"I thought for sure you'd ride with Hunk," Pidge commented after an extremely long stretch of silence.
Here we go again, Lance thought. "I dealt with you badgering me yesterday, I can deal with you again today, but if I see Hunk look at me with that kicked puppy look there's no way I'll last. If I only hear his voice, I'll be fine."
Hunk's face suddenly appeared on Pidge's screen giving him that very look.
"Agh! Nope! Not fair!" Lance shielded his eyes and backed himself into the rear of the cockpit. They were out again to get more ore since the inhabitants of the planet they went to yesterday were only willing to trade them so much. Hunk had decided to come along too, probably because he was worried about Lance.
Pidge sighed. "We're just worried about you." Yep, there it was.
"I know," Lance didn't argue.
"And you seem less... upset than you were yesterday," she tried to pick the right word.
"I am," he confirmed.
"So you'll talk to us and tell us what's going on?" she asked.
"No."
Pidge sighed even more exasperatedly. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
"Yeah, Lance, this could be your only opportunity to talk to us without being overheard or interrupted for a while. And it's just us, buddy," Hunk encouraged.
That was the thing, Lance wasn't sure. Yesterday, he was still so angry that he knew he didn't want to talk about anything, but today? Things were different than they were yesterday, but he was still trying to figure it out himself. But if he were honest with himself, what would he do in space without these two?
He slowly looked up and saw that Hunk was still watching him with concern. Like he had predicted, it was too much.
"Fine, but I still don't want to talk about everything."
Pidge and Hunk both made relieved sounds.
"So is the reason you're not flying Blue really because you flew Red?" Hunk started where he thought Lance would.
That was definitely not where Lance would have started. But then again, how would he tell them the real reason he was mad without telling them things about Keith that Keith probably wouldn't want them, or anyone for that matter, to know? So maybe this was the least worst place to start after all.
Lance thought for a while about what to say.
"Lance?" Pidge questioned when he took too long to sound normal.
"I'll answer, I just..." he trailed off and then sighed. "Yes, I flew the red lion."
"Wow. How did that happen?" Pidge asked. It sounded like she was trying not to give a big reaction; her tone was neutral.
"My shuttle was half destroyed and I got sucked into space. Before I knew it, the red lion had swallowed me and I thought Keith had saved me but... he wasn't there. It was empty," he admitted to them.
"And then you flew her?" Hunk asked.
"Yeah. Very briefly."
"Did you... feel a connection?" he continued to probe.
Oh, boy did Lance not want to think about that. Had he? "I think so."
"So is that why you've been so... angry? Because you don't have your connection with Blue anymore?" Hunk was so gentle about it, but Lance still felt his heart sting.
"No!" Lance started. "Well, yes, but that's not most of it."
"What do you mean?" Pidge asked and then she looked over her shoulder and saw that Lance was still way in the back of her cockpit. "Lance, get back up here," she ordered.
Lance came up next to her seat and sat down so that he could lean his back against the white and black chair. "I've been angry because..." he thought about how to put it. "I don't know! It's just—" he drew his knees up and massaged his temples. "Keith flew the black lion," he finally told them.
"What?" Pidge asked. Her voice sounded steady but her grip on Green's controls tighten.
"Does that mean...?" there was a lot of anxiety in Hunk's voice.
"But that happened after Keith's already been put through too much. It isn't fair! Keith was already stressed out of his mind and then he starts hallucinating because he hadn't slept in two weeks and now I've stolen Red from him and then this!" Lance pulled at his hair as his anger resurfaced.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on! Are you saying that—" Hunk tried to get a clear answer.
"Yes!" Lance bursted out. Tears started springing from his eyes. "It means we're never going to find Shiro because Shiro isn't anywhere we can find! It means Shiro's dead and that's it!" Lance hugged himself tightly around the knees. "I've been trying not to think about it because this reality sucks! Why did Shiro have to leave us?! I'm so mad at Shiro because he's gone and he left us all behind to deal and I'm so mad at myself for being mad at Shiro! Up until last night I thought Keith would be handling this worse than me but now I don't know anymore! I think it's somehow unfair that I'm still so upset even though Keith seems to be handling this way better than he should be. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now." He finished by burying his face in his knees to make it less obvious that he was crying.
