Chapter Text
All he remembers is Red.
Red like the hull of his lion, a harsh and unforgiving light coating him in his static panic - faster faster faster but never fast enough.
Red like the blood splashed across the floor and the very same red seeping through his fingers, soaking through his armor and sliding against his skin - cold.
How long does it take for split blood to become cold?
Red like sirens, high alert - Laser fire and battle cries.
Red like the end of his sword, dripping with it.
A stuttering shuffle. The humming song of a blaster kick starting.
There.
Red red red.
-
He doesn't know what day it is.
The mechanical caress of a healing pod juttering in his veins, keeping one of them awake and another one alive. Blood beneath his nails black with the passing of unforgiving hours that stretch him far too thin.
Inconclusive, Coran says.
He doesn't know what day it is but some time, eons ago maybe, Shiro had knelt next to him.
"Keith, it's been 4 days. You need to rest."
"Keith, he wouldn't want to see you like this. None of us do. Please."
"We don't want to lose you either, he'll still be here when you wake up."
He had gone away eventually, defeat on heavy shoulders and dark lines under his eyes that Keith could see reflected in all of the team as they filtered in and out.
No one was sleeping, not really.
-
He doesn't know what day it is when a sniffling Hunk stumbles in, cradling a familiar green jacket like something precious.
"He always hated how cold the pod is."
Past tense slipping in like a forgotten friend, and it holds a twisting blade. There's always a first time and a looming promise that it won't be the last, not for any of them, but one day it could be and that's another fear he doesn't need crawling under his skin but it sinks in anyway.
Red.
It's barely there, but there's nothing for them to hide behind other than the pods’ cluttering lullaby, so Keith hears him.
"He's gonna be okay, right? He's gotta be."
And Keith doesn't have an answer, doesn't know if he could find one in any of the stars and all of the space in between. Nothing in the color red and nothing in the whispers of ancient Altean tech.
Inconclusive.
Hunk leaves the jacket folded at Keith's feet and is gone again.
I'll be back in the morning.
Take care of him.
It's what they all say when they leave.
-
He doesn't know what day it is when he tugs the jacket to himself, running his fingers over soft canvas faded with wear, catching his nails over fraying stitching and a name sewn and hidden on the fold of the neckline.
Lance
It’s cursive and pretty, tucked and threaded with the sort of practiced ease years wielding a needle would give. He wonders who had left it there for him to find.
Lance had always recalled his family fondly, his little gift of home when he spoke of them. His mother gave the best hugs and his abuela had the best cooking. ('Sorry Hunk' he would apologize.)
He missed his sister the most, his partner in crime he called her, 'Although you wouldn’t make a bad replacement.' He would jab at Keith, laughing away a swat Keith didn't really mean.
He would wonder how big his nieces and nephews had gotten. 'I bet Sylvio is at least 4 foot now, kids gonna be a giant'. His arms stretched above his head.
There had been another one on the way when they left. He had mentioned it once. 'Wish I knew their name, Rachel was hoping for another girl.'
Keith traces the name over and over and over. Lance Lance Lance.
How is he going to explain it to them, to his family so far away, if Lance doesn't wake up? Holding the jacket like a buffer for terrible words, the only thing he has of a life lost too young in a war too old. How does he explain to them that he was too late? How does he explain that they let him go alone?
'It was supposed to be safe.'
'We had to split up.'
'We didn't know we were sending him in there unprepared.'
There wasn't an excuse, and they would know it well.
-
It should have been him, he stumbles upon the thought, if anyone.
He didn't have a family; there wasn't anything left for him to come home to. He didn't have brothers or sisters or abuela's, his mother a myth and his father in a grave.
It should have been him. He was better suited for close combat, better equipped for an ambush. Lance wasn't made for that, for all of his quick shots and light feet.
Should've, Should've, Should've.
There's no use to the word now, anyway, but it still paints him red.
-
The pod to his back rattles against his skin and chills his bones, jerking him once again out of the fretful visions he would hesitate to call sleep. The room's dark, the only clue he has that the castle is asleep. He doesn't know if any of the team actually is, but no one really comes after the lights go out.
