Four

Allura was impatient for the Polluxian shuttle to land. She understood why it was important she be the one to greet her cousin and explain the situation. In fact she had volunteered to do so when Pidge had announced when he contacted Princess Romelle she'd insisted on coming to Arus straight away to see Sven, against Bandor and the Polluxian advisor's wishes. Allura, however, had at the time thought Lance would be awake by the time her cousin arrived. Awake and on his way to recovery. But he wasn't and she didn't want him waking up in the room, to find only Keith there, the guy who put him in this mess in the first place.

Allura tightened the arms that were crossed tightly around her chest, she was being unfair to Keith. She knew it with every unfair thought but it wasn't stopping the thoughts from forming, it wasn't calming her anger. She wasn't sure her anger would calm down until Lance woke up - not for her. She knew all the others were waiting for Sven to speak, to do more than blink his eyes now and again and breathe. His catatonia had remained for as long as Lance remained in his coma. Allura cared, she was compassionate, but she barely knew him. She did know Lance.

She hadn't realized how important he'd been. Allura had known he made her uncomfortable in ways that felt shameful and made her blush. It was things she didn't fully understand because she'd never felt them until Keith and Lance. Lance purposely provoked her, he prodded her with looks and innuendo she didn't even fully comprehend but it made her shiver and tingle anyway. She'd look away from him, or tell him he was brute, act superior and regal. Out of his league, and she never meant it. He made her laugh too, and though she'd pulled rank on him, he never treated her as if she was anything but a young woman. He didn't let the title of Princess stand between them, he knew she only used it as a shield.

One second without Lance's voice in her day was one second too long and it'd taken it being taken away for her to realize she wanted him around. Pushing her past boundaries she had in ways she'd never expect. Challenging her with a raise of his brow and the curve of his lips. She wanted him to look at her in that way that made his eyes go dark, and his eyelids seem heavy and seemed to produce a heat that moved between their two bodies.

It made her run away, every time, but she wanted the chance again to try to stay put and see what would happen. But waiting for Romelle's damn ship to land was keeping her from getting to his room, from holding his hand and willing him to wake up. But she owed her cousin this, as much as she owed Lance her bedside vigil and she should owe Keith more patience. Allura wasn't the only one in pain.

The shuttle finally landed, Romelle exited her head bent down and walked over to Allura, her own quick gait making it clear she wasn't in the mood to dawdle on hellos any more than Allura herself. Allura nodded hello and attempted a welcoming smile, though she didn't feel like smiling. Romelle didn't try to smile back. "Please, just take me to Sven?" she asked. "I need to see him."

Allura turned and the two young woman, from different worlds founded by the same race, who bore a striking resemblance despite the centuries and space between, walked into the Castle of Lions towards the medical wing. A full floor of the castle was used only for medical needs, surgical, physical, psychological, medicinal. Triage, research, it was all there, and it was all run and lead by the chief of medicine Dr. Gorma, a leader in his field before the war and now again during it. He had a great staff and they were all hard workers, Allura always felt their steady presence when they were needed and never when they weren't. At times as she sat by Lance the past week, she'd wondered if she'd taken them all for granted, given the damage done to her people and her soldiers every attack.

"Has he spoken?" Romelle asked breaking the silence when they stepped off the lift onto the medical floor.

"No. There has been no change since Pidge spoke with your right after the accident."

"I don't understand. Pidge said he shot down, Lance. I cannot understand how that could have happened."

"It was an accident, we're all sure of it," Allura said, though she knew it didn't help because it being an accident was a given, Sven would never hurt Lance, but how it happened in the first place. It seemed so far from the realm of possibility.

Romelle stayed silent.

Allura brought her to the room in the psychology wing where Sven was being kept, having to force herself to turn in that direction instead of taking the turns that would bring her back to the ICU where Lance still lay attached to machines, barely breathing on his own. As she opened the door to Sven's room for Romelle, she glanced down the hallway toward the exit wanting to walk out and knowing she couldn't - not yet.

Romelle walked past her and stopped still when she saw Sven. Allura knew the sight, she made herself come and see him at least once a day; he was her friend too, he was in trouble as well. Two teammates had fallen in the battle, not only one... She had to remind herself sometimes. Sven sat up, awake, if you watched him long enough you would see him blink but it seemed to stare out into space without the need and there didn't seem to be anything going on behind what were usually sharp grey eyes filled with intelligence.

"Oh!" Romelle gasped. "I..." she fell to her knees.

