Chapter Text
"Lance watch my six," Keith shouted over the sound of blaster fire. "I'm heading in."
Lance grunted in affirmation as he let out a few more shots, each one hitting its target with deadly accuracy. He turned to see Keith starting off towards the mouth of the cave at a light jog.
"Be careful. We still don't know what's in there," he said, switching over to the comms as Keith got further away. His voice took on a softer, more worried quality.
"Yeah yeah, just keep an eye out. I'll be back before you know it," Keith huffed into the mic.
There was, thankfully, no enemies in sight after a moment. Lance grinned a bit. Sure they were busy on a mission, but that never stopped Lance from talking. He was silently thankful for the closed comm systems, not so fondly recalling times with open comms.
"Hey, so I was thinking.." Lance trailed off, waiting for a response from Keith to know that he was listening.
"That's dangerous," Keith teased between huffs of breath as his mic came on.
Lance rolled his eyes playfully even though Keith couldn't see. His smile never left his features. "Like I was saying.. I was thinking maybe after debriefing and dinner with everyone, we have some time to ourselves..?"
Keith huffed out a laugh. Lance could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke. "Well we are right now. Don't you miss Hunk and Pidge? They were off on their mission before we left the castleship."
"I mean of course I miss them. Also hey-! This isn't the same. I don't count being under enemy fire while we retrieve some items and go after an unknown thing- which by the way I don't fully approve of- as alone time."
Keith let out a light laugh. "Alright alright.." He made a small surprised noise. "Almost there.. But so have anything in mind for tonight, Love?” Lance pleasantly flushed at the pet name even if Keith said it in a joking manner.
“I was thinking you, me, and a nice- shit hold on more sentries heading this way.” Lance cursed again, and there was the sound of blaster fire. Lance piped up again after a moment. “Hey, how much longer you think you have in there because I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold all of these guys off by myself for too much longer.”
Keith scowled not liking the sound of that. He’d turn back but he was nearly on top of whatever was causing the signal they picked up when they landed on the planet. “Just give me 5,” he grunted out. Lance let that be and continued to fire at the sentries. He idly listened for anything from Keith as he concentrated. As time ticked by, Keith called out to Lance again.
“Honestly I don’t know what this even is..? Some.. Box? I.. I’m going to scan it and if it’s okay I’ll bring it back for Pidge and Hunk to get a look at,” he said idly. It was the last thing that Lance heard from Keith before he let out a loud yelp into the comms, and it all went to static. Lance was kicked into high alert.
“You have to be shitting me,” he spat out as he shot down the last few sentries in his line of sight. Hoping he didn’t get caught from behind, Lance quickly turned on his heel and headed down into the mouth of the cave. If he wasn’t so worried about Keith’s reckless ass, he’d be cursing him out on the comms even with the static going. Lance flipped the controls so he was connected to the team wide channel.
“I’m having some issues. Keith went into this place alone, and all I’m getting on the comm is static from him. I’m heading in and may need backup.”
Keith woke with a groan. A migraine had clearly set in and whatever.. Well whatever had happened with that device clearly caused him this distress. It was no surprise, but migraines were never something that he welcomed. As he began to become more aware of his surroundings, Keith took note that he was in bed.
‘Huh, must have been not bad enough to put me in a pod?’
Keith sat up, hissing at the stiffness of his muscles and the way his head throbbed with each movement. As the sheets fell down around him he took note of another thing: he was still wearing his paladin armor. Quickly his eyes darted from the banged up armor to the room. The walls were bare. There was no sign that it was even really lived in. More importantly there was no sign of Lance. He quickly reached out a hand and materialized his bayard out of caution. Carefully Keith got out of bed, slowly moving the sheets away.
Something seems terribly wrong.
Keith didn’t dare call out to the others yet. For all he knows this could possibly not even be the castleship.When he made it into the hall, Keith took note that you looks just like the hall he travels down every night. Despite that familiarity he pressed on, heading towards the more inhabited places of the castle.
It was eerily quiet, something at times Keith wouldn’t bat an eye at, yet in this moment it was undeniably unsettling. The only noise was the gentle thrum of the castle’s thrusters. Despite his unease, Keith pressed on.
Keith carefully peered around the corner into the dining hall. His eyes swept the room over and, ah, bingo. There was someone else. Someone familiar yet-
“Pidge?” The form that was slumped over a keyboard sat up, pushing their glasses back onto their face.
“Well you’re up early.. Also what’s with your voice you-...” Pidge paused as she looked over at him. Her face screwed up in confusion. “Why are you wearing your armor..?”
