and if you love me with all of your heart

There was this feeling. Insidious. Silent. Deathly cold. It had haunted him the moment the Kerberos mission was deemed a failure due to pilot error. It gnawed at his insides, straggled up his veins and placed its vice-grip tight hands around his heart and squeezed until it drew blood. He had learned to live with it: live with the pain, live with the near-endless grasp in his chest — like inky darkness just oozing out of his pores and his skin — and know that each breath he took ended up drawing more and more of the ugliness out. It's staggering - painful - impossible to breathe through, on the nights where the sky resembled none of the nighttime blanket of stars but only an infinite road on the way to nowhere, on the nights where the shadows in the crevices and corners of their little shack were pits he could fall into forever.

It's a feeling he's both familiar and unfamiliar with, a feeling that he knew better than most — in every tear-stricken sob he's had to hold, under the bedsheets and in the deathly silence of a near-empty orphanage, where old pages of gravitational forces couldn't console the aching emptiness, the hacked-off phantom presence of what's no longer there — in every subtle shake of the head and the crushing disappointment, the constant echoing not enough not enough not enough not enough barrelling through the spaces between I don't care I don't care I don't care — in every moment he's asked, every question he's raised and thrown and only to receive nothing but a short and cold response: pilot error.

It was loss.

It felt like loss. It feels like loss. It feels like the widening of a bullet-hole wound in his heart that's grown to half his entire chest. It feels like earth slipping from under him, free-falling, no end in sight in. It's loss and it isn't. It's the needle-sharp precision of an acute absence and the blunt echo that thrummed across every skin of his body. He's not sure. Keith's not sure of anything anymore.

When that hurtling rush of light - arcing through the sky - had come, and Keith had placed hope on all hope, and found Shiro's damaged, scarred - but alive, goddamn alive - body in the midst of it all, it had felt like every open wound, every festering hole, every gnat-infested fissure had sewn over, closed, shut, healed. Loss was painful - tasted like ash and fire in his mouth, and deep-seated ice in his chest. Finding Shiro amidst the rubble and the regrets, the too-long months and too-lonely days, seeing life in his skin, and recognition in his eyes — like an awakening, a sunrise, his heart learning to beat, and his body learning to breathe once more.

"Keith…?" Shiro's voice had been low - hoarse, broken and pained but it was alive.

Alive.

Five letters. One word. The entirety of Keith's gravity hinging on the peripheries.

"I'm here," he had responded, arm around the warm, breathing, living body and Shiro's pained grunts in his ear as Keith hoists him off the gurney. Every second that passed was a promise from him — never again, never losing him again. "I got you, alright? I got you."

Keith tried to hold on — Shiro was a comet, a blazing white meteor streaking across the expanse of the universe, falling with the full force of a dying star. His hands never knew anything about holding on — the best they could do was curl inward, fingers pressed against palms in a worthless attempt to forget the ghosts of those no longer, the shadows he couldn't catch.

— and he had learned to bite his own lip, learned to press the nail against his skin hard enough to bleed and learned to silence the ache in him that could fell another man to his knees, as Voltron and Earth and nightmares out of a science fiction novel take center stage. His own distress - his own loss - those were things that he could deal with, in time, in his own quietness, head bowed and blood pressed against his tongue. Zarkon and the Galra and the ever-shifting horizon, beset by twinkling stars and purple laser beams, continued to spiral like a creeping vine slowly itching its way into their chests to crush them from the inside out.

All the memories he held onto — the almost-silent nights spent in warm arms, tucked into cedar, the press of soft lips against his forehead and slit-taupe cutting through the dark of Shiro's hair; the almost-stolen moments printed on square polaroid cuts, pasted and hidden in the sheets of a bulky album, under a mattress in a lonely house in a desert far too big for a lonely soul — the memories that had kept him going, that had kept him standing on his knees and breathing past the glass and sand and ice in his throat, the memories he had learned to hide and lock inside a chest that he doesn't visit, where the ticking hour hand of the wall clock hits four in the morning and the recurring thought of two more hours and it'll be sunrise, no more nightmares, no more dreams, no more missing his smile with an ache so hard that it echoed in my bones until his eyes slid shut in exhaustion.

There was no time for long gone chances and regrets, no time for daydreams on what-could-have-been's. There was a war, an unaware planet in the middle of it and their own lives at the front to worry about. His own yearnings, the long days and months he's spent, breathing and sustaining himself on the possibility, on the probability of hope —

"I'll be home soon," Shiro had whispered, with the conviction of an asteroid gaining speed. Home. Not the Garrison and its cold bunks and the million, greyed-out apathetic faces. Home. It had taken forever to find it, to find what that four letter word meant as he ignored another set of parents leaving the rainbow river. Polaris just beyond his reach. The shack in the middle of the desert. Ochre dipped in taupe. "I promise."

It had been the only thing that kept him moving, going – kept the ugly head of regret from clogging his veins, kept the ice from reaching his heart and turning it to stone as each step had taken him forward and onwards, sifting sand and kaleidoscope auroras and the north star heralding him home.

Funny – the words were more hurtful, mocking and sharp, when Shiro's just a few steps away, his outline tinged in gold as he talks to Allura. Funny, the steps feel like half the universe.

There had been no time for all the regrets, the missed chances – not when Zarkon was relentless in his pursuit of Voltron, and there's irony in the realization, Keith thinks. Irony in the obsessive, panic-driven chase Zarkon made – and maybe it's because he was a former Paladin, a former pilot of a Lion and maybe it felt like a part of him would always be missing, reaching out for what's not there, except for the ghost and the specter and the memory of what he's lost. Keith doesn't admit that he understood the feeling – understood it with a vengeance, a finality that bordered on resignation.

When the crest of the Blade of Marmora catches light, and the heaviness of the sigil seeps into his bones, Keith can only bite his tongue in the knowledge that he's holding on to a thread-thin line—

Allura's rage and distrust – the creeping distance between them, the Paladins, his friends – the darkness creeping into Shiro's eyes, in the aftermath of every nightmare –

Shiro – who had returned to him, in scar-kissed skin and grey-brown hair and broken and haunted. Shiro – taupe turned steel, smile edged with a lingering exhaustion, the fleeting, ephemeral tail at the end of a comet. Keith swallowed his pride, his disappointment and his hopes – smiling back at Shiro. It's okay. It's not your fault. You came home.

There's that, at least, is left unspoken and hushed, thrown under the blankets of survival and rebellion. If it was what Shiro needed – to be able to move on, to relearn how it was to be human and not a prisoner aboard a battlecruiser with his life on a rope; if it meant Keith shutting down every crevice and cavern, he'd do it. To see Shiro again, see him safe, alive. This is enough.

