Author's Note: I love this chapter for a multitude of reasons. I hope you all do, too.

Thank you so much to everyone who's reading and following along. I love you guys for it, and you know I have the best readers! As always, I own nothing but my crazy characters.

To Emie Mac - You'll see what the two amigos have been up to in this chapter. I hope you enjoy what they've been doing!

To MSSNC - You're so right. Even princesses aren't perfect.

To Wade Wells - Hoo-rah! I am so glad you approve! Our Allura, she's one tough cookie.

Title Song: "Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks

It was later than he expected when he finally arrived home. Wondering where everyone was, David headed straight for the kitchen, looking for signs of life. Passing the living room, he found Christiane seated on the couch. Her computer was open in front of her, and she giggled as she checked out an array of wedding dresses.

"Is it going to be a long dress or a short dress, Love?" he asked, leaning over her and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

"I haven't decided yet," she answered, smiling up at him. "I could go either way."

"Whichever dress you choose, Love, I'll pay for it." He grinned. "I can't let Jon show me up too much. After all, you and Jeff have been living with me for how long? I think I know you better than he does."

Christiane leapt up off the couch, nearly knocking the computer over, and threw her arms around David. "Oh my God, really?" she squealed. "David, you are too good to be true. I mean it. You are too wonderful."

"Hey, I could say the same about you." David was never a gushy, emotional type of guy - he was British, after all - but he made an exception for Christiane. They had a special bond, a surrogate parent-child bond, and he would always take care of her as if she were his own daughter. Even though there were only six years between them, it made a huge difference.

"David, I wanted to ask you a question before you go upstairs," she began. "There wasn't supposed to be a father-daughter dance at the wedding, for obvious reasons, but I was thinking...I'll make an exception if you'll dance with me."

"I'd be honored, Love."

"Good." She nuzzled her face into his neck. For anyone other than Morgan, it would have been a wholly inappropriate gesture, yet because it was Christiane, it was innocent. She had missed having a father growing up. He ventured a guess that she would have been a complete Daddy's girl had her parents not died when she was so young. He also guessed that he never would have been married to Morgan had that been the case; from what he knew, Keith's commitment and intimacy issues stemmed from his parents' deaths, and if they had lived, he was sure that his wife would have married the Voltron captain.

God had an ironic sense of humor.

"So," she continued after a moment of quiet, "you'd better get upstairs. Morgan's got something to show you. Oh, and check in with Jeff later, too. He's been looking at real estate, and I figured you would know more than he does on that subject."

"Oh. All right, then." He waited until she had seated herself back on the couch and was leafing between two dresses. "Good night, Love."

"Good night, Dave. See you later."

David climbed the stairs and passed Jeff's room, where he was seated in front of the computer, thoroughly engrossed in his real estate search. Deciding not to bother him just yet, he opened the door to the master bedroom instead, not sure if he was ready for what his wife had to show him.

Morgan was sprawled out on their bed, laying on her stomach. She was wearing purple low-rise pajama pants with a cropped white bralette, looking up at him as though she'd been waiting for him to walk through the door. Her lower back was bandaged in gauze and medical tape.

"Oh, that cannot be good," he muttered, exasperated.

"Relax, Baby. I was just keeping a promise to myself, that's all."

"Morgan, you got another tattoo?" he asked incredulously.

She shook her head, finding amusement in her husband's dismay. "No, Baby. I promised myself a long time ago that I would eventually get the "K" tattoo filled in. After everything we went through on Arus and everything we went through to get Chris back, I decided it was finally time to finish my tattoo." She grinned wickedly. "Jeff came with me. I figured it was only right, since he was there with me when I got the original."

"You're both bloody crazy, you know that?"

"Hey, I'm a woman of my word." She smiled seductively. "Now, would you do me a favor and rub some ointment into my new tattoo? I'd do it myself, but seeing as how it's on my lower back, it's a little tough."

