Work Text
(not every love story ends with a kiss)
When Pidge heard the soft scuff of a boot beside her, she scrubbed her face with her hands and slammed her laptop shut.
"I know, Shiro, I shouldn't still be up, you don't—"
"Have to tell you to go to bed every night?" Keith slowly moved to sit down next to her, a tentative smile playing about his lips. "He does, though." Barely three weeks into living in space and Shiro had already delegated himself as their surrogate...dad? Big brother?
Pidge's eyes widened, and she wiped her face on her sleeve once more for good measure. "Sorry, it's just... I didn't expect anyone else to be up this late," she sighed, tapping the sides of her shoes together. She lifted her head to look out the observation deck's impressive window. The galaxies were bright in this part of space. They clustered, families of stars that shone brighter when they were together.
Keith hummed in agreement, following her gaze before his eyes flicked back to her face. "Are you okay?"
Pidge swallowed, self-consciously touching her cheek. It was wet with fresh tears she hadn't even noticed. "I don't know," she admitted in a stuffy mumble. "It's just... so hard, you know? I don't...it's not like with Mom—I know where she is, mostly. With Dad, and Matt... they could be anywhere. Space is huge. And...it's not like I'm trying to make it look like you guys miss your families any less, it's just...Matt and I were so close and now I don't even know if he's still alive." She sighed and glanced over to Keith. "I'm sorry. Who do you miss most?"
He met her eyes, and she noticed, for the first time, that they were the color of warm space. "My dad," he whispered.
Pidge sniffed. "We'll all get to see our families again," she promised, "and you'll get to see your dad."
She thought something in those galaxy eyes turned sad, but Keith's smile was unwavering.
Pidge found herself paying more attention to Keith after that. Not necessarily
on purpose, but her eyes had been opened a whole new side to him she hadn't really thought he had.
A...softer side.
Sometimes he was a wildfire, an explosion, a supernova, but most of the time he was a gentle flame—warm, quiet, and harmless until you got too close.
As Pidge began to pick up on Keith's small quirks—his soft smiles and the way his face lit up when he talked about flying, or Shiro, or Red—she also noticed the way he instinctively distanced himself from people. The way he flinched when someone's hand moved too quickly in his direction, or how he ducked away, eyes blown wide in blind terror, in reaction to an action so familiar as an arm thrown around his neck, a friendly punch on the shoulder.
How sometimes, when they all sprawled out in the lounge after a seemingly endless day, he would sit, tense and distant, staring off into some point in the room with a look on his face that reminded Pidge of the rabbit that Gunther "Bae Bae" Holt had cornered on her front porch that one time.
Keith let Shiro touch him but Shiro did it carefully and sparsely; a hand on the shoulder or knuckles brushed against Keith's.
(Except that time when Shiro had come up behind him and whapped him on the back, sending him stumbling a few paces forward, but all he'd received in return was a half-hearted glare and a Keith-pout. That had been a good day.)
Pidge had started recognizing which days were good days and which were bad ones. On bad days, Keith was tense and standoffish and reserved, keeping his arms folded tightly against his chest. On good days, he was almost sociable, bickering with Lance and leaning against Shiro and
quietly complimenting Hunk on his latest culinary
masterpiece.
On good days, he would sit with Pidge on the observation deck when she couldn't do much more than cry and look out at the stars, praying that her father and brother were somewhere out there, alive.
(On bad days, he would cry, too.)
Everyone besides Pidge and Shiro had long since gone to bed. She sat at the main control board, laptop plugged in and running diagnostics and trackers and a hundred other various programs. Shiro was slumped in a chair, scrolling through a map of the cosmos and trying not to forget Earth's stars.
"What's Keith's family like?"
(The question had slipped out unbidden. She hadn't really meant to ask it, but what had happened earlier was still dancing in the front of her mind, an unsubtle buzz that wouldn't leave her alone.
How Hunk had reached across the counter to grab a utensil and Keith had jerked backwards, dropping his cup of water.
Thankfully Altean cups were made of something a little sturdier than Earth glass, but Keith had apologized profusely and scrubbed the floor until it was bone-dry, before dashing out of the room with hunched shoulders and
a bit-back grimace.
Pidge had begun to think that
maybe the reason Keith was so on-edge all the time might not stem solely from the war.)
Shiro looked over at her, eyebrows raised. He set aside his tablet and cleared his throat. "Well," he said slowly (and the way he paused, Pidge knew, she just
knew it wasn't a happy answer), "his dad died when he was pretty
young, and I don't think he ever knew his mother." He paused. "He was in foster care for awhile." Shiro stood up, stretching his arms above his head. "You should head to bed," he told her, changing the subject. "It's been a long day."
