Chapter Text
He should’ve been happy.
He should’ve been happy that the mission was a success. He should’ve been happy that he’d gotten out, that they’d both gotten away from the enemy forces relatively unscathed. That being double crossed hadn’t resulted in something catastrophic.
He should’ve been happy when his fingers curled around the hilt of his Blade—her Blade—when she handed it back to him. He should’ve been happy seeing the set of her jaw and the shape of her eyes, features familiar to him in a way that made his chest ache like he couldn’t put words to.
He should’ve been happy, when his mind replayed the words she’d said: “I left you once. I’ll never leave you again.” He should’ve been happy that he found her, after all this time, out of all the places in the universe she could’ve been.
He should’ve been happy, but instead he saw red.
Keith didn’t want to be angry with her. He really didn’t. Because some part of him—the part of him that will always be a Paladin, regardless of how many missions he goes on with the Blade—understood what Krolia did on a very real level. A very practical level. They were at war, and she wanted to protect him in whatever way she could. He got that. He knew the importance of keeping people safe, even if it meant making some hard decisions in order to do that. No one understood that more than he did. And she had a duty to the universe, a job to do, and a baby on her hip would’ve vastly hindered her ability to do that job. He got it. He really did.
Still, there was an uncomfortable warmth flushing his face, and his heart hammered loudly in his ears, and his fingers were tightened into quivering fists as he turned on his heel and stalked away from her the moment their ship landed.
She abandoned you, some voice in his head seemed to snarl, and he couldn’t breathe. She left you alone. She didn’t tell you who you are, or what you are, and she left you to figure it out yourself. She abandoned you on a planet you don’t belong to, and she left you alone. All alone.
His heart lurched at the thought. She hadn’t even left a note—just this bizarre, purple knife that nearly got him killed, and some pretty deep-seated abandonment issues.
He’d only checked in with Kolivan briefly after the mission, before heading out to clear his head. The interaction was probably a little less professional than it should’ve been, a little more telling than requesting permission, but there was a war in his chest and in his head, and he couldn’t breathe, and he needed to get out of there. Needed to think. He’d deal with the consequences later.
He didn’t realize where he was going until he was landing his borrowed Marmorian flyer, the Castle of Lions breaking the horizon in front of him.
He hesitated, hands tightening around the controls. He shouldn’t be here, he knew, he didn’t belong here anymore. He’d made that choice. He’d walked away from the team, from Voltron, and they’d said that they understood but… no one could be that forgiving. He should know. He’s had plenty of experience with people walking away, and it was never that easy. Case in point.
Before he could power the ship back up, fly away and disappear into the atmosphere without a trace, a light on his dash started blinking, flashing. An incoming transmission. He sighed, plans of retreat fading away as he flicked a small switch and a video feed crackled to life, projected onto the windshield in front of him.
Allura and Shiro’s faces filled the image, and Keith could see Pidge, Hunk and Lance further back in the bridge, in formation. “Hi, Shiro—hi, Allura.”
Shiro looked… far more concerned than Keith was comfortable with, like he was awaiting bad news. “Kolivan? Is everything alright?”
Keith blinked for a tick, confused, before remembering. “Oh. Right.” He let the mask fade from his face, offering something as close to a smile as he could muster. “Sorry.”
“Keith!”
Without a breath, his friends’ faces filled the projection, and Keith’s forced smile turned genuine as he caught the excitement in their eyes, professional air broken as they crowded together, pressing close to try and get a better look at him.
“Haven’t heard from you in forever, buddy!” Hunk whooped, and honest-to-God, it looked like there might be tears forming in his eyes. “What’s the occasion?”
Keith’s resolve wavered, a pang of guilt in his chest. He hadn’t caught up with the team, in a while, he knew, he just… hadn’t realized it had gotten to the point where they needed an occasion to see each other. He especially didn’t want them to think something monumental had to be happening in order for him to get in contact with them—
—and, quiznak, that’s exactly what was happening, wasn’t it?
He forced his smile a little bit more, hoping to cover up the unsteadiness he felt. “No occasion,” he assured with a shrug. “Just got back from a mission and I had a bit of down time, so I figured I’d come by.” He remembered their grim faces from before, though, and something tightened in his chest, because, wow. He hadn’t even thought about whether or not they’d be too busy, in the midst of a war, and all.
