part XII: the White Paladin

The tremor goes away after a few days of medication. Shiro's relief is overwhelming.

He spends his post-space vacation watching Adam work. His fiancé growls at him toothlessly, but allows him to lay his own head on his lap as they're curled up on the couch. Papers and books land on his face immediately, but he doesn't move; instead, he drifts in a vague state between meditation and sleep, eyes closed, the weight of unmade decision worrying at his mind.

He's never been indecisive before. Everything, even the toughest choice, was an issue only as long as he couldn't see it. The choice to hear about his disease. The choice to take the blame for Keith. And, years, years ago, when the world still made sense and the idea of justice still existed outside his own head, the choice to invite Adam for dinner and see what would happen…

His terrifying words sound in his mind over and over again. You undo me. He's always known to some extent how imbalanced things were between them; on better days, Adam seemed blissfully resigned to the fact that he would always melt away in Shiro's hands. On worse, Shiro got cake to the face. They always clashed about it, all the way until the engagement. But these words… they rang of bitterness and frustration he did not expect.

Maybe he should have. Maybe he would have seen them coming, had he not been lost in that endless see of rage and spite at the mounting injustice of the disease, the first of its kind that he could not fix. Maybe he should have seen Adam's efforts to bring him closer for what they were: a cry for balance. For control. For more trust –

When were you going to tell me?

You undo me.

He's trying to comprehend the depths of failure that the disease has thrown him into, but soon he realises he's wasting time. Even if he doesn't understand it by reason, he instinctively knows that Adam's solution, his mother's solution is the only one that would ever save them: stop being an astronaut. Stay. Plant his feet firmly on the ground next to Adam's, hand in ringed hand, marry, and stay.

Give away everything he is now, to avoid losing everything later -

He half-heartedly contemplates confiding in Keith about that, but then decides against it. He can imagine all too well the horror he'd see on the kid's face. Stop flying? He could just as well give up his lungs. His heart shrinks at the very thought of being trapped in Earth-gravity forever.

But it will happen. It was always going to happen. He's just refused to think about it until now.

Is it really that much to give away, now that he knows it's just a year or two? Compared to a lifetime of security, of trust, of a man who lived through a hell of Shiro's own making and still kept coming back, in feats of ordinary, tight-lipped, cynical martyrdom to put his own stunts to shame –

The scale tips, the bulk of the asteroid on his way tilts to reveal a way through, but Shiro's still not choosing a path.

"Let's go to Japan," he says one evening, and Adam barely looks up from a huge holo-map splayed at the kitchen table.

"Right now, or can I finish this chart first?"

Shiro gives him a pale smile. "You feel like right now? It's not like we can't afford it."

"Would love to, Shiro, but some of us have pilotage exams next week." After a while, Adam raises his head to look at him, a shadow of concern in his eyes. "If you want to see your dad, just go on your own."

"The point is to go with you."

The concern gives way to irritation. "I can't! Stop being a nudge!" There are dark rings around his eyes, and Shiro's heart drops to his stomach like an anvil as he notices Adam's hands are shaking slightly.

His expression must change, because Adam sighs.

"It's just too much coffee."

Shiro blinks his nightmare away. "Sure. I'm sorry about this trip. We'll go after your exams are done."

"Mhm." He's already bent back down over the holo-map. Shiro watches him for a long moment. The displayed area is the airspace over North America and the Pacific Ocean, with an intricate web of flight corridors towards upper atmosphere. He knows that map like the back of his own hand.

"Which route are you taking?"

Adam flickers his wrist wordlessly, and a red line reveals itself in the tangle of blue and white. Rising from the garrison base, it crosses over the length of former California and Arizona, looping over land and then coming back out to the ocean.

"That's the Addison Loop," says Shiro, and Adam casts him a surprised glance.

"The what?"

"The Addison Loop. From General Addison in the twenty-fifties. It crosses over the five flight zones from WW3, and you need to check in at each, because there are still military bases there. A massive pain to fly through."

Adam narrows his eyes at the chart. "Wait a second. I see three."

"No, five. You're bordering East Asian airspace there," Shiro makes a vague gesture at one end of the line, "and you're forgetting about the Pacific islands. There's a duty to check in there too. Sam and I almost declared war when we forgot that once."

