Lost Time

Nine

The party was great, honestly- Lance thrived on the crowded ballroom, although more times than he'd like to admit, his rounds ended with him bickering, chatting, or pulling shamelessly terrible dance moves with Keith. Eventually, they actually seemed to click, but Lance attributed that to the fact that Keith's whole "don't-even-try-to-talk-to-me" glare didn't work on the Arusians, who came at the red paladin in droves for hugs and snuggles. Even now, when the two were technically outside of the ballroom and in relative privacy, Keith was holding a giggly Arusian child on his shoulder.

"Everything seems so fast, here. I swear, it hasn't even been a week since I was making fun of you for feeling an energy in the desert." Lance admitted, looking out from the top of the staircase at the party below. Keith scoffed at him, smacking Lance on the shoulder with a pout.

"Shut up, you felt it too! You were practically dragging us towards the cave!" He protested, but there was a certain tone in his voice that kept Lance from trying to argue. "I guess we won't have to worry about it anymore, anyway. Who knows when we'll be on Earth again, if ever."

"S'kinda sad, I guess. I'm sure my moms are gonna miss me, though."

"My dad left me with his brother when I turned eleven, so, I think I'm good there. I'll miss God, actually. We were best friends." Keith sighed when the child squirmed and hopped down to scamper away.

"I didn't know you were religious," Lance observed, raising his eyebrows when Keith just snickered at him.

"No, I had a snake named God. He ate anything that tried to come in and I gave him free reign of my shack and outside." The Red Paladin elaborated with a patient smile.

"Okay, not to judge you on pet names, but can I just say... what the hell."

"I don't know what's going on, but Lance, you have no room to judge on pet names!" Hunk argued, having snuck up behind them while Keith was laughing at his teammate's misunderstanding. "Have you told him what you named your axolotl? He named it Lancelotl, Keith." Lance was mortified- sure, he'd named his axolotl something silly, but he and that amphibian were close! They had a whole repertoire!

"Hunk named his dog Sugar Pea!" He blurted quickly, but of course Hunk would be immune to a counterattack. Lance had known him for years and Hunk could be positively shameless when he wanted to be.

Just as he'd thought, the mention of his dog had Hunk brightening, his grin illuminous as he dragged Voltron's right side into the castle, chattering on. "Yeah! Sugar Pea's a peach, though, we were gonna call her Princess Peach but then my uncle got a Mario tattoo and it was just. Too soon. And then I have, like, six other dogs! There's Jasper and Sunshine and Fuzzy Lumpkin and Mojo JoJo and Makaha and Kama Pua'a- he's named after the guy from Hawaiian lore, the one that got turned into the pig fish by his grandmother's spirit, because he's a little piggy. And Jasper is a giant puffball, but Fuzzy and Mo are getting old. Lance actually helped me name them when we were small and really into PowerPuff Girls. The really old ones, from the late twentieth century." Hunk said, and if it hadn't been for the fact that Lance knew the Yellow Paladin, he'd be concerned for him.

Conversation soon drifted from pets to childhood memories, and as Hunk regaled Keith and a small swarm of Arusians with the tale of Lance's first lost tooth, the teen himself felt... floaty, almost, as though his body was anchored to the ballroom floor while his spirit drifted off into a different time and place. He could almost see groups of Alteans flitting about, some striding purposefully from one hall to another, others pausing to socialize. Laughter echoed through the halls, and for a moment, his eyes tricked him into seeing an older woman, purple-gray hair pulled into a comfortable bun, chasing a little boy with lilac skin through the hall with a broad smile on her face. For some reason, the almost-vision made his chest tighten and his heart ache with longing. The woman's name was on the tip of his tongue, and that boy's visage had struck something in him, he knew that family, intimately, they were important to him-

"Lance?" Hunk's voice yanked him back to the present. "Are you okay? You usually help me tell the story."

"O-oh, uh, yeah. I just... I think I need a minute," he replied unsurely, burdened by the vision. "You guys keep partying, I'll be back after a walk."

Thinking about what he'd seen, Lance hadn't noticed that he was walking towards the control room until he saw Coran standing dazedly near that terrifyingly large crystal hanging from the ceiling. "Hey, Coran?" He prompted gently. The man startled, but a quick glance behind him seemed to be all he needed to assure that Lance was not a threat.

"Lance! What are you doing here, and not at the party?" He asked conversationally. He couldn't quite figure out how to explain to Coran that he felt off after having yet another moment of false memory, so he just shrugged.

"How far away is Earth?" The paladin finally decided on asking. Coran brightened, his whole face lighting up to the tips of his ridiculous mustache, and immediately launched into an explanation on how Earth was trillions of lightyears away.

"You must be homesick."

"Well, yeah. I miss the blue ocean, clear sky... the grass, it was so pretty and green. I feel like I never appreciated it before I lost it. I miss Earth." Lance hesitated as Coran nodded, but something in him insisted that this man was safe, to be trusted. "I miss Altea," he admitted softly, even though he was fairly certain that Altea had been destroyed actual eons before his time.

"I'd imagine so, Lance. You seem to know... a lot, about our great Altea, for someone who has never been."

"Maybe, I guess. I used to have these weird dreams about somewhere kinda like how you and the princess talk about Altea, so maybe that's why. Or I'm just some kind of psychic, like Hunk thinks."

"Dreams?" Coran prompted gently, stepping a little closer. Lance found the man's presence comforting, so he took a breath and shot him a smile.

"They're silly, really. I used to think I was some kind of lost prince, and that as soon as this space war was over, my papa would come and get me and I'd have a family again." Lance sighed, pushing his hair away from his forehead. "I know we're supposed to be brave paladins, and Defenders of the Universe or whatever, but... I just want to go home. There were a lot of questions I left behind, and I don't know how much of that I'm going to get answered out here. Is that selfish? I'm being selfish."

"Lance, my boy, I have lived a long time, even before I was placed in the cryopod. Trust me when I say that it is okay to be selfish sometimes," Coran said firmly. "You strike me as someone who lives for others more than himself, so there is nothing I would like more than to give you whatever you ask."

"Coran, I can't just ask to go home. I miss it, yeah, but... everyone has someone they want to protect, and Voltron is supposed to protect the ones that can't protect themselves. I'm needed here." Lance said sternly, but Coran just gave him a fond smile.
"That's precisely why I say you're selfless. Now, come with me, we're going to go back and enjoy our little party downstairs." Coran beamed at Lance's shy smile, turning and leading the way off the bridge with a proud smile. He almost missed the drone that the little green one had reprogrammed, but in his defense, it didn't beep at him happily like it had been since that first battle.

"Oh, hey Rover," Lance greeted softly from behind him, sounding distracted. "Where's Pidge?" The bot didn't respond, again sending a warning signal through Lance's mind, before its softly glowing light flashed that ugly violet right as it met the crystal. Without thinking, Lance dove for the advisor, shrieking. "Coran, look ou-!"

An earth-shattering boom made the castle tremble once before the lights in the castle went dark.

Surprise, bitch. Bet you thought you saw the last of me.