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Lance had first started appearing around the Holt house only a few weeks after Matt graduated from high school. According to the pair of them, they’d met two years prior at a space and aviation related convention at their school. Pidge had met Lance once before at one of Matt’s school events, but they hadn’t realised just how close the two were at the time. After seeing them together more often, though, Pidge wished they could unsee it
The way Lance relaxed the second he spotted Matt – not that Lance could ever be considered on edge when Matt wasn’t around, but it was simply very evident the way he sagged his shoulder and the way his eyebrows softened wherever Matt was around. The way Matt lit up when Lance entered the room. The quiet conversations they’d share on nights they thought they would be unheard by any other – Pidge never meant to eavesdrop, they just wanted a midnight snack and couldn’t help the fact that their bedroom passed by the living room. The way they cheered each other up even in the most somber of moments.
Pidge knew, without having been directly told so, that Matt and Lance had something very special going on. Something Pidge never felt the need to put a label to – though they could think of a few that night fit.
Lance would come over nearly everyday after school, often still in his uniform intending to either switch into something he had in his bag or into one of Matt’s. He would often stay the night on weekends and spend the entirety of Saturday and Sunday with them.
At first, Sam and Karen Holt had been worried about Lance being away from home so often, but that particular concern died down when Lance admitted to not liking his house very much. Their dad had initially been very concerned until Lance assured them that “it’s nothing serious.” No one truly knew whether to believe that, but they didn’t pry any further seeing as how uncomfortable Lance always got when the topic of home came up.
After that point, Lance’s presence in the house became near constant and practically an expected fact. Since he was around as often as he was, their parents started buying for five, cooking portions for five– their mother even learned to make a traditional Cuban recipe after learning Lance’s heritage. Seeing the food nearly brought the boy to tears and he’d hugged Karen Holt so tight Pidge was almost afraid she was losing her breath. Sam even got someone to build a bunk on Matt’s bed so that Lance didn’t have to sleep on the floor as he so often insisted on doing.
So, when Matt and Sam departed for Kerberos, Lance was right there with Pidge and Karen. Pidge sort of wished they hadn’t overheard the two’s final goodbyes.
“You’re gonna get back in, like, a year and I’ll be piloting ships by then and we’re gonna go back to space together, okay?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“Promise me we’ll do that.” Lance said as he stuck his pinky finger up at Matt.
Matt laughed but took Lance’s pinky in his own. “I promise I’ll get back and we’ll go space-adventuring together.”
“You fucking better.”
Matt frowned suddenly, fixing Lance with a serious look. “Promise me you’ll stay with Katie and mom.”
Lance blinked, seeming to be taken aback. “What?”
“You’re not gonna just withdraw the second I leave or anything, right? Promise me you won't.”
Lance laughed, nervous and avoiding. “What makes you think I’d do that?”
“The plenty of times you’ve already tried? They love you, Lance, genuinely. Like, dad got an entire bed built for you! He hadn’t even done that for me or Katie!” Matt flailed an arm emphatically.
Lance looked away from Pidge's direction and said something they couldn’t quite pick up.
Whatever it was, it made Matt smile and pull him into a hug. “Great! Now take care of yourself, you doofus.”
Lance mumbled something into Matt’s shoulder that made the latter laugh.
That was their last conversation – in person – before news of the Kerberos “disaster” reached them.
Pidge did not like to inspect those following months very closely. They were a wreck, they knew it, barely keeping themself from tattering off into a million individual pieces, lost and never to be put back together. They weren’t the only one, though, so that helped ease their pain if only a little.
Karen did not take the news well; she seldom left her room, hardly spoke on the rare occasions that Pidge happened across their mother out and about. Pidge often found her awake at odd hours of the morning, going through album after album, as if she could manifest them back to her.
“I have to remember them,” she’d admitted one night when Pidge felt brave enough to ask.“I can’t forget their faces, Katie, I can’t.” She’d sounded so desperate, so lost; Pidge had never seen their mother so broken before. She’d always been so strong, so put together. Pidge didn’t know what to do.
