Chapter Text
The trip back to Earth is quiet.
Not in a bad way, which is what surprises Shiro most. And not in the sense that libraries are quiet, or rooms full of people watching the deaths of hundreds are quiet. It’s, instead, a sort of happy, satisfied peace. Of course Lance has never heard the word quiet in his life, so with him it’s more of an eager buzz, and Hunk and Pidge and Coran keep up a good-natured back-and-forth on the subject of various scientific topics.
But Keith has no problem hitting mute, closing the video screens, and looking up at Shiro like he wants nothing more than to be kissed.
And oh, does Shiro kiss him.
They keep switching off, always hovering at each other’s shoulders, and sometimes in between Keith fits himself to Shiro’s lap like he had just the day before, folding himself comfortably into the warmth of Shiro’s body as though he was always meant to slide into place there. Shiro breathes in the warm scent of his hair, tastes the corner of his smile, and his heart pounds anew in his chest every single time.
This is still fresh, still new, but he knows. This will never stop feeling like the first time he lifted off from the surface of the Earth in a spacecraft and flew .
“Does your mom hate me now?” Shiro asks, lap full of half-Galra, gut- twisting at the image of Krolia, protective and vengeful, in his brain.
But Keith laughs, something light and full. “No. Of course not.”
The answer, stated so simply, comes as a surprise to Shiro. In Krolia’s place, he would be furious. In his own place, he is furious. He’s angry at himself for causing Keith the kind of pain that he did.
“Why not?” he asks.
Keith leans in and puts his lips to the corner of Shiro’s mouth. He presses them there for a moment, and Shiro can’t help the way his chest trembles with the feel of it. For some reason, he has the urge to stay very, very still, like Keith is a butterfly that will flit away at the slightest hint of motion, but Shiro wants to feel Keith land on him forever.
But he pulls away, just far enough to speak, his breath ghosting against Shiro’s skin.
“Because she knows I love you,” he says. His eyelashes are huge and black and beautiful in Shiro’s vision. “Because she knows you were just a little bit lost, and you made a mistake.”
And, oh, Shiro feels that like a flower blooming in his gut, like the world closing in around his throat.
It’s a quiet trip to Earth.
A warm, excited, good trip.
Shiro feels better, more excited for the future than he has in a long time.
Possibly ever, he realizes, waking with a start later that night, Keith curled, dozing safe and comfortable against his chest. When in his life has he ever been not been sick, not been in captivity, not been a major player in an intergalactic war, not been bowed under the weight of his depression, not been imprisoned in a split-level home with a ring around his finger serving as a shackle?
Right now, Takashi Shirogane.
Across the table in the Olkari-style diner, Lance’s eyes fill with tears. He’s still grinning, so Shiro’s immediate panic response is tempered.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Lance jerks his head towards where Shiro’s hand is resting palm-up on the table, where Keith’s fingers are tracing lightly against his own. It’s such a natural, easy interaction that Shiro had barely noticed it was happening. Neither had Keith, if the way he jerks away, eyebrows lowered, is any indication.
“I just can’t wait to have that again,” Lance says.
Shiro smiles, gentle and still, and takes his hand off the table in order to find Keith’s again in his lap and squeeze it. He can’t wait for Lance to have that either.
In the blink of an eye, the Sun is the closest star. Shiro gazes upon Kerberos as they pass. It should probably fill him with some sort of instinctive distaste but somehow, he can’t regret where the events of that day have brought him, despite all the long, agonizing years.
He feels joy when he sees Earth. Not because it’s home but because it marks a goal. Because it may mark his reunion with an old friend. Because, at the very least, he will be able to pull Keith by the hand into his small bunk in the Garrison housing and keep him there until one or both of them get tired of being pressed against each other between the sheets. And there’s no indication of how long that will take.
But first things first.
“Still got a read on her?” Keith asks Lance.
Lance, who must be buzzing so hard that Shiro can almost see it. Shiro can tell it’s taking all of his self-control not to rush forward towards the blue planet, leaving all of them on this side of the asteroid belt.
But he’s not going to leave his team behind. Not even when something so precious is at the end of his trajectory. He’s going with them so that they can all meet her together, as one team. Shiro keeps the Red Lion’s hindpaws in his vision as he considers the thought of that. Of all of them, separated by the tragic end of a war and the resulting tumult, reunited as a team by the woman who first brought them together in the first place.