Allura hurried to her cousin, falling to the floor beside Romelle, her arms reaching out and landing around Romelle's shoulders. Romelle was sobbing, chest heaving trying to hold onto her breathe. "I'm sorry," Allura whispered, she didn't know how much time had passed. "I should've better warned you."

"No, no, I don't think you could've," Romelle whispered. "I shouldn't be doing this in front of him, he shouldn't see me like this..." Romelle whispered, her voice cracking as she fought to gain control of herself. She started to stand and Allura helped her up.

"I, I, would like to talk to Keith," she whispered, turning to Allura and shocking her. "Please? Where is he?"

"With Lance, he won't leave him," Allura said, a flash of envy hitting her. She was forced too, every night, made to sleep in her bed, made to eat breakfast with Hunk, Pidge, Nanny and Coran before she could see him. Keith, Keith looked like hell; Keith was unshowered and unshaven. Keith was making a Keith shaped dent in the chair on the left side of Lance's bed. "When I say, he won't leave him, I should make it clear. He hasn't left the room in six days."

Romelle's eyes widened but otherwise she gave no indication she had heard Allura and again they walked silently, this time taking the direction that Allura's whole being wanted to run toward. Allura tried not to quicken her step but she realized she failed when she opened the door to Lance's room and Romelle was a few feet behind her. Allura forced herself to pause in the doorway and wait for her cousin.

Romelle nodded her thanks at the door, then nodded that she could take it from here. Allura shook her head and for the first time in days she spoke to Keith. "Keith?" she said.

Keith started, his whole body jumping like he'd been caught doing something wrong. He'd been bent toward Lance, boughed toward him like a branch, only inches from touching him but for some reason he never did. He never took Lance's hand, Allura didn't understand it and at times it made her even more angry with him. Keith looked up, he blinked and then he rubbed his eyes. "Allura?" he said.

"Romelle wishes to speak with you," she said.

"I need to discuss Sven, Keith. Alone," Romelle said, her voice decisive and strong. Allura was impressed, because their was no sign of Romelle's recent tears in her words at all. It must've taken extreme strength to pull off such a thing, Allura though and her estimation of her cousin grew.

Keith stared at the them for a full minute saying nothing. Romelle cleared her throat. "Please?" she added.

Allura moved then, going to what she thought of as her chair, sliding into it and she picked up Lance's hand, squeezed it as hard as she could hello. Holding on tight, she prayed again that he could feel it and would open his eyes and yell at her for hurting him - like she could break him. She waited a beat but nothing happened, the machines stayed monotone, Lance stayed asleep. Allura sighed. "Good morning, I'm sorry I'm late. Romelle is here. She's going to help, Sven. I know you approve of that."

"Right," Keith said, too loudly as if he'd forgotten how to talk. Allura wondered if maybe he had, he'd been quiet all this time after all. She talked to Lance, Keith sat and stared. He stood up, ran hand over his unshaved face and walked over to Romelle. "We can talk outside," he muttered.

Romelle nodded, turned and led the way herself. Allura watched their backs retreat for only a moment and then she let out a breath, her duty for the moment was done. Now she could focus on being a friend. "She cried, she fell down she cried so hard, Lance. She must love Sven, really love him in a way I can see but can't comprehend. So much passion, to drop to your knees because the man you love is... Where did he go? I wish you would wake up? I'm scared you've gone to the same place, you just took a different route. I'm so angry at Keith, I can't stop it and I barely understand why. I've never been so angry with someone for so long. He sits here with you and he offers nothing. He doesn't apologize, he doesn't go to see Sven - the one he bent over backwards for in the first place. I don't understand it, do you? Would you tell me, or mock me for not figuring it all out? I actually miss you making of me Lance, you're the only one who ever dares to mock the Princess. Please wake up, soon."

Allura's voice broke on a sob, tears splashed onto Lance's hand and wrist from her face as she bent her head down onto his forearm and closed her eyes and started to say an old Arusian Prayer for the dying in her head. She'd been whispering it to herself daily, she didn't dare not say it now because everyday Lance breathed on, so maybe it was helping.

~~.~~

Keith

I was remembering how I realized Lance McClain was my best friend.

See, that is the thing with Lance, you have the realization. You don't meet Lance and think I'll trust this guy with my deep dark secrets. I never meant to tell Lance one secret let alone all of them. He knows all my secrets, even the new ones because somehow when I'm low he'll find me and we'll talk and they'll trickle out of me. He's the only human who can do that to me... my mother's dog could do it to, make me talk. She'd rub her muzzle against my head, or my legs and I'd sit down, and she'd prop her chin down and drool all over me as I cried out my secrets.

