Catch the Stars ||Keith Kogane||

64

It wasn't hard to track down Keith. It was, however, a little harder than it should've been to catch up to him. Trip's chest threatened to collapse every time she went a little too close to a normal pace for her.

But the lion hangar came with an elevator, thankfully. All of those stairs would've sent her back into a coma. One Haylie would follow her into and beat her back into the world of the living. And, just as she thought, he was already sitting at the bottom when she reached the floor where the black lion had been. From what Hunk said, it hadn't moved since its paladin disappeared.

No glowing eyes, no roaring, no rushing off to save him. It was practically limp.

And there was Keith, standing in front of it as if he could get all the answers from it.

She walks up slowly behind him.

"I'm not a time bomb," he snaps without looking over his shoulder, "you don't have to move like I'm going to blow up!"

Trip grits her teeth, "Speed's not exactly my top skill, right now," she says and crosses her arms over her stomach as she stops behind him, "Trying to catch up with you was a form of physical torture."

Keith turns, his eyes a little wider than normal, "Oh...Trip."

"Sorry it's not someone else," she shrugs.

He shakes his head and turns back to the lion, "thought you were one of the others..."

Since when had she become the one person he wouldn't yell at? With a few more steps, she's right next to him, shoulders touching, and looking at the lion too. It looked dead.

"Are you here to rip me a new one?" He asks, "And tell me this isn't how a leader should act? I need to be calm and level-headed and everything Shiro was?!"

Trip hums and shakes her head, "You're already telling yourself all of that," she says, "I'm just here if you need someone to talk to...or yell at, whichever comes first."

Keith groans, shaking his head and turning to face her. Maybe it was too much to look and the lion and hold a conversation at once, but for whatever reason he turned all of his attention towards her. Trip does the same, not caring if it was about to turn into a screaming match.

"I don't wanna yell," he says in frustration, dragging a hand over his face, "I didn't go in there trying to yell at everyone!"

"We know," she tells him.

"I just...I panicked! I know everyone wants to see Voltron, and I know that we stand no chance against the empire without Shiro! And...I just want to find my brother."

Keith's head hung, as if ashamed that he had to admit it out loud for it to be true. But Trip knew that he wanted Shiro back as badly as he wanted the war to end. And to have all of the expectations of a leader on top of him while feeling that desperation...Trip hurt thinking about it.

So her hands reach for him for the second time that night. And she places her palms against either side of his face, lifting his sad eyes to look at her.

There was no training manual for comforting someone you cared about. It was easier for her to lead a war than it was to know what to say to Keith at this moment. But she would try and then try again if she failed until she said the right thing.

"We will find him," she tries to say with enough confidence to convince at least him if not both of them, "we will. But until we do, you're not alone."

Honestly, she was waiting for him to swat her hands away and tell her that she didn't understand the situation right now. This wasn't like the hospital room, where they were both riding the highs of finding each other alive. He had been beyond angry moments ago, she didn't expect that to change.