Answering this distress call was a really bad idea.

"Is Lance through?"

Static.

"Allura, tell me is Lance throu-"

A plasma blast catches the Black Lion full on the right side; Shiro tastes blood as his head is slammed to the left. The controls are wrenched out of his hands and Black is caught in a spiral, a mayfly swirling down the drain.

"Shiro. Shiro, come in! Are you still there?"

Shiro rights himself and grabs the controls again; the bionic arm flexes with a strength that is not his own, and Black turns the downward spiral into an elegant swoop around the nearest moon. Behind him the Galra fighters crackle like a bug zapper, and he knows they've just missed another plasma blast.

"I'm here, Allura. Where's Lance?"

"Right. Yes, of course. Lance made it back fine. The particle barrier's still holding. Keith has time."

"You hear that, Keith?"

"On my way."

Shiro twists and Black pivots, fires off two shots of his own, and dives, letting the moon's gravity pull them down. This time Shiro feels the plasma rake his hindquarters.

That's the problem with the whole psychic bond thing. He grimaces as another barrage pockmarks the ground where Black had been standing a second before. With Earth craft he hadn't felt every little scratch on the paintwork.

Shiro grins. If he had, he probably wouldn't have survived the simulator.

His HUD beeps; Keith is in its crosshairs as he speeds across the void, weaving around a clump of asteroid shrapnel that had just a second ago been another moon. Two of the Galra fighters break off and scream after him. Keith leaves them eating lunar dust.

Damn, that kid can fly.

Plasma flares in his peripheral, and Shiro feels Black's growl rumble through his chest. Right. Run now, admire later. Keith would actually be much better at this whole laser tag thing, he thinks wryly, looping around and swiping one of his pursuers on the flyby. Black's claws shred it like a paper knife and the fighter goes down.

Keith has the faster lion and, Shiro isn't ashamed to admit, is the better pilot by a considerable margin: they could easily have swapped places; Hunk charged the blockade first, scattering them like bowling pins. Then Pidge, the smallest, then Lance. Shiro could've followed. It made tactical sense. But Shiro is the leader, and that means laying down on the wire and letting the other guys walk over you.

Another explosion rattles his bones.

Yay, him. Perks of being in charge.

"Hello? Hello, Shiro? Keith just docked, you need to move now!"

Allura's voice is high and frantic, and Shiro is reminded of just how young she is. Younger than him. Everyone is younger than him now, except Coran. How did he suddenly become so old?

An asteroid sailing past shatters like glass, and Shiro decides he's not old enough yet. Not old enough to die. Black wheels about, the bionic arm slams the accelerator forward, and Shiro is caught as it yanks him along with it. Black's whole body thrums, and they rocket back towards the blockade, with the Castle waiting just beyond.

The swarm of persuing fighters parts like water, and they're going to make it, his team is screaming encouragement in his ears -

There is a crackle. His stomach drops. Shiro feels it, in the taste of the air, the way you feel it the moment before a lightning strike. He yanks the controls upward -

And the hand of a giant sweeps them away, white and purple and glaring.

Alarms shriek. The world is red, and flashing and purple. Purple, the arm has woken itself, like a dog straining at the leash. Every time he gets scared - Calm, calm. Blaring alarms. Shut up, Black, I know, I'm thinking, let me think -

Shiro presses down, biting his lip as if to suppress a scream. The purple glow retreats, reluctantly. The alarms have stopped, but the ringing in his head hasn't. There's a jackhammer drilling through his temple.

The air crackles again, and the solid mass of purple light misses them by a millimetre. Another moon is made a cloud, Shiro feels the shudder. A command ship; the Galra have called reinforcements. Too slow, he took too much time -

Black races away, from the attack and from him, before they can fire again, before Shiro can regain his wits.

Come on, his Lion tells him. You are the leader of the pride. You cannot be weak or confused or human. You are the alpha predator. An alpha predator, reduced to a firefly lost in wave of fireworks.

Shiro takes the controls, with both hands. Both. Pain, in his head, through his head. No pain. Pain is not permitted.

Our enemies have evolved, Black growls at the base of his skull, and Shiro feels ten thousand years of absence and vulnerability and cancerous growth wash over him.

Can you?

The air crackles again, almost gleefully, but this time he's ready. He banks, and Black pinwheels out of the way, a water skater dodging a stone thrown by a petulant child. Reload time is three seconds. He must've counted, though he didn't notice. Always awake. Never resting, even asleep.

Shiro has an opening. He takes it. The bionic arm thrusts forward and this time he's behind it, the hunter unsheathing his claws. The command ship is a blur of shadow on the right, then nothing.

