Keith was laying in his bed trying to sleep some of the everlasting exhaustion away. He didn't feel like he was improving enough but that didn't make the rehabilitation training less brutal.
The door swung up and Shiro busted in with a loud gasp. Well, that was unnecessarily dramatic.
"Hello?" Keith asked. It was midday so Shiro couldn't have known that Keith was trying to sleep but that gasp sounded more like he had seen a wild Galra than someone trying to sleep. Keith looked down at his bare arms. No, still human.
"Keith?" Shiro asked in a desperate voice. He stepped into the room and looked down at Keith when he was at the foot of the bed. "Is that really you? Are you okay?"
"Are you okay?" Keith asked and narrowed his eyes. Keith wondered if he had been too naïve in thinking that Coran had been able to help Shiro and not just turn him crazy.
"I thought- The Black Lion said that you-" Shiro's eyes were still taking everything in as they ran up and down Keith's blanket clad body. Keith pulled the blanket a little closer to himself.
"What did your lion say?" Keith grumbled. No, he was not jealous that he could say that to two thirds of the other residents of the castle, excluding the mice, and no one could say that to him anymore.
"That you died, Keith. I thought you were dead," Shiro almost only breathed out. His eyes were wide and anxious but they blanched in light of the words they had accompanied.
"Oh," Keith let out and looked down at his still human hands. Red wasn't responding to him but to complain that he had died was just cruel. Okay, Keith could take a hint. At least until he had thought of a new plan that didn't include senseless bothering the Red Lion. He wanted her to like him again but if that only resulted in her thinking he was as annoying as Lance was at his most obnoxious, then it would only bring negativity to Red's image of him. Because surely that was the only reason that Red would be so cruel to him.
Keith didn't visit Red that day and instead decided to have a quick meal despite only being slightly hungry. Both because he didn't want the Red Lion to tire of him but also because he needed a new plan so the time he spend with her was more than just being near her. Perhaps that would bring results with it instead of Keith just getting his daily dose of angry, metal lion.
His legs were still numb from the shin down but he was improving and could walk briskly and almost never fall. It also helped that he had gained some weight and his body therefore allowed him to gain some muscles too. He ate a lot of protein at least, it was Coran's recommendation but Keith would have asking for it himself if Coran hadn't recommended it, so Keith's body had the optimal conditions for building itself up again.
That wasn't saying that he wasn't an eyesore. He was better but he could still see his ribs when he removed his shirt and he felt them through the shirt the last time he itched an itchy spot on his left side. Keith honestly didn't know at times how the others could stand to look at him as much as they did because he was still shocked every time he saw himself in the mirror. Sometimes he would see his sunken eyes and shadowed cheeks and he would honestly need a moment to remember that it was himself he was looking at and not a very frail looking intruder. At first, his brain had just refused to acknowledge that it was him and he had to relearn his reflection until he almost never accused himself of being someone else. He didn't learn this with his good will but he did learn it and the pain that brought was enough to send him on a mission to avoid mirrors as much as possible but he still couldn't help looking at his arms. It had only been in disgust and horror before but now he was celebrating the fact that he could see a difference between his wrist and the top of his forearm.
At least his skin was better after he got into the habit of drinking when thirsty instead of when the others forced food and liquid down his throat. Okay, it wasn't that dramatic but Keith would have starved and thirsted himself instead of being afraid of spilling if the others hadn't insisted that he drank and ate all he could before there had been any talk about visiting the planet Jedremi.
He knew that the Jedrics had done something to him that Red didn't like, it was the only explanation Keith could think of as to why she would go from saving to rejecting him, and he secretly blamed them for it, but he was thankful too as without them, he would probably have been dead. Dehydration or actually succeeded in suicide, he didn't know how he would have died but he doubted that the others could have kept him alive for too much longer. Perhaps they could have put him in a cryo pod and technically keeping him alive but it would be as if he was in one of those coffin pods they had put Sendak in and judging from his malnourished state, the pods couldn't actually keep him alive for too long. Or they could have frozen him in time as Coran and Allura had been for 10,000 years but that would just have been cruel and fixed nothing. It would only result in Keith being as good as dead until someone either killed him in his even more vulnerable state or were cruel enough to awaken him and then nothing would have been different from just letting him kill himself in the first place.
