Lance was bored. And so lonely he wanted to die.

Well, that was an exaggeration. Lance winced, remembering all the death he'd seen in the last little while. Dang it, being in a war really took the fun out of a lot of things, including hyperbole.

Well. He was lonely and bored, and he was getting literally, physically sick of it. There were only so many conversations he could have with Kaltenecker before her company began to wear thin. Red's internal lighting hurt his eyes after prolonged exposure. Being homeless and living out of your car kinda sucked, like, a lot.

"What do you think, girl?" He twisted his head to look back at Kaltenecker, who was bedded on the pile of grass-like vegetation they'd been able to scrounge from the last planet stop, chewing her cud. "Would I bother them if I called over again?"

It hadn't been that long since the last time he'd contacted someone over the comms. The first day, Lance had been chatting with someone almost non-stop, too keyed up to be silent. Eventually he caught on that he was being annoying, so on the second day he tried to stop. But then he went almost crazy with loneliness, and when someone contacted him he responded so loudly and enthusiastically that he probably burst their ear drums. Poor Allura.

So now he tried to space it out. He'd contact someone just often enough to keep from going nuts, but not so often as to be bothersome. He hoped. It was hard to tell. He was doing his best. He'd never been good at being alone.

Lance fidgeted with his hands in his lap, trying to decide. Shiro would probably be nice if he called over. Coran, too. Thinking of the two of them at the same time made him sit up straighter with a smile as he remembered that time the three of them played Monsters and Mana after the others went back to their projects. Shiro kept wanting to be a paladin, over and over again, no matter how many times Coran and Lance tried to entice him with something new.

Lance hummed under his breath and reached over to the computer console. They wouldn't have the holo-table anymore, but surely Pidge had transferred over the book version, right? Before the end, right as they were flying away, she'd initiated a huge data transfer between the castle-ship and her lion. Not everything came over, but a lot. The database was available to all of them. Lance had played the solitary video games until he was thoroughly sick of them, but if he found Monsters and Mana, and if someone would play with him over the comms, maybe he could survive this road-trip after all.

Shiro would want to be a paladin, Lance was sure of it. It was all the guy wanted to be. So dumb and boring, but when Lance thought of that goofy smile on his face, the brightness in his eyes as he made that selection one more time...

Lance stopped. His breath stopped, too. He couldn't blink, and he sat there, staring at the computer screen, his hand trembling against the keypad input. He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut.

That wasn't Shiro. That was Shiro's clone. If Lance called over now and asked if Shiro wanted to play, he wouldn't know what Lance was talking about it.

The clone had only wanted to be a paladin. It was all he'd wanted, over and over, no matter what other people offered, no matter how many times he failed. He just tried again and again, and it made him so happy. He wanted to be noble and pure-hearted, with a quest for justice. Had. He had wanted. That guy was gone now. He was dead.

Lance sucked in a breath, whistling through his nose, between his teeth. It hurt. It felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, and he was dizzy, too. Everything hurt, his whole body, an ache that spread from his fingertips and up his arms, into his head, down to his feet.

Shiro's clone was dead, and they had killed him. He had only wanted to be good, and Haggar forced him into something else. Keith had told the story in halting words, how the clone's eyes had glowed purple and he said things that the real Shiro would never, never say. Until at the end he had clarity, just for a moment, after Keith chopped his arm off. Before he fell unconscious for the last time, never to wake again.

That guy was gone. He had been a good guy, and he was gone. And Lance hadn't helped him. He had cried, of course, when he realized that Shiro had tried to reach out to him in that place inside of Voltron, and Lance hadn't understood. The others had told him it wasn't his fault, he couldn't have known, he did everything he could. Even Shiro said that. Because Shiro was nice. Shiro was good.

Shiro's clone was good, too. And he had reached out to Lance, too. He had told him that he didn't feel like himself, and Lance had dismissed it. Told him it was the lack of air, and everything was fine. He should have realized. He should have realized.

Lance's fingers clenched on the edge of the console, trying to hold himself up. He could barely breathe. It hurt so much. He'd failed twice, both of them, both Shiro and his clone. Shiro was back, but the other guy... That guy was dead. And Lance hadn't helped him. He might as well have killed him.

He was sobbing now, tears dripping down his face, hot and painful, breath hitching in his chest. His entire body felt weightless, detached, despite how he tried to grip the edge of the console to give himself some tactile sensation. The paladin armor was thick and insulating, and usually that was good, it kept him safe, but now it just felt like he was off in his own awful, agonizing world. Alone. Completely alone.

