Oh my god, how long has it been since I wrote Voltronfic? November 2016? Holy crap. So I watched Seasons 3-6 over the last couple weeks and OH MY GOD (joins in the fandom’s incoherent screaming). And it gave me ideas for the fic, and I’ve been writing them as fast as I can. Because holy cow Shiro needs all of the love and support. All these precious babies do, really.
Since the show gets a bit more serious and painful starting Season 3, so does the fic. But there will be light sweet fluffy moments scattered around too. Enjoy!
EDIT: Added some Coran luv because he’s underappreciated. The only reason I didn’t have him in the first run was because I had no idea what to do with him…
Shelslince song for final scene is One Way Ticket.
Part 5: Bereavement
She’d been tossed about, knocked unconscious briefly, and forced to sit near-useless on the sidelines, only able to help in monitoring power levels – when they existed – and following directions to restoring them when they didn’t. She’d done what she could, remaining calm, though her heart beat wildly for the fate of Voltron, out there, fighting Zarkon, and for Shiro, Zarkon’s personal target.
And when Zarkon was defeated and the Lions returned, she sank to her knees in relief, staring through the bridge viewscreens as the Castle activated a wormhole to escape the remnants of the recovering Galra defences.
But not for long – the Black Lion had been towed back to the ship by Pidge and Keith, its exterior lights out, its Paladin unresponsive. When the screens showed they were safely in another star cluster, she scrambled to her feet and dashed headlong for the Black Lion’s hangar. Allura and Coran followed her, and she met the other Paladins on the way.
The Lion was slumped on its side as if it were injured, but the door to the interior slid open for them. “Shiro?” Keith called cautiously.
She had no need for caution, and hurried up to the cockpit. The Lion wouldn’t hurt her, and she could help Shiro-
The pilot’s seat was empty. The bayard he’d somehow recovered was still left in its socket on the right of the cockpit, but there was no trace of Shiro at all. She gave a tiny gasp and fell to her knees blankly.
The others crowded around her. “He’s gone?” Keith said softly, disbelieving.
“He- he can’t be gone!” Pidge cried shrilly. “People don’t just… disappear!”
“We’ve seen stranger things out here,” Lance said slowly. “And that last attack, that destroyed Zarkon and busted us up at the same time… Maybe it…”
“But where did he go?” Hunk demanded. “Where could he go? What took him?”
“All excellent questions,” Allura said uncertainly. “Unless the Lion itself tells us, I don’t think we’ll be able to find out quickly. He could be anywhere in the universe now.” She bent down to Elslince. “I’m sorry. We’ll begin looking for him right away.”
Elslince didn’t respond. How could she respond? What was there to say? Her hero, her love, her light had been taken from her, her universe had been shattered.
The others left quietly as she sat and stared.
Pidge didn’t see much of her Teleran friend for a while. For an entire day after Shiro’s disappearance, she remained in her room. Pidge wondered if she’d had anything to eat, but the door was locked when she tried to check on her. She could have hacked it, either electronically or the old-fashioned way, but this was a time for delicacy, she figured. She’d come out before she starved.
The next day, or night, rather, Pidge was working deep in the bowels of the Castle, trying to put some fried relays back together. Not that there was really a day or night in space, they’d established this months ago, but they needed a schedule, and wasn’t it convenient that Altean time, though using vastly different measurements, happened to use something close to 28 hours to measure a day? 28 wasn’t too far off 24, was it? And there was so much damage she’d just gotten caught up in fixing everything, it was way past her bedtime but she hadn’t noticed. Anyway, she’d almost gotten the third relay hooked up when she got a spooked feeling and flinched, looking over both shoulders in fright. But there was nothing there. Well… maybe there was the distant sound of slow footsteps. Pidge shivered and began working faster.
She felt it again a couple hours later, when she was yawning at a control panel on the other side of the Castle, trying to see if there were fluctuations in the conduit or if it was just a malfunctioning indicator light. She jumped and looked about, but again there was nothing to see. But those slow, creepy footsteps were back, closer than before.
