Chapter Text
It was several hours before they even approached a planet. The nearest one, Matt said apologetically, once Lance's sobs had tapered off into sniffles. Nowhere near wherever Lotor had gone off with Lance's girl.
The resistance Matt was part of had no plans to go after the lion, he said. Too dangerous.
I'll go with you once you're healed, he said, jaw set, amidst the aliens' (Te-osh's and Damya's) objections. For the universe. For… For Shiro and my dad.
That was the last Lance had been spoken to. It was a while before he registered a hushed conversation happening near him.
"...stupid idea, Matt - "
"Voltron is the best chance this world has at getting saved. It's not stupid."
"Just like it's totally not about checking on your buddy Shiro, who saved your life? You feel responsible for him now and you're letting it cloud your judgment."
"Yeah, Matt, if you do this, you could die, and then you'll never make it back to Earth, never make it back to your sister Katie - "
Oh. That reminded Lance. "Your sister," he said, bringing their conversation to an abrupt halt with his dry, cracked voice. "Katie? She goes by Pidge now. She's the Green Paladin. I… I came into space with her. She's been looking for you."
Dead silence struck then, swallowing them whole as Matt stared at Lance like he was the one who had saved Matt, rather than the other way around. "I could see her?" he said in a hushed voice.
Too late, Lance realized with his grief-addled brain that he had just put Pidge's brother in serious danger. "Wait, no," he said, though he knew it was futile at this point. "No, you should - stay here, with your friends. They're right. It's too dangerous."
"But you're going after the Blue Lion," Matt accused.
"Well…, yeah. I have to. I'm her paladin, and she's my responsibility."
"Well, try to understand this, then: Pidge is my responsibility. And there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me from going after her."
Lance withered under the searing glares of Te-osh and Damya, but what was done was done. And he realized he wasn't even entirely sorry about it. Alongside the dread of his realization, there had been relief, too. He didn't want to travel the galaxy by himself. Regardless of how dangerous that idea was, it would also have been… lonely. Lance wasn't good at being alone.
Te-osh turned away from him, facing forward. "Brace for impact," she said icily.
Matt quickly hunkered down beside Lance, bracing him instead of bracing himself. "Careful of your injuries," Matt reminded him, like he could forget somehow that he was in agony. Although Lance had done his best to downplay the extent of his pain once he'd realized that Te-osh had done all she could for him with their limited first aid kit, so maybe that was on him.
The landing wasn't as rough as Lance had expected, and soon the door opened to a forest of droopy purple and yellow flowers on towering red stems. "You stay here with Lance," Te-osh instructed. "Damya and I will go track down some more medical supplies." They had all agreed not to bring Lance to a hospital in case the Galra came looking for him.
Once the two had gone on their way, Matt turned to Lance. "So, tell me about our plan to get the Blue Lion back."
Lance started. He wasn't used to being asked for plans. "Well… it would be a lot easier with Voltron. I think we should try and hail them first."
"Yeah, that makes sense."
"So once I'm fixed up, we should go find someone who can do that… except…" Lance deflated. "Lotor might still be looking for me. And if you go without me, looking for Voltron, if he hears about it, then he might come looking for you. So I guess we have to wait a while."
Matt nodded. "Yeah, try to blend in in the meantime, I guess. Well, I have some emergency money from my work with the freedom fighters. We can use that to get a place to stay for a few nights, and once that runs out, I s'pose we'll have to just risk it and go asking around about a device that could hail Voltron."
-~*~- -~*~- -~*~-
Te-osh and Damya returned some hours later with more advanced medical supplies. They all agreed that Lance wasn't ready to be up and walking around yet, so the other three used nearby foliage to camouflage the pod, and then all four of them spent the night there.
The next day, it turned out Lance's wounds weren't healing as well as they'd have liked. "We might have to reconsider the hospital angle," Damya said.
"But we agreed that that's the first place Lotor would look for him," Matt argued.
"Maybe I can just disguise myself somehow?" Lance suggested. "I pretended I was half-Galran to get onto Lotor's ship…."
"And how did that work out for you?" Te-osh deadpanned. She sighed. "Alright, look, just take this." She felt around her left shoulder, then peeled something off and slapped it onto Lance's shoulder.
"Ouch!" Lance yelped as the strange device dug its claws into him. "What the heck is this thing?!"
"It's a disguiser," Te-osh said.
Damya made a noise of alarm. "What if you need that, Te-osh?"
"A Paladin of Voltron needs it more," Te-osh said solemnly. Then she wrinkled her nose. "Even if I'm not pleased that he's taking my partner with him."
"Sorry, Te-osh," Matt said. "But I've got to do this."
"Yeah, yeah," Te-osh dismissed. She pulled out a small square, which then expanded into a tablet. Then she tapped a few buttons, held one of her fingers to one button for a few seconds, and thrust the tablet in Lance's direction. "Here. Press your dominant finger against this button for three ticks. After that, your fingerprint will be programmed into the disguiser, and you can activate it with two taps. Once you're done, activate it so I can see what species it decided to disguise you as."
Lance did as he was instructed. According to Te-osh and Damya, he was disguised as a member of the Rixx species, which had orange skin, white hair, small, silver eyes, and dark blue spots on the outsides of their arms and legs.
