It's been seven hundred years and ffdotnet still won't format correctly so I would read this on A03, not here. Because ffdotnet is, though I think on it fondly, a Bad Site.

Season 3 spoilers and no reliable narrators.

Abnegation

Keith has this dream sometimes, after they rescue Shiro. It's full of detail and color but he's never been able to remember all of it at once, has had to slot it together like cables or mecha until he can figure out most of its shape. He doesn't believe in dreams except as distractions, so he doesn't bother to mention it, but he does believe in conspiracy theories so he can't make himself forget.

In the dream they're fighting on a Galra ship, the whole team. Sometimes even Coran is there. And they chase the soldiers down long dark halls and they're always hollering and laughing because they're kicking so much ass. Even Shiro. And because it's been so long since Shiro's laughed a dark part of Keith looks forward to the beginning of this dream every time.

But then they round a corner and he's there: sometimes Zarkon, sometimes Lotor, more often a mishmash of the two. Lotor-Zarkon smiles at Shiro and says, "Thank you for bringing back our weapon," and Keith says, "He's not yours," with a snarl.

Shiro doesn't say anything, and they aren't wearing their paladin armor in this dream and so Keith can see the terror and exhaustion in his eyes, every time. He says to Shiro, "You don't have to listen to him. We came in here together and we're all going to leave."

Then Zarkon-Lotor throws back his head and this time it's him who laughs, it's them: not just those two now but all the Galra sentries and Druid torturers and Garrison doctors, everyone who's ever hurt Shiro, their faces running into each other in globs like wet paint. "Did you ever wonder why we sent him back?" he-they ask Keith. "Did you ever wonder what we might have done to him? What we might have put there in the meat beneath his skull?"

"That's a lie," says Keith, not caring if it is or not, wanting only to keep Shiro calm. It doesn't matter what they've done. The castle can fix it. Allura can fix it. Keith himself can fix it. Someone somewhere will fix it just so long as Keith can see Shiro at his side.

The other paladins are bunched several steps behind, silent.

"There's no way to fix it," and it's Zarkon's witch-woman now, gnashing her teeth. "It's within him, it's become him. I know my work. You'd have to slice him to bits before you found it. And as long as you can't find it, we can find you. Our champion. A beacon in the dark."

And Keith hates this part, because this is when the ship begins to heave and hurl underneath them, and this is when Shiro turns to Keith with such a sad, sad smile and says, "Sometimes you have to make the hard choices."

Keith's bayard is in his hand and he knows what comes next even as he screams, "No!" Because it isn't Zarkon there, or Lotor or Haggar or a Garrison guard. It's him, it's Keith, Voltron's new leader. And he hates the paladins for putting this all on him, and he hates the Galra blood in him that knows what his kind can do, and he hates Shiro for waiting so patiently, for letting him do this, again and again he loses Shiro and they hurt Shiro and now he is raising his sword—

But he always wakes up at that point, sweaty, disoriented. And when he treads softly down the hall and to the right and knocks on Shiro's door, Shiro always answers. He still looks pale and thin and his messy hairline gives away a shaky hand, but he does always answer. So Keith can look at him and tell himself that there's nothing of Zarkon here. That he hasn't failed again. That Shiro will get better.

"I just wanted to let you know. I'm here if you need me," Keith says.

"I know," says Shiro, with a sad, sad smile. "Haven't you always been?"

-i-

Haggar reaches out with her hands encased in black and senses it. The champion. What they left of it. She notes its location and puts it aside for later.

It was an interesting thing until it wasn't, that Earthling boy, and it will be interesting again soon – she thinks briefly of the storage facility, rows upon rows of tanks filled with purple gel and inside an army, seething, as much man as the champion is a man which is to say not at all – but there is hardly time to think of it. Hardly any time at all.

There has never been enough time, thinks Haggar, and that is the true fault of this world, she has always known it, even before the quintessence when she could still think clearly of things other than the power of raw life. When she was still that – her lip curls as she stares down at the Emperor's bedside – that small weak distracted little thing. Amazing that the Emperor wanted her. But he was weak too, then, in his way.

The room they're in is dark-lit and rot-smelling, despite her best efforts. Tubes running from machines to the bed give off a sickly glow. She has been treating him with quintessence as often as she dares; she does not want to overload his system. Still he will not wake.

But he is the Emperor. He must wake.

Haggar remembers the heady early days of war, when planets burned in a brilliant line and the quintessence and bloodlust felt evenly matched. They were still learning each other then, this new Zarkon and this new Haggar, and they were cruel to each other: witch, he called her in moments of sharp clarity, witch, mad woman, what have you done?

Only what you ask of me, my lord, she answered, eyes wide, before turning back to her work. Even then there was always work. More experiments, more test subjects, a thousand captives' bodies spent for another tick of quintessent life.

I have never, he would say, I would never. But he was always an ambitious one himself, and he couldn't hide how lovingly he looked down at the blood on his hands.

He stopped protesting when her experiments began to bear fruit. Heady days, strength and murder. Small wonder it was then they conceived a son.

Haggar frowns and sinks lower into her robe. The less said of Lotor, the better. There was never time to raise him properly, perhaps.

