To Sorrow with Thee

To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
(Henry VI, Shakespeare)

None of the paladins would ever forget the sight of Black's empty cockpit. In the wake of what should have been their greatest victory, instead they faced both a gaping loss and an unanswerable question. At first they closed ranks instinctively. Keith spoke of the planet where he and Shiro had been marooned after falling out of the corrupted wormhole. Hands enervated in his lap, he repeated the haunting words of his commission. Even then, Lance wondered if it was too much to ask. But there was no debate. Though vowing to find their true leader, in the present moment they would have another.

Keith would become the head of Voltron.

Except that when he stood before the Black Lion, it would not let him inside. The massive forearms remained rigid, the eye ports vacant. It did not move, not when Keith's tentative requests became pleading. Not when he ranted and paced. Allura's commands had no effect either, and when Pidge touched the paneling, the shield snapped to life. Forced beyond the barrier, the bereaved paladins stared with ashen faces. Though it remained in view, the Black Lion was as inaccessible to them as its lost pilot, and no one knew what to do, not even the Alteans.

Keith was the first to storm out. Allura and Coran murmured in their own language, but eventually the princess went to meditate in the chamber that no longer housed her father's spirit, and Coran went to update Slav and their allies. Pidge stared for a long time at the lion's face, her glasses obscured by the glow of the generator, until finally she said, "We should search the computer banks. The lions may be magic, but they're still machines. Maybe King Alfor left some clues about how they work."

"Maybe," Hunk said, though he sounded doubtful about finding an exploit for mystical sentient lions. "But we should focus on repairing the castle first." The hanger doors slid shut as they retreated, their subdued steps echoing down the corridor.

Which left Lance alone in the cavernous space with the unresponsive lion. He'd been quiet while the others made their appeals. The truth was, he couldn't swallow properly, let alone speak. Shiro being gone didn't seem remotely real, and without the grounding presence of the others, his hands began to shake. 'Blue.' He reached out instinctively, and her reassuring presence filled his mind, though she felt muted and tinged with concern. Concern for...

Lance turned his face to the silent Black Lion. He tried to imagine how he would feel if Blue had gone missing and the others insisted that, for the sake of their mission, he must pilot one of the other lions. It also reminded him of how infuriated he sometimes became when Allura insisted they dismiss any outrage or disagreement because the fate of the universe depended on them being able to create the guardian whose existence was far more important than any of them individually. There was simply nothing that was allowed to take precedence over Voltron. 'But maybe there comes a point where that just won't work.'

He looked at Black again and forced himself to think of the lion, not as one piece of Voltron, but as a living being whose closest companion was gone. Lost or taken or...or maybe Shiro had given all he could, and this was his way of saying so. Whatever the truth was, it didn't really matter. Shiro was gone, and Black was still here.

Lance was glad that his teammates weren't there to see him. At the garrison, his superiors had berated him about his penchant for crumpling under stress, but there were times when he couldn't defy his nature. He scrubbed his face until he was sure no hot tears had escaped and then straightened his back. The only thing he could think to do was to go to the edge of the particle barrier and rest his hand on it. He applied pressure, the way he would if the force field were Hunk's back. He didn't know if Black could feel it, but he hoped so.

"It will be okay," he whispered.

He thought he might have seen the dimmest flicker of yellow light in the Black Lion's eye sockets, but it was probably his imagination.

As the days wore on, team Voltron began to lose hope that the Black Lion would ever open up to a new pilot. Keith tried, regularly. Allura urged patience, though her resolve was beginning to waver. Everyone knew how she felt about the Galra threat. But so far, nothing. The remaining paladins even tried consulting the other lions, but the most they got was a sense of sorrow and helplessness, which was a hollow reflection of what they felt themselves.

Lance continued visiting Black, though he kept his trips to the hanger a secret. He worried about what his teammates would think if he confessed that he was less concerned about the Black Lion taking a new pilot and more worried that the lion itself might be depressed. What did that even mean, a depressed lion? Still, he kept going, mostly to sit against the barrier and stare into space like an idiot. Sometimes he talked. Other times he just tapped his heels on the floor. He didn't think it was doing any good, but he knew that when you were grieving, sometimes it was better to have company, even the unhelpful kind.

