In it to Win it

Seeing all of his sentries fall, the Galran officer snarled and lunged at the closest Balmeran only to be flattened by Hunk who barreled into him. Shiro rushed forward as they grappled with one another, grabbing the Galran's wrist as he drew a dagger and severing it with his glowing prosthetic. Together they restrained him.

"Surrender!" Shiro ordered him.

"Victory or death!" the officer said, completely ignoring his missing hand.

"Yeah, dude, neither of those is an option right now," Hunk said. "You just lost and I'm not an executioner." He took a moment to catch his breath. Shiro himself was struggling to keep himself in control. Luckily, one of the Balmerans rushed up with rope, and they tied up the Galran Officer.

Shiro opened up the comm to the group. "Pidge, report," he said. There were injured Balmerans all around them and Shiro assumed there were some basics to first aid for most creatures throughout the galaxy. He started binding a slash wound with a ripped up strip of cloth. Hunk was trying to help someone with a blaster hole in their side.

"I've got control over all systems, Lance patched me in," Pidge said. "Turrets just took out the last of the fighters."

"Keith?"

"We couldn't figure out the shield generator so we took the control room," Keith said.

"Any injuries?"

"We're good," Keith said.

"Alright," Shiro said. "Rally on me. We've got injured Balmerans here."

"A lot of these people are going to need to be seen on the castle," Hunk said.

"We're landing," Princess Allura came in over the comm.

It was difficult organizing everything after the battle. It was hard to come down from the high of the battle. It didn't feel like the fighting should be over. Once the castle landed though, Princess Allura took over with the injured. A number of Balmerans were loaded up on the hover sled and transported to the castle while Shiro took Keith and Lance and a couple of Balmeran guides to sweep the facility for any remaining Galrans. All in all, the officer he and Hunk had taken down was the only one they managed to take prisoner.

The caffeine pill wore off too quickly, or maybe Pidge was just that tired. Pidge was mostly useless at first aid (that was a first year course), but she was able to follow directions like 'hold this here and apply pressure.' The Balmeran whose leg Pidge was leaning all of her weight on top of wasn't making much sense to her as he tried to explain how his people communicated with the Balmera, but she didn't expect he'd make much sense if she wasn't moments away from drifting off on her feet.

"Pidge, my dude," Lance said, walking by with a bundle of bandages in his arms. "Good work with the computers, you saved a lot of bacon today."

Pidge mumbled something at him. She wasn't a dude, and Lance was still… complicated.

"Princess!" Lance said eagerly. "Let me help you with that," he rushed off to help the princess carry whatever it was that she was probably perfectly capable of carrying on her own.

Her eyes drifted down to the wound she was holding shut, before jolting back up, away from the brownish green blood. It wasn't the purple of Haxus's blood but it was still blood, it was still on her hands.

"So, um, so tell me about the decline of crystal growth rates," Pidge said.

The Galra had definitely been tracking that, and she had all of their files, but it was something.

The Galrans onboard the disabled transport in orbit agreed to surrender, boarding a pod so their ship could be destroyed.

"This feels wrong," Hunk said, as the pod landed on the surface of the Balmera. They were delivering the officer they'd taken prisoner and the bodies of the dead so that all of the Galra could get out of dodge. The officer was heavily sedated. The Galrans onboard the transport ship might not have had the same fighting spirit, but Shiro didn't want the officer to order them to make a last ditch attack on the Balmera.

"We don't have the resources to take prisoners," Shiro said.

"This guy would be a war criminal on Earth," Hunk said. "The things he's done to the Balmerans…"

"The Balmerans don't want him," Shiro said. "We can't keep him. Do you want me to execute him?"

"No," Hunk said. "Of course not, but this still isn't right."

"Right or wrong it's what's left," Shiro said. "If you don't want to witness this you can go back. I've got this."

Rather, Keith hovering overhead in Red and Lance using the open mouth of Blue as a sniper's nest had this, while Pidge escorted the pod in Green.

"No," Hunk said. "I'm here until they're off this planet."

"You going to stick with us after that too?" Shiro asked his most reluctant paladin.

Hunk didn't say anything.

"Battle's different when it's in person," Shiro said. "When you watch your allies dropping around you."

"I keep imagining it was my family down there," Hunk said. "Unable to see the sun. I don't know why I was chosen; I don't know that I was really chosen, but I'm here."

"That's all I need to know," Shiro said. They were all there; all of them together, and Shiro wasn't fighting alone in an arena anymore. He just needed to figure out how to take care of these kids.

Lance kept reminding himself that everything was great. The Galra were gone, and that meant that they'd won. They'd won and Lance had been every bit the action hero he knew he'd be. He'd also definitely looked super cool while he'd sat perched in his sniper's nest. In action movies though, there wasn't much thought at the end to the bodies of the dead falling out of their chairs where they'd been alive just moments ago. Also, admittedly, unlike the movies, things weren't so quickly wrapped up after the victory, and the work still wasn't done.

"Okay, this piece is awkward," Lance said.

"Let me help," Gyeong said.

"Blue can totally lift this," Lance said defiantly. They'd been kicked out of the infirmary once the worst cases had been cared for and they'd become largely superfluous. Time was Voltron's worst enemy. Any moment they weren't fighting the war, was a moment the war wasn't being fought. So the plan was to get the Balmerans settled as quickly as possible and move on to the next thing. That meant one task done, another started, so there they were, clearing fighter debris from the floor of the great chasm.