Well, not just by her. Also by Pidge, the girl who had, according to later retellings Shiro had heard of that fateful night, first began to piece together the ideas of Voltron. Also by Lance and Hunk, who had gone out to find her. Also by Keith, the linchpin of all of this, of everything.
Where would the universe, where would Shiro , even be without Keith?
Shiro can’t help but slide his hand up from Keith’s shoulder to the back of his neck, cupping the smooth skin there under the shaggy fringe of his unkempt hair.
The Garrison hails them.
“Don’t bother answering,” Shiro says, because he’s tired of it. Of the bureaucracy and people telling him no. It’s not like the Garrison can keep them off anyway. The only craft they have capable of fending off Voltron is permanently grounded, and its retired Captain is currently approaching the planet at well over the speed of sound on what could be considered an alien warship.
Shiro does have landing codes. But fuck that.
The other Paladins seem to be as tickled by the idea as he is, at least until Lance’s, “Ugh, Veronica’s got me on my personal line,” and they overhear half of a rushed conversation between them before Lance hangs up on her, having only given her a fraction of the facts and a vehement order to not rally the MFEs.
They’re on a straight trajectory for the desert, anyway. A home that the Blue Lion had once known. They’ll have to deal with the Garrison soon enough.
When Shiro looks up at Lance again, as they’re burning through the atmosphere, his stomach swoops.
He’s not the only one who’s noticed. “Lance, you’re glowing again!” Hunk says, mouth stretched into a grin.
“We’re almost on her,” Lance replies. He’s got tension in every muscle, he’s got strain in every line of his face, but he’s smiling, smiling with determination flashing in his blue eyes lit by the shine of some kind of Altean magic that Shiro will never even begin to comprehend.
The four Lions and single pod streak through the sky towards the Earth, following some unseen trail that only Lance knows. But they’re all aware now of what lies at the end of it. Shiro can feel himself thrumming with it too now. There’s no visual of her, of the Blue Lion, but he can feel that pull, the same as when Voltron’s energy begins to knit the five separate pilots, the five separate lions, together into one single, powerful being. That magnetism is here, electricity sparking between all of them, and it’s only a matter of time before the proximity snaps them together.
“Where is she?” Pidge asks as they begin to break into the sparse cloud cover that hangs high over the desert sands.
“She must still be outside of this reality,” Keith says. “You all can feel her, right?”
“Yeah,” Lance says. “We’ve got to call her over here.”
“Everybody, pull!” Shiro says, and lends his strength.
For the first time, with everyone focusing together, he brushes against a presence that’s similar to the Blue Lion’s, in the same location, but wholly separate. It’s like a fresh breeze across a field of flowers, and it catches Shiro so off-guard for a second that he nearly flinches back and loses his focus. But instead he sinks his fingertips into it, grips and helps the other tug it towards them.
For the first time, he feels Allura, and he’s not going to let her get away.
Shiro hasn’t forgotten that Allura saved him.
Not just once either, but a hundred million different times, though some instances in particular stand out to him. Like the time she managed to remove his consciousness from the Black Lion and implant him in the clone body. They had existed in the same presence for a moment at that time, and though Shiro can’t remember specifics as a beingless entity, resurrected from the dead, he does remember the warmth of her, cradling him to her in order to return him to himself.
The absolute least he can do right now is give her his all in trying to call her back to them. In fact, he has no idea why he didn’t make the attempt any sooner.
So he grits his teeth. Buckles down. And channels his focus into her.
It reaches, but nothing gives.
The streams of their mental power break and splinter off as the pilots have to focus their energy into flying and not colliding with the desert’s surface below. They swoop and fall back into a neat, practiced formation beside the Black Lion, as though not a single day has passed since the last time they ran a drill. Under different circumstances, it would be breathtaking, but right now Shiro is more concerned about the presence he’d mentally brushed against than anything else.
“Are you calling the Blue Lion, Lance?” Pidge asks pointedly.
“I am!” he shouts. “Are you guys helping me?”
There’s no point in even bothering asking. They can all feel each other, and Shiro knows it. They’re all joined at the head, at the heart. They know exactly how much of themselves they’re pouring into this.
But they still haven’t managed to pull her back yet.
