Work Text:
*
"Keith, you’re home late. ” Shiro says.
In the underground defense cave of Nouveau Tokyo, a mirage-like holographic projection says.
This is the first time Keith has come back to the Earth in five years. Shiro is still here waiting for him. Patient, focused, like he always is.
"The mission took longer than expected. " Keith says.
"I’ve prepared something for you." Shiro says, his voice is flat but warm, still able to make Keith's half-Galra heart pound. That’s when Keith notices what that glittering spot is: it's a small, blue Balmera crystal. The Earth on a needle tip. It's too small to be inlaid with a ring, not to mention powering an entire spacecraft.
"Do you like my present?"
"Of course," says Keith, struggling to keep his voice steady.
"It's very small, the Earth is still too young," Shiro says apologetically. "This is the best I can do now - "
"It's perfect." Keith says. He reaches out and put his hand on the Balmera crystal, then closes his eyes. - Shiro is omnipresent, surrounding him, wrapping him. Shiro's echoing the vibrations of a butterfly's wings, on the dew drops dripping from soft blades of the grass, in the electric blue light on Atlas's control panel, between the wind and the Sun. Everything organic or inorganic. He is the breath in and breath out of the whole planet.
"You should go." Shiro says, breaking the warm illusion brought on by the Balmera crystal. Shiro is only a thin shadow in front of Keith's eyes, and he says, ”The new Voltron won't build itself."
It's a gentle yet firm send off.
"Wait," Keith opens his eyes and says, then silences for a while. Shiro waits gently.
"Shiro, I--" Keith finally speaks, "I think it’s time to say goodbye."
Perhaps after nearly a thousand years, Shiro has finally taught him how to do this.
Perhaps he still hasn't.
Shiro nods and speaks again.
"I can't speak for Shiro, but you know what to do, Keith." He says, "I am proud of you. I think Shiro will be proud of you too."
Shiro is smiling, the angle of the smile is wrong, and the projection is too thin, but Keith is still determined to engrave the picture into his mind, crystalize this moment like the crystal in his hand.
He turns his head and nodded. Keith can't continue this conversation. If he continues, if he looks at Shiro's eyes again (the eyes are wrong, the rhythm of his blinks are wrong, but they are still Shiro's eyes), he can't keep doing it. But this is what Shiro wants. This is what Shiro always wants him to learn. This is the single most important reason, for which Shiro has been staying here since forever.
To help Keith.To give Keith enough time.
Shiro is still considerate and patient, just like he always is.
"Goodbye," Keith says. Then he gets down on one knee, and reaches out his right hand to touch the Castle of the Lions crystal under Shiro's projection. Compared with the shiny, new Balmera crystal, it looks faint and old, like it would shatter at the slightest touch and become stardust.
Keith concentrates and recalls the method that Allura has confirmed to him countless times.
He should be ready for this. He should've been ready for this a long time ago --
*
"Shiro wants this," Keith tells Allura.
"Shiro doesn't want this." Allura shakes his head. "You want this. Shiro doesn't want anything anymore. The Castle of the Lions crystal has its limits too. On Atlas's motherboard, the part carrying Shiro's personality is generating dissociation failures over time. The proportion of that part is getting lower and lower, and now it's almost impossible to sustain even on Atlas anymore."
Of course Keith knows that. It happened because Shiro saved Keith again and was willing to hurt himself for it. Keith is already getting tired of this narrative.
It was a slave liberation mission in the Sixtans, and Keith was supposed to infiltrate and gather intelligence, maybe complete the necessary assassinations if given the chance. But the war had long been over, and the Blade's intelligence team was becoming slack and ill-prepared, failing to detect the infiltration of double agents from planet Molioya. Keith piloted Atlas to there alone, and the escape pod he used to sneak into the area was surrounded by soldiers when it landed. Even the most experienced and valiant gara warrior couldn't defeat a whole squadron of trained soldiers. Keith remembered killing the first eight soldiers, and then his left thigh was cut to the bone for by the ninth. He remembered screaming. There was lots of blood. And then the tenth dashed him, Keith turned to avoid the blade, used Krolia's blade to cut off the eleventh's head. A ray of laser shot by the twelfth hit Keith's right hand. More blood, more pain. Blood everywhere. The pain in his brain screamed, chopping his memory to pieces. Everything was mess up. By the time he regained what was left of his consciousness, Keith noticed himself lying on the ground. The only thing he could see is the bloody sky of Molioya, and in the corner of his eyes, the thirteenth was aiming at him -
- Atlas, hidden by Keith behind the neighboring nebula before, arrived like a white god in the bizzare red sky of Molioya. The last time Atlas turned into a robot, there had been a raging war on earth. Keith didn't even known if it was still capable of doing that, but Shiro obviously was. –
- So many years had passed and Keith once again returned to the astral plane. Unlike the Black Lion's, everything in Atlas's astral plane was fluid, pure white and gleaming, flowing slowly. Everything before Keith's eyes was glistering. He felt himself gradually decomposing, dissipating in the galaxy, dissipating in Shiro. It felt like going home. All the pain was gone. Only warmth and familiarity were left. He was very tired. He wanted to let go completely –
– "You don't want to." He heard a voice, ringing from his mind, ringing in his bone marrow, and ringing all around him. It was Shiro's voice, and it wrapped Keith comfortably and tightly, like a soft white security blanket. And Keith remembered why he had to keep fighting -
When he woke up, Keith was in the safe medical cabin on Atlas, and the route was already set to the nearest Marmora refuge. And the Shiro on board was even more wrong. As Allura said, the Castle of the Lions crystal also had a limitation.
