Chapter 22: The Last Altean Princess Part 2

With the return of the Lions, the Paladins of Voltron reunite to prepare for this most unusual mission between realities. Much to their surprise, they'll have back up as they step into an adventure that may not only change the universe, but give them a glimpse into what life could have been like if things had been different.


August 5th, 2345

The constant if subtle feeling of the Lions coming rapidly closer made it very difficult to be patient for the next day-and-a-half as the Paladins prepared as best they could for a mission that they never saw coming.

Katie found it interesting that each of them prepared in different ways. Lance spent hours at the range the next day, and he and Hunk both spent a surprising number of hours in the basement gym. She heard from Joshua—who was back and forth between the houses often—that Keith and Shiro were doing the same at Shiro's. Since neither home-gym was big enough for the entire Paladin crew, that made sense.

For her part, Katie pulled up every old diagnostic and schematic she had for the Lions, and the Castle, and poured over them, refamiliarizing herself with every circuit and bolt. She reviewed her knowledge of Galra tech, and interdimensional travel. Not that she didn't know all these things, but she wanted them fresh in her mind. This was not the mission to forget something at a critical moment, and while she fully understood why the rest of the Paladins felt the need to practice combat skills—and she joined them for one all-Paladin sparring session—if she hadn't maintained her physical stamina enough over the intervening years to manage a mission, then a couple of days of extra training wouldn't hurt, but it also wasn't going to make much of a difference.

Not that it kept Hunk from trying. Katie didn't pry, because there were times it was just best not to ask, but she watched him push himself more than he had in several years. She knew it came more from a place of fear, and a determination not to fail, than any consideration or thought that he might actually make progress in a couple of days. He was pushing his limits, finding them again, and keeping himself busy. It was better than him vanishing into the kitchen for a baking spree. Though there was a lot of cooking going on since their house had become Paladin central. Especially once Coran arrived. Since Lance was already living temporarily on their couch, Coran stayed down the street with her parents, though he spent most of his time with them.

If nothing else, they all spent far more time with each other, as a group, planning and talking and bonding, than they had in years. That connection was crucial, because they didn't have time to relearn each other and re-form Voltron. They had to get it right on the first go.
The Lions arrived in the misty morning dawn. Katie was glad they had warned the Garrison to expect them, because there was enough excitement and chaos without the surprise. Someone might have tried to shoot them down if they didn't know what was coming.

The Paladin and their families all stood on the tarmac, watching the mechanical lions descend from the sky, first streaking lights, then small specs, then they slowed, and came to land on their paws, sitting expectantly in a line.

Katie felt the immediate and clear presence of Green in her mind, saying without words, that she was happy to be with her Paladin again. Katie felt precisely the same, and as if something empty had been refilled within her, even though she had stopped thinking of it as a hole a long time ago. She had never been less as herself, but there was definitely something more with her Lion. I missed you too, girl.

The brief reverent silence was broken by her own daughter.

"Ohmygosh, Mom, Dad, they are amazing!" Caitlin stared up at them, star-eyed. "I want to fly one! Can I fly one? Ooh… I want to take one apart! Let's do maintenance!"

"She is sooooo yours," Lance chuckled.

"Caitlin… chill."

To her credit, her daughter followed Katie's order. She stopped babbling anyway. "No one is taking apart a Lion," she continued, though she couldn't help grinning. "But you're welcome to help with a maintenance check. It's been a long time. Who knows how much work these guys need?" Probably not nearly as much as her daughter might think, given how well they worked after 10,000 years in hiding. A couple of decades hopefully wouldn't mean much. They needed a lot more work when they were actively working as Voltron.

"We'll all help," Kale said with a nod. "I've been looking at all your old notes."

Of course, he had. Katie smiled at her son. "Perfect. Then you can help me run full diagnostics. We'll start with Green."

"Why Green?"

"Because I think everyone would like a little alone time with their Lions first."


Hunk's feelings were definitely mixed, but he could not deny that he had missed Yellow, and what it felt like to have such a strong and nearly indestructible ally. He got no answers to why the Lion had not answered his desperate pleas for help all those years ago when Katie went missing, but he didn't really expect them. The Lions did not offer explanations or excuses. They never had.

Sitting in his seat, hands resting on the controls, eyes closed as he just communed with his mechanical counterpart, Hunk tried to let that resentment go. If he couldn't, he would be the weak link on the team. He got no information on where the Lions had been this whole time except someplace safe, but connecting with his Lion was the best initial diagnostic. The Lions had been basically unused since they left, and they had been repaired in the year after Allura's sacrifice, so they were still in almost the prime condition they had been in at that time, aside from a little travel wear. They had been designed for endurance far beyond anything they had in the Galactic Coalition, even now.

He had forgotten how roomy Yellow's pilot's chair was compared to nearly anything they built on Earth. There was ample room for him to sit comfortably.
The sounds were familiar, and even the smell… he had forgotten the smell. Every vehicle had its own unique scent, and the Lions with their unique blending of metals, and there was just something to it that he presumed was an effect of the Altean alchemy. It wasn't quite like an ozone smell, but it did have that energy-scent. It took him right back to those days more than anything else ever had.

Which immediately made him feel incredibly old.

"Dad?" Caitlin's voice intruded, as if from a distance. Then he heard feet on metal below him, and coming around through.

Hunk opened his eyes as his daughter entered the cockpit. "What is it, Caitlin?"

She was practically vibrating with excitement. "I was just wondering if you… you know… wanted any help with… anything?"

He couldn't help smiling. Of course, Caitlin wanted to help. She and her friends had grown up pretending to be Paladins in their fake backyard lions. Now here it was, the legend, the magical machinery, and she was as in love with it as Katie had been. "I've got diagnostics running, but as soon as they're done, sure. Even if everything's working, we'll want to tune him up. All of them need to be in top shape."

Caitlin leaned against the arm rest beside him, her eyes hungrily taking in all the things she knew better than to touch, however much she obviously wanted to. "You can count on me."

Hunk smiled. "I know I can."

Caitlin looked at him, and her expression sobered. "Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask me anything. You know that."

"Almost everyone seems excited about having their Lions back, and going on this mission. I mean, they're concerned too, and I get that but… not you."

Insightful as always. "No, not really, though that isn't a question."

"My question, is why not?"

A question with several answers he simply did not want to give, but if there was one thing he tried not to do, it was lying to his children. "I'm afraid," he answered, giving the simplest response. "I was afraid then too, every day. That each mission might be our last, and it would be too soon, and not only would we die, but we wouldn't succeed in saving our families, or anyone else's. There were good days, and bad days, but there were really no small, easy missions. Every time Voltron was needed, lives were at stake. I used to dream about handing Yellow off to someone else who would enjoy the work more than I did, and about when we were done being Paladins. I don't like hurting people, not even the bad guys. I wanted to bring peace to the Universe but… my way."

"With food." Caitlin grinned.

"I'm a much better chef than I ever was a Paladin," Hunk nodded. "Food is a universal language, and a sharable experience."

"You don't have to convince me," Caitlin pointed out. "That's what you've been doing my whole life. I don't remember ever not cooking with you in the kitchen."

"That's because you've been my number one sous-chef since you were two."

Caitlin smiled, before turning serious again. "So, if you feel that way about all this, why are you going?"

"Without a Yellow Paladin, there's no Voltron. If I don't go, it puts the entire team at risk, and the chances of failure are much higher. The chance of everyone dying is much higher. Also, your mother would probably kill me, since I'll never talk her out of it. And… it's for Lance."

The last one seemed to startle her. "Because it's his daughter?"

Hunk nodded. "Lance has been one of my best friends for a long time, and after everything he's done for me, and you, and our whole family, how could I not help him bring her home? I… I don't know how much you remember about the years your Mom and Kale were missing, but that was a very hard time for me, emotionally. You were all I had, and when I felt like I was drowning, Lance was there, being a friend, and everything we could have asked for as your godfather."

"I don't remember it very clearly anymore," Caitlin admitted. It had been ten years since then. "I know I missed Mom, but what I remember most, is all the things we did together. I don't like that you're going off and doing this without me."

"But you understand why I need you here." At least, Hunk hoped she did. He didn't want to have a fight with his daughter over this. As mature as she acted most of the time, she was only fifteen, and sometimes that was still evident in her responses.

"I don't like it, but yeah, I get it." Caitlin shook her head. "This isn't our fight. You and Mom are the only people who can pilot your Lions, and you have to protect Mom."

As much as Hunk wanted to pretend it was for everyone, that was really it. "I can't lose her again. It broke me the first time. Our best chance of all of us coming home alive is if we all go and do our best. You always have your team's back."
For a minute, Caitlin was quiet. Then she startled him by leaning across the chair and hugging him tightly. "I love you, Daddy."

Hunk closed his arms around her. "Love you too, Caity-cat."

August 7th, 2345

It took nearly three full days to complete maintenance on the Lions to Katie and Coran's exacting specifications, even though the Lions were in overall good shape. Once they arrived, they had no idea how quickly they would be thrown into combat, and it was better to be prepared. Every spare moment not spent working on the Lions was spent strategizing about possible scenarios. As much as Katie wished they could hurry it along for Lance's sake, one mistake now could mean disaster later. She, Coran, Hunk, and an entire engineering team went over every millimeter of every lion, replacing anything that looked worn, tightened everything that had shaken even the tiniest bit loose. There wasn't time for a paint job, but that would have been a vanity project.

They also went through every line of code and program in the systems, and used every tool Coran had at his disposal to check the levels of alchemical energy remaining from the quintessence used to make the Lions. It was enough. Or at least, it would have to be.

The evening of the third day, they suited up and prepared for a test flight. Tonight would prove if they were even still linked enough to form Voltron.

Katie stepped out onto the tarmac and felt a small thrill of nostalgia as the others joined her. There was a twinge of sadness not to have Allura there, but still a feeling of rightness at having the original team together. She couldn't claim they all looked just the same, because that would not have been true. Four of them had been growing teenagers when they first donned the uniforms. Shiro, of all of them, looked nearly identical. The rest of them had grown and matured, the way people did, though Lance and Keith were as lean as ever. Hunk also looked surprisingly similar, though his shoulders had broadened structurally a little more into his twenties.
Coran, in his usual clothing, also looked very much the same, which made her happy. Of course, he hadn't aged as much as the rest of them from a life perspective, but under the bright orange mustache and head of hair—now with a couple of streaks of white, where scars intersected hairline—were the faded, thin lines, of old wounds.

For herself, well, she wasn't going to pass herself off as a boy anymore. Though as comfortable and flattering as the under-suit fabric part of her armor was, Katie briefly wondered why she didn't wear it—or something of the same material—under other things. It was nice to look more like a Paladin of Voltron again. Her body didn't look as much like a mother of three in uniform.

Shiro looked around at them, and grinned. "Let's do this."

"Hey, Dad."

They turned to look at Joshua, who was standing there with the rest of the families. "What is it, Josh?" Shiro asked.

"Can some of us… ride along? Please."

Shiro looked at the others. Keith shrugged. Lance grinned. Katie and Hunk both looked at their kids, who were trying so incredibly hard not to jump out of their skins with hopeful excitement.

Shiro nodded. "Sure, why not?"

In short order every Lion had one or two passengers who swore they were going to stay out of the way and buckled in. Katie took Kale and Kailani. Caitlin rode with Hunk. Heith was in Red with his father. Gabriel was in Black with Shiro, and Joshua and Nathaniel had opted to ride with Lance.
Katie grinned. "Everyone buckled in and ready to go?"

"We sure are!" Kailani giggled.

"This isn't a car, Mom," Kale teased.

"It's a whole lot more powerful than that. Hold on tight," Katie warned.

"All right, Paladins," Shiro's voice came over the comm system. "Let's go!"

Almost in unison, the Lions leaped upward into the sky.

Katie felt the adrenaline surge and the joy that came not from herself alone, but everyone around her—including the Lions—as they powered upward together. Linked with Green, Katie could already sense the locations of the other Paladins without looking at her tracking equipment. Flight was so easy; she could not deny how much she had missed this feeling.

