Sam Holt had known from the day they were captured by the Galra that if they made it through everything alive, they were going to have a lot to process when they made it out. He promised himself to set a good example for the boys on that front if they made it back to Earth. True to his word, he had signed up for appointments with a trusted psychiatrist the week after he had returned to Earth in his pod with messages from the Paladins and news of the Galra threat.
By the time the paladins, Matt, and the rest of the Voltron Coalition had wrapped up the last confrontation with Sendak and the Galra, Sam had already worked through a lot of his trauma in therapy. He was glad, because he knew that all of them were going to need all the support from the adults in their lives that they could get, and he was determined to be able to help. He actually had gotten a side degree in psychology several years ago, figuring it would be useful for space travel and working in a military-style organization. Drawing on that training and more recent techniques from his therapist to help his own children and their friends weren't exactly what he'd had in mind all those years ago, but he would make do.
Shortly after they'd returned, Matt and Shiro had been informed by Colleen and Sam, in no uncertain terms, that they were going to start going to physical therapy for Shiro's arm (and his everything, really) and Matt's old leg injury. Both protested vehemently, of course-Shiro pointing out that he'd managed daily tasks and fighting just fine with his Galra arm, and done even better once they'd replaced it with the Altean-style prosthetic, and Matt arguing that he'd been just fine till now running around on the leg while fighting in the war, and he didn't care if it got sore sometimes and made him limp at night.
Colleen put her foot down and said that if they were in pain, their pain could be reduced if they actually rehabbed their injuries for once and learned how to move better, and since the war was over there wasn't any excuse they she'd accept from them, and also their appointments were Monday morning at 9 AM sharp, no arguments.
Sam had laughed unrepentantly at his son's faces as they admitted their defeat and chorused "Yes, ma'am."
When Monday rolled around, Sam drove the boys to the nearest hospital, just under an hour away. Matt tried once to point out that it would be a lot faster to just take one of the flying they had out back, but Sam shook his head.
"Now that we're back on Earth, I want to soak in as much of it as I can. It's easier to do when you're firmly at the ground with your windows down on a beautiful day." There was a time when he didn't think he'd ever get to drive their old hover car again. He was enjoying having it back. Wind poured through the windows up front, bringing the smell of fresh soil after rain. Good old Earth.
From the back seat, Matt locked eyes with Sam in the rear view mirror and tried to look piteous as his hair was whipped around in a wild halo. "You really want me to look like a disheveled wild man for my first appointment? What kind of impression is that going to make?" He had to shout to be heard over the rushing air.
Shiro twisted around in the passenger seat, which he'd beat Matt to by a mere second when they bolted out of the house. "How is that going to be any different than how your hair normally looks? You always look like a wild man that got caught in a hurricane."
Sam reached over without looking and gave Shiro a high five. Matt groaned and threw his arm over his eyes dramatically.
"I can't believe it," he moaned. "Betrayed by my best friend AND my own father. What is this world coming to?"
Sam just whistled and flicked the radio on, turning it up on a station he knew the boys had liked when they were younger. The rest of the drive was spent singing along to old favorites and arguing over whether the quality of the new songs had gone down since they'd left Earth, or if they'd just developed different tastes after hearing so much different music out in among all the different alien societies they'd hung around.
When they made it toto the hospital, Sam and Matt dropped Shiro off at the radiology department for the x-ray and MRI the doctor wanted before they got started.
"They just want to play the 'how-fucked-up-is-this-alien-arm, holy shit' game, which is getting really old at this point. And probably also want to get evidence for a case study that'll make them famous for years, which is also really getting old," Shiro had said tiredly. "I'm tired of being a lab rat."
Matt reached up from the front seat and patted Shiro on the shoulder.
