~Smut Level: 3~
|FUTURE #1|
"Don't be you, okay?" You said, gripping your boyfriend tight.
He chuckled and you listened as the sound vibrated through his chest. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't be the hero like you always are. I want you to come home in one piece."
Shiro took your chin between his fingers and tilted it up so you had to meet his gaze. "I'll do everything I can to come home to you-" Shiro reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out a small box, "-and when I get back we'll really be together."
He opened the box to reveal a ring, and you could feel hot tears build up in the corner of your eyes.
A siren echoed off the walls, summoning the Kerberos crew to board.
"I'll see you soon, okay?" Shiro said, kissing you deeply.
You nodded and watched as he made his way towards the boarding station.
Your new fiancés crew mate hugged a young girl in a pink dress, and as he walked away you could see her frown grow larger.
Walking over to her, you introduced yourself. "Hi, I'm (Y/N). Was that your brother?"
The girl nodded.
"My fiancé's on this mission too, I know exactly how you feel."
Unexpectedly, the girl wrapped her arms around your waist and buried her face in your shirt. You didn't push her away, but instead laid your hands on her back.
You looked around the station and saw a dark head of hair pop out from around a corner to watch the take off.
"Keith." You called.
The dark boy slowly walked over to your side, and without saying anything the three of you watched as the Kerberos crew took off.
~ ~ ~
"Katie, you can't just break into Garrison files!" You spoke sternly. "You're lucky I'm the one who caught you and not someone else!"
Katie ripped her arm out of your grip and spun around to glare at you. "Out of anyone you should know why I'm doing this! There's something fishy about the Kerberos mission!"
Your chest began to ache and you started to spin your ring around on your finger.
"Go home, Katie."
"Fine. If you won't help me, Keith will!" Shooting you a glare, Katie stormed off down the hall.
Sighing, you leaned back against the wall. The Kerberos mission was labeled a tragic accident, an awful miscalculation, human error, and most said the crew was missing and others presumed they were dead.
Katie and Keith refused to accept reality, and at first you had too. For weeks you tried to hack into closed Garrison files, but you just didn't have the same level of knowledge when it came to technology as Katie did. Eventually you came to accept what happened. You accepted that the Kerberos mission was a failure, you accepted that the crew was missing, but you were still trying to accept the fact that you might not see your fiancé ever again.
Deciding not to wallow in self pity, you smoothed out the front of your uniform and made your way down the hall towards your classroom.
~ ~ ~
"Garrison students Lance McClain, Hunk Garret, Pidge Holt and former student Keith Kogane have all been reported missing-"
You turned off the TV that was in the corner of the staff room that was surrounded by several professors and guards.
"That's enough of that." You said.
A younger teacher who just started at the Garrison leaned over to one of your coworkers and tried to whisper, "Weren't those three students under her supervision?" But you could hear her loud and clear.
You blood boiled and you spun around to face the blonde with wire-rim glasses.
"Yes, they were my students and I also close with the drop out, do you have a point to make?"
"No! I just think-"
"Think that I have something to do with it? The fact that you have the nerve to think I could harm my students is ridiculous!"
You reached out and were about to grip the new professor by her collar, but a deep voice stopped you dead in your tracks.
"Professor (L/N)."
You spun around, blood running cold as you saw the unimpressed look on your superiors face.
"Yes, Commander Iverson, sir."
"Come with me."
You bowed your head and did as told with no retaliation.
He lead you through the maze of halls, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked. When you reached his office he gestured for you to go inside.
"Please, take a seat."
"Sir, all due respect but I'd like to get to the point. I have classes in an hour that I have to prepare for."
Iverson sat down and leaned back in his chair, looking you up and down. "There's no need."
"Sir?"
"Professor, you are very talented in your field and have trained many exceptional pilots, the Garrison owes a lot to you," he sighed. "That's why we're laying you off."
You weren't sure you heard that correctly. He was thanking you and praising you, but at the same time he was firing you?
"Laying me off?"
"You'll be paid a percentage of your salary each month, but you've been through a lot, and the board thinks it's best for you to take some time off."
Your common sense flew out the window and you started to raise your voice.
"The board? The board can stuff it! They have no idea what I'm feeling right now and have no right to choose whether I'm fit to work or not!"
Iverson scratched the space between his brows with his thumb. "(Y/N), this is coming from a co-worker and old friend, not a superior. You lost your fiancé over a year ago and instead of grieving, you distracted yourself by focusing on your students. Then, your students went missing and now you're trying to avoid grieving by burying yourself in work. Go home, lay in bed and think about what's happened. Grieve, okay?
You started to play with the ring on your finger out of nervous habit. "I'll collect my things and be gone before classes start."
Iverson nodded and you left his office quickly, not wanting him to see you lose your composure as hot tears started to weld up in your eyes.
As you made your way to your old classroom, a security guard came out of the surveillance room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
"Hello, professor." He greeted, walking past you.
