Chapter Text
From this far, Earth wasn’t even a point on the map, not even a star in any visible constellation. It would take time for the Lions to reach home and they should not expect the journey to be direct- there would be stops along the way, reports to make to allies and unexpected missions. Without the Castle ship, they’d be vulnerable and Keith knew the stakes well...was already planning contingencies for if they took contact along the ride.
The whole team needed to rest and the Blade of Marmora’s mission report was a priority. The debrief Krolia had given in the backseat of Black while they’d looked for this asteroid to set down on- it wasn’t enough information. Kolvian would need to know exactly how Lotor had been able to build a ship that could jump through the quintessence field; he’d need to know about Shiro’s clone and the Castle’s destruction.
Keith didn’t realize how serious and focused he was until a hand fell gently on his shoulder. Krolia- no...his mother was giving him a look, comforting and direct. Proud- but there was something else, a judgment and warning. She glanced back to his team where Pidge, Hunk and Coran were programming a stretcher for Shiro and Lance was gushing over Allura’s new resurrection skills while she covered her mouth and smiled. Keith watched them all interacting with each other, familiar, easily connected while he stood aside, isolated and focused on the mission. Raising a brow, Krolia saw when understanding struck him- he was a part of this now.
“You’re not alone. Don’t plan alone.”
Keith gave a smile, “...I know,” he said, genuine. Because he did. He’d seen enough of his mother’s memories to know she’d learned this lesson the hard way herself. Stranded on earth, she’d held onto her mission as the last connection she had to her oath. Keith’s father wasn’t a distraction from her mission, she just...had a partner for it- not just something to protect for her own sense of duty...someone to protect because she loved them.
And that made her stronger, gave her mission new purpose, made her a better asset to the Blades.
Keith understood now- better than ever. Caring might be a risk, but it was not a weakness.
He picked himself up and helped Hunk and Coran with loading Shiro onto the hovering stretcher while his mother made some calls. Several dobashes later, the Lions were docked in one of the Blade of Marmora’s carrier ships, moving slowly towards Earth.
Going home.
Things felt unnaturally slow after that and Keith had to remind himself not to hover. He was shooed off the bridge by Kolvian after delivering his report. Vrek ignored his curious prodding about his last mission. He wandered around the ship, itching for involvement until he ran into Hunk, leaving the showers. One weird look from the pajama-clad paladin was enough to slap him into self-awareness. He was being frenetic. He didn’t need someone to tell him- he should try to sleep too.
After washing up, tending to gnarly bruises and aching muscles, brushing his teeth, and staring for several dobashes at the purplish scar now cast over his cheek like a strange shadow, Keith walked to the small cabin designated as his temporary quarters.
He hadn’t felt it before but, now that he was calm, he was exhausted.
He would’ve been lights-out if it weren’t for the sound of pacing on the other side of his wall. Maybe it was out of habit or a small sentimental nod to their quarters on the deceased castle ship, but Lance had taken the quarters next to his, and when there was a knock at the door. He called it open immediately.
Lance leaned in the doorway, hesitant as ever. “Hey, Keith…” he said. So that was a thing now- saying his name like he was talking to someone new. “Do you have a minute?”
It was unusual. Lance was wearing an open, almost nervous expression, and Keith was sensing some kind of insecurity. And, when it came to seeking out support, Lance was usually the one to help others rather than ask for help.
“Of course.” Keith pushed himself over to the far edge of the bed and sat up to grant his attention, but when Lance made no move to come any closer, he wondered briefly if the other expected him to stand and make this a formal setting, if this was just another address as Team Leader since Shiro was still asleep.
“I was thinking about what you said- about the colony of Alteans, and I think we need to get to them as soon as possible.”
So, it was. Keith had thought it bothered him the last time because of the responsibility. He no longer held those reservations about leading, but something about it still stung. Keith frowned- mostly at himself. He’d have to get over that. Lance was right to come to him about their missions. Don’t plan alone.
