Chapter 7: A Promise

Stories always spoke of the heroes. The travellers, the explorers, the trials faced, and challenges overcome. They spoke of ragged winters with only the company of their comrades, of death-defying feats and the relief of success and coming out the other side. They spoke of the ending of journeys and the final moments before faces turned homeward and feet trudged back to loved ones left behind.

History books, biographies, fictional stories – they all spoke of those who left to fulfil their duties, as though preparing the reader or watcher or listener for their own journey. So rarely did they ever speak of those left behind.

The view from the Garrison was spectacular in the evening. The sun sinking below the distant horizon, darkening the planes and ragged, distant peaks from orange to brown and finally deepening to muddy smears. It was spectacular – and it was utterly empty. There were no incoming ships. There were no returning pilots, no fleets cruising home after a dangerous mission. There was no pinpoint of shadow upon that horizon in the shape of an aircraft, limping with engines blown and crew exhausted yet an explanation as to why they were delayed, where they'd been, how it was that they'd taken so long to return on the tips of their tongues.

The Kerberos mission was late. It was far too late, and Keith seemed to be the only one who cared. No one listened. No one seemed concerned for the absence of Shiro and his crew or, if they were concerned, it wasn't enough. Not enough to send a rescue mission to Kerberos. Not enough to send back up, or a scout, or – or anyone to ensure that they were alright. No contact for weeks, no whisper of where they'd disappeared to, and nothing? No one had been sent?

Keith didn't know for sure. Of course he didn't; he hardly had the authority, the privilege, to bear witness to the discussions pertaining to expeditions. He hadn't heard specifically that a rescue mission had been denied, or that no one cared.

But he wasn't stupid. Keith watched and he saw. What he saw was a lack of urgency, a lack of care, a disregard whenever he approached a captain or a general, or demanded of the Garrison superiors that they do something, anything. He'd offered himself up to go and see, would fly solo, and he knew he was good enough. He was a good flier, and not only because his supposed 'natural talents'. He was good because Shiro had taught him. He was good because he'd trained alongside the best.

But nothing. No one responded. And when Keith had snapped, demanding a response, demanded something, he'd been forcibly removed from the company of his superiors.

"Watch it, kid," the commander warned him as he was hauled out of the room. "I've heard about you and your behavioural issues. One step too far and I'll have no hesitation in kicking you out of the program. Mark my words I will; not even child prodigies are immune to the rules."

Keith glared at the commander where he sat behind his wide, cluttered desk, his face hard and expression unwavering, and so, so foolish because he didn't see. He didn't realise that there was so much that was wrong, so much that silence could and often did suggest, and that something had to be done about it. But before Keith could utter another word, before he could do more than bare his teeth like a caged wolf, he was dragged from the room by the commander's lackies.

That had been barely hours before. Just hours, and in those hours Keith had done little more than pace across the stunted breadth of his assigned room with prowling steps, fists clenched and shoulders so tense that they had begun to ache. Do something. You have to do something, do something, do something…

Somehow, after a time, his chanting seemed less a demand of the Garrison superiors and more an order to himself. If no one else will do anything, then I'll have to do it myself.

To hell with the Garrison. To hell with the rules, the regulation, the demands and the provisions. Keith didn't need it, hadn't wanted it, and had only attended the school in the first place because he had nothing else for himself. Because he'd been told to. He hadn't a life to step into when he grew too old for the foster home, and so the carers at the home had leapt upon the admission offer with unconcealed delight.

Keith hadn't been the one to want it, even if he enjoyed flying. It wasn't worth it. Just as it wasn't worth sticking around a bunch of unreliable, resistant bastards who didn't respond to urgency with anything even approaching rationality and logic. Keith had attended the Garrison for one reason, but he'd stayed for another entirely. And that reason, the reason he'd stuck to it for so long… What was the point in remaining if Shiro wasn't there to make him stay?

Just the two of us, Shiro had said.

We're in this together, you and I, he'd said with a smile.

We'll make a great team someday, he'd promised. Just as soon as you finish up with school.

Pausing mid step, Keith glanced towards his door. As soon as you finish up. Shiro hadn't said graduate. Not that time. And even knowing that it was underhanded of him, Keith would take hold of that oversight with both hands.

His room was small and uncluttered. Living out of little more than a single bag his whole life, a box-like trunk at the home and a cupboard just as small in the Garrison, there wasn't much for him to stow away. Slinging the standard issue pack onto his bed, Keith made short work of stuffing a handful of clothes inside. A wallet of minimal cash, also issued by the Garrison as a charity case. A bottle of water. A handful of MER bars that were little more than calorie-rich blocks of tasteless cardboard used as emergency rations for soldiers and pilots. It would be enough. Enough to get Keith out of the confining, claustrophobic walls of the Garrison and its fools for leaders.

