Rubs my hands together because here's chapter sixteen, and boy does it bring the goods. At least, in my humble opinion it does. Oh Shiro, if only you knew what kinds of crimes these kids are doing without you around to stop them. Where are you, impulse control, I ask as if I do not already know the answer and gleefully look forward to revealing it in the future.
cosmic dust
chapter sixteen
keith kogane
"So uh, any chance you guys are still looking for a tour guide?"
Shifting nervously on his feet, the officer he spoke to barely so much as gave him an upward glance. "Bit late to be signing up, don't you think? The prospective cadets will be here in less than an hour."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I just-" Hunk began, rubbing the back of his head. "Just thought you guys could use the help, that's all."
Honestly, this hadn't been his idea. But between him and Lance, they had decided that he would look a little less suspicious if he suddenly made the offer. The Garrison wasn't watching them that closely, not if they had let them slip off campus twice, two days in a row, but there were still certain risks neither of them wanted to take.
They didn't want to face expulsion- or worse.
Pidge might have laughed off the idea of being charged with treason but him? Un-uh. No way. Some of us weren't just going to jet back into space first thing.
"Well you're in luck," the officer told him, "-looks like we could use the help."
Exhaling, Hunk didn't even know he'd been holding his breath. The officer glanced up at him as he did, causing him to flinch, giving her a nervous smile.
Undercover missions- not his thing.
Even if it was just playing tour guide and giving Pidge an excuse to slip away from the group close to Commander Iverson's office. On the surface, it sounded like something he could manage, but now that he was actually here, Hunk couldn't deny the butterflies that were flitting about his stomach.
Pidge had sounded pretty confident that she could pull everything off without a hitch, but he still didn't know. Hacking into the Garrison sounded like a risky business when one was doing it remotely, but pulling it off in person?
Not a risk he would take.
But then again, he wasn't exactly known for being a big risk taker. That was more of Lance's thing, much to his dismay.
Him? He just wanted the simple life. Maybe open a mechanic shop one day- or a bakery. Or both? He wasn't sure how both would work, but he was sure he could pull it off somehow, so long as he didn't accidentally deep fry a muffler or something. It was only because of Lance that he was at the Galaxy Garrison at all- when his friend had told him that he was applying, he'd impulsively applied with him.
Somehow it didn't occur to him that being a ship's engineer wasn't something he could do from the ground. Yeah, not his best moment, he'd admit that. It wasn't that he was scared of flying, he was just...
Okay, yeah. He was kind of scared of flying. He'd admit it. There was just so much that could go wrong! And sure, as the ship's engineer, it would be his job to keep things from going wrong, but like, that was part of the problem. What if he couldn't? What if he just made things worse?
So, yeah. Risks. Not his thing.
"Great, so uh- what do I need to do, exactly?" Hunk asked. "I mean, show them around, yeah, I've got that, but like- what else?"
Hey, if he was going to do this, he was at least going to do it right. So maybe the Garrison had lied about the Kerberos mission, and maybe they were covering up the existence of the blue lion, but he could at least sort of understand where they were coming from.
Odds were, they were trying to prevent a mass panic. Didn't mean he agreed with it, but he could at least understand the reasons why.
"That's pretty much it." The officer told him. "You're in charge of Group D. Here's their names. Meet them in Wing A, Room 3."
"Group D, Wing A, Room 3. Got it." Hunk told her, taking the list of names from her. Pidge's group. He didn't know how she rigged it, but she'd gotten him put in charge of it. Casting a quick glance down at the names, he confirmed that there was in fact a Pidge Gunderson listed as being a part of it- but that didn't catch half as much attention as the name under it did.
Allura Altea.
He was pretty sure his brain did the rough equivalent of a record scratch. Allura? As in, Princess Allura? As in, the alien princess?
Sure, she looked human enough- with a hat and maybe a bit of makeup, she could almost pass. The white hair would have been a hell of a fashion statement, but people could bleach their hair that color, so it wasn't too strange.
Also was Altea really her last name, or had that just been made up? Because he was pretty sure Gunderson wasn't Pidge's last name, even though she'd never really given her last name, it was just safe to say it was probably Holt on account of that she was the younger sister of Matt Holt and-
-and he was getting a bit off topic here. Right.
Refocusing his thoughts, Hunk gave the officer another smile, bowing his head. Might as well make his way to Wing A.
