Chapter Text
The first thing he was taught in astronaut training was that space is a void. It is empty and full of nothing. There is no oxygen, no sound, and no movement. The exact words his instructor used were: "you can kick, scream, punch, and swear all you want, but it won't do you any good. Because space is nothing".
Space is nothing.
Shiro couldn't remember a time that he'd ever felt more nothingness. He was floating now, aimlessly and half conscious, through some galaxy that was made up of dark blues and reds. He'd passed through a field of what looked like tiny lights, although he couldn't find the strength to reach out and touch one. He couldn't find strength at all. He drew in a slow breath and closed his eyes.
He remembered the first time he'd met Keith. Garrison security had found him breaking into the motorpool and trying to steal the propulsion system off one of the hover bikes. Shiro had been a lieutenant then, but he knew potential when he saw it, and it came as a serious shock when he pushed harder than anyone for Keith's acceptance into the Garrison. He was so proud when Keith received an award for highest consecutive simulator scores, and the day that Keith made fighter pilot class, he made sure his was the first signature on the approval form. Shiro was smart enough to know that the reason Keith dropped out was because of the Garrison's attempts to hide what happened on Kerberos. He was still as proud now as he had been back then.
Shiro even remembered the first time he'd met Lance and Hunk. It was still a few months before Kerberos, and he'd been asked to give a lecture to some of the..."less skilled teams," was the wording that his superior had used. In a half full classroom full of teenagers who looked like they physically could not care less, there was one person in the back who stood out: a cargo pilot who had more crashes than landings, but whose hand was almost always raised. His engineer had a reputation for getting motion sick in the cockpit, but he took enough notes to write a book. They asked the most enthusiastic questions, and Shiro was surprised how intelligent they were despite their scores. They even came up to shake his hand afterwards, something even most adults rarely did anymore.
He couldn't forget the first time he'd met Pidge - or rather, met Katie Holt. Sam had invited him over for dinner the same day he'd met him. Sam had been a firm believer in good first impressions, and Shiro felt bad refusing the offer. Katie had been twelve then, and a perfect copy and paste of Matt. He sat next to her at the table, and when he asked what she like to do for fun, she spent almost two hours telling him the science projects she had now and all the ones she planned to do in the future. By the end of the night, he had more information about repurposing DVD players than he thought he needed, and he knew Neptune's moons in order of her most to least favorite (Neso was her favorite, but she had no love for Halimede).
He though about Allura leading some intergalactic United Nations, Coran at her side. She seemed to fit right in at the head of a long table, talking to leaders from hundreds of different races about rebuilding this or improving the trade agreements for that. He could see her on a Balmera somewhere, taking a crystal from the side of a mountain and offering up a piece of her Quintessence in exchange. He imagined her teaching another small group how to defend them in battle, and almost smiled at the thought of her showing off when her students struggled on level one.
Voltron would disappear back into legend. The Lions would be hidden away in temples scattered throughout the galaxies, waiting until they were needed again. Perhaps some cultures would worship the Lions as goddesses like the Arusians had. Centuries from now, would parents tell their children bedtime stories about how five humans, whose names were lost in the past, saved the whole universe from Zarkon?
For just a moment, Shiro opened his eyes. There was a brilliant swirl of red around him - a deep maroon in some places, and a vibrant carmine in others. He could see a planet off in the distance, or maybe he was so exhausted he was imagining things. It was small and white, and if he squinted he could see little black specs on it. Something in his chest tightened, and for the first time in almost two years, he felt homesick for Kerberos.
That mission had ruined his life, but it had also saved it. He could count six reasons why it had saved it, and it had been an honor fight alongside all six of them. Maybe somewhere back on Earth, people were still thinking about them. About those three people that got lost in space due to a false pilot error; about those three kids that ran away from the Galaxy Garrison and were never found; about that weird, flying, blue cat out over the Nevada desert.
If he died right now, he wouldn't mind. They'd saved the universe. He'd done his duty, he lived a full life.
Shiro closed his eyes again. There was something warm around him, like he was being lowered into a bath. He felt his body being pulled up by this warm thing and it felt like he was returning somewhere that he hadn't been in forever. Maybe he really was dying, and this is what it felt like. When his grandfather passed away, his father told him that it was like falling asleep without waking up.
He could do that. He could fall asleep and stay there forever.
Waking up was an unfortunate process that made Shiro miss whatever darkness he had been in. He had always assumed that waking up after death meant walking through a bright light and ending up in a field of some kind, where all the friends and family you'd lost were waiting to welcome you into whatever afterlife there was.
But there was no bright light, or fields, or awaiting loved ones. There was only more darkness, and pain, and he was still alone.
He was laying on something hard and cold, and there was a faint purple light coming from the cracks in the door on the opposite wall. He tried to sit up on his own, but it felt like the air had been knocked from his lungs. Shiro put a hand on the wall to steady himself as he tried getting up a second time, and he felt cold metal beneath his skin. His hand came away slightly sticky and thinking about what it might be made his stomach roll.
Every inch of his body hurt. His ears were ringing and it felt like someone had dropped something very heavy on the back of his head. Shiro didn't like to say that he was an expert on the feeling of someone pushing him out of his own head, but he had recently grown accustomed what that felt like. He sat crisscross with his elbows on his knees, forcing himself to draw in one stale breath after another.
The air was sickening. It was somehow clammy and dry at the same time, but it smelled like blood, excrement, and rot. It hung heavy around him, as though it had a tangible weight to it. Shiro had smelled air like that once before, and it was not a smell he would easily forget. He stood up and ran a hand over his chest, feeling around for the armor that wasn't there. Where his chest plate should have been, there was only rough, thin fabric.
