In Your Orbit

Chapter 1

Notes by the author: This chapter is almost like a preface. It's very short but this is where I wanted to start the story. Again, this is a fix-it fic takes place 3 years after season 8 ended because I cannot accept that a love so grand as Keith and Shiro just be thrown in the trash like the creators did in season 8. So here, have this fanfic, because this is how it should have ended. 

                                                                                     ~*~*~*~*~

When he'd heard the news his heart had skipped a beat. His lips had spread into a wide smile that wouldn't go away and he'd felt more joy in his heart than he'd had for over three years now.

Keith was coming back! Keith was coming to see him! Keith.

How he'd longed for this news, he realized, without even knowing it all this time. Or so he'd told himself.

Shiro ran out into the garden still with that big smile stuck on his face and yelled "He's coming back! Keith is coming back!"

Lance who stood some distance away working on Shiro's flowerbed perked up and wiped his hands on his apron.

"What? Mullet is coming back?!" Lance's face broke into a smile and there was something extremely familiar that tugged at Shiro's heart at hearing Lance call Keith "mullet".

He ran up all the way to Lance and had the inexplicable urge to take Lance's hands and jump up and down. He refrained from doing that.

"I just got the comm message, he said he was done with his releif-aid for the moment and needed a break from training with the Blades, so he's taking some time off to visit us."

"Wow, I can't believe I get to see Keith again, what's it been like a year since I last saw him?" Lance wondered counting the months on his fingers.

"Y-You saw Keith a year ago?" Shiro's heart stilled. It had been three years for him. Three. Then again Shiro couldn't blame him, Keith had withdrawn once Shiro was married. No, that wasn't fair, the truth was that Shiro had withdrawn long before that and though he loved Keith more than anything, he had put a wall between them since Keith had rescued him that day when he'd fought Shiro's clone.

"Yeah he came around more often to visit me after I lost Allura, though. He was so great about it, a true friend." Lance turned to Shiro.

"So you haven't seen him for longer I take it?"

Shiro's hands trembled. He hadn't known Keith had met with the others but not with him. He'd just assumed Keith had withdrawn from everyone. What a fool he'd been. Of course he hadn't withdrawn from the others, they hadn't done what Shiro had done to him.

"I haven't seen Keith for three years" Shiro replied and looked down at the dirt on the ground.

Lance looked momentarily surprised, but then he nodded in understanding.

"Oh. Wow. I guess it was harder on him than he let on."

Shiro started "What was harder on him?"

Lance frowned "You know, the fact that you're the only person he's ever loved and he lost you, mourned you, then you came back from the dead and then you were a clone and then he finally got you – the real you – back again after almost dying trying to save your life, but you rejected him and married someone else."

Shiro gaped, his jaw was down to the floor and he didn't know what to say. The only thing he could think of was: "I didn't reject him" not outwardly, not with so many words...but perhaps with actions...

"Didn't you though?" Lance asked, holding a juniberry flower to his cheek and with a mysterious smile he walked off to the comforting shade of the pavilion and sat down to rest.

Shiro just stood there, his mind racing.

So even Lance knew. Did everyone know? Of course they did. Everyone knew what a phenomenal jerk he'd been. But Keith was coming to see him again, maybe he'd forgiven Shiro? Maybe his heart was healed and they could be friends again. Friends who actually talked on a day to day basis, his heart fluttered at the thought. And there was this little part of him, this nagging, insistent part that wanted Keith to not be okay. This horrible, nonsensical part wanted Keith to not be over him.