To his surprise, there were already a few faces gathered there. Checking to see if Pidge was one of them, he picked her out of the crowd, even as her small stature threatened to conceal her from view. The person standing next to her nearly-
-and his brain did that record scratch thing again.
Was that... was that Allura?
She looked... well, she looked human. Completely. Not even a trace of white hair or pointed ears, wearing casual Earth clothing... he never would have guessed, if he didn't already know. She caught his eye, giving him a small smile, confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was her.
He nearly went up to talk to them, before he remembered that he really shouldn't. They had agreed it would be best if they all pretended they didn't know each other, so no one would catch wise.
It hit him then that they were really going to go through with this. They were going to steal the blue lion from the Garrison.
And then what? They would go back to space, he guessed. They had a war to fight.
Would Lance go with them? He'd been thinking about it alright. He'd spent half of yesterday evening steering him clear of things like walls, posts, and people, the question had him so lost in thought. But Hunk already knew what he would choose.
He'd go.
He'd go, because it was the right thing to do- and when it came down to it, Lance was that kind of guy. It might not be obvious on the surface, but he'd known him forever, so he knew him better than most- knew that underneath that lover boy personality of his, was a strong desire to be a good person, and to help.
The awesome space hero destiny part probably didn't hurt.
As did the hot alien princess part.
And the cool giant robot part.
Which left Hunk with a question of his own- what would he do?
He had followed Lance to the Galaxy Garrison because he didn't want to part from him. They were friends, attached at the hip, some would say. He couldn't imagine not having Lance in his life. But Lance would be leaving Earth- the safety of their planet, to go fight in some weird space war that they had never even heard about up until just yesterday.
Even if he wanted to go with him, wouldn't he just get in the way? What could he do? He hated fighting! Violence scared him! Loud noises freaked him out! War tended to involve all three of those things!
Putting it from his mind, Hunk cleared his throat. Catching the attention of the prospective cadets- and Pidge and Allura- he focused on doing the best job he could right here, right now. Think about the future later- there was still time for that, right?
"Uh, hi there." Hunk began. "I'm uh, I'm Hunk. Hunk Garrett. I'll be your student tour guide today?"
Smooth Hunk, real smooth.
"So I guess it looks like everyone's here so uh, I guess we can go ahead and start!" He told them, catching Pidge's eye. She flashed him a cheeky grin, and he frowned, wondering if he was doing that badly.
Allura gave him a reassuring smile, and he couldn't decide if that meant he was fine, or if she was just being polite. Princesses were hard to read, man.
"Just," pushing such thoughts aside- man he was doing a lot of that today, "-follow me."
Right. Okay, uh. Tour plan. Think Hunk, think.
He couldn't just bring them straight to the commander's offices, that would be like, way too suspicious. Start with something close, which would be-
-oh. Right. Wing A.
Well, this wasn't what he would have picked to start off the tour, but it was here, and walking past it just didn't feel right. Even if he now knew that at least three of the faces on it were actually alive and well.
Or well, alive. He didn't know about well. Being captured by an evil space empire seemed like it was the opposite of well.
"Uh, to our left, you can see the Garrison Memorial Wall." Hunk told them. "Guess that's kind of a somber note to start things off on, but the risks of space flight are pretty important to keep in mind. I mean, not that everyone on here died in a space flight, Commander Riley was in a car accident, and-"
-and he was saying too much. Again. Right.
Clearing his throat, Hunk shifted on his feet. "So uh, yeah. The memorial wall."
Waiting for what he thought was an appropriate length of time, Hunk let his gaze flit towards Pidge. She wore a complicated expression on her face, looking at the faces of her family members on the wall. He let himself look at the wall, the small collection of photographs hung there, their names and dates of birth listed alongside their dates of death.
Officers, commanders, and cadets alike- all except for one.
There was no photograph of Keith Kogane.
He'd heard it was because he still had a family member at the Garrison, one who denied the chance that he could be dead. Thus, no photograph, out of respect for them.
There had been chatter about that lately. Hunk hadn't meant to overhear it! He'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, catching two officers mumbling to themselves about whether or not it should be added now, now that his family was gone.
He wondered what they meant- there were no Koganes at the Garrison. Not that he knew of.
