To be honest, the crash wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. The moment they were flung out of the wormhole; Red had been able to lock onto a small, frozen, moon and safely land herself. Which was a godsend, seeing as Keith's hands had started shaking a little too much to be trusted with landing on ice of unknown thickness. Thankfully, the ice turned out to be thick enough to accommodate the lion without cracking, only leaving minor divots from the heat of the landing gear.
Once they had landed, it took Keith a solid seven minutes to catch his breath, which he might've figured was fair, after having been thrown haphazardly through the fabric of spacetime. Between the trembling of his hands and the shakiness of his breath, Keith found himself stuck, useless as his body took its sweet time calming down. Again. Red, however had immediately parked herself, activated her barrier, and started up her distress beacon in the time it took for Keith to regain control of his mutinous hands and breath.
In pain, exhausted, and pissed at the universe in its entirety, Keith allowed himself one small groan before he got to business running the diagnostic scan on Red to assess how much damage she had taken in the last battle. Once the blue flashing dot on his screen accompanied the red distress beacon, signaling the start of the scan, Keith leaned his head back and took the time to run his own diagnostic scan on himself.
He had been stupid. He couldn't deny that. He had been reckless and idiotic, thinking he could take on Zarkon by himself. Well, not that he was delusional enough to think he actually could have won the duel, but he just HAD to try anyway, didn't he? And now everyone was paying for it. Wherever they were.
And of course, now was when everything was deciding to start being ridiculous. Right when they were bringing the fight to Zarkon. Right when they were all starting to feel comfortable with each other. Right when Keith had begun to relax.
Whatever. It's not like he was particularly surprised. Such is life. He could figure out what to do about all that later. Checking himself over, aside from the slight ache of his joints and exhaustion in his muscles he was begrudgingly unsurprised to notice, Keith had sustained very little personal damage.
"So you can stop worrying about me. Got it? I am perfectly fine!" Keith mumbled in response to the low ebb of concern he had been feeling radiating through the cockpit from the moment he had lost control of Red in the wormhole.
Despite the slightest hint of a disgruntled growl informing Keith that Red did not consider his answer satisfactory; the sense of concern reverberating within his head died down to a much more tolerable level as Red focused all of her energy on the distress beacon and the diagnostic scan finished up.
"Well I'm afraid I'm gonna have to replace your LC-9 battery pack before we get you in the air for any real length of time again. There's a tear through the casing. Looks like that must have been what knocked you out back there. But for now, you should be just fine, Kitty." Keith spoke, his voice and words as warm and soft as the answering purr of appreciation he got from Red.
It was only a few hours or so after the scan had finished that Keith was about to try again on the helmet intercom. It was a pretty pointless exercise, considering the distress beacon's range was exponentially larger than the helmet intercom system. But he was tired and bored.
Which was why he nearly jumped out of his seat when he heard Allura's very concerned voice calling out to him, asking if he could hear her.
Or maybe it was because he had fallen asleep without realizing it; thus missing the castle picking up on Red's beacon, arriving at the little moon, and landing beside the lion. As well as all the other paladins coming outside to stare at Red who was apparently refusing to risk waking Keith up from his impromptu nap by allowing them inside.
"Oh! Sorry! Yes. Red's fine. Thanks for coming to get me, guys. I'm coming out now." Keith spoke into his microphone as he flipped his helmet to full coverage and scrambled to turn off the distress beacon still flashing on his screen.
The moment he was on the ground, Keith found himself at the center of a tangle of arms, hair, and shoulders as he was enveloped in a group hug.
"What were you even doing up there? Were you TRYING to make us panic with your 'Oh I'm Keith. I don't need anyone so I'm not going to respond when my TEAMMATES COME TO RESCUE ME!' ROUTINE?!" Yelled Lance, ruining the surprisingly sweet moment.
"Yeah, what were you doing up there, anyway?"
"You did have us a little worried."
"Your lion wouldn't even let us in!"
"I'm just glad you're okay." Each of the other's responded in their own way, their words jumbling together as they spoke on top of each other. Their voices varying from curiosity to relief.
"Yeah, sorry. I...was..napping?" The ridiculousness of what he was saying sunk in as he was speaking, causing Keith's answer to sound more like a question than he intended.
"Unbelieveable!" Lance's voice cracked. "First he tries to fight ZARKON alone, then gets thrown HALFWAY ACROSS THE STINKING UNIVERSE and Mr. Mullet over here is so cool he can't even be bothered to wait up for his rescuers." He mocked, air quotes and all.
To be honest, Keith was too surprised at the intensity of the reaction to be offended by anything Lance was saying to him. He certainly appreciated his fellow Paladins and the Altaens for coming to find him, but he was completely caught off guard by how upset everyone seemed to be.
