Twenty-nine

Romelle was still in Allura's robe, Allura herself was still in a dress slip, and her shoes but she wouldn't hear about taking time to cover up when it came to getting her cousin to the medical bay. Dr. Gorma had come in, taken blood and asked Romelle, who had regained consciousness on the way to the medical wing of the Castle a few questions. Now, Romelle had her hand over her mouth and Allura's eyes were wide as she stared at her cousin.

Dr. Gorma gave a knowing little huff, as he shook his head. "I leave you two alone to discuss the news."

The door closed to the room they were in and Romelle started to smile, her hand going to her stomach, after pushing away the fluffy robe that was in the way to get to the thinner fabric of her own dress slip. Both her hands landed on it and she stared at Allura, looking the happiest Allura had ever seen her. "This is such a mess!"

Allura felt like she did when she got hit in Blue Lion, crashed and would black out for a moment or two. Dazed, confused and shocked, but her mind was processing and there was a thread there in her head that realized this was a happy-thing. This was more than a happy-thing, this was an amazing thing a beautiful, amazing, miraculous wonderful thing and she started to smile herself, even though she was more shocked than anything.

"You've, you and Sven?"

Romelle blushed, a light flush of pink that added an extra glow to the joy she was currently giving out towards Allura. "I know, I know it isn't - allowed," she said with an eye roll. "Frankly, I was less worried about what the traditions were and more worried I'd never want a man to touch me ever again, but Sven... I love him, Allura, he can be terrifying when he's angry, he's lethal when he fights. But he's gentle, sweet and amazing with me. He was so patient and I found I didn't want to wait for bureaucracy and red tap ethat Bandor would have to go through to find us a date to be married in some far off... Oh, God, I hope Sven doesn't think he has to ask me to marry him now? We haven't even talked about it, yet? I can let think he has too, or that I expect him too, I... The Castle advisors are going to have fit."

Romelle trailed off with a bit of a giggle, still staring at her stomach.

"Allura, I'm so happy, and I can't tell Sven yet, I don't know how I'm going to keep my mouth shut."

Allura was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact Romelle had just matter of factly revealed two very private things to her about her sexual life. One that she hadn't waited like was expected of a Polluxian Princess, for their traditions were very close to those of Arus, being a sister Planet, and second that she'd never thought she could handle being touched again because of Lotor rapes. Throughout all of it though, Romelle had been focused on only one feeling, however, how happy she was about the baby, one with Sven, the man she loved and didn't want to wait for, the man she loved and didn't want to feel pressured into anything.

"Why can't you tell him? You're afraid he'll feel pressured to propose?"

"No, he won't let me go with him on the mission, and there is no way he's going without me. We made a pledge to save slaves of Doom together, as equals. He and I are peers, equals and a pregnancy isn't going to stop me. Women have been through worse while pregnant, I won't break but you know how men are around a pregnant woman."

Allura shook her head. "I've never actually..."

Romelle nodded. "On Doom, some of the other women, were pregnant, either before they go there, or afterward..."

Allura shuddered.

"They were all so strong, they went through Hell, the Drules and the robot soldiers were awful to them, worse than to them than to the rest of us women. But the male slaves, were overprotective, hovering even. One woman, she kicked a man away from her, saying she didn't need him to bring her water, or help her out. She'd given birth tofive babies before she was a slave, she could deliver number six while she was slave. And trust me, when she went into labor, it was the women who helped her, not the men," Romelle laughed. "It's oddly a good memory."

Allura's awe for her cousin rose, she would never be able to explain such strength or perspective to anyone, she thought. She rushed forward, sat on the edge of the bed, Romelle was on and hugged her. "I'll make sure Sven doesn't find out then," she said. "What happened to the woman and her baby?" Allura asked, having to ask.

