The Paladins were just finishing up lunch in the kitchen when they heard a thump and a groan coming from the common room just down the hall. Sharing worried glances with each other, the five Paladins jumped up along with Coran and Allura ran out to see what happened.
Pidge was behind the others and as they rounded the corner, they came to an abrupt stop.
"What? What is it?" Pidge asked anxiously, unsure of what could make the other freeze like that in the safety of the castle.
They turned to her and awkwardly gestured for her to go in, clearing a space for her to walk through. That's when she saw what it was. Or rather, who.
A person was getting up off the floor, brushing themselves off.
Was it? Could it really be?
Yes. Yes it was. The face adorning caramel coloured hair and the big amber eyes that matched her own was staring back at them from across the room.
Pidge heard herself shout something as she flung herself at her brother. The brother that she had been missed and been longing for since the day he left and been looking for since he got captured. Pidge could hardly contain her happiness and felt a huge smile stretch across her face. She couldn't believe it! He was really here! He was alive! Finally after all this time looking, he was here, alive and safe in her arms. He was- he was stiff and tense in her grip.
Matt grabbed her shoulders and roughly shoved her away from him.
"Who are you?" He demanded angrily, taking a few defiant steps back away from her, adopting a stance that showed he was ready to fight her.
Pidge felt her heart stop as it dropped down past her feet. She was suddenly cold all over as the world around her came to a screeching halt. It felt like the floor had been ripped out from under her, leaving her disoriented.
Did he not know it was her? Did he not remember her? Had the Galra done something to him? Wiped his memory? Take over his mind? Turn him into a brainless slave, forced to do horrible, dangerous tasks for them?
Pidge had been worried, stressing over the possibility of Matt being dead, but this, this was much, much worse. Pidge felt her stomach churns and dry heaved as she bit back a gag to keep herself from throwing up. Eyes wide and tears threatening to spill, Pidge hesitantly whispered "...Matt?"
Hearing a voice that Matt would know anywhere, Matt's amber eyes widened with shock at who it was.
"Katie?!"
Pidge nodded and burst into tears with relief when Matt rushed forward and his arms were wrapped tightly around her shaking body. The force from his hug knocked them off their feet, but the two Holt siblings didn't care. They were crying hard, lying on the floor and holding tight, breathing in the other's presence, too scared to let go in fear of them disappearing. Pidge could feel that Matt felt skinnier, more bones were prominent than before.
After what felt like an hour, they shakily pulled away from their tight embrace.
"I'm so sorry that I didn't realize that it was you for a second there, Katie. You can't really trust strangers out here, and I couldn't see that it was you cause the Galra broke my glasses and everything's just a blurred mess, and I just," he trailed off.
"That's okay, I have them here!" Pidge reached up to take them off.
Matt's eyes widened once again, and snatched them off her face before she could.
"You're wearing my glasses?!" He cried out in shock. "Katie! You'll hurt your eyes!"
"No, no, it's okay," she reassured quickly. "I switched out your prescription lenses with fake ones. I have your real ones here."
Matt released a breath he didn't know he was holding as he watched her switch them back.
"Why were you wearing my glasses?" Matt asked carefully.
Pidge looked down and drew in a shaky breath as she handed him his glasses. Matt slipped them on, the world came sharply into focus. He had to blink his eyes a couple of times to adjust to the lenses again.
"It's a long story, but after the, uh, incident it was easier when I had you glasses with me. Felt like you weren't really gone."
When Matt looked back at his Katie, clearly this time, he could see that his baby sister wasn't quite so young anymore. She had a mature aura around her. She had grown up while he was gone, something he was supposed to be with her for. Her eyes were still fully sparkling with young excitement, and though she was still small, her build was more firm, ready to fight anyone, at any moment but had a tired set to it. She had cut her hair, looking more like himself than she had before.
He reached forward, stroking his hands through her caramel locks that reached her collarbones. "Oh, Katie, your hair."
"It was shorter, but I've been growing it out again."
"You were so proud of your long hair, why'd you cut it so short?"
"Well, it was for, um, reasons that you will find out soon enough. But, hey, your hair is a lot longer now!"
"Oh, yeah," Matt flicked his head so his hair fell in his face. "I've been going for the scruffy surfer dude look. Soon it'll be long enough to put back in a… man bun."
Pidge gasped and socked Matt hard in the shoulder. "Don't you dare!" She shrieked.
Matt laughed out loud, throwing his head back. "I'm kidding, Katie, I wouldn't do that. I just haven't gotten the opportunity to cut it in a while."
Then something familiar caught Matt's attention.
"Is that, is that my sweater?"
Pidge fidgeted, "Uh, yeah."
Matt sighed. "Man, what on earth were you doing? Literally, what on Earth were you doing? With hair any shorter than that, my sweater, and my glasses, you'd look just like me when I was younger."
Pidge grinned, "Yeah, you grew up, you old man."
The older Holt sibling let out an indignant squawk at her comment.
"Who're you calling old man?" Matt demanded playfully while reaching forward and pulling her into his lap.
"You! You're an old man!" She giggled.
"Oh, you're asking for it" Matt grinned as he started tickling her sensitive sides with no mercy.
"No, no! Please stop!"
Pidge was full out laughing by that time, squirming around, trying and failing to escape her brother's clutches.
"Then take it back. Say I'm not an old man." Matt said as he lessened his attack, but not stopping.
"Never!" She cried out between breaths. "You're an old man!" Then, even louder, "MATTHEW HOLT IS AN OLD MAN!"
Then Matt did the unthinkable. He leaned down and blew a wet raspberry against her tummy, at which she screeched before laughing hysterically some more.
