Lance's good luck and bad luck seemed to come hand in hand, and the bad luck always exponentially outweighed the good. He moved up the hierarchy in Voltron, but Keith left. He survived a mission that by all appearances was an ambush, but his platoon was eliminated. He made it back home, but his family was murdered.

A terrible storm provided cover and hid him from both the dogs and heat signature detection, but it left him half-frozen and without secure cover. He'd rigged together a temporary lean-to of sorts, but he couldn't start a fire for fearing of drawing attention to his position. He'd used his knife to cut his duffel bag into one main rectangle, which he had repurposed as a makeshift tarp and which he was currently huddled under. By the calls coming over the radio, the cops and feds and whoever else was on his trail were hunkered down for the night as well, albeit in far better accommodations than his own.

He wanted nothing more than to sleep for a bit, but he couldn't afford to do that. If his body temperature dropped too low, if he became hypothermic – sleep would become a prison just as deadly as anything else.

He noticed movement out of the corner of his eyes, and his head followed it, a soft smile making its way onto his face as he saw Raphael hunched over his action figures, flying them around and making noises, and Lance didn't think he'd ever seen a cuter kid.

Truth be told, Lance had always wanted kids of his own, sort of on a subconscious level. He hadn't really thought about all the steps in the way – finding someone to spend his life with, having the conversation, starting a family – but he'd always wanted to be a dad. Maybe because he'd loved growing up in a big family. Maybe because he'd never had a great relationship with his own father. Maybe for other reasons harbored deep in his psyche.

But after Voltron...after seeing war, participating in it...that wish, along with so many others, had dissipated and died. He'd thought of it as a reality locked to him, a vision he'd never be able to achieve, but then Veronica had come to him that day, and he'd met Raphael not long after. And Raphael had healed something in Lance, hadn't quite made him whole but had maybe made him a little less broken.

"What are my two boys up to?" Veronica asked, and Lance smiled to himself as Raphael rambled on a bit in the way all kids do before ending with, "I'm not a little boy anymore!"

"Welllll, you're only seven, so you're not exactly grown up either."

"Maybe you're not grown up yet, but you will be someday," Lance assured him, but it didn't do much to better his temperament.

"When I grow up, I'm going to be just like you, Tío Leo."

"Dashingly handsome?"

"Nooo, Tío Leo. I'm going to be a supersoldier, and I'm going to save everyone!"

"Nahh, you don't want that, bud," he said, picking up one of Raphael's toys, thousands of images flashing before his eyes of the wake of death and destruction he'd left behind. Galra with blank, unseeing eyes. Cosmic cities with their inhabitants lying in the streets after the Galra – or other insidious species feasting on their leftovers – had completed their pillaging, raping, and butchering. Earthly horrors too; children used like pawns and tools and weapons. Adults set on their own toxic grandeurs of power and violence at the cost of such children in addition to their fellow countrymen, their women, and their very land. "You don't want that," Lance repeated to himself after a moment, lost in the images until the radio crackled next to him.

"What exactly is it that we don't want, Commander?" asked one of the cops who had been hunting him earlier, and Lance's blood ran cold. In fact, everything in him was running cold; he wasn't sure if he'd fallen asleep or relived another waking memory, but the one thing he'd been able to discern was that he'd picked up the radio and transmitted the last thing he'd said, maybe more.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Lance muttered, his hand off the fucking radio this time as he leaned his forehead against his forearm. There was no taking it back; all he could do at this time was use it, hopefully to his advantage. "War with me," he sent out over the radio, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he felt because he was losing his fucking mind one day at a time and everybody knew it. "You don't want dead cops any more than I do."

"Would you kill an officer?"

Lance was quiet for a moment. "Maybe, if they got in my way," he answered honestly. There had been lines, rules, boundaries for him in the beginning, some time long ago, but everything was becoming blurry now. All he could focus on was a single objective.

He pulled out the crumpled sheet from his pocket. A bit of blood had leaked from the wound in his arm, and he swiped his index finger through it before running it across the paper, crossing out SIMON THORN.

Only one name left, the last one Pidge had given him.

COMMANDER IVERSON

He just needed to do one more thing, and then he could rest, forever, with Veronica and Raphael.

He tilted his head back against the rock face behind him. "I don't want to kill anybody," he said into the radio, his voice quiet. He hoped they could hear him over the raging storm. "Or at least, none of your people. I understand you have a job to do. I don't expect you to quite understand, but I have a job to do, too."

"Make me understand, Commander," the officer said, and Lance clenched his jaw, staring up, and a few rain drops slipped past the fabric of the duffel and landed on his face. The officer on the other end of the radio used his title with no trace of mockery or irony. He said it like it was an honorable title, one Lance had earned, and the police officer on the other end of the radio was the only person left to call him that.