He doesn't know what day it is.
The only light in the room is the soft blue from the healing pod, and it cuts into the shadows and looms over him, unforgiving.
He stretches his legs, numb from sitting too long and runs his hands through matted hair with a grimace. The grime from battle itches under his suit, although he had shucked the armor what was probably days ago now, and he tugs at the fabric helplessly.
The dreams must still be chasing him, because for a moment he thinks he can hear Lance's laughter wading through the room.
'Dude you look gross.'
He pushes his palms against his eyes, dragging his fingers down his face before plopping his hands back into his lap with a sigh. He also feels gross.
'He wouldn't want to see you like this.' Shiro had said.
And he was probably right.
Slowly he folds the jacket in his lap, placing it aside before pushing himself up with a groan, muscles sore and vengeful. He stretches again for good measure before turning around, wrapping his arms around himself in a poorly attempted shield from the chill of the room.
Lance hasn't moved an inch, eyes still closed and mouth in a harsh line that doesn't really suit him. The panel still reads the same, Inconclusive, and Keith could kick the damn thing for all the good it was.
On a second thought, he does, albeit with not much venom and only a tired bit of malice. Nothing changes and he's too exhausted to expect anything different. He takes a pitiful shuffle forward and rests his head against the glass with a dull 'thunk'.
The platform aligns his sight with Lance's chest, the torn bit of his body suit showing the wound. It was smaller than before, not nearly as gaping and perhaps not nearly as deep, but still too fresh and still too wide. What the hell was taking so long?
His breath fogs the glass in front of him and he stubbornly wipes it away in a wet smudge. The other side of the glass is without blemish, nothing but the subtle rise and fall of Lances’ chest giving any indication that he was still breathing.
For now, anyway.
Keith wants to yell at the thought. Of course Lance would pull through, this was Lance. Stubborn to a fault. The guy could rattle Death's ear off to the point it would simply give up. There was no way in hell he was gonna get taken out by a couple of shitty Galran soldiers and some bad luck.
But the doubt in his mind was almost suffocating. In war it never mattered what type of person you were - are, he corrects himself almost viciously.
But the Lance that is stood silently in his healing pod, oblivious to the passage of time or the grief of his teammates - of Keith. Coran had suggested maybe talking, said that sometimes people could hear you even while in the pod’s induced coma, but Keith had never heard anyone while he was in there. It had been a big enough rumor on Earth that talking could help. But what would he even say?
He bites into his lip, vulnerable. Him and Lance weren’t always on good terms, and even now they were only sorta getting along - scathing words traded for humored jabs often enough that he would call it progress. Their competitive natures had clashed upon meeting again, Lances need to prove himself barreling head on into Keith’s inability to turn down a challenge, no matter how dumb. But despite himself, he would have liked to consider them friends. At the very least, he thought they were; That they could be.
But were they? Did Lance consider them friends? Hell, if he woke up right now would the person he wanted to see first thing be Keith, matted and dirty from several days of sitting outside his pod as though the Galra were going to raid the castle just to finish the job?
He’d probably want the Princess here. The thought puts a sour taste he can’t quite describe in his mouth. He could see it with almost certain clarity, Lance stumbling from the pod right into Allura’s arms. Lance would probably open up with some corny pickup line like “Did I die and go to heaven? Cause you look like an angel.”
Keith sighs. Even now he wants to groan at Lance’s antics and the guy isn’t even awake to yell at him for it. He pushes himself away from the glass to stare up at the other boy's face, still silent and unmoving. If he was being honest, it was simply strange to see. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Lance in anything other than constant motion, doesn’t know if Lance even knew how to be quiet.
Keith’s hands fall to his sides, the chill somehow sharper now. He tugs again at the dirty suit. A shower was beginning to sound like a life or death situation.
Another sigh and then he’s pacing, circling the pod. It’s unlikely Lance would wake up before he came back. He could probably make it back in thirty minutes, forty-five if he stopped by the kitchens to stock up on food goo bars. Maybe he could even grab a change or two of clothes, wash up in the bathroom outside of the pod room until Lance woke up.
