All I Want Is You
By MightyMightyMunson
I tore through Season Six of Voltron this morning and was compelled to write something as a token of my appreciation for such a wonderful series. I loved Voltron as a child and now as an middle-aged adult with children who are teetering on the edge of adulthood themselves, immersing myself in this brilliant re-interpretation of a classic is an experience that I am cherishing. There's so much in this world that is dark, unkind and lacking nobility. This series reminds me to look for the inherent goodness in myself and others and to not give up on hope, compassion and love.
This story was inspired by events in Season Six and the incomparable music of U2's All I Want Is You.
I hope you enjoy this effort and understand the sincere thought beyond it.
In Gassho, MightyMightyMunson
THIS CHAPTER TAKES PLACE 10 YEARS AFTER THE EVENTS AT THE END OF SEASON SIX
The outside of the grounds of the asylum could, perhaps, be considered beautiful if you squinted with one eye and put a para tarp over your head, Allura decided as she gazed around the spartan grounds. Like the building, the saltwart saplings that were struggling to find purchase in still contaminated soil were austere and scraggly, but still managed to inject a welcome measure of color and life to the barren, implosion pocked landscape. A steady chilled breeze, one that heralded the end of summer and the onset of the autumn blew across the uneven, hilly terrain, casting a frost promised bite to the early morning.
Silently, Allura made her way up the rough hewn steps to the main entrance of what was known by the local population as The Pit. The government of course, referred this decidedly un-charming locale as Asylum Zeta 2483. Sighing with something far more sapping than mere weariness, she took off the protective goggles and air filter and looked around at the wasteland that once had been nothing short of a peaceful paradise. Like the steps, this hospital for those who had lost everything, including what little sanity remained in this section of the galaxy, was nearly monolithic in its darkness. Gingerly, she reached out and rested a slender hand on the main entrance door, steeling herself for the emotional and onslaught that she would encounter once she crossed this threshold of suffering.
Once this somber complex had housed a powerful warlord and his heavily militarized faction of Galra insurgents who, in the power vacuum created by the Emperor Zarkon's death, had bloodied one system after another in a mad grab for interstellar domination. What began as a righteous crusade against the tyranny of a corrupt empire had been engulfed by The Galra Civil War and in no time at all, had spiraled out of control and become, on both sides a war of attrition. Carnage and brutality had reigned supreme for many years, staining the dark granite rocks rust red with spilt blood. Allura grimaced as the stale, but unmistakable after scent of death, grief and madness rushed over her as she pushed the asylum entrance open and stepped inside.
After conducting the required formalities, signing the necessary paperwork and being scanned to ensure she was not bringing any contraband into a facility such as this, she, along with her assigned contingent of guards made their way down from the main entrance of the hospital, down several floors courtesy of a vertical lift. While Allura made a point of usually refraining from using the many connections she'd made over the years to bypass normal protocols, in this case, she had pulled strings a plenty and called upon favors without any hesitation to make this visit a reality. She was nearly out of time and options.
Moving down, deep into the cold earth, Allura tried and failed to repress a shiver as the last weak hints of natural light fell prey to darkness and the occasional and far too sterile artificial lighting system that turned the lift into a shifting moray of glowing red shadows and highlights.
"The lighting is so faint," she said frowing, gesturing to the swirling crimson phosphorescent gas that was captured in thin plexi-tubes, "I understand the science and the necessity of light restrictions in contamination cases, but can't help but wonder if this helps or hinders in the healing process?" Unbidden, she looked up at the ceiling of the lift, willing her blue eyes to see pass the metal, cables and security beams, past the blood soaked granite and up in to the sky, into the dying yellow sun that illuminated this war torn world.
"There ain't nobody who's walking away from this dump." A grizzled guard shook his head. "Specially the assholes who are down here. Pardon me sayin' so but they got what was coming to em."
Allura turned to the guard, her composed expression becoming icy. "You would do well, Guard, to remember to whom you are speaking." While she was not a tall woman by any stretch of the imagination, Allura faced the much taller guard with the confidence of one who from her birth was prepared to command nations. "There has been enough suffering in this universe to last several hundred lifetimes. What point is there in wishing additional pain and grief to others?"