"Oh, for crying out loud." David clenched his teeth together as he grabbed the tube of ointment off the bureau. He had accepted, a long time ago, that his wife had tattooed her ex-boyfriend's initial on her lower back. He could see it in his mind: a "K" in block script, surrounded by a small, trailing vine of leaves. Black outlines only, no color. He couldn't imagine what she had done to it. Filled it in, perhaps? Or worse?

Slowly, he peeled the bandage off her skin. Then, as the larger, finished tattoo came into view, he gasped.

The "K" had been filled in, but more importantly, it was no longer a "K" in block script. It had become an "R," with gentle scrolls at the ends which made it anything but block script. The trailing vine had been extended to form a heart around the "R," filled in with black, but accented with flecks of blue. Blue Mecha, he understood quickly. She had finished her tattoo, but she had updated it to reflect her life as it was now.

"Oh, Morgan."

"Do you like it, Baby?" she asked sweetly. "After seeing Keith again, I decided it was time for me to finish and upgrade my tattoo. And it was easy enough to turn a "K" into an "R." No more "K." It was time for me to be imprinted as yours, not his."

David shook his head in disbelief as he began to rub the ointment into the small of her back. "I...I don't know what to say, Baby. You know I never had a problem with your tattoo, I just chalked it up to the stupid things we all do when we're twenty-one."

"Dave, I'm yours. I love you so much, and I feel terrible that you went through everything you had to on Arus." She scooted to her knees and took his face in her hands. "I mean it. We've been together for almost ten years, and...I could never love anyone else the way I love you." She brought his lips to hers for a quick kiss. "I mean it. I love you. Forever."

One half of his mouth curled into a smirk. "Gods, I love you. You know that, right?"

"I do. I'm lucky that way."

"Good. It bears repeating. I love you, Mrs. Rackens." Then, carefully, he lifted her bralette off, fully intending to make love to his wife in the manner she'd silently asked for. It was only fitting. They had to celebrate her new tattoo, after all.

Keith gaped at his girlfriend, open-mouthed, as he processed what she'd just told him. Brent Halix was married? That made Allura an adulteress, or at the very least, the proverbial other woman. It also made her flawed. But, as Keith had discovered with Christiane, maybe flawed wasn't such a bad thing.

"Please don't look at me like that, Keith," she begged him. "I knew he was married, but at least he was separated from his wife at the time. I never would have slept with a blatantly married man, I swear."

"Wow. Just...wow." Keith put his hand to the back of his head, a move he had subconsciously picked up from Jeff. "Of all the men on Arus, you chose a bartender who was separated from his wife. That's priceless." He suddenly burst out laughing. "Wow, and I thought Nanny had a problem with me being a hooligan..."

She smacked him, but she did it with a laugh. "Brent's not a hooligan," she admonished, false exasperation filling her voice. "And neither are any of my teammates. I don't care what Nanny thinks, none of you are hooligans."

"That's good to know." Keith placed his empty glass back on the table. He knew that his lips and tongue were blue, and that made it all the more hysterical. "Because I love you, Allura. I don't care about Morgan or Brent, and I sure as seven hells don't care about what Nanny thinks. I want to be with you, and we're going to make it past this, whatever the heck this is."

She smiled. Laughed. Sipped. "You're right, you know that? We've been through some tough times, Keith, but I want to work past them, and I want us to work past them together." She paused, and her emerald gaze turned serious. "Keith, from the moment you five landed on my planet, I've known that the only person for me to be with was you. You just felt right. And though I shouldn't have trusted you with my life and my planet's survival right then, I did." She stopped to take a long sip and, with that, finish off her drink. "I'm rambling. Stop me."

He smiled broadly, his turquoise eyes searching her out. "I knew then, too, Allura. I knew it then, too. And I waited. I waited a long time to tell you anything." Sadly, he looked down at the table. "I was going to tell you that I loved you that night on Earth. The night the lions went crazy. And then, obviously, once Wade had his hand in everything and I had to run off to find Black, I hated myself for not telling you how I felt. I pictured what you were doing on Arus without me to watch over you." Looking back up at her, he continued, "I'm not ashamed to admit that I worried every day. Even more than my own safety, I worried for yours."

