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Lance had to blink several times to confirm what he was seeing. What had just been a silent nook of the universe had turned into a wasteland of broken rock and debris. The Lions were surrounded by a minefield of destruction.

Lance immediately looked down to his transmission screen and met Keith's eyes. The Red Paladin nodded once, recaptured the TRAM, and, ever the leader, proceeded forward. Keith and Lance wove through the debris slowly, careful not to hit any of the rocks floating around.

"What do you think happened?" Lance asked quietly, looking around to try to find any familiarity. He didn't even recognize the distant stars. Keith didn't answer the question, and to be honest, he didn't have a single clue.

"Let's find Earth," he said instead. Lance set the coordinates and Blue leaped over a particularly large boulder to the left, setting a new course with a fast pace. Red followed close behind.

Lance felt his nerves settle down a little now that they were in open space. It felt more like what it had been so long ago- a boy and a lion on a mission, his hands gripping the throttles, his eyes wide and scanning the expanse of velvet darkness that both enticed and rejected him, that was a friend and a deleterious mystery.

He was reminded that his missions were not always with the whole team. He was reminded of the individual memories that he had with each Paladin, and how not everything was spoiled in the After.

Lance shook his head, biting his cheek to keep his thoughts sharp. He was not in the After- he was in space. He was on a mission. An important mission. He wasn't going to mess this up by his reminiscing memories and yearnings for the past. They were behind him, in a different reality even, and weren't allowed to follow him here.

Here, he was supposed to be safe, but how are you supposed to escape your own mind?

After a short while, they were approaching the coordinates steadily but, even though Lance could see the sun, he felt his stomach sink in discomfort. He recognized Mercury and Venus, but in the slot where Earth should have been, there was just an empty gap.

No Earth, no life, no nothing. It just ceased to exist. Had the Galra gotten there before them? Did the Galra even exist in this reality?

Red halted beside Blue and Lance tore his eyes from the unnatural solar system. "What a warm welcome to the realities," Keith muttered sarcastically, but the wrongness of it jarred him. "Let's try somewhere else."

Red and Blue entered the TRAM portal without hesitation.

...

This time, when the two lions exited the portal, Lance felt a flood of relief at seeing the beauty of Earth rotating slowly in its position. Literally having no plan, 'just winging it' was pretty much the only option they had. So Keith and Lance, ex-Paladins of the mighty Voltron "winged it" and flew straight towards Earth.

"Shiro would be calling for a better plan," Lance mumbled more to himself than Keith.

He was surprised when Keith responded, "And Hunk would be saying 'I don't feel good about this guys. Let's go back to the Space Mall and get some food for thought."

Laughing, they continued listing off what each of the Paladins would have thought.

"Pidge would be telling us that the Hypnohyperthermic Signatures she's getting are out of this world," Lance said, mimicking Pidge's high voice in the last few words and spouting other bullshit science words he made up on the spot like 'mycelopodecimals' and 'neuropathoquads'.

Keith let out a wheezy laugh at Lance's impersonation and continued, "And Coran would be yelling at us to stay away from the Weblum's eyes."

Lance nearly lost it in giggles. "And Allura-" he started, still laughing, then stopped, realizing, then promptly wanted to slam his head on the dashboard, groaning, "Sorry, I just ruined it."

Keith wanted to reach through the transmission and pat his shoulder. "It's okay, man," he comforted quietly.

They made the rest of the journey towards Earth in relative silence.

Lance wished that he could take it back. He liked laughing. He liked the sound of his own voice, he knew because he tended to talk to himself, but more than that, he liked making other people laugh.

He liked the way Keith's breathy chuckles sounded over the transmission and the way the corners of his eyes got all crinkly. It was rare for Keith to laugh like that, but Lance had the expression mapped out in his head so that he could remember it clearly, so it wouldn't leave him.

The two lions flew silently through the solar system and Lance was so at ease that his first reaction when Blue suddenly stopped was mild confusion. He looked around, frowning, but didn't see anything.

"Keith?" he asked uncertainly. The Red Paladin's face had gone pale (even paler than usual) and he didn't reply.

He was looking up.

Suddenly, Blue's head jerked up to look above them and, to Lance's sickening surprise, he recognized a huge Galra battleship directly above them. Within a millisecond, a tractor beam shot down and Lance felt Blue go silent and nonrespondent.

"This brings back memories," he said meekly.

"Get ready to fight, Lance," Keith replied, holding his bayard in one hand and his Marmora blade in the other.

"Yessir," Lance muttered sassily as he grabbed his own bayard. He thought with a smile that his mother had packed enough enchiladas that he could probably use them as ammo, but decided against joking with Keith again because the Red Paladin seemed to be serious now.

As soon as the Lions entered the cargo hold of the Galra ship, Keith and Lance sprung into action, standing back to back in the middle of the hold, bayards drawn, eyes set.

The Galra soldiers in this reality looked similar to those that Lance knew, but he realized that there weren't any sentries, only actual living soldiers. And some of them were women.

None of the soldiers spoke, but their weapons were drawn and their faces were impassive. The doors to the hold opened and a tall, strongly-built Galran woman stepped through. The wave of soldiers parted as the woman walked towards Keith and Lance, her expression unreadable.

"Notify the Emperor. We will enter a portal to the Empire immediately."

"What shall we do with them until then, Commander?" a soldier asked who was standing close to the woman.

She shrugged, yellow eyes fixed on the Paladins. "Until the Emperor decides if they are a threat, keep them contained."

Lance flicked his wrist and his longsword burst from his bayard. He glared at the soldiers close to him, and for a brief second, he thought he saw something like fear pass over some of their faces. It vanished beneath their facades in an instant, though, and he paid it no mind.

Keith looked over his shoulder and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Since when did Lance have a sword?

The commander observed Lance's longsword with vague interest, then turned and left the hold without a word.

...

hey guys :0

i'm so sorry that this has taken so long. i know i've been posting a bit on my board to keep yall updated but i think i should say this here. the mini hiatus began with writers block, but after a few days, it turned into a break for my health. a few days ago, i woke up, went to wash my face, and ended up fainting and collapsing in the middle of my room. apparently, i had overworked and exhausted myself because of school and stress and my body couldn't handle it, so i had to take a few days to recooperate. i promise that i'll take better care of myself, like many of you have been gently and kindly chiding me to do, so that i can write for you and stay healthy<3 please remember to take care of yourselves too, okay?

qotd: favorite drink?

I<3U