40 Days

by feey

In between Keith's departure and his return, things weren't the same. Heartaches, lost opportunities, and the Voltron Force becoming spread ever thinner as the stars turn. Wade thought that he had won, when the Force dissolved. But 40 days of rain couldn't sink the ark, and they'd be damned if they couldn't survive their own 40 days. Set between 'Scapegoat' and 'A Glass of Cheer'.

/Garrison/Lance/

40 days.

And 40 nights. That was the number, wasn't it? He was pretty sure; his aunt had harped on about the Ark and how it hadn't been built to suffer fools like him enough times for the whole damn story to be burned into his brain.

40 days, and the plan was finally coming into being. The grey-suited bastard was as fucking patient as all goddam hell.

His Catholic upbringing had done wonders for his language.

Lance frowned as he watched Pidge and Hunk come out of Wade's office. He was supposed to be annoyed that they were here, reminding him of Keith, Arus, the Lions, yadda yadda. Not the annoyance was hard to fake; Wade was following the two out.

"Good, you are here," he rumbled, clearly pleased that he had made Lance wait.

"I aim on being 10 minutes late," he smiled crookedly. "Next time I'll be 15, to fit your, ah, punctual meeting times Marshal."

"Lance," Hunk began, but he cut him off.

"That's sergeant now. Marshal?" Wade nodded and gestured for him to enter the office.

Hunk looked at him, probably with his hurt puppy face on. Well, he'd have to take it. Keith wasn't the only one who could actually draw blood when pretending to do it, and hell, he wasn't exactly feeling charitable right now. Wade and Hawkins had had him kicking his heels up and twiddling his thumbs for all 40 goddam days, and he needed something to do, now.

"You will begin training recruits," Wade didn't dispense with any formalities, probably because Lance had kicked his feet up onto the desk upon sitting down. Let Wade think he was doing him a favour; the harder he worked for it, the more legit it would seem.

"What year?"

Wade looked pointedly at the boots, and Lance snorted as he swung his feet down.

"Sir."

"Firsts," Wade said, accepting the not-apology. "I can pull strings to get you in as a flight instructor McClain, but I am not willing to pull that many. You will do your time, then we will see. Commander Malinkov is waiting for the chance at knock me down, and you are not worth the risk. Understood?"

Lance grinned. The Malinkovs? This just got fun. "Sir, if it means pissing in her eye, and her son's, I'll be a right picture of a flight instructor."

"Hm. I do not doubt it." Wade looked smug. "Still, if you can manage to prove the commander's concerns to be groundless, I will see what I can do to get you to the advanced classes."

"I appreciate it."

"Now," Wade leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. "Tell me about those two who just left."

Lance pulled a face. Here it was. The next test. "What do you want to know? Pidge is brilliant at computers, weird though. Hunk can build and fix anything mechanical, weird though. Together, perfect engineering team, but super weird. They both go for Picard over Kirk, and Hunk even puts Geordie over Scotty and B'Elanna."

Wade's face was a picture, and he wished so much that he had a camera at that moment.

"Star Trek," he clarified, saving the Marshal the need to ask.

"Ah. Good to know. No, what I meant is, can I trust them?"

Sadly, Wade had returned to his normal, stoic, stolid face from the absolute beauty of pained confusion and disgust.

Lance pretended to think, and sighed loudly. "Yeah, you can. The ba—sorry, Kogane wouldn't have filled them in on his plans."

"He did not inform you," Wade pointed out, trying to be sneaky. Lance snorted.

"Exactly. I'm the one who would've gone with him, had he had the common courtesy to ask." Wade raised an eyebrow. "Point is, Marshal, if he didn't talk to me, he didn't talk to anyone. Hunk and Pidge can get super whingey at times, especially with this sort of stuff. So yeah, you can trust them not to be spies or whatever." His voice had gone bitter, without him really trying for it. Wincing, he pushed the memory of Keith's betrayal away. There were more important things at hand.

Wade was still waiting.

"I'm not going to have to work with them, am I?" he asked suddenly.

The eyebrow raised itself again. He wondered if it was a separate organism, or just had its own string that the puppeteer handled. Or gears (he still wasn't convinced that Wade wasn't a cyborg or something; Keith had classified that query as 'thoroughly insane', but Keith didn't know everything).

"I mean, they're great and all, but, well. I'm sure you heard about the fights."

"Yes," Wade said delicately. "I did. And that you now must go through official channels to visit Arus?"

"Yeah…" Lance slunk down into his seat. Oh that had been a brilliant move. Allura was turning out to be just as good at this game as he was. "I probably shouldn't have called the princess those things."

"No." Wade had such a good stoic face, Lance decided. Most wouldn't have been able to keep the cat in the cream look from their faces. "And no, you will not have to work with them. Though I suggest you make your amends"— his voice took on that moralizing, holier-than-thou tone that had annoyed him so much about his aunt—"as you will be in the same wing of the barracks as them. New staff are all put there until an opening in the other halls becomes available."

"I suppose I can deal with that."

"I am glad to hear it. Your teaching schedule will be delivered tomorrow. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the rooms in which you will be teaching." Lance marveled at the man's command of formal grammar. No contractions and now the actual proper use of relative clauses? Definitely a cyborg.

"Of course."

"Punctuality," Wade stressed at his flippant response, "is expected of the instructors as much as the students. I trust you will not give Commander Malinkov cause for complaint?"

"Oh no," Lance grinned wickedly. "Nor her son. What ranking is he now, out of curiosity?"

"Second rank sergeant," Wade responded. "Same as you."

"No cause for complaint sir," Lance repeated as he stood. "Thank you for your time."

"McClain," Wade said as he reached for the door handle. Lance paused and looked at him. "I would, hm, appreciate it if you made amends with your former teammates as soon as possible. I am sure they would be happy, too, if you were to apologize. Maybe suggest drinks, for you all to take a load off?"

Lance raised his own eyebrow. Did Wade just ask him to spy for him? He must have convinced the big man more than he had thought.

"I'll see what I can do, Marshal." His voice betrayed his skepticism. "It may be harder than you think."

"You are persuasive," Wade replied, picking up some files. "Be so, and let me know if Kogane comes up in a suspicious manner."

"That I can do," Lance promised and opened the door to leave.

"Good."

The door shut behind him , and he made a face to the air.

"That good?" A female flight commander stood at the end of the hall, amusement lighting her face up. Lance smiled winningly.

"Oh, perfect. I get to earn my stripes teaching first years."

She laughed, "We all do McClain. They aren't that bad, in the end."

"You obviously haven't heard the stories of what I did as a first year."

"Oh, but I have." She smirked at him, turning to leave. "And I look forward to seeing what our newest, youngest flight instructor has to offer."

He watched her saunter down the hall, then decided to catch up with her. Who knew, she might have some useful intel for him. Or whatever.

/Castle of Lions, Planet Arus/Allura/

It was a grey, rainy day when the ships set down on Arus. A solemn crowd of guards and palace attendants met their princess, watching as the Garrison officers in their steel grey uniforms installed the Lions. They watched, silent, as the once protective dens became jail cells. They stared, along with their silent princess as the men returned to their ships and took off. All told, the so-called return of the Lions had taken half a day, once the ships touched down.

Half a day to finish what the Drules could not.

Allura had offered the men and their officers quarters for the night, or a few days. But the officers declined; orders had them moving on to a nearby planet. She accepted their demurral graciously. It was for the best.

Half a day, installing the Lions, with a crowd of silent witnesses out in the rain would have unnerved anyone.

It was a sad day on Arus. Voltron was gone, and the hope that the giant robot had inspired was quickly being washed away by the pounding rain.

"The rain washes away the old," Allura whispered to herself, remembering an old Arusian saying, "And the flowers release the new."

But it was nearing winter, by Arusian seasons, and any flowers would be long off.

"Pray the frost does not bite the bulb, but do not wish away the snow," she continued, fingers running over the beaded catechisms on the ornate tapestry near the window. "Seek solace in the spring's rain, but do not bid the sky to release the full weight of sorrow."

Suddenly a wave of frustration and anger swept through her, hot and unstoppable. She slammed her fist against the wall, tiny beads biting into the flesh of her hand as she bit her lip. No blood was drawn, but she would feel the welt for a while.

"Fuck you Wade."

Her eyes had gone to flint as she stared out into the rain.

