Archive of Our Own ^beta

Keith sat up, his head pounding. He was in his bed, which shouldn’t feel strange, but for some reason it did. He groaned, resting his head in his hands and trying to remember why it was throbbing.

Alien banquet? That happened sometimes. They’d go to a party, because even when the universe was in constant peril it was still for some reason imperative to go to parties and put up a good face for Voltron, for the saviors of the universe.

Most of the time, these parties followed the same pattern. A group of aliens, food and drinks, music and dancing in some decadent building. Sometimes the drinks would be stronger than any of them would expect, and you’d think they’d have learned their lesson by now, but Keith knew all too well that even just one alien drink could sometimes lead to them being absolutely wasted. Keith should know, it was because of alien alcohol that he—

He blinked, his head throbbing. But no, he didn’t remember going to a party last night.

Maybe a mission?

As the thought bloomed in his head, memories reconstructed around it. He was right. It had been a mission. He could remember blaring lights, screaming. A monstrous creature exploding and the shockwave ripping through him, Red shaking all around him as he gripped the controls for dear life, feeling a distinct sense of loss.

But no, that couldn’t be right. Because they’d won. They’d returned here, to the castle, and he’d dropped into bed, exhausted.

That was it.

And his head hurt because of being tossed around in Red, obviously. Also, he probably wasn’t drinking enough water. Someone was always telling him that.

Keith squinted at his hands. Hunk, right? Or maybe it was Shiro. Yeah, Shiro would be the one telling him he had to drink more water. As if staying hydrated was the height of Keith’s concerns, he thought, shaking his head fondly.

He stood up, and just like that his headache disappeared. He’d fallen asleep in his clothes, which was classic for him, but it wasn’t like it mattered since there was no one to give him slack for it. He skipped breakfast, because he didn’t like training after he’d just eaten, and he knew there’d be food left over when he went to the kitchen later. Hunk always made extra.

Keith left his room, feeling weirdly out of place for a second. As if he were seeing the world from the wrong angle, or the wrong vantage point. Some weird sort of déjà vu, he guessed.

Being in the training room, however, put him back to sorts. There was just something about it. Something that he loved.

Sparring was one of his favorite past-times. It put him in this headspace that just felt right, like he was more focused, more aware. And it felt good, too. He loved the sense of adrenaline. The feel-good ache in his limbs after he’d worked out hard and could feel it paying off.

So Keith set up the training bots and got to work. His bayard was perfectly weighted in his grip, like an extension of his arm, and he racked up the training level to something horrendous, pushing himself harder and harder with every round.

He was sweating and panting and grinning when he slid in between the bot’s legs, swinging his sword up as he came out on the other side, slicing the thing in two right down the middle. Keith directed his grin toward the doorway, as if expecting to find someone grinning right back, and at that moment his smile faltered. It felt foreign on his face. The wrong shape. Straining at the edges.

“Level 46 defeated,” the bot announced. “Proceed to next level?”

What was wrong with him? Something felt distinctly out of place.

Who was he supposed to be grinning at?

As Keith sat there, he had the weirdest sensation come over him. As if he were supposed to be here with someone. As if his mornings weren’t supposed to be spent alone, but rather with someone at his side. Someone who would come ambling in just after Keith had finished warming up, and they would spar before Keith was dragged to breakfast, because he knew he hadn’t always gone to eat those leftovers. He used to just hold off until lunch, not realizing he was hungry for breakfast until he was already eating it.

But he knew that couldn’t be right.

After all, who would he have been sparring with?

His first instinct was to think of Shiro, but Shiro always trained at night, when he wasn’t forcing them all to train together in the middle of the day. Keith stepped in to spar with him on occasion, sure, but it wasn’t all that often.

And it wouldn’t be Hunk. Hunk spent his mornings baking, usually unwillingly assisted by Coran, curbing his mistakes and fixing their meals even as Coran was accidentally ruining them.

And God knew it couldn’t be Pidge. She was like a demon in the mornings, always the last to rise, and the thought of seeing her in the training room at this hour sent shivers racing down Keith’s spine. He could just imagine the look in her eyes. He couldn’t help thinking they would flash like when you saw a cat’s eyes in the dark. No, it definitely wouldn’t be her.

Allura didn’t train in the mornings either, Keith knew. She stuck to a rigid schedule, which meant that every morning she was referring to correspondence with their allies, replying to them and keeping them in the loop with Voltron’s plans and gaining intel from those that had eyes on the Galra’s movements. Keith had never seen her in the training room this early.

Which left—

Keith shook his head, his headache threatening to come back. No one would’ve trained with him in the morning. It was an odd thought, that someone would be here, but Keith pushed it away. He must’ve gotten more banged up in Red than he’d thought. Maybe he should’ve stayed in a healing pod overnight.

“Proceed?” the bot prompted again.

“No,” Keith told it. He felt weirdly out of it, now. And all the signs were pointing toward the fact that he should probably be taking it easy.

And so Keith headed out of the training deck to grab a bite to eat, unable to completely shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

--

It was the next day, and Keith had almost managed to forget about his weird feelings from the day before. Some rest and time spent with the team had fixed that, because they’d all been acting just as normal as usual.

Now, they were gathered in the kitchen together, chatter and laughter abundant in the large space, which felt so much smaller with all of them in it. Smaller in a good way.

