For a long while, Lance drifted. His mind, his body, everything that was him seemed to be umoored. He was lost in a thick haze of fever and fear and pain. He knew he was sick, and he knew that it was really bad, but other than that rather abstract idea, he didn't feel entirely connected to his body.

Sometimes he knew that he was in the Castle of Lions. Sometimes he thought he was back in the jungle, feeling the swelter, the heat. Sometimes he thought he was back in the swamp, surrounded by a fetid fog. Sometimes he thought he was back at home, surrounded by his family. Sometimes he thought he was in that prison room, staring at the blood spattered on the floor. He heard the helpless people struggling to breathe with their throats slashed, their eyes staring. Then he realized that was him.

Sometimes he realized, briefly, that he was stuck in a tiny tent with two other people, and that was when he came the closest to feeling his body again as it seized up with panic. He couldn't breathe, and everything was too tight, too close, and he couldn't breathe, and he was dying, and it hurt, it hurt so much, and...

And then Blue's purr echoed louder in the back of his mind, drawing him away from that terror, that agony. And he drifted again.

Through it all, the only anchor to the solid world was Shiro. Lance knew that he was with Shiro, that he was curled up in his lap. He knew that Shiro's arms were around him. He could feel Shiro's chest gently lifting and falling under his head. Sometimes he could hear Shiro's voice, not always words, just the sound of it. That was enough to comfort him. Shiro was with him, and Keith had his back, and everyone else was fighting for him, too. He knew it was true because Shiro said it.

If Shiro shifted, the panic flared to life again, and Lance grabbed onto him. It wasn't a conscious decision. He was just desperate not to lose the only point of safety he could rely on right now. His breath sped up, rasping in his throat, and little begging words whimpered out of his mouth. "Please, please..." Don't leave me. Don't let go. Please. Please.

Shiro never did. He always went back to holding Lance close in his arms, murmuring soft words above his head. And Lance relaxed and went back to drifting.

Then things changed. There was movement, a change of the air. New voices came, Pidge, Hunk, Coran. Keith and Shiro answered them, more words that Lance couldn't understand and didn't try to. Shiro shifted underneath him, and Lance whimpered and latched on to him with all his failing strength. "N-no... No, please..."

Shiro breathed out something that might have been a sigh. "I'm not going anywhere, Lance. I swear. I'm right here with you. We all are."

Still, he didn't stop moving, and Lance clung harder. Movement, a change of the light behind his closed eyelids. Shiro shifted, still holding Lance in his arms. He moved his arms, got them under Lance's body. Other hands pulled blankets tight around Lance, wrapping him up like a burrito, and then more movement.

Shiro was carrying him. Lance vaguely recognized the sensation, since this had happened several times before. He wasn't embarrased this time. Not even a little bit. He was happy, because Shiro was taking care of him. Shiro wasn't leaving him. The lights brightened, almost painful even with his eyes closed. Lance tucked his face under Shiro's chin, hiding from the light. He drifted, rocked by the cadence of Shiro's careful walk.

The movement stopped. Shiro was shifting Lance in his arms again, lowering him down... Lance clung tighter and whined against his chest. But, no, Shiro wasn't letting go of him. He was sitting with him, somewhere new. Lance curled up in his lap again and was shatteringly content. He felt like a cat coiled in the sun, even though it was dim here.

Speaking of...hadn't it been bright? Lance reluctantly cracked one eye open, then closed it again. They weren't in the tent anymore, and that was good enough for him. Shiro was still holding him, and Keith and Hunk and Pidge and Coran were all nearby. They were talking about something, but Lance didn't understand it. He didn't need to. He was okay. He could even breathe at least as well as he'd been able to inside the tent, but now he wasn't closed in anymore.

Finally, after all that drifting, Lance had found a safe harbor. He slept, Blue's purr luring him down into the darkness.

X

Things finally seemed to be calming down. Keith stepped back and looked down at Shiro and Lance, now settled on a couch in one of the smaller lounges-small so that the device the tech trio had cooked up would work well, and so that when Lance felt more like himself he wouldn't be overwhelmed and would be able to rest comfortably. It was much larger than the oxygen tent, though, so hopefully Lance wouldn't feel claustrophobic anymore.

