I FINISHED SEASON 7 SATURDAY NIGHT!
IT WAS AMAZING. I am still in awe. There were very few things I disliked about it. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH still reeling from this incredible show. Thank you, show creators, for something so amazing.
So...I also lied. After writing out the rest of the fic, I decided to create a third chapter (an epilogue), hehehe instead of just 2 chapters. Thanks so much for waiting patiently, guys! Let me know what you thought about season 7 in the comments below; I am always more than happy to chat with y'all! Thank you guys also so much for the support you've shown this fic. You guys are the best.
Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron
The Voltron Paladins' Guide to Revenge for Dummies Step 5: If you have a Space Dad, use the Space Dad. If you have two Space Dads, use both Space Dads. Space Dads are Best Dads™.
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Pidge bit her lip, thinking hard. The chances of Keith being on the bridge were so slim that she was almost completely certain he was one of the five blinking dots in the small room some ways down the hall. There was no way she could possibly take them all on her own, especially if they were all druids, if Keith wasn't properly protected. However, with Shiro half-alive and no actual backup for her, she knew they had to be dealt with if they wanted to all get out of there in one piece. "All right, Shiro," she said quietly. "Lance told me he thinks this is the druids' lab."
Her mind raced to form a plan. They made their way down the hall as quickly as they could with one of Shiro's arms flung over her shorter form, Pidge half-pulling, half-dragging him along. Without the adrenaline of fighting an enormous Galra commander, however, Pidge's slashed side started to burn, and the bruises she sustained from the fight began to ache. She grunted in pain, and had to gasp as she felt blood seep through her spandex and armor. Shiro didn't miss a beat.
"What happened?!"
They stopped in the middle of the hallway before Pidge could tell him it was a bad idea; sentries could come along at any moment, and their position was the least possible defensible spot, with nothing to give them cover and leaving them wide open for enemy attack. "It's nothing. I just- from that fight earlier. I'm okay. The wound isn't deep."
Her leader frowned as he eyed her wound. She was right; it wasn't a deep wound, but the slash was deep enough in her side for concern. The blood wasn't stopping, though thankfully, it was a slower flow than he originally feared. Shiro's brow furrowed, but he knew they had to keep moving.
"Pidge," he suddenly said after another minute, thinking of the best way to rescue Keith. "Can you get into the ship's system and shut down the lights in the room? Maybe that way, we can pre-empt them and have a bit of an edge."
The Green Paladin couldn't help her smug grin as they approached the door of the lab. "Already done. I can cut them off with one button." She reached for something on her belt. "Here. I have a few cans of space spray that Coran bartered last time we made that pit stop at the space mall," she said as she pulled out a round object and held it up to his face. "You know, the last visit where Lance and I managed to not adopt another cow. Not like we need another one anyway, I'm pretty sure the mice adopted Kaltenecker and that's why we haven't seen him in a few weeks-"
The look on Shiro's face cut her off; he gave her that expression every time she started rambling. Pidge cleared her throat.
"Space…spray?"
"Yeah…apparently, this stuff is pretty strong. It's ground scaultrite crystals mixed with Weeblum acid."
Shiro winced as she frowned.
"But I can't do anything with the spray if Keith doesn't have his helmet on to protect him from it. The particles travel far too quickly, and are too dangerous to allow into your eyes, nose, and mouth. It would be excruciating."
Neither of them mentioned that with Pidge's open wound, it would be exceedingly painful for her as well. She pushed that thought out of her head; Keith needed them, now was not the time to be contemplating her own injuries. Pidge needed to get them all out of there and back to the Castle. It was pure luck that right at that moment, the ship rocked with another giant explosion, throwing both Paladins off their feet and slamming them into the wall, both letting out groans of pain; it may have been just the diversion they needed to lure the druids out of the room, making it that much easier do a sweep and see if Keith was inside. The hacked comms broadcasted the bridge officers' and the ship commander's furious exchange inside Pidge's helmet.
"Auxiliary systems have been hit! We need to take those lions down now!"
"Sir, auxiliary systems holding at 80%!"
"You incompetent fools! How did those Paladins escape?! The lions do not fly themselves!"
Pidge made a mental note to thank Lance later- he may be a pain in her rear some days, but when it came down to it, he was a sharpshooter who had their backs. The door right in front of them hissed open, and she and Shiro found themselves face to face with a druid who stared at them in shock through its mask. She must be really lucky today; the door slid shut almost immediately afterwards, and the druid hadn't called for reinforcements. Maybe it thought it could handle two injured Paladins of Voltron on its own.