Shiro put them through a standard set of drills and formations, which they had reviewed beforehand, but were so familiar Katie almost didn't need to think about them. It wasn't the deep link yet—where they could sometimes sense what was in each other's conscious thoughts—but that was coming.
"Looking good, Paladins. Next exercise. Form Voltron!"

"Here we go," Katie warned the kids behind her before slamming the controls forward. She didn't need to close her eyes to connect with the others, just focus inward and reach out. In her mind, she felt them, like warm balls of light, each an appropriate shade. Bits of surface images flitted through her mind that weren't hers, and she tried not to focus on those, but on the people that they came from.

Then the Lions came together, and merged, and she felt the connections sliding into place, as five became one. It was as if no time had passed at all.

"All right!" Lance shouted enthusiastically.

"Nice work, everyone," Shiro added.

"Good to know we've still got it." Keith sounded like even he was smiling.

"Smooth," Katie complimented. "Anyone notice anything with their Lions that needs adjusting?"

That got a chorus of affirmative nos. Everything felt great. No noticeable issues.

Then came bayard practice. One at a time they used each bayard for its base critical moves, outside the atmosphere in space. When they had practiced those, they went through all the combination moves they had ever used before.

That was all they could realistically do. When they were done, they separated, and made their way back down to the Garrison.

"What did you think?" Katie asked Kale and Kailani during descent.

"That was amazing!" Kailani declared, her arms in the air. "We're in space!"

"You've been in space before," Kale pointed out, though he was grinning. "That was incredibly cool, Mom. The Lions—and Voltron—really are as fantastic as all the stories."

"Did you really think we'd exaggerate?"

"Well, Uncle Lance and Uncle Coran do both enjoy hyperbole."

"You have a point."

Green set down between Yellow and Black, and lowered her head.

Katie heard the mouth opening below them. "All right! Time to go home and get some sleep."

"How can you make this sound like just any other night?" Kale asked in slight disbelief. "You expect us to sleep after this?"

"I expect you to lay in your beds quietly and think about this all night," Katie admitted with a chuckle. "But we all need sleep." She got up out of her seat, and joined them as they exited the Lion.

Everyone else was doing the same. Caitlin and Joshua were babbling excitedly at each other.

Gabriel and Nathaniel had gone over to Curtis and were talking animatedly.

The Paladins met collectively in the middle with Coran.

"That was excellent," Coran complimented them. "It's almost like you never stopped practicing."

"It helps when you're still friends," Keith grinned.

"Honestly, I think we all know and trust each other better now even than we did then, except at the very end," Katie contemplated aloud.

"Speaking of which," Lance looked over at Keith and grinned. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Everyone looked at Keith.

"Tell us what?" Hunk asked.

Keith looked surprised, then shrugged. "Gotta love sharing minds."

"Well?" Katie prompted, having obviously not skimmed whatever had caught Lance's attention out of their thoughts.

"I only found out a couple of days ago but… Acxa's pregnant."

That elicited a circle of gasps, though to their credit, no one looked over at their families.

"Congratulations," Shiro spoke quietly.

"And she's okay with you doing this?" Lance asked, looking a little anxious.

"Of course, she is, or I wouldn't be standing here," Keith pointed out. "She doesn't want any version of Lotor succeeding any more than we do. I promised not to die though, and not to make a big deal about it until we get back, so don't make a liar out of me."

"We won't," Hunk promised.

"In any case, good job everyone. We're as ready as we can be for this mission. Go home, spend tonight with your families. We'll leave first thing in the morning. Lance, is everything ready for us?"

"I'm starting to find being our weirdly prescient guide kind of creepy," Lance admitted, "but yes. We'll take the Lions out just past the edge of the Solar System, and that's where the rift between realities will open for a very short period of time. Just long enough for us to get through. I think it's going to bring us out closer to the proximity of the Castle of Lions on the other side, where it's been hidden."

"Smashing," Coran nodded, clearly approving.

As they split for the night, Katie and the younger two joined Hunk who had wrangled Caitlin away from the other teens. They were standing with her parents, Matt, Veronica, and Marisol. The toddler was wide-eyed, but everyone else looked both excited and a little anxious.

"It's been a long time since I've seen that sight." Sam hugged her. "Everyone appears to be in excellent form."

"Thanks for helping us get them in top shape." Katie returned the hug, then hugged her mother, and then Matt. Then she moved on to Veronica. "Thanks for letting me steal Matt so much the past few days."

Veronica chuckled. "Honestly, it was kind of nice. He needed a new project for a few days. Besides, how could I keep you from the help of one of the best?"

"Will you be coming to see us off in the morning?" Katie asked curiously.

"I'd like to, but as early as you're leaving, someone would be very fussy." She nodded at the sleepy toddler in her arms.

"Hey, I'm a morning person," Matt quipped, grinning as he teased.

"If you think morning is noon, maybe," Katie retorted.

"We'll be here," Colleen promised. "I imagine we'd have a mutiny if we tried to have everyone stay home in the morning."

"Not a mutiny," Caitlin disagreed. "But possibly a coup."

Sam laughed. "Close enough."

Eventually they managed to herd everyone back to cars, and home. When they arrived, Katie sent all three kids straight up to bed, knowing they wouldn't sleep well, if at all, but they would be out of the way. She could at least count on Kailani to pass out when she was tired.

While Hunk showered first, Katie hijacked Lance into helping her go over the checklist and supplies one last time. They didn't know what they were going to find on the other side in regards to provisions, and so they had planned to bring several days' worth of food and water, additional medical supplies, and anything else they might need. If they were lucky, the Castle would have all its systems working, but if not, they didn't want to be stuck in a survival situation instead of a rescue mission.

She also hoped it would help keep Lance's mind a little more distracted by giving it something to do besides worry. The one image that had shown clearly when they were merged that had to have been his, was a very strong focus on an image of a little girl who had to be Melenor. She was absolutely adorable, and looked so very much like a young Allura, but with skin a little closer to Lance's tones, and her Altean markings were purple. The image was so strong he could not be thinking of much else.

"That's everything," Katie nodded, satisfied, as they finished. "Let's get it all in bags and call it a night."

Lance nodded, and just started doing as she'd asked without a word.

"Lance."

He paused and looked up. "What? Did I put something in the wrong bag?"

"No, nothing like that," Katie assured him. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. This is an awful lot to dump on you all at once. The spirit of Allura, this mission, finding out that you're a father… in a way."

"You don't know the half of it," Lance said, looking a little wide-eyed, but relieved at the same time. "The last is the hardest part. I mean, it's not that I have a daughter, and yet I do. A few days ago I was just living my life, and instead of finding out the way this usually happens… I have an entire fatherhood of memories smashed into my head. Every milestone, every bruise, everything about her. All of the love, and worry and every emotion in between has been crammed in, right down to the terrifying agony of knowing she's in the hands of one of the men I hate most." He shuddered. "It's… intense. I can't think about anything else. I thought, as much as I've helped with my nieces and nephews, and with Caitlin… that I had any idea what it might feel like to be a parent. But this overwhelming pile of emotion it… it's just driving me a little crazy, and I'm not sure what kind of a father that makes me."

"A new one?" Katie suggested, smiling gently. "And one who's had everything thrust on him with no adjustment period. Even if she gave you all of those memories too, your brain wasn't meant to take all of that in at once. It would make anyone a little insane. Honestly, I think you're handling this really well, considering."

"I'm glad someone does." Lance smiled weakly.

"Has someone said otherwise?" Katie asked, already planning to punch someone in the face.

"No. Just my scrambled brain."

"Well, scrambled is a pretty standard parent brain, especially when your children are hurting, or in danger." Katie set down the box of bandages and put a hand on Lance's arm. "You're great with children, and teenagers, apparently. Caitlin takes direction from you without even a huff of attitude, and I know you've corrected her. No, it's not quite the same, but you're empathetic, and caring, and patient. Melenor is incredibly fortunate to have you for a father. Any version of you. Here we are, defying physics again to go save her on your word. We've got your back, and we'll do this, and when you do have her, you won't be alone. You have your whole family to help, and a great farm for her to grow up on, and all of us to come to. She'll have friends. She's only a little bit younger than Kailani, right? I expect they'll get along famously."

Lance slowly relaxed a little under her hand as she talked, like a tense horse realizing there was nothing to be afraid of. "Based on the memories I have now, I agree," he replied. "Mellie's already got better art skills than Allura did at that age, and she… well she was the only child on the Castle of Lions, so she got a little lonely."

It was the first time Lance had mentioned much of anything more than that the other versions of them had all died. Katie hadn't asked if he knew how they had died. That would be painful if he did, and it wasn't necessary. There was no premonition here. They weren't seeing the future, or even the past. But she also hadn't asked about their lives, or if anything had turned out at all the same. Had she and Hunk realized they were in love in this world too? Or had they simply remained the best of friends? Or had they ended up with entirely different people? It wasn't hard to imagine a universe where she had never married anyone, or Hunk had actually pursued a relationship with Shay. Not that she liked those possibilities, but there were so many realities and alternatives.

"Well, she definitely won't be lonely here. Especially not with as many nieces and nephews as you've got around the farm to keep her company, and you know Caitlin will demand to be allowed to babysit."

Lance nodded. "So, she's told me. I can't think of anyone better."

Katie let go of his arm with a motherly pat. "The water's off, which means you can go ahead and shower and get to sleep. We need you at your best. If you get a shot at Lotor, it'd be nice if you didn't miss."

August 8th, 2345

Hunk tried not to display his nerves in the open that morning, in the pre-dawn light, as everyone gathered once again, this time to see them off. He knew the other Paladins probably knew how he felt, just because they knew him, but it all went without saying. Katie definitely knew, and while he had admitted to Caitlin how difficult this kind of thing was, he hoped it would make her a better Cadet, and officer one day. She had chosen that path for herself, and he supported it, even though he knew he would always worry about her safety. Especially since Sam had retired a couple of years back, and was no longer in the position of stepping in as Admiral of the Garrison on behalf of family. Not that he had abused that power. Admiral Montgomery was a fair, cautious woman, disinclined to recklessness.

She was also here to seem them off, standing near the Holts. Hunk was grateful that Shiro was handling formal communications. Hunk just needed to focus on holding it together through the mission. One last mission. They weren't getting dragged back into a war. As long as he kept sight of their single objective, it was vaguely less terrifying.

He hoped the other-reality version of himself had made similar modifications to the Castle of Lions' kitchen. If not, he wasn't looking forward to several days of food goo and was glad they had packed additional food supplies.

Goodbyes were brief, heartfelt, and involved several crushing hugs. Hunk still wasn't sure how he let go of Caitlin, or Kale, or Kailani, but he found himself standing with the other Paladins, duffel over his shoulder, in his Paladin armor, looking at Yellow.
Shiro had already told everyone to get into their Lions, so there were several seconds before Hunk registered that none of the Lions had leaned down and opened their mouths for them to enter. Hey, Yellow buddy, open up.

He wasn't ignored. To the contrary, he could feel Yellow as fully in his head as he had back during the fight against Honerva. There was just a very stubborn, catlike no. Hunk looked around at the others.

"What is going on here?" Keith asked aloud what they were all thinking.

"So, it's not just me?" Hunk asked.

"They… seem to think we're forgetting something," Shiro said after a moment.

"What could we have forgotten?" Katie asked, sounding puzzled.

"That's everything I've got," Lance said, clearly frustrated and just on the edge of panic.

"Everyone, calm down. Focus. They'll tell us." Shiro, ever the voice of reason.

Hunk sighed, but did as instructed. As their minds merged, a very clear image formed in front of him, of all of them, and he felt more than heard the collective gasp.
They all turned as one, staring first at each other, then back over their shoulders at their families.

"No," the word escaped Hunk's lips before he could stop it.

But the others looked grimly sure, and he knew there was no arguing with the Lions.

It was Caitlin who realized something was wrong first. "Hey, Dad?" she shouted across the space. "What's going on?"

"I can't believe they want us to bring the kids," Keith said softly.

"Not all the kids," Katie corrected. "Just five."


