Disclaimer: If you recognize the character, it isn't mine. Just playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

Notes: I'm on Twitter and Tumblr under Avidbeader. Come say hi!

This is a sequel to my first "Voltron" story, "Scattered". Please do check that out first, or some things won't make sense. This continues more or less through S2 territory, but I'll be pulling in bits of canon here and there from all five seasons.

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A tiny voice in the back of his head told him not to do this, even as he cut communications with the castle. It sounded a lot like Shiro, but Keith ignored it. He had to do this, he had to try and take out Zarkon now. Cut off the head of the snake and it would die. Kill Zarkon and Shiro would never have to fight him for control of the Black Lion again.

But the fight quickly turned against him. It was taking everything Keith had just to keep Red moving in order to stay alive. Whatever that weapon in Zarkon's hand was, it shifted from sword to shield to whip with astonishing speed.

"It takes a distinct shape for each paladin."

Allura's voice echoed and suddenly Keith realized what he was seeing.

Zarkon's weapon shifted back into a giant sword and was diving straight for him—

Keith shot up, gasping for air. His hands gripped the covers reflexively and the feel of the cloth helped ground him. On the heels of that realization, Red began purring in his mind.

My paladin is safe. Just a nightmare. You are safe, my cub.

I know, thanks, Red.

He lay back, moving a little so his knife wasn't digging into the back of his head through the pillow. He thought for a moment, trying to replay the dream. There was something important he had missed.

"It takes a distinct shape for each paladin."

Keith sat up again. Red!

Yes, you are right.

Zarkon has Shiro's bayard?

Remember what the princess said. She spoke truth.

Keith thought back to the day Allura had given them the paladin armor and the bayards. She had said something about the black bayard being lost with its last paladin.

Wait, that can't be!

I am afraid it is true, my cub.

Zarkon? The Zarkon? He was a paladin? How the hell did that happen?

He was not always what he is now. He…changed.

Keith felt as if his eyes would pop out, they were so wide open. He spoke aloud, needing to hear any sound at all. "Red, I have to tell Shiro. How do I make him believe me?"

He knows, or will realize soon. He was the target when Zarkon tried to retake my brother.

Putting the words Shiro and target in the same sentence sent threads of ice down Keith's spine. He tried to focus. "Okay, then how do we convince the others?"

Oh, you know what you can do to show them.

He did. Keith swung his legs out of the bed and looked for those silly red lion slippers since they were faster than his boots, and grabbed the robe that went with the Altean pajamas. He started for Green's hangar, which was the first place Pidge was likely to be this late at night.

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Pidge was sprawled across the couch she had asked Hunk and Shiro to bring into Green's hangar, tucked into a corner with her various computers and equipment. Shiro had worn his best "disapproving dad" face as they did. But she had successfully argued that it was better to have something comfortable to crash on when she inevitably fell asleep in here mid-project.

"…so if Shiro will give me a couple hours to record the frequencies that the Galra hand generates, I should be able to program them into repeaters and use the Altean version of SIM chips to broadcast them. Then we install the SIM chips in everyone's gloves and, boom! It's all-access, all the time. Every Galra ship."

The video image of Matt on her tablet nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds workable. But Shiro was a prisoner, remember? He was recognized after a few minutes of poking around in their system when you all tried to infiltrate before, from what you said. A safer bet would probably be DNA or the frequencies from one of those sentry robots."

Pidge opened her mouth, thought it through, and closed it again, slumping against the cushions. "Dammit, you're probably right. I might be able to find a way to strip anything that IDs Shiro from the information in his arm, but that could take weeks of code-breaking."

"I agree. Much faster to go to the source."

"Sure, just catch a Galra, grab some DNA samples, and turn him loose again. Piece of cake."

"Or get what you need when you're back on Arus. Didn't you say there were a lot of leftover sentry parts you were playing with?"

Pidge smacked her head. "Oh for the love of— I can't believe I forgot about that!"