Pidge giggled nervously to herself, trying to break the tension. “It’s okay, it’s okay, the Castle’s not haunted this time, we didn’t plug it into anything stupid…” Although there was always the possibility something had gone wrong in the attack, that they’d gotten a magic virus or something from the Galra witch. Like Lance had said, they’d seen stranger things.
The footsteps paused when she giggled, then retreated as slowly as they’d come. Pidge made a horrible creeped out face to herself. She wasn’t half-asleep anymore, that was for sure.
The next night, she got Hunk to come with her. Not that he was any braver than her, but together they were stronger than alone, right? Lance and Keith wouldn’t be interested anyway, the meatheads. At least with Hunk she could pretend it was just about fixing the ship.
Hunk seemed a little nervous himself. “Hey, last night, did you, like…”
“Like, what?” Pidge asked, a little defiantly.
“Eh, never mind… Let’s get this cover popped.”
They were up to their elbows in cables and arcane tech when Hunk jumped. “Th-there! Did you hear that!?” He was nearly squeaking, but in a whisper.
Pidge froze and listened. “Yeah! I heard it last night, too!” She was also whispering, not wanting to draw attention to them. The footsteps were pretty distant, though.
Still, there were two of them, and only one set of footsteps. “Let’s go check it out!”
“What, are you crazy?”
“Someone has to,” Pidge said reasonably. “And Lance and Keith and Coran would just think we were crazy. And Allura’s still sleeping after all the energy she expended.” And Elslince was probably still in her room. And Shiro… it couldn’t be Shiro’s ghost, could it?
Hunk scrunched up his face unhappily. “I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I don’t like this…”
Somehow, his fear made her feel braver. “Just stay behind me.” Not so she could protect him, more so that she’d have some padding if she screamed and bolted.
Together they crept down the little-used corridor towards the sound, and turned the corner. Pidge’s heart was thumping fit to burst, louder in her ears than the soft footfalls, and she was certainly ready to scream at anything alarming.
But all that she saw was Elslince, walking slowly away from them down the other corridor. There was something aimless in her walk, though she wasn’t shuffling at all. Pidge gasped – she hadn’t expected that, not really, and Hunk gasped more. Elslince turned her head to look at them, but it was as if she didn’t really see them. Her blue eyes were flat and yellow-rimmed, her expression lifeless, her hair hanging straight and limp. Maybe Elslince is a ghost now, Pidge thought, and nearly freaked herself out with the idea. But no, her shoes were making contact with the ground, she cast a shadow, and she appeared to be breathing. She’d check the Castle’s internal sensors later, make sure she was giving off a thermal signature and stuff, too.
Elslince continued her walk and drifted around a corner, out of sight.
“That… was super weird,” Hunk said.
“I’m with you, Hunk,” Pidge said. “Let’s get back to work. I guess she’s gotta work through things her own way.”
“Yeah… I feel bad for her.”
“Me too…”
It was only two days later that Pidge walked into the Green Lion hangar, still yawning from too little sleep, and suddenly yelled in surprise. Elslince was there, tapping on her tablet, looking like nothing was significantly different from a few weeks ago, before any of this ‘final battle’ insanity. Her hair was all voluminous and wiggling again.
“Ahh! Ahhhhuuuuhhhh…” Pidge said intelligently, once she was done screaming.
Elslince looked up and smiled. Pidge could tell it was with an effort, but still, she smiled. “Oh, hello, Pidge! I was hoping you would come by here first.”
“You doin’ all right?” Pidge asked cautiously.
Elslince nodded. “I am fine now. I’m more concerned about you. I’m sorry for abandoning you all the last few days.”
“No, no,” Pidge began, but Elslince wasn’t having any of it.
