"Alright," Allura looked around the table now that their whole crew (minus Slav, but who knows where he could be) were finally in the same room together. Considering this hadn't happened in a few weeks, it was a big deal. "Now that we're all finally together we can talk about finding a pilot for the black lion."
Everyone was either fidgeting or avoiding looking at each other. Lance, however, kept glancing at Keith who was staring deadeyed at the table. He really didn't look good. His hair looked lifeless and dull, his skin looked too dry and tired, and his eyes had dark circles around them.
"Does anyone have any ideas?" Allura tried.
They all sat contemplating in one way or another.
"I know it's difficult to compare anyone with Shiro, so don't try to think of someone exactly like him. Just think of the qualities Shiro possesses that are most important to you and maybe we'll have a candidate," Allura attempted to give the others a sense of what she would be looking for. Since she apparently didn't know Shiro as well as she thought she had, she herself couldn't give very many specifics. It's not like Zarkon's personality really helped with this.
After several minutes of thinking and of Allura watching everyone to make sure they were actually thinking instead of just avoiding the situation, Pidge raised her hand nervously.
Everyone but Keith looked to her. "There was the military leader on Durra that I met. He had some Shiro-like qualities. ...I think," she clarified.
"Who was he exactly?" Allura asked.
"I think he was the Captain of their Armed Forces. He wasn't the planet's leader, I didn't meet whoever that was. I think his name was Captain Worsh. He was the one who answered my hail and agreed to let me help them. He also was the one I gave the tactical information to."
"I see. What was he like?"
"Um... very yellow?"
Everyone but Lance gave a confused expression.
"What? It's the first thing you notice when you see a Durran! They're bright yellow and they look sort of like jello, but not. They have a defined shape and they're opaque but they've got that shininess that jello has and they look really squishy."
"Like silly putty?" Lance asked.
"Sort of, but a brighter, shinier yellow."
"Cool!"
"Is this really relevant?" Allura interrupted.
"It could be relevant if it's really distracting. How will we concentrate during meetings if our temp-leader's shiny yellowness is too blindingly magnificent?" Lance said like he was making a solid point.
Pidge, Hunk and even Coran all laughed at that. Lance grinned from ear to ear but when he looked back at Keith it wavered.
"Blindingly magnificent?" Hunk kept laughing. "Hey Pidge, if he's like jello, imagine if he could absorb punches, or if he could get shot straight through and just shoop!" Hunk demonstrated by making a hole with his hand and then making the hole disappear.
"That would be awesome!" she giggled.
"The only down side I see is that yellow is kinda already my thing."
"Eh-em!" Allura cleared her throat and after seeing her completely unamused look, they all shut up promptly. "What is the man actually like?" she asked tersely.
Pidge let herself be serious again. "Once I got there with the information to help them fight, he insisted on leading their troops into battle personally, apparently against their protocols and the wishes of the other officers at their intel base. He covered me when I saved Lance from a tractor beam and he helped me destroy the Galra battleship."
Allura may have looked quite impressed.
"I'd say those are some good base qualifications," Coran encouraged.
"Alright," Allura conceded. "He can be a possibility. Durra is about two quintents away. When we get there, if Captain Worsh is interested, Keith and I will conduct an interview."
"If you open a portal we could be there today," Pidge pointed out.
"Yes, but..." Allura glanced at Keith but then tried to pretend like she hadn't. "Flying there at a normal pace should hopefully gives us some more time to rest."
"Right," Pidge said, trying not to let her concern be noticed.
"Are there any other ideas for candidates?" Allura continued.
After looking to see if anyone else would say something, Hunk spoke up. "Princess," he got her attention. "This might not be my place to say anything, but is there any reason you couldn't pilot the black lion?"
Allura's mouth dropped open at the suggestion.
"Hear me out! The rest of us already know you and trust you. We already share a bond and you've been leading us outside of Voltron since this whole thing started for us. I'm just saying that it would probably be a lot easier to transition to following you than it would be to follow a stranger no matter how good they sound on paper."
"I..." Allura looked down at her hands resting on the table. It's not that she didn't want to, but she had her doubts about her true compatibility with the black lion. The other thing was, she and Voltron as a whole, or maybe it was the universe or the prophets or something, were not on good terms with each other right now. She wanted this, but if she hadn't been chosen before Shiro, why would she be chosen now?
"Princess," Coran got her to look at him. "You've been raised to lead since the quintent you were born. Perhaps you leading this team is not meant to be, but if you never try, you certainly never will. Sometimes answering the call is all we can do."
