Okay, so here's the thing about space.
Lance has dreamed of seeing it for. Well. Forever.
He's been four and playing with a cardboard box while his mom watched and laughed, he's been six as he eagerly tells his teacher in a broken accent that he's going to be an astronaut, don't you know? and Lance had been twelve when he first got an autographed poster of Chris Hadfield taped to his wall.
He's thirteen when he realizes that his dream can become a reality, fourteen when he gets into the Galaxy Garrison, fifteen when he meets Hunk, sixteen when he becomes more than just a cargo pilot and by the time that he's seventeen, fighting a war in space that he never knew existed.
And it's not that he's ungrateful. He's not.
He knows what it's like to not belong somewhere, and space, as lonely as it is, is somewhere that Lance knows he belongs.
He knows because his eyes light up whenever he looks out a window, knows from the way that he's become accustomed to carrying Pidge to her bed after she's fallen asleep at her laptop (again), from how he's started thinking of alien sludge as food and thinks of cleaning the castle as just another one of his normal chores.
"I don't want to get used to it, you know?" He asks Hunk nervously, "It's like I'm, oh, you know, I dunno, like, betraying Earth or something. Like this isn't home. I can't think of it as home, not when I have a home, not when I've got a family to get back to."
"Screwdriver," Hunk holds out a hand and Lance presses it in between his fingers, "Yeah, I know what you mean, man. But it's not. I mean, remember when Cam got married?"
Lance chews on his thumbnail, "Yeah? How can I not? The whole thing was grey," Hunk shoots Lance a look and Lance throws him a lopsided smile that's not fully there, "I'm sorry. You're trying to help and I'm just cracking jokes like some idiot."
"No, it's fine," Hunk tightens... something. Lance honestly can't tell what Hunk's doing. "But anyway, just because Cam got married, does that mean that your home wasn't her home anymore?"
Lance shakes his head, "No, it just meant that she had two homes to... oh..." He smiles, "I think that I get it now."
"Yeah, I know," Hunk shrugs, "I'm pretty awesome."
"You really are," Lance laughs, "Thanks, Hunk."
"No problem," Hunk frowns, "Actually, it makes me feel kind of awkward because I also miss my family but like not as much as you do, like, I know that my feelings are still validated and all that but it's like we're on a scale and I should be higher on that scale but it's just so freaky, you know, and I've kind of forgotten what life on Earth was like in the first place and..."
He pauses to breathe and then stills.
"I forget how much butter you put in a red velvet cake," he whispers, "One-half cup, or one and a half cup."
It's so small. So insignificant. But Hunk knows that recipe like the back of his hand, he's baked it once a month, he could have done it with his eyes closed but in space there's no cocoa powder or cream cheese frosting, in space, recipes are meaningless because by the time that they get to the next spaceport they'll have long since run out of the old ingredients and will never see them again because they've reached a different galaxy by then.
"I know, buddy," Lance says. The room is still, silent in a way that makes Lance feel like even the dust is hanging perfectly still in the air, the whole world holding its breath for one moment before Hunk goes back to his tinkering and the clank of metal against wire sounds again.
Something in Lance itches to fill the silence, aches to fill the void, but he doesn't know what to say so he just closes his eyes and listens to Hunk tinker for a while.
The metal clacks and the wires spark and at that moment, there's something bittersweet about a comfortable silence hanging between the two in their home away from home.
"Do you ever miss Altea?" Lance asks Coran as they clean the pods, Lance sweeping the steps and Coran setting them to self-automated wash, watching the insides bubble up, water pressing against the sides of the pods as though threatening to break out any minute.
Coran stares at the water, watches it rise and bubble, powerful but contained, and laughs, "Always."
There's something horribly comforting to know that Earth isn't Altea. That they might still save it. That there's still hope for them to go home and see their families somewhere other than in an accusing nightmare.
"Earth had these giant mountains," Lance sweeps with smooth, slow motions, "Tall enough that people said they scraped the sky. They didn't, of course. But they almost seemed like they did. Even taller than the ones on the Balmera. I always wanted to climb one. I wanted to feel high up, I guess. It sounded so special," he rests his chin on his broomstick, "Guess I'll have to settle for being a space warrior, destined to save the Universe, eh?"
It's light, meaningless chatter, a small invitation for Coran to speak his own mind.
"Altea would have these terrible storms," he clears his throat and doesn't look at Lance, "Rocks hailing from the sky in giant, fiery showers, and if you were hit, you would get a hole straight through the head. King Alfor's father, the previous king, built a dome. A magnificent city with a sky to protect us from the rocks, so that even when it stormed, we would be safe. It was so beautiful inside of the dome, I wondered why anybody would risk their lives and live outside, where there wasn't the gold frame and the rose-tinted glass."
Lance switches the broom to his other hand, "Would you go back?"
"To Altea?" Coran lowers his head.
Lance still cannot see his face, and he's not sure if he wants to see it, isn't sure if he can bear to see the grief etched on Coran's features.
Coran turns around, a small smile on his lips, "Well, I suppose that none of us can help missing home."
Lance tightens his grip on his broom, thinks viciously, how could someone do something so cruel? and echoes, "I suppose not."
They finish cleaning up in silence, one another's companionship more than enough.
When they're done, Coran squeezes Lance's should and says wryly, "Well, I suppose this is close enough to home, now, isn't it?"
And Lance sort of smiles and agrees, "I suppose."
It's not everything, not the perfect home, space doesn't have solid ground. It might never be able to. But it's enough. It gives them just enough to be happy.
It gives them a home, and really, that was all the Lance had ever needed.