It was funny, because Keith could remember when it was nothing like this, back in the beginning. They’d all stuck to themselves, except when they had to be together. The differences between them had felt almost like a gap too wide to bridge, despite the fact that they were all in this together, all apparently destined to pilot their lions and save the universe together.

But over time, that had changed. They’d started hanging out more. Had been dragged from their rooms and labs and together into one room for some “quality bonding time.”

Keith couldn’t quite remember how it’d started, but he was glad it had. There’d been a point in his life where he never would’ve expected something like this. Not the living in space and flying a robot lion, obviously, but the having friends, a family that he’d found all on his own — that too.

Hunk was baking something, because Hunk was always baking something. They’d all found their hobbies to cope with living in space and having their lives constantly in danger, and whereas Keith chose to train and train and train, and Pidge chose to invent increasingly more intricate robots, Hunk chose to cook.

It was why they were all gathered now. Keith had been passing the kitchen, and he’d found Hunk standing behind the counter, Pidge sitting on top of it and mixing a bowl of some sort of ingredients, no doubt dragged into the process by Hunk.

Keith had decided to join them, and it’d only grown from there. Shiro had stopped in to grab a bottle of water and hadn’t quite managed to leave, becoming immediately distracted from whatever it was he’d had planned by the three of them. And then Allura had been drawn in by the sound of their voices, and now she, too, was seated on one of the counters. Coran had found them because he’d smelled the cake Hunk was baking drifting down the hallways, and now all six of them were together, talking and laughing like usual.

“Aren’t you going to clean up?” Pidge said, pointing with her foot at the mixing bowl and spoon Hunk had set aside.

Hunk glanced over at them. He frowned.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I just… huh.”

“What?” Keith said, feeling weirdly attuned to the sudden shift in mood. The conversation had quieted, and they were all staring at Hunk, whose eyebrows were drawn in.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s weird, I can’t explain it.” He shook his head then with a laugh. “Forget it.”

Allura smiled, looking amused, and Coran opened his mouth to start talking again, but Keith beat him to it. “No,” he said. “What were you going to say?”

Hunk sighed, his shoulders slumping a bit. “It’s just — I felt like I needed to set them aside, you know? I thought someone was going to want to lick the spoon.”

“Gross,” said Pidge immediately, wrinkling her nose.

“That’s how you get salmonella,” Shiro added. Keith almost scoffed. And Shiro wondered why they insisted on calling him the dad of the group.

“There aren’t even eggs in it,” Hunk protested, but Shiro was shaking his head, arguing already. And Keith — he was just. Sitting there. Staring at the bowl and the spoon and thinking that Hunk was right. That… there should be someone there.

But that was ridiculous. Pidge and Shiro obviously didn’t want it, and Keith had no interest in raw batter. Coran seemed to be looking at the dishes consideringly, but not as if it was something he enjoyed and had done before. More like it was something he was considering doing for the very first time.

And that just didn’t make any sense at all.

If none of them wanted to lick the spoon, why did Keith feel like someone should? Why had Hunk set it aside automatically, as if doing so was ingrained in him?

Just like that, his odd mood was back. And after that, he couldn’t quite seem to shake it.

--

“I think you’ve had enough,” said a voice. Warm, like the touch on his arm. Keith leaned into it.

“I haven’t even had a whole glass,” Keith said, slurring. He realized then that he was swaying on his feet, and he glared at the drink in his hand. “Oh, fuck.”

Laughter. Bright and loud, enveloping him, and making Keith feel warm all over, the touch on his arm suddenly no warmer than the rest of his body. He loved that laugh.

“Oh?” said the voice, and Keith realized he’d said that out loud. He would’ve blushed, but it was hard to feel embarrassed about anything just then. He was dizzy and hot and this boy was so cute, those eyes so blue, that smile wicked and sharp but also soft and gentle. He wanted to kiss it.

“Yeah, you’ve definitely had enough,” the boy said, and Keith leaned into him further.

“Should keep my mouth shut,” Keith mumbled, closing his eyes.

“You definitely should. Hopefully you’ll forget this in the morning and won’t want to skin me alive for hearing it.”

“’Cause you don’t like me back, right?”

The hand on his arm tightened. He’d forgotten it was there.

“You don’t even know what you’re saying,” the boy said, his voice almost wistful. “You’re just drunk.”

Keith didn’t have the energy to argue. He was already losing the thread of the conversation, already feeling very much like he needed to be out of that loud, bright room and back in his bed.

Keith said the boy’s name and it tasted like cherries on his lips. Cool and sweet and delicious, so he said it again. “I love your name.”

“Let’s go, lover-boy,” said the boy Keith loved, and Keith laughed. Something about that was funny. And so, with an arm around his waist, Keith stumbled out of the palace, back to the ship, helped all the way back to his room. And when he was laying on his bed, he caught at that wrist before the boy it was connected to could leave.

“Stay,” he said, because there was nothing he wanted more than to wake up next to him. To spend the night beside him.

Keith didn’t remember his dream until shortly after dinner. They’d just wrapped up and were all about to go their separate ways when suddenly alarms were blaring, and everyone jumped to their feet.

“Let’s go!” Shiro commanded, and everyone raced to the bridge, Allura taking her spot in the center of it as the rest of them rushed to their hangars, lights already flashing outside the castle.

That was the problem with super-fast space travel. Sometimes, the Galra just happened upon them on accident, and then they were sucked into a battle without warning. Still, Keith preferred these kinds of fights as opposed to the ones that required all sorts of planning, where one mistake could put the whole mission in jeopardy.

