A/N: For some reason, the line breaks didn't transfer when I uploaded, but they're in now. Apologies for any confusion caused.

I've been assigned, he remembered Shiro saying, quiet and eyes distant, To the Kerberos mission.

Far away, he had replied, trying to keep the wrench in his gut from showing. He should have known better, he knew now, for Shiro had laughed and bumped his shoulder.

I'll be back Keith, it's just a routine run.

Not anymore though, the clinical report on the view-screen sneered. His roommates shook their heads, scared that 'pilot error' could happen to someone as experienced as Shiro, who had been one of the best pilots Garrison ever produced. You'll beat my record soon, Shiro had teased once. Slow down, will you? That had been a while now, it seemed; Keith had passed that mark long since.

"He was a friend of yours, wasn't he Keith?"

Was? "Is," he snapped, grabbing his jacket and heading out the door. It sat heavy over his uniform, too warm in the early summer air, but he didn't care. The achingly familiar chill of loss had set in, and he needed the comfort of the old jacket.

The talk in the halls and classrooms for the next week dissected the mission and what might have happened. Takashi Shiro, who had for so long stood as the example for all cadets in the fighter pilot class, suddenly offered proof for never taking things for granted, a puzzle to be pondered as everyone asked where did he go wrong? Already a quiet student, Keith retreated into sullen, defensive silence, hating himself for being unable to find the words to defend his friend.

Experience told him life held few sureties. A 'piloting error' could have happened. But it didn't. He couldn't say how he knew it, but he did. Too little sat right with Garrison's explanation.

Life at Garrison moved on, fast, from the alleged demise of its talented son. Gossip turned towards the Fall Ball (he wouldn't be attending) and the final tests before the junior cadets progressed to the next level. Everyone forgot Kerberos, and Keith didn't know which was worse, that Shiro had become the face of 'what could go wrong in space' or that everyone had shrugged and moved on.

His silence and shrugs for answers got him disciplined, while his flight scores kept him from being held back, though noises were made on an increasing level that they would not be able to do so for long.

You are far too talented to let your future go to waste, young man, the ponderous, patronizing voice of one instructor had sighed after he spaced for an entire class. Wake up cadet, another had snapped. I'm not your mother, to hold your hand. He had almost pointed out that she couldn't either, but the words turned to ash in his mouth. A sullen nod did instead.

He did try, but with everything else, class just seemed … pointless. Too old to be adopted, the home had pushed him towards Garrison, a place that could 'straighten him out,' according to the conversation about his future that he had overheard. It had seemed as good a place as any to him, and once he had learned how to fly, it had been good enough. But now the walls of the sim pressed in, and the hallways had become claustrophobic. Too familiar, full of laughter and figures that he knew couldn't be Shiro, but made him take a double look nonetheless, renewing the ache that had settled in and ate at him. He continued to try, muscling his way through class and ignoring the jibes from the other students. At least they had moved him to a weapons class where he didn't have to continually deal with the loudmouths who thought that 'quiet and skinny' equaled 'easy meat'; he had learned to defend himself, and others, with his fists a long time ago. Martial arts classes, provided by one of his foster-families, had been the first attempt to 'straighten him out,' to instill discipline. It had worked, just not in the way anyone else had wanted.

o-o-o

If someone on the disciplinary review on that day not far in the future were to have asked when the break came, he might have told them that it happened when Iversson and two other commanders had passed by him, muttering quietly about Kerberos. Some girl had made a scene about it, accusing them of covering up her father's disappearance, and they all wanted the matter dealt with quietly and quickly. Keith's gut had twisted up on itself; if 'pilot error' had caused the disappearance of the Kerberos team, then why the hush up?

Things went downhill from there, especially in flight sims, where Iversson held court. He couldn't help it; he hadn't respected the man much before (too loud and sure of himself), and now? Now it was all he could do to say 'yes sir, no sir' when Iversson spoke. His salutes were short and sloppy. The commander noticed, and Keith's flight scores started slipping, marked down for 'insubordination.' The noisy cadet with the obnoxious stories—Lance—started creeping up on Keith, and crowed about it. Keith hadn't cared (he could fly circles around Lance in his sleep, after all), but having to listen to the bragging? He stopped eating in the common mess, and his already bad reputation for being antisocial went up several notches. Whispers followed him in the hallways, forcing his shoulders to hunch and his mouth to set in a tight line. His roommates tried to help, but really they could only do so much.

