The day had finally come, October 31st was upon the paladins. Though not all paladins are present yet, the ones that are, have a difficult job of waiting patiently, or impatiently in some cases.

Keith's POV

This is torture. I had to say goodbye 3 months ago, and now I have to say goodbye again. Why can't he just be normal for once and only die one time? If it wasn't bad enough he was coming back like the cocky bastard he is, he's coming back after he did that right before he left. God, he's so annoying. I'll kill him myself if it means I never have to see his stupid, annoying, cute- gah he's not cute. At all. Not cute at all.

I'm just watching Hunk run around the kitchen redoing all of the Cuban food he made already. He asked me and Pidge to taste test it and even though we said it was good, he had to remake it. This is his third time making enchiladas, second time making fried bananas. Gotta say those things are disgusting. Pidge and I made a rule where we couldn't throw up in front of Hunk so I grabbed an opaque cup to barf into.

"Okay, I think I got it this time." He places a plate of piping hot enchiladas in front of us, I lick my lips in anticipation. I take my fork and pick off a little, right as I stuff it in my mouth I hear a shout from Allura.

"LANCE!" I choke on the bite and start jerking around on my kitchen school. Pidge took the hint and smacked my back as hard as they could. A small piece of chewed up shredded pork enchilada shoots across the island.

"Ew, Keith that's disgusting. You're picking that up." Hunk cringes back and points to it.

I hold my heart looking at the ground breathing in and out, "yeah, I'll do that. You two go greet Lance." My breathy words barely escape my mouth.

I hear shuffling around and assume they left. That is until Pidge puts their hand on my shoulder and whispers in my ear, "you can't hide from him forever. It's hard on all of us, especially you and Allura. Show up please, for Lance." Then they walked away to where Lance was.

I let out a sigh of relief and sit up. He finally showed up. Not surprised it's fashionably late. It's almost 6 pm and we had been hoping to spend the whole day as a crew again. But alas, Lance probably slept in, or whatever you do when you're dead, then saw his family. Ha, family. When I'm dead I'll just haunt Shiro for all time, even if he is a ghost before I am.

About an hour has gone by since Lance showed up, not surprised no one has come looking for me, after all, Lance and I never got along. This whole time I've just been in the kitchen trying to come up with what I'd say to Lance when I see him. It's not like I don't want to see him, I just don't want to cry again when I see him. The pain I felt the first time was bad enough, I don't want to do it again.

I shiver as a chill runs through the room, probably the castle realizing my tears make the room hot. Ugh, why do I have to be so hot all the damn time? That's weird the chill is getting closer, wait- I turn around and see a set of ocean blue eyes. Such beautiful eyes swirled with purple and green fish swimming in the abyss of the iris. Small sparkles of the sun on the waves prance around the pupils and penetrate my soul. Before my head can process who these magnificent ocular delicacies belong to, I'm pulled into a tight hug. This cold was coming from Lance, my right arm, the guy who died on a mission, the man who made me cry. I feel my eyes begin to water again but I hold in the tears, I can't let my emotions ruin such a nice moment.

His cold body resembles the night air. Air... that's right... He's dead and this is his one day a year... how could I be so selfish and hug him for this long? Just a few seconds is too much, I need to let him go... again...

"Idiot, hug me back. It's awkward enough already." His mumbling into my ear makes me shiver throughout my body. I hug him back, with much inner protest throughout my mind. His arms wrap around me in such a caring way, the niceness of his touch makes me remember all the times we had together. The bonding moments and missions we had together, the petty arguments and fights we endured with each other.

The sting of water sliding down my face hurts my entity. I pull back and turn away from him casually wiping my face from the tear, a small sniff escapes my nose and immediately I'm turned to face him. "Hey Keith, what's wrong? Are- are you crying?" He cups the side of my face with his ice-cold hand and rubs my cheek lovingly.

"No, I'm not." I move his hand away and stand up. "Lance, please just leave me alone." As I start walking away, he grabs my wrist to stop me.

"Don't push me away. I wanted to see you, see how you've been doing. Your life has turned to shit based on your reaction to seeing me." His voice is soft and has a joking tone, like always.

I pull my hand away and keep walking, unfortunately, it seems Hunk found Lance and blocked me from going through the door. "Lance, buddy, you gotta try this fried banana recipe I made."

"Don't eat it, that shits gross." Pidge came in next to Hunk and fully blocked off the doorway. Luckily Hunk walked into the kitchen to grab the concoction he made. I took this as an opportunity to slip past Pidge, but the little pest is nothing if not annoying and persistent. They held their hands out to stop me and shoved me back over to where Lance was trying the food.

