Chapter Text
“I don’t understand,” says Pidge, mostly in a mutter and with an annoyed frown. All of them are watching on their vid screens because the lions are currently soaring through mostly empty space, and there’s not much more out here that’s as entertaining as staring at their new, white-haired Shiro as Pidge performs countless tests on his now partially cybernetic, enhanced body.
“Uh,” says Shiro. “Don’t understand what, exactly?”
There are countless cords and wires and weird alien tech that Lance hasn’t the vaguest clue as to the purpose of, all attached to the brutally clean line of Shiro’s severed arm. Pidge has been running diagnostics on and off since they first got him back. Since Lance and the rest first realized exactly how horribly they had failed their leader -- that they had been -- been --
Duped.
Been duped, and bamboozled, and played for fools by the creature Haggar had sent them. Kuron, Keith had told them. A clone with special enhancements, one of many. A throwaway. A spy or a plant or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, tailor made and programmed to lie in wait so that it could tear them all apart from the inside out, and --
Lance refuses to cry again.
It was okay to cry in apology, for failing Shiro. But he will not -- will not -- give Haggar or her creature the satisfaction. He refuses, he -- Lance closes his eyes and leans back, lets the warm red light of the cockpit seep through his eyelids and bathe him in calm. He doesn’t know how to feel about this. He feels like a traitor for not just being -- being one hundred percent relieved.
It shouldn’t be complicated, should it?
Kuron wasn’t real. He was just -- a copy.
Across the live feed, Pidge says, “All of your memories from -- before. They’re all still here, but for some reason I can’t access them. There’s this... Ugh! I don’t even know, it’s not anything I’ve ever seen before, not quite. It’s almost like they’re behind a firewall?”
“Wait,” says Lance, blinking his eyes open. “What? From when, now?”
Shiro sighs with a little smile that is very nearly a grimace. “We just... Since this body isn’t my actual body -- but the clone’s, you know. We thought maybe I’d be able to have the same memories. To access all of what Kuron had done and thought, but...”
“Nothing?” asks Keith, curious.
“Nothing,” grits out Pidge, annoyed mostly at technology defying them than anything, it looks like.
Oh.
Lance definitely doesn’t know how to feel about this; his chest hurts just at the thought of -- of something, he isn’t certain, because he isn’t thinking about this, he’s not. He can’t. It’s enough, more than enough, that they have Shiro back. That Haggar couldn’t break them. That Keith is alive and they’re all here, going home.
It’s enough.
* * *
Only it’s... it’s not.
Lance doesn’t realize it for a long time, what it means -- the loss of it, the great, overwhelming, sorry scope of it. Doesn’t let himself dwell on the fact that Shiro really isn’t the Shiro of before. That Kuron was an entity in and of himself, and he --
He’s gone.
For a while it really was easy for Lance to ignore. The journey to Earth is rough enough without throwing existential questions into the mix, and that’s nothing in comparison to what was awaiting them. That’s nothing to finding Veronica and his family and nearly dying so many countless times, being captured, being lost and confused and helpless and willing to die, to defending the Earth from Sendak and the Beast, and --
It’s been busy, is the thing.
Busy enough for the quiet itch at the back of his eyes to be banked. Busy enough for Lance to not ask himself any hard questions, to wonder at what he’s lost, if it is worth it, or if Lance is always going to have this hole in his chest that aches without rhyme or reason.
It... It really sucks, actually, that feeling.
And Lance doesn’t want to dwell on it. Doesn’t want to confront any of it, but when the battles are all won, and after the damage has been mended, somewhat, and life continues and they’re all just muddling through to make sense of a universe so great and vast and still in danger -- how everything has changed except that they’re all still soldiers with a war to fight --
Lance notices. Starts to really see what has happened.
The way that Shiro nods at him when they pass each other in the hallways at the Garrison, and Lance feels confused for one single, overwhelming moment, because that’s it, that’s all Lance is given.
No flicker of a smile even when Shiro’s eyes are pinched with the pain of a headache; no tactile greeting or teasing rebuke or questions for his second-in-command. No anything, really, nothing more familiar than before, so long ago, a time and a place Lance had been so proud to come so far from.
