Sorry, forgot to update this yesterday. Enjoy the last segment!
Some time after they'd been there last, Rolo and his crew found themselves again at the safe port that served as a secret rebel base. They debriefed to the member that had sent them on their errand in the first place, Rolo scrawled his signature into the system database to receive their payment deposit, and then they were released to their leisure.
The captain led them down a wide hallway, stretching his long arms above his head until he heard several satisfying cracks and pops. "Whadda ya say we catch ourselves some grub? Something fresh to eat sounds really good right about now." Beezer whined at him in a somehow reproachful tone and he couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "Yeah, Beez, I know, we'll get you that new thermal regulator like I promised."
"That's not the only thing you promised, remember?" Nyma prodded him in the side as she passed by.
Rolo reflexively dropped his arms to protect his exposed torso from further attack, but she had already moved ahead. "Wait, what?" Hurriedly he wracked his brain for anything he might have said to Nyma to provoke that response. Had he told her he'd fix something on the ship...? Oh no, he couldn't remember...
"To the Paladins," she clarified in exasperation.
That brought him up short, Beezer rolling right past him before it stopped to turn around and look up at him. "Oh yeah, that Matt kid!" Nyma, however, didn't stop, but continued on, not wanting her captain to see her face just then. For all that she'd seemed indifferent about the whole situation, she couldn't help but want to do at least some part in the reparations for their actions against the Voltron team, even if it was just reminding Rolo of his promise. She might feel the slightest bit of remorse, she just couldn't let her crew know that. After all, she had a reputation to keep.
Rolo, meanwhile, had changed his intended direction, instead seeking out a source of information that could lead him to the human's whereabouts. He had to ask around, Beezer following curiously on his tail, until he finally got good, solid info that, yes, the human named Matt was actually still on the base, and the 'where' he got from someone else, but he finally had what he wanted and was on the right track to deliver his message. He finally caught up with his target in a smaller dining hall, off the main thoroughfare and so it was much more sparsely populated.
Matt himself was surprised to be approached by the same stranger again, a situation he had thought was a complete fluke the first time. He was no longer wearing the bodysuit and rags of a Galra prisoner, but instead a mismatch of clothing that had been gifted to him. He at least didn't look quite so haggard as last time, either, with more meat on his bones and the dark bags under his eyes lessened. Not that anyone at the station knew what a healthy or unhealthy human looked like anyway...
"Yo, wait up!" the alien called to get his attention. He obliged, though still a touch wary as the other continued, "Matt, right?"
"Y-yeah," he stuttered a little, not sure if he should be suspicious or surprised. Why did this purple alien have such an interest in him?
"I'm Rolo, by the way. Didn't really introduce myself, huh? Sorry for getting you confused last time," the pilot continued with an easy smile. "I figured it out. It makes sense that you look like the Green Paladin, you being siblings and all."
Whatever Matt had been expecting, it had NOT been that.
Siblings...?
"What...?" he breathed the question. Though his brain was computing the impossibilities, he felt his knees go a little weak and so he groped blindly for the chair he thought was nearby, easing himself down into it. Even the thought of other humans out here might be explained by Shiro or his father, or even some other poor fools exploring space gone missing. But what Rolo was suggesting...did that mean she had been snatched from Earth?
Oblivious to the young astronaut's thoughts, Rolo continued, "I'm supposed to tell you, actually, 'Katie is on the way.'"
Matt's head snapped up to stare at this unfamiliar face, suddenly desperate for answers. "Katie? MY Katie? She's out here?! What is she doing out here?!"
"Looking for you, apparently," Rolo responded with a faintly amused snort.
Matt was currently sitting with his head in his hands, bent over his lap, trying to come to grips with this news. He believed in his sister with all his heart, knew the greatness she was destined for, but in the wake of events with the Galra, his life had suddenly felt like it was cracked into two parts, the life he'd left on Earth never to touch the one where he'd been stolen into space beyond the Milky Way. But now one undersized, determined and frighteningly intelligent piece of the Earth life he'd left behind was shoving her way into his new reality. How had she even...?
"Wait," he looked back up at Rolo. "What did you call her? The green what?" That was significant, somehow, he knew it.
"The Green Paladin, of Voltron," and the way he said it, with implicit respect in the very words, sent a kind of chill down Matt's spine. Rolo continued, "They've been doing a real number on the Galra empire, I'll tell you that. Rumor has it they seriously mucked up Zarkon's central command, and even maybe took out Zarkon himself."
Matt can't help but stare a little more, then he started to laugh to himself, covering his face with one hand as his chuckles grew louder and stronger. It just figures. It was so KATIE.
A memory stirred, it felt like from so long ago, in that time on the other side of the fissure in his life, but Matt remembered a quiet, sweet moment of normalcy, when Sam Holt apparently waxed prophetic at the dinner table over a last home-cooked meal.
"Something tells me that you're gonna have your own crew some day and you're gonna fly with them to worlds so far away we can't even imagine. I bet my bottom dollar you're gonna be part of something that makes the whole universe sit up and take notice."
"Take notice, indeed," Matt muttered to himself. "What are the odds...?"
There you go! Just a little something I pondered while waiting excitedly for the new season. Though with that picture that came out recently with Shiro and Matt IN THE SAME FRAME, I had to do up a little drabble of that, too, which I'll post later. So, hah, yay lots of ideas!