"They survived down there for a long time, the baby was a boy. She helped out people all the time, especially the pregnant and the raped... She was very kind." Romelle closed her eyes. "One day, they took her out of the cell and she never came back in. A married couple, who had a son around the same time she did, they took in her boy, they were among the first we helped escape, they live on Pollux. They've told Cirian he's adopted, someday when he's older we plan to tell him how brave his mother was. I wish I knew where she had come from, he might have brothers, sisters, even a father still out there. For all I know she could be still be out there, because there was no rumor of executions, or deaths. She just was gone. It's why we want to check into the moon, it happened a lot and this moon seems to be a hub base, of small shipments of slaves. They land, they get off and then leave again - to go where? Why is Zarkon moving slaves and where too?"

Allura nodded. "It does seem important, strange, I'm glad you and Sven with your contacts figured it out. Maybe it could lead us to way to end this war."

"We can hope," Romelle said. "We should be getting dressed for the dinner, Allura. I want to make sure to ask the Space Marshal about how well you did our evaluations."

Allura blushed but she grinned as well feeling a surge of pride. "I'm hoping the guys will talk about their Academy days, I like hearing stories about them when they were there. Also, it might put Keith in a nostalgic mood, and if Lance manages to get us alone, I'm going to try talk to him about Tara, everything. I don't want to let too much space sit between us talking things out."

"Are you sure breaking the biggest rule Coran has set is a good idea?"

"It's not the biggest rule, it's the biggest spoke rule," Allura pointed out. "And yes, this is personal, very private and as close as Keith is to Lance, he's angry at him right now, maybe Sven could step in but he'd hold back even with one of them in the room. I need him to not hold back. Lance said he'd try figure out a way to trick him into it, so he doesn't notice until it's too late, then I'll keep them there."

"It's making an already mad bear, madder."

"It's a risk I have to take, Romelle," Allura said.

Romelle nodded. "I'm here," she said as she slipped off the examation table, hands on her stomach, before closing the robe. "I can't believe I'm pregnant, Sven and I were so careful."

"I guess it was meant to be," Allura said, smiling, so happy for her cousin. "Congratulations, I'm so happy for you!"

"'You cannot fight against what is destined to be your future.' My mother's favorite quote, she had a needlepoint of it in script up in her study in the Castle, I'd go in there and look at it. Whenever I balked at things a Princess must learn, or do, she said that quote to me. I say to myself now, I think, I think even though we were careful, this was a destined future for Sven and I. One I am very happy to embrace."

[italics]You cannot fight against what is destined to be your future.[/italics] Allura shivered at the words, she barely heard the rest of what Romelle said, but she tried to listen, sensing it was important, people didn't start things with quotes, if it wasn't something important. Romelle's mother said it, using it to help Romelle face up to being born a Princess. A position no one chooses it is chosen for you. Is it destiny, then?

Allura remembered the future, happily, she had a fondness for it. All the talks with Lance outside, the pictures she'd found of herself a happy mother and a strong Queen. She'd seen newspaper clippings, of herself, talking about her Rule of Arus. There was talk about Lance as well as him being a great King, the King Alfor might've been, but Allura had always felt gotten the sense it was her ruling Arus and Lance was by her side.

Allura didn't want to change the future drastically. She wanted Keith to be her husband, to be the one heralded as the King Alfor might've been, because she feels sure he would be as well, either one of them would be. She wants Keith to be ruling Arus with her but with the knowledge that she makes the final decision. Lance, he'd still be be by her side as well, an ear to listen, a friend to turn too, helping her sort through things. By her side as she ruled.

The change wasn't grand. Only with Romelle saying those words, Allura had a gut turning feeling that she and Lance hadn't changed anything at all in the terms of the future.

Romelle hugged her as she finished her little speech about the baby being destined for her and Sven, and how happy she was to have it, Allura hugged her back and when they broke apart Romelle was staring at her. Allura prayed she didn't look as freaked out as she looked.

"We need to ask for something for you to wear over that for the walk back to your room."

Allura looked down at herself, saw that she was only in the dress slip she wore under her dresses, remembered refusing to grab her own robe because she was too worried about Romelle's sudden faint. "Oops," Allura said with a slight blush.

~~.~~

Lance looked in his bathroom mirror, he hadn't shaved since sometime yesterday, maybe? He couldn't remember. He knew he'd wanted to go scruffy to the Underground, now he was beyond scruffy but he didn't really give a damn. He ran his hand over his face, and then glanced at himself again. Yeah, he still looked like crap, like he hadn't really slept, and was it really less than twenty-four hours since he left the Castle last night?

