Don't You Trust me?

Red as Guilt

The first thing Keith felt as he came too was not the hard metal of the cell, but instead smooth fabric brushed his cheek. He opened his eyes to narrow slits. They focused immediately on Lance's black combat boots stretched out in front of him. With his heart pounding he turned his head to be met with a comforting cool hand.

"You good now?" Lance spoke her voice a wave of familiarity to his ears.

"I feel like a truck has hit me," Keith replied closing his eyes once more as a wave a nauseous rippled throughout his body.

Lance chuckled slightly her hand absent mindlessly fiddling with Keith's raven hair. "Well that's what usually happens when you're given a sedative."

Keith kept his eyes closed enjoying the feeling of Lance's fingers in his hair. "Why'd you take the sedative from them?" he inquired his voice echoing a bit of disapproval in it. He opened his eyes to look into Lance's blue ones, only to see she was focused on the top of his head instead. Her hand continued to run through his hair, clearly unaware that she was still doing it.

"From one of the druids," she paused, her body tensing slightly, "I had no other choice I was so close to loosing you..." The words escaped her mouth, and instantly she scrambled to correct her words, "I-I mean, you're a vital part of the mission and we wouldn't be able to complete it without you."

He opened his eyes to narrow slits. They focused immediately on Lance's face. "I'm certain that's what you meant," he replied a small smile coming to his face.

The moment was ruined, however, when four sentries burst into the cell followed by a general who looked down upon them like they were nothing more than the dirt that he walked upon.

The sentries grabbed Lance and Keith hauling them apart from each other. Lance fought against the arms that held her from much movement. Across the room two more sentries held Keith one had his blaster pulled out, placed firmly against his temple. They had been too slow to react and they were both easily restrained. Lance jerked against the arms once more. In response she heard the high pitch sound of the blaster being powered up.

Keith set still his eyes focused on the sentry who held his life in their hands. With his jaw clenched, he flicked his gaze over to Lance who was frozen halfway through of pulling against the sentries. Her harden gaze softened, and she lowered her head, allowing the sentries to jerk her to her feet.

From the doorway the general finally spoke. "Now that we have these two under control let's get them to Haggar." He frowned at the two prisoners. "She'll will be mad at us for taking this long."

Jarep had taken no more than a few steps out of his office before a younger agent comes sprinting up out of breath. Seeing the panic written all over their face he stops them, "What is it?"

After taking a second to recover his breath he meets Jarep's gaze, "We're receiving a signal from a Galra fleet. They're sending us a live feed."

Concealing the fear that he refuses to show he spins the agent around and follows him back to the tech room. Upon arrival they accept the request, waiting a few seconds for the connection to complete.

On the screen Haggar is standing in the middle her cruel smile dominating everything else. Her hooded face reveled her glowing yellow eyes which made the rage within Jarep to stir. A movement behind Haggar captures everyone's attention but with Haggar in the way they can only see so much.

"I'm sure you're all wondering if you'll ever see the red and blue paladins again..." she trailed off. Jarep tried taking this opportunity to jump in and see if he could figure out what her plan was exactly only for the words to die in his throat as Haggar stepped to the side.

From their view they saw two rooms that were split down the middle by a thin wall. On the right was a plain room with nothing more than a raised section in the middle of the floor. Hanging from the ceiling were rusted metallic chains that were designed to restrain someone's wrists. On the left was a table tilted to look directly at the other room. The leather straps that were hanging to the side swung back and forth as if they had just released a prisoner just moments before.

At this moment the three Paladins entered the room having caught wind of what was going on. Upon the sight of the two rooms, with shock and hatred filling their eyes Pidge and Hunk had to physically restrain Shiro from attacking the screen, who was boiling with sheer rage.

"I would love treating you to the red paladin's demise," Haggar continued, "but unfortunately that's purely for the blue paladin to witness." As soon as the final word was spoken, the screen flashed and was replaced with a red screen showing that they had been disconnected.

"We possess even less time now!" an agent cried out from the back of the room. Jarep flashed him a look reminding him to remember his place and remember his training.

Turning to the agent at the computer he nods his head to the red screen. "Let's see if we can lock on a location from the signal."

The tech instantly turns in his seat and begins typing away at the computer only for him to call out a moment later, "I've found it, but it's encrypted to where I can't lock on it without alerting them to our intentions."

"Try harder," Jarep replied his jaw set he wasn't about to give up while he still obtained options.

"Excuse me?" Pidge said appearing next to Jarep's side. Jarep turns to confront her ready to tell her to back off, but she started speaking, "I'd be delighted to help it go faster."

Jarep narrowed his eyes his hands clenched at his side, "Are you suggesting my agents are incapable of doing this?" he growled.

Pidge raised her eyebrows in shock, "What? No! Of course not! I just thought we would save more time if there were two of us..."

Jarep looks at her his eyes seeking hers. He wanted nothing more than Lance to be returned safely, along with Keith of course. Nodding his head in agreement, he turns to Shiro, Hunk and a few agents who had gathered at the ajar door.

"We're going to be ready once they secure a location."

Lance bit her lip as she felt the chains cut into her wrists. She had given up trying to break free when she felt the cuffs digging into her skin. She swung back and forth so lightly she barely noticed, however, she did notice when ever her feet caught on the raised section of flooring stopping her abruptly, causing the cuffs to dig into her skin. She's already witnessed blood dripping down the length of her arm, absorbing into her shirt.

Seeing movement on the other side of the glass, she looked up to see Keith being brought in and restrained to the table. It had been intentionally angled, so he would be looking directly at her. She would observe every distinct pained expression he would produce as he was gradually executed in front of her. The thought weighed her down causing the cuffs to slice her wrists deeper.

Despite the fact that she was in pain and wanted nothing more than to close her eyes she watched helplessly as druids crowded around Keith. He was fighting against the restraints yelling and cussing at the druids to stop, but they merely disregarded him. Finally a druid turned around with a syringe in hand. Keith struggled all the more causing the other two druids to step in and hold him still.

Lance yelled trying to call out for Keith to keep fighting, but he couldn't hear her. She watched with tears streaming down her face as Keith stopped struggling. The druids stepped away and one pressed a button. All at once there was a sharp flash of light. Blinded Lance squinted trying to see what happened only to feel a violent rap on the back of her head, the corners of her vision fading to black...