"I'm sorry I'm not better at this," he told Black one time. He was laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, and his hair was staticky from its proximity to the barrier. He tried unsuccessfully to comb it into shape. "Do robots like songs?"

On the off chance that they did, he began humming under his breath. It started out indistinguishable, but somewhere along the way it shifted into a low, sad lullaby with Spanish words, one his abuela used to sing to him when his parents were away. He was blinking back tears by the time he got to the end. The faces of his family swam up, and he made a frustrated noise.

"Ugh. Sorry. I didn't meant to get so melancholy on you."

He looked in the direction of the lion, realizing that something seemed different. The Black Lion stood exactly as it had since the end of the battle. Lance blinked, trying to figure out what was out of place. Then, suddenly, it occurred to him. He rose onto his elbows.

The particle barrier was down.

At first, the new development bolstered everyone's hopes, but when the Black Lion remained unmoving in the days that followed, despair sunk in again. In these times, Lance was mostly worried about Keith. Keith was in active withdrawal, and his temper was on a hair-trigger. He wasn't resting, he rarely ate, and when he wasn't stalking around the castle, he was obsessively working through levels in the training room. Lance started to join him as often as he could stand it, just to make sure he didn't spend too much time alone.

It was painful, though. Lance had never excelled at hand-to-hand combat. He was proficient, but it didn't come naturally. Still, it was cathartic for his teammate, so he did his best to hang in there, round after round, simulation after simulation. Eventually, it paid off. Two weeks and three days after Shiro's disappearance, Keith reached his tipping point. They were on round five or twelve or eighteen – Lance had lost count – and Keith's jabs and kicks were becoming erratic.

"Keith," he panted, close to calling off the spar. "Could you tone it down?"

It was like Keith didn't hear him. If anything, he redoubled his efforts. Finally a truly brutal jab made it through Lance's guard. It impacted on his left side, and he felt something give. His reaction to the flare of agony was to lash out with a wild haymaker that miraculously made contact. It slammed into Keith's face, sending them both to the ground in opposite directions.

Lance sat up with effort, holding his ribs and wheezing. "What the heck, man? Are you trying to kill me?"

He wasn't the only one wheezing. Keith looked feral, his muscles trembling with repressed fury. "If you can't handle it, then get out of the training room."

"And leave you to break your knuckles on a gladiator? Who exactly are you trying to beat up, Keith? Zarkon? Some random Galra soldier?" Realization darted up, and Lance spoke before he lost his nerve. "Shiro?"

Keith jerked. His eyes blazed at Lance. "Why would I want to hit him?"

The answer, which no one had dared say until now, escaped. "Because he left."

There was a half-beat of silence, a half-beat of emotion forestalled. Then rage bled out. "Lair! He could have been ejected. He could be lost in space. Or captured. Or dead."

"Slav and Coran are some of the smartest guys in the universe, Keith. You think they'll leave a stone unturned until we know what happened? But until then, you can't keep beating yourself up."

Keith's hands bunched into fists. In a barely controlled voice, he insisted, "Shiro wanted me to lead."

"So lead," Lance told him.

"The Black Lion –"

But Lance wasn't going to let Keith get out of things that easily. "Leave Black out of this. In case you hadn't noticed, none of us have asked you to get anyone's approval. You're the one who can't be honest about what's really going on with you."

He thought he might have pushed Keith too far, but to his surprise, Keith didn't storm out. Instead, he tucked in his chin so that his bangs obscured his face and snarled, "I'm angry."

Maybe, but Lance wasn't convinced. "You sure about that? Or is anger just your go-to method for dealing with anything messy?"

Keith shuddered again, and the weeks of repressed suffering, lack of sleep, and exhaustion were clear in every line of his body. His expression was so raw that it was hard to look at him. "What are you getting at, Lance?"

He put the cards on the table. "It's okay to be upset with Shiro."

