Lost Time

Three

Lance thought they fit together, Hunk and Pidge. Hunk was big and noticeable, but also soft and comforting, where Pidge was small and relatively easy to overlook, but his personality made him seem too big for the world. Lance hoped that they would be closer, after this. These people were people he wanted to be connected to.

Despite Pidge's earlier commands, he was letting Hunk carry the bag with his carefully packed, dismantled equipment. It wasn't hard to clear the grounds and make their way towards the area that Hunk guessed whatever that light was fell.

"Maybe it's a star," Lance mused. He knew it wouldn't be. "Maybe we'll get super powers and become heroes. Do you think-"

"That you talk too much? Only all the time, yeah."

"Wow, who fed you after midnight?"

"The same person who let you become a pilot."

"Your words hurt me." Pidge snickered beside him at that. "Seriously! I'll never recover. You'll have to make sure I stay alive while I wallow in shame."

"Drama queen."

"I'm a prince, thank you very much. Queen is too much responsibility."

"Props for honesty," Hunk mused from behind them. "You'd crash and burn as a queen."

"Hunk, I know I said I wanted you to always tell me the truth, but come on now, I wouldn't be that bad."

"Literally the only thing you've never destroyed is that bear."

"What bear?" Pidge interrupted curiously.

"The bear that is going to be my second-in-command when I take over the universe, now shush before they hear us!"

Lance paused on the ridge, staring down at the hastily constructed bubble that people wearing HAZMAT suits entered. Hunk barely had time to stop without knocking him off, so it was probably best that Pidge was in the rear, stopping only when the immovable wall of Hunk was in his way.

"Hey, Pidgeot, do you think you can computer-magic your way in there? See what's going on?"

"Computers aren't magic, they're science, but yes, I can." The shortest in their trio sat down beside a large rock, its shadow nearly obscuring him. Hunk crouched next, peering over the boulder to see as much as he could. Lance searched the landscape around them for anything to give him some sort of information as to what they were spying on, exactly.

"Pidge?" he prompted after a few minutes of quiet.

"There's someone on a table. I can't really-"

"No, please! My name is Takashi Shirogane, I was on the Kerberos Mission, please! My crew and I were abducted- listen to me!"

Pidge's fingers froze on his keyboard. His eyes behind those large, thick glasses were wide, and his mouth hung open just so. "It's Shiro," he murmured.

"Shiro? As in the pilot? I thought they were dea-" Hunk began. Lance silenced him by slapping a hand over his mouth and giving a meaningful glance towards Pidge.

"It's Shiro! That means they're alive, all of them, and they're keeping it secret!"

"That's not-"

"Lance, you want to bond, yeah? Help me get Shiro out of there. We'll create a distraction, while they're busy we go in and grab him."

"I'm all for adventure, but how do you suggest we-" Lance flinched as a line of enormous explosions appeared from the far side of the encampment. "-what was that?"

"That was a distraction! For him!" He pointed towards a rock formation closer to the entrance than they were, bringing a small figure to his attention. The air around the stranger was pale red, reminding him of-

"Keith!" He gasped, launching himself over Hunk, ignoring his best friend's gasp of surprise. He held tighter to the straps of his backpack as he did so.

"Are you sure?" Hunk called after him, and it occurred to Lance that normal people couldn't see what he could see, the soft colors, so he replied with the first thing that came to mind.

"I'd recognize that mullet anywhere!"

"Who's Keith?!" Lance heard Pidge shriek, but he wasn't listening. He couldn't let Keith one-up him again, not when he'd been forced to deal with the fact that he was only in the fighter class because Keith dropped out.

--

Inside the weird, makeshift base, Keith had already fought through what guards remained and even those weird men in coats- the sight of them made Lance shudder. Keith hadn't noticed the trio yet, instead inspecting the face of the man on the table, who wasn't wearing the typical Garrison uniform for space mission, but a series of deep purple rags. The sight of them brought to mind the nightmares he'd had featuring that very color, but seeing the man strapped to the table like some sort of experiment brought Lance to the very simple solution that he couldn't care less about that color until he'd at least helped.

"Nope! Nuh-uh, no, no no no no, I'm saving Shiro," he snapped at Keith, helping the boy lift Shiro from the table and towards the door.

"Um... Who are you?" Keith had the nerve to ask.

"The name's Lance? We were in the same class at the Garrison?"

"Oh, were you an engineer?"

"Wha- no! I'm a pilot. Fighter class now, thanks to you washing out!" Keith looked at him blankly for a moment before clearing his throat.

"Well, congratulations."

"Not that this isn't heartwarming, but you've got an unconscious guy in your arms and those officers are gonna be back, like, any minute now," Hunk whined, gesturing to the exit with a large swoop of his hand.

"Yeah, seriously, we need to go," Pidge agreed, turning on his heel and stalking down the hall. Hunk followed, adjusting Pidge's backpack as he walked. Lance huffed, but followed them wordlessly, trying to ignore the fact that Keith's presence made him as angry as it did.

Progress was relatively quick, once they'd gotten to Keith's hoverbike. While it wasn't designed to carry so many passengers, it was still fast, and as much as Lance hated to admit it, Keith was a skilled pilot. It may have taken driving straight off a cliff, but he lost their pursuers and got the entire little gang to a small shack in the middle of nowhere. By the time they'd gotten there, though, everyone was exhausted- except Shiro, who was still unconscious- so Keith gave them each a thin blanket before disappearing into a back room.

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