AN: AU where the number of meters between you and your soulmate is written on your wrist.
Katie is just starting high school and is eagerly checking her mailbox every day for a response from the Galaxy Garrison when she meets her soulmate. Matt brings Shiro, his friend from the Garrison, over to visit. Katie thinks he's a pretty cool guy, cute too, but way out of her league. The three of them get into a very long, very interesting, and very intense discussion about whether or not there's life in space. Katie is leaning in closer and preparing her rebuttal when Matt pokes her on the shoulder and points at the number on her wrist: 1.
That's when they all start freaking out. Shiro's number is 1, too, and when they both jump back in shock their numbers tick up to two in unison. By the time that day is over, Mom is already planning their marriage, Dad has embarrassed them both to no end, and Shiro has a standing invitation to come over to dinner anytime.
Katie supposes that when most people meet their soulmates, they fall in love and immediately start dating, or get married or something. At least, that's what happens in the romance novels that she secretly reads and hides under her bed. But romance is never on the forefront of her mind. Both her and Shiro have more important things to worry about, like school. (She wants to get accepted into the Galaxy Garrison and Shiro just has a lot on his plate.)
Dad teases her about her 'suitor' but she shrugs him off. If she wants to get in a relationship, she'll do it later in life. (She will admit that it is nice to have someone you know you can lean on though; someone who isn't family.) He helps her with her latest projects and she takes over his school projects for the Garrison half the time. They're good friends and that's enough for them.
The mission to Kerberos launches on a bright summer day and Katie ignores the was her dress is sticking to her back as she watches the ship carrying three of the closest people in her life get farther and farther away from earth. And when she can't see it anymore, she looks at the number on her wrist, getting bigger and bigger, bigger than anyone else's on the entire planet.
She throws herself into her studies at the Galaxy Garrison and keeps the numbers on her wrist her little secret. She can tell when they land because the numbers slow to a stop. They tell her exactly when they have their first EVA scheduled and she stays up late and watches the numbers on her wrist with a flashlight under her covers.
Katie imagines that she right there alongside them as they become the first people to step foot on Kerberos and collect soil samples. Matt's freaking out like the nerd he is, Dad's acting completely unfazed and taking the extraordinary in stride, and Shiro's a little out of his league compared to their enthusiasm.
And then everything goes wrong. She's starting to drift off and nearly misses it. The number's been getting steadily bigger, but not at an outrageous rate and then all of a sudden it starts speeding up, like the speed it was when they were flying out to Pluto. Katie's confused: they weren't supposed to fly out. Now, it's growing to fast to read and all of a sudden it grows at an impossible rate. In an instant, it jumps from a single line to wrapping around her wrist.
She drops the flashlight in shock. It rolls off her bed and clatters loudly on the metal floor of her room, the light dancing across the walls. Her roommate groans and turns around in bed on the other side of the room.
Katie doesn't know how to process what she just saw. It should be impossible. There's no technology out there that could go that far in such a quick time. She has to be imagining things. Only she's not. Soulmarks aren't wrong and somehow Shiro (and Dad and Matt, Shiro wouldn't leave them behind) are farther away than she could ever comprehend.
The next day, the instructors and higher-ups are all nervous about something. What exactly, Katie doesn't know, but she has a hunch that it has something to do with the Kerberos Mission.
The day after that, a grim-faced official asks her to come with him. She's led to the office of some really important person. Mom's there too, looking nervous and that's when Katie realizes that the Garrison's going to tell them about the Kerberos Mission. The officer in front of them starts with some pointless banalities like offering them tea. He's obviously dragging his feet about something
Katie finally loses her patience and straight up asks him to tell them what's going on.
He apologizes and tells them very gently that Matt and Dad are dead; that the crew of the died due to pilot error. He offers his utmost condolences. It's all fake.
Katie knows he's lying. Shiro's alive, the number on her wrist hasn't stopped changing at an incredible rate, but Mom's crying (Mom's never cried. Her actually crying is unsettling Katie more than she wants to let on) and she doesn't know how to confront this very important person and nothing feels real.
She starts covering up her soulmark. Not because she's ashamed of it, but because she isn't sure what to make of it herself.
She starts becoming a conspiracy theorist. She was never that person before, but now she is. They're obviously lying to her and she knows Shiro's alive and that has to mean that her family's alive too. The Garrison has to be hiding something. Either they actually had some sort of warp technology all this time and were just hiding it, or they didn't and the crew (Her family, but she's trying to stay objective. It's impossible.) were kidnapped by aliens who did. For once, aliens actually seem like a sane solution. Regardless of how, Katie knows that they're on a spaceship somewhere, that's the only explanation as to why the numbers never stop moving. (It's going pretty fast too, faster than she thought ships could go.)