Allura held Coran's eyes for several seconds before deciding.
"I will ask the black lion if he will have me, but if the answer is no, we should all continue looking for someone else." Allura stood signalling that their short meeting was adjourned.
Before any of the others moved, Hunk asked, "Do you want us to come with you?"
She paused. "I'm not... sure."
"We'd be right behind you," Hunk offered.
Allura thought and, realizing she was scared, she nodded minutely.
Everyone but Keith stood and they followed Allura out the door with the exception of Lance who lingered by the table.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
Keith shook his head and then folded his arms over the table and rested his face on them.
Lance frowned deeply. "You really don't look good. You look more tired than I did the last time we saw each other."
Keith said nothing and gave no sign at all that he had heard Lance.
"Hey! Keith!" Lance called to him like an alarm clock. When he still got no response he walked around the table and pulled out the chair next to him. He grabbed Keith's head and rolled it so that he could see his face. Keith only squinted at him. "Not in peak condition, huh?"
Keith only blinked to show Lance that he wouldn't let him patronize him.
"Okay, okay. Can't sleep?" he asked.
Keith shook his head again.
"Why not?"
Keith took a while to answer. "Nightmares."
"Oh." It made sense that even Keith would have nightmares sometimes. And with everything they've been through recently, Lance shouldn't be surprised but he still wouldn't have imagined this being the problem. Not in a million years. Keith was too Keith for nightmares. At least, that was Lance's perception. "What about?" he was intimately curious.
Keith looked like he wanted to hide his face again, or maybe the bright Castle lights were bothering his eyes, Lance couldn't tell which.
"About Shiro."
"Oh." Lance was very eloquent today. But now things made a lot more sense to him. If Keith couldn't sleep because of Shiro then Keith wouldn't rest until he scoured every corner and dark hidden spot in the universe looking for him. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked tentatively.
Keith let out a huff of air. "You know, you being this nice to me only reminds me of why things are so different now."
"Don't point it out, it's already difficult enough with my knowing I'm being nice to you. But even I can't kick a wolf cub when he's down, so I won't stop until you start smiling again. Or, wait. Did you ever smile before this? I honestly can't remember!"
The corner of Keith's mouth quirked up ever so slightly, but it was enough for Lance to grow a full-blown smile. Still, Lance was smart enough not to get ahead of himself, so he didn't try pushing Keith any further.
"Maybe you should try sleeping with someone else around. I sometimes get nightmares when I feel like I'm alone. Probably a consequence of sharing a room growing up, but if it helps me, it could help you."
"I don't think that's a good idea. If I wake up from a nightmare and see someone there, I might kill them."
"I know how to defend myself."
"I sleep with my Marmora blade."
"So I can sleep in my armor."
Keith sat himself up. "You're volunteering? Why?"
Lance had to look away. He didn't know entirely why, he knew half the reason but there was still this other half that he didn't have access to. "It would benefit me as well. If I sleep in the same room as someone else, I'm less likely to have nightmares too," he explained.
Keith was silent for so long that Lance decided to look back at him to see what he was doing. He wasn't staring at Lance like Lance had feared, he was staring off into space clearly deep in thought.
"Keith?"
Keith looked over at his name.
"You don't have to, I was just trying to think of ways to help."
Keith held his gaze in an intense way that made Lance nervous. "You'll regret it if I keep waking you up."
The beating of Lance's heart was finally able to slow back down. "I'm fully rested right now and you're exhausted, so you can nap while I find something to entertain myself."
"Like what?"
That was it! Lance had figured out something brilliant! A truly exhausted Keith, once you got him past the angry at everything phase, was much more compliant than regular Keith. Lance would have to remember this, he considered it his own top secret Keith knowledge.
"I don't know, maybe I could draw. I haven't drawn something in years, it could be fun!"
Keith blinked tiredly and then let out a yawn.
"Come on, buddy," Lance stood and held out his hand for Keith. "We can go to your room if you want."
Keith nodded and then placed his wrist in Lance's hand. Lance was a little confused at first until Keith tried to get up and Lance had to grab Keith under the armpit to get him standing. No wonder he hadn't moved when the others were leaving, Keith was running on fumes.
"You know, as much as carrying you to bed would let me tease you for the rest of your life, you're really heavy when you're practically dead weight," Lance struggled trying to hold him up.
