What they don't know

Part 2

Getting in and out of the lab had turned out to be surprisingly easy, the only trouble he ran into was a couple of sentries on the way out. Thanks to that he only got a few scratches at worse but that wasn't what was on his mind at the moment. 

He was right and he absolutely hated it. 

'Shiro' wasn't Shiro. He was a clone that Haggar had been controlling since his reappearance nearly a year ago. Lance had sent the data to Alec before trying to get in touch with Matt and Keith. He knew he couldn't just go to the others himself, Matt and Keith were at least more likely to be listened to and would definitely take this seriously. It didn't matter to him if they got all the credit- it would hurt but it would be better for the others.

He hadn't been able to get in touch with Keith but Matt was going to meet him back at the castle in a couple of vargas. Alec hadn't gotten back in touch with him since he sent the data but the signal was still transmitting just fine. Well, to an extent. 

It had been sending coordinates up until about an hour ago. It was possible that it was just a glitch but Lance couldn't get the knot of worry out of his chest. All he could do was wait for Matt to get there so he could check up on it.

Speaking of meeting Matt, he'd reached the coordinates the tracker had given him. He hummed nervously and strummed on the control panel, flicking through communication channels desperately searching for any messages or trace of the others. He took notice of how strongly he was shaking and spent a good few anxious minutes trying to hold his leg still before jumping so hard that his legs smacked into the underside of the controls and he bit into his lip, drawing blood. He swore quietly as he reopened the comms channel and sighed in relief. 

It was Matt. Matt would help. And now that Matt was here they might be able get in touch with Keith as well. Keith always made things better.

"Lance? Hey, I got your message. You better have been serious. I don't care who you are, giving a false accusation about Shiro like that is unforgivable." 

Lance shook his head vigorously, "No-No! Matt! I'm serious! That was all real. I-"  Matt nodded calmly, smoothening his expression into a gentler one.

"It's okay. Calm down, I was just making sure." Matt flashed him a smile before switching to a more serious expression. "Who else have you told, we have to proceed carefully."

Lance nodded, "Mhm, I tried to tell Keith but he was busy or something so... only you."

Matt sighed and hummed against his finger, seemingly flicking through his scanners like Lance had been a minute ago while Lance sat in his own craft, nervously fiddling with his gloved fingers. 

"D'you know where the Castle is now? We need to sort this out as quickly as possible." This serious Matt was refreshingly reliable, he was glad he wasn't always as Pidge made him out to be.

"Um.. I did. The tracker I was using isn't sending a signal anymore so.. I don't know. Sorry.."

Matt's flicked to meet his warmly, "It's not your fault.. probably." Lance winced a little while Matt muttered on half to himself, "We can't get in touch with them- it would've been especially harder with the lack of good equipment... Do the other's know you're gone?"

Lance shook his head curtly, to which Matt raised an eyebrow and sighed, "I'd say our best bet is the Blade of Marmora. Think you can get us in?" 

Lance nodded, already tapping the coordinates into his console and sending them to Matt. He felt sick. He couldn't believe he had messed this up so much. They'd spent months planning this and he'd messed it up. What was worse was that he couldn't even fix this on his own. Of course he would be the one to mess up a simple mission meant to help the team and possibly even put their lives on the line instead, all because he wanted to prove he was worth a place on the team. Even if they did find the others, they'd still be down a Paladin and Keith, at least, would be a complete wreak again. He didn't think he could take all that again. He didn't deserve to be there anymore, although he doubted he ever did.

--

It had only taken them a couple of hours to get there, which to them felt like the luckiest thing to have happened to them throughout this whole ordeal. It had taken about 10 minutes or so of back and forth between Lance and the Blades to confirm that yes, he was a Paladin and not a spy and no, Matt was not a spy either and was fine to join them. Eventually, they got annoyed and just asked for Kolivan or Slav.

Once they had landed, they were immediately escorted by a few Blades to meet with Kolivan and explain the situation. On their way, Lance kept trying to discreetly look for Keith, fully aware that he was just holding onto hope that he had just missed all his messages- or even been purposefully ignoring them- and wasn't actually busy on some life threatening mission where he thought him and his life didn't matter and were easily disposable. Yep, Lance was doing great, not worried at all. You're imagining things.

It was only during their talk with Kolivan that his fears were solidified. 

The Blade couldn't contact the castle either and Keith was missing.

According to Kolivan, he went on a mission about a month ago to assist an undercover agent and hadn't checked in since. Now neither of the Blades were answering.

Lance had to hand it to Kolivan, he did seem genuinely worried about both his missing Blade members and the Castle. They didn't seem so disposable to him anyway. He had also offered to let them both stay at the base while they worked to find their missing friends. Matt had declined deciding to check in with the Rebels for ay info. Lance had accepted though, still wanting to hold onto the hope that Keith would be fine and come back soon.

He was led to a room towards the bottom of the base. It was mostly empty and had a stunning view from the window but what stood out most to him was the red jacket tossed messily on one of the beds. This was Keith's room.

Apparently, he'd made some sort of deal with Kolivan to have him own room- not wanting to share with a stranger- and this was the result. 

Lance was too emotionally exhausted to figure out exactly how he felt about this arrangement. He wasn't sure why he would want to stay in his potentially dead friends room, especially one that would rather spend the night in an airlock than in a room with him. Despite his head warning him about the possibly life threatening situation he was in, the Cuban dropped onto what he assumed was Keith's bed and picked up the jacket. 

It really was such an impractical jacket. It almost didn't match Keith with the way he always seemed to prioritise his goal or task above anything that a normal person would enjoy. Then again, Keith wasn't really much of a normal person. He definitely had a way of spontaneously making all his decisions, Lance wouldn't put it past him for the jacket to be the same. Although he would admit it looked good on him- maybe Keith cared about his appearance more than Lance gave him credit for.

He folded the jacket and quickly placed it on a nearby chair as soon as he felt tears building up in his eyes. He wiped them furiously, muffling quiet whimpers.

Keith wasn't dead.

Neither was Shiro.

Or Hunk, or Pidge, or Coran or Allura.

He choked on his mumbling and gave up trying to stop the tears.

Everything was and is going to be fine.

The funeral said otherwise.