Chapter Text
(Edited on the 16th for purely formatting reasons-- It should read a little prettier now :D )
Pidge kicked her heels loudly against the side of the console that she sat atop of. The others were waiting for Lance; he was due to come out of the pod any minute now. As much as she wanted to be there for him—she really did—she also knew she wouldn't be able to bear it. The others would see the deception in her face, they would know she had found something strange and hadn’t told them about it. She didn’t have it in her to lie to her family right now.
The horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach was only made worse when she accepted the fact that she didn’t have all the facts. She was no help to anyone like this, all hyped up on exhaustion, frayed nerves, and half-truths. She wasn’t sure about what she’d found, and she hated being so uncertain, but no one would tell her anything. She couldn’t tell the other Paladins because she didn’t want them to worry if there really was nothing to worry about. Then again, she didn’t know for sure that there was nothing to worry about. She had to find out, get the solid facts that she loved so much. She needed to talk to Allura.
Her heels continued their assault on the console. Thud thud. Thud thud.
Sitting on her hands, she started to nibble on her lower lip. Nail-biting was not a habit she needed to pick back up in space; Lance already got on her case about chewing on her hair, and fidgeting with her ‘glasses’.
She looked forward to having him badger her again.
She also hoped he appreciated the effort that she’d made to not chew on her extremities despite his absence.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
Her hunches were normally spot on, she just wasn’t sure about this...
When Lance had first gone into the pod, Coran had come to her with a theory, not knowing the something about adjusting the pods so that a tablet could be used as an interface, even across the castle, as a way to keep an eye on the occupants without being in the infirmary itself.
That had been easy- really, it was a wonder the Alteans hadn’t already had such a system in place. She’d mentioned as much, and Coran had said something about privacy matters; which she understood. It would be a lot easier to nefariously hack into any of their medical files once she linked up the pods to the castle’s internal wireless network- but there were only the seven of them living here; plus the mice. Add to that the fact that five of them regularly shared thoughts, there wasn’t much reason to keep that information so restricted. The Paladins had quickly learnt how to respect the few boundaries they still had. The important ones at least.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
Besides, she’d yet to meet anyone who was able to crack her firewalls.
Pidge and Coran had then tested the program. She’d hooked up her tablet to the pods through the network, and had been able to successfully see the live data stream coming from Lance’s pod wherever she went in the castle.
What had confused her, though?, was that the data she’d received couldn’t possibly be right. The data was different- changed somehow, and definitely not the readings you’d expect to see coming off a human being.
Coran had assured her it was because the pod was in the middle of a healing sequence, and that the toxin had slightly disrupted the systems. They were simply getting faulty readings, he explained. Lance was fine.
The expression on Coran’s face hadn’t been quite innocent enough for Pidge to buy his story. Not to mention she knew that if they were in fact ‘faulty readings’, Coran would have had her double check the system to make sure those faults weren’t simply a consequence of her dabbling with the program’s code. He hadn’t asked her for that double check, so the only thing she could do was assume that he had information that she was lacking. Information, that told him the readings were in fact, not faulty. Information, that he was clearly unwilling, or unable to share with her.
Katie’d double-checked, triple-checked, just to be sure. Then she’d dug on her own, keeping a constant eye on Lance’s stats, (of all of the paladins, she didn’t think Lance would mind,) and used her quickly growing knowledge of Altean to pillage the Castle’s database for other records of strange readings in the past.
The data from Lance’s pod had mostly straightened itself out over the next day. Still, the numbers that she was seeing… they weren’t quite right, and she was worried that that meant Lance wouldn’t be quite right. The thought terrified her.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
Coran kept saying things like: ‘the odd readings you’re seeing is probably just the result of Lance being a Paladin with a magical mind link to a mechanical lion!’, or ‘the technology is 10,000 years old after all, it’s allowed to jitter and slide a bump!’. She was seriously considering zapping him with her Bayard. He must think she’s an idiot. Of course she knew that all of their Brain scans had changed after finding, and bonding with their lions. She also knew how to take that data into consideration, and she knew that the abnormalities she was seeing with Lance’s medical results was something else entirely.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
Using several key words, and the little data she did have to create search parameters, Pidge’d written a little search program. It hadn’t taken long to find the old Altean medical files, with medical reports that could have come straight from a movie.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
That was why she wanted to talk to Allura. She needed someone to either straight out confirm or deny her findings. Cornering the princess was about the only option she had left.
