A Beginning, A Middle, An End

Chapter 5 - Come Back... Be Here

It had been a couple of months since the Kerberos mission had departed. In order to distract himself from missing Shiro, Keith had thrown himself into his studies. His hope was that by the time Shiro came back he would be done with his studies, he'd be graduated and somehow, someway he and Shiro would go on the next mission together.

During the time when he wasn't studying or sleeping, Shiro was the only thing he kept on thinking about. Up until now Keith hadn't known you could be homesick for a person.

Keith was on his way back to his dorm. On his way back he passed the staff room. At this time of day it was normally empty, but today instructors and cadets alike were crowding around the doorway.

Normally he wouldn't have given this any thought and would have continued on to his room, but something told him to investigate what was going on. So he did.

Keith skillfully maneuvered through the crowd until he was able to see the TV screen. The second he saw Shiro's face on the screen and he saw the news caption he felt his heart drop. The Kerberos Mission had been lost.

Suddenly nothing mattered anymore. The one person that believed him in. The one person who loved him. Was gone. Shiro was not coming home. "No," Keith whispered. "No, no, no." This wasn't happening. There was no way this was actually happening. This had to be a bad dream.

Keith slowly backed out of the room. He could feel everyone's eyes fall on him. If they hadn't known about him and Shiro, they certainly did now.

Before anyone could stop him, Keith legged it to Shiro's room. As he ran, he could feel his heart shattering. Once he reached Shiro's room he shut and locked the door.

Keith let the tears he had been fighting fall freely as he leant against the door and sunk down to the floor. He felt as if he was in a nightmare that he had no hope of escaping.

He didn't know how long he sat there. Keith's mind kept repeating everything that had happened up until that news report. The more he thought about it, the more he started to focus on one part of it. "Kerberos Mission disappears due to pilot error."

Pilot error...That couldn't be right. Shiro was the best of the best, that's why they chose him. There was no way this could be Shiro's fault. Somebody was trying to cover up what really happened out there and he needed to find out who and why.

Keith dried his eyes with the back of his hand. "Don't worry Takashi." he whispered. "I'll find out what happened. They won't get away with this."

Over the next few days, rather than focusing on his classes, Keith was focusing on how to get into the file archive.

Normally if someone was trying to get their hands on top secrets files they'd do it by hacking into the system. Even if Keith knew how to hack, he wouldn't risk it that way. The only computer that would have those files would be Commander Iverson's and before he had the chance to he'd be caught. It would be wasted effort.

Fortunately every file, including the top secrets ones, had a physical copy that was stored in the archive. All he had to do was get in without being caught. Keith was hoping that was easier than it sounded.

The archive was, more often than not, heavily guarded. However tonight there was little to no one and that was all thanks to someone who had been trying to break in the last couple of nights.

Keith looked away from the building plans he'd managed to acquire and looked to the clock on Shiro's nightstand. Thirty minutes till midnight, he should start to get ready.

Midnight was the most opportune time to go there. This was when the cameras went down for roughly an hour for scheduled maintenance.

Rather than wear his cadet uniform, it restricted his movement and would be easy to spot, he was wearing red white and black boots, a pair of black skinny jeans, a black t-shirt, a belt with two satchels, a read and white jacket, a red scarf and Shiro's fingerless gloves.