Shiro was halfway through a sentence before Pidge decided enough was enough, and if she had to sit there to pretend that Shiro wasn't taking up her time because he and Keith weren't talking and she was the next best alternative to Keith, then she would sooner make a living as a farmer after the war. Shiro only sputtered incoherently, and Pidge sighed with that annoyed-yet-sympathetic attitude that she often displayed when Matt announced that he was going to set off the Garrison's fire alarms yet again for the fifth time that one month. Then she took her datapad without missing a beat and left the room but not without a warning glance backwards with that demonic and terrifying smirk of hers and tells Shiro to go talk to Keith before he makes the choice to go to the other side of the universe in the next Blade mission.

That was how Shiro found himself at the Bridge again, staring at the map of the castleship and the various symbols indicating members of their team and their location. Each of the paladins were a lion's head with their appropriate colour, and Coran was his own orange circle currently circling the medical bay, assumingly cleaning the cryopods. Other inhabitants on the casteship were generic white blobs, currently cluttering most of the grand hall.

Keith's signature used to be the red lion, though since his decision to leave Voltron, it had been a white lion. The symbols were changed by Coran at some point that Shiro hadn't noticed, though he could tell sentimentality when he sees it - Keith was a paladin to his core, and Coran was never going to take it away from him.

White was a clean slate, a blank canvas from which one could do anything they wish. Perhaps that was what Coran wished for Keith when he had returned to the castleship after that fateful mission, though Shiro could only guess at what the man was thinking when he changed these symbols.

They all wanted Keith to get back on his feet again, that was true, but none of them truly knew how to help him. Shiro did what he thought was right, though after most of the time that has gone by, he wondered if he ever actually did anything to have helped Keith back to where he is now. And after that last spar in the training deck…

Shior sighed as his eyes searched the map for that white lion, only to give up and use the search system. Within a second, he found it in one of the hallways leading from the main ballroom. He turned and headed for that location with conversations written up in his mind, though none of them seemed to be a feasible option.

There was something that he had noticed about his prosthetic since that day on the training deck. He hadn't realised until now how foreign the arm felt, attached to his shoulder. He remembered more organic, more fitted for himself and so integrated with him that it was almost possible to forget that it was a prosthetic to begin with - the wonders of alien technology, he supposed.

Yet there was something peculiar about it, and though Pidge had done a rescan of his arm and assured him that nothing was amiss, Shiro wasn't very reassured. He had thought about asking Allura, but that was second to what was on the forefront of his mind at the moment.

As he approached where the castleship had indicated Keith to be, he began to pick up the subtle words being spoken - it seemed that Keith wasn't alone. Their voices were hushed, bordering on harsh whispers that Shiro couldn't pick up from his distance from them. It immediately occurred to Shiro that he should leave and give them privacy, and he had planned to do so.

Perhaps he could find Keith later to speak. He technically wasn't running away from Keith, per se, but it was clear that he was occupied and Shiro didn't exactly want to intrude. He planned to turn around to leave, but a voice immediately stopped him.

"Shiro?" Keith's brows rose at the sight of Shiro. And the person he was talking to turned around - Muer , with a distinctly tightness to his features.

But before Shiro could even say hello, Muer marched towards him, presumably done with whatever conversation he had with Keith. He stopped just before he passed Shiro completely, and in a quiet voice and an even more cryptic tone, he said, "Watch your back, Black Paladin." Then he left Shiro to his confusion as his figure disappeared down the hall.

Keith had taken himself to the giant windowsill at the end of the perpendicular hallway, gazing out into darkness of space with one leg up on the cushion and the other handing off. He was wearing that red leather jacket again and it reminded Shiro of the veranda at the desert shack. He remembered the reserveness that the young cadet used to have, and how he would lean against the wooden column, huddled under the shade as he read.

Shiro took the space next to him, staring out to the window as well. He could point out the tenseness of Keith's posture, just as he noticed how Keith would hastily put his books away when anyone approach the shack. Then he waited.

It took five minutes. And then Keith turned to him expectantly.

Shiro drew in his breath, "I'm sor-"

"Don't." Keith held his hand up.

