Chapter Text
“Uncle Lance! ¡Tíoo!” Sylvio called. The most I could do was brace for impact, ‘cause this kid for sure was barreling towards me. Sure enough, I felt a big push, sending me forward on my hands.
“Oomph!” Quiznak, this kid had gravity. “Cuenta, mijo,” I pushed myself off from the ground.
“Nadia’s being mean,” Sylvio shouted in my ear, his arms around my neck.
“AM NOT,” Nadia said exasperated from across the field, making me laugh.
“Okay,” I stood, lifting Sylvio a caballito. “There’s a simple solution to this problem, I’m sure.”
I turned to where Nadia’s voice had come from. She stood there, pants stained with grass and her hair wildly out of place. She seemed angry, probably because of her brother’s accusations. As I walked to her, I felt Sylvio trace the marks on my cheeks for the thousandth time, his fingers following the familiar shape.
“Well, what seems to be the problem?” I knelt so Sylvio could hop off.
“I thought you said you had a solution,” Sylvio pointed out.
“I will, I just need the details,” I said.
“Okay...”
“Sylvio won’t let me use my bike!”
“LIAR.”
“Let your sister talk,” I said softly.
“He wouldn’t let me use my bike and he crashed it.”
“Tío, does it smell like smoke to you?” Sylvio asked.
“What?”
“’Cause your pants are on fire!” Sylvio said to Nadia. Boy, am I regretting all the comebacks I taught this kid.
“¡Tío!”
“¡Tío!”
“Okay! Alright. I’ve reached a verdict,” I said ceremoniously. “Sylvio, you have your own bike to crash, go do that. Nadia, you absolute angel, I will fix your bike.”
“Pero, tío—”
“‘Pero, tío’ nada. Lucky you I won’t tell your mom about this one, yeah?”
“Okay.”
The kids ran off to continue their afternoon of playing and running and making up games. I had missed summers on Earth: the feeling of the sun hugging my skin, the smell of dirt and how the humidity hung in the air. It felt alive and messy; I loved it.
The days at the farm rolled by slowly, with being up since dawn and having a list of never-ending chores, the sun seemed to take its sweet time in the sky. Most days, I wouldn’t complain, but—
“Lance! You’ll get heat stroke,” mi viejita had said.
“Vieja, that’s not a thing!” I’d said, like an idiot.
“Lance, ven acá por Dios,” she’d said, making me laugh. That’s the last thing I remembered before passing out.
My pocket began to beep, and I pulled out my phone. The orange screen read: Sun Break. I sat on the porch waiting for the noon sun to be less savage. My thoughts drifted as I laid back.
Hey, Blue. How are you? How are the Lions? I’m fine, yeah. Yeah…I miss Allura, too. It comes in waves. I’m sure you understand. Like when the Paladins of Old first disappeared. I’m sorry to mention it again... You never tell me if you’re with the other Lions. None of you ever answer that… Yes, of course we keep in touch, not as often as before, though. Coran is better, still, yeah, still regrets—I know you can’t talk to her, Blue... Hey, could you—yeah, could you show me your location? Thanks, buddy.
I could see new constellations, like before. I don’t think I ever saw the same pattern of stars ever again in our missions as Voltron. I used to have fun with those new constellations and try to give them shapes and names. Pidge hated that game; she thought the figures I came up with were absurd, the names even more so. Blue’s visor started speeding up, like we were about to make a jump. I felt him wanting to get away from something. My heart was beating hard and fast. I tried to reach for the control and brace. I couldn’t; there was nothing to grab. It felt like I was suffocating. Something was on my tail.
I felt an explosion to my right. I jumped awake. Chest tight. A name stuck in my throat. My body coiled and stiff. I was disoriented. I—was home. I slowly turned to my right. It was Rachel.
“Sorry, Lance,” she said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
The door had slammed shut with the wind. I took a shaky breath, feeling my chest relax a bit.
“Oh, nightmare?” Rachel asked. A short nod was all I could offer. Just because the war was over, it didn’t mean that it was behind us. On days like this, sleep wouldn’t come easy.
Rachel sat cross-legged in front of me. “La vieja said this stuff takes time.”
“I—I know,” I leaned back on my hands. “It—it just feels like Blue is in trouble.”
“Lance, the universe is safe—or safer—the Lions aren’t needed. Isn’t that why they disappeared in the first place?”
“Yes…”
“Stop trying to play hero, Lance. You already served enough time.”
Rachel was right, of course she was. But I really couldn’t shake off this feeling. Maybe Hunk would understand or Pidge. Or Shiro…or—
“I just need to walk it off,” I said.
“Say hi to Pidge for me,” Rachel said, knowing me annoyingly well.
“Sure.”
* * *
I heard Bae Bae before I saw her. She was barking and scratching at the bottom of the door.
