strangely ambushed by it, like he has to defend himself against its suddenness.

“Jesus, Keith, you– you scared us!” he snaps, busying himself with a now upset and affronted Cassia. Same, kid.  

“I’m not the one just standing in front of doors!” Keith snaps back. His tone has its usual edge, but when Lance looks up for the anticipated steely glare, he finds Keith’s eyes are locked instead on Cassia. Like she could sprout fangs at any moment.

“We’re passing through! You pass through hallways, they’re– they’re not a place you need to explain being in! And you– it’s the middle of the fucking night. You should be asleep.”

“It’s none of your business what I get up to in the middle of the night.”

Lance tries very, very hard to file that away into the purer parts of his brain, and fails. “Well I’ve got the excuse to be up,” he dismisses, rubbing Cassia’s back pointedly. She has calmed at a surprising rate, considering she’s been beside herself the past couple of hours without rest. When he looks down, he sees it’s because she’s staring back at Keith now in equal interest– though not without a pouty lip that wobbles dangerously, and tears still tracking down her cheeks. The threat of permanent hearing damage is never far off, it seems.

“Why’s it staring at me?” Keith asks stiffly.

“She knows a fellow crybaby when she sees one. Maybe she wants to cry together.”

“Hilarious.” 

Keith narrows his eyes at Cassia. It’s not… cold, exactly, but it is guarded. 

“She can’t sleep?” he then asks.

Lance shrugs. “I mean. Most babies don’t sleep through the night, but she’s… I don’t think it’s that, exactly. A lot happened today that she doesn’t understand.” He can’t voice the specifics aloud. He’s talked too much about it already.

Once again, Lance finds Keith unreadable. Not that he understands Keith well , exactly, but he’s gotten to know the Red Paladin well enough over the past year that he had gotten pretty good at parsing out his moods. He’s even picked up enough from him and Shiro to string together some of his history, however vague and piecemeal. This, though, was a side of Keith he’d never encountered. He’d seen Keith stare death itself in the eye and dare it to take a piece of him, yet something about Cassia, tiny and helpless (and, admittedly, loud) seemed to unnerve him to his core.

Before Lance can puzzle further, Keith is in motion, shifting a small bag over his shoulder and turning to leave, saying nothing. His retreating shoulders are so tight that they pull toward his ears.

“Wow. Good talk,” Lance calls after him, annoyed by the abrupt departure, but it’s no use. Keith is stone, Lance may as well not exist.

As soon as he disappears around the corner, Cassia’s whimpers erupt again into distressed, heaving cries. Lance is so confused, so emotionally strung out, so bone-deep exhausted, he can’t help that he starts to silently cry with her.

* * *

“Wow. You look like crap.”

“And you look absolutely ravishing this morning too, Hunk. Is this true love?”

It’s been three nights of crying now. Lance is slouched over his breakfast on the fourth morning since the Galra prisoner ship. Not that he’s eating much of it, he feels as though his limbs are encased in concrete, his brain is a viscous mud pit, burbling up one cohesive thought here and there, sucking down the rest into oblivion, and the just the idea of talking makes his head pound. There’s a clear mug of Altean-equivalent coffee steaming in front of him, an unsettling shade of purple and probably enough caffeine to risk cardiac arrest, yet even that isn’t cutting it this morning. It’s like a hangover straight from hell, except he has to change diapers through it while procuring hearing damage instead of smothering it in a greasy breakfast and ibuprofen.

Doesn’t matter, he couldn’t get to his breakfast even if he wanted to. His hands are full feeding Cassia, and he’s sure she’ll start up crying as soon as she finishes her own meal, and there will be nothing that can be done for it. 

They’ve run every possible medical test they can, tried every idea he could come up with, even tried changing her food (to a biohazardous result)-- nothing. Lance worries that something is still wrong. He’s also pretty sure he knows what, and it’s not something they can fix. Their only hope is finding this Delion Three, but in three days, they’ve unearthed very little, only leads so flimsy they crumbled under the slightest probing.

Hunk settles across the table from him, brow pinched in the pensive way that means he wants to say something, but isn’t sure how. 

Lance sighs, in no mood to dance around the topic and draw it out of Hunk gently, like he normally might. The effort alone might kill him. “I feel like someone is giving me an icepick lobotomy. Please just spit it out, dude.”

There’s a beat, as Hunk considers bailing, probably. He presses on, and Lance immediately feels bad for being short with him when he’s met with Hunk’s earnest, soft voice.

“You know that just because you found her, it doesn’t mean you’re the only one who has to take care of her, right?” Hunk fidgets as he says it. Coming from anyone else, Lance might get defensive, but it’s undeniably difficult to conjure up something snippy.

“Shiro put you up to this, I’m guessing?” Lance sidesteps. There’s no real edge to the accusation. He doesn’t think he can even remember having the energy for that.

Hunk grins guiltily, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s worried. We’re worried. We’re a team, right? We all help each other.”

Lance clenches his teeth and avoids Hunk’s gaze. 

It has only been three days, and realistically, Cassia is not going to be a permanent member of the Castle. She couldn’t be in wartime conditions; he’s mature and rational enough to understand that logically. He closes his eyes, and he could almost hear Shiro lecturing him that getting attached was a bad idea, for his own sake and, more importantly, for the team’s.

And still, Lance feels the responsibility hanging on him. It hasn’t been that he felt the other’s wouldn’t help him if asked, it was that he was struck with guilt any time he thought to do so, the final flash of Valka’s eyes locking with his crushing the air free from his lungs and, seemingly, into Cassia’s, from where mother was rightfully mourned. 

That, and while it had been frustrating and difficult to try to help a confused, traumatized baby, it had come as a relief to finally feel useful. Like maybe he had a purpose on this team after all. Plus, it didn’t hurt that she was heart-meltingly cute when she was sleeping or in her brief good moods. If he was being honest, the constant occupation was a welcome escape from thinking about the awful things Lance had seen and done out here.

“I know,” he admits finally, looking down toward his lap. And, of course, it’s easier to find what half-truth he’ll offer when looking at her, half-lidded eyes, full lavender cheeks, tufts of black hair stuck out every which way after sleep. “I know it doesn’t have to be my responsibility. But, you know, it’s my strength. I cared for my niece and nephew back home all the time. Don’t we all play to the team’s strengths?”

Hunk looks unconvinced, if he concedes, “I guess so.”

“See? So you and Pidge do your genius stuff, Allura and Coran do their Altean science stuff, Shiro does his leader stuff, Keith–” He falters there, and has to try again. “Keith does– I don’t know, the badass stuff. So I’ll be here. Doing my stuff. Cassia stuff.”

“At least let me take her for a little bit so you can sleep? Pidge can do the ‘genius stuff’ on their own for a bit. Talks about encryption keys got heated this morning, we’ve been separated ‘ for the safety of yourselves and others .’” The last part he says in an Altean accent and makes air quotes. Hunk shakes his head. “Shiro’s worried that if you’re too sleep deprived and we get called to battle, we won’t be able to form Voltron. And even if we can, that we’ll be… you know. Not at our best– no offense. Listen, I know you’d be just fine, but he wants you back in training, now that this is stretching past just a couple of days.”

Lance understands now why they sent Hunk in to break this news. Hunk is genuinely concerned, worried about his friend, and it’s placed Lance’s guard low enough to slip in some hard truths from Shiro. Lance is confident that anyone else being sent to be the messenger would also be getting a majorly defensive speech from him right now.

Lance sighs. The blatant emotional manipulation from Shiro on this intervention aside (he can avenge that later on the Training Deck), he does make some pretty compelling points. Lance already feels like the weakest link in the team, he’d never forgive himself if something were to happen because he was too stubborn to go take a goddamn nap.

A nap . God, that did sound amazing.

“Okay,” he agrees finally, though the idea of separating from her makes his pulse ratchet up a few notches. “Okay, but if anything happens, or she cries too much, or if she needs anything at all–”

“Buddy, relax. We’ll be fine. She’ll come hang with me and Coran for a while, and we can use the comms to your room if anything happens.”

Lance stands and gingerly carries Cassia over to Hunk. She’s still eating, so though she grunts and squeaks in protest at being moved, she’s content in Hunk’s broad arms once she’s able to latch back onto the bottle. There’s still the air of him holding her like she’s made of TNT, but there is some improvement in Hunk’s comfort level with her. Lance supposes he’d take that over Allura’s bizarre behavior toward Cassia, or Pidge looking like they might break out in hives from prolonged contact with an infant. Coran had proven recently to have good experience with babies too, so it’s reassuring they’d be teaming up. 

“We’ll be fine,” Hunk repeats, jerking his head toward the door. “Go sleep. We’ll take care of your dishes.”

Lance doesn’t protest, the call of his bed and some actual sleep too seductive to deny now that it’s been offered up to him. Only a tenuous thread of self respect keeps him from breaking out into a full sprint to his quarters.

He barely remembers getting to his room, he toes off his shoes as he walks, and passes out on top of the covers, too tired to even draw the sheets around himself.

For a few hours, he wants to see nothing, he wants to feel nothing, he wants to be nothing. He wants to escape the broken face of a grieving mother and her last goodbye playing through his mind again and again and again as he fails her daughter.

I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

Chapter Text

He wakes with his heart hammering against his ribs. He’s broken out in a clammy sweat, and as he sits up in bed, he pushes his hand through his damp hair, gasping for breath. His hand drops to clasp at his wrist, digging blunt nails into the vulnerable skin there, trying to jolt himself off that prisoner ship and into his bed with the dull pain.

You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.

Three days isn’t long, but it’s enough for him to now instinctively glance toward Cassia’s bed. His blood pressure spikes when the blanket is empty– then he exhales when he remembers.

Hunk. Breakfast. A Shiro-mandated break.

It takes him a couple of minutes to return his breathing to a more regular cadence, and for the sweat to evaporate off the back of his neck. He’s normal. It’s normal. He’s fucking normal. There’s still a pit of unspecified anxiety sitting low in his stomach, but it’s one he’s getting very, very good at ignoring over the past year or so.

Pushing off the mattress, he toes on his shoes and plods back out into the Castle. It’s not nearly enough sleep to make up for the last three nights, he still feels run-down, but his head feels a little clearer. At the very least, the needle-sharp headache has subsided.

Everyone is gathered in the lounge space. Pidge and Hunk have presumably been returned proximity privileges; they’re both huddled over a laptop with about a dozen colorful cords feeding in (or out?) of a central port like an octopus. Coran and Allura are nearby, examining the Altean star map for the hundredth time. Shiro and Keith hover close to it too, engaged deep in conversation.

Cassia is in Shiro’s arms, grabbing at his metal fingers, determined to make them a snack. Shiro is absently indulging her, which makes for a hilariously mismatched scene between his serious expression and the play going on from the shoulders down.

Weirder than that, though, she’s not crying. 

At first he’s relieved, of course. Seeing Cassia with round, blinking eyes, giving little flashes of a gummy smile when the fingers escape her grip, it floods Lance with a warm reassurance that she was okay. Maybe, perhaps, something horrible wasn’t about to happen to her at any second that he was missing the signs of.

Then the guilt hits him like a starship, so hard it threatens to make his knees buckle. Was it him that she didn’t like? Was he bad at this? Had he done something wrong? What if– what if she knew he was the reason she didn’t have her mom anymore?

He doesn’t have long to dwell, because Cassia notices his arrival and emits a high-pitched shriek, then starts pitching forward in Shiro’s arms in Lance’s direction with a lively smile. At the very least, that doesn’t seem like something a baby that hates him would do. 

Shiro’s expression shifts, and he smiles as Lance joins the conversation, pouring Cassia into Lance’s waiting arms. She makes another happy sound as he does, then twists in his hold to stare, once again, at Shiro’s mystical, shiny arm. Lance snorts to himself, but does make a mental note that maybe they should try to find better toys for her than “things that seem baby-safe around the ship”.

“She calmed down about an hour ago,” Shiro informs him proudly. 

“Huh.” Lance frowns, substituting Shiro’s hand for his own for her to gum on. He can see Keith staring at him out of the corner of his eye, but keeps his eyes forward, doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it. “And she cried up until then?”

“After a power-nap. But yes.”

“What changed?” 

Shiro shrugged. “We don’t know. Everyone started chatting a bit more when Allura and Keith joined us? Maybe she doesn’t like the quiet.”

Lance hums thoughtfully. “She does seem to like it when I talk to her. Didn’t think much of it, I just thought it distracted her enough to forget...” 

Keith saves him from finishing the thought, and clears his throat beside them, evidently fed up with baby conversation. “Well clearly she’s fine, whatever it is. Tell Lance what we found.”

Lance finds the energy with which to shoot Keith a sharp glare, it makes him feel so alive he could cry. Damn, a nap really had done him some good.

“We started expanding our search for anything related to Delion Three to… well, anything and everything we could get our hands on here in the Castle. It might be nothing, but there is a system orbiting the star Arcella with two inhabitable planets,” Shiro gestures to a spinning solar system currently pinned at the center of the holomap, “and an ancient religion spanning back to thousands of years. One of their gods was called Delion.”

There’s a flicker of hope in Lance’s chest, and he nods along, interest piqued. “Okay, so what’s the three mean, then?” 

Keith and Shiro exchange a look. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Keith admits. “Shiro thinks it could mean the third planet in the solar system, the second inhabitable one. I don’t think so, it’s an ice planet.”

“We’ve seen plenty of colonies established on supposedly hostile planets before,” Shiro argues, and Lance can tell they’ve talked through this in circles a few times by the way Keith already is vehemently shaking his head.

“Then why not just call it the name of the planet? Or the star system?”

“Maybe it’s the name of the colony.”

“Maybe,” Lance interrupts. “Why don’t we just go check it out?”

“That’s part of the problem. It’s deep in Galra territory,” Allura chimes in, joining the circle to Lance’s left. He only just realized she and Coran had gone quiet to listen in. “Going that deep behind Galra lines would be…”

“Suicide,” Keith supplies.

“Very unwise,” Allura corrects diplomatically, arms folding.

Lance subconsciously shifts Cassia to his right hip. It’s Keith’s side, which isn’t much better, but he still hasn’t forgotten the way Allura had been looking at her over the past few days. Even if it did seem to be losing its edge.

He glances back at the projected maps, seeing now that they’ve been superimposing known Galra territories over it in red light, probably looking for a back route to the Arcella system that would minimize risk. 

“Why don’t we just wormhole in?” Lance asks.

Shiro shakes his head. “We aren’t bringing the Castle anywhere that deep into Galra territory while Cassia is on board, not until we’re completely sure we’re taking her to the right place. We’ve been spending the last three days getting as far away from known Galra vessels as we possibly can. We can’t risk her, and we can’t risk Voltron.”

Lance’s mouth goes dry at the mental image of being completely surrounded by Galra warships, helpless to defend themselves– and Cassia– even with Voltron. There was a limit to what they could handle, and this entire war had already been a careful game of managing that limit. They’d scraped right up against it far too many times for comfort.

“So we take some lions,” Lance suggests.

“That’s what we’re looking into,” Allura says, “but it’s not that easy. It’ll be very risky, we want to have a very well thought through plan, an entry and exit point we believe to be safe– or at least manageable by one paladin. Keith has kindly volunteered, but I think it would make more sense for Pidge, since the green lion has cloaking capabilities…”

Lance looks over to now be the one to fix Keith with a stare. Keith volunteered? For something involving the baby Galra he probably wanted to toss into a sun?

He raises an eyebrow at Keith, whose dark eyes only meet his for a split second before he looks back at the floor, toeing at it with his boot. “Red’s fast,” he mutters.

“He does have feelings. Wonders never cease,” Lance deadpans, bumping up against Keith, knowing it will annoy him. Cassia takes the opportunity to reach for Keith’s hair, snagging a fistful of mullet as Lance pulls back.

“Ow! What the hell?!” Keith snarls, pulling sharply away. Cassia, unperturbed, lets out a giggle.

Lance snorts, half-amused, half-awed. It was her first laugh since the prison ship– it felt like a big moment, one they should be scrapbooking or something. Of course it would be over Keith’s stupid fucking hair. Just when he thought this kid couldn't be any more lovable. “She’s telling you to get a haircut, mullet.”

“You’re poisoning her taste already,” Keith sniffs, putting another foot between them and keeping a nervous eye on Cassia’s tiny, purple hand. Cassia simply shoves the fist into her mouth. 

“You wouldn’t know taste if it bit you in the ass,” Lance shoots back, then turns to Allura. “Need some help with plotting a route, princess?”

Keith mutters something probably unkind that Lance doesn’t quite catch, and he doesn’t care– he feels a smug sense that he’s won this round with Keith, Cassia’s not crying, and they might have a way to finally get her home to the life she deserves. And he got a nap.

They break again to continue with research. Lance can’t help but steal glances at Keith through the holographic shimmer of the map’s galaxies, and wonder if he volunteered because he cared, or because he just wanted yet another excuse to get far, far away from all of them.

* * * 

Cassia’s good mood lasts, to his surprise, a few hours of the early evening. Lance even coaxes another small laugh out of her at dinner. Apparently, the face he makes when trying Hunk’s new approximation of spinach casserole made from incongruent alien ingredients holds serious comedic value for babies. He’s sure Keith would have had something snarky to say about that, if he hadn’t spent most of dinner locked into conversation with Shiro, like the rest of the team wasn’t even there. 

At least he showed up, Lance thinks to himself bitterly over another forkful of casserole.

Lance knows he shouldn’t care what Keith thinks, knows he has every right to not be a baby person, but the cold shoulder is really starting to make his skin prickle every time he sees him. He’s never felt more distanced from Keith– and that’s saying something. At least at the beginning, when they fought constantly, he was reliably there, ready for the fuse to be lit. If anything, he was always guaranteed engagement when it came to Keith, he rose to bait in a way that was irresistibly easy. 

This was far, far worse, and much more difficult to get his head around. It really seemed like he wanted to go, with the frequency he’d disappeared lately for Marmora missions. Maybe Cassia was the final straw, and he was working an exit strategy.

He gets another couple of hours of sleep before he’s awoken by an unhappy, squalling Cassia. Honestly, he was pretty sure his dreams were pitching toward nightmare territory anyway, so maybe this was for the better. There had been plenty of time spent on the deck of the prison ship in his mind as of late.

He lifts her from her bed and talks in his usual low, soothing voice to her, thinking about Shiro’s theory. Maybe this is what Valka did with her, alone in that cell, in the dark, all the time. Talked to her daughter.

Lance supposes that if that was all he’d known, he wouldn’t like the quiet much either.

They have a sort of routine now, a path that Lance usually follows around the Castle as he monologues about everything, anything he can think about to Cassia. Usually the topic falls back to things that have happened to him and the rest of the team, memories from the Garrison, or just telling Cassia what he knows about the other paladins, Coran, and Allura. 

He realizes quickly he comes up short on history or facts for Keith. He doesn’t talk about himself much. It doesn’t mean, he finds, he talks about Keith less, though. If anything, he circles back to Keith the most, an irritating realization, but he can’t help it. Maybe it’s because he’s so annoying, or because there’s a whole lot of complicated, fascinating personality there to try to describe. 

That’s normal, right? To be fixated on the unknown? He’s pretty sure he’s heard Pidge say that when a song is stuck in someone’s head, it’s because the brain is trying to fill in lyrics it doesn’t know. That’s what his brain always seems to be doing with Keith; convinced that if he analyzes every painful detail of him, he might eventually come away with some clarity.

He’s mid-story about one of the diplomatic missions the team went on a couple of weeks ago as they reach the bridge. He likes this part of the walk, and Cassia seems to as well, with the soft nighttime lighting, large windows to peer out of, the cosmos drifting idly by.

Keith, however, was not part of this calm scene that he had envisioned for himself and Cassia this evening. He’s sitting in at his console, and looks up from a screen, his face cast in a bright blue glow. There are circles under his eyes, and Lance realizes that he doesn’t look like he’s gone to bed at all. 

Cassia coughs out another sob, and he shushes her under his breath, bouncing her to try to achieve a temporary calm.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize–” he begins at the same time as Keith says, “I’ll get out of your–”

They both stop. 

“She really likes it here,” Lance pleads, and on cue she lets out another whimper. 

Keith nods, and to his credit, doesn’t even respond with snark. “Yeah, no problem. All good. I should be getting to bed anyway.” 

Cassia whimpers, but does raise her head to peer around the bridge. Her eyes fix on Keith, and she lets out another whine– but it’s not exactly her usual cry, either.

It all suddenly clicks into place.

“Wait, Keith, keep talking.” Lance walks to Keith’s chair, eyes set on Cassia.

“About what?” Keith is standing ramrod straight, tablet in his hand, jacket cast over his forearm; he’s ready to bolt.

“I don’t know, dude– anything. Say anything.”

“Uh…” Keith looks like he’d rather take his chances in a leaky airlock.

Cassia makes a warning sound, the one that means she’s about to go nuclear again and Lance will be right back at square one.

“Training today,” Lance suggests quickly, adjusting Cassia so she can see Keith more clearly. Keith can talk fucking endlessly about training, right? “Tell me what I missed.”

Keith pushes his long fingers through his hair, and a few sections stick up wildly. Lance has to swallow and remind himself to focus on the moment, not his unruly hair, and thoughts of exactly how messy he could get it if–

“Okay. Well, we ran some drills in pairs, since we’ve been having to split missions so often lately. Trying to make sure every combination of paladin knows how each other works, you know? ‘Course we’ll have to do it again when you come back, but…”

Keith is looking at a fixed point somewhere else as he recalls the day, but his eyes do flicker up to Cassia when he pauses. She’s gone quiet, and her head is tilted slightly, as though to better hear Keith.

“Keep going,” Lance encourages, and he can practically feel his eardrums weeping in relief as Cassia stays placated.

“We did the invisible maze again. I went with Pidge–”

“-- oh yeah, team five feet tall, reunited–”

“And it went great,” Keith finishes, casting Lance a glare for his rude interruption. “Pidge has been working on this de-cloaking thing, I guess, after they worked out how to use the cloaking for their lion. Kindof pissed Shiro off that they went out of the box and made the maze visible, but results are results, right?”

Cassia lets out a sigh so heavy and wistful it sounds like it belongs to a fucking Victorian widow, not a baby.

“Dude,” he whispers, eyes flickering between Keith and Cassia in disbelief. “Dude, it’s you . It’s not just voices that she likes, she likes your voice.”

Keith looks like Lance has just told him he sold Red for scrap metal. “What?”

“She was keeping her cool when we first rescued her, right? She was with you. Around you. And exhausted, sure, but I think it was keeping her from going off the deep end. Then you, you know, went all ghost on everyone, and she started to freak out. Then when we ran into each other she had a moment, I thought she was just surprised, and then this afternoon… oh my God. Keith, you’re a baby whisperer.” Lance is caught somewhere between relief, envy, and glee.

“I am not a baby whisperer,” Keith balks.

“Yes you are. Look at her.” Cassia is starting to melt against him again, and Lance is elated to find she’s looking sleepy.

“Why?” Keith looks perplexed. Horrified, even.

“I, uh. Not sure,” Lance lies quickly. Keith doesn’t need to know about his depressing working theories about what her mother had gone through, how she might have soothed her, and that this might have everything to do with Keith being a little… Galra. All touchy subjects. “Just keep going? Please?” He tries to keep the desperation out of his voice, but it falters on the last word.

Keith’s eyes are darting between them both, the same way he does when calculating risks in battle. Lance does his best pleading look, and Cassia must be doing it too, because something seems to crumble behind that hot-shot facade of Keith’s. 

“For a little bit,” he agrees, if reluctantly. “Until she’s out. Then I’m going the fuck to sleep myself.”

“Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. You have no idea how much I owe you for this, I’ll do whatever you want.” Lance thinks he sees some color rise in Keith’s cheeks when he says this, then chalks it up to the weird light casting off the Altean tech in here. 

Lance leans against Keith’s console, and Keith drops back into his chair, looking uncomfortable. To his credit, though, he still doesn’t cut and run.

“Okay,” Keith continues, fidgeting with the tablet in his hands. “Shiro also had us do some reaction time drills, he was the best at those of course…”

Keith isn’t great at talking on his own, but he has assists from Lance through some leading questions, and by the time he’s detailed the training sessions that Lance has missed, Cassia’s eyes have dropped closed and she’s breathing evenly against Lance’s chest, mouth hanging slightly open. 

The relief is indescribable. He offers up a prayer of thanks to whatever space deities were out there for giving him a win. Even if it did have to be a win that involved Keith.

Keith doesn’t leave right away, even after he falls quiet and Cassia shows no sign of waking. Lance feels suddenly self conscious, realizing he must look like absolute death warmed over– baggy eyes, uncombed hair, he hasn’t showered in two days, and this shirt has been drooled on more times than he can count. Keith, unfortunately, looks as effortlessly gorgeous as he always does.

“Did you find anything?” Lance finally asks hopefully, turning the conversation to the mission.

Keith shakes his head apologetically. “Nothing new. We really need to get to that colony in the Arcella system to learn anything new.”

“If it exists at all. Look, man, about that mission–”

Keith is suddenly standing, and that closed off, unreadable mask has returned. “I’m going, Lance. End of story.”

“Keith, I just want to talk about–”

“I’m going to bed.”

“ Keith– ”

“Goodnight . ” 

Lance can only watch helplessly in the shards of the moment as his fellow paladin retreats, wishing he’d kept his stupid mouth shut and let it hang precariously intact a little longer.

* * * 

Four hours of sleep would have been devastating a week ago, yet today, Lance wakes up feeling like a new man. Cassia sleeps for a few hours consecutively, and though she was still awake for a couple feedings, she didn’t fuss for nearly as long. 

He needs to find a way to ask Keith to help him get Cassia to calm down regularly without scaring Keith off. Or costing Lance his last, precious shred of dignity. 

Lance tells Cassia this as he gets them ready for the day, to which she burbles back something that Lance can only translate as baby for "I’ll believe it when I see it."

At breakfast, Lance makes his first attempt to summon his courage to ask Keith. It promptly fails when Keith joins, sleep rumpled and grouchy in a way that has Lance’s more rational thoughts flatlining. It’s not a fair fight– he can’t be expected to ask Keith a serious question when Lance is thinking about what it might be like to wake up next to that, or how his hair might get into that state, or what it would look life if he was all flushed again like he’d been leaving the training deck the other night…

Not that he’d given that a ton of special thought or attention or anything. And the times he had, it didn’t count. It was out of desperation. Space got lonely, right?

It doesn’t matter much anyway, because Keith casts a sideline glance to Lance and Cassia, snags a dry piece of toast (freak), and turns right back around. Fortunately, he doesn’t have a ton of alone time to kick himself too much for it, because Pidge joins and launches into detailing their dream from the night before– something about how the Castle’s power was directly correlated to the size of Coran’s mustache, and every paladin had to grow one too to keep the ship afloat. According to Pidge, Shiro had actually made it work, and Lance does occupy himself the rest of breakfast squinting at Shiro’s upper lip to try to picture it.

They train together again today, and Lance hands Cassia off to Coran with great difficulty. He tries to hold it together, to not reassure him for a sixth time that he should call for him if she gets too upset. He breaks, and does it anyway. Coran is a better man than Lance deserves, he’s shockingly reassuring and patient as he reminds Lance of his many accreditations. Pidge has to drag him away– though not without a smirking compliment to Coran on how full his mustache is looking today. Lance is pretty sure Coran fucking ascends .

Lance tries to focus on the training exercise Shiro has planned for them, but it’s proving to be an almighty task. First of all, his thoughts, of course, keep turning to Cassia– was she doing okay? Was Coran handling it if she was crying? He’d actually call her if she was crying, right?

Keith is paired with him to run this particular drill, and Lance can’t seem to muster the courage to just fucking talk to him about last night. They’re pressed back to back, fighting off training robots approximated to Galra specs by the training deck. Lance is usually exceptionally skilled in conversations during inappropriate times, but today, the words keep sticking in his throat. 

It’s also Keith’s fault. Lance makes sure to reassure himself of this. Keith is being more distracting than usual. He can’t quite place his finger on the why, Keith is pretty much his regular self, but Lance swears his eyelashes seem longer, the cut of his jaw is more noticeable, and has he always been able to completely body a drone like that, use his weight to flip it over, twist, and slam it into the ground?

(And from a more unsavory part of his brain: could Keith do that to him?)

“Focus, dumbass!” Keith snarls, swiping his sword in Lance’s direction. Lance ducks, protest forming on his tongue, until he hears the sharp cut and spark of the blade slicing metal just behind him. 

Stunned, Lance whirls around, only to be shoulder-checked painfully by Keith as he swipes through another drone like it’s nothing. And, okay, maybe Lance was about to get his ass handed to him by that training robot too, but it was no excuse to be shoving like this was preschool. Lance presses his back to Keith’s again, so they’ve now switched sides, but he does make it a point to use unnecessary force when shoving their armor flush.

“You try this when you’ve had an alien terror wailing in your ear for four days straight!” Lance hisses back, taking out another training robot. It doesn’t hit exactly where he was aiming, but hey, it got the job done. 

He thinks he feels Keith stiffen behind him, but there’s no time to check, they’re being closed in on again, fast.

“All the more reason to get this taken care of,” Keith growls back.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Lance snaps, and kicks a skittering part of robot coming from Shiro’s direction toward the oncoming formation.

“It means you’re a paladin above everything else!” 

There’s the sound of tearing metal under Keith’s sword again. One of the drones on Lance’s side stumbles on the rogue part he’d kicked, and he takes aim through the sight on his blaster. The crosshairs shake, he can’t seem to hold his hands steady.

“Who says I’m not?!” 

He fires. He misses. He fires off several shots then, more recklessly this time, hot shame rising like bile in his stomach. It takes out half the enclosing enemy line, but he hears Hunk yelp across the room as a misplaced laser barely misses his head.

“Lance!” Shiro scolds from across the room. “Be careful!”

“I think,” Keith continues, emboldened by Lance getting chastised by their team leader, “you need to get your priorities straight.”

“My priorities are fucking fine , and I’m not the one who hasn’t lifted a finger to help, you smug son of a–”

He’s shoulder checked by Keith again with a noisy clatter of scraping armor, who defends Lance from another enclosing centurion with an infuriating grace. Lance protests with an indignant sound, then tries to take aim again at the advancing line, but he’s met with the swing of a–

His eyes shut tight, but no blows come. Opening them carefully, he realizes the simulation has stopped, though he doesn’t– can’t– think clearly enough to wonder why. His adrenaline is still racing, he can hear blood rushing in his ears. He roughly grabs Keith’s arm, spins him around to force eye contact.

“You want to talk about priorities?” he demands, voice piercing through the sudden silence of the training deck. His bayard has returned to its resting form against his palm, but he brandishes it in the direction of Keith’s neck anyway. “You seriously want to talk about that when you left us high and dry for the Blade several times now?”

Keith’s expression goes dark. “You don’t know the first thing about that,” he warns, holding his ground and baring his teeth at Lance.

“Don’t I? You run, Keith, that’s what you do. You ran away then, and you’re running away–” 

“Lance!” It’s Shiro, quickly closing the distance to the fighting paladins, but Lance doesn’t pay him any attention. He’s seething, and for some reason, he realizes his throat aches too– he’s close to tears.

“At least I’m not wasting our time by sneaking off and fucking every alien with a pulse and a–”

“Keith!” Shiro interjects again, more desperately this time.

“At least they want me to–”

“Stop it! Lance! Keith! Break it up!” Shiro shoves them apart, physically stepping between them. Lance has the misfortune of being on the receiving end of the Galra arm, and Shiro doesn’t seem concerned with being careful right now. “This is not how you conduct yourselves. If this were a real mission, this kind of behavior could have gotten you or your teammates hurt or killed! Personal matters are checked at that door. We work the mission. Do you understand?”

It’s Shiro’s Garrison command voice, the one that still makes Lance’s stomach drop all the way to his feet when he hears it. He feels like his skin is on fire, and can feel the shamed heat creeping up his neck. His eyes flicker over to Keith, who also looks thoroughly chastised, but is glaring at Shiro’s boots with a ferocity that could melt steel.

“Do you understand?” Shiro repeats, louder this time. Harsher. He’s not fucking around.

He and Keith both mumble something that can be taken as assent. It probably wouldn’t fly back at the Garrison, and Shiro doesn’t look entirely satisfied, but seems to believe it’s the best he’s going to get for now. 

“Good. You two, separate. To your quarters to cool off. We’ll talk.” It’s a promise from Shiro that Lance can’t help but take as a threat.

With one final glare in Lance’s direction, Keith is leaving, throwing his helmet aside. It clatters noisily against the metal floor, and lands at an angle that it seems to be glaring up at Lance accusingly too. 

Lance viciously thinks to himself, There he goes. Running again.

Lance counts to ten to put some distance between himself and Keith before stomping after in his wake, itching to be free of the stares from the rest of his teammates. As he walks, he mumbles to himself, yanking his own helmet away and starting to clip himself free of the armor.

He considers going and getting Cassia, but decides he doesn’t want her to be around him like this. It’s probably silly, she’s just a baby, and still Lance just knows babies probably pick up on this sort of thing. Besides, he doesn’t hear any cries echoing through the ship, Coran planned on having her for another hour or two, and Lance needs some time to fucking think. He hasn’t been able to do that since the prison ship.

After casting his armor haphazardly into the corner, he then peels his clothes off, feeling too hot, too trapped, too fucking pissed off to do anything but shower. It’s not nearly as good as a swim, but the water tends to wick away the worst of his feelings when they threaten to overpower him. If nothing else, it’s a guaranteed private moment to recalibrate.

He runs the water, and when it’s sufficiently warm, he steps in and lets out a ragged breath as the heat rushes over his tight muscles and freshly bruising skin. 

Fucking Keith, is the first clear thing he thinks to himself, tipping his head back into the spray.

The audacity to try to tell Lance that he had his priorities backwards when Keith was the one who had let the team down a few times now. Keith was the one that was tripping over himself to avoid Cassia, despite being just as involved– if not more– with her rescue. Keith was the one picking fights and wasting his own goddamn sleeping hours, while Lance has had no choice. If any of them are checking out of the situation, it’s Keith. Keith doesn’t care.

Frustrated tears spill over then, and he snaps up the soap and the Altean approximation of a loofah to occupy himself, forces himself into his usual routine as he thinks and thinks and thinks about how Keith doesn’t care, unable to let it go. He scrubs until his skin is pink and raw, and his vision blurs.

He wants Keith to care. 

He desperately wants him to care.

Chapter Text

It only occurs to him after an hour that he’s been the equivalent of space-sent-to-his-room by space-dad-Shiro, that technically he is an grown, twenty-year-old adult, a Paladin of Voltron and Defender of the Universe, that he could leave and go wherever and nothing was stopping him.

He still doesn’t leave his room, of course. He doesn’t have a death wish. But he does wonder if Keith, who gives no fucks about anything or anyone, has been as obedient.

When Shiro knocks, he’s laying on his bed, playing with a toy he picked up from a planet a few months back, a small green ball that behaves in half-gravity in any environment– perfect for mindlessly batting off the wall in a melancholy, one-man ping pong game. 

“Yeah,” he calls, stomach doing a flip when the door slides open, and, indeed, it’s Shiro.

He doesn’t look angry from Lance’s upside-down vantage point off the edge of the mattress, but there’s a disappointed frown there that is so, so much worse.

Swallowing hard, Lance sits up. There’s a sadness there too that he can spot when upright. It’s enough to make Lance want to fling himself into the nearest black hole.

“Can I come in?” Shiro asks. 

Lance nods. Shiro would respect if he said he needed more time, but he wants this over with.

The door slides firmly shut as Shiro walks in, joining Lance on the edge of his bed. Lance pulls his legs up toward his chest, loops his arms around them, and rests his chin at the apex of his knees. Looking at Shiro proves impossible, so he stares at a loose green thread on his hoodie arm instead.

“You talk to Keith yet?” Lance asks, trying to avoid talking about himself.

“No,” Shiro answers, and Lance sees out of the corner of his eye that he pushes his hand through his hair as he says it. “No, I think… Keith will need a little more time.”

Lance grunted in vague agreement. Where Lance’s own flashes of anger tended to slip out of his grasp, Keith’s wrath was banked coals, always holding its breath to flame into life again.

“You want to tell me what happened this morning?” Non-judgemental. Imploring. Classic Shiro.

Lance exhales, and begins to pick at the loose thread. “I’d honestly rather you just give me my scolding and be done with it.”

“I’m not here to scold you. I want to know what happened, from your point of view.”

Lance purses his lips, unsure if it was going to matter. Shiro doesn’t officially have favorites, sure, but there’s an undeniable history between him and Keith. If push came to shove, he doesn’t think he’d win if Shiro had to pick between them.

Maybe it’s because he really believes part of Shiro’s request must be earnest, or maybe it’s because he’s exhausted, overwhelmed, and wants to vent. Before he can talk himself out of it, he’s diving in.

“It’s just– you know Keith and I have our issues getting along, but we had an understanding, we– we bonded or whatever. But ever since he disappeared off with the Blade of Marmora for the first time, it’s been different. He’s different. He disappears, we get our asses kicked while he’s gone, he comes back with a chip on his shoulder because he was off doing important rebel stuff or whatever while all he thinks we did was haggle over treaties or something. And then, then he’s here , and when he’s here–” Lance makes a frustrated sound, flipping through a thousand inadequate descriptors for precisely what it was about Keith that made him feel like he was going insane. “He’s Keith. I guess. A fucking natural at being a paladin, like he was born to do it, and he acts like it’s the easiest thing in the world for him, because it probably fucking is. He’s saved my skin more times than I can count, and I hate that it pisses me off, I know I should be grateful, but it does. It just gives him one more thing over me.”

He pauses there, gauging Shiro’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. Shiro’s posture remains carefully neutral and doesn’t say anything, so Lance continues.

“So, fine. Whatever. Then Cassia happens, and–” He raises his hand to scrub it down his face, inhaling sharply. “The first thing he called her is a problem. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” Shiro says quietly.

“Well, he did. And now he makes an excuse to leave whenever she’s around, he didn’t even offer to help with her, and now he probably wants to do this mission to the Arcella system because he gets to do his two favorite things– pretend Cassia doesn’t exist and fuck off far, far away from the rest of us. So– yeah, he started to suggest my priorities were out of place in training today because I was tired from taking care of Cassia, and I fucking lost it.”

Shiro’s quiet for a moment. “So you feel like Keith doesn’t care,” he summarizes. 

“Pretty much.” 

“I can’t speak for Keith, but I don’t think that’s the case.” Shiro’s being gentle with this, and it makes the frown sink deeper into Lance’s expression. Of course he’d say that.  “I think Keith cares a lot, but he’s been burned in the past from caring. Opening up has gotten him hurt. He’s still figuring it out.”

Lance scoffs. “Doesn’t give him permission to be a dick to me.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Shiro agrees. “And we’ll have a conversation too, him and I. But you should know that he was the one to find the Delion connection, figure out where in the Arcella system could host life, and wants to go out tomorrow to scout one of the possible routes in.”

“So?” Lance turns his head to arch an eyebrow at Shiro, growing impatient. That’s just perfect Keith, being perfect at his job all while bailing on the rest of them. As usual.

“So I think… I think it matters a lot to him that an orphaned half-Galra baby doesn’t grow up without a home, and that we don’t mess this up,” Shiro finishes pointedly, now looking directly at Lance. 

Oh. 

Lance feels like he’s been clocked over the head with the revelation, and his mouth opens and closes a couple of times as he realizes he has no idea what to say to that. Because of course Keith would be weirdly invested while severely detached to this particular situation. He feels like an idiot, or an asshole, or an asshole idiot for it not occurring to him sooner. 

“Oh,” is all he manages to get out. One of his legs has slipped free from his grasp, it slides to the floor with a soft thud. Fuck, he was stupid.

“Like you said,” Shiro then says, at least now looking away to spare Lance’s dignity, let him process in peace. “It doesn’t excuse some of the things that were said. But I’ll leave that for you two to work out. And I expect you two to work it out. Civilly. Like adults.” He adds the last part like a warning.

“I’m always civil and adult,” Lance mutters back, and though it lacks passion, it does make him feel a little bit less like he’s having an out-of-body experience.

“Yes, a paragon of maturity,” Shiro intones dryly as he stands. “I’m going to go talk to Keith. Take all the time you need, I checked and Cassia is doing well with Coran.” He pauses in the doorway, then adds, “You’ve got a lot of help around here, Lance. I know this is important to you to do this, that she’s important to you, but you only have to ask.”

Lance nods. Shiro seems satisfied with that, so he exits and the door slides shut, leaving Lance alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Being reunited with Cassia was the high point of the day. As soon as he entered the bridge where she and Coran had set up for the morning, she leans out of Coran’s arms so hard in his direction to reach out for Lance that she nearly topples them both.

“There she is!” he gushes, momentarily forgetting everything about training and missions and Keith, wrapping his arms tight around her. She squeals in delight, and he plants a big kiss to her soft hair, which smells like his watered-down shampoo. He can finally exhale once she’s back in his arms, and he rests his chin on top of her head protectively as he asks Coran how she did.

“Good! Well, sometimes good. But that’s to be expected, right?” He flashes Lance a bright grin. “Better than usual, but she’ll be happy as a Tarkaen Cepod in a neutron storm soon enough, right?”

Lance would take it, and begrudgingly, he had known that the help he’d gotten from Keith the night before would have an expiration date. Too bad he’d beyond blown it on the Training Deck this morning (and he was still a little mad about some of the things Keith had said). There was no way in hell he could ask him for his help now.

He spends the rest of the day trying to be useful while managing Cassia’s deteriorating mood. They track down a book in the archives on mythology from the Arcellan system, which Pidge helpfully runs through a translator (he’s going to get around to learning Altean, honest), and Lance even takes the initiative to try to take notes– although it proves quite difficult to multitask when he’s usually got an arm full of baby.

By late evening, Cassia’s hungry again, and Lance’s eyes itch from staring at the mythology texts. He’s not going to fail his team, though so he takes the book with him to the kitchen, seated at the table and rocking Cassia back and forth as he feeds her, and tries to lull her with his own, apparently disappointing, human voice. There’s a plate with some untouched cookies he’s gotten for himself for an energy boost, but Cassia is restless unless he’s talking. He’s exhausted and, frankly, quickly running out of real-life content to share with Cassia, so he’s taken to reading aloud from the mythology text.

“‘And so Ydros, the goddess of the oceans, challenged Ilorna, the god of the sky, to a show of power, so the children of Arcella may select the most worthy leader in battle…’”

As he stifles a yawn, he notices something move near the kitchen doorway. It’s, of course, a familiar angular face with a perma-scowl and hair tied back in a god damn ponytail. If they weren’t still on icy terms, Lance would be having the time of his life.

“I heard voices,” Keith mutters defensively, clearly turning to go. He’s not wearing his usual clothes, Lance realizes, he’s in a simple gray shirt and soft maroon pajama pants.

“Wait,” Lance blurts.

He’s not sure why he’s surprised when Keith actually does hesitate, but he is.

“Shiro said we should work our shi– our stuff out.” He glances at Cassia, as though she wasn’t ages away from speaking or understanding anything they said. Probably.

He can tell Shiro’s told him the same thing by the way Keith’s lips press into a tense line. Unfortunately for them, disappointing Shiro is universally worse than having to stow their pride for one stupid, private conversation– they are locked mutually into this guilt-trap. Keith’s hand remains on the door frame, though, a declaration that at any second he was ready to leave Lance and Cassia to their fairy tales. 

“Yeah. Well. What’s there to say?” Keith asks stiffly.

Okay, so he was going to have to make the first move here. Lance sighs. “Enough. Keith, dude, just… come sit down? I have cookies.”

Keith skipped dinner again tonight, and his eyes dart to the plate, clearly tempted. It’s probably why he’s skulking near the kitchen late after bedtime in the first place. After a moment’s thought, it must be deemed a worthy bribe, sinceKeith stalks over to the table and drops into a chair across the table from Lance. His arms stay folded tight, though, his hands, presently freed from those dumb fingerless gloves, tensing and flexing against his forearms testily. 

“Look,” he begins, nervously rocking Cassia to keep his body occupied, and keep her from disrupting their mandatory heart to heart. “I know you and I don’t always, uh, see stuff the same way–”

Keith snorts.

“-- but I shouldn’t have snapped at you today. This adorable little sleep-leech has me all kinds of messed up right now when it comes to thinking straight, and I shouldn’t have lost my cool. So. I’m sorry.”

The apology is difficult to force out, so he lets it hang between them, heavy and vulnerable, for Keith to either tear apart or carefully accept.

He fully expects the former, so he’s surprised when Keith exhales deeply, and reaches over to take a cookie. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry too. I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m not trying to ditch the team or put anyone in danger or anything, I just want to do the right thing by her. You know?”

“It’s– it’s not–” His jaw works, he wants to say something, and Lance tries to make himself appear calm, open– then Keith wrestles it down. Lance’s heart falls in disappointment. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Lance. It’s me. The pressure’s been– intense lately.”

“Pressure?” Lance echoes, a little miffed.

Keith shrugs one shoulder, picks apart the cookie into pieces.

“I thought pressure doesn’t bother you,” Lance insists, because while Keith was impulsive in intense situations, sure, he was also irritatingly capable at just about everything. He’s never, ever seen him lock up. If anything, pressure puts Keith in peak form.

“It doesn’t?” Keith replies flatly, raising his eyes to Lance’s. They look dull, more tired than Lance has ever seen him. “I’m a Paladin of Voltron, I’m now also a Blade, apparently I’m part-Galra and therefore have to convince people I’m not evil, and I do all of this for, you know, the greater good that Allura’s always talking about. So that when this is all over, everyone in the universe can go back to their homes and families and be happy. But where exactly is it that I go home to?”

Lance doesn’t know what to say. Silence stretches between them, only filled with the sound of Cassia finishing her bottle.

“Yeah,” Keith mutters. “That’s what I thought.” He then puts one of the pieces of cookie into his mouth, looking back down at his hands. Lance notices his knuckles are cracked and bleeding, wonders if they usually are and they’re masked under the gloves.

“You’re hoping that when Voltron disbands, you’ll have a place with the Blade,” Lance reasons. “That’s why you keep leaving.”

Keith chews and says nothing. His silence confirms it.

“Keith, man, what makes you think any of us are going to just… leave you high and dry like that when the war is over? You’ve got a place here with us, Voltron or not. This is our family, and even if it isn’t, if we go our separate ways… Hell, I’ll bet the Casa McClain would be absolutely thrilled to have you, if your pale ass can handle a little Cuban sun.”

“You don’t mean that,” Keith dismisses.

“I do,” Lance insists, and he finds he does. “But you will have to get over the kid thing. I’ve got three nieces and nephews running around. Maybe more by then.” It occurs to him for the first time that there could be more now , since they’re approaching an earth year out here, and he has no way of knowing.

“What ‘kid thing’?” Keith scoffs.

“Dude, you keep acting like Cassia’s radioactive. You’re not exactly subtle.”

Cassia finishes the last of the bottle with a loud squeaking sound, timing impeccable as always. Lance lifts her up to pat her back. 

“I don’t think she’s radioactive.”

“All I’m saying is I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d started showing up for meals in a hazmat suit.”

“Do you honestly think this is the first time I’ve been around babies?”

“Seeing babies sometimes doesn’t count.” Lance lifts his hand briefly from Cassia’s back to wave it dismissively.

Keith rolls his eyes. “I’ve lived around babies, idiot.”

Lance actually barks out a laugh of disbelief. “Oh come on, you think I’m going to buy that? When have you lived around other babies?”

Keith’s expression closes, and Lance realizes immediately that this was apparently the wrong question to ask. The blank spaces he’s been staring at in Keith’s past widen to canyons. 

“I wasn’t… in charge of them or anything, but they were around,” Keith sidesteps. To his credit, he’s looking flighty, but he isn’t making an excuse to get out of here now that the apologies have been issued. Lance wonders if Shiro had brought up the running thing to him during their chat today.

“Well, okay, but you’re doing a real good impression of someone who’s gonna catch fire if they touch a baby. That’s all I’m saying.”

Keith gets a strange glint in his eyes. He chews on the inside of his cheek, eyes narrowed at Cassia’s back. 

“Okay,” he says finally, holding out his arms with determination. “I’ll prove it.”

Lance’s eyes go wide. “Come again?” 

“I’ll prove it.” He jerks his chin toward Cassia. “Hand her over.”

“Oh, I am so regretting not bringing a camera.” Lance grins. 

He stands and rounds the table. Very carefully, he lowers Cassia into Keith’s waiting arms. There’s a terrifying few seconds where he’s afraid she might lose it at the transition, then she settles happily against Keith’s shoulder, just as she’d been with Lance.

Lance’s hand brushes Keith’s forearm as he pulls away, and he feels something hot spark behind his ribs with the drag of bare skin. It doesn’t help that Keith looks… really good like this. He’s a little awkward in the way he’s holding her, and his hair is falling into his eyes as he leans back, his hand splays protectively over her back, his mouth softens from its usual scowl into something more relaxed.

Cassia takes this opportunity to finally burp.

“Not even an ‘excuse me’,” Keith hums. “You have horrible role models. It’s not your fault.”

“Hey!”

Lance is leaning against the edge of the table, entranced by what he’s seeing. Now he really, really actually wishes he’d brought a camera, because he’s not sure anyone else would ever believe he got Keith Kogane to snuggle a baby half-Galra. He’s confident that if he relays this to Pidge and Hunk in the morning, they’re going to haul him to medical to check for a brain injury.

Cassia sighs contentedly and presses her cheek to Keith’s chest, curling her fists tight into his sleep shirt like she can’t get close enough. Already, Lance can see the telltale slow blink and fog crossing her honey eyes that means she’s tired. There’s no fussing or wobbling lips at all.

He feels another pang of guilt. Envy. They’re aftershocks following the relief of Cassia not crying, Cassia finally being content, but he’s the one that’s been here. He’s been the one losing sleep and missing meals and worried sick about her care. Why can’t he be this same refuge for her?

“See?” Keith says, chin nudging up defiantly.

“What?” Lance asks, torn away from his thoughts.

“I’m not on fire.” He tilts his head, as though considering something, then adds, “Maybe just a light tingle?”

Lance blinks, then touches his chest in mock awe. “Was that… a joke? Did Keith just make a joke?” 

“The other ones I make must be too high brow for you to understand.”

“Cute. You should probably get checked out for that burning sensation.”

“Oh yeah? Know that from experience?”

Keith is definitely smiling now, small but self-satisfied. It makes Lance’s heart flutter wildly in his throat. It’s enough to salve the jealousy for now.

When he realizes he’s been watching Keith for longer than is socially acceptable, Lance busies himself with finally taking a cookie for himself, and God he’s hungry. 

“No crying,” Lance observes neutrally around a mouthful of cookie, not drawing any conclusions aloud. He doesn’t want to spook Keith, yet he wants to affirm he’s doing well too.

“Guess not.” Keith is still looking at Cassia, right now appearing particularly fascinated by the curve and point of her ear. He ghosts a finger over it, tracing its shape, as her light eyelids fall closed, such a pale lavender they’re nearly white. Her breathing evens out, and her lips part into a small ‘o’. 

Lance hasn’t seen her fall asleep this fast the entire time she’s been here.

There’s a tight feeling in his throat again, one he painfully swallows his snack around. Keith’s smile has faded, it’s been replaced with something more somber, and Lance realizes he’s feeling it too. The understanding of what it is she senses in Keith that she never would in Lance, what little shreds of what she’s lost that Keith can offer back. 

Keith and Cassia have twin wounds.

Keith must feel his eyes, because they flicker up to meet Lance’s. Where Lance expects to find the usual sharp anger, a demand to stop staring, he instead finds he looks vulnerable. Hell, it might be the light, but his eyes even look a little… misty.

“I was thinking,” Lance begins before he can stop himself, leaning in slightly for a better look–

There’s the sound of footfalls in the hall. Keith and Lance both jolt, and snap their attention to the doorway.

Keith clears his throat, and he shifts urgently to stand. “I should be getting back to–” he says at the same time Lance says, “She should probably sleep in her–”

They both go quiet, understanding this was over, the safety of the previous moment has evaporated. Keith quickly hands Cassia back over, and within seconds, he’s already headed for the entryway and disappearing back in the direction of his quarters. 

Hunk appears in the kitchen, bleary-eyed and yawning, covered in grease. He’s been hard at work in the hangars, it looks like, and beams when his eyes fall on Cassia. “Looks like our little peanut wanted a second-dinner too!”

Lance fakes a smile, then excuses himself, making sure he has the tablet with the mythology book safely tucked under his arm. He has a feeling he’s going to struggle to fall asleep and need a distraction, with the image of Keith Kogane and a tiny Cassia folded into his mind like pressed flowers.

Chapter Text

“We have an idea,” Pidge announces the next morning, practically bouncing onto the bridge with Hunk in tow. The other paladins are comparing maps for routes into the Arcellan system again (or, Lance is keeping Cassia occupied a very fascinating pen, while staring at Keith a few feet away), Coran and Allura are at the main screen, and all look up with interest at the disruption.

“Hunk’s idea, really,” they continue, and Hunk waves it off bashfully from behind them. “He was complaining that he wished we could slide in looking like a trade ship or something, not worth checking out. We need to bring a lion through monitored space, too risky to not if we do have to fight, but it’s their sensors picking up transiting ships. They’re not actually, physically watching every inch of space, the empire’s way too big for that. So what if we’ve got enough old tech and modulated signatures on board that you just look like an old ship to the sensors? It might work if we kill all Altean systems while passing through.”

It sounds smart enough to Lance, but he knows he’s not exactly the expert opinion they want here, so he stays quiet.

Coran strokes his mustache pensively, and Allura ponders this carefully from their post at the front of the bridge. She and Coran are both in formal Altean diplomatic robes. They’d agreed to the risk of asking some trusted contacts about the situation, but none had been able to offer anything useful, most hadn’t even heard of the star system. Lance has been trying to not focus on it, he doesn’t like the idea of various other people across the universe, however trusted, knowing about Cassia.

“I think that could work,” Allura agrees thoughtfully. “We could probably even run some tests before you would go. It’s not a guarantee but… it’s the closest to a plan we’ve been all week.”

Shiro seems to find this encouraging enough to nod his assent in Pidge and Hunk’s direction.

“What would we need to do?”

“Well,” Hunk grins sheepishly. “We might need to run an errand. How do you feel about thrift shopping?”

* * *

Lance had been picturing something more akin to the space-mall when Hunk had suggested shopping. Xenia Prime could not have been more the opposite.

They dressed in their plainclothes and flew in from an unassuming Altean pod to keep a low profile, landing near the outskirts of the city. Xenia Prime’s twin suns beat down relentlessly the moment the hatch opened, and a whirling cloud of dust and sand immediately made itself at home in Lance’s hair, throat, and eyes.

“Tatooine-core,” he quips, earning a snort from Hunk and a puzzled look from Keith.

He draws the fabric holding Cassia tight to his chest up to protect her from the deluge, at which she let out an adorable, tiny sneeze.

Cassia had been a point of contention. Shiro, Allura, and Keith had all argued that it was safer for her to stay back on the ship, but Lance had insisted she come, which Hunk and Pidge thankfully backed. Lance had pointed out that she was more frequently remaining calm after five days of secure contact with him, and that the poor girl probably had never even seen the sun before, never breathed fresh air. As much anxiety as it gave him to bring her down here, she deserved that much, right? Plus, she’d have an entire squad of Voltron’s paladins nearby if she needed protecting.

Even Shiro, ever wary of risks, had a hard time arguing against allowing Cassia to breathe fresh air for the first time in her short few months of life.

Lance was already shedding his hoodie as they crossed streets into the bustling city, regretting bringing it at all. It was morning, the kind with already-thick air that promised a hot day in just a few hours time. With a pang, he’s reminded of home, the same sun-soaked, humid mornings filled with the songs of birds and cicadas preluding a long summer day. 

Most of the planet’s main city is an open air market. Xenia Prime is poised at a strategic point to play host to traders and vendors from all around the galaxy looking to hawk their wares, and declares itself a neutral zone to all galaxy politics. This seems to generally go respected, but Lance has his guard up nonetheless, and a knife in his pocket that can be easily accessed. 

Vendors are already set up for the day’s business, lining the streets and packed tight as far as the eye can see. There’s clothing in every color, for every sort of alien morphology, creating a cacophony of fluttering cloth, the smell of food wafts in from all directions, sellers call out their best items to the passersby in several alien tongues. As they walk, Lance can only confidently identify the use of maybe ten percent of the items on display. 

It’s chaos, and Lance feels himself buzzing pleasantly with it. It feels so alive, and he could really, really fucking use to the stimulation right now after the endless stretches of empty space and the crisp, sterile white of the castle. He puts one hand over the back of Cassia’s head, where she’s peeking out from behind the fabric. She’s gone still, and looks just as interested as Lance at the bustle around her. 

It takes Pidge snapping their fingers in front of his face (and having to reach up on their tippy-toes to do so), for him to remember what they were here for. 

“Xenia Prime to Lance. That’s okay with you?”

“Oh– yeah. No problem. Definitely,” Lance agrees nonchalantly, without any clue what he just signed up to. Keith gives him a look for this that could cause a major glacial event on this poor heat-baked planet.

“Good,” Pidge beams, pressing a list into Keith's hands. “I’ll go with Allura, Hunk with Shiro. We meet back here with what’s on the list in two or three hours, and each group has a communicator to stay in touch. Enjoy!”

Lance can’t help but feel like Pidge is definitely looking devilishly at him and Keith as they say it. He reminds himself to threaten Pidge within an inch of their life the second they’re alone.

The others promptly disappear with their own lists in hand, and he and Cassia are left with a scowling Keith Kogane, still in his thick red jacket, fingerless gloves, and dark jeans despite this planet’s determination to challenge Earth’s Sahara. He doesn’t even look bothered. 

“No cute little ponytail?” Lance asks, figuring insults were a comfortable enough way to break the ice. They hadn’t spoken one on one yet, not since last night.

Keith’s scowl deepens. “That’s really fucking rich, coming from you, kangaroo pouch.” 

“It’s called baby wearing and this particular wrapping technique is an ancient Altean practice, you uncultured swine.”

Keith’s eyes linger on Lance’s chest for what feels like forever, then he rolls his eyes away  to examine their shopping list. “Do you have any clue what a ‘brantion freable’ is?” 

Lance taps his chin innocently. “Hmm, yeah, I think this girl from the Darbez system asked me to try that one once.”

Keith looks like he might start threatening at knifepoint for a brantion freable.

Lance claps his hand on Keith’s shoulder, steering him down the road toward what looked like a sector of dusty, reclaimed ship parts for sale. “Relax, buddy. We’ll just ask around. You might even have fun! Do you know what fun is?”

“Bite me.” He’s earned a middle finger, though he notices Keith makes a cursory glance to ensure Cassia isn’t looking first.

Lance has to swallow back an impulsive ‘I wish.’

They wander the streets, slowly narrowing down their assigned list of old ship parts. And by old, he means ancient -– one vendor with eight arms and what Lance can only describe as the Xenia Prime equivalent of a trucker hat actually laughs in their face when they read off one of the items, then informs them they’d need parts for a time machine first.

He then offers them a cobbled-together equivalent of one of the parts that’s probably a scam, but hey, he’s insistent it’ll work, and Keith and Lance exchange a look that agrees they’d rather strike out having tried than come back empty handed.

As the suns rise higher in the sky, so too soars the temperature. Sweat starts to collect at the back of Lance’s neck and run into his eyes, making them itch with salt. It pools beneath the baby sling where Cassia is strapped to him, and he’s starting to feel faint, even in the relative safety of shade. He’s fanning himself and leaning against a shelf of mysterious metal spheres, trying to refocus so he can power through, when Keith finally snaps.

“Lance, just give her to me. You look like you’re about to have a heat stroke, and I zoned out during that part of Garrison first aid.”

“What, you want to take her so that I have to be the one to peel you off the pavement instead?”

“You’re not going to have to.” Keith does appear, irritatingly, less affected by the heat. The only indication he’s warm is that he’s removed his thick jacket now, and it’s folded neatly over his left forearm. He might be fucking dewy around his browline, at most. 

“That’s not fair. Or possible. How are you not melting?” Lance snaps.

Keith only shrugs, leaning down to examine a ship part. “Is Cassia?”

Lance has been obsessively checking on her comfort this whole time, and admittedly, like Keith, she’s seemed fairly unbothered by the harsh weather. She’s still cool to the touch, even, in the same way she normally was. She was more keenly occupied by the colors and sounds around her than the temperature, even squawking here and there to join in on the cacophony. It’s a far cry from the distress Lance’s body is feeling from the heat.

“For the record, being surrounded by aliens is the single most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me. Being human is stupid,” he moans, yet begins to carefully remove Cassia to hand over to Keith. Once he’s safely transferred her, he begins to remove the sling, but Keith shakes his head and crinkles his nose. 

“I’ll just carry her.” This is clear code for: I wouldn’t be caught dead in that. Lance regretfully acknowledges to himself that he may need to retract a former statement about taste and it biting Keith’s ass, because while it is practical, it doesn’t do much for aesthetics.

Lance glares daggers, but the rush of air over his chest is so blissful he quickly forgets Keith’s fashion judgement.

He keeps a close eye on Keith and Cassia, and while he’s certainly not showing an excess of affection, he seems much more satisfied by the efficiency of the situation without Lance dragging along behind them from overheating. They’re through the list in record time, managing a version of almost everything and finding creative substitutions for what couldn’t be tracked down. Lance isn’t ready to go back to the Castle, though, now that he’s cooling off again. This is the most exciting thing that wasn't a life or death battle he’s experienced in a long time, and to be surrounded by sounds, sights, smells, culture again… it’s restorative. It rekindles his flame for adventure that’s recently been choking on the smoke of grief and war.

Keith’s signature frown is etched onto his face, but he seems content to humor Lance as they wander. If he’s uncomfortable with still carrying Cassia, he says nothing to indicate it.

“Hungry?” Lance asks, turning the corner to a street filled with the sizzle of food and a combination of sensations and smells that Lance can’t decide is enticing or nauseating. Seems like an adventure– the good kind. The kind he really needs right now.

Keith seems to consider lying, clearly feeling baited and switched, so Lance sighs, understanding. This was only ever going to last so long. 

“Nevermind,” Lance mumbles, “I’ll go alone, you can go back to the ship.” He closes the gap, holds his arms out to Cassia in the way that she knows means he’s picking her up–

– and she whines, digs her face into Keith’s neck, and twists her hand into his long, stupid hair.

She wants to stay with him. 

Lance feels terrible as he tries to get Cassia to look at him, to try to coax her away so Keith can get to his important skulking back on the ship, when Keith shakes his head and says, “It’s fine.”

Lance looks up at his face, and he realizes they’re so close, he can see every detail in the dark gray of his eyes in this sunlight, his dark line of eyelashes framing them, the small frown on his pink lips. Keith’s thick eyebrows are flat, it looks like his thoughts are warring, then he lifts his chin in a very determined, very-Keith way, like he’s just accepted a life-threatening mission. He makes no move to give Cassia back, and says louder this time, “I’ve got her.”

Lance blinks. “Are you sure you’re not having a heat stroke?”

Keith’s usual mask snaps back into place like a stretched rubber band. A chill runs down Lance’s spine despite the heat when he sees it happen in such close proximity.

“I said I can handle it, Lance. And I’m starving.”

It’s very hard to resist the urge to ask Keith if he’s super, extra sure it’s fine, but Lance knows better than to needle at Keith when he gets that look. Keith has decided to do something; it’s do it with him or get out of his way. He has to remind himself there’s no more need to be inches from Keith, steps away, then attempts to regroup the adventurous mood, latching onto the first edible looking food and dragging the three of them over.

Keith is either more experimental in his palate than Lance has given him credit, or so stubbornly competitive with Lance’s taste buds that he comes off like he is.

There is a decent share of foods they both enjoy– sweet breads, a sort of mini sandwich thing that Lance could’ve housed a dozen of, and one glorious ice-cream like treat that seemed to cool Lance off from the inside out like magic. The majority, though, are not as pleasant, and it quickly devolves into a game of chicken between them, both unwilling to admit their limits. Lance tries one drink that he could only describe as chewy volcano dirt. Keith wrinkled his nose at a gelatinous gray goop that wasn’t necessarily offensive in taste, but the texture kept him from being able to form a sentence for a minute, at least. The worst, in Lance’s opinion, was a chewy, worm dish called “gagh”. He’d tried to choke it down, he honestly, seriously had, but Lance hadn’t been able to handle more than a few seconds before needing to spit it back out. Keith only shrugged with the glimmer of victory, said it tasted like chicken, and the psychopath even kept munching on it as they surveyed the other booths.

