Author's note: I loved writing this chapter, although there is a good deal of angst in it. I suppose that says something about me? At any rate, it will not stay angst-ridden, I promise. Thanks for the reviews and encouragement, especially to Mertz, who has been an inspiring writer as well as reviewer.
Playlist: "Waiting," by The Devlins. If this chapter had a theme song, this would be it. Also played The Who's Greatest Hits really loud. Odd mix, but hey, if it works…
Chapter Seven:
Everybody's Waiting
Pidge
When I looked down and saw that piece of glass, I wasn't really surprised. It looked like a shard of some long crystal sword from those comic books I like to read had broken off in my chest. The magical ones that the bad guys carry around. Hurt like hell, too, worse than being branded. It's funny, because that's probably one of the ways, if I got to choose, that I'd like to go: like a comic book hero, fighting evil, fighting for my friends, fighting to impress some girl who actually liked me back, fighting for some important but impossible to define ideal like freedom or liberty or truth or justice.
None of those words have any meaning to me now. The one word that sticks with me, the last thing I remember before coming to this place, this place where everything is dark and calm and nothing hurts, is fear. It's easier to see things here, to see them clearly. One thing that's clear to me now is how much a part of my life that word has been.
Fear. I've been afraid my whole life. I was afraid that my dad left because of me, and that what Mom meant when I asked her why and she said, "Honey, we were just too young," was that I had come along and complicated things. Messed it up for them. Who wants to be taking care of a kid in their twenties, anyhow? And I felt fear when my mom got sick and knew that there was no one else for her in the whole world but me. Fear that I couldn't do anything about it except watch her waste away because I was only eight years old. And I couldn't.
And then the group home was almost nothing but fear. I was always the youngest and the smallest and the smartest. Bad combination. The other boys didn't have the best home lives and stories either, obviously. But instead of it bringing us closer together, similarities like that, important ones, like parents that had died or left or disappeared, it turned us inward on ourselves, like some kind of weird cannibalism of the soul. There was fighting and bullying and theft, but I was smart, and little for my age, and while that worked against me a lot of the time, I developed almost this sixth sense about my well-being. I knew when a big fight was coming, or when somebody had it out for me; it's like I could smell it in the wind, and I knew that was the day to go find a quiet place to read or sneak down to the basement where I collected old broken things and built things with them.
Now, here in this dark place where I don't hurt, but I can remember the blast in the control room, where I know I wasn't able to get to my blaster, where I know my instinct led me to crawl into a small place, I wonder: is that self-preservation, or fear? And just how far away from that line is cowardice?
But it's funny that I've never been able to know about the good things in the same way. Good things take me completely by surprise. I don't trust them. They beckon you out of your hiding place, into the light, but there are always shadows just beyond the sun…
I wasn't able to see the good in Mr. Howard at first. He taught math and science at the group home. He wore these thick glasses, just like mine, and he always showed up kinda wrinkled and scatter-brained. The other kids made fun of him. But I just buried myself into the books and the computer programs, and pretty soon, he was talking to me pretty regular. He'd ask me to stay after class, and I made the other boys think I'd gotten into some kind of trouble, so I didn't have to take any of their crap about being a teacher's pet. After school, he set up all these kinds of programs I'd never seen before- things that actually challenged me, made me think. He talked to me about the future, about what kind of life I could have outside of the group home, and always there was some new program or game. I loved the logic of it, the way there was always some kind of problem to solve or get around or over, but that there was a way, if I just kept chasing it. It felt good to chase towards something rather than run from something.
One day he sat me down and talked to me about leaving the home. Some of those programs and games had been tests of some kind, and my scores were such that some people at some very good schools were interested in me. They were willing to let me go to school for free, if I was willing, and the only hard part was deciding which one to go to. I chose the Space Academy. I guess it was reading all those comic books.
The only bad thing about leaving the group home was leaving Mr. Howard. I still wonder what happened to him sometimes. Now that I've seen real fighting and dying and torture, I know Mr. Howard was one of the only people I could call a hero, just like from one of my comic books. He kept going back to that dismal place, day after day, putting up with all that crap from those awful boys, hoping to help the one or two who were like me, who had a chance and wanted to get out. I know sometimes he hated it and sometimes he was afraid, but he went and did it anyway. Maybe that's all courage is, not an absence of fear, but feeling the fear anyway and going ahead and doing whatever you're supposed to do.
I know, in this dark place where I find myself, I finally have a choice. My mom comes to visit me here sometimes. She talks to me about choices, and I talk to her about my life after her, short as it's been, and about how since coming here I can see that I let myself be caught up in being afraid. She listens to me, and she agrees with me about Mr. Howard, that he was a real hero, and that I didn't believe her and wouldn't for a long time, but that I am one too. She tells me fear is all right, because I go ahead and do the next right thing anyway, and that all those big tough soldiers who came to Arus with me are just as afraid, and when I get to know them a little better, they'll tell me so themselves.