Adam curses and makes a hasty note. "How has no-one told us that before?!"

"It's supposed to be a tripwire for the examinees, I think."

"Oh, for fuck's- thank you, Shiro. Otherwise we'd be at war with Guam by next week."

Shiro flashes a grin. Adam smiles back, absent-mindedly, and then his glance focuses back on Shiro's face. "That's… the most attention you've ever paid to my exams ever."

Shiro's smile falters. "Am I that bad?"

"No, I guess not." Adam looks down. "You're just… not there. And when you are, you're usually wrapped in your own drama of the highest order, so I'm not really expecting you to?" He clears his throat against Shiro's silent eyes. "What I'm trying to say is, it's nice to have you. Around. In my boring cadet life."

Shiro feels hot. His failure is clouding his brain like a red Martian sandstorm. "Adam, I'm so sorry."

"I said it's nice. Don't… oh, Shiro." Adam stands up and crosses the room to lean over the couch. "Don't make me waste any more time kissing you better. Exams."

Shiro grips his hand wordlessly, trying to communicate the shame and guilt he cannot put into words. He's missing it. He's missing life. His military vocabulary isn't broad enough for this.

Neither is Adam's. He leans in to kiss him, but pulls away before Shiro can take hold of him. "I love you, but if we start getting down to this thing now, I won't be able to make it to Chris' by five, and we booked a double sim. So stop sulking."

Shiro lets him go. "No Saba?"

Adam rolls his eyes. "Boyfriend or something. Fucking great timing, too."

Shiro gives him a pale smile. "I guess you wouldn't know how that is, huh?"

"No idea. Shut up, Shiro. I'm trying to memorise half of the sky here."

Shiro obeys, and instead watches him silently from the couch, trying to make sense of the knot that squeezes his stomach tighter and tighter.

He's no good at this life.

-/-

His mother buys him electro-stimulators for his twenty-fifth birthday. He wears them from that day onwards. Their regular, periodic discharges are a cathartic kind of pain – a physical embodiment of the fixation that his mind has been producing for years now, ever since he found out about the disease. Every once in a few hours, the reality of the muscular dystrophy gets physical. For half a second, he's in pain – and then he can let go, ritual spent, all the attention allocated to the disease given away. He can finally focus.

He spends more time with Keith now, partly because he's making up for the unexpectedly lost month, and partly because it's soothing in an unexplainable way. The kid doesn't know about his disease. But he clearly knows everything about hurt and loss; and as much as Shiro's patience and gentleness is a balm on Keith's aching soul, Keith's raw emotionality and impulse-driven nature are a relief to be around for him. A reminder that the world was never fair much before his disease struck. A reminder that he doesn't have to take it in his stride. That rebellion, too, is a natural instinct.

And, as he looks at the back of Keith's hoverbike wheezing in between the sharp rocks, he marvels at how completely his protégé inhabits his own skin. How there is not an ounce of him hidden away, even if forced to coat itself with indifference; it's there, flaring up to the surface with the smallest prod. And how, in all that raw truth, what Shiro sees as clear as a day is a mirror image of his own soul: arms reaching out into the sky in bottomless longing, and joy, joy, fierce joy of flight.

And – suddenly Shiro feels like there's nothing to lose. The sun is setting over the desert in a golden spectacle, the wind swishing through his ears deafeningly, the damned kid is in front of him, and he's not going to just go and let him win.

He speeds up. There's no disease, no sadness, no complicated feelings, all get left behind with the engine fumes.

Just flight.

He overtakes Keith at the turn, laugher bubbling up in his throat at the kid's expression. "Come on, catch up!" He goes even faster, faster than he should with just the glasses for the wind, the wings of the hoverbike twisting to almost graze the ground in a sharp turn between the rocks. No obstacles too big to manoeuvre around. No hole too narrow to fly through. The hoverbike twirls around its horizontal axis, one wing over the other, and Keith mirrors that; Shiro chuckles, then laughs out loud, his lungs filling up with wind. Sync. They're in sync.

His hands are steady as he approaches the cliff's edge. He's done so many more dangerous things, but out of all of them, this is still his favourite.

Shiro dives.

The hoverbike springs out into the vast nothingness. He plunges the handlebars sharply down, ground racing to meet him, adrenaline rising in his stomach at the sight of certain death, and in the exactly right moment he knows what to do.