After a moment, "Why didn't you tell us?!" Pidge sounded pissed.
It was so beyond what Lance had expected that he forgot he was trying to hide his tears and looked over his shoulder at her. She was looking right at him with set brows and a glare that could kill, but tears were streaming down her face as well. And that's when it dawned on Lance. Oh, shit!
Lance scrambled up to attend to her. "Pidge, I'm sorry! I— I wasn't thinking—"
"Yeah, you're right!" she swatted his hands away. "You really weren't thinking! How could you keep something like that from us, Lance?!"
"I wasn't trying to keep that from you. When I was avoiding talking to you, I didn't think through what that meant. I swear it wasn't on purpose!"
"So that gives you an excuse to act like an ass?!"
"Pidge, you don't have to yell at Lance," Hunk told her. His face was just as wet as theirs were and he couldn't stop sniffling. He was clearly trying to keep it as much together as possible. Both lions had stopped dead in space.
Lance felt double the guilt upon seeing Hunk crying and he rushed to apologize to him. "Hunk, I'm so sorry. I—"
"Why shouldn't I yell at him?!" Pidge's voice overshadowed his. "He's known our friend was dead for a couple days and he said nothing! We have just as much a right to know as any of the others!"
"You're not wrong but this is hard for all of us. You can't expect Lance or anyone to act normally right now." Hunk was still trying to control himself but it seemed he might have been losing as he took off his helmet to scrub at his eyes.
"Hard for all of us?!" Pidge turned back on Lance. "Do you even know what we were doing after we escaped the Galra?"
Lance didn't know so he didn't answer.
"While you were off, what? feeling sorry for yourself? we spent hours sealing off the outside of the ship where a whole chunk was blown off so that we could re-compress that part of the ship and assess the damage from the inside. We were all wondering where you, Keith and Allura were because we didn't see any of you until the next day! You know what I did the rest of that day? I kept getting distracted worrying about you guys while I was trying to make sure our repair attempts didn't blow up the rest of the ship!"
Lance didn't know what to say. He knew the ship needed repairs but he didn't know all that that entailed, it wasn't his expertise. He wouldn't have been much help even if he had been there.
Pidge glared at him, waiting for him to give any sort of response at all. Before Lance could come up with something to say, she became overwhelmed by her emotions and hid her face as she let out a true sob.
"Lance, it's okay. She knows you're hurt as much as she is. She won't be as mad tomorrow," Hunk promised.
Lance's eyes spilled over even more tears at seeing her like this. He had never seen her cry before. Pidge always let her determination to make things better lead her to solutions, but there wasn't a solution this time.
He went to gently put his hand on her shoulder again to try and comfort her. She batted his hand away more viciously this time.
"Where were you?!" she asked with more hurt than hatred.
He knew that the truth could sound like an excuse but what else could he say? "I was trying to keep Keith from bleeding out while he cried and attempting to convince Allura to leave Keith long enough to get her head injury healed."
Accepting that for what it was, Pidge looked away from him with a scowl on her face. She sniffled and tried to stop herself from crying and then grabbed Green's controls and turned her around.
"We're going back," she said with finality.
"Woah, woah, woah! Pidge, we can't just go back," Hunk sped Yellow around her to block her way.
She had the courtesy to stop for him instead of just flying under or over him. "Why not? We should be with the others, we need to do something."
"Like what?" Hunk asked.
"I don't know! We should all be together, plan a funeral, just something," her tears started spilling over again.
"You're right, we should do those things, but the Castle isn't safe in its current condition. We need this ore so that we can finish fixing the ship. The Castle isn't moving anywhere until we do," Hunk reasoned.
"I know, Hunk, but—" she couldn't finish her sentence as she hung her head and cried even harder.