“I shamed my vocation as a doctor. I should have checked on all of you before wallowing in my own-” She ended her sentence abruptly, started a new one. “So! It’s time for a check-up. I don’t care what the Castle’s magic healing tubes say. I want to be certain there’s no lasting damage.”
“Um…”
“If you have time, that is,” Elslince amended. “I know you’ve been working hard.” Her gaze dropped away.
“No, it’s okay!” Pidge smiled at her. “If my mom were here, she’d tell me how important it is to see a doctor regularly. So, uh, where do you want me, doc?”
“I brought my instruments down from my room,” Elslince said, patting a small bag beside her. “If you could sit just in your desk chair here… I promise not to poke anything where it’s not supposed to be.”
“I wasn’t worried about it until you said that,” Pidge said, giggling nervously, and Elslince laughed too. That was true, Elslince was getting pretty familiar with how humans worked, but she still thought things like ‘iron-based blood’ were weird. Still, Pidge trusted her not to accidentally turn her inside out, and the physical exam seemed to go pretty normally from what Pidge remembered of doctor’s visits at home on Earth.
When she was done, Elslince leaned forward in her own chair and looked like she wanted to say something else. “I had a question about your fighting, actually.”
“What’s that?” Pidge asked.
“There was something I noticed before the… the battle, but I didn’t want to bring it up in case it caused you stress. But that is, often when you train in the sparring room, with the others or by yourself, you seem to rely mostly on instinct and reflex to survive.”
“Um, yeah,” Pidge squirmed uncomfortably. “I had some training at Galaxy Garrison, and before that I had martial arts classes, you know, but even if I’m good at thinking my way around tech, and I can see things that I can use to my advantage in a fight, sometimes I freak out.”
“I understand,” Elslince said. “I don’t like fighting at all, but as part of the Teleran Resistance, I had extensive self-defence training. I was wondering if you would like to learn it, to add to your repertoire?”
“Uh, sure!” It couldn’t hurt, could it? And it meant she’d get to spend more time with Elslince.
Her agreement seemed to make Elslince happier. “Please let me know when you have free time, then. And thank you for letting me examine you. You appear to be fine, except for the lack of sleep.”
“I knowww…”
“I know you know,” Elslince said, tapping the tip of Pidge’s nose. “Don’t let it become a habit.”
“Righty! As soon as the Castle’s back to fully functional, I’ll be better about it. I promise!”
Self-defence with Elslince was deceptively challenging. She wouldn’t have thought the gentle, pacifist doctor to be so ruthless about drilling. She could rival some of the Galaxy Garrison sergeants, Pidge considered a couple weeks later, even if she never yelled, never even sounded harsh. How could she be so patient, and yet so demanding? The Resistance probably didn’t give her a choice in learning self-defence, but still.
And just when Pidge was about to suggest a break, Elslince suddenly made a playful growling noise and tackled her to the ground, and then there was hair everywhere. Not in her clothes, thank goodness, that would have been weird, but tickling her face, her arms, her knees. Pidge yelled and giggled and struggled, trying not to pull the hair.
Elslince giggled back and let her up eventually. “My older sister used to do that to me all the time.”
“You must have been close,” Pidge blurted out, and immediately regretted it. Elslince didn’t need to be reminded about losing people, not now.
Elslince’s expression sobered, but she didn’t look mournful, only wistful. “We were. She loved to tease me, called me a nerd, put bugs in my hair… but she was very protective of me. She was kind and encouraging about me becoming a doctor, and she never let anyone talk down to me.”
“Sounds kinda like me and my brother,” Pidge said. “Except he didn’t put bugs in my hair, ew. That must be awful with your kind of hair.”
“Don’t even talk about it,” Elslince said, laughing a little. Pidge saw her hair cringe, just a little, at the thought of bugs. “But we didn’t have parents, and even though we lived with our grandparents, she was more like my mom than my sister sometimes.”
“That must have been rough,” Pidge said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Elslince said. “My grandparents and great-grandfather were good to us. I was well-loved growing up, just like you were.”