"I can walk," Keith tried to shove him away but only caused himself to nearly fall in the other direction. Lance caught him and with exertion, pulled one of Keith's arms over his shoulders and braced him with a hand on his far side.
"How long has it been since you last slept?" Lance asked between deep breaths. Keith was barely putting any effort into helping Lance keep him standing.
"Since Hunk made that weird cake-thing," he mumbled.
Lance did some quick counting in his head. "That was thirteen days ago!"
Yelling in his ear seemed to jolt Keith back to him. He stood up straighter and was almost holding himself up on his own. He glared at Lance but then looked to think about something.
"I thought that was six days ago."
Lance took that in for all of about two seconds. "Alright! Sleepy time, let's go, let's go!" He started half dragging Keith until Keith registered Lance's marching orders and lifted up a foot about every other step.
"From now on you will sleep when I tell you to and you will stay asleep until I give you permission to wake up! Am I understood?" Lance ordered.
Keith nodded and Lance was sure Keith no longer knew what was going on.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The blaring alarm and the blinding red flashing broke the peace of the tranquil Castle.
"Paladins! Get to your lions!" The Castle shook suddenly throwing everyone on board off their feet as something impacted the haul. "I've just raised the particle barrier! I'll need each of you ready to provide cover fire once I let you all out!" Allura's voice could be heard echoing in every hall.
Allura waited for the others to take action as she took the helm of the ship and began searching for something to inspire a plan.
"I'm ready!" Pidge called into the mic in her helmet.
"Is anyone else in their lion yet?" Allura asked their general comm. She could look for cover to pilot the Castleship to so that she could let the team out safely. Coran came sprinting through the doors to reach his station and began firing on as many Galran ships as he could manage.
"I'm almost to mine! I was with Pidge in Green's hanger!" Hunk answered as he hiked the ramp into Yellow. "I'm ready!" he called after flinging himself into his seat.
"Keith, Lance! I'm sorry Keith, I know you're tired but there are a lot of Galra out there! I'll need your help! Are you near?" Allura spoke quickly.
Allura dodged the best she could as a battleship suddenly appeared from somewhere far out in space.
"Princess! I'm not sure we'll be able to handle this without Voltron! We should aim to retreat!" Coran advised as he focused the Castle's fire on the battleship.
"With the four of them working together we can do this! We need to make a stand and win so that the Galra don't know about our weakened state!" She spotted an opportunity, they were close to a planet in the system they had been passing through.
"Keith? Lance?" Allura tried for them again.
"Hunk, do you know where Lance was?" Pidge asked.
"I haven't seen him since yesterday!"
Allura quickly checked one of her panels. "The red and blue lions are inactive, you'll need to start without them! I'm taking us around a moon, when I say so, I'll need you both to exit your hangers! Do it as quickly as possible so that I can reinitialise the particle barrier!"
"Got it!" Pidge and Hunk confirmed together.
Allura increased her speed to outrun the swarming ships and adjusted her flight vector, ready to slingshot around the nearest gravitational well.
"We're not pulling far enough ahead!" Coran warned.
"I'll get us the space!" Allura aimed the Castle even closer to the moon, making the whole ship rattle as the gravity pulled them along faster. Allura and Coran held onto their stations to keep themselves from going flying.
Squinting at the display in front of her, she waited until the pursuing ships were just out of sight over the moons horizon. Still holding on tight to her console, she reached to put in the sequence to let down the barrier.
"Now!" she yelled as she pushed the final button.
"Shiro! We need to run now!" Keith grabbed Lance's arm again and pulled him toward his side preventing Lance from picking up his helmet again.
Lance went back to trying to snap Keith out of whatever was happening to him. "Keith, I'm not Shiro, I'm Lance! Remember Lance?" he got in front of Keith's face and tried to get him to look at his face. Keith's eyes weren't focused on anything in the room, he was either sleep-fighting or hallucinating. Not good. "I'm your rival. I shoot things, you cut things, remember?"
Keith acted like he spotted something over Lance's shoulder, something that made him terrified.
"Shiro! Get down!" Keith screamed as he pushed Lance to the floor and covered him with his own body.
"Keith! There's no one here but us!" Lance yelled from underneath him. "We have to defend the Castle! We need to get to our lions!"
Keith steadily lifted himself until he was hovering over Lance and he looked around the room as if an enemy would appear. He seemed to think the coast was clear as he got up in a crouch and helped Lance into the same position, his eyes still scanning around the room. He had Lance's hand and he wasn't letting go of it.
"Keith, do you know where we are?" Lance asked cautiously.