Lance checked the scans before he set Blue to pick it up in her jaws before he groaned. "Actually, this piece might fall apart," he said. "You want to get the other side."

"Got it," Gyeong said.

They grabbed the big chunk of fighter and started flying it up to the surface.

"Well, what do you know, we really do make a good team," Lance joked.

"Really?" Gyeong asked, he sounded excited.

"Hah, um, in battle at least," Lance said. Cue Gyeong telling him he could have done the whole thing faster without Lance.

"That was smart with the control room," he said.

"What?" Lance asked.

"I wouldn't have thought of that," Gyeong said.

"Hah," Lance said. "So you admit it, I am good competition?"

"What?" Gyeong asked.

"You said there wasn't any competition for the princess," Lance said.

"You got angry when I said that," Gyeong said.

"'Cause I've got plenty of competition in me," Lance said.

Gyeong didn't say anything for a bit and Lance got excited, because he wasn't denying it. He knew, he knew that Lance was on his level. He wondered if he could get him to admit it. There would probably be a debriefing later. Could he get Gyeong to say something nice about him in front of the Princess? What if Shiro realized how much he'd contributed to the mission.

"Lance," Gyeong said. "That's not what I meant."

"No take backs," Lance said.

"I'm not good at this," Gyeong said.

"Oh my god, you're good at everything," Lance said, exasperated. It was annoying how awesome he was.

"I'm not good with people," Gyeong said. "I didn't mean it like that. I didn't know how to say it without…"

"Um," Lance said. "Well, you already said it. I saved the day."

"I know," Gyeong said. "I'm just… I'm not interested in the Princess so there's no competition."

"What?" Lance asked. "No way, how could you not be?"

"She's not my type?" Gyeong said.

"Um, she's incredible in every single way imaginable," Lance said. "How could she not be your type."

"Well she's not a guy," Gyeong said.

It took a moment for that to register. "Oh," Lance said, not sure how to respond to that.

"I'm gay," Keith said.

He'd always been taught that it wasn't anyone's place to judge others, and that everyone found God in their own way, had their own struggles, even non-catholics. He also didn't want to be like Tía Elena, passively sniping at Tío Mateo about his revolving door of girlfriends. Hunk's moms were great. Besides which, Lance didn't know what being gay even had to do with anything anymore. They were fighting in an intragalactic space war. The Balmerans worshiped a living planet. Whole planets, entire peoples, were being destroyed. In that moment, he couldn't fathom that god would really care that Keith was gay.

There'd been open silence on the comms for too long probably. "Okay," Lance said. "So, no competition for the Princess, but I'm the better pilot."

Gyeong sputtered.

"Shay," Hunk said. "I was hoping to see you. Um, we're going to take off soon."

Shay turned from the younger Balmeran she'd been working with. After organizing her people to attack the Galra, Shay had started getting them ready to move out, back to the surface where they had once lived.

"So soon?" Shay asked. "We have not had time to properly thank you. The Life Giver might last many years more now without the Galra, and my people also."

Hunk really wanted to stay, at least for a little bit.

"There's a lot more planets we've got to kick the Galra off of, I guess," Hunk said. "But actually, the princess wanted to do this alchemy thing to help the Balmera, you should be there. I could give you a ride to the surface."

Shay cried when they crested the chasm and she could see the sun overhead. Hunk held her hand as they walked down the ramp and watched her as the sun settled against her skin for the first time. She took a moment to feel it.

"You must be Shay," Allura said, walking up to them. "I've heard so much about you from your people and from Hunk."

Allura took over from there, so he sidled up next to Coran, who had already been cornered by a cranky looking Pidge.

"So how does this work?" Hunk asked.

"It's magic," Pidge grumbled out.

"Well it's quite simple, really," Coran said. "Princess Allura will act as a conduit between the Balmera and her people, allowing them to share their quintessence with the Balmera."

"They're already connected to the Balmera," Hunk pointed out.

"This is a bit more advanced than touch based telepathic communication," Coran said condescendingly. "This is alchemy."

"And it works by…"

"Ooh, it's starting," Coran said.

Shay and Myra held hands with Allura and beyond them a circle of ten more Balmerans.

"Thirteens a very important number," Coran said.

"How?" was Pidge's irate response.

Coran hushed him.

"Life Giver," Allura said. "You are the spark that runs through our veins, the hearth of my home, and unto you we return a part of the life, a part of the warmth."

A beat of silence, and then, "Ooh, it's working," Coran said. Everyone in the circle seemed to glow, and that light seemed to be drawn to the center where it seemed to settle into the ground. "It used to be we would do this ritual every time we asked a crystal of the Balmera, a way to keep it balanced. Absolutely beautiful," he said as it all started to fade away.

"Did it work?" Hunk asked, though he thought he already knew. The Balmera around them just seemed more alive. He saw Shay stumble a bit and he rushed forward. Allura was already helping to support Myra.

"Are you alright?" Hunk asked. Shay beamed up at him.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Everything. Everything is alright, I'm just tired, but my strength will return. Thank you, Hunk."

More Balmerans came to help those who had participated in the ceremony. So did Lance.

"That looked like it took a lot out of you Princess," he said. "Can I walk you back to the castle?"

"Actually, I'll ask Coran to walk me back," Allura said. "We need to discuss a couple of final matters before we take off."

"Right here, Princess," Coran said.

The two of them walked off.

