Part Four: Loss of Solitude

Pidge was so far removed from her old life she would wake up sometimes and wonder what it was like to be terrified of her mother. She went from family to Mom to homeless to student with an agenda to up in space in less than a year and sometimes she couldn't quite tell which life changing event her emotions were trying to sort through at any given time. The unceasing lists of projects distracted her but sometimes she would have a day where she was in such a mood, anxious or angry at something she couldn't put just one name to, or she would be so lethargic that it would take her hours to write one program, or have Hunk try to feed her special things because he picked up on stuff.

Bonding with the team was hard.

Like, really, really hard.

Lance was so over the top it was nearly impossible to take him seriously until he pulled an eleventh hour rescue while half dead, Keith barely spoke and Hunk was nice enough, but so crippled by fear or normal things that he was hard to take seriously. The one she related to best was... Shiro, and she didn't like thinking about why that was the case, why both of them had survived trauma, because that meant admitting her life was traumatizing, and even after the Escape she couldn't quite reconcile being yelled at equivocating to fighting in a colosseum to stay alive.

It was also uncomfortable because Shiro knew who she was, knew her name and her gender, and Pidge, Katie, wasn't entirely sure what else he knew. Matt said in his messages that he had told Dad about the Plan, but did that mean he told Shiro, too? If he did, had Shiro believed him, or not? Pidge was afraid to bring any of it up, and so she didn't. If she found an excuse to be near him when she was having a bad day, he never said anything, and he already proved he wouldn't push when she didn't talk. And if he sought her out in the middle of the night when he had a nightmare, well, it was the least she could do.

But the one who figured it out first was Keith.

They were sitting together in the common room after training. Hunk was laid out on the couch moaning about how hard he worked while Keith leaned against a wall (presumably to hold it up, Pidge theorized) and Shiro was going over a data pad to adjust their next training session. Lance had had a good session, smug and sitting with his legs crossed, loose foot bobbing up and down and arms spread out along the back of the circular couch.

"That was an amazing session," he said in a blithe voice.

"You just say that because you lasted the longest," Hunk corrected.

"I did!" Lance replied, not even pretending to hide his pride. "Training really makes you feel closer to your teammates, really puts in perspective what you can and can't do."

There was a sidelong glance over to Keith that both Pidge and the Red Paladin ignored.

"Yep, really helps you get to know people. I'm in such a good mood I think we should do something nice and bondy!"

Hunk was beside himself. "You want more training? But you hate it almost as much as me!"

Lance made a face. "I'm not talking about more fighting," he correct, "I mean more bondy, like sharing ghost stories or having a game of truth or dare. If we got Allura here we could play spin the bottle and-"

"I vote against spin the bottle," Pidge said quickly.

"Seconded," said Shiro without even looking up from his work.

"Third-ed," said Hunk.

"Fourthed," said Keith.

"Motion vetoed, next motion," Hunk said, sitting up. "I dunno about ghost stories though. I mean we just had a haunted castle. Food attacked me. I don't know if you can get scarier than that. That's, like, my worst fear."

Lance was frowning. "Dude, that's, like, a terrible worse fear," he said. "I mean, like, lame."

"I don't know," Shiro said, looking up from from his work with a faint smirk. "It's creative. A far cry better than most of us, I'd wager."

Everyone stared at him, blinking.

Lance recovered first. "A miracle!" he shouted, standing up and pumping his hands in the air. "He can make a joke! The great and mighty Shiro has made a joke!"

Hunk chuckled. "Wow, I thought the only kind of humor I'd get would be from Lance and Pidge. Lance gets annoying and Pidge is way too cerebral!"

Pidge and Lance were both offended, but Pidge cut Lance off, "I am not cerebral! I'm just surrounded by idiots!"

"Wow, and they call me cocky and overconfident," Lance said, looking down on her. "Way to be a team player with that crack."

Pidge was bristling, she was irritated and she didn't know why, and the first two replies were too mean-spirited. "I can't help being smart!" she said defensively.

"You could if you ever acted like a normal girl," Lance said.

"What does it matter if I'm a girl?"

"A normal kid then, jeez. Normal kids don't do calculus for fun; normal kids don't find robotics sexy, normal kids actually act like kids."

"Well excuse me for not being normal!" Pidge grunted, standing up and grabbing her laptop. "Next time you want me to run a diagnostic on Blue, find somebody who's normal!"

"Pidge!"