"How soon are you going back?"

"Don't know. Depends on whether we find more Metreans as we sweep their sector."

"How's that—"

Matt's voice broke off as Pidge looked away to see who was coming into the hangar.

"Hey, Keith. What are you doing awake?"

"I need your help. You know how to work the memory-recorder, right?"

"Yeah, Coran showed me. Why?"

"I need someone else to tell me if what I'm remembering is true."

Pidge looked back down to her tablet. "I'm gonna go take care of this. Talk to you tomorrow?"

Matt nodded. "Okay. Keep me updated on anything that's potential ammo for Operation Convince Mom."

Pidge blew him a kiss and disconnected. Keith held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. "So your mom is still deciding?"

"Honestly I think she's already decided to do it, but keeps thinking about more details that need taking care of before going on a really extended trip. She was showing worrywart tendencies after Kerberos."

Keith nodded, deep in thought. As his eyebrows scrunched together, Pidge tried to pull him out of his head. "So, what is it you're trying to remember in the dead of night when you should be asleep?"

He blinked and focused on her. "Hi, pot, I'm kettle."

"Fine, fine. But you usually do get some sleep."

They arrived at the A.I. chamber and Keith put a hand on it to open the door. "I woke up from a nightmare. I was dreaming about fighting Zarkon, only he was going to kill me and Shiro didn't get there in time. But there was something about the weapon he was using. I want to record my memory of the fight and see if I'm right."

Pidge crossed to the control console and poked a few buttons, bringing up the lights and activating the device. "No problem. Grab one of the interfaces from the shelf over there and I'll hook you in."

Keith did so and sat down next to the console while she continued to swipe at displays.

"Want me to watch, too?"

She had made the offer reflexively, remembering how reliving even the benign memories had been incredibly powerful. Keith's silence made her look up.

"Keith?"

"I…it was…intense. Are you sure?"

She reached out and took his hand. "I'm sure. Just be prepared for a hug when you're done, just so I can remind myself that you're okay."

Keith smiled a little at that. "Deal."

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \

He didn't know whether it was getting used to the process of reliving one's memory, the fact that it was mostly a replay of the nightmare, or Pidge keeping a tight grip on his hand. This was a little easier than he had expected—this time he was able to analyze the moves he had made, the successful ones and the times his defenses had broken down. If there was a next time, he might do a bit better.

A next time will include backup from the others, even if my brother must stay out of range.

Yes, ma'am.

Red chuckled and withdrew as Keith's memory closed in on Zarkon and the weapon in his hand. He jumped as Pidge squeezed, digging her nails into his hand, and shrieked.

"That's a bayard! That's the black bayard! What the hell is Zarkon doing with it?"

Some of the knots of tension in his stomach began to loosen. He had been right. It wasn't the best feeling to know that Zarkon had a weapon that was rightfully Shiro's, but he hadn't made it up.

Keith stayed with the memory until the point where Shiro had come for him, making sure he had every possible visual of the black bayard and Zarkon's manipulation of it. He reached up and touched the control to stop the recording and looked over at Pidge. Her face was contorted in fury.

"That evil toad! How long has he had Shiro's bayard, to make it actually work for him like that?"

Keith swallowed, steeling himself for the coming inferno.

"Remember what Allura said. It was lost with its paladin."

Pidge turned to him, eyebrows shooting up. "What." Her tone was dangerously flat.

Then her head tilted into a listening angle. Her mouth parted and she began shaking her head. "Green says—"

"So did Red." Keith took her other hand, hoping to stave off Volcano Pidge.

"Why did Allura lie? Why would she do that to us? Did she expect we wouldn't find out?"

Keith shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe? Maybe she didn't think he'd still have it. Maybe she never expected us to confront him directly. I don't know."

"We have to tell the others."

"I know. That's why I wanted to record the memory. We show Shiro first. I want him to have a say in how we handle it."

