"Well, I think we're done here," Pidge said as her eyes scanned the list she was holding. "We've got everything Coran and Hunk asked for, and I also bought everything I needed. We should probably head back to the castle."

"Excuse me, but we're not done," Lance said. "We haven't been to the cosmetics shop yet."

Pidge quirked an eyebrow. "Seriously, dude?"

"Yes, seriously! While you might not care about walking around with dry skin and black circles under your eyes - oh don't give me that look, I can see those from the other side of the mall - I have a beauty routine to maintain, and I'm almost out of face mask. Can't neglect the money maker!"

"I don't think you face has ever made us any money," Pidge deadpanned.

"Whatever, Pidgeon. I'm going to buy a face mask and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

"Suit yourself," Pidge crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall of a nearby shop. "I'm staying here to watch our bags. I'll probably enjoy it better than watching your failed flirting attempts with the shop owner."

Lance's ears became red, but after failing to come up with a witty reply, he simply turned around and stormed at the direction of the cosmetics shop.

"Make sure you don't buy any suspicious crap like last time! If your face goes on fire again, I won't be there to throw water at you!" Pidge called after him.

"Last time was only for testing! And besides, it was Hunk who threw water at me, you just sat there and were completely useless!" Lance yelled over his shoulder, increasing his pace until he disappeared behind the shop's automatic doors.

Pidge sighed and rolled her eyes. She knew it was a bad idea to send Lance to the space mall - he always managed to somehow make their visit at least three times longer than necessary. He was just like... well, like a kid in a mall.

It wasn't that Pidge hated the idea of going to the mall. After all, she was the only one who was capable of understanding what items exactly Coran and Hunk needed for the castle's maintenance, and she would lie if she said that she didn't use the opportunity to purchase some gadgets for herself. But Shiro insisted that someone would accompany her, and apparently everybody was busy training or working expect for Lance, who instantly wrapped his arm around Pidge's shoulders (nearly choking her in the process), screamed "SHOPPING BUDDIES!" and dragged her all the way to the flying pods.

Oh well. Come to think of it, she didn't act too differently on their first visit to a space mall, when she found this ridiculously expensive video game and made Lance collect coins from the fountain with her for a whole Varga. Guess that living in a huge, nearly empty castle has taken its toll on all of them in one way or another.

She just hoped that Lance would be back soon from the cosmetics shop. She was starting to get hungry, and nothing at the food court looked particularly edible. Kind of like food courts on Earth.

A few minutes later Pidge started to get bored from leaning against the wall, so she turned around and took a step back to look at the display window. She hope to at least find something interesting to stare at while she was waiting for her friend.

Disappointingly enough, it was a clothes store. Pidge scowled. She never really cared about clothes, and moreover, she hated shopping for clothes - her mother used to yell at her that it was a shame for a girl to practically wear the same three shirts all the time, and that if Pidge didn't get up and leave that computer right now she was going to drag her by the ears all the way to the store. But Pidge didn't mean to upset her mother; she simply thought that there were better things to spend money on than clothes (and by 'better things' she meant everything that she could connect to a computer). Clothes were... fine, she guessed. They could be useful at times, like keeping you warm at winter. It didn't really matter what they looked like.

The thought of her mother pinched Pidge's heart, so she tried to turn her gaze back to the open space of the mall when something in the display window caught her eye. There, at the upper corner, barely noticeable among all the quirky alien outfits that Pidge couldn't even imagine how to put on, there was a dress. A green, simple dress, with sleeves that were slightly puffy, but not too much. It looked so normal compared to the other clothes in the window that Pidge wondered whether the shop owner ordered it straight from Earth. Somehow she found the idea stranger than selling an Earthian video game in space.

Pidge's legs moved by their own as she walked to the window and raised her hand, resting her palm against the cool glass where the dress was hung, as if she was trying to feel the fabric through it.

She only wore a dress one time in her life - on the day her father and brother left for the Kerberos mission.

Again, it was her mother's idea. Pidge was way too excited that day to care about her appearance, but her mother insisted that she should wear something fancier than her usual jeans and sneakers. "You can't say good-bye to your father and brother in front of all the Galaxy Garrison officers while wearing week-old jeans!" she scolded her. Pidge begged to differ, but she was too distracted to argue, so she ended up changing into the new dress she and her mother bought a week before.

