The Red and Green Paladins stood frozen for a few seconds that felt like forever, staring at the enemy ship speeding toward them with horror.

Then, Pidge inhaled sharply and walked to the pilot chair, pulling it back vertically. She placed both her palms and the tip of her forehead on the console, closing her eyes.

"Green, please wake up," she whispered. "We need you and we need you now." Lance needs you, because he won't survive another captivity. "Come on, girl. Please." She prayed so hard it physically hurt.

She felt the roar at the back of her mind before actually hearing it. Her eyes flew open to see the cockpit lit up with the bright colors of the control panel, the familiar buttons and graphics welcoming her like an old friend.

She felt like a rock had just slid off her chest – although the real threat has yet to be removed. "That's my girl," she said with a grin and patted the console – a gesture answered by a soft purr that warmed her from the inside.

"Send the Castle a distress signal," Keith said sharply. His bayard was already in his hand. "We may be able to avoid them for a while, but we can't fight them alone. This is a full-size armored battleship – I doubt Green's mouth canon will so much as scrape it."

Pidge did as he said, hoping with all her might the Castle was in a close enough range to get her signal. "How did they find us so quickly?!" she called while pulling the joystick backwards. "Did they just ambush us this whole time?!"

"That makes sense," Keith said and held tight onto the back of her chair as the Green Lion leaped into the sky, leaving huge puffs of orange dust behind. "I mean, they were probably notified that two of their soldiers have captured a Paladin; they must have drawn their conclusions when the connection to the cargo ship was lost right above this planet and sent back up – "

A loud thud and a yelp cut him off and both he and Pidge paled in realization.

They have completely forgotten Lance was passed out on the cot in the back cabin, without a belt or anything to keep him in his place while the Green Lion bolted and zig-zagged through the atmosphere.

Keith hurried to the back cabin and found the Blue Paladin lying in a fetal position on the floor next to the cot, grabbing his right arm and greeting his teeth, probably to hold back another cry of pain. Despite his efforts, tears were glistening at the corners of his eyes. The sight was downright heartbreaking.

"Sorry," Keith kneeled next to him while glancing at the cockpit, knowing it was only a matter of time until he had to fight for real. "But we needed a quick escape because the Galra are here. Apparently they ambushed us."

He wondered if Lance was lucid enough to understand the situation – after all, the last time he was awake he mistook Keith for his father – but Lance focused his gaze on him and asked in a small, tired voice: "Does this mean the storm is over?"

Okay, so he was lucid, at least for now. Small comforts and everything. "Yeah. We already sent the Castle a distress signal, we hope they get it soon. Until then," he bucked as Green took a sharp turn to the left, automatically leaning forward to shelter Lance with his own body – the huge blast that pierced his ears a moment later told him they just avoided the enemy's fire – "We'll have to hold them off, somehow." He didn't mention the strong possibility they'd have to face the Galra in a close combat, assuming Lance was smart enough to figure it out on his own.

Lance sighed and pulled himself upright with what looked like tremendous effort, teetering and swallowing hard as if fighting the urge to throw up again. Keith couldn't blame him. In fact, he was rather impressed Lance could even move considering how hurt and feverish he was. Perhaps the imminent danger they were all in had sent his adrenaline pumping. "Fetch me my helmet and bayard," he mumbled.

Keith quirked an eyebrow. The helmet was a reasonable request – Lance really couldn't afford a head injury at this point. But the bayard? He appreciated the chivalry, but there was a fine line between that and pure madness. "How are you expecting to shoot anything with that arm? You can't even hold it."

"Shut up and bring it!" Lance flared. He seemed ready to pass out just from the effort of raising his voice, but Keith was so shocked at the sudden aggressiveness he did exactly as he was told.

Lance barely managed to put his helmet on when another blast was heard, this time way closer, and the whole Lion shook and rattled. "They brought back up!" they heard Pidge yell. "Four bombers – they're small and way faster than the main ship! I don't think I can hold them off much longer!"

"Fuck," Keith hissed and ran back to the cockpit – not that there was too much he could do from here, as he was far from his own Lion.

He just made it inside when a third blast sent him flying forward and his shoulder hit the windshield forcefully. As he slipped to the floor, despite having his entire side burning with pain, he figured at some corner of his mind something terrible had happened – which was instantly confirmed by the feeling of his stomach leaping to his throat, indicating they were plummeting rapidly.

The Green Lion had taken a direct hit.