They didn’t want to think about their brother or father. Pidge wanted them back more than anything else in the world, but they didn’t want to remember the good or the bad. It all hurt too much.
And Lance? Lance had stopped coming by to their house. He’d stopped going to school from what Pidge could tell. Pidge had infrequently tried calling his phone only to be put on voicemail each time. They gave up trying as their own life – and investigations – took forefront.
Pidge had stopped thinking about him– they’d stopped thinking about nearly everything not revolving around finding out what happened to their family.
So Pidge’s reaction to meeting their captain– the pilot in the team –was not an exaggerated one by any means.
“Lance?”
The boy in question looked no less surprised than Pidge felt. “Katie?”
Pidge’s initial shock was overtaken by a swift wave of terror as they moved to clamp their hand over his mouth. “It’s Pidge Gunderson,” they said hurriedly.
Lance blinked at them, the edges of a grin peaking out where Pidge’s hand didn’t cover. He licked their hand and they yanked it back, yelping in disgust. “Pidge?” He asked, incredulous. “As in like the weird nickname Matt gave you?”
Pidge scowled at him. “It’s not weird! And sure, that.”
Lance nodded, still grinning a sly grin. “What's up with the name change, then? Too many Kat–”
Pidge clamped their hand over his mouth once again. “Shut it, would you?”
Lance licked their hand yet again, and they slapped his arm in retribution. He shook his head, chuckling to himself about something. “Alright, Gunderson, what are you up to?”
“I’m not up to anything!”
“Right,” he said with a nod that conveyed just how little he believed them. “I think you’ve forgotten the fact that I’ve spent nearly five years with you guys and know, for a goddamn fact, that you wouldn’t chop of all your hair, put on Matt’s glasses– which you definitely don’t need– and change your whole ass name just to join the Garrison. Something’s up, and I want in.”
Pidge didn’t know what to say. Their current hypothesis was still just that; a hypothesis. One they had yet to gather any concrete evidence for. Would it be fair to Lance, someone who cared deeply for those involved, to get his hopes up only for it all to turn out to be the– possibly inconclusive –coping mechanism of an uneducated teenager? Pidge didn’t think so. So they lied.
“Matt always wanted me to go here: said I had the potential or whatever.” They waved dismissively. They weren’t lying, not entirely anyway. Matt had often spoken about how he thought that Pidge would do great at the Garrison. “And I don't really wanna be attached to the Kerberos ‘disaster,’” – Lance visibly flinched at that –”you know? Nobody’s gonna look at me without seeing Matt or dad… I don't want that.”
Lance had let Pidge off the hook with that and they proceeded to act as though they had only first met recently. Hunk, the engineer on their team, did not pick up on anything and thus their charade lasted.
At least up until that fateful night when Shiro returned.
Pidge had to admit what they were really doing at the Garrison, Lance was not the happiest about being lied to and Hunk was mostly oblivious to the tension between the two of them. They rescued Shiro alongside Keith, escaped the Garrison, found Blue and were at the Castle with Allura and Coran in what felt like a blink of the eye to Pidge.
Finding Green and forming Voltron were a bit less of a blur and the quiet stillness that followed the celebratory whoops and declarations were by far the clearest of the entire ordeal if Pidge were being honest. They would have much rather that the battle have taken up more clarity than the stiltedness of everything afterwards, but they digressed.
They had retreated back to what was now meant to be their bedroom when Lance finally approached them. They’d been expecting it, of course, they knew Lance well enough at that point to know that Lance wouldn’t let any of Pidge’s lies slide. He never appreciated lies, not from anyone.
“So,” Lance said conversationally as he strolled into Pidge’s room, looking around as if it weren’t identical to the room Lance himself had received. “This is pretty cool, huh?” He was looking at Pidge now, quiet and calm– two qualities Pidge wouldn’t often describe Lance as. He was waiting for them to start, he was waiting for them to make the first move.
They sighed as they flopped down onto the stiff mattress they were given to sleep on. Pidge didn’t necessarily hate the quality of the bed; they’d slept on worse at the Garrison, but it still wasn’t what they’d expected to find on a space castle.
