The war was over. Earth was safe. But the final battle had left the Paladins with more questions than answers. The comatose Altean in the Med Bay, for instance. Who was she? What was she doing inside the giant robot that nearly put an end to Voltron?

These questions plagued the minds of all of the Paladins. They waited with bated breath for the Altean girl to wake up. In the meantime, they busied themselves around the Garrison, helping in whatever way they could.

Hunk and Pidge were hard at work in the science and engineering division with Coran and Allura. The new Castle of Lions wasn't going to build itself, after all. And as cool as the Atlas was, it wasn't quite what they needed.

Shiro was subbing for some of the teachers injured in the battle, doing his best to get the Garrison students back on track after all they'd been through. Adam still weighed heavy on his mind. He tried to hide it, but everyone could see he was suffering. Keith had done his best to console him after he'd heard the news, as had everyone. As always, Shiro put on a brave face and kept moving forward, insisting he was fine, but they all knew it would be a while before he was back to his old self.

Keith and Lance were putting their rivalry to good use teaching competing classes of fighter pilots. After all, nothing put a fire under someone better than good old-fashioned competition. They ran drills, held races; all fun and games aside, though, Keith and Lance were no pushovers when it came to disciplining their students. They both knew what it felt like to be on the wrong end of a disciplinary meeting, and they made sure their students understood that selfish rebellion only got you so far.

Everyone had been assigned quarters in the staff dormitories while their ship was being built. As it was, not many people had homes left to go back to. The Galra had done a number on Earth, and most of its larger cities were nothing but rubble. Humanity was tough, though. They would rebuild, stronger than ever as a beacon of peace for those devastated by the Galra Empire.

X

Months flew by and everything seemed to be going well. There had been no changes in the Altean girl's comatose state, but her vitals were holding steady, and Allura had high hopes of reaching her - somehow.

Allura spent most of her time in the Med Bay with the Altean. When she wasn't there or helping with the new Castle of Lions, she found herself spending a lot of time around the other Paladins, Lance in particular.

Lance wasn't blind, he'd noticed the change in Allura's behavior towards him. Six months ago her change in attitude would have sent Lance through the roof, but something was different now. After everything they'd been through, something about the way Allura looked at him felt… off. Not that there was anything wrong with her, it was Lance. He saw the obvious and growing affection in her eyes, in the way she talked to him, but it didn't give him the sense of elation he'd expected it to.

On the other hand, there was Keith. He and Lance had grown much closer since the final battle, though it had taken time. Two years was a long time to be away from someone, and it took Keith a while to become accustomed to Lance's over-enthusiastic personality again.

The two of them were on pretty solid ground these days. Recently, though, Lance had started to pull away. It wasn't like he was obvious about it. They still hung out and hosted competitions for their classes to duke it out every so often - it kept morale high. They sat next to each other at dinner every night with the other Paladins - a tradition everyone wanted to keep going, a sense of normalcy amongst the chaos of their lives.

But Lance was clearly troubled, obvious in the way he had a hard time holding eye contact with Keith or how he jerked away anytime their hands accidentally brushed at dinner. Most of the other Paladins were none the wiser, but Shiro had noticed. He always noticed the things no one else did. It was part of what made him such a good leader.

Shiro watched Lance for a few weeks, taking careful notice of anything out of character. It wasn't hard to see what the problem was, at least not for Shiro, who had watched someone else close to him go through the same thing once upon a time. It was also obvious that Lance had no idea what was going on inside his own heart. If Shiro didn't do something soon, he was afraid the poor boy was going to explode from all the internalized stress. They needed to have a talk.

X

"How did you know you were gay?"

Shiro nearly choked on his bagel. "What?"

Lance looked him dead in the face. "How. Did you. Know. You were gay?" he said, punctuating each word for effect.

Lance always had been the straightforward type.

"Why do you ask?"

At this, Lance paused. His eyes wandered for a moment before settling on the table below, the bravado from only moments ago vanished.

Shiro took this as a sign that Lance wasn't ready to talk about it, or maybe he didn't even know why himself. Either way, Shiro wouldn't push. Baby steps.

"Well, it wasn't so much a realization for me as it was -" Shiro paused, considering, "well, it was just the way I was."

Lance listened intently as Shiro continued.

"Adam wasn't my first - not the first man I'd been with, I mean. I was Adam's, though."

This surprised Lance. Shiro almost seemed to be looking through Lance, not so much at him as he continued.

"Adam knew I was gay. I never tried to hide it from anyone, and I certainly didn't think it would be right to hide it from the person I'd be sharing a room with."

"You and Adam were roommates?"

"When we were students here at the Garrison, yeah." Shiro smiled, a kind of bittersweet look passing over his face. Happy memories mixed with fresh grief. "He took it pretty well, all things considered," he continued. "A little shocked maybe. Apparently, he'd never met someone who was openly gay before. He came from a small country town, so it wasn't all that surprising."

"A country boy, huh?" Lance waggled his eyebrows suggestively, shit eating grin spread wide across his tan cheeks.

"Yeah, yeah laugh it up," Shiro replied, waving the comment off. "He didn't act like a country kid, though. Seemed like he never really fit in there. That's why he came to the Garrison - he was looking for a place to belong."

Lance could understand that. All too well.

"Adam and I were best friends for the longest time. Around our senior year, though, Adam started to act differently. Little things at first - freezing up when I'd hug him or quickly looking away when I caught him staring. It was cute."

Lance felt a slight flush rise in his cheeks. That sounded… familiar.

"It just got worse the closer we got to graduation. He seemed to be dancing around something; trying to tell me something but not quite sure how to do it." Shiro chuckled a little, that dreamy look in his eyes. "That idiot waited until five minutes before we were about to go on stage and get our diplomas to finally confess. He was red as a beet and he couldn't even look me in the eyes. He practically shouted at me that he liked me."

Lance was so wrapped up in Shiro's story that he hadn't noticed Keith enter the room. He stood in the doorway, listening to a story he'd heard a thousand times. He never appreciated the romance of it as a kid, but now he understood. It was sweet.

"Tell him how embarrassed Adam was when you asked him to be your boyfriend in front of your entire graduating class." Lance jumped like a spooked cat, whipping around to find Keith leaning against the doorframe with that devious smirk plastered across his face.

That smile should be illegal.

"How was I supposed to know they'd turned the microphone on?" Shiro replied indignantly. "He said yes, anyway and that's all that matters."

"What brought this up?" Keith asked, pulling up a chair next to Lance. If he noticed the way Lance stiffened up when he scooted closer, he didn't show it.

Shiro's dreamy smile took a mischievous turn. "Oh, well Lance here was just asking -"

"Gotta go!" Lance yelped, interrupting Shiro before he could embarrass him further.

Keith looked startled. "Where?" he questioned, brows drawn together in confusion. "Your last class ended an hour ago and you aren't scheduled to run any drills today."

Why did Keith know his schedule that well?

"I uh -" Lance scrambled, trying to find some excuse to remove himself from this situation as quickly as possible.

"Besides, I thought we could go out tonight. Figured you'd be itching for that pool rematch after last week."

Lance went from red with embarrassment to indignant in seconds.

Oh yeah, that.

"Oh, you're on, Mullet! There's no way I'm losing to you and your stupid hair this time!"

Shiro smiled as he watched Lance practically drag Keith from his chair, muttering something about Keith cheating and him just having an off night. Their banter faded out as they got further and further from the break room.

"Well, I hope he got something out of that, at least," Shiro said quietly to himself, picking at his half-eaten bagel as he stared out the window, the sunset painting the sky outside with brilliant shades of orange and purple.