How long she stared into the storm, she didn't know. Nor did she care. The whole trip back, her head had spun in a million different ways as she tried to make sense of what was happening. The officers with whom she dined were courteous, but cold, and she caught the sneers dancing in their eyes to poke out when her back was turned. Wade had sent men he could trust, from the rank and file all the way up to the ship's commander, for this job. She had no friends on board, not with Coran waiting behind on the council and Lance, Hunk, and Pidge 'no longer welcome' on Arus.

She snorted. As if she would—could – ever deny those men a home on her planet.

Wade's weakness, Coran had said weeks ago, is that he assumes everyone values loyalty as little as he does. Wade values power, but more than that, victory. Loyalty is only useful in that regard, and as you, my dear, are on the losing side, he will not think it unusual for Lance to jump ship.

Just like the rat I am, Lance had cut in with his sardonic grin.

She blew out a frustrated sigh and turned her gaze back out over the fields that, had it not been raining and misty, she would have been able to see stretch out, the until they reached the heart of the breadbasket of Arus.

"What will I do?" she asked her reflection. "It may take months, years! before Black returns"—his pilot remained nameless as she mused out loud – "and what will we do in the meanwhile?"

Ruling is like tending a garden. Her father's calm voice popped into her musings, and suddenly she was back beside him, as her mother tended a small patch around the family shrine. If you leave things too long, weeds have grown everywhere and suddenly you have a problem. But if you move too quickly, you risk breaking the fragile roots and stems of the flowers you have tended.

The dull pain of loss thudded in her chest, sharpened now by recent casualties. She didn't turn her head to look right—there was no point, a several interior walls and the thick castle stone impeded her view. But she didn't need to see to know what stood out that way, nor what had once crowned it.

The giant stone pedestal at the end of the bridge to the Castle of Lions had, according to legend, been originally lain by the first kings of Arus. Subsequent kings had, on occasion, dressed and redressed the monument until it became the monolith that stood on the castle grounds today.

The Black Lion had, for years, sat on that pedestal. Until the wakening of Voltron it had been hidden in a stone cover, to protect it from the Drules and their attempts to find and destroy Voltron. But once the Voltron Force had come, the Black Lion had sat, proud, on that pedestal and looked out across the fields of Arus. It was a visible reminder to her people that they had a protector, that they would be safe when the Drules should return. Because they always returned.

Why couldn't they see that? Allura sighed, clenching her fists in frustration. Why couldn't the Garrison Council see how much Voltron was needed here, both physically and psychologically?

Do what you can, when you can. If you worry about what happened, or what will happen, long off, you'll get nothing but worry child. This time it was her Grandmother, a regal old woman who had ruled for the year it took her father to reach his majority and rule after the old king had died. She had moved on when Allura was seven. That had been a hard year.

I miss you Grandmother, Allura thought wistfully. She set her jaw. Her Grandmother was right—Voltron was done, or long off. She couldn't change the fact that Wade had ripped the Black Lion from them, but she could remind everyone that they did still have a protector.

They had her.

Turning away from the window and the rain, she went down into the audience chamber. Officially, she wasn't standing today. But people had crowded in nonetheless, many of whom had been outside to greet her and cow the men of Garrison with their cold silence. The rumbling worry quieted as they saw her.

"What do we do, Princess?" someone cried out, breaking the silence. She felt her insides quail, but then squashed the feeling and stood tall, raising her voice so it echoed through the chamber.

"We do what we always planned: we rebuild our homes, our lives. We create a home for Voltron to return to. And let those who would tell us differently be damned."

/Far Edge, Pluto's Ring/Keith/

He's pounding his fist into someone's face, blood—not his—on his hands and flecked onto his clothes. He doesn't know why he's attacking the man, but he is. Bodies lie around him, some motionless, others twitching and groaning.

When he stops pounding the other man, he can pick out who he is. It's a big man, in a grey suit. Wade. He looks down at the mashed face dispassionately, turns his head when he hears someone gasp his name.

The man has rolled over and pushed himself up on one his elbows. He clutches his side—probably broken ribs and internal bleeding.

"Keith … man … why?"

He turns away, ignoring the familiar face and the familiar leather jacket to grab—

Keith gasped, wrenching himself forcibly out of the nightmare.

"Fuck," he breathed, running a shaking hand through his hair, then quickly holding both before his eyes. No blood… not that there ever was, after these dreams.

Chitter looked over at him, head cocked in a manner that Keith was beginning to read as sympathy for the various weaknesses of the human body and psyche. Or who knows, maybe he had just been out here too long, kicking up his heels in space. It was certainly playing hell with his subconscious.

He didn't know which were worse, the dreams where he punched through everyone, even his friends, to get to Wade—and finally kill the bastard—or those where he died, and watched everyone suffer for it. A soulless killer in one, dead in the other, and a failure in both.

Chitter squeaked and turned back to the screens. No new messages, nothing to distract him from this waiting game he was currently playing, and unwillingly. Mac, Lance's old piloting instructor from his convoy days, had put them in touch. Keith had been waiting for three Terran days now, growing more agitated by the hour. His run from Earth was still too fresh to feel safe anywhere within the Solar System, or even the galaxy. Up until now, he hadn't stayed in one spot for more than 16 Terran hours.

He wondered if he would ever feel comfortable enough to remain in a place for more than a day again…

An odd assortment of books were stowed on a small shelf in the miniscule living quarters area of the ship. They were small, dog eared paperbacks whose main value was the worlds they let him escape into and their weight: none of the books weighed anything. He had picked the first one—Agatha Christie's Hickory, Dickory, Dock—out of pure shock of seeing a book for sale in the market pits of the Ring. The others had followed piecemeal, here and there, as he saw them in book stands and junk piles. Reading was a gift in this weird situation he had put himself in, a bit of normalcy to let him forget where he was and why.

But the dream had him too agitated to read, and so he pushed the bed into its compartment and cleared the small space. Then he centered himself and began to move in a serious of connected moves, slowly and fluidly transitioning from one to another. They began as a serious of Tai Chi patterns before he slid into slowed-down versions of the martial arts he had learnt as a child. The familiar moves anchored him, and his mind quieted as he focused his attention inward. For the next while, he was at peace as he banished the dream, the situation with Wade, and his position out on the edge of the Terran system.

Chitter's squeaks brought him out of his trance, and he slowly walked over to the communications screen. Old Gaelic writing sat on the surface as the robotic mouse waited for him; upon being given the nod, Chitter ran the translation programme, burning away the original message and its connection to the other ship as the letters transformed from Irish Gaelic to Common English.

Being tailed, so no meet. Info suggests base outside of Terran galaxy. Leave payment at Fiddler's.

"Well," Keith sighed as he put the coordinates in and took the ship out of the asteroid he had been hiding in, "At least we get to leave now. And hopefully Mac will have some decent alcohol this time, not that we'll be there long." Chitter just squeaked and curled up in the sunken space on the dash. It hadn't been a part of the original configuration; Keith had rigged it for the little mouse so that he could recharge. It seemed to work, and Chitter was happy with it. Least he could do for his diminutive co-pilot.

The starry void of space disappeared into the deep black of the jump. Men went mad out here, the stories said, lost in the void and unable to process the expanse. The fathomless depths had terrified the ancient sailors of Earth; the universe's equivalent affected the descendants of those sailors in the same way.

"Ulysses was a man," he said softly, "A man whose mind knew all tricks and held the multi-coloured strands of endless stories within itself."

The old story had been his favourite, back as a child. Dra Xtipol-Tsipopoulos had told it to the pack of kids that terrorized the ship, the old space-born a descendant of a band of Greek merchants who had taken to the skies as soon as the technology permitted.

"He wandered for ten years, the man who destroyed the City, ten years on top of the ten at Troy. How did he return home, after so long, how did he regain his home from the men who sought to steal his wife and consume his wealth? Only the Muses know, and owl-clever Athene."

When old Kostas had asked him if he knew of Odysseus, Keith told him of Dra Xti's story. "A new Omeros," he had chuckled, passing over a copy of the Odyssey, which, though he would never admit it to the old man's face, Keith ranked below Dra Xti's version. Her Odysseus had life; the translated Odysseus by the eminent scholar who had translated the great poem… well, not so much.

"Why did he wander so, you ask? Listen, and I will tell you of the Sea-God's wrath."

The jump ended, and stars returned. The small outpost on which the Fiddler sat hovered in sight, and the presence of other sentient beings pushed the story from his mind. Ulysses and his many-patterned stories would have to wait for another jump into the void, when the blackness could serve as a backdrop for the variegated yarns within the epic. The brightness of the station, however, was too much for childhood memories and oral stories. The harsh light of reality cut in, dispelling the haze of myth and of listening to the past.

