"Keith, buddy, it's time to go back," Lance approached Red with Blue.
"Go away, Lance. You haven't been out here in three days, there's no way I'm listening to you."
Lance frowned more deeply. Here he was, so far out in space that the Castle of Lions couldn't pick up their comm signals, all with concern for Keith, just to have him imply that he wasn't helping enough. Lance had been helping! He'd been doing a lot lately! Keith wouldn't know though, he's barely been back at the Castle at all.
"Have you been sleeping out here? I bet you put rations in Red and you've been worrying Coran for nothing! I'm just a messenger right now. Coran wanted me to tell you to come back so that he could feed you and make you sleep," Lance nudged at Keith's feelings on purpose. For some reason, the only person Keith would listen to about eating and sleeping was Coran.
There was a pause before Keith said anything. "I'm not going back," Keith said as an absolute.
Lance sighed loudly into the comm. Keith wasn't letting them use the video feed so Lance had no facial clues about what to say to convince Keith to come back with him.
"Listen, I've been piloting Blue for seven hours straight to find you way out here. My butt hurts from sitting in one place for so long and there's no way you can be doing anyone any good with how tired you are! I saw you when you were leaving yesterday, you were exhausted then, I don't know how you could be functional now! And we have a seven hour trip back, so let's go!" Lance circled Blue around Red and then started heading back for the Castle.
"I told you, I'm not going!" Keith yelled back.
Lance stopped his lion and let go of the controls. He took a deep breath to try and keep himself under control. "Why not?" he said with curbed anger.
"Because all of you are ready to give up!" Keith yelled so loudly Lance wished he could cover his ears through his helmet. It'd been fifteen days now. "I could sense it the last time I was at the Castle, all of you had that look on your faces! Allura tried to stop me before I left! I know what she was going to tell me, but I'm not going to give up! I'll keep looking on my own if I have to! You can go back and tell the others that."
Keith started to fly his lion further away but Lance swooped around him and cut him off.
"Oh no you don't! Keith, we are not giving up!" Lance said resolutely. "Slav will continue to improve our signal beacons and he'll be deploying them no matter where we go. We'll always have someone looking for his signal, but he can't be our biggest priority much longer. I know it sucks, but the universe didn't stop needing us! Pidge, Hunk and I have been taking turns answering distress signals. We need you back with us. We need you to help the team. Stop trying to do everything on your own! It doesn't help, it just hurts the rest of us!" Lance criticized.
"But you are giving up," Keith said in a more level tone. "None of you know Shiro like I do, none of you know anything about him."
Lance growled and banged his fist against Blue's console. "Dammit Keith! That may very well be true, but it's not our fault we didn't get to grow up with him! You're acting like none of us care about him at all! He's our leader, he's made each of us feel like we actually belong here! He's given each of us a second home here! I don't know what to do without him! Neither do the others! But we know we can't do anything without you!" Lance soften his tone for the next part. "If he loves you even half as much as you love him, there's no way Shiro would want you to exile yourself from Voltron. Shiro would want us to still do our jobs. What would he tell you if he were here?"
Keith took a long time to answer, but Lance waited nonetheless.
"Patience yields focus."
Lance wondered how Keith came to those words, but he could run with it, so he did. "Then be patient. Shiro won't stop until he's back with us again, so wait for him. He'll come home."
After a moment, Keith's face appeared on Lance's screen. He wasn't looking at Lance, he seemed to be looking at the floor.
"I'm sorry," was all he said.
Lance had to smile wryly. "It's alright, buddy. Let's just go... home," for lack of a better term.
Keith nodded and then his face disappeared from Lance's screen again. But the red lion turned around and set a course for the Castleship.
"Like I said, there is a ninety-eight point four percent chance that your friend is dead. Continuing this task is an exercise in futility," Slav ducked back behind his chair even before Pidge threw her wrench at him, as if he had known that would happen.
"Shut up and get back to helping me!" Pidge shouted, picking up another tool to hurl at him.
"Woah, woah! Pidge. Put the screwdriver down," Lance got in Pidge's line of fire.
"Lance? You're back!" Pidge temporarily forgot her current vexation. "Did you bring Keith?"
"Yes, I brought Keith. I even made sure Coran was waiting for him when he docked his lion. After fourteen and a half hours of flying, I only really came to check on your progress. In case Mullet-head decides to yell at me again, I need information to yell back at him," Lance explained wearily.
Pidge turned angry again. "Well, I'm sure we'd be making plenty of progress if that slug stopped avoiding work!" She winded up her arm again like she was about to throw the screwdriver. "Move out of my way Lance, he's had this coming for a while now!"
"No, no. No, no." Lance went and grabbed the projectile from her hand.
"Hey," she whined.