When their stomachs cry uncle, they end up at a booth stacked to the rafters with fabric and clothing (sorted by alien physiology type then size) in search of a few more better-fitting clothes for her, and at the booth beside them, Cassia is babbling and leaning for a stuffed toy. Keith picks it up and holds it out to her, a concealed smile pulling the corners of his eyes upward. He doesn’t even seem to care that Cassia’s other hand is twisted into the back of his hair again. 

For a second, Lance has to remind himself to breathe. Cassia looks at home there, there’s a glimmer in her sunny eyes when Keith says something he can’t hear in a low voice to her. She snaps up the stuffed alien something-or-another in an uncoordinated swoop of her arm and digs her nose into it, beaming. There’s a wide eyed moment of stillness from Keith, where face is filled with disbelief, and Lance wishes he could stop time here, bottle this up, examine it over and over again later in slow-motion.

The magic breaks, and Keith is back to the Keith he knows, digging around in his pocket to give the shopkeeper a few coins. 

Lance is shaken back to reality, and he finishes buying his little stack of things for Cassia too, dropping them into a colorful cloth bag he’d just had to have a few stalls back. 

“I don’t remember giving you permission to spoil Cassia,” he says as they reunite, Cassia chewing on the ear of her new purple alien creature. He makes a mental note to ask Coran or Allura to identify it. 

Keith reaches over to slap Lance’s garish bag, which is straining the seams. “Oh yeah, sure. And I’m guessing these were all one-hundred-percent essential for her?”

“I can’t help she needed a hat.”

“We live on a space ship.”

“So?”

“It’s perfectly climate controlled.”

“It has a cute little bow on it. Sometimes fashion outweighs function. You should know that, fingerless gloves.”

Keith shakes his head, but he doesn’t seem to actually be annoyed. 

On the way back to rendezvous with the others, they pass a stand filled with flowers in shapes and colors that would make earth botanists explode– and apparently, alien babies lose their goddamn minds. Keith opens his mouth as both Lance is drawn in by the buckets of bright blooms, presumably to remind them of the time, but he snaps it shut when Cassia makes grabby hands at a large tangerine flower too, and accepts his fate. 

“She looks so much like you,” the shopkeeper gushes from behind her rows of strange blossoms, addressing Keith and Cassia. 

Keith goes impressively redder than he had been all day, considering the oppressive heat and the sun that was already burning the bridge of his nose a soft pink. “Oh–” he chokes, locking up and shifting Cassia up his hip. “I’m not– she’s not–”

“She’s his niece,” Lance rescues quickly, because it’s the first thing that pops into his mind.

“Oh, I see,” the florist says, unphased. “Well, she has expensive taste, that’s an Arcellan Dahlia. I can imagine why she’s drawn to it, of course.” She gives a knowing smile, a glimmer in her dark-blue eyes that fill the whole socket, sclera and all.

Keith and Lance exchange a sidelong glance.

“Because it’s… orange?” Lance wagers a guess.

She raises an eyebrow– or a white marking where an eyebrow should be. “No, because she’s part Arcellan. Isn’t she? I haven’t seen eyes like those in a very long time, but they’re hard to mistake.”

As Lance numbly processes that, she plucks the flower Cassia has been reaching for and places it in her tiny hands. Delighted, Cassia kicks her feet and squeaks– then tries to chew on the petals, which Keith diverts with lightning reflexes despite looking spooked by this statement too. 

“They’re harmless,” the florist reassures with a small chuckle, mistaking their alarm for concern over Cassia’s newest teething object.

“Thank you,” Lance recovers, flashing her a winning smile as his mind reels. Arcellan. Delion Three. Cassia is Arcellan. “These are from the Arcella system?”

She looks surprised. “Oh– I thought you’d know. Nobody’s heard from the Arcella system in... maybe fifteen decaphoebs? Not since they were captured by the Galra. Heard rumors they put up a nasty fight, then they were one of those planets that went silent as soon as they were behind the border. Of course, some Arcellans have been seen here and there, and I suppose your sibling definitely saw one recently…” 

She says this conspiratorially to Keith, and for a moment, Lance is confused. In the face of this bombshell, he’d already completely forgotten the lie that Keith was Cassia’s uncle. Lance kicks himself mentally, forces himself to fix his face into something more casual, nodding along, because Keith sure as hell is struggling to look normal about any of this.

“Even in Arcella’s absence, people had been growing their flowers on other planets for quite some time, lifetimes maybe,” she continues pleasantly, blissfully unaware of Lance and Keith's plight. “They come from farms on other planets these days.”

“Right,” Lance says. “I wasn’t thinking. You lose track of, uh, all those planets the Galra conquer, you know?”

He picks up another of Cassia’s flowers as pretense to keep his hands busy, then balks as he takes a closer look at the sign on the bucket it’s housed in. He’s not great with alien number systems, but he knows this one’s steep for flowers. “What’s with the price tag?”

“It takes a very special atmosphere and soil conditions to grow Arcellan plant life, their home planet’s composition is quite unique,” she says enthusiastically. She lights up– it’s evident she finds the topic fascinating herself. “Very few planets meet the criteria, and the plants are very finicky, they don’t like artificial environments. I’ve always wanted to try to grow some, but never lived in the right place. Especially not here.”

“If they’re so hard to grow, why bother?” Keith asks with a frown. “Why waste the effort?”

She offers a wistful smile. “Because the hard work pays off in something beautiful. Even in difficult times, people still need beautiful things.”

Neither of them know what to say to that.

Lance ends up buying a huge bouquet of all of the Arcellan variety flowers she has, gathering a rainbow of blooms and emptying out his wallet of all the local money he had left to do so. Keith looks at him with an almost touching concern for his financial irresponsibility, so Lance tells the shopkeeper to keep the change just to see his eye twitch.

He tells himself he’s doing this because it could be relevant to the mission, but he knows that’s not actually it. It’s because he wants Cassia to have something around her reflecting the Arcellan side of herself when all Lance can offer are question marks instead of answers. It’s because he wants her previously shadowed, short life in a windowless prison cell to now be filled with all things lovely and vibrant. It’s because he’s grateful to the florist for giving them a piece, however small, to the puzzle of Cassia.

As they walk away, Lance plucks free a dark red flower with snowy white edges. It looks like a more delicate version of Earth carnations.

“In recognition of your performance of the year as Cassia’s uncle,” he declares, presenting it to Keith with an overexaggerated flourish. He’s hoping to get a rise out of him, expecting him to push it away.

Keith accepts it with all the seriousness of a funeral. No ‘fuck you’ or ‘I don’t want your stupid flower’. Instead, he tucks it very carefully into his back pocket, and keeps walking without a word.

Chapter Text

Coran is, of course, fascinated by the affirmation that Cassia appears half-Arcellan. They had struggled to find any genetic data on the Arcellans in the Altean databases, primarily because they only reached the point of development for space travel in the last few hundred years– they’d have been barely sorting out agriculture in Coran and Allura’s day. It made sense, then, they’d only been able to approximate the other half of Cassia’s heritage.

They talk about placing the bouquet in the kitchen where they can all enjoy it, but Pidge can’t stop sneezing as soon as the flowers come anywhere near them, so Lance takes mercy and ensures it receives a nice nook in his room. It brightens up the sterile space in a way that makes his heart ache for home; the castle is nice, sure, but it’s too sleek, too optimized, too utilitarian. The blaze of colors tucked into his bedside table, nestled among the other knick-knacks he’s gathered over the past year, creates a small shrine of normalcy for him. 

Cassia starts to fuss again around midnight (unsurprising), and he begins relaying back to her the most recent story from the mythology book, the birth of Delion from the war of two other gods’ chaos, but he doesn’t finish– for the third time now, he finds their late-hour walk disrupted by Keith’s presence.

At first, Lance doesn’t say anything as he stands in the doorway of the lounge. The feeling of not trying to spook a cornered baby deer is back. 

Keith neatly sets his book aside (an earth one, Lance observes– battered and earmarked, one he hasn’t seen before, but thinks he might recognize the cover from high school English class), heaves out a labored, showy sigh that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and stands up. 

To Lance’s shock, he doesn’t brush past them to seek solitude elsewhere. He holds out his arms wordlessly for Cassia, just as he had in the market earlier that day. Lance doesn’t yield immediately, unsure of what to make in Keith’s recent change of heart. Holding Cassia wasn’t a challenge or a necessity this time; it was offered freely. What the fuck did that mean?

“You were going to ask. Might as well cut to the chase,” Keith points out, beckoning. It’s sensible, infuriatingly so. “And frankly, if she sleeps well, I sleep well.”

Lance tries to keep his pride patched together a moment longer, then relents, because the promise of sleep outweighs all right now. And Cassia is already stretching for Keith with a low whine, Lance isn’t a monster. 

“I’m sorry she’s kept you up. You can hear her? I’ve been trying to leave the sleeping areas when it gets bad.”

“I’m a light sleeper.” Keith is watching Cassia sniffle into his shirt, his eyebrows creased. It’s a stretch to say he looks comfortable, exactly, but it does appear some exposure to her has put him a little more at ease. He then clears his throat, and starts to walk the perimeter of the room, then exits for the gentle quiet of the halls, dimly lit for night-mode, mimicking Lance’s route over the last several nights.

Lance follows, trailing close behind. “Well, uh. Thanks anyway. I’m lucky she thinks you’re the coolest thing since sliced bread.”

Seconds tick by, quiet, as they pace down the hall together at a slow amble.

“It’s because I’m part Galra, isn’t it?” 

Ambushed by his forwardness, Lance’s eyes widen. “I- I don’t know. Maybe it’s–”

“I remind her of her mom,” Keith cuts him off. 

Lance’s mouth goes dry. He’s trying to read Keith’s tone, determine if he’s about to go nuclear about this. When he’s sure enough it’s safe to proceed, he gingerly says, “Yeah. I think so, anyway. I think you feel… familiar, you know?”

If it’s the answer Keith wants, he doesn’t show it. His lips are still tugged downward, and his brow is tight, like he’s trying to remember something and can’t.

“Is that… bad?” Lance presses, getting the sinking feeling he’d said the wrong thing.

“I don’t know.”

“Uh, care to elaborate?”

He adjusts Cassia, who has already started to nod off. His fingers are mindlessly smoothing down her downy hair. Now that it’s been properly washed by Lance a couple of times, soft, wispy ringlets are beginning to form at the ends. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, tell me!”

“I said it’s nothing!”

Lance can’t help but read it as resentment, and he suddenly feels his own bitterness that he’s bottled up for five days rise in his throat like bile– and he’s so exhausted, it meets no resistance from reason. “Listen, I know this is all very inconvenient for you–”

“Hey, I never said that it was–”

“-- I have no freaking choice here, I’m doing my best and it’s not enough for her. I wish it was me that she liked. I wish she– she needed me or wanted me or whatever. But she doesn’t. I’m sorry. Keith, dude, I am exhausted, can you just– suck it up, help her chill out, and pretend for her sake that you don’t want to get rid of her as fast as possible?”

Keith’s eyes go wide, and he freezes mid-step. “Lance, I don’t–” he starts again, but it’s all spilling free now, Lance can’t keep it from all coming up.

“No! No, it’s not fucking fair, you know that, right? You only want anything to do with her unless it’s absolutely necessary, and she likes you most. I’ve been feeding her, changing her, playing with her, soothing her, and who’s she want? You. Like you’re not the one calling her a problem, and you don’t wish she’d disappear–”

“ Lance!”

Cassia has started to cry again, and it’s enough to shock Lance out of his tirade. Tears are burning in his eyes, threatening to slip free, and he takes a breath that’s so embarrassingly ragged he wishes the floor would swallow him whole.

“Are you done?” Keith asks, exasperated– but not angry.

Lance nods, and clamps his stupid mouth shut.

“I don’t wish she’d disappear, okay? And I shouldn’t’ve–” Keith is rocking from side to side, an attempt to soothe Cassia (and probably himself) that would be cute if Lance wasn’t so fucking pissed. “I never should have called her a problem. I’m sorry. I was panicking when I said it. I freaked out.”

Lance’s jaw works and his eyes dart away, struggling to accept the apology.

Keith leans against one of the ship’s large windows, absently rubbing Cassia’s back as she continues to cry. He’s silhouetted by the inky, deep space behind him, dotted with pinpricks of stars. 

“I stayed away because I’m watching the worst thing that ever happened to me happen to her, and it was all my fault. I didn’t move fast enough, or think fast enough back on that ship. We could’ve saved Valka, I just know it, but I made the wrong choices. Then you started taking such good care of her right away, everyone started to kick a plan into high gear to get her to her home planet…” Keith shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. His next words are tight, difficult. “I was– jealous. Maybe still am, a little. It’s stupid, but I was jealous of a fucking baby because she lost her mom too, and then she has all this and some planet to go home to and all I ever got was attachment issues and an absent dad who died by the time I was eight.”

There it is, a piece of Keith’s past that falls heavily into one of the gaps. It’s a perfect fit. His thoughts race, turning over the new revelation and checking it against the things he already did know, what it explained.

“Keith, I’m–”

“If you say I’m sorry, I’ll kick your ass into another dimension.”

Lance winces, risking a look at Keith now. His shoulders are hunched tight, and the sparking pain behind his eyes is a live wire.

“I didn’t know,” Lance says instead. 

He gives up the anger– he can’t sustain it, he’s too tired, too rattled by the mental image of a littler Keith all alone, ignored– and settles his back against the window too. His shoulder presses to Keith’s unintentionally as he slides into place, but it feels wrong to move away, so he doesn’t. It’s a little easier to talk this way, not looking at one another. Lance quickly swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie.

“You wouldn’t,” Keith says. “I don’t talk about it. I don’t want people to see me as some… sob story or something.”

“I don’t think they would. I don’t.”

“Really?” Keith challenges, eyebrow raising, and it’s enough to make Lance pause and reflect. He doesn’t see Keith as helpless– of course not– but Keith is right. It does paint a more bleak picture of Keith’s past than Lance had previously envisioned, and it’s a lot to take in.

Lance shrugs, feeling put in his place.

“Thought so. Shiro did,” Keith huffs. 

Lance doesn’t know what to make of that but doesn’t press, feeling he’s invaded too deeply into Keith’s past already. Cassia has quieted again, only letting out a small whimper here and there as they both think. Her hand has curled into Keith’s hair again, and the stars pass in lazy streaks behind them.

Then, finally, Keith adds, softer now, “She does like you.”

Lance laughs weakly. “Dude, you’re really gonna try to reassure me about that while I’m using you as a baby Galra recharging station?”

Keith smirks at the analogy with undeniable amusement, and his somber mood falters. Lance can suddenly breathe a little easier. 

“Fair enough. I’m just saying that she likes you plenty. She knows you take care of her.”

It’s nice to hear, even if he’s not entirely convinced. “I guess I just feel like what happened to Valka is my fault too. I keep going over and over what happened on the ship. All the ways I would’ve been more useful if I was good at this or that, or maybe if we’d sent in someone else instead. And I can’t help with anything else around here, so… this is, quite literally, all I can do to try to make it better.”

Keith studies him, long enough that Lance wonders if he’s going to agree when he asks, “Why do you talk about it like that? Like what you do isn’t worth anything?”

It’s so earnest, so sudden, Lance has no idea how to react. So he scrambles for his usual shield. “Aw, Keith, that almost sounds like you’re saying something nice.”

“Lance. I mean it.” It’s a command, now, sharp enough to make him wince. Keith doesn’t use it too often outside of training or missions, but when he does, it’s serious enough that Lance knows he’s not going to let something go.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles. Nostrils flaring, he slumps back against the cold window, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket and shoulders turning inward. “I don’t, okay? It just really doesn’t feel like anything I do matters around here. If anything, Voltron would be better off with someone more competent. I was barely passing my classes back in the Garrison, you know that?”

“They did kick me out of the Garrison completely,” Keith points out, but it only deepens Lance’s scowl.

“Yeah, because you kicked some ass at the wrong place at the wrong time, not because you weren’t showing promise. That’s not me. I’m not good at much of anything.”

“What the hell happened to the sharpshooter thing? I thought you were proud of that.”

Lance casts him a sad smile. “I mean, I am, I guess . It’s nice. Sure. But… come on. Good aim isn’t really on the same level as ‘excellent leader’, ‘tech genius’, or ‘best pilot born in the last century.’”

“Why do you need to be a prodigy to be important to the team?” 

Keith’s gaze hasn’t left Lance’s face, like he’s trying to memorize what he says, how he reacts.  Lance shuts his eyes, unable to bear it, and doesn’t respond.

“Look,” Keith then sighs, “I don’t know what it is you’re going through, or what special superpower you think you’re missing, but I do know that if anyone’s holding the morale together around here, it’s you. You work your ass off in training, and you’re reliable. You’ve always got my back in a fight. If I thought you were being dead weight on missions, believe me, I’d be the first to say so, right to your face.”

Okay, he does have a point there.

“And do not repeat that I said this to anyone else– they won’t believe I was nice to you anyway– I think you’re probably the only pilot capable of handling Red in a pinch, and that’s saying something. She’s uncooperative and sensitive.”

“Hm. Sounds like someone else I know.” But he’s smiling, it’s cracking through the hurt, the envy, the guilt, and a warm, if cautious, pride shines through instead. What he ever did to make Keith actually think he was decent at this job, he has no idea. He also knows immediately he wants more of Keith’s praise, on levels he’s afraid to analyze too closely. “But, uh. Thanks. Really.”

Keith nods stiffly and mutters something that sounds like a yeah , just as uncomfortable receiving thanks for his genuine compliments as Lance is receiving them.

Lance leans to the side and pushes up against Keith’s arm playfully. He’s a weak man, he has to break the tension. The awkwardness he feels engaging in conversation about feelings with Keith is starting to make his skin crawl.

“Last thing we need to address so we can tell Shiro we squared all our shit away: do you or do you not really think I’m ruining every mission by hooking up with the local hot aliens?” His eyes sparkle, he’s hoping to make Keith laugh. He’s man enough to admit that accusation had held a shred of truth, and is willing to poke fun at it in the name of peace.

Instead of laughing or saying something cutting, Keith goes bright red. “Lance– Oh my God, I didn’t–”

Lance grins– this was unexpected, but not unwelcome. “Oh, so you did mean it?”

“No! No, I don’t– I just–” Keith’s face blows straight past red and into dark maroon, it even rivals his jacket.

“You just what, Keithy? Why do you know so much about them anyway? I sure don’t pay attention to your hookups.”

Keith glares, then looks away, staring out of one of the windows. 

“Right? Keith?” He senses he’s lost the thread of the fun teasing here, he’s accidentally bumped into something. It occurs to Lance… has there ever been anything to pay attention to?

“We work the mission. That’s the priority.” Recited straight from Galaxy Garrison boot camp.

“So you’ve never, not even once, not on one, measly goodwill trip to another planet–?”

He answers with a very short shake of his head.

Exasperated and awed, Lance runs a hand over his face, trying to get his head around it. It did explain how pent up Keith was, if he hadn’t had a good lay in… maybe ever. 

(He wants to make Keith an offer to blow off some of that steam.)

Nope. Stopping there. This was Keith he was thinking about. He’s just tired, overwhelmed, and cooped up in space with the same few people, that’s all.

“Well, you’ve got to let loose sometime,” he says, trying to ignore the unbidden heat gathering in his abdomen. “Doesn’t have to be anything intense or serious, but you’re going to give yourself a heart attack at twenty if you’re all business all the time.”

“Twenty-one.”

“What?”

Keith’s still avoiding his gaze. “Twenty-one. My birthday was last month.”

“And you didn’t say anything? Shiro didn’t either?!”

“I asked him not to.”

“Oh my God. It’s official. You hate fun. Like really, actually hate fun.”

“I just don’t think it’s a big deal.”

“You didn’t think– dude, it’s your birthday!”

Keith shrugs. Cassia makes a soft sound at the movement, nuzzling closer to his neck, and Lance thinks he might explode from this current emotional whiplash.

“Yeah, okay, I’m making sure you get something for your late-birthday. You absolute psychopath.”

Keith doesn’t look pleased, but he doesn’t argue either. He says something different entirely. “You should probably get to bed, now that she’s asleep. I will not hesitate to kill you when Shiro’s not looking if you fall asleep in your lion again.”

“That was months ago! I had the Quantarian Flu! It wasn’t my fault!”

Keith is insulting him; Lance is volleying back. Natural order is restored and they can both move on with their evenings.

Lance takes Cassia back, slowly, and his and Keith’s hands brush as she’s shifted from Keith’s arms to his. An electric charge tingles across his skin, the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He’s so close to Keith, and for a moment, they both pause in the exchange. A breath catches against Lance’s ribs. Something glimmers in Keith’s eyes, stormy gray, iris wide and dark as deep space, he exhales and the soft puff of air from his pink lips graze Lance’s–

Then Keith’s pulling away, the transaction finished, but he’s still flushed. Lance realizes he must be too, his hoodie suddenly feels way too restrictive and hot.

This is Keith we’re talking about, he reminds himself. A fellow paladin. Teammate. Dare he say it– a friend. He was inventing feelings where there were none in his stressed, fatigued state over the last week. Months. Year.

“Goodnight, Keith,” he says softly, and takes a step back toward the sleeping quarters. He’s sure Keith will stay up to skulk or brood or do whatever he does, and sure enough, he makes no move to follow.

“Goodnight, Lance,” he echoes. Then, with a very soft upturn of his lips, “Goodnight, Cassia.”

Once Lance is back in bed, he can’t get his heart to slow from marathon pace, even though Cassia is sound asleep and he’s lying flat on his back. He presses his hand over his chest, feeling his pulse thrum against his palm, willing it to steady.

But he can’t stop thinking about Keith’s soft, pink lips. The steady warmth of his arm pressed to his. The low rasp of his voice in the quiet hall, as insecurities were laid bare between them that could only come out in the dark. How it felt to lean into his side, both of them looking at Cassia like–

He squeezes his eyes shut, throws his arm over his face, this thought so shameful, so private, so impossible he can’t even allow himself to feel tethered to reality to think it.

– like she was theirs.

It would never be. There are a million reasons that none of this little fantasy could ever be, one where he has Keith and he has Cassia and there’s no war or obligations or Valka’s haunting eyes. 

And still, even knowing he’ll be ashamed for entertaining this daydream come morning, he holds the image of this impossibility in his mind, tries to imagine every inch of it in painful detail, until sleep finally raptures him.

Chapter Text

“I want Lance to come with me.”

It’s said as they sit around a table in one of the debrief rooms, a potential route charted toward the Arcella system that promises minimal contact with Galra surveillance laid out before them. After their trip to Xenia Prime, Pidge and Hunk were able to prove their theory that they could re-work a lion’s signature with enough ancient ship parts to look like a junk ship to sensors, but they’ve only scavenged enough parts to cover off two lions. 

Keith has made it abundantly clear that he is the one going over the past few days, and that he is willing to fight about it. Nobody questions that he and Red will be the first of the two.

They’ve briefly gone around the circle, weighing the advantages of each respective team member, but Keith has grown impatient with it; his mind is clearly made up. He keeps his arms folded as the table’s attention turns to him, and nods his chin upward defiantly. “Lance is coming with. He and I started this together, it makes sense that we finish this together. He’s reliable, and I know he’ll have my back.”

Lance’s heart stutters as he echoes what he told him last night by starlight, this time with his full chest and to the entire team. 

“I want to go,” Lance agrees before anyone can argue against it, leaning forward in his seat. Cassia’s in his lap, gnawing on the bill of her stuffed purple platypus (Coran had identified it as something he couldn’t pronounce the name of, but it looked platypus like– they were going with that).

“What about Cassia?” Allura asks. “She doesn’t like to be separated from you.”

“We won’t be gone long, Pidge calculated it’ll only be a few hours from where we wormhole to the border, and we’ll plan to return if we find nothing in a day, at most. If we figure out that Delion Three is there as an… exoplanet or moon or colony or whatever and we can’t make contact, we’ll need to bring in bigger guns anyway. That, and I don’t exactly love the idea of hanging out around in Galra space any longer than necessary.” He pauses, then makes eye contact with Shiro. He’s holding his ground on this. It feels like he needs to do this to fulfill his promise to Valka to get Cassia home. “I have to do this one. This is important to me.” 

“Okay,” Shiro says, taking Lance by surprise. He’d been prepared for a fight.

“Wait– really?” His eyes go wide, and flicker to Keith, who looks mildly shocked at Shiro’s ready acceptance too.

“If it’s important to you, then it’s important to us.” 

The heads of his teammates bob around the table in wholehearted agreement, and Lance’s vision mists over.

“I won’t let you guys down,” he promises.

* * *

“Blue, baby, nooo! What have they done to you, beautiful?!”

Lance falls to his knees in front of his lion in abject devastation, his armor cushioning his kneecaps from the brunt of the fall. 

When Pidge had described this concept to him, he’d thought they were just going to make some little tweaks to their signal here, replace a part there, but he’d still get to fly his gorgeous girl into Galra territory looking like a total cosmic badass. What stood before him was a travesty that belonged on a list of intergalactic war crimes.

Blue’s body is patched over with rusty, faded ship metal, dull and gray. From below her towering form, he can tell that there are parts of her that are more heavily reworked than others, including a complicated looking array at the top of her head with an honest-to-God antennae poking out of it. It reminds him of the the ancient, rabbit-ear television set in his abuela’s house, all it needs is a dainty doily perched beneath to complete the effect. Red has been moved into his hangar too for ease of construction, and she’s looking just as much like space junk as Blue. Judging by the mess of smaller parts strewn about a nearby metal workbench, he has a terrible feeling their interiors have received some aesthetic downgrades as well.

The strap from his duffel bag falls dejectedly from his shoulder as his arms go limp at his sides. 

Hunk approaches from beneath Blue’s belly, blowtorch in hand and welding visor slid up to reveal his face. “Tell me this is some horrible dream,” Lance begs, and Hunk claps a sympathetic hand over his shoulder.

“Ah, buddy, you’ll be okay. It’ll all come off once we’re done. Look on the bright side, you’ve got a vintage ride!”

This does not placate him in the slightest.

“I’ll avenge you,” Lance swears mournfully to his lion. “I promise that I’m never, ever letting these monsters touch you again, you perfect, magnificent–”

“Stop messing around, Lance, we need to get going.” Keith has arrived, and Lance looks over his shoulder to see him enter the hangar with Allura, Shiro, and Coran. Cassia is in Shiro’s arms, looking all too awake for how tired Lance feels from her most recent nighttime adventure. Keith is in his full paladin armor, and Lance would be lying if he said it didn’t look extra good in it from this particular upward angle, he can see the angular cut of his jaw extra well, his eyes hood a little as he looks down on him and..

Lance scrambles to his feet, heart fluttering wildly in his chest. He even forgets to glower at Keith.

Pidge materializes from inside Red’s cargo bay, hopping to the floor. They look rightfully proud of their handiwork, despite Lance’s lamentations. The group unites at the center of the room, ready to exchange goodbyes and good lucks. 

Lance holds out his arms for Cassia, who squeals and is sidetracked from grabbing at Shiro’s prosthetic hand (as though they hadn’t found her plenty of real toys?!) in favor of being reunited with him. He nuzzles her dark hair, inhales the scent of his soap on her skin, and holds her as close. He hates holding her through the armor, her warmth and softness dulled. 

“You’re gonna be good for me, solecita ?” he asks, as she grabs at his gloved fingers playfully, babbling something back at him. “You’re not going to send Shiro to an early grave, right?”

“You’re all the ones doing that, not her,” Shiro assures him dryly. He doesn’t seem to be joking. 

“I’ll say nice things at your funeral,” Lance replies, now grasping back at Cassia’s pudgy little hand. She waves it around with a small giggle, and his heart lurches when he realizes he’s now going to have to pass her back over and actually leave . 

He doesn’t want to let go.

“So," he stalls, "you guys know to put her down for a nap as soon as she starts to rub her eyes? Otherwise she’ll get overtired and freak and–”

“Yes, Lance–”

“-you have to make sure she eats every three or four hours and-”

“-Lance, yes–”

“-she needs to be talked to, she hates when it’s quiet–”

“Lance. ”

He wrenches his jaw closed as Shiro doesn’t interrupt the third time, it’s Allura. To his surprise, she’s looking at him and Cassia with a determined, yet kind gaze. She still doesn't seem to be Cassia’s number one fan, but even Lance had to admit there had been progress in how she’d acted around her the past few days. She'd even fed her once, if had Lance hovered like a shadow the entire time.

“We know,” she insists, more gently now. “We won’t let anything bad happen to her, and we have your notes if we need them.”

‘Notes’ is a generous underestimation. Lance knows he left at least four pages of handwritten instructions– back and front– at the kitchen table.

He doesn’t want to leave, but as he looks around at the faces of his friends, his family , he knows there’s no safer place in the universe for her to be. So he swallows past the painful lump in his throat and steels himself.

“Okay. Time to go,” he chokes out, kissing the top of Cassia's head. As he pulls away, someone else is reaching toward him– but it’s not Shiro, like he expected.

Keith’s next to him now, expression so soft it jumpscares Lance, and he reaches out a gloved hand to cup Cassia’s face. Cassia leans into it, her sunset gold eyes fluttering briefly shut. Keith brushes his thumb over her cheekbone, then steps back– literally and figuratively– into Paladin Keith, mouth pulling back to his default frown. Cassia's lip sticks out and her eyes reopen, clearly having expected some Keith-time.

Lance nods to Shiro, then, not knowing he can do it himself. Shiro seems to understand and lifts Cassia out of his arms, reminding Lance again that it’ll be okay over her heartbreaking whines as she protests the separation. Hunk looks like he’s about to cry, Coran too. Allura gives him a confident, warm look that reminds him why entire civilizations are so inclined to trust their lives to her-- even if he's seen her use that smile when he knows she doesn't know what she's doing. He chooses to let it reassure him anyway.

Pidge is rattling off some last minute reminders that he only half-hears as he heaves his bag over his shoulder once more, and turns to face Blue. He doesn’t look back, he can’t, he knows he’d go right back to Cassia, who has now started to cry. The sound is shards of glass in his chest, rattling with each of his breaths.

Once he’s in the cockpit (and gotten over his disgust over the old ship parts used to jam up Altean signals inside, too), he settles into his seat. While doing final pre-departure systems checks, he reaches down to unzip the duffle bag at his feet. From it he removes one of the orange Arcellan dahlias, and places it just beyond his control panel so it sits in his line of sight while he works. 

“Let’s get you home, baby girl,” he whispers through the tight feeling in his throat, and fires up Blue, feeling the familiar connection with her spark to a live current in the back of his mind and vibrate all the way through his fingertips. Beside him, he feels Red roar to life too.

* * *

The red line on his map display indicates they’re approaching the Galra border, and his palms are sweating so much he keeps instinctively wiping them on his leg– then remembering he has gloves on. A wide asteroid belt looms ominously at the edge of the territory, stretching as far as they can see, drawing closer and closer as he and Keith approach side by side.

They’ve chosen this entry point for a reason. Any sensors in place will already experience baseline interference from the asteroids, further increasing their chances of being written off–- if picked up as anomalous at all. The space rocks hover together in dense clusters and stretch miles deep; most normal ships would struggle to navigate it safely.

It’s a good thing the lions aren’t normal ships. And it’s a damn good thing that Keith isn’t a normal pilot, because without their regular systems online and lions physically restricted by their newest bodywork, they’re only going to be able to navigate using manual thrusters and a prayer. It was unanimously decided that Keith would go first, since his piloting instincts were sharpest; Lance would follow and replicate his moves.

“Ready?” comes Keith’s voice in his ear. He sounds tense, and in a way this both reassures and terrifies Lance. On one hand, if Keith is nervous, his own nerves are probably justified. But if Keith is nervous, then there’s definitely something dangerous about to go down.

“Born ready,” Lance replies with a confidence he absolutely does not feel.

“Okay. Like we went over, comms will have to be down until we’re clear on the other side, so stay close, don’t do anything stupid.”

“I have never done anything stupid in my life, Keith.” 

Lance can feel his irritation flare across the connection they have through the lions, making him snort. Keith does not otherwise acknowledge him.

“Killing systems in 3… 2…”

Keith goes dark, and the comm line is replaced with static. After a deep breath, Lance does the same, and shuts down all systems except basic life support and manual thrusters.

Blue’s usual comforting hum shudders to a stop, and the static in his helmet clicks off as he kills the comms, soon to be useless anyway. He needs all his senses for this. The pleasant, blue glow of his controls fades into nothing. The only sounds are now his shallow breathing and the eerie creaking of hastily-grafted metal to Blue’s body. He drifts listlessly forward on inertia toward the wall of asteroids, and just ahead of him, Red does too– though it doesn’t really look like Red. 

Cloistered in beaten leftovers of ship hulls and now completely powered off, Lance fully sees Hunk and Pidge’s vision for the first time. When the lions fly casually, their legs tuck up, suspended in space beneath them. In the hangar, the legs had been down, the sleek Altean mecha tech awkwardly mismatched with the old ship parts soldered onto the top half. Out here, though, the legs conceal perfectly beneath a wide strip of metal curved around the belly, and the lion head tucks back neatly, leaving only enough gap for them to see out from their cockpits.

They look like rusty, outer space pill bugs. If he flew past them casually, he’d absolutely assume they were either space junk or, at best, a scavenger ship that would spontaneously combust if someone inside it sneezed wrong. With an anxious laugh, he starts to verbally tease Keith that he looks like a bug– then remembers, and forces himself to focus. 

They push into the first ring of asteroids, and he’s reminded of the entry exam to the Garrison; a flight simulator cloaked as a video game. The only goal was to navigate the simulated asteroid field, and though Lance had done okay at this in comparison to his classmates back in Cuba, it took hours of practice for him to see any real results on the thing that actually challenged other Garrison admittees after he’d joined. And even then– he’d been designated to cargo pilot until he was handed Keith’s dropout leftovers.

It’s just like the game, he tells himself. You were a pro by the end of Year One.

Except the asteroids are real.

And he has no guidance system.

And if he hits one he dies in a dramatic fireball.

No big.

Meticulously, he copies every move of Keith’s in front of him, who is darting between the rocks like a minnow. Every single one of his moves are precise and sure, despite the awkward limitations posed by their disguise. Lance is just glad he’s behind Keith, because he’s sure the way his hands are shaking must be translating into his movements with the manual flight system.

Worst of all is the quiet. Space is eerily fucking quiet , it had been one of the first things he’d been surprised by up here (for which Pidge had chastised him for not remembering from Astronomy 101, but whatever), and even then it was usually cut by his lion there was usually the hum of Blue’s life force beneath and within him, the buzz of his teammates in his ears, the plinking and beeping of various systems.

Right now, he can feel the icy silence soak into his bones, and the brief interferences are no comfort. Metal creaking. His shallow breathing. The whoosh of a thruster as he makes an adjustment. Silence again.

It’s agony, and it goes on for nearly an hour. He’s tempted after a couple of close calls to throw caution to the wind and fire Blue back up, but he’d caught sight of a few sensors that looked very Galra affixed to some of the asteroids, and that was enough to sober him of the urge. 

When the field finally clears, he leans back, sweaty and exhausted. Only a few dinky space rocks remain in the outer fringes of the belt, which he will have no problems avoiding. With a trembling hand, he reaches out to touch the orange flower– he’s not sure why, maybe to thank it for being a good luck charm or seek some comfort from it, but it does help ground him.

They were through, and after extensive research and consultation with the Blade, they were confident that the Galra would only be tightly monitoring the borders. Galran space now stretched so large, it was impractical, impossible watch every inch of it at all times. They should be safe to turn some systems back on, so long as they kept an eye on their surroundings. 

A sigh of relief escapes him when Blue purrs back to life. He allows the sure feeling of their connection to balm his nerves along with the blessed intervention of her ambient noise. Through the bond he can feel when Keith’s lion shudders back to life too, and he’s immediately all over the comms.

“I never, ever, ever want to do that again,” he moans to Keith as soon as he hears the comm line click on, pulling up the course for Arcella.

“Until we have to leave, of course,” Keith replies. Having his voice in his ear allows him to relax a little further.

Still, Lance groans out loud at the prospect of doing this twice.

"You did great, Lance." Lance feels something in his stomach twist at the compliment- not unpleasantly.

"Really helped having someone show me how to not end up an asteroid sandwich."

He’s pretty sure he hears Keith chuckle on the other side behind some muffled static.

“Course locked in for Arcella system?” Keith then asks.

“Locked in," Lance confirms. "Let’s see what all this hype is about.”

* * *

Lord Delion stood between the Children of the earth and the spirits of the pantheon. He clapped his great hands, and the winds dispelled; the floods receded. “It has been decided,” he declared to both the gods and the Children of Arcella, “Lord Ydros and Lady Ilorna have wrought only destruction and sorrows in their displays of power, they care not for their people. I, Mighty Delion, born of their wrath and vanity, choose a more noble destiny, to restore balance as defender of the Children of Arcella. Neither god nor mortal may again bring such harm to the Arcella…

Something beeps on Blue’s screen. Lance looks up from the mythology text on the tablet in his lap, relieved that something is happening. He’s slumped back in the pilot’s seat, cheek propped up on the heel of his left hand, and he’s trying to read– he really is– but his sleep schedule and mission nerves are working against him here.

Lance reaches over to open the map on Blue’s screen, noting their position. Exactly as Pidge calculated, they have arrived at the fringes of the Arcella system in precisely three hours and four minutes.

Or, at least. What was supposed to be the Arcella system.

The inner core of the system pulls into view as they approach, and nearest is the third planet, the one made of ice. Even from up here, he’s starting to share Keith’s suspicions about it; it looks about as hospitable as salt to a slug. It’s a blur of bright gray-white that usually means ice from axis to axis, and as he quickly runs a scan in passing, there’s little of interest coming up on the screen excepting some nasty storms.

He’s about to comm Keith that he hopes he bet money on the ice planet theory with Shiro, when the smaller marble of Arcella’s main planet begins to pull into view from behind it and he’s caught completely off guard.

Though little could have been said formally about Arcella based on their research, one of the few consensuses had been that it was host to diverse life: plants, animals, the Arcellans themselves. Lance had seen it himself in the raucous blooms at the market, the shimmering gold in Cassia’s eyes. The myths spoke of oceans, forests, deserts, even had an extra color that the story translation struggled to describe properly outside of its mother language. This couldn’t possibly be Arcella.

What hangs before him is a listless, beige-yellow planet, choking on noxious looking sulfuric clouds.

He checks the map. Double checks. Then he runs a scan of the planet.

What blinks back at him feels impossible: No life signs.

Lance shakes his head, runs the scan again. The same results. “No, no, no,” he mutters under his breath, trying another scan, then another, a different one, all turning up the same information in different forms as the planet draws nearer. 

“Keith?” he finally desperately asks, “Are we sure this is it?”

Keith sounds just as confused. “I don’t know,” he says, voice high. “I keep running tests but all I get is...”

“No life signs?” Lance finishes.

“Yeah. And a ton of sulfur, carbon dioxide, nitrogen in the atmosphere. Lance, I don’t think this planet’s air is even–-”

Something hits the side of Lance’s lion– and hard. He smacks into the side of his seat, all of his sensors screaming at him and lighting up in warning after warning. 

“What the fuck?!” Lance cries. His hands fly to the steering, trying to whip Blue around to see what the offense was, all while eyeing his monitors: hull damage 35%. From one blow?! Countless battles with the Galra, and nothing had ever managed to sucker punch Blue that badly before.

He sees it this time as he levels Blue with the heading of the attack. It’s fast, it emerges from the dense, ochre clouds of the planet, a gray triangle shape in a way that reminds Lance of a paper airplane. A really bloodthirsty paper airplane, he notes, because it’s got enough laser cannons affixed to its hull that it clearly has just one objective: destroy. There are markings in an unfamiliar pattrern on either side of it that light up in gold, leaving streaks in Lance’s vision as it zips by– fast.

It loops around, then screams back toward him, Lance has to quickly dodge a precisely placed second blast. It barely misses, but he can tell from the screeching of his sensors that there’s an energy buildup in the thing again, it’s not wasting any time. Blue creaks around him, her frustration rises with his own. The now half-destroyed pill bug costume is costing him precious maneuverability.

“Keith!” he calls as it shoots again. Lance darts hard to the side, but it clips him, he’s not nearly quick or dextrous enough right now. Only Red has a chance at outflying this thing. “Little help! What is that thing?!”

“I don’t know!” From overhead, he sees Red shake itself free of most of the scrap metal, then roll into an attack posture. Keith fires multiple shots. The triangle-drone dodges easily.

There’s no way that thing has a life-based pilot, it’s too fast, too calculated. And way too focused on Lance, he notices as it swoops around to corner him again. It’s like it doesn’t even know or care that Keith is there.

He takes off at top speed at the upper-most edges of Arcella’s atmosphere to try to evade, but there’s a piece of metal that is welded on very, very tight prohibiting his right turns. 

“Uh, Lance?” His stomach drops. He hasn’t heard Keith sound panicked like this in battle for a while. “There are more. A lot more.”

He checks the screen showing his surroundings. Behind him, and the lead triangle-ship still has him in hot pursuit, but an army of them are fanning out behind it now too and firing as Lance banks a hard left around the planet’s atmosphere. They show up as so many dots on Lance’s sensors, they look like a swarm of angry LED bees. His screens all scream at him at once in a disorganized cacophony. Heart in his throat, he tries to go faster, urges her mentally to push harder, but he feels that they're already stretching Blue's limits thin.

“What the hell are they?!” Another blast lands at his flank. Blue rocks precariously, Lance’s teeth rattle in his skull. Quickly, he pulls up, hoping it might shake a few of them. He hears the distinct sound of Keith shooting some of them– but knows from the wailing from multiple displays that it’s not nearly enough. 

“Drones, I guess? Maybe a planetary defense system? They only want you– why do they only want you?!”

“I don’t know! Make them not-want me!”

He takes another hard hit, and in a shower of sparks, several of the old ship parts that Hunk and Pidge had used to jam up signals internally wrench free to fly across the cockpit. Cassia’s dahlia has skidded off the control panel and lands somewhere on the floor.

Lance digs into a gutsy dive, hard, his body straining at the straps of his seat as he goes far enough to tip upside-down. He tucks and fires upward, but a few are coming up fast from his left, like a tiny pack of triangular fighter jets. He goes to swivel right, then–

He can’t. He’s still stuck, the damn piece of ship metal is still in the way. 

It costs him precious time, and though he tries to get away by pulling sharply up, the drones close in from all sides, firing. There’s a flash of Keith and Red across his view–

The last thing he remembers is a sharp blast of pain in his side, white hot and all consuming, Keith screaming his name in his helmet, then he’s falling, falling, falling, a comet streaking toward Arcella’s surface.

Chapter Text

The first thing Lance notices when he wakes up is that his side fucking hurts.

Not the “trained too hard” or “got on the wrong side of some alien food” kind of way. It’s overpowering, like someone has sewn razor blades into his insides. It squeezes the air from his lungs, and tears well at the corners of his eyes.

With a rasping inhale, he lets out a pitiful sound, and tries to sit up. Bad idea.

Stars pop in his vision, and he drops back to the floor, gasping. There’s the sound of footfalls, then armor hitting the floor at his side.

“Lance? Lance, hey, take it easy.” It’s Keith, and there’s palpable relief in his voice. A cool hand touches his forehead, another guides him to a more comfortable position, lowering his head onto something soft. The skin on his stomach feels raw, every movement stretches it the wrong way. It’s wet, he can feel the fabric torn across the belly of his undersuit is soaked through on the right side.

Lance opens his eyes, and Keith is right there, kneeling beside him. His eyes are wide with concern, and hair sticks up in every direction like a halo from where he’s ripped his helmet free. There’s a blue glowing light and med kit a few feet from Lance’s head, he recognizes both from the emergency supplies they all carried in their lions at all times. 

That bodes poorly.

He chances a glance down at his midsection and– Oh God, yep, that’s a bandage beneath a massive gash in his clothes and a lot of blood. In the dim light, it’s a murky dark color, staining the pristine white gauze, and he’s suddenly grateful that his undersuit is black and masking the worst of it. Feeling dizzy, he closes his eyes and shakes his head, laying it back down all the way.

“I did my best,” Keith says apologetically.

“What happened?” Lance’s mouth is dry, the words come out cracked. He tastes copper.

“Those drones did a number on you and Blue, one hit you head on, you lost control and… Red and I helped break the fall on the way down. Not before a piece of shrapnel from one of the mods Pidge and Hunk made got you, though. It’s out. Don’t worry.”

Keith says it like he did the dishes for him or something, but Lance can hear a tremble in his voice betraying that he’s freaked out.

“Where are we now?”

“Red’s cargo hold. On the surface, but…” Keith’s eyebrows knit together. “Lance, this planet’s nothing but dirt and rubble. Air’s not even breathable anymore. We’re probably the first living things here in fifteen years, let alone anything Arcellan.”

Lance’s head pounds. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forces himself to take a deep– if painful– breath.

So they’ve infiltrated deep into Galra territory, gotten themselves stranded on a lifeless planet, he’s bleeding out, and they’re nowhere near figuring out where the fuck Valka was telling them to go. He wants to cry. He probably would if he felt he had it in him, but he doesn’t.

With a grunt, he opens his eyes again and forces himself up to his elbows. Keith looks worried, but doesn’t stop him, instead helps him prop himself up against the wall, and when he’s settled, he doesn’t move his hand off Lance’s arm right away. Lance doesn’t make him.

“Can we fly home?”

Keith shakes his head. “Lions took a real beating. All but essential life support’s out in Red, she’ll need a couple of days of ambient energy to recharge enough to see what we can do, at least, and Blue…”

Lance’s heart sinks. She must be in rough shape.

“We can’t charge them up with anything?”

“I’m gonna look around.” Keith doesn’t sound optimistic.

“What about the drones?”

Keith blanches. “Taken care of.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t you they wanted.”

Lance blinks, then gestures to his midsection with a grunt. “I, uh, very much would beg to differ.”

Keith shakes his head, impatient.

“No– Lance, when I dragged you out of Blue, the flower was on the floor next to you, and I– I don’t know, I grabbed it–” Keith flushes, but presses forward. “I accidentally dropped it when carrying you to Red. They went nuts, burned it to a crisp, then flew away like nothing happened.”

Lance feels like he’s been struck. Between heartbreak and bewilderment, his voice breaks. “They– they burned Cassia’s flower?! What do they have against flowers?”

Keith is kind enough to look sympathetic to his loss. “I don’t think it’s about flowers. I think it’s about it being Arcellan.”

Lance numbly processes this, eyes unfocusing as some of the pieces fell into place. 

Arcellans disappearing. A completely empty planet. Low Galra interest in protecting this particular area– not a single ship crossed their short or long range sensors on the way in. This was a dead planet hanging in dead space.

It begged even more questions, though, beginning with: “Why?” he asks softly. He’s choking up, and suddenly he’s horribly aware that they’ve crash landed in a graveyard. A fresh wave of pain crashes over him as he tries to suck in a breath to compensate.

“I don’t know. I’m working on it. I just need– I need a little more time. So don’t go dying on me, there’s a healing pod back at the Castle with your name on it.” Keith has that determined look on his face, the one where he’s about to disappear into a mission and leave anything else by the wayside. Already, he’s rocking back onto his heels to stand.

Desperately, Lance grabs his wrist. He’s strung out, in pain, and he suddenly feels it’s his responsibility to witness and grieve the death of Cassia’s home planet. It’s too much to bear alone. “Stay,” he begs him. “I don’t want to be left alone right now. Please.”

Keith’s eyes dart to the cargo bay door, but he doesn’t object. He nods, settles to sit beside Lance, and covers Lance’s hand with his own. It makes his heart jump in his chest, despite the fact it’s probably only Keith being nice to him because he nearly died. Might still die. Whatever.

“I’m sorry I brought the dahlia. I nearly got us killed,” Lance whispers, wincing. His head is swimming, he feels a little faint at the revelation that this is all his fault. If he hadn’t brought the flower out of non-essential sentimentality, they’d have checked out Arcella, determined it was a dead end, and they’d be back to the castle, to Cassia, by now, safe and sound.

“Don’t be. You couldn’t have known.”

“It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t.” Keith gives him a look that Lance can only describe as fondness. It shocks him– before now, he wasn’t sure Keith was capable of that toward him. “You care about her a lot. It’s… it’s sweet that you wanted to have something that reminded you of her.”

Lance is suddenly breathless at Keith calling him sweet. And dizzy. A little lightheaded, too.

“You should lay back down.” The concern has fallen back over Keith’s expression like a curtain, and he’s already got his hand on his chestplate, easing Lance back into a reclined position. 

He feels a little better once he’s horizontal again, but drowsy. It’s not a great sign– he must have lost a lot of blood– but he’s completely spent and can’t bring himself to feel too worried about it.

“I miss her,” he murmurs, letting his eyes fall shut. 

“I know.” Keith squeezes his hand.

“I want to go home,” he adds in a small voice, and he doesn’t know which one he means. He’s so drained, he feels the pull of sleep grasping at him again.

“Lance?” He feels Keith shuffling beside him, hears the metal scrape of the med kit against the floor. “Lance, stay awake, don’t…”

Lance is underwater.

* * *

When he wakes again, Keith is gone, but there’s some water and a couple of pills placed neatly beside him. The message is clear. He takes them, drinks the water.

He thinks about Cassia as he gingerly lays himself back down, wonders if she’s okay, if she’s upset, if they’re taking good care of her, and drifts away again.

* * *

He dreams of Playa Veradero. He’s sunbathing, he can hear the clear blue waves crashing against the shore in an even tempo, and the sun warming his skin.

It’s pleasant for a while, then after some time with the Cuban sun relentlessly beating down at midday, it’s too hot. He tries to flip, place the sun at his back. The uncomfortable heat persists. He opens his eyes, squinting against the sudden change in light, and looks up. There’s a familiar looking umbrella,  set up not too far– maybe one of his siblings put it up? He stands, grabs his towel, walks toward it.

He can’t reach it. He’s so hot, his throat aches. There’s a stitch in his side from thirst. He keeps walking and walking and walking. He tries for the tantalizing escape of the cool ocean waters– it, too, continues to elude him, always just out of his reach. No matter how fast he goes, how hard he treads against the shifting sand in new directions, or calls out the names of his family members, the escape of sheltered shade or the soothing surf continues to slip away. 

* * *

He’s too hot. 

Sweat clings to his skin, and his side throbs with enough intensity that his stomach turns dangerously. 

“Keith?” he rasps into the cargo hold, and he finds a steady hand on his shoulder in answer. It occurs to him that it’s his bare shoulder. From the feeling of cool air on his skin, at some point Keith has not only removed all his armor, but peeled back the top half of his undersuit too.  

He opens his eyes, and it’s difficult for him to focus on the form of Keith sitting beside him. 

“S’hot,” he whines, and Keith’s hand goes to his forehead again. It’s cool and soft; it feels nice. He leans into it.

“I know,” Keith murmurs, “I know Lance, please just keep it together for me a little bit longer. Few more hours and Red will be recharged enough that we’ll be on the road.”

Lance starts to form a question, then Keith’s hand goes to his hair, brushing his sweaty bangs away from his face, and God, does that feel amazing. He’s momentarily rendered speechless. 

“Are you thirsty?” Keith asks, and Lance knows it’s not really a question. 

He nods, allows Keith to help him sit up just enough to sip at some water, then collapses back down into… it’s not a pillow, it’s red, there’s something cold and metal stitched into it digging into his neck, not quite intended for this job. A zipper– it’s Keith’s jacket, he observes distantly. It smells like him, musky and something spiced, like cinnamon.

The water dispels enough of the fog enough for him to remember bluntly that they weren’t in the Castle, they were far away in the Arcellan system, and they were supposed to be getting Cassia– 

“Cassia,” he begins in a vague panic.

Keith’s hand is back in his hair. He relaxes immediately.

“We’re going back to her,” Keith promises. “I think I figured out a way. Try to breathe slower, Lance.”

He hums, knowing he should ask for more information, but simply can’t find the willpower or focus for it. Not with Keith’s hand in his hair like this, and not when the sharpest edges of the pain in his side were dulled in a way that means Keith had given him the good painkillers. The ones they weren’t supposed to use unless it was dire.

Obediently, he takes a shuddering breath in, slowly lets it out. Then again. 

“Keith?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t think I’ll be okay when she goes home for real.”

His throat tightens as he says it. It may be a confession drawn out by his delirious state, but the heaviness he feels in his chest tells him it’s no less true. Already this short term distance has been painful; he’s grown attached to her. 

He knows he isn’t her real family. He knows they’re in the middle of a war. He knows he’s young, he has obligations to Voltron, he doesn’t know the first thing about raising Galran or Arcellan (or human) children. Hell, he knows he’s probably projecting his own homesickness onto the situation.

Still, he wants her. The thought of letting her go makes his heart twist, even if it’s the right thing to do.

Keith shifts beside him, and his hand goes from Lance’s hair to cup his jaw, brush his thumb over his cheek, mirroring his goodbye with Cassia before leaving. 

“Don’t think about it, okay?” There’s a sad, downward lilt to his voice. Lance wants to check if his face matches his tone, but his eyelids are getting heavy again, and Keith’s hand against his face makes him feel safe.

“It’s all I can think about.” His own voice is sounding distant now.

He thinks he hears Keith say “me too,” but he’s being dragged under again and can’t be sure.

* * *

His mouth is full of sand. Waves crash in his ears.

He’s vaguely aware of Keith’s arm looped beneath him, trying to get him upright, but his legs are swept out from under him with the rushing surf. 

What’s Keith doing here? He tries to open his eyes, but they don’t focus. The sun is searingly bright, he has to squeeze them shut again.

“Keith,” he chokes out. He feels his feet leave the ground– he’s being carried, and the unexpected sensation makes his stomach twist. His head rolls, his forehead falls forward against something sturdy. 

“Stay with me. Please.” It’s Keith’s voice bubbling up through the rushing ocean sound and… boots on metal? 

He frowns, unable to reconcile this with Veradero, but he’s tired, so tired.

He’s already fading again when he’s set down somewhere hard, and the pain in his side with the change makes him cry out in protest. Above him is Keith’s reassuring voice, a hand is back in his hair briefly in apology. Willing his eyes back open with concerted effort, he pushes past the blinding flash of pain from too much light, and Keith’s face swims into view.

No, this is definitely not Playa Veradero. They’re inside Red, he knows it from the crimson lights reflecting off Keith’s scuffed up helmet, and the familiar feeling of Red’s fiery presence humming across his skin. It’s comforting, until he feels Blue’s energy brush against his mind too– it’s faint, clinging to his own life force in desperation rather than interweaving with his consciousness in its usual cool, reassuring strength. 

“Blue,” he gasps, immediately unsettled by the feeling, lurching forward. The wound in his side sears with pain, and he’s forced to fall backward again.

“It’s okay!” Keith says quickly. “Whoa, Lance– it’s okay. She’s okay, I have it taken care of. Just relax. We’re going home. To Cassia, okay?”

“Cassia,” he echoes. He mentally grips onto the thought, holds it tight and moors his sanity to it.

“Cassia, yes,” Keith agrees, seemingly pleased that Lance recognizes what he’s talking about.

The feeling of his fingers leave Lance’s hair, wrenching a whine from low in his chest at the loss, which Keith shushes. There’s some shuffling, then he feels his own helmet being pushed firmly over his head. Vaguely, he’s aware that this probably doesn’t mean that they’re about to take a smooth pleasure cruise through space.

“All you’ve got to do for me is keep breathing, got it?”

Lance nods, trying to hold Keith’s gaze through his visor where he’s crouched down in front of him. Through the haze Lance is currently fighting back, he can tell Keith is beat up and exhausted. There are dark circles like half moons beneath his eyes, and a thick, red cut on his cheek that looks fresh.

Then, Keith leans in and touches their helmets together at the forehead with a soft tap, his free hand coming to rest at Lance’s shoulder. For a moment, Keith’s eyes flutter closed. Lance could count every one of his dark eyelashes from here, if he wanted. Keith says nothing, but Lance is secretly relieved for it– this has his pulse spiking already, and he’s not sure his weak body can keep his blood pressure up enough to handle hearing whatever might be on Keith’s mind right now.

Just as quickly, Keith is gone, and Lance is laying back down (into the jacket again, he notes vaguely) and he curls up on his side, cradling himself to fortify against the pain. He tries to stay awake, mentally running through the startup procedures as Keith’s hands deftly perform them from the pilot’s seat in front of him. It doesn’t last, as soon as he feels the swoop in his stomach from takeoff, the wrenching force of pulling free from Arcella’s atmosphere, his drained body and mind fold in from the effort. 

Everything goes blissfully dark again. 

* * *

He is floating at sea, on his back. The water is the perfect temperature, warm enough to be pleasant, but cool enough to counter the humid summer day. His chin tips skyward, but his eyes remain closed, the backs of his eyelids painted a soft marigold from the sun above. He bobs on the waves, limbs loose, only effort expended to arch his back into the float and to take in breaths in time with the tide.

As he lays suspended, sun-warm, he wonders what it might feel like to completely let go. To slip under quietly, without fanfare. Let the salt water wash the pain away from the inside out. To sink to the bottom and let the murky seabed wrap him in its velvet arms. It’s cowardly, sure, but it would simply be done. There’d be no one to explain himself to, no one to face; it would simply be.

It’s a thought so tempting, he entertains it. Exhales and allows the water to close in over his face, sinks into the idea a few feet, testing. It’s as nice as promised; the water envelops him like silk, and it’s quiet save for the rhythmic, muffled flow of waves overhead.

Wary of the sharp sting of seawater, he opens his eyes slowly. He floats a few meters beneath the surface, marvels for a moment at the shimmering beams of sunlight dancing across the ceiling of the water, the aurora of the tropics. He must be a ways out from shore, because there are only occasional silvery schools of fish that dart around him up here, a couple of lonely pieces of seaweed and other ocean matter kicked up by the sea. As he turns his attention below, it drops off into darkness, no reef or rock or sand.

Lance has swam in the open ocean like this a couple of times before, but never much cared for it. He’s more of a snorkeling the reef or dodging the surf kind of guy, likes to know what’s underneath him at all times. There’s not much appeal to him in being in the middle of nowhere, anyway, not when there’s beaches full of interesting activity instead. The few times he’d gone out for swims in deeper waters, the sense of nothing but the unending sea beneath him made his blood run cold.

Now, he regards the void without fear or judgement. 

He knows, instinctively, that in this ocean, it would be nice down there, and that he’d never have to come back up. There’d be things left behind, sure, but when was there not? As he treads water here, in the in-between, his limbs are starting to ache from the effort, and the desire to fill his lungs grows both urgent and tedious. 

And he’s tired. Tired in a way he shouldn’t be at only twenty years old, tired in a way that has rotted him from the inside out like a disease, tired in a way that he knows will haunt him for the rest of his life. This feels like an opportunity. A blessing, even.

His arms and legs still, he stops fighting the current. He allows the last of the air escape his mouth in a glimmering bubble, watches it tumble upward to the sun, then lets his eyes fall closed.

Lance surrenders.

And for a moment, he descends into the tranquility below.

Something nudges his arm. He frowns, keeps his eyes shut tight, and brushes it away. The current pushes it back against him, insistent.

Annoyed, he opens his eyes, expecting one of the silver fish, a lonely escapee from its school.

Grazing against his ribs instead is a bright orange flower, its petals a rippling sunburst with the gentle flow of water around it, its leaves at its stem outstretched like tiny arms.

Cassia.

He remembers her with such force, he nearly inhales seawater. She must be near, for it to have gotten here, miraculously preserved perfection out in the deep water. If she’s near, he needs to get to her, and Keith– God, Keith, he can’t just leave Keith behind like this, not without –

His fingers fumble to snatch the flower up, and he’s suddenly acutely aware of how his lungs burn for air, how his vision is starting to tunnel at the edges. He kicks hard to propel himself upward, fights his way to the surface in frenzied movements. He’s nearly there, the sun refracts blindingly off the water’s surface and into his eyes, finally he breaks through–

– he’s falling forward, gasping. Lance hits something, solid arms close around him and take the brunt of his weight as Lance’s knees give out. He’s collapsed on the floor, propped up by someone, tears streaming from his eyes as his lungs constrict and stomach heaves to eject water that isn’t there.

He coughs and gags, a hoarse, throaty sound, and a hand is at his back to help coax it free. “Breathe,” comes a deep voice somewhere above him, both firm and worried. “Lance, breathe. ”

It’s Keith. He knows it immediately. He leans his head against his chest as Keith repeats the command at a rumble, and he obeys, sucking in lungfuls of air until his body is certain the oxygen isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

With each breath comes small pieces of clarity.

The white, shining floor he stares at is the Castle’s. He feels ice cold and his fingertips tingle in a way he’s only felt once before, when he was last in a healing pod. He can’t hear anyone else in the room, it’s only his wheezing breaths and Keith’s steady ones.

Keith is here.

This one he returns to several times, and in different iterations.

Keith’s arms are around him, Keith is on the floor right beside him, Keith smells like cinnamon and something warm, like a campfire.

Once he’s recovered, Keith helps him sit up on his own, still on the floor. He stays seated too, but hovers close as he folds his own legs, eagle-eyed for the moment he may need to catch Lance wilting again.

Lance takes the opportunity to wipe hot tears off his cheeks, then takes stock of his body and the room.

The pain in his side is completely gone. So is the feeling of being uncomfortably hot. His lungs ache, he’s sore and exhausted, but he’s a far cry from the way he remembered feeling when last lucid.

Keith is frowning at him– as per usual. His hair is disheveled, the cut is healing on his cheek, and though he generally looks like he’s been put through the wringer, he doesn’t seem permanently worse for the wear. Behind him there’s a rumpled sleeping bag and pillow. Just beyond that… was that Cassia’s bed? It definitely is, he confirms with a squint, and he sees the nose of her dark purple not-platypus stuffie peeking out over the edge.

“What happened?” Lance croaks, looking back to Keith.

“You gave me a fucking heart attack, for starters,” Keith answers, shaking his head.

“Mmm. Shame you survived it, I really had my eye on Red.”

Keith laughs dryly. It tells Lance all he needs to know about how bad things were that Keith doesn’t even get possessive over his lion. “What’s the last thing you remember? You were pretty messed up.”

“Uh…” 

Lance digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to pull the last grounded memory he had to the surface. All he can think of is open ocean. He thinks he can still hear the waves crashing against the periphery of his mind. The back of his throat tastes like salt. 

“Red’s cockpit. I think. I felt like shit, like I was boiling alive in my skin while having a bad trip. You said we were going back, and…” Lance stiffens and looks up suddenly, the gravity of that landing. “Wait, where’s Blue? Is she still on Arcella? How’d you get back through the asteroid field? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Blue’s fine,” Keith reassures him quickly. “Or, she will be once we’re done with repairs.”

Lance blinks. It’s still not adding up. “So who flew her?”

Keith smiles sheepishly. “I, uh. I towed her.”

His mouth drops. “You– what?!”

“Yeah. Turns out it’s not too hard once you break orbit.”

“Through the asteroid field?”

“I’m a good pilot.”

Lance is astonished. It was hard enough getting just himself through that, he can’t imagine the added variable of another lion hitched to the back like a trailer. 

“You didn’t get caught by any of the Galra sensors?”

Keith’s smile flickers. “Uh…”

“ Keith–”

“We were spotted toward the end. But it’s okay! We fought them off, there weren’t many fighters to respond that far out. Got back to the Castle, and wormholed out real quick. We made a bunch of jumps just to be safe, we’re at least a dozen galaxies over by now. We lost them. And now we’ve got everyone working on what to do next with what we found on Arcella. It’s all fine.”

Lance gets the distinct feeling it was very much not ‘all fine’, but he chooses not to press further right now for the sake of his well-being. 

“Cassia?” he then asks, hating the idea of her having gotten that close to a battlefront.

“Fine. She’s completely fine.”

“Where is she?”

“I gave her to Shiro when the pod gave the warning you’d be out soon so you wouldn’t get overwhelmed. We decided it was best if it was just me here. We weren’t, um… sure what sort of state you might be in when you woke up.”

“You’re saying you didn’t know if my brain had melted into soup or not.”