Glancing over at Shiro, she took stock of his external injuries and immediately knew there was no way he could fight it. It would be up to her. Brandishing her bayard, Pidge braced herself…only to flinch when the druid suddenly lurched forward and fell over, revealing Kolivan standing behind it with a bloody blade in his hand. The Black Paladin let out a chuckle.
"Good to see you."
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The Voltron Paladins' Guide to Revenge for Dummies Step 6: Always remember, The Blade is watching you.
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The Galra nodded once at him, twirling his blade between his fingers. "Plan?" he asked, getting right down to business. Keith was, after all, still part of the Blade, and stoic as he may seem, Kolivan worried about every last one of them.
Shiro gestured to Pidge. "Her mission. Her call."
Kolivan focused his gaze on her; she pulled up the bioscanner on her gauntlet as she explained her idea. "I think Keith is in here," she said, gesturing to the door in front of them. "And that there are three druids in there with him." Pidge pointed to the blinking dots. "I've got some space spray that will hopefully, hopefully incapacitate the druids, which will allow us to take them down. However, I can't use it if Keith is unprotected. I mean, if he doesn't have his helmet on. That's where we come in. You and I can act as distractions while Shiro scopes the room and covers Keith. On his signal, after it's safe, I'll throw the space spray and it'll blow like a grenade."
The Galra's eyes flicked over to Shiro, and a look of understanding passed between the two before he looked back at Pidge. "Shiro and I should act as distractions," he told her. "You have more mobility, so you'll be able to get to the Red Paladin faster."
"Since you can manually lock and unlock the door, cut off the lights and then we can run in. You lock the door behind us and hide in the shadows so you can get to Keith while Kolivan and I hold them off, and then you pop the spray," Shiro added.
Pidge frowned, clearly not liking the idea. She could see the logic of it, but with Shiro so out of it-
"It'll be okay," he said, elbowing her gently as he saw the look on her face. "We need to get to Keith."
The mention of Keith's name immediately brought Pidge back to attention, her eyes hardening. Shiro was worried about his brother, and if it was Matt in there, Pidge knew she would have already blown up at whoever stood in her way to get him back.
"Right," she replied, nodding. She took a deep breath, and after making sure Kolivan had his mask on, pressed the button that shut off the lights in the room and then the button to open the door just a half second later. Both leaders sprang into action, running inside just as three druids turned toward them with only a moment's notice before they were ambushed. Seeing that they were preoccupied with fighting off Shiro and Kolivan, Pidge ran along the perimeter of the room within the dark shadows that painted the wall, praying that the druids wouldn't notice her as she broke out of the darkness and approached the lone figure on the table in the middle of the room.
It was a horrifying sight.
Bruises and cuts of all shapes and sizes marred his face, and one of his eyes were so swollen she doubted it would open anytime soon. His normally fair skin was almost pallid, as if all blood had been drained. What scared her the most was that his virtually-indestructible armor was cracked in random places, and even through her helmet, Pidge could smell something burning as she got close. They had burned him too, electrocuted him, tortured him, experimented on him, the half-Galra, half-human, trying to glean as much information out of him as they could, be it about Voltron or in the name of science.
She felt sick to her stomach, her eyes blurring as she forcefully blinked the water away. Luckily, Keith's helmet was on the table next to him, and she carefully, quickly put it on him before whipping out two cans of the space spray on her belt. Another small consolation- Keith was out cold, and Pidge hoped that it would stay that way. With his open wounds, the particles from the spray would be excruciating. She readied herself for the pain, praying that the adrenaline and shock would keep her moving, and threw them to the middle of the room without warning, watching as they created a mini-explosion of what was essentially an immensely powerful pepper spray.
Shiro and Kolivan were unscathed, protected, but the druids weren't so lucky. None of them had ever heard a druid scream until that point, and none of them ever wanted to hear it again. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard, screeching sharply as they made their way down slowly, painfully, agonizingly. It reminded Pidge of tree branches scraping against a glass window, of rusty mechanics grinding and wheezing against each other; it made her shudder and goosebumps rise on her skin even underneath her insulated armor. There was no time to stop, however. She readied her bayard and cut through the bonds that tied Keith to the table as Shiro ran over and hauled his brother off, then the small group made a run for it out the door.
