One thing was for sure, this would be difficult.

The team was in disarray. Once they had gathered back together at the Castle of Lions and peered inside of the cockpit of the black lion, they stared at the empty pilot's chair without moving for too long. The first to leave was Allura. Not because she cared about Shiro the least, not because she knew she should find Coran and tell him what had happened, but because she knew what the black lion was capable of. Shiro could be somewhere else, waiting for the team to find him and bring him home. She left quietly, without disturbing the others. It only seemed appropriate to not break the silence.

Pidge left next. Although she didn't know what Allura did about the black lion, she knew that people didn't just disappear. Especially not from the inside of a sealed and heavily protected cockpit of a "magical" robotic weapon that seemed to have sustained no damage. Pidge needed equipment. She needed to figure out what happened so that she could determine how the impossible appeared to be possible. If the "universe" really did have some sort of consciousness that was beyond her scientific understanding like Allura always insists to her, then there was no way it would take away their leader like that. There was no way the universe would destroy their most important key to saving the universe. No. Pidge would go find Allura and insist that they help each other figure out what had happened.

There was a long time before any of the remaining three made a move at all. Both Hunk and Lance were staring at the back of the chair Keith was resting his hand on. Hunk was surprised when he finally glanced to his side to see tear streaks down Lance's face. He had expected to cry long before Lance would. But he supposed that would depend on who accepted what this looked like first. Hunk couldn't accept this yet. It felt like a dream. Too surreal to actually be reality. Let alone the reality they were living in.

But even through the shock and disbelief that fuzzed his mind, he recognized something important. Hunk gently placed his hand on Lance's shoulder intent on getting them both out of there. Lance failed to flinch, nor did he acknowledge Hunk's presence at all. Hunk shook his shoulder to convince Lance to look at him. Lance reluctantly turned his head, after which he moved his eyes to find Hunk's. Hunk gestured with his eyes toward Keith and then returned them to Lance and flicked his head in the direction of the exit. Lance didn't move, clearly not wanting to leave, but when Hunk flicked his head back at Keith, Lance looked over at him for the first time since entering the cockpit. Keith had no expression at all on his face. Maybe that look at him was enough convincing for Lance because he turned his back on both Keith and the empty chair and after a deep breath, let Hunk lead him out of the lion.

The others couldn't say how long Keith remained in the black lion. No one saw him that night nor the next morning. It wasn't until mid-afternoon when Allura, of all people, found him on the training deck.

She supposed this wasn't too surprising, they each dealt with their own day-to-day traumas in their own ways. Allura couldn't judge anyway. Her way of dealing with these things was to not deal with them. Hence why she still hadn't dealt with her entire civilization having been destroyed. She guessed the others never realized. They probably assumed that she cried when she was alone and held things together when she was not. But no, she herself was still a child of sorts. She had never experienced major trauma before that, and there was no one left to tell her how to deal with it now.

She stood by the door and watched as Keith violently destroyed gladiator after gladiator. He swung his sword in wide, uncontrolled arcs, putting all malice and vitriol into his grunts and roars. Allura wondered, somewhat detachedly, what Keith thought right now. Did he think Shiro was dead?

It seemed absurd that Keith would accept something like that without a lifeless body to prove it to him. But then again, that's what Lance had thought until this morning when he and Hunk had walked into the control room to find both her and Pidge with bags under their eyes after a night spent staring at screens looking for the signal from Shiro's suit. She and Coran had eventually decided that they'd need a search pattern as they were not currently close enough to Shiro for his signal to reach them. In the mean time, Pidge had gone down to the hangers and was taking readings of the black lion. Keith knew none of this. He was here and hadn't been around anyone living all day.

Allura decided that she wasn't going to let Keith's presence stop her from doing what she had come here to do. She walked over to the training equipment and picked out a sturdy metal staff.

"End training sequence," she commanded the Castle.

"Hey!" Keith spun to yell at her as the gladiators around him disappeared.