After Pidge finished changing, she looked at the mirror and was surprised to find out that she did feel a lot fancier. The light-purple shade brought out her hair color, and she felt... well, she felt pretty. And it was a nice feeling. Her father smiled at her warmly, and Matt snickered and said "Look who finally realized she was a girl and not a dwarf", earning himself a kick in the shin.

She was wearing that dress when her mother took her and Matt's photo, several minutes before takeoff. It was their last photo together.

Ever since that day, Pidge has never wore that dress again. And with each passing day, it has become clearer and clearer to her that there were more important things in the world than clothes.

"Woah, Pidge, you finally realized you were a girl?"

Pidge gasped and turned around sharply, her heart pounding in her chest. But it was only Lance, who stood holding a bag of the cosmetics shop, a smug expression spread all over his face.

Pidge opened her mouth but no words came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. "What the hell are you talking about?" she blurted.

"Oh come on. I was standing here for a solid minute and all you did was ogling that dress. You didn't even hear me coming!"

Pidge felt her cheeks grow hot. "I-I was just looking! You were gone forever and I got bored!"

Lance chuckled. "Yeah, right. Admit it, Pidgeon, you want to go all girly-girl and buy yourself pretty dresses - "

"I do not! And stop calling me like that!"

"I understand, it's natural, after all that time you spent with us stinky boys in the castle, there's nothing to be ashamed of - "

"Lance, you really need to shut up - "

"Is it because it's green? I gotta say, this is kind of adorable, I'm sure your lion will approve - "

"I am not wearing any dresses until I find my family!" Pidge realized she was yelling only after the words came out of her mouth, echoing loudly in the hall. Luckily, it was nearly empty, although one alien who walked with her child froze in place, staring at them suspiciously.

Lance seemed so shocked that it only made Pidge want to scream harder at him, but she knew it was probably a bad idea. She took a deep, steadying breath, and bent to pick up their stuff off the floor.

"Wait, Pidge," Lance tried clumsily to grab her arm, "I didn't mean to - "

"It's okay." Pidge pulled her arm back, not really looking at him. "Sorry I yelled at you. Just... long day. Let's go back to the castle, okay?"

Lance's shoulders slumped in defeat but he didn't try to argue further. "Okay," he said quietly and reached to help her with the bags.

The two of them walked in silence all the way back to the parking lot. Then, just as they reached their pod, Lance suddenly stopped, his hand shooting to his forehead. "Oh crap! I totally forgot!"

"What now?" Pidge snapped.

"I forgot... um..." Lance scrunched his forehead in effort. "I, um - oh yeah, I forgot Allura's hand cream! She asked for it specifically and she's totally going to kill me if we come back without it, so I gotta run! Stay here, I'll be back in a quiznack!"

"For the hundredth time, this is not how you use that word - hey!" Pidge called as Lance sprinted back to the mall, cosmetics bag still in hand. Pidge groaned in frustration and plopped onto the ground, pouting. Honestly, she was this close to punch Lance in the face.

It was nearly fifteen doboshes later when Lance came back running, carrying a suspiciously large bag. "Okay, got it, we're good to go!" he blurted, already opening the pod door and throwing their bags inside.

Pidge jumped to her feet. "Wait, why do you need such a huge bag for only a hand cream?" she tried to peek behind Lance's busy arms. "Come on, man, don't tell me you just bought the whole store again!"

"That's totally none of your business, so hop on already, we're leaving!" Lance said and pulled Pidge inside. She fell into the passenger seat with a yelp, and barely managed to adjust her position before Lance started the engine and the pod launched forward, leaving the space mall far behind them.

"Weirdo," Pidge muttered and sank back in her seat, arms crossed.

Pidge shuffled her feet across the floor and yawned loudly as she entered her bedroom. It was a long, strange day, and she felt so drained she didn't even have the energy to tinker with her laptop like she always did before (or instead of) bedtime. All she wanted was to crush into her bed face-down and stay there forever.

And on her bed, between the tousled blankets, lay the green dress from the store, folded neatly as if taken straight from the shelf.

Pidge felt the blood rising to her head. That jerk. Oh, she was going to give him a piece of her mind even if it was the last thing she did -

She snatched the dress and stormed out of the room, stomping all the way to Lance's room, whose door was closed. She slammed her fist at it. "Lance, can I come in?" she called, trying her best to control her voice.

"Only if it's to give me a good night kiss!" Lance sing-songed through the closed door. Pidge growled and pushed it open. Lance was already in his pajamas, sitting on the bed and connecting his headphones to the music player he used to sleep with. "I was just choosing a playlist for the night! Wanna help?" he grinned, which only infuriated Pidge more.