He pulls the bike up.

It's perfect.

He laughs breathlessly. There's nothing, nothing better than this.

Keith stays behind on the cliff's edge, and Shiro is proud of him; but the race continues, and Shiro would rather give away his licence than an advantage like this. He rides on, the momentum from the cliff changing him and all his thoughts into a speedy smudge, a braided comet tearing its way through the open desert.

I'm a pilot.

It's obvious, it's clear as a day, as the sunset sky over the horizon line.

Keith catches up to him on the finish line, as Shiro is staring into the distance, his mind filled with the wind and nothing else. He turns his head in warm greeting. He expects Keith to snap at him for cheating, but the kid's face is bright and gracious in excitement.

"Alright. You won this round, but I'll get you in the next race, old timer."

Shiro laughs. "I don't doubt it."

"How'd you do that dive, anyway?" Keith's eyes are shining, and Shiro supposes it's his own fault for showing that to a famous hotshot, but right now he couldn't care less. He chuckles.

"You liked that one, huh? It's all about timing." He makes a couple of steady gestures with his hands. "Pull up too soon, you won't have the momentum needed to create lift. Too late, there won't be enough lift to avoid the crash."

Keith's expression turns thoughtful. "You think I'm ready to try that?"

Shiro could laugh out loud. But he keeps his face straight, even if his eyes betray him. "What do you think?"

It's fascinating to observe Keith's decision-making process, clear as a day on his pale expressive face. Impatience, distaste, reconsideration, finally a choice. Patience yields focus. "Maybe I should be patient. And keep focusing on the basics first."

Shiro gives him a nod, his chest swelling with pride. "You're learning."

He is. He's learning so fast he'll take over the Comet in no time. He keeps every other thought at bay, just the wind and the race and the joy and the pride. And the sun over the desert, the open horizon that he'd seen so many times curving up into a perfect circle as he climbed up and up.

Between the desert and the Hokkaido peaks, how could he ever not become a pilot?

"So… you grew up out here?" Shiro asks, even though he knows the answer. There's a little house westward from them that Keith will own for himself once he turns eighteen, an old Kogane ranch. Keith's head bobs in agreement all the same.

"Yep. Just me and my pop."

"He was a fireman, right?"

"Yeah. He was a real hero." There's no bitterness in Keith's voice, just slight exasperation, as if going and dying on his eight-year-old son was something he'd forgiven his father for, but would still bring that up in their petty arguments. So casual. So… normal. "Everyone told him not to run back into that building, but you couldn't tell him anything."

Shiro takes those words for what they are, not looking under the surface. He gives Keith a warm smile. "Sounds like someone I know."

It's the right thing to say. Keith's face brightens up in the warm glow of the setting sun, and Shiro feels that warmth all the way to his heart.

Then – then the electro-stimulators go off.

He makes a small noise, clutching his wrist to his chest instinctively, and Keith notices right away. A cold shard lodges itself into the warm feeling in his chest.

"What are those?"

There's no point in lying. "These are just some electro-stimulators to keep my muscles loose." His tone is deliberately light, but Keith sees right through it.

"What's wrong with your muscles?"

An opening, a way to tell him – and perhaps he should –

- but even if telling Adam has made it real, telling Keith would put a timer on the kid's shoulders, take away the steady certainty he's been so painstakingly building. And Shiro can't let go of this, of him. Not yet.

"Ah, nothing. This is just what happens when you get to be an old timer." The ripe old age of twenty five years, to be precise.

Worry clouds his dark eyes, the next question imminent. Shiro cuts it short. "Come on. We should get back to the base."

And he drives off, like he is a sulky teenager. Keith catches up in a moment, but the thunderous expression on his face tells Shiro this is far from over.

-/-

And –

In the span of an hour, it's over.

"Pluto?" he says, disbelievingly, staring at Sam with wide eyes. The scientist nods cheerfully.

"Kerberos, to be precise. Furthest. Crew. Mission. Ever."

"But how- we've just come back!"

"Oh, I've known for a while. What do you think that extra month on the Moon was for? They wanted to make sure how well you did under pressure."

Shiro's head is spinning. "Kerberos?"

"Well, we can't land on Pluto itself, so Kerberos is just a convenient stopover. The very edge of our Solar System, Shiro! Just think about it. It took ages to get that agreed with Flight Command."