But Allura didn't say anything, she marched up to Keith and leapt into a powerful arced strike over Keith's head. Keith blocked it with his sword and a grunt, but even then he still had to brace the end of his blade against his other hand. They separated and Allura started circling him. Keith crouched and never let Allura have his back. He'd have to be much more controlled with Allura. He assumed she had years more fighting experience than he did.

Allura struck first again, using both sides of her staff to force Keith to step back with every parry he made. Keith had his teeth gritted, Allura had her eyes squinted. They were watching each other's eyes rather than their weapons. Allura could tell Keith was furious, but he wasn't complaining.

Keith glance over his shoulder, sensing the danger of getting close to a wall. Allura saw this and immediately went to swipe at Keith's legs. Keith jumped up and to the side to avoid getting any closer to the wall, but Allura spun her weight so that the other end of her staff drove Keith straight to the ground with a hit to the chest. Before Keith could ungrit his teeth enough to release an "Ack!" Allura had gone for the kill shot and stopped just before making contact with his neck.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Then Allura withdrew her staff and walked back to the center of the training room. After watching her, Keith stood up and returned to the center as well, crouching back into a defensive position.

Hours later, when the two of them were both overly sweaty and exhausted, the door to the training deck swooshed open. With her back to the door and her focus still on Keith, Allura called out, "Not now Shiro! We'll come to dinner after I finish Keith off!"

Keith's face immediately changed to a look of hurt and his arms went slack at his sides. Allura couldn't stop her swing in time to keep her staff from smacking Keith across the face.

Allura dropped her weapon and rushed to grab Keith's face and rub his purpling cheek. "I'm so sorry, Keith! I didn't mean to! Are you alright?" she asked him, horrified for two reasons.

"I'm fine," Keith said in a barely audible voice.

His eyes were refusing to meet hers. He kept them off to the side and Allura's frown deepened. Why had she forgotten about the very reason she was in here? How could she have forgotten the reality that she just wanted a break from? Oh, right! That was the exact purpose of what both of them were doing, training until they were so exhausted that they'd forget everything. Maybe this hadn't been her best attempt at dealing with things yet.

"Actually, since you've been here for so long, I thought I'd bring you some water," Allura looked over to see Coran holding up a bottle filled with cold water. "I see you found an opponent then?"

Allura looked back to Keith but didn't say anything. She was still rubbing at his cheek.

"It's getting quite late. Everyone else already ate dinner, it's just you two." Coran craned his neck to the side to try and see Keith's face behind Allura's shoulder. "I was going to look for you, Keith, after getting the Princess. You should both eat something," Coran said softly.

Keith didn't budge from his spot so Allura looked back to Coran for help.

"Especially you, Keith. I know you haven't eaten all day. You missed dinner last night too." After a beat of waiting Coran motioned grandly with his hand, "Come now! What could eating something hurt?"

Keith looked at them but his expression was worryingly blank.

"Keith, if you eat with me, I'll tell you what we've all been doing since last night. We think Shiro may just be missing and we're trying to find him," Allura explained in a soft and tender voice. She should have told him this earlier, but Keith had been a convenient opponent for Allura's own turmoil.

Keith's whole face opened up, his body language went from withdrawn to receptive at the turn of a dime. "What?" was all he could say.

Allura smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes. "Let's eat and I'll tell you about it."

Keith nodded, agreeing.

Allura went to put the staff she had used away and Keith waited for her with his bayard clipped to his hip.

"Good then. And afterwards, you two must get some sleep! You'll go straight to bed, the both of you," Coran insisted in a kind manner.

"Someone has to watch the monitor," Allura said.

"I believe Hunk and Lance went to bed last night. The two of them can take shifts while those of us who stayed up all night get some rest."

Allura sighed. "Very well then. We shall eat and then sleep," she agreed as she gently grabbed Keith's arm.

"Thank you, Princess. I feel better already!" Coran stopped Keith before they could pass him by shoving the water bottle into his chest. "It looks like you might need this more than the Princess does. No water breaks all day, eh?"