“Bae Bae! Down!” I didn’t know if it was Colleen or Pidge, their voices were awful similar when they were stern. The door opened and Bae Bae zoomed out, jumping circles around me, tail wagging wildly.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I said in my baby voice. She stood still long enough for me to scratch her ears.
“Lance!” It was Colleen. “Come in, dear. Katie’s on the roof. Want me to call them down?”
“No, that’s okay,” I smiled.
“Right. ‘Never enough fresh air’,” Colleen smirked. “Katie, of all people—I still can’t believe it.”
I chuckled sheepishly. I couldn’t really describe it, but it wasn’t claustrophobia. Open spaces just felt—safer.
“Well, you know the way, kiddo,” Colleen said. “If Katie asks, I’m walking Bae Bae.”
“Sure thing.”
I climbed up the stairs, into Pidge’s ever-messy room. Books, cables, papers, chips and other incomplete robot parts scattered everywhere. Not to mention the clothes. A couple of Space Caterpillars were piled up, resting on Pidge’s unmade bed. I climbed out the window and heaved myself onto the roof.
There she was: satellite, computer, and headphones on. Looking over the landscape. They waved at Colleen and Bae Bae.
“Love you!” they shouted, removing one headphone earpad.
“Love you, too,” Colleen said.
“Oh, yeah, you too, Mom,” Pidge laughed.
“Very funny!”
I smirked.
“Rocking out to some tunes?” I asked leaning over the computer screen.
“AH!” Pidge instinctively elbowed me in the chest.
“Ay,” I sat back hard.
“Lance!” Pidge turned around. “Sorry.”
“My bad, honest.” It was easy to forget that Pidge was considerably more dangerous than she was when we were at the Garrison. “On your six,” I said. She turned to face her laptop again. We sat back-to-back, no blind spots. I rested my head on her shoulder.
“How’s the farm?”
“Fine, peaceful, calm, dreadful. Chip?”
“Running smoothly enough, plenty of room for improvement. Have you heard from the guys?”
“Shiro and Hunk?”
“Coran and Keith.”
“Oh, uh…not—really,” I thought for a minute. “They usually check in every month, right?”
“Every phoeb, so it’s a little longer,” Pidge said.
“Right.” I had stopped counting in quintants and phoebs a while ago. My biological clock had readjusted to Earth time about a deca-phoeb ago.
I felt Pidge’s elbows begin to move, she was typing again.
“What’s bothering you, Lance?”
“Hm? Oh, nothing much…”
“Just your dreadfully calm farm?”
“I spoke to Blue—”
“What?!” Pidge whipped around. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“Oh, like you don’t speak to Green,” I said defensively.
“Of course, I do. But my relationship to her is not emotionally intertwined or complicated,” I felt her shut the laptop. “Lance, both the Lions you piloted have mixed neurotransmissions. They have fresh phantom imprints of their previous pilots, even more so than Yellow and Green.”
“Pidge, English.”
She groaned. “Blue went from you to Allura. You had bonded with Blue, and Blue had that memory fresh in his circuitry. Keith moved to Black and you to Red.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, those Lions are connected in intrinsic and emotionally complicated ways,” I felt Pidge gesturing, she was growing impatient.
“Pidge—” I felt her turn around. I sat sideways, not wanting to face head-on the logic she was about to throw at my face.
“Lance, you can probably still feel Allura in Blue!”
I looked down. She was right, sort of. It wasn’t Allura, but it felt like the memory of her, her aura? Her presence.
“I think Blue is in trouble,” was all I offered.
“Lance, look at me,” she said. “Lance.” I did. “That’s fucking called PTSD. We all have it, it’s great for robotics projects and not sleeping.”
“Pidge, it felt real.”
“I know, but if it were, our Lions would be here.”
“Carajo, you sound like Rachel,” I laid back, hands behind my head. The clouds slowly dragged themselves across the sky.
“Maybe because she’s smart and pays attention,” Pidge reached for her laptop.
“I know why the Lions are gone…but what if? Y'know? What if whatever threat they’re facing isn’t really a risk to the universe, but it’s a risk to them.”
“If it’s a risk to them, it’s a risk to the universe.”
“Says who?”
“Me, just now. Didn’t you hear?”
“But what are the odds?”
“Nine in ten.”
“What?”
“Nine times out of ten will any risk to the Lions be a risk to the universe.”
“What about that one?”
“Lance, who gives a shit about that one? Math is math.”
“Right…right.”
“So, that’s what made you walk here?”
“How do you kno—” I lifted my head. They gave me a look.
“No bike in the driveway and there’s no way you’d get in a car. And you always walk.”
I hummed in agreement. We sunk into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the muffled chimes that come from Pidge’s headphones. After a good while I nudged her with my foot.
“Hmm?” she exposed an ear to listen. Her glasses were slipping down her nose.
“What are you doing?”
“Messaging Hunk.”
“And…”
“Helping him run the website for Happy Lives.”
