Author's Note: Wow, time goes by so fast. It didn't help that this chapter slows down so much from the previous ones. What do you get when you have two strangers standing on either side of a hospital bed in complete silence – the boy they are both worried about sleeping between them? You get an awkward conversation, that's what. But that's what has to happen if we want any progress, so . . . shall we?

Chapter Thirteen: Quid Pro Quo

"I don't know if I can answer everything," Shiro gave the caveat before Lance had figured out what he even wanted to ask.

"It's none of my business, really," Lance acknowledged, still pinned awkwardly to Keith's side. He held onto Keith's hand, noticing that Keith had curled toward Lance on the hospital bed, as close as he could get without falling off. Actually, Lance wanted to scoot him closer toward the center. This bed didn't have that good of a guard rail to prevent that sort of thing, and Lance already knew he wouldn't be able to catch him.

"I think all the things I want to know fall into that category too," Shiro admitted. "How about this? No restrictions on questions asked, but we both reserve the right not to answer. Deal?"

"Deal," Lance accepted readily, liking Shiro more and more by the minute, even though Lance was still so confused as to why Keith hadn't wanted to contact him. Shiro seemed so friendly, and Keith obviously loved and trusted him. It made no sense. Just one question in his overwhelming list. "You can start."

Shiro let out a breath, unprepared for this invitation. Lance understood completely, which is why he wanted Shiro to begin what would probably be a lengthy back and forth. Lance had so many questions that he was hoping whatever Shiro asked would prompt him to actually choose one.

"All right," Shiro stalled, unsure. He had his head tilted, looking with painful affection at Keith. Lance had a hard time reading his face; it was so conflicted. There was so much love there, but also so much hurt. Even though Shiro had said it was all right, Lance wondered if asking about what happened between them might not be too personal to bring up.

"Who are you?" Shiro began bluntly, making Lance smile, a little tiredly. This was going to be a lengthy discussion.

"No one . . .just a boy from Cuba," Lance answered, knowing it was pathetic, but he thought they had more important things to talk about. He was by far the least interesting participant in this entire thing. Shiro stared at him, his mouth a neutral line.

"You're not just anything," he contradicted. "I've never seen anyone like you before. How did you know how to do all that? The pickle juice? The IV? The . . . synchronization thing? It was incredible."

Lance was at a loss; it hadn't been that incredible. And according to Dr. Delacroix, none of it would have been necessary if he'd just brought Keith in sooner. He was still feeling ashamed of himself for that.

"I do IVs all the time," he shrugged it off. "I work as a tech in the plasma donation center at the other end of the hospital. And I'm an EMT, so we're taught to use what we have available in the field. I didn't have the medication I needed, so the pickle juice was the best I could think of to keep Keith's blood pressure up." Lance stopped; he didn't even want to address the synchronization thing. That had been the longest shot he'd ever taken and he still wasn't too convinced that it had done anything useful.

Shiro paused too, deep in thought, processing, very lightly brushing his fingers against Keith's forehead, needing to touch him but not wanting to wake him. Keith murmured something, turning his head toward Shiro without releasing Lance's hand.

"I'm grateful you were there," Shiro almost whispered. "I had no idea he was so bad. Can you tell me what's wrong with him? What happened?"

"No one's told you anything?" Lance answered with another question, surprised that Shiro had been so long in the room with Keith without anyone giving him any information. Shiro looked frustrated, but not with Lance.

"The nurse who hooked up that thing said a little," Shiro said, gesturing toward the EKG machine. "Something about his heart beating irregularly, but I think I'd understand more if I heard it from you. It seems you've been with him longer and probably know the most." There was just a hint of distrust in Shiro's words, and Lance knew he was thinking back to how Lance had denied knowing Keith. How that most certainly looked like a huge lie after Keith had been discovered in Lance's bedroom. How they had appeared to Dr. Delacroix like a couple. Lance found it interesting how many facts about Keith seemed like lies but were actually the truth. Also how many things looked like the truth but actually weren't. Somehow Keith seemed to twist perception so that everyone who looked at him or spoke to him came away with a completely inaccurate picture. Lance found that difficult and frustrating.

"Well, I'm not a doctor, and I don't know anything for sure," Lance began with the proper language, taking care that whatever he said next could not be quoted as an official stance on Keith's condition. Shiro's face hardened as Lance spoke, so he cut the disclaimers short. Looks like they were the same in wanting to just get into the facts and forget all the protocol.

"We think he has the flu," Lance started over, then hurried to explain better as he saw Shiro's eyebrows crunch together in almost offended disbelief. They both knew the flu didn't look like this. "Or at least it started that way. I'm pretty sure he's anemic too, but the lab work hasn't come back to confirm either of those things. All I do know is that he has a very high fever, he's dehydrated, he hasn't been taking care of himself for a while, and some combination of those things messed up his heartrate, which consequently lowered his blood pressure and oxygen intake level."

"How close were we to losing him?" Shiro went on, making Lance slightly nauseated. He didn't want to think about that again, didn't want to talk about it. Wasn't it enough that they hadn't lost him? Did Shiro really need to know how bad it had been? Especially since Lance didn't think he was the only one blaming himself for how sick Keith was. He felt that Shiro was thinking it was his fault too, even though that was impossible. He hadn't even known.

Unconsciously, Lance slipped two of his fingers out of Keith's hand so they could cover his pulse on his wrist. He could clearly see the heart rate on the monitor just behind Shiro's shoulder, but somehow it was a comfort to feel it. Still beating. Steady at last. Medicinally slowed. Maybe it would be ok to say how bad it had been since it seemed they were slowly coming away from that place, hopefully never to go back there again. Maybe if they acknowledged it, they could let it go.

