Archive of Our Own ^beta

 “Guys you’re not being very helpful,” Lance whined as he threw another shirt onto the pile of others on his bedroom floor. “I have to leave in ten minutes and I need to look good for my outing with Keith after school today!”

“Lance, dude, stop calling it an outing,” Hunk said, sounding very tired of Lance’s antics. Lance was currently on a call with both Hunk and Pidge to get some kind of help deciding what to wear. His phone was perched on his bed and every once in a while they would respond to his plights. “Just call it a date.”

“It’s not a date!” Lance squawked as he felt his face heat up. “I hang out with just you all the time Hunk, and it’s never a date!”

“Okay but didn’t we go over this like three days ago,” Pidge said sounding like she was very bored by Lance’s problems. “He said “would you like to go out with me,” that sounds like he was asking you out on a date. If he just wanted to hang out with you he would’ve said so, but instead he used the phrase go out with me.”

“Pidge, don’t get my hopes up,” Lance said as he flopped down onto his bed. “I’ve been pining after this boy for, like, a year.”

 “You know, you could just ask him,” Hunk offered because Hunk was reasonable, Lance however couldn’t even bear the thought of asking Keith that question and having him say no.

“No, nope, out of the question,” Lance said, sitting up and focusing on his clothes again.

“Lance, this could be Keith making the first move,” Pidge said. “And we all know how bad he can be at talking.”

“Yeah I know,” Lance said with a sigh as he held up two shirts in his hands trying to decide which color he liked more. “It’s just, I’m so scared guys. What if this is just me blowing this out of proportion and then I make it weird by holding his hand or even asking him if it’s a date-“

“Lance as much as I would love to keep listening to you I need to leave to pick you up,” Hunk said, cutting off Lance’s spiraling thoughts.

“Okay, see you in five buddy,” Lance said as he heard Hunk disconnect with the call and he was left with Pidge.

“Listen Lance, I’m going to give you the best relationship advice that I can give you as someone who has never once dated anybody,” Pidge said. “You gotta talk to him, relationships are all about communication and shit so you’re both are on the same page, whether it’s the one you want or not.”

“Wow Pidge that’s-that’s actually really good advice,” Lance said as he finally tugged on a shirt.

“It’ll only be good advice if you actually take it,” Pidge said a sigh. “Listen Lance I’m your friend and I want you to be happy and right now you’re so worked up over this whole is it or is it not a date thing that you’re not. Talk to Keith, okay?”

Lance sighed, “Yeah, okay Pidgey. See you later.”

“You too nerd,” Pidge said before ending the call.

Lance walked over and picked the phone up from his bed and slid it into his pocket. He really wants to just take a long nap and think about all of this later. He knew Hunk and Pidge were right, he needed to talk to Keith about this, but was he ready for that? Honestly, he didn’t even know.

He threw on his jacket and grabbed his bag before heading downstairs to wait for Hunk. How hard could it be to ask Keith if they were going on a date tonight, it was just a few words, it was no big deal.

//////

It was in a fact a very big deal, and Lance figured this out exactly two seconds after seeing Keith standing at his locker waiting for him so they could walk to their first period class together with a soft smile on his face once he spotted Lance and waved at him. Lance was doomed.

“Did you do McGrillis’s homework?” Keith asked as Lance opened up his locker and pulled out his books.

“Uhhh, what was it again?” Lance asked as he managed to balance his precarious stack of books in his hand.

“Those twenty calc problems,” Keith said as stopped two of Lance’s books from falling.

“Oh yeah I think so,” Lance said as he resituated his books so none would fall and shut his locker. “The review on limits?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to check my work with yours,” Keith said as the two fell into step as they walked to their English class.

“No problem dude, as long as Mrs. Murphy doesn’t have like five warm-up questions on the board we can check.”

“Thanks,” Keith said, and see this was a great opportunity for Lance to just casually ask, hey by the way, are we going on a date tonight or? But instead he clammed up as he listened to Keith talk about how Shiro had apparently tried to cook dinner last night only to burn the water before he could even start.

/////

Keith had been waiting at Lance’s locker after school and even though he always did this Lance couldn’t help but feel his heart squeeze at it, man he was already getting sappy and he didn’t even know if they were going on a date.

“You ready dude?” Lance asked after he had put his books away doing his best to not show how much of a sweaty mess he was feeling like.

“Yep,” Keith said before digging into his pocket and pulling out a pair of keys. “Shiro even let me borrow his car for once.”

“Oh man really?” Lance asked.

“Yeah, I complained to him about how we were going to be trekking around town with our books and stuff and he felt bad or something I guess,” Keith said as he swung the keys around his finger. “So now we don’t have a ten minute walk to the movies.”

“Sweet,” Lance said as he followed Keith out to the Shiro’s car. “What movie are we going to see?”

“Your pick,” Keith said as he unlocked the car and they climbed in. “I have no idea what’s even in the theaters right now so I’m trusting you to pick out a good movie.”

“Oh hoho, just know that you can’t complain if you don’t like the movie,” Lance said throwing his head back and adding in an evil laugh for affects.

“I’m doomed aren’t I?” Keith asked aloud as he started the car.

“You asked for this.”

“Yeah, yeah I did.”

/////

The car ride was at least not awkward, they talked and joked like they always did and Lance chalked this up to the fact that he didn’t bring up his awkward question because honestly, Keith wasn’t acting any different so it had to just be a normal friendly hang out, right?

Lance ended up dragging Keith into the latest superhero movie and just like usual Lance threw popcorn at Keith during all the unnecessary romantic subplot scenes and Keith took Lance’s armrest, nothing unusual at all.

“Listen Lance, I’m just saying that in my opinion the only good scene in the entire movie was the final battle,” Keith said as he pulled into the diner.

“Okay but come one, the first fight between them was so intense,” Lance insisted as Keith parked the car, Lance actually kinda agreed with Keith but he wasn’t going to give up that the first fight, while boring, had some great camera work and Keith was just going to have to accept that.

“Agree to disagree,” Keith said before opening the door and stepping out of the car.

“I will get you to crack one day,” Lance said as he followed after Keith, as Shiro’s car was so old that the passenger’s door got stuck often and Lance had long ago given up trying to wiggle it open, shutting the door behind him.

“Hmmm, if you say so,” Keith said with a shrug, he had waited for Lance to climb out before heading into the diner.

“So, are you going to be ordering your usual?” Lance asked as Keith held the door open for them.

“Dude, we just shared the largest order of popcorn there was, I don’t think I’m anywhere close to hungry,” Keith said as they waved at Lillian before going and finding a seat.

“You say that yet I know you’ll be stealing from my fries,” Lance pointed out as they slid into a booth in the corner, pointing a finger at Keith, “I know how you are.”

Keith just shrugged at the accusation as Lillian came over and gave them a menu, and for once Keith actually looked at it instead of looking over Lance’s shoulder, guess he couldn’t pull that off though when he was sitting across from him.

“Are you actually going to order something to eat?” Keith asked him as Lance flipped the menu trying to decide whether he was going to order any food or just wait until he got home to eat whatever his mama had made for dinner.

He ended up ordering a milkshake and fries, partly because he knew Keith would help eat half of them. Keith on the other hand just ordered a milkshake.

“Do you wanna get together tomorrow and study for the chem test we have?” Lance asked once their milkshakes and the order of fries had arrived. “You’ve mentioned something about having trouble with balancing equations.”

“Hmm, yeah I could use some help with those,” Keith said before snatching a few of Lance’s fries and popping them into his mouth. “Other than that I’ve been doing pretty well with the unit.”

“Wait, do we have a test coming up in Wilson’s soon?” Lance asked as he squirted a large amount of ketchup on the corner of the plate. “Cause I feel like it’s been too long since we’ve had one.”

“No I don’t think so, though I think he mentioned that we’d be starting a short story unit next week so I’m sure we’ll have some big writing assignment afterwards.”

“Ugh, I don’t think I can handle another essay,” Keith groaned as he grabbed some more of Lance’s fries.

“I thought you weren’t hungry?” Lance finally said, a smile crossing his face as he got ready to tease Keith. He had already stolen more than one handful of fries so he knew it was coming.

Keith just shrugged and didn’t even bother hiding the smirk on his face as he took another fry from Lance’s plate. “It’s not like you mind.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Lance hummed as he watched Keith steal another fry, god the boy was such a little thief, he was lucky he was cute.

“I’m just in the mood for fries I guess,” Keith said before taking a long sip of his milkshake and pretending like he wasn’t going to steal anymore of Lance’s fries even though he totally was once he thought Lance was looking, not like that had ever stopped him before.

“Uh huh, sure you thief, you’re always stealing my fries,” Lance said as he took a sip of his shake, twirling the straw between his fingers.

“You never complain,” Keith pointed out as he swiped another fry while looking Lance dead in the eye as he took a bite out of it.

“Are you trying to use our friendship against me?” Lance joked as he finally grabbed a fry of his own.

Keith seemed to freeze for a second and Lance almost began to think he said something wrong when Keith suddenly snapped back to normal. “Like you don’t do the same thing.”

“Wow, rude,” Lance said, placing his hand over his heart and pretended to act wounded. “This isn’t about me Keith, it’s about you.”

Keith rolled his eyes as he took a sip of his shake. “Of course, because I’m the only guilty party here.”

“Hmm, but of course you are,” Lance said as he grabbed more fries. “I’m the innocent one.”