It really was – enough. Enough for him to keep the skin from blistering, keep his heart from breaking, through the battle with Zarkon and the Robeast, Haggar's magic and Lotor, the origins of Voltron and the ugly, debilitating truth of what things are, what they all were, what he actually was – through every hurdle and stone and rubble and mountain his life had thrown at him. The Blade of Marmora and his mother—

"Hello Keith," The Shiro in front of him says – imperious, cold, unkind. It's the final chip in wall that's long past breaking.

"It's going to be okay. You know that, right?" Keith asked – pleaded – unwilling to raise a hand to Shiro. Everything that had kept pushing him up to this point, every decision he's had to make, every blood spilled on his behalf – everything – he had been willing to shoulder, to bow his head and accept as his responsibility. The Blades, Galra, Voltron – he had been willing to bleed for them, for all of it. Once, a man had so much faith in him – that he could be better, better than anything Keith could ever come up for himself.

It was a flurry of vermillion and cerise, blade against blade. Fallen steel beams and shattered glass pods, an endless number of clones – in the same muscle, same skin, the same beatific look of repose Shiro had when he was asleep – all bubbling up his throat as he parried each slash of Shiro's sword – the manic animosity, tinged in crimson. Rampage.

Keith ducks, feels the heat of the cerise blade cut through strands of his hair as he falls on all fours, pushes himself back and rolls away, just as Shiro runs his fist through the ground. Steel breaks, and what's left is a gaping crater, hate flashing through Shiro's eyes – an emotion Keith's never seen on the other's face, least of all directed to him.

"Shiro, please," that's all he could do, all he could say. What else can you say, when the person who was half of you, the entirety that made you as you are was on the opposite end of the spectrum, nothing but rage and hate and disgust smeared across his eyes and his lips like a stain you can't erase? Haggar's magic may have caused this, but it didn't lessen the blow, didn't make the pain feel any less crippling.

Hopefully, there's still Shiro under all that.

Hopefully, there's still a beating heart under all that rage.

Hopefully, there's still the Shiro that loves him beneath the fabrics of magic and madness.

"I should have abandoned you like your parents did," Shiro seethes, teeth bared, corded muscles bunched in his furor. Each word, each synonym – pronounced clearly and loudly – and Keith doesn't realize he's taken a step back, his free hand bunching up the cloth of his cuirass over his chest as if to rid himself of the ache, the pain. The moment of weakness – the slip of vulnerability – has the vermillion-red of Shiro's eyes flashing and the grin that follows is unforgiving.

"They saw you for what you are." Shiro continues, cruelty fashioning his words into needle-sharp spears that slid past his defenses. "Broken. Worthless."

No, you don't mean that. You don't. Keith bites his lip, raises his sword and angles his body, tries to remember everything Shiro taught him about his balance, trying to forget the hateful, ugly truth spewing from his lips.

"I should have seen it myself."

If you believe that, if you really believe that, then…

Then, those promises. Those nights spent in the silence of the shack, in a space they could almost call their own. If everything Shiro said was true, then, what was the point? Why keep fighting him? Why keep fighting at all?

Wouldn't it be better to just give up, surrender—allow himself to be flung into the waves and drown and disappear, if it meant hurting less, if it meant that he didn't have to feel like every goddamn step took more and more from him until he's half-full of regrets, half-empty of a finishing line?

And the thing is—Quintessence—whatever it is, as a whole, it was the crux of everything. It was energy and truth. The ideal under all the covers and masks, the undeniable genesis in the core. And if something like that had crept under Shiro's guard to infect his mind, putting him under Haggar's control—

Even if it meant that everything Shiro said was true—

Even if it meant that everything Shiro said was something he believed—

Keith couldn't. He couldn't allow it. It'd be too much, too much to sacrifice.

It would be too easy to give up, to surrender, to let death have his way with him.

He grips the sword tight – tight enough to hurt, to distract him from the realization that he's gone past the point of no return. After this, there will be nothing left.

No more finish lines and end-games. No more bumbling hopes and childish dreams. He's long sold his chances to a future the moment he raised his sword against the man who taught him how to wield one.

This is how you lose him, the voice in his ear whispers. Goads. Seethes. It sounds like his father – like his mother. Most of all, it sounds like Shiro. This is how you lose him all over again.

"Just give in, Keith. The team's already gone. I made sure of it myself." The man above him gloats, pressing his blade down against his. There's nothing of the Shiro he knew – the man he loved – in those eyes and, God, the similarity still hurt like a freight train, like an entire avalanche of rubble pounding him into the dirt.

Keith's entire body hurts, every muscle and joint aching for peace, limbs weary from holding a blade, weary from fighting. It's the only thing he knows to do now. Fighting. Fighting and hurting and killing.

He doesn't want to fight anymore. No more shedding of blood, no more violence. All he ever wanted was to belong, to feel like he had a place in the world - that somehow, somewhere, there was someone who would see him and not shake their head in disappointment, who would see past every wall he's built to keep others from hurting him even deeper and realize that the solitude he's lived in for so long was never something he wanted—

FIghting has made him lose so much. His innocence, his dignity. His family. And he'll lose Shiro.

He can't. He can't lose Shiro. Not like this. Never like this.

He doesn't want to fight anymore, doesn't want to raise a blade to his brother and friend and the love of his life, all of those titles and more, amalgamated into the taupe-eyed morning star that had saved him from the start.

Shiro bears the blade lower, growling and the cerise-bright heat sears Keith's cheek. Marked, the burning, white-hot pain lancing through him, blinding him, electrifying the nerves around the mark.

He doesn't realize he's screaming, buckling, desperately digging a way out with his body through the steel ground, away from everything that hurt, from everything that kept hurting him over and and over and—

Shiro.

Shiro wouldn't want this.

Shiro isn't like this.

Shiro would rather die than do this.

"No," Keith roars, allowing the rage in his blood – the blood of his people – to fuel his limbs, pooling the energy into weary bones and slides through the space between their bodies, arcing around, bearing down with the force of his rage.

Light sizzles, the cerise blade against his face dissipates and Shiro is on his knees and a gaping, hacked-off absence of a mechanical right limb. The look of shock – fear – in taupe eyes slowly losing their vermillion glow cuts through the air, and Keith finds the strength to force his legs to stand.

Was it worth it—the price you had to pay—for this? The voice asks. Keith can't look away, can't look away from every emotion in Shiro's eyes: rage and terror, betrayal and loss.

It wasn't. It wasn't worth the price. The indents of the blade's grip are as familiar to Keith as the pattern of Shiro's breathing in sleep. He raises the blade high, overhead, an executioner awaiting the sentence. Shiro's lips move – part to speak, whisper out a name. His own name. Nothing is worth this.