His heart is beating unprofessionally fast. "That'd take us months just to get there."

"We'd be there and back again in less than half a year. Compared to the Calypso? Oh, we're so spoiled these days."

Shiro lets the thought sink in. Months in space. Furthest exploration flight in the history of mankind. He's broken his share of records, but this – this is on entirely different level. If that works –

If that works, the Comet will rouse generational imagination like the Calypso. In colouring books for brainy six-year-olds, a picture of Pluto will be accompanied by her silver-white shape.

New era of space flight, spearheaded by Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane and his valiant white ship.

He reins in a deep, visceral shudder. "How many people?"

"Just a three-person mission. Me, you, and Matt. If you're in, of course."

Shiro opens his mouth to say an emphatic, unthinking yes – and then the electro-stimulator jolts him. "Ouch. Sam, I- I don't know if that's a good idea for me. I don't know how fast my disease is going to progress. I could put you both in danger."

"Oh, Shiro." Sam's eyes soften as he regards him. "That's why we're doing that now."

"I don't follow."

"You deserve this, son. You've been nothing but an inspiration for every single person in this damn garrison, right from the day you swooped in to save that cadet from getting demoted. You've got the talent and the dedication, but more importantly, you've got the heart." Sam puts a warm hand on his shoulder. "Flight Command wanted me on the edge of the Solar System for a while, and probably wouldn't mind waiting longer. But as far as I'm concerned… I wouldn't entrust my son's life and my own to any other pilot."

Shiro is floored. "You did this… so I could go? Before I can't fly?"

Sam's eyes sparkle with the same intelligent, compassionate joy he remembers from his first disciplinary meeting with Iverson. It was a bump, but it reset the engine. A minor issue. Certainly not the cadet's fault. "Think about it, Shiro. They can't go much farther than the edge of the system. You'd hold that record for a long bloody time."

Shiro laughs, surprise and delight mixed in one slightly choked voice. "Sam, this is mad."

"You said you wanted to do something great before you can't fly anymore. How's that for a crowning achievement?"

"It's…" More than I could ever dream about. "Incredible."

"So what'd you say, Shiro? One last hurrah, just to stick it to Becker's?"

"And then we focus to get Keith into space."

Sam's eyes sparkle. "I think that's a yes."

Shiro can't contain the joy that springs out of him, flowing out of a huge brilliant grin. "Yeah. That's definitely a yes."

-/-

"Absolutely not."

"Mark, I-" Shiro tries to get a word in, but Iverson cuts him off.

"I put up with you for years, Shirogane. I signed your admission papers when you were a thirteen-year-old hotshot, and dealt with everything else ever since, but this is enough. I didn't put everything on the line to keep you in this garrison just to let you go and die on goddamn Pluto."

"Kerberos."

"Your hands started shaking after a fucking month without meds."

Shiro doesn't let his exasperation show. "Because you changed my mission timing midway through. I'll know how much to take now. I'll take three times as much if that gives you peace of mind."

"And what if it's not enough? This is not just you, Shirogane. You'd be taking along two of the brightest damn scientists we've had for years. Losing all of you in one fell swoop-"

"-won't be a possibility," says Shiro calmly. "Waiting is no longer an option, Mark. Flight Command wants that mission before the next decade, and if you want yourself a good enough pilot, then it's going to be either me or Keith. And my time runs out by the end of next year."

Iverson looks apoplectic. "That's exactly my point!"

"Until that moment, I can do this. But you have to let me."

"You're going to get yourself killed, Shirogane!"

Shiro's lips twitch in a sad smile. "One day, I'm sure. But not this time."

Iverson stands up from his desk. "No. I've enabled those self-destructive tendencies of yours for far too long. I hate to do this, Shirogane, but I'm gonna pull rank."

Shiro rises too. He meets his eyes with calm, collected decisiveness. "You can't."

"I'm your commander."

"And I'm a commander of the Kerberos Expedition."

He's met with deafening silence. Iverson's face goes violently purple. They stare each other down, the air heavy in between them, but Shiro knows he's won.

"This is not over, Shirogane. I'll get the admiral involved."

"I have to do this, Mark. Look me in the eye and tell me there's anybody else who can."