Her grades start to slip. She's spending all of her time looking for the truth and not worrying about her studies. Her teachers give her looks of pity and think it's because her family died. (It is, but just a little bit. Katie doesn't have time to grieve.)
She gets expelled when she's caught hacking into the Garrison's computers for the third time. She yells at them that she knows the truth: that they're covering it up. They ignore her and call Mom to come and pick her up.
Neither of them speaks on the way back home. Katie is silently stewing and Mom is quietly fuming.
Tension explodes into a full-on argument later that week. Mom wants to know why she threw her education away like that.
Katie tries to explain that she needed to find out the truth.
Mom tells her that everyone's upset and that doesn't mean that she can just throw everything away.
Katie finally bursts and tells her that they aren't dead. They're just really really far away. She brandishes her mark at Mom as she says it.
They both go silent as they watch the number changing faster than it's possible to read. And then Mom breaks down into tears again and Katie cries too. They don't argue anymore after that.
She cuts off her hair and re-applies to the Garrison, this time to their military program, and as a boy named Pidge Gunderson. Mom doesn't argue.
She's accepted. It isn't hard to start thinking of herself as Pidge. That was what Matt always called her.
When Katie, no, she's Pidge now, gets to the Garrison for the second time, she doesn't spend all of her time trying to hack into their computers. That got her in trouble last time. And she learned enough. The Garrison may be covering stuff up, but it certainly isn't secret warp speed capabilities.
Instead, Pidge (that name comes so easily to her) turns her sights to the stars, spending free nights up on the rooftops, listening for alien radio signals. She finds them too, it only takes a couple weeks to find the right frequency. There's no mention of Shiro or her family, but she doesn't let that slow her down. She knows they're alive. When she has trouble sleeping she stares at the constantly changing numbers until she falls asleep.
One day, she notices that they're starting to get smaller. It's hard to notice at first, but it's definitely happening. The radio chatter's getting more frantic too. There are more and more mentions of this 'Voltron', whatever it is. Pidge allows herself to hope that her family's coming home; that Shiro's coming back and he's bringing Matt and Dad with him. She calculates that rate at which he's traveling and finds the day he'll reach earth.
Meanwhile, she's been assigned to a squad with the only other two people on earth who have soulmates in outer space. They're constantly comparing their marks to see whose soulmate is farther away. (Pidge wants to roll her eyes whenever they do this. Boys. Anyway, her's would definitely beat both of theirs, but it's a secret.)
The night that Shiro's supposed to reach Earth, Pidge slips out onto the roof like she usually does, listening to the alien radio chatter that comes in staticky bursts from who knows where. She isn't really listening to it tonight though. Instead, she's looking at the number on her wrist getting smaller and smaller and smaller and she's praying that she'll have her family again soon.
That is, until Lance and Hunk ask her what she's doing, causing her to jump and quickly cover her mark again. Those stupid idiots followed her. She gives them the basic rundown and has to tell Hunk to stop messing with her stuff multiple times. (Can't that guy keep his hands to himself.)
And then the loudspeakers come on and announce that there's a lockdown and it's not a drill.
Lance points at a flash on the horizon. "What is that?" he asks.
Pidge looks through her binoculars mainly to confirm what she already knows. "It's a ship." A ship with an alien design unlike anything that's ever been built on earth. She glances at the number on her wrist and, compared to how huge it used to be, the number is so small that it feels like she could reach out and touch Shiro. It has to be her family. It just has to.
Her heart's in her throat as the ship crashes and Garrison personnel rush to it. They only bring out one body. Lance has stolen her binoculars, but Pidge doesn't need them to tell that it's Shiro. She waits, but no one else comes out. It doesn't make sense. Where are they? She has to force herself to focus on the current moment.
Lance recognizes Shiro. He starts to order Hunk and her around for a plan that only he has until there's an explosion (nobody knows where that came from) and Lance also recognizes the person slipping into the building where they took Shiro. He says something about not wanting to let his rival get all the glory and starts to rush down. Hunk follows him and Pidge grabs her stuff and follows right on their tales. They have no idea what they're getting into, not that she does either, but she's been watching Shiro forever.
