Somehow Shiro found the process of hurdling himself into space less unnerving than telling Keith what to do.

But not by much.

But flying - that Shiro knew how to do.

There was no preflight checklist for boarding the Black Lion. No access hatch lockdown. No booster systems check. No flight dynamic path modeling or pressure system tests. All he had to do was board, and she knew. Shiro strapped in to his seat and tapped the dashboard to bring the navigational system online. At the edge of the star map radiated a purple blip. Shiro frowned. It was still on the other side of the nebula.

They still had time.

As he leaned back and let Black glide toward the hangar opening, he closed his eyes, and there Keith was. Excuse me? His words rang out, sharp in the silence of the Black Lion's cockpit. The look on his face flooded Shiro's memory. How Keith's face had radiated white hot heat. How he could hear it in his voice, the instinctual recoil from something that burned. Or betrayed. Shiro's stomach lurched, and he exhaled sharply through his nose. Tried to tell himself it was just pre-launch jitters. Just his body adjusting to the shift in art-grav levels and the change in air supply sources. Not guilt.

The team looks to you for leadership, he inhaled. You need to lead. The launch bay door opened. Even when it hurts.

"If this turns into another Adam situation..." he mumbled to himself as the Black Lion's engines began to roar. I don't know what I'm going to do. And then he told himself, what you're going to do now is focus on this launch. You know what to do. It was an anchoring thought in a sea of uncertainty.

The Black Lion lifted off the hangar floor and Shiro tried to release the tension he felt gripping his muscles. Shiro had completed countless launches. Simulated, scheduled, as planned and emergency. If it could be named, Shiro had probably managed to get something off the ground in it. But there was always an instant just before every launch - the moment before Shiro began to fly, when he felt like he was going to fall. Or worse; fail. The paladin took a deep breath as his lion plunged into space.

At first space always felt perfectly infinite and painfully claustrophobic, all at once. It never failed to astound him.

He took another breath, and his eyes opened to the field of stars before him. Black swung around to face the castle, and he watched as the other lions flew out of the launch bay. Blue. Green. Yellow. And finally, Red.

"All right everyone," Shiro exhaled. "Sound off."

The yellow paladin's face was the first to appear on screen. "Hunk here."

"Lance here," the blue paladin grinned.

"Pidge here," the green paladin chimed in. "And happy to report," Pidge's smiling face illuminated the video com as they held up a single finger. "The Galra vessel is just a scout ship."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Shiro said, waiting for Keith to come on screen. He didn't. Shiro frowned as he continued. "Scout ships bring -"

"BIG SHIPS!" Lance interjected with gusto. "With BIG GUNS."

"You got it," Shiro nodded. He glanced at the video com on his dashboard. All of the paladins were on screen but Keith. "Paladins," Shiro cleared his throat. "Make sure your systems are all online. We may need to form Voltron."

"But isn't that sort of - " Lance began.

"Overkill?" Pidge finished.

Shiro frowned.

"I mean," Hunk interjected. "It's just a scout ship."

"Just because it's reading as a scout vessel doesn't mean it's actually a scout vessel," Shiro said, calmly. "But whatever it is, if it's Galra, our objective is to take it out."

"I could activate Green's stealth mode," Pidge suggested, their face lighting up at the prospect of using their lion's unique tech. "Get us a closer look at what we're up against. Though it's probably not far off from this model."

Shiro surveyed the model of a Galra scout ship that Pidge shared on screen. The turnaround made it look small, built for speed and stealth; not combat. His eyes darted over its sleek carapace, searching for any signs of artillery. If his time with the Galra had taught him anything, it was that underestimating Galra forces, and their tech, would always be a losing game. His prosthetic fingers curled at the edge of the pilot seat armrest.

"Or-or-or," Hunk grinned. "We could cut through that nebula and wait for the scout ship to swing around. The supersonic shocks rolling off the white dwarf at its center should jam the craft's sensors long enough for us to get a jump on the scout."