As he shivers to the cold, he notes to grab a blanket as well.
He stops again to look back up at the boy in the pod, coated in blue light. Coran said talking helped.
It’s the first time he’s spoken in who knows how long, so he isn’t surprised that his throat constricts around the words strangely. It’s nothing more than a whisper, but he hopes Lance hears him.
“I’ll be back in a little bit, Lance. Hang in there.”
-
When Keith shuffles back in, arms a delicate balance of clothes, blankets, and a pillow whose case doubled as a transport for the food goo, it’s with a bitter sense of relief that still nothing has changed. Not Lance, not the damn Inconclusive reading, nor the wound on his chest.
He dumps his items to the side of the pod, scattering the food goo packets from the pillow. He looks at the heap sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck before looking up at Lance again, almost apologetic. He feels a bit silly, positive that Lance would be making fun of him if he knew.
“If you wanted to have a sleepover so bad you could have just asked. Oh! I know! I could braid your hair but only if you promise to paint my nails.”
Keith would probably punch him.
“Should I break out the ice cream and romcoms? Some popcorn? You could really use a facemask now that I’m thinking about it.”
No, he’d definitely punch him.
Keith flops back onto the floor, leaning back on his hands to get a better angle looking up at him. It wouldn’t have been the first time Lance had tried to get Keith involved with the others’ shenanigans. Video games with Pidge and Hunk, shitty Altean movie nights with Allura and Coran. Shiro always pressured him into going, ‘team bonding’ and all that, but outside of training and meal times Keith never really interacted with the team. He was used to being alone, doing things by himself. He didn’t see the point in playing useless games or watching things in a language that he didn’t understand. The others tolerated him, were friendly about it, even. Besides Lance, really every one else had given him the polite distance he had set between them.
Staring up now, Keith wonders if he should have joined them after all.
The unease that filters in consumes him again, kicking himself for being ‘a distant loser’, as Lance had yelled at him that one time. It had made him angry then, mostly for the loser part, but it had taken Shiro to put them in what was technically a time out before they could go back to training again as a team.
“You aren’t gonna catch me saying this when you’re awake, but you’re right. I am a distant loser.” Keith says after a minute, like it was an afterthought. He doesn’t get a response, he didn’t expect one, but he’d like to think that maybe Lance would laugh.
-
He’s laying on his back, idly playing catch with a food goo packet when he wonders what would happen if the pod changed its reading. Would it beep? Would it notify him? Send a message up to the control room? He wouldn’t be surprised if Pidge had hooked it up to her tablet somehow. Actually he would be surprised if she hadn’t.
He tosses the food packet up again, catches it, before tossing it again. What would it even say? Usually it just had a number percentage, like some shitty internet download. He snorts and thinks about the memes Pidge had shown him from her phone, his brain supplying him with a “You wouldn’t download a human life.”
If that were the case, it must really suck that they were an advanced alien civilization and they’re still stuck with shitty dial-up.
He’s probably not as funny as he thinks he is, but he’s still grinning as his thoughts loop in circles. A buzzing, mindless chatter that always loops back to Lance some way or another. Finally it comes back around to what would happen if the pods reading changed, and for one horrifying moment his chest sinks at the thought of the panel simply reading ‘Dead’.
It earns him a packet of food goo to the face, his hand forgetting to move for it in its descent, but he’s already getting up, standing to walk around the pod in a flurry of quick steps. He doesn’t really know what he feels when he sees it hasn't changed, but he figures by the way his anxiety settles deep into his ribcage that it’s something like relief.
-
Truthfully, he had meant to check what day it was. Could have probably brought the tablet too, if only for something to play with while he waited.
The days of feeling loosely numb with grief and regret seemed to have settled somewhere down the drain of the baths and had left him with only the gnawing sensation of impatience. He could swear when he closed his eyes the word ‘Inconclusive’ was written there, a permanent carving only serving to his growing agitation. He was half suspecting the pod was broken at this point, and would be certain if the wound wasn’t closing a little bit, day by day.
