Chapter Text
Funny how it always seemed to rain at funerals. And despite being only seventeen, Keith had been to enough to know.
Before he had been given a chance at the Garrison, he’d buried his father. He didn’t remember the funeral very well, but he remembered crying into his mother’s black dress, clutching his sister’s hand. And he remembered the fat droplets of water falling from the heavens, washing away his tears.
Then he had met Shiro, and he had been accepted into the Galaxy Garrison. And things seemed like they would be alright, despite how far away from his family he was. But in Keith’s limited experience, good things never last. When he got a call from Acxa that his grandmother had passed away in her sleep, he hadn’t cried. Shiro had driven him to the airport, and then he met with his mom and sister and his mom’s fiance, Kolivan.
Despite it being a hot summer day in Osaka, a light drizzle had begun outside as Keith sat stiffly in the cold room, a complete stranger reading his grandmother’s eulogy and eventually handing an urn to his mother. He knew the urn still sat in his mom’s study, that it was all that was left of the woman who used to pack bento boxes for him and Acxa before they went to school.
But when he emerged from that memorial service, Kolivan’s arm wrapped around his shoulder, the drizzling had come to a stop. It wasn’t a pleasant freshness that hung in the air, but an oppressive humidity brought on by the sun’s rays beating down relentlessly on the small puddles that had formed on the pavement in the nearly empty parking lot. At least there had been a rainbow.
Now, it was raining again. Pouring, nearly. His mom was with him again, too. Kolivan and Acxa hadn’t been able to make it. Adam was standing nearby, and the sight of him crying was so unfamiliar to Keith, it was slightly disarming. This was the private funeral. Keith had already sat through the public memorial, where several Garrison leaders had delivered tear-jerking speeches about the man Keith was finally laying to rest today.
A lot of people had shown up to the public memorial, many of them Keith’s classmates and teachers. Even Lance fucking McClain had shown up, which was like seeing a ghost from the past. Keith hadn’t seen him since he had been suspended for disciplinary issues a few semesters ago and never bothered to come back. He wondered what kind of relationship Lance had with his brother that meant enough for him to come out of his self-imposed exile.
His brother. That was who he was burying today, while his mother stood solemnly by his side.
Takashi Shirogane had died.
Shiro’s parents were also under the tent, weeping, and Adam was standing nearby. Standing alone. Because his partner was dead.
When Shiro had first told Keith about his disease, something called Becker muscular dystrophy, he had assured Keith that he wouldn’t be dying any time soon. That all it meant was that his piloting career might come to an end sooner rather than later.
Of course, Keith knew better than to take Shiro’s words at face value, the blind optimist that he was. He had spent many nights in his dorm room reading all about BMD. The potential symptoms, treatments, the fact that it was currently incurable despite all of the resources the government had allocated to disease research centers after the last plague.
Keith remembered how difficult the decision was for Shiro to make, to not go on the Kerberos mission. He knew that Shiro sometimes regretted that decision, knew their late-night races in the desert that ended in star gazing weren’t just for fun.
But he also knew that Shiro truly loved Adam. Their wedding had been fully planned, fully paid for. Keith was wearing the suit right now, the one he had bought to wear at the ceremony. He hadn’t even gotten around to writing his best man speech yet.
The wedding would’ve been a week from today.
Instead, Shiro’s body was finally being laid to rest in the Galaxy Garrison cemetery. Surrounded by other successful pilots, teachers, and generals, yet one of the youngest souls by far.
The doctor said that Shiro’s heart had stopped pumping in his sleep. It was thanks to the congestive heart failure he suffered from, part of the wonderful BMD package deal. But despite reassurances that it would’ve been painless, even a peaceful way to go, Keith didn’t see how any part of this could be okay.
He couldn’t imagine what Adam had gone through, waking up next to the unmoving body of the love of his life. He couldn’t imagine what Shiro’s parents were thinking as they buried their only son. And Keith, despite being surrounded by a loving family for most of his life, had never intended to say goodbye to Shiro, his brother. Not like this. Not so soon.
The rain continued pounding all around this sad gathering of people, thoroughly soaking the earth where so many more people were waiting for Shiro to join them.
The nearest graves were empty, though. They belonged to the three people who had gone on the Kerberos mission, Mrs. and Mrs. Garrett and Allura Alleyne, the pilot that had gone in Shiro’s place.
The Garretts were Hunk’s parents. Keith didn’t know him very well, even though he was the communications officer in his squad. After the news broke about Kerberos, Hunk had grown more reserved, sneaking off a lot to do God knows what in the dead of night. Keith figured he deserved his privacy. He knew that he would have grown tired of strangers offering him endless condolences, too.
Allura used to be one of Keith’s teachers. She had been good friends with Shiro and Adam, Keith remembered. She had been good friends with Lance, too, one of the only teachers who had managed to connect with him.
Keith felt guilty, yet grateful all the same, that it had been Allura to be killed on the Kerberos mission. That Shiro had been able to stay on earth and live out the rest of his days, though fewer in number than anticipated, surrounded by the people he loved. By the people that loved him.