Pidge nodded, closing her laptop. She didn't even bother arguing this time.
Keith lunged, the point of his bayard sliding cleanly into the bot's chest. He pulled back, rotating his whole body, and the sword came away as smoothly as it had gone in.
"Like a knife through butter," he muttered, looking pleased with himself.
"Overused metaphors? Keith, I thought we talked about this?"
Keith whirled around, bayard at the ready, to see Pidge sitting against the wall, sprawled like she'd been there for some time.
She raised a cocky eyebrow, prodding her glasses back up her nose. "You wouldn't...stab me, would you?" she asked in mock hurt, flashing him a buck-tooth grin.
Keith grunted, retracting his bayard and snagging a water pouch before plopping down next to her. "You know better than to sneak up on me."
Pidge nodded, curling her nose as the sharp tang of sweat breezed over her. He'd almost knocked her head off her shoulders last week for walking up behind him. In her defense she hadn't seen him, either. Kinda hard to notice someone in front of you when your nose was only millimeters from your tablet screen.
"So... You been here awhile...?" Keith took a swig of water—trying to play it cool, bless him; he couldn't hide the redness of his ears, though.
"Someone's gotta make sure you don't slip up and bleed out on the training deck," Pidge said casually, leaning against the cool wall. "Seriously, though? Are you sure Shiro doesn't mind you fighting five bots at once?"
"He doesn't have to know," Keith huffed, "and I'm pretty
sure you didn't just come here to babysit me."
Pidge pursed her lips. That wasn't the entire reason. Truth be told, she'd been walking past the training deck when she'd peeked her head in out of simple curiosity. She'd gotten drawn in by his fluid movements—block, parry, strike, repeat. It was beautiful to watch; a dance in its primal way. Keith had inhumanly fast reflexes.
"Nah, I wanted to show you something I've been working on." She tapped a few keys and pulled up a program that looked to Keith like a lot of numbers and symbols.
Well, alien numbers and symbols. Altean to be exact. "Training_deck" blinked at the top.
"Are you messing with the training deck systems?" Keith leaned over, intrigued. "Coran wouldn't show me how to work them after—"
"After you electrocuted Lance after deciding you two should spar in the invisible maze?" She drew her eyes away from the screen to shoot him a disparaging look.
Keith had the audacity to smile. "No one made him go along with it."
Pidge snorted and pulled up a diagram of a training bot. The diagram was painstakingly informative, complex diagrams and notes in minute handwriting blurring before Keith's eyes—which were already starting to glaze over.
"So, I've been playing with some
of the programming in one of the bots," Pidge began, zooming in on the diagram-bot's head. "As I'm sure you've noticed, they follow a series of attack and defense patterns with very little variation. They have excellent receptors and decent foresight—for a robot—but it's easy to slip past their defenses once you get the system down." She bit her lip and glanced up at Keith, who was frowning at her computer screen. "I mean...from a technical standpoint. Actually
doing it is a bit
more difficult, but I'm here to make it way more
difficult!"
Keith nodded distantly,
indicating that Pidge should cut to the chase before his mind wandered too far. "Anywho—I've programmed the bots to learn! I mean most of the coding was already there, I just
had to tweak a few things and—"
"So they can recognize my moves?" Keith perked up, one hand on the floor as he prepared to jump right back into fighting the upgraded bots.
"Not only that, but they can copy your actions, too," Pidge confirmed. "Gimme a sec to activate it, and you can test it out?"
Keith got to his feet and summoned his bayard. (Pidge had learned to take that as a "yes.")
She hit Enter
and a bot
rose up
from the floor to stand in the center of the deck. "It will be slow at first, so go easy on it until it picks up on your fighting style."
He nodded and walked towards his opponent, strides measured and graceful. His bayard took its form in his fist; his fingers flexed around the grip.
"Ready?" Pidge's hands hovered over her keyboard, fingertips wiggling.
'''Course,"
Keith replied, calm. He rolled his shoulders and settled into a loose stance.
The bot crouched, holding its staff in a defensive position. It lunged, aiming for Keith's ribs—he parried easily, deflecting the staff and counter-attacking. The bot blocked the sword by mimicking Keith's earlier move.
Pidge hit a key, and the robot froze. "It worked!"
Keith glanced over his shoulder, grinning. "Nice." He stepped back, rotating his wrist until it popped. "Let's see what this 'bot can do."
"Whatever you can," Pidge said excitedly, and the robot moved, swinging its staff towards Keith's shoulder.