Iverson sits back down heavily. "Get out, Shirogane. We're all going to regret this. You, Sam, and sure as hell me. We'll have that conversation with the admiral next time."

Shiro's heart breaks just a little as he watches his staunchest, most steadfast supporter turn away. But then he gives a curt nod and walks off.

He's sacrificed more than this.

-/-

"You're going?"

"I'm going." Shiro looks his mother straight in the eye. Now that he knows the disease so personally, so intimately, he can see the minute spots of weakness on her face. Shirogane Shizuka looks as if the dystrophy has already caught her lungs, as if she can't catch a breath for a split second.

Then she takes hold of herself. "Did you pass the physicals?"

"I did. They all know, but the disease isn't going to affect the mission."

"Takashi." His mother's eyes are shining, hard, bright with unspilled tears. "Don't die."

Shiro nods. He is not his grandfather.

He's better.

-/-

"There's a curse on this family. And it's not the disease."

"Dad-"

"You're so valiant, son. I wish you could see yourself the way people around you see you. You burn brighter than the sun." His father's hair is grey now, bright patches of white over his forehead. His voice is full of pain. "And you don't stop. Is there nothing to hold you back? Nothing at all?"

Shiro's throat constricts with unspoken emotion. "I- I'll come back. I'm not leaving forever, dad."

"Not this time, maybe. But one day you will. And then you'll break all of our hearts."

He grits his teeth. "I can't let go of this. It's the furthest mission ever attempted. And I'm the only one who can do this."

"Takashi." His father turns away from him, stares out from the terrace at the jagged peaks of Hokkaido. It's just a two-day visit. But Shiro had to see this, had to make sure that the dream in those mountains is still there, that the piece of space rubble left at the feet of the statue is still firmly planted in the earth. "There's nothing I can say that will stop you."

"No. It's not- I'll come back, dad."

Shirogane Takeo shakes his head helplessly, and Shiro can feel the sadness radiating from him like a physical wave of cold.

"And there's nothing I can say that will make you understand. You are your mother's son, after all."

Shiro doesn't answer. He squeezes his steady hands into fists so tight that the silver engagement ring leaves a mark inside his palm.

-/-

"When were you going to tell me?"

Shiro flinches. He's heard that words too many times. But it's not Adam this time.

"Hey, Keith."

He walks off the ladder, leaving the Comet's engine oil stains be for the moment. Keith's angry, approaching with fast, nervous strides, and Shiro can see the obvious lines of fury and betrayal on his white face. "So, what is it? Are you sick or something?"

"I'm not sure I follow-"

"I was outside your office. I overheard you and Commander Holt talking with Admiral Sanda." Keith's face is trembling, his voice coming up faster and louder with every single word. "Tell me the truth, tell me what's wrong! I'm not a little kid, I can handle it!"

Shiro hesitates –

Keith is the same age as himself when he found out.

He sighs. There's nothing to hide anymore.

"I have a disease. And it's getting worse. I'll only be able to maintain my peak condition for a couple more years. After that..."

Keith's eyes are wide with shock, and Shiro can't handle it. He turns back to the Comet. "The garrison doesn't want me up there. Neither does Adam."

"So… what are you gonna do?"

"I'm going on the mission." Shiro's jaw sets decisively. "Keith, there's something more I need you to hear."

The kid walks up to him. And when he speaks, for once his voice is steady, the innate fire quelled to an ember. "Are you… dying?"

"What? No. Of course not!" He can only see the morbid tension in Keith's entire frame only after it disappears. "I said I'm never giving up on you. Dying counts as giving up."

Keith's lips curl up in a tiny relieved smile. "You bet."

"Keith, you always kept asking why. This is why." Shiro raises his left wrist, the electro-stimulator hugging his skin tightly. "In a few years I will no longer be able to fly, and the Comet needs a pilot. I want you to take over once I'm done."

"But you're not done, you're- how old are you, anyway? You can be my co-pilot! You can't just stop flying, can you?" Keith's eyes drill into him. "Can you?"

"I don't know. But I can tell you this." And Shiro knows there will be nothing but understanding on the other side of those dark fiery eyes, his heir, his timeline unbroken. "As long as I can fly, I will. And once I can't, you will fly for me."

Keith is stunned.

Then, after a lifetime, he gives one sharp nod. "I'll never let you down."

