Adam looked remarkably peaceful, the rise and fall of his chest steady and strong. His glasses were set to the side, the minor damage that had been found on them repaired and the lenses thoroughly cleaned in Acxa's absentmindedness.
Lance had one leg hooked over the other, reclined in a chair set beside Adam's medical bed. Exhaustion had already rolled over his body, leaving his eyelids heavy even as he refused to let them fully close for more than a few seconds.
While the rest of the team went ahead to settle arrangements with this reality's Voltron, Lance had volunteered to accompany the still-unconscious Adam to the med-bay - under Acxa's supervision, of course. Because that was something he had decided to agree to.
Acxa sat almost perfectly still across from him, eyes drifting about occassionally to roam over the room with a hint of bored curiosity. Her hands were set symmetrically on her lap, posture as strictly maintained as the blank look on her face.
She had been quiet since Adam had been settled although Lance couldn't exactly say this wasn't the case most of the time anyway. She had never been particularly talkative within their team with anyone aside from Veronica. With everyone else she was ultimately entirely business focused. It was undeniable that she cared for them as her team and comrades but that didn't exactly give Lance any starting point with how to talk to her.
So he stuck to the silence, following her lead and idly examining the room.
It was mostly the same as what Lance remembered the med-bay to be. This room in particular was an offshoot of the main pod room, hospital beds arranged carefully around more simple dressing and examination stations. Lance had been in there more times than he could count due to a mixture of tending his own wounds and helping Coran clean and restock the place. Even though he couldn't quite put his finger on it, Lance knew it well enough to know it was different - perhaps a little shabbier than he remembered? Or maybe the beds were slightly disorganised?
"We still trust you." Acxa announced out of the blue, expression not changing in the slightest as she appraised him.
Lance blinked at her, frowning ever so slightly, "Thank you?" He hadn't meant for it to come out so uncertain, but he couldn't deny how true it felt once it was out.
"We know your intentions and where your loyalties lie," Acxa continued, "Stick to that and we will find a way past this."
This time he was more certain in his gratitude, his lips tilting upwards softly, "Thank you, Acxa. That... really means a lot."
Acxa nodded, "You are a good person - better than I was back then. You don't deserve this distrust."
"I wouldn't say that." Lance frowned again, adjusting his legs once he noticed one of them had started to go numb, "You've helped us a lot and your hearts in a good place. I'm not better than you."
Acxa didn't agree but she didn't disagree either, simply moving along with a tilt of her head, "No matter where you go in this universe, there will always be those who refuse to see anything but the worst in you. Just because they are justified does not mean you deserve their assessment. Ignore it, it will pass."
"Alright."
Her words were clinical although bore a hint of warmth and reassurance. Lance smiled at her, thinking for a moment just how much her attitude complimented his sister's. Alongside that thought, another one sprung up; he really knew very little about their new green paladin.
"Acxa," Lance began, waiting for her acknowledgement before continuing, "If you wouldn't mind, I just thought I really don't know much about you."
"You want me to tell you about myself?" Acxa answered with her signature blank face, frowning ever so slightly, "It's not all that interesting."
"Doesn't have to be interesting. I just wanna get to know you better."
"Very well." Acxa thought for a long moment, the quiet between their words a comfortable place to reside, "I grew up in a trade port towards the edge of my solar system. The empire did a lot of business there and often held enlistment opportunities where they would tell us about the career opportunities and all the benefits we would get from joining their ranks.
"I never knew my parents but I presumed the galra counterpart was a member of the Empire - maybe some soldier that stopped their for a brief romance. I guess that encouraged me to join up once I was old enough - along with all the brainwashing." Acxa crossed her arms stiffly, eyes steeled with poorly concealed anger.
"From there, I tried to climb the ranks on my own for a while. I assume you know how the Empire is with half-breeds." Her lips curled over the words in clear disgust, strong enough that Lance had to supress a flinch at the sight, "They wouldn't let me get anywhere worth anything.
"Lotor was the only one who saw me as a someone worth their time. He offered me a position working under him and eventually the others joined us. For a time, it was just us against the universe." Acxa paused, her tone growing sad, "I thought we were close. Close enough that we could share anything with each other, that we would always have each others' backs - no matter what."