"No, no, no," Pidge called, hitting random parts of the control panel in hopes something will wake up the unresponsive Lion – to no avail. "Not again, come on, this isn't happening…"

But it was happening, and there was nothing they could do to avoid the crash that came a few moments later, when the Lion hit the sands they'd just got out of and all the lights went off.

Keith got up on unsteady feet, rolling his shoulder gingerly – it hurt like hell, but the armor seemed to have protected it from break or dislocation. Pidge was slumped in her chair, glasses askew, but she didn't seem hurt, either.

Keith turned to look at Green's mouth which, to his dismay, was slightly open – probably from the shock of the crash. Knowing this would make it a lot easier for the Galra to get them, he went and stood protectively in front of the console, his bayard raised and ready. Although the three of them were likely to get captured soon, there was no way he was going to just let the Galra take them without giving them the taste of his sword first.

"Paladins of Voltron!" A deep, accented voice echoed from outside – the Galra commander, probably, speaking to them directly through the ship's PA system. "You are surrounded and outnumbered! I will give you one chance to surrender your Lion and weapons to us peacefully. If you do not come out with your hands behind your heads within the next dobash, we will have to take you by force!"

"Yeah, like hell we do that," Pidge said through greeted teeth. She was standing now as well, tazer held tightly at her hand.

"You two, stop standing there and get behind the console," a hoarse, strained voice said from behind them.

Keith and Pidge turned sharply, thinking for a moment it was a Galra soldier who somehow managed to get in – but it was Lance, standing and leaning heavily on the wall as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. His face was ashen and his eyes bloodshot under the helmet, and his right arm…

Oh Quiznak, his right arm.

It was no longer wrapped in the sling they'd improvised from bandages, so now they could see clearly how swollen and wrong his wrist looked as it held the blue bayard, white fingers clenching the handle in a death grip. Lance's lips were pursed in a thin, trembling line of bottled up agony, and he barely moved them as he repeated weakly, "I said, get behind the console."

"Lance, what the fuck are you doing?!" Pidge screeched. "Stay back! The Galra are going to barge in here any minute now!"

"Do you know where you are?" Keith asked carefully, fearing it was another hallucination. If Lance thought they were Galra and was trying to attack them… his own hand shook around the sword.

But Lance looked at him directly and said, "Of course I know, Mullet. I'm not that brain-damaged yet. Now, are you going to move or not?"

"No!" Pidge cried and took a step forward, and suddenly Keith wondered whether she was about to electrocute Lance to push him out of the way. "This isn't the time to play the hero, Lance! You're sick! You can barely even stand! So, unless you're planning to fight the Galra by puking on their shoes – "

Lance ignored her and dragged himself to the console, leaning his bayard – which now took its more advanced form of a long-range sniper rifle – on it. Now that he was close Keith noticed he was sweating profoundly. "I've got an idea," he panted, "But I'll probably only get one shot, so I need you to trust me and get behind the console. On the floor."

Keith and Pidge exchanged puzzled looks. On a regular day, they would trust Lance's aim without a second thought; but when he was in such a poor state, looking ready to collapse the moment someone so much as breathed in his direction…

Nevertheless, when Keith met Lance's eyes again, he saw no fear or hesitation behind the haze of sickness and exhaustion.

He saw pure, sheer determination.

As if there was no option other than defeating these Galra.

And Keith had no option other than to believe that.

He was just about to lower his sword when the Galra commander spoke again. "Your dobash is over, Paladins. Seems like we will have to do this the hard way." They could practically hear the cruel smile in his last couple of words.

Keith grabbed Pidge's arm and pulled her down with him to kneel behind the console. She opened her mouth in protest, but closed it again after looking up to Lance, who stood like a statue in his sniper position, one leg slightly bent in front of him.

His gaze fixated through the scope on an unknown target outside Green's mouth and he closed one eye. He took a long, deep breath, exhaling slowly as his right finger flexed and pressed against the trigger.

And then he fired.

An explosion so powerful it seemed to explode inside their own heads ensued, along with a flash of bright, orange light that shone through the windshield and blinded them temporarily. Keith and Pidge curled instinctively and covered their helmets with their hands while Lance was thrown backwards against the wall, his cry of pain muted in the chaos that took place outside. The cockpit was soon filled with unbearable heat, and the black, thick smoke that entered through the gap between Green's jaws burned their eyes and throats as they hadn't closed their visors in advance.

"W-what…" Pidge coughed violently, covering her mouth. "What just…" her other hand felt blindly around the air until it met the Blue Paladin's knee. She opened her eyes to a silver and saw him slumped against the wall, barely conscious, his right arm resting uselessly on the floor.