He retreated into his books, and the gym. Flying sims solo would have been an option, but his insubordinate behaviour had him off the list of those allowed to do so. Easier to mark the student down than to ask why and wait for the answer to come, painfully slow and halting. Or maybe they just didn't have time; too much to do, too many students. Not that he wanted to talk to them anyways.

o-o-o

The desert on the edge of which Garrison sat stretched far, full of gullies and wind-carved rock. A few weeks before the incident on Kerberos, Keith's year had a survival class out among the sands. Some of the kids spent the nights huddled in their tents, cold and scared of what might be out there. He reveled in the openness of the wide sky, pale blue against the burnt rocks. Here the winds called, free from the constraining walls of Garrison which blocked their force and directed what little made it through. The heat of the sand crept through the soles of his boots, connecting him to the sun above and the ground below. Here he felt grounded, free, and connected in a way he never did in the sterile walls with their army green corridors, filled with the white noise of dozens of voices, always talking, never saying anything.

He had accompanied Shiro once on a supply run to the station 100 miles across the desert. Shiro had winked halfway across and let him take the controls, talking him through the differences between a real ship and the sim. For the first time in a long time, Keith had felt free. That flight remained with him, buried somewhere deep inside, where no one else could find it.

o-o-o

Keith sat staring out over the sand, legs dangling over the edge of the building. Technically, he should be in flight sims. But he knew that he was slipping slowly towards being kicked out, and he couldn't stop the forces he had already set in motion. Iversson, the other instructors, and the cadets had greased the slide, but the failure was his. Time to take ownership of it, he thought, neither sad nor happy. Just like pulling a band-aid off… Not really disappointed either, just tired. Tired of fighting everyone, of trying to fit in. Flying sims mired him further in the mess, and weapons class was just one more chore now. His impatience and stubborn streak won him few friends, and the spiral he found himself on was losing him the few he had left.

He closed his eyes as a memory sliced through, fighting to keep his face still.

You can do this Keith, Shiro had said the night of his departure. Just remember to focus.

Focus… that's where he had gone wrong. He had focused on the wrong thing, trying to make do in a system that had revealed its callousness. Shiro had given everything for Garrison, and when he needed them, where were they?

The voices of the past flooded over him with the winds out of the desert, and he suddenly felt the overwhelming need to be somewhere else. He needed to be in the air, cutting the wind, spiraling down even. If he was going to go out, it would be with an explosion, not a fizzle; he would make them remember him in a way they refused to for Shiro. He knew that the hangers were busy, and a cadet that looked like he had been sent on an errand could get through without anyone caring. Until, that is, he had the jet up and running, blasting through the open door as the techs shouted and waved their arms.

"Attention cadet," the tinny, angry voice of the man at the com came in, "Return to base at once! This is a dir—" He cut the man off, muting the noise as he relaxed in the silence of the cockpit. Only the thrum of the engines and his own breathing. Grinning suddenly in the heady feeling of freedom, he flicked his fingers over the controls, sending the jet shooting forward over the desert. He swerved around the spires of rock, feeling the hum of the wind and its pull on the wings. The plane danced in his hands, and those watching its flight in Garrison's command room sighed, muttering about how it was a damn shame they had to expel him now. How he could have been such a good pilot, if he only had some discipline.

Eventually, the jets Garrison had sent after him caught up. He led them on a chase through the clouds—rain was coming—before nosing down, skimming along the sands. The desert here, in the dimming light, shimmered in shades of red: deep red, burnt, the colour of dried blood, spread immeasurably far. The sands stretched out, a dark stain in the sunset that reached out to where the sun melted into a hot pool of orange umber. A gust of wind over a gully sent him spiraling up, up, up as he aimed the nose of the jet to reach as high as it could go. The others halted their chase, circling nervously as they waited for the inevitable disintegration of structural integrity. At the last moment, he flipped the jet, looping down as the engines protested, wings threatened to snap. But never did. Instead the jet nosed down, trading the slow groan of the descent for a plummet to the ground. The com, still silent, couldn't transmit the shouts to 'pull up, dammit, pull up!' Someone in Garrison's command groaned and demanded which goddamn head shrink had missed the fact that they had a suicidal cadet on base.

The jet couldn't take another hard turn, and so Keith slowed the descent into an easy glide back to the hanger, Garrison pilots in tow. He couldn't hear the sighs of relief from those who tailed him, or the curses they exchanged with one another over his behaviour. He couldn't hear Iversson's booming voice calling for the paperwork to expel him.