Through the rushing in his ears, other sounds started to come through, muffled and indistinct. A voice was talking, but he couldn't make it out. Couldn't even tell who it belonged to. Lance tried to listen, because he hadn't listened before, and he wanted to listen now, but he couldn't make himself. His entire body, his entire being, was given over to guilt and mourning. Lance's friend was dead, and he hadn't saved him. Hadn't even tried. Hadn't even known. How could he ever recover from that? It was unforgivable.

There was no way to come back from this. You couldn't come back from dead. Lance had seen a lot of death since he'd come to space, but somehow he'd remained slightly removed from it. He'd never lost someone close to him, one of his teammates, one of his friends. Sure, the possibility was always there, but somehow Lance had never let himself think about it. Never let himself believe it.

They were safe, right? They were the heroes. They had magical robot space lions keeping them safe. They had magic armor and magic weapons, and they were on the side of freedom and justice. So there was no way they could die. That wasn't the way the story went.

But Shiro had died. Black had saved his...essence, his soul, whatever. But he had died. The fact that he was back now didn't mean that it didn't happen. In the moment of their greatest triumph, taking down Zarkon in man-to-man battle, Shiro had paid the ultimate price.

Shiro's clone didn't have a magic lion preserving his essence. He didn't have anything, not even them, really, since they'd always thought he was Shiro. Everything they'd ever said to him had been meant for Shiro. Haggar had made him to be a bomb, and eventually he'd exploded, and he'd never been allowed to make friends or have a family or...anything, really. And now he never would, because he was dead.

Lance was distantly aware that he'd fallen to the floor, flopping down on his side. None of his muscles worked right. He felt like all of his strings had been cut. He tried to curl up, awkwardly, still sobbing so hard it shook his whole body.

He was such an idiot. If he'd spent less time moping after Allura and more time looking out for his teammates, maybe he could have prevented this. If he'd spent more time with Shiro's clone, maybe he would have realized that something was wrong. If he hadn't, at least the guy still would have had a friend. His life might have been a little better. Lance had screwed up there, too.

Lance had made a lot of mistakes in his life. He'd done a lot of things wrong. But this was the first one that ended up with someone dead. And now he was on the floor, and he couldn't get up.

What an idiot. What a weak, useless idiot.

His body couldn't keep sobbing this hard for very long. It just wasn't possible. Eventually, the storm slackened, and Lance could breathe again. His head still hurt, though, and there was a ringing in his ears, a high-pitched electronic whine. The voice had stopped, whoever it was, and he didn't care anyway. He pushed himself shakily up onto his hands and knees, back bowed, head near the floor.

Half-crawling, half-creeping, he ducked down under the console and got his back to the wall. He had to curl up in a little ball to manage it, in a position that hurt his neck and strained his knees, but he didn't want to be anywhere else. Tears still ran from his eyes, slow, steady, unstoppable, and his breath hitched with every intake, catching at his chest like there was a hook digging into his flesh and hurting, hurting, hurting.

He rubbed at his sternum with one hand, absently, and stared ahead of himself. He wasn't really seeing, wasn't really looking. Didn't want to see. His head and throat ached, and he was starting to feel dehydrated as well as sticky and moist, but he didn't want to move. He just wanted to sit here and not think, not feel, not do anything.

"-ance. Lance!" The voice was back, but closer and louder. Not just in his ears but in the air. Lance raised his head, slow and sluggish, eyelids drooping. That was Hunk, climbing up the internal ladder to the cockpit. Lance's breath hitched.

Then Hunk was there, circling around Kaltenecker, around the pilot chair. His eyebrows were bent in worry, his mouth wide open as he panted. "Lance!" He was wearing his helmet and smelled like space. He must have done an EVA jump to get over here.

Lance blinked up at him.

Hunk huffed out a breath, then crouched in front of Lance's console, ducking to look into his face. He looked no less worried now that he'd found him. More, maybe. Lance couldn't make himself care.

"Lance! What's going on? Did you get sick all of a sudden? Red was sending out a distress signal, and your vitals went haywire, so we tried to contact you, and you didn't answer, and then when Keith got the audio up you were just crying and crying. What's wrong? What happened?"

He reached out a hand toward Lance's face as if to wipe away the tears that were still falling. Lance flinched back, and his hand flashed up to slap Hunk's away. "Don't touch me."

Hunk looked hurt, but he pulled his hand back. "What the crow, dude?"

