10. Why

Allura didn't sleep; she was thankful Lotor wasn't bound to attack so soon after the rescue - bastard was probably licking his wounds. Allura wondered if she was licking something...she blushed that sounded wrong in her head.

Lance loved her. No, she'd always known that. They all loved her. Pidge, Hunk, Sven, Keith and Lance. Lance was in love with her. Lance. Lance. Lance! She'd been spinning a fantasy about her and Keith in her head, not knowing or understanding it could never be true and Lance was the one falling for her?

He wasn't romantic.

He wasn't an idealist.

Lance didn't have a fantasy of her in his head, if he loved her, he meant it. Lance didn't say things he didn't mean. He didn't act on things without having reasons...Good or bad. She hugged her knees, sitting on her bed. She didn't know how to process it. How to feel about it. She didn't know what to think at all...

Lance has a past with Keith she thought a stab of hurt rising. Keith who she wanted to touch, Lance has touched. Lance has had so many people...and of them all Keith who is so amazing and he wants her above him?

A deep blush flamed her cheeks, images coming to her unbidden of the two them, visuals from the romance novels she's read replacing herself with Keith, the man now Lance. She feels a bit ashamed, a bit dirty, a bit aroused. She turned around, falling flat on her bed on her stomach, hiding her face in her pillow as if someone would stop by and see her blushing.

When he'd told her she'd been stunned into complete silence, and the next thing she remembered was a sense of falling and darkness. She woke up here in her room...She must have fainted. Allura punched the pillows. The first time a man declares his love for her and she faints like some idiot child.

But it was so surprising. It is so surprising. How can she look at Lance now? How should she act around him? Can she still talk to him the way she always has, open and blunt knowing he'll never treat her like a 'Princess' but like a girl...

Something rolls through her at the thought, a shiver, flip in her stomach, a sensation she doesn't understand - it's a lot like what happened when he kissed her. And now she knows why he did that; he was terrified when she was caught, afraid she was dead, and his emotions spilled over before his brain could catch up.

She knew the feeling, it'd happened to her so often with Keith. Though she never would have dared touch him, kiss him... Maybe if she had she would be over his lies completely by now because she would have been told sooner.

Her first kiss. Her first declaration love. Not who she pictured, not who she dreamed. But... She touches her lips. It was Lance and something in her doesn't hate it. It's that which confuses her because she's not over Keith. Can't stop thinking about Keith...

Knows she's forgiven him, will work on the forgetting so they can be friends again, can walk and talk. So he can help her and she can help him with their burdens. So they can laugh and have fun. Be best friends.

But Lance is her other best friend and how is she supposed to be around him now? She's confused. So confused. She's tired of being confused.

~~.~~

Allura pushed the fish on her plate around. Her gaze out on the view of the star filled horizon that her sight-line on the balcony where she and Prince Holder were having their 'romantic' dinner. Hunk was sitting at a table in the corner, on his datapad messaging away with someone. Allura could feel his eyes on her now and again, measuring her mood. She was being horrible company for Prince Holder, yet she couldn't get herself to force passed all her emotions and fake a more normal mood. Every time she tried the idea of the fake mood and it's words died on her tongue before they could form into spoken sounds.

Prince Holder sipped his wine, he'd been quiet after a few attempts to start a conversation. His own gaze on the starts... Idly Allura wondered if he was seeing them. She knew she was looking at them but she wasn't truly seeing them. Her mind was elsewhere, it was where Keith was...it was where Lance was...

It was with the fact that she was avoiding Lance, and she thinks he's avoiding her. It was on the fact when she did see Keith that he seemed angry with Lance and was acting so strangely... jumpy and odd. Like he'd done something wrong...and he wouldn't tell Allura what it was.

They weren't back to normal at all. Would they ever be? Her and Keith? Did they have to work to earn a new normal? And her and Lance? She stabbed a piece of fish with her fork, brought it to her mouth but she couldn't bring herself to eat it.

"Princess Allura, you do not have to continue to put up with these pretenses on my account," Prince Holder said from across the table, softly.

"I...my guardians aren't giving me much choice," Allura said, distracted by her own thoughts because as soon as she hears what she said she startles. "I mean... I'm sorry, Prince Holder. I much rather be here with you than with..."

"Prince Chandler is not good company for anyone but himself, no," Prince Holder nodded.

Hunk giggled in the corner. Allura smiled at the handsome Prince across from her, feeling rude and ashamed for being so lost in her own thoughts. He was her guest, maybe not by choice but she did enjoy his company and she has enjoyed his conversation.

"I'm sorry Prince Holder, you were brought here at a..."

"Bad time. Yes," he said, nodding. "It seems to not be getting better?"

Allura sighed. "Things have gotten more confusing rather than less," she admitted. "I... Keith and I are best friends, something happened that made me upset... I've forgiven him but things are still strained. The one time I managed to see him today he acted so strangely." Allura ducked her head, shaking it. "I shouldn't be bothering you with this."

"No, no, it's quite all right. Sometimes we need someone to talk too, someone who isn't in our circle of friends..." Holder said, quietly.

Allura sighed, she wasn't sure about that, she didn't like to gossip. Her friends were her family, she glanced over at Hunk but he seemed focused on whoever it was he was talking to on the datapad. She wondered who it was? He had a strange expression on his face, it seemed he wasn't even hearing her and Holder, had his giggle been just good timing and about something else? She wouldn't know until later, she smiled a bit, curious, happy that maybe someone in her family had good news to share. She looked back toward to Prince Holder.

"I don't know... They're my friends and in some ways my family, it's why some of it is so complicated..." She said, thinking about her crush on Keith, how she wanted to build a family with him not be his sister... Thinking about what Lance had blindsided her with...and finding herself asking the question was Lance her brother like Hunk? Like Pidge? Why did she have to ask the question? Why didn't she have an answer?