"We have been saying 'sorry' too much, haven't we?" He let out a dry laugh, and it sounded even worse out loud as it echoed in the empty hallway.

He let his gaze run over Keith's features: the toned legs in those emo skinny jeans , as Lance dubbed, the cropped jacket faded by hours under the sun, his sharp chin and jawlines, the dry lips, his pale cheeks, and those pastel eyes - vibrant as ever, and so full of secrets. Sometimes Shiro wonders if he could peer into them to learn the secrets of the universe, but they remain as mysterious as ever as Keith's eyes flicked towards the fidgeting hands in his lap.

Keith started this time. "The thing I did on the training deck..." He rubbed his thumbs over themselves, clasping his hands tightly. "It's something that…" He sighed. "I don't even know how to say sorry to you for what I did."

"I thought we weren't going to apologise to each other."

"I think you deserve an apology for me almost killing you, at least."

"You almost killed me?" Shiro asked. "I was the one with my arm at your head."

"You don't get it, Shiro. What I did to you… I've done that before, but not on anyone I know." Keith's voice grew soft with a guilt so thick that it seemed to choke him. "I did this once - when I was at that Galra base. It was something we've seen done by the druids so many times during missions. And after I was taught all these ways to sense quintessence and learn about alchemy, I just…" Keith sniffled slightly. "I crippled him so I could escape."

"You were trying to save someone."

Keith shook his head. "I could have thrown my blade. I could have run over and wrestle him. I could have done many different things in that situation, Shiro. But I chose to cripple him in such a- a perverse way." He stared at Shiro, grief brimming his eyes and threatening to fall. "And then I did it to you."

And Shiro felt similar grief building, burning, in his throat and up his eyes at the broken sounds that Keith spoke. Shiro wished to take his hand in his and hold him until they could just leave everything in the past without ever needing to look back.

He had been fearful, both at himself, and at Keith, for having done something so reckless that would have ended with Keith's life lost in the process. And he was resentful at both of them until he saw the guilt on Keith's face, until he saw him skirting along the edges of his life, staying out of sight and out of Shiro's mind, when the actual fact was that Keith could do anything but not be on Shiro's mind for the last few days.

Sitting there with Keith before him, guilt-ridden and ready to run away, Shiro was listening intently with a startling clarity that perhaps Keith did hurt him. And perhaps he did hurt Keith as well. Both to a degree that neither of them could even try to explain to each other, because how could Shiro even try to put to words of the terrifying moment when he thought he would lose Keith forever.

"We all make mistakes." He tried. "You didn't mean to hurt me. I know you didn't."

"How can you be so sure?" Keith croaked. "How can you be so sure that one day as I- I'm seemingly doing absolutely nothing, that I won't be somehow hurting you or anyone else? You saw what I did to the console in that room. You saw what I did to you , and I don't even- I don't even remember doing it! "

"Because I'm unsure about myself. "

Keith stared at him in silence, surprised and not quite sure of how to respond. Shiro continued.

"I've been terrified of having to confront you for the past few days. And not just because I almost killed you or you almost killed me. The truth is that…" Shiro bit his lip. Lots have been on his mind without any outlet for him to properly process, and saying it out loud, unpracticed made his right hand shake slightly. He grasped that forearm and made himself look at Keith.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Shiro said. "There's something about this arm…" he gestures to it. "...that scares me. Because I had a thought: what if Haggar could do what you did to me? What if one day, I'll wake up and I won't be in control? What would I do to you or the others? What if my arm acts out before I could even fathom the thoughts, as if I was preprogrammed for something?"

"Shiro-"

"I know you think you hurted me. And maybe you did. But I hurted you too. You can't blame this all on yourself."

Keith was pensive as he glanced at Shiro's arm, and for a moment Shiro almost had hope. But then he shook his head.

"Even so, you're the Black Paladin."

"So were you for the months that I was gone."

"Only to fill in for you until you return. Anyone else could have taken it. Lance could have taken her if you haven't already expressly wished for me to do it." Keith raised his voice. "But you were the first Black Paladin that the Black Lion ever accepted after Zarkhon, Shiro. She chose you over him. It was you , that she chose, not me. I could never be what you are to her and the team."