"I was safe on Arus. For the time, at least, Lotor and Zarkon were dead, and Doom had fallen. There was no immediate threat from Wade, or from anywhere else. But..." She blinked her eyes at him. She looked innocent, despite having an affair with a married - if legally separated - older man during those years. She sighed. "But I wasn't happy. It should have been enough that my planet and my people were safe, but I wasn't happy. Without my teammates, and worse, without you, I wasn't happy."

"I know. I wasn't either." He tipped his empty glass against hers. "Just so you know, Allura, I've always thought of you as mine. No matter what happened, or what might have happened, you always would have been mine."

"Didn't you say something like that to Morgan?" she teased.

"No. That's different." His back straightened. "What I had with Morgan and what I have with you are two different things. I'm in a better place now than I ever was, so the two relationships can't even be compared. It's like comparing water and wine." He winked. "Or Ciroc vodka to Arusian tequila."

"I'll remember you said that."

"Sure you will. I hope it's conveniently at my sister's wedding." He wrapped his arm around her and placed a kiss on her forehead, trailing down the side of her face, then onto her lips. "Seriously though, Allura, you've been imprinted on my heart since that day we crash-landed and I saw you coming down those stairs. I mean it when I say you always would've been mine. Even if Nanny and Coran had made you marry a prince, you would've been mine."

"I love you, Keith."

"I love you more, Allura. I'll love you 'til the end of time." He sighed, satisfied, and drew her in closer. "You will always be mine, no matter what happens. No matter what springs up in the future or out of the past."

"Good." She nestled comfortably against his body, and for some reason, Keith could feel Christiane there with them, smiling in approval.

Lenora had hardly eaten her dinner. How could she when her stomach was in knots? Sven watched worriedly as she proceeded to push her black bass around on her plate, yet ordered a bottle of Grgich Hills cabernet sauvignon. She was already a shot of vodka and a glass of champagne in, and now she was down a glass and a half of red wine.

"You'd better eat something, Elskede," he advised, concern thick in his voice as he cut off a piece of chicken and speared it with his fork. "I don't want you to get sick. Do you not like your dinner? Here, have some of mine." He held out his fork.

"I can't eat, Sven. It's you." She shook her head.

"Why? What did I do?"

"You're here. You're right in front of me. You insisted I come to dinner at the blasted Tea Room, you dredged up all these emotions I've been trying to hold back. So if you think I'm drinking too much, it's your own frickin' fault." She took a long sip of the wine, not caring how badly it stained her teeth.

The last time she had been so drunk during a pricey dinner, it was Jon's thirty-ninth birthday. They had been in one of the most expensive restaurants in the city of Paris, and she had just worked up the nerve to tell him that she wanted to be his girlfriend. It had taken her three glasses of montrachet to do it. She certainly didn't need a repeat of that night, especially not with Sven guest-starring in her husband's role.

He inhaled with a sharp gust. "Lenora, stop it. Don't let whatever it is you feel for me hurt you." The emotion in his slate-blue eyes was startling. "Love deg."

"Oh, Gods, Sven. You're gonna see me to an early grave, you know that?"

"How is that anything different from what you've told me?" He slammed his silverware back on the table, hard enough for the people in the adjacent booths to take notice. "You told me as soon as the Explorer landed that you still loved me and always would. What changed between then and now?"

She looked up to the sky and groaned as if her mother could hear her and lend her some strength. "Nothing, Sven. Okay? Nothing has changed. I still love you, and I'm always gonna love you. You're the One - Christiane told me that herself. But we're both married to other people, and you have a kid, so there's not gonna be any sort of happy ending for the two of us." She picked up her glass of red wine again and took a very long swallow. Then, softly, she continued, "And you need to know...despite the fact that you're etched on my heart, I love my husband."