Rubbing at a deep scar that twisted his left eye into a permanent crescent, the first guard protested. "You know what they did. They don't deserve no mercy from anyone, least of all you." A side glance from his superior and a well placed jab to the ribs prompted what Allura supposed was an attempt at a bow and a simple apology.
"Yes, I know what was wrought." A spasm of pain, clearly visible even in the low lighting conditions, clawed its way across her face. "There are swaths of galaxies that now lie barren. Many species across multiple worlds have been decimated to the point that they will be extinct within a few generations. Billions of families have been ripped apart or destroyed outright." Reaching up, she brushed away an errant lock of silver hair that had come loose from the plait that hung down her back. "The extent of loss is utterly incomprehensible."
She sighed and looked up at the guard. "I have no illusions as to the nature of many of these patients. Their crimes and the resultant suffering cannot and will not be forgotten, lest our society grows complacent and history repeats itself."
Her expression softened and her mouth curved into what might have been a wistful smile. "As I'm sure you know, a vaillant Paladin of Voltron was killed a near the end of this accursed war."
Everyone in the lift nodded somberly. Though only a few years had passed since peace was restored, the life and deeds of the dead Paladin were already legend.
"He was very dear to me, and there isn't a day that passes where I don't miss him." Allura passed a hand over her eyes, drawing away notice of her threatening tears. "During a particularly dark time, he shared with me the words of an old Earth playwright and encouraged me to rely on the wisdom that they contained. You see, I was being consumed, like so many of those I called my enemies, with the desire to enact revenge on those who had caused such suffering. My dear friend, in his wisdom, intervened as only he could, and saved me from what I am sure would have been my destruction."
The lift shuddered and started to slow in its descent. As cables protested with electric sparks and metallic groans, the lift stabilizers did their work until the lift ground to a stop, hundreds of feet below the surface.
It was time.
Taking a slow and nearly imperceptible steadying breath, she followed the guards out of the lift and down into a dark hallway. The lights here were spaced widely and were pathetic in their output. After what seemed an eternity, they came to the end of the long, cold hall, came face to face will a cell door that Allura knew having long studied the hateful history of this stronghold, was where the most dangerous of the long dead warlord's enemies were brought for imprisonment, torture and eventual execution.
"You'll want us to go in first, Your Majesty." The guard warned as he pressed his large, battle scarred hand on a DNA reader and then entered a long string of alpha-numeric combinations into a panel on the wall. "Even with as sick as he is, this right ornery bastard is a handful." More side glances, a jab to the rib and another apology was muttered while the door slowly finished verifying the security codes.
"I thank you for your concern," Allura replied, " but that will not be necessary." Raising her hand to cut off the protests of the guards, she shook her head. "No harm will come to me and my purpose for attending to this patient is private. I will not be disturbed. Do I make myself clear?" This time, she intentionally leveraged the language, tone and intention of a formidable woman one would do well not to argue with. Wrangling Paladins over the years had made her very good at this.
Allura stepped inside the patient's room and waited patiently as the heavily fortified door slowly closed behind her. It took scarcely a few moments for her eyes to grow accustomed to the dimly lit room. Thankfully, this room was no longer used for imprisonment, torture and death. Casting her gaze around, she took note that the room, while minimally furnished was clean and well tended to, with all the medical support systems required to attend a patient in such a critical state of care.
"By the Guardians, how did it ever come to this?" she inwardly lameted, a tender pang of memory pricking at her as she settled her line of sight on the terminally ill patient, lying several feet away from her in a low grav medical bed. Bound at the wrist and ankles to avoid self-harm, the man tossing and turning on the bed, was breathing shallowly, his uneven inhalations a wretched rasp of effort. She could smell the sharp tang of perspiration and the faintest hint of putrefaction that announced as few things could, that death would soon enter this room and take this complex man, a man she'd once loved and long since lost, yet another casualty of the war that they both had played a part in.