Caitlin Garrett still felt like it was utterly unreal that she was here, as she boarded the Yellow Lion with her father again after a brief couple-of-hours delay to send herself, Kale, Gabriel, Joshua, and Heith to get necessary supplies packed. The Lions had demanded they come. The moment the five of them had presented themselves with the Paladins and Coran, the Lions had immediately opened up and let them on as if nothing was amiss.

Not that just the five of them were going now. There had been—according to Joshua's regular stream of text conversation to her as she packed—quite the row between Nathaniel and their dads about being the only one left behind, when Kale was younger than he was. In the end, Uncle Shiro and Uncle Coran had agreed that Nathaniel could come to, as Coran's assistant. For whatever purpose the Lions demanded their presence, they were unlikely to object to additional crew, and Nathaniel was reliable. So, he stood with them now, and the only child of a Paladin remaining behind was her own little sister. No one was going to agree to a six-year-old coming.

Caitlin had flat up asked her mother why the Lions wanted them, and she had told her honestly that there had been no specific reason given but that there must be a good one. It was possible they needed potential back-up Paladins.

Privately, Caitlin wondered if the Lions in this other reality might still be in working order. Maybe… just maybe, they would get a chance to fly, too. Of course, it might be something completely beyond what looked like the obvious. In any case, she was coming, and she was determined to be ready for anything.

My first real mission! It was thrilling and yes, a little scary now that she was really doing it. Caitlin was glad she was with her father.

"Everyone ready?" Shiro's voice came over the comm.

"Yellow ready," her father confirmed, as she heard a chorus across the comm of colors and confirmations.

"All right. Let's head for the coordinates."

Caitlin braced in her seat as Yellow launched into the air. Her heart thrilling with excitement as they climbed rapidly into space in a matter of seconds. Then they were in space, and it was near and right out the window. Then they were crossing the solar system in a matter of minutes.

It wasn't as if Caitlin had never been to space. When she was younger, she had been on many trips on the Atlas, and even during her Cadet training they had taken them up several times for a variety of training exercises. But she hadn't flown in space outside a simulator yet, and hadn't even gotten to try anything this powerful in the simulators. The only things they had flown in person in her training were pods in atmosphere, and the hovercraft.

Now, she was going on a mission into another reality.

"Coordinates approaching," Uncle Shiro's voice came over the comm. "Paladins, form Voltron, and prepare to jump."

Caitlin remained absolutely silent to avoid distracting her father or anyone else. My instructors would be so proud of me for keeping my mouth shut.

She had no idea what to expect, but the sudden flare of light and opening that appeared in front of them was both similar to teludav jump points she had seen, and yet entirely different. The glowing blue-white rip that opened and widened in front of them was like nothing she had ever experienced. The fact that they had to go through as Voltron… she didn't know why that was the case, but now was not the time to ask.

They rushed towards the light until they were enveloped by it, and then she was blinded. Caitlin slammed her eyes shut, though the glow was so bright she could see it through her eyelids. Through the Comm she heard someone screaming—she thought it might be Joshua—and then there was less light. Opening her eyes, blinking, she saw space again, but it looked different. "Where are we?" she dared to ask the question.

The screens in front of them started flashing up coordinate data.

"According to this, we've made it to the correct reality," her father replied.

Caitlin stared at the screen and was a little floored by the fact there was a reality designation actually on the screen. "Who tracks realities?" she asked, impressed.

"Your Mom."

Of course… her mother would be the one to create a reality identification and tracking system. This one was labelled R-4598. Caitlin did not ask how high that number went. "Okay so we're in an entirely different reality from the rest of our family, but this obviously isn't our Solar System either."

"That's because we've transported through to different coordinates. Now we're somewhere outside the Uridian System."

Caitlin blinked, trying to remember her Intergalactic Cartography course. "That's four galaxies from Earth!"

"Nice memory," her mother replied through the Comm.

Crap, she had forgotten everyone could hear. "Thanks. So… where's this Castle?"

"We've just locked on to the Castle's coordinates," Coran spoke up. "We're heading there now."

"How far is it?" asked Lance.

"We should see it in less than ten doboshes. It's hidden deep in a crater on an asteroid in the middle of an area with high spatial distortions. That's probably why the Empire hasn't found it yet."

"I suppose it was too much to hope we'd find it on Eris," Keith quipped.

"I'll take a more secure hideout any day." That last came from Lance.

As Coran had promised, it wasn't long before an asteroid belt appeared before them. As they got closer, and Voltron moved in around one of the asteroids in particular, Caitlin could just make out a tiny white spire. As it grew, she recognized it. Castleship.

Her father glanced back at her, grinning as if he knew what she was thinking. "You've always wanted to see this, since you were little."

"Dad!"

"It's okay. We're not transmitting."

Caitlin smiled. "Okay, you're right. It's kind of a dream come true."

"You're going to love it."


"Well, it's looked worse," Keith commented as they stood in the Lions landing bays, which were incredibly crowded with two sets of Lions parked.

"You can tell it's been through a war," Katie agreed. "They all have."

The five Lions here, while they were somehow thankfully within the castle and in their right places, had clearly seen prolonged use and had not been fully repaired from whatever their last battles had been, though someone had obviously tried.

The Castle itself looked in reasonably better shape and, thankfully, still had power. Coran stood at a nearby console, his fingers flying over the buttons. "It looks like there's still a good supply of quintessence, and… this Allura's energy."
"That's good…" Lance spoke up with a moment's hesitation.

"It means once we determine our point of attack, we can wormhole in without setting off Lotor's warning systems." Shiro nodded. "Though we're going to need to do some research and find out exactly where things currently stand in this reality before we go charging in."

"Good thing you brought us then," Caitlin grinned, gesturing at herself and the others. "We're great at research and studying."

"You'll be doing a lot more than that," Katie replied, though she was glad for the positive attitude. "First let's have a look around the castle and see what's useful, and what information we can dig up."

"All right!" Joshua pumped his fist in the air. "Time for the grand tour!"


It felt utterly surreal to be walking around on a Castle that, for them, had not existed since it was crushed down into an intensely powerful tiny crystal and used to power the Atlas. Hunk walked with the others while, as a group, they re-explored every corridor of the Castle, from the command center, to the medical bay; the teludav generators, the kitchens, the lounge, the training deck, and even the pool.

Everything felt older, more worn, and in some places unrepaired damage from battles still sat in the hallways. Not all the lights worked in every part of the castle either.

The kitchen made him sad. This Hunk, for whatever reason, might have made modifications to the kitchen at one time, but they were minimal, and almost none of them still worked. The only thing functional—as he had feared—was the food goo generators and dispensers.

In the medical bay, only one healing pod remained functional.
Fortunately, all of the computers, engines, life support, and other critical systems were working.

"Well, that's almost everything," Lance said as they converged in the lounge. "I guess we should get everyone rooms to settle into, and then get down to work."

"Agreed." Shiro nodded. "There were plenty of empty rooms when we lived here, I suggest we all settle into those, unless anyone really prefers their old quarters. Though we don't know what states those are in. I do think we need to search them for information, in case there's something that's not in the Castle's central databases."

Clean rooms for sleeping were definitely the popular option, so that was where they took their bags. Nearer Allura's quarters there were larger suites than they had ever needed to use. Katie and Hunk took one for their own use. Caitlin and Kale took rooms down the hall, and so it went. Only when they were done did they head over to the hallway they used to live on, a lifetime ago.

"Whose room do we want to search first?" Katie asked with a grin. "Yours or mine?"

"Whichever one is cleanest?" Hunk suggested, teasing.

Katie chuckled. "Yours it is then. I can't imagine this version of me is any neater than I used to be. I mean, unless we discover we were cohabitating here too."

"Lance has been very quiet on the subject," Hunk admitted as they headed towards his old room. "If he even knows. Allura may not have given him anything except what was needed for this mission."

"That's traumatized him enough," Katie agreed.

Hunk's door slid open, and he stopped dead in the doorway. "I have a feeling he's not the only one who's going to be traumatized by this mission."

His room… reeked. Hunk had no idea how long his counterpart had been dead, but clearly no one had ever taken it upon themselves to reclaim the room, organize his affects, or…well, anything.

The bedsheets were rumpled and stale, and the room was littered with dirty laundry, and trash: bolts, spare parts, microchips, occasional snack bags, and bottles… so many empty bottles. "I'm not sure I want to know how he died."

"Let's make this quick." Katie reached out, squeezing his hand. Then they bent to it, searching the room while touching as little as possible. In the end, all they found was a single pad.

"It's still got charge," Hunk said, not sure he really wanted to turn it on. But they needed information. "Let's see what he had to say." He pulled up the last entry, which was dated over two years ago, and tapped play.

Immediately he wished he hadn't as he shuddered at the face that appeared on the screen. It was himself, but not in a way he had ever seen: bloodshot eyes, sallow, sunken cheeks, shaggy unkempt hair, the headband doing little to keep it out of his eyes. His face was flushed, and marked with small scars. He looked broken… and definitely not sober.

"We finally got news today of the Cruiser Lok'tal's whereabouts, though I can't believe it took more than a year to track them down. Lance and I are making an attack run in a few vargas, and we're going to get those bastards. After what they did to Pidge… none of them deserve to live. I'll take every last one of them out if I can. If I don't succeed… well, then this is my final entry." He paused and took a long drink, emptying the bottle in his hand, before he turned a broken expression full of regret back to the screen. "I'm sorry, Pidge… about everything. It's my fault, all of it. I hurt you, and I never wanted to do that. This won't fix it, but it's the only thing left in my power to do since you're dead. The universe can judge if it's enough."

The screen went dark.

Hunk felt sick; grateful they were alone. It was like looking into a nightmare…or what might have been if Katie had never come home. The man on that screen was not him… but it was.

Katie stared at the blank screen for several seconds. "Wow," she said finally. "That's one hell of a final speech. I already miss our reality."

"Me too." Hunk put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her close. "I'm not sure I want to know what I did."

Katie startled him by grinning. "Probably broke my heart with a string of hot alien girlfriends."

It took him a moment to realize she was being sarcastic to lighten the mood. He managed to smile back. "And what about you?"

"Well, we know I didn't marry Lance in this reality. So… Keith?" Katie shrugged. "Shiro's a bit old for me, and I'm clearly not his type… but I don't suppose it's worth speculating. We're likely to find out a lot of things about these other versions of us that we would rather not know, looking for critical information. We've found the only useful thing in here. Let's check other-Pidge's room and see if I ever put anything more interesting in my logs than science breakthroughs."


Katie's room shocked her almost as much as other-Hunk's had, if for entirely different reasons.

The room was spotless, with everything placed carefully away. Almost sterile levels of clean. Everything was placed so carefully and particularly there was no way any version of her could have done it. "It feels like a tomb."

"Or a memorial." Hunk looked around.

"The video did say other-Pidge died first."

"You think I—the other one—did this?" Hunk looked around.

"Don't you?"

"Yeah."

Katie crossed the room to the table, where a portable system sat there. "I bet this is what we're looking for. Let's take these back to our room. We can run selective searches for entries with specific references and correlate them to save time."

"The last thing I want to do is listen to over twenty years of logs," Hunk agreed.

"Anything we need for this mission should be in the most recent year or so." As much as Katie was curious about the entire backstory and all the events leading to where things were now, they only needed information relevant to their immediate needs. At least on the primary search.

Hunk walked with her back to their room, where he set up at the table, and she pulled open the computer and sat cross-legged on the bed, and they got to work.

Between them it did not take long to put together information they suspected other people's reports would corroborate regarding fleet numbers and various battles against the Galra, and a few near-misses trying to get at Lotor over the past couple of years alone. There were also references to major older events that they looked up as well.

Those were grimmer. Dozens, sometimes hundreds of allies lost in major battles. A Voltron Coalition that had fallen apart and reformed more times than they cared to count.