"But I have to," the words escape his lips out of their own volition. Keith's insides are frozen, twisted in ice. Shiro was willing to make the sacrifice play, was willing to bet his entire life on saving people - both those he knew and those who couldn't give two shits about him. Shiro strived to be better than the rest, than the monotonous, sheep-minded cattle of an ignorant world. Shiro was willing to burn himself out - a flickering phoenix - all too ready to crash if it meant paving the way for a better future. Can Keith do any less? Can Keith find the strength to do that—to put the needs of the others, the many, above his? Can he find the strength to throw away everything he had if it meant protecting the world, protecting those left? The answer burns bright, in the crest of the sword overhead, the grip biting into his skin.

This is what it means to gamble and lose. This is what it means to lose everything. "I couldn't protect you."

The admission is quiet, almost silent amidst the humming of energy in the platform's once-dormant machinery. Shiro stares at him in horror – and Keith, he gets it. To have someone finally see him for what he was – is. All too willing to pay any price. "But I could protect everyone else if I do this."

"Keith." His name is spoken in broken inflections, tinted in half-regret, half-something. Something important. Something Shiro wants him to know.

"I love you." Keith admits. He finally admits. He says it as clearly as he can, as heartfelt as he can. He says the words as every bone that kept him standing crumbled and turned to dust, at every memory of every sacrifice he's had to make rears its ugly head to bristle and smolder at him – until all that's remaining is a withered husk of all the hopes he's given up on.

At the very least, Shiro deserves to know. At the very least, what Keith feels deserves to be known. The idea – the dream – the small flame of possibility, an almost-idyllic prayer of what could have been – a future with Shiro – all of it, it burned like a sigil deeply embedded into his skin, its fire cutting deeper than the scar on his face ever could. The utter unfairness of it crashes into him in unceasing waves and all he could do was swallow his sobs, swallow them as deep as he can until he's choking in his own blood.

He hopes – on that small flame – that the words carry everything he doesn't have the strength or the time to say, all the times that he had been ready to give up, starting from the first, the moment he spied crimson beyond sheer curtains, the moment taupe eyes gleamed gold in laughter, mauve sunsets and ochre sunrises.

And the others—

They're going to know.

Aren't they?

They're going to smell it on him—Shiro's blood. The stench of death; the slow decay—his own, on the inside. The putrefaction.

But maybe—

Maybe there's a chance—a snowball's chance in hell.

Maybe Shiro will want to forgive him.

It's not something that can be forgiven; it's not something that's possible to assuage or absolve or unmake. But the intention counts. The intention matters. If Shiro hasn't forsaken him no matter how much he deserves to be locked up and lost, no matter how many times Keith's failed him, failed them, dashed every hope into a disappointment—

And maybe—

Maybe Shiro will understand.

Maybe Shiro will understand the stomach-churning desperation, the panicked fucking urgency of trying to reconcile the honest truth that it was never what he wanted with the fact that he did it anyway; with the fact of the rust-red stain ground into every line of his hands; with the impression of it on him everywhere like a spiderweb of severed veins—

Shiro's eyes widen – taupe on taupe, vermillion gone – as the words sink in. Keith tastes blood, and brings the sword down.

The platform explodes.

Infinite white.

Shiro's unconscious body, hand held in Keith's, as pure white reaches out for them. The blade he holds on to in his other hand – the blade struck into the platform and keeping them afloat – slowly starts to cut through the metal, unable to take Keith and Shiro's weight.

This is how it ends. Keith understands, as he takes one final moment – tracing the slope of Shiro's nose, the lashes set against tan skin, the muscles lax. No sneer or grimace, no murderous rage painting his face into an ugly visage of everything he'll never be able to have.

Maybe this is forever. Keith thinks, as the blade finally cuts through everything and they free fall into nothing but light. The seconds swim by with the force of hours.

Keith finds Shiro's spirit in the frozen, timeless plane, where he's been waiting for so long.

"I'm sorry," the apologies are rushed, blubbered, as he tries to look past the blurriness, tries to map the hazy outline of Shiro's eyes. "I'm sorry."

Forgiveness tastes like soot in his mouth, and he feels it crumbling into dust in his hands.

"You found me." Shiro – the real Shiro – says, eyes half-closed in exhaustion, running up Keith's jaw and into his eyes. The golden flecks gleamed in the nearest star's light.

"You should rest." He says, answers, tries to hold back everything else he wants to say – allows himself to be weak enough, weak enough to raise his gloved hand and push the silver hair away from Shiro's eyes. The scar across his nose has long healed, and Keith resists the desire, the want, to run his fingers over it. He doesn't. He can't. Not anymore. "I'll be here when you wake up."

He doesn't notice the rest of the team – not the way Lance sniffles, or the way Allura wipes her hands across her face and breathing wetly. He only sees the way Shiro looks at him, his eyes alight with an emotion he can't name – the way it takes forever for Shiro to nod, to close his eyes and lean his forehead against Keith's chest.

The ache, the need – God – the want to just tuck Shiro against him, hold him tight, lock Keith's arms around the too-big body and just never let go – it's almost overpowering, overwhelming.

But – when he feels Shiro's breathing ease into a fitful sleep – he looks up to Allura and Lance, and finds their gazes on him already.

"I—"Nothing comes out for a moment, his lips moving, groping for words, but no sound escapes save for the shift of leather of the cuirass. "I need—"

It's not a matter of I, anymore. Shiro needs rest. He needs medical help, needs to be checked for anything not normal. He needs to be in a secure location, needs to be watched. Keith has no idea how Haggar's magic works – or how Allura even manipulates Quintessence but he can't—

He can't be the one. He's too compromised, too emotionally involved. Not when the realization that he was this close to killing Shiro—

This close to destroying everything he stood for—

No, he can't be the one.

"I need you take him somewhere safe," He says – no, orders – his voice brooked no argument. A glare is all he needs for Lance to compose himself and nod, opening his arms and taking hold of Shiro's unconscious body. Allura's gaze flashes with concern for him, before nodding and turning to the rest of the team. "Put him in the Black Lion. Shiro's energy is strongest there – perhaps it will keep him stable for the moment."

Seeing Shiro in Lance's arms, watching as the other walks away with Hunk's help – it took everything in Keith to not run after, to not wring Shiro from the other's arms and keep him close—

Allura is beside him, closer, when Lance and Hunk and Shiro are too far away, already heading up the Black Lion, and his legs are standing on their last nerves, and she places a hand on his shoulder – not unlike the way Shiro would – and that's what breaks him—

"I almost killed him." He says, whispers – stutters. "I almost killed him."

