So Allura decided to throw a party for the Arusians at the Castle that night.

Lance was, of course, all for it. Ignore all the dubious looks from Hunk, parties were totally his scene. The Arusians put on a fantastic show depicting the recent Voltron battle, and then Allura gifted them some sort of communicator, and then the party began.

"You know, we need something like that," Hunk said.

Lance glanced at him. "Like what?"

"A team cheer," he said. "You know – like, what team?"

"Wildcats!" Lance and Keith shouted at the same time, before turning to each other. "You like High School Musical?"

"Yes, so, like that," said Hunk.

"Okay, okay," said Lance, distractedly re-evaluating his entire opinion of Keith. "What about, like, 'I say VOL, you say TRON!' VOL!"

He pointed to Keith eagerly.

"…Voltron?" said Keith.

"No," said Lance. "No, absolutely not – no. The instructions are in the chant. I say VOL, you say TRON. VOL!"

"Vol… tron?" said Keith again, clearly not understanding.

"We'll work on it," Lance sighed. "Hey, Coran! My man! Ooh, what's this?"

Coran laughed and handed him a cup of something. "It's nunvill! Nectar of the gods. Delicious."

Lance shrugged and downed it, and Hunk drank his as well. Hunk promptly spat his out. Lance forced himself to swallow. "Ay, dios mio! It tastes like hot dog water and feet."

"It makes an excellent hair tonic as well," said Coran with a wide grin. Shiro wandered over, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Coran offered him a cup. "Nunvill? Excellent for settling the stomach."

Lance was about to warn him, but Keith put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head, smiling rather evilly as Shiro took the drink and downed it. His face contorted comically, but he was far too polite to do anything but swallow and offer Coran a strained smile.

"Thank you," he said painfully. Keith snickered. "Coran, I don't know that we should leave the castle open like this. It leaves us vulnerable."

"Oh, the Arusians won't hurt anything," said Coran. There was the sudden sound of breaking glass. He winced. "Well, not much anyway."

Shiro's lips pressed into a thin line. "Well, I'm going to do a perimeter check anyway."

He strode off.

"I better go clean up that mess," muttered Coran. "See you boys later!"

"See ya, Coran!" Lance laughed.

Keith sniffed experimentally at his nunvill, then took a sip. He made a face, then took another sip. "Not half bad." He downed the whole thing confidently, then his eyes started watering and he promptly spit it out. "Okay, now it's disgusting! I need to wash my mouth out with food goo or something."

"We probably need to get used to this space juice," said Lance, brow furrowing. "Who knows when we'll get home."

"If ever," said Hunk pessimistically. "You know, who knows how long it'll take to defeat Zarkon? We could be here until we're old and grey and we die! Or we could die fighting. In space."

Lance's face fell. "Yeah. That could happen, I guess."

Hunk grabbed one of the weird purple lollypop things and popped it in his mouth. He spoke around it. "I wonder if we'll find a nacho planet. Like the food, not your cat, although a planet about Nacho the cat would be pretty cool."

"Who knows, man?" said Lance. "But there's only one planet with Varadero Beach – and that pizza shack looking over the water that sells the best garlic knots – and my mom's hugs and–"

Lance stopped and swallowed harshly.

"You okay?" asked Hunk worriedly.

"I just – I think it's the nunvill," said Lance. "I gotta go."

"Hey, you tell me if you need me, okay?" said Hunk.

"Yeah, man, I will," said Lance, forcing a smile and walking away. He passed Coran and Allura, and determinedly ducked his head so they wouldn't see that he was upset.

He ended up venturing to the control room of the Castle. It was a quiet place, and no one else was in there, so he sat on the steps and started humming to himself.

He did that, a lot, when he was upset. It was easier to distract himself if he was humming, but even the humming brought back memories – he'd known this song ever since he could remember, and as far as he knew there weren't words – or if there were, he'd long forgotten them. He closed his eyes and couldn't stop himself from thinking of Earth, of his family and his home and everything he'd left behind with no warning.

"Oh, precious child of mine, never fear, never cry. Sleep, sleep, child of mine, I'll be here forever more."

Lance almost jumped. The voice had come out of nowhere, singing to the same tune that Lance had been humming. Coran sat down next to him on the steps, not looking at him but rather at something Lance couldn't see – ghosts of the past, maybe.

"An old Altean lullaby," he said. "I heard you humming it."

"Oh," said Lance. "It's just a song I've – I've known for a while now. Since I can remember. Maybe there's a human lullaby or something that sounds similar."

"Maybe," said Coran. "Did your mother sing it to you?"

"I think my birth mother might have," Lance said. "I'm – I'm adopted, see, and I don't remember my birth parents all that well. My adopted mother would sing to me, but she never actually knew that one."

"My wife would sing that song to our boy every night," Coran said softly. He laughed lightly, eyes staring far away, as if he was reliving memories of happier times. "Oh, Aluran would never sleep if he didn't hear that song!"

"You had a wife," said Lance, somewhat surprised but mostly sad for the man. He knew Coran and Allura had both lost a lot, but he hadn't realised Coran had had a family that he'd lost. "And a son."

"I did," Coran said. "You remind me of them both. When I first saw you, I could have sworn you were Aluran all grown up. You look like how I imagine he would have."

"What were they like?" Lance asked hesitantly.

"Alaea – my wife – she was just the most wonderful person in the universe," said Coran fondly. "She was kind and loving and had a soft spot for just about any small, fluffy creature she ever saw. She had attitude, I'll give her that – but it was mostly directed towards Alfor, not me."

