Chapter Text
He remembers suspension.
There were moments—just fleeting—of consciousness. Blinding light. Pitch darkness that he hadn’t found even in the deepest reaches of space. It had surrounded him, seeped into his skin and burned. And voices. There had been voices—several, but he retained nothing of what they had said. Had he responded to their calls?
Hands had touched him, held him, over and over. Familiar.
He remembers fear and anger and grief, 10,000 years of it, and then: nothing.
***
He wakes again to blinding light, but then his eyes adjust, his breathing steadying as his hands grasp the air aimlessly. Sincline’s controls—where were they? His fingers ache where they had been curled, the nerves under skin taut. How long had he been holding on for? And for what?
The room smells sterile. He lays underneath a thin sheet. It falls away from his chest as he sits up in his bed, which is barely big enough to hold the length of him, and he realizes quickly that the clothes he wears aren’t his own. His armor, his gauntlets, his flight suit—every piece is missing, and a short, panicked look around tells him that he’s in unfamiliar territory.
There’s a window that reveals to him a blue sky, as well as small tables on either side of his bed. A monitor, which reads in a language he can’t recognize, seems to track his vitals, which are far weaker than he’s comfortable with. He places a hand against his chest, searches for the offbeat thrumming. His heartbeat, already plagued with a murmur, is slower than usual, even with the fear that begins to take him.
Grey and orange both surround and adorn him. His garments are loose, breathable, but nonetheless uncomfortable. Where his hand rests, fingers twist into the fabric. Haphazardly tossing the sheet aside, he touches his feet to a cold floor, but a new pain stabs through him when he stands. He stumbles and barely catches himself on one of the bedside tables, his entire body trembling. His chest heaves with effort, air not coming easy to him now.
He’s been in situations similar to this. Waking somewhere new wasn’t outside of the norm in all his years, except in those instances, he was often able to deduce his whereabouts and how he had arrived there. When he searches his memories, he’s met with ambiguity where there should be clarity. A cold sweat drowns his body; this frightens him more than he’d dare to admit. Easing himself onto his knees, he groans when they make contact with hard tile, a terrible scratching noise reaching his ears as claws dig into the metal side table. Still, he hangs on as if it were his only anchor to reality. It might as well be.
Outside, he hears something akin to construction, filtered and distant. His head turns towards the window. He lets go of the table, falling to all fours. Dragging himself towards that expansive blue is a tedious task that leaves his head pounding, the veins in his arms rising alongside goosebumps. He thinks he’s been drugged—it’s been nearly 3,000 years since that last incident—and almost laughs at the notion. Instead of his voice, however, a pathetic wheeze leaves him as he pulls himself up onto the seat that stretches the length of the wall.
Wherever this is, it’s a base surrounded by miles of desert. Vehicles, both ground and airborne, swath the area, and from where his room is located, figures—which he recognizes as Olkarions after much scrutinizing—look like mere specks. They startle him, but what startles him further are the humans that stand about, working from portable holoscreens.
Forehead pressing against the glass pane, his blood runs cold. Entire packs of them roam the grounds of this facility, clad in the same greys and oranges that paint his room, and then the blue sky is blocked momentarily by... an orange particle barrier, Altean in design. It’s gone just beats later, but he finds himself staring helplessly at where it once was.
He knows then that he isn’t safe.
Instinct kicks in; adrenaline takes hold. He forces himself onto weak legs and in a few strides, he’s at the door, claws raking furiously against metal. The screech doesn’t reach him this time, an awful pounding in his head deafening him. His other hand fumbles with a keypad that doesn’t respond to his touch; it’s designed for humans. There’s a brief moment where he desires to crush it under fist, but instead, he hooks his fingers into where the door and the frame join, and pulls.
Had he been at full strength, it would have opened easily, but he isn’t, and so it doesn’t. All he has is desperation. He pulls again, and this time, the door gives with a groan, though only by a margin. He’s met with resistance he can’t physically match. Sparks from breaking wires fly at him and touch down on his skin, but the shock of pain is nothing compared to the sickness he feels rising in his throat.
He pulls again; his shoulder pops out of place. His body begs him to stop.
He pulls again. This time, he screams, and it devolves into a series of useless cries. Warmth travels down his chin and drops at his feet: blood. He’d bitten his lip in his panic.
He pulls again, and the door opens in one smooth motion.
He barely registers the hands that restrain him, a pair on either side. A shriek escapes him as he’s pulled backwards and onto the floor, his head knocking against tile and blurring his vision, but he struggles against whoever pins him down. Their hold is powerful—one grip is a crushing force, capable of breaking bone, and Lotor has half a mind to shoot up and rip out their jugular, but none of the strength to actually do it.
Frantic voices surround him, echoing off the walls, but he can’t understand what they say. Two more pairs of hands wrap around his ankles and hold them in place, but he twists and is able to work one leg loose, knocking his knee into someone’s gut. He hears them collapse next to him with a groan, and he almost prides himself on the fact, but he knows this is a struggle he’s losing. Tears pool at the corners of his eyes; fear takes him in its arms.