Lance is both bewildered and -- and devastated with the loss of something he hadn't even realized he'd been in danger of losing.
Oh, oh.
It is a wonder that Lance has avoided thinking about this.
About the fact that it is Kuron who had been the one to trust him so wholeheartedly. Kuron had been the one to say that he was cooler than space. Kuron had yelled and laughed and given Lance those looks.
Now, when Lance says, “Hey, Pal!” to Shiro without thinking, Shiro just says, “Oh, hey there, buddy!” back at him, because Shiro doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it. That Lance isn’t saying pal but is saying Pal because it’s a stupid inside joke; it’s Lance making fun of Shiro for always being a Paladin in that stupid Monsters & Mana game, and he -- it -- shit, it -- it’s just not fair.
Because it’s not Shiro that Lance is calling Pal.
It’s Kuron.
And Kuron’s not here anymore.
The moment, Lance thinks, that the realization really sinks in is about a week or two after they all get released from the hospital. Lance goes looking for him -- for Kuron, but he hadn’t even realized that was what he was doing at the time. “Have you seen Shiro?” is what he asks, and when he’s pointed to the Atlas hangar that houses the MFEs he’s not surprised.
“Hey,” Lance grins, coming to stand next to him. “I see you heard about the trip to the belt. Let me guess -- you want to be one of the ones to fly these bad boys out into space, hm?”
Shiro frowns down at him, a little puzzled. “I -- No, I don’t. I have work to oversee here, Lance. I can’t just go gallivanting off into space. I think we’ve done enough of that recently, don’t you?”
“What?” Lance frowns back, just as puzzled. “But it’s -- I know how you feel about dwarf planets, dude. Don’t --”
“What.”
Startled, Lance stops talking. At this point Shiro’s frown is very nearly a scowl, and Lance, not knowing what else to do, matches it, feeling confused, bewildered, because he just… he doesn’t get what’s going on here, doesn’t understand why Shiro’s pretending like this is some big secret. Except --
Shiro asks, “How do you know that? I’ve never told you -- oh.”
Lance blinks.
Shiro’s scowl goes dark for one brief moment and then it’s gone, and he’s the calm, professional leader of before -- the one who tried to pretend he wasn’t suffering from PTSD, the one who hadn’t quite loosened up enough to admit that he had a wild streak, that he definitely wants to go to check out Ceres even if he’ll ultimately be responsible and stay Earthbound if he has to, not --
“My bad,” Lance manages to say, voice strangled. There’s a ringing in his ears and Shiro won’t look at him, suddenly.
After an awkward minute Shiro mutters, real quiet: “Alright, since you know, apparently, that I uh -- yeah, I do want to go. I haven’t piloted anything in ages, and --” he sighs, shoulders slumping just a little as he looks wistfully at where the MFEs are going over a final check. “Another time, maybe,” he finishes, flashing Lance a single, stiffly bland smile, and then he’s just --
Gone, off to inspect the preparations.
Lance feels gutted. He stands there in that echoing cavern of a hangar, the belly of the friendly beast Shiro transformed into one hell of a mecha to save Voltron countless times in that last battle. And he feels achingly, vibrantly alone. And broken, and -- and so fucking sad, he --
He turns on his heel and flees.
Because Lance hadn’t realized what getting Shiro back actually meant. He hadn’t known it would mean that Lance was losing his -- his best friend. His --
Don’t think about it, he tries to tell himself, wishing desperately that he could go back, back to the hollow ache that he had been able to ignore, rather than this. This ripping feeling in his chest and gut, this tremble in his jaw, because spy or trojan horse or whatever else he had been, Kuron had been Kuron, too, had been a little bit of everything to Lance for a while, and he --
Lance really misses him, is the thing.
Misses him so intensely it’s like an Altean broadsword slipping between his ribs, angling up, wrecking his lungs and his heart and his ability to function, god, what even -- how is he supposed to survive the realization that all at once Lance lost the one thing he hadn’t even known he’d been looking for?
Kuron.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Lance thinks; but that doesn’t, actually, make it hurt any less.