They all take a silent moment just to breathe, to fan out over the desert’s surface. Shiro’s heart is battering against the inside of his ribcage, anxiety rising in him like fast-growing vines. What if they miss her? What if she keeps going? What if she disappears from their grasp forever? If this is their last chance, if this is the end, if they’re going to lose her again—
“We have to form Voltron!” Lance says.
“What?” Keith says.
“We have to form Voltron!” Lance repeats, more insistent, eyes burning with a determination that rivals the brightness of his cheeks.
“But we don’t have the Blue Lion!” Hunk says.
Lance banks hard, narrowly avoiding one of the outcroppings of rock that are beginning to tower all around them. “Exactly! It’ll pull her in towards us.”
It makes sense. The power that forms Voltron is strong enough to break through the boundaries of anything. Space-time is weak against it. In theory, it should pull the Blue Lion from anywhere, without problem. In theory. In practice, Shiro doesn’t know what could happen. If this could cause tears in reality or other horrific side effects the likes of which they’ve unfortunately experienced before. If this could possibly harm the Blue Lion in the process, or Allura, or all of them.
“Is this a good idea?” he asks, feeling that old sudden nausea.
“It’s our only idea,” Lance fires back easy.
Shiro looks down at Keith, and Keith, sensing him, takes a second to remove his eyes from the landscape ahead and looks back.
“It’s worth a shot, right?” he says.
It is. Allura, the Blue Lion, Voltron. Shiro’s faith in his team. It’s worth a shot.
Shiro clamps a hand down on Keith’s shoulder, lending him his strength, feeling all their interconnected relationships flowing through him, and Keith falls into place next to the Red Lion easy. The Green Lion edges up on their other side, and the Yellow Lion beyond her.
“Alright, let’s do it,” Keith replies, and sits up straighter in his chair. “ Form Voltron !”
The process of turning five separate entities into one giant being is indescribable in sensation, and Shiro had somehow forgotten how utterly core-shaking it is. There’s always a moment in the middle where he loses his sense of existence as an independent individual. It feels like existing as pure energy, pure force, pure drive, and focusing to come together as one. Like powering up the Atlas, it rushes around his head with overwhelming power, but he feels himself mingling with Keith, with Lance, with Pidge and Hunk, and yes, yes , with Allura.
The mechanics whir and slide together and click and lock into place. Enormous machinery folds itself over and fits together. It happens in a flash, quicker than Shiro can count, but long enough for him to bask in the feeling.
When the movement stops, Shiro opens the eyes that he hadn’t even realized he closed.
They land heavy in the desert, the sand kicking up in thick clouds around their massive presence.
Here, from the top of Voltron, the Black Lion towers high above the ground.
“Did we—?” Pidge says breathlessly.
Shiro can’t see anything from here except the desert before them, but he knows if Voltron exists, if Voltron is here now, that can only mean that the five Lions have come together. But more than that, he knows this energy surging through him. He knows who it’s coming from.
“Allura?” he says tentatively.
Keith slams a button on the console, but nothing comes up.
“Her comms are dead,” he says, and panic rises in Shiro again.
“The Blue Lion’s offline,” Pidge affirms.
Choked by his own fear of what that could mean, Shiro leans forward and tightens his hold on Keith’s shoulder. Have they come this far only to discover the worst? Is this really what was waiting for them at the end of all this?
“Separate!” Lance says, something harsh and tearing in his voice. “Everyone separate! Separate now!”
He doesn’t have to say it again. The Lions pull apart, and by the time Keith has banked back around to see what’s going on, the Red Lion has landed haphazardly in the sand. The Blue Lion before it is splayed lifeless against the ground, unresponsive and dull-eyed.
Keith sets the Black Lion down nearby, and silently reaches up to take Shiro’s hand in his own while the Green and Yellow Lions and Coran in the pod settle beside them. They watch in quiet stillness as Lance stumbles through the sand towards the Blue Lion’s muzzle, cracked unnaturally open against the desert floor.
Then, there’s silence.
The seconds tick by, and Shiro has forgotten how to breathe. He questions the logic of letting Lance go in alone, and wonders if maybe he should’ve gone in first, seen what needed to be seen, been there for Lance to soften the blow. But at the same time he’s aware that this is Lance’s journey, his goal, more meaningful to him than any of the rest of the Paladins, as deeply as they care.
Lance doesn’t even have a suit on with comms they could call right now, but that might be a blessing. If he needs time to mourn inside of there, Shiro doesn’t want them interrupting. But that leads to more questions. How much time do they allow before they go in for him? Do they leave him alone? Do they show their support?
