Lance clenched the handles of Red, feeling the anxiety knot in his stomach. It felt like a cobra, wrapping around his lungs so he couldn't breathe and made his heart beat faster and faster. Lance closed his eyes, thinking of Earth, thinking of his home and family. Don't worry guys, I'm coming home.

Kaltenecker mooed beside Lance, making the blue paladin look over at the cow.

"What's up, little girl?" Lance said, putting his hand on the cow's neck. "I know you don't like flying in the ships so much, but it is only for a while longer. Allura has been helping use jump a lot, so we should be getting to Earth soon enough."

Lance's heart stung ever so slightly at the thought of the princess. She has been through so much recently, much more than anyone else it seemed. The pain she was going through it, he felt it and still feels it. The last thing she needed was Lance's feelings and problems troubling her.

"Hey, do you ever feel like you begin losing who you are once you're gone for too long?" Lance asked his animal companion. "Like, you're a cow and you get milked, that's what you're for, it's your duty. But up here in space, not everyone would have known you did that, so you probably didn't get milked a lot and then, well, you felt like you lost your purpose."

Lance looked around the red lion, taken in the environment that he had grown so used to. "I know I became a defender of the universe and all, which is great, I saved a lot of people, saw the galaxy, protected the entirety of the universe and all, but even I know I'm just a filler. I couldn't even stay in my own lion. Allura is piloting Blue and she's doing a really great job, a better job than I ever did." Lance's voice began to trail off, he already thought about this before. Maybe too many times. He knew he was replaceable, especially since Shiro was back and recovering. Lance remembered talking to Keith about it, it felt like forever ago. Keith said to just leave it alone, but how could he?

"I..I just feel like I need to get back to the place where I belong, where I am sure there's a spot for me."

"Oh my god, do you guys see that!?" a voice said over the speaker. It took Lance a moment to realize it was Hunk.

Lance directed his attention forwards, the sight before him stealing his breath. There it was earth, blue, green, and breathtaking. The tears in Lance's eyes were threatening to come pouring out at any second as the Latino felt all the emotions swell inside him.

"Whoohooo," Pidge said, no doubt just as excited to see her planet. Lance heard a soft sob from Hunk's speaker, knowing the softy was completely overwhelmed.

"I can't believe it," Lance heard Keith say. "We made it."

"So this is Earth," Allura said in awe. "I'm so happy that our journey was successful."

"What are we waiting for?" Lance said, his fingers twitching against to move forward.

"Wait, Lance, we need to think about this first," Keith said, causing Lance to frown.

"What do you mean 'think about it', we made it, what more do we need to do." They were so close, so unbelievably close. Lance felt Voltron come to a halt. "We shouldn't be stopping."

"Keith is right," Pidge said. "We need to look up the coordinates for the Garrison and alert them that we are here. We wouldn't want them thinking we're the enemy or anything."

"None of you guys did that on the trip here?" Lance's words were coming out a little harsher than he had wanted, but he couldn't help it.

"We didn't have a solid location for a while, Lance," Allura said, her tone one as if trying to calm her fellow paladin. "It will only take a few dobashes to get the message through and get permission to land."

"And we can start heading down when we wait," Lance argued, thrusting his controls forward, causing the robot's arm to begin moving. He felt a jerk as he was forced to stop. "I thought I told y'all that we won't stop. We're so close, why wait now?"

"Lance," Hunk said the name quietly as if not to push his friend that seemed so close to the edge already. "It's okay. We've been gone for so long already, what is the worst a few ticks could do?"

The tears in Lance's eyes were escaping as he gritted his teeth, hands shaking. I don't want to wait a tick, I don't want to be in space. I want to go home. With a yell of aggravation, Lance thrusted his controls forward once more. He felt the fire of emotions inside him begin to blaze, resonating all throughout the red lion. With a burst of energy, Lance felt Voltron combust into five separate lions, his own already flying full speed down towards the planet.

Faster, he had to go down faster. It felt like every second he sat in his chair it became more and more likely for his whole home to disappear. He had seen it too many times, comets, moons, planets, blown away with a single ray of energy, the inhabitants gone forever. He knew that the Galra knew about Earth, that any moment they could appear and destroy it to seek revenge on their fallen emperor. So, yes, every tick did count.

"Lance, what are you doing?" Keith's angered voice rang throughout the red lion. "You can't just do that."