"Always, has your true home been among the stars, exploring worlds without number," she whispered raggedly, thankful for the darkness as she was no longer able to contain her grief. There were other memories as well, of great illuminated war ships obliterating cities, civilizations and in some cases, world's themselves, of two thrones on a high, imperial dias, of laboratories cruel, and extraction chambers housing the desecrated remains of her people. But in this short space of time she had, these dark recollections she pushed aside, choosing to remember those experiences which had, for a short time, been good and great.
Narrow eyes snapped open at her soft utterance. Wild, roiling obs of sickly yellow light bore into her. There was no mercy or recognition in his baneful gaze, only the promise of wrath and ruin.
"Get out!" the patient spat savagely. Despite the safety restraints, he sat up suddenly in the bed, and snarled in her direction. Allura paused, though it was painfully clear that due to the lethal amount of quintessence contamination that he'd been exposed to that the patient was completely blind, even in the low red light. It was a miracle, she thought, if such a word could be used in a situation like this, that he'd clung to life so many years after the terminal exposure point. "No treatment, no visitors, nothing! I've made my wishes clear on this matter and demand that this pathetic excuse for a treatment facility comply!"
Though weak from illness and rough from coughing, his voice, even now, at the end of things, was still sonorous and laced with power and will. While Allura knew that she was skilled in the language of leadership, the dying man before her had truly been a master in this arena and had, on many occasions, rallied former enemies and factions to his cause through the power of his word alone.
His masterful use of voice was not only reserved solely to matters of war and imperial might. Allura swallowed reflexively, her throat becoming dry. She had briefly experienced other facets of speaking with this man, heard words that only existed between mutual sighs, the silky slide of bedsheets, amid whispered secret vows and surprisingly tender endearments that were as warm and sensual as the lovemaking that invariably accompanied it.
Allura said nothing, but went to the table near the low grav bed, where a carafe of cool, herb infused water and some soft folded towels lay, unused and unwanted. Pouring the fragrant water into a small white ceramic basin, she carried it and several of the towels over to the bed and without so much as a by your pardon she sat down on the side of the bed and leaned towards the patient.
Patient 34-08AC3, formerly known as the Supreme Emperor of the Intergalactic Galra Empire, formerly known as Prince Lotor of Galra, etc. etc. … stiffened with indignation when what he could only assume was a terminally obtuse fool, ignored his commands. Unsure whether the shaking in his limbs was due to fury or fever, he glared in the direction of the soft sounds he heard, hoping that the disobedient idiot would get the hint and drop dead of what he hoped was an exquisitely painful coronary.
A base curse commonly used by the battle weathered guards of the most remote Galra outposts escaped his cracked lips when he felt the edge of the low grav bed compress and shift as the person...no, the very soon to be dead person sat down beside him. Restraints or not, sick or not, he was still one that commanded and demanded obedience from those who served him and insubordination of this degree would not be tolerated.
"Get out! I'll not say it again!" he growled, the urge to strike and maim nearly overwhelming. In vain he struggled to free his fists from his restraints and in doing so, overexerted himself. Hot icor began to crawl up his fever dry throat, robbing him of the ability to think, to speak, to breathe. Gagging, he tried to clear his airway, and fell back against the sweat soaked sheets and pillows, his emaciated frame no longer able to support what weight remained upon him. Indignant, he tried to sit up again, but was constrained by a small, but inexorably strong hand against his chest.
"Remove your filthy hand from my person unless you are keen to lose it." he growled, though he knew the threat was hollow and wasn't sure who he hated more, himself, the obtuse attendant with a death wish or fate itself for the fact. When the attendant continued to ignore him, he finally snapped. Even a dying man has limits for pity's sake. Far more swiftly than a man of his waning strength should be able to move, he twisted in the bed and, not needing his ruined vision to guide him, he caught the hand that was pressed against his chest.
"Who in the Seven Mithpathian Hells do you think you are?" he demanded. Through the crazed fog of severe quintessence contamination, what remained of his rational mind told him that the small wrist he'd captured within his clawed fingers was not that of a mindless orderly, nor was it that of a battle hardened soldier.