It leaves him gasping, breathing through ichor and seeing through molten fire. The epiphany – the groundbreaking truth – of what he had been willing to pay, of the choice that he had been willing to make. How the pain had sharpened to a point where he couldn't feel anything as he made the choice, asked for no explanation from Shiro - to be judge, jury and executioner in a breath of a second. Allura's arms are suddenly around him as his knees lose whatever strength they have, the ground hurtling up to meet him—

"Easy, easy, boy," Coran's words are soft, faint – a whisper over the din of the thunder in his ears. "Just breathe. There we go, good."

Keith nods, feels the Altean's hand on his shoulder move to his back. Allura is still beside him, her own silver hair flanking her, and all it took was the liquid gleam of her blue-violet eyes for him to rest his knees on the ground and lay his head against her shoulder, uncaring of the way the warmth tracked down his temple in a clear line, the way the sorrow and the regret trailed down his hands in bright-red splotches, except there's no blood, nothing to show for his mistakes.

He feels shame welling up, like a torrent in reverse, whirling like a maelstrom and sweeping everything warm – everything that drove the cold away – until he feels ice all over. His eyes shut on their own, as he raises a fist to his lips to ease – to stop – the trembling of his chin and the repetitions of I'm sorry itching to burst from his lips.

Allura's hands are on his face, his hair and he hears her say his name over and over – sorrow lacing them, softly-spoken – and Coran's still with them, with his hand still on Keith's back and he doesn't know what to do with the hand not against his mouth except run to it up his chest and claw at the tightness, the suffocating weight on it, trying to breathe—

A sniff against his cheek, an almost quiet whine and his wolf – Yorak – is suddenly pressing into his space, soft muzzle and sharp ears and the alien – otherworldly – scent that Keith couldn't place but felt intrinsically familiar, and Yorak is huge, almost as tall as Keith should the wolf stand on his hind legs, and this way – with Keith's arms roping around him, he feels warm, feels the ice in his veins and on his skins thawing out. Yes, he's in control. He can do this. He can breathe. Just in and out. Inhale. Exhale. Just breathe—

Warm. It envelopes him, like a blanket of gentle fire. Concern. Keith opens his eyes and Yorak's bright-yellow starlike eyes look back at him under the strangely colored fur.

I'm happy you're here. Keith thinks. There's a response, a pulsating of something brighter – happiness, joy – in his mind. Yorak tilts his head to the side and presses his muzzle against Keith's nose. Shiro would have loved him, Keith realizes. Shiro was too gentle, too soft – could not resist the sunlight eyes of a cosmic wolf or the sullen purple glare of a too lonely boy. Shiro.

The warmth twists until it's paler, dimmer. Sadness. Yorak whines, his mental awareness of Keith's moods troubling him. It had been a while since the wolf had to feel the more volatile side of Keith's temperament, had grown used to the easiness of the two-year time loop they've been travelling in.

And—

Yorak's not used to it, to everything Keith feels for Shiro – for the impact of so many emotions, as deep-seated as his own bones, all tumbling out in the open and overwhelming and suffocating. He didn't miss the way Yorak pressed into him before collapsing against him, whining against his chest. Just one more mistake to add to the never-ending list of mistakes he's made.

Keith closes his eyes and presses his forehead against the fur. I'm sorry.

It's the only thing he's said so far, and it's the only thing that has been appropriate. It's the only thing he can do to pay back everything else he's done.

Only the infectious ripple of Yorak's excitement and recognition that thrummed in Keith's mind alerted him to the person approaching the group.

All it took was opening his eyes, looking up and seeing the same pain in his mother's eyes – and Keith finally realizing what emotion had been there all this time, what emotion had been lurking in the shadows of purple in every glance she thinks Keith doesn't notice, in every aftermath of the times he's told her about Shiro, about Voltron and the team and everything that had kept him standing and it dawns on him, like an asteroid cutting through the atmosphere and crashing to the ground in a tumultuous storm, that – for the longest time – what he had thought was distance was nothing but loss.

And—

Keith knows that Krolia knows how it feels like—

To make the choices no one else would—

To sacrifice everything the way no one else was willing to—

To bloody their hands with the lives they've damaged and destroyed if it meant something greater, protecting something greater, someone greater—

He doesn't remembering standing, doesn't remember walking past Allura and Coran, ignoring Romelle's wide-eyed stare, Yorak trailing at his heels, until he's in his mother's space, standing before her and—

What can he say? What can he do? What else can he do but raise his shoulders in a confused shrug, his arms open and placating for a reason – any reason – to justify the constant gnawing in the space between his lungs, the lead in his muscles and the obsessive drive to claw his own skin through and pull his heart out and crush it until it stops hurting—

What else can he say except the repetitive, stuttering, weak, worthless mantra – "I had—I had to—I had" – and not knowing if it's enough, if it will ever be enough for anyone else, if it will ever be enough to justify what he's had to do, if it will ever be enough for him to forgive himself.

Weak. Broken. Worthless.

His mother reaches a hand out, and her touch is gentle, fragile and heartbreakingly soft against his cheek and—

"I know." Krolia says, and somehow the words are enough. Somehow, the two simple words of understanding are enough. They're short, small, and insignificant but they're enough.

And maybe it's because Krolia's his mother – or maybe it's because she knows, intimately, on what it means and what it feels to do what you have to do – or maybe it's both but suddenly they're enough.

And her arms are around him, and his nose is pressed against her chest and he finally allows himself to cry.

A flurry of decisions are made – interstellar courses, transit routes, possible planets for sanctuary on their way to Earth, Galra fleet movements, evading great attractors – and Keith spends it by the metal door near the Black Lion's cockpit, half-hidden in shadow, watching Shiro sleep. It had been fortuitous – the random pressing of a few buttons in a mission almost a lifetime ago – that turned the pilot seat into a makeshift table. It wasn't as comfortable as a mattress, but with the Castle gone, it was the best they had.

Shiro spends most of his time asleep, capable of only waking in short bouts, just enough for taupe eyes to peek through the slits, enough for the slight movement of his lips or the deeper breaths he's taking.

Just enough for Keith to duck his head and step deeper into the shadows. Just enough for him to erase whatever emotion is on his face and turn away, only to bump into another of the team – Allura's concerned gaze, Lance's wide-eyed worry or Hunk and Pidge's all-too-knowing looks – and it takes every skill of diversion and redirection for him to ward off their questions, circle about and disappear. He knows what he's doing isn't helping anyone – all this avoidance and secrecy hadn't helped anyone at the start, and it'll do no wonders this time around. Except, it's not the secrecy Keith avoids –

It's the questions. The doubt. The pervasive, repetitive desire to know what happens next – what happens to him and Shiro in the aftermath – what the fallout's going to be like, how far the damage has spread and just how irreparable everything would be.

— and crawling after the fire, Shiro is going to need to heal, to be around people who can help him heal and settle. Shiro's had to make his way from here to now, carrying the memory of the people he's sacrificed to get back home and Keith knows that feeling all too well.

