I need you //klance

Part 45

When Lance came to, the cold was still clinging onto his body too tightly for him to catch himself. 

Luckily, he didn't have to.

Strong, warm arms caught him around the torso, washing him with the familiar scent of peppermint and a flash of ginger dancing before his bleary eyes. 

Coran.

Lance relaxed into the hug, relishing Coran's relieved sigh and the way his grip tightened - as if Lance could slip away at any moment. The Altean was warm so it didn't take long for the chill in Lance's bones to seep away and his senses to slowly come back to him. It had been similar the first time he had been in a pod, the cold inevitably took away the limbs' cooperation and the senses would lay dormant as they waited for the body to warm up. 

He blinked a couple of times, letting his eyes take their time adjusting to the harsh, clinical lights of the med bay. Looking over Coran's shoulder and past the shock of ginger hair, he could make out the wide automatic door that barred his exit, the familiar sight only causing him to sink further into the embrace. 

He was home. They were safe. The others had come for them.

His fingers tingled, nerves burning in reaction to the sudden change in temperature, as he pulled away from Coran, shakily standing back on his own two feet. He took a moment to enjoy the sensation of feeling unrestrained again, able to move and contort himself however he wished. The sudden longing to jump into some yoga or a dance routine nagged at him.

Next to Coran, Allura was stood barely a foot away, watching anxiously from the side lines. He smiled to her tiredly as his gaze swept around the room again, certain he missed something. 

The two Alteans were the only ones there.

Where was Keith?

And why had Hunk and Pidge not waited for him to come out?

His smile faltered. They hadn't waited for him the previous times he had been in a pod but they had at least managed to stay in the same room. Had something happened to them?

Allura stepped forwards, smoothing a hand over him shoulder with something he couldn't quite recognise in her face. She had rarely talked to him without the formal mask she wore so to see this much emotion on her face felt uncanny. 

Was this even real?

"Lance." She squeezed his shoulder and he could feel Coran lingering at the other side of him, "I am terribly relieved you have recovered, equally relieved that we managed to recover you in time." 

Lance tried his best smile but it came out looking shaky and uncertain, "It can't be that terrible, Princess."

Allura's face scrunched up into that melancholy, concerned expression she usually reserved for Shiro and Coran, "You-" She choked on her words before stumbling on, "Your condition when we retrieved you was... distressing." Her voice hitched and Coran rubbed her shoulder, signally that he would carry on.

"You had a number of shallow incision wounds among older, more mild burns which would have been alarming to begin with -not to mention the number of older, untreated injuries I had not been made aware of - " He fixed Lance with a disapproving look and Lance tried his best to just smile it off, hoping he would forget it, "But nothing a healing pod would not be guaranteed to solve. The problem lay in your quintessence levels." Coran was looked at something past him in the middle distance, "You were suffering from near-extreme quintessence deficiency which dangerously stalled your healing process and your immune system. You were at high risk of dying from both an illness and blood loss from even such mild wounds. Your body didn't have the energy to heal itself on its own." Coran finally looked back at him, his free hand coming to rest in his hair. He took a slow breath, "The healing pods only quicken the healing process - it cannot lend you the energy to-" He stopped to breath again, gesturing at Allura, "The Princess transferred some of her quintessence to you and from there the pod managed to do the rest of the work."