And then his vision goes, replaced with luminescence instead, and he thinks that this is familiar. It’s comforting, eases his mind, and though he still feels his limbs writhing helplessly, calm washes over him. His screams are but distant noise now, no longer his own.
Claws—he hadn’t even realized they were out—rip at cloth and catch on thread. From somewhere else, a voice tells him, “You’re safe.” For once, he believes it. Warmth engulfs his body, his soul. This fight that he’s found himself in ceases to exist. He isn’t held down by unseen forces; he isn’t trapped in a world that he knows wants him dead.
He doesn’t exist there, only here. He reaches forward into light; someone takes his hand, but their touch is chilled by death. They hold him tight, and he thinks, Where is here?
The light drains and he’s back on the cold floor, his chest heaving as he gasps for air, his skin damp. Muscle and sinew ache. Where hands hold him, blood vessels have broken underneath his skin, leaving behind ugly bruises. The shapes surrounding him are all a blur, dull. Grey. Orange.
Blue.
What clouds his vision fades, and then, light.
Allura.
She breathes, “Lotor.”
Her fingers press at his temples, the cyan glow emanating from her beginning to dim, and with a hoarse voice, he whispers her name in return. The grip the others have on him loosens, but they don’t let go yet. His eyes dart to them. On his right is the Blade member, Keith. On his left, Shiro.
And above him, Allura, who helps him shift until his head lays in her lap. He doesn’t resist now, his lips parted in awe as her gaze softens. He tries calling her name again, but what he manages instead is a pathetic whimper. She reacts, and he doesn’t know what he had expected, but it hadn’t been tears, and it hadn’t been a smile.
The sun shone not in the sky, but in that very room instead.
“You’re safe,” she says. “You’re safe, Lotor.”
He holds her gaze.
She whispers, “Rest.”
And he does.
***
Waking is a slow process, but not one he endures alone. He falls in and out of consciousness, sometimes waking to pain he can’t process, other times waking to relief that doesn’t last. The passage of time becomes lost to him; all he knows is that a full moon hangs in the sky at one point, taunting him with the vitality he doesn’t possess, unable to even shift without his body tormenting him. Anger is brief, however, as he closes his eyes again and doesn’t wake for another few days.
In those fleeting moments of coherence, the few and far between intervals where he understands his setting, he’s met with by medical personnel monitoring his vitals, and sometimes, Allura herself. He forces himself awake when she’s there, his eyes following her, drinking in her every movement. She doesn’t linger, though, only staying long enough to check in with his nurses and see if he’s strong enough to talk, but his voice—what Dayak had once deemed his most powerful weapon—gives out at some point.
The more he comes to, the more pathetic he feels. He chokes on his words, can’t sit up without assistance and painkillers, and can barely comprehend what his attendants speak of. At the very least, he recognizes the pitiful looks they give him and thinks this is more sympathy than he’s ever received before. He’d had bouts of weakness as a child, days where he could barely walk and was forced to take lessons while bedridden, but that had been millennia ago. It was then that he’d promised himself he wouldn’t get like this again, but he’d fallen from grace somewhere along the way.
One night, he wakes to Allura at his bedside, the room dark save for the waning rays of moonlight that illuminate their figures. The monitor still follows his heartbeat, a gentle beeping he barely registers anymore. When he breathes in, it’s not the scent of medicine and cleaners that comes to him, but something sweet instead.
He knows she’s there, and his breath hitches when a familiar touch traces down his cheek, as if her finger were following a line, before her hand travels to stroke the top of his head, slow, tender, radiant. He feels as a child might: loved. Barely able to look at her, he manages a smile, one she returns.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispers, her voice a melody among the silence. “You’ll be back to yourself soon. I promise.”
His fingers flex numbly at his side, and despite better judgement, he lifts his arm, caressing her cheek. She stills, then leans into his touch, her smile turned solemn. He wishes that his voice would come to him. He wants her to know that she’s beautiful.
When he wakes again the following morning, she’s gone from his side, and he’s left alone with his longing.
***
As strength returns to him, curious eyes wanting to see the “supposed alien prince” begin to linger outside his room, which he’s since learned is in a Galaxy Garrison hospital. The planet Earth had never been on his radar until his first personal encounters with the human paladins, but even then, it had only registered to him as a place of importance in days yet to come, when the war was over, when the splintered Galran factions had given into subjugation, and when the paladins were ready to induct their homeworld into the growing Coalition.
He’s missed those key points in the universe’s history, where fate is rewritten by those who seek peace and prosperity, and when he learns that he’s been presumed dead for over four years, his stomach empties into a nearby trash bin.
Not daring to ask anymore details, he sleeps instead, nightmares plaguing him until he wakes again. It becomes routine, just as his check-ups and meals do, and a week passes in tandem. His nameless “visitors” lessen; the Garrison puts a ban on his room at the request of his doctor—Dr. Wright—allowing him better rest, though it was never the root of his problem and does him little good. The presence of those wanting a glimpse at the once-emperor isn’t missed, however; he was never keen on being treated like an animal, a showcase —a bitter sentiment left over from his younger years.