Shiro doesn't need another corpse clinging to him. He doesn't need another obliterated soul wrapping bloody shreds and tendrils around his ankles while he tries to move the fuck on from his own damn punishment; he doesn't need—

Keith.

Is the thing.

He doesn't need Keith.

He doesn't need distractions. He doesn't need somebody else's selfish fucking pain. He's got his own hurdles to jump and his own damn mountain to climb; the last thing he needs is a half-alien weight hanging off of him while he tries to take them.

Keith's never been good with feelings, self-pity least of all, never been good with handling them – be it one way or the other. He's pulled the trigger wire in too many situations, had thought too much instead of acting, had acted too much instead of thinking and has put the lives of a lot of people in jeopardy. It's better this way – to wall off the things that could shatter his control. It's a slow, nigh-torturous lesson – to realize know that any moment he could lose control, he could do something irreversible.

He doesn't need any more reminders. Shiro's terrified face flashes every time he closes his eyes.

It's fine. It's okay. It has to be.

He has to be okay with this distance.

He can't ask for more. He doesn't have the right.

There are moments, where he sits on the ground by the door, still carefully watching every breath Shiro takes in his sleep, still telling himself Shiro's alive, Shiro's real, Shiro's not dead, I haven't killed him, I haven't killed him, still allowing himself to be weak enough, or strong enough, to remember the almost-idyllic memories, soft touches and forehead kisses and bright-eyed laughter in filters of mauve and gold – in moments where he lets the memories distract him, lets the fleeting happiness of those days reclaim whatever warmth was left in him, in those seconds where he doesn't notice the things around except at the trail end of a fleeting dream, he feels like Shiro's watching him.

Of course, Shiro still spends more time asleep than awake – but he's getting more and more lucid, can sit up longer, talk longer, long enough for him to look around and ask Where's Keith and long enough for Keith to stand there, hidden in the doorway, back pressed against the wall and just—

Listening to his voice. Hearing it again. Every echo slithering through and up his ear and it takes everything in him and more to keep himself quiet, stifle the need to call his name and push his way to the front until he can feel, until he can place his hands around him, convince himself that this is real - that Shiro is real - and hold him close.

Luckily, the team – namely Allura and Pidge – somehow knew what to say in response to the question. Security checks and rounds and circling about warp storms and great attractors. They were constantly moving through space, shuttling to one planetoid after the other as Allura continues to reach out to rebel planets using the Blue Lion's navigation system, all the while evading Galra scouting parties and reserving booster fuels. They kept their energy use low, kept communication to a minimum, lights off.

The Black Lion pilots itself, doesn't need Keith's input, and it seems to have understood the situation, settling in the center of their convoy, protected on all sides. Keith settles inside, keeping guard, watching over Shiro.

They settle on a small moon, just outside the ring of a dead planet and the nearest star was somewhere in the millionths of a parsec from their position. They settled down south, away from direct light, tilting the temperature down to a degree on the more uncomfortable side. Still, it's enough for them to get some sleep, to do stock check of the emergency rations that Shiro had once wanted placed in every Lion's cockpit. Looking back, it had been very lucky of them to have Shiro onboard – to have someone who knew how to survive having their backs. They wouldn't be here if it weren't for him.

Keith wouldn't be here if it weren't for him.

"He's been asking for you." A voice greets him. It's usually loaded on energy and fire, with a witty remark just waiting to be let loose. Lance is stoic – almost quiet. Keith starts a bit, surprised, before settling down, turning his head away from the other Paladin. "He's worried about you, Keith."

Keith bites his lip, resting his forehead against the metal of the cockpit door. It's cold under his skin, but he's dealt with colder and closes his eyes, hoping Lance would just leave him alone.

"I'm fine." He answers, and he knows it's not the right one if the sigh he receives in response is any indication. "I am, Lance."

"No, you're not." The other prods, walking up to him and crossing his arms. The cockpit doors open slightly at his approach, and Keith watches Lance turn his head, probably to take a peek on Shiro. Keith doesn't know what to make of the emotion in the other's eyes – bright, wide-eyed, gentle – but it feels like bile and dirt and he feels disgusted with himself for thinking so. This was Lance, this was a…friend. A brother.

"You know," Lance begins, voice smaller than Keith's ever heard it before. The Paladin breathes deep, uncrossing his arms, head still turned to the cockpit, as he continues. "You can only keep so many things to yourself until you explode. There's no telling what's in store for us, Keith. Nothing."

It's not like Lance needs to tell him for Keith to get that. He knows all about lights at the end of a tunnel, and no way of knowing if he's still running on solid ground. Look up too many times and too long at a time and you end up missing the final step off a cliff's edge.

Lance makes a sound, a sort of sucked in sound that sounds almost sardonic, if not for the gentleness of his eyes. "You remember the first time all this started? All it took was me realizing it was you in the middle of it all and suddenly I was sixteen and desperate to surpass you for taking the golden boy's attention all the time."

Keith remembers. He doesn't remember Lance from before, only had eyes for the dark-haired, star-eyed man who was kind enough, gentle enough to reach out to a boy who spent too long a time in an orphanage, but he can remember Lance from after. He can still see it, clear as day – or night – and can still remember each breath he took to keep himself standing when he burst into that room and found Shiro after so long. "I do."

Lance shakes his head, a corner of his lips up. "All I wanted that time was to get one up on you, just once, and suddenly there were Blue Lions and ancient technology and scary princesses and a war on top of that."

His voice falls to a whisper - breaks on the last word, and Keith raises his head as Lance raises a hand to wipe at his eyes. "It almost feels like another life."

"Lance—" Keith starts, wanting to…what? Stand, put a hand on Lance's shoulder and grip it hard enough to bruise? Tell him that he understands, more than anyone else, how he feels?

The other shakes his head, giving him a wide smile that was full of teeth, only a shadow of that light reaching his eyes. "I just…wanna make it clear that," Lance clears his throat, "we've got no idea what's waiting for us. Tomorrow, we could finally be in our own solar system, or we'd end up gunned down by Galra battleships. Nothing's certain, Keith, and we can only keep shit to ourselves for so long before we run out of second chances."

Keith doesn't miss the insinuation – one more chance, a second one, in a line of finite chances – and he doesn't miss the dead serious look in the other's eyes. The image of Lance, tinged in the blue-grey light of the nearby planet ring, eyes that have seen too much – done too much – and, it's like looking in the mirror, seeing your own reflection in a pool of your own blood and looking up and wondering—

When did we grow up?

"I've done too much, Lance." Keith confesses. Hoarsely. "Everything is red."

Lance's gaze is tired, resigned, exhausted — but his words are honest, determined. "They don't have to be, Keith."