"The only other patient I saw who was like that didn't make it to the hospital," Lance told Shiro, surprisingly keeping his voice steady. Shiro covered Keith's shoulder with his hand, as if frightened that Keith might disappear and that he could keep Keith's spirit in his body with the contact.

"Could it happen again?" Shiro wondered.

"Maybe, but I think he's going to be ok now," Lance reassured. "He probably won't crash again. Not with the drugs he's getting, and the lab will figure out what caused it soon which will bring down the chances even more."

"I just don't understand," Shiro said, not talking to Lance anymore, looking forlornly at Keith. "You should have called me."

"I don't think he knew he could," Lance answered for Keith, making a guess. He watched shame and sadness drip down Shiro's face in place of tears. "When was the last time you saw Keith, Shiro?"

Because it seemed as though it had been a while. It seemed that Shiro had been so completely shocked at how Keith looked when he saw him again in Lance's apartment, not just that he was there, but that he'd changed from Shiro's last memory. It seemed like they had so much history, but then something had broken between them. Lance wasn't sure which of them had done the breaking, but he thought that maybe it could be mended now that they were back together. If they had a mediator to help them.

"It's been more than a year," Shiro revealed. "It was right after he . . . he was seventeen then."

"Why so long? What happened?" The words were out of Lance's mouth even though he knew it probably wasn't a question that could be answered. Nor could any of the others that had popped into his head after Shiro's verbal backtracking. Right after he what? What had Shiro almost said? If it had been over a year ago, then had there been anyone with Keith throughout the trial? Had he been alone there? Shiro looked confused and hurt, so Lance decided to elaborate just to give him more time to decide whether he was going to answer or not.

"When I asked Keith who to contact in case of an emergency, he gave me your name," Lance began, wanting Shiro to know that. "But then he got upset when I suggested we call you, just to let you know where he was and what was going on, and he made me promise not to do that."

"I bet," Shiro muttered, bitter, looking at Keith with exasperation.

"I thought it was because . . . I'm sorry, but I thought he was hiding from you. I thought maybe you'd hurt him." Shiro stiffened, opening his mouth, causing Lance to lift a peaceable hand toward him. "Keith didn't say that, though; he actually wouldn't talk about you at all. At least not when he was conscious." Lance paused, wondering if he could repeat these things out loud, if he could actually stand here and tell Shiro what Keith had said when he thought he'd been talking to him. He wondered if Keith would be ok with it if Lance did tell Shiro those things. Maybe that would be going too far? No, this wasn't a bridge that had burned; there were simply boards of information missing, some simple misunderstanding. And if Lance were reading the situation right, he thought that it might be more helpful to their relationship if he did disclose to Shiro what Keith had said during that vulnerable night when he'd been completely open.

"Conscious?" Shiro prompted when Lance's silence continued too long. "You said he asked for me in his sleep before. Is that what you mean?"

"Not exactly. He wasn't really sleeping during this. His fever spiked last night," Lance explained. "It was so high it burned second degree blisters all over his mouth. He said all kinds of things. I don't even know if all of them are true, but mostly he begged for you. He wanted you to listen to him, believe him." Lance hesitated momentarily, seeing what he was doing to Shiro. He felt as though he were beating him with his words, like this was a mental torture session instead of an explanation. He went on anyway; he felt like he should. "He asked to stay with you. He cried about it. He said he was sorry. He said it so many times."

"What's your question?" Shiro asked, voice hard. Lance could tell he'd steeled it on purpose to keep himself from sounding too emotional, that he was pleading for another question so they could switch topics. He saw how much Shiro was struggling to keep calm.

"I asked Keith again if we couldn't call you this morning since it seemed he wanted you with him last night, but he told me that he thought you didn't care about him and he still didn't want to contact you. But I can see that's not true at all; you both obviously care about each other a lot. So I guess I'm asking what happened between you?"

"Keith doesn't think that anyone cares about him," Shiro muttered, still sounding bitter, though there was more sadness to his tone than before. "And he does his best to stop anyone from trying. But in our case . . .I made a mistake."

"You don't have to answer," Lance reminded him about their agreement, seeing how much this was hurting Shiro to hear, to think and talk about. He still wanted to know, but it looked as though he were going to have to drop it.

"What else did he say?" Shiro asked instead. "Last night?"

Lance took a moment to wrap his emotions tight, preparing to give that information up, knowing it would be hard but also knowing it would be a relief not to bear it alone anymore.

"He was delirious for hours," Lance cautioned. "It was . . . bad. Are you sure you want –"

"Yes," Shiro said, the closest to a demand that Lance had yet heard from him.

"There were a lot of fragments," Lance tried to organize this better, give some sort of summary of the disjointed, distressing wounds in Keith's spirit that he had given voice to in the dark. "He seemed afraid of being left behind or left alone. He asked over and over why he couldn't stay with you." Shiro winced, again as if Lance had hit him, but motioned for Lance to continue. "He also kept asking for someone to believe him. Mostly, it seemed he was speaking to you, but he mentioned . . . mentioned someone else too. He was so scared. He said -" Nope. Lance couldn't do it. Not yet. The words were sticking in his throat. He had to change the subject again, sensing that this conversation would keep circling around the biggest issue, the deep sucking abyss of the murder trial and the events that caused it, in an awkward, uncontrolled whirlpool.

"Shiro, who hurt him?" Lance shifted instead of finishing. "I've seen the scars . . . Someone burned him. How come no one did anything to stop it?"

"I stopped it," Shiro declared, and Lance suddenly saw what Shiro had been once, not all that long ago. A soldier, a leader, and a defender – powerful and protective. If he wanted to, Shiro could easily be the most frightening person that Lance had ever met. Lance knew he never wanted to see what Shiro was capable of, didn't want to witness the situation that would require him to bring it into the open. All the cautions Lance had received so far about Keith being dangerous seemed suddenly weak to him. Keith wasn't dangerous, not at all. But Shiro could be.

