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Pidge never put much stock in emotion-fueled decisions.
No, she wasn't clueless enough to think she was immune to them, not when she once nearly left the team - nearly gave up Green - because she thought she had a chance at finding her father and brother just because she was shot into the same sector of deep space as they were.
Now she had the hindsight to now how stupid that would've been, but at the time it felt like a sacrifice. Sacrifice the universe to save her family, or sacrifice her family to save the universe.
She never faced a decision more difficult than that, a decision she made every day she didn't hop into the Green Lion and search for the rebels that freed Matt from his prison. But some days still tried her; some days almost put the lie in her ability to choose logic.
Almost.
---
Pidge was busy working on building a cloaking device for the Red Lion, a smaller stepping stone to the one she promised Hunk she would build for Yellow, connecting wires and callibrating masses and volumes to it, when Lance walked into the Green Lion's hangar. Bent over her work, she heard his footsteps before she saw him.
"Pidge," he said, "can I talk to you about something...important?"
Pidge glanced over her shoulder at him. He wasn't smiling, and there was something anxious in his posture, his shoulders slumped and his arms crossed. "Uh...sure," she said. She didn't know why Lance would come to her for reassurance, if that was what he needed, not when he had Hunk within reach.
She couldn't pretend she wasn't flattered though, wasn't secretly thrilled, though she hated his demeanor.
Pidge didn't like it when Lance didn't smile.
She spun around in her chair to give him her full attention. "What's on your mind?" she asked, hoping the smile she gave him was reassuring.
Lance leaned against the edge of her desk, and she shoved a few mechanical parts out of his way. "Pidge, do you...do you ever think about what we'll do after this?"
Pidge stared at him. "Sure," she said carefully, fiddling with an exposed wire on the unfinished cloaking device. "I think about it a lot."
"Do you ever think how the rest of the team fits into it?" Lance wondered. He stared her right in the eye, and Pidge wondered what he hoped he saw there.
She bit her lip, considering. "I don't know," she admitted. "Sometimes, I see us staying friends."
"And the rest of the time?" Lance pressed.
"I see us drifting apart," Pidge said, shrugging. It happened, sometimes; though they were close as family here, in the midst of an intergalactice war deep in space and far away from home, she was cynical enough to think it wouldn't always be that way. "But I don't want that," she added, because she was just idealistic enough to hope.
Lance smiled for the first time, his eyes softening, and Pidge felt warmth blooming in her chest. "Me neither," he said.
He didn't say anything else, so Pidge raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that all you wanted to talk about?"
"Huh?" said Lance, apparently jerked from his thoughts. He was acting strange, unusually quiet and thoughtful, but he shook his head. "No, there's more, but I'm not sure how to say it." He rubbed the back of his neck.
Pidge stood up and across from him so that she could better look him in the eye; sometimes, she hated how much taller than her he was. "Say whatever you need to," she told him. "As long as it's not stupid, anyway," she added, trying to lighten the mood.
Lance rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, sure, but it's a little awkward--"
"Just spit it out," she said, getting impatient.
"Do you ever think about romance?"
It wasn't at all what Pidge was expecting. She stared at him, stunned, wondering if he was joking, but he looked completely serious for once without a single trace of amusement on his face. "Uh, maybe a little," she admitted carefully.
No first kiss, no first date, no first boyfriend or girlfriend. No romance here in space, she thought. More sacrifices she made, ones that didn't seem so terrible most of the time.
Except now, faced with Lance of all people. Her stomach filled with something like dread, chest pained. "You're wondering if you'll see Allura again after, aren't you?" she guessed, staring at the space between their feet.
Something in Lance's demeanor changed, and he stood up straight. "What? No, that's not what--" He cut himself off, and when Pidge looked up he was rubbing his face, smiling almost ruefully. "I mean, yes, Pidge, but it's not what you think."
"It's...not?" said Pidge, raising an eyebrow at him. She crossed her arms.
Lance's smile turned happier, for some reason, but then he reached across the gap that still separated them and took her hand.
Oh.
Pidge fought a smile of her own, a smile she couldn't quite suppress. Dare she hope? Or maybe she was only dreaming that Lance laced his fingers with her own? Was her heart really beating that fast?
(She had a dream a little like this, once. It troubled her for days, until Hunk finally took her aside and reassured her she just had a crush. Pidge had never had a crush before that, she didn't know what it felt like, but from then on she could put a name to the warmth she felt when Lance looked at her and smiled.)
"Spell it out for me," she demanded. At Lance's surprised expression, she added, "Please. I need you to spell it out."
He shrugged, looking sheepish. "I like you, Pidge," he said simply, his face flushing. "A lot. And...I don't know, I just like you."
Something in that resonated incorrectly with Pidge. There wasn't enough logic in his statement, too much emotion, no reason. She wasn't sure she understood.
To her, it was perfectly reasonable she should like Lance. He was smarter that even she gave him credit for sometimes, and funnier too. He was always bright, his cheer rarely faked. He cared about his friends, and his family, and he cared about what they thought. And he was attractive besides, though that would never be enough for Pidge on its own anyway.
"You...just like me," Pidge repeated hollowly.
"Well, no, I really do," he said. He seemed to grasp that the situation was escaping his control, his smile faltering. "Pidge--"
She gently extracted her hand from his grip, though it hurt more than she would ever admit. "We have a war to fight, Lance," she said, her eyes drifting to the cloaking device.
"But what about after?" Lance asked.
"What if there isn't an after?"
She looked at him in time to see him frown, eyes downcast. "I believe there is one," Lance said. "And what about now?"
Pidge wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts and averted her eyes from him. "I don't think we should start anything," she said, pushing her glasses up just for something to do. "I don't think it's a good idea."
"Why not?" Lance said. "You're reasonable, usually, so give me one good reason."
"I don't feel the same," Pidge said, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice. It was a blatant lie, but a reasonable one, one Lance would believe.
"I see," said Lance. She couldn't tell from his tone if he believed her - and she had given him no indication that he should - but she heard some kind of resignation in his voice. "Then I'll just leave you to your work."
Just like she didn't see him come, she didn't see him leave, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the hangar.
Pidge collapsed into her chair and pillowed her face on her arms. She could feel Green's sympathetic rumble through the floor, but it did little to stop her tears.
She hoped this sacrifice would be worth the pain.