Instead she thinks again of the champion. It reminds her – at the beginning it reminded her, before she found it again, before she made her repairs – of condescending old Lord Alfor. Of all her condescending people, thinking of themselves as universal peacekeepers, as guardians and heroes. Arrogant, all of them, the survivor princess too. But what had they ever done, ever made, besides the Lions?

Zarkon fell into the Black Lion, he needed it, it became his core: as it should be, such a beautiful thing. Haggar will bring it back to him if it takes another ten thousand years. She says to him, impatient, "Wake up," and scowls when he doesn't stir.

Just like the champion. They could hardly ever wake it, towards the end, had to keep it sedated more and more. It screamed too much.

An imperfect thing she's made of the Earth boy with her clumsy hands. Not like the Lions, though even the Lions are flawed and unfinished. No. She curses unfinished work. Then it's not like the pure luminescent designs the quintessence brings before her eyes. The wondrous things she could make, she could be, if only she could get across the void to the other reality. It hovers at her side, nipping at her like the old cat, displeased with having to wait. It wants itself back, what it's spent on her and the Emperor. And she wants to go back with it. If she can only find the way.

She touches her robe again. Funereal, for the one she left ten thousand years behind. The Emperor, though, chose new armor, as was his right. The Emperor was dead, long live the Emperor.

Haggar touches the icy flesh of his lower lip. His skin is several shades sallower, the crags of his bone structure wearing away. No time, no time. Voltron grows stronger every day and Lotor will drive all the Galra Empire to destruction for a sulk. She thinks the champion has been well prepared but who can tell what the other paladins will do to it? the lengths that they will go?

They must shore up what they have built, they must enlarge it, they must have all the universe in their grasp. So that they can end it. Rip it open like a belly wound on a human, let all the guts fall out! She will sink up to her shoulders in the warm reek of it, the shuddery last gasps of this reality's corpse as it dies, and it will give her enough power – give them enough power, she thinks, looking at the Emperor there on his bed – to reach the other side, the brilliant conclusion to all her work, and then she will be perfected and then she can finally be done. When she has it all. When the work is finished. Never before.

"Wake up," she hisses in the darkened room. "I've still need for you, my husband. You promised me you would give me all the support I needed. You cannot stop while it still goes on. We are so close."

But he is unresponsive to both her hands on his face. She holds them there and remembers what it felt like the first year of his awkward courtship ten thousand years ago, before the work had started in earnest. Before the quintessence rebuilt his already solid frame. Remembers when she thought she might even give up the work, if he asked. But Zarkon, loyal hungry Emperor Zarkon with his big hands around her waist, never asked her to stop. He knew even then, she insists. It was not all her doing.

Never enough time, never enough. And all of it.

She waits.

-i-

Static. Static. Cold tile floor. Pods full of purple gel. No.

Static. Static.

The voi

ces in his head? His? His? His?

He can be so clear for so so long but then sometimes at night –

Night. Keith. Comes sometimes. Makes it easier. No static then.

Memories of Keith. Not from now. A year of pain between then and now an

d sometimes now Keith looks at him with dark doubtful eyes and – why?

Why doubt? Why what? static. Static. Worst at night. Head in his hands pain spl

itting him open stop please don't

I'll do anything give you my arm my legs please stop please don't put me back in there

But Keith. Memories of him. At the Garrison. In the castle. Warm skin. Uniform disheveled.

Did he go to the Garrison? Does he walk the castle halls?

Memories of – Keith, of – the other paladins – his friends –

static but

Keith soon. Keith has a knack for coming on bad nights like this. Just ba-

d memories he tells himself just bad memories ignore them make them leave

you're fine, Shiro. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. You're

on the operating table. Straps around his limbs around his neck around his forehead, whirling blades and bags of cool viscous fluids, he tries to talk to them, they don't speak English they don't speak Japanese he tries the six words of Spanish he knows from Lance he tries Altean he tries screaming they don't talk to him they don't they consider taking out his tongue but he might need it then need it for what he screams need it for what

Shiro. Shiro. Static. Shiro.

He thinks that they all want to go home, Lance and Hunk and Allura and Coran and all of them, and Pidge wants her brother and Keith wants – and he wants – and –

They want him to be their leader, steady comforting leader, pick back up his mantle

and he does remember that was him - he does - he does - does he? - he does.

He huddles on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, hand, hands, it hurts so mu-

-ch, worse than dying of thirst and hunger in a Galra cruiser, worse than anything, the

table, the knives, the straps, Keith the first one he saw, always Keith the first one

Where is Keith? It's night. Where is Keith?

His voice? His?

But he'll be better in the morning.

-i-

It takes Shiro a while to answer Keith's knock, which is weird for him, but then again it's the middle of the night and Shiro's nowhere near full strength. He will be, Keith reminds himself. He will be. Just give him time.

Finally the door slides open. Shiro looks out from the blackness of his room. "Keith," he says, almost a whisper.

Keith furrows his brows. "…You OK?" he asks. For a second, just a second, it could have been a stranger standing there. But Shiro will be fine.

"Oh," says Shiro, "yeah, I'm OK. Sorry. Just woke up from a bad dream."

"Huh," says Keith. "Me too."