"Right here!"
"Ah!" The voice behind Lance made him jump. He turned around to see Aleja waving at him from an invisible platform and laughing. Leave it to siblings to take a tense situation and use it to tease each other.
"Don't just stand there. Come on, we've been waiting for you."
"Did you find mamá?" Lance asked, hopeful, while climbing inside the ship.
"Of course." Aleja ruffled Lance's hair. "Leave it to your big sis. She always gets the job done."
Aleja motioned behind her, and Lance saw his mom for the first time in months. She was shorter than Lance by his entire head. Her hair was wavy, short, and combed back out of her face. She was stockier than Lance, too, but otherwise she looked like him. Lance could see she looked more tired than usual, as though she had not been getting enough sleep.
His mom looked like she had been crying recently, and upon seeing him her eyes filled with tears again. She held out her arms for Lance, and he ran and hugged her, his own eyes spilling over with tears he had not realized were there.
She let out a choked laugh and said. "Please tell me you've found someone out there in space who will love you more than I do, because there's no other reason to wait for months to call your mamá."
Lance let out a tearful laugh. "I've missed you so much."
The continued to embrace for another second before she pulled away from him. She touched his cheek gently, wiping away one of his tears "Aleja told me what happened. You're a hero. I am so, so proud of you mijo."
The sound of a throat clearing alerting Lance to a fourth person aboard the ship. Lance looked up to see a kindly looking middle aged woman. She was big and tall and had brown skin. Her eyes had the same weariness of his mother's.
"Uh...hi...I'm Lance." He extended his hand to her.
"Lea Garett." She said.
"You're Hunk's mom!" Lance exclaimed.
She nodded sadly.
"Hunk is incredible. He's kept me alive on more occasions than I can count. Without him we wouldn't have been able to save nearly as many people as we had." Lance wanted to cheer her up. He delved into the story of how Hunk had single handedly saved the Balmera, embellishing only a couple details to make Hunk seem even more dashing and brave than he was.
"Thank you." Mrs. Garett said quietly. "I'm so glad he's okay...I'm glad you're all okay. I just wish I could see him."
Lance patted her on the shoulder. "You will. I'll make sure he comes home. Speaking of which…" He turned back to Aleja and his own mom. "I'm going to need to go back into space."
Aleja nodded. His mom on the other hand looked sad. "Mija, you just got home."
"I know. I'm sorry. There's really important information that I have to get to the other Paladins. If I don't get back things could get bad for everyone. I need to do this."
Lance's mom approached and touched his cheek again. She still looked sad, but she said, "I understand. What do we have to do?"
Lance looked at his sister. "Aleja, I need you to fix the ship."
She snorted, and then looked at him surprised, realizing he was serious. "Lance I can't just fix a ship, I don't know anything about Altean technology."
"But you're a computer scientist, you're definitely as good as Pidge."
"I specialize in Ethical Hacking. I don't know anything about spaceships or comm systems." Aleja looked slightly exasperated.
Lance thought for a second. "Wait...Pidge! Aleja, do you think you could track down an address for me?"
"Well yeah, that should be easy."
"I need you to find out where Samuel and Colleen Holt live."
The spaceship pulled up to an adorable looking house. It had a decent amount of privacy from the homes nearby due to several large trees that overlooked the property.
Lance whistled. It was a really nice house.
He looked around himself to make sure no one was coming from the street before hopping out of the ship. He figured it would probably look a bit strange for a person to appear out of nowhere.
He knocked on the door, steeling himself to comfort a grieving woman after losing both children and her husband for space. He could only imagine how upsetting all of that must be. Lance hoped he could bring her some sort of comfort.
When the door finally opened he was greeted by a relatively tall woman with shoulder length blonde hair wearing a pair of heavy goggles. She didn't look sad; she looked angry.
"Listen!" She said, poking Lance in the chest. "I don't want any more news about how my children supposedly died in space. I'm tired of you people from the Garrison trying to get me to believe some crap story about pilot error and school accidents! Leave me alone!"
Lance looked down, realizing he was still in the Garrison uniform he had stolen. "No, Mrs. Holt!"
She went to slam the door shut.
"Wait! I'm a friend of Pidge's!"
She paused, suddenly unsure. "Their brother used to call them that a lot. What...what do you want."
