Keith wakes with a splitting headache and he's sore all over. It feels like he's been hit by a truck. Which is fair, considering he was actually hit by a planet. Good thing for the Lion's incredible shock absorption system, and good thing he was wearing armour and his helmet.

But Shiro wasn't wearing armour and didn't have his helmet. Keith can only hope his attempt to shield him from the initial impact had been enough. "Shiro?" He shakes his shoulder gently. When he doesn't respond, he tugs more urgently. "Shiro! Come on, wake up!"

Shiro elicits a slight groan, and with great effort, his eyelids flutter open. Keith lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Shiro," he sighs, relieved. "Are you okay?" Keith recognizes it's a stupid question as soon as he says it. Of course he's not.

"Don't think anything's broken," Shiro replies. His voice is still raw, and Keith doesn't like any of the reasons he can think of for how it got that way. "…Overall, not great," he admits. "But better." Better than back there.

Keith helps him to sit up and feels him shiver against him. Letting up his visor, Keith can feel the cold air sting his cheeks. Black's heating system must be down, and they must have been out long enough for the residual heat to have mostly escaped. Without his armour, Shiro must be freezing.

Keith helps Shiro to rest against the wall of the Lion's cockpit before getting up to try the controls. Nothing. Figures. The comm system isn't working either. Glancing upward, he looks through the window. It's pretty dark out, but three moons in the sky reflect enough light for him to make out their surroundings. The terrain is rocky and there isn't much vegetation, but he can see some tree-like plants in the distance.

"Black's not working," Keith informs him. "The others might not be able to find us until she is, so we could be stuck here a little while. I'm gonna go see what it's like outside." Shiro gives a slight nod. He looks like he's about to pass out again. "Just rest up. I'll be right back."

Shiro nods again, this time letting his eyes close.

Keith exits the Black Lion and checks the console on his wrist. The atmosphere on this planet is thin but breathable, and while the temperature is cool, it's still within habitable range. They've been lucky, really –the planets they've landed on so far have had a breathable atmosphere, tolerable temperatures, and similar gravity to that of Earth (the gravitational constant of the planet he and Shiro landed on after their first wormhole incident was decidedly not 25 metres per second squared – Shiro had been so out of it he'd probably confused velocity with acceleration – but Keith's not going to dwell). The gravity here is a bit stronger than Earth's, but he's still able to move.

He makes his way over to the small copse of not-quite-trees. They have a rough exterior that he can pry off, which ignites and holds a flame when he holds it to his jetpack. Good. There's a cave not too far away, and when he checks it out, it seems relatively safe. Relatively. It's hard to tell, especially with only a makeshift torch and the glow of his suit to see by, but nothing attacks him in the ten or so minutes he spends exploring inside. His standards for safety have decreased considerably since leaving Earth.

He hurries back to the Lion, not wanting to leave Shiro alone for any longer than he has to. When he gets back, Shiro is shivering with his knees tucked against his chest, his legs drawn in closer with his left arm. His metal arm is carefully held away from the rest of his body.

"Hey," Keith says softly. Shiro blinks up at him, eyes weary. "So, there's a cave not too far from here, and there's stuff we can use to build a fire. Thing is, it's hard to see, and we don't know what might be out there. It might be safer to stay here in the Lion, but we can't build a fire in here. What do you want to do?"

"What do you think we should do?" Shiro asks. His voice is weaker than it should be.

Keith considers. Shiro's in bad enough condition as it is. From the way he's shivering and curled in on himself, it seems like getting him warm should be their priority. "Move, I guess," he says. Keith will just have to protect him from anything that's out there.

"Okay. Then let's do that."

Keith's glad he trusts him, but he doesn't like the passivity in his voice. He wishes Shiro would go back to calling the shots. But Shiro can't do that right now. Keith needs to keep up the role for just a little longer, just until Shiro's well again.

"Alright," Keith says. "I'm gonna go out first and gather the wood or whatever before we head to the cave. I'll be back soon. Just sit tight."

Shiro huffs out a laugh. "Trust me, I'm not going anywhere."