Keith snorted at that before starting to giggle, Lance looked at him with a face that he’s sure one of their friends would describe as “sappy,” but honestly, Keith had like the cutest laugh he couldn’t help it.

Keith looked like he was about to say something when his phone lit up and vibrated on the table.

“Keith,” Lance said with a fake gasp, “No phones at the table.”

Keith just shook his head at him as he picked up the phone and checked his messages.

Lance went back to eating his fries as he waited for Keith to get off his phone. Dipping one fry in the ketchup he began to draw sqwiggly lines of ketchup on the plate to occupy himself.

“Is your brother texting you to remind you of your curfew?” Lance teased after Keith had been steadily carrying on a rapid fire text chat with someone. One could only keep themselves busy for so long with drawing pictures in ketchup after all.

Keith shook his head.

“Uh, did Pidge make another weird robot?” Lance tried again.

Keith shook his head again.

“Did Hunk find another creepy ass ghost in his house?”

Another shake of the head.

“Okay then, I give up,” Lance said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Who are you texting?”

“Allura,” Keith said, finally looking up from his phone only to shove it into Lance’s face with a wide grin on his face.

“Keith, buddy, I can’t exactly read whatever this is with it shoved in my face,” Lance said as he pushed the phone away from his face. “Use your words.”

“Aliens,” Keith said, practically bouncing in his seat. “Allura said there’s a possibility that aliens could come through town soon.”

Lance stared at Keith for a second, pressing a finger to his lips before saying, “Aliens? Like as in flying saucers? Are going to fly through town for all of us to see?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said, glancing down at his phone when another text came through, “Probably not, but Allura told me to come over and see her and she’d tell me everything.”

“Are we about to head over to the shop to learn how to hunt for aliens?” Lance asked, already knowing the answer to that question.

“Uh, yeah, duh,” Keith said as he sent a text to Allura no doubt telling her they were coming over.

“Of course,” Lance said with a sigh as he watched Keith wave over Lillian so they could get the bill for their food, a large smile still plastered on his face. Well at least Lance could guess now that this wasn’t a date, there’s no way Keith would cut off their date short so they could go hunt aliens. Although a tiny voice in his head said otherwise, Lance chose to ignore it. It was better this way, maybe one day he would finally get enough courage to ask Keith out on a legit date, but for now he was left with whatever this was.

/////

The clear ringing of the bell announced their arrival, although Keith running up to the counter like something was right at his heels also did the trick. Lance followed behind him, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he took a meandering look around the store. Every time they come in here it always seems to look different. What had last been a shelf full of multicolored jars was now displaying large slabs of rocks in all shapes and colors. He was honestly wondering what sort of magic required rocks when Allura’s voice cut through the air.

“I honestly didn’t expect you to come today,” she said, leaning over the counter as she glanced between the two of them. “And I figured you’d bring all of your friends.”

“I was already out with Lance,” Keith said, waving his hand at Allura. “I’ve been waiting for months for you to tell me something about aliens and now you’re telling me that aliens could come through town over the next two weeks? Of course I’m going to come in immediately.”

“I do have one question,” Lance said, cutting in as he came up to the counter, standing next to Keith. “When you mean come through town you don’t actually mean that they’re going to like, uh, walk through town right?”

“Of course not,” Allura said tilting her head to the side. “The most they’re going to do is pass overhead in their spaceships like normal. Aliens rarely make contact anymore you know.”

“So you mean they’ve made it before?” Keith asked, his eyes wide and shiny, as he placed his hands on the counter and leaned forward.

“Why of course, did you truly believe that the pyramids were built by humans?”

“Seriously?” Lance asked, now he was leaning over the counter as well.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Allura said with a shrug as Lance felt Keith sag for a second besides him. “But it is well documented by the magical community that the Egyptians were one of the first to make contact with aliens, so, eh, who knows for sure.”

Keith perked right back up again. “So is there a chance that they could try and communicate with us?”

“The chances of that are, well, pretty slim,” Allura said, offering Keith a sympathetic smile. “The last documented time an alien made contact with humans was a few hundred years ago.”

“Okay but who’s to say that they haven’t tried to make contact since then,” Keith pointed out.

“There’s really no way of telling,” Allura said. “You could be right, there are numerous different races of aliens, and there may even be some who can disguise themselves as humans and could be walking among us right now.”

Lance could practically feel the excitement radiating off of Keith.

“But we don’t know,” Allura said simply, clasping her hands together and leaning in closer to them. “However we do know when there is a possibility of alien activity occurring.”

“Yeah I’ve been wondering, how do you know that?” Lance asked, because he was curious on what kind of evidence there was to support this before he was out standing in a field with Keith for a whole two weeks. Not that he was complaining, but he really didn’t want to keep staying out all these late nights that he seemed to be taking part in more and more often.

“Alien travel disrupts star patterns and can give off energy that affects both the natural and magical world. There might be odd weather that you might see and for Coran and me we may experience strange surges in our power levels. In this case Coran noticed the shift in the stars first and based on how they’ve shifted it can give us a time window for when they may pass through.”

“Mmm, very, uh, scientific,” Lance hummed, as Keith nudged him with his elbow and shot him a look. Lance shrugged but shut up, no need to ruin Keith’s fun just because apparently aliens decided to come on through and cut their night short before Lance could even work up the nerve to ask Keith if they were on a date.

“So Allura, what are we going to need?” Keith asked, a large smile on his face as he waited.

“Well some things I can’t give you until Coran gets back on Monday, but I can give you a few things for now,” Allura said as she waved her hand and a few items floated up from behind the counter.

“I can’t give you most of the actual equipment yet but here’s what I can give you for now,” Allura said as she put each item on the counter as she named them. “Some high grade flashlights, a high powered telescope that’s had some magical additions put onto it to make alien catching easier and some amethyst for protection.”

“Thanks Allura,” Keith said, reaching for his bag only to realize it wasn’t there.

Lance almost laughed at the face he made, covering his mouth to stifle it, man he was cute.

“Don’t worry about it Keith,” Allura said, waving her hand at him before he could even turn back to her. “Just give the payment to me when we all meet to look for aliens.”

“We?” Keith asked, now he was looking confused.

“Oh please Keith, we both know there’s no way you’re going to go out to look for aliens by yourself,” Allura said placing her head in her hands. “Isn’t that right Lance?” she asked as she turned to look at him, obviously expecting him to agree and well, she wasn’t wrong.

“Of course, you don’t think we would let you go off gallivanting at night by yourself,” Lance said as he ruffled Keith’s hair, as he made a half assed attempt to dodge Lance’s hand. “I know I’m definitely going out with you-” oh god that didn’t come out right, “and so is Allura-” okay just play it off, “plus I’ll definitely convince Pidge and Hunk to go with us so you’re set for more group time with all of us,” Lance said as he threw his arm around Keith’s shoulders.

Keith rolled his eyes, though the small grin on his face betrayed him. “Okay fine, we seem to be a pretty good team I guess.”

“You guess, he guesses Allura,” Lance said as he turned to her and gave her a look like Keith was crazy she smiled back at him as Lance continued. “Dude we took out a whole pack of zombies the other day, I think we count as a good team.”

“Hmmm, I guess you’re right,” Keith said with a shrug as the small grin tugged up into a playful smile. “I guess I’ll decide on that after we catch sight of an alien.”

/////

“So we’re going out to look for aliens when?” Hunk asked as he threw his arm into the air a second too late and propelled Lance back into the lead.

“Tomorrow night,” Lance said as he began to wave his arm around and curse under his breath as all he could get were ok’s. He was better than just ok, how dare this game tell him he was just ok! “I think Allura said like from seven to eleven would be the optimal times.”

“Okay but like bud, we have school the next day,” Hunk said as his arm waves kept getting him perfect and shot him back up to the lead. “I love you guys and supporting Keith in his cryptid searches but this guy also has a curfew of ten thirty on school nights unless previously approved by the moms.”

“Okay so we’re out until ten,” Lance said as he began to prepare himself for the golden move.

“So speaking of being out,” Hunk began and Lance already knew what was coming, “You’ve been mysteriously quiet about your not-date with Keith.”

Lance watched as he flubbed the last move thanks to Hunk’s words and the final screen popped up declaring Hunk the winner. Lance let out a groan as he flopped back onto his bed.

“I told you, it was not a date,” Lance grumbled as he heard Hunk sit down on his beanbag.

“I know, that’s what I said,” Hunk said, acting all innocent when he was obviously trying to get something out of Lance.

“Yeah but we all know what you were getting at,” Lance said with deep sigh as he forced himself to sit up. “It was fine, great even, but it was just Keith and me hanging out like I would with you.”

“Just with a lot more sexual tension?”

Lance sighed again. “Yeah I guess. I don’t know Hunk, it was chill. I had a lot of fun but nothing really indicated that it was anything more than just two friends hanging out.”

“Did you ask him if it was a date?” Hunk asked because of course both he and Pidge have the same line of thoughts.

“No, I never found the right time.”

“Lance there is no right time to ask that, you could still ask it right now. Just send Keith a text and ask him,” Hunk said back to being reasonable as usual, Lance however had other ideas.

“Yeah except I’m not going to do that,” Lance said as he heard Hunk let out a groan. “It would be too embarrassing Hunk!”

“Or it could turn out great and you get a boyfriend."

“Or I could get rejected and I ruin our entire friend group by becoming so distraught by the answer that I tear us all apart!”

Hunk was silent for a second. “You want to do another round.” It looks like he had decided to go with the change Lance’s attention route.

“Yeah sure,” Lance said as he got back up.