"Hello." You said back, absentmindedly.
He turned into the men's washroom, and you weren't about to keep walking when out of the corner of your eye you saw a screen showing Iverson sitting at his desk.
"Don't do it." A voice in your head whispered, but your body didn't listen.
Slowly, you walked over to the open door and slipped inside after making sure no one was coming.
Several dozen screens sat in front of you, each one labeled and broadcasting from a different room in the Garrison whether is was a classroom, office or training deck.
Iverson's room was labeled P14.
You remembered the time you found Pidge in his office, tapping away on his computer in an attempt to hack into closed, secret Garrison files.
Then it hit you.
If Iverson and the board wanted you to grieve, you were going to grieve in the biggest way possible.
You ran back to the door and checked to make sure no one was coming before closing it and turning the lock.
Your mind was racing a mile a minute, and you broke down your plan into four not so simple steps.
Step number one: Find where all the tapes from P14 were kept.
As far as you knew, every twenty four hours the recording tapes were switched, and the old ones were filed away in the back.
You ran towards the back room and found several shelves lined with boxes, each one labeled with which screen it was from, the month, and the year.
Sighing, you scanned the shelves for P14 August, 2017. Lucky for you the shelves were sorted by year, making it easy to find the box you needed.
Step number two: Steal the tape.
After finding the tape, you stuffed in down the front of your shirt.
You placed the box back on the shelf and quickly shuffled towards the exit, but as your hand wrapped around the knob it began to jiggle from the other side.
Your heart began to beat hard in your chest, and you frantically looked around the room for any option of escape you had. There was none. After the guard came inside he would likely close the door behind him, making it nearly impossible to escape.
Not seeing any other choice, you sat down in the chair positioned in front of the screens and focused on them instead of the door.
"Professor? What're you doing in here?"
Pretending to be surprised, you jumped and turned around, a hand laying flat against your chest.
"Oh my goodness! You scared me!"
"Sorry, but you know you're not supposed to be in here."
You looked back at the screens. "I know, but today is my last day working here for awhile and I wanted to have a look from behind the scenes. I apologize, I'll be going."
You slipped past the guard and walked briskly towards your classroom to get your things.
Step number three: Watch the tape and learn Katie's code.
Instead of going straight home, you decided to take a detour and visit the Holt household.
No cars were parked in the driveway, but that wasn't unusual since Mrs Holt now lived on her own and usually never left the house.
You knocked on the door and a dog started barking inside, and before you knew it was door swung open.
"Hi, Mrs Holt." You greeted, and bent down to give her dog a pat on the head.
The woman gave you a weak smile. "(Y/N), it been awhile. Come in."
You followed her inside and looked around the house. It hadn't changed much since the last time you were here, but in all honesty that was only a few months ago when Katie and the others went missing.
"What can I do for you?"
The two of you took a seat at the table and Mrs Holt stirred a cup of tea.
"Actually, I was hoping I would be able to borrow a few of Katie's old books."
Mrs Holt looked confused so you continued.
"Katie was working on something before she disappeared, and to honour her I wanted to finish it. Not only that, but imagine the smile on her face if she came back to see her name in a science magazine."
Mrs Holt smiled and nodded. "I'll show you her room."
You followed her up the stairs and she opened the first door on the right to reveal a pigsty of a room.
"Wow." Was all you could say,
"She always had it like this. No matter how much I begged her she refused to clean it, and I just can't bring myself to change it."
You nodded in understanding and walked over to the bookshelf.
All of Katie's books looked brand new and almost seemed like they've never been touched.
All but one.
You took the tattered book off the shelf and flipped through the pages, reading some of the formulas and codes inside.
"Her brother gave her that, and their father gave it to him. They all treated that thing like it was the bible." Mrs Holt said.
"Could I borrow this? I'll return it as soon as I can, I promise."
Mrs Holt looked hesitant, but she nodded. "Anything you need."
You and Mrs Holt decided to have tea after that, and once you were done you took the tape and Katie's book to Keith's old shack out in the desert. It was the only place you could think of where no one would look for you.
Once inside you popped the tape into Keith's box TV and watched Katie's hacking from beginning to end, over and over and over again. Anything you didn't understand, you looked up in her book and read through.
That left step number four: Hack into the Garrison files.
___________________________
There will be a part 2 where you see Shiro again and yatta yatta.
Uh so can we talk about season 5? Like it feels like only yesterday I was all shook over season three. But holy shit! Clone Shiro? Big boy Lance? Mama Kogane? Daddy Holt? Mama Haggar? Like I swear everyone but Lance, Hunk and Shiro are getting decent development with family shit. Earth is going to know about the space shit going down? I'm literally so shook that I'm not even sure how to react to all of this new shit. DEFINETLY my fav season so far.
Love you guys ❤️ let me hear your thoughts on season 5 ❤️