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"Space is like...the ocean."
"Explain."
"Deep, vast, and unknowable."
It's an odd remark coming from one of the best traveled people - of any and all peoples - in the universe, Pidge thinks, especially when that person is Lance, who flies (or used to fly) a brilliant piece of sentient spacecraft that can also withstand the enormous pressures at the bottom of an ocean.
Not to mention, Lance is rarely this contemplative.
He isn't wrong though.
They sit side-by-side, shoulders pressed together, on the observation deck, mostly in silence. Pidge is deep in thought considering the dilemma that is rescuing her brother, wondering how she can bring it up to the others, how Allura and Shiro and Keith, at least, will react.
(She hasn't forgotten the last time she almost left and how they all reacted.)
How will Lance react, she idly wonders. He wasn't there last time like the others, and when he learned she almost left them - even left Green - all he said was, "I'm glad you're still with us, Pidge."
"If space is deep, vast, and unknowable," Pidge says, breaking the silence, "how do we know where anything is?"
Lance snorts. "Only you, Pidge, would dissect an abstract statement like it's a scientific law." He doesn't sound annoyed, or scathing, only observant.
"But is it really abstract?" she muses, smiling slightly. "Once, on Earth, an awful lot of people didn't know the Americas existed, or Australia, or--"
"All right, I get it," Lance says, sighing. "You have the soul of a scientist and literalist, but I'm an artist."
Now it's Pidge's turn to snort. She jostles him with her shoulder, and when he shoves back, she quips, "I've seen your drawings, Lance."
"There's more than one kind of art, Pidge," he retorts, reaching up to poke her cheek.
In a fit of daring, rather than smacking his hand away like usual, she takes it and holds it between both of her own. "I guess," she agrees. She can see lines of ink on his skin where he drew on himself out of boredom during briefings: blue spirals on the pads of his fingers, black triangles on each joint, green 'x's crisscrossing the back of his hand to form a larger 'x'.
"What're you doing?" Lance wonders. He sounds a touch wary, but he doesn't wrench his hand out of Pidge's grip.
"You hardly left any space on your hand," Pidge observes, turning it over. Sure enough, red zig-zags like lightning bolts cross the lines on his palm. She traces one with her fingertip, and Lance's hand twitches. "Ticklish?" she asks, looking at him from the corner of her eyes.
"A bit," he admits.
Pidge files that information away for another time and drops his hand. He retracts it into his own lap, and she's not sure but she thinks he might look disappointed. She leans against him, and when he hesitantly wraps an arm around her back and pulls her just a bit closer, warmth and contentment flood her.
"If space is deep, vast, and unknowable," she says, "then I'm glad there's at least something I know about it."
"And what's that?" Lance asks, his chin balanced on her head.
"I have you, don't I?" She flushes red at the confession, but it's been a long time since she spoke so honestly.
"Yeah," Lance says, rubbing her arm, "you do."