After months and months (or maybe years, Lance wasn't sure anymore) of fighting the Galra and trying to free the universe, the team had finally convinced Allura to let them visit their home planet.

Now, this was no easy feat and took much talent and finesse (maybe a little bit of begging was involved too).

Keith had been visiting with them temporarily, and the topic of home had come up. One thing lead to another and, suddenly, Hunk, Pidge, and Lance were desperately trying to convince Allura to allow them to go home.

Keith stayed quiet most of the time since he really had no reason to return to Earth, especially since he had just found his mother who he hadn't even known was alive for most of his life.

The others, including Lance, however, were arguing with all that they had. They needed to get their way.

"I just want to make sure that my moms know that I'm okay," Hunk pleaded with Allura. He'd sent his video note to them earlier in the month, but it wasn't enough for Hunk. Hunk had always been the kind of person who needed physical reassurance which Lance was always happy to give. It was the least he could do for his best friend in the whole world.

"My mom will be worried about me too," Pidge agrees quickly. Her eyes shine with excitement and apprehension at the thought of returning to Earth. "And now that my dad's home, I'm sure that he'll be worried too. Matt can come with us!" She bounces lightly on her feet as she tries to convince Allura to let them at least visit, but remembers that Allura will be convinced more easily if she can see the reasoning behind their return. Pidge clears her throat quickly. "Well, I mean... logically, it would make sense to go. Logically."

Allura shakes her head lightly before speaking. "It just won't do, dear paladins," She says firmly. "We can't leave the front lines for even a moment or the Galra might make a move again."

"Oh, come on, Allura!" Lance says desperately. He needs to see his family. There's no way that he can last any longer without their love and support. The love and support that the rest of the team can't afford to give him up in space. "Lotor's running the empire now. I'm sure that he'll be able to handle it if anybody decides to attack."

This causes Allura to pause for a moment. Perhaps she's surprised at the intelligence that resides in Lance's comment. An intelligence that she isn't used to seeing. She looks him in the eyes and sees the determination that resides there.

This isn't a battle that Lance is willing to give up. He'd never sacrifice the universe for his own selfish wants (that's not a fair exchange), but this is a deal that wouldn't hurt anybody else and would benefit the other members of the team as well as himself.

"Well..." Allura says, her hand resting on her face as she thinks.

Shiro interjects at this point, shocking everyone with what he says next. "I don't feel that we should leave the battle either."

"What?" Lance asks quickly. The confusion must have been evident on his face because Shiro's brow furrowed.

"You heard me, Lance," Shiro says with a hint of anger in his voice. "We can't go home."

It's shocking that Shiro would say this. It's completely out of character. He'd been acting... off... for a while now, but it's been getting worse and worse with each passing day. Obviously, Lance isn't the only one that Shiro targets, but it's seemed like he's been Shiro's personal punching bag. Maybe it's because he's the most annoying and easiest to take things out on. Or maybe not.

Pidge and Hunk share a concerned glance but say nothing, and Keith just widens his eyes a bit at Shiro's outburst.

"Perhaps it would be beneficial for you paladins to have a break," Allura says. "And Lance brings up a good point. Lotor can handle it if anything happens." Allura always seems to be trying to solve conflicts at any cost. It's a quality that Lance admires and wishes that he possessed as well, but he does not. He gets caught up in his own feelings from time to time and forgets that other people have thoughts and opinions as well. It's something that he's trying to work on, but sometimes he just... forgets.

Shiro tries to keep calm, but is obviously getting frustrated. "But- you're going to side with- what?" His speech is hardly coherent, as if he doesn't really know what to say.

"Come on, Shiro!" Pidge tries playfully. "Wouldn't it be great to go back to Earth?"

Shiro just stares for a minute, allowing the room to fall into silence. After a moment, however, he lets out a sigh and speaks. "I guess that you're right," he digresses. "A tired team won't get anything done."

Pidge squeals and breaks into a smile, and Hunk runs over and scoops a laughing Lance into his arms. Even Keith's mouth twists a bit upward into a smile.

It's exciting to think about: that they finally get to go back to Earth. Lance had been waiting forever (or so it seems) for this moment. He's missed his family so much. So fucking much. But he couldn't do anything about it. Until now.