“You pick the song this time.”

“Okay.”

But was he really okay with this?

/////

Lance was busy trying to not fall asleep as Ms. McGrillis went over the latest topic when a small piece of paper fell in front of his. Shooting a glance out of the corner of his eye he looked over at Keith who was sitting a desk over and saw him glance down at the note and back to Lance. It looked like he was the one who sent the note.

Glancing back over at the teacher to make sure she was busy prattling on about calculus before he opened the note and read it. Keith’s scratchy handwriting read “I had a lot of fun Fri. Sorry it got cut short.”

Lance shot another glance back at Keith who was watching him intently as he waited for Lance’s reply. Flipping over the note, Lance took out his pen and wrote out his reply.

“It’s no prob, I know how much u love aliens. I had lots of fun too.”

He watched until Ms. McGrillis had her back turned before he tossed the paper onto Keith’s desk. Lance pretended he was taking notes while he was really watching Keith out of the corner of his eye. He watched as Keith opened his note and read it, a cute smile crossing his face as he tore off another piece of paper and began to scrawl something on it.

A few seconds later a new note appeared on Lance’s desk. Unfolding it, Lance read the note, there was a dark scribble on the top that covered a half sentence that Lance couldn’t decipher, but the rest was clear. “Good to know that the alien hunting plans didn’t ruin the night. I was wondering if you would want to go out again next Fri?”

Lance stared down at the note, and then he reread it twice. Could the other night really have been a date? Keith was asking him if he wanted to go out again, and the more Lance read the words “go out” he couldn’t help but feel that maybe they weren’t platonic. Biting at his lip, Lance flipped over the note and wrote one single word on the back.

Tossing it over onto Keith’s desk he waited for Keith’s reaction. He felt his heart stutter as Keith sent him a bright smile before turning back to his notes. This time, this time for sure he would ask Keith if it was a date. Eventually.

/////

“Are you sure this is the best place to look for aliens?” Hunk asked as they came to a stop at Allura’s command.

“Why of course,” Allura said cheerfully as she got of the car and stretched her arms open wide towards the withered corn field that stretched out before them. “The best place to set up the equipment is out of the range of town and in a large open space.”

“Okay but quick question,” Pidge began as she followed Allura out of the car, “Do aliens actually write messages in corn fields? Like is that why we’re here?”

“Mmm, no,” Allura said as went and opened up the trunk of the car and began to hand out the equipment. “It’s mainly just teenagers that want to play a practical joke. While some have been unexplained it’s highly unlikely that aliens would take the time to draw a silly picture in a field.”

“Oh,” Pidge said as Allura shoved some contraception in her hand. “I was hoping for a crop circle or something.”

“Sorry there will be no need for crop circles in our research,” Allura said as she handed Lance a large bag that he just about dropped when she handed it off to him. Man she must be strong. “We will have the help of magical science,” she said as she whirled around with a big smile on her face. “Isn’t that right, Keith?”

“Oh, uh yeah,” Keith said, caught off guard. “I just, uh, I have no idea what any of this stuff does, except for the telescope.” Keith held up the contraction in his hands that looked like a large metal box with all different kinds of colored wires weaving in and out of it.

“Don’t worry,” Allura said as she waved him off. “I’ll tell you what they are once we’ve set them all up.”

Lance and Keith sent each other a look but they all followed after Allura. She led them into the dead corn and a few seconds later came to an abrupt stop. She looked around and stomped the ground once before nodding her head and turning back to them. “Here’s where we’ll set up camp tonight.”

They went to work putting together all the different contraptions that Allura had supplied, it took a bit longer than expected considering they all had gloves on due to the cold November wind that night, honestly why did the aliens decided to come when it got to forty degrees at night, thirty if you counted the wind chill!

Lance watched his breath fan out in front of him as he finished setting up his contraption; it had an odd looking satellite type thing sticking out of it and a screen that flashed different symbols ever few minutes.

“Okay,” Allura said, clapping her hands together. “Let me give you all a quick rundown of what these things do so we can get to alien hunting!”

“So this guy,” Allura said, placing her hand over the metal box Pidge was sitting next to, “Constantly monitors the atmosphere and is able to pick up any minuet changes to it, if an alien enters our atmosphere this baby will detect it and based on the percentage of change we can determine how close this disturbance is to our general location.”

“Oooo,” Keith whispered from besides him. At least Keith seemed excited about it, currently Lance was very cold and regretting coming out.

“Pidge,” Allura said, placing her hand on Pidge’s shoulder, “I’m entrusting this to you, if you notice any fluctuations in its current readings then tell me.”

“You got it,” Pidge said, giving Allura a salute before turning the machine and tugging the blanket she was wearing tighter.

“Okay, the telescope is pretty self-explanatory,” Allura said before turning to Hunk. “Hunk I trust you to have a good eye and only alert us of anything if you really see a UFO.”

“Got it,” Hunk said before pulling up a chair and adjusting the lens of the telescope.

“Okay, the one that I had you set up Keith is a device that, unfortunately, only I can use as it requires magic, so that leaves you and Lance in charge of watching for any potential messages from an alien craft,” Allura said as she patted the device Lance had set up. “The readings should stay at zero unless an alien spacecraft comes by and a message is picked up, if so you’ll notice a change in the numbers.”

“So like, its binary code?” Hunk asked, looking up from the telescope.

“Mmm, yes I suppose it kind of is,” Allura said before clapping her hands together and saying, “Okay team, let’s get to work!”

Everyone turned to their respective machines and with each passing second Lance wished he had listened to Hunk’s suggestion to bring a blanket, cause damn was it cold outside. Sticking his hands under his armpits he could hear Keith trying to stifle his laughter from besides him.

Lance shot Keith a look. “I can’t believe that you find my misery funny!”

“No, no,” Keith said, holding his hand up and trying not to laugh, “I don’t, it’s just, you look a little ridiculous curled up in a little ball.”

“Hardy har har,” Lance said. “I see how it us.”

Lance could practically hear Keith roll his eyes from besides him before he felt something draped over his shoulders.

“Oh stop complaining,” Keith said as Lance realized Keith had actually brought a blanket with him, and was now currently sharing it with him. “There, is that better.”

Lance sniffed. “Maybe.”

“Now who’s being the rude one,” Keith said with a chuckle as he leaned himself up against Lance’s shoulder.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lance said as he tried to relax against Keith, despite the fact this sure isn’t the first time he and Keith have sort snuggled he found himself internally freaking out. God, maybe he should just get this all over with and burst out his mushy confession.

“So are we just going to be staring at zeros this entire time or what?” Lance asked, changing the topic before his brain decided that he should tell Keith right here and now that he thought he was cute and wanted to hold his hand or something.

“I’m sure we’ll see something,” Keith said as he nudged Lance with his elbow. “I just know that we’re going to find proof of aliens before these two weeks are up.”

Lance was about to open his mouth and make a joke before Hunk cut him off.

“Speaking of the fact that this is apparently a two week thing, we’re not seriously going to be out here for fourteen straight days right? Like I have to work and deal with school so I can’t be out here every night for like three straight hours or whatever,” Hunk said as he adjusted the telescope. “Like no offense, I love hanging out with you guys and helping Keith with his lifelong goal of finding an alien but I don’t think I can handle two weeks of cold corn fields.”

“Yeah Hunk does have a point,” Pidge piped up. “Like I love looking for aliens about as much as Keith, but I also like my nice warm house.”

“So what I’m hearing is that you don’t want to come out every night,” Allura said as she heard a chorus of yes and one small no. “Well it seems the majority has decided, how about we come out every other day, for this kind of data you want to be out as often as possible to get any evidence, the longest amount of time an alien has been known to stay in one area is about forty eight hours.”

“I think I can handle coming out here every other night,” Lance said, he could tell that Hunk and Pidge wanted it to be longer, but if they ended up finding nothing that would suggest aliens flew by Keith would pout for like a week over the fact that they didn’t go out enough.

Apparently Hunk caught on before he could suggest like every two days or something. “Yeah, I’m chill with that, I might have to miss one or two for work though so you better have a backup driver for those days.”

“Well I guess I’ll agree too,” Pidge said. “It can’t be that bad, I’m sure we’ll find some kind of evidence to at least make sitting out in this cold worth it.”

They did not in fact find any shred of evidence that night. The first night they headed home, cold and dejected.

/////

They headed out again on Wednesday, however they had to find a new field to set up in as the farmer had apparently found out that something had been in his corn field and had apparently stomped all over his corn (although Lance knew for a fact they had only like knocked over a few corn stalks plus they were all dried up now that the season was over but whatever).

So that’s how they ended up even farther out of town by a soybean field, sitting on the outskirts of it.

“Now while we may have lost our covertness, we are now even farther away from the town which will only solidify any data we collect tonight!” Allura said once they had all set up the equipment.

Once again the night started off with them being completely quiet as they watched their screens, with Lance being the first to begin to grow bored, so he in turn began poking Keith to get a rise out of him until Keith was now poking him with his elbow in return, and then Pidge threw a stick in their direction and told them to be quiet since she was trying to concentrate. Lance then threw the stick back and made a comment about how it looked like she was concentrating on falling asleep and it all spiraled from there.

“Guys we have to remain quiet if we want this to work!” Allura yelled, stopping both Lance and Pidge in their tracks of raising up a stick to throw at the other.

“Fine,” Lance said as both he and Pidge dropped their sticks. “It’s just kinda boring out here sitting in the dark and looking at these screens in complete silence. One would start to get antsy.”