Keith stared at him with wide eyes, like it honestly surprised him that Lance had guessed this hidden part of him. Like he didn't know that he wasn't the only one who felt that way. 'He really is a socially awkward hermit,' Lance thought. It was sad, but at least this vulnerability was something he could work with.

Slowly, he repeated what he had just said. "Keith. It's okay to be upset with him for leaving."

The other boy made a low, anguished noise at the back of his throat. "And what if he didn't leave?"

Lance scooted until he was close enough to lean against Keith's shoulder. "Then it's okay to be upset with the universe."

Keith's pupils contracted. He made that noise again, the one that cut to the heart, and then he lunged. Lance hadn't expected to be tackled (okay, it was Keith, so maybe it had registered as a possibility), but this wasn't an attack. Instead he felt Keith's wiry arms around him, shuddering with fine tremors. In fact, all of Keith was shaking. He wasn't loud, and honestly Lance wasn't sure if the dampness on his shirt was from sweat or tears, but one way or another, Keith was grieving. Bent over, wrung out, half-hysterical, but finally grieving. Lance put an unsteady hand on his teammate's back, already promising himself never to speak about this. It wouldn't be fair.

Anyway he was relieved. He ached down to his bones, and he was fairly sure a scan would reveal that something had unknitted inside which would need mending, but this still felt like a win. He would take it.

After their training session, Keith acted a bit tender around him, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. However, when Lance resolutely ignored any opportunity to bring it up, Keith slowly relaxed. In the meantime, he was calmer. He spent more time with Allura and the Blades, talking in quiet tones about what should come next. Lance caught Allura giving him a grateful look, as though she knew his suspiciously timed stint in the healing pod had something to do with it.

Meanwhile, Lance devoted his attention to Black. The next time he entered the hanger, it was as quiet and sterile as ever. He went up the motionless lion. "Hey, Black. I brought something to show you. Want to see?"

He held up a photograph of his family on earth, extending it as high over his head as he could. "Pretty neat, huh? It came from the meditation exercises. You know, when we look into each other's minds with the headsets. Everyone says I'm always thinking about home, so I asked Coran if it was possible to get something tangible made from the computer display. It worked! I can't tell you how good it is to have something I can actually look at, even if it is a little blurry around the edges." He frowned momentarily, but then shrugged to cast off the creeping feeling of unhappiness. "Anyway, I got Coran to help me make a few more so you can have some pictures, too. Maybe it will lighten this place up. I know Shiro was Mr. Military, but even so, would it hurt to make things a bit more homey?"

He put his hands on his hips, surveying the hanger. He just needed to decide where...

"Aha!"

He went over the wall by the door, which was directly across from the lion's line of sight. If he could just get up high enough, the Black Lion would be able to see the pictures all the time. He shoved the tape into his pocket and tucked his shirt into his jeans. That allowed him to fold the flexible sheets of...whatever Alteans used instead of paper...safely against his chest. He actually got pretty far up before he ran out of decent hand and foot holds. Then the fixtures gave way to mostly smooth bulkhead. A drip of sweat rolled down his forehead as he stretched his toes, looking doubtfully at the next potential spot. Why hadn't he just looked for a ladder or something?

His knee chose that moment to give a sudden wobble, and his balance wavered. He grasped desperately with his hands for a better hold, but it was too late. He gave a sharp, barking cry as he fell –

Right onto Black's nose.

Lance rubbed his knee and thigh, which were complaining about the landing onto an unyielding metal surface, but in truth he'd only fallen a few feet and wasn't hurt. Looking up, he found himself staring into the eyes of the Black Lion, which were activated and glowing for the first time in weeks. A low rumble sounded, vibrating. Lance closed his mouth and swallowed. Hesitantly, he pressed his palm to the cool muzzle. "Uh, Black?"

Another sound, this one more like a croon. It was weird to hear something like that from a lion other than Blue. Despite her mechanical nature, she had always made soft sounds, even when they first met inside the cave. He'd known she was alive from the moment she touched his mind. Black, on the other hand, still sounded like a giant machine made of gears and pistons, but it had moved from its place to catch him. Incredible.

