Chapter Text
Lance landed the Blue Lion in the docking bay of the Galra military base that Voltron had defeated the day before. It had been a rather successful mission, leaving anything left behind in the escape to fall into Voltron’s possession. That was exactly what Lance was doing there. Normally, Hunk and Pidge would go on the scavenge-and-recover missions, but they were busy dealing with damage that had struck the Yellow Lion the previous day. Shiro and Keith were sparring together in the training day, and Allura and Coran had been discussing tactic mumbo jumbo when he had been called into the navigation room to be given his solo mission.
Admittedly, Lance knew that it would be rather boring and uneventful, but he kept his bayard at the ready regardless, just in case a stowaway had dodged their initial sweep. Most likely, he would recover some food, less weapons, and even less information before returning to the castle with what findings he could scratch up; shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Playing the only music that he had brought with him from Earth, he entered the base, running a flashlight along the floor and walls.
“Nothing at all in the main entrance,” he spoke into the microphone in his helmet, on open communications with Hunk and Pidge since being completely alone would’ve creeped him out.
“Yeah, I had noticed that yesterday. Keep sharp, Lance,” Pidge replied.
Lance moved on to the next room, his attention immediately falling on a row of lockers up against the far wall. Raising his blaster up and holding it with both hands, he slowly approached, braced for some hidden assailant to jump out at him. Slowly, he reached out towards the latch, springing it before jerking his arm back. The locker swung up, revealing an abandoned wardrobe.
“Anyone in need of a new uniform?” Lance joked, earning a distracted laugh that he knew meant that they were paying more attention to what they were doing.
The rest of the room only revealed more clothes in varying conditions. He took note of how tattered different types of uniforms were before he moved on to the adjacent room. This one appeared to be a mess hall of sorts, and Lance took as much food as he deemed salvageable, loading it all in Blue for continuing on. The next was the remnants of what Lance perceived to have been a strategy room, but it had been stripped bare in the Galran escape. The following rooms on that floor held nothing but empty bookcases and strewn-about furniture. Even what must’ve been the training bay had been mostly swiped clean, only letting him recover scattered bits of ammunition to pocket before continuing on.
It wasn’t until he went into the farthest room from the entrance, which appeared to be the sleeping quarters for the base. That was when he heard the crying. It wasn’t a pained crying, nor was it at a pitch he would have expected from a scared or wounded Galra.
“I can hear someone. Pidge, can you do a scan of the back room?” he whispered.
“There’s a small heat signature in the room you’re in, but it’s too small to be a soldier. It’s probably just some kind of bug or other space creature Coran failed to mention,” Pidge replied after typing away at her keyboard for a moment.
Lance was only somewhat reassured by this, and so he still held his weapon at the ready as he moved into the room. Uniform rows of bunk beds filled the space, leaving little room to freely move about. He took note of this, preparing for a possible ambush. As he got closer to what appeared to be a closet, the crying only got louder, more strained. Taking a deep breath, Lance flung open the door, his finger on the trigger. But, there was nothing. Perplexed on why he could still hear crying, he glanced around before looking down. The blood drained from his face as his eyes locked on a shifting bundle of blankets. His breathing hitched as his mind raced faster than travelling through a wormhole.
“Lance? You there, buddy?” Hunk’s voice rang through the intercom.
“Run the scan again.”
“Uh, okay? It’s showing that you’re right on top of the heat signature. Can you see what’s causing it?”
“Yeah,” Lance whispered before bending down, placing his bayard on the floor before scooping the bundle of blankets into his arms.
The crying quieted to a whimper, and Lance’s hands shook as he pulled back the cloth. Gazing up at him through watery, pale yellow eyes was a fuzzy, blue-furred Galra infant with small tufts of purple hair, so small that the blankets probably weighed more than it did. If he hadn’t had the knowledge of the scan, he might’ve thought that it was bait to bring his guard down in order to easily attack, but he knew that no one else was at the base.
“Uh, guys? We’ve got a problem.”