“And…”
“Coordinating with Keith to send Hunk his way once the Marmora mission is done.”
“Wait, what?”
“Keith is on Quadrant J-984 right now. Largely abandoned. Standard get-them-back-on-their-feet sort of mission. So, I’m helping them coordinate so Hunk can take his team and feed some people.”
“Oh.”
“I know, must be nice being out there again. Not having empires trying to kill you all the time,” Pidge sighed.
“You miss it?”
“Not really… I miss the team.”
“Me too.”
Pidge: Hunk can be there in 2 vargas.
Me: 10-4
Pidge: He’ll send an ETA by then.
Hunk wasn’t impossible to reach nowadays, but it was a lot easier contacting him through Pidge and these people really needed some warmth beyond blankets.
I felt Kosmo appear beside me, huddling close to my legs. For such a big dog, one would think he’d be less of a daddy’s boy.
“Hey, buddy,” I knelt beside him. He nuzzled me with his big mane, tail wagging. “How did Mom treat you? All good?”
“I treat him fine,” Mom shouted from across the room, her ears twitching in annoyance. She was carrying supplies for the refugees that would be staying in the Town Hall.
Kolivan was talking to the newly appointed leader, democracy was something new here. They would be set up with telecommunicators and some supplies and organizations would be transiting through the Quadrant to help out as much as possible. That’s where Hunk and Happy Lives came in.
Kosmo laid down, I sat cross-legged beside him. He let out a huff of breath, seemingly exhausted from the day’s workload.
“Yeah, I know, bud,” I scratched his head, he closed his eyes contently.
The end of the phoeb was coming. Coran and I would have to check in with Earth soon enough. Home. I liked the Blade of Marmora, the missions, the sense of duty and purpose. But I missed home. I missed Shiro, a lot. And I didn’t know Curtis as much as I would like. If I was being honest with myself, I missed the team. Maybe even one particular idiot of the team…
I pulled out my phone and stared at the screen blankly. The orange hues dulled the photo, but there it was: our little annual reunion.
“Keith!” I heard Mom call. I snapped out of it.
“Yeah?” I said getting up.
“We’re done for the day, time to turn in,” the way she said it made me realize she was repeating herself. “Where’s your head at?”
“It’s here,” I said. Right then my phone chimed, and I instinctively looked down.
“Yeah, right,” Mom ruffled my head playfully. I’m pretty sure she was making up for lost time doing that sort of thing.
“Hm, sorry,” I mumbled, checking the message.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “Is it him?”
“Who? Shiro?”
“No, him,” she emphasized. My head shot up, eyes wide. I felt my neck warm.
“No,” I said quickly. “Why would it be?”
“Just wonderin’.”
“I wonder why.”
“Ha-ha,” she dead panned. “You didn’t even check.”
“I can guarantee you it’s not him.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Absolutely,” I crossed my arms, an easy bet to win.
“If it’s him, go back to Earth by the end of the phoeb.”
“What, you don’t want me around anymore?” I said it as a joke, but something in Mom’s expression changed.
“I want you to be happy.”
“I am—”
“Keith—”
“Alright, fine.” We’d had this conversation before. Happy, even if it meant not being around her.
“I’ll visit.”
“You’re not winning this bet.”
She raised her hands. “Alright, sure.”
I checked the sender. I heard Mom start to laugh. It was a simple message: Long time no see, buddy. I honestly thought it was from Hunk.
Fuck me.
“Kosmo, I’m going to miss you,” Mom told him. Kosmo seemed to know what was going on because his tail was wagging like crazy.
“Mom, I—”
“A bet is a bet,” Mom smiled. “Take Acxa with you.”
“Mom—”
“Take me where?” I heard Acxa coming from behind.
“Earth,” Mom said excitedly.
“Oh,” she turned to me. “Any particular reason we’re going?”
“I lost a bet.”
“He’s homesick,” Mom said. “Misses his brother and his friends.”
It still took me by surprise how well Mom could read my moods.
“And why am I coming?” Acxa asked.
“’Cause you miss them, too,” Mom shrugged. Acxa had a great poker face, I’ll give her that.
“Sure, yeah,” she said simply. But when she turned away from Krolia, she had a small smile on her lips.
“Keith,” Mom said. “Answer your messages.”
“What do I even say?” She looked over my phone.
“Here, gimme,” she snatched it from my hand annoyingly fast.
“Mom! Wait! What are you doing?” I tried reaching for it, but Mom was faster. She was typing on it. “Mom.”
“Done, here,” she tossed it back. “Sent.”
“What?”
The fucking message read: 2 tru. will be back soon.
“Mom…oh, quiznaking—Mom. I do not write like this.” How mortifying.
“Too late.”
The phone chimed again. It read: Really????
I was honestly a little offended that the style of the text wasn’t being questioned. I’d fallen for a complete idiot.