"And, I guess we've got a lot of other things to see, so uh, come this way, I guess?" Hunk ventured, catching the attention of the tour group again. Pidge tore her gaze away from the memorial wall, a new fire lit in her eyes.
He got the feeling getting on her bad side was like, a really bad idea.
Leading the small tour group through the winding halls of the Galaxy Garrison, Hunk passed by several other points of interest, before reaching the hallway where the Commander's offices were housed.
"And here's where the Galaxy Garrison Command has their offices." Hunk told them. "We can't go down there, but generally you kind of don't want to do that, because it usually means you've done something very wrong. So uh, yeah- Commander's offices. Avoid them if you can."
Moving the group right along, he barely even noticed as Pidge slipped out of it, making her way down the hall he had just expressly said they couldn't go down. A bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck, he caught Allura's eye, who merely gave him that same reassuring smile again.
Yeah, sure, easy for her. She was an alien princess. She could probably like, teleport or something.
Lance had the easy job. Sit in his room all day and try to connect with a giant metal cat? Why couldn't he be the one doing that?
I mean, it was obviously because he wasn't a paladin, and Lance was, but as far as he was concerned, that was a minor technicality.
He just hoped Pidge's work went off without a hitch.
Iverson's computer was so easy to hack, it was almost criminal.
Which... yeah, she guessed it was. Totally illegal. But eh. She hadn't spent the past year racking up a space bounty to start caring about legality while she was here on Earth. Besides, it was for a good cause.
(Did she mean saving the universe, or spiting the Galaxy Garrison? Who knew.)
Transferring all information about Code Blue onto a flash drive, Pidge glanced at the clock. She probably had a little bit more time before Iverson realized that the call that had lured him out of his office was a hoax, and there was kind of one thing that she wanted to check out while she was here.
The Kerberos mission report.
It read pretty much like she had expected it to. Mention of the shadow of something big passing over the moon of Kerberos, just before all contact with the crew was lost. They had sent out probes after the fact, only to discover that the shuttle was still intact, though the rover that they used to traverse the moon's surface appeared missing.
It was like the crew had just vanished without a trace.
It also detailed the cover up- pilot error, under the presumption that there would be mass panic if the public found out the truth. Frowning, she had to admit that... wasn't as terrible a reason as she would have thought, but it still ticked her off.
Maybe the public should panic about an evil space empire knocking on their door.
What caught her eye the most was a mere footnote- something she would have barely paid attention to otherwise.
Deny any possibility that the crash was caused by the pilot's emotional state.
Narrowing her eyes, she found herself wondering what that even meant. Shiro's emotional state? She had met him a few times, and he always seemed fine. Maybe a bit somber, but she assumed that was just how he was.
Downloading the file, she snatched it, and both her family's and Shiro's personnel files while she was at it. She would go over the latter later, when she had the time. Unplugging the flash drive, she erased all traces of her presence, slipping out of the office.
Scurrying down the hallway, she didn't breathe easy until she was out of the commander's hall, and back in the public part of the Galaxy Garrison. Tucking the flash drive away, she pulled out her com link, shooting off a message to Allura, asking where she was right now.
She got a response within a minute. The commissary.
Oh good, she was kind of hungry. Maybe she'd get the chance to try those freeze dried peas her father always went on about.
"And here we have an assortment of top secret Galaxy Garrison files, for your viewing pleasure."
Holding up the flash drive as if it were a trophy, Pidge beamed from ear to ear. The plan had gone off without a hitch, and now they were back at the shack, complete with their ill gotten gains.
Beaming, Matt booted up her laptop. "That's my sister! Now let's fire this baby up and see what we've got!"
Collapsing on the couch next to him, Pidge grinned. Thank god she'd snatched one of those Altean power packets they kept around the castle-ship, because she wasn't even sure this place had outlets, much less working electricity. She would hate for her laptop to die on her when she needed it the most.
"I must say," Allura said, "-it was quite interesting to see inside of your planet's leading space exploration program."
Letting out a snort, Keith arched a brow. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, our entire space program is like a dinosaur compared to the Castle." Pidge remarked.
"While I do not know what a dinosaur is," Allura began, "-I stand by my statement. I think your kind is doing rather well for itself, all things considered. Though I will admit, the color palette could use some work."
"Yeah, I could never quite get into the orange and gray." Matt remarked. "Totally not my color."
