"...here, Lance. ... Lance?"

"I'm up," Lance mumbled after a moment, emerging from his dream with a good deal of grogginess. "We're here?"

"Just pulled in," Keith confirmed. "Ready for some fishing?"

Lance hopped out of the truck to find himself at the dock where they'd arranged for a private charter boat rental. He did a quick scan of the ground and, when he failed to pick up on any danger or suspicious persons, turned back to the truck to start dragging out supplies. Keith came around from the driver's side wearing a floppy bucket hat and dropped a matching hat onto Lance's head.

"Now I'm ready to hit the water," Lance said, nodding seriously.

"It's a disguise, not a fashion statement," Keith said with a roll of his eyes.

"Great point. I rarely if ever see terrorists on the news donning bucket hats."

"Precisely."

Lance grabbed two tackleboxes, and Keith grabbed a large cooler from the back. They'd both disassembled their guns into smaller components, which they'd loaded into the tackleboxes and cooler along with plenty of ammo, and they'd reassemble them once they were out on the water and away from prying eyes. Lance grabbed a large backpack and tossed another to Keith; contained within them was their scuba gear along with several other odds and ends, including Lance's medication. He'd dosed up before their car ride, but he could feel the symptoms at the edge of his mind. He'd pop a few more pills once they were on the boat.

"All set?" Lance asked as Keith retrieved a few last items.

"Green for go," Keith confirmed, locking the truck and carrying as much as he could over to their boat.

Lance took once last look at the truck before following him.

--

"Coran's in position," Keith confirmed, coming up from below deck to meet Lance where he stood at the bow, arms crossed over the railing. "He's set up to lay down crossfire, but once you breach the interior, I told him to cut and run."

Lance nodded, sending a mental thank you to the man who'd been an uncle to him. "Good." He looked over at Keith, brow furrowed. "And you're staying on the boat. Give me five minutes to get from here to the shore, then start laying down light fire from the north side of the island while I move in from the west."

"Roger."

"I'll light up a fuse once I've made it past the exterior. That's your cue to rig the boat's steering to head south toward the island while you strap on your scuba gear and make it back to the mainland."

"And if you need backup?"

"I won't." Lance turned to his rifle, which he'd set beside him, and checked the various components to make sure everything was in order. "Sun sets in twenty minutes," he said, looking up at the sky where the sun has already started to sink down toward the horizon. "Let's synchronize our watches."

The two stood next to each other and adjusted so they were running off the same time.

Then eighteen minutes passed in silence. There were things Lance could have said, but he didn't, and there were things Keith could have said, but he kept quiet too. Lance found that he didn't need to make a speech about their friendship or how grateful he was for Keith's help because he knew that Keith was already aware.

At nineteen minutes, Lance dosed up on the remainder of his medications, then checked his suit, ammo, and gun once more before standing beside the railing and watching the last as the last remnants of the sun disappeared.

"Thanks, Keith" was all Lance said, and his friend nodded.

"For Veronica and Raphael," Keith said. "And for you, Lance."

Lance bowed his head and offered up a prayer. He prayed for vengeance, that his God would allow him to strike down the wicked, and he prayed for the safety of his friends.

He opened his eyes to see Griffin and Rizavi watching him from the opposite railing, grinning at him with the excitement of blood soon to be spilled in the water.

"See you out there, Commander," Rizavi said with a salute before falling over the side of the boat.

"Long live the brotherhood," Griffin added before following suit. Both were silent as they slipped into the murky water below.

"Long live the brotherhood," Lance echoed, letting himself tip over the railing of the boat and land head-first into the water, sending up a small splash.

--

Lance made it to the shore in four minutes and twenty seconds and immediately stripped out of his scuba suit, revealing black clothing underneath. There wasn't room under the wetsuit for a bulletproof vest, so the plan was to opt for stealth at the start. He used the remaining thirty-two seconds to coat his face in mud to hide the faint glimmer of his Altean marks that would serve as a dead giveaway in the dark. Once finished, he waited for Coran's shots to start up, followed by Keith's from the opposite end of the island.

Then he unleashed death.

The island house was well lit, and floodlights had been mounted on the roof to illuminate the exterior, which made for easy shots with his rifle as he picked out the forms of backlit guards. Once they were down, he took out the western floodlights, and Coran and Keith followed his lead and took out the lights on the north and south sides as well. He snatched up a radio from one of the downed guards as he circled around the house, stopping by the fuse box to cut the electricity with his knife. The house, previously lit up from every room, went dark.