Lance suddenly remembered where he'd heard the name Aluran before. "Alfor! Was she his sister?"

"Good guess," chuckled Coran. "She was Alfor's younger sister, yes."

"What about your son?" asked Lance. "What was he like? How – how old was he?"

"He was only four deca-phoebs old," Coran murmured. Lance immediately felt bad for bringing it up, watching the heartbreak paint the Altean's face. How hard it must have been for Coran, waking up to see Lance, who apparently looked like a teenage version of his toddler son and then having to realise that son was gone forever. "Such a cheerful lad. He loved to fly – I'd always guessed he'd grow up to be a pilot, until…"

"I'm so sorry, Coran," Lance said, mostly because he didn't know what else to say. He was, in general, terrible at comforting people if he didn't have food to offer them. He contemplated giving the man a hug, but he wasn't sure how well that would be received.

"You did nothing wrong," Coran said. "And I don't think I'd accept an apology from Zarkon."

"Though that would be amusing," Lance offered.

Coran chuckled. "So it would."

They were both silent a moment.

"I miss Earth," Lance murmured, leaning up against the older man's side as if in search of comfort. Coran smiled slightly and wrapped an arm around him.

"I miss Altea," he agreed.

"I know we're supposed to be these brave defenders of the universe, or whatever, but really? I just want to go home," Lance said.

"If I could go home, I would," said Coran. "If I could have it all back – I'd take it, in a heartbeat."

"I'm sorry," Lance said again.

"No, no," said Coran. "It's alright. You can talk to me – don't worry."

Lance pulled his knees to his chest and glanced skyward. "You know? I miss rain. And splashing in puddles in the backyard with my niece and my nephew."

"Rain?" said Coran curiously.

"Oh, yeah," said Lance, "it's water that falls from the sky. A lot of people don't like it, but, me? I love it."

"We had something like that on Altea," said Coran, "except it wasn't water. It was rocks. Razor sharp, boiling hot rocks that could knock a hole right in your head."

"That sounds… fun," said Lance.

"Yeah," said Coran. "When we were your age, Alfor and I would grab old shields from the armoury and run outside under them. It was a bit of a game – whoever got the most dents in his shield, especially near the centre, won! Ah, drove both of our parents mad."

"You and Alfor were pretty close, huh?" said Lance.

Coran nodded, a bittersweet smile forming under his moustache. "We were. I miss him just as much as I miss Alaea and Aluran."

"Don't you ever go talk to him?" Lance asked. "I mean, his AI thing."

Coran looked surprised. "You know about that?"

"I mean, yeah," said Lance. "I stumbled upon it first. We talked, and I came back later and we talked some more. He seems like a pretty cool guy – like he was a pretty cool guy, I guess."

"He was actually quite warm, not standoffish or aloof in the slightest," said Coran.

"Oh, no, Earth slang," Lance said. "Cool means – like – awesome. Great. I had to explain that to him too."

Coran nodded. "Then, yes, he was quite cool."

"So do you?" Lance asked.

Coran blinked at him. "Do I…?"

"Ever talk to Alfor," he clarified.

Coran's face fell. "No. No, I – I haven't been able to bring myself to talk to him yet. Part of it – well, it's not truly my old friend, is it? But also… I failed him. I failed all of them, except maybe Allura."

"You didn't fail them," said Lance. "It wasn't your fault. I'm sure you did all you could."

"I should have done more," Coran said bitterly.

"Hey," said Lance. "After the party's over, I'll come with you and you can talk to Alfor. And I don't have to stick around or anything but – you know, moral support and all. It may not really be Alfor, but I bet he's still hurt that you're avoiding him. What do you say?"

Coran glanced at him and smiled. "Alright, then, Lance. Perhaps you're right. After the party we'll go talk to Alfor."

"Alright!" said Lance brightly.

Coran laughed. "Speaking of, what do you say we go rejoin the party?"

"Honestly, it's hardly a party without the coolest two people on the ship," said Lance, tutting disapprovingly. "My man, we're more than the life of the party, we are the party."

"I assume you mean cool as in great?" Coran said.

"I know you know what I meant," said Lance.

"I did," Coran admitted with a grin. He stood, then offered Lance a hand and helped him up as well. As the door opened to let them out, Pidge's little robot – what did he call it? Rover? – flew by them. Lance waved to it, because just because it was a robot didn't mean it didn't have feelings, or something like that.

"Hey, Rover," he greeted. The thing followed Pidge around everywhere, it was almost cute. Then he stopped and turned. "Wait. Where's Pidge?"

He peered closer at the robot, in time to see it turn red and start rapidly flashing. He realised what was going to happen a second before it did.

"Coran, look out!" he yelled, running forward to tackle the Altean out of the way just as the bomb went off. Lance;s world briefly erupted into fiery pain, before everything fell into blessedly cold darkness.

A/N: IT'S THIS SCENE - the lullaby scene was one of my favourites to write, I really enjoyed writing this chapter. It's always fun to write Coran and Lance bonding. This is the only chapter for this episode, because Lance is unconscious for the rest of the episode, so... nothing else there.

If anyone's interested in hearing the lullaby, sort of, I wrote it up here and you can go listen on Noteflight; just remove the spaces and add a dot com in between "noteflight" and the rest because fanfiction is weird about links:
www. noteflight /scores/view/7f9730a68b407d410340cce5eeb0a39c1e86dd10

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Love you guys so much!