Disclaimer: If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. Just playing in the sandbox provided by Dreamworks and the "Voltron" production team.

Reminder: I'm on Twitter under "avidbeader" if you're reading this as a guest and prefer seeing notifications there. My Tumblr, also "avidbeader", is currently full of Voltron stuff.

To the Guest Reviewer: I am allowing your review, but have to wonder - did you miss the part in the summary where I clearly pointed toward Shiro and Keith being the pairing as the soulmates separated by a solar system? And even if that went by you, did you miss where I clearly indicated Keith and Shiro as a pairing in the character list? In other words, this fanfic is intended to result in a Sheith pairing. I like Kallura a lot, am not placing bets on it being canon just because it was before since the VLD team has shown themselves as very willing to reimagine canon. If you don't like Sheith, then this isn't the story for you. Stay in your lane and I'll stay in mine.

When the press conference happened, Keith watched from Shiro's couch. He leaned forward intently, waiting for the spokesperson to wade through all the things that the Garrison residents would know but that the general population needed for context. Then the spokesperson got to the heart of the matter.

"It is with the deepest sadness and regret that we must share that the Kerberos mission was a failure. The ship appears to have crashed on the moon. We presume at this point that it was due to pilot error, some mistake by Captain Shirogane—"

"WHAT?" Keith shouted in disbelief.

"—and all crew members are missing, presumed dead."

"YOU LIARS!" He threw the remote hard enough to leave a dent in the wall next to the viewscreen before charging out of Shiro's apartment.

Iverson intercepted him before he got halfway to the Garrison's conference center. He grabbed Keith by the shoulders and swung him around.

"I know, I know. The higher-ups are trying to brush it all under a rug because if we let it out that hostile aliens exist we'll have a worldwide panic. And even if we were able to get a new team out just like that we still wouldn't arrive in time to help. They're long gone."

His words shredded Keith from his throat to the pit of his stomach. Until this point he had refused to consider the worst, that Shiro was gone forever. That was a thought he couldn't face yet. He choked out, "But pilot error? Why not mechanical failure if you have to lie about it? Why blame Shiro?"

"Because too many egos are involved in the design and construction of the ships. It would set us back years if we had to redesign anything due to mechanical failure."

"You're scapegoating him!"

"Son—"

"You're going to let his family, his friends, all of history believe he's a failure when he's not! Did you tell his parents the truth? Because I can fix that—"

"Cadet!"

Keith ground his teeth together, holding back the torrent of words.

"Let me handle his parents. You have to stay quiet. If you want any kind of future here, if you want the chance to get to space yourself, you have to stay quiet. Do you understand? Don't you think he would have wanted you to achieve your dreams?"

"He does want it. Don't forget, he's still alive out there. I know that for a fact."

With that, Keith batted Iverson's hands away from him and stalked back the way he came.

He didn't see Iverson's expression harden as he watched the youth leave.

Neither of them saw the small figure hiding in a recess in the wall nearby.

Katie Holt wasn't quite sure how she managed to sneak back to the guest quarters where she and her mother were staying. Every bit of her considerable mind was wrapped around what she had heard. Shiro had not crashed. They had seemingly run into aliens and been captured. This cadet swore that Shiro was alive, which meant that her family was out there, still alive, and the Garrison wasn't planning to even try a rescue. They were going to cover it all up instead and abandon the crew.

She wondered at first how the cadet could be so sure, then it hit her. Shiro had a soulmate. Matt had brought it up one night when they had Shiro over for dinner, making a funny story about them discovering each other in a hand-to-hand combat class. Her father had helped them, something about a scientist wanting to study the bond as two soulmates were about to be divided by the greatest distance ever recorded.

So this cadet knew for certain that Shiro was alive. He might be able to tell from Shiro's thoughts and emotions whether her father and Matt were all right. Now she had one available proof.

But two proofs would be better. She would stake out Iverson's office and try to access any video feeds from the ship that would show a safe landing. Armed with both, she could get her mother and maybe Shiro's parents to believe and act on the information.

Keith managed to hold himself together for the next several days. Other than his classes and meals, he hid out in Shiro's apartment. He spent hours curled up on Shiro's bed, focusing love and support through their bond. His soulmate was still afraid, sometimes angry, injured once, and often sick to his very core over having to kill. Keith guessed that Shiro had been conscripted into some alien army, fighting beings that he had no quarrel with for the sake of the aliens who had kidnapped him. He often worried about the Holts, so Keith had further proof that the entire crew had survived the initial arrival on Kerberos.