Like this, everything was a blur, a fight that went by fast and was entirely based on instinct. Besides, there was someone better suited for missions where you had to sneak around, where there was more thought put into it, where the people you killed weren’t at random, but assigned, put down from afar through the barrel of a gun.

Except… who…?

“Keith!” Shiro shouted, and Red roared to life as Keith gripped her controls, the two of them shooting out into space.

The battle was already in full force, lasers shooting from Galra fighter ships and lions flying in between them, tearing them apart with their jaws and shooting them into dust as they flew past.

Keith charged a gun to fired, just as a throbbing pain shot through his head.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, he thought, and stared out at the battlefield again.

Shiro, flying the black lion, tearing apart a cruiser with a jaw blade. Explosions were blooming into existence behind him, seconds after he’d already flown past and was attacking elsewhere.

Hunk and Yellow, headbutting one jet into another, which slammed into another, which exploded against the side of a cruiser.

Green, Pidge piloting her and zipping between the enemy forces, taking them down with lasers from her lion’s mouth.

Black, Yellow, and Green. And Red, of course, with Keith insider her. But as Keith’s head ached, he felt this deep-seated sense of melancholy within Red, as if she, too, were missing someone. As if she, too, couldn’t quite remember.

Wrong, Keith thought. Something’s wrong.

Because the battle was going fine, sure, but couldn’t they end it faster? What did they usually do when there were this many Galra forces? Why were they all separate like this, instead of together as Voltron?

Keith stared down at his controls hard, trying to understand what he’d meant by that thought. They were already Voltron. The four of them, their lions — together they were Voltron.

So why did Keith feel like he was missing something? Something important? As if some piece of the puzzle were gone, or as if some new piece had been shoved into place, not quite fitting with the others but making it look complete enough, at first glance.

“Keith!” Shiro shouted again. “Behind you!”

Keith leaned forward on the controls, darting out of the way just before he got slammed by a fighter from behind.

“Saved your ass,” a voice laughed. His lion rushed in front of Keith, already focusing on the next enemy.

“Hardly,” Keith scoffed. “I had that guy.”

“You were running from him! Just admit I saved you.”

Keith blew up the ship on the other lion’s tail, flying through the debris to pass them. “How ‘bout you admit I saved you.”

“Can you guys stop arguing?!” Shiro interrupted. “Now’s really not the time.”

“Rude,” came a voice over Keith’s comms. “We weren’t arguing. We were competing. Lovingly.”

“Whatever,” Pidge scoffed, but Keith ignored them all. He was grinning.

Keith’s breath was coming faster. The memory was fleeting, but — it was there. It was something. And fading, quickly, but there’d been another lion, hadn’t there? Keith wracked his brain, knowing the color had been different, something foreign, something new. Or… something old?

And more than that, there’d been a person. Someone in the lion, the voice vaguely familiar…

Just like that, Keith remembered his dream. It was like when you saw a person in real life and realized you’d seen them in your sleep, the realization unlocking the rest of the dream like a puncture in a bottle, memories spilling forth in a sudden, unrelenting tide.

A warm voice. A hand holding him steady. An arm around his waist. Fond laughter. A joke that Keith couldn’t comprehend. Stay.

“Oh my God,” Keith said.

“What?” said Hunk.

But Keith was staring out into space, unseeing. Something inside him was pulling tight, stretched taut, like a rubber band pulled to its limits. And then it snapped.

“Don’t forget that I love you,” he said, the words crackling over the comms, the voice that spoke them tight and panicked, but determined. A bright flash, a searing pain, blissful silence.

“Oh my God,” Keith said, and he shot two ships in succession, his head whipping around as he searched for something — someone — that wasn’t there. Who? Who had he forgotten? And how?

“Jesus Christ, Keith, tell us what’s going on,” Pidge snapped. “We’re all kind of freaking out here.”

“Keith, are you unfit for battle?” Allura said. “Do you need to return to the castle?”

“No,” Keith said, throwing himself into the fight with renewed vigor. This needed to be over, they needed to be together. They needed to figure out what the fuck was going on. “It’s something else. It’s — we’ve forgotten something.”

“Did I leave the stove on again?” Hunk broke in, worried. “I’m really sorry about last time, guys.”

“It’s a person,” Keith corrected. “It’s Voltron. We’re missing someone.”

Silence. It was always eerie, how you couldn’t hear the battles in space. How you saw the explosions and felt the vibrations and yet, despite everything, it was completely silent within their lions.

“Keith,” Shiro said slowly. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

Keith growled, whirling around with a spray of laser fire. “I’m not crazy! Haven’t you guys felt it too? Can’t you tell that we’re missing — no, forgetting — someone?”

“Keith, you have to know what this sounds like,” Allura said gently. “You think that all of us just forgot that someone exists? What’s more likely: that we all collectively forgot someone, or that you’re… that something happened to you? That you’re having false memories?”

Keith gritted his teeth. He knew how it sounded. No matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t ever remember there being another member of Voltron, another lion flying with him. But he felt it. There was something missing, not just from the team, but from inside him. A piece of his heart.

He shut up about it then. He had to concentrate on the battle, and no one was going to listen to him while they were engaged in a firefight, when there were enemies on their tails and explosions occupying the space around them.

