Don't you dare surrender

Don't leave me here without you

'Cause I could never

Replace your perfect imperfection

~Evanescence "Imperfection"

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Come Back to Me

Keith,

Pidge and Lance were attacked by unknown assailants while down in the Gopher City. No one is talking to me; all my usual channels are shut down. All I know is that my sister is badly injured and Lance is being treated as a person of interest. Lance is a chronic fuck-up, but even I don't buy that he'd ever do something like this to Pidge.

This is part of something bigger.

Yesterday, Osiris Station was attacked by what appears to be a coalition of Jovian separatists and Xiphoid. We lost ten people in the attack and fifteen others are injured. They had somebody on the inside and they detonated two bombs that took out our teleduv's scaltrite lenses and our entire supply of replacement lenses.

If Veronica and her fleet hadn't shown up, our goose would've been cooked.

V and I have a cluster to unfuck here and it'll be a day before we can leave. I know Titan's a problem for you, but Curtis is recovering from back surgery and Hunk is three wormhole jumps away on Dlariet. The way I read it; this isn't a situation for polite statecraft anyhow. It needs your sledgehammer diplomacy. Do what you have to do, but get them out of there. Coran says he's holding a cryopod open for Pidge if needed.

Matt Holt

The Galra had it right. Alteans were often given to decadence and excess.

Keith paused in the doorway to the cryopod room. A half dozen cryopods were arrayed like huge, translucent fangs in a semicircle in the circular room. The ceiling soared high above the pods and there was enough clear floor space in the rest of the room to hold a sizable dance party. As a youth, Keith hadn't thought much about the Castle of Lions' design, neither its interior nor exterior. He now saw it through the eyes of someone who spent his days struggling to stretch limited resources to feed, house, clothe and provide affordable medical care to those in need. Now, the Castle of Lions' spacious interiors rubbed his practical sensibilities raw.

All the pods were in use, occupied by four Alteans, a diminutive Arusian, and Pidge. Lance sat slumped against Pidge's pod, unaware of Keith's presence. The two smallest space mice, Chulatt and Plachu, were perched on his shoulders, the two larger, Platt and Chuchule, in his lap. All four rodents were sound asleep.

Keith took a moment to study his old friend in this unguarded state. Not that Lance, who wore his thoughts plain as day on his face, had ever been particularly guarded. Or so Keith had thought. So, all the Paladins had thought, never recognizing Lance's brash, clownish antics for what they really were. A mask over deep insecurities and mental health issues.

Pidge wasn't the only one who had missed Lance. Keith had missed him terribly, though like Pidge, he thought he'd moved on. Seeing Lance again, this older and somehow improved version, paid a lie to that notion. Just a few hours spent in Lance's company had dredged up all his old hurts and joys.

Neither Keith nor Pidge possessed Lance's effortless rapport with others. Keith had hated how in the early days of Voltron, Lance had been dead-set on fanning the flames of nonexistent rivalry. It had been a relief when Lance finally let it go and treated him the same as Pidge and Hunk. Friendship with Lance had been a respite that turned to heartbreak when Lance abandoned him and the rest of the team.

Approximately two Earth days ago, Keith had stormed into Apollo City's hospital to find Lance unconscious and handcuffed to a hospital bed. Despite the fact that Voltron's Blue Paladin was found half dead from exsanguination and lying in a pool of his own blood at the scene, Apollo City Police Department, who had jurisdiction moon-wide in matters of homicide, named him as a person of interest in the slaughter that had taken place in Gopher City. Their official justification? His suspicious lack of serious injuries: he suffered only a few bruises and a crossbow bolt impaled in the otherwise healed calf of his leg. The chaos he and Pidge had caused the day before probably didn't help his case.

Keith had taken Matt Holt's suggestion of a sledgehammer and multiplied it by a Galran war cruiser, the same ship that Pidge and Lance were scheduled to rendezvous with for their journey back to Earth. As soon as he made moonfall, he was greeted by a dozen of Apollo City's finest and most heavily armored. Keith countered with Bonnie and Clyde, Kosmo, Yrta, Axca, and none other than his fearsome mother, Krolia. He expressed, in no uncertain terms, that court orders be damned, he would see his friends and standing in his way would be construed as an act of war against the Galran empire and the Galactic Coalition.