Thud thud. Thud thud.
Katie needed to know what was happening to Lance. It could be nothing-
Thud thud. Thud thud.
-but at the same time it could be everything
Thud thud. Thud thud.
Allura wasn’t surprised at all to find a frustrated, and somewhat offended Green Paladin waiting for her on the bridge. From Pidge's actions, and questions of late, Allura would be lying if she said she hadn’t been expecting this ambush.
“Allura-“ Pidge started as she entered the room.
“Hold on one tick,” Allura interrupted, closing, and then locking the doors to the bridge. She didn’t want to be caught off guard by another Paladin.
Pidge’s eyes widened when she realized what Allura was doing.
“There,” Allura said as she finished, and leant calmly against the console across from the Green Paladin. “Now we can safely talk. Oh! And Coran said that he’d save us some of Hunk’s feast.”
Pidge’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food, and Allura smiled softly in sympathy. There would be no food goo tonight: Hunk had scoured their supplies, even taken a trip down to a nearby planet in search of anything he could use in celebration of Lance’s, (and Keith’s,) recovery. Allura knew it would be amazing, as it always was.
“Lance,” Pidge asked hesitantly, “is he... doing okay?”
Nodding slowly, Allura spoke. “I don’t know if Keith is ever going to forgive him for almost breaking his promise and leaving Keith alone,” Shiro had said as much and Allura agreed with his assessment, “but Lance is doing well.”
Pidge nodded nervously, then not wanting to prolong the issue any longer, handed Allura her tablet. “Here.”
The princess reached out, and sighed apprehensively as she read through what Pidge had pulled up. It was- more intense than she’d been expecting, Pidge was certainly thorough in her investigations.
“Explain that to me, please?” Pidge asked quietly. “When it talks about neural pathways and electrical impulses, I get that. I get that and what it says scares me.” Pidge took a deep breath. “The-the parts where it talks about altering Quintessence though… Allura please tell me I’ve got this all wrong, tell me he’s going to be fine.”
“I can tell you that he appears to be recovering well; and due to the simple detail that he’s human- rather than Altean, it is my hope that circumstances such as these will not come to pass. Pidge, please remember that although the reports that you read are indeed alarming, by no means does it mean that the outcome they illustrate is a certainty. The odds-”
“Are high,” Pidge interrupted, and Allura frowned. “Don’t even try to tell me otherwise,” The Green Paladin continued. “When the individual in question has been exposed to high amounts of quintessence in the past? Like the quintessence that a Paladin is exposed to constantly? Then the odds are even worse. And if you consider the fact that Lance was exposed to the toxin steadily over the course of almost a month, and the torture he endured-“ Pidge gulped, “with the side effect of added adrenaline, and then the sedative we gave him—Allura, the odds-.”
“He spoke with Blue,” Allura offered desperately, a last ditched effort to stop Pidge in her tracks, and hopefully avoid further confrontation on the subject. It only half worked.
“He- wait, really?” Pidge looked up with the first semblance of relief in her eyes since Allura had walked into the room.
Allura nodded slowly. “It was one of the first things we checked when he got out of the pod.”
“So- he’s fine then?” Pidge seemed nervous to even say it.
The Princess smiled nervously. “It seems so. Theoretically there- well there could still be other side effects, but I’m hopeful- as his bond with his lion is unaffected, that little else will come of the toxin.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say that to start with?”
“I wasn’t aware I needed to,” Allura hedged, knowing it wouldn’t fly with the intelligent Paladin. She’d wanted to see how much Pidge knew before she said anything more. It wouldn’t have done to worry her further by giving her details she didn’t already have. There was no need to be concerned about that now though, Pidge had found all there was to find on Lance’s situation, and it seemed, perhaps even more.
“Right.” Pidge frowned, and called her bluff. “So then, if it’s no big deal, why have you been avoiding me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Allura lied, and she had a little trouble maintaining eye contact as Pidge’s piercing gaze bore through her.
“Yeah, you do. You’ve been avoiding me—and this topic—for days. Ever since I found out something was wrong, you’ve always had somewhere more important to be, and you wouldn’t let Coran tell me anything either.
