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It’s tense, everyone getting to work at restoring the ship’s power, trying to ignore the fact that they’d been betrayed, by not one but two people. In gaining three, one returning, they’d lost two. How had none of them been aware that there was something fishy going on. Had they both been working against them this whole time. He’d been warned, directly and he’d been stupid enough to ignore it. Coran’s chatter came through clearer now, Lance looking up from the holographic screens in front of him to pay better attention to what was being said. Barely understanding the words that came out of Pidge’s mouth but Coran’s rang through loud and clear. “Nice work! looks like we have enough power we need to attempt a system restart, Allura, begin the reboot sequence.” She didn’t look towards the screen or register any sort of reaction at all. Even if Coran couldn’t see her, he could certainly tell he wasn’t getting any sort of response. “Allura, Can you hear me? Is this thing on mute? There’s a lot of blood rushing to my head, so I keep hitting the wrong buttons.”
Someone needed to grab her attention, someone to pull her focus. She couldn’t wallow, just because she’d trusted someone and they’d betrayed her. They all had a job to do right now. “Allura?” He said, his voice soft as to not startle her.
She looked just about as horrible as he felt, somehow right now he was doing a better job at hiding it. Maybe it was because he’d been hiding what he and Shiro had been doing, so he didn’t want to give away just how crushed he was too. “Oh! Right, what is it you need?”
“The reboot sequence. Can you run it again?” Lance stood, stepping towards the control in case Allura needed some gentle pushing to do what needed to be done. Although as quickly as the castle started to reboot it shut down again. “Looks like we hit another snag, hold tight!”
They all glance around expectantly. Lance truly had wished that it had of worked, that they could start moving towards Keith and Shiro, to track the Black Lion through a wormhole. Get involved in whatever fight had been thrown into.
“I’ll head down to assist with repairs.” Lance didn’t question Krolia’s intent, simply watching as she and Romelle ran off. If they hadn’t shown up with Keith he wouldn’t have been so at ease with either one of them running off to help. Their track record with Alteans that weren’t Allura and Coran wasn’t exactly good.
Then there were two. Waiting for any sort of news on the Bridge. Lance didn’t want to think, to regret. If he started to get in his own head he’d be completely useless to the team. “Allura, are you okay? You seem a little distracted.”
He didn’t expect a response, Allura was reasonably cagey unless she was trying to get information off of them, but surely talking in what little time they had whilst the other’s worked on repairs would be cathartic for her. “I’m just so angry with myself for allowing this to happen. I played right into Lotor’s hands and I fear my actions have placed us in this dire situation.” It was like she could read his mind, a frustratingly similar sentiment even though Lance couldn’t voice it himself. He couldn’t let the others know he’d been presented clear signs and just ignored them.
Actively chosen to avoid the fact that Shiro’s behaviour, the out of character interest in him should have been a red flag and briefly was but he’d chosen to ignore it at the suggestion of being wanted. It was more his fault than it could possibly be Allura’s. “You didn’t put us in this situation. It was Shiro who went rogue and released the virus on the castle.” He wanted to sound as calm and as firm in his beliefs as possible, but it was hard. Hard to pretend that he didn’t know whether or not he’d been there to witness Shiro set the virus loose but was too interested in his own gain to question it.
He really had gotten bad at his role of being the glue of Voltron. Even though he’d told Shiro he wouldn’t be a follower, that as the right hand he’d voice his disagreements the second attention started to be paid to him, Lance gave in to every single thing, didn’t even consider his own instinct. “No, this is my fault. I trusted Lotor. I helped him build and empower his ships granting him unlimited access to the quintessence field. I was fooled by him and it put the entire universe in jeopardy.” Allura was still doing a better job at holding it together than he would have thought. Despite his feelings, he’d known where hers were directed and how much this was hurting her. “How can the coalition ever be expected to trust me when I’m not sure I can trust myself?”
There it was, no matter how bad she felt about herself she was still thinking about their mission, not just about her personal feelings. He knew she wasn’t entirely pushing them to the side but she didn’t have to acknowledge the coalition either. “Allura, It wasn’t just you who trusted Lotor. We all did. I had more reason than anyone not to trust him, but he did everything right. He didn’t just fool you, he fooled us all.” Shiro. Shiro had done everything right from day one. So desperately had he wanted to say Shiro’s name instead of Lotor's, all along Shiro had fooled them more than even Lotor, he’d been someone they’d immediately seen as trustworthy despite his history with the Galra. Prisoners could be turned but no one considered that.