Pidge nodded, taking a deep breath. She lifted the apparatus from Keith's head and set it aside. Then she launched herself at him, her arms tight around his neck.

"Promise me. Promise me you will never put yourself in such a place again. I get why you tried, but you should have cut and run as soon as Black was out of his range."

Keith slid his arms around her and let his head rest on her shoulder. The interruption to his sleep was catching up with him. "I promise I'll try."

Pidge drew a breath as if to argue her point, then let it go. "Come on. We can see if Shiro's actually asleep right now or not."

Keith narrowed his eyes as she pulled him to his feet. "And how do you manage that?"

"The castle has cameras everywhere. And I've been able to jump in on most of them. Between that and accessing the system that reads heat signatures, I can usually tell where anyone is at any time."

"Pidge…"

"Don't tell on me and I won't tell Shiro how many extra hours you put in the training room without us. You know he doesn't like it when we overwork ourselves."

"You…are possibly the scariest person I know, Pidge."

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \

Shiro leaned back in his chair on the bridge, scrubbing at his eyes with his left hand. He knew he should be trying to sleep, but every attempt was just an opportunity for more nightmares. Since they had all managed to reunite after being scattered by a destabilized wormhole, the repertoire had gotten worse. He was used to dreams reliving his capture by the Galra, being separated from Matt and Sam, fighting in the arena, suffering the experiments by Haggar.

But now there were the dreams of the team. Of not getting there in time to help Pidge or Hunk. Or finding Keith in that room in the Garrison, his body cold and stiffening because Darzi had succeeded in killing him.

The one solid sleep he'd had since they left Earth had been dozing off next to Keith in one of the observatory lounges. They'd been watching the stars streak by as the castle followed the search pattern, looking for any more Metreans that had gotten away before the Galra had destroyed their planet. And Keith had let him nod off on his shoulder, keeping watch for over three hours.

He sat up, shaking his head to clear it, and tried to refocus on the star maps in front of him. They had located two transports of Metreans, and the captain piloting the second one was sure that at least one more had gotten out from the same launching area. The ship was constantly broadcasting a call, tightly focused onto the few frequencies Hunk had isolated. They had covered over a quarter of the territory between the Metreans' former planet and the one they had fled to before the Galra found and attacked them yet again.

My paladin should try to sleep again.

Shiro's mouth twisted in a derisive smile. "Yeah, for all of an hour. Sorry, Black. I'm just not going to get any rest for a while."

Red's cub will help.

"I can't depend on Keith to watch me sleep. He needs to rest as well."

Black threw two mental images at him, one after the other. One was of Keith in his room, tossing and turning restlessly. The other was of a pile of kittens, tangled together and sleeping blissfully.

"Wait, Keith's not sleeping well either?"

And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Shiro wanted to smack himself. Of course Keith probably wasn't sleeping well after what he'd been through. But was sharing quarters the answer? Keith had always seemed to value his personal space, both when he had lived with Shiro's family as a child and later on at the Garrison.

Black's presence shifted suddenly, withdrawing from his mind abruptly. Before Shiro could ask him what the problem was, the doors hissed open.

"Told you he'd be here!" Pidge crowed.

Shiro turned around to see Pidge, still fully dressed even though it was very late, and Keith in his robe and pajamas. "What are you two doing out of bed?"

Pidge flapped a hand at him. "Could ask you the same thing. But we need to talk to you." She grabbed Keith's arm and propelled him forward.

Shiro frowned. "Keith? What's wrong?"

Keith drew a deep breath. "I found out what happened to your bayard."

"My bayard? Allura said it was gone, lost with the original Black Paladin."

Keith nodded. "Except it wasn't a case of lost as much as betrayed and left." He stopped and Pidge ran her hand up and down his arm, trying to encourage him.

Shiro stood and moved close to them. "Keith?"

He drew a deep breath and looked up. "It's Zarkon. Zarkon was the Black Paladin and he has your bayard."

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Thank you for reading!