He stood slowly and pulled out the photographs. Now that Black was close, it would be easier to show him. "Look. I got this one from the stored surveillance images. It's all of us, even Allura and Coran, standing with you and the other lions. I thought it might remind you that we're here for you, even if it doesn't feel like it right now." He reached for another image. "Here's me. I think this one might be from Pidge, because the angle really doesn't do me justice. And here's the castle. And this one is you and Blue. And this one..." He hesitated, but it was important. He turned it to face the yellow eyes. "It's Shiro."

The Black Lion made another noise. Lance wasn't sure what it meant, but it sounded unhappy.

Lance tucked his chin to his chest. "Kind of painful, I know, but we gotta hold onto the good times while we're waiting to see him again." He looked up at the wall. "I still want to hang these up. I don't suppose you would –"

He hadn't even gotten the words out before Black extended its neck. Lance took his time placing the pictures, forming a cloud of images. He taped down the last corner, the one of Shiro. That should do it. The Black Lion lowered him to the floor, and he stepped onto solid ground. Then he watched as the lion returned to its former place. The yellow light went out, but the eyes still faced the wall where – high overhead – the pictures of their weird space family were now affixed.

Lance gave a sigh, satisfied that the walls weren't completely bare, though he was already thinking of other ways he could make the hanger feel less empty. Potted plants? Ideas were taking up so much of his attention that he didn't see the movement of the Black Lion, who had stooped, just slightly, watching him go.

Lance also put a picture of Shiro in Keith's room. He didn't find pieces of it torn up in his food goo or get punched in the face, so he assumed it was okay.

In the weeks that followed, Lance got caught visiting Black exactly once. It had been a bad night. After wiping the snot off his face and changing his shirt, Lance dragged his blanket off the bed and left his room. The castle was quiet. Not surprising. It had been designed for a lot more than a handful of people, and there were a lot of empty spaces. Nonetheless it felt especially dark and pulseless that night. He stopped in the common room and found Pidge passed out on the couch. Her computer was perched precariously, so he moved it to the side, along with her glasses. Like the rest of them, she'd been running on fumes and didn't even feel him tug off her shoes or yank a throw on top of her. That done, Lance grabbed what he came for and moved on.

The Black Lion was where it always was. The hanger lights came up when Lance triggered the motion sensors, but he dialed them back down, leaving them in twilight. "Hey," he said, his voice flat as he sat down in front of the long silver claws. He drew up his knees to huddle inside the blanket. "You're probably wondering what I'm doing here so late, or...do you guys even sleep?" His voice got noticeably smaller. "Do you dream?"

No answer, of course. Not that he'd expected one. Lance shrugged.

"Anyway. I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so I went and grabbed this. It's a checkerboard. Me and Pidge made it." He took his time explaining the movement of the pieces, the object of the game, strategies that could be implemented. It was soothing to pretend he was speaking to an absorbed audience. Eventually he chewed on a nail and asked, "Want to give it a go?"

He played, pretending that each tiny creak was consent to move a checker. Blue would nudge him sometimes, itching at the back of his mind, and he smiled at her. "Blue says hi," he murmured and moved a piece to the back of the board. "King me."

"What are you doing here?"

Lance jerked around so hard his neck pinched with protest. Keith stood just inside the hanger doors. His face was hard to read, but it was already edging toward volatile. Lance had no idea what he must think. "Uh," he said eloquently. "Playing checkers."

The board was right there as evidence, ludicrous as it was. Keith stared. "Checkers."

"Y-yeah."

"Why here?"

Lance flinched. The truth made him squirm, it was so pathetic, but being thought pathetic was still preferable to the misunderstanding he would end up with if didn't answer. After all the progress he'd made with Keith, he couldn't risk that coming undone. So he let his pride go and admitted, "I had a dream about Shiro."

Keith seemed to...deflate. "Oh."

Lance nodded, turning back to the checkerboard. "What about you?"

"I saw the light in the hanger."

