The wormhole spitting them out together was lucky, Pidge thought. The descent, less so: the Black Lion, damaged in the fight with Zarkon, lost control and spun sideways through the atmosphere, crashing into the dirt with enough force that Pidge was terrified Shiro wouldn't survive the crash.

He did, climbing out of the cockpit on his own by the time she landed Green next to them and rushed out to meet him. Lucky, she thought as they checked on each other; lucky the planet is habitable, lucky the terrain is rocky and full of caves, but there's a river nearby, lucky they're together, lucky they're alone.

Then the Galran cruiser hovered over them in the sky and fighters screamed overhead, soldiers poured down, and Shiro screamed at her: "Make the Green put the shield up, Pidge, do it, do it now, now!"

Too late and nowhere to run, with Galrans circling them, and then he leaned down and told her the most horrible thing he could.

"You're going to have to promise me, okay? You're going to have to promise not to unlock the Lion, whatever happens. Absolutely whatever happens, Pidge."

He aimed for his usual easy authority, but she could hear his voice hitching, just a bit, could see his hands shaking. He was terrified, and she was, as well.

"What if they... Shiro, I can't, what if they..."

He actually smiled at her. "I know what they will do. I know what they do, and I know this is what they want to do to every last person on every last planet in the Universe. That's why... This is just pain. I can deal with pain. You have to swear to me, Katie, there's no more time. Please."

She swallowed. Nodded. "I swear."

He bent down to kiss her forehead, gently. "Thank you."

Then they came and took him away.

"Little scout," Sendak said gleefully, "little spy! We've met again, and under the same circumstances. Will you like it better now? We can't touch a bonded Paladin, or the Lion would go berserk - but this one's is out of commission, and we can play with him. Want to stop it? Tell your cat to open her gates to us."

"Pidge," Shiro said, "do not look. Turn away, okay? It's okay."

"Bold words! Let's see how far they can take you, Paladin."

The worst thing was, Shiro tried to fight. It was patently useless, with the whole Galran squad around him; she thought he'd spare himself the effort, if he was alone, to conserve his strength. But he obviously knew she was unable not to watch; and he was trying to give her something else to watch than what Sendak was about to do.

When they pinned him down, bruised and panting, Sendak came and leaned over him - she thought he checked to see that she had a good view - and then suddenly and heavily stamped on Shiro's knee. She heard the crack, distinctly, the horrible snapping sound of it, but not a scream - Shiro was still trying, he was, she could see blood on his lips, and the absence of sound was maybe worse then -

Then Sendak broke his other knee, and Shiro screamed after all, and no, no, this wasn't better at all.

She would've liked to say, later, that she lost track of time, but her finely-tuned, engineering brain, her pride and joy, kept time down to the last second, tick-tocking from one moment of agony to another. She knew she would retain this day in its entirety, every moment in nauseous technicolor, every scream. Tick-tock, tick-tock, from electricity to fists to knives and back again, tick-tock. They gave him something to stop him from losing consciousness; she noted, in some meticulous and horrible corner of her mind, that it was probably saving him from going into shock.

She threw up twice. Her knees went numb, then full of pins-and-needles, then numb again; awfully, pettily, she was thirsty. He kept trying to tell her not to look, in the beginning, and then he kept trying not to scream - lost the battle - and then he stopped being anything but a person, an animal, a thing in pain, pain in itself, and she watched and watched and kept up with the clock in her head. Tick-tock.

"Look at her," Sendak said to Shiro over the crackling of his punishing hand, over and over, gloating, wheedling. "Look at her, she likes to watch, doesn't she? Maybe she could make a fine Galran, this one, look at how she won't help you. She could stop it at any minute, couldn't she? Maybe just to negotiate with us, mmm, little spy? Won't you try to haggle? Won't you try to at least beg?"

He made Shiro look at her, at this moment, held him up by his hair, and she looked into his face - an awful bloody mask, bared teeth, whipcord tendons of his neck - and hated him, and hated him, and hated him for doing it to her, hated him, hated him, and then he tried to say something - please? thanks? no? no more? - and then there was another shock and another scream, and she bit her lip too and rocked back and forth and back again and tried to go somewhere, anywhere, and couldn't.