"You said you were his social worker?" Lance asked, feeling unsteady at Shiro's intense change in tone, feeling his understanding of the situation shift once again. Shiro looked too young to have been Keith's only social worker; he couldn't have been the one assigned to him initially, when he was orphaned at four with no other relatives. "You don't look it," Lance murmured, mostly to himself as he tried to figure out how Shiro had gone from what had most certainly been a military background to working as a liaison for minors in a district office.

"I suppose not," Shiro acknowledged, letting Lance know that he'd heard him, the edge gone from his voice, softening once more. "But you don't look like an EMT either."

"I'm sorry," Lance apologized. "I'm just trying to figure this out."

"I used to be in the Air Force," Shiro disclosed, and Lance could tell that something in his resolve had broken free, that he was not going to guard information as closely anymore, at least not his own personal information. Lance wasn't sure what he'd said that had made Shiro decide to trust him, or maybe he'd said nothing and Shiro just wanted to vocalize his own memories. Whatever the reason, Lance kept very still so as not to distract Shiro at all from what he was saying. "I piloted an F-35, but then this happened," he lifted his prosthetic, letting Lance fill in the gaps for the how and where of the injury, "and I was put on medical leave." Medical leave? Not honorably discharged? This nuance confused Lance, who didn't understand a whole lot about the United States military program. Did that mean that Shiro was technically still in the Air Force? He wasn't sure. The only thing he did know was that being a pilot of an F-35 was a big deal, that it was a fighter plane and that there weren't very many of them. His respect for Shiro deepened.

"The social worker position sort of fell into my lap, and Keith's file was literally dropped into it. He was thirteen; no one knew what to do with him. He kept running away, getting into fights. I think giving him to me was supposed to be some kind of hazing thing, or maybe they thought I could use some military tactic to get him in line."

Lance felt his heart harden at this. He didn't know any of the people Shiro was talking about, but he hated their casual laziness. They were supposed to protect Keith; he'd been four years old. But it sounded like they passed him around the office, his file drifting from desk to desk.

"I was new," Shiro continued. "Keith was my first case. I went to visit him just to get acquainted, but as soon as I saw him I knew something wasn't right. I didn't really know what I was doing, what the procedure was for removing a child from an unsafe place, but I knew I had to get him out of there. I gave him ten minutes to pack a bag while I argued with his foster mother. Then all of a sudden he was in the car with me and I just . . brought him home. He slept on my couch all that weekend. We ate ramen and watched movies. He didn't act anything like the kid I'd read about in his file; I thought that maybe I'd somehow picked up the wrong one. I don't think we even talked about any of it, and it was like Keith had always been there."

Lance felt the corners of his mouth trying to lift upwards. Basically, he and Shiro had done the exact same thing. Walk in unexpectedly on Keith, find him in trouble, then take him home without thinking too much about what that might mean, what sort of consequences there would be.

"By Monday, we were both in trouble," Shiro went on, and the tiny smile that had started in Lance disappeared again. "My supervisor was furious. She made it very clear that under absolutely no circumstances was I to remove a child from their foster home unless she gave her permission first and we had the paperwork in place. Keith's foster mom was in the office, putting up a good front that all she wanted was to have him back home again. She'd left crying phone messages all weekend."

"But she was lying?" Lance prompted, sensing from Shiro's tone of frustration that Keith's foster mom was not as generous or nurturing as she was supposed to be. "How did you know?"

"It just felt wrong," Shiro said, unable to explain himself in that area. "I demanded that we ask Keith where he wanted to be. From the looks on their faces, you'd think that no one had ever thought to do that before. Including Keith. He said he wanted to go home with me again, but we weren't allowed to do that."

"Why not?" Lance asked, not understanding. If that's what Keith had wanted, and if Shiro were ok with it too, then what would stop them?

"It's actually against the law," Shiro revealed, his tone indicating that he thought it was not the best law. "I'd never been cleared to have foster children in my apartment. I didn't have permission to keep or care for him, just work with him in officially appropriate locations. It didn't matter that he was being hurt, or that I wanted him with me."

"So it was all for nothing?" Lance wondered. "He had to go back?"

"No. That was the one good thing that came out of it. I had a doctor look at Keith for the first time, and there was more than enough evidence to keep him separated from his host family. There was an inquiry, and the office discovered that the mom had been lying for months. When she'd been cleared to foster, she'd been married. It had been what appeared to be a steady household. The couple had successfully fostered many children before, infants to teenagers, sometimes up to four at a time. But somewhere during Keith's stay, the husband had moved out and the man she'd been cheating on him with moved in. She decided not to tell us since with her husband gone, she wanted the monthly stipend for keeping Keith."

Lance was getting the picture now. How awful for Keith. Trapped and alone. Hurt by people who were supposed to be taking care of him, forced to accept consequences for choices he hadn't even made.

"Was it the boyfriend? Did he?" Lance asked, his voice dropping, unable to finish his question, angry and hurt. Did he burn Keith? Leave the scars on his back? Both Lance and Shiro had their hands on Keith, covering him protectively, keeping him safe from people who were not there, from situations that were already over. If only Lance had known him then. If only they'd been friends. He hadn't been living in the same country, but he still felt that somehow he could have helped him if only he had known.

"Yes," Shiro confirmed. "He didn't want Keith, but she was forcing him to stay. Keith said they fought about him a lot." And all that anger and fighting about him undoubtedly turned to neglect and violence toward him. And Keith hadn't thought to tell anyone, probably already knowing at that age that no one would listen to him if he tried.

