"Thanks, again, Acxa." Keith told the woman, holding out his hand.
Acxa clutched his forearm, nodding to him. "I hope our paths might cross again, Keith."
"Keith." Lance's voice broke through their farewells, and Keith glanced up to the Red Lion, where the Paladin was waiting. "If you're done saying goodbye to your sweetheart, we need to go!"
"Oh my quiznak." Acxa rolled her eyes, able to hear Lance's voice through the comm clearly from where she stood.
"Lance, she's not my sweetheart!" Keith hissed, turning from Acxa. "She's just a friend."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say. Now can we just get GOING?!"
"Lance." Keith sternly glared, very much aware that Lance couldn't see his face. "It's going to take one and a half years to get home. Why are you in such a hurry? It'll take us a while no matter what we do."
Lance flicked off his comm, not bothering to answer his leader.
"Farewell, Keith." Acxa told him, positioning herself into the classic Galra salute. "May God guide your path, and give you speed."
"You too, Acxa." Keith smiled. "God bless."
Acxa smiled gently, pivoting and heading back to her cave.
"So…is anyone else going to say it?" Hunk asked, mirth in his voice.
"I swear, if-" Keith began, but Coran interrupted.
"Oh! Is this your Earth-song about the tree? And the rhymes, and the marriage?"
"Um. Yeah. Anyone going to sing it with me?"
"Hunk." Keith groaned, face-palming. "I swear, if you begin singing…"
"Keith and Ac-xa, sitting' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes marriage, then comes Keith, with a baby-"
Keith choose that moment to shut off his comms, thankfully for the blissful silence that emanated from his helmet. After a few moments, in which he climbed into the Black Lion, he turned them on again, regretting it immediately.
Hunk was teaching Romelle and Coran how to sing the teasing song, and Keith sighed, angry that they were still using him as the victim.
"Okay, guys, that's enough." He told them, grabbing the controls. The Black Lion flickered to life, and he groaned when Hunk only increased his out-of-tune singing. "GUYS."
"Hunk, if you don't shut it right now, you'll have two training simulators to do in the morning." Krolia barked, and silence immediately filtered through the comm.
Keith glanced at her with admiration, and she smirked back.
"Okay. We're all ready to launch." Shiro told them, probably checking one of the screens that gave him all the Lions' stats.
"Good." Keith repositioned his grip on the controls. "Lance, if you can hear me, turn on your comms."
The comm on Lance's end flicked on, and Keith nodded sharply, controlling the Black Lion. His lion, turned, took a five step running start, and then his thrusters flared, dragging the Green Lion, who was still limp, behind him. The Yellow Lion had to grab the smaller lion's tail to keep her airborne, but, with a bit of luck, they broke the atmosphere.
Shiro kept Pidge in his arms until they cleared it, bent over her figure carefully as he braced himself, eyes squeezed tight.
She whimpered slightly at every jolt, but did not rouse from her slumber, instead murmuring things incoherently.
Shiro bit his lip, hoping against hope that she wouldn't wake up screaming, since her last memory was probably of Zethrid breaking her leg. Also, he was pretty sure the pain had hardly dimmed.
When everything had evened out, he slipped her into her 'bed', if it could even be called that. It was more of a cot built on top of a large box.
Keith, Krolia, and Acxa had helped him divide the storage room in half using talk storage containers, Shiro getting part of it, Pidge getting the other half.
He was well aware that Lance and Keith had done the same for their female passengers, something that all the people with multiple passengers seemed to do, save Allura who didn't seem to realize why they divided their quarters.
"All right, everyone, good job on clearing the atmosphere." Keith encouraged. "The next rest stop will be planet Berk, but we have two quintents until we need to get there, so be prepared for the long haul."
"Understood, Team Leader." Lance probably saluted as he spoke.
"10-4." Hunk agreed.
"Of course. We have much longer breaks ahead of us." Allura reflected, most likely nodding. "Two quintents is nothing compared to the movements, perhaps phoebs, we will travel with no rest."
Shiro nodded, despite knowing that they couldn't see him, and settled down into a chair beside Pidge.
The first thing she was aware of was the pain. Her head felt like it was on fire, her ears were ringing, she felt barf in her mouth, her arms ached, her left cheek was sore, she was so very tired, and she…she…
Oh, quiznak. Why couldn't she feel…uh-oh.
Pidge's eyes flew open with a gasp, her breaths coming in short, pained inhales.
Beside her, somebody jumped, reaching out to touch her arm gently. Pidge instantly recognized the man crouched beside her, tears coming to her eyes.
"Sh-Shiro!" She croaked, calling her friend by name. "I can't feel…I can't feel my legs-! I don't know what-! My legs…what happened to my legs-?!"