It would never be able to compare with Keith's memory of 587 years ago, when the real Shiro leaned on Keith, flashing a big smile with no reason at all. But the Shiro in Atlas's astral plane is perfect enough. Keith will oh so carefully classify and cherish this memory to the end of the world, just as how a Reilary whale-dragon greedily hoards its treasures.
Just for this, Keith would continue this difficult conversation with Allura.
"the Earth's energy sources can help control this process." Keith says, not cleverly avoiding the previous topic, "On the other hand, a personality module can help the Earth to gather enough energy and start producing Balmera crystals even more quickly."
"You know this is a bad idea," Allura says, shaking her head, "You just don't want to think too much about it."
Allura is no longer so young: although the average life-spans of these two races are much longer than that of the humans, the life expectancy of an Altean is usually only one third of a Galran. Yet she's still as stubborn as when Keith first set eyes on her beautiful face, all those hundreds of years ago.
But they all know perfectly that Keith can be even more stubborn.
“Who is the most honest and empathetic human being among all the people you know? Who is better suited to do this job than him? For managing the Earth's ecological control system on this kind of scale, the existence of a personality ethics module is necessary. And no one can do this better than Shiro.” Keith smoothly says his rehearsed arguments, “When necessary, he can make the most difficult yet correct decision, even the new government of federal league humans would agree with this. Even more so, Shiro's image as the perfect hero of the Earth can certainly ease the doubters into accepting the system. From both an executive and a political point of view, this is a wise decision to make."
Keith can see that Allura's already half-convinced, and of course he pursues the victory.
"Shiro wants this, I've felt it on Atlas," Keith says, and it's not even a half lie. "He wants to go home."
And that's the last straw.
"When are you going to do that," Allura sighs and waves his hand to express his reluctant consent. "You know what you have to do."
Allura even doesn't say what ‘that' is, but they are both crystal clear.
All the time. All the time there is. They're all for that. Just like so many years ago, Shiro taught Keith how to make a hoverbike turn impossibly under a cliff, Shiro would teach Keith one last lesson.
Why are you asking me that, I could never do that, how could you ask me to do that?
"Soon." Keith finally speaks, "very soon."
If Allura sees him shaking, she's wise enough not to comment on it.
*
"Can't sleep again?" Shiro's voice rings in all directions.
"Hey," Keith says, watching the blue lights of Atlas light up with his steps, illuminating his way to the kitchen.
"I have prepared some food goo for you. They're not as good as Hunk's," Shiro says, with a trace of embarrassment, "but should be enough to fill your stomach. The medical cabin is also set up for today's rehabilitation treatment, you can get in there when you are ready. The Earth is not so far away, if you want to complete the treatment, you should hurry."
Hearing Hunk's name shakes Keith a little bit. He's lost too many friends - apart from Black and Blue, the other three lions were already hidden in different corners of the galaxy, waiting for new wars and new paladins.
Shiro seems to have noticed this too, "Sorry, Keith, I shouldn't mention --"
"It doesn't matter. Thank you for the food goo, Shiro." Keith blurts out and immediately regrets it. He still can't get over his habit of calling the wrong name.
"I'm not Shiro," the voice says, apologetically yet determinedly. But that sentence has the wrong rhyme. When Shiro still had a body – no matter how broken it was, how many damages it had suffered – when Shiro still had a living body, Keith could recognize him by all kinds of details. The whispered 'thank you' even in a loud crowd. The curvature of his white hair on the right side of his cheek. The tongue tip sticking out when he was writing something. Even in the Galaxy Garrison, where it's usually crowded and noisy, Keith was always able to quickly spot Shiro's whereabouts, thanks to a half Galran's keen perception and quick responsiveness.
And the Shiro on Atlas is slowly losing control everyday - it's all in the small things. A wrong smile. A wrong word choice. A wrong tone of a sentence. Others - even Allura - probably hardly notice that anything is wrong. But Keith can. It's clear as day for him. And it's getting worse.
