Disclaimer: Of course I don't own this franchise, who do you think I am?

Where There's a Will...

A Voltron: Legendary Defender Fanfic

"And if anything happens to me, Allura gets the blue lion and everything else goes to Kaltenecker." Pidge stopped, eyes frozen on the crumpled off-blue colored paper in front of her. "Lance… are you serious?"

"What? I was working through some stuff!"

"Lance, you left your belongings to a cow."

"Come on, Pidge, it's not like I died. And I didn't have much to leave. So I figured Kaltenecker could get it."

"…Get what?"

"Like… I got some nice stuff from Plaxum on her ice planet… I got a couple fan letters addressed to 'Loverboy Lance'… you know, nothing you guys would want, but stuff Kaltenecker might appreciate."

"To be fair, I did leave a few things to the mice," Hunk said.

Pidge sat back, chewing her lip.

Keith scrubbed his face with his palm. "Why…why did you guys write wills?"

Pidge shrunk slightly. "We…we face death a lot…" He voice faded off, and she drew her knees up unto the bed.

"So… we figured it would be good to have a guide to go off of if we died," Lance finished.

Keith groaned. "...Really?"

"What? Come on, Keith! You almost sacrificed yourself by driving your ship into a force field!" Lance yelled.

"That was-!"

"Yeah, what was it you said when the forcefield was impenetrable? 'Maybe not with our weapons—?'"

"We would have died anyway if we couldn't get that forcefield down!"

"Okay, fair point," Hunk said. "We're just saying, you can't act like it's weird that we've all thought about what would happen if we died."

Keith sighed.

Pidge hugged her knees. The Garrison Trio all sat on Lance's hospital bed, Hunk criss-cross and Lance leaning against his pillow, one knee bent up. Across from them, Keith sat in a chair, and Shiro rested his hip against the back. Allura perched on a cot facing the bed.

They were all still healing up after their battle to defend Earth, but were all well enough to have walked/limped/wheeled themselves and each other into Lance's room. He had the most extra cots, anyway, since his family insisted on staying overnight. But the paladins had all decided that tonight they wanted a slice of this Earth hospital to themselves. They just wanted to relax with a little tinned drama playing through the hospital TV to distract themselves. No pressure, and no worries about what others would think or say: just each other, the people six people alive who shared a bond with the lions.

And that's when Lance and Pidge brought out the paper.

"Why are we even talking about this?" Keith asked.

Lance and Pidge's eyes met. Pidge looked down.

"Sam found Pidge's in her hospital trash can," Lance said, watching her. "He said we should all talk about what we'd been through."

"And…why are we reading yours?" Keith asked.

"I…" Lance looked around. Keith fixed him with a frustrated look. Hunk's face was empathetic, and Shiro's soft. And Pidge looked at the floor, tears gathering in her eyes. Lance swallowed.

"You didn't want me to have to read mine," she said.

"Wuh—"

"It's okay, Lance," Pidge said. "I wrote mine a while ago." And she fished a crumpled light-green paper from her pocket and unfolded it. It was from the color-coded notepads they'd each had in their Castle of Lion's quarters. "If anything should happen to me, Pidge, the Green Paladin of Voltron, know that I love my family and I would do anything to see them again." She sniffled. "And we will see each other. I sacrificed so much to make that reunion in this lifetime, but if that shouldn't happen, know that I am waiting for them and when the time comes, we will have one great big Holt family hug in heaven." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "As for my possessions, everyone can take something or things to remember me by." Then she sniggered. "But I'm giving Keith the space floofs because I know he'd hate that the most."

"What?!" Keith's voice cracked.

"Careful Keith, the doctor said to avoid extreme emotions. It's bad for your concussion." Lance smiled, his grin slanted.

"You…" Keith growled.

Pidge laughed. It was quiet at first, drawing a small smile from Shiro, but then it cracked wide open. The ache in her side from her injury pinched but she didn't care. With a bounce she fell back against the bed, sides heaving but feeling lighter than she had in a long time, giggles still on her lips, laughter filling the air.

Lance's smile widened. The side of Keith's mouth ticked up in a lopsided grin as he watched her. Hunk looked down at Pidge, face gentle, and he moved a hand near her shoulder.

"I—I knew—I knew you'd hate the floofs—" Pidge managed to say as her breaths evened out a little.

Hunk giggled. It was a lovely, warm sound. And Shiro looked at his team with a smile that could shine stars. Allura grinned quietly from her cot.

"I don't hate space…floofs…I just... I think Cosmo would eat them," Keith said.

"You called him by his name!" Lance cried.

"What—no! He'll tell me his name when he's ready-!"

"Oh no, you definitely named him just now!"

"Wh—no, I—I—"

Pidge laughed, clutching her sides again. Keith dropped his anger and Lance stopped his teasing and they watched their youngest dissolve into giggles yet again, her face wet, but with joy and not grief this time.

Hunk chuckled. "Don't worry, Pidge. I wouldn't let anything happen to your floofs."

"Th-thank you, Hunk. And I'd take care of anything you gave me."

"So, do you want to know what I would gift you with?" Hunk asked.