Apollo City's and Nuñes's bureaucracies had little taste for war, but in the end, what got Lance and Pidge off Titan and to Altea was a clever crime scene investigator who found audio footage of the attack on Lance's datapen. The recording originated from Pidge's utterly unhackable pen, but she'd made the mistake of using Lance's thoroughly unsecure pen—his password was "12345"—as a backup.

Although Apollo City PD grumbled about disrupting an ongoing investigation, they stood down and let Keith take his fellow Paladins to Altea.

Kosmo's warm nose nudged his hand. When he looked at his canid friend, the wolf turned his snout toward Lance, the gesture clear—"Look!" Keith's attention, which had been on Lance's face, slid down to the man's hands. Oh, fuck, really?

Keith stomped across the room toward Lance, Kosmo trotting at his side, claws clicking on slick gray floor. Lance didn't look up, eyes fogged with despair.

"She wouldn't want you to do that," said Keith, sitting beside him, glowering at the syringe of vivid orange Zero-G in his hands. Where the Hel did he get that? Does he have a dealer on every planet?

Lance met his eyes, his expression one of abject devastation, worse that Keith had ever seen him; worse than after Allura. "I can't lose her."

By the time the emergency responders reached the pair, Pidge's major organs had sustained significant damage through shock, blood loss and Black Rain and Quintessence poisoning. Human medicine could counter the effects of Black Rain and the worst mechanical injuries—shattered bones, contusions, and blood loss—but the doctors expected her to succumb to Quintessence poisoning within a week.

Once she was stabilized, the decision was made to put her in a medically induced coma, so she could be sent through the wormhole to Altea and placed in a cryopod in the Castle of Lions.

"She's going to be fine," said Keith, hoping he was right. "Get your shit together, Lance."

Kosmo, who'd been standing before Lance, head cocked, ears pricked and studying him with a perplexed expression, moved forward and gave him a canine kiss on the cheek. A pre-apology perhaps, because he then lowered his big head and sank his fangs into Lance's forearm.

"OW!" Lance let out a shriek and dropped the syringe. The mice squeaked indignantly as their warm bed lurched and roly-poly Platt tumbled off his lap and onto the floor with a small thud.

Blue eyes wide, Lance reeled back, clasping his arm. Blood began to ooze between his fingers. He looked at Keith, expression full of bewildered hurt.

Kosmo leaned forward. Lance's face scrunched in anticipation of pain, but he didn't try to escape. Kosmo swiped another canine kiss on his cheek and sat primly before him.

"I wasn't going to take it," said Lance, a little sullenly. "I just needed the option."

Keith shrugged and picked up the syringe. "You deserved that," he said, meaning the bite.

"You're right. I do deserve this. And worse." He lifted his gaze, looking up at Pidge. "I did this."

Keith didn't deny that, not exactly. "You were a target. But she was part of Xiphoid and ChemLore's plan." In earnest, Pidge the hostage was far better leverage than dead Lance. He held up the syringe. "You're stronger than this."

"No. I was. Now I'm not. Losing her..." He stared vacantly at Keith. "Will break me. I know, that's melodramatic bullshit, but it's true. I don't know how I didn't see her all these years, but now, I can't see me without her. I can't be without her."

"You're not the only one who loves her," said Keith irritably because even this Lance behaved as though everything was all about him.

Lance blinked and nodded. "I saw the way you looked at her."

"I…don't mean…that way."

Lance arched an eyebrow at him, smug and knowing.

"Fine, yeah, whatever." Keith clenched his jaw, knowing he shouldn't have admitted that. But Lance was scaring him. The last thing Keith wanted was to have to tell Pidge that the idiot overdosed on Zero. Besides, he really liked this older version of Lance, still wisecracking and fun but without the teenage bravado and insecurity. Usually. This…this was bad.

