When Two Worlds Collide

Chapter 9

Keith wasn't lying to her when he said that he was doing research on the next planet that they were going to. Allura had planned for them to visit the planet called Mooie Juweeltje. It was a fairly large planet on the very edge of another solar system that they couldn't remember after Coran had told them twice. A few days after her talk with Keith, Allura had pulled the whole team into the bridge to go over the debrief. And the reason that she wanted Keith to do so much research on the planet was that she wanted him to lead it. Normally, the debrief is done by either Shiro the leader or Allura, and since Shiro's not here anymore, Keith gets to do it now. Keith didn't have the nerve to tell the Altean Princess that he couldn't do it because of his anxiety for two reasons. One, he was about 90% sure that she would just laugh in his face and tell him that he was being stupid. And the second one was that he was just too scared to talk to her about it. So he just decided to suck it up and go and do all of the research that he can on it. He spent pretty much day and night working on his briefing, if he wasn't training, he was doing research on the new planet. He didn't sleep for about a week, though he really hasn't been sleeping that much anyway so it didn't really phase him in the slightest.

And now the day has come that he's going to stand up in front of the whole team and tell them what they're doing here. And Keith was pretty sure that he was going to puke in the middle of his speech if he had to go up there. When Keith was little, after his father had died, he was pulled by CPS to see a child psychologist. He was told that she was a nice lady, but Keith didn't really trust her, she seemed too nice, too good to be true. But she diagnosed him with a mixture of social and general anxiety, along with some PTSD and some other stuff that he didn't really pay that much attention to. No one could really blame him for it though, he just lost his father in a very traumatic event, and he was kind of numb at the time. He just didn't really care what was done to him at the time, he just wanted to be left alone, and he wanted his dad, so bad that it hurt. And it still hurts to this day, but he's learned to live with it somewhat. But getting back to the topic at hand though, his anxiety has always been a very big problem for him. Interacting with people and crowds were emotionally and sometimes physically draining. His heartbeat and pulse always sped up, and it was hard for him to breathe in the extreme cases.And doing things like public speaking just made everything way worse. The only things that Keith has found over the years to help ground himself and calm down was drawing and flying. He couldn't do either of those today though. He couldn't look weak in front of his team, especially Allura.

He had arrived at the bridge about 45 minutes early so he could psych himself up for the challenge. So far, all that he's been able to do is to freak himself out even more. It had gotten so bad that he started pacing around the room. He needed to move to do anything that would make him stop thinking that he was being held in some kind of cage. When the room started to spin around him, he was able to sit down in his little pod area on the bridge. He didn't know when he put his head between his knees, but all of a sudden he found it hard to breathe. Keith was having trouble trying to calm himself down enough to face his team. Though he started to freak out even more when it dawned on him that anyone from the team could walk in at any time and see him like that. He was weak, useless, and pathetic. He had no place on the team and everyone else was just better off without him. He was on the verge of hyperventilating when he heard the door hiss open and someone walked into the room. "Keith?" A familiar voice spoke to him.

Lance. Out of all of the people in this ship that could have walked in on him now, it just had to be Lance. Though Keith really didn't want anyone to walk in on him, but he really didn't want Lance to see him being,.. So weak. "Keith are you okay man?" Lance asked him softly. And it sounded like his voice was a lot closer to him than it was before a minute ago. Keith didn't say anything at the time and just kept trying to get his breathing under control. He was so focused on it that at one point he had forgotten that Lance was even in the room with him. It wasn't until Lance spoke up again that Keith remembered that he was even there. And he jumped when Lance's voice registered to his ears. "Keith, is it ok if I touch you man? I promise that I won't do anything to make you uncomfortable." Lance told him. "I just want to touch your knee, is that ok?" Keith wasn't sure if he actually nodded his head or not, but he's pretty sure that he did. He was comforted a bit when he felt Lance place a hand on his knee, he knew what he was doing. He was trying to find some way to ground Keith back to his senses. So far it made Keith feel more at ease and more on edge at the same time to have Lance in here with him.