Katie ignored Shiro's call, stomped out of the common room and down the hall. It wasn't a big deal – intellectually she knew it wasn't a big deal, just Lance being Lance – but he made it sound like not being normal was a bad thing, and Pidge was so far past normal she had no measuring stick to even judge the veracity of his words. It scraped over her experiences, made her feel less than good about herself, and she was finally in a place where she could feel good about herself, finally in a place where Hunk and Shiro and Allura freely and without any prompting told her how smart she was, she didn't have to say something to make them say it the way she had to make her mother say she loved her. It had taken everything that was in her to let everyone help her find her family, she was so used to doing it all herself that it had taken Lance almost dying and Shiro sacrificing himself for her to realize that these people around her might actually be... friends.

Friendship was a foreign word to Pidge. She never had any growing up because connecting to people who didn't have a mom like hers was hard, the only person who understood was Matt, and they were so close Pidge had no way to bridge being that close to him with being that close to someone else. People would have to know about her mother, and believe her about her mother. They... would have to understand her, and Katie was so well trained to keep her mouth closed about the things people needed to most know about that she never felt the connection. Academically she knew they all considered her a friend, and she liked them well enough, but she didn't feel the connection she thought people were supposed to feel. Where was the boke - the shojo bubbles - and flower petals and strong feelings? The declarations of friendship and fist bumps and all the stuff she would see in cartoons and comics? Where were the feelings that came with friendship, what did they look like?

Pidge had no idea.

And Lance pointing out how out of depth she was because she was abnormal did not help.

Once she was in Green's bay she hooked her laptop up to her latest project and started taking readings. She needed to distract herself, and escapism looked a lot like debugging alien technology. She stayed there for a long time, lost in zeros and ones, working in a world that was understandable, that could make sense. Keith came in to bring her to dinner, and she was almost back together. She didn't quite smile, but she didn't bring it up, and as her short stature passed under him she completely missed the look he was giving her as she padded down to the galley.

Shiro had his arms crossed and gave Lance a very deliberate look the minute Pidge arrived.

Lance, for his part, didn't even resist. "Hey," he said softly. "Sorry about earlier. About saying you weren't normal."

Pidge did what she was trained to do, defuse and deflect. "It's fine," she said. "You're probably right that I'm abnormal."

"Jeez, Pidge, I didn't mean it that way."

"No, it's okay," she reassured. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

The strategy that worked on her mother for years did not – completely – work on the other Paladins. Shiro and Hunk exchanged worried looks and Keith kept staring at her all through dinner, but Pidge kept her head down and sat as still as possible, passive and invisible, until she was done eating and went back to work.

Keith had followed her, however, and no sooner had she sat down that he entered her field of view. She looked up, and for a long second they both looked at each other. Pidge didn't want to talk, and she knew Keith wasn't great at starting conversations, and the stalemate lasted for a while before Keith pursed his lips.

"After you left," he said, before shaking his head and clarifying. "The first time. After training. Shiro talked to them. About acting normal and what that did and didn't mean. Then he made all of us share our fears to prove a point."

Pidge looked over the rim of her glasses. "Your fears?" she asked, voice flat.

Keith shook his head. "It made sense at the time, you had to have been there," he said shifting his weight. The guy was a terrible story teller. "Made us all sit down with the brain-readers, made them realize that normal is relative. Lance complained you weren't there."

"Of course he did," Pidge said, turning back to her computer.

"I told Shiro not to get you."

That made her stop. "... What?"

"I didn't think you wanted to share your worst fear," he said. "Something that big is very private."

Careful, careful, this was probably nothing... this was probably nothing... don't jump to conclusions just play it very cool and very neutral.

Pidge adjusted her glasses, kept her face blank. "What would you know about my worst fear?" she asked.

"Because I've seen you before. At the orphanage."

That told Pidge more about the Red Paladin than her entire time with him to this point; a hundred questions fired along her neurons but the thing that came out of her mouth was, "I've never been to an orphanage."

"But I've seen you there. The way you talk, the way you distract yourself with projects, the way you hold yourself still when you think someone's mad at you, the fact that you mention your dad and brother over and over but never once talk about your mom."

Katie stiffened.

"I read all about the Kerberos mission," Keith said, "After the news. After Shiro was gone. I knew that the Holts were survived by a wife and daughter. Almost visited you, after I dropped out. I was... lost."

Pidge, Katie, hummed, holding very still. The silence drew out, Green towering over them and the lights making the place too bright for a conversation like this.