And they found deaths. Shiro had never been recovered from his Lion. In the end, all the clones had died. Keith had died on a mission assisting the Blades a few years after that and, surprisingly, Black had chosen Lance to replace him as the Head, and Red had finally chosen Coran as his Paladin, giving them five once more.
Most of the deaths had come in the past three years though. Katie's reports stopped almost exactly one year before Hunk's, referencing a mission at which the previously mentioned ship had apparently caught them on-planet and in an overwhelming aerial bombardment had murdered thousands, Katie included. At that time, Green had gone dormant. A year later, Hunk and Lance's fateful attempt at destroying the ship that had done it had been successful, but it had lost them Hunk, leaving only Lance, Allura, and Coran.

From there, they had no personal logs to extrapolate from, and Katie had dug into the ship's database for more official logs. Yellow had also refused to choose a new Paladin. The three of them had found a place to hide the Castle, and made focused strike missions out, but there was no more Voltron, and with Melenor to take care of, Allura spent more time on the ship than in Blue.

Coran's death had come when Lotor attempted to capture Allura, and Coran's sacrifice had allowed her to escape. From there, it was just her and Lance, protecting their daughter. Then Allura had been killed in an attack, and Melenor successfully kidnapped. Then had come Lance's suicidal attempt at rescue. That last report that he was leaving was the end of it. He hadn't even taken a Lion. They all remained here, dormant.

That had been only a couple of weeks ago. Very shortly before spirit-Allura, or whatever you wanted to call her, had come to Lance in his dreams.

Katie and Hunk took their findings to meet up with the others in the lounge, which was the only room besides the dining room that would fit all of them. Shiro had found very little, since in this reality his life had ended much, much earlier, but he and his sons had gone through the star charts and other logged data looking for current Galra fleet patterns.

Keith had what limited data he had available from the rest of other-Keith's life, and then had spent his time researching the activity of the Blades and the Voltron Coalition over the past decade, and their current known where-abouts and activities. Which was to say, basically nil. The Blades were gone, utterly wiped out. The few planets still ostensibly in the Coalition would be useless now, believing all of the Paladins to be dead, which they were. Since they weren't staying, part of their goal was to avoid drawing too much attention.

Lance was quiet while Katie and Hunk reported their findings, before detailing what he had been able to garner from both his logs, and Allura's. No one said anything about him going through hers. If she hadn't given him direct permission, in this world they had shared everything. At the end though, it seemed that they had been tracking very specific information, with the singular goal of taking out Lotor, since they had no hope of taking out the entire Galra Empire, which had pretty much taken over everything here, including re-taking Earth several years after they had originally driven it off. Several key officials and family members of the Paladins had been executed.

Even knowing her own parents were actually safe back home, it made Katie feel ill.

Coran's reports were mostly detailed accounts of the diagnostics of the Castle and the existing second pair of Lions which, thankfully, were much more functional than their exteriors would have them appear. They should even, in theory, still be capable of forming Voltron properly, if they had Paladins.

"The Castle's systems will last for another few months at the very least," he explained at the end. "So, they will last well longer than we intend to be here, and we're not in any imminent danger of running out of power, or life support, food, or water. If we need to, we can create a couple of wormholes, though we'll need to use those very strategically. I should be able to get a second medical pod working with only a little bit of work, too, just in case we need it."

"Thank you, Coran. Now to address the five-headed hydra in the room," Lance said when Coran finished. "I believe, as I think we all probably do, that the reason the Lions demanded we bring the others along…is because we're supposed to present you to the other set of Lions, and see if we can attack Lotor with two Voltrons, when he isn't even expecting one."

"I knew it!" Caitlin exclaimed.

"You don't really expect us to let kids go after Lotor with no training?" Hunk blurted out.

"Of course not," Shiro cut in. "It will take us at least a couple of days, if not more, to locate Melenor, formulate a plan of attack, and execute it. During that time, we'll get the other Lions back in working order, and let the kids present themselves to the Lions. It may be that none of them are any more acceptable than anyone here, but as none of them existed here, or at least, not in any place where they might have had this opportunity, we can't know until we try."

Katie couldn't say she was thrilled about the idea of Caitlin—or especially Kale—flying a Lion into combat with their lack of experience, but Caitlin had at least as much training, if not more than Katie had, when she had become the Green Paladin, and there was probably nowhere safer in this reality to be than inside a Lion of Voltron. It might also be that only a small number were chosen. Voltron plus a couple of spare Lions was still a good bit more than they had come with. "Let's get them working first," she suggested. "Then see if they like their options."

Since no one could reasonably disagree with that, they moved on then to lunch. Katie knew it practically killed Hunk to have to serve them all food goo, but the kitchen equipment was mostly non-functional and it was what they had.

Though Katie had to admit it was worth it to watch the next generation stare at the green goop in their bowls.

Gabriel in particular looked affronted. Nathaniel and Kale looked skeptical. Joshua made a funny face but was the first to take a bite. Heith looked vaguely offended. Caitlin poked at it for a moment, then followed Joshua's example. She sat there, evaluating it the way Hunk might a new dish he was sampling for the first time. It was the exact same facial expression.

"Fascinating texture," Caitlin commented. "It's sort of like… vegetable pudding jello?"

"It's bizarre," Joshua laughed. "But not awful."

"It's incredibly nutritious," Coran commented without looking offended. "We're fortunate it's still working."

"Yeah… I think I'll have rations for dinner." Heith said after his first couple of bites.

"It definitely brings back memories," Katie commented, looking up at her friends, and resisting the urge to fling a spoonful across the table. She did wiggle it though, and that got several chuckles.

The kids looked a little confused.

After lunch they all split into teams to work on the Lions and the Castle. Nathaniel went with Coran, and the rest went with the Paladin they had ridden in with to work on the individual Lions. Which was when they hit their first major snag.

Every one of the alternate Lions had their shields up.

"I guess we're going to have to see about matching Paladins first." Shiro shrugged. "If they won't accept someone, we won't be able to fix them."

"Yes!" Caitlin grinned. "Where do we start?"

"With the leader."

The group of them moved en masse towards the alternate Black Lion. Joshua bounced up eagerly, hoping to be first, but the shield remained steadfastly up. Then Heith tried, and Caitlin. Gabriel stepped up next, and after a few seconds, the shield dropped, and his eyes went wide as his mind connected with the Lion for the first time.

Katie hadn't seen that look in a long time. Still, it made a lot of sense that, of all of them, Gabriel would be a good match for a Black Lion. As a Junior Officer and the eldest, he had the training, but he was also steadfast and meticulous.

And so it went. Red claimed Heith. Blue claimed Joshua. Because he was there, Nathaniel was offered up with the others, though none of the Lions took him.

"Don't take it personally," Coran told him. "I've been with the Lions since the beginning, and they've never chosen me either."

All that was left was Yellow and Green, and Hunk and Katie's two children.

"Well I guess we know how this is going to go," Caitlin grinned as she strode up to the other Yellow Lion. She waited confidently as… nothing happened. After a minute, her face became one of confusion. Then she turned, and stared at the other Green Lion.

"Something wrong, Caitlin?" Katie asked.

"No I… no." Caitlin turned, and walked towards the other Green, who had dropped her shields. "I just assumed I'd have the same Lion as Dad…and Kale would have the same as you."

Kale, looking at his sister, approached the other Yellow Lion, which immediately dropped its shields and came to life like the others. "Woooooah."

Katie approached Caitlin, putting a hand on her daughter's arm. "The Lions know. It's deeper than just your general likes, and dislikes, but Green needs someone with a very strong connection with nature, and the universe around them. I can't think of anyone here who is more in tune with the world around us, no matter where you are, than you."

"And Green chose you?" Caitlin looked at her mother.

Katie laughed. "Allura, and the Green Lion, knew I had a deeper connection and potential than I realized myself at the time. I used to have pretty terrible allergies, so I mostly avoided the outdoors."

"How did you get over them?"

"It's amazing what a few years getting your primary medical emergency care in an Altean healing pod will cure." Katie nodded. "Now, go on inside and bond with your Lion." She gave her daughter a shove.

Kale was already inside the alternate Yellow Lion with Hunk, who was going over the details of the controls and possible moves.

"How's it going?" Katie asked as she joined them.

"Great!" Kale grinned, looking a little more confident than he had earlier. "The armor on this thing is incredible."

"There's definitely no more durable Lion," Hunk agreed. "You can push your way through just about anything, and take a lot of punishment without getting hurt."

Which was another reason Katie was relieved that Kale was going to be in a Yellow Lion. He was the least experienced of any of them, and the most cautious. Though he had a strong drive to protect others. There, he was a lot like Hunk. "You'll have a great partner, for whatever we do while we're here."

"Do you think we'll be able to form Voltron too?" Kale asked, looking back at his parents.

"It's possible," Katie replied. "But that depends on all five of you being able to sync and work together. It takes practice, and we don't have a lot of time while we're here. So, you might, or you might not."

Kale looked mildly disappointed in that answer, but he nodded. "That makes sense. I think we can. I mean, we're already friends, right?"


"Look at us!" Caitlin exclaimed later that afternoon as she stood in the Paladin uniform storage room of the castle, wearing a Green Paladin uniform for the first time. It was a good thing they adjusted to fit their Paladins, she thought. This reality's version of her Mom had definitely not had as much chest or hip as Caitlin did, or height, and that would have been a real pain.

The Yellow Paladin uniform would also have been hugely over-sized on Kale, but this one fit him well. Caitlin had to admit that he looked older in the uniform than he did in his usual loose-fitting clothes. Her little brother was starting to turn into a guy. She hoped that didn't happen too fast.

Gabriel looked as imposing and as much like a leader as might be expected. He wasn't much taller than his younger brother, but he had the bearing. Heith looked like he wasn't sure how he felt in something that fitted.

Joshua was totally posing. "I think we may look better in these than our parents do."

"That might be pushing it," Caitlin laughed. "We may look like Paladins, but we're going to have to train our asses off if we want to be helpful on this mission."

"Caitlin's right," Gabriel nodded. "When we're not working on the Lions, we should be training. The Paladins—well, the other ones—it's on them as our superior officers to plan the strategy, but we need to be ready to carry it out. All of us," he turned and looked at Nathaniel, who was watching from the side, looking mildly dejected. "This has to be a team effort, or we won't get anywhere."

"So, where do we start?" Heith asked.

"Oh, how about the training deck?" Nathaniel offered, his eyes lighting up. "Uncle Coran was showing me how to use the controls to bring up the different training exercises."

"Excellent idea," Gabriel nodded approvingly. "Everyone should bring their bayards."

Caitlin grinned. "This is going to be awesome."


When the Paladins joined the kids for dinner, it was obvious that they had been busy on their own, even after spending a good chunk of the day working on repairing the other Lions. While the adults had spent their afternoon brainstorming session pouring over Galra data and determining the likely locations for Lotor and Melenor, as well as the best point of attack, the kids had obviously been training.

It was obvious, because they looked exhausted, and a little less enthusiastic than they had that afternoon when Shiro suggested they go try on the Paladin uniforms still stored on this castle. They were obviously spares, but they hadn't felt the need to point that out.

The kids were sprawled out across the lounge in a very familiar fashion.

"I see you've been on the training deck," Keith commented with a chuckle. "How'd it go?"

"Brutal," Joshua groaned. "I think we almost died like, every five minutes."

"He's exaggerating," Heith said with a roll of his eyes. "It wasn't that bad."

"Says the guy who squealed when that holographic monster tried to take a bite out of him," Joshua retorted.

"At least I didn't take a laser up my—"

"That's enough," Gabriel cut in. "It wasn't a bad first session." He turned to his father. "We worked through several of the defensive teamwork scenarios, as well as practiced basic moves with the bayards we found in the Lions, Captain."

Shiro smiled, but didn't correct his son. "At ease, Gabe. Good work. Continue training sessions as you see fit. For now, let's get some food and recharge."

"You're speaking my language, Dad." Joshua sprang off the sofa with more energy than he had exhibited a minute ago. "Even that goo sounds good right now."

"That's good," Hunk replied, "Because that's what we're having."

Kale got up off the couch. "Hey, I've had worse."


Katie came out of the shower in their new, temporary quarters, to find Hunk splayed out on the bed on his back, not yet dressed for bed, though he had his boxers on. She finished toweling her hair as she approached, her body wrapped in a second towel. "Long day, huh?"

