Hunk had started dragging Lance to join them at every meal, which was a marginal improvement, Pidge thought. She had been on the verge of chasing Lance down and sitting on him in order to make him eat, and she knew Keith wasn't far behind her. They had all been deeply disturbed by the events on Ustar, but they had tried to give Lance space to recover. Their patience had been almost at an end when Hunk made his move.

It was only a marginal improvement because Lance still wasn't eating enough. He might have thought that he was fooling Hunk, but Pidge was a little more suspicious. She didn't miss the way Lance kept sneaking food off his plate and feeding it the mice, who seemed to love him more than ever these days. Especially the big one, Platt. And no, Pidge wasn't jealous. The mice liked her just fine, thank you. She just wanted Lance to stop looking so sad and tired all the time, and his refusal to consume enough calories was probably contributing.

The pink mouse, Chuchule, climbed up on Pidge's shoulder for a better view of the table, nose and whiskers twitching. Pidge turned her head to give her new shoulder companion a smile, then went back to watching Lance with narrowed eyes. He seemed to feel her gaze on him and gave her a guilty glance, then turned his eyes back down to his food. He picked another chunk of tuber-whatever off his plate and set it on the table where Platt was already waiting like he was sitting at a table at a gourmet restaurant.

Pidge opened her mouth to say something. Probably something snarky and ill-advised. But Lance's eyes widened in alarm, and he spoke first.

"Hey, Pidgeykins. You have any plans this evening?"

Pidge snapped her mouth shut. Then she opened it again, cautiously. "Nothing...in particular. Why do you ask?"

"I thought maybe we could play video games. I know we haven't done it for a while. Sorry about that. So are you free?"

Pidge slumped in her seat. She exchanged a glance with Hunk, who stared back at her with wide eyes, almost begging. Well, of course she was going to.

She looked back to Lance and nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, awesome! It's been awhile."

She didn't miss the relief in Lance's smile. "Okay, cool. I'll bring snacks."

"Great." Lance was the second best cook on the ship for human sensibilities, so whatever he brought would probably be delicious.

But when he showed up at her bedroom door later that night holding a plate, it was with hunched shoulders and an apologetic smile. "Ah, sorry. I let my attention drift and forgot to set a timer, and..."

Pidge leaned over to sniff the plate, forehead wrinkled. "Are these...cookies?"

Lance nodded. "Yeah, Hunk finally perfected his recipe, and I'd been wanted to try it out. Sorry I ruined it."

"They're not ruined." Pidge picked up one circular disk and turned it back and forth, her hand on her chin. "Yeah, the edges are a little black, but I think we can scrape it off."

"They're not quite the right shade of blue. I'm not sure if they're edible."

"We'll feed them to Platt first. He'll let us know."

Pidge grabbed Lance's arm and hauled him over to her video game set-up. She was quite proud of it, now. There was the big monitor on the wall, the console with Hunk's jerry-rigged bundle of cords, a short stack of game disks, and the Altean equivalent of beanbag chairs for maximum lounging. The mice were already waiting there, perched on the top of the monitor and the console and watching them come. The green one, Plachu, scampered over to sniff the stack of games, then began to push one out of the middle.

Pidge grinned and bent over to pick up the game as it landed on the floor. "Oh, you want us to play this one tonight? Cool." She held it up and wiggled it in the air for Lance's inspection, and he nodded affably.

"I think Plachu likes the gory ones."

"Yeah, I've noticed that," Pidge said thoughtfully. She popped the game into the console, then picked up the Player One controller and flopped stomach-down on a beanbag.

Lance set his plate of cookies in the middle of the floor, between them both, then picked up the other controller and sat on his own beanbag. He held the controller with one hand and leaned over to pick up a cookie and offer it to Platt with the other.

Platt greeted the cookie, which was twice as big as he was, with open arms. He had to sit back on his haunches and hold it on the edges with both paws, one end near his mouth and the other resting on the floor. He began to eat, ears flicking happily. Pidge and Lance watched him carefully for any sign of rejection, but Platt seemed happy with the cookie. Which wasn't always a perfect sign that the food was good, since Platt would eat pretty much anything, including Coran's paladin specialties. But surely he would reject anything that was actually poisonous.

Pidge picked up a cookie and knocked it against the floor to dislodge as many of the blackened bits as possible, the took a nibble. "It's really not bad," she said around a mouthful of somewhat too-crunchy cookie. "Aren't you gonna eat any?"

Lance eyed the plate with doubt. It was now surrounded with Chuchule, Plachu, and Chulatt as well. All of the mice seemed perfectly happy with their treats. "I'm not sure there's enough for me," he said slowly.

"Of course there is." Pidge picked up a cookie and reached over...way over, curse her short arms...to place it carefully on his knee. "Eat that. You have to, or I'll never trust your cooking again."

He gave her a narrow-eyed look, perhaps suspecting that she was manipulating him, but eventually he picked up the cookie and took a bite. "...Okay, it's not inedible," he admitted. He put it back down on his knee and focused on the monitor. "But are we gonna play this game or not? I'm your Number One Player Two, aren't I?"

Pidge laughed. It was good to have Lance back, even if he wasn't quite himself yet. "Yeah, you are. Let's get this party started."

They played the story mode for a while, moving through the levels while the mice watched and ate cookies, occasionally cheering in their squeaky little voices when Pidge or Lance landed a good hit on a monster. Eventually the illogic of the plot started to make Pidge's head hurt, though, so they went back to the home screen and chose the fight mode. That was more relaxing, the two of them just constantly picking new characters and waling on each other. Pidge fell into the rhythm of it, her fingers finding the buttons as she needed them.