He was just about to respond with some offhand snarky comment he hadn't come up with yet when the sky suddenly started pulsing. Everyone looked over toward the distant star, so far from this barren moon that it barely looked much bigger than the rest of the stars in the night sky. It no longer looked like the glowing, orangey red marble Keith had seen upon landing. Instead it seemed to be shrinking between pulses from red, through yellow, to blue, and back again so fast it might have been a strobe light at a rave.
There was zero time for the paladins to stand there, staring transfixed at the disco ball esque star before they each had a panicked Allura in their earpiece demanding they get back inside immediately.
Hunk was the first to take off running for the castle doors, followed closely by Lance and then Pidge. Keith had barely started moving forward (why did the castle suddenly seem so far away?) knowing that Shiro was waiting until Keith was ahead of him; when he felt himself being scooped up into Red's mouth. It wasn't his most graceful moment in the world, falling forward, arms flailing, feet kicking, as he was scooped from the slippery ice onto the metal floor of the cockpit. And of course, in her haste to grab Keith up, Red had also managed to pick up everyone else in the same gulp, therefore giving each of the others front row seats to Keith's sudden, one man dance party.
He didn't even bother to try standing up, or turning around to see the reactions of his fellow paladins as Red flew them all through the particle barrier and up to the castle doors. Without taking the time to land, Red spat them all through the open doors on her way up to her hanger.
Tumbling straight through the welcome hall and landing hard against the stairs, Keith had just enough time to turn back and see the distant sun disappear for an instant before turning into a firework as the doors sealed themselves shut behind them.
"Phew. That, my young friends, was a close one. Even by your standards." Coran's slightly too loud and exuberant voice crackled through their ear pieces. "No matter. You're all safe now. Up you pop and come meet us in the control room!" How that old man could sound giddy in just about any situation was beyond Keith.
"Okay." "Sure thing." "On our way." "Give us a sec." "Yes sir." They each mumbled in tandem as they tenderly stood up, thanking their lucky stars for the quality of their armor.
"Um. Not to sound weird or anything, but does anyone else feel like we just saw that star straight up die?" Hunk asked, looking curiously back toward the castle doors every so often as they all headed for the control room.
"Huh. A supernova? I wonder what this means for the castle?" Pidge piqued up by way of answering Hunk.
"I'm sure a civilization as accustomed to space travel as the Altaens are capable of handling anything a single star can throw at us." Assured Shiro as they reached the doors to the control room.
As if on cue, they all stopped their murmurs of agreement as a soft rumble began to blossom throughout the castle. They all managed to make it through the doors despite the rumble growing in volume and intensity until its violence was enough to vibrate the floors on it's way past the castle.
Keith stood as still as he could, trying to stay balanced as the quaking began to peak. It wasn't until it had almost stopped that he noticed the sensation of his right hand falling asleep. Looking to his right, he found the cause to be the death grip a pair of hands now had on his upper arm. Rather shocked at the sudden contact (what was with all the touchy-feely and grabby-grabby stuff today?) Keith's gaze just followed the adjoining arms up to the horrified face of Lance.
"What the HECK was that?! Lance demanded, his voice harsh and shrill. "Space thunder?!" He shrieked, grip only tightening as his eyes continued to grow in circumference as they darted around the room, looking for someone to blame.
Keith, along with the others it seemed, didn't quite know how to respond to the intensity of Lance's outburst.
"Nothing to be worried about, my boy!" Coran chirped, momentarily. "Just a bit of supernovatic turbulence. Nothing our little ol' particle barrier can't handle. Why, this castle has dealt with far bigger supernovas from a much closer distance than this one. There is no need to be alarmed. By my calculations, this moon here will be the perfect vantage point to wait out the initial radial energy surge. In fact, we are in for quite a treat! The view from within an active supernova is quite a spectacular one; and not one very many Earthlings have seen, I'm sure. Why I rememb..." The rest of Coran's sentence was drowned out by another wave of "space thunder" as Lance had put it, and Lance's own shriek of horror. Directly into Keith's ear.
"Would you cut it out already!" Keith shouted over the cacophony, ripping his arm out of Lance's grip, turning to face the boy, and stepping out of his reach in one swift motion.
"What's your problem anyway?" Keith continued, perplexed and puzzled by his comrade's behavior. Coran said it was safe, and the others were appeased. There was no need for hysterics. And yet here was Lance, throwing a tantrum over what basically amounted to a storm...oh...no way. Really?