Both boys seemed at a loss for words. Lance stood over her, worrying but he didn't touch her and Hunk continued sniffling and wiping at his eyes. They both waited until Pidge started to calm down.
"Come on," Hunk encouraged. "We'll get our work done and when we get back, I'll make some food and we can all eat together."
Pidge nodded her head gently. "Okay," she agreed. She turned Green back around and they started heading back toward their original destination.
They were silent for a long time.
"Are Allura and Keith okay? They were injured?" Pidge asked quietly.
At first Lance wasn't sure she had really said anything, but after a moment of not hearing anything, Pidge turned to look at him.
"Oh. Uh, Allura eventually went into a healing pod, so her head injury is fine now. Keith, of course, refused. He has some deep cuts on his hand and fingers and he had lost a lot of blood. After some convincing he let Allura put this paste stuff on it and I wrapped it up for him." Lance scratched the back of his head. "I think he'll be okay, Allura wouldn't have been satisfied if that stuff she'd put on him wouldn't take care of it."
"But you said he was hallucinating," Pidge remembered.
Right. "That happened before he cut his hand. Besides, he said he can sleep now." Lance was trying not to worry her.
Looking back ahead, she didn't respond for a while. "Okay," was all she said.
There was another long silence. The three of them had known each other for a long time now, but Lance had never made Pidge quite so angry before and he didn't know how to deal with it. He was sure Hunk had never seen Pidge so angry before either. It was a blessing that Hunk wasn't mad at him too. Lance believed what Hunk had said earlier, that Pidge would be a lot less angry tomorrow, but that didn't change how tense he felt now.
He went and sat with his back against the back of Pidge's chair for the rest of their trip. It was best to just let everything be.
Lance banged jovially on the metal door, slipping the stolen key card through the slot and barging in. "Okay! New kid!"
A very small boy with a mop of mess brown hair screeched in fright at the intrusion.
"If we're going to be on a team, we need to get to know each other! And what better way to do that than by sneaking out?!" Lance announced.
The small boy's fright immediately turned into anger. "Shhh!" he marched up to Lance and got in his face. "Don't say something like that in my room! You could get me expelled!" he said through tightly gritted teeth.
"That's what I was trying to tell him!" Hunk called a bit meekly from the doorway. He wasn't quite willing to commit to entering another man's room without his permission like Lance was.
Lance looked from the angry little gremlin in front of him to the half packed backpack he had dropped when Lance had scared him.
"So are you going to tell me that you weren't planning on doing just that which could get you expelled?" Lance asked coyly.
The boy rushed to zip his backpack up and hide the contents from view. Lance was of course curious about the bag, but he could settle for something else if the boy was willing to go along with him.
"So how about this, I won't tell anyone that you were planning on sneaking out if you sneak out with Hunk and I," he offered generously.
The boy glared at him. "You can't be serious. With you two idiots we'd all get caught. I'm not risking my spot at this school and you can't blackmail me into anything."
Lance quickly analyzed how to play his cards. "No blackmail, alright?" Lance held up his hands. "You'll be our communications officer though. You've been assigned to our team, if you didn't know." He pointed to Hunk who waved. "I noticed you were a new student, so I've tracked you down, stolen one of the master key cards and came here at risk to myself and my best friend all for the purpose taking you off campus to get some real food."
The boy looked at him like he was positively insane. "What? Why?"
"Because!" he point a finger toward the ceiling like he was about to say something that warranted absolute focus. "Food is the best way to make friends!"
The boy blinked. "Yeah, you're verifiably insane," he said out loud what he had been thinking.
"He could be insane."
"Hey!"
"But he does have a point. The food here isn't very good. You can find a lot better in town," Hunk vouched (sort of) for him.
The boy looked between the two of them with a raised eyebrow. "You're not gonna leave unless I come with you, are you?"
Lance walked to the boy's bed and sat himself on it with crisscrossed legs. "Nope, not a chance."
"I'm pretty sure this isn't how you make friends," the boy stomped grumpily to his door.
