"Freedom!" Vik shouted as they appeared in the waiting room. Lance spied Paul and smiled before suddenly going pale. He walked over and plucked at his hospital robe.

"I'm perfectly fine," Paul grinned and slowly stood, "see?"

Lance tugged on it again and looked like he was about to cry.

"Its not your fault," Hunk said quickly, "really it wasn't."

"That's right," Paul brought Lance in for a hug, patting his head, "You're a good boy. A good, good boy."

"Doc says we should see him twice a week," ViK said, "any less and it wouldn't help and any more and he'd be needing psychiatric help."

"So you did your job," Paul grinned as Layla started on another long rant in Spanish. ViK responded in kind and made Layla all the more exasperated.

The paladins watched and Pidge leaned over to Keith, "You wouldn't happen to have popcorn, would you?"

"No," he said shortly.

"Its like a Spanish soap opera combined with a Hallmark movie," Hunk said and Shiro nodded.

"Still, we got to figure out what we're going to do," Keith sighed, "Allura may not say it out loud, but you can tell shes super ansy. we need to go."

"We still have to wait and get Lance back to…well…a type of normal," Pidge said, "he does pilot the blue lion. we can't just leave him behind."

"Keith?" Shiro leaned forward, "you ok?"

"Look," Keith lowered his voice, "Lance has always been the one who wanted to go home the most; what makes you think he's not faking this so he doesn't have to leave again? I say we just find someone else to pilot Blue."

"Wow…"

"That's cold, Keith, even for you."

"Guys, look at them," keith hissed, "can you honestly feel good about taking him away from his family right now?"

"well, it wont be right now," Hunk said, "we still have a ton of things to straighten out with the garrison."

"Keith," Shiro patted his shoulder, "your hearts in the right place, but we can't make that choice for him. let's get his memory all sorted out and he can make that choice."

"But we don't have that kind of time," Keith snapped, "Galra already landed here, which means this planet will be attacked any day now. We need to push back the line of conflict away from home."

"We will," Shiro insisted, "Coran is keeping an eye out and Hunk and Pidge are helping the garrison build their own sensors and detectors."

"Well, technically," Hunk cut in, "all we're doing is building better communication technology with the smaller balmera crystals we had. The sensors are going to take a lot longer and a lot more work."

"Hunk, that's not what he was saying," Pidge patted his knee, "he's just trying to get Keith to chill."

"I don't need to chill," Keith turned on her, "You guys are chill enough for everyone else!"

"Everything ok?" Paul asked walking over to them, "anything we can help you with?"

"Che," Keith got up and walked away. He was going to head back to the castle and wait for everyone to get their heads on straight.

()

"Get back."

"What?!"

Allura glared at him, "Get back to that house and look after your team!"

"But we need to get ready to leave and-"

She shoved Keith backwards out of the castle while Coran waved goodbye.

"We have everything covered over here," she said, "if we need help, we will call. Right now you need to go and support the team. Now more than ever, you guys need to use this time to bond. Spend time on your home planet and recharge."

She shut the doors and left Keith standing out in the middle of the canyon. Shiro had to have called her before he'd gotten there, that was the only explanation! He'd seen her look tired and he knew she'd wanted to get going; so why was she suddenly all for staying here and twiddling their thumbs?!

()

Keith went home.

His home.

No doubt those jerks had trashed the place, since they had stolen his Speeder, but he hadn't realized that they had lived there. the house reeked and made him stumble back down the front steps to gag. The smell was so horrible!

Holding his breath and pulling up his shirt to cover his nose, he walked in to asses more of the damage.

Surprisingly, the sheet covering his directions to the caves remained covered. the front table was broken and the he'd have to burn the couch. He looked at the floor and figured he'd be spending the whole time getting the burn marks from the cigarettes off and the desert mud wasn't going to be coming out of the rug…ever. The bathroom would have to be gutted and the kitchen made him sigh in despair. The grout would have to be dug out and replaced. Walking down the small hallway he passed the basement door and gagged again. He wasn't aware smells could be so strong and so awful. He'd rather be drinking a pitcher of nunvil.

The lights were broken and so was the third step down. These jerks had no respect for other peoples things!

()

"So yeah, doc said exposure to you all would help get his memory back in order. Its really only specific things he's blocking out," Victoria said, "that is if we can convince him that you guys really are friends…"

they were back at the house and Layla was talking with Lance in the kitchen. vik had dragged everyone else upstairs into her room. she hung a sign on the door knob that said 'Enter Under Pain of Humiliation'.