The blockade is regrouping. It won't be enough, can't let it be. On the other side their pride is waiting. Shiro roars, the lion within and without in perfect harmony, and the arm flares up in symphony. A beam of icy blue thunders from their open maw and they burst through the blockade like it's a house of cards, scattered to the wind.

They've made it. Keith and Red have come back out to meet them (of course they have), the Castle scoops them up, they're through the hangar doors -

Shiro sighs and slumps against his seat, deboned.

Made it.

For once, sleep takes him willingly.

...

Weirdly, Hunk is the only one not having a meltdown. Lance has lost the smile Hunk thought was a permanent part of his face, Pidge is breathing too fast and Keith's face is so tight Hunk worries it might crack.

Not him, though. There's something strangely therapeutic about charging a wall of Galra death head on. Puts things into perspective. Now they've wormholed away, he'll probably get around to wetting his pants later, when the adrenaline high wears off.

But Allura, she's the worst. All the color has drained from her face, to the very tips of her ears. She looks more like a ghost than her dead dad downstairs.

They watch in silence as Coran and Keith manhandle Shiro into a healing pod, like a marrionette with its strings all tangled. Lance stands by, not sure what to do with himself. The stasis field bubbles over Shiro's fluttering eyelids, and Hunk can't help thinking of the coffin at a funeral. He's only ever been to one funeral, his grandmother's, and he was only six at the time. It was nice, actually. Mom had cooked Grandma's favourite afterwards, as a way to say goodbye.

Still doesn't change the way Shiro looks like literal death. Or how much the noises he's making sound like a tortured mouse. Pidge's lip is trembling, but Hunk pretends he can't see. She won't apreciate concern right now.

"Is he going to be alright?" Allura asks. She sounds a liitle hollow. Hunk can't blame her, but she'll probably be blaming herself. Answering that distress beacon was her idea. Against Shiro's recommendations. That must be eating her up.

Coran tries for a warm smile. Those usually work, but today she stares right through it.

"Out cold is all. Probably got a nasty migraine, but he'll be fit as a fiddle within two swipes of a bogtail's... uh, thingy." He made a vague flapping gesture, "Anyway, the best thing you can do now is get some rest. You've been up for nineteen quintaks straight now, all of you."

Nobody moves. Shiro's shallow breathing holds them hypnotised.

inout inout inout inout -

Hunk shakes himself like a dog throwing off cold rain. Sleep. They've been up too long, with training, the botched mission and the following standoff. He watches Pidge sway on her feet, only propped up by empty horror. They all need rest.

"Guys, Coran's got a point."

Lance jerks, awoken from a trance. He stares at Hunk blankly for a second before making the connection. Then he nods and slopes off. Keith trails behind. Pidge stays rooted to the spot.

Hunk comes over and rests a hand on her shoulder.

"Come on, there's nothing more you can do."

She flinches away.

"I'm staying," she says stubbornly. Hunk sighs.

"If you stay, you won't be awake when he gets better."

Pidge takes a breath, and then seems to melt on the spot, like a candle burning too long. Hunk figures that's as close to yes as he's going to get, so he bends down and hoists her onto his back. She doesn't resist.

He turns to talk to Allura, but she's planted herself like a tree, sitting at the base of Shiro's pod. Her eyes are sharp, like just-broken glass. Hunk gestures helplessly to Coran, who nods and ushers him to leave. Probably best to leave them alone for some alien bonding time.

He reajusts Pidge like a backpack and steps into the elevator. She doesn't talk, which is unusual. Normally she can't wait to regale the only other techie on board with little tidbits she's discovered while tinkering with the Castle, when Coran isn't looking. Shiro is second family to her, Hunk knows. The last link to her missing one. Watching helplessly as the Galra almost severed it again can't have been fun.

Still, they're family too, Hunk muses, as the elevator opens and he steps out onto the accommodation floor. Pidge's room is right at the end, with an extra room between her and everyone else for the junk she claims are 'experiments in progress'. Hunk doesn't mind; she weighs less than a feather.

I mean, he'd always wanted a baby sister. He just hadn't expected her to be smarter than him. Or pretend to be a boy first. Speaking of, he really should start calling her Katie. It is her real name, after all.

But it doesn't really seem to fit, like reaching the last gap in a jigsaw puzzle only to find the peice you have doesn't match up. Pidge is Pidge. Anything else seems a little... off. Or painful. Maybe that's why she doesn't correct them. The reminder of what she's lost hurts too much.

They pass Keith's room, he's probably already inside, getting a head start on the night's brooding, and Lance, just slipping out of his in those awesome, Castle-fabricated slippers. He makes a sickly cooing face at the sight of Pidge clinging to Hunk's back like a baby monkey (Hunk can only assume she's fallen asleep, otherwise he'd have been punched) and Hunk rolls his eyes good naturedly. Then Shiro's quaters, whose open door gapes like an empty maw.