"Of course, Hunk." She sat up, wiping her eyes.

Hunk smiled. He took a paper from his pocket and smoothed it out, chewing his tongue in thought. Keith felt his heart sink at watching Hunk read his own will aloud.

"Lance, you get official cooking duty because I think you have real talent in the kitchen. Keith, you have to wash all of Lance's dishes—"

"Ah ha!" Lance yelled.

"What?! What has gotten into all of you? Why am I getting the short end of everybody's wills?"

"Calm down, Keith." Shiro smiled gently. "Wait your turn." Keith stilled. Just barely.

"Pidge, you get to archive all of my best recipes—"

"Already done it."

"Hey! No interrupting! …You also get my jacket, and just know that you are the best comm spec an engineer and a fighter pilot could ever ask for."

"Aw, Hunk!" Pidge leaned into Hunk's side. She sunk in slightly. It was warm. She wrapped her arms around him. He moved a hand from the paper to rub the top of her head.

"And Shiro, you get my headband… because you're the head. Of voltron. So you get the headband of your left leg."

Shiro smiled, and his chest tightened right below his sternum, a familiar sensation these last few days. "Thank you, Hunk."

"Allura, you get all my extra blankets, because I know you get cold at night sometimes."

"Aw, Hunk! Thank you!" Allura said.

Lance stared between them, terrified. "Wait…how do you know that?"

Pidge just barely managed to hide a smirk. "You didn't?"

Lance's eyes widened. He saw Hunk's warm yet teasing expression, Shiro's amusement, and then his eyes landed on Keith, who had the most smug look known to man on his face. "Yeah, didn't you know that?"

Lance turned red and gulped.

Allura laughed. "It's alright, Lance. Hunk and I just had a discussion about it once is all."

Lance nodded weakly, almost feeling light-headed. That wasn't a hard thing to do, given how much blood he'd needed after his hemorrhage in Blue.

"And I gave the mice as much food goo as they wanted, my belt because they love sleeping in the pockets, and a few trinkets. I gave Coran back some Nunville I forgot to return to him. I actually still have it in Yellow somewhere. It was in one of the bags I grabbed from the Castle. I tried to use it in cooking just after we left Arus."

Pidge sniggered. "Yeah, I remember that."

"Oh, was that the day you triggered the kitchen's fire suppressors?" Allura asked.

Hunk and Pidge nodded, wincing a little. "Yup," Pidge said.

"Mhhm."

"That was the day."

Allura giggled. "It certainly was."

"Alright," Lance said. "So, who's next?"

Silence filled the room briefly. Shiro met everyone's eyes when they looked at him but did not speak. Allura looked at him and then Keith, who'd drawn a leg up onto the chair, staring at the floor.

"I don't have a will," Keith said.

"What?" Lance said. "Come on! You've got to have something."

"Fine. Everything should really go to my mom, but if…if she...can't take any of it I would want you guys to have it. If you want."

"Of course we would," Hunk said. "We'd take care of your stuff."

"Okay." Keith scanned them all briefly. "Lance, you get the jacket. Because it fits you. If my mom…if she really can't take the knife it goes to Shiro, who should return it to the blades but I wouldn't mind if he kept it. Pidge, you get the wolf because he likes you, and you…talk to him the best. Hunk…you get my belt and its satchel things. I know then you'd have two, but still, it might be useful. Allura…" He looked at her and bit his lip. "Uh, I'm out of things. Unless you want gloves? Or boots?"

Allura softened. "I'll take the gloves."

"Okay. Lance gets the boots then, because I think he's the only one the same size as me. And I guess the desert shack and speeder would go to the state."

"Come on, Keith, we can take the shack and your speeder," Lance said. "That was a sweet ride!"

Keith breathed a little easier. "Good." He pointed his finger at them. "But you all have to try the tire swing. And you have to go swim in the creek after the rainy season ends. It's part of the deal."

"Of course!" Lance, Hunk, and Pidge said all at once.

"And we could never let anyone else get the speeder we broke Shiro out of quarantine with," Hunk said.

Shiro chuckled.

"Yeah, they impounded the speeder. I asked James to check," Keith said.

"What?!" The hospital room filled with the indignant cries of the Garrison trio as they complained about the unfairness of impounding a legendary red speeder.

"How could they?" Hunk said, devastated.

"Yeah, we were coming right back!" Pidge said.

"And we DEFINITELY didn't use it to break Garrison protocol like, really badly," Lance said.

"Yeah… I mean, it was all harmless, didn't involve aliens or anything," Hunk said.

"And it definitely didn't count as evidence in the disappearance of three minors, a Keith, and Takashi Shirogane," Pidge said, smiling.

Keith laughed quietly, happy he found someone who cared about his stuff. More than he did, to be honest.

The complaints and joking died down. Everybody looked around.

"Allura?" Lance asked.

"I…I have an official will as princess of Altea, but Altea is gone and so are any legal grounds for distributing my belongings as such." She looked around at them. "Do scraps of hand-written paper on really pass as wills on Earth?" she asked.

"Well…" Hunk shrugged.