"For a long time I thought your Mom was just... gone. Like..." Keith's face drifted off to something, a look Katie saw on herself many times after the news of the crash, but before she could do more than recognize it Keith shook himself out of it. "But then I remembered you were a Holt. That your Mom was alive. Like I said. I saw this at the orphanage." He looked at her, his eyes almost blue in this light, face so serious and so heavy and so knowing. "How bad was it?"

And, against her will, she answered: "I wasn't beaten, if that's what you're asking."

Keith nodded. "That's worse."

"... What?"

"No scars, no bruises, no way to prove it really happened. But it did."

Katie was passed knowing what to do, just stared at him. The silence drew out again, and Pidge was at a loss, had never met someone who understood. Not like Mr. Benegyani. The insides of her fingers pulsed, remembering Mom's first suicide attempt with the knife. Was she still alive now, or had she finally killed herself? Should Katie feel guilty for it? Was she supposed to think and worry about her mom? She didn't, did that make her a bad daughter? What was she supposed to do when this was all over – go back to that house...? The thought caused her stress, and she curled her shoulders forward, unconsciously rocking back and forth.

Keith telling her it did happen brought it all up, all the muddled confusion and the ambivalent feelings and the fear of all the unknowns and the memories of the Escape and being homeless for so long. Her insides were shaking again, and when a hand touched her back she nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around and seeing Keith there, a look on his face that said... everything. Loner or not there were some things he did very well, and his look spoke volumes. Katie put her head in her hands and cried, and Keith held his hand to her back, letting her pour all her emotion out.

Keith didn't say a word after that, just let her be. Pidge felt weirdly better that someone in the castle knew some of what was going on, but she was so emotionally spent that she wasn't sure if there should be more or not. She did know herself to know that poor Keith was going to be on the receiving end of a verbal dump of what her entire life had been like, like with Mr. Benegyani, but for now she was so numb it wasn't a priority.

Hunk made her favorite foods, because he was nice like that, and Pidge helped him with his coding as he tried to reverse engineer the shapeshifting nature of bayards as a thank-you. Shiro deliberately paired Lance with Pidge, which she might have thought was some kind of punishment save the fact that Lance kept looking at her funny, and giving her wide openings in sparring combat that she took full advantage of. When he landed on his rear for the third time in a row he finally managed to look indignant.

"Show some gratitude why don't you!"

"Oh," Pidge said, sarcasm heavy in her voice. "I should be grateful you fight like I'm a fragile little girl? Thank you so much, Master Lance, for being so forward thinking about my gender and how it pertains to how I fight."

"You think I'm doing this because you're a girl? Okay, that's it, being nice to you is off the table!"

Which was kind of what Pidge wanted in the first place. Not for Lance to be mean, per se, but for him to stop treating her like she was going to break. She had survived her freakin' mother, a good hit in the controlled environment of a sparring session was nothing. Feeling bad about saying she wasn't normal was one thing, feeling bad enough to try and shelter her was something else entirely - that was pity, and Katie knew damn well how little pity helped anyone. The spar was much better balanced after that, and Shiro called an end to it once everyone had worked up a good sweat, ending with a four-on-one fight in which Shiro (expectedly) wiped the floor with all of them.

"Okay," he said, barely winded. "I've seen a lot of improvement today, especially once our heads were in the game. Tonight I want you all to think about the best and worst part of your respective fights, and what they say about you as a person. We'll share tomorrow after morning meditation."

"Homework?" Hunk and Lance said in joint indignation. "Since when did forming Voltron require homework?"

"Dismissed," Shiro said, and the pair were still moaning as they made their way to the showers. Pidge popped out her contacts and put on her glasses, adjusting the frames before turning to follow, but a large hand placed itself on her shoulder. Shiro was looking at her. "A word," he said softly.

Pidge nodded, a little unsure what he needed and a little afraid when she listed out the possibilities.

They walked to the other end of the training ring, away from Keith who was watching them with narrow eyes before going to the showers.

"Look," Shiro said gently, "I've been giving you space on this, because I know it's not easy to talk about and I didn't want to assume that you didn't already have someone." He paused, took a breath. Wait, was he nervous? "But Keith's already figured it out and it's a matter of time before the others do. Do you want to tell them about your mother on your own?"

… He knew. Katie sighed. "So they did talk about Mom," she said.

Shiro's smile was soft. "I know it's private, and some things will always be hard to talk about, even for me." Pidge winced, knowing how much effort it was sometimes for Shiro to admit when he had a dream or describe a memory, how it felt to watch him just disappear inside his own mind like her mother did, how it felt to just sit next to him and hope he came back - so starkly different to the relief of seeing Mom gone for a time.

