Now that he was face to face with Keith, Lance wasn't actually sure where to start.
He wasn't even technically face to face with him, but the comm screen was lit up with Keith's face, asking Lance, "Hey, Lance. What's going on?"
The concern in Keith's voice was evident.
"Uh...hey...hey, man…how are you?"
"Lance! Are you alright? Is the team alright? What's going on?"
"Uh…" Now that he thought about it, accusing one of Keith's closest friends of being an imposter or maybe just evil was probably not the best idea. Currently Keith was the only person Lance could talk to about this, he had to make sure not to screw this up. It was definitely better to skirt around the issue.
"Lance...seriously...what's going on?" Keith's eyebrows knitted themselves together, but his voice was a bit softer than it had been before.
"So...uh…" Lance was trying to think through what he could say, but then inspiration struck him, "So you remember how, uh, I told you that I would keep an eye on Lotor for you?"
"Yeah, what happened?"
"Well, I-I think he's up to something." The statement was so feeble, Lance almost felt embarrassed that he had said it.
But Keith took it with the utmost sincerity. He sat up straighter, looked more alert. His voice was deeper, more focused. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know."
"Lance."
"Okay, I just...I overheard him saying something weird...uh...like he was talking on a comm system."
"Isn't someone always supposed to be with him?"
"Well...yeah...but that's the thing...Shiro was with him, but Shiro didn't sound like Shiro."
To his credit, Keith didn't look defensive or angry Lance was accusing his friend of something. Keith looked puzzled. "What does that mean?"
"Look, that's really why I wanted to talk to you. You know Shiro better than anyone here, and I want to know if you've noticed anything off about him."
"I mean...Lance, he's been through a lot...he's changed from when I knew him before the Kerberos mission...I-"
Lance cut him off. "Yep...got it. Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out myself."
"Wait! Lance...what-"
Lance cut the communication off before Keith could finish what he was saying.
Thousands of miles apart from each other both boys groaned in unison. Why is dealing with him SO FRUSTRATING!
Lance sighed. He knew he didn't have time to wait around. He needed to get back to his room before lunch finished or risk being caught by Shiro or Lotor.
Ugh! The talk with Keith hadn't gotten him anywhere!
Lance kicked at the wall, slightly too hard. It was only afterwards, when he was bouncing up and down on one leg, trying not to make a sound, that he realized how stupid that had been.
He snuck back to his room, as fast as he could with one injured foot.
Time to come up with a new plan…
"Hey! Pidge!"
Pidge could barely take their eyes off of their computer to look up at Lance. They were so focused on whatever they were busy with. "Oh, hey Lance...are you feeling better?"
"What? Oh...oh yeah, I'm fine. I think the healing pod just left me feeling a little funny or something, but I feel fine now…" Lance had almost forgot that he had given that excuse to Shiro earlier.
"Oh yeah...that's good…" Pidge trailed off, clearly distracted.
To an untrained eye, it wouldn't appear like Shiro was following Lance around. It wasn't as though it was unusual for teammates to be in the same room together. It was just coincidence that if Lance went to a different room, Shiro would pop up a few minutes later.
Lance knew he only had a few seconds before he was being spied on again.
"Hey, with all of the intelligence you've gathered, do you think there would be a way to search through the Galra systems for a codename for a project?"
"Uh...well you can search for it, yeah, but you probably won't find anything."
"What do you mean?"
"Well we only have so much intelligence, and mostly what we have is location on the Galra fleet. The Galra keep a lot of their projects localized on a base, so in order to get any information about it you'd have to physically go to the base and hack into their systems directly."
"Great, Pidge, but we're not all genius hackers like you."
"You don't have to be, just use the Vega Protocol I created." Pidge was barely paying attention to what Lance was saying, and seemed to be getting slightly annoyed with him.
"The what?"
"The Vega Protocol, it's on the main computer too. Download the Protocol to a drive, connect the drive to the Galra base's mainframe, run the protocol, search for the codename, download what you find back onto the drive. It's not like it's rocket science."
The annoyance was clear to Lance. Normally he would have snapped back at their comment, but he was in a time crunch.
"How would I know which base to go to?" Lance was so keenly interested in what they were saying, he almost didn't notice the door open and Shiro walk in.
"Well, that's what I said earlier, go ahead and search the main computer for it, you might get lucky."
Lance had a sharp intake of breath, hoping that Shiro hadn't been listening too intently, or wouldn't be able to figure out what they had been talking about.
One thing was for sure though, Shiro would be watching too closely for him to sneak out and look at the main computer anytime soon. He would have to wait until the opportune moment. At least Pidge had unknowingly helped him form a new plan.
"Yeah! Anyway...kiddo, keep up the good work!" Lance wasn't sure if it was possible to be more awkward than he was.
"Lance, what are you even talking about now?" Pidge looked affronted at being called 'kiddo'. Iit was the first time they looked up from their computer the entire time Lance had been talking to them.
"Uh...sorry about that."
"Well, just leave me alone then. I've got too much work to do to get roped into whatever you're doing."
"Right, right. I'll just go and help Coran with the plates again or something…" Lance sighed and left.
Everywhere he went Lance could feel Shiro tailing along after him. It was irritating, but unfortunately for Shiro, Lance was an expert at losing a tail.
It came with the territory. Lance had a lot of younger siblings. They were always following around the older ones, trying to see what they were doing, trying to annoy each other. Lance had developed something of a sixth sense to knowing when he was being watched or followed. You only let your sister surprise you by jumping out of the closet so many times before you started paying attention.