He shook his head and started to rummage through his shaving equipment for a trimmer, he didn't want to shave it off for whatever reason, why bother, he thought, idly. As he pulled it out from the cupboard under the sink, Lara walked into the room, a green dress on and stared at him behind using the mirror to look him in the eye.

"I need to be zipped."

"Turn around then," he mumbled, plugging in the trimmer.

"Going for the artistic scruff then?"

"Whatever you want to call it," he said, turning around to meet her back and zip up the dress. "People should be in the dinning room already, we are running really late, you should go up there."

"Up where?"

"Head toward the rec room, by then you'll see so many people they'll guide to the right place."

Lara nodded but stayed still as she watched him turn back to the mirror. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're different."

"Lara, I can't trim this almost beard and talk to you at the same time," Lance snapped turning around to look at her.

Lara held up her hands. "Fine. But maybe between here and the dinning room you could remember who is doing who a favor here tonight, Lance." She left the bathroom after that and a second later he heard his door slid open and closed. Lance closed his eyes, put his hands on the counter and counted to ten, told himself to try to remember to apologize to Lara later.

He was in one of his moods, they'd hit him and that was it, he was moody. It'd been the comment about leaving Arus. All he could think of now was the inevitable great day when they won, they stopped Zarkon and Lotor. They gave Arus the peace it deserved and they'd fullfilled the oath they'd made to Allura and Arus.

It'd be the worst day of his life, Lance realized because he'd have to leave Arus. Their would be nothing keeping him here, no ties to bring him back here to visit, not really - even if Keith somehow managed to get to marry Allura like she wanted. He didn't have a given citizenship like Pidge, who could choose to make Arus his home if he wanted, at any time, Lance closed his eyes feeling jealous and it was insane. Pidge's home planet had been blown to smithereens, there was nothing to envy there.

He turned on the trimmer.

~~.~~

Keith growled.

He tried to tie the tie for his suit again and it failed. He growled again because he had to do it himself because there was no way he crossing the hallway and asking Lance to help him out, like he usually did. He tried again to manipulate the red fabric, doing everything correctly, he knew he was, he'd looked it up. He had a cheat sheet in front of him, somehow his fingers turned to thumbs whenever he tried to put on a tie.

It could be that he hated wearing them, they felt restrictive, he felt like someone was trying to choke him whenever he had one on, but for tonight he had to deal with wearing one. So he was dealing, with one more thing, out of a thousand.

Allura was beautiful, empathetic, strong and it turned out trying, impulsive, stubborn and possibly really reckless. Keith tried pulling on the fabric and it came apart in his hands. He sighed, and decided he'd go ask Sven to tie the damn thing for him.

Stalking across his room, he pushed the button to open his door and walked out and nearly collided with Lara. She stopped short, he stopped short, and they stared for a minute only a hairbreadth apart. Then her hand took his wrist, brought it up and she grabbed the tie. "Problems, Commander?" she asked with an arched brow.

Keith not really being in a mood to deal with Lara, sighed and snapped. "What are you doing here?"

"Is the whole Castle in a mood?" Lara asked. "I'm here as Lance's date."

Keith felt instantly guilty, he shouldn't take his bad mood brought on by Allura not trusting him, about her insistence on making it as difficult as possible to protect her out on anyone else. Well, except Lance, since she was trusting him, since she was letting him protect her.

"I apologize. I wasn't aware he'd invited you."

"It was a last minute decision, but I agreed for some reason. Though he's very snappish tonight, never seen him like that," she said, taking the tie and wrapping it around Keith's neck.

Keith's first thought was good, then he felt guilty, then he remembered why he was mad and here was Lara. "Where did you three go last night?"

Lara's eyes widened and then she sighed. "I've been asked not to tell."

Keith groaned. "Lara, I'm the Commander of the Voltron Force and I've been asked by Coran to protect the Princess at all costs. I need to know what the situation was she was put in."

Lara sighed, finished tying his tie and stepped back. "Princess Allura has requested that it remain a secret. She's my Princess, Commander, you must understand that?"