As Keith strips the bark-like substance from the plants, he thinks back to the last time they were stranded like this. That had been the first time he'd seen Shiro let his guard down, not trying to convince him that everything was going to be okay. And really, that had scared Keith. He'd never seen him like that before, and he'd figured the situation must be completely dire for Shiro to be joking like that. And, well, ithad been. But Shiro had been opening up to Keith, trusting him and letting him support him. Before that, there had always been that strange dynamic of mentor and student, leader and follower, but they were equals now. Keith had always needed Shiro; now, Shiro needed him.

He gathers the sort-of-bark and plucks a few fruits from the branches he can reach - his wrist console tells him they're safe to eat - and he carries them to the cave. As soon as he's done, he hurries back to the Black Lion. He wakes Shiro up and feels guilty for doing so – he looks exhausted. But leaving the Lion is definitely the better call here. What little colour was left in Shiro's skin has been drained, and his lips are tinged ever so slightly with blue.

He wraps Shiro's arm around his shoulders, helping him up out of the Lion and towards the cave. Shiro leans heavily against him. Keith's not doing too great himself – he's still sore from the crash, his head still hurts, and his chest still burns from Haggar's attack. Not to mention that the strong gravity has been wearing on him, and it makes supporting Shiro's weight that much more difficult. They stagger over rocky ground, and Keith is all too happy when they finally reach the cave.

Keith ignites the pile of bark with his jetpack, and as soon as the fire's going, he strips off his armour and presses up against Shiro to warm him up. Shiro leans in immediately. It's not particularly comfortable – his body is like ice and he's shivering violently – but Keith doesn't mind at all. Shiro grasps his hand almost desperately, and Keith recognizes that he must be touch-starved, skin-hungry. Keith pulls him in closer. He needs this too. Shiro buries his face against Keith's neck, and they cling to one another like they're afraid the other will disappear.

After a little while, the fire and body heat take effect. Shiro's shivering subsides, and he drifts off in Keith's arms. Shiro's heavy, and Keith is stiff from the awkward position, but he stays where he is. Nothing could make him let go.

Shiro's breaths are already shallow in the thin atmosphere, but at some point, his breathing becomes more rapid, panicked. Keith can feel his heart beating double-time. Occasional gasps and choked sobs escape him, and it's obvious he's having a nightmare. He doesn't move around much, like his body is too tired to even thrash in his sleep, but he still shifts restlessly against Keith. "Please… no…" he hears him beg at one point, making Keith's gut wrench. He can feel dampness against his shoulder.

Keith doesn't wake him: it could disorient him, and that could be dangerous for the both of them. Still, it's killing him to be able to hear and see and feel Shiro suffering and to do nothing about it. It goes on for far too long.

At last, Shiro wakes with a sharp gasp. He pulls back, and Keith can see he has tears running down his face. Normally, Shiro would want him to ignore it and pretend everything's fine. Now, though, Keith's not so sure. He looks so fragile and scared.

Cautiously, he brings his hand to Shiro's face and wipes his tears away with his thumb. Trembling, Shiro leans into the touch.

"I- I'm sorry," Shiro chokes out. "I… I just-"

"You don't have to tell me," Keith says, shaking his head slightly. "Not if you don't want to."

Shiro nods gratefully and relaxes a bit. His breathing starts to even out.

"You should eat something," Keith says after Shiro has calmed down a little. He breaks open one of the coconut-like fruits he'd gathered and offers it to him.

Shiro shakes his head. "Maybe later."

Keith frowns. "Aren't you hungry? You look starved."

"I'm… still feeling pretty sick from that last experiment," Shiro explains softly. Keith doesn't know what to say. He sets the fruit down and grabs Shiro's hand, squeezing.

Shiro doesn't let go. He doesn't look at Keith, staring at the fire instead as he speaks. "She took me after our fight with Zarkon," he tells him. "Teleported inside the Black Lion, then back to their ship."

"Why?" Keith asks quietly.

"Three reasons, really," Shiro says. "The main one being so she could experiment on me. Mostly testing my connection with the Black Lion. Zarkon- Zarkon's weak, but he's alive. She wanted to learn about it so Zarkon could take full control of the Black Lion when he recovers."

Keith doesn't push, but Shiro can see he still has questions when his gaze flickers towards him. He continues, his voice quieter now. "She wanted to see if injecting me with different substances would strengthen or weaken the bond… see how it would react to things like danger or different levels of pain," he admits, pointedly not making eye contact. "She did tests to see what made me different. Opened me up again to see how I worked." Keith is lost for words. He feels sick to his stomach.