"So then where did Keith go? If he couldn't stay with you and he didn't go back to them?"

"There weren't many options for Keith. He had a history and surprisingly the very people who are supposed to be advocates for children like Keith are sometimes prejudiced against them. It didn't help that he was a teenager by this point. No one wanted to bother with figuring out why he got into so many fights, why he ran away so often, why he was being difficult with his host parents. It's hard to find the time or the energy, I guess. Or after a while it seems people become desensitized to that kind of thing. There aren't enough resources, you know, so it's hard to keep struggling to fix a terribly broken system when it feels as though you're not making any progress or have any help."

Lance's soul fought hard against that statement, though he had seen it himself. He'd walked past the poor and hopeless leaning in doorways down the streets of Varadero. The places the tourists don't go. Saw the worry gather into the corners of his mother's eyes when she thought he wasn't looking. He had watched people turn away helplessly, putting effort into not seeing the starving children, the sick, the desperate, becoming purposefully deaf to them. Because sometimes knowing that you can't help them all makes it seem equally impossible to help even one. Lance wasn't willing to believe that though. He was going to help. All he could. He was going to ease suffering. Even though he had seen exactly the kind of attitude Shiro was talking of, he absolutely could not become like that. Could not agree that it was acceptable. No matter how long he had to fight for it. The consequences were too devastating. Look at what it had done to Keith.

"But he must have lived somewhere," Lance pushed. What happened to the children that weren't wanted in a private foster home and were not allowed to go with guardians who were willing but not legally able? How many were there?

"The best we could do was finding him a place in a group home. Not far from here, actually."

Lance sorted through this new information, picturing Keith in some sort of cold and weird building, a Dickensian orphanage set up, lines of beds against the walls full of random assortments of abandoned children. Somewhere Keith didn't belong. It was starting to make sense why Keith in his delirium had pleaded so hard to stay with Shiro. It may have been the first warm and comforting place he'd slept since he was four years old. The ramen could have been the first wholesome meal he'd had in months. And it also sounded as though it had done something good for Shiro too. Lance couldn't be sure; he'd only just met him a few hours ago in an atmosphere that was anything but calm, but there had been something in Shiro's voice when the spoke about Keith being there with him. Perhaps Shiro was another lonely, forgotten soul – wounded in combat and sent home with nothing but the shadow of his former life, memories that clung to him in the darkness of solitude. How different could their lives have been if an uncompromising law hadn't kept them from each other?

"Ok, so that was five years ago," Lance heard himself saying, putting together the jagged remnants of Shiro's memories that he'd been given. "Did Keith ever see them again? The people you saved him from?"

"Never," Shiro responded quickly. "The court ordered separation for life. She can never foster again, and he was fined."

"Fined?!" Lance said, louder than he should have, but he couldn't believe it. Keith had suffered abuse from this man for months, everyone knew about it, and the perpetrator was only fined? Where was the justice in that? If this was the man that Keith had killed, Lance could definitely see the motive. But Shiro had just said that Keith had never seen him again. That made Lance confused. The way Keith had spoken in his fever dream made it seem as though he'd been attacked by someone and fought back, resulting in an unintentional death. Judging from the scars and from what Shiro had just said, Lance could have sworn that Keith had been in one last altercation with his abuser. But if that wasn't who Keith had attacked and beaten. . .then who had it been? And why?

"I couldn't believe it either," Shiro agreed, speaking of the unfairly light punishment.

"But then what happened?" Lance pressed, becoming bolder in asking his questions. The further they went into Keith's past the more Lance wanted to know. Shiro was his social worker, but he hadn't seen Keith for over a year. What happened to Keith after he was transferred to the group home? What did Shiro know about Keith before he was thirteen? Anything?

"Actually, I was hoping I could take a turn asking questions," Shiro brought him up short, and Lance realized their conversation had been extremely one-sided in his favor. He lowered his head, nodding, though he couldn't guess what Shiro would want to know that could be more interesting or important than what they were currently talking about.

"Go ahead," he invited, hoping to get Shiro's questions out of the way so he could return to the mysterious five years in Keith's life that they hadn't spoken of yet. Or the last two weeks.

"How long have you and Keith been friends?" Shiro asked, a strange place to start. Lance looked down at Keith, at the hand he was still holding. He couldn't help but smile at him.

"I don't know that we are friends," he answered. "I know it looks like I was lying, but I really did just meet him in person yesterday. Before that, it was just the texts that you already have. We've been in the same class since the beginning of the month, but we never talked to each other. I can't even remember seeing him in there, but I wasn't paying attention."

Shiro looked sadly bemused at Lance's confession. "Yesterday?" Like that couldn't possibly be the truth, even though Lance now had no reason to lie.

"Yeah," Lance insisted, getting a little defensive about saying this all the time. "We don't know each other. The whole point of the assignment we were partnered on was to do an interview and write a biography, but you saw how well that was going."

The light went out of Shiro's eyes a little. "Keith doesn't open up easily or trust anyone. He had to become that way to protect himself. It's nothing against you."

"I know that," Lance allowed, running a gentle hand through Keith's hair.

"Which means you should also be able to see why I'm having a hard time believing you. Not that I think you aren't telling the truth, but I've never seen Keith like this with anyone else."

"Like what?" Lance asked, thinking he might know what Shiro was talking about, but he wanted it confirmed out loud. Especially since it seemed as though everyone was getting confused as to what sort of relationship Lance and Keith had. Lance was even a little confused himself about it at this point.

"Just look," Shiro gestured toward Keith, how his body gravitated toward Lance even in sleep, how he held on to him tightly. "There's a lot of trust here for just knowing each other for a day. You must be very special."

