Written for Day 17 of Sheith Month: Past.
Contains Season Three spoilers.
"You need to work as a team, now more than ever!" Coran said, shooing Allura into the training deck. She frowned at him.
She frowned even more when the mindlink circlets phased up from the floor. "We are a team, and we have been functioning quite well!" she said firmly. "I have even found a way to properly communicate with the Blue Lion."
"Blue isn't so hard to understand." Lance grumbled, and she glared. "She's fun. I miss her." he added, and Allura winced.
"You should appreciate Red morw." Keith snapped under his breath, folding his legs and dropping into place by one of the circlets. "You should also learn to fly." he added darkly, probably still too quiet for Lance to hear.
"You are not the source of the problem we have had working as a team." Pidge said, resting a hand on Allura's elbow. "But we have changed, as a team, and you are part of that. We were pushed into this before; it helped. Now our team has changed, it's worth trying it again."
Allura bowed to Pidge's logic, but was staggered when she joined them and donned the circlet waiting for her. The emotions of the Paladins - the other Paladins - were one thing, and briefly unsettled her, but among them there was a hot, aching chasm of grief and fury that-
It choked away, and Allura put one hand on her chest, taking a few deep breaths as she looked around at the others. She hesitantly closed her eyes, sinking gracefully into the openness between their five minds.
It was a whirl for a moment, and Allura steeled herself and let her mind open to share with them.
A clearer image rose from the visual noise - two women, both with broad and happy smiles, bickering in a kitchen. The edges were hazy, the room shimmering and shifting through several similar not-quite-there kitchens, but the women were clear, and there was the scent of something warm and sweet in the air.
Hunk, much younger than he was now, held up a tray splotched with little mounds of batter, and one of the women exclaimed over it happily as the other picked him up and kissed his cheek. He squirmed and laughed, and the memory blurred away.
"Always with the food, huh Hunk?" Lance said playfully.
"I spent a lot of time cooking with my mom and her sisters." Hunk's smile was warm in his voice. "Food is love, guys."
A soft laugh from Pidge and a mental whisper through the mindlink, and then it smoothed again.
A petite woman scooped up a thin child running around her feet and exchanged a warm look with a short, slender man over her tousled head. "Come on, little one; your brother is waiting for us!" the woman urged, and began climbing a ladder than suddenly appeared before her.
It blurred, and a boy who looked very like Pidge was sitting on a roof - or maybe a field, or an observation deck, as the details flickered and melded - and grinning at her. "Little pigeon! Come here!" the boy called, and the even tinier Pidge scrambled across the roof to curl in his lap as the little family settled to look up at the glimmering stars.
"Aw, that's sweet." Hunk said, emotion wavering in his tone.
"My whole family loves the stars." Pidge said in a tiny voice.
Allura smiled, though she felt the sorrowful tinge creeping out into the mindlink from her. "Mine did, too." she said simply.
It was her own memory unfolding now, the Castle walls shimmering into being, then their tracery of blue energy, then the furniture of the room building up slowly, and only then. . .
A tiny child with wild hair and a small, slim circlet ran around the study; her father gave chase, laughing as hard as she. Allura's throat tightened and she squeezed her eyelids a little more tightly closed against the urge to cry.
Her father scooped her up and spun her, then settled her back on her feet and knelt before her. The small Allura nodded solemnly as he spoke, folding her hands and closing her eyes, looking so very focused and a little silly as she stuck her lower lip out.
The memory of Allura screwed her face up and her skin rippled with colour - Allura winced at it went an unbecoming and unnatural orange, then faded to a dull green, before settling in at the soft and warm pink of the species she had been trying to imitate. Little else changed about her, she was too unpractised, but her father picked her up and hugged her tight, lavishing praise on her for the exercise, and the child Allura had once been laughed and cuddled into her father's arms.
Allura dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips. "That was my first time trying to shapeshift." she said softly before anyone could ask.
"I'm sorry Princess." Pidge said, a feathery brush of sympathy rippling through the mindlink. It was echoed from other sources - one warmer and diffuse, one harsher, though still warm and soft, one light and quick, flashing through her mind; Allura tried to pinpoint each to the Paladin from which it came, but things shifted too quickly and their minds were yet too unfamiliar.
A small, quiet home in the desert formed slowly in their minds now. More and more details filtered in, a slow spread, from the gentle breeze stirring the tree outside, to the precise shadows of the few clouds above, to the hot, dry scent of the earth below. It was impressively vivid and Allura was surprised - she had already noted that the humans' minds lacked clarity.
"This again?" Lance muttered, huffing, clearly not at all impressed.
Pidge snickered. "Keith likes the quiet, remember?" she teased.
There was a flare of temper and something like pain, edged red and sharp, wordless.
Keith's memory, then; Allura wondered if his Galra blood was behind the difference in the image from the glimpses she had seen from the others. And that emotion was of the same source as the not unkind, but unyielding ones she had felt before.
The final detail filtering into the memory was Keith himself, as he appeared on the porch of the little home, running his fingers through his hair. The desert wind tossed it wilder, and sent his shirt and the loose pants he wore billowing. He looked peaceful, and the scene settled Allura's heart a little after the bittersweet childhood memory she had inadvertently shared with her teammates.
"It is kind of nice there." Hunk said, and there was a sparking flash of something in the mindlink, gone too quickly to sense properly.
Shiro walked out onto the porch behind Keith, and Allura felt her own surprise mirrored by sharper shock from the others.
"What is Shiro-"
Hunk hushed Lance quickly.
Keith smiled, tilting his face up as the breeze strengthened - it carried the scent of ozone and rain on it now, though the sky was clear - and Shiro walked up behind him, arms looping around his waist and chin settling on his shoulder. Keith's smile got a little smaller, but infinitely warmer, and he covered Shiro's hands with his. "Shiro."
"Good morning, love." Shiro said softly, and Keith closed his eyes and snuggled into his embrace. "Missed you in bed." Shiro said, nuzzling Keith's throat.
Keith laughed, his face soft and open in a way Allura had never really seen it. He reached up, fingers brushing Shiro's face as he murmured an apology and turned, tipping his head up to meet Shiro-
The memory fizzled and pulled into shreds, and Allura gasped a little from the shock of the mindlink dropping. She opened her eyes just in time to see Keith striding past her, his jaw set and his grey eyes hard.
"Keith!" Pidge called, shifting forwards onto her knees. "Wait, we didn't-"
"Keith and Shiro?" Lance muttered, his eyes wide, looking perhaps slightly paler than usual.
Hunk shook his head helplessly, no words coming.
Allura had no words either, just a small taste of the pain Keith held in his heart, and regret for forcing him to put it on display. She rested a hand over her heart, thinking of the ones she had lost, and felt once again terrible for the way that they had pushed Keith - had had to push Keith - to take over the Black Lion, to take Shiro's place.
"Why did he run off?" Hunk asked tentatively, and Allura shook her head, not offering any input as the others offered their own surprise or suggestions.
Allura, who had felt something that could fall closer to what Keith did in her own heart, who had more finesse in mindlinking, had . . . perhaps felt more emotion than the others from him.
She had also seen the tears threatening to fall from his eyes as he all but ran from the training deck.