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"And now that it's compiled and debugged…" Pidge's grin stretched wide in anticipatory triumph as she dramatically pushed the button that would upload the program to the Castle's network.
The lights dimmed and she snapped her fingers with a—probably overly dramatic—"Tadah!"
Only… the lights didn't come back up. That was not good.
She arched an eyebrow, then snapped her fingers again. "Tadah?"
The hangar remained dark and she sighed. "Or not. Let's see what semicolon I forgot this time," she grumbled.
She dropped back into the zone pretty quickly and wasn't sure how much later it was when she heard Keith calling her name. "Pidge? Are you in here?"
She looked up right as he swept the beam of his flashlight over her and she winced and threw up a hand. "Ow! Yes, I'm here. What?"
"Thank God," he breathed, then tapped at a comm in his ear. "I found her, she's fine," he said as he came in and crossed the floor.
It suddenly occurred to her that her little oopsie might have had far-reaching effects—which, actually was the point, even if these particular effects were not the one she was aiming for.— and she winced.
"Oh man, I'm so sorry. I, uh, was working on something. Hold on. I can fix it."
"Wait, you did this?" Keith asked. "Pidge, the whole castle is dark!"
"Well it's not like I meant to!" she snapped back. "And anyway, we're planetside. It's fine. I can shift it back right now and we'll have full functionality back within a day."
"A day?!" Keith repeated. "Pidge, you can't just go messing with things! What if the Galra attacked?"
"Well that's why we have these five big robot lions,” she said with every ounce of sarcasm she possessed. “I'm sure you've seen them around, right?"
Keith's lips pressed into a hard line. "We could still be stuck here with no way to move the Castle. And what about Hunk?"
Pidge rolled her eyes— Then froze.
"Oh God," she breathed out and then bolted from her chair. "Nonononono," she chanted, running full out down the halls.
She almost crashed into Shiro around a corner, but his reflexes were better than hers and he caught her.
"Pidge?" His voice immediately shifted from surprised to hard command. "What is it? What's wrong? Where's Keith?"
"He's back there, he's fine, I—" She bit her lip, swallowing down the sick feeling of dread and guilt. "Shiro, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, I swear. I was just trying to help."
"Trying to help—" His eyes widened. "This was you?"
She flinched and shrunk in on herself. "I was trying to optimize the power grid. We don't use the whole castle, so there's no reason to—" She glanced up and then away. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I screwed up and Hunk was in the pod and the Castle has emergency power, but I don't know if that's enough to keep those going. Look, you can yell at me later all you want, but we have to go check on him!"
He had that tone of voice that always made her feel awful, the one that said she was in trouble, but she couldn't exactly protest it. "You're right. We're going to talk about this later. We thought the Castle had been invaded again. Pidge, I don't mind you trying to help, but you need to let us know what's going on before it happens."
"Yes, sir," she said quietly, staring at the floor. If this hurt Hunk though, he didn't have to worry. She wouldn't be messing with things she didn't really understand again.
His grip on her shoulder was firm as he turned around and propelled her forward. Footsteps echoed down the hall a second later and Keith caught up to them, Pidge's laptop tucked under his arm until he passed it to her.
"Sorry," he said, a little out of breath. "I just figured she might need this to fix whatever she did," he said, gesturing to the computer.
She winced again. She hadn't even thought of that. It would have wasted so much time to go all the way back to the room she’d commandeered as a workshop if he hadn't remembered. Dammit.
"Call off the alarm," Shiro said into his comm. "Pidge was testing a new program. Is anyone near the medbay?"
She couldn't hear the response, but the look Shiro and Keith shared wasn't encouraging. She clutched her laptop to her chest and really hoped that it wasn't as bad as she feared.
Allura, Coran, and Lance were all there by the time they arrived, and Pidge didn't need anyone to tell her that her mistake was turning out to be even bigger than she'd thought.
She stopped just inside the door staring in horror at the scene before her. The first thing that caught her eye was the empty cryopod and a nauseating smear of red on the floor below it where Hunk had obviously fallen out, early and with no one to catch him.