"Mm, this is great, Hunk. You made it just for me?" Lance swallows the bananas and looks at Hunk.

"Yeah, the food goo makes a great spice for it, and balkron Brickles is a great source of protein and perfect supplement for banana." Lance gags a little but swallows it anyway.

He laughs a little, "best food I've had in months." He puts the fork down and looks at me. "Why are you still here? Thought you didn't want to see me." His voice is kind of bitter, such a weird thing to hear from him. It's saddening to hear him talk like that.

"You can blame Pidge for that," I glare at them.

They smile and look at Hunk. "Hunk, I need your help. Let these idiots be alone, they can't help." I can see their small smirk forming behind their smile.

Hunk frowns a little, "work on Halloween? You're evil Katie Holt." He sulks over to the doorway where Pidge was waiting, they walk out together and the door closes. Knowing Pidge, they probably locked the door electronically so I can't run away. I hate them. Note to self beat Pidge up later.

"So-" before he could say anything I pinned him to the kitchen counter, my arms to each side of him. His face morphs into a smirk looking at me.

My breathing was erratic, my mind doesn't know what I'm doing anymore. "Why? Why did you kiss Allura?"

As his face loses its smirk and turns into more of a realization face. "I uh.. she asked me to..." then he mumbles something under his breath, my ears barely catching it. "Even though I'd rather have kissed someone else.."

"Who," I demand. What is wrong with me? I'm demanding stuff now? This is crazy.

He smirks again. I swear he must have been born with a smirk on his face. "You."

...

Did I hear that correctly? Am- am I someone Lance would want to kiss? This cocky bastard who destroyed me after he died, comes back for less than a day and just tells me he wants to kiss me?

I pull away from him and lean on the others counter, "why didn't you do it? I was the first one to you when you got shot, you could have told me. I cradled you in my arms again." My eyes sting once more and I can barely see his figure, just a blob moving closer to me.

"I was scared." I almost laugh at him. "Yeah yeah, the amazing Lance McClain gets scared. Laugh all you want." I feel his arms wrap around my waist as he hugs me once again. "I just didn't want to make it worse. If I made it out alive I'd still have time to kiss you, if I didn't... I would make it easier for you to move on. I mean, what kind of goodbye confession is a kiss then dying? We're not Romeo and Juliet. Wait that's a bad example, they both die in that. Well, whatever it would be like, I didn't want that. I would have rather spent the rest of my death waiting for you, to kiss you, than wait for you to kiss again. Besides, what kind of sad death would I have if you rejected me as I died?" Oh quiznack, his voice is so soft and sweet and right next to my face. I swear I'm blushing, I must be.

I can't take it anymore, "you're such an idiot."

I grab what I believe is his shirt collar and pull him forward, connecting our lips. It's not very forceful and not very rushed, but it's sweet and amazing. His lips, though ice-cold, are soft and plush, it's easy to forget he's dead. Oh shoot, is this called Necrophilia? You know what? Quiznack it. I'll like whoever I want to thank you very much. I pull away from his loving hold and put my forehead against his.

"What happened to the sharpshooter who took risks?" I chuckle a little.

"I've been replaced by the stubborn swordsman." We stand there, together with barely any space between us, breathing soft breaths on each other. His cold fingertips brushing softly over my back.

After what felt like forever, he pulls away from me after kissing me on the nose. "It's almost midnight, Keith. I have to leave before then. I don't want to get stuck somewhere along the way back to death."

"Should we go back to the rest of the crew and say goodbye?" My voice is about to crack. Great just great. The worst part of the whole day.

"Yeah. That'd be nice." Before I could walk away to go back, he pulls me back again and we share another kiss. Not rushed just sweet. We pull away and walk hand in hand back to the group. Pidge actually didn't lock the door which surprised me, but that wasn't why I was smiling. I was smiling a small genuine smile because I had the best Halloween ever.

"Is that Keith? He looks so different. Lance, I think you broke him." Pidge laughed at her joke. "So do we all get goodbyes or does only Keith get one?"

"Only me. You all can deal without one." My snarky tone making itself known.

"So rude." Pidge jokes.

As everyone else says goodbye, I start tearing up again, at least this time I know what's coming. We share a short kiss and he walks away into a random room on the ship and disappears. Besides, it's not like we won't see each other next year, right?

The end. Maybe.