There is something wrong with this Shiro, but he is the only Shiro there is.
"Want to go out for a ride with the Black Lion?" Shiro asks, interrupting Keith's thoughts. All the tenderness and all the wrong wrongness in his voice make Keith want to punch at the bulkhead like a sulking child.
"No," Keith says. "I am a little tired. Can you read something for me?"
Shiro adjusts the whereabouts of the broadcast transmitters, concentrating the sound sources in front of Keith, and then begins to play the background information of the next mission. How considerate. If Keith closes his eyes now, he can pretend that Shiro is standing in front of him, just like three hundred years ago, conducting an ordinary mission brief.
But he keeps his eyes open, and Shiro is not here.
He turns his head and looks out of Atlas's porthole.
The universe is a deep and dark place. Hundreds of thousands of miles away, a tiny, blue planet shines bright like a diamond.
*
"This is not healthy," Allura says.
"This has never been healthy," Keith says. "And this is not meant to be healthy."
"I should have known from Zarkon, that you Galrans just can't learn it. " Allura shakes her head.
The war has long been over, but sometimes Allura still can't get over her stereotypes against the Galra people. Personally, Keith thinks that's kind of cute.
"How did you do it," Keith says, half curious, "After Lance, after all of them -"
"You're still too young, no one has taught you this one," Allura replies, sadly and tiredly. "When you are an Altean or a Galran, a race with a much longer life expectancy than the rest of the Galaxy, learning how to let go is the single most important lesson. People come and go, and in the end, you always have to let them go."
Keith opens his mouth and finds no words. But Allura is not over yet, "Keith, you do understand, even the Castle of the Lions crystal can't hold on forever, right? One day, it will not able to contain Shiro's remaining will and memories -"
"And that's exactly why he needs to be put on Atlas's motherboard. Atlas has a remnant of his consciousness."Keith interrupts eagerly," By integrating the crystal with Atlas, we should be able to stabilize the crystal and prolong the process -"
"But you cannot even say that it is him anymore -"
"I know this better than anyone." Keith looks up. "Allura, I'm not delusional. How could it replace the real Shiro? "
Allura has no response to that too. After a few seconds of silence, Keith speaks again.
"When you don't have what you want, want what you have. Allura. This is the wisdom of the Earth. I have no other choice."
*
"How's my favorite knight and his favorite puppy doing?" Shiro shows up in front of him and says. His voice is warm and familiar, still able to make Keith's heart do weird things that he doesn't know it could before.
“Pretty good,” Keith smiles reflexively, and Kosmo woofs happily. “How are you doing?”
“Kind of bored,” Shiro shrugs and admits. “The meta-analysis on the agricultural development of the Great Magellanic Cloud is already done and sent to Coran in the morning. I have nothing to do after that. Besides that, everything is fine. I guess I'm just still getting used to the office jobs. "
Obviously, Shiro is still a workaholic, even if he's become an artificial intelligence holographic projection.
Kosmo curiously tries touch his nose to Shiro's prosthetic hand. Shiro's projection thins out in the air the moment it is touched. This is not the first time that happened, but every time Kosmo is equally disappointed. He whimpers and turns to Keith, probably in the hope of getting a comforting pet. Keith looks down at him and smiles, reaching a hand out to ruffle his head. I know how you feel, man, I miss him too.
Shiro flashes an apologetic smile to Kosmo too. Shiro always liked dogs - obviously, for Shiro, Kosmo is a space good boy, not some cosmic wolf. They spent a lot of weekend afternoons playing with Kosmo. Shiro used his cheating right arm as a Frisbee, letting Kosmo chase and vent its excess energy. A flying arm that floats freely in the sky, and a cosmic wolf that flickers in the air, those were the materials making up the horror stories of the Galaxy Garrison.
When Keith looks up, his hand is still half-heartedly petting Kosmo's head.
"Allura and I will find a way to land you a field job," Keith says. "You deserve a better job."
"I don't deserve anything," Shiro sounds even more apologetic. "Shiro is dead, Keith. And you know what needs to be done in the end."
Keith's reaction is not as dramatic as before, when similar conversations happened. He restrains himself and just shrugs, "You won't say that when you get the new job."
*
This is almost the same as when Altas suddenly incarnates into a pure white giant under Shiro's will, and shoulders the burden of the Earth - Allura is not sure how this works, but she is sure that it would work. The crystallization of the Castle of the Lions powering Shiro's arm, and his extraordinary will, are what make this possible. Even if what's left in the crystal is only an afterimage of Shiro's will, it is obvious that even a ghost is good enough.