"Hold this right here," Coran said, and drew her attention to where an unconscious Hunk was on one of the anti-grav stretchers. It still worked because they were obviously independently powered, but they were just supposed to be for transport, not a makeshift surgery bed. She ducked her head down to hide behind the edge of her laptop and chewed her lip as tears welled up.
She'd hurt Hunk. He was already hurt from the firefight on the last planet they'd been on and she hurt him more because she just had to try and fix something that wasn't even broken. If she'd just taken two seconds and—
Shiro's hand on her shoulder squeezed lightly, but she didn't know if it was meant to be comfort or a reminder she was in trouble and shouldn't run off.
She deserved the latter, not so much the former.
"How is he?" he asked as he crossed the floor to where Allura and Lance were playing nurse for Coran.
"He ripped open some of the wounds that had started to heal," Lance said shortly. "He probably cracked his head on the floor, but we won't know for sure if he has a concussion until we can scan him and we can't do that until we stop the bleeding and get him stitched up and Coran's not even sure what he's doing because it's been ten thousand years since he last had to perform battlefield triage and first aid!"
Pidge could feel the glare being leveled at her and didn't bother to peel her gaze off the floor. Lance was worried and angry and he had every right to be.
"That's not good," Shiro agreed, keeping his voice level. "Is he in serious danger? What's the worst case scenario here?"
Coran sighed, accepting a tool from Allura. "Well it's certainly not ideal, but it's not as dire as Lance believes either. Yes, it will delay his recovery. But he's in no danger of dying. He will simply have to do it the slow way and heal using his own resources. Fortunately, you humans are a hardy breed."
"Okay," Shiro said. "That is better news."
"What if we got the Castle up and running again?" Keith asked, glancing at Pidge. "Couldn't we just put him back in and redo the cycle?"
Pidge’s head shot up, hope filling her chest.
"What the hell, Keith, he's not a burrito that you stick back in the microwave until the middle is defrosted too!"
Pidge understood Lance's reaction, but if they could do that, then she could fix this problem. It would still take a little while to get things going again, but she might be able to shortcut some of it— Or not, she thought, cutting herself off. But she could still get everything back up and a day wasn't so bad. Coran already said he wasn't dying so—
"Not really, no," Allura said. "Well, in an emergency, yes, of course, but since Coran is having to do some of the work himself, it would be… messy to try and have the cryopod finish the process at this point."
So she really had fucked up.
"Messy?" Lance repeated, horrified. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means I need you to focus, Lance," Coran said, his steady voice at odds with his tense expression. "And hold this right here."
Lance huffed angrily, but he refocused his gaze back on whatever he was helping Coran with.
It didn't stop his mouth though, he was excellent at multitasking, especially when one of the tasks was talking about whatever was on his mind at the moment.
"What were you trying to do anyway?" he asked. "And why couldn't it wait until Hunk was out of the pod if it's gonna fuck everything up?"
"I—" How did she explain to Lance, Hunk's best friend in the entire universe that she just… forgot that he was in the pod?
She was there when he went down, she had to help put pressure on the wound in his side. It wasn’t something to easily skip one’s mind.
Except the truth was she had been trying to forget.
Not that Hunk was hurt, or that he needed to be in the pod, just… the feeling of his blood all over her hands and the way his breath had gone short and his voice had gone high and he'd been crying and so scared and she didn't want to think about that.
She didn't want to think about the fact that they were so far from home and any of them could die out here. She could die out here and then her mom would have lost everyone and she'd never even know why.
Computers were nice. They were clean and orderly and even when they broke it usually wasn't that bad and as long as you backed them up even a catastrophic failure wasn’t really anything but annoying. They weren’t hard to fix, but it took thinking and it was distracting.
It was easy to not think about Hunk almost dying when she had to keep her syntax in line and remember which file tree she'd put that redundancy in.
Too easy, apparently.
"I'm sorry," she said again.
"Yeah, well, sorry isn't going to fix Hunk."
"Lance," Shiro said, but he was right.
"I— I'll go get the Castle running again," she said and slipped out the door before anyone could stop her.
She heard footsteps behind her and sped up, rounding a corner and then ducking into what she assumed was a broom closet, There were no brooms in it, but they were these tiny little alcoves behind hidden doors and they were all over the Castle. She'd given serious thought to using them for storing emergency supplies of some kind, but hadn't quite mapped out what should be in there, and where she would get some of it from, and how to keep Lance from finding it and raiding them.
