Prologue
When they find Pidge, it's after weeks of searching. Seven weeks, two days, and thirteen hours, to be exact. It's Shiro's fault Lance even knows that number. Their leader has only been updating everyone on the stats about every five minutes the entire time she's been gone - since he toppled out of a med pod and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Katie! Where's Katie!"
Because apparently that's actually Pidge's name, and supposedly they were all supposed to have known that since she dropped the Um-I'm-a-Girl bomb a few months ago, but Lance had been having enough trouble at the time processing that one to catch anything else, and they all still call her Pidge anyway, so how was he supposed to remember?
Anyway. It's not like Lance actually has a problem knowing how long Pidge has been gone...it just makes it suck more every time Shiro-or, sometimes, Keith-says something.
Lance still doesn't know the details of how the Galra got hold of her, really. Hunk doesn't either. No one will spell it out. Keith popped through that wormhole above the icy water planet Lance and Hunk had landed on and came down for them. When they got back to the castle there was no warm group welcome in the hangar. No ticker-tape we're-all-back-together party.
Keith met them in the corridor between the lions, and Lance still remembers the look on his face. Like he hated being the bearer of bad news.
"Where is everybody?" Lance asked.
"Have you not found the others yet?" Hunk echoed.
"Shiro's in a med pod. He'll be fine in another day or two…" Keith paused too long. Longer than usual for him, anyway. That was when Lance knew something was wrong.
"Keith, what?"
"The Galra have Pidge." He wasn't looking at them anymore. Of course he wasn't. Quiznaking...quiznak.
"You couldn't have said something sooner!?" Lance could have decked him then. He really could have.
"We were under water! And private team affairs were none of their business!"
Hunk scoffed. "Who were the mermaids gonna tell, Keith? You didn't think that was important?"
"Paladins!"
Allura, rounding the corner into the corridor with Coran on her heels. And thank god for her, or they might have really been at each other's throats soon enough. They were all tired, they'd just gotten Allura back, then been tossed to the four corners of the galaxy thanks to the druids screwing with their escape wormhole, and now this…
It was not a good day.
"What happened!" Lance demanded.
"Pidge constructed a signaling device that led Coran and I to her, and helped us to find Keith and Shiro, but unfortunately the Galra were somehow able to track us there as well."
Keith's arms crossed over his chest as he glared off at nothing. "We were in the middle of getting back to the castle from the surface of the planet when they showed up. Shiro was injured and could barely fly. It was an entire fleet; we were no match for them with two and a half lions."
Neither Keith nor Allura seemed to want to finish the story, so Coran did it for them. "Pidge ran interference until Keith could get Shiro aboard the castle, but by then they'd locked onto her lion with an upgraded tractor beam. We...we weren't able to free her from it in time."
It hasn't been a great few weeks since. The Galra have been smarter this time - keeping her on a ship and always moving rather than dragging her back to Zarkon's central command.
Lance doesn't really want to think about the fact that they've been actively trying to keep them from finding Pidge means their objective is definitely different this time. They're not trying to lure in Voltron-or what's left of Voltron-like they were with Allura. So what do they want?
"Pidge, hang on, I'm coming after you!"
"Don't you dare, Keith! You do that, you'll be stuck in this tractor beam too. Find the others and come back for me."
"We're not leaving—"
Green rattled at another impact to the tractor beam's genesis point from Keith's lasers, but the beam itself didn't even flicker and the Galra ship pulling her in loomed closer. There was no time. As soon as they had Pidge and her lion inside they'd go after Keith and Shiro.
"Shiro, tell him you have to! Allura!"
Shiro's voice then, as her radio began to cut out. "Keith...Keith, she's right..."
Of course she'd been right.
That doesn't mean she hasn't regretted being right every day since.
She still dreams about the day it happened. She still wonders if it could have gone differently. She doesn't know how long it's been, but she knows her hair is in her eyes and just starting to swing above her shoulders. Then again, back at the castle she was constantly trimming it to keep her short style intact...stupid teenage hormones making it grow like weeds, she guessed. Maybe it hasn't been too long...just a few weeks. Or something.
It's so quiet in this cell. It's a nice contrast from...other times. But if she's in here long enough it can be maddening. She likes being alone but it's never silent. At the very least there is always the keys of her computer in the background, or music to keep her company.
At least Green is here to keep her from going crazy.
Well...not here here. But on the ship. Somewhere. Pidge can feel it. If she closes her eyes Green is there, telling her to hold on, like the soft hum of a purring kitten in her ear if it were deeper...and, somehow, so much more powerful and infinitely more gentle all at once.