“You’re popular,” Shiro tells him, accompanying Allura on one of her visits. “There’s been a lot of talk about you throughout the Garrison. You should introduce yourself, once you can.”
Lotor gazes up at him, taking in his profile and how he’s… changed, since last they saw each other. Shiro offers a wary smile; Lotor can’t return it, instead looking away, his chest aching. Shiro leaves without goodbye shortly after that, and Lotor doesn’t see him for some time afterwards.
“Go easy on him,” Allura says. “He’s had it hard.”
Lotor doesn’t ask her to clarify, instead closing his eyes as if to ignore the small scolding he’s been given. Allura sighs and reaches forward, brushing her thumb against his cheek.
“We all change,” she murmurs. Lotor peeks at her through one eye, a brow raising. Perhaps she learned to read minds in Oriande. The powers she possesses is beyond him. Her expression softens as her thumb traces that same line again. “You’ve changed, too.”
***
When he brings himself to stand again, he still struggles, even with the pairs of arms that support him, Dr. Wright on one side, a nurse by the name of Ayden on the other. Lotor’s knees buckle underneath him, and his size nearly drags the other two down. He’s swiftly returned to his bed where Ayden, a diligent young man with a speckled face and kind eyes, helps him to sip water from a paper cup.
Dr. Wright’s brows draw together. “It’s too soon,” she insists, “for you to be moving around. We barely understand the root of your problems—”
“We’ll get him a walker,” Ayden says, holding Lotor’s shoulders. “I’ll help him.”
“Ayden—”
Lotor clears his throat and looks to Dr. Wright, his silent plea reaching her. She breathes out a sigh and motions for Ayden to go, which he does quickly. In his absence, she says to Lotor, “I’m not going to spoil you.”
Ayden returns with the device they call a walker. He helps Lotor stand again; willpower is what allows Lotor to stay stable. Dr. Wright follows behind as they enter the hallway, void of any sort of commotion Lotor has come to associate with hospitals. No noise comes from behind closed doors; no nurses pass on their daily routines. It’s a world left solely to them, and Lotor almost thinks it lonely.
Escorted to a room with rows of shower stalls, Dr. Wright states that she’ll return once Lotor has finished, leaving him to the care of Ayden. The door closes behind her, and Lotor moves towards the nearest stall, holding up a hand when Ayden attempts to follow him.
“I… can handle this…” he manages. Ayden, bright-eyed, nods and steps away.
Washing himself is tedious, worse than he imagined it would be. He almost calls on Ayden several times, but bites his tongue when his pride wins out. This is too intimate a task, and even with Allura’s reassurance that he’s in good hands, he’s reminded of his last moments of clarity, four years ago when his near-demise was delivered at the hands of humans.
Aside from Shiro and Allura, none of the other paladins have come to his room, not since the day they subdued him and he left a bruise the size of his knee on Pidge’s stomach. Allura was the one to inform him of this, and though he at first felt remorse, the pettier part of him decided that a bruise in return for almost killing him was a more than charitable exchange.
He braces himself against the shower wall, his muscles aching worse with every passing minute. Heaving with effort, he dips his head down, lets scorching water burn at his back. No amount of water, however, washes him of his sins. Weeks of near solitude have left him a victim of his own mind, voices reminding him that his hands were bloodied, that the paladins had almost fallen prey to him.
That he’d almost killed her.
Slipping down the tiled wall, he goes to his knees, muffling a groan behind his hand. Each droplet pricks him, soaks into his skin, steam rolling off of his body. His breathing is rapid, short flashes of Sincline’s cockpit burden him, the quintessence field falling in and out of existence. His hands curl into fists; he presses them into his eyes, urges himself to calm down, but he sees blinding light.
What has four years done? The paladins have hardly changed—Allura mentioned time distortion, but hadn’t explained further, and he hasn’t asked, but no one has tried to tell him, either.
He doesn’t know where he’s been. He doesn’t know how he ended up here, on Earth. His throat aches with unanswered questions.
Where was I?
What happened to my Empire?
What of my generals?
What of—
Honerva.
He stays there until the water runs cold and Ayden forces his way into the stall, kneeling beside him and draping a towel over his shoulders. Ayden speaks words Lotor doesn’t hear, encouragements to stand, but Lotor doesn’t heed them, only obeying when he’s forced up.
Sat on a bench, Lotor’s head lolls backwards, barely registering that Ayden dries him now. He squeezes his eyes shut; he hates this. He hates the feeling of foreign hands. He hates this vulnerability.
Ayden speaks to him still, but Lotor doesn’t listen, his gaze falling above Ayden’s head. Before him is a row of mirrors that line the wall.
His heart stops, briefly.
Standing before him is not the reflection he knows. Mussed hair falls in front of his face. Deep scars stain his torso, stretching along his arms, his neck. He’s grown pallid from illness; dark circles ring his eyes.
And under those dark circles are elongated Altean marks, horrifyingly red in color, trailing the expanse of his face before ending abruptly, just above his mouth.
He looks not at himself, but instead at the witch he vowed to never become.