She says I can't stay, not with her, in the dark calm where things don't hurt. She won't let me. She made me promise her I would go back and live the life she couldn't anymore, that I would read some more comic books and ride my Lion and learn to love nature and have pets and fall in love and that I would grow old and have grandchildren for her to watch from wherever we are right now, that I would learn to trust in the good things and that there are good people and that I don't have anything to hide from anymore. I promised her, even though it would be easier, and nice, in a way, to stay here in the dark and the calm where nothing ever hurts and she is here with me. I think it will be a hard promise to keep, but I will keep it as best I can.
Hunk
Man, I hate blaster burns. They sink in through your skin right down to your bones, making you feel like you've got liquid fire down in the center of you somewhere. I know something's different about this one, though, because I'm still down and out. I still hurt, bad, but it's like the hurt can't make it all the way up to my brain, like I know it's there but I'm floating above it. Floating. Yeah. That's it exactly. They must have me doped to the gills because I can't move either, not even an eyelid or a pinky finger, and if I hear any sounds at all, it's like they're coming to me very slowly from far away. Like I'm encased in a solid block of jello. I wonder if they have jello on Arus.
I can hear people calling my name sometimes, while I'm up here floating above the pain, but they're the wrong damn people. I hear Keith and Lance and Sven sometimes, and that's nice, but I don't hear the other voices I want to hear. Where's the little one? Pidge was nowhere around when I went after Lotor…
And the princess? What the hell happened to her? I hate floating here when I feel like there's business to finish. Those Lions. They are some piece of work. People forget, because of my size, about my hands. I have magic hands. There's nothing I can't fix, nothing too small or too tangled or too far gone for me to find a way to put it back together. Machines are like that; they're easy to understand. Not like people. Well, most people, anyway. Machines are patient with me. They wait with me while I figure out their secrets, find out what it is they need, and then fix them up. I can't wait to get my hands on those Lions.
With people it's harder. At least, the people here on Arus. Everyone's so sad and marked by loss. I'm used to loud, happy people who don't hide what they feel. I came from a huge family, and I don't just mean all of us are big people, which we are. Hell, my two older brothers are half a foot taller than me. Called me "Shorty" when we were growing up, at least until I got big enough to kick their assess for it. Then they let up a little. My mom and dad just loved each other, everything about them showed it, the way they looked at each other, the way they touched; hell, even the way they stood next to each other screamed out how much they loved each other. And that translated into a bunch of kids. Six of us. Five boys and one girl, and damned if my sister Suki isn't the most spoiled girl in the world. But I guess that's pretty normal, all things considered.
But here on Arus, it's like everyone I meet has a part of their heart missing. Everybody's lost somebody. The poor princess, with no parents or siblings or even cousins. Koran with his dead wife and son. That Captain, with his wife gone, and now he's gone to join her. Even my teammates- Pidge, at least, I know came from an orphanage when he lost his Mom. So much pain. All that's left of the population is a few adults, and lots and lots of orphans. An entire generation will grow up on this planet not knowing what it's like to wake up in a house where you share a bedroom with two other brothers, and you can hear your mother making breakfast, and one of your brothers is yelling at your sister to hurry up and get out of the bathroom and stop hogging all the hot water…
When I get outta here I'm going to do something about that. I know the best thing I can do is keep any more of them from getting killed, so thank God for those Lions and for Voltron. But maybe there's something else. I can teach them games, at least. And I can carry a bunch of kids on my back, being so big. Maybe I can build them something, too, like some toys at least, and a place to play…and if we can ever get regular supply routes restored, well then, my Mom would flip out over all these parentless kids, organize some kind of charity drive back at the temple back home, get all kinds of stuff sent here.... if I can ever get out of this block of jello…
Allura
How can you tell when someone loves you? Is it in the way they stay with you, always, protecting you from danger, even when it isn't there? And when it is there, is it love when they throw themselves in the way, taking blaster burns and stabbings and tumbles down stairs in your stead?
Is it love when you sneak away from the caves, mad to see the sun, and he follows you, far away, to give you privacy, but close enough if you need him? Is it love when you walk down the corridors at night, like you know you're not supposed to, but you do anyway, because you can pretend your parents are still alive and everything is all right? Is it love when you do these things, and he lets you, and even understands why you do them, and never tells a soul?
