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On his family's farm, Lance McClain has a routine. He wakes up to bright sunlight peeking through the curtains, taking a moment to just breathe in the new day before getting up in earnest. He goes through all his usual morning steps (albeit without the elaborate skincare regimen he used to be so fond of) and makes his way to the breakfast table, where he greets his mama with a big hug and an exaggerated kiss on the cheek as thanks for the meal she cooked up for the whole family. His mama will laugh and pinch him in return, before sending him out to tend to the livestock and the crops.
Once Lance opens the door, he pauses for a moment to admire the boundless stretches of juniberries that reach as far as the eye can see. Once upon a time, he would bend down to pluck one from its stem, hold it up to his nose, and tuck it behind his ear. As the wilting flowers piled up in his bedroom, though, that step in his routine was slowly phased out. The brief moment of recollection does not stall him for long, though it does give Nancy McClain a few more wrinkles in her brow as she watches her son linger in the doorway, an unexpected addition to her daily routine that started not long after the war ended and has yet to change again.
Lance is, of course, oblivious to his mother's worry, so he meanders through the fields without much on his mind, watering each crop with care and checking their health with whatever new technology Pidge had come up with and wanted him to test out.
(The first time she approached him with her latest farming invention was a couple months after the final battle, when the Voltron Coalition was still recovering and Lance was still hesitant to see any of the former paladins lest he unintentionally reminded them of Allura's absence. Now, he is thankful for the excuse to reach out and check on her, even though she usually has so much on her hands with the Coalition and doesn't always have the time to get back to him. He gets it, really, he does. All he can hope for is that his findings are actually contributing to her experiments rather than distracting her.)
After making sure the fields are as healthy as can be, Lance surveys the land again to reap any ripe crops to send to the Garrison for storage. The school always asks for rations to pass on to the students or the Coalition, and the McClains are always happy to oblige. Idly, Lance thinks he should visit the place on his next transport run - it's been too long since he last stepped foot outside the farm.
(Sometimes Hunk sends in a special request too, so he can recreate an Earthen delicacy, and Lance looks forward to those days so he can get to work planting something new. The chef is not often available to pick up the ingredients himself, but on the rare occasion he is, Lance is all too eager to grab the opportunity to see his best friend. Again, it's really been too long.)
Once his harvesting duties are done, Lance heads to the barn to spend some quality time with his favorite space cow. Though Kaltenecker has long passed the age of milk production and spends the days chewing hay and lying around, Lance is still content to chat her up and pretend that they aren't two souls past their prime, stuck with their feet on the ground.
(Coran still tells the story of how they found Kaltenecker to anyone who will listen. Lance gets messages of how much the Alteans loved hearing about the paladins of Voltron, lauded for their dignity and bravery, airborne on the back of a stationary Earth cow. Coran sends selfies recreating the face he made when he saw the absurd sight with his laughing audience in the background, and asks for pictures of Kaltenecker in return. Lance fulfills his request with a grin behind the camera, even as he wonders, a bit ludicrously, if the cow ever missed the feeling of taking flight.)
Lance finishes checking up on the rest of the animals and heads back inside for a quick lunch, usually whatever is left in the fridge. His farming duties are finished, so he heads out to the nearby town square armed with a book and some headphones. When he gets there, the square is already busy with families having a picnic and vendors hawking their latest wares, so Lance settles down with the expectation that he won’t get much reading done. Like clockwork, a few children stop their game of tag to stare at him with large, starry eyes. Lance puts his book to the side and smiles as encouragingly as he can, beckoning them closer. A million questions immediately burst forth, and Lance chuckles at the endless curiosity of a child before answering them all to the best of his ability. A crowd forms, as it usually does, so he tries his best to regale them with the tales of Voltron, only exercising a small amount of artistic liberty. Sue him, he wants to sound as cool as possible.
(As he looks over his captive audience, he’s reminded of a message that Shiro had sent in the paladins’ groupchat. He and Curtis were thinking about adopting, but they weren’t sure if they could balance a kid while working on the Atlas at the same time. Lance remembers being overwhelmingly enthusiastic at the prospect, looking forward to spoiling another kid now that his niece and nephew were getting older, and he wonders if the married couple had gone forward with the idea yet. A familiar ache climbs up his throat at the thought. Lance was happy for Shiro, is happy that he was able to move on from a fiance that the paladins only heard about in stories, but his heart can’t help but throb at the reminder that he hasn’t even had the chance at love since Allura passed. Still, he’s satisfied with catching glimpses of romance through his friends–not just Shiro and Curtis, but also Hunk and Shay and even Keith with James for a very short time. He’s fine just watching them be happy. It’s fine.)
Dusk falls, so Lance bids farewell to the crowd and promises the younger, more teary-eyed ones that he’ll return the next day. He always does. As Lance traipses home, the route familiar despite the darkness, his eyes trace the constellations above. He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but he thinks that since he first started this whole routine, the amount of stars in the sky has multiplied. Lance hopes it’s a sign of the peace that Voltron brought to the universe and everything that lies beyond–a sign that Allura’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain. For just a brief moment, he wishes that he was out there, too, helping spread Allura’s message of goodwill to the aliens who needed to hear it or aiding in diplomacy and negotiations. Every night, he feels the same rush of longing, and every night, he quashes it down the second he reaches his family farm.
(A long, long time ago, Keith had offered Lance a place in the stars. He had gone on and on about Lance’s skills and capabilities, introduced him to people who had been personally impacted by his work as a paladin. Lance had shaken hands with mermaids, taken selfies with Galrans, and chatted up ambassadors, and at the end of it all, Keith extended a hand and asked if he would join him in making the universe a better place. Lance looked at his outstretched hand, at his hopeful smile, and felt a crushing guilt nestle in his chest, right next to his ever-present grief.)
Lance quietly unlocks the door to his house and slips upstairs. Numbly, he goes through all his usual nightly steps and slips into bed, where a heavy exhaustion awaits. His eyes closed, Lance waits for sleep to arrive with a resigned acceptance, until he wakes up the next day and starts his routine all over again.