The first thing he became aware of was the ringing in his ears. It was back with vengeance.

Then, a splitting headache. It felt as if someone had placed his head inside a soccer ball and just kicked it in all directions.

A few seconds later, he realized his whole body hurt. His hair hurt, if that was even possible.

He wanted to scream, but he didn't have the energy to summon enough air.

"Lance? Lance, wake up."

Lance moaned weakly. Whoever this was, their voice was way louder than he could handle at the moment. Every word made his head pound harder.

"Hey, I need you to open your eyes and talk to me. Come on, Lance."

Lance opened his eyes to a silver. A pair of dark purple eyes, framed by the most awful haircut he's ever seen in his life, stared back at him. Keith? Yeah, that's right, he rescued him from the Galra not so long ago. Pidge was there, too. But although Lance had no idea where he was and what happened, he had a feeling they hadn't made it back to the Castle.

Now that Lance was more or less awake, Keith spent no time invading his personal space and lowered his face until his nose nearly touched Lance's. "Your pupils look normal," he noted, then craned his neck to look behind Lance's head. "And there are no cracks on your helmet… well, I guess we can assume you don't have a concussion. How many fingers am I holding?"

"Three, and your breath stinks," Lance croaked. Damn it, talking hurt. He tried to lift his neck to look around, but even that tiny movement sent waves of agony up his head and down his spine, so he stopped. "What the hell happened?"

"We got caught in a particle storm and crashed on this planet," he heard Pidge's voice right before she appeared in his field of view. Her glasses lay crooked on her nose and her armor looked quite banged, but she seemed unhurt otherwise. "It was my fault – I was so busy with tampering with the Galra ship's systems I didn't even notice it on the radar. Not until we got sucked in and it was too late."

A particle storm… Why did it sound familiar? Didn't Dumb mention it just before Keith came in and knocked him unconscious? Lance's stomach knotted with guilt when he realized he should have said something. Had he warned them on time, they would have already arrived at the Castle.

"Did you manage to contact anyone?" Keith asked, although Lance could feel he wasn't too optimistic about the answer.

Pidge shook her head. "Not a chance. Green has gone completely offline and I can't wake her up. And with that crazy storm going all over the atmosphere, there's no way we can signal the Castle, nor they can signal us. We're stuck."

Keith only cursed in response.

The Green Paladin came to kneel next to Lance. "Hey, are you okay? Keith and I got banged up just a little because we had our armors, but you…" she bit her lip, looking genuinely concerned for the first time today.

Lance sighed. He hated himself for being so useless and hated himself even more for worrying Pidge, who was like a younger sister to him. "I don't know. Everything hurts. But everything kind of hurt before, too." He tried to take a deep breath and yelped as his abdomen practically screamed. "Okay, that definitely hurts more than before. I-I may have broken a rib or something."

"Can you sit up?" Keith asked. "We need to take a better look at your upper body, make sure there are no hidden wounds or bleeding."

Sitting up was the last thing Lance wanted to do now, but he could see the logic behind the request. He raised his arms and came to lean on his elbows for support…

And his right arm burst into flames.

Lance wailed and collapsed back on the floor, rolling to his left side despite the dizziness the movement caused. He clutched his right arm to his chest with his other arm and panted, his breath coming in short, pained gasps. Tears stung his eyes and his usual nausea just became ten times worse. It hurt, it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt.

"What happened?!" Pidge leaned in closer, sounding borderline hysterical.

Lance tried to answer, but all that came out was another gasp. Black spots danced in front of his eyes and he actually wished to pass out again.

"I think his arm's broken," Keith said gravely. He pointed at Lance's forearm. "See? The angle is all wrong. Must be from the crash."

"Crap," Pidge hissed. "This day just keeps getting better."

"We need to improvise a splint and a sling," Keith said and looked around. "Pidge, can you check Green's first aid kit while I help him sit?"

"I doubt I'll find anything other than bandages, but I'll go get them." Pidge went to search Green's back cabin while Keith tapped Lance's shoulder with surprising gentleness. "Hey, did you hear me? We can't help you when you're on the ground like that."

"You can't help me anyway," Lance said through gritted teeth. "I'm pretty sure I'm dying."

"No, you're not. Come on, I've got you." Keith wrapped a strong arm around Lance's shoulders and somehow managed to pull him to a more-or-less upright position, with little to no help from Lance himself, who was still clutching his arm with such force the fingers in his right hand went white. His eyes fluttered shut as Keith leaned him against the wall. "Get this helmet off my face, I'm about to throw up," he wheezed.

"Please don't," Keith said, but did as he was asked. A moment later Lance pitched to the side and expelled the contents of his stomach – which was mostly water, considering he hadn't eaten anything since he was captured – on the floor. The heaves hurt his abused ribs but the pounding in his head relaxed a bit, and for that he was grateful. He remembered his sister Rachel had the occasional migraines, and vomiting always made her feel better, despite how gross it was.