And for good reason, he chided himself. It wouldn't just be neutral faces here, but law-keepers and agents, some loyal to Wade and his cronies, others loyal to the Drule kingdoms and their pawns. Nostalgia would have to wait until he had time for it. Otherwise, he'd be dead and that feared nightmare would come true…

/The Commandant's Head, Garrison/Lance/

"I'm sorry, you did what?"

Lance smiled lazily at his friend. "You heard me Hunk. Captain First Class, Catherine Jane Whey."

Hunk leaned back in his chair and whistled. "Dude. You-"

"Beat Chakotay to the goods? Yeap."

"Apology accepted then," Hunk lifted his glass. "The beer for being late, the story for the past few weeks."

"Cheers." The glasses chimed, Lanced tapped the table with his glass, and they drank. "Where's the pipsqueak?"

"Lost his i.d."

"No way!" Lance laughed. "That's priceless. They wouldn't let him in?"

"Nope," Hunk chuckled. "He left in a huff. Told him I would grab him something on the way back."

Lance shook his head, amused to no end by Pidge's troubles. "I'll come with you. Bring a shiny computer toy or something. That'll get me back in the good books. Or a fake i.d."

"Go with the i.d.," Hunk suggested, taking a long pull at his beer. "We should probably go back soon though. Hate to leave him to his own devices when he's in a mood."

"Yeah," Lance conceded. "He's probably hacked half of Garrison by now."

"Half?"

"Ok, all. Again." Lance drained his whisky as Hunk pulled at his beer again. "Think this is awkward enough?" He asked quietly.

Hunk snorted. "Look a little more unsettled why don't you? Yeah, I think we're good."

"I am sorry about all that crap," Lance conceded. "And for outside Wade's that time."

"Just don't pull anymore, yeah? I think we can pretend enough to be annoyed now. We've certainly gotten the practice."

Lance pulled a face. Too much practice.

"Yeah. Come on, let's have a grand reunion, cadet style."

"I am not breaking into stores," Hunk warned, but downed his drink all the same.

"Nah, we're staff now," he grinned. "We can requisition them. Much more simple."

"You mean you can requisition them now."

"Details."

The mood was more sober a little while later. True to Hunk's promise, they had grabbed some beer for Pidge (well, all of them) and pizza. They sat in Pidge's quarters, which had been transformed by the tech whiz. No one was going to be able to bug those rooms, and, with Pidge's paranoia concerning his work after the 'theft' of his stealth ship, no one was suspicious about it.

This had been Pidge's next big project, and all of Garrison had known about it. No suspicion, and no bugs. Pidge just had a new reputation (as a paranoid computer freak), and he seemed fine with it.

"Keeps the weirdos away," he'd said, and Lance hadn't pushed the point, though he'd been tempted.

"Ok," Lance sighed, setting his beer down. "This is important, and you have to follow this, no matter what."

Pidge and Hunk looked at him.

"If," Lance lowered his voice some, stealth room or not, "If we get caught, you two say you were acting under orders. Got it?"

"But-" Pidge began, and Lance shook his head.

"No buts Pidge. Keith is off, so that makes me the head of the Voltron Force until he returns. And this is a direct order—if we are caught, you will tell Wade and whoever asks that you were under direct orders from me to spy on Wade and Garrison. This is important, ok?"

They looked at one another and nodded.

"Why?" Hunk asked, his face worried. Lance sighed.

"Mostly damage control. If you're acting under direct orders, you will be given the option of, well, not exactly honourable discharge, but you won't be up for prison terms or restricted to the Terran System. I'll be run through the wringer, but don't worry about that. I can get out of it."

Neither looked convinced. Lance tried a different tack. He knew he had to get them to agree to this; it was why Keith had disappeared the way he had. The team came first. Always.

"Look, if we get caught, Wade is going to kill the Voltron Force. The best we can do is to get you two out, so that there's a least most of the Force for when Keith finds Black and returns. Train someone to replace me if you need to. But the important thing is that the Force continues. Wade is up to something, and we will need as many of the Lions as we can get out there. So if we're caught," he paused.

"We say we were operating under direct orders, from you as acting-commander of the Voltron Force," Hunk said unhappily. Pidge nodded in assent.

"Ok, good." Lance sighed. "Now don't get caught. Rule number two, and you better follow it."

"I think we can do that," Pidge promised.

"I damn well hope so," Lance finished the beer and crushed the can. "Also, Wade wants me to spy on you two. So if you think of any interesting yet pointless scraps I can through at him, let me know."

"What did you do to make him like you so much?" Pidge asked, surprised. "We hadn't planned on this happening for another month or so."

Lance shrugged. "I'm charming. So sue me."

Hunk sighed and shook his head at Pidge's confusion. "Don't ask little buddy, it's an idiom."

"Fine." The little engineer rolled his eyes. The last time they had attempted to explain a Terran idiom to Pidge had been painful, for all of them. Idioms were off limits now, at least those that didn't involve nerd or geek cultures. "Wade has me working on communication upgrades right now; suppose he doesn't want me tackling the security system yet."

"Oops." Hunk chuckled. "Guess we jumped the gun."

"Yeap." Pidge grinned, and Lance joined in. His own capacity for vandalism was sometimes matched and even exceeded by Pidge's, generally when computers were involved. "But the com system is great too. Should be able to get a secure line up in the fort here soon. Figure out how Star Gate's doing, where your contacts sent him and all."

And that was the cue. Lance stood and stretched.

"Well, you're out of booze, and I have to find my classes tomorrow so as to be on time for the start of term."

"Since when?" Hunk asked, standing as well.

"Since Malinkov became involved. Want to poke him in the eye by making first class sergeant before him."

Laughing, Pidge waved them out of his quarters. "Have fun with that."

/Staff Barracks, Garrison/Hunk/

Hunk made his way to Pidge's room, where the tech wiz and Lance were waiting. He was late, but Mara had called. She was leaving Arus, she had said, to take up a training placement among the doctors who escaped Ebb. Learn their skills and all. "I can't promise anything Hunk," she'd said sadly. He'd told her he understood, it's not like he hadn't made things difficult by staying here. "We'll figure something out," he'd said, and that was it. She knew why he had remained—Allura had told her upon returning to Arus—and while they could talk openly via the secure channel Pidge had, they couldn't over the regular com link in Hunk's room.

Man this reeks, he thought as he hit his destination. I just want to go back.

"How long are we going to have to put up with this?" Hunk opened the door to a tirade that came, not from Lance, but Pidge.

Lance looked up from his sprawled position on the floor. "Pidge has been asked to teach a first year class on computers."

"Sergeant Stoker," Pidge attempted to mimic Colonel Nakahara, his immediate supervisor. "You will teach Commander Iversson's first year course and introduce them to the basics of the fucking useless communication programs this shit hole uses."

"Are you sure it went like that?" Hunk grinned as he helped himself to one of the beers in the fridge Pidge had commandeered, knocked out his funk by Pidge's obvious displeasure. The 'stealth room' that he had rigged in the first month or so of what had become half a year was now what Hunk's mother would have called a 'man cave', complete with a small fridge topped by a microwave that was, more often than not, filled with beer and pizza.

Nanny would kill them if she knew what their diet had become.

"It's cleaned up since I heard the sad tale," Lanced chimed in, grinning at Pidge's distress.

"C'mon, first years won't be that bad," Hunk tried to cheer up his friend. "They can be pretty cool."

"Right, when they're not being right terrors," Lance snorted.

"That's just you," Hunk pointed out. "And the ones who try to beat your record."

"No winners yet." Lance grinned. "Though some have gotten close."

Pidge was about to respond when his consul beeped. Symbols flashed across the screen, disambiguated themselves as he copied them onto his portable, and then flashed into oblivion as the message burned itself off the computer.

"What's the word?" Lance asked soberly, all amusement gone.

"Nothing good," Pidge sighed and then read from the screen. "No. New lead, Nu One." He paused. "And that's it. The Star Gate is only sending out monosyllables now it seems."

Lance swore, and Hunk sat down heavily.

"Looks like we'll be at this for a while more, if that lead didn't pan out," he said softly.

"I should've taken the prison term,: Lance grumbled, "then at least I wouldn't be here, sucking up to the fucking Big Man."

Pidge looked over warily. "You don't actually mean that, do you?"