Pidge's glasses glazed over. "Or instead of entering hazardous terrain, I could just use - "

"Or we could just use Yellow's canon and blow it up," Lance shrugged.

The paladins froze on their video screens. Shiro sat up a little straighter in his pilot's chair. It was always a little unnerving when Lance was right.

"Occam's razor," Pidge grinned sheepishly. "What a concept."

Hunk chortled while Lance stared blankly back at them over the vid comm. Keith's video link still wasn't up. A red box blinked where his face should have been. Shiro would have frowned, if all the other paladins eyes hadn't been on him. Shiro averted his gaze from the comm screen and out into space, where the nebula glowed in the distance. There was no sign of the Galra ship, but he knew that wouldn't last long.

"All good points," Shiro replied. "But it sounds like navigating the nebula and taking advantage of the element of surprise to take out the scout ship is going to be our best course of action." He watched the smile on Pidge's face falter. "That was good thinking on the recon, Pidge, but I don't want the scout ship to get eyes on the Castle. It's just a little too close for comfort right now."

"Understood," Pidge nodded. "But if we're going to cut through the nebula, we would need to form Voltron, no question. We're flying into the field of a white dwarf. The winds generated by those supersonic shocks combined with the dust of the nebula's core could rip the lions apart, if any of them fell into a hot pocket."

Hunk let out a long, wistful sigh. "Hot pockets."

"My readings of the nebula are showing some hot...areas with extremely high temperatures. So just like the microwavable "meal"," Pidge paused to make air quotes, "these will definitely make your tongue disintegrate. Along with the rest of your body." They flicked a thermal map of the nebula on screen.

"It's risky," Shiro murmured. "But if we form Voltron I think we can pull it off." He looked to the vidcomm screen. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," the team echoed, without Keith.

Shiro stifled a sigh of relief. He didn't need any more of the paladins pissed off at him. He activated the digital keyboard with Black's dashboard. Just as he was beginning to type a private message to Keith -

"Why aren't you online, Keith?" Pidge asked.

"Don't be embarrassed, man," Hunk smiled, kindly. "We all know you've had worse shiners than this one."

"Oh come on," Lance chimed in. "Don't be so vain. I'm sure you look fine." He arched a brow. "I mean, not as fine as me, but - "

Keith's bruised, frowning face appeared onscreen and Lance let out a startled sound of disgust. "Nevermind."

For once, Shiro was grateful for peer pressure. "Focus, everyone," he said firmly, but not unkindly.

"Paladins," Allura's voice was cool and calm. "Any updates?"

"Yes, Princess," Shiro responded, grateful she hadn't activated a video link. Keith's face was already enough of a distraction. He didn't want Allura jumping to any conclusions. To anyone already acquainted with the red paladin, it was hardly a surprise that he had done this to himself. But Allura didn't know Keith. Not well. Not yet, anyway. Shiro made a mental note to work on some team building exercises outside of their run in the mill life or death scenarios. But that would have to wait.

"Pidge has identified the Galra craft as a scout ship and Hunk is advising that the nebula will afford us an some cover, but we'll need to form Voltron to withstand the extreme conditions inside it. We should be able to cut off the scout before it can get the Castle of Lions in its sights," he finished.

Onscreen, the paladins all nodded. Even Keith.

"Sounds like a plan," Allura replied. "The Castle of Lions will hold its position to avoid detection."

"Princess," Pidge added. "Once we're inside the nebula the atmospheric conditions may impede our ability to communicate with the Castle of Lions."

Shiro nodded. "We'll maintain open communication as long as we can."

"Understood," Allura replied. "I'll see if there's anything we can do to boost the castle's communication array."

"Thank you, Allura," Shiro nodded again, forgetting she could not see him.

"I'll leave you to it, Shiro," he could almost hear the smile in her voice as she said his name.

