Chapter 3

He didn't have to wait longer than half an hour, but it still felt like an eternity. His stomach growled loudly every few minutes or so and would twist in pain at the sound. The thought that food was so close had it in a frenzy.

When the group finally showed up again, they were short one member. The boy with glasses, Pidge, was not with Hunk and Lance. That wasn't something that concerned him at the moment though.

A large bowl of green gooey mass was being held by Hunk as Lance looked at the door to Keith's cell curiously. Lance was holding a pitcher of water and a glass.

Keith stood and wandered his way over to the door at the will of his shouting stomach, which didn't seem to care about the unappetizing appearance of his dinner. Before he realized it Keith was standing with his face inches from the glass staring at the food intensely. When Hunk moved the food out of his line of sight to help Lance with whatever the hell he was doing the trance broke.

Keith took a step back and blinked.

Hunk and Lance were feeling along the door, maybe for a chute to send the food to him, but they couldn't seem to find anything. After a minute they stopped and looked at each other before looking to Keith, who was still relatively close to the window.

Lance pressed the button.

"Umm, we don't know how to get the food to you…" He says with a sheepish smile. Keith must have looked crestfallen, lips parted just slightly, sad eyes, and flattened ears. Keith's stomach protested at the same time.

"Don't you know where the chute is? Isn't this your ship?" Keith asked quietly. A prisoner to strangers who can't even feed him. This situation just kept getting worse.

"Not exactly. But don't worry, we'll find a way to feed you," Hunk said reassuringly. Lance nodded with him. They both set down the food and drink before feeling along the door again. Lance kept his finger on the button so that Keith could talk to him.

"Can't you just open the door and push the stuff through the crack? I wouldn't try to escape, it's not like I have any weapons or any idea of where to go." Keith was practically begging at this point, it was almost as if he could smell the food, a foot away but impossibly out of reach. Of course he couldn't really smell the food, but his stomach was creating sweet delusions.

"Even if that were true it wouldn't matter. We don't even know how to open this door in the first place, let alone have the key to unlock it. And Allura would kill us if she found out that…" There was a moment of silent static as Lance thought over his own words, but it was Hunk who broke the silence.

"Pidge! She would know what to do! She should be done eating by now anyways! I'll go get her," and with that Hunk was off down the hall.

"Pidge is a girl?" Keith asked, intrigued. He had been thinking of her as a him. She had never specified in the first place, so it was fair.

"Yeah, she fooled all of us once. We thought she was a he for at least a month before she dropped it all on us." Lance says with a faraway look on his face as he remembers. He pauses for a moment before his face broke in a crooked grin. "But of course I had suspected something the whole time. The rest of the team- they were so surprised!" Lance says loudly.

Keith had a sneaking suspicion that Lance was lying through his teeth.

Keith doesn't respond, he can't decide if he wants to show his true feelings to Lance (seriously disliking him, because, like Thace always said, hate is a strong word) or playing along and getting information out of him.

"So, where are you from?" He seems genuinely curious. Keith thinks about his response for a moment.

"No, I think you should answer one of my questions first." Keith only allows Lance time to comprehend his words before he is continuing. "Who are you? What kind of- I don't know- group are you people?"

Lance seems confused for a moment before he speaks hesitantly, "You mean Voltron?"

Keith's mind moves quickly, trying to process the information he had just been given. There had been an old fairy tale about a robot named Voltron that could defeat Zarkon, but it was just that. A fairy tale. This group was obviously against Zarkon. They must have picked up the name in hope that it would spark defiance in people around the universe.

"Vol… Tron?" Keith answers. "Why did you name yourselves after a fairy tale?" Keith asks innocently, his ears perking up to hear every detail. He didn't much like Lance, but if he was going to just spill details he wouldn't stop him.

"We didn't! Everyone says that!" He frowns a bit before sighing. "We're the real deal. We've got almost every aspect of Voltron ready to go. Once the last Paladin shows up we'll defeat Zarkon and save Earth." Lance says with a seriousness Keith had yet to hear him use.

"And the universe?" Keith asks raising one eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah. That too." Lance says without a hint of embarrassment.

"How could you forget the Universe?!" Keith says, rather loudly as he looks at Lance unbelievingly.

"I didn't, I just happened to not mention it."

"Just like you happened to not mention that I saved your ass more than once and get me locked in here?" Keith fires back venomously. Lance narrows his eyes at him.

"I tried to stop Shiro before he knocked you out. I really did." He says as he shakes his head and looks off to the side. "I tried to tell Allura that you helped me. That you saved me for fucks sake. But she wouldn't have any of it. And you probably don't know why any of that matters or who the hell I'm talking about but- I'm sorry." Lance's mouth is set in a firm line and his soft blue eyes hold Keith's. His apology is sincere. "I'm going to try to help you. But I don't-"

"Lance, I found Pidge!" Hunk exclaims from somewhere out of Keith's line of sight. He can faintly make out the sound of Pidge's quiet complaints.

"Pidge is our technology expert." Lance says, as if he hadn't just been speaking of betraying who sounded like a higher up. Betrayal must come naturally to him.

Well, maybe it wasn't fair of Keith to think that. He did apologize, and technically it wasn't Lance who knocked him out. But at the same time Keith didn't know if he trusted or even forgave him yet. He had no reason to. Lance didn't strike Keith as the type that he usually made friends with anyways. He even gave off a slightly annoying vibe. A needy, whiny vibe.

