Author's Note: Hey guys! This is a sequel to my story "To Lance or Not to Lance". If you haven't read it, all you really need to know is that Lance has the ability to manipulate quintessence as a result of being so close when the castle's original crystal exploded. This story takes place a while later, after the events at the end of Season One and the beginning of Season Two. It will start with the events of the episode "Shiro's Escape" and deal with some of the events later in the season as well, just with an AU twist.

Constructive criticism, especially what you like and don't like about the story so far, would be awesome as well as any other feedback you'd like to give. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter One: Just A Little Bit of Surgery

"And we got to meet mermaids! Real mermaids! One of them definitely had a thing for me, too," Lance said proudly as Pidge led them down the hall to the infirmary. He felt at once exhausted and elated. The whole mermaid adventure had been fun but also terrifying, especially the part where Hunk had attacked him. He hadn't liked that at all.

"Why are we going to the infirmary?" Hunk asked. Pidge shrugged.

"I'm not sure. Allura sent me off to get you two right after I finished getting Keith and Shiro back. I didn't have time to see if either of them were hurt, but I guess they must have been since Allura wants us to go straight to the infirmary."

"I hope it's nothing serious," said Hunk, frowning. Lance threw an arm around his shoulders.

"Don't worry, buddy. I'm sure Allura and Coran have it handled."

"Then why do they need us?" Pidge asked. Lance shot her a look. He didn't blame Hunk for worrying, that was just his natural state of being. But Pidge should know better. She was just making it worse.

"I don't know, maybe they just want to make sure we're okay."

Pidge shook her head. "Nope, she would have asked about us if it was that."

Lance sighed. "Let's just get there and we'll find out."

When they reached the infirmary, Lance had to stop for a moment to take it all in. Shiro was lying on the floor with a nasty looking wound on his side. It was scorched black, but made even worse by lines of bright purple. That could not be good. Only a druid could cause a wound like that.

Allura was kneeling next to Shiro, with Keith kneeling on the opposite side from her. Both looked worried. Only Coran looked over when the others walked in.

"What happened?" Hunk asked. Lance could feel the worry radiating off him, and he felt an echo of it in his own chest. Shiro just wasn't supposed to look so helpless.

"It was Haggar," Keith said grimly. "She got him before he escaped. We landed on the same planet after the wormhole, but there was nothing I could do."

"How bad is it?" asked Pidge. Her fists were clenched and her eyes were wide.

"The physical wound is bad, but the damage to his quintessence is worse," Allura answered. "The cryo pods can't fix that."

"Can you heal him?" Lance asked. Surely she could. Allura was a boss when it came to quintessence.

She hesitated, and Coran jumped in. "The princess' energy was badly drained from trying to rescue us from the wormhole that we were stuck in. She's in no shape to heal anyone."

"But she has to!" Keith snapped. "We can't just let Shiro die!" Lance agreed with him. They had to be able to do something.

Allura sighed. "Coran is right. I just don't have the energy to perform the healing right now." She looked up at Lance. "But you might."

"What, me?" Lance held up his hands. "I have no idea how to heal anybody."

"You healed your lion, and you helped push away Haggar's influence from the others as well as the crystal. This isn't much different."

Keith looked between the two of them. "I don't care who does it, but somebody needs to do something, and fast. Shiro doesn't have long."

Lance felt a little trapped. "But what if I do something wrong?"

Allura stood up and put a hand on his arm. "Your instincts are good. Just do what feels right."

He felt everyone's eyes on him. He liked attention, but not this kind of attention. "Okay, okay, I'll do it." Lance took Allura's place kneeling next to Shiro and carefully moved his hand over the wound. Touching it didn't seem quite right, so he just let his hand hover there.

His hand glowed blue and he pushed his quintessence into the wound. Immediately, he felt resistance as Haggar's familiar tainted quintessence reacted to his. Shiro groaned and shifted slightly, but Lance couldn't afford to look and see if he was awake.

"Careful, you're hurting him!" Keith snapped.

"I'm not trying to." Lance gritted his teeth and sent his quintessence spiraling in blue tendrils, looking for weaknesses in whatever Haggar left behind in the wound. The feel of it made him feel slightly nauseous. He didn't want to think about the damage that she'd done to Shiro's quintessence, but he supposed that he'd have to if he was going to heal it.

"What's he doing?" Hunk asked.

Allura shushed him, then said in a hushed tone, "Think of it like surgery. He has to remove what's causing the damage and then fix it."

No one else said anything, but Lance could feel the doubt hanging in the air. His hand started to shake slightly. So far, he didn't seem to be making much of a difference. He reached out to Blue, who simply sent back the thought, More. Lance took a deep breath and sent his quintessence flooding into the wound. He'd never used this much, not since healing his lion. But it seemed to do the trick. The tentacle-like remnants of Haggar's quintessence shrunk away from the glowing blue and rose out of the wound. Lance brought in his other hand and grabbed at it, carefully pulling it away from Shiro.

"Um, Allura? I need something to put this in." The tentacles were writhing in his grip. He winced as one wound itself around his right thumb. It felt slightly like a cat's tongue, at least if cats had acid saliva.

"Right! I've got just the thing," said Coran. He knelt next to Keith and held out some kind of glass canister. Lance reached over and carefully scraped the burning quintessence off of his fingers. He had to blast it with a small amount of his own quintessence to get it all off and into the canister. Coran took it away and Lance turned back to Shiro. This part he was less sure about.

"Come on, Lance, you're doing wonderfully," said Allura. "Just keep going."

He placed his smarting hands above the wound again. Flickering bits of his own quintessence were still floating around, so he sent out a bit more to try and gather them together. He couldn't quite see Shiro's quintessence, but he could feel it in the same indefinable way that he felt his own when he wasn't using it. Lance imagined it as a deep gash, drawing life from Shiro's soul while the physical wound sapped energy from his body. Was he supposed to stitch it back together like a surgeon? That didn't seem right. Blue seemed amused at the idea. No, that wouldn't work.

Shiro groaned again. "Hurry up, his pulse is getting really weak," said Keith.

Lance bit his lip. Okay, he'd think of it like glue. Haggar's quintessence was certainly sticky, so how about his? He used his blue tendrils to feel out the edges of the gash and pictured them sticking there. To his surprise, it worked. He slowly dragged the tendrils and stuck them to the other side, forming a kind of webbing. He continued doing that until the wound was a mass of glowing blue threads.

Lance lifted his hands away and let out a deep breath. He looked at Keith. "How's he doing?"

Keith checked Shiro's pulse. "Better, I think. His pulse is more steady now."

Allura placed a hand on Lance's shoulder. "Let's get him into the pod."

Together, Keith and Lance lifted Shiro up and set him in the pod. When Lance stepped away, he realized for the first time how tired he was. He stumbled back a little and felt someone catch his arm.

"You okay?" It was Hunk, of course. Lance smiled at him.

"Yeah, just kind of tired."

Allura sighed. "We've all had an incredibly long couple of days. All of you should get some rest."

"I'm staying here," Keith said firmly. Allura nodded at him.

"Very well."

Hunk walked with Lance all the way to his room, catching him a couple times just as he was about to stumble into a wall. "You sure you're okay?" he asked when they reached his door.

Lance tried for a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just need some beauty sleep." He faked a loud yawn. "See you in the morning."

Hunk said good night and left. As soon as Lance closed the door behind him, he flopped on his bed and was out before he could even take his armor off.