"Your friend, if you'll have me as such," Allura answered simply, still struggling to come to terms with the man before her. She frowned as she felt the strength of the fever burning through Lotor's wasted flesh. The quintessence contamination accrued over a thousand normal lifetimes, was consuming him from the outside in.
"How...dare...you…" His voice had become a sibilant hiss. Furry born of grief, guilt and devastating loss blossomed into white hot fury that made the fever that raged through this body pale in comparison. Snarling, he released the hand he'd snared, flinging it away from him as if it was a poisonous serpent. Of all the cruelties that his captors could leverage against him, any morsel of hope that they could toss his way that merely hinted at the memory of her cut him to the quick.
"I don't know what trickery you are using or what you hope to accomplish by invoking that woman's memory, but you will you will pay for this base deceit with your life." Gritting his teeth, he focused all his strength into his right arm that was manacled, and with a tremendous effort, he broke free of the wrist restraint and with the unerring instinct of one who grew up in the savage multi-generational crucible of violence, blindly reached out, claws bared towards the intruders throat.
"Mo Chroi, be still." Allura responded to the threat of violence without pause, easily capturing Lotor's far too thin wrist, mere inches from her throat. She felt him struggle against her, then as she repeated the long unsaid endearment that only she and the man lying before her were privy to, and as several long seconds passed, felt him become completely still and silent.
This was impossible. Utterly and completely impossible. Blinking hard, his ruined eyes seeking in vain for some visual confirmation of what his other senses reported, Lotor slowly twisted his wrist that had been captured by such a small hand, a hand that he had both longed for and reviled against for years, so that his fingers could brush against unseen knuckles and deceptively fragile finger tips. Though years had passed, he knew this hand, those fingers and to whom they belonged.
"Dywa Mor?" the secret name that he'd sworn to her by, felt cobwebby on his tongue, as if it had been stored away under lock and key, covered and hidden so that none could see it or share in it.
"How can this be?" he croaked, struggling to process not only what was happening, but this encounter was even occurring in the first place. To say things hadn't ended well between them was a monstrous understatement, the damage wrought too terrible and permanent to ever make right. "Why in the name of the Gods are you here?"
Allura tried to smile, but failed as she watched the man she'd once pledged herself to, body and soul, struggle to move, to speak. She was no stranger to the ravages of quintessence contamination, anyone who had survived the last years of the great conflict knew all too well the horrendous side-effects of being exposed to the refined quintessence that was unleashed in the form of devastating biological weapons against a war-weary universe.
"I'm not sure to be honest." Allura took one of the towels and cast it into the cool water. Not trusting herself to speak, she focused her attentions instead on saturating the soft cloth and then after a gentle squeeze placed it on Lotor's fevered brow. "When I received reports that you were still alive and a patient in this…this…"
"Hellhole?" Lotor offered dryly.
Allura looked around the room and thought of the darkness that by sad and dire necessity was a part of the asylum and so many others like it that were scattered across several galaxies. "The term is apt, I think." She moved the cloth from Lotor's forehead and carefully drew it across his razor sharp cheekbones and over his sunken, hooded eyes that ever gleamed with unholy light.
Lotor sighed and with a shudder leaned into her ministrations. It couldn't be helped. For the space of a failing heartbeat he was tempted to push her away, to rid himself of her presence and memory once and for all. And then the moment passed, and he succumbed to the great weariness within him and the inexorable pull that he'd always experienced with this woman. For a few welcome moments, the pain and heat abated, and he felt like he was falling back into memory, into a time that was simpler than the reality of the now and filled with hope and promise rather than the constant reminder of all that had gone wrong.
A couple of notes:
While more explanation will be given in the next chapter as to special names used by Allura and Lotor and in what special context, for the sake of this story, these are Galra terms of endearment, used between sworn lovers.
Mo Chroi - "My Heart" (Irish Gaelic)
Dywa Mor - "My Soul" (Russian word spelled out phonetically)
In the next chapter, Allura's clandestine (think very illegal) mission begins in earnest and we learn more about what Lotor and Allura were doing in their spare time while researching quintessence and upgrading his ships with Altean alchemy. If you like this story, please do me the kindness of adding a review. I good about responding to all questions and appreciate your support.