Lance wasn't exactly sure what to say in response to that. Should he apologise for bringing it up? Or would she appreciate him attempting to comfort her?
He opened his mouth to make some half-thought-out attempt, freezing when she held up a hand in dismissal.
Acxa shrugged, "I don't mind talking about. I've explained it in more detail to Veronica before. It's in the past now anyway. I might as well try to better myself as a result of it rather than hide away from my history."
Lance nodded slowly, relaxing back into a curled sit in his chair, "I guess that's a good way to think of it." After another pause, he added, "I trust you too. And so does the rest of the team."
Acxa smiled that time, relaxing her crossed arms as she turned her attention back to Adam, letting a soft silence wash over them once more.
Lance took a moment to just breathe, listening to the medical monitors, the distant hum of the ship's engines, the sounds of the lights overhead, the tapping of Acxa's hands. He could feel a yawn threading its way through his chest, when it left his lips it was barely more than a sigh. His eyelids were heavy, constantly hanging half-lidded as he glazed over the sight in front of him.
Despite everything, despite being in another reality - further from any semblance of home than he had ever been - Lance felt oddly at peace. Perhaps it was the company, perhaps it was the exhaustion, or maybe it was the Castle itself. In the end, he wasn't really sure it mattered, he was content to just let his mind drift aimlessly for awhile as he soaked in the baseless comfort.
He had forgotten what home felt like.
Adam's eyelids flickered, the change so minute Lance didn't react to it at first. When he tilted his head, the alchemist murmured to Acxa, pointing it out as he sat a little closer to the edge of his seat. Acxa removed herself from her own, moving to kneel at Adam's bedside as she peered closer attentively.
When his eyes opened, they were distant and unfocused, taking in his surroundings at a lazy, unfamiliar pace. Acxa hung to the edge of his peripherals, waiting for his focus to return before planning to make herself known.
"Adam?" Lance scooched himself closer, setting himself up in a similar position to the green paladin on the other side of the bed, "Adam, can you hear me?"
Hazel eyes flicked in his general direction, squinting in a pained, confused way. Lance shared a brief look with Acxa, the two frowning ever so slightly as Acxa set forth a message to Coran - who Lance suspected the Castle had already alerted somehow.
"Adam?" Acxa echoed, a little louder this time.
The man inclined his head fractionally, squeezing his eyes shut as he clumsily held a hand up to shield himself from the clinical lights overhead. His hand wavered and wobbled unsteadily until Lance caught it and held his own hand up for him.
"Acxa," Lance kept his voice soft as his grip on Adam's wrist, "There's a control panel for the lights by that red cabinet over there. See if you can lower the brightness a bit."
She set about the task in smooth, almost soundless motions, returning just as Lance had finished a quick evaluation on Adam's quintessence levels and spread.
"A bit low," He murmured, "But he looks well onto the road of recovery."
"...Lance?" Adam managed to grit out, his eyes still somewhat clenched.
"I'm here. So's Acxa."
Adam hummed, his voice strained and tense, "..Where are we?"
"The Castle of Lions." Lance replied automatically, stalling when he noticed the lack of comprehension on Adam's face.
Acxa took over, "We fell into another reality. Fortunately, we may have found some allies willing to shelter and work with us for the time being."
Adam's eyes snapped open, his body jerking as he struggled to sit up. With a little effort, Lance helped heave him up into a sitting position, keeping his hands lingering close even after he had settled in case they were needed further.
"Where are the others? Are they-?"
"Everyone's fine." Lance soothed.
"All the Paladins along with the team Lance took down to the surface made it through. We haven't had any word from the rest of the fleet but a retreat order was put out in the middle of the battle. It's likely that many of them made it to safety."
"What about the wolves? Is Black okay?"
"Can you not feel them?" Lance asked curiously, regretting his tone when Acxa sent him a look.
"Vaguely?"