He grimaces, the words spat out instead of spoken. "I'm not fit for anything, Lance. I almost killed him. I had the sword up and ready to strike him down and, God, Lance, you should have seen his eyes. He was so goddamn afraid and I was ready to put him down and—"

He chokes on the last word and gasp-sobs air in. Lance's eyes are wide, shocked, but they don't hold the disgust and the fear Keith expected them to.

"It's what he would have wanted you to do, you know that. Shiro was willing to be the sacrifice. He's only regret was that it had to be you that had to hold the knife."

Keith turns away, clutching at his chest, feeling the scar across his cheek, just breathing — away from the lack of judgment from Lance's voice, away from anything that tried to lessen the guilt he was drowning in.

"It's not your fault, Keith." Lance continued, and Keith could hear the way his voice shook, ever so softly, so minutely. "You have to believe that. Don't let it fester and consume you. Don't let this be a mistake, Keith. Shiro will never think of it as your fault. I know that, I can bet on that. Don't beat yourself like this."

Keith turns to him—

And finds—

The hauntedness in their eyes, the exhaustion painted in the hollowness under them, in the ghosts that kept them awake at night, in the crushing realization of what people - living things - what the world actually is.

When did they become full-fledged soldiers?

"Talk to him, let him know. He won't believe anyone else. Only you."

"Believe what?" Keith spat. "Believe that I'm just a mistake waiting to happen? Just another fuck-up in the making? Haven't I done enough damage, Lance?"

The other shakes his head, stares too strongly at Keith—

"No, not that. Never that. He needs to see it, for him to believe it. He needs to know that you forgive him."

Keith's lip curl into a mocking grimace. "Forgive him for taking the blame for my mistakes? Forgive him for suffering the price of the choice I had to make?

"Forgive him for not being able to save you, Keith."

And—

It's just—so typical, so fucking typical of Shiro to be like that — typical like ugly, typical like the creeping, choking doubt and regret that he can barely keep shut—

"Just think about it, Keith, before it's too late," Lance ended, walking up to him and reaching a hand out. Keith stares at it, biting his lip, mulling the words over, before taking the hand and being pulled to his feet and—

To his surprise—

Lance pulls him close and hugs him hard. It's surprising – still is, even after the months of animosity had faded and turned to a friendly rivalry, a comfortable exchange of wit and spite that held no venom, just to amuse the rest of the team, far closer than they had been with each other at the start – even after all the blood and fire, to feel Lance this close and feel his arms tight around Keith and, God, his own arms are wrapping back, just as tight, just as heartbreakingly tender.

The other Paladin eases himself out of Keith's arms, eyes shining and lips bunching up as if to say something and all Keith could do was just give him a shaky smile. "I'll be okay, Lance."

And it takes everything in him to say the next few words out, but he does. "You're my family. I know you'll always have my back, and I'll always have yours."

And the truth is too vulnerable, too honest, too bare and far too easy for the world and life to shred into strips, to crush into the very dirt and to infect it until all that remains is a distorted ruin of what's no longer there—

But the truth—sometimes, it's the only thing that can keep people going. Sometimes, it's the only thing that's enough.

Lance blinks once – twice – before nodding, sharply turning away and walking towards the exit and Keith pretends not to notice him raising a hand to wipe at his eyes. Keith's face screws up, his chest tightening, wondering if Lance will be okay, but he knows he'll be – that they'll all be okay. They had each other – they didn't have to be alone and they'll learn to stand up again.

It's just the cycle of life, isn't it? Fall and rise, repeat and rinse. Hurtle towards one direction and you either end up circling back or hitting the end so hard you end up thrown in reverse—

Doesn't matter if the way is forward or backward, as long as it's not stone-still in the middle while the universe and the stars coming rushing by, and you're left standing at the precipice waiting for the stars to evaporate.

It's a lesson to be learned, and Keith realizes the shortsightedness that had been plaguing him since the clone facility.

"Lance is right, though," A low, careful voice cuts through his thoughts and Keith turns, wide-eyed, as Shiro sits up and gives him a small smile. "Hello, Keith."

It's the same phrase that the other Shiro had said, the one under Haggar's magic, the one that had been all too willing to hurt him, to kill him. Keith's hand rises to his cheek, to the scar, before he even realizes what he's done.

Shiro's eyes widen — locked onto the scar — and any question about remembering, if the transition from spirit to bone had changed anything, had made Shiro forget anything, they all flew out the window as guilt flashed in his eyes and he ducked his head, silver hair unable to hide the devastation across his features.

"I thought I was going crazy when I kept remembering that," Shiro admits - in the tense silence - words bitten out like it pained him to do so. Keith holds a hand out to the metal door, steadying himself, unsure if he can rely on his legs right now. "I thought it was all an insane dream. There was no way I'd hurt you like that, no way in hell I'd do that to you, of all people."

Keith's eyes sting, recalling every slash of the cerise blade, every punch in his gut - up his chin and across his face - how each blow had his vision disappearing into too-bright, too-dark hues of black and white, how every second he tried to stand, tried to find the strength to move his limbs, Shiro was there - ready to beat him into the dirt; how each line of instinct in his body told him to run, to flee - there was no forgiveness, no mercy, in every laser-bright bite of Shiro's sword - and this was no hallway brawl, but a fight to the death.

Shiro's kind smile, the scent of cedar pressed against Keith's nose, the warmth of Shiro's arms around him interspersed with the utter hatred in crimson-tinged eyes and the suffocating thought of failure, of how many times he's failed over and over.

— and the finality, the dead-end, no more lines to follow, raising a blade, staring into the human, fear-stricken eyes of Shiro and weighing the odds, the price, the idea of what it means to be a hero - to be a defender - to protect people—

To save one person meant not being able to save another, and how far Keith was willing to go to pay that price.

Shiro's eyes, when he opens them, under the glimmer of the planet's ring, are wracked in despair and guilt as they map over Keith's face - over the scar across his cheek, the bruise up his chin and across his face—

"God, Keith—" Shiro grits out, bone-weary and wholly exhausted, and Keith has to stop himself — has to push himself against the door and stop himself from crossing the distance and burying himself against Shiro's side, reaching out for the part of him that had been missing for so long, it threatened to drown him— "I'm a monster. I'm a goddamn monster. I'm a fucking monster."

And Keith sees the self-deprecation and the regret and the ugliness of knowing what he's done, it's all there, in splotches across Shiro's face, like blood-red paint and black ink, reminding him on what he's lost and what he's about to lose again—

The realization moves Keith forward, the steel clanging under his boots with each step, until Shiro is raising his head, just in time as Keith steps into his space, rears his fist back and punches him. The force of it - the resounding slap of skin against skin - has Shiro's head turned to the side, surprise overtaking the guilt and the pain and the fear for a moment, the slightly growing soreness in Keith's knuckles barely noticeable, his hearing shot, the air between them frozen—

Before Keith takes Shiro's face in his hands again and angles them to him, to meet his and just—

"I'm the monster, Shiro." His words are bullets, biting deep into the surprise. Shiro's eyes are unyielding but bare, and Keith can see everything - not a single emotion is hidden as the words sink in.