“Yeah.” Pidge considered the similarities they shared. “Wait, are you saying you see me as a little sister!?”
“Is that bad?” Elslince asked, startled.
“Nah, I guess not. Just, I’m tired of being the ‘little’ sister!”
“That’s fair,” Elslince said, laughing. “I got tired of being the little sister, too. You’ll find someone, I’m sure!”
Pidge snorted. “I hope so. But first, gotta get my brother back.” And her dad, of course. But her dad wasn’t a sibling.
“You’ll do that too.”
“I betcha Shiro finds him, and they come back together, what do you think?”
“I think that would be delightful.”
Keith winced as he shifted his arm. He’d pulled a muscle with a minor mishap in the Red Lion on his daily search for Shiro, and now his shoulder was bothering him. He’d rest it that night, but he needed to go out tomorrow again. And the next day, if he didn’t find Shiro tomorrow. And the day after. If his arm was still bothering him tomorrow, maybe he’d chance one of those sleep pods. He wasn’t fond of the idea, though. He didn’t like feeling trapped.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked a soft voice, and there was Shiro’s girlfriend Elslince – she’d caught sight of him at the crossroads of two corridors, and now she was approaching him with a worried look on her face.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, trying to wipe any sign of discomfort off his face.
“I’d still like to take a look, if I may,” she said. “You’re doing everything you can, and I want to do everything I can to support you.”
He sighed and looked away. He didn’t care about being rude, but it was Shiro’s girlfriend – she had as much reason to want him found as Keith did. And he had brushed off her post-Zarkon medical exam. “…Fine.”
Her expression eased a little. “Could you come back to my room? My tools are in there.”
He followed her silently. Once they’d arrived at the Garden, she asked him to sit and remove his jacket, and then asked him to move his arm. He did, but he had to wince. She prodded it a little, then rummaged around in her bag until she produced something that appeared to be a strangely-shaped bandage, and a chemical ice pack. She wound the bandage around his shoulder rather tightly, then applied the icepack on top. “Keep it there for about fifteen doboshes, but don’t remove the bandage until tomorrow. If you can put the coldpad on for fifteen doboshes tomorrow morning, that would help too.”
“Fifteen doboshes…” His gaze zoned out as he did the math. “That’s maybe twenty minutes, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It sounds about right. May I just check you over for anything else?”
He sighed again. He was there, he might as well put up with it. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” she said, and went through an abbreviated physical, checking his eyes, his throat, his pulse.
She had finished, and he was already half-way to the door, jacket under his good arm, when she said things he really didn’t want to hear. “Don’t push yourself so hard, Keith.” He glared at the door without answering, but he did hesitate in his stride, and she took that as encouragement, apparently. “He doesn’t want you to kill yourself for him. Even if he’s in trouble, he wants you hale and whole.”
“I’m fine,” he growled. “I was just startled at the time. It won’t happen again.” He noted with approval that she’d said “doesn’t” instead of “wouldn’t”. She, too, believed.
She inhaled, sounding like she wanted to say something else. Keith hoped she wouldn’t. He thought she was all right, and she was certainly the least diva-like person on the Castle – himself included, he had to admit – and he could see why Shiro liked her, why the others liked her. He kind of liked her himself, distantly, platonically, even with her crazy hair. And he would rather get treated by her than by the sleep pods. He just didn’t want to continue this train of thought.
But all she said was: “Good luck. Rest well.”
He nodded and left quickly.
Lance winced as he shifted his arm, and quickened his stride through the private quarters section, looking for the Garden. He rapped smartly on the door in a funky rhythm when he arrived. “Hellooo! I come bearing gifts!”
The door slid open and there she was, the vision of beauty Shiro had rescued from the dastardly Galra, Elslince the Green. She sounded like a medieval princess when he called her that, so he did, in his head, frequently. “Oh! Lance! You didn’t have to…”
He presented her with the pot under his good arm with a flourish – or as much of one as he could manage. “Hey, someone’s gotta keep you supplied. Gotta pick up the slack, you know, until he gets back.” He’d been gone for two months. They’d find him soon.
