Keith's POV
The paladins gaped at the empty seat before them. No one dared to break the silence. Keith felt Pidge walk out behind him, and Hunk followed her. Keith felt himself move towards the seat, Shiro's seat, but couldn't recall deciding to do that. He couldn't quite recall anything past that. Couldn't recall anything but the fire that burned in him hotter than any flame he'd ever seen. Couldn't recall anything but the yelling that cut through his throat and bounced off the walls of the Black Lion. Couldn't recall anything but the faint sting of his bleeding hands. When he could recall, when his mind began to resurface out of the storming red in his brain, he could see teardrops mixing with droplets of blood on Shiro's control panel. He could see broken bits of the Black Lion and couldn't tell which parts were broken in the fight and which were broken in the red storm that he couldn't quite recall. In the back of his mind he thought he could hear Lance telling him to get up, to go calm down, but maybe that was just in his head. He tried to pushing himself up, but his arms were shaking so hard he couldn't do it, so he just sank back down into the chair. And stared ahead. He lazily thought that he'd probably lose any faith the Black Lion ever had in him, but he didn't care. Because Shiro was missing. The full weight of it hit him in the face. Shiro, who had been like a brother to him, scratch that who was a brother to him, was gone without even a trace. And Keith couldn't do anything. Anything! He could feel the storm rolling in again, when someone grabbed his arm. Lance was next to him, red-eyed, and quiet. Keith suddenly realized that he hadn't heard him leave before the red storm in his brain messed up his brain. "Go get changed." Lance's voice was ragged and hollow. "Get some rest. We all need it." Keith realized the battle had ended only hours ago. He slowly rose out of the seat and stared at the destruction he'd caused for a moment more before following Lance out of the Lion.
Lance's POV
He watched the destruction rain in silence. Lance didn't move to stop his friend from obliterating the control panel in Shiro's Lion, he knew he couldn't stop him. He simply rode out the storm. He sat cross-legged on the floor and waited. He winced in pain, but couldn't tell what hurt until he realized he'd been chewing on his pinkie. He used to do that when he was a kid, when anything upset him, he'd start chewing on his hand, absently. His mother thought it was just an extension of outgrowing sucking his thumb a little late. His oldest sister, Ramira, used to slap his hand away from his mouth when he started chewing on it. Suffice to say that midterms and finals left him with red hand's. He missed his family. He hadn't known Shiro as well as the others had, he couldn't figure out how to connect with him. Allura knew what it was like to be leader, Pidge's family knew him, Hunk just made friends easily, and Keith had known him back in school. Lance would never admit it out loud, but he'd always admired them. Shiro was the model of what a leader should be even back in school. They'd wanted to send him to Command School early, before he was given the Kerberos assignment. Everyone liked him. Even if you weren't his friend, you at least had a begrudging respect for the guy. Lance always wanted to be that. It wasn't the popularity he wanted, he was fairly well-known himself, but to be able to take control of a situation and keep everyone safe. Shiro's disappearance was like losing your last line of defense. The fact that they couldn't form Voltron without him was the least of his worries. Without Shiro, Lance was afraid they wouldn't be able to keep themselves together. He was pulled from his thoughts at the sudden realization that everything had gone quiet. He looked up and saw Keith slumped in the chair, staring at his hands with glazed over eyes. Lance gently called for his friend to come out and rest, and Keith must have heard him. He tried to push himself up, but was shaking so badly he fell again. Lance sat up and pulled Keith out of the chair, telling him to go get some rest. He also told himself to go to sleep, everything would look clearer in the morning.
When he went to bed, he stared at the darkened lights above him, praying silently for Shiro's return. His hand absently flew to his mouth. In his dreams, Ramira knocked it away.
Pidge's POV
Pidge sat at the counter in the kitchen with her head on the table. Hunk slid a cup of coffee across the counter to her. She felt, well, she couldn't quite tell how she felt. Empty. Like another piece of her had disappeared. She thought it was because Shiro was the only connection to Matt and father left, But she realized it was separate from that. Over the past few months, they'd become friends. She sort of felt like it was having another brother. Then she felt like that was betraying Matt and pushed the thought fro her mind. She picked up her head and thanked Hunk for the coffee. "Has Keith left the Black Lion yet?" She asked. Keith's yelling had rung through the silence of the castle, but no one went after him. Everyone had either been enveloped in their own grief or decided to let him drain his energy, Pidge included. "Yeah, I heard him go in his room a little while ago," Hunk responded. She nodded and slid off the stool in front of the counter. "Where're you headed?" Hunk asked in a way that sounded like he already knew the answer. "To Shiro's Lion," She said as casually as she could, but her voice caught a bit. "Gonna assess the damage, see what needs to be repaired." Hunk nodded and follower her out without further questioning.