Platt shook himself off and climbed into Keith's lap. Keith stared at the plump, yellow mouse, perplexed. The mice had proven themselves valuable allies in the past, but he'd never quite gotten past seeing them as pastel-colored pestilence. The quartet did adore Pidge, however, a huge point in their favor.

"How long?" said Lance, leaning his face against the pod.

"Years. You left us. Then Shiro and Hunk lost themselves in work. Pidge and I were busy too, but we always found time to be friends."

"Why didn't you…do anything about it?"

"There never was a good time." Keith looked away, relieved that the uncomfortable topic seemed to have temporarily distracted Lance from the abyss, but wishing he'd found another way to pull him from the brink. "Either she was with someone, or I was. It doesn't matter. She's always loved you. Even when we were kids."

Lance snorted and Keith turned and found he wore what Pidge called "that dopey expression" on his face. "You knew, too?"

"I think Allura and Coran knew," said Keith. "Probably Lotor, Zarkon, Honerva and the entire Galran empire knew."

The corners of Lance's mouth turned up a bit. "Huh. Keith made a funny."

"Pidge says I'm 'droll,'" he said smugly.

"If girl genius says so, it must be true."

"You two, together are a disaster." Keith regretted his phrasing seconds after the words left his mouth. Lance's face crumbled, desolation returning. Keith clarified: "I mean, the day before you were attacked. You desecrated a sacred fountain. Started a riot in Pax Square. Assaulted a peace officer with a chabbit. Disrupted a major wingball scrimmage."

A trace of humor returned to Lance's face and he snort-giggled. "Good times."

"There was a security camera in the alley where you two almost…." Keith's voice trailed off.

Lance smirked. "Really? Pidge and Lance almost made a porno? Awesome."

Keith stared at the red splatters of Lance's blood in the gray floor, trying to unsee the video footage. Pidge, the only woman he'd ever really loved getting fiercely sexy with Lance, the only man he'd ever loved. It was both disturbing and erotic.

"Wait." Lance's blue eyes were wide with shock. "How do you know about the alley?"

Ignoring the question, Keith leveled a stern look at Lance. "You know bailing you two delinquents out of trouble isn't cheap?"

"Bail? We weren't arrested."

"Doesn't matter. The way it works, one of us does something stupid, the authorities call up Matt and Sam Holt and the Garrison and file a protest. The rest of the Paladins, except for you and Pidge, get notified as well. Often with video proof."

The horrified look on Lance's face as he realized just how much Shiro, Hunk and Keith must've known about his post-Voltron adventures was priceless. "Uh, so…Pidge wasn't in the loop?" His tone turned hopeful.

"No. But she'll know everything soon enough." Keith exhaled, setting free a decade of hurt. "You ghosted us, asshole! Broke Pidge's heart. And…mine. And Shiro's and Hunk's. If this is real, if you and Pidge—"

"It is."

"Then the rest of us are get to torture you with every moronic, Lancey-Lance thing you've ever done."

"Hey, I…." Lance's ductile face twisted into indignant teen boy and then molded back to adult resignation. "Okay, that's fair."

"You're lucky Pidge is Pidge. Because we're all tempted to lock you in a cargo box and drop you into a black hole for even thinking of touching her." He ground his teeth together. "But she loves you and she'd dive into the black hole to save you. After she disassembles us."

"I do love her," Lance said softly. "Real love. Not crazy, needy, lookit-me, lookit-me love. Soulmate love, even though I don't think that's a thing, but maybe it is." Lance leaned against the pod and shut his eyes. A couple days' worth of beard on his jaw and dark half circles beneath his eyes didn't take away from the fact that he was still infuriatingly good looking.

Keith distracted himself with another dig at his old friend's conscience. "Whenever one of us screws up, someone, the Garrison, the Holts, sometimes Shiro or Hunk, sends the offended party hush money. Your bad behavior has swelled several police departments' budgets."