"No, Keith, you're not a monster. If anything, the monster here—"

Keith presses his thumb against Shiro's lips, silencing him. It's enough — to hear Shiro tell him that, tell him he's not a monster. It's enough. He gives the man a watery smile. "You're broken, Shiro, but you're not a monster. You were controlled, but you're not a monster."

He raises his other hand to push the silver hair away from Shiro's eyes. God, he's so beautiful. A gleaming sunrise, painting the sky in a multitude of colors — scarlet and indigo, azure and rose-gold. Keith had been too willing to end this. He blinks fast, doesn't want Shiro to see him like this.

"You were lost and hurt and abandoned, Shiro, but you're not a monster. It's not your fault."

Shiro opens his mouth, shakes his head but Keith holds him steady and reaches out with his free hand to hold the other's hand, laces their fingers together. "Say it, Shiro. Say it to me. It's not my fault."

"It's not—" Shiro starts, but his lips tremble, and his brows furrow and Keith sees the pain, the ugliness rearing its head at Shiro—"I can't say it, Keith. I c—"

"Yes, you can. You can," He presses his index finger against Shiro's temple, his thumb caressing the line of his jaw. He squeezes the hand in his, and he feels Shiro's pulse under his skin. Alive. "You are so much more than what you think you are, Shiro. You have no idea how much you mean to us. To me. Say it back to me. It's not my fault."

Shiro looks at him - with a gaze that could cut through steel and stone, from under his lashes and into Keith's eyes and his insides are twisting themselves, unsettled at the ferocity of the emotion - bright-hot and electric - and the understanding and the faith and the too-much warmth and too-much brightness, like a lighthouse in your face, the sunlight cutting through the darkness, a full force of a newborn star and Keith sees the doubt, the eclipsing shadow that threatened to pull the rug from under him and, God, Keith knows - he knows how that feels, how suffocating it can feel, how the waters rush at you as you try to keep yourself above the water, fear powering you upwards and the erratic terror of waiting for when something pulls you back under and—Shiro swallows, and his voice is barely above a whisper, so low and so quiet and so small but blindingly true. "It's not my fault."

"I know." Keith answers, mirrors the words his mother had said, and the half-doubts and the questions still lingering in Shiro's eyes in the aftermath of his confession, the poison of self-loathing and regret still slithering in slivers and snippets, they ease when Keith's words fill the silence, when they see the belief - the total faith - in those words. I'm never giving up on you. Never again.

"I heard you, in there," Shiro starts, just as quietly, raising his head to look at Keith. He had bowed over, supine, and only Keith's hand on his face kept him up. "When you told me you love me, I heard you. No one could hear me, and I couldn't hear anything but I heard you."

And Keith expects embarrassment to flood his cheeks, for the self-consciousness to sweep through every crevice of his being. He expects the iron-clad gates of his walls to close, shut, locking everything and everyone out.

Yet, though his cheeks do feel warm, and he does take note of the tension of his ears, everything else is eclipsed by the liquid gleam of Shiro's eyes, the blown-out look of wonder, and the almost-disbelief trailing the edges of his lips.

It's always you.

Only that's not the whole story, is it? Sure, he used to be reckless, because he set the value of his life a hell of a lot lower than that of anyone around him, because he thought it was tainted to begin with. And he still kind of feels that way, now that he knows for a fact that it's tainted for good.

And, sure, maybe it's not like he asked for this. It's not like this was another catastrophe of his own making, another shot in the dark that ended with more blood on the floor than intended. It's not like this was an overestimation of his own capacities combined with the usual undervaluation of his own existence. It's not like this was something he leapt into without looking, because he wanted to, or felt inclined, or didn't care. It's not like he ever signed up for any part of this without being fucking coerced with the thought of losing everything important to him.

And maybe it looks just like a long list of pigheadedness-borne stupidity, but it's not. Not just for now, but as a whole. It's not.

He's here, standing in front of Shiro, with a scar across his face and body too bruised to do anything effective, maybe even an explosive shrapnel high up somewhere he's not aware, and less blood inside him than out so that other people didn't have to be.

So that Shiro can still keep on fighting his place. So that Pidge wouldn't have to lie to her brother about being okay, about having no nightmares. So that the relentless, destructive, toxic hands of war wouldn't have to reach out further and further, pulling more people in, twisting and infecting them until all that's left is cannon fodder.

Shiro's eyes are so bare, so open and Keith can't do anything but press their foreheads together and breathe his scent in. "Say it back to me."

Keith opens his eyes, the ends of Shiro's words trailing in his ears. The other's face is determined, brows set in a concerned line, and he looks so much like his old self - like the Shiro that had fought with them from the start, the Shiro that had been with him from the beginning—

Keith stands back up, lips mouthing unspoken words. Shiro chases after him, raises his free hand to place his fingers against Keith's cheek, in a mirror of his own action, but Keith sees the awkward movement of the right limb, the price at the end of Keith's gamble and the bile creeps—

"Look at me, Keith. Look at me in the eye, not my arm." Shiro's voice asks for no opposition, commanding, the baritone edged. Keith can't do anything else but follow, looking into taupe eyes he's known for so long, as long as he knew himself. "Say it back to me, Keith. It's not my fault."

The right arm is distinct in the shadows, the lack of the alien steel of the Galra made all the more distinct. It was a sight branded into Keith's mind, stitched into his soul as a reminder, forever, of what he's had to do—

"Keith," His name on Shiro's lips is fragile, bordering on hope, in unceasing faith - reminiscent of a million stolen moments, in empty training rooms and on a lumpy mattress in an abandoned house and in the arms of the man he loved and Keith swallows a weight the size of a planet in his throat as he looks back up to taupe and mauve, gold and ochre. "I hurt you but it's not my fault. You hurt me but it's not your fault. Say it back to me. It's not my fault."

His lips part, aching to move, to say the words, held back only by the crippling disbelief, the distrust, the apprehension, the maddening fear that he'll never be able to move on and let go—

Shiro leans down, without breaking eye contact, to softly kiss the knuckles of the hand he used to punch him. "Say it back to me, Keith."

"It's not-It's not," His voice breaks. His breath hitches. He continues. "It's not my fault."

The proud, delicate, shaky smile Shiro sends his way drives the words down and—"I know, Keith. I know."