There wasn't a moment to lose, but not a second after coming into contact with the cloud of dust that had exploded from the spray, Pidge's vision went white from the pain in her side. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheeks and tasted blood, and the feeling of huge arms that helped guide her out of the room reminded her that she needed to thank Kolivan later for getting her out.
As soon as they were clear, Pidge blinked rapidly, expelling her tears as fast as she could. Her mind fought to clear itself, to fight through the pain and to focus on the mission on hand. She shut and locked the door with a few swift keystrokes, ensuring their escape from the now-incapacitated druids, and then Kolivan was hauling her through the ship again until her side stopped burning like it had come in contact with an open fire. The ragtag group of four (two, really, what with Shiro throwing a completely unconscious Keith over his shoulder and Kolivan basically dragging Pidge) ran down the hallway towards the left, Shiro allowing his bond with the Black Lion to guide him through the ship. Suddenly, an idea popped into the Green Paladin's head, causing her slip from the Blade's grip to make a hard stop. She grunted in pain as her side stretched, but there was no time to pay attention to it.
"Pidge! Pidge! Katie, what are you doing?!" Shiro almost roared, grunting as he shouldered Keith's dead weight on his right side. Pidge pressed a few more buttons on her gauntlet.
"Get to Black, I'll meet you where they have Red!" She yelled, not bothering to explain herself as she tore down a different hallway toward the bridge.
"Pidge, you don't even know where-"
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The Voltron Paladins' Guide to Revenge for Dummies Step 7: Revenge is a one-track mind.
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She completely ignored the shouts that sounded behind her, only one thought driving her forward.
The Galra took her friends, and then they tortured them. It was too small a price to pay, too small of an involuntary penance, but since they thought it was okay to take her friends, then Pidge thought it was completely justified for her to steal their stuff. 'Stuff', of course, being their ship, and if everything went according to plan, then she would deliver this ship and its entire crew to the Blade of Marmora to do as they wished.
Penance. Ha. Penance, meet Pidge.
As soon as she reached the bridge, she didn't hesitate. She opened the door via her gauntlet and ran right into the middle of the fray; the Galra ship commander and every other tech in there barely registered their shock at seeing the Green Paladin of Voltron burst angrily right into the heart of enemy territory. "Inform Lord Zarkon-" the commander started to say, a nasty sneer growing on her feline face before Pidge took out the last of her cans of space spray and threw them down on the floor, hard. She barely had enough time to whip out her bayard and shoot the hooked point past the open door to the bridge, hauling herself out and closing the door before the scaultrite and Weeblum acid mixture went everywhere. Panting, Pidge leaned against the side of the door and held her aching side, breathing through her nose and out her mouth.
It was almost too easy. Each of the Galra was immediately affected by the spray, having no protection from the relentless acidic dust that burned their eyes and tore its way down their throats. She timed it, and only unlocked the door and went back onto the bridge exactly three minutes after the explosion, enough time for the dust to settle- for the most part. For a moment, Pidge considered knocking them unconscious to make sure that they wouldn't be able to sound any alarms or stop her from doing her work, but she retracted her bayard at the last minute, holding it against her chest. Rendering them unconscious would be a mercy at this point.
She quickly stashed her bayard and made her way to the computer mainframe on the bridge, establishing contact with Allura and Coran via the comms in her helmet.
"Pidge to the Castle. Allura? Coran? Can you hear me?" Pidge asked as she typed with both hands, fingers flying. First to shut down their communications, then to reroute all power to auxiliary systems…the main lights switched off, and the emergency lights immediately lit up in a bright purple color around the room. Then to implement her own nifty little lockdown system and firewall, making it nearly impossible to hack if one of the Galra got lucky enough to get up from the space spray blast before they reached the Blade of Marmora headquarters and tried to send out an SOS. Those unlucky enough to attempt to bypass her software would get her floating, gloating head on screen, her favorite retaliatory prank.
"Number Five!" Coran's excited voice broke through the connection. "We have confirmed visuals on the Blue and Yellow Lions!"
"Where are Shiro and Keith?" Hunk asked via Voltron's internal comms, his voice heavy with fatigue and worry. She so wished she could answer him, but there was no time, and she still had to find out where they put Red. Shiro could hear him though, she knew. Shiro could deal with it whenever he reached Black. It was perfect timing that their leader's voice rang out then, loud and clear.