Then again, he hadn’t exactly planned on landing on their doorstep either, so. There’s that.
He winced slightly. “Are you—are you busy?”
And though they were all present and vying for space on the screen, it was Shiro, who had stepped back slightly to allow the other paladins space, that smiled warmly at him. “Never too busy for you, kid. Come on up—we’re in the bridge.”
Keith’s smile grew, just a fraction, and he tilted his head into a nod dutifully. “Yes, sir.”
Walking through the Castle had an undeniable calming effect on him. It didn’t feel like his head was pounding, anymore, like he was about to blow his top at the slightest thought of her. In fact, as he walked through the halls and up to the bridge, he almost felt sorry, that he’d been so angry, that his head had spun so much, that he’d treated her that way. After she just saved his life. For a second time.
But the Castle was familiar. The almost too-clean, museum-esque vibe it had, high-tech and full of all this incredible equipment, but so much more than that. It was the place where they’d had a food fight, that first week, when they tried so hard to form Voltron and couldn’t because they weren’t a team, quite yet. The place where they trained, where they worked, where they improved. The place that took their blood, sweat, and tears in stride and turned them around to make them better—better soldiers, better teammates, better people. It was the place where they slept, where they let their guard down and could be vulnerable, a home in every sense of the word. Their magical, flying, spaceship of a home.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed those walls.
He’d barely crossed the threshold of the bridge when he was being barreled over—first by Pidge who, despite her size, was agile and solid, coming at him straight on and ramming into him while throwing her arms around his waist. Then Hunk was there, tall and wide, strong arms lifting both him and Pidge as he spun them around, crowing his name. The second his feet hit the floor again, Lance was pinned to his back, clinging to him like a koala with no intention of letting go.
For a moment, he forgot about Krolia. He forgot the turmoil he’d felt, the warring pains in his chest, the confusion and the doubt and the anger. Because Pidge’s shoulders were shaking slightly against him, and Hunk’s fingers grasped at his arms like they weren’t sure they’d ever be able to again, and Lance bent his neck to rest his head on Keith’s shoulder as he breathed slowly, controlled, like he wanted to savor every second of the moment.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his friends.
And he let the moment stretch on for a tick or ten longer than he normally would’ve, returning the gesture as much as he could with arms that had been pinned to him and free range of motion in only one elbow. Still. The sentiment was there.
Finally they drew back, and though Pidge wasn’t the only one sniffling slightly, they silently agreed not to talk about it. No longer constrained to the bone-crushing grasp of his former teammates, Keith noticed Allura and Shiro standing close by with smiles of their own. Keith was a little surprised when Allura stepped forward first to greet him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in close. A warm gesture that immediately brought something inside Keith to ease, something he hadn’t realized had been coiled and nervous, and he was grateful for that.
When the embrace broke, he turned to Shiro, who had narrowed his eyes at him. “You never call, you never write,” Shiro said, like a sigh, but there was a smile on his lips still, and Keith felt his own smile growing a bit. “Then you just show up, unannounced, and make my team cry. What’s the matter with you?”
Keith chuckled a little as Shiro pulled him into a hug, gripping the paladin. “You want a list? I could probably make you a list.”
“Ooh,” Lance hummed from behind them, as they broke apart, “start with the mullet. Seriously, dude. Gotta get a haircut.”
Keith turned his head slightly to look at him. Despite the jab, there was something fond in Lance’s eyes, something that Keith relished in. “Hey, Lance?”
The Blue-turned-Red Paladin stood up a little straighter. “Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
The corner of Lance’s mouth twitched into a smile, but he gave a dutiful two-fingered salute. “Copy that.”
Keith’s smile lingered as he glanced around the bridge. Nothing had changed, really, except for the fact that Matt was there, lounging in Pidge’s chair, typing away with his eyes glued to a string of commands on the screen in front of him. It was weird, to see him like this—in person, alive and well, working. Not just in some headshot in the news, headlined with big block letters that read: DISASTER STRIKES AT THE KERBEROS MISSION.
He’d spent so long, staring at those articles. Newspaper after newspaper, clippings and photos and headlines tacked to a corkboard in his shack. Searching and hoping and failing to put together the clues, the hints, so focused on finding Shiro that he’d gone a little stir-crazy with it. Until he let himself stop, and breathe, and feel that pull of the desert that he knew now was Blue’s doing. Calling him to action.
