Archive of Our Own

“This is depressing.”

“Understatement of the century, Pidge.” Lance’s voice sounded just as sad as hers had. 

Taking down Galra cruisers and forts full of soldiers was one thing. But walking through a ruined Galra town, destroyed by the independence forces that Voltron had been assisting, was something else altogether. 

Hunk made a mournful sound. “These were civilians. They didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You could make the argument that they were colonizers,” Pidge said, but Hunk wasn’t moved. 

“That doesn’t mean they deserved this.”

Shiro didn’t say anything, and neither did Keith. Walking down the empty residential street, his throat felt too tight to manage anything. 

Most of the buildings had been destroyed. What walls remained were crumbling, scorched black in some places by flames that had since died out, and broken glass and pottery crunched under his boots with every step. Their allies thought they were looking for any soldiers that had fled the battlefield and looked for shelter in the town. Really, they were looking for survivors. Though what they would do with them if they found them, Keith didn’t know. 

There were bodies too, of course. The majority of them were buried under rubble from the bombs, visible only by a limb protruding here and there; Keith made himself look at the buildings, not their occupants, instead. 

The houses looked a lot like the adobe buildings that had dominated the desert where he grew up. The native built houses were different, made from carefully grown and shaped tree roots. Was this what actual Galra architecture was like when it wasn’t a spaceship? Was Daibazaal a desert? 

“It’s too quiet,” said Lance, his voice buzzing in Keith’s ear through the comms. “I’m in some kind of courtyard. I think it was a market, there’s a bunch of stalls and stuff. Looks like a place that would’ve been busy. But now it’s just…”

Empty. 

“It’s weird,” Lance finished. 

“I think the word you’re looking for is eerie,” Shiro added quietly. 

That was the word. The street Keith was walking down was narrow and half choked with rubble, but he could imagine what it had looked like before the bombs fell. People shouting out the windows at each other. Kids playing, maybe chasing a ball over the paving stones. The scorched banners that now lay dirty and trampled hanging overhead, unburned and untarnished. The silence seemed to echo. 

From his right came a clatter of rock fall. Keith snapped around, but as the sound echoed down the street, nothing followed. It barely had time to fade before there was another clatter, like someone clumsily shifting through debris. A survivor? He summoned his bayard to his hand, though didn’t extend it into a blade yet as he headed towards the dark doorway from where the sound had come. 

There was a flap of burned cloth hanging over the entrance. Keith carefully pushed it aside, stepped into the ruins beyond, and stopped dead. 

Sitting in the middle of the room, idly pushing rocks around with its little purple hands, was a baby. 

A Galra baby. 

“Oh quiznack,” Keith breathed out, letting his bayard disappear. The child’s large, bat-like ears twitched in his direction, and they turned to look at him with big eyes, glowing gold in the twilight. They were the usual Galra shade of purple all over, though Keith could tell it was fur and not just skin, with red-pink hair that curled around their neck and a splotch of white over their nose that looked a little like a butterfly. 

For a moment neither of them moved, staring at each other, like the kid was just as astounded to see Keith as he was to see them. A thin tufted tail like a lion’s swayed behind the child’s head. 

After several seconds, the child dropped the rocks they were holding and held their arms up towards Keith. 

Oh hell. Keith quickly activated his comms. “Uh, guys? I, uh, found something. Or someone, I guess.”

“What do you mean?” asked Shiro, on the ball as usual. 

Keith gulped. “I found a kid. A– a baby, I think.”

“No way!” Hunk said, sounding mystified. 

“Oh man,” said Lance with a distinct note of excitement in his voice, “Where are you? I’ll come help!”

“A Galra child, I presume?” asked Allura– Keith had forgotten she was in the channel with them. 

“Yeah, I think so,” he responded. The child, still staring at him with those big eyes, made an insistent sound and reached out for him again. They must want to be picked up or… something. He shuffled uneasily across the floor and knelt down in front of the kid, who immediately shifted forward and started to climb into his lap. 

“What the hell are we going to do with a kid?” Pidge asked as the child settled against Keith.

That was a question he could’ve used the answer to. Tilting their head, they patted their hands against his chestplate, like they were curious, their tiny claws making soft tink sounds against the armor. 

He had no idea what he was doing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been around a kid this young, if he ever had. 

“What else is around, Keith?” That was Shiro, finally bringing Keith back to center. “Any traces of the parents?”

“Um.” Keith glanced around the destroyed room. “There’s a smashed up piece of furniture that could’ve been a crib, I guess. I don’t see any bodies though.” And no large piles of rubble that could’ve concealed them. 

Allura sighed. “Quiznack. Well, bring it back to the Castle, I suppose. I’ll ping Kolivan and see if he knows of any refugee camps nearby the parents may have fled to.”
Keith’s stomach twisted– it was more likely they’d need to find an orphanage– but he didn’t say so. Not with the kid right in front of him. They probably wouldn’t have understood it anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

“Ok, kid. Guess you’re coming with me.” He awkwardly slid an arm underneath the child, trying to approximate the standard child-carrying stance, and thankfully the kid helped, wrapping their arms around his neck once they were up high enough. Keith was about to exit the structure again when he paused in the doorway and looked back. 

The room was little more than debris now, but it had been the child’s home. There had to be something left for them to remember it by. 

It took a bit of one-handed digging, but eventually Keith found something in the rubble around the crib: a lumpy, hand-sewn bit of faded green cloth with stuffing inside, no larger than his hand. He didn’t recognize what kind of animal it was supposed to be, but the child made a happy trilling sound when they saw it and reached out their hands. Keith gave it to them, and couldn’t help smiling when the child hugged it to their chest. 

He took the shortest path back to where the Castle had landed. The child was too young to understand anything it was seeing (probably), but he still wanted to spare them from seeing the devastation. Luckily they seemed content with their toy and didn’t take note of their surroundings until the Castle was looming over the two of them. 

All of the others were waiting for them, even Coran– Keith could see the bright orange of his mustache from the bottom of the hill. Halfway up he whispered, “Brace yourself,” to the child, and then the others were upon them. Or, more accurately, Lance was upon them. 

“Oh my God,” the Blue Paladin squealed as soon as he was within arms length of the kid. “He’s so cute! Let me have him!”

“We don’t know they’re a ‘he’,” Keith protested, but Lance wasn’t listening. He pulled the child out of Keith’s arms and held them out like Simba, with the child looking about as amused as Simba had in that moment. 

“Aren’t you the cutest little space conqueror?” 

The kid kicked their legs with a grumpy hmph, and with a laugh, Lance settled them against his hip. The child’s tail thrashed behind them. Hunk was hovering right over his shoulder, watching with wide eyes. 

“Who knew Galra started out so fluffy and adorable?” he murmured in fascination. 

Coran cleared his throat primly. “I saw plenty of young Galra before the war. Though I must admit,” he stepped forward to brush the child’s cheek with his finger, “Most of them didn’t have quite so large ears. Perhaps you’ll grow into them.”

The child pulled back from Coran’s touch, a furrow in their little brow. When Coran’s hand followed, the child glared at it for a moment, grabbed hold of the finger with their free hand, and chomped down. 