"We've got Black! Pidge, where are you?!"
Lance's startled voice cut through the comms. "Pidge isn't with you?"
The youngest Paladin resisted the urge to roll her eyes, trying to concentrate on what she was doing. "I'll meet you guys when you find Red," she told them. "I've got her location here. Transmitting info to Black now."
She was so immensely glad she took the time to memorize each of the lions' complicated base codes, allowing her to upload information to each of their softwares and update them remotely. It also allowed her to lock on to their short-range locations, which proved to come in handy on multiple occasions. Two big worries crossed off her list- Shiro, Keith, and Kolivan were safe, and they were on their way to pick up the final lion. She bit down on her lip, quickly relaying her instructions.
"Allura, I've shut down all systems on this ship, including the navigation and engine. I'm going to send you the base code; I need you to take that and use your powers to create a tether strong enough to pull this ship into a wormhole with the Castle. Is that possible?"
Pidge could almost hear Allura's frown through the comms, but after years of fighting together, the trust that was built between them stopped the Princess from wasting time in doubting her teammate. "Yes," she replied firmly. "Where are we going?"
One more keystroke, and pressing enter, Pidge allowed herself to relax a little. "Blade of Marmora headquarters."
"Base code received!" Coran reported.
She erased all the metadata footprints she left in the system, and did a final, complete shutdown of all systems save for the auxiliary. Tossing one last look at the Galra now writhing on the floor in pain, she closed the computer and ran out of the bridge holding her side with her left hand, pulling up the map to Red's location on her gauntlet with her right as she went. Her boots pounded on the metal floor, and Pidge could feel the sweat rolling down her cheeks. Just a few more steps…
She burst through the hangar door to see the lion with its particle barrier up, and Pidge allowed herself a half-hearted laugh of relief. As soon as her hand touched the barrier, Red immediately let down her defenses, powering up and allowing the Green Paladin on board.
"I've got Red!" she yelled into the comms. "Thanks, girl," Pidge then murmured as she made her way to the cockpit. "I know I'm not Keith, but thanks for letting me in."
Red's roar sounded in the back of her head, her connection to the Paladin weaker than Green's, but she was there and ready to go. That was another problem, Pidge realized: she wasn't sure she could fly Red. Shiro, it appeared, had impeccable timing.
"Pidge, are you inside the Red Lion?" he asked, an explosion rocking the hangar. Pidge held on tight to the control levers.
"Yes!"
"Can you fly her?"
Well, that was the million-dollar question, isn't it?
"No!"
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The Voltron Paladins' Guide to Revenge for Dummies Step 8: Don't piss off the lions.
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The Red Lion was just too fast, too temperamental, and too unpredictable; Pidge was a steady pilot who relied more on her skill than instinct, and being in control of the most volatile of the five lions meant she wouldn't be able to fly her well enough to get them both out of danger and Galra clutches, if any reinforcements showed up. Suddenly, the outer hangar wall was forcefully blasted off, revealing the growling Black Lion. Before Pidge or Red could do anything, Black's jaw opened wide and scruffed- literally scruffed- Red, pulling the lion out of the hangar with a yelling Pidge inside the cockpit and out into open space, where they flew into the waiting Castle of Lions.
The next several minutes were a blur. Lance and Hunk were the first to dock their lions, running out to Black's hangar to meet her, Shiro, Keith, and Kolivan. Instead of taking Red back to her own hangar, Black stubbornly held on until both lions were in his hangar, barely having enough room. Two enormous robot lions, two Alteans, one Galra, three humans, and one human-Galra hybrid later, the hangar was, quite literally, packed as Pidge made her way out of Red and Shiro and Kolivan both exited Black, Keith held between them by the arms. Coran had a stretcher in no time, and somehow managed to coax all of them (save Kolivan and Pidge) into following him down to the pods.
Allura seized her chance. "Pidge, why are we at the Blade headquarters? It doesn't sound like you're just dropping Kolivan off."
The Green Paladin tiredly leaned against the worktable next to her, ripping off her helmet and shrugging her shoulder-length hair tied in a ponytail free from its sweaty confines. She had nearly forgotten, having been so worried about Keith and the others, to tell Allura what her plan actually was. Pidge ran a gloved hand through her sweat-slicked hair, a lazy smile appearing on her lips.