"I didn't kill my family," Lance radioed. It was impossible to know whether the police officer could believe him or if he even had the ability to. Lance's story was one that had been covered up and misreported since he'd gotten back to the US, and he didn't place much hope in the capacity of a stranger entertain the notion of Lance's truth or to suspend his disbelief at all. "Someone else took them from me. The same person that set up my platoon for an ambush. The same person that orchestrated the death of my friend and a hero to this country, James Griffin."

The officer was silent; out of disbelief or genuine interest, Lance couldn't be sure.

"It doesn't matter whether you believe me," Lance decided after a moment. "I'm not asking for your help or your understanding. I just..." He thought of the secretary who had fallen to her knees, shocked by the brutality of what Lance had purposefully unleashed before her very eyes. "I would like to avoid needless bloodshed."

"That's not how our government sees it, Commander," the officer replied neutrally. "They think you're off your leash. Murdering people in the streets, hunting people while they're asleep."

Well, to be fair, the fed hadn't been asleep when Lance had killed him, that was for sure. "I'm sure that's what they would like you to think. But I'm only doing what needs to be done seeing as nobody else is getting off their ass to do it," Lance said. "And I'm only going after people who deserve it. If you're not on the list, then you have no reason to be afraid."

"I don't think you're a bad man, Commander. I think a few horrible events transpired–"

"Transpire implies an accidental occurrence. What happened to my men, to my family – it was planned. Maybe not by you or whoever you report to, but someone up the hierarchy is taking whatever steps necessary to silence me." Lance was quiet a moment, but the anger he felt had started to warm him up. "Do you have a family?"

A long pause.

"I do," the officer said in a guarded tone as though Lance would come after them at the mere mention.

Lance stared ahead, out the open face of the lean-to as the rain pummeled down at the earth, turning dirt into mud and paving a treacherous path. The wrong placement of a foot could lead to a broken ankle or worse. Raphael had injured his leg after slipping on ice once, not quite a break, but he'd had some heavy bruising. He'd taken the week in bed like a champ. It had only been on day five that he'd started acting like the king of his own bedroom, but Veronica had told Lance that it was okay to be a little spoiled when you were sick and in pain, and both Lance and Veronica were perfectly ready to spoil him.

"Then protect them," Lance responded quietly before turning off the radio.

--

Lance started moving against just as soon as the storm would let him. His headache only grew worse, and his hands shook to the point where it took him an embarrassing four shots to disable a flying drone they'd sent out in search of him. His left arm wasn't of much use to him in its current state, and as he scrabbled up a rocky path to gain altitude, Lance had to grit his teeth to stay sane in light of all his afflictions.

All he could focus on was getting to the northern river. From there, he'd be home free. He just had to go a bit farther...

"Commander McClain!" called one of the officers. They'd been on his tail and gaining ground since several hours back, but with Lance's injuries, his pace had steadily been flagging. Judging from the bullhorn, the team following him was below on the flatter land. He ducked behind a rocky protuberance and tried to catch his breath.

"Surrender yourself here and no one has to get hurt!"

Lance ignored the voice, already looking for an exit plan. There was a quick way down in the direction he wanted, but it was a steep slope, and the end result wouldn't be pretty. He quite honestly wasn't sure that he'd walk away from a tumble at this height. But he was nearly cornered; he could only go so far up before running out of options. He swung his rifle around and set it down, fitting his eye up to the scope and letting the barrel rest against a rock for a moment. He could make out six people in the advance unit. Two of them were police officers, and the other four were elite military, part of a unit not unlike Alpha Platoon, which meant trouble for him.

"Come out now with your hands up!" one of the officers directed.

Lance changed the angle so they were in his sights, and he moved his hand up to the gun, index finger tracing the trigger, and for a moment, the shaking subsided. He had them dead in his sights. He could probably take out two, maybe three of them, so long as his hand cooperated. But was that who he was? A cop-killer? The military unit down there may as well have been Alpha Platoon. In fact, several of them looked familiar from joint ops in the past, meaning that they'd dispatched an elite military group to help the cops hunt him down. He could no more put a bullet in any of their brains than in Rizavi's.

He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and ejected a bullet from his magazine, setting it carefully upon the rock. One of the men in the military unit below would know what it meant when they came across it – that Lance had had the shot all lined up, and he had chosen not to take it.

He turned to the slope that led down toward the river at an alarming angle. It was his only option. A bad option, but the only one left to him by his own recourse.

He leaned back and prayed for a safe landing.

--

Maybe what he should've prayed for was a less bumpy ride, Lance thought with a groan. He didn't think anything was broken, but he'd gone tumbling and had lost any control he'd had over his skidding descent. He couldn't lift himself up on his first try, or the second, but he used his rifle to prop himself up the third time, and then it was just a matter of getting his legs beneath himself. Soon he was able to take one step, then two, and although every single movement hurt and there was some new pain in his chest that made it difficult to breathe, he was operational once more.