Five hours.

She tried to close her eyes - why didn't she listen to him, in the beginning, why was she - and knew that she wouldn't be able, couldn't risk him slipping away at this very minute, despite the drugs and the logic of their hostage dilemma.

Six hours.

She could always hide in her numbers before, always, however scary things had been - formulae, equations, blueprints. She tried it now, in desperation, tried the gleaming lines of Green's inner wiring, the sleek mechanics of Castle's cryo-pods, anything she touched turned to bloody mud in her hands. She thought: I'm never going to be able to do it again without seeing this.

Eight hours.

I am a stone, she thought, a rock, a wall of this cell. I'm not here. We're not here. I am not here. I am not here until it's over, and then we're both gone (tick-tock, tick-tock).

Then Sendak got tired, or angry, or both, or maybe just reached a planned point in his program. The soldiers threw Shiro down, and he made a faint, choking sound - not screaming anymore, vocal chords shredded, no more fun for the Galrans - and hit the bloody dirt limply, unresisting. And then Sendak said to him (to her, to her, always to her, a witness, an accessory): "Do you think you can get out so easily, Paladin? Do you think you can just die and be done with it? Not yet, oh, not yet, not while you still have something of ours," and then his huge arm landed on Shiro's metallic forearm and - grabbed - and -

She closed her eyes, at last, too late, and the sound was worse than the sight, this wet squelch of tearing flesh and the dry crunch of the bone, something alien being stretched until it broke. He screamed one final time, an inhuman, keening wail that went on and on and on in her ears until it turned into high-pitched noise and then nothing, and she finally fell backwards into the blessed and cowardly darkness.

She came to herself when the force field dissolved; somebody swatted her out of the way. There was a dull meaty thud of a body hitting the ground limply, a barely audible grunt of protest. She scrabbled for understanding and bolted upright, gasping, when it hit. The lights dimmed to almost nothing; heavy steps marched outside.

Stupid, she thought, stupid, stupid. It was as if passing out had robbed her of her last reserves: she wanted to creep into the corner, away from the - body - and curl and rock and sob. She made herself crawl towards Shiro instead.

He was sprawled on his back, broken limbs awkwardly twisted; horribly, unbelievably still awake. She knelt by him, pulled his head up into her lap, told herself to breathe; to do something that instant. She made a deal with herself: a minute more, and I'll take a look at his arm, at the rest of it. Just a minute.

He was breathing in wet uneven gusts, and shaking uncontrollably, staring past her. She had seen him out of control before, looking into nothing when the memories had overtaken him; now she thought, I'm going to be a part of this place in his head, dark and full of screaming, from now on. He'll look at me over the breakfast table and come back here. If he survives. If we survive.

She touched his face, tried to clean the blood away.

"Ka… tie," he rasped. "Forgi…"

"No. No, Shiro, no, please, I can't, please! Don't you dare apologize, damn you, I can't," and she was crying in earnest now, and hated herself for it, and couldn't stop.

"Okay," he said, and she could hear him trying to reach for his reasonable, adult tone, and getting lost on the way. "Don't… cry."

"Could you please just," and she hated the hysterical, rising pitch of her voice and couldn't help it, "could you please just tell me one damn honest thing right now, just, stop trying to make me feel better, you can't, nothing can - please."

She wished it was quiet, and it was, after those eight hours of screaming (tick-tock, tick-tock), and it wasn't; she felt herself following every laboring, uneven breath. She strained with each exhalation to chase the inhalation down, over and over.

"Katie," he whispered, stark and terrified, and she leaned down to catch the words, "Katie, I can… do it now, I will, but just… no more. After that. Please."

It hurt terribly; she fought not to gasp under the lash of it. "Okay. Okay. I promise. I swear, Shiro, okay? No more, after that."

He nodded at her, as seriously as if her word was worth anything here, and finally closed his eyes and went away.

The stump didn't bleed too badly. She made herself look, before awkwardly bandaging it with her torn undershirt, and glimpsed glistening splinters of bone and some twisty silver wiring and - torn cables? Tubes? She used to fantasize about getting her hands on Shiro's Galran arm, on toying with the tech; now she covered it up as quickly and as gently as she could, and tried not to throw up for the third time.

