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"Look," Lance said from his place kneeling at the other end of the line. "I know you think this is a great plan, but it's really not. I mean, I get it. I see the appeal: You have four-fifths of the Paladins of Voltron here, in front of you, tied up like stray dogs. You've basically won, right? Only you haven't. Because four-fifths is not five-fifths and that last fifth is a doozy, my friend. A real, kick-in-the-nuts—"
The harsh smack and subsequent sounds of Lance hitting the ground weren't unexpected, but Pidge flinched all the same. She loved Lance like a brother, but sometimes he really needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut. Being the snarky, glib hero was great in a movie. It was a lot more painful and less helpful in real life.
"Be silent or I will make sure I only have three-fourths of the Paladins of Voltron left when the last arrives," the alien guarding them growled.
Lance snorted, but he was otherwise quiet as he worked his way back up to his knees.
It wasn't until the guard had paced down to Pidge's end of the line that he muttered, "Yeah, because that's an even better idea. Shiro wouldn't go absolutely nuclear or anything."
"It won't matter to you anyway if you're dead, will it?" Keith hissed. "Just shut up. God."
The guard whirled and nailed them both with a glare. Keith bent his head and, after an elbow from him, Lance did too. When Pidge dared to look over though, they were looking at each other and Lance, at least, was making all kinds of facial contortions.
Wait, did they have a plan?
She felt like she should have a plan, but to be honest she was not anywhere near that right now. She was a Paladin of Voltron and she was supposedly a genius, but she hadn’t slept well all week and this should have been a simple diplomatic meet-and-greet type thing but it had all gone to hell in a handbasket almost immediately.
They hadn’t even gotten to the diplomacy part. All they’d done was the “we come in peace and also we have Voltron, you may have heard of it” part. Shiro had gone back to the Castle to talk to Allura and Coran about how exactly they wanted to handle the diplomacy part.
And then this guy, a big grey alien that was a cross between a rock monster and a shark or something, had offered to show them to a room where they could relax while they waited for Shiro to return.
Pidge didn’t entirely remember their capture. She’d gotten hit on the head pretty early on and when things had gotten less jumbled they’d all been subdued, their wrists bound, and lined up on their knees to wait for whatever came next. Their helmets were in a little pile by the door so she couldn’t even key her comm so Shiro and Allura and Coran could hear what was happening and realize something was wrong.
She was also pretty sure she had a concussion from the fight, because she was a little nauseated and things still weren’t quite tracking and also she felt like she might burst into tears at any second now and that did not seem like a reasonable reaction. They’d faced so much worse than this and crying hadn’t been on the table. It didn’t make sense and she didn’t like it.
It was probably only ten or fifteen minutes of steadily rising tension, but felt like an hour or more before their guard responded to someone over some kind of communication device in… whatever they considered ears.
She couldn’t figure out where it was, but he was talking to someone and it wasn’t them.
She didn’t think so anyway.
"Understood. Any preference?" He turned and surveyed them all, then his lips curled up in an ugly grin of satisfaction as he locked onto Pidge. "I know just which one you mean."
She went cold from head to toe and only sort of registered the way Lance started up again, criticizing the guard for being completely lame and cliché about this whole thing. Had he been watching Earth movies? That was a terrible idea. Didn't he know that pieces of shit like him always lost? Rebels with a heart of gold, though, they had pretty good odds. Lance would be willing to put in a good word with the Bothans, all he had to do was untie them and look the other way.
Keith and Hunk got into it too, the former threatening death and the latter offering himself up instead. Pidge couldn’t seem to find her voice, unfortunately, no matter how she wanted to.
Stupid head injuries.
At any rate, the guard didn't seem to care about any of their opinions, and instead wrapped a giant, clawed hand around her shoulder, yanking her up and to her feet. Mostly. She stumbled, her arms behind her back and the probable concussion making her unstable, but she was pretty sure that if she fell she'd just be dragged along.
She didn't want to be the cliché Lance was still ranting about either, but she couldn't resist the urge to look back over her shoulder as she was pulled through the door into the painfully bright sun.
That was a bad idea. The haunted, furious, terrified looks on the faces of her teammates were not what she would have preferred to focus on for the rest of what was probably going to be a tragically short life.
It did, however, let her see the moment when Keith snarled and then hunched forward, a harsh grunt escaping as he yanked on his arms and the rope binding them snapped. He took half a second to reach down and use the knife he’d apparently hidden from the search to slash through the ropes on Hunk's and Lance's wrists too before all three of them were up and charging forward.
