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Lance is startled awake by a dream he forgets just as the light fills his eyes; the shock jolts him onto his elbows and he's breathing deeply, audibly as he tries to remember where he is and why.
The room is fragrant and colored in white and pale pink shades--the drawn chiffon curtains, the tall walls and high ceiling, and the thin sheet that covers him, pulled up halfway up his chest.
He hears a door open, some shuffling, and there's someone standing at the end of the bed. It's a very long bed, and he's still very disoriented, so he has to blink a few times to figure out who it is, this tall blur of blue and silver.
"... Allura? What... Where am I...?"
"You're in one of the upstairs chambers. With the state of the castle at present, we supposed this was the best we could do to accommodate you while you were recovering without the help of the healing pods."
Lance tries to sit up all the way, but his body is heavy and aching. As creepy as they are, he misses the healing pods.
Allura walks towards him as he settles with his back as flat as he can get it against the back of the bed, and she sets a cup of something steaming and translucent orange on the short table next to him. "This should help with the pain. Coran made it for you, so I'm sure it'll work, even if the taste leaves something to be desired." She laughs, but Lance only stares straight ahead, his hands loose on his lap, not paying attention.
There's a long silence, during which Allura appreciates how long he's gone in this room alone with her without saying something obnoxious, but then she worries.
"Lance? Are you--"
"Are the lions okay?" He sounds very tired.
"...Yes, they're in their hangars."
Lance's faraway look does not go away until he turns to face her with a speed that probably hurts him, and he speaks to her urgently.
"Keith--the blast. I tried to get him out, but I can't... do you know what happened?"
Her expression doesn't change, and somehow this eases Lance's mind, just a bit. "He's in the next room. We suspect he would have benefitted the most from the pods--" Lance's fists clench--"but he's definitely stable, and doing much better. He really just needs to rest. He's all right. Everyone's all right," she repeats, and Lance feels her hand on his shoulder. It's a light touch, and not one that he expected or has ever before received from her, but he accepts it, and accepts that he needs it.
"We lost." Allura hears defeat in his voice she has heard before, but never from Lance. She cannot say he doesn't have a right to feel this way, so she consoles him in the best way she can, in the way her mother consoled her, consoled her father, and consoled her people.
"We are alive."
"...What about Meota?" It's a question he sounds reluctant to ask. Lance looks up at her, eyebrows knit as he remembers the Galra soldiers and their toxic, violet energy, their weapons hot and unforgiving as they closed in on Meota's native population--children, with their mothers and fathers, watching their world burn. "Did we... Did we lose them, too?"
Here he sees her jaw tighten, and his chest hurts suddenly.
"We were able to take many of them off the planet before it was destroyed," Allura says, strained, "but I'm afraid many of them were unable to flee before the explosion."
Lance can hardly breathe. He looks down at his hands. He's shaking.
"Lance, are you all right?" she says, and his eyes are out of focus.
"We... I spent too much time attacking the Galra. I really thought... I thought we could get them to back off, but..."
Shiro's voice echoes in his head, screaming at him to fall back. He had been so sure of himself. He had always been so sure of himself.
Allura waits for him to finish, but he can't.
"...Lance, look at me."
He does.
"You must understand--in politics, in war, in life, choices are everything. It is not only impractical to believe you can save everyone, it is impossible."
Lance doesn't believe he's ever seen her look so solemn. He must look a little scared, because her expression softens, and she continues, "Believe me when I say I desperately wish that wasn't the case, and that I have tried many times to avoid making those choices. But..."
She turns, and looks outside the window. The sky is blue, but a kind of blue that Lance could have never imagined the sky being, almost a green. It's almost unnaturally bright.
"The Alteans believed in a universal give and take. We could not have anything we were not meant to have, not without paying a price. We cannot change the flow of existence, we can only choose between the paths that it gives us. That is why the actions of Zarkon and the Galra were such awful offenses to the Altean way of life; he disrupted a balance that we believed we must never upset."
She turns back to him, the jewel on her tiara glinting in the afternoon light. Her voice is no longer gentle, and she speaks like the queen she was meant to be. "Consider this, Lance. We make our choices, and existence carries on. We may have regrets. We may think that we were mistaken." She thinks of her father, gone forever, and what could have been if he had made chosen differently. "We can learn from these mistakes, but we will lose ourselves if we do not look forward."
He's looking up at her now, listening intently.
"I... I think I understand what you're saying, and you said I should learn from this, but... I'm just scared that no matter how many times I do this, I'll never know if I'm doing the right thing. I'm afraid that no matter what I do, someone's going to get hurt." He hugs his knees and looks at the wall that connects to the adjacent room. Allura knows he's thinking of Keith.
"On the battlefield, you can't know anything for sure, and that includes the sacrifices you may have to make. You, your team, Coran and I--we face these dangers because we have a chance to overcome them, and we do it for the sake of those who do not. You are a Paladin of Voltron--the only sure thing is that you must be brave, and I don't think that will be too hard for you." She grins, "And besides," she says, "If that had been me in your lion, defending those people, I know I would have done the exact same thing that you did."
He smiles up at her, and she places a hand on his hair.
"...So does this exchange mean you'll go out with me, or--"
The moment has passed, and Allura takes her hand off of Lance's head by shoving it away.
"Drink your tea, Lance," she says, and turns to leave with a huff. "I'm going to tell the rest of the team you're awake. They've been worried about you, but it seems you're back to your old self."
Lance laughs, and then grimaces when he sips the drink she had placed down on the bedside table.
"Thank you, Allura," he calls after her when she's halfway out the door. "For this nasty tea, and, you know..."
Allura sighs. "I told you, you should thank Coran."
Lance shrugs, and tips his cup back to down his drink in one gulp. Allura smiles.
"Feel better, Lance."