They were a second hour (tick-tock, tick-tock) into their break. The useless promise she had given to Shiro steadied her, in a sense, turned her thoughts to chasing plans over and over as the skin of his forehead grew hotter and hotter under her palms But all she came to was: we're alone, nobody knows where we are, the cage is locked, and he's going to die now or in the morning, when Sendak comes back.

(Or, she thought in new horror, he's not going to die; maybe they had a cryo-pod here, and they would stick him in there and heal him and start all over again. And Shiro, the martyr, the liar, would live through it for her, but she - oh, that's when she'd go insane).

(Or, she thought: I could help him not to live to meet this morning, right now. Just lean down and…)

She shied from this thought. If there was no other way out… He would refuse, if she asked, he would try to protect her to the end. Could she be so selfish as not to - no. No. She had to look for the way out first.

There weren't any guards; Sendak was probably sure they were completely helpless, and that was not far from the truth. But if there was something - she looked around, squinting, and saw the bulky mechanism of the lock near the door of the cage. Was it worth a look?

She wiggled out of the upper half of her combat suit, wadded it up, slid it gently under Shiro's head. He groaned faintly at the movement but didn't wake; there was fresh blood on his lips. She smoothed the white, sweat-soaked lock off his forehead and climbed to her feet.

The casing bit her fingers with an electrical shock but gave way, letting her peer at the jumble of its contents. She had studied many bits and pieces of Galran tech over the course of their short war, and what she saw made her swallow in sudden hope. If she did - and then here - and this twist - there was an uplink. Nothing too complicated, and the signal would probably be too weak, and there was probably nobody around to listen, but she could send something.

Except she couldn't, because Galran locks responded only to Galran tech, and she didn't have any.

...she didn't, but Shiro did. She made herself look over at him, and said "no" out loud, desperately; then quietly, several times more. No, no; but he was too heavy for her to drag to the door, and too hurt to be moved, in any case. And it was this, or holding her palm over his mouth and nose until he stopped being in pain, and she just - refused.

She slid down by the wall next to the lock and let herself cry again. Just a bit (tick-tock, tick-tock); just for three minutes. Then she wiped her nose on the back of her hand, breathed in as deeply as she could, and went to him.

"Shiro," she said, and made herself sound sure and strong. "Shiro, I need you to wake up. Wake up!"

He cried out at the touch of her hand, weakly, and then woke up anyway. Looked up at her - one eye grotesquely swollen, the pupil in the other dilated so wide that she could barely see the edge of the iris in the dim light. Fear, first, and then confused understanding. "Matt?"

She choked at this, she almost broke at this (Shiro the liar, Shiro the doomed martyr for the Holt family), and then made a split-second decision not to object. "Yes. Shiro, I need…"

"Is it… time? I can… I will fight, Matt, I…"

"No. Stay still and listen to me, okay? Please."

He nodded again, all worried attention, and she made herself breathe in, breathe out, keep her voice steady. "I need to do something right now, okay? It will hurt, but we can't let the guards know. I need you to stay silent, can you do that for me?"

"I… where are…"

"Shiro, there's no time. Please. Can you?"

She saw him pull some kind of order around him like a tattered combat suit, saw him take stock. Imagined him being like that for her brother, battered down to nothing and still trying.

"Better… gag me. I think. I can't."

"Okay," she said, "okay. We can do that. I'm sorry."

She tore a piece off her suit again, rolled it up, put it gently into his mouth. She was hurting him with every movement, and this was nothing to what she was going to do, and she couldn't afford herself to think of it, of any moment of it. He was just looking at her, perfect trust and perfect bewildered serenity, and there was nobody she hated more, and nobody she loved more, and she just - really wanted to go home, and clutch at her mom, and stay there until she had forgotten every last moment of it.

She unwrapped the bloody bandages on the stump of his right arm and said, "On three, okay? Hold on."

She wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs and gripped the biggest wire, still glimmering obscenely in the ruin of his forearm. Swallowed, said, "One… two…", closed her eyes and pulled.