"It wasn't that bad," she said, looking down at her hands. "Like, I wasn't beaten, my life wasn't on the line, so it doesn't really compare. You have to talk about it. For you, it's about staying healthy. I'm okay. I'm… I'm fine."

Arms, strong, warm arms wrapped around her shoulders; she could feel it even through the Paladin armor, and her face was pressed against the cool material of Shiro's breastplate. Everything about it, context to texture, was different, but it felt exactly like one of Dad's hugs, when Katie or Matt were trying to help him deal with Mom. A large hand whirred as it cupped the back of her head, and for a split second Katie wasn't sure who was hugging her. She hummed, pressing her forehead against the cool metal. She stayed in that embrace for a long time, Pidge wrapping her small arms around his waist.

"Nobody would be fine after going through something like that," Shiro said softly. "No one survives something like that without coming out scarred, and ignoring those scars isn't going to make them go away. It doesn't have to be me, but you should talk to someone. And you should let the others know what you've been through, so they can help you just like they're helping me."

"... Did you believe them?" she asked, her voice small.

The answer was a very long time in coming.

"Not at first," Shiro admitted. "Not like Keith did." He was still rubbing the back of her head, still encircling her with warmth, but Pidge pulled back slightly, wanted to see his face as he explained. Shiro gestured, and the pair sat down on the floor, Shiro worrying his mechanical palm. "I don't know if you remember this, but I met all of you at graduation. Sam - your father - he was so proud to see me graduate, and he said he didn't always bring his family to see a graduation. You were pretty young, and Matt was smack in the middle of middle school. Sam introduced you, and your mother was so cordial and charming."

"I remember that," Pidge said. "It took everything from Dad to convince her to go. She never liked going to graduations. It was always inconvenient. She liked him being space when that happened, so we had the excuse to skip going. The Hermit subfunction. "She made him regret it as soon as we left."

Shiro's eyes lowered, sadness spreading across his features. "I didn't know that."

Pidge had nothing to add.

"First impressions are misleading. Your mother made me think she was a normal person. After graduation, once we were all on the space station getting ready for Kerberos, though, then I learned. Your father and brother were having a fight, Matt had a plan on moving out of the house and taking you with him, and Sam hadn't known about it. I walked right in, didn't realize what the fight was about until the doors slid open and they both turned to stare at me. Matt asked, and I quote, 'So, Shiro, if you live with someone who's abusive what's the natural thing to do?' "

Katie made a sudden choking noise, quickly covering her mouth because it sounded just like Matt after Garrison: to say things so flippantly and not care if Mom heard - not care if people heard.

"We had the entire ride together. I tried to give them privacy but Matt was happy to pull me in, said having an objective part would help. He told Sam and I what life was like in the house. It took a while, but the picture did sink in. Sam never refuted it and hearing the things your mother said… I couldn't understand why the family was even still together. Sam had to explain that emotions are complicated, messy things, and that objectively breaking apart might be the right thing to do, but that it's hard to see after so many years of manipulation and conditioning."

A natural pause drew out, Shiro sitting on the floor, worrying his hand; Pidge sitting across from him, watching someone who was so composed and so broken at the same time show something as normal as anxiety over talking about a sensitive topic. Pidge hadn't realized how talkative her brother had become, but in a way she was glad that he had found the strength to reach out, to share his story even with people who didn't understand, to be patient enough to make them understand. If Shiro could come around, others might to. It was nice to know that people could be convinced.

"I'll be honest," he said, "All things considered, I was surprised she let you sneak into Galaxy Garrison at all."

Pidge winced, popping her glasses up enough to rub her nose. "She… might not have had a say in it," she said carefully.

Shiro blinked, but his face didn't change to judgement or prediction, did not take a warning tone. He simply asked, "Why?"

"Uhm," she said, her normal articulation suddenly gone. She looked down at her hands, something burning and bubbling up. "I may have… have run away."

"Oh, Katie."

She was hugged again, more awkwardly because of the space between them, a one-armed embrace with Shiro tilting head head down into hers. The warmth was still omnipresent, though, and the strength around her shoulders made something inside of her relax.

"Tell me what happened."

And she did. She explained about the prescriptions, the crystallizing moment of knowing how bad the day was going to be and asking if it was worth it. The plan and the luggage and the pillow she brought with her. Sleeping on a roof and sleeping in a motel with the door blocked for safety. Living off of peanut butter crackers and cereal to make her money last. Reverse engineering the Galra signal talking about Voltron. All the while the warm embrace tightened, until a second arm joined and squeezed with all the strength and softness of a dream.