"He's just very sick," Lance protested, unable to speculate in this direction. Keith was sick and no one had noticed except Lance. No one had cared except Lance. No one had been there for him but Lance. That didn't make Lance special – it made all the people who should have been there for Keith horrible failures. "I did what anyone would have done."

"But what did you do exactly?" Shiro asked suddenly, as if he'd been looking for the right opening for it this whole time. "How did Keith go from frustrated texts on your phone to your apartment in less than a day?"

"It kind of surprised me too," Lance admitted for the first time. "I'd asked my teacher to let me interview someone else since it had been so hard to find Keith, but he was actually in class on Friday morning."

Shiro was staring intently at Lance, engrossed in the details, hungry to hear what had happened to Keith outside of his protection, when he hadn't been able to find him for some reason. The loyalty in his face made Lance embarrassed all over again about how he'd behaved upon meeting Keith for the first time. How he'd treated Keith like everyone else in his life, acting on assumptions rather than finding out the truth. It was disappointing to Lance that he'd done this so easily, that he'd let his anger take control of him.

"I was mad at him already since it seemed he wasn't taking the assignment very seriously," Lance told Shiro, finding it harder to admit this to him than to anyone else. "And then when I went back to his desk to talk to him and saw that he was sleeping – it just made it worse. I thought he'd been such a jerk." Lance felt a tear hit his hand. No. He wasn't crying about this again, was he? He wasn't even sure why he was crying anymore.

"I slammed my textbook on the desk by his head to shake him up," Lance pushed himself to admit it, feeling a tightness release in his chest as he said the words. He'd said it before, to Angelique, but it felt different telling Shiro. "It was awful; I hadn't even spoken to him yet, hadn't asked him once about why it was so hard to get a meeting together. I never gave him a chance to explain. I didn't know what he was doing or that he had a legitimate reason for ghosting me all the time; I just assumed the worst about him. That's why I totally deserved it when he woke up and gave me this." Lance slid his fingers over his cheek, for the first time turning his face so the bruise would be more visible instead of less.

"I wondered about that," Shiro admitted softly. "Half of Keith's fights start this way."

"We didn't fight," Lance denied. "I was going to; I almost hit him back, but then I looked at him and realized something was wrong. There was something in how he was standing, how he breathed. He didn't look ok, but I ruined our first in-person introduction and couldn't talk to him about it. He left, and I let him go. Later I had my friend look up his address, though. I didn't want to leave it where we had. I wanted to apologize and check on him. Make sure he was ok. I found him in bed with his clothes on, and he already had a pretty high fever then. He said he didn't have anyone he could call to come help him and . . .I just . . have you been to his apartment?"

"It's not his, but yes," Shiro answered. Lance stored that information for a future question.

"Then you see why I couldn't let him stay there alone. He wasn't sure about it, but I didn't give him much choice about coming with me. I thought it would be like when I nursed my roommates and a couple other people through the flu, but then the sun went down yesterday and I found out that Keith was worse than all of them. I want to help him, Shiro. I think you and I are the only ones who have ever really wanted to do that, but I don't know how. It's not fair." His throat closed on him again, making it impossible to continue talking. He wanted to lower his head and nuzzle into Keith. He wanted Shiro to turn away and not look at him while he did it.

Shiro's elegant robotic hand reached over Keith to curl around Lance's wrist, squeezing with soft, reassuring pressure. Lance marveled all over again at the precise control Shiro had over it. If he could do this with a prosthetic hand, what sort of amazing pilot had he been?

"You are helping him," Shiro said, genuine and quiet. "And it seems as though he's actually going to let you. I can't tell you how special that is or what it means to me that you took the initiative to look after him, especially since I know how hard he works at being invisible most of the time. You saved his life." A pang of guilt hit Lance at the heartfelt compliment, knowing that he hadn't always made the best choices when it came to Keith. The room darkened, more than one kind of shadow filling it.

"You saved it first," Lance responded, trying to give something back to Shiro, who looked so broken across the bed, failure weighing him down in a visible way. He tried to smile at Lance's statement, but they had entered that place in the conversation again. The uncertainty. The painful thoughts of how their current circumstances could have been prevented if only they had, in their respective ways, done a little more a little sooner. For Lance these thoughts were present but useless – he hadn't even known Keith two days ago. For Shiro, this regret cut deeply.

"I wish I could," Shiro murmured, and Lance found it strange how he knew exactly what he meant even at the same time he had no idea at all.

"I don't understand," Lance wondered out loud, overwhelmed with helplessness, an ache in his spirit that he wished would break open. Wasn't there something? Anything that could help? Something they could do?

Shiro wilted, looking at Keith, and Lance knew they were both thinking about the sentence waiting for him. How it didn't matter what either of them felt about Keith. His future depended on whatever the jury had decided was the truth. And from what Lance had noticed about Keith and how others perceived him, he couldn't help but succumb to dread.

"Shiro, what's going to happen to him?" Lance asked, wanting Shiro to reassure him, wishing that he would tell him the whole story, explain how it had been just another misunderstanding, that Keith had not killed anyone, that it had been horribly exaggerated and surely the jury would know that. Lance watched Shiro's soft black eyes shift to mirror Lance's own worries and doubts and knew that they were both powerless to stop what was coming for Keith. There was nothing either of them could do this time to save him. It was too late.

Lance couldn't tell if Shiro had been about to answer him, if he were going to make any attempt at a guess as to what waited for Keith outside this hospital room, but their discussion paused naturally as Keith stirred between them. His hand clenched in Lance's, then pulled away completely as he shifted on the bed, coming back to consciousness. When his eyes opened, both Lance and Shiro stood quiet and ready. Because it wasn't Monday yet, so Lance was going to do anything Keith needed to feel safe and comfortable. He knew Shiro felt the same. One thing at a time.