But the second it was over, and they were all in the bridge together, he brought it back up. Or, more accurately — they brought it back up. Each and every one of them looked concerned. They thought something was wrong with him, that he’d been blasted by some sort of Galra weapon, maybe, and that was what was causing this.

Coran wanted to put him in a pod. Pidge wanted to study him. Shiro was looking at him like he could figure out what was wrong with Keith if he just stared long enough, and Keith felt like he was going to explode. Because for every second they wasted, the person they’d forgotten was—

What?

What was happening to him while they were all here, living their lives? Because Keith was sure he was supposed to be here. Was supposed to be the person Keith grinned at in the mornings as he trained, the person he’d spilled a secret to on an alien planet, the person who’d told Keith he’d loved him right before that bright flash.

He couldn’t be dead, could he? The thought shook Keith to his core. Had they forgotten someone they were supposed to be mourning? Had they erased their memories of him, so distraught that they couldn’t function with the absence of him?

It made Keith uneasy. If that was the answer… Surely, it was better to remember someone who you’d loved and lost, rather than to forget them entirely?

But Keith shoved the thought away. They were Voltron. And if his memories — vague and blurry at best — were correct, then that missing person had had a lion of his own. And they wouldn’t deprive the universe of a much-needed weapon just because its pilot had died. They weren’t that selfish; Keith was sure of it.

Which meant that they’d forgotten him unwillingly. There was a paladin and a lion missing, and while they were here arguing about whether they even existed, they were somewhere else. Suffering, maybe. In danger, possibly. Probably wondering whether their teammates were ever coming back for them.

Keith said all this and more, but his friends wouldn’t have it. They weren’t convinced, and part of Keith was sure it was because the thought was too hard to handle. That they could just forget someone, that they were missing them without even knowing it…

“Hunk,” Keith said, desperate. “You know what I’m talking about. You felt it!”

“What do you mean?”

“The spoon,” Keith said. “You thought someone wanted to lick batter. I bet it was him!”

“Keith,” Hunk said, and his voice sounded so sad, so pitying. “I was just moving on autopilot. Someone at the Garrison probably licked the batter off the spoon.”

Keith leveled him with a glare. “And who’s saying this guy didn’t come from the Garrison? Who’s saying he didn’t get into space with the rest of us, riding in the—” he cut off, his mouth hanging open, his eyes locked on the floor.

“What?” Pidge said, sounding alarmed now.

“I don’t…” Keith blinked, his mouth working. “I can’t remember… How did we even get to space?”

Shiro laughed. “You’re serious?” he said. “We were together! You felt the energy in the dessert, and Hunk traced it to its source.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Keith said slowly.

“And then the lion took us to Arus,” Pidge continued. “Where we met Coran and the princess.”

“Yeah, I remember that too,” Keith said. “What I can’t remember is which lion that was. What color?”

Immediately, everyone’s faces shuttered. They were thinking, straining, trying desperately to search for memories that didn’t exist.

“It wasn’t mine,” Keith continued. “The Galra had Red.”

“Right,” Pidge said. “And Green was on that one planet. Shiro and I sailed a boat to her.”

“Black was on the caslte,” Shiro continued. They all looked toward Hunk.

“No, Yellow wasn’t on Earth,” he said. “We — I had to fly to a planet for Yellow. Except… I think I was in a lion? Did one of you bring me there?”

And they all shook their heads. And they all looked unsettled. And Keith, triumphant, grinned.

“He took you there,” Keith declared. “The pilot of the mystery lion. That lion brought us from Earth, and that paladin brought you to Yellow. It makes sense!”

Allura sat down in the nearest station, which was the one next to Keith’s. He stared at it.

“It’s just… how could we forget someone?” Allura whispered.

“Allura,” Keith said.

“I don’t get it,” she continued. “We’ve been fighting for years. You’re telling me we’re each missing years-worth of memories? That we forgot someone’s entire existence!?”

“Allura.”

“I can’t think of how it could’ve happened,” she muttered. “Certainly not stress, because it happened to all of us. Some sort of mission, then? Or a weapon curated by the Galra?”

“Allura!”

“What, Keith?”

“Whose station are you sitting at?”

Allura looked around, as did everyone else. Keith’s chair was closet to this one, and Shiro’s on the other side. Across the room were Hunk and Pidge’s chairs. Five lions, five paladins, five chairs. And yet none of them could remember there ever being a fifth.

“Oh my God,” Pidge said, covering her mouth. “We really forgot someone?”

And so they had.

--

Operation: Who Are We Missing? went into effect immediately. Allura started reaching out to their allies, asking after a fifth paladin, but it seemed like the rest of the universe had forgotten about him too.

Pidge was trying to create something to access their memories. Some sort of drug or machine, and she’d turned Keith into her guinea pig, convinced that he held the answer to how they’d forgotten about their teammate.

“You realized he was missing first,” she’d reasoned. “I bet your memories will be the easiest to recover.”

Despite this, it was slow going. Nothing she did seemed to do anything for Keith, besides give him a headache.

Meanwhile, Shiro was analyzing the ship’s log data, trying to figure out which places they’d been to last and how long ago they could’ve possibly forgotten about their missing paladin. What if it’d been more than just the last couple of uneasy days? What if it’d been weeks? Months?

Hunk was making his way through the castle, tearing through room after room and trying to see if any of them looked more lived-in than the others, and Coran was searching through the archives, trying to find any mention of amnesia and the things that can cause it.

