I don't own Voltron. (I wish I did though!)

About a week after the incident, Lance was looking out at the stars on an old observation deck. Roughly around midnight, Coran walked through the doors. The blue paladin turned to look at him, wondering why he was here, no one else ever came here.

"I was just checking the ship via the cameras before I went to sleep. I saw you out here by yourself, staring at the stars. I usually do the same myself when I'm missing home." Coran explained.

The stayed silent for a while, both lost in the endless stars, until Lance piped up, "What do you miss most about Altea?"

"The people." Coran's response was instantaneous. "They were all such good people and I will always miss them. How about you?"

Lance thought for a while.

"The rain, I guess, it's nice and refreshing, and it's something just so fundamentally Earthly."

"The thing is though, while I miss my home, that's not where we are and I can't get it back. I can't afford to get lost in memories, remember what happened when Allura did? All I want to do it protect her. She is a very special young lady. She means everything to me." Coran said passionately.

That left Lance with a lot to think about. Why was he staying out here?

The blue lion was sent flying. Lance had taken another hit.

Useless

Worthless

Weak

"Why won't this voice leave me the fuck alone? This is the last thing I need right now." The blue paladin muttered under his breath. He pushed his lion forward and joined the battle once again. He fought with the other paladins trying to get a solid hit on the enemy.

"We're going to need to form Voltron to take this guy down." Shiro stated.

Lance's breathing picked up. They hadn't formed Voltron in a long time and he didn't know if he could- not after everything that happened, not with how distant he had become.

"Should I say something? Can I not? I can't let everyone know how weak I am. I need to be able to form Voltron. I don't know what to do. I can't do this. I'm not good enough." The blue paladin thought, but before he could say anything, they were moving to form Voltron.

Nothing happened.

It didn't work.

"All of you try again!" Allura called from the castle. "You need to do this."

They tried again.

It still didn't work.

Useless

Fuck up

This is your fault

It's always your fault

They kept trying to fight it separately but nothing was working. All of his teammates had taken several devastating hits. He tried his absolute best but he his shots were useless. The battle blurred around him, rushing past. Until Keith got hit. The red paladin was sent flying and crashing.

"Mullet, you okay?" He tried over the intercom.

He heard nothing back.

"Keith? Can you hear me?" He tried again.

All he heard was a low groan of pain. He rushed over to drag the red lion to the castle where Coran could shove him in a Cyro-pod, screw the battle, it could wait. He let go of the red lion in the docking bay and Coran was there to take Keith to a Cyro-pod.

Lance didn't want to see the damage so he flew off immediately back to the battle. He shot over and over but nothing fazed this guy, he had eyes everywhere and instant reflexes, the shield blocking anything and everything that came its way.

They were all near collapsing, they still hadn't found anything that worked. All of a sudden, another ship appeared, but it wasn't galra, honestly, they had no idea what it was. The mystery ship attacked the monster with a huge beam of golden light and the enemy suddenly had a gaping hole in it that was growing and growing, until the monster was nothing but space dust.

"Who the fuck is that?" Pidge exclaimed.

"No idea, but we definitely need to thank them." replied Hunk.

The paladins approached the ship cautiously but as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared.

"Huh, well that was weird." Lance said.

Keith, he remembered, and he rushed back to the castle, he'd forgotten about him. He parked the blue lion and hit the ground running towards the Cyro-pod room.

The red paladin looked okay, he had blood on the side of his head so Lance assumed he had hit is head there. The door behind him wooshed open and Coran entered.

"He'll be fine in a few hours and then he'll be as good as new, don't you worry." the Altean said.

"I'll stay with him anyway." The blue paladin said, not taking his eyes off the injured boy he cared so much about.

"Ok then, I'll get you some food." Coran responded, his footsteps resounding against the metal floor as he left.

Lance was vaguely aware that Coran had come back a while later with some food that Hunk had made earlier in the day but he didn't touch it. He just waited for Keith to be out of the damn pod.

It was a few hours of tedious and painful waiting later that the red paladin fell out of the pod with Lance catching him.

"You all good Mullet?" He asked.

"Yeah. Is that food for me?" Keith relied.

"Go for it."

Keith dove towards the food and Lance chuckled, walking out of the room, sparing a quick glance towards the red paladin. He was sore and bruised but he needed to train more, especially after his lack-lustre performance earlier.

"Start level 25," Lance called out when he was ready. He practiced his hand to hand combat, decimating the bots one by one. He received a few nasty hits but he kept going and going and going until he had a long scrape up his leg and received several hits to the head. He felt dizzy and on the verge of collapsing to he forced himself back to his room where he proceeded to collapse on his bed and fell asleep still in his paladin gear.