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Shiro wakes to the smell of coffee. That in itself is enough to put him on guard - it's been...months? years? Shiro settles on "far too long" since he last came across anything even remotely resembling coffee. Two suggestions immediately spring to mind: either the Galra have discovered what is arguably the universe's greatest drink...or he's no longer on their ship.
Fragmented memories play behind his eyes. Earth's surface, viewed from the window of a pod, getting closer at an alarming rate. The clinical and disturbingly calm voices of Garrison med-techs, overlaying dread as he realised that once again he was at the mercy of people whose interests lay not with him but with his potential. Snatches of conversation drowned by the wind as he faded in and out of consciousness, small arms wrapped around his torso like a seatbelt, squeezing tighter as they entered freefall...
He rolls onto his side, a slight groan escaping his lips. His eyes flicker open to see- no. A tingle of excitement, followed by trepidation, creeps up his spine. This isn't his dark cell on the Galra ship, nor is it the sterile Garrison lab. This place feels comfortable, safe, warm...
"Shiro!" The sofa he's lying on shudders as someone vaults the arm then kneels at his side. "You're awake!"
That voice...his eyes roam their face, taking in every feature with the kind of soul-flooding appreciation only felt after separation. He swallows past the lump in his throat.
"Keith?"
The edges of Keith's mouth turn upward. "Welcome back."
With some difficultly - plus Keith's attempt at help - Shiro sits up. He looks around the dingy living room with blurry eyes.
"Where are we?"
"My place." Shiro's questioning gaze forces him to elaborate. "I moved here after leaving the Garrison."
"What was that, Keith, you left the Garrison? As in, it was your choice?" The interrupting voice is loud and unfamiliar. It makes Shiro wince. "I remember a lot less you leaving and a lot more Iverson banning you from the premises."
"Oh, oh man, do you think Iverson's gonna kick us out too?" Another new speaker, this one far more nervous. Shiro peers over Keith's shoulder to see three wide-eyed strangers staring back at him.
"You made some new friends?" He asks Keith.
Keith scoffs. "No. Lance isn't a friend."
"Yeah, we're rivals!"
"I met him yesterday."
"We were in the same class for months! I'm offended you don't remember me, Keith, offended."
Shiro shakes his head. "And you quit the Garrison?"
"It's complicated, Shiro. I thought you were dead."
"He punched Iverson," Lance supplies helpfully.
Keith grits his teeth. "Iverson blamed the failure of the Kerberos mission on pilot error. He lied to me! He lied to the families of the whole crew!"
An uneasy silence falls across the room, eventually broken by a short kid with scruffy red hair.
"Where are the rest of the crew?"
Shiro sighs. "I wish I knew."
"But you must know something, right? Where did you last see them?"
Something about the kid is familiar, but he can't quite place it. They look almost like... No. He dismisses the thought. There are hundreds of recruits at the Garrison - maybe he saw this one around during his cadet days. But now he's thinking of Matt and Samuel, and how he doesn't know where they are, and-
"Are they at least alive?"
Shiro clenches his fists. "I don't know."
"Stop it! Shiro has enough on his mind without you questioning him." Keith says. A hand rests on his shoulder. "You okay?"
"I'm fine."
He clambers to his feet, all too aware that everyone is watching him. His head feels full, and he's itching with the urge to do something, distract his mind before the day's stress catches up with him and sends him to his knees.
He glances down at his tattered uniform. "Is there somewhere I can wash up?"
-----
He doesn't recognise himself. That's to be expected, really - he hasn't looked in a mirror for over a year, and with all he's been through of course he wouldn't look the same as he didn't before Kerberos - but he's still taken aback when he first catches sight of himself in the grubby bathroom mirror.
He's been staring at his reflection for the last five minutes, trying to gauge his own reaction. His bangs have turned white, which confuses him - stress, maybe? - and his eyes look darker than before, sunken slightly, tired. He doesn't make eye contact for long. He traces the scar below his eyes, shuddering as faint associated memories draw forth in his muddled brain before fading just as fast.
The shower stands to his right, and at the mere sight of it he longs to feel warm water against his skin - maybe it can wash away some of the shadows in his mind with the grit - but before that, he has to remove his shirt. After ensuring the door is locked, he grips the hem and pulls it over his head in one quick sweep.
Despite himself, he can't resist examining his torso. Like he feared - like he expected - it's covered with a myriad of scars, ranging from barely visible lines to a thick burn encompassing most of his right side. Worst of all is the roughly-healed skin around the top of his prosthetic arm, off-colour and healed in uneven ridges. He flexes his arm, watching as the muscles in his stump twinge. It doesn't hurt, but watching it in action makes him feel nauseous and so he turns away, distracting himself with the burn mark.
So many scars, and yet he barely remembers their stories...
The shower - while pathetically weak thanks to Keith's ancient plumbing - is everything Shiro could have hoped for. It's the first time he's felt clean since before Kerberos.
As he towels himself down, Keith knocks at the door to pass through some clothes. Shiro holds the shirts out before him - the first plain grey and long-sleeved, the second a black vest with white highlights - smiling as he realises that these are his own clothes, ones he last saw in his dorm at the Garrison. He casts the purple uniform crumpled in the corner a distasteful look, then pulls on his clothes, relishing in the scent of musty detergent and the feeling of soft cotton against his skin. Convincing his prosthetic arm through the tight sleeve proves easier said than done - it takes at least three minutes to ease it through without the fabric bunching up, and just as Shiro thinks he's accomplished something, he realises that the tightness severely inhibits his arm's movement. Still, that can be fixed. Among the assorted clutter surrounding Keith's sink is a pair of nail scissors. Shiro takes them in his left hand - he's become a lot more dexterous with it over the past year - and cuts at it until he has a short sleeve. As an afterthought, he tucks the scruffily-cut ends into the top of his prosthetic.
Before leaving the room he takes a final look in the mirror. All it took was a shower and a change of clothes, but the man looking back is now a lot more familiar. He brushes his bangs to the side and gives himself a quick smile before heading into the next room.
Keith is sitting on the bed, fidgeting with something that hastily gets shoved under the pillow as he notices Shiro.
"Better?" He asks.
"Much better." He clears his throat, aware of how strange the next line sounds. "Thank you for saving me."
Keith looks down at his hands to avoid eye contact. "No problem. You'd have done the same for me."
Shiro nods, crossing over to the window. The sun is starting to come up, painting the sky almost as red as the sand below it, stretching out in all directions. There's no other buildings in sight. Keith joins him by the window.
"We could go outside?" He suggests.
It's been a long time since Shiro was given that choice, and he finds himself agreeing more because he can than because he really wants to.
While Keith instructs the other three to stay where they are and not touch his things, else he'll drive them out into the middle of the desert and abandon them, Shiro catches sight of something that makes his heart sink. Concealed by a sheet is something that dangerously resembles another one of Keith's conspiracy boards. Before the Keberos mission, Keith was utterly convinced that Shiro would get abducted by aliens. In retrospect, Shiro supposes that Keith may have been right, but his other theories tend towards ridiculous, and without Shiro around to drag him back to reality, who knows what might have unfolded in his absence? The isolated shack in the desert should have been his first warning, really.
But for once, Shiro isn't dreading whatever collection of 'evidence' Keith will no doubt explain to him later. No, as they walk out into the sun and the fresh air, Shiro realises that for the first time in a long time, he feels fundamentally okay. There's a lot he doesn't understand. He has more questions than answers. His head feels scrambled and he has no idea what comes next, but right now, no-one is asking anything of him. Right now, he's safe; free. Right now, Takashi Shirogane is home.