Keith took it and managed a half smile for Coran. "Thanks," he said as softly as the Alteans had been speaking to him.

Coran managed a full smile. "As I've tried to tell all of the paladins before, we're in all of this together now. The good and the bad, we'll share it all."

Keith didn't know what to think of that, so he just quirked one side of his lips upward again.

"What if we somehow increase the range of our sensors?"

"I told you, we're handling it. Pidge is already working on a way to do exactly that. I'll think of something for you to do, I promise," Allura responded with a hint of frustration edging her tone.

"Well I can't just sit around!" Keith retorted with every bit of the frustration Allura was trying to hide.

"I know, I'm not telling you to do nothing, I just—"

"What if we use the lions to extend the range! I could fly out to the edge of the Castle's range and scan from there," Keith interrupted right as he thought of it.

Allura took the idea in. "Actually, that's given me an idea. I could ask Pidge to—"

"So it could work, great!" Keith ran for the hanger with the red lion without waiting for Allura's permission.

"Wait, Keith..." Allura trailed off as she kept thinking. She knew he was gone anyway.

"Morning, Princess!"

Allura jumped out of her skin and made a cute squeak when Lance's hand came down on her shoulder. "Lance!" she huffed with her hand over her chest to calm herself down.

Lance smiled at her but then looked in the direction Keith had gone. "What happened to Keith's face?" he asked.

"Oh. It's just a bruise. He insisted on leaving it to heal on its own."

"Classic Keith!" Lance rolled his eyes. "So, uh, you aren't going to stop him?"

Lance seemed concerned to Allura but she figured if she mentioned it, this conversation would end quickly. And Allura hadn't talked to anyone but Keith since last night when Coran had come to force them to dinner. Keith had been in a bad mood the entire time. Not that she could blame him, nor any of the other paladins if they started acting the same way. But still, Lance had been much more chipper than any of them once he had heard of their plan to find Shiro.

"No, he needs something to do and he was right, that was a good idea. But it's given me an even better idea to pitch to Pidge."

"Really? What is it?"

Allura resumed walking but changed her course to the control room where she was most likely to find Pidge while Lance followed her. "We could make signal beacons and launch them all over. If we could make enough of them and disperse them far enough, we could have an entire sensor grid that we could continue to use even after we find Shiro."

Lance frowned at that. "Uh, forgive me Princess but, that sounds like a pretty obvious plan. Why haven't you done that before now?"

"Obvious?" Allura looked to have taken offense.

"I don't mean anything bad," Lance immediately backtracked. "It's just something common in Earth sci-fi stories and video games."

Allura raised an eyebrow at him.

"And they're usually something the enemy has and destroying it is what helps save the day."

Allura huffed again. "If you must know, back before I was cryogenically frozen for ten thousand years, Zarkon had only taken over a small cluster of solar systems, including my own, at the very end of it."

Lance bit his lip, his brows furrowed in anxiety. "I'm sorry Allura, I didn't mean to."

Allura's sudden anger turned into guilt when she heard Lance say the exact words she had said to Keith last night. "All is forgiven," she said with a held dignity. But then she deflated a little when the guilt didn't go away. "I'm sorry, I'm still tired from the night before last. I've been... snappy."

Lance's face was soft when he said, "You're allowed to be snappy sometimes, all is forgiven."

Allura had to turn her gaze from him. She didn't know why, but she knew she couldn't handle that expression right in that moment.

Lance decided to change the subject. "Well, I was about to go take a nap, but if Keith's idea really works, maybe I could take Blue out and help him while you and Pidge work on the signal beacons. I'll need something to do too." Lance was forced to pause by a yawn. "You know, after I take my nap," he grinned at Allura.

Allura smiled back this time. "Yes, that would be helpful." She stopped short of being close enough to the control room doors for them to open automatically. "Hunk is asleep isn't he? I'll need his help to construct the beacons once he awakens."