“What is it, Lance?” Hunk asked.
“It’s, um...just gather everyone in Blue’s hanger for me. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Shifting the baby to just one arm, Lance sifted through the cluttered closet, searching for something, anything, that would help him not feel so clueless about what to do. Among some of the scattered papers, Lance found what somewhat resembled a birth certificate. He couldn’t even hope to be able to read what all it said, but he recognized two of the names.
After the Galra fleet fled the base, Pidge had been able to hack into the com link of the escape shuttles. One of them had been listing off everyone accountable, and the receiving Galra fleet had asked for confirmation about those unaccounted for. The two names on the birth certificate were within the list of the unaccounted, the lost. Lance felt himself almost lose his balance as the realization hit him that, not only was the Galra child orphaned with no parent coming back for it, but also that it was orphaned to begin with because of Voltron’s raid on the base.
Lance wanted to run. He wanted to put the infant back in the closet, run back to Blue, and never think about it again. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. What should he do instead? He found some supplies that he assumed had been for the baby, although he couldn’t really tell what everything was, nor would he be able to list off what a Galra baby would need in the first place. Regardless, he carried as much of it as he could back to the Blue Lion while never letting go of the infant. Awkwardly balancing the child in his lap, Lance slowly navigated Blue up to the castle, where everyone was waiting for him.
He hesitated for a moment after landing, his mind racing and yet going unbearably slow at the same time. He looked down at the infant, expecting it to be asleep with how quiet it had been on the ride up, but, instead, it was awake, gazing up at him with curious eyes. For a moment, he panicked and thought that it was dead, but then one of its arms pulled out of the blankets and reached up at him. Remembering when he had first held his nieces and nephews, Lance held out his pinky finger, which the baby took in its hand.
Somehow reassured, Lance stood up, holding the child close to his chest as he walked out of the Blue. The team rushed him with varying questions flying at him, ranging from what he found to if he was okay. One by one, they noticed what Lance was holding, and they quieted down until the hanger was painfully silent.
“Lance, what is that thing doing aboard my ship?” Allura spat out, not even trying to hide her disgust.
“I found it on the base, hidden in a closet. I don’t think anyone’s coming back for it…”
“How can you be so sure?” Shiro asked.
“Take a look at this. I think it’s the birth certificate. Recognize any of the names?”
Lance held out the document, which Pidge took. She, along with Hunk and Coran looked it over several times, squinting as they tried to understand the language. Pidge is the one who makes the connection, and the group, sans Keith and Allura, take on solemn expressions.
“So, what now?” Hunk asked, trepidatiously noticing how Lance was gazing at the infant.
“Let’s just drop it off with the Blade of Marmora. They’ll know how to handle it. Keith, can you contact them for us?” Allura requested.
She turned to Keith, expecting the young man to be agreeing with her, but he was just watching Lance with furrowed eyebrows, his arms crossed below his scowl.
“What? No!” Lance exclaimed before tensing up upon realizing he startled the baby.
“Why wouldn’t we, Lance? Seriously, did you expect to keep it in the castle or something?” Allura snapped, her temper rising as no one else was agreeing with her and standing for a voice of reason.
Hunk approached Lance, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder as he ducked his head to try and catch the other boy’s gaze.
“I know you feel bad about what happened - I do, too - but we have no idea how to give this kid what it needs. And, even if we did, we’re at war, Lance. The castle, Voltron: it’s all too dangerous to have some kid running around in.”
Lance looked up to see Shiro, Pidge, and Coran nod in agreement, sympathy on their faces. He sighs before nodding his head.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I don’t really know what I was thinking. I’ll just keep it quiet and out of the way until Kolivan can come get it.”
Lance began walking away, only pausing when he reached the entrance to the hanger.
“Sorry for bringing it into the castle, Allura. I know this must be painful for you,” he murmured before exiting the room, the door sliding shut behind him.
