With a huff of annoyance, Lance flung himself down onto the couch beside Matt, hard enough to make the rebel jump and fumble with his tablet. "Alright, spill!" He demanded.
Matt's eyebrows shot up to his hairline in confusion. "I...uh...beg your pardon?" He asked slowly.
"You heard me, spill!" Lance repeated, shifting to face Matt and cross his legs in front of him. His brow was pulled down in an expression somewhere between a scowl and a pout.
Searching his memory in an attempt to figure out what the younger boy could possibly be trying to interrogate him about, Matt didn't try to hide his bewilderment. "Spill what, exactly? I have no idea what you're asking me about."
Lance huffed again, pointing across the room to where Hunk and Pidge were busily assembling something on the floor, oblivious to the exchange. "You're her brother!"
"Yes…?" He still wasn't sure where this was going.
"And she's the green paladin! Defender of the universe! Battling Galra!" Lance's voice took on a more strident pitch at Matt's continued ignorance, drawing the attention of Shiro and Coran from their game of Altean chess, Allura from her whispered conversation with the space mice, Keith's from where he was repairing one of his gloves, and finally grabbing the awareness of the two engineers away from their project. Lance took a deep breath, seemingly fighting for control. "Why aren't you freaking out?!"
Matt stared at him for a moment in utter befuddlement. And then he burst out laughing.
"Hey!" Lance squawked indignantly as the rebel double over, clutching his stomach. "What's so funny?!"
Wheezing as he tried to get his breath back, Matt grinned and wiped a tear from his eye. "Seriously? That's what this is about? You're freaking out because I'm not freaking out?"
Lance folded his arms and looked away with a pout. Hunk spoke up from the floor. "To be fair, dude," he waved a screwdriver thoughtfully, "If it was any of our siblings out here fighting the Galra, we'd be losing our shit." Pidge made an irritated noise and grabbed the screwdriver, using it to pin something in place.
Well, he had a fair point. "But," Matt pointed out, "Your siblings are not Pidge."
There was a pause as they digested that. "What exactly do you mean by that?" Keith asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of his tone.
"I mean that Pidge is probably the last person in the universe I would worry about being out here fighting the Galra, aside from maybe our mother." He informed them, and felt his smile widen as he saw the tips of her ears going red. "She's the toughest person I know. Always has been. No offense, Shiro."
Shiro simply chuckled, leaning back in his seat. "None taken. I've seen her fight."
"But...but…" Lance floundered for words, waving an arm helplessly at the green paladin.
Sighing, Matt leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and regarding the blue paladin steadily. "Look, let me tell you a story, okay?"
The entire group quickly fell silent, listening attentively, with the exception of his sister. He knew they were probably wondering why she wasn't protesting a potentially embarrassing story, but she knew what he was going to tell them about. Shiro did too. They'd already had this conversation in private, not long after his arrival.
He surveyed them seriously. "It all goes back to when Pidge was little. Like, really little. Even smaller than she is now, if you can believe it-"
"Eat my entire ass, Matthew." She snarled without looking up from the wires she was soldering.
"No thanks, too scrawny." He shot back easily. "Anyway. You know her birthday's in April, right? April third?" A round of nods. "Well," he sighed, running fingers through his hair. "She was supposed to be born at the beginning of August."
There was a chorus of startled exclamations from the Humans, Hunk counting rapidly on his fingers. "That's...almost four months early." He whispered. Beside him, all the colour drained from Lance's face and his head whipped around to look at his smaller teammate as though she might disappear right in front of him.
Matt nodded, seeing they had put two and two together. "For the Alteans in the room," He glanced over at the obviously confused Coran and Allura, "Human gestation is normally between 39 and 41 weeks, or nine months. Babies born early are underdeveloped and at risk of serious health problems or even death. The earlier they are, the more danger they're in." He let out a soft breath. "Pidge was born at just 22 weeks."
You could have heard a pin drop in the silence of the room. Matt closed his eyes, lost in the memories. "The first I knew something was wrong was when Dad came to get me from school. He came to the door and spoke to the teacher, really quietly, and she just looked really sad and told me to grab my stuff. I'd never seen my parents cry before, but...I could tell he had been." To Matt, then just eight years old, that had somehow been the most unsettling part of the whole thing. Parents didn't cry.
"We got in the car and headed for the hospital." He continued softly. "And along the way, Dad pulled over and stopped at the side of the road. He explained to me there in the car how sometimes something happens and babies are born early. And when they are, sometimes they don't live very long, their bodies are just too weak. 'Matt', he told me, 'you have a baby sister now. Her name is Katlynn Uhura Holt. But she's very small, and the doctors don't believe she's going to make it.' He told me that he and mom wanted me to meet my sister while I could, but if it was too much for me he would understand, and I could go stay with my grandparents for a few days while he and mom stayed at the hospital until...until the end."
He swiped at his eyes, exhaling shakily, gaze distant. "I was pretty upset. The little sister I'd been so excited to have was born only to be taken away from us again. But I wanted to go see her. What kind of big brother would I be if I didn't?"
"She was so small." The image was ingrained in his mind, always would be. A tiny, tiny form, half-hidden by wires and tubes in the warm protection of the incubator. "I think Mom could've held her in two cupped hands if she'd been allowed to hold her. I'd never realized a Human being could be that small. Or fragile. She looked like she might shatter if we touched her. And yet…"
Matt frowned. This was the part he'd never been able to explain. "And yet when I looked at her, something deep inside me said 'she'll be alright.' Somehow I knew, looking at her that day, that she was stronger than we knew. And I remember the fear disappearing, and looking up at our Dad and telling him 'She's gonna be just fine, Dad. She's a fighter. You'll see.' He says I said it with the kind of certainty I normally save for scientific fact, as if it were as obvious and unquestionable as one plus one is two, and somehow it put him at ease too."
His gaze drifted to his sister, still hard at work with an expression of intense concentration, utterly oblivious to the eyes of everyone else in the room on her, and he smiled, fond and proud. "And I was right. Doctors called her a miracle, for surviving against all odds. But she's just tough as nails. Always has been, always will be. Worry about her being out here fighting the Galra? Sure, I'm worried-for the Galra, that is."
Later that evening, Matt wandered alone through the corridors of the Castle. There was no one to see him as he reached the Green Lion's hangar and quietly slipped inside.
"Hey beautiful." He whispered, gazing up at the gigantic machine. The smallest of her siblings, and yet filled with an aura of raw power and quick fierceness. Not someone to be underestimated, just like her paladin.
He moved across the open floor and rested a hand on her leg. "Thank you." He told her, reaching for the faint thread of connection he'd only recently realized was there. The thread that he knew now had been there since he was eight years old. "For what you did. Knowing that she'd be okay...it helped a lot. Back then, and after Kerberos." His sister was strong, and could accomplish anything she put her mind to. Sometimes that was the only thought that kept him going. She would find them. He knew she would.
Green rumbled softly, and he felt a faint blossom of warmth in his chest. A soft affection for the devoted brother of her destined one that he treasured to his heart. Matt smiled softly and patted her leg once more. "Night, Green. See you later girl."
The Green Lion purred as she watched him go.