(we all need) someone to stay

Summary: Missing scene from "Chapter Seventeen: The House of Maala." Lira and Lance's goodbye.

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"Lira! Wait up!"

Lira turns her head and hears Lance jogging to catch up with her—she'd walked briskly once Kolivan had adjourned the meeting—but she doesn't stop. She'd been strong and steady back there, enough to fool Kolivan, or at least enough for him to agree to her idea, but fear is swelling up hot and fast in her throat now, and she thinks she might cry, and she does not want to cry in front of a Paladin of Voltron, even if it is Lance.

She thinks she's going to outpace him, feign a busy mind as an excuse, when his hand latches onto her wrist and wheels her back towards him. His eyes are wide and searching her face. She wishes she had her mask on, and then wrenches her arm around of his grasp. "What, Lance?" she demands, half growling.

He shrinks backwards, but the strange determination in his eyes only grows stronger. "I just... wanted to make sure you were okay. You seemed pretty upset leaving and well, you're going on a pretty big mission." He shrugs. Gives her a smile she almost wants to call sweet. "I wanted to say goodbye."

Her eyes harden. "Galra don't say goodbye," she says, and turns so she doesn't have to see the shattered look on his face. She can remember when Ulaz had been sent to Zarkon's central command, and the fear hot and tight in her gut. She'd come back to Base-101 and Kolivan had told her Ulaz was already gone, and that Thace hadn't come back from his latest mission yet either.

Lance curves and stops in front of her. "Well neither do Paladins of Voltron," he says stoutly, and sighs when she doesn't waver. "Look, you must need a place to prep for your mission, right? Somewhere private?"

"Uh—" Blades are not thoughtful, either. She thought she'd go sharpen her knife, maybe try to get some sleep. She'll need paint, for her markings. She can get that from the shuttle Kolivan and some of their brethren touched down in. But she does not want to be disturbed, and knows that everything will be leaving the Olkari base behind for the Castleship. It'll be crowded, and noisy. This time it's her turn to sigh. "Yeah," she says slowly. "I do."

Lance tilts his shoulder to the right. "C'mon. You can use the Blue Lion's hangar."

She softens, despite herself, as she follows him down the hall and towards the Castleship. They step into the hangar, and find the Blue Lion looming, tall and proud, and Lance seems to breathe more deeply now that he's closer to his Lion.

"No one will bother you there," Lance says confidently, his hands in the pocket of his strange 'jacket.'

"Not even you?" she teases.

However much his expression had lifted when she'd left with him fades. "I'm not that much of a bother to you, am I?" he asks quietly,

Lira swallows. "No, I just—you are the most determined of the paladins, is all. To know me. I am unused to it."

Lance rubs the back of his neck. "Well, yeah," he says. She has never heard him talk so slowly. She has never seen a human's cheesk turn red before. "You're cool."

Her brows knit together. "I am cold?"

Lance laughs, clear and bright. "It's an Earthling term. It means, uh, that you can do things I've never seen anyone else do. Things that maybe nobody else can. Like how Shiro fights, or when Keith flies his Lion through an asteroid belt, or Hunk and Pidge with their tech. Even Allura's powers. They're all pretty cool."

"But you are not?" she says.

"Well, no," says Lance. He seems a different sort of embarrassed now, she realizes. "Not really."

"Hmm."

Lira doesn't know why she indulges him, as she strides to the work table. She sets down her Blade and her knife. For the next ten vargas, she should try and get some sleep. She'll find some black bandages from Kolivan's ship. He may not partake in the rituals anymore himself—there is no time in a rebellion—but he'll give her the tools she needs.

She holds her mask in her hands. "I disagree," she says at last, looking back at him. "You're quite the sniper, and pilot. Your bond with your Lion is strong. And..."

She thinks back to the past few months, of whenever she'd been able to touch down on Olkarion. It hadn't been often, but the paladins had always greeted her. Always been kind. They hadn't understood the danger of having friends in wartime, but perhaps Voltron itself made friendship necessary. The others had come and gone when her ship arrived, Kolivan having kept Shiro and Allura up to tabs—and she still isn't sure what to make of that, exactly—of her whereabouts. Sometimes Pidge was at the market with Elyta, or Hunk preparing a meal with Shay, or Keith sparring alone, or Shiro and Allura wrapped up in their planning, but Lance had always been there, and he'd always brought the others back to her eventually, one way or another.

"You're the only one I've seen who can make any member of your team smile," Lira finishes. "Teams need that, in wartime."

Lance slowly smiles at her. "That sounds more heartwarming than cool," he says pointedly, but he sounds pleased with himself.

"You humans have too many temperatures," she says, with a disapproving tsk in the back of her throat. "Just take the compliment, Paladin."

Lance holds up his hands. That same sweet, stupid smile is on his face. "Fine. Thank you."

She slides her Blade back into its sheath. "I'll be leaving before you do," she says. "For my mission."

"Oh." Lance steps closer, but her back is still to him. "How much earlier?"

"I don't know," she admits. Kolivan will give her the information when it comes through. Of how fast one of the Blade's sleeker shuttles will go in more open space, how small it will have to be to avoid detection by central command's surveillance. "It may only be by one varga, or five." She looks back down at her mask. "I may not see you again before I leave."

Or ever, but she pushes that dark thought away.

Lance's hand finds her wrist again. "Be careful, Lira."

She turns her head slightly. "I will," she promises, and then he lets go.

She's just glad, later when he's left and she returns with the black bandages, that she knows Team Voltron will look after their most valuable member for her.