Keith crept to the door, pulling Lance with him. The door slid open at their approach and Keith looked both ways.
"Come on," Keith stood with a stance ready to spring into action. "We're getting out of here."
Lance pulled Keith back down toward him and held both sides of his face to force Keith to really look at him. "Keith. I'm not Shiro. You're in the Castle of Lions, no one's on the ship, we're all safe right now," he said with a set brow. A complete lie, but the battle going on outside the Castle was not the one Keith was facing right now.
Keith took Lance's hands and held them to his cheeks. He was looking right into Lance's eyes and he had an expression that Lance could only recognize as love.
"Don't worry, I'm going to save you," he said with a sad earnestness that made it a promise.
Lance's lips parted as he took in Keith's expression. He realized this expression wasn't meant for him and he retracted his hands from Keith's face with a sense of guilt.
"Keith," he made a pleading sound, begging Keith to stop giving him that look.
He didn't have to. The ship suddenly threw them both to the side and didn't stop pulling. Lance caught the door frame and held on to keep himself from hitting the wall. Keith was lucky enough to be in the door frame so he braced himself with his back against the side they were being pulled to and his leg on the other. Lance's fingers were stuck between Keith's back and the frame and it was getting painful. Keith looked over his shoulder to see where he had gone and then looked alarmed as Lance gritted his teeth and shut his eyes at the strain. Taking no more of this, Keith grabbed one of Lance's arms and used all his strength to pull Lance up until their arms were locked between their chests. They clung to each other as the ship continued to try and separate them for what felt like way too long.
When the ship finally let go, their arms were tired and Lance had trouble releasing Keith from his grip. Keith, however, inspected Lance's fingers immediately. All but his thumbs were still red from being squashed.
"We have to figure out what happened. Come on, Keith, our friends need us," Lance ignored his fingers and tried to get Keith to stand.
Keith looked behind Lance and his eyes widened. "NO!" he cried as he pulled Lance to the side and shielded him with his whole body. His body shook twice and he screamed in pain.
"Did you just hallucinate being shot?!" Lance turned livid. Why was Keith having to go through something like this?! This wasn't fair at all!
Keith growled like an angry wolf and turned, pulling out his Marmora blade. It grew until and resembled a sword, gleaming black and purple.
"Keith!"
He started swinging the blade at the imaginary enemies surrounding him.
"Keith!" Lance called again.
"Stay back! You're hurt!" Keith shouted as he cut a long, jagged slice in the hallway wall.
Lance needed this to stop now. He was done with this.
Letting out a battle cry in his frustration, he rushed Keith and drove him into the wall. He kept his knee between Keith's legs and his shoulder between Keith's shoulder blades to kept him in place while he pinned Keith's dominant arm to the wall. As Keith struggled trying to shove Lance off, Lance hit Keith's hand, crushing it against the wall until he dropped the sword. There was a moment where Lance thought he could handle things from here but Keith got just enough leverage to push them both off the wall so that they fell to the floor. Keith had fallen on top of Lance, Lance knew he was in danger. As Keith flipped around Lance reached for the sword on instinct. It shrunk back into a knife as soon as he grasped it and when Keith saw it in his hand, his fury turned on Lance. Keith knocked Lance's arm away when he raised it to defend himself and pinned Lance's head to the floor with a hand over his face. Keith grabbed the knife, blade side digging into his hand and recoiled when he bled.
"Ah!" Keith cradled his wound, sitting up over Lance's legs.
Noticing the change, Lance pulled Keith's hand to look at the bleeding. He had one cut across his four fingers and one deep in his palm having gone straight through his glove.
"Lance? Where's..." Keith looked around and then remembered this reality.
"Keith, we've gotta go. The Castle's under attack and the others are already out there," Lance spoke with finality that expressed his anger. He wasn't angry at Keith, but he couldn't control the way he spoke to him right now. "If I go now, will you be able to get into your armor and make it to Red?" he asked.
Keith took his hand back from Lance and put pressure on the bleeding by squeezing it. "I can," Keith responded in kind with a short, bitter sound, not understanding Lance's hostility.
Lance could tell he was going to resent himself for this later. "This is yours," he handed the knife over. He stood, entered Keith's room to gather his helmet and ran for the blue lion's hanger, seething as he passed Keith by.
A/N: I decided to split what I originally had planned for this chapter into two parts because I realized that it would be way too long otherwise. This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but the next one should be nice and long for you guys. We'll pick up right where we left off!