Allura bit her lip. Everything Pidge said was true- but she didn’t understand. Allura had been trying to avoid this whole ordeal.
Knowing wouldn’t do them any good—
There was nothing that the Paladins could—
Their knowledge of this would do absolutely nothing to improve the situation.
Pidge continued, oblivious to Allura’s internal rationalization of her earlier decisions.
“Lance could have lost his connection to Blue because of this; and you didn’t think that we, his fellow Paladins, had a right to know? What if that connection had been affected? Do you think that any of us would have been okay knowing that we could have tried to help, that we might have been able to do something, but you just didn’t think it was important enough to tell us?”
Not just Lance, Allura thought, but she’d never say that, it was her final secret in a vain effort to protect them. She kept her voice firm as she lied through her teeth. “Pidge. There was absolutely no way to know if Lance would suffer any ill effects due to the toxin after emerging from the pod. I thought everyone had enough to worry about without adding this to their bowls.”
“Plates,” Pidge automatically corrected. “And that doesn’t mean you get to decide what information we are allowed to have. It ended badly when you didn’t tell us what we needed to know about Zarkon, what made you think that this was any different?”
“It is my job to care for the Paladins of Voltron as best I see fit. I saw fit to keep this to myself.”
Pidge frowned. “No, that’s not good enough. We had a right to know as soon as you did. Lance has a right to know now. Are you going to tell him?”
“If it affects his responsibilities as a Paladin, I suppose I’ll have to-“
“Wrong answer. Yes, you will tell him.” Pidge instructed.
“Paladin!” Allura scolded, trying to appeal to the duty of the warrior rather than the heart of the girl, but the Green Paladin simply brushed her tone away. Allura should have realized, should have remembered that family always came first for Pidge, it always had. It was just unfortunate that Pidge couldn’t see that protecting her family; their family, was exactly what Allura was trying to do.
“No. You are going to tell him. You’re going to tell everyone.”
“Pidge-“
“And don’t think I missed the little detail you’ve been avoiding, that Keith may have also been affected.”
Quiznack.
“I just haven’t had an excuse to gather the data I need to confirm it. I will as soon as I get the chance, and when I find out, I will tell Keith what I’ve found,” she threatened. “Unless you’ve already told them, Allura, I will.”
There was a long pause.
“Paladin, please be reasonable.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk. I get that you have a lot going on, but you’re not the only one. We almost lost Shiro for good- and then right after that whole ordeal, Lance and Keith were kidnapped from us for nearly a month. Those were not fun times Allura, for any of us. So- fill me in. What’s going on? Did you just not think we could handle it?”
“Now Pidge-“
“No, you know what?” Pidge interrupted, “Never mind. Even if you had lost faith in us, that doesn’t give you the right to keep things like this to yourself.”
“I never lost faith,” Allura said coldly, “I never once lost faith in you. Never lost faith that you could fight the endless battles, never lost faith that you would find each other. Never. I promise you that.”
Pidge stared for a moment, judging, evaluating with her calculated gaze before finally nodding. “Fine. I do believe you, but you’d better have a darn good reason for what you’ve done when you explain this all later to the others.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider-” keeping this between us for a while? As she saw the hostile expression that begin to emerge on Pidge’s face, she opted to keep the end to herself.
“Nope. It’s your castle, your war, your tech. But this is my family. It’s their health, and something like this is never your call to make. They deserve to know. All of them. All of us.”
The silence was far too long to be amiable, or comfortable. “Alright,” Allura agreed at last, her voice small. It wasn’t what she’d wanted- but she couldn’t risk the faith of the Paladins any more than she clearly had. This was not how things were supposed to be; and for the thousandth time, she wished that she could ask for her father’s advice.
“Good.” Pidge fidgeted nervously, sitting on her hands to avoid biting them. “You have until lunch tomorrow. And Princess?”
Allura dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement, knowing she really had no other choice. The Green Paladin really was a force to be reckoned with.
“Allura? Don’t ever try to lie to me again. What you did? You may not realize it yet, but that hurt my family—and I don’t like it when my family is hurt.” Pidge narrowed her eyes for a cold moment, then jumped down off the console and headed towards the door, unlocking it from her tablet as she walked.
“Now, you said something about food?”
Allura nodded weakly.
“C’mmon then. If we hurry, we might not be too late.”