Keith took up the defence, stepping fully into the doorway and holding up his bayard. This is wrong. This is so so wrong. This.. Pidge was much too young to be the real Pidge. It was almost like he stepped right back into the past which, to him, was ridiculous. Sure the whole alternate realities is a thing but-but come on getting shot into the past?? It’s more likely that he was knocked out and this is some mind trick.. And if that’s so then Lance must be in trouble.
“Hey, what the hell is the big idea-” Keith ignored this Pidge and switched the comms on.
“Lance?.. Lance do you copy?” Just static. “Lance I swear if you’re just messing with me, I’m kicking you out of the room tonight,” he hissed into his mic, eyes never leaving Pidge who now shot up out of her seat. Still he just got static. He left the comm connection on just in case he’d get a response.
He softly cursed and took a step towards Pidge. “Alright I don’t know who you are, but this is a pretty fucking sick trick to play on me. You know if you guys really wanted to get me you’d, I don’t know, try to at least look like my family? You can drop the act. Lets just get to business.”
Pidge gave him another look and took a slight step back. “What the hell are you talking about, Keith. Have you gone fucking insane?” Her hand flew to her hip, and she brought up her bayard. “Don’t move a step closer,” she ground out.
They had a bit of a stare down. That was until another person walked into the room.
Keith’s ears were ringing and the lighting in here was too much and, shit, it was all too much to think of with a migraine raging on. He didn’t even bother to see who it was before bringing his free hand to his sword. When he pulled it away, his bayard transformed again. This time he was dual wielding much slimmer swords. Whoever just entered made a startled noise.
“Stay back,” Keith ground out. His vision went a bit blurry and before he could do anything his bayard reverted back to its original state as he fainted.
“--perfect DNA match.”
“-- but he’s missing and--”
“It can’t be Keith.”
“--another missing black paladin-”
The muffled voices and stilted conversations could be faintly heard from inside the healing pod as Keith began waking in stages. Quickly the front dematerialized. Keith slumped forward, awake enough to register the started noises of the others but not enough to fully regain function of his limbs. He fell into someone’s warm embrace.
“Woah, he’s a lot bigger,” the warm body muttered.
Lance.
Keith leaned further into his embrace. It wasn’t nearly as solid or as tall as he was used to, but in this foggy state of mind he didn’t notice nor care. All that he cared about was being closer to Lance.
Keith hummed contently. “I had the weirdest dream in the pod,” he mumbled and did his best to wrap his arms around Lance’s form. “I was in some.. Trap? But it, mmm, seemed like the past.”
Lance went rod stiff at Keith’s cuddly affection, face flushing a bright red.
“U-Uhm hey there buddy, I think you got the wrong person..?”
Keith tried to blink away that medically induced drowsiness. He wobbly pushed a bit away from Lance to look at him. He tried to stand up straight and rather than looking up at Lance like usual, he was looking slightly down on him. “..Lance?” He scowled a bit. Oh no his dream was.. Is it still going? Is.. Is it not a dream??
He continued to scowl and inspect this Lance. He was hoping maybe.. Maybe he was just seeing things, but… But his hair was different and-
“You look so young.. And your scars are gone,” He said, hand shooting out to brush along his jawline. Lance looked startled and pulled further away from Keith with wide eyes and a flushed face.
“W-Woah there.. Personal space haha..”
Keith felt like he was going to be sick. Was he still stuck in some twisted mindscape again? Where was his team-his family? Keith quickly backed up, closer to the pod as he looked at the others. All of them were so young and rather untouched looking. Yeah he was going to be sick..
“Why don’t we get you a seat and something to eat and drink,” Shiro spoke up. He looked concerned. And oh.. Oh, he was so young too. He was probably about Keith’s age from the looks of it.
Keith swayed on his feet, and Coran rushed in to lead him to the dining hall once again. He seemed a bit uneasy for a brief moment before he was back to his usual manners. Coran joked a bit and sat Keith down before grabbing him some water and a bowl of food goo.
Keith was frozen for a moment and the others lingered around him. Slowly he began eating and nursing the water as he went. He tried not to think too hard. He felt the edges of a headache returning, and that was the last thing he wanted on top of this all. Eventually he caught onto the daggers Allura was shooting his way.
“What?” His voice held no malice. He was just unbelievably tired sounding.
“He must be a Galra spy,” she said shortly, not addressing Keith but the others.
“But the results said it’s 100% Keith,” Hunk said wearily.
Pidge huffed. “Yeah and I mean didn’t he just mention something about being in the past? I mean he was acting like I was putting on some act and looking like myself but.. Not? Maybe he’s from the future and is just really confused about it..?”