He blocked, and again Pidge found herself drawn into his movements—although now they
were mirrored
by the training robot. It was like a strangely beautiful, she thought, like lines of flawless binary code.
They went at it for at least an hour before Keith got the upper hand, disabling the bot and dropping back into his spot next to Pidge. He elbowed her in the arm, more casual than she'd ever seen him. "It's...amazing," he gasped, inhaling greedy breaths of air. "It's like...fighting myself..."
"Well, yeah," Pidge snickered. "Did you miss the whole 'copying your moves' part?"
"Yeah...I mean, no; I didn't expect it to be that perfect though," he said, wrinkling his nose at her.
"Since when have I strove for less than perfection?" Pidge scoffed, clapping her laptop closed and climbing to her feet. She groaned when her knees popped. "Been sitting here too long."
"Maybe you should go a round with the 'bot," Keith suggested. Pidge shot him a squinty-eyed
glare.
"I think not."
They continued to test the robot, working out the kinks—such as the one where the robot would attempt to copy the actions of everything in the room (such as Keith's standing and Pidge's sitting, leading to it squatting with its staff raised threateningly); or when it went a tad rogue and tried to mimic everything Keith did (Pidge laughed her butt off when they got in a fight over a water pouch).
But even after the bugs were worked out, and she didn't really have to be there, Pidge found excuses to hang out in the training room, even to the extent of dragging the Altean alternative of a gaming chair onto the deck (hard floors = sore butts and sore butts = cranky Pidgeons).
And instead of obsessing over scanning every star for traces of her family,
Pidge watched Keith leap and lunge, his movements smooth, each action sliding into the next without pause. And instead of working himself half to death, Keith learned to take breaks when Pidge told him to.
"How do you move like that?" she asked once, when he paused for a break.
Keith shrugged, stoppered his water, and wiped his face on the front of his sweat-soaked shirt. "I dunno. It's just
instinct."
As though fighting was instinctive for him.
That's all Pidge can think about a week later
as Shiro tries to explain what had gone down in the Blades' base. Keith's shoulders were bent with the weight of the others' stares—ranging from absolute disgust to stunned confusion—even as thin streams of blood raced down the fingers on his right hand, painting Rorschach pictures at his feet.
Fighting was instinctive. It made so much sense.
"You're still Keith," she told him that night as they watched the stars together. (She'd all but dragged him there after having to drill into his head that
she still wanted him around.)
He chuckled humorlessly. "That's the problem." His voice lowered as if he was unsure of his own words. "At least this explains why I'm so bad at being good."
Pidge frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Keith shrugged, glancing away. "Why I'm so...angry. And...bad at connecting with people."
Pidge just had to scoff. "If that's what makes someone an alien," she said, gripping his wrist, "then I'm E.T."
She knocked on the door and received a muffled "what."
"Just tell me if you have clothes on so I can come in," Pidge replied, adding a couple more knocks for good measure.
There was a lengthy, disbelieving pause and then, "Of
course
I have clothes on."
Pidge slid the door open to a room lit only by a dim strip of light along the walls. "You never know," she breathed, shutting the door behind her and making her way over to Keith's bed. He lay there, curled on his side, with his back against the wall. He stared at her with red-rimmed eyes that reflected the dim light.
"Why are you here?"
"'Cause you've been here all morning," Pidge replied, folding her arms. "You know you can talk
to me? I mean...I thought we bonded."
Keith sucked air in through his teeth, pulling his chin to his chest. "Thought you were mad."
"Because you wouldn't try and activate Black?"
Keith stiffened.
"I'm not mad," Pidge sighed. "We're just...we're so tired."
"I'm tired," Keith mumbled, agreeing.
"It's okay." She sat down on his bed, swinging her legs up and lying back. She rested her hands on her stomach, facing the ceiling. "It's okay."
"He's gone again," Keith whispered, his breath hitching.
Pidge turned her head to look at him. He had curled even further in on himself. Tear tracks contoured his cheeks, glistening in the half-light.
We'll get him back. She made the promise in her mind; she couldn't make herself do it verbally. She sighed and scooted over until his forehead was pressed into her shoulder.
She ignored that he shivered and how his breath shuddered. She ignored the warm tears sliding down her own face.
"Did I tell you about the one time Shiro came over to our house for dinner and set the kitchen on fire?"
Their family (that's what Lance called it: "my space family") was fragile, resting upon the shoulders of a weary soldier and four kids who had hardly done more than make it through basic training. Five young humans and two aliens who had lived and breathed the war on its front-lines and lost all but everything because of it.