“Lotor had to have help to maintain it,” Lance was saying, “like a crew of Galrans at the very least. When word gets around that he’s gone, how long do you think we have until someone reports it all to Sendak?”
Logical as ever, “Kolvian said the same thing when we called him,” Keith said, and as reassurance, “he already dispatched agents to keep ears to the ground so we can be ready.”
“I don’t think that’s enough…” Lance stepped further into the room, folding his arms carefully over his chest like maybe he was trying to look cool. It seemed more like he was hiding himself. “Look. I wanna go home as much as anyone- you know I do, but...these are Allura’s people. If there’s really a planet of Alteans, we have to do everything we can to protect them- and if Sendak finds their location and their quintessence...”
“It’s better to evacuate them sooner than risk losing the opportunity to do so,” Keith finished for him. He waited for Lance’s open expression to give confirmation that he’d understood correctly, then glanced down at the floor and really considered the suggestion. Knowing how much Lance missed earth, how eager he was to speed their journey along, making this suggestion could not be easy for him, but Keith also knew how much Lance truly cared about Allura- not just in the way his lame flirting suggested. This concern was selfless in the way that Keith had always admired. The team would not be happy, but...Lance was right to be worried about this, so he nodded. “I understand what you’re saying,” he said firmly.
And, it was that simple. Lance gave a nod, mouth set and fists clenched loosely at his sides, turned and left, sure that it would be handled.
Keith flopped back onto his mattress and closed his eyes. There hadn’t been time for reunions when he’d returned from the abyss, and after the battle, losing the castle, reviving Shiro, and finally docking in this carrier ship, the paladins had scattered to their separate quarters to wash up and recover.
They needed it. Keith wasn’t sure what he needed.
He’d missed everyone in those two years- mostly Shiro, but he’d expected that. He hadn’t expected to miss Lance. But, he’d thought about him a lot- more than he wanted to- in the long stretches of silence he should’ve been enjoying. He’d always loved nature, but that sort of peace grew overbearing in its endlessness. It took awhile to realize the interruption he was expecting was Lance- his loud quips and challenges, the playfulness he offered by extension.
Suggesting another mission and reaching an immediate, unspoken consensus...it wasn’t how Keith expected their first real conversation to go.
When he had been reaching for his teammates to join their fight against Lotor, searching for their collective minds to meld from across several galaxies, it was Lance he saw first. Like fingertips clasping, that small touch that encouraged him to reach out and pull. Pidge’s mind was quickest to catch on, then Allura with her magic and Hunk’s warmth. Once the whole team was there, the initial blip of Lance’s consciousness was unrecognizable over the presence of them. Voltron. His team- his family.
He still wasn’t sure why finding Lance was so easy- maybe it was his voice over the comms, loud and overbearing as ever, directing the team in his absence and taking heavy fire in their defense. But, for a moment it had been there- just Lance in his head, open and accessible.
Whatever the reason, the worrying thing was- he wasn’t frightened by it.
...
Keith had called a team meeting and arrived early to prepare his thoughts in advance. He felt distracted and unfocused, decided to blame it on the fact that he hadn’t given himself enough time to rest. But, Lance was right and there wasn’t time for that.
“Keith? Are you alright?”
It was Allura’s voice that caught him and he glanced up across the briefing table where the team had coalesced and started claiming seats. He’d been staring at the lines over his knuckles, the creases and veins on his right hand- things he never really took the time to see. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“Oh perfect,” Hunk said. “Me too- anyone else? Everyone else- maybe we should all go back to sleep.”
“No, Hunk,” Allura said. “Keith is right- we need to discuss how we’ll protect Romelle’s colony before the Galra can move against them." Keith hadn't told her about the reason of this meeting, so obviously Lance had. "We don’t know how much time we’ll have before news of Lotor’s death spreads and that information makes its way into the hands of Sendak’s commanders. A source of quintessence that pure is not safe.”