Lance, he'll rub against you in different ways. Sometimes it's... Well, sometimes it's him on his knees, me down his throat and I'm sure if I had any I'd tell him classified secrets if he asked. He's got uses for his tongue that more than smartassery. Other times though he can rub you all the wrong ways, he pushes your buttons and he does it on purposes. Picks fights, makes you angry and it's like he's waiting, waiting for you to hit him in the jaw. And I have, I have hit him the jaw I don't know how many times because he can push my buttons like no one else. When we first met it was easier for him to rile me up - I was painfully shy, private, still in love Sven and all Lance had to do was publicly say anything about him, me and sex and I was ready to rip his heart out through his throat.

I couldn't figured out what he kept doing it, but he kept doing it, and yet I kept going back to him after things kept getting worse with Sven before he and I found a way to be a friends. Or rather a semester happened where I went away for three months and the distance gave me perspective on Sven that was needed. From there I could handle our friendship and it not being anything more, I'd met other men, beside Lance McClain who'd been my... rebound sexual fling? I don't even know what Lance was back then, hell half the time when we sleep together now, I don't know what we are doing.

I thought my relationship with Lance would be over completely. No sex, no Lance. I was wrong, very wrong. I mean I walked into my first class the semester after those three months and Lance was sitting there already, in the back his feet up on the chair in front of him. Making people walk around him, no one would dare take the seat in front of him. I was late, it was the only seat left. I walked up and he cocked an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged back at him. We stared.

The teacher came in and asked what was going on, but before I could turn to answer he reacted in the strangest way. "McClain, of course and you're facing off with...ah Kogane. This should be interesting. Class want to take bets?"

It was Hawkins, in retrospect it makes sense but I'd never had him before, Lance said he hadn't either afterward. We never did find out how he knew about us, when we didn't know about him...it was his job of course. The class did take bets, not that I paid attention, Lance didn't either. He and I just stared.

I'd already seen Sven. I was still attracted Sven, I probably always would be but I could live with it because it was simply a fact now. Sven had been happy to see me back, as his friend and we talked and caught up. We were friends and I thought we might have a chance to become better friends because I was finally over my pathetic ideal romanticism of him and I that never should've happened.

Lance however was a different monster. I had wrongly thought if I saw Lance again I wouldn't even be attracted to him. If there is a scale for how wrong a man can be, I broke it. Lance is lanky, he's too pale, he's got hair that isn't brown and isn't red. Sometimes his eyes are brown and sometimes they're not green or brown and are a bit of both and amber. He's a few inches taller than me putting him just above six feet, and he's kind of klutz. I've literally seen him walk into walls. Take all of that together and one would think he's not some hot guy that stops men and women in their tracks. But he is... it's Lance. He makes it all work. He has this unspoken, unexplainable, intangible Lance thing.

It's irritating and the worse part about it all is he knows it. He knows it and he can turn it on and off. He can turn it on high and he can turn it on low. He can apply just the right amount to judge if he's got someone hooked or not, or he use it to hook someone in. He knows he's charming, he knows he's got charm. He even knows when his charm won't work on someone and what that person may respond too. He's shoved me toward men and women, saying, you're their type - He's always right. I don't know how he does it. He claims it's hit or miss, but I've never seen him miss.

In the classroom that day, as we stood off, fighting for my right to sit in the chair he wanted as a footstool, he turned it on. High. He turned it on, shifted his legs into a more wanton position, leaned back more in his own chair, letting his leather jacket fall open enough for me to see he was wearing very tight black shirt that hid nothing of the lean muscle that was what formed his lankiness. His damn eyes sparked when he knew he had my attention and he licked his bottom lip nice and slow.

I knew then, Lance McClaim could always get me into bed if he wanted to. So I turned around and took the other empty seat in the room. I probably let Hawkins down but what was I supposed to do. I had no attention of seeing Lance McClain in my life as anything again and now I knew that was blown to hell. When he followed me out of class, to my motorcycle without a word and climbed on the back, I didn't even argue.

Then somehow ten months later, Sven and I were bailing him out of jail because he'd started some brawl at some scummy dive bar he liked to go too and we both looked at each other when we realized this guy, Lance McClain was our friend. Our best friend, because neither one us had blinked when he called for the save at 4 in the morning. I don't know how he got to Sven, they had their own dance, a platonic one at that, which always has awed me. The two sexiest guys I know and neither one of them are attracted to the other.