The post mission debriefing was absolute torture for Pidge. It just kept going on and on, and Lance would nudge her every time she looked like she was falling asleep. One other thing helped her stay awake though. As Keith finished telling them about how he and Lance's part of the mission went, Pidge could tell it was obvious he had a thing for Lance. Why? And how had Pidge not seen it earlier. They'd done nothing but butt heads since as long as they'd all been together. She did not have the mental capacity to figure Keith out.

"Pidge," Shiro said. "What about those databanks?"

Pidge was suddenly put on the spot having spent the past bit being boggled by Keith. "Lots of data," Pidge said, getting her thoughts in order and trying not to sound like a toddler who never had her nap. "Shipment logs, I think they were supplying ship yards. Also there's enough in there to figure out the ship designation prefixes I think, so I'll have a much better idea of which sorts of ships are moving where based off of intercepted communications. There's more, but I'll have to scrub it a bit."

"Tomorrow," Shiro said. "Anything else to report?"

"Nope."

"Does anyone else have anything else to add?" Shiro asked. Thankfully the meeting was probably over. Pidge just wanted to crawl in bed.

"Keith did a flip," Lance said. "With his boosters. It was cool."

Pidge shot her eyes over to Lance. What?

"Alright," Shiro said. "Well, Paladins, you did an exceptionally good job today. Under the circumstances and under the time constraints, I couldn't have asked for more. I know its late, so we'll do reports tomorrow morning, but Coran, can you fix up some dinner for us while we hit the showers and then we can call it a night."

The showers. Pidge didn't want to deal with that.

"Of course," Coran said. "You paladins get cleaned up and I'll whip up a proper post battle feast."

"Actually," Pidge said. "I'm pretty beat. I'll just clean up in my room and hit the hay."

"Uh, uh," Lance said. "No skipping meals after battle, and no eating when you've still got alien blood on you."

Pidge's stomach soured. She looked at her hands. She glanced at the door that led out of the briefing room to the training area where the locker rooms were. She didn't want to deal with it, and she was done with the pretenses.

"I can't shower with you all, actually," she said. "I'm not a boy. I just pretended to be one for the Garrison. I'm really a girl."

Pidge might have imagined it, but the princess seemed to brighten up at her proclamation. Lance just looked skeptical.

"Did everyone not know that?" Keith asked, looking confused.

Pidge turned a surprise gaze on Keith, because out of everyone, he'd be the last person she'd expect to pick up on any sort of social cue. Was he being smug about it?

"Hold on," Lance said. "We shared a room, I think I would have noticed if you were a girl."

"I'm transgender, Lance," Pidge said, feeling her heart give a big thump as she said it, wondering how he would react.

"Oh," Lance said. "Um, cool, um, so yeah, um, cool, right, well, um, so there's a girls locker room isn't there? So we'll see you at dinner in a bit, okay?" His eyes were very wide.

"Okay," Pidge said. She really did just want to go to bed. She looked at the princess. "I don't know if that translated for you."

The princess smiled at her. "I think I understand," she said. "I'm glad I'm not the only girl in the castle."

Pidge grinned. "Us girls've got to stick together."

"We do," the princess said, nodding sagely.

"Pronouns?" Hunk asked.

"She, her, hers," Pidge said. "And, um, I'm still going by Pidge, for now." Pidge was going to find her family.

"I'm glad you felt you could tell us that," Shiro said. "You can come to me if you have any issues." Shiro didn't remember that he'd already known that she was a girl. He still didn't really remember her from before Kerberos.

"I'm gay," Keith said.

Pidge acted like she didn't already know that. Lance seemed like he'd already known, which was interesting. Then Shiro came out and Lance went absolutely bug-eyed.

"Right well, I'm going to get cleaned up," Pidge said and went and used the girls locker room.

Lance figured that Pidge was probably going to be the first one asleep that night, so he decided to start rounds with her.

"Hey, wait up," Lance said, catching up to Pidge in the hall.

Pidge looked at him warily.

"I'm just checking in," Lance said.

"You're not team lead anymore, Lance," Pidge said.

"Shiro's wearing too many hats," Lance said. "I think it's perfectly reasonable that we check in with each other so that Shiro doesn't have to deal with all of our issues while also managing a war." Also, he was always going to see Pidge and Hunk as a part of his team.

"Me being trans isn't an issue," Pidge said. "I'm doing just fine."

"Sure," Lance said. "How's everything else?"

"Its fine," Pidge said.

"I doubt that," Lance said.

"Lance-"

"Look, everything you've done is awesome," Lance said. "You infiltrated the Garrison, helped find the Blue Lion, hacked everything that's crossed your path, but that doesn't mean anyone expects you to just handle things on your own."

The gremlin growled at him.

"I heard about what happened with that Galra in the shield room," Lance said. "I, um, I shot some people today. If you need to talk about it-"

Pidge became, if anything, more closed off. "Well, I don't."

"Okay," Lance said. He wasn't sure how Pidge felt. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel either. "Well anyway. Get a good nights sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

"Night," Pidge said.

A somewhat exhausted looking Lance was camped outside his room when Hunk got back from dinner.

"Find anything good on your tablet?" Hunk asked.

"There's a manual for the castle's turrets," Lance said, getting up to follow Hunk into his room, his tablet dangling in a loose grip at his side. "Honestly, so much stuff here seems to operate on the basis of intuition and thought."

"Lance proof?" Hunk asked.

"Hey," Lance said.