"Sorry," Lance clumsily wiped his mouth against his left shoulder. Now that he was more alert, he was almost tempted to look at his broken arm, but feared the sight might make him vomit again, so he settled on staring at the opposite wall instead. The lights in the cockpit were all off, but weak rays of sun entered through the windshield, indicating it was still daytime on the planet they'd crashed on.

"I guess it was inevitable," Keith said dryly, shuffling to get away from the pool of dirt. It was then when Pidge returned, hands full of bandages. "We have these bandages, some painkillers, ice bags and an ointment I'm not sure what is for, but I doubt it can mend broken bones." She came to sit on Lance's other side, but then she noticed the mess on the floor. Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. "Um. Yeah. So, I guess we can use some of the bandages to make a sling, but we still need something hard and flat to use as a splint."

Keith thought for a moment, then reached for the bag that was still tied to his waist. He took out a piece of Lance's armor – a part of his forearm guard that wasn't exactly flat, but was close enough. "This will do, assuming you have no purpose of wearing your armor any time soon…"

"Are you kidding me? If I do have broken ribs, the last thing I need is a chestplate that'll put more pressure on them."

The other Paladins seemed to agree with that, and got to work right away. It took them about five minutes to tie several bandages together, wrap them around Lance's neck and use the other side of the knot to strap his forearm to the armor plate. Lance tried to be as silent as possible while they worked, even though the lightest touch to the injured limb made him want to scream.

"Well, that's the best we can do for the time being." Keith sat back on his heels, examining their work. "You need to avoid any sharp movements."

"That shouldn't be too hard," Lance mumbled, as he didn't feel like moving at all for the next week or so. He leaned back on the wall in exhaustion. "Now what?"

Pidge shrugged. "You rest. We wait. There's nothing much to do until Green is back online, and from what I could see from the windshield, it looks like this planet's sun will set soon."

"I think one of us should go outside and look around, as long as there's light," Keith stood up and wore his helmet again. "See if there are any Galra nearby – it seems like we crashed in the middle of the desert, and Green is basically a sitting target out here. We also need to find a drinkable water source. Our Lions have some emergency supplies stacked, but we don't know how long this storm is going to last."

"And by 'one of us', you mean you, right?" Pidge leaned back in her pilot chair, arms folded behind her head. "I'm not going out there with all my allergies."

"You stay here and watch Lance," Keith said as he headed out. "I'll be back before dark."

"I don't need babysitting," Lance muttered through half-lidded eyes, but the Red Paladin was already gone.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Lance gradually dozing off. Then Pidge spoke. "You really don't look so good, you know that?"

"Well, getting kicked in all places by two mad Galra and then repeating the process in a tiny cockpit isn't exactly what the doctor would prescribe," Lance said. A chill ran through his spine and he curled slightly into himself, wondering if the upcoming evening was causing the temperature drop – although it didn't make entirely sense, since their Lions were supposed to be made of isolating material; perhaps Green's isolation mechanism had been damaged in the crash?

Pidge tried to smile but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I guess not. I'm sorry you have to suffer more. I broke my arm when I was a kid and it was nasty."

Lance kind of wanted to hear the story behind that, but he doubted he'd be able to stay awake long enough. He could feel the exhaustion in his bones, both broken and unbroken. "I'm the one who should be sorry," he said gloomily. "For getting kidnapped in the first place, and for injuring myself afterwards. We're stuck on a foreign planet and I can't do anything to help."

"Whoa, whoa, none of this was your fault," Pidge slid down from her chair and kneeled in front of him. "We've all been captured by the Galra, together or separately, at this point of the war," she said (and she was not wrong). "The fact we ran into a particle storm right after that and you got hurt in the crash… well, that's just bad luck. We're not blaming you, and we don't expect you to be up and running as if nothing happened. You need to rest."

"Says the girl who stays up all night just to finish a code," Lance said, although he did appreciate her trying to cheer him up. He didn't recall Pidge ever doing that – they were good friends and all, but their conversations mostly included mutual jokes and teasing, not so much sincere, touch-feely stuff. This realization almost made him tear up for some reason. God, his brain was a mess.

Pidged huffed. "Yes, and you come every time to drag me back to bed. You're good at taking care of other people, Lance, but sometimes you need to let others take care of you, too."

"Okay, so let's start by fetching me a blanket? It's getting really chilly in here and I can't wear my armor," Lance said right as he broke into more shivers, as if to prove a point.

"I can do that." Pidge got up to search the back cabin again. He heard her calling, "There are three blankets in here – you can have all of them if you like, Keith and I can take turns sleeping on the pilot chair while one of us stands watch. Although this guy must be able to sleep standing up with his eyes open, if you ask me."

Lance laughed at that, but stopped almost instantly because it hurt his chest and back. A nest of soft blankets definitely sounded like a good idea for his bruised, aching body. If only he could fall asleep and wake up back at the Castle, healthy and uninjured, with a five-course meal cooked by Hunk waiting for him at the kitchen.

Well, that fantasy would have to wait a little longer. But at least he wasn't alone; the three of them were alive and together on a seemingly abandoned planet. Things couldn't possibly get any worse than that, right?