Shiro kept meaning to talk to Lance. He really did. What had happened to him was horrible, unconscionable. And it had happened on Shiro's watch. As his leader, it was Shiro's responsibility to make sure that he was recovering as well and as quickly as possible.

But somehow he kept...putting off. They had busy lives. There was always another battle to plan, another day of training to run. And Lance needed time to get himself in order without anyone intruding on him, surely. So Shiro watched from a distance as Lance withdrew, isolated himself, stopped showing up for meals. He kept his hood up, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. He didn't talk as much. He still cracked jokes, looking for a reaction, still bragged and boasted on occasion, but it was all...perfunctory. Even his arguments with Keith lacked heat.

Shiro was grateful when the other paladins stepped in. They were helping, Shiro was sure of it. He also knew Coran talked to Lance once in a while, trying to get him to open up, but Lance always deflected him, turned it around until Coran was telling one of his stories before he realized that Lance had changed the subject. Allura, like Shiro, watched from a distance with her eyes full of guilt.

He told himself that as long as they could still form Voltron, as long as they could still fight and defend, then it wasn't really that bad. Lance's connection in the psychic link was always energetic, even a bit manic. Almost with a tinge of relief. As if...he felt like himself while he was working with everyone else. As if connecting with the other paladins took away his loneliness and pain, for a time.

This was guilt. Shiro saw how much pain Lance was in, and he blamed himself for it. And that made him do everything he could to avoid seeing it further. It was pure cowardice.

Once Shiro recognized that about himself, he knew he had to change it. He had to break through his own barriers, once again. Every day he woke up and told himself, "Today I'll talk to Lance." But he couldn't do it while the others were around, and when he saw Lance alone, in the hall or the training deck or the hangars, he always started to open his mouth, then stopped. And Lance didn't notice, his eyes always aimed at the floor the way they were now.

Shiro was in Black's hangar, looking up at the great lion. "Can't you help me out somehow?" He knew he sounded a little pathetic, a little sad, standing here begging a giant robot cat to help him with his interpersonal problems. But Black had helped him with a lot of things in the past, so he didn't mind asking again. "Can you give me a shot of...I don't know...mental adrenaline or something? Just to get me over the hump. Once I get started, I'm sure I can keep going. He's easy to talk to."

Black said nothing. But someone else did. "Um, Shiro?"

Shiro whipped his head over so fast that he almost gave himself a headache. Lance was standing in the doorway, his body language restrained and hesitant. His hood wasn't up at the moment, so perhaps he wasn't feeling as vulnerable as usual, but his expression was nervous, eyebrows bent and mouth almost frowning.

Shiro blew out a gust of breath. "Yeah, Lance?" He tried to make his voice as warm and as welcoming as possible. Maybe Black really was helping him out, somehow. "Something I can do for you?"

Lance visibly steeled himself, then took a step inside the hangar. He stopped, as if waiting for Shiro to rebuke him, but Shiro waved him forward instead. So he came, step by slow step, until he stood in front of him. He couldn't keep his eyes on Shiro's face, instead looking away at the floor on an angle. "I was wondering, um..."

"What is it, kiddo? I'd be glad to help you with anything." And that was true, Shiro told himself. That was true. He was scared and sad and almost choking on his own remorse, but he really did want to help Lance in any way that he could.

"How did..." Lance dared to look his face for a moment. "How did you strengthen your bond with the black lion?"

Shiro blinked, eyebrows rising. He hadn't expected this at all. "Uh, it was... It's kind of a long story, actually."

He winced internally, expecting Lance to feel rebuffed, but instead the kid looked at him straightforwardly. "Could you give me some tips, then? Just...some ideas. Something to work with. You don't hafta tell me the whole thing if you don't want to."

Shiro held still for a moment. This must be really important to Lance, for some reason. Otherwise he probably would have given up at the first hint of resistance. What was going on?

Shiro held still for a moment, then made a decision. "Let's sit down, okay? Let's talk about it."