That was it. That – and a pair of keys that he rarely took from his pocket.

Shucking his jacket on and tugging on his boots, his gloves, looping his single scarf around his neck, Keith slung his pack over his shoulder. He glanced briefly at the flashing digits on the wall clock, an echo of the announcements that regularly sounded throughout the Garrison to order students and pilots into action, to follow schedules and rosters like the good little subordinates they were. Keith scowled at those digits accusingly, as though they were to blame. When he shouldered the door of his room open, he paused just long enough to shift his scowl to the ID pad on the wall inside and, with a punch of numbers as instinctive as it was educated, he dismantled it and erased his name tagged to the room.

Behavioural issues. Ha. He supposed he might have a few of those.

No one stopped him as he strode through the Garrison. It was late enough that most of the pilots and trainees would either be at the mess hall or the common rooms if they hadn't already sought the privacy of their rooms. Not that anyone would care if they did notice Keith. No one had ever cared except Shiro.

Just as no one cares that he's gone.

Keith glared at the ground beneath his feet. His anger all but shook him as it trembled down his spine, and he clenched the strap of his pack mercilessly tightly. If no one cared that Shiro was gone, then he would just have to do something about it himself.

Breaking into a run, springing onto his toes and leaving barely the faintest tap of footsteps behind him, Keith picked up his pace and swept through the hallways. He dodged around corners, took each and every shortcut he knew by heart, and descended stairwells by leaping over railing more than he used the steps. Those scarce few passers-by he encountered on his way didn't slow him or request that he pause for questioning; students and pilots alike, no one cared. No one ever did.

Bursting from the back door, an all but abandoned route that Keith had long ago discovered was rarely if ever locked, he didn't slow as he tore across the shadowed grounds. He didn't pause as he darted around the buildings and ducked beneath the sights of the guards that pointlessly, worthlessly stood on duty, because they didn't do anything. They weren't cluey enough to acknowledge that the absence of a returning vehicle was as much a cause for concern as the presence of them.

The holding garage was off limits. Or it was supposed to be. Shiro had access to them, however, and by proxy Keith did too. Slipping into the deeper shadows of the garage door, Keith ran his fingers over the keypad almost reflexively, swiping the microchipped tags across the scanner as he did so. A muted beep acknowledged him favourably, and he slipped through the doors as they slid open a moment later.

Most of the vehicles within were negligible. They weren't worth his attention. Even more than that, they weren't worth his time. Keith didn't know what time he was striving to beat, but he knew that it was of the essence. The Garrison ultimately didn't care about him, for regardless of how good a pilot he was, he would be replaced by the next able-bodied kid to step up to the line. They didn't care enough to drag him back and instil some sense of commitment into what Shiro had always called his 'rebellious nature' – but they would set an example of him. People were kicked out of the Garrison; no one left because they wanted to.

Shiro's bike was planted in the corner, wedged behind a handful of other hovercrafts and less polished bikes. Nudging them aside, Keith flicked the bike to life and, with barely a coaxing nudge, urged it to follow after him as he wove his way towards the garage doors. And maybe he did kick those doors open with needless aggression. Maybe he did deliberately bump into just a few of those silent crafts parked around him as though he had a personal grudge against them. And maybe, just maybe, when he slung his leg over Shiro's bike and gunned it to smoothly humming life, he threw it into gear and sprang away from those doors without closing them properly.

The view from the Garrison was incredible, in a way. It provided an open view of the sky, untouched and seamlessly exposed – and that was its very problem. It was too perfect, too empty, and that was what made it wrong.

Keith spared little more than a passing glance for the sky overhead as he flew away from the Garrison. He'd spent long enough staring as it was, and though a part of him desperately wanted to do little more than stare upwards, holding out hope for the Kerberos mission's return, a bigger part knew it wasn't going to happen.

He didn't know where he was going, but it didn't matter. Light faded around him, swathing him in muffled shadows, but it didn't matter either. Keith trusted his instincts and the reflexive twists and turns his body adopted in response to the flickers of precaution the bike offered him as it soared over pitfalls and pointed, rocky disasters alike. He didn't glance back at the Garrison, at the place that had been his home for nearly seven years. Not once.

After all, what was home if the person who made it so was no longer there?