Lance reached her first and latched onto her free arm with one hand, the other circling her shoulders to pull him against her chest as he backpedaled. She almost thought it would work, except the guard had tightened his grip too and instead they went down, both of them being dragged along and then flung around when the guard had to spin to meet Keith's attack.
He might have been twice Keith's size, but it wasn't enough of an advantage with his unwillingness to let her go. Keith was fast and fierce and deadly given half a chance. He got in at least a dozen strikes before he was backhanded away to hit the wall. Pidge winced as the breath was knocked out of him and he slid to the ground, but he was already clawing his way to his feet again, so her worry was short-lived.
Hunk hadn't been wasting his time, either, just biding it so he didn't get in Keith's way. As soon as he had an opening though, he took it, heaving the large rock he'd picked up at the guard's head and following that up with his own fists. The two of them were closer in size, so he wasn't as easy to swat off, especially with Keith picking up more small rocks and pinging them off any part of the guard he could hit.
Lance, meanwhile, was still clinging to her, his arm securely snugged around her chest as the other hand clawed and pried at the fingers holding onto her arm. It didn't help that they were being jerked around with every move the guard made, and the nausea was starting to become a really loud alarm bell in her gut from it all, but she had to give Lance credit for his persistence.
For her part she used the only thing she had available to her and kicked at the guard's legs, hoping to hit his knee or ankle or even whatever his species had for a dick if it meant making his life harder.
It was a great plan right up until she succeeded and got her leg between his right as he stumbled backwards from a combined assault by Hunk and Keith.
Unfortunately her much skinnier limb didn't stand much of a chance and she sucked in a sharp breath as her world exploded in pain and her vision temporarily whited out.
There was a cacophony of noise that sounded like everyone screaming and then the world spun and finally there was a solid thump. Something heavy hit the ground very close by.
She couldn't catch her breath in the silence that followed, though it didn't last long. She was only vaguely aware of anything beyond the fact that her leg hurt, in new and awful ways that she hadn't even imagined were possible.
She tried to escape, to get away from the pain, but that only made it flare brighter and the frantic voice in her ears repeating, "PidgePidgeohshitohshitPidge!" fell under the high-pitched whine and the sound of herself gagging. Her stomach heaved and hot acid burned its way out of her mouth as she puked, retching violently for several terrible seconds.
An angry roar somewhere nearby made her flinch and she weakly tried to kick and inch away until the pain threatened to go supernova again. She fell still, save for the wrenching sob that worked out of her chest.
Someone took pity on her and pulled her away, though it was a terrible mercy as her leg bloomed and surged with pain across a landscape of agony.
Things had made sense not too long ago, but all she could really think about right now was her leg and that she was tired and scared and she smelled like puke and she just wanted everything to stop.
"I've got you. Shh, I've got you, Pidge," a voice said, as a hand cupped her cheek and she was pulled tight against another body. "Everything's gonna be okay. I promise. We'll get you out of here, I swear."
She lost track of the words after that. She thought it might be another language and she even suspected she might normally be able to understand it, but right now everything was overwhelming and she couldn't even move her arms to try and hold on to whoever was hugging her, so she just laid her head down and let the tears and the sobs come.
There was a louder roar, more screaming, but mechanical in nature, and the wind picked up suddenly, blowing her hair into her face and getting dust in her eyes and she hunched down against the person holding her—Lance? Was it still Lance?—and hoped that whatever was going on didn't hurt more.
"Oh thank God," definitely Lance said. "Shiro's here, Pidge. Black is here and Shiro is here and we're going to go home just as soon as they finish kicking this guy's ass."
She wanted to see that, she thought, that sounded like a really good thing, but even twisting jolted her leg enough that she gave up immediately.
Her arms were pulled back and she gasped and might have babbled something eloquent like, "Nonononononono!" but even as Lance protested, "Easy!" on her behalf, the pressure around her wrists gave way and she was able to pull free and wrap one around Lance's waist. The other went for her leg because even though she thought touching it might be a bad idea it also seemed like a really good one and she just had to try. Anything that might make it hurt less was worth trying.