She turned around and slid the door shut and then held completely still in the dark as the footsteps went past, speeding up.
"Pidge? Pidge!"
Yeah, figured Keith would be the one sent after her. Everyone else was busy saving Hunk or… Hunk.
But he'd give up eventually and she'd come out when she was done, she just needed to undo the mess she'd made.
She'd sent the Castle into a panic, from what they'd said, thinking they were under attack again. And they could be, at any moment. They'd come to this system and hidden the Castle on this planet while they recovered and Hunk healed, but the Galra were everywhere and sometimes they got lucky in the worst way.
They needed their defenses back up and they needed the pods running again.
Pulling off her glasses, she wiped her face clean and sniffed until the snot was no longer threatening to drip down her face. She settled on the floor and opened up her laptop and began typing.
o.o
Pidge woke to the soft sound of squeaking in her ear and a crick in her neck.
"Ow," she grumbled, reaching up to rub the tight spot until it relaxed and stopped hurting quite so much. Tiny claws and soft fur landed on her hand and then she felt the tickle of whiskers and a tiny tongue licking at the area.
"Huh?" She carefully picked up the mouse and smiled. "Oh, hey, Plachu." The other mice squeaked from her lap and she set their companion down in their midst and then scrubbed a hand over her face. "What time is it?" she asked around a yawn.
She woke her computer and saw that not only was it the next day—well, morning, and early at that—but the Castle's grid reset was almost complete. That was good.
And no one had found her, which was… probably also good. She wondered how long they had looked, but shoved the thought away. It didn't matter. They should be taking care of Hunk and making sure the Castle was safe. She would be fine, obviously.
Still, she should probably poke her head out and be seen so she didn't start another panic or anything. She pushed her glasses up and rubbed the grit out of her eyes.
And she needed to go see how Hunk was doing. It was early enough, maybe Lance was still asleep. God knew he wouldn't be anywhere but by Hunk's side for the next while when he was awake.
She closed her laptop and tucked it under her arm, waiting for the mice to either climb to the floor or up to her shoulders, then stood. A back-cracking stretch and she wrestled the door open.
Lance was indeed absent from the medbay when she arrived, but Keith was there. Pidge blinked a little in surprise, then realized that without the network and everything up and running, they didn't exactly have a way to be alerted to any problems that might come up. Just another thing she'd screwed up, she thought with a repressed sigh.
Keith didn't look over, but he clearly knew she was there because he said, "Shiro's looking for you."
"Yeah, I figured."
"Lance too."
Her voice was smaller when she said, "Yeah, I figured that too."
She came up next to the chair he was sitting in and looked Hunk over. He’d been moved to a more permanent bed and had a bunch of machines she hadn’t seen before around him that were all connected to him in one way or another. It looked much more like a hospital setting on Earth, and she didn’t know how she felt about that.
Hunk himself was too quiet and an unsettlingly washed out color, but he was still breathing and everything so that was good, right?
"How is he?"
Keith shrugged. "Coran still says he'll be fine. He should wake up in the next day or so. He'll have to take it easy, but he should heal completely."
She swallowed. "That's good," she managed.
The silence stretched and normally with Keith it wasn't actually uncomfortable, but right now he was shifting and she could practically feel the need for him to say something coming off of him in waves.
She rubbed at her head where it was starting to pound and finally said, "Whatever it is, just say it."
Keith still hesitated, and she knew he was staring at her. Finally he cleared his throat.
"He's not… I don't think he's mad. At you."
"Hunk?" she asked, even though she knew who he meant. "Not yet, but he's still asleep. He's gonna be pissed when he finds out he's going to be stuck in bed for forever though."
Keith frowned. "I don't think he will be. I mean, I guess he could… but that doesn't seem very Hunk-like."
"Don't let the friendly exterior fool you. He can hold a grudge like nobody's business. He's just picky about who gets that special honor."
"Yeah, but you didn't mean it. It was just an accident."
She shrugged, not wanting to go into it further. He stared again, but eventually let it drop.
"And anyway, I was talking about Lance."