Lance nodded, drifting off into his own thoughts for a moment. Was it possible that, while Adam's body made use of Lance's quintessence to get itself back in order, it temporarily weakened the connection between the paladin and wolf? Given that Lance had been through the same 'procedure' in the past and his own bond had remained intact, he expected it would eventually recover on its own - probably once Adam's quintessence replenished itself to the point that the donor's quintessence was almost completely, if not entirely, flushed out of the recipient's system.
"How do you feel?" Lance asked instead, trying to remember his own symptoms after he had been brought back.
"A bit achy?" Adam rubbed at his shoulder, not missing the fresh bandage covering it. "What happened?"
"Do you feel oddly cold anywhere? What about your heart rate? Or do your limbs feel a bit sluggish?"
"Lance." Adam said a bit more sharply, slipping into his old teacher voice, "What happened?" He looked to Acxa, who promptly looked down at her hands, pushing the explaination back onto Lance as they had agreed beforehand.
Lance swallowed thickly, putting his own questions to the side for a moment, "Adam. In the crash, your cockpit experienced a drastic change in pressure, preventing oxygen from getting to your lungs. Your helmet was broken so... You suffocated."
Adam's eyes drifted between them, his breath slowing drastically, "...But you resuscitated me, right?...Lance?"
Lance readjusted himself, swallowing his own skittering heartbeat as he fought to maintain eye contact, "When I was a paladin, we didn't know much about quintessence or alchemy. Allura - the altean princess and paladin of the blue lion - knew the most but most of that was rooted in passing jargon she had caught or myths that had been passed down to her. But, even with the little that she knew, she made some brilliant inferences."
The other two were quiet, listening carefully as they searched for the link.
"She went to Oriande as well - just like I did - and there was where her journey in alchemy really started. Originally, it was all based in ways to strengthen Voltron and the Castle - being able to apply that same technology and methods to other ships and spacecrafts.
"She hadn't really considered its applications in medicine and honestly I haven't thought on it much either. But it was the foundation for how the healing pods worked," Acxa cast him an understanding look, settling back in somewhat of a daze as she took in the information. For Adam's benefit, Lance continued, "The healing pods were altean medical pods that could put a person into stasis and accelerate the rate of their body's recovery without increasing aging - in fact, they froze it. In order to do this, it used red quintessence to manipulate time and a mixture of green and blue quintessence to restore the body.
"This was the extent that altean alchemists were willing to go to with medicine. To alteans, life can be elongated to near infinity but it must have an end. Reviving the dead was a taboo procedure, one that they have been able to do throughout most of their history but refused in even the most dire circumstances."
"Lance?"
The alchemist smiled shakily, "Towards the end of my time as a paladin, we went on a mission to restore a shield against solar flares. Allura and I were responsible for patching up the shield as the others worked on the computing involved. There wasn't enough time - we were blindsided - and I got hit.
"Red tried to take the brunt of it to protect me but it overwhelmed her and her circuiting went haywire - electrocuting me in the process." Lance tapped his own chest, silently scorning the thing that had kept him from so many missions, "My heart stopped." He forced himself to meet Adam's eyes even as his own teared up, "I died."
"Kiddo."
Lance shook his head tightly, swallowing as he forced himself to keep going, "Allura used her alchemy to restart my heart - donating me her quintessence as a base for my own to replenish. We didn't speak much of it afterwards. I think most of the reason for her quiet was guilt. And I didn't feel ready to confront it either, so we just let it go unmentioned.
"She never told me how she did it. But I thought I knew and had learnt enough to fill in the gaps." Lance took a breath, beginning to reach for Adam's hand when he decided against it, squeezing his own hands instead, "You weren't breathing. Your heart stopped.... You died."
"You brought me back." It wasn't a question but it was uncertain.
Lance nodded slowly, no longer trusting his words.
Adam closed the distance between their hands, slipping his own shaking fingers around Lance's palm before bringing his other hands to clasp around the rest of the distance.
There were no words to truly describe the palpable feeling that filled the room in that moment. Not one of them was brave enough to use their words and not one of them truly understood what they were even feeling to begin with. There was guilt, relief, anxiety, fear, anger, but, above all of that, there was a thick sense of companionship - something that the two humans understood implicitly. They silently agreed to the desire for secrecy, a mutual pact of understanding.