He arched, a single agonized movement of muscles and sinews strained beyond sanity; she heard it at once, the soft, slithering sound of the wire leaving flesh and his swallowed, smothered scream; squeezed her eyes tighter and made herself keep pulling, pulling, and -

The wire was free in her hand, and she dropped it; he went limp all at once, and silent, and she scrambled to listen to his heart, feel at his pulse. For a minute - two - three - she thought that she had killed him after all, and there was no point in anything more. Then he breathed in, almost noiselessly, and she gulped the air down and thanked - somebody; nobody; Shiro; luck.

Then she got up and went to the lock.

When the morning came she was sitting cross-legged and dry-eyed, with Shiro's head resting in her lap. He had lived through the night, although there had been several moments (three-fifteen, four-twenty, five-fifty; tick-tock), where she'd thought he wouldn't. He hadn't regained consciousness since that last awful moment, and she was grateful for that.

Sendak stood before the cage, grinning widely and looking well-slept and well-rested. She looked straight at him.

"Time to play with our toy again, little spy. Did you enjoy the night? Are you ready to reconsider now?"

"No," she said, and smiled at him, all teeth.

"No? Do you value him this little? Or do you think we're almost done? We can fix him up and keep this up for a long, long time, little bird. Do you think that was all we could do? Do you think we won't teach him to beg you for death?"

"No," she said, swallowed around her dry throat. "You can't have him. I promised, you know."

"Oh," he laughed, "oh, this is good. Maybe I will teach you to beg when you're not needed anymore. Teach you and train you and use you; the druids will love you. And now I will - "

He stretched his arm towards the lock, and Pidge held her breath - now, now - he flew back, the cage's shocks hitting outwards. She smiled again, wider, and said "Yes? Why don't you come in and try, then."

Shiro stirred under her hands, softly, almost not there; she looked down at him, at his cracked, bloody lips. This was the moment of truth. If her signal got out, if anybody was listening, if anybody was close enough, if there was hope… And if not, she was his last line of defence; she and her promise and her palm over his mouth and nose, and some minutes bought by the reprogrammed lock. Tick and tock and tick and tock.

Sendak was roaring outside the cage, shouting orders, and she tensed, willing her arm to be steady, until -

There was a noise. There was a steady rumble just beyond the edge of the cave, drowning out Sendak and his soldiers, rising and rising in perfect pitch, making pebbles and dirt rain down from the ceiling, and Pidge leaned over Shiro, shielding him, and whispered, "Hey, Shiro, can you hear the Castle? Can you? We did it, we did it, you just have to hold on a little bit longer, okay? Just hold on, just stay - ", and he breathed in and breathed out and didn't die, not yet.

When she raised her eyes again, Allura was standing in front of her, looking like the most beautiful thing Pidge had ever seen in her life, and she could see Hunk behind her - and Keith - and she could hear Lance's bayard's shots in the distance - and she wanted to just pass out from the relief, fold over Shiro and sleep, but first she had to finish this.

Allura was looking down at them, at Shiro, and Pidge had to steel herself to meet what she saw in her face. Then Allura said in the voice so carefully devoid of emotion it made the tiny hairs on Pidge's arms rise: "This cannot be allowed."

Pidge said, "I promised it would be the last time. You have to, Allura - Sendak, you have to - ", and Allura nodded at her, once, turned on her heel and stalked out, Keith following with his bayard already out and dark with somebody's blood.

She blinked, missed a second, two, three; Hunk was kneeling in front of them, saying "Pidge, I will take him, you have to let go," and she understood him, she did, but she still had to - she promised - she made her arms fall, and let Hunk take Shiro, and then Lance was there, helping her get up. She clutched at his sleeve - he looked completely unreal here, clean and sane and whole and enraged, and she let him guide her out into the obscenely bright sunlight that hurt her eyes.

She closed them for a second - tick, tock - and the world went sideways and then down, and then dark. Some eternity - several minutes, tick, tock, tick, tock - somebody shook her and she came up fighting, screaming, but strong arms caught her easily - who - and then Allura said: "Pidge, Pidge, you need to release the Lion, so we can leave, now."

"No," she sobbed, "no, no, I swore, he told me, I can't, I can't, I promised, no," and Allura took her face between her palms - so much blood - and made her look at the smoke and debris and bodies strewn around. "I killed them all, see? Can you see? You're safe now, he's safe now, if we make it in time, so please. You kept your promise. Let Green out, Pidge."