The first step was patience. Lure your sibling, or in this case Shiro, into thinking that you don't know or don't care that you're being followed. Tire them out.
Lance helped Coran for a good few hours. Shiro was forced to help too, which was good for attempting to tire him out. That was, until Lance realized he was getting more tired than Shiro was.
Unfortunately for Lance, Shiro was a lot stronger and had a lot more stamina than any of his siblings.
Damn. This was going to take some work.
After some more time the three of them took a break. Lance was sweating, this time from the physical effort and not from his nerves.
Coran spoke. "Well, the good news is we're almost done, the other good news is that it's almost dinner time." He clapped his hands together, excitedly.
Oh great, dinner. Lance's stomach grumbled loudly. Skipping lunch had been a bad idea even if he had needed to try talking to Keith. It hadn't been worth it.
Lance just needed some kind of proof, any kind of proof. He hoped the computer would have something on it that he could use. Lance lost himself in thought while they reattached the last few plates.
Everyone else was already at the table waiting to eat. Suddenly Shiro turned around.
"Ah! I forgot I had something that I needed to check on. I'll be back in a few minutes. Go ahead and start without me." Shiro dashed off, running his fingers through his hair.
Lance perked up. Shiro was actually going to leave him alone with the others after all of this?
Lotor let out a small cough from his seat at the table.
Oh yeah...Lotor...damn… Lance still wouldn't be able to say anything to the others with Lotor around. If he and Shiro were working together it would mean that Shiro would hear about anything that Lance said. Shiro was definitely already acting suspicious of Lance, making him more suspicious could prove fatal.
He couldn't talk about anything that he had overheard, but maybe he could do something else.
"Does anyone think that Shiro's been acting a bit strange today?" Lance said, hoping the others have picked up anything.
"Not really. Honestly Lance I think the only person acting strange today was you." Pidge said it in between bites of food goo.
"Ah, you're still upset that I called you 'kiddo.'"
Hunk snorted. "You called Pidge kiddo?"
"In my defense I was still feeling sick after lunch."
"You told me you were feeling better!" Pidge squeaked.
"Okay, okay." Lance raised his hands in surrender.
That hadn't quite gone how Lance had planned. He needed to try to steer the conversation back on track.
"No, but seriously, you don't think Shiro's been acting strange at all?" Lance was focusing all the power of his brain waves to get one of them to agree with him.
"Nope."
"Not really."
Damn. Lance had to keep trying. They needed to see what he was seeing. "You don't think it's odd that he would skip dinner?"
Hunk shrugged. "Well, I mean, he said he would be back, and it's not like he hasn't skipped dinner before. Besides, he has a lot to do, especially now that there's extra lotor watching duties."
Damn. "Ri-ight. I guess I just feel like he's watching me more closely?" This was getting dangerously close to the truth.
Allura chimed in. "Well that's not exactly surprising considering your recent...uh.." She glanced at the puffy patch of blue under Lotor's eye. "Incident?"
Lance felt his face flush. "No...that's not...I...I just feel like something might be odd, okay?"
Lotor spoke this time, sending a shiver down Lance's spine. "It seems to me everyone else is in agreement."
Lance felt anger flare up inside him. Lotor was playing with him as though he were a toy. "You can stay out of this."
"Lance!" Allura warned.
"No!" Lance stood up. "Lotor's up to something! I know it!"
"LANCE!"
This time it was Shiro's voice that reverberated through the dining hall. Lance felt the blood drain from his face. Shiro was not happy looking.
"Shiro! I-"
"You need to leave this alone!" Shiro wasn't quite yelling, but his voice was loud and commanding. A leader's voice.
"I-"
"It was my decision that Lotor would stay, he's staying! You need to control yourself. You've caused nothing but problems recently."
"Shiro! I know that there's-" In his panic, Lance almost forgot that he was suspicious of Shiro too.
"NO! You're the only one causing problems. Lotor has done nothing to suggest he's being anything but truthful. Right now I trust him more than I trust you!" Shiro was getting louder, getting dangerously close to yelling.
"It's not-"
"I TOLD YOU TO LET IT GO, LANCE!"
"But, I-"
"IF YOU CAN'T TRUST LOTOR, YOU NEED TO TRUST ME. AND IF YOU CAN'T TRUST ME THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T BE PART OF THE TEAM!"
Lance opened and closed his mouth wordlessly for a moment.
Shiro, seeming to realize what he had just said, suddenly got quieter, his voice apologetic. "Lance, that's not what I meant! I just mean that you need to trust me."
Shiro's eyes looked somber, worried. The other's sat around the table completely shocked.
Lance looked at him, wondering if it was all an act. He couldn't tell. Disgusted, he grabbed his bowl of food goo and turned around to head out of the dining hall.
Hunk ran after him before he made it past the door, Allura following behind.
Quietly hunk said. "That's not what Shiro meant, you're really important to the team."
Allura nodded in agreement. "Yes, Shiro doesn't want you to leave the team."
Lance looked past them, back to where Shiro stood, looking as shocked and apologetic as it was possible for a person to be.
Lance opened his mouth to speak, still gazing at Shiro. "You're right...Shiro doesn't."
A/N: OMG I'm dying with Lance and Keith not being in the same spaceship together...and I'm the author and I know where this story is going and I'm dying, so you all must be going absolutely crazy! Also Pidge has all of the answers, always, and any good teammate knows that.
I was hoping to get through one more scene today, but it'll have to wait.
In other news the next chapter is going to be killer…
See you tomorrow. :)