In the end, when memories did start squeezing their way back into Keith’s head, he couldn’t tell whether it was because of Pidge’s efforts or his own. So often he was analyzing the memories he’d already obtained — that blurry, drunken dream and that glimpse into the battlefield — that he might’ve willed them into existence himself. He was constantly on the lookout for things that felt astray, like that feeling he’d had in the training deck, or that desperation he’d felt when Hunk had been staring at the dishes, wondering who the batter was for.

Some of the memories came at random. Whispers of days past that echoed in his dreams, a shadow at the edge of his vision that’d disappear if he looked too closely. Mostly feelings and impressions. But sometimes they hit him like a truck, distinct and vibrant like the ones he’d had in his dream and his lion. Those were the ones that they were after, because Pidge was desperate for him to remember something important, to remember why their paladin was missing both physically and mentally, and how they could fix it.

The first one that came wasn’t one of the ones Pidge needed, and so he kept it to himself. It was thanks to himself that he triggered it, in the first place.

It was a morning days after they’d first started investigating, all exhausted and with bags under their eyes, trying desperately to right something which had gone so wrong. Keith had left his room, determined to go and train and hopefully make himself feel at least a little bit productive, when a familiar feeling had come over him.

Like he was seeing something from the wrong angle, the wrong perspective.

He’d found himself staring at the door across from his room, one of the hundreds of unused rooms in the castle. And for all the searching Hunk had done, he hadn’t gotten anywhere near Keith’s room yet. He was making his way up floor by floor, but even then, Keith doubted that the rooms on this wing would be the ones Hunk would check first. Because how could their missing paladin have been Keith’s neighbor? How could he have forgotten that?

…Just like he’d forgotten everything else.

And so Keith had shoved his way into the room, not expecting to see much at all.

Instead, he’d found a home. Somewhere very much lived in, decorated with more care than Keith could say his own room was decorated. There was an assortment of knick-knacks on the bedside table, rocks and gems and shells. There was an open book face-down on the bed, which was unmade, as if the paladin had been expecting to return shortly. A mug was on the bedside table, as were a few pens and a stack of sticky notes, not that Keith had any idea where someone could’ve found those in space.

There was a jacket thrown onto the bed, green and orange and white, and something inside Keith panged because he was sure he should’ve recognized it. He’d taken another step into the room before freezing, his head throbbing, and—

“You’re the one that said you wanted to sleepover. That means you have to deal with my nighttime routine.”

“I was fine with that,” Keith said. “I just don’t understand why you’re making me participate.”

“Because your skin will thank me,” he’d said. “Also, this is cute of us. Getting ready for bed together? How domestic.”

Keith felt warm. He was probably blushing, not that you could see it through the facemask he’d been forced wear. They’d only been dating for a few weeks, and despite what his boyfriend had said, he hadn’t asked to sleepover. Not in so many words, anyway.

He’d come over feeling nervous, thinking it might be awkward or weird, but the door had opened and he’d been greeted with wet hair and a twinkling smile. Soft hands had pulled him inside, and then he’d been ushered into the bathroom, a host of skincare products shoved onto him.

“How do you even remember all this? There’s so many steps,” Keith said, incredulous. He was sitting on the counter, and a body moved between his legs, standing there easily. Like this closeness, this intimacy, was no big deal for him. It made something hitch inside of Keith, something squeeze tight in a good way, and he squeezed his legs in response, trapping a pair of hips between his knees.

“We have, like, a hundred battle drills,” a voice scoffed. “You think I can’t remember a simple routine?”

Growing more confident, Keith hooked his ankles around the legs in front of him, staring into blue eyes. Those hands came up and brushed his hair back, out of his face and out of the goopey mask he was wearing. Then they cane down, resting on Keith’s thighs, and Keith couldn’t quite fight back his smile.

The memory had blinded him. Left him breathless and desperate for something he couldn’t remember. How was it that he could remember the feeling of those hands, the shade of those eyes, and couldn’t recall his face? His name?

After that, though, they became more frequent. More of what Keith was getting used to now, words popping into his head that he couldn’t remember having said to him, touches that he couldn’t remember feeling.

In the end, the answer didn’t come from Keith and Pidge’s attempts to restore his memories. It came from a combination of Allura and Shiro’s efforts.

Going through the castle’s data, Shiro had discovered something weird. An anomaly where, apparently, the castle hadn’t been anywhere at all. Some sort of blip, except for the fact that the castle didn’t have blips, being as advanced as it was.

And so, Shiro tracked down the data from where they’d been before the blip, seeing as the castle had been in an entirely different place after it, and Allura had reached out to the planets in that system, asking whether they knew of a fifth paladin.

The ones that responded were called the Oublier. They lived on a moon, not a planet, and only moments after Allura reached out, their leader’s face appeared on the screen.

Keith remembered him, fuzzily. He should’ve remembered him better, given the fact that he was sure Voltron’s interaction with these people had been recent, but then, everything about his memories had been weird these days.

“A fifth paladin?” he asked. “But I thought there were only four?”

“So did we,” Allura said. “But due to recent circumstances, we think that maybe something’s happened. An event that caused us, and everyone else, to forget about his existence.”

“Well, that would certainly be the world of the Effacer.”

“The what?” said Keith, feeling immediately hopeful.

The king frowned. “It makes sense that you would forget it,” he sighed. “You remember visiting my people though, correct?”