He’s back to his game of catch when Shiro walks in, on edge by the way Shiro stops in alarm, taking in Keiths makeshift nest of clothes and blankets, the jacket on the floor. He nearly defends himself by saying that Hunk had brought it days(?) ago, but decides maybe that isn’t why Shiro is beginning to smile.
“I see you cleaned up.”
Keith doesn’t say anything as he sits up straight and only watches as Shiro walks fully into the room, making a straight shot for Lances’ pod. Shiro’s face falls a bit at the damn inconclusive reading, but as he eyes the wound he has the grace to look hopeful.
“The wound isn’t healing too badly. I’m sure it’ll be any day now.”
Shiro always tended to lean towards the positive of things, and that tended to be as annoying as it was inspiring. Keith thinks he’s somewhere in the middle this time.
He doesn’t know what day it is, and at this point he doesn’t know how to ask about it either. He’s chewing on the thought of how to approach the subject when Shiro finishes his examination, turning to eye Keith with something like contemplation. “You doing ok? Do you need anything?”
He’s in the automatic response of shaking his head before he remembers the tablet sitting on his bedside table. He could probably just go get it himself, he shouldn’t have to depend on Shiro and the other’s to take care of him, not when they’re already worried about Lance.
But he doubts any of them are doing much else. They might not all be sleeping at the base of Lance’s pod like some worried mother hen, but he knows by the strain around Shiro’s eyes that they’re all just waiting somewhere else, depending on Keith to keep a lookout while they keep the Alliance running.
“Actually,” he hesitates, looking anywhere other than Shiro, “Could you grab my tablet? That way I can send everyone a message if anything changes.”
He doesn’t understand the way Shiro smiles at him, but he nods all the same, strolling out the room with a “Be back in a bit.”
-
True to his word, it’s not much longer before Shiro is back in the room, tablet in hand and what looks like a couple of juice pouches. Keith doesn’t say anything when Shiro tosses him one, settling on the floor beside him and opening one of his own.
“You have to stay hydrated too.” Shiro teases, looking pointedly at the empty food goo wrappers. Keith rolls his eyes with a grumble, but opens his Altean Capri Sun anyway.
They sit in comfortable silence for a while, Keith alternating between fiddling with the tablet and drinking. He’d mostly been drinking handfuls of water from the tap in the bathroom out in the hall, so it wasn’t entirely that the juice was an unwelcome treat. Keith didn’t want to think how long the water had been sitting in the castle’s pipes for.
Their quiet comes to an end when Shiro hums thoughtfully, as he usually does when he’s pretending the thought only just now occurred to him and he didn’t want Keith to know it.
“So, I wasn’t aware that you and Lance had become such close friends.”
Keith wants to mutter something about him being nosey, but that’s only fuel to the fire for Shiro. He couldn’t very well tell Shiro that he had been spending - he looks at the tablet - eight days sleeping on the floor at Lances feet because they weren’t friends.
But lying isn’t something he can ever get away with, at least not for long, when it comes to Shiro either. So instead he just keeps tapping the same apps open and closed, pretending to look busy.
Never let it be said that Shiro wasn’t stubborn though. He’s well since adapted to Keith’s silent treatment.
“In fact, the day of the mission I recall the two of you getting into a very heated argument. Something, something about how you had no faith in him and his natural-born talent?” Shiro waves his hand back and forth like it was nothing but the same old shit, but Keith knows where he’s going with it. Shiro must think he feels guilty.
And he does, but not for that.
Keith huffs the bangs out of his face. “All I said to him was to be careful. Not my fault the idiot took it as an insult.”
Shiro smiles a bit. “Anything you say to him is an insult.”
“But it’s not my fault! I just meant for him to be careful! He was going off alone and that's dangerous for anyone!” Shiro’s looking at him like he knows a secret Keith isn’t privy to and that itches the back of his infamous temper a little too tellingly. Keith settles for a pout, tapping against the screen like it had personally wronged him. “I would have said it to any of the team.”
And it’s not really a lie. He just probably wouldn’t have caught them at the mouth of their lion, probably wouldn’t have said it like it was a command and not an attempt at wishing him well. He hadn’t meant for it to come out gruff and harsh, he was just worried. The team very rarely split up; They were at their best together, when they could form Voltron. Coordinate. Be there together in case, y’know, shit hit the fan. Like it usually does.