"I-uh-" Lance was taken aback by the sudden change in atmosphere, he tried to gather his thoughts.
Mrs. Holt took of her goggles to get a better look at him. "Wait. You're one of those other boys that went missing at the same time. Aren't you?"
"Uh...yes…and we're all alive. Actually we were together until a few days ago. And-and we found your son, Matt. He's alive too."
She took a sharp intake of breath. "Tell me."
Her eyes were piercing. Lance found it almost eerie. "Well, long story short, Pidge was actually looking for Matt and your husband and we found out they had been kidnapped by an evil alien race. And then we ended up in space fighting that same alien race, and then Pidge found Matt and now they're both looking for your husband but we don't know where he might be exactly. And I ended up back on Earth because someone was trying to kill me, and now I really, really have to get back up to space to warn the others. And I need your help."
Mrs. Holt looked away from Lance for a second. "I knew it." She looked back at him. "How can I help?"
Lance sighed in relief. "When Pidge was at the Garrison they had built a communications system that could go farther than the standard ones. That was how we found out there were aliens and how we found Shiro. The comm system on my ship is broken. I need one that can at least help me communicate with nearby aliens to be able to find my way back to Voltron. I need to look through Pidge's stuff and find out if there's anything that can help."
She sighed. "You're not going to find much. The Garrison came by and took most of the tech Pidge had been working on after you all disappeared."
Lance deflated. "Oh."
"But I still might be able to help you. I've been working on a few things myself these past few months." She pulled Lance inside.
It was a mess. To an extent it reminded him of Keith's cabin in the desert, with the conspiracy board and papers everywhere. There was a lot more technology in this house though. Blueprints littered the floor and walls. Half put together machine parts covered desks. Several components to what looked like radios were stuck together and blocking most of the hallway.
"It's not usually this messy. I kind of-let it get that way after Pidge disappeared. I needed to find my family." She looked slightly embarrassed.
"Mrs. Holt, this is amazing."
"If you think my children get all of their brains from their father you are sorely mistaken."
Mrs. Holt had Lance park his spaceship in her backyard. Afterward a controlled chaos developed as the other women worked together to figure out what they could do.
Mrs. Holt took the lead in working on the comm system and the gravity with the help of Aleja. Mrs. Garett worked on the more minor repairs and anything hardware related. Lance's mom helped wherever she was directed, following the lead of the other women.
Lance helped as much as he could, but mostly the others just wanted to hear about his adventures in space and their own children while they worked.
He obliged. Lance may not be the greatest engineer, but he knew how to tell a good story. He told the women about Voltron and the Galra. He talked about the merpeople and about losing Shiro. He talked about the change in Lions and the clone of Shiro coming back.
When he got to the part about Keith leaving Voltron he said, "I didn't want Keith to go, I don't think any of us did. I should have said something, but-I-in a way I think him leaving might have been my fault. Even though he's the better pilot he knew how important being a part of Voltron was for me. He-" Lance cut off and looked at his hands. His vision became blurry as his eyes filled with tears.
Lance felt his mother approach and gently squeeze his shoulder.
"Mijo, you never had to be the best pilot. You just had to be the best pilot that you could be. What you've done is amazing." She knelt down so that she was looking into Lance's eyes. "You are an incredible pilot and a hero. But what is most amazing about you is how every time you fail you come back stronger. You are resilient, and the universe needs someone like you to save it."
"Mamá, I-" Lance rubbed at his eyes.
"Shhh, it's okay to feel things very strongly. This Keith boy is obviously very important to you and the team. When you get back you should tell him. He probably feels as lost as you do sometimes."
Lance nodded. His tears were steadily lessening.
His mom continued. "It must be so hard on all of you to be away from Earth for so long. I can't imagine how lonely you all must feel. We can't go with you, so I want to make sure you know how important you are to me."
Hunk's mother approached. She patted Lance's other shoulder. "I want you to know how much comfort you've brought to me, to all of us, by being here. You told us that our children are alive, and that they are heroes. You have no idea what it means."
"Yes, Mijo, look around you. You are doing exactly right. And before you leave we'll make sure to track down Keith's family so that they know he's okay too."
Lance started. "Keith-he doesn't have a family. He's an orphan."
There were tutters of suprise from the moms. "Oh no."
"That settles it then," Lance's mom said, "When you all get back to earth, you're going to bring that boy to a family dinner, do you understand?"