Their family was as fragile and volatile as the teenage emotions that comprised much of it. Thus, it was not surprising when their familial infrastructure would creak and crack, splitting in the middle but never completely crumbling because, hell, what would they do if they didn't have each other?
(They'd be lost, drifting through space. So, so lost.)
It came as no surprise that when the cornerstone was taken out they began to fall out of orbit.
Shiro's...vanishing...was hard on everyone.
Some more than others, yes, but everyone lost a brother when he... (dammit, he didn't die!)
Suffice to say, when Lance and Keith started bickering for the fifteen-thousandth time that morning, Katie Holt thought she was going to scream.
"Just do it," Lance snapped, bony shoulders hunched around his ears, long hands curled into fists in an almost comical pose of frustration and impatience. "Go ahead—prove that you can show me up on everything."
Keith was just as tense, standing three feet from Lance with his arms folded so tightly he might crack his own ribs. "I don't know why you care so much," he hissed through gritted teeth, "who pilots the black lion, because you obviously don't care that Shiro is gone!"
"Of course I care!" Lance squawked. "But I can see outside the box! We need the black lion! We need Voltron! The rest of us have tried waking it up already, and you're the only one left. You just can't get over yourself and actually try! What's the matter, are you scared you'll look bad if it doesn't accept you, or something?"
"That's not it at all," Keith growled. "You guys are treating this as if Shiro just—I don't know, stepped out for a minute! We should be looking for him, but I'm the only person who's even trying."
Lance sighed, exasperated (and exhausted, but bad at showing it). "That's not even true. We miss him too. We want all want him back. The only difference is, we actually understand that just because Shiro's gone doesn't mean that the Galra have stopped attacking, and that we're the only people who can do something about it! So just because Shiro's gone doesn't mean that this whole universe is paused, because news flash, Keith, the whole universe doesn't revolve around you!"
"This isn't about me!" Keith snapped, face red, hair bristling. "This is about Shiro!"
"Well Shiro's gone, so get over it!" Lance screamed back, arms thrown out at his sides.
Keith unfolded his arms, hands fisted, knees bent, this close to bodily throwing himself at Lance when Pidge grabbed his elbow and yanked him back.
"You guys are stupid," she bit, gripping Keith's forearm hard enough to leave a mark. "How is this solving anything? This is the third time you've argued about this today; at what point is one of you going to buck up and fuckin' do something besides bicker?! Because as far as I've noticed, this is neither finding Shiro—" she glowered at Keith— "nor getting a pilot for Black—" she shot Lance the same look— "so if you really need to argue, do it somewhere I'm not trying to work!" She released Keith's arm (practically threw it away from her) and stomped over to the couch, snapping her headphones over her ears.
Keith and Lance shared a look of solidarity and fled the room.
Unfortunately, tension was only thicker when Keith did awaken Black. He was not fit to lead. One would think, if Shiro could be alone (theoretically) for a year and still lead, then Keith (who was also alone for a year, literally) could do it, too.
It was more than a lack of social skills that shattered the team's faith in him, though.
Amidst the trauma and anxiety, Shiro had in him a calming and solid presence. The guardian of the sky he may have been, but Shiro was a steady bit of ground that everyone could converge to. He dissolved tension, solved quarrels, lent a shoulder to cry on, and pulled them out of the depths of their own thoughts.
Keith was not the same. Keith was a wildfire, and if you did not be careful, you would get burned and consumed and left behind in the wake of
his anger and grief.
Keith could not lead the team because they did not want him to lead them any more than he wanted to.
"You could have gotten us killed!"
"I said I was sorry three times already."
"Okay, that doesn't undo what happened! Hunk got hurt, and it's your fault. If you weren't so obsessed with Lotor—"
"I'm trying to stop this war!"
"Lance, Keith, guys; it's all right, I'm fine, and we're all alive, and next time—"
"I hope there's not a next time, because Keith is the worst leader ever! Maybe it was a mistake. I call for a redo on the whole 'who pilots Black' thing. I'm pretty sure after this, Black will realize the error of his ways and let me be the leader."
"That's not how it works, Lance."
"Oh, so now you're the Voltron expert? When you couldn't even get us off an exploding planet in time? When you're the one who led us to the exploding planet in the first place?"
"I never said I was an 'expert.' But if Black wanted to choose you, he would have done it the first time."
"Like I said—"
"Guys, seriously." Hunk laid a hand on each of their shoulders. Keith flinched. "What happened already happened, and...hey, maybe we can learn from this. Y'know, next time maybe stop and wait for Pidge to scan the planet? That's what we used to do, before—"
"Before we had a shitty leader," Lance interrupted, scowling at Keith with venom in his eyes.
