Archive of Our Own

From the gleaming, crimson finish of her exterior, nothing appeared to be amiss with the red lion of Voltron at first glance.

But she needed maintenance.

Keith sighed and sank down beside the hulking metal mass of her paw and onto the frigid surface of the hangar floor. He closed his eyes and turned his face into the silver of her claw, letting the coldness seep into him along with the warmth of her consciousness. Deep purrs surrounded him, but offered no enlightenment. She had called him down here, probing his mind with a gentle but demanding touch. Something wasn’t quite right. Nothing urgent, but it was uncomfortable. He knew that much. Beyond that however, Keith had no clue whatsoever what was actually wrong with her. And she wasn’t telling him. Not in words or ideas he could understand anyway.

Frowning, Keith tried to concentrate on the bizarre, foreign words and images that she began to feed directly into his mind—symbols and concepts that he couldn’t ever hope to understand, even if the lives of team Voltron were at stake.

“Come on, Red,” he said softly into her paw, eyes still screwed shut with concentration and breath fogging the metallic surface. “You know I can’t understand any of that.”

Her mind flared with frustration against his, and she sent back a series of complex mathematical equations that he vaguely recognised from his “Intro to Quantum Mechanics” lectures back at the Galaxy Garrison—equations that he didn’t have a hope of solving back then never mind now.

So absorbed he was in trying to translate literal Greek, he didn’t hear the footsteps echoing around the vast hangar chamber, until their origin was standing right in front of him.

“An unconventional, but surprisingly not unheard of place to take a nap.”

Keith sucked in a sharp breath, hand twitching on instinct towards his blade as he eyes snapped open in shock. A sense of vertigo overtook him for a fraction of a tick as his mind was unceremoniously yanked away from the depths of Red’s. His vision swam and he blinked away the blurriness. The indistinct orange-blue smear in front of him eventually took the more recognisable form of Coran. He let his hand fall back down and willed his heart to stop racing with adrenaline. Coran looked down at him with a quizzical expression, amusement flickering in his eyes.

“H-hey Coran.” Keith made to stand, but Coran held up a hand to stop him.

“Oh no don’t get up. There’s no shame in it.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Keith pressed. “I was talking to Red.”

“Oh?”

“There’s something wrong with her,” Keith saw Coran’s eyebrows draw together at that, "but nothing urgent. At least, I don’t think so… ” He looked up with a small frown at the enigmatic, looming face of his lion. “But I can’t understand what she’s telling me.”

“Hmmm.” Coran narrowed his gaze at the large, gleaming yellow eyes above them. “Well, let’s go take a little peek inside shall we?”

Keith blinked at him and then scrambled to his feet as metallic whirrs and groans suddenly filled the air around them. Red was obediently lowering her jaw to the floor and Coran stalked towards her with purpose. It hit the floor of the deck with a resounding, heavy clang and Keith hurried to follow Coran up the walkway.

“Now that is unusual,” Coran was saying as he clambered through towards the cockpit, “She really must be in quite some discomfort to respond so readily to someone who isn’t her pilot.”

Red’s console flickered into life as Keith followed Coran over the threshold. Rumbling purrs of encouragement accompanied him as he took his seat in front of the console. Coran stood beside him, the red light of the cockpit giving his skin a pinkish hue. Keith turned to look at him, waiting.

“Now,” Coran piped up again, “What is she saying to you?”

“I don’t—” Keith screwed up his eyes again as incomprehensible calculations flooded his brain once more. “I don’t understand.”

“If you can’t say it,” Coran said, placing a hand on his shoulder with a gentle, calming weight, “try transferring what you see instead.”

Keith pressed his lips together in a confused scowl.

“What do you mean?” His head was beginning to ache from all this cryptic chatter from aliens and robot cats alike.

Coran gestured towards the control panel and Keith looked down at what he was pointing at; a slowly flashing rectangle of light. He looked up at Coran again questioningly.