He had put Dr. Hooper off, claiming illness and then questioning her need for him as she had her own records of the soul bond extending all the way to Kerberos without losing any strength. But two weeks after the press conference, she called him.

"I need you to meet me immediately, somewhere off campus. It's hugely important."

"I don't know what more I can tell you, but all right. The coffeeshop next to Stellaluna's Pizza?"

"Be there as soon as possible."

Keith left Shiro's apartment and took his hoverbike into town. He entered the shop and looked around, but it took a hand waving at him to recognize her. Dr. Hooper had cut her long dark hair short and lightened it.

He sat down across from her and frowned as she scanned the shop once more. "What's going on?"

"What's going on is that someone killed our project. They didn't just halt it because of those reports of Shiro's death." She rolled her eyes. She knew as well as Keith did that the crew had arrived safely on Kerberos. "They wiped my server, all the records of my research. If I hadn't been making backups of the data it would have all been gone. I haven't been able to figure out who or why, but something is very, very wrong. Here, take this." She slid a thick envelope across the table to him. "Don't open it here. I drew out the rest of the grant money before they closed that off, too. This is your share. I put it on several travel currency cards in different amounts. Do not deposit any of it."

"But—"

"If I'm wrong, then fine. I'll look like an idiot. But it hit me, you and I are the only people that can prove that the Kerberos crew is alive. And someone important decided that they need to be dead. I have family up in Alberta who can help me hide. Do you want to come with me?"

"I…no. If what you're saying is true we need to split up. I think I have somewhere to go if I need it. But I should talk to Iverson, he's the only one left who will listen to me."

Hooper's face creased in worry lines. "I don't know if that's a good idea. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

She stood, then leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "It's been wonderful to work with you. I hope… I don't know what I hope. But good luck." She shouldered her purse, picked up her coffee, and left.

Dr. Hooper's worry was contagious. When Keith returned to the apartment block at the Garrison, he parked inside the basement garage instead of on the street. He opened the envelope enough to see around twenty-five anonymous plastic cards. He locked it in the hold behind the hoverbike seat.

Once in Shiro's apartment, he found an empty duffle bag and swiftly tossed in clothes from the drawers he had used, grabbing armfuls carelessly. He added the few personal treasures that he had brought with him from his own room: the dagger his father had said was from his mother's family, the single picture he had of his dad, and the black belt he had earned just a month before leaving for the Garrison. He took the packed bag down to the garage and added it to the hold.

If he was wrong, he wouldn't look too much like a paranoid idiot.

It was sooner than she would like, but it had to be tonight. Colleen Holt had been awarded a massive amount of compensation money and was returning to her parents' home in Connecticut with Katie to try and rebuild her life. Their flight was scheduled for tomorrow.

Katie dressed simply, in jeans and a shirt, leaving her backpack of tech behind. She had been allowed to wander freely over most of the complex so far. Her pocket tablet had what she would need to decode any locked door quickly. After that it was a matter of getting into Iverson's computer, finding the files, and pulling them off onto a flash drive.

Piece of cake.

This was new.

Shiro tried to keep his emotions on an even keel for Keith's sake, but any change in the routine usually meant more pain and blood. Today he and Ch'varr, the red-horned alien, had been pulled out of their cells and loaded into a small transport, going away from the arena. They would not be fighting in teams against large creatures for the entertainment of these aliens—these Galra.

Just yesterday one of the other aliens, Merool, had died in the fight. The creature's claws had not cut very deep, but from the amount of blood that resulted it was clear that a major artery had been sliced open. Matt and Xi had tried to stem the blood while the others worked to bring the beast down. But by the time they succeeded and ran over to help Merool, he was dead.

Last night was the closest Shiro had come to considering suicide. It would be so easy: provoke a guard, move the wrong way in the next fight, even make a statement of it in the arena by impaling himself on one of the swords. But he knew he couldn't.

He couldn't do that to Matt and leave him alone here, with no one else.

He couldn't do that to Commander Holt, who was hopefully still out there somewhere.

And he couldn't do that to Keith. His father had made it abundantly clear just how devastating it was to lose that presence, that sense of being whole, especially if one's soulmate were beloved. Before modern psychology and mental care, soulmates had often followed each other into death by suicide or self-neglect.

He would not do that to Keith.

Besides, the only way to get back to Terra somehow was to keep living, keep hoping, and keep looking for a way out.

Thank you as always for reading, for follows/favorites, and for reviews!