"Welcome back, Lobito," Lance greeted him, drawing his attention, unable to tolerate the silence. He forced a smile, wanting to protect Keith from stress for as long as possible.

Keith's eyes dragged up to Lance's, and Lance was relieved to see that though they were clouded by the fever and medication, there was still recognition present; Keith knew where he was and who Lance was. Always a good start. Keith made a weak attempt to sit up, but Lance knew the cocktail he was getting through the IV would make it very difficult for him to move without help. He probably felt as though he had no muscle tone at all.

"Hold still," Lance advised him, instead reaching for the automated controls on the hospital bed. He remembered Angelique telling him not to touch anything, but felt he'd be safe raising the bed a little so Keith could recline. "I've been wanting to play with these buttons for hours now, and I'm not missing my chance. Just sit tight."

"Lance?" Keith said his name questioningly, and Lance knew that even though Keith remembered him, there were other details he was blurry on. He was requesting some orientation. How long had he been asleep? What had he missed? "You're still here?"

"I'm not going to leave without you," Lance scolded him gently. "I promised you, didn't I?" Some fear relaxed from Keith's face, replaced by something powerful that Lance couldn't make out. It made him want to put his hand against Keith's cheek. He might have if they had been here alone.

"How are you feeling, Keith?" Shiro asked, which made Keith turn his head toward him, reminding Lance that not only were they not alone, he was actually more of a third wheel now. He should probably offer to let them have some privacy, even though he didn't want to.

"Shiro," Keith said the name in surprise and reverence. His large eyes teared up immediately and he redoubled his efforts to sit straight, to lift himself away from the pillow, a cadet suddenly finding himself in the presence of a much-respected commanding officer. Lance took pity and bent down, sliding his arm behind Keith's back and taking the elbow closest to him, sensing that any caution against unnecessary movement would go unheeded. While Lance helped Keith, Shiro carefully perched on the edge of the bed, opening his arms. Lance pushed Keith right into them, letting go so Shiro could encase Keith in an embrace he'd obviously been saving for that entire year of separation.

"I'm sorry, Keith," Shiro apologized, the weight of their lost year heavy in the words, clinging to Keith as though afraid he could somehow run away from him before he could finish all he wanted to say. "I should have told you. I should have told you first."

"Shiro?" Keith repeated his name, but this time in puzzlement, making Lance realize that neither of them had any idea what Shiro was talking about. Shiro reluctantly released Keith so they could speak face to face, easing him back against the raised bed, but he kept their left hands clasped, resting in Keith's lap.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," Shiro said, shaking the hand he held slightly, partially reproachful. Lance stood up straight, folding his arms across his ribs, shifting into invisibility in the background to just watch. So Keith had been hiding from Shiro after all.

"Why?" Keith asked, so innocent and yet with so much apathy that Lance had a hard time not touching his shoulder. How could he ask that? How could he look at Shiro's face, the devoted expression on it, and not know that Shiro loved him? Then again, the way his life had been, why would he recognize it? How would he even know what it looked like?

"Why?" Shiro repeated, incredulous and exasperated. "Because you vanished without a trace, Keith! You wouldn't take my calls. Kasey said that you didn't want me to know where you were. No one would give me any information. You just . . ," he cut himself off, collecting his emotions and wrapping them under tight control. This situation was so delicate. He softened his voice. "I was so worried about you."

Keith's heart skipped, the tiniest little hop on the monitor. It wasn't enough to trigger any system alarm, but Lance saw it out of the corner of his eye. It suddenly turned the conversation into a different kind of delicate. The heartrate steadied immediately, but Lance was now on high alert, watching and listening.

"I'm sorry," Keith murmured, eyes lowered to Lance's quilt, his free hand beginning to pluck at it in discomfort. His apology sounded cold to Lance, robotic, the apology of a boy who had been forced to say he was sorry for everything. Who had to apologize for simply existing. Who didn't even register that he was saying anything since it had become such an automatic response. Lance hugged himself tighter to keep himself from going to Keith, from shielding him against Shiro. This conversation was so important, though it was difficult to witness.

"No, Keith, don't," Shiro protested. "There's nothing you need to be sorry for. If you thought you couldn't come to me for help then that's my fault, not yours."

"What?" Keith said, confused and lost, finding it difficult to put his thoughts into words. "I thought you didn't want me to. . You asked to be. . ."

Lance watched Keith's heartrate start to climb, not drastically, but it was definitely speeding up. Keith was starting to tremble a little. Should he stop their discussion? Make them wait until Keith was more stable? Nothing was dangerous yet, but if they kept going, he wasn't sure what it would do. He seemed to be the only one noticing any difference in the stats on the monitor. They were too caught up in what they were saying.

"I know. I did," Shiro confirmed. "I did ask to be transferred. And I should have told you why but I was afraid of what might happen if it didn't work out. I didn't want you to be disappointed, but I didn't think that you'd run away before I could talk to you about it. Didn't think it would take so long to track you down to explain or that I'd find you like this. It was a mistake; I know that now. I wish I could go back and do it over."

"Me too," Keith offered, lifting his face for just a few seconds before dropping his head again. Lance tried to gauge his breathing by sound from where he stood at the bedside but found it impossible. "Shiro? What?"

Lance relocated his focus to Shiro, who also had his head bowed. He could tell that he was trying so hard not to cry, that he didn't want Keith to see him break. He wanted to be strong for him, especially right now, but he was struggling.

"Shiro, I'm sorry," Keith apologized again, bending close to Shiro, fretting over him in distress. "What did I do?"