Yet Allura had trouble trusting Keith after they found out about his Galra heritage.
Allura hugging him didn’t quite feel right, he knew she was doing it to find comfort, as a thank you of sorts for saying the right thing. But he felt awful about not saying or doing anything earlier. If he’d vented his feelings to Allura that day he’d unlocked the Altean Broadsword better, rather than going to find a fight with Shiro then he wouldn’t have done any of the other things he’d done in the past few weeks. Lance put his arms around her, searching for the right words to say, something that would inspire the both of them or at least convince Allura that he was handling this better than he really was. “Let me tell you, as someone who’s made a million mistakes… all you can do is get up and try to make it right. You can’t doubt yourself now. We need you. The universe needs you.”
It wasn’t really evident whether it worked or not, Lance could feel the slight shake in her Frame as she started to cry, covering up any noise that might have been sobbing with a long sigh. “Thank you, Lance.” Either she was an exceptional liar or he’d said the right thing. Something ordinarily Lance would have taken pride in, probably would have gloated to Hunk about it later on.
He couldn’t bring himself to take pride in it. He wanted to cry or yell rather than relish in the fact that he’d done something right. Made Allura see he was the better guy. The better guy wouldn’t have fallen into a similar trap.
The sudden alert of an incoming communication had them break apart, Lance still keeping a close distance, there was no telling who would pop up on that screen. “Hailing the Castle of Lions. This is Keith.”
That was not what he would have guessed, especially so soon. Lance could feel himself brighten that Keith had gotten out of there. He knew Keith well enough to know he wouldn’t be returning so soon unless he’d done everything he could short of death. “Keith! You’re okay!” He exclaimed, hoping that he was at least reading the situation right.
It was quite obvious very quickly that he hadn’t. “Where have you been? Did you get Shiro?”
“I’ve got him, but it’s not the Shiro we know. The Shiro that took Lotor was a clone.” Now that was startling news. Unsettling, Lance looked to Allura, her confusion just as obvious as his own.
Just how long had they had a clone amongst them? Maybe that was who’d returned to earth. It wasn’t entirely ridiculous. “Well then where’s the real one?”
“It’s complicated.” That wasn’t the answer he wanted or needed to hear, if they’d had a clone in their midst for some time it wasn’t something that could be brushed off with an ‘it’s complicated’, It didn’t ease anyone’s feelings. “I’ll explain everything later, but right now, you need to focus on Lotor. I picked up the Sincline ships on my scanners. It looks like Lotor’s headed back to your position. Right where you are.” Lotor. The had to be the focus now, who knew what he’d do to attempt to manipulate the situation further. Maybe he’d just try and get into the field and be done with it, more than likely it would be him trying to fight them and try to turn them against each other.
There was no doubt Lotor had learnt a lot about all of them in his time working with Voltron. “He needs to get back into the quintessence field.” Allura scowled, it was a relief that her sadness had now shifted to anger, it would make getting the job done a hell of a lot easier.
“I’m on my way to you now. But without a wormhole, it’s gonna take me awhile. You’ll have to hold off Lotor without me.” Hold off Lotor they would. Keith hadn’t been gone for that long so hopefully he’d be able to get there before they really got into it. Those Sincline ships were higher tech than the Voltron Lions were but if they couldn’t get through the gate then there would be a better chance that they could fight them off.
“We’ll do what we can.” He said, then Keith was gone without a goodbye. Not that a goodbye was appropriate.
Allura called for the others to get to their lions, Lance not hesitating before heading to his own pod to get to the red lion. It really was an efficient way to get down there but he couldn’t deny having a moment alone was the thing he needed. He wasn’t going to cry or break things, he simply stood there, trying not to think about what he’d done. How could he have done this? It was better to keep people at arms length, it had always been only trust those that are family. His parents and siblings, after less than a year in the garrison Hunk had become like family too. They, team Voltron, they weren’t a family.
Shiro wasn’t family.
Yet he’d demanded trust and Lance had given in despite his misgivings.
He wished his own words to Allura had of comforted him, if he could demand answers from the clone he would.
He needed answers.
If it had all been about getting what he wanted then none of their interactions needed to happen.
As upset as he was about this he wanted some of it to be real. The person didn’t have to be entirely real but if the emotions weren’t an entire manipulation then maybe he could live with it.
Maybe then he’d feel like less of an idiot. Then he wouldn't have to hide how much he was tearing himself up inside.
He just needed the opportunity to get answers once they all got back to the Castle and had defeated Lotor.