Lance chuckled at his mom.
"I'm serious."
He nodded at her.
Lance continued his stories of the team, as the moms got back to work on his ship. They were finished with the repairs before the next evening.
Lance tried to make sure everything was working properly.
Mrs. Holt said to him as he was inspecting, "I doubt the comm system has quite as much range as it did before, but it should work and hopefully you won't have any more problems.
Lance smiled at her. "Can I just say, you are the most amazing group of people that exist in this universe, and trust me, I've met a lot of people."
They rested for the night, making sure they were at their peak before leaving Mrs. Holt's house. She thanked Lance for the stories about her children.
They next made a stop in Hawaii to drop off Hunk's mother. She thanked Lance for giving her life back to her. The worry that she had felt, the belief that the Garrison hadn't been telling her something about her only child's disappearance had been eating away at her for months. But now, even though she would worry about her son, she knew that he was alive and a hero.
The last stop was back home in Cuba. Aleja pulled Lance off the ship to tell all of the family goodbye before he left.
He picked up his youngest brother and squeezed him until he complained. He sat next to his Abuela for an hour, talking to her about his adventures and how much he had missed her. He kissed his aunt and uncle on the cheek and thanked them for helping the family.
Before too long he'd said goodbye to everyone. He made his way back to his ship, feeling bittersweet about the entire ordeal. It was nice to get to see his family again; it was nicer to be able to let them know he was safe. He would miss them.
Prior to boarding his ship, his mom appeared. She was smiling at him and crying, and pulling along his father by his arm.
Lance hadn't been sure if he wanted to see his papá before he left. His dad had never exactly been proud of him, had always thought Lance's pursuit of being a pilot was the wrong path. As if to make it worse, Lance had just about proven him right. First by failing to become a fighter pilot, then by disappearing right after he had.
Lance's dream had taken him away from his family. It had nearly killed him on several occasions. His family had been ripped apart because of his decisions. His father had to have looked at all of Lance's choices and judged them.
Lance was ashamed.
His dad hadn't been around the entire time he'd been back, and that had made the decision to avoid him easy. But now here he was, in the flesh, and Lance had no idea what to say.
"Hey, papá." Lance looked at the ground.
"Mijo." That was all his father said before Lance was engulfed in a hug.
Lance was surprised by the gesture. His father held him tightly, shaking slightly. Water dripped on Lance's shoulder. It was a moment before Lance realized what it was: tears.
His father was crying. He was a man who had always been so serious, so straightforward. Lance couldn't think of what to do other than apologize.
"Papá, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"No." His father cut him off. His voice was deep and gruff. "I'm so glad you're alive."
Lance hugged him back tightly, his own eyes starting to fill with tears.
"Lance…I am so proud of you."
The tears were free flowing now. Neither person spoke another word.
They stood like that for a long time, before Lance's father finally pulled away. "You've got to get going. You have a universe to save."
Lance nodded. He looked at his mom, who's face was red and blotchy. She had been crying too.
"Lance," she said, approaching him, "I will miss you."
"I'll miss you too, mamá."
"Just promise me that you'll come home eventually. Take care of yourself." She hugged her arms around him.
"I will."
She pulled away and started chuckling, and Lance steeled himself for a good joke. "If you go get an alien fiancee I will accept it, but you do not get to forget to bring them home to meet your mamá okay?" She tapped him on the nose.
"But what if I brought home a Galra?" He winked, teasing her back.
"Don't push it. I could accept a half-Galra, but it would be a stretch." She winked back at him, pleased with her joke.
At the mention of a half-Galra Lance suddenly thought of Keith. It was a surprise to Lance, that at such an intimate moment he would think about his friend. And yet somehow, it seemed to fit.
His mom put her hands on either side of Lance's face and moved his head to look her in the eyes. "Lance, look at me. I love you, and I will accept anyone who loves you and who you believe is worthy of your love. Do you understand? Anyone."
"You suddenly got serious, mamá." Lance complained.
"No, mijo, you had a look in your eye. Whoever you were thinking about must be very special."
Millions of miles away, Keith sneezed.
A/N: Mom team go! Mothers for the mothership!
Ugh, this chapter took me too long to finish. I wanted to include more Keith in there, but just didn't have the time to write everything I wanted. Next chapter here I come!
