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“Lance, stay with me. Lance!”
Pidge pounded on the thick glass that separated the two of them and Lance gave a start on the other side. Hazy ocean eyes blinked at her and she saw her name whispered on blue-tinged lips.
It was too soft to hear over the engine motors of the transport ship they were both prisoners on, heading from one Galra base to another on the opposite side of a planet nearly double the size of Earth.
This second one was more enforced, the sneering commander had said, although the first one had been guarded well enough as both she and Lance had ended up captured in their stealth mission. Still, apparently the other base had even more soldiers and ships and the commander said she was not taking any chances of losing her “precious prisoners” until the Druids arrived to pick them up.
The entire thing was scary, Pidge would admit, but more surprising it was… boring.
The commander hadn’t had any interest in torturing them herself, a fact Pidge was extremely grateful for, and she and Lance had been thrown into the two seperate cells aboard the transport ship before they’d begun their travel to the next base.
Pidge had paced about her cell for about the first quarter varga examining it; metal walls on two ends (one with a door) and a sheet of thick glass on the wider portion that showed a line of identical cells stretching across this section of the ship, five in total.
Lance had been dumped in the far cell that had three metal walls and Pidge assumed was either against another room in the ship or he had an exterior wall. There were no windows to verify.
There was also no weak point.
Lance had finally cajoled her to sit down as she paced around and around, claiming she was making him dizzy, and instead had insisted on teaching her a very complicated hand-clapping game that had been all the rage back on Altea that Coran had showed him.
Pidge had told him it was stupid but ended up playing along to pass the time and the worst of the niggling fear had faded by the time she’d finally gotten the weird hand wiggle thing down.
Lance had been confident the team would rescue them once they were at the new base, not a doubt in his mind, and Pidge had found the optimism refreshing rather than grating. The team
would
come and no defenses were going to stop them . Pidge would love to see the base stand up to the castle let alone three angry Lions and Paladins.
Everything was going to be fine.
All had been well and good except that about an hour in on their transport Lance reported he was starting to feel cold. Pidge had frowned, confused, as her cell was almost too warm and she had already been stripped of her armor.
As time went on Lance’s complaints about the temperature grew quieter but his shivering became more pronounced and his breaths a little harsher, a little quicker.
Pidge had a sick suspicion as to the cause.
She’d instructed Lance to his far metal wall, telling him to feel for any cracks.
He’d stumbled upon getting to his feet.
Pidge’s heart stumbled with him.
His steps had been sluggish as he trailed a hand along the wall.
She’d seen the moment her fear had been confirmed as Lance had paused where two sheets of metal had been welded together, but apparently not welded well enough. Whether it was shoddy workmanship or wear and tear or something else entirely one fact was very clear.
There was a hole.
And it was sucking out Lance’s oxygen.
Pidge had what she thought was a rather brilliant solution. They just had to stopper the hole.
Lance had slowly shrugged out of the top half of his underarmor, flesh prickled with goosebumps underneath it, and under Pidge’s supervision had splayed it across the crack, the vacuum being enough to hold it tight.
He’d met her eyes with a grin and Pidge had breathed a sigh of relief.
And then the shirt had been sucked right out.
Lance had volunteered his pants, shivering as he did so, but Pidge had nixed it. They’d meet the same fate and even if Lance were to try and hold them the force outside was going to be stronger than his grip. The gap was too large for him to splay a hand across it and too tall for him to reach by pressing his back or shoulder against it; not that Pidge thought an idea would be a good one as the suction against his skin would no doubt be incredibly painful if he could withstand it for even a few minutes.
He’d be fine, she’d told him, now taking on the role of the optimist. The flight couldn’t be much longer and his cell, about eight feet by six, should have enough air left to sustain him. He just had to keep as much of it as he could so she’d suggested lying down, slow breaths, and no more talking.
He’d done so, pressed up next to the glass with his arms wrapped about his now bare chest and shivering, and Pidge hated how…
tired
he looked, how scared, even though he tried to smile for her and had given her a thumbs up at her orders.
Two hours later though Pidge was doubting her words.
They had not landed, there had been no sensation of descent and the engines were still thrumming powerfully.
Pidge had gotten up and started yelling for assistance, screaming that they were going to lose one of their prisoners and didn’t they want them both alive?
No one had come.
The lack of cameras probably had something to do with that.
They’d been abandoned in the storage hold, no threat to the Galra, and treated like pieces of luggage.
Pidge had read the stories of people’s pets dying on airplanes, of stowaways who had suffocated to death hiding in the cargo hold because it wasn’t pressurized like the rest of the plane.
Lance could not be one of those people, one of those statistics.
But she had no idea how to help. For all of her smarts, her brains, she was
useless
here.
Lance was
dying
just inches away from her and she could do
nothing.
All she could do was try to keep him awake as if he fell asleep Pidge was afraid he would never open his eyes again.
“Lance, please,” she begged as his eyes slipped closed again. “No sleeping. No… No…”
No dying.
Tired eyes pried themselves back open.
She saw the apology being mouthed at her.
“No! No sorry. I do not accept it, you… you
asshole!”
Lance’s eyes widened.
“That’s right. You’re a grade A asshole if you die on me, you jerk.” She pounded a weak fist against the glass. “So you… you…”
In answer Lance uncurled one hand from where he had them wrapped about his chest, and lifting it, trembling at the effort, he placed it palm out on the glass.