“Kindof, yeah.” Keith shrugs. Inarguably, Keith had patched him up good enough to probably have earned a field medic merit badge, but damn did his bedside manner suck.

“Can I see her?”

Keith appraises him. “You’re sure you’re up to it? The infection really did a number on you, and while a few days in the healing pod fixed you up, Coran said you might feel tired for–”

“I’m up to it. I’m fine. Good as new, right?” He starts to stand, then immediately gets a head rush. Humbled, he plops back to the floor, muttering something about getting his sea legs back– which only conjures up the unnerving image of the ocean again and adds to the spinning sensation.

Keith, ever gracious, snorts. “Yeah, looks like it. How about we get you to your room, and I bring her to you? If you drop her, I’d rather it be onto your mattress than the infirmary floor.”

Lance nods, and Keith’s already on his feet, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to help him stand. Lance probably leans a little more than is entirely necessary, but he can’t help it if Keith is warm and steady. Anyone would be drawn to that when their knees were unreliable and they had the lingering chill straight to their core from the healing pod, right?

When he’s back in his room, Keith turns away to give him enough privacy to peel himself free of the healing pod suit and put on his most comfortable sweats and hoodie. There’s a fresh, pink scar drawn across his stomach that he can’t stand to look at, not yet, he needs a private moment to process that kind of permanent change in his body, and he’s still feeling too much like he’s already liable to pass out. As he dresses himself, he stumbles and has to steady himself against Keith’s turned shoulder twice. And once against the wall, but he’s pretty sure Keith didn’t see that one, so he’s not going to count it. 

Once he’s deposited safely onto the bed with Keith’s promise to quickly return, he finds himself staring at the bouquet still on his bedside table. A few of the smaller flowers around the perimeter have started to droop, but most of them are still bright and standing proud. One of the orange dahlias bursts out to the side, and Lance leans over to adjust the vase so it faces his bed, like a miniature sun. He finds it reassuring there’s still one here, though he feels a strange loss for the other one back on Arcella.

The door slides open, and in comes his other little sun, hooked onto Keith’s hip.

She screeches the moment she sees him– and he means a full force, earsplitting, headache-inducing shriek so packed with joy, it nearly bowls him right over. 

There’s no time wasted in their reunion, Lance pulls her into as tight a hug as he dares, and presses several kisses to her hair. She babbles at him as though sharing everything that he had missed, and is so excited to see his face again when he pulls back to smile at her and tell her how much he missed her too, she makes another happy sound and grabs at his cheek. 

He winces (holy shit, when did she grow her nails out into toothpicks?), his skin oversensitive from the pod, but allows it. He’s too happy to care, and he would do just about anything to keep seeing her gummy little smile right now. 

There’s shuffling in front of him, tearing Lance away from their moment. Keith hovers awkwardly in the doorway with a mix of uncertainty and… something else. Something longing, maybe. 

Right. Keith had said the thing about being jealous of Cassia, so that must be it. He tries to dial it back a little, shifting over to make space for Keith beside him.

“You’re my chaperone in case I pass out, right? Come sit down, stop standing there like a weirdo.”

He hesitates, then obliges, settling in next to Lance. Cassia, of course, is thrilled– she immediately leans over to grab a purple fistful of his dark hair. To Lance’s surprise, Keith patiently untwists her little fingers from his hair and offers her some of his t-shirt instead. This trade is acceptable to Cassia, even seems practiced, as she leans over to tug the sleeve of his shirt into her mouth. 

Keith sighs, lets one hand come to rest absently on Cassia’s back. “I just washed this.”

Lance wonders if maybe he’s actually dead. It must show on his face, because their eyes meet and Keith looks all too perceived.

“I took care of her. While you were out. I was the only one she wanted near her anyway, she was kindof a mess after we’d been gone for a few days.” He can’t quite look Lance straight on as he says this, he’s fixing his gaze somewhere just past Lance’s shoulder, then gives up the ruse and drops it to his feet.

He feels a warm gratitude swell in his chest that feels too big to contain inside his weary body.

It’s clear it was no small thing, the way Cassia blinks her wide, gold eyes up at Keith with unbridled curiosity and admiration. There’s no hesitation. And Keith’s hand is pressed flat to her back without any real need. Keith still has a sort of apprehension still in the way he handles her, but Lance realizes it’s no longer motivated from distaste, it’s out of care.

He feels such a surge of affection for Keith, he thinks he might choke on it. He saved Lance’s life, risked his own to get Lance back to the Castle, then fucking slept in the infirmary while Lance healed, all while taking care of this little being who must have thought they’d disappeared from her life forever too. Maybe it’s the stupid after-effects of the pod, or the fever, or his weird vision, but he finds himself blinking away tears. 

“Thank you.” 

“It was nothing, I only–”

“No, Keith.” He’s breathless, high on emotion. 

With his free hand, he reaches up to gently turn Keith’s chin toward him, so they’re looking at each other again. His gray eyes widen with the unexpected touch, his pink lips part slightly to let out a soft puff of breath.  

Lance leans in an inch, then whispers again, “Thank you.”

He doesn’t think; he closes the distance between them, pressing his lips to Keith’s.

Chapter Text

Keith lets out a muffled sound of surprise against Lance’s lips– but he doesn’t pull away. 

No, once Keith recovers, he pushes back into it, eager. His lips are chapped and warm against his, and Lance’s breath catches in his throat when Keith turns his head into Lance’s hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

He’s definitely dead, right?

It’s only a few seconds of suspended bliss, because the sharp sound of Pidge’s voice over the comm system nearly shocks Lance straight out of his skin. Both of them jump at the interruption, breaking apart. Cassia whines, Keith’s shirt sleeve escaping her grip in the ordeal, and she leans over to get a fistful of it again.

“LANCE IS AWAKE?!”

He’s flooded with the feeling of being caught, despite Pidge having no way of knowing what they’d been doing. The moment has vanished, and it occurs to him what he’s done.

Keith, at least, looks equally as horrified, an impressive shade of cherry red as he quickly stands, though seemingly with no direction to go.

“Uh, hey! Hey Pidge,” Lance stammers, grimacing visibly at how awkward his voice sounds. Fortunately, Pidge doesn’t seem to care too much.

“Keith! I’m gonna kick your ass, you promised to tell us right away!”

Heavily preoccupied with his boots, Keith doesn’t respond. In the background of the comm connection, he hears Hunk yell, “Hi, Lance!”

“We’ll um. We’ll be up in a second, okay?” He’s trying to inject as much cheeriness into his voice as he can, but his nails are digging into his thighs, knuckles white.

“You better be! We have so much to tell you!”

Lance promises they’ll be quick, then exhales as the comm line closes.

For a second, Keith locks eyes with him, opens his mouth to say something, then falters, looking ashamed. 

His stomach sinks. Though he’d pushed it away, again and again and again, Lance could no longer deny that this was something he’d wanted to do for a very long time, but had always found restraint. Because he was afraid. Because it would ruin things. Because what they were to one another was and always would be complicated. Because Keith didn’t want him the same way.

And now he’s gone and detonated a fucking nuke in the center of their already tenuous relationship. He’s so stupid. Cosmically, hopelessly, mortifyingly stupid.

“I’m sorr–” he starts.

“Don’t. Please.” Keith cuts him off; he sounds on edge. Lance has no idea what to make of it, that stony, unreadable expression Keith so often hides behind has locked into place. “We should go.”

He first takes Cassia (Lance doesn’t want to part with her, but can’t deny he’s still feeling shaky), then offers his free hand to help Lance off the bed. Keith’s eyes follow him as he takes it and rises unsteadily to his feet. 

Lance still can’t help but wish Keith’s hand would linger once he’s up, and he wants him to keep looking at him, despite knots of anxiety forming in his chest. He’s afraid once they leave this room, the moment is well and truly gone forever.

He wishes that, just once, he could pause everything going on that wasn’t this, hold Keith here, force him to finally say whatever it was that was always racing through his mind behind his walls. 

But now Cassia’s blinking up at them with big, round eyes, reminding him she needs to go home. They can’t slow down, they can’t pause, and there are more important things than Lance’s wounded pride.

So they go.

* * *

The bridge is absolute chaos. He’s pulled into a bone-crushing hug by Hunk first, who is so excited to see him that he nearly starts crying. Pidge is next, punching him in the arm and affectionately calling him an asshole for almost dying. Shiro gives him a brisk hug and clap on the shoulder with a “good to have you back,” Allura has a relieved, wide smile, and even Coran playfully expresses gratitude that he won’t have to renumber the paladins. 

For a few minutes, everything seems completely fine. He’s back with the people he’s come to think of as family, who are happy that he’s okay. Then he looks back over his shoulder at Keith, who is hanging at the sidelines with Cassia, shoulders tight. He shifts his weight between his feet and makes no move to join the circle that’s formed around Lance. Keith is always a little standoffish, but he gets the distinct feeling that what he’s just done has to do with his current isolation.

Lance tears his eyes away, a pit of remorse tearing open in his stomach so sharply that he has to steady himself against Hunk, woozy again. 

“So… what did I miss?” he asks, desperate for something else to think about other than Keith.

He comes to regret this too. There’s a rapid fire influx of information from all around. Things they’d found out about Cassia’s Arcellan biology that they didn’t know before, what they were able to glean from the samples of Arcellan dirt stuck between Red’s claws, updates from the Blade of Marmora about movements happening in this and that quadrant in the galaxy and what it might have to do with x y and z planet. It’s too much, leaving him feeling a little sick to his stomach, especially as they start weighing the probabilities of what the Galra know about Cassia, her whereabouts, and her lineage. It conjures up a horrific mental image of Zarkon or his awful witch taking her captive, whisking her off to do God-knew-what.

The overwhelm must show on his face as he numbly stands there, attempting to absorb the information without mentally swan diving into a complete panic, because Hunk makes an excuse about being hungry, loudly pretends Lance has agreed with him, and guides him away, a warm hand coaxing him off the bridge by the small of his back. Hunk takes him to the kitchen and sits him down in a chair with a reassuring pat on the back. Lance comes around when he starts to open and shut cabinets and appliances, retrieving an armful of ingredients. 

“...slept so long, you must be starving. Remember that time I needed the healing pod after the Xyrath got my shoulder? Man I needed, like, half the time you did, and I think I was hungry for a straight week after...”

Hunk is assembling a sandwich while he rambles, he realizes, stacked high with all of Lance’s favorite fillings.

He doesn’t deserve a friend as good as this.

Heart twisting in his chest, he puts his head in his hands, elbows propped up on the table. There’s so much to think about after Arcella, yet in the overwhelm of his exhaustion, the events of the past few days, and Keith (goddamn Keith), all he can clearly think about are enumerating the ways he’d fucked up this last week. Which expands into the ways he’d fucked up other missions for the team, then into ways he’d fucked up since joining the Garrison…

And for what? All they had was a dead planet and what felt like even more dead leads. If she were older, Cassia would hate him for not being able to take care of her like Keith could, for not saving her mom, for not even coming away from her literal home planet with anything but a shrapnel wound.

With a fresh surge of guilt, he remembers the ocean. Nearly deciding to leave her behind. Who the hell did he think he was, trying to be her caregiver, when giving up had felt so easy to him?

There’s the clatter of ceramic in front of him, interrupting his thoughts, and he's forced to look up.

“Eat, dude. You’ll feel so much better, I promise.”

Hunk is smiling at him, and Lance forces himself to return it before turning his attention to the sandwich. And– damn, okay, that did look pretty good. His stomach rumbles in approval as he picks it up. He didn’t even realize he was this hungry, waking up to so much anxiety-inducing information had stemmed his appetite. Now, though, he’s famished, and his first bite alone takes out a quarter of the thick sandwich.

Approvingly, Hunk slides down into a seat across from him, then patiently waits until he’s finished. 

“Better?” he finally asks once Lance polishes off the sandwich.

He does, admittedly, feel like he’s backed away a few steps from the edge of total meltdown. A little less lightheaded, too. He nods.

Hunk brightens. “Thought so. You looked like you could use the assist.”

“Beyond needed it.”

Without the sandwich to occupy himself, he starts to fidget with the strings on his hoodie.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Cassia. What happened on Arcella.” There’s a pause, then Hunk tentatively adds, “Keith.”

Lance bristles, sitting up straighter. Does he know? How would he know? “What about Keith?”

Hunk holds up his hands. “Whoa– easy there. I’m just saying it’s not exactly a secret that things have been, uh, tense since peanut got here.”

Slumping back, he realizes that nobody else knew about his and Keith’s late night chats– as far as they were concerned, they were still cooling off from the blow-up on the training deck and playing nice on missions at Shiro’s request. It wasn’t exactly unprecedented.

“I don’t care what Keith thinks,” he lies.

Hunk’s eyes narrow. However, if wants to challenge Lance, he thinks better of it. 

“Well, whatever it is you think, he seems to feel pretty bad about what happened. He basically didn’t leave the medbay since you two got back. Hardly ate, and I think he only showered after Shiro threatened to throw him in the decontamination airlock. He barely let Cassia out of his sight, either, nearly started biting when one of us suggested we take her so he could have a break.”

Lance adjusts to the information, trying to picture the Keith from a few days ago that avoided Cassia at all costs approaching feral at the thought of letting her go. It’s simultaneously so very Keith, and so incongruent with his understanding of him. Bizarrely, something warm blooms in his chest that he’d been that protective over the two of them.

“Huh,” is all Lance can think of to say. For once, he’s at a loss for words.

“Yeah. Just saying, he cares. We all care. We all share the same goal here, right? Get Cassia home?”

“Guess so.”

Lance recognizes this talk for what it is: Hunk is trying to restore peace in the Castle. It’s evident this whole situation– and varying opinions on its navigation– is putting a strain on the team, the tension between Keith and Lance over Cassia being no exception. Problem is, Hunk seems to assume their problems are caused by rivalrous animosity mixed with a shared guilt over Cassia, when it’s so, so much more complicated than that. Lance wants to tell his best friend all of it– their talks, his feelings, the kiss, everything – but finds it all sticks in his throat.

“Is this a ‘please sort your shit out’ talk?” Lance then asks, swallowing down his confession.

Hunk shrugs, tilting his head thoughtfully. “No. It isn’t meant to be a talk at all. But if you want to, you can think of this as a ‘you two can rely on your friends for help, especially after almost dying’ talk. Would that be okay?”

Okay. Point taken. Despite his best intentions caring for Cassia nonstop, he hadn’t been at his sharpest in the Arcella system, and it almost cost him his life. Now Keith was doing the same. They couldn’t afford to lose a fight, and it wasn’t out of the question that the Galra could find them again. News of their most recent encounter probably had gone straight up the ranks to Zarkon himself. Allura had made the point that they may have enough to piece together what’s happening between knowing about the prison ship mission and their recent proximity to Arcella. They could know they have Cassia, and start chasing the same intel as them with all the resources of an entire empire... 

Lance’s sandwich doesn’t sit as kindly in his stomach anymore with this line of thinking.

“Fine. Yeah. I see what you mean,” Lance concedes, voice small. 

“Good,” Hunk beams. “Now what’s going to happen next is Cassia is going to go play some serious rounds of peek-a-boo with Uncle Hunk before her nap, and you and Keith are going to go get some sleep so we don’t get our asses handed to us because you go narcoleptic mid-fight.”

Lance arches an eyebrow. “You’re going to make Keith do something he doesn’t want to do?”

“Oh, no, no. No way. I'll try to help, but he hasn’t listened to us in days.” Hunk grins even wider, somehow. “You are.” 

* * *

Right now, an entire fleet of Galra warships seems preferable to this. Hunk seems to have complete faith that Lance can convince Keith to finally go rest after being awake near-constantly for days, and usually he might be right. Keith generally responded well to solid tactical reasoning, and Lance would be the one with whom he shared the deepest understanding of Cassia’s best interests.

But Hunk doesn’t know what happened back in Lance’s quarters. He doesn’t know that Lance is completely sure that Keith hates him now. Hot shame boils low in his stomach now that his mind’s clearer. What the hell had he been thinking, acting on an impulse like that? Not only could he have jeopardized his relationship with Keith, if this got awkward enough, he might have made things weird enough to noticeably fuck up the entire dynamic with the rest of the team.

Lance wishes the Castle floor would open up beneath him and swallow him into the vacuum of space. Cosmically, hopelessly, mortifyingly stupid, rings through his head again.

The two of them find Keith on the bridge still. Everyone else has gone, he’s now talking to Pidge intently, Cassia hanging off him and Pidge typing something feverishly into the console as he speaks. Cassia’s little face is contorted, she’s started to fuss– likely hungry– and Keith is valiantly trying to stave it off for another few minutes with a side-to-side rocking motion, weight shifting from foot to foot. It’s adorable, he can’t deny it, sure, but it does very little to quell Lance’s apprehension for his task. 

Hunk notices this potential opening. “Oh! She’s hungry, I’ll take her!” he declares, approaching Keith with a bullshitted courage that has Lance admittedly impressed.

Keith recoils at Hunk’s open arms, lip curling. While he’d thought Hunk was exaggerating that Keith seemed close to biting at the suggestion before, it certainly did not appear to be an impossibility.

“I can take care of her just fine,” Keith snaps, venom pouring into his voice. He’s turning away, putting himself between Cassia and Hunk.

“Keith, whoa, dude. He wants to give her a bottle, not feed her to the lions,” Lance jumps in, thinks about the irony in that choice of words, then adds in hopes of lightening the mood, “in a manner of speaking.”

Keith does not find his wordplay amusing. “I told you, I have it under control. She’s perfectly fine with me.”

“I never said you didn’t!” Jesus, the way Keith is looking at him is fucking scary, and it had taken exactly zero seconds for the claws to come out. He’s honest-to-God baring his teeth. He can’t help but feel it partly has to do with what happened earlier, but it’s not like he can voice that right now. Lance’s hands raise to show he comes in peace. “Hunk can have it under control too.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay, then just–”

“It’s fine!”

“Will you both shut up and find somewhere else to fight?!” Pidge yells from their chair, rare anger crackling behind their voice. “I am trying to actually figure this all out, and I can’t do it while you two are jumping down each other’s throats! Do you want to find Delion Three or not?!”

All three of them freeze. Cassia begins to wail, burying her face into Keith’s shirt.

“‘Course we do Pidge,” Lance says, feeling thoroughly scolded.

Keith appears to be humbled too, reminded of the goal– and that Pidge probably is the only one with the expertise to string the clues together into answers. He blinks, then mumbles an apology.

“Hunk just told me you spent a lot of time the last couple of days taking care of her,” Lance says, pressing on with as calm, non-confrontational of a tone as he can manage. (And as though he had not recently kissed him about what a good job he’d done at caring for her.) “Which is great! But if we have to pilot anytime soon because of an attack, you need to–”

“You don’t know what I need.” He’s pushing past Lance now, knocking their shoulders roughly as he heads for the bridge doors, Cassia still in his arms. “And I don’t take orders from you.”

Lance’s mouth hangs open as the doors slide shut behind him with finality. "Well, that went well," he snorts.

“Do you see what we’ve been dealing with?” Hunk mutters, exasperated.

Pidge sags behind them into their seat, dropping their head into their hands. “Out,” they hiss from behind their fingers. “All of you. Out.”

* * *

Lance gives it as long as he can stand. He knows Keith, knows he’s going to need to go cool off if Lance wants to see success, but the waiting has him restless, pacing circles around the lounge. No matter how tired Keith is, Cassia will be fine just a little bit longer with him. He trusts him. Still, every minute or so, he looks out at the space projected onto the windows, as though he’d be able to see a Galra fleet closing in before the Castle’s sensors could. Just in case.

Once he can’t finally take it anymore, he allows himself to go looking.

The kitchen is empty, but there’s a fresh bottle in the sink, so he must have been here to feed her. That, and there’s no sound of crying reverberating through the halls. Cassia was very good at making her presence known when she needed something.

He tries Keith’s quarters. No response. He could be icing him out, sure, but after a prolonged silence following calling Keith’s name through the door, he figures there isn’t much choice except to see if he’s hiding out elsewhere.

As he shuffles off to investigate other areas of the ship, he nearly runs into Shiro and– Cassia?

Lance blinks, shocked to see them together so soon after Keith’s outburst at the idea of handing her off to Hunk. She’s curled up to Shiro’s chest and sucking on her fingers, eyelids heavy. She’s near sleep, so she’s definitely been fed. Shiro looks just as baffled himself.

“Keith–” they both begin at the same time, then Shiro gestures to Lance. “You first.”

“Keith stormed off when we tried to get him to go rest. I’m looking for him, wanted to see if he’s chilled out. Or maybe try to knock some sense through his thick skull. Haven’t decided.” He narrows his eyes at Cassia, ignoring the disapproving look from Shiro conjured by the last part of his statement. “It looks like he… might have taken the suggestion?”

“We ran into one another in the kitchen,” Shiro replies. “He was pretty upset and was struggling to make her food, so I offered to take her until he could calm down. He didn’t seem happy about it, but agreed to one hour.”

Offered, Lance knows from Shiro’s tone, translates to ordered. Keith wouldn’t give up that easily, but he also wouldn’t defy a direct order from Shiro.

Maybe that was their wrong turn on the bridge. While Keith had an independence complex a lightyear wide, he did trust Shiro. He supposed it made sense that he might be the only person aside from Lance he’d even consider relinquishing Cassia to. 

He’s tempted to ask for Cassia himself, he’s not above hypocrisy. However, he’s still feeling exhausted and strung out between… well, everything , and he knows Shiro wouldn’t be buying what he’s selling, no matter how normal he tries to act. Plus, if he’s really going to go confront a pissed off Keith, he doesn’t want Cassia around for it.

No, best avoid a direct order for himself, too. Lance thanks Shiro, gives Cassia a quick kiss on the forehead as a promise he’d be back soon, and gets the hell out of dodge before Shiro can tell him to leave Keith alone.

‘Looking’, as though he’s not already sure he knows where to find him. Within minutes, he’s staring down the training deck doors.

The instant sound of clashing metal pouring forth immediately confirms his suspicions as the doors slide open, and sure enough, Keith is stripped down to his shirt and pants, backed into one of the corners and fighting against two gladiators at once. His bayard is in sword form, slashing and parrying with reckless abandon. Keith usually fought with a sort of raw, fiery style, but this… this approached something wild and unchecked, like a caged predator.

This stubborn asshole. Shiro’s order must’ve had some loopholes.

“End simulation,” Lance commands louder than necessary. He marches straight for Keith, who pitches forward and stumbles as his swing unexpectedly meets empty air.

“What the fuck?!” Keith hisses, swiveling on his heel to fixate all that unbridled energy directly onto Lance. Lance nearly chokes in surprise when he can’t only see it burning in Keith’s narrowed eyes and aggressive stance, he now feels it in the back of his mind, too, through the paladin bond. 

This happened sometimes when one of the paladins became particularly taken with an emotion; the first instance had been during the mind-bonding exercises, when Pidge had struggled to connect and instead gave intrusive flashes of longing for Matt. Allura had explained this was a critical part of their connectivity while piloting Voltron, it was a protective mechanism. If one team member was vulnerable– emotionally, physically, mentally– it made all of Voltron vulnerable. The bond helped them both know when a team member needed assistance in battle, and allowed them to compensate. This covered off one of the weapon’s greatest weaknesses, and permitted for real-time adjustment should someone become compromised. She had explained the bond simply doesn’t always differentiate between distress on the battlefield and distress in life; occasionally other things would bleed through. 

While they had, a few times, he’d never felt it quite as viscerally as this. The rare examples had been when Pidge had been particularly hopeless about their family, Shiro had a bad flashback during a fight, or Hunk’s usual nerves teetered toward true panic, but it was more of an observed fact, something he understood from the outside. It was an emotion that, on some level, the affected paladin sought comfort or help for, considering the bond seemed to generally permit for privacy on plenty of other feelings and thoughts. Lance, personally, rather liked the connection– it helped them better understand one another, to know when to provide support to each other when it was needed, to stay away when someone wanted to be alone. Hunk had told him once he’d felt it in Lance too on an evening he’d been feeling extraordinarily homesick, and had arrived at his side in the observatory with just the right amount of hugs and triple chocolate brownies. 

Keith was the most measured of the five, and only rarely did they get anything from him. When they did, it was only flighty glimpses before the connection snapped shut again, leaving Lance second-guessing whether he’d felt anything at all.

This was something different entirely. This seared through the walls of their connection and caught at the back of his mind like a wildfire, making Lance a participant rather than an observer. It flows through him like a venom, propelled further and further with every beat of his heart. He expects the anger– and that’s there, for sure– but it’s tangled up in a hurricane of other emotions too that move too quickly to fully parse out. Something about it feels familiar, too, but he can’t place it. The other emotions clamoring for his attention are too overpowering to give much thought to that particular insight.

His eyes water with the force of it. There’s a rushing sound in his ears, and for a terrifying moment, the training deck tilts around him.

Then it evaporates. The usual expanse between himself and Keith returns. It is only him again, and the sudden absence feels like missing a step at the bottom of the stairs in the dark. 

Panting, he blinks away the tears, refocusing on Keith. His bayard has dematerialized; he’s tight-lipped and wide-eyed while watching Lance, cheeks still flushed from exertion. 

“What– what the fuck was that?” Lance gasps, straightening himself cautiously. He’s afraid that only a couple hours after the healing pod he’s still a fall risk, but the room is no longer spinning and his feet feel sturdy beneath him. Safe for now.

Keith ignores the question. “What are you doing up here?”

“What are you doing not resting?”

“I don’t need to rest,” Keith growls, “I’m fine.”

“Are you?!” Lance snaps, taking a few tentative steps closer. “I understand you didn’t get hurt, but you worked an insane mission on no sleep, then came back to the Castle where I have it on good authority you still got no sleep. If the Galra attack us–”

“Then I need to be prepared!” Keith barks, visibly frustrated. “Then I need to be able to fight! You should understand, I didn’t protect you well enough and you almost died!”

“It wasn’t your fault, we were overwhelmed.”

“You think we’re not going to be overwhelmed when they come for Cassia? We’re always being overwhelmed!” Keith hisses back. His fingers twitch at his side, like he wants his bayard resting against his palm again. 

Lance feels the color drain from his face. “You think they’re coming for Cassia?” As though he hadn’t been considering it himself. That they all hadn't been.

“Maybe! I don’t know! We never know what they want, but I sure did a great job tipping them off.”

“That wasn’t your–”

“Stop saying that! Yes it was!”

Gone are the cool reassurances about the situation that Keith had offered him on the floor of the med bay, here all of Keith’s true fears and failures are finally laid bare.

“I was too reckless while flying back,” Keith continues, starting to gesture with his hands and pace the remaining space between them. “I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve tried to jam the signals again.”

“If you’d taken the time to do that, I might not have been okay. You did what you had to do.”

“Then I should’ve found a way to charge Red up faster! I should’ve taken better care of you! I should’ve done more training before all of this with–”

“Keith!” Lance cuts him off desperately, stepping out into his path. He reaches out and presses against Keith’s chest when he tries to take a step past him, forcing him to pause. It’s risky, Lance is going to have to hope he still looks enough like crap that Keith won’t deck him for it. “ Stop. It’s not your fault. None of that is your fault. You’re not a machine.”

“Aren’t I?”

Keith meets his eyes, surprising him. Lance doesn’t need the paladin bond to see the pain there, old and rooted into every inch of his being. Underneath his palm he can feel Keith’s heart pounding against his ribs, hummingbird quick.

“I have always been someone’s weapon.” He stares Lance down as he says it, almost daring him to back down. “And when I wasn’t, I meant nothing.”

“That’s not true,” Lance whispers shakily, pinned in place by Keith’s intense gaze.

“Isn’t it?” Keith challenges. “I was left a knife by my mother. Who does that? And one she must have known would lead to the Blades, who want to train me into one of them. The Garrison wanted to make me their best soldier, and kicked me out when I wasn’t malleable enough. As a paladin, I’m valuable because I’m a part of Voltron. The red lion chooses the hotheaded fighter, the first to take orders from the black paladin, right? Hell, even in the foster homes–”

Keith stops himself, and another piece of Lance’s map to Keith falls into place.

To hear him talk that way… He can’t even get his head around it. For Keith to view himself as nothing more than a tool to serve someone else’s agenda both makes Lance want to weep and go fuck up every single person in Keith’s life who made him feel like it was crime to think, to feel, to want.  

Lance briefly removes his hand, grabbing Keith’s wrist to raise his hand to his own chest now, pressing Keith’s palm against the steady beat he'd just been feeling there under his thin, black t-shirt. Lance rests his own hand over it, tanned fingers splayed in the gaps between Keith’s pale ones.

“You are not a machine,” Lance repeats, firmer this time. “And you are not a weapon. You’ve got a heart that beats like the rest of us. You’re stuck with being a person, for better or for worse, with all the imperfection and emotionally fucked up stuff that comes with it. Before you’re a paladin, or a blade, or a cadet, you’re Keith, who nobody is mad at for not being a superhuman, and who is allowed to need stuff. Okay?” 

Keith’s jaw works. He doesn’t seem to know what to say, and when his mouth finally opens, he only emits a small, cracked, “Okay.”

“Good. So you’re going to go get some sleep.”

“I don’t need–” Keith begins to protest again. Old habits die hard.

He shifts his hand to close around Keith’s wrist, stepping backward and pulling him toward the training deck doors. “Yes, you do. If not for you– and dude, you really need it, you look like death, no offense– then do it because we need all your mulleted brain cells firing at full cylinders to figure out how to get Cassia home before the Galra intercept us again.”

Keith pouts, but doesn’t seem to be able to argue with that. That, and he looks ready to drop at any moment, Lance can’t believe he’s been putting up a fight against sleep for as long as he has. Sleep must sound heavenly. He tugs again, and Keith follows him, maintaining his scowl.

Lance doesn’t want to let go of his wrist. However, he decides he’s already pushing his luck with Keith today, so he does so once they’re free of the training center, casting Keith a look that says, don’t make me regret trusting you. Thankfully, Keith doesn’t turn and run.

When they reach Keith’s quarters, they both pause outside of the door.

Lance wants to follow him in so badly. He wants to curl up in bed next to him, press his chest against Keith’s back, inhale the warm smell of him that kept him together back on Arcella. He wants to repeat to him what he said on the training deck, whisper it into his skin to banish the pain. He wants Keith’s lips on his again, wants to know what happens when they aren’t interrupted. He wants to know what it would be like to look up at a Keith that’s as breathless and pink as he was on the training deck, but because of him.

Swallowing, he realizes he needs to put those thoughts away before this becomes a real problem. Lance can deconstruct wherever that was going in the privacy of his own room. 

“Well. Sweet dreams,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

For a moment, they continue to stare at each other. 

He knows this would be the time to apologize for the kiss, blame it on being out of it from the pod or something, but the words won’t come. Keith looks like he might say something too, probably to chew Lance out for doing something stupid like that, then clamps his jaw and gives a weird, tight nod. No goodnight, he just slips through the doors to his room.

There’s the soft click and beep of the lock being activated behind him, leaving Lance alone with his regrets. 

As he shuffles back to his room and flops down into his own bed, his thoughts keep turning back to the training deck. If Keith let him in, let him peer into his feelings like that, then there was some part of him that had wanted Lance to see it, right?

Maybe it was purposeful. It sure as hell had disarmed Lance, who minutes earlier was vowing to knock sense into him. 

That doesn’t feel right, though. Keith never weaponized emotions in the first place, and even if he had wanted to exploit the bond, why wouldn’t Lance have been looking through the glass at whatever he wanted to show him, like it normally happened? And why show Lance, of all people, that kind of bone-deep rage and hurt in the first place? For what gain?

Lance twists so he’s on his stomach, pressing his face into his pillow. For a long moment, he lays there and contemplates, then, with a sharp breath, pushes himself onto his elbows. Wait– he knows where he recognizes the feeling of Keith’s internal storm from.

It’s the same raw, wild power he feels from Red. It’s the same as the connection he’d felt more acutely on the mission to Arcella, the one that had helped comfort him on the way home when Blue couldn’t. He can’t explain why they’re the same, when one was so soothing and the other so painful, but he knows they are.

Already, he’d mentally attributed the recent increased connection to Red to becoming a better paladin– it’s not like they didn’t discover new things all the time as they grew. Now that he thought about it, though, he hadn’t felt any more aware of the other lions or paladins. It didn’t seem related to them at all.

No. It’s because he’s becoming more attached to Keith.

He groans and buries his face in his pillow. He can’t deny it anymore: he likes Keith. More than he’d been willing to admit to. And maybe there had been a part of Keith, even subconsciously, reaching back.

Probably not anymore, he thinks to himself miserably. He can’t prove it, but he just knows he went and fucked the whole thing up with the kiss.

Cosmically, hopelessly, mortifyingly stupid.

Chapter Text

“Keith…”

Keith’s teeth graze over the pulse point on his neck, drawing an unbidden, soft moan from the back of Lance’s throat. From here, through half-lidded lashes, he can see every one of the muscles in Keith’s back move under his skin as he works at Lance’s neck. 

Fresh hickeys in a disorderly line down his throat sting against the cool air as Keith reaches his collarbone. Lance twists his fingers into his mane of dark hair, and Keith’s head tilts away sideways from Lance’s flushed skin to grin up at him, bangs falling into his glimmering eyes.

It’s dazzling. It’s sinister. It’s the look he gets when he knows he’s about to deliver the final blow in some arbitrary challenge against Lance, and he’s going to look good doing it.

“This’ll be our secret,” Keith whispers.

Lance’s fingers chase his hair as Keith drops his mouth down to his stomach, his hips, his–

Lance sits bolt upright in bed. In his chest, his heart flutters in rapid staccato, and he feels very, very hot. 

He shoves the covers off and checks the time– 6:01. An hour until handoff, twenty-nine until his alarm goes off.

Even twenty-nine minutes feels like a catastrophic loss in sleep right now.

He drops his head into his hands, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. It’s been five days since Lance woke up, five days since the kiss. Though neither Keith nor Lance have addressed what happened in real life, Lance’s brain is certainly not adhering to the same code of silence. Keith seems to want to forget it; meanwhile, the kiss and his runaway imagination occupy both Lance’s waking and sleeping thoughts. 

Better than the nightmares, he supposes, though he’s not exactly ready to qualify sex dreams about Keith under any different category. It sure as hell is making his life difficult, even if they would be the first nightmares he shamefully finds himself hoping for more of. 

Deep breath in, hold, slowly let it out. Don’t think about him. Deep breath in. Seriously, stop it. Hold. You need to get it together. Out.

He’s finally reeling himself back in, wondering if he should reset with a (cold, possibly arctic) shower, when there’s a knock.

Fuck, okay. He’s fortunate the dream ended before things got really interesting, because a couple mornings ago, the shower had not been optional before interacting with anyone.

Rolling out his neck, he slips his feet into his blue lion slippers, stands, and crosses to the door. He can do this. He can act totally, completely normal, no matter who it was.

Of course, the door slides back to reveal Keith. He honestly expected it– nobody else would have reason to bother him at this hour save for some sort of intergalactic emergency, in which case he’d have been summoned with no such niceties via the comms. Doesn’t mean he’s any less of a vision, half his hair tied up out of his face, messy with sleep, the thin t-shirt that clung to his arms in just the right way, and his face is full of… worry? That’s definitely Keith’s worried face. He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek, and his eyebrows are doing that thing where they tilt outwards while still managing to furrow.

“Everything okay?” Lance asks, eyes immediately going to Cassia, whose back is to him in Keith’s arms. Beneath a soft, blue blanket they’d cut down to baby size for her, he can tell she’s curled into a tight ball, like she had been the day she’d been rescued. 

“I don’t know. I think something’s wrong.” There’s an edge of panic to Keith’s voice, and Lance’s body follows the cue with its own flood of concern.

“What? What’s that mean? What’s wrong?”

Keith doesn’t ask to come in, and Lance doesn’t protest, stepping aside as Keith beelines for the bed. “She’s warm, she’s not hungry, she’s acting tired and–”

Cassia finishes his sentence with a tiny, yet impressively forceful, sneeze. Keith gestures, looking wildly back up to Lance like see?

Lance relaxes a little. “So she caught a cold? Babies get that sort of stuff all the time.”

“She’s not a human baby, and it might not be a cold. It might be something else entirely. From a planet she has no immune system for.”

Touché. Lance considers the possibilities with a small frown. He’s unable to keep himself away from the worst-case-scenarios either, it’s unavoidable; however, Keith looks well and truly freaked out, there’s no point in Lance losing his cool too. Keith held it together all the time for him, so he figures it’s now his turn to return the favor.

“Let me see her,” he says, pushing his bed’s comforter out of his way to sit down next to Keith. Their thighs press together as the mattress sinks to accommodate him, which is very difficult to ignore with the lingering remnants of the dream, but Lance is a survivor.

Keith gingerly peels back the blanket. Cassia blinks up at him drowsily with glassy eyes, sucking on her fingers. Lance had the intention of holding her, but she looks so comfortable there, snuggled against Keith’s shirt, he can’t bear to do it. Sure enough, her nose is running, and when he brushes her dark hair away from her eyes (had it grown? It really seemed like it had grown), her skin is warmer than usual. He’s not exactly sure what a normal temperature for her is supposed to be, but usually she felt slightly cooler than expected to his human hands– it’s cause for concern. 

“My poor solecita,” Lance coos, eyebrows cinching together.

“What if she’s dying?” Keith’s voice is so small, he’d have never recognized it as his if he hadn’t just watched the question come from the paladin beside him.

“She’s not dying,” he reassures him quickly, despite having no idea what is or isn’t going on.

“What if–”

“Stop, I’m sure it’s just a cold. Kids get sick all the time, when my nephew was little I swear he was down every other week for like, three years. If it’s how we get immune systems, it’s probably how she does too, right?”

Keith looks unconvinced. His eyes flick down to Cassia. Lance has seen him face down entire Galra fleets, unthinkable alien monsters, and freaky evil space witches. Any fear he’d seen in him then pales to this.

Lance does what he’d do for anyone. He wraps an arm around Keith’s shoulders, gives him a squeeze. It doesn’t matter that Lance feels his own worry spiraling out now too, what matters is he keeps it together for all three of them until they have answers. “Keith, hey. She’ll be okay. Let’s get Coran and head up to the medbay, okay?”

Keith nods. Lance tucks Cassia’s blanket back into place, drops his arm from around Keith, and stands, holding out his hand to help him up too. Not because he wants the extra touch or anything.

Keith takes it, gets to his feet, then returns to protectively wrapping both arms around Cassia.

“Hey, Coran?” Lance calls to the comm system. “Meet us up in medbay. It’s important.”

* * *

They learn a few things that morning.

First, the common cold in some form actually is just as common throughout the universe, comparable variants are found in thousands of star systems. Coran has a story about that.

Second, Cassia would appear to have some form of it, and while they would need some time to give it a proper identification, she appears plenty capable of fighting it off. Coran shares a story about intergalactic virus taxonomy while they’re at it.

Third, Alteans had eradicated their version of the cold. Unfortunately, they had not eradicated the ones from other planets, and any known cures had died with Altea. Coran is halfway through how his great Uncle’s cousin’s wife’s ship mechanic was instrumental in the cure’s development, when Keith finally snaps.

“Can you help her or not?!” 

Coran and Lance both blink at Keith’s outburst, he's a bizarre clash of bared teeth and armful of sleepy, purple baby dressed in PJs with little clouds on them. 

“Sorry,” Keith bites out, seeming to realize his response is outsized and pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Sorry. I just– want to help her feel better as fast as possible, okay?”

“Of course,” Coran says brightly. They’re lucky Coran is as forgiving as he is, he thinks– then remembers in Coran’s experience of time, he’d recently just finished seeing Allura through her teenage years. He imagines that had been no small undertaking. Lance wonders if he’d be able to reach his infinite level of patience by the time he has a teenager.

No– if. If he ever has a teenager, he corrects himself internally.

Coran gives her something that he promises will alleviate the worst symptoms soon, and they agree to check in on her again after dinner to see how she does. In the meantime, it’s not so different as with humans– they’re to help her rest, get fluids, and try to keep her from feeling too miserable. 

He hands Keith a small rubbery funnel with a big bulb on the end. Keith holds it up in puzzled appraisal, frowning. Lance grins like his birthday came early. Oh, he remembers this tool from when his niece and nephew were born. Apparently the Alteans hadn’t improved much on this particular invention.

“What’s this?” Keith asks, brow furrowed.

“Snot sucker,” Lance supplies, delighted.

Keith’s nose crinkles. “You’re kidding.”

“‘Fraid not. What, you too delicate for that?” Lance taunts. He’s not feeling particularly fond of this impending task either, but dragging Keith down with him lifts his spirits. 

Keith glares daggers at him. “I think I’ll manage.”

Cassia sneezes, then heaves out a high-pitched sigh.

“She’s agreeing with me,” Lance declares, gathering up what Coran has given them.

“She is not!”

“Yes she is! You tell him, Cassia.”

Coran gives them both a strange look that Lance can’t interpret, shakes his head, and mumbles something about his waning sanity before walking out.

* * *

They mutually agree this is best to tackle together. 

The last few days, they’d worked out a system that was to Shiro’s satisfaction of passing Cassia back and forth to ensure the both of them got enough rest, with a couple of hours cut out for her to go with Coran so they didn’t miss any more training. 

While Lance’s sleep schedule is significantly more regulated, and he can tell that both his and Keith’s bodies are much, much better off for this arrangement, he still resents some aspects of it.

Namely, it means that the only time he gets to see Keith is during training hours and sometimes meals. Time not with Cassia (and some with) is dedicated to helping Pidge do research on a rapidly draining pool of leads.

It hasn’t left much room for discussion about the incident. The only time they’ve been alone has been during Cassia handoffs, during which Keith had been stiff and awkward, and Lance uncharacteristically standoffish. Any conversation was kept strictly business– Voltron or Cassia.

He’s oddly nervous as they post up in the lounge with several blankets, some probably-terrible Altean movies saved to a holoprojector, and the backpack full of Cassia’s things they’d started passing back and forth. They’ve been chased off of doing any research, the rest of the team insisting Cassia’s care was priority. 

Lance invokes a “nose-goes” for the inaugural snot duty, which he obviously wins. Keith scoffs at his immaturity, but does not argue, surely with something to prove after the “too delicate” comment. Snickering to himself, Lance then goes to help him out anyway. Cassia is stronger than she looks when she feels she’s being wronged.

Lance waits until Keith is settled back on the couch with Cassia, dims the lights, and starts the movie. As he rounds the sunken couch to join them, it opens on what he presumes is an Altean forest, misty and verdant. They have no idea what genre of movie they’d picked out, neither of them can read the Altean title, but at least the ship takes care of audio translation. Though some Altean words struggled to match to English analogs (Lance fondly recalls the “face piano” debacle), it was a huge relief the first time they took up Coran on exploring the movie catalog. Escapism on the ship was hard to come by, and Lance would be miserable if his well-earned rest had to include reading subtitles.

Carefully, Lance settles in beside Keith– not too close, but not too far. He wants to be near enough to keep an eye on Cassia, be in arm’s reach if needed. He also doesn’t trust himself to not bring up the incident if he’s too close to Keith, either. There’s no guide to this, so he tells himself that about two feet’s worth of distance made a sensible “temporary space co-parents being super chill about everything” statement.

He tries to focus on the movie. It’s set somewhere rainy, centering on some young Altean who has moved to a new village. He thinks there might be some supernatural element at play too, a creature that drains quintessence to stay alive, but it’s hard for him to keep up, even with the subtitles– every time Cassia sneezes, makes a sound, or breathes a little too weird, his blood pressure jumps and he’s looking over at her to check it’s not a sign of her imminent doom. Just a cold, he keeps reminding himself, but it does nothing to stop his heart from breaking at how exhausted and miserable she looks. They can’t even explain it to her.

“Are you sure you’re still okay holding her?” Lance finally asks, unable to hold it in any longer. He’s touched her in passing, but she seems so content with Keith, he hadn’t wanted to make anything worse. But if Keith was getting tired…

He’s missing her, he realizes. 

“She’s fine here, she’s wanted to be here pretty much non-stop since last night. I think it helps her regulate. The Galra thing, maybe?” 

Coran and Allura had been speculating on that together, something they’d found in research on Galran young about them needing a lot of physical contact in the first year to develop properly. It stood to reason that this was why Keith was more of a natural soothing presence to her than his other counterparts on the ship. It also perhaps helped explain why she’d been permitted to stay with Valka, if Cassia’s well being was being leveraged as a bargaining chip. Lance does his best to mask the envious ache in his chest at its mention, sitting beside the sting of inadequacy. Though he knew it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t part Galra or whatever, he still wished he could be that comfort to Cassia too. 

Lance hums something in vague agreement, and drops his eyes to his lap when Keith turns to look at him. He must catch the retreating flashes of Lance’s expression, because Keith’s voice softens.

“Lance,” he sighs, nudging him with his foot. “It’s nothing you did wrong.”

Why are his eyes burning again? How much had he cried the last couple weeks? “I know,” he croaks out. He thinks he’s going to end it there, but no, it comes spilling out, Keith’s uncorked it. “It’s just not fair, you know? Why can’t she need me like that?”

“She does need you. Just in different ways.”

Lance’s expression crinkles doubtfully.

“I’m serious,” Keith insists. “She– you didn’t see her when you were in the healing pod, okay? She missed you. She was fussy and never stayed asleep for long. It’s part of why I ended up keeping her with me in the medbay. She liked seeing you through the glass in the healing pod when we hung out in there. Seemed to chill her out.”

Okay, while it’s possible Keith is fudging the truth, he can’t help the small quirk at the corner of his lips when picturing Cassia wanting to say hello while he took his magic nap, her little face pressed up to the glass. Still, he shrugs, not knowing what else to say, feeling all too exposed for his honesty.

Keith exhales through his nose, like he’s giving up on something, and Lance feels a hand close around his wrist, not unlike what he’d done to him on the training deck a few short days ago. 

Lance startles– he can count one hand the number of times Keith has initiated touch with him that was non-essential. Sure enough, though, his fingers tighten and pull Lance’s hand toward Cassia, resting his hand against her back. His long fingers nearly cover all of it, the way she’s curled up so tight. 

Cassia’s drowsy eyes open a sliver to glimmering yellow crescent moons, then she gives a sleepy, gummy smile as they droop closed again that makes Lance want to scream , it’s so cute. 

“She adores you. You’re just being a dumbass.”

That does coax a sharp, surprised laugh from Lance. “Wow, thanks.”

“Any time.” Keith has a small, amused smile now too– and God , if Lance doesn’t want to kiss it right off his stupid face.

He has to swallow, hard, and remind himself exactly why he was in this awkward mess in the first place. The way Keith is looking at him, his gray eyes all soft and earnest, is not helping him stay the course.

Lance compromises with his inner demons by scooting a little bit closer. Which is fully about being nearer to Cassia, he tells himself, and isn’t at all related to their shoulders now touching, or how pleasant Keith feels beside him in the always too-cold Castle.

Breathing still heavy from congestion, Cassia dips back into sleep, her lips parting. Lance gently brushes his fingers against the soft curls now twisting into singular ringlets at the nape of her neck, then laughs quietly to himself. 

“Aw, look. She has your mullet.”

“I am going to strap you to one of the pods and launch you into deep space.”

“You would miss me.”

“Not as much as I miss knowing peace.”

"So you would miss me?"

Keith rolls his eyes, but there isn’t a shred of actual irritation in the gesture.

Lance doesn’t move away again, either, and Keith doesn’t make him. His hand stays on Cassia’s back, rubbing little circles around her tiny shoulder blades. He’s not sure if it’ll actually help her condition; however, she seems to find the extra contact soothing, and he’s at a loss to do much else.

Lance struggles to maintain focus. As the main character is now falling for a particularly broody quintessence-sucking love interest, he’s only able to think about how close Keith is, and how he’s not pushing him away. This is probably false hope– Keith is clearly extraordinarily dedicated to Cassia’s well being, and as he said, Lance helps see to that. 

Still, he keeps fixating on the stupid kiss. Keeps wondering what Keith thinks about it. If he thought about it at all, or if he chalked it up to delirium between nearly dying from blood loss on a faraway planet, a high fever scrambling his eggs, and an extended vacation in the healing pod. Even Lance can admit that he didn’t have a lot going for him at the time that screamed “sane”. 

So he works up his courage, eyes fixed on the screen without watching. He should say something. Should… apologize again? But what would that say, exactly? Lance didn’t regret it, if he did regret the circumstances themselves. Maybe he should start blunt, something like “so about what happened,” although he has a heavy feeling that something that straightforward might make Keith bolt.

He’s trying to devise an in-between, when a weight falls onto his shoulder. 

With effort, he suppresses a startle, eyes snapping down to a mop of black, messy hair brushing against his neck. The curve of Keith’s cheekbone is pressed into his shoulder, and his breathing is slow, even. 

He’s asleep. Keith has fucking fallen asleep on him.

For a moment, he’s too stunned to do anything but admire the sight. It doesn’t look particularly comfortable, especially since he’s subconsciously still got a tight grip on Cassia, but he can see Keith’s eyelashes flutter from here, the way his usually taut expression smooths over. 

First order of business: blackmail. Lance slips his phone out of his pocket and snaps a photo, grinning wide for the lens and ensuring it’s incredibly clear that Keith is out like a light cuddled up to him.  He checks twice that it's saved (because he might need it, not because he wanted to revisit it personally, of course) before putting the phone aside.

Lance is thankfully positioned at the corner of the couch, allowing for readjustment. He angles his chest so he’s facing Keith, then leans back against the perpendicular cushions. Very, very carefully, he eases Keith onto his chest, so he can fall sideways into him and get some sleep that won’t break his neck, while keeping poor Cassia upright enough to still breathe easily. Keith still has his arms around her, protective even in his sleep, but she’s now supported mostly by Lance’s chest as he gingerly takes the weight of them both. As she resettles, she makes a small squeaking noise that freezes Lance up, then she roots her face against his ribs and goes still again, her chubby, pink-tinged lavender cheek squishing upward.

It occurs to him belatedly that the normal thing to do probably would’ve been to carefully move Keith off of him. Too late now, right?

Plus, it’s nice. It’s really nice. The weight of Keith on top of him is comforting, and he can’t help that seeing huffy, irritable Keith relaxed and undeniably snuggling with Cassia is… well, it’s everything. It’s adorable, it’s sweet, and, fuck, it’s definitely attractive.

Lance pretends to turn his attention to the holoprojector (though for whose benefit, he isn’t really sure), and tells himself that this could be taken as a totally absent gesture as he cards his fingers through Keith’s hair. You know. If someone walked in, or Keith woke up or… something.

His hair is soft but tangled, its care is a clear afterthought. Lance makes a mental note to introduce him to a conditioner that’s actually correct for him, wonders if he’d tolerate a hair mask without being a total headache about it. Lance makes sure to keep the touches light and innocent, and he’s reminded of the comfort the same touch from Keith had brought him on Arcella. It’s far from the same situation, he knows, but he secretly stokes the hope that it begins to return the favor of everything he owed to Keith, even if on a subconscious level.

He fights his own fatigue, wanting to drink in every precious second of this, but within minutes he feels his eyes begin to grow heavy too. Sleep is normally a fight these days, everything they’ve seen out here in the depths of space returning to haunt him. And yet, now, he slips into it as easily as a warm bath, unable to remember the last time he’s felt this content.

For the first time in months, he rests, for real.

He dreams of the beach again, but this time he’s securely planted in the sand. The waves crash softly against the shore a safe distance away, and he’s leaning back against his hands, face tilted skyward like a sunflower. He feels a cool hand settle over the top of his, and there’s a gentle, content exhale beside him accompanied by the smell of warm cinnamon. Lance doesn’t need to open his eyes to know who it is.

It feels like minutes, but the holoscreen is dark when he wakes with a jolt. Shiro’s voice is crackling through the comms, addressing both Keith and Lance. His arms tighten reflexively over Cassia, who is now fully on his chest. Keith startles too at the noise, and is upright in milliseconds, leaving Lance’s entire left side covered in goosebumps in protest to the loss of his consistent warmth. Keith’s smooth, calm sleeping expression is completely gone now, replaced with acute panic as he fumbles for something at his belt.

“Lance. Keith. I know you’re supposed to be taking the day, but this really can’t wait. We need you down in Pidge’s lab, now.”

Keith is still tense, but he releases the white-knuckled grip from the hilt of his knife, still rooted in its scabbard. “Be right down, Shiro,” he calls back.

Cassia shifts sleepily against his chest, making a soft, groaning sound of protest at the rude awakening, then sneezes. Lance can relate as he blinks sleep away from his eyes, mourning that he wasn’t able to wake up in the same condition as he’d fallen asleep.

However, if Shiro is interrupting them taking a break to care for a sick baby, it must be pretty urgent. Shiro was all about balance, and all that. It fills his stomach with nauseating dread.

“Guess we better get moving?” he mumbles to Keith, sitting up more. Pretending to be interested in Cassia, he watches Keith out of the corner of his eye– had Keith realized what had happened? Did he know that he’d fallen asleep on him? Or was the sudden disruption disorienting enough that he wouldn’t put it together?

Keith appears stiff, but he doesn’t say anything one way or another about it. Instead, he nods in agreement and says, “It better be good news.”

* * *

Lance nearly has a coronary when he sets foot in Green’s hangar and one of the drones from Arcella is laid out on the floor near a workstation. It’s cracked open like a piñata and its insides are wired up to about a dozen different pieces of Pidge’s equipment, most of which Lance doesn’t even have names for. The markings on the casing have lost their golden glow and the cannons are nowhere to be seen, but he still finds his blood running cold at the sight of it. It looks much bigger up close than it had from Blue’s cockpit, about as tall as he is and twice that in length.

“What the hell are we doing with one of those here?! Near her?!” he demands, twisting to put his body between Cassia, who’s settled on his shoulder, and the defense drone. The rest of the Voltron and Allura look up from their semi-circle around Pidge– who is unperturbed by Lance’s outburst, and is staring at a rapidly scrolling data set.

“It’s disabled. I made sure of it. Dismantled all the dangerous parts and left them back on Arcella to rot. It’s not gonna hurt anyone,” Keith says from behind him, reaching out to squeeze Lance’s shoulder reassuringly. Begrudgingly, Lance has to admit that it helps, he feels some of his apprehension melt away at the touch.

“It’s nothing but a hunk of chips and data,” Pidge agrees from their chair, glasses gleaming in the screen’s artificial light. “You should be thanking Keith for thinking to bring it back, this thing is… exceptional.” They shake their head in reverent disbelief. “Come see.”

Lance’s eyes dart anxiously between Cassia, the drone, and his friends. The rest of the team looks expectant– they must have been waiting on him and Keith to arrive for Pidge to share what they’ve found. For now, he chooses trust, but still makes sure to keep himself between Cassia and the drone as they join the pack. 

“I started by digging through the hardware itself, and, well, here’s the thing, it’s not tech we’ve ever encountered before. Neither have Coran or Allura. So we have to assume it’s probably Arcellan, since they developed most of their technology well after Altea was destroyed, and we’re pretty good with knowing our Galra tech these days. The thing is… look.”

Pidge adjusts their glasses, then types something rapidly into the keyboard. 

The scrolling code lit up on the screen changes from Altean to another alien language he doesn’t recognize. No– wait, maybe he does? He blinks, thinking he still might be out of it from his unexpectedly pleasant nap, and attempts to refocus.

“Is that–” Allura starts.

“Galran,” Keith confirms grimly from beside him. 

Lance glances over. Keith’s eyes have gone cold. The way his eyes are skimming back and forth over the text, occasionally registering recognition, he must be getting Galran language lessons with the Blade. Lance’s hold tightens instinctively around Cassia.

“Exactly,” Pidge says, picking up steam now. “The first language is consistent with what we found on some of the other parts of the drone, but the programming– it’s been reworked. Or more… Frankensteined, really. Galra code has been grafted into it.”

“Can we read it?” Shiro asks, now leaning in on his arms against the workstation table for a closer look.

Pidge nods. “We know enough Galran coding we were able to reverse engineer some of the Arcellan code language, sort of like a Rosetta stone. This is where it gets weird.”

“It’s not already weird?” Hunk mutters. He’s keeping a healthy distance from the drone too, Lance notes. 

“Check this out.” Pidge presses a key, and a few Arcellan glyphs pop up on the screen, stutter, then scramble as they run through Pidge’s translator.

Wait– he’s seen those same markings before. Glancing back to the dead drone, Lance confirms it: it’s the same as what was lit up in a proud gold while the drone was still whizzing through Arcella’s atmosphere. He’d thought it was decorative, or maybe some sort of symbol representing a group or the planet, but no, it’s letters, spelling out–

He looks back to the screen as the translator finishes, the letters locking into place with finality, like some sort of awful slot machine.

DELION TWO

Lance thinks he might pass out. Or throw up. Or both. He stares at the letters, trying to piece it all together, but his brain feels frozen. Cassia whimpers into his shoulder, sensing the shift in her caregiver’s mood.

“What?” he finally chokes out, pulse rushing in his ears. “That can’t– that’s not right. Can’t be.”

Pidge casts him a sympathetic look. “I think this thing used to be Arcellan. It has highly advanced biosignature recognition algorithms and a complex target locking system. Way better than the Castle’s. And I’d hypothesize that its top speeds in ideal conditions probably even surpass the red lion’s, its design indicates it was built to move . Everything points to it being created to defend the planet against hostile invaders.”

“Like the Galra,” Allura somberly supplies, her eyes narrowed at the screen.

“Like the Galra,” Pidge confirms. “I think the Galra hacked it, or maybe gave it a nasty virus…”

“And they turned it against the people that built it.” It’s Keith, horror darkening his expression. His fingers twitch at his side, Lance knows they’re longing for his bayard. “They twisted it around to wipe out anything with Arcellan DNA. That’s why it attacked Lance, he had brought the Arcellan flower from Xenia Prime. That’s why the planet’s completely dead.”

Annihilated by their own defenses. The drones had terrified Lance from his cockpit of one of the universe’s most powerful weapons. He can’t imagine that sort of hellfire raining down from above, from his home, completely helpless to protect himself or the people he loves. 

Lance has to close his eyes for a second to still the queasiness in his stomach. As though it would do any good to guard her against these difficult truths, he places his hand over the back of Cassia’s head. She’s still too warm as he does this, her breathing is still ragged. All it does is remind him he can’t seem to successfully protect her from anything, even stupid space colds .

Beside him, Keith shifts so he’s pressing his arm against his, like they did in the hallway a lifetime ago. It grounds him long enough to remember what sounds so familiar about this.

“Arcellan mythology,” he blurts, suddenly remembering what he’d been reading in Blue’s cockpit. It had been pushed so far out of his mind with everything that happened, muddled into the painful haze of their mission to Arcella, he’s not sure he’d have recalled it at all on his own. “I was reading about the myth of Delion– the first Delion– he was the defender of the Arcellans when the gods got too competitive and nearly wiped the mortals out. So I guess the Delion Two defense system,” he gestures to the drone at their back, “must’ve been their modern guardian. Meaning Delion Three…”

Shiro’s finishes his thought for him in a low voice, fingers clenched into tight fists where they’re braced against the table. “Is a weapon.”

Chapter Text

Keith won’t stop pacing.

They’re both trying to focus, sprawled out in Lance’s bedroom with tablets, archives, and papers scattered across every inch of workable space. Cassia is asleep next door in Keith’s room, so they’ve rigged up a video display on Lance’s nightstand trained on her bassinet (which Hunk has made a few improvements to, recently, including legs and a mobile featuring five stuffed lions) at all times. Admittedly a necessity– especially as she recovers from her cold and needs the extra sleep that he and Keith can’t exactly always join her for– but it doesn’t keep Lance from feeling antsy and checking the feed constantly.  

It’s been all hands on deck for the last two days. With the new revelation about Delion Three, they now have to sift back through what information they already had gone over to account for projects, blueprints, ships, weapons, really any data that seemed like it could point them in the right direction. On top of that, there’s new information the Blade passed along on records of massive planetary defense technologies that could fit the bill– which is to say, a lot. This is so much worse than when they thought Delion Three was a planet; it now feels like what they’re seeking could be both anything and anywhere.

Consequently, his and Keith’s shift system with Cassia has been abandoned. Neither of them want to be away from her, yet they’re both determined to be a diligent Voltron team member, assisting with the gargantuan research process in any spare moment. They sleep, but only for a couple hours and one at a time, in sync with Cassia’s schedule and needs. Even when granted a rare four consecutive hours, Lance always wakes after a short, fitful burst of rest with anxious knots in his stomach and the unnerving, rushing sound of the open ocean in his ears. Sleep never returns after this point, and he’s left with the dilemma of laying there, being useless yet resting, or using the wakefulness for good. He and Keith don’t talk about it, but he senses it’s the same with him; Keith never lasts longer than two, maybe three hours either before silently rejoining the research efforts, hair unkempt and dark circles under his eyes.

On top of all of that? They still haven’t discussed the incident.

There’s a chewed up pen cap hanging from the corner of his mouth, and a notebook filled with his scribbled notes laid open beside him on the bed. They’re all probably useless, he knows his intelligence pales to the rest of the team’s, but at least Pidge humors him when he delivers a few more papers full of his continued mythology readings. This time, they’ll be getting what’s probably a completely incoherent jumble of information about messianic prophecies in Arcellan canon, including one that would come in the form of “ a burning sun from the furthest reaches of the sky ”– like a literal, actual person-shaped-and-sized sun that also somehow doesn’t roast the Arcellans to a crisp, as far as he can tell from the text. He’s dropped a bunch of bewildered question marks next to that one for Pidge to interpret. The last myth also said a lot of stuff about snail poetry (for which he added a helpful snail doodle), so he thinks the translation might be bugging out like the Altean movies did sometimes. Trouble was, it was now calling into question everything he’d read so far, and it’s not like he can check he’d gotten any of it right. 

If nothing else, hopefully they won’t have to write any poetry with or about snails to get out of this one. Unfortunately, there’s no lion in Voltron that favors poets, so he’s pretty sure they’d be screwed.

Keith pivots, his boot squeaking at a frequency that makes Lance’s skin crawl.

“Stop it, you’re stressing me out,” Lance finally snaps, looking up from his tablet. 

“You’re stressed out anyway,” Keith points out, continuing his pacing. There’s a line creasing his forehead, the one that means he’s thinking hard about something. 

He has a point. “Well, wearing a hole into my floor isn’t going to help anything.”

“Neither are your unhelpful comments,” Keith snarls back.

Ouch. The hurt must cross Lance’s expression, because Keith immediately looks apologetic.

“Fuck. Sorry.” He stops pacing to lean against the wall, then pushes a hand through his hair, shoulders sagging. “I’m sorry. I’m just– thinking.”

His instinct is to make a joke about Keith never thinking, but the pained expression on Keith’s face kills it on his tongue. Whatever Keith’s thinking about, it’s heavy. 

“Okay, yeah,” he says instead, setting his tablet on top of the notebook. “Want to talk through it?”

Keith does lift his chin to regard Lance with a skeptical arch of his eyebrow, probably surprised that Lance hadn’t risen to such a clear opening to insult him. 

Lance sighs. “You know I’m not playing around. Swear it. This is for Cassia, so I’m all ears.” He honestly would be without Cassia, too, but he wasn’t sure Keith yearned for that openness between them in the same way Lance did.

“I can’t stop thinking about why,” Keith says. He holds his hands out to his sides, open, as he says it, like it’s spilling out of him. “Why a weapon? What’s that mean? Weapon against what? And why the hell would Valka want us to bring her baby to it? Like, it’s clearly something the Arcellans are either gathered around or use frequently or… something, but I don’t know. Something about it seems weird. There’s no mention of it, or anything like it, anywhere? At all? Weapons are used against people, right? So wouldn’t people have encountered it?”

“Unless there were no survivors,” Lance points out grimly.

“Yeah. I thought of that. Does it seem likely, though?”

He’s got a point, it doesn’t seem likely that something of an allegedly greater magnitude than Delion Two– which had been terrifyingly advanced and effective– would have absolutely zero ripples out into the universe at large.

“So what do you think?”

Keith shakes his head as he drops it into his hands to rub his temples. “I don’t know. It all makes my head hurt, and I– I wish it wasn’t her trapped in the middle of all of it. She’s just a baby, and if we’re wrong… what if I take her somewhere that isn’t safe? What if she gets hurt because I didn’t try hard enough? Or don’t listen to my gut?”

