When Two Worlds Collide

Chapter 1

The next morning Lance walked into the dinning room to have breakfast with the other Paladins, Allura, and Coran. He was dead tired and was lagging behind after the night he had last night. And on his way from his to breakfast, Lance began to look around the Castle for Keith on his way there. So far he had checked Keith's room, the bridge and training decks. And he has yet to find Keith in any of those locations. Giving up on his mission for the time being, Lance preceded to head to the dinning hall for breakfast. Upon entering the room Lance was shocked to see Keith sitting there in his usual chair for all of their meals. He was sitting in his seat across from Allura and Coran with no food and a vacant, haunted look in his eyes. It kinda creeped Lance out just a bit. So he decided to go to the kitchen where he knew that his best friend Hunk was, and maybe Pidge since she wasn't with the others.

"Morning Buddy." Lance greeted Hunk as he walked into the kitchen. "Hey Lance, you're up early." Hunk said as he looked up from his cooking. "How did you sleep last night man." Lance sighed at the question as he started to think about his very weird encounter that he had with Keith last night. " Well to be honest with you man I didn't." The look of worry on Hunk's face at Lance's confession was well deserved. Even before space and at the Garrison Lance suffered from homesickness induced insomnia. It wasn't that bad at first, at the Garrison Lance still had Veronica with him and the two McClain siblings called their family every night like clock work. Though in space with no Ronnie or any way to contact his family had taken a large noticeable toll on his best friend. He has spent more than one night in Hunk's room, venting and crying over it. So Lance was quick to reassure his friend and put his worried mind at ease about the situation. "No. Now, before you start on your freak out triade Hunk, it's not what you think it is." Lance told him calmly. "It wasn't my insomnia this time that kept me up all night." Lance told him. "The reason that I didn't sleep at all last night had nothing to do with me or any of my family." He took a deep breath in between his thoughts to let it sink in for Hunk that he was indeed ok. After a few minutes Hunk let out a long suffering sigh and turned back to his best friend. " OK, so if you're fine then why were you up all night last night?" Hunk questioned him. That's when it hit Lance that he would have to tell Hunk about what had occurred last night between him and Keith in the lounge room. Lance was so screwed, he just didn't know it yet.

After the 25 minutes that it took for Lance to explain why he was up all night last night, Hunk went into this thinking mode. During their conversation Hunk's face took on his blank mask, that concealed his true emotions with a very neutral expression, in a true Hunk-like manner that only he could pull out. Lance had hoped that Hunk wouldn't get mad at Keith for his outburst last night. it wasn't Keith's fault that Lance was to stupid to remember that he wasn't supposed to sneak up on Keith after the first time that he tried to do that. Part of the only reason that Lance told Hunk any of this was because he wanted his help on how to handle the Keith situation. Lance was terrified that there was something wrong with Keith and he wanted to help him through it. It was what Shiro would have done if he were here. Lance just needed to know where he was supposed to start with it all. Lance wasn't Shiro, he was just Lance and he wasn't good at being Shiro so he needed Hunk to help guide him through this part. He just wanted to help his teammate.

5 minutes later after Lance had explained everything to Lance he finally answered him. "Well Buddy, I don't know exactly what to tell you here Lance. " Hunk told him as he hugged Lance. Lance sighed to himself at that. He was afraid that Hunk would tell him that. He couldn't do anything to help Keith if he didn't know what to do first. "Well, what am I supposed to do then ?" Lance asked him. He couldn't just leave this issue alone! This was serious, what happened last night with Keith was something that you couldn't just forget about like it was nothing. All that Lance could think about now was the scared, and wounded look in Keith's violet eyes the night before when he tried to reach out to him. He had to do something to help him, even though the two of them hated each other and were rivals. The guy had just lost the only person in the world that was like family to him, and now he was all alone again. That stuff hurts. And Lance should know how that feels. He can emphasize with him, since he comes from a fairly large family, and he grew up being taught to be very family orientated. He knew how much it hurt to loose someone that you love and are close to.