Holder nodded. "Whatever it is Princess, family will always come through in the end."

"I hope so," she tried to smile. "I'm afraid I'm not hungry."

"Would you like to take a walk then?" Holder asked.

Allura nodded. "Yes, I don't feel like sitting still at all."

Holder rose and helped her out of her chair, gentlemanly, Allura soon had her arm linked with him and then they were both looking at Hunk, who was sitting and typing. Allura had to grin, he was really focused on whoever it was on the only end. She cleared her throat.

Hunk looked up, goofy grin on his face that he tries to school immediately into a more chaperone-like expression when he sees the two of them standing in front of him. "Yes, Princess?" he stands up, glances at their full plates. "Uh, date over?"

"No, we decided to take a walk,' Allura said feeling a sudden gratitude to Hunk for being Hunk because she had an urge to giggle. She was counting to five in her head, waiting for him to say something about the food they didn't eat.

"But you don't even have food to walk off...what was wrong with your dinners? My fish was great?" He looked at his empty plate.

Allura giggled, pounced on Hunk then, hugging him and kissing his cheek. He blushed beet red and squawked, "Princess!" She giggled more into his ear. "I'm just glad you are you, I just have too much on my mind to eat and I think Prince Holder is being a gentleman and not eating with me."

Hunk shook his head, Allura knew he hadn't understand a word she had said. It made her love her big brother Hunk even more. "You know you don't have to stay, you can trust Prince Holder...why don't you go to your room?"

The datapad in his hand beeped.

Hunk looked down at it, then at her and Prince Holder. "Coran and Nanny would kill me, Princess..."

"What they don't know won't hurt them..." Allura smiled. "You have something else you rather be doing," she looked at the datapad.

Hunk blushed even more than he had when she kissed him. "Uh, nah, no...just uh talking with...it's nothing."

"Please, I hate making you guys chaperone me when I'm perfectly safe. Prince Holder is not Prince Chandler."

Hunk nodded. "Yeah," Allura watched him look from the beeping datapad to Prince Holder than to her. "Okay, but... Prince Holder?"

"Yes."

"She has to be in her bedroom, by 11 p.m. sharp, with you nowhere in sight or Nanny will have a fit and I'll get my ears boxed." Hunk rubbed his left ear with his free hand as he spoke. "So, just, you know, make sure you do that...okay."

"I will, I can most certainly attest that whatever this ear boxing is by Princess Allura's nanny it could not be pleasant."

Hunk nodded profusely. "It ain't, let me tell you that! Off with you two," Hunk then walked over to the main table and grabbed Allura's left overs. "Ain't letting this go to waste either, Princess."

Allura grinned as she watched him walk out with the food, feeling so much better all because Hunk had been who he was... It really was the little things she thought watching him leave. Holder laughed quietly next to her and she looked over smiling.

"He cheered you up, are you sure you want him gone."

"It seemed like he much rather be with whoever was on the other end of the datapad..." Allura shrugged. "And I know I'm safe with you."

Prince Holder nodded but he grew serious. "Princess, I am sorry for how you found out you are safe with me?"

Allura sighed, thinking back on that moment. "I should apologize to you for that... I behaved awfully, screeching and running away like a child. I...it was so soon after learning about Keith, something I should have known a long time ago."

Holder nodded.

Allura nodded back then motioned her head toward the door that lead to the gardens. "Let's walk."

They walked in silence for few minutes, Allura thinking about how she knew she was safe with Prince Holder. For more than one reason. She was safe with him because he was a true gentleman. He was like Keith in so many ways, he was noble, he was polite, he was tactful and he seemed to always know how to behave in the right manner no matter the situation...

He'd only had that one slip of human reaction that showed who he was on the inside, his inside self she may never have learned during his visit otherwise because it never would have mattered to their relationship. Except that she'd been thinking of settling for him...She shook her head no at the thought, what had she been thinking, she could never settle for less than real love.

She was curious about something now... And Prince Holder was so much like Keith, so much like her fantasy knight in shining armor, right down to the reason why he wouldn't be the Prince she'd end with happily ever after.

"May I ask you a very personal question?" she stammered out, knowing she was crossing quite a line of a propriety and decorum.

Prince Holder met her gaze and nodded, no hesitation whatsoever. It added to her admiration of him as a person, a Prince.

"How..I mean, when did..." she tripped over the words finding she didn't know how to phrase the question. "How did you know you were gay?"

Prince Holder chuckled and Allura saw his real smile for the first time, it was quite handsome. She found herself wondering again if all the truly good men were gay? He pulled her toward a bench they were near and they both sat down.

"When did you know you weren't gay?" he asked her.

Allura's eyes widened and something lit in her mind, sparking a cascade of comprehension. It wasn't something you figured out it was something that was. Of course it was, why would it be any different? Why would she even think it was any different for a second?

"Forgive me, it was a silly question."

"No, it wasn't. Many who are not, ask. It is still not seen as equal to heterosexuality on my planet, on yours... maybe not on your Commander Kogane's."

Allura shook her head. "I don't know. I know he's been out for a long time, I was the only one he lied too... for various complicated reasons. Lance has always been openly bisexual..." she rolled her eyes. "I never thought once to question why there."

Prince Holder smiled. "Perhaps it is his ability to be so open."

Allura thought about his face when he told he was in love with her, how he'd been in love with her. He'd been hiding it, keeping it to himself. Why? Because Prince Holder was right, Lance was open? Always so open, straight forward, blunt... No surprises on how he felt, except the last few days.

Yet she'd never doubted Lance loved her, immensely. Had she always just misunderstood the how?