Lance wondered if Keith had been heading here to talk to Black privately. Maybe he was hoping that Lance would go away so he could. Or maybe...maybe Keith wanted company. Lance decided to venture on the latter. "Do you want to play?

Keith seemed uncertain, but maybe it was just the environment, because he rubbed his bare arms. "Could we go to the common room?"

Lance thought about it, but something held him back. He wasn't ready to leave Black. "No."

"It's cold in here," Keith griped.

Lance held up the edge of his blanket. "As long as you've showered in the last two days, you can share with me."

It was comical how long to took Keith to decide. It was like he was using dial-up internet when it came to interpersonal relationships. Finally, though, he asked, "Aren't you supposed to sit on opposite sides of the board?"

Lance shrugged. For a moment, he felt sure that Keith would leave, but then he heard quiet footsteps. Keith slipped in beside him, adding welcome heat. Lance had to hold in a sound of relief. He wondered if Keith found contact so comforting. Probably not, as stiff as he was. However, he relaxed as he reached for the board. "New game," Keith demanded.

"Why don't you just take over for Black?" Lance asked, but when Keith gave him an exasperated look, he agreed. "Fine, but I'm going first."

They played for a while in the huge, empty hanger while the wordless presence of the Black Lion loomed overhead. After a while, Keith began protesting. "Lance, I swear that move is illegal. Who even taught you how to play?"

"Well, sor-ry," Lance said, scratching his head. The truth was he only vaguely remembered playing this game back on Earth. Like his memories of his family, those things were getting fuzzy. "There isn't exactly a rule book for us to consult, now is there?"

Something about the way he said it must have struck a chord, because instead of firing back, Keith went sober. When he spoke, he seemed to be talking about both the game and something deeper. "You're right. So what are we going to do?"

Lance thought about it. "If we need rules, I say we make our own," he said finally. "It's not like there's anyone out here to tell us we're wrong."

Keith looked at him from under a fringe of bangs. Then he turned back to the board, touching a piece with his finger. "I guess it's not like the rules were meant for space, anyway." After that, they lapsed into silence. Eventually, though, Keith asked, "Lance, does the Black Lion talk to you?"

Lance hesitated, not sure what answer would be the most honest. "No," he said finally, moving the checker and taking two of Keith's pieces. "Just Blue."

The other boy murmured, "What does she say?"

"She says your mullet is terrible, and you should let me give you a haircut."

Keith punched him, but nicely. It barely bruised at all.

Of course, there came a day when the war's brief interlude was over. Reality came back in the form of a broadcast by a youthful-looking Galra with long white hair. With burning passion, he spoke to his people of destiny, calling them to the defense of their empire. Allura went pale the moment she saw him. "Lotor," she breathed once the chilling message had run its course.

"Who is this dude?"

Lance watched the princess's bloodless lips move. She looked like she had seen a ghost. And perhaps she had, because when she spoke it was to say, "He is Zarkon's son and heir. At one time, he was also my fiancé. I had no idea he was still alive."

It was information overload. Zarkon's son? Fiancé?

"Allura," Keith asked. "What does this mean?"

"It means that the time for regrouping is over," the princess stated. Grief and hatred warred in her eyes. "We can expect an attack soon. Lotor will attempt to draw us out in the open, and he will use Voltron's mission against us."

Defender of the Universe. That's what she meant. Lotor, son of the former Black Paladin, would make the defenseless suffer until their savior had no choice but to appear or prove faithless to those who staked every hope on them. In a voice that sounded small in the large room, Hunk said what they were all thinking. "But we can't form Voltron."

"No, we cannot," Allura said. "But we'll have to fight anyway."

And so began Lotor's gambit of ambush and attrition. Lance had never felt so hollow in all his life. He thought he had known what it meant to be exhausted, but now he knew sleep deprivation. Battered to the bone, he learned what it meant to have no time for medical care. He was hungry, but everything tasted like dust in his insatiate mouth. Their cause felt like pushing back the tide: fruitless. But what else could they do except keep trying?