“Look, I didn’t want to keep secrets,” they said finally, figuring that admitting to their faults was infinitely better than walking around it the way they might have if they were talking to anyone else. “I just– I didn’t have any proof for what I was doing and, like, I didn’t want to get your hopes up and– just, I’m sorry.”
They meant it too, only because they knew lies and secrets bothered Lance more than he’d ever let on; hurt him in more ways than one, they’d come to learn over the five-ish years they’d spent in each other’s presence. They let out a deep breath and dared to look up at Lance.
The teen in question was eyeing Pidge with a certain level of evaluation that Pidge almost thought they were being assessed on their performance on a simulator or something. Lance’s brows knitted together, lips fermented into a thin line and his arms crossed over his chest. Before Pidge could get another word out – because they wanted to say something more, to fix what they’d messed up, maybe – when Lance deflated, sagging his shoulders, dropping his hands and flopping down onto the bed beside Pidge. Their shoulders touched and Pidge couldn’t help but think it was intentional.
“I know you are, believe me. I’m not mad either, if anything, I’m kinda just hurt that you felt like you couldn’t trust me, is all.”
Pidge was about to say how that was not the case, about how they did trust him and how that’s the only reason they’ve been able to keep their composure throughout the previous couple days. But Lance hadn’t finished.
“I get it, though; why you didn’t tell me. Honestly, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I were you,” he said, smiling. It was a sort of smile Pidge hadn’t seen much of in the past year; it was soft and open and so full of love that Pidge had to look away. “I really don’t want to lose you, Pidge, as a friend or a sibling or a fellow Paladin or whatever. You mean a lot to me, so… no hard feelings?” The last bit of that sentence was said with a great measure of awkwardness that Pidge found more endearing than anything else.
Pidge sighed, content, and leaned into his side. He instantly wrapped an arm around their shoulders the way he used to when Pidge confided in him about nightmares they’d had in that uneasy period between Matt and their dad leaving and the news reaching them. “No hard feelings.”
And everything was good after that– as good as it could be, anyway.
It’s nearly a week in when Pidge announces their plan of leaving team Voltron. The choice to leave came from a place of both longing and rationality. Their primary reason for leaving was for their family, but they liked to think they wouldn’t have left if they weren't sure that the team would be fine without them. The Green Lion could easily pick a new Paladin– it wasn’t the picky one, after all –and Pidge would hardly be missed in that sense.
It hadn’t been part of their plan, however, to bring it up amidst the party. They’d figured it’d be best to wait until after the festivities so as not to drag down the mood, but it is what it is, Pidge supposed.
When the castle got taken over, Pidge had been stalking the halls in search of Lance– because there was no way in any universe that they’d leave without saying anything to him first. Finding him unconscious and gravely injured was not how they envisioned things going, though.
Seeing him on the floor like that– unresponsive and unmoving –sent shivers down their spine. Half conjured visions of Matt’s limp body on Kerberos or their dad’s in the ship they took out there flashed in front of their eyes, blinding them; paralyzing them. They stood there, watching the visions flash in front of them and Lance lay still on the floor for what felt like an eternity. It took Coran roughly shaking them to get their thoughts to catch up with what was happening in the real world.
“--a new crystal!” Allura was saying, though Pidge hadn’t caught the beginning of her sentence.
Keith threw his hands in the air in a show of what Pidge vaguely registered to be frustration. “Where the fuck do we get one?”
“We’d need to go to a Balamra, most likely,” Coran said, sounding more tense than they’d ever thought him capable of. “But we’d need to get out of the castle for that, and…”
“And all the hanger doors are locked– the Lions are inaccessible,” Allura finished. She was toying with the front of her hair in a motion that Pidge found oddly comforting.
“What about the pods?” Hunk was hovering over Lance who had been shifted into a sitting position in the time that Pidge had zoned out. Before anyone could say anything else, though, was on his other side, their hand going instinctively to his; hoping that that somehow would heal him instantly and get the pained look off his usually cheery face.
“--all locked,” Allura said, Pidge hadn’t caught the beginning again.
