Some of this will follow what happened in season four, some of it will not. That being said, there will be spoilers. This is a soulmate!AU...

Lance stared down at his arm, smiling to himself. Whoever his soulmate was (probably someone back on Earth) was doodling on their arm. They were drawing tiny stick figures and random scribbles in red ink as bright as Keith's armor.

Do you like moths? They wrote suddenly. Lance couldn't contain his snort.

Not really. Lance wrote with his blue pen.

Then there's no way you can be my soulmate >:( I'm gonna marry mothman instead.

Good luck with that.

Thanks.

What can I say except you're welcome?

Uh, what?

YOU HAVEN'T SEEN MOANA???

What's a "moana"?

You know what, you can go marry mothman and I'll marry a culturally educated child.

Hey, it's not my fault! I'm not exactly somewhere I can watch movies.

Well then leave and go watch Disney. Goodnight. Lance clicked his pen and turned off the light in his room, leaving him to darkness. He yawned and rolled over, a smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep. When he woke up the next morning, all of the marks were gone.

°•°

"Alright, team, we have something very important to do today." 'Shiro' announced at breakfast. "Kolivan found new supply routes for quintessence. We need to gather intel from at least one of the ships. This'll be a job probably for Pidge and Lance, because of their lions, but it may be useful for the rest of us to tag along in case things get hairy."

"Finally, a real mission! All those ice shows and parades were starting to get on my nerves." Lance grinned and stood up. "How soon can we leave?"

"Well, ideally, in about ten minutes," 'Shiro' said, smiling at the red paladin. "Glad to see you're so enthusiastic."

"Who's enthusiastic about what?" Keith asked, yawning quietly as he walked into the room. Pidge and Matt were close behind him.

"Oh, just a mission." Lance was practically jumping up and down.   "Some sneaking and shooting and-"

"Only if you get caught. Don't engage unlesss absolutely necessary." 'Shiro' reminded.

"Yeah, yeah, okay."

°•°

Lance floated out of the red Lion, making room for Keith to cut a hole into the ship. When the makeshift entry point was finished, the black, red and green paladins floated in.

"I don't like this. It's too quiet." Lance said a couple minutes later. They hadn't seen a single sentry - not one. What they had seen were lots of doors, probably to cells. None of them held any prisoners, though. Keith had marked them each with a slash of his sword in case they needed to keep track of which ones they had checked.

"Agreed. At this point, I want someone to show up - this feels a lot like a trap." Pidge muttered.

"I'm still not seeing any other biorythms on the ship." Matt said over the comms. "It's either empty or manned entirely by sentries."

"That makes our job that much easier." Keith stated confidently. "We can get the intel and then get out of here."

"Yeah, I guess." Lance hadn't really thought of it like that. Trap or no, it would be easier without all of the guards. Before Lance could dwell on it further, a hissing sound filled the hallway.

"What's that? Matt, what's going on?!" Pidge asked frantically. The black, red and green paladins had all drawn their bayards and formed a tight circle, back to back.

"There's a panel about to come down - it's a trap!" Matt groaned. Pidge growled and started to run back the way they had come.

"Thanks, Ackbar." Lance rolled his eyes and started to run after Pidge. He stopped as he saw Keith holding his hand over his face. He ran back towards him, gasping as the hissing grew louder. He threw Keith down the hallways just as two glass-like panels came down, trapping the red paladin in a box.

"Lance!" Keith screamed, finally brought back to his senses. His trapped teammate tried to fire at the panels, but it did nothing.

"Just go! I'll find a way out." Lance said, his voice somewhat muffled.

"No! I'm not going to leave!"

"Keith, if you don't leave, we'll both get captured! There's no doubt that someone will be here soon to check on the trap. I'm not going to let you stay here and get caught." Keith glared at the red paladin, wishing silently that he hadn't saved him from the trap.

"Keith, what's going on? There are tons of ships showing up!" Hunk gasped.

"I'm going to find you, okay?" Keith said, placing a hand on the panel. Lance put his hand up against it, a bittersweet smile on his face.

"You better. Now go."

°•°

Keith glared at the holoscreen in front of him. It had been months, still with no sign of Lance.

"I know you're worried. We've all been worried." Pidge sighed. "I shouldn't have ran. I should've waited to make sure you were behind me."

"We've gone over this a thousand times, okay? It was both of our faults." Keith countered.

"You can't control when you have panic attacks. I can control when I run away from my teammates in need." Pidge set down a cup on the table next to Keith.

"What's that?" Keith asked, desperate to change the subject. He didn't want Pidge to blame herself for Lance's capture.

"Milkshake. Strawberry."

"How did you get... Y'know, nevermind." Keith took a sip of the milkshake, smiling slightly at the authentic taste.

"You sure you don't want to know? You seem like you could use a distraction." Pidge noted. Keith sighed and shut off the holoscreen, devoting all of his attention to Pidge.

"Yeah, okay. I could definitely use a distraction." As much as he wanted to spend all of his time looking for Lance, he knew that he needed breaks. Lance wouldn't want him to overwork himself. Besides, some conversation would be nice. It had been uncomfortably quiet since Lance's capture.

"Well, Shiro told me that you like strawberries. Like, love them. So Hunk and I went digging through the kitchen and found - get this - Altean Nesquik! I mean, obviously, it wasn't actually Nesquik, but it was..." Keith yawned quietly, barely listening to Pidge as she ranted about galactic milk conspiracies. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep. Pidge didn't mind, however. She laughed at how quickly he drifted off.

"You really have been working day and night, huh?" She said before getting 'Shiro' to help her get him to his room. She didn't notice the red ink appearing on his arm.