“Place your hand on it,” Coran said, “and concentrate again on what she’s saying to you. Listen carefully this time.”

Keith’s scowl deepened at that. He had been listening! But he kept his mouth shut and closed his eyes again, placing his hand upon the glowing panel. Her warmth flowed through him once more, right through to the very tips of his fingers. His palm grew hot against the console surface. After a few ticks, he heard Coran hum in approval beside him.

“There we go,” he said, his voice sounding further away than it ought to be considering his proximity.

Keith disentangled his mind from Red’s and let himself resurface, opening his eyes and squinting in the sudden brightness of Red’s cockpit. Coran’s voice was now louder in his ears.

“It’s not a lot, but it’s a start! Look,” Coran said.

Keith peered down at the console and to his surprise saw it was now full of reams upon reams of Altean script and equations. Coran tapped at the screen with unrestrained glee.

“Would you look at that!” he said as he ran his fingertips over the glowing Greek symbols. “She’s very helpfully translated our Altean mathematics into an Earth form that you can understand!”

Keith let out a bark of sardonic laughter. “Right.”

Because all humans understood complex mathematical concepts. Obviously. He watched curiously as Coran poured over the convoluted mess of red lion speak and began typing in a flurried manner on his personal tablet.

“What’s wrong?” Keith eyes darted about frantically as he watched the increasingly hurried movements of Coran’s fingers across the screen. “Will she be okay?”

“Oh she’ll be fine as long as we can pinpoint the fault in her gigatev drive.”

“Her what?”

“Ah… her relativity drive? Does that make more sense?”

“No.”

“No matter. The point is there’s a fault and it would be best to solve it quickly before her condition gets more severe.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “What’s it doing to her?”

Sensing his worry, Red’s presence curled around his own in a comforting haze.

Coran grimaced. “Don’t worry, it’s not life threatening. Which is to say, her life force is in no immediate danger.”

Keith let out a relieved sigh as Coran continued.

“Her consciousness, however, is currently bouncing between the past, present and future faster than an angry klanműiral.”

“Err,” Keith opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before attempting to speak again. “Is that—is that something that happens often?”

“From time to time, if you’ll pardon the pun,” Coran said, and Keith rolled his eyes, “and it can range from feeling mildly uncomfortable to excruciatingly painful. Depends how fast you’re going of course.”

“Right.” Keith pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So it’s best dealt with quickly before it gets to that stage.” Coran tapped at his tablet screen. “All we need to do is run a simple debugging on this section of code. Shouldn’t take more than a few doubashes with mathematics of this level.”

Keith groaned and pressed his fingertips hard into his temples.

“Shouldn’t we get Pidge? I’m not good at this kind of stuff.” It was like being back in Mr. York’s classes again.

Coran looked at him disapprovingly. “No, no, no, this is a valuable life skill that, as a paladin, you’ll need to learn someday! And there’s no time like the present.”

“What? Writing code?”

“No. Tending to your sick lion.”

Keith looked down, shamefaced and Coran put a hand on his shoulder again.

“Come on now. It’s not that bad!” He raised an amused, but inquisitive brow at him. “Haven’t you ever done any mechanical diagnostics?”

Keith’s heart gave a sudden jolt at the turn of phrase. It spun around his mind, stirring up a whirlpool of forgotten memories and dredging them from the depths. Keith smiled.

“Only a little.”

The heat of the desert burned on his tongue.

***

“It’s basic mechanical diagnostics, Keith.”

Keith scowled up at his dad and wiped roughly at the oily smudge on his cheek again for the countless time that afternoon. It refused to budge. The sweat was beading on his brow again already in the harsh heat of the desert around them. It made the dark curls of his hair cling irritatingly to the sides of his sticky face. He tried to blow it out the way. His dad chuckled and untied his red bandana from around his own neck. Keith ducked out the way just in time before his dad could attempt to rub at the smudge of dirt himself.

“Get off! I’m thirteen not three!”

“But not old enough to clean your own face properly from the looks of it.”