"At least you don't need to make a mockpit to figure everything out," Hunk said. "Here, gimme your phone."

"It's already dead," Lance said, pulling it out.

"I jury rigged an induction charger," Hunk said, taking Lance's phone and putting it on the pad he'd made so it could charge.

"Sweet," Lance said. "I mean, I figured you would, but there's, well, everything I have is on there."

"It'll be easy enough to get a data connector set up and then Pidge will handle the different operating systems eventually," Hunk said. "You'll be able to back everything up onto your tablet."

"I don't suppose the Alteans have headphones?" Lance asked.

"Well, they don't have bluetooth. We'll work it out," Hunk said. "We could probably just use Pidge's and make copies using the fabricator. Though there's a lot of things already queued up for the ship."

Lance shrugged. "So how are you doing?" he asked. "It looked like you were in a pretty crazy battle there."

That brought Hunk up short. "I'm here," Hunk said. "I guess I'm staying. I don't need you to pump me up or anything, but dude, I didn't know what I was doing down there. If Shiro hadn't been there…"

"Hey, you're not supposed to do any of this alone," Lance assured him.

"Still, Lance, it was a disaster," Hunk said. "I'm not a soldier."

"We'll work on it buddy," Lance said. "I'll get you up to speed."

"You're going to have your work cut out for you," Hunk said.

Lance grinned at him. "That's what got me here," he said. "But hey, other than that, you're doing okay?"

Hunk eyed Lance up and down, then got up and gave him a big hug. "You gave me a big scare there, you know." It was crazy how little time had passed since the ship's power crystal had exploded.

Lance laughed. "It's going to take more than that to get rid of Lance Sanchez."

Hunk could only hope. He didn't know what he'd do if he didn't at least have Lance with him in all of the craziness. He let go of Lance.

"So hey, it turns out Gyeong's just super awkward," Lance said.

This was not news to Hunk.

"I think we'll be able to work together," Lance said.

"Well you seemed to do well on your mission today," Hunk said.

"Right, yeah," Lance said. "I've still got to show him who the best Paladin is, though."

"You have fun with that," Hunk said. He wasn't sure if Lance was going to have a lot of fun with it or make himself miserable.

"Oh, I will," Lance said. "Alright, I'm guessing you're going to want to get some shuteye."

Hunk hadn't exactly slept the night before. "I'll see you in the morning, I'll bring your phone."

Lance left and Hunk stared at his bed for a moment. He was a worrier by nature, and he could only hope that he wouldn't lie awake for too long going over everything that had gone wrong, and everything that could go wrong in the future. He reminded himself, though, that his best friend was next door, and that he wasn't doing anything alone.

Lance had gone to Gyeong's room, but he hadn't been there. He considered that the guy was probably on the training deck, getting ready to one up Lance, but at that moment, Lance couldn't really muster up the energy to care. He shouldn't really be worrying about Gyeong anyway, he was already close to Shiro, so any issues he had would probably get taken care of. Though Shiro hadn't noticed that the guy had joined the team half-starved. Lance could still check in with him the following morning. He might not be Gyeong's team lead, but he could still make things easier on Shiro, who was managing a war.

Lance went to his room. It was weird having his own space again. He went through the motions of getting ready for bed, unable to really lose himself in the routine. Everything had just been so crazy since he had woken up from the healing pod. Since before the healing pod. He'd been blown up, he'd liberated a planet, Gyeong had acknowledged him; it felt weird to just go to bed after all of it, like it was any other night. He got into bed and stared at the ceiling.

Lance wished that he could look at his photos. His family had always supported him, and for a moment, he could forget the bravado and wish that they were there with him. Space hero Lance Sanchez wasn't supposed to need a hug from his mamá, but he was space hero Lance Sanchez, and he definitely wanted that hug. He wanted his father's hand on his shoulder and Camila hanging off his back with Rolando wrapped around his leg like a koala. He wanted to ask Tío Mateo if killing others during the war was what had left him with that often distant look in his eyes.

Lance had killed five Galrans that day. He wouldn't change it. He'd done what he'd had to. It had just happened so quickly. He'd walked through that door and there they'd been, and then they were gone, death coming as quickly as Lance could pull the trigger. It was exactly what he had trained for; it had gone as smoothly as any of the exercises he'd ever run at the Garrison. He'd trained for it. He'd thought it was cool. He'd even day dreamed about being in war, but he'd never really thought there would be one.

He remembered Tío Mateo telling him that if he'd been a girl his parents would have named him Paloma, for peace. There wasn't any peace though. The galaxy was overrun with violence and oppression and death. He knew pacifism wasn't going to stop the Galran Empire, any more than appeasement could have ever stopped the Nazis. The Galra needed to be stopped, and Lace was going to stop them. He would show everyone that he had what it took.

Still though, that didn't change the fact that he'd killed people. As the rush of the day's events left him, he felt wrong. They were aliens, but they were still people, God's people, just like the Balmerans, and the Alteans. It suddenly felt wrong how cheerful he'd been earlier. How he'd been so worried about looking cool in front of everyone. He thought about Pidge, who'd also killed someone just the day prior. He didn't want Pidge feeling bad. Pidge had just been surviving, fighting to let rescue in. Pidge needed someone to keep her spirits up, and Lance also needed to keep his own spirits up. He couldn't enter a perpetual state of mourning just because he was in a war. He didn't need Tío Mateo to tell him that he needed to keep living his life.