He stirred at her touch and coughed as well, albeit weakly, as he barely had any strength left. "I shot their gas tank," he wheezed, tears spilling freely down his cheeks from the combination of pain and smoke.

"You what?" Keith croaked, his own eyes tearing up. Every inch in his body burned and ached, but through the smoke that filled his brain he realized this was a sign of him being alive – unlike the Galra whose ship had just gone up in flames, most likely grilling everyone on it.

"I knew… we didn't stand a chance against them…" Lance choked on his words, clutching his chest with his left hand. "And I had a… clean shot from here… 't was the only way." Suddenly his injured arm spasmed he wailed, eyes rolling backwards as he pitched to the floor and stayed there, paralyzed with pain.

A memory surfaced in Keith's mind then: the clear image of Lance summoning his bayard out of a coma and shooting Sendak, who is holding Pidge to the point of strangulation, in the back, making him drop the girl free.

But right now, blasting an entire Galra warship with a single shot, sick and feverish and with a broken arm…

Lance might have just outdone himself.

A sharpshooter, indeed.

"You are amazing," Keith said quietly, bowing his head down and placing his palm on Lance's back. The boy didn't move, having finally lost consciousness.

"Aaand another bonding moment had gone to waste," Pidge said and tried to laugh, although it quickly turned into a coughing fit. "Still," she spattered between coughs, "we have to find a way out of here before we all choke to d – "

"Pidge? Pidge, do you copy?" a fourth voice, one that they hadn't heard in ages, rang in their comms and they both froze in surprise.

Shiro.

"Shiro!" Pidge nearly screamed through clogged lungs, her eyes brightening under the layer of soot covering her face. "Yes, we hear you!"

"Oh, thank God," Shiro sighed, followed by a cacophony of cheering sounds – Coran, Allura and Hunk. "We've just located the Green Lion on TAZ-19X after getting your distress signal, but there's a huge fire right next to it – what happened? Are you guys okay? Keith, Lance, can you talk?"

"We're okay," Keith said, his stomach performing a small dance at hearing his big brother's voice after so long. "We inhaled some smoke and we're pretty banged up, but all things considered, we're doing great." He glanced at the paladin lying next to him. "Um, but Lance needs a pod ASAP. He… he's not doing so great."

"What happened?" Hunk interfered, sounding hysterical as expected. "Lance, it's Hunk, talk to me!"

"He's unconscious," Pidge said. "We'll explain everything later, but you should know that he's just saved our lives." Her eyes met Keith's and he nodded.

"That's right," he said. "Without him, we might've not been talking to you right now."

The line was silent for a while as their friends pondered that information. Then, Shiro said, "Alright. You can tell us everything after we get Lance the treatment he needs. We're lowering altitude now, see you in a minute."

He hung up and both Keith and Pidge leaned back on the console, their limbs growing weak as all the stress and anxiety from the past few days finally rolled off them.

They were found. It was finally over.

"I just killed your king." Pidge moved her last pawn, a devious smile on her face. Keith and her have been spending the day in Lance's bedroom, playing a complicated Altean board game called "Kings and Troops" whose rules Keith could barely understand (it was similar to chess, but with about a thousand more rules, and in 3D). As of now, Pidge had won fourteen out of fourteen rounds.

Keith frowned. "Can't we play something I'm good at for a change?"

"What, punching training bots?" Pidge started collecting the pawns for another round. "You can't exactly do that here… and we agreed to be here when sleeping beauty wakes up, remember?"

It has been nearly three days since the three of them came back to the Castle. As expected, Lance had spent the first two days in a cryopod - one to treat his injuries (aside from his broken arm and numerous bruising, it turned out he also had three cracked ribs, one broken rib, a mild concussion and a low-grade smoke inhalation injury, the last two caused by the explosion of the Galra ship; Pidge and Keith had also had to be treated for smoke inhalation and general fatigue, but it only took two hours in the pod for each of them) and one to treat his illness (Coran nearly fainted when the pod indicated the Blue paladin had reached the Castle with a temperature of just over 104). However, one thing the pods were not able to restore was the essential nutrients Lance had lost in nearly a week of malnutrition, making his body so weak that he remained out cold even after the pod spat him out. So they carried him to his room and fixed him with an IV, figuring Lance would probably want to wake up in a familiar, cozy environment, and not in the cold, bland sterility of the infirmary.