Lance knows the feeling. He could never, ever forgive himself if they put her in danger, however inadvertently. Pushing himself off the mattress, he crosses the short distance to Keith, who’s fully slumped against the wall now. “Keith,” he says gently, leaning down to try to catch his eyes. “Hey, man, it’s not just you in this, right? It’s us. It’s the rest of the team. You can’t carry this all by yourself.”

Keith shakes his head fervently. “No. No, you don’t get it. You don’t know what happens if we get it wrong and walk away. I’m the one who has to know if it’s not right.”

Lance’s brow furrows in confusion. “What do you mean? We’ll find her somewhere safe, where she can have a home, you know, and–”

“No, Lance, listen ,” Keith cuts him off. “Finding the Arcellans isn’t good enough. Finding just a home isn’t good enough. It has to be the right one, it has to be one that really, actually wants her. We can’t fuck this up, she’s already lost her parents and her planet and been through hell, if we do all this just to put her into another hell, I–” Keith’s voice cracks. His eyes are unfocused, now shimmering more at the edges in the lamplight, and Lance’s own throat tightens at the sight of him clearly reliving something painful.

Lance lets the silence hang, momentarily stunned. He had been so dead set on finding the Arcellans, finding whatever Delion Three was, that he hadn’t given much consideration to what happened after that, exactly. Now that Keith is saying it, he feels naive for not having thought that far. His own life with his family had been so straightforward, easy, full of love. It’s what he’d been picturing for Cassia– once she was back with her kin, she would be complete, right? They had no idea if her father was where Valka had been pointing them to, but he hadn’t been that concerned even if it wasn’t a direct blood connection that they’d find. Cassia was so easy to love, and those were her people– who wouldn’t want her?

Except, Keith had been a human child. Or, mostly human, anyway. From what he’s been able to piece together, plenty of other humans had not wanted him. There had been a lot of people that technically were responsible for him but were not family, and plenty of houses that were not homes. 

His heart breaks– he really thinks he can feel it happen, a splitting, sorrowful pain against his sternum. He wishes he could change it all for Keith, that he could have known the security and love that Lance had in his childhood. The feeling from the training deck is back, more muted this time, less overpowering. He can’t decide if it’s really the bond, or simply him caring so damn deeply for his teammate he thinks he can feel his hurt too.

His arms are around Keith before he can protest, pulling him away from the wall and wrapping tight around him. Lance rests his chin on Keith’s shoulder, squeezing his own eyes shut against his own tears– which he will not let fall. Keith started crying first, so he’s going to comfort him and be the one he can let go with if it’s the last thing he does. And knowing how Keith responds to vulnerability, there’s a non-zero chance of it being his last thing.

Keith freezes for a few seconds, then melts and falls heavily into the hug. He loops his arms around Lance’s waist and clings in a way that makes him wonder the last time Keith was hugged at all– really, actually hugged, not a clap on the shoulder from Shiro, or a surprise group hug from Hunk that Keith levied all his ninja skills to escape from.

“I promise , we will not let her go through what you did.” He feels Keith take a shuddering breath, although he’s making a valiant effort of otherwise not betraying that he’s on the edge of tears. “I’ll move galaxies to make sure she grows up safe and loved. You know that.”

Keith nods numbly, then presses his nose into Lance’s hoodie. “I want final say,” he whispers into his shoulder.

“Final say?” Lance frowns, not sure he understands.

“I mean that even if everyone else thinks a situation is okay for her and I get bad vibes, I get a veto. I’ll just– I’ll just know. I know I will. I know that doesn’t sound fair, but–” Keith swallows thickly, Lance can feel it against his chest. “I have the expertise. I can clear it with Shiro, too, if you want, but everyone knows you’re… you know. Sortof Cassia’s person now. I think you’re the real person the buck stops at when it comes to her.”

He hasn’t thought about that before, but Keith is right. Allura and even Shiro have been deferring to his decisions with Cassia thus far– though he’s sure Shiro wouldn’t hesitate to give contrary orders if Lance tried something he strongly felt was the wrong thing to do. 

Lance nods. “Of course,” he says, turning his face into Keith’s hair. He’s so close, he can smell his shampoo. He’s spinning out with the sudden realization that he’d be an inch from pressing a kiss to the top of his head, it’d be so, so easy. “I trust you. You get the final say.”

He feels Keith relax at the confirmation. “Thank you.” A pause, then, “I just want her to grow up wanted.”

“I know,” Lance murmurs, and he chances rubbing soothing circles into Keith’s upper back with his thumb. Keith doesn’t stop him, or seem otherwise opposed in any way, so he doesn’t stop. “She will be. Promise.”

They’re quiet for a minute, staying like this in the embrace.

“I wish I had been wanted.” Keith’s voice is so small, and he says it from the safety of still being pressed to Lance’s shoulder, where he doesn’t have to look at him while he says it. 

If Lance’s heart was breaking before, it’s being pulverized by this.

“I’m so sorry, Keith.” And he is, God, he is. “You’re wanted now.”

A small, wet sounding laugh, followed with a sniffle, takes Lance by surprise. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever. That’s rich, coming from you.”

Keith’s walls are closing again. Lance wants to shove himself between them, hold them apart for as long as he can. He doesn’t care if he gets crushed trying. 

“Keith.” He pulls back, letting his arms slide over Keith’s shoulders, tight enough to still hold him in place. Gray, watery eyes are shimmering back up at him, and there’s a defiant frown on Keith’s lips that betrays he’s holding the worst of it back. Lance looks him directly in the eyes, emphasizing every syllable of his next sentence, so there’s no mistaking that he means it. “I want you.”

Keith blinks back at him, like he’s expecting Lance to take it back. Admittedly, he does feel the rise of adrenaline in his veins as he realizes what he’s said, his heart stammering unevenly in his chest. The urge to take it back and hide it all behind a bravado and pointed joke claws at his throat. But Lance holds his ground, staring right back.

It’s Keith who leans in.

Keith’s lips are soft against his and his fingers ball into fists at the back of Lance’s hoodie, tightening the fabric around his arms. Lance can’t resist– he turns his head into it, and threads one hand into Keith’s silky, gorgeous hair, pulling him closer in. 

Like before, Keith is quick to respond with his own eagerness, and he supposes it makes sense– there is nothing in this universe that Keith Kogane does halfway, kissing is no exception. He’s pressing tighter against him, and though he’s not that much shorter, Lance is still smugly satisfied to feel him stand on his toes to lean more weight upwards into the kiss.

Lance rises to the enthusiasm, pushing Keith back against the wall, crowding his body up to his and parting his lips, letting his tongue dart into Keith’s mouth. He expects a power struggle for putting Keith in the compromising position, but Keith lets him, grappling for purchase at Lance’s back. Lance’s free hand drops to settle against Keith’s hipbone, the other moves to brush his thumb over his cheek, then goes to the nape of his neck to twist his fingers into the long hair there, just enough to meet some resistance.

Lance balls his hand into a fist, pulling his hair taut, and he gets rewarded with Keith’s wide open mouth, their teeth clacking together. Keith moans in the back of his throat, low and wanting, pushing their bodies flush. 

The sound sends heat rushing low in his stomach, and he grins into the kiss– oh, Keith likes that. He really likes that.

Every part of his brain that had been on-task is now completely shut down, replaced with flooding every one of his senses with Keith– the feeling of his sharp hip bone under the pads of his fingers, the taste of his tongue darting into his mouth, the absolutely indecent sounds of increasingly desperate kisses and breathy whines. Lance wants to take him apart, inch by inch, chart every little thing that makes Keith writhe beneath him.

Lance pulls away for a moment, just long enough to catch his breath and admire Keith like this– panting, lips swollen, eyes dark and half-lidded. He’s struck by how much better this is than in his dreams, how his imagination hadn’t been able to supply exactly what his soft skin felt like against his, or how he could feel the sounds he made vibrate in his throat, or how–

His back hits the wall. Keith has taken advantage of Lance’s vulnerable moment, twisted them around, and has him pinned to the wall by the wrists just above his head. Keith smirks when Lance lets out a surprised gasp, and God , it’s hot. 

“You’re going soft,” Keith informs him, voice barely above a growl as he leans in, lips so close to his neck he can feel his warm breath brushing just under his jaw.

“Oh, trust me, nothing about this is making me soft,” Lance huffs out weakly, while tilting his head to bare more of the thin skin on his neck. This is true– his jeans are getting uncomfortably tight.

Keith fixes him with an intense gaze. There’s still the ghost of the coy smile tugging at the corner of his lips, but Lance knows this look means that the gears are turning in his head, and it’s something important, something he’s been thinking about for a while. In the back of his mind Lance definitely feels something– something that he knows isn’t his, for sure this time. It’s warm and inquisitive, reaching hesitantly through the bond. He tries to open his mind to it, to pour his own affection and arousal back through. 

“Lance, I–”

A sharp cry blares through the video feed to Keith’s room.

The feeling is gone instantaneously, leaving Lance once more with the feeling of absence. Exasperated, Lance drops his head back against the wall with a defeated thunk. Of course. Of fucking course.

Keith sags too, his eyes sliding over to the video stream of Cassia. Lance knows what he’s checking for, he’s thinking the same things– maybe it’ll stop, maybe it’s just a noise she made in her sleep, maybe she’ll roll over and drift back off.

To their dismay, it intensifies. She’s awake and definitely in need of a change, maybe a bottle, but mostly to soothe. 

(Weird. He’s not sure when he started being able to tell her cries apart.)

Keith looks back to Lance, and they both know the moment is gone. Greater responsibilities summon them. With an agitated sigh, Keith releases his grip and steps back. Lance manages to catch one of Keith’s wrists on the way down, demanding his attention one last time before it returns to Cassia. 

“This isn’t over,” he says, in part a promise, in part a plea. I don’t want this to be ignored. Please don’t run away.

He expects him to scowl and bolt. Instead, he’s pleasantly surprised with a shy smile, like he’s embarrassed to have been caught redhanded with having desires.

“I sure hope not.”

* * *

They power through a couple more hours of research, taking turns keeping an eye on Cassia and reading. She plays with (or rather, enthusiastically chews on) some toys they’d picked up on Xenia Prime, which they’ve sprinkled across her blue blanket spread out on the floor. When it’s Lance’s turn for baby entertainment, he reads his notes out loud to her. Partly to commit more of it to memory, after being so frustrated with himself for forgetting about what he’d read on the way to Arcella, and partly because she carries on the conversation back in her own little language, which is quite entertaining. She seems interested in sitting up the last couple of days, so he practices this with her too, propping her up against his lap and testing her independent balance here and there. Occasionally she sneezes or coughs pathetically, to which Keith and Lance always both offer their heartfelt blessings and sympathetic sounds, even if Cassia seems to be feeling much better and otherwise unbothered. 

This isn’t so different from what they’d been doing before they kissed for the second time, but it feels different. Keith stays close, even when they’re doing completely different tasks. Their touches linger when they pass off a book or a toy. Lance looks up from his notebook a few times with the hair on the back of his neck prickling to find Keith’s eyes on him, before he gives a quick, sheepish smile and drops his gaze.

He’s not sure he’s ever thought of “Keith” and “sheepish” in the same sentence before. Lance is a little proud he’s able to bring that out in him.

His eyes begin to itch as he’s feeding Cassia while propped up against the wall behind his bed. Keith is sprawled out on the floor with his own notes and data, and glances up in time to catch Lance stifling a yawn. 

“Take her to my room,” Keith offers, nodding to the door. “You can sleep in my bed.”

This nearly shocks Lance awake again. (Nearly. He’s exhausted.) He gives Keith an open-mouthed stare, drawing out a dry, amused laugh from Keith. 

“Don’t look at me like that. All of Cassia’s stuff is in there. I want to keep researching, and all our stuff is in here. It just makes sense.” Keith says this all neutrally, like they’re blandly discussing the week's grocery list. Like he didn’t just suggest Lance sleep in his fucking bed.

“You’re… sure? It won’t bother you or something?”

“I mean, are you planning on touching my stuff?”

“...No?”

“Good. Don’t fucking touch my stuff.”

Lance doesn’t bother to suppress his eye roll, and tries to shimmy toward the edge of the mattress in a way that disturbs Cassia as little as possible. “Rearrange your bedroom. Copy that.”

Keith flashes an irritated glare up at him, chin propped up on his hand. His hair has been pulled back into a ponytail, loose bangs falling sideways into his eyes. There’s a pencil tucked behind his ear on the side facing away from Lance that he hadn’t noticed before, and something about the look makes his stomach do a weird, fluttery somersault. “Don’t make me revoke the offer,” he threatens.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything that bothers you,” Lance responds with a lopsided grin. He then adds, more seriously, “Come kick me out when you’re ready to sleep, okay? Don’t get us in trouble again with Shiro, you need to get at least a few hours.”

Keith frowns, not looking particularly happy with this. “I know.”

“Good.” Lance stands, pauses, then before he can talk himself out of it, stoops down to press a quick kiss to Keith’s cheek. His face burns as he straightens, he’s fighting the urge to crack a joke about it, but he wants Keith to know he’s serious. “Night, Keith.”

Keith is bright red, but manages to mumble back in the direction of the notebooks, “Night, Lance.” A pause, quieter now, “Night, Cassia.

Lance answers with a small smile, and waves Cassia’s short, floppy arm on her behalf in farewell to Keith.

He makes the short trip next door to Keith’s room, and when the doors slide open, he hesitates for a moment in the threshold. 

He’s been in Keith’s room before. A couple times for short conversations, and more recently for baby handoffs, both usually held hovering near the door frame. It had always been business; entering this time, alone, felt far more personal. 

He takes a tentative step in and looks around as the lights come on in the nighttime mode they’d set for Cassia, just enough for him to see around. Cassia’s still happily eating, but he finds himself rocking her side to side anyway to ease the feeling of being somewhere he shouldn’t.

As it turns out, Keith doesn’t have any stuff to touch, which is pretty annoying– he's been considering moving all of his things a few inches, just enough to bother him, not enough he could prove Lance did anything. He hasn’t fully set foot in here in several months, and it doesn’t look an ounce more lived in than it had back then. Before, he’d attributed it to having only been on the ship a short period of time combined with the denial they all had gone through about this being a long-term stay. Now? Keith has no excuses.

The bed is pristinely made, corners tucked in as perfectly as they required for inspection at the Garrison. His boots are placed neatly, side by side, at the foot of the bed. A door leads off to a bathroom that he’s sure is identical to his own in layout, except infinitely less cluttered. Surely he has some personal items he keeps somewhere, but Lance is hard pressed to find a shred of evidence for any.

Lance shakes his head. Was the sad son of a bitch allergic to personality? The only items in the room that indicate anything interesting are Cassia’s bassinet and some of her things organized nearby. And, he notices as he sits down on the side of the bed to finish Cassia’s feeding, a single object placed on Keith’s nightstand.

A glass, taken from the kitchen, and the red and white carnation-like flower he’d given him on Xenia Prime. 

He’s shocked Keith kept it. Lance had completely forgotten about it, honestly, it had been a passing gesture to punctuate a lighthearted joke. It’s well cared for, he notices– there are no evaporation lines in the cup, and the water is clear; it must have been changed out regularly. The petals are beginning to brown and wilt at the edges, like the ones in his own room are, an ever-present reminder that the time with their own little Arcellan is fleeting.

Saddened, he turns his attention back to Cassia, swinging his socked feet up onto the bed and leaning back against Keith’s headboard, cradling her tiny body a little closer. She’s fighting sleep, her eyelids drooping as she drowsily looks back at him. In the dim lighting, her eyes are closer to an amber than the usual molten gold. One small hand latches onto his hoodie, the other is curled up toward her face, resting in a fist beside her soft cheek. Lance smooths back her hair, which has filled in with impressive speed– he wonders if there’s a teensy baby hairbrush around somewhere. Her dark locks hardly need it yet, still delicate and thin, but soon enough the ringlets at the back of her head would be enough to tangle. They should start getting her used to it now. He’s not sure, but he thinks she looks bigger, too, even if it’s only been a couple of weeks. How much more of these tiny milestones of growth would he get to see?

Suddenly, his throat is tight. He’s never slept less, been so consistently grossed out, or more on edge in his life. He should be eager to get her out of their hands, so they return their full attention to courageously defending the universe. But he isn’t. He knows she has to go eventually, and still, no matter how exhausted or scared he is, at the end of each day he finds himself silently pleading, please, not yet, just one more day.  

Lance takes a deep breath in, holds it for a few seconds, and slowly lets it out. He can’t get caught up in this– it’s distracting, and getting her safely home is the top priority. Wherever that ends up being, and at whatever cost to him. How he fared couldn’t matter, and he’d have to find a way to cope with the fallout on the other side.

She’s asleep shortly after she finishes her bottle. Lance doesn’t put her down right away, can’t force his body into doing it. For a long time, he lets himself absorb the moment, commit to memory the way she breathes, what her weight feels like in his arms, the way her eyelashes flutter as she dreams. Though he carries the guilt of responsibility for her mother’s death, he still feels lucky to have shared a piece of her life, however small and insignificant it may be to her in the end. Lance knows it won’t ever be insignificant to him.

It’s not long before his own eyelids feel heavy. He stands and rolls the bassinet over as quietly as he can, flush to the side of Keith’s bed, and gingerly lays Cassia down in it. Lance lays down too, pulls the covers up, then reaches over to rest one hand over Cassia’s chest. He falls asleep to the steady thrum of her little heart against his palm, and the smell of soap and cinnamon on Keith’s pillow.

Chapter Text

They switch off after a few hours. He’s wary of giving up the bed– which must be the same standard issue as his own, but for some reason feels like a cloud– until he gets a good look at Keith, who looks like he’d gone several rounds with the Altean language program and lost. Lance relinquishes his spot quickly, taking pity on the less-rested between them.

When he returns to his room to pick up on the reports Keith was looking at, his eyes catch the flowers on his own bedside table and he thinks of Keith’s, too, wishing there was a way he could make them last forever. Which, short of a miracle, would probably take some pretty crazy science…

With a frown, he walks over to the vase and plucks the remaining orange dahlia free, turning it between his fingers. While he may not be familiar with that caliber of biology, he does know someone who is and will definitely be up at three in the morning.

Pidge is down in Green’s hangar– excuse him, their lab– poring over some dense code in a hybrid of Galran and Arcellan symbols. The Delion Two drone is still disassembled nearby, which Lance gives a wide berth. Scattered around them are several cans of an alien energy drink they’d come across recently and developed a penchant for, and a couple of empty rations bags pilfered from the storage bay as well. Seemed that food goo wasn’t cutting it for a task like this, and Lance sure as fuck wasn’t a narc. They’d replace them at the next outpost.

“These are going to give you a heart attack,” Lance says, picking up one of the empty cans to inspect it. There’s alien writing scrawled onto it in bright pink letters, offset by a cobalt blue and neon green squiggly background. His fingers come away sticky from the can with sugary residue and smelling like something akin to cherries. “There’s got to be at least a ninety-pound weight minimum to be allowed to drink these things.”

Pidge responds with a resounding middle finger. “You better be breaking into my lab to insult my taste with good reason.”

“I did not break in , it’s not breaking in if I can calmly take an elevator and walk through the doors into it.”

“And why’d you bring me flowers?” Pidge notices the dahlia in his hand and eyes it suspiciously. “You know they make me sneeze.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be, like, the nature paladin?” Lance holds it a little further away from them, as though it will help anything.

“Nature chose me, I did not choose nature. Nor did my immune system,” Pidge replies gravely. “I know you’re not asking me out, so what’s it for?”

Obviously he isn’t, but it still feels like an oddly pointed statement. However, figuring that teasing Pidge three times in a row pushes his current favor with them, he moves on quickly. 

“It’s, um. I actually was hoping you’d help me with something. When you have time. If you have time.” This is ridiculous. It had seemed like such a good idea up in his room, a simple ask, but now that he’s here and sees Pidge working tirelessly through intelligence, it feels juvenile.

Pidge’s interest is piqued, though. They lean forward in their chair, one eyebrow quirked. “With flowers? I don’t follow.”

He considers telling them to forget it, but Pidge, sassy as they are, seems genuinely invested. He’d feel worse walking away, and figures he’s come this far; they’d say no if it really was a stupid ask. 

“Okay, it’s for Cassia, she really likes this flower,” he begins, bringing the dahlia in toward his chest to fidget with the stem. “Probably because it’s big and orange and babies don’t have great eyesight, but you know. Makes her happy, one way or another. Wherever it is she goes, I want her to have one. To remind her of time with us, and a thing that says we care and aren’t just forgetting about her, you know? But all I’ve got left is this one, and I don’t know how to do that for her because, well, flowers don’t live forever.”

Pidge is quiet for a few seconds, enough to make Lance think they might burst out laughing and make fun of him. Instead, they tilt their head and look a little misty. 

“Oh, Lance,” Pidge says softly. “That’s… that’s actually really sweet.”

He shrugs one shoulder, unable to meet their eyes.

“Are you hoping to give her more to grow? Clone it? Preserve this one?”

“Uh. Probably the last thing? If we can do that?” He didn’t realize there would be a menu of options. 

“We could try all three, if you’d like,” Pidge insists, growing twitchy with excitement. Their eyes get a faraway look. “Actually, it would be super interesting to try to analyze its DNA structure, compare it to other DNA maps we have on file, maybe there are similarities that we can learn from…”

Lance knows to catch Pidge before they plunge into a topic that he has no hope of following them into. “Sure. I mean, you can do whatever you like, I just want her to be able to keep it. But you probably can’t do the first thing.”

Pidge frowns. “Why?” 

“The alien who gave it to us on Xenia Prime said Arcellan plants are super touchy. Like, they only like certain soil conditions and atmospheres or something? She said she wanted to grow them but couldn’t because she lives in the wrong place, and they hate artificial greenhouses I guess, so– dude, are you okay?”

Pidge has leapt out of their chair and is wildly pushing around some notes, knocking a few cans of their cardiac arrest juice onto the hangar floor with a noisy clatter. “Soil!” they repeat excitedly, ripping open a drawer and rooting around in it, tossing aside anything in their way.

“Uh. Yeah? Soil?”

“Yeah! Soil!” they exclaim again, triumphantly holding up a small glass vial produced from the depths of their desk containing something yellowish-brown. 

Lance has no idea what’s going on. Was energy drink induced psychosis a thing?

“Lance,” Pidge continues, voice high and rushed as they rattle the contents of the vial. They’re grinning from ear to ear and bouncing on their toes, like they can’t get their thoughts out of their mind and into the conversation fast enough. “The soil. The flower and the DNA and the drones–” Pidge then gasps, repeating, “The drones!” and is a blur in the direction of the Delion Two ship. 

“Pidge, slow down!” He can’t keep up– mentally or physically.

Pidge ducks into the drone’s insides. There’s a ruckus of them disconnecting something that sounds like it was intended to be permanent, before they reemerge toting a chunk of Arcellan tech by the nest of wires spitting forth from its body like Perseus carrying Medusa’s head. 

“The flower,” they say again, plucking it out of his hands and very carefully carrying it over to their workstation like it’s made of pure gold. “The flower is the key, it was all along! I kept thinking, if only there was some way we could figure out where the Arcellans might want to go, some way to narrow down an entire universe’s worth of planets…”

With their hip, they nudge some things aside on their workbench, then drop everything into the newly vacant space. Hands now freed, they lean over their keyboard and start to type at lightning speed. 

“Pidge?” Lance prods, standing in an awkward stillness, unsure of what to do with himself. “Still feeling a little in the dark here.”

With a sigh, Pidge adjusts their askew glasses, and spares Lance the inconvenience of fully finishing their line of thinking out loud. “Remember how I told you we did all sorts of different tests when you got back from Arcella? And how one of them was soil sampling?”

Lance nods impatiently; he thinks he vaguely recalls something about that. It hadn’t exactly fallen into his list of priorities at the time.

“Well, I remember the soil composition was pretty unusual, much higher in some elements than we see on most planets. I chalked it up to the planet going dead, or maybe something else Red had encountered out in space that contaminated the sample. I had this feeling that probably wasn’t the whole story, but you know, what did it matter? It’s some dirt. Except now we know that this Arcellan plant grows in a strict environment, that all Arcellan plants do, and if your source is right, they won’t grow in a ship’s artificial environment. Which makes sense if there’s an excess of needed minerals to grow, and of course there would be if the plants evolved to exist on the planet they had, hyper-specific soil compositions and all. We know Arcellans are omnivorous like humans, so their plant foods would have evolved like this too. On top of being in hiding and probably wanting to isolate, I bet it’s hard for them to eat most foods they could trade for anyway.”

He’s beginning to see it. Heart hammering in his chest, he’s nodding along, putting the pieces together. “We tried to change Cassia’s food at the very beginning, when she wouldn’t stop crying, remember? We tried to give her a little bit of the stuff that was made from plants because we knew sometimes human and Altean babies have allergies, it was worth a shot that Galran and Arcellan babies might too, and it was uh. Ugly.” He winces at the memory. He supposes on the bright side, this baptism by fire meant that every diaper change since has seemed like a breeze.

Pidge snaps their fingers and points at Lance, beaming. “Yes! Yes, Arcellan biology would be specifically attuned to the chemical makeup of their planet’s food. We have bad reactions to alien food sometimes too for the same reason, right? So if we can narrow down what planets might have a similar soil composition, maybe we can get ourselves a list of some places to look. And if we know where in the universe to look,” Pidge slaps the top of the piece of the Delion drone they’d excised, “well, we’ve got the best biosignature recognition system on this side of the universe to point at it and see what’s there, once I figure out how to interface with it.”

This could be it. This could really be it. Bright hope blooms in his chest and his skin buzzes with the revelation. 

“We don’t need to find Delion Three,” he grins. “Because we can find the Arcellans that are with it. Pidge you are so fucking brilliant , I can’t even begin to–”

“Shut up, I already know, just help me.” Pidge is already turning back to their computer, typing furiously. 

If Pidge asked him to clean the entire Castle with a toothbrush, he absolutely would right now. “With what?”

Pidge stops typing only to throw an empty can in Lance’s direction without looking. It bounces square off the center of his forehead, sending Lance into a brief identity spiral about being the team’s only sharpshooter. 

“Get me more caffeine and keep me company.”

* * *

Usually, Lance talks his way out of hanging around Pidge while they work, since they usually get sucked into a black hole of focus on things Lance is hopeless to help with, and he’s left staring at the walls in silence. Not that he's requested to be there often.

For this, he does everything in his power to be the perfect assistant, no matter how inane the task. Find the screwdriver? He came back with three, one for every type of screw. Strip these cords? The wires were so naked they should be censored. Grab us a snack? On a silver platter. Well, not really, but he did bring down a whole plate of assorted foods from the kitchen that he knew were Pidge’s favorites, even cracking open the rare jar of real peanut butter (thank you, space mall) for the occasion.

They’re munching on his crappy charcuterie plate when Pidge asks, holding their hand out again for a screwdriver to dig into the insides of the Arcellan tracker system, “What d’you they’ll be like?”

His chewing slows, unsure of how to answer the question.“I don’t know,” he admits, pulling one of his knees up to hug to his chest as he sits sideways in his chair. “Didn’t get to see much of Arcella, what with dying slowly and all, but from what I heard from Keith, it’s all basically dust and rubble right now anyway. Their myths get pretty intense about war and stuff, but so do some of Earth’s, you know? And I wouldn’t say our myths are a perfect representation of Earth by any stretch of the imagination. What I do know is that they didn’t go down without a hell of a fight against the Galra if they made these,” he jerks his head back toward the drone, “so I guess the only thing I do believe is that they’re still kicking out there. Somewhere. Obvious proof of Cassia existing aside.”

Pidge nods thoughtfully, setting aside a screw and starting in on another. “You think her dad is there? Wherever it is the Arcellans are hiding out?” They say it casually, but Lance knows better.

“Maybe,” Lance hums. “I guess for Cassia’s sake, I really hope so.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Pidge’s attention appears singularly locked on the screw they’re extracting. Lance can feel the way their demeanor has shifted, though, if only imperceptibly, and knows immediately their thoughts have turned to their father and brother.

“You’ll find them,” he promises gently.

“I know,” Pidge says. Lance thinks they’re done, then they add on, “It just feels really unfair. Sounds awful, I know. Obviously I’ll do anything we need to get Cassia home, I just… I wish that, for once, I make the save-the-day breakthrough for Matt or Dad.”

There’s a flash through their bond of Pidge’s heartbreak, like a film reel of small, happy memories with their lost family members he can’t fully make out the faces of cast through a filter of longing. It’s different from the recent moments of connection with Keith; he doesn’t feel it, exactly, but is able to glimpse into it with Pidge’s permission. Really, it’s not necessary that he feels it– Lance’s own heart aches for his friend, also missing their family in a sea of endless galaxies. He feels suddenly deeply self-centered for not having considered what this whole thing might be bringing up for them, and for not offering the same kind of energy to Pidge that he had to finding Cassia’s family. 

“I don’t think that’s awful at all. I think you deserve a win, it’s okay to want one,” he reassures them. He reaches over to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, knowing it was surely small comfort, but it’s all he has to give right now. Pidge doesn’t push him away, only blinks up owlishly at him with sad, hazel eyes from their work, hands stilling. “Next time you’re working on finding them, let me know. I take decent notes and I make a great snack plate.”

Pidge doesn’t say anything for a moment, then nods. Lance thinks they aren’t going to say anything at all, then with their voice a little tighter than usual, a small “Wow,” bubbles up from them alongside a small laugh.

“What?” Lance frowns, wondering if he’d said something wrong.

“Cassia really has made you go soft.”

Lance flushes, dropping his hand. “Who the hell’s saying Cassia is making me soft?!”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, loverboy. Pass me the soldering gun.” Pidge is turning back to their task, but they look a little more relaxed. He and Pidge had never been great with feelings talks, so Lance is going to take this as indication he didn’t totally biff it. 

Obediently, he passes over the requested tool, muttering under his breath flustered protestations about going soft.

* * *

They (or really, Pidge, with Lance nodding along and understanding maybe one of every four words) excitedly share their plan at breakfast with the rest of the team. It’s met with enthusiasm from every member of the group, even Keith’s version of it, whose usual morning scowl is replaced with a small upward turn to the corners of his lips. Cassia picks up on the energy too from Keith’s lap, highly distractible from her bottle to return smiles at everyone else around the table as they keep looking in her direction. It pushes a fresh needle of bittersweet pain into Lance’s pincushion heart.

Pidge needs sleep, and Hunk happily volunteers to take over their work after a quick tour of their progress thus far. As soon as they finish their meal, they disappear back in the direction of Pidge’s lab, animatedly discussing the strategies they might be able to use to successfully get the Arcellan tech powered up while they wait for the algorithm they developed to identify a list of target planets to work through the mountains of data being fed into it. Pidge had told him that since Keith had fully drained the drone of all energy before bringing it on board for safety reasons, they’re going to need a few more of the Arcellan flowers to re-activate the biosignature recognition system with Arcellan quintessence– seemed like an Arcellan power source was all it would take. It makes his heart ache to give up more of the wilting flowers, but he understands. The other option is Cassia’s, which is completely off the table. Plus, Pidge had promised him that the dahlia would go untouched.

“We need a plan,” Shiro says once they’re gone, “for what happens next.” His leader-face is on, which snaps Lance to attention over his plate.

“Coran and I will need to see to it that the teludav is in peak condition,” Allura says. “I imagine we’ll be making many jumps until we find what we’re looking for.”

“What about you, princess?” Coran asks. “Making that many jumps could be incredibly detrimental to your health.”

Allura’s shoulders are set and chin is raised in the way that tells Lance her mind is completely made up, she won’t be backing down from giving this her all. “I’ll be fine. This is well worth it.”

Lance can’t help the rush of gratitude. Cassia still represented many things to Allura, and while  she still tended to keep an intentional distance from her, there’s no denying that her well being had become a priority, just as it had for the rest of the team.

“We can try to group as many potential planets into one scan as possible,” Shiro reasons. “We can reduce the strain on you by picking strategic vantage points for observation, and hope we get lucky sooner rather than later.”

Keith then asks, “And what happens when we do find something?” Cassia’s sitting up against him now, finished with her bottle and occupied by chewing clumsily on a spoon. He’s crossed his arms protectively in front of her, over which she contentedly drapes herself.

“We stake it out,” Lance answers. “If it initially looks safe, we go in without her. They don’t get to see her until we know we’re in the right place and she’s in good hands.”

Shiro nods affirmingly, and Lance feels the brief glow of affirmation. “Lance is right. We don’t know anything about the Arcellans, we’ll want to make sure, first and foremost, we aren’t putting anyone here in unnecessary danger. After that, we’ll want to have conversations with them before they’re allowed near Cassia. We should probably have the Castle hang back with her from a safe, observational distance at that stage. We send in two or three of us to investigate, and the rest of the team remains here as her defense.”

“I want to go to the Arcellans,” Lance volunteers quickly. 

“Me too,” Keith says. 

“We aren’t there yet, we can discuss what makes the most sense when–”

“Shiro,” Keith cuts him off, sounding a little desperate. “Please.”

Shiro looks pained, but holds his ground. “I’m sorry. We’ll have to make the decision when we have all of the information.”

“But–”

“Not negotiable, Keith.”

Keith’s nostrils flare and he falls silent, still seething. Lance doesn’t feel much better about it himself, but Shiro’s not going to budge on it right now. He begrudgingly understands why, and judging by the look on Keith’s face, he does too, whether he likes it or not.

“So it’s settled then,” Allura says, standing. “Coran, you and I will spend today evaluating the teludav and making any necessary adjustments in preparation for intensive use. Shiro, please mind the bridge while we’re down there. Keith and Lance, you should continue with your research in your spare time, anything we can know about the Arcellans prior to meeting them might prove useful, however small. And Cassia…” 

Lance’s eyebrows raise in surprise. He isn’t sure he’s heard Allura speak directly to Cassia at all since she’d arrived. A playful smile tugs at the corners of her pink lips, and her blue eyes sparkle like sapphires under the castle’s bright overhead lights. 

“... Do mind the flatware. It’s vintage Altean silver.”

* * *

Though being put back on research duty isn’t exactly Lance’s idea of a good time, he finds himself secretly grateful for the excuse to continue to spend time with Cassia and Keith. There’s the distinct feeling in his gut that they’re now standing on the accelerator and hurtling through the dark toward some sort of answer, and Lance has no idea whether light or a concrete wall awaits them at the end. All he knows is that time is running out too fast. Once the algorithm finishes and Pidge and Hunk push through the major challenges of interfacing with the Arcellan tech, they could begin the search at any time.

One more day, he silently pleads once more to whatever god might listen. He means it, if this is truly it, please, just let him have one last day. Just one more.

He snags Keith’s attention on the way out from breakfast, and tells him to meet him up in the observatory with Cassia in fifteen minutes. If his wish is granted, he wants to make it count.

Lance has it all set up by the time Keith joins them up there. The observatory is a glass dome at the peak of a spiral staircase, reminding Lance of a turret on an Earth castle, the kind they kept fairy tale princesses in. The cosmic field of stars around them is visible on all sides, and the space is filled with comfortable cushions and seating with which to enjoy the majesty of the universe around them. A workstation is also parked in the corner, where he’s sure the more scientific applications of this deck were once better appreciated. 

On an average day, it’s beautiful. He comes here sometimes when he can’t sleep, watching white stars sail by like endless, lazy fireflies. A couple late-night wanderings with Cassia had passed through here, never lasting long– when she was fussy, she wanted him to move, and the space didn’t lend itself much to her preferred pacing. 

He’s glad she’s in a good mood this morning and content with some stillness, because today, it’s extra breathtaking. 

They’re drifting through a part of space packed densely with nebulae and stellar nurseries. It’s impressive as-is, dense and bright clouds of space matter, forging future star systems at their cores. When they become particularly impressive, though, is when Lance changes a setting on the viewing glass. The nebulae explode into a rainbow of color, much closer to the photos he’d see in his science textbooks at the Garrison back on Earth.

It looks like someone has dropped a glowing bath bomb into the cosmos around them, melting the skies into vibrant oranges, deep reds, and bright greens dotted with bright, glimmering clusters of stars. Some appear to take on particular shapes, a faraway pink and white one exploding out in the impression of wings, shades of blue rings in the likeness of an eye, or careening pillars of tightly packed orange stardust haloed in purple.

He’s spread out on the floor with pillows and blankets, staring upward into the technicolor abyss when Keith ascends the stairs, peeking up from the entryway with Cassia on his hip and her diaper backpack-bag slung over his shoulder. Cassia’s chewing on the bill of her platypus as she takes in all the colors around them, reflecting off the molten gold in her eyes. Lance glances over and waves lazily in greeting. Keith misses it entirely– his eyes are fixed on the view, and his jaw has dropped open.

“Nice of you to join the party,” Lance grins, propping himself up on his elbows. 

“How did– what is–” Keith glances back down the stairs, where Lance knows he just passed a couple of windows where it did not look nearly this colorful.

“Pretty cool, right?” Lance is pleased with this reaction; it’s rare he’s the one with genuinely interesting space discoveries to show off.

Keith joins him, unable to drag his eyes away from the nebulae as he does. “How?” he asks again.

“You can change the overlay settings for the dome up here. There’s the same one the bridge has, but it also has star maps, constellations, solar winds, a bunch I don’t understand, and this one. Full light emission spectrum, compressed back into what’s visible to humans. Or, well, Alteans, but it’s pretty much the same. Allura said it helps better parse out what elements are in the baby stars or in planet atmospheres out there, but… I mostly just think it’s kickass. And it reminds me of the stuff we grew up with that made me interested in space as a kid in the first place, you know?”

Keith does tear his eyes away from the view to give him a strange look, then.

“What?” Lance asks, self-conscious.

“Nothing. I guess I… just never really took the time to think about you as a kid.”

Lance thinks about Keith as one all too often, lately, as some of the pieces of Keith’s childhood have been pulled into focus. With a small, sad smile, he knows he can’t reciprocate, so he holds his hands out to Cassia, who leans forward to him, instantly dropping the platypus to the floor like it means nothing to her. Harsh.

“Well, you’re probably saving yourself by not thinking about it too much. I was pretty annoying,” he says, lifting and placing her in front of him on a pillow, where she joyfully kicks and wiggles, happy to see him.

“Was?” Keith hums with so much dryness, Lance can’t help but laugh.

“Keith isn’t being very nice, is he solecita ?” he coos to Cassia, leaning in and letting her grab at his fingers with both hands. She giggles, and Lance lights up. “That’s right! He’s being a dick! Can you say di –”

“Lance!” 

He grins wide with mischief, which Cassia observes carefully, then mimics, eyes squinting as she flashes her mouthful of dark purple gums and–

“Keith.” Lance reaches over urgently to grab Keith’s bicep. Keith acts as though he’s been electrocuted, and immediately he’s pressed attentively to Lance’s side like a magnet.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“No, not wrong, sorry– look.” Lance gives her another big smile, which she again mirrors, turning her face this time to bury it into the pillow bashfully as she does, giving them a full view of a little, tiny tip of a white incisor poking out of her bottom gum. It’s barely there, something he’d definitely have missed if it weren’t for their little game. 

“Oh,” Keith breathes out softly beside him, tilting his head. He reaches out a gentle finger to pull her lip back lightly and get a better look. He does get one, briefly, before Cassia is seizing his hand for her own entertainment. “First tooth. That would explain all the chewing lately.” 

“Guess so,” Lance agrees, momentarily stunned.

It feels like a sacred moment he should have no permission taking part of. It’s a mundane first, in an endless chain of them that Cassia’s life would be filled with– first crawl, first words, first steps– but it doesn’t feel like it should be his to share with her. Her mom should be the one here to cherish and celebrate it.

The warring grief and joy that sweeps over him is overpowering, enough to make his breath hitch. Cassia notices the change and makes a distressed sound, as though to ask, hey, where’d you go? We were playing!

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he chokes out, rearranging his expression into a smile for her, at which she appears to relax. “We’re just so happy for you, big girl! You grew a tooth, all by yourself, you’ll be biting Keith in no time like we practiced–”

He feels Keith’s hand on his shoulder, and at first he braces, thinking he might shove him for the playful comment. Instead it slides across his back, his arm settling in a comfortable, reassuring weight over his shoulders. Lance leans into it, allowing it to soothe him, then shyly drops his head to Keith’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay,” Keith murmurs, turning his head to say it into Lance’s hair. He seems to understand where Lance’s head has gone. “Let’s just focus on having a good day, alright?”

Lance nods, closing his eyes for a moment to re-center himself. Cassia does not know what has happened in the past, she doesn’t know what’s about to happen; his distress is something she can pick up on, but not interpret or reason with. All she has is them, right now, people who will continue to patiently provide her the space and love to grow, until… 

He forces a long breath in, holds it, and slowly lets it out. He’s with Cassia and Keith now, drifting through a beautiful star nursery, with nothing to do but enjoy one another’s presence.

So he tries. He takes it moment to moment, spending the day with Cassia and Keith in their secure little nest afloat in the cradle of creation, trying to not feel the low ache of anticipatory grief deep in his chest. Lance sings to Cassia a nursery rhyme in Spanish about elephants on a spider web (“ That doesn’t even make sense, Lance!” “It’s not supposed to make sense, enjoy the stupid song!” ) that she adores, prompting him to then teach it to Keith, who, bless him, actually tries his best but cannot carry a tune in a bucket. Lucky for Keith, Cassia does not seem to care if nearly every aspect of the song is butchered, and it’s cute that Keith wants to get it right. 

They talk a little while they play with Cassia, though the topics are surface-level. Lance tells himself it’s because it’s supposed to be good to talk around babies, but really, it’s soothing him too. They leave only to bring up meals from the kitchen or take bathroom breaks, and she takes her naps up there, in Lance or Keith’s arms, while they lean back against the cushions, shoulders pressed together, and watch space drift by in silence. 

There’s an attempt at doing more reading, but they get little done, even during quiet times. Neither of them seem to be able to stomach it, not when they can both feel the clock ticking down on their time with Cassia. Besides, Lance has a feeling they were assigned it to make them feel useful while Pidge’s plan is being executed. He’s pretty sure they’re beyond needing leads generated from Arcellan snail poetry or burning sun-people.

The hours tick by, and despite Lance’s desire to stay up here forever, his body’s need for sleep begins to betray him. They can’t deny it any longer when the Castle’s nighttime mode kicks on, and Cassia’s asleep again against Lance.

“We should really get her into her bed.”

“Yeah. I know.” His expression is being held carefully neutral, and Lance knows he’s trying to keep it together underneath that for the both of them. 

Lance turns away under the guise of getting ready to leave the observatory to grant him a moment of privacy. As he’s gathering Cassia’s things and stuffing them into her backpack, a blinding flash of light strobes through the observatory. Lance’s eyes instinctively squint shut and his body curls around Cassia. It’s over almost as quickly, and when Lance’s eyes readjust, the star nursery is gone, replaced by a more regular looking star field with the milky arm of a galaxy spilled across the horizon. A wormhole jump, he realizes belatedly– he’s just used to seeing them from the bridge end of the ship. 

Keith and Lance make eye contact, silent understanding passing between them. Pidge and Hunk must have been successful, and the search for the Arcellans is beginning.

Time’s up.

Chapter Text

On the bridge, Allura is stationed at the teludav, both of her hands grasping the glowing pillars. They hum with energy, Lance can still feel the buzz of quintessence lingering in the bridge’s from the jump, like ozone during a thunderstorm. Lance checks the video feed in his hand (for the tenth time) of Cassia asleep in his room. He feels weird about leaving her, and he can tell Keith does too beside him, now also leaning in to get a look at the feed, but getting an update on the situation is too important to ignore. They tell themselves they’ll be back down there soon, she’ll be none the wiser.

Pidge is talking to Shiro in front of the star map. There are hundreds of lines, dots, and labels on it in a bright yellow-gold now that he’s never seen before; it must be the new data from their algorithm. Hunk is underneath a console near the helm, tongue sticking out between his lips sideways as he connects what Lance identifies as the piece of the Delion Two drone Pidge had so unceremoniously yanked out, now sprouting even more wiry appendages and additional Altean-looking metal grafts. Probably the world’s first piece of technology to be engineered in combination of Arcellan, Galra, Altean, and Human techniques. Lance is no tech genius, but even he knows trying to get that many incompatible, entirely separately evolved technologies to cooperate is nothing short of a miracle. He makes a mental note to be extra nice to saints Pidge and Hunk for pulling this off, forever and ever, amen.

“I saw we jumped, sooo… it worked? Are we a go?” Lance asks by way of announcing their arrival. He joins Shiro and Pidge at the map, projected at the foot of Allura’s elevated post. Keith departs to squat down next to Hunk, offering him an extra hand.

“Yes, thanks to Hunk and Pidge,” Allura says warmly, and Pidge glows bashfully at the praise in the direction of the princess. 

“I only did most of the computer stuff.” They wave their hand as though they’re being praised for reciting the ABCs, not executing a complex data mining operation and converting all of it into a usable alien-detector. “I got us a list of a few hundred known planets that meet Arcellan biological needs within a reasonable margin, then we were able to eliminate any placed squarely in Galra territory– that wouldn’t make any sense if they’re on the run– or that we believe are too far out, because as far as we can tell, they don’t have wormhole tech, and… well, we know one got in close enough proximity to a member of the Blade’s usual operational areas to make Cassia, right? Stands to reason they might be hanging around the same places Blades are. Got us down to seventy-three planets that best fit what we’re looking for. We can always expand the search later if we get nothing.”

In awe of Pidge’s cleverness, Lance can only nod.

“We’ve got a bunch of search points to start with, and we’ll begin with the ones we can do several at once from. Hunk worked almost all the magic with the engineering, though,” Pidge adds, beaming at their friend across the bridge.

“Not feeling very magical right now!” Hunk grunts, roughly shoving a wire deep into the underside of the console. “Everything should be right, but it won’t…” He abandons words and makes his point with a frustrated, strangled noise instead.

“Show me what to do,” Keith says, getting down onto the floor beside him to peer up at the offending connection. “Maybe you just need a new set of eyes, we’re all a little run down.”

For a moment, Lance forgets he’s part of a conversation. It’s so… open of Keith. Perceptive. Kind. It’s not that Keith was ever incapable of any of those things, but it’s something that had always been hard earned in the past, certainly not freely offered. He’s not sure Keith’s even aware of the gravity of this seemingly inconsequential offer of help.

“This is the first stop,” Shiro then says, recapturing Lance’s attention. “We can survey three potential planets from here. We were going to call you two down here shortly,” he tacks on apologetically, “but we wanted to wait until we were completely sure the coordinates returned by Pidge’s code were correct and that we’d be able to get everything working to do the first test run. You both… well, you seemed to be enjoying your time with Cassia, we didn’t want to cut it short if we didn’t have to.”

Normally, he’d be annoyed that he’s been left out of something until it reached need-to-know. Now, though, he’s grateful for being allowed some peace in their little observatory bubble before things escalated. “It’s okay. We know now.”

Shiro nods. “This will likely take quite some–”

Hunk yelps from beneath the console, scrambling wildly away from the workstation in alarm. “What did you do?!”

“I didn’t do anything! All I did was touch it!” Keith exclaims, sounding equally as shocked. 

Something above them on the console beeps cheerfully and lights up in a pleasant blue color. Hunk suspiciously peeks over the edge of the station to confirm. “It’s– working?”

Pidge has joined now, entirely unperturbed by Keith and Hunks apprehension, and is crouching down to get a better look. Lance catches both purple and gold light reflecting off their round glasses. “Huh. Guess it already was activated from the Arcellan flowers’ DNA, the Galra side just needed a kick from Galra DNA too. I never really could fully extract all the Galra code without bricking the whole thing.”

“Seriously?” Lance asks, craning his neck to get a better look for himself, but not wanting to add a fourth body to the already crowded workstation. He’d just get in the way, he’s sure. That, and he’s still not sure he trusts anything that came from that God-forsaken drone.

“I suppose that makes sense,” Allura muses thoughtfully from the helm, now turned toward them as well. “Lots of the technology we know uses species-specific quintessence recognition to operate, at least to some degree. It’s why only Coran and I can operate the Castle’s helm and teludav, why Keith can interface with Galran ships, or why none of us could ever replicate Olkari’s nature infused technology. Even the lions are a highly specialized form of quintessence attunement. Maybe this needs both.”

“I think you’re right.” Pidge taps their chin thoughtfully, eyes bright with the possibilities. “I think that supports my tech virus theory, if Galra coding was able to embed itself that deep and change an Arcellan device on such a fundamental level to alter quintessence recognition…” 

At least they don’t seem concerned, and neither does Hunk, so Lance is going to take that as an indication that their homemade Arcellan-finder isn’t likely to start going Terminator them anytime soon.

Keith is standing and returning to Lance’s side. His expression is held carefully neutral, but Lance can tell by his stiff movements that he’s still a little spooked.

Hunk prods a couple more connections, then punches some bright blue buttons that project over the console with his pointer finger. “Well, whatever it is, it seems to have done the trick. Good work, Galra Keith!”

Keith rolls his eyes beside him and folds his arms. Normal Keith is still plenty present and accounted for, it seems. “Are we testing this or not?” he grumbles.

“Yes, let’s get this show on the road!” Coran seems to materialize out of seemingly nowhere and  claps his hands together from right behind him and Keith, making Lance jump. He breezes past them, then taps a few of his own buttons at the bow of the bridge. “Successfully connected to the Castle’s sensor array. Whenever you’re ready, number five!”

Pidge bounds over to their designated chair, vaulting over the arm as the display blinks awake for them. They rapidly type something in, then press a button at the top right corner with a flourish. The star map displayed at the center shudders momentarily, then zooms in on a pocket of stars and planets. In a way, it reminds Lance of the planetarium shows he’d gone to when he was little, his first taste of what it was like to rocket through space.

“Scanning for complex Arcellan life forms!” Pidge chirps.

Pulse suddenly skyrocketing, he’s not really sure what he should be anticipating. He feels so useless, standing here, reliant on everyone else for the information on Cassia’s fate to be delivered. He’s seized with the urge to grab Keith’s hand next to him, then remembers nobody here knows about them, and shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, lest they betray him.

They wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. One goes red. Another painful minute, then the second. Then the third. With each, Lance feels his heart fall a little further.

“Well, it wasn’t super likely we’d get it right on the first try,” Hunk says when the last planet turns crimson. His smile is pinched and Lance feels for his friend, always trying to keep positive in the situations that grow increasingly depressing and dire around here.

“We try the next one,” says Allura decisively, already stepping back up to the teludav. “Coordinates, please.”

And so they repeat.

After several jumps, Allura’s leaning heavily on the controls and her skin is pallid in the bridge’s bright lights. Every scanned planet thus far has turned red, and they’re almost through their list of coordinates that survey multiple planets at once; fifty-three coordinates remain. And that’s if they don’t have to resort to the, undoubtedly larger, ancillary list. Nobody’s said anything outside of essential communications for the task at hand, including Keith and Lance, who are still side-by-side on the periphery of the action. 

Allura looks drained enough that Lance isn’t sure they’re going to be able to handle more than ten jumps a day, maximum. They aren’t small leaps, either, Lance had a decent enough sense of navigation after all their time up here that he knew some of these were entire sectors apart.

“I’m calling it.” It’s Shiro, giving orders from the back of the bridge with his broad arms folded. “This could take days. Or weeks. We can’t compromise our preparedness in case we need Voltron. Everyone go to bed, we will pick this up in the morning.”

Allura appears to want to protest. Shiro pins her under a withering look that makes her look every bit of barely into adulthood that she is. She usually carries herself with such regal importance that Lance often forgets that she’s around the same age as the rest of them. Subdued, she steps down from the teludav. 

There’s a strange, sorrowful feeling in Lance’s chest, one he’s not sure he can articulate. It’s something he doesn’t want to analyze too closely, knowing whatever it is, it hurts, like his heart’s being wrapped in barbed wire, digging deeper into the steely barbs with each beat.

They all plod silently back toward the wing of the Castle with their quarters. There’s a moment of hesitation where he wants to follow Keith into his room, but Shiro is still behind them, so he wishes him a good night and disappears into his own. The painful feeling intensifies in the resounding emptiness of his room, and he forces himself to take a couple of minutes to put on his pajamas, complete his skin care routine, and add water to the flower vase. It looks sad now, half the bouquet sacrificed to the search device, the other half beginning to hang listlessly over the glass edges, petals dropping onto the nightstand in a muted ring of color. He waters them anyway, knowing full well it will do them no good.

Once he’s sure he hasn’t heard any more shuffling out in the hallway for a few minutes, he pokes his head out, checks the coast is clear, and beelines it for Keith’s room. He knocks, even though the door is programmed to open for him now, and Keith answers. They don’t need to say anything, Keith is already pulling him inside, only pausing to also glance up and down the hall.

He doesn’t need to say that he doesn’t want to be alone. Keith knows. Maybe Keith can’t stand to bear this in solitude either.

The room is just as he’d left it the morning prior, Cassia’s bassinet pressed up to the edge of the mattress, her things back in their allotted corner. 

Keith tugs him toward the bed, impatient. In a different state of mind, Lance might protest, crack a joke, or playfully vie for control. Now, he pliantly allows himself to be pulled into Keith’s bed. He catches sight of the carnation at his bedside again as Keith’s palm presses on his shoulder, nudging him to lay down– it, at least, appears to be faring better than the ones back in his room.

Obediently, Lance lays down as Keith directs, facing Cassia’s bassinet. Keith’s arm curls around his midsection, and his reassuring, warm chest presses against his back. To his surprise, Keith’s other hand lifts to his scalp, and his fingers card slowly through his hair while Keith shimmies in closer to press his nose to the back of Lance’s neck. He wonders momentarily how the hell Keith knows he likes having his hair played with, then abruptly recalls Arcella, conjuring blurry memories of how Keith had comforted him this way when he’d been hurt.

He supposes he’s hurting now too.

“Keith,” Lance begins, voice tight, to tell him all of this devoted attention is unnecessary, that Keith should be worrying about himself and Cassia, that he’s a big boy and can handle his own feelings. He’d only come here hoping for a few minutes to gather himself, say goodnight to Cassia, and if he was really lucky, maybe stay and sleep on a bedroll on the floor. Lance is not worth all of this consideration.

“Shh.” It’s affectionate, whispered into his jaw with a small kiss, albeit with a firmness behind it that declares the matter closed. Just in case Lance was forgetting this was Keith he was dealing with.

Lance is too tired to argue. He stretches out a hand to rest his palm protectively over Cassia’s little chest, like he had the night before, felt it rise and fall as she dreamed, and allows himself to melt into the steadiness of Keith behind him. 

As he closes his eyes, he thinks he’ll struggle to fall asleep. But the toll of the last day hits in full force, and paired with the safe feeling of Keith touching him, he’s out within minutes. 

He stands at the edge of the ocean on Playa Veradero. Waves roll in and lash at his calves, tide ever rising. The water churns ahead in a neverending expanse, a sickly green-gray color. Heavy, dark thunderheads bruise the horizon. A cold breeze whips over the water’s surface, raising goosebumps along Lance’s bare chest. He can still feel the sun at his back, soothing away the chill, but not for long. Not for long.

* * *

Lance startles awake to klaxons wailing and Allura’s voice urgently sounding through the castle’s comms.

“ Paladins! We are under attack, we need you to your lions now! Battle protocol four!”

Lance sits bolt upright, and Keith– somehow– is already a step ahead of him, vaulting out of bed to dress himself and get into his lion as quickly as possible, as Shiro and Allura had drilled into them. Shoving the covers off, Lance scrambles to stand too, then hesitates. Cassia is screaming in her bassinet, upset by the sudden burst of noise and activity.

“Cassia,” he says weakly, instincts for her winning out immediately, and he gathers her to his chest. He casts a desperate, frazzled look to Keith.

They had discussed this before, when they had first all agreed to care for Cassia in what was expected to only be a window of a few days. Cassia would be brought to Coran and Allura for protection if Voltron was needed. And this is a Protocol Four out of Five, each in increasing severity– so yes, it was assumed Voltron would be needed. 

However, faced with the idea of leaving her on the Castle, on the bridge of all places, during a battle? He would sooner have a tea party in a weblum’s stomach. 

Keith freezes, already halfway dressed in his armor, looking just as conflicted. “The orders are to bring her to the bridge,” he says, falling back onto what he knows best: trust in Shiro’s command.

“Is that– is that the best thing to do?” Lance is genuinely asking, he feels lost, he doesn’t know. All options feel horrific; they can’t leave her alone with no one to look out for her or comfort her, nor can they bring her into one of the lions into the heat of battle, that’s unthinkable. He supposes they are left with the compromise of the bridge, but it seems terrible too. As if on cue, there’s a sharp sound of plasma cannon fire hitting the particle barrier, and the Castle rocks around them, reminding them plainly that the Castle is far from infallible.

“What choice do we have?” Keith looks pained, and Lance knows he’s right. 

The ship shudders a second time, and Cassia chokes on another scared cry, burying her face into Lance’s chest. 

“Shh, shh, I know solecita , I know,” he murmurs with a reassuring hand against her back, and he just knows he’s not putting her down until he absolutely, strictly has to. “You’re right,” he says to Keith now, “I’ll see you out there.”

Keith nods, and Lance dips into his own room to quickly dress, only putting Cassia down on his bed for the moment he needs both hands to put on his chest armor, to which she screams at an ear-splitting pitch in protest. He’s shushing her and carrying her again in under ten seconds. In the final seconds before departing, he snags the wrap he’d used on Xenia Prime off of his chair, then sprints down the hallway to the bridge.

The bridge is a chaotic flurry of light, sound, and activity. Allura is already positioned at the helm, weaving the Castle expertly through an imperious fleet of Galra warships, and Coran is running around from station to station, clearly doing all by himself what the ship was built for a full staff of Alteans to manage in battle. 

“Coran,” Lance calls, and he bustles over to Lance after a departing slam of his palm on a button Lance can’t identify. 

“Ah, yes, hand her over, quickly now,” Coran says urgently, holding his hands out for Cassia. She's still crying, but it’s now drowned in the sea of everything else going on around them. Coran lights up when he recognizes the wrap in Lance’s hand. “Oh! Great idea!” he praises, then has the wrap tied intricately around himself at a speed that pisses off Lance a little– it’d taken him a full half hour to get it right for Xenia Prime.

Lance presses a parting kiss to Cassia’s hair, then forces his arms to move. The caregiver in him is begging to keep her safely tucked into his chest, at war with the paladin side of himself that’s frantic to get out into the heat of battle to help protect his family. He feels his heart tear in two as he separates from her and she clings, wailing and still trying to reach for Lance again once she’s safely in Coran’s arms. 

The scene of Coran operating battle stations while baby wearing should be hilarious. All Lance wants to do is cry.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out to her, “I’m so sorry, I’ll be back, I promise, I’m coming back.” 

“Lance!” Shiro’s voice buzzes through the comms in his helmet. Out the bridge window, there’s a streak of purple, green, and yellow, a pause, then a flash of red bolts past the glass too– his teammates are already out there. “We need you! We’re taking heavy fire!”

Lance shoves his mind into the paladin headspace– he has orders, a rank, a role, so he focuses in on the feeling of his teammates in the back of his head, amplified through their connection with the lions. He sprints for Blue’s hangar and doesn’t look back, knowing that if he does, he’ll hesitate again, he’ll go back to Cassia, and cost them even more precious time.

* * *

The Galra fleet that descends on the Castle is impressive in its scope, five full battle cruisers and legions of smaller fighters pouring from their hulls, buzzing around them like wasps swarming a nest. The fire that follows them is so heavy it feels almost indiscriminate, sweeping across space in boundless waves from all directions. Lance keeps Blue poised as close to the Castle as he can get away with, heart in his throat. Every time something fires in the explicit direction of the ship, he’s leaping into action to take out the source with cold, precise execution. Nobody was getting anywhere near Cassia, he didn’t care what it took to guarantee that.

The rest of the paladins are quickly closed into a similar position, despite some well-placed attacks on larger weapons and particularly skilled squadrons playing offense. It becomes clear that the Galra are trying to corner them, and yet the paladins are left with few options but let them close in around the ship from all sides; with Cassia aboard, nobody is willing to risk leaving the Castle to defend itself as they normally might. Even when they make the call to form Voltron with their last remaining ground to amplify their own firepower, it’s clear they’re outnumbered, outgunned, out- everythinged . 

This is a planned attack, Lance is completely certain of that from early on. Too organized, too big a fleet, too well-timed to be pure coincidence. It’s begging a thousand more questions that he doesn’t have the time to spare any thoughts to until they manage to get the fuck out of here. Their current objective is to clear enough space to grant Allura a window to form a wormhole– it’s evident that complete victory is not on the table as orders are handed down from Shiro and Allura. Escape remains as the only option.

“We have to break apart!” Keith’s voice is rough from exertion.

“No! Hold your position. If we want a hope of clearing a path, we need to stay together, we can’t take them all at such close range if we’re divided,” Shiro shouts back. 

“This is doing nothing! All we’re doing is letting them gain ground!”

“ Uh, giant laser!” Hunk warns.

There’s the roll in his stomach that instructs him to move, one they all feel in sync, and Voltron sways sideways, dodging the worst of another blast from one of the two remaining battleships with functional laser cannons. For good measure, they then knock a few fighters aside with the sword. Two spiral off, wings and hulls slashed, and explode just at the corner of Lance’s viewscreen into impressive bursts of orange and white.

“They’re close, but they’re alternating when they fire to allow time to power up. If we can incapacitate one more of the large ships, I think we can get Allura the clear window she needs to wormhole!”

Shiro’s voice is hard and unyielding, even through the comms. “Keith, no, we’re too closed in and that’s too risky, we need to hold formation and– Pidge, shield!”

“Shield!” Pidge echoes affirmatively. The shield clamps shut in front of them with a loud clang to block another wave of heavy fire.

“And what! Let them kill us slowly?!”

“Keith! We are staying together, that is an order!”

Lance knows he, Hunk, and Pidge are all holding their breath, afraid to cut in. He may be in the relative safety of a lion, but he wasn’t sure that even Blue could protect him from the fallout of getting in the middle of this magnitude of a Shiro-Keith argument placed squarely in the heat of battle.

The comms are silent for a terse moment. 

“ No. Shiro, I’m sorry.”

There’s a horrible, lurching shudder somewhere deep in his gut and a flash of bright pain at the base of his skull as Voltron is ripped apart. Stars pop in his vision as he feels himself forced back into his seat through an intense backwards roll.

They’ve been separated before by strong blasts from Galra attacks, but never before has one of the paladins purposefully severed the connection. More than that, Lance isn’t sure he can remember a time anyone defied a direct battle order from Shiro like this. Least of all Keith. The impact of Keith’s defiance isn’t just physical, it’s also mental– there’s a sense of wrong vibrating through the bond.  He can hear his teammates making surprised, pained sounds through the comms, and he knows they’re feeling it too.

Lance rights himself, rapidly blinking to clear his vision of tears from the G-forces and compartmentalizing the shock into another part of his brain while he scopes his surroundings. His teammates’ lions are scattered across his field of vision, beginning to orient themselves too, and Keith–

His attention snaps to Red, hurtling through fresh waves of violet laser fire toward one of the Galra battleships. No, not just the ship– the massive cannon affixed to its bow.

Realization sets in, cold and sickly. Blue’s already in motion, responding to his distress; Lance isn’t sure she’s ever gone so fast. 

“Keith!” he screams down the comm line, barrel rolling to avoid a stream of opportunistic shots from a nearby fighter.

“Lance, go back! Allura, start on the wormhole, you’ll get your window!” Keith’s voice is strung tight with determination, though Lance hears the fear pressing at the corners of it too. 

“Keith, stop! Don’t do this!” There’s another fighter coming at him; Lance shoots it out of the way with vicious precision. The longer they’re separated, the easier it’s going to be to take the Castle– Cassia – and Keith sacrificing himself to eliminate a cannon is not an option, even if it bought them all the time in the world. 

“Go back!”

The cannon in question fires from its place at the belly of the cruiser, forcing both him and Keith to violently dodge the wide, purple-white blast. It’s far, far too close for comfort, making Lance’s teeth rattle in his skull. The light clears, and on the other side Keith is right back on course, now with an angry black scorch mark seared into Red’s side. He’s hit.

“Stop!” Lance cries, voice cracking. In the background, the rest of his team is screaming after him and Keith through his helmet in a dissonant, desperate choir.