“And not to mention- that quintessence is coming from the life force of Alteans!” Coran added.
Rolling out of one exhausting mission straight into the next, Hunk glared between Keith and Allura, probably trying to figure out who this was more typical from. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith caught a glimpse of Lance pretending to scratch the back of his neck as if this had nothing to do with him, but he didn’t draw attention to it. “If we do this right, it may only take a few minutes,” he said instead.
That got everyone’s attention.
“The colony is located inside a region we call the Quantum Abyss,” he explained, glancing over the table towards his mother. “It’s a region with so many supermassive bodies that spacetime is warped in every direction, tearing apart anything that passes through. What takes years inside the abyss only takes a few ticks on the outside.”
Keith glanced at Romelle where her expression had darkened. She had understood when they left- she would never see anyone she knew ever again. By the time they left the abyss and spent just a few hours outside that region, hundreds of years had passed on her world.
By now, her memories were a graveyard.
Keith went on. “We have a route that avoids time fluctuations, but no pilot would be able to fly that course quickly enough to avoid having their ship torn apart. We would need to make wormhole jumps- as the Altean pod could or the Galra ships that Lotor was using.”
“Without the teludav we can’t make those kinds of jumps,” Coran said, frown pulling down the corners of his mustache. “And the Princess should not be making any more jumps through the quintessence field for a very long time- she needs to recover!”
“I know,” Keith said, then turned to Allura, deadpanned. “But, can you?”
She pursed her lips in thought, one hand lifting to clutch at her own elbow.
“Of course she can!” Lance interjected. “Didn’t you see how she pulled Voltron into the quintessence field- she can do anything.”
Keith raised a brow at Lance’s near-desperate flattery. It was nothing new, especially where Allura was concerned.
But, she just pushed her shoulders back, gaining confidence. “I would need to know where we’re going,” she said. “When I use the teludav, the ship’s maps direct our jumps. If we’re trying to jump through the quintessence field, I’ll be lost.”
“I may be able to access the route that Ranveig's probes found if I can get into the Galra's system, but even if I can, it won't be exact,” Krolia said. “Would that be helpful?”
Coran huffed at that and turned to Allura with a plea in his eyes, “Princess, I know you have the strength, but without a teludav, following a map will be impossible- directions are all loopy in the quintessence field,” he waved a finger in circles as if in demonstration. “And, now the map isn’t even exact?!”
“I can pull the travel logs of the Altean pod Keith took back- it would have the route recorded…” Pidge said helpfully.
But Hunk stopped her, “And, where did you upload those?” and met no response and slowly answered himself. “To the castle?”
Pidge’s head dropped below her shoulders.
Hunk frowned and scratched at his chin, “Maybe we could build a model to predict the time fluctuations and make a map from that?”
Pidge considered it. “To make any kind of model, I would need to be able to monitor the sensors picking up on fluctuations in real time, but the time distortion to get a signal from inside would make that impossible. There would be lags in information transfer that would alter outputs.”
Hunk bit his lip, “So you’re saying...”
“Anything I could collect from out here would be wrong,” Pidge finished. And, Keith knew very well that any little error in her calculations would send their ship jumping directly into a space-time drop-off. “I would need to go in to take a constant reading.”
The idea settled in heavy over the room.
“Well, Keith and Krolia made it through the abyss,” Shiro said, “If we need to go in to make a map in case we need it to travel by teludav in the future, I’m sure we can do that. We’ll fly to the colony, bring out as many Alteans as we can fit on their ships and then use Pidge’s map to make the jump back inside for anyone that's left.”
“The creatures in the abyss will tear you apart first,” Keith said, short and clipped. It was typical of Shiro, trying to find a plan that satisfied everyone, and Keith had hoped that there would be another way- that Allura’s magic may give them a way to speed up the process, but every option was leading back to the same unavoidable task. He was staring at the table in thought, but the room dropped into silence and he glanced up, to find eight pairs of eyes on him.