Shiro closed his eyes momentarily, shaking his head, and Lance recognized the movement. He'd felt the same. You didn't do anything, Keith, he wanted to say, but remembered that he was on the outside of this talk. But it made him so sad that Keith constantly assumed he had done something wrong, that everything was always his fault.

"You brought something back to me that I thought I'd lost," Shiro explained, calmly, elegantly, his voice much stronger than his posture, admiringly turning the question into something positive, subliminally showing Keith that he could be responsible for doing good, that he wouldn't always be disciplined or punished for his actions. "You showed me I didn't need a uniform or my plane to do something useful. That I didn't even need both hands to make a difference. You gave me purpose."

Keith's breath caught, and his shoulders tightened. This obviously was nothing like the answer he'd been expecting, though Lance guessed it was something he wanted to hear. Lance's eyes went to the monitor as the numbers on it changed color, and he sighed. He may have wanted to hear it, but Shiro's words were overpowering Keith. It was time to intervene.

"Hey, sorry," Lance interjected, taking a step closer to the bed, melting a little inside when both heads turned to look at him, surprised to notice that he was still there. He knew they'd both forgotten about him, and he wished he could have left it that way. "I really hate to interrupt, but I think we should take a break here and talk about something else."

Shiro's head tilted, not understanding, and not appreciating being stopped now that he was finally able to talk to Keith, so Lance jerked his chin toward the monitor. "Unless you want a whole team of nurses coming in?" Lance finished, not meaning to make the statement sound as threatening as it came out. Shiro also checked the monitor, beginning to nod slowly.

"You're right," Shiro acknowledged, though Keith didn't seem ready at all to change the subject. Now that he knew there was something Shiro had wanted to explain to him, that he'd misunderstood the situation that had caused him to distance himself from the person he loved most, now he wanted to know. Now he wanted Shiro to tell him everything. His system couldn't handle the emotional strain of it yet, but that didn't make any difference to him.

"But," Keith stuttered, returning his focus to Shiro, breathing fast. "Shiro."

"Keith, please," Lance entreated, finally giving in and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You're asking a lot from your body right now. It's trying to recover, and you're getting all worked up. I think we should talk about something that isn't so emotional for you; I want you to calm down a little. Then we can try again."

"I am calm," Keith insisted, holding tight to Shiro as if he'd been the one who had run away, refusing to look at Lance, his shoulder held tight and stiff under Lance's fingers. "I just need to know why."

Lance drew closer, leaving his hand on Keith's shoulder and placing his other one over Keith's chest, not sure if he were trying to support him or restrain him. Keith didn't shrug him off, but Lance could feel that he wanted to.

"This isn't how I wanted to tell you," Shiro said, backing down. "Not here. Not like this. Let's wait like Lance says. We're together now; we have time to do it right."

"But . . . No," Keith said, becoming more frantic despite their entreaties for him to relax. "We don't have time. They're going to . . . He's dead, Shiro."

Keith's statistics had risen enough that Lance heard the alarm go off. The sound came from right outside the door instead of from the machine. It was wired that way to make it more noticeable from the busy emergency room hallway. Lance started a stopwatch in his mind, tracking how long it took for the personnel outside to respond, conflicted that he wanted them to wait long enough for Keith to possibly say more and wanting them to hurry before Keith got any worse.

"I know," Shiro placated, also putting a hand on Keith's chest right next to Lance's. "Officer Guist came to my place looking for you, and he told me some of what was going on. We're going to figure it out, though, Keith. I'm going to help you; we're going to postpone, and appeal if we have to. I'll work on the arrangements tonight. You don't have to worry."

"Breathe, Keith," Lance reminded him, feeling helpless and morbidly curious. The way Keith said it. He's dead. It made it sound like he was surprised about it. That he hadn't even been there when it happened. But if that were true, how come he'd confessed to the murder? Or maybe Pidge was wrong? But Pidge was never wrong.

The nurse arrived then, bustling into the room with purposeful calm, and Lance watched her with approval. Not a shabby response time at all. He didn't know her. She wore periwinkle scrubs under her lab coat; her brownish-blonde hair held in a sloppy twist by an enormous hair clip. Her nametag read Abbie Murtaugh, RN, and Lance guessed her to be in her late twenties – a little younger than Shiro.

"Hello," she greeted them all, but zeroed in quickly on Keith. Lance let go of him to move out of the way, but Shiro stayed where he was. Her first job was to silence the alarm on the monitor, letting the rest of the floor know that someone was here in the room, handling things. "Everything all right in here?"

"Yes," Keith muttered, the least qualified to give the answer but apparently the only one capable of speech. Lance almost smiled in exasperation because Keith never could admit that anything was wrong with him. Abbie studied him, reading the room a little more carefully now that she'd seen her patient was conscious and responding. She checked the output from the EKG, folding up the long line of paper that was slowly gathering in a pile on the floor, tucking it onto a hidden shelf on the cart under the machine. Then she went through Keith's stats, took his temperature, checked the volume and drip rate of the IV bag. Meanwhile, as they were all forced to be silent by her presence, Keith's heartrate leveled out again, though his face was hard and impatient. She softened the lighting in the room, turning off the main lights and pulling the cord that would switch on the ones directly behind Keith's head on the wall, dimming it down significantly. So she was nightshift, Lance realized. Night shift nurses always tried to replicate the conditions outside. He checked his phone, surprised to see it was after eight pm. Also surprised to see a number of politely inquisitive texts from Hunk and Pidge. He should probably call them soon to give them some kind of update.

"How are you doing?" Abbie asked Keith, finally running out of things to look at or change. "Warm enough? That's a lovely blanket you have there; did your mom make it?"