The adrenaline rush stayed with him all day, helped him stand straight, look his commanders in the eyes as he had been unable to do so for months now.

"Why'd you do it?" Kyle had asked surreptitiously as Keith waited to be hauled before the inquisition. He shrugged. So many reasons, and Kyle—farm boy, honest, and trusting—would understand none of them. If he had, maybe Keith would have told him. He took the jet because he needed to fly, to get as far from these suffocating walls as fast as possible. He reached for the point of dissolution because he needed to remember something important.

Experience told him that in the end, you could really only count on yourself.

As he waited, a tall man with short dark hair passed and Keith caught him out of the corner of his eye. His head jerked, and the ache deep within hardened; not who he thought.

o-o-o

They never asked him why he took the jet, until the very end. Questions more along the lines of 'do you understand the ramifications of your behaviour?' and plenty of 'how's' attacked him. He shrugged and mumbled answers to the latter; when he told them 'yes' for the former, they didn't believe him. They saw a sullen teenager who had never learned to respect authority and who never would. They saw another 'piloting error' news story flashing across screens, and they moved to stop that story before it could happen. When they finally asked him why, he didn't even bother answering. Why waste words that no one would try to hear?

"What a loss," Iversson rumbled as the disciplinary review concluded. "You could have been the next Takashi Shirogane, had you been able to focus your energies properly."

He clenched his fists, eyes narrowing and mouth setting in anger. Thoughts about what, abandoned? and apologies for not giving you another story to cover up, but he couldn't form the words. Instead, all that came out was a firm, "Fuck you, sir." Maybe not the best comeback, but it summed just about everything up. (He never knew, but in the days that followed, his rejoinder became legendary among Garrison's students; no one, they would assert, could turn an honorific into a pejorative quite like Keith could. The staff agreed and ordered everyone not to try replicating the feat.)

One of the sub-commanders rushed him out of the room as Iversson's face reddened in fury, to get his things, sign the papers saying that he understood what had happened and why, and then a short ride to the bus stop in the small town thirty minutes outside of Garrison's gate. The sub-commander handed a crumpled sixty bucks to him, "for the bus ticket, best to get out fast kid after that rejoinder," and then turned back to base, his duty discharged.

Leaving a skinny teenager on a dusty street, waiting for a bus to who knows the hell where.

Keith leaned against the shadowed wall of the bus station's west side. The sun's heat radiated from the pavement and the rough adobo bricks against his back. Closing his eyes, he dozed, relaxed now that he was free.

"Hey kid," The call woke him some time later, and he looked over at the woman in the doorway across the street. "Bus don't come until tomorrow. Schedule changed." She raised an eyebrow as he only sighed and nodded. Figured.

"You any good in the kitchen?" She asked after a moment, still studying him.

He stared at her and shrugged. "I can wash dishes and chop things."

"Good enough. My daughter's off sick, and I'm short-handed. You work today, two meals and a bed, breakfast tomorrow before the bus; work for you?" Nodding silently, he picked up his bag and crossed the street. It sounded fair, more than fair, in fact.

The bus came the next morning, and Garrison's command breathed a sigh of relief. One ticking time bomb off their hands. A few weeks later, the lists came out, and a loud cadet shouted in joy, pumping his fist. A new cadet joined the ranks of Garrison's finest, using papers no one noticed were forged until months later, when it no longer mattered.

o-o-o

Only thing … he had never gotten on that bus. He worked for Sheila for a week or so, kipping in the small 'guest room' that had masqueraded as a storage closet for years, then set out into the desert, camping out in an old house she thought was still standing and then, when no one came to claim it, took it over, made it his. Something kept him from leaving the desert, and while he couldn't explain it, he trusted the feeling in his gut that told him to stay. Close enough to happy, he relaxed out in the desert. Sheila's daughter Tess gave him his first beer the day he turned 18, laughed when he choked on his first attempt to smoke a cigarette. Alone in the desert, he didn't need to worry about ghosts from the past hiding in the crowd.

He ran into Lance in town one day, when he was getting Jerry to check out his bullet. Lance had fighter pilot cadet colours on, and Keith, unexpectedly, felt the hot bite of envy. He shoved it down, focusing on the bullet and Jerry's explanations on how to fix the clogged filters for the next time this should happen (it was the desert; dust constantly got into everything). When he left though, Lance saw him and ran over.

"You still hanging around? Jealous?" Keith just rolled his eyes and kicked the bullet into gear, shooting off as Lance started to challenge him to a race. As if.

