We're Going Home

26

Drugs ~Eden
Shiro had gone ballistic. Everything was in shambles. The walls were charred with handprints. The table was overturned with the team hiding behind it. Shiro's eyes were glowing a bright purple as he stalked towards the table. He was silent, yet moved as if this was a conversation. A debate between life and death.

Shiro's hand looked over the table, preparing for a strike that would slice it in half. Lance aimed his gun at him. "Hey! Over here!" Shiro turned towards the two boys and approached them with alarming speed. Lance ducked as Keith met the arm coming at him with his sword.

Shiro sneered and heated the sword with his hand. Keith gasped as it burned his palm and was sent clattering across the floor. He pinned Keith to the wall, holding him by his neck.

The two stared at each other. One with a dead glare and the other with a quiet resignation.

Lance aimed his gun at Shiro, his hero. The team leader. Every inch of him was screaming, telling him not to, yet his finger still tremored over the trigger.

"Shiro. It's me! Please! This isn't you!" He said, his voice cracking with each word.

"Keith." Lance whimpered,  because he didn't want to shoot but he was holding Keith right now and Shiro was his role model but if he hurt Keith...

Pidge shakily held her bayard, tears sliding relentlessly down her face as she came to Lance's side. Shiro was like a brother to her, and his hands were around the neck of her braiding buddy. She cared so much about everyone on this team, and to make a choice between one or the other was an impossible feat.

Lance hit Shiro over the head with the butt of his bayard and Shiro crumbled. Lance threw m a pained look down at him, his face so peaceful now, but still kept his bayard shakily at the ready because he couldn't be sure. He kept his eyes down as the others came out of the woodworks. "We're cleaning this up. He can't know."

The Paladins silently got to work, all of them shaky and broken. Shiro was frozen in a pod temporarily so none of them had to be afraid. After an hour or two of silent scrubbing no remains of the attacks could be seen.

"What now?" The words were small and uttered the thoughts of the entire team.

Shiro was gone. They still needed to defeat Zarkon. It wasn't optional. Would they get a new Black Paladin? Would one of the others step up? And what would they do without Shiro, the man who had held the team together. How would they hide their terrified gazes? Or their flinches each time he lifted his hand?

Keith's lips parted for a moment just to shut again.

Lance was the one to answer her question, with three simple words. "We move forward."

They did. But it was at a crawl. Pidge cried herself to sleep nightly, because she felt she'd lost the last connection to her family. Hunk rarely ate, and spent most of his time with his lion. Keith was quiet, yet the bruising around his neck spoke more than what words could say. And Lance was starting to break down again. Tearing slightly at the seams where no one else could see. Coran spent many hours pacing the castle in quiet contemplation. He'd lost a son. Soon, all the team had on their mind was utterly obliterating Zarkon. Once and for all. But they had to move quickly. Once Shiro was awake it was a time bomb til the next attack.

So, when he was let out, all of their time and energy was focused on training, and saving planets. There were rarely any idle hours. With Shiro awake, most Paladins found themselves unable to sleep. They all loved him dearly, but it was hard not to notice the fear in their eyes as they passed him in the hall. Or how little they talked during battle. Due to this fear, it was becoming increasingly hard to form Voltron.

So they trained together, trying to let the fear diminish, and build back what they once had. And it seemed success was imminent. Soon, their fears faded to background noise as the team worked more fluidly together and became closer with their lions. Lance was healthy, and even the feud between Keith and Allura seemed to be dying out.

All the while, Lance and Keith grew closer, spending every spare moment in eachothers presence, speaking of the stars and the worlds they planned on visiting after earth. Never stopping until each constellation was a sign of their love. 'That's pretty gay.' But what the hell? They were matching puzzle pieces. Opposites, yet fit together perfectly. 

The day when it seemed everything could be okay was when they'd decided to take a break, and Allura showed them how the pool worked.

Laughter echoed through the castle as water was splashed to and fro through the pool.

In the short silence held there, each one of them saw the others, and they could feel the stillness. It suddenly hit that whatever came their way would all turn out okay, because they had something much stronger than whatever Zarkon was fighting for, they had a family. And sure Matt and Pidge's Dad wasn't there. Sure they weren't on a beach somewhere on earth with relatives all around. But they had one another, and whatever trial that hit them could be overcome because they had something worth fighting for.

The silence was broken with gentle laughter, and the water in the pool began to sway again as Lance taught the others games he and his family would play in the ocean. Love prevailed in the castle that day, and finally, rest came, for all of the Paladins.