By the end of the night, they end up in Keith's old shack in the middle of the desert. (Yes, that Kieth, the garrison dropout that Lance never seems to be able to forget.) It looks like he lives there alone. There's a single unmade cot shoved in the corner that everyone agrees to put Shiro on, (he was kidnapped by aliens, they're not going to make him sleep on the floor) Keith claims the couch and everyone else tries to get comfy on the floor. Nobody says it, but they've silently agreed that they're not going back to the Garrison, not with everything that's just happened.
Pidge isn't really tired, but she curls up in a corner using the softest part of her bag as a pillow and tries to get some sleep.
She wakes up at some ungodly hour in the morning. Shiro's tossing and turning in the cot across from her. She shoves on her glasses (not that she really needs to, but old habits die hard) and crawls over to him as silently as she can.
It looks like he's having a nightmare of some sort; she can feel his panic, it must be one of those soulmate things.
She hesitates only for a moment before starting to shake him awake. "Shiro, Shiro," she urgently whispers, "it's okay, it's just a dream."
He sits up so quickly that Pidge is startled and takes a half step back. His eyes are filled with panic and he's glancing around the room like a hunted animal. She isn't sure what he's seeing, but it doesn't seem to be what's actually there.
Pidge crawls forward a few feet and waves her hand in front of his face. "Shiro, it's okay, you're on earth," she whispers.
Shiro blinks a few times as seems to focus on her. "Matt?" He starts to panic, again, saying something that she can't make out.
"No!" she hisses. Darn her haircut. Then she remembers that she's still wearing his glasses. She rips him. "It's me, P- Katie." She almost says the wrong name.
That seems to calm him down. He breathing is still quick, but it's not as frantic. "Katie?"
She nods. Hopefully, he recognizes her. That's a relief. "Yeah, it's me."
He blinks a few times, looking around before holding his head with one hand like he has a headache. "Where, where am I?" he asks slowly.
"We're in Keith's shack, in the middle of the desert."
Shiro nods slowly. He throws back the covers and stands up. "I need some fresh air," he says, and starts to walk to the door.
"Wait!" Pidge hisses, but Shiro's already outside, leaving her to scramble across the crowded room, picking her way around Lance and Hunk's sleeping bodies before she makes it out. The desert sand feels surprisingly cool beneath her bare toes. There's a slight breeze that rustles her hair.
Shiro's just standing there, a little ways from the shack, staring up at the sky with a look that she can't quite place.
Pidge runs a little to catch up with him and is about to say his name, but when she reaches him she realizes that for once she isn't sure what to say. Things used to be different, they used to be different, now she isn't sure where to pick up the pieces. Especially when she spent so long putting Shiro and her family in the same box in her brain. They used to be together. Now, they're apart and she's forced to acknowledge that her brother and dad are somewhere else, if they're even still alive. She's back to square one.
They just stand there for a while. Eventually, Pidge sits down, her arms wrapped around her knees as she stares out, looking at whatever Shiro is. Maybe he's just taking in the earth since it's been so long since he was on it, or maybe he's looking up at the stars and the constellations that must've been different where he was. At last, she can't take it anymore and asks the question that's been burning on her mind.
"Are- are they alive? Matt and Dad, I mean," she hurriedly adds. "They said you were dead," she says in a quiet voice that isn't quite a whisper. "All of you. But I didn't believe them because, well, I could see that you were alive and if they were wrong about you, they could be wrong about everyone else. But y-yeah, are they alive?" she finishes and waits.
Shiro takes his time before answering. "They were- are alive. I- I don't know." He fumbles with his words before turning and looking at her. "We were separated, but don't worry, Katie, we'll find them. I promise."
There's a lump in her throat. Pidge nods and tries to keep herself from crying. Her family went from alive to dead to something else in a span of a few hours.
They stay out there awhile and Pidge finds herself telling Shiro about everything that happened while he was gone. He doesn't say much, just listening and acknowledging now and then. She isn't sure how long they stay like that, but she must've drifted off at some point because she wakes up back in her corner of Keith's shack with one of Shiro's blankets wrapped around her shoulders. The cot is empty.
Later that morning, as they're all eating the last of Keith's food and exchanging awkward small talk, Pidge exchanges a look with Shiro and things seem manageable. Matt and Dad are out there and they're going to find them. Together, they can find a way.
AN: *Ignores science in favor of plot* Just for the record, I do know that planets are moving relative to each other, but let's just ignore that.
This takes place in the same universe as my Allurance soulmate fic: The Distance Between Us. I wrote them both on the same soulmate fic writing spree. This one just took a little longer to clean up. You don't need to have read it, but if you enjoyed this, you should go check it out!