A funny turn of phrase, thinks Shiro, his heart doing something funny in his chest. Keith won't let him down. He'll keep him in the air, in flight, over the open circle of horizon, and he'll never come down.

-/-

There's just one last conversation he has to have.

The flat is quiet as ever. Black-and-white, tidy and pristine, with a clean fresh smell. The orange couch, matching bar stools at the table, a long line of kitchen cabinets. Shiro knows this place so well he could draw the lines of it with his eyes closed. All his dreams start here.

All his nightmares, too. And, between one awakening and the other, everything else.

Adam's working at the table. A cup of coffee sits dangerously close to a holo. Shiro clears his throat as he walks in, and Adam murmurs a greeting, but otherwise nothing breaks the calm, focused silence of the flat.

"Do you have a moment?"

"No. What is it?"

Shiro takes a deep breath. "I love you."

Adam looks up. "Oh."

"And I know you asked me not to go to space anymore. But there's something I have to do for myself."

Adam's face is fixed in a blank expression. "Right."

"There's a mission I was asked to go on. Edges of the Solar System, Pluto's moon Kerberos. This is the last time I…" Shiro trails off. "You know already."

"Yeah."

"And you wouldn't tell me."

"Not until you decided to bring it up. And it only took a month this time. You're getting better at this, Shiro." His lips curl just a fraction of an inch. "I guess I'm getting better, too."

"Adam, I can't live without flying."

"I know. I know you can't."

Shiro steps closer, trying to shake off the still mask on Adam's face. But it doesn't move. "Are you mad at me?"

"No, Shiro. This is just who you are."

A feeling of dread creeps over him, cold and unfamiliar. "I'd like it better if you were."

Adam closes his eyes for a second. "There's only so much time a person can be mad."

"I… Adam, this is my last mission. My time runs out after that. We can focus on teaching, get married. You'd be going to space on your own. You'll understand."

"Shiro." Adam opens his eyes again and looks at him, his eyes steady. "If you go, this is over."

Shiro takes a step back.

The ceiling is not crashing on his head, the walls are not tearing down, the floor is not caving under him, the room continues existing in the exact same way as it did before.

It's just him.

"Adam-"

"No. I can't do this anymore. I can't. No amount of love can fix this."

And, just like that, he's thrown back in front of the hulking asteroid. His choice is made, his decision is final, he's chosen a path, and now the other one closes. It's too late. It's just too late.

"Adam, this would be the last time."

"You know that's not true." Adam blinks; his eyes are dry, but Shiro can see a sliver of emotion there, and it breathes a shadow of hope into his lungs.

"I have to give up flying anyway. It's not a promise, Adam, it's a fact."

"And then what? You expect me to believe you'll just let go? The grand astronaut Takashi Shirogane, who boldly went where no-one had before? You will let go?"

"I'll have to."

"No, you won't. You'll find a way to keep doing it, you always do." Adam's face is still impassive, but his knuckles whiten on the coffee cup. "Through treatment, or re-qualifying, or Keith. You'll run yourself into the ground, but you'll never give up on this."

Desperation rises in his stomach, the pitch-black pit of despair. "I will. I know I have no right to tell you that, but-"

"But what, Shiro? I've been here all along. I've seen you. I've watched this time and time again. You don't stop, and you never have, not for anything in the world." His mouth quivers. "And definitely not for me."

Shiro comes closer until he's over him, watching Adam clench his fingers on the cup so hard that the line of coffee inside trembles. The engagement ring is still on his hand. "We don't have to do this. I'll- everything changes after this mission. You're the reason I come back to Earth, Adam, my life revolves around you. There's nothing more important than you."

Adam shudders. Shiro reaches out, but his hand stills halfway through the move, drops next to Adam's at the table top.

He won't do this through manipulation. He will face this. He'll be honest.

"I… the disease has been everything. Ever since I was sworn in, I knew I couldn't stop the clock. It's not stopping now, either. But once the time runs out, Adam… I'll have a completely different life. I can't do it without you. I don't want to."

"You wanna prove it?" Adam looks up to him, and the mask of composure on his face quivers. "Don't go. They can send Keith in a couple of years, when he's good enough. You don't have to go."

Shiro balls his fists. "I need to do this. Last time. I promise. But I need to."