Keith didn't, he didn't at all. "Lara, you spout off against authority and tradition every chance you get, and here you are telling me to respect that you have to listen to Allura because she's the Princess?"

Lara's green eyes flashed at him, Keith stepped back. He'd pissed her off, he knew it instantly, she went from a beautiful woman in a green dress who'd tied his tie to Lara Wyeth. She took one step back, she seemed to grow taller right in front of him and her hand came up and pushed him on the chest.

"I respect my Princess. I respect the Royal Throne of Arus. My problem is with the unspoken rules and medieval traditions of my people and where I took Lance and Allura was in regard to that. Allura is going to do something about something that is vital and important to me, personally and politically, Keith. If she doesn't want anyone else's nose in it, while she sorts through things in her head, even her boyfriend. Her stupidly overprotective boyfriend at that...than of course I'm going to respect her."

Keith nodded, not at Lara, at himself. He'd pissed her off and even if he'd had a chance of pulling any information from her which he realized now he hadn't. He never would get it now. "You don't think it's important to protect Allura?"

Lara sighed. "Of course I do, I had a moment of crisis about leaving her and Lance alone, when he sent me home for my safety. But he pointed out the facts to me Keith and he had a point. She knew how to use the blaster and the knife he armed her with. I didn't. She's a blackbelt. I don't know how to punch. She's a trained soldier. I'm a civilian. She may be the Princess of Arus. But she's also a Warrior. She's our Protector. She's the woman who flies Blue Lion and forms Voltron with four brave men to protect this planet from Doom. She's more than a title and she's not the average Arusian woman who does need protection. I think that's all she wants you to remember."

Keith hated it when people were right and he was... Partially wrong, he wasn't wrong, maybe neither one of them were? He sighed, nodded and then looked around. "Why are you out here alone?"

"I told you he's in a mood, he sent me out alone."

"Space Marshal Graham is probably already in the dinning room. I'm late, so I'll escort you up there," Keith said, offering his arm.

Lara looked at his arm and rolled her eyes. "We can just walk together, you know, Keith. You don't have to do the whole gentleman thing, it's just me."

"I can't win," Keith muttered as they started down the hallway.

~~.~~

Allura stood in the dinning hall, politely talking with Space Marshal Graham and Coran, wishing she could cross the room and join Hunk and Pidge, with the Garrison soldiers they'd gone up against today in evaluations. She noticed that none of the recruits Graham and Fox had brought with them to try out to be backup or for Blue Lion were in attendance, also Fox was nowhere in sight. She wasn't displeased by the later, but she wondered about the former.

"Space Marshal Graham, were are the recruits for Voltron that you brought with you?"

"Ah, I sent them back with Fox, I need to reassign them all so I thought I'd give them sometime with their families back on Earth."

"Oh, that is very kind and sweet of you," Allura said, smiling.

Space Marshal Graham cleared his throat. "I, well, I suppose," he said looking everywhere but at her.

Allura thought she caught a bit of a blush underneath his beard, she scanned the dinning hall again. Romelle had headed toward Sven's room, to see if he was still there before heading to the dinning hall. Allura's smile grew and she wondered if Romelle changed her mind and ended up telling Sven the good news and that was what was keeping them. She'd been amazed, she hadn't been the last of the team to arrive. Where were Keith and Lance?

"Ah, Allura, there is Commander Kogane," Coran announced.

Allura looked in the direction Coran was looking and saw Keith walk into the dinning hall through a side door, with Lara Wyeth. Her brow furrowed in confusion on Lara's appearance, but she made a polite goodbye to Coran and Space Marshal Graham and crossed the room.

Her eyes falling on Lara's dress. The amount she envied Lara's wardrobe was enough to make her feel superficial and highly ashamed but she couldn't help it. Here she was stuck in a full pink gown, albeit strapless, but nonetheless it was pink, it's skirt was too full and she felt like a little girl in it. Lara on the other hand was wearing a green silk dress, with tiny straps around her shoulders, it had a long skirt, but Allura could see the slit in its side that went up quite high, giving Lara's legs breathing room. It looked light and it looked beautiful. Not to mention the green matched Lara's eyes perfectly bringing them out and she looked breathtaking.