Keith groaned, dropping his spoonful of goo back into the bowl. “You’re doing that thing where you talk about me when I’m still in the room.” His tone held some fondness to it, and once the words left his mouth he looked a bit uneasy again.
There was silence for a beat before this time Lance spoke up. “I mean we’ve been into an alternate reality.. Is it really that far fetched to say that he’s from the future..? Maybe.. Maybe that’s also what happened to our Keith...? Maybe he’s switched places with this one..?”
The others seemed to think on this, and, finally, Shiro spoke up with a heavy sigh. “From the future or not lets.. Lets just let Keith get his bearings and then ask some questions.” He looked over to Keith who just gave curt nod before going back to eating.
Keith pushed his bowl away with a sigh. “Could you all maybe.. Sit down? It’s a bit overwhelming being crowded like this.”
With one look from Shiro the others found a seat at the table that Keith was heading. Keith wasn’t exactly ready nor looking forward to this interrogation and decided he’d just let them know what he knows right off the bat.
“Alright look.. The last thing I recall I was out on a mission with Lance on Thurn B1. We were supposed to go in and grab some stuff from the Galra base there and get out. Easy enough. I, uh.. Well I picked up an unknown signal on the planet. It wasn’t too far from the base that we were to infiltrate and so I decided to check it out. Lance was on lookout since I had to run into this cave… Anyway I found this sort of.. Well honestly I can’t even remember what it looked like, but I found this item and when I touched it I-... well next thing I know I turn up in bed in a room I don’t recognize and that’s all.”
Hunk looked a bit confused. “Do you not stay on the castleship?”
Keith gave him a bit of a look. “Of course I do. We all do.”
“Then why didn’t you recognize the room..?”
Keith opened his mouth to speak and shut it for a moment before looking a bit somber. His gaze flicked over to Lance. “We’ve gathered a lot of things over the years, and I guess I’m just used to the clutter of things.” The others nodded in a bit of understanding.
“I do hope you understand that we must ask you a few personal questions to ensure that you’re truly who you claim to be,”Allura said and tilted her chin up some.
Keith just nodded along. “Fully understandable.”
“Great. Then we shall begin.”
Keith was never fond of interrogations. He found them exhausting on either side of things. It was grueling and full of memories that he rather let lie. In the end, though, he gained the trust of the others and was painfully aware he was far from home at least time wise. On top of it all, the others had many more questions regarding the future. The four of them, Allura, Coran, Shiro and himself, deemed the possibility of sharing too much information about the future could be detrimental, even if this was a case of breaching into an alternate reality.
“Okay but seriously I don’t see how it was severely alter the future if I find out if and who I end up with,” Lance said with a huff.
Keith looked fond for a moment and sighed. “Look.. I’ll let you know that you do end up with someone some point in the future, but I won’t let you know how long it lasts or who it’s with. That kind of information could change things,” he said simply hoping it will be satisfying enough of an answer. Lance seemed to perk up some at that and began gloating a bit. Keith is reminded of when they got engaged, and Lance would constantly remind the others.
“Lance could you give me a hand with this,” Allura spoke from across the control room. Lance threw her a wide grin and hopped up from his spot.
“Of course Princess,” he purred as he walked over. “I’ll give you my hand.. With my engagement ring on it! Look at it!” He squealed flashing the ring at Allura. She sighed and gave Lance a bit of a tired look.
“Yes Lance. I’m happy for you two but I would really appreciate it if you could maybe help me out !”
~
Lance was lounging beside Pidge waiting for his turn on the game system.
“You know what’s better than my skills at this game?”
“Anything because you suck..?” Lance huffed at that.
“No, really that was rude Pidgey. Anyway ignoring that .. What’s better is being engaged,” he said and reached his hand out in front of Pidge’s face to show off his ring. She let out a shout and tried to shove his hand away but it was too late. Her player died.
“Asshole.”
At the wave of memories, Keith’s hand moved up to feel for the necklace he wore with his engagement ring looped through it. It was missing.
“Where’s my stuff,” his voice sounded clipped, and Lance stopped in his gloating, looking slightly concerned. Coran pulled at his mustache and nodded.
“Ah, I set it aside when we got you into a pod. Don’t worry you’ll be able to get it after.” With that settled, though Keith felt a bit off kilter without the ring to ground him, they laughed right into another set of questions.
“How’d you get your bayard to do that?”
“Lots of practice.”
“Where’d you get those scars?”
“.. Are you joking? We’re in the middle of a war. Next.”
“Man you’re oooold.”
That last one wasn’t a question but instead an observation from Lance. Keith scowled some. “Well I mean.. Yeah I guess. I’m like around Shiro’s current age. What’d you expect? I’m from the future.” Ah, that was still odd admitting at this point.