It was more than a month into this new type of warfare that the breaking point came. They needed supplies, which allies had left in a barren asteroid field. A cargo ship was needed, and Lance thought, "Hey, trained cargo pilot here," so he volunteered. Hunk and Pidge were cycling through their off-duty period, so Keith went along to help him. They were too weary to do much talking. Keith looked like a zombie with dark bruises under his eyes. "Land there," he pointed out when the packet came into view, and Lance nodded.

There wasn't any gravity to speak of, and so their suits did most of the work as they maneuvered the supplies. Lance stopped to take a deep breath after the first few loads and looked up and out into the endless spiral of space, interrupted only by the intervening field of rock and ice. Keith landed beside him. "You look constipated when you think too hard."

"Shut up," Lance said, because that was the absolute best he could muster.

They stared out together. "Lots of space to get lost in," Keith said, his voice low.

Lance couldn't help but agree, but something else about it was bothering him. He tried to scratch his head, but only ended up smacking his fingers into his helmet. "Ugh," he groaned, giving up. "Let's just get this over with so we can hit the sack when Pidge and Hunk wake up."

They reached for the last cache of supplies, but even as Lance curled his hands around it, he was rocked by the force of an explosion. He hit the uneven surface of the asteroid, feeling the concussive force even through his armor. It took his breath away, and when he raised his eyes, all he could see was the afterimage left by the flash of blinding light. Then his vision cleared, and he saw it. The cargo ship was a ruin of slag. He jerked his head to space, searching for what could possibly have caused that kind of destruction, and his breath caught in his throat.

A Galra battlecruiser hung between them and the castle-ship. How could it possibly be there? They had planned this drop off to be utterly untraceable. There was nothing here for the Galran fleet to track. There were no planets. No outstations. No resources. Nothing. The only way anyone could possibly have known that the paladins would be here was… Lance felt his brain short circuit. Was if someone had told them. They'd been sold out.

They were also stranded. The cargo ship was a drifting mess of molten pieces and mostly-vapored dust. Distantly, he could see a battle raging. Pidge and Hunk in their lions, the castle defenses themselves. One battleship would have been no problem, but as Lance shifted onto his knees, he saw that there wasn't just one. There were three. And one of them was turning its ion cannon directly at the asteroid where he and Keith were now sitting ducks. The cannon's muzzle began to glow.

Lance pushed himself upright, staring into the face of his imminent death.

The cannon fired, so bright it blinded him. For a microsecond, everything was white. 'I'm dead,' he thought, waiting for the burst of burning pain which would be his final sensation. Instead, something huge and black eclipsed the boundaries of his vision, and there was the lunatic force of a massive impact. Lance blinked, found himself on his side, and realized he must have lost consciousness. Was he alive?

The audio in his helmet crackled, sounding panicky but familiar. Then something hit him, a much smaller impact this time, though it still rattled every sinew in his body. He felt hands grasp his arms, dragging him upright. When he squinted, he saw a familiar red helmet, though the visor had a terrifying crack through its center. "Keith?" he murmured.

Keith was shaking him. And he was shouting. "Get up, you idiot. Sit up right now! Do you realize what's happened?"

Well, yeah. They were under attack, probably dead. But, wait. Something had stopped the blast from hitting him. Lance looked up, beyond his teammate, and his heart literally stopped in his chest. Because staring down at him was the huge metal face of the Black Lion, its eyes alive with golden light. "Keith," Lance said. "Look, it's the Black Lion."

Keith made a half hysterical noise that was almost a laugh. "You bet it is. Now, get up. We have to get out of here."

Lance felt like his knees couldn't hold him, but with Keith's help, he managed. Standing beneath the Black Lion, which was no longer hunched but fluidly alive, was a humbling experience. It was like the first time he met Blue. Lance was overcome with awe. He was even more stunned when the lion lowered its neck and opened the hatch to allow them entrance. Keith had to shove him to get him moving toward it.

Inside the cockpit, they were surrounded by Black's presence. Lance realized belatedly that the only time he'd ever been here was when they found it empty. Keith jerked off his broken helmet and collapsed into the pilot seat. However, he didn't seem surprised when he nudged the controls and they remained unresponsive. A jerky sigh fell from his mouth, and he looked over his shoulder to where Lance was perched at the edge of the chair. "Lance."