Lance walked through the halls of the castle gloomily, feeling more like a ghost than a person as he struggled to form a single thought that made any sort of coherent sense. Finding his room, he walked inside and sat on his bed without turning the lights on. Shifting backwards to brace his back against the wall, he solemnly looked down at the infant, who had managed to fall asleep. He wanted to say something, maybe an apology, but he knew that the baby wouldn’t understand him even if he could manage to make a sound.
For several minutes, he sat there in silence, just watching the Galra child sleep and occasionally reaching to brush his finger against the baby’s soft cheek. When there was a knock at the door, he almost didn’t register it.
“Come in,” he mumbled, not wanting to be loud enough to shatter the quiet.
The door opened to reveal Keith standing on the other side, much to Lance’s surprise.
“Keith?”
“Is it asleep?”
“Yeah. What’re you doing here?”
Keith entered the room, sitting down on the edge of the bed and turning sideways to look at Lance.
“You doing okay? You looked like a gust of wind would’ve blown you away back in the hanger.”
“Sorry. I know I’m being weird about it. It’s just,” Lance says, pausing to take a deep breath, “when I saw this baby, all alone in a dark closet, crying out for parents that will never come because of us...I don’t know. It felt like my heart broke a little. I don’t know if it’s guilt or that it reminds me of my family back on Earth or whatever, but the idea of letting this baby out of my sight after what I did to it just feels wrong , you know?”
Keith listened, shifting his gaze between Lance and the bundle in his arms. After a moment of thought, he took the birth certificate out of his pocket, which he had grabbed from Pidge before going after Lance. He was able to read it better than the others due to his training as a Blade member.
“His name is Nika,” he said, turning it around to show Lance as he pointed at the name of the baby.
“Nika…” Lance repeated, looking down at the baby boy and realizing that the name, despite him not knowing if it had any significance or meaning, felt perfect.
“When helping the others unload the cargo from your lion, I noticed the supplies that didn’t really match the rest. Krolia could probably better identify everything than I could, but I’m guessing it was probably baby stuff that you found at the base.”
“Yeah. I really don’t know what I was thinking when I grabbed all that stuff. Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.”
“Y’know, I was raised human by my dad, but there were some aspects of my childhood that my mom says is because of my Galra heritage, like how I would often cover myself in a blanket when overwhelmed since warm darkness was comforting.”
Lance wasn’t really sure why Keith was saying all of this, but he listened anyway.
“And textures of different food was always a big thing for me, much to the annoyance of my dad, so I usually ended up eating what was textureless and easy to swallow. And my teething and mobility phases both came earlier than they would’ve if I was completely human.”
“Keith, what’re you on about?”
“I’m just saying that...it’s not like you’d have no idea on how to take care of him.”
Lance finally looked up at Keith, confusion and anticipation running through him faster than the Red Lion could ever go.
“Allura - you saw how much she hated having Nika in the castle - she’d never have it.”
“Shiro and Coran could try to help you convince her if this is really what you want; they saw how hung up you were about it and how carefully you held and looked at the kid. But, Lance,” Keith said, pausing to make sure he had the other boy’s full attention, “this isn’t like adopting a random cow at the space mall. Hunk was right about a kid being involved in Voltron being really dangerous, not to mention that this will be a lot different than looking after nieces and nephews, especially considering that Nika isn’t human.”
Lance felt his heart hammering in his chest, and he knew that he was standing at a crossroads. Either path had both positive and negative consequences, and neither path would let him turn back if he felt he had made a mistake. And yet, he knew which path was the right one without even thinking about it, as if it were instinct or even destiny that he make his choice.
“I guess I better start working on my plea to Allura then, huh?”
Keith chuckled before folding the birth certificate and placing it on the bed next to Lance.
“I’ll leave you to it, then. See you later, Lance,” he said before standing up and leaving the room.
Once the door closed, Keith sighed before leaning against the wall, tilting his head down to look at his feet as he tried to calm his own nerves and beating heart.
“I hope I didn’t just help him make the wrong decision. Don’t screw this up, Lance,” he murmured to himself before walking away to resume his training session with Shiro.