So much for a diversion. "And you're wrong about that too. He and Hunk didn't meet until the Garrison, but you wouldn't know it, would you? They act like they've known each other since childhood. Hell, I'm pretty sure half our class thought they were dating and just really bad at hiding it. Which of course Lance thought was hilarious. He might have even been the one to start the rumors, I don't know. I wouldn't put it past him. But even if he doesn't hold a grudge like Hunk can, he's still not going to just brush it aside."
Her voice was quieter, but she made herself continue. "Hunk almost died, Keith. And he didn't because we got him back in time, but it was still…" She blew out a breath. "It was close. And then I went and screwed up the thing that saved his life. We could have brought him back here and I still could have killed him because I was trying to—"
She grit her teeth and shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Hunk almost died twice and one of those times was my fault. Lance isn't going to forgive and he sure as hell isn't going to forget that any time soon."
"I think he'll surprise you, actually," came a voice from the doorway.
She spun around. "Shiro? I—" She scratched at the back of her neck as he entered and came over to join them. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just vanish on you. I was trying to fix it. And I did." He looked up at the lights that must have come on sometime overnight.
"I see that."
"It's not completely done, but it should be soon and then we'll have full control back over everything. I won't touch it again without asking first, I promise."
Or ever, but that wasn't really relevant right now.
He turned and looked at her directly, then said, “Keith, can you excuse us?”
To Pidge’s shock, Keith actually hesitated, looking between them. Finally he nodded. “I’m going to go get something to eat, then I’ll be back.” It almost sounded like a warning as much as a statement, and Shiro’s lips curled up on one side.
All he said though was, “That should be long enough. Thank you.”
After his footsteps faded and Pidge was staring at Hunk, silently willing him to get better, Shiro spoke again.
"I told you that the problem wasn't that you wanted to make something better," he said. "You just need to tell me or Allura so we can make sure that it's the best time. I'd like to see what you were trying to do. Making this place more efficient is a good idea."
"I—” That wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting, especially after sending Keith away. “Sure. Uh. Okay. Um, but Keith said you were… looking for me?"
"I was. I wanted to make sure you were okay. Lance said some pretty harsh stuff last night."
She waved it off quickly. "Oh. I mean, I deserved it so…" She shrugged one shoulder.
"You didn't," he countered, placing a hand on her back. "Pidge, it was an accident. One that could have been prevented, yes, but you didn't do it on purpose to be mean or to try and hurt Hunk. Lance will understand that when he sees Hunk is okay, if he doesn't already. Hunk will certainly understand it. He's had a few close calls with similar things himself, after all."
"Okay," Pidge said neutrally.
Shiro's eyes narrowed, but he let it go with a shake of his head. "I also wanted to talk to you about, well, your punishment. I know I'm pretty lax on you guys, especially when compared to the Garrison. And we’re not technically an official unit, but... I still think it's appropriate for you to have some consequences. Maybe next time it will help you think before you leap."
"That's fair," she said quietly, then drew herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders. She wasn't especially good at standing at attention for long periods of time and it was weird to be out of her uniform, but she could do it if she had to. "Cadet Gunderson, reporting for discipline, sir."
Shiro already stood tall, but he did cross his arms over his chest. "I'm assigning you extra duty, Cadet. For the duration of Hunk's recovery you will be his assistant. He's going to need help getting things and doing tasks like his laundry and keeping his room tidy. In addition, you will assist him with his cooking and cleaning duties elsewhere in the Castle, as well as any engineering projects he might be working on. Any questions?"
"No sir," she said, and relief washed through her. She'd already been planning to help Hunk as much as she could, but it felt right to have it be official.
"I'm also assigning you to a weekly counseling session with me."
She broke her attention and looked up at him. "What?"
His expression softened. "Pidge, I know why you work on projects like this. I saw you after we got Hunk in the pod the other day—or more specifically, I saw how quickly you vanished, and then I found you asleep in your workshop. The things we do, the things we see…" His shoulders slumped and he looked away, digging into the corners of his eyes with his fingertips. "It's not something I'm very well equipped to handle and I've got a decade of life experience on you."
His smirk was wry when he said, "And I do understand this is me calling the kettle black, but you need to talk to someone. A professional counselor would be best, but we're a little in short supply out here. Being the senior officer, that makes this my responsibility. Unless you’d prefer to speak to Allura?”
