I Will Stay So The Lantern In Your Heart Won't Fade

Keith jolted awake at the sudden sound of the healing pod he was leaning against opening. He quickly jumped to his feet, the blanket which somehow got draped over him (he didn't take one for himself) fluttered to floor as he held his hands out to catch Lance who was falling face-first from the healing pod, events of what happened just after his shower played through his mind.* * * As soon as he finished getting cleaned up, Keith made his way back to the medical bay with the healing pods. The rest of Team Voltron plus Matt were still there.

"There he is, c'mere Keith, now that you've freshened up we can fill you in on everything," Hunk said, motioning for him to come closer and listen to him.

"What was the information they found out?" he asked.

"Well, get this, the Galra have been using those cargo ships to transport genetically fused power sources that might have the capability to be implanted into metals! It's amazing but very dangerous, and on a molecular level it can rip apart atoms then stitch them back together, but only when it's reacting to a very specific subatomic frequency. And if it doesn't then it can charge up to over a hundred thousand nuclear watts and create a massive combustion of genetic quintessence that could go so far as to wipe out Kerberos form here! Oh, did I mention that the power was quintessence? Well it is, and it's almost completely pure, as if it was extracted from another comet that was the same of the likes that was used to build the lions!" Matt exclaimed!

"So...what was the information they found out?" Keith asked again, only he looked more confused than before.

"Well you remember how the Alcharians melded their tech with living cells? This is that but backwards and it being implanted in quintessence. But if not carefully used it will go boom," Pidge simplified.

"But...where did that quintessence come from? I'm sure we would've noticed another comet filled with it flying around space somewhere," Keith replied.

"That's what we're going to figure out," Allura said. "If I am connected to the lion's, then maybe I can use that same connection, manipulate it a little, and hunt down that comet. If it's filled with so much raw quintessence than I should be able to find it, somehow." She looked away, completely lost in her head.

Matt walked over to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She jumped slightly at the sudden touch but put her hand over his and smiled gently at him when she looked over.

"She's not wrong, but it will take a lot out of her, so she's just brooding on us not letting her do it just yet. We also thought that we should wait until Lance was out of the pod to start the hunt," Hunk said, looking over at Keith. He just nodded in response.

"Well I'm going to hit the training deck while we wait," Shiro said from his spot next to Pidge. He looked up at Keith who shook his head."I'll stay here for a while."

"I'll join you Shiro, some physical activity may help me focus my thoughts on the information that was just handed to us and maybe even help with figuring out the encryption code. It's a lot to process," Pidge said, holding her head.

"Only if you're up for it," he replied with a small smile.

"I'm going to go start on dinner," Hunk had said, slowly walking out the door. He cooked to get his mind off of things, it was a comfort for him, so that's what he went to go do.

"If you don't mind Princess, I want to talk to you and Coran about a few things, ways we might be able to help each other in this war more than we already do," Matt said, his hand still resting on Allura's shoulder. She blushed again.

"Of course, we can go to the control room if you'd like," she replied, already walking out the door with Matt at her side and Coran just behind the two of them.

And just like that everyone was gone, leaving Keith alone in the medical bay with all of the healing pods. He didn't really mind though, even though it was lonely he wasn't really alone. And besides, it gave him some peace and quiet for a while, it let him think calmly and Keith enjoyed that alone time greatly. He sat down in front of Lance's pod and sighed contently, letting his mind wander away from the war.* * * "Wha-?" Lance grumbled, weak legs making him stumble a little before he collapsed into Keith's outstretched arms, causing the Korean to snap back to reality. "Where am I?" he mumbled, gaining balance as the blood rushed back to his feet, still keeping a grip onto Keith's arms. Keith. "Oh-! Keith! Are you okay?" he asked, reaching his right hand out to touch the Koreans face.

"Why are you asking me, you're the one who got shot! Are you okay? What were you thinking? Do you want me to get the others? Your could've died! You came out of the pod too early, are you tired?" Keith bombarded him with questions.

"Jeez, I'm fine! Stop worrying so much, it's giving me a headache," Lance complained, closing his eyes a little.