“Yeah Lance has a point,” Hunk said as he looked away from the telescope. “Like the idea of this is exciting, but it gets kinda boring looking at the same night sky with no changes for hours.”

“Fine, I suppose you have a point, well than what do want to do to make this more fun?” Allura asked as he placed her head in her hand with a huff.

“Well we could always play-“ Lance began before he was promptly cut off by Pidge, Hunk and Keith yelling in unison “NO!”

“What is it that Lance’s wants to do that you are so against?” Allura asked, perking up in curiosity.

“Trust me Allura, you don’t want play that game with Lance,” Hunk said as he shot his best friend a look.

“Come on, I would behave,” Lance said as he threw himself against Keith who barely even shifted with Lance’s added weight, which dang was kinda hot-wait no focus Lance. “I wouldn’t ask any of my normal weird questions.”

“So you say,” Keith said with a snort from besides him.

“Wow rude, just for that I’m stealing the blanket,” Lance said as he snatched the shared blanket and wrapped it entirely around himself.

Keith stared at him dumbstruck for a second before grabbing for the blanket. “Come on Lance, you can’t just steal my blanket.”

“But you see, I did,” Lance said as he stuck his tongue out. It only lasted about five seconds until Keith had managed to wrestle part of the blanket away from Lance and cocooned himself next to Lance.

“I thought you were never cold,” Lance teased as Keith tried to free more of the blanket from him.

“You know damn well it’s cold as hell out here tonight,” Keith muttered as Lance finally let go of some of the blanket so Keith was fully covered. He still stayed pressed up against Lance though.

Lance turned his attention back to the others only to realize that he had apparently tuned out of the others’ conversation while pestering Keith because Allura was currently talking about alien dialects.

“So it honestly really depends on which part of the galaxy they originate from, like for example, aliens that live outside the Milky Way talk mainly through runes however they are also quiet adaptable to picking up different languages which allowed them to pick up Latin for communication between humans,” Allura said. “Honestly it’s kind of fascinating really.”

“Okay but, like, no one even speaks in Latin now a days expect for like college professors and stuff,” Pidge pointed out as she tapped at the screen of her device she had been assigned. “If aliens do come how are we going to speak with them?”

“Well I know a bit of Latin myself,” Allura said, placing a hand on her chest. “But honestly they would probably pick up on any of the Earth languages pretty quickly if they’re exposed to them for a short period of time.”

“Well now I have a question,” Lance said holding his hand up and waving it around until Allura turned to him, “How do you know all of this stuff about aliens if there hasn’t been any contact with them in years?”

“Well when aliens did visit Earth it was a well-documented by the magical community,” Allura said with a shrug. “So while everything I know may be a little outdated, some of it most likely still holds some truth.”

“So do you know what aliens look like?” Keith asked, and Lance took notice to how Pidge suddenly perked up at that question.

“Well, not all aliens look the same, there are different races of aliens so obviously they look differently, but I can assure you that the numerous depictions of aliens that Earth has created over the years have almost never been correct.”

“Seriously?” Keith and Pidge said in unison as Lane tried to not to laugh at that faces they were making. Despite the fact that he normally wasn’t too into these little excursions that had been happening recently, he was actually interested in learning about aliens. It had been one of the few theories of Keith’s that Lance could actually get on board with and kinda agreed with. Besides, it would be pretty cool to brag to people about meeting an alien.

“Yep,” Allura said, popping the p, “The closest you’ve ever gotten is, hmmm, I suppose some of the star whatever had some that were pretty close, but the best you’ve ever done is when you made aliens that looked human. There are numerous documented aliens that are able to disguise themselves and their appearance to appear like those of the planet they’re on.”

“So pretty much what you’re saying is aliens look….human?” Pidge asked, sounding like she didn’t believe her for a second.

“Well no, while there are some that hold human aspects many just use cloaking technology or actual powers that they have to appear human, or look like other aliens species,” Allura said, “If that makes any sense.”

“So they don’t look like humans, but they can make themselves look like humans if they wanted to,” Lance asked as Allura nodded her head, “Sounds simple enough.”

“So technically that means that aliens could’ve visited Earth disguised as humans and we would have no idea, right?” Keith asked, his head was currently resting on Lance’s shoulder, causing the latter to feel like he was about to combust from how hot his face felt.

“I suppose it’s a possibility,” Allura said with a shrug, “But aliens rarely come to Earth, and when they do it’s normally for educational purposes. I highly doubt one would come here for a vacation.”

/////

Once again they had gotten nothing; Lance could tell Keith was starting to feel a little dejected. He had been planning on trying to cheer him up after school, because what would cheer Keith up more than marathoning his favorite alien show and getting to eat some of Lance’s mama’s food? Apparently Shiro must’ve noticed it too, despite not even knowing that they were going out at night alien hunting so Lance wasn’t sure what Shiro was going to do since he had no idea what was bringing Keith down but whatever. He was Keith’s brother so he obviously could find some way to make him feel better-

“Lance, stop moping, I can practically hear your little mental plight,” Pidge said from beside him, looking up at him with a concerned look on her face.

“I’m not moping,” Lance said, crossing his arms and staring down at the sidewalk.

“Uh huh, of course you’re not,” Pidge said, and Lance could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “That’s why you called me to walk down to visit Hunk at work, because you want to see Hunk, and not because you’re upset that Keith went with Shiro to go look at that space exhibit.”

Lance was quiet for a second. “It could be both you know.”

Pidge let out a sigh and placed her hand on Lance’s arm. “Is this because of your not date with Keith the other day? Because I told you to talk to him about it, you’ll feel better if you know if it was a date or not.”

Lance kicked at a rock as they turned down the street that the dinner was on. “I was going to,” Lance mumbled. “But then-“

“Yes I know, you’ve told me four times already and ignored all my suggestions that you could still ask him,” Pidge said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and pulling Lance to a stop. “I know you haven’t really talked to Hunk about it yet Lance, but you know you can ask Keith, and even if the answer is no it won’t mess up the friendship the two of you have, right?”

Lance stared down at Pidge. “When did you turn into Hunk?”

Pidge punched him lightly in the shoulder as she rolled her eyes. “The minute you became all emo over Keith and your not date. Lance, I’m your friend so obviously I want you to be happy, and it seems you’ve decided that being in a relationship with Keith will make you happy so I want to support you. But if you refuse to take any steps for it to happen I can’t help you, and I don’t want you to start getting-“ Pidge paused for a second before making some weird hand gesture, “-whatever it is you’re doing over the fact that Shiro is trying to make Keith feel better.”

Lance stayed silent for a few moments as Pidge stared up at him, her arms were crossed but concern was written all over her face. He let out a loud sigh.

“Fine, I’m sorry. I know it’s nothing to get worked up over and I don’t know why I am, I guess I just, I’m used to being the one who tries to make him feel better, but since Shiro’s visiting he’s back to his big brother duties and I’m just grumpy that I couldn’t hang out with him today and I also was kinda planning on going to the space exhibit that they went to with Keith this weekend or something,” Lance said, finishing it with a loud huff as he fell against a lamppost.

“Good, get it all out,” Pidge said, patting him on the shoulder. “But for real, you shouldn’t be jealous of Shiro, it’s weird.”

“I’m not jealous,” Lane said. “I’m just in a mood because I wanted to hang out with Keith and go see the cool space exhibit with him.”

“Would a milkshake and fries make your mood go away?”

“Does that mean you’re buying?”

“Yeah, you’re looking a little emo right now-“

“You little jerk,” Lance said as he made a swipe for Pidge’s head, who only ducked and laughed at him.

“Don’t forget who’s buying for you,” Pidge said as she waved a twenty in his face before dashing down the street towards the dinner with Lance hot on her heels, laughing as he finally forgot about why he was even upset.

/////

“So what exactly are you freaking out about?” asked a very tired sounding Hunk from Lance’s phone that was precariously balanced on his desk while he paced the room.

“Hunk, I told you why four times already,” Lance stressed as he ran a hand through his hair and tried to will himself to calm down, it was no big deal, hanging out again with Keith, yet here he was, freaking out and calling Hunk up at two in the morning so someone could listen to him freak out. “I forgot I was going out with Keith-“ he caught himself before he could say tomorrow and about sent himself into another frenzy over the fact it was today, “-today so I’m kinda freaking out.”

“So wait, you’re going out with him again on a not date?” Hunk asked as it sounded like he was rolling over.

“Yes,” Lance said as he flung himself down onto his beanbag.

“You know, not to freak you out anymore but it’s looking like you might have a not date day, or you know as most call it, a date night considering once again you’re going out with him on a Friday,” Hunk pointed out and dammit he should have known Hunk would say something like that.

“But I don’t know if it’s a date,” Lance whined as he forced himself to get back up and pick up his phone.

“Well you could, you know, ask him if it is,” Hunk said, once again proving that he and Pidge thought too much alike.

“You and Pidge have already told me to do that,” Lance muttered as he flopped himself down onto his bed.

“Well considering that both Pidge and I have told you to do that, maybe you should,” Hunk pointed out, the usual voice of reason that he is.

“But I don’t want to,” Lance said, playing his part as the voice of denial.

“Lance,” Hunk said with a drawn out sigh. “Buddy I love you, but you’re getting too worked up over something that can be solved with a simple yes or no question, and I know you’re smart, so you should be able to read the signs if it’s a date or not. Listen, just ask Keith and save yourself some worrying, because while I love you, I don’t want you calling me next Friday in the middle of the fucking night.”

