Okay, so due to a lot of things, I am a little bit late to posting for the Kallura weekly event that was done on tumblr by my wonderful friend 'Godest'. This is for the prompt that 'sneak hand holding for comfort' and is set during s7 in the Earth invasion. Kallura.
"Lotor had everyone fooled, it's nobody's fault," Shiro's voice was commanding as always as it rung around the room, they were in at the Galaxy Garrison, but Allura felt as if the words were mostly being spoken to her. She was the one who had given quintessence to Lotor's ships and given them power. Now, they were being used by other Galra against Earth. Lance had been wrong. She couldn't expect the Coalition to trust her, for the Garrison to trust her – not when she was not certain that she could even trust herself.
"It doesn't change the facts," Admiral Sanda pointed out causing Allura's heart to clench in on itself because she knew the Admiral was right. "The Paladins indirectly through their trust gave Lotor's ships an added ability which the Galra are using to harm Earth."
"It was not their fault," Allura spoke up. "I trusted Lotor and believed he truly did want to bring peace to the universe. As a leader, it was my mistake, my error in judgement and I understand if this causes you to mistrust me."
"Allura, that's not true," Lance began to protest but fell silent at the look on Keith's face who gently shook his head at him.
Allura jumped as she felt Keith's hand reach out for hers underneath the table but when he squeezed her hand, it grounded her a little enough to breathe and return her focus to the group.
"If it's Allura's fault, it's mine as well," Keith said firmly. "I was the leader of Voltron, not her. I left my team in a vulnerable position and Lotor took advantage of that, of her, of all my friends. I can't take that back. They can't take that back either. But we can fix that together, by fighting back. Earth isn't in danger because we trusted Lotor. Maybe things are worse because of it, but the only thing we can do is work together to fix it. Will blaming each other really fix anything, Admiral?" He looked at her hardened gaze at them, but his own gaze was calm and Allura found herself returning the pressure. Even if it didn't do much, she wanted to give him the message that she was by his side. There was silence after Keith's words, and no one seemed to know what to say. Hunk, Pidge and Lance all shifted in a little closer to them and Shiro's confident expression was enough to show his silent yet strong support.
Finally, it was Commander Iverson who spoke.
"Keith is right," he said in his gruff voice. "We can't keep looking back into the past. We have to move forward and focus on making Earth's defences even stronger so we can stand up to them."
"We will," Allura said, confidence returning, feeling as if Keith's hand in hers was a gentle yet reminder that she wasn't alone. As long as she had him – and the other Paladins of course, she could always stand back up again.