"You were so brave to do that."

"Not really," she admitted, too strung out and numb and so tired to put much effort in the rebuff. "Just too stubborn to go back. Too desperate to find Dad and Matt."

"No," Shiro said softly, exhaling into her hair. "Don't ever diminish something like that, don't write it off. Not a lot of people can leave like that. It's so much easier to just stay where you are, in the stagnation, with the pain that you know instead of going out into the unknown. The routine takes over, no matter how repulsive, and you get used to the abuses and think leaving won't change anything. It takes everything to get out, to go where things might somehow be worse, to know failure might be with every step, but to push through it anyway in the hopes of getting somewhere better." He wasn't talking about Katie's Escape anymore, Pidge realized, he was talking about his own. She still couldn't see how the two were even remotely similar, but if Shiro conflated the two, and affirming one meant affirming the other, then...

Pidge bowed to the logic.

They silently agreed to shower and change, and Shiro gently guided her to the common room.

For three days Pidge found excuses and reasons to talk to Keith and Shiro. She'd never had someone outside of family to talk about... well, about family to, and the novelty made her want to share every lurid detail. Keith made it clear early that talking made him uncomfortable; he listened very well, but offering insight proved to be hard for him; he struggled to find the right words, and sometimes turned her to Shiro. Shiro, in turn, would sometimes bring Keith in to make some kind of point that Pidge didn't know about. The novelty made her want to talk about everything, she rambled about every memory and frustration and thought she ever had. Shiro listened the same way her father did: patiently, and with a sad look on his face and sometimes a hug that would take all the pain away. It was... It was more than talking to people who knew, it was talking to people who understood, who affirmed her right to feel the way she did, who didn't diminish her experience or try to twist it into being her fault. They didn't tell her she was wrong, or that she shouldn't feel like she did. They just listened, and it was heaven.

Monopolizing their time did bring consequences, however, because people noticed things like that.

Shiro wasn't there, if he was it might have gone differently. Lance and Hunk wandered into the common room where Pidge had been talking to Keith. She immediately stopped talking, not wanting to discuss her mother with those two yet. Hunk looked questioningly between the two, knowing something was up, but shrugged his shoulders and let it be. Lance, however, who bristled whenever Keith was involved, saw the sudden silence and somehow found a way to take it personally.

"What's the matter?" he asked in a grand voice. "Too overcome by my awesomeness that you're struck silent in awe?"

Pidge and Keith both made faces, opting to say nothing. Lance, of course, would not be deterred.

"Don't think I haven't noticed all your little side conversations," he said, hands in pockets and leaning in to Keith's personal space. "I want to know what's so secretive that you shut up every time I walk into the room."

"Lance, I really don't think it's our business." Hunk poked his fingers together.

"He's right," Keith said flatly. "It's not."

"Well, I say it is! What's the big deal? Why keep it a secret?"

"Because it's personal," Pidge said, irritated this was even a conversation.

"Oh, I know what this is about," Lance said, eyes snapping to her and leaning in again. "This is about the biggest fear thing Shiro made us all share. You weren't there for that, were you? Sharing it with Keith and not us? Think he's so special?"

"More likely it's because you're so clueless," Keith muttered.

"I heard that! Don't think I'm not done with you!" Lance narrowed his gaze. "So what is your fear, Pidge? What makes you so scared you won't even share it with your team? What could you possibly be afraid of that's worse than being eaten by food?"

It was a split second decision: truth or lie, dither and die, and it wasn't that Pidge was against them knowing, she just wasn't ready yet – but an opportunity like this wouldn't come again unless it was constructed, and Katie was a lot of things, but she wasn't her mother. She wouldn't manipulate this conversation.

"... my mom..."

Lance held a hand to his ear. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"My worst fear," Pidge repeated, looking down, "My worst fear is my mom."

A pause drew out, Lance and Hunk both blinking at the confession. Pidge didn't look up to see more, just waited for their judgement.

Keith saw her discomfort, uncrossed his legs, ready to get up if necessary. "Are you happy now? You got what you wanted."

Lance spun his attention around. "You actually expect me to believe that?" he said, indignant. "We're all afraid of our mom's; that's what mom's are for! It's like some universal truth or something – it's not a worst fear it's an every fear. Name one kid who wasn't afraid of their mom at some point! What were you really talking about?"

"Exactly that," Pidge said, adjusting her glasses and running her fingers over her keyboard. "We were talking about my worst fear: my mom. Keith and Shiro are helping me come to terms with it."

