astronomy in reverse
Summary: "...it was me who was discovered."—Venus, Sleeping At Last / post s6, Shiro and Allura adjust to his new hair.
They don't have a castle to go back to now, and Shiro sleeps in the back of the Black Lion the entire way back to the nearest inhabited and coalition friendly planet, something that had been reduced to little more than a moon. Allura can feel the exhaustion clinging to her bones—she's grown greatly in her alchemic powers, of course, but she had never used them so much in so little time, and with so much on the line—and her fingers itch with the incessant need to do something more than fly. She knows that Shiro—captured, broken, saved, paladin, leader, lost, found and lost, and finally found again—you found me—is safe under Keith's weary and watchful eyes, but she knows she won't truly be able to relax.
Her mind isn't racing anymore, as they finally make the final stretch of the journey to a nearby forest moon, and find refuge, but her heart is still aching. Lotor is most likely dead in the quintessence field, if one can die there. The castleship is gone. Her team is alive. Shiro is too. He's alive and he never betrayed them after all.
She remembers the tendrils of his soul, as she drew him out of the Black Lion; they had been warm and weighted, steadying even as she felt like her body would burst with the energy of it. He has always been the most powerful paladin, she knows. He would have to be, to be able to fully defeat Zarkon for the Black Lion, for his soul to last as long as it did in the Black Lion's consciousness.
In Olkarion Shiro is situated in a room between her and Keith's, in case he needs his brother or more healing. No one has ever had their soul put into a new body, or survived in a Lion's astral plane, and Allura thinks—knows—that Shiro has already suffered far, far more than anyone ever deserves to. She wishes she knew what to predict. What to tell him.
Well, there is one thing, but she knows now is not the time for it. To express her sadness over Lotor, her regret, to remember the moment she and Shiro had shared before they went off to a battle and said they would talk about things once he came back, only for him to never do so. And then his clone had been different, standoffish, and Lotor seemingly so easy and…
If there is one thing she's done right in all the time her Black Paladin had been missing, it was keeping the coalition alive in his memory, and bringing him home.
And despite telling him to rest upon his waking, she finds herself restless that first night. How could she not be, with all that has happened? With all they still have to accomplish? The Galra without an emperor and set to descend again into chaos, and who knew what Haggar was up to, or Sendak, and Lotor's generals. Her breath grows heavy in her throat, and then she grows parched, and she is padding over to the small kitchen they have for a glass of water when she hears a thud from Shiro's room, and her heart thuds to a stop in her chest.
She abandons her quest and touches the panel by his door, her hand signature going through with a faint glow and his door slides open, purposefully dim light flooding the room so as to not overwhelm the eyes. "Shiro?"
He's lying on his back on the floor, almost like a shelled creature Hunk had shown her pictures of once, of a turtle. His face is pained and his shoulders jerking upwards uselessly, with only one arm to try and push himself up. She supposes even in the arena there were very few moments he didn't have a prosthetic, but there was nothing they could give him on such short notice. The inhabitants of the moon planet had six arms, and none of their prosthetics would fit earthlings.
She wonders if he was having a nightmare, or simply tried to get out of bed, as she helps him off the floor and sets him down on the bed. The guest rooms they've been given are nice, with en suite bathrooms and dressers, and a mirror above the one she and Shiro are sitting opposite of, as she takes a seat next to him. "Shiro, are you alright?"
His voice is still rough from disuse, his gaze still weary, but kind. Familiar. Home. "I'm fine. I'm just not used to the weight distribution being uneven. And… having a body agan, I guess.
Allura purses her lips, and then sees the way his eyes linger on his reflection in the mirror. He runs his human hand through his hair half heartedly, his tuft falling back over his eyes. "I did not know you hair would turn white," she reveals.
He drops his hand, and for a moment she thinks he's going to place it on her shoulder, before he seems to think better of it and it lands on his thigh instead. He looks at her instead of the mirror. "It's alright." He smiles faintly. "It'll take some getting used to, but I'm just happy to be alive right now."
"I'm happy you are too," she says quietly, clasping her hands together in her lap.
He's silent for a moment, and then says, "I'm sorry."
Her brow furrows. "About what?"
"I have his… the clone's memories. He fought with you. Disobeyed you." Shiro swallows. "Attacked you with the black bayard—"
Allura places a hand on his shoulder. "He wasn't you."
"But you thought—"
"No, I didn't. I knew something was wrong. Deep down, I knew he wasn't…" Wasn't the man she had fallen in love with. "And he only started acting that way once Lotor showed up, remember?" Her voice hardens slightly. Lotor always ruins everything.
The corner of Shiro's mouth twitches upwards. "Yeah, there are some things I'm glad I only had to watch secondhand. More quickly." At her raised brow he elaborates, and a pink tinge colours his cheeks. "Your courtship with Lotor. Still, I—I wish I had been there for you."
"I wish I had been able to help you sooner," she says softly. Her other hand takes his. "If there is one good Lotor did, it was helping me find the tools to save you. That's what really matters."
Shiro squeezes her fingers and it feels like them, again. She hasn't felt that in so long, tears prick at her eyes. "You don't know how glad I am," he says. "That you're the one thing that hasn't changed."
Her heart swells. "And I never will." Their eyes meet, and she knows she's staring but he is too, and they both really shouldn't be—it's too soon, they both need time to slow down and—so her eyes tick upwards and focus on the only tuft of his hair that used to be white. "Your hair," she says, almost numbly, and he jerks his gaze away from her eyes. "Are you going to style it the way you used to?"
He shrugs with shoulders pinned with uneven weight; they haven't found time to find or build him a prosthetic, but Allura knows she, and Hunk and Pidge, and the Olkari most likely, will be working on it soon enough. "Maybe once I get a new arm. It was something I kinda needed two hands to do."
Allura withdraws both her hands. "I could do it for you." She licks her lips, nervous, because what if this was a stupid suggestion? Surely he has a million more important things running through his mind. "So that one more thing may stay the same."
Shiro smiles, so warm and radiant, she almost doesn't know what to do. "I'd like that." He gets up to his en suite bathroom and finds a strange alien razor, but it'll do the trick, as he sits back down and sits behind him, their reflections overlapping in the mirror. "Thank you, princess."
She focuses on carefully shearing away his hair into a perfect undercut, and his smile stays, and his eyes stay on her in the mirror until she's finished.