She thought of trying to explain her problems with being a Paladin of Voltron and missing Earth to Allura and shook her head quickly.
“All right. More than just it being my responsibility, though, I want to help. So, yes, once a week we're going to sit down and talk about… whatever's on your mind so you don't feel the need to work yourself to exhaustion to avoid it. Okay?"
She couldn't open her mouth for a long moment for fear of what would come out, but eventually she nodded. "Okay."
She wanted to ask who he talked to, because he definitely needed it too, but she also didn’t feel like pushing her luck right now.
“Good. Go clean up and get some food and sleep. We’re taking watches to keep an eye on Hunk and I want you on the 16-20. Make sure you eat again before you come here.”
“Yes, sir,” she said again, almost on reflex at this point. She managed to avoid saluting him, but she was pretty sure he saw that too, given the wry smile he gave her.
Tucking her computer against her chest again, she turned.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
She turned back.
“Do you need to do anything else to fix the Castle?”
“No, it’s just running through a recalibration sequence. It’ll let me know when it’s done, but I don’t have to do anything.”
He held his hand out and it took her a second to realize what he meant.
She bit her lip, but handed over her computer, watching him hold it at his side.
“I’m restricting computer hours for the duration, too. I’m not cutting you off cold turkey, you can have it for a few hours a day under supervision, but I don’t want this kind of accident to happen again either.”
She nodded and turned to leave once more, actually making it out into the hall without being stopped.
Well at least he didn’t ground her. That was something, she supposed.
o.o
Hunk was awake when Pidge returned for her watch.
She heard him talking to Coran and hesitated outside the door, but only long enough to shake her head and mutter, "Don't be a baby about this. Just go in there and apologize. Even if he hates you forever—which he hopefully won't—the least you owe him is an apology to his face for almost killing him."
She took a deep breath, then squared her shoulders and walked into the room.
"Hello, Pidge!" Coran said. He was smiling. That was probably a good sign, right?
Although Coran was generally smiling, and really more upbeat than anyone should be waking up 10,000 years after your entire civilization was destroyed to find that the universe has sent you five kids from some backwater planet no one's ever heard of to do what your very advanced spacefaring people couldn't. So maybe he wasn't the best litmus test of how good/bad things were going.
"Um, hi," she said, waving. She darted a glance at Hunk, but looked away again before seeing more than a small frown on his face.
Curiosity might be in her core personality, but courage obviously was not.
"Well," Coran said, standing and brushing himself off. "I think you two need to talk. I'll see you later, eh, Hunk?"
"Yeah, of course. Thanks for the, uh, food," he said, holding up a bowl.
"Any time, my boy!" Coran beamed, completely ignoring the awkward undertones and polite disbelief on the word "food". "Any time!"
He paused when he got to Pidge's side and leaned down to say quietly, "Have faith, my young Paladin. Things are not always as damaged as they seem. And when they are, you have more of a knack for fixing them than most of the Altean technicians I once knew." He patted her shoulder and continued on his way, leaving behind only the soft sounds of the Castle and Hunk's spork scraping against his bowl.
Eventually she forced herself to walk forward and sit in the chair someone had brought in. She really wished she had her computer or her phone or even a screwdriver or something. She'd deliberately left them all behind—or they were with Shiro—but now she wasn't sure that was a good idea. She needed something to fiddle with and her fingers weren't quite cutting it.
"So, uh, Lance told me what happened," Hunk said, making her jump. "You wanna talk about it?"
Pidge cringed and stared at her knees. "Not really, but, um, I do owe you an apology. Like, a really big one." Her mom's voice in her head reminded her to look the person in the eye when she had to say she was sorry, so she forced her neck to unbend and met Hunk's gaze.
"I'm sorry. I should have told someone else what I was doing before I started, or I should have just waited until you were finished healing. I'm sorry that you're going to have to do it the slow way and be in pain and—" She sniffed and cursed her damn eyes for leaking, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks. "And I'm so sorry that I was so caught up in my own problems that I completely forgot about you being hurt." Her chest was all tight and the air burned going through her throat as she gulped it down. Ugh, crying was so gross!