"It's sorta…" Lance trailed off.

"You could bring it to court if you wanted, but it's sort of like, the sentiment, you know?" Pidge said. "There's legal grounds for a handwritten will if you jump through hoops and hire a lawyer but mostly it's like just something you would have said if you could and it wasn't morbid."

"Oh yeah, this is very morbid," Lance said.

"Absolutely," Hunk said. "Not typical at all."

"I suppose it is understandable, given how many times we have faced death as a team," Allura said. "I can't blame any of you for wanting each other to know what you wanted after you died."

Shiro shrugged. "I know how you feel." And then he smiled, infinitely proud of their bravery and unwavering courage.

"Shiro?" Keith's voice was barely above a whisper. "Did you write something?"

Shiro inhaled sharply. "Yes."

Pidge's eyes went wide. "We didn't know." She blurted out. "We never read it. We had no idea you'd written anything down."

"Yeah…" Lance said, feeling awkward.

"We're sorry," Pidge said, practically whimpering.

Shiro laughed. "It's okay. It was silly anyway."

"It's not silly," Allura said.

"Yeah. We care about you," Pidge said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Alright," Shiro said, straightening up. "I have no idea what happened to the paper, but it was not so much a list of possessions as a note. I meant to give it to all of you, but I never felt the time was right and then I… died. I knew that I wanted Keith to lead Voltron after me and I also knew you might not be ready to follow him. So it was a letter. To all of you. I told you what I saw in Keith, that I saw his incredible drive to protect and defend, and his willingness to sacrifice. You knew him as a loner and a hothead but he isn't the best pilot of all of us without reason. I wanted to tell all of you that I wouldn't entrust you to a man I didn't think was completely worthy, and that Keith would lead you well. You…you are all like family to me, as Sam always said. I wanted you to know that you could go on as a family without me, so that's what I wrote."

"That's not silly!" Pidge cried, making a strangled noise and collapsing into Hunk again. Hunk wrapped an arm around her as tears streamed down both their faces. "We love you too, Shiro," Hunk wailed.

Lance wiped an eye. "Yeah," he said. "It wasn't the same without you."

"He's not dead!" Keith yelled.

Allura laughed. "Of course not, Keith. You saved him." She smiled.

"And Keith," Shiro said, looking at him, "You lived up to everything and became a better leader than I ever could have imagined."

Pidge made a crying noise somewhere between a squeaky toy and a dying animal. Hunk blubbered. Lance sniffled.

"What? No I didn't," Keith said, taken aback.

Shiro smiled, eyes honest. "Yes, you did."

Lance sniffled more and leaned into Pidge and Hunk's hug.

Pidge wailed. "We love you, Shiro! And Keith. I know you don't care, or whatever, but we love you too."

Keith turned red. He jumped when Allura put a hand on his shoulder. "We do really care for you."

Keith looked like a man on the brink of panic. Then he saw the faces of the rest of the paladins and relaxed.

Shiro laughed. "Come on, Keith. You let us all hug you before."

And that was all Pidge, Lance and Hunk needed. "Group hug!" they cried, but when they attempted to move they simply collapsed forward on the bed into a pile of giggly tears. Keith smiled. Shiro chuckled. Allura slipped off of her cot and slipped next to them in her hospital PJs, laying an arm over them and nestling in on Lance's side.

Shiro set a hand on Keith shoulder. He smiled, and Keith grinned. "Come on, brother," he said. And then Keith hesitantly leaned atop over all of them. As he felt the pile shake with Pidge's giggles he relaxed. And Shiro wrapped his arms, one Altean and one human, around all of them, and laid his cheek against the top of their heads.

And together, crowned by hiccups, sniffles and giggles, the six of them shared a well-needed breath together. They'd traversed galaxies, and it had brought them here. Each of them had broken a little bit along the way, but together they were all intact. And so they stayed. They were the paladins of Voltron, a little rearranged here and there, but still good, and still defenders of the universe.

And nothing about that was changing anytime soon.

Author note: Freaking heck. I was trying to write for a fanfic contest called "Positively Voltron" on the Voltron Amino but I had NO ideas for plots so I was hitting 'random trope' on TvTropes for ideas and 'Pet Heir' came up. At first I was like "That will never work, what pet would even-Kaltenecker. Lance. Shoot. I have to write this."

And, whah lah. I hope you enjoyed this. …It counts as fluff, right? It better, that was basically the whole point. I ended up writing and submitting a different fic for the contest, but I still wanted to keep this one light hearted and positive, despite the inherently angsty nature of its focus.

I love our paladins, and I'm SO glad they didn't die. Dreamworks really scared the crap out of me with those whiteouts. I am also a nurse and love imagining all the different injuries they could have sustained. I tried to work in a few references here to set the scene without detracting from the focus of the work. I hope I did that!

Please let me know what you think! I love the feedback.

And when the Amino contest ends I will post the fic I actually wrote for it, which is plot-based and about the paladins tackling a viral Galra AI. Stay tuned! And... anybody interested in a follow-up where they track down Keith's speeder? Let me know!

Peace,
Ninja