The planet they'd landed upon was unremarkable – or at least it was to Keith. But then, he supposed that he would have found little interest in just about any planet they'd landed upon. It could have been a diamond-rich dragon's nest of jewels and gold, a banquet set up and overflowing with steaming floods, a spread of friendly faces and welcoming arms, or worshipping masses that demanded the attention of Voltron's paladins –

But Keith wouldn't have noticed. He had little attention for anything but Shiro as he lowered him gently to the smooth, dusty ground. His hand cradled the back of Shiro's head, and even when he rested him completely he couldn't bring himself to remove that hand. Shiro looked so defenceless, utterly limp in his unconsciousness, face lax but for the touch of a frown on his brow and the hint of pain tightening his mouth. Grazes and bruises, as much a product of their fight as the collapse of the hangar they'd been in, speckled his cheeks and chin and forehead.

Keith couldn't just let go of him. Not in the face of that. Not when, despite it all, despite his size and the confident presence he'd always possessed, Shiro seemed somehow so small.

He wasn't gone. That much Keith had to remind himself. He's not gone. In the company of the other paladins, in the aftermath of their battle against Lotor, in the hollow absence of the Castle of Lions that weighed so heavily upon them all and strung just as with as much exhaustion, it was all that kept Keith afloat. That Shiro had spoken to him, helped him, coaxed him into level-headed patience in the moment he needed it.

Patience yields focus.

He'd always said that. It was something of a mantra to Shirol. And somehow, even outside of the heat of urgent battle and thrumming adrenaline, Keith clung to that induced patience, and the focus it yielded afforded him enough composure to hold himself together. It was the only way, in the circling company of the paladins, he could steel himself to speak.

"This body is barely living.. but Shiro's spirit is alive." Detached. It was the only way Keith could speak such things. "It's inside the Black Lion. I heard him talking to me."

"He… he tried to tell me," Lance choked out behind him. Amidst the cluster of paladins, their faces torn with fear and grief as much for Shiro himself as for the heartbreaking loss of the castle, he was the only one who managed to speak. "But I didn't realise."

Keith couldn't look away from Shiro long enough to glance Lance's way even if he wanted to offer a word of consolation, but he saw when Lance moved. Breath hitching, he collapsed to his knees on Shiro's other side. His shoulders hunched, his hands clutching the ground as tears visibly welled and guilt contorted his features.

"I'm so sorry, Shiro," Lance stuttered, squeezing his eyes closed. "I – I didn't know. I could've…" The tears spilled forth. Lance had always been an emotional person, Keith knew, whether that emotion was joy, or anger, or fierce satisfaction. He felt things strongly, and it poured from his shoulders as Keith didn't let it from himself.

His shoulders were shaking, Keith realised, and a part of him knew that, as the paladin of the Black Lion in Shiro's absence, he should do something about it. He should say something. But before he could even attempt awkward comfort, Allura, on her knees beside Lance, reached a hand towards him. Keith watched only from his periphery, saw her hand squeeze, her attempted smile even with her own grief so profound, her eyes shiny with tears.

But she didn't say anything. She didn't speak as, with a brief pause to close her eyes, she rose to her feet. She turned. She strode deliberately towards the Black Lion, not quite confident but steady in her steps. As one, the paladins, even Keith, couldn't help but watch her approach the lion and plant herself before it. Her hands rose and, with a gentleness that bellied the hulking size of the lion, placed her fingers upon its lowered snout.

She looked so small. So small yet so strong, and in spite of himself, it wasn't Shiro's words urging him towards patience and focus that seized Keith with hope. It was Allura, her back straight and stance firm as she reached for the lion as though she truly knew what she was doing. Perhaps she did.

No words were exchanged. No pleas were uttered, no coaxing call to Shiro or the Black Lion as Keith might have expected. Allura didn't say anything; she simply bowed her head and, with barely a beat of a breathless pause, light erupted from her fingers at the point of contact upon the lion's snout.

It spread. Like a river flowing into creases and crevasses, a network infiltrating a system, it spread across the Black Lion's enormous face with tiny channels of light. White and pink, glowing and almost too bright to watch, the pooling energy coursed through and pulsed from Allura's hands. But that flow, that energy - it didn't spread into the lion. With a flash of brightness that flared the lion's flat gaze from yellow to blinding white, those channels erupted along every inch of connection, every conjoined edge of metal, and flowed towards her. Like water drawn through the root system of a tree, it filtered into Allura's hands, infusing her until she was glowing even brighter than the lion had itself.