"No," Lance sighed, sitting up properly. "I would've hated prison more. And, let's be honest, I owed Keith too much not to go on that hare's brained assignment with you all." He paused and then added, "And I got to shoot Drules, so really, never mind." Hunk shook his head. Leave it to Lance to brighten the mood by bringing up shooting or exploding stuff.

"What exactly did you do?" Pidge asked, curious. "Keith threw you into the ship, we took off, and there was a distinct 'no questions' policy."

"Gotta love those no questions policies of our fearless leader," Lance sighed, running a hand through his hair. "God above he was pissed. Hawkins too, but eh," he shrugged. "Don't really care about that."

"Dude, Sven threatened to ice Keith if he didn't calm down after you got taken in for questioning. What did you do?'" He was curious; Lance's 'almost' prison term had been the non-subject of conversation on the trip to Arus, until the Drules had side-lined Lance's misbehaviours. Not that there weren't some potentials thrown around.

"Allura thinks you got caught with some senator's wife or something," Pidge suggested, helpfully.

"You told her?" Lance stared at them, and they shrugged.

"She asked one time, after Keith mentioned that you still owed him for breaking you out. So yeah, we did."

"Was she right?" Hunk followed on from Pidge's explanation. "She usually is, you know."

"No," Lance sighed. "I'm way more discrete than that with senators' wives." Hunk looked at Pidge and they both then turned to Lance.

"You have practice at this?"

"Come on," Lance rolled his eyes. "This is me."

"So prison?"

"Sorry. Can't break Keith's rules, not when he's not around to get pissed at us for doing so." Lance grinned and turned to Hunk. "Plus, I want to know what's in that message Mara sent Pidge that's clearly marked for you only."

Hunk sighed. "Lay off Lance. Besides, you know you've already read it."

/Secret Lair, Garrison/Pidge/

Pidge fiddled with the keys on his computer. Most stuff these days got put down on holographic touch screens, but he loved the feel of keys for thinking through problems. And right now the problem was how to hack into Wade's files without setting off the chain of firewalls (well, the ones he hadn't set up) and without it being traceable that the computer that did so was from within Garrison. Because as soon as they started hunting through Garrison's computers, you could be sure that the carefully constructed paranoia about people touching his stuff that had kept his computers and their secret safe would be torn to shreds in seconds.

Because Wade would start with Pidge's computer. Because the Marshal was a paranoid, psychotic bastard who was as cunning as all hell.

He's like a snake, Pidge thought as he tapped absent-mindedly at the keys. He just sits there silently, all day, thinking. And then he strikes.

Pidge had been informally removed from teaching duties after he told Colonel Iversson's first year class that none of them had the acumen of a jellyfish, and that for computers, you needed to possess more brain power than what it took to mindlessly transport nutrients from tentacles to the stomach. He had then been formally removed from teaching duties after two students, who demonstrated that they did, in fact, possess a higher IQ than a jellyfish, successfully programmed a test cheating code that was, according to Pidge, who had advised on the process, perfect but, according to Garrison, highly illegal and unethical. So students and Pidge were no longer allowed to come into contact, which was, as far as he was concerned, fine. Students took up a lot of time, and most of them needed extra brain cells to remember to chew in the process of getting food from hand to stomach.

His twin brother, Chip, had visited for a bit, though the trip had been quick, without the chance to talk to his brother in private, where it was safe to talk. Chip had followed Pidge to Garrison, and, unlike his brother, who had been shipped off to Arus before the graduation ceremony, graduated in full regalia, decked out with braids and awards and all. Pidge would have as well, and somewhere in his parents' there would have been a dusty box full of his graduation regalia, that is, if Zarkon hadn't blown Balto to bits. As it was, his stuff that hadn't made it to Arus was gathering dust in a storage shed somewhere. Possibly one owned by Hunk's family; Pidge couldn't remember if his friend had moved the stuff for him or not, when Hunk transported his own crap to his father's garage. The visit had been nice, but had ended in a fight when Pidge wouldn't return to the new Balto with his brother and wouldn't give a good reason, according to Chip, why. The fight still left a sour taste in his mouth. A quick call to Arus had Coran promising to tell Chip the real reasons he had stayed, but Pidge wasn't sure how much good that would do. Little brothers (even by half an hour) could be prickly.

Pidge stuck his tongue out at the screen when the firewall solution still refused to come to him. He was about to start gesturing wildly in an attempt to stir his neurons into activity when his tablet lit up: someone was calling him.

He turned on the screen and Sven' face came in.

"Hey Pidge," he said, looking tired.

"Sven!" Pidge was surprised; usually they were the ones who called the northerner; Sven wasn't exactly the talkative type. "What's up?"

"Romelle and I had a fight," Sven sighed, "Again."

"Dude," Pidge was concerned. Sven was supposed to be the one with the happy ending; what did that say for the rest of them, if his was going south? "You alright?"

"Yeah, well, as alright as I can be." Sven paused. "Lance isn't hiding in the back again, is he?"

Chuckling, Pidge shook his head. Last time they called Sven, Lance had hidden in the room and, when Sven had confessed to the couple's first fight, had started giving off camera 'Ask Agatha' advice. Sven had not, to say the least, been amused. "Nah, he's off tormenting first years. Wade still has him teaching the terrors; I think Lance mouthed off one too many times or something."

"That's a good place for him. Get fresh kids, before Wade sinks his claws in."

"Yeah, that was the plan. Sven, you sure you're ok?"

Sven smiled weakly. "Yeah, I'm doing fine, considering I've probably got some form of PTSD from Doom's dungeons and I'm fighting with the woman I thought I would marry."

"Have you tal- wait, would marry?"

"Sorry, ignore that; just the frustration talking, that's it. And yes, I've talked to the doctors, for all the good that did. Can we talk about something else Pidge? I'm tired of talking about me, Romelle, and Pollux. What's Earth like right now?"

Pidge looked at Sven concerned. He did look tired. But then again, who didn't under those circumstances? So he talked. He told Sven about how the wind had started up, now that autumn was turning into winter, and how Lance had started complaining that Wade was a right bastard when it got cold. Stories of the current crop of Garrison terrors got told, including that of the second year who broke his leg trying to break into Lance's office to prank the champion prankster. Lance had gone round to the infirmary to congratulate the kid on his guts, and to go over where the cadet had gone wrong.

Sven relaxed as Pidge nattered on, laughing when the tech sergeant confessed that he had, finally, been officially removed from teaching duties. "It's a good thing Lance didn't know you when he still had to take exams," was all Sven said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, well, it would have been super obvious that Lance was cheating; he can't even play Solitaire on my tablet." Pidge laughed, and Sven joined in.

"Actually," Pidge paused. "You know tech stuff."

"Please," Sven commented drily, "your high praise of my abilities is too much."

Rolling his eyes, Pidge continued. "I have to get around firewalls to hack Wade's comp, but I don't want the trail to lead back to Garrison, cause he'll haul my wicked set-up into the Inquisition's headquarters. Any idea of how to avoid that?"

"Don't," was Sven's answer. Pidge just stared at him. Sven grinned.

"Don't try to hide your trail. Make it look like a sloppy cover, or that someone is trying to lead to your computer, maybe a portable that has nothing but test-cheating code or something. Then have a ghost trail out into the beyond."

Pidge was grinning. Oh the trouble he could cause…

"You could even blame it on Keith," Sven continued, chuckling. "That would really get Wade's goose. Make him think that Keith was back in the Terran system without him even realising it. Will give him some breathing room as well, if Wade's looking around the Sun and the Milky Way."

"Dude," Pidge laughed, "You're amazing. Are you sure you didn't help Lance with some of his pranks?"

"Possibly. You'll never prove it though."

/Winter Palace, Planet Pollux/Sven/

Though it was the dead of winter, Sven stood outside in what the Polluxians would have called summer clothing. The cold had never bothered him—growing up in Norway might have had something to do with that—but lately it really never bothered him.

Except for the fact that he felt sick whenever he wasn't in cold climes, like there was something worming its way through his body. Some sort of infection, and he would have sworn (to the team, though, and no one else) that this infection was malicious, that it was pure evil.

But the doctors said he had nothing wrong with him, and that was that.

Romelle thought he was going crazy, he knew. She didn't say anything, but she had stopped nagging him about their wedding, and she had started giving him those concerned looks again. He had told her about this, about how it felt when he was anywhere warmer than 10 degrees centigrade (he still hadn't acclimatized to whatever system they used on Pollux), and how anything above 16 felt like there was poison coursing through his veins. She had been concerned, but when the doctors repeatedly assured both of them that there was nothing there, she started getting annoyed. Finally, when he had said they couldn't have their wedding in the summer because of this, and that they'd have to live in the northern part of Pollux, she snapped.