"Whoa!" Hunk said, "Hey, come on, it's not that bad. Pidge— Pidge, look at me. No, you know what, come here." He patted the bed next to himself and she blinked and wiped away more tears.
"What? No, I— I don't want to hurt you more."
He snorted. "You won't. Promise. Honestly, it's not even that bad." He frowned. "Did Lance tell you it was? Because we talked already and he feels bad about snapping at you. He was worried and, I mean, I can't blame him. I'd probably freak out too, but I freak out at a lot of things, so. Seriously. Come on."
She hesitated still, but when he just patiently waited, watching her, she finally gave in. Perching on the very edge of the bed near his hip, she alternated between staring at his hand and sneaking looks at his face.
Until of course he picked up her hand and used it to tug her closer and into a hug. She went, wide-eyed and careful not to touch him or lean on him too much, but he just pulled her around and tucked her under his arm.
He was warm and solid like he always was and after a long moment she let herself melt into the familiar comfort.
"I don't really remember much about what happened after I was, uh… hit,” he said. “I remember it hurt a lot and that I was maybe having an anxiety attack because I really thought I might die. I know you and Lance were there, but mostly because we were all close together and so you were the most likely people to come fastest. It was… scary. And painful. And just all around awful. But you know the next thing I remember?"
She shook her head, running her fingers over the soft blanket covering his chest.
"I woke up here and Lance was sitting in that chair. He was staring at the ground and he looked really, really sad."
Yeah, Pidge thought, he probably did. Lance's friends and family were so important to him and losing one would really hit him hard. Even one of them getting hurt really knocked him off his feet. But for it to be Hunk? She was surprised Lance could be pried out of the chair at all, to be honest.
"And, I don't know, maybe it's whatever painkillers they gave me, because nothing hurts right now and I'm super sure it should. But whatever it is, I saw him there and he looked so much like that dog that hung around the Go-Mart in town, you remember? That little mutt that would give everyone the sad eyes until they went inside and bought him something to eat. And we all did because he looked so sad, but it turns out he wasn't stray, he was just a furry little con artist. But oh man, he could do puppy-dog eyes on another level and even after we found out who he belonged to, everyone still gave him food."
Pidge frowned, squinting, then said, "Oh yeah, I do remember that dog. God, I didn't have money once and he started crying and I almost stole something just to feed him. Thankfully, one of the senior cadets came out with food so I didn't have to. That fuzzy little shit ate probably half my spending cash."
Hunk laughed, though he did so more quietly than normal and he pressed his free hand to his side over where his wound was. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did that to most of us. But so Lance looked just like him. Like, I swear he was channeling the spirit of that dog all the way from Earth. And I probably should have been sad too, but it was just... so funny. Picturing Lance sitting outside the Go-Mart and giving everyone puppy dog eyes, only he'd probably want like a kiss or phone numbers or something. It just cracked me up."
She smiled because it really was kind of a funny mental image.
"Only I guess Lance hadn't been paying attention so he didn't realize I was awake. So when I laughed out of nowhere it startled him and he fell out of his chair. Just— Boom!" He gestured to indicate Lance face-planting. "Down he went."
Pidge laughed a little at that too.
"I didn't mean for it to happen, but he popped up and he was so mad, he forgot to be sad. He started swearing at me in Spanish. I think by the middle he was kind of mad about everything, but by the end he just sort of looked and me and told me I was an asshole and that I wasn't supposed to scare him like that ever again."
There was silence for a moment and then he continued. "What I'm saying is, he was definitely upset and, I don't know, maybe I should be too. But I don't really remember much and I don't remember anything that happened between being put into the pod and waking up here. And I'm gonna be okay.
“Coran came and checked me out and he said I can probably move to my own bed tonight and as long as I take it easy for a couple of weeks and do the stuff I'm supposed to to keep it clean, I'll be good as new. The pod did get a chance to fix all the really bad scary stuff. It's mostly just the superficial outside parts that are still healing."
She looked up at him and he grinned in a way that she was about 90% sure he learned from Lance and said, "And hey, now I'm gonna have a cool-looking scar. Lance is already jealous. He said I'm not allowed to take my shirt off in public because he didn't need the competition before, but now it's, like, actually cheating." He chuckled and she did too, relief washing through her.