They shot their head up at the princess. “What’s locked?”
“Everything. All the hanger doors, the bay doors. There’s no getting out of the castle to get a new crystal and without the crystal we can’t get him–” Allura gestured to Lance with a grim expression “--into a healing pod.”
“I have one,” they said and when no one immediately started moving, they added, “a pod. The pod I was gonna take to… yeah. It’s all set and stuff so…”
“Were the doors ready to—”
“Yeah, it was all set; I was gonna leave right after the party so I got everything ready beforehand.” They distantly registered the confusion and what almost looked to be hurt on Coran's face before he was speaking again.
“Alright, we’ll use that. Hunk, we’ll go together; I’ll need assistance in carrying the crystal.”
Hunk nodded grimly, shot one last fleeting look at Lance then stood and headed for Coran. He glanced back at them. “I think we might need help with it, Pidge, mind coming along?”
Pidge blinked, staring up at him with narrowed eyes. They doubted that Coran would realistically need help with the pod considering he likely knew more about it than Pidge did at the moment.
They also did not want to leave Lance’s side for even a second, the mere thought of it made them sick to their stomach. But the way Hunk was eyeing them told them there was likely more to this than simple assistance with the pod; so they squeezed Lance’s hand once more, hoping against hope that he’d open his eyes, heaved a sigh when he didn't and stood.
Their suspicions of ulterior motives was proven right as Hunk spoke up the second they were out of ear shot of anyone else– Coran was leading them a little in front and was likely too preoccupied to pay attention to them anyway.
“I don’t get it,” Hunk said in lieu of introducing his topic of choice. Pidge thought it was grating and that he should cut to the point, but they held their tongue. “Why leave?”
They sighed, having been expecting this. “I told you why, Hunk.” They don’t mean for their words to have the bite that they end up having. They sighed again, hoping Hunk didn’t think any less of them for it than he already did. “Sorry, it’s just– I need to find them, Hunk. I’m so close now, I can’t just sit here knowing that they’re out there somewhere, probably suffering the same way Shiro did, and not do anything about it.”
Pidge had honestly been expecting Hunk to argue with them– call them selfish for leaving and remind them that they weren’t the only ones who were missing loved ones –but instead he just wrapped an arm around their shoulders and brought them close to his chest. They were still walking, which made the hug awkward and the both of them nearly tripped over their own feet more than once in the span of a minute, but Pidge leaned into it. “I’m sure you’ll find them, Pidge.”
God, had they needed to hear those words. They bit the inside of their cheeks to keep the tears from falling. “Hope you’re right,” was all that they could say.
The rest of the day blurred together and by the time Pidge’s mind slowed down enough for them to string along a coherent stream of thoughts, the dust had long since settled. The ship was up and operational with the Balamran crystal that Hunk and Coran had acquired in place, Sendak and his lackey were taken care of and Lance was safely placed into a healing pod the moment anyone was free enough to do so.
Now, it was just a matter of waiting for him to heal enough to leave the pod.
Surprisingly enough, Pidge wasn’t the only one camped outside his pod the night after everything happened. Although, realistically, they shouldn’t have been surprised. All the Paladins– including Keith, which did genuinely catch Pidge off guard –all brought along their beddings and flopped down in front of Lance’s pod. Nobody said anything as they got their respective areas set up, and nothing was said when the imaginary boundaries they’d set fell apart and they sprawled across each other.
Breakfast was eaten in that same position, none of them wanting to move, even though Coran had informed them multiple times that Lance would not be out until much later in the day. Pidge oddly felt connected to them in a way they hadn’t before this.
It was later, sometime after breakfast, when the first of them got up.
They were still sprawled in front of the pod, but they’d all gotten up already for showers and to grab their tablets so they had something to do in the meantime. Hunk was splayed out on the floor with his tablet held up to his face, Shiro was sitting cross-legged on one side of the pod with his tablet in his lap and Keith was pacing the floor in front of them. Pidge was leaning against Lance’s pod with their tablet open with files they’d acquired on the last rescue mission Team Voltron had done.