"Perfect! Field trip time!" Lance cheered and galloped on ahead of the others.
"You get used to him," Hunk said as he kept pace at the new kid's side. He kept glancing around the hallways in an anxious manner.
"I hope not."
"Ooo! We could get ice cream!" Lance bounded through the door of the little shop making the bell at the top ring.
"He's eaten every street food we've come across and he still has room for ice cream? Is he okay?" the mop headed boy asked in shock and mild disgust.
"Eh," Hunk shrugged his shoulders following after Lance. "He's the youngest of four, his older siblings always ate food faster than he could. I'd say he's just making up for it now."
"I didn't expect him to be the youngest," the boy mumbled. "But I guess it makes sense why he's so loud."
Hunk laughed at that.
"Okay, I want three scoops! Mocha, chocolate and strawberry, in that order please," Lance ordered at the counter. He asked for one of the fancy cones and a plethora of toppings to finished it off.
Lance turned to Hunk and the boy. "What do you want?" Lance asked the light brunet curiously.
Looking at the server, "I'll have a scoop of vanilla in a cone," he ordered.
Lance crossed his arms in disapproval. "Just vanilla?"
"Vanilla is simple and I like it," the boy replied.
"Is this one of those, 'I need something simple because the rest of my life is too complicated,' type of scenarios?" Lance did a voice like he was mimicking someone they'd never met.
"Dude! Chill out, that's kinda rude," Hunk chided him.
"I just like vanilla," the boy didn't even try to defend himself. He seemed just as off put by Lance as he had been a few seconds ago. At least he wasn't offended.
"Uh-huh, a likely story..." Lance looked mock-skeptical. It was easy for Hunk to tell he was playing around, but others might take him too seriously.
"Would you like something, sir?" the server asked Hunk.
"I'll take a scoop of chocolate in a cone please," he requested politely.
Lance squinted his eyes at him.
"With sprinkles," he added.
Once they had paid for their ice cream, they all agreed to start making their way back to the school. It was getting dark even though it was practically summer. They licked at their frozen desserts as they walked slowly back up the streets Lance seemed so familiar with. Of course, Lance talked the whole way.
"And Marco was still trying to convince mom that no one was coming over so she didn't have to cook but she, of course, wouldn't listen and we were all worried that the surprise would be ruined but— ah!" Lance suddenly ducked behind a street trash can.
"Do you see a patrol?!" Hunk asked ready to fly into an alley. The boy looked around wildly.
"No!" Lance whispered. "Tall guy, grey shirt, red jacket, really cool shoes."
Hunk looked down the street curiously. "It looks like he's going into one of the shops."
Lance sighed in relief and came back out.
"Dude, what was that?"
"Let's walk on the other side of the street," Lance pointed and looked both ways before crossing. The other two followed closely behind.
"Okay, who was that?" Hunk insisted.
"My first day of school this year, my sister Veronica came with to send me off. She met that guy here in town and followed him all over. She completely forgot about me! Now she calls me after every weekend asking if I've seen him again. She so annoying! I thought she was delusional to think he'd be interested in her, but then I ran into him again and he asked me about her! It's so gross and creepy!"
As Lance went on, the small boy's fists started trembling at his sides. "Shut up!" he bursted out.
"Huh?" Lance whirled around on him.
"Why would you talk about your own sister like that?! At least you get to talk to her! You're a total jerk!" he yelled.
"Woah, woah, woah. First off, she's my sister, I can get away with saying anything I want about her as long as I never let anyone else get away with a single bad word toward her. Second, just because I think she annoying sometimes doesn't mean that I don't like talking to her. And third, I'd do anything for her. Anything expect creep on older guys that I think aren't good enough for her. I have standards," Lance amended.
"Yeah, well, you're taking her for granted."
"I am not, I love her with all my heart! Siblings are supposed to annoy each other!"
"Yeah, whatever," the boy grumbled.
Lance eyed him up and down. "This is part of your 'my life is a complicated tragedy that no one understands' thing, isn't it?"