"How does that have to do with anything?"

Keith huffed. "Shiro, you're not dispensable."

"And you are?"

"Yes!" Keith yelled with ferocity. "You don't get it! We can't lose you! I can't lose you! We can't afford to when the fate of the universe is Voltron, and thereby you as its leader! And I'm not about to let my mishaps repeat and put out the hope that we've worked so hard to instill in these people."

"What?" Shiro felt his stomach drop. "Keith, you can't possibly believe that!"

"How can I not, Shiro? Voltron has been perfectly fine with you as its head. The Blade doesn't need me - that was clear enough when Kolivan handed me back to you guys like a fucking trophy, because that's literally all I am! I can't fucking see without these powers, and I when I do use them, I wreak havoc on every occasion that I can. The last thing that anyone needs right now is a half-breed Galra bastard -"

"What? Who-? " The words were ugly and cruel, fueling an underlying anger Shiro was keeping beneath the surface.

"-destroying the universe's only hope." Keith wiped his cheeks of tears as he tried to swallow his emotions and turned away by his toes.

"Keith, you can't just-"

"I'm going back to the Blades. They're the only ones that can keep me in check."

Shiro clenched his fist to stop his arms from shaking. "You'll go back to being an agent?"

"N-no ." He choked slightly. " I'm giving up all this alchemy. It's too risky. "

"You're giving up your vision?"

Shiro hadn't even known when they had moved from the windowsill cushions but they now stood in front of each other. Keith's sniffles echoing slightly against the stone walls, and Shiro didn't know what to do.

He knew what to do to achieve his goals and dreams. He knew what to do when Adam offered him an ultimatum on Kerberos. He knew what to do when Keith had first returned. And he realised now that perhaps he didn't know what to do, as everything that he had done lead to some tragic consequence in the end. Perhaps he was nothing like what Keith had said because all he felt like was a fraudulent leader, unsure of his words and actions, unsure of his own emotions and what to do about them.

In hindsight, all Shiro has ever achieved so far was making Keith feel worse about himself nor did he believe in him and trust him when he needed to. But he wondered if it was too late to try again.

"You are good, Keith." He gripped Keith's shoulders and resisted the urge to shake sense into him. "You're so good. "

Yet something about this moment, about Keith's trembling lips and his avoidance, was telling Shiro that he was already losing the argument. That he was going to lose Keith, somehow, in some way because Keith wasn't listening to anyone but himself. And Shiro was desperate and pleading yet he couldn't figure out how to make Keith understand.

Keith lifted Shiro's hands off his shoulders. "I can't, Shiro. I care about you too much. I'm sorry."

Then he swiftly turned and left Shiro wondering how the drift between them could seem colder and bigger than the infinite darkness of space outside the window.

"Shiro! Fancy seeing you here." Allura's voice echoed through the ballroom from where she stood at its centre with the Altean censors beneath her palms, protruding from the ground.

Shiro turned his head towards the numerous holographic stars and planets that currently scatters across the room. He closed the double doors behind him as he approached, staring in fascination at the two planets afloat before Allura. "I could probably say the same to you."

"I was feeling a bit homesick, so I thought to see some constellations from home." Allura pointed towards the holograms. "I think it's because I've been talking to Keith about the research that he combed through for me. By the way, did you know they were written by Lotor's mother?"

"Really ?"

"Small universe, isn't it?" She chuckled. "He called a while ago to thank us and express how grateful he was to be able to glimpse into this mysterious part of Altea that he had so little access to."

Shiro hummed in acknowledgement. He had just heard Keith's adamant rejection towards alchemy only hours prior. Listening to how Allura and Lotor praise it now and making him question its morality was the last thing he wanted to contemplate on that moment.

"Taking an interest in Lotor now?" He teased instead.

"Your humour still hasn't improved the slightest bit." Allura rolled her eyes at him. "I'm still rather nervous to be working with him. I hope that it wasn't a mistake on my part to place my trust in him."

"That's very brave of you to trust someone who was only trying to kill us only a phoebs prior."