He looked up at the sun, shielding his eyes for a moment, and used its trajectory to pinpoint which way was north. Then he continued as before, albeit even more slowly than earlier. The path to the river began to descent in altitude, and although he didn't have to perform any strenuous climbing, he had to be careful with each step with loose pebbles and gravel underfoot. He could only manage a light jog at best, and that lasted for all of two hours before they caught up to him again.

"We have your location, Commander!" an officer called out, a female this time, and Lance leaned out just a peek only to find a bullet whiz past him. Not one meant to hit him, but one meant to demonstrate that they weren't lying. They were clearly in position, but it was odd that he'd only caught sight of one person. Could they have split up? Were they working to surround him? Or had they set upon separate trails, and she was simply the lucky one to come across him first?

This might be the end, Lance thought to himself for a moment, but the thought didn't feel right. He had more to do. He had another name on the list. This wasn't his end. It couldn't be. The problem was, however, that he now had the disadvantage, as they were higher up than him. Any attempt to move out from his current position would put him in the open. Although...

He knew he was close to the river; the sound of it had been getting steadily louder over the past two hours, and he could even sense it in the humidity of the air, the faint dampness in the dense atmosphere.

"Target located just north of my position," she called into her radio. "Requesting backup."

That was a mistake on her part because it told Lance everything that he needed to know – that she was alone and without assistance or air support. There was the chance that it was a ruse to draw him out, but from the unit he'd surveyed earlier, she wasn't military. She was just a local cop who had gotten dragged into this mess. She'd already sent him a warning shot and had the advantage of elevation. From her point of view, his fate was sealed.

But Lance couldn't let it end here. For Veronica, for Raphael, he had to keep going.

He took several deep, steadying breaths, letting the rock support his weight for a moment. Running was dangerous with the loose rock underfoot, but his best chance was simply to make a sprint for it and hope she wasn't altogether that great of a shot. And if he took another bullet...as long as it wasn't in the head, he could keep going. Had to keep going. There was no other choice for him.

Lance gave himself a countdown in his head in order to force himself into action.

3...2...1...

He kicked off from the rock, using it to give him a boost, and he heard the officer's startled sound before she got off one shot that missed him by a few feet.

"Target's moving!" she called into her radio before taking another shot which also went wide.

"Faster, faster," Lance muttered to himself, pushing his aching body to its limits as he hurtled across the open land. He heard the officer giving chance. He could barely breathe due to something in his chest – a broken rib or two perhaps. He misplaced a foot and nearly went down, but he recovered quickly. She was closing in on him, yelling at him to stop, but he ignored her. There was a relatively steep drop-off at one point, and he stuck to the edge, sliding down it in a crouch, and he started toward the river, which had come into sight.

Only he heard a yell of pain from behind him, and he turned to see the female officer, who had approached from a different angle, falling over the side of the drop-off, rocks tumbling afterward.

The river, Lance, get to the river!

She has help coming Lance, she'll be fine!

But then he heard Raphael's voice.

I'm going to grow up to be big and strong, and I'll be a hero that fights the bad guys and protects people and saves princesses.

"Fuck," Lance growled, turning and heading back for the police officer who'd fired multiple shots at him not a minute ago. She must have slid off the overhang because she'd sent a number of rocks careening over with her, and from the blood along her temple, one of the heavier ones had gotten her in the head.

Lance set about his work quickly, tossing her gun away first before clearing away any of the rocks that had fallen upon her. "Hey! Can you hear me?" he asked, putting his fingers to her neck. Her pulse was erratic but strong enough. His real concern was her neck though; the rocks beneath her didn't make for a safe landing spot, and if she'd hit her head upon falling, she could suffer from blunt force trauma.

He tapped at her cheek, slapping at it lightly, and her eyes fluttered open, struggling to focus on him.

"You're..."

"Uh huh," Lance said, checking to see if her eyes dilated properly. "Listen, you took a bit of a tumble. Your head's bleeding something good, but it doesn't look too serious. Do you feel pain anywhere else?"

She groaned, and Lance bit at his lip. He was wasting too much time. Reinforcements would be on him in a minute, two at most, and she wouldn't be lucid by then.

He grabbed her radio from her belt and held down on the button to transmit. "Listen, your officer took a pretty serious fall out here. I can't gauge the full extent of her injuries, but she's going to need medical assistance." He took a quick look at his current coordinates and rattled them off over the radio. Then he returned the radio to her hands. "Don't move, help's on the way. If you need anything, you just radio them, okay?" he said, squeezing her hand around the radio, and he waited until she gave the barest of nods before exhaling deeply and turning. He ran until his chest felt like it would burst, and then he limped the remaining distance until he'd reached the river. He turned back to see the other officers and agents starting to crawl along the hill, and there was one who stood on top of the ledge, watching him, but he didn't take the shot.

Lance gave him a nod, turned, and jumped into the river.

--

published 10/04/22 (mm/dd/yy)

3323 words