Coran cried out, leaping back as Hunk and Lance burst into laughter. “Little devil has teeth like needles!” Even Allura smothered a giggle behind her hand. The child’s tail continued to thrash from side to side, their ears swiveling to catch every sound, and they looked much unhappier than they had a few minutes before. Keith also could’ve been projecting. 

Pidge was visibly uncomfortable. “Allura, please tell me you got an answer from Kolivan.”

After swallowing down the rest of her giggles, Allura answered, “Yes, he said that some survivors from the bombing are gathering in one of the neighboring forests. However, he also advised that we wait until tomorrow to visit, to give more people time to make it there.”

“Did you hear that little guy?” Lance said, bouncing the child on his hip. “We get to have a sleepover!”

“Ok, you are weirdly into this,” said Pidge. “Or is it just me?”

“It’s not just you,” Keith mumbled in agreement. He was expecting Lance to complain about the extra work that having a baby on board would bring, but he was practically giddy. It didn’t add up. 

Lance waved a dismissive hand at them. “My brother has kids. The younger one was about this age when we left Earth.”  

A brief silence fell, everyone noting the way Lance’s smile had suddenly grown strained. Thankfully Shiro came to the rescue. “Did the rest of you find anything?”

“Just a bunch of rubble,” said Pidge. 

Hunk went a tad paler. “No one living.” 

Lance just shook his head. 

“Right,” said Allura, putting her hands on her hips, shards of light reflecting off of her tiara as the twin suns set behind her. “I suppose we’d better call it a quintant. There will still be plenty to do tomorrow.”

“As usual,” said Shiro dryly. The others chuckled as they turned to follow Allura back into the Castle. The Galra child twisted in Lance’s hold to hang over his shoulder, their golden eyes locking onto Keith with a strange intensity that made him shiver. 

Shiro’s hand landing on his shoulder jolted him out of eye contact with the kid. “Hey, are you alright?”

He made himself look up at Shiro and smile. “Yeah. Just… wasn’t expecting that.”  

Shiro snorted. “You can say that again. But we’ll get it sorted out.” 

There was that feeling again. That gut-sinking feeling that came with the knowledge that all the others were avoiding: the possibility (more like near certainty) that the kid’s parents weren’t going to be at that refugee camp. And that if they were dead, Voltron was partly responsible. 

But no one wanted to think about that, even if it was the mostly likely outcome. So he did his best to put it out of his mind as he followed the others inside. 

In the entryway, Coran already had his scanner out, looking the kid over for injuries. They were squinting, blinking owlishly in the bright lights of the Castle, and as Keith and Shiro rejoined the group, let out a whine and buried their face in Lance’s shoulder. 

Me too, kid, Keith thought sympathetically, before Lance exclaimed, “Aww look, he likes me!” and made him frown. To him it seemed pretty obvious what that action meant, but what did he know? 

By then Hunk had warmed up to the child and was standing close. “Look at his little onesie,” he cooed, wiggling one of his fingers against the child’s side. They let out a louder sound of displeasure and shoved his hand away– it sounded less like a human child and more like a lion cub that had been woken from a nap, which of course just made Hunk and Lance more enamored.  

The scanner beeped. Coran studied it for a moment, then smiled and said, “He doesn’t appear to be injured. And he is, in fact, a he.”

Lance let out a triumphant, “Ha!”, shooting Keith a look as though it had been a competition. Keith restrained himself to a simple eye-roll in response. 

“What should we call him?” Hunk asked. “Oooh, maybe Max?”

“Maybe we should name him after Keith,” said Lance, toying with the curl of hair on the back of the kid’s neck. “They have the same hairstyle. We can call him Mullet Jr.”

The kid shook his head against Lance’s shoulder and began to fuss in earnest, squirming and letting out tiny, muffled whimpers. Lance cooed and patted him on the back, though it didn’t seem to be helping much. “Oh, don’t worry. It was only a joke, I promise, I would never do that to you– you don’t wear yours like that on purpose.”

“For God’s sake,” Keith muttered under his breath. Shiro nudged his shoulder and gave him a quelling look. 

“What about Nyx?” Coran suggested. “I knew several Galra by that name before the war.”

Keith should’ve kept his mouth shut. Instead he said, “Guys, he already has a name.”

“What, did you give him one?” asked Pidge with a raised eyebrow. 

“Uh, no?” How were all of them missing the blatantly obvious? “I mean his real name. You know, the one his parents gave him?”

Everyone stared at him blankly. He stood it for a few seconds before folding his arms and asking, “What?”

Hunk, bless his soul, tried to explain. “Well we don’t know that name, and we can’t just call him ‘the kid’ all the time.”

Before Keith could ask why they couldn’t just do that, Lance was charging onward. “Yeah, let’s go with Nyx, that sounds good.”

“Do you think he’s hungry?” That was Hunk again, predictably. 

“Crap,” muttered Pidge, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can it eat food goo? ‘Cause that’s all we got.”

“We’ll figure it out,” said Lance with his characteristic optimism. Then, hefting the fussy child on his hip, he set out towards the dining room. Hunk and Coran followed closely, then Pidge and Allura, with significantly less enthusiasm. 

“I’m gonna go change,” Keith murmured to Shiro before turning towards the other hallway. His plan was to go to the training deck after and leave the babysitting to the Paladins who actually wanted to do it, since he apparently had even less of an idea of how to treat the kid than he thought he did. 

But once he was back in his normal clothes, he found himself gravitating back towards the dining room. He just couldn’t get the kid’s face out of his head, the way he kept trying to get away from the light and everyone’s hands, and how everyone else didn’t seem to get it. Keith might not know much about kids, but he could at least be there in solidarity, even if nobody would listen to him. 

The child didn’t look much happier when he walked in. He was sitting on the table next to Lance, ears pinned back like an upset cat, gnawing anxiously on one of the limbs of his stuffed whatever-it-was. 

“Come on, buddy,” Lance said, holding up a sporkful of food goo to the kid’s face. “I know it doesn’t look great, but it tastes fine, honest.” 

The child merely whined and turned his head away. Lance let out a dejected sigh and set the spork back down in the bowl. 

A spike of anxiety pierced through Keith’s gut. Lance said he was good with kids, but who knew what that actually meant? How long would it take him to lose his temper? 

Hunk, sitting beside them, spoke up. “We could try mixing something in.”

“Like what?” asked Pidge from across the table. She was picking at her own goo, clearly not into the situation. “That crazy spice you picked up that tastes like water that’s been left in the car for three days?”

“No,” Hunk shot back. “We have other things in the cabinets.”

Shiro, sitting on the opposite end of the table with Allura, noticed Keith come in and nodded to him. Keith sat down near the door and, for now, didn’t say anything. 

The little Galra’s whining was slowly growing in volume. It was hard to tell with the glow, but it looked like his eyes were darting all over the room, still squinted almost shut against the lights. 

“Do we have meat?” Allura asked, tiredly rubbing her forehead. “Perhaps he’d prefer that.”

