Little Believer {Pidge Gunderson VLD fan fiction}

Chapter 2: It's Nothing

Pidge spent the rest of the day in her room, missing the debrief of the mission and dinner. She didn't want anyone to know something was wrong; she didn't want to hear those stupid "oh I'm so sorry" and "it'll be ok" talks when everyone found out. She didn't want to be treated like something fragile and looked at with pity.

Most of all, she couldn't find the strength to leave her bed or do anything other than cry. She'd spent the first thirty minutes of getting back using up all her energy in screaming and throwing her stuff across the room.

It was a miracle that no one heard and came knocking on her door. The only person who came to her door was Allura after they'd had dinner, asking why she wasn't with them. Pidge's instant response was a monotone "I'm not feeling well" and it seemed to do the trick.

And so she was left alone, able to cry into her pillow and mourn the loss of Matt and her father as much as she wanted.

It got to the point that her stomach was growling angrily and her pillow had refused to let the tears fall through (leaving an uncomfortable puddle around her ear and the side of her face) that she left the room. Pidge's eyelids were heavy as she walked down the hall, she'd been unable to close her eyes without seeing the fresh memory of blood sprayed across the arena flashing against her closed eyelids.

Pidge didn't know how much time she'd spent in her room, but assumed everyone was well asleep due to how quiet it was. She vaguely registered that her armour was still on as she entered the dark kitchen.

Not bothering to flick on the lights, Pidge grabbed a plate and filled it with food goo. Sitting on the bench, she swallowed each spoonful passed the lump in her throat, having to force it down.

Her mind drifted back to the video, it wasn't old, only a few days. If she'd been fast enough she could have saved them. If Pidge had just left Voltron when she'd planned to, six months ago, to find them...

The thoughts of what she could have done circled her brain, a never ending spiral of guilt that left her needing some sort of relief. Setting down the half empty bowl in the sink, Pidge quickly made her way to the training deck, not knowing what else to do.

Her bayard was still attached to her waist from the mission so she activated it and in a horse voice spoke to the computer. "Activate training sequence, level 13."

Normally she trained with the gladiator at level 8, but she desperately needed this. Needed something to distract her from her hope that's been stomped on recently.

She half hopped that the gladiator would hit her over the head and cause her to forget the mission.

The gladiator appeared in the middle of the room and Pidge got into a fighting stance, ready for whatever it threw at her.

-

"End training sequence!" A voice shouted through the room and Pidge's heart dropped to her stomach. In the doorway stood Keith in his usual outfit. "Pidge what are you doing here?"

"Training." She responded in a horse voice, trying to put a smile on her face but couldn't.

Keith's eyebrows knitted together in concern for the younger paladin. "You look exhausted, how long have you been training for?"

Pidge pressed her lips together and shrugged. The non stop fighting seemed like she'd only been there for half hour but her muscles told her otherwise, her limbs felt like noodles now that she wasn't using them.

"Did you get any sleep?" Keith's concern grew as he made his way over to her.

"No, I couldn't sleep." Her voice horse from screaming and crying for so long.

"You need to sleep, I'm taking you back to your room." Keith sighed, concern growing more when he heard her voice properly.

"I'm perfectly capable of getting there on my own." She sighed, the stop in her constant training was allowing thoughts about what's happened creep into her mind once again.

"Yeah I know that, but I also know that you'll go somewhere else." Keith rolled his eyes and started walking, Pidge following next to him reluctantly. "What's going on with you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Pidge denied, trying to look as normal as possible as grief ate away at her mind.

Keith raised an eyebrow at her. "You locked yourself in your room and didn't come out for dinner?"

"I was feeling sick." She defended, stopping outside the door to her room and looked at Keith, expecting him to leave.

"Whatever you sa..." Keith began to say and opened to door, his voice dying in his throat once he caught sight of the room. Everything was strewn across the room, everything Pidge had tinkered with was in broken heaps. The walls had scratches where objects had hit it and a large dent from where Pidge had punched it out of anger. "What the quiznak, Pidge?"

"It's nothing Keith." Pidge whispered and went inside.

"Pidge-"

"I SAID IT'S NOTHING!" Pidge snapped, slamming her fist onto the button next to the door, closing and locking it in Keith's face.

Tears returned to her eyes, and she slumped against the wall and sat down there. She was so tired, every blink she made became harder for her to open her eyes once more. Tears slid down her face slowly as she struggled to open her eyes and fight off sleep, eventually she gave in and fell into a dreamless sleep.