"Neat," Lance mused, looking down at his own orange-and-blue hand.
"The tablet will tell you all you need to know about the species in order to blend in," Te-osh continued. "I'll have to pick up a new one to go with my disguiser, so this one is yours now. I guess you can call yourself a member of the resistance."
"Thank you," Lance said earnestly. "When I get back to my team, Voltron will owe you one."
"Don't worry about it. The whole universe will owe Voltron one once you've defeated Zarkon."
With that, Matt said goodbye to his partners, and the two aliens took off back into space with the pod, leaving Matt and Lance to walk to the hospital with the directions they'd been given.
-~*~- -~*~- -~*~-
One day into Lance's hospital stay, with Matt ever-present at his side, a familiar voice neared his room saying, "Excuse me - pardon me - I just need to - if you'll just let me through - just one moment - "
Then Romelle burst into the room. Her face fell as soon as she laid eyes on him. "Oh, my apologies, sir," she said as a bunch of nurses rushed in after her. "I was hoping someone I knew might be in this room - never mind - "
"Romelle?" Lance blurted out in shock.
Romelle started. "Yes? Wait, how do you know my name?"
"Could we have the room, please?" Matt asked the nurses who had clearly come in to retrieve Romelle. They exchanged glances, but obliged him at Lance's nod, gradually vacating the room.
Once the three of them were alone, Lance tapped his disguiser button twice to lower the mask. "Romelle, it's me!"
"Lance!" Romelle rushed at him and threw her arms around him, then quickly pulled away at his sharp inhalation. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Lance! You must be in terrible pain."
"Never mind that," Lance said, though he was in terrible pain, especially after the impromptu hug. "I'm so glad to see you."
"I still have your armor and bayard," Romelle announced, opening her satchel to show him.
"That's fantastic. You were able to get away from the Galra okay?"
"Yes, I was. I took an escape pod to the closest planet I could find."
"I guess they hadn't moved much," Matt mused. "Hi, I'm Matt Holt, a member of the resistance."
Romelle tilted her head to the side. "Resistance against who? Lotor?"
Matt stared at her. "Lotor? What? No, Zarkon!"
Lance took a moment to explain first to Matt about Romelle's background, then to Romelle about the war with the Galra. Both of them were reeling by the time he finished.
"I can't believe Zarkon's son found a way to be even more evil than he is," Matt said in disbelief. "I mean, Zarkon is pure evil, but what Lotor's doing to your people is so sick and twisted."
"I can't believe everyone is still at war with Zarkon," Romelle said. "It's been ten thousand decaphoebs. I just assumed someone would have won or lost by now."
Lance shrugged. "I guess it's a big universe out there. And the resistance is doing a good job," he added.
"Anyway, Lance, I know you're injured, but I'm afraid there's not much time. I only checked the hospital today on the off-chance you'd have escaped because it's my last day on this planet. I finally managed to secure passage off it, but they leave in just a few vargas."
"Lance is too injured to leave," Matt objected.
"Well, I had a day here," Lance said grimly. "That'll have to do. Tell me how we're getting out, Romelle."
"This doesn't feel right," Keith muttered into the comms, staring pensively out into space through the Red Lion's windows. It must have been the hundredth time he said it, but the feeling of absolute wrongness persisted. He just couldn't shake it.
"Not to me, either," Shiro admitted. "But it might be our only option. The Blue Lion is the only way we can save the universe… not to mention, it's our only lead on Lance."
"I know that," Keith snapped, and, remembering how everyone had reacted when he'd suggested abandoning Allura, quickly added, "And I'm not saying that Lance isn't important, of course I'm not saying that."
"I mean, I, for one, didn't think you were until you got weirdly defensive about it just now," Hunk voiced.
Keith made a noise of frustration. He just couldn't say anything right to these people, could he? "Look, all I'm saying is that this is a really, really dangerous weapon to be handing over to the Galra."
"It's a fair trade," Shiro said, resigned. "Two weapons of equal power."
"If you think about it, we're actually getting the better end of the deal," Pidge reasoned. "Because Lotor still has to do something with this, and unless he has an engineer as good as Allura's father, he won't be able to make anything as powerful as Voltron out of it anyway."
They reached the comet, and each of the four remaining lions sank their claws into it before beginning to pull it out. Finally the last of it was freed, and the portal in which it had been stuck folded itself shut behind it.
Shiro opened up a line on the comms to Lotor, whose face appeared on the screen that manifested before Keith's eyes. "It's done," Shiro said. "Give us the Blue Lion."
Lotor smiled. "Of course. As a show of good faith, I will release the lion to you before you release the comet."
Keith bristled at that - Lotor's implied confidence that he would have no trouble taking the comet by force if they didn't release it - but he had nothing to complain about. Because the next thing he knew, the Blue Lion was flying through space back towards the castleship.
The other three paladins released the comet. Gritting his teeth, Keith forced himself to do the same.
"Excellent," Lotor purred as his ship moved closer, summoning the comet. "Now that that successful transaction is behind us - "
"Let's never speak to each other again?" Keith suggested irately.
"On the contrary…" Lotor smirked. "Let's talk about my father."