Once in elementary school, Lance had been so captivated by a picture in the book his class was reading that he hadn't noticed himself falling behind as the rest of the class took turns reading aloud. Naturally, that was exactly when the teacher called on him to read the next page. Snapping out of the picture-induced trance at the sound of his name, he'd realized he was pages behind everyone else and had lost out on so much of the story that he couldn't even figure out where to start.
That's what it feels like waking up in the red lion with Allura worriedly hovering over him after reviving him from the brink of certain death by electrocution.
If he didn't feel so godawful, he might be able to appreciate seeing a sign of Allura actually caring. As it was, however, he fails to come up with a single instance of ever feeling worse.
And then he blinks and it's over. Mission completed, Allura seems to immediately forget her concern for Lance, and he's on his own again. It's not that it's a new experience. It's just a new kind of heartbreaking for him to have that moment of being noticed only to go right back to being ignored by the whole team. Somehow, it had been easier letting himself believe… what? He doesn't even know. Maybe they're all too busy to care. Maybe they aren't capable of caring about someone like him. Maybe he just doesn't belong on the team.
The good thing about being used to it is that it's not too difficult to pull himself together and press on. Sure, he has the headache from hell and can barely see straight after nearly dying, but that isn't going to stop him from moving forward… it might convince him to take a nap as soon as the obligatory post-mission debriefing ends, though.
The debriefing, as it turns out, is a complete waste of time. He knows he's physically there, if only because his body carries the ache of the half varga of standing upright after the beating he took, but none of it seems to process in his mind. If anyone asks him what had been discussed in the meeting, he would make as big a fool of himself as he had in his first-grade classroom. But as per usual, no one asks him.
The following few days aside, Lance doesn't give the experience much weight. It drops out of his thoughts soon enough after it's over, another unpleasant highlight in the reel of many others during his time in space.
Mostly forgetting the event itself doesn't seem to push aside the renewed feeling that he doesn't matter, however.