"Second," Shiro continues, pushing forward, "taking me left Voltron headless. …At least, she thought it would." He gives Keith a slight can't bring himself to return it; he's so angry.

"What was the third reason?" he asks, trying to keep his voice level.

"…She also wanted retribution for what we did to Zarkon. For what I did to Zarkon. And to punish me for escaping before," Shiro says. "She wanted to prove her power over me. Break me down." He huffs out a bitter laugh. "It worked."

Keith tightens his grip fiercely. If Allura hasn't beaten him to it, he is going to kill that witch.

Keith moves in closer so that their knees are touching. "You're going to be okay," he says as reassuringly as he can. He's not okay right now, but he will be. Keith will make damn sure of it. "We've got you. You're safe now." Relatively speaking. Just incapacitated in a dark cave while stranded on an alien planet, but Keith's not going to bring that up.

"How? How did you find me?" Shiro asks. "She drained my quintessence, keeping it low enough that the Black Lion wouldn't be able to locate me. Any time one of the experiments strengthened the bond, she brought it back down and moved the ship."

"That… explains a lot," Keith says. He thinks back. "We didn't know what we were doing at first. Just searching blindly. That's all we did for a while, but after a week or so, we started answering distress signals again. We still spent every other moment trying to find you, but there were other people who needed us too," he explains. Shiro nods in understanding. "The first few missions without you… they were a mess. I didn't want to admit you were gone, so it took me a while before I actually did what you asked me to do. It took me even longer before I started trying to bond with Black," he says, guilt running through him.

"The others, they were good about it, even Lance. They followed me, even when I screwed up. So I kept leading the team, and as my connection with Black got stronger, I started to sense that she could still feel a weak connection to you. And the more I connected with her, the more she could feel you. Coran called it resonance. He said that the more synchronized I became with Black, the closer my own bond with you – my desire to find you – would resonate with the connection between you and Black and amplify it." Despite his exhaustion, Shiro's watching him intently, fascinated and grateful and proud.

"But my connection with Black, it's still not like yours, or mine with Red. It still wasn't strong enough. We only found you because Allura was able to use her magic to bring us closer into resonance, using some sort of channelling device that Hunk and Pidge built with Coran. Lance helped too, negotiating with different planets to get the materials we needed. Everyone helped out. …But even with all that, it was hard to get a fixed location. There were a lot of false leads. Sometimes, Black and I would feel the connection strengthen, and then we'd get there and you'd be gone. Guess that was the jumping Haggar did. …It was a long time before we could find you."

"But you did," Shiro says, taking hold of Keith's wrists.

"I'm sorry it took so long," Keith apologizes. "If I'd done what you asked in the first place, if I'd started bonding with Black sooner…"

"You found me." Shiro rests his forehead against Keith's, letting his eyes flutter closed. "You saved me."

"I missed you so much," Keith says softly.

"Me too," Shiro breathes. "Thank you for finding me."

"I wish I could tell you that I'll never let you out of my sight again," Keith says, though they both know he can't. "But if you're lost, I promise I will always, always, come find you."

Shiro leans in, closing the short distance between them, and his lips brush against Keith's. It's the barest graze of lips, chaste and gentle. When Shiro pulls away, tears are leaking from his eyes, but he wears a slight smile.

As Keith wipes his tears away, his fingers lingering, he feels a slight tug at the back of his mind. "Do you feel that?" he asks Shiro.

Shiro's eyes widen slightly, and Keith watches as they brighten. "She's back. The Black Lion's back online. I can feel her." There's so much relief in his voice, and it floods Keith's heart with warmth.

Closing his eyes, Keith can feel Black's contentedness. She's happy to have her paladin back. Keith smiles. He knows the feeling.

"Now that she's working again, the others will be here soon," Keith says. He knows their team will come for them. Just a little longer and they'll be home.

Shiro smiles softly again, and it's a beautiful thing. He looks over Keith's shoulder, off into the distance. "The sun's coming up," he says.

Wordlessly, Keith swings around to Shiro's side, taking in the reds and purples streaking across the horizon. Shiro's head comes to rest against Keith's shoulder, and together they watch the sun rise as they wait to be found.