Wait (Keith Kogane X OC)

Chapter 13

The eating hall Sarah and her friends regularly went to was filling fast, and as a general rule, saving seats wasn't cool. Everyone had things to do and most people were busy, and so finding a seat, eating, and getting out as soon as possible was the main goal. When Sarah's friends didn't show up early for breakfast, she started to get worried that she would end up interacting with other crew mates, being forced to socialize.

Finally, with the seats around her filling, Nadia made it into the room. She quickly got herself a banana and oatmeal and sat down across from Sarah. "Okay. I came up with a new game to play," Nadia said. "It's probably been done before, but here it is: someone gives us a category, and we have to come up with as many words in that category as we can. The first person to run out loses, and we only have three seconds to think." She peeled her banana as she spoke and cut it up into pieces over her oatmeal. Then the banana was mushed up and mixed in.

Sarah wrinkled her nose. Bananas were not her thing. "That sounds like fun. What should we try first?"

"Something simple, like colors. Wanna go first?"

"Sure. Blue."

"Green."

"Red."

The people around them quickly left, not wanting to listen to the two girls play their dumb games, but Sarah and Nadia hardly cared. Talking about anything that didn't involve their mission was relaxing to them.

Nadia ended up winning with something called "Falu." Sarah was pretty sure it was made up, but at that point her brain had been too stretched to care. The amount of color names they could think of was unbelievable. It was a good thing that the game ended when it did, because Sarah was almost late for her Altean lessons with Romelle.

As she darted through the hallways to the REC room, she tried to recall everything they'd gone over the day before. There were the animals - and she recounted all of those - and the four most common Altean dishes, one of them being Allura's favorite. She burst into the REC room, panting and sweating, only to find that Romelle was absent.

Perfect. Sarah sat down at their usual table and tried to act like she hadn't just sprinted across the ship.

Hours later, it was time for lunch, and thankfully it actually looked appetizing. Food didn't normally look or taste good unless Hunk was in the kitchen. Sarah sat with the MFEs, next to Nadia. She'd noticed Acxa at a nearby table, sitting alone, but didn't want to say anything. The part galra girl intimidated her a little bit, and she wasn't sure how she'd react to seeing Sarah again.

Veronica had no fear, however, and waved her over. "Acxa! Come join us!" she called with a wide smile.

Acxa looked blankly at her, her eyes slipping briefly to Sarah, before she got up and joined the group. She tried to get on and eat her food, but Veronica wasn't about to let that happen.

"So," she said, folding her hands together in front of her body, "how did you meet the Paladins?"

"I met Keith when I was stuck in the third stomach of a Weblum," she said seriously, "he saved my life."

Nadia cocked her head to the side. "What... were you doing in a... stomach?"

"Gathering scaultrite to help enable Lotor to conquer the universe."

"I once got stuck in a ball pit when I was a kid."

Awesome Veronica continued to power through the awkward conversation. "Well, what do you think of the crew? It must be a pretty different dynamic, being that we don't try to kill each other, huh?"