She gave him a smile that was only half-sad. “I think you give me far more than he ever has. He only had the idea first.”
“Oh, well… Gotta pretend everything’s normal?” He went for a cheesy smile, saw a little more of the sadness lighten.
But she’d seen the stiffness in his arm. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yeah… It was a stupid little thing, I reached too far, and now I think I pulled a muscle. Could you take a look at it?”
“Of course. Have a seat and take off the jacket.” There was something odd in her smile, something that said “you and Keith are more similar than you want to admit”, he’d seen that look before, and he didn’t particularly care for it.
“Hoodie,” he corrected her, but did as he was told.
Her fingers were strong but gentle as she investigated his shoulder, binding it up securely to keep the swelling down, putting an icepack on it. It gave him pleasant tingly feelings all up the back of his neck to see her so focused, she was so intent and professional. It was really relaxing, together with the ambience of the Garden. If the lighting had been lowered he might have fallen asleep. Or hit on her some more. Not seriously, she was madly in love with Shiro, but it might make her smile. And hey, she was a literal green alien space babe, he couldn’t pass up every chance to live down to Captain James T. Kirk.
But he passed up this one, since the lighting wasn’t right, and he wasn’t really in the mood for it.
“How else are you doing?” she asked, when she was more or less done. “Anything else I can help with, anything you want to talk about?”
He pulled his hoodie back on, squirming a little uncomfortably. He wanted to talk about it, but she didn’t need his whining in her life, did she? She noticed, and gave him an encouraging look. “Well… I’m just feeling… y’know, kinda… not hopeless, exactly, but… Well, it doesn’t really seem like we’re doing much. We go out, fight some Galra, we can’t form Voltron so we can’t fight a lot of Galra… Everyone seems distracted, y’know? Like, we all get along fine individually, but it’s like we couldn’t form Voltron even if we had a fifth Paladin.” Pale blue eyes flicked up at her. “He wasn’t just our leader, is what this is all telling me. Or maybe just missing any one of us and the team isn’t a team. Well, I dunno, we ought to be better than that, shouldn’t we? We’ve operated on our own before. Even when Allura was captured, we kept it together and went after her. But then we had Shiro to keep us focused.”
“It’s hard when you don’t know where to go,” she said quietly, looking down.
“Yeah, exactly. And it’s kinda depressing, all of this thinking.” She knew that better than him; how she kept it together, he didn’t know. “Anyway, videogames aren’t helping that much, taking care of Kaltenecker helps a bit but… And I don’t know what I expect babbling about it to do, I guess I just want to talk about it with someone who… who really gets it.”
She nodded, as if she really got it. “You’re welcome to come and talk any time, you know. I’m not a psychiatrist, but if you find it helps to talk, please – I’m here.”
“Thanks, Elslince. That’s really nice of you.” And maybe she didn’t want to be alone, either. Not that he had a chance, he wasn’t thinking about it that way – much. Okay, maybe a little, could you blame him? “Well, thanks for looking after me and my dumb arm.” He gave her a bright grin. “Say hi to Hermione for me!” Hermione was his rosebush.
“Take care,” she said, smiling back.
He was glad she could smile, that he made her smile – he tried to make everyone smile – but without Shiro, it wasn’t the same as before.
“So how’re you holding up?” Hunk asked, measuring out the fertilizer for the lower-ph plants.
She blinked at him. It hadn’t been that confusing of a question, had it? “I’m fine.”
Fine, by Voltron’s left foot. Which was him and Yellow. “You sure? You must be hurting worse than the rest of us.” He still hadn’t forgotten the creepy ghost behaviour he’d witnessed with Pidge. It might have been four months, but the sort of pain that caused that kind of behaviour didn’t just disappear.