Keith glowered and sat down heavily on the ground, flicking sand at the leg of his dad’s pants.

“And your birthday’s still not for a few days,” his dad added.

“Oh it’s my birthday? It’s hard to tell when you come home and dump this heap of trash outside our front door and call it a gift.”

Keith gestured dramatically towards the pile of mechanical junk in question. It was red, white and apparently a hover-bike, according to his dad, but it was hard to tell with it being covered in a fine layer of desert dust and multiple parts of it looking mangled beyond repair.

His dad sighed heavily, rubbing at his eyes.

“It’s not trash Keith.”

“You literally fished it out of the junk yard.”

“Remember what I always say? Just because someone else thinks it’s junk—”

“—doesn’t mean that it actually is,” Keith finished with an exasperated look. “I think you’re wrong this time. It’s clearly broken.”

“We have the spare parts. It’s fixable. Just imagine how awesome it’ll look to the other kids.”

“It’s not even the latest model!”

“They won’t know that.”

“And what other kids? We live in the middle of nowhere, dad.”

“I think you’re underestimating quite how far and fast you’ll be able to go on this thing.”

Keith’s curiosity piqued at that, heart thumping, but he held firm.

“I’m not old enough for a hover-bike license yet.”

“But you will be one day.”

Keith raised an eyebrow as his dad smiled down broadly at him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“And besides," his dad continued, "you’re not gonna get a lot of law enforcement round these parts. ” He chuckled again and winked as Keith’s eyes widened comically at him. “I can supervise you.”

Despite all his best efforts to remain sullen, Keith couldn’t stop the wide grin that started to spread across his face and the breathy laugh that escaped him.

“Awesome,” he let out softly.

His dad smiled, kneeling down beside him in the sandy dirt. He swept the dust off part of the metallic surface and Keith squinted as the glossy red that was revealed caught the light of afternoon sun, dazzling his eyes.

“Now where were we?” He rapped his knuckles against the metal. “You were taking a peek inside, right?”

Keith huffed. “Yeah and then this happened,” he gestured angrily towards the dark, stubborn smudge on his face. “So obviously I was wrong.”

His dad clicked his tongue at him. “It was just a bit of engine grease. Harmless.”

“I loosened a nut and it projectile vomited on me!”

“Keith, it was a bit of trapped air. No need to be so dramatic.”

“It’s broken, dad. Face it.”

“If it’s broken, then it can be fixed.”

Keith tried to glare at him, but its heat was extinguished by the soft fondness he saw lingering in his dad’s gaze. His dad bumped their shoulders together in a gentle nudge.

“Come on, Keith. It’s not that bad. It just needs a little love, patience and effort.” He ruffled his hair. “And a bit of that mechanical diagnostics I was talking to you about. We’ve fixed up a bunch of stuff together like this before right?”

Keith didn’t answer him, instead picking up a handful of sand and letting it run through his fingers.

“I guess,” he muttered after a while, trying to dig out the grains of sand that had got trapped underneath his fingernails. He began to cough as his dad then clapped him good-naturedly on the back, a bright grin on his face, almost toppling him forward into the sand.

“That’s my boy.”

Keith hid his smile in the collar of his jacket.

They worked until sundown that day, and by the end of it, his dad was the one dragging him to bed to stop him working into the night.

***

There was a sandstorm coming in from the east the next day, but it wasn’t due to hit top speeds for at least ten hours. Keith figured he had time.

Eyeing the small clouds of dust outside the window that were already beginning to form, Keith grabbed his dad’s bandana off the table and tied it tightly around his face. He tiptoed around the house, taking care to avoid the squeaky floorboards as he went, and grabbed his dad’s toolbox from where it sat by the front door. He stepped back—

—and the floorboard creaked.

Keith sighed.

A tired groan came from the corner of the room and Keith turned to see his dad emerging tousle-haired from underneath a blanket on the couch.