I feel like such an awful person. I never knew, Alex. I had a little crush on you. How could I not? I am eighteen years old, and you are the only man they've ever allowed close to me. My daring, handsome protector who rushed in when I was in danger and saved me, every time? Every time but that last…
I didn't even know about your wife. Is it because you wanted to protect me from it, or because I was too stupid and selfish to ask? Or was it because what you had with her was real love, and you wanted to keep that one thing for yourself? If that's so, how could you love me? How did you love me? What kind of love? How many kinds of love are there? You'll never tell me, now, and I was too stupid or too selfish to ask. Next time, if there ever is a next time, I will ask, Alex, I swear it. With the next man who loves or is loved by me, I will not let the words go unsaid. When you died you taught me that.
And what about Lotor? When he was hitting me, he had the strangest look on his face, like it really hurt him to hurt me. Is that what he thinks love is, to kill for your beloved? To hurt her because somehow it's for her own good? I believed him when he said he was hurting me because I was making him. Everyone in that room died because of me. If I had just gone with him…
Everything about me feels raw. Nothing inside me is injured but everything feels broken. I just want to lie here, curled up into a ball, and never leave Med Center. Sometimes I cry, but I only have one eye to do it out of, thanks to Lotor, and it frightens the people here trying to take care of me. One eye I can't see out of, and one black and puffy red eye I keep shut most of the time. I won't eat. My lip is torn on one side where Lotor hit me, and it had to be sewn back together. I feel like I'll never want food again. I keep staring at the same patch of wall. I hug myself with my knees to my chest and look at the green walls with the diamond-patterned tiles. There are fifty-six of them that I can see with my one eye.
Sometimes people come to talk to me, cover me with blankets, and smooth my hair. Whenever someone touches me I start to shake. Tears leak out of my one good eye and sometimes I whimper. I know I scream in my sleep. I wake up and my throat is raw and my lip is sore from screaming. If you can call it sleep. They give me shots, sometimes, and I fall away into darkness, except I keep seeing him above me, with the light fading from his eyes, my name just leaving his lips. Sometimes I see them all, falling over, blood spilling on the floor. Sometimes I see yellow eyes and heavy fists… Today they stuck needles in me because I won't eat or drink. I don't care.
The one who comes the most is Keith. I don't mind him being here. I like it, even. He knows, somehow, where I am in my head. If it scares him he doesn't show it. He knows not to touch me, or ask me questions. Mostly he just sits in a plastic chair that creaks when he sits down, and I like that. I know exactly how it sounds when he sits in that chair. I've learned his smell. He smells like soap, but underneath that, his skin smells just a little spicy, a little like oranges and what I imagine sunshine must smell like. When they come to try to make me eat, or to change my gown, or have a bath, or stick me with a needle, I start to shake, and he steps outside, but I know that if I wanted to, I could call him, call out his name, and he would come running. He's waiting. Waiting for me to make up my mind if I want to continue to be the Princess of Death and Destruction. But I don't have to decide now. I am waiting, too.
I had a dream the other night, not one brought on by needles and their drugs. I was outside, on the surface of Arus, and it was green like Keith had shown me. A woman was there with me, with red hair that waved and flowed in the breeze like flames. She had five lions sitting at her feet, and each one was on a chain. "I am waiting," she said. "I am waiting for you to rise up and fight. You promised me. You promised your life to my service, to cleanse our planet of the evil that plagues us." She let slip all the lions but the biggest one, and she handed his chain to me. "He is waiting, too, waiting for you to find him and claim him. He has been waiting for you since the stars were born." She stepped back, then, and I saw that she was under the lion arch that still stands outside the castle. The sun came up behind her in a brilliant orange orb, and the lion statue on top of the arch crumbled into dust, and my lion licked my hand and jumped up on top of the arch and roared. I knew, then, what the goddess had come to tell me. I know where the fifth Lion is. And I know who will pilot it. He sits near me now, waiting.
I roll over for the first time since they brought me here. I am still curled into a ball. He suddenly becomes very still. I can almost hear his muscles tensing. My mouth opens and only sobs come out. "Keith," I say, my vocal cords sore from screaming and disuse. He is there in an instant, on the bed with me, holding me in his arms as I cry. I feel his hands in my matted hair, holding me, rocking me. I feel him shaking, too, as he cries into my shoulder.
"Allura," he says, and my name comes from his lips as if he is breathing for the first time after being deep underwater. He has more to say, I know, but I also know words are hard for him. My name is enough, for now. Later, I will have words with him. I will not let important things go unsaid. Alex taught me that.
But for now, I must tell him something. I slide one of my hands to the back of his neck, surprised by how weak I am. "Keith," I whisper into his ear. I love saying his name. "Keith. I know where the Black Lion is."
He looks at me, as if that is the last thing he ever thought I'd say. He's still waiting, I can see. I don't know if the time is right, or if it ever will be, and I have decided: I am sick of waiting. So I twine my other hand in his black hair and bring my lips to his. Something moves, deep within us both, and he pulls me up against him, his kisses on my torn lip light as feathers, soft as a warm breeze on a safe, green Arus.