"Sit down?" Lance looked around in confusion, but Shiro put a hand on his shoulder, ignoring Lance's tiny jump at the unexpected touch, and led him to the black lion's great metal paw. He saw down on the metal ridge, pulling Lance with him, and angled himself to face him. Lance looked around with wide eyes and mouth agape for a moment, seeming awed, but then he looked into Shiro's face again.

Shiro gave him a small smile. It was the best he could do with his heart aching like this. "Now, you want to tell me what's going on? Why do you need tips about strengthening your bond with Blue? The two of you always seem perfectly tight when we're working together as Voltron."

Lance's eyes sought the floor again. He wrapped his arms around his belly and shrugged. "I just...I know it can be stronger."

"Yes..." Shiro said slowly. "I suppose the bond can always be stronger."

Lance wasn't looking at him. Shiro pressed his lips together. He wanted to push further, to ask why Lance thought there was a problem. All of the paladins were tightly bonded to their lions now, in ways that sometimes astonished Coran and Allura. What had changed for Lance and Blue?

Lance looked so sad and closed-off, though, that Shiro didn't dare to do anything that might hurt him more. It was probably cowardice again, but he couldn't help it.

He tried a different tack. "What have you tried so far to strengthen the bond?"

Lance looked up at him, and Shiro was relieved. Apparently this was the right thing to ask. "I've been spending a lot of time with her. At least I was for a while, before I got kind of...um...tired." Lance bit his lip, then went on. "I didn't realize she had so many dings and scratches. I buffed those out, at least as many as I could reach, talked to her. Sang, sometimes. Cried, a couple of times. But nothing seems to be working. Everytime I tried to connect with her... It felt like I hit a mirror. I must not be doing it right."

Shiro's heart had clenched in his chest at the image of Lance in Blue's hangar, crying, alone, with a seemingly indifferent Blue. No wonder he'd gotten so depressed. But now he blinked in surprise. "A mirror? What do you mean by that?"

Lance looked down again. He was still for a moment, obviously struggling with himself, but he had come to Shiro for help, and he was willing to do whatever it took to get that help. So he huddled tighter into himself, his chin bent almost to his chest, and forced it out in a low voice that Shiro strained to hear. "All I feel from her... All I feel from her is what I feel from myself. Guilt. And sadness."

Shiro felt cold. It reminded him that at one time Lance had felt cold, too, immensely cold, deathly cold, and no one had answered his cries. He shuddered and tried to force it back. "Lance." It was a near whisper. "Why do you feel guilty?"

Lance seemed surprised by the question. He sent a quick glance at Shiro's face, eyebrows raised, then looked away again. "Because it was my fault."

And now Shiro knew what they were talking about. This was about Ustar. His heart fell to the floor. The statement was calm, factual. Lance believed it so firmly and absolutely that it didn't even bother him much to say it out loud. Shiro was stunned.

"Lance..." He wasn't sure what to say. How to fight this. He remembered how Lance had yelled at first, exactly the opposite of this. Yelling that it hadn't been his fault, it was just a mistake, he didn't deserve to be punished for it. Somehow, while Lance was suffering and almost dying in that horrible cell, he had changed his mind completely.

"Lance, it was just a mistake." Shiro felt almost desperate to convince him of this. "Yeah, you made a mistake, but you in no way deserved that kind of response. That wasn't your fault. It was the Ustarese who... What they did to you was horrible. It was a kind of torture. You didn't deserve that."

Lance looked down at the floor. "I know that." But his voice wavered. "And I'm not mad that you guys didn't come for me, no matter what Keith might tell you later. I get it. I wasn't even mad when I asked him about it, just trying to figure out... I understand. You were hoping to make an alliance with the Ustarese. You couldn't jeopardize that just because I was upset. You would have come right away if you could."

Shiro's hands clenched into fists, hard and shaking. They should have jeopardized it, they should have... They never should have left Lance there, screaming and crying for help, not for one second longer than they had to, and what had they gained in the end? Nothing, nothing at all. Nothing but a sad, wounded Blue Paladin who felt like he deserved to suffer the worst kind of pain.

"Shiro." A hand touched his. Shiro stared down. Lance's hand, slim and brown and trembling, was curved around the knot of his fist. "No, really, Shiro." And he sounded sure. "I'm over that. It doesn't bother me. I understand. Please don't feel bad about it."