"Hey! Lance! Don't say things like that to people we've just met! That's really rude!" Hunk rebuked him.
Lance went on anyway. "What's your name again, kid?"
"My name is Pidge Gunderson!" the boy shouted in annoyance.
Lance snorted.
"What?" Pidge huffed.
Lance started chuckling. "PG."
"What?" Pidge asked again, this time confused.
"Your initials are PG," he laughed.
Hunk started laughing too.
Pidge looked between both of them like they had lost it. "Now you're laughing too? Sure! Real mature!" he told Hunk.
Lance laughed even harder. "It's comments like that that make it funny! You do it to yourself! Plus, you're just so small!"
Pidge started stomping ahead of them just finishing the last bit of his ice cream. "You're the one who's annoying."
"Hey!" they heard from a ways behind them. "You three are students, aren't you!"
"Shit!" was all Pidge had time to say before he was dragged by Hunk into an alleyway between two buildings.
"Oh no!" Lance could be heard shouting dramatically. He started to run down the street.
"Is he leaving us?!" Pidge asked in outrage as Lance was headed in a different direction.
"No, just come on!" Hunk tried to get him to run away faster.
"I'm going to get caught!" Lance yelled loudly and then his ice cream could be seen being hurled across the gap between buildings.
"Hey!" the security patrol yelled, enraged. Presumably because his uniform was now covered in ice cream.
"So then you're leaving him?!" Pidge asked, just as outraged by that idea.
"No," Hunk started leading them through back alley after back alley, clearly knowing where he was going. "Lance is a really fast runner. He's outrun the security guards before. I can't outrun them, so he's leading them away," Hunk explained.
"Well that's great and all, but how are we going to get back inside the Garrison?! He has the master key card!"
"Not anymore," Hunk flashed him the card.
"When did—?"
"Right before I shoved you in the alley."
Pidge hadn't even seen that happen.
"Once we get to the school, we'll see if we can wait for Lance. He'll try loosing the guy further away from campus."
"You guys seriously are insane! You've done this before!"
"How else is Lance supposed to make friends? He won't join a study group," Hunk shrugged.
"Seriously?!"
Pidge followed Hunk the rest of the way back to their school campus. They went to one of the back emergency exit doors that could only be opened by a master key card from the outside.
They both panted to catch their breaths. "If Lance doesn't show up in five minutes, we're going inside and I'm going to bed!" Pidge resolved.
"Aw, give him a little more time than that. He saved us both from detention already," Hunk pleaded.
"I want— to go— to bed," he said between pants.
They didn't have to wait long anyway. Lance came running up to them like he knew the exact spot they'd be waiting. His beautiful sun-kissed skin was flushed from exertion making his cheeks full and his grin brighter.
"Hunk, my friend, you are the only person I would ever sacrifice mocha ice cream for," he was still grinning from ear to ear.
"Thanks buddy," Hunk smiled in response. "This is why you'll always be my best friend."
"Okay, come on," they opened the door and Lance ushered Pidge inside. "We'll take you to your room. If you use your own key card this late, it'll be flagged in their system."
"Speak from experience?" Pidge asked.
"Haha! You know it!" Lance winked and bounded off ahead of the other two.
"Is he always like this?" Pidge watched Lance bouncing with energy.
"Not exactly. He'll get stir crazy if he stays inside too long. He's just pumped up on adrenaline now. He'll be fine," Hunk explained.
"Until he needs another dose," he said under his breath.
Hunk heard anyway. "You don't like him?"
Pidge hesitated before answering. "No, I was just thinking, maybe he's not so bad at making friends after all," he admitted.
Hunk grinned. "I'll tell him you said that."
"Please don't."
"Hey, I thought the planet we were going to was uninhabited," Hunk commented as they reached the right solar system.
The small orange and blue planet was poking out from behind its host star on their screens. Dozens of ships were orbiting the sphere in varying parallels to the equator, proof that something unexpected was going on.
"I guess we got more outdated information. It could be a mining operation," Pidge suggested. "Let's go around and have a look from the dark side."