"Shots from the south, firing from the lighthouse on the shore!" one guard called out, immediately followed by, "Under fire from the north!" Lance managed to pick off four more guards, one on the west side by him, two near the south tip, and one north, before he was spotted.

"McClain spotted on the west side of the island on foot!" someone called over the radio, and Lance gritted his teeth as he ran, bullets ricocheting off the trees beside him, bark exploding and cutting into his skin. He did an abrupt 180 degree turn and took out two guards who had been trailing him on foot before tagging one off to his left. He held the fuse between his teeth as he took out three more while cutting through the woods, and with the floodlights gone and the moon nothing but a sliver, he was invisible in the dark.

He came to a halt just before the edge of the tree light, crouching down against a tree and holding his breath. Soon enough, he heard at least two pairs of footsteps crunching over the undergrowth coming up on his rear, and he waited until they were almost upon him before he took them out, one with a shot to the head and the other with the butt of his rifle. He went down, not dead but sufficiently unconscious, and Lance waited another thirty seconds before proceeding to a side door he'd spotted during his earlier research from satellite imagery. He struck up the fuse and tossed it before silencing his radio and heading into the dark house.

Fighting inside the house was a bit tougher. The space was quieter, for one, which meant his movements had to be silent for him to go unnoticed. He also had less room to maneuver, and a long-range weapon like his rifle wasn't of much use in small rooms. He opted to discard his rifle at the door and switch over to his handgun instead, clearing three rooms on the ground floor before proceeding up the stairs.

Shots rang out almost immediately, and Lance took a bullet to his right thigh before he was able to toss a grenade. He leaned against the wall, catching his breath and trying to ignore the pain in his leg as the grenade went off and the gunfire paused. He ducked around the landing to pick off two guards who'd been stunned by the explosion, and he finished off a third who had been horribly wounded but remained conscious. More footsteps followed from around the corner, and Lance took out the first guard, kicking him toward the second, who stumbled back and gave Lance an opportunity to get a shot out. He grappled with a third guard who slashed at his right arm with a blade, and Lance gritted his teeth before getting him in a choke hold and waiting until he went limp to drop the body.

He took several deep breaths before limping forward, his right thigh a mess and his left arm was losing more blood than he'd like, but he was close now, he could feel it. Lance readied a grenade and placed one hand on the doorknob that led to the last room in the hallway, and he gave it a quick turn before tossing the grenade inside and slamming the door shut.

After a concussive explosion, he threw the door back open and took out two guards. He staggered after he took a shot to his right shoulder from behind, but he managed to turn and take out the remaining guard, albeit in two shots.

He did another scan of the room to confirm that there were no further guards, and then he let his eyes drop to the man behind the desk who watched him with cold eyes.

Iverson.

"Agent Pelios, Emilio Perrello, El Navajas, Simon Thorn...and now I presume it's my turn, isn't it?" Iverson asked, his voice unwavering but perhaps not unafraid.

"It would seem that way," Lance said, gritting his teeth. How many bullets had he taken? Three? Four? How much longer could he hold himself up? "I don't suppose you'd be inclined to skip your evil monologue in the interest of time?"

"That's where you're wrong, Lance. I'm not evil; I'm simply necessary."

"From where I'm standing, they look awful similar."

"Do you know how many veterans commit suicide every day?" Iverson asked, hands steepled in front of him and a somber look in his eyes. "Between 17 and 22. Add in suicides on activity duty, you're looking at the equivalent of two 9/11s every year."

"So long as you're keen on math all of a sudden, why don't you add in the deaths of my platoon, my sister, and my nephew?"

"That was unfortunate," Iverson admitted, leaning back and looking Lance in the eye. "And for that, I'm sorry. I'll admit that I never liked you, McClain, but I respect what you've done for this country."

"Enough to try and kill me, I suppose."

Iverson shrugged. "You take my actions – both direct and indirect – out of some sort of twisted malice aimed especially toward you. I don't wish you harm, Lance. Quite the contrary. But even you, as a leader of a number of highly successful special operations, should be able to recognize the necessity of collateral damage."

"There's a significant difference between letting someone fall on their sword and pushing them onto it for profit."

"I didn't profit from it," Iverson said, his tone sharp. "All those other people on your list took their cut and made their money. They didn't give a damn about our country or our troops. But I had nothing to do with a payout, Lance. They gave me money I wanted nothing to do with, and I donated it to the VFW. My only interest was in preventing ten thousand or more suicides a year."