There’s another eruption of feeling in the back of his head as he chases after Keith, different this time. He recognizes the feeling of Keith again through the bond, emotion bursting through the mental glass that usually delicately separated them. 

Lance’s vision swims with its intensity, the sear of it in every crevice of his mind. He is certain immediately that this time the breach is intentional, that Keith wants this to be something he feels, that he’s pushing it at him. As though it was his own, he’s rushed with feelings of gratitude, remorse, loyalty. A fierce affection and protective instinct for Cassia, his teammates, and Lance– God , definitely for Lance, it burns to examine it too closely. To have someone’s love for him lensed back at him so sharply– it physically aches.

There’s a heavy, leaden grief there too. No words come through the bond, but Lance still thinks he can hear what Keith is saying clearly, down to his gruff voice. Goodbye. I’m sorry.

Red is too far away, too fast. Too horribly close to being swallowed into the mouth of the Galra laser cannon, where Lance knows his plan ends in a fireball. Keith doesn’t even care that this jeopardizes Voltron, he can sense that, too, canceled out with a single minded instinct to protect the people he loves most.

He’s out of options, so he closes his eyes and shoves as much as can through the frayed opening Keith has torn wide open in the space between their minds, shoving back against the tidal wave of emotion in equal measure.

He pours into it the way he felt when Keith left them for Blade missions, the emptiness, the gaping hole he left in the team and in Lance’s chest. The way he feels when Keith looks at him in the moments he finds Lance amusing, without that damn mask dropped into place, the roller-coaster swooping sensation that soars in his stomach. How his whole body felt like a live wire when he kissed him, the way it left him trembling and hungry and craving more and more and more. The missing pieces of Keith that he still wanted to carefully lay in their place, then smooth the cracks over, one by one, until he could step back and fully admire the wonderful mosaic of him.

There’s resistance– Keith is pushing it away, pushing Lance away. Lance intensifies his efforts, gritting his teeth so hard the sharp tang of blood fills his mouth as his molars snag the inside of his cheek. 

He floods the connection with the way he feels watching Keith hold Cassia, even though it had been hard for him, even though he had been awkward, and even though she looked at him like he’d hung all the stars and planets in the sky and Lance could tell that freaked him out. He lets the tsunami of the way he’s been feeling the last couple of weeks through too, the ways Keith has made him feel like maybe, after all of this, there could be some ending that maybe didn’t end lonely and bloody. It’s an inescapable feeling for Lance; it’s all he can hope is that it’s an inescapable feeling for Keith too.

For a harrowing moment, time stretches. It’s only been a few seconds, his dash tells him this, but it feels like a lifetime as he feels Keith go still on the other end. Lance has given all he can give, the only thing left to do is open his eyes and pray he got through his thick, mulleted skull. 

Ahead of him, Red swerves violently, pulling up from its trajectory straight to the mouth of the cannon. It’s close, so close that Red’s claws scrape and spark against the body of the ship. Damn good thing, too– the cannon fires a split second later, another thick blast of plasma that would have vaporized Keith and Red.

Fuck, Lance too– he has to quickly dodge out of the way, and his whole body vibrates with the force of the cannon shot at this proximity.

He tries to meet Keith in the back of his mind as he trails after him in Blue, instead finding himself scrabbling at the edge of an abyss again, the same one Keith had left behind on the training deck. He’s been locked out. Lance is hurt, but there’s no time to dwell, they have to get this taken care of, and fast. 

Which leaves a bit of a dilemma– Keith’s plan, however stupid, was probably the only way they could disable the last of these cannons and gain a precious few seconds to wormhole, as they’re too closed in around the ship now to maneuver as a team, and they don’t want to abandon the Castle of Lions. And now Keith and Lance will have to fight their way back through the lines to take back up a defensive position to the Castle.

Lance turns and spits another round of fire at a line of fighters, starting to panic. What if there really was no way out of this where everyone survived? Where anyone survived?

There’s a loud explosion behind him. A big one, from the direction of the battleship, lighting up his viewscreen in white light and rocking his lion, sending his sensors into a cacophony of warning chimes. At first, fear grips his chest as he thinks Keith has taken Lance’s lapse in attention to fly into the cannon anyway, but then there’s a flash of Red as he whips around– Keith’s hovering right beside him. 

Emerging from the wreckage of the battle cruiser’s hull is a tight formation of three Galra fighter ships, a little different in shape from the ones they’re surrounded by. Older, maybe, he thinks he’s seen these types looking dusty and battered on the more remote Galra outposts at the edges of nowhere. 

Whatever their model, they’re headed straight for them. Lance’s grip tightens on his controls and his adrenaline surges, preparing to shoot, when Keith’s voice shrieks in his ear, “ Don’t fire! They’re Blades!”

How Keith knows, he has no idea. But he trusts it, because he trusts Keith, leaping out of their way and taking it on faith he wouldn’t be skewered by laser fire for it. Sure enough, they ignore Keith and Lance completely and fly straight past, pull a 180 in an impressively tight formation, and double back in the direction of the front lines. Their sudden appearance must be just as confusing on the Galra side of the fight, because there’s hesitation in the fire, granting them the opportunity to push the front back even further.

“It’s now or never, Allura!” Lance says, seizing the chance to speed back toward the Castle. Keith is right on his heels, so close his lion could nip at the tail of Lance’s.

“You and Keith are quite far out, you may not–”

“Just do it!” Keith barks, and as pissed as Lance is at him right now, he wholeheartedly agrees. If they get stuck back here but Cassia gets to safety with the rest of the team, it’ll have been well worth it.

They race in tandem back in the direction of the Castle, weaving through chasing volleys of enemy fire and one more near-miss with the final cannon. Voltron and the Blades’ efforts have cleared just enough of a space for a wormhole, Lance can tell from here, they just have to hope that with the Blade’s added aid they’ll be able to stave off any Galra who might have the bright ideas of following them through. The final cannon still presents a little bit of a problem, but the larger ships are slow, and this one is the furthest out of range– this plan is their only one, they have to take the risk and move quickly.

Something blinks on his console indicating a craft at the rear; they’re being tailed. At first he white knuckles the controls, ready to whip around and take them out in one sweeping somersault. He activates the rearview, then hesitates– the ship that appears on his screen is one of the alleged Blade ships, it has broken formation to follow Keith and Lance. Instinctively, he wants to demand they stay back, but Keith trusts them, and they had just done them a pretty damn big favor, right? Whatever they’d done to wipe out that cannon with the resources of an outdated ship, he wanted a piece of that.

And, frankly, they can do with the backup. One problem at a time.

If he wants more time to contemplate this decision, he isn’t granted it anyway. Overhead, the familiar Altean sigils etch themselves brightly into the dark space just above the Castle, fractaling out to form a ring. As soon as the edges connect, space folds into itself at the center and bows backward into a blue-white tunnel. From here, he can see that on the other side of the ring, there appears to be nothing but the expected backdrop of space; it never fails to make his brain short-circuit to see spacetime punctured like this.

How weird had his life become that diving directly into a wormhole is just another day?

His sensors chirp, and he dodges another assailing round of fire from behind, doing it completely on sense and instinct. He can’t tear his eyes away from the Castle as it dips into the wormhole, holding his breath as it seems to slide through at a glacial pace.

Finally, it’s through, and the rest of the paladins are diving in after it, the whirlpool of light already beginning to cinch closed behind the Castle. They have seconds, or they’ll be left behind.

He, Keith, and the Blade fighter hurtle toward it, the space growing smaller, smaller, smaller. Red’s faster, so Keith makes it in first, and as the white ring starts to close down into nothingness, Blue barely slips in after them, disappearing into the bright vortex.

Chapter Text

They’re spit out the other side of the wormhole with substantial force, flung so hard into the void of space that Lance has to use his reverse thrusters to counter the speed on approach to the Castle.

Behind him there’s Red also grappling to slow down, easy to spot against the darkness, and the Galra fighter rockets out a split second later. The fighter careens and tips to the side, spiraling out of control– it’s only mid-spin Lance notices that half the back end of the ship is missing, sparking and seconds from bursting into flame. They must not have gotten so lucky with timing the wormhole’s closure. It’s tough to say if they’d even have survived that, a puncture in the wrong spot could’ve flung its pilot into space. 

Like a shadow, Black is already swooping in to snag the fighter in her great claws, like an osprey securing its catch.

“I’ve got it,” Shiro says over the comms. “Everyone confirm status?”

They all rapidly sound off in a practiced rhythm, one at a time, confirming that they are okay. More or less, anyway.

“Good. Get back to the hangars. Rendezvous on the bridge and await next orders.”

There’s an uneasy feeling in Lance’s stomach, even though Shiro’s got every reason for it to be him that brings in the mysterious, alleged Blade member. Black is the largest for towing purposes, Shiro is the leader, and frankly, he’d have the greatest physical and experience advantage over a Galra attacker. It does little to dam up the litany of questions in the back of his mind about their surprise arrival, and he doesn’t like the implications of many of them.

Suspicious as he is, he doesn’t hesitate in executing his orders. Besides, he’s got another bone to pick too, particularly with one mulleted, insubordinate, stubborn red paladin.

He guns it for the Castle, determined to dock before Keith. It turns out it isn’t hard– with the danger passed, Red is doing the flight equivalent of limping back toward her hangar entry, the thick, smoky char still streaked along her side from the cannon. Keith’s stupid stunt combined with the heavy fire she’d taken on the way into the wormhole must’ve taken a pretty intense toll.

Good, he thinks to himself bitterly. Means he can’t go trying that shit again in the near future.

He lands Blue and is out of his seat in seconds, not even waiting for Blue to fully bow her head to the ground to leap the final few feet to the hangar floor. As the adrenaline of battle fades, anger mounts in its place, so raw and intense it burns under his skin. Making no effort to quiet the loud stomp of his boots on metal, his fingers flex and curl into fists as he marches toward Red’s hangar through the connecting corridor.

He makes it there about ten seconds before the door to Keith’s hangar slides open. Lance rips off his helmet and casts it aside with a clatter, then pounces to corner Keith, forearm coming to push against the upper plane of his chest armor. 

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Lance roars. He shoves Keith roughly against the wall, the abruptness of the contact sending a jolt through them both. Lance crowds him there, their chest plates touching, teeth bared, pulse roaring in his ears. “How dare you? How dare you?!”

Keith doesn’t fight back, lets Lance pin him in place and doesn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, faraway and, frankly, devoid of true remorse. It’s like the apologies Lance remembers making back at the Garrison to commanders when he’d messed up in training: at attention, face carefully neutral despite his certainty in his own justifications, eyes fixed at a neutral point in the distance. “I know I shouldn’t’ve threatened a piece of Voltron, not when the Galra have the upper hand in this war, and I–”

“ Voltron ? You think that’s what I’m mad about? Your fucking lion?” Lance snarls back in disbelief. “You almost died, Keith! You decided– you decided that it was just fine to sacrifice yourself and nobody got a fucking say in that, like it was nothing!”

He sees Keith’s attention snag on that, there’s a nearly imperceptible tug at the corners of his lips downward as he continues to stare at a point just over Lance’s shoulder. “Isn’t it?” he asks softly. “In the bigger picture. Isn’t it nothing?”

“What the fu– no. No, Keith it’s not nothing! Have you lost your mind?!” Lance shakes his shoulder with the hand that isn’t still pinning him, as though it might jostle some fucking sense into him. His throat feels like it’s closing up, when he speaks again it’s ragged and crackling. “Keith! Look at me! ”

Stormy and sharp with pain, Keith’s gray eyes flicker to his face.

“This kind of shit might fly with the Blades, but not here, not with us, Keith. Not with me. If it ever comes down to saving you or saving Voltron, I pick you! Every time!” He knows they had a universe to save, sure, but he feels confident they would figure it out without Voltron. They always figured it out. What he couldn’t do was do it all without Keith. 

Keith’s jaw works, then he asks, “What about Cassia? What if it’s me or Cassia?”

Lance feels like he’s been slapped. For a second, his mouth hangs open, and his pin loosens slightly with shock. “That– that is not a fair question,” he hisses back in horror.

“Isn’t it?” Keith senses the vulnerability, he holds Lance’s gaze, eyes flashing in a way that reminds Lance of his luxite blade. “It just happened. I had to make a choice, and I chose her.”

“You chose stupid, you went directly to the nuclear option when you didn’t have to! You didn’t even see if there were any other ideas, you– you stubborn, thick headed– ”

“What would’ve happened if the Blades hadn’t shown up?!” Keith’s cool is cracking, and the volume of his voice is now rising, yet he never breaks the piercing eye contact as he speaks. “We were already cornered. They wouldn’t have been as kind as to make it a quick and painless death. They would’ve gone for capture, torture, imprisonment. They’d have squeezed and bled and sliced every single detail they could get from us about Voltron and any rebels. They’d probably have sent us– all of us– directly to Zarkon and his witch. They would’ve used Cassia as constant leverage, they would’ve used torturing her and threats on her life to manipulate us. They’d have done that for all of us against one another until someone cracked. And don’t you start with saying I’m being unrealistic, I’ve seen it. All of it.”

There’s more there, some dark memories and twisted regrets that Lance can’t dig into right now. Keith takes a shaking breath, then lifts his hand to Lance’s arm, where it is still pressed into his chestplate. 

“And then,” he continues, “and then when they’re finally, finally done with us, if we’re lucky, then they let us die a slow death. If we aren’t lucky? We’d be their experiments, or their pets, or their punching bags. Forever, until we’re so broken we give out. So yes, Lance, a quick death where I saved the rest of you, Cassia especially? I made the hard decision, and I made the right one. If I regret anything, it’s that I faltered. If the Blades hadn’t showed up, it would’ve been my cowardice that put you all directly in Zarkon’s hands.”

Keith then pushes the arm off, and Lance lets it fall numbly to his side. They stare at one another, Lance nauseous as he can’t help but picture in excruciating detail every single one of those scenarios Keith has described. Especially involving Keith or Cassia.

He’s right. Desperately, he wishes he wasn’t. He wants to snarl and spit and declare that Keith is wrong. Instead, the naive fantasy Lance has been floating in, the one where he believes that good will win, because good always wins and they are the good, and no harm could possibly befall Cassia or his friends if he simply loved hard enough, lies at his feet in pieces.

For the first time since being shot into space, the full, crushing reality of the blood tributes this war will demand before its thirst is slaked drops into the abyss in his stomach. He will try to keep people out of its path, and he will fail. It’s not unlikely he will spend every one of his favors with whatever interdimensional gods might be listening on getting Cassia to safety, and even that wrought no guarantees. They’re flirting so hard with Galra capture as it is, it’s a miracle they’re all still on this ship.

His throat is so painfully tight now that it hurts to breathe. Air catches in his lungs and refuses to exit; he feels like he’s drowning on dry land. The anger has dissipated, and he wishes it would come back. All that’s left behind now are the jagged cuts Keith’s truths stinging and bleeding out slow.

“I just– I– I can’t lose you.” Here, his voice does break, and a wretched, strangled gasp clamors free from his throat. It’s humiliating, it’s pathetic. Yet he can’t stop himself from talking now, it’s all coming loose. “Please. I don’t even care if it makes us cowards, please don’t do anything like that ever again. Please. The universe needs you. I need you.”

Keith looks sad, and he reaches up again to put a hand on Lance’s cheek. It’s pitiful, the way Lance leans into it, like it might fix him. “I’m sorry,” Keith whispers. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“But you can,” Lance insists, own hand lifting to hold Keith’s in place against his skin. “You can , you just have to–”

“Lance.” 

They hold eye contact for a few seconds. Keith’s eyes are wide, pleading. “If it’s me or Cassia?” he repeats softly. “If it’s me or a universe full of Cassias?”

“That’s not fair.” Lance’s eyes burn, and he squeezes them shut, willing the tears to disappear. Instead, he feels one fall and catch where Keith’s thumb presses into his cheekbone. 

Keith smooths it out, running the pad of his thumb over the soft curve there, leaving a wet stripe behind. “Never is.”

“Then at least promise if it’s you or me, you choose you,” he bargains, opening his eyes again. There are tears clinging to his lashes in the periphery of his vision, and his vision is quickly blurring over again.

Keith regards him, his jaw clenched tight and Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. He says nothing, but his face is a clear apology. “This mission’s not over. We can’t waste time, we have to get to Shiro.”

“Keith–”

It’s no use. Keith’s hand has fallen away, and he’s stepped out from Lance’s failed ambush to briskly retreat into the Castle. He knows from the set of his shoulders that this is over, his game face is back on to deal with whatever or whoever emerged from the Blade ship.

Lance takes a second to compose himself, to shut down and push away the ache blooming in his chest. He is the blue paladin, he is a soldier, he is a goddamn defender of the universe. He can handle this.

Once he’s sure all evidence of the tears have been wiped away by his gloves, he jogs after Keith, and practices putting on an easy smile for when he reunites with his team.

* * *

They stand in a semi-circle around the healing pod, staring at its occupant.

She’s Galra, with deep, violet skin and two darker stripes slashing up either cheek. Her short hair is disheveled where her Marmora hood has been sliced away, a shade of purple so dark it almost looks black, except the bottommost layer, which is a longer, wild nest of something nearer to lilac. There are deep lacerations and gnarled burns littered across her exposed skin, and from what Lance has been filled in on, there are plenty more beneath the thin fabric of the healing pod suit. They’d had to cut her out of her Marmora uniform to work fast enough to save her.

“You’re sure you don’t recognize her?” Shiro asks, and Keith shakes his head again, arms crossed tight over his armor. There’s a peculiar look on his face as he watches his fellow Blade sleep behind the glass, one Lance can’t interpret. He can’t look for long, though– all he can think about is the heartbreaking resignation on Keith’s face down in the hangar corridors, the way he held his own life with so little worth that if circumstances had been slightly different, he wouldn’t be standing here at all.

Lance shifts, wrapping his arms tighter around Cassia, who has been returned to him by Coran, wrap and all. He claims she’d behaved, but the way she passed out in exhaustion against him as soon as they were reunited, he had a feeling the battle was an exhausting and distressing experience for her. It only sharpens the guilt already ripping him wide open. 

Coran, too, had excused himself for exhaustion, muttering something about monitoring the bridge and leaving the rest of them to debrief. The man looked like he’d just finished a marathon in concrete shoes, so nobody protested. Completing a battle against a full Galra fleet large enough to take ten Castles, all with a baby strapped to his chest, was medal-worthy in his opinion. Lance should see if Hunk knew how to make edible arrangements or something.

“Have we tried contacting the Blades?” Shiro then asks, interrupting Lance’s thoughts.

“No,” Allura says. She’s hovering near the controls, and Lance knows that the button her fingers tap restlessly next to is the emergency lock on the pod door, the one that seals its occupant in like a coffin. “The Castle took significant damage during the fight. We have power, but we must be careful how we expend what remains until we can make proper repairs. Attempting contact at this long range may not only be impossible under ideal circumstances, but an unwise drain of resources. It could compromise our ability to wormhole or use the ship’s long range sensors.”

“I could maybe try to do something to enhance our signal,” Pidge begins uncertainly, then is cut off by a sharp shake of Shiro’s head.

“No. Our priority remains with Cassia, more so now than ever. We have reason to believe now that the Galra are aware of her presence here, and whatever their motives or plans with her may be, if any, she is in danger no matter how we look at it.”

A sober silence stretches between the group. Shiro’s right, just as Keith had been; whether she’s viewed as leverage, a vulnerability, or simply unfinished business, there is no good outcome between Cassia and the Galra empire. 

“So we need to get her home, as soon as we can.” Lance surprises himself as he says it. The words would have been unthinkable twelve hours ago as he silently begged for more time. His gaze is locked on Cassia’s sleeping face as he says it, her soft lavender cheek pressed into his chest, nestled snugly between the stretchy fabric of the wrap and the black undersuit of his paladin armor. He likes the feeling of her there, warm and just opposite the sinkhole of sorrow forming behind his sternum, like she might begin to fill it back in, or at least shore up the edges from collapse. He forces himself to look up in Allura’s direction. “Is there enough power left to keep going with Pidge’s list? Can we make all those jumps?”

“I think so,” Allura says, pressing a few buttons on the nearby console, pulling up what Lance recognizes as some basic system diagnostic reports. “We may need to reroute most non-essential energy, including cutting off life support anywhere but the bridge.”

“And the healing pods, of course,” Shiro adds.

“Of course,” Allura repeats with a grimace.

Keith bristles beside Lance, but says nothing. Lance glances out of the corner of his eye at him, he’s still glowering pensively in the general direction of the healing pod.

“Do you think they’re tracking us?” Hunk asks, twisting the ends of his headband in worry. “The Galra? How do you think they found us?”

“It’s always possible,” Pidge admits. “I mean, I think to be safe, we have to assume that they are, right? Or at least have a Galra-APB out?”

Shiro nods in agreement. “I think so,” he agrees. “They may have gotten lucky, but that’s twice now they’ve surprised us, counting the attack when Lance and Keith returned from Arcella. We need to be careful to not stay in one place for too long and to cover our tracks.”

“Then we’re wasting time,” Lance concludes, the ache in his throat stretching his voice thin.

“Lance is right,” Shiro says. There’s a glimmer of sympathy behind his eyes, but he’s firmly in leader-mode. Work the mission, above all else. “Everyone gather what they need from quarters to prepare to shut everything else down but the bridge and medical bay. You have twenty minutes, and then…” His eyes flicker to Cassia. “It’s time we finally find the Arcellans.”

There are nods of agreement from the group, and they take that as their cue to break. As Lance is nearly out the medbay doors, he hears Shiro approach Keith before he can leave, murmuring, “I want to talk to you for a minute.”

Then the doors slide shut.

* * *

They’re all exhausted, running on only a few hours of sleep, heavy-limbed as the nerves from battle dissipate. Every paladin, even Shiro, seems to be dragging themselves onto the bridge. Everyone has brought a modest sized bag of supplies; Lance, of course, has stuffed two duffel bags full of what he deems essentials for himself, plus a third for Cassia’s things. Cassia’s still napping contentedly against his chest in the wrap, and he has no intentions of interrupting her hard-earned contact nap. He’s even managed to half-dress himself around her, leaving on his black paladin undersuit, but sliding on his hoodie and jeans over it. 

“Seriously?” Keith scowls as Lance totters toward his seat, depositing his mountain of baggage behind it. At Keith’s feet is a pitifully small, deflated looking bag. After seeing his room, Lance wonders if it’s because he doesn’t own enough stuff to fill one, or if Keith deemed the only necessities a dagger and a toothbrush or something. Although, Lance muses, Keith seems like the type to clean his teeth with a knife.

“I don’t tell you how to live your life,” Lance shoots back. It feels good, like a release. It feels normal. “Who knows how long we’ll be up here? Could be days. Plus, I break out if I miss a day of my skincare routine.”

Keith appears to mouth the words “skincare routine” to himself in mute disbelief, then shakes his head and turns away.

Although the embers of Lance’s anger with him are still crackling in his belly, he can’t help but be relieved that at least Keith still sees them as on speaking terms. He wonders if Shiro had mentioned it in their little chat, then remembers he probably has no way of knowing what actually went down back there, what would have changed Keith’s mind so rapidly. Lance had kept this revelation about the intensified nature of his bond with Keith quiet, and he would be shocked if Keith had suddenly become an open book about anything that even approached a feelings conversation.

Lance sinks into his own chair, leaning back so heavily into it he’s nearly at a forty-five degree angle. He knows he’s not exactly exuding “responsible, valiant paladin” in this moment, but fuck , he’s exhausted, and there’s no end in sight.

“Ready when you are, princess,” Pidge announces, retreating back to their own console after booting up the Arcellan-finder. Lance marvels momentarily at their energy, then notices the neon blue and green energy drink can teetering on the arm of their chair. It seems a case of those has made the “essentials” list. Lance wants to ask for one– desperate times– but it dies in his throat when he remembers his grand role in this operation is “baby holder.” 

Pidge, Hunk, Shiro, Allura, Coran, Hell, even Keith –  if his stunt back there was boneheaded– they were throwing their everything into this mission, and Lance… Lance had little expertise or ability to offer toward the cause. All he could do was sit there and hold her, and though he’s heard the speeches before, that supporting roles are important too, that he’s just as much of a team member as anyone, it’s difficult for it to feel true in circumstances like these. So he keeps quiet; the resources are for the people who are giving much more than he ever could. It’s moments like this, when he’s feeling so useless, he wonders if the Garrison’s call to make him a cargo pilot in the first place had been the right one after all.

The hair on the back of his neck prickles, and instinctively he follows the feeling with a turn of his head. Unnervingly, Keith’s staring directly at him, with a strange expression. Their eyes meet for a second, then he’s pointedly returning his attention to the situation at hand, tracking Allura as she crosses to the teludav controls.

Allura looks just as exhausted as the rest of them, but her bottom lip is set and her hair is tied up into a bun in the way that means business. “Coran,” she directs, placing her hands on the pillars. “Shut down non-essential systems.”

Coran obediently punches something in on a holoscreen. There’s the sound of various ship systems powering down all around, about half of the lights above them blink out, followed by an eerie quiet. It gives him goosebumps, the sudden absence of the ambient noise from the ships various systems he’s grown accustomed to for approaching a year now. The only thing filling the silence is now his own breathing and the occasional artificial noises from the consoles. The air should circulate periodically, since they’re still dedicating some of the remaining Castle energy to life support, but it doesn’t do much to quell the claustrophobic, instinctive panic in the back of his mind at the thought of shutting down most of the tech separating them from the void of space.

“First coordinates,” she instructs.

“Got ‘em here,” Hunk says, swiping at his screen.

“Sensors at the ready,” Pidge affirms.

Allura’s grip tightens on the posts. Lance thinks he can see her skin straining and pale at her knuckles from here. “Alright, team. Let’s go.”

* * *

Again and again and again, they jump to different corners of space. Again and again and again, Lance watches planets on the star map turn red after what feels like an eon. The process is painful, tedious, and a special sort of psychological torture. Lance can’t help the rise of frenetic anticipation in his throat every damn time they reach a new destination and start a scan, nor can he soften the leaden drop of disappointment in his stomach when it fails. 

After ten or eleven jumps, Allura is teetering at the controls, and Cassia announces that she is awake and in need of attention with a loud cry. Shiro suggests they take a break, and though he wants this over with, he can’t help but feel relieved. He needs a moment to soothe the edges of his frayed nerves before they start back up.

Cassia’s the perfect excuse to step away, honestly, to retreat into some relative privacy at the back of the bridge. She seems particularly agitated despite having just completed a record breaking contact nap, not that Lance can really blame her. So much for trying to keep her away from any negative energy around the ship. He’d be pretty damn pissed off at the vibe shift if he were her too.

Speaking of negative energy, as Lance sidles down the wall to sit on the floor while feeding Cassia after a quick changing, Keith approaches him like he’s trying to approach a feral kitten– although, knowing Keith, Lance thinks it might be more apt to compare it to a feral kitten attempting to close in on another feral kitten.

Lance glares at him, not quite ready to let go of the final sparks of his anger just yet, but he doesn’t rebuke him or otherwise give an indication that he should back off. He knows that, deep down, he wants this resolved, wants Keith to know that he did, at least a little bit, understand what he did, yet his pride stands firmly between him and Keith at the moment. Childishly, he also very, very much wants Keith to feel bad that he almost fucking left him here alone, that he would have completely broken his heart just when he’d only started to trust him with it. 

Cassia has no such qualms. She spits out her bottle and wails like a siren as soon as Keith comes into her line of sight, trying to Houdini out of his arms toward him with impressive dexterity. “Come on, kid, seriously?” Lance mutters, because couldn’t she have kept her cool about Keith just this once? For him?

Keith takes the opening, crouching down in front of Lance and leaving him no option but to give in and deposit her into his arms, as the alternative is being a heartless jerk, which Lance is not. As usual, she settles down quite a bit once Keith’s in the equation, and she’s the picture of contentment once the bottle’s back in her mouth. Keith sits down next to him while she nurses from the crook of his arm, maintaining a couple feet of cautious distance.

“Shiro forcing us to kiss and make up?” Lance asks bluntly. He folds his arms, not sure what to do with them now that Cassia’s not in them. He watches the front of the bridge, their teammates taking their respective breaks, drinking water, chatting. The bridge is big, there’s no way they can hear anything they’re saying back here, but he keeps his voice low anyway.

“No. Shiro didn’t mention you at all, actually.” 

Lance frowns, not bothering to tamp down his irritation. “So then what do you want?”

Keith pauses, for so long that Lance is almost completely sure an apology is coming, until, “I felt that. What happened when we first got on the bridge.”

“Felt what?” Lance asks, though his shoulders tense, uncomfortable with the perception. He knows exactly what. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Keith shifts beside him, clearly just as uneasy. “I don’t know if it’s– leftover connection because of what– what happened– ” 

Lance huffs heavily through his nose, half dark amusement, half annoyed. Real light way to refer to Keith nearly blowing himself up in a Galra laser cannon, but okay.

“-- but I felt it. You’re not useless. You’re the most important person here to her.” He gently gestures with the elbow cradling Cassia’s head. “Because of you, she’s actually thriving until we get her home. No way in hell the rest of us would’ve pulled that one off.”

“That’s a nice thing to say, but her little tryout for the intergalactic gymnastics team when she saw you sortof ruins the effect. It’s fine. She’s just a baby, and I’m… me. It is what it is.”

“She just napped with you for hours right after she had a stressful experience. I was right there when Coran handed her over, too. She could’ve tried to go to me.”

He has a point. Lance purses his lips and looks over at Keith, trying to parse out his intentions. Is he just trying to make him feel better so he stops being angry about what happened?

Keith sighs after a moment, recognizing he’s not going to coax an agreement from him. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to root around in your head or something, you just thought it really, really loud. Or felt it really loud. Whatever. And it wasn’t true, so I couldn’t just fucking– let you sit here thinking like that–” He cuts himself off with a shake of his head, and Lance has the feeling he’s about to close off again. 

“Yeah, well. It’s also true that you're not expendable.” The pads of his fingers dig into his forearm. He’s feeling vulnerable, he can’t help but deflect. Even if it does feel good to hear. Lance’s gaze falls to his folded legs. 

Keith goes quiet. They are at an impasse, it seems. 

Still, Lance is now tucking away what Keith has said safely behind his heart. He doesn’t dare believe what he’s suggested, not yet. But he thinks that maybe, eventually, he might. 

“You don’t think the rest of them felt… all that, right?” Lance then asks, something that has been at the back of his mind since they’d escaped.

“No,” Keith says confidently. “No, Shiro thought it was only by accident I didn’t– you know. That I got the timing wrong and realized it was going to fire before I could do any damage.” 

It had been harrowingly close, so Lance can see where that’s entirely plausible for Shiro to conclude, who didn’t see it unfold up close. While Lance is certainly more concerned and preoccupied with the Keith-tried-to-be-an-idiot-martyr thing, it doesn’t mean the prospect of the rest of his team having seen (or worse– felt ) all that embarrassing stuff that had been swapped through the bond in that moment was any less mortifying. Keith’s probably right, though. Nobody’s acting weird around them, and he knows for a fact that neither Hunk nor Pidge would be able to keep their shit together if gifted a front row seat to Lance’s mushiest feelings.

It also implies that they didn’t need to shut this bond thing down immediately, and that whatever they wanted to keep private would remain perfectly opaque from their teammates. Admittedly, it’s probably something they should report to the group– Lance has a suspicion that with enough practice and trust, they could all level up their connections to one another– but, right now, he selfishly cherishes that it’s special to only him and Keith. 

There’s also a terrifying, but possible outcome if they share the truth: even though they’d only been able to activate the bond in emotionally charged situations, he’s afraid Shiro or Allura would want them to close it off until they knew more. He’s already felt Keith close him out with thick steel walls a couple of times now since strengthening their bond, felt his mind reach into the freezing vacuum of Keith’s absence in an awful need to feel the reassuring presence he’s grown accustomed to. It occurs to him, suddenly, that he doesn’t feel that all the time. Even now he can sense that Keith is there in the back of his consciousness, along with the other paladins, albeit perhaps in sharper clarity than the rest of his teammates. It seems that with the power to flood his mind with higher intensity; so, too, has he been granted the power to fully retreat from it and inflict maximum damage.

“That’s– a huge fucking relief,” he sighs finally, shaking himself from his thoughts. 

“Yeah. Agreed there.” Judging by Keith’s somber tone, he seems to be on the same page about keeping this between them for now.

Lance finds himself relaxing, in spite of himself. It’s possible he’s simply too tired to direct much animosity anywhere right now. What Keith did was stupid, reckless, potentially universe-ending. However, he had been privy to the tangle of his thoughts and feelings in that moment, and now that he has the time to unravel them, he knows that gets it. He disagrees– logically, because it is Keith– and yet emotionally, he isn’t sure that if it was him, he wouldn’t do the same for Cassia.

He takes in a breath to say as much, then Hunk appears in front of them, holding a box of sub sandwiches containing ingredients Lance knows better than to examine too closely. 

“Brain food!” Hunk declares cheerfully. 

Of course Hunk’s thought to plan on having entire prepared meals up here, probably had meals always ready to go in the kitchen for times like this. If it had been left up to Lance, it’d probably have been ration packets and instant ramen all the way to Delion Three.

Hunk plucks one free to dole one each to Keith and Lance. He might imagine it, but he thinks Hunk’s smile might be a little more strained for Keith, that his hand keeps a little more distance.

The detail leaves Lance’s brain quickly, because oh my God, real food.

“Thanks, dude.” Lance grins up at his best friend. The appreciation has the expected effect, he sees the tension wound tight in his posture unwind a bit. “These look fucking awesome.”

“I’m so glad! They’re actually a combination of a tree fungus and an edible cave slime that–” 

Lance holds up his hand, trying not to gag. Keith takes an awkward bite next to him, shifting so he’s got Cassia and holds her bottle using the same hand.

“Buddy, that’s– let’s just leave it at, ‘it’s a sandwich,’ okay?” Lance pleads.

“Tastes like a turkey club,” reports Keith. Asshole. Lance just knows he’s flexing on him, like he had at the food stalls on Xenia Prime.

Hunk beams, then moves on to distribute the remaining sandwiches. 

Lance takes a cautious nibble on the end of his sandwich. It’s decent, and while he’s fully aware Hunk’s resources are limited, it’s far from a turkey club. 

* * *

Morale is temporarily boosted by lunch and a break. Allura cat naps in the corner, dozing against a wall, and Lance is glad to see that when she wakes there’s a little more color in her cheeks. She even scarfs down a whole sandwich in a way that certainly would not pass Altean royal etiquette standards.

Lance still keeps a thin front up with Keith, too proud to drop it just yet. When Keith quietly scoops Cassia up to take back to his own console, though, there’s a pang of disappointment to be separated. Lance watches as Keith roots around in his underpacked bag, and produces the platypus stuffie for her, which she eagerly takes. The bag looks even sadder now– that had to have been, like, a third of its contents, Lance estimates.

They’re all settling in for another round of searches, when alerts simultaneously go off at each of their consoles and on different displays near the helm. Coran bolts toward the screens, sliding into place in front of them– but they quickly realize they don’t need interpretation. They, unfortunately, know this particular combination of klaxons well.

Looming just ahead is a Galra battleship, and just as before, fighters are beginning to pour out of its hangars. 

“Wormhole! Now!” Shiro calls, running toward one of the helm displays to assist. Allura’s already on it, even as he finishes punching in his piece the symbols are appearing in glowing white just in front of the Castle.

There’s the sound of something exploding at the side of the ship, vibrating through the floor. Overhead, the lights flicker, and Lance has to grab at the back of his chair to stay upright. 

It feels like it takes forever for the Altean sigils to lock together and twist into the wormhole. They’ve shut down the particle barrier and weapons in an effort to conserve energy; there’s nothing they can do as they’re hit again just before they plunge into the wormhole and everything shifts to the blinding white-blue vortex.

When the space around them stills again into an average-looking starfield, Shiro’s already standing. “Damage report.”

“Hull damage. And more lost power reserves,” Coran relays, voice faltering at the second observation. “How did they find us again so quickly?”

It seems to occur to them all at the same time, because everyone, including Lance, turns to look at the orphaned piece of the Delion Two drone wrapped in a tangle of wires blinking innocently at them from the workstation. 

“It was only disarmed, not inactive when we towed–” Keith begins.

“It was turned back on for the first time, then we took a break–” Pidge simultaneously says.

“--no other variables. Gotta be it,” reasons Hunk too. 

“But we need it. We have no other choice.” Lance can’t help but speak up, panic rising that their only hope– Cassia’s only hope– is about to be disabled. 

Allura’s brow knits sympathetically. “Well, surely there’s another way we can find–”

“No!” Lance cuts her off, more forcefully than he should, he knows. The grip on the back of his paladin seat tightens with his voice. “No– this is it. We know this is it, and– and even if there was another option, how much longer would it take to find it? How many more of these battles are we willing to put her through? We need to find the Arcellans, and we need to find them now.”

Shiro speaks up, using his carefully neutral tone. “We’d be able to search without her if we found a safe place in the meantime. And we’d be able to fight.”

“What?! No. No, we are not doing that,” Keith balks. He’s standing now too, arms wrapping securely around Cassia. “We have not gotten this far to just give up.”

“Keith, I care about her too, this hurts me as much as it hurts you, but it would be better if she–”

“It would be better for her if a lot of things happened that didn’t! I know that more than anyone else here, okay?! But we can’t just– we can’t just abandon her because this got hard. We can’t give up on her. I won’t give up on her.” He takes a deep breath, then locks his gaze on Shiro. “Shiro, if you decide as team leader to drop her off on some planet, that’s fucking fine. But you’ll have to accept that I will go with her.

“Keith,” Shiro says, “be reasonable. You can’t do that, we need Voltron to–”

“Oh yeah? Then I’d quit. I’d quit Voltron. I don’t care.”

Keith’s tone is full of brazen, obstinate fire, his chin raised and jaw set. He means it.

“I’d go with him,” Lance then agrees, swallowing down his nerves at being this defiant, knowing full well this could cost him the only family he’d known since leaving Earth. “I’m sorry. I can’t leave her until I’m sure she’s safe. We don’t even know if it’s us or her that the Galra want. Probably both. If they follow her, then even more innocent lives might be in danger.”

“I’d… I’d go with too,” Hunk says, with significant effort. He’s ghostly pale and his voice wavers, but still he gives a nod in Lance and Keith’s direction. “I couldn’t sleep at night until I knew peanut got to her family and she’s safe there. Whatever that ends up looking like.”

“You’re down four paladins if you give that order, Shiro,” Pidge finishes unapologetically, arms folded in defiance.

Shiro stands stock still, stunned by their wave of insubordination. Allura and Coran are just as bewildered. They, too, appear torn between loyalty to Voltron and Altea’s mission of protection. Perhaps even attachment to Cassia. Or maybe they know it doesn’t matter– with even one paladin out of alignment with the team, everything they have built in this new era of Voltron is threatened.

“Shiro,” Allura finally says, gentle and diplomatic. “I think… I think I can keep going a little while more. It took the Galra approximately just over one varga to track us after this last jump, even longer before, around three. Perhaps they’re getting more efficient, but even if that is true, it takes us no more than a few doboshes to scan a single planet. It stands to reason that it takes them time to determine where we are, then to get there. Much more time than we need to disappear again.”

“And if we find the Arcellans? Then what?” Shiro asks.

Allura considers this. “We make a few more jumps to random points to throw them off, and fire the scanner plus all remaining parts of the drone into a black hole. Just to be safe.”

“It’s not foolproof,” Shiro argues, lips pursed and arms folded tight to his chest. The fingers on his Galra arm twitch restlessly.

“Neither is dropping her off somewhere and hoping for the best,” she points out.

The paladins and Coran follow their back-and-forth like a tennis match, holding their breaths as another power struggle between their two leaders unfolds. Even Cassia has paused to watch whatever her adults are so captivated by with her own wide-eyed interest. 

Shiro looks between all of them, thinking hard. He must realize that his hands are tied if the rest of Voltron refuses to cooperate, so he sighs out through his nose in resignation.

“Okay,” he concedes, though Lance can tell he’s not happy about it. “However, if this becomes a threat to your health, princess, or if we run out of coordinates, we have no choice but do it my way. We’d be caught in another fight that we can’t win with the Galra. And if Allura were to not be available or able to use the teludav, we’d be marooned at the point of the sensor’s last signal, and the ship would be adrift. Does this seem fair to everyone?”

He looks around the bridge. Lance nods, and so does the rest of the team– though he’s not sure what their alternative would be in that worst case scenario that doesn’t end in abandoning the Castle, and still being within long-range sensor range by the time the Galra showed. Even in the fastest lions, an hour and change didn’t put them in a comfortable enough range away from the Galra for Lance’s comfort. However, they’ve taken greater risks for far, far lesser causes. For Cassia, it’s worth the gamble.

Only Keith holds out. Shiro’s eyes land on him last, waiting for his affirmation. Keith is staring at Cassia, who is back now to waving around her toy and babbling to herself, entirely oblivious to the gravity of the situation around her. 

“Keith?” Shiro prompts gingerly.

Keith then nods. “Okay. Okay yeah, that makes sense. Let’s do it.”

The spell breaks, and everyone is returning to their assigned roles in a flurry of motion, wasting no time. 

“Initiating scanner,” Pidge says.

“Scanning,” confirms Coran.

They wait. The planet on the map blinks red. They repeat.

* * *

“I’m sorry. I have to end this.”

Allura has buckled to her knees at the teludav as soon as the planet, once again, went red on the map. Her brow is soaked in sweat and wild, curly white baby hairs cling to her skin at her hairline.

“No,” she gasps to Shiro, starting to push herself back up with labored effort. Her chest heaves with exertion, and her voice is raspy and dry. Her eyes cross a little as she clamors up one of the posts to standing. “No, I can do this.”

“Allura, I’m… I’m so sorry, but that’s twenty-six jumps now. You were struggling after eleven yesterday.” Shiro’s voice is laced with genuine concern that Lance shares, but he can’t help the dread that washes over him. 

It’s over. They tried, they failed. They hadn’t been good enough. Lance hadn’t been good enough. They’d gotten so close that if he’d only had a little more to give, things might have been different.

“One more,” she grits out.

“Princess,” Coran starts, reaching out toward his charge from his station below. She bats away his hand impatiently.

“I can do this. One more.”

“It’s not that much more likely it’ll be the next one, Allura. We could do this forever and find nothing.”

“I don’t care,” she snaps back. “You cannot control whether or not I make this jump, I am doing it with your permission or without. One more. I can’t…” Her voice falters, and she has to start again. “I have to know I did everything I can to get her back to her people.”

The longer they’re stagnant and wait to decide, the more time they’re giving the Galra to track them down again, they all know it. Shiro’s jaw works, and Lance realizes it’s a habit he recognizes in Keith. It’s a habit he must’ve picked up from him.  

“One more,” he finally agrees. 

Lance’s stomach twists into painful knots and his mouth goes dry as they resume their work one last time. Coordinates confirmed. Pidge initializing sensors. Teludav powering up. 

There’s the familiar symbols, then a flash of white light as they rocket through the ether once again, then halt to a shuddering stop on the other side.

Lance blinks away the stars popping in his eyes, just in time to see Allura pitch over and collapse at the pillars. Her head hits the floor with a sickening thud.

“Allura!” He’s already on his feet, running over to her. He easily hurdles up to her platform and drops to his knees beside her, pressing two fingers to her neck to confirm her pulse. With an exhale, he feels it there– weak, but regular and very much present. “I’ll take care of her,” he calls to his teammates while waving his free hand, all otherwise occupied anyway. 

Pidge forces their horrified eyes away, and Lance can tell they’re swallowing down bile. “Scanning!” 

There’s a growing pool of crimson blood staining Allura’s snowy hair just over one of her pointed ears. Under her thin, white suit, he can make out the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Lance shrugs out of his hoodie and presses the fabric there, holding pressure tight to the wound. As he does so, he dares to glance over to the star map. 

The planet stays tantalizingly gold, lazily spinning slowly on its axis, indifferent to the room’s despair. Lance can feel his pulse racing in his ears, thinks he might pass out too from the anxiety. This is their last chance. After this, he’s going to have to do things he’s not sure he can live with himself for.

Lance holds his breath, attempting to wrestle the nerves under control. 

They wait. They wait. They wait.

The planet turns green.

Chapter Text

Several things happen at once.

Lance sucks in a gasp so quickly he’s lightheaded. A cracking and sputtering noise splits the air around the. Then the lights go out for a few seconds, leaving everyone blinking in the darkness and making noises of vague confusion. Cassia begins to cry.

There’s a backup power source, apparently, that coughs to life, illuminating some emergency lights. 

“What happened?” Keith demands, bouncing Cassia to try to soothe her. 

“Main power source is out,” Coran says, attempting to get a response out of the helm console. Nothing. He exclaims something completely unintelligible, and smacks the dead screen. “As are controls.”

“Do we have a manual option?” Pidge is out of their seat, headed directly for their contraption.

“Yes, but, ah. It’s been a while,” Coran admits.

“Do we have air?” Pidge starts ripping cords out from the remnant of Delion Two, detaching it from the console.

“A couple vargas, at most.” 

Allura makes a pained sound beneath him, and he glances down to confirm that she is still out cold. Lance adjusts the jacket, panic engulfing him–  too many things happening all at once, too many problems to solve. “The Galra will find us,” he says, suddenly certain of it in his swelling fear. “We can’t make another jump to trick them like we’d thought.”

“Sure, but we can buy some time.” Pidge finishes and tucks it under their arm carefully. It’s still glowing.

“How’re you gonna do that?” Keith asks, bewildered.

“I’ll figure it out, but for now, I’m taking my lion and getting this thing far, far away from Cassia.”

“Pidge,” Shiro begins, visibly horrified at the idea.

“No. It makes sense. I have cloaking– even if they track me, I can still hide. My goal is to be far away before that happens, anyway.”

“You need someone to cover you,” Hunk insists.

“Hunk–” Shiro pauses. Precious time– and air– is slipping away. Lance can physically see him wrestle aside his own overwhelm and step into the lead. Through grit teeth, he concedes, “Hunk is right. Pidge is too. You two go together. Be careful. Rendezvous with us back on the planet.”

They nod, and take off at a sprint for the hangars. 

“Allura,” Lance reminds everyone helplessly as they do. Still at her side, putting pressure on her wound, he can feel his jacket growing heavy with blood.

“Can we access the medbay?” Shiro asks Coran.

He shakes his head, and roots around in a compartment. To Lance’s relief, he produces a medical kit identical to the ones on their Lions, and hoists himself up onto the teludav platform to attend to Allura as he speaks. “A bulkhead goes in place to seal off the bridge when emergency power is activated. The emergency programming is still set to maintain atmospheric pressure, so our guest should be okay, but… I imagine the healing pod has opened up.”

As he scoots out of Coran’s way, Lance’s blood runs cold. He really does not like the idea of a rogue Galra, even if it is a Blade, lurking around their medbay and scheming to get herself out. In his experience, Galra aren’t usually the “forgive and forget” type, nor did they take kindly to waking up in strange places.

“Why don’t we just escape in the Lions?” Lance asks desperately.

“We can’t just abandon the Blade who saved our life,” Keith snarls back at him. “Or leave the Castle here for the Galra to take.”

Lance’s mouth goes dry, and his well-practiced defenses spring into place. “Well, we’re all going to die here if we don’t do something!”

“Can we get the Castle to the planet?” Keith asks Coran, hand over Cassia’s back. She’s still crying.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He’s produced a wand-looking thing and is passing it over the cut on Allura’s head. It still looks like a bloody mess staining her snowy hair, but judging by the way his shoulders sag in relief with a couple of passes, it must be helping. “It might be better to try to hide it somehow.”

“Then let’s do it,” says Shiro. “Keith, Lance, you both take your Lions down to the planet and try to find the Arcellans while we figure out the situation up here. We can’t risk Cassia being tracked or what might happen if we fail. Plus, you’ll buy us some oxygen.” He cracks a wry smile. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Lance says quickly, hopping down to retrieve his bag (the more essential one), Cassia’s bag, and armor, relieved that he won’t be separated from Cassia as they figure this out. 

“We’ll take Red,” Keith decides, “she’s faster.”

“What? Why can’t we take Blue too?” Lance protests.

Keith levels him with a challenging gaze and arched eyebrow. “Do you have a carseat back there?”

Okay. Touche. He shoulders his bag and frowns.

“Glad we’re in agreement,” Keith snorts, picking up his own sad little bag. It hangs limply from his shoulder.

“Be careful,” Shiro sighs, then steps forward to snag both Lance and Keith into a quick hug, one in each arm. When he pulls back, he rests a hand on Cassia’s head affectionately, then lets it fall. “And try not to kill each other before we all meet back up. Good luck.”

Keith nods and lifts his chin in the prideful way he does. The one where he’s determined not to let them down. “You too.”

* * *

In his many months now in space, Lance often lost sight of just how massive planets actually are. Up in the Castle, sweeping an entire planet for something seemed like it would be a breeze when it appeared as nothing more than a colorful little marble on their viewscreen. 

Now, skimming through the atmosphere of the planet and repeating scans over and over and over again, the enormity of finding the small group of survivors who very much did not want to be found and could be anywhere on a whole planet was making his head spin. The sleep deprivation and stress of the situation isn’t helping, and he’s getting irritable, struggling to focus on the readings on Red’s display.

“We scanned that one, right?” Lance points at a landmass, hovering behind the pilot’s seat with Cassia in his arms. She’s not crying, at least, completely enamored with the view of the planet’s lush greenery and glittering blue-purple seas skimming beneath them. 

“Yes,” Keith confirms, annoyed.

“And that one?”

“ Yes. ”

Cassia babbles something unintelligible that mirrors Lance’s inflection, like she’s asking a question too.

“Yes, that one too,” Keith responds without missing a beat, pressing a few buttons on the console.

They should’ve anticipated this, really. With the fixation being so heavily placed on finding the Arcellans, not much thought had been given to what would happen once they did find them. In Lance’s head, they were going to somehow sense Cassia’s very presence, and paired with the presence of paladins, they’d roll out the red carpet. No such luck– and he’s starting to realize that after the trauma from what happened to their planet, they’re not about to be hanging out here completely defenseless.

“Maybe we’re wrong?” Lance murmurs, afraid to say it too loud. Like it could make it so.

Keith shakes his head, there’s a crease between his eyebrows under his visor. “No, I don’t think we’d have scanned that many planets to only get one false positive, right?”

“So they’re cloaked?”

“Could be. Probably. I don’t know, the readings are all over the place, there’s weird interference” 

It’s not much help. They’re quiet for a moment as Keith scans another swath of land for the third time, one of the ones further north.

Red lurches and pitches to the side, and a sensor beeps in far too belated warning. Lance has to white-knuckle the back of the pilot’s seat to stay upright, curling around Cassia.

“What the hell was that?!” he squawks, righting himself and peering out the viewscreen. 

“Solar flare– big one,” Keith informs him over the chaos, righting them quickly and dipping lower into the atmosphere. “Sorry. Didn’t see–”

He cuts himself off as they cross into the night side of the planet, and blue, green, and red lights spring up cheerfully around them in great, shimmering shafts of light, undulating in wide ribbons all around them. Momentarily, they booth gape, speechless.

“One hell of a solar storm,” Keith gets out finally, and when Lance glances down at him, his eyes are wide, the lights reflecting off the visor of his helmet.

It triggers something deep in his memory, something from school. They’d learned about solar flares in the Garrison because they could fuck with their instruments while piloting, especially near the poles. 

“Keith, can you scan the sun?”

“What?” Keith blinks, bewildered.

“The sun. Scan it.”

Keith obliges him. When the results pop up on the screen, Lance grins and says, “I think I know why I’d hide here if I were the Arcellans.”

“What?”

“This star’s hot, red, and therefore active. This planet must have storms like this all the time.”

Realization dawns on Keith as he follows. “Frequent electromagnetic storms probably keep them from being detected by accident. And if they ever do emit something, it’ll be written off as solar interference.”

“I mean, if I were an Arcellan looking to stay the fuck out of intergalactic affairs I’d go to the poles. Where the storms are strongest.”

They hadn’t scanned very far North or South yet, figuring there’d be no reason to settle somewhere the climate would be more unforgiving. Keith swerves immediately toward the North side.

“Genius,” Keith praises with a wide grin. A proud warmth swells in Lance’s chest, and he swears his heart skips a beat. 

* * *

It’s summer on the North side, but even so, there’s a  crisp chill to the air as they exit Red. They’ve touched down where they’d spotted a particularly high incidence of anomalous readings, nestled in a valley surrounded by tall mountains. It seems as good a place as any.

This planet is breathtaking– and Lance has seen a lot of planets over the past almost-year. The sky is a lovely shade of soft blue-purple, cut by the impressive peaks of snow capped mountains in hues of whites and blues surrounding them at all sides. Their bases bleed into turquoise colored trees, which stop short of the green-blue clearing they’ve landed in in an irregular ring. They’re traipsing in a trajectory for the wide clearing’s center through knee-high grass and delicate wildflowers, brilliant in their colors where they dot the field around them in patches of every color he can think of. It’s so close to being like Earth, he feels a sharp twinge of homesickness, despite the fact he’s never been anywhere near Earth’s Arctic Circle.

The breeze picks up and the cold seeps in through the gaps in his armor, jolting him out of his nostalgia. Lance is just glad he’d thought to pack Cassia’s blanket that’s now wrapped around her and dangling from his arms, and he’s suddenly very smug about the hat he’d bought her at the market. 

“Who’s exclusively living in a climate controlled spaceship now?” he mutters when he’s certain Keith is listening. He tucks it in pointedly over her tiny ears, earning him a Seriously? Now? look from his fellow paladin.

Lance snickers and opens his mouth to say something else, when he’s seized by the sickening feeling of one of his feet dropping out beneath him. He stumbles as his leg is sucked into something viscous and muddy that he can’t make out beneath the thick brush. Windmilling an arm, he catches himself– and Cassia– on the firm ground still under his right leg. Frantically, he tugs, only serving to suck his leg further in, up to the knee now.

“Lance!” Keith exclaims, dropping to offer him a hand, which Lance shakes his head at.

“Cassia first! Take Cassia!”

Keith obeys, snatching her out of Lance’s arms and tucking her against his hip, turning her away from the quicksand trap. Though this frees both of Lance’s hands to push against the grass, he’s absorbed another six inches deep. Keith’s hand closes tightly around his shoulder and pulls. He’s damn lucky he’s as flexible as he is, soon enough he’s going to be in the splits– if the dirt under his heel holds, and he thinks he can feel the corner of his boot starting to slip.

“Stop!” Lance shouts, slapping Keith’s hand away. “It gets worse when I try to get out!”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, then?!” Keith’s voice pitches up, his eyes are wide with helpless panic.

“I don’t know!”

Lance’s heel is definitely slipping. It slides backward an inch. Terror claws at his chest too, because he’s trapped, he can’t fight it, they have nothing and no one else is here to help them. 

Is he going to die here? He doesn’t want to die here. The thought of sinking down and suffocating makes his breaths come in increasing speed, as though they know they’re limited and want to enjoy their precious few remaining moments.

In a burst of inspiration, he activates his jet pack. There’s a split second of hope when he rises an inch– then the earth gives, and with a yelp, his other boot is now being consumed by the greedy bog at twice the rate of before. He cuts the jets immediately. Instinctively tries to pull his second leg away. It feels as though it’s encased in molten iron.

Keith watches on in horror. Cassia’s quiet, but looks distressed, stunned by the sudden action around her.

“Keep going,” Lance forces out, against everything screaming at him otherwise, against the fear of dying alone. He didn’t want Keith to see this. He definitely didn’t want Cassia seeing any more death.

“No!” Keith yells so forcefully that Cassia whimpers.

“I’ll figure this out!” he lies.

“No! You aren’t going to die.” He starts looking around them, kicking wildly around the grass as though it might reveal something, anything, that they could use. “There’s always something!”

He kicks a patch of blue flowers similar to the ones around Lance– and he sees his dark hair suddenly sink down a foot, nearly disappearing under the grassline from this angle.

“Keith! Cassia!” Lance shrieks– and he’s struggling again, he can’t help it. His heart feels like it’s going to burst from the force and speed it jumps to, his nails dig into dirt and grass, cutting razor-thin lines along his palms as his grip succumbs to the force of the quicksand.

He can only see the top of Keith’s head, though he fights wildly. Cassia is now shrieking in a hysterical terror that Lance never, ever wants to hear again.

A sob tears from Lance’s throat. Not like this, not here, not when they got so close, not to Cassia.

“Lance!” he hears Keith scream. Lance feels Keith’s panic burst like a water balloon in the back of his mind– and he realizes that Keith must feel his fear and anguish too.

So he fights, he yells and grunts and groans with the effort, he pulls until his muscles ache and his upper half is caked in mud and dirt, until the sand is up to his hips, waist, his ribcage–

“Don’t move!”

It’s not Keith’s voice, that alone is enough to startle him into compliance. Cassia’s still screaming– he wishes it wasn’t a relief, but in a way, it is, because it means she still has air.

Lance’s cheek is pressed into the dirt. He turns to look up at a tall figure pointing something at him, framed from below in a halo of grass and wildflowers. 

“Help them!” Lance chokes out, gesturing in Keith’s direction.

“I said don’t move, outsider!” The figure barks, and Lance freezes. 

There’s the sound of rustling grass, and he can see movement in his periphery– there are a couple of others too.

“Please,” Lance begs, and he hears Keith, not far away, starting to plead too. “The baby–” 

The weapon is pressed to the back of Lance’s neck, and though he doesn’t recognize it, he gets the idea. A gun is a gun out here, alien or not.

“You’re going to want to see this!” he hears another voice come from the direction Keith had disappeared.

The weapon shifts at his neck. Lance shuts his eyes, not wanting to see a death like this one coming, and feels his chest creep a little deeper into the sinkhole. It’s starting to limit his breathing, pressing in on his fragile ribcage from all sides to wring him free of air.

The weapon disappears. He expects a ‘move and die’ sort of order, except it never comes. It seems that they– rightfully– don’t find Lance much of a threat when trapped this deep in the mud.

There’s quiet for a moment, save for the rustling grass under sized footfalls and Cassia’s wails. There’s a horrible moment where her volume increases and he opens his eyes, lurching in a failed attempt to reach her. He turns his head as far as he can, he sees the human-ish shape of someone lift Cassia. She struggles and arches her back away from the stranger, fists balled.

“Don’t–” he grunts, teeth grit. He’s sucked in another few inches at this up to his armpits, squeezing with enough force to feel lightheaded. His teeth and fingertips tingle, and no matter what he does, every breath is beginning to wheeze in his throat.

“She’s Arcellan,” the second person says, awestruck. “And part…” They can’t even say it aloud. “But part Arcellan for sure.”

There are a few seconds where Lance thinks this is it. They take her, and leave Keith and Lance to suffocate and rot below their beautiful meadow for the rest of eternity. Their friends never even find their bodies.

“Disengage. Protocol Six-Alpha.”

The squeezing around him releases. Lance sucks in a relieved breath so forceful he begins to cough. He heaves himself onto blessedly sturdy land, rolling onto his back, limbs shaking from exertion and lack of oxygen.

It doesn’t last. He’s dragged to his feet, so is Keith a few feet away. 

He gets his first look at the Arcellan that seemed to be in charge; she regards him back in equal curiosity, with her pistol-like weapon still pointed at his chest. 

The first thing he notices are her eyes, and he understands quickly how the shopkeeper on Xenia Prime had identified Cassia’s heritage so quickly. Her irises are a rich, molten gold, flecks shimmering and catching in the summer sunlight. Even with her eyes trained on him and unblinking, they give the impression that the pigment is liquid and moving.

Her hair is dark and wavy, pulled into a messy ponytail, revealing ears that match Cassia’s, also ending in a soft, delicate point at their apex. Their skin seems human-like in tone and texture– until she turns her head to glance at her companion, and Lance sees what he thinks at first are scars lining the back of her neck. Narrowing his eyes, he follows her gaze to the others, and notices the other two have them as well. Stripes, he realizes, not scars– a couple of shades darker than their skin tones.

The other two are similar in appearance, only what he’s pretty sure from here are two males, based on build. They’re all wearing the same dark blue uniform that looked like it was once military, only now heavily worn through and faded. They flank Keith, one holding him up by the arm (which Keith is twisting, hissing and spitting at like a scruffed cat, to no effect), the other gingerly holding a wailing Cassia at arm’s length. 

“Let one of us hold her,” Lance begs, looking back to the woman. “We won’t run, we won’t fight you, we’ll answer any questions you want, just please, let us explain–”

“Silence,” she commands, baring her teeth. Her canines are larger than a human’s, coming to a viciously sharp, angled tip. “How did you find us?”

“Leave him be! We aren’t here to hurt you!” Keith snarls in a way that does not suggest peace.

She presses a button at the back of her pistol, and it makes a high pitched sound that sounds awfully like it’s keying up to fire, then pushes it directly against his heart. Not even his armor could cope with something that close range. In challenge, she turns to look at Keith, apparently catching on that Lance is leverage and that Keith is feeling less collected. 

To her credit, she’s right. Keith ceases to fight immediately.

“Stop! Stop, I swear, we’re only here to return Cassia home, we’re paladins of Voltron, we found her on a ship, please get that thing away from Lance!” he gasps, holding up his free arm in surrender.

There’s an exchange of looks. Cassia, meanwhile, sobs at Keith’s distress and leans away from the Arcellan and Keith, twisting around so she can see Lance, seeming to want to now look to him for comfort instead. She lets out another strangled cry when they make eye contact, and she starts to reach toward him, hands opening and closing. Lance feels his heart shatter into a thousand pieces, slicing him open from the inside.

“Shh, solecita ,” he tries to soothe, through a cracking voice and his own panic threatening to swallow him whole. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

To his surprise, it’s not Cassia who reacts to this, it’s the Arcellans.

They all snap their attention to him. The woman’s brow furrows, looking taken aback and puzzled.

“What?” he asks, wondering if maybe he’d accidentally said something really offensive in Arcellan that sounds totally normal in English.

“What did you call her?” the woman asks. The sure point of her pistol wavers against his armor.

“Uh. Solecita? ” He chances a look at Keith, who has gone still and looks equally as baffled as Lance feels.

“Little sun,” the woman says back to him, as though she’s repeating it.

Lance frowns, trying to figure out how she’d know Spanish at all in the first place, then remembers– the translators. Or rather, the lions, really. Constantly translating in the backs of their minds in real time for them and projecting back to whomever they encountered in their preferred tongue, this way they could interact with whoever they needed to in the universe. Alteans were clever in this technology, of course, but he knew all too well from the Castle’s holoprojectors that it sometimes failed in the face of nuance.

“Sortof. I guess. It’s a lot cuter in Spanish,” he begins to explain, a little offended that she was questioning his nicknaming ability at a time like this. 

She isn’t interested in his discussion of linguistic nuance, grabbing his arm and nodding to the men. A pair of glowing gold cuffs are slapped on his and Keith’s wrists, to both their protest, which is, of course, entirely ignored. The Arcellans start hiking them toward the center of the meadow with purpose, dragging Keith and Lance along.

“Where are we–” Lance starts again, stumbling, and is hushed.

They could both probably take them on if they really wanted to, but he doesn’t want to risk Cassia’s safety, which will require the full explanation from them. Keith seems to realize that isn’t in their best interest either, and stomps along pliantly beside his Arcellan, though he looks stormy and doesn’t take his eyes off Cassia, who is still crying.

Not thirty feet later they stop. The woman punches something in on a device she pulls from her pocket. The entire meadow shimmers and is suddenly blocked from view. 

They stand in a massive shadow at an entrance, a hurtling arch of glass and metal arching overhead, glinting at the top in the sunlight. This is on a long, curved wall, and as Lance cranes his neck in either direction, he notices they culminate in points at either end. He thinks it’s in some sort of polygonal shape, if rounded off, but the thing is so massive he would have no chance of telling from here. 

His mouth hangs open and he stands still for so long, it takes being pulled along again by his Arcellan captor to remember where he was, why, what was happening.

“Welcome to Delion Three,” she announces grimly, and shoves the mouth of the pistol into Lance’s back once more.

* * *

They’re marched through a maze of halls, metal and sparse, winding dizzyingly toward the innermost sections of the ship. Lance does his best to memorize all of the turns, in case they need to escape later, with growing difficulty. A few other uniformed Arcellans pass, equally as interested in the trio of newcomers as Lance is with them. He keeps picking out little features in their faces that are shared with Cassia, whose own face is currently still scrunched and violet-red with her continued wails. They certainly weren’t making a quiet entrance.