Keith let out another snort at that, lips twitching in a private grin. "So? Where exactly is the blue lion?"
"Give me a second, geez." Pidge said, plugging in the flash drive and getting to work. "According to this, it's in the east wing of the campus. Underground, too."
"Well that complicates things." Matt observed.
"Ya think?" Keith asked, leaning over, scanning the building schematics. "We might actually need Lance for this one."
"Speaking of which, has he made contact?" Allura asked.
"Nope." Matt told her. "Been listening for the phone all day. Only peep was from mom- who said hi, by the way." He quickly added. "I'm guessing he hasn't made up his mind yet."
"Can it be done without him?" Allura asked.
"Probably." Keith admitted. "It'd be easier with the red lion, though. I don't think getting the green lion in there is going to be that simple. Or subtle."
"Keith's right." Pidge told her. "We'd be able to manage, but this whole plan would be a lot more simple if Lance could just fly it out of there."
"Guess we'll go ahead and plan for both." Matt said. "I'm pretty sure Keith and I could get Lance in there without too much trouble. It's getting out that I'm worried about."
"The lions can run." Keith observed. "Might be a bit of a tight squeeze, though."
"Well they got it in there, so there must be a way to get it back out." Pidge said. "I'll go over the information, see what I can find. Maybe I can come up with something useful."
"In that case, I shall go contact Coran." Allura told her. "Let him know that we are close to forming a plan to retrieve the blue lion."
"Sure he'll be thrilled." Pidge said. "He's probably starting to get a little lonely, on the Castle all by himself."
"Yes, that he is." Allura said, letting out a faint laugh, before excusing herself.
Once she was gone, the door shut behind her, Pidge glanced towards Matt. "You know, the information on the blue lion wasn't the only thing I pulled from the Garrison's internal database."
Lifting his brows, Matt leaned in. "Yeah? What did you get? The swimsuit issue?"
"The swimsuit issue of what, Commander's Monthly?" Pidge cracked. "Nope, I got something even better."
Bringing up the Kerberos files, she practically beamed from ear to ear. "I was thinking about leaking them over the Internet. Could serve as a distraction."
"Could also serve to let them know that someone's been rooting around in their server." Keith pointed out. "Put them on high alert."
Shooting him a look, Pidge's lips twisted in a frown. "Spoilsport."
Shrugging his shoulders, Keith looked indifferent. "One of us has to be the impulse control."
"Keith, you are like, the least qualified out of us to be the impulse control." Pidge said. "As in, I'm amazed you even know the concept."
Frowning, Keith narrowed his eyes. "Hey, I can control myself perfectly fine."
"Is that why you got into that fight on Yaxiv 4? Because you could control yourself perfectly fine?" Pidge asked, lifting her brows.
"I thought we agreed never to talk about what happened there." Keith told her, shooting her a glower.
"Don't remember it." Pidge told him with a shrug, before changing the topic. "Matt, you knew Shiro well, right?"
"Yeah, kind of?" Matt frowned. "Why do you ask?"
"There was something in the Kerberos report that didn't make sense to me." Pidge told him, bringing up the report. "See, this here. What's this about Shiro's mental state?"
Out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn that Keith flinched, but when she glanced in his direction, his expression had settled back into being impassive. Looking back towards Matt, she instead focused on the furrow of his brows, like he was trying to figure it out himself.
When Keith left her line of vision, she barely even noticed.
"Mental state, mental state..." Matt muttered to himself, before something seemed to spark. "You know, now that I think about it, he mentioned something about a younger brother once. Some foster kid his family had taken in."
"Hey," Keith's voice caught her attention, dimly noting the helmet he was carrying, "-I'm going to do another check around the Garrison's perimeter. Make sure nothing's out of place."
"Want me to tell Allura when she's done with Coran?" Pidge asked.
"Yeah, thanks." Flashing her a faint smile, Keith tucked on his helmet, leaving the shack. Outside, she could hear the sound of his hoverbike coming to life.
Frowning, she couldn't shake the feeling that there had been something off about Keith's smile- before she pushed the thought from her mind, turning back towards Matt. "So? What's this about a foster brother?"
"Uh, Shiro's family took him in when he was like, eleven, I think? Twelve?" Matt frowned. "Vanished, though."