Maybe that was what everyone needed. Pidge and Hunk were spectacular at what they did. Shiro was just amazing. Gyeong was a natural born pilot. Maybe Lance was there to make sure no one lost themselves to the fight. Maybe the Lance that organized movie nights and snuck out of the Garrison was the Lance that fate had chosen. That God had chosen. Lance had the sudden realization that he had gotten into bed without praying and quickly threw off the covers to kneel by his bed, spooked that he had so completely ignored a part of his routine.

The Lord's Prayer was said by rote as he gathered his thoughts.

"So," Lance said. "I guess I almost died there. Thanks for, um, the quick recovery. I guess we were able to help the Balmerans because I got hurt, so that's cool."

Lance prayed for the Balmerans who had died, and for the Galra he had killed. He prayed for his family, that they were safe and not too terribly worried about him; he spared a thought once more to the idea that he could have died in that explosion and they would have never known. He prayed for his team.

"And I guess I'm most worried about Pidge with that Galra. I don't know how to help her with what happened, or if… if she needs help. I guess I'm asking for wisdom," Lance prayed. Thinking about Pidge really had him pausing in his prayer. He knew what position the church had on LGBT people, but Pidge was Pidge, and Shiro… he'd looked up to Shiro for years. He'd wanted to be Shiro for years and finding out that he was engaged to a guy and that he was asexual had thrown Lance for a loop.

"We were chosen," Lance said. "The Alteans said the universe chose us, but that's you. So you chose us. That means you chose Pidge and Keith and Shiro. Maybe you don't expect us to be perfect, but, I have to figure… I have to figure they are who you want them to be. Maybe…"

Lance didn't know how to tell God that the scripture really wasn't working with the universe around him.

"Well, they're my team, so that's that," Lance said. He waited for something.

"Well, um, amen," he said. He got back under the covers and went to sleep.

"Do I even want to know how much sleep you got last night?" Shiro asked.

"Enough," Keith said. He wasn't going to tell Shiro that he'd already been on the training deck for a couple of hours. Shiro was up about as early as he'd been the last time they'd met up on the training deck in the morning and Keith doubted he'd gotten anything approaching any sort of recommended amount of sleep.

Shiro set about getting the training robot started.

"We should fight it together," Keith said.

Shiro looked up at him in surprise. "Sounds good," he said, upping the difficulty level. "Ready?"

Keith nodded. They fought the robot together until Keith noticed that Shiro had suddenly become more violent. He interrupted the training protocol and stood off to the side, not sure what, if anything, he should say. He waited for Shiro to catch his breath.

"Movement drills," Shiro said.

Keith nodded and started the exercises the Garrison had drilled into them as a warmup for running. After that Shiro had the training deck modulate the outer rim and suddenly there was an obstacle course of sorts with hills and ledges and whatnot. They started running, until eventually an alarm went off letting them know that it was time for the rest of the castle to wake up. Shiro tapped on his comm.

"Rise and shine paladins," he said. "We will have a team meeting over breakfast in forty-five minutes." Closing the comm, Shiro turned to Keith. "I let everyone have a lie in this morning because of our recent ops-tempo, but from here on out I'd like you to lead a morning fitness routine. We'll keep it separate from combat training."

Keith scowled but nodded. It was at least a simple thing to lead, and he could always get his own training in before everyone else got up. They both headed to the locker room.

"You did really well yesterday," Shiro said. "It would have been a massacre down there if you hadn't gotten into the control room."

"That was Lance's idea," Keith said, pulling his hair out of its short pony tail and shucking his sweaty shirt into the locker that would somehow clean it by the time he got out of the showers.

"He's had some really good ones," Shiro said, nodding. "And it's a good leader that can take a good idea and turn it into a successful operation."

Keith didn't know how to tell Shiro that he wasn't the budding leader he clearly wanted him to be.

"I noticed you two seemed to be getting along better," Shiro said.

"He thinks we're competing for something," Keith said.

Keith would have never gotten into the showers back at the garrison without shower shoes, but they didn't have any on the ship, and he wondered if foot fungus just wasn't something you worried about on alien spaceships. He walked barefoot into the showers and told himself that it wasn't gross.

"Well as long as it's a friendly rivalry," Shiro said. "You could help bring out the best in him."

"You think I should antagonize him?" Keith asked.

"You should challenge him," Shiro said. "Just keep it low key; friendly."

Keith wasn't sure if that made sense and none of his past lives were making themselves known just then to give him a frame of reference. "And then he'll like me?" he asked.

"Well," Shiro said. "Maybe."

Keith didn't want to leave his future with Lance up to a maybe, but he didn't have any better ideas.

Pidge woke up to the sound of Shiro's voice over the ship's speakers. She felt… better. Not good, but better. She got up and shuffled over to her bathroom where she took a moment to look at herself in the mirror. Pidge looked back out at her. For a moment, Matt looked out at her.

"I'll find you today," she said. She picked her medication up off the counter. It was no longer hidden in her backpack, and she knew now that she'd easily be able to fabricate more for herself when she ran out. She chased the pill down with some water from the faucet and followed it up with a caffeine pill. She splashed some cold water on her face and went back to her room to throw on her only set of clothes; she wasn't ready yet to jump in on any of the Altean clothing.

She arrived to the kitchen to find utter chaos.

"They've got baking powder," Lance exclaimed when his eyes landed on Pidge.

"We haven't done a chemical analysis," Hunk corrected.

"So is that what's covering the kitchen?" Pidge asked.

