Not What You See

(self)torture

"So... what do we do now?" Hunk pipes up hesitantly, taking in the situation, and new information.

"We do what the goblin lady says... we give back her stuff, and we get Pidge back." Keith says quietly, anger heavy in his voice.

"Why?" Lance speaks and everyone looks shocked.

"What do you mean? Why wouldnt we?" Hunk questions and steps forward.

"Pidge has been lieing about herself since school. What if its not the only thing shes been lieing about? She knew about voltron before the garrison even did. Before Shiro even came back to earth. Pidge probablly isnt even her real name! For all we know, she could be a spy!-"

"Enough!" Lance continues his rant, but was cut off by Keith. "Pidge is one of us. He, she, doesnt matter. We are getting her back, end of story." And with that, the red paladin walks to his room.

On his way, he stops at Pidges open door and looks inside. No one had really seen inside of her room, at least they haddent looked closely. She had a string of lights over her bed hidden in the ceiling, but glowed bright enough. The blankets were the standard bed spreads from everyones rooms, except hers were pushed into a circle shape like a nest. Keith steps farther into the room, and something makes a squeak under his foot. The space mice were picking at Pidges clothes, trying to tidy up her space in preparation for her return. The smallest of the three is trying to pull the grey colored wolf toy from under the nightstand. Keith takes it, and stares at the two black marbles that made the toys eyes.

He begins to think about how Pidge interacted with herself and her belongings when no one could see. How long had these lights been up? Were they a comfort for her? What about the wolf toy? Does it hold as much value to Pidge as his knife does to him? Does she try to sleep in a blanket nest or is it the result of movement in her sleep? Does it make her feel more secure?

More questions peppered his brain until Shiro comes into the room and places a hand on his shoulder.

"You know that Lance didn't mean what he said.... hes just dealing with the confusion in his own way..." The father figure says in an attempt to comfort him.

"Well, he didn't have to be so intense about it. He seemed very opinionated on the matter." Keith snaps back and firmly places the stuffed animal on Pidge's pillow.

"Well, not that I disagree, but you do too." Shiro points out. "Everyone has noticed your 'sudden attachment' to Pidge."

Keith sighs and tries to explain. "I-I dont know... I've just had this feeling that they needed to be protected. I dont know why, but when we got that mission, I knew that something was going to go wrong."

He sits on the bed and the space mice gather on his knee.

'Pidge really liked you guys... I wonder if she had a pet on earth.'

"Keith?" Shiro tries to get his attention and Keith snaps from his thoughts. "Hunk and Coran said they were going to try and find a way to stop Haggar from getting the drive and still get Pidge back. Did you want to help?"

"No I think I'm gonna go spar for a bit. Let me know when we get Pidge." The red paladin scoops up the space mice, hands them to Shiro, and marches to the training room. There he tirelessly slashes, stabs, and shatters the training robots. When the sword got too heavy, he goes to the punching bags until his knuckles turn raw.

~

While Haggar picks through Pidge's memories, the smaller girl can feel and see everything.

Its like having her mind picked through like a file cabinet, every memory being viewed like a page before quickly being passed over. The witch is being extremely curious, and even after hours of searching, hasn't even passed Pidge's childhood yet.

'You appear to have a very cheerful recollection of your upbringing. That older boy seems familiar to me as well." Haggar taunts from inside of Pidge's mind. Sharing a head-space isn't exactly comfortable.

'You've seen... my brother?' Pidge questions, hardly handling the pain.

'Oh yes.' Haggar begins to see the first time Pidge was introduced to Shiro. 'That one. They were put on a ship used to carry fighters for entertainment together. The smaller one was supposed to fight, but the white-haired one attacked him in order to take his place. I have no clue where either of them are now.'

Fast forward an hour or so, and Haggar reaches the day Pidge uses her false identity to get into the garrison. Pidge knows what she will see soon and pleads for Haggar to stop. Of course, she doesn't listen and keeps going.

The day Keith showed them all the cave with the blue lion. Haggar can sense the emotion attached to the memory. Moving forward, the same feeling only occurs in memories involving Keith. Pidge cries and thrashes in the chains but Haggar continues.

"Just find what you're looking for and get out of my head!!!" She screams and uses all of her willpower to expel the witch from her mind. Haggar staggers backwards and Pidge blinks, making sure she was seeing the current reality.

"You little brat!" Haggar swipes Pidge's cheek, her nails drawing blood. "I will pick apart every memory in that tiny brain of yours until I find what you really know." Once again, she forces her way into Pidge's mind, the pain like a drill in her skull. She finds the day the paladins raided the cargo ship. Pidge goes to the console and downloads any information she can, but doesn't pay much mind to it as Allura was supposed to analyze it. Haggar watches from Pidge's view as she deletes all of the ships logs and attaches the piece of plastic against the outside her armor. She is ready to alert her men to inspect Pidge's suit when she watches Pidge get taken and knock the drive away.

"So they really do have the only copy..." The witch steps back and lets go of Pidge's mind. She tries to stay strong, but tears begin to slip from her eyes.

"I told you... I dont know what it says....we were just told that it could have been important..." Pidge says quietly, trying not to cry. Her efforts are wasted though, as Haggar digs her nails into her bare shoulder.

"If there is one thing I can tell you just by seeing through your eyes, it's that you are wasting your heart on that red one." Haggar says in a quiet and raspy voice as she slowly pulls her nails out of Pidge's shoulder. The girl felt a pang in her chest at the witches words and wishes she could blame it on the pain in her shoulder. "He will never care for you the way wish him to." More nails in her back. "If you dared tell him," a hand moves and holds something cold and metal against her stomach. "He will leave you empty." The short blade of the knife forms a shallow "X" across Pidge's torso and she lets out a choked sob. Haggar smirks and admires the start of her work.

"You dont break easy. You are going to be more fun than i thought."