Don't Forget About Me (Previously, Keith Isn't Dead)

Chapter 3

But it still hurt, and Keith looked up- only just aware of the fact that he had bowed his head and shut his eyes- to see the vastness of space surrounding him. Not a lion in sight. And he drifted there for what could have been hours or days. Completely and utterly alone.

*

When he next cracked his eyes open, artificial sunlight was filtering in from above, peaceful and delicate. 

It only took him seconds (and a quick peek around the room) to convince Keith that he had not, in fact, been left to rot in space, but had been dreaming. 

Stupid.

He sat up, running a hand down his face and looking around the room. Pidge was still sound asleep, curled up like a cat in front of the television, controller inches from her hand. Hunk was sprawled out on one of the couches, snoring softly and clutching a cushion to his chest. 

Lance, well, Lance was awake. 

"Morning, mullet." 

Keith found it a little more difficult than usual to reciprocate the lopsided grin. He settled for a quick half-smile and a gruff, "Hey."

Lance's brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to ask Keith what was on his mind, but the question was left unheard as Hunk let out a particularly loud snore and promptly woke himself up. 

"hnng- Huh? What? Oh, morning guys." He stretched, his cushion falling into Keith's lap. "Breakfast?"

*

As though he took the dream as a sign of foreshadowing his fate, Keith distanced himself from the others as the days passed by. He was now on the fourth day of his visit and wasn't planning on having a fifth. 

It wasn't like he wasn't enjoying himself. In fact, he had had more fun in the past few days than he'd had in all of his time with the Blade. He mostly blamed Lance. He was the one to drag Keith out of his room to play a new video game or spar when the Blade member retreated to his room for too long. On this particular day, Keith found himself in Hunk and Pidge's lab, Lance having pulled him inside a few hours previously.

The two boys were playing with Pidge's trash buddies while she and Hunk worked on upgrades for Green and Yellow.

Allura's voice ringing over the announcements interrupted Keith and Lance's competition to see whose trash puff would fall over first.

"Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and Lance, please report to the conference room."

Lance shot Keith an apologetic look. "I'm sure it won't take long, we'll see you soon!"

They stood and left, and Lance called out, "Count it if Plopper falls over! It'll still count even if I'm not there!" before Keith was left alone with nothing but the whirrings of Hunk and Pidge's machines. 

Good a time as any for him to pack up, he supposed, carefully putting the trash buddies back into their cage. 

He left the lab, trying to convince himself he just took a break from the others, not that he was forced to via blatent lack of inclusion.

* 

"Paladins."

They all settled in their seats, clearly curious as to why a meeting was called. Allura, catching on, got straight to the point.

"I'm aware that I am currently the paladin of the Blue lion, but I sense that I won't be able to hold such a position much longer."

Shiro was the first to respond, "What?"

There was a clamour of concerned, "Are you okay's" and "what's wrong's" before Allura held up a hand and the room went silent. 

"I simply mean that my connection with Blue seems to be waning. Lance, I assume you are in a similar situation?" 

The paladin in question went slightly red in the face. "Well, yeah- but I didn't want to say anything,"

"It's Keith, isn't it?" 

They turned to Pidge, who shrank back slightly from the attention. She nudged her glasses up her face, "Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? Keith's back and maybe Red's warming up to him again."

Allura nodded. "Precisely."

A short silence followed as the group turned the information over in their heads. 

"So..." Lance started, trying not to sound too hopeful, "What does this mean? Why'd you call a meeting, Allura?"

She took a deep, resigned breath. "I've given this much thought. I'm happy to have been given the opportunity to pilot a lion and be a paladin, but, I never expected this to be a permanent position. I am- willing to step down should Keith agree to join the team once more."

Lance sat up a little straighter, glancing at his friends with a small grin. Hunk was the first to speak, offering up that, "If you're alright with it Allura, I think the next step is to fill Keith in and, y'know, ask him."

With a nod from the Altean princess, they all stood, only to stumble more or less back into their seats as the castle gave an odd jerk.

"What the hell was that?" Shiro exclaimed, looking to Allura. The question was answered as another tremor went through the giant spacecraft, accompanied by a hurried announcement from Coran.

"Galra ship under a cloaking device! Attack positions 4A! I repeat, attack positions 4A!"

*

Keith, hearing the announcement, abandoned his bag of personal items he'd been packing, running through the hallways in the direction of the hanger. 

The paladins met up with him halfway there.

"Keith! Take out the jets, they won't suspect one of their own attacking them! We'll take the main ships!" Allura instructed, and he nodded before jumping into his stolen jet, mouth unusually dry as the hanger opened and they flew into the void of space.

The fight was relatively quick. The team formed Voltron and simply sliced the ship in half once there wasn't as large of a swarm of fighter jets attacking them. Keith flew closer to the giant form as the universe settled down from the explosion.

Hunk was the one to break the silence. "Is everyone okay?" After receiving affirmation from his team, Shiro told everyone to report back to the castle. But something caught Keith's eye.

"Wait! What is that?" His voice crackled over the comms. Lance followed what he imagined was Keith's line of sight. At first, he saw nothing, but then a few stars seemed to shimmer uncannily. It was just slightly off. Suddenly Coran was screaming at them through the comms, his voice faltering in and out.

"-Another ship! Un--r cloaki--! Wormhole vorte-- is powe---- up! Get Voltron out of there! F-rst -touch it is telepor-ed-!"

The comms went dead, and a blindingly bright light began to form, followed by the loudest sound Keith had ever heard. Keith was shaking- no, his ship was shaking. There was an awful high-pitched shrieking, and before Keith could even think about it, he was shooting forward. 

"First thing it touches, first thing it touches, first thing-" he didn't even notice the mantra he was muttering, only urging his stupid little jet to go faster.

The light got brighter and the shrieking more unbearable until Keith's ship spiraled out of control and all he saw was white.

rewritten November of 2021 idk why voltron decided to worm its way into my brain again but here i am, dw im determined to make these chapters much better than they were before.