He realized, in a way that felt like he'd been shot in the chest, that he wasn't as dead as he previously thought. But, oh, how he wished he was.
Shiro swallowed thickly. There were only a select few things in this life that were as familiar to him as his current location. His old bedroom at his parents' house; the big backyard at his grandparents' house in Akita; the cockpit of the Descartes 1 on the way to Kerberos.
The inside of a Galra prison cell.
The cell was incredibly small, and it only took him one short stride to reach the door. Something curdled in the back of his mind - cells this small were only in solitary confinement. Normal cells were large enough to fit seven or more prisoners in one cell, but in here, Shiro could hold both arms out to the side and press his palms flat against the walls.
He didn't understand. Voltron had killed Zarkon - he had killed Zarkon. It was over, the Galra empire would fall because Voltron and its Paladins had saved the universe. They had won. It was over. He'd escaped.
Yet here he was.
Shiro pounded on the door with both fists, like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. He screamed at nothing and no one; calling for the rest of the team as loud as he humanly could, calling for the Black Lion, he even called out for Matt and Sam once. When his voice cracked and his throat had been screamed raw, he kicked at the door with everything he had left. He could feel a faint dip in the metal under his prosthetic fist, but it got him no closer to freedom.
Outside his cell, and further away to his left, there was the repetitive clip of metal feet on a metal floor. The closer the sound got, the more dread pooled in the pit of Shiro's stomach. He knew they were Galra sentries, but something in him still refused to believe it. The footsteps stopped outside the door to his cell, and he could feel them standing in front of the door.
There was a single, thundering BANG against the cell door that sent Shiro flinching away from the dark metal. The shutter on a small window near the top of the door slid open, and for one naive second, Shiro hoped it would be Keith, or Lance, or Pidge, or someone that would get him out of there. He thought that maybe, just maybe, he could escape again. He would even settle for another prisoner trying to make a break for it.
He should have known better.
Shiro had to look out the small window at an angle to see who it was. Standing between two sentries was a shorter, older Galra, whose eyes were just a hair below the slit in the door. He must have been a slaver - he looked much too out of shape to be a soldier, and he was wearing somewhat civilian clothes.
"What's with all this noise? It's still the bleedin' night cycle! People are tryin' to sleep!"
Shiro stood with the toes of his boots flush against the door, pressing his face against the small window desperately, "you have to help me - please! I don't know what I'm doing here, but I have to get back to the Castle!"
The Galra barked out a sharp laugh and an "uh-huh, sure," before he pulled a portable manifest from a pocket on his belt. He waved it around in front of the window, "these here are transport orders. I got a hold full of prisoners goin' to the factory on Nadarè. I'm at full capacity right now! Do you know how much GAC that's worth? Like frak I'm letting you go."
"No, no, no, you have to let me go! I have to find them! I have to find my team! And Allura, and - "
Shiro saw one of the sentries slam the butt of its rifle against the door, and the second BANG sent him reeling backwards. His feet tangled around each other in the small space, and he fell backwards onto the floor like a bag of dropped rocks. He knew he was breathing much too fast, but the air felt as thin and as sharp as glass and no matter how much he tried to suck in, it still felt as though he was drowning.
He pulled his knees into his chest and pressed his hands around his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine himself somewhere else. It didn't matter where - the castle, some nearby moon, he'd even settle for going back to floating through space - anywhere but here.
The little window slid shut with a sound like scissors closing and the click of a latch. The sentries turned and marched back in the direction they came from, their synchronized footfalls echoed down the hallway until they disappeared from earshot. There was nothing left but the silence and darkness.
You can kick, scream, punch, and swear all you want, but it won't do you any good. Because space is nothing.
Shiro looked up from his knees, staring at the small lines of light coming in from the seams of the door. He reached out purposelessly for the purple glow and found himself crawling towards it, like a wounded moth standing on the edge of a candle. It was there, he wanted to go towards it, but he knew he'd burn up if he tried.
His human hand brushed against the cold door; when he let his fingers ghost up the metal, he could feel all the scratches and pockmarks from the prisoners before him, terrified and trying to break free, like him. His ring finger brushed the jagged edge of a small gouge and the torn metal broke skin. The rivulet of blood that ran down between his knuckles was the warmest thing he'd felt since the heat of their battle with Zarkon.
The battle.
There was a hollow grief in his chest at the thought - certainly not for Zarkon, but for who precisely he couldn't tell. Maybe it was for the other Paladins, because the one person they relied on for leadership had vanished without a trace; maybe it was for Allura and Coran, because they had no home to return to now that they'd won; maybe it was for his Lion, because he'd left her when she needed him most.
Maybe it was for himself, because somehow he'd managed to wind up back in square one.
Shiro felt the back of his throat tighten and the backs of his eyes burned. He wanted to laugh at himself, at this massive clusterfuck of dramatic irony that somehow he'd managed to land in. He pressed his forehead against the metal, hoping that the cold against his skin would help keep him grounded. He forced himself to take a breath, but it turned into a squeaking hiccup as the last of his dignity fell away.
He dug his knees into the floor and slid down until he was kneeling in a ball on the floor, one hand still reaching up the door as if some impossible savior would come down and carry him away from this place. His half ragged breaths turned into whining sobs as all the tears that hadn't been cried in ages began to roll down the sides of his face. It almost felt gratifying to cry.