“No way,” Lance declared loudly, loudly enough for the kid to cringe into his drawn up shoulders, “He’s way too young to be eating meat! He’s a baby, not a velociraptor.”

“What the quiznack,” Allura began, but Coran cut her off when he burst dramatically into the room from the kitchen, a steaming plate in his hands that immediately made the entire room smell like new rubber. 

“Here we are! I’ve fortified this dish with everything a young person will need to grow, regardless of their species. Vitamin Hegda, plenty of vrewt and minelnex—”

Pidge put her head in her hands. “Can we please use words that actually mean something?”

Coran kept going, unfazed by the looks the rest of them were exchanging, particularly Lance and Hunk. Allura looked like she would rather be back in Zarkon’s dungeon, and Shiro just seemed uneasy. Apparently his Space Dad instincts didn’t extend to kids this young— or maybe not to Galra kids. Keith didn’t count; they didn’t find out he was Galra until after the fact. 

Keith was still watching the child. His nose had wrinkled up as soon as Coran came into the room, and his face only twisted more when the offending dish was placed on the table only a few feet from him. Coran’s unending stream of dietary information wasn’t helping. The child turned towards Lance and started to shift forward, like he was trying to get off the table, but Lance caught him and put him back in place. 

“Nah-ah-ah, you’re not going anywhere until you eat something.” 

For a moment, just a moment, Keith wasn’t in the Castle anymore. The table was round and wooden, the light yellow and dim, and Shiro was no longer the person across from him. Instead there was a woman with angry eyes, glaring, and a phrase echoed in his mind. “You’d better quit that whining and eat, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” 

Then he was back. The child’s lower lip trembled dangerously, his little claws kneading at his stuffed animal. 

“Go easy on him, Lance,” said Hunk. “He’s in an all new place.” 

And his house blew up with him inside, Keith thought dazedly as Coran leaned over the table, a spork loaded with his strange rubbery mixture in hand. 

“Come on now, lad, just try a bite–”

“Knock it off, Coran,” Lance said loudly, knocking the spork away, which only inspired an offended exclamation from the Altean. 

“Guys, stop it,” Hunk said over them. Keith’s skin prickled with irritation at all the voices clashing against each other, and he saw the child’s tail thrashing again, faster and faster as his little face continued to crumple. 

“God,” Pidge groaned. “Babysitting was not in the Paladin job description.” That groan over Lance, Coran, and Hunk’s three-way argument was too much for the kid, and he finally began to wail. “Oh, it got worse. Of course it got worse.”

Keith’s lungs tightened around his breath. The kid couldn’t stop crying, he was too little to understand, but Keith wasn’t, and his heart was pounding faster in his chest. He had to stop the noise, before… before… 

“See what you did, Coran?” Lance scolded, oblivious to how the child let go of his toy to paw at his ears, still pinned as flat to his skull as they possibly could be. 

Planting her hands on the table with a thud that made the child’s cries creep a few decibels louder and Keith nearly jump out of his skin, Allura pushed her chair back and stood. 

“Well,” she said, projecting her voice to be heard over the crying. “I have a speech tomorrow to prepare for. I’ll leave the rest of you to deal with the little beast.”

Pidge clapped her hands over her ears, a cringe on her face that rivaled the baby’s. “How do we turn it off?” 

Keith couldn’t have said what set him off. But before Allura had made it even three steps from her seat he was darting out of his, the words escaping his throat in a shout. 

“He’s not an it!”

Instantly everyone’s voices quieted, leaving only the piercing cries of the kid to echo around the room as they all stared at Keith. And as always, once he started, he couldn’t stop, no matter how much fear was coursing through him. Or maybe because of it. 

“He’s not an object, or a monster, or a doll!  He’s just a kid.” He paused and swallowed, his throat suddenly tightening. The last sentence came out soft and strangled. “Just a scared kid.”

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice snapped him out of his weird fugue. Moving on instinct, Keith stormed around the edge of the table, hauled the kid into his arms, grabbed the bowl of plain food goo, and fled the room, his pounding heartbeat echoing in his ears. 

“Uhhh, what the hell was that?” Pidge asked. Allura threw up her hands and left the room, done with the whole thing. Coran sat back in his chair with a huff, offended that no one wanted his weird rubber food, and Lance was just staring at the door, speechless for possibly the first time ever. 

“No idea,” answered Hunk in a stunned voice. 

Shiro’s ears were still ringing from the crying that had faded down the hall. He’d been expecting something like this; he’d been watching Keith’s face, had seen how his eyes would unfocus and come back together every time he remembered something. He’d expected the explosion, expected him to leave, but he hadn’t been expecting Keith to take the kid with him. 

“We’ve gotta go after him,” Lance said, beginning to rise from his seat. “Keith doesn’t know anything about taking care of kids!”

“Apparently neither do we,” Pidge pointed out. Shiro dropped his head and rubbed his temples. 

He wasn’t all there, clearly. His brain was struggling to compute how the features he associated so closely with danger could belong in a form so obviously non-threatening. 

“Perhaps we should give Keith a chance,” suggested Coran, though still obviously pouting. “Perhaps having fewer people around will soothe the child.” 

Finally, and with much effort, Shiro roused himself. “I’ll go check on them later. For now let’s just finish dinner.”

Now it was Lance’s turn to pout, but Shiro didn’t pay him any attention. If Keith couldn’t handle the kid, Lance would get all the time he wanted with him. 

They would just have to wait and see. 

The child’s cries echoed down the cavernous halls of the Castle. He had his face pressed into Keith’s neck, hiding from the light, and was sobbing his little lungs out. 

“I know it’s too bright,” Keith murmured to him. “I know, I’m sorry.” 

He heard the child’s claws dig into his jacket like a kneading cat. The kid probably didn’t understand the words, but his long tail coiled around the arm that kept him supported, clinging tight like a python. 

Keith didn’t turn on the lights when they reached his bunk. He left it dark, and after setting the bowl of food goo to the side, tucked himself into the corner of the bed with the child still clinging to his chest. 

More than a little awkwardly, Keith patted the child on the back as he continued to cry. Now that the adrenaline was fading he was beginning to regret his impulsivity; what would he do if the kid refused to calm down? Go back to Lance and admit defeat? He’d never live it down. 

Thankfully, it seemed that the dark was soothing for both of them. The kid’s cries slowed and quieted, and after twenty minutes or so they finally stopped completely, the child looking up at Keith with watery eyes. 

“Uh, hey. Feeling better?” 

The kid blinked and one of his hands retreated from Keith’s jacket, clutching once more at his stuffed toy, which had remained pressed between the two of them the whole time. He didn’t open his mouth, just making a little mn sound from the back of his throat, and Keith chuckled. 

“Yeah, the noise was too much for me, too.” 

For the first time in a while the kid’s ears pricked up, angled towards Keith. And though it was weird to see big cat ears on a baby humanoid, he also had to admit that they were pretty cute. They swiveled a few times, picking up on things Keith couldn’t hear, then the child tightened his tails grip on Keith’s arm and let out another mn. 