“Keith,” he croaked out, looking at him bleary-eyed. “It’s 6am. On a Sunday. What are you doing?”

“Going out.”

“Out?”

“To work on the bike.”

His dad gave a dry laugh which then became a coughing fit. Keith put down the toolbox and rushed to fetch a glass of water. His dad downed it gratefully.

“Thanks. I suppose I can’t stop you. I encouraged you after all. Go on then. Just keep an eye on that storm.”

Keith grinned. “Got it.”

“—and don’t wake me up again for at least two more hours.”

“I won’t.”

“Good boy.”

Snores filled the air once more and Keith smiled at his dad’s soft, sleeping face before shutting the front door quietly behind him.

***

“Any progress?”

Keith jumped and cursed loudly as he hit his head on the ceiling of the small opening that he’d had his head stuck in for the past fifteen minutes.

“Hey! Watch your mouth!”

Keith whirled around to glare at his dad who was frowning at him.

“You’d swear too if I’d made you hit your head that hard!”

“I’m an adult, so I’m allowed to.”

“Whatever…”

“Watch it.”

Keith crossed his arms and leant back against the dusty hover-bike surface, narrowing his eyes. He could see the flicker of amusement in his dad’s eyes, however. He pushed himself off the bike again and crouched down to look at the small opening that was now rapidly filling with sand. The winds were starting to pick up. He swept out the sand and shut the door.

“I’ve almost got it,” he said, chewing his lip. “Everything works now, but there’s something up with one of the main thrusters. It stops and starts randomly. I can’t figure out why.”

His dad knelt down beside him. “What have you ruled out?”

“Everything.”

“You know that’s not possible.”

“Well, that’s what it feels like.”

“There’s gotta be something you haven’t thought of.”

“Why don’t you believe me?” Keith threw up his hands. “I’ve tried everything I can think of!”

He stiffened as he felt an arm around his shoulders. Still fuming, he refused to relax into it. His dad squeezed him comfortingly anyway.

“Want to take a look at it together?”

Keith pouted and said nothing. When he caved and glanced over at his dad, he saw a strange glint in his eye.

“Bet I can find the problem before you can.”

Keith’s mouth twitched, a competitive fire stirring within him. He snorted.

“Bring it on old man!”

***

The storm was almost on them now, but they persevered. Keith laughed loudly as his dad walked towards the toolbox and tripped over a rock, and laughed harder still when his dad then began to chase him around the perimeter of the bike in retaliation.

“Keith! Stop running or we’ll never get this done before the storm hits!”

“I’ll stop running when you stop chasing!”

Or, as it turned out, he’d stop running when his dad caught him and tickled him within an inch of his life.

“Let me go!” he gasped out between breathless laughs and slapped weakly at his dad’s arms. “I’m sorry okay?! Stop!”

His dad smirked triumphantly and helped him to his feet. Keith would have attempted to brush off his sand covered clothes, but it was no use now with the sand blowing in from all directions.

“Good,” his dad said, patted the seat of the bike. “Now hop on. Let’s see if we’ve got it right this time.”

Keith didn’t have to be told twice. He grinned and jumped on so enthusiastically he almost missed the seat entirely.

“Easy there space cadet,” his dad said with a laugh, steadying him before he fell. “You nearly went into orbit.”

Keith snorted. “I’d have to jump a little higher for that I think.”

“A good few hundred kilometers in fact.”

Keith looked up curiously at the faint, wistful tone in his dad’s voice. He was staring up at the sky with a faraway look on his face.

“What’s up?” Keith said.

All at once, the look was gone and his dad looked back at him with a small smile. “I think this storm is passing us by.”

He was right. The winds were calming down now. Keith shuffled in place on the bike and strained to reach the pedals. He could only just about reach.

“You’ll like flying that thing, Keith.”

Keith glanced over at his dad and saw a trace of that look again. It looked familiar to him now he realised. He swallowed and nodded, his throat very dry.

“I have a feeling you’ll be a natural pilot,” his dad continued, and Keith raised his eyebrows.

