Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron!

A/N: Welp, let's carry on with that Shiro-got-teleported-to-Matt plot line, shall we… *side-eyes S3 Shiro* Btw, I started this before S3 came out, so it's not exactly canon-compliant. Lotor hasn't shown up to wreak havoc on Team Voltron just yet.

In Which a Space Skunk Tells a Story and Gets a New Outfit

Shiro told them everything, elaborating on details whenever Matt asked for more info. If Matt trusted these guys, then hell, he might as well trust them too. He told them about his escape and finding the Blue Lion with the others, about the Castle and Voltron and being a paladin. He told them about the team and their battles and the Blade of Marmora. It was a torrent of words, a summary of all the adventures and nonsense that had been happening since he had gotten off that Galra prison ship.

As he recounted all the things that had gone on over the past few months, he felt like he was talking about someone else. It just seemed so strange and impossible, like it could only happen to somebody in a movie or a book. Space battles and psychic cat robots and alien castles. But no, that was just his everyday life now.

Wasn't he just some kid from Earth? What in the world had happened to make the universe look at him and go, yeah, okay, sure, let's mess with that guy? But there was no point in stewing in self-pity. If he did that, it would be the pity party of the century, and he wasn't that type of person. Still, Shiro did have to wonder why he was so often at the epicenter of universal conflict.

He talked about the last battle with Zarkon and how he was worried about Allura and Coran and his team. With no way to know what had happened to them after the battle, he could only hope that everyone was fine and back at the castle. The thought that maybe they had all been scattered to the ends of the universe made him anxious…

"But Katie is probably all right," Matt said, looking at Shiro for some kind of agreement, "I mean, maybe you're the only one who got teleported into Z space?"

"I really don't know," Shiro said, meeting Matt's eyes. "I wish I did." He couldn't remember anything from his time in Z space or if he had been alone.

Zyrill swished his tail down and bopped the tufted end up against Matt's head. "I didn't see anyone else there, let alone another you-ish person."

"So at least she's not in Z space," Matt said, "Probably."

Shiro put his hands flat on the table, wishing he could reassure Matt that Pidge was fine. Honestly, he wanted the same reassurance. He needed to know that his family back at the castle was all right, but he had no idea how to contact them. Communications was not his area of expertise, and he wasn't even sure where they were in the universe. Or how long he had been gone.

"What date is it?" he asked.

"Earthwise, I think it's September 25," Matt said, "Our ship is on Kythra time, and that's the 9th Day of the Shining Turn."

Shiro stared. "Are…are you sure?"

"Yeah, I mean—Iwari, it's the 9th, right?" Matt said, turning toward the reptilian alien.

Her fan-like ears feathered out and inclined toward Matt. "I think he was talking about the 25th."

"Oh, right," Matt said. Of course Matt Holt, #1 Star Trek fan, would get caught up in alien time measurements… "As far as I can tell, it's the 25th based on the MST time zone."

That meant Shiro had been gone for over a month. Shit. Had he been in Z space that long? Or had he been somewhere else before then? Where had all that time disappeared to? Shit, he hated this so much, these gaps in his memory.

"Are you all right, Shiro?" Era asked, her voice gentle. She was perched at the galley island, right beside Nevan.

"I don't know…" It seemed to be a great response for everything at the moment. "Is there any way to know how long I was in that Z space place?" Shiro looked at the lemur-owl who blinked back at him.

"Yeah, let me cut all your hair off."

"What?"

"I can tell how long you've been in Z space by burning your hair while you do a dance—"

"Zyrill," Iwari said, her tone quiet but edged with a sharpness that made Zyrill shut up for a second.

"I was just teasing him," Zyrill said. He jumped down onto the table and peered into Shiro's eyes, getting uncomfortably close to his face. Shiro held perfectly still as the small alien sniffed him and pinched the skin on his left hand. After a moment, he leapt from the table to Iwari's shoulder. "You were there about four weeks your time, space skunk."

Shiro's shoulders slumped with a small bit of relief. At least if he was missing time, it hadn't been spent anywhere besides some magical pocket dimension.

"We're going to try to find the Castle, right?" Matt asked, sliding out of the booth and looking at Iwari. "We just need to figure out where Voltron has been sighted, then we can make our way in that direction."

"You know it can't be that immediate, and it's not that easy," Iwari said, "We're supposed to join the attack on the quintessence installation in three days."

"And the last time anyone saw Voltron, it was on the other side of the universe," Nevan said. The big alien stood up and stretched, not looking at Matt. "It'll take months to get there."

That was like a punch to Shiro's gut. Months? That meant that this ship didn't have the same hyperspeed capabilities as the Galra battleships or the Castle of Lions. What he wouldn't give for a nice wormhole right now.

"Plus Talax is down on that planet doing recon," Zyrill put in, his tail lashing in the air. "You're not saying we should jet after some mechanical cats and ditch her, are you?"

"No," Matt snapped, "I didn't say that at all. And I didn't say we should drop everything, I just…" He opened his hands palm up, a pleading gesture. "My sister's there." You could hear the thick homesickness in Matt's voice.

"And my team," Shiro said, "I don't want to inconvenience you, but I really need to get back to them." Damn it, a whole month was already gone. How long was it going to be before he saw them again?

"Couldn't we go after the mission?" Era said, poking Nevan in the shoulder, "We could tell the other cells that we're going to meet with Voltron."

"Which is apparently aligned with the Blade," Nevan said, spitting out the last word like a curse.

"Who aren't all that bad," Iwari said with a meaningful, long look pointed at Nevan. She stepped over toward Matt and put her hand on his shoulder. "Of course we'll go find your sister, as well as your team, Shiro," she said, her gaze flicking to him for a moment before returning to Matt, "But we really do have to finish our mission here first. We have people counting on us."

That was better than not going at all. Though Shiro was starting to get the feeling that Matt really had fallen in with a pack of rebels since they were planning some kind of mission against a quintessence installation. That had been Pidge's fledgling theory, anyways, that Matt had been rescued by some kind of resistance. "You're all freedom fighters, aren't you?"

"Nah, we're just a friendly band of scavengers, looking for space trash," Zyrill said. His face warped into a savage grin. "We found you, didn't we?"

"That's it." Matt took a swipe at the small alien, who chuckled and jumped over to the kitchen island.

Era's hand darted out and clamped down on his arm, holding him in place so she could roughly tousle the fur on his head. "What have we told you about being nice to visitors?"

"We don't get visitors, we get potential recruits!"

"We're officially scavengers," Iwari said, ignoring Matt as he stomped past her, zeroing in on Zyrill. As he started a wrestling match with the small alien, Iwari kept talking as if nothing strange was going on behind her. Shiro's chest ached as he desperately missed his own bunch of miscreants. "But unofficially, we're a part of the resistance in this sector."

"Do you guys have a name?"

"No, we're not all as pretentious as the Blade," Nevan said, scowling. He stalked over and leaned down to look Shiro in the eye, narrowing his own gaze as Shiro sat back. "Come on, paladin. Let's go make sure you're not dying from Z space exposure and get you something to wear besides armor."

"Uh…okay…"