“Are you still going to leave?”
Pidge blinked at their screen then stared up at Keith with a mixture of annoyance and guilt swirling in their stomach. They’d been hoping to avoid this particular conversation until later, until after they’d had a chance to talk to Lance– he always had a knack for making things seem much easier than they usually were and Pidge desperately needed that right now. “What?”
Hunk and Shiro were now staring too, and Keith had his hands crossed in a show of stubborn refusal to drop it.
Pidge sighed, managing to only just about swallow back a groan.
“I– I don’t know,” they said and they weren’t lying. They didn’t know what to do; they didn’t want to leave and they’d never wanted to in the first place. Finding their family had just seemed more important than staying with the team before. Now, though? Now, they weren’t so sure.
“You don’t know?” Keith’s tone spoke of indignation and irritation, and Pidge couldn’t blame him. Out of all the Paladins, Keith had been the most outwardly upset over Pidge’s decision.
“Yeah.” They swallowed, hoping that this conversation could miraculously be cut short. For whatever reason, they couldn’t get themself to stand up and leave; they felt frozen in place; paralyzed, almost. “I’m sorry, okay? I know it’s a fucked up thing to do, to just leave you guys to deal with all this but– but I have to find them, okay? I just have to.”
“Pidge…” Shiro sounded more placating than he did understanding, which ticked them off. Shiro, out of everyone there in the room, should understand where they were coming from the best. Hadn’t he been there when Matt and their dad were taken away? Hadn’t he too been locked up and forced away from his friends and family? Hadn’t he cared for his crew enough to want them back, safe and sound?
Before anyone could say anything else though, Coran cheerily announced his presence. “Nearly time, Paladins,” he said with a grin.
Pidge sprung to their feet instantly, relieved both at the fact their hopeless wish had come true and that, finally, Lance was getting out of the pod.
They all gathered in a huddle in front of it, eyes wide and buzzing with a contagious type of energy nobody knew the source of. As the ticks counted down though, Coran instructed them to get back and not crowd him when he came out. Hunk caught him as he fell out, embracing the Blue Paladin close to his chest.
“Hey, buddy,” Lance said weekly. That was all the restraint Pidge had, they decided as they crashed themself into him, clinging tightly to him and burying their face in his side. He laughed, wrapping an arm around their back and rubbing soothingly. “Heya, pidgeon, good to see you, too.”
They lifted their head to glare at him. “Don’t you ever do that again or I swear, I’ll fucking kill you.”
He laughed again, still rubbing soothing circles on their back. “Can’t promise anything,” he said with a shrug which only earned him a half-hearted punch to the arm from Keith on his other side.
“He's right, you know,” Keith said with a scowl that lacked any of the heat it usually had. “Pull that kinda stunt again and you’re fucking dead.”
From there they all headed down to the kitchen for Lance to get something to eat while they filled him in on what happened in the spaces where he’d been unconscious. Pidge clung onto him the entire time because they couldn’t help it– they’d never been a tactile person but seeing someone they’d considered family on their metaphorical deathbed had brought out a need to ensure they weren’t anywhere that state anymore.
Seeing Lance alive and joking around as if nothing had happened helped settle something in Pidge, and before they knew it, they were making their announcement to the team.
“I-- I don’t plan on leaving anymore.” It was a good thing Lance was behind them when they’d said it because they didn’t think they’d know how to continue if they’d seen his reaction. “I won’t do it again… not that I’m planning on giving up on looking for them either, just, I’ll do it from here.” They adjusted their glasses and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as they continued.
“Also– there’s another thing I’d kinda wanna share, in the spirit of honesty or whatever. Um– I, uh– right.” They knew that there was no pressure in sharing this particular secret with anyone. They didn’t have to and nobody suspected anything, as far as they were aware. But they felt the need to say it, to vocalize it, maybe for their own sake more than the others’. “I’m not a boy. My name is technically not Pidge Gunderson. The Gunderson part isn’t true at all, my last name is Holt, like Sammual Holt or Mathew Holt, um yeah. They’re the people I wanna find, by the way, I don’t know if I'd mentioned it already. Um– I’m not a girl either, just– yeah. I’d rather just, like, go by Pidge still and, uh, yeah.”