"What are you, afraid of a little storm?" Keith, taunted, using the jab as an excuse to cross his arms, and throwing in a smirk for good measure. He was determined to shut Lance up, one way or another. The last thing he needed right now was to have people panicking. He had enough of his own shit to be worrying about.
Lance was apparently too caught up in what was happening outside to bother trying to cover up his momentary show of weakness. That is, until he looked at Keith, who was putting on his best show of judgemental amusement he could muster with the amount of energy he had left from the past 48 hours of nonstop chaos.
"No! Not completely! I mean, I love rain. Rain is fine. Rain doesn't kill you, destroy houses, bring down trees, break eardrums, or shatter windows. It's all the rest that's stupid and has no business existing! I'M NOT AFRAID! OKAY?" Lance blabbered. The last part losing any effectiveness it might have had when he yelped at the sudden crack of thunder in the very next breath.
"Now Lance." Started Allura, whose expression looked somewhat torn between amusement and compassion for the paladin on the verge of tears. "While I can assure you that Coran was right in saying we are perfectly safe within the castle and will continue to be so, even once the moon dissolves…" She paused when Lance and Hunk both gasped, but kept going before either of them could say anything.
"A healthy dose of fear is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, once fear is mastered, it is one of the most important qualities a Voltron paladin can have, if they are to reach their full potential." She finished, her eyes on Keith.
Why did Keith get the feeling he was being reprimanded?
The insinuation that he might be better than Keith at something seemed to be an elixir for Lance's nerves, if his immediate switch from panicked pacing to smug sauntering was anything to go by. But, sensing Lance's next move before he made it, Keith turned on his heel and headed for the door. Keith did not have any intention of letting Lance lean on him, as off balance as he was feeling. Nor did he wish to have Lance's ever prying mind pick up on the slight quaking of his hands which were currently being held captive by the crooks of his elbows. This had been a long day, and Keith was rightfully exhausted. Keith figured he had every right to head to bed early, anyway.
"Keith. Before you go." Allura called after him. "Just so everyone is on the same page. It will be better for the ship if we stay on this moon as long as it is stable, so we aren't using all out power to counter the force of the nova pulses. This will probably take a couple days before it will be safe for us to continue. That does not mean that anyone of us is allowed to slack off. The Galra know what we are capable of, now and are surely already in the process of preparing new and more powerful ways to stop us and capture Voltron. This is not a vacation."
"Of course, Princess." Keith heard Shiro say amidst a chorus of groans and hums of acknowledgement. Keith himself just settled for a nod on his way out the door.
He was almost home free when another, somehow even louder clap of thunder shook the castle. Keith braced himself against the wall and waited for the accompanying shriek. Instead of a shriek, though, he heard Shiro's voice, in its best calming tone.
"Hey now, it's okay Lance. Hmm. Now it has been a while since we last had a fa- group dinner. Coran, Hunk, do you two think you could whip something up for us. I think we all might have a bit of catching up to do, anyway."
"That sounds good to me."
"Okay"
"What a wonderful idea."
"I could make you all another old favorite of mine!"
Great. So Keith wasn't going to bed any time soon.
He turned around to protest. He had a good excuse, he was tired and it's not like they were all separated for long enough to have much to catch up on.
But then he caught sight of Lance.
Instead of the shit eating grin, or the over-the-top horrified expression he was expecting, Lance was standing there, arms wrapped around his waist as if hugging himself, eyes squeezed shut, lower lip having all but disappeared from how hard he was biting it. And instead of adding his agreement like the others, he was just nodding.
In spite of himself, Keith felt a pang of concern. Lance must really be terrified.
And, Keith figured, he was kinda hungry.
"Alright." He heard himself agree.
Once everyone was seated around the table and food was made, it took a while for everyone to start talking, what with Lance still subdued by the ever continuing thunder and everyone else stuffing their faces as if they hadn't eaten in months.
"I never thought I would miss having real meals like this so much!" Spoke Pidge, after a solid ten minutes of the sound of chewing. Hunk, whose mouth was too full to voice his opinion just nodded so enthusiastically, he nearly dropped his fork.
"What do you mean?" Keith asked. He was used to the overdramatics from Lance, and maybe Hunk. But Pidge? "We just had a huge meal a day or so ago, remember? Right before we attacked the Galra station."
The other's looked at him in shock.
"You mean to say, only a day has passed for you since we all got separated, Keith?" Allura asked him.
Uhm…
"Isn't that the case for everyone else? I'm pretty sure I wasn't asleep for very long…" Keith trailed off.
"Well, Allura. You said that Hunk and I had each been sent back in time. Maybe Keith was sent forward in time?" Pidge hypothesized, the intrigue of this new mystery outweighing their enjoyment of their meal.