Keith knew Lance had had a right to be defensive that day, but that didn’t mean his problems were a puzzle for Shiro to figure out.
Still, let it never be said…
“Well, that explains that but that doesn’t explain why you’re here now.” It’s of course said softly, well meaning, like Shiro doesn’t want to scare him off.
Keith would rather throw himself out the airlock than feed Shiro’s curiosity. Shiro might be his brother in all but blood, but that never meant that Keith would open up to him about everything. He barely understood himself sometimes. In fact, it seemed more often than not that Shiro arrived at conclusions involving Keith before he did himself. Which was also annoying, even if it came from a place of caring.
It’s obvious enough that Keith is avoiding the question, back to the tablet and considering sending an SOS to one of the others. Pidge would probably just make things worse, the demon child. He’s pretty sure Hunk would bail him out if he asked nicely, though.
But the tablet is being pried from his hands before he can type out a message, drawing his attention to Shiro’s ‘stern’ face. The ‘you-aren’t-going-to-avoid-this-and-if-you-do-I-will-pry-it-from-you-with-force’ face. Keith glares at him and attempts to snatch the tablet back, putting up only half of a real fight at the hand that pushes against his face as he stretches for the object now held high over Shiro’s head.
“Nope. I let you mope around for a week. Time to spill the beans.”
“Phuuck oph Shhro.” It’s muffled but he makes sure he says it with feeling.
Shiro’s having fun now though, it seems, because he pushes Keith further away. “No can do! I simply have to hear about how you and Lance became such good friends. Come on bro, give me the deets.”
“Nohbodee sez deetz nymore yu ashhole.” He swipes again at the cost of squishing his face deeper into Shiro’s palm, but it’s met without success.
Shiro fakes a despairing sigh. “A product of my time. Tell me, was it the new ‘hip’ lingo that made you two bond? All my attempts at teamwork, and all I needed was to be more Gucci.”
Keith gives up with a groan. “I hate you, that’s not even how it works.”
Shiro laughs but tosses the tablet at him anyway. “Yeah okay Mr. Pop Culture, as if you would even know. Pidge had to explain to you what a Vine was.”
“That was an educational discussion about Earth culture and it was for Allura and Coran.”
“And you.”
Keith says nothing in response but he does flip him off, both fingers, because he deserves it. It only serves to further harass him when Shiro mock gasps in horror.
“Who taught you that!” He wails like the end is nigh, a faint hand over his forehead like the dramatic fucking princess that he is. “Was it Pidge?” He narrows his eyes, throwing a glare over his shoulder at the boy in the pod. “Was it Lance? Have I surrounded you with bad influences?”
Keith gives him his deadest look. “Actually it was the time you and Adam got in an argument and you -”
“Okay, that’s enough. Your point has been made. You need not say more.” Shiro leans back against the pod to pout about his horrible parenting and Keith tallies his victory with smug satisfaction.
The silence stretches in a way that Keith is hopeful his interrogation is over, is grateful when Shiro stands as though he’s planning to leave it there, but when Shiro opens his mouth again, it’s with a somber tone.
“You know,” he trails off to stare at Lance for a minute, looking for the right words. “It’s okay if you care about the team. It’s okay if you care about him.” When Keith doesn’t answer him, Shiro gives him an understanding smile. “I think he would appreciate it, that you’re here. - That you have his back when he needs it.”
Shiro leaves with a small wave over his shoulder, and then Keith and Lance are alone again.
-
When night falls, Keith is still thinking about what Shiro parted him with. He had said Lance would appreciate him having his back, but Keith couldn’t really think of a time when he really had.
Sure they had their fair share of close calls, but it all came down to teamwork, right? The team had saved each other from numerous dangers. Voltron couldn’t function without every one of them being on top of their game; You take out one piece and the whole thing falls apart. Keith was the fastest when it came to piloting, liked to think he was one of the fastest when it came to call outs too. But he was just doing what he was supposed to do. He doubted any of them thought as deeply into it as Shiro did, doubted Lance even took it as more than Keith micromanaging him.