Hunk's face shifted, changing from passive deescalation to concern. "Wait, you're serious?" he asked, hands lowering. "Your mom is your worst fear?"

"Yes," Pidge said. "She was..." she pursed her lips, still getting used to saying it out loud. "She was abusive. My worst fear is going back to her."

"Oh, man," Hunk said. "That must be, like, terrible."

"Pfft, every kid thinks their mom is the worst, me included. Doesn't make them abusive."

"Lance," Keith said, "Shut your big mouth."

"She used to say..." Pidge started. There was no backing out of this, now that it started. The more she said it out loud the more... easier wasn't the right word. She accepted it more. She acknowledged it more. "Uhm. She used to say that she should have beaten us as children. She said I was thoughtless, and irresponsible, and self-absorbed, and disrespectful. She broke down my door once to yell at me. She said Dad..."

A hand was on her shoulder, and she startled, hadn't realized she was looking down at her knuckles. Hunk had sat next to her, face full of compassion. "That must have been terrible to hear," he said. "I can't believe a mom would say something like that to her kid. My mom would never say things like that."

"She was... Matt and I did all the chores. Cooking, cleaning, yard work, everything. We oversaw repairmen coming to the house since I was eight. We got dragged into their fights, had to take Mom's side and explain to Dad why she was right. If either of us said or did something wrong, she would yell at us."

"Pidge," Lance said, voice soft. She looked up so see him watching her. He put a hand on her other shoulder. "Any parent is gonna yell when you get in trouble."

He didn't understand. She shook her head. "No. Not like that. You don't get it."

"Hey," Lance said. "We all get mad sometimes."

"Lance," Keith said in warning. "You need to back off."

Hunk was glancing back and forth between the Red and Blue Paladins. "It's true we all get mad," he said, trying to placate both sides. Pidge was getting more and more irritated. Why did she have to explain? Why didn't they believe her? Why were they trying to minimize what happened to her, make it normal? She shook her head.

"Not that kind of mad," she insisted. "Not the kind of mad where she could be heard in every corner of the house. Not the kind of mad where she's swearing at you."

Lance was watching her intently, his face was soft, and his voice was gentle. "My mom would yell and curse, too, if I didn't do chores. It's no big deal."

"It is a big deal," Keith said, "You're not listening."

Lance whipped around to his rival. "Oh, and you do?"

"I listen enough to know she's not making this up."

"I'm not saying she is!" Lance said, straightening and facing his rival more fully. "I'm just trying to help her see it might not be as bad as she thought!"

Not as bad as she thought...

Pidge snapped. She stood straight up, laptop sliding off her lap and falling to the floor. "What part of breaking down the door do you not get?" she shouted. "What part of me being in charge of calling and overseeing work on the house since I was eight do you not get? Did your mom call your dad the Anti-Christ? Did your mom ask why you were in calculus if you were so stupid? Did your mom try to kill herself if her emotional needs weren't being met? Did YOUR mom threaten to end her relationship with you?"

Lance and Keith both ground to a halt, Pidge's outburst taking them both by surprise. She was shaking, inside and out, body flooded with so much adrenaline she almost couldn't see straight. Couldn't think.

"Do you really think saying it's 'not as bad as I thought' really makes me feel better? Do you really think writing off shit like that as normal helps? Do you really like minimizing everything that happened to me? Are you satisfied that your misplaced pity is hurting me?"

Her brain finally caught up to her words, and she realized how out of control she was, how like her damned mother she was, and the minute Katie had that thought she lost all color. She sucked in a breath and took a step back, overwhelmed that she had just acted like her mother. What she as bad as her mother? Was she just as damaged, just as corrupted? Get out, get out, before things got even worse...! Katie covered her mouth and turned on her heel, power-walking out of the common room before she did any more damage. She thought she heard Keith say something but there was too much noise in her ears, she was too ashamed of what had just come out of her. She had never thought something like that was even in her...

A hand touched her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin, she spun around to see Hunk, slightly out of breath, had caught up to her.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I don't know where that came from. I mean, I know where it came from but it never came out of me like that before, and I didn't mean to turn into her I just wanted him to understand what I went through and-"

"Okay, wait, stop," Hunk said. "I know you're about to go on a ten minute ramble that I have, like, a fifty-fifty shot of actually following, but I wanted to say something so just... just put that on pause, okay?"

Katie was still shaking off the adrenaline, all she could think to do was nod, numbly.

"So, look, I want to be honest here," Hunk said. "I really can't believe a mother would do, like, any of the things you said back there."