"Well I'm obviously more cut out to be a leader than you are," Keith growled.
"Obviously Black is delusional, because there's no way that's true," Lance replied, eyebrows raised. "I don't know what the hell Shiro was thinking. He must have said that to make you feel better or something."
"Don't talk about Shiro like that," Keith hissed.
Lance continued, ignoring the interruption. "He obviously never thought something would happen, because there's literally no way he would've ever believed in y—"
Hunk blinked, a bit stunned, because suddenly Lance was on the floor, and Keith was standing over him, looking fit to bite someone. Then Keith was on the floor, too, and the boys were barking like two hounds in a dogfight, and fists were flying.
By the time Hunk registered what, exactly, was going on, Keith had his hands on Lance's shoulders and his knees on either side of Lance's hips and
Lance had his fists balled in the collar of Keith's t-shirt while he tried to get his leg at a high enough angle to knee Keith in the crotch. Their faces were two inches apart, teeth gnashing and eyes blazing.
Hunk took Lance by the shoulders of his jacket, and Pidge was suddenly there, arms wrapped around Keith's torso, and they pulled them away from each other with no little amount of effort.
Their family had crumbled, and Hunk and Pidge didn't know what to do with all the pieces.
When Keith has a wound (of almost any scale, really), he tends to ignore it. Lance, on the other hand, will pick and pick and pick. He can't resist—if it's there, it isn't something he can possibly ignore. He has to tear off the scab, over and over again, even if it only brings more pain.
That's why, a week later when he and Keith accidentally,
physically,
ran into each other in the lounge, Lance didn't just keep his mouth shut.
"Why do you always do that?"
Pidge peeked over the rim of her laptop screen at the sound of Lance's voice—which was equal parts curious and mocking.
"Do what?" Keith was leaning away from him, eyes thinned and teeth bared because he knew exactly what Lance was talking about.
Lance gestured vaguely, thin hands sending infant eddies that ruffled Keith's bangs. Keith flinched.
"That,"
Lance huffed. "All I did was brush against you and you jumped like a feral cat."
Keith exhaled through his teeth. "You caught me off guard," he said evenly, already turning to leave.
"You were looking at me." Lance danced forward and poked Keith in the shoulder.
The red paladin tensed, spinning around with uncertain anger in his eyes. "Can you knock it off? Don't touch me."
Lance stuck his bottom lip out. "Seriously, dude, it's like you're trying to keep us from being friends." He sighed. "Whatever. Loner gonna lone."
Then Keith's expression shattered a little, but he was out of the room before Lance could react.
"The heck was that?" he asked, verging on flabbergasted.
"You should keep your hands to yourself," Pidge said briskly, standing and closing her laptop with a snap.
"I was just teasing him," Lance claimed. "Seriously! He doesn't have to take everything personally!"
"Maybe if you weren't stuck in your self-absorbed little bubble, you'd know why you upset him," Pidge snapped. "Not to mention you've been an asshole all week."
"I was being friendly! Us and Hunk tease each other all the time! I thought he could loosen up a little, sheesh." Lance looked hurt, eyebrows knitted like he was wracking his brain for what he did wrong.
Pidge sighed, deflating. "Keith just...didn't have the best upbringing, okay?"
(She couldn't forget the night he'd woken her up with his screaming. The night she'd gone to him [because Shiro wasn't there to do it, was he] and he'd broken down in a terror-drunk babble that said
hurt
hurt fear
fear abuse—
She didn't sleep the rest of the night.)
And Lance, poor boy, it dawned on him all
at
once and his face just fell.
For a week after that, even when Keith continued to muck up and take greater risks, Lance was a lot more kind. Lance began to listen.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
"Pidge and I will land near the base," Keith said, fingers wavering near the hologram that showed a blocky grey metal structure.
"That thing's, like, totally made of LEGOs," Hunk snickered behind his hand.
Keith shot him an exasperated look. "Can you please focus? You're our extraction team, remember?"
"Don't worry, leader," Lance said, flapping a hand. "Eagle-eye and The Rock will not let you down."
"And I said knock it off with the code names."
"Sure thing, Lone Wolf."
Keith huffed a half-hearted sigh. "Anyway... Allura's gonna bring the castle down as low as possible." He glanced at Allura for confirmation; she nodded. "We'll have to jetpack down because the lions can't enter the atmosphere."
Pidge groaned. "What's the point of having a deus ex machina if they don't even work on a third of the planets we visit?"