"What?" he asked stupidly.

Keith got up. "Sit down."

Realization hit like a ton of space rocks, and Lance recoiled. "No."

"Man, you have to. The Black Lion came to save you. It let you inside. You're going to have to pilot it."

"I can't," Lance said, not just to piloting Black, but also to everything that implied. He looked at his fellow pilot with the whites of his eyes showing. He was afraid that Keith must hate him. He shook his head. "I don't want to."

Understanding softened Keith's frenzied expression. "Look," he said. "I know this wasn't exactly what we planned, but it's okay."

"I can't, Keith. I killed every crew in every simulator flight I ever flew." It was an exaggeration, but only a slight one. He still woke up sometimes with the echo of Commander Iverson roaring in his ears. He played the ace pilot, bolstered himself with the bravado needed to get along in this crazy life they were leading, but he wasn't kidding himself, especially now. This was too important. This was the universe.

He was close to hyperventilating when he felt the grounding pressure of Keith's gloved hand bearing through the layers of his suit. "Who says you have to be in charge?"

"The Black Lion –"

"Forget that," Keith interrupted. "We can make our own rules. You and me could work together. Some idiot told me we make a pretty good team."

Lance couldn't help the way his lips quirked. He'd been half out of his mind, but he'd been lying when he told Keith he didn't remember their battle with Sendak. Moreover, he remembered other times, more recent times. The Balmera. Training sessions that ended in grieving. Checkers in the dark. Could this really work?

Some of the feeling was coming back into Lance's hands and feet. When he looked at the pilot's seat, he still felt like throwing up, but Keith yanked him resolutely toward the panels. "Go ahead."

Lance sat, his hands falling onto the controls by instinct. The instant he did, his eyes jerked wide, a zap of awareness traveling up his spine. In that moment of contact, he was ripped violently from the physical plane.

When he opened his "eyes", he was no longer in the cockpit. He knew, in some way he couldn't explain, that he was with Black, connected in the same way he was usually connected to Blue. But Blue was a current of water, surging and popping around him. Always powerful but also playful, gentle, and alive with an exaltation of spirit that was echoed in his own soul. Black, on the other hand, wasn't effervescent. There was no surge and crackle. Instead, it was like hanging in a vacuum. There was at once tremendous pressure and complete absence.

He waited. Black?

The movement of something massive, something serious and old and wise, brushed against him. Like the arching of a cat, it was there and gone, close but distant. Then it stepped directly in front of him and spoke. Hello, Blue Paladin.

If Lance had been capable of gasping, he would have. You talk?

If Blue laughed like bubbles rising, then what Black did was more like the rumble of a thunderstorm. There was lightning in it, but it was still laughter. We needed to speak, so we speak. Are you afraid?

Yes. Lance felt like he could only be honest here, and so he asked the question they had all been wondering. Why haven't you let Keith in any of the times that he's asked?

He could feel Black brooding. It pressed against him like a physical thing. I have been betrayed by a paladin, one who forsook all we stood for. Who used the power given him by our bond to destroy and subjugate. Many years I waited for another to come to me, one who would set things right.

Shiro.

Yes, said the lion. But he left, too.

Sorrow filled all the spaces between them, and Lance couldn't figure out if it was from him or the Black Lion, or if it was an amalgamation of what they both felt. Perhaps it was the sorrow that all of them felt – all of the paladins and all of the lions. It nearly broke his heart.

Comfort came. It was a purr in his mind, deep and ancient but awake with feeling. You understand, I think, why I could not respond to the Red Paladin. But the war has begun again, and for a time, it seems I must take another pilot. And you, I trust.

Lance was boggled. Why?

Empathy, said the lion. This is what your team needs now. One who sees need and addresses it, even when the way is unknown. And however inadequate they might feel to the task.

The others will be disappointed. Lance thought he just might be more scared of that than anything else.