Hunk hung up after that leaving Lance staring up at his ceiling and a million thoughts floating through his head.

/////

“So, what’s the plan?” Lance asked as he slid up next to Keith after the final bell, flinging his arm around Keith’s shoulders. “Considering we’re going out alien hunting again I’m guessing we’re on a time frame.”

Keith glanced as Lance from the corner of his eye. “I have a plan.”

“Oh, care to enlighten me?”

“Mmmmm,” Keith said, tapping his chin like he was in thought, “Nope, I want it to be a surprise.”

“Hmm, well than lead the way hotshot,” Lance said, almost instantly regretting the nickname that had spilled out of his mouth, at least until he saw the red dusting Keith’s cheeks, than he decided maybe he should use the nickname again.

/////

“Keith, I’m going to take a wild guess-“

“About what?”

“I’m taking a wild guess that your plan for tonight is the exact same as last time,” Lance said as the two of them stood outside the movie theatre.

“I mean, yeah,” Keith said with a shrug. “We couldn’t leave town so that leaves us with like four things to do, and since I know bowling with you is like, an all-day affair I didn’t think it would work since we’re kinda on a schedule here.”

“Mmmm, of course,” Lance said as he followed Keith in, he knew what he should be focusing on is asking Keith the, uh, question, but since his scared butt didn’t want to do that he had decided to take Hunk’s kinda advice to watch Keith and see if he did anything that would suggest that this was a date.

“We could go bowling next Friday,” Keith said suddenly, “Though I actually had a plan for next week.”

That caught Lance off guard, and Hunk’s words about a date night ran through his head as he tried to not trip over his own two feet. “I-I’m fine with whatever,” Lance said, doing his best to keep down the awkward laughs that were threatening to spill out. He was just overthinking this, surely. There was no way that Keith-

“One large popcorn, and soda, oh and a box of M&Ms,” Keith said before handing the money over to the cashier.

“What movie did you pick?” Lance asked as Keith handed him the soda and box of candy. Lance stared down at the candy, biting at his lip. Keith definitely got those for him considering the boy only seems to eat sour candy, but that’s nothing weird, yeah normally if Lance wants candy he sneaks it in from the store next door and Keith has complained numerous times before about how overpriced movies and their concessions are but-

“That rom-com you said you mentioned you wanted to see last time,” Keith said, breaking off Lance’s spiraling thoughts as he took the popcorn and went over to add even more salt and butter to it.

“Seriously?” Lance asked, because honestly he figured they’d see the current kid feature before Keith would volunteer to watch a cheesy rom-com.

“Yeah, you seemed like you really wanted to see it,” Keith said with a shrug. “Besides, it doesn’t look half bad.”

Lance was kinda left speechless as he followed Keith into the movie. Maybe he was looking too into this, all of this could easily be seen as platonic, (although the voice in the back of Lance’s mind kept reminding him that all of this behavior seemed too close to that of a couple and Keith was never like this with their other friends.)

They found seats and sat down. There were still a few minutes until the previews would even start, so Lance decided that maybe, just maybe, he could try and ask Keith the question. Turning towards the boy in question he snatched a handful of popcorn and rested his elbow on their shared armrest.

“So Keith I, uh, I have a question for you,” Lance said before shoving the popcorn in his mouth before he could add anything else on that would make him even more embarrassed.

“Hmmm, what is it?” Keith asked, turning towards him, and damn why was this so hard, it was just four words!

“I was just wondering if, um, if-“ Lance said, struggling to just get the words out and trying to do so while Keith looked at him with his stupidly cute face.

“If what?” Keith asked, tilting his head to the side and making it even harder.

“If-if you finished the essay for English yet?” Lance asked, cursing himself for freaking out at the last second.

“No, not yet,” Keith said as he threw some popcorn into his mouth. “Why, you wanna get together and brainstorm so ideas?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, that would be great,” Lance said, mentally hitting himself in the face, he had been so close!

“How does tomorrow sound?” Keith asked. “I can come over tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Lance said as he sunk further into his seat, wishing it would swallow him whole.

Thankfully the previews began and he was able to settle into their usual ways. Keith picked apart every preview that was for a romance movie and Lance made stupid jokes every few seconds. Once the movie actually started Lance settled in, honestly half expecting Keith to fall asleep halfway through but was surprised when Keith actually laughed at a few of the jokes.

Halfway through the movie, specifically when the main character realized they were in love with their guardian angel, Lance heard Keith let out a loud yawn. He glanced over at him and saw him stretching his arms up above his head before bringing them down so that one ended up on the back of Lance’s chair.

“Are you seriously that bored?” Lance whispered, leaning towards Keith.

Keith made a face like he hadn’t expected to get caught or something before giving a small shrug. “Not really, it’s not that bad.”

“Hmmm, guess I can make you a fan of rom-coms yet,” Lance whispered back. “Don’t get too sleepy, we have our alien hunt later, remember?”

Keith hummed in acknowledgement and Lance went back to the movie. Keith never moved his arm off the back of his chair during the rest of the movie for some reason.

/////

“So, how was your movie?” Hunk asked as they drove out to their latest spot. Lance knew what he was getting at, the snoop, despite his innocent appearance Hunk was the nosiest of all their friends. Why couldn’t he just wait until they got back home so Lance could call him and gush about Keith in peace goddamit!

“It was actually pretty good,” Keith said from the backseat.

“Wow Keith admitting that he liked a rom-com, shocking,” Pidge looking up from her phone with a smirk. “I better mark this down, the day that Keith’s-“

“Haha, very funny Pidge,” Keith said, after he had reached over and slapped his hand over Pidge’s mouth. Less than two seconds later Keith was reeling his hand back as Pidge grinned.

“Do you know how many times Matt has tried to shut me up with that same move, it’s kinda sad that you didn’t expect it,” Pidge said, and yeah she must’ve licked Keith’s hand.

“Guys behave,” Hunk said with a groan as he pulled off to the side of the road.

“Or what you’ll turn the car around?” Pidge asked.

“Don’t test me,” Hunk said as he parked the car by the edge of the field. “You all wouldn’t be able to even come out here if it weren’t for me driving.”

“Fine, we’ll be on our best behavior,” Pidge said, with a flutter of her eyelashes for effect before practically pushing Keith out of the car. “Now come on, I wanna find some aliens.”

After they all tumbled out of the car and set up all their equipment they huddled together as they all waited for something to happen. Once again Lance got to share a blanket with Keith and felt a little piece of his heart just about die from happiness. However sitting in silence gets boring after about twenty minutes, at least for Lance, so he decided it was time to try and liven up the next hour and forty minutes.

“So, does twenty questions sounds good to everyone?” Lance asked, breaking the silence.

“Oh no, we are not going to play-“ Hunk began before he was cut off by Allura.

“What is this twenty questions?” Allura asked, perking up from where she was sitting, looking like she was rather interested in Lance’s suggestion.

“Well we go around and we each ask a question that all the others has to answer, and we keep doing it until we get to twenty questions, so I guess each of us would get to ask four questions,” Lance said, trying to hide his excitement that he might finally drag his friends into another game. Hunk had been refusing to play along after the last time they had played (Lance may or may not have made them decide who had the better butt between the librarian Hagger and Zarkon the janitor.)

“What are the kind of questions you would ask?” Allura asked, clearly finding the idea to be interesting.

“Oh any question really, like what’s your favorite color, or what’s your most embarrassing memory, or if they have a crush or if they’re in a relationship, those kind of things,” Lance supplied as Allura nodded her head at each.

“I see,” she said. “Can we play this game?”

“Why of course,” Lance said just as Hunk let out a groan. “Who wants to go first?”

Pidge did apparently. “Okay so, I’ll go easy on you guys for the first question since Allura is here,” Pidge said as she gestured over at Allura who seemed oblivious to what Pidge was saying. “Do you think aliens exist?”

“Wow Pidge, that is pretty tame for you,” Hunk said. “I was expecting something like would you rather eat your foot or your hand.”

“That can be the next one I ask if you want,” Pidge said with a smirk as Hunk made a face.

“Okay so we all know the answer for me is yes,” Pidge said before looking over at Lance, “Next!”

“Uh, yeah I guess it would be kinda ridiculous to say no after Allura’s confirmed it,” Lance said with a shrug.

“This is a practice round so Allura can get used to it,” Pidge said before looking at Keith.

“I feel like we all know my answer is yes sooooo,” Keith said before looking over at Hunk.

“I mean, yeah, it was confirmed just the other day,” Hunk said before turning to Allura. “You’re turn.”

“Well of course I do,” Allura said. “That’s an odd question to ask.”

Lance was next and he followed in suit with Pidge and asked a pretty tame second question. “Would you want to be able to read minds?”

Hunk made a surprise noise, most likely at Lance’s normal question, as Lance answered his question. “Cause I would, but like, only sometimes.”

Lance nudged Keith. “Your turn.”

“Yeah I guess I would,” Keith said as he sat back slightly. “But like Lance said, only sometimes.”

“Mmm, I don’t know if I would want it,” Hunk said as he tapped at his chin.

“Really? This coming from the guy who read my diary one time when he saw it lying out,” Pidge said.

“Okay I may be nosy, but like, reading someone’s mind, I don’t think I would want to be able to read some of your guys’ thoughts, no offense but rooting through someone’s mind is different than looking in someone’s diary,” Hunk said. “So I would probably have to say no.”

