Chapter sixteen

Keith's sobs echoed in his fairly empty room. The tears rolled down his nose, and dropped to the ground; as he looked down at the picture of him and Shiro in his left hand and his knife in the other. Traces of Shiro's blood still remained on it, and that only made things worse for him and he cried harder. Keith wasn't known to show much emotion other than anger and annoyance, but today he couldn't stop himself. The pain that tore at his heartstrings was too much to bare. The pictures in his mind of what he'd seen. The thought of him attacking the one person whom he considered his brother, was practically killing him from the inside out. A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, he forced himself to slow his sobs. Wiping away as many tears as he possibly could. The door opened and Keith dared himself to look up. But the sight of Shiro standing there, stung as though he'd been stabbed with his own knife. Keith looked away unwilling to meet his gaze.

"Keith." Shiro's voice startled him; as he hadn't heard it since the explosion that knocked out the Black Paladin's hearing. Keith forced himself to look up again, finally making eye contact with Shiro dark grey eyes. Shiro knelt down on one knee beside him.

"Keith, please, listen to me." Keith could hear the emphasis on the word 'please', despite not hearing a thing. "I know how you're feeling right now. I've done things that couldn't believe I did too." Keith's stare was uncertain as Shiro continued. "When those aliens we saved from the Galra prison ship told me that I hurt my friend, Matt, in the Galra fighting arena; I didn't want to believe that I would do such a thing."

"But that was different." Keith signed back. "You later remembered that you did it on purpose, to save him."

"True," Shiro returned. "But I still felt the self doubt. Wondered why I would do that. Wished it weren't true. I wanted to believe that they were lying... but then I remembered and understood, again, why I did it. I always fear of hurt someone I care about, but I've gotten past that. And I've accepted the fact that accidents happen, and sometimes things are out of my control. But you and the rest of the team understand that I would never hurt any of you intentionally."

"But how can I do this?" Keith questioned, his tear-filled eyes and shaky breaths beginning to overwhelm him again.

"By forgiving yourself. You're mind was not your own. And that'll happen sometimes. That's how a traumatic experience works. You'll always be reminded of it. But how you deal with it... is up to you." Keith's gaze softened, the sadness he felt slowly subsiding; but now fully dissipating.

"But how can you forgive this?" Keith asked dropping his gaze. Shiro took his chin and pulled back up to meet his tender gaze.

"It's a lot easier than you think." Shiro signed. "I've been where you are... believe me." Shiro laid his right hand on the inside of Keith's left forearm, and pulled it into an embrace; both being careful of Shiro's injury. Keith took out a small cloth from his saddle bag, and began to clean his knife's blade. Placing it back in its sheath and the picture down on his bed, he looked back up at Shiro.

"So..." he began slowly. "How big is it?" Shiro's eyebrows furrowed.

"Do you really want to know?" He asked, half wondering if he should tell him. Keith hesitated for a moment.

"Yes." The young man decided. Regretfully, Shiro pointed to his left side and slowly traced his finger all the way up to his shoulder. And Keith immediately regretted wanting to know, as did Shiro for showing him. Shiro placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Explain to me, how you allowed the prisoner to escape." Zarkon's lack of shouting intimidated and concerned the Galra soldiers more than, his raised voice would have.

"It wasn't easy to stop them, but somehow they managed to make it past our security systems." One Galra soldier reasoned.

"The little one was protected by the escaped prisoner, and the other prisoner was rescued by both of them. We haven't a clue how they got in undetected for so long." Another one said.

"Then find out how and reinforce our defenses to prevent that from ever happening again!" Zarkon returned severely, glaring back at them. The soldiers quickly backed away and left, before Zarkon got any angrier. And the alien warlord turned back to stare, seemingly, blankly out at the infinite void of darkness and stars on the main screen.

"I will have that lion if it's the last thing I do." He mumbled menacingly to himself.

The team waited anxiously in the lounge. Lance lay sprawled across the bench with his legs up on, what would be, the back of the seat. Pidge remained with her elbows to her knees, one knee bouncing up and down in a nervous twitch. Everyone was sitting within the circle of the bench. Hunk sat with his right leg laid across his other leg with his knee pointing out. Allura just stared at the ground in despair, and Coran sat right beside her with his around behind her; in case he had to reassure her again. Finally their anxiety was shattered by the door of the lounge sliding open, and the Red and Black Paladins emerging from it. Everyone rose as soon as they saw them. Lance looked up, then, losing his balance, fell off the chair and crashed in a heap to the ground. He rubbed his head, as he stood up as well; and Allura paced toward the two men.