Shiro heaved a sigh and stood. “I think we should give him some space. We still have a lot to figure out. We don’t even know when and how we can get both Keith’s returned to their time.” A somber mood washed over the team, and they all began getting up. Coran and Allura waved the others along, but Shiro lingered. Keith got up with a sigh and glanced over to him when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve got some clothes you could probably use. You should take a breather and let everything process. We’ll get on the case of getting you back,” he said softly and offered a small smile, giving Keith’s shoulder a small squeeze.
Keith looked a bit pained for a moment. He missed everyone already even if he was technically surrounded by them still. “I’ll take a moment to myself, but I’ve got to help everyone else out. After all I’m the only one who even kind of knows what I touched.” Shiro nodded at that.
“Alright. Don’t overextend yourself.”
Keith smiled some. “Yeah yeah.. You should learn to take your own advice from time to time.” That time he got a small chuckle out of Shiro.
“Alright let's get you something to change into and give you your items back.”
Once he was dressed and got a moment to take a breather, Keith headed back out to assist the others. They didn’t figure much out about a time travel device in the ship’s archives nor Coran’s vast knowledge, but they did manage to pinpoint the planet Keith had found it on.
“Well I say we all get some rest. We’ll be at Thurn B1 in roughly a quintent. We must be ready to act quickly and effectively if we want to get things back in order.” Everyone nodded along and began heading out to their respective rooms. Keith began to become even more aware that he’d be sleeping alone tonight. Silently he hoped it would only be tonight.
Keith layed in bed for a good while before deciding that he could not, in fact, sleep. With a bit of hesitation, Keith snuck out of his room. His socked feet padded on the cold metal floors of the ship as he made his way to the observation deck. He frowned a bit recalling that most nights he would do this, Lance would be by his side with a large blanket in hand. “You worry too much,” Lance would tease in a soft whisper though Keith would notice the way his shoulders would seem tense and too many times he would frown deep in thought.
He sat down on the floor to stare out at the stars. “You know.. I kind of miss being able to make out constellations in the sky,” Lance would mumble as he pulled the blanket around both of their shoulders. Keith would scoot closer until he was later sitting in Lance’s lap, head tucked under his chin, only just barely looking out to the stars at this point.
Keith scrubbed at his burning eyes with the back of his hand. He really hoped Lance was okay. He left him alone with no cover and if his younger self was out there and without his bayard and suit well.. Keith let out a shaky breath. He was pulled from his thoughts at the sound of someone else coming into the room. He quickly turned to look at this younger Lance decked out in his pajamas and lion slippers, a blanket pulled snug around himself.
“..Keith? What are you doing out here?” Keith’s shoulders slumped, and he took on a somber look again.
“Couldn’t sleep.. I came out here to think I guess… Uhm.. If you want you can join me? Or I can leave. I know this is your place to think and all,” he rambled a bit and moved to get up. Lance quickly shook his head and stopped him.
“No no it’s fine I… If you don’t mind I think I’ll join you.”
He sat down next to Keith, a few feet between them. There was silence between the two of them for a moment.
“I didn’t know you like to think here too,” Lance said softly and pulled the blanket a bit tighter around himself.
Keith smiled a bit to himself as he looked out to the stars. “I didn’t used to..”
It was before they were ever really dating. Lance was heading out to the observation deck when he spotted Keith in the training room. He wasn’t even really doing much vigorous training just taking stabs at any targets, all of which were unbelievably easy to hit. Lance faltered for a moment before heading in and calling out to end the training. Keith huffed and shot him a bit of a look.
“Why’d you do that?” Keith demanded though he didn’t sound exactly upset over it.
“You aren’t asleep,” Lance observed and Keith snorted, reverting his bayard to its original form.
“Yeah and neither are you.”
“I was going to the observation deck to think,” Lance said simply with a shrug. Keith frowned a bit. He knew of at least some of Lance’s insecurities and some worries. “Do.. Do you want to join me?” He asked with a bit of hesitation. It was embarrassing how fast Keith agreed.
Lance just nodded and looked back out at the stars, silence once again falling over them. They sat like that for a while, vargas probably. Lance grew tired and yawned before standing. “I’m heading in.. you should probably too,” he said with a small sleepy smile. Keith nodded but made no move to get up. “I’ll see you in the morning, Lance.”
Lance frowned slightly but nodded. “See you..”
Keith was left alone and to his thoughts once again. His hand moved to pull out the ring and worry it between his fingers, trying to find some comfort in the movement. Sleep eluded him that night.