“Wow you put a lot of thought into that,” Lance said as he felt Keith lean against him even more, and damn what he wouldn’t give to just be able to know what Keith was thinking right now or earlier.

Hunk shrugged before Allura answered. “I’d have to say no, just because the human mind is so complex and mind reading suggests that you can only read their thoughts in the moment and honestly, most people’s thoughts are not as well thought out as one may think. It be more confusing than anything.”

Pidge looked like she was deep in thought. “Well now I have two very strong points against mind reading, however I would definitely take the opportunity to be able to read minds if I was offered it, so I guess my answer is yeah.”

“Pidge I can’t believe you chose the wrong side,” Hunk said as Pidge simply shrugged.

Keith’s question was, uh, well very him. “Do you believe that the government is run by lizard people? My answer is yes.”

“No.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Oh come on, Pidge is the only one who agreed with me!” Keith said as he threw his arms up into the air and messed up the airtight warmth of the blanket that Lance had previously obtained.

“Well I guess since Allura said no it confirms that your theory isn’t true,” Lance said as he patted Keith on the arm before pushing his arms back down and fixing the blanket.

“Allura doesn’t know everything,” Keith grumbled before leaning back up against Lance.

Hunk went next, his question was tame as usual. “What’s everyone’s favorite song?”

“Seriously Hunk?”

“Hey, I’m thinking about Allura here so she doesn’t ask any weird questions like Pidge and Keith!”

“Hey my question wasn’t weird!”

“Mmm, it kinda was Keith,” Lance said, smiling as he heard Keith grumble but not move from his spot pressed against Lance.

Then it was Allura’s turn and her question was, well, kind of predictable. “What is your favorite color?” Halfway through Hunk explaining which shade of yellow he liked, Lance noticed a change on the machine he and Keith were supposed to be watching.

“Uh, hey guys, I’m not looking at zeros anymore,” Lance said, shooting one hand in the air to catch the others attention. Keith instantly whipped his head around to look at the new numbers appearing on the screen.

Allura got up from her spot and headed over towards them. Hunk and Pidge got up after her and they all crowded around the screen watching as new numbers appeared.

“What does it mean?” Keith asked as Allura pushed some buttons on it and paper began to slowly come out from the top of the device.

“Well it’s the transmission from hopefully an alien spacecraft,” Allura said as they all intently watched the screen for a few more seconds until the numbers stopped and zeros slowly returned to cover the screen.

Allura pressed another button and the paper stopped printing out. “Let’s keep an eye on this; we might get another reading later if something replies to the previous message.”

“Okay, but do you know what the message says?” Lance asked already getting tired of staring at the zeros again.

“I’m afraid not, Coran’s more well-versed on this so I’ll ask him to look over it when I get back, until then I’m kind of in the dark to what it says,” Allura said, looking disappointed as well over the fact. “But I’ll let you know once Coran reads it over.”

The others went back to their respected machines, leaving Lance and Keith to stare at their zeros. After a few more minutes passed they ended up going back to their game of twenty questions. They only got through one more round before Hunk called time.

“Sorry guys, I have to work the morning shift tomorrow, I’m not going to stay out late in case some alien decides to respond to that transmission over a whole hour later.

On the ride back Lance looked back at Keith and said, “So it looks like you might’ve gotten yourself some proof of aliens, how you feeling?”

Keith looked at him with a wide smile as he said, “Like I’m ready to find some more proof.”

/////

They had just finished brainstorming some ideas for their essay (despite the fact that Lance had already picked his topic on the day the assignment had been received, but there was no way he could call Keith and tell him the truth), when Allura texted Keith.

“She says we should all stop by the shop soon,” Keith said as he read over the text. “Apparently Coran’s looking over the transcript from last night.”

“Cool with me, anything to get out of working on this essay,” Lance said as he hopped up from his spot on the floor and stretched.

“It’s due on Monday,” Keith said as he looked up at Lance.

“I’ll get it done when I get it done Keith, now then, don’t we have a freaky magic shop to be getting to.”

/////

“So have you figured out what the transmission was?” Lance heard Keith ask from across the shop while he and Pidge were finally exploring everything the shop had to offer. The first thing Lance had noticed once he had entered into the shelves was that the shop seemed a lot larger than the outside seemed to show, surely by now they’d be cutting into the pizzeria next store, but Lance figured that’s just magic for you.

“Lance oh my god look at this,” Pidge said, holding up a jar to him which inside floated an eyeball, which was already creepy enough until it moved to readjust itself so it was no longer lopsided.

“What do you even think that would be for?” Lance asked as Pidge put it back on the shelf she found.

Pidge shrugged her shoulders as she made an “I don’t know” noise. Well it was pretty obvious now why Hunk had left them after the first row of shelves to go stay up by the front with the others.

Lance went back to running his hand down the shelf as he took in everything. Most of the shelves were filled with different plants and sticks and gems, it was kinda crazy. Only occasionally would one of them find something weird that neither could figure out what the use could be.

Lance passed by a shelf with rows of amethyst ranging in size and shape and turned down a new isle of shelves only to see that all the shelves had bundles of sticks.

“Man this place is the weirdest,” Lance mumbled as he peeked down another isle, this one seemed to be stocked with what Lance could only guess were crystal balls. He should really ask Allura what some of this stuff was for one of these days.

“Hey guys, Coran’s finished deciphering the transmission if you wanna come hear it,” Keith said, sticking his head out from one of the isles behind them.

“Kay, we’re coming back,” Lance said, turning around to head back to the front after sending the last stretch of rows a sad look, one day he’d get to the end of these shelves.

Once he and Pidge were back at the front Coran cleared his throat and read the translated transmission.

“Landing pending, set for 0100.”

Lance had to pause after hearing that, it just sounded so….

“Wow, that was kinda, uh, anticlimactic,” Hunk said, putting Lance’s feelings into words.

Lance nodded his head in agreement as Coran shrugged, “It doesn’t mean it’s not from an alien ship, it’s not like every transmission they send mentions how they’re aliens. But of course it could be from any aircraft.”

Lance glanced over at Keith and immediately noticed his excitement was gone and replaced with disappointment. Placing his hand on Keith’s shoulder to get his attention he gave him a small smile, hopefully in encouragement that they would find something.

“Thanks for deciphering it for us Coran,” Keith said as he let out a sigh. “There’s still time left to find some more convincing evidence.”

“Yeah, we’re not gonna give up hope left, we still have like, a whole week left,” Lance said as he slung his arm around Keith, “We totally got this.”

“If we can take down a whole hoard of zombies I think we can handle finding a single alien,” Pidge said.

“Well I’m glad you all are in such a chipper mood,” Coran said as he clapped his hands together before pushing back from the counter and turning around to the row of books behind him. He plucked a book off the shelf before flipping through until he found what he was looking for.

“It’s been recorded that normally it isn’t until the second week that most alien activity is spotted anyway, if that makes you all feel any better.”

“Thanks Coran, I’m sure it’s raised all our spirits,” Allura said as she put a hand on his shoulder. “Now than, the two of us have to get back to work, unless you four would like to help us catch mandrakes-“

“Sorry I have to get to work.”

“I have to work out a bug in Rover.”

“I have to write an essay.”

“Same as Keith.”

/////

“So why are you doing this exactly?” Allura asked after she had been watching Keith and Lance for the past five minutes.

“I don’t know, ask our English teacher,” Lance said as he flipped through the packet they had gotten on Friday, as if finishing an entire essay wasn’t enough their teacher was having them start a short story and answer questions for the first part.

“What exactly is this story about?” Allura asked, the night had been very uneventful so far. All of them, except Allura had started working on last minute homework they had brought with them. Lance was lucky he had at least Keith to help answer all these questions their teacher had given them.

“I don’t really know,” Keith said as he half-heartedly skimmed the part of the story they were supposed to read. “Something to do with colonialism, there’s a steamboat.”

Allura hummed at this but went back to playing with her magic, not that Lance blamed her, he had read the first two sentences of the story ten times and still didn’t understand them.

“Hey Lance, they first question’s pretty easy,” Keith said, breaking Lance’s train of thought in the middle of reading the first sentence again. “Name two examples of symbolism.”

“Dude I haven’t even read the first two sentences of this thing,” Lance said with a groan as he pulled his hat further down so it covered more of his ears.

“I mean, I’ve only skimmed the thing,” Keith said as he began to flip through the story again before his eyes lit up like they did when he had a bad idea.

“Hey, hey Lance, I think I found a symbol.”

“Uh huh, what is it?” Lance said, ready for the most ridiculous response.

“The steamboat.”

“Uh huh and what does it symbolize.”

Keith looked up at him with a gleam in his eye. “Joseph Conrad was the steamboat.”

Lance about burst out laughing at that. “What the hell Keith?”

“Conrad really seems to like the steamboat.”

An even worse thought flashed through Lance’s mind, and apparently Keith must’ve noticed his smirk. “Oh my god what are you about to say?”

“So what you’re telling me-“

“Lance oh my god-“

“That Conrad was boatkin?”

Keith sent Lance one single glare before clutching his sides as he burst out laughing.

“I hate you,” Keith said between peals of laughter.

“You say that yet,” Lance said, before pausing to laugh, “I don’t believe you.”

“Could you two maybe not talk about kin,” Pidge said, looking up from her physics homework to stare them down.

“We’re just trying to do our homework, Pidge geez,” Lance said.

“Then you better write what you just said down as an answer.”

They didn’t get any readings that night, but Lance did turn in his homework with the words “Joseph Conrad was boatkin,” on it, much to his teacher’s confusion.