"I'm here to make a delivery, of course," she said, and winked as she turned to Kolivan. "Thanks for all your help in recovering my teammates. In return, I give you one fully functional Galra spaceship to experiment or use as you please, and a fully-incapacitated crew to question and or exhaust their uses, whatever they may be."
Allura's mouth nearly dropped open, and though Pidge was beyond exhausted, she saw a slight quirk at the corner of Kolivan's lips, the only sign she found that let her know he was amused by her antics.
"Thank you for your generous donation," he replied. "I've contacted the Blade, and there should be a small squad coming to meet us and capture the prisoners onboard."
The Green Paladin swept into a low bow and followed the others down to the pods.
The mission was over. She could breathe again.
Shiro and Coran practically pushed her into a pod after seeing her injuries, but Pidge had enough time to glance at a clock before she was overtaken by sleep to know she only spent about one varga inside to recover. Allura was in front of her when she woke up, guiding the disoriented Paladin to the lounge at her request. It was only a few more minutes later that Pidge regained full consciousness, leaving the exasperated Princess behind as she sprinted back into the med bay.
Coran shooed Pidge out of the med bay as soon as she stepped one foot into the room, promising to let her know if there were any changes in their conditions and for her to please at least take a shower. She took one whiff of herself and her nose scrunched up in disgust. Sighing, she made the walk back to her own room and managed to not fall over from fatigue under the soothing, warm running water. The shower did her good though; with the grime and sweat and blood washed off, she felt like a new person- an achy one at that, but at least she could collapse into a proper bed as soon as she knew the others were okay.
Pidge made her way back to the thankfully-empty med bay and plopped down on the couch identical to the one in the lounge that was installed in the room after the first time Lance had to be put in one of the pods. She played with one of the glass tablets on the table in front of her that was hooked up to the Castle's system, mindlessly typing out line after line of useless code to get her brain kickstarted. The shower had woken her up a little as it refreshed her, but she could feel sleep thundering at its heels…she really needed something to occupy her mind with, to fight off the sleep that was ready to pounce at any moment until her boys were all healed and out of the pods. It was almost funny, when she thought about it, how they had created an unspoken pact over the years: no one woke up from a pod alone. There would always be at least one person waiting for whomever was in the pod until they recovered, knowing the incredibly disorienting feeling of stepping out of those things, the confusion of having been in battle and then flung back to safety.
Lance and Hunk were in there for three vargas each. Their pods' beeps woke Pidge up from where she succumbed to sleep, the Paladin acting on auto-pilot as she rubbed her eyes and grabbed two fluffy blankets, courtesy of her and Lance. They always came out with one fluffy blanket as a memento of sorts every time they visited an alien bazaar, which meant that, by now, they had a small collection that was strewn about the castle lounges and med bay. Still out of it, it took Pidge a moment to realize that a blanket had been laid on top of her while she was out, and that Shiro was right there catch Hunk as she managed to keep Lance from faceplanting on the floor. She tossed him one of the blankets and they immediately wrapped their still-mostly-unconscious friends in them, then guided them to the enormous round couch they just vacated.
"Am I correct in assuming you didn't hop into one of those pods?" Pidge asked Shiro quietly, who chuckled.
"I'm fine. Just need to make sure everything in this arm works, and just need to get some sleep."
She sighed. "I'm just surprised Coran let you get away with it."
"Well, Allura put up a fight. Honestly," he replied after a moment. "I just got really lucky. They didn't…torture me much, really."
"Okay, when I found you, you could barely walk on your own," she grumbled. "You should have spent at least a few minutes in there just to make sure!"
Shiro didn't get a chance to respond; Lance groaned, shifting in his sleep as he and Hunk came to, with the latter blinking his eyes open first.
"Wha- what time is it?" he croaked, throat dry. Shiro had a bottle of water ready and uncapped for him in one hand, and another bottle for Lance in the other. Pidge helped him sit up, and Lance nodded gratefully as he slowly downed the water.
"It's a little past 3 in the morning," Pidge replied, her voice still raspy with sleep. "You two are the first ones awake."
Four pairs of eyes slowly turned toward the pods to see their fifth Paladin, still suspended in the water as the combination of tech and magic healed his broken body.
"Anyone know how long he'll be in there for?" Hunk asked, not really expecting an answer. Which was just as well, because between his injuries and his half-human, half-Galra body, no one actually knew. It could be vargas. It could be days.