And really, Keith hadn’t had his back. Not when it counted. Sure, when Lance’s distress calls had come in, static-laced and harried, Keith had been the first one to take off. He doesn’t even remember if he had heard the whole thing before he was out of the atmosphere. All he had known was that Lance was in trouble; All he had known was the sound of Lances’ rapid breathing, that Lance was outnumbered.
He remembered the choking sound Lance had made when the blaster had fired through him. He remembered the gargled sound of Lance trying to apologize, trying to say that he was sorry, but couldn’t, as blood flooded his throat.
He remembered the silence that came from Lance's comms, over-saturated when it went against the yells of his other teammates, somewhere far behind him.
It had taken him what felt like a lifetime to cut through the Galra, doesn’t remember if it was ten or a hundred. It could have been a thousand. It hadn’t mattered. All that existed was the smudge of blue and white at the other end of the room, lifeless and being dragged away like a hunted prize for sport.
All that had existed was Red.
Shiro thought that Lance would appreciate Keith having his back, but if he did, he shouldn’t. He should be furious at all of them, angry that they felt confident enough in their intel that they could just send him off across the galaxy without a single care in the fucking world.
And if he wouldn’t be, Keith would be furious for him.
They had made a mistake, one that could’ve been, could still be, fatal. Losing Lance didn’t mean just losing a teammate (a friend), it also meant losing hundreds of planets, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. When Lance woke up, if, he would damn well have the right to hand every last one of them their ass and then some.
But the Lance Keith had gotten to know probably wouldn’t have an ounce of Keiths fury to him. It just wasn’t the type of person he was.
-
He tries to sleep, he swears he does, but every dream is coated in Red. By the third time it wakes him up, he’s about had it with his anxiety; Had it with the visions of him not making it in time at all.
The room has nothing to it but shadows and blue, and as the blanket slips off his shoulders when he sits up, he’s more aware of the cold than he would like to be. Damn Altean ships. A flying goddamn castle and they couldn’t even give it heating.
Which probably isn’t fair. They’re in the middle of deep space, floating aimlessly between stars and their orbiting systems. The castle was probably doing about all it could, but that didn’t mean Keith hadn’t noticed a lack of fucking thermostats.
He kicks out his feet, determined to get some of the blanket between his legs and the floor, when he accidentally kicks Lance’s jacket into a decidedly less folded bundle. For a moment Keith regrets not grabbing his own coat from his room, but he’d spent enough nights in the desert on his own to know it wasn’t the most comfortable to sleep in, the leather too stiff and constricting, a little too small.
He doesn’t know why he’s nervous as though he’s committing a crime, doesn’t want to know why he feels guilty as he pulls Lance’s jacket to him, back to running his hands over the worn collar. Lance had broader shoulders than Keith did, something he was more than aware of, but it was something else to hold the jacket eye level and up close.
It hadn’t been worn by Lance for over a week, nine days if he’s judging the time right, but it still smelled like he did, familiar. Absolutely not that Keith had spent any time committing it to memory. No, it was just what the showers always smelled like after Lance was done with them when training ended.
Not that Keith ever hung around for that either.
It was just familiar, the product of being stuck in space with limited interaction with anyone other than the team.
Experimentally, he tugs the sleeve over his arm, not surprised when the slack hangs over his fingertips an inch too long. The heavy cloth warms wonderfully to his skin, and that’s what he tells himself when he slips his other arm into its matching sleeve, wrapping the jacket around himself. It’s cold and the coat is warm. It has nothing to do with Lance, he just doesn’t want to stumble around the castle at ass-o-clock in the morning to hunt down a long sleeve shirt.
It’s got nothing to do with Lance, or the shame he feels at how the scent slips around him, comforting and anxiety inducing all at once. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that for a moment, when he closes his eyes to the room, it feels like he’s there. Really there. Not knocked out in a healing pod fighting to stay alive.
The nightmares must still be playing their wicked little games, because for the first time since finding Lance, he can feel the sting of tears.