Guilt darkened Lance's face. "I didn't know that." As Keith watched, his expression went blank with thought and then his long eyes narrowed. A crooked grin pulled at his mouth. "Wait. 'Us?' You've been naughty too, haven't you, Mullet?"

"I don't have a mullet anymore," snarled Keith. "And…once."

Lance waved his hand, meaning "Go on."

"There's a reason I met you on Rinconada." He sighed, embarrassed. "There was an incident on Titan. A guy called me a half-breed among other things. I was tired, stressed. I punched him. Got banned for two years from Apollo City."

"For one measly punch?" Lance made two tight fists, the action drawing crisscrossed white scars on his brown knuckles. "If I got banned from somewhere every time I threw a punch, I'd be stuck on the farm forever."

"One punch, two…" Keith coughed. "Twenty. Thirty. I lost count."

Lance tilted his head back and looked at Pidge. "Hear that, Pidge? Mullet's as bad as us."

"Call me Mullet again and I'm gonna beat you senseless."

"Mullett, Mullett, Mullett."

"What are you? Twelve?"

Alteans liked it cold.

Cold by Lance's standards, anyway. He'd grown up in a semi-tropical environment and being inclined to skinny, or "flaco" as Pidge would say, his constitution, temperature-wise, was akin to an orchid. Coran, and Allura too, as he recalled, had a chilly interpretation of room temperature. A hasty departure from Titan had left him no time to grab anything more than a quick change of clothes from Athena before hopping onboard Keith's starfighter. His only jacket, thermal underwear and heavy sweatshirt in bloody shreds, he wore his good shirt and jeans, and was freezing his scrawny ass off.

Didn't help that the curse of life-saving Altean tattoos on his face, his ever-empty stomach, was eyeing the rest of his internal organs hungrily. Staying warm was never easy with a metabolism that burn through food like wildfire.

A cozy bed in his old room in the new Castle of Lions was an option, but that would've meant leaving Pidge's side. A spike of pain shot down his right leg, originating from his spine. The cold, hard floor by the cryopod was doing a number on his bad back. As he awoke, the chill bit into the fingers of his left hand.

His right hand was warm, though? Huh? Someone moved at his side and he turned, hopeful, expecting Pidge. Instead, his eyes found a mop of shaggy black hair, streaked with a smattering of premature gray.

Keith's snoozed beside him, face tucked against his shoulder, one arm over his waist. Keith's jacket lay over them both, but mostly over Lance. He studied his old friend's face. Yeesh. You really don't age, do you? Lucky bastard.

Ages ago, Keith's attachment to Pidge would have given him fits of jealous apoplexy. Now, it made him all the fonder of the guy. One of these days, Lance's catlike supply of lives might run out and he liked the idea that Keith would always be there for her. Keith's love wasn't a threat; it was a bulwark against the cruelty and uncertainty of life.

Lance moved his arm, warm but also slightly numb, from between them and put it over Keith's shoulders. Closing his eyes, he prayed again for Pidge's recovery. Minutes, then another hour passed and he slept some more.

"Lance." Keith's voice.

He sat up and jumped to his feet, dizzy with the dregs of sleep, but buzzing with the readiness drilled into him by his time as a Paladin and later, a merc. Keith, also on his feet, stared at the cryopod. Lance's foot rose and fell in a long step toward the pod just as it opened. Cold air and déjà vu slammed into him and he nearly lost his feet.

As Allura had done so long ago, Pidge fell out of the pod and into his arms. This time the woman in his arms wasn't conscious, though.

"Pidge?" Her body sagged against his, dead weight, and he nearly dropped her. "Pidge." His hands scrambled for better purchase. She was small, but in this boneless state, an awkward handful. He nuzzled his face against the top of her head. "Hey. It's me, Lance. Talk to me."

Her stillness drove a spike of panic through him. Keith's hand was on her back, rubbing up and down slowly. Keith, obviously sharing Lance's concerns, reached to her neck, feeling for a pulse.

"Is she…?" Lance couldn't finish the question.

"Alive."