She felt better now, especially if he was healed that much. "I'm still sorry, though. I didn't think and you could have been really hurt."
He shrugged. "Could have been really hurt choking on the special healing food goo Coran just made me eat— Which, by the way, you all better hope that if this happens again and it's you in the pod, I'm available to cook because eugh." He stuck his tongue out and shuddered.
She giggled and buried her face against his side. "Duly noted," she said, when she came back up for air.
"But, yeah, I could get hurt every day. And I know you didn't mean it. So, apology accepted if you need it, but we're good."
She sighed and gently hugged him. "Thanks." Then she snorted. "I wouldn't worry too much about it happening again anytime soon though. Shiro took my computer."
"Ow," Hunk said. "That's harsh."
She shrugged. "Could have been worse. I can still use it, just only under supervision. And I won't really have time anyway since— Oh, yeah," she interrupted, looking up at him. "Shiro also assigned me to be your gofer until you're healed. So if you need anything, just let me know. I mean, I was going to do it anyway, but he felt that I should have, like, an official disciplinary action."
"Seriously?" Hunk asked, amused. "I thought that was going to be one of the perks of being out here away from the Garrison. Did he make you stand at attention and everything?"
"He didn't make me, but I did. It was weird. Like Iverson, only, you know, if Iverson was replaced by your own dad who really cared about you and didn't just like yelling at cadets because he needs a hobby."
"Sounds surreal," Hunk said.
"Little bit, yeah," she agreed.
"Do you think this means we have records out here? Is he like… writing evaluations for us? Oh man, are we going to have tests? I hate those tests they made us take that weren't even about anything important, just like random Galaxy Garrison trivia."
She shuddered. "God, I hope not." Then she snorted. "Do you think anyone's told Shiro that he was a question on that test?"
Hunk laughed again, still holding his side. "I hope not. I want to be there when he finds out!"
"Finds out what?"
They both looked at the door where Lance was standing, hands in his pockets. His expression was mostly curious, but when he glanced at Pidge, it fell a little and he looked away.
"That he's a question on the Garrison trivia tests," Hunk said.
"Oh man, those things were the worst," Lance said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. "Like any of that stuff matters to the 90% of the cadets that weren't total nerds."
"Says the man who scored in the 98th percentile," Pidge said dryly on reflex, then froze.
Lance did too, but after a second he oh-so-casually turned and leveled her with an arch look. "You're just jealous that I got a better score. And anyway, it's not hard to be in the 98th percentile when no one takes the test seriously and fails it because they didn't even try."
"Dude," Hunk said, smirking, "does the score matter or not because I'm getting some mixed signals here."
Lance's face screwed up and then he waved it off and came over. He was careful and silently asked it if was okay before moving in, but when Hunk raised his other arm, he climbed on without hesitation.
"Whatever," he said from his place mirroring Pidge. "Doesn't matter. We're Paladins of Voltron now. The Galaxy Garrison can take their useless test and stick it up their tailpipes. Blue thinks I'm good enough and that's all that counts."
"Sounds about right," Hunk said.
“And Allura’s way hotter than Iverson.”
“Ughhh,” Pidge said as Hunk patted his back with a, “Next time feel free to stop before that, buddy.”
Lance’s snickers said that he’d mostly done it just to provoke a reaction, though, so Pidge let it go.
The three of them lay in quiet, warm, peace for a few long minutes. Pidge was almost starting to drift off, in fact, when Lance spoke up.
"Hey, uh, Pidge?"
She was wide awake again in an instant and took a little bracing breath. She didn't open her eyes though and she kept her voice casual when she said, "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry. For yelling at you. I know you weren't trying to hurt Hunk and that you wouldn't ever do that on purpose. I mean, you saved his life on that planet. So, really, you're the reason he's still here. So… yeah."
Ugh, the tears were back. She turned her face into Hunk's side and he tightened his arm around her.
When she was sure she could speak without embarrassing herself, she lifted her head.
"Thanks. I get it, though. It was really scary and it could have been so much worse and I won't ever do anything like that ever again. You guys are my best friends. I don't want to lose you, especially not for something stupid like this."
"We'll just have to help each other," Hunk said, squeezing them both.