"No that's flour," Lance said.

"Something approximating flour," Hunk said.

"We're making pancakes!" Lance exclaimed.

"Something like pancakes," Hunk said.

Pidge shrugged and got herself what passed for a glass of juice before she sat down at the table, setting up her laptop so she could start working on the data she'd pulled from the Galran computers on the Balmera. Knowing where the Galra had been sending power crystals gave them a much better picture of key areas of the empire. She hadn't gotten too much work done when Keith walked in and her new favorite soap opera started.

"Gyeong, hey," Lance said. "I hope you like alien pancakes."

Keith looked at him uncertainly, seemingly trying to think of something. "Oh, um, I wouldn't know?"

Lance nodded like this was a normal response.

"Well today you're going to find out," Lance said. "You're looking at the best griddle cook on this ship."

Keith looked constipated, but he still said, "Sure, but I'm the best pilot."

Pidge took a sip of her juice, waiting for an explosion that didn't happen.

"Oh, is that so?" Lance asked coyly. "Well you better fill up at breakfast, hotshot, you're going to need all the energy you can get to keep up with me today."

Unfortunately, the princess showed up at that moment and her soap opera turned into a lame twentieth century romcom where some doofus thinks he could sexually harass his way into a relationship. Pidge turned back to her laptop and tuned out Lance's suggestive flirting and Allura's artful dodging.

Everyone else arrived and soon the pancakes were done. They had a bit of a tough exterior, but they were fluffy on the inside, and the syrup Hunk had whipped up tasted a bit like charred lychee. Coran insisted that that they have a side of food goo to make up for whatever nutrients were severely lacking in the pancakes.

Shiro briefed them on the day ahead and after breakfast was over they split up. They all had action reports to write, and then individualized tasks. Pidge had her assignment to analyze the data. Lance took Hunk off to practice specific tactics that Shiro had laid out with his bayard. Keith, for some reason, was tasked by the princess to go through the Altean's ancient catalogues of known species throughout the galaxy and flag any he thought Voltron should attempt to make an alliance with. Shiro went off for a closed door meeting with Allura and Coran to discuss overarching war strategies.

Pidge went back to her room and made herself comfortable while she went through the data. With a better idea of which ship designation prefixes corresponded to which sort of ship, and by tracking where various sized power crystals were being sent, Pidge was able to combine the data she got on the Balmera to the castle's intercepted communications data and got a better idea of the structure of the Galran empire. Being able to separate out what she was certain were the warship classifiers, she was suddenly able to get a clear picture of the front lines of Galran expansion. Perhaps more importantly, she was able to identify what she thought were supply lines and shipyards that she input into her map of the galaxy.

There were several areas that were clearly sources of supplies but there was no indication of any of them being labor camps. Frustrated, Pidge sent off the data to Shiro and assigned herself the ongoing task of familiarizing herself with Altean and Galran coding and how to break it to her will. She lost herself in her work for a while.

"Food delivery for Gunderson," Lance's voice broke her out of her work and she looked up to the door. "Or shoot, you said you were going by Pidge but does that mean you're still going by Gunderson, or is it Holt now?"

"Come in, Lance," Pidge said. The door slid open and there was Lance with a casual smile and two bowls in his hands.

"Looks like someone forgot that food exists," Lance teased, and for a moment she could just imagine that it was Matt standing there, making sure she didn't forget basic things like eating. For a moment her heart ached before she pushed it away and reminded herself for the hundredth time that Lance wasn't some sort of substitute for Matt. Lance, though, just walked over and moved her laptop to the side so he could put a bowl down in front of her. Hopping up to sit on her desk and digging into his own bowl.

Pidge looked at her watch and realized it was a couple of hours after lunch. "Looks like I'm not the only one who skipped lunch."

Lance shrugged. "I had a project I wanted to work on, figured I should get it done before I get any more tasking. You've got a package next to your lion; first aid kit and emergency supplies stuff."

"Huh," Pidge wondered if Lance was going to return to his obsession with being prepared for emergencies.

"So Hunk's got the chemical makeups of different flavor compounds listed in his phone, so he figures we could start flavoring the food goo," Lance said conversationally once Pidge actually started eating the bland but inoffensive substance.

"Well, he'd better have chocolate in there," Pidge said.

"Pretty sure he has chocolate," Lance said.

He then proceeded to ask her all about what she was doing. So she told him, and he asked about the sneaky stuff she'd done at the Garrison, so she told him about that too, then somehow, he turned things around and before she realized what was going on she was telling him about crawling through the air ducts of the castle when Sendak had been holding him hostage.

She hadn't wanted to talk about it when Shiro had asked her how she was doing, and definitely not when Keith had awkwardly brought it up and then quickly dropped it before she could even say anything, but all of a sudden she found herself talking about a fight for her life that had been over before she could even think about it, about feeling helpless even in victory. She didn't break down or anything. It had been terrifying, and horrible, but she wasn't conflicted about it. Still though, it felt good to cry about it a bit. It felt good when Lance acknowledged what she'd gone through and given her a hug. It almost felt like getting a hug from Matt after a bad day at school. For once she didn't mind the comparison; she didn't feel like Lance was some imposter.

"I didn't find anything about their prison labor camps," Pidge said, knowing that Lance would say the right thing.

"We'll find them," Lance said confidently. "You're doing weird techno-magic with their computers, we've just got to find the right one."

"There's no such thing as magic," Pidge said.