"If you want out, then say so! Don't invent ridiculous excuses and a fake illness!"

He couldn't help it; he had snapped back. Of all people, he thought that she would understand. They had gotten through so much together, he had just assumed that she would understand.

"When have I ever lied to you?" he hissed, "When? Why would I?"

That had been the first of many arguments, and then royal wedding that everyone had looked forward to suddenly, and quietly, was put on hold. He had stayed in the Northern Palace after the winter festival that year, when Romelle, her brother, and the court moved south. They were back now, a whole year later, for another Winter Festival. Sven had been polite, as had Romelle. But ice had formed between them, and there was no going back.

He sighed, then turned his head slightly as he heard voices on the balcony below him. He went still. It was Romelle … and Allura.

"I just, I just don't know what to do with him," Romelle was saying. "Even when we were in the caves on Doom he talked to me. Now, all I get are these ridiculous stories about an evil illness."

Sven felt his face flush in anger, and he bit his tongue. She promised! His thoughts cried, she promised she wouldn't tell! He shook them away; Allura was speaking.

"It's not like Sven to tell tales," she said slowly. "Could he be telling the truth?"

"The doctors say there's nothing there Al. What else could it be?"

Sven heard Allura sigh. "I don't know, Romelle. But Sven has always been honest with you, and Lance says that he's never seen Sven open to anyone like he has with you. That has to be worth something."

A rattle in the room behind his balcony distracted Sven from what Romelle was saying. When he turned back to the conversation below him, he caught Romelle's harsh laugh.

"Yes, we were the fairy tale couple. Princess in distress, saved by a white knight whose wounds she heals. But not every fairy tale comes true, Allura, and white knights aren't always what they seem."

Sven gripped the balcony rail tight. As much as it pained him, Romelle was right. Their fairy tale was done, it was time for the knight errant to disappear quietly into the dark. He had never claimed to be a white knight anyway.

Allura found him later that evening, again standing outside. This time he was watching the spectacle below, taking in the beauty of the ice carvings and the fire dancers on the ice stage.

"Do you even feel the cold?" she asked, pulling her jacket closer around her. "Just looking at you makes me shiver."

He smiled weakly. "Not lately, no." She stood silently beside him for a while, and they both watched the dance. When it finished he looked over at her. "I heard you and Romelle talking earlier. I was on the balcony above."

Allura sighed. "And she thought being outside would be safer from eavesdroppers. Well, I was going to ask you about that anyway. What do you think?"

Sven looked out over the ice. "She's right, about the fairy tale being done." He laughed bitterly. "But God above was I angry when I heard her say it."

Allura just looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

"I guess I've been angry for a while. I thought she'd understand, that there is something wrong, that I'm not just making this up." He paused, then asked quietly. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes," Allura said, without hesitating. "And that's not because of Blue." Sven raised his eyes to the sky and sighed in relief. Suddenly he felt a bit lighter; what a relief it was to be believed. "I know you wouldn't make this up, so if you say something's wrong, then something's wrong."

"But I'm worried Sven—why can't the doctors figure it out?"

He shrugged. "Honestly? No idea. It might be psychosomatic: I can admit that. I mean, hell, Allura, I was on Doom, alone, long enough that there's probably a shit ton of stuff wrong with me. But when nobody believed me…" He trailed off and looked down.

"You stopped talking. I understand." She reached up and squeezed his shoulder, smiling sadly.

God, how he had missed this. It had been so long, it seemed, since someone understood, that he'd forgotten how comforting that could be. Lance and Keith and he had had each other's backs for so long, that understanding had become commonplace, and after Doom, he had Romelle. But this last year and a half had been hard. Because he hadn't had that. Talking with Allura, he relaxed for the first time in a while. Talking with Pidge and Lance had helped, but the computer screens between them had always stopped him from saying what exactly was wrong, why he was arguing with Romelle. Perhaps he was afraid that they too wouldn't believe him… Better just to get their commiseration, or agony aunt advice in Lance's case, and then ask them about Garrison, to escape Pollux for a bit and return to Earth.

"Where will you go?" Allura asked when he finally confessed to his plans to leave Pollux.

"Maybe home, who knows. All I know is that if I'm not in the cold, I don't feel well. I'll stick with that for now, and we'll see if things get better." He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "Your lips are turning blue. Go inside Allura, get warm."

She pursed her lips and gave him a hard look. "Only if you're ok." He nodded, and Allura turned to go inside. She paused at the door and looked at him. "Sven, you do know that you can come back to Arus, right? We have plenty of mountains with cold weather for you."

He smiled. "Thanks. I do know." She nodded and returned to the warmth inside. He sighed once she was gone. Yes, he did know. But this sickness was consuming him, and he'd be damned if he brought his friends into danger.

/Convoy to DS-44D Station/Keith/

Mac's help had gotten him out of the Milky Way and onto a good lead. But that had run cold, months ago, and now he was back to cooling his heels in bars and on convoys. Waiting with his ears perked, eyes peeled, and whatever else Lance would've said to confuse the hell out of Pidge, and Allura.

He thought about them often, especially at times like this, when he had nothing to do. The random, infrequent contact points with Pidge, which Lance and Hunk sometimes joined in on, helped, but not really. And he'd had no contact with Arus whatsoever.

Sometimes he felt like a right fool, for demanding his principles like this. Would it have really been that bad to have let Lance in on it, had him come with him? At least he would have some company (Chitter tried, but there was only so much a robotic mouse could do).

But then who would take care of the others? He sighed, staring out at the stars as the ship coasted in the convoy, Chitter at the controls. And that was it. He had promised himself, when Sven was injured by Hagar's damn cat, that he would take care of his team. Which meant that right now, Lance needed to be with them. Not with him in the middle of nowhere space.

Lance would take care of them, because he had too. He certainly couldn't. Not on this hunt, not now that he'd decided to fight this fight on his own.

Keith slouched down, pulling his jacket around him. It was an affectation, a behaviour he had picked up, in these past few months, from living among the rejects of the universe. Nobody wanted to stand out, so everyone slouched into their jackets.

Lance still did it sometimes. And Nanny would hit him upside the head every time he did and chide him on his posture. And then they'd all laugh at Lance's sulk. Keith winced at the memory; it was so vivid, it seemed as if Lance and the team were here in the small ship with him. But not the team today, but from what seemed a lifetime ago. Back when the worst thing was fighting the enemy you knew to be your enemy, that your allies and superiors also knew to be your enemy.

Stars, he hated this internal enemy crap. He could remember the politics classes, with the would be diplomats talking about political subterfuge and ten year plots and the like, and how he would roll his eyes. He liked his tactics, but he preferred the short term: 1 or 2 years, max. Long term tactics had always been his weak spot, and his 'goddamned noble character' as Lance would say made him wary of anything that barely smelt of underhandedness.

He couldn't afford those scruples anymore.

Keith tried not to think of how his uncle and his parents would be disappointed. His parents had been upstanding Garrison officers, his father in the engineering bay and his mother on the com. They had gone to war when he was young, and they died among the stars, fighting a war Keith would give anything to be in instead of where he was now. Fighting the Drules was straightforward: you shot, they shot, one of you died. Not this hiding crap, that sucked at his soul as he became someone else in the struggle to survive.

A long sigh misted the computer screen in front of him. His uncle probably had a fit when he found out that Keith had gone rogue instead of accepting Garrison's ruling about Voltron. His mother's brother was, she had told him when he was four and first met the man, a 'throw-back'. He hadn't understood her at the time, but after growing up at his uncle's, he got it now. Honour and the samurai way of life … that was his uncle. It didn't matter that all Keith had wanted to do since touching down in Japan was return to the stars, where he had been born, where he had lived his whole life until the war started. No, he had learned to fight and followed his uncle's strictures. And then when Garrison sent the offer to join the academy, as the son of two officers, he took the chance and ran. He could still see the disappointment on his uncle's face and still felt the pain that had, unexpectedly, cut at him. Keith shook his head. The old man had probably gotten accustomed to Keith disappointing him. Time to move on.

The convoy jolted, sending him forward as it ground to a halt, and he cursed.

"What's up?" he growled into the com, linked to the convoy's main.

"Barge coming out. Will be a few minutes," a voice growled back, and he cut the connection.