Her forehead wrinkled and she turned away, fussing over something with shiny leaves and orange flowers. “It hurts, yes. But the Paladins need my support, not my distraction.”
“Don’t worry about the Paladins,” he said, sprinkling the fertilizer around. “Or at least, won’t you let us worry about you too? Or at least me. I know some of the others get stuck in their own heads a bit. Not going to name any names.” He coughed around Keith’s name anyway, and saw a faint smile on her lips.
“Keith is trying harder than any of us,” she said.
“Even if he’s just stubbornly beating his head against a wall,” Hunk retorted. “Brute force is probably not going to find Shiro when your field of search is the entire universe. I have more faith in the Voltron Coalition’s intelligence feelers, even though it feels lazy.” Still, lazy was kind of his thing, wasn’t it? No sense in working harder than necessary, not when working efficiently did the job way better.
“I have faith in both,” she said gently.
“That’s fair. But you changed the subject.”
“I did?” She blinked at him again.
“Yeah. Well, I guess you did answer the question. So, is there anything we can do to help you?”
She smiled at him. “Just keep doing what you do.”
Looked like he’d have to pry a little deeper. “C’mon, surely it’s nothing embarrassing.”
“Well…”
Yes! He knew there was something!
Elslince looked off into the distance wistfully. “This would more be something suited to Pidge, perhaps, but… I miss sunlight, real sunlight. And forests. And not hearing all these mechanical sounds all the time. The air ventilation, the hum of electricity, the engines when they’re in use – it’s never truly quiet, even when it’s quiet. Not like when all you can hear is the whisper of the breeze, and maybe some insects. I’ve tried the virtual reality room, where Kaltenecker lives, but it’s not the same. Or going on missions with the Paladins. I appreciate it, but it’s still noisy.”
“Right,” he said. “I can live without sunlight and forests, but where you came from – that was a huge part of your life, wasn’t it?”
“Yes…”
Wait, hadn’t Shiro taken her out every now and then? Had they been visiting forests or something? He’d never thought to ask. “You wanna go on a field trip? There’s a little planet we passed a few days ago, green, lots of undeveloped area, orbiting a small yellow star. Should be perfect, right?”
She tried to hide her excitement, but her hair gave her away, coiling more quickly than usual. “I… I would be very grateful.”
Seeing her bask in the sun, her eyes closed and face upturned to greet its rays, was almost as relaxing as basking in the sun himself. Her hair was billowing out in a big cloud around her, as if it were basking in the sun too. Maybe it was, he didn’t know how Telerans worked. It looked almost like it was breathing.
“Thanks, Hunk,” she said after a long, silent while. “This is just what I needed.”
“You ever want to go out, just let me know,” he said, sitting next to her, leaning back on his hands. “Or Pidge, she needs to get away from her computer every now and then, right?”
“Mm.”
He hesitated to volunteer the next bit. “And… you ever need a hug, you know where to find me.”
“A hug?” She opened her eyes and looked over at him. “You are a huggable person, but… why?”
“Well…” He looked away, a little embarrassed. “You’ve been keeping so much inside, trying not to ‘bother’ us or something, but even you can use a boost now and then, right? And hugs are good for mental health.”
“You care so much about us all,” Elslince said quietly. “Maybe you should become a doctor.”
He waved it off self-deprecatingly. “Eh, I’m good with engineering.”
“Well, I think I will take you up on that, now and then.” And she matched action to words before they left, letting him give her a big, squishy, platonic hug. Everyone needed a big squishy hug sometimes. He hoped it helped. It was one little thing he could contribute to keeping everything going until Shiro got back.
He slipped, and fell, and landed on his rear quite hard, unable to stop the exclamation of “Quiznak!” from leaving his mouth. Good thing none of the chil- the Paladins were around. (Yes, they were all competent and a far cry from the strange, even suspicious aliens he’d met upon waking from the cryo chamber, and he respected them. That didn’t mean he didn’t still think of them all as children.)