3 hours later (or what seemed like 3 hours, Pidge could never tell), Pidge was still bent over Shiro's control panel. Hunk sat on the floor next to her, handing her this tool or that, fetching Coran once or twice to explain how this piece or that usually worked. She tried to become her work, the way she did when Matt and her dad first disappeared. She let the wires and mechanisms swallow her up. She only spoke to ask for Hunk to hold things closed or to pass her something. When tears started sliding down her face, she didn't acknowledge them until her eyes blurred and she couldn't see her work anymore. Pidge reached up to wipe her eyes before realizing they were covered in Altean grease from the Lion. Hunk sighed and grabbed a cloth from the stack he'd brought and wiped her eyes. She nodded silent thanks and returned to her work.
Hunk's POV
Hunk's heart hung heavily in his chest, as he watched Pidge work. He'd been the one to tell Allura and Coran about Shiro. He'd watched the faces of each of his friends the moment they broke. He saw the fire burning in Keith's eyes, the downpour of tears threatening Lance's. He saw the utter disbelief in Allura's face as she pushed past to see for herself, and Coran's quiet resignation as he turned back to the ship's controls. He had watched Pidge wipe the look of astonishment off her face and replace it with a face simultaneously expressing nothing and everything. And now he watched the face, totally unchangeable, no matter how hard he tried to make her smile or laugh, or even look up. He remembered how Shiro knew how to get everyone to talk to him. Shiro knew how to keep the group together. Even though Keith was technically going to be leader now, Hunk knew he would have to be able to hold everyone together the way Shiro had. Well, maybe not the way Shiro had. No one could give a person hope the way Shiro could. But Hunk would try. He would do his very best for his friends. For Shiro.
Coran's POV
Coran watched the various members of the team slink through the corridors like lost souls. He looked on as Keith twitched and lashed out. As Pidge worked feverishly on the Black Lion. As Lance stared without direction with red eyes, chewing on his fingers. As Hunk fetched Pidge's tools with a look of quiet determination, hastily wiping tears when he thought no one was looking. They'd all fallen into their own separate holes at the moment they needed each other the most. And Allura. Coran had sent her to bed immediately after hearing the news. She didn't have the physical strength to do anything drastic, but she had the unmatched determination. Her eyes looked conflicted, like she wasn't sure how she should express her grief. Grief. He'd been calling it that, this depression, in his head, but he didn't like using that word for it. It made it sound like the damage was done. Like Shiro was dead. And maybe he was but, Coran refused to accept until it could be proved. He would let them "grieve" but ultimately they had to put their heads together and find a way to bring him home. Find a way to send them all those children, home. Coran often thought about what he would do when the fight with Galra was over. He thought he and Allura might settle on Earth when they bring the paladins home. Or maybe they'd all stay superheroes, fighting intergalactic foes all over the universe. Maybe they'd send the paladins home and keep roaming the universe on their own, looking for other surviving Alteans. At the moment, it's seems like they'd be stuck in this perpetual aftermath forever. But Coran refused to allow that to happen.
Allura's POV
Allura stood next to her bed, staring at the hole she'd burned in her blankets. She didn't fully understand how her new magic worked, and didn't particularly care. If Shiro were here, he'd think through a careful strategy to help her begin to control her newfound power. But he wasn't here. And her power didn't seem to want to yield to her. It fought her, she could feel it churning inside her, spilling from her at random moments. She thought the bed was on fire when she woke up, and realized that it was her steaming. She put out the flames and stared at her own hands. In due time, steaming tears rolled down her face. She couldn't do this anymore. She didn't want to do this anymore. She didn't want to keep jeopardizing the lives of the paladins, these young kids who wanted nothing more than safety for their families, for their planet. She hated herself for doing this to children. In the moment it didn't occur to her that she herself was but a child. She wished she'd died in that pod. In stasis, so she wouldn't have to be here to turn teenagers with everything to live for into weapons. The full weight of it hit her. Aside from Shiro, they'd all still been students when this had happened, and Shiro was only fresh out of college. They had families, families like she used to have that were probably worried sick over them, parents that might be thinking they're children they used to cradle in their arms were dead. The tears seemed to thicken on her face, and Allura reached up to touch them. They were no longer normal tears, but tears that glowed with a purple-ish light. Her tears were pure magic, the closest thing to quintessence without actually being so. The floor sizzled each time a drop hit it, but she didn't care. All she cared about now was getting them home.