He'd grown a beard. It was still small, but apparently it was enough to get past Wade. He probably didn't think it possible that Keith would imagine breaking habit to such a degree. At least, he hoped Wade would think that. He didn't want to dye his hair or alter the colour of his eyes. Too much work, and it didn't hide the shape of his face.

When did these things start mattering? He wondered, his eyes glazing over as he waited for the convoy to start up again. If it took any longer, he might as well grab one of the books.

His small collection had grown, and his living quarters were beginning to look like an overstuffed used bookstore. The books were carefully balanced, though, within the acceptable levels of weight that the ship could carry. The ship was almost as fast as it had been when he took off from Earth, and it was the weapons that were weighing it down. As much as he needed the paper pages and their words to keep him sane, he wasn't going to jeopardize his safety, or his ability to escape. And because of that, all of the hard copies he had were slim paper back volumes, most with yellowed pages stained by age and some foodstuffs. Longer books he had on a data chip, and those he would bring up on the screen to read. He had a number of those, but it was the paper books that called to him as they never had. Before, he read voraciously, but it was for the words, not the physical book itself. Now, however, those tomes reminded him of a happier time. The smell of old books, even old books light years from Earth and Arus, reminded him of his uncle's library and the stacks of books rescued from the ruined libraries on Arus. Now, holding a book was as calming as reading one.

He had just finished rereading the Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. It had been written years and years ago, from a time when young men were angry, though he supposed they always were... Keith hadn't thought it would hold him like it did, but the frustration at the overwhelming force of authority, and the dogged adherence to what seemed a futile means of rebellion, but rebellion nonetheless, had struck a chord. Lance had mentioned it to him once (Lance's taste in books ran surprisingly old, as did his taste in music and tv shows. He had learnt to roll with it), and when he saw it on a tattered blanket on some outpost, he had picked it up. And found a counterpart and stranger in the frustrated, angry, and proud Smith.

Keith sighed and rubbed his face.

He was tired and (though he'd never actually use the word himself) heart sore. He missed home, he missed his friends, and he missed, more than anything else, that sense of belonging that the Voltron Force and Arus had given him. On Earth, he'd always felt a bit of a drifter, an outsider waiting for that ship to take him out into the depths of space, where his parents had travelled so many times and where they had died, fighting the Drules. Garrison had sent him out as well, another Kogane to leap into space at duty's call. Fighting the Drules had, with him, become a family tradition it seemed.

Everyone said it was because he was spaceborn, and he had figured that was it. The spaceborn returned to space, to become spacers and eventually die in space. But he wasn't so sure now. Here, alone, he felt just as unsettled as he had on Earth before he met Lance and Sven, and sometimes even more so.

You're no lone-wolf, Keith Kogane, he thought to himself, bracing as the convoy started up again and entered the massive, run-down space station, You're just trying to be one. And going mad because of it. Would he ever be himself, would there ever be a team again?

He was beginning to worry that this would be the journey he'd never return from.

/The Garage, Garrison/Hunk/

Hunk hummed to himself as he cranked on the bolts. Layton's garage had become his and, though he'd rather be doing this work on Arus, he was pretty happy with his deal. Wade kept his perfectly polished boots out of his space, Lance could easily be drowned out if need be, and he got to work with metal again.

As much as he loved Big Yellow, it was good to be working with his hands again. Fighting the Drules had given him loads of scrap back on Arus, just not the time to turn it into something.

Course, he now had strict instructions not to build another stealth ship (as if Keith would come back to steal a second).

So he was settling for something way more fun, way more useful.

A smoker. A real, legit meat smoker.

It was going to be awesome.

As he worked, his thoughts travelled back to when they had all been first thrown together. It was a few years or something before Hawkins had sent them to Arus, but Hunk figured that that was the end game all along. There had been a few other 'special teams' when they'd first started, but as far as he was aware, they'd all been disbanded. The one that became the Voltron Force had lasted the longest.

Training together had blown; Hawkins had been adamant that Hunk and Pidge be able to fly solo craft, and so that had meant crash courses with the Lance and Sven. Hunk hoped Lance was a better teacher now. Keith had decided too, that they all needed to match his standards as far as combat went. Which was fine, so long as you had been training in your uncle's dojo as long as he had (so forever). Sven had passed, he and Lance barely, and Pidge… well. Keith figured out that Pidge had gamed the training simulator, and so it was all personal training for the little guy after that. Hunk grinned as he remembered some of Pidge's tirades on the subject.

But they were alive, and two teams weren't able to say that. When the first team was disbanded due to casualties, Pidge and Lance stopped complaining about the hand-to-hand and weapons lessons. Better sore and annoyed than dead. Sven had started complaining though, because Keith had found out by then that whatever the navigator aimed at, he hit. So it was all long-range projectile practice, and when Sven snapped and said he had enough to do, he had made the mistake of comparing Sven's position to Checkov.

Lance's crack about Sulu was the only thing that saved him, because Sven couldn't direct his ice glare at both of them at once.

Hunk shook his head and cranked the music to dispel the memories.

Things weren't great, but they were moving. Lance had stopped being (such) an ass, and Wade was no longer breathing down his neck. He'd even gotten some promising cadets, though none that would make the cut they were looking for. They'd find some though, sooner or later, and hopefully sooner.

Garrison's food had gone downhill, significantly, which was saying something.

And he missed Mara.

"Sergeant?" a voice shouted, and Hunk turned down the music and looked at the cadet. One of Wade's 'promising' cadets stood in the large doorway leading into the garage's interior. Hunk snorted as he walked over; typical snot-nosed brat followed Wade and didn't dirty his perfectly polished boots.

"Cadet." Hunk raised an eyebrow as the young man did a slight double take. This one hadn't graced the garage with his presence before and apparently had thought the stories of the 'garage giant' to be just that.

"You're really-" the kid stopped himself and coloured.

Grinning wryly, Hunk waved off the stammered apology. "You should meet my family," was all he said, thinking of his brothers and father.

"Sir," the cadet clearly had no idea what to say. He waited until the kid remembered his message. "The Sky Marshal would like you to come meet him out on the beta airfield. Communication is off limits, so he sent me."

"Let me grab my gear," Hunk sighed. More experimental aircraft, more failed testing. Wade was pushing for something, but as all the prototypes were failures (and no, he had nothing to do with that. The stealth ships now…), no one knew really what he was going for. Pidge had suspicions about fighter craft that could take on Voltron, but that was the little guy being paranoid. Or so Hunk hoped.

Lance was there with Wade, in his flight leathers and looking distinctly annoyed.

"I can't fly it if you don't give me command access!" he snapped as Hunk came up. "Unless, Marshal"— Hunk winced slightly at the caustic drawl—"You have an older, pre-automated system that is hidden within that useless hunk of a computer!"

"You'll get access when it is necessary," Wade replied, not even looking at Lance, who had glanced over at Hunk and mimed shooting himself in the head.

So it had been that kind of day. Well, hopefully Lance had managed to get the bug on the command controls. Pidge was dying to find of what was happening in Wade's airfield testing strip.

"Then it'll fly when I give a fuck," Lance snarled and stalked off.

"Sir." Hunk said after an uncomfortable silence.

"McClain rammed the right wing," Wade sighed, looking over finally. "See if you can fix the damage he caused."

"I may need to get into the controls," Hunk cautioned as Wade made ready to leave, "Depends on what got damaged."

"Johnson will give you access if you need it." And then the Sky Marshal was off. Hunk sighed in relief—having Wade staring over his shoulder blew beyond belief—and got to work. Bugging the plane, because, it turned out, the 'damage' was less than if appeared. Lance was, if nothing else, a professional.

/Planet Crydor/Sven/

Crydor was an inhospitable, barren frozen wasteland.

And it was just what Sven wanted: cold, almost too cold, and where no one would think to find him. Whatever was coursing through his veins was pure poison; he could feel it changing him, could feel himself filled with a rage that only icy winds could cool. The empty tundra would afford him the chance to ground himself again, gaining an inner control on the rage that this sickness fostered. He would be no berserker, maddened beyond sense and dangerous to friend and foe alike.

He had slipped out of Pollux not long after the court had moved for the season's change, taking one of the small space vessels and disabling its tracking device. Not that anyone would be able to find it now; upon his arrival, he had stripped the ship of any components that would be of use and then abandoned it. The small vessel was likely entombed in snow and ice now.

No, no one would find him here, let alone think to look for him.