"Even if he deserves it, you shouldn't let him goad you. I'll try, okay?"
Pidge let herself fall back into her chair in a dramatic manner. They had been working in the green lion's hanger to keep the mess of scrap metal and robotic parts somewhat contained. Lance had been nice enough to keep from disturbing Pidge as much as possible by handling most of the distress signals by himself or having Hunk help him. Honestly though, Pidge could use a break from Slav. Lance would keep that in mind whenever they received another distress signal.
"Fine, do what you want," Pidge waved Lance off as she hung her head over the back of her chair. Somehow, she seemed to sink further into it.
Lance walked carefully over to where Slav was hiding. He didn't know what he could get yelled at for stepping on.
"What is it you want?" Slav asked as he approached in the clipped accented way of his.
"Slav, you like Shiro, don't you?" Lance began.
"Like? Like?! This Shiro of yours is most likely dead in this reality. It is not a matter of liking or disliking!" Slav widened his eyes dramatically to put punch in the word dead. "We are wasting resources that could be used to save us in at least forty thousand different scenarios!"
Pidge groaned and flipped around on her chair so that the front of her neck was now hanging over the back.
"Okay, but for the sake of argument, you like Shiro, don't you? He did break you out of Galra prison," Lance enticed him into answering.
Slav squinted a him. "What is your point?" he said quickly, in a low tone.
"My point is, you thought it was nearly impossible not to die that day and yet Shiro got you out. You owe him for that, he didn't give up on you even when you caused him a lot of trouble."
"Caused him trouble?! I saved us both from meeting a terrible end countless times that day!" Slav crossed two sets of his arms and turned his head away from Lance.
"As I was saying," Lance continued anyway. "You owe Shiro. Think about what a bad omen you'd have hanging over you if you didn't try your best to help him, even if the chances are low."
"Nice try, but statistical realities don't account for omens, good or bad," Slav made various hand gestures when explaining to him.
Pidge groaned again.
"But karma!" Slav pointed a finger to the ceiling. "Karma is very real, and so for the sake of karma, I will continue to help with this juvenile task."
"What?!" Pidge squeaked in outraged as she bolted up from her chair.
"I said I would help. It is irrational to react this way," Slav recrossed his sets of arms at her.
Pidge took a deep breath as she wiped her hand slowly down her face.
"Pidge," Lance chided. "Don't touch your face like that, you'll break out."
Pidge looked to Lance. "How Lance? How do you do it?"
Lance grinned wolfishly, "I'm just good with people."
Pidge took that as a challenge and grinned back, "If you're so good with people, I should tell Coran to appoint you the official Keith-Magic-Charm! Anytime he goes off to do something stupid, oh look! We have something for that! Just send Lance after him!"
Lance's grin fell. "You would not."
"I don't know. You did bring Keith back from who knows where. I think you have a calling."
"Slav is way easier to deal with than Keith is!"
"Are you two going to stand around talking all day or are you going to work on this futile project?" Slav interjected as he was sifting through a pile of what looked like junk, throwing things over his shoulder every now and then.
Pidge sighed again. "Fine, we're working together again. Don't expect me to forget when you threw that sheet metal at me!"
"He what?!"
Lance instinctively went through Blue's pre-flight sequence as he was getting ready to leave her hanger with her. He didn't know what every pushed button or flipped switch did in this process, he just knew what needed to be done to get her flying smoothly. After months of flying her, Blue hardly did anything for him anymore, trusting him to know what to do when and how to treat her well. But Lance was tried right now. He was going back out with her again after only fours hours of being back from getting Keith. Unwise? Yes. But Lance had been hiding how tired he was pretty well. And besides, there was something about being connecting with Blue that gave Lance energy again. So as soon as the light on his dash lit up indicating the lion's intercom system was connected, he had Blue send a signal to Green.
"Alright Pidge, Hunk's cookies are in the oven so let's crush this mission so we can get back and stuff our faces!"
Pidge responded right away. "I'll amen to that!" and they were off.
They passed through the portal Allura had opened for them and exited in the vicinity of a planet identified as Durra. As per the plan, Lance headed straight for the planet, guns blazing, shooting at the invading Galra forces while Pidge went the more covert route and only got closer once she had cloaked the green lion.
There was a single battleship in orbit with many fighter ships on their way to enter the atmosphere. Several uniform ships of a configuration and colors Lance had never seen before were attempting to fend off the Galra fighters but they were outnumbered.
Lance covered the alien ships, shooting at the Galra and taking shots aimed at them so that they would know he was there to help them. The fighter ships didn't have powerful enough weapons to do anything but shake him up, it was the battleship with its ion canon that he had to worry about.
"Lance, I think you should hear this." Pidge did something that let Lance hear static from some type of transmission. "They just talked about seeing the blue lion."
