Keith

"You don't know?" Lance echoes.

"I don't…" Keith groans. "They have Red, Lance, I have to get her."

"You think I don't want to get Blue."

"You aren't acting like it."

Lance huffs out. "Just because I'm happy to see my family doesn't mean I'm forgetting Blue. It doesn't work like that, Keith."

"It's more than Blue. It's getting back to Castle. That should be our mission."

"It is our mission."

"You want to stay as much as I want to leave, don't act like you don't."

"So?"

"So?" Keith glares at Lance and walks closer to him, getting his space, getting his face right into Lance's face. "You want to stay, stay Lance. Not fight for what matters. Zarkon is going to come here you know, he'll kill your family."

Lance shoves him, hard and he falls back. "You're a dick, you know that… You think I don't know that?"

"Sure are acting like it, cozying up to your mom, slurping soup, acting like we have all the time in the world," Keith yells, walking right back up to him.

"What am I supposed to do? Not going to apologize for being happy to see my mom, my dad, my brother. For wanting to see my sisters…. They're my family, they're just as important as the mission. They are WHY I want to stop Zarkon."

"I should go," Keith says and turns back toward the window.

"Yeah, maybe you should… though what are you going to do? Take on the Garrison yourself. What, sneak in and just take Red?"

Keith closes his eyes. Yes, he thinks, that is exactly what he should do. He has his bayard, Red will — Red was unresponsive last time he saw her. She wasn't awake, but she was there. He knows she was just dormant. Maybe if he gets to her he can wake up, like he did before on the Galran ship.

iStay./i That unknown voice echoes again, railing against all his other instincts, his restlessness and his confusion grows. "I can't leave…" he mutters.

"Why not, Keith? We both know you want to leave… and you know what happens if you do? I have to follow you, I have to leave my parents, probably without telling them. Follow you, make them worry even more than they already are. Freak them out. Because you ran off."

Keith turns back to Lance. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do. I do, because everything in me, because that feeling I get when I am Blue will make me. The team is what matters, working as team… it's like a family, Keith. We're a team. You may hate it, but it's true. So I have to follow you because you're my team. We're supposed to work together, that is how it is for the Paladins. We may be apart from Pidge, Hunk and Shiro, but we're together. We have to do this together. Blue is screaming at me that we have to do this together."

"Blue?" Keith stares at him. "Blue's dormant."

"Dormant, but she's there, she's in my head. She's always in my head, she's saying stick together, Lance. She's saying to go off half cocked, she's saying think about your team."

iStay./i

Keith blinks. "Blue? How do you know it's her?"

"I just do? Don't you hear Red?"

"Well, yeah when we're flying, in combat, it's clear…" Clearer?

"I feel her now, Blue. She's saying stay, she wants me to see my family. She wants…or I want… I want to let Hunk and Pidge's parents know we're okay, they're okay. I mean, I worried about where they are, but I think their parents should know. Should know they aren't dead. Blue agrees. I'm pretty sure on that anyway."

"Isn't that waste of time? We don't have time, Lance," Keith shouts.

"I get we're on borrowed time, I get it, but we also have no idea what to do. Do you really think you can just get in to Red?"

"I…"

"That she'll respond, she's dormant like you said."

"But…" Keith groans frustrated.

Stay. Listen.

"Something's keeping you here, you want to go, you look like you want to bolt. So why aren't you?"

"I told you I don't know… it's…"

"It's what?"

"This voice. Telling me to stay and now to listen. To…" Keith sighs. "Is it Red?"

"I can't tell you."

"It's not me. I don't want to… I need out." It's all too much, something is yanking back at his instincts and the longer he thinks on it the more he wants to let it. Wants him to question his need to run, to question why he wants to take off on his own. Wants him to stick with Lance and try to be patient. Patient. "I don't like it but…"

"But."

"I think I need to stay. With you… I think, Red's telling me too. But I don't like it, I don't."

"You think I like any of this? I'm going to have to leave…" Lance glances behind him at the staircase. "I'm gonna have to leave them again, leave Earth again and this is home and I don't want too."

"I don't want to stay here. It's not home."

"Yeah…. So both of us are going to have to do things we don't like. I guess it's the hard part of being a Paladin. But if Red's telling you to stay, you have to listen right?"

"Yeah. I guess we do." Keith hugs himself, he feels ready to crawl out of his skin. He looks at the window again. "I feel like she's asking me not to be me."

"Maybe she's asking you to just try something new?" Lance says.

"She's in danger, shouldn't she want us to get to her?"

"Maybe they trust that we will."

"You really think it's them in our heads?"

Lance shrugs. "I don't know, but like you said it's avoice that isn't really mine. I agree with it though."

"I don't. I don't like it."

Lance sighs. "But you're going to stay?"

Keith nods.

iGood./i

IRed, you're asking too much. /I

"Mom wants us to nap. She's probably right we should…" Lance says an he looks a bit embarrassed.

Keith rolls his eyes but he is exhausted, this whole conversation has exhausted him, the urge to run is tiring. Being around a family like Lance's hurts if he's honest with himself and he's too tired to lie. "Yeah, guess we should."

"She's gonna mother hen us, my mom."

"I don't… know how to react to that."

"She doesn't care," Lance shrugs. "Come on, I think she's probably finished changing Billie's sheets for us. I don't know why she felt she had to do that, but hey moms…"

Keith thinks he wouldn't know but he keeps his mouth shut. He follows Lance up the stairs. He thinks about their conversation and Red, and the voice in his head. It's not really a voice, it never is with the Lions, but translates into words. And he's hearing it more clearly now…

I Stay. Listen. He is your fellow Paladin. Faith. /I

Keith isn't sure he believes in faith.