/////

They went out again on Tuesday, and after the previous night Lance knew he hadn’t expected much else from their investigation other than the single transmission they had gotten, but he ended up getting proved wrong.

Lance had been staring at the stupid screen of zeros while resting his head on Keith’s shoulder when he had heard Pidge freak out.

“What’s going on?” Hunk asked as he jumped up from the ground looking like he was ready to fight someone.

“Guy’s I’m getting something come over here quickly,” Pidge said as she waved them over towards her all while still holding a pair of headphones to her ears.

“Has something breeched the atmosphere?” Allura asked as they all crowded around Pidge.

“What no, I have no idea, I’ve been listening for any kind of radio activity that is being broadcasted at a certain frequency normally associated with extraterrestrials and I think I’m getting something,” Pidge said as she took the headphones off and shoved them towards them all while turning a dial that Lance could only assume was the volume on the device that was sitting in front of her.

For a while all they listened to was static.

“Pidge where did you even get this?” Allura asked, looking at Pidge from the corner of her eye.

“I made this years ago with my brother, I was getting bored of looking at screen that did nothing that I brought this along tonight so I could at least listen to something,” Pidge said with a shrug before shushing them. “Shhh, I think something might be coming through.”

They all strained to hear whatever Pidge could hear through the static and Lance was about to declare it a bust when he heard it as well. First they sounded like clicking noises, but then the static cleared some more and Lance realized that he was hearing voices.

At first Lance couldn’t understand what they were saying but then the message became clearer, only for Lance to realize they were talking in an alien language and he had no idea what they were saying.

Thankfully it seemed Allura did. “Oh I can understand them,” she said as she leaned closer to the headphones. “Let’s see, scans have shown nothing, I don’t think he’s here, um, they’re looking for something they lost I think, oh now they’re saying they’ll only stay for a little longer, they used some kind of space measurement of time so I’m not sure I know how much longer they’re staying near Earth’s atmosphere, oh one wants to land somewhere and look for whatever it is on foot-“

Allura was cut off by the next word that left that headphones, one that all of them could understand clearly.

“Oh my god,” Lance said as they all turned to look at Keith who was staring down at the headphones with wide eyes. “Dude, did an alien just say your name?”

“I-I don’t know,” Keith said as they all stared down at the headphones that had quickly gone back to relaying static.

/////

“So what do you think the aliens want with you?” Lance asked, he had given up looking at the screen a long time ago and was currently trying to come up with as many reasons as possible as why they had heard Keith’s name come up during an alien transmission the other night.

“Lance, as I have said a hundred times before, I don’t know,” Keith said with a sigh as he stared down at the screen of zeros. “For all we know if the alien really did say Keith they could’ve been talking about any Keith, not me specifically, do you know how common the name Keith is?”

“Yeah, yeah, but still, think of it,” Lance said as he poked Keith’s cheek. “You could be abducted by aliens; you’ve always wanted to meet an alien and now you might be able to.”

“Lance I highly doubt that those aliens are planning on abducting anyone named Keith,” Allura said. “Alien abductions rarely happen.”

“Okay, but can you tell me why we all clearly heard the aliens say the name Keith?” Lance asked. “It seems a little coincidental that we’re all looking for them and then they say one of our names.”

“That doesn’t mean that they were talking about our Keith,” Pidge said as she tapped at her screen, squinting at it. “Who knows maybe one of them is friends with someone named Keith.”

“Yeah, who knows, maybe there’s an alien named Keith and they were talking about him,” Hunk said, it was pretty obvious to Lance at least that Hunk was really hoping they wouldn’t have to deal with a run in with aliens.

“I’ve never heard of an alien named Keith,” Allura said with a chuckle, “But who knows, maybe we’ll find out and maybe we won’t.”

“Who knows,” Lance said as he looked down at Keith, “Maybe they heard you were their biggest fan and they wanna give you a visit-“

Lance was cut off by Keith shoving his hand in his face to shut him up. “Yeah, yeah, or who knows, maybe I’ll be their next human experiment,” Keith said before shaking his head with a laugh. “I’m not really worried about anything, I just wanna know if they really did say my name or if we maybe misinterpreted it.”

“Or maybe-“ Lance said as he was about to beginning his latest theory on why they had heard Keith’s name when Pidge cut him off.

“Not to break up whatever it is you two are going on about, but uh, I think something entered the atmosphere that isn’t of this Earth,” Pidge said as she stared down at the screen.

Everyone scrambled to get to her expect Hunk who was now searching the skies with the telescope with extra fervor.

Pidge pointed to a part of her screen that was showing some kind of reading that Allura apparently understood.

“I can’t believe that we actually managed to catch an alien spaceship entering our atmosphere,” Allura said as she ran her hand through her hair before whipping around and calling out to Hunk, “Keep looking in the sky for a UFO, according to the data it entered in pretty close to our area. Lance and Keith, get back and watch for any messages.”

They all ran back to their stations to search for any other possible signs for the aliens, however, they didn’t get any.

/////

“I’m glad you finally came up with another idea besides a movie,” Lance said with a grin as he and Keith walked out from the bowling alley after playing three full games (somehow neither one won since in the final game they somehow managed to tie).

“Well considering we didn’t have to go out and look for aliens tonight I figured we could shake it up considering we don’t have a time limit,” Keith said with a shrug, “Especially after you complained last time.”

“Hey, you can only watch so many movies before you’ve watched them all,” Lance said with a laugh. He was currently freaking out, but he thought he was doing a pretty good job of hiding it. Once again he was out with Keith on what some could call a date and Lance was currently trying to force himself to just ask the damn million dollar question that would end his suffering.

When he saw the empty bench he decided to just go with it. “Hey you wanna sit down?” Lance asked as he pointed over at the bench.

“Sure,” Keith said with that little smile that sent butterflies through Lance’s stomach.

The minute they sat down Lance realized he still had no idea on how he could casually ask Keith if this was a date or not, maybe he should just start with some small talk about how he had kicked Keith’s butt in the second round-

“Hey Lance,” Keith said, drawing Lance’s attention towards him.

“Hmm, what is it?” Lance asked and had to stifle as gasp when Keith reached out and took his hand in his. Okay so maybe this was a date? But the two of them had platonically held hands before, sure they had been running from something half the time but-

“I know I haven’t uh, said this yet but you know how bad I am with words,” Keith said as he waved his one free hand around, “But you mean a lot to me and-and I really like you.”

Lance felt his brain shut down for a half a second before sputtering back to life and being even more aware of how Keith was grasping his hand and staring deeply into Lance’s eye with that serious look and oh man now Lance felt a little light headed. He opened his mouth to say something eloquently to finally confirm whether this was truly what Lance’s thought this was when he mouth decided to move on his own.

“Like romantically or-“ Lance said before he cut himself off and tried to resist the urge to just melt right through the bench and onto the pavement below as his face heated up.

Keith looked at him with an incredulous look. “Lance, we’ve been on three dates, what do you think?”

“I just-I don’t know I wasn’t sure if they were dates or not,” Lance said as he threw his hands up in the air. “Do you know how much sleep I lost over that question? You weren’t clear enough!”

“I literally asked you out, I asked if you would go out with me!” Keith said as he fell back against the bench. “Oh my god and I just confessed to you and you-“ Keith cried before burying his head in his hands. “Oh my god I can’t believe I just did that!”

“Wait-wait,” Lance said waving his hands in front of his before grabbing Keith’s arms, “I still haven’t said how I feel about you.”

“Lance you didn’t even realize I tried to ask you out,” Keith said with a groan, although he at least looked up at Lance and oh man he looked defeated, shit Lance needed to fix this.

“Okay but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t want them to be dates,” Lance said as he grabbed both of Keith’s hands in his. “In fact I really wanted them to be, so much that I was scared to ask you if they were because I didn’t want to hear you say no-“

“Wait, Lance, what-“

“Because I also really like you,” Lance said as he squeezed Keith’s hands. “Like a lot.”

“Really?”

“Yes, duh Keith, geez I bare my heart to you and you still don’t get it,” Lance said with a sigh before being caught off guard by Keith’s laughter. “Are you laughing at me?”

“What, no-no,” Keith said as he shook his head while laughing. “More at how ridiculous we are.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I think we’re both a little dense,” Lance said with a small laugh as he watched Keith. “Sorry about freaking you out there for a second.”

“Sorry about not being clear enough,” Keith said as he looked up at Lance, his gaze soft and one Lance wanted to keep looking at.

“Hey Keith.”

“Hmmm.”

“So are we like boyfriends now?”

Keith laughed again. “Yeah, if you want to be.”

“Well I really want to be,” Lance said as he let go of one of Keith’s hands but squeezed the other.

“Really, well I feel the same,” Keith said as he reached his hand out and rested it on Lance’s cheek.

“Hey Keith.”

“Hmmm.”

“Can I kiss you?” Lance asked, feeling his entire body freeze until he got his answer from Keith.

“Yes.”

Lance could feel the smile stretching across his face as he leaned down and finally pressed his lips to Keith’s like he had so often dreamed of before, however he quickly learned actually kissing Keith was nothing like a dream.

Keith’s lips were slightly chapped but still soft against Lance’s as he ran his hand up to tangle slightly in Lance’s hair as Lance’s free hand settled on Keith’s thigh.

This kiss lasted for a few seconds, but it was enough to make Lance’s entire body feel like it was on fire and floating at the same time.

