Five Trazes

Road to Recovery

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEITH

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Keith sat in the middle of the group, wrapped in at least fifteen blankets, his head resting on Hunk's shoulder, his eyes opening and closing periodically.

Hunk, while his voice box had been healed, still had a scratchy voice, unable to say anything without putting a strain, no matter how small, on his vocal cords.

Keith, still cold even after a week, was constantly wrapped in blankets. Ina had suggested grouping all of the Paladins together for a time, because the body heat would help warm him up.

Allura and Lance, still holding hands, relaxed on Keith's other side.

Ever since Allura and been rescued, they refused to let go of each other for more then five minutes.

Allura was regaining quintessence, slowly but surely. With Lance, it seemed to go quicker, her love for him sparking more life inside her.

While his concussions healed, so did Lance's memory. Though he faltered in a few things, he was remembering more and more, but Allura's name was still the main thing he said, the love strong in his gaze.

Shiro leaned heavily against Keith's back, Pidge curled into a tiny ball in his lap, knees drawn to her chest and one arm wrapped around her legs as the other lay in front of her face. She opened and closed her hand, staring numbly at the fingers clenching and unclenching.

"So." Shiro said after ten minutes of them basking in each other's presence. "Are we gonna talk about what happened?"

All of the other five instinctively jerked away from him, eyes wide in horror. Yeah, they were definitely not going to talk about it.

"I meant are we going to talk about how you got captured?" Shiro corrected himself, understanding their pain from Galra imprisonment.

Everyone relaxed back into their previous positions, still looking uncertain, but their expressions seemed a bit better.

"A-alright." Keith shivered, blowing part of his mullet out of his face. "F-first of all-all...w-we're sssssorry f-for leaving with-without y-your permisssssssion."

"It's fine." Shiro said.

"We heard," Allura began, taking up the story, "that a certain base had information about Haggar, Base Scariff, if you will. It needed to be a stealth mission, and Keith-" pause for a moment as she sent her leader a pointed look "-was worried that you would insist coming along, or at least send along the MFEs, and we figured we needed a smaller group."

"Pidge was getting a lot of information," Lance muttered, shrinking down low into the few quilts pressing against his skin, "and I thought everything was going well. We all did...but then the alarms..." he shuddered, closing his arms and burying his face into his knees.

As a collective group, all five let out a low whine, shaking. The alarms obviously was the part where they freaked out and knew they were going to be captured.

"Th-the ceiling..." Pidge sobbed, curling up as tight as she could. "It fell down, it fell down on us..."

Shiro held her closer, his floating arm going across the room to bring a few hot drinks from the counter across the room to them. It was great to be the captain of a ship, be able to put a room on lockdown except to precious few, and to have a floating arm.

Each of the Paladins took the drink thankfully, and Pidge pulled herself into a sitting position, gapping with awe as her fingers tightened around the mug's handle.

Shiro wondered how long she had spent in the cell worrying that she'd never feel her fingers again...

Keith sipped quietly on his hot chocolate, inhaling sharply.

"We w-were crushed-d u-u-under the roof-f f-for a-about h-half a varga..."

"Th-the Galra ripped the roof off of ussssss and pulled ussss out, too quickly for usssss to move." Hunk hissed, rubbing the piece of his neck where his voice box sat.

"We were pulled apart instantly..." Allura moaned, shivering. "Transported us to different ships...the last thing we saw of each other was of us calling to each other, yelling, and...then the Galra knocked us out in a collective blow. We didn't dare call out lions for fear that the Galra would capture them with the new technology on their ships..."

"The lions." Pidge croaked, her eyes stretching wide in fear. "D-did you retrieve them?"

"Yes. We have Hunk to thank." Shiro smiled. At the others' confused looks, he explained. "He left us a note in the mainframe, so if you didn't return by the time we awoke, we could go find you. The lions were well hidden, I'll admit. We had to use a scanner to find their signatures under the water."

"Red hated that." Lance reflected, giggling hysterically. He was a bit...out of it.

"I-I'm ssssssure h-he-he d-d-did." Keith shivered, smiling gently.

They stayed silent for a bit, thinking about what had happened.

"Guys," Shiro began, breaking the blissful silence. "If you ever want to talk about anything with me or each other, remember that you can. We've all gone through similar experiences."

All five nodded collectively, though they still looked hesitant and worried.

The door opened a few ticks later, and all six heads turned, spotting Ina standing there.

She was dressed in black, for mourning her followers, but her face displayed to trace of mourning. "Apologizes, Paladins. But it is of the upmost importance that I address a subject with Shiro in solitude."

"I'll be back shortly." Shiro told the others, boosting himself to his feet.

"Bye, Shiro." They all chimed in eerie unison, a couple waving in farewell.

"What is it, Leifsdottir?" Shiro asked once they were safely in her lab, which was often shared with Pidge.

"This." Ina held up a tiny, grey chip, no further explanation needed.

"I thought you destroyed this." Shiro took the chip from her hand, carefully looking it over. When they had headed over to Base Scariff after the Paladins had gone missing, they had managed to retrieve this chip from the ruins of the computer mainframe. It was from this that they extracted the information of the map and layout of the five Trazes, as well as the coordinates of their position.

After the Paladins had been rescued, Shiro had assumed Ina had crushed it, destroying the last bit of evidence - besides memories and physical and mental wounds - that the prisons had ever existed.

"I imagined you might yearn to demolish the micro-chip." Ina shrugged, answering his question.

Shiro blinked at her in stunned surprise. She was right; he had wanted to destroy it with his own hands, to ensure that his friends would never be hurt again.

But how did Ina know he wanted to?

"You were right." Shiro admits, crushing the chip in his hand.

And with it, he destroyed all remaining possibility of his friends getting hurt in such gruesome ways.

Never again. He would never let it happen again.

Never again.

No, because they were all safe. And he'd make sure they stayed that way.