A bigger hand enclosed hers and pulled it gently away even as a new voice who might be Hunk said, "No, don't touch that. Oh man, that's— That's so bad. We need like a splint and— Is it bleeding? It has to be bleeding. We don't need a tourniquet, do we? I’ve got my headband, but—"
"I don't know," Lance said, and hugged her again. That was nice, even if it also hurt when it moved her leg. She might have whimpered or something because he followed it up with, "Shit! Sorry! Sorry! God, I'm so sorry, Pidge. Just hold on. Shiro and Keith are almost done and then we can go."
She could almost hear the sounds of more fighting if she listened, but none of it was distinct enough to figure out what was going on or who was winning. Although if Shiro and Keith were fighting someone she didn't really need to see to know that. They were badass.
Lance jerked with a strangled sort of laugh and Hunk echoed it.
"It sure is, Pigeon," Lance said and she could have sworn he kissed her head, but things were getting harder and harder to keep track of.
"Epically badass," Hunk agreed, and a big hand was laid on her back. Not pressing down, just sort of holding her in place like she might float away without it. That was a fair concern, she felt kind of like floating away.
"Yeah!" Lance suddenly crowed, bringing her abruptly back down to the ground and right back into the painful existence that might be the only thing she'd ever known. God, she hoped not, it sucked, but she really couldn't remember what it felt like to not be in pain, so maybe.
"Is she okay?" someone asked, probably Keith because it wasn't deep enough to be Shiro. "What happened— Fuck."
"It's definitely broken," Lance said. "But I can't tell how badly it's bleeding because of her armor."
"She's really out of it though," Hunk said. "Definitely in shock. We need to get her back to the Castle ASAP."
"Is everyone all right?" Shiro asked and Pidge thought she should probably speak up, but all that came out was a gross, snotty sound of pain. She didn't understand what he said after that except that it was definitely not something her mom would want her to repeat in polite company. She'd have to ask him about it later.
"She needs to get back to the Castle and into a pod," Lance was saying, but she didn't catch the rest because someone was moving her and that was the worst idea ever.
She definitely screamed at that and tried to hit whoever she could reach because that hurt and she wanted them to stop, she just wanted it all to stop.
"I'm sorry, Pidge," Shiro said as she was rolled over and lifted up and she realized he had picked her up. Every step as he jogged along felt like a fresh spike being driven into her leg and the pressure of his arm as he tried to keep her still burned like a band of red-hot metal.
"Let me go," she begged, pawing at him. "Let me go! It hurts! Shiro, stop! Stopstopstop!"
He just hugged her tighter and he sounded weird when he said, "I can't. I'm sorry. We're almost there, though."
She gave up and instead threw her arm around his neck and held on tight. "Please, please, please, please," she chanted, without knowing quite what she was asking for.
Loud clattering and a sharp turn and then they came to an abrupt halt. "Keith, Hunk, blankets from the emergency kit. Lance, sit there. You're going to keep her awake and focused on you as much as possible."
"Got it," Lance said, and after a few long moments and lots of noise from people moving, she was lowered and eased onto a soft surface. Her leg still burned and she reached for it again, only to have her hand intercepted once more. "Still a bad idea, sweetheart," Lance said gently. "Can you open your eyes for me?" he asked.
She didn't want to. Everything hurt right now, though there were definitely degrees to it, and she had no reason to believe this wouldn't either. She settled for shaking her head the tiniest little bit and then swallowing against the nausea with a whimper.
"Come on, just for a sec. I just want to see those pretty eyes of yours, Pigeon."
"Hurts," she protested, squirming away from the blanket that was being pulled snugly over the top of her and tucked in.
"I know, Pidge, I know," Lance sympathized. "I promise just for a second and then you can close them again."
The hard ground underneath her vibrated and she gasped and turned her head the other way. "No."
"Hey there, Pidge, it's okay," Hunk said, voice all warm honey tones. If she could wrap up in his voice and go to sleep she would because it seemed so much nicer than where she was right now.
He laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's just Black taking off. We have to get you back to the Castle."
"Home," she managed. She wanted to go home. Not just the Castle, but home. Earth. With her mom and her dad and her brother and everyone here. She didn't want to be here any more.
Maybe if she opened her eyes they’d take her there?
She cracked her eyelids apart a fraction and then a little more when it didn’t hurt that much.
“There you are,” Lance said. “Hi. Good job, Pidge. You’re doing a great job. Can you focus on me?”
Hot tears welled up and his face and Hunk’s both blurred and smeared out. She scrunched up her nose and shut her eyes again because she didn't want to cry, she just wanted to go home.
