Little Wonders

Sticks and Stones

"You know what Pidge? This is hands down the best thing you've ever invented."

He turned to face her, his blue eyes glistening with so much wonder and excitement. Droplets of water began to fall again and the grin on Lance's face made the countless trials and errors of creating it all worthwhile.

It had been roughly a year and they were stuck in deep space. Out of all of them, she was fairly certain Lance was the one who was feeling the most homesick. Then one night, while helping Coran in the castle's engine core, the Altean mentioned how Lance had talked about rain and immediately an idea came to her mind.

So she built a device that connected to the green lion's hangar and the room's atmosphere. It took a few failed attempts and trials, but eventually, she succeeded and had managed to make artificial rain.

It had taken some convincing on Lance's part, but soon enough, they were both standing in hanger, watching as the 'rain' fall.

For the first time in awhile, Lance looked legitimately at peace.

And what she wouldn't give to see him to feel that way again.

*

It was by a slim chance that they had managed to escape without getting hit or shot down. Everything was a mess and Katie's mind was racing as she tried to find a way to comprehend what the fuck had just happened.

Keith was missing and Allura wasn't responding to any of Hunk and Pidge's calls. To make matters worse, Allura had taken Lance in Blue, leaving an injured Red behind; for now, at least.

The wormhole had teleported them relatively close to the castle's location, but it was still going to take some time to reach it. Still, things could have played out a whole lot worse.

Hunk was reaching out to both Allura and Keith, while Katie worked on getting in contact with Coran again.

Both sides were radio silent.

"Pidge?" Hunk's voice startled her.

"Yeah?" she replied.

"What if Keith got injured like Lance?"

Hunk's question left a feeling of dread in the back of her mind. The chances were probable, but they wouldn't be able to rule it out for certain until they got back to the castle.

"We don't know for certain yet Keep trying to get through to them until we get back."

That was their first priority. Getting back to the safety of the castle. Their next priority was to get Lance into a healing pod as soon as they could.

There was no telling what kind of internal injuries Lance had suffered and the longer they delayed, the worse he could become.

*

The scent of freshly brewed coffee woke Shiro up within seconds.

He let out a small groan as he got up from his chair. He had fallen asleep at his desk at some point during the night while reading over the Atlas' system report. And although he didn't get much sleep to begin with, that didn't mean he wouldn't crash from the lack of exhaustion from time to time.

He didn't see much of a point in trying to sleep anymore anyway.

But the crew didn't need to know that. So whenever it was curfew, he would simply retire to his quarters and live off of his coffee machine for the night.

He was fully aware that running on nothing but coffee and pure determination wasn't healthy, but there were a lot more pressing concerns in the world as opposed to how much caffeine one person should drink in a day.