Lance seemed to be relaxing more, too. He had moved to sit in front of his beanbag and was leaning back against it loosely, his legs straight in front of him. Once the cookies were gone, Chulatt and Platt climbed up in his lap and fell asleep, while Chuchule and Plachu took their spots on Pidge's shoulders. Plachu was still watching the fighting with great interest, while Chuchule curled up in a pink fuzzy ball and napped, tiny breaths whispering pleasantly over Pidge's neck.

Pidge tried to think of a tactful way to ask the question that had been perching at the forefront of her brain since Lance first spoke up at supper, but tact had never been her strong suit. So, finally, when Lance looked as relaxed as he was going to get, she just let it come out. "Is there a particular reason you wanted to do this tonight?"

Lance said nothing, but on the screen, his character froze for a moment. Pidge got in three good hits before he regained control and started fighting back again. "Nah," he said, deliberately casual. "Just wanted to spend some time with my favorite gremlin, that's all."

Pidge tried not to smile, but she couldn't help it. Lance's voice was just too fond. "I missed you, you know," she said softly.

"I missed you too. Sorry I haven't been around much."

Pidge sighed and hunched forward, though she made an effort not to dislodge her shoulder mice. "I get it. Ustar was rough on you. You needed time to...get your head on straight."

Lance said nothing. In the game, the current fight ended, and they were back to the character selection screen. Pidge started whipping through the choices, but Lance just sat there, the controller loose in his hands. Pidge picked her new character and flipped through the color schemes. She felt like maybe...pink, this time. In Chuchule's honor.

Lance looked over at her, so slowly and carefully that she was compelled to look back. His eyes were dark and serious in the shadows of the room, only the monitor shedding light his face. "What did it feel like? When you made that really deep connection with Green, and all of sudden you could fly faster and harder, and form the weapon that saved all of us, plus a whole planet full of people?"

Pidge looked back at him. She couldn't help frowning. "Probably the same way it felt when you deepened your bond with Blue and made the sonic weapon for the first time. You saved a whole planet, too, if you don't remember. I don't see how you could have forgotten. You and Hunk wouldn't stop bragging about it."

Lance shook his head. "Yeah, but you could feel Green on like...a molecular level. Right? You kept going on about how everything was connected, how we were all cosmic dust. You must have felt something really deep and powerful, didn't you?"

Pidge set her controller down in her lap and reached up to adjust her glasses. "Yeah, I guess. Part of what I said was just repeating what the Olkari told me. But in that moment... Yeah, it did feel really, really, super deep and powerful. It was like I understood my lion, all the way down to the deepest heart of her. It was...really awesome. I can't explain it, except with metaphors that don't really capture the full experience."

Lance nodded, staring forward at the screen. Pidge watched his face. She didn't understand this...this sadness. Why was he so sad? Usually talking about the lions made him proud and happy, not sad. Did it have something to do with Ustar?

"You...you felt it too, didn't you?" she asked softly. "When you made the sonic weapon with Blue. You must have felt it."

Lance was quiet. Then he set the controller down in his lap and rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't know," he muttered. "I don't...I'm not sure about a lot of things lately, Pidge. Sorry. I didn't mean to ruin the fun game night."

"You're not ruining anything." Pidge considered. Then she put her controller down on the floor and carefully stood up, making sure that Plachu and Chuchule kept their perches. She dragged her beanbag over to Lance's, then sat in front of it, only a few inches from him. He let his head fall back on the bag behind him and rolled his head over to look at her, and ugh, the dark patches under his eyes were terrible. She'd never seen them this bad. Lance usually took much better care of his skin.

"Do you want to sleep here tonight?" Pidge asked. "It's late. I can go get a blanket from the closet. The beanbags are pretty comfortable."

Lance blinked. "Really? I thought your room was sacrosanct and you only let people in on your terms, and then only for a limited time. I thought it was special enough you let me in to play video games with you."

Pidge pulled in a breath. "You just look...really tired, man. Really, really tired. If you don't want to move right now, you don't have to."

"Oh." Lance's hands had been resting in his lap, absently petting Platt and Chulatt. Now all of a sudden he raised his right hand and covered his eyes. His mouth screwed up, and Pidge knew that he was fighting tears. His left hand rose, too, to cover the bottom half of his face. He was trying not to let her see him cry. Who knew such a simple kindness could make Lance cry?

Pidge shifted awkwardly, but she didn't take it back. "I'll...go get that blanket."

Before she moved, Chuchule and Plachu scampered across the beanbags to curl up on Lance's shoulders instead. Pidge was fine with that. She went to the closet and rummaged around until she found her biggest, softest, fuzziest blanket. She had scavenged the lower storage decks for hours before she found this one and confiscated it for her own use. When she came back, Lance was stretched out over the beanbags, his eyes closed, all four of the mice cuddled up in a pile next to his head.

Pidge spread the blanket over him, then reached out and gently brushed the hair back from his forehead. "Sleep well, Lance," she whispered. His forehead wrinkled, but he didn't open his eyes.

Pidge turned off the game console, then the monitor. The light winked out, leaving only the illumination strips at the bottom of the wall to keep her from stubbing her toes on her way to bed. Lance slept, and Pidge could only hope it was a good one. She hoped that he felt completely safe and utterly warm.