Hunk moaned softly. "I'd forgotten how much of a workout it is just crawling around all over Lions doing major repairs. The Lions, and this Castle. I spent two hours trying to repair the oven so we could make something more appetizing. I think I pulled something in my back."

"Want me to work on it?" Katie offered.

Hunk smiled. "If you're not too tired."

Katie leaned over Hunk, and kissed him. "Actually, this has been a pretty stimulating day." Some of the upgrades and fixes made to the castle over the intervening years had been fascinating. She had even found notes for inventions and programs and a variety of things her counterpart had come up with, that she had not yet herself. Those she had copied to her own systems for further study later.

Hunk's expression brightened a little. "Well, if you've got energy left, maybe we should take advantage of it instead."

"I thought your back hurt?"

"Not enough to waste the opportunity to live out a teen fantasy and have sex with a beautiful woman in a magical space castle."

Katie almost fell over laughing. "That is a teen fantasy? You sure never brought that up when we were actually living here." She had the pleasure of watching his face flush under his dark skin.

"Well, you know, we were pretty preoccupied with more important things in those days… and minors… without birth control." Which, all things considered, made it a very good thing they weren't interested in anything romantic that far back.

Katie kissed him again. "All very good reasons we were not involved."

"And all no longer applicable," Hunk countered, reaching up and pulling her forward, flipping her over him as he rolled her onto the bed. As she came over to the other side, the towel around her unfolded beneath her. Hunk pulled her close, kissing her again with an ardor she hadn't anticipated but was happy to return.

Enough that she didn't really register the sound of the door from the hallway sliding open.

"Hey Mom? Dad? I was just looking at these old supply manifests and—Holy Ancient Cheese Sticks!" The door slid quickly shut again behind Caitlin's quick exit.

Katie broke the kiss immediately, but it was already too late. She looked at Hunk, who looked only vaguely embarrassed. "We didn't lock the door."

"I don't think I've ever locked a door on this ship," Hunk admitted. "We should start."

"Serves her right for not knocking though. Go lock the door."

Hunk chuckled, and went to do just that.


Joshua looked up as Caitlin rejoined him and Heith in the lounge, where they were setting up a game of Monsters & Mana. Kale and Nathaniel were playing too, but they had stepped out to go find some of the packed rations to have for snacks instead of resorting to another round of food goo. Gabriel, in all his adult seriousness, had opted to spend the evening somewhere else.

Caitlin's face was a brilliant deep color he had never seen before, and her eyes were wide as she murmured "oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh" under her breath.

"Geez, what's wrong with you?" Joshua asked.

Heith looked up from the table. "Yeah, you look like you saw a ghost, or an interdimensional space spider."

"Or Gabe without his hair gel," Joshua snickered.

"Worse," Caitlin nearly squeaked, also unusual. "Soooo much worse."

"I'm not sure there's much worse than that."

Caitlin dropped down between them. "I accidentally walked in on my parents."

Heith stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Seriously? That's all? I've done that like, dozens of times."

Joshua tried to hide his expression behind the Monsters & Mana guide book as he snickered. He didn't want to laugh at Caitlin, but her expression was priceless.

Caitlin was staring at Heith. "What did you do?"

Heith shrugged. "Usually, I just back out again. My parents are awful about locking doors. They're not all that quiet either."

"I don't need to be hearing this." Caitlin buried her face in the digital pad in her hands. "I never want to see that much of my parents again."

"It happens to everyone," Joshua managed to get out with a relatively straight face. "Though my dads are way more circumspect. Just try and forget about it, that's my advice."

"Do they know?" Heith asked.

"I'm pretty sure I shouted obscenities on my way out, so… yeah." Caitlin sat up again. "All I wanted to do was ask them a question about some of this data."

"Take a break and play a game with us," Joshua suggested. "Get your mind off… things. Besides, this practically counts as a team building exercise. Even Gabe couldn't complain about that."

"Sure, he could," Nathaniel commented as he and Kale returned with snacks. "Gabe can find something to complain about with everything."

"He wasn't that bad today," Joshua disagreed. Sure, his older brother took things a little too seriously a lot of the time, but he knew that was because Gabriel felt like he needed to be the responsible one, take care of everyone. He had been like that before they went to live with Shiro and Curtis, so many years ago, but Nathaniel had been just a baby when their mom died, and even Joshua could only barely remember her now. "He's just trying to make sure that we're as good as we can be before we have to test ourselves against a real enemy. We're not exactly fully trained."

"He could still ease up a bit," Heith commented as he started programming in his character. "I'm playing a rogue."

"I claim mage," Kale bounced into his seat, tapping the board and pulling up his character data.

"Barbarian!" Nathaniel declared.

Joshua looked at Caitlin. "Cay?"

Caitlin sighed. "Sure. I think I'll play a swashbuckler."

"Cool. Then I'll play our bard."

Nathaniel groaned. "Just don't actually sing, okay?"

"Hey, I can sing," Joshua objected.

Heith smirked. "Like a screech owl."

"More like a musical lead," Joshua grinned, throwing his hand out towards Caitlin, and belting out the lyrics from an old musical, "Oh my mysterious lady, what is your naaaaaame? Oh my mysterious lady, from whence have you caaaaaaame?"

Caitlin snorted, then laughed. "Stop! Where did you hear that old thing?"

"It was playing on one of the really old movie channels Papa Curtis loves to listen to."

"Well there's nothing mysterious about me, and you know exactly where I came from." Then her face flushed… "You know what I mean."
"I do." But his mission was a success, she was smiling again. "Fine, let's get this game going while we can. The last thing I want is someone to tell us we should go to bed early, like we're kids again." You're much more mysterious than you think sometimes, my friend.

Caitlin nodded. "Uncle Coran's old enough he probably thinks of us as tadpoles or something. Okay, where are we starting?"
"In the Forbidden Swamp of Hallucinogen Gas."

"Oh… this is going to be interesting."

August 9th, 2345

The mood at breakfast was mixed, Katie noticed. The kids had obviously been up late, well most of them, but they were in general good spirits. Caitlin was very studiously not spending much time looking at her parents.

Katie decided not to bring up the night before. Certainly not at the breakfast table.

Gabe looked both refreshed and slightly disgruntled.

Keith, Shiro, and Coran looked about as she would have expected them on any morning on any mission, tired but alert and focused. Hunk about the same, though that had more to do with last night's very enjoyable and therapeutic romp, followed by the promised back rub.

Lance, however, looked strained and exhausted. He was abnormally quiet over breakfast.

The kids finished eating first, and most of them hurried off for a morning training session. Nathaniel went off with Coran, who was planning to focus his energies today on finding Melenor and Lotor's location. The one thing they knew for certain, was that it was unlikely Lotor would allow her to be far from him at any given time. Lance's information said they would be on Lotor's flag ship, but they still needed to confirm that, and figure out where on the ship she was, in order to formulate a plan.

As they finished eating, Shiro and Keith wandered into the other room, discussing possible battle scenarios, and Hunk went into the kitchen to clean up.

Katie approached Lance, and offered him a mug. "Coffee?"

Lance looked up, startled. "Oh… yeah. Thanks." He took it, staring down at the cup for a moment before taking a long sip. "I needed that, but where did you find coffee?"

"You think I packed essentials and left coffee behind?" Katie smiled. "I came anticipating long days and sleep deprivation. You don't look like you slept well."

"I didn't," Lance admitted. "I was going through some of the other Lance's logs, trying to fill in some of the gaps in the memories Allura gave me. Almost everything she gave me that's a direct memory instead of just information, is about us… and about Melenor, but it's not even close to everything. Since he was the last of them, his logs are the most current and relevant. There's tons of information there that might be useful. I've already transferred the most useful data to Coran, to use in tracking Lotor's ship."

"That's good," Katie replied encouragingly. "Though I'm sure that's been hard. The other Pidge's logs are… not an easy watch either. I expect no one's are, given how badly things went in this reality."

Lance nodded, drinking more coffee before responding. "I knew there was no way any of it was as perfect as what Allura gave me, just because I knew what happened to all of them by the end. But still… I think I would have preferred not knowing any of the rest."

"What did you find, Lance?"

"How much our team fell apart under my—his—leadership. I mean, he tried, and everyone was doing their best, but it wasn't enough. Conflicts, in-fighting, disagreements on how to handle missions. Marital fights…" he covered his face with one hand. "The love was always there but they didn't always agree on a lot of things. There were some pretty awful ones over the years, especially after that Pidge died, and they couldn't form Voltron anymore because Green refused to pick a Paladin. I—he—started to wonder if it was his leadership that was the problem, not just a lack of available acceptable replacements. The Coalition completely fell apart on his watch, too, the final time. Then when Lotor started trying to convince Allura to help him—again—there were fights over that too. What if helping him would end the war. What would it take to make this stop? Talk of… of surrender. Anything to survive… to protect our daughter." He drained the rest of the coffee. "Their last conversation before that Allura was captured and killed was a fight, and it led to Melenor's capture. He blamed himself, of course, and hatched a desperate plan to save Melenor but I can see how full of holes it was, how hopeless to attempt it alone. He didn't even take a Lion, obviously, since the other Blue is still here."

"I'm so sorry." On instinct, Katie leaned over and offered him a hug, which he accepted, clutching her tightly for several seconds before letting go.

"I'll be okay," Lance replied, even if he didn't sound convincing. "It had to be done, and it makes me even more grateful that's not how our reality turned out. Though it makes me sad to know there was never a single reality where Allura and I got to live happily to old age, with kids."

"It's not fair," Katie agreed. "But once we save Melenor, and get home, the only daughter you ever had will grow up in the safest reality, surrounded by friends and people who love her. That's why Allura sent us here, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

"You still think we can succeed."

"Of course, I do. I don't fight to lose, and we have the ultimate element of surprise. This Lotor thinks we're all dead. What's he going to do when he's attacked out of nowhere by two sets of Lions?"

"Or two complete Voltrons…" Lance nodded, and his expression lightened a little. "This would be so much easier if I felt like I had my head to myself."

"Maybe a few hours in the Altean healing pod will help," Katie suggested as the idea came to her. "You got an awful lot of stuff jammed in your neutral net at once that came from outside, but is supposed to be occupying centers that are already full of information. It hasn't had time to map new connections or sort out what is a personal memory, verses added information from outside."

"I never considered it as a biological problem," Lance admitted. "Do you think that would work? It's getting really confusing in here."

"It can't hurt." Katie nodded. "Hunk and I need to spend a few more hours on the alternate Lions this morning, and it's not stuff we need anyone's help with. While we're all busy doing what we need to be, the best thing you can do is see about getting your head straightened out. And given how badly you slept, I bet you could use a nice, healing nap."

"I think I'll try that."

"Good, I'll come along and tuck you in for a few hours." Katie wished she knew enough, or they had the tech, that would allow her to selectively control which memories were integrated and how, but she would have to trust that Allura hadn't done permanent damage to Lance's brain by putting what she had in there. They didn't need him losing his mind now, or afterwards.


By the time he finished work on the alternate Yellow and Green Lions, and moved on to Red, Hunk was definitely missing the mice. He should have suggested they bring some of Katie's M.I.C.E. Replacing loose wiring, lost bolts, patching or re-constituting damaged pieces of metal plating… there were so many tight spaces where even his hands were nearly too small to reach and he had to crawl out and let Katie get in and handle them with her small hands and nimble thin fingers. Now that the Lions had accepted their new Paladins, they didn't seem to have a problem allowing the other set of Paladins to do maintenance on them.

Katie had already run full system diagnostics and cleared out any errors in code or programs for all five of the alternate lions, though there were far fewer of those.
Welding exterior panels was probably the hardest part, as he climbed up and down makeshift scaffolding, himself hooked into safety equipment and carrying the welding torch. Unfortunately, it was necessary in several places on almost every Lion. He was going to be at this all day to get them done.

Which meant he was hot, sweaty, and starving by the time he heard someone shouting up from below while he worked on replacing a piece of the alternate Black lion's ear. He finished the last part then, turning off the torch, Hunk removed his welding goggles and looked down.