Keith was therefore thankful for the Jedrics ability to give him the will to eat and drink and the ability to walk and almost talk normally. His lisp was bad and he too embarrassed to start talking or too mortified to keep talking most of the time. He was therefore speaking far less than anyone else in the castle were, not that he had ever been the most talkative guy, but he talked a lot more than he did when he had just woken up from his… prolonged sleep in a pod and the others understood what he said of the time.
However, thankfulness didn't change that he would rather be dead than useless and rejected by the one who knew him the most.
Keith arrived in the kitchen and saw Lance and Pidge pester Hunk to make them something that tasted as far from goo as possible and Hunk trying to explain to them that he wasn't magical and there was only so much food and spices in the castle.
"Hello, Hunk," Keith greeted and caught the attention of everyone in the kitchen.
"Hi," Keith said to Pidge and Lance too and gave them a little nod for good measure so they knew he meant them both.
"What have I done to you, Keith?" Lance exclaimed as soon as he realized Keith wasn't going to say anything more.
"I'm not in the mood." Keith was really not in the mood for anything that didn't let him cry to himself and later pretend that it didn't happen or hit something very hard until he made an inanimate object cry. It was only hours after Keith found out the Red Lion was telling the other lions that her paladin was dead, so he thought he was justified to be a little negative even if the others didn't know of this new development.
"Why is it that you can say Hunk's name just fine but refuses to say mine?" Lance asked and let out an offended huff of air. Keith sent him an unamused look but Lance's fiery and sharp eyes didn't waver. "Once or twice is fine. Even I know that I can be wrong at times, but you have refused to say it even once since like forever!"
"Mine too, actually?" Pidge piped up, but she seemed more curious than angry and only with the slightest edge of hurt in her voice.
Keith got where they were coming from he just didn't know what to say. Well, he did know what he could say under normal, or more like past, circumstances but now? He didn't want anyone to be reminded about all the things he still couldn't do, himself included, and listening to his lisp would just awaken that knowledge every time someone forgot it for the slightest second.
"Well?" Lance asked and Keith really wanted to do just about anything for Lance to shut up and stop being annoying.
Keith thought about ways to distract them or somehow get out of the question with half-truths that Lance and Pidge wouldn't know the emptiness of before Keith was somewhere deep inside the castle where they would never find him, but he decided against it. Yes, it would have worked fine now but he only had a single castle to hide in and even he needed some social interactions and couldn't exactly find someone new to talk to.
"Your name-, um, your na-name-," Keith stammered in an attempt to find some works containing sounds he could say fine or even just almost correctly. Not that he actually thought the stammering was any better than an obvious lisp.
"Yes, our names, what about them? Not good enough for you anymore?" Lance rolled his eyes and narrowed his eyes in Pidge's direction when he was hit by an elbow in the side of his stomach.
"What?" Lance hissed to Pidge but not nearly quietly enough for Keith to not hear it even if he had tried not to hear what Lance had to say.
"Be nice," Pidge hissed back and her face fell into exasperation when Lance got visually more annoyed by her words.
"I have been nothing but nice to him, so sorry if I don't want to keep playing nice while he's being rude." Lance started out glaring at Pidge but turned his eyes on Keith again and let his gaze turn so cold that Keith feared he would shiver. "Hearing anything exciting? We're not good enough to have a conversation with but good enough to have you listing in on one?"
"No, I ju-, I like talking to you," Keith tried to reassure but not as hard as he tried to ignore the way he had said 'talking'. It wasn't quite enough to be a lisp, not really at least, but he could hear a clear difference.
Pidge's eyes widened. "Were we too hard on you?" She sounded so forlorn. Not at all like herself but still familiar and it hurt more than Keith had thought possible for such a small detail. Some place inside of him whispered just who she reminded him of when she sounded so young and lost, as if she was unsure if a crime was hers but willing to take all the blame if the other part said so.
"Have I done anything to you?" Pidge asked again and sounded so young that Keith's heart bled a little bit.
"No, Pidge!" Keith hurried out so quickly that he forgot all about his new way of pronouncing her name. Realization painted Pidge's, Lance's and Hunk's faces and Keith felt his cheeks warm up enough for him to notice the warmth but hopefully not enough for anyone to see it.