"There, you see. We're all working together! That's what Shiro would want."

Allura couldn't help but feel somber at Lance's cheery words. Her smile was delicate and a little sad. "Yes, I suppose that is what he'd want."

Lance noticed her mood but instead of changing his strategy, gave her even more cheer. "We'll tell him all about it when we find him. I'm sure he'll be proud of the way you took charge while he was gone."

The Princess in Allura force her to smile pleasantly even though she didn't want to. Lance was being sweet, but she hardly felt like it was deserved. A lot of things happened in that final battle.

"Alright," Lance turned, "I'm headed off to bed! See you soon, Princess."

"Lance, wait!" Allura stopped him before he could get far. "When you go out there, could you stick with Keith? He's not... himself right now," she tried to explain.

Lance turned back to her. "Keith? Is he grumpy, irritable, prone to outbursts?"

"Yes, but— Oh! You know what I mean! I know you can tell the difference just as well as the rest of us!" Allura shouted in annoyance.

Lance snickered like he was enjoying this all too much. His grin and the squint of his eyes spoke of mischief. "Wouldn't it be more efficient for me to work on the opposite side of the Castle's sensor range? I'm not exactly known for making Keith calmer anyway."

"Your job would be to keep him from doing anything stupid!"

"Hmm, I think I'd rather just sleep in," Lance continued to tease.

"Lance, if you really consider me a Princess, you will do as I say!" Allura huffed trying to look regal in her robes.

Lance hummed and moved his eyes from corner to corner pretending to think about it. "A valid point. I accept," Lance pivoted to turn his back on her but still held her gaze over his shoulder. She was clearly still too tired not to fall for teasing. Perhaps she had been too tired to sleep last night.

"Good!" Allura roared at him. "Now go to sleep!"

"I will."

"Go on!"

"Sure thing!" Lance took deliberately slow and exaggerated steps away from her.

Allura let out an extremely frustrated noise. "Just go!"

Lance nodded with a suddenly serious face. "I'm agreeing with you."

Allura gathered her dress in her hands and marched into the control room with a swift turn and never a look back. Pidge was at one of the consoles, or, under it. She had taken one of the panels off and was looking at the wiring. She crawled out from underneath when she heard Allura stomping.

"Did I hear Lance? I thought he was going to bed after I relieved him."

"He is now!" Allura shouted indignantly.

Pidge snorted. "Did Lance piss you off?"

"I am not—" Allura stopped herself from using the same phrase Pidge had, it didn't translate well into Altean. Her face relaxed before saying, "Actually, speaking to him was quite refreshing."

Pidge chuckled again. "Classic Lance! So annoying, you can't help but enjoy it," she grinned and then returned to under the console.

"Lance said the same thing about Keith," Allura ponder aloud.

"What?" Pidge asked in confusion.

"Lance said, 'Classic Keith' just earlier," Allura mimicked the way he had said it.

"Oh, that's what you meant."

Allura leaned against the console Pidge was working with. "What exactly does that mean?"

Pidge scooted out so that she could peer up at Allura's face. "It means that the person was exhibiting expected behavior," she explained.

"I see," Allura thought back to both behaviors that warranted that saying. "Why does Lance act like that?"

In the time it took Allura to think, Pidge had already gotten back to work. "I don't know. Maybe because he's the youngest of... four? I think? With lots of older siblings that probably thought he was annoying even when he wasn't trying to be, I think it makes sense. I annoyed my brother all the time."

Allura slowly walked over to the head console and looked over their flight plan. "I see," she said quietly.

Pidge heard something in the tone of Allura's voice that made her pause and push herself out so that she could sit up. "What?"

Allura continued to scan the edges of what their sensors could pick up. "I never knew that Lance had older siblings."

Pidge only stared trying to figure out if the Princess was upset or not.

"I believe there's a primordial black hole in this region of space," she circled an area with her finger. "The gravity just isn't right in this area. We'll have to go around it." Allura input new data into the panel in front of her and the Castle corrected their flight plan.