"Oh, the Princess would disagree with you on that one," Lance said, and of course here the conversation completely derailed and he started waxing poetic about the Princess, talking about her like the both of them were characters in a movie. Lance was one of those guys who couldn't take a hint.

"Hey, um, I've got to get back to work here," Pidge said.

"Oh, right," Lance said. "I'd better get back to the training deck. If Gyeong thinks's he's going to out do me, he's got another thing coming. Don't forget, War Council before dinner tonight."

'War Council,' was a fancy way of saying that Shiro was going to go over their beginning vague strategies for bringing a galactic empire to its knees.

"See you," Pidge said.

Lance left, and a part of her wished that he hadn't. The thing was, that he felt like home, he felt like family; having him around felt like having Matt around, but she hated how he treated the princess. She didn't trust him. She'd finished the bowl of food goo an hour ago, and suddenly the caring gesture from Lance felt foul. She threw the bowl across the room, glad afterwards that it didn't shatter.

She just wanted Matt to be there. She wished it hadn't been Balmerans down on that planet. She wished that it had been aliens from all over. People torn from their homes and forced to work in a Galran mine. Matt could have been there. Dad could have been there.

Tears streaming down her face a lot faster than they had been when Lance had been hugging her, she thought of them down in some dark mine, a harsh Galran face that looked like Haxus standing over them. She thought of them cut down by sentries, like all of those Balmerans just the day before. Lance had said that they would find them, but who knew when, and who knew what condition they would be in. For just a moment she thought that she should be afraid of finding them, and for just a moment all she could think about was burning the empire to the ground.

"I got you," Lance crowed. "Admit it, I got you."

The lions didn't have a training mode like their bayards did, so they couldn't exactly shoot at one another, but the two of them had worked out an agreement whereby they'd assess whether or not one of them had gotten the other in a position where they'd have been able to get a hit in.

What would Lance's rival say? Keith wondered.

"I mean, if you can't say it, that's fine too," Lance said. "Your silence is speaking volumes."

It had been a good move on Lance's part, Keith just wasn't sure if he was supposed to say that. "I guess it's like you told me earlier, I didn't eat enough pancakes," he said. "After flying all evening I guess you'd have to catch up to me eventually."

"Oh, nuh uh, I got you fair and square," Lance said.

Keith wasn't sure what to say to that. "Oh?" he said, stalling.

"Yeah," Lance said. "And I'm about to do it again." Lance said, making a move.

Keith shot forward to give it some distance, but then Shiro came in over the comms.

"Time to come on in, Paladins. Meeting in twenty."

"Aw, you're getting off lucky," Lance said.

Keith didn't feel lucky, he wanted to keep going.

Keith opened up a private line.

"Shiro," Keith hissed, as if anyone else could be listening in. "What do I say now that we're done?"

"Challenge him for next time," Shiro said. "In a friendly way."

"Right," Keith said, opening a video link with Lance.

"Well, thanks for the target practice," Keith said, smiling deliberately. "Think you can give me a real challenge next time?"

Lance's eyes widened a moment and Keith thought for a moment that he'd fucked up, but then, "Oh, I'll give you a challenge," Lance said. "Just you wait. Next time you'd better watch your six."

Lance was smiling at him, and that was great, but Keith didn't know what to say next.

"Bye," Keith said, severing the link. He darted back over to the castle. He wished he could just talk to Lance like it was normal. This whole rival thing had him scratching his head. Lance at least seemed happy in the role and always seemed to know what to say.

They landed, their lions next to one another, and then they were walking back to the briefing room they'd been using. Keith wanted to reach out and take his hand. He could remember holding Lance's hand through several lifetimes. It was cruel that he couldn't in this one.

"Race you back," Lance suddenly said, taking off. That wasn't fair, Keith took off after him intent on beating him, but Lance kept looking back at him with a smile on his face, and Keith found himself keeping on Lance's heels.

They arrived at the briefing after everyone else, out of breath, and an ecstatic Lance telling everyone about how he had won. Keith would beat him next time, and there would be a next time, because Keith was Lance's rival. Lance wanted Keith to be his rival.

Shiro cleared his throat to get their attention, and Keith couldn't tell if he was exasperated with him or if he was amused.

"Well, it's been a long day," Shiro said. "I'm sure you all want to get to dinner, and we've got more to do afterwards besides, so I'll try to keep this brief. Though do ask any questions you might have.

"So to start off with, I want to solidify some basic roles. We'll work on coordinated combat when we're engaging with our lions, but when we need to have boots on the ground we'll have some more specialized positions.

"Pidge, you of course are our hacker, and so long as you can do that job from your lion, that's where you'll stay. If we ever need you to have boots on the ground it's going to be with either myself, Keith, or Lance as an escort. Outside of combat, your primary job is the same as it's been since we got here, I want you processing intelligence. You'll be briefing me, Princess Allura, and Coran regularly.

"Keith and Lance, the two of you are our primary strike team. Though we'll mix that up as needed; particularly if we're in a scenario where we can use Lance's skills as a sniper. I'm going to task Pidge to give you both basic lessons on how to patch her into different Galran computers, and Hunk's going to help you to recognize basic systems you might need to understand during a mission. Outside of missions, your primary jobs will be honing your skills in combat and you'll both likely be tasked from time to time to help with maintenance.

"Hunk, in combat, your primary job is to keep the enemy occupied and at bay but you're also our combat engineer. Lance is still in charge of your training with your bayard, but onboard the castle you and Coran are going to be keeping this ship in fighting form. Coran's going to be operating as our chief engineer.