Keith didn’t really know what he would do now. He knew Shiro had wanted him to finish his training at the Garrison, follow in his footsteps and become a pilot. But Shiro was gone now, and Keith had never really taken to piloting, not like some of the other cadets had. Not like Lance.
If Lance hadn’t left, Keith would’ve been stuck as a cargo pilot. Which he wouldn’t have minded, necessarily. But when he moved up to fighter class, he had been able to be in a new squad with his old friend Katie. And despite his secretiveness, Hunk had been a good friend, too. Plus, Shiro had been thrilled by the news.
Maybe Keith could go back home, to Japan. He could spend more time with Krolia and Acxa, talk to Kolivan some. He knew that they could always use an extra hand around the house, that some extra spending money wouldn’t hurt.
But Keith also appreciated all of the sacrifices that he and his family had made to get him to where he was. He knew that Acxa had given up her dreams so that he could come to the Garrison and be a pilot. And he figured that even if he didn’t already feel like he owed it to Shiro, he would finish his training for his family.
He would graduate, pilot a few missions. If he could manage it, he would hang on to the few precious friends he had acquired. Maybe someday, he could track down Lance McClain, the only person Keith ever remembered actively trying to befriend. The only person that had ever looked at him without any judgment in his eyes, yet brushed him off all the same. Keith wondered if Lance even remembered his name.
If he was being honest with himself, he knew he thought about Lance much too often for it to be normal, for it not to mean something. But Keith was very good at not being honest with himself, and besides, he was in mourning right now.
Takashi Shirogane was dead, and the unforgiving torrent of rain seemed like it would never slow, never give way to something else. It seemed like the sun would never come out again, that the rest of Keith’s sad existence would be shrouded in the oppressive gloom of rainclouds.
Luckily for him, he had enough experience with both rain and funerals to know that would not be the case. Keith could move on from this. He would go back to his dorm, Katie would give him a hug, Acxa would text him at 3 AM due to the time difference, and everything would more or less go back to normal.
Keith could make his peace with Shiro’s death. He was glad that they at least had a body to bury.
As he stood beneath the hastily erected funeral tent, his mother’s hand firmly gripping his black-clad shoulder, he said his final goodbye to Shiro, just like he had done with his father and grandmother. He said goodbye to Shiro, who had been a mentor and surrogate brother to him.
He said his goodbye, and then he shrugged off his mother’s hand, leaving the tent and the sadness and the tears behind. He wandered through the empty cemetery, the cold rain soaking through the fabric of his suit and washing away the familiar feelings of heartbreak and loss.
***
Lance had always loved the rain. There was something about it that felt so familiar, even if Lance couldn’t really place the feeling. It seemed like it had been a long time since the last proper storm in the Nebraska desert.
Even though he didn’t necessarily mind the rain, he couldn’t really explain why he had driven off in the middle of the torrent of water. All he knew was that it wasn’t the first time something had called him. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last time he answered.
Ever since Allura had disappeared and Lance moved into Shiro’s desert shack, he’d been feeling a strange pull. There were rock formations out there, ones that looked like they could’ve been featured in a museum. The drawings he found depicted some sort of… mechanical man. Different ruins told different stories, but they were always about the robot and what appeared to be a lion.
It could’ve been a prank, some stupid joke that the kids boarding at the Garrison thought was hilarious. But Lance couldn’t discount the inexplicable force that drew him back to the desert. Day or night. Rain or shine.
Lance was currently huddled in a cave, stoking a fire he’d managed to get going. The rain was really coming down outside, and if he was being honest, this cave wasn’t necessarily any worse than the shack he usually spent his nights in.
Allura would’ve told him to go home. That it was cold, and he shouldn’t be out wandering all on his own. But she had left him alone.
At least Shiro understood.
No matter how much Lance despised the Galaxy Garrison, he knew that Takashi Shirogane deserved his respect. So he had gotten his shit together, shaved and cut his hair for the first time in months, and driven the couple of hours back to the Garrison to attend the public memorial.
He’d felt the eyes of all of his old classmates boring into him, knew that Adam would try to pull him aside after the memorial and ask him where the fuck he had been. It was almost too easy to slip away again, to disappear and leave it all behind.
When the Kerberos mission was announced a failure due to pilot error, Lance had known something was very wrong with that. Not because of his blind faith in Allura’s abilities as a pilot, but because he had seen the mission plans. He had seen the footage. There were fucking aliens out there.
He hadn’t left the Garrison immediately. He’d talked to Shiro and Adam. If Lance was being honest with himself, he hadn’t wanted to leave again, to be alone. He’d already spent so much of his life in isolation, and even if he wasn’t necessarily befriending any of the students at the Garrison, Shiro was someone he could work with.
Who he couldn’t fucking work with was James Griffin. Lance knew that he’d fucked up, that he’d almost killed the kid, but seriously. Who bullies orphans these days? That’s just low hanging fruit.
“Why are we out here, Lance?”
Lance shook his head, clearing it, and peered across the flickering fire. Shiro was just as soaked as he was, leaning towards the flames to try to warm up. He hadn’t let Lance drive out by himself despite the weather. Maybe because he knew that if Lance found something, he wouldn’t hesitate to leave him behind.
