Fire and Ice

Chapter One:

Keith was shocked. Even hours after what had happened, he was shocked. Emotions of all sorts were mulling around in his chest. Hate, guilt, shame... all the negative thoughts bombarding him ever since Lance had lost consciousness. He'd watched as the team struggled to help Lance because whenever a member of the team tried to touch him, that area turned to ice. He watched as Lance's body was slowly encased in a thin sheet of ice up to his neck as his frustrated and scared friends desperately tried to help him. Keith ended up having to warm Lance and pick him up to carry him to a pod. Lance had looked so fragile in his arms and Keith tried to swallow sobs at the memory. Lance had woken up, but refused to speak to anyone or to eat. He had completely shut down and everyone was beyond worried.

"Lance please!" Pidge begged as she banged on the next door over.

Keith could hear her through his doors and sighed with guilt. He hoisted himself off his bed to plop himself next to Pidge who had taken to sitting with her legs crossed in front of her.

"Still nothing?" Keith asked.

"No," Pidge said with a sulk.

They sat in silence before Pidge cleared her throat. She looked incredibly uncomfortable and emotional and it was something that Keith had never witnessed. Of course Pidge cared about Lance, they all did, but it was really interesting to see how the loss of his presence made the team react.

"You didn't mean to hit him right?" She asked quietly.

Keith stayed silent, shifting to a laying down position to cross his elbows over his eyes.

"...Keith," She gasped and Keith didn't even want to see the look on her face.

"He's always on the defensive! I just wanted him to fight to use his powers a little bit. I mean that was the whole point of doing that exercise! He never wants to take it seriously especially when it's with me-"

"That's because he's intimidated by you!" Pidge retorted, volume escalating as she cut off his rant. "You are fire. He is ice! He doesn't use his powers near you because he's afraid he'll hurt you! Afraid he'll hurt all of us, but it might be worse for you. Not to mention, he's afraid of fire."

"Lance is afraid of me?" Keith asked with a scoff. "Yeah right."

"Just go away!" Pidge shouted, her voice cracking with emotion. "You may not care about him but I do! If you meant to hit him then you don't need to be around him!" Tears began to stream down her face as she gave way to a few sobs.

"I care about him-" Keith immediately tried to counter, feeling hurt but guilty all at once.

"Not now you don't." Pidge said coldly. "Go away Keith." She added in a whisper, shaking her head as she resumed banging on the door. Keith got up and crossed his arms, watching as the door to Lance's room slowly slid open and Pidge rushed in.

~

"Lance?" Pidge whispered as the door slid shut immediately behind her.

"Did you mean what you said?" Came the whisper. Pidge turned to see Lance, sitting on his bed. He still had the mock christmas lights set up above his bed he had found in the storage room and his sheets were ruffled and scattered throughout the bed. There was an open book beside him that Pidge recognized as hers that she had stuffed in her bag before they got kidnapped.

"Is that my book?" She decided to ask anyway.

"Yeah..." Lance shifted, looking down in shame. Pidge realized her mistake and immediately tried to stutter a redemption.

"N-no! I ah- well I just didn't notice it missing. Uh. You can borrow my stuff any time-"

"Yeah right," Lance said with a scoff as he laid down.