"Vanished?" Pidge asked. "Like, ran away?"
"Nobody knows. Just went into the desert one day, and never came back. Everyone but Shiro thought he was dead." Matt told her with a shrug. "I think he was a cadet at the Garrison for awhile. Pretty talented, from what I remember. His name was uh... Kogane, I think."
"Guessing that's a last name." Pidge noted, bringing up Shiro's file, wondering if it had any information about this brother of his. It was certainly the first she was hearing about it, but it's not like she knew him all that well.
"Yeah, it's-" Matt frowned, stopping short, the furrow of his brow deepening. Hand straying to his chin, he looked troubled.
"Matt?" Frowning, Pidge looked up at him. "You okay?"
"Let me see that." Without waiting for an invitation, Matt all but took the laptop from her, scanning Shiro's file. "Son of a bitch."
"What?" Pidge frowned, trying to peer at the screen herself and failing, Matt having angled it just so. She was pretty sure he hadn't done it on purpose, but it was still frustrating.
"It's Keith." Matt told her.
"I-" Blinking, Pidge's brows knit together. "Matt, what's Keith?"
"Keith." He repeated. "I- Shiro's brother. His name was Keith."
Opening and closing her mouth, Pidge snatched the laptop back from her brother, scanning the file herself. There it was, printed out in plain English for her- Kogane, Keith.
"Matt...?" Pidge asked, unable to quite tear her eyes away from the screen, her brain already starting to make the connections. Keith's unusual investment in Shiro, how he used his age to track his own, his knowledge of the Galaxy Garrison... it all fit.
But if he'd been a cadet, then that meant...
"...do you know what age this brother of Shiro's was when he disappeared?"
"Fourteen." Meeting her brother's eyes, a mutual understanding passed between them. "He was fourteen."
Setting aside the laptop, Pidge got to her feet. "I'm going to find Keith."
He must have known, must have realized. He hadn't left to go check on the perimeter, he'd left because he knew they were getting close. That just a little bit further, and they'd connect the dots, and realize that everything they thought they knew about him had been wrong.
This whole time, they'd been wrong.
Had Keith ever been part Galra? No, he must have. He might evade the truth, but the one thing he never did was lie, not outright. If Keith said his mother was Galra, it was likely true. Whatever had been done to him, it likely only brought out what was already there- if something had been done to him, and this wasn't some kind of survival adaptation.
"Pidge, I didn't even know what the Galra were until-"
"Do you want me to come with you?" Matt asked.
"No, stay here in case he comes back." Pidge told him. "And don't tell Allura."
"Keith Kogane."
There was no accusation in Pidge's tone, but he didn't expect there to be any.
He wasn't surprised that she found him. He hadn't done a very good job of hiding. Hadn't even gone out that far- some part of him knew that she would likely chase after him, and he didn't want to risk her getting lost in the desert.
His dad used to take him here, sometimes. It had been so long since he had been here last, this hill, from which the desert sprawled out before him. One could see for miles from this spot. His father would bring along a pair of binoculars, and they would use it to spot animals down in the valley, and he'd talk for what felt like hours about them.
He missed that.
He missed him.
Drawing in a long breath, he felt his shoulders slump. Running away had been stupid, but he just didn't want to be there when they connected the dots. They would, he knew. Even without a picture, he'd dropped enough hints without meaning to, to allow them to piece it together.
They were smart, the both of them. In space, he could probably hide his secret for years more, but back here on Earth, he supposed it was only a matter of time before it came out in the open.
"...yeah."
His voice was faint, almost a whisper.
Settling down next to him, he felt Pidge's eyes on him. He didn't look up, instead focusing on the helmet in his hands. The reflection the tinted visor showed him was distorted, masking the purple, but even with that, it wasn't enough to hide what made him so inhuman.
He hated his face.
He hated being Galra.
"So," she began after awhile, "-you knew Shiro, huh?"
Closing his eyes, Keith let go of the helmet, letting it fall in his lap. "His parents took me in when I was twelve."
"So he's your brother?" Pidge asked.
"Foster brother." Keith told her.
"So back when you first returned to Earth, when I showed you the data that I had collected on the Kerberos mission...?" Pidge ventured. "You didn't know, did you."
"No." Keith told her, opening his eyes.
It was in that moment, that he had decided he would return to space. He would have gone sooner, had it not been for Pidge.