Chest caved in under his disappointment, Shiro is about to turn to Keith and ask his opinion, when a staticky crackle sounds over the comms system.
It’s sound only. No visual feed. It comes out with feedback and interference and is altogether unclear. But the display on Black’s dash says it’s from the Blue Lion. And Lance’s voice comes through in fuzzy bits and pieces.
“I’ve got her!” he shouts, laughter loud in his voice. “I’ve got her! I’ve got her !”
“Lance!” Hunk says, echoed by the others, all waiting for some kind of visual, some explanation.
They don’t have to wait for very long. In the swirling desert sands, the Blue Lion’s mouth opens, and a bright glow is emitted from within, blocking all view of what’s inside. Shiro squints into it, trying to see if he can make anything out at all, anything that will tell him if their mission has ultimately been a success or a failure. For a long moment, he sees nothing.
But then, a silhouette. Dark against the blinding light glowing from within the Lion, Lance steps forward towards the gangplank. There’s a dark shape, something—some one —stretched between the support of his arms. Shiro blinks to try and make them out better, to see what’s going on, to find the answers he needs.
The glow fades, and finally, finally , he can make Lance out.
Lance is beaming, smiling harder than Shiro has ever seen him, tears streaming incessantly down his face. And held against his chest, gently resting in the cradle of his arms, is a beautiful, strong, incredible woman, sleeping peacefully.
Shiro blinks.
He’s never going to doubt Keith. Never, not ever again.
“I don’t understand. What is the correlation between us tapping on our glasses and the two of them kissing?”
“Uh.” Lance looks up from his plate, where he’s been struggling with properly divesting his meal of its bones. In his defense, it is a little difficult. Earth fauna has so many interesting skeletal structures. “I don’t know, actually? It’s just something we do.”
Chances are, Pidge or Hunk know. Later, maybe, she’ll get an answer from them to sate her curiosity, but for now it’s not pressing enough to interrupt Hunk where he’s fretting outside the door to the kitchen. Technically he’s not in charge of catering this evening, since Keith and Shiro had specifically asked him to relax and have fun as a member of their wedding party, but all the recipes are his and he handpicked the staff from among his own employees. Pidge is eating, but she’s seated down on the other side of the table, as this time around she was considered part of Shiro’s party and not Keith’s. Last time, they were switched.
This is the third wedding. Keith had protested, of course. One was enough, he said. Zero was enough. He was just happy with the knowledge that Shiro had finally picked him. Marriage isn’t all-powerful or binding in any emotional way. It’s nothing but some financial agreements and some words on a paper and a too-expensive ceremony, he said.
Despite that, Keith had cried the first time, when Coran had first pronounced them married on the bridge of the Atlas, in open space, surrounded only by the other Paladins and Keith’s family. His cheeks had still been wet the second time, at the official Galran bonding ceremony the Blade of Marmora had hosted for them. And earlier today, his eyes had shone with a joyful glossiness as he’d looked up and seen Shiro down the aisle in his well-tailored suit.
Right now, too, it looks as though he’s having a good time. He’s smiling, which has been an increasingly common expression for him. In between bites of what Lance, with an excited mouth full of food, had called “Hunk’s fucking amazing mashed potatoes,” Keith takes sips of his bubbling Earth alcohol and leans against Shiro’s side. They chat freely with the guests who have risen from their seats to approach the happy couple with their well-wishes.
“I don’t think it’s flashy enough,” Lance says for the fifth time. “We’re going to have ice sculptures at ours, right? We can use Blue to make them.”
Allura plucks her linen napkin off her lap. She reaches forward with the edge of it to wipe a stray splattering of sauce from the corner of Lance’s mouth.
“That sounds lovely,” she replies, trying not to blush.
It’s not the first time the concept of their wedding has casually come up in conversation. It’s not going to be the last. And she doesn’t think she’s ever going to stop feeling strangely floaty about it.
His hand finds hers in her lap, and that, too, has her pulse jumping. For all the memory of being gone that she doesn’t have, sometimes it feels as though her body is trying to make up for that lost time with the intensity of how it feels things. Especially when it comes to Lance.
He’s older now. He looks tired in a lot of ways, somehow more than she would’ve imagined for the few decaphoebs that she was gone for. There are certain lines on his face that she thinks he’s far too young to have, based on the aging of other Earthlings around them. She knows that not even the war did this to him. It was whatever came after. And the guilt she feels about it never fails to make her pause.