Keith stared. He stared at the light pulsed through her, illuminating her from within. He stared as tendrils of light like floating particles of ash fizzled around her before dissipating. He stared with eyes wide and maybe just a little desperate as she turned, thrumming with visible energy, and opened her eyes with a glance back towards them. Back towards Shiro. It was eerie, that her eyes flared as brightly and luminescent as had the Black Lion's, yet somehow Keith felt his chest tighten, swelling with mounting hope.

When Allura returned to Shiro's side, lowering herself back to her knees as she dropped her glowing hands to his head, Keith's breath caught. His hand curled where it still cradled Shiro's head. Patience yields focus, Shiro had told him again and again. Why was it so hard to be patient?

It was magical. Magical was the only word that could describe the vibrant exchange of energy that flooded from Allura's hands into where she gently placed her palms on either side of Shiro's head. Keith might have once explained it away as alien science – but no, it was magic. Just as it was magic that flooded Shiro with light, magic that rose from him in tiny, firefly flickers like emitted spores. The very air seemed to thrum with it, and then Shiro himself as the white light faded from Allura's eyes and abandoned her completely.

It remained in a cocoon around Shiro for only a little longer. A cluster of seconds longer, and Keith wasn't sure whether it was desperation or breathlessness that had him gasping silently, composure momentarily shattered. It shattered again, froze him into stillness, when that light completely faded to abandon Shiro into limp unconsciousness once more.

He was asleep. He was seemingly unawakened. Unchanged but for a head of pale white hair that stood as testimony to the fierce battle he'd fought, the stress that had nearly torn him apart, the disastrous tragedy that had ripped his soul from his body.

No one spoke. No one moved. The moment seemed to hang in suspended terror as Keith stared at Shiro and willed his broken body back to life. It might have once been a clone, but this Shiro… this soul…

Please, please, please -

Shiro eyes snapped open and Keith nearly choked. Blinding whiteness, a reflection of that which had infused Allura, flared within them, only to vanish just as quickly. Keith stared, breath catching, and silently begged for the familiarity of the gaze that he knew so well. No alien light, no malice that Shiro had never held, no hatred or ferocity or… or…

Shiro lurched upright, breath gasping as though he'd only just paused in the fierce battle that they'd shared just hours before. Only for a second before, with a catch of his own breath, he slumped into Keith. As though he knew he was there. As though he knew that Keith would be ready and waiting to catch him, just in case.

He was. Keith would always be there. He'd promised.

The Black Lion roared. Its fellows tipped their heads back and joined it instantly. Fierce delight, a victory realised, vibrated through the air, through the ground, and relief unlike any Keith had felt in what could only be loosely deemed a triumph in the fight against Lotor thrummed through him.

Romelle screamed at the eruption, but it wasn't quite in fear, and Krolia flinched at her side.

Coran and Hunk bellowed in sobbing exclamations before Coran flung himself at Hunk in a joyous hug.

Pidge wiped surreptitiously at her eye, but she didn't even attempt to hide her smile.

Lance seemed to sag in place, couldn't look away from Shiro, and Allura briefly closed her eyes with a sigh of relief.

And Keith –

"You found me."

Holding Shiro against him, Keith dropped his gaze back towards him. He thought he might have been smiling, but he wasn't sure. He thought that Allura probably was too as she shifted her own attention back towards him, but he didn't glance up to check.

"We're glad you're back, Shiro," Keith murmured. The words were so inadequate, but it didn't matter. He meant it. He meant it with all of his heart, and it didn't matter what challenges they would face with what was to follow.

Was the universe safe now that Lotor was gone? Keith didn't know.

Would the Alteans be relieved for the freedom they hadn't even known they'd been denied? He didn't know that either and would have to leave such speculations up to Allura.

What would they be with Lotor gone? What would they do? Voltron would always be needed, Keith knew, but for what he had no idea. And without the castle there were few enough places left to go.

But it didn't matter. Just for a moment, his inadequate words encompassed Keith entirely and he could only hope that his hold around Shiro's arms told him just how much he meant it.

I'm glad you're back, Shiro. I promise, I'll never let you leave again. It was a foolish promise, perhaps, but one Keith intended to keep with everything he could.

A/N: All finished! Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me this far; I appreciate it more than you can imagine. And thank you especially to the lovely ColouredKittens - your reviews have been so encouraging and so heartwarming, I'm pretty sure it was what nudged me to finishing this fic before the next season comes out. So thank you. Thank you so, so much.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know your thoughts if you have a chance to review, about the fic, season 6 or speculations about future seasons. Don't be shy to drop by!