His hands move of their own accord, to feel Shiro's temple against his palm, his thumb tracing the hollow under Shiro's eyes, and Shiro breathes the words instead of saying them, ghosting across his skin—"It's not your fault, and I'll keep saying it. Everyday. For as long as you need to hear it."

And Keith's throat is too tight, his eyes are too itchy and his hands are trembling but Keith's lips are still moving, still chasing after that final train, remembering the promises he's forgotten — the one he made long ago, standing amongst the crowd, watching Shiro smile and nod and speak to a dozen reporters and a hundred cameras, and finding Keith's eyes in the crowd and that tight-lipped smile just for him—

"I love you." He says, blurts out. Without preamble, without volition. Too late to take back. Too late to pretend it was anything but the soul-shaking admission of a secret he's kept so long. Too late for regrets.

Shiro smiles—goddamn soft, and tender and comforting like a dawnstar—

—and curls his hand above the back of Keith's neck, pulls him down softly—

And Keith can only stare and part his lips, falling into Shiro's open arms and against him, as warm breath fans the skin above his lips.

"I love you, too."

And Shiro's lips—and Keith's—over one another's. Searing, fire. Warm, sun. Arcing, light. It's not even just the touch of Shiro's lips — the same lips that had painted the walls of his deepest, darkest secrets — or the but also the touch of Shiro's hand on his cheek, the graze of Shiro's nose against his—? Is it supposed to feel that warm, that intoxicating? Keith doesn't know, he can't find it in him to care to know because his lips are parted open and there's nothing but infinite white light and lax muscles, and he's half-fallen on top of Shiro, his arm around Shiro's neck while the other threads through the other's hair and—

It's just—the heat, burgeoning and suffusing, sparking like a trigger to a dynamite ready to explode like a supernova, and it's just—

Every nerve in his body is set aflame, reactive, corded lightning snapping at the surroundings.

Every thought he's had had gone, away, disappeared, fading into the back of his mind where they can't wrestle control from him.

Every breath he has is stolen, gasped out in the spaces - the minute seconds where Shiro parts from him, in the sharply-breathed in air, before Shiro leans down this time and—

The flare of fucking heat in Shiro's eyes makes Keith's guts tighten up until he feels the force of it trembling out through the tips of his fingers—how is that possible?

He's leaning up, and Shiro's leaning down, and God, it was just—it's just fucking inevitable; it's gravity and magnetics and equal and opposite forces; and he'd be stupid to try to pick a fight with physics.

And he's been afraid — that all this time, from the moment Voltron happened, it had been nothing more than survival. Nothing more than natural selection and breathing, action-reaction. No intellect behind it, no overpowering rationale and sentience to it. That what he's been looking for had long gone, long disappeared the moment Keith watched Shiro take that step aboard the space shuttle. Afraid that there had been nothing waiting at the finish line — that there was no finish line, just an infinite road of fighting and bleeding and picking yourself up even after the blood had coagulated.

Shiro's mouth seals over his, and if this is the point—the warmth and the safety and the all-over-tingles of pleasure coalescing into thicker lines like lightning, the neverending promise of safety, the harbors where the waters are still, the almost cyclical ripple of the sand across the expanse of russet dunes against a mauve sunset, the unyielding vow to be here, forever, never letting go, the undeniable truth of what it means to be here, to be alive, to live—if this is what people are looking for—

It all makes so much fucking sense.

There are a million questions — what do we do next, what happens to Voltron, what about Lotor and Haggar — so many of them, bumbling after the other, thrown across the campfire on the days where they could breathe outside the Lions without the need of their helmets, where they're settled against each other, warm, alive, breathing—

And Keith looks around, just watches the way Allura tries to stop the grin from forming as Lance does something stupid with his face, or the way Pidge and Hunk talk excitedly at passing comets and meteors overhead - amidst a cloud of starlight and nebulaic glimmer - or the warmth of Yorak sleeping on his lap, his mother's small smile thrown his way, or the feeling of Shiro's fingers in his hair, the way the taupe-eyed man's smile grows childish, childlike and utterly charming, fascinated at the length of Keith's hair—

So many questions, so many errant thoughts, still too many fears to assuage and too many secrets to uncover, not just with the war and Lotor, but with him and Shiro and where their relationship is headed—

Thing is—

He doesn't feel anxious. He doesn't feel like he's walking on a tightrope where a single breath in the wrong direction could mean his fall. There's nothing but possibility and hope and just—faith—for the future, for what's in store for them.

The nightmares still exist, the fears still pop up. The ugly visage of regret still rears its head at him. None of that will ever disappear — too ingrained for them to just up and vanish, but Shiro's hand in his keeps the worst of it at bay, the same way his own hand keeps Shiro grounded, certain in the realization that he's finally alive, finally relearning what it means to live—

Lance was right. There was no telling what tomorrow had in store for them. They had to make the most of today, of this time, of now. This second chance he'll never waste again.

"Hey, look at that!" Pidge exclaims, pointing to a star off the horizon, far brighter than the rest. It's still dark, this side of the moon away from the nearest star, and Keith doesn't have to squint to spot the brighter one from the rest in the backdrop.

Shiro inches closer, and wraps his arm around Keith's waist, sets his temple against Keith's shoulder. It's almost reactive, almost instinctual how Keith places his arm around Shiro's waist and laces their fingers together, how he presses his own cheek against the silver-white hair.

"Ah, if I'm not mistaken, that is Tatrit tan Tamasna," Allura answers, arms over her folded knees as she, too, looked up. The star twinkled and shined, far brighter and closer than most. "Your people would have called it the star of the desert, if I recall correctly, and if you imagine it in reverse, it will resemble a tail of a four-legged animal…"

"Polaris," Pidge says - at first, quietly - then repeats it - louder and louder. "Polaris! You know what that means? We're almost home! That's the north star!"

Keith doesn't hear the excitement seeping off the rest. All he feels is the warmth of Shiro's arm around his waist, and the tremulous hope growing stronger by each passing day, punctuated by another coincidence, another sign, another play of fate as he looks at Shiro, sharing a gaze, before turning back to look at Polaris.

The press of Shiro's cheek against his shoulder and Keith turns to him, his heart oscillating from maybe to definitely to finally. The north star glimmers - another golden speck - in the sea of golden specks across taupe in Shiro's eyes. "We're almost home."

Home.

I'm coming home soon. I promise.

Keith smiles, leans his head close and sets it against Shiro's. Close enough to breathe in, close enough to feel, close enough for him to press his lips against the other's in the cover of darkness. Keith closes his eyes and doesn't take notice of the happy smiles on the team's faces - on his mother's lips - and the sunlight-hot warmth of joy pulsating from Yorak—

Not broken. Not weak. Not worthless.

He says it.

He knows it.

He believes it.

FIN