"At the expense of my platoon and my family."

Iverson exhaled. "Yes, at the expense of your platoon and your family. But I didn't even know about the tumors until the operation was already under way. I wasn't in favor of a cover-up, but if the RD-4895 trial was exposed, if people found out about the tumors...the investors would pull out, the project would disappear, and I'd still be looking at ten thousand plus suicides a year. And so I agreed to let Simon handle it, which was clearly a mistake. I didn't realize the lengths he would go to, and I regret that. But at least this way we can continue working on the drug, and hopefully in a year or two, we'll be ready to start saving lives."

"How many more people are you willing to kill to see your vision through?" Lance asked. He could feel his left-hand trembling, but he kept his eyes up and hoped Iverson hadn't noticed. "And don't try and tell me you didn't kill people. You set it up, or at the very least, you had knowledge of the cover-up."

"I'm not the only one who knew about it," Iverson snapped, his eyes abruptly cutting over to Lance's right, and Lance half-turned to find Keith in the doorway, gun in his hands and still wearing his normal clothes. He must've waited for Lance to breach the interior, then ignored Lance's directive to get off the ship before steering it toward the island.

"Keith, you can't be here," Lance said, eyes darting between Keith and Iverson.

"I was worried," Keith said, eyes taking in Lance's multiple injuries before affixing his eyes to Iverson.

"Kogane knew just the same as I did," Iverson said, and something pinched in Keith's face, something that prevented him from denying the outrageous claim.

Lance steeled his face, but Keith's reaction haunted him. "No."

"You don't believe me and I don't blame you," Iverson said, dropping his hands to his lap, but his eyes never left Keith, who had gone silent. "But we went looking through our records after Zarkon's Fist – yes, I admit, to erase incriminating details – and we found a snippet of code. That program sent details of the mission to Keith Kogane. He knew about the tumor in your head before you ever did."

Lance stilled as he recalled a conversation between himself and Keith just after he'd gotten back from his mission.

Are you saying Pidge hacked into elite special op records to spy on me for you?

We call it LanceRadar.

Keith had known. He hadn't profited like Simon Thorn or covered it up like Iverson, but he had known about the tumor all the same, and he hadn't said anything.

If he had spoken up sooner, would I have been able to protect Veronica and Raphael?

Did he only help me because they were killed?

Did he know they would be killed?

But Lance knew that couldn't be true, not in this world or the next. Maybe Keith had found out about the tumor, about the drug, and he'd kept quiet because he'd known it was already too late for Lance. He couldn't have known the lengths they'd go to or he would have done everything in his power to keep Veronica and Raphael out of danger. Lance trusted Keith with his life, and Keith had entrusted himself with Lance's death.

That would certainly explain why he didn't seem particularly shocked when he overheard the news on my phone conversation with Pidge, Lance thought with a grimace.

Keith didn't speak up in his own defense.

"If I'm guilty for what I knew but didn't share, then Kogane here is guilty just the same," Iverson claimed. "And with a drug like RD-4895, the cost for that guilt is justified, in my mind. Thousands of PTSD-related suicides every year...thousands of potentially preventable suicides every year. I'm sorry that it cost you the lives of your platoon and family, but if you look at it objectively, that's a small sacrifice compared to the good this drug can bring."

"I'm afraid I have a hard time looking at it objectively, sir," Lance said, black spots starting to fill his vision as Rizavi leaned over Iverson's chair, flicking at a stray strand of his hair, and Griffin squinted at the family photos lining Iverson's desk, leaning forward to run a finger across the top of one to test for dust. Lance clutched at his head with his trembling left hand.

Just...a little longer...that's all I need...

"Fair enough," Iverson said, tensing, and Griffin whistled.

"Oooh, motherfucker's reaching for a gun," he called out. "Can you believe this shit?"

"Bad idea," Rizavi sang.

Time to cross Iverson's name off the-

"Shopping list?" Veronica asked, patting at her two pockets, then (discreetly) her bra, then her back pockets, then her front again. "Lance, have you seen it? I swear it was right here...Raphael? Did you take it?"

His bubbly giggles sold him out as he danced away.

"Oooh, you're going to get it, you little trickster!" Veronica shouted, scooping him up and smothering him with little kisses.

"Come save me, Tío Leo!" Raphael said, laughing and squirming in his mother's arms.