Keith shook his head, shy. "I think his mom did," he answered her, gesturing toward Lance. Abbie glanced at Lance quickly, the tiniest furrow of confusion creasing between her eyes. She moved on quickly.

"Well, it's beautiful, but I can get you another one if you're cold. Or anything else you need?"

"I'm all right," Keith responded, unable to look at her or anyone.

"Just press the call light if that changes," Abbie invited, showing him where it was on the bed. She looked to be ready to leave. "I'm right outside."

"Can you give us an update?" Shiro asked, coming to life suddenly as he realized that she was done and on her way out, that she'd checked everything but was not going to offer up a report. She looked at him, then at Lance, considering.

"We're running a test," she told him, as if they didn't already know that. "And we're waiting for the doctor to determine the outcome of the lab work."

"The tests came back?" Lance asked, pouncing on that detail. The key to knowing for sure what happened to Keith and what they could do about it. "What's the diagnosis? Anemia?" Now Abbie was really studying him as he stood there in his jeans and dark blue, long-sleeved Tshirt, covered in awkward. And he knew that she would not be giving him any information.

"The doctor will go over it with you," she promised, moving toward the door.

"Which one?" Lance pressed, hoping that they weren't going to wait until Dr. Delacroix returned at eight in the morning. That was almost twelve hours from now. "Dr. Delacroix?"

"No, I think the one who ordered the bloodwork," Abbie answered. "He's on another floor right now, but he's been paged and he'll probably be down soon. Try to lie still," she said in parting to Keith.

Abbie slipped quickly from the room then as Lance processed that. The labs were finished, and they were waiting for Coran to come talk to them about it. But Coran's actual job was on the third floor; he specialized in internal medicine. Keith wasn't officially his patient, which meant that no matter who had ordered the blood work, they were going to have to get permission from Angelique for any kind of treatment. Which could take a while.

Lance looked back from the door toward Shiro and Keith, who were staring wordlessly at each other. He sensed that if they started talking again, it would just escalate as before. And yet, it felt so important that they talk to each other, that all the secrets come out. But it wasn't good for Keith to get too excited about it. And it definitely wasn't good for Keith not to know.

"Are you ok?" Shiro uttered the first question, hesitantly. Keith shrugged. Shiro's expression tightened, used to these non-answers but not liking it. "Are you in pain?" He tried again, getting more specific.

"Not anymore," Keith responded, quietly, speaking only of the physical kind. He turned to Lance. "What are they giving me?"

"A saline fluid solution, pain medication, and an antiarrhythmic drug to keep your heart rate steady," Lance answered readily, glad to still be part of the conversation, however awkward it may be.

"Lance is really good at this," Keith told Shiro, who smiled. The darkened lights of the room had changed the entire atmosphere. They'd almost plunged headfirst into that black hole, but Keith's heart had stopped them. And now it seemed no one knew what to say, what to talk about, what would be safe. "He's been taking care of me."

"I'm glad you found a good friend, Keith," Shiro responded. "Hold on to him."

"Hey," Lance broke in as another uneasy silence fell, especially since it revolved around him and his friendship with Keith that was still kind of undetermined. "Is it ok if we take a minute now and call your other friends?" Keith looked confused. "Hunk and Pidge," Lance reminded him, letting him know that they were all his friends now. If that's what he wanted. "They're pretty worried. I bet they would like to know that you're all right."

Keith checked silently with Shiro about it, studying him, watching him for any sign that he could get away with asking more questions. Lance would have loved nothing more than to bring it all out in the open, but he thought it would be better to wait until after Dr. Coran had come in, after they'd learned more about what was going on with Keith.

"Let's call them," Lance urged. "Then you and Shiro can try to talk more about . . that other stuff. I can leave; you can have some privacy. Just promise me you'll take it easy, ok?"

"You don't have to leave," Keith said, very quickly, his face flushing. "Unless you need to," he amended carefully. "Just because I'm stuck here doesn't mean you have to be."

"I'll stay as long as you want me," Lance promised. "I'd like to hear what Dr. Coran found out, and . . . well, anything else you'd like to tell me." He knew that wasn't not a subtle hint, but it was out in the open now.

"I guess," Keith said, his eyes slipping down again. "You have a right to know."

"Not necessarily," Lance said, absolving Keith from any responsibility he might feel for telling him anything. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious, but you don't owe me anything. It's completely up to you."

Many emotions crossed Keith's face. Gratitude, pain, unease, and fear. Without seeming to realize it, he reached over to Lance, tentatively taking hold of the hem of his shirt. Lance felt warm relief radiate from Keith's fingers.

"Ok," Keith acquiesced. "Call them."

Author's Note: Aww, Keith, you just . . you poor sweet thing. How's it going? Clear some things up for you? Not quite? Don't worry – we're getting there. Coran's coming with a proper diagnosis. Shiro has some things he needs to say. And I think maybe Keith needs to come clean about what really happened with the trial. How are you? Still with me? (Sorry for the delay – there will likely be another as we enter the chaos that is the holiday season. I admit, this chapter tripped me up with all the slow nuance I needed in it. I hope this chapter broke into new territory enough that it can flow a little smoother now . . at least in the writing.) Thanks for your continued patience. I promise not to abandon this work!

By the way? Is there a way I can give you guys some kind of update? I don't want to post a chapter that isn't a chapter just to say, hey, I'm going to be late with the chapter. I guess if you want, you can always send me a message if you like. I may write slow, but I respond to messages decently fast.

OH! One more bit of housekeeping. I've put the link to the Audiobook version of this story on my profile. It's only available on Google Drive right now as I'm still working on it. I've only recorded through Chapter Nine so far, but I'm hoping to get it caught up. Maybe to the point where I can release a chapter with its recorded counterpart at the same time. Let me know if you like it!