"I love your dress," Allura said as she got into earshot of the two of them. She glanced around. "Where is Lance?" As she asked she heard Keith make a weird noise in his throat. She glanced over at him and gave him a weird look. "Are you okay?" she asked, then immediately wished she hadn't because of course he wasn't okay, he was mad at her, he was mad at Lance.

"He told me go ahead of him, he's in some weird mood. He wasn't in it when he showed up at my place, it was something my mother said I'm sure."

Allura shook her head. "What could your mother have said?"

Lara shrugged. "My mother it could be anything. She has a knack to say the perfectly wrong thing. She does it to me all the time."

Allura didn't know what to say to that, Lara complained about her mother a lot, she was sure Lara didn't really dislike her mother as much as it sounded like she did. At least Allura hoped, all Allura knew was she wished her mother was around to make her complain too. "Lara, could you excuse me and Keith for a moment?"

"Of course," Lara said, and she started to walk away, only to pause and touching Allura's arm. "By the way, the secret is safe with me."

Allura nodded, alarmed that she hadn't even thought Keith might ask Lara where they'd gone but apparently Lance had, or Lara was observant enough to know not to tell anyone. Either way, Allura was thankful. "Thank you," she said.

"Right," Keith muttered. "Can't tell Keith."

Allura fought the urge to call him out on the passive-aggressiveness of that statement and turned to him and took his hand instead. "Keith, I want to talk about everything. Tonight, alone?"

She watched as Keith's frustration level with her increased by another level. He pulled her away from the crowd of Garrison soldiers, that had formed near them because of Lara but stopped short of taking them outside of the room, his eyes darting over to where Coran still stood with Space Marshal Graham.

"You have to keep pushing it, don't you?" he said.

"I don't see it as pushing it. I think we need to have a serious talk and I think it should be done privately as it's personal."

"Really, because it seems like Lance knows everything else about our lives, yours especially, why shouldn't he hear this too?" Keith snapped at her, though under his breath.

Allura narrowed her eyes. "This isn't about Lance, this is about us. Will you think about it?"

"Allura..."

"Please?" she asked, beseeching him as much as she possibly could with her eyes.

After a full minute of them staring at each other, Keith relented as much as she could expect. "No promises, Allura, no promises."

She smiled anyway, it was better than she could hope for and he said it she saw Sven and Romelle walk in behind them. She waved her cousin over, noticing that Romelle looked like she hadn't stopped smiling and one of her hands kept wondering to her stomach. Allura focused her attention onto Sven, however as she walked over to them and moved up on her toes to give him another kiss hello, since their earlier welcome had turned into such a scene.

"Hello, again," she said.

Sven smiled. "Hello, again, Princess. I haven't seen this many Garrison soldiers since we graduated, have you?"

"Not all at once, no," Keith said. "But I think I smacked around half of them today."

"Me too," Allura said, watching as one soldier very obviously hit on Lara and Lara reacted flirtatiously, touching him on the center of his chest with a laugh. "Where is Lance?" she said again, looking around.

"I'm sure he'll be here, soon," Sven said. "Do we know what's keeping him?"

"Lara said he was in a mood," Keith said with a shrug.

"Lara?" Sven and Romelle said in unison.

"Her," Allura said, her voice showing her disdain as Lara continued to flirt with the soldier. "I'm getting, Lance," she huffed out and stormed out of the dinning hall out of the door Keith, Lara, Sven and Romelle had all entered through.

Behind her, she heard Romelle saying, "Just let her go." Right now she couldn't really worry about Keith, Lance had to show up to stop Lara from getting another damn boyfriend. Couldn't that girl see what a catch she had? Allura fumed silently, her heels clacking on the surface of the empty hallways, the rest of the Castle had become a ghost town, all the staff and Castle dwellers were in the dinning hall.

She reached Lance's door and was about to just use her own access code to open it when the door slid open and he appeared. They both startled and Allura laughed but instead of laughing with her like she expected him too Lance snapped. "Allura, the fuck!"