Only when they were done did they risk a glance at the team’s faces and was instantly washed with a wave of relief. No one looked appalled or betrayed, which they supposed was the bare minimum, but still.
“Owning who you are will make you a better Paladin, Pidge,” Shiro said first before a chorus of agreements rang out among the rest of the group. His reaction, though, they’d expected to be a bit more mellow than the rest since he already knew who they were.
An arm slung itself around their shoulder and they glanced up at Lance, who was grinning at them with a certain cheeriness to him that made Pidge sag against him. “Told you they’d be cool about it.” Lance had insisted on this fact, claiming that the universe would not team them up with a bunch of transphobic assholes and said that it just didn’t fit with the whole “vibe” the team had going on. Pidge always scoffed at him, but they supposed he wasn’t wrong in the end.
The following months were a flurry of motion and unease brought on by the fact that nobody knew what was going to happen next; no one knew how long it was going to be before they could return home.
This led to a lot of quiet nights spent in each others’ company, trying endlessly to fill the void left in their hearts by those they could not be with. Lots of sleepovers were unceremoniously held in the lounge, sharing stories of their homes and of their families, tossing around lighthearted jokes to lessen the ache they all shared, confiding with one another about the smaller, easier-to-manage troubles they faced.
It was nice, knowing they weren’t alone, especially when the empty void of space was all they could look out to on most days.
Keith was the last to grow on Pidge. They’d catalogued him off as the lone-wolf type the moment they’d had a chance to and had not looked beyond that label for a long time. They ended up regretting this particular decision because they found that he was more alike to them than they’d given him credit for.
There were countless lonesome nights Pidge stayed up researching into ways of locating their family where Keith would sit with them, in the quiet, just doing his own thing while Pidge worked. It was oddly tranquil to be in the presence of someone who didn’t expect them to strike up conversation whenever it grew too quiet– they’d been surrounded by people like that their whole life and hadn't realised how peaceful the silence could be. Pidge quickly decided that Keith was one of the good ones.
When he came out as a Galra, it seemed only Allura was all that bothered. Lance seemed to have already figured it out, Hunk was a mix of confused and oddly fascinated, and Pidge had to agree with the big guy on the latter part. Shiro was abundantly clear in his support for Keith; no one had expected any less, truth be told. Coran, too, was mostly neutral on the topic. Allura’s distrust of him wore off in a matter of days as she put her head back on her shoulders and saw the trees for the forest, as the saying went.
Sans the near-constant battle against the Galra, things were peaceful on the Castleship.
Pidge would stay up late nights with the company of one or another Paladin, sometimes it was Hunk offering to help them with whatever it was they needed. Other times it was Keith and his quiet comfort and non-expectant silence. And most times it was Lance sitting with his own holo-tablet in hand, scrolling through prisoner files and lab reports and anything else that might remotely relate to finding Matt or Sam.
Lance would often sprawl across Green’s paw, claiming that it was more comfortable up there than the floor. Pidge would climb up with him and lean into his side as best as possible in the awkward positions Lance would always adopt. They’d sit and look through file after file until the lights would flicker back on alerting them of the new day.
They sit and talk and reminisce. Sometimes they’d share anecdotes of Matt or Sam – most commonly Matt – that the other already knew anyway. They would chatter about things they missed from home, things they were glad to leave behind, things they wished they’d said before it was too late and things they wished they hadn’t.
They sometimes talked about Karen Holt back on Earth, all alone, thinking that she’d lost her entire family. On rare occasions, Lance would bring up his family; his siblings primarily.
They’d talk about Val, who’d just gotten her first journalist gig, about Luis and the twins who’d only been five the last time Lance spoke to them, about Marco and his newest girlfriend whom Lance didn’t think was still in picture, about Rachel who likely just finished her bachelors in law if time was the same back on Earth.
Those were always the hardest conversations to have, but they had them anyway, because who else was there to talk about these things with? If they didn’t do it with each other, would they ever?