“What’s up? Do you want to try eating again?”

He made the same sound again, though much more drawn out, almost whiney, and Keith chuckled to himself. 

“Ok, here, let’s try again.” With only minimal jostling he managed to reach the bowl of food goo, and after settling the kid on one of his knees, balanced the bowl next to the other to get a sporkful. 

This time, when confronted with the strange green substance, the child hesitantly opened his mouth. Coran was right– the kid had a surprisingly large number of teeth, all thin and pointed like a mako shark. One of the kid’s hands landed on Keith’s to steady the spork and he jumped, almost upsetting the entire operation. 

Something about it, the small hand over his, the warm weight of a body against him, the trust that the child showed in taking a bite of the food goo, as weirdly textured and tasting as it was, was making his heart ache in his chest. 

The kid attempted to chew the goo, then awkwardly swallowed and stuck out his tongue in a bleh face. His nose scrunched, crumpling the butterfly mark over his face, and despite the strange emotions that were building Keith found himself laughing. 

“I know. It’s weird, huh?” 

He let out an mn of agreement, but tugged at Keith’s hand until he produced another sporkful. 

The child ate about half of the bowl before refusing more, and Keith didn’t push his luck. He set the bowl aside again and leaned back against the wall, the child settling himself against Keith’s chest, his stuffed animal cradled in one of his elbows as his claws clung to Keith’s shirt. He ran his hand up and down the kid’s back, and his tail coiled and uncoiled around Keith’s arm, mimicking the rhythm. 

Keith wasn’t sure what to do next. The child was quiet, but his eyes kept almost closing before jumping open again, and his bottom lip was stuck out, like he was pouting over something. But what, Keith couldn’t have said. 

He sighed and tilted his head back against the wall. Tracing the seams of the paneled metal ceiling with his eyes, Keith began to speak almost without realizing it. 

“I’m sorry I don’t really know what I’m doing. You probably would’ve been better off with Lance or Hunk.”

Little claws kneaded in and out of his shirt. With his eyes on the ceiling, Keith could almost imagine it was the cat that belonged to Shiro’s family, Mochi. 

“I’ve never really known what to do with kids, especially the really little ones. I don’t know what will scare them or upset them. Probably because I didn’t get to be one for very long.” 

The child squirmed. Keith looked down at the top of his head, and a thought bolted across his mind like lightning: Did she ever hold me like this?

His breath hitched. Heat was rising behind his eyes– they darted around the room, looking for something, anything to distract him before he started crying like an idiot, and landed on his blanket, crumpled near the foot of the bed. Maybe the kid was cold, and that’s why he couldn’t sleep? 

Leaning over, he managed to snag the blanket without disturbing the kid too much and pulled it over. The child’s golden eyes immediately locked onto it, and when it was close enough, grabbed a tiny handful of it and said, “Ah.”

It sounded almost like a chirp, like a baby cheetah back on Earth. Keith chose to believe that sound meant he had done something right. The kid tugged on the blanket until Keith gathered it up and draped it around his shoulders; he felt the change immediately as the child relaxed, but he wasn’t quite finished. 

Catching the edge of the blanket with his claws, he pulled it up and over his head, pressing his ears flat. Keith couldn’t help laughing: he looked like a little purple caterpillar, his glowing eyes the only points of light in the dark room. Satisfied, he cuddled back up to Keith, and the light extinguished when his eyes finally closed. 

It only took a few minutes for the child to fall asleep. Keith stayed where he was, and the kid’s tail stayed wrapped around his arm. The traitorous thoughts from before still lingered in the back of his mind, threatening to come forward again, but Keith beat them back as well as he could. Now wasn’t the time to be brooding about his shitty childhood– he had someone else to take care of. So he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. 

If the kid was sleeping, he might as well try to rest, too. 

A couple of hours after dinner, Shiro stopped in front of the door to Keith’s bunk. He raised his metal hand to knock before pausing; no one had heard the child’s cries echoing down the halls, so he could only assume things were going well, and he didn’t want to upset that delicate peace by hammering on the door like a jackhammer. 

So he opened the door without knocking and took a half-step forward, just enough so that the door wouldn’t try to close again. The hallway lights cast a long rectangle into the room, though not quite wide enough to fall on the figures on the bed. 

Keith was leaning back on the wall, eyes closed, with a bundle of blankets in his lap. The only indication of their unexpected guest was the thin line of the child’s tail, wound around Keith’s arm in a loose spiral. He looked asleep, but before Shiro could take even a step further into the room Keith’s eyes opened and locked onto him. 

Shiro raised his hand in greeting and tilted his head towards the hallway. Keith nodded once. Slowly, more slowly and gently than he’d ever seen Keith do anything, he eased the blanket bundle off of his lap and back onto the bed. The tail slid off of his arm easily, hovering in the air for only a moment before curling around its owner, and Keith gingerly climbed off of the bed. 

He grimaced at the sudden light when he stepped into the hallway. Shiro waited for the door to close and his pained blinking to stop before speaking, keeping his voice low. 

“So, how’s it going?”

“Uh, surprisingly well, actually.” Keith leaned one shoulder against the wall and folded his arms, not quite making eye contact. “Got him to eat a little bit.”

“Good. Did you figure out what the problem was?”

“Yeah, it was the lights, I think. The lights and the noise.”

“That would make sense,” said Shiro with a nod. No wonder it was Keith who caught on. 

Peering up at him through his bangs, Keith asked, “How mad is Lance?”

Shiro waved the question away. “He’ll live. Keeping Nyx calm is more important.” Keith frowned at the use of the name, but didn’t say anything about it, so Shiro didn’t say anything, either. He was watching Keith’s face: there were shadows there, the same ones he’d seen in the dining room before Keith’s dramatic exit. But he knew Keith, knew he would only shut down if he tried to pry, so instead he waited. 

After a few moments of silence, Keith sighed and turned to lean his back on the wall, staring down at the floor. “Shiro… what will we do if his parents aren’t there tomorrow?”

He’d been waiting for that question. He still didn’t have an answer, not one Keith would find satisfactory, but he tried to piece one together anyway. 

“He won’t be the only one. Hopefully there’ll be someone there taking care of those kinds of kids.”

Keith’s mouth twisted. “And what if there’s not? He’s too little to take care of himself.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, alright? For all we know his parents will be there and we won’t have to deal with that at all.”

He didn’t look happy with that answer, but he didn’t argue. He knew as well as Shiro did how limited their options were. 

“I just… don’t want him to be alone.”

“He won’t be, Keith.” Shiro laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “We’ll find somebody.”

On the other side of the wall, they both heard the child let out a soft, sleepy chirp. “Well,” Shiro said with a supportive smile, “Looks like duty calls.”

Keith huffed a quiet laugh as he pulled away from Shiro’s grip. “Yeah, guess so.” He headed back towards the door, but right before he reached it, another thought popped into Shiro’s head. 

“Hey, Keith?”

Keith paused, hand outstretched towards the door control pad, and raised an eyebrow. 

“You’re doing a good job.” 

Keith flushed and went back into his room without another word. 

