Langst: One Shots

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TW: major character death
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The day of the youngest McClain's birth was a chaotic day at that. Straight out of the movies sort of thing.

The already large family sat in the bleachers of the baseball diamond, watching the middle sister, Maya, as she pitched for her team.

It was the last game of the summer, school only days away, and the timer was winding down to an end.

Mama and the other siblings, all six others, watched with apprehension. This was it.

Maya drew back her arm, perfect for a curve, and right as the ball left her fingers, the crowd went wild.

Well, the McClain section of the crowd, that was. They took up a lot of room.

And then it was heard.

"Aye, get Papa! Mama is having baby brother!" The littlest sibling, nine years old, called out.

You can pretty well assume how it went from there, dozens of kids taking off across the baseball field and people filing out of the bleachers.

Whooping and hollering, one even cried at all the commotion, scared for her Mama, but found that this was a good thing.

The baby was coming!

Baby Lance was going to be born!

Everyone was so excited. The day was partly cloudy, the sun peeking through clouds and blazing, ocean heard from miles around.

It was the perfect day.

But that's not how it would end.
No one expected what happened next.

Lance was born at 2:33 pm, with skin as blue as his eyes.

He wasn't breathing when he entered the world, not even the beautiful cry could be pulled from his lungs.

The entire day down spiraled, as the father was ushered out, the mother taken for clean up, and little Lance went directly to the ICU.

Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

He could have survived it, but the little one was born just a little too early. His excitement for life cut way too short.

Lance was born 4 pounds, 7 ounces.
He was so very small, and very skinny.

His only baby picture would be of him laying in the incubator, attached to way too many tubes and machines.

Way too many, yet too little.

Lance died at 5:03 pm.
Unable to breathe, unable to hold on.

His mother mourned, heavily.
Her little son whom she had been so excited to bring into the world, gone.

The tears shed by the siblings who would never get their little brother that they had spent months making welcoming gifts for.

The bedroom at home, all set up, would remain empty for almost two years to come.

Mama said she wouldn't have another baby after what happened to Lance. She couldn't stand the idea of losing another baby.

But a year later, came the announcement. Mama was pregnant. It was a boy.

She kept the name a secret until the day of his birth, and wouldn't even let her husband know.

He stopped trying to argue.

And months after the announcement, a little baby boy was born. Blue eyes, tanned skin, and little tufts of brown hair on his head.

The day was sunny, perfect.
The baby was delivered healthy as could be, with a bright smile and a cute little nose.

5 pounds, 3 ounces, at 3:24 pm.
July 28th would be his big day.

"Welcome to the world, mijo..." a mother said to her new baby as she stared at him with sad, yet happy eyes, knowing why he was here.

The boy would grow up, taking on the title of the replacement. He would get into trouble.

He would play tricks with his siblings and sneak around at night to search the night.

The boy always liked to go further out to sea than he was allowed, and loved to scare his mother.

He would learn to love the sky, especially the night sky. Space.

The boy with the blue eyes would make a best friend and go to school with him. Galaxy Garrison.

Soon, upon arrival, he would learn the role he had been assigned upon entering the world 16 years ago.

Replacement.

As the greater pilot in his class dropped out, the Cuban boy would merely take his place. He would take any grasp he could at being just as good an just as loved as the pilot before him.

No one talked about him at school.
No one ogled at him.
No one wanted to be his simulator buddy besides Hunk and Pidge.

And when this boy would escape that night, take a blue lion up to space with some faces he would learn to care for, it would happen again.

His hero would leave them, and as the best pilot they had took a step up, he would act as a replacement.

That's all he ever was.

This boy would be in the shadow of the First, the Better, for the rest of his life.

When his mother would look at the image that was placed above his grave, another image would be put beside it.

A baby in an incubator, with blue skin.

He was a failed replacement for the fantastic drop out. He was a failed red paladin and as a paladin in general.

He was a failed replacement of a son, lost to a desperate mother so many years ago.

Lance Charles McClain.