Her heart sank.

"But I believe you when you say it all actually happened."

… Hope.

"... Really?" she asked.

"Well, yeah," Hunk said, running a finger down his cheek. "I mean, I still can't picture any mother ever breaking down doors and calling you of all people stupid, but you say it happened, and you don't lie. Well, except for going by another name and pretending to be a boy, but you came out on that on your own and you've been straightforward on everything else – you even tell me when I'm going overboard or when I need to be more ambitious. Not a lot of people told me that at home, and I need to hear it sometimes. So, if you say your mom did all those things, then she did. And Pidge, like, seriously, I can't even comprehend what that would have been like."

He stopped scratching his cheek, out of words, looked down on her with worry and compassion and gentleness.

Pidge sighed, rubbing her eyes. "Some days I don't believe it happened," she said finally. "Some days I wish I had someone else's life."

Hunk shrugged. "Well, you could technically say we're living a radically different life now, right?"

Pidge snorted, but a nod came out of her, and Hunk followed her to Green's bay to help with projects. Hunk never pushed, never asked, let her know he was there for her when she was ready – like he had been for a long time now, and Pidge realized that he might not be able to listen to the details of her life, but he would always be there to make her food to help distract her. It wasn't a perfect match, like Shiro and Keith, but it was... good enough. She looked up at him, stared for several seconds before saying,

"Hunk?"

"Yeah?"

"... Thanks."

Lance, however, she avoided like the plague. Every time he caught her eye in training he had this soft, sympathetic look on his face like he understood anything and kept trying to motion her into conversation. She was decidedly disinclined to that, ducked out of sessions early and hid with Green to avoid the inevitable.

Shiro would have none of that, however, and finally stuck the two of them on the training deck, wrists bound together, and expected to navigate the invisible maze.

"Look," she said flatly, throwing a sour look up to the control room and hopefully at Shiro, "Let's just get this over with as fast as possible."

"Pidge," Lance said, "Look, I'm no trying to make you mad, okay?"

"Could have fooled me. Let's try going this way."

"No, seriously. I'm sorry," Lance said, keeping pace with his long stride. "You're upset, I get it. I'm just trying to help."

Pidge rolled her eyes, free hand up to her side to sense the heat of the electricity charging the invisible walls. "By telling me I'm wrong about my mom?"

"No," Lance said, insistent. "I'm just trying to give you, I don't know, perspective? When we got in trouble as kids my mom would yell and curse at us, shake her mixing spoon and give us a slap on the rump if we were small enough. We'd go to our room for an hour or two, and then she'd come up and we'd talk, and then do an extra shift of chores or something. I mean, I hated it; I thought she was the meanest, evilest, dumbest mom ever, but I came out just fine."

Pidge couldn't quite bite back the snark. "If by 'fine' you mean insecure and desperate to prove yourself by trying to date Allura and be the center of attention at everything you do and pretend to be the best whether you are or not, then sure, Lance. You're 'fine.' "

Just to prove her point, Lance walked into one of the walls and jolted with the shock, darting back and yanking Pidge nearly off balance.

"I rest my case."

"You know, I'm trying to make nice here," Lance said, rubbing his nose and still jittering slightly.

"Am I supposed to be grateful you're trying?" Pidge asked. "Or should I wait until you actually succeed?"

"Quiznak! What do you want from me?"

"I want you to believe me," Pidge said, not missing a beat.

"Dude! I said it the other day! I totally believe you! I just think you might not have the best perspective on it!"

Pidge face-palmed. She was calmer today compared to before, but that didn't mean listening to this felt any better. "See," she said, "This is why I'm not talking to you," she said, taking a left when she felt her fingers cool. "You think I'm abnormal, you think I need my perspective fixed, you think I'm exaggerating the facts; you say you believe me but you really don't."

"I never said any of that!"

"Yes, actually, you did," Pidge said, still calm more more heated. "You know who else thought my perspective needed to be fixed and thought I exaggerated fact or outright lied? My mom. You sound so much like her right now that I'm kind of having trouble telling the difference."

"Well, I'm glad you think I'm motherly."

Pidge was so suddenly livid that for a split second she forgot where she was and walked into an invisible wall. After the shock had worn off and she had finished rubbing her nose she turned and tripped Lance into the wall she had just walked into. The Blue Paladin lurched to the floor, dragging Pidge with him.

"Have we not figured out yet that I have mother issues?" Pidge asked, her tone deceptively mild, poking him with her foot. "Have we not figured out that I'm literally, legitimately triggered whenever you try and gloss over what happened to me?"