Pidge, Hunk and Lance glanced at one another over video. Keith's bruised face looked straight on, frozen in a frown. It was a miracle he had been able to shove his swollen face into his helmet at all. If other expressions were too much effort, that suited Shiro just fine. At least he was in uniform.

"Save it for later, guys," said Shiro. "We're forming Voltron. Now."

The lions ascended the stars.

Shiro closed his eyes under his helmet. Once the team had learned to form Voltron, nothing in his life had ever felt so effortless. Despite their differences, each of the paladins came together to become something bigger and more powerful than they ever could be alone. Voltron was more than a mere sum of their parts. When they formed Voltron, they were whole.

He opened his eyes and gazed out at the stars before them, and wondered if Keith found comfort when they were together. Like this.

Shiro glanced at Keith's video feed. He wondered if he was okay. If he had been too hard on him. If he was going to say what Shiro thought he was going to say, on the observation deck. He took a deep breath.

"Scout ship is about two hundred klicks out," Pidge said. "They're moving slowly but they're moving."

"Activate thrusters," Shiro ordered.

Voltron soared through the field of stars towards the nebula. The paladins were silent, reviewing their lions' respective systems and the Galra ship stats. As the orange light before them grew brighter, doubt began to leak in through the cracks in Shiro's resolve. He brought up a private chat line for the second time that flight. His lips parted as his fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Maybe I'm the one who owes you an apology, he typed.

He hadn't even allowed Keith to explain himself. But maybe that was because it hadn't mattered. It never had. Shiro had never asked; never required Keith to explain himself. Shiro had always just accepted that Keith was doing his best, before. He thought of Allura wringing her hands in her lap in the chair by his bedside. He had told himself over and over that there was nothing between them, but there she was in the middle of the night. In her nightgown. His thumb absently traced the edge of his forefinger, where her hand had intertwined with his.

Was he being hard on Keith because of her?

Shiro frowned. Keith's behavior had been a point of contention between him and Adam more times than Shiro cared to admit. But once Keith was spending more nights in his own cot than their couch, that tension had faded into another fracture entirely. Shiro sighed. The place where his prosthetic met his skin tingled psychosomatically. He refused to scratch it. Allura was not Adam. That was then, not now.

Though the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Have things changed? Shiro wondered, staring at the cursor flickering at the end of the message he hadn't sent. As Galra tech that he knew he would never understand allowed him to flex his finger over the cursor, he almost had to laugh. He had changed, all right. Maybe the real problem was that Keith hadn't. Not enough. Not yet.

Progress not perfection was a mantra that had gotten him through the better part of Keith's junior year at the Garrison. He had offered Keith more second chances than he could have ever counted. He had defended him. Advised him. Believed in him. And he still did. But this was not a drill. This was not a sim. The purple light flickered at the edge of the screen.

This is enemy space, and out here we live, fly and die as a team, he told himself. And Shiro wasn't going to lose anyone else.

He closed the chat window.

"All right everyone," Shiro said, his eyes narrowing surveying Voltron's field of vision. "In order to pull this off, we're going to have to destroy this scout ship on site. If it spots us and transmits our location back to the main fleet we're in for a way harrier fight than this one."

"Big ships. Big guns," Lance flipped his visor down. "Got it."

"And no one wants that," Hunk added.

"Agreed," Pidge said.

"Agreed," Shiro echoed.

Keith remained silent.

"We'll be entering the nebula soon," Pidge tapped their console. "Bridge, do you copy?"

"Loud and clear!' Coran's voice rang out over the audio link.

"Any luck with reconfiguring the Castle's communication array?" Shiro asked.

"Allura's at it in the crystal chamber," Coran chirped.

"We're testing different crystal frequencies to see if we can bolster our communication signal," Allura added. "We don't want to lose you out there."

Shiro's breath caught in his chest at Allura's last words. Allura didn't want to lose him. Of course Allura doesn't want to lose you, he thought disparagingly. Or any of the paladins. Then Voltron would be lost. But there was a part of him that knew it was more than that. It wasn't just about Voltron. Not anymore.