Acxa sat by, both an outsider and the closest person to their secret. When Lance tried to gauge her expression, he knew her lips would always be sealed.
The atmosphere was shattered as the door to the med-bay opened, a uniquely bright head of orange hair bobbing in with a matching smile.
"Sorry to interrupt, my boy," Coran bounded in, an electronic clipboard held against his chest, "Are we ready to conduct our check up, number..." Coran frowned, squinting at Adam, "I may have to rethink my ordering system."
He twizzled his moustache and bustled forwards, pottering about with the medical devices as Lance and Acxa backed away from Adam's bed and back to their seats.
How long had it been since he had last seen his Coran? Two, three years? What was the last thing they did together? The last things they said? Lance hated that he didn't remember. Coran had been one of his biggest safety nets when he had been a paladin and Lance couldn't even remember a little thing like that. What was wrong with him?
As Coran chatted away, already managing to bring back the relaxed line along Adam's shoulders, Lance was watching him unabashedly, guilt holding back any words he could hope to say.
When Coran caught his eye as he reached for a digital thermometer, Lance found the same look reflected in his eyes.
"Lance!" Matt had enveloped him in a hug before he had even properly crossed the threshold into the Bridge. Lance distinctly heard Coran chuckling beside him as he continued past him presumably to join his reality's Allura.
The altean had been the one to accompany him to the Bridge when Lance requested it. Adam had tried to insist on him being able to come but Lance, Acxa, and Coran - without needing a discussion prior - had shot that notion down without a moment of hesitation. They knew he needed more rest, which had only been proven when he had tried to pull himself to his feet to stubbornly walk to the Bridge - only to collapse after barely a second into Coran's judging arms.
A little wary of the circumstances, Acxa had volunteered to stay behind and watch over Adam while Lance was lead to the Bridge by Coran alone. He could have mentioned that he knew his way around the Castle already - certain that he knew almost as well as his childhood home - but Lance didn't want to extinguish the excitable light in Coran's eyes as he rambled about his grandfather and his endeavours in building the Castle. However, that didn't stop the occasional wince from either of them whenever Coran slipped up and used a familiar nickname or inside joke - only half of which Lance recognised.
"Hey," Lance murmured, nuzzling into his lover's shoulder for a short, selfish moment. He wished they could stay like that for longer, pretending that the rest of the world didn't exist, hidden away from prying eyes. But they both knew that was a fantasy.
Lance pulled away with a small smile and, in a moment of weakness, took Matt's hand as he rejoined the rest of the group.
The other reality's Pidge and Keith were watching them strangely, the two stood together by the blue paladin's station. They looked as if they had been discussing something before hand, only to be distracted by Lance's arrival.
He stared back, raising an eyebrow, to which both of them redirected their attention quickly after a second glance between them.
As Lance had suspected, Allura and Coran were stood together, their version of Lotor and his two generals stood close by. They seemed to be on good terms (that was to say neither Coran nor Allura were glaring at the latter group with the open distrust Lance remembered from their earlier relations with Lotor).
Their own Lotor was sticking to Veronica like a lost shadow, keeping to himself as he observed the room - his eyes notably sticking to his counterpart.
The only mingling between realities that Lance could catch was Hunk having a quiet but smiley discussion with one of the diplomats with the rest of the diplomatic party plus Estel listened in politely.
At Lance's arrival, Estel met his eyes. Where there had once been open benevolence and a clear offer at friendship, this Estel's eyes were only cold and duty-focused. The alchemist shrugged it off, neither smiling nor frowning when their eyes met - silence and complete neutrality would work best in his favour when dealing with someone like Estel.
Lance offered a small wave to the rest of the room, trying to sink into a more comfortable atmosphere, "So what are we up to?"
"We were just discussing these... rift creatures of yours." The other Lotor replied, a hand underneath his chin as he cast his arrogant gaze about.
"In our reality," Allura began, "We call them a different name but... rift creatures shall suffice for the sake of the mission. Your paladins summarised their experience with fighting them, is there anything you would like to add? It may be of use to us."