"It is possible… And it would explain why it took so long to locate him." Allura's voice grew quiet as she contemplated it.
"That is true, princess. You can't find someone who doesn't exist yet!" Coran helpfully pointed out.
"Wait. What?" Keith interrupted. "How long has it been for you guys, then?!" He wasn't sure he was okay with this turn of events. Traveling through time? Really? To be fair it would explain some things...but no. That's just too weird. They made it VERY clear at the Garrison that time-travel was just not possible. He was so alarmed, he even said so.
"Well." Coran spoke up excitedly as the other paladins groaned. They apparently had already had this discussion. A few times by the look of it. "As I am sure you know, space and time are two parts of the same thing. We are both lifeforms that live more squarely within the space aspect. Which is why we can interact. As beings of the space aspect, when we make tears in reality, or wormholes, we are able to direct where-"
Pidge was having none of the lecture. "So basically we went back in time and Keith went forward in time because time was torn like space was to create the wormhole and when we fell out we fell randomly into both space and time. Makes enough sense. Though us all winding up within a month of each other is odd." They summarized.
"Er. Basically, yes. If you want to put it that way. Except not because-" Coran answered, obviously a little put off about not being able to finish his lecture.
But Keith had more important things to ask.
"Wait! A month! You still never told me how long I've been gone. And Pidge just said a whole month?" Why he was quite so upset about this, Keith wasn't sure.
"Well no. C'mon Keith. Keep with the program." Lance spoke for the first time this meal. His cocky self seeming to have returned.
"Pidge was talking about the time difference between when they wound up and when you wound up. Not how long it's been since the castle lost track of us!" He spoke in his fake-exasperated tone. As if it was obvious. And then, as if the thought just occurred to him, Lance smiled. That smile. The one that had started making Keith's blood boil simply because everything that came after it always pissed him off.
"Or maybe you didn't travel forward in time at all. Maybe you just snored for two whole weeks, sleeping beauty!"
As if sensing Keith's retort before he said it, Shiro came to the rescue.
"Cut it out you two. Yes Keith, it has been two weeks since the Galra base mission. Lance and I stayed within the same time period as the castle. Hunk wound up about a week back which meant it took a week for us to find him, from his perspective ("It was awful! Do you know how gross skinning your own alien meat is! Do not ever try that at home! I even ate...") and for Pidge it was two weeks ("I personally had a great time. I somehow wound up on that same planet Yello had been hidden! The sloth people remembered me and I got to try all of their deserts and let me tell you…"). From our perspective, however we found them within the hour. But it took us two weeks to locate you. We were getting worried. Glad you are back safe." He finished his summarization over Hunk and Pidge's excited retellings of their adventures.
Keith sat in silence for a bit. Just listening to the overlapping stories everyone was telling of the past month. That, actually made sense, Keith figured. Weird.
"Hey!" Lance suddenly piped up over the chatter. "You know what this means? This means I am now older and therefore wiser than Keith! HA!" Keith didn't think he had ever seen Lance so full of himself. And that was saying something. Lance was so excited, even the next clap of thunder didn't seem to phase him.
Never before had Keith been so pissed off that someone else's birthday was within a week of his.
"Yeah, bird brain. Like an extra week is going to do you any good. I could have been sent twenty years ahead and would have still come out wiser than you!" Why he always felt the need to retaliate against Lance, Keith would never know.
"Ugh. I'm beginning to miss the quiet of the past month, aren't you Coran?" Allura sighed loud enough for the whole table to hear.
"Aww come on, Allura. They're all just kids. They're happy to all be back together. They just don't realize it yet."
"Yes I guess you are probably right." Allura agreed with both a sigh and a smile.
Now that everyone had eaten, though, Keith figured it would finally be safe to escape to his room. His entire body was aching and he could no longer tell if his muscles were quivering on their own accord or from the thunder.
Keith forced a yawn out of his mouth. Which was immediately followed by another, genuine yawn.
"Well, as good as it is to be back and all, I am exhausted. Goodnight." Keith said, trying to sound like a normal human being who hadn't just recently time traveled."
Keith was being so careful. He even paused a moment after everyone nodded their acceptance (not that he cared) to gather his bearings. Even still, when he stood up and stepped around his chair, his legs momentarily gave out under his weight. It was only a split second. He only had time to grab the back of his chair for support before he was once again stable.
He immediately looked up to see if anyone noticed, but as he scanned the faces at the table, no one seemed to even be aware that Keith was still in the room. Until he locked eyes with Shiro's concerned, solemn face.
Keith refused to acknowledge his stumble and just walked out with as strong and relaxed of a gate as he could garner.
Keith did not like showing weakness.