"Things are happening so fast now, I can hardly keep up with it all." She waved her hands in defeat at the situation. "Funny how quickly our lives change, isn't it?"

He hummed in response again because he knew too much about that feeling. He sat on the floor, gazing up at simulation of constellations that danced across the room to a rhythm he couldn't hear.

Only a little more than a year before, he was on a spaceship heading to Kerberos to learn about space rocks, and now he was the leader of one of the universe's most powerful WMD, fighting on one side of an intergalactic war. And only a few days before, Keith was still laughing and smiling at him. Now…

Shiro sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. Something inside him was screaming at him, though for whatever intentions, he still hasn't figured it out. His limbs felt like lead as he stood in that hallway, looking dejectedly to the stars and wishing that the hallway didn't remind him so much of Keith's back as he left.

Allura had noticed how he had gone silent, and draws out a long ahh , as if she had finally understood something. "How's Keith?"

Shiro almost laughed sardonically. "Who tattled on me?"

"Oh hush. They're worried about both of you, you know - Coran and the other paladins. I think I even heard Lance and Hunk trying to get Keith to open up a few days ago."

"Well I hope someone can because I couldn't." Somehow it felt like their relationship began to crumble since that mission with the Blades, and Shiro was back to square one as if he was still an officer at the Garrison, constantly trying to earn Keith's trust.

"What's wrong?" Allura turned to him with sympathy filled eyes.

Where to begin , he thought sadly. "I don't know what I'm doing." He confessed. "Ever since I came back from captivity the second time, I just keep encountering situations that I don't know how to deal with."

"But you've dealt with unknown situations before."

"Yes. But those I knew how to handle. These ones… somehow they just get worse and worse. And I'm just so lost." He rested his arm on his knee, playing with the gloves on his hand. Allura waited patiently as he assembled his thoughts.

"I was engaged before I went to space," he said slowly. "At the time, my fiance didn't agree with my decision to go to space at all because I had a muscle dystrophy illness that could act up during my time out here. There was also the fear that the radiation and stress from all the piloting and work would accelerate that disease. And yet, Keith stood by me.

"He knew the risks I was going to take, and yet he stuck by and supported me since the day I was shortlisted as candidate for that mission. And he told me that he wanted me to do what made me happiest in life, and be selfish." Shiro licked his lips. "He said his opinions weren't going to make a difference to what I'll choose anyways because he wasn't someone important to me."

"I can't imagine why he would think that."

"He grew up in one of our less supportive foster systems, and they weren't the most helpful for one's self confidence." Shiro had known him for over two years by then. Yet it was baffling nonetheless when Keith said it, and surprising when he couldn't see how much he meant to Shiro.

"Who was he to you?" Allura asked.

"I saw myself in him. He was a brother to me. Someone I wanted to guide and protect and to give him the love and attention that he needed for someone of his age." He replied, and it was true. Somehow, they were both someone that everyone expected everything in, yet nothing off at the time. Where Shiro had the lack of attention and normalcy that he so wished because of his illness, Keith had his less than stellar background in the number of group homes and foster parents that had little patience.

"And now?"

He remembered that night on Krixe only a few phoebs ago, and Keith's flushed cheeks from the unintentional alcohol consumption - how Keith had held onto his hand before he left the bedroom, as if it were an unconscious decision to hold on, and as if there were something more to that desperation that could possibly match what Shiro felt.

It was also the night before he told Shiro about his decision to leave the team.

The stark contrast between how tightly he held onto Shiro and his decision never felt right. Shiro had questioned whether Keith was an honest drunk, and whether Keith had actually wanted to leave the team despite saying that he did. And Keith's reach for his hand or every other time he had relented to Shiro's request was another mystery that he wasn't sure if it was something more than the usual affections Keith has for him since a very long time ago.

"I-I care a lot for him, still. But I..." He trailed off.

Keith had wormed his way into Shiro's heart since the very first day that Shiro had met him in that classroom. He was like a camellia that bloomed even the harshest winter and snow, with vibrant red petals full of vitality and strength. And Shiro hadn't even realised that a camellia could be so beautiful until now.