Allura nodded. “You sent out a distress call, and we answered.”

“And for that, we are forever in your debt,” the kind said solemnly. “As I told you once before, the Effacer is the monster that’s been tormenting my people. In fact, it’s why we moved to our nearest moon a century ago. The Effacer feeds on memories—

—and causes those who’ve come into contact with it to forget what they are doing, forget that they’re scared. Forces that we’ve sent after it have never returned. We suspect they forget why they’re fighting.”

“That’s horrible,” Allura said. They were gathered in the throne room, only the king and a few of his guards accompanying him.

“Another thing,” the king said intently, leaning forward in his throne. “Whatever the costs, you must not come in contact with this creature.”

“Why not?” said a voice to Keith’s left.

“To touch the creature means to be forgotten completely, by everyone you’ve ever known,” the king said gravely. “I would not know we’d even sent forces after this monster if we hadn’t started keeping detailed records, some time after we first suspected that something was amiss.”

“That’s terrible,” Pidge whispered.

“Quite,” the king agreed. “I see their names in our journals, yet I have no recollection of them. I know we sent warriors a mere movement ago, and yet I can’t place any of their faces. Because of that, I know they’re all gone.”

Keith felt uneasy. A monster that they couldn’t touch? Something that would steal their memories, even as they were fighting it?

“We’ll destroy the monster,” Allura promised, and Keith tightened his hands into fists. It was no use being scared. They’d faced worse creatures, worse enemies and battles than this one. They were Voltron. They’d make it through this, too.

“We didn’t think it entirely odd that you didn’t return after the monster’s defeat,” the king continued, and Keith was sucked out of the memory, feeling shaky. “We figured you’d forgotten why you were fighting it in the first place and took no offense, watching your lions fly away. However, if there’s evidence that there was a fifth paladin, I do not doubt that there could have been. He must have touched the creature.”

“Are you sure we even destroyed it?” Keith demanded, suddenly anxious. Would they have to go back there and fight it again? Would they lose another paladin, and forget all over again? Would they manage to notice it the second time?

“Quite sure,” the king assured him. “Ever since Voltron fought the Effacer, my people have been regaining memories. Finding lost items, rediscovering forgotten technological advancements. Remembering loved ones.”

Keith sucked in a breath.

“In fact, one warrior even returned to us. She’d escaped the monster after it’d touched her, and once Voltron destroyed it, she remembered how to fly a ship. She came back to us, and after touching the one who loved her most — her daughter — everyone’s memories of her came back. Even I remember her. She was the captain of the most recent attack, the one who insisted we couldn’t give up just because we’d lost people before.”

“You’re kidding,” Pidge breathed. “So if he’s still alive—”

“Then there’s a chance you can remember him,” the king concluded. “You must understand, the planet still isn’t safe. The captain didn’t report any survivors beside herself, but it’s possible she simply forgot. The Effacer’s effects have been wearing off, but they’re not completely gone. I suspect its power is still waning on the planet. You may land only to forget why you’re there.”

“That’s a chance we’re willing to take,” Allura said, determined, and Keith couldn’t help agreeing with her. Because Voltron was missing a paladin, that was for sure. But Keith was missing more than just a teammate. The part of him that felt empty, the memories that he’d recovered — what he’d forgotten wasn’t just a friend. It was a soulmate.

--

Like always, they put themselves into action in a heartbeat. The second their communication ended, Allura was barking out instructions and they were suiting up, heading down to the hangars. They’d already gone through the wormhole by the time Keith was situation in the red lion, and he directed Red out into space with the feeling of tightness behind his chest the second Shiro gave the command.

Immediately, he could see the moon they’d visited before, one he had a vague recollection of. Even more vague were his memories of the planet behind it, sitting innocently in the distance as if it hadn’t stolen someone from them.

“Woah,” Hunk said. “Déjà vu.”

“I have control of your comms,” Allura instructed. “They’ll stay on, and I’ll check in regularly to remind you in case you begin to forget what you’re doing.”

The comms buzzed and Keith clicked to accept the call, recognizing it as a private line. A face popped onto the screen before him.

“Kind of freaky, huh?” a voice said. “This is, like, some next level shit.”

“No kidding,” Keith scoffed, feeling uneasy. That mouth was always making jokes, even in the heat of battle, and Keith had always admired it. How was it that he always knew how to lighten the mood? How did he always know when Keith needed him to lighten the mood?

“Don’t worry, babe,” he said, grinning at Keith through the video. “I could never forget you.”

Keith laughed. “Yeah, unless I got out to touch that monster. Sometimes you just want to shake the enemy’s hand, you know?”

Those eyes squinched shut as he barked out a laugh and Keith felt that familiar sense of accomplishment settle in his gut. They were always joking together, always trading quips as they spared or giggling under the sheets and they settled in for bed. And even still, after all these years, Keith felt a strange sense of pride at being the one to make him laugh.

“God, what I wouldn’t have done to have all the sergeants forget about me at the Garrison. ‘Aaaand nobody’s late today! Good job, squad.’”

“Please,” Keith scoffed. “More like, ‘Oh, you think you did a good job? This is how you should be every day. Why don’t you do some push-ups since you look so cocky.’”

A snort echoed through the comms. “I do not miss that place. I’m tellin’ you, it’s a blessing we turned out to be defenders of the universe. Sure, the responsibility is a bit more intense, but at least Allura doesn’t smoke us when we fuck up.”