The ride back out did little to calm his annoyance at his former classmate. Lance was everything he was not, which was fine, but he had the infuriating tendency of assuming that a) everyone was his friend and b) everyone would naturally follow his lead. He also tended to travel in packs. Keith kept to himself and had for a long time; more than one or two people, and he clammed up and looked for an exit. Which Lance took to mean that he was intimidated by Lance, of all people.

The bullet skimmed, fast, over the sand, faster than Keith had pushed it before, but not to the point where it started shaking and threatening to lose its structural integrity. Lost in his thoughts and annoyance at seeing Lance, Keith flew on instinct, feeling the wind against his face, tugging his hair, and hugging the curves of carved desert stone. Only when the controls dinged erratically, indicating an error, did he come out and look around him.

That was the day he first found the carved lions, and he knew that he had found the reason why he hadn't left. Months later, he would wonder if he should thank Lance for that, but decided that Lance's head was big enough as it was.

o-o-o

He spent weeks mapping the area, studying the lions. They called to him in some strange way, but as if they were speaking a language Keith couldn't understand. So he hunted them out, marking points on a board and taking pictures of the region, trying to understand their meaning. He took jobs only as he needed them, reducing his food stocks to flight rations—dry and tasteless, but nutrient rich, quick to eat, and cheap. As time passed, he started staying out later and later, driven by something he couldn't explain but it felt important. And so he continued.

Iversson had accused him of lacking focus; he failed to appreciate that Keith had plenty of focus when he chose to apply it. His roommates could have told the commander that, if he had bothered to ask. They had ribbed Keith about his late hours, studying flight manuals and schematics. It wasn't just dumb talent that had propelled him to the front of the class, that let him cut through the wind; he had the technical knowledge to support his instincts. He had been able to be moved to a different weapons class because of his focus, which propelled him well above his gregarious classmates. Keith had had hardly any social life to speak of in Garrison (and even less now, in the desert), not that he cared, nor would he admit that on some nights, maybe, he did, if that old ache inside his chest meant anything.

Out studying a lion carving he had just found, Keith almost missed the bright meteoric light streaking across the sky. It landed close to Garrison, and as he stared at the after burn colouring the night sky, his mouth went dry. Checking that he still had the charges he had brought in case he needed to clear rock, he turned the bullet towards the dimming light from the crash. His stomach clenched, he tried not to think about who he hoped had been on that ship. Crouched low over the bullet, he remembered the feel of that stolen flight, the way he reached for the sky, the stars, and how on the sharp descent he could see the red ground hurtling ever closer, felt the metal straining in between the forces of gravity and the strong desert winds. They never asked him why he risked death in two short moments, one after the other before veering away, but even if they had, he wouldn't have told them. He kept his secrets close; his memories were his own.

"You can do this Keith," Shiro smiled, "Just remember to focus."

He tried to smile back in return, barely managing it, and mumbled something in response. They stood side by side, looking out over the desert. Shiro stared at the stars, mind on his upcoming departure; Keith stared determinedly out at the rocks. After a while he shifted, leaning his arm against Shiro's, suddenly needing the reassurance of the contact. Moving his arm so that he could clasp Keith's hand, fingers intertwining, Shiro looked down and smiled softly.

"I'll be back Keith, I promise," he whispered, squeezing Keith's hand in his. Keith rested his head against Shiro's shoulder.

"I know," he said after a moment. "And I'll be here when you get back."

o-o-o

Things moved too fast once he found Shiro strapped to the gurney in the incident perimeter Garrison had set up around the crash site; he constantly felt off balance, and lashed out accordingly, particularly at Lance. And what was with the terrible trio, everywhere at once and always talking? Too many people at once for his months of near isolation. He watched Shiro, worried but unsure of what to say, how to turn the uneasy feeling he got when he saw the mask Shiro wore slip into words. Something had happened to him out there in the stars, but he didn't remember part and wouldn't talk about the rest, and Keith didn't know what to do, uneasy with the feeling of disappeared lingering despite Shiro's return.

When Shiro and Pidge left to find the Green Lion and Hunk with Lance to find Yellow, he was left with the Princess. She looked over to where he stood, staring at the immense view screens, once the two sets had exited their assigned worm hole.

"You're awfully quiet," she commented. "Is everything alright?"

"I don't talk as much as most," he said shortly, trying not to sound rude. Being left behind always played havoc on his nerves.

She nodded, regarding him steadily. "Lance called you a dropout," she asked after a few moments. "What's that?"