His smiled flickered a little when he noticed the files strewn around the room, the screens full of data and maps and security programs. Again, he remembered their solemn expressions when he’d first called, as if waiting for the final shoe to drop. He glanced at his former teammates again, wincing. “Am I interrupting something?”
Pidge smiled a little and offered a small shake of her head. “No, not really. Just—the Castle took… quite a beating, earlier. We’re just trying to make sure the oxygen regulators are up and functional, again.”
He blinked, eyes widening. “What do you mean, again? They weren’t functional?”
There was a gleam of excitement in her eyes as she grabbed his arm, tugging him over to the main screen and nodding to what seemed like a… big, white smear?
“We found a white hole,” she informed him, and there was something akin to awe in her voice. “A white hole, Keith! It was emitting these massive waves of energy, just out of nowhere at all, and Allura and Lotor went in and there was a White Lion. The radiation coming off of it was crazy! It was just so fascinating.”
Joining them at the center, Lance let out a snort. “Yeah, if losing all power in the Castle, the Lions, the generators and the backup generators is fascinating, I guess you’re right.”
Worry tightened in his chest. It was odd, too, because usually—usually when they got themselves into a mess like that, Keith was there. He was present, he was a part of it, a part of the solution, able to make some contribution in order to keep his team safe. Hearing about it secondhand, after the fact, when, if God forbid things had turned tumultuous, he would’ve been helpless to do anything to stop it? It wasn’t a nice feeling. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to get comfortable with.
Still, Pidge just rolled her eyes at Lance’s jibe, unconcerned. “You just don’t appreciate what an incredible scientific anomaly it was.”
“Wasn’t science, Pidge,” Lance corrected, wiggling his eyebrows a little. “It was magic. Or, alchemy. Whatever. Same thing.”
Keith blinked, glancing back at Shiro, who had nothing more to offer than a small shrug, a wry smile twisted on his lips.
He exhaled a long breath, peering at the screen again. Despite how he tried, he couldn’t make sense of the algorithms in the margins, couldn’t decipher the chicken scratch annotations that had been made. He nodded. “Alright,” he huffed, raising his eyebrows as he turned to face them again. “White holes. What else have I missed?”
There was a beat of silence before Lance spoke up. “We killed Zarkon?”
“Technically Lotor killed Zarkon,” Hunk corrected him, and Keith didn’t miss the way Lance’s eyes cut to him sharply in a glare. Hunk offered a small smile, nudging Keith with his elbow. “Lance doesn’t like Lotor much since he started, y’know…” He lowered his voice a little, so only Keith could hear him. “Making moves on Allura, if you catch my drift.”
Keith’s eyebrows shot up, though something heavy settled in his stomach at the thought. “Right,” he acknowledged, ignoring the piercing glare from Lance that was now directed towards him. “Lotor’s a part of this, now. Is he—is he here, now?”
Hunk shook his head, and his voice was a normal volume again when he replied. “Nah. Had to go to one of the main Galra cruisers to do some—I don’t know. Emperor things. Or something.” He waved his hand dismissively. “He’s trying to convert the Empire into being, you know—not terrible, anymore? Not sure how it’s working, though. There are a lot of Galra that refuse to pledge their loyalty to him, still believe in Zarkon and his plans and his mentality.”
Keith nodded again, his stomach still twisted. “Right.”
“You really should meet him, Keith,” Pidge piped in, though there was something tentative in her eyes, something soft. “He’s only—he’s only part Galra, too.”
Well. That was news. “Yeah?”
Pidge nodded, and a smile touched her lips again. “He shows it a bit more, you know, than you do—”
“—meaning he’s purple—”
“—but, yeah.” Pidge shot Lance a glare for interrupting, before regarding Keith again from over the brim of her glasses. “Half Altean, actually. I was really skeptical of him at first, but he’s… he’s not bad. You know, for being the son of the literal worst dude in the universe, and all.”
Keith smiled a little again, though there was still that heaviness in his gut that he couldn’t lighten. His chest felt tight, with it, and he mentally reinforced those walls behind which he’d shoved everything that had happened. His mission. Krolia. His anger, his frustration, his confusion. Everything that sent his mind spiraling in doubt and shame and hurt.
Seeing his friends was good. That’s what he was there for. There was no occasion, nothing particularly extraordinary going on that drove him here. If he kept telling himself that, he’d be okay.