Pidge walked over and looked at the monitor for herself. She came to the same conclusion and with that in mind, decided to move on.

"I've been looking into the way the Castle's sensors work and I'm pretty sure increasing the range gets more and more difficult the further out you want to increase them. I have an idea of how I could redesign them since it looks like the Alteans maxed out the range with this configuration. I'm not sure my design will work yet, but I know how to put it back if we give it a try."

"Won't you have to take the sensors offline to do that? We'd have to come to a stop, it's too dangerous to fly the ship blind."

"I was thinking of isolating the relay in this console," Pidge gestured to the one that's insides she'd been studying. "It would temporarily decrease the range of our sensors, but it would be easy to test if it works. If it does, the range should increase once we connect it again. Then I could do the same to all of the relays."

"Fascinating!" Allura marveled. "It would be worth a try. I actually had another idea."

"Really? What is it?" Pidge dove back under the console and started detaching certain wires.

"Keith made me think of it actually. He wanted to use the lions' sensors to scan beyond the Castle's range. So I was thinking, we could use that same principle to make signal beacons and make our own sensor grid. We could scan as far out as we have beacons as long as each beacon is in range of another," she said hopefully.

"Mm, I don't think so."

"What?" Allura said sounding shocked. "Why not?"

Pidge sighed and rolled over and sat back up again. "Because, making something like that requires too much time and resources. Those things are usually easy to hack, so I'd have to put a lot of safety measures in place, they could easily get stolen and we could only deploy them as we move. It won't tell us about anywhere we haven't already been."

"But, what if Shiro is trying to find us? Say he finds out where we've been and he tries to follow us? If he gets in range of a beacon, we'd know to turn around!" Allura insisted.

"Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that it'll take too much time and too many resources. One of those resources being my limited brain power. Coran may have made me eat and go to bed last night, but I didn't get much sleep. I'm already splitting my focus between the sensors on the Castle and the readings Coran is taking for me of the black lion. I'd prefer to only focus on one task at once, but I'm already working on two." Pidge massaged her temples briefly, revealing how tired she really was. None of them had had a break after the battle.

"If we had more people, then I'd think about it, but we're only a crew of six right now and I'm the only one with the coding expertise to program all of this equipment to do new things. I just can't do it all."

Allura didn't know what to say. She didn't want Pidge to be this stressed, but she still thought her idea was important. If only there were someone else who could help.

"There are ten of us."

"Ten?"

"Yes, you forgot my mice."

Pidge looked at Allura like she had missed her point entirely. But then she remembered something. "Slav!"

Allura stood up straighter. "Slav!"

"Where is that ungrateful, slimy worm?!"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since the battle with Zarkon! What's he been doing this whole time?"

"Do you think he escaped? Alright Princess, if you can find Slav, I will," Pidge's face twisted as if she had eaten something extremely bitter, "work together with him on both the Castle and the beacons."

Allura's face soured as well. "I'll get right on it! The mice can help me track him down," Allura started for the door, using her telepathy to to send the mice marching orders.

"Allura, one more thing," Pidge stood to smile at her, still tried.

"Yes?"

"If you liked talking to Lance then don't give him a hard time even when he gives you a hard time. He'll probably tell you lots of things that way. He likes talking to himself at people."

"Oh, I see. I'll try that then." Allura had no idea what that meant but she really would try that at some point, if given the opportunity. She smiled at Pidge, still confused and ran along.

Once Pidge was sure Allura was far enough away, she went to the center console and pulled up the Castle's intercom system, selecting only the speaker in Lance's room and speaking into the mic, "You better thank me for this later, Lance."

If Lance had fallen asleep yet, he'd be pissed at her. Pidge chuckled to herself.

A/N: This is my first story for Voltron. It's also being posted on AO3 but I quickly realized that AO3 isn't really the place to get direct feedback so I decided to post it here as well. I'm very excited about this idea and I hope you enjoy it! :)