Keith was standing at the bottom of the scaffolding looking up. "Finally! I thought you'd never hear me."

"Sorry! What's up?"

"You didn't show up for lunch, so I told Pidge I'd come find you. Everyone's already eating."

"I lost track of time," Hunk admitted as he properly secured his equipment, and then started climbing back down the scaffolding. "There's a lot to do." He didn't say anything else until he was safely on the ground. "I'm not letting anyone fly a flawed Lion."

"We all feel that way." Keith nodded. "And I'm sure your work is flawless as usual."

"They're getting there." Hunk took off the equipment and safety harness. "I just wish we had something else to eat. I am not feeling the food goo."

"There's always rations."

"Very funny." Hunk headed for the exit, Keith following. "I might give the kitchen equipment another go later, but I have no idea what the previous crew did to it to get it that broken."

"Given by the end it was Lance and Allura cooking, who knows."

Hunk nodded, but his mood dropped. "Has your research been as depressing as mine?"

"Since the other version of me died years ago, it was pretty short," Keith admitted. "That far back, they were a lot more like us. Still hopeful, still had an Alliance to rely on. I mean, I guess it's sad that Keith died single…and a virgin." He shrugged. "And at all, but there wasn't as much trauma to wade through because he wasn't here for most of it. From the bits the rest of you have shared so far in briefings, he kinda lucked out that way."

"The other Hunk was… very different, by the end," Hunk admitted. "Broken… full of regrets, and I don't think he was completely sane." He shuddered again, thinking of that face. "That was not the face of a man who enjoyed cooking."

"Any idea what happened to him?"

"I might after tonight. Katie wants to sync up our video logs and watch some of them in order. She's also done topic searches through them to pick out anything really relevant to character development."

"Sounds like you're not too thrilled with that idea."

"It's not that I'm opposed to it, really, it's just uncomfortable. Like… their lives were theirs, and it feels a bit like we're about to use them as a really bad soap opera."

"I can see that. But Pidge wants to do this?"

"Surprised me." Hunk nodded. "It's the scientist in her. She wants all the data, and she wants to be able to analyze what happened. I think the what if also intrigues her. For me it's… it's like if someone wrote really bad fan fiction about us."

"You mean like when they turned us into a goofy cartoon and got everything wrong?" Keith asked, snickering.

"Yeah, like that, but I get a feeling it's going to be nothing but angst."

"Well, if there's anything juicy that you're willing to share later, we could all use some entertainment."

Hunk glanced at Keith. "What if it's about you?"

Keith paused, then laughed. "Maybe run it by me first."


"I found them!" Coran's voice echoed through the entire Castle over the intercom system, sending every living body not already in the Castle's command center flying for the nearest lift.

By the time Lance arrived, stumbling out of the healing pod, released by Hunk, the place was already half full and filling quickly as others crammed in behind him. "Where are they?" he blurted out, shoving his way towards the front of the group, though they made way for him without any hesitation.

"At the moment, they're right here." The huge three-dimensional map in the center of the room spun around, and honed in on a system. A bright purple spot lit up, surrounded by hundreds of red ones, above the planet Naxela.

"What are all the red spots?" Joshua asked from behind him.

"The Galra fleet," Shiro answered.

"More like roughly a quarter of the current Galra fleet, to be precise," Katie chimed in from her seat, where her fingers were flying over the controls. "That's based on the current data in the Castle's data base, and the movements I'm tracking across this quadrant of space, compared to reports coming in from elsewhere."

"Pidge hacked the Galra communication systems… again," Coran explained.

"Of course, she did." Keith smiled, though he looked concerned.

Lance nodded. "There's no way we can get in there," he said, his hopes sinking.

"It was never the plan to attack the entire fleet," Shiro reminded him. "We just need to catch him when he's got fewer reinforcements. Do we know anything about his plans yet, and have we confirmed that Melenor is on board that ship specifically?"

"According to the reports, and the most recent information we have, she should be," Katie continued. "There's a prison level on Lotor's personal flagship. Based on this records transmission I intercepted two vargas ago, supplies delivered to the ship and stored in the prison supply locker include provisions for only three prisoners, and they include the smallest prison uniform I have ever heard of besides the ones they had Slav in, and this only has two arms."

A prison uniform. Fury rose up inside him, and Lance clenched his fists, resisting the urge to slam them on Coran's console. I'm coming for you, Mellie. Just hold on. Papa's coming…

Lance wasn't sure what the healing pod had done to him, but the seven varga nap had done him a world of good. Not that he felt better about this mess, but at least he'd slept, and the data in his brain seemed much less scrambled, and it was very clear what was him, and what was memories. The memories seemed to have sorted themselves out into memories that no longer felt new, but were clearly distinct from his real ones that he'd created during his own actual experiences. There was also a step of distance between himself and those again. Which made it much easier to think. "So how do we get them away from the rest of the fleet?"

"We wait," Coran surprised him. "According to his itinerary, he's scheduled to make a public appearance on Brixaan in four days, where they're opening a new planetary defense station. He's supposed to be hosting system leaders for a huge banquet."

"Shouldn't he be taking a lot of his fleet on a mission like that?" Gabriel asked.

"You would think so," Katie chimed in again. "Except that apparently, he hasn't been taking large numbers of ships with him anywhere. This is his Empire, and we're in the middle of it. What danger would he face? He currently has a handful of escort ships scheduled, and his flagship, and that's it."

"Won't he wormhole straight there?" was Heith's question.

"He would, but he can't." Coran spun the map, and a point between the two locations lit up. "In order to safely get through this area, which is full of black holes and gravity shears, you have to come out of hyperspace here, and recalculate for a second jump. It changes too often to safely go straight through it."

"So that is the best point for an unanticipated attack." Shiro nodded. "It's perfect."

"Even prepared, it should take them at least two to five minutes to make the calculations and move on." Katie continued. "We need to time our jump to arrive immediately after they do, to avoid showing up on any sensors. After that, we follow Shiro's plan."

"Well, it's as much Keith's as mine." Shiro stepped forward. "We jump in as separate sets of Lions. You," he gestured at Gabriel, "Will be leading the bait team."

"We're bait?" Caitlin asked, sounding mildly offended.

"If we show our hand too early, he'll figure out what's up. So, the primary Paladins will be sneaking in from behind so we can get into the ship, while Lotor is focusing all of his attention, and possibly fire power, on you five."

"It's a job that takes some skill, but hopefully mostly bluffing," Keith explained. "As soon as the other Lions are space worthy, we're going to be running you through some intense drills."

"Won't they know we're new and inexperienced?" Gabriel looked skeptical.

"Not immediately." Shiro grinned. "Hunk and I will be the exterior guards on this Prison Break, so we'll still be on the outside, in our Lions. I'll be routing my audio through your Black Lion, so Lotor is going to hear me if there's any talking between us."

"But you're dead here," Kale pointed out.

"Which is why it's really going to bother him."

Lance nodded. "I like it. We should only need a few minutes to get in, get to the cell, hack the locks, get Melenor out, and get out again."

"Right. Lance you, Pidge, and I will be handling the interior." Keith nodded. "That way if Lotor figures out what's going on, the second set of Paladins still has Shiro and Hunk as back-up if it comes to full on combat. There's a little used rear storage area according to the blueprints of the flagship we found in the Castle database. Apparently, the other Coran, Allura, and Lance, had managed to get a hold of them several months ago."
The space map was replaced by three dimensional blueprints of the ostentatious ship.

"Unfortunately, but predictably, the prison section is in the very center of the ship, on this fifth level." Keith pointed to the center, which blew up as he did so, zooming in on the block of eight cells. "The best way to clear out those corridors is to have everyone at their emergency stations. Voltron coming out of the grave is the perfect distraction. Lance will take point, Pidge in the center, and I'll cover the rear. Pidge will open anything she can hack, and the rest of us will break through anything that can't be. If we can get through all the doors without having to trip alarm systems, so much the better."

"What's the plan if they come after you?" Heith asked his father.

Keith grinned. "We blow stuff up."

"Sounds crazy," Caitlin said as she stared at the map, "But I mean, crazy works a lot. So, when can we get into our Lions and do some real training?"

Lance and everyone else turned to look at Hunk and Katie.

"Repairs should be ready by lunch tomorrow if I can get some help in the morning. Caitlin, Kale, I'm going to need both of you for that." He looked around the room. "You too, Gabriel."

Gabriel looked startled, but nodded. "Yes, Commander."

Lance noticed Hunk didn't bother trying to talk him out of using his official rank any more than Shiro had.

"You've got it, Dad," Caitlin replied, grinning. "So, how long do we have to get ready?"

"I've calculated his likeliest window of travel based on the information collected," Coran said. "And given his other engagements, meetings, and responsibilities publicly known, he can't travel there more than a day in advance."

"Which means we need to be ready to go in three days at the latest, and at alert starting in two." Shiro looked around the room. "We're going to need to start drilling this as soon as possible. Tomorrow, we'll have you five in your Lions, and we'll run you through some training exercises. It'll give us the practice demonstrating them as well, since it's been a while."

Lance thought that was a good idea. It was a bit of a relief to finally have a hard timeline, and a plan. "Do we have a simulation of this programmed into the training deck yet? Or anything like it?"

"I'll have it done by tomorrow," Katie spoke up. "It looks like there's a rough outline already in the system, but it will be easy to convert this map into a three-dimensional holographic projection. I can only approximate how long it will take me to hack ship systems, but we should have a pretty good idea of exactly how long it's going to take before we get in there."

Shiro nodded. "Good. All right, let's get back to work everyone." As the room started to empty, Shiro approached Lance. "What do you think?"

"I think it's the best plan we have," Lance replied honestly. "I know I'm the one who dragged us out here, but honestly, I'm relieved you're our leader again. I'm having a hard time just keeping my head on straight."

"Did the healing pod help?"

"It did. I can't say I'm a hundred percent, but at least I don't feel like I'm sharing my brain with another person anymore."

"That's good. What are you plans for the rest of the afternoon?"

"Since the simulation isn't ready yet, shooting practice. We're going to be in close quarters and I'll have my bayard, and a couple of backup weapons, but it's been a long time since I shot at anything other than a stationary target. If anything happens inside that ship, I can't afford to miss my target, or hit the wrong one, no matter how close quarters we get."

"All good points. I'm going to go give the kids some pointers, but I may join you in a bit."

Lance smiled. "I wouldn't mind the company."


Hunk was sore and tired by the end of the day, but the second set of Lions were sound enough on the exteriors he was certain they wouldn't going to pop a rivet or form a crack or some other stupid thing from lack of maintenance, and vent one of the kids into space.

After dinner, and a shower, he curled up in bed with Katie, wishing they could have a repeat of last night instead of tonight's planned activity. It wasn't that he wasn't curious, he just wished he didn't already know that it ended badly for both of them, and there were hints that he, in particular, might have done some less than honorable things.

"It'll be fine." Katie snuggled against him as she pulled up the synced logs on her computer, and projected them in front of them. "No matter what happens, you and I know these people aren't really us."

Hunk nodded. "Yeah, I know. Still feels weird though."

It started out normal enough, with both of them talking about projects they were working on, or funny things the other had said during a game of Monsters & Mana, or while they were working together. Some of it was just little snippets of longer entries, starting back with their teenage selves. It sounded and felt almost exactly like the kinds of things Hunk knew he'd logged that far back.

It started to get interesting when he was nineteen.

"Soooo… something fascinating happened today. We needed to get a small crystal from a Balmera and so we contacted the nearest one, and they said of course. Well, it turned out to be Shay's Balmera, so after we finished our business, we hung out together for a while and… we're kind of a thing now." The Hunk on the screen flushed, but looked incredibly happy. "I know we won't get to see each other all the time, because Paladin stuff, but I've never had a girlfriend before, and Shay's great so… hopefully it works out."

"I knew it." Katie looked over at him, though she didn't look upset at all.

Hunk looked away. "Yeah, I had a crush on her like, a million years ago. You used to tease me about it all the time."

