As far as he could see, no one has survived. The ruins of the laboratory scatter the ground. An acetic scent hangs in the air, intermingling with smoke and other scents Keith can't recognize. And he can taste it, sour, on his tongue. It burns his throat and stings his eyes. Ash flecks his hair, some flakes hotter than others, he does the best to ignore those that contact his skin.
They are on a rescue mission.
But it this point he thinks that it is more of a body recovery.
He doesn't know the planet, he has never been to it. But the laboratory that once stood there had been a poison to the citizens. An oppressive terror that they couldn't drive out on their own. The battle had been tricky and Hunk will bare a few scars to prove it. Keith finds it hard to gauge whether they had won or lost. On one hand, the laboratory is no longer and most of its ungodly research has been obliterated with it. On the other, Haggar had destroyed it herself, leaving him wondering if it could have been of use to them.
He can hear Veronica calling for Acxa in the distance. The half-Galra has been missing for months and Veronica is just as frantic about finding her as he is. But she had disappeared without a trace, he doesn't know if she has left on her own or if she has been taken. He goes over it in his head as he plunders the wreckage, wondering if he could have possibly done anything to have prevented her vanishing. He pushes over blocks of cement, carefully dodges frayed wires and shards of glass and shrapnel, and peers into broken incubators that leak opalescent fluids of colors all over the spectrum. "I don't think there's anyone here!" He says into his communication device. His eye falls on a man, this one Galra. He checks for a pulse. "No one living, anyways." He adds grimly.
He thinks that he should be happy to see some Galra strewn out and lifeless as the humans they abducted. But he finds his heart aching for them. They have family just as Lance does. They have friends just like he.
And then he sees her, amid the wreckage, partially buried. The debris looks heavy and he fears for how her bones fare beneath the weight of them. He runs up to her because he swears he sees movement, the faintest twitch of pale fingers.
.oOo.
Her breathing is heavy, it feels as though there is a weight on her chest and it is oppressive. She is just barely awake and can only hear a faint buzz, perhaps the whir of the heating system. It is accompanied by a feeling of dread, she knows that sound. She is fading out again with fear as a companion. Teetering closer to unconsciousness, she recalls in snippets; a UV lit room, a flash of quintessence, pain, the witch's face, more pain, a tangle of wires, the scuff on the floor, pain. So much pain.
And so much quintessence.
Consciousness hits her like an icy wave and she bolts up.
In doing so, she realizes that she is mistaken. The buzz can't be the one she is accustomed to, because she doesn't recognize her surroundings. It takes her a moment to realize that she is sitting on a bed, a rather comfy one at that. And the room isn't quite so dismal; not like the other one, the one that had only a stiff-mattressed bed and cold metal walls. The room also doesn't bring her a sense of nauseating terror like the barren UV room.
The room, however, does not have windows and it unsettles her stomach. She is truly horrified, because, this time, she has no idea what to expect. She is about to curl herself up and shed a few silent cries when she spies the writing desk in the corner, complete with some notebooks and pencils as well as the digital versions of them—the tools she is more familiar with. A small light offers a warm glow.
The comfort is very fleeting, it only remains for another few minutes. Because she looks at her hands.
They don't look right.
They aren't hers.
And she is cold with a new kind terror.
She shivers and lays back down. Nuzzling her head against the pillow, she closes her eyes and tries to forget. Tries to pretend that nothing is different. But her hands, they don't look right…
.oOo.
"Where did you find her?" Allura asks.
"In the wreckage of the laboratory." Keith replies. "She was the only survivor."
"How long do you think they've had her for?" Veronica askes.
"I don't know. I guess we won't find out, until she wakes up." Keith replies.
"So, one human survivor and no Galran survivors?" Allura concludes.
"No Balmera nor Olkari either." Pidge points out.
He can see it on Allura's face that she considers the mission to be a failure. He is starting to agree; wiping out the lab had been secondary. The primary goal had been to save the people imprisoned within. He is beginning to think that they are the cause of their death; if they hadn't made their appearance so overt then Haggar might not have destroyed the lab and everyone in it, in such haste.
"We let everyone down." Lance remarks grimly.
Once again, Keith finds himself grateful for Shiro. Shiro who speaks up, "we saved one person and that's better than no one at all. And if we do this right, she might be able to help us find out just what Haggar is trying to accomplish."
Still, Keith can't help but fall into a slump of pessimism. It's another defeat in a very steady losing streak. And he doesn't have Acxa back. He hopes that she isn't with the witch. He fears that she may have betrayed them and went back to the vile woman just as much as he fears that she has been captured. He thinks that it might almost be worse to find her in league with Haggar again; it would mean that she has played him for a fool. That he meant nothing at all to her. He tries to purge the thought.