"Copy that," Shiro replied, keeping it curt. The paladins needed to focus. He needed to focus. "Paladins, brace for rough atmospheric conditions."

"Shields up," said Hunk.

The thermal map of the nebula reappeared on Shiro's screen as Pidge began to speak. "Remember everyone, avoid the hot - " they cleared their throat. "Spots. The hot spots. The areas marked the darkest red should be avoided by our flight pattern if at all possible."

"But at least our projected rendezvous point isn't close to any of them," Hunk shared a map with coordinates marked at the edge of the nebula onscreen.

"But we could still get creamed by some sort of space sonic boom, right?" Lance asked.

"Yes," Pidge replied, matter-of-factly. "And don't forget about the space dust, which won't be the immediate cause of anyone's death of course, but could very well jam our comm and navigational systems, leaving us marooned in space until we all die of dehydration."

Lance frowned. "The more we talk about this the worse it gets."

"At least we'll die of dehydration before we die of starvation," Pidge grinned.

"Not with all the hot pockets in this nebula," added Hunk.

"The moment has passed, Hunk," Lance sighed. "The moment has passed."

Voltron's thrusters propelled them into the nebula's field. Shiro's muscles tensed as he braced himself for - no perceptible change in flight conditions. His eyes darted to the dashboard, but it showed no changes. Shiro breathed a small sigh of relief. Everything was just...orange. It was not doing Keith's bruised face any favors, but otherwise, Voltron seemed unaffected. For now.

"I've got it," Lance smirked, glancing from side to side before splaying his fingers over the screen. "Hacker voice."

Pidge's shoulders slumped. "Oh please don't."

"We're in."

The green paladin groaned. "Less than one hundred klicks from the projected rendezvous point."

"Bridge, do you copy that?" Shiro paladins paused, waiting for a response. Shiro's test tightened the way it always did before take off. When space felt impossibly endless, and too tight to make any movement at all. All at once.

Voltron continued its course, and the light of the nebula's white dwarf star was becoming so bright it almost burned. Shiro squinted as he adjusted the visor settings on his helmet. As his visor transitioned to filter out the light, his eyes opened again. Everything was still a deeply saturated orange. Shiro surveyed the nebula field before them. Their path was still clear.

There were no debris that he could see. Not yet. Maybe they were far enough out from the core not to worry about encountering any dust on their flight path. He glanced to the edge of Voltron's field of vision. Far beyond what any of them could see with their eyes alone shone the hot core of what was once a star, expending all that remained of its energy before it died; the white dwarf. A star's fate was no different than anything else; they all burned out, eventually. Shiro's prosthetic fingers twitched at the edge of the dashboard.

"Do you think they heard us?" Hunk asked, quietly.

"Bridge," Shiro repeated. "Do you copy?"

"C-copy that," Coran's voice glitched back over the comm link.

Pidge looked up at Shiro over the edges of their spectacles. "We're not even in that deep," they murmured. The confidence they had exuded while discussing all the ways that the crew could eat it in space was gone, now.

"Let's hope Allura can get the Castle's crystal on a different vibrational frequency then. If anyone can do it, it's her and Coran," Shiro said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "But if they can't, we stick to the plan."

He looked met the somber paladins' eyes onscreen. "We get in, get out, and get back to the Castle."

"Should be a piece of cake," said Keith.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading and for the encouraging comments! I've been considering the characterization in this fic as I've picked it back up, and I know Keith is a...bit of a hot head in this one. The truth is, I started writing this WAY back - before Lotor, before the Castle of Lions was destroyed, before, well quite a bit happened in the show. I decided to proceed with where I started, and see where it took us. I'm enjoying the opportunity to delve more into the team's interpersonal lives, and the bonding that got them through some of their major development arcs that hit them down the line in the show. Thanks for coming along for the ride.