And Keith descended, laughing, toward the planet, not quite sure what he had found so funny in the first place.

“Okay, is everyone ready?” Shiro’s voice cut in. Keith shook his head, needing to focus. They’d been here, together. He’d made Keith laugh.

On Keith’s dashboard, there was a sticky note, just like the ones he’d found in their missing paladin’s room. He’d stolen a couple for everyone before they’d gone to their lions, and his read, “Memory monster is dead. Forgot about fifth paladin. Find him.”

And then, below that, crumpled and on the ground, was a second sticky note. Keith picked it up, staring at the unfamiliar handwriting. “Memory-stealing monster!!! Keep fighting. DON’T TOUCH!!!!!!!” Next to the words was a doodle of what someone had apparently thought the monster might look like, which included devil horns and about a billion teeth in a grinning mouth. Keith knew, without knowing how he knew it, that his missing paladin had written this note.

“Ready,” Keith said, the first to respond, and the others echoed him. They’d passed the moon already, and Allura was keeping the castle a good way’s behind it, not wanting herself and Coran to be affected by the memory-junk by getting too close. Keith felt fine right now, which wasn’t how he’d been feeling last time, all confused and panicked and desperate.

Land zooming beneath Red. He was close to a planet. Flying fast. Was he landing?

“Pull up, Keith!”

Keith pulled up automatically — he’d always respond to that voice — and a great monster passed underneath him, probably seconds from having taken a bite out of Red. Holy shit, what was that thing?

It was ginormous, bigger than Voltron by far, and looked like a glowing, pulsing mass of red and purple and black. Despite how big it was, it moved quickly.

Land was zooming beneath Red. He was flying toward something. A monster, of some sort. Holy shit, what was that—

“Hunk!”

Keith glanced up, saw the other lions flying around him. A laser flew past Red, embedded itself in this giant, terrifying monster. Something on Keith’s dash caught his attention, and he spared a second to read it. “Memory-stealing monster!!! Keep fighting. DON’T TOUCH!!!!!!!”

Keith gasped, remembering that they were fighting the Effacer for the Oublier, and he pulled hard on his controls, drawing a line of fire through the monster as he went.

“Good one, Keith!” that same voice called.

Keith was up in the air, the view of a planet below him. His heart was pounding, he wanted to cheer — had he done something right? — but he swallowed the sound, confused. His eyes locked onto some great, terrifying creature. Red and black and purple all over, fast despite its size—

“Stay alert,” Shiro commanded. “Just because we don’t feel it yet doesn’t mean we won’t.”

“This place gives me the creeps,” Hunk said. Rightfully so.

The planet was destroyed. Bodies littered the ground in all kinds of decomposition, all soldiers sent from Oublier. The ground was scorched and dead, evidence of their battles and Voltron’s, and were they not tucked safely inside their lions, Keith knew it would’ve reeked.

“We should spread out,” Shiro said, looking upon the carnage. “We’ll never find him if we all stay together. Fly low to the ground, and don’t leave your lion unless you find him.”

“We have to spread out!” Shiro shouted, his voice crackling through Keith’s comms. He shook his head, heard, trying to dislodge the fog invading his mind. Trying to concentrate, to stay alert. “We’ll have to fight it from afar!”

“It’s no use!” Pidge cried. “Our attacks aren’t doing any damage from far away and I can’t keep my train of thought!”

“Memory monster, memory monster, memory monster,” Hunk was muttering under his breath. It was helping Keith, at least, because every few seconds when he’d forget what was going on, Hunk’s voice drew him back into the thick of things.

It was infuriating, but the second Keith began to feel fury, it would fade away into nothing, and he’d be left wondering for a split second why he was so angry until Hunk’s words caught up to him again.

“And I don’t think we can get away,” Pidge said grimly. “Every time I try to fly away to get my bearings, I forget where I’m going and end up turned around, flying back toward the Effacer. It’s like a magnet.”

“Fuck this,” a new voice chimed in. “I’m taking it down.”

“You can’t,” Keith found himself saying, his words panicked. “You can’t get too close.”

“We don’t know what’ll happen if a lion touches it, right?” the voice replied. “I have to try.”

“No, we can think of something,” Keith protested.

“We can’t think of anything in this state,” the voice argued. “I’ll probably forget what I’m doing before I’m even there. This is the best shot we’ve got.”

Keith opened his mouth to argue and promptly forgot why. Something was wrong — something shouldn’t be happening… but what?

There, on the planet, was a terrifying monster. And there, diving toward it, was—

“Lance!” Keith cried out, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. The lion was advancing at top speed, careening toward the monster, and fear gripped him, froze him solid as everything suddenly slid into place with blinding clarity, what was happening and what it would mean. “Stop!”

“Don’t forget I love you,” Lance’s voice said over the comms, tight and panicked but determined, nonetheless. And then he crashed into the monster, and there was a flash so bright Keith couldn’t see anything. He was so, so alone, and hurt clung to him like cobwebs, the sorrow, the loss.

And then Keith grinned, staring down at the defeated monster.

“We won!” he yelled, relief coursing through him, and the answering cheers of his teammates echoed through his comms. The relief was strong, and they turned from the planet toward the castle. Keith blinked, squinting at it in the distance.

Why were they flying toward the castle?

A battle of some sort. They’d won. It was fine.