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The Voltron Paladins' Guide to Revenge for Dummies Step 9: Friendship is magic ("Lance, we are not listing that-" "MY LITTLE PONY IS A GREAT SHOW.").
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It was warm. It was so, so warm, and it was so, so comfortable. He was weightless.
And then everything hit all at once; every bone started to ache, a deep weariness setting in as the warrior in him fought to awaken. Everything in him felt so heavy, weighing him down to the core. The waters around him receded, a hiss sounded, and then all of a sudden, there was light. There was air. There was movement. There was something soft underneath him.
"Keith?"
He knew that voice. He trusted it implicitly, no questions asked. Keith tried to form words, tried to say his brother's name, but he couldn't get his voice to work. He struggled against the weight that threatened to pull him under again, succeeding as the piercing light hit his amethyst eyes and blurry shapes appeared, hovering above him.
"Keith?"
Words. He had to make words.
"Nnnnnghhhhhh."
Good going, Kogane. Very graceful. Try again.
"Keith? It's okay. You're okay now." That was Pidge. He could hear the concern in her unusually-soft tone, reserved only for those quiet moments she spent on the observation deck or curled up under a blanket with them during a late night where none of them could sleep.
"Hang in there, buddy," Lance added.
He felt a large hand on his arm. "We've got you," Hunk said.
There was another hissing sound somewhere in the distance, and Coran's very distinct accent filled the air. "Oh! Is Number Four awake?"
"Keith!" Allura's high-pitched voice sounded in delight somewhere farther to his right.
That was all the encouragement he needed- his team, his family, was around him, waiting for him to fully wake up. Valiantly, Keith blinked a few times, forcing his vision to focus. As his world slowly came back into view, he allowed a lazy half-smile to slip onto his lips.
"Hi," he rasped.
Everyone around him seemed to let out a huge breath of air, reluctant smiles appearing on their faces. Keith tried to sit up but instantly felt the room spin, felt the weariness in his bones just as he did in the pod moments before.
"Take it easy," Shiro said softly as he flopped back onto the couch, letting out a grunt of pain.
"Are you hurting anywhere?" Pidge quickly asked, worried. Keith took a few deep breaths before slapping on his most reassuring smile, trying to assuage her fears.
"I'm fine." Blowing out a breath, he decided against trying to sit up again. "How long was I out for?"
"Well…" Hunk started, twiddling his thumbs. Keith raised an eyebrow at his hesitance.
"What Hunk is trying to say," Allura hurriedly cut in. "Is that he and Lance were only in the pods for three vargas after you all returned. It's been around fifteen vargas now."
The Red Paladin's eyes flew open. "Fifteen?!" he almost squeaked. "That's crazy!"
The longest any of them had been in a pod was Lance, clocking in at around eight hours after getting caught in an explosion on a mission the year before. Now, Keith practically doubled his time. That- that was not a good thing. His head hurt, his body ached, and he wanted answers.
"How did we get out of there?" he asked, fighting against the drumbeat in his head. "The last thing I remember…the druids…"
Everyone let out a small laugh then, and Pidge looked down, almost shy. "It's all thanks to Pidge," Lance said. "We can tell you the story later now that we know for sure you're not going to die."
Despite the big grins on everyone's faces and his own yearning to stay awake, Keith never felt more content, surrounded by his family, as he drifted off again.
It was dark when he next awoke in his room, the clock just above his bed reading 5:23 am. Keith stretched languidly, his muscles still feeling stiff and sore, his spine and every other bone cracking from him staying in the same position for hours on end. Though the weariness persisted, his body was no longer screaming at him to rest- instead, it craved movement, pushing past his heavy bones for him to get up and stretch some more before taking a shower, probably his first since their search-and-rescue mission before he, Lance, Hunk, and Shiro were captured. It seemed like so long ago. He would need to check a calendar and see how long, exactly, it had been since then.
Keith wrinkled his nose; he'd have to throw his sheets into the wash sometime later, and he would need fresh clothes. The steaming water from the shower helped wake him up some more, the temperature and constant stream soothing his tired body and making him feel more relaxed than he had since…forever. Images of his time at the druids' hands came rushing back to him, and he flinched involuntarily in the shower as his breath picked up, heart hammered in his chest, and a very acute flash of fear made him lean against the wall, the water beating on his muscled back, as he repeated a single phrase to himself.