"Keith, are you alright? We've been wondering when you two would return." The Princess stated, giving him a concerned blank stare.

"Yeah, I'm good." Keith responded, signing his response for Shiro to read.

"Well you look like you're doing better." Pidge remarked by the young man's demeanor. "How you feeling?"

"Better. Thanks." Keith smiled kinda half-heartedly. Then looked at Shiro, who couldn't hide a smile.

"So-" Keith began breaking his gaze to the floor. "How'd you find me?" He peeked up to searched the expressions on team's for answers. Shiro took Keith's shoulder in his hand and turned it toward him, when Keith looked at him he signed:

"Allura has seen you disappeared behind the Galra ship and after that you were gone. So we figured wherever you went, it had to be on the Galra headquarters."

"So what did you do without me?" Keith asked, after a short silence.

"What do you mean?" Allura wondered curiously. Keith pointed a thumb over towards Shiro, then glanced over at him. The Black Paladin simply standing there blankly watching the conversation, to which he, still, could not hear.

"Ehh, we found ways." Pidge smiled, coolly shining her nails on her shirt. She smiled humorously, as a nonexistent light glinted off it; stealing this expression from Lance.

"We managed." Shiro signed, somehow understanding the conversation. Shiro's gaze fell to the floor and he closed his eyes firmly, his eyebrows furrowing across his face. Keith turned squarely toward him, worry gripping him once again.

"Shiro, what's wrong?" He said, some how forgetting in that moment that the Black Paladin couldn't hear him. When Shiro didn't respond, he touched Shiro's left shoulder gently, remembering his injury, and Shiro looked up at him.

"Shiro what's wrong?" Keith asked again, signing so he could understand him.

"Ahh it's nothing, just a minor headache." Shiro responded, shrugging off the suspicion of his friend.

"How long has this been going on?" Keith said aloud, while also gesturing it to Shiro. Shiro stared at him. "How long?!" Keith repeated, a little more frantically. Shiro finally told him and Keith's jaw dropped. "That's bad you know that right?!" Keith told him angrily. Shiro looked away, returned his gaze to Keith, and motioned something else. The rest of the team wishing, by now, that they could understand them; as the tension in the air rose.

"Shiro when something like this happens, it means something's wrong!" Keith couldn't contain his frustration by this point.

"We've been so caught up in get you back and taking care of you that it didn't matter." Shiro returned, somehow continuing to remain calm.

"Except it does matter!!" Keith shouted back, he'd been signing violently this entire time and the others stood back; but prepared to intervene if needed. "Shiro you're just as important to this team as any of us!! You might even be one the most important of us all! You're our leader." Keith's voice lowered as he calmed himself again. "We can't form Voltron without you."

"Keith, what's going on?" Allura finally decided to step in. At that moment Shiro grimaced and grabbed his head sinking to the floor.

"Shiro!!" The team cried, leaping forward. Their voices seemed blurred and distant, as the Black Paladin felt a certain Galra leader forcing his way into his thoughts. When Keith and Lance helped him stand up, he placed his hand on Keith's shoulder and gave it a gentle shove saying one word.

"Lions." Then staggered off, with the team glancing around at each other quizzically; when the ground was suddenly jerked under their feet as explosions rang out, muffled by the walls of the Castle. Now understanding what Shiro had said, they ran for the bridge to get to there lions and launched. As Keith took his place, he couldn't help but still feel that Shiro was off. Something about him was different, but he couldn't seem to figure out what it was. His mind had wondered elsewhere, but was soon brought back to reality by the blasts from the Galra ship that were, now, pursuing him. But even that couldn't distract him from the lingering thought that ripped ravenously at the back of his mind.

Well another chapter done. I do believe this story is soon to be finished, but I have some work to do before that happens. I haven't posted this before now becasue of the anticipation of season 8. Also, with that, I have already started a new story taking place after the events of season eight and acts as a better, more satisfying ending to some degree. That's not to say that it was bad, but I felt like there were things I would have done differently and if you've seen it you know what I mean. I won't go in to all that becasue that's what my new story is meant to do. I will probably not start posting it right away, but stay tuned for when I do!

As for this story, though, I'm gonna try to finish it with at least twenty chapters, and, if you haven't read my other work, this is the longest story I've ever done. The most I've done up until now has been eleven chapters, I think. So a big difference! Also this story has gained the most support of all my stories so far, so thank you soooooo much for that!! Anyway hope you like what comes next and I'll be back with more as soon as I can! Thx!!! ;D 3