As he set up his camp, the work kept him from dwelling on his friends whom he would never see again, who would never know what had happened to him. If he thought on that for too long, his resolve would weaken and he'd end up activating the emergency beacon that could, for a short while, cut through even Crydor's icy clouds. It was better this way, he told himself. This way he wouldn't endanger his friends, and they would not see him devolve into the beast whose anger coursed through his veins. Far better to stay away, and in an obscure a place as possible.

Because he couldn't bring himself to run as far away as possible. He clung to the hope that whatever was plaguing him would disappear, cured by the cold winds of Crydor, and that he would be able to return. Logically he knew this was a pipe-dream, false hope that would melt when subjected to the harsh light of reality. He couldn't let the dream go, though, and so he remained within (interstellar) spitting distance of Arus, simply out of the way.

At first he would tell himself stories, reciting old tales from his childhood out loud to fill the empty space when loneliness was most fierce, in the odd, blue-grey half-light that was dusk on Crydor.

"From the Well of Urd Yggdrasil grows. It is there that the Norns carve out destiny, cutting the Runes into the great tree's trunk. And above the branches, where Asgard is cradled, Odin All-father watches. As he watches, he decided that this, too, would be overcome. He would have the Runes and their knowledge."

His father had told him the stories of the All-father, how Odin had hung on the tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nine nights and won the Runes.

On the end of the ninth night, the Runes opened to him. And Asgard above rang with the sound of his triumph, as the poet boasted:

"Then I was fertilized and became wise;

I truly grew and thrived.

From a word to a word I was led to a word,

From a work to a work I was led to a work."

He had told him of Odin's theft of the Mead of Poetry, and the end of the world, of the terrible battle of Ragnorak. Sven had lived for the stories, eagerly listening on the long winter nights, when his father had deemed it appropriate to tell the tales of long ago.

His mother would sometimes add to the stories, matching his father's tales of victory and battle with stories of wandering, of shaman turned berserkers at the will of Odin. They were warnings, stories to check the strange power that he possessed. The old ones would have called you favoured of Odin, she said once. But this is not, she had stressed when he perked up, a blessing. Odin protects the berserkers as well as the shamans. Care that you restrain that anger in you. Follow the shaman' path, not the berserker.

She would sing sometimes of the seidr-deeds, accomplished by those who followed Freya and Odin. Her voice would ring out, high and clear, her eyes twinkling as she teased him and his father with the riddle songs.

Norway, like the rest of the world, had long ago moved into the future. But winter had always seemed, to Sven at least, to bridge the space between then and now, between the stories so old there were hundreds of variants and the view-screens with their instant, always-the-same stories. And here on Crydor, that distance was shortened again. The harsher winter in Norway was an average day on this planet, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was where the All-father had wandered to over the years, following some sort of personal map as he left the modern world behind.

Crydor was a world where the Norse legends could live again.

So it probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did when, several moons later, he came across giant hunting dogs, the advance guard for a nomadic tribe who were moving from their winter quarters to the summer hunting lands. They followed a band of bearded warriors, who, had it not been for the ice blue in their skin and the hair which ranged from steel blue to frosty green, could have found themselves in any Norse raiding party they wanted to join. They, in turn, ceded to a wizened old man.

Some awkward hand gesturing and they were on their way, though Sven couldn't help but notice the woman who stood a little apart from the rest of the group, dressed in travelling robes and carrying her own supplies.

Seidr was a women's gift, and the woman who walked to the dead had power. But when she walked the ways of the living, she walked alone. For men then feared women when they held the power of seidr. His mother's voice echoed as the snow crunched in their departure. The woman's eyes and wry grin lingered long after the party had left, stirring something in him that he hadn't felt in a while. While he felt guilty to the memory of what he and Romelle had shared, he knew that his time with the princess of Pollux was done. At any rate, it would come to nothing. What did he have to offer the woman who walked on her own, invested with the seidr of Crydor?

/Castle of Lions, Arus/Allura/

Allura tapped her pen against the desk absent mindedly, waiting for Coran to arrive with the Lady Larmina. They weren't due until late this evening, and she was trying to get some work out of the way, so she could spend time with her cousin, but her mind refused to focus.

Larmina was her Aunt Orla's daughter, and had, until recently, been the heir of the neighbouring kingdom on Arus. A few weeks ago, Allura had received a message from her Aunt, beautifully prepared by her secretary and eloquently presented. But she knew her Aunt, and she could read the fractured sentences that the secretary had smoothed into elite articulations.

Orla had never been the same since Haggar's attack. Though she recovered physically within a few weeks and was able to return to her home and people, she could never shake the nightmares that recreated Haggar's attack and capture. That made her relive the confinement, and the bloody sight of her companions and guards. In the end, she became paranoid and erratic. The defeat of Doom and the death of Haggar had helped some, but then, when the Lions where chained and Black taken, the nightmares started up again, and Orla became even more irrational.

Allura had never minded her uncle, King Erchon, before. But when her Aunt began falling down into madness, he had ignored it until it was too late. Allura tried not to be angry at him, but it was hard (especially when the rumours that Orla had been locked away so that Erchon could play reached her ears. They had been false, but she had still made the trip to Orla's kingdom to make sure. Lance had come with her on that trip. "It's a bit Jane Eyre, isn't it?" he'd asked, only to shrug when she'd asked him about it. "Never mind, some book." Upon returning to Arus, she'd looked the book up. She hoped to heaven and back that wasn't happening to her aunt, what Rochester did to his wife, and she also thought it an odd book for Lance to have read…)

But now it seemed those rumours were coming true. At least, so her Aunt thought. One thing was certain though: Erchon had finally declared Orla mad, meaning that their daughter, Larmina, could no longer be his heir (Allura had always found that rule slightly offensive: why did any madness in the mother (and not the father) instantly invalidate the daughter and not the son? If (big if) madness was catching, wouldn't they both catch it from their mother, regardless of sex?). So, in an attempt to protect her from whatever demons were currently threatening her, Orla had decided to send her daughter to the safest place she could think of: to the Castle of Lions and Allura. Orla herself couldn't leave, because she was under her husband's 'care' now, but she didn't want to leave anyway. Better to send her daughter away, to safety, than to join Larmina and bring whatever demons chased her along for the ride.

Larmina would have a hard time of it, that would be sure, but at least it could get better here. Last time she'd visited her Aunt and cousin, Larmina had barely spoken to either of them, only to scream at her mother once when King Erchon's name was mentioned.

"He's stupid!" she'd shouted after Orla mentioned some law Erchon had passed. "He doesn't love us, and I hate him! And so should you!"

And then, in one of the most normal moments Allura had seen her Aunt in a while, Orla responded. "No, Lara darling, he's being a king. And kings don't have the luxury of loving queens who go mad. But he does still love you."

Orla's matter of fact statement had broken Allura's heart, as had Larmina's angry, yet still crestfallen, face. But Orla had been right. Kings did not have the luxury of mad queens (and on occasion, sane queens shared in that lack of luxury), and so Erchon's actions were, to some extent, understandable. But she didn't like them, nor did she like, at all, the rapid fall her Aunt had after Erchon declared her mad.

"Princess?" Coran knocked on the door, sometime later, while she was reading the reports sent in by the stonemasons guild. "We made good time returning. Lady Larmina is being shown her rooms. Would you like to see her?"

"And get away from these reports? Please, yes."

Coran chuckled. "You could have left those for me."

Allura ran a hand through her hair, straightening the strands that had been pushed out of place in her frustration with the reading material. "I know. But every time I see those reports, I think, I should be able to read these. And I give it a go."

"Well, yes, you can read them-"

"Coran, please don't. The last thing I need right now is a semantics lesson."

The old advisor laughed. "You and Larmina both. I've been told sharply a few times now that the Lady Larmina does not need her grammar, her language, nor her ability to see to herself questioned, let alone corrected."

"That bad?" Allura asked worriedly.

Coran snorted. "Allura, she's a teenager now, one whose family has had some rough times. If anything, that's good."

"Oh."

Shaking his head and smiling, Coran knocked on the door to Larmina's rooms. "Larmina? May we come in?"

When they got no answer, he shrugged. "She may have gone exploring." Allura nodded in agreement, and as they turned to leave, a tawny headed teenager dropped down from the ceiling, scaring the living daylights out of them both.

"Aunt Allura!" she cried, "When can I see the controls to the Lions?"

"Hi Larmina," Allura breathed. "Soon, but let's not do that ever again, ok?"

