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Aliens are real.
Aliens are real , and apparently, they are also drop-dead gorgeous .
That is the only thought running through Pidge’s head when the beautiful alien emerges from the pod (although a smaller part of the back of Pidge’s brain is marveling at the alien technology and how the glass just vanished , where did it go and what did it do?). She -- Pidge is assuming the alien is a ‘she’, but who knows, looks could be deceiving, as Pidge would know plenty about -- is startlingly human-like, nothing like the featureless gray aliens or fearsome monstrous xenomorphs from movies. Her skin is a deep, rich brown that contrasts with her voluminous silver-white hair that looks as soft as a cloud. Her ears, pointed and elf-like, and the small, boomerang-shaped pink markings under her eyes are the only indication that she is anything other than human. She falls out of the pod with a gasp, holding her arm out, and lands straight in Lance’s arms.
Pidge very much regrets hanging back in the group. Had she been a little more adventurous, maybe she could have caught the beautiful alien.
The alien opens her eyes, and Pidge feels like her breath has been knocked out of her chest. She has never seen more beautiful eyes in her life; it looks like a swirling galaxy has been liquified, a drop placed in each of her irises, to create a stunning mixture of blue, violet, pink, and turquoise.
She opens her mouth and speaks, and the melodious cadence of her voice causes Pidge’s heart to quicken. And then the words catch up with her. “Your ears,” she is telling Lance. “They’re hideous. What is wrong with them?”
Oh, she is liking this alien more and more. She definitely has some sass to her.
“Nothing’s wrong with them! They heard exactly what you said!” Lance sputters.
He yelps as the alien spins him around by the arm and forces him to his knees. “Who are you? What are you doing here? What have you done with King Alfor?” She demands, pinning his arm behind him. That melodious cadence of her voice has hardened into a steely, iron edge, obviously used to being in a position of command. This alien is the furthest thing from a push-over.
Pidge is hopelessly smitten with her.
~~~~~~~
Pidge sits on the kitchen countertop, swinging her legs idly while Hunk peers down at an Altean cookbook. She is mostly here for taste-testing purposes, and stirring any pots he needs tended to while he works on other things. Usually, Pidge brings her laptop with her and works on something until Hunk asks for her help, but she has hit a mental block with decrypting some Galra code and needs some distance from her work for a while.
“What’s the Altean letter that looks like a guy flipping a table in anger?” Hunk asks.
Pidge thinks about it. “Uoyr.” Oddly enough, despite the weird description, she knows exactly what he means.
“Right, right.” Hunk nods, tapping the recipe page. “I always get the words umuoyr and umir mixed up.”
“They look similar.” Pidge shrugs.
“Can you stir this sauce for me?” Hunk asks. “I don’t want it to curdle.”
“Roger that,” Pidge hops off the counter and takes his place at the stove. “What is this recipe, by the way?”
“It’s actually an adaptation of the one Coran and I were served when we were on the Balmera, but minus the bugs.” Hunk says. “The sauce was really tasty. The little wigglers… not so much.”
Pidge scrunches up her nose. “Please never say ‘little wigglers’ ever again.”
Hunk chuckles as he takes a few root-like vegetables out of the cryo-fridge and sets them on a cutting board. A comfortable silence settles over them, broken only by the steady chop of the knife slicing through the vegetables and the occasional wet bubble from the saucepan. “Do you think we’ll ever go back to the Balmera?” Hunk asks. His voice is just a touch higher-pitched than normal, and Pidge slides him a sly look.
“Can’t wait to see your girlfriend ?” She leans over to elbow him in the side. He bats her away with his free hand.
“No, and she’s not my girlfriend.” He says firmly, leaning into his chopping with perhaps what was more force than strictly necessary.
“Not yet, of course.” Pidge smirks. “Still gotta pop the question. Hey, what kind of ring would you buy her? Is a diamond out because she’s a prettier rock than any diamond?”
“ Pidge !” Hunk hisses, cheeks burning. He scoops some of the vegetables into the pot she is stirring. “...And no, Balmerans wear matching marriage bracelets of woven metal and crystal, not rings.” He adds quietly.
“So you have looked into it.” Pidge grins broadly, like a Cheshire cat.
“Just… out of curiosity.” Hunk sputters. “I research all the aliens we come across. Did you know that the official language of the Arusians is dance?”
“And what are their marriage ceremonies like?” Pidge presses.
Hunk pauses. “...I don’t know, actually. Didn’t look into it.”
“I think your research is biased.” Pidge smirks.
“Yeah, well, I think your face is biased.” Hunk shoots back, cheeks red. Pidge gives him a bemused look, fighting the urge to laugh. Hunk clears his throat and goes back to dicing some kind of purple vegetable. “What about you? Any crushes you’d like to share?” He leans over and elbows her in the side.