“Pilot? You mean like an actual craft that lifts more than a few feet off the ground?”

“It’s in your blood.”

Keith’s heart was thumping wildly in his chest, making it harder to breathe.

“Were you a pilot?” he said without thinking. Since his early retirement, his dad had been oddly cagey about the exact specifications that his job had entailed.

His dad shook his head, chuckling. “Nah,” he said softly. “I was never any good at that. Not that it stopped me trying of course.”

“Was mom a pilot?”

His dad fell silent at that. Keith bit down on his already bitten lip, breaking through the skin. The winds had fallen almost completely still now and Keith found himself longing for them to howl in his ears once more. Pulling a face at the sharp tang of blood he could now taste in his mouth, Keith sucked in his bottom lip as he looked at his dad. He was gazing up at the sky once more. Keith took a breath.

“Dad, I’m s—”

“She was,” his dad interrupted, looking down at the hover-bike and swiping idly at the dust. “In a sense.”

Keith stared at him.

“O-oh.”

He felt oddly breathless. The missing storm now seemed to have relocated in his head. It whirled around in a nauseating mess of questions—ones that he’d had for years, but never dared ask. He pushed them down, tightening his grip on the handlebars of the bike.

“I think I’d like to fly,” he whispered into the remaining breeze. He stared ahead towards the horizon where the dust had cleared to reveal the scarlet of the setting sun. The sight set his heart racing again. He then felt what he thought was the wind ruffling his hair, but then heard his dad sighing wearily and could feel the heat of his palm against the back of his head as he brushed his hair softly.

“I’ve got something to give you,” he said, and Keith perked up at the rekindled warmth he heard in his voice.

“More junk?” he said with a smirk. “But I’m already enjoying the last piece of junk you gave me.”

His dad rolled his eyes at him and gave the back of his hair a playful tug. Playful, but still hard enough to sting a little.

“Hey!”

“You need to get that cut,” his dad mumbled. “No, it’s not more junk. It’s… more special than that.”

It’s not hard to be “more special” than junk, Keith thought, but bit his tongue at the serious look that had come over his dad’s face.

“I was going to wait until your birthday tomorrow but…” He trailed off, and instead rummaged around in his jacket. Keith watched, wide-eyed as his dad pulled out a small bundle of linen.

“What is it?”

His dad began to unwrap it and Keith noticed with a small jolt of his heart that his dad’s hands were trembling slightly.

Was he... afraid? What of?

He’d never seen his dad afraid before. The idea made him feel slightly sick. What was this thing?

The object blinded him as it caught the last rays of starlight. Keith blinked as his vision readjusted.

A knife.

No—Keith squinted at it harder—a dagger? His dad let the linens fall to the ground and held the blade in his palms out towards Keith.

“This is for you.”

Keith frowned down at the blade with a million and one questions on the tip of his tongue once more. He could feel his dad’s eyes boring into him, waiting. Keith opened his mouth.

“W-why?” he forced out, not knowing himself what exactly he meant by it.

His dad answered him anyway. “Because it belongs to you now.”

And Keith had no idea what to say to that. Wordlessly, he held out his hand, palm up and shaking, and let his dad place the hilt into it. As he wrapped his fingers around it, he let out a small gasp of surprise at how cold it was—much colder than it ought to be in the heat of desert and having been concealed inside his dad’s jacket all day. And it was heavy. Heavier than it looked.

“But why do you want me to have your knife?” Keith said softly, examining the hilt and the length of the blade tentatively with his fingertips. Not a single blemish marred it and something about the gleam of its surface felt... wrong. He shivered.

“It wasn’t mine.”

Keith looked back at him, startled. His dad turned away, rubbing the back of his neck. When he next spoke his voice was strained, as though he were speaking with the weight of a mountain pressing down on his chest.

“It was your mother’s.”

Keith’s hands shook again and he held the blade tighter. It somehow felt even denser now. His arm was aching from the weight of it.