Shiro slings an arm around him. "You're thinking about Acxa, aren't you?"
"And this mission." Keith mutters. He can't help but snap a little, "are we even helping the universe anymore?" He pauses. "Because lately we've only helped the Galra take more lives?"
"This wasn't a shining moment." Shiro agrees with a solemn nod. "But I have a feeling at least one person will thank us."
He knows Shiro means well—he always does, but Keith can't help but find himself off-put. He doesn't like the idea of banking everything on the slim chance that this one woman can help them out.
.oOo.
Lying in bed, on her side, she flexes her fingers again. They shouldn't move, because they aren't hers. But they do. They obey every command she sends. And those unfamiliar hands tremble. More precisely, she shakes all over. Her fingers don't end in points as they should. They are softer and subtler.
Finally, she finds it in herself to pull herself upright again. She isn't sure if she should try either of the doors in the room. She gets up anyhow and tries the one closest to the writing desk. It opens with ease and she finds herself in a bathroom, more human in design. She recalls the workings of some of the appliances from her time on Earth. So she is on a human craft, she notes to herself. She might have been relieved if not for her skin. In this light, she can see once and for all that it is missing any and all pigments of blue. Her complexion compares more to that of Keith's, maybe a shade or so darker. There is a mirror in this room, and she is afraid to steal a glance.
Whatever she sees, she knows that it won't be her.
In the past she hasn't exactly been comfortable in her own half-breed skin. But in this moment, she only wants to be her.
She only wants to see steely blue irises against a soft, Galran luminescent yellow. She only wants to see pale blue skin and pointed ears, but when she does finally muster up the courage to peer into the mirror, she doesn't. Instead she sees steely blue against white. She runs her un-pointed fingers along smaller, rounded ears. And she bites the inside of her cheek.
She truly isn't her.
This isn't her.
It can't be.
Gripping the sink, she lets her head droop and a sweep of thick black hair falls into her face.
Black hair.
It should be blue. Deep blue.
Just as her skin should be blue. Yet the only blue she can see is on her hips, when she finds it in her to lift her shirt to inspect her injuries. She really ought not to find solace in her own pain, but the cluster of large purple-blue bruises are a comfort. As much as they aile her, they let her pretend for a second, that she is herself.
Now that she has drawn attention to it, she realizes that she hurts all over. She doesn't think that she will be able to bend without causing her hips some strife. She runs those unclawed, human hands, through her hair and she is distressed all over again. Her horns! She no longer has them either.
She thinks that this hurts her more than all else, her horns were the things she was most proud of. Now she doesn't even have them. Leaning against the counter, she sinks to the floor and buries her head in her knees.
Suddenly she longs to awaken, bound up in the UV room.
She tries to focus on the physical pain instead of the alteration of her appearance. There is a pounding in her calves and a throbbing in her ankles. She thinks that if she exerts too much force or stands up the wrong way, that she may break at least one of them.
And she considers doing it, because that would really give her something else to think of.
.oOo.
Keith doesn't have much of an appetite. He sits between Lance and Hunk and across from Veronica, picking at his food. Perhaps it was more akin to pushing it around with his fork.
"Oh, you are not doing good." Hunk sighs. "It's always a bad sign when a good meal doesn't help. You want to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about." He says harshly. "We failed our mission and Acxa's still missing." He catches Veronica's eye. Her expression grows sullen at the mention of her closest friend.
"What upsets you more?" Lance asks.
He resents the question and grows suddenly fond of the mashed potatoes in front of him.
"Well?" Lance persists. He doesn't know when to quit and Keith doesn't have the patience for it at the moment. He slams his spoon down, well aware that he hasn't had an angsty outburst like this in a while, and wanders towards his room.
"Whoa there, you shouldn't be walking around yet!" He hears Coran exclaim from down the hall. Keith knows who he will see before he looks up and groans to himself. He didn't carefully and painstakingly pick her out of the wreckage just for her to snap her bones already. Even from a considerable distance he can see the alarm and distress on her face. It sobers him some and he has to take a moment to calm himself, he doesn't want to take things out on her. Of course she is wandering, she is disoriented and they had left her unsupervised in a new place.
"Keith?" At first it is a question. And then when she draws nearer, "Keith!" He can see the relief in her eyes.
Her eyes. There is something about them…
She says his name again.
"Have I met you before?" He asks.
Her eyes go wide and then dim, as she seems to remember something. "Keith, it's me."
And it occurs to him that she looks familiar. Without her Glara blood, she has a much smaller frame and height. Between that and her perplexed expression, she looks so fragile. All of the annoyance and rage melts away. He pulls her into a hug, taking care to avoid the bruised areas. "Acxa?"
She nuzzles her face against his chest.
It's all the confirmation that he needs.