While Sam personally agreed that they probably did want to turn Shiro into a case study, that was not going to happen on his watch. He'd made sure of that already when he met with the team that were going to be working with Shiro to rehab his arm-and, Sam hoped, the rest of him that had been injured in the gladiator fights during his year in the arena. Shiro didn't talk about it unless it was necessary information for a mission or dealing with a certain alien species, but he carried the map of his old injuries all over his body. He had to be in more pain than he let on, and not just from his arm. Hopefully, the experts could pinpoint what scars were causing Shiro the most problems with movement and pain, and make it at least a little better. He deserved that much.
Matt didn't need any scans, so he and Sam climbed into one of the elevators to head up to the third floor physical therapy department. Matt had started chattering about the project he and Pidge had started over the weekend, upgrading one of the game systems Lance's siblings had brought with them so that it was capable of fitting two more players in during multiplayer games. Sam was interested, following along more or less. Matt was explaining where they were stuck while reworking a certain section of code. And then, suddenly, the lights went out and the elevator ground to a halt.
Sam stiffened, fearful of an attack for a moment. Then he remembered that they were, in fact, on Earth, and the only Galra on the planet were peaceful, and the war was over, no need to worry. He smoothed down the simmering panic that had started to well up. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and then realized that Matt's voice had cut off abruptly.
"Matt?" he asked, quietly. There was no response. He reached out blindly to where he had last seen Matt standing a couple arm-lengths away. His fingers brushed across what felt like a shoulder, and suddenly there was a sharp intake of air. "Matt?" he asked again. "Matt."
He felt Matt start to shake, and then Matt was gasping for air, softly keening in a way that made Sam feel like they were just father and son, a young father hearing his toddler cry and just feeling the biological imperative to comfort, fix, hold, protect. But Matt wasn't his small baby anymore, and the danger had already happened. He couldn't fix what had already been done. But he could still hold his son and try to help.
Sam stepped closer through the darkness and wrapped his arms around Matt, who was still frozen in place. "Matt, what's wrong?" he whispered. He stroked one hand through Matt's wild fluff of hair.
Matt shook his head violently.
"Matt, I'm right here. It's just me. I'm your father, I'm Sam Holt, we're here together and we're safe. I'm here, Matt."
"Please let me out," Matt gasped suddenly. "Please, please, please, let me out, please-"
Oh no. Sam and Matt had been separated early on after being captured, and Sam knew his son had been a prisoner for at least a few months before being rescued by the resistance. He knew Matt, scared and small and young as he had been, still had a stubborn streak that was bound to get him in trouble with his captors sooner or later. But he'd naievely hoped that the Galra had spared Matt some of the worse punishments they could dole out. Whatever they had done to Matt, it was clear that Sam had hoped in vain.
"Please," begged Matt, shaking like a leaf in his arms. "I didn't do anything this time, I swear I didn't, please let me out, I can't do this again, don't make me stay in here, PLEASE I didn't do anything don't put me in solitary! I can't!"
Solitary. Sam's heart clenched. Not that.
"PLEASE," Matt sobbed.
Sam sank down with his son as Matt's knees gave out, pulling him down gently until he rested halfway in Sam's lap. He refused to let go even as Matt twisted and trembled.
Solitary confinement was a terrible, damaging punishment on Earth, but the Galra took it even further. Not only did prisoners in solitary confinement lose all access to any other living beings, even their captors, they were also deprived of any light, sound, or textures besides the smooth surfaces of the tiny closets the Galra designated as isolation cells. Most of the time they didn't receive food or water at regular intervals, and prisoners were often left in solitary for days or even weeks on end. Some never fully recovered from the torture of that kind of sensory and social deprivation-Sam had seen a few of those less fortunate ones during his time as a prisoner himself.
The thought of Matt being thrown into one of those cells and left there so cruelly was too much to bear, and for a few moments he allowed himself to feel all the anger he normally buried deep inside. If he had the chance at that moment, he wasn't sure he could have stopped himself from killing every single person responsible for imprisoning Matt from the day they were all captured to the day he escaped.
"Matt," he said gently, continuing to stroke his son's hair. "I'm Sam, I'm your father, you're not in the prison. You're on Earth. We both are. We were in an elevator, and it broke down, and that's why it's dark in here. Can you hear me?"
