Hey there everyone! Since this story is so personal to me and genuinely really good for me to write, here is the next chapter. As of now, there are no romantic pairings in the story so whatever develops naturally to the story. That tends to work out the best anyway without taking focus away from the main plot. Either way, I hope you enjoy this.

2. A Fragile Shield

Coming back to space was just as chaotic as Pidge had expected it to be and her heart sunk as she saw the destruction which while they somehow knew this would be the case, it was worse than she had imagined. Broken planets as well as a dark nebula that seemed to be blocking most of the light. It had only been one day and one night since they had come here.

"I guess, 4 years later, the light has all evaporated from the world?" Hunk said, trying to make a joke to lighten the mood. No one even cracked a smile. "This is a bad time, isn't it?"

"Gee, you think?" Lance replied, rolling his eyes. "Pidge, this is depressing, what's going on here?"

"We seem to be an infinite dark nebula," Pidge replied, looking at the scanners she had in front of her. "I'm not sure of the reason but it has been four years so I wouldn't be surprised at how much has changed." She was about to say more but suddenly the Atlas was hit with a blast, knocking it back slightly. Somehow, it didn't surprise her given they had come here after such a long time.

"Galra ships are attacking us from every end," Veronica said immediately. "We need to fight back."

Shiro looked at Keith. "Keith, go. But be careful."

Keith nodded in agreement, eyes traveling to his team who all seemed ready to go as well. Hunk had a fist clenched, Lance was already making his way to the Red Lion whilst Allura's eyes looked like she was out for blood for how bad the condition of the rest of the universe had become in this time.

Pidge nodded back to Keith when he looked at her, ignoring the strange wave of exhaustion that hit her, unsure of what could be going on. She had been sleeping okay after all because she knew she needed to to be able to help her team so why did she feel so tired? Either way, that didn't matter.

"Pidge?" James's voice dragged her out of her thoughts. "Good luck out there. We'll be here if you need backup." The reassurance felt kind of nice right now and she knew how good of a fighter pilot her boyfriend was so hopefully if she struggled, he would have her – no, their back.

Pidge nodded to him, running along to join her team. For a second, she had thought of discussing with him how tired she was but her team needed her right now. Her strange exhaustion would have to wait. She got into the Green Lion, hurrying out with the others, forcing herself to focus so she could move quicker.

"Guys, we're no match for them in our lions," Keith called out to the rest of the team. "On me! Form Voltron!"

"Right!" Lance, Hunk, and Allura all cried. Pidge wanted to but felt her vision swimming as flashes of being shoved against the wall and the pain from last night entered her mind. No, no I have to focus on the fight. I'm their shield after all. She hadn't even noticed they had already formed Voltron until Keith's voice cut through her thoughts once again, jolting her back to attention as she forced herself to focus.

"Form Shield!" Keith cried.

Pidge tightened her grip around Green's controls and the shield did appear but flickered out in a second and Voltron was sent flying back.

"Pidge! Are you okay?" Hunk asked her, voice filled with concern.

"What just happened?" Lance asked. "Pidge, why is Green acting up?"

"I'm sorry, the controls don't seem to be responding to me at all," Pidge said, wincing as the pain hit her tenfold when they were hit by another blast. James had been really angry last night and the kicks and punches had left bruises, the blast pressing down on each bruise. Please don't let me start bleeding. I don't even have the strength to come up with another excuse.

"Paladins!" Shiro called out as Atlas began shooting constantly trying to cover for them. "Is everything alright? Voltron seems to be moving slower than usual."

"We're alright, Shiro," Allura called back. "Probably just out of practice."

Keith didn't know why but he could somehow feel there was another reason than them just being out of practice. Maybe it was because they were all bonded as Voltron, but he could feel something off, something different about Pidge – exhaustion, but more than that some sort of strain that was dragging her down. A searing pain that pressed down on his own body as if he had many bruises being pressed down upon which he didn't even have.

"Lance, Hunk, Allura, can you cover for Pidge since she's having some trouble with the shield?" Keith said to his teammates, making a mental note to talk to the others once they were no longer in the line of fire anymore.

"Copy that," All three of them responded at once.

Keith's attention was solely focused on the battle in front of him because the Galra ships were much higher in number and these were not normal Galra attacks. Without Pidge's shielding abilities, they were forced to take a more offensive approach by destroying every ship that was trying to destroy them, taking a fair few of them out quite easily but what happened next seemed almost too easy.

It was something that he recalled happening once before when he had first become the leader of Team Voltron when Lotor had initially retreated after all the lions had gathered as well as the second time after they had reformed Voltron but that wasn't possible. Lotor had been killed in the Quintessence field. Could he still be alive? No, that wasn't possible. But who was this enemy and why had they retreated when they could have easily caused real harm to Voltron like this?

"Keith, everyone, are you alright?" Shiro asked them.

"Yeah, we're okay, Shiro," Keith replied but didn't respond more than that, shutting off their communications temporarily and not retreating to the Atlas right away. "Pidge, are you alright?"

"I'm sorry for being such a failure today, guys," Pidge said, sounding a lot more forlorn than he had ever heard his friend sound in all their fights together. "I'm not sure what happened."

"Hey, don't call yourself that," Hunk was the first to say and Keith could tell he was frowning when he said this, despite not seeing his face. "It was just a bad day, we all have bad days, right Keith?"

Keith nodded immediately. "Hunk's right. It has been a long time since we've fought but I didn't mean it like that." He bit his lower lip, knowing his words had not come out the way he had meant for them to. He wasn't good at stuff like this and hoped one of the others would take up for him – he didn't want to intrude but Pidge was his friend, a part of his team and family, if something was bothering her then he wanted to try to help out somehow if he could. What would Shiro do if he was the leader here instead? Probably reassure Pidge that it was okay and they all had bad days, but Hunk had already done that so what could Keith say that hadn't already been said?

"Pidge, what Keith wants to say is are you okay?" Lance asked concerned, which Keith was grateful to him for stating it bluntly. "Like we're kind of all one unit as Voltron and I dunno, even I could feel something and I don't notice this kind of thing as much as the others do."

"I'm alright," Pidge said softly. "I'm sorry for worrying everyone. We should head back before we're attacked again and the Atlas is waiting for us."

"Alright Pidge," Allura said softly. "But if you ever need someone to talk to, you know we're all here for you."

"Yeah," Pidge replied. "I know, guys. Thanks."

Pidge's replies were short and not very convincing but Keith had a feeling pushing her would not help much right now. It was clear it was something she didn't want to talk about.

"Let's get back to the Atlas," Keith said after a pause of silence, turning the communication back on.

"Copy that," his teammates all responded and the group retreated to the Atlas.