"Well, if we'd finished their particle barriers they'd be fine," Hunk pointed out. "We still haven't found the last part, though, and Coran's been to every market in this solar system."
"I almost got it, that last time," the adviser
sniffed, snapping his fingers. "I accidentally used the wrong dialect—an outdated one, apparently, that is now used exclusively
for insults..."
"That's not important right now," Keith said. "Pidge, I'll meet you in the airlock."
The particle barrier reformed right after they'd left its range. Keith and Pidge clasped hands, falling through the planet's sky. The clouds were thick, almost to the point of being tangible. They landed on the marshy ground, their boots sinking a good inch into the surface.
Keith tapped the side of his helmet. "Allura, do you read?"
The reply patched through after three long seconds. "Affirmative. There seems to be some interference, but you're coming through. We shouldn't have any problems so long as we stay in range."
"Copy." Keith looked around, squinting through the fog. The lights on their armor did little to penetrate it.
"Radar says it's that way," Pidge said, pointing. "Wait!" She gripped Keith's wrist, tugging him back. He'd made it three steps before she stopped him. She gestured at his feet, where he'd nearly stepped into a hole as wide as his waist.
Similar holes of various sizes dotted the ground here and there. Some of them were filled with bubbly liquid; others opened up into abyssal depths.
"We'll take it slow," Keith said on a breath, navigating his way around the hole and keeping Pidge's hand in his.
It took a half an hour to get to the building—which wasn't too bad, considering the thick fog and slippery pitfalls. Their coordinates had been almost spot-on.
The door was sealed shut; Keith pressed a palm against the scanner but, to his disappointment, the door didn't yield.
Pidge snorted at his attempt. "You think they're just gonna let any Galra who comes by into this place?"
Keith shrugged, a frown curling at his mouth. "Didn't hurt to try."
The green paladin chuckled and crouched down by the door, bringing up the screen on her gauntlet. "You know what this place is, right?"
Keith nodded briskly. They'd covered the details in debriefing—it was a data hub, chock full of weapons schematics, planetary records, and logs of every platoon and their locations. It was an information goldmine, and could prove to be a great aid, assuming it was still intact and updated.
The door slid open silently and Pidge stood up with a grin. "You'd think they'd update their locks once in awhile," she said. "These are still the same as the ones on that warship we infiltrated way back when."
"Lucky for us," Keith commented, stepping into the doorway, bayard in hand. He looked left, then right, pausing to listening before venturing down the narrow, dimly-lit hallway. Doors lined the sides, but a glance in their small windows revealed nothing but dark emptiness.
"This is weird," Pidge murmured. "Everything's grey—not purple and red like usual Galra bases."
"Maybe it's undercover," Keith replied. "It's so empty though."
"Maybe it's Space Saturday," Pidge snickered. "It's basically an office, right?"
"The Empire doesn't take days off."
"I was just joking, dude."
"Sorry."
They walked in silence. Everything was silent—not even the hum of machinery, not even a cooling system to permeate the muggy air.
The door at the end of the hallway was larger, and again Pidge had to hack into it. It opened to a dark office-type room, with monitors hanging haphazardly on the walls and a long row of machinery taking up most of the space.
"This is kinda creepy," Pidge commented, making her way to one of the computers. She booted it up, the black screen flickering.
Static shrieked through the intercom station. Keith gritted his teeth, pawing at his ears.
It cut off, leaving painful silence in its stead, before a voice croaked through the speakers.
"If you're seeing...been attacked. The...was swift and ruthless. ...Sent reinforcements...not fast enough. Some of...soldiers managed to...of the data. ...Rest...wiped. Defense system still.... Vrepit sa."
The voice cut out.
"Something got here before we did." Pidge's shoulders slumped. She looked up at Keith: he was staring at the monitor, brows furrowed.
"It was a Galra soldier," he said. "This is an Empire base." He tilted his head towards the familiar logo stamped on the far wall. "Who would attack an Empire base?"
"I don't know," Pidge replied, "but look at the datestamp. This video is from a thousands of years ago."
"Something tells me our records are outdated," Keith snorted. He pressed his fingers against his helmet. "Allura, there's nothing here. We're heading back to the landing site." He paused for five or so seconds. "Allura? Do you read?"
"There's nothing here," Pidge confirmed, shutting off the computer. "Let's go outside—the building's probably blocking our communications."
Keith turned to the door. As if sensing their urge to depart, it slammed shut. "Pidge..."
"Maybe it timed out," the green paladin suggested. "Give me a second." She started towards the door when a whirring sound clicked on and she found herself being pulled off the ground.
"Pidge?"