It's okay." Shiro soothed, his fingers rubbing her shoulder gently, doing his best to comfort her. "It's okay. Do you remember what-" he cut himself off, thinking on what to say next. Finally, he settled on a single word. "-transpired?"
Pidge blinking at him, eyes glazed over, phasing in and out of focus. "Oh. OH." Her voice hardened noticeably, eyes narrowing. "I'm going to…to…"
"You're going to rest." Shiro sighed, forcing her back into her covers since she was beginning to rise. "It's the best you can do until you recover fully."
"I'm fine." Pidge told him, her voice a scratchy hiss as she swatted away his caring hand. "I'll be fine. Just…" she broke into a cough, a small bit of blood coming out with the germs released from the cough. "I'll be fine."
"Pidge." If she was insisting she was fine, without waiting for him to ask, then she really was hurt. "You just coughed up blood."
Quiznak. That was NOT what he wanted to say.
"I…" Pidge drew her hand across her chin and cheek, erasing any signs of blood. "I'm just a little bruised Shiro-" she began, before more blood began to swell from her mouth.
"Pidge!" Shiro took her by the shoulders, shaking her gently. "Stop it. You're going to end up killing yourself. You obviously have internal bleeding, and we can't help you with it; the healing pod is out of commission. Don't move, and it'll slow the bleeding."
Pidge stared at him, worry in her eyes, looking close to tears. "How much did they torture me?" Her voice was strained with every word.
Shiro had to pause, staring at her worriedly. The question had caught him off guard, and he had to take a moment to gather up his courage. "I want you to know something, Katie." He told her, using her birth name in favor to her alias. "I'm not gonna sugar-coat anything, okay. One reason is I don't know how to do it, and the other is that I want you to be prepared. Are you prepared to know the truth, full swing?"
"Yeah." Pidge almost nodded, but stopped herself, not wanting to deal with the pain, and probably the internal bleeding.
"They choked you, Pidge. They held you off of the ground by your neck, and they just left you there." Shiro's voice already was slightly shaking, the memory far too resent to be fine to talk about. After months of peace in the Black Lion, this hit him full swing as terrible, and only made him reflect on all the awful things from his Galra imprisonment. He continued on his explanation, Pidge sinking into herself more with every addition to the ever growing list.
When Shiro was done, he looked her up and down, realizing how bags were suddenly under her eyes, her face a pale white, and sweat trailed down her forehead.
"Pidge?" He asked, tilting his head at her.
She jumped, blinking warily at him, worry creasing her forehead. "Are you sure I will heal? I wanna be completely fine before we get to Earth."
"The best you can do is rest." Shiro sighed, touching her hair gingerly. "And…um…don't panic."
Pidge blinked at him drearily, but she obeyed, sinking into the covers. "Okay."
Now that was weird. If she was just "kinda" hurt, she would hide it. If she was in agonizing pain, she would insist that she was fine without being asked. But…when she didn't argue…
Oh dear gosh no.
As soon as she dozed off again, Shiro left the room, turning on his coms as he took a deep breath. "Hi, everyone. Pidge was awake a few minutes ago."
"Really?" Hunk whooped. "Is she awake now? If she's awake now, I'm gonna squeeze 'er and never let go!"
"Yippee! Can she hear us, like, right now?" Lance inquired, his voice chipper.
"Leave it to Pidge to wake up just as we leave the planet as Acxa's medical aid. Mom, you owe me three thousand GAC." Keith sneered.
"Yeah. I know." Krolia answered, her voice distant as if she was calling from the other room. She was most likely tending to the wolf.
"That's wonderful! We'll be sure to check on her as soon as we land on Berk." Allura decided, her voice calm.
Coran let out an unusually happy noise. "Is she currently on the mend?"
"How was Pidge fairing?" Romelle asked.
Shiro, probably unwisely, decided to hit all the questions with one stone. "Yes. No. No. Kinda. She's really bad." He glanced back through the open door at her, and sighed. "I suck at medical care." He hissed.
"Hmm." Krolia's voice neared, probably coming closer to the coms. "When the wolf gets better, I'll be able to assist, but, until then, I won't be able to help much. The best you can do is let her rest. Now, did you notice any difference to her past condition?"
"Yeah." Shiro shut off his coms to the others, so that he could speak directly to the Black Lion. No offense to the others, but they were just kids. They shouldn't know all the awful things that were effecting Pidge. "Internal bleeding. She kept…um…coughing up blood."
"How much?"
"Not much at all." Shiro assured her. "But she still did, and she looks kinda pale."
"Of course." Keith sighed in frustration, then paused, his voice lighting up. "Mom, don't you still have your helmet?"
"I see where you're going with this. Shiro, prepare to be boarded by another passenger."
"Right." Shiro turned to glance at Pidge, and, in that moment, time froze over.
Author's Oath: Read, Review, and Rant about your thoughts. I'll answer any questions you have near I can without giving away too much!