He brought his gaze back to the image on the screen, though he couldn’t really focus his eyes on it.
Behind him, Shiro spoke up. “How about you, Keith? How is everything?”
Everything is… everything, he thought to himself. Everything is confusing and awful and I have so many questions, and I can’t face the only person that can answer them because I’ll either end up punching her in the face or throwing up on her shoes, neither of which is how mother-son reunions ought to go, I don’t think, and everything is confusing and wrong.
“Everything’s good,” he said easily, with a nod. “Tracked down what we think might be the source of that new form of quintessence. Kolivan’s having people look into it further.”
“He didn’t assign you to the mission?” Allura asked, and her eyebrows were drawn together over concerned eyes. “Last I heard, the Blade was running thin on agents and was pulling them from projects already under commencement. You didn’t—” She broke off, sending him one of her patent-pending disapproving-Princess looks, her eyes narrowed slightly. “You got permission to leave the Base, I’m hoping, before just taking off and showing up here?”
Permission was a bit of a stretch, but Allura didn’t need to know that. “Yes, Princess. Relax.”
“Because the last thing we need right now is a swarm of Blade agents drawing attention to our location in an attempt to find you after you disappeared off their radar.”
“Which,” Lance piped up, “is something you tend to do, Mullet. You have a bad habit of going AWOL at the worst possible times ever.”
Keith rolled his eyes. “I didn’t go AWOL on the Blade, Allura, I promise. There won’t be any search parties to give away your location.”
Allura pressed her lips together for a tick as if testing the temperature of the words, the truthfulness, before offering him a slight nod and a small smile. “Well, then—I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. The Castle of Lions will always be a home to the Paladins of Voltron, past or present.”
Something warm filled his chest, and it wasn’t the twitchy, unstable warmth he’d felt earlier in his anger, in his frustration. It was the kind of warmth that he wanted to hold on to. Not the kind of warmth that made him want to put his fist through the wall. He returned her smile, and gave her a grateful nod. “Thank you,” he said honestly, but there was still that weight in his stomach, that tightness in his lungs, and he let out a small sigh. “I appreciate it. But I don’t think I can stay long.”
“No, but—Keith.” It was Lance again, voice tinged with a whine that sounded too-forced as he slung an arm over Keith’s shoulders. “Buddy. Pal. Amigo. You gotta stay, for at least a little bit. A day cycle or two.” And while the words themselves were light, teasing, there was something very real in his voice, something pleading and genuine.
“Yeah, come on,” Pidge agreed, and turned to him with her big, light brown eyes. “Please, Keith? We—” She broke off, inhaling sharply, and Keith couldn’t help but notice her eyes were still ringed with a hint of red from when he’d first crossed into the bridge. “We really miss you, is all.”
Keith hesitated, but his heart lurched for them. He wanted to stay. He really did. But he had run out on Kolivan so quickly, and that alone was bound to have some consequences, let alone if he really did go AWOL for a few days. He shifted, squirming under Lance’s arm, which was still around his shoulders.
“I miss you guys too,” he assured them, and his voice was low and a little unsteady, but brimmed with sincerity. Because he did miss them. He hadn’t realized the extent of it, the vastness of that longing, until he’d arrived and had nearly been tackled to the ground, but it was there. In the midst of all the chaos twisting in his chest because of everything with his mother, his friends were something steady for him to hold on to. Still, he forced the words out, reluctantly. “I just—I’m not sure it’s a great idea. Kolivan—”
“—gave you some down time, you said,” Hunk cut him off, his eyes a little pleading as well. And while it wasn’t a total lie, Keith felt a jab of guilt in his gut for stretching the truth of the matter, so much. Because Kolivan hadn’t exactly given him down time, it was more like Keith just… took it. He told Kolivan he needed to clear his head, had indirectly indicated he was going to borrow a Marmorian fighter jet, and… had essentially walked out, after that. Not really what he’d call permission, but Kolivan hadn’t sent guards out after him to hunt him down and bring him back, either, so Keith took it as a begrudging win.
Because Kolivan knew, the whole time, who Krolia was. He’d warned Keith not to let emotions cloud his judgement during the mission specifically because he knew who she was. And he didn’t. He followed protocol while on the mission down to the T. He did everything by the book, carried out his job in precisely the way Kolivan had told him to. He ignored the ache in his chest and the hurricane of thoughts in his head and got the job done.