"Copy. Confirmed." Lance heard between static.
"Woah, Pidge, what did you do? What was that?"
"That, Lance, was a Galra transmission. You didn't seriously think I could go two weeks working with Slav on signal transmissions and not trick Green out, did you?" Pidge was audibly smirking.
Lance shook his head, "By no means, my genius friend." Lance gasped as he had to suddenly dodge a blast from the ion canon.
"Still no sign of the red or black lions."
"Confirmed."
"Inform the Commander."
"Copy. Confirmed."
"Lance! Be careful where you're flying! That shot almost hit the planet!" Pidge shouted in alarm.
"I know, I saw that. Did you hear what they said?" Lance steered his lion to the side of the battleship and continued his assault from there.
"I heard it. They've noticed that Keith and Shiro haven't been around. I think they're trying to figure out what kind of damage we took. Just like we're trying to do with them."
Lance struggled to keep his eyes open as he worked through a yawn. He cut it short to steer clear of oncoming fire. He performed a barrel roll under the huge belly of the battleship and came out on the other side avoiding another shot from the deadly canon. He surprised two fighters by popping up behind them and destroying them before they could finish off the ship they were chasing.
"So are you saying I should bring Keith next time? We've been doing fine without backup. These missions have only been tiring, not super life threatening. Which means I'm sure Keith wouldn't be interested," Lance said a bit more bitterly than he had intended.
"You're right," Pidge pondered aloud.
Lance jolted Blue in his surprise but he didn't feel her expected annoyance. "I'm right?" he questioned.
"These battles have been tiring because they've been happening so often but they're relatively easy. They're more conservative than aggressive. I think they still seem organized, but... less confident?"
"Oh." It was probably for the best that Pidge ignored what he had said about Keith. "What does that mean?"
"It means—"
"Ion canon is charged. Ready to fire."
Lance moved Blue out of the way just in time, to the misfortune of the Galra fighter behind him.
"Why did I get a warning that time?" Lance spat out while he was being chased around the battleship.
"I can only pick up the transmissions I'm close enough to."
Lance's eyes suddenly blurred a little. He shook his head and blinked hard to try and get them to focus.
"I've gotten as much intel as I can now. Moving on to phase two. You won't hear from me for a while now," Pidge informed him before the comm went silent.
Sure, Lance might be having an issue with how tired he was, but the mission was still going as planned. Pidge would go to the surface of the planet and give tactical information to the Durran military so that they could start defending themselves effectively. All Lance had to do was keep the Galra occupied up in space. No problem. If Lance hadn't already finished them off by the time Pidge finished, she'd be there to help him. He just had to hold out.
His eyes cleared back up and he nosedived into a loop. Once the bellies of the three fighter ships following him were in his sights, he squeezed the trigger and his ray gun bisected them each in turn.
Lance felt himself beginning to sweat which was usual for him. He had no room to take a break but he did seek temporary refuge behind one of his new allies when he started getting a headache. The small ship fired on the oncoming fighter, taking many more shots than the lions would have needed. The yellow painted ship kept firing, unloading everything its arsenal had to offer even when the fighter started flying directly at it. It became a game of chicken until the yellow ship hit the Galra just right for the ship to explode with only meters between them. The debris impacted the little yellow ship and the blue lion, but it sent the little one spiraling.
Lance hadn't even seen it happen. He was busy smacking the top of his helmet and blinking hard again. "Come on, Lance! You're needed right now!" he told himself.
He knew they had taken out a good number of the fighters and they had caused enough destruction that the Galra were bound to react soon. He needed to focus on the battleship. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself awake and turned Blue's eyes toward the biggest threat.
He needed to get closer again. He weaved through the three dimensional battlefield fluidly, snake-like, trying to reach his target. He fired when a Galra fighter flew in his path but otherwise he left them to the yellow fleet that now had numbers over the Galra. His eyes were kept squinted looking for the signal. By the time he was close enough, he still had to destroy four more fighters and dodge the ion canon twice before the hanger doors to the battleship opened up ready to let more fighters join the fray. That's when Lance knew, their particle barrier would be down.
Blue shot to the front of the battleship, too close for Galran comfort, until Lance could see through the windows of the command center. Lance didn't have the time nor the desire to see if the Galra aboard realized what Lance had planned. He simply let his laser vaporize a cut through the front windows and the pillars of the battleship's bridge, expelling the personnel into the frosty void.
With no one to reactivate the particle barrier, Lance was left with however much time he wanted to take down their ion canon, but Lance needed no time at all. He took a single shot, straight down the barrel of the oversized weapon, and with the resulting explosion from where it was integrated into the ship, he was assured he had destroyed their last hope of using it against him.