He reigns them back, committed to shoving the jacket off and as far away from him as possible, but he doesn’t make it even so far as halfway before he’s putting it back over his shoulders, tugging it as tight as it would go.
Stupid, an idiot, an absolute fool, but he just wasn’t ready to give up a piece of Lance that he had no business in taking.
-
He dreams that Lance wakes up. He doesn’t remember what happens after that, but when Keith opens his eyes in the morning, he’s so warm, his chest so dizzyingly full, that he feels like he’s chasing the sun.
-
Keith is grateful that he had woken early enough to place the jacket folded again when Pidge stumbles in.
She looks worse for wear, as if she hadn’t slept much either since Lance was put in the pod. She says nothing as she flops into Keith's little makeshift bed, leaning to rest her head on his shoulder as she decidedly doesn’t look at Lance.
“Nothing yet,” It isn’t a question, but a statement. Keith counts his victories in knowing she had been watching from afar.
“Nothing yet,” He repeats back with a sigh, leaning to rest his head back against the healing pod.
They sit in silence for an eternity while the pod rattles on. She fiddles with his blanket in her lap while they listen to the endless hum, waiting for something they both know won’t happen. Not yet.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” She asks finally, and Keith doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s too scared to say yes, like it would curse them.
“I hope so,” He says instead, because it’s the truth. He had checked the pod’s status just the same as he knew her to have.
Inconclusive.
“That wasn’t a yes,” She calls him out.
“It wasn’t.” He agrees.
She snorts a laugh, a tiny thing that didn’t sound like she thought it to really be all that funny. “If he heard you say that he would jump out of the pod just to smack you.”
Keith smiles, because he had no doubt. “I would let him.”
Silence comes again and Keith does nothing to stop it. He watches out of the corner of his eye as she knots the blanket and unravels it, just to knot it again.
“Breakfast is gonna be soon,” She trails off, and when Keith makes a noise of affirmation she continues. “You should come, Shiro is worried.”
Keith smiles again, because he knows how much she cares about them all. He’d never catch her saying it outloud, but he knew she considered them family, and just how much family was important to her. She was still searching endlessly for Matt and her Dad, and he knew how hard it was every time a lead went dead. But she persevered every time. She was strong like that.
But each of them coped with loss in their own ways, and Keith knew this was his.
“Not today, but maybe soon,” He promises, even though he knows he’s lying.
She untangles herself from his bed with a slow nod, understanding before rising and turning for the door. “Do you want me to bring you something?”
Keith shakes his head, holding up a food goo packet for emphasis. “Got it covered.”
She huffs a laugh, stopping for a second thought before she’s turning around and giving him a hug. From the angle, all he can do is pat her back awkwardly, but she just squeezes harder.
“Don’t be afraid to leave, okay? I’ll let you know the moment something happens if you do.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, and then she is gone.
-
Another day passes by with no change and as the lights dim to only a faint glow, Keith pulls the jacket to him once again.
He settles himself facing Lance, jacket tugged over his shoulders as he stares up at the boy in the pod. The wound is nothing but a fresh patch of skin now, and Keith doesn’t know what that means but he doesn’t want to miss a thing.
“You know, you can come out any time now,” He harps, chastising Lance for taking so long. “Really, how much more time do you need?”
Lance doesn’t respond, not even a flicker of emotion over his face.
Keith pulls the jacket tighter, frowning as he chews on his next bit of words.
“Come back to us, Lance.” Come back to me.
Nothing changes.
-
Keith jolts awake, and for a moment he doesn’t know what had awoken him.
Fog piles at his feet, and he blinks rapidly to clear it from his vision but it doesn’t go away. With another jolt he’s looking up, searching, only to register the hiss as the pod releases air, the glass as it slides open. A body falling.
He’s moving before he registers that he can, catching as Lance falls from the pod like a doll, a heavy weight against his chest.
Keith can’t see the pods analysis panel from where he stands, his hands shaking too much and his heart beating too fast to find a pulse. All he can do is stare at the boy in his arms.
“Lance?” He’s scared. Terrified.
And then Lance opens his eyes.