"No," Matt mumbled. "Not real. You're not real. Just my brain. I won't listen." He choked on a sob. "Can't."
"I'm real, Matt," he said, heart breaking. "I'm real, and so are you. Feel my jeans under your hand? Can you feel my arms around you like this? I promise it's real this time, Matt, we really are safe and back on Earth."
"The ocean felt real last time too, and it wasn't in the end. You're wishful thinking. I can't let myself-" Matt broke off into more gasping.
Tell me something real, Sam remembered suddenly. It was something he'd overheard Lance asking Keith to do after a particularly awful battle they'd just come back from. Lance needed to know that it was actually over, and Keith had responded by telling Lance something about his past Lance had never known before. Something to do with a stuffed hippo and a missing button eye. That part wasn't important right now. Matt was convinced that everything he was experiencing was a hallucination, wishful thinking and terror dreamed up by his brain in the absence of any other actual sensory input. Sam had to find something that Matt wouldn't know already, something that his brain wouldn't have been able to use in his dreams or hallucinations.
"When you were four years old, and Katie had just been born, they didn't let you hold her in the hospital because children under 12 weren't allowed into the ward with those babies. When they finally let her come home, you'd conked out on the couch and granddad didn't have the heart to wake you up when we got there." Matt's ragged breathing had quieted a bit, and Sam could tell he was listening at least partly, despite his best judgement. "Mom and I knew how much you'd wanted to meet Katie, but you also had been having so much trouble sleeping while we'd been gone that we didn't want to wake you up either. So we built up a fort of cushions and pillows around the couch, and made a blanket nest around you, and then laid Katie in her own little nest right up against you for a while while you slept." Sam paused to smile for a moment, and hold Matt a little tighter. "As soon as we laid her down next to you, you reached out one of your little arms and wrapped it right across her chest and didn't even wake up. The two of you slept together for nearly an hour before we had to get her up to feed her. You never knew about that."
Matt's breathing slowed just a little, and Sam continued. "You thought your first time meeting her was that evening, when you woke up just before dinner. We did the whole shebang, 'Here's your baby sister! Say hello to Katie, Matt!' and you took her tiny little hand very gently in your bigger one and told her very seriously that your name was Matthew David Holt and you were her big brother and that she was going to be your best friend. But you had already let her know that you were her big brother and loved her in the way that really mattered, and you hadn't even been awake when you did it."
Sam felt Matt shudder once in his arms, then sniff, hard. There was a pause.
"Dad?" Matt whispered.
"It's me." Sam smiled even though he knew Matt wouldn't be able to see. "I'm real. You're real. Neither of us are with the Galra anymore. We're back on Earth, Matt, I promise."
"Earth?"
"Yes. We're on Earth. The war is over. We all won. We're at the hospital right now, for your leg. The elevator broke down. Do you remember that?"
"I..." Matt shifted slightly in Sam's hold, uncurling from his stiff hunch a bit. "Kind of. I'm still kind of-stuck back in-" His breathing started to get more rapid again.
"Matt!" Sam said firmly. "No, stay with me here. Look." He moved one arm to find Matt's hand, then pressed it in his. "Feel me? I'm here. We're both safe and never going back on a prison ship or colony ever again. Breathe with me. Trace the box, like Hunk taught us. Here." Sam brought Matt's hand up to his own chest.
"Dad," Matt said again, voice cracking. "We have to get out-"
"I know Matt, I know. But we're stuck in here for a little bit longer. I'm sure they're trying to fix the elevator as we speak. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Shiro is trying to crawl up the elevator shaft to get to us because he feels like they're taking too long. Just hang on a tiny bit, Matt. We'll be out soon. Trace the box on my chest, remember? In on one side, hold on the next, out on the third side, hold on the last. Then again. Nice and slow." He guided Matt's hand the first time, then let him do it on his own. "That's it. Make it bigger each time."
Several minutes passed like that, Sam holding Matt, Matt tracing breathing boxes over and over again, both of them working to stay calm. By the time they heard some clanging from up above, Matt was coming down from his panic and too tired to do much more than stiffen for a moment.