When Lance drew back he kept his eyes closed for a few seconds longer before slowly opening them and looking at Keith who was staring up at him with a soft smile and eyes that about blew Lance away.

Lance was opening his mouth to no doubt say something embarrassing when Keith’s phone rang. Lance held back a sigh as Keith took his hand off of Lance’s face and reached into his pocket to answer his phone. This was beginning to feel a lot like their first date, and just thinking about the fact he had apparently been on almost three whole dates with Keith without even realizing he had been on a date with him made his heart speed up, there had been so many missed hand holding opportunities.

“Where do you want us to meet up?” Keith said into the phone when Lance finally stopped daydreaming for a second. “Okay, okay, okay I’ll text the others. Okay, bye.”

“I’m guessing that’s Allura?” Lance asked as Keith put his phone back into his pocket and stood up from the bench, although he still hadn’t let go of Lance’s hand.

“Yeah, she spotted a UFO and wants us to meet up with her at the shop with a car so we can chase after it.”

“Well we better hope Hunk’s off work then,” Lance said as he got up and the two of them ran off towards the shop downtown while Lance called Hunk and Keith called Pidge. While Lance might’ve normally been upset about the interruption considering now that he finally knew that they were actually on a date he could really enjoy himself with worrying the entire time, he was over the moon about the fact that he and Keith were still holding hands. He supposed you win some you lose some.

/////

“Okay so where exactly did you see the UFO?” Hunk asked as he drove them through the town on Allura’s instructions towards the alien spaceship.

“I told you already, it flew by the shop so I put a magic tracker on it. I’m using a farseeing ball I connected the spell to so I can see where the spaceship is,” Allura said, never once looking up from the glowing ball in her hand. “Turn left up ahead.”

Hunk took the left all while grumbling. “Are you sure you know where you’re taking us?”

“Of course,” Allura said. “Next right.”

The car turned sharply so they’d make the turn and ended up squishing Pidge to the window.

“Ugh, get off me before you turn me into a pancake,” she grumbled as she pushed them off of her.

“You wouldn’t be as squished if you had just sat in the middle like I suggested,” Hunk said, looking back at the three from the rear view mirror.

“Eyes on the road,” Allura said. “And turn right, we should be coming up on it.”

“I refuse to sit in the middle simply because I’m the smallest,” Pidge said as she was squished against the window again. “Besides,” she said with a smirk, “I wouldn’t want to break up the happy couple.”

“Oh shut up Pidge,” Lance said with a groan.

“This is why we shouldn’t ever tell you guys anything,” Keith said as Hunk took another sharp turn, this time however sending Pidge into them.

“Wait, they weren’t already dating?” Allura asked, looking up from her farseeing ball for the first time since they met up with her. “Because before I even met you all Keith-“

“Allura please-“          

“What?” Allura said, obviously not understanding why Keith didn’t want to say whatever she was going to say next, “I was just going to say that you always talked to me about Lance and how cute he was and such. My favorite story was the time when-“

“Allura please, spare me,” Keith said, and when Lance looked over at him (his boyfriend!!!!!) he was about as bright red as a tomato.

“No Allura, please tell me the story,” Lance asked as he heard Keith mutter “traitor” from beside him.

“Well if I remember correctly-oh it’s just up ahead take a left,” Allura cried, cutting off her story mid-sentence and returning her full energy back to the search at hand. However, now the UFO was finally in front of them, and well, it wasn’t exactly what Lance had expected.

Unlike the usual saucer shape that was seen so often in media it seemed closer to earthly crafts than Lance would have expected. Other than the odd placement of the wings and the stripes of purple light intertwined throughout the outside of the craft it could almost pass as a normal ship if one saw it out of the corner of their eye or at night.

“Well I guess we know now how they’re able to blend in,” Lance muttered as Allura kept yelling at Hunk to speed up.

“Why does it matter if I speed up?! What are you going to do if we catch up to it?!” Hunk asked as he swerved onto the highway to keep on it’s tail.

“Well I could try to stop it’s engines,” Allura said. “Although I don’t know if my magic will affect alien technology but there’s always an opportunity to find out.

As Hunk drew closer to the spaceship, Allura began to roll down the window and looked like she was getting ready to cast a spell when out of nowhere a black van came barreling towards them.

“Holy shit!” Hunk yelled as he jerked the wheel and sped up the car. The black van just barely missed grazing the side of the car and everyone in the car got jostled by the sudden jerk.

“Shit what the hell was that?!” Lance yelled while being squished against the window by Keith.

“I don’t know!” Hunk yelled as he glanced back at the van behind them before back towards the spaceship in front of them. “But I’m guessing they’re not friendly.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Keith said as turned around to look at the van with Lance and Pidge following in suit.

“Well an all-black van with tinted windows doesn’t seem suspicious at all!” Lance said with a groan as the black van rode right on their tail.

“Brace yourself!” Hunk yelled as he jerked the wheel to follow after the spaceship after it took a sharp turn and about threw the three in the back onto the floor.

“Jeez,” Lance grumbled as he loosened his iron tight grip on the seat. “I think the spaceship’s realized they have company.”

“Well I don’t know who the other visitor is but I don’t like them,” Hunk grumbled as he griped the wheel so tight his knuckles were turning white.

“What if it’s the government?” Pidge asked from the backseat, speaking for the first time since the latest visitor had arrived.

“What, Pidge do you really believe-“ Hunk began before Allura cut him off.

“I do suppose it could be possible, while I know very little of your government it wouldn’t be usual if at some point they had made contact with aliens and were aware of their existence, and considering some of the world’s disbelief in aliens it would make sense if there was some organization that covered up alien activity,” Allura said. “However I’m trying to stop the spaceship to talk to aliens so I don’t really care what they’re trying to do.”

“They’re probably going to wipe are brains,” Keith said before his eyes widened, “Or worse.”

“Keith oh my god, don’t say things like that when we’re being chased by a creepy van!” Lance said.

“The spaceship is heading for the woods,” Allura said as she pointed towards a dirt path that lead to the trees. “Go down there.”

“Okay guys hold on, I have a plan for shaking these guys,” Hunk said as he glanced back at the van one last time before taking a sharp turn down the dirt path and flooring it.

“Holy crap!” Lance yelled as he fell back against the seat as Hunk flew down the path.

Keith glanced behind them. “Hunk they’re catching up!”

“Give me a second!” Hunk yelled back as he pressed down the gas even harder as they entered into the woods.

“I’ve lost the spaceship!” Allura said as the glow from her farseeing ball faded out.

“Hold on!” Hunk cried before turning off all the lights on the car and jerking the wheel so the car came off the road.

Lance could hear screaming, some of it his own and some the others in the car, as they headed into the woods. Lance was sure they would hit a tree or something before Hunk slammed on the breaks, parked the car and turned it off.

They all sat in heavy silence as they waited for any sign that the black van had passed them.

Keith was looking out the back as they all held their breath, half expecting the van to come after them, but a few seconds later Keith turned around and said, “The van passed us.”

All five let out a sigh as they let themselves relax for a second.

“Okay so I’m going to have nightmares for the next week,” Hunk said with a groan as his head hit the steering wheel.

“Well I’m just glad I’m not the only one who was royally freaked out,” Pidge said. “I think I might be giving up alien hunting for a long time.”

“I feel kinda bad for losing the spaceship,” Allura said. “We were so close to getting it-“

“Allura the fact that we were even able to see a UFO was thanks to you and your quick thinking,” Keith said.

“Yeah I mean, I think what really matters right now is that we don’t have some crazy van cashing after us. I think we’re all fine with knowing aliens exist rather than having to deal with whatever was in that van,” Lance said watching as Allura perked up a bit after that.

“Well,” Hunk said with a sigh. “I don’t know about you guys but I think it’s time to get out of here and head home.”

“Oh, could we get milkshakes again,” Allura said as Hunk turned the car back on and began to reverse out of their hiding spot.

“I mean, McDonalds is still open at eleven,” Pidge said.

“Okay we get milkshakes and then we go home,” Hunk said as they finally reached the dirt path.

“Ugh I’m either going to sleep like a rock tonight or not at all,” Keith said to Lance as he rested his head on his shoulder.

“Oh did this little chase tire you out that much?” Lance asked as he rested his head on top of Keith’s and took his hand in his.

Keith laughed softly. “Oh please, we both know you feel the exact same way.”

“So if that means if I call you at three in the morning you won’t get mad at me?”

Keith hummed. “Who knows, depends if I fell asleep or not, but I’ll still answer.”

“Awww thanks,” Lance said, knowing full well that Keith was probably bright red. “On another note, you wanna go out tomorrow. I heard there’s a new exhibit at the space center.”

“Wow, you wanna go on another date so soon?” Keith teased.

“I don’t hear a no.”

“Well yeah, of course I’m going to say yes.”

“You better watch out, now that I know what’s going on I’m going to blow your socks off tomorrow.”

Keith laughed. “I’ll be ready for it then.”

/////

“I’m sorry but we have to leave,” he said as he placed a hand on her shoulder. “We can’t stay in this sector any longer without drawing anymore unnecessary attention.”

“Then leave me here and I’ll find him myself,” she said as she shrugged his hand off her shoulder. “He’s my son, so he’s my responsibility.”

“Your mission is not yet over, you can’t leave yet Krolia, you’ll just have to wait. I’m sorry,” he said before turning around and leaving her alone.

She turned and looked out the window at Earth glowing below them. Placing her hand to the glass she said to herself, “I’ll find you one day Keith, my son."