"You swear?"

"I swear."

Green, she said in her mind, finally, Green, Green, now, and then her Lion's roar was inside her and around her, filling the air, filling the whole planet with her anger, and she clutched it and let the clock in her head finally stop, stop, stop.

Pidge sat cross-legged in the medbay in the middle of the night, humming over her tools and scattered parts. The new arm was almost ready, but the manual dexterity still required some work, if she wanted everything to be perfect. It turned out the weapons were pretty easy to implement - Altean shapeshifting abilities translated pretty well to their tech - but getting the biofeedback and the range of movement just right turned out to be a finicky, involved kind of work spanning weeks; she was embarrassingly thankful for that.

She had spent most of the preceding three weeks like this, hunched over the impromptu worktable; the first and last attempt to sleep in her room sent her screaming through the castle corridors, convinced that the cryo-pod had somehow failed, that she had failed him after all. The rest of the Paladins gave up quickly on trying to persuade her. Allura took one tight-lipped look at her, panting and disheveled and terrified, and quietly rearranged the rest of their routine around her. Hunk brought her food; Lance told her awkwardly kind jokes; Keith drifted in and out, silent and miserable and angry; Coran brought her centuries-old tech manuals and told her that Black's repairs were coming along nicely and she didn't need to worry about anything.

Shiro floated in the pod, silent and serene. After the first week of healing the look of pain had finally faded from his sleeping face.

She counted the days, checked the readouts, slept in twenty-five minute intervals, woke up with a bitter taste in her mouth, always looking, looking, looking. She wasn't worried about looking for Sendak in the dark corners, because Allura's ire was utterly convincing, but she couldn't help thinking: if it was me, if this was done to me, I'd not wake up for the next try, no matter what was promised to me, never, ever.

Then the cryo-pod chimed softly; Shiro, of course, was never going to shirk his duty. She jumped up, scattering the fine bits and pieces it would take her ages to find, later. Rushed forward and was just in time to catch him as he stumbled, lost his balance and almost fell.

"Pidge," he said, "Are we in the Castle? What happened?"

She couldn't make herself let go of him, tried for embarrassment and decided not to bother, hugged him and hid her face in his chest, refused to let him go. His breathing was steady, painless, deep; no grating of broken ribs, no heat of internal injuries. He smelt of cryo chemicals and frost, clinical but clean, fresh. Alive.

He put his left arm around her, clumsy, automatically comforting. "Are we home?"

"Yes," she sobbed into his shirt, "yes, I did - I called them - they came on time - you're okay, you're home, I had to, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm…"

"Pidge," he said, and then sat down on the steps heavily, pulling her with him. "Pidge, why are you sorry? I think you saved us."

She wailed, refusing to speak, remembering how much she hated him, hating him a bit all over again; she wanted to stay there, to be somewhere else altogether, to sleep for a year, to stop. To die.

He stayed silent for a while, a little miracle. His palm stroked her back, slow, sure, careful. And then, finally, he said into the air over her head.

"Children shouldn't be so good at being soldiers. I'm sorry, Katie. Thank you. You did very well."

She cried harder; smearing tears and snot on the pristine white of his shirt, feeling her sinews and muscles and bones unwinding, the exhaustion creeping in. The Garrison discipline never stuck to her, but this, the release of her post, she could understand; she could sleep now, maybe. But first -

She made herself raise her head, wiped her nose, swallowed her tears. "Shiro," she said, "Shiro, can you now promise me something?"

"Anything."

"I can't take it again anymore, either. Can you promise there will be no - no sacrifices any more? Ever? Please? Can you promise to save yourself first, next time?"

"I promise," he said, absolutely trustworthy, and she glanced to the side and saw him hiding his crossed fingers out of sight. Liar, she thought, liar, liar, and was grateful anyway, and the waves were pulling her under.

"We should," she yawned, "go wake up the others, they were so… worried..." and he said "Yes, in a moment," and pulled her sideways, and she laid down in his lap and and felt his hand stroking her hair, over and over, and slept without dreams.