Lance's lips fell into a straight line and he furrowed his eyebrows as he looked away from Keith. Pidge looked sad and Keith didn't know if he was more offended that she pitied him or relieved that she didn't look quite as young anymore.
"You can call me Katie," Pidge said.
"What?" Keith asked as he looked at her with furrowed eyebrows and searching eyes.
"It would be easier on your-" Pidge stopped herself when he saw the embarrassment spread all the way to Keith's fingertips, "-on you, right?"
Keith wanted to verbally confirm but he didn't trust his words and especially not the ones with 's'-sounds so he simply nodded in thanks. They had better getting used to the nods because Keith promised himself to never attempt to say anything containing 's' or 'th' in front of the others ever again.
"And you can call me Sharpshooter," Lance exclaimed in a proud voice before he realized his mistake. "Wait, no, call me The Tailor."
"No, I'm not calling you-," that, The Tailor, why did those words have to be the only options Keith could think of it that second? "Just no," Keith settled on and belatedly realized that it was a bad idea to say 'just' if he wanted to avoid lisping but no one commented or even reacted to it so he didn't either.
"Fine, be boring," Lance huffed. "Not like I care."
"Can't your name just be a tired sigh? It's pretty much what we do anytime we see you anyway?" Pidge asked a little crueler than what was probably intended and her mocking smile fell for a moment of uncertainty.
"You don't have to act like an aggressive Chihuahua just because you have the size for it," Lance deadpanned.
"I know," Pidge said with confidence and sent Lance a sunny and smug smile.
"Why are you like this then?" Lance demanded to know.
"I'm closer to hell, I guess," Pidge shrugged. No one commented on the lack of logic in that statement when in space but Lance's groan so loud and distressed that it rivaled anyone in excruciating pain.
Keith only remembered that he had forgotten to be crestfallen about Red after Lance had stopped groaning for several doboshes. It seemed almost normal, except Lance and Pidge made more of an effort with him and Pidge whispered to Lance that she didn't really mean what she said about the sighs when she thought Keith couldn't hear it. Keith had no idea where that was coming from but Lance seemed to appreciate it even if he insisted that he knew it already.
"We could try something else," Coran assured Keith when he saw that Keith had hit a wall and was getting discouraged about his lack of improvement.
Keith lifted his eyes from his curled up fists and to Coran's face. He didn't want to get his hopes up and just sent Coran tired eyes that only displayed a hint of fear. It was not an ordinary fear but one showing how much he dreaded any suggestions from Coran.
"Don't be scared," Coran said when Keith didn't give anything other than a shake of his head. "We got you Galra medicine to start your heart and breathing and you got much more functional after we visited Jedremi. I'm sure there's more to be done."
"No," Keith said when he realized Coran wouldn't be satisfied without any words. "I'm tired, Coran. I'm so tired of all of this." He really was. All the fighting between everyone in the castle, the shame he felt with all his disabilities and the healing on Jedremi. He didn't have any energy or enough space in his head to take any more searches for a miracle cure and fearing for the side effects if they would find something. Maybe someday he would insist they should take away the numbness in his legs and his annoying lisp but not now.
Coran deflated. Not enough to seem sad but enough for Keith to realize he had been cheerful for Keith's benefit and now showed how sympathetic but tired he really was. "That's fine, number 4"
"Thank you," Keith lisped out.
He loved the fact that Coran was so accepting and didn't linger on unnecessary sympathy when it was not wanted. Keith could avoid words or just lips as he did just now and there was no reactions from Coran. Keith was no fool and he knew that Coran wanted Keith to seek more medicine or healing, Keith assumed that Coran was purposely hiding his disappointment badly, but Coran kept quiet about it verbally and let Keith decide for himself.
It was not brought up again but Keith knew that he could mention it again at any time they saw each other during or not during rehabilitating training. Coran didn't even hint that he wanted Keith to change his mind as time went on and Keith could focus on improving himself instead and maybe come to the conclusion that he was ready to search for more.
Most of Keith's physical training was leg or flexibility related but Coran did use some of his time to focus on the rest of Keith's body. Including his arms, where Keith graduated from movements that Coran had called something technical and long but Keith secretly in the depths of his own mind just called 'swinging both arms from side to side twice and then lifting them up halfway through another swing' just a week after Coran's suggestion of trying something else than simple strength training.