Back in the darkness of his room, the child was shifting restlessly under the blankets. Keith perched himself on the edge of the bed and gently pet where he thought the kid’s head was. He calmed quickly, and with another soft chirp, returned to sleeping. 

Keith’s face was still warm from Shiro’s words. He wasn’t sure if he necessarily believed them– he was probably just getting lucky– but it was nice to get his approval. 

Watching the child’s calm breathing was calming him, too. He had no idea what time it was, but the day had been exhausting with all of the fighting and bombing and combing through rubble, and earlier he hadn’t been sleeping so much as resting, waiting for someone to come looking for the kid. But Shiro seemed satisfied with how things were going, so maybe he could get some real sleep now. 

Moving slowly so that he didn’t wake the kid, Keith stretched out on his side, still in his boots and jacket. The child squirmed and he froze, but it was only him shifting to press against Keith’s chest again. 

He looked down. The only parts of him that were visible were his tail, the very tips of his squished ears, and one limb of the ambiguous stuffed animal. 

Keith draped his arm over the little blanket bundle and closed his eyes again. Sleep didn’t claim him immediately; his mind wandered in circles for a while, unsure what to do with the warm weight against him. 

No one had ever depended on him before. It had always just been him, trying to survive. He’d never let anyone get that close, too afraid of letting them down, and no one had ever tried. Besides Shiro, but Shiro didn’t need Keith. Not like Keith needed him. 

But this kid didn’t have a choice. And since it seemed like he was the only one aboard the Castle who could understand what he needed, neither did Keith. He could’ve just left the kid with Lance, he supposed, but even as he thought it he knew he couldn’t have. He couldn’t watch the poor child cry in pain from the light and the noise and do nothing. Not when he knew how it felt. 

Somewhere in the middle of the miasma, he felt the child’s tail curl around his hand again, and a shudder went through his little body as a thin whine echoed from his throat. Half asleep, Keith’s body responded before his brain did. A rumble rolled out of him, from somewhere deep in his chest, and to his surprise the child calmed immediately. 

The rumble ended, and Keith swallowed hard. He hadn’t made that sound in years, but he could remember how he used to curl up tight under the covers in his first foster home and rumble to himself until the grief and fear of being surrounded by strangers faded enough for him to sleep. Then he had to share a room in the next home and made himself stop. 

He hadn’t thought about that memory in… God knows how long. Suddenly he was exhausted– he didn’t want to keep thinking and remembering things that didn’t matter anymore, puzzling over things that would never have an answer. With his father dead and no other family, he would probably never know exactly how Galra he was, so there was no point in wondering. 

Keith forced himself into sleep, and it all painfully, blissfully, melted away. 

It felt like several hours before he woke again, his eyes sticky with sleep. The kid was fussing again, kicking against Keith’s stomach and his whining verging on tears. Keith sat up, rubbed his eyes, and pulled the squirming blanket bundle into his lap. 

“What’s wrong, buddy?” he murmured into the quiet darkness. The child’s head emerged from the blankets, eyes bright and glowing, but his ears remained pressed flat to his head, and the whines continued as he gnawed on his toy. 

Keith frowned to himself. “What is it? Are you hungry again?” He retrieved the bowl of food goo from his desk, but as soon as it came into sight the child let out a distressed, “Aaaeeehhh,” and shoved his hand away. 

“Ok, not hungry.” Keith put the bowl down again. For a second he was stumped, until the child put his little fingers into his mouth alongside his toy with another muffled whimper, and it clicked. It wasn’t hunger– it was pain. He was still teething. 

It seemed a little ridiculous considering how many teeth the kid had already, but who was Keith to comment on the development of alien biology? He had a bigger problem anyway: what to do about it. 

He couldn’t give him medicine, they had no idea if Altean meds would be safe, or in what dosage. Keith didn’t have anything else for him to chew on except maybe his own hands, which struck him as unsanitary. The only other thing he could think of was his personal favorite method of dealing with discomfort. Distraction. 

“Ok, kid.” He hauled the child up in his arms, blankets and all. “We’re going on a walk.”

The child leaned his head on Keith’s shoulder, still worrying the stuffed toy between his needle teeth. 

Thankfully it was late enough that the lights in the hall had dimmed to their blue night setting. Keith took the child away from the other bunks, just in case he started crying in earnest, and unconsciously found himself heading towards the hangars. Maybe Red would be interesting enough to take the kid’s attention off of the pain. 

The lights in the hangar were low, too. All of the Lions sat quietly, eyes gray, tall and imposing against the impossibly high ceiling of the hangar. 

“This is Red,” Keith said softly when they reached his Lion, hefting the child against his hip the way he’d seen Lance do earlier. “Do you want to say hi?”

The kid shifted, and Keith watched as his golden eyes went wide at the sight of Red, his head craning back to try and see all of her, and Keith couldn’t help smiling. It was adorable, sue him. 

“She’s pretty big, huh?”

The child let out an awed, “Ahhhhhhh.” The toy had fallen from his mouth, being held against his chest by one hand, but he didn’t seem to notice that nothing was soothing the pain in his jaw. He was too busy looking at Red. 

“She’s a Lion. I don’t know if you know what that is, but we have them on Earth. A lot smaller than this, though.”

A presence brushed lazily over Keith’s mind– Red, waking up and stretching out to him like a house cat. 

You don’t have to do anything, Red, Keith thought back to her as the kid continued to gawk. Just keeping him busy. 

Red, predictably, didn’t listen to him. Her eyes lit up, the same shade as the child’s, and his ears pricked up in her direction, like he could hear her powering up. Keith was expecting him to flinch back when Red began to move with her creaking hydraulics, but to his surprise, the child leaned forward, stretching an eager hand out towards her as Red settled her chin on the floor to be even with them. 

Keith took a few steps forward, letting the child pat his hand against Red’s nose. He let out a happy trill and laughed, the sound echoing through the metal room, and Red brushed up against Keith’s mind again with satisfaction. 

Yeah, yeah, don’t let it go to your head.

Red mentally huffed at him. 

“That’s adorable.”

The child squeaked in surprise, and Keith jumped a foot in the air before spinning to face the unexpected voice. He still couldn’t see her, but protruding from behind one of Green’s paws was the end of a tool box, and Keith shook his head in vexation. 

“Thanks for scaring him, Pidge.”

“I don’t hear crying, do you?”

With a sigh Keith walked away from Red, circling around Green until Pidge came into view. She was sitting on the floor with a panel on Green’s paw open, wires and tools scattered around her, smears of oil on her knuckles and on the bridge of her nose. The kid pressed against Keith’s shoulder again, but didn’t seem too perturbed by her presence. 

“What are you doing up?”

“Improving Green’s cloaking. Or trying to, anyway.” She turned away from the wires and peered up at him through her glasses. “What are you doing up?”

Keith hefted the child in his arms. “He got restless.”

“Ah.” Pidge looked back at her work, but tacked on, “You can chill with me for a while, if you want.”