Don't underestimate them, Black said. And then, in a whooshing sound like a funnel of wind and sound, Lance was back in the pilot's seat of the cockpit with Keith standing anxiously over his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Lance gripped the controls. "He said he trusts me."

"He?" Keith asked, but Lance had already engaged the thrusters. They swarmed up into space, joining their companions in battle. The Galra ships didn't know what hit them.

Lance was completely wrung out. He was soaked with sweat, straight through the inner layers of his suit. Piloting the Black Lion involved none of the ease and flow and liquidity he felt with Blue. Half the time he'd been sure he was going to pass out. But it was – and he couldn't overstate this – exhilarating. "Like riding a hurricane," he panted, somewhat deliriously.

Keith dragged him up by the arm. "Come on."

He'd barely wobbled down the ramp before Coran seized him. The Altean put one of his hands on the back of Lance's head, squeezing him tight. "Well done, my boy," he whispered. "I had a feeling."

Coran let him go, only to have his vision swing to the others. His fellow paladins, a few of the Blades who were currently onboard, and Allura. His throat closed, seeing her. She looked thunderstruck, but Hunk and Pidge had no such inhibitions. They rushed up to Lance and Keith and closed the circle. Hunk was crowing. "Dude, I saw it! That cannon powered up, and then the Black Lion came tearing out of nowhere!"

"I thought it was Allura at first," Pidge admitted. "But then the audio channels were filled with everyone screaming. We were pretty shocked. After all, it's been almost five months since the thing moved an inch."

"Um," Lance said. He scratched his nose, mostly as an excuse to avert his eyes. "He might have moved before."

They stared. Keith finally responded. "When, exactly?"

"I kind of, maybe, fell a little bit. From the bulkhead in the hanger when I was hanging stuff. Black sort of caught me."

"It moved for you before?" Pidge squawked. "You big moron, why didn't you tell us?"

Lance was starting to feel like an idiot, but Black's presence was still in the back of his mind, and he remembered their words of parting: Don't underestimate them. He sheepishly cleared his throat. "I wasn't trying to get him to let me pilot. I was kind of worried he was, you know…depressed."

There it was. He peeked at the others, expecting to see them looking at him like he'd lost his mind, but what he saw instead was Pidge rolling her eyes as though to say, 'Of course you were,' while Keith looked unmoved, as though he'd known all along. And maybe he had.

Approaching footsteps. Coran was still beaming like a proud papa, while Allura seemed to have regained most of her composure. Her eyes were red rimmed, though, and Lance had a hard time looking at her. "Are you…are you upset?"

"I have to admit that I'm surprised. But, then, even an earnest leader can telescope on a problem and forget the wider view. I was devastated when Shiro…" Her voice broke, and she gently cleared it. "Well, you know very well. You all know. We tried to force matters. But perhaps what we needed was time."

Lance looked at the Black Lion, which seemed to thrum with energy. He turned back to Allura and said, "I think you're right, Princess. We all needed time."

"And is the Black Lion ready to rejoin us?"

It was quite a question, but not so unanswerable as before. He looked at Keith, who nodded. Lance said, "I think we're ready to be a team again. Even if it means we have to work a different way until we can find Shiro."

"But we'll have Voltron."

Lance felt his eyebrows shove together. They would have more than just Voltron. They would have Black and the other lions. They would have Keith and Hunk and Pidge and Allura and Coran. And Lance. He threw one arm around Keith's shoulders, the other around Hunk. They were still tired, still scared. Still sad and a little lost. But maybe they were ready to face what had happened and start rebuilding.

Black made a resounding sound that rumbled through the hanger. Everyone jumped, still unused to him being active. Everyone but Lance. He looked up. 'I'm glad you're back with us.'

The lion answered, no longer with words, though somehow still clear. Sing the song, the one about the ocean and the stars.

Lance laughed. It was a start.

Author's Note: This piece is my experimental venture into the Voltron genre. Written because there's always a getting-to-know-you period when writing with new characters, and this seemed like a good jumping off point. Hopefully you found this playful addition to the Black-Paladin-Somebody trope as enjoyable as I did. My favorite feedback is hearing what stuck out to you. Thanks!