"Matt, I'm going to scoot you off so I can stand, all right?" Sam said.
"Okay," came the quiet mumble.
Sam gently slid Matt off his lap and propped him more or less upright against the elevator wall. He winced as he stood. He was getting too old to go around sitting on floors for long, he thought. A nice, hot bath would be good later that night.
The banging from above got louder. Sam reached up and knocked on the elevator's ceiling. "Hello?" he called out.
"Hello?" a muffled shout came back. "Hello!" Then something else Sam couldn't quite make out, probably something along the lines of "Hang on."
A few moments later there was a loud click, and a ceiling panel swung upwards, letting in some faint light from the elevator shaft. A bright beam of light swung in, nearly blinding Sam and Matt for a moment, and they both flinched.
"Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to do that," said a familiar voice.
"Shiro!" Matt croaked.
"Matt! Dr. Holt! Oh good. It is you. Both of the elevators are stuck and I didn't know if I picked the right one to go after."
"Yes, it's us." Sam smiled. "Did you beat the firemen to us?"
"Well," Shiro had the grace to look sheepish. "I kind of just went off on my own without waiting for their okay. I know I should have let them handle it, but-"
"But you're used to dealing with emergencies, and having two people you care about stuck in an elevator must feel pretty stressful. It's alright, Shiro. No one will be angry."
"I'll apologize when we're all out of here," said Shiro. "Need an arm up?"
"Please," said Sam. "Matt first. Go easy."
Shiro nodded. Sam pulled Matt to his feet, holding on while Matt swayed a bit. Then Matt reached up, and Shiro helped him haul himself out on top of the elevator. They hugged for a moment, both seeming to relax a fraction more. A fireman showed up by then, and he moved to help Matt start up the ladder to the floor above.
"Your turn," said Shiro, reaching down for Sam. Sam let himself be hauled up, impressed-as usual-with Shiro's strength.
"Thank you."
"No problem," said Shiro, easily. "I'm just glad you're safe." The corners of Shiro's eyes were tight, though, and his shoulders taut, and Sam could tell he'd been much more worried than he'd let on. Getting stuck in an elevator wasn't anything serious, really, but for them...coming out of a war the way they had, it was hard to turn off the high alert for even the smallest hints of danger. All three of them were going to have some unwinding to do that evening.
A few minutes later, all of them were out of the shaft and sticking close together. Shiro's scans had gone well, but he was feeling hypervigilant, eyes darting at sounds around them down different sides of the hallway. A toddler in a stroller dropped a sippy cup in the waiting room a few yards away, and Shiro couldn't help whipping his head around and slipping halfway into a defensive stance.
Between Shiro's live-wire nerves and Matt's complete drooping exhaustion after his panic and flashback, Sam told the physical therapists they were going to just need to reschedule that day. The staff understood, and Sam gently bundled the boys into the hovercar, put on some classical music quietly, and headed back home.
As he passed more fields along the mostly-empty highway, he glanced up into the rearview mirror, smiling softly. Shiro and Matt had silently climbed into the backseat together without even discussing it, and now both were pressed against each other tightly, heads tipped over. Matt's head was on Shiro's shoulder and Shiro's head rested mostly on Matt's ear. Matt was completely out by then, snoring softly. Shiro's eyes were half closed, not far off from dozing himself.
Sam straightened in his seat and pulled his eyes back to the road. All was well that ended well, he thought with amusement. None of them were all right exactly, and things hadn't gone as planned, but at the end of the day they had each other, and with how much everyone cared for one another in this great big space family of theirs, things were bound to work out fine in the end. There was time. Smiling, Sam turned the volume up on the radio just a little, careful not to wake the boys, and nodded to himself.
They had a long way to go before they were healed, physically and mentally, but they'd all get there in the end. And in the meantime, there were naps, and each other, and warm home-cooked meals waiting for them at home, and a fresh start every morning. Tomorrow was always a new day.