"What is that?" she snapped, gesturing with the crumpled dress.

Lance huffed out a breath. "That is a dress, Pidge, I would expect you to know - "

"Why?" Pidge cut him off. "Why did you buy it? I don't want it."

"Of course you do. I saw how looked at it, even if you refuse to admit it to yourself."

Pidge threw the dress on the floor. "I'm not going to wear it, so you better take it back to the store."

"Hey, don't throw it on the floor!" Lance called in protest and leapt forward, scooping the dress into his arms as if it were a child. "Jeez, Pidge, no wonder your room looks like a dumpster if this is how you treat new clothes. At this rate we're going to have to wash it before you wear it!"

Pidge pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned again. "Seriously, are you deaf or just stupid? I've already told you - "

" - that you're not going to wear any dresses until you find your family," Lance completed, "I heard you. But you do realize that you're going to find them eventually, right? So you better have something nice to wear for the reunion party. Because yes, there's definitely going to be a party, at least if I have any say in it."

Pidge simply stared at him. What the hell was Lance talking about?

Lance sighed and sat back on the bad, looking very tired all of a sudden. "Look," he said. "I don't know what's the deal with you and dresses... and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he added quickly. "But... I guess I just wanted to make it clear that we will find your family. I don't know how or when, but we will. Because there is no way in the universe that you are going to give up on them, and I am definitely not going to give up on you. That's a promise." He cleared his throat. "Besides, the fact that we hadn't found them yet doesn't mean that you can't have nice things from time to time! Dammit, Pidge, you deserve all the nice things. So... " he offered her a small smile. "Consider this dress as a reminder of all that, okay? In case you ever feel like you're about to give up."

Pidge was at loss of words. She had never told anyone how she felt about dresses - not even Shiro, whom she was most comfortable talking to whenever the loss of her family became too hard on her to handle it alone. She didn't have a particular reason to tell him about this; it was a silly, insignificant matter.

Besides, she was in space! She was living in a castle full of alien technology and gadgets for her to play with as much as she wanted! She was piloting a sentient robot lion whose secrets she barely even began to reveal! If that wasn't the definition of 'nice things' for Pidge, then nothing was.

Or at least that what she thought. What she had made herself think in order not to fall apart.

And the idiot who was sitting in front of her realized all that from the one line she screamed at him at a moment of fury.

Well played, McClain.

Pidge approached Lance slowly and took back the dress, running her fingers across the fabric. It didn't feel like any Earth material she knew, but it was smooth and soft and comforting. She chuckled, a bit shakily though. "I don't even know if it's my size at all."

"Oh, I'm sure we can work something out. The castle must have some sort of sewing kit rolling around... and Hunk is really good at sewing, can you believe this guy?! He can do anything!" Lance chattered excitedly, and Pidge's heart swelled in her chest.

"Oooh, you're going to look so cute! Allura will probably want to adopt you or something! And we can buy Green a matching ribbon or something - "

"Okay, I think it's time you for you to keep some of these ideas to yourself!" Pidge said loudly, and Lance shut his mouth for a change.

She sank on the bed next to Lance, hugging the dress to her chest. "Hey, Lance?"

"Huh?"

There were a million things Pidge wanted to say, but all she could manage was, "Thanks."

"Anytime, nerd." Lance elbowed her playfully, and Pidge blushed.

Suddenly, she realized something. "Wait a second," she said. "How did you pay for this dress? I thought we ran out of Gacs at the end of the day. Or at least that's what you said when I wanted to buy that drink from the machine."

"Oh, that." Lance rubbed his neck. "The truth is, I had to return my face mask to the store and get a refund so I'll have enough money. The shop owner was definitely not happy about that. Guess I'm not her favorite customer anymore..." he shrugged.

Pidge's jaw dropped. "What?! You - but - y-your beauty routine!"

"Aw, you care," Lance teased, making Pidge blush even harder. "It's cool, I'll just have to share Allura's mask for a while. Don't worry, it's not dangerous to humans, we've already tested it!" he raised his hands defensively as Pidge glared at him.

Pidge shook her head and sighed. "You're a really good guy, Lance."

"I know," Lance puffed his chest. "I'm pretty awesome." Pidge rolled her eyes. She will never understand that idiot. That wonderful, pure-hearted idiot.

"Hey Lance."

"Yes, Pigedon."

"Next time we go to the mall I'm going to buy you five face masks. That's a promise."