The other paladins and the two Alteans watched the Holt sibling's interactions with happy smiles on their faces. Lance felt a slight twinge in his chest, they reminded him so much of his own family back home, how he would wrestle and play with his younger niece and nephew and tease his siblings and cousins. When it looked like they were getting tired out, Shiro stepped forward still grinning from the siblings crazy antics.
"Alright kids, playtime's over," in the tone the other paladins called his 'dad voice'.
"Thanks, Shiro," Pidge managed to get out through her heavy breathing.
Matt looked up, eyes widening just before he scrambled up and pulled Shiro into his tight embrace.
"Shiro? You're alive!" Matt flung himself at his dearly missed friend. "I thought you were dead!" Pulling away abruptly to look at him, Matt asked "How did you survive the arena?"
Things sobered up pretty quickly at that.
"Well," Shiro seemed a bit uncomfortable. "About that," he trailed off. "It's kinda a long story, kinda goes with Pidge's."
"Pidge?" Matt asked, looking to Katie. "He's using your nickname?"
"Yeah, you'll find out why soon enough."
"Boy, oh boy. You're really trying to tire me out," Matt chuckled.
"Yep," Pidge said popping the the 'p'. "Hey, so what's been happening with you? Do you know where Dad is?" she asked hopefully.
"No, sorry. I have no idea. He got taken somewhere else, I think a work camp, when they brought Shiro and I to the arena to fight. After Shiro, uh, got me out of there, I was thrown into another cell, by myself this time. I was mostly left alone, unless some Galra wanted to 'have fun' or whatever, or when the witch wanted to experiment or run tests."
"What'd they do to you?" Pidge asked quietly, horrified, not sure if she wanted to hear or not.
"The ones that visited my cell mostly just beat me up and stuff," Matt spoke quickly, not meeting the pitying looks, a shame unknown to the others almost stopping him from speaking. He wasn't lying, he just was omitting certain truths, which was fine, he reasoned.
Matt knew it was terrible, but he felt like if he told them something, the least horrible things, toning it down and saying it as if it was no big deal, they would accept it, and move on. He silently prayed that they would believe him, and wouldn't suspect of what else the Galra did to him. Wouldn't wonder about the things that kept Matt awake at night, and plagued the nightmare of every sleeping moment.
"The witch though, she took my leg," Matt looked down at his prosthetic leg. "I mean, it is helpful at times, it's also annoying," Matt said, shrugging it off as if it was nothing.
"She did it to you too," Shiro said angrily, more of a statement than a question. At Matt's questioning look, he held up his prosthetic arm Haggar gave him.
"I hate her," Matt said simply, forcing down the terror that was flaring up inside him.
When the conversation fell into a lull, Lance piped up from the other side of the room. "Right, well, this is getting depressing, so I'm just gonna change the subject… crap, I just realized how terribly I worded that. I'm sorry, I just meant to say that there's a note on this box of DVDs. It says to watch them."
"Watch them?" Pidge asked suspiciously. "Any particular reason why, or what it's about?"
"Nope, not really. It's pretty vague. Also, do you think the DVDs are going to work on the space tech? If they're DVDs at all. Maybe they're, like, the Altean version, or something. Huh. Nevermind, it probably is."
"Space tech?" Matt asked. "Are we in space right now?"
When he got nods, a 'totally different galaxy', and looks of confusion he quickly explained.
"I thought I'd somehow got transported to Earth, what with Katie and all," he trailed off as a thought crossed his mind. He spun around to face his sister. "What are you doing here in space? Why aren't you home on Earth with Mom?"
"Ooh, someone's in trouble," Lance sing songed to Hunk.
"Aha, well, you see, it kinda was an accident."
"An accident? How can you possible go into space and across the universe by accident?"
"It's a part of the same long story that will be fully explained. I promise."
Matt narrowed his eyes and snorted. "Fine, but I expect to get every single detail. No skipping out on anything."
Pidge nodded.
"Alright, let's get this going, then." Coran cried out, reaching for the discs.
"Hold on," Matt broke in. "Who are you people? I only know Katie and Shiro."
"Oh, sorry. The energetic one in blue is Lance, the angry red one is Keith, the cuddly teddy bear is Hunk, the guy with the crazy mustache is Coran, and the princess is Allura. Coran and Allura are from Altea."
Matt chuckled at Pidge's rundown on who's who. "Got it."
Pidge scramble up and pulled Matt over to the couch, cuddling up to him immediately.
"C'mon! Movie time! Coran, are they Altean discs?"
"Why, yes they are! Quite marvelous! I didn't think there'd be any more out there that we didn't have here on the castle already! This is most extraordinary! I'm quite interested in where it came from, or who! I wonder if I might be able to trace it back to-"
"Coran, please,"Allura broke in, getting a sigh of relief from the Paladins. "I'm just as interested in it being Altean as you, but I believe most of us are more curious as to what is actually on it than it's origin."
The others had sat down, filling in the rest of the couch the Holts were on and a couple loveseats and chairs around both sides of said couch. (Order of them on the couches, their left to right. Coran in a chair, Allura then Shiro on a loveseat, Matt and Pidge then Hunk on a couch, and Lance and Keith on a loveseat.)
"Hold on!" Hunk jumped up. "Every good movie time is only complete with snacks. I'll be right back," he shouted, throwing a 'don't start without me!' over his shoulder as he ran out of the room.
"Alright," Coran rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Let's just pop in it here and we should be good to go!"
It took a few ticks for it to load, and Hunk rushed back in as it was starting, quickly passing out the food before settling down to watch whatever it was the mysterious person wanted them to watch.