“Mom’s?” he whispered and his dad nodded at him a strange expression on his face that wasn’t quite a smile and left Keith’s mind reeling.

“I’ll tell you more about it when you’re old enough, but for now, you should have it.”

Keith smirked a little at that. “Old enough for you to give me a weapon, but not old enough for you to tell me where it came from?”

His dad let out a small, breathless laugh that eased the tension that had been wound tight in the lines on his face and the breadth of his shoulders. “Something like that.” He bent down to pick up the fallen linen rags and Keith watched in silence as he took the knife back from him and bundling it up again. With a firm grip on his wrist, he took hold of Keith’s hand and placed the blade into his palm, wrapping Keith’s fingers around it.

“Look after it,” he said, squeezing his clenched fist. His gaze was more sincere than Keith had seen it in a long time. “Look after it and don’t use it unless you absolutely have to. I will teach you how to handle a knife properly and safely, but you are not to use it without me there to supervise. Understand?”

Keith nodded, tight-lipped. “Y-yeah I get it.”

There was so much more to what he dad was telling him. He knew that. But he knew also not to ask. His dad’s hands were warm on his and he looked up at him to see that he was smiling again. The red-orange light of the dying sun lit up his face and Keith’s heart surged with affection. Then his dad let go, gesturing towards the bike.

“So… the moment of truth. You gonna give it a go? Can you reach the pedals okay?”

Keith scoffed and tucked the knife away into his jacket, flushing.

“I’m not that short,” he muttered and took hold of the handlebars.

His dad chuckled and patted him on the shoulder before taking a few steps back. “Now ease that up gently,” he said, pointing to the red switch on the left handlebar. “Not too hard. Just enough so that we can see that the thrusters are both working again.”

Keith nodded and began moving his thumb up towards the switch.

“And only a foot off the ground!” his dad added. “If it gives out again and you’re too high up, you’ll send yourself flying.”

Keith grinned. “I thought flying was the point?” he said, and watched his dad’s eyes grow wide.

“Keith, don’t—!”

He thrust up the switch and savoured the electric thrill that coursed through him as the thrusters whirred into life. The resulting boom of the engines rattled his teeth, the air leaving his lungs all at once and, before he knew it, he was accelerating—

—and he was quite a lot more than a foot off the ground.

Delirious laughter bubbled out of him and his hair whipped around his face as he rocketed forward, feet feeling as though they were glued to the pedals. The heat of the desert air burned in his lungs and his eyes were watering as the wind tore past him. Keith’s stomach lurched in a way that made him light-headed and his heart had vacated his chest long ago. It was… it was…

The best feeling in the world.

“Keith!”

The faint cries of his dad filtered through the whistling of the wind in his ears and he looked over his shoulder to see him, waving his arms about wildly. He looked about eight feet below him and a good two hundred feet behind. Taking a deep breath and trying to calm the fluttering of his heart, Keith decelerated and turned the bike around. His watched, palms sweating as his dad ran to meet him on the descent. Powering down the thrusters, a weight settled in the pit Keith’s stomach along with the dust on the ground when he saw the pained look on his dad’s face.

“Dad, I—”

His dad pulled him off the bike and into a bone-crushing embrace before he could finish. Keith closed his eyes and clutched him back. The comforting, deep rumble of his dad’s voice through his chest reverberated through him as he spoke.

“Kid,” he said breathlessly into the top of his head. “You’re a menace.” He gripped Keith’s hair tight in his fingers and planted a harsh kiss to his crown. “And an idiot. Don’t do that again. Please.”

Keith buried his face further into his dad’s jacket, eyes burning. “No promises,” he mumbled, trying to stop his voice from wavering.

“Keith…”

“Alright, I promise.”

“Good, because I was—”

“Scared I was gonna fall?” He could hear the rapid beating of his dad’s heart and the air entering and leaving his lungs in a large sigh.

“That and I thought for a moment you were gonna take off and leave me behind.”