"Oh, Katie," Lance said. He sounded heartbroken and like he was going to cry too and that wasn't what she wanted either. Her head was lifted up and then set back down in what had to be his lap. Fingers combed through her hair and her tears were wiped away, but they just kept coming.
"How much longer?" she heard Keith ask.
"Almost there," Shiro said grimly and the vibrations under her increased.
Lance was quietly singing and still petting her head and she didn't know if it was him or Hunk wiping her tears, but she was glad they were there. Everything was awful and terrible right now, but she was glad she wasn't alone.
There were more movements, the floor tilting under her and swaying and she really didn't want to puke again, but she didn't know if she could help it. Then one last very tiny bump and the sensation of drifting down and finally it stopped.
"Pidge?" Shiro asked and she turned toward his voice, though she still wasn't keen on opening her eyes. "I'm going to pick you up again now. I'm sorry, it's going to hurt, but we need to get you to a pod so we can get you fixed up, okay?"
She didn't want to say yes. She wanted it to just stop hurting now, but she trusted Shiro. He was the head of Voltron and her friend and he wouldn't let anything bad happen if he could help it. He saved Matt. He could save her too. So she nodded.
Multiple hands very carefully lifted her and settled her against his chest again. Her breathing sped up as her leg throbbed and pulsed with agony, but she just groped for a handhold and then clung to it. She just had to keep holding on. Shiro would fix it.
"What happened?!" Allura demanded as they descended the ramp. "Pidge? Is she—"
"She'll be okay," Shiro said, the rumble of his voice something she felt in her cheek as much as heard. "She needs the pod, though, her leg is broken. As to what happened…"
His voice was much more grim and dark when he said, "We were betrayed. I don't know if the Council was in on it, and frankly I don't really care. Someone on that planet meant to capture us and turn us over to Zarkon."
"He was wearing the Council's crest," Keith pointed out. "Whether they were in on it or not, people close to them were."
"I'm pretty sure he was talking to them too," Lance put in. "Or someone who he thought had as much authority as they did anyway, and that's basically the same thing, isn’t it?"
"Look, I'm all for helping everyone we can," Hunk said, "but I think maybe they need to sort out their own internal problems first in this case. Can we really call them allies if we can't trust them?"
There was a heady silence and an indeterminate amount of time passed in painful blips like radar pinging with every step Shiro took.
Allura said, "No, Hunk, we cannot. I will inform the Council of what happened—if they do not know already, that is—and let them know that when they have decided which side they are on, we may speak again. We'll depart the system once Pidge has been safely secured in a cryopod." A fine, cool hand brushed over Pidge's forehead, then it was gone, the sharp sound of Allura's boots on the floor fading into the distance.
"Come on," Coran said. "Let's get Number Five started. This is going to be a long one, I'm afraid."
Pidge let out a quiet breath and adjusted her grip on Shiro's armor. Normally she didn't look forward to the groggy, freezing sensation of coming out of the pod, the disorienting feeling of knowing you'd lost time but not being sure how much, but right now cold sounded very good and if it meant she stopped hurting, she'd happily give up a week or more.
The process of getting into the pod was unpleasant. Almost as unpleasant as everything else—more in some cases because it required so much moving—but the hands that stripped off her armor and applied a bandage and eased her limbs into the suit were kind and careful. Lance sang softly and Hunk was humming along and Shiro kept telling her how good she was doing and that it was almost over.
Keith was silent, but almost aggressively so, a solid presence near her shoulder that kept her grounded even through the fresh, molten agony of setting her leg into the proper alignment. He didn't even protest when she turned her head and pressed her snotty, tear-soaked face against his arm, clinging and sobbing all over his sleeve. Instead he just turned his hand and cradled her head in a firmly reassuring grip.
Shiro picked her up one more time and carried her to the pod, easing her down and making sure she was stable on her one good leg. He cupped her cheek and smiled at her.
"You can sleep now, Katie. We'll see you soon, okay?"
She looked at the blurry, but still somehow worried faces all watching her and nodded, fists clenched, but mostly too tired and hurty to feel anxious about the containment field closing over her and everything fading away.
It would be better when she woke up.
o.o
Bone-shaking cold was the first thing she was aware of as Pidge blinked her way back to consciousness. There was a lingering kind of ache especially in her left thigh, but mostly it was so cold all over that she couldn't process beyond that.