"Not all the time." Katie interwove her right arm with his left, taking his hand. "But, I'm glad things didn't go that way for us."

They kept watching, as Hunk and Shay dated long distance—and in-person whenever possible—for roughly three years, until the Balmera fled into a distant region of space to keep the Galra from continuing to try and re-claim it for the crystals. Katie was supportive through it, if occasionally irritated that Hunk forgot one of their brainstorming sessions, or missed a project day when they were going to hang out together because it was one of their rare chances to go out in person.

Things continued in a much like their own lives' manner, best friends and team mates, through more years of combat, and coming up with solutions together to save the day. Or at least keep the Castle and Lions together as Lotor solidified his power and actively started trying to hunt them down much earlier on than either the Hunk or Katie watching had anticipated.

It got interesting again when Romelle, who was working with a rebel cell, rejoined them on the Castle for a few months to work on a specific mission, using her intelligence to rescue pockets of surviving Alteans. She was with them for several months, and about half-way in, Romelle was spending time with Hunk while he worked on repairing the most recent damage to his Lion—Katie was up on the bridge with Coran running calculations—and she had kissed him.

"I've never had a make out session in a Lion before… so that was a new one. It came out of nowhere! But it turns out, Romelle likes me… a lot. I had no idea, but we do have a lot in common. I mean, we both think half of what we do as Paladins is completely insane. She's got a lot of common sense, and a great sense of humor. She's got a good heart, and she's a great cook too, especially considering what we have to work with these days. And… she is really hot. We're going to be near Olkarion in a couple of days, so I asked her out on a real date. I guess we'll see how it goes."

"Did not see that one coming," Katie admitted.

"Me either," Hunk stared at the screen. Sure, he and Romelle had bonded as friends over their mutual terror over crazy adventures, but in the decades that she had been working with him in the kitchens, she had certainly never made a move or showed interest, and if there was one thing Romelle was not it was subtle. She was refreshingly straight forward about all of her opinions. Also given her actual dating choices, Hunk was convinced he was not her type. Well, not in this reality.

Even after she left the ship to go back to the rebels, they met up regularly and—based more on comments in Katie's logs than Hunk's—apparently became lovers for several years.

"Katie Holt, project log one-thousand-fifty-two. We were supposed to do a system test on the new stealth drones this afternoon, but as usual, my partner has totally bailed." There was a note of frustrated disgust in her tone. "His favorite toy arrived a few hours ago and he's been shacked up in his room ever since… again as usual. Debating if I should put off the tests or just run them solo. We really need to get these deployed if we're going to get the intelligence jump on the Galra."

"Wow… that sounds… I'm not sure if she's jealous, or just frustrated at having to do all the work alone." Katie looked at the version of herself on the screen.

Hunk did his best not to visualize what was going on with that other Hunk while they listened to her rants. The Hunk logs for that time mostly talked about Romelle's other virtues, and went on about his and Katie's projects as if nothing was wrong. Other than a single acknowledgement when they first became intimate, he didn't brag about it in his logs or go on at length about it.

There was no big dramatic ending there, either, when after five years—Hunk was twenty-nine by the end—they slowly drifted apart just due to the nature of work and distance. Romelle's rebel cell went deep underground for a while, so to speak, and they agreed not to worry about trying to keep in contact, for safety reasons as much as anything else.

Hunk's logs were briefly a bit down, but Katie's cheered up almost immediately since Hunk started showing up for all of their projects again, including the personal ones they had been working on together that had been dramatically stalled, though that Hunk didn't seem to have noticed.

Then things took a turn for the worse as Keith was killed, and Lance took over as Paladin of the Black Lion, and Coran joined the team with Red. Lotor hunted down the Castle's location several times, putting the pressure on them, and punishing planets that had tentatively joined the Voltron Alliance. A lot of it started to fall apart, and everyone was frustrated. There was more quibbling.

There was a battle with some of Lotor's most elite forces who caught up with them on-planet when the Paladins tried to sabotage a major communication's hub. Both Katie and Hunk were injured, and at the time the healing pods were in need of repair, so they were bandaged, and hurting, and tired. And there… it got interesting.

"So, last night got weird…" Katie's log of the event said, her eyes a little wide. "Yesterday's mission was a total disaster, and we barely got out with our lives. We're lucky. All I've got is some burns on my shoulder. Hunk's got a couple of cracked ribs. Lance is lucky he didn't lose his right eye. It'll heal, but he'll probably have a scar there. But anyway… afterwards, Hunk and I were hanging out, and we both hurt too much to actually work on anything. So, we decided to just hang out, maybe play a video game. He came to my room with snacks and a bottle of Rkalian Whiskey to share. He'd been saving it for a celebration, but thought it might be better for consolation instead. It also makes an excellent painkiller sooo… we kinda finished the bottle. Not the first time we've had a drink together after a mission but… it didn't stop there. I'm not even sure which one of us initiated it first, but we started kissing, and then… we went further." Her skin flushed brilliant red and she pushed her bangs back out of her eyes. "I'd never had sex before. I mean, I'd never really cared and it's not like I had anyone I thought about you know… dating. But I like what I remember, and I'd mostly sobered up by the time I woke up this morning in his bed. I had no idea… I'm sore in places I didn't know could be sore, but I'm feeling sort of… happy, at the same time? Having Hunk all to myself, knowing this side of him, I wonder if maybe we could be more than just friends. When there's no one distracting him we're so in sync. We didn't talk about it this morning when I left, but we were both still kind of hungover. I'm sure we'll talk about it later."

"At least some things are consistent," Katie chuckled. "You're the only man for me."

Hunk nodded, a little relieved that was how this was going, if still somehow vaguely jealous… of himself. This Hunk was in his prime, and given how hard they were working, and the limits of their ration stores often, was much leaner than Hunk himself had ever dreamed of being. He had never reduced Katie to a blushing mess in all their years together. "Thank goodness," he replied. "I'm not sure I can take much more of watching my other-self with the wrong women."

Katie squeezed his hand. "I promise not to hold anything he does or says against you."

"Good. Let's see if he's as love struck as her."

Katie hit play again.

Other-Hunk appeared on the screen, looking hungover and harried. "I've made a huge mistake, and I have no idea how to fix it. Last night, after our missing went completely sideways, Pidge and I were hanging out in her room, playing games, and having a drink. Well, a few drinks. We killed a bottle of that Rkalian Whiskey I'd been saving and then…I have no idea what came over me, but I kissed her. I was going to apologize but then she started kissing me back! I thought she'd smack me but no… and she just smelled so good, and she was so close and…willing. We started making out, and then at some point clothes started coming off. She didn't object, and I've just been so lonely I… well I had sex with her. She left this morning without saying anything, and she probably hates me now. I hope she doesn't feel like I forced her. That wasn't what I meant to do. Not that I really have a clear memory of what I meant to do. I'll apologize later."

Hunk's stomach turned. Talk about not communicating. He had a feeling that conversation hadn't gone the way either of them expected. His fears were confirmed with the very next entries.

Other-Katie's expression was a mix of anger, frustration, and confusion. "Boys are idiots. Okay, Hunk, at least, is an absolute idiot. Can you believe he had the nerve to tell me that last night was a mistake? He apologized and said he didn't mean it. What the hell? I mean yeah, we were both pretty drunk, but it's not like he forced me to do anything. I could have strangled him… I didn't of course." She sighed, and much of the anger went out of her, replaced with resignation. "I told him it was fine. He didn't force me and I don't hate him. Which is, mostly, true. I don't want to lose my best friend over a stupid misunderstanding, but I really thought he knew me better than that."

Other-Hunk's entry did not show any comprehension or moments of clarity. "Well, I apologized, and Pidge said it was fine. So, I guess she understands. She says I didn't force her, though I have no idea how I didn't. She's practically a nun… if nuns were computer nerds. So I guess it's okay, but I got a weird vibe."
"This version of me is a moron," Hunk grumbled. "I want to punch him in the face."

"So does she, I think," Katie observed.

The next two months of entries were brief, and painful to watch. Hunk and Katie were either working together and blatantly pretending nothing had happened, or sniping at each other constantly. They made it clear they had told no one about what happened, but the tension was clearly palpable to the rest of the team. Their time spent socializing was cut to a minimum, and Katie had even cancelled one of their projects for the time being. Not that there weren't valid reasons to do so with the attacks they faced, but it was clear that wasn't the real reason.

Just when they both started to cool off, the drama re-intensified. A call for assistance from a resistance group sent Voltron to the rescue, only to find most of the rebels, and their hideout, thoroughly destroyed. They rescued only four, and Romelle was among them.

Hunk was impressed that Katie had also synced in Castle and Lion recordings of events to pull in some of this, because it was definitely not covered in the logs. He watched other-Hunk carrying Romelle out of the wreckage, hero-style. Half unconscious, she clung to him for dear life.

If this had been a TV show, Hunk would have called the writing trite and predictable. Logs less than two days later made it clear that Romelle wanted to pick up right where she and Hunk had left off…and he had gone quite willingly into her arms, and she into his bed. They hadn't even bothered to get her separate quarters.

Hunk's logs became more cheerful, and smitten, if brief.

Katie's became lonely, and depressing. There were months where none of hers showed up in their feed because Hunk and their projects were literally not mentioned at all. So, they skipped through two years of time in less than twenty minutes of watching.

Meanwhile Hunk and Romelle's relationship got deeper and more serious. He admitted he was thinking of proposing. Lance and Allura were already married, and that stability was good for them both. Hunk wanted that consistency; with someone he knew would always be there. Someone with whom he was truly in sync. An equal partner in life. Romelle certainly seemed willing.

But the proposal never happened. Two entries later, other-Hunk heartbrokenly revealed that Romelle had gone out on a mission, and had completely vanished. They didn't know if she was dead, or just captured, but they had lost communication. Days turned into weeks, and months before they got a report that her body had been found.

Through it all other-Katie, true to her nature, had been there to comfort her best friend. Even if they had grown more distant, she didn't hate him. In fact, to those watching, it was pretty obvious that she loved him, but she hadn't figured that out yet and neither had he. Their friendship stabilized, and they slowly began to repair what remained of it. There was joy at the news that Allura was pregnant, and that she and Lance would be parents. The news of baby Melenor's arrival… it all seemed to go well until right about three years prior to the current day.

Then the bomb dropped.

"Why can't the universe ever give me a break?" other-Katie griped. "Of all the beings in the universe to turn up… why did it have to be that Rock?! Stupid Shay… with the subtly of a brick and the worst timing in the universe. Shows up…publicly declares her love for Hunk, and he just… agrees to start seeing her again! It's not fair. He's my best friend. He's my soul mate. At least, I thought he was, but I guess Team Punk has just been a sham from the beginning. It's the two of us, until there's any attractive female wanting his attention. I mean, if you count rocks as attractive. At least Romelle was pretty. Shay's a lump of stone… Why did she have to turn up now, when everything was good again? When I thought I might finally be able to tell… nevermind. End recording."

There was another scattered selection for a couple of years, with Hunk and Shay dating, and Katie recording apparently nothing personal whatsoever.

"It was all data and mission reports," Katie confirmed, looking sad. "Apparently this version of me sucked at sharing her feelings. I would have snatched you up the moment I figured it out, and it seems pretty clear she figured it out then."

Hunk nodded. "We're almost up to the present."

"Then it's almost over."

To Hunk's surprise, the thing with Shay ended more with a whimper than a bang. They dated for a while, and then other-Hunk realized that he was no longer really as enamored of her as he had been years ago. He had broken it off, as gently as possible, and they had gone their separate ways.

"I had to dig this next part up out of the other Green Lion's database," Katie admitted as it changed from a personal log to another exterior camera clip.

Hunk and Katie stood alone in the hanger, just outside the Green Lion. The camera angle showed that the Lion's head was on the ground, and its audio sensors picked up every word.

"You know I'll be careful," Katie promised a concerned looking Hunk. "We've got to get these people evacuated before the Galra show up with more reinforcements. I'm the only one who can repair their defense systems in time to give them that opportunity. Maybe you should be the one I'm concerned about," she added with a small smile. "You and Coran have the hard job."