"Why isn't he convinced yet?" Hunk asked, "we've been here and all of you told him that we were!"

"Yeah…" Vik laughed a little, "we tricked him once before to get him to go on a field trip when i had the flu. It didn't end well…"

"Once tricked, twice cautious," Shiro sighed.

"Its not like we were all that close anyway," Pidge muttered.

"What do you mean by that," Hunk was mortally offended, "after he got me almost suspended twice…well, we'd better be close enough for him to remember me at least."

"Hunk, you've only known him for two school years, and i didn't really interact with you guys until a few months ago. Same with Shiro and Keith. Name one thing before voltron that would cement us as being important."

Hunk couldn't really think of anything. The three of them had been a joke in the garrison and he had hated Keith.

"He might remember Shiro," Hunk said suddenly, "he really thought big of him!"

"But he didn't," Pidge argued back.

"I don't like your attitude, Bedivere," Vik said folding her arms and puffing out her chest, "now is not the time for negativity! Now is the time we steal Morganas spell book and weave a bit of magic!"

"What does that even mean!" Pidge yelled as vik jumped on top of her bed and bounced on it.

"We'll steal the book! Steal the book!"

"What…what book is that?" Shiro asked and Vik giggled madly.

"Lancelots book!" she flopped down onto the bed, "Lancelot stole Morganas book. we must steal the book from Lancelot and find out his secrets."

"…you mean his diary?" Hunk asked.

"Of course Lance keeps a diary," Pidge hissed, "quiznak, i wish i'd thought of that months ago."

"Lance writes in someone elses diary?" Shiro asked, thoroughly confused.

"Once upon a time," Victoria started and Pidge rolled her eyes, "a boy and a girl were born. they were so smart that an evil warlock became jealous. He cursed them and the girl was locked up in a tower that bordered the real world and the land of fantasy called Shalott. Not knowing her own name, she adopted the name Shalott and became one with the tower. She was told that if she left, or even laid eyes on the outside world, her world would end and imagination would die. The boys curse was to live in the dark and be lost; never knowing which way was up or down. While he stumbled through life, the girls life was stagnant and stale.

"Until one day, the boy showed up at the gates of Shalott. The terror he'd seen in the dark rendering him mute, he couldn't state his name at the door, so she called him Lancelot and let him in. Together they had what the other needed. Shalott had need of the outside air, and Lancelot had need of a stable place.

"Together they healed each others wounds and bonded once more. The warlock hadn't wanted them to be together because of the power both of them had together. But they had found each other anyway and Shalott, realizing her brother had been damaged, sought revenge against the warlock. In her anger, she took the mirror from the wall, her only view of the outside world, and smashed it. She danced on it, crushing it to little bits. So angry was she, that she didn't even think about the curse until it was too late.

"But you guys already know what happened after that, but even after everything got better and all, Shalott found out that while Lancelot was in the darkness, doing the warlocks bidding, he'd kept a memento. he told Shalott that it was taken from the courts of Morgana and he wouldn't even let Shalott look inside. For inside are the darkest spells. Inside is a taste of darkness, and Lancelot would never let Shalott know of the worst, even when Shalott had walked in his shoes and knew of it all, he never ever let anyone see the darkest part."

"Dude…" hunk breathed, drinking in every metaphor, "that's messed up…"

"And so fundamentally wrong i don't even know where to start," Pidge sighed, "Actually i do know were to start. You can stop talking in third person, its really annoying."

Vik stuck her tongue out at Pidge.

"Soooo…the key is to steal and read the diary that Lance stole from someone else that he REALLY doesn't want anyone to read…" Hunk said slowly, "I really don't like the sound of this."

"Its the only way i'm going to convince you all that you're wrong," Victoria said with a shrug.

"Wrong about what?" Shiro asked.

"You all had a much bigger impact on Lancelot than you think."

()

Lance nibbled his toast as his mother quietly cooked dinner for everyone else. It wasn't so much that he couldn't remember, but that he couldn't even fathom those people as his 'friends'. Vik was all his wanted and all he needed. Why would he be after more than that?

When he went up stairs to tell them that dinner was ready, he over heard Victoria telling them all the stories that he had told her over the years.

His initial thought was betrayal, but he knew Vik would never tell them those stories unless he had given her the ok.

Had he given her the ok?

They said his memory was off, but he couldn't imagine ever being THAT close to anyone other than Vik…