"Sorry it's just...you dove in front of that shot for me. If you died, it would've been my fault," Keith murmured, positioning himself so that Lance's arm was over his shoulders and Keith's arm was around his waist, supporting his weight.

"Well that shot was aimed right for your head, I couldn't just not do anything about it," Lance sighed.

Keith's eyes softened, "you tired buddy?" he asked. Lance simply nodded in response. "I'll take you to your room then, I know your room code now for sure."

Lance chuckled darkly. "Thank god, at least I can change into my own clothes and be surrounded by my things. This suit is very uncomfortable ya know," he nodded to the signature suit that people in the healing pod were required to wear.

Keith stayed silent as he helped Lance back to his own room, once they reached he typed in the correct code and set Lance down on his bed so that he was sitting up.

"I think I'll just leave you to it then, unless you need anything," Keith said, standing awkwardly in Lance's doorway.

"No I think I got it from here, oh but could you grab me some food? Or send Hunk in with some, I'm not really feeling up to going out and seeing everyone right now. I'm just a little hungry," he asked. Keith nodded and left to go to the kitchen, thinking Hunk would be there.

Lance wants to see his best friend right now, I think I'll just back off a little now that I know he's fine.

But as Keith entered the kitchen he saw no sign of anyone, not even the chunky man who seemed to live in there. Keith also checked the dining room but there was not a soul to be seen meaning that he hadn't gotten up for three straight meals. He shrugged it off, and instead of searching around the castle for the rest of the team he grabbed a plate of food-goo for Lance and set aside another one for himself, deciding he would eat it later.

As Keith walked back down to Lance's room with the food in his hands he couldn't help but feel as though something was off, like something wasn't right. It was most definitely the daytime half of the castle's cycle and everyone was usually off doing their own things anyways, that much was normal. But Keith didn't have a bad feeling about that, it was more so with Lance. He had come out of the healing pod a whole hour before he was expected to (and god forbid that the healing pod's calculations be off) plus he was a whole lot loopier than usual, even for someone who just came out of one of the pods. Keith frowned to himself but tried not to think any more of it, deciding he wouldn't let the doubts in his mind dictate how he acted right now.

Keith shook his head clear of any lingering thoughts as he punched in the code for Lance's quarters the second time that day.

"Hey Lance, I didn't see Hunk around the kitchen so just brought some food my-" he stopped talking abruptly, finding Lance to be passed out on his bed with his limbs splayed across it. Keith chuckled a bit before setting the plate of food-goo down and carefully laying a blanket over the Cuban before tiptoeing out of the room.

Keith walked back to the kitchen and distastefully looked down at the food-goo that he left for himself earlier. Though he had gotten somewhat used to its taste, he still tried to avoid eating it as much as he could. He just couldn't stand it.

Well, no one is around and I don't even feel that hungry, I can at least wait to eat it later. I might as well train since there's nothing else to do, maybe I'll eat it after that, he thought to himself, walking right out of the kitchen and down to the training deck.

Keith still couldn't be rid of this bad feeling that resided in his gut, it traveled to his mind and made him doubt the safety of the castle and his friends in it. But they were, right then at least, just floating around in the space between solar systems, not really close to any planets or stars, but they passed a couple moons every now and then. But still, it's not a location to just pinpoint and infiltrate, it was literally the middle of nowhere and there wasn't another place that was safer for the Castle of Lions just then.

"Begin training sequence three!" Keith called out when he made his way into the training deck, summoning his bayard as the first gladiator popped up from the floor just as a gopher would from one of those Whack-Em arcade games from earth.

Keith got in a defensive stance as the Gladiator charged at him, holding his bayard out in front of him and his other hand behind it as it shaped itself like a sword. As the Gladiator went after him, Keith sliced, punched, defended, fought off, slid, and jumped without thinking about it, his mind was totally spaced from the fight and his body mostly acted off of muscle memory on where the gladiator was weak for he had trained against it so many times.

He let his mind float around, jumping from thought to thought just as he physically jumped off of spots from the floor where the Gladiator would strike at him but miss.

Somethings wrong, his mind insisted.