He hesitated, but only for a second before sitting down just outside of her circle of tools. His arms were starting to get tired, so he set the child in his lap, though taking care that there was enough of a blanket barrier between him and the cold metal floor. The child returned to his gnawing on the toy, though his ears remained perked up, and he seemed interested in Pidge’s array of items, safely out of his reach. 

Pidge’s eyes flickered briefly to him, to the child, then back to her work. “How’s he doing?”

“Ok.” Without thinking, Keith fiddled with the blanket a little more, oblivious to Pidge’s watching gaze. “I think he’s teething still.” 

She hummed in acknowledgement. Keith idly cast his eyes over her collection of materials, and by chance landed on a section of black rubber tubing. 

“Is that clean?”

Pidge glanced at it and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you need it?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

Scooping it up, he bent it a few times, testing the strength. It was sturdy, and didn’t seem like it would break apart, so with only a few misgivings, he offered it to the kid. 

He took to it immediately. A few happy, muffled chirps made their way past the rubber as he wedged it into the back of his jaw and started gnawing away, leaving behind the tiniest little bite marks. 

A memory slammed into him so hard he choked, but this time on sudden laughter rather than tears.

“What?” Pidge asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Keith swallowed down the rest of his laugh and shook his head. “Just remembered something.”

“Care to share with the class?”

“Just, uh…” At any other time, at any other place, he might’ve played it off and refused to say anything. But in the hangar at 2 a.m., with the weight of the child in his lap, the words felt lighter. “When I was a kid, I helped my dad clean out the attic one time, and I found all of these old rubber dog toys with a bunch of little teeth marks in them. Which was weird, because we never owned a dog.”

Pidge’s fingers paused for a moment as the dots connected. “You mean…”

“Yeah.”

She burst into laughter. “Oh my God,” she managed to say, her hands falling away from Green to wrap around her stomach. “That is– both hilarious– and absolutely adorable.” Her breath stuttered around the laughs, but for once Keith didn’t feel like he was being laughed at, and he grinned back. 

“Do not tell Lance.” 

“I won’t, I won’t, hand to God.” 

Intrigued by the activity happening around him, the child removed the rubber from his mouth and waved it in the air, shouting, “Mah mah mah mah!” It only made Pidge laugh harder. 

“Ok, buddy, chill out,” said Keith, stroking the child’s hair without thinking about it. “You’ll wake up the entire Castle.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” the kid said back, but returned to chewing on the rubber. 

Pidge’s shoulders were still shaking from giggles, but her eyes were watching carefully, which Keith noticed a second too late. “You’re pretty good with him, huh?”

He flushed, unconsciously hunching his shoulders around his ears. Why did everybody keep saying that? The child being unnaturally good-tempered didn’t have anything to do with him– unless the others thought he had some sort of weird mind-link with the kid just because he was Galra. Hunk would probably bring it up next time they were alone, like he had with the whole purple skin thing, and Keith’s stomach twisted with dread. 

“What’s with the face?” Pidge asked with a raised eyebrow. “It was just an observation.”

Keith stared down at the top of the child’s head. His ears were incredibly active, swiveling to listen to every sound even if the rest of his body didn’t react. Keith could relate, which annoyingly didn’t help debunk the whole species mind-link theory. 

“Nothing. It’s– he’s just a quiet kid. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Uh-huh,” answered Pidge, clearly unconvinced. 

Keith huffed. “I just don’t want you guys to think that I’m doing anything to him or– or think that because I’m Galra–”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Pidge interrupted. Between that sentence and the next, her voice softened. “I just think that you get him. Galra or not.” 

He bit the inside of his lip. At some point he’d wrapped an arm around the child, not tightly, but encircling where he sat as though to hide him from view. 

After a few seconds of silence, Pidge sighed and leaned her elbows on her knees, fixing Keith with a solemn look. “I’m sorry about the ‘it’ thing earlier. I’ve never been around little kids that much, so it’s all new.”

“Yeah,” Keith said softly, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry I yelled at you guys.”

She just shrugged. “We kinda deserved it. You were right– he’s a kid, not an object.”

As though on cue, the child tilted sideways, nestling into the crook of Keith’s elbow. His tail coiled around Keith’s opposite hand, and he removed the rubber from his mouth long enough to yawn. 

Pidge smiled, the softest Keith had seen on her face since the untimely demise of Rover. “Looks like someone’s getting tired again.”

“Yeah, guess it’s time to go back to bed.” Wrapping the kid back up in his blanket, Keith scooped him up into his arms, and after making sure he had both the stuffed toy and the tube of rubber, clambered back to his feet. “You should get some sleep too, Pidge.”

She waved a hand at him and turned back to Green. “In a bit. Don’t rat me out.”

“I won’t. G’night.”

“Goodnight, Keith.” 

He carried the child back to his room in the crook of his arm. By the time they got there the child was fast asleep again, so Keith was careful when he swaddled him in the blanket again and got settled on the bed. This time he held the child close to him on purpose, and judging by the chirp that came from him as Keith curled up around him, that was the right choice. 

“I really hope your parents are ok, kid,” he whispered into the dark, just loudly enough for the child’s ears to twitch under the blanket. “Both of them.”

The child slept on. After another moment of quiet, Keith closed his eyes and let himself follow. 

The kid woke up early. He woke Keith with the light pin-prick of his claws in Keith’s shirt, and when he saw Keith’s eyes open, he chirped and kneaded harder. 

“Good morning to you too,” Keith said groggily. 

“Ah,” the child said back, and his tail flipped up to flick Keith’s cheek. 

“Ok, I get it, we’re getting up.”

“Mn.”

Slowly, Keith pulled himself upright, one of his hands automatically circling around the kid to keep him held close. At some point he’d squirmed his way free of the blanket, but still kept his toy tucked into his elbow. 

He was probably hungry, but the stale food goo that was left in the bowl didn’t satisfy Keith, which meant they would have to go down to the dining room. And knowing Keith’s luck, everyone would be waiting there to evaluate his performance as a caregiver. 

Well, there was nothing for it. Having fallen asleep fully clothed, all Keith had to do was drag a hand through his hair, hoping it wasn’t sticking up too badly, before getting up and leaving his room. 

The lights in the hall were still mercifully dim. The child seemed more at ease– instead of clinging to Keith’s shoulder, he hummed contentedly to himself, idly passing his toy between his hands, his tail swinging in a lazy rhythm. Keith couldn’t resist the urge to ruffle his hair, just a little, right before they reached the dining room. 

To his surprise, not everyone was in the room. Pidge was missing– probably still asleep– as was Coran. Allura and Shiro were there, though, along with Lance and Hunk, who were hunched over the table and discussing something in soft tones. Shiro looked up at the swish of the door and gave Keith a gentle smile. 

“Good morning, Keith. How’d he sleep?”

Lance and Hunk’s heads snapped up. A prickle of discomfort ran over Keith’s skin, but he stubbornly ignored their stares and focused on Shiro. 

“Not bad, actually.”

“Good.”

