Finding Home

A Voltron: Legendary Defender Fanfic

Galaya

Written: 12-20-17

Published: 12-30-17

This is fanfiction - I do not own anything.

Again, this fic does not follow canon perfectly. This will happen differently sometimes, and I may add or remove things. I will not rewrite scenes from the series unless that scene is changing in some big way or I want to explore some other aspect of that scene. I will make note of any scenes from the show that appear in the chapter in my AN. This chapter doesn't quite get into any scenes from the show, but this is the end of the pre-series portion of this fic.

Chapter Four: Loss

Shiro sat down across from Keith and folded his hands over his lap. "I've been selected for the Kerberos mission."

"Congratulations!" Keith grinned. "You'll go further than any human ever has."

"Yeah. I'm excited. Hey, maybe we'll even find evidence of extraterrestrial life."

"So, what's wrong? You seem worried."

"I'll be gone a long time, Keith. A year, probably."

Oh. "I'll be fine, Shiro. You don't need to worry about me. I promise. I won't get into a fight, or get myself booted out, or anything."

Shiro shook his head. "Thanks, but that's not it."

Keith frowned, and leaned forward. "Then… what?"

"You're almost sixteen, Keith."

"You know I don't care about birthdays."

"I know, Keith. But…" He sighed. "Look, you'll be seventeen by the time I get back. Almost old enough to be on your own. And I…"

He stood up and walked over to the desk. The drawer squeaked open. Keith cocked his head in confusion. Shiro pulled out a packet of papers.

"I don't think anything will happen on this mission. I'm the pilot, and I'm going with Commander Holt and Matt. I trust them. But… since it's such a long time, I want you to have some kind of back up."

Keith took the packet from his hands. "What do you mean?"

"I'm your legal guardian, Keith, not the Garrison. If anything happens to me, you'll… It hasn't been as big a deal so far, since I've been on shorter, safer, missions. And now that you're sixteen." Shiro couldn't quite finish his thought, so he sat down again and gestured at the packet.

"I signed the shack over to you. It'll give you a place to live in case anything happens. Since your exact age is uncertain, and you're pretty independent anyway, I talked with social services. If I am, for any reason, unable to take care of you, you're able to live on your own. No more foster homes."

"Shiro…" Keith stared. "Don't… Thank you, but, please, don't talk like this. Nothing's going to happen. Right?"

He couldn't lose Shiro. He'd known Shiro for five years. It was longer than anyone had ever been in his life. Not even his parents. Shiro had become a constant in his life. Something permanent. He couldn't lose Shiro.

Shiro gave him a reassuring smile. "I don't think anything will, kiddo. This is worst-case scenario. I just… I don't want you to have to go back to another foster home. I'm just making sure that you won't. And that's not all that's in there."

Keith opened the packet, flipping past the deed to the shack and a few other documents.

"I've been your guardian for – what is it, now, four years? Yeah, four years. You're like a little brother to me, Keith. I figured I might as well make it official. If you want it."

The adoption papers stared up at him. Keith couldn't think of a single word to say.

Family. This was a chance to actually have a real family.

Carefully, Keith set the packet aside. He stood up and walked over to Shiro. Shiro tensed, about to say something, when Keith wrapped his arms around his shoulders and tucked his head against Shiro's chest. Tears dripped from his eyes.

Honestly, Shiro had made Keith cry more times than anyone else.

"Thank you." His voice shook under the weight of his emotions.

Shiro laughed quietly as he hugged Keith back. "I'll take that as a yes."

V

Watching the shuttle take off this time was harder than Keith remembered it being. Maybe it was because being Shiro's brother was so new. His brother! Even the thought of it made him giddy. Maybe it was because he wanted more time to spend with Shiro, to let the newness settle a bit, before he left. Maybe it was that he was nervous about Shiro being gone for an entire year.

Maybe it was both.

But something felt wrong, in a way Keith couldn't define.

Something in the back of his mind whispered that family never stayed. That, now that Shiro was officially family, he was doomed to lose him.

Keith tried to ignore that thought. It was just paranoia speaking. Shiro had promised to come home.

V

Keith sat in one of the cushioned seats in the principal's office, waiting for someone. He wasn't sure who. Had he gotten in trouble? He didn't think so. No one had even talked to Keith in the past week, let alone gotten into an argument or a fight.

So it probably wasn't something to worry about. It could be a recruitment offer, for all he knew. It wasn't unheard of for cadets to be selected for the easier missions.

He stood up, right hand to his forehead in a salute, as Commander Iverson walked in. Keith had never cared much for Iverson – he was harsh and strict, even when it was unnecessary, but Keith could deal with militaristic people. He wasn't exactly the gentlest himself.

"Sit down, cadet," Iverson said.

Keith blinked, but complied. Something was wrong.

"You're Officer Shirogane's little brother, right?"

Keith's heart almost stopped in his chest. "A-adopted. Yeah- Yes. Sir."