She inhaled sharply and then warm air washed over her and she sighed it back out. Fuzzy images coalesced into slightly sharper images, but she easily recognized when that was as good as it was going to get without her glasses or her helmet's self-adjusting visor.
She was more interested in the fact that she recognized those fuzzy blurs, especially when the one yelled in Lance's voice, "Hey! She's awake!"
They all turned her way and rushed forward and when she shakily pushed off the pod's inclined bed they were there to catch her before her wobbly knees dropped her on her ass.
She was still a little out of it, so exact details were hard to pick out, but she knew that everyone was there. She was pretty sure it was Lance and Hunk she was being squished between and Shiro's metal hand on her head, ruffling her hair, but she didn't know if it was Keith or Coran who squeezed her hand and if Allura was touching her back to support her or if that was one of the others.
At some point they started moving and she eventually found herself on a couch in the lounge, changed into comfy pajamas with a blanket around her shoulders and a mug of tea in her hands and a happy babble of voices around her.
She was still sleepy and probably would be for at least a day depending on how long she'd actually ended up being out of it.
"How long was I in there?" she asked, halting all the other conversations.
"Five quintets," Coran said gravely. "You broke the large bone in your leg—"
"Femur," Hunk supplied.
"Right, your femur," Coran corrected, "and did a fair bit of damage to the surrounding tissues. You also lost a little too much blood, though not as much as we feared, given the rest of the damage. And you took a good knock to the head that needed some patching up too. Nothing the pod couldn't handle, but very delicate work to put it all back to rights. There were some other superficial injuries, from your resisting capture, but it's all sorted out now and you're good as new." He beamed.
She stared down at her thigh and rubbed at the ache that she would have sworn she felt in the bone itself. Put back together, maybe, and probably more than okay to keep doing what they did, but good as new? She wasn't sure about that.
Still, she hadn't lost the leg and she had the vague notion that they'd discussed a tourniquet at some point, not to mention she was very sure Coran's "fair bit of damage to the surrounding tissues" was massively understating the case. Memory had thankfully dulled, but she knew something had been very wrong at the time.
"Thanks," she said, then swept the rest of them with her gaze to include them. "For everything. I was…" She blew out a shaky breath and clamped down on the warm mug in her hands. "It was pretty scary. But I know you were all there and that's why I'm here now." She smiled and then mentally cursed as her damn eyes started leaking again.
She didn’t even have a concussion, this was not fair. She swiped at them as Lance tugged her sideways into a hug, tucking her under his chin.
"We weren't going to let them have our Pidge," he said. "You're our tiny ball of technological fury. They can't have you. Go find your own, asshole aliens."
She laughed, wet and gross, but a laugh all the same. Hunk gripped her shoulder from the other side and she groped behind herself to catch his wrist and squeeze.
"And even if the rest of us can't do it, Shiro will definitely make them regret it," Lance said sotto voce with a shit-eating grin. "You should have seen it, Pidge. He was badass." Hunk’s laughter rang out.
Shiro was blushing when she looked to him, but there was also a fierce glint in his eyes that said that he was more embarrassed by Lance's teasing than his own actions.
"He did promise," Keith pointed out. "He said he wasn't going to let anything happen to us." His hand landed on Shiro's shoulder and he smiled proudly down at him. "Shiro always keeps his promises."
Shiro shrugged, still looking a little embarrassed, and said, "At any rate, we're glad you're okay, Pidge."
"Very glad," Allura echoed. "And I promise all of you that I will be more… selective in who we attempt to ally with. You're all very important and I'd prefer not to have something like this happen again."
"Amen to that!" Lance said, with Hunk and Keith adding, "Hear, hear!"
"And now I'm thinking movie night?" Lance said. "I mean, if this isn't reason enough, what is?"
"I'll go get snacks!" Hunk said, and grabbed Coran. "Keith, go get the stuff from Pidge's room!"
Keith looked to her for permission and when she nodded happily, hurried away.
"It's on the shelf by my pillow!" she called after him, getting a wave before he disappeared through the door.
"Shiro, will you help me?" Allura asked, moving to the cabinet where they'd stored a bunch of pillows and blankets for occasions just like this.
"Sure," he said, but he leaned forward and squeezed Pidge's foot. "Glad you're feeling better," he said, then moved off.
The mice scampered up the cushions and into her lap, some of them climbing up on her further to check for themselves she was okay before returning to snuggle in with the rest.
She leaned into Lance's side and breathed in and out deeply, happy to be back safe and sound and surrounded by family.