Right now, though, he was asleep, head cuddled into Shiro's shoulder, body wrapped up like a burrito. His face was shiny with sweat, forehead still wrinkled in pain even as he slept. Shiro looked half-asleep, too, face drawn with exhaustion as he leaned into the corner of the couch, head bending over Lance's and eyelids drooping.

Hunk was still talking somewhere to left as Pidge and Coran tinkered with the machine in the corner, something about how it worked. It was set to Lance's bio-signature and used focused technology to increase the level of oxygen only around him, with an invisible quintessence barrier keeping it contained. Keith barely understood one word in three.

The only thing that mattered was that it worked. Lance was resting comfortably, and he was breathing as well as he could under the circumstances. Even now, even with all the noise of Hunk's talking and the machine whirring and Pidge and Coran humming in agreement, Keith could still hear the wheeze of Lance's breath under it all. It was deeply worrying, high-pitched and slightly whistling. Earlier, when he'd been sitting in the tent, Keith had clearly been able to hear the crackle in Lance's lungs when he breathed. That was a bad, bad sound.

That was a death sound. Keith remembered it, from his long-ago foster sister who kept hamsters. No pet-owner wanted to hear that sound. And now Lance had it.

"Keith." Shiro's voice was soft, understanding. Keith blinked and looked up from where he'd been staring fixedly into Lance's face, his forehead wrinkled. He was still standing by the couch, hadn't even noticed as lost in thought as he was.

Keith winced at the weariness in Shiro's face, but gave him a tired nod. "I'm okay. Don't worry about me."

Shiro smiled and let his head rest against the couch behind him. "All right. Good job back there in the infirmary, by the way. I know that was hard for you. You did great."

"I'm getting pretty good at talking Lance through his panic attacks."

"Yeah, you are."

"I just wish they didn't happen so often." For a while it had seemed like they were getting better, but today... Today was bad. Understandable under the circumstances, maybe, but Keith still didn't like it.

Shiro sighed, his eyes falling shut for a moment, then opening again. "Yeah."

Keith frowned and looked more carefully into his face. "Are you okay? You seem to be taking this...really hard."

Now that he said it, Keith knew that was true. Shiro always took it badly when any of them were hurt or sick, of course. Especially Lance, since they'd been through so much together. But this time was worse than usual. Keith couldn't articulate why, not even in his head, but it was definitely true.

He sidled a step closer and leaned on the arm of the couch on one hip, frowning down into Shiro's face. "Something about this is really messing with you, huh?"

Shiro was quiet for a long moment, not meeting Keith's eyes. He stared off into the distance, then down at Lance, snuggled against him. "I guess so." He looked up at Keith, and Keith almost took a step back at the pure, bone-deep exhaustion in his face. He gritted his teeth and stayed where he was.

"I don't mind telling you..." Shiro started. "Now that you mention it, yeah. This is rough. It reminds me too much of last time. When Lance and I were down on that planet together, and he was so, so sick, and the Galra were coming after us, and they just didn't stop coming. I guess it makes sense, since he has pneumonia again, for me to remember that time so clearly. But it...it was really bad, Keith. Really bad."

Keith grimaced in sympathy. "I get it. It was hard on Lance, that whole thing. But it was hard on you, too. The Galra coming after you, not being sure if you could escape. And the whole time needing to protect someone weaker than you, who you loved like a brother. It's pretty much your worst-case scenario, just like not being able to breathe is Lance's worst-case scenario, now."

"Yeah." Shiro lifted one hand and buried it in Lance's hair, even as he let his head tip back to rest on the back of the couch so he could stare blankly at the dim ceiling. His voice was barely a whisper. "I thought he was gonna die, Keith. He almost...he almost did die."

"But he didn't. And he's not gonna die now." Keith knocked his foot against the toe of Shiro's boot, peeking out from under the blanket trailing down to the floor. "He's safe on the ship this time, and we're gonna take care of him. He's not gonna die."

Shiro sighed and closed his eyes. His fingers tightened against Lance's head. "Yeah. I know."

"Shiro." Keith knocked against his boot again, until Shiro reluctantly opened his eyes and raised his head to look at him. Keith stared earnestly into his face, his fists tight with tension. "You're safe, too."

Shiro locked eyes with him for a long moment, wavering on the edge of a tremble. Then smiled, soft and sweet, and let his head rest back again. His eyes shut, more softly this time, his body going limp and relaxed. "Yeah. I know."