"The Kerberos mission has gone missing."

No. No. Keith struggled to breathe. His throat was dry, and clogged. No. Not Shiro. Please, please not Shiro.

Did the universe hate him? Was he doomed to never find anyone? That anyone and everyone would always leave him? He knew it was intentional – Shiro would never intentionally leave – but it hurt just as much.

Keith closed his eyes and bowed his head. It was all he could do to keep from breaking down in front of the Commander.

"H-How?" he managed to stutter out. "What happened?"

"We don't know yet. We have a few teams investigating. You'll be informed as soon as any more information comes to light. Dismissed."

The Commander walked out, leaving the door open. Keith could only stare at his hands. He let his head drop into his hands with a choked sob. He ground his fists against his closed eyes, as if it would help squash the anguish building up in his chest.

Nothing could ever last.

He was cursed to be forever alone.

V

For the next week, Keith refused to leave the dorm room. He hardly got out of bed, and even then, only for food, water, or the bathroom. He stared at the photo on the desk, at Shiro's smiling face. A new one had joined it recently, a picture of Shiro and Keith standing together. Shiro was grinning widely, but Keith had a confused, and slightly irritated, expression.

Shiro said he loved the picture because it captured Keith perfectly. That one was even more painful to look at than the one of Shiro's family. Keith had met them, but he didn't know any of them very well. Shiro's parents didn't speak much English, and they didn't live nearby. Shiro had the picture, but he wasn't particularly close to them, having spent most of his life away from them in boarding schools.

Maybe that was part of the reason he'd taken to Keith so easily.

All the little knickknacks they'd given each other over the years were just as hard to look at – the model shuttle and the asteroid crystal especially. So Keith kept his gaze focused on the first picture.

He wasn't sure if he was glad or upset that all the tears seemed to have dried up. Maybe, after all the years of being alone and abandoned – intentionally or not – he had no tears left to cry anymore. That thought only made him feel worse.

If he had refused Shiro's offer, refused to let Shiro be his family officially, would things have turned out differently? Had he condemned Shiro by accepting? Doomed Shiro to the same fate that seemed to befall anyone else who had ever called Keith family?

V

They told him the mission crashed due to pilot error.

Keith knew they were lying.

V

Maybe punching Commander Iverson wasn't the best way of handling things. It didn't make him feel any better. All it achieved was getting him booted from the Garrison.

He wished he could feel ashamed of it. All he felt was empty as he walked off the premises, the ghost of a familiar sigh in his ear.

Now both Keith and Shiro had broken their promises.

V

Keith moved into the shack. He'd taken everything he could from the Garrison. Clothes, books, anything. The picture of him and Shiro together, along with the model shuttle and the asteroid crystal, had taken up permanent residence in his belt pouches. He refused to leave them anywhere else for fear of losing them.

It was all he had left.

There was nothing he could do for Shiro – even if Shiro was still alive. He didn't believe the story the Garrison had told him, but that just meant they were covering something up. Keith didn't dare let himself hope that Shiro could still be alive.

So, he threw himself into searching the desert. The energy was calling louder than ever. It gave him something to put his mind to, something to let the pain fade away.

V

The energy led him to a series of caves. The walls were covered in strange carvings, all depicting a blue lion. A giant blue lion.

At first, Keith thought it was just some old Native American art. He'd seen plenty of hieroglyphs in the past. He assumed it was some ancient legend, maybe a myth about a lion spirit descending to the Earth to… do something. He'd never paid much attention to religion.

But these carvings… They almost looked mechanical. Like they weren't depicting a spirit or an animal, but a machine. The ears resembled old sci-fy communicators in a way. The lines were geometric – not that it unusual for hieroglyphs – in ways that suggested machinery.

It left him puzzled for days.

And spending hours looking up alien conspiracy theories. Which led him to realize that no one else had ever discovered these caves or their markings.

If not for the strange, calling energy, he might have dismissed the marking as a hoax. He wasn't going to argue that conspiracy theories could certainly be true, but he also knew that many people created 'evidence' to mess with people all too often.

So he kept studying the carvings. He tried to puzzle out if they could have any connection to the mysterious energy. Most of them were simply variations on the same story – the giant blue lion descending from the sky.

But he soon discovered the other carvings.

If the lion carvings depicted the past, then these were a prediction of the future. There was everything from scarily accurate star charts to images of what seemed to be some kind of ship crashing. There was a map detailing the surrounding landscape. It even showed the Garrison.

Whatever these carvings were predicting, it was going to happen soon, in just a few months.

Keith still wasn't convinced that this was more than a hoax, but he gathered supplies and made plans for what he would do if the predictions were true. A few homemade bombs – thank you, Garrison training – and detailed maps and calendars.

He had no idea what to expect, if it wasn't a hoax.

V

The night sky was broken by a streak of light blazing across the sky to crash into the desert.

It was time.

V