The graduation was much more satisfying than the work up to it and Keith had never been happier to see a blunt sword than he was the moment Coran gave it to him. Not even Coran telling him that he was sorry that it was a little too short to be of any use and that it was intended for Altean children discouraged Keith.
Of course, he wasn't allowed to use it as he pleased and it was taken away from him after his one and a half vargas of physical training with Coran that day. However, it was something and even just swinging a bright blue sword that was probably not any longer than his forearm was enough to bring a smile to Keith's lips.
He had been training for as hard as Coran had allowed him but he couldn't deny that having a sword to train with did wonders for his motivation.
He even got to fight a gladiator robot with a real training sword after a few days with the bright blue sword. Given, the robot was probably on the lowest setting but Keith both won and got his heart beating. Most people disliked exercising but Keith loved it if it came from fighting. No matter if it was in hand to hand or with a sword. He even found joy in during the less exciting exercises that he needed to do to build up his strength and endurance.
Just five days after his first day against the robot gladiator, the robot kicked his ass and Keith loved it. Coran had accidentally put the setting on too high when he in reality just wanted to put it up one level but it forced Keith into a real fight and even though he lost, the fight proved to him that he wasn't completely useless. He was getting back and maybe he would never be a paladin again, but he could be a frontline soldier. He could have a purpose again.
The robot didn't stay on the higher level but it didn't go all the way down to the intended level. Sweat poured down Keith's face and back at the end of every training session and he lost as many fights as he won. Everyone who saw Keith knew that he was starting to love the new training and he didn't even mind that Coran made sure that he did his other exercises before he could face any metal opponents.
It was at the start of one of those sessions that Allura's voice came from a speaker somewhere on the ceiling.
"We have received a signal," she told them. "I expect you all to be in the control room in 3 doboshes."
Keith wasn't entirely sure how much a doboshes was in human minutes but he and Coran arrived in the control room after a little more than 4 minutes so he hoped that was quickly enough for Allura. On one hand, everyone else was already in the control room but on the other Allura wasn't complaining about them being late and she wasn't one to hold back.
Not that Keith would have really listened if she did complain. It was just lucky that the distress signal was now and not in an hour when Keith would have been so exhausted that there would be no hope for him to arrive in the control room in less than 10 minutes.
"The Galra is closing in on Leffag," Allura said as soon as Coran and Keith entered the room. This information puzzled Keith as the planet's inhabitants had all left for other planets after the fight on Leffag. The planet had been a great place for every living creature born there but the fight against the Galra had disturbed the system and somehow during the fight, there had been large clouds of ash risen to the sky and blocking out all light. No light meant no plants and no plants meant no living herbivores nor carnivores. The Leffagings and Coran had suspected that the ash would leave in about 50 Deca-Phoebes, however long that was, and then the ecosystem would just have to reset itself naturally before the inhabitants could repopulate the planet.
"A rebel ship has seen them in the system and we have to stop them before they reach Leffag," Allura continued. As if there was anyone in the room that couldn't figure that one out.
The team already knew several rough plans for expected situations and this was no different. There was only one ship so the team would come in their lions and try to have the element of surprise and stop the ship. In reality, stopping often meant destroying the ship and killing everyone inside but everyone preferred to avoid thinking about such details.
Keith wanted to go too but with Red refusing to let him in and even calling him dead, he knew it was a losing battle with no reward if he did win.
The castle wormholed closer to the spot where the Galra ship was last seen and was just about to look for the Galra ship when they received a distress signal. This one was from one of the neighboring planets to Leffag named Enkrellat.
Enkrellat was one of the planets where the most creatures and people from Leffag had found a home. The planet itself held no riches and the main creatures from Enkrellat got nutrients from sunlight and plants that was toxic to most other creatures. Keith didn't see himself as a genius but he already knew what was coming before even a single word had left the Enkrellatant's thin lips.
"The Galra has come! They've taken so many already!" The scared twist of the Enkrellatant's hairless eyebrows awoke protective feelings inside of Keith that he hadn't know he could feel for anything other than small children and cute animals before he left Earth's atmosphere. None of the Enkrellatants were pretty, at least according to Earth's standards, and this creature on the screen was no exception. It had a dark bluish gray skin with spots that looked much bluer than the rest of the skin. It was bipedal but had no arms and its face looked like a child's nightmares with its entirely black and beady eyes, huge nostrils with no nose and a mouth so big that Keith wouldn't have been surprised if they could see behind them if they just opened their mouths all the way up.