"Why?" There's deadly tension in that syllable, as if Adam was keeping together on his last breath. And then – then his face shatters, breaks, and Shiro's breath catches in his throat at the raw despair. "There's nothing else for you to prove! You've broken every record there was to break! Youngest, fastest, bravest, greatest, when is it enough?! Will there ever be enough?!"

"Adam-"

"Maybe you're right. Maybe your life does revolve around me. But oh, Shiro, Shiro, you know what that means?!" Adam's voice falters in a devastating hurt. "It means I'm stuck! I watch you go in those same circles, again and again and again, and I know nothing changes, because I know you, and I love the way you come back to me, and that I still get to have you in those short moments when you're actually here on the ground, and I just love you without a reason, but I'm still stuck!"

He cuts himself off, chest heaving. Shiro's knees feel weak.

"I- I need to go on. I need to find my own fucking orbit."

Shiro's whisper is no more than a breath. "I wanted to be on it."

"I want you to. So badly I'm- I'm-" Adam hides his face in palms. "I can't look at you. I can't touch you. Or this happens again, and again, and again, and again, and I just can't- please, Shiro, please, if you go, then you just fucking go."

Shiro forces himself to look.

To see exactly what he's done.

You undo me.

His lips form around a promise, but then he drops it. There's nothing he can do to fix it. The decision has been made. He's chosen a course. And if the course has brought him to his destruction, only to crash and burn –

Then there's no way but through.

"I love you," he says quietly, and Adam's entire body quivers, as if Shiro hit him.

"I love you too. I'll never stop. I'll never meet anyone like you. But this is not good, or healthy, or right. And I can't hide this anymore."

He stands up, the holo in his trembling hands. "When's the launch?"

Shiro understands what he's asking about only after a long silent moment. He opens his mute lips as if he were forcing the words out from between prison bars. "First of October."

Adam nods.

Shiro wants to reach out, wants to close the space between them with just a few steps, press Adam's entire body against his own, kiss away the wet trail on his cheeks, feel the tension drain away from his clenched shoulders, body and soul melting into a warm puddle of relief – and he could, he knows he could, Adam wouldn't stop him, there would be no resistance. And Shiro's tempted so much he can almost taste the salt of Adam's tears on his lips –

Adam wouldn't stop him this time.

And maybe the next.

But with the bitterness rising, the end would be in sight.

You can't toy with people, Takashi. He never had. Nothing he's ever done was anything other than sincere.

"I don't want us to end like this, Adam. Or at all."

Adam's lips tremble. "Then you have four months to change your fucking mind."

"I-"

"I'll stay in the barracks. Keep the flat, Shiro. I was only ever happy here because of you."

Then he goes, unfinished cup of coffee left on the table, and he doesn't slam the door behind him. He closes it. But Shiro feels the tremor of it nevertheless, a deafening noise of thunder that threatens to shatter all of him, tear out his failing, sick flesh, until what's left of him collapses to the ground in a white rattling pile of bones.

He's alone.

He's alone.

-/-

Keith doesn't understand. But he's trying to be helpful anyway. He gets so upset at his inability to be comforting that Shiro ends up consoling him.

Sam does understand. He offers to take him off the mission. But Shiro's gone too far, antagonised too many, sacrificed too much to give up now.

His parents offer conflicting advice. Shiro listens, and then does neither of the things suggested.

There's a hole in his life, at the very junction, and it spreads down to unravel everything else.

-/-

He can't bring himself to take the coffee cup off the table.

-/-

On the day of the launch, when the Comet is already prepared for the flight, there are a few people to say goodbye to him. Keith, first, eyes bright with excitement, only darkening for a second when the teenaged tells him dying still counts as giving up. His mother, then, and it's first time he sees her with a cane. A brief, tight hug, and her memory hanging in between them: this is the same runway that saw the start of Matsuoka Taro, proud and Venus-bound.

His father, his hair white, his eyes just as bright as Keith's, but with tears. He gives his blessing nevertheless.

And then, finally, when he already loses hope and turns back, there's one more silhouette on the empty runway. His heart rises to his throat and lodges itself there, a small, shrivelled walnut-sized knot of nerves.

"Adam."

"Shiro."

He's paler than he ever remembers him being. The wind swishes in his ears.

