Before Their battle with Zarkon, Lance sent out two reports.

And sighed as he had still not received even one message. Anything to know that they were getting his reports would've been nice, but, like always, there was nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Frankly it was starting to get on his nerves.

They had been gone for MONTHS by now. Just thinking about the length of time that had gone by gave him a major fit of anxiety.

To calm himself down, he told himself that after this fight, they could go home.

After this fight…

So the last message Lance sent to Iverson, hopefully, was simply a request that Iverson NOT give away his position that he'd worked so hard to secure and that whoever was partnered with Frok while he was away step down upon his return…oh, and that he NOT be fired or summarily punished for the events that were outside of his control. I mean, it was the least they could do since he had helped save the universe, right?

So, looking forward to getting home, Lance joined the others for their the last fight.

()

Or.

What was supposed to be their last fight.

Why was Shiro gone? Where had he gone? If one of them had died, then they could at least mourn and take the body home to be buried, but there wasn't anything.

"We can't leave until we help to clean up," Keith stressed but Lance shook his head.

"If we go home we'll be able to regroup better."

"I'm with Keith, sorry Lance," Hunk said apologetically, "I think we should stay and get things done while we can. The sooner we do this the sooner we can get home."

"And I still have yet to find my brother or my father," Pidge stressed, "I'm not going home till then any way, so we might as well stay."

Lance grit his teeth.

Oh how he wanted to just order them to go home…I mean, he DID have the authority…

"What I think we should talk about right now," Allura said softly, "is who will become the new black paladin. If the Black lion doesn't accept any of you, then we must go and search for a new leader."

"We still haven't searched for Shiro!" Keith snapped, "he's only been gone for a few days! We can't write him off as dead yet!"

Oh yes we can, Lance thought, but kept his mouth shut.

"Keith, we're all sad he's gone-"

"He's not gone! We don't know that for sure!"

"KEITH!" Allura actually pounded the table in front of her, "We can't even begin to search effectively till this matter is settled. If Shiro is still the lions paladin, then the lion won't react to anyone. But we NEED Voltron, do you understand?"

Keith stood and left the room. He understood, he just didn't like it.

Lance for one, saw this as an opportunity. If he could be the leader of the team, then they could go back to Earth.

()

But that wasn't going to happen.

Lance, VERY disappointed that he wasn't chosen and a little more defeated when the black lion chose Keith, had to hold back. He had never, in all his life, seen a man look so sick at the thought of a promotion.

Keoth looked like the world had just ended and someone was force feeding him Corans cooking.

Lance didn't think he should laugh, even though he really wanted to. Instead he thought he should share some of his limited wisdom.

Frok wasn't the first partner Lance had worked with. So he had experience with losing a comrade. It hurt and it sucked, but he also knew, through hard experience, that digging your heals in wasn't going to get them back.

"Look," Lance said gripping his shoulder, "This will be good. You lead the team. We'll follow. Pidge will look for her family. And we can look for Shiro on the way. This is your call. So step up, ok? We're right behind you."

A little responsibility should be good for him, Lance thought as Keith nodded and looked a little better. The guy was a little too serious for Lance to really be friendly with, but he really didn't hate the guy as much as he had at first.

()

And just like that, Lance wanted to retract that thought.

He hated Keith with every fiber of his being.

"When I said we'd follow you, I didn't mean to our deaths!"

Oh, no response? How original, Lance seethed as they did their best to catch up with Keith. He was going off half cocked and that only ended in a blown off hand.

Their new leader had taken it into his head to go after Lotor, the new threat to their goal of peace. To cut the preverbal head off while the sword was still unsheathed, so to speak. And that was all well and good, but he hadn't said anything until AFTER he was already chasing him down and his TEAM was still doing their own thing!

To make matters worse, it wasn't just Keith that had to get used to a new lion. Lance was now in the red lion for some unholy reason! He couldn't fathom why Blue just decided to kick him out.

"Keith, Please wait up!" Hunk called from the slowest Lion.

Still Keith didn't respond.

When Lance had though the responsibility would be good for him, he neglected to remember that the boy WAS half Galra and the Galra were not known to think things through very well. Lane could think of a few alien races that were like that closer to home, but none were as infuriating as Keith was!

And because of their unpreparedness, Lotor decided to take them for a ride.

Did Lance blame him.

Sadly, no.

He would've done the same thing. One by one they all were separated and Lance, by luck alone, was able to stay in sight of keith.

"Keith if you don't stop right now, so help me-"

"We just have to find him!"

"KEITH! SHUT UP! DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?!" Lance roared, "We are separated! We have no idea where our own people are, how do you expect to find the enemy!?"

"We'll-"

"We need to fall back."

"NO, we-"

Lance slammed his lion into Black, "Do I need to hit you again? I will!"

"You all made me the leader, so just-"

"That's right!" Lance cut him off, "We made you the leader, so are you going to get us all killed or are you actually going to start leading? You can go on suicide missions all you want when you're alone, Keith, but once you're responsible for someone else the game changes! We got your back! We're here! Do you have ours?!"

Lance waited for the response. He didn't know what he could do if Keith still insisted on continuing this charade. Lance understood grief, but this, this was scary.

"…sorry…"

Oh thank every deity, Lance breathed out the breath he'd been holding.

"Alright, now that we have you back," Lance said and thought, your human half at least, "how do we get out of this?"

()

The days that went by were…slow. They trained together and reformed their ties and bonds. But it was clear that, even though he was a lot better, Keith was still depressed.

In the message that Lance sent that week he did more than a little trash talking about a particular agent back home who apparently didn't do his job correctly.