Pidge sniffled and lifted her own, matching it against Lance’s larger, slender version.
He smiled at her, a soft, small thing.
And then his fingers jerked,
smeared,
as they streaked down the glass and collapsed to the floor by his head.
“No! God fucking damnit Lance, don’t you fucking dare!”
She slammed a fist on the glass. “Wake up! Wake up
now!”
He continued to lie motionless, eyes closed.
She pounded on the glass for all the good it was doing, pleading for him to wake up.
He couldn’t be…
He couldn't be...
The sound of a lock clicking a couple minutes later had her jerking her gaze away from Lance and towards her compartment’s metal door, breath hitching.
The door swung open…
And revealed Matt with a cheesy grin. “Hey, Pidge, one older brother at
—”
“Help him!” she screamed, pointing a shaking finger to her left.
Matt’s eyes widened and he disappeared into the hallway.
Pidge ran after him.
Matt had already opened Lance’s cell door by the time she got out of hers and was kneeling down next to the still form, a hand pressed to Lance’s neck.
The air there was thin, nearly non-existent and only likely that much from the now open cell door.
Matt met Pidge’s gaze, all cheer gone and replaced with something darker, sadder.
“Katie, he’s… he’s not breathing.”
“He just was!” she cried. “He was. Matt, help him,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Matt could fix anything.
He had to fix this.
Lance couldn’t be...
Matt was already gathering Lance into his arms, his head hanging back limply and long legs dangling. Pidge stepped out of the way as Matt carried Lance into the hallway and placed him on the ground.
Pidge shut the door on that horrible, horrible cell with a clang.
Matt reached into his cloak and tossed Pidge a blaster that she barely caught, her own hands shaking now as she stared at Lance, so still. “Stand guard,” he ordered.
She breathed out an okay.
Matt was on his knees by Lance’s head and his hands were outstretched, placed one atop the other on Lance’s chest, arms locked below his shoulders.
He started compressions.
Pidge trembled, gaze flicking back and forth from them and to the door that led into the main body of the ship.
Matt cursed behind her and she pivoted.
Chest compressions hadn’t been enough.
He was tipping Lance’s head back, one hand pinching Lance’s nose closed and then leaned over, pressing his mouth to Lance’s while his eyes tracked to Lance’s chest.
One breath.
Lance’s chest remained still.
Matt pulled away, repositioned Lance’s head, and bent back down.
Second breath.
Still nothing.
Pidge felt tears pooling in her eyes.
No.
“Katie, guard,” he snapped, voice unnaturally sharp as he placed his hands back on Lance’s chest for another round.
She let out a low sob and wrenched her gaze back to the door.
Pidge didn’t turn around again.
Not as she heard Matt adjusting Lance again, forcing his own air into quiet lungs, as she heard him restart compressions again.
And again.
There was a sizzling sound; the charge of Matt’s staff.
A field version of an AED.
More breaths.
Again.
And again.
Another sizzle.
A curse.
No.
No.
No.
Another round of breaths.
A pause between the two.
There was no sound of Matt re-tilting Lance’s head.
Pidge whirled around.
He was giving the second breath without breaking the seal.
Lance’s chest gave a barely perceptible rise.
Matt was back and doing chest compressions then, not to force life back into a body but to restore the circulation.
His heart was beating again.
Pidge let out a sob.
Lance was…
Lance was…
Matt met her gaze and mustered up a small smile.
“He’s breathing,” he said, as though it wasn’t obvious.
Pidge didn’t mind the redundancy.
He’s breathing
He’s breathing
He’s
breathing.
Matt kept up the compressions for two minutes, pausing then.
Lance’s chest continued it shaky rise.
“We have to go,” he told her, placing one hand gently behind Lance’s neck and tilting him to a sit. “My craft is cloaked and waiting on the loading deck down the hall. Can you—?”
Pidge raised the blaster. “Leave it to me.”
Matt lifted Lance into his arms, the dark head pillowed between his chest and arm this time, and the legs, while dangling, didn’t look so
dead
this time around.
Lance had been dead.
Pidge shuddered.
Had. She focused on that part.
He
had
been dead. He was alive now. He was breathing.
She had to make sure it stayed that way.
She took point out of the cargo hold.
They didn’t encounter any resistance. Pidge was almost upset. She had the urge to just…
shoot
someone, to make them have a taste of the fear and pain she and Lance had just suffered.
But Lance was more important than any of that. He still needed a pod, stat, for his lungs and heart and no doubt multiple busted ribs and the shock burn.
Matt settled Lance down on the floor behind the chair and Pidge joined him after grabbing the clearly marked emergency kit from the shelf and digging out the scratchy but warm blanket that she draped over Lance.
“Hold tight,” Matt told her, flipping a few switches. “This might get a bit bumpy.”
Pidge clutched Lance instead.
She could feel his chest rising through her hold, his breath little shallow puffs on her neck as she held him in her arms.
He was still breathing.
She hugged him a little tighter.
It had been close.
Too close.
But…
But Lance was going to be okay.
No matter if it were inches or minutes from death they would find a way to pull through.
It didn’t matter how close it came as long as it never crossed over that line.
And Pidge could live with that.
And they had.
All of them.
Everything was going to be okay.