"Why's she not awake?" Lance could write a book titled You've Just Woken up from a Cryopod. What Happens Next? What happened was usually the furry-brained thickness that followed days of having one's blood cooled to a near-lethal level, heartbeat slowed to a crawl while Altean alchemy did its thing and fixed battlefield damage or the ravages of disease. When the pod decided it had done its best, it cheerfully spat its occupant, barely conscious, but conscious, out to fend for themselves.

Lance's knees folded as he sank to the floor, Pidge in his arms. "Pidge. Come on hermosa, wake up." He rubbed the pads of his fingers over her face, tracing features he knew better than his own. With the lightest touch, he drew circles over closed eyelids, willing them to open. "Something's wrong."

A couple beeps signaled the activation of a com. "Coran, it's Keith. Pidge is out of the pod, but she's not awake. We need that doctor, what's her name? Bronna?"

Coran had offered Lance his old room in the Castle, same as he always did when the other Paladins visited, but for Pidge, he opened up what would have been Allura's room. Pidge in his arms, Lance paused in the bedroom's doorway, observing the room with the dissonant vision of a teen boy and a grown man. What had awed him as a youth, now felt cold, sanitized and a waste of space. The room's primary furnishings, a dresser to the left and the large bed draped in opalescent curtains to the rear center, were dwarfed by the expansive space with ceiling height that could house a giraffe and ultra-modern architecture in muted shades of gray and lavender. Could put most of my family's house in here.

Keith, probably mistaking his pause for an old grief, laid a hand on his shoulder. Lance shot him a smile although the gesture wasn't necessary. The space resembled Allura's, but it really wasn't hers; she'd never been in this remade version of the Castle of Lions.

As he walked toward the bed, he spoke in Pidge's ear. "Keith and I still only rate our old bunks, but you get the royal suite. Must be nice, being the smartest and sexiest Paladin."

With Keith, Coran, and Bronna, he settled Pidge into the bed. Bronna, a diminutive Altean woman with burgundy hair and a gentle demeanor, set Pidge up on an IV that would deliver fluids and meds to stimulate liver, kidney and other organ function, a necessity after several days in the cryopod. Every scan the doctor had done came back with the same results. The cryopod had healed Pidge's injuries and repaired the damage done by Black Rain and Quintessence.

"Sometimes," said Bronna, "healing the body isn't enough. A psyche can be so badly shattered that it cannot return to the body. And sometimes, a broken spirit doesn't wish to return." All that could be done was to wait and hope.

"I'll return in a few vargas," said Coran. "Another meeting with the Biibohbitien delegation to argue the price of nonlektas." He gave Pidge's hand a squeeze. "Come back to us soon, Number Five." With a nod to Keith and Lance he left, accompanied by Bronna.

Tiny claws tugged at Lance's pant legs. He bent down, hand outstretched and the space mice climbed onto his arm, accepting the lift to the bed where they tucked themselves in a fuzzy, Easter egg-colored mass at Pidge's side. Though still absurdly spry for mice their age, the cheerful pastel yellow, blues, pinks and greens of their coats had faded and they moved with a bit of stiffness. Lance sat on the wide, blue bolster that bracketed the left side of the bed. Keith sat on the bolster opposite Lance. With an exhalation between a sigh and grunt, Kosmo dropped to the floor at the foot of the bed.

Brutal combat followed by days in a cryopad hadn't done Pidge's hair any favors. It lay close to her skull, grimy and matted. He began to finger comb through the worst of the tangles, instinctively flinching at the irritated swat that should have followed him fussing over her. In the absence of her cheerful violence, his throat closed in sadness, and her face, gaunt and pale, blurred with tears.

"I don't understand," he said, swiping a hand across his eyes, embarrassed by his inability to control his emotions. "She was always the strongest of us all."

Keith, his face tight with worry and exhaustion, stared at Pidge's face, silent. Minutes passed and Lance continued to work the matts out of her hair.