Keith wanted to laugh at that. The idea sounded ludicrous to him. He’d expected his dad to start laughing too, but when the laugh never came, Keith glanced up at him. There was a startling seriousness in his dad’s eyes that made his heart sink.

He really believed it?

Keith felt his eyes start to sting again.

Why would I ever leave you?

Keith dug his fingernails into his dad’s shoulders from the force of his hug.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I promise I am, but—” Guilt stirred in his stomach. “But it was…”

“Fun, right?”

Keith pulled back and looked up at him cautiously, but he was smiling down at him.

“Amazing,” Keith blurted out, grinning so hard his face hurt, “It was amazing.”

Finally letting go of him with a ruffle of his hair, his dad leant back against the bike with an air of utmost smugness. “There you go. What did I tell you?” he said, running a hand appreciatively over the now much less dusty bodywork of the vehicle. “A little bit of patience and effort is all it needed.”

Keith looked back at the bike with a soft smile. “Yeah. You were right I guess,” he said, and began helping his dad throw a dust sheet over the bike.

“Always am.”

Keith shoved him playfully as his dad laughed and they made their way back inside the house together, the presence of the knife in Keith’s jacket barely weighing him down.

As they ate dinner, Keith couldn't help but keep glancing out the window, straining to see the edge of the dust sheet that blew slowly in the breeze just out of view. He clenched and unclenched his hands, fingers itching to grab onto something.

“Admiring your trash?”

Keith leant his chin on his hands to hide his pout, refusing to meet his dad’s eyes across the table. He didn’t need to look to know that he had a self-satisfied grin on his face.

“It’s not trash,” Keith muttered into his palm.

“So you’ve finally conceded.”

Keith shrugged, still not looking at him.

“We’ll take it out for a spin tomorrow," his dad said. “For your birthday.”

Finally looking up, Keith regarded him with hopeful eyes. “Really?”

“Sure. It’s your birthday after all. Just, ah, take it easy this time okay?”

“I promise,” Keith pulled his hand away from his mouth, “and… thanks. For the gift. I love it.”

I loved them both.

His dad smiled, saying nothing. Keith felt instinctively for the comforting weight of the knife inside his jacket, pressed up against his chest. It didn’t feel that cold anymore.

“It’s an important skill to have, Keith,” his dad said, pulling him back from his faraway thoughts. His voice was serious again. “Problem solving. And not just to fix things. It could save your life one day. Or someone else’s. I mean it.”

He was staring out the window, staring past the porch, past the bike and past over the horizon, past anything Keith could ever see or understand. But maybe he wasn’t supposed to. Not yet.

“Sure, dad,” he said, and he meant it.

They sat in the quiet together and Keith traced the lines of his father’s face with his eyes as the sunset died on his skin.

***

Red’s growls in Keith’s mind were becoming increasingly more panicked. Head aching from the strain, Keith scanned his eyes over and over the nonsensical mass of code on Red’s console, trying fruitlessly to calm his frantic heart.

“Coran? What will happen if we can’t find the fault? What will happen to her?” His voice came out steady, but only with great effort. The red light of the cockpit had starting flickering ominously. It bounced off Coran’s face in way that made his fraught expression verge on deranged.

“I don’t really want to think about it,” Coran answered in a voice that was higher-pitched than normal. He tried again to execute the automatic debugging program to no avail. The amount of sweat on his brow almost fooled Keith into thinking that Coran had contracted a case of the slipperies again.

“If your debugging program won’t work, then we should call Pidge—”

“You can find it, Keith. It’s only a few hundred lines of code.”

Only...

“You’ll find it faster than it will take her to get down here.”

If I even knew what to look for.

Keith winced as pain flashed behind the back of his eyes. He was sensing Red’s pain now, and for the first time, she wasn’t attempting to hide it from him.

… or maybe she couldn’t.