But nothing can be wrong, his logical side argued. We're nowhere that can be directly detected and everyone is usually like this, off doing their own stuff to pass the time. Hunk doesn't only cook, he could just be helping Pidge out with something, there's nothing to worry about, they're all fine.

But what about Lance? Why did he come out of the healing pod so early? The last time he was inside one it didn't let him leave until the last second so that he could be fully fine. Were the pod's calculations incorrect?

No. There's no way that it could be wrong.

But, what if?

No!

Keith went back and forth in his mind like that for a while, his logic fighting his gut feeling, the gut feeling winning the argument. But the again, when did it not for Keith? The boy's actions were literally based off of impulse and impulse alone.

"End training sequence!" he yelled, dismissing his bayard and running out of the training deck. By that point he had gotten to sequence six, but he didn't care much about that. The red paladin booked it down to Lance's room, bumping into someone on the way but he didn't pay attention to who it was or the fact that they were calling out his name as he sprinted away.

I'm sure everything is fine.

But what if it's not?

Keith came to a screeching halt in front of Lance's room and punched in the code for what felt like the hundredth time that day even though it was only the third. He was panicky, hands shaking and blood rushing as he entered the code, the adrenaline pumping through him making his vision blurry. If Keith wasn't breathing heavily from the training beforehand, he sure was now, his heart was palpitating as he entered the cold quarters of the blue paladin.

As soon as the door opened enough, Keith was inside the dark room, looking around wildly, trying to get his mind to calm down, before resting them on Lance's face. He was still asleep, still looked so peaceful as he dreamed of nothing.

Keith walked over to the bed and slumped down next to it, feeling the crash of adrenaline wash over him like a tsunami. The tiredness reached his legs and he wheezed out a content noise as he allowed them to give out the rest of the way beneath him. He looked up and groaned silently, hugging his side as the stitch that he gave himself while running started acting up because his pain receptors started working again. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, that is until he saw it. The food-goo, it was untouched.

Lance wouldn't have done that, he wouldn't have just left perfectly good food aside, especially when he asked for some. Keith knew how Lance could get when he was hangry, and not even Lance liked himself when he was hangry. Once, Lance shared a story about how he vandalized a market area back on earth because they wouldn't serve him food without an adult present (he made it very clear that he was ten at the time but would do the exact same thing if he was denied food when hungry) by spray painting a huge portrait of Gordon Ramsay saying "you surprise me, how shit you are," on their stall. He was forced to work it off because he left his name on the painting (the idiot) and felt bad about it after he had food, but for some reason whenever he was hungry he would look back at that day and smile ruefully.

So yeah, hangry Lance was bad Lance. And if Lance was hungry, then Lance. Was. Hungry.

There's no way he would've left food alone like that, even if he was so tired to fall asleep, the red paladin was pretty sure that he would actually get up in his sleep to eat, just to appease his stomach.

Keith shot up off the floor, leaning over Lance and shaking him a bit in an effort to wake him up.

"Lance, buddy wake up." He didn't.

"Lance we need Volton! Zarkon is attacking!" Still nothing.

"Hey Lance, Allura just told me that she has a major crush on you and that if you asked her out she would totally date you. She said the only reason she treated you the way that she did was because she was shy and nervous." The Cuban didn't budge, there wasn't even movement below his eye lids.

Keith started shaking him more vigorously, but Lance still didn't open his eyes, not even to tease Keith about worrying so much. Keith finally yanked Lance's entire top half off of the bed, and when he saw the blood on the taller male's pillow he sharply inhaled, and hugged Lance closer to him, fingering the spot where the blaster wound was.

It was warm and sticky.

It was blood, and some of it was dried.

Just then the door to Lance's room opened, and in ran team Voltron, Matt was still there as well.

"Keith! I saw you running here and decided to bring everyone else to see what was wrong, wh-" Hunk cut himself off when he saw the Lance, still a few minutes off before scheduled to be out and about, with blood leaking down his back and an opened entry wound.

All hell broke loose.

Blurry hands reached for anything and everything, multiple voices bounced off of the walls, and bodies rushing, rushing and bumping against each other. Someone was carrying Lance and someone was running ahead somewhere, oh, they were out of Lane's room. Someone else was crying while another person was yelling. Keith just walked numbly, following the blurry figures that surrounded him.