Keith nodded, satisfied. He left Lance and Shiro to their rest and joined the others on the other side of the room.

Hunk and Pidge were talking with their heads bent together as they crouched by their machine, Coran hovering over them pulling his mustache as he kept glancing over the couch where Shiro and Lance were resting. Coran smiled at Keith's approach, then nudged the others until they looked up at blinked at him owlishly.

"Great job," Keith said. "It's working. Lance is fast asleep. He's comfortable enough that even Shiro is starting to relax."

Hunk's shoulders slumped visibly, but Pidge's forehead was still wrinkled. She had a smudge of something that looked like grease on her face, except it was bright orange instead of black. Keith impulsively reached out and rubbed at it with his thumb, and Pidge flinched but didn't pull away. After a moment she rolled her eyes and just let him work. The smudge flaked off under his thumb, and Keith nodded in satisfaction and stood back.

"I'll keep an eye on the device every half varga or so, make sure to keep adjusting it until it's perfect." Coran gave Keith a thumbs up. "I intend to keep a much closer watch on Lance from now on, that's for sure."

Hunk rubbed a hand over his face, fingertips digging into his flesh. "It seems like it got really bad, really fast..."

Coran nodded soberly. "It does, yes. It might be that the Altean medicine I gave him is accelerating the sickness."

Pidge's eyes flashed, and she pivoted to look at him, her mouth pressed into a sharp line. "Are you saying that you gave Lance medicine without even knowing what it would do to him?" Her voice was sharp, too, and Keith could sympathize. His own fury was rising too.

Coran raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I suspected that there might be unintended consequences, yes. All of my analyses showed that the medicines I used would be safe for humans, but I'm not a doctor or an alchemist. I can't predict everything that might happen, as much as I wish I could. I thought this side effect was possible, but I had no way to tell for sure, and Lance's condition was such that I forged ahead with the knowledge I had. I am deeply sorry to see him suffering, I assure you, and the thought that I might have made it worse..."

His mustache drooped. Hunk reached out and patted his shoulder, making a comforting noise deep in his throat. Pidge backed off, too, and Keith felt his anger subside. Coran was doing his best, just like the rest of them. It wasn't his fault that Lance was so sick. Sometimes life was just hard.

Keith looked away and heaved a sigh. "It might not have been the medicine, anyway. Sometimes people just get really sick, really fast. Lance has been under a lot of stress lately, we all have, and his body is susceptible to this. It's not anyone's fault."

Pidge snort-laughed and punched his side. "So reasonable, samurai."

He gave her a half-smile. "You picking up Lance's nicknames now?"

"Someone has to speak for him while he's not up to it."

They all looked back to the couch, almost reflexively. It was a relief to see Lance safe and sound, though the high wheeze of his breath still sounded in the room. Shiro was nodding off, too, which was also nice to see. They were silent for a moment, taking it in.

"I don't want to go," Pidge said in a small voice. "Can't the mission wait?"

Keith looked at her. This mission was about getting one step closer to rescuing her family. Had she forgotten?

But he saw the way she was looking at Lance, and he understood. Lance was family, too, and he was right in front of her. She was scared of losing more.

He put a hand on her shoulder, tentative, then more strong, and she looked up at him. "We're going to take care of him," he said, using the same tone and fierceness he'd used to reassure Shiro. "He's safe, and he's going to be fine. You can trust us."

Pidge stared into his face for a moment, just long enough for him to see her eyes water. Then she flashed a smile and turned away, scrubbing at her face. "Yeah. I know. Thanks."

She ducked out from under Keith's hand and went over to the couch to say her good-byes. Hunk, Keith, and Coran stayed by the device giving her the moment. Keith stood straight, unwavering, but regret pierced him. He wished he could take back everything he said.

He didn't want Pidge and Allura to leave right now, either. Lance being so sick made everything feel more precarious, more dangerous, like catastrophe was lurking around every corner. It put him on edge, made him wish for something more concrete to do than offering inadequate words of comfort. He wanted all of his family close by where he could make sure they were safe.

He didn't say this. He held his tongue, as he was slowly, painfully learning to do. Pidge touched Lance's face, murmured some words to Shiro as he sleepily raised his head to look at her, then gave a slow nod. And she left.

Keith let her.