"Princess Allura and Coran will be manning the castle during combat. Needless to say, our ability to make a quick retreat by wormhole is one of our biggest advantages. The Princess will also be acting as our chief diplomat, which brings me to the next part of the briefing: alliances. Voltron cannot stop the Galran Empire on its own. We might have the strongest weapon in the universe, but there's only one of us, and the Galra have the infrastructure to make this a very long war of attrition. We need allies, so we're going to form the Voltron Alliance, and we're going to lead the charge with whoever we can get at our backs, and that gets me to the last section of the briefing.

"Especially in the beginning, we're going to have to be extremely strategic with where we strike the empire and how. We got lucky with the Balmera. It's clear the Galra weren't expecting it to last much longer as a resource, it doesn't appear to be in a particularly strategic location, and it isn't close to any major outposts as far as we can tell. Chances are good that the Galra won't bother retaking it, so long as we're keeping them occupied. That means a fast ops tempo, spread out across the galaxy. For now, though there is only one Voltron, there isn't any one front in the war. We can't afford to let them concentrate on one area, so we keep them spread out. Our targets are either strategically valuable to the empire's war infrastructure, or strategically valuable to forming the Voltron Alliance. We can't afford to free every world we come across if they're just going to be retaken the moment we move on."

That was the point the general calm of the briefing broke.

"Wait," Hunk said. "You're saying we only help the people who can help us?"

"I'm saying that for now we need to make difficult choices," Shiro said. "We're not abandoning anyone. Our goal is to free everyone and destroy the empire. If we make strategic choices now, we can do all of that a lot faster."

"Stop saying strategic choices like you aren't talking about leaving slaves to rot in labor camps," Pidge said angrily.

"We can't just be heroes to some," Lance said. "We're supposed to save the whole galaxy."

"I'll say it again," Shiro said. "We got lucky on the Balmera. We got lucky and several Balmerans still died. How many more would die if the Galra came back to retake it? Again, there's only one Voltron. We can't sit around babysitting every planet we liberate. We make strategic decisions now so that we can liberate those planets in the future when we can make sure that we're not setting people up to be slaughtered. After the alliance is formed we'll be able to keep the Galra busy and we'll be able keep them out of territories we've freed.

"I know these decisions aren't easy to make, and I'm not asking you to make them, I'm just asking you to follow me. We all want the same thing. Follow me and we'll do as much good as we can for the galaxy, we'll keep the Galra away from Earth, and we'll challenge their hold on the Galaxy."

"What about my family?" Pidge asked.

"I told you we'd get them as soon as we could, and I meant it," Shiro said. "But keep in mind, we aren't equipped to take care of thousands if not millions of refugees. We're going to do this smart, and if that means a strategic extraction then that's what it'll be."

"This still feels wrong," Hunk said.

"I don't think war is supposed to feel right," Shiro said. "But I think ultimately, this is the right way to do this."

Keith had stayed silent during the conversation, but here Shiro looked at him. He had told the Princess that the war was hopeless, that they could only try to do the most good. He wasn't sure what that meant, but sitting there, he thought that he could put his faith in Shiro. He almost thought that he could have faith that something would actually come out of the fight, something more than just an opportunity to vent his rage at the Galra. He looked over at Lance. He already knew that Lance was staying.

"I'm in," Keith said firmly.

Lance caught him looking and stared back. "So am I," he said, as if he were accepting a challenge. "But Earth's a red line," he said, turning his head back to Shiro. "We don't make any 'strategic decisions' that leave Earth to the Galra."

"I think we can all agree to that," Shiro said.

"I'm in this for my family," Pidge said. "But I'm in."

"I'm in this till the end," Hunk said. "Though if we find a better Paladin, I could always just be your engineer."

"We won't find a Paladin better than you," Lance said. "We're going to do this guys, we're going to save the Galaxy. It's going to be legendary."

"Yeah," Pidge said. "Someday they'll tell the legend of the Cargo Pilot."

"Hey," Lance squawked.

That was the end of the meeting, Lance started joking around and after a while they started to relax as they made their way to dinner. Afterwards, they trained hard for a mission the following morning: an attack on a supply depot. It went well, and Keith and Lance counted off fighters as they picked them off. Their campaign had started, first by sowing chaos through the empire, attacking key infrastructure, never staying in one sector of the galaxy for long.

Lance joked one day that they were the Jason Voorhees of the Galran Empire. Hunk had had to explain the reference to him, but it sounded accurate. Nowhere was safe for the empire. Not when Voltron could pop out of a wormhole, destroy their target, and then disappear moments later, off to their next target in another sector of the galaxy. Every time they left they sent out a message. "Get ready for the Voltron Alliance."

It took a bit until there was actually any sort of alliance. A month in and they picked up their first ally, a somewhat advanced species that had been under siege by the Galra. It was a start. Keith still wasn't sure what it was a start to. At the end of the day though, he flew next to his soulmate, they fought back to back. At the end of the day, they were alive, and Lance might still be obsessed with the princess, but at least he and Keith were friends (Keith wasn't sure, but Shiro assured him Lance was his friend). They had each other for the moment, and Keith would make sure that moment lasted as long as he could make it.

A/N: Hey, and that's the end of part two. Next part I've been thinking about for a long time and I'm really excited to start writing it, it basically completely diverges from the plot of the show. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think.