When they stop, it’s in what he knows is Delion’s brig. He is pulled in one direction, Keith in another. Worst, the final Arcellan begins to walk away with Cassia.

“No!” Lance snarls, starting to struggle again, hand twitching for his bayard. It would be colossally stupid, he knows, but he’s not sure he’s above it. “No, let her stay with me, she needs us, we’re taking care of her, I swear–”

The woman holds up her hand. “She will go to medical. We will have a talk. So long as you both choose to cooperate, she will be returned to you immediately.”

He casts a look to Keith, who thinks for a moment, then gives him a small, terse nod. He’s probably right– this is where she was supposed to be brought to, Valka thought it was safe. And Cassia was one of them, right? Even if she was part Galra too? They needed to gain the Arcellans’ trust if they had a shot of leaving this place alive. He had a feeling they were the “leave no witnesses” type, so they needed to play this carefully. As it was, he still couldn’t work out exactly why the weird shift in mood, why they were allowed in here at all. Too many unanswered questions, maybe? Whatever it was, he’s pretty sure it’s spared them their lives.

Lance nods then, too. It makes him feel sick to his stomach to see someone else walk away with her, even worse when the volume of her cries cranks up an impossibly higher notch. He tears his eyes away as they round the corner, and he feels her absence continue to wrench wider the chasm in his chest.

He needs to get used to the feeling, he reminds himself. They are here. This will be over soon.

He’d held out hope that maybe he and Keith would be questioned together. He is not so fortunate, they are quickly separated into their own rooms, to check their stories against one another, no doubt. He’s put in a hard metal chair behind a small table, cuffed hands coming to settle in his lap. The space is windowless and almost entirely made of a dull gray metal, otherwise empty. Like everything else he’d seen so far, it’s utilitarian. It sort of reminds him of interrogation rooms in TV cop procedurals, minus the one way glass inevitably along one wall.

He takes the moment to lean back, exhale shakily, and gather himself. He was exhausted, weak, and covered head to toe in drying mud, but nothing seemed injured, he determined, testing out each of his limbs now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

In his chest, though, he aches. 

It’s the most alone he’d felt in a long time. No Cassia, no Keith, none of the other paladins nearby. The emptiness of it crashes into him, and before he can think, he’s reaching out through the bond for Keith.

On the other side, he feels Keith grab it, just as tightly he had to try to pull him free of the sinkhole. Keith feels just as afraid and isolated, but there’s relief in it, too, being able to draw some comfort from each other’s presence, if only in their heads.

It’s enough to bring his pulse back to something approaching normal. After some time, he hears some commotion outside. Shortly after, the connection closes up. It isn’t like the other times, it doesn’t leave him falling through empty space. It’s more like being given a quick hug goodbye with an I’ll see you real soon.

While he waits, he drums his fingers against the table, bounces his leg, wonders if this waiting could count as a form of cruel and unusual torture. When the door finally opens and it’s the female Arcellan, he’s honestly happy to see her. If he trusts her– which he isn’t sure he does, but for now, he’s been given little choice, right?-- he just needs to pass her test to see Cassia again.

“Lance,” she begins, drawing up the chair opposite of him. In the pale overhead light, he notices that streaks of pale gold shimmer in her dark hair, matching her unnerving eyes as they fix on him.

“I don’t have your name, this seems unfair.” He frowns, and it takes all of his willpower to not cross his arms. Allura had scolded him for this plenty following various diplomatic exchanges, said it conveyed unwillingness to cooperate.

“Phaedra. Elected Praetor of the Arcellan people.” She holds her head high as she says this; it’s a command she clearly takes very seriously.

“Phaedra. Cool. Nice to meet you. I’m Lance, Paladin of the Blue Lion of Voltron.” That seems to curry favor usually, right? He attempts a winning smile.

“So I’ve heard.” Any of her earlier signals of emotion have been wiped away, she’s as unreadable to him as a line of Pidge’s code. However, he didn’t feel any flashes of panic or fear from Keith when she presumably spoke with him, so he takes it on shaky faith that she isn’t about to shoot him from under the table. 

He tries to force his posture into something relaxed, non-threatening. “Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. I swear we’re here for Cassia and only Cassia.”

“Tell me how you found her.”

“Galra prison ship, on a rescue mission for her mom. She told us to bring her here– or, well, to Delion Three– before she, um. She didn’t make it.” Guilt still hangs heavy in his voice as he says it aloud.

“And her mother,” she continues, “this… Galra. Why were you rescuing her?” Lance doesn’t miss the way she says the word like it’s poison in her mouth. 

“She was a member of a group called the Blade of Marmora. It’s– it’s a Galra group, yes, but they’re set on overthrowing Zarkon’s rule. They’re on the right side, they’ve saved our asses a few times now. They want to see him dead as much as we do.”

Phaedra narrows her bright gold eyes, and her lips purse into a thin line. However, she nods. The answer must be acceptable. For now, at least. 

“And you found us, how?”

Lance gives her the full, honest story. Everything from the florist, the trip to the Arcella system, the reverse-engineering his teammates pulled off and the countless wormhole jumps that followed. Phaedra listens, expression not betraying very much, though there is a flash of concern when Lance shares that the Castle is still in the area.

Whoops. Keith might have been smart enough to not share that tidbit.

“And they are coming here soon too? With the drone?” she asked, leaning in.

Right away, Lance knows to backpedal. He waves his hands as best he can with the limitation of the handcuffs.  “No, no no no! We’re taking care of it, okay? My teammates, they’re super smart, smart enough to find you, so they’re smart enough to make sure nobody else does. I promise. When they get here, we can probably even help out with some stuff if you need it. That’s, like, our whole point as paladins. Free the universe, help people.”

“Yes. Your friend, Keith, assured us of the same. He also said they are safe to allow in, which will be a massive exception to our typical protocols. Outsiders are strictly forbidden. Normally, we would have killed you. Cassia being part Arcellan is the only reason you are alive. Bear in mind we won’t hesitate to reconsider extending you this grace should you attempt to disclose our location to anyone, including the other paladins. If your friends are permitted in, it is at our discretion and not yours.”

Lance suppresses a shudder. She means every word. “Understood.”

“And the matter of Cassia,” she continues, folding her hands and leaning back in the chair. “We have conducted a genetic test. We had our suspicions as to who might have fathered her, and we have confirmed father is unfortunately no longer with us. I will need to discuss with leadership what to do about her. Understand that her heritage does not make this an easy matter.”

The statement gives him a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Lance wants to ask what that means, all of it, but he’s only so strong, he wants to see Cassia. He can guess– life’s hard out here and people die sometimes, plus being part-Galra doesn’t exactly seem to be something people were a fan of around here. Makes sense, given their history. Even if it doesn’t sit well with him, and has him worried about Keith, too. He must appear human enough that they haven’t thought to check on his DNA, and he sincerely hopes they don’t try to.

Plus, Phaedra is working on finding Cassia home among her people. Isn’t that everything Lance could have wanted?

He decides to not look a gift horse in the mouth. He nods. 

“And in the meantime?” he prompts.

“In the meantime,” she sighs, seeming to have expected this, “you and your friend may continue to look after her until we have a more permanent solution for Cassia, which we have every intention of finding. You may stay here with us.”

Lance brightens, sucks in a breath to thank her, and she holds up a hand to stop him.

“ With conditions. You do not leave. You agree that you will have security officers posted to you at all times. You make no attempts to contact your friends without my permission. If they contact you, you inform me immediately.”

“Yes, of course.” Lance nods. It all feels a little extreme– but wouldn’t he be extreme after what the Galra did to their home planet?

“Okay, then.” She stands, then leans across the table and waves her hand in the direction of Lance’s cuffs. They deactivate and fall, dead, to the table with a clatter. 

Rubbing at his dirt-covered wrists in relief, he looks from the now-dark cuffs to Phaedra. “Thank you,” he says, and it’s genuine. “All I want is for Cassia to be where she’s meant to be.”

“Us too.” Phaedra offers him a thin smile, the first he’s seen. “You will be fetched shortly by security and reunited with your friend and Cassia in your temporary quarters.”

She turns to leave, when Lance is struck with a thought. “Wait!”

Phaedra pauses near the door and glances back at him. “Yes?”

“Why did everyone act so weird when I called her solecita?”

She gives him a calculating look, blinks, then turns away. “It is simply a strange nickname.”

Before Lance can question it further, she’s gone.

Chapter Text

As soon as the doors slide open to his new quarters, he’s running for Keith.

Barreling directly into him, he wraps his arms around him and Cassia and holds them tight. The doors hiss closed behind him as Keith freezes, then relaxes, wrapping his free arm around Lance in return. They’re covered in dried mud, they’re sweaty, and Lance is still in full armor, but neither of them hold back, clinging to each other like a lifeline. Lance takes a moment to soak in that both Keith and Cassia are breathing and warm against him, alive and unharmed.

He pulls away long enough to lift his chin from Keith’s shoulder, and press his lips to his. It’s out of the blue, uninhibited, and he doesn’t care. He almost died thinking he’d never, ever get to do this again, so moving forward, he vows to not let any opportunity to kiss him go. Keith makes a muffled noise of surprise, then eagerly presses back into it with so much enthusiasm that Lance has to step backward to keep his balance. 

When Lance pulls away, he’s wearing a lopsided, affectionate smile. Keith returns it almost shyly.

“You look like you lost a boss battle with a landscaper.” Lance reaches up to pull some mud-caked meadow grass free from Keith’s hair.

Keith only sighs, exasperated. “Wow, nice to see you too. Not that you look much better.”

Satisfied that Keith’s feeling well enough to get annoyed with him, Lance’s eyes turn to Cassia, inspecting her too for injury. From her spot against Keith’s chest, she acknowledges Lance’s attention with an exhausted, drowsy sound. Keith’s taken off the top part of his armor so she can press tight to his chest for comfort, his sleeves of the black, skin tight suit are pushed up to his elbows. She’s not covered in dirt, her soft hair is wet, and she smells like soap, so she must have already been cleaned up by Keith while waiting for Lance’s conversation to Phaedra to end. Which means there must be a tub or shower, the very thought of which is a siren call…

Lance starts looking around their quarters for the first time, cataloguing their surroundings. 

It’s surprisingly nice, if simple. They’re in a very small common space with a worn chair and a little table in the corner. Their bags are stacked on top of it– must’ve been picked up from the outside, and Lance is absolutely sure they were probably thoroughly rifled through before being allowed in. They better not have confiscated his facial cleanser. Off of the back wall there’s an open door to what looks like a bathroom, and two closed doors on the other two walls opposite each other to what he presumes would be bedrooms. 

“Not too shabby,” he comments, because honestly, he’d expected far worse.

“Could be worse. I gave her one of the two rooms so it stays quiet in there, she needs to sleep,” Keith says, shifting from foot to foot. “And we need to talk. I just didn’t want to put her down before you got back.”

He’s caught by an unexpected surge of gratitude, that Keith would stop to think that Lance, too, would want to confirm Cassia was okay, and not have to endure several more hours of waiting until she was up to check on her himself. “Thank you,” he says softly, a little choked up. God, he must be that strung out.

Keith, for his part, looks characteristically uncomfortable with the display of emotion. He clears his throat, and nods in the direction of one of the rooms. “I’ll put her down. You can shower first.” 

Part of him just wants to hold her indefinitely after the close call, but her eyelids are fluttering closed, and he knows that the best thing he can do for her right now is not disrupt some much-deserved sleep. So he gently bids her goodnight, gives her a forehead kiss for the road, and leaves Keith to it while he showers.

There’s nothing special about the shower. It’s cold, the soaps he fished out of his bag crowd the too-small shelf, and the pipes make a weird squeaking sound. Despite it all, it’s heavenly, like it’s pouring his life force directly back into his body. He takes as long as he thinks he can get away with, and when he emerges in a towel to root through his bag for a shirt and his soft black pajama pants, the door is still closed to the other bedroom, Keith nowhere to be seen. She must be resisting being put down– not that he can really blame her, considering the day she’s had.

He dresses and goes into the other room. There’s one bed, probably large enough for the both of them, but only just enough so that he already feels an anticipatory heat pooling in his cheeks. 

Then he scolds himself internally. Keith will probably sleep in the other room with Cassia, he was being presumptuous. Or he might ask Lance to clear out and go sleep in the other room, after they talk. 

Right?

He flops onto the mattress, face toward the ceiling, and closes his eyes as he waits on Keith. Within minutes he’s dozing, fading in and out, vaguely registering the sound of another door sliding shut, the wailing pipes in the bathroom on the other side of the wall, muffled shuffling and swearing as something falls off the too-small shelf. Maybe he should’ve taken them out of the shower. Oh well.

He rouses when the door opens to the room and pushes himself up on his elbows, mentally preparing himself for an important regrouping conversation before being able to sleep for real. 

In his mind, he’s beginning to formulate an itinerary of notes to compare regarding their experiences here so far, because that’s what a professional, capable paladin did. 

All of his competency evaporates as soon as he takes in Keith in the doorway. His dark hair dripping wet and hangs heavy and messy around his face, a thin, maroon t-shirt clings to his chest (has he always been this toned?), and he’s in his honest-to-God boxers like as casually as though they’re a pair of jeans. Lance’s face must betray that he’s dumbstruck, because a dark eyebrow arches in his direction, and– fuck, when his long eyelashes are wet like this, the silver in his eyes really pops–

“What?” Keith asks self-consciously, glancing down at himself. “Did I miss some mud?”

“No,” Lance chokes out, unable to tear his eyes away. His body has abandoned any thoughts of sleep in favor of what it considers to be a higher calling.

Keith gives him a look that seems to be a combination of bewilderment and concern. He must decide it’s not worth acting on, because he shrugs and closes the door behind him. Before tossing the towel carelessly into the corner, he lifts the towel to his hair to dry it off one last time with a vigorous shake. This, of course, does nothing to help Lance’s predicament when his head pops back out from the fabric, his hair has gone beyond disheveled into something Lance can only describe as pornographic.

To think a few hours ago he nearly died. They nearly died. That he may never have gotten the opportunity to marvel at him like this. And that he’d be thinking about anything other than their very important mission after everything that had happened.

“So, Phaedra,” Keith begins, sitting on the edge of the bed opposite Lance, all business. 

“Phaedra,” Lance echoes weakly, sitting up a little straighter. His mouth is dry. Keith’s lips look nice and wet, and he’s a man stranded in the desert, convinced their oasis could quench his thirst. 

He has to adjust himself and pull his knees to his chest. This is swiftly becoming a problem in his pajama pants if he doesn’t pull himself together, only he’s so worn out that what little self control he boasted on a good day is all but nonexistent.

“She gives me a bad feeling. I can’t explain it. Maybe she’s just skeptical of us, but she seemed to be digging for information that I don’t think we actually have,” he continues, entirely oblivious as he pulls his own legs up onto the mattress, crossing them neatly. “I tried to be honest, show her we really were here in Cassia’s interests. Her attitude was just… weird, I guess.” Keith rubs the back of his neck, then pins Lance under his inquisitive gaze. “What about you?”

Lance feels like he’s having to string together words one by one to form a crappy, awkward macaroni-necklace of a thought. “She– is intense,” he admits. “Protective. Guess it makes sense. Don’t tell her you’re part-Galra.”

Keith grimaces. “Yeah. No shit. I don’t know if Cassia being half-Arcellan makes her some sort of exception, or if it’s because she’s a baby, but I do want to know more about how they might treat her growing up. Or why she’s allegedly so… unbothered by it right now.”

Lance hadn’t really thought that far ahead yet. Or maybe he hadn’t thought to consider it suspect, just good fortune that they were accepting of Cassia, and only Cassia. “Huh,” he says. “I think I’d like to know what medical tests they did, in that case.”

“We could try to get that. And if they don’t give them willingly, maybe once Pidge comes back, you think?” Keith leans back onto his arms and tilts his head thoughtfully, tightening his dark cotton shirt around his chest and exposing a strip of pale skin above his waistline. A tendon flexes under the skin in his neck where it’s exposed at one side as he clenches his jaw, begging for someone’s mouth.

Lance, God help him, can only stare. 

Keith’s eyes are back on him, a small frown rumpling his expression. “Lance?” 

“Hm?” He blinks, trying to force himself back into the conversation. Phaedra. Arcellans. Delion Three. Keith’s exposed stomach.

“My eyes are up here.” There’s an amused, playful upturn to his voice.

Heat floods Lance’s cheeks– and neck and chest and low in his belly– and the callout elicits a strangled, guilty noise from the back of his throat. “I didn’t– I wasn’t– I’m sorry, I’m just so–”

Not a single one of his sentences can go finished, because Keith’s business-mode has entirely switched off. Lance isn’t even completely sure how he can tell, maybe it’s the set of his shoulders or the way the corner of his mouth is ticked upward, all of which are details that send heat flooding straight to his cock. It’s undeniable now, he’s turned on and Keith has clocked it. 

“You’re just so what?” Keith prompts. There’s more intensity in his tone now. Yeah, he’s definitely caught on, and he’s fucking toying with him.

Keith pushes forward now and leans toward Lance, weight in one of his hands between them, like a predator playing with its food before going in for the kill. Lance’s heart races in his chest, the rhythm so rapid he’s left short of breath from the rush of adrenaline. Instinctively, he leans back into the pillows to make space for Keith to hover over him, putting himself in the vulnerable position. 

“I almost lost you,” Lance attempts to explain. Keith is much closer now, Lance could easily reach out and grab him, pull him in. He resists, riding on the heady sensation of Keith seizing the control, wanting to reel him further into the dynamic. “And we didn’t even get to really get into this, we’ve had so little time. We never explored what this was.” 

“So… you want to explore,” Keith concludes. He’s being cautious, and not because he wants to hold back, there’s an unmistakable strained quality to Keith’s voice. 

Lance nods, and with some embarrassment, straightens out his legs to expose his desire already straining at the fabric of his pajamas. There’s a harrowing moment where he expects Keith to laugh or something, and that Lance would be left to die today for real, this time of humiliation, laid out on this mattress.

That doesn’t happen. Keith, seemingly unaffected (the bastard) just swings one leg over Lance’s hips to straddle him with an even expression. 

No, not entirely even, Lance realizes– as Keith places his hands on either side of Lance’s shoulders. As he’s poised above him intently, dark hair falling like a curtain to one side, Lance can spot the small signs of Keith’s own nerves and excitement, ones he’s never been quite close enough to study. His breaths are coming short and staccato, there’s a dent in the side of his cheek where his teeth bite into it. 

Lance loves a tease, but tonight? He’s too exhausted, too desperate to waste any time. There’s one thing he wants, and therefore only one thing in this whole goddamn universe to him. “Just fucking kiss me already,” he snaps, reaching up to twist his fingers in the back of Keith’s hair.

Keith doesn’t need telling twice. He dips down to capture Lance’s lips with his own, hungry and searing. There’s no moment of initiating softness like before, too much time has gone wasted today already, too many realities fractaled out in other dimensions where their fates ended mercilessly beneath the wildflowers. Tomorrow, this reality could again be the one where their stories came to an abrupt end.

The kiss is a relief, at first, the rush of resolving tension in the push-pull of their mouths, wet and breathless. It does not last– there is a dry fire beginning to build in Lance’s stomach begging to be sated with seemingly unending amounts of Keith. Ironically, every touch and kiss throws kindling onto the flame, urging it on. 

Keith’s tongue pushes against Lance’s mouth, and with a heady moan he parts his lips, their teeth clacking together in their shared urgency. Lance’s hand scrambles at the back of Keith’s head to ball in a fist at the base of his skull, pulling the tangled, soft hair taut from his scalp. Keith loves that– it earns him a surprise twitch of his hips downward and a soft gasp, grinding against Lance.

His own hips lift to meet the friction, the fire only burns hotter. He wants more of that from Keith. He wants to pull all the right strings, push the right buttons to find that instinctive, daring, and emotionally charged Keith that he knows in battle to be put to a far more productive use with him. 

Lance’s unoccupied hand goes to the hem of Keith’s shirt, solely interested in the skin beneath, pushing his hand up the flat of Keith’s stomach. The skin there is radiating heat in a way he recognizes, in the way he knows is flushing his own tan skin red in the same place too. Instead of dipping to the waistline of his boxers, like he so desperately wants to, he draws out the moment and slides his palm up toward Keith’s chest, ghosting the tips of his fingers over a nipple.

Now it’s Keith’s turn to let out an outright moan. He sits up suddenly and yanks his own shirt off, tossing it to the side. Roughly, he starts to pull at the fabric of Lance’s shirt too, and with a pull upward and some quick adjustment, he’s also freed. Keith practically pounces.

Lances’ back hits the pillows again with a soft “ oomph!” . Keith does not seem to notice, his mouth is now on the pulse point of Lance’s neck, sucking and nipping his teeth against the fragile skin there. Lance turns his face to bear his neck submissively, eyelids fluttering shut with the cocktail of pleasure, eliciting little gasps and whimpers as Keith seems to find the right sensitive spots down his neck, to his collarbone, then bites and soothes them again and again and again with his tongue.

Nobody has ever made him feel like this before, despite experiencing many similar tactics before during sex. It occurs to him, then, maybe it’s because before it wasn’t Keith . Maybe it being Keith is what makes this all so good in the first place, it’s not even anything they’re doing in particular. Every movement between them, every touch, feels charged with heat and promise.

Lance is beginning to get painfully hard, and he can feel Keith’s arousal rubbing up against his thigh as well. He needs touch and friction and soon , or he’s pretty sure he’s probably going to literally die or spontaneously combust from the fire in his gut reaching critical, whichever happens first.

“Off,” he begs through a soft groan, sliding his hands down Keith’s trim sides to slip his fingers under the waist of his boxers, yanking them down impatiently

Here, Keith hesitates, his mouth pausing around Lance’s collarbone to look up at him. “You’re sure?” he asks, looking suddenly uncertain.

“Am I– dude, yes , I’ve got a hard on for you that needs some attention real soon or I’m gonna go insane, yes I’m sure!” he gasps, lifting his hips up to make his point, making sweet, sweet contact with Keith’s own erection through fabric. Keith groansans in surprise, head dropping and elbows shaking to hold his weight over Lance– something Lance observes with great pride. 

“I’ve never done this.” Keith’s voice is small when he recovers from the touch, still hovering over Lance.

Lance’s mouth falls open. “You’ve never —?”

“Shut up,” Keith snarls, and there’s some real bite there, enough to make Lance bristle at the unexpected defensiveness.

“Woah, okay,” Lance says softly, reaching up to cup Keith’s cheek. “It’s not rocket science. Promise. Do what feels good, and tell me what feels good. It’s all instinct, just… let go.” 

He watches Keith’s expression for some sort of confirmation that they were good to go forward. “Okay?” Lance then prompts, leaning forward to kiss him– softly, briefly.

“Okay,” Keith agrees. He meets his eyes, and he seems to mean it, to trust Lance, and his pupils are still blown wide with inarguable desire. 

“Let go,” Lance instructs again, pushing again at the waistband of Keith’s boxers, and Keith lets him, even helps kick them back to his ankles, then onto the floor. 

And God, is Keith a vision like this. Eyes obsidian dark in the low light, cheeks are flushed pink, hair wild. His whole lithe, well-trained body is on display for Lance, his cock is hard for him.  

For a first-time-experience, it didn’t exactly seem fair to not have an even playing field, so Lance quickly shucks off his own clothes as well, leaving them both naked, breathless, and equally vulnerable. 

Lance is the one to lean back up and kiss Keith, who accepts the kiss readily, eyes falling closed. Lance is preparing to take control, expecting Keith to want to take more of a passive role if it’s his first time, and is instead surprised to find Keith’s hand back on his stomach, blunt nails raking lightly down his abs toward his cock.

Lance moves to reciprocate, but Keith’s lightning reflexes catch the hand, pinning it out to the side. He mouths along Lance’s neck, to his ear, and mutters as the back of his hand teases at his cock. Lance squirms at the overwhelming input of sensation, trying to press up into his touch for more.

“Do you know how much I fantasized about this?” Keith growls into his ear, warm breaths tickling the delicate skin there. “Even when I hated you– I wanted nothing more than to have you in every way I could think of to shut you up.”

The confession alone might have Lance coming on the spot (and the fact that Keith was a dirty-talking virgin), if he had any time to process. He does not, because Keith’s dipping his head to drag his teeth back down his chest, his stomach, his hips… Keith’s free hand cradles the side of Lance’s thigh, but the other stays stretched upward, fingers tangled in Lance’s.

For a moment, they make eye contact; Lance through a heady haze of want and disbelief, Keith through his dark eyelashes and devious intent. 

Keith slowly licks a stripe up his shaft, sending Lance gasping and clawing at the sheets at the burst of heat and pleasure. It’s not even any sort of complicated, expert level move or anything it’s just… it’s the fact that it’s Keith .

Keith takes him in his mouth, and this, this has Lance swearing and dropping his own free hand to twist into Keith’s dark hair, pulling whenever the sensation overtakes him. Keith’s careful at first– but with some encouragement from Lance, angling himself just right, a few spirited requests that he repeat something, he starts to get something of a good rhythm down.   

If there is a heaven, he thinks he must have found it. The fire that started in his belly has spread to every inch of his skin, rolled out to his fingertips and through the crown of his head, setting him alight. Pleasure crests and rolls in tantalizing waves, and he knows he’s being embarrassingly vocal, but he’s at the point where he doesn’t care. Let the whole fucking planet hear.

Keith keeps pausing– miniscule, here and there, looking up at Lance with uncertainty, and that’s not how this is supposed to go. As amazing as this is, Keith’s meant to feel comfortable, his tightly wound ass is supposed to finally be able to safely let go. 

Lance pushes up onto his elbows and breathes, “Wait.”

Keith pulls away immediately, looking concerned. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, and the insecurity has risen to the surface with such speed that Lance tries to salvage the moment by swooping down to press a kiss to his lips, wet and pink and gloriously swollen. 

This only strengthens his conviction. Lance wants their first time to be shared, to be spent squarely outside of Keith’s doubts. There would be time for doing all manners of things to one another, one at a time, but right now he’s overcome with the need to do this together.

“No,” Lance insists. “No, the opposite. I want you to come with me.” He sits up a little more, using his strength to pull Keith toward his lap. “I want to watch you.”

Keith goes glassy eyed and rubbery at this, and Lance believes he might have hit on something worth examining much more closely in the future. Good. 

With a cheeky grin, he scoots back so his back is braced against the headboard, Keith is nearly in his lap, and their cocks, heavy and desperate for release, are aligned with one another.

Lance makes eye contact with Keith and licks his hand, heel of his palm to tips of his fingers. Keith shudders at that, much to Lance’s satisfaction, and he then wraps his hand around both of them simultaneously. He’s pleased to find he didn’t really need all that much extra help from his own saliva– Keith’s mouth has made good work of making his own cock wet, and Keith’s leaking enough pre-come Lance is surprised he’s lasted this long untouched for a first time. 

He leans in and kisses Keith languidly, messy, and begins to pump his hand up and down, slowly. Keith moans into the kiss, Lance can feel it vibrate through his lips and down his own throat. Their tongues work in one another’s mouths, fighting for dominance, until Keith tilts his head and then has to break free to let out a shuddering breath. As Lance slowly picks up the pace, Keith’s eyes go hooded, he has to reach out to the headboard to steady himself as he thrusts himself into Lance’s hand, in turn rubbing against Lance and it’s all so–

“Fuck,” Keith hisses. There’s a crunching sound behind Lance’s left ear as Keith’s grip tightens on the headboard to fuck himself further into Lance’s fist.

Lance whimpers too at the sudden enthusiasm, he knows he’s not going to last much longer– he’s too tired, been wanting this for too long– but he tries to hold off, to keep his eyes open, to commit this image to memory.

Keith is flushed pink from his cheeks, down his neck, and into the tops of his shoulders and chest. Beyond his messy shag of hair, his eyes glitter with want like little pockets of deep space. His mouth is open, lips rosy, breathing pure ecstasy in and out as the pleasure jolts up his lithe body, builds and builds and builds to impossible heights. 

Lance grinds upward to meet Keith’s hips and tightens his grip on them both, twisting his wrist just so.

“You’re beautiful,” Lance whispers, leaning in to nip at Keith’s jaw, and he means it. They’ve been all over the universe, to countless planets, uncharted phenomena, the nurseries of galaxies. Keith is the most breathtaking of them all.

With a shout, Keith comes, trembling and back arched. The sight alone is enough to send Lance tumbling over the edge with a little more coaxing just moments later, and while he knows that the sound that escapes him is far from dignified, it’s probably the least performative in sex he had been in… ever.

Spent, Keith collapses forward into him, his forehead pressing into Lance’s shoulder. There’s an unexpected crunching sound to his side, and a sprinkle of debris on his pillow.

Still breathing heavily, Lance squints over at the headboard, then to Keith, who has turned his head to be take in the damage in a bizarre combination of spooked and totally blissed out. There’s finger shaped dents and gouges in the wood right where Keith had been holding himself steady. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Lance laughs breathlessly, trying to make light of it. Strength has to be one of his weird Galra traits that tended to emerge whenever Keith was having a particularly potent emotion. Keith may appear slight, but Lance had long suspected that something alien had to do with just how well he managed to throw around fully grown Galra double his size.

“Sorry,” Keith apologizes, catching Lance off guard.

Lance settles into the pillows, tugging Keith down with him. He lifts a hand– his less gross one– to tilt Keith’s chin up to meet his eyes. “What the fuck are you apologizing for?”

Keith looks startled. “I– I broke that, probably scared you and–”

“Keith. It was hot.”

“You don’t understand, if I could do that I–”

“Keith!” He presses their foreheads together, forcing eye contact. “It. Was. Hot. I can take quite a bit of throwing around, if that’s what you’re worried about. You already do it to me all the time on the Training Deck.”

He can feel the embarrassment radiating off of Keith. As though they literally had not just gotten done fucking like rabbits.

“What about you? Was that okay?” Lance then asks, softer, brushing his fingers through his hair. That seemed to soothe him before. Carefully, he tries to allow the bond to open up, to express his affection and honesty, though it’s difficult to do with control when he’s feeling this exhausted.

Keith, thankfully, does relax, so it must have worked, at least a little. “Beyond okay.”

“Everything you fantasized about?”

Keith closes his eyes and turns his face slightly into the pillow with a coy smile. “Well. Not everything .”

“Oh, there’s a list?” As he’s coming down, he feels the glowy, post-sex rush of pleasant sleepiness begin to wash over him. 

“So to speak. Yes.”

“We’ll have to review it together.” 

“You think you can handle it?” It’s playful, paired with a fleeting smile from Keith. A challenge, like they always did.

“I can handle anything,” Lance insists, eyes closing.

“We’ll see. Don’t worry. I’ll come up with a training program.” Keith’s voice is far away.

Lance snorts softly, curling toward Keith’s warmth and twisting their hands together. He isn’t sure how long they lay there, how long before he’s taken by long awaited sleep.

All he knows is that he looks forward to more of this .

Chapter Text

Cassia must have been at her limit just as much as Keith and Lance, because she nearly sleeps through the night. Nearly.

Lance laments the loss of a quiet, lazy morning pressed to Keith’s bare skin, even allows himself a quick, wistful fantasy about a round two, as she starts up her routine early morning whimpering across the hall.

Keith is dead to the world, so Lance quietly gets up, enviously permitting him a little more peace. After consulting with his equipment to determine that it is, indeed, very early morning hours, he gives himself a quick shower to clean up, dresses, then retrieves Cassia, who has increased in vocalizing her certainty that a diaper change and a meal is very much needed, right now, thank you very much.

He goes through the morning routine with her, eventually settling into the small twin bed shoved to the side in her room to make way for a worn looking bassinet, and wonders if today is the last day, the last morning cuddle, the last goodbye.

He can’t hold in his heartbreak any longer, now that he is sitting still, now that the constant danger has passed. Lance lets silent tears fall, as he rocks Cassia back and forth, back and forth.

* * *

They are carefully watched when they are allowed out into Delion Three that day, and they learn a few things along the way from Phaedra as they convene for a tour.

First, Delion Three is a ship. Keith nods impatiently, as though that had been obvious, even patronizing that Phaedra felt it must be stated aloud. Lance’s mouth falls open, and he peers around at every door, panel, and room they pass with renewed curiosity.

Unlike the Castle of Lions, Phaedra shares that it was never meant to have a stationary setting. This is evident in the utilitarian layout; despite the clear efforts of the Arcellans to bring some personality into their living space, it’s clearly a repurposed warship, all metal and no-nonsense design. According to Phaedra, it’s the only ship that escaped the Arcella system, though she doesn’t elaborate much on how exactly they managed that, despite Lance and Keith’s questioning. 

Second, at the beginning, the Arcellans had moved from planet to planet that could reasonably manage to support the population, but as time went on, this became unsustainable and risky. Not every planet was equal in its hospitable conditions, and they were presented with the catch 22 of staying put and risking being inevitably noticed, or leaving and venturing into space in search of the next planet without guarantees of who or what may cross their path on the way. 

This planet– they called it Ezarus, their word for “paradise” – was just a lucky find. As Lance had guessed, the magnetic storms kept them from being spotted in conjunction with some cloaking technology, and the planet supported Arcellan life support needs decently. When Lance asked how they survived the winters, Phaedra gave him a look like he’d lost his mind. “We don’t,” she’d answered. “We go to the Southern pole. Equally protected, and primed for a new warm season’s foraging and planting.”

In the instability that followed the destruction of their home planet, Arcellans have clearly prioritized strict order. Phaedra seems particularly keen on demonstrating this to Keith and Lance. All children attend a school where they receive an identical education. Once they are of age, they are assigned a job that suits the present needs of the community. A daily schedule is adhered to across the ship, meals are held in a community dining hall, and contact with the outside world is severely limited for both safety and preservation of Arcellan culture. Phaedra doesn’t say it aloud, but leaves little room for doubt in the heaviness of her unspoken words that they feel the Galra would not hesitate to finish the job, given the opportunity. Lance, admittedly, thinks she’s right.

As they move about, observing the orderly daily life, Lance finds himself quietly grateful for the presence of Phaedra. The looks from the other Arcellans are unsettling as they move about the ship, their bright gold eyes all following Cassia, some with simple curiosity, some with barely concealed disgust. He finds himself pressing her tighter against him to protect her from the harsh stares, though he knows she’s oblivious and it’s pointless. Keith, on the other hand, looks seconds away from biting, and positions his body between the offending Arcellan and Cassia with a vicious glare that even raised the hair on the back of Lance’s neck, despite it not being directed his way.

Lance’s head hurts by the time afternoon falls. Keith’s staying diplomatic, but he can tell he’s losing patience too. Phaedra is explaining how food is gathered and cultivated from the surrounding environment, as the plants are too touchy for artificial growth inside the ship, while overlooking the valley through a thick pane of glass on an upper deck. Just at the treeline, he can see a splash of red stark against the foliage, indicating that Red has not moved and is perfectly well. In front of Red, grasses in the meadow wave in the breeze, the turquoise trees ringing them in the mountains’ valley reach toward the bright, cloudless sky above. The scene is inviting, leaving him itching for a taste of fresh air. Lance has no interest in traipsing through the meadow again– no fucking way– but going from cooped up on the Castle to cooped up on another ship that’s on a gorgeous Earth-like planet feels particularly cruel.

“Can we go for a walk?” Lance blurts out, interrupting something that Phaedra was saying about soil nitrogen management. 

She blinks back at him, her gaze stern and unnerving as ever. “Nobody is allowed to leave without permission, the privilege is usually reserved to specific jobs and holidays.”

“So give us permission,” Keith pipes up, and when Lance furtively glances in his direction, his wandering attention had abruptly returned to the conversation. The idea of non-recycled air must be attractive to him too.

Phaedra purses her lips. There’s an unmistakable slide of her eyes to Cassia, who is currently napping in Keith’s arms, a lavender cheek squished up against his shoulder.

“I want to see if we received communication from our team. I can’t get any signal from quarters, there’s a better chance outside,” Lance adds on, hoping a practical purpose might help sway her. He does his best wide-eyed, kicked puppy impersonation, the one that tended to get him his way back home. “You can review any communication we receive, if we get any at all through the solar interference. We just want to know that they’re okay. Please?”

Fortunately, Phaedra is either not immune to Lance’s pleading face, or she must see strategic sense in granting their wish. Well, or the futility of his alleged motive. After a moment’s thought, where she seems to carefully weigh the request, she nods curtly, she nods. “Half a varga. No more. You will be accompanied by a security detail the whole time. They will not hesitate to detain you again if you attempt anything.”

The woman drove a hard bargain. Lance opens his mouth to counter, but Keith steps between them and quickly says, “Yes. Of course.” 

Lance scowls. He totally could’ve haggled her for more, but as Phaedra turns away, Keith is now giving him a sharp look that says if you ruin this, I will throw you into one of those sinkholes .

About fifteen minutes later, he’s glad he didn’t push his luck when the doors unseal and the cool, alpine air fills his lungs. They step out into the colorful meadow again, which buzzes with insects and strange looking birds sporting double sets of wings. Keith still has a drowsy, but now awake Cassia, her honey eyes taking in her surroundings with cautious interest. Lance shares her trepidation, and when he takes the lead of their walk, he’s careful to steer clear of the sprawling meadow ahead and aim directly for the treeline. Two Arcellans tail them (Brax and Moh, but he couldn’t figure out which was which for the life of him, and Keith scolded him for calling them “Broh”) armed, but thankfully give them just enough distance that he and Keith can talk, so long as they’re careful to keep their voices calm and quiet.

Lance is wearing only his arm gauntlet from his armor to attempt to connect with any of the other paladins. A blue rectangular display casts into the space above his hand from the top of the wrist, searching for some sort of familiar transmission to latch onto. Unsurprisingly, the solar interference devolves everything into hazy static. 

It’s something Pidge or Hunk could potentially work around. Not him, though.

“Anything?” Keith asks, glancing over at the display.

Lance shakes his head, swallowing back the guilt at the shortcomings in his tech abilities. Trying to read any transmissions from their friends had been mostly pretense, sure, but still he finds he’s disappointed that it’s not working.

“So what do you think?” Lance asks, keeping his attention on the display, his tone light, casual. He doubts the Arcellans can make out the specifics of their conversation, but he’s not about to go giving them reason to start trying to.

“I think Phaedra is giving us one hell of a sales pitch,” Keith says bluntly, his own eyes fixed on the worn dirt path in front of them that cuts through the grass and flowers, winding toward the woods.

“Yeah. I got the same impression. It’s not perfect here, but they’re… you know, they’re Arcellans, they’re Cassia’s people. Phaedra seems to really want her to be a part of that.”

Keith’s brow furrows. “Yeah. I guess.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something about it feels off to me. I don’t think we’re getting the whole story.”

Lance presses a button idly and moves his wrist around a bit for show. “They’re… guarded,” he agrees reluctantly. “Antisocial, even. Can you blame them, though? They’ve known us about a day, we’re the first outsiders here that they’ve kept alive since ever , and we barged in here with a half-Galra baby then admitted we used a chunk of a killer drone that wiped out their home to get here. I can understand why maybe they don’t completely trust us, either.”

Keith is unswayed. “I don’t like the way they look at Cassia.”

That, he can’t deny. Lance doesn’t either. Deep down, he knows that’s something that will probably always follow her here. She would never be fully disassociated with the Galra and what that stood for here. “They’d come around, I’m sure,” he says anyway.

“And if they don’t? If it makes her an outcast?”

Lance ponders this for a moment. They enter the treeline, a wash of cooler air closing around them. It smells identical to fresh pine back on Earth, even if the tree colors are too blue.

“I don’t know,” Lance says finally, kicking at a rock, watching it skitter up the path toward a patch of deep purple ferns. “Phaedra seems to be on her side, and she’s in charge. That must count for something. And it’s as safe and stable here as it gets, I have to hand them that. Because that’s more than we can give her.”

Keith thinks about this for a moment. “I still get final say?” he then asks. There’s an edge to his tone. Lance realizes he knows that tone, that he can place it– it’s fear, teetering on panic. Keith must think he’ll have that taken away from him.

“Yeah, man, you get final say no matter what. I promised.” He pours all of his sincerity into his voice, and bumps his shoulder reassuringly against Keith’s.

Keith nods, pacified, and they fall quiet, the silence filled only with their footfalls on the dirt and the soft pinging from the gauntlet as it continues failing to connect. 

They walk for some time. As Cassia progressively wakes, she becomes increasingly interested in everything around her, especially the trees and birds– which, Lance realizes belatedly, are completely new to her. Xenia Prime would have been her first time on a planet, and it wasn’t known for its lushness. She reaches (of course) for the patches of brightly colored flowers. They’re very careful to step around the blue ones, even if the Arcellans are with them and have promised their safety.

They finally come to a stop at the top of a hill, where a large, overturned tree lays fallen. It’s– massive– the trunk is as thick as a semi-truck, the upturned roots at its base winding and reaching every which way, towering high above their heads. There’s a clear patch of sky left in its absence, cheerful sunlight filtering down to the dark turquoise forest floor in shimmering pools around them.

Lance raises up the gauntlet, hopeful. “Maybe I can get a clearer signal from higher up?”

Keith gives him a doubtful look. “You can’t be serious. If everything was scrambled in Red up in the atmosphere, it’d be scrambled even if you climbed to the top of one of those mountains.”

“Okay, negative Nancy. I’m going up.”

Keith rolls his eyes, then lifts a hand in a way that says, your funeral. He then turns away and settles in the shade at the base of the gnarled roots, finding one to use as a bench. Without prompting, he begins to pick up some leaves and show them to Cassia– Lance even momentarily forgets what he said he’d do as a warm calm washes over him; the scene is so… wholesome .

He does, then, remember, and momentarily disengages the viewscreen to climb, digging his boots into roots and notches in the bark. His months of training pays off now– this was something he’d have never pulled off back home, but within a few moments and well-placed footholds, he’s heaving himself up to the top of the trunk and dusting loose bark off his hands on his jeans. A giant root stretches toward the sky, and he leans himself against it, catching his breath.

As he does, he notices spindly little branches sprouting from the root, fresh and springy. Turquoise leaves are unfurling along their lengths, tiny ones beginning to blossom at the tips and reach for the sun above. Lance looks up and down the span of the topmost roots– they’ve all begun to regrow in the same fashion.

Curious, he walks along the trunk toward the top of the fallen tree, where the former branches have fallen. When he reaches the edge of what used to be its canopy, he holds onto a branch to lean forward and peer over the side to the dirt beneath. 

Unmistakably, the branches at the bottom have turned and buried themselves into the earth. Where he’d expect them to be dry and brittle, they instead have maintained the color of the surrounding trees, even sprout fresh little branches of their own. They’re rooting.

He’d assumed the tree, having clearly endured a traumatic upheaval from whatever outside force, had died. Instead, it adapted. It didn’t stand itself back up, nor was it ever going to be like the trees surrounding it ever again. But still, it survived. It kept growing, and it drank in more sunlight now than the surrounding saplings buried under the old growth would see in their long lifetimes.

Lance carefully paces back to the upturned base of the tree. When he gets there, he crouches to inspect one of the youngest looking ones again, gingerly palming the shoot and wrinkled, soft leaves only just waking. From this vantage point, he can peer through the thick, tangled roots to see Keith and Cassia below. 

The familiar sound of her laughter floats up toward him, followed by the low, reassuring hum of Keith’s voice. He can’t make out what he’s saying, but it doesn’t matter. For someone so blunt and sparing with their words, he sure seemed to find plenty to say to Cassia.

And just beyond them, hovering not far, are the Arcellans. They look on edge, even from here, shoulders tight and hands not leaving their weapons. One twitches, like they want to train their weapon on Lance, clearly unhappy with his unexpected trip up the fallen tree.

Right. He straightens himself and reactivates the display, aiming toward the sky. He knows Keith is correct, it’s no good, but the Arcellan’s don’t know that, and he sure as hell is enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

As the scanner springs to life, it’s static for a few seconds, then–

“What the fuck?” he whispers to himself.

A signal. An Altean signal. Not the Castle’s, though, he would recognize that immediately. Something similar, but different.

“Keith!” he calls down, but he didn’t need to give the news, it turns out. 

Overhead, through the gap in the trees, the fireball of a ship tearing through the atmosphere streaks through the late afternoon sky, leaving a streak of charcoal gray smoke in its wake.

A few seconds later, there’s the deafening sound of a crater being blown into the forest floor.

* * *

Lance clamors down as fast as he can. In his haste, he misses a foothold and falls the last few feet, stumbling at the impact. It stings, but he brushes it off, joining back up with the others. 

“It’s Altean,” Lance reports to Keith.

“We have to go,” he says, “it’s got to be one of them.” One of their friends. Their teammates.

“Stop!” It’s one of the Brohs– Brax, maybe? “You are not authorized to investigate, we must return to Delion Three immediately.”

Keith then looks between the guards, Cassia, and the direction where a pillar of smoke is now wafting upwards, probably half a mile away from them. Then he looks at Lance, and they’re on the same page: not a fucking chance. Not if it’s their friends possibly burning to a crisp inside an escape pod.

They don’t need to say anything, both of them take off at the same time into the woods. Even holding Cassia, Keith is impressively fast. If Lance didn’t know the full extent of his speed from missions and training, he’d assume that her presence wasn’t even holding him back at all.

They’re to the crash site in minutes– it’s not hard to find, they only have to follow the smell of burning foliage, then the clear trail of destruction. They outrun the Arcellans easily, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t following. Their lead is a couple minutes, optimistically.

The pod is nestled in a large dent in the steaming earth, scorch-marked and battered, but whole. 

“Hold her,” Keith instructs, pushing Cassia into Lance’s arms. 

He can’t even protest, because before she’s even fully settled in his arms, Keith is sliding down the side of the crater with enviable grace. No momentum is broken when he reaches the bottom, and he leaps seamlessly back into a run.

The pod door opens with a hiss as it vents atmosphere, and for a moment, all Lance can make out is a tall figure. Shiro, he thinks hopefully.

No, as the steam dissipates, he realizes quickly that they’re too lean, too feminine, too–

Purple.

Keith skids to a stop a few yards from the opened door, and Lance backs a couple of steps away on instinct. It’s the Blade pilot from the Castle. Presumably, she’s probably mostly patched up from her time in the healing pod, which doesn’t exactly put the odds in their favor should this deteriorate into a fight.

Keith draws his Marmora dagger and holds it in front of him, pointed at the stranger like an accusation. How the fuck Keith had gotten it into Delion Three was beyond him, even their bayards had been confiscated, but Keith being Keith, had found a way. “Who are you?” he demands.

The woman holds up her hands, showing they’re empty. “I’m a Blade, you know that, Keith. Shiro and Coran sent me.”

Keith narrows his eyes, and even from the edge of the crater, Lance sees them flash dangerously. No– he feels it in the back of his mind too, the distrust, the panic, the fierce protective instinct.

He itches to get down there, to cover his back, like he always did. But he can’t, not with Cassia with them. Risking her was unthinkable, if leaving Keith vulnerable in this was tearing him apart. 

“I’ve never seen you on any missions before,” he spits back. 

She does not look impressed with his logic. “It’s a big organization. There are hundreds of Blades you haven’t worked with. You’re a new initiate.”

“How do you know that?”

“Do you really think it’s every day a paladin of Voltron joins our secret order?”

Keith scowls. She’s got a point. Lance can tell that Keith thinks this too, and it irritates him. 

“How do I know you’re not lying?” he demands, not backing down.

Lance glances nervously to the trees behind them. The Arcellans would be here any second, he’s pretty sure he can now hear their voices carrying distantly through the wood, calling after them.

The Galra woman thinks for a moment, then slowly extends her hand. “Give me your knife.”

Keith outright laughs at this. “Do you seriously think I’m going to give you my only weapon?”

“Your dagger will respond to a true Blade, yes?” she prompts patiently.

Keith’s forehead creases briefly– he’s actually not sure, it seems. “Yeah, but it works just fine for stabbing even if you’re not.” 

Now it’s the woman’s turn to look like she sees Keith’s point. Her yellow eyes narrow in contemplation.

Lance is enraptured by the battle of wills before him. And the thing is, in his gut, he can’t help but believe her sincerity. If she was a Galra soldier here to murder them and kidnap Cassia or whatever, she’d have probably made an attempt already or shown more interest in her and Lance at the lip of the crater, Lance is almost completely sure of it. Mental chess wasn’t usually the first move the Galra working for Zarkon pulled out of their bag of tricks.

There’s now the distinct sound of shouting and rustling brush closing in. They don’t have much time before the Arcellans get here, which means they need to decide real quick how they feel about this particular Galra. The Arcellans are not going to be so careful in their evaluation, of this he’s sure.

“Keith, just do it!” he calls impulsively over the edge.

Keith’s head ticks in his direction, just enough to keep the woman in his sight and simultaneously assess whether Lance has gone completely insane.

They have no time for explaining, so he calls forth the bond and Lance forces his own confidence in this into their connection. On the other side he can feel Keith’s surprise with his conviction.

There’s a few second’s pause. Keith doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t trust her, he can feel that too. 

Then, he tosses the blade in her direction so it falls in the dirt and ash a foot short of her boots, and he backs up several steps. Something in her expression relaxes with relief. Slowly and deliberately, she bends down and reaches for the knife, her other hand still raised and gaze fixed on Keith. 

To Lance’s amazement, as the Blade touches her palm, it morphs and elongates into the sword he’d seen Keith conjure many times in the past couple of months. 

If those daggers really only do respond to Blade members, she’s telling the truth. She’s a Blade. Or at least, at some point, had been. Keith is still frowning, confused, and it looks like his thoughts are racing to accommodate this revelation.

Their friends Brax and Moh make a stumbling, breathless appearance onto the scene, bursting through the foliage with their large guns balanced between both hands and at the ready.

One gasps in shock and horror as his eyes fall on the armed Galra at the center of the crater. “Freeze!” he commands, lining her up in the sight of his gun, and the second quickly follows suit. 

“No, no! Wait!” Lance screeches, waving his arms. “This is not– this isn’t what it looks like!”

“I don’t need to know anything other than that is a Galra!” Brax or Moh snarls.

Keith, at the center, turns around to wave his arms at the Arcellans to stop too. “No! Don’t shoot. She’s an ally.”

To the Blade’s credit, she doesn’t take the opportunity to launch the weapon into Keith’s back, so Lance supposes that’s another point toward trusting her. Instead, she drops the sword and raises her hands again. As the blade clatters to the ground, it retreats back into its resting dagger state.

“Galra are not allies. They are not capable. We believed those lies once too,” the other one spits. 

“Well this one really is!” Lance insists. “We told Phaedra about the Blade of Marmora when we were questioned, they’re an organization of Galra set on taking down the Galra empire. Just like us. Like you! Call Phaedra, ask her!”

There’s a terrifying moment where neither of the guards move, weighing this. Lance is completely certain that they’d be hailed as heroes if they dragged the body of a Galra back to the ship, regardless of what Phaedra does or doesn’t know about the Blade of Marmora. 

Then, thankfully, one does lean down, and murmurs something into what must be a communicator Lance can’t see. He holds his breath. The air is as thick with tension as the smoke belching from the back of the escape pod; nobody dares to move.

Then there’s the muffled sound of a tinny voice answering from somewhere within his uniform. The guards glance at each other, and their guns lower an inch.

Lance finally exhales.

“She comes quietly, or we shoot.”

“Of course,” the woman says, keeping her hands high as one of the guards carefully slides down the crater and approaches. She doesn’t protest when they put on the cuffs, giving her the same skeptical treatment Lance and Keith had been subjected to the day prior. 

She’s alive. They’re all alive. That’s what matters right now.

“Identify yourself,” the guard orders as he snaps the second laser cuff into place.

“My name is Krolia. I am a member of the Blade of Marmora, and I am here to help.”

Chapter Text

For some reason, Lance thought that they’d stick with Krolia as Phaedra did her interrogation.

That was stupid, he realized this almost immediately. What they were subjected to was far more miserable: being forced back onto Arcellan military time. 

This means sitting in the corner of the shared dining hall as curious Arcellans outright stare at them over their dinners, and a freshly assigned security detail stands by. Broh didn’t make the cut. Shame. He was starting to like them.

He misses the Castle’s kitchen, and longs to be picking at his foreign-lookig dinner there instead. At least Cassia has gotten hungry, too, and it’s keeping his hands busy.    

“Do you think she’s okay?” Lance asks for the thousandth time. He doesn’t know what to think of Kroila just yet, but he sure as fuck doesn’t want her to end up tortured or dead on their account, either.

“I don’t know,” Keith replies yet again, annoyed. He pushes some mushy-looking vegetables around his plate with a spear-like eating utensil. 

“It’s just that–”

“Lance, I know, ” Keith sighs, exasperated. “I know. I don’t like this either. But we can’t do anything about it, and we can’t risk pissing off Phaedra if this is Cassia’s only chance. We have to play by their rules. At least for now.”

Lance’s knee jiggles under the table, unable to sit with this answer. Keith isn’t wrong, he knows this, logically. Still, there must be something that could be done, right? “What if we tried–”

He isn’t given the opportunity to finish, cut off by a pair of Arcellans, a man and a woman, pausing at their table. He’s getting used to the staring, but this is the first time any of them have actually looked willing to engage. Perhaps because Phaedra isn’t here?

“Do you mind if we sit with you?” the woman asks. It feels so high school that Lance nearly barks out a laugh. Nearly.

Her skin is dark and her subtle, dark stripes extend to the edges of her hairline, two in particular extending over her forehead like a tiara. Her hair is dark and curly, with the signature streaks of gold, and her bright eyes are a pale, shimmery yellow, inquisitive and gentle. She reminds him a little of Allura– and immediately he feels a little more at ease. 

The male, though, is quiet, watching them both intently. He’s pale, maybe paler than Keith (impressive), with similar dark hair, close cropped to his head. Lance doesn’t get any bad vibes from him, necessarily. Just distrust, which is fair. The feeling is mutual.

“Sure,” Lance says, gesturing to the empty bench in front of them at the long table. “More than enough room. We’re clearly not the cool kids.”

They seat themselves, appearing a little baffled by the turn of phrase, though the concept seems to carry over well enough. “I’m Emyryn. This is Iro. And I would not say such a thing,” the woman disagrees. “In fact, you and your child have been the talk of the whole ship.”

“Keith. That’s Lance. This is Cassia. And she’s not really ours, exactly,” Keith replies, stiff and cautious. 

She nods. “Of course. That much is… obvious.” 

Her eyes flicker to Cassia. Iro’s fix on her with far less courtesy, enough so that Lance tilts her more toward his chest, so they can’t really look at her. 

“I apologize if our people have come off cold. We are not used to outsiders, and I’m sure you understand why some are apprehensive of another like her.”

Keith and Lance exchange quick looks. 

“You mean a Galra?” Keith clarifies, tensing.

“Half,” Iro grunts, his first time speaking. His eyes do not leave Cassia, making the hair prickle on Lance’s neck.

Emyryn’s eyebrow raises. “Somewhat. You were spotted all over the ship with Phaedra and overheard receiving information about life here, this is basic knowledge so I assumed it wouldn’t be withheld.”

“Of course,” Lance lies quickly, not having the faintest guess at what sort of “basic knowledge” he’s supposedly lacking. “Just, um. Jog my memory? It was a lot to take in.”

She seems to buy it. “Well, our first praetor was like Cassia, half and half. He was the one to get the ship away from Arcella and the Galra.” Her expression darkens. She’s holding something back.

“What?” Keith asks bluntly, noticing it too.

“Perhaps she skipped this part, she may not want to make you feel like we’re a violent people. And we’re not,” she defends. “He betrayed us to the Galra in the end and they brought down another attack to try to finish us. We barely escaped, since we couldn’t fight back. He was taken prisoner and put to death before we went into permanent hiding. You have to understand, it was our only option to save ourselves. Our people. We don’t take a death lightly, but it was one life for the survival of our whole race.”

“It was the right thing,” Iro emphasizes, his unnerving gaze now lifting to Lance. 

“O- Okay,” Lance manages. He glances down at Cassia, blissfully unaware of the attention and fully engaged in her dinner. At least one of them still felt hungry after all this. “And you’re telling us this because…?”

“Because I want you to understand that we don’t all feel this superstitious about her arrival. She is, of course, only a harmless baby.” Emyryn’s tone is unmistakably pointed in Iro’s direction. Iro’s brow furrows, but he says nothing. “Whatever you may have heard, or whatever our past may be, it does not dictate our future. We don’t all believe her arrival is omen of evil. Some of us believe it is an omen of good. A new day.”

Lance stares agape for a few seconds at Emyryn as the new information slots into place. It feels like this tangled web involving everything– the Arcellans, the Galra, Delion Three– is a mixed up Rubik’s cube he’s been slowly revealing the colors on, cube by cube, over the past weeks. He can’t help the feeling that it’s something he might be able to solve, but it’s still jumbled, missing a couple blocks. No matter how much he tries to reconfigure the information in his mind, it doesn’t line up right, it can’t . So he tries again– and again and again and again, hoping he might come close… He wishes he could peel all the stupid little metaphorical stickers off and put them back on again, like he did as a kid.

Keith saves him, thinking quickly on his feet. “Yes, of course we don’t think that.” He flashes a smile that is so painful and un-Keith it shakes Lance back to reality. Poor bastard really was not cut out to be a diplomat.

“Definitely not,” Lance jumps in, pouring on the reassurance, though his protective instincts have now kicked into overdrive. Cassia’s tucked tight to his chest now, an arm shielding her from everyone else. “People just haven’t been very specific about what omens, exactly.” He needs more information, if she could talk just a little more–

“Keith, Lance. I see you have met Emyryn and Iro.” Phaedra appears at the table, flanked by two of her own security detail. She is smiling, but it is plastic and cold. 

“Praetor,” Emyryn greets with a nod, which Iro mirrors. “We were getting to know our guests.”

“How kind. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask Keith and Lance to come with me.”

“Of course.” 

The pair stand in a rush and collect their food, seemingly embarrassed to have been caught speaking with them. Emyryn gives them a small parting wave. Iro is already turning away. 

An uncomfortable, wrong feeling winds its way around Lance’s insides. Emyryn seemed kind and full of good intentions, the interaction felt completely genuine, and yet it has shaken the dust free from dark corners of Arcellan history he’d have never known to look in. 

What was this place?

He’s given no further time to dwell, because they’re now standing and following Phaedra out, their tray of unappetizing food forgotten. Cassia’s finished, her bottle, but she’s happy to settle over Lance’s shoulder. Her weight keeps him grounded as they wind through the halls. 

“We will let you have a monitored visit with the prisoner,” Phaedra informs them. They start down a hallway that’s beginning to look familiar; he’s pretty sure this is where they were taken when they had first been brought in.

“The prisoner?” Keith echoes through grit teeth. “We told you, she’s with the Blade of Marmora. She’s not a threat.”

“Yes. You did tell us that.” Phaedra replies evenly, not breaking stride as she guides them seamlessly through the corridors.

“Then what’s her crime?”

“She is Galra.”

“Excuse me?” Keith spits. 

“Keith,” Lance warns. He may totally agree with him that this is a dick move on Phaedra’s part, but talking to Krolia was important. It might be their only link to connecting back up with their teammates, or getting them some help if she knew anything about their status.

Keith levels his withering glare on Lance, which Lance has to bravely defy and shake his head once.

Phaedra has glanced back over her shoulder to observe their exchange with interest. Satisfied that it is resolved in her favor, she faces forward again. “I don’t believe I need to remind you why we are here, why we must hide, and what the Galra have done to us. Caution, however excessive it may seem to you, is entirely necessary for us until we are certain we are safe.”

Keith opens his mouth to argue again, and Lance elbows him in the ribs. They can’t risk this right now, no matter how twisted this was. And, if he’s being honest, they hardly know Krolia. He’s not about to go risking Cassia’s safety and potential future home on a so-called Blade they knew nothing about.

Glowering, Keith snaps his mouth shut and follows the rest of the way in silence. 

As it turns out, they had gotten the royal treatment with their interrogation rooms, because they turn left from the security offices and are brought to a cold, dark brig tucked deep into the belly of the ship. He notes that all the holding cells are empty down here, save for the one they are walking toward. Delion Three must not have a lot of issues with misconduct.

Behind a shimmering gold force field paces Krolia, still disheveled and bruised from her rough landing, but otherwise unharmed. As soon as she notices the group, she straightens up to her full height, easily two heads taller than Lance. He can’t help but notice that her attention passes squarely over himself, Cassia, and Phaedra, singularly drawn to Keith. 

“You may talk,” Phaedra says. Then, shockingly, she then holds out her hands for Cassia. “I can take her off your hands until you are finished.”

Lance recoils and takes a big step backward. A dank, spooky brig was hardly his first choice of baby-friendly atmospheres, but he sure as hell was not separating with her. 

“No way,” he snaps instinctively, just as Keith snarls, “She stays with Lance.”

Phaedra’s expression flashes with disappointment, then she nods. “Very well. We will be just outside.”

Just like that, they’re gone. 

It’s an illusion of privacy, Lance knows. They’re probably hoping that the perceived absence of Arcellans will draw some sort of intelligence out of any of the three of them. Still, he relaxes when they leave, and his heart rate begins to even out as he comes down from the fear that Phaedra was going to take Cassia away.

He quietly shifts her to his other shoulder and pats her back, remembering he’s supposed to be burping her, reeling. Keith looks back at him in equal alarm, but there’s no time to process any of this now. 

“Keith,” Krolia begins. There’s a gentleness there, one that surprises Lance.

Keith seizes up, and turns his attention to the woman.

“How do you know my name?” Keith demands. His fists ball at his sides, and he straightens himself as he comes toe to toe with the force field.

She doesn’t flinch. “Every Blade knows your name. Kolivan may treat you like any other initiate, but it’s not just any other initiate that’s also a paladin. Word travels. Also,” she adds apologetically, sparing Lance a split second of attention, “Your teammates at the Castle told me, and your friend here used it back at the crash site.”

The muscles in Keith’s jaw twitch, and he must be thinking the same thing as Lance: that does check out, and it’s not the “gotcha” he’d been hoping for.

Several questions seem to be battling on Keith’s tongue, there’s a beat before one wins out.“Shiro, Allura, and Coran. They’re okay? You spoke to them?” Keith asks.

“Yes. Allura is unwell, but will recover. Coran found a way to fix the ship. Shiro took his lion to get ore from a comet that they need to do it. They hope to reunite with everyone soon, and sent me down because I’m the only person uninjured, non-essential to their repairs, and not a paladin lest the Castle need defense. We hadn’t heard anything from you and couldn’t pick up any of your life signs, it was growing concerning. They feared the worst. Shiro especially.”

Lance hadn’t even thought of that, what their arrival must have looked like on their end, especially with a powered down Castle. There was so much interference on this planet that all communication would be impossible, nor ability to tell if they’d made it alive, even if they did risk sparing some energy toward an attempt at checking on their well being. He suddenly feels guilty for not trying a little harder to actually send a message this afternoon. 

Keith’s not so preoccupied by this and fires off another question. “How’d you find us?”

“Luck. My colleagues and I happened to be doing a mission nearby when we intercepted communications of a Galra fight with Voltron in the vicinity. I had been briefed about Valka’s attempted rescue, we used to run missions together, and… well, the primary goal was to come to Voltron’s aid, but believe it or not, some of us Galra do have some heart for our children.” The smile that tugs at her lip is a tortured, longing thing, despite her well-trained soldier’s stance.

“You knew Valka?” Lance blurts out in surprise, stepping a little closer to the cell. 

“Yes. She was an excellent Blade. Clever. Quick. An asset on any mission, particularly those requiring expertise in strategy. I was very sad to hear she did not make it.” For the first time, her attention falls to Cassia, who doesn’t care much for the suggested task of burping and is now instead chewing on one of Lance’s hoodie strings, soaking it through. “May I see her?”

Lance’s eyes dart to Keith, who nods tentatively. He gently turns her around on his hip, and slowly approaches close enough that Cassia and Krolia can properly see one another for the first time, but keeps a couple steps distance from the force field, just in case. 

Up until now she’s been standing tall, a formidable and proud Blade despite her captivity. Lance identifies a lifetime’s worth of training in the way she holds herself. He’s only ever seen top officers stand with that sort of effortless confidence back in the Garrison and on Galra bridges. Even Shiro wasn’t quite there yet.