Lance looked away, sniffling wretchedly. He rubbed at his eyes, but the tears didn't stop. "Don't," he said softly.

"Why not? You're crying. You usually want hugs and stuff when you're crying."

Lance shook his head violently. "Don't. Don't comfort me."

Hunk's face was mystified. "Why?"

"Because it's not about me," Lance spat. He curled up tighter, pulled his knees back from Hunk's proximity, and covered his face with his hands. "It's about him. I shouldn't get a hug when he can't."

"Who?"

And of course Hunk had no idea. Of course he hadn't thought about it. None of them had until it was far, far too late. It wasn't fair, but a current of rage ran through Lance. How dare Hunk not understand. How dare he not already know.

But just a few minutes ago, Lance hadn't known either.

It made him feel even guiltier. He curled up tighter, his gloved fingers digging into the flesh around his eyes. "Shiro."

Hunk was gaping. Lance could feel it even though he wasn't looking at him. "Shiro's clone," he said again, softer.

Hunk was quiet for a long, long moment. Then he spoke, his voice subdued. "You've been thinking about that guy?"

Lance nodded shakily. His scrubbed at his face and lowered his hands, staring at the floor. The tears were still coming. It was like a physical reaction to the grief that was eating him up inside. He couldn't make them stop.

"I knew we shouldn't have left you alone for so long," Hunk fretted. "I told the others at our last stop, Lance doesn't do well on his own, we gotta mix it up and give him a passenger, and Keith said, 'Next time,' and I should have argued, I'm sorry..."

"Stop," Lance said, sharp and hard. He looked up at Hunk for a moment, and Hunk flinched at the venom in his gaze. Lance looked away again. "I'm glad you left me alone. I needed to think about it. Someone needed to think about it." He looked to Hunk again, a little steadier now. "He wasn't just a clone. He was a person. He wasn't Shiro, but he was like him. He was a good guy. He just wanted to be a paladin. And we killed him."

Lance felt a little bad, watching the pain wash over his buddy's face, but most of him was viciously satisfied. Good. Someone else needed to realize what they'd done to that person. All of them needed to realize it.

After a moment, his petty gladness faded. Lance wrapped his arms around his legs and hugged them close, then hid his face against his knees with a sigh. The grief and guilt surged, overtaking him. The sadness was like a heavy weight, holding him down where he sat.

Hunk stayed where he was for a little while longer, trying to get his attention, then finally gave up. He stood up and paced the cockpit, talking to someone over the comms. Lance didn't pay much attention, too busy wallowing.

Hunk came back and crouched in front of him. He waited patiently until Lance finally raised his head to look at him, sniffing grossly. The tears were still coming out of his eyes. Hunk gave him a sad smile. "We're gonna make a small detour. There's a planet nearby, and we're all gonna stop and have a talk, okay? I'm sure Red will make the course corrections to stay with the group without input. You don't have to move if you don't want to."

Lance nodded and hid his face on his knees. Hunk hesitated, then reached out and ruffled his hair. Not long, maybe a second, otherwise Lance would have slapped his hand away again. Then he was gone.

Lance sat there until his butt started to hurt, and then a while longer. He felt the shifts as Red moved to follow a new course. A few of the others tried to talk to him over the comms again, but he didn't answer. He knew it was rude, practically insubordination, but he couldn't make himself care about it right now.

But eventually he started feeling guilty about being a crybaby, too. He blinked himself out of the stupor he'd fall into. His eyes hurt, but the tears had stopped. He dragged himself out from under the console, moving slowly and stiffly. Everything ached. He was thirsty, and there was a dull throbbing behind his eyes. Everything was miserable and awful and terrible, and Lance deserved it. Every last bit of misery was his to own.

He flopped down in the pilot chair and watched the forward screens. Yeah, there was a planet there, slowly getting larger. In a little while they would land, circle the lions, make a campfire. Hunk would break out his portable kitchen and rustle up some food, probably, from the dwindling stores and whatever they managed to scrounge from the planet. It had been the same pattern every stop they made, interspersed with days of boring, awful travel, stuck in the lions.

But this time, they were going to talk. Lance sat up straighter, firming his jaw. They were going to talk about things they should have talked about a long time ago. And if the others didn't want to, or didn't understand, Lance would make them.

He wasn't going to be alone anymore, not with this. They were all going to understand that they had killed someone, and they were all going to mourn him. It was what he deserved.

All the poor guy had ever wanted was to be a paladin. Since he couldn't, the paladins would remember him. And they wouldn't forget again.