"Okay...it's okay," Pidge said, pulling up her gauntlet's screen. "It's just a little zero-g, that's all."
"Must be that defense system the guy mentioned," Keith said, kicking a little, trying to right himself. "Seems pretty tame for a Galra defense system."
Pidge nodded, using her jetpack to propel herself towards the door. "Probably just supposed to hold us here until the guards come." A hologram popped out of her screen. "See? There's a deactivated alarm system. Wonder why they didn't shut down the gravity trap. Gimme a minute and I'll get us out of here."
"Hey, Pidge, do you feel that?" Keith asked.
"Feel what?"
She glanced at him over her shoulder; he looked uncomfortable.
"Feels like I'm being tugged," he replied, flexing his hands.
She frowned. She did feel sort of a...tug, like she was being pulled in two different directions.
"Maybe the trap's wearing off, or something," she said with a shrug. That wasn't even a remotely logical guess, but she was a little distracted—it was, apparently, a lot harder to get out of the room than to get in.
"It kind of hurts, though," Keith mumbled; she heard his jetpack go off; he was presumably trying to fight against whatever was tugging him.
And he was right; Pidge could feel a strain in her limbs and her midsection. Not to mention her helmet was slowly being tugged off her head. She swallowed. "Do you think maybe this is part of the trap? Like...maybe it's two forces of gravity trying to pull us apart?"
"Like...like the rack?" Keith sounded disturbed.
Pidge turned to stare at him. "Holy shit. Are you talking about the ancient torture device? Are you a medieval geek?"
Keith looked appalled. "I— I like reading about weapons, and stuff okay?! That's— that's not even relevant right now; we're literally being pulled apart!"
Pidge whined as pain shot through her joints; her bones creaked and her hair felt like it was being yanked. "Gimme a sec," she whimpered. "I've almost got it."
Keith groaned. His arms were being pulled one way, his legs the other; he tried curling in on himself, tried to fight it, but the gravity fields were steadily increasing strength. "Hurry up..."
"Got it!" Pidge smacked her gauntlet and the door popped open, prompting the fields (maybe they were miniature tractor beams, she thought absently) to turn off. She landed on her butt, her helmet landing beside her; her colorful swear was interrupted by a clatter and a thud right behind her.
She stumbled to her feet and spun around. Keith was lying in a heap, staring at the ceiling with a dazed expression. She shouted his name, landing on her knees next to him and leaning over his head. He stared right through her, slack-jawed and cloudy-eyed.
"Shit," she swore. He must have hit his head on one of the computers... Sure enough, a smear of bright red blood painted the corner of the one right next to Keith. She slid her hand under his head, already feeling dampness in his hair. A goose-egg was forming quickly. Keith whined, squeezing his eyes shut.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," Pidge rambled. "Can you sit up? We gotta get outta here buddy, we gotta get out so the other guys can pick us up."
Keith uttered another horrific noise, trying to sit up. Pidge helped lever him into a sitting position: he kept his eyes squeezed shut, swallowing heavily. "I...feel...crappy," he whispered shakily.
"It's okay," Pidge repeated. "We have to get you into a pod and then you'll be good as new. But we have to get out of here first."
"You already said that," Keith griped, grimacing. He managed to get his knees under him, standing up on unsteady legs. He squinted his eyes open, his face edging on green.
"At least we know the atmosphere's safe," Pidge said, huffing a weak chuckle. She handed Keith his helmet and scooped up her own, staying pressed against his side. He was leaning heavily on her—that concerned her more than almost anything. If Keith was voluntarily letting someone take most of his weight....
She half-lead, half-dragged him outside; he sunk back down to the ground the second they left the building. He was panting, his brow furrowed and his eyes closed.
"I'm gonna help you lie down," Pidge said, putting a hand on his back and another on his arm. He let her guide him down; he wrapped his arms around himself. His entire body was tense.
"I'm gonna contact the others," Pidge said, pulling her helmet back on. She frowned. Static hissed in her ears. She stood up and walked a couple paces forward, with no better results. "Allura? Do you read?" Pause. "Coran?" Pause. "...Lance?" Nothing. "Guys, Keith's hurt; he's got a con—"
A throaty groan had Pidge whipping back around to see Keith struggling to sit up, his arms shaking. His face was pale, sweat glistening on his brow. His eyes zeroed in on the ground between his legs; his breath came rapid pants.
"What's wrong?" she asked, hurrying over to his side. He cast her a glance, pupils blown wide.
"I'm gonna thrk—I'm gonna throw up," he whimpered, throat working. Pidge grabbed his arm and the back of his armor, pulling him upright.