Keith hesitantly approached the table. Allura and Shiro had bowls of food goo in front of them; would it be weird if he took the kid with him to the kitchen, or should he leave him there with Hunk and Lance to take over? He didn’t want to hand him off, but would it be better for the kid if–

“Check it out,” said Hunk, knocking Keith from his thoughts. “I found some Olkari fruit in the fridge. Do you think he’d like it, Keith?”

From a closer angle, Keith could see what they’d been working on: the strange translucent fruit from Olkarion, sliced into thin pieces and filling a bowl like shards of glass. Hunk’s expression was hopeful, and Lance didn’t look like he was going to start mocking Keith’s efforts with the child immediately, so…

“We can give it a shot.” 

Hunk’s face instantly brightened. Keith moved over to them, preparing to set the child down on the table and back away, but to his shock Lance pushed out a chair for him. Keith sat down with only a little bit of trepidation and plopped the kid onto the table, though keeping a steadying hand against his back. 

“Kolivan sent a message,” Allura said from across the table. She still looked browbeaten, but less exhausted than the day before. “He notified the refugees that someone would be coming with a child to be identified. Hopefully his parents will be waiting for us when we arrive.”

Keith’s stomach twisted yet again, but he forced himself to nod. Then the kid made a cooing noise and pulled his attention back to where Hunk was holding out a slice of the crystal-like fruit.

For a moment the child just looked at it, tilting his head curiously as the dim light filtered through the slice, until Lance laughed and shook his head. 

“It’s edible, buddy. Watch.” Plucking a slice from the bowl, Lance deliberately popped it in his mouth and chewed. The child watched intently, and when Hunk offered the slice to him again, opened his mouth wide and let Hunk feed it to him. His ears pricked at the first distinctive crunch of his teeth through the fruit, his tail flicked excitedly, and a muffled giggle escaped from his closed mouth as he crunch crunch crunched through the rest of the slice. 

“Aw, he likes it!” Hunk cried with delight. 

“It’s like a dog eating an apple,” said Shiro, and Keith couldn’t even be mad at the comparison because it was so accurate. 

“Mah!” The child declared. Waving his toy like a banner, he repeated, “Mah! Mah!” Until Hunk gave him another slice of fruit to munch on. 

“He seems like he’s in a better mood,” Allura commented with a small smile before turning to Shiro. “I don’t believe we should bring the Castle down to the camp. We don’t want to be recognized– I doubt the refugees would be happy to see us.”   

“I can take a shuttle down,” Shiro answered. “But I don’t think too many of us should go. We don’t want to seem intimidating. These people have been through enough without thinking we’re trying to ransom their kid.”

The rest of them nodded in agreement. In that case, they’d probably want to send the child down with Lance or Hunk, someone who would be friendly and non-threatening. That made the steadily-growing anxiety in Keith’s chest pitch higher– he wanted to be there to make sure the child went to someone good if his parents weren’t there– but if that’s what they had to do then…

“I think Keith should go.” 

Keith’s thoughts stopped dead. It was Lance who had spoken– Lance. 

“Nyx seems to like him best,” Lance continued, either unaware of or ignoring Keith’s open staring. “And we want him to be calm, right?”

“Right,” Shiro agreed. “Are you ok with that, Keith?”

Keith blinked, trying to pull his thoughts together. It was too early for Lance to be throwing bombshells at him like this. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can go.”

“Great, it’s settled then,” said Allura. 

Shiro gave him a supportive smile across the table. Keith managed to return it, but his mind was spinning, like the wheels of a Jeep stuck in mud. Lance had never been this willing to give up an opportunity for attention or glory, and everyone else was just going along with it, like it made perfect sense. Had Shiro talked them into it out of pity? Was it that obvious how much the child was affecting him? 

“Mn.” The now-familiar sound brought Keith back to reality– the child was turning away from Hunk, refusing another piece of fruit, and stretching an arm out to Keith. Keith obligingly pulled him back over to him, and let the child climb off the table and back into his lap. Unlike the night before, no one said anything about making him eat more; Hunk just offered a slice of the remaining fruit to Lance and munched on one himself. 

Shiro scraped the sides of his bowl. “Well, start saying your goodbyes. I’m going to go get the shuttle warmed up.”

As Shiro got up from the table, Lance turned towards Keith and the child, holding out his arms in invitation. “Hey little guy, wanna say goodbye to Tio Lance?” 

The child blinked at him, swished his tail a few times, then leaned forward and let Lance pick him up. Lance cradled the kid against his chest, crooning, “We’re going to miss you, little space conqueror.”

“Mah,” said the child, and patted his hand against Lance’s cheek. Lance giggled. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘I’ll miss you too’. What about Uncle Hunk?” Lance pivoted in his seat, letting Hunk lean over with a hint of tears already in his eyes. 

“Bye-bye, Nyx. Tell your mom and dad about that fruit, ok? Maybe they’ll like it, too.” He reached out to tickle the kid’s cheek and he laughed, scrunching up one shoulder to hide from Hunk’s touch, but this time it was playful, not unhappy. He really was in a better mood. 

Then Lance stood up, circling around the table towards Allura. Keith took the opportunity to grab a couple of the fruit slices for his own breakfast as he said, “And let's not forget Auntie Allura!”

Allura stiffened at their approach. “Well, I’m hardly an aunt, but…” She swallowed, then gingerly reached out and patted the child on the head. The kid just blinked at her, bemused. “Goodbye.”

The child tilted his head, trying to make sense of the interaction, and for a long moment the two of them just stared at each other until the dining room door slid open again. 

“The shuttle’s ready to go,” Shiro announced to the room. “Are we ready?”

Keith shoved the last of his fruit slices into his mouth and stood up. Lance came back around and handed the child off to Keith without a fight, which still made Keith’s brain stutter with confusion, and the child wrapped his tail around Keith’s arm with a quiet, “Ah.”

“We’re going to miss you, buddy,” Lance said again, and after one last scratch behind the ears that made the child giggle and shake his head, returned to his seat. 

Keith turned to Shiro. “Yeah, we’re ready.”

The first half of the shuttle ride down to the planet was quiet. The kid sat in Keith’s lap and played with his stuffed toy, unphased by all of the strange noises the shuttle made as it flew. Keith was trying not to fidget too much as the anxiety slowly built in his gut. 

“It’s going to be ok, Keith,” Shiro said as the shuttle entered the planet’s atmosphere with a bump. “Even if his parents aren’t there, there will be someone taking care of orphaned kids, I’m sure.”

But what if that person isn’t any good? Keith swallowed and tried to focus on the looming jungle trees, instead of the memories of caretakers that should never have been allowed near children. They didn’t really have a choice; the kid couldn’t come with them, so they had to find someone to take him here. Their only hope was that they could find someone decent. 

As they got closer to the surface, the details of the refugee camp began to come into view. A ramshackle collection of tents and lean-tos, some fire pits burning, and dark figures moving between them. It was smaller than Keith had been expecting. He bit the inside of his lip and told himself not to think about the rubble of the child’s home village, and the countless bodies that now lay underneath it, and how it was a little bit Voltron’s fault. 

Shiro landed the shuttle in the predetermined spot, a small clearing in the jungle near the camp. There were already several people waiting there; Keith couldn’t see their faces clearly through the windscreen, but their bodies held tension. 