She pushes his hand away. “My only one true love is science.” She says, deadpan. Within days of arriving here, she had forced herself to come to terms with the fact that Allura was off-limits. Not only was she a beautiful, smart, and funny alien princess, and thus way out of Pidge’s league, but she was also technically their commander. If there was one thing Pidge had learned at the Garrison, it was the importance of hierarchy and rank. That, and Iverson is shit at changing his computer password, but the second is irrelevant. At any rate, Pidge had stomped down on her growing crush and kicked it back into the dark, secret place in the back of her heart. It has a funny way of clawing its way back up to the light at times, though. Times like Allura laughing so hard she starts snorting, or catching her talking to the space-mice, or whenever she lets her hair down after a battle, or when she beats the training gladiator into the ground with lightning-quick, precise, majestic, fluid movements…
Okay, maybe she didn’t have this crush under as much control as she thought.
“That’s funny,” Hunk smirks at her. “I wasn’t aware ‘science’ came in the form of a six-foot-tall Altean princess.”
Now it was Pidge’s turn to fight off a burning heat on her cheeks. “It doesn’t.”
“Sure it doesn’t.” Hunk says. “I bet she looks in the mirror every morning and says, ‘dang, that is some good-looking science ’. I suppose it’s a given that you two have great chemistry .”
“Enjoy your curdled sauce.” Pidge drops the spoon to hold her hands up in surrender, walking away.
“Get your butt back here, sous-chef.” Hunk grabs the back of her shirt and gently tugs her back to the stove.
Pidge is debating the merits of kicking his shin to escape his grasp when the kitchen doors slide open and Allura walks in. She is barefoot, and instead of the long nightgown she usually wears, she is wearing a pair of pink capri sweatpants and a white and pink tank-top, baring her arms and revealing that Alteans had other V-shaped markings, the same as under their eyes, that run down the length of her arms. Her hair is tousled and messy, and the gold and cyan-blue circlet she usually wears is absent from her forehead “Good morning, Hunk, Pidge,” Allura says, hiding her wide yawn in her hand.
“Morning, princess.” Hunk greets her cheerily. Pidge, who has stopped struggling against him, goes still, brain short-circuiting at the sight of Allura’s nearly-entirely bare arms. Hunk gently prods her back to the stove and pushes the wooden spoon back in her hand. “How are you feeling? Coran said those wormhole jumps really took their toll on you.”
“I am fine.” Allura smiles, sitting down at the breakfast bar and leaning on the surface of it. “I can handle it.”
“You shouldn’t overexert yourself.” Pidge tells her. Her words draw Allura’s attention to her, though, and her gaze leaves the green paladin sputtering. “I-I mean, just, from a health standpoint. You can’t risk getting sick or something.”
“I suppose.” Allura says thoughtfully, eyes studying Pidge like she is a puzzle to be figured out. Pidge looks down at the pot, stirring vigorously just for something to do. Hunk lightly bumps her hip with his own. She steps on his foot in revenge.
~~~~~
Pidge’s focus is, understandably, zeroed-in on the battle at hand with the hundred-eyed ro-beast. This is a difficult battle, the hardest they’ve ever fought, and simply staying alive and out of the lasers’ paths commands her undivided attention.
That is, until she hears Coran shout into the team’s comms “ Princess! ” There is such raw desperation in his voice that it cuts straight to the front of her mind. Did something happen to Allura? Was she alright? Had she been hit by a stray laser? Was she…?
“Pidge!” Shiro’s voice snaps her attention back to the present. “Form shield!”
“On it!” She nods, reaching for the controls. No matter what, this battle had to take priority. Even if Allura was…
No. She didn’t let herself think about that possibility. Focus. Ro-beast. Kill it.
After the battle is over and the ro-beast is lying in a crumpled, twisted heap of metal on the surface of the Balmera, and Shiro gives them the okay to exit their lions, Pidge jumps out of her seat so fast that she nearly trips over a control joystick. Outside of her lion, she can see a crowd of Balmerans huddled near the castle-ship, all of them looking down in concern at the figure lying in Shay’s arms. Allura… no…
Pidge runs toward them just as Allura is lifting her head with a small groan. She’s alive, thank God. Someone else -- Rax, she thinks, but she doesn’t stop to take a good look at him -- shouts something about the Balmera being saved, that the princess gave enough quintessence to heal the giant creature. Shay helps Allura sit up on the ground, Coran placing a worried hand on her shoulder. She’s telling him she is fine, just as Pidge skids to a halt in front of them.
“Pidge,” Allura blinks, looking up at her in surprise. “Thank you, all of you, for defeating that--”
Pidge drops to her knees and throws her arms around her, cutting her off. “Don’t ever do something that risky again.” She tells her, her voice choked and thick with emotion.
Allura pauses for a moment, then her hands come up to hug Pidge back. “It had to be done.”
Pidge shakes her head, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. “Don’t… don’t you dare sacrifice yourself like that. We need you, the universe needs you.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I… I need you.”
Allura goes still for a moment. Her hands leave Pidge’s back, and Pidge panics; had she gone too far? But Allura simply slides her helmet off and sets it on the ground next to her. Glove-covered finger-tips tilt the green paladin’s chin up. “Pidge…”
Pidge looks up to find Allura smiling down at her. The lines in her face speak to her fatigue and the exertion she put herself through, but her eyes are warm with understanding. Her hand slides back, along her neck and into the back of her hair, as Allura leans down and presses her lips to Pidge’s. For a moment, Pidge is so stunned that she doesn’t move, but then she closes her eyes and smiles into the kiss.