Lance was still hurt.

Lance could be on the verge of death.

And it was all his fault.

Why didn't I tell anyone else? Why didn't I double check? Why did he get hurt for me? Because of me...

Somehow he ended up in the medical bay in front of a healing pod that the others (Hunk and Shiro) were pushing Lance into. This time it was a different one than before in hopes that it would have proper calculations. It was only then that Keith realized the six former prisoners were gone, probably left when he unknowingly fell asleep in front of Lance's first pod that day.

Pidge said a few things, Hunk repressed tears, Coran and Allura typed some commands into the pod, Matt and Shiro were whispering something to him but he wasn't paying attention to them. He could only focus on the sight of Lance's unconscious body inside the healing pod. He could only focus on his guilt.

The pod lit up and closed its barrier, and everyone let out a collective sigh of relief when it activated.

"Alright, I'll get started on figuring out what happened to that other pod while La-" Coran started before the pod that Lance was in opened and he fell out again. Keith caught him once again, only this time Lance didn't wake up.

Chaos.

Everyone, even Shiro, started to at least mildly freak out.

Pidge could be heard whispering "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" as she tried to help Coran (who had broken into a sweat) and Allura (who looked confused as hell) with the healing pod. Matt was comforting Hunk who was hyperventilating and Shiro started walking Keith out of the room and back to Lance's quarters. He was antsy, but realized that he had to at least get Lance some human medical help while the others tried to figure out what was wrong with the healing pods. And besides, Keith was being quiet. Too quiet.

When they reached the room again Shiro helped Keith clean up Lance's wound, bandage it up (which Keith did perfectly because of his class from the Garrison -thank you Iverson- on medical stuff) and laid him down back on his bed after switching the bloody pillow for a fresh one.

"Hey Keith, he's going to be alright. We're all working on getting him better, he's going to live. Lance isn't easily taken down if you haven't noticed," Shiro chuckled darkly, clapping Keith's shoulder. Keith just simply nodded in response, keeping his eyes on Lance's face.

How could it look so peaceful if it could've been so close to death? he thought.

"That's not what's bothering you, is it?" Shiro asked. Keith shook his head, finally looking up to meet Shiro's gaze only to loom away again, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's more just...he could've died. He could've stopped breathing and if he did then it would've been all my fault. It was because of me that he got shot in the first place, and now instead of me telling everyone, anyone, that he woke up early I left him alone in here. I just...I caused all of this, didn't I?"

"Keith, listen to me. This. Is. Not. Your. Fault," Shiro said slowly and deliberately, pushing Keith's shoulder a little so that his torso was facing him. "Did you hear me Keith? Say it, this is not your fault."

"This-this is not my fault."

"Good. Look, I'm going to go check in with the others and see what happened. You want to come with me? I'm afraid that staying here alone with your thoughts won't be good for you," Shiro suggested. Keith vigorously shook his head.

"This may not be my fault, which I still don't completely believe, but he risked his life for me. The least I can do is stay until he's okay. Until he wakes up and is actually fine."

"Is this why you stayed with his pod all night?" Shiro asked, knowing full well that was the exact reason his -practically- little brother did that. He was the one who gave Keith that blanket during the nighttime cycle that the shorter male woke up in. But Keith only shrugged, thinking that Shiro didn't know what he did. Shiro just gave himself a knowing smile before walking towards the door. "Whatever you say bud, I'll get back to you once I have some information," he said before walking out of the bedroom.

Once Shiro left Keith kneeled down next to Lance's bed, resting his arms on the mattress.

"C'mon Lance, don't do this to us. I know that it's my fault but don't punish me like this. We need you. You're our lantern, you light our paths with your happy-go-lucky attitude. Please, don't fade out. I'll stay here and help you until the weak light in your heart burns bright again. I promise, you saved my life, let me help you with yours. I know you don't really like me and that we;re not that close, but let me do just this for you," Keith pleaded with Lance's cold body.

And that's exactly what Keith did.

He took care of the life in Lance.

He took care of the lantern in his heart.