There has to be an After for Us ~ (shadam / klance)

Chapter 47 - After the After *BONUS CHAPTERS*

NOTE: This story was was established as a branch of reality from the canon reality. I didn't intend to continue it or write a sequel, but my disappointment in season 8 inspired me to write a follow up chapter... which got longer and long and now I'm going to give you at least 5 chapters. ENJOY!!

If you're regularly a vivid dreamer, one of the most jarring experiences is waking up in the morning after a completely dreamless sleep. With no sense that time has passed, you feel like you stopped existing for a while there. Everyone aboard the IVG- Atlas just had this same experience. Except none of them had been asleep.

"Whoa," said Keith, the moment that he was aware of his existence again. Everyone on the Bridge was looking as freaked out as he felt.

"What the quiznak was that?" cried Lance.

"Huh? What?" groaned Pidge, who had actually been asleep.

"We lost time," said Sam, checking his computer.

"I'm going to need a full status report," said Shiro.

"Our instruments picked up nothing," said Veronica.

"Maybe we had a collective brain fart?" offered Hunk.

"Let me rephrase," said Veronica. "Our instruments picked up literally nothing for twelve minutes so either we had a major malfunction or..."

"We stopped existing for twelve minutes!" cried Slav.

"Allura?" asked Lance.

"I'm lost for an explanation, but..." Allura's eyes went pure white like they do when she's using her Ancient One powers. "Reality feels off. Like it skipped a beat."

"Like on a record player?" said Lance.

"And... I feel... my own energy within reality. How can that be right? I didn't release my energy..."

"Oh no no no," muttered Slav, beginning to sweat. "There has been a catastrophic reality ending event on a quantum level! We literally ceased to exist! What could have caused this? Sam, what colour socks are you wearing?"

"Green," said Sam, lifting his leg so he could pull up his pant leg to show the green sock peaking out of his shoe.

"Green!" cried Slav. "Green was yesterday's lucky colour! Today it's yellow! Didn't you read this morning's sock colour email blast?"

"People don't read those," scoffed Sam. That's when all the Paladins and every Atlas crewmember present on the Bridge lifted their pant legs to show Sam their yellow socks. "I guess they do... Sorry if my socks collapsed reality."

"Yes! Which is particularly disturbing because this is the reality where everything works out 100% of the time. Now things will only work out 99.9999999999% and that missing 0.0000000001% nearly ended reality itself!"

"We need more information than this," said Keith. "If reality ended once, it can happen again. I think we should ask Mel about this one." Keith put out his hand and Kosmo trotted over.

"Mel doesn't like it when we pop into the astral plane to ask random questions," said Lance. "She said she doesn't do spoilers."

"We're not asking her what happens next this time. We're asking what just happened. I'll be right back." Keith laid his hand on Kosmo and ZAP! he was off to the Astral Plane.

"What happened?" asked Colleen, entering the Bridge with Matt in tow.

"Everything went... blank," said Matt, for lack of a better word.