He gritted his teeth and plunged on. Coran was right. This was his lion. Red was his responsibility. He wouldn’t always be able to rely on others to help. What if this kind of thing happened again and they were stranded alone? He would need to know what to do, how to help her. He had to. He had to, he—

He stopped reading and stared down at an equation that, for some reason, didn’t looked like complete gibberish to him.

Where had he seen this before?

And then it hit him. At the Garrison. In Mr. York’s classes. Keith traced the glowing symbols on the screen. Something about making something… normal? Normalise? Keith tried desperately to think back to his lectures on quantum mechanics. He’d passed that class only by the skin of his teeth and a lot of help from Shiro. He’d never really understood it but—

“Coran?” he called out, “I think I’ve found it.”

The equation looked different to how he remembered. He was sure of it.

Coran hastened towards him and looked down at where Keith was pointing on the console.

“How do I change the code to make this equation equal to one and not infinity?” Keith said in a rush, groaning again as Red’s mind burned in pain against his.

Coran tapped at the equation on the screen and gestured for Keith to place his hand on the glowing rectangle once more. “Concentrate on what you need to change and she’ll hear you,” he said, “If not, then we’ll have to do a manual bypass.”

“I’ve got it.”

Keith slammed his hand down on the console. His mind collided with Red’s and they span together in a brilliant light. She was moving so fast.

He had to catch her.

They fell together and he held her close.

I’ve got you.

When the world righted itself, he sucked in a huge, heaving lungfull of air, his heart lodged somewhere in his throat.

“Keith? Keith are you alright?”

Coran’s hand was on his shoulder, but Keith barely noticed, staring instead at the code on the screen on front of him. The value now read as one. He let out a breathless laugh of relief and sagged in his chair. Breathing heavily he gazed up at the no longer flickering red lights around him before closing his eyes with a smile. Red’s purrs enveloped him in warmth.

I saved YOU this time, Red. How about that?

***

“You did well back there,” Coran said as they made their way down Red’s walkway. “In fact, I think your efforts deserve a special paladin lunch!”

Keith turned his head to hide his distaste. “Thanks,” he said weakly, and they walked together down the long stretch of corridor that lead away from the hangar and towards the Castle’s main deck.

“I mean that.” Coran was smiling at him warmly. “I’m proud of you. You’ve all come a long way as paladins. Being a paladin of Voltron is not something to be taken lightly. You all have a legacy to uphold after all.”

Keith watched him carefully, his heart thumping as he remembered what he had asked Coran before.

Did a Galra pilot the Blue lion too?

“You see,” Coran continued, “the Red lion isn’t so much yours, but was passed down to you—”

Keith reached down and felt for the comforting coolness of his blade.

“—like an heirloom in a way. An heirloom of pilots long past.”

Coran’s voice had gone quieter, more somber and the look on his face made Keith’s heart clench. It was the same look. The one he always saw on his father’s face.

The one he wore when he thought of Keith’s mother.

Keith’s hands trembled and he clung on to the hilt at his hip. Was she out there still? Fighting for the Blade? Fighting against Zarkon like they were? He and Coran had slowed to a stop in their walking for a few moments now and Keith turned to him. There were an infinite amount of questions he wanted to ask, but not even one could force its way out of him. Coran reached out and put a hand on his arm.

“Look after her,” he said. “You’re duty bound to protect her now. Protect each other.”

Keith gave him a firm nod, heart blazing. “I will… and, um, thanks. For your help with Red I mean.”

Coran smiled. “Anytime,” he said with a small wave, and Keith watched him walk away—

Did a Galra pilot the Blue lion too?

—and the moment was lost.

Keith started making his way back to his room by himself, morose and lost in thought. It was then that a strange sense overcame him, a familiar energy that he’d sensed before all that time ago. The desert heat burned dry in his mouth again.

He was outside the corridor that led to Blue’s hangar. Red purred alongside him and Keith found himself smiling.

Maybe it was okay. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to know it all right now. Not yet. Keith unsheathed his blade and felt it awaken in his hand.

He had a legacy to uphold first.