“Coran?” he heard calling down the corridor; he hadn’t been as alone as he’d thought. Drat. “Are you all right?”
“I’m perfectly fine, Elslince, thank you,” he called back, just as the girl came into view. Her worried expression eased at seeing him sitting up with a disarming, sheepish look – at least, he hoped it was a disarming, sheepish look.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“Quite sure. You’re an expert, I know, but really, you don’t have to waste your time doling out band-aids for a little bump.”
She chuckled a little. “Any other way I can help, now that I’m here? I have no pressing tasks right now.”
He was about to brush her off, but then thought about it. “Actually, if you could read off the panel for me, it would be a great help.” That was why he’d fallen in the first place, trying to read the panel while hanging from the maintenance shaft. With her to tell him the results, he could stay in the shaft and actually fix it. And since she’d been helping for so long, she’d started to pick up a little it of technical knowledge, though she didn’t seem likely to be able to fix the Castle on her own in the near future. Still, every bit helped.
It went a lot faster after that, and he was able to close up the maintenance shaft only ten minutes later. “Another job well done! Thank you, Elslince!”
“You’re welcome!” She smiled to see him give the panel a fond caress. “You love the Castle so much.”
“Yes… She was built by my grandfather, you know! Ah, the stories I could tell you about getting lost in these shafts as a boy… would probably freeze your heart, actually, come to think of it. Rest assured it doesn’t happen anymore. Usually.”
“Usually?” She gave him a skeptical look, and he gave her an inscrutable one in return.
“Of course. In actual fact, I know every inch of the Castle, inside and out. I could find my way about in my sleep!” He’d been a little more hesitant than Princess Allura on Pidge and Hunk’s proposed plan that had resulted in the Garden, as damaging his beautiful ship in any way was terribly upsetting, but he had to admit the results had been quite lovely. “Don’t worry, I haven’t been almost-vapourized from taking a wrong turn since I was about fifteen deca-phoebs old and getting my first real look at how she worked.”
“Coran!” The dramatically alarmed expression made him smirk. But then she sighed and shook her head. “What would we do without you?”
He blinked, honestly surprised. He tried not to let on just how much work he did about the Castle, or work in general for Team Voltron, but he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that Elslince of all people noticed. “And what would we do without you, Doctor Elslince?”
“Use cryo chambers,” she said facetiously. That point of contention had been smoothed over long ago, to the point where it was rather a joke between them.
“The cryo chambers are far less charming,” he said, with a gallant bow, and was rewarded with a slight blush. He had to confess, privately at least, that she made his job easier. ‘Chief Medical Officer’ had been one of his functions on the Castle of Lions prior to her joining the team, and it was one less responsibility for him to deal with. He could focus on keeping the Castle running properly, on his role as Royal Advisor, on taking care of the team’s general well-being without having to worry so much about their medical health.
Of course, taking care of the team was far more difficult without Shiro. The young man didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation, and had probably endured as much hardship as Coran had, in different ways of course, in a far shorter period of time, but he certainly knew how to work towards a goal. The team was sorely lacking for his absence, even without the camaraderie that he brought, the fondness they felt towards him.
However, while Shiro was the steadiest Paladin, befitting his role as Black Paladin, Coran had hoped that the budding romance between him and Elslince would have made him more aware of his own emotional and mental health. Coran didn’t consider himself a hypocrite for keeping his own to himself. He knew how to process his feelings. Most of the younger ones didn’t. Except perhaps for Lance. There was a good reason the Blue Paladin was his unofficial favourite of the new generation. But Shiro didn’t, not yet, at least not that he’d noticed. Perhaps it had begun and he was just unaware?
Well, perhaps they’d see when Shiro was found.
Allura stepped onto the dark and empty bridge, and stopped short. Dark it may have been, but it was not empty. Someone was kneeling, slumped at one of the bridge consoles, and judging from which console it was, she had a good idea of who. “Elslince?”