"Your Uncle Lance is on my side, right, L-"

"...Lance," Iverson said, raising his gun, and several things happened at once. Lance, left hand pressed to his temple, raised his own gun, his right hand shaking, but he was only ten feet away, could hardly miss, just needed to pull the trigger and cross the last name off the list, only- only Iverson wasn't aiming at Lance, he was aiming-

Lance didn't think.

That was something Pidge and Hunk and Shiro had teased him about relentlessly during his years in space, sometimes in jest, sometimes not. Lance, use your brain for once. Lance, what in the world were you thinking? Lance, since you're not using your head, mind renting the space out to someone else? And Lance had always ducked his head, rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck, let out a small chuckle to show that he wasn't at all hurt or injured or saddened or disappointed or upset or crushed by their comments.

No, Lance wasn't brilliant and innovative like Pidge. Lance wasn't focused and driven like Hunk. Lance wasn't confident and inspiring like Shiro. He was just a young boy who'd always dreamed of going to space only to unravel at the seams once he'd gotten there.

No, Lance didn't think.

He threw himself in front of Keith, ignoring his friend's yell, ignoring the pain in his leg, his arm, his shoulder. And when the bullet hit him in his upper back, piercing one too many vital organ, well, he didn't much feel that one. Couldn't feel much of anything anymore.

He heard Shiro's words in his mind. You're going to get him killed. I hope you can live with that.

Lance huffed out a small laugh. Fuck you, Shiro. You had it all backwards.

He hit the ground hard, unable to hold himself up anymore, and he watched his gun slide across the carpet, coming to a stop against a leather armchair. That was all he could see from his current frame of vision when the next two shots went off.

"Keith?" Lance asked, his voice raspy. Oh. Blood, in his mouth. He coughed and blood trickled into the carpet, almost invisible against the red threads.

"Lance," Keith cried out after a second, dropping into a crouch beside Lance and entering his limited window of sight. "Why'd you do that?" he asked, reaching out a hand as though to move Lance, but he pulled back, biting at his lip, which meant it didn't look good.

"'m fine," Lance mumbled, blood bubbling up from his mouth and coating his lips, and he coughed again, expelling it from his mouth in an effort to stop from choking on his own blood. He shifted his left arm, trying to get it beneath him, to prop himself up, but he fell immediately, his whole arm having gone numb. Keith's eyes widened, pupils dilating as his Galran ears surfaced.

"You're going to be okay, Lance, you're...it's going to be fine," he said, looking around the room as though searching for a magical cure before grabbing his phone. "Coran can...yeah. Coran will helivac you out of here, and he'll patch you up, just like- just like before. No problem."

"Did you..." Lance couldn't breathe for a second. Maybe there was blood in his lungs, too. Well, he supposed he was full of blood, technically speaking. "Iverson?" he got out after a moment.

Keith hesitated, sinking down into himself. "I'm sorry, Lance, I...I know you wanted to be the one to take him out, but...I had to kill him, he had a gun, and–"

"Good," Lance said, and he brought his right hand up to the pocket over his chest, fingers struggling in vain, and Keith reached forward to help him, pulling out Raphael's drawing which was now half-soaked in blood. "...List..."

Keith nodded, and despite his destroyed expression, he gently dipped Lance's right index finger into the pile of blood Lance had been ever so helpfully supplied, then maneuvered Lance's finger across the paper.

IVERSON

As soon as he'd finished, Lance went limp, his eyelids growing heavier by the second. "All done," Lance whispered, and he watched with weary eyes as Raphael clambered over the leather armchair, perching himself on just the arm, his head turned toward the door like he was waiting for someone.

"Lance, I'm so sorry," Keith said, wisely having given up on the impossibility of saving Lance.

"Don't be, you...big baby," Lance said, his voice even quieter than before as he watched Keith's tears fall into his pile of blood with barely a ripple. "Thanks, brother," he said, and he saw someone new step through the doorway, which had just now become – or had it always been? - the doorway to Raphael's room.

Raphael moved his action figure around, making sound effects as he flew through the air, and Lance grinned. Lance reached down slowly and picked up one of the toys, mimicking his nephew to his delight. Raphael launched into a story about their mission: to rescue the princess and defeat the evil villain Mr. Penguin. Lance followed his lead, and he looked up some time later to catch Veronica watching them fondly.

"What are my two boys up to?" she asked and listened intently as Raphael launched off on a tirade before defaulting to his new favorite phrase, "I'm not a little boy anymore!"