Shiro was out there somewhere, being held prisoner by the Galra. He couldn't just leave him to that fate. He knew all too well what they were capable of. Even worse, if they rooted around in his memories, they might realize that they bore a connection. Even if him being on that moon was total coincidence, it might be enough to catch Haggar's attention.
He couldn't let Shiro go through the same things he had.
Younger brothers shouldn't have to protect their older brothers, he thought Shiro would say. That is, if Shiro could even stand the sight of him. If he could even consider him a brother, now that he looked every bit the monster that he had always been, just hidden deep down.
"...I'm sorry."
Finally looking up at her, there was an understanding in Pidge's eyes. She knew what it was like to lose a loved one to the Galra, to have them out there somewhere, just beyond their reach.
Tearing his gaze away, Keith instead focused on the horizon. "We'll find them."
Nodding her head, she drew up her knees, resting her chin on top of them. "We will."
They sat there in silence like that for the longest, watching as the sun started to creep downwards over the horizon. Nothing could beat a desert sunrise, but desert sunsets were nothing to sneeze at either.
His vision had changed, but they were still beautiful.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Staring down at the purple of his fingers, Keith clenched and unclenched his fists. "Used to be less purple."
She let out a laugh at that, cracking a smile. "Yeah, I kind of guessed. Matt said you used to be a cadet."
"Yeah, for like half a year." Keith told her, the faintest hint of one on his own face. "Broke a bunch of records and then disappeared."
"I'm going to be honest, that sounds a lot like you." Pidge told him. "I mean, granted, disappearing wasn't your choice, but-"
Now he did crack a smile. "You're not wrong."
"Since when am I ever?" She asked.
"Xanos."
Crinkling her nose, Pidge glowered at him. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that."
"You brought up Yaxiv 4." Keith pointed out.
"Hm, fair." Pidge admitted. "So what... what happened to you, Keith? How did you...?"
"Misplace my pupils?" Keith finished for her.
"I mean, that's not how I would have put it, but yeah, that." Pidge told him, chewing on her lip. "Is it... would it be wrong of me to tell you that I'm having a hard time picturing you with them?"
Shrugging his shoulders, Keith leaned back against his father's hoverbike, feeling the warm metal creep against his skin. It was a pleasant sensation. "You didn't know me before."
When I still looked human, but that went without saying.
"Zarkon's witch happened."
There it was, out in the open. Not the whole story, but a piece of it. One huge piece, which could spark a chain reaction, leading into all the others, everything else that he sought to keep hidden, buried. Secrets that could possibly destroy their relationship forever.
Allura, who could sense quintessence, would certainly recoil from it. He felt as if they were slowly moving towards understanding each other, but if she knew, it would likely push her over the edge into rejecting him, permanently.
Not that he would blame her. If she was serious about this, about fighting against Zarkon, about reforming this... this Voltron, then they would be better for it.
"Haggar?" Pidge asked. "She did this to you?"
Nodding his head, Keith gazed upwards. "Guess she thought I needed to look the part."
"Do you think it could be reversed?" Pidge asked.
"Pretty sure this is permanent." Keith told her, turning his head to look at her. "Even if it wasn't, I think I've had my body tampered with enough."
She flinched at that, causing him to wince internally. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"
"Nope, I get it." Pidge told him. "Don't apologize."
"You're like fourteen, you don't get to tell me what to do." Keith teased, cracking a faint smile.
"Uh, excuse you, I'm sixteen." Pidge corrected.
"Barely." Keith rolled his eyes, in spite of knowing it didn't really work anymore.
"Quit ruining the moment." Pidge said, jabbing him in the side with her elbow. "I followed you because I was worried about you, jackass, so stop spoiling it and let me tell you how much of my friend you are."
Smile faltering, Keith looked away. "There's a lot you don't know about me."
"You don't know everything about me either." Pidge told him, making it sound so simple. "I know what kind of person you are, and that's what matters most."
Frowning, Keith watched as the sun sank into the horizon, painting the sky in vivid hues of pink. "I don't know if that's enough."
"It is to me." Pidge told him.
Turning to look down at her, Keith felt something stir in his chest. He should crush this hope, he knew, it would only hurt him in the long run, but... maybe- maybe that really was enough.
Home, he heard the red lion rumble, family.