A little after a year since Lance went missing Luis stood in front of his mirror trying to pick which tie to wear to Lance's funeral. No one in his family wanted a funeral for Lance. No one wanted to believe he was dead. But the Garrison made the final call when after a whole year since he disappeared, he never showed up again. Luis heard Aunt Sofía come into his room still brushing her teeth with a towel on her head and a bathrobe covering the rest of her body.
"Don't wear either of those ties, they'll make your head look big."
Luis glared at her as she leaned against his doorway, she shrugged.
"Well, I don't really have any other options." Luis huffed, "it's not like this funeral really matters anyways."
"What? You mean you think he's alive?" Sofía said through a mouthful of toothpaste, "Even if that were true he abandoned his family! Thats never okay and you should think so too."
"We don't even know he doesn't want to come home!" Luis began to shout but quickly lowered his voice so Mamma couldn't hear him through the thin walls.
Aunt Sofía rolled her eyes, "Well, we need to know he's alive first and if we both know Lance, then you would know that he would have sent some sort of message to us by now."
"So you don't think he abandon us." Luis smirked as he caught her contradiction.
Sofía didn't seem surprised. With a slow shake of her head she disappointedly looked at the ground, "No. I think that he abandoned us. I just hope he did it without being able to send any word of where he was."
Luis's eyes softened as he understood the meaning of her words. She thought Lance was dead, even if he did run away he would have tried to contact them. He abandoned them by keeping them in the dark and now he was gone forever. Lance was never a runaway. In fact, he used to be so clingy and loud that sometimes Luis wished that Lance would be quiet for once. But, if you got to know him, you would see how much more there was to Lance than he lead on. Now, Luis would have given anything to hear Lance be clingy again.
The funeral was drab, as they usually are. Lance's photo was displayed with two others that Luis assumed were Hunk and Pidge. Once the ceremony was over, the McClain's moved to a seperate location that the garrison setup so each family could mourn separately. Luis saw them approach Lance's gravestone. A grave that didn't hold a body. Only one woman stayed behind as the other families began to branch off. She was standing, alone, in front of a picture of a young boy with large feminine eyes. Luis wouldn't usually have asked but he didn't feel like going to mourn his brother who could still be alive somewhere. To see a gravestone of his teenage brother that never was proven to have died.
"So are you here all alone?" Luis started off. The woman didn't react very much, only stared down the picture of her son. Too young to be missing it would seem.
"Yes… the rest of my family…" she took a deep breath before continuing, "the rest of my family had a similar fate as my daughter." She spoke quietly but firmly. Oh he is a she. Luis could clearly see the resemblance between the mother and her daughter. Her blonde hair the same as her mothers, though much shorter, and they had the same petite build. She stared at the photo with dead eyes, completely emotionless. Already been through this enough times to know how to deal with it.
"I'm so sorry." Luis consoled. He understood the feeling but wasn't anywhere near being ready to accept it, "I bet she misses you."
The woman nodded slightly, a few tears dropping off of her chin, "She could probably find a way to see me here with that technology and mind of hers."
"If you don't mind me asking… What happened to the rest of your family?" Luis asked cautiously.
The mother glanced at him but proceeded to answer, "My husband and son traveled together on the Kuberous mission with a man named Takashi Shirogane." She paused before responding quietly, "they were never heard from again."
Luis felt an enormous amount of sympathy for this woman. He remembered how upset Lance and Veronica were when the explorers had disappeared. He never thought it would have happened to Lance. Maybe not in the same way but still with the same premise.
They stayed there together for a while, simply looking at the young woman. Luis thought that she couldn't be any younger than fifteen, this realization darkened his thoughts. Just to think that someone so young, younger then Lance even, could disappear just as easily.
"Where ever they are, if they're still alive, then I hope they are all together." Luis said suddenly. It was one thing to be stuck in space, but to be stuck in space alone would be far worse.
The woman shook her head, "I used to think the same thing when I lost my husband and son to the Kerberos mission," She looked up at Luis then, her eyes were dim, or at least it seemed that way. Drained of all color and extra glossy from the tears she had shed. It looked like her eyes were a mirror, broken by a sledgehammer of tragedy. Slightly pink from crying too much and rubbing the tears away, "I've come to accept that they're gone. I will never know what is happening now or why they left in the first place, if they are alive then they aren't coming back."
Luis looked down at his shoes, tears began to stream down his face at the woman's last comment. She looked at him with empathy and understanding and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"If you want to talk about anything then you can call me at anytime." She smiled a soft but broken smile.
"Thank you Miss…?" Luis responded quietly as he wiped away his tears.
"Holt. Greta Holt." She smiled that broken smile again and wrote her number down on a tiny piece of paper, "don't be afraid to call."
Luis nodded and drifted off to his family, thoughts trapped between Lance and Miss Holt's tragic story. He knew that he most likely wouldn't call but still clutched onto the small scrap of paper like one would a lifeline.
The car ride home was unbearable. While Luis was squished in the car with Sophía and Veronica, Papa and Mamma were talking in hushed tones in the front. Luis, Veronica, and Sophía were quiet for the majority of the car ride until Sophía spoke up.
"Who was that woman, Luis?" she asked, her tone flat and tired.
Luis looked down at the phone number scrunched in his hands, "She was a mourner."
Veronica glanced at Luis, "by herself?" she asked curiously. Luis knew she was the strongest believer that Lance was alive and if she could, then she would try to find Lance herself.
Luis nodded, "yeah, her entire family was lost in space on the Kuberous mission." Luis started to fidget with his hands, he felt guilty even though he knew nothing was his fault, "Now her daughter is lost too."
At that the entire car fell silent, even mamma and papa who had been listening in on their conversation without them knowing. Everyone was just… speechless. They'd gone through a lot just losing Lance, but to lose their entire family would be…
The deafening silence that filled the car made Luis squirmy. Sophía seemed surprised but unaffected and Veronica's face had so much sympathy that Luis could visibly feel her hurt at those words. The worst though, was mamma. She began to sob. She began to weep in the front seat while everyone just stared at her, praying to god that she wouldn't break like when Lance first disappeared.
Papa moved a hand to her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze but she didn't seem to notice. All she did was cry the rest of the way home. Muttering small phrases like
"Oh that poor woman."
"She must be so sad."
"I couldn't imagine losing my family."
"I wouldn't be able to live if I lost all of them."
Veronica and Luis shared a worried glance. Mamma wasn't getting any better.