A/N: Mandatory disclaimer (do people still do these seriously?). As always, enjoy!

Virus Heart (aka If Crushes Were Code)

If crushes were code, then Katie Holt's would be a virus she couldn't fix. It had started out innocently enough, sneaking into her mind at a tender smile when she was small and unprotected. Maybe a few moments were lost. Maybe her brain had stalled a few times. Then it had progressed. Memories were replaced by him, playing on repeat in her mind, scrolling along the sidebars of her consciousness until she was able to catch a glimpse of what had made him laugh during lunch and how his eyes glistened on the 13th of May last year. A new app installed itself, gifting her daydreams of pleasure for the low, low price of a micro-transaction's worth of her life. Her habits were deleted and modified to keep her close to him, closer to him, while her emotional responses to others became distant and robotic. She lived, breathed, and suffered for him. Her hardware couldn't tell the difference between love and pain and so she installed more knowledge in her brain and in her heart that she had no interest in other than its link to him, until one day she woke up and found herself completely taken over by her facade. She was one with her virus now. She was geeky and studious and longed to explore the stars, and she had a stupid crush to thank for it.

From that moment on, her love lessened and her determination skyrocketed. Her system felt clean again, the lag of unrequited-ness swept away. Katie 2.0 was fully operational, rearing to go. She snatched years worth of scientific magazines from her father's dusty stash. She memorised old science and where it was right. She theorised about new technologies and in her disaster of a mind altered the designs to make them less wrong. She studied while others mocked her. She worked while her family worried about her friendless state. And then life changed again.

Her brother was going on a mission with her father and him. She was happy. She was jealous. She smiled. She was mad. She hated them.

They were missing.

It was hell.

Katie regretted every moment spent envying her brother, blessed every second touched by her need to stay relevant, to stay beside him. She used every bit of knowledge the virus had made her work for to bring her family back. She used her anger to power herself when waking became difficult. Somewhere between the lines of sleep-deprivation and panic, the love came back. Then he came back. Before she even registered what she was seeing, an entire civilisation came back (albeit one with two living members). War came back. Lions came back. Voltron came back. He was chosen as leader. She would let him take her anywhere.

He started to look at the Princess with respect. Maybe more. She looked in the mirror and saw a boy. That was the day the virus started causing her to malfunction. She cried in his arms. He expected her to and she couldn't stop herself because even after all the hiding and shifting like a chameleon, he had spotted her for who she really was, or who she used to be. She lived for the touch, letting herself be thought a child. What could she do? To him, Keith was a child.

Despite her state, life moved quickly. She became adept in her new role and accustomed to the challenges it presented. She may have infiltrated the inner workings of the castle more than once to prevent certain relationships from developing. Could anyone blame her? She was broken inside; scattered, and tattered, and vulnerable.

Her brother was found. Her father was not. Several birthdays passed. War raged on. He was taken from them (but most importantly her) twice over. An affair sparked, only to be gutted out by the memory of him inside her mind, standing helpless and unloved. She would not let him die that way.

Nobody called her Katie anymore. It was like they had forgotten her real name existed. Even Matt exclusively called her Pidge. She felt hollow, like an empty grave. The war was over. Her crush was over. She hurt for him, she did. He was a lost friend amongst many, but nothing more.

Her lion began to refuse her. One day she simply found herself locked out by a forcefield. Within the hour she was packed to join the rebels. No goodbye. No explanation. Pidge was done with explaining things no one could hope to understand.

It was several months before they found the pod, several more before they were able to zap it out of stasis. If she had any life left in her she would have gasped. It was him. Of course it was. It was always him.

Welcomed back with open arms, he chose to stay with the rebels, who were now more police force than fugitives. The kinship between them remained, though never felt quite as easy. As partners, their respect for each other multiplied. Pidge sometimes almost smiled in his presence.

It was the day of her 28th birthday that he pulled her aside, not that she had been celebrating or that anyone else had been around to listen to their conversation. He seemed nervous, his words stuttered like a dying laptop.

"I love you, Katie."

Pidge's eyes widened with surprise, more at the fact that he had used her name than anything else.

"Well obviously," she replied, "You're not a subtle person Shiro."

He blanched at that and she clasped his hand, "I love you too."

The assurance was accompanied by a small but sincere smile. One which was heartily returned.

If crushes were code, then Katie Holt's had been a virus she couldn't fix. But Katie had changed – was updating constantly – and no virus could keep up forever. She may have been an irrevocably altered machine, but she was also an efficient one. She knew that puppy love and underhanded antics were not the way to Shiro's heart, so she had let the virus make one last alteration to her – she had let it close itself down, and allowed its files to be overwritten with real, lasting love.

A/N: So this is new. I'm really just fiddling around with new ideas/writing styles at the moment. I hope this was an enjoyable read; it was certainly fun to write.

Love,

Lucy~!