Presented with Cassia, she melts . 

Her eyes soften, she crouches down to get on eye level with her (which is lower than Lance will ever admit to anyone), and all of the stiffness drains from her posture. “Hello,” she coos. Her fingers twitch, and Lance doesn’t miss that she very intentionally clasps them, as though to resist reaching out. “It’s good to meet you, Cassia. I’ve heard so much.”

At first, Cassia only blinks back at her, studying Krolia’s face with rapt intensity. Then, her face breaks into a wide, toothless smile. She squeaks happily while pitching forward in Lance’s hold, her chubby arms outstretched wide to Krolia. When Lance has to reposition her, she struggles against his grip, still reaching, and makes a distressed, panicked noise. 

There’s a blissful second where he thinks that Krolia is some sort of baby-whisperer, and Cassia’s simply extremely interested in the new adult engaging so warmly with her.

Then the crushing realization settles in: Cassia thinks she’s her mother. 

Guilt hits him square in the chest like a gunshot. Of course she’d think that, how could he not have thought this through? The only other full Galra she had ever consistently been around was her mother. And Krolia… well, they didn’t necessarily look identical, but she and Valka looked alike enough – same build, same skin tone, same Blade demeanor– that to a six month old baby with separation trauma and still-developing vision? In a place so like the dark cell she'd only ever known her mother in? It’s nothing short of cruel deception.

Horrified, Lance steps away and tries to soothe Cassia with some shushing noises, holding her to his chest and rocking from side to side. It’s no use– she screams in betrayal. The damage is done. They can’t even let Krolia hold her if only to give her a moment in the illusion, not while she’s behind the shimmering force field. Cassia would probably figure it out quickly, but still…

Krolia straightens, eyes wide in alarm, hands held out defensively. “I– I didn’t mean to–” she starts.

“We know,” Keith has appeared at his side, and Lance is grateful for the reassuring hand on his back in the sudden sea of his own overwhelm. They both huddle around Cassia as she shrieks and attempts to claw back in the direction of Krolia, who watches on in silent mortification from her cell. Lance feels bad, but can’t think about that right now, his entire focus is on Cassia and making this better.

“Keith,” he pleads over the cacophony as Cassia arches her back and screams louder, fat tears spilling from the corners of her eyes and rolling down her round cheeks.  “Take her.”

“What?” 

“Take her! Do the– the talking thing.”

Keith looks dubious, but he nods and obliges, dodging a tiny, purple balled fist to lift her out of Lance’s arms. Cassia does not like this change at first, somehow managing to crank the volume up even louder and higher pitched. Lance’s eardrums throb at the assault.

She’s just as pissed in Keith’s arms, despite the fact that he’s gotten much less awkward when holding her recently. Honestly, he wrangles her with expertise now, pulling her close into his chest so she can press her ear against his ribcage. Turns out, Keith Kogane’s ability to learn quickly extended to babies too.

However, for as deft as his hands were growing from experience, he still falls short on the task of talking, if Keith was even capable of being talkative in the first place. “What do I– give me something to talk about! I can’t think.”

Cassia unleashes another earsplitting wail, a punishing motivator to think up something fast.

“Talk about…” He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to think of something that would go on long enough (and long enough with Keith narrating, of all people) for her to calm down. “Oh! Tell her about how you found Blue!” It’s mostly Keith’s story, had hyper-specific details about his obsessive search to dive into, and tapped into the only topic he’d ever seen Keith actually ramble about: Voltron. Perfect.

He doesn’t look nearly as comfortable with this selection, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Okay, um, well, after I got booted from the Garrison and was living out in the desert…”

At first, it doesn’t seem to help. Cassia is inconsolable, yet Keith is admirably patient, if flustered, when he readjusts her again and again and tries to keep his tone calm and collected. He paces a fair distance from the cell, trying to keep himself angled so Cassia couldn’t catch another glimpse of Krolia.

By the time Shiro enters the story, the decibels are definitely reducing, though she continues to cry as breathlessly as the first days she was at the Castle. Then he’s talking about the cave, and she’s starting to quiet, alternating between being stilled by Keith’s voice, and remembering that she’s upset with another burst of tears. And by the time Keith is colorfully describing Lance’s poor piloting skills of Blue (probably knowing Lance isn’t going to protest under these conditions), she’s gone quiet, pressed up to Keith in a tight ball. There are still wet streaks from tears down her cheeks, and her breathing is punctuated by some shuddering, deep gasps. Slowly, her eyes fall shut, exhausted by the ordeal and clinging tightly to Keith’s shirt, like she can’t get close enough to him.

Keith stops talking, and none of them dare to move for a moment. When it finally seems safe, Cassia’s really asleep, Keith lets out a shaky sigh of his own. 

It only then occurs to him that they hadn’t needed to stay here. They could have left, gone back to their room, asked for help. But it hadn’t occurred to him at all; Krolia being there, looking on despite being the instigating factor, had felt… safe in a way the outside under the direct scrutiny of the Arcellans would not have, despite knowing, logically, they were probably spying on this interaction anyway. Even now, Krolia only looks heartbroken and empathetic, there’s not an ounce of judgment.

“I’m sorry,” Lance finally says.

“Don’t be. You couldn’t have known,” Kroila responds, eyes flickering briefly to him, like she’d forgotten he was there at all. “I remember what it was like.”

“You have kids?” Keith asks, taken aback.

“I did, once. Yes.” She’s back to staring at Keith, looking haunted.

Keith swallows, shifting his weight, and Lance can infer the meaning from that too. He's seen too much out here and he knows the look. It ended poorly. 

“I’m so sorry,” Keith whispers.

Krolia shakes her head vehemently. “Please don’t. I don’t deserve your pity.” None of them know what to say to that, and after the silence hangs for a moment, she adds to Keith, “You’re a natural. I suspect your voice reminds her of her mother’s koravox. ”

“Her– crow box?” Lance repeats, flummoxed.

Both Krolia and Keith simultaneously flash him an identically blistering look of irritation. One might have only made him twitch, but two? He blanches.

“It’s a sound Galra parents can make to soothe their young children, it’s– not quite their voice, it’s a different sound, deeper in the chest. It’s difficult to explain.”

“Like purring?” Lance thinks it’s a helpful analogy, but Keith looks completely affronted.

“I am not purring, ” he snarls. It’s a good thing he’s holding Cassia, because it’s probably the only thing keeping the volume of his voice in check.

“It’s not purring,” Krolia confirms, albeit more thoughtfully, like she’s weighing the equivalence.

Lance throws his hands up in defeat. Not purring. Fine. “Guess that explains why she prefers you and your suave voice,” he says to Keith, prickling. “I always did say you had a face for radio.”

Keith flashes him a middle finger. Krolia seems very amused by this, and Lance wonders whether the meaning is universal, or if Krolia recognizes the human gesture somehow. Unless Galra did it too? That’s a thought, Zarkon flipping them the bird and vice versa.

Which brings him back on task, enough to shove aside his flash of envy that Keith was able to save the day and it only served to make this mysterious Galra even more entirely disinterested in him, for whatever reason. He proceeds carefully, knowing that the Arcellans will definitely be hearing all of this. “Look, you saved our lives back on the other side of the wormhole. I haven’t forgotten that. I want to believe we’re all on Team Cassia here, but how can we be sure we can trust you?”

Krolia holds his gaze evenly. (And who knew? She could take her attention off Keith for more than a few seconds after all.) “Because if I were working for Zarkon, I would have flown far away from here and to the nearest Galra outpost, to both save myself and report the location of Voltron while it’s compromised, and I would have delivered a piece of ancient Altean technology off the Castle of Lions for their research in one fell swoop. I would have been a hero to the Galra Empire. Instead, I have crash landed on the nearest planet that, unless I had intel otherwise from your teammates, seemingly has no life signs until you know exactly where to look and what you’re looking for in the first place.”

It’s a solid point. He glances over at Keith, and by the set of his jaw, he can tell he finds her logic sound as well. It strikes him, out of nowhere, that Keith looks like a leader when he does this. Baby in hand and all.

Keith nods solemnly, like a vow. “We’ll talk to Phaedra.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Phaedra is awaiting them just outside of the brig’s entrance. She doesn’t seem phased at all when they say they want to talk, only confirming Lance’s suspicions that the Arcellans had not granted them true privacy. He’s grateful for it, honestly– they just heard and saw everything they did. Krolia’s story checks out on multiple fronts, and though she was a little stiff, there was little about her that pointed toward wanting to harm the Arcellans. She barely seemed interested in them at all.

“She’s not a threat,” Keith begins. “She would be perfectly safe to release and–”

Phaedra holds up her hand. “We will make that decision for ourselves. Your advice will be taken into consideration.”

Lance does not like the sound of that, so he cuts into the conversation too. “If you just hear her out, she’s not gonna go and turn you in or–”

“ Lance. I understand. It will be considered.” 

“Yeah, but–”

“I believe that there are some people waiting for you.”

Lance blinks, bewildered. What, did Elywyn and Iro come around for another cryptic chat?

Phaedra beckons for them to follow, and what choice do they have? They exit the brig section, come back around to the security office they’d been held in initially, and–

He’s nearly toppled over by a crushing hug, before he can register that they are not alone in here. 

“Lance!” Hunk exclaims into his ear, making him jump. 

The hug is so familiar, warm, and so very much needed that he collapses into it, hugging his best friend back and exhaling with relief. The grin pulling at his mouth is so sudden and so wide, his cheeks ache. “Oh my God, you’re okay!”

“Yeah, despite nearly collapsing the only black hole anywhere near this sector,” chirps Pidge, somewhere behind Hunk’s towering form. 

“I panicked! I didn’t think my aim would be that good!” Hunk defends.

Hunk finally frees him to move on to (more carefully) hugging Keith. It’s only then that he pulls away enough to see that both he and Pidge’s armor are caked in dried mud, and Lance quickly has a pretty good idea of how their arrival went down.

“Good job not dying, you gremlin,” Lance compliments, pulling Pidge in for a tight hug anyway. 

“Yeah, you too. Cool ship you found here.” When they pull away, their eyes are jumping excitedly from object to object, no doubt already mentally dissecting the innards of Delion Three. Lance is so happy to see them alive, healthy, and themselves, that he’s only a little annoyed that they have also immediately identified this place as a grounded ship.

It reminds him Phaedra is still in the room, looking on in scrutiny as the paladins interact with one another, scanning for any sign of threat or deceit. He’s confident that she’ll find even less to be suspicious of in Hunk or Pidge than himself and Keith.

“They’re friends,” he tells Phaedra. “We can trust them. I promise.”

Phaedra would probably never be inclined to simply take Lance’s word for something; however, Lance knows their arrival and whatever they’ve shared must have only corroborated his and Keith’s story. Still, when she nods, it surprises him. He’d expected a little pushback, at least, but she doesn’t question or put up a fight.

“They have been clear their only intention is to protect Cassia,” she admits, “as is ours.”

And if Lance was already surprised, when she draws the Marmora dagger from her pocket and holds it out, hilt first, to Keith, he nearly falls over. At first, he thinks she’s going to lecture him about sneaking a weapon onboard, maybe declare it a violation of their terms for keeping them alive and stab him right there.

“I understand this is yours,” she calmly says instead, watching Keith closely with her bright eyes. 

Keith’s mouth hangs open. Speechless, his eyes dart between his dagger and Phaedra, clutching Cassia a little tighter. Even from here, Lance senses the distrust rolling off of him in waves.

Phaedra seems to have expected this. “Consider it an act of faith. I want you to trust that we are worthy of Cassia; we must extend some trust to you too. After your assistance in apprehending the Galra today, I feel you have demonstrated your allegiance to the protection of my people.”

Keith gingerly takes the dagger from her and mutters an awkward thanks, slipping it into the waistband of his pants.

“She will have a good home here,” Phaedra continues. “In fact, I am thinking that home might be with me.”

“What?” Lance’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. In his periphery, he sees his teammates do their own double takes as well.

“I understand this is a change from what you expected. However, I assure you, I only want what’s best for Cassia. And who else better to teach her the ways of the Arcellans, and to ensure she integrates into our society?” Phaedra tilts her head and smiles at Cassia.

Lance doesn’t know what to say. Nobody else does either, it seems– Keith is in shock, and Pidge and Hunk’s attention keeps flitting wildly between the three of them, trying to figure out what they’ve missed.

“Can we– can we maybe have some time to think about this?” Lance squeaks out.

“Of course. I assumed you would. But I don’t want you to make any decisions without all of the information, would you meet me tomorrow morning with Cassia? I can show you my home. What would be her home.” 

“Uh…” Lance glances over at Keith, who gives him a helpless look, like what choice do we have ? Going with it for now, hearing her out, was the only real option when their friends and Krolia’s lives rested in Phaedra’s hands.

Lance nods, something twisting deep in his stomach. Phaedra brightens considerably. 

“Excellent,” she says. “I will see you in the morning, then. Sleep well.”

Chapter Text

For the first night in three weeks, Cassia is silent and Lance isn’t immediately asleep.

  He still feels tired down to his bones. There’s the feeling of exhaustion, all of the leaden physical sensations that come with it. Frankly, he should be completely dead to the waking world right now, by all counts, and any state that isn’t “asleep” when he feels this way should be classified as torture.

Lance’s body has elected for the torture option, it seems. He’s left staring at the ceiling, the aching void of uncertainty in his chest twisting and stretching, as he turns over the offer again and again in his head, trying to find the cracks he’s confident he’ll find upon his tenth, twentieth, hundredth inspection.

He knows that, in theory, this is what they’d wanted. Maybe even better than they’d hoped.

Phaedra clearly wants her, and he can tell that she’s extending trust to them in hopes of its reciprocation. Keith’s blade had just been the start: their bayards were neatly awaiting them on the small table in their quarters when they returned. No heads up, no note, but the message that she was taking a step towards mutual understanding was clear. It’s a gamble, Lance will hand Phaedra that. He can’t help it, he believes it to be a real olive branch, too.

If they were to agree to Phaedra taking in Cassia, then the next logical step is that they would quickly be going their separate ways. Krolia’s release could easily be set as a term in this handoff, and frankly, he had the feeling that condition wouldn’t receive much pushback from Phaedra. Though not proving to not be much of a real threat, Krolia would be a PR nightmare if word got out a Galra was on the ship and still alive . Phaedra’d probably be leaping at the solution for this particular problem.

More importantly, if Cassia stayed here, under her care, she would have a home with the only person who could tell the other Arcellans to shove it if they treated her poorly over some stupid superstitions or her heritage. While what Elywyn had shared over dinner that evening had been unexpected, it did prove that although some Arcellans feared the Galra side of her, there would almost certainly also be those who saw her in a more positive light. Maybe, with time, and as they got to know her, Cassia really could be accepted. While the Arcellan lifestyle wouldn’t be Lance’s first pick for an upbringing, who was he to judge? It was understandable, the way they lived. She’d know nothing different. The Arcellans would probably find aspects of Earth culture intense and untenable in their own right. 

Then, of course, there was the matter of Voltron. They’d go back to galavanting across the universe, releasing planets from the oppressive grasp of Zarkon’s empire, being heroes. The thought of doing something like that had not so long ago been the pinnacle of everything he’d dedicated his life to, a bright-eyed cadet wanting to help people and touch the stars. When he became a paladin, it felt like he’d finally found his place and purpose; he took intense pride in his role as a defender of the universe. Hell, he would cautiously say he was actually getting pretty good at it.

Now, the prospect of returning to the way things were before feels hollow. When he thinks about being a paladin, he strains to feel the same excitement and determination he once had. All he can think about is the space Cassia will leave behind, space he didn’t know he had the room to make three weeks ago.

There is, of course, no reason to hold on forever, however loud his heart may be in the matter. To keep her would be intensely selfish, and a huge, unnecessary risk to Cassia’s life. The Castle of Lions was no place for a child in the middle of a brutal war, one that wasn’t likely to end soon when there was ten thousand years of occupation and genocide to unravel. Sometimes, Lance wasn’t even sure they’d see the end of it in their lifetimes. Nor would the next generation, or the next. Even assuming Cassia didn’t get hurt in the heat of a battle, having her there opened up more liabilities for the Empire to exploit. There’s still the horrible vision of Cassia being kidnapped by Zarkon that he can’t get out of his mind.

And the longer they wait here, the longer they draw out this process, the more likely one of those horrible outcomes for Cassia becomes. Time never was, never would be, on their side.

He knows all of these things, rationally. 

Emotionally, though, two types of love war within him: the one that can’t bear to live without her, and the one that can’t bear to live with himself if he doesn’t. 

Every single night of the past three weeks, he has wondered if it might be the last with Cassia. Tonight, he feels– no, he knows – the clock has run down. How or from where, he can’t say, but he has this sudden flash of certainty. He still maintains a litany of concerns about this place that still he needs answers to, but he’s sure. 

Lance’s stomach turns. The thought of her a room away is suddenly unbearable; he needs to be with Cassia until the clock hits zero.

He sits up and pushes the sheets aside, trying not to disturb Keith. Without a single comment, he had come to bed with him again tonight as though it was what they always did. When he swings his legs to the side of the mattress, he’s surprised to feel Keith’s hand close around his wrist. 

“Sorry. I was trying to be quiet,” Lance whispers immediately, glancing back over his shoulder.

Keith shakes his head against the pillow, looking just as fatigued as Lance felt, but alert. “It’s not you getting up, it’s– your thinking is really loud,” he complains, then gestures vaguely to his head. “Or your feelings. Whatever.”

Had he really been so miserable that he hadn’t noticed he’d funneled it through the paladin bond? At first he’s horrified, realizing the others must have felt it– but no, Hunk would’ve been here in a second. He must have wanted Keith, specifically, and subconsciously the bond reached out to him. 

Why Keith didn’t say something sooner? 

Then it hits him. The bond is wide open on the other end, and he can feel it now that he’s out of his own head and knows where to look: Keith’s there as a slowly rotating fog of concern, heartache, and hesitation. 

No, not hesitation, it’s more than that. Doubt – visceral and all-encompassing; it colors everything else in Keith’s mind in muted gray.

“We can talk about it in the morning. I just– I want one more good moment. Please,” Lance begs.

Keith looks like he might argue at first, then he brushes his thumb against Lance’s wrist. He nods once, and his hand softly drops back to the comforter.

Lance pads to Cassia’s room, careful to be quiet and slow as he raises her from her little cot. However, he doesn’t then go for the spare bed, or the small common area. He goes straight back to his room, where Keith is. 

When Lance reappears in the doorway, Keith squints up at him, surprised. “I thought you’d wanted some time alone,” he says, clearly feeling the need to give Lance an out. “You don’t have to include me. It’s okay. You’re the one who really took care of her for most of the time, you deserve that.”

Lance dismisses the idea immediately and climbs into bed, carefully shifting to not wake Cassia against his chest. “You did this too. I couldn’t’ve have survived this without you.”

The doubt is back, both in the back of his mind and plainly written on Keith’s face. “I didn’t–”

“ Keith. ” 

To his amazement, Keith actually falls quiet– though an argumentative (and cute) scowl still crumples his expression. Shifting backward to lay down propped up against his pillows, Lance ensures Cassia is safe and sound where she’s nuzzled against his sternum, then he opens up an arm. “Shut up and come here.”

Stubborn, independent, thorny Keith tucks himself into Lance’s embrace, head coming to rest on the pillow beside him. He smells good, like himself, all warmth and a hint of spice. Keith’s arm loosely comes to rest over Lance’s chest, the back of his hand resting in Cassia’s hair. 

Lance closes his eyes, and allows himself to indulge in the fantasy one more time, closer now to reality than it has ever been.

Finally, he allows himself to name it: him, Keith, and Cassia. A family .

* * *

When Lance wakes, there’s a thick knot of dread in his stomach. 

He feels it before anything else. Before Cassia’s weight on his chest, before her irritated fussing at his shirt, before Keith shifting beside him as he’s also roused from sleep. It’s early, and there’s no relief from his few hours of sleep to be found. However, Cassia won’t wait, and he’s pretty certain that his mind won’t either.

“I’ll change her,” Keith volunteers against the skin on Lance’s neck. “You make the bottle.”

It’s dawn, he soon learns from the datapad by the door, but going back to sleep is unthinkable as soon as he remembers what lies ahead today. Keith has the same idea, and is even dressed when he emerges with Cassia. They do the whole morning like they did chore duty as cadets at 0800: one immediate task at a time, delaying the inevitable, until eventually, they run out of tasks completely and are left staring at one another in the main room, Cassia content to chew on a toy in Keith’s arms. Lance hovers closeby, just to be near them.

“I guess it’s time we talk about it,” Lance exhales. The heavy, sickly feeling in his gut doubles.

“Guess so.” Keith doesn’t seem much more enthusiastic. He takes a seat at the small table, and Lance follows suit. 

“I can see all the pros,” Keith says, a crease in his brow and eyes distant. A persistent frown pulls at his mouth, and the fingers of his free hand enumerate the reasons on the tabletop as he goes. “She gets to grow up knowing who she is and where she comes from. She’s very safe, probably safer than she would be in most places. Phaedra wants to raise her. Actively , not in a ‘no-other-options’ way. To the point she gave us these back.” He then nudges his own bayard, sending it spinning on its axis point on the table. “All of this is… I mean, it’s all I ever wanted, you know? Bare minimum, sure, but this sure beats most of the places I was sent.” 

Lance nods. He knows. He’s gone over these points over and over and over again himself since arrival here on Delion Three. “But?”

Keith’s expression smooths momentarily, relieved that Lance acknowledges without prompting that there’s something else there. “That’s… that’s the thing. I don’t know what the ‘but’ is. It’s– it’s just a feeling. And what if I can’t trust that, you know?” He picks up speed, like he can’t stop it all spilling out now that he’s confessed one doubt. “Actually, I probably can’t trust that. What if it’s just my own past getting in the way? Or… I know it’s not reasonable to have a baby on the Castle, but I– I’ve kindof liked having her around. What if that’s not letting me see straight about what’s actually best for her? I could be seeing problems because I want to see them. This place isn’t perfect, but I don’t know if any place will be. No home ever is. Nowhere but the Galra empire is gonna be super trusting of anyone that’s part-Galra, I would know. And she is never going to be allowed back in their hands.”

It’s a perspective Lance hasn’t considered yet. He’s spent his time here– rightfully– annoyed with their trepidation of Cassia simply because she was Galra. And yet… the Galra Empire had wrought a significant amount of pain and death both here and around the entire known universe. If they wanted her to go somewhere that they would be confident she would not be handed back over to the Empire, then she would likely be met with this same anti-Galra attitude anywhere.

Just as Keith is, he realizes, when it came out he was part Galra. Shame prickles at the back of his neck for not connecting that sooner. And Keith has the advantage of not being purple.

“We’re in the eleventh hour,” Lance says grimly. “You and I will be found by the Galra eventually, and I don’t want to be around Cassia when they do. I think we might be running out of options and time.”

Keith doesn’t look happy. He rests his chin on top of Cassia’s head, buries his nose in her fluffy, dark hair, then huffs out, “I know.”

Neither of them want to make the call. Not yet. Not now.

“Let’s hear Phaedra out today,” Lance says with a terse exhale. “Then we decide. Together.” He reaches over to cover Keith’s hand, where it still idly rests near his bayard.

“I still get final say?” Keith confirms weakly.

Lance squeezes his hand. “Promise.”

* * *

They unite with Hunk and Pidge at Phaedra’s quarters. They’d painstakingly weighed whether it should just be them, but ultimately, Keith and Lance agreed that the more opinions they had, the better they’d be at making a sound decision. Plus, the two of them had come to love Cassia too– it felt wrong to force them to sit by.

“Are you okay?” Hunk asks quietly as they wait behind their teammates, low enough Pidge and Keith won’t hear. There’s a knowing look in his eye, and Lance is sure Hunk is clocking just how much this is shredding his usual resilience to pieces.

Still, he nods. What else can he do? He doesn’t feel okay, and yet he keeps going. He has to keep going.

As they all stand at the door waiting for Phaedra to answer, he feels a pang of longing for Shiro to be there, for someone else to be in charge of the situation. Shiro always knew what to do, he’d come out of all of this with a levelheaded, confident take on what should happen next. Honestly, Lance didn’t realize it until now, but he’d been counting on having his opinion, in the end. He’d really thought they’d all be here by now, that he’d have the whole team to help make the hard choices.

However, the reality is that it’s just the four of them. When Phaedra opens the door with a polite smile and steps aside to let them in, he feels microscopic, like she could pin him down and examine him with little effort. Though they’ve been dealing with her for several days now, this formalized, diplomatic setting in the Praetor’s quarters with the goal of evaluating Cassia’s future? This is the sort of thing meant for Shiro or Allura’s leadership, not him. 

Lance hands over Cassia to Hunk, so Keith and Lance can enter first, side by side. Hunk goes next, and Pidge pulls up the rear. Lance itches to be in contact with Cassia, but this was a tactical decision, in case this was some horrible trap. Keith and Lance have the most experience with the Arcellans, they were most likely to recognize something out of place and could react fastest to fight. Hunk is the largest and has the easiest time maneuvering Cassia, in case he needs to shield her and get her out of a firefight, fast. Pidge keeps eyes out for any surprises from behind– and had declared they’d done all sorts of poking around in one of the door panels when they couldn’t sleep last night, curious about Arcellan tech, which may prove useful.

Lance can feel his bayard like static electricity across his hand and up his wrist, presently immaterial, ready to manifest at a moment’s notice into his waiting palm. It’s hard not to produce it on sight when Phaedra focuses her smile at Cassia. 

Only because he’s supposed to be channeling his inner Shiro, he doesn’t. One glance at Keith tells him that he’s battling the same urge and grinding his teeth to power through.

“Thank you for coming,” Phaedra addresses them all, then, clasping her hands in front of her chest. She looks different today, her curls cascade down over her shoulders, and the gold streaks in it define every spiral, catching in the overhead lights. She has more of the gold in her hair than he’d noticed before, now that it’s out of the tight bun. He’d observed the past couple of days that Arcellans developed the accents starting around the teen years, and they grew bolder and more prominent with age, sortof like an earlier onset graying in humans. She’s wearing the same uniform as everyone else, but this one is newer looking, a brighter, fresher shade of blue. She’s a little less imposing this way, she looks more like the average Arcellan.

The space itself is surprisingly simple and sparse. Lance would have expected more after the multitude of ambassadorial missions the team had been obligated to do, usually leaders have a more lavish setup. Phaedra’s living space is bigger than the guest quarters, but just as practical. Table, chairs, small window. She has something akin to a sofa that he doesn’t really have a name for, and a desk. There is a fair amount of open floor space that fits the five of them, if snugly, and a couple of doors that lead off to other rooms. There is a shelf along the wall lined with a few small, unimposing odds and ends Lance doesn’t recognize, but they look battered and old. They must be surviving items from her home planet.

It makes sense, he supposes. The Arcellans packed up on a warship to flee their home, and dipped into hiding on an abandoned planet. Like everything– and everyone– else around here, there’s little space for impracticality, and anything that escaped with sentimental value would be treated like treasure.

“No kitchen?” Hunk asks from behind him.

Phaedra blinks her gold eyes. “Why would I need one? The food hall is plenty sufficient.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the… nevermind.” Hunk sounds genuinely scandalized.

“This is where she’d live?” Keith asks, all business, eyes roving across the space. He doesn’t bother to mask in his tone that he is here to scrutinize every inch. “She has her own room? Is it safe for children?” He sounds almost… rehearsed at this.

“Yes,” Phaedra answers, walking over to one of the doors. It slides open to reveal a completely empty room. “This would be hers. I moved everything out of it yesterday.”

Lance frowns and walks over for a closer look, poking his head in. It’s small, plain, white metal walls and no outside light save for the overhead. Plenty unthreatening, he supposes, even though something about it… he can’t put his finger on it, but something about it makes his instinctive hackles raise. He feels his friends peering over into the room behind him, though none of them comment either. What’s there to comment on?

He turns back to Phaedra and folds his arms, then, in part to feel more in charge, and in part because the action soothes the prickling feeling crawling over his skin. “Look, Phaedra, I’m going to level with you. We want her to be safe and grow up with people like her, but you all don’t like Galra much. We’ve seen plenty of people over the last couple of days look real unhappy that anyone purple was let onto the ship. Bet they’d have an aneurysm if they found out who you’re holding in the brig. I need to know why you’re sure they’ll go making a big exception for Cassia.”

He does not miss that Phaedra looks pale at the mention of Krolia. Her hands flex at her sides, skin going taut over her knuckles. “You misunderstand,” she finally says.

Lance does his best to wrestle down a frustrated noise. “Well then help me understand.”

Her eyes dart to Cassia in Hunk’s arms, then back to Lance. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Pidge frowning at the door panel, somewhat disengaged from the conversation. They quickly check Phaedra’s back is still turned, and quietly tap on the display, visibly perplexed.

Looks like they need to keep Phaedra talking.

“Arcellans had– have – a rich history of spirituality and storytelling,” Phaedra begins, selecting each word thoughtfully. “And in the past fifteen decaphoebs, when we have been stripped of our material culture and home, it is one of the few things that we have been able to bring with us. That cannot be taken away.

“Of course, the line between belief and superstition… it’s blurry. Some have come to feel very strongly that all Galra will bring the final end to the Arcellans. Among other things.”

Lance considers this. It does bring some clarity to the chat they had with Iro and Elywywn. He nods for her to go on.

“We don’t all believe this, and besides… she is different. She is half one of our own, and we are fiercely protective of our own. Even of her father, who was unusual.”

Lance arches an eyebrow, but Keith beats him to it. “Unusual how?” he demands.

“He wanted us to reintegrate into the galaxy, possibly with a larger planet, but it goes against our entire way of life. It isn’t a very popular opinion.”

“So he left,” Lance pieces together. After all, Cassia was here.

Phaedra nods.

“And he died.”

She nods again.

“You’re totally sure?”

“Very,” she says grimly. 

“How?”

Phaedra fixes her eyes on him unwaveringly. “I burned his body myself.”

She says it with such intensity that he doesn’t doubt her sincerity. 

“But how did–” Keith starts, only to be cut off by the startling blare of sirens. The cabin’s lights flash red, and Lance can’t help but feel his body snap into a ready, fighting stance on instinct.

Lance’s eyes snap to Pidge, who has now taken two large, retreating steps away from the panel. They look equally as confused, and to Lance’s inquiring look, they sharply shake their head once. It wasn’t them– besides, Pidge was too good to set off a ship’s red alert from a stupid door panel.

Phaedra hardens. “Bridge, report,” she commands, head tilted toward the ceiling.

The comms sizzle to life overhead. “Galra fleet has been detected in Protocol Beta range. Fifteen minutes until they breach exosphere.”

“Could it be coincidental?”

“ The coordinates of the lead cruiser appear to be locked on Ezar.”

The room suddenly feels cold. Behind him, Cassia begins to cry loud enough to rival the alarms. 

She straightens. “All decks report to battle stations. Protocol Beta, Class One. This is not a drill.”

The alert sirens continue to wail, and Phaedra’s eyes flash dangerously in the pulsating red light as she turns her attention on the paladins. “Was this you?” she demands so forcefully it nearly bowls Lance right over. He finds himself pressing up against Hunk, finding the solid contact of his best friend at his back reassuring. 

All four of them voice their instant protest. Keith’s voice ends up winning out, only his intensity able to go toe to toe with Phaedra’s. He steps forward, into her personal space, staring her down.

“How? Why would we?” His fists ball at his sides.

“You could have managed to send a signal yesterday. That is why the first Galra came, she was first to receive it. I should have never let you out!”

“I didn’t!” Lance squawks. 

“You could be lying!” she hisses, accusatory.

"So could you!” Keith barks back. “How do we know you didn’t invite them here to give Cassia over as a peace offering, huh?”

Phaedra’s eyes narrow, this offense seems to cut deep. “I would never risk purposefully bringing the Galra here. I am my people’s protector!”

“And we’re the universe’s!” Hunk chimes in, panic high in his voice. He bounces Cassia anxiously– though probably to soothe the both of them. “From the Galra! And they’re coming while you guys stand here making accusations, we’re running out of time. We have to get to our lions!”

Pidge’s bayard materializes in their hand. “I’m going,” they declare, looking entirely fed up. “Come with me or not, but I don’t like my chances out there alone. We can hash this out later, after we make sure the Galra don’t crush this ship like a bug.”

Everyone in the room is sobered by this, because they’re right– there’s going to need to be some tentative trust extended until they can get the Galra to retreat. They have a common enemy, and that enemy could and would exploit any cracks they could find.

“Give me Cassia,” Phaedra says decidedly.

“Excuse me?” Lance growls.

Phaedra holds her arms out, impatient. “Will you be taking her up with you into battle? We have a hold for emergencies at the center of the ship where we put families and those too old to fight.”

There’s a flash of doubt that Delion Three could handle a battle, and then, as he tries to mentally parse out the logistics and why that felt wrong, something suddenly clicks into place for Lance.

“But your weapons are compromised, aren’t they?” Lance blurts out. It’s ballsy, he’s only got a few pieces of evidence to support it, but he feels he’s correct.

Phaedra blinks and her lips part in shock. “How did you–”

“You’re on a warship but you’ve avoided battle at all costs, you should’ve been able to nuke any of our ships, or tried to, when we came too close, and you don’t leave the cloak of this planet even when you really should. You were telling us yourself that the nitrogen is going out of the soil too fast just yesterday, how you’re struggling to fix it. You used to move planets before, so why haven’t you done it again? Were they damaged in your last battle or something?” Lance thinks to Elywyn and Iro’s confidence in their society, and his eyes widen. “Oh my God, do the people here even know?” 

Phaedra’s mouth snaps closed, and she purses her lips. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about,” she says coldly.

“Hello? Tick tock!” Pidge exclaims, backing toward the door.

“I swear to you, she will be protected,” Phaedra then continues with an air of desperation, creeping in to tarnish the edges of her usual steely composure. “There’s no time. Please.” 

Keith and Lance look at one another, and it’s like their fear reverberates off each other’s through the bond at a fever pitch. There’s a flash of resolve there, then an apology in Keith’s eyes.

“No,” Lance whispers. “No, dude, you are not considering this–”

“She’s right. It’s safer here.” 

“So I’ll stay and–” 

Keith cuts him off with a shake of his head. There’s a flood of desperation for Lance’s faith in him pooling in the back of his head through the connection. Lance pushes back at it silently with sharp bitterness, but says nothing. He’s right– every time he gets in a lion, he gambles with death. He doesn’t want Cassia involved in that.

Appeased, Keith then nods in Hunk’s direction. Hesitantly, Hunk obeys, passing over Cassia to Phaedra, whose cries escalate heartbreakingly. She torques her body like an acrobat and reaches back toward Keith and Lance. It takes everything in him to not rush back over to her, sweep her up in his arms, and take her far, far away from here, screw the Galra and screw the Arcellans.

Lance screws his eyes shut for a few seconds. He is a paladin of Voltron. He is needed. He has orders, even if he doesn’t like them. There’s a familiar tingle in his hand, and when his eyes open, his bayard has materialized. 

“Back soon, solecita. Love you.” His voice breaks.

Keith is going into his full leader-mode now, taking control, and though it was far from a role he’s finessed at this point, they did need someone to call the shots. Shiro had made it pretty clear that he considered second-in-command to fall to Keith, and though it usually sparked intense jealousy in Lance, right now it felt exactly right. He was naturally falling into it, shoulders squared as he marches them out of the room and they file out behind him.

Lance is at the back. He glances back one last time at Cassia, who reaches out one more time and cries out for him, tears streaking down her lavender cheeks.

The door slides shut, and he swears he leaves his heart behind with her.

* * * 

It’s no small feat, but they manage to get back to their quarters, armor up, and to the exit of Delion Three facing the meadow. As the door drops open, Lance claps his hands to the sides of his helmet. 

“Fuck!”

In a neat line at the end of the meadow tower Red, Yellow, and Green, like a stoplight. In the panicked frenzy of being notified of the attack, making a decision about Cassia, and getting armor on, he’d forgotten that Blue isn’t here . He and Keith had come down in Red together.

“You’ll come with me,” Keith says, hand sliding over his back reassuringly as he brushes past before he breaks out into a run through the meadow. Clearly he’s already accounted for this, even if Lance has not.

“And do what?” Lance yells back, taking off after him. 

“We’ll try to call Blue here!”

“Are you insane?!”

Pidge rolls their eyes unmistakably and takes off after Keith. 

Hunk nearly knocks him over with a pat on his back. “Keith’s crazy, but usually his crazy works, right? Come on.”

God, Hunk does not need to tell him, he sure fucking knows.

Keith only runs faster, leaving the other three scrambling to catch up.

As they run, he notices that every single one of them gives a wide berth to any patches of blue flowers. He’s pretty sure the traps would have been ordered to be disabled by Phaedra, but he’s certainly not willing to bet on it, and it seems neither are his teammates.

Lance doubles over once he’s safely stumbled into Red’s cockpit, bracing himself against the wall and panting.

“What– what do you mean we’ll call Blue here?” he gasps as Keith vaults over the arm of his pilot’s seat effortlessly, powering up the display. “She doesn’t have a fucking landline!”

“Allura told me it could be done. If the Paladin focuses hard enough or is in enough mortal danger, it’s possible to get the lion to power up and come to you from far away. Kindof like how they called to us and drew us in.”

Keith has officially lost it. 

“That’s– Keith, that has to be super advanced stuff. Like the sort of thing her dad only unlocked after a decade. I only discovered last week she has a sport mode!”

Keith gives him an exasperated look over his shoulder. Clearly, he has no clue what Lance means, nor does he seem to see the difficulty of summoning Blue as a barrier. “Well no time like now to try something new, right?”

Lance stares back at him, bug-eyed. “You took me away from sticking with Cassia for this? On a slim chance that I can pull off advanced telepathy!?”

“We don’t have time for this. You can pull it off,” he replies impatiently as he presses a few buttons. Red hums to life beneath them, barely concealing his impatience with Lance’s protestations. Lance has to grab onto the edge of the console as she rears back in preparation to take off.

Lance shakes his head. “It’s– it’s me,” he pleads, “I can’t do this. You know I can’t do this. Put me somewhere else, back on Delion Three where I’ll go to Cassia or the bridge or– I don’t know! I’ll try from the ground. I’m not useful here. I’m not like you, I can’t just do stuff.”

“We can’t risk you giving away the Arcellans’ location by summoning her to the surface. The only thing we might have going for us is that the Galra probably don’t know where on the planet they are, exactly.” Keith then pauses, his hands are poised over the throttle. He meets Lance’s eyes, visor reflecting Red’s lights from the dashboard. Then there’s a sudden deluge of emotions, vivid and warm, breaking through their shared worry for Cassia and uneasy anticipation of the incoming battle. They buoy to the top of his mind like helium balloons, then burst in a shower of confidence, admiration, and love. “You can do it,” he repeats, and Lance feels the certainty vibrate through the connection and down his spine. “You already do. You were the one that opened this up.” 

Lance is too stunned to respond. There’s no use in it anyway, because Keith takes that moment to rocket straight upward toward the planet’s periwinkle sky. He’s forced to stumble backward and awkwardly hits the back wall of the cockpit for the third time in three weeks. 

He is getting so sick of peeling himself off the back interior of Red. 

In a mature display of leadership and concern, he also swears he hears Keith snicker over the chaos of his limbs smacking against metal. So much for their tender moment.

Any joy, however fleeting, evaporates as they exit the atmosphere and the soft purple fades to stars and the ships that lay just beyond– a set of Galra cruisers are already here, hulking and imperious. They’ve cut the timing uncomfortably close to the Galra fleet’s arrival, and as Keith’s sensors revive outside of the magnetic interference, it looks like they’ve brought company. Lots and lots of company. 

Lance’s mouth goes dry as he hangs off the back of Keith’s pilot seat, watching more ships pour into view through a glowing purple wormhole. 

This would be a tough battle if they had Voltron. Instead, they were down two lions and had a fixed target to defend, leaving them susceptible to being pinned and limiting strategy options.

“Uh. You might want to get to asking Blue to get her ass down here.” All the blood has drained from Keith's face, but his eyebrows remain furrowed in determination.

“Good idea,” Lance squeaks out, retreating– intentionally this time– to the back of the cockpit. Getting a fourth lion in the mix no longer seems so unreasonable a plan.

Okay, he could do this, right? Calm. Focused. He’d been calm and psychically focused before, probably. Sortof. In the still, white silence of the Castle, in low-stakes training scenarios. How different could the non-existent backseat of a giant robotic lion mid-battle with the largest Galra fleet he’d ever seen really be?

Lance settles his back firmly against the wall, and folds his legs beneath him on the floor, like they’d done in some of their bonding exercises. He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, holds it, then lets it go free. Another breath in, and–

“Alright, on my mark, stay in formation behind me.” Hearing two Keiths, both through the comm in his helmet and in front of him, jerks him out of the moment. Lance rips off his helmet and tries to focus again, holding it firmly in his lap.

Hi, hello, interstellar collect call to Blue, please? he thinks as loud as he can, attempting to grasp at the feeling of Blue like a whisper in the back of his head. He tries to focus on it, tug it closer, but it’s like grasping at static. I’m putting out an SOS here, so if you can hear me, we could really use your help out here with–

He’s suddenly jolted hard to the left, and Keith opens fire. He’s rolled again to the right as Keith dodges a volley of lasers spat back their way. Sharply, Keith begins rattling off orders to Hunk and Pidge.

Lance rights himself, heart pounding, and tries some more shaky, deep breaths. It quickly becomes clear it’s not possible to try to filter out the chaos around them– he’s thrown every which way, and the noise of battle and hearing his teammates’ stress is too much. How the hell is he supposed to hear his own thoughts, let alone use the Force to call Blue from God-knows-where?

“This isn’t working!” he snaps to Keith after being hurled toward the pilot’s seat for the dozenth time. He scrambles to his feet and shoves his helmet back over his head. “Drop me somewhere on the surface far away from Delion Three, I don’t care where, but I’m not going to be doing any Jedi mind tricks when I feel like I’m trying to meditate in a broken washing machine!”

“I can’t disengage! There are too many of them, I can’t risk it,” Keith hisses back. “They’ll get Pidge and Hunk cornered in a second. You’ll just have to keep trying!”

“Three o’clock, Keith!” Hunk bellows, and it’s the only warning Lance has to grab onto something and white knuckle it as Keith barrel rolls out of the way. 

This seriously has to top the charts of Keith’s Greatest Boneheaded Plans.

Once all the blood has returned to his head, he gets right back to arguing. “We need a new plan then! What was your plan B?”

A fresh burst of fire pours from Red, melting through half of a Galra fighter instantly. Keith’s voice is high when he replies, “Uh. There kindof isn’t a plan B!”

“What?!”

“I didn’t expect to have to take charge, okay?! I’m doing my best!”

“ We can hear you two, please stop arguing!” Hunk begs through the comms.

“Well I’m not going to sit back here and be useless!” Lance cries, waving his arms in despair. He needs to be in this fight, the stakes are too high. “Have me do something helpful!”

“Okay, great! Focus on summoning Blue!”

“Guys,” Pidge cuts in.

“I told you, I can’t! How the fuck am I supposed to focus back here when you’re piloting like a maniac?!”

“Uh, guys, ” they repeat.

Keith scowls, annoyed, and must choose to do a hard turn right then just to throw Lance around a little. “Figure it out! Because Allura said the only other thing that works is being in a life-threatening situation, so if you don’t start trying again I’m about to threaten your–”

“Guys!”

“WHAT?!” Lance and Keith both roar simultaneously.

“Shut up and look!”

Ezar’s surface cuts a colorful half-moon across the view screen, vibrant against the dark void of space behind it. Emerging from a thicket of dense, white clouds rises a ship, and from here Lance can make out its unique shape with rounded edges, with a blunted nose point. It reminds him of a metallic, futuristic planchette on the Ouija Board he and Pidge had used to freak Hunk out back in their first-year garrison days.

It rises into the atmosphere, and as it approaches, he recognizes a band of lights along the body in bright gold, and a set of symbols marking out an identification he's grown familiar with in the past weeks.

“It’s Delion Three,” Lance whispers in disbelief.

Keith inhales sharply. “What are they doing up here?”

“I’m reading an energy buildup,” Pidge reports. “It… it’s weird, it looks like they’re charging up some–”

Pidge is cut off as the lights on the ship make a sudden, violent change to an unmistakable Galra purple.

They fire their cannons in a burst of intermingled ultraviolet purple and blinding gold at the nearest attacking ship.

Chapter Text

At first, Lance doesn’t comprehend what they’re looking at; what it all means.

It’s bizarre, the clash of color, and there’s a striking familiarity to it that he can’t place. 

He doesn’t have to. Hunk gets there first. 

“The drone, ” Hunk breathes. “ The planet scanner . ”

Pidge gasps, following right behind him. “ The gold and the purple– and I noticed some familiar code patterns when I hacked the door panels that I couldn’t place–”

“--the weapons were down, or maybe shut down–”

“-- could’ve been infected by the same virus as the drone, maybe there’s a tangle of technologies in the weapons systems requiring different quintessences–”

“And it needs both Arcellan and Galra DNA to be completely controlled,” Keith gravely finishes beside him.

“Cassia,” Lance chokes on her name. He suddenly feels like he’s been exposed to the vacuum of space, that all of the air has instantaneously sucked from his lungs and his insides are about to begin disassembling themselves cell by cell. “They’re using her. They needed her.”

Finally, finally the pieces all click together to form a horrific image. 

Delion Three is only part of the third great protector of the Arcellans. Cassia is what completes the weapon. Cassia is their newest Delion incarnate.

He flashes back to what Elywyn had told them, that their first leader had been like her, half-Galra, half-Arcellan. After the warship’s weapons would have been infected by the virus, they probably could still utilize them so long as he was able to activate them with his quintessence, like how the teludav or Galra tech had specific species requirements. 

About the time he was put to death and was accused of betraying them to the Galra, they had probably settled on Ezar and thereafter refused to move. Phaedra took over as Praetor. They built up complicated defenses well outside of the ship despite living in a vessel built for war, because they couldn’t use the weapons without any Galra– and he’s willing to bet not just any Galra would do, Pidge had needed to do some intensive work to convince the stupid sensor to accept the flower’s DNA and still it needed Keith’s help to start it up. An entire complex weapons system must be a hundred times as nitpicky. He’s willing to bet they’ve tried everything, and only someone who’s half and half can effectively unify the corroded Arcellan and Galra pieces of the system and get them to respond.

It explains Phaedra’s intense interest in Cassia. Cassia could be the most dangerous thing to her position, to everything she believes the Arcellans should be. 

And she could be her greatest asset. 

Their first leader was an adult; he’d lived through the Galra invasion, would have come from a unique background, and would have had his own vision for the Arcellans’ future. If he held special status, his leadership would be difficult to question. If that advantage was neutralized, then Phaedra’s claim to Praetor was just as legitimate as anyone else’s. 

Lance, in this moment, is willing to bet anything that it was never him who had betrayed them to the Galra, that he had been a convenient scapegoat. Why would he see the Galra in the black and white way Phaedra did, if he was half-one? It had happened to Keith. For Phaedra, though, this was a dangerous way to think, and it would be far simpler and safer to keep things clear cut. He can’t help but remember what she’d said about Cassia’s father wanting to integrate with the galaxy with such disdain, or the way she spoke about Krolia like she wasn’t a person at all. 

If she got ahold of Cassia, she could be groomed into exactly who Phaedra wanted her to be, feed her all the messages necessary to keep her a pliant, subservient weapon for the Arcellans’ use. She’d be reinstating her own authority with Cassia’s abilities at her back. She could have it all.

The thought makes his stomach turn. Phaedra believes she is doing what was right for her people, Lance doesn’t doubt this. But to use deception so you could make a baby your weapon? A baby? He doesn’t care if she’s going to these lengths to take out Zarkon himself, it’s unthinkable, and it can’t stand.

Something else Emyryn and Iro had said rings through his head.

“You have to understand, it was our only option to save ourselves. Our people. We don’t take a death lightly, but it was one life for the survival of our whole race.”

“It was the right thing.”

Lance slams back into his body. He doesn’t know how far Phaedra would take this, and he refuses to find out.

“Take me to the ship,” Lance demands, grabbing onto Keith’s forearm. His voice shakes. “We can’t let this happen.”

“Way ahead of you,” Keith growls. His eyes have narrowed to slits, and even behind the visor there’s a terrifying, frigid fury that Lance has never seen up close before. Keith punches the manual controls so hard in the direction of Delion Three, Lance thinks they might snap off. 

“Pidge, Hunk, I need you to lay down some cover fire!” Keith orders.

Their teammates leap into action, while Red accelerates toward the warship with more speed than Blue could ever dream of reaching. Keith pulls up the the last second before impact, and Red’s metal claws dig into the side of Delion Three’s thick lower hull with the groan of crunching metal. Once they’ve skidded to a stop, Red’s jaw lowers and rips a chunk out of the ship’s exoskeleton, exposing one of the maintenance tunnels in the underbelly to the vacuum of space. A few loose parts fly out, but no Arcellans. Despite the anger thrumming steadily through his veins, he is relieved no random Arcellans got hurt– they probably had no clue what was going on here. Keith doesn’t appear concerned whatsoever, though, and Lance decides he doesn’t really want to know how he’d have responded (or not) if there had been casualties.

Lance clicks his helmet into the full face shield, and his bayard is already in his hand. Keith jumps out of his seat and follows suit.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can’t come with! We only have two ships in the fight!” he argues– after making double sure the comm is switched off first. He doesn’t need Hunk or Pidge freaking out over this. Yet. 

“Three now,” Keith points out, gesturing grimly to Delion Three. “They’ll make do.”

“Keith–”

“I can’t leave her behind!” Something in Keith snaps, he’s growing rawer, more frayed at the edges of the leadership he’s attempting to hold together the longer this goes on. He marches past Lance toward the exit hatch. “This is all my fault, I let her go.”

Lance grabs Keith’s shoulder, roughly spinning him around.

“This is not your fault. We all thought it was the best thing for her.” He shifts his hand to grab Keith’s, grasping it tight and pulling him close so their chestplates touch. He holds Keith’s gaze without wavering, and he can sense that despite all of his anger, his stubbornness, Keith has the urge to look away, like it’s physically painful for Lance to be giving him this kind of affirmation.

Lance gives his hand one more squeeze, then lets out a breath to concede. “You’re right. We started this together. We finish this together.”

Keith doesn’t respond, but some of the tension seeps away from his expression. He switches his own comms back on with one hand– and leaves his other in Lance’s for another moment.

“Pidge? Hunk?” he calls. “You’re gonna have to manage without us for a little bit. Stick close to Delion Three, and check in if things get dire. We’ll figure something out.”

Lance completely expects them to argue, to shout, even call them shitty team members for leaving them out there to fend for themselves.

“You’ve got it. I’ve been needing some quality target practice and Keith usually just gets in the way,” Pidge chirps back.

“Anything for peanut. Go kick their asses for us,” Hunk agrees.

Pidge yelps, and the open comm line peppered with the sound of garbled laser fire. “But please kick their asses fast!”

Out of the corner of the viewscreen, he sees a streak of yellow and green fly past, undoubtedly to flank the ship in a defensive pattern. Or, well, as much of a “pattern” two little lions and one inexperienced warship could make.

A flood of gratitude surges deep in his chest that these are the kind of people he got stuck in an intergalactic space war with.

“Let’s go,” Keith growls, shattering Lance’s brief moment of sentimentality. The bayard in his hand transforms into his usual sword as he strides toward the exit hatch. Lance swears it looks deadlier than usual, the crimson lights from Red’s displays glinting off its sharp edges like its haunted by the memory of blood.

* * *

Their boots clang against industrial metal walkways that weave a labyrinthine path through the ship’s underbelly, only pausing to occasionally investigate something that appears to be a potential way to access the main ship. The sounds of the battle fade to a dull thrum as they move, and after a while, all Lance can feel is the occasional vibration in his boots. They must be deep into the core of the ship now, but it all looks the same: metal, gray, and grimy. Several times, they try to get an update through the comms, and are met with a wall of eerie static. Interference this deep in the hull was either too heavy, or the ship had a way of jamming external comms. Nothing about this place would surprise him, at this point.

That, and the alternative is unthinkable. They’d feel it through the bond if one of them died, right?

…Right?

“We don’t have time for this!” Keith finally cracks as they hit their third dead end, throwing up his hands. “Can we just– blast through a wall or something?”

“If you want to aim wrong and release deadly gas or get us sucked out into space, sure,” Lance pants, grasping at a pipe coming down from the wall for support and doubling over to catch his breath. “And– besides, they have to have built in maintenance access from the ship somehow ” He taps the pipe with his finger. “This here looks like a bunch of plumbing, nobody’s had to fish a hairball out of a pipe in fifteen years? I don’t buy it.”

This is not the right moment for that sort of comment– and while it releases some of the edge off his own barely-withheld panic to crack an anemic joke, it only winds Keith tighter. He paces frenetically, one hand on his head, chest heaving as he takes in shallow breaths. 

“I– I promised her nothing bad would happen, I promised I’d get her to her real home. But all I can do is fuck it up. All I can do is be a fuck up!” he shouts. As the frustration crests, Keith kicks the dead-end wall with a loud bang.

Lance’s responding reassurance dies in his throat at the resounding, metallic clang that follows almost immediately. Springing backward, Keith crashes into Lance, sending them both stumbling. One of the metal panels off the wall is on the floor where Keith just stood, and a hiss of dense, hot steam vents from a dark opening that has appeared a few feet up the wall.

Keith’s eyes widen at the sudden opportunity– and, oh no, that’s the I’ve-got-a-suicidal-plan glint in his eye. 

Lance scans the steam with his gauntlet in desperate hopes that he is not going to die today in an alien HVAC system, and swallows. “It’s uh. A toasty hundred and fifty degrees in there.”

“Fahrenheit?” Keith asks hopefully.

Lance flicks his eyes away from the glowing display over his wrist to gauge Keith’s seriousness. “I think you already know it’s not.” Pidge didn’t believe in anything but the metric system, so they refused to install any other human unit of measurement into their instruments. It drove Lance up the wall.

For a moment, they both stare at the rectangular opening that fades into view as the pressurized steam clears. 

“Chances we become a Keith and Lance seafood broil?” Lance then asks in trepidation.

“The suits will protect us,” Keith replies, though his weak tone is far from reassuring. And yet, enough for Keith, apparently– before Lance can respond, Keith’s got his fingers dug into the lip of the tunnel entry and is heaving himself upward. He reaches up and clicks on a light on his helmet, then sticks his head in for an experimental look inside. “Mostly,” he amends. 

Lance doesn’t like the sound of that. However, the ship rumbles and rocks under his feet, reminding him that they need to move, now . They were out of choices and they were running out of time. If they hadn’t already.

So he follows right behind Keith as the soles of the Red paladin’s boots disappear into the metal steam vent, grimacing as the darkness and suffocating heat close tighter over him like a coffin with every inch he shimmies further in. 

For Cassia.

* * *

They fall out of the ceiling into a heap what feels like a lifetime later– but according to his gauntlet, it’s only been ten minutes. For a moment, they can only lay there, drenched in sweat, opening up their visors to gasp for the precious cool, dry air around them.

After ripping off his helmet entirely to feel the relief of cool air chilling the sweat on his scalp, he resists the urge to follow with a full strip-down, and focuses instead on sitting upright to get his bearings. His entire body feels like it’s made of wet paper, and there’s a precarious moment where he wavers, but the cooler air is doing him good already. Dizzy, tired, exhausted, it didn’t matter. They had to get to Cassia.

They’ve been spit out near the brig– he recognizes this part of the ship after their eventful trips down here. And… yes, there it is, he recognizes that yellow sign, it means they’re just around the corner there’s the holding cells. 

“Krolia,” he gasps excitedly, reaching over to smack at the back of Keith’s armor, get him up and moving too. “Krolia– she’s right here.”

All of his suspicions of her had ebbed at the way she’d treated Cassia. She was good people, and he’d be damned if he was leaving her trapped in here too after saving their lives. Plus, having a six-foot-something Blade on their side made their rescue mission seem a little more plausible and a little bit less like a suicide mission.

Keith sits up too, breathing heavy. Though he looks tired and drips with sweat too, he’s irritatingly more clear-eyed and graceful as he slowly stands. Seriously, did being half-Galra make him temperature proof or something?

“We have to make it quick, more than a few minutes and we have to go to Cassia. She’ll understand.” Keith holds out his hand to Lance.

Lance takes it and allows Keith to help him to his feet. “I cover your back and take care of the guards, you take care of the lock.” He swallows back a “ just like last time” . It feels cursed. Last time, the person they rescued got killed.

Though he’s still trembling from exertion and a near scrape with heat stroke, he puts his helmet back on and draws together every ounce of his focus. Once they’ve slipped into the brig, they survey the challenge: there are two guards stood at Krolia’s cell, and behind them, she paces the small length of her space, ears twitching nervously any time a sound rattled the ship.

In a few silent gestures, Keith communicates the plan to Lance, then holds up three fingers, two, one…

Keith and Lance spring into action, doing what they do best. Lance picks off the first one, easy, it’s a clear shot from his rifle. It gets the second’s attention, but they’ve anticipated that– Keith’s knife is already hurtling toward him from the shadows, and it strikes him in the bicep. Not anything lethal, but enough for him to turn in surprise. Lance lands a stunning shot square at the center of his chest. 

“I’ve got the door!” He calls to Keith, waving for him to get a move on with it as he stands guard, poised to shoot down any backup that might hear the commotion.

What he expects is to hear Keith attempt to hack the keypad. Instead follows a loud, adrenaline fueled yell, the sound of his metal sword colliding with the panel, and glass tinkling to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, the gold force field over the cell shimmers out of view.

Lance snorts to himself, momentarily distracted by affectionately watching Keith have to wrench his sword free from the control panel’s insides by bracing his boot against the wall. That had certainly been one way to go about it. A very Keith way. 

Krolia wastes no time, she’s already halfway across the room to Lance, urging for Keith to follow along. She holds her hand out, and something unspoken crosses between her and Keith as they run side-by-side. Unsheathing the Marmora dagger from his pocket, he tosses it to her without missing a footfall. She catches it by the hilt mid-air, and it transforms almost instantly into its wicked, curved sword form.

Lance had so many questions about this damn knife after the last couple of days, and way too many other priorities to ask them.

“They’re using Cassia,” Lance fills her in, breaking from his crouch to join their escape.

“As a weapon,” Keith spits through his teeth. “Phaedra has her on the Bridge. Has to.”

It isn’t really a complete or acceptable explanation, but Krolia, a true Blade, doesn’t ask for the whole story, she trusts in their judgement and the mission. “Then we can’t waste time. The Bridge will be at the upper bow of the ship, and well guarded. There may be bulkheads in place due to the battle alert, but I’ve been on plenty of warships built in this style before, they all have a similar layout. I think I can get us around any obstacles. Stay close.”

And, well, Lance can’t help if there’s a sense of relief that someone here seems to know what the hell they’re doing. He has no issues following her orders, and he stays close with his rifle at the ready as she winds them through the ship with shocking precision. 

There are a couple of Arcellans they have to stun or fight out of the way, but really, it’s unsettlingly easy to reach the doors to the main bridge. It occurs to him that the Arcellan population wasn’t exactly impressive in its size, and it sure didn’t make for a full battle crew of capable adults. It was probably all-hands on deck, with significant gaps in staffing. The ship rocks again as they come to a stop at what must be the bridge, and Krolia nudges Lance and Keith aside.

She removes something small from the inside of one of her sleeves, and attaches it to the access panel by the doors. At first, it looks like a small, circular magnet, doing nothing. Then it sprouts spindly legs, like a spider– and stabs them violently into the circuitry to wind its way into the panel’s innards. Some nasty ripping sounds radiate from the panel, then a spray of sparks, followed by a metallic crunching noise. Then it abruptly stops.

“Get ready,” Kroila warns, tensing and facing the doors.

The thing retracts, and as though it is innocent of all the horrors it has just wrought into that fuse box, it clicks neatly closed and turns a pleasant shade of green. 

The doors slide open to the Delion Three operations bridge. Several observations hit him in a matter of seconds.

First, the battle that they’ve been insulated against safely inside the ship is now on full display for the wide operations bridge of Delion Three. Laser fire pummels the ship from every direction they can see through the wide, wrap-around view window. Plasma cannons roar, and frantic Arcellans are yelling updates and orders like volleys of arrows from station to station. A flash of green sweeps past the window, followed shortly by some yellow, a relieving confirmation their friends are still kicking even though the comms went dead.

Second, there’s a cry from the corner of the bridge. Cassia. Cassia. Lance’s heart lodges in his throat. He’d know it anywhere. Phaedra has whipped her attention around from her commanding station about thirty feet away to look at the intruders. Cassia’s just past her, propped up in a chair and… strapped in, somehow, in a way he immediately doesn’t like. It’s not that Lance is against flight safety, but even from a distance, it seems different and it gives him a bad feeling. However, she’s alive – screaming, pink-cheeked, face and hands scrunched up from severe distress– but so vibrantly, mercifully alive.

And third, there’s something else between Cassia and Phaedra that makes his stomach turn. She’s clearly got a weapons system at her controls helm. Though he can’t read Arcellan, he’s become plenty familiar with what those look like in the last many months. In fact, weapons up here had a way of being a universal language of their own, best when both brutal and efficient, a thought that keeps Lance up at night. On top of the console is a tube, upside down, connected to the system internally. Some dark liquid is in it and it’s nearly empty, leaving viscous, garnet stains along the sides of the vial.

Blood.

They needed combination Arcellan and Galra DNA to get their diseased ship to run. Lance had just thought she’d need to touch a panel or something. But no, this was far, far worse. It demanded sacrifice of life force to unify enough to function.

Lance is raising his rifle before he can think, catching Phaedra’s forehead square in the crosshairs. “Don’t fucking move!” Lance screams, rage’s claws raking the insides of his ribs to ribbons. His hand shakes, and the aim wobbles in his gun’s sight. How dare she. How dare she?!

He hears several Arcellan guns train on the three of them from all directions. Phaedra raises her hands to indicate peace, for now, but he doesn’t trust it, not for a second– and the guns don’t lower, either.

“How could you?!” he demands. “You said you’d keep her safe!”

“I’m saving my people ,” she insists. “That includes Cassia!”

“So you can bleed her? So she can be your perfect weapon? So she doesn’t ever get crazy ideas that the Galra half of herself might not be so bad?”

Phaedra’s lip curls, and she steps in front of Cassia to block her from their view. “We will teach her to control that side of herself and use this gift to save her people. To save herself! She is our New Arcella, our New Day, our New Sun, blessed to us in the form of a small child! She is the one the myths prophesied about! Don’t you see? She’s meant to be with us!” 

Lance is trembling so badly, he couldn’t make the shot even if he wanted to.

There’s a loud blast, and the ship rocks. She shouts a command to someone nearby, and the purple-gold cannon fires that they’d seen earlier, briefly filling the entire room in burning light. The tube empties down a little more, only a small layer of red remains.

Icy, cold horror fills him as he realizes they need another. 

Keith is already shoving him aside. “Don’t touch her!” he snarls, voice filled with a churning, white-hot fury that Lance has never heard before. His sword is raised and he begins to cross the distance to Phaedra in an offensive stance. “Touch her and I’ll kill you!”

“Keith!” both Kroila and Lance yell, sprinting after him, but it’s too late, Keith is swiping at Phaedra. He knocks her to the floor and has her quickly pinned, sword to her throat. His breathing comes rapid and staccato, and the edge of his blade draws a thin line of scarlet blood from her neck. Around them, the other Arcellans have jumped in now that Phaedra has lost control of the situation, closing in and clamoring to pull Keith, Lance, and Kroila away from their leader. Keith is completely unphased, immovable and indifferent to anything that is not ending Phaedra.

“Galra!” Phaedra shrieks from beneath the chaos, and at first Lance is caught off guard from is own fight, he doesn’t understand.

An Arcellan takes advantage of his momentary shock and strikes him across the cheek. He lets out a sharp cry of pain, then swivels to deal it back in equal measure, dirty and fueled by emotion with a swift kick to the stomach. The Arcellans… well, it seemed that for what they had in discipline and a perfected textbook uppercut, they lacked in practical fight training. He points his rifle back at the enclosing Arcellans, and Krolia extends the blade in warning. It’s enough to get them to halt. In the background Cassia is screaming, approaching hysterics.