"Are you sure we really want to do this -" she looks up and confirms with Keith one last time. Even it is Shiro who first told her to do this, somehow she still feels that she should get Keith's approval on this - Allura looks into Keith's eyes, and stops talking. She nods. Paige, Hunk and Matt don't need more instructions, they start working.
Because at the end of the day, just like Keith, they are all Voltron’ paladins, and they've always followed the lead of the Black paladins.
When Shiro's holographic projection springs up unsteadily, Allura can see clearly the tears on Lance and Hunk's faces. Even Paige and Matt's eyes are getting reddish.
And she is half sure that if she looks into Keith's eyes right now, she could see yellow.
*
"I’m dying, " Shiro says, "and you already know that. The body Haggar cloned can only hold up so long."
They're lying on the hillsides of Omaha, half trapped on the juicy grassland, overlooking the Galaxy Garrison's satellite city.
The city is filled with people, and they are eating, quarreling, walking, in conversation, in love and in pain. As if they all forget about the war happened just five years ago, too busy re-establishing their lives.
It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Shiro's face looks warm, burnt by the afternoon desert sun. And Keith feels cold.
"I don't want to talk about this right now."
"You’ll have to one day."
Keith turns his head, refusing this topic with all his minds and gestures. But he also knows when Shiro is determined to do something ,there's no way to stop him.
"Just ... let me die when it's the time." Shiro continues, "you'll have to learn to let go."
"You know I can't do that." Keith says, plain and simple. "You can't ask me to do that."
"I know, of course I know," Shiro smiles. "Forcing others to let go, there's never anything good coming out of it, just like..."
Keith looks up and looks at Shiro.
"Like Adam. Back then I was very selfish." Shiro continues, "I've always been selfish. I wanted to fly a spaceship. I wanted to explore the universe. But Adam..."
Shiro pauses, and goes on. "Adam needed time to say goodbye to me. I was going to die at that time. He needed the last years that I had to deal with it. To take care of me and to say goodbye to me. And I didn't even want to give him that. It wasn't until four years later, when I returned to Earth and saw Adam's tombstone, that I realized karma is a bitch."
"For a perfect hero of the universe," Keith says, "you really suck at intimate relationships."
Shiro laughs out his signature laugh, loud and clear and gentle. Hearing it warms Keith up. He wants to hold on to the laughter and he wants to hear Shiro laugh like this forever.
"Isn't that exactly what we are doing." Keith waits until the laughter dissipates, and then he speaks, "Saying goodbye."
That's a very cruel thing to say, but it's Shiro who started cruelly.
But that's not enough. That's far from enough. The last few years that Shiro's illness leaves them is not enough.
Keith wants to scream, but he doesn't have to. Because Shiro knows him too well, because Shiro always knows.
Shiro turns his head, and his face is so close to Keith, that Keith can feel Shiro's warm breath through his eyelashes. Keith thinks for a second about whether he should hold back the urge to stick his face to Shiro's, and then he decides to let himself go, go forward, and rub his nose on Shiro's face scar. The feeling of the touch is bizarre, soft on the inside yet hard on the surface. Shiro turns his face too, completes the impossible task, and gets even closer to Keith. He slowly rubs the scar on Keith's left cheek with his right cheek, the scar left by Shiro, a mark. Keith's sensitive half Garla nose can no longer smell the sun, the air or the grass, only Shiro. It makes his eyes water a bit.
"I know, I have a plan for this." Shiro speaks, with sorrow, firmness, and something else, unrecognizable, indiscernible. "Allura will find a way to keep me here with you as long as possible - not the real me, because -"
Keith nods and stops him from saying the rest. He understands this. Keith remembers Shiro's fear of being cloned, not knowing who he was and where he was, all the nightmares he tried to cover up. After Kuron, for quite a long time, he wasn't even sure if he was his true self - it was too cruel for Shiro. No matter how much Keith wants that, he can't deny Shiro's beliefs about his own identity. The only thing he can't do is to let Shiro get back to that situation.
He has to let Shiro die, one day.
"But he will stay with you for a while, until you feel like you can let go." Shiro finally says, then he smiles again, "And I don't want to give up on working too early, there are too much work left to do for the galaxy."
Of course, Keith thinks, because Shiro is The workaholic. And because Shiro always makes good plans for Keith.
"I talked to Allura and Coran, they are working on a technical solution,and Lance, Paige, Hunk, Matt, everyone. They all agreed with my ... little plan." Shiro says, arranging his own death just like navigating Atlas, accurate and well prepared.
But one just can't be prepared for this. How could you be prepared for this?
Under the gentle gaze of Shiro, Keith wants to scream, he wants to break something, and he wants to cry.
But it's such a Shiro thing to say, Keith doesn't have a choice but to smile.
"Good," Keith says.
"I will do better this time, you will have time," Shiro says. "All time, all the time there is."