Lance groaned. "How many times do I have to repeat myself?" he asked, "I'm like a broken record or something: all I'm saying is that it might have been different than you remember!"

Pidge ran her hands through her hair, growling in frustration. "This is getting us nowhere!" she said, turning furious eyes to Lance. "You either accept what I'm telling you or you don't!"

"And you have to accept I'm not the bad guy here!"

"Argh! You're not listening!"

"You first!"

"No, you!"

"You!"

"You!"

The absurdity of what was happening registered in Pidge's brain, and all the energy left her in a rush. Her head fell back in her hands, and she just... she just stopped, breathed, and took a long, long look at everything. She was okay with Hunk not understanding, but she was okay with it because even if he couldn't comprehend it he at least believed her. Lance didn't, and on paper that would have been fine, normal, except they were a zillion light years out in space on the other side of the universe and there were only three other humans and all five of them had to somehow work together to form Voltron. Shiro's voice was suspiciously in the back of her head reminding her of this fact, and she had a moment of intense meta-cognition.

She had two choices: be okay with Lance not understanding her experiences, or not be okay with understanding her experiences.

The decision precipitated on what she thought of Lance: annoying ego-driven idiot or self-sacrificing natural hero, and that decision was made the day he shot a Galra in the back to give her a chance to break free and take back the castle. Lance was many things: annoying goofball, ardently lazy, deliberately obtuse, but underneath all the veneer and posturing and facade he clearly cared and wanted to do what was needed. Even now, he was trying (in his own way) to make her feel better. He was doing the exact opposite, but the fact that he was even trying was more than she ever got from her mother – that he even understood that she had feelings that needed to be improved – was... nice.

And in that moment she decided that she could be okay with it. Not okay, but okay.

"I give up," she said, suddenly exhausted. She rubbed her face and ran her hands through her hair again. "Fine, it was different. It was sunshine and flowers, Mom never said she wished I was never born, Mom never held her love as hostage, Mom never abused me for my entire life. Are you happy now?" She looked to Lance, still spread out on the floor, as he hoisted himself to a sitting position.

"I'm not saying it was perfect," Lance said, voice soft again, sympathetic. "I'm not even saying it wasn't unhealthy. But I just want you to look at it from a Mom's perspective."

"Lance," Pidge said dully, "I'm admitting loss to this argument. Don't push it further than that."

Lance was watching her, face open and a little... "It's sad," he said. "That's all. That a kid and their mom can misunderstand each other so badly."

"... That's because your mom was a real mom to you," Pidge said. "You... you're really lucky. That you had that." She pursed her lips, sighed heavily through her nose. "I'm glad you had that."

… And maybe a little envious.

The invisible walls hummed, entering the visible light spectrum and then dissolving.

"Good work, you two," Shiro said from up above. "That's enough for today."

And inside, Katie sighed again.

He was right.

Today, this was enough.

End

Author's Notes: As of this writing, it has been seven months since our own Escape. It happened during April vacation, and when we went back to school our respective faculties learned... everything. The thing we learned very quickly was that not everyone understood. Part of it, true is that we did not talk about it to people outside the family, but also some people come from healthy, happy home lives and legitimately don't understand that it's even possible for a parent, let alone a mother, do the things Pidge's mother does. A friend we've talked to several times said, repeatedly, that he believed us but couldn't imagine our abuse, that who he met, was capable of the things we said. He means well, but it doesn't stop the sting.

That was the idea of Lance and Hunk, they are the only two in the story who come from solid home lives. Both of them mean well, but their lack of understanding hurts. Hunk at least believes what Pidge says, even if he can't comprehend someone doing that. Lance by contrast is woefully ignorant - he is well meaning, we wanted to be clear on that. Whatever our opinion of Lance we respect his character and seeing fans of his explain how cool he is makes us want to do him justice.

The thing that helps us the most - stigma or not - was therapy. Our first visit (it was just one of us at the time) heard just a few surface things and told us our mother was manipulative and abusive and we should leave immediately. It took us a while to get to the point of accepting moving out, and longer still before the Escape.

But, to those who asked, yes. We are much, much better now. With it not even being a year it's hard to put it all in perspective, but time will help with that. Thank you to those who read the authors notes and realized how personal this fic was, and thanks to everyone who sent well wishes and words up support and shared hints of their own stories. It felt... a little weird to put this up for public display and we're still not sure if we should have but the need overtook any sense of propriety, and everyone has been very kind in that regard.

Thank you.