"Keith?" Pidge says. Keith looks up from where his gaze had wandered to his feet with thought.

"Huh?" Keith says intelligently. Pidge just rolls her eyes.

"Okay then," She looks to Hunk, "The panel the intercom button is on- Lance, move your finger, it's in the way."

The static leaves and it seems as if the world losses all sound. He hadn't notice it earlier, but it was almost like space has made its void-like home inside of Keith's cell. The silence was violent. Was he deaf? What was that voice in his mind whispering? Was it really a good idea to listen to it?

Keith takes a breath and lets the sound of the air moving in and out of his lungs calm him. There is still sound. He is okay. Just- Deep breaths. No attacks here. Just… hunger induced delusions.

"…and it should shut by itself, Lance are you listening to me?" Pidge's static laced voice comes on again, sending a wave of calm though him.

"Keith are you okay?" Lance asks. He seems slightly worried. Keith opens his eyes and looks up at Lance. He has to look up pretty far because he is sitting on the floor. When that happened he didn't know, but he stood, trying to play it off.

"Just starving." He says with sarcasm. Lance narrows his eyes at him, he doesn't believe Keith. Keith glares back at him, a silent message reading, it's none of your business.

Pidge left as soon as she finished and Hunk doesn't seem to notice the exchange. At first at least. But while he is placing the food and drink in the fold out chute he sees the glare off between the two of them.

"Uh, guys?" He says nervously as he slides the food through the door. He gets Lance's attention with his words, and Keith's with the food. Keith is on it in seconds, shoveling the food into his mouth rapidly while his stomach gurgles in satisfaction. He is finished in what must have been thirty seconds and moves onto the pitcher full of water.

"Dude." Hunk says when Keith finishes. Keith looks at him for a moment before placing the empty dishes back in the shoot. Hunk pulls it through the door and takes the dishes. He shuts his mouth back from where it had been open in surprise before folding the chute back up into the door.

"I guess you really were hungry. It would have been three days since you ate after all." Lance says. Hunk nods in agreement.

"Three… days? But… It can't be." Keith says to himself. Hunk gives him a sad look.

"You spent a whole day in the healing chamber, you were pretty beat up from your last fight, even before Shiro hit you. But then you sent the next day sleeping in here. We had no idea when you were going to wake up." Hunk says. He continues, "We had to keep dragging Lance away though, he came to check on you, like, every 45 minutes."

"Hunk! I did not!"

"You're right, it was more like every 30 minutes."

"Hunk!" Lance's voice squeaked.

""What if Shiro hurt his spinal cord and gave him brain damage? Maybe he's afraid that the Galra captured him! I'll go check and make sure that his room has oxygen in it." You make up the weirdest excuses dude." Hunk chuckles. Keith smiles at him. Even gives a small snort in response to his story.

"That's funny, because I had to wait hours before you guys showed up." Keith says, trying to ignore the faint heat on his cheeks.

"It's not our fault that you woke up in the middle of the night." Lance says. He seems to do that a lot. Push the blame away from himself.

Then a question pops into his mind. A question he should have asked from the beginning.

"Wait. If you guys already knew that I was against Zarkon and all, why am I even in here in the first place?" After the two of them get over the initial confusion over the sudden change of topic they don guilty looks.

Hunk shifts his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. "Because… You're a Galra yourself… and Allura doesn't trust you because of that. Most of the rest of us are convinced that you're on our side. Pidge was able to pull the footage from the room where Lance's Bayard was hidden and we all saw how you saved Lance." Hunk nudged Lance and smiled at him, Lance just pouted. "But Allura… She said that she didn't want to take any chances…" Hunk trailed off.

"So what do I have to do to get out of here?" Keith asks. Hunk and Lance look at each other.

"Well," Lance starts, "She's asleep right now, since it is about 6 in the morning, but she should be up soon and once she is we can bring her down here to interview you."

"And if I check out you'll let me out." Keith finishes. They both nod. "Hold on, you've been talking to me for at least an hour… Lance, did you wake up your friends to come and talk to me?" Keith mocks, referring to Hunk's earlier story. Lance's face dusted slightly pick with embarrassment.

"Man he's smart isn't he Lance." Hunk nudges him with a goofy grin on his face. Lance just averts his gaze.

"I wanted to make sure that you were okay…" He mutters, but Keith can hear every word. "And I wanted- I just thought that I should… say thank you…" Lance says, meeting Keith's eyes.

It might just be that fact that he is happily feed, or the prospect that he won't be stuck here forever, but Keith is beginning to think that maybe he didn't dislike Lance as strongly as he may have earlier.

Hunk looks at Lance with genuine surprise before smiling and shaking his head.

"What kind of trouble did you get yourself into, Lance?" He mumbles under his breath. Lance didn't hear it, but even with the static Keith caught every word.

"I'll go look for Allura!" Lance states suddenly, taking his finger off the button and saying something else to Keith before leaving. Keith could not read his lips and Lance seemed to have forgotten about the sound barrier. He leaves with Hunk following behind him closely, also not realizing Lance's mistake.

Keith is left to wait in the static-free cell by himself.

...

Thank you guys so much for the reviews! Oh and by the way, don't expect these updates to be so regular. I've just been having a good week... 3