“I’ll stay in here,” said Shiro, offering a supporting smile at Keith’s anxious look. “One person will be less intimidating than two.”

“Right. Wish me luck.” With one last bracing breath, Keith climbed out of the shuttle.
As soon as the child came into view, several couples and a woman standing by herself turned and left the clearing, bereaved expressions on their faces. Not the kid they were looking for, apparently. Keith took a few steps closer to the rest of the gathered Galra, keeping a secure hold on the child, who had visibly perked up at the familiarity of his home planet. He chirped a couple of times, ears swiveling in circles. 

People were leaving as he walked past them, after realizing that the child he was holding wasn’t theirs. The gathering was dwindling quickly, and Keith was just on the edge of despair when a voice suddenly rang out through the clearing. 

“Tyo!”

He turned to see two Galra, a man and a woman, rushing towards them. The moment the child laid eyes on the pair he exploded into happy trills and chirps, squirming in Keith’s arms and reaching out his own towards them with desperate grabby-hands, which was all the proof Keith needed to know these were the right people. 

The second they were close enough the woman pulled the child– Tyo– from Keith, and he let her. The man was already crying. He had several light colored blotches on his face, the same color as Tyo’s butterfly marking, and the woman had hair the same red shade as the child’s. 

“Thank you,” the man gasped as Tyo burrowed into his mother’s neck, happily purring into her throat. His mother rumbled back, and Keith’s heart suddenly ached in his chest despite the relief flooding his system. “Thank you for bringing him back.”

Keith shook his head. “It’s– it’s ok, it wasn’t a problem.” His voice was hoarse. God, please don’t let me cry in front of these people. 

The man wrapped an arm around the woman’s shoulder and rested his other hand on Tyo’s back. The child’s tail immediately wound around it, tightening like a tourniquet, and the man sniffled. 

“Where did you find him?” the woman asked, only briefly looking up to meet Keith’s eyes before they descended back to her child again. She was several inches taller and broader than her partner, whipcord tough muscles showing on her bare arms, yet the way she held Tyo was gentle. 

“In a crumbled house,” Keith heard himself say. “I think there was a crib in the room, but it was smashed. He wasn’t hurt, though.”

The woman’s face darkened with anger. “Medea left him there,” she snarled, baring sharp teeth. The man rubbed her shoulder. 

“We don’t know that.” He looked up at Keith, and held his gaze where his partner hadn’t. “Were there any bodies in the house with him?”

“Not that I saw. But there was a lot of, um, debris, so…”

The man nodded in understanding. The jungle air was muggy and thick, but that wasn’t the only reason Keith was suddenly having a hard time breathing.

His dad had loved him. He knew that. But looking at this Galra woman, clutching her baby with such fierce, protective devotion– he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever been held like that, or if his mother had denied him even that amount of affection before she left him behind. 

His eyes stung, but he told himself it was sweat from the humidity of the jungle. 

“We don’t have much to offer you,” the man said, dragging Keith back to reality. “Most of our possessions were in the house with Tyo.”

“You don’t have to give me anything,” Keith said immediately, but the man held up a hand to stop him. 

“Please, it’s traditional.” He and the woman exchanged a look, then the woman held out her hand and let her partner remove a bracelet from her wrist. It was made of round beads that looked like stones, in alternating patterns of purple and gold. The only exceptions were the six white beads, three on each side, each with a black rune painted on to it. 

Keith could guess what they spelled, and against his will his throat tightened again. 

Undoing the clasp on the bracelet, the man carefully removed a golden bead. After returning the bracelet to the woman’s wrist, he held the bead out to Keith, saying, “It’s not much, but for us the missing bead will be a reminder of when we could’ve lost our son, but he was brought back to us. I hope it will mean something to you, as well.”

With a hard gulp, Keith accepted the gift, tucking it securely away in one of his pockets. It was a small thing, but it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He barely remembered to whisper a thank you in return. 

The woman gave Keith a once over, looking at him up and down through narrowed eyes. Apparently what she saw was satisfactory, as she offered, “Would you like to say goodbye?” and shifted Tyo in her arms. Keith managed a nod and stepped forward. 

He held up his hand, and Tyo reached out to grasp one of his fingers without hesitation. He was blinking slowly, practically boneless against his mother’s shoulder, and was happy to wait while Keith tried to make his voice work again. 

“Goodbye, Tyo,” he managed eventually, though it was shaky. “It was, uh, nice to meet you.” 

Tyo sat up and reached his other hand in Keith’s direction. His mother obligingly stepped closer, until Tyo was able to wrap his arms around Keith’s neck. Squeezing his golden eyes shut, he firmly rubbed his cheek against Keith’s, skin to soft fur, and a tiny imitation of his mother’s purr vibrated out of his chest. 

Keith closed his eyes too, but to hide the tears as he rubbed Tyo’s back. After a few seconds Tyo began to pull away, and Keith let him, suddenly remembering the other item he had in his pocket. 

“Oh, I meant to tell you, his teeth were hurting him last night.” He produced the length of black rubber from his other pocket. “Chewing on this seemed to help.”

The man took it with a grateful smile. “Thank you, stranger. You have done us a great kindness.”

All Keith could manage in response was a wobbly smile. Tyo was still watching him, so Keith gave him a tiny wave as he stepped back. Tyo flailed his hand back at him. 

Then, with great difficulty, Keith turned around and went back to the shuttle, feeling Tyo’s golden eyes on his back all the way there. 

Keith did his best to avoid Shiro’s eyes when he climbed back into the shuttle. It was a fruitless effort– Shiro could always read him like an open book– and after getting the shuttle back into the air, he reached over and squeezed Keith’s shoulder. Keith bit his lip until it bled, but a few tears snuck out despite his efforts. 

In his pocket, he kept one fist closed tight around the bead.

When they returned to the Castle they found Coran in the dining room, chewing everyone out for letting them take the child without saying goodbye to him first. Keith elected to skip that lecture and went back to his bunk. 

He was already missing Tyo’s weight in his arms as he sat down on his bed. His stomach was growling, he knew he’d have to suck it up soon and go get a proper breakfast, but first he needed to get this wild tangle of emotions under control. With a sigh, he drew one of his legs to his chest and rested his chin on it. 

It was a relief, seeing both of Tyo’s parents there to receive him. But seeing him so doted on and happy with both a mother and a father picked at the old wound that Keith had been trying to ignore for years. 

He pulled the golden bead from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. It was impossible to tell exactly how Galra he was. The DNA could’ve come from either side of the family; it was entirely possible that his mother was just a human woman who left her family. He had no reason to think that she had enough Galra in her to carry on their traditions. 

And yet he wondered if, somewhere out there, in a long destroyed attic box or worn on a purple wrist, there was a bracelet with his name on it. 

Later that day, he borrowed one more thing from Pidge’s toolbox: a length of wire. He threaded the bead on, and secured the wire around the hilt of his knife, the bead resting just above the Blade of Marmora symbol.

As a reminder.