And there was no way Keith and Pidge were not going be there when he opened his eyes.

Not after everything they'd been through.

Keith planted his palms on his knees, examining the pawns scattered on the three-dimensional board in concentration. "Wait, didn't you kill my king before taking down all the guards? I thought this was illegal."

Pidge rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but is legal if you pull a bypass card, like I did five minutes ago. Seriously, Keith, does anything go through that thick hair of yours – "

"Are you guys having a game party?" a tired voice sent them both jumping, knocking the board off and sending all the pawns rolling across the room.

Lance was sitting in bed, hair disheveled and eyes drooping in their sockets as if he was ready to fall asleep again in seconds, but looking considerably better then he did when they were stuck in the Green Lion. His skin was almost back to its original mocha shade.

"Lance!" Pidge lunged at him so fast Keith didn't even recall seeing her get on her feet. She wrapped all four limbs around his torso like a sloth and buried her face in his chest, and he gasped in surprise, not knowing what to do with his own hands.

"Pidge, stop strangling him," Keith said with a smile and came to sit on the edge of the bed. "Nice of you to finally join us," he told the dumbfounded Lance.

"What…" Lance coughed as his throat was painfully dry. "I'm in my room… we're back at the Castle. Hey, we're back at the Castle!" his face lit up with his familiar, goofy grin. "And I definitely don't feel like I'm dying anymore!"

Pidge lifted her head and glared at him. "Yeah, thanks a lot for scaring the hell out of us. I think I've emptied enough bile-buckets for the rest of my life."

Lance's face fell. "Oh, right… sorry about that. I must have caused you so much trouble..."

"Hey, I was kidding," Pidge said, her expression softening. "Seriously, Lance, don't you remember what happened when the Galra surrounded us? Destroying an entire ship in one shot while pulling the trigger with a broken wrist… dude, that's the kind of stuff legends are made of. People are going to be talking about it for centuries."

Lance's ears were painted crimson and he glanced at Keith as if looking for his confirmation. Keith chuckled and nodded. "She's right. That was a pretty badass move. I tried to tell you back then, but you were already out of it," he pouted, "like you do every time we have a bonding moment."

Lance laughed awkwardly. "Is that so… well, I always told you I was the team's cool, ninja sharpshooter!" he puffed his chest and squared his jaw, looking so ridiculous Keith couldn't hold back a snort of laughter.

"Still…" Lance rubbed his neck, "I hope I didn't say anything weird, back when I was… y'know. I-I don't remember much, to be honest, because my head felt like fried noodles most of the time…" he looked at them questionably.

Keith and Pidge looked at each other in silence. Then Pidge cleared her throat and said: "Um… there was some fever talking, but nothing too weird, no, I don't think so..."

Keith nodded eagerly, but Lance didn't seem convinced. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "Okay, I definitely said something weird. And as the new glorified hero of the team, I think I deserve to hear what exactly – "

His stomach released such a long, loud gurgle it may have been some kind of a new galactic record. He shut his mouth promptly, blushing so hard he was nearly purple.

"Maybe we should discuss it over dinner," Pidge said and peeled herself off Lance, her voice strained in attempt not to laugh. "Let's go to the kitchen, Hunk have been cooking a feast for you."

"Fine, but you're not getting away with this," Lance said and pulled the IV needle out of his arm. He threw off his blanket and rose to a stand – and would have immediately face-planted the floor had Keith not caught him on time.

"Easy there, glorified hero," Keith grunted under his weight. He sniffed the air and made a face. "Er… maybe you should stop by the showers first…"

"Shut up!" Lance screamed while Pidge doubled over in wild laughter. "I just woke up from a coma! Besides, look who's talking, you wash your mullet with soap!"

"It still smells way better than you right now," Keith said dryly.

"Once you're clean and fed to Hunk's satisfaction, let's go to the lounge and play some more Kings and Troops," Pidge said as they slowly made their way down the hallway, ignoring Keith's groan. "It's up to four players, so we can take turns with the others, too."

"Isn't it that game you once tried to explain to me and ended up throwing the board on the wall from frustration?" Lance asked. "Are you sure you want to do this? Because you'll have to explain it all from the top and even then I can't promise I'll understand anything."

"I don't care. We have time."

"Really?" Lance's eyebrows shot up skeptically. "Where did that patience come from all of a sudden?"

Pidge shrugged. "Maybe there are some things worth being patient about, that's all," she said, sending Keith a meaningful look. He replied with a nod and a small smile, which left Lance more confused than ever.

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