The figure jumped, and hastily pulled themselves together, it was plain to see. “Ah! Hello.” It had been discovered that there was a dedicated medical officer’s post on the bridge, and it was where Elslince posted herself while the team was on space missions. And apparently in between those as well.
Allura had heard sniffling, and abandoned her plan of double-checking their course. There were more important things to take care of. “How are you doing?”
“I’m all right, really, Princess.”
“I wish you’d call me Allura,” Allura said, walking towards her. “Like everyone else does. You’re allowed. And I’m not sure I believe you.” She crouched down beside the Teleran girl. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Elslince wiped her eyes, but as fast as she did, more tears fell. “It’s been a difficult day. I-I miss him so much, and I worry, and I just want to know…”
“I know,” Allura said, reaching out to hug her. “It’s all right to cry. It’s all right.”
“I’m sorry… I don’t mean to…”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Come here.”
Elslince’s self-control gave way and she leaned into Allura’s shoulder, sobbing quietly.
When the flood had stemmed a little, and Elslince had raised her head, rubbing at her yellow-rimmed eyes, Allura gave her a wistful smile. “Feel a little better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. And if you ever wish for company, I’m always glad to listen.”
“I… might take you up on that. Thank you… Allura.”
They might still be a long way from having girly sleepovers together, but Allura glowed a little inside at those words.
She lay in their bed alone, unsleeping, curled on her side. She still left space for him on the other side. There were no talismans he had left her, nothing she could physically cherish besides one short white hair from his forelock that she’d found on his pillow. She held it now, marvelling as she sometimes did at its peculiarity to her: how it wasn’t truly white, more… translucent. It was very strange that humans’ hair drained of colour with age or stress. Her people’s didn’t do that. It was part of her fascination for him.
He’d been gone a little over six months. Voltron was still spinning its wheels, doing its best to fight the good fight against the Galra Empire. They’d struggled for a long time with the only four Lions they could field. The Black Lion had been still and silent in its hangar; Lance said it was moping. They could only do so much, and their morale was still dragging, missing their leader, their balance, their wholeness. The only saving grace was that Zarkon seemed to be well and truly gone, and the Galra, while not giving up ground easily, had ceased most of their aggression against the free peoples of the universe.
But a few weeks previous, Keith had been prevailed upon to finally end his daily searches – not because they were turning up nothing, but because the universe needed Voltron once more. Needed Keith to pilot the Black Lion in Shiro’s place, and the others to reshuffle accordingly. Only Elslince refrained from trying to sit in a pilot’s seat; she still had her oath, and she held to it. She didn’t have the experience or the motivation to fight like them anyway.
Perhaps it was foolish of her to miss him so, after only a couple months at his side. And yet, he had changed her life, saved her planet, saved her, brought her into a wider world, given her new reasons to smile, given her heart reason to jump for joy. He’d only treated her with kindness and respect, loved her, allowed her to help him. His absence was a deep hole in her heart, deeper even than the only-slightly older wound her sister had left. The very hope that he was still alive made the ache worse. She could hide it, she could smile and carry on with life.
But when she had time to herself, she pulled out her one white hair and thought of him. “Where are you?” she whispered to the dim blue glow of her room. Was he trapped, imprisoned, ensconced in cryogenic sleep? Or was he even now fighting to return to them, and was only too far away to know how? “Do you think of me as I think of you?” If only she could teleport to his side, rescue him if he needed it, or simply embrace him and be embraced in turn, to feel whole in the echo of his beating heart. If only she had the chance, nothing else would matter. She would be home, and happy.
So she lay, and pondered, and yearned, as she did daily, for a man – a strange pale brown man with beautiful grey eyes, the only man she would ever truly love.
A cry rang through the intercom. “Elslince! Come quick! The Black Lion – we think it’s-”
She put the hair back in its clear plastic envelope with trembling fingers, stashed it under her pillow, and bolted for the door.