Lance was eyeing the dresser on the far side of the room, wondering if this replica of Allura's room included hair brushes and combs when Keith's voice broke the quiet. "Have you ever been hunting?"

"You mean bullet-in-Bambi kind of hunting?"

Keith nodded.

"No." Lance looked at his hands, at the scars, seeing years of blood spilled. "I don't think I have the stomach for it." He laughed bitterly at the irony.

"Dad was a licensed electrician. But the Sonoran SubRepublic's economy was either feast or famine and work came and went. That's why he eventually became a fireman, for the steady paycheck. But before that, hunting was the only way Dad could put meat on the table. We'd go up into the mountains for bigger game, but he also hunted quail and put out snares for rabbits. I remember being surprised by how calm a wild animal would be when facing death. Even small, panicky things like rabbits. Dad said that was natural, the creature accepting the inevitable. And animals didn't feel that much anyway. Dad was right about most things, but not that.

"They do feel. Fear. And joy, too. As a kid, I spent a lot of time wandering the canyons alone, just watching desert wildlife. I realized that wild animals were stoic because emotions like fear or pain make them look weak. The weak are targets for predators."

Keith's indigo eyes clouded with memory and he toyed with the edge of the bedsheet. Lance said nothing, battling an especially stubborn knot in Pidge's hair, aware that Keith had probably exhausted his capacity for conversation with the previous string of sentences.

"After a rain in the desert, the atmosphere changes, the plants, animals, even the earth seems more alive. The cottontails and jackrabbits play and…" Keith paused, obviously a little embarrassed by what was to come, "dance."

Lance gave him a reassuring smile and his face softened, open and vulnerable. "They really do. Out in the open, far enough from places where a predator can hide, but close enough to burrows and safe places. Under the right conditions, even simple things like rabbits give in and feel joy. But only when they feel safe.

"Pidge dances too, but only around us."

Lance nodded and grinned despite the grinding anxiety in his chest, picturing her terrible but adorable attempts at dancing on Lotor's battleship, as she, Lance and Hunk ran amok with a Pidge-reprogrammed security bot. Of course, there was their dance on Titan just days ago.

Keith continued. "She was fifteen years old, out on her own for the first time. The smallest and physically weakest of us fighting bigger enemies with decades, sometimes centuries more experience. She couldn't afford to show emotion. She was a rabbit running with wolves. She must've been terrified, Lance. Didn't have the luxury to show it."

The thickness in Lance's throat built, threatening dissolve and unleash a flood of emotion. His thumb stroked one of her distinctive, thick, chestnut-colored eyebrows. Pulling in a deep breath to still the flutters of terror, the horror of possible loss, his sense of smell was jarred by the clean, antiseptic smell of the room. Grief mixed with stupid irritation. He hated that smell; he needed the imperfect clash of thousands of meals cooked with all the other aromas that made up his parents' house, that unique scent that breathed "home." He needed his mom at his side, holding his hands and praying with him for Pidge, because Lance had lost his faith more times than he could count.

God, I beg you, bring her back. I know I'm a flawed man, but don't take it out on her. Sancta Gaia, mother of us all, give her the strength she needs. Bring her back. Even if she never loves me like I love her; even if she ends up with someone else, bring her back.

"Don't give up on her," Keith said softly. "She wouldn't give up on us." Lance nodded but didn't dare look at his friend, because if he did, he'd start crying.

"Regresa a mi, Paloma. No me dejas aqui, solo, sin ti. Sin ti no soy nada."

She'd been here before—days, weeks ago?—carried by a mix of pharmaceuticals: the place where stardust coalesced into dear ones, long lost. A not-place absent light or dark, seen from infinite perspectives with no vanishing point.

She was nothing, formless, but she somehow saw a plane of antimatter fold into another and become a face and then a body. Tall, elegant; a gray-green face. Large, almond-shaped green eyes with ruby irises flooded Katie with wisdom, compassion and the strength of a surrogate mother.

"Ryner?"

"Hello, Pidge."