I'm home. I'm home. I'm home.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning the water off and toweled himself dry, pulling on a fresh set of clothes- his trusty gray t-shirt, comfortable black sweatpants, and the well-worn red hoodie that Hunk and Pidge had insisted on getting for his birthday a couple of years back after Shiro "accidentally" told them when it was (where they managed to find a red hoodie with cat ears on the hood in space was beyond him). Needless to say, and he really never said it out loud, but Keith loved it. He wore it around the Castle constantly, wearing his own red jacket (that was surprisingly still intact after all it had been through with him) only when visiting new planets and meeting new people and aliens. It was like his shield, whereas the red hoodie symbolized the complete letdown of his guard.
Red picked up on that fact real fast, her purr of approval rumbling through their bond every time he walked into the hangar with the hoodie on. Now, the worn material provided a familiar, calming sense of comfort, the sense that he was really home, as he walked out of his room. He would have been up around this time every other day and would have been training until breakfast, but in his current state, his team would make a ruckus if someone found out. His body was already reprimanding him for more rest, despite the cabin fever he was already feeling. So was his lion, there in the back of his head- his apparent lack of self-wellness irritated her to no end, and Keith let out a small chuckle as he made his way to the observation deck instead.
Keith couldn't remember a time where he didn't find comfort looking up at the stars. He thought of early childhood memories of laying down on the roof of their little house with his father late at night, his father teaching him all about the constellations he knew. There would be stories upon stories of his mother, stories with details that he couldn't remember, but his father always looked up at the stars as he told them. Back then, little Keith dreamed he could fly- a dream that was shattered when his father died a hero in the flames.
It wasn't until after meeting Shiro, after proving himself as the best pilot of his generation, did that dream come back to life again, dying once more after Shiro's disappearance during the Kerberos mission with Commander Sam and Matt Holt. Then came the Blue Lion, and Keith thought with a small chuckle that no matter where he was, no matter how far he ran, the stars caught up to him in the end, pulled him into an intergalactic war on the other side of the galaxy. They were his constant, and he sought peace from them, just like he had intended on doing until he saw a lone figure curled up in a blanket on the floor of the observation deck. His eyebrow quirked up, walking closer before he realized that the small, sleeping person was Pidge.
The observation deck was their refuge. There was no other way to describe the room that the Paladins had thrown pillows and fluffy blankets and all manners of alien stuffed animals (thanks, Lance) into. It was the room they went to after a long mission, the room they went to after a hard mission, after having their hearts shattered by one reason or another in the wide, cruel universe. Pidge had spent so much time in there before finding Matt and her father, and Keith himself clocked in hours upon hours of quiet solitude.
She must have been exhausted. Grabbing another blanket, he made sure she was completely covered up before he relaxed against several other big cushions just a few feet away, throwing the blanket over his feet as he looked out at the vastness of space. For all the combative perks his Galra genes gave him, Keith found that they also made his feet perpetually cold when he wasn't exercising, training, or fighting. It annoyed him to no end, but the fuzzy socks that Hunk managed to find him made his irritation recede just a bit. No one could be uncheered by fuzzy socks. He could feel a slight rumble in his chest, knowing that the Galra in him was purring in approval.
He stayed there for a long while, the watch hidden underneath the sleeve of his hoodie reading 6:42am when Pidge finally stirred.
"Good morning," Keith greeted her, watching her facial expression go from completely drowsy to immediately alert as she became aware of his presence.
"Keith!" She squawked, her chest heaving from the scream she bit back. "Don't do that!"
He chuckled. "Sorry. Didn't want to wake you up earlier."
Pidge took a moment to calm down from the shock, chucking a pillow at his face a second later. "How are you feeling?"
"Better." Keith stretched out, hearing his spine crack a little, and she did the same. "So…what happened?"
The door to the observation deck slid open, and Lance shambled in with his blue bathroom and what both Paladins in the room knew by now, after years of living with each other, was a new sheet of his "morning special" face mask. "Blue woke me up at the crack of dawn to come hang out with you two instead of sleeping?!" He grumbled, making his way to and collapsing against another nest of cushions. It was barely a minute after that Hunk entered the room as well, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"Yellow told me there was a team meeting."
Keith and Pidge looked at each other, and they burst out laughing.