Keith gagged silently, fighting it. Pidge let go of his arm to brush his bangs away from his face and he lurched, thick vomit splattering Pidge's knees and the ground between his hands. He heaved a couple more times, bringing up sour, watery discharge until he was left
gasping for breath, snot and tears and worse streaming down his face.
"Sorry," Keith rasped, "I'm so s-sorry." He raised a shaky hand to wipe his mouth, his entire body shuddering in fatigue and utter revulsion.
"It's okay," Pidge assured him, crinkling her nose at the smell of puke. "It's not the first time I've been barfed on."
Keith spat a couple of times, drawing air in through his teeth. "Really?"
Pidge chuckled dryly. "Yeah... Matt can never make it to the toilet in time. There was this once when I was standing in front of the bathroom and
he—" She broke off at the ill look on Keith's face and gripped his upper arms, dragging him away from the puddle of sick. "Are you going to throw up again?"
He paused. "No, I'm—I'm good." The "for now" was unspoken. Pidge propped him up against her side and activated her comm.
"Anyone there?"
Static crackled and her heart
spiked with hope, but there was nothing but radio silence.
Pidge sighed, holding Keith's hand in her lap and squeezing his fingers, one at a time. He had gradually leaned all of his weight on her in the past varga, watching her hands through half-lidded eyes. She was trying to keep him awake, but it was a losing battle.
"I'm sorry, Keith," she sighed, watching condensation run rivulets down her breastplate.
"Mm?"
"I'm sorry. I— there are so many things that could have been done to prevent this. If I'd had the lions' particle barriers finished, or done more thorough research—"
"Shuddup."
Pidge whipped her head around to give Keith a furious glare. He met her gaze with much trouble, eyes unfocused. "What?"
"I said...shut up," he clarified, shifting. "It's not your fault. Even if it was...what's happened happened. ...Blaming yourself doesn't help anyone."
Pidge swallowed. " 'Kay. I'm still sorry, though. That this happened."
Keith sighed. "Me, too." He swallowed thickly. "At least..." He drifted off with a snort.
"At least what?"
"At least I get to spend the time with...with you. You're...one of my best friends."
Pidge stared at Keith, eyes wide and watery. He smirked, eyes slipping shut.
"Keith, open your eyes—"
"Pidge, do you read?" Allura's voice rang strong and sweet through the comms. Pidge scrambled to reply.
"We're here! We're here, Allura, do you read?"
"I read," Allura affirmed. "There was some interference—a small-scale storm that messed up our communications. Coran has it up and running again; what's your status?"
"Keith's hurt," Pidge exclaimed. "He's got a concussion; we need an extraction stat!"
"I'm sending Lance and Hunk to collect you; they'll be there is three doboshes tops."
Pidge tilted her head back, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat. "They're coming, Keith, they're coming..."
Keith let out a soft moan, slumping.
"Keith!"
Nine vargas later, Pidge jolted to the sound of a soft rap on her door. "Coming," she called, jumping to her feet and sliding the door open.
Keith stood there, all in one piece, dressed in his civvies. A faintly distant look in his eyes was the only evidence of the concussion. He grinned wide when he saw her. "Hey."
"Hey," she echoed, then paused, fidgeting. "Uh...come in?"
He followed her into the mess. She plopped down and he lowered himself more slowly, finding a clean spot on the ground to sit.
He ran his fingers through his mess of hair. Pidge resisted the urge to do the same, settling for fiddling with one of the ginger strands hanging over her glasses.
"So...how are you doing?" She asked awkwardly.
Keith chewed his lip. "Better," he answered. "A lot better." He cleared his throat. "I just wanted to say thanks."
"Thanks?"
"Don't play dumb, Pidge," he huffed, gently elbowing her. He glanced at the computer in front of her, wires snaking every direction. "What are you working on?"
"Just watching the radars," Pidge answered. She picked up her headphones, pursing her lips at the tangled cord. "We're going into territory that's a bit...uncharted."
"Cool." Keith tugged the headphones out of her hands, deftly untangling them.
"How'd you do that?" Pidge asked, taking them back.
Keith smiled. "Fast reflexes." He frowned, something on the computer screen catching his attention. "What's that?"
A small red dot had entered the castle's radar, crawling along at a slow pace. "Looks like a ship," Pidge said. "A Galra ship...but a really small one. Like a scoutship, or an escape pod."
Keith leaned forward, his gaze clearing as he focused on the sluggish dot. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled; a low growl rumbled in the back of his mind.
Those galaxy eyes widened.
"
Shiro."