"I'm sorry." Lance's lie didn't even sound genuine at the moment, not when his lion was racing down to find the first bit of land Lance saw. "I..I just couldn't wait." As Lance broke through the atmosphere and kept heading down, he noticed the view of the outside becoming blurry. With water.

Lance stopped Red right before getting near the ground. He wasn't sure where he landed, but all he saw was he was on a beach and it was raining. A heavy sigh came from the paladin as he exited his lion, throwing his helmet off before using his jetpack to land onto the sand. It was raining, actually raining.

It didn't feel real, the water splattering down onto his face from the sky. So many times he had taken a shower on the ship and closed his eyes as the water hit him, imagining that it was raining hitting his face, but it was never like this. The patterns were random and it came with a smell of fresh water yet the salt from the ocean interfered. But Lance couldn't care the least. Tears began to flow like rivers down his cheeks, mixing with the rainwater.

"Finally, I'm back where I belong," Lance said to himself, a sob leaving his chest soon after. He felt like he was there for hours, letting the rain fall down on him like he would let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday and all the days since he had been gone. All the fights and battles, times he had to sacrifice his own well being and to take on responsibilities he never thought he would have to bare.

"Lance!" a voice came booming, making the blue paladin look over. In his red paladin uniform, Keith came down from the clouds, landing on the beach beside his partner.

"Keith…" the Latino trailed off as he was approached.

"What you did was totally uncalled for," Keith said, stopping when he was a step away from Lance. "Why would you do something so selfish? We were all ready to come back, don't think that you were the only one messing earth. But you have to stay focused, this isn't the time for people to be letting loose. At least let us get to the Garrison first. We were worried about you."

"But we're back," Lance said with a wary smile, his eyes meeting Keith's. "Keith, we're home." Lance grabbed Keith's hand and tugged him forward. "It's the beach, the ocean, the sand, the smell. And look at the sky, Keith put your hands up and feel the rain. It's rain Keith, actual rain." Lance forced Keith's hand into the air, letting his gloved palm reach as far as it could.

Keith looked up and then back at Lance. The Latino was still smiling, but a new set of tears had begun pouring out of his eyes.

"Haven't you missed it?"

Keith wasn't sure what he was referring to, was it the feeling rain drizzling down on him or being on earth in general? "Yeah, it's been a long time coming." He had heard Lance constantly talk about coming back, and of course, Keith always had the feeling that he too wished to be back on earth where things were what he was used to, but it felt like an escape he needed at the time.

"Isn't it just beautiful?" Lance questioned, directing his attention back to the sky and ocean, looking out towards the horizon where the two merge into one. "It being somewhere so familiar, a place that feels like home?"

Keith took his hand from Lance's and took off his helmet, letting the breeze and raindrops hit his face. "To be honest, it is foreign as foreign to me as any other planet."

Lance snapped his head towards his friend. "What do you mean? The ocean, the beach, no place ever had this."

"Yeah, well, I've never been to the ocean before," Keith admitted with a sigh. "I never got the chance to travel to the coast." Keith thought about how his dad always said he would take him one day, but the chance never came. And with Shiro balancing his own schooling and future with raising Keith, he never seemed to have the time and assets to arrange a trip to the beach.

"Wow, I can't even imagine," Lance said, looking at Keith in awe. Lance sat down on the sand, taking off his chest armor and placing it in front of him, leaning against it. "Growing up in Cuba, the beach was always there, all you had to do was walk down the street and there it was, ready for a little kid to sprend their day away." Lance remembered the trips he took with his friends on the weekends, or when snuck out with his siblings to race on the beach at night. Their feet hitting the wet sand and the dying waves kissed the shore's end.

"It makes me not want to leave," Lance said aloud as he felt the water touch his toes, shoes discarded long ago.

"Lance," Keith said but was interrupted.

"I know, I know, I have a duty to the universe and all, but I can't help but think about it," Lance began to draw patterns in the wet sand. "I already told you that there's an extra paladin, and I feel like it is me. And honestly, is it that bad to not want to go away after all of this? This place, my home, it's what made me, saved me, heck, it can drive me crazy, but it is still where I have a purpose. And for all of my shortcomings and flaws, my family still saw the best of me, and they've forgiven my mistakes."

There was a long pause of silence, the only sounds were those of waves crashing, the wind, and the pitter patter of the rain hitting the suits of the paladins.

"Do you not feel like that with the team?" Keith asked, his gut dropping slightly when Lance stopped making patterns in the sand and brows knitted together.

