Life After You

Chapter 5

When I got back to Pidge, I found her looking a lot better. She was listening to music, Bebe was now curled up beside her, and she had a plate of cookies next to her.

"How did it go with Keith?!" she asked eagerly when I walked in.

"We're fine now, you were right, he really did just want to talk. I was actually more uptight for once."

"Ha! I told you! I'm glad you guys okay again. It was stressing everyone out." she said smugly.

I flopped onto the end of her bed, starling Bebe in the process and making her yelp, I pat her head one I was settled comfortably on the bed.

"Where did the cookies come from?" I asked reaching for one.

"Matt brought them, Hunk made too many the other day." she said shrugging. "I didn't really talk to him about me being upset though. He's leaving the Altas in a couple days to look for some of the rebels that are missing, and not confirmed dead, and I didn't want to make him worry. Talking to him did make me feel better though."

"Right.. so what happened anyways?"

Pidge groaned overdramatically and flopped onto her pillows.

"Well for starters my mom. She's driving me insane. She found me JUST to tell me how worried she was and apparently she wants to talk later. I'm just annoyed. "

"That's not all is it?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"OH absolutely not. The stuff that happened with Green today.. her new weapon. It's just a mystery to me. Even Coran didn't know why it decided to show itself now, he hasn't even seen the damn thing before. I'm sick of the Lions doing what they want, whenever they want." She was starting to get choked up.

I could see why she was upset, it was one of the most powerful weapons that Voltron now possessed. We still didn't know a lot about the lions, even after all of this time. Sure, we understood the mechanics and how to pilot them, but there was still too many mysteries behind how they worked, and what unlocked the weapons.

"Lance, I could have changed the tide of the war sooner. Allura could have lived... this is messed up." she sniffed. "I'm just a bad Paladin."

I sighed and shuffled closer to her, and turned to face her.

"Look, it's not your fault Pidge. Like you said, the lions have always done what they wanted and have never given us a heads up when they unlocked a new weapon, or much of a reason actually. The truth is, yes, it could have been useful sooner. And I'm sorry about making that comment earlier, but there's no way we could have known about it. So please stop being so hard on yourself."

She sat up from her pillows and nodded, wiping away the few tears she had trailing down her face. Then she collapsed into my arms.

I held her like that for a while, rubbing her back, and whispering words of comfort until she stopped shaking. I honestly thought she had been handling things better than all of us after the war, but what did I know? I hadn't seen much of anyone in a week and a half. Here she was breaking down in front of me, and all I could do was hold her and tell her everything would be okay, whether she believed me or not was beyond me.

When she finally pulled away, she seemed more relaxed, but still shaken. Her honey-colored eyes weren't overflowing with tears anymore. I reached out and fixed her messy hair, ruffling it when I was done.

She shifted her position and curled up on my lap, and I took to playing with her hair. I was used to affection from Pidge. It wasn't anything new between us really, we all had this kind of relationship in one way or another. We ended up in cuddle puddles at one point or another, especially after a really hard battle or times we felt like we would never win the war or make it out alive.
It was purely platonic and done out of comfort, but it was nice being this close to someone. The last person I had held was Allura and I missed it.

Pidge sighed. "I'm still going to get to the bottom of this, I just really need closure and I want to find out why the lions work the way they do. Otherwise it'll just bother me forever."

Remain curious.

"I'll help, it's been bothering me too, and at least figuring out some info would be a big help.

She looked up at me "Yanno, it's weird. You've been really serious about everything lately. I'm not used to it." She reached up and poked the tip of my nose.

I shrugged. "You've barely seen me 'lately' but I guess I've been a little more 'serious' everytime I've seen you in the last three hours." I said, mocking her and using air quotes.

"You're depressed I don't blame you, I just miss you cracking jokes and roasting all of us!" she giggled.

We sat and bantered and talked back and forth for a awhile, Pidge even talked about completing the satellite later so we could watch weird, alien TV. I was excited to have some form of somewhat normal entertainment in my life.

I was getting up to leave Pidge's room, when she grabbed my hand and stopped me.

"Wait Lance. I would say thanks for everything, but I don't want you to leave yet.. do you wanna get shitfaced and do a facemasks? I think everyone planned on drinking tonight" she asked with wide eyes and and a dead-serious expression. "we could get everyone else in on it and whoever convinces Shiro first gets a prize from the Space Mall."

I burst out laughing, that was the last thing I ever expected to come out of Pidge's mouth and it was too much for me.

"Your mom will KILL you, like actually murder you. Plus you said she wanted to talk to you later, we should at least wait until after that."

"Nope."

"What?!"

"I said nope. I stopped giving a damn all of a sudden. Let's go party." she said smoothly.

It wasn't unlike her to have a rebellious streak, but this was the most wild she's ever gotten. Honestly I was impressed.

"Okay FINE. But if you get in trouble I had nothing to do with it."

She had a wide smirk on her face.

"Deal."

And with that, we walked to Pidge's impending doom.

*****
A/N:
HOLY CRAP I HAVE TIME TO WRITE NOW. I was finishing up cosplays for the last two weeks for ohayocon, which was an amazing time omg.
Now I have time to write forever.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve my story let me hmm know! See you soon:)