He winced, both at the term and her apparent desire to find out his life story. "I was kicked out of Garrison; I didn't drop out." At her raised eyebrow and expectant look, he sighed and continued. "For failing to respect the authority of my commanders. And for stealing a plane." The tone of his voice must have told her all she needed to know, for her mouth quirked as Coran chuckled. And that was it.

They had lied to his face, that was why, he might have said if she had asked.

What happened on Kerberos? he had asked his flight instructor the day after the news broke. Her face had set in a funny line, uncomfortable with the question. Pilot error, as I think they reported, she answered, refusing to look Keith in the eye. Thought I had trained him better than that, but it can happen to all of us, I suppose. Keith stopped asking questions in class after that; why invite more lies? (He was gone by then, but she stepped down at the end of that year, uncomfortable with the orders she was given. She had seen Keith spiraling downwards and had an idea why, but in the conflict between duty to Garrison and her student, the former won, and she never forgave herself for it. 'Stress' was the official reason on her notice of resignation.)

Any questions kid? The sub-commander had asked as he drove Keith out to the bus depot. Just one, Keith had said after a moment, going for broke, What really happened on Kerberos? The sub-commander hadn't even blinked; What we said—pilot error. Shame really, but nothing more than that.

They had accused him of lacking respect; he could have told them that he had learned from the best.

o-o-o

In the Galra ship, he wanted to punch Shiro when he agreed to go with Pidge to check out the prison cells. (Later, when he thought about what Pidge had said, he frowned in confusion. Lance had introduced him as 'Pidge Gunderson', but the commander's—Pidge's father apparently—last name was Holt.)

"You can do this, Keith," Shiro said softly, serious, in an echo of a year and a bit before. "Just remember to focus." He gripped Keith's shoulder as Pidge turned to look nervously down the hallway, looking him in the eye. Keith nodded, swallowing his fear, and turned to find the Red Lion.

Shiro was right. After all, he had figured out how to right himself after his world had upturned on his own, twice now; how hard could finding a metal lion be? Besides, it wasn't like he wouldn't see Shiro once it was all done. He turned away from that thought as soon as it came, trying to focus on the unfamiliar-yet-familiar feeling that would lead him to the Red Lion.

The Princess never asked how he had earned the Red Lion's respect, she just looked relieved that he had. The Lion seemed annoyed at her lack of trust, but it may have just been him reading his own annoyance into the Lion. He had not been impressed by that bit of 'team-building' activity she had forced on them. A good part of that, if he was being fair though, was Lance's fault.

Shiro did ask, though, one night when they finally had a moment of quiet and everyone else was asleep.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "The Galra soldiers attacked, and I was too busy fighting them to really worry about it. And then I hit the hatch and was too busy holding on."

"You opened the hatch?" Shiro's voice was strained. Keith hunched against the wall and shrugged. "They weren't getting Red." Not on your life, he had thought at the time. He decided not to mention that he had fallen through the open hatch before Red caught him.

"Keith …" He couldn't look at Shiro; it had worked out alright, so what was the problem? After a moment he got up and left, feeling sick and unsure and wondering what the hell had happened that he couldn't talk anymore. It's like he measures out his words, he had overheard Pidge musing earlier when the Princess commented, again, on his silence, only so many per day. Not necessarily, but close enough.

"Keith, wait," Shiro caught up with him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I was …" He sighed. "I don't like the idea of you taking unnecessary risks. But that was a necessary one, wasn't it?"

He nodded, not sure what to say or where Shiro was going with this.

"Just be careful, ok? Please?" So many unspoken things lingered behind Shiro's face, worried and marred by whatever he had experienced the past year. We'll talk when I get back, Shiro had promised before Kerberos, figure this out. But neither of them, it seemed, had any idea of how to even get to that point.

"I will," Keith promised, "But I will still fight as I think best."

"You always have," Shiro smiled weakly. They walked in silence until they reached the corridor whose branch turned them away from one another.

"Shiro," he said softly as he prepared to turn towards his room. He paused, searching for the words, and Shiro waited him out. "I …" he sighed, giving up. "Good night."

He banged his head against the door when he got back to his room, safe in its silence and darkness, frustrated about not being able to say what he had wanted to.

His world had fallen out from him when his parents died. It had fallen out again when Shiro disappeared on Kerberos, but 'disappeared' has nothing of the finality of 'dead.' Sometimes … he wondered if he hadn't disappeared as well, fading into the sands, burnt into the rocks only to be spread as ash by the desert wind.