After the mission was over? It was a bit harder to ignore. So he left. He hoped Kolivan understood, on some level, that it was something he needed to do.
Keith shook his head. “Guys, I don’t know.”
Shiro gave him a small smile, though there was disappointment in his eyes as if he, too, was hoping Keith could stay for a while. He shook his head, forever the dutiful leader making the hard calls, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. “We understand,” he assured Keith, though the words didn’t help at all. In fact, they made Keith feel worse, especially when Shiro sighed and turned to the rest of the team and said sternly, “Guys, lay off. If he says he can’t stay, then we have to respect that.”
And they looked heartbroken. Keith wondered if he looked a little heartbroken, too. He sure felt it.
Shiro came closer to him, closing the distance, and placed his hands on his arms, fingers tight but eyes softened. Keith’s eyes followed his armour, white and black and so different from the uniform Keith was wearing, these days. “Hey.” It took Keith a minute to lift his gaze to Shiro’s again, but when he did, he was granted another smile while fingers, metal and flesh alike, tightened on his arms. “Come back, though. Okay? Whenever you can.”
And he was about to respond, about to assure him with a confident, “Of course.” But he didn’t. Because the words were frozen somewhere in his throat, and he remembered a long time ago, over a decade ago, when his father had promised to come back and never did.
He was just going to get the mail. He’d come right back, Keith shouldn’t worry.
And then he was gone. And his mother was gone. And he was alone.
But she was back, now, impossibly, and she… she wanted to know him. That had been abundantly clear, in the few words they’d exchanged on the flight back to Base. Because she said things like “I’ll never leave you again” and “You look so much like your father” and “It’s the thing I regret the most, in my life.”
But he wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t equipped to handle something like that, not yet. And he was angry with her. Furious. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been quite as angry at anyone, before, except maybe his father, and Zarkon. But he was also sad. And he felt for her because he’d had to leave his family, too, to join up with the Blade, and it was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. But he understood her. He got it. And it clashed with his anger, and it made something press heavily down on his lungs, made something churn in his stomach, made his heart beat too fast in his chest. He wasn’t ready.
He’d have to face the music eventually, he knew. He’d have to return to the Base, have to face her, and Kolivan, and he’d have to talk about things, which he’s never been particularly good at, and he’s going to have to stare the consequences of his actions in the face and accept them as they came. But he wasn’t ready for that. Not quite yet.
And maybe that made him a coward, but he didn’t care. Because here he was, surrounded by people he knew cared about him, people that supported him through the weirdest and the worst and the best days of his life. His family. He’d found his family, finally, and even if he wasn’t ready to tell them just yet that he’d found Krolia, there was something soothing and comforting about just being there, with them, in the Castle. Something familiar and warm and reassuring that ebbed away at his anger and made it a little easier to breathe.
So he just smiled at Shiro and ducked his head slightly, sighing. “On second thought…”
He didn’t even need to finish before Pidge’s eyes brightened, Lance’s arm tightening from where it had found a home around his shoulders, Hunk’s face splitting into this wide grin. Even Shiro’s normally unreadable mask broke into something fond while over his shoulder, Allura gave him a small, understanding smile.
“…maybe I will stay,” he finished, and Pidge snaked her arms around his waist again, and his heart felt a little lighter. “Just for a bit. A few cycles at most.”
He was running away from his problems. He knew that. And he felt bad about lying to his team. But he’d tell them, eventually, he just needed to work up to it. Needed to calm his nerves, needed to catch his breath. And then he’d tell them. And then he’d be ready to face her.
Krolia. After eighteen years of searching, agonizing, eighteen years of wondering, this… wasn’t exactly one of the thousands of ways he’d imagined finding his mother would play out.
Then again, he never imagined she’d be an alien, either, or that he’d be half alien. Or that he’d be working with a secret intergalactic resistance organization, fighting a war that spanned to every edge of the universe.
He still hadn’t shaken Lance’s arm from his shoulders. Instead, he leaned into it a little, into the comfort and the warmth that it offered, wrapping his own arms around Pidge, who still clung to him tightly. There were whoops of joy from Hunk, and Shiro was grinning, and Allura was trying and failing at taming her own grin into something more poised.
Some of the tightness in Keith’s chest uncoiled, and he took a big breath. And another. Slow, and deep, and strong.
It felt good to breathe again, if only for a little while.