"Congratulations on your licence."

Adam flashes a weak, dry smile. "Six years later, but I finally caught up to you."

"I moved all my things to my mother's. Flat is yours."

"You never listen to what I tell you, huh?"

"It… didn't feel right."

Adam hangs his head low. "I moved to Chris'."

Shiro looks at him, and for all the air and wind on the vast empty runway, there isn't enough room to breathe.

"We're just flatmates. For now. And he'll never be you. But he knows that."

Shiro moves his lips with effort. Focus. "I'm happy for you."

"Oh, bullshit."

They stare at each other, an arm's length away, and Shiro knows that if his own heart weren't already so shrunken, so hopelessly withered, it would break all over again. He swallows hard.

"Are you happier like this?"

Adam is mute for a long moment.

"No," he says, finally, voice tight. "It's a fucking nightmare so far. But I think I will be, in the long run."

Shiro nods. Something pricks at his eyes. Desert dust. He's not crying.

"That's good."

"Shiro… I've gone to counselling. There's one last thing for me to do." Adam opens his hand, and through his rapidly watering eyes Shiro can see a round silver shape. "She said that I need to… and those are her exact words… take out the trash."

Shiro chuckles, and Adam does too. Then they start laughing out loud.

It is funny. It's also heartbreaking. But he can't stop himself from peals of laughter, and even he could, he wouldn't, because there's something worse waiting at the edge of it. "It's taking itself out, I think."

Adam drops the ring on his white astronaut glove. "Just… take it back to the stars. It was never really mine."

"Yes, it was."

Adam drops his gaze. He doesn't argue.

Shiro is light-headed from the tension and the laughter. He steps closer before he's realising it. "Adam…"

Adam shakes his head. "No, Shiro. You've made your choice, and I've made mine."

Shiro steps back. And then he looks at the bulk of the Comet behind him, his valiant white ship to take him away from this cursed place. Away from the pain and the heartbreak. Away from the disease, the ticking clock, and the consequences, further away than any man has ever gone before.

"Goodbye, Shiro. You fucking idiot. I still love you. Come back, or I'm stuck teaching Keith for the next six years."

"I love you too."

Adam wordlessly nods and walks away.

The Earth turns under his feet. Patience yields focus. In time, this will be just another memory. The space is calling him, the wind blowing away the wet trails on his cheeks, whispering of things to come.

Somewhere, on the edges of the Solar System, the moon of Pluto awaits his arrival. Kerberos, Cerberus, the three-headed gatekeeper to a dimension unknown to humans. Somewhere, even further, a new frontier beckons, the call of the wind louder and louder in his ears, of patience and focus and faith and resilience; a promise of hardship and pain and payoff. Somewhere, he knows that in his bones, a decision to make will cost him greater than even this, and yet he'll make it still; the self-sacrifice will border on self-destruction, but Shiro knows how to do it, he's always known. Somewhere, the jagged mountain peaks hide a castle. Somewhere, somewhere, the voice of the wind waits for him to find and claim it.

Shiro lays a hand on the Comet's shining white nose. Then he touches his forehead to hers.

"You and I, old girl," he whispers, and the wind swirls around him.

-/-

-/-

-/-

Thank you so much for sticking around for this story. As much as it is Shiro's origin story, it has also been my love letter to him, as well as everything he came to mean to me. If you enjoyed it, or if you feel the same way about the good ol' Dreamboat Shirogane, let me know in the comments below – I would absolutely love to hear from you!

Here's something you might want to know if you've enjoyed this fic: the White Paladin as a story is finished, but I'm still thinking about whether or not this warrants an epilogue/sequel. Let me know if you'd read it, and if you wanna make sure you won't miss it, subscribe/bookmark this story or the user. (The thing I'm thinking about the most is just one-chapter epilogue with Adam's reaction to the Kerberos crash.)

As a final comment: if you ever want to go back to this fic again, you might find it interesting that I went to the Voltron School of Foreshadowing, and there are copious amounts of stuff in the earlier chapters that hint at the entire story. I challenge you to hunt them all down. And yep, that's a dare. Thank you so much for tagging along with Shiro and Adam, I'll see you guys in the comments!

(Throughout his life Shiro hears the voice of wind that helps him find himself at crucial points. Do you know now, or can you guess, what/who that is?)