Lance twitched a smile in her direction, raising his voice a little as he laid things out, "Rift creatures are, as they sound, creatures that live in the rift between realities. They feed off of quintessence and have an insatiable hunger for it. Because of this, we can track them through abnormally low concentrations of quintessence."
Allura sighed, nodding as she lightly rubbed her forehead. "Yes, that complies with our pre-existing knowledge of them."
"Voltron also originates from the rift, does it not?" The other Lotor asked, although it sounded like a leading question - as if he already knew the answer and just wanted to steer the conversation in that direction.
"More accurately, the material it was made from came from the rift."
"So it may be possible that it has some natural defensive capabilities made to withstand the rift creatures?" The original Lotor suggested, locking eyes with his counterpart for a moment.
The original had a gaze filled with curiosity, fascinated by everything around him, while the other Lotor had something colder in his eyes, a worn down scepticism hidden behind layers of arrogance. Lance had thought about the differences between them before but he had never dared to consider that he might be able to witness it first hand.
He wondered if he could convince them to do the spiderman meme for him.
"Um!" Pidge raised a hand before pointing between the two of them, "Can we do something about this? It's going to get confusing if we just have two Lotors roaming around."
The other Lotor raised an eyebrow, jeering a little challengingly, "Oh? And what would you have me do? Wear some foolish disguise so you can differentiate us?"
"No." Pidge replied flatly, "Although now you're tempting me, grape boy."
"I am still unaware of-"
"Is there another name we could use to refer to either of you?" Pidge spoke over him, raising her voice just so as she smirked unconsciously.
Their Lotor looked to Veronica for help, who simply adjusted her glasses with a bored look, "We sometimes call him Lottie."
"Absolutely not." The other Lotor spat while Ezor and Hunk giggled, the latter full of apologises.
"For him, not you." Veronica gestured, turning her own cold gaze onto the prince(?).
"I will not have any incarnation of me bearing such a ridiculous name."
Allura covered her own face, her cheeks clearly indicating her grin, "But Lotor..." She waved away her own chuckles, making her eyes a little wider as she implored him, "I think Lottie is a rather cute alias."
Lotor didn't say anything to the contrary, simply crossing his arms as he made a face alarmingly close to pouting? Since when did Lotor pout?
"So Lottie and Lotor? Isn't that too similiar." Keith finally spoke up, his eyes catching Lance's for the briefest of moments.
"What do you suggest then, Keith?" Allura was pleasantly upbeat, even beginning to gesture with her hands as she spoke.
"Can't we just go back to calling Lotor Prince?"
"That... would be acceptable." Prince was still pouting, the expression remarkably amusing to watch given Lance's past experiences with Lotor.
"Well, now that that's settled!" Coran clapped his hands, causing Hunk to jump, "It is getting rather late. Shall we discuss accommodation and reconvene in the morning to discuss the threat at proper length."
Rather than argue with or dismiss the advisor like Lance had noticed was rather common in his old team, the Castle's residents accepted his words without question, already offering up suggestions for where the wayward paladins and their companions could rest.
Coming as no surprise to their own team, Lance and Matt volunteered to stay together while Veronica offered (rather generously and not at all with any hidden motives) to stay with Acxa, however Coran pointed out that there were more than enough rooms available in the Castle that none of them would have to share a room. Lance and Matt still managed to keep their arrangement, simply by politely declining the extra one offered to them, while Veronica had no choice but to slink away on her own, pretending that she most definitely hadn't been hoping for some excuse to spend more cosy time with her 'friend'.
She wasn't slick, no one was fooled.
Adam would continue staying in the med-bay under Coran's supervision while Acxa and Lotor stayed close by.
Once they were finally tucked away in a place that felt so alarmingly like home, Lance all but collapsed under the covers, barely needing to pass a word to his partner for him to glide through his own scuffed night-time routine before joining him.
With Matt on one side and the walls of the Castle on the other, Lance tried not to relive any of the dangerously tender memories that kept floating to the forefront of his mind.
He missed home.
-