Rolling her eyes, Larmina acquiesced. As Allura found out later, however, there are agreements, and then there are agreements. She had apparently wrangled the non-binding one out of her cousin. She didn't mind though. Having the exuberant teenager around was a balm to the quiet that had blanketed the castle. Larmina broke into their lives after Voltron, and it was if they woke up.

Nothing had changed, really, in the big picture. But Allura noticed people smiling more often. The housekeepers started complaining (again) about the state of rooms and of the pantry after the guard trainees (and Larmina) came through. Coran laughed more easily, even when he would return from Earth and dealing with Wade. For the first time since the Black Lion and its pilot had disappeared into space, Allura found herself hopeful. Hopeful that Black and Keith would return, that the Force would be whole again. Hopeful that Arus could recover even if they didn't.

A month after Larmina arrived at the Castle of Lions, it was her birthday. Orla and Erchon sent gifts (separately), and Allura threw a small party.

"You're a special one," she told her cousin afterwards, as Larmina and she walked back to their rooms. Larmina looked up at her in surprise.

"We've been so quiet here, for so long." Allura explained, smiling softly. "I haven't laughed as loudly or as much as I have been in a long time. You woke us up Larmina."

"Oh." The normally talkative teen was lost for words; she blushed and looked down at her feet. Allura chuckled and tousled Larmina's hair, which wasn't pulled back in its customary pony-tail for once.

"My mother—your aunt—once told me something that I've always tried to remember. She said that it is when we can be ourselves while still protecting and serving others that we are at our best." Allura paused, smiling sadly at the memory. Larmina looked at her, and Allura brightened when she started again.

"And that's what you've been doing. So don't stop, ok?"

Grinning, Larmina nodded. "Does this mean I can jump down from the ceiling again?"

"No, it's does not."

Rolling her eyes, Larmina huffed. "Fine. And, Aunt Allura?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

/Tech Division, Garrison/Pidge/

The day after his birthday was not a good one to get called to task on. Pidge sat in Nakahara's office, trying to listen to the man while ignoring the pounding in his head.

"Stoker!" Nakahara finally interjected, clearly annoyed.

"I sorry sir," he massaged his temples. "My birthday was yesterday …" He stopped. What would he say—and I let Lance arrange the alcohol?

Nakahara was actually sympathetic, which surprised Pidge.

"Lance handled the drinks for the last staff meeting," he said, which was explanation enough. "Go and sleep it off; we'll continue this conversation tomorrow."

Thanking him profusely, Pidge left the room. Dammit, he had been drunk last night. Not that it had taken much… despite being friends with a functioning alcoholic for years now, Pidge had a horrible tolerance for Earth spirits. Something about his Baltan metabolism did it, and his (relatively) diminutive height and weight. Unfortunately for him, both Lance and Hunk could hold their own, and 'get Pidge smashed' was one of Lance's favourite games.

He decided to pause near an empty board room on his way back, praying silently that his head would stop pounding quite so hard. Sliding down first to a squat and then to sit on the floor, Pidge leaned his head back.

And then he went very, very still.

Balto may have given him shit tolerance for Terran alcohol, but the excellent hearing he got in exchange more than made up for that at the moment.

Wade was in the board room with some of his cronies, and the plans that they were discussing were not on Garrison's official 'to do list'. No, the big man was going over his private agenda in that room, and Pidge had just stumbled across it (and the perfect excuse; he knew he looked like death, so feigning it wouldn't be too hard).

"Testing is going well?"

"Better than before," someone answered. "We've managed to crack into some of the Black Lion's controls," Pidge winced; he hoped the process wasn't as invasive as that just made it sound, "And we're getting closer to finding out what makes the Lion tick, as it were."

Nope. 100% invasive procedure.

"You said that months ago," Pidge bet that Wade had his sceptically disappointed face on. "Do I need to remind you that we must have something viable sooner rather than later? The Drules are showing activity again. If we can get robot soldiers that have the ability and semi-autonomy of Voltron, we will never have to worry about losing men in battle again."

Pidge set his jaw, gritting his teeth despite the pain in his head. This was just an arms race for Wade; he had no idea that the Black Lion was sentient, that it could feel this 'cracking into' its systems.

"Hey Stoker!" he heard someone call, and the room went silent. Pidge closed his eyes and did his best 'collapsed and almost died from hangover' look. He heard the door creak open, but remained still until someone shook his shoulder.

"Unhh?" he grunted, pretending to have just woken up.

"Dude, what did you do to Lance? Naks told me that you were rough, but you look like death!" It was O'Reilly. The American looked at him, concern radiating from his freckled face. He was a nice guy, though a bit chummy at times.

He was also oblivious. Nakahara hated having his name shortened to 'Naks'.

"C'mon," O'Reilly helped him to his feet. "Suz just started her shift, and she'll sort you out without too much of a lecture."

The head of medicine at Garrison was of the opinion that if Garrison's members were foolish enough to drink to the point of a hangover, then they could deal with the consequences themselves. Your body is trying to tell you something; damn well listen for once, was a favourite line, along with If God had wanted all things to be painless, he wouldn't have given you pain receptors. Suzanna Massy was O'Reilly's girlfriend, though, so if Pidge came in with him, he could count on being spared the usual condescending lecture.

As they walked down the hallway, Pidge heard someone chuckle.

"Why do people keep letting Lance arrange drinks for things?"

Good question, Pidge thought. Better question, though, is are you siding with Wade on Hawkins' orders or not, Lieutenant Brown?

One infirmary (and half-hearted lecture) later, Pidge had a clearer head, though his stomach maintained its position that no food would be admitted today, thank you very much. Not that he really cared; he had more important things to focus on, which the lingering hang-over was making difficult.

Stumbled onto Big Grey meeting, he typed out, the words slipping into symbols and the symbols into patterned lines. No location, but motive. Seems he wants to replicate the Lions to fight Drules so no more soldiers have to die.

Pidge paused, tapping the space bar key lightly as he thought about what else to say.

He added 'BS' to the last sentence, and then: Scientists 'confident' they're almost there; Wade is disappointed it's taking so long. Drules starting to move according to BG's intel. Wants to be ready for them.

After asking if Keith had anything new, he sent the coded message off, burned the sent trail from the server and the message from his computer. A copy remained though, buried within the secure coding of his Volt-com tablet.

Upon realising that no one could access his tablet, even if they had his 'com (they had tested this multiple times, both Hunk and Lance, and Hunk could actually use a tablet, unlike Lance), Pidge had started keeping all of the secure copies of transmissions on it. They had all breathed easier then, as had Keith when they told him. He had Keith's response saved as well, just in case the commander needed reminding of his promise to let Pidge handle the comp's set-up when they returned to Arus.

He was about to nod off when the screen dinged at him.

BS indeed. Drules not moving against Garrison; rearranging kingdoms. 5th is moving for the 3rd.

Well, that would explain it.

New contact: M. Going to meet on Rigel 9. Comes well recommended.

"Good luck," Pidge breathed, deleting the server's copy of the transmission. He then dragged himself out of the secret lair and collapsed on his bed.

"I hate you Lance…" he murmured as he fell asleep.

/Secret Lair, Garrison/

"That's the kid?" Lance raised an eyebrow. Pidge shrugged.

"He looks like a trouble maker. You sure you want me to test him?"

Hunk and Pidge just stared at him. Hunk opened his mouth to reply, but Pidge hit him suddenly.

"Wait, wait! I know this one! Pot and kettle, right? Right?"

Lance stood there, stunned. Hunk roared with laughter. "You finally got one little buddy! And against Lance!" He slapped Lance on the back, nearly knocking him over.

"Yeah, yeah, well done." Lance sighed. "Ok, so me calling the kid a troublemaker's not the best move. But really?"

"Yes," Pidge preened a bit as he filled the screen with info on the cadet. "He's got enough of his own mind to be useful, and, from his entrance scores, already knows how to fly, which cuts down on our work. But Lance, this is why." Pidge pulled up a report that Lance was almost certain should have been expunged or still be sealed.

"Ok pipsqueak," he conceded, "You're right. Anyone else?"

"Yeah," Pidge pulled up another cadet's file. "Seating chart has them sitting next to each other in your flight class, so should be easy to keep an eye on both. Will also give you a chance to check out their teamwork and all."

Lance's eyes flicked to the clock. "Alright, I'm off. I'll already be a minute late, can't push the Big Man's buttons too hard."

Pidge and Hunk waved him out.

"I hope this actually pans out," Hunk sighed. Pidge started to answer, but stopped as his screen flared.

Get ready.

"Me too," he breathed.