"Welllll," Veronica said, finger tapping at her chin as she pretended to do the math. "You're only seven, so you're not exactly grown up either."

His face scrunched up in a pout as he temporarily forgot about their mission, and Lance laughed, scooping him close. "Maybe you're not grown up yet, but you will be someday."

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

"Dashingly handsome?" Lance asked, eyebrows raised as he struck a pose, and Raphael's pout was replaced with a snort that had him falling over. Veronica placed a gentle hand on the back of his head to prevent him from bumping it on his bed frame.

"Nooo, Tío Leo," Raphael said, and Lance faked being hurt, putting a hand against his chest, aghast. "I'm going to be a supersoldier, and I'm going to save everyone!"

Lance's smile slipped off his face. "Nahh, you don't want that, bud," he said, trying to salvage the situation, but Raphael was a stubborn little kid, and he nodded a bunch of times in a row, completely insistent.

"I do! 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."

A princess did appear in Lance's mind at that moment. One he hadn't been able to save. One he could never save, not in his dreams or nightmares or any fragment of reality, half-conjured or otherwise.

Veronica caught the switch in his expression, and she reached out her arms to pull Raphael close to her. "Tío Leo is pretty cool, isn't he," she asked quietly, and Raphael nodded, giggling, but it did nothing to fix the hole that had just opened itself up inside of Lance, and he looked away, trying to shove the image of Allura's face somewhere else, just for now. His marks burned against his cheeks, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to forget, always trying to forget.

"My job isn't all cool," Lance said after a moment, opening his eyes and looking at Raphael before flicking his eyes over to Veronica. "It's scary sometimes."

"Scary?" Raphael echoed, and Veronica gave him a small look of gratitude. They'd talked about this before, Raphael's slight obsession with Lance, and they both wanted to discourage him from pursuing a lifestyle anything at all like Lance's. Not that I don't love and appreciate you, Veronica had said clearly to him, It's just not something I want for my own kid. I worry about you enough. I can never worry enough for him. And Lance understood because he agreed with her. "You get scared too, Tío Leo?"

"Oh, all the time," Lance said. "There are lots of scary bad guys out there, and sometimes they're tough, really tough, and I'm scared we won't be able to beat them and protect people." And save the princess.

"Tío Leo?"

"What's that, kiddo?"

"What if you're fighting a bad guy and...you don't win?" Raphael asked, hesitating in the middle before hurrying through the end of his sentence and burying his face in Veronica's shirt at the thought.

"I'm always going to come home to you, buddy. You know that. I promised you and your mom, right?" Lance asked, but Raphael didn't pull back from his protective perch. He didn't seem like he'd be swayed by any assurances, not this time. But Lance supposed that was what happened when kids grew up.

Lance sighed, eyes flicking up to his twin sister's. "If...someday...I don't come home from work," he started, "...you should know that your uncle died doing something important, and that I was surrounded by good men that I loved."

"Like you love me? And Mamá?" Raphael asked, peeking one eye out.

"No...no, buddy. I...I could never love anybody the way that I love you and your mom." Lance reached forward, carding his hand through Raphael's hair. "Your mom is still gonna be here, and she's gonna take care of you just like she always does when I'm on deployment. You'll still have soccer on Sundays and finger painting."

"And catching bugs in the yard," Veronica added softly, rubbing her hand up and down Raphael's back. Her eyes were wet at both the thought and the memory of Lance not coming home one day – she'd already experienced it once, after all – but Lance knew she would be strong for Raphael no matter what happened to him.

"And catching bugs in the yard," Lance agreed with a smile as Raphael turned his head to look at Lance, eyes wide. "And then, one day...you're gonna get older, and you're gonna take care of your mom."

Veronica sniffled slightly, and Raphael seemed to grow just a little bit bigger at the notion of the responsibility. "And though I won't be here to watch that..." Something clenched in Lance's chest as he thought about Raphael growing older and turning into a man. "That doesn't mean that I won't keep my eye on you, always. Just..." Lance swallowed and gave a small sigh. The vastness of Heaven and Hell and life after death was too much to put on a kid. "From someplace else," he settled on after a moment.

"From where?" Raphael asked, lips curling into a familiar pout, eyes conveying confusion and the look he got when he started feeling suspicious that someone wasn't being truthful with him.

Lance paused before reaching forward and tapping Raphael's shirt right over where his heart was. "From right here, buddy. Right here."

--

published 10/10/20 (mm/dd/yy)

4643 words