She rushed toward her mentor, soul singing with exaltation, only to hit a barrier. It was like running in gale-force wind. Even in this ethereal, un-bodied state, her struggles to reach Ryner left her breathless and exhausted. "I missed you."

"And I, you."

"I'm sorry we didn't get back in time to save you."

"It's not your fault, sweet girl. You couldn't have known."

"I should have. I'm the smart one. How could I have been so stupid? Of course, Honerva would hit Olkarion." Self-loathing bubbled through her disembodied state and tears blurred her sight. Frustrated, she flailed at the barrier between them. "Let me through. Please."

"You have to return."

"No. Let me through!"

"Katie. Stop."

She rubbed her eyes and stared across the space between them, meeting honey brown eyes like her own, like Matt's. "Mom?"

"Hi, sweetie."

Her struggles against the barrier grew fiercer, an angry growl in her chest as she was pushed farther back. "Please. Let me through. Mom, I've missed you so much. I need you."

"You've grown up so beautiful." Her mom laughed, the sound cascading music. "It shouldn't matter—appearance—but you're my little girl, all grown up and so gorgeous. I can't believe I never told you how beautiful you are. No wonder he—"

"Mom, please. I need to…apologize. For running away. For never appreciating you. You gave me so much and I never realized. Not until it was too late."

"Oh, honey, you have nothing to apologize for. You were just a little girl. I should have seen what was happening with you, should have known my baby girl would do something foolhardy and brave."

"I shouldn't have left that way." Katie paused, wondering what would have happened if she'd stayed home?

"If you hadn't run away, I might have never gotten Matt and Sam back. And you wouldn't be the person you are today." She smiled. "I'm so proud of who you've become. You shouldn't have had to do all that. It wasn't right." A note of bitterness tinted her words. "You were so young, all of you, too young for that much responsibility. But you carried it well, better than most adults. And I couldn't be prouder of you."

"Mom, please." Hands in tight fists, she tried to pound on the barrier, but it was like beating on a wall underwater. "Let me through."

"Go back, Katie, he needs you."

He? Who? Matt, Dad, Keith? Another name nibbled at her mind, but she shoved it away because that was the road to relentless grief. "No. I can't go back. Let me in, Mom. I need you."

"You have to be brave, Katie. One more time."

"Let! Me! In!"

"Pidge, you must go back." A voice honeyed and smooth. Eyes glacial blue and hair like spun silver. A dark beauty that sometimes, when Katie let in teenage insecurities, had left her feeling small and ugly. Unintentional rival and also surrogate sister. Friend gone too soon.

"Allura," she said. "Please. I can't go back there. Don't make me. I can't—"

"You do not belong here. Not yet."

"I do. You don't understand." Katie opened her mouth, but the explanation meant accepting the unacceptable. "Don't make me go back."

Remorse carved lines on Allura's smooth visage. "I am truly sorry, Pidge. You should not have to shoulder this responsibility again. Neither of you. The fault is mine, in part, but I have given you what I can."

"What? You're not making sense. None of this makes sense." Soul-weary, Katie thumped her upper arm against the wall. "Why won't you let me in?"

"You have work to be done. You are the best chance against him."

"Him, who?" Bitterness rose like acid in her chest, filling her mouth. "I don't know what you want, but it doesn't matter. I'll fail you. Just like I failed you before. All of you." Just like she'd failed Lance. The name roared through her non-existent self like a hurricane, knocking down the barricade that held back her grief. A gray shirt covered in an un-survivable amount of blood. Fragile skin, muscle and organs torn beyond repair. "Don't make me go back there! Hurts too much."

"I'm sorry, Pidge," said Ryner.

"I'm sorry, Katie," said her mom.

"It's not over," said Allura.

Katie clenched her fists, furious, heartbroken, small and useless before the powerful trinity: the young woman, the mother, and the grandmother. "LET ME IN!"

They pushed her.

Translation-
Regresa a mi, Paloma. No me dejas aqui, solo, sin ti. Sin ti no soy nada. - Come back to me, Pigeon. Don't leave me here alone. I'm nothing without you.