Then things went to shit and Shiro was gone.
Pidge was detachedly aware that so was Zarkom– for now –and the Galra were crippled now more than they had ever been since the beginning of the war. Pidge knew, on a logical level, that this was the best position they’d ever been in during the whole team time Pidge had been the Green Paladin.
They couldn’t bring themself to care much for any of it, though, as Shiro was gone.
The team felt unbalanced without him, like a piece of each of them had been snatched away and now they didn’t know how to move forward without it. It took the next excruciating months of searching before they had to admit what all of them had been suspecting since the moment they first found the empty seat in the Black Lion; Shiro was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.
The Black Lion picked Keith as her next Paladin; Keith was not fond of the idea by any means but they had no choice. Lance took over the Red Lion and Allura filled Lance’s spot as the Blue Paladin. It was odd to say the least, having half the team shuffled around the way they were. Pidge could feel the uncertainty they all had about their new arrangement even without the intrinsic bond Voltron provided them with.
Forming Voltron was easier this time than it had been when they started. It was easier only because they all shared one objective, unified in it in a way they hadn’t been back then. Even still, the unfamiliarity with the bonds put a severe strain on Voltron and all their minds as they collectively had to hold up the formation.
Keith’s leadership skills were not as refined as Shiro’s, lacking the years of experience in the field that Shiro had. Keith’s orders were rash and rushed, plans thought up on the spot and hardly thought-out. Shiro’s had always been concise and clear; calculated and thorough; he hardly left things up for chance but he knew how to improvise on his feet.
This wasn’t to say that Keith was incapable of being a good leader– he was, he learned to make up for where he lagged behind Shiro; he was trying his best and Pidge would acknowledge it –just that it wasn’t the same anymore. Pidge had never wanted to confront the thought that they’d ever have to lose one of the team, it had always seemed like such a far away fear, one they’d never have to live through. Now here they were, they supposed, living through it all.
And then months after the switch, after they’d finally reached a point they could tentatively call normal, they found Shiro.
Shiro was back and everything nearly returned to what it once was. Nearly. Except Keith leaves, to find his family.
The irony of it makes Pidge want to laugh honestly. He’d been the most vocal about how he didn’t want Pidge leaving, how he thought they were being selfish for leaving for those exact reasons. They didn’t laugh only because none of this was funny. Nothing was genuinely funny anymore, it was all just depressing.
The look on Lance’s face as Keith left the room caught their attention though. He looked to be fighting an internal war; a mix of guilt and anger battling it out on his face. They nudged him silently and his expression settled on something that resembled indifference. He didn’t talk about it and Pidge didn’t pry.
Keith leaving didn’t break the team as Shiro’s disappearance had, but things weren’t the same. Pidge had grown to rely on his steady presence around the castle far more than they’d realised; they’d come to find his quiet-comfort and non-expectant silence a relief from the world around them.
Now that he was gone? They felt off kilter, as if someone had put them on one side of a seesaw and hadn’t bothered to fill up the other end.
Even Lance confessed to missing him– “There’s no one to pick on anymore, you know? His reactions were always the best.” Pidge knew there was more to it; the two of them had bonded over their time as Red and Black Paladins respectively. Lance had effectively become Keith’s voice of reason and right hand man, and Lance had learned to roll with Keith’s quick impulses and on-the-spot decisions. It was an odd sort of camaraderie that neither of them would’ve expected at the start of this, but Pidge thought they didn’t mind.
They didn’t get to spend too much time dwelling on Keith’s absence, however, as not more than a month after he left, Pidge found Matt.
They’d nearly lost it, thinking he’d died somewhere out in the vastness of space where he’d never gotten a proper goodbye, but luckily, they’d been proven wrong by the over-excited presence hovering over their seat.
“You know, I still haven’t wrapped my head around the whole Paladin of Voltron thing. Like, my little sister?”--Pidge grimaced but didn’t correct him yet– ”A Paladin of fucking Voltorn? The fact you’re out here in space is crazy enough! I feel like I might implode!”