Shiro blew out a breath that broke on a sob. "Then...why?" His voice was broken, too. "If you know that it was just a mistake and you didn't deserve to be punished like that, and if you know that we would have come if we could and we're sorry we didn't... Why are you hurting? What do you feel guilty about?"

Lance's hand trembled harder. If it was just for himself, if Shiro was asking only to find out what was wrong with him, Lance might not answer. But Lance could see that Shiro was suffering, too, and he could not let that be. He had to answer. So he did.

His voice was tiny. Ashamed. Heartbroken. "It's my fault that Blue didn't come. Our bond wasn't strong enough. At the end, that was all I wanted. It was all I called for, over and over again. I just wanted Blue to save me. And she didn't. It was my fault."

Shiro gasped, breathless and agonized. "Lance." He pulled free, and then he was hugging the boy to his chest, as close and warm as he could. They were both shaking, and Lance held his head angled away in shock, unable to respond.

"No, Lance. No." It was all Shiro could think for a long, long moment. Just no no no no no. That and I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

He had never meant for this to happen. Never meant for his decision to result in this. This...this was the worst-case scenario. Not only had he hurt Lance, left him to suffer and almost die, but now he thought... He thought... How? How was Shiro ever going to fix this?

"Lance, listen to me." His voice felt as scratched and cracked as his heart. "It wasn't your fault. None of it. The reason Blue didn't come for you... It wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm so sorry you feel this way, kiddo. I'm so, so sorry. More sorry than I think I can ever make you understand. Please, please believe me when I say this. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't."

Now Lance's head was resting against his, one hand clenching in the back of Shiro's shirt. He was still stiff in Shiro's hold, unsure how to respond, but he seemed to be listening. Seemed to be holding on with everything he had.

Shiro tightened his grip, marginally encouraged. He drew in a damp, shaking breath, then another, until his breath calmed a little and his voice steadied. "Listen, buddy. I made a bad call. And yes, it was based on bad intel, but that's a poor excuse. I made a bad call, and it hurt you. It almost killed you. I've been wanting to apologize for weeks, but I could never seem to work up the courage. So now, I want you to understand. None of this was your fault. You didn't deserve it. There's nothing wrong with your bond with Blue. The reason you feel guilt and sadness when you try to connect with her... That's because she feels guilty and sad. And that's my fault, too. I'm so, so sorry."

Lance was still in Shiro's arms, his breath coming in rough pants. "I don't...I don't understand."

"I know." Shiro chuckled, though it really wasn't funny. At all. He pulled back slowly, giving Lance time to let go of his shirt, then took his shoulders in his hands and gave him a smile, shaky as it was. "You wanted tips on how to connect with Blue. I'll give you some."

Lance's eyes widened, and he sat there, watching Shiro with a hungry gaze. He wanted this so, so badly.

Shiro pulled in a deep breath, then went on. "When I strengthened my bond with the black lion, I sat in the cockpit and asked for help. And Black answered. We went on a...a kind of journey. Later, I realized that we hadn't moved at all. We were in the hangar the whole time. They were all memories. A kind of vision. It was amazing."

Lance blinked. "So...so I should...ask her?"

Shiro nodded firmly. "Ask her. Sit in the cockpit, make yourself comfortable, and ask Blue to show you what you need to see. What needs to be understood. What needs to be healed. I can't say for sure, but... I think she'll show you a memory. And I think it will help you both."

"Okay." Lance sat back carefully, as if afraid to dislodge Shiro's grip on him. Shiro chuckled, more genuinely this time, and let him go. "Is it... Is it okay if go do that now?"

Shiro nodded. "Yes, of course. Go. Talk to Blue."

Lance stood up, staring at Shiro with wide eyes as if expecting him to take it back. Shiro smiled. Lance turned and ran.

Shiro watched him go. His hand clenched into a fist and pressed over his heart, trying to rub away the pain. He hoped this worked. Surely it would. Blue loved Lance with all the deep abiding passion that every magic robot lion felt for their pilot. Shiro knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Soon, Lance would know it, too.