They weren't love letters.

At least not at first.

In the early days, it was easy for Lance to pretend everything was normal. One paladin talking to another, messaging across the vast distance of space, catching up. The usual, you know?

Nothing bad about that of course. After all, it was completely natural to miss your fellow teammate. Keith had been gone for months!

They weren't love letters.

Pidge had been the one to set up a messaging system between Keith and the rest of them. Because of course she was. Lance was convinced she was the smartest person in the galaxy, and he thanked every space deity out there that she was on their side.

Of course, they could talk to the Blade via the main deck of the ship. That Space Skype or whatever it was. It was pretty cool, he had to admit, but lacking any sort of privacy. Besides, whenever they did talk to the Blade, Keith was there. But he was usually in the background. It was always some other dude talking.

Sometimes Lance liked to think he and Keith made eye contact. Though he could never be totally sure.

Not that he was thinking about that the entire time the team chats were happening or anything, he only wanted to know what was going on with the former red paladin. Truth be told, he was worried about Keith. Back in the castle ship, everyone was together, and there was always Hunk around to cuddle if he was feeling low. Keith wasn't exactly the hugging type, but still, did he have someone to cuddle? Lance doubted it.

Lance liked to think that he and Keith had gotten past their whole rivalry thing a while back. They'd had some good talks whilst Keith was the black paladin. And Keith didn't get close to people easily. Lance couldn't exactly picture him having heart-to-hearts with any of the other Blade members. He couldn't picture the Blade having late night slumber parties in their room or bantering through a friendly sparring session or having food-goo fights. That was way too bizarre to imagine.

All-in-all, Lance worried. He couldn't help it! Anyways, what was so bad about wondering how Keith was doing? He cared about all of his teammates equally! It just so happened one was further away, and more isolated than all the rest.

So how did the messaging system work? Pidge had juiced up some old tablets lying around and given one to Keith the last time they'd reconvened for a meeting. The tablets worked similarly to the Space Skype only without the video calling and, because the tablets didn't have as much power, it took a while for messages to send. So they worked best as an e-mail type of system rather than a texting thing.

"I'm working on fixing them up more," Pidge added as she handed Lance his tablet, which he gleefully took. Ever the perfectionist, to say she was annoyed that the messaging system was slower than she would have liked was an understatement. She sat at the edge of Lance's bed, legs crossed, arms folded, lip jutting out. The perfect picture of a scientist in the midst of a sulk. "Eventually, I'll be able to upgrade them so they have video calling features, group chat, maybe even emojis. But for now, we can only message one person at a time."

"This is awesome!" Lance cried, his fingers itching to use his new gadget. Suddenly he halted and hit face took on a serious demeanour. "Though I've got to ask. What about memes?"

That at least broke Pidge out of her mood. She snorted, adjusting her glasses. "What are we, animals? Of course, there'll be a meme upgrade."

"YES!" Lance said, high-fiving Pidge with a broad grin. "See, this right here, this is why you're the resident pala-genius!"

They talked for a while longer, thinking about ways to annoy the others with memes (the danker the better), wondering if Keith would get any of their references and thinking about all the ways intergalactic personal communication could work in the future.

Eventually, though, Lance was left alone with nothing but his tablet and the stars for company.

Sometimes, when he was feeling homesick, he ignored the stars. Pretended they weren't there. If he stared at the ceiling it was easy to forget how far away from everything he was. If he squinted right, he could imagine he was back at the garrison or even back home, that the ceiling he stared at was his old bedroom. It worked sometimes. Sort of.

Now was different. He had other things on his mind besides Earth.

He shuffled to the window, lion slippers on, and gazed out into the vast darkness of space. There they were. The stars. Twinkling away like they always did. Pressing a hand to the glass, he thought of Keith, with the Blade, going on those crazy missions. He was so far away…

A heavy weight pressed on his chest, similar to the one he got when he was with his family but different somehow. It was more poignant than the dull ache he'd gotten used to in the time they'd been away.

Maybe it was the difference between leaving someone and being left behind by someone?

He shook his head. Woah, where had that come from? Keith hadn't left him behind. That wasn't what had happened. Keith had stepped aside and joined the Blade of Marmora for his own reasons. Shiro had come back, the Black Lion had its rightful paladin back. And Lance? Lance was…

Lance was the red paladin now. Lance was Shiro's right hand man.

Shoving those thoughts to the deepest depth of his brain, where they belonged, Lance tore his eyes away from the window and flopped back onto his bed with a sigh. Tablet in hand, he selected Keith's name from the short contact list and began to type…

"UGH!"

Keith wished he had a door to slam shut. He missed Earth doors. There was nothing like getting your frustration out than slamming a door.

Or punching Iverson in the face, but that was neither here nor there.

He stomped into his room, roughly kicking off his shoes and dropping like a stone onto the bed. It had been a long, arduous mission. The bad kind. The kind where they'd lost people despite his best efforts.

Gritting his teeth, Keith fell back against his pillows, closing his eyes and willing his headache away. The sounds of Kolivan's chiding still rang in his ears and he curled his fists.

Truth be told, he wasn't angry. Even though he was acting like it. In actuality, he didn't know what he was feeling. Regret for losing some of his comrades, frustration at letting his emotions get the better of him again. Fear.

Fear.

Keith sat up immediately, his stomach lurching. He rubbed his face, exhausted but knowing he wasn't about to get a moment of rest whilst all of these emotions kept churning away inside of him, like some low-grade washing machine filled with sludge. Fear wasn't good. Fear was perhaps the worst emotion he could feel. That much he knew without Kolivan yelling it at him in his low, gravelly, disappointed principal voice.

Fear was the emotion that made you hesitate. Hesitation got you killed.

The thing was, what was he afraid of?

He sighed, reaching into his pocket to grab his knife, the blade that had gotten him in to resistance to begin with. Usually it helped him, grounded him when he looked at it. Today was different. Today was a bad day, a day where nothing made sense. He'd lost people on the mission. It was his fault, his oversight. He could've saved them…

A brief flash, a glimpse of people he'd come to care about crossed his mind. The other paladins, Allura, Coran. It only took a second of thinking about them before they slammed into his mind permanently, their faces replacing the ones of those lost today.

Keith wanted to scream. Instead he clutched at his hair, head bowed, elbows on knees. His fingers dug into his scalp, almost as if he wanted to claw into his brain and dig those images out of his mind physically. He needed something, anything, to distract him.

Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.

He glanced up, frowning. What the hell was that noise?

It continued and, at first, he was worried it was a bomb. But it didn't sound like one. It sounded more like a phone or something.

Luckily his room was as pristine as it always was. It didn't take long to find the source of the strange sound.

It was the tablet Pidge had given him the last time they'd met. Picking it up he glanced at the screen. A message?

His heart lurched. Why would they message him privately instead of the Blade? Was there a spy for Zarkon, and the guys needed to get a message to him about it in secret? Or had the opposite happened? Had Prince Lotor escaped and gone on a rampage? A million different scenarios raced through his mind, all worse than the last, to the point where he was dreading even opening the message.

But open it he did. And it was nothing like what he'd expected.

Incoming Message From: LanceyLance
To: Keith
Subject: WHAT UP?!

Message:

Hey bud! What's up?…

Hi guys! Midnight here! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! This prologue was to get a feeling of the characters/where they are. The rest of the romance will unfold in Keith and Lance's space letters to each other (and other characters will be involved in the drama too!)

Thank you for reading! ^_^

You can follow me on tumblr too! Username: Midnightstarlightwrites (same as here hehehe)