"What, driving off the existing Galra ships? That's nothing we haven't done a million times already."

"Still, you're more likely to get shot at than I am." Her face went soft for a moment then, without warning, she moved in and planted a kiss on Hunk's lips. It wasn't long but it was long enough. When she dropped back down onto her feet, she was looking up at him with an unquestionable expression. "So, you'd better come back in one piece."

Hunk's hand had gone to his face, an expression of stunned shock there. "Pidge…"

"I love you, you idiot. I should have told you a long time ago, but somehow sabotaging your active relationships didn't seem fair. But I'm not sharing you with anyone else ever again. You got me?"

At that moment the warning alarms started sounding. It was time to go.

"We'll talk about this when I get back," Katie continued hurriedly. "Don't you dare fall for some other rescued helpless damsel in the next few vargas."

"I won't," Hunk replied with surprising softness. "I promise."

Hunk knew what was coming next, even though he hadn't watched that one specifically yet. They both knew the outcome of that fateful mission. The evacuation had failed, and Katie had died with thousands of others.

"Pidge… I don't even know where to start. I'm sorry will never be good enough. I failed you, in every way. You were my best friend, and I trampled your feelings, ignored you, put you off for other people, just assuming you'd always be there. I never even realized or considered you might feel more for me than friendship. And then I let you die. We couldn't hold them off, for even half the time you needed. When I found your body… you were shielding two kids with your own. Broken…mangled… so small in death." Hunk's voice broke, and sobs wracked a throat already hoarse. "I love you, Katie Holt. I've always loved you. I just didn't understand… I was too dense, and stupid, and thoughtless. I wasted what could have been decades, and I hurt you. I know why you didn't tell me. I don't blame you. And now it's too late for you, for us. But I promise you, I'm going to find the Galra that did this, and I'm going to make every single one of them pay for the massacre on Vellek Four. All of them."

The screen went dark.

"Is… is that it?" Hunk asked, startled.

"Unless you want to watch almost two hundred videos of yourself descending into madness," Katie nodded. "I…skimmed them…earlier, for content. He kills hundreds, if not thousands of Galra, often on solo missions. It's brutal, and cold. I ah… don't think he was ingesting much besides alcohol."

The state of abandoned room would certainly reflect that statement. Hunk thought about that last video. "So, he died a year later…almost to the day."

Katie nodded again, though there were tears forming in her eyes. "I found the official reports in the database. Lance and the others tried to talk him out of the mission. It was too risky, with almost no chance of success. So, he snuck out in a pod, with all the stealth drones and missiles and other weapons he could cram in there… and went after them anyway."

"Did he succeed?"

Katie nodded. "Blasted the entire Cruiser to space dust, and himself in the process. But… I don't think he cared."

Hunk pulled her close in both of his arms, and squeezed Katie tightly. "I love you."

He felt her chuckle against him. "I love you, too. You're definitely the better version."

"The other version was in better shape…well, for most of that," Hunk pointed out. "Though I don't think the half-starved look is a good one for me."

"Agreed." Katie peeked up at him from where she was buried in his side. "I much prefer you as you are, and our life as it is."

Hunk was glad to hear it. "So do I."

August 11th, 2345

Nothing they had been put through in her first year as a Cadet had been as rigorous as the training Caitlin and her friends went through over the next day and a half. Not that the combat and team drills Gabriel had put them through weren't challenging, but working with semi-sentient Lions capable of flying themselves was in fact, not as easy as it sounded.

Caitlin was glad they had spent so much time playing at this as kids, if only because she discovered that all the moves and commands their parents had given them names for, especially when it involved the bayards, were actual moves! Seeing as they were unlikely to see one-on-one combat outside of the Lions, their training became almost exclusively within the Lions themselves, giving them time to practice maneuvering as a group. They didn't have to actually become their parents, but they did need to at least look to someone outside the Lions like they knew what they were doing.

So, all of the previous afternoon and almost every waking moment of today had been spent in their Lions. First in one-on-one sessions with their counterparts, learning the specific strengths, weaknesses, and moves of their individual Lions, practicing on targets that mostly consisted of the small pieces of asteroids floating around the larger one on which the Castle currently resided.

Then, this morning had been team flying drills, where first they had to demonstrate that they could fly in the variety of formations that Uncle Coran and Uncle Shiro insisted upon. The older Paladins would demonstrate it first, and then the younger group just had to follow. While Caitlin knew the Lions wouldn't crash into each other, that didn't mean it was automatically easy to be precisely where they needed to be. It required the five Paladins to be mentally in sync with each other and working as a team. She was grateful the team was made up of friends, and her brother. As much as they didn't always all get along perfectly, they knew each other really well, and they mostly got along. Given how much actual animosity had existed between her uncles—according to them—when they first started, that had to give Caitlin's team an edge here. At least, she hoped so.

Now, after another afternoon of team drills, they were going to be allowed to try and form their own Voltron. Having ridden with her father when they had formed Voltron on the way here, she hadn't actually seen it from the outside. She watched, fascinated, as her parents and uncles launched into the sky, flying as one, and then the flash of light as the Lions all began to connect, coming together until they formed one incredibly large robotic warrior.

"And to think our teachers tried to develop teamwork by making us do those dorky trust exercises," Heith commented over their communication frequency between just the five of them.

"I hope they work," Joshua replied honestly. "Because I think we might need it."

"We'll get it," Gabriel sounded easily confident. "We've known each other for years, and we trust each other. There's nothing to keep us from doing this."

"Whenever you're ready, Team Two," Uncle Shiro's voice came over the comm. That was what he had taken to calling them, which Caitlin definitely preferred to "the kids" or "the younger Paladins" even if it wasn't very exciting.

"All right everyone," Gabriel took over. "Let's Form Voltron!"

Caitlin took the controls, and G2—as she had taken to calling her Lion in her head—soared up off the asteroid in formation with the rest of the others as they rose together, just as the other Lions had. As her mother had explained to her, Caitlin did her best to focus on her connection with G2, and through her, to the other Paladins. They had spent hours working on merging their minds, and done fairly well, so this shouldn't be all that hard. Caitlin focused on finding the ones she knew best first. It was easy to link up with Kale. Her brother's conscious thoughts were almost entirely focused on his Lion and merging, and how very cool this was.

Joshua was also easy to find. They had been almost as close as siblings since childhood. His thoughts were actively on finding everyone else, with her at the forefront.

Gabriel was so very focused on collecting all of them, his mind accepted her without question.

And then Heith, it was easy for her to connect with her other friend. They were the closest in age of the five of them, and while he was a year behind her in school, they had seen each other often before she went to the Garrison. His mind practically grabbed hers.

In that moment, that ought to have been it, but they weren't merging. The Lions hadn't started to change into Voltron. What was going on?

After several seconds, she heard Heith. "It doesn't look like it's working."

"Break off and group," Gabriel suggested, his voice surprisingly calm. "Take a few moments, then we'll try it again."

Team One stayed entirely quiet, Caitlin noticed, as they did so. It seemed that their parents were not inclined to interfere in what was a very personal relationship. No one could force this kind of connection. She knew she had felt all five of them, so maybe the others hadn't all completely connected with each other?

So, they tried again. And again. And again.

"Is anyone having trouble connecting to anyone else?" Gabriel finally asked straight out as they gathered after their fourth attempt without success. "It feels like we're very close."

"I know I can feel all five of you," Caitlin replied. "That should be enough, right?"

"And I can," Kale confirmed.

"It may not be," Gabriel said when no one reported any problems. "The level of trust needed requires us to be open to fully connecting our minds. It's not like holding hands. It may not even be a conscious distrust on someone's part. I don't think anyone's to blame, but we may not have time to work this out before our mission. We'll keep at it though."

When they got back to the Castle, the Paladins had already landed and were waiting for them.

"Good practice today," Uncle Shiro smiled at all of them. "You're coming together much faster than we did."

"But we didn't form Voltron," Kale pointed out, looking dejected.

"It took us days, even weeks, before we could form Voltron consistently and on the first try at will," Uncle Keith assured them.
"And as nice as it would be to have you do it, it's not imperative to the mission," Uncle Lance added. "At the most, you'll likely be mixing it up with a few fighters, and you won't need Voltron for that."
Caitlin felt a little foolish for their words actually making her feel better. She wanted to form Voltron. Everyone else did too. What was blocking them?

"Now that you're all exhausted, how about dinner?" her father asked, grinning.

"Yes!" Joshua declared. "I'm starving!"

Shiro looked amused. "All right then. Everyone shower, change, and then let's have dinner and relax a bit while we can. Anytime tomorrow or the day after, it'll be go time."


Joshua had never been a fan of confrontation, or discord. He was known as a generally happy-go-lucky, friendly guy and easy to get along with, because he had worked at it his whole life. When things got tough, he dealt with them by lifting people's spirits. If there were disagreements, he diffused tension and talked through them.

So, he didn't like that he was going to have to have this conversation with someone he had known most of his life. He waited until the evening of the evening, when almost everyone else had gone to bed, before catching Heith by the shoulder after they had cleaned up the card game they had been playing earlier with the others. "Hey, can we talk?"

Heith paused, frowned, then nodded. "What about?"

"I couldn't connect with you out there today, and I want to know why."

"Shouldn't you have mentioned that to your brother?" Heith asked.

"I thought if there was something we needed to work out, we could do it ourselves," Joshua replied. "I mean, we're friends, aren't we? I didn't think there was anything between us that would cause a problem. If I've done something, I'd like to fix it."

The visible tension in Heith's stance lessened. "No, you haven't done anything. Not really."

"Then what's going on?"

Apparently, this was the right approach to take with Heith, as he'd thought. His friend was pricklier than he was, but to him that had always made things more exciting.

Heith leaned back against the wall, his hands in his pockets. "It's just that I get… jealous… sometimes."

"Of me?" That was a new one.

"Of how close you are… with Caitlin."

"What are you talking about? We're all friends," Joshua reminded him. "A dynamic trio of rambunctious energy, ready to save the world, or drive our teachers bonkers." They had been palling around since early elementary, even though they had known each other longer than that. Heith had been one of his first friends after Shiro and Curtis had adopted him and his brothers.

"It's not the same," Heith disagreed. "There's something… more with you two. I know…all that 'friendships are different' stuff… but she hunts you down more than she ever comes looking for me and… everything is always so easy going with you. But I… I think… I mean… I really like her. Like… like her, like her."

"I get it," Joshua promised, only a little startled by that revelation. It shouldn't be a surprise. A good chunk of the cadets at the Garrison—and half the guys they knew who had gone on to regular high school—were pining after Caitlin who, true to form, had either ignored or remained completely oblivious to most of them. "But I think you're reading too much into it. Caitlin doesn't like me like that. I've never even seen her flirt, with anyone. She's just really nice."

"I guess." Heith sighed. "I think I was just afraid to link minds with you and find out there was really something more there. Or… that you liked her too." He looked over at Joshua. "Do you?"

"You mean would I date her like her? Yeah, in a heartbeat if she felt the same way, but I'm pretty sure she just sees me as her dorky but fun otherbrother. Caitlin's not interested in dating anyone, as far as I can tell. She definitely doesn't act like most of the girls we know. Think about the girls in your school."

"You make a very good point," Heith acknowledged. "I guess I'm just being dumb. I'm sorry. It's thrown all of us off."

"Well, it won't tomorrow now, will it?" Joshua asked, smiling. "Now you know, and you don't have to worry about me finding out, because you told me. I'm just surprised you had more trouble connecting with me, than her. What will you do if she picks up on it while we're all mind-meldy?"

I hadn't thought about it much," Keith admitted. "I was too busy wondering what she thought about, and it just turned out to be the same kinds of things that come out of her mouth all the time."

"Because that's Caitlin." Joshua chuckled. "Look, if Caitlin ever changes her mind and decides she actually has interest in one of us, we can fight about it then. For now, can we just agree that nothing is more embarrassing than failing to form Voltron in front of our parents?"

"Yes. Yes, we can."