Still, this was a people he had helped liberate and they had done nothing to deserve anything other than kindness. Someone had taken them and Keith couldn't just stand there doing nothing. He wanted to help them. No, he needed to help them and Allura and Shiro could suck it if they wanted to stop him.
The distress call ended abruptly and Keith feared what that meant. He could easily figure an answer out but he was too afraid of letting his imagination think of any scenarios.
"The prisoners are the most important right now," Shiro said in a formal and leaderly voice. All his insecurities seemed to vanish with a mission on his mind. It was both comforting and disturbing.
"We're sneaking onto the ship with the green and black lion and freeing as many prisoners as possible without being detected."
Thinking anyone could speak out a probably large number of prisoners without being discovered was downright naïve but Keith didn't comment on that part of the plan, instead he chose to say something that he knew could make everyone far angrier.
"I'm coming too."
"What?" Lance asked. "No, you're not."
"You don't get to decide anything for me, Lance," Keith sneered.
"I am, and you're not going," Shiro said surprisingly calmly. "You can't fight the Galra if we're discovered and you can't run away from them either."
"I can sneak onto a ship with or without your consent," Keith said and felt guilty about how much he enjoyed the horror on Shiro's face. He didn't enjoy being the cause of negative emotion in anyone he cared about but Shiro wouldn't have been affected, at least not like this, if he didn't believe Keith to be able to sneak onto a lion and then onto a Galra ship.
"I'm going anyway - why not just say fine and then you'll know where I am?" Keith asked. He knew it was a shitty thing to do but he needed to save these people.
"You're being selfish, we will have to make sure you don't kill yourself instead of actually saving anyone," Lance said and Keith couldn't honestly disagree with that point. He still did it but secretly he knew that Lane was right.
"Then don't worry about me. I can fight and," Keith gave Shiro a look, "and run just fine."
"I'm not going to allow you to do anything just because I know you could try to do it anyway," Shiro said much more firm than Keith thought he would be able to. Especially considering how he had been before.
"Paladins, we don't have time for this. Shiro, Pidge, Hunk and Lance, go now, Keith you're staying in the castle."
Keith huffed but relented, at least on the outside. That was until the paladins were almost out of the door and Keith remembered something he had discovered before the incident all that time ago. "I can open the doors on the ship."
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Okay…" Pidge said looking very unimpressed.
"On the Galra ship, I mean, I can open the doors. I can help."
"His stamina has improved a lot," Coran supplied and Keith wanted to throw one or both hands in Coran's direction to show the others that what Coran had said was a very good point. He didn't because that would just have looked ridiculous but the urge was there.
Shiro sent Allura a look before he sighed and whispered, "I can't believe I'm doing this." Shiro then straightened himself out and said with a normal volume, "Fine, you can come, but if there's any trouble, then you run and hide inside one of the lions."
Keith would normally be offended to be talked to like that, but he just nodded eagerly and speed walked with the others.
"Is this really a good idea?" Hunk asked quietly.
"Yeah, send him back," Lance agreed as he sent both Keith and Shiro a poisonous glare.
"It's a terrible idea but he would have come anyway," Shiro said just as quietly.
"I thought you said you wouldn't allow something just because you know he would disobey," Pidge hissed.
The conversation stopped when they reached their lions and Pidge and Shiro entered their own lions while Hunk, Lance and Keith looked for a moment before Hunk and Lance moved towards Green and Keith to Black. He was still not over what Shiro had done but he didn't have a big problem with being alone inside the Black lion with Shiro if it meant he could help with the mission.
This was part one of the end of everything and I hope you all won't hate me too much for letting you wait so long with a plottwist that is really anti-climatic.
If anyone's wondering about the name of the planets, Leffag is literally the Danish word for 'fork' backwards and Enkrellat is 'plate' backwards. My creativity knows no bounds.
More importantly: I'M BACK! The next (and last ever) part of this story is already written (but not proof read yet) so I doubt that will take me 2 months and six days to post