Lance gave a heavy sigh. "I can't say I completely feel the same way, that would just be another lie I carry on. I just feel like we are always in such intense situations that if I ever make a mistake I can't make up for it and conceal it. Making a mistake at home would at worst get me yelled at, but out there," Lance's eyes traveled upward, neck fully craned until his eyes only saw the rain clouds up ahead, "a simple mistake could end with someone dead. I just… I just feel like I am a person that has made too many mistakes and can't be trusted. Especially with people's lives, not with millions of aliens I don't even know who are counting on me to save them. Not with Allura's, she's a princess who has thousands of Alteans that need her guidance. I can't be trusted with Hunk's or Pidge's or Shiro's" Lance looked over at Keith who was taken aback by Lance's words. He couldn't tell this time if Lance was crying again or it was the raindrops that still landed on his face. "I can't even trust myself to keep you safe."

"But, Lance, you have kept me safe, you have kept all of us safe," Keith said, trying to find words to support his paladin. He didn't know it had gotten that bad, all this time, Lance had been hurting, been walking over his shattered confidence like glass on the floor, trying his best to keep carrying everyone else while hurting himself. "We defeated Zarkon and Lotor, we stopped whole planets from being destroyed. Lance, you have been amazing ever since we left earth. Hell, you're the reason we left Earth because you were the one to connect with the blue lion, something none of us were able to do. Not only that, but you found a connection with Red too, and she's a feisty one." Keith placed his hand on Lance's, hoping his words were reaching the other as sincere as Kith had intended them to. "And you have saved me countless times. Back when we were barely a team you gave Pidge and I the opening to bring down Sendak. Lance McClain, you are far from worthless, you are one of the most important parts of this team."

The words made Lance's whole body glow. "Thanks, Keith that really means a lot." Lance didn't move his hand just yet as he leaned his other hand back to support him. "To be honest, flying in those giant, robot lions, I never felt so strong before then. I would have these feelings like there's nothing I can't try, ya know?"

Keith chuckled and nodded his head. "I get you. Being part of Voltron, it is just amazing. To think that we hold the connection to these extraordinary machines that not just anyone could have. It's astonishing."

"Well, you also have a bound with two of them, one of them even being the leader," Lance said, nudging Keith's shoulder playfully. "Look at you being a hot shot."

"It wasn't easy, not at all," Keith said. "But it really helped when I got you guy's support." Keith cleared his throat. "Thanks, by the way, for back then, when you supported me leading the team."

Lance shrugged. "I've seen you at the Garrison, you know how things need to be worked out and handled. Even if you were a crappy leader at first."

"Hey," Keith snapped, causing Lance to laugh.

"Hey, you learned, you learned," Lance said, putting his hands up to show he was backing down. "Man, that feels like so long ago. It feels like everything happened. A lot of fights."

"Lot of scars."

"Lot of ups and downs."

"And here we stand, better men because of it all."

Lance could only nod in agreement as he let his mind drift. To think nothing had changed would be to think their jobs of protecting the universe was over, and it just wasn't so. So when the rain finally stopped and Keith convinced Lance to get to his lion, Lance went with little hesitation. He settled into Red, giving a sleeping Kaltenecker a pat.

"You're finally back," Pidge's voice said once Lance and Keith were back in their lions and were flying towards the direction on their maps that located where the other lions were.

"Sorry about that," Lance said with a smirk. "Pidge, do me a favor. I need to have the Garrison contact my family. Have them tell them, have them tell the world I'm coming home."

"I was starting to get worried," Krolia said as Keith entered the black lion. "I couldn't shake the feeling that you were about to be attacked."

"I'm fine," Keith said. "The most I got was being assaulted by the rain. Damn, I'm soaked." He could feel the chills running over him from the water that had soaked his suite that was under his armor. Although he knew it was a lie. He felt his own guilt begin to attack him as he sat on the beach with Lance. The guilt he had lived with for over two years since he had decided to join the blade. The guilt of leaving Lance.

Keith knew how Lance was feeling, about being unsure of his place on the team. And although it pained him to leave, Keith knew that if he was gone, Lance would see that he had to be there for Voltron to go on. But it didn't stop the thoughts Keith had every night, thinking if Lance was okay or if he had finally built up his confidence.

Keith had thought that after all this time he would have a least grown himself. He had discovered who he was and had finally acted like the leader Voltron needed, but he still couldn't do it. He still couldn't tell Lance how he felt. He's been in love but they've been living as friends at best, rivals on the off days. But Keith still knew that Lance needed to be home and needed support.

Keith just wasn't' sure if Lance needed him.