“Travelling in the abyss is treacherous, but there can be safe passage, riding the backs of the giant beasts that live there-” Krolia stepped in, explaining, “that’s how we made it through.”
Right. Keith frowned. He couldn’t be zoning out in his own thoughts like this. Shiro was here, watching him expectantly and he was going to lead. Right now, leading meant delivering a hard truth. “It will be slow-going inside the abyss where time is stretched," he said, "but out here- where it matters,” where they were racing Sendak and the possibility of a Galra attack, “it won’t take long- a few dobashes at most.”
“You’d have to be able to get deep enough into the abyss to land on one,” Krolia said. “We didn’t encounter any of the beasts until we’d travelled for several quintents.”
“But you just said I’d be torn apart-” Pidge said.
“A lion could withstand the attacks that tore our ship apart…” Keith said. “They could make it far enough inside to land on one-”
“And if Sendak attacks while you’re gone, we won’t be able to form Voltron!” Coran protested again.
“If we wait until the Blades of Marmora get confirmation that Sendak is sending a fleet, we might miss our chance to evacuate the colony safely.” Keith knew his frustration was bleeding into his voice, but he couldn’t help it. “We do this now. Whatever it takes.”
Either the urgency of their mission or the tone of his voice put a hush over the room.
Keith looked at Allura and, slowly, she nodded. It was all the permission he needed. “Red will go and ferry Pidge while she creates the map. While they’re inside, the Blades of Marmora and coalition forces will stand guard-”
“Wait, wait- me?”
Keith fought the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He expected this protest. “Lance, your lion is the most agile. If any of us can get far enough into the abyss to find one of the planet beasts, it’s you.”
“So we lose two paladins- if the entrance is attacked,” Hunk held up his hand and dropped two fingers, “we’ll only have three lions to stop Galra ships from entering the abyss after them.”
“Again, we won’t have to hold them off for long if they do,” Keith said. “When my mother and I were inside, our timepieces calculated two years passing. Out here it was only a few ticks.”
“Two years!” Lance’s voice took on a new pitch of panic. Keith had expected that too- it didn’t make it any less annoying...or heartbreaking- he wasn’t sure which, but either way he had to keep his expression calm. “Oh no! No! You said we were going to Earth!” Lance was standing now, jabbing a finger at Keith, “When I brought this up to you, I wasn’t offering to take a two year detour in a time funnel!”
Keith wanted to be upset with Lance’s anger directed at him, but there wasn’t time for it. Hunk frowned to hear that Lance had concocted the mission in the first place; Pidge seemed caught between terror of the danger of the mission, hesitance about Lance accompanying her, and the dawning comprehension of what she’d be signing up for; Shiro and Krolia were dutifully accepting the idea while Coran’s face was scrunched up like he was looking for any way to poke holes in it. Romelle left the planning to members of the team.
It was Allura’s expression that concerned Keith the most. She was staring at Lance with some strange look of admiration and surprise. Keith didn’t want to know what it meant or why it made him uneasy, but more than that- he didn’t want to be so distracted by it.
“Lance…” he started.
“You do it! You know the abyss, you can pilot Red!”
“Red’s yours now. He won’t just take me for one mission.” Keith had thought of what he was asking- hadn’t wanted to ask it of Lance, but “If we don’t find a way to map the abyss ourselves, the Blades of Marmora will have to track down members of Lotor’s crew from the colony and extract the travel logs from their ships. I don’t know how long that could take.”
Allura stepped behind Lance and Keith could see her take his hand out of his periphery. He focused on holding Lance’s eyes and not looking down at that while she talked. “Lance, we all want to get home to our families…” she said, “I understand you want to see your people, but time is of the essence! You know we cannot wait for Sendak to move first...my people need you...I need you.”
Lance was still glaring at Keith straight on.
Keith could see his mother stepping level with him at his side, held his eye contact when she reached out to put a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “The ones you love will still be there when you return.”
He dropped Keith’s gaze. “Alright...I’ll go.”