The sound of Lance in pain caught Keith’s attention briefly, he can sense it in the back of his head somewhere behind the static of violent rage as he pushes reassurances back. He glances back to him and Phaedra, with the intention of giving his best, quick, I’m totally fine, just worry about you, he nearly falls over to find Keith staring back at him, hyperventilating with rage.

Keith is staring back at him with yellow, slitted eyes . Galra eyes. Lance swears his teeth look a little sharper too. 

The connection lasts only an instant, and Keith’s yellow eyes disappear again to press his sword pushing against Phaedra’s airway with little lapse. “That’s right,” he snarls back. “Another half-Galra. Who was going to save your fucking life, but now I’m not so sure.” 

“Keith,” Lance warns. He may agree with the sentiment, but they’re still paladins. They don’t want to kill anyone, and they certainly don’t want to jeopardize getting Cassia out. 

Nearby, Cassia shrieks and reaches for him, for Keith, for Krolia– but they can’t get to her, they can’t, not yet. He didn’t realize he had any heart left to break, and here it is, splintered and sharp, bursting further apart every shuddering breath Cassia takes in to cry louder, wonder why nobody will come to her.

“One shot left,” calls an Arcellan from the corner of the bridge– no, not just any Arcellan. Iro. His expression is grave, and his tone is pointed. “It is locked on the Yellow lion. It goes to defend the Green one frequently and predictably. We could hit both.”

Phaedra grins from under Keith’s pin. “If they take her, whether I live or die, take the shot. That’s an order.” She turns her attention back on Keith. “If you three make the right choice to walk away now, everyone lives. Think, we can even help join your fight against the Galra, now. Cassia’s sacrifices for the Arcellan people will be celebrated. Everyone wins. ”

No.

No.

How could he possibly choose between his friends– no, his family– and Cassia? Keith looks just as dumbstruck, and Lance can detect a small waver in his hand pressing the Altean steel to her throat. Cassia is still sobbing, desperate to get free of her uncomfortable restraints and away from the noise and chaos.

God, they’ve fucked her up forever with this. They thought they’d made the right decision, and instead they only somehow traumatized her more.

Tears bloom in Lance’s eyes as he realizes the decision must be made. Hunk and Pidge were good, but they had no reason to be on the defensive from Delion Three. They couldn’t communicate with them from here, they’d tried.

And if the question were to go to them? If they knew?

They’d sacrifice themselves in a heartbeat. Lance would. Keith would. And so would Hunk and Pidge.

“Stop.” 

Lance is jolted from his thoughts as Krolia speaks for the first time with anything except her luxite blade since getting on the bridge. 

She lowers her sword (though not without a meaningful glare to the Arcellans she was holding off to hear her out), and approaches Phaedra and Keith.

“Keith, get off of her.”

“What?! I have her–”

“Keith, get off of her. ” There’s definitely something in that tone that makes Lance want to stand up straight and be on his best behavior.

Keith must feel it too, because he growls in the back of his throat, but obeys. He steps back, in the direction of Cassia this time. His eyes are still yellow, but the edge is coming off his energy, he can feel it in the back of his mind. Keith can’t see it, but behind him, Lance sees Cassia whine and desperately reach for him, seeking his comfort.

Phaedra straightens herself and draws herself to her full height– still two heads beneath Krolia, but imperious regardless. 

“I want to make a deal,” Krolia says. The sword retracts to a dagger, but remains in her hand. A sign of cautious cease-fire; not peace. She’s working a strategy, he can tell, but what angle it’s from, Lance couldn’t begin to divine.

Phaedra scowls. “There is no sort of deal I would want to make with you, Galra.”

“I disagree.” Krolia says evenly– and far too calmly for a battle-slash-hostage situation. Fucking Blades, man, they were built different. “I have something you want.”

“There is nothing you have that I want.”

“You need half-Galra half-Arcellan blood to bypass the virus the Galra have placed on your ship,” she states.

“Yes,” Phaedra says impatiently. “We can’t remove the virus. We’ve tried.”

“Yes, I know. Our organization has tried too. But what if… we can work within this issue.”

Phaedra’s gold eyes are unblinking. She says nothing, clearly distrustful.

Kroila sucks in a breath through her nose, then she swallows hard as she tilts her head high. “Keep me. Let them go. I can bear children.”

Lance’s jaw falls open. Keith looks like he might pass out with shock. 

Phaedra, on the other hand, looks suspicious, but intrigued. “How do I know that’s true?” she questions, narrowing her eyes. “For all I know you’re barren, and this is a trick.”

“I’ve done it before.”

The ship takes another blow– they all have to cling to something as it trembles. A few Arcellans in the background punch feverishly into some panels, retreating back as Green and Yellow pull ahead to take– somehow– even more of the brunt of the fight. By the looks of it, they won’t last much longer, a few minutes if they caught a lucky break. They need to get back to Red, soon, or this was going to be certain death for all of them.

“This is half-species. It’s different.” Phaedra continues quickly, seemingly also reminded of the urgency.

“Yes, I know. I’ve done that before too.”

“Prove it.”

And Krolia, then, looks to Keith and gives her head a small, sad shake. “Keith, I am so sorry. I never wanted you to find out this way.”

Keith’s brow furrows, clearly not understanding what she’s trying to say. Lance can’t parse it out either. 

“Scan us both. It’ll show he’s mine.” Krolia continues. He thinks he hears her voice break slightly on the last word, but her expression remains stoic.

The entire deck is silent as they wait for Pheadra’s decision, save for the laser fire continuing to deflect off a flimsy looking gold particle barrier they’d thrown up around the ship and Cassia’s whimpers.

“Do it,” she commands finally to one of the nearby Arcellans. They produce a small, rectangular device. Krolia holds out her hand and calmly allows them to scan it, then they do a limp, detached Keith, who looks pale and sick to his stomach. He can’t stop staring at Krolia.

One of the Arcellans nods in confirmation to Phaedra. 

Keith’s mom. She’s Keith’s mom. His brain is stuck on this, it plays it over and over and over again on loop, unable to move forward, unable to derive any further meaning from it. 

Phaedra takes in a deep breath through her nose.

“Think of it,” Krolia reasons. She, too, seems to be detaching, even as she speaks, resigning herself to this possibly being her fate.  “Cassia is one child. I could give a generation.”

The feeling of wrong, fucked up, Keith needs you crests in an nauseating, overpowering wave in his stomach, forcing free from him, “Krolia, no, you can’t, please –”

She cuts him off with a curt shake of her head. “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. But I can’t allow my son to make an impossible decision like that, and I can save him from making this one. I know what it does to a person.”

There’s a tense moment of silence. Then, Phaedra hums, “Very well.”

“No!” Keith screams, shoving forward against Arcellan guards to get to Krolia and Phaedra. “No, Kroila, please, please don’t leave, don’t go– Mom, please!”  

Lance has never felt a grief so intense, both all-consuming and foreign; it is not his own. Keith has abandoned all of his emotional walls in his desperation, and he feels it all with him: the absence of her for his first two decades of life, the pain of seeing other families with their mothers and wondering why his didn’t want him, the agony of only just now finding her to have her ripped away again. No– choosing to leave again.

Stars pop in his vision. He falls to his knees numbly, caught in the riptide of emotion pouring free from Keith, consuming and insatiable. The feeling suffocates him and burns in his chest like agitated embers. Keith’s rage is burning away what there is of himself inside of him, threatening to hollow him out and wallpaper his insides in thick grief in its wake. He– Keith– he and Keith– it feels like they are going to die.

The ship shakes under him. An earsplitting roar that forces him to clap his hands over his head. 

At first he’s worried they’ve taken a fatal hit, and all of this would end in a nasty, painful fireball before being ejected to discorporate and freeze in space. However, when he uncurls, he’s met with the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen.

Blue, hovering directly in front of the ship, and clearly revving up to deliver a nasty blow to Delion Three if her demands are not met. It has the attention of Hunk and Pidge, too– they’re nearby, probably both perplexed and finally clued in that things may not be going so smoothly in here.

Lance laughs, manic with the emotion-high as he does it– it’s rooted in his own burst of joy, he’s pretty sure, but Keith’s anguish sloshes out messily over the sides of it. 

He flashes Phaedra a crazed smile. This is so reckless , but Blue sensed he was in mortal danger and came to his call; she’d absolutely be zeroed in on saving her paladin and probably didn’t care what the collateral was. “You better do exactly what Blue asks or she’s gonna start blasting. I know from experience. And my teammates will get the memo from her good intuition that maybe we aren’t friends here anymore.”

“I think they already did,” Keith says weakly, looking out to the far left of the viewscreen. 

Two more ships join the fray: Shiro’s hulking Black lion swerving into the front line to deal serious damage with a jawblade to the larger warships, and the sleek, ice-white castle of lions whizzing forth dealing damage in icy blue beams to the swarming fighters.

“You’ll destroy us,” Phaedra says, though she’s gone pale. 

And God, for what she’s done to Cassia, Lance wants to. Keith’s emotions respond murderously as well. 

It takes every ounce of his willpower to cling to his remaining thread of reason. “No, we won’t. You’re an asshole and I hate you. But we aren’t about to let the Galra wipe you off the map so long as you let us take Cassia and go. That said, if you refuse to let her go… I’ll tell Blue to let it rip and she’ll tell my friends to do it too. We’ll all die here anyway in this battle if we don’t work together, and I know for a fact Blue’s gonna make sure I get a nice death. Don’t know about the rest of you.”

On cue to Lance’s threat, Blue opens her mouth to reveal the energy buildup for a deadly laser blast. It’s a bluff, but even Lance believes it a little bit when Blue’s back arches into it and electricity begins to arc off her tail.

Incredibly, Yellow, Green, and Black appear behind her too. They fan out and face inward threateningly.

He feels his teammates there, just outside Delion Three’s thick hull. It’s not like how it is with Keith– they’re still behind the metaphorical glass, but they’re pressed up to it, receiving the message loud and clear from their teammates thumping on the walls that they’re in danger, they’re being betrayed. They’re willing to risk turning their back on the Galra for a few moments in favor of Lance and Keith. Of Cassia.

In a line, they all charge up their lasers too, one by one. Every hair stands on end on Lance’s body as he realizes this is the fear they’re capable of inflicting.

“Yes! Yes. Okay.” Phaedra manages, looking angry, but properly intimidated by the show the lions had put on outside to destroy all that remained of the Arcellans. “Agreed. I agree.”

The lions stand down at Blue’s cue, sensing the release in the tension. Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge all jet off again to continue to hold the front line.

Keith is off like a gunshot toward Cassia. He waves over Krolia and snatches the dagger from her, and begins to cut her out of some straps– to keep her still when they take blood, he realizes with a nauseating swoop of his stomach. As soon as she’s free, she’s sobbing with relief and pressing to his chest, curling up tight like a newborn and clinging to a little strip of his hair that had fallen free from under his helmet. 

“Time to go!” Lance declares as another purple wormhole opens nearby– and yet another cruiser appears. Where the hell were they getting all of these?!

He, Keith, and Krolia, now with Cassia in tow, sprint for the exit. When they reach the doors, Lance casts one last glance back at the Arcellan’s Praetor. Her hair is disheveled, her cheeks pale. She leans against one of the consoles like her knees may give out beneath her, and he can’t help a pang of sympathy.

Phaedra, like the rest of them, truly believed she was doing what was right for her people.

Lance hopes that what he’s doing now is right too.

The doors slide closed, and Lance zeroes in on Cassia, who has completely disappeared into Keith’s arms to tremble and cry into his hair. Right now, she is his only mission, and he is getting her out of this fight safe and alive.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Keith hisses. There’s still a little bit of the Galra slit to his pupils.

Nobody argues, and they run toward the nearest hangar to reunite with Blue, Lance now confidently calling her there through the bond. 

The hangar doors slides open to reveal her in all her stunning beauty, and she lowers her head to let them in.

“I told you you could do it,” Keith murmurs in his ear as they pile into the cockpit.

“Shut up,” Lance dismisses. Despite all of the fear, anger, and horror still swilling around inside his head, he can’t help the small flush of color to his cheeks in pride. He did do it.

Then they rocket back out into the battle, where there’s no time for fear or pride, only the mission. Get Cassia home.

He just wishes home didn't feel so much like his arms.

Chapter Text

Even with the five of them reunited with their lions plus the castle, it’s an imbalanced, grueling battle. 

Delion Three is left defenseless without Cassia, and there’s still a churning anger burning through Lance’s chest that’s urging him to just let them meet their fate against the Galra.

However, Shiro gives clear, direct orders: they defend the Arcellans. Deep down (very, very deep) Lance knows it’s the morally correct thing to do. But Shiro hadn’t heard Cassia’s cries on the bridge. He hadn’t been fooled by every one of Phaedra’s carefully placed platitudes and hospitalities. Shiro hadn’t agonized every minute of every day over the past three weeks about how to get Cassia home, only for it to twist on him like this. 

Lance feels fucking stupid. Humiliated. Like a complete failure.

He turns Blue pointedly into a defensive position in front of Delion Three as it sinks back into the atmosphere’s clouds to obscure its exact location, and he tries to funnel his rage into fighting back with everything that he has. Even once Keith confirms that Krolia and Cassia have been safely returned to the castle and rejoins the fight, he holds his position– he’s chasing the adrenaline rush of taking on too many Galra fighters at once to cope.

That is, until he’s called back by Shiro to get into formation to form Voltron. But it was never a fight they were going to win, even with Voltron, not against a fleet this size. They take harsh damage, and Lance gets rattled around so hard from one direct hit that stars pop in his vision for a full minute after. He’s not sure if it’s blood or sweat trickling into his eyes and obscuring his vision. All he can do is wipe it away now and then and keep going. They push and push and push, finally thinning out a space wide enough for Allura to initiate a wormhole.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Lance shouts, punching his own throttle– only to be resisted by the rest of the team mentally and physically. Voltron lurches and halts awkwardly.

“Delion Three goes in between us!” Shiro commands. “Castle clears the entry with fire, we break apart and cover them off from behind until they’re safely through.”

“But–” Lance begins.

“Shiro!” interjects Keith simultaneously.

“That is an order!”

Lance growls in the back of his throat, irate. All he can picture is Cassia on that bridge, strapped down, crying for them. Phaedra does not deserve their protection or their mercy. Right now, for all he cares, she can rot.

Still, he breaks apart, and takes his position as asked of him. Because it wasn’t just Phaedra on that ship, there were also Arcellans completely oblivious to her plot, including children and families. She better be counting her lucky stars for that– Lance would probably do the honors of taking her out himself otherwise– and in the back of his mind, he can feel Keith fighting similar internal demons from Red’s cockpit. 

The Castle must have established a communication line with Delion Three, because it suddenly punches free of the planet’s atmosphere and zips out in front of them, diving like a gleaming arrowhead into the white-blue of the wormhole. Lance does his job, he lays down covering fire and waits for the tail of the ship to completely disappear before hurtling in after them with the rest of his team.

Through the squeezing, overwhelmingly bright chaos of the wormhole, he tenses, preparing for more action. As soon as he sees static starfield, he slams on the brakes and whips around to face the exit as it begins to knit timespace closed behind them, the Castle protectively lined up at Blue’s back. At his right hand side, Keith does the exact same thing, in near perfect sync. They aren’t even having to work at communicating, there’s a sort of open flow between their minds as they fight side-by-side with the shared goal of protecting Cassia, instinctive and easy.

A couple of smaller Galra fighters get through before the Altean sigils flash and make the final seal, but he and Keith make quick, overeager work of them. 

“Uh, wow. Good shots, guys,” comes Hunk’s voice. Lance knows his best friend too well, hears the edge of concern in his voice. He doesn’t care.

Still facing where the wormhole has since vanished, he breathes heavily, hands wrought tight against the triggers of his weapons. He itches for more. Somewhere to place all of this anger and self-loathing over what happened to Cassia, because if he has nothing left to shoot at, he knows it’s time for it to turn where it really deserves to go: inward.

He thinks he might understand that hurricane of rage that perpetually turns inside of Keith now.

Shiro’s voice cuts through the riptide of thoughts tearing through him at the first sign of stillness, proud, but ragged. “You did well, team. Come back in.”

“The Arcellans?” Keith asks. Lance is satisfied to hear there’s just as much acid in his voice as Lance feels in his stomach.

“Will stay put on their ship, for now,” Shiro confirms.

It’s little consolation.

* * *

Lance sprints through the corridors connecting his and Keith’s hangars. At the first flash of red and white armor, he barrels directly into Keith and pulls him into his arms at full speed, their armor clanking together awkwardly. They both stumble to keep their balance and Keith grunts in shock, but as soon as they’re steady, Keith returns the embrace, clinging tight to him.

After a moment, Keith pulls away to tear his own helmet free and casts it carelessly aside, his hair wild and drenched in sweat. There’s a dark bruise rising on his cheek, wide and blooming a fresh red-purple. His lip is busted, too, and swelling around the dark scab thickening his lower lip.

“You’re hurt,” Lance breathes, reaching up to brush a thumb over his bruised cheek. Now that he’s pulled away, their faces are inches apart.

Keith rips off Lance’s helmet for him in response and tosses it aside to join his own on the ground. “Don’t care,” he growls.

Then he kisses him. 

This kiss is different from the others. It’s still fiery, but what fuels it is more than curiosity, a crush, or lust. Keith kisses him like he’s a dying man, like Lance is the only thing tethering him to corporeal existence. He pours everything he’s feeling into it, both into the kiss and in through the bond, crackling and shimmering like fireworks. Relief, joy, and–

Lance stops breathing, and pulls away, prodding at the new, warm feeling in the back of his head. Keith stares back at him, wide eyed, muscles going taut under Lance’s hold.

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispers. Face flushing, his eyes dart away, like he’s accidentally offered Lance something broken, undesirable.

Lance nudges his chin up to look at him, and pours the feeling directly back into the bond, wanting to fill Keith up with it, make it so no matter what he did, no matter how far he went, he would carry it with him anywhere. 

He wants to say he loves him too, to scream it, until his lungs ache and his knees give out. But Keith had stopped, and maybe this was so early, so soon. Or maybe this wasn’t what he thought it was, maybe he was mistaking Keith’s relief over not dying for something bigger.

As much as he wants to dig into it, this isn’t the time. (Is it ever the time?) 

Lance chases one last kiss, then whispers, “Don’t be.”

* * *

Cassia has been thoroughly examined by Coran and deemed well, save for some minor injuries. 

Lance nearly falls over in surprise to see her in Krolia’s arms when they meet up on the bridge, perfectly content– though her peace does not last long. As soon as Keith and Lance are in the room, she’s reaching her arms out to them and whining, only satisfied once they’re both giving her their undivided attention. He nearly loses his cool when he notices a dark bruise spreading on her tiny forearm, nearly black under the cool tint of her lavender skin. For Cassia’s sake, he swallows it down, and tries to remain relaxed around the red creeping in at the corners of his vision.

Keith would probably deny it, but Lance also notices he’s holding one of his arms awkwardly tight to his torso. His suspicions are confirmed when Keith doesn’t even attempt to protest that Lance holds Cassia, and he doesn’t reach out to hold her even once they agree to go sit down for debrief in the conference room, where Shiro is already in talks with the Arcellans. 

Everyone convenes around the large conference table, battle-weary and exhausted. On the viewscreen hovers Delion Three, and in the corner Shiro is concluding a conversation with Phaedra. Lance forces himself to unclench his jaw even at the sight of her holographic image and look away. They all need a shower, some food, and some rest, but none of them are willing to capitulate to physical needs until the most pressing matters are resolved: what to do with the Arcellans, and what to do with Cassia.

Keith and Krolia eye each other awkwardly and take seats opposite one another. Lance wants to nudge Keith and tell him to get over it, it’s his mom , go hug her or something because they didn’t die, but Krolia looks just as uncomfortable as Keith with the situation they find themselves in. 

Lance barely contains an exasperated eye roll. Like mother, like son, apparently.

Cassia is okay with sitting down, however conditionally. She only settles once Lance has removed his chestplate for his soft undersuit, and stops shrieking periodically when she can see Keith and hold (read: chew on) one of his hands, too. Lance starts to say something about germs, but Keith rolls his eyes and tells him not to be ridiculous, they’ve been wearing gloves, and takes it off to give her free reign– of the arm he clearly isn’t steadfastly concealing an injury on.

When Shiro finally joins them, he looks more tired than Lance thinks he’s ever seen him. It’s a shock, Shiro is usually so put together, so professional. He wonders how much he’s slept the past few days in the race to get the Castle functioning again. It makes him feel a little guilty for the relatively cushy situation they’d had down on the planet while they waited.

“I have informed Phaedra that she and the Arcellans will have the protection of Voltron in finding a new home and will be welcomed in the Voltron coalition, should they so choose,” he begins.

Lance inhales a sharp breath to speak, and already he can feel his teammates formulating their own protests around him.

Shiro holds up his hand. “ And I have let her know that it is under the condition that she never make any attempt to come near Cassia again. I think she understands that we won’t be making any goodwill visits anytime soon, either.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Keith hisses. “They tried to kidnap Cassia and use her– no, groom her– to be a living weapon. She deliberately deceived us. And now you want us to welcome them into the Coalition with open arms? No fucking way.”

“She did what she thought was right for her people.” Allura’s voice is quiet at the other end of the table, yet steady. “I’m not saying I condone it. I’m not saying I would do it. But I can see where she thought this would be what finally saved the Arcellans from being helpless against the Galra.”

“ Allura ,” Lance gasps, horrified that she could take their side.

She levels him with an icy stare. “If it were the last of planet Earth, your people– your family– looked to you to lead, and you knew you secretly had no cards left to play, wouldn’t you do anything to save them if one appeared?”

Lance wants to snarl back that no, of course not, he’d never do anything like that.

Wouldn’t he?

There’s an uncomfortable truth hanging in the room. Their mission is to save and free people from the Galra’s oppressive hold, and while Lance really believes he wouldn’t go to the deplorable extents that Phaedra would, it’s suddenly difficult to say aloud when he himself can’t name how many civilians have been caught in the crosshairs of their own crusade in the past year. 

What Phaedra did was as inexcusable as it was desperate; it was the last resort of a woman who believed there were no options remaining. She leads a people that carry wounds they’d had to stitch together with extreme caution and superstition after near annihilation by the Galra in order to survive fifteen years in strict concealment. She clings to isolation as a shield, yet knows a shield can’t win a fight alone with no sword. They’d literally fallen out of the sky and brought her the perfect sword to be molded to her ideals and use, as though sent by the gods.

It occurs to Lance here that this probably is not Phaedra’s first desperate act. Their first leader and Cassia’s father both died and she had never been forthcoming regarding the circumstances. He wouldn’t be shocked if it was out of fear of their ideas, and she’d been the one to orchestrate their executions. Phaedra had demonstrated how deeply she believed isolationism was the only answer to keeping her people alive.

Lance slumps back in his seat, and grits out, “You’re right. I mean, Phaedra is wrong , what she did is beyond fucked up. But I get what you’re saying.”

“There’s no disputing that what she did was not right,” Allura agrees, and there’s a heaviness to her voice. “And she will never see Cassia again. But the threat of everyone and everything you’ve ever known or loved being killed or worse will drive even good people to do horrible things.” Allura’s eyes are fix the windows, distant and haunted.

“So what now?” Keith asks. His free hand is clenched against his leg, nails digging into the fabric of his undersuit.

“If you give me a few days I can probably code a program that will uproot the Galra virus that’s infecting the weapons system,” Pidge says. Even as they offer their services, they don’t look particularly thrilled about the challenge as they normally might. “I think I can completely eliminate the need for any Galra quintessence whatsoever to use it.”

“And give them back their weapons?” Lance bristles.

“The alternative is keep the need for Cassia,” Pidge points out. “Or have them call us anytime they need self-defense.”

That shuts Lance up. His arms tighten a little around Cassia’s middle.

“We still have the coordinates banked of all the inhabitable planets for the Arcellans, too,” Hunk adds in. “We can give them a few to pick from and find them a nice new spot within Coalition boundaries.”

Not too nice, Lance thinks bitterly.

Shiro nods. “We can give them safe escort there. If they prefer their privacy from then on, so be it.”

“How do we know the Galra won’t just find them again?” Lance asks. He doesn’t want to get called back to them anytime soon.

“I think I can answer that,” Pidge admits, looking ashamed. They nervously adjust their glasses on the bridge of their nose. “We know they were only ever a couple steps behind us, and we suspected they’d figured out we had Cassia and that we were trying to get her home, right? I think they put together the pattern of the kinds of places we were popping up in and ran their own calculations, so then when a black hole artificially collapsed in the vicinity of an Arcellan-sustaining planet… well, that makes some noise.”

All of the color drains from Hunk’s face. He looks like he’s going to be sick. “What?”

“It’s not your fault,” Pidge adds quickly.

Hunk buries his head in his hands.

“Hunk, man, listen to me, don’t blame yourself,” Lance insists, heart breaking to see his best friend in distress like this. “How could you have known?”

“I almost killed everyone.” His horrified voice is muffled. “I almost killed Cassia.”

“You literally did not set out to collapse it, the chances of it were– they were insanely low. Almost impossibly low,” Pidge tries to reassure, placing a hand on Hunk’s back. 

“Statistically negligably low, near impossible!” pipes up Coran, his interest inappropriately piqued for the moment’s mood. “I’ve only ever heard of it being done successfully once.”

“And everyone is okay,” Shiro says. “We had no guarantees they still couldn’t track the device if it was turned off. Maybe they could have. Then they’d have found us before we could fix the Castle, and before we could form Voltron to fight back. This might have been the better outcome.”

Hunk doesn’t respond. Lance knows Shiro’s reasoning is thin and impossible to prove, but he thinks he might see a small nod from behind Hunk’s gloves anyway. Pidge rubs soothing circles into his back, though there’s unmistakable guilt in their expression too. Lance makes a mental note to remind them later that they’d all be dead a hundred times over by now without their brilliance.

“That accounts for the Arcellans,” Keith then says, spurring the conversation forward. “What about Cassia? Where does she go?” 

A heavy silence falls around the table.

“I think I might have a solution,” Krolia speaks up for the first time, making Lance jump. He’d almost forgotten she was there. “I could take her.”

Keith goes stone still beside him, and the bond goes immediately frigid. Even Cassia notices, whining and tugging on his hand where it has tensed in her grip. 

“What?” Keith growls.

Krolia levels him with a momentary empathetic gaze, then continues to address the table. “I can keep her safe from the Galra without isolating her from her heritage. We have a whole list of planets to choose from that I could bring her to. If the Galra ever come too close, I will still have the Blade of Marmora network to keep me informed, plus Voltron’s intel, when you can provide it. They’ll never even get the chance to come near her.”

Lance glances around the table, gauging everyone’s reactions. Pidge looks dubious, if hopeful, and Hunk has peeked out from behind his hands in shock. Allura’s eyes have narrowed to slits, undoubtedly distrustful. Coran is tugging on the end of his mustache thoughtfully. Beside him, he doesn’t have to look at Keith to feel the molten-lava heat of anger, both permeating off him in waves at his side and the back of his mind.

“That’s– very generous,” Shiro says, sounding tentative himself. “And an immense sacrifice. Are you sure?”

Krolia nods, folding her hands– and although the movement feels composed, her thumbs fidget. “Very. I have been a Blade almost my whole life, and often… I wish I had walked another path.”

The chair next to him clatters noisily to the floor as Keith abruptly stands, ripping his good hand away from Cassia and slamming it on the table. “This is bullshit,” he snarls directly at Krolia, enough acid in his voice to peel paint. 

“Keith!” Shiro barks, standing too. 

Krolia’s eyes are wide and sad as she holds Keith’s gaze in a standoff. She doesn’t respond.

Cassia begins to cry. Above her, Lance’s mouth hangs open at his outburst. 

“Calm down, Keith. What’s gotten into you?” Shiro scolds sharply.

Keith’s lip curls, still glaring at Krolia. “She knows what she did.” 

Then he turns and marches out of the room. 

The doors slide shut behind him, and the terse silence brings all of the attention down on Lance. At first he doesn’t understand why, then he realizes they expect him to know what occurred between Keith and Krolia on Delion Three. By the apprehensive look in Krolia’s bright yellow eyes, she fully expects him to spill the secret, too.

Swallowing hard, Lance thinks he might implode under the sudden scrutiny. “I’ll go talk to him.” 

He pauses, then stands, taking a second to bounce Cassia to try to calm her. She’s on edge and upset, and while the thought of handing her back over again makes his skin crawl, she’s not going to help calm Keith down in this state. Nor does he really want her around Keith when he’s like this, she doesn’t need to be around any more negative emotions than strictly necessary. 

“Take Cassia for a little bit?” he asks Shiro, who looks extraordinarily confused, but nods. It’s the person Keith would want her to go to. Lance avoids eye contact with Krolia as he passes her off, whose gaze threatens to burn a hole in the side of his head.

“Let’s adjourn,” Shiro rules, settling a whimpering Cassia onto his hip. “I think we all need to rest and recover, and we know what we’re doing with the Arcellans for now. We can come back to this.”

That, at least, is something everyone seems to agree upon.

* * *

Lance doesn’t expect to find him on the observation deck.

First, he’d checked Keith’s quarters, the training deck, and Red’s hangar: all empty. And when he did finally find Keith, he’d been anticipating needing to diffuse a bomb, to find him hissing and snarling and probably trying to pulverize something. 

Instead, he almost misses Keith huddled into the far corner, knees drawn to his chest and face buried so far into his arms that only his eyes are visible, staring out into the vast abyss of space. As much as they posture, Keith isn’t actually that much smaller than he is, but right now he looks like a child, tucked into the corner between the wall and the desk cluttered with data pads and star maps. 

It feels almost ridiculous that Lance didn’t sense to check up here first, because with the proximity, the connection between them lights up like a circuit board. It’s a pain he can’t describe, one that seems to both fully encompass and transcend the physical and emotional. These are old wounds, buried deep, that have been torn wide open.

Lance makes sure to tread heavily as he approaches to make himself known. But if Keith wants him to fuck off, he doesn’t say anything to get him to leave. He doesn’t even move.

Lance carefully takes a seat beside him. It’s a tight squeeze, he has to draw his legs in, too, so they’re pressed up against each other at his left side. Keith winces slightly as Lance adjusts. Belatedly, Lance realizes that his eyes are red-rimmed and wet.

“Keith,” he gently begins, and is cut off almost immediately by a sharp shake of Keith’s head.

“Don’t.” Keith’s voice cracks.

“I want to help.”

“You can’t help. You don’t understand. You have a family who loves you, a home to go back to, and you always have and always will know exactly where you came from.”

Lance swallows hard. “True,” he concedes. “But maybe I want to understand?”

“I’m being selfish,” Keith then decides, eyes lifting back to the starfield outside. “I’m– I’m jealous of a fucking baby again.” 

Lance wants to argue. He holds his breath instead, knowing if he stops Keith now, he may never say what’s on his mind. 

“But why’d it have to be my mom?” Keith’s voice fully breaks, and he squeezes his eyes shut against a fresh wave of tears. Ultimately, he fails to hold them in, and one escapes to slide down his bruised cheek. It catches the light of the stars outside, encapsulating a whole galaxy in one tiny drop. “Why couldn’t it be some other random Galra who wants Cassia? Why does she want her when she didn’t want me? Was something so wrong with me from the start?”

Lance is at a loss. He doesn’t know. 

Gingerly, he catches another tear as it rolls down Keith’s hurt cheek with his thumb, brushing it away. He then wraps his arm around Keith and pulls him to his chest. 

Numbly, Keith lets it happen, falling heavily against Lance.

“Nothing is wrong with you, okay? Nothing.”

Keith’s shoulders shake. More tears come, soaking into the fabric at the front of Lance’s undersuit.

They both still reek of blood and sweat and ozone from battle, and could probably use some medical attention. Lance’s whole body aches, and he can feel a bone-deep exhaustion weighing on him that he’s sure hangs from Keith too. 

So they stay there for a long, long time, even once the tears have dried up, watching the stars drift past and letting time stand still.

* * *

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

Keith nods. He’s paler than usual, and he holds Lance’s hand in a death grip. 

Lance squeezes Keith’s hand back reassuringly. It’s morning in the Castle, so the hallway lights in the wing of the ship that holds sleeping quarters are slowly brightening by the minute to attempt to maintain the inhabitants’ circadian rhythms. They’ve showered, slept a few hours, and Lance even convinced Keith to let Coran use the weird little healing wand thing on his shoulder.

They stand in front of Krolia’s assigned quarters. Neither of them press the button to inform her of their presence yet.

“And you’re sure you want me here?” Lance presses, suddenly unsure of how to interpret Keith’s hesitation.

Keith nods, more fervently this time. “Completely. You… you keep me grounded.”

“I’m sorry, can you say that again so I can get that for the official record?”

“Shut up, Lance.” It’s soft, and the comfort of their usual banter seems to shake Keith out of his nerves just enough, because he lets go of Lance’s hand to reach out to press the call button on the panel.

A short moment later, the door slides open. Krolia towers in the doorway (Galra always did look a little cartoonishly tall on Altean ships), and her bright, yellow eyes widen in surprise. 

“Keith,” she greets. “Lance. Are we reconvening this morning? I wasn’t informed.”

Keith shakes his head and grabs at his arm sheepishly, pressing the leather of his fingerless gloves into his skin. “No. No, uh. I was actually hoping to talk. To you.” 

Krolia blinks, and there’s a near identical look to Keith’s nervous apprehension that flashes across her face. After a second, she steps aside, gesturing for them to come in. “Yes. Of course.”

The guest quarters are pretty nice– a little nicer than the paladins’ actually, which does raise Lance’s eyebrows. In addition to the standard bunk, Krolia has a small, but plush looking sitting area, of which Lance has every single intention of stealing the white, stylized armchair for his own room after this just to spite Allura. He knew it was important they keep visiting ambassadors happy, et cetera, but didn’t the defenders of the universe deserve a little extra something too?

Krolia sinks down into the armchair Lance is scheming over, and he follows Keith to a small couch that they sit side by side on. Anxiously, Keith fidgets with the threads spilling from a hole at the knee in his jeans.

Lance presses his leg up against Keith’s, and brushes at the connection with what he hopes is some zen energy– even if the tension mounting in the room is starting to get his own blood pressure rising.

“You have questions,” Krolia states bluntly. “You deserve to ask them.”

For a moment, Keith appears at war with himself, brow furrowed and lips parted. Despite all of this being his idea, despite surely rehearsing this conversation in his head over and over again, he suddenly can’t decide where to begin.

Keith’s expression folds, and the confidence in his voice crumbles. “Why’d you leave me?”

Pain flashes across Krolia’s expression. Her hands twitch, like she wants to reach out to Keith, then settle just as fast. “I never wanted to. The decision– Keith, it was the hardest of my life, and there isn’t a day that I don’t think about it.”

“Why?” he insists again, with a little more force.

She explains: a Marmora mission gone awry, Keith’s father, the Blue Lion. Falling in love. The day Keith was born. And when Keith was only a few months old, the Galra scouts finding Blue’s signal, appearing in Earth’s night sky above her new home.

“I didn’t want to go,” Krolia says, shaking her head. “Keith, please know it was the last thing I wanted, but I saw no other alternative. I thought– I thought the best thing for you was to ensure the Galra stayed far, far away from Earth. From you. ”

“And what about now?” Keith demands, hands clenching into fists against his thighs. “Do you think it was really better growing up thinking my mom abandoned me? Or getting orphaned when I was nine? Or how about now that you’ve met me and know I’m a huge fuck up? Is that why you want Cassia, a do-over so you can feel less bad about me?”

The jab lands, hurt blooming in her expression. “You are not– Keith, do you understand how much pride it gave me to learn my son was a paladin? To meet him and find he’d grown into a brave, intelligent, caring man?”

“So you’re saying you’d do it again?” Keith pushes. 

“ No, ” Krolia sighs, exasperated. “No. I am saying…” Her ears twitching in irritation, she trails off as she tries to find the right words. “You want to do what’s best for Cassia, right?” she then asks.

Keith scoffs. “Of course.”

“And has it always been clear what is best for her?”

Lance can see where this is going, and judging by the way Keith’s shoulders dip an inch, he would imagine that he does too.

“No,” Keith admits.

“I’m saying I had no idea if what I did was right. I’m saying I can’t go back and know what I know now, and even then, it’s possible the alternative might have gotten you hurt or killed. I’m saying that it doesn’t change that I always have and always will love you, or that I thought about you and that decision every single day of the last twenty-one years. I missed you, and I resented that I didn't even know anything about the person I missed, because the only version of him I ever got to know was one opinionated little infant.”

Keith doesn’t respond, but his fists have unclenched. His eyes look watery and fix purposefully on the corner of the table in front of them.

“I’m saying I appreciate the difficult position that you are in with Cassia,” she continues, softer now. “And I’m saying… that all we can try to do is make the next best decision for her with the information we have.” She smiles wryly. “Maybe I’m still trying to make the choice that’s best for my child, too.”

“What’s best for me doesn’t matter,” Keith dismisses readily, fidgeting again with the hole at the knee of his jeans. 

“Maybe to you. Not to me.” 

Lance has to wholeheartedly agree with Krolia there.

“You’ll really leave the Blade for this? Just like that?” Keith asks after a moment’s thought.

“It’s… not as sudden as you might think,” she sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’ve been with the Blade for a very long time. Galra stay in their prime longer than humans, but it’s not as easy to keep up physically as it used to be after one too many injuries and many decades of constant action. While I’m still one hell of a pilot, I’ve been thinking for some time I might be of better use in more covert ops, or doing something else worthwhile.”

“Like raising a kid.” There’s still some bitterness in Keith’s tone, but there’s far less of an edge to it. Like he’s considering the idea.

“And getting to know my own, if I can. Yes.” She purses her lips and refolds her hands again. “I don’t expect you to want to know me. Regardless of what is decided here for Cassia, if you want to forget me, I’ll respect that. If you do decide you want us to get to know one another, I will follow your lead.”

“How do I know you won’t leave her behind too?”

Krolia posture falls inward, and Lance can practically feel the heartbreak radiating from her chest from here. “I won’t. I promise you, on my life, I won’t. I won’t leave you again either, so long as you’ll have me. And if I did, I would know I have the wrath of every single paladin of Voltron to contend with.” Her eyes flicker to Lance, like she knows she’d have to deal with his in particular.

Lance stares back at her pointedly. Because she’s right.

Beside him, though, Keith disrupts the moment by standing suddenly. “I need to go think,” he declares. This is Keith for “ I need to go punch the lights out of a gladiator on the training deck, and God help anyone who tries to get in my way.”

Lance can’t really blame him. He’s only here for moral support, really, and this conversation has still given him a lot to digest himself.

He stands too. Keith is already at the door, slamming his hand against the panel for it to open. Neither Lance nor Krolia make any move to stop him, but their eyes track his every move until he disappears into the Castle corridors. 

“Take care of him,” Krolia says softly, attention turning back to Lance. He realizes that she doesn’t just mean now– she means forever. In case he really does cut her out for good and this is their last real conversation.

Lance nods back solemnly, a promise, and follows Keith out.

* * *

They are in a ring around the conference table that evening just as they had after battle the day prior, but this time everyone looks a little better rested, more comfortable in their casual clothes, and less liable to snap from physical pain and lingering adrenaline.

The only seating change is that Cassia is in Keith’s lap now, happily gumming on her purple platypus stuffie. She’s in a cheerful mood, as the tooth in her dark purple gum has finally fully cut fully through– except not as an incisor as expected, but as a sharp, pointy canine-looking tooth where a human incisor would be. Keith made this discovery the unfortunate way at lunch when he absently gave her a hand to play with. She didn’t bite hard , but it was enough to draw an undignified yelp from Keith and some very vocal irritation that Shiro hadn’t warned him after watching her all morning. Shiro only shrugged and started examining his metal hand for scratch marks.

“I trust we’re refreshed and have had enough time to process in order to revisit this conversation?” Allura asks.

Everyone around the conference table nods.

Shiro, at the other end of the table, picks up leadership expertly from her. “Pidge is on track to send the Arcellans a weapons system fix in the next forty-eight hours. They’ve selected a new planet that we feel confident we can resettle them on safely in the next seventy-two, and they feel is adequately distanced from neighboring systems for privacy,” he shares. “Which leaves… Cassia. We do have options, but it’s time we decide on one and commit. The longer we remain undecided, the harder transition will be for her, and the potential dangers to her increase. We should each weigh in.”

Under the table, Keith’s unoccupied hand reaches for Lance’s and tangles tightly in his.

Lance takes a deep, trembling breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. He and Keith had discussed this beforehand, and while Lance knew how he felt, Keith had been more guarded. It made Lance nervous that when push came to shove, Keith may do something unpredictable.

“She can’t stay here,” Lance says, and though he’d been sure he’d gotten this out of his system, he feels his eyes burn and throat tightens as he says it anyway. “Keeping her at the Castle any longer would be reckless. We are in a war, and we are the front line. I– I love her, I don’t want her to leave, but one close call is one too many, and she’s had several with us here.”

“And I don’t think we’re ready for it.” Keith’s voice in quick succession to his own surprises him. It’s low, soft. Not his usual forceful opinions. As he speaks, his eyes stay on Cassia. “At least, I know I’m not. This whole ordeal, I’ve made naive mistakes, I’ve missed warning signs, I’ve struggled to keep my anger in check. I have a lot of work to do before I have any business being in charge of a kid, let alone one potentially wanted by the Galra empire.”

There’s something hopeful in Lance’s chest that jumps at that, hurdling over the sorrow. That Keith doesn’t see this sort of future as a never . That it could be a someday, if fate allows.

Lance clings so tightly to Keith’s hand under the table that his fingertips are starting to tingle. “I agree. Right now, we have to prioritize Voltron and the universe.”

“Because there might not be a universe left for her at all if we don’t, and we’re the only option the universe has to save it.” Keith has raised his eyes to look at Krolia as he says this. Lance doesn’t miss the apology in his tone. 

“What do you think of Krolia as an option?” Allura prompts Keith thoughtfully. 

Keith takes a shaking breath. “I think… I think Cassia will be very, very lucky to have her.”

“Shall we put it to a vote?” Allura asks. “Are we ready?”

There are nods and murmurs of assent from around the table. 

“I think that yes, she should go with Krolia,” Shiro begins. “It’s a safe, secure solution. Krolia has proven herself trustworthy, and willing to put herself on the line for us and for Cassia on multiple occasions.” He looks to his right, where the vote passes over Krolia to Pidge.

“Agreed,” says Pidge, and despite being the least baby-inclined of the bunch, they do seem pained to deliver their logic. “With the Arcellans off the table, it’s the next best scenario.”

Hunk bursts into tears. “I want peanut to stay,” he chokes out between sobs, hands splayed out in front of him, ready to catch his forehead as soon as he’s finished speaking. “But I know it’s what’s best for her and she can’t be in a war. Yes.”

Coran and Allura exchange a glance, then they both nod. “Coran and I discussed this at length and agree it’s the right answer. She will be very fortunate to grow up in touch with her Galra heritage through Krolia, and Krolia will be best able to help her understand what happened with the Arcellans when the time is right, and more than qualified to defend her in any instance of danger. Yes.”

This brings it to Lance. His heart pounds in his chest, and he almost wants to call it all off, grab Cassia and run for the nearest planet, change his name, his face, his species, and raise her himself far, far away from all of this.

Of course, he can’t. And even if he did, it wouldn’t be what’s best for her. So, swallowing back his own tears, he nods. “She can have a safe, happy childhood with Krolia. I vote yes.”

Lance squeezes Keith’s hand, then, and looks to him. “Final say,” he says gently.

Keith’s jaw is tight. He’s still staring down at Cassia in his lap, who is blissfully unaware that her fate is being decided. He’s trying to distance himself through the bond, and still Lance can feel how agonizing this is for him, how it tears him apart to let her go, and to the person sitting in front of him who has hurt him most in his short, difficult life. 

“Yes,” he says finally. “Because I know she will make hard decisions to keep her safe. I vote yes.”

Chapter Text

Eight months later.

“Any second now, Pidge! I can’t cover forever!” 

Splash!

Pidge emerges from underneath the orange waves, tawny hair plastered to their forehead as they wave a bright red, soaking piece of fabric above their head. Lance whoops in victory and releases Keith from the relentless headlock he’s wrestled him into.

“No fair!” Keith shouts, while Hunk sheepishly checks the water behind him– presumably for the flag pinned under a rock by his feet he was supposed to be guarding. “Pidge got contacts or something and you didn’t tell us! I knew something was up when you picked them for your team!” Keith splashes Lance in retaliation– but he’s grinning from ear to ear.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize evening the playing field was against the rules now!” Pidge shouts back, then winks at Lance. They’d let him in recently on their secret that the glasses are Matt’s and purely for the sentimental value– and they’d been chumming the water for this game of capture the flag all week with Pidge playing up their alleged nearsightedness to the other paladins.

“Pance strikes again!” Lance cheers, high fiving his teammate.

On the shore, Shiro buries his face in his palm. He’s been trying to shut down “Pance/pants” puns in serious battle situations for months now, but neither he nor Pidge will let it go.

“You hustled us!” Keith accuses, lunging for Lance. 

Lance doesn’t fight it, only laughs as Keith’s arms wrap around his middle, sucks in an anticipatory breath, and lets himself be tackled into the cool waters.

Once he comes up for air, Keith is still hanging off of him like a koala and giggling (yes, giggling ) to himself with a self-satisfied smirk. It’s a striking moment, really, though one of many that had emerged more in recent months. Keith being playful, Keith being relaxed, Keith being… himself. 

“Get a room!” Pidge calls, already over by Hunk with flag in hand, surely to gloat.

“Get a life!” Lance shouts back lightheartedly, and starts wading toward the shore, Keith still hanging off of him.

Inevitably, it starts to get difficult to carry Keith over his back as the water level recedes and he loses the buoyancy assist, and he can feel Keith grinning against his neck, smelling like weird alien ocean and mineral sunscreen. 

“You’re going soft,” Keith tuts into his ear, and God , just because they were together did not still make him completely insufferable in the best and worst of ways. 

“At least I’m tall enough to do this, if I tried this stunt I’d snap your toothpick spine,” Lance retorts, 

“I’m basically your height!” 

Without warning, Lance frees his grip on Keith, sending him splashing down into the surf. He smirks down at him, then holds out his hand to help him back up. “I’m sorry, that must’ve felt like skydiving for you.”

Keith is laughing, deep and hearty, and takes his hand to heave himself back up. “You’re the worst, you can’t just let go like that. You know my shoulder isn’t what it used to be.” He swears up and down that it’s not the same since the injury on Delion Three, as though he hasn’t thoroughly handed Lance his ass on the training deck a hundred times over since then.

“I love you,” Lance replies innocently.

“You’re fucking lucky I love you.” 

They stay hand in hand as they approach Allura, Krolia, and Shiro on the shore, their own blankets arranged in an arc around an umbrella, under which Cassia is posted up to ignore the toys carefully selected by her loving adults in favor of nature’s best toy ever: sand.

Cassia notices them first, and lets out a string of mostly-incoherent babble, then holds out her chubby hands, curled around a fistful of light pink sand with extreme urgency. At least she wasn’t trying to eat it anymore.

Lance crouches down next to her and opens his palm, where she very seriously distributes her gift. “Ohh, for me solecita? You shouldn’t have!” he gushes, pushing around the sand with his finger with enthusiasm. “Wow! It’s perfect, just like the last fistful of sand, how do you get it right every time?”

Beside him, Keith drops onto a towel and snorts. Cassia laughs delightedly, and goes right for giving him another handful like it’s spun gold.

Lance picks up his own towel and settles down beside her, indulging in her game and soaking in the perfect moment.

Well, nearly perfect.

It’s not Veradero, to where he still has every intention of taking Cassia someday. The ocean here is the entirely wrong color, the sand a little too grainy and a quirky himalayan salt pink. The sky is always tipping too close to yellow, although Lance has to admit that the clouds are something to behold, more iridescent and billowing than on earth, with something of a fairy-dust glimmer to them, even on overcast days.

It was the fourth or fifth uninhabited planet they’d scoped out for Krolia and Cassia, and as soon as they stepped out into the warm air, heard the waves crash against the shore, he knew, in his heart, this would be the one Krolia would pick. It was the first that felt like it could be a real home.

And he was right.

On a small cliff nearby now stood a small cottage, but it had not always been there. 

The outcropping stood a flat, reddish, empty gash on the horizon eight months ago. When Lance had heard that they’d help assemble a home for them before they left, he’d pictured a slower pace of construction like on Earth, even hoped for a little more time with Cassia. However, Altean tech, of course, far outpaced Earth’s, and with everyone pitching in, they had it built within a day. 

He remembers thinking the house looked empty and out of place as they stood on the beach to say their goodbyes. He remembers its outline blurring in his vision as he held Cassia tight one last time. He remembers it presiding vacantly over one of the worst moments in Lance’s life, as he was forced to walk away from her and rejoin a war he didn’t ask to fight in. The way Cassia screamed for him and Keith from Krolia’s arms as they departed, already called to another urgent mission, still rings in his ears on particularly awful nights.

When they had returned to visit a couple of months later, Cassia was a different baby entirely– more awake, inquisitive, and bigger, with rolls of fat down her tummy and legs now. She was crawling, according to Coran, “as fast as a Drezean vole”. The house, which had begun oddly devoid of personal belongings, had a couple more books on shelves, a few more toys scattered across the floor, and used bottles in the sink. In the back, a large garden had been framed out, and loose, maroon dirt freshly tilled to await planting.

Despite the occasional calls when they were in close enough proximity for a connection, Lance had been afraid Cassia wouldn’t remember him. However, for all that she’d grown, she still let out the same, earsplitting, excited yell and held her arms out for him to pick her up when she caught sight of him in the doorway.

The first trip, he’d thought, might hurt worse than the goodbye, that he’d question his decision and want to steal her away again. However, she and Krolia made an admittedly good duo– and the bond they had nurtured in their time together was unmistakably secure. Cassia adored her, and despite Krolia’s more muted emotions, it was evident the feeling was mutual. 

Keith had disappeared most of that first night. When Lance finally found him sitting at the shoreline at the base of the cliff, he hadn’t needed to explain. He’d just dropped to his side and they both watched the tide slowly roll out until all the lights had gone out in the cottage and the crescent moons were high in the sky.

He knew that Keith and Krolia spoke a couple times on that trip. He could also sense his relief when they departed.

The second visit, Cassia had nearly doubled in size since the day they’d first met her. Her dark hair curled into soft ringlets around the base of her neck, and her wide, gold eyes pinned them all down with a newly attentive sort of curiosity.

She had also learned a new word: mama . 

Coincidentally, Keith was just starting to use the word “ mom” too.

Hunk was delighted to learn that Cassia had recently developed an insatiable foodie streak. The garden was still meager, only leggy little sprouts fighting to establish themselves in the earth. Trusted contacts made discreet supply deliveries when in the area, but they were inconsistent. Krolia had to take Cassia out foraging far more often than not these days to keep up with her curious palette. 

“It’s impossible,” she’d complained affectionately one morning, spooning a mashed blue something-or-another into her mouth. “One day, her favorite food is green beets. The next day, she’s throwing them at me and sobbing because I gave her beets.”

Keith, observing from afar, sitting backwards in a kitchen chair, huffed softly, surprising Lance and Krolia after a morning of total silence. “Yeah, mom, that’s because nobody should eat any color beets.”

It was the first time he’d used mom since the Arcellans’ ship. Up until then, it had been Krolia. The way Keith’s cheeks color, Lance knows it had slipped out, but that it must have come from somewhere, that it wouldn’t have occurred without him turning its use over and over in his head for some time. Krolia continued to feed Cassia like it was no big deal– but Lance caught her blinking away tears when she thought they weren’t looking.

The third visit, they celebrated Cassia’s first birthday. 

It was high summer, the garden’s plants stretched for the sky like they’d just finished a good nap. Most were heavy with a rainbow of vegetables and berries. The house is untidy more days than not, now, since Cassia had started walking and needed near-constant supervision. 

They laze on the beach through the heat of the afternoon, and all take turns playing with the birthday girl, even Pidge. All day, she fell down every few steps into the soft sand, giggling and getting right back up, completely unbothered and still excited by her newest ability. Her little smile was radiant, now full of tiny, sharp white teeth that flashed in the sunlight. 

Once night fell, they gathered in the garden for dinner. Hunk brought out a cake (or something close to it, from what they had), and both Cassia and Krolia blinked at them in baffled surprise as the humans sang her happy birthday. She fell asleep in Keith’s arms, lulled by the thrum of good conversation and the warm, evening summer breeze. 

These little respites of joy had kept him going the last few months– and he’s pretty sure the rest of the team feels that way too. They were gasps of air above the surface before diving back into the inky, freezing depths of war. 

Sometimes, Lance still wants to sink into it completely; it would be easier to go numb to the relentless vortex of battle and fear and death. But this place, this beach, this house– it had come to serve as a sun-warmed reminder of what he was fighting for, even with its flaws and imperfections.

And there are plenty of them. 

Lance still paces the ship some sleepless nights wondering if they’d done the right thing. Keith joins him in it too, sometimes. When he’d finally broken and asked Shiro how he’s supposed to know if they made the right call, he only said that he may never know for sure. Super reassuring. 

Krolia has been struggling with the transition from the high-stakes, nomadic life of a Blade to something so static and quiet. While Lance never doubts her dedication to Cassia, he can tell that occasionally she gets restless when she uses Cassia’s naptimes to run old training drills, obsessively catalogs supplies, or stares a little too long up at the stars mid-conversation. 

She and Keith’s relationship is far from idyllic, too– still awkward, still forced sometimes. They care for one another, this isn’t in question, but they are still learning one another, and trying to figure out where, or if, their adult lives fit together. Keith tried to explain it once, telling Lance he wanted her to feel like his mom and clearly she did too, but the history, trust, and dynamic simply didn’t exist, and they both guarded their feelings closely. They had decided that they would let it evolve into something of its own, something they could define as they went. So every day, he and Krolia make the effort, however atlassian for them both, to slowly, slowly , develop their own kind of relationship and let the leaves of it naturally unfurl in its own time.

Cassia leans over to put her hands on Lance’s leg, breaking his line of thought, and laboriously pushes herself to standing. She doesn’t really need the help anymore, but he takes her hands anyway to steady her and she lets him, giving him a big, gratified smile for his attention. 

Okay. Maybe one thing in all of this remained perfect.

“Keef!” she announces then and lets go, starting to toddle off toward Keith’s towel, where he’s now laid down on his stomach, and a shirt covering the back of his head against the heat. 

He peeks out blearily from behind his arm at the sound of his name– while Lance had been reminiscing, he was already halfway to a midday beach nap. 

Behind them, Krolia laughs softly. “It’s like I’m invisible when you’re all here.” 

That’s not fully true and they all know it, but still, Keith and Cassia have an undeniable connection that has only strengthened as she’s grown, like their souls are on the same cosmic wavelength or something. While Lance is undeniably sure it’s because Cassia found safety and intuitive understanding of what she needed from Keith at a critical time in her short life, he’s just as confident that it’s because some part of Keith has found his own healing in her, too. 

The jealousy still flares up, of course. He’s learned to recognize the sharp, acrid sensation of it through the bond, especially when Krolia is tripping over herself with pride over Cassia’s milestones. Lance isn’t even sure that it will ever fully go away, and perhaps the scar of her absence in his childhood never can fully close. But it’s faded in its intensity over the past months, and the moments had become fewer and further between where the old wound has been agitated. Keith actually finds a lot of peace in watching Cassia thrive somewhere safe– it’s an observation he’s not even sure Keith is aware of, but he senses the settled, calm feeling in him whenever they visit her.

“That so?” Keith asks, moving over and patting a spot on the towel next to him.

Cassia, delighted, drops down back onto her butt like a marionette with cut strings ( how that doesn’t hurt and why she does it on purpose, Lance will never understand), and tips over to lay down next to Keith so they’re nose-to-nose. Her dark, glossy ringlets spill off the edge of the towel, in sharp contrast with the shell-pink sand. She giggles, thrilled by the game of mimicry. 

“Ohh, are you napping too?” he asks, then mimes being asleep dramatically, complete with snoring sound effects.

Cassia laughs again, then tries to do it too, her eyelids fluttering closed and making a “shhhh” sound with her mouth.

Lance thinks he could explode from the cuteness.

“It actually is time for an afternoon nap,” Krolia hums, glancing up at the position of the orange sun in the sky. “Do you two want to go put her down?”

Lance nods eagerly, already starting to get up.

“Sure,” Keith says, casual about it, though Lance knows him better now– he’s playing it cool and was hoping she’d suggest it.

Lance is just grateful that Krolia usually lets them soak in as much quality time as they can when they’re here for a few days.

While they can. 

It’s a dark truth that underscores all of their visits: they were still soldiers at war, they would disappear to the front lines again after this. Anything could happen to them, and any visit could always be their last. 

Lance pushes the thought away.

“C’mon, solecita, ” he says, scooping her up off of the towel so Keith can get up and grab the towel. As he settles her against his hip (when did she get this heavy?), he smooths some rosy grains of sand from her hair. “You want to hear a bedtime story about how Shiro struck out epically with this cute Eevi at a space station?”

“Lance!” Shiro, already working on a light sunburn over his nose and cheeks, flushes an even deeper crimson.

“She deserves a good bedtime story! None of that Goldilocks crap for my perfect girl. No, she’s gonna learn how to gossip with her Tío Lance and how to do it right.” 

Krolia’s eyes brighten with interest in Shiro’s direction, and Allura hides a snicker behind her hand. Allura’s clearly trying to stay polite, but she’d had a front-row seat to the awkwardness and knows full well how painful it was for all parties involved. Lance himself had been wondering if mercy killing the leader of Voltron would’ve been permissible, given the dire circumstances.

“Sounds like you have a lot to talk about,” Keith hums, folding the towel neatly over his arm. “Mom, it would be rude to ask Allura what pickup line he used specifically. So be sure you don’t do that.”

“ Keith .” The betrayal in Shiro’s voice is tangible.

Keith and Lance lock eyes and have to stifle their own laughter.

“Okay, bye guys! And don’t ask whether Eevian root wine washes out of his uniform, either!” Lance calls behind him while the three of them start to scurry back up the beach in the direction of the clifftop cottage.

As they walk up the steady incline to the house, Lance spills all to Cassia all about Shiro’s mishap on the space station, and she occasionally babbles back, either echoing the few words she recognizes, or nonsense that is only decipherable to her. Keith is quiet as he walks alongside them, with a soft, relaxed smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  

Once they reach the cottage, they round the back, where the garden has already produced a significant harvest; Krolia thinks she can squeeze out one or two more by the time winter falls. Last trip, they dropped off some hydroponic containers to grow some things in the cellar during the off season, and though she plans to, she claims it doesn’t compare to working with real earth and that it doesn’t come out tasting right.

“I’ve had an entire lifetime’s worth of bland, artificially grown food. I don’t want to give Cassia a lifetime’s worth of the same.”

Up along the side of the house, they’ve planted Arcellan flowers of every bloom and variety. Under Cassia’s bedroom window is a bursting ocean of bright orange dahlias, each the size of apples, nodding to them in greeting on the warm breeze. 

Lance plucks one as they walk to the front door, and tucks it behind Cassia’s ear. It looks ridiculous, the flower is comparatively huge resting aside her delicate toddler features, but she claps her hands and beams at him with a smile so charming, Lance thinks he might melt into a puddle of adoration. 

It lasts all of thirty seconds, maybe, before she pulls it from her hair to investigate, as enamored by the bright, intricate thing as always. Ah, well. 

Cassia’s room is small and simple, with a crib in one corner and a large, plush chair in another. Over the crib dangles her five-lion mobile that Hunk had made her back at the Castle (though soon, he realizes with a pang, she’ll outgrow the need for it), and in it waiting patiently for naptime is her purple platypus. She has a shelf with toys and books gathered from all over the universe– after all, she has seven caring adults that regularly pinged between various planets and wanted to bring her little souvenirs. There are a couple of shelves mounted into the wall, too, lined with pictures and more various knick knacks. 

At the edge of the shelf nearest her crib is another dahlia, a little different from the one in Cassia’s hands. It’s the original one from Xenia Prime. Its surface glitters as they move through the room, catching sunlight in a thousand diamondesque facets. Lance knows if he were to pick it up, it’s stiff and the once-soft petals are now rough with small, clear crystals that keep it suspended in time forever. According to Pidge, it’ll look just the same when Cassia’s grandchildren are old.

Lance wrestles Cassia into softer, non-swim clothes, then settles into the huge chair with her laying against his chest, right over his heart. Keith follows to settle in beside him, resting his head on Lance’s shoulder. It’s snug, and they’re pressed tight to one another’s side, but it is a Galra-sized chair, so they fit. Cassia doesn’t even start to whine like she normally might to protest nap time, too warm and sun-tired to muster the effort. 

Her thumb finds her mouth and she snuggles to Lance’s shirt while Keith rubs her back. Keith hums something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like an amalgamation of Earth punk rock songs. Lance gently starts to rock her until she drifts off. This is ritual now, when they can be here to enact it.

By the time Keith runs out of his greatest hits, Cassia’s eyes are closed and her thumb is dropping from her mouth. The sun is starting to begin its long, late afternoon tilt toward the horizon. Light pours through the window and fills the room, wrapping around them like a blanket and washing them in a tranquil, tangerine haze.

Lance should put her into her crib. He just can’t quite bring himself to do it, not when he can marvel at the way the sunlight catches both Keith and Cassia’s eyelashes the same way, not when Keith finally loses the perpetual downward turn of his lips, and not when he feels their hearts, all nestled close to one another like this, falling into the same rhythm.

“Can I ask you something?” Keith whispers, shaking Lance from his contented trance.

“Sure,” he hums.

“Do you want this?” Keith raises his head to look at him more directly, his eyes brimming with earnest intensity.

“What do you mean?” Lance asks, frowning. For them? For Cassia? For the team?

“ This, ” Keith says, nodding to Cassia, to the room around them. “When this war is over. Do you want this?”

Lance inhales, chest tight. It’s a loaded question– what he wants as the person he is now and the person he might be after the war spits him back out could be very different things. 

However, when they’d said goodbye to Cassia, he’d spent weeks curled up in Keith’s bed around himself, feeling like he’d swallowed a black hole. In the first few days, he’d been so convinced something was physically wrong with him, he’d crawled into a healing pod in desperation, certain it would find some critical wound to an internal organ. It only pushed him back out seconds later with little help to offer. He still cries every time they say hello to Cassia, and every time they say goodbye. Lance still has a lot to get through before he’s actually ready for it to be his reality, but sometimes, in moments like this one, he lets himself dust off the fantasy he’d indulged in too many times on the Castle, pretending this little life on the coast of an uninhabited planet was theirs. 

“Yeah,” he finally admits, unable to deny it– Keith would see right through it anyway. “I mean, if I get to that point, down the line. Big if.”

Keith nods, and nervously worries at his lip. “You think– you think there’d still be room in Lance’s ‘ casa McClain ’ for me after the war, if I decided I wanted this too?”

Lance barks out a surprised laugh– he hadn’t thought about that conversation they’d had back in the Castle’s kitchen in months. Cassia stirs in her sleep at the sudden sound, and for a moment, they both eye her warily. Only when he’s sure they’re in the clear, Lance allows himself one more breathy, amused huff. “There’s nothing I want more in that future than a mini-mullet terrorizing our already questionable sleep schedules together.”

Keith looks relieved, then leans in and kisses him. It’s gentle, chaste, and slow. Lance can feel the now-familiar warm glow starting up in the bond, Keith willingly letting him in on his affection– something he knew Keith still found vulnerable and difficult. Lance, as always, eagerly mirrors the feeling right back.

Keith pulls away, brushing his fingers over Lance’s cheek. “Someday,” he whispers.

“Someday,” Lance agrees.

Keith drops his head back to Lance’s shoulder, and he resumes his soft rocking. Cribs were overrated anyway, so what if Cassia took her whole nap in his arms instead?

Outside, the sun sinks into the sea, and in time with the waves lapping at the shore they rock back and forth, back and forth.

At dawn, they will leave for another dangerous mission that could take weeks, even months. At dawn, he will tear another piece of his heart from his chest and press it, still beating, into Cassia’s palm for safekeeping. At dawn, Lance and Keith will transform again into paladins that carry the universe on their weary backs.

But at dawn, the sun rises on one less day until someday.