"We should be there by tomorrow, my dear paladins," Coran informs them cheerily after studying a map for a moment. "You should try to sleep so that you'll be well rested when you meet your families again."

It was a tall order, of course. No one would be sleeping. Especially not Lance. He hadn't been sleeping well recently due to the anxiety-inducing thought that they could all be attacked at any moment and everything around them could simply fall apart and they'd-

But that wasn't the reason why he couldn't sleep tonight.

Lance was much too excited to sleep. He felt his heart beating harder than normal as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn't help but smile at the thought of his family and felt warm all over. It was a stark contrast to cold that he had been feeling recently. And it was... good.

It seemed like time passed slower and slower with each glance over to the clock that Pidge had made for him. This is one night that he wished would just hurry the fuck up and be over with.

10:00 pm

11:15 pm

12:30 am

1:45 am

Goddamnit. Just hurry up!" Lance sighs in exasperation.

As morning (or the castle's equivalent of it) finally rolls around, Lance leaps out of bed and makes his way towards the dining room.

He's the first to arrive this morning, shockingly, but the other's aren't far behind him.

Lance cracks a smile at their tired looking faces. "Morning, you guys!"' He says happily, giving them a big wave. "Are you guys ready to see our families?"

"Hell yeah!" Pidge shouts with a smile, pumping a fist in the air.

Hunk is too excited to mind Pidge's language. "Yeah! This is going to be awesome!" He smiles widely which makes Lance's heart warm up even more. It's been so long since he's seen his best friend so excited about something.

Keith is sitting off in the corner brooding (as usual), but even he seems to have an air of excitement about him. His eyebrows are slightly more raised, and his foot is tapping rhythmically on the floor. Although Keith has more for him in space than he ever did on Earth, he obviously can't help but feel an attachment to the planet that he grew up on.

As they all eagerly crowd by the window to be able to get the prize of the first glimpse of their wonderful home, a wave of confusion sweeps over them as they see... nothing. A slight dread and disappointment settles into Lance's stomach, but he pushes it away. Maybe it's just a mistake?

"Uh... Allura?" Lance starts timidly. "There's nothing here. Are you sure this is the right place?"

Concern flashes across Allura's face as she pulls up the map. "Yes... this is the place," she states delicately. "Are you quite sure that nothing is there?"

Lance takes a quick glance out the window again and still sees nothing. The dread takes root for good, and Lance can feel nausea starting to bubble in his stomach. "Allura! There's nothing here-"

"Wait..." Keith interrupts quickly. He places a finger against the window and points into the emptiness. "What the fuck is that?"

At first, Lance sees nothing as he stares out the window, but he slowly starts to see the form of a Galra cruiser come into view. Lance is about to exclaim something, anything, to fill the painful silence that's settled in the room. Anything to help them figure out what is going on, but there's a sound of something hitting the outside of the ship. First, there's one. Then two. Then twenty. Then too many to count. It almost sounds like rain, but they can all clearly see the chunks of rock flying past the window as the fly ever closer to the large ship in front of them.

"Could that be-" Pidge starts to speak, but Lance cuts her off with a scream. Not one of terror or sadness, but one of pure, instinctual rage.

His home... his family... they're...

The Galra. They did it. They destroyed his home. They killed his family.

Why? What could they possibly gain from this horrific action? How would this benefit them in any way?

It won't. They're just cruel. Cruel and depraved organisms that destroyed their home. Their families.

And they must pay.

So, Lance runs. He runs faster than he's ever run before. Adrenaline pumps through his veins as he makes his way towards the hanger.

Blue must have known he was coming and felt his uncontainable rage, as her mouth was open for him to climb into the cockpit when Lance arrived in the room. She was all for helping Lance achieve his bloody goal. She knew that nothing she could say do would stop him, anyway.

Lance practically jumps into his seat and hardly gives any time for the bay doors to open before he's barreling towards the Galra cruiser that lies in front of their ship. He dodges huge amounts of debri and tries not to focus on what it comes from. He leaves no time for the Galra to prepare before he's already on board the ship with his bayard out.

The last thing he remembers is entering fighting stance and seeing many Galra eyes turn towards him.