"Really." It was more of a comment than a question. "How does your husband feel about you telling another man that you love him?" He smirked a pained, sarcastic, gloating smirk. "How does your husband feel about the fact that you slept with another man before you married him?"

Lenora gasped. "Kelly's the only one who knows. And I'd prefer it to stay that way." She finished the rest of the wine in her glass in one gulp, and then refilled it. Great. She was well on her way to becoming drunker than drunk. It was a good thing she could call Carlo to bring her home to the triplex.

Home to Jon.

He scoffed, pushing his plate away angrily. "I would never tell anyone, Elskede. That's our business, no one else's. Truthfully, I'm hurt that you would even question my loyalty to you or even how to keep my private affairs private." He let out a low curse in Norwegian.

"I don't question it. I just wanted to make sure we were both on the same page." She glared back at him. "And stop cursing me out. You forgot, I know the bad words in Norwegian, too."

At her statement, Sven chuckled. He was still in love with this woman, no matter how maddening or annoying she could be. He needed to get her alone, and obviously, being in a restaurant wasn't cutting it, no matter how secluded they might be. He flagged their waitress over. "Check, please."

"Are you sure?" the waitress asked, eyeing their barely-touched dinner plates.

"More than sure." Lenora looked at her. "I've got it."

Sven's mouth dropped open. "But -"

"It's on the Garrison, Sven. It's your reward for rescuing Christiane. And if I don't have the authority to sign off on that, then no one else does, either." She shook her head, refusing to glance his way.

"That's not really why I asked you out here, Lenora."

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

When the waitress returned with their bill, Lenora plopped the Garrison's credit card down and handed everything back to her. She sipped at the rest of her wine uncomfortably while she waited for the receipt. The bottle of wine was less than half full. It seemed a shame to waste what was left in the bottle. Then again, if she drank it herself, she would be in no shape to go home, and in even less shape to fend off Sven's advances. Provided he advanced her, of course.

She signed off on the receipt once the waitress returned, then deftly - if slightly drunkenly - slid out of the booth. Once again, she was reminded that she was imperfect. Lenora could never measure up to Romelle. Sven was better off without her. Besides, she loved Jon. And Jon loved her with every breath in his body. She didn't need Sven.

She walked away from the booth without even saying good-bye.

"No. No. You do not get to just walk away from me, Lenora Marie Stensson." Sven's tone was insistent as he followed her through the restaurant. "You may be the Space Marshal, but I have waited too long for this moment, and I won't have you writing me off!" He grasped her wrist, and she looked back at him, her eyes slightly glazed over from the alcohol.

"Then what do you want, Sven Holgersson?"

"You."

With an exasperated shriek, she exited the Tea Room and stood out on the sidewalk. Spring. It was springtime. The weather hadn't quite warmed up yet, and she was grateful for her ballet wrap. "Like I said before, you're gonna see me to an early grave. Why can't you let me be?"

"Because I am the man who loves you. I am the man you're supposed to be with." His eyes glowed ferociously, and she swore she saw flashes of purple behind his irises. "I can't let you go. I don't know how."

"Figure it out." Then she turned to leave him.

It would have been the perfect bush-off. She had the perfect response, and she had the perfect attitude and the perfect body language. Unfortunately, she was unsteady from the alcohol, and the heel of her Christian Louboutin shoe caught in the sidewalk grate. Lenora went crashing down to the ground in the most undignified manner.

Blast it, she thought miserably as she looked down the length of her leg. The pavement had torn up her right leg, from right beneath her knee to right above her ankle, and her skin was raw and bleeding.

"Well, that's not good," Sven noted. Then, with a sigh, he knelt down to pick her up. "Come on, Elskede. I can't send you back to your husband looking like this. As much as he likes me, he'll have my hide for this."

Numb, she leaned against his shoulder as he hailed a taxi. "Where are we going?" she asked.

He grinned as a taxi stopped in front of them. "Where do you think? We're going back to that hotel you so wonderfully provided me with."