He found himself gravitating towards the three words he hadn't thought he would use again so soon after Adam.

"I love him."

Allura looked at him knowingly with that smirk of hers that made him want to chuck a pillow at. But then she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You should tell him before it's too late."

"If that is all it takes to get him to listen and understand his worth, then I will gladly get on one knee and propose to him." Shiro said with a dry laugh. "Keith's not trusting anything or anyone right now - he's scared that he'll do something that'll hurt us."

"Like what?" She situated herself down on the floor beside him, looking expectantly.

Shiro wondered how to tell her, given her predisposition against the Galra, and even if Allura is now perfectly accepting of the Blades and Keith being a part of it, they don't go out of their way to worsen that hatred. So instead, he gave himself a mental slap and he schooled his face. "He- uh… he still thinks of himself as… my right hand, I suppose." That wasn't entirely a lie.

"He still feels like the Red Paladin? Your second in command?" Allura tilted her head.

"Remember how he just left without argument when I first came back? There was no contending whatsoever - he just gave Black back to me because he never felt like she was his so long as I was around." Shiro explained. "To him, coming back here was like intruding on me again."

And the events on the training deck to add wasn't the least bit helpful for his mentality at this point in time, but Allura didn't need to know about what had actually gone on.

The princess smiled sadly. "You can't control how someone feels. Not even they, themselves, can control their own thoughts and emotions sometimes. All we can do is be there and give our support until our intentions get through to them. Though you probably already know this."

Shiro nodded as he looked at the meteor shower that passed. He had done as such before with Keith when they first met - four years at the Garrison before all this. Somehow having to do it again now with his heart so full felt harder, and he told Allura as such.

She took a long breath and turned her head around the room, as if looking for some specific constellation, or as if recalling something. Then, with a soft and almost fond expression, she spoke. "When Keith told Coran and I that he wished to go to Earth, or just anywhere that he could be useful, he told us that it was because he didn't want to be our burden.

"Everything he did, he did it for us and for the sake of the universe. He endured my terrible attitude towards him after realising that he was half Galra because the universe was more important than our personal feelings, even though I remember him being so closed off from everyone because of those very feelings."

Shiro remembered as well - how Keith cried that night, both from the injuries and something else that had built inside him since he understood enough about life. He refused to go into the healing pod for as if he felt deserving of getting a beating because his mother was Galra, and then poured his cries and pain into Shiro's shoulder.

Before knowing of the Blades, the world was a simple black and white for most of them. Voltron was good, Galra was bad. And then discovering that Keith was some part Galra had put every rigid belief that ever had about the world into question. Where Allura turned to Keith with hostility, Shiro's chest had ached. His resolve had never burnt harder before, and held Keith close and reassured him with words, with his hand in his hair, his arm around him, with everything that Shiro had to offer because he was still his beautiful Keith.

He was still that little boy who stole his car ages ago, he was still that same boy staring up into the night sky waiting for Shiro to return whilst searching the desert for some unknown, and he was still the Red Paladin. He was still Shiro's Keith.

"I don't know Keith as well as you do, but I can tell that life has been difficult for him since the day he was born. Yet he's still so good even when he has every right to hate everyone and everything. At first I thought it was the product of your tempering in the time since you've met. But now I realise that it's both from you and from his inherently good nature." Allura said softly. "Draw from his strength, Shiro. He needs us now, even if he tries to deny it. Because if it's not us who will be there for Keith, then who?"

Shiro was still staring at the holograms long after Allura left, squinting at their brightness even as far as they were from him all the way on the floor. The universe was so - very - vast, and he was one of the Garrison's many best pilots, he was the Black Paladin, and leader to one of the Universe's greatest hopes for democracy and liberty. And Shiro was also but a human, almost a speck of sand existing in this space and time. And once upon a time, a boy took a leap of faith as he took Shiro's hand.

Sometimes, it was just that simple.

And Shiro knew what to do.

A/N (2023): "He was still his beautiful Keith" came from Zuspacey's Sheith art. I can't add a link here so you can find the links to both the artist and the art in the end notes of this story but on AO3 eheh.