Then it's a blur. His bayard constantly flips from gun to sword as he takes down Galra after Galra after Galra. His vision is red, but Lance can't tell if that's because of his anger or if it's because of all of the blood.

Arms and legs come off. Heads burst open. Screams are heard, but everything is muffled, and Lance can't process any of it.

He wouldn't have stopped. Not ever. Not if he hadn't heard his name being screamed desperately. And even then he was almost too late.

"Lance, no!"

"Lance!"

"Oh, my god!"

When his vision clears, he opens his eyes to see his sword at the neck of Keith, who's still in his Blade of Marmora uniform. Keith's face is calm, but his hands are shaking.

Lance lets out a gasp and moves his sword away from Keith's neck. Normally, he'd apologize. Normally, he'd see what he's really doing and how bad it really is. But this isn't normal. Nothing's normal. Not now. Not after what they did to him. To his family.

His lips curl into a snarl and he speaks in a low mumble. "Keith, what the fuck are you doing?"

Keith's voice wavers a bit as he speaks, but everyone else is too petrified to do anything. Keith has to take charge. He never liked to be in charge, but he knew when he had to take action. He had to now. Right now. "I think that I should be asking you that."

"Get out of my fucking way, Keith!" Lance shouts, throwing his arms up into the air. His bayard is still formed.

"Don't you think you've done enough?" Keith asks desperately. "Look around you!"

And Lance does. And he sees bodies. An innumerable amount. Endless destruction surrounds them all. But it's still not enough. They have to pay.

"Keith! Do you even know what they did to Earth? To our families? To me?" His voice cracks a bit at the end, but his face stays contorted in fury. "They can't get away with this. They can't." His bayard raises again, and he looks around with wide eyes.

Keith takes a step back but maintains his confident demeanor. "This is not what Voltron does, Lance. We can't just kill them because we're angry. Because they..." His voice trails off, but the ending is implied. "You need to stop."

"My... my family, Keith..." Lance says quietly. "They killed my family." He pauses and wipes his tears quickly, discreetly. "I- they... they were... so important to me, Keith."

"I know, Lance," Keith says. "But... they're gone."

There's silence now. The ship is dead quiet.

"They're... gone."

Lance's heart skips a few beats, and tears start to fall down his face freely. He falls to his knees and winces as he starts to feel the pain from the various injuries that he obtained during his battle with the Galra.

His heart feels a spark of hope, however. For just a moment.

"Prisoners!" He shouts, startling the rest of his team. "They must have taken prisoners! Maybe they're okay! Maybe they're somewhere on this-"

"Lance!" Keith says, running over to him and shaking his shoulders. "Listen." Silence. "No one is here, Lance. They're gone, Lance. They're gone!"

Lance's face falls, and his head drops. He jumps up and wraps his arms around Keith's neck, sobbing and looking for the closest source of comfort.

Keith awkwardly but firmly returns the hug and pulls Lance closer as his shoulders start to shake more and more. Lance's sobs get louder, and his breathing becomes more unstable and erratic. Keith rubs Lance's back and squeezes his eyes shut as all of Lance's feelings fall out of his eyes. Keith gently slides down to the floor with Lance so that he can lean into Lance and support him.

After an indeterminable amount of time, Lance's sobs quiet down and turns into sniffles.

There's a beat of silence before Keith says something.

"What were they like?"

Lance looks up at Keith with red, wide eyes. "What?"

"Your family," Keith says surprisingly gently, still holding Lance close to him. "What were they like?"

Lance laughs weakly before speaking. "You would have loved them. They were incredible." His face settles into a soft smile.

The rest of the day is spent telling stories of family. Some are happy. Some are sad. Some make them cry again, but others make them laugh.

After a while, Pidge and Hunk even tell a few of their own stories as they wipe tears from their wet eyes. They lost their families too. They lost things that can never be returned to them.

Coran is able to tell a few amusing stories of Altea before it was destroyed that get the team to smile sadly, and Lance to laugh sadly.

And things aren't good. That's much is obvious as Lance sits in Keith's arms, surrounded by the bodies of those who wronged him. But things can get better. He knows that they will. Every one is here for him, and he'll try to be there for them too.

Though his real family is gone forever, he has another family that cares for him just as much as the first.

He'll make sure that they never get hurt.

Never.