“You know why,” he said, and his voice echoed through the cave, barely audible over the pounding rain.
“You’re not going to find anything,” Shiro replied, rubbing his hands together and shivering.
“Then why bother following me?”
An uneasy silence settled over them again, the only sound the constant drone of the deluge and an occasional rumble of thunder.
Lance had helped Shiro fake his death, of course, maybe about a year after he had officially dropped out of the Garrison. Besides Allura, Shiro had been the only one to know about Lance’s upbringing. The fact that there were so many gaping holes in Lance’s memory, that he was inexplicably skilled in a fighting style that bore only a mild resemblance to any that they knew of. That there were strange blue marks on his cheeks but if he focused on them enough, they would go away.
And after they discovered that the Kerberos mission had been captured by aliens and the Garrison was covering it up, they knew they were fucked. Shiro, though a skilled pilot, had left digital footprints all over the information he had accessed in Iverson’s office. Information that he most certainly didn’t have the clearance for.
And the Garrison had caught onto him, had threatened Adam, even Keith Kogane, to keep Shiro quiet. The death had all been Shiro’s idea, but Lance had easily gone along with it. He was already a ghost, and now Shiro was, too.
Lance traced his fingers over the delicately carved images on the cave wall. A lion twice the size of a Garrison fighter jet. Five humanoid figures, standing proudly. The robotic man looming over them. An inscription in a language that Lance was sure wasn’t from anywhere on earth.
Aliens were real. They had taken Allura. Shiro thought that Lance might have been one. An alien. And Lance was sitting in a cave with a dead man.
Lance suddenly wasn’t a fan of the silence, though he supposed that he never had been. He thought he might have been a loud and boisterous child. He remembered running through the waves, eating something spicy, speaking in a tongue he no longer remembers.
“Do you regret it?” he asked abruptly, and Shiro looked up from where he was staring into the smoldering fire on the cave floor.
The flames cast flickering shadows on his face, making him look significantly older. The tuft of white hair, a product of stress, didn't take any years off of his appearance.
“Regret what?”
Lance gave the other man a blank glare. He didn’t like repeating himself, and Shiro had at least learned that much by now.
“Sometimes. Adam promised me that he’d look out for Keith, and I trust him. It’s just… I worry about him. About Keith.”
Lance vaguely remembered him. Keith Kogane, top of the cargo pilot class, a skilled pilot in his own right. Lance supposed he must have been promoted after he left. Keith was nice enough, but kind of quiet and broody. Lance had been too, though. They may have exchanged a few words in passing, but now that Lance thought about it he hardly knew the man. He meant a lot to Shiro, probably more than Lance did.
“Tell me about him.”
Another sigh. The rain wasn’t letting up. A puddle of water was slowly seeping in through the entrance of the cave -- they would probably have to return to the shack soon if they didn’t want to be washed away.
“Well, you know Keith,” Shiro began, then looked up at Lance’s blank face and frowned. “Or at least, he knew you. He talked about you a lot, you know.”
Keith. Keith, Keith, Keith. It was the pale boy, the one with a jet black mop of hair and a hesitant smile. Lance was almost certain he remembered trading glares with the other, remembered feeling a brief flare of competitiveness when they were paired up to race in the simulators.
“I guess he’s a little shy. He came here from Japan on a scholarship. I found him when I was sent on a recruiting tour,” Shiro began, a wistful, faraway look in his eye. “He’s a natural pilot, he just lacks the dedication... You two actually have a lot in common.”
“How’s that?” Lance prompted easily, poking at the dying flames of his fire with a stick. Even he was beginning to feel cold in his thoroughly soaked clothes.
“You’re both skilled pilots who don’t have the passion. You both have anger issues. Your mentors are both…”
Shiro trailed off, looking down at his lap. Lance didn’t often feel guilty, but he felt something in his chest tighten at the look on Shiro’s face.
“Dead,” Lance finished helpfully. “Except Allura wasn’t my mentor, she’s probably not dead or you wouldn’t be out here with me, and someday, this will all blow over and you can go back to your old life.”
“You’ve never struck me as an overly optimistic person,” Shiro said quietly, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
Lance stood, offering a hand to Shiro and kicking dirt onto the flames. The line of water had nearly reached where they were sitting at the back of the cave.
“Maybe not, but I do have a pretty good track record when it comes to listening to my gut. And my gut says everything will turn out just fine for you and Keith.”
Shiro caught the keys Lance tossed his way, both of them grabbing their helmets and shoving them over wet hair. Lance slid onto the back of the speeder while Shiro took the wheel.
“Yeah? And what does your gut say about you?” Shiro asked over the roar of the ignition.
Lance didn’t bother answering that question, instead watching as the Nebraskan desert and fat droplets of water whizzed by. It was peaceful out here. There was nothing that stirred up his inner turmoil, that brought up blurry, half-formed memories of a family and love that he couldn’t quite make sense of.
Something was going to happen soon, that Lance could feel. He had spent too long in the desert, blindly following whatever force was tugging him like a dog on a leash all through the rocky Nebraska landscape.
Something big was going to happen, and Lance knew it would change everything.