Lance wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but his actions caused all the new fighter ships the go after him. He started to turn his lion away from the attack but suddenly Blue wouldn't move. Lance's eyes glazed over and his headache started shooting its pain in pulses.
"Huh? I'm too tired?" Lance slurred to himself. His thoughts were becoming foggy and everything seemed to be getting further away. Even his own head voice sounded like it was at the other end of an increasingly long tunnel.
He had just enough time to wonder if he was passing out to be jolted back to alertness at the shutter of Blue's haul as she was pelted by Galran plasma weapons. Lance re-gripped the controls he hadn't noticed he'd let go of and flew in a circle around the battleship trying to escape his relatively small pursuers.
Even with the particle barrier down, Lance was doubtful that he could destroy the whole ship on his own. If he were feeling better, perhaps he could do so, but at the moment he was starting to get a bit nauseous on top of everything. Why did going to work today have to be the worst decision he's made?
He kept circling and circling trying to think of a way out of this situation. He was losing focus too often to turn on them and shoot and the yellow ships that had survived were all busy still fighting. Eventually Blue slowed to a stop and as much as Lance tried to get her to move, she wouldn't respond to him. At this point, Lance was sweating buckets. Usually Blue's presence kept him feeling cool, he never sweat inside her, especially not like this. He was beginning to feel his consciousness dim again.
"What's happening Blue?" Lance tried her controls again. "Are you sick? I am sick? Are we both sick?" Lance barely had the energy to form words. "Why aren't you listening to me?"
Lance was about to ask if she was mad at him when he had a sudden realization, seemingly from no where, that the Galra fighters had broken off their pursuit. He looked out to finally notice himself bathed in purple light.
"Oh. Tractor beam."
"Lance! Lance! Laaaaaance!"
"Wha? Why are you yelling?" Lance said groggily. He felt like he had just woken up after a particularly bad night of sleep.
"I destroyed their tractor beam, why aren't you moving?! Are you hurt? Do I need to come in there and help you?!" Pidge continued to yell with urgent concern.
Lance finally gained awareness of his situation and sat up properly in his pilot chair. He felt no real injuries. He still had a headache but his vision was clear and he was fully alert again. Lance lifted his helmet off and felt like he could breathe. His suit had gotten humid with all of his sweat. He took hold of Blue's controls but nothing happened.
Lance felt himself sweat even more. "I don't know what's wrong. Blue's not responding to me."
"Something's wrong with her?"
"I guess?" Lance said without any confidence. "I can't feel her like usual."
"Okay, hold on! The Durrans have just about finished off the fighters, I think with their help I can destroy the battleship. I'll keep an eye on Blue!" Pidge presumably left Lance's side to rejoin the fray.
Lance was blind. The screen in front of him was dark and sound waves don't travel where there aren't enough particles to carry a wave. He almost wished the battle was taking place a little closer to the planet. Just in the upper atmosphere so that he could hear the explosions taking place, hear if shots were near or far. Almost, but that wouldn't be fair to the Durrans now would it? He was in a box. He was in a box waiting for Pidge to come and get him. If Lance were claustrophobic this would be a nightmare. But the nightmare he was facing was something deeply more personal to him. He felt alone. He never wanted to be alone. Alone was dangerous, alone was too quiet, alone meant he couldn't distract himself. Maybe everyone likes Lance, but Lance, himself.
"Woo-hoo!" Pidge's shout startled Lance. She had done it. The battle was over.
Thank goodness! He could get out of here soon! He'd never wanted to get out of Blue before.
"Lance, we did it!" she cheered.
"That's great! And the Durrans? They were nice to you?"
"Lance! Seriously, don't worry so much about me. They're very... yellow," she chose her words carefully.
Lance had to chuckle. So that's why they liked yellow.
"How are we getting you home? You still can't move Blue?"
"No, I can't even see out of her view screen."
"Uh-oh. I'll call Hunk and have him help me tow you. I don't think Green can do it on her own."
"No! Don't call Hunk! I don't want to bother him with this."
"Okay, then I'll call Keith."
"Don't! Pidge, please, please Pidge! Do not call Keith. Keith cannot see me like this!" She knew that was all she had to say. Why was she like this?
"Okay, then Hunk it is. I'm serious Lance, there's no way I'm making Green drag your fat ass and Blue back with her."
"Okay, fine... call Hunk," Lance submitted to her will only ignoring her insult because what she failed to realize was that it was actually a compliment. Once Lance slightly altered the phrasing in his mind, this is.
"I'll tell Hunk to bring the cookies," Pidge grinned.
"Hunk and fresh cookies? That'll be just enough to put me to sleep."
A/N: Thank you guys so much for showing an interest in this story, it means a lot to me! I hope you guys continue to enjoy this story. I plan on trying to update it pretty regularly :)