Allura has spent the past several months readjusting to a world that went on without her. She knows that she did the right thing, doing what she did, because none of this would exist if not for that. They wouldn’t be here, gathered at this wedding. Her hand wouldn’t be clutched in Lance’s. But she’s aware that she caused all her friends a great deal of pain in the process. Lance especially.
When she first awoke, he was there. And he was also there when she was trying to get reoriented with having a physical existence in this reality. He was there to tell her about what happened, afterward. About all the things she missed. He was there when she faced the Voltron team again for the first time. When Coran collapsed against her with heaving sobs. He was there when she tried to take her first steps, failed, and then tried again.
She’d had a fleeting fantasy, just before she’d sacrificed herself, that Lance would be able to move on from her and find happiness. It’s clear that that hadn’t happened. That it likely would never have happened. And although that saddens her to consider, and is concerning in its own way, she’s also pleased that he’s here with her now. She has no intention of leaving his side again, so it’s useless to worry about now.
It’s not too unlike the couple that they’re spending this day celebrating, after all, she thinks with a glance in their direction. Shiro has leaned close to say something in Keith’s ear. They’re both laughing.
Looking at them now, Allura can’t believe that there was ever a time when it wasn’t like this. Things were perhaps strained between them when she left, sure, but Shiro and Keith had gone to such lengths out of love for each other in the past that she had never imagined they wouldn’t quickly recover. Nothing was quite as shocking to her as hearing that while she was gone Shiro had married another man. It seems that she missed all the drama, which she can’t say that she regrets too much. Simply imagining the both of them as heartbroken as she imagines they must have been is painful enough.
“What comes next?” Allura asks as their empty plates are removed from the table by the waitstaff. People have begun standing and chatting, but Shiro and Keith have sequestered themselves off to the side, and look only at each other as Shiro fiddles with Keith’s tie.
“I think they’re going to dance now,” Lance explains. “It’s a tradition. Everyone watches them.”
“Oh!” Allura replies and claps her hands together. “That sounds lovely. Do they have something special choreographed?”
Lance laughs. “Nah. I’m hoping Keith trips.”
The lights go low, the DJ makes some announcement, and Keith doesn’t trip, not as Shiro pulls him by the hand to the middle of the dance floor. Allura knows Keith hates these kinds of public displays, but from the moment that they stop in the center of the floor and Shiro puts his hands on Keith’s waist, Keith is lost to it all. She can tell only from the look on his face that he’s completely forgotten that every eye in this vast hall is on him.
Only Shiro matters to him in this moment. Some slow song starts up in the background, its Earth rhythms and melody difficult for Allura to follow but its lyrics sweetly pleasing all the same. Keith’s arms loop around Shiro’s neck and he tilts his chin up until they share eye contact. They’re both smiling, small and gentle, but the expressions are nothing short of unmistakably joyful. With a shuffle of their feet they begin to sway in time, Shiro’s face drawing low until his forehead presses against Keith’s. Keith says something quiet. Shiro laughs. The way both their eyes are shining is visible even from all the way over here.
Allura couldn’t feel more pleased for them. This is it, she realizes. Now that not only the war is over, but the issues that beset them in its aftermath have finally cleared, this is their reward. And after all they’ve been through, it’s the one that they deserve.
Lance leans against her, drawing her attention to the bright blue of his eyes.
“You will marry me, right?” Lance asks, voice quiet and vulnerable. “Like, that’s really happening? Someday...soon?”
Allura tries to funnel her exasperation into a look, but she thinks it probably turns out more fond than anything else.
“Yes, Lance,” she says, after just a beat to watch him squirm.
His shoulders droop with a sigh of relief. “Oh. Good.”
With a smile, Allura turns back to watch Shiro and Keith sway together on the floor, and thinks about the future.
Yes. This is it. For Lance too. And for her. For Keith and for Shiro and for the rest of the Paladins and all their friends and families. The universe will always be in trouble. There will always be more to rebuild, more to save, more to fight, more to do. Tragedies will happen. Not everything will be easy. But that, too, the stars and aiding others, calls to all of them. And now that their team, their family, is restored and happy and where they belong once and for all, nothing can stop them from living the long, full, satisfying lives that they deserve to live.
This is their happy ending.