Finally, casa de la Pidge. Hunk picks his way through the minefield of wiring and empty not-candy wrappers (the 'experiment' room must be overflowing). Delicately, he lifts her off his back and sets her down on the foam matress, before doing the mandatory check for hidden bits of tech. There's one laptop stowed under the bed and a couple of circuit boards stashed against the wall. There's probably tons more, but Shiro's the only one who can ever find it all.

Hunk pauses on his way out, and glances back. Yes, a baby sibling would be nice, boy or girl.

The light spilling in from the halway catches the glass photo frame on her bedside table. Her and her brother - Matt, he remembers. Hunk snorts a little, remembering how he'd mistaken Matt for Pidge. But they do look a lot alike, her sleeping face side by side with his, bright and smiling.

Hunk frowns as he heads back down the hall to his own bed. If the memory of her family is so painful she doesn't even use the same name, then why does she still cut her hair and wear glasses she doesn't need?

Why look exactly like the pain she's trying to hide?

...

Allura is glad for the chance to be weak.

Coran has gone to set the Castle down somewhere habitable, leaving her with some kind words she didn't hear and a warm drink she hasn't touched. She is alone in every way.

It's tiring, the strain of keeping it hidden, like sucking in a gut. She releases, and all of the emotion sort of flops out, the weight dragging her down. No tears. She doesn't have enough to spare, what with her father and her people and her planet -

Her face resets into something droopier, and although it doesn't exactly feel good, neither is using a leech to siphon poison from the blood. She'll survive. She has to, now. It's her duty.

Allura looks up at Shiro, waxen skin, mouth made a razor by pain, and she suddenly feels the need to scream. Her duty. It's funny, really, like a joke at a funeral, how much better off everyone would be if it was him in her place instead. This alien, with his bleached hair and his battle scars and his abnormal ears.

Allura sees herself in her mind's eye, the flickering of an old hologram.

She is running down a corridor, in another part of the Castle. Coran is still on the bridge with Keith, running the Castle's first diagnostic check in ten thousand years. Lance and Hunk have gone for the Yellow Lion, and Shiro, Shiro is away with Pidge...

Quick now, time is a candle burning at both ends. There is vengance broiling molten in her gut and she must know...

The hangar door is sheer and unyeilding. Behind it the Black Lion waits, she knows but could not see.

She reaches out, tentative. Take a breath. Focus. Clear headed. A natural leader. This is what it needs. She takes the magma in her stomach and channels it, up her arm and through her fingertips. She lays them flat and firm on the cold metal.

Open.

Shut. The door does not budge, refuses to let her through. Allura's eyes narrow and she forces her strength through, trying to communicate, trying to make the Lion see -

The Blue Lion was taken already, she has lost her childhood friend. But she is a leader now, the leader, the hope of her people (except there is no-one left to lead), she could fight, she could avenge them. She bites her lip and presses harder, as if hoping to melt her way through the metal. The Lion will see, why won't it -

The magma runs dry and all Allura has left to give is raw and wet and grieving. She snatches her hand away, scared it has known her weakness and thought her unworthy.

Too late. Too little. She imagines the Lion standing just beyond her reach, monolithic, unmoved. She might as well appeal to a mountain range. Her grief escapes her in a single droplet, because now it has nowhere else to go. She swipes at her eyes and turns away. The candle is almost spent. Coran will be looking for her.

Shiro will be back soon.

What is she, really? She's not the diplomat her father was, she obviously isn't the commander she needs to be. Shiro groans and tosses in his sleep. Allura flinches. She needs Shiro. He is the lynch pin. The Black Paladin always is. That's why no-one could fight Zarkon before, because he was the key to their defence.

Allura relies on Shiro more than she'd like. He is her rock, the team's rock, solid and real where her father is nothing but hollow light. She wonders if he ever trusted Zarkon the way she's coming to trust Shiro. He must have.

She risks another glance at Shiro's pod. A purple light simmers inside, like a furnace turned low. His arm has awoken itself. She keeps her eyes trained on it, this piece of monster fused to her friend.

Something rattles in the dark and Allura jerks away. It's a slippery slope, this kind of thinking. The niggling doubts at the back of her head had told her to ignore Shiro's warning, about the distress beacon. She was so sure she could save them. Altea coming to the rescue, like in the old legends.

This is the result.

They sit, facing the cavernous dark of the unlit hangar. Together. Allura lets her eyes close. She needs to trust Shiro, if she's going to defeat Zarkon.

They'll do that together, too.