It was lost long ago, but it's all coming back to me…

~Celine Dion "It's All Coming Back to Me Now"

CHAPTER NINE

It's the Little Things

Where were they? Katie had only been in the shower for a few minutes and on returning, found her headphones missing.

She tossed aside a pillow, eyes scouring the bed. The problem with living so deep in her headspace, consumed by science's glorious puzzles, was that mundane tasks, like keeping track of her belongings, got lost in the details. She misplaced stuff all the time. But she had a clear memory of the phones sitting on her bed, by the pillow.

Apparently, they'd sprouted legs and wandered off.

Legs, long skinny legs….

She frowned at the cockpit. He'd been oddly quiet. Had it finally happened? Had he finally put aside his video games to do some adulting?

Don't hurt yourself, McClain, she thought wryly, watching him from the doorway. He was sitting quietly in the pilot's chair, holoscreen covered in text, his fingers typing away, the missing headphones on his head.

The sight of his familiar form, silhouetted against the inky blackness of space, the funny little cowlick sticking defiantly up on top of his head, stopped her from marching in, smacking him upside the head, and reclaiming her stolen tech. The scene called to mind another, years ago; a hair-raising flight with him at the helm of the blue lion, filled with teenage braggadocio. They weren't Paladins yet, just five cadets from Galaxy Garrison on a wild adventure, about to plunge into a wormhole to who-knows-where. In hindsight, she knew with startling clarity, that teenage Lance had been just as terrified as the rest of them, and realization made her suddenly all the fonder of this older, and she hoped, wiser version.

Katie took in the scene-Lance in the cockpit of her little ship-immortalizing it in her mind's eye. This moment will never happen again. Technically, it's already over, ever second that passes. She should have done this more with her mother, committed each frame of life to memory to reconstruct at a later time.

But she hadn't and now all those moments were gone. Yeah, there were photos, but moments like this, etched into the muddied, colorful memory of the senses, were often sweeter. Pain swelled and she gulped, trying to banish her grief with the determination to never lose more priceless moments in time.

Lance might be gone from her life again in another week. She hoped he'd keep in touch, but who knew what demons drove him?

Low-grade obsession, the thing that fueled all her work, tugged, demanding that she lose herself in the euphoria of untangling a complex problem, pulling disparate skeins of logic together into structured machine language. For once, however, she resisted the call; stood in the cockpit's doorway, her eyes on the onyx sky with its pinpoints of stars, lost in memory.

When had it begun? When had Pidge Holt fallen ass-over-logic into teenage crushitude with Lance McClain? Earlier, she imagined, than her teenage self would have admitted. In school, she'd been bullied, often by boys just like Lance. As Pidge Gunderson, she'd found a surprising freedom to be smart. Yeah, all smart kids, even one with XY chromosomes, got grief for using their brains as something more than filler material. Yet it was way worse, she thought, to be a smart girl.

"Just one of the boys" had its advantages.

Until one boy started to make her feel squishy inside and yearn to be something more: prettier; curvier, more normal.

That time in the space mall, filching coins from the fountain, fleeing the mall cop on a cow: giddy and stupid and so alive with adventure. Katie Holt, nerd girl, having the time of her life with cute, annoying and absurdly fun, Lance McClain. That was when she realized she'd fallen for him. (And resisted—how she'd resisted, tried to bypass all the faulty code that had her systems crashing every time he walked into the room.)

With the clarity of hindsight, though, she knew that the crush had been born long before that. It had snuck up on her sideways, and defied all logic.

And defying all logic, it's back. Like…eczema.

Puffing out an exasperated sigh, she turned on a heel. She sat in her customary spot on the bed, and fired up the screen, ready to work. Lance's image library flickered into view and she realized he hadn't reclaimed his data. She doubted he intended to leave the link active.

Shooting a guilty glance in his direction, she lifted a finger to the screen and gave it a few swipes. I shouldn't be doing this.

A cursory scan through the library showed that the majority of images were of his family, with an emphasis on his niece and nephew's antics. They were pretty damned cute. Charm must have been coded into all the McClains' DNA.

This is wrong. I know. But just a one more thing. She gave the screen a couple more taps, focusing on the timeframe two years ago. As expected, there were a smattering of images of Zahra. Damn, she is gorgeous, even offstage. Realizing that she might stumble on naughty images, she flicked back a couple more years.

Stop it, Katie! You're invading his privacy.

She was about to close the library when she landed on an image that caught her attention. It wasn't anything especially unusual: Lance sitting with a group of people at a table, probably a restaurant. She squinted at the image; the locale familiar. It looked like Rudy's, a dive in New Aleppo that she and Matt used to frequent. A chill ran down her spine. So many times their paths might have intersected.

There were six of them, counting Lance. The first, on the left, was a big hulking, human Titan, ethereally pale in the way of the moon's natives. The Titan was grinning, one arm resting on Lance's shoulders. A woman, dark and beautiful, sat next to Lance. Another woman, a Balmeran, was next, followed by a scrawny Altean with a supercilious smile, and last, a muscular, blond human man.

The blond was kind of cute in a stocky boyish way, or he would have been if his demeanor hadn't radiated, "I'm a violent asshole" punctuated by scars tallying kills on his chin and arms. He was the only one not looking at the camera, his attention apparently on the woman who sat by Lance.

Katie started to close the library, but paused, returning to the human woman. Allura. She looked like a human version of Allura. If Allura was a merc and possibly a terrorist. Studying the woman, Katie knew in her gut that this woman was a merc. They all are. Even the doe-eyed Balmeran.

Even Lance.

The woman's face bore a sly smile, and her right hand was casually flashing the Reds sign: index finger pointing straight, all other fingers pointed down, thumb peeking between ring and pinkie finger. The blond man was also flashing the Martian terrorist sign.

With another guilty glance at the cockpit, she zoomed in on Lance's left hand. No scar yet. Zooming out, she focused on Lance and the woman. Nothing about their posture hinted at intimacy. In fact, Lance and the Titan were cozier, though she knew Lance, for all his flirtation, preferred women. Was this her, the woman that Matt had seen Lance with?

Katie wished she were better at reading people. Yrta, or her mom could probably figure these people out in seconds.

Lance…. His demeanor surprised her. He smiled at the camera, but his eyes were filled with a keen, almost predatory wariness. The expression both repulsed and attracted her.

Stop snooping! Her conscience finally squashed curiosity. She closed the library and went into the cockpit.

"Ow!" said Lance, as she smacked his head.

"Thief."

"It's not theft, it's borrowing."

"It's not borrowing if you don't ask."

Chastened, he took the headphones off and handed them to her. "Sorry."

"Oh, keep them. For now. You big baby." Changing the subject, she said, "You left your image library on my com."

He blinked up at her, no hint of dangerous, mercenary Lance in his blue eyes. Just the sweet, goofy guy she knew, albeit older. Her stomach did a stupid, crushy flip-flop. For a moment, she wished he was more than a feckless, flirty playboy who only fell for space princesses and pop stars. Someone who'd fall for her.

His lips pressed into a narrow line as he considered the matter of the images. "That's okay. Keep them." One side of his mouth lifted in a small smile. "For now."

Katie returned his smile, suddenly overwhelmed by the implication in his words. It was a small thing, a little act of trust and vulnerability, but it meant everything.

He was letting her in.

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