Lance came around Pidge's seat to look for himself. "Can you tell what types of ships those are?" he asked.
"Not sure, but they're not Galra." Hunk was looking at his sensor readouts.
"Yeah, they use a different type of fuel," Pidge agreed as she steered a large arc around the planet.
"We shouldn't get too close until we make contact, we don't want to spook them," Lance made a call after looking over Pidge's shoulder at her readouts for himself. The ships in orbit weren't very technologically advanced when compared to Altean and Galran ships. Still, they were beyond what humans had created thus far.
As the dark side of the planet was revealed, they saw artificial lights webbing and bunching across the surface.
"I think it's more than a mining operation. I'm reading evidence of a water cycle and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. I think it's an entire civilization," Hunk said.
"I'm getting the same thing," Pidge confirmed. "It looks like the planet still has the ore we need. So, should we hail them and see if they'll trade with us?"
Without decorum, Pidge's screen was suddenly masked over with the image of a fine alien with lavender skin and lock after lock of flowing silver hair. It's sharp eyes pierced into the cockpit.
"I am Prince Lotor of the Galran Empire."
"Hunk?" Lance called anxiously.
"I see him."
"This planet is under my personal protection. Should you have friendly intentions, you are welcome to visit and trade with us. Should your intentions be unfriendly, I will eliminate any foreign might." Short and to the point, the Prince was gone from their screens.
They all stared at where his face had been.
"Could he see us?" Lance asked.
Pidge looked at one of her panels. "It was a one way transmission."
That made them all feel a little better.
"So, wait. If he's really a Prince then... Zarkon has a son?" Hunk questioned.
"He doesn't look like a normal Galra. We can't be sure he's telling the truth," Lance said skeptically.
Pidge thought for a moment. "If he really is Zarkon's son, then Zarkon would have to be alive for him to still be a Prince, right?"
"We have to go back to the Castle. Allura might know something about him and we should get out of here," Hunk insisted.
"He said that if we had friendly intentions we could trade with them. All we'd have to do is make sure we aren't recognized," Lance said while looking at Hunk through their visual feed.
"That might work if we had brought a shuttle craft, but we're in the lions, Lance. They're a dead give away. We can't go along with what that guy wants, but we could stay and liberate the planet," Pidge started scanning for Galran bases on the surface.
"No, we're not prepared for this. We need to go back. That planet doesn't look like any Galra occupied world we've seen. I can't find anything significant with a Galra signal and there aren't any Galran ships in the vicinity," Hunk disagreed.
The Prince reappeared on their screens. "Your hesitancy makes you appear suspicious. Either come into orbit or leave. This is your final warning," and he disappeared again.
"Okay, we're leaving now," Hunk started flying back toward the Castle.
"But the people on this planet need us! Hunk! You can't leave!" Pidge stayed in place.
"I think I agree with Hunk now," Lance touched her shoulder. This time she actually let him. "We would need a plan and we need to figure out who this guy really is. If he's the Prince we could end up with a lot of Galra coming to his defense."
"Fine," Pidge said begrudgingly. "We'll leave people we're supposed to be helping." She pointed Green away from the planet and sped her after Yellow.
"Are any ships following us?" Lance asked.
"No," Pidge sounded slightly surprised. They heard Hunk sigh in relief.
Lance watched Pidge for a while. She was ignoring his gaze and they both knew it.
"Pidge, I'm sorry," he said again.
"I know," she replied. She was holding a grudge but it sounded reluctant, like she wouldn't be able to keep it up for much longer. Lance decided to leave it at that for now.
"Hunk, I'm sorry to you too," he said toward the screen even though Hunk's face wasn't on it.
"It's alright Lance. I forgave you the moment you finally told us what's going on. You'll always be my best friend."
Lance smiled even though his gut was wrenching. Hunk had a way of always making him smile. "Thanks buddy."
A/N: I'm now in the process of trying to move so I'm not sure if I'll be able to post as consistently as I have been. I will continue to update when I can though, I promise!