Pidge grinned, tilting their head back to stare at him. “Well, don’t. You’ve got a couple more surprises waiting for you.” They didn’t feel the need to tell Matt about Shiro or Lance, they figured those two could do the explaining themselves.
Matt blinked, his facial expression morphing in the animated way that Pidge remembered so fondly. “There’s more?”
They laughed, hunching over the controls again, willing Green to go faster. “Oh yeah, you have no idea.”
There was a pause and when Pidge shot a glance his way, they noticed the concerned frown pulling at his lips– he looked older then, as if the nearly two years they’d spent apart had aged him ten times that. When he spoke, his voice was thicker, telling of a deeper emotion Pidge didn’t know enough to decipher. “You found the others? Dad and Shiro?”
Pidge’s eyes widened shortly before they darted them back at the screen overlooking a whole heap of nothingness. They swallowed past a lump in their throat. “Shiro– he’s there. I didn’t exactly find him but, like, he’s the Black Paladin right now, so. Yeah.”
“Oh,” Matt said. There was a longer pause before, “and dad?”
Pidge shrugged one shoulder. “I– don’t know where he is. Sorry.”
The silence that followed was anything but the comforting ones they’d remembered Keith by. It was nearly suffocating and Pidge found themself wanting to break it but not knowing how. They didn’t have to in the end as Matt did for them. “At least Shiro’s okay, right?”
Pidge cringed– Shiro was okay in all the ways one could be after living through a year in the arena then whatever new, fresh hell he’d somehow emerged from most recently. Pidge didn’t feel the need to fill Matt in on that though; not their business to spill, they decided.
Matt cleared his throat. “You mentioned a couple of surprises? Does Shiro count as a couple or is there more?”
Pidge exhaled deeply, letting out their troubled thoughts along with it. They eased their shoulders and grinned. “You just gotta wait and see, I guess.”
“Can’t you just tell right now?” Matt pouted all dramatically, eyes wide like a doe and blinking repeatedly as if batting his unfairly long lashes at them would do anything. They rolled their eyes at him and he sighed, deflating. “Can I guess it, then?”
Pidge snorted. “Go ahead and try.”
“Okay, so it’s something super unexpected.” Matt had his hands up at his chin, rubbing it the way their dad did when he was trying to solve a particularly tough equation. It was such a familiar gesture that Pidge had to look away.
He snapped his fingers and they looked back up at him. “Lance!” When Pidge just continued to stare he added, “he’s here? Somehow? I don’t know, same way you’re here I’m going to guess. He wanted to be a fighter pilot so maybe that’s how you got out here in the first place? Although, pretty sure you can’t get a license to fly out of Earth’s orbit in just two years– is time different for you on Earth? You don’t look that much older, but maybe…?”
Pidge shook their head fondly. They’d forgotten how much of a geek Matt was. “No, time’s pretty much the same for us.”
“What about the Lance thing? No comment?”
Pidge seriously wanted to keep that a surprise so they rolled their eyes. “Matt, come on, seriously?”
“What? Is it Lance or not?”
They laughed, hoping to divert his attention away from the topic without actively lying to him. It’d be funnier this way, they knew. “Just– we’re almost there, you can wait.”
They were right in the end; it was infinitely funnier to see their raw reactions than if Matt had known Lance was the surprise all along. Though, they sort of wished Lance hadn’t been expecting it.
“Jesus Christ, you got bigger,” Lance was saying as he wrapped his hands around Matt’s shoulder, bringing him in closer— close enough to kiss but neither of them looked like they were too eager to have their first kiss in front of a group of people; strangers to Matt and family to Lance.
“Speak for yourself, McClain,” Matt said back and Pidge decided that that was the end of that.
“Alright, lovebirds! That’s enough of the flirting! Let’s get to the fun things, yeah?”
Lance, having detached himself from Matt, looked scandalised, pressing a hand to his chest dramatically while Matt slung an arm around Pidge’s shoulder. “As the lady wishes,” he said with a grin as he led them up the ramp.
Lance caught their eyes with a frown and they shrugged. “Later,” they mouthed and he nodded.