This is another thing, I don't think about things in sexual terms unless I'm thinking about Lance. He has this effect on your brain. And the brawl, the bar brawl and the trying to get you to hit him and the mocking and teasing he does can always cross a line. He pushes people far, and the more loyal you are to him the harder he'll push until he realizes you aren't going to leave him. Sven and I went through a hell of a lot of fights with him, we both nearly walked away on him but we never really could. It was timing, or circumstance but the thing was he was there for us so we were there for him.

And by graduation the three of us were inseparable and somehow we got sent out in the same squadron and made it up the ranks together and were chosen for the same special assignment. Maybe it helped we all excelled in three specific areas, maybe it helped we knew how to work as a team and had already shown that the three of us could get out of tight situations other larger teams couldn't due to circumstance and separation.

I was lost in these thoughts, Lance's sneak attack way of becoming our friend, of always being there for the two of us. Me and Sven. Gorma is saying if Lance doesn't wake up soon his chances of ever waking up become slimmer and slimmer. Sven's doctor's are saying if he doesn't come out of his catatonia soon the chances of him being able to surface from it also become slimmer and slimmer.

Lance accused me of trying to keep Sven because I wanted too. I had wanted to hit Lance in the jaw at that moment, I was remembering that and all the moments that happened like it right before and right after I realized Lance was my best friend. How different it was from the petty fights he used to pick back then, how all the fights we had now were always so real... They were about real things, real situations and they always seemed to be life and death.

Lance was telling me Sven's issues were a life and death situation and I wouldn't listen. I was holding onto a pile of sand too tight. I was thinking about how I lost every grain of sand when I heard Allura say my name and startled. She hadn't spoken to me in days, despite sharing the room and speaking softly to Lance about whatever came to her mind. But mostly begging him to wake up, and I'd silently beg of him the same thing in a quiet echo.

But it was her voice, saying my name and I looked up and it took my eyes a while to focus after staring for so long at Lance and being so deep in my minds eye. I thought for a moment I was seeing double, before I saw the different dresses, the shawl that Romelle was still wearing from her travel, the slight differences in their cheekbones and noses. The different shades of blue of their eyes.

Romelle. The woman, the one human that Sven had been okay with for brief periods of time. She'd had to stop visiting and he'd gotten more taciturn, more of a foreboding quiet calm before a horrible storm. Lance became more adamant in his insistence to me we should allow him to go to Pollux. I kept ignoring him or arguing with him, depending on the time of day, or my mood.

Sven has never told me he wishes to go to Pollux, or that he wishes to be with Romelle. He's not once spoken of Romelle with me, or given me any indication that he loves her. I would be lying, however if I said was blind to the way he spoke of her, when he did speak of her. Usually with Lance, or Allura. He was more himself with her than without her when she was visiting and I saw for myself in logs how much subspace communication time he was using up with her, their had been complaints from Coran and Polluxian's advisor about the late nights and time spent on vital emergency lines.

I know, I knew, I know Sven's heart has a place in for Princess Romelle. I know her own torture and pain at the hands of Lotor and Zarkon, and the circumstances of their meeting has bonded them in a way that... I can't touch.

I know I am jealous. I know I felt guilt and shame at Sven's torture and pain. I know my friend, my dearest Sven came to me and wanted to be back on the team, wanted to be by my side and he wanted a purpose and he wanted to fight again. I gave him back that right because he asked, not because I thought he was ready. The truth is, I ignored all the warning bells in my head telling me he wasn't ready. I ignored and avoided Lance shouting it at me, sounding rational and realistic about it... even as he pushed all the personal buttons he could find about my feelings for Sven.

But those buttons were raw and bleeding, obvious and out there. Lance kept pushing and pushing. He kept telling me to ground Sven and put Allura back in the air, he kept telling me that Romelle was the way for Sven to come back to us. He accused me of being selfish and jealous. I stared at Romelle and wondered, am I jealous of this woman, was I selfishly keeping Sven to myself and from her.

" Romelle is here. She's going to help, Sven. I know you approve of that," Allura's voice was soft, for Lance's ears alone but it carried over to mine and it jolted.

He would. He would approve of Romelle coming here and taking over the care of Sven because he thought he was failing Sven, that I was failing Sven. He kept saying no one here was getting through to Sven.

I finally stood up and acknowledged Romelle. I don't know what she's going to say to me, what she could want to say to me. I think whatever she wants, I will let her have. I hope that it won't be too late for Sven's sake. For Lance's.