Allura greeted them with a smile, proud of their accomplishment, and Keith ambled off to bed with the rest of them. He paused in front of his door for a moment, feeling inexplicably turned around, before brushing it off and heading inside, ready to sleep it all off.

“Lance,” Keith breathed, very much on his own now.

“What?” said Hunk, nowhere near Keith but sounding clear through the comms.

“Lance!” Keith insisted. “That’s who he is. That’s who we’re missing! I remember!”

The search turned more frantic, everyone growing silent in their desperation. The name stuck in Keith’s mind, but he couldn’t remember his face, couldn’t remember who he was, but the name clicked perfectly. The spot inside Keith that’d been calling out for him rejoiced, and his name shot through Keith’s mind and body like a livewire, lighting him up from the inside and sending him zooming over the wrecked streets of the planet, looking everywhere for the man he was missing.

It took longer than Keith thought it would. There were crumbled buildings everywhere, and Keith knew from experience that one of their lions could easily be hidden beneath a pile of rubble. He forced himself to fly slower, to really examine everything he was seeing, searching for anything that seemed even slightly out of place.

In the end, what caught his eye was a hint of yellow, of all things — he didn’t know what to expect, searching for this lion, but yellow hadn’t been it. Yellow already existed within their formation.

Upon closer examination, however, Keith realized that it was the eye of a lion, not gleaming with life but dull and out of commission, lying trapped beneath a pile of rubble. Immediately, Keith started tearing into the rubble with Red, trying his best to balance his impatience and his knowledge that he needed to be careful, that their lost paladin — Lance — could be laying in agony inside.

In his haste, he forgot to warn the others about what he’d found until he had most of the rubble cleared around the new lion’s head — a blue lion.

A group of near strangers inside of his home, all of them listening to his ramblings as if he wasn’t crazy. Hunk setting up a device, the five of them traipsing through the desert, to someplace Keith had been so many times before.

A cave, and a long fall, and a crash to the bottom. A bright, sparkling barrier of light, one that Lance approached without apprehension. His hand reaching out, knuckles rapping against it, and the light dissolving before their eyes.

A ferocious roar, one that left Keith’s heart pounding away in his chest, and then that monstrous mouth opening wide, stopping right in front of Lance. As if he were the chosen one.

The five of them piling in, the cockpit much too small for that many of them. Lance taking hold of the controls as if he already knew how to fly a machine like nothing any of them had ever seen before. The ground rushing away from them, space swallowing them, stars and planets moving past them much faster than they ever should’ve been able to.

And the whole time, at the helm, was Lance. Lance, who was the reason they’d even been able to get off Earth in the first place. Lance, who Blue had reacted to, had bonded with. Lance, who had been the key to Keith’s destiny — and his heart.

It was Pidge speaking over the comms that caught his attention, and in a breathless rush, Keith explained what he found.

“I’m going in,” he said.

“We’re on our way now,” Shiro answered. “Stay alert when you leave your lion. It’s possible that they’ve been protecting us from the residual effects.”

Shiro, as he often was, was right. The second Keith left Red, he could feel the confusion and forgetfulness taking over him. Not as strong as it’d been last time, but still worrying.

Keith ran toward Blue, shaking off the haze and fogginess with every step, refusing to let it take hold of him. He scrambled up the rocks and rubble, much bigger and more difficult to climb than they’d seemed from the safety of his own lion, and then he was standing in front of Blue. The lion was dark and lifeless, laying limply like their lions never should. Her eyes didn’t flash at Keith’s approach. Neither did her mouth open.

“Come on,” Keith said to her, pressing his hand to her giant maw. “I know you’re tired. I know it’s been hard. But we’re here now. We remembered you.”

Another few silent, desperate seconds passed, until a dull gleam lit the lion’s eyes and her mouth creaked open, just enough for Keith to shimmy through. Everything was tilted to the side, the wall becoming the floor due to the lion’s positioning, but Keith scrambled along it anyway, his eyes wide and searching, knowing he would recognize him the second he saw him.

And he did.

Lance was there, propped up against the side of the dashboard — now lining the wall, instead of acting as a sort or table before the pilot’s seat. He was still wearing his paladin armor — blue, like his lion, blue, like his eyes — and his head was tilted back, his eyes closed and his skin a strange pallor behind his helmet, despite the fact that his mask wasn’t down.

It took Keith longer than it should have to notice his injuries. His arm in a makeshift sling, the white fabric brown with dried blood, and a longer, thicker bandage around the top of his thigh. He looked thinner than he should have, and as Keith stared at him in horror, his chest slowly, weakly rose.

“Lance,” Keith breathed, and then he was collapsing in front of him, reaching for him with shaking hands.

The second Keith made contact with his shoulder, it all came rushing back.

“Who am I? Uh, the name’s Lance.”

A cold, aggravating smirk.

“We were, like, rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck-and-neck.”

A cocky grin.

“You’re shoving too hard!”

A warm body — too warm — pressed against his back.

“Woah, nice one, Keith!”

An explosion behind him, and another one in front of him, a target sniped from somewhere he couldn’t see.

“Sometimes I come up here to be alone, I guess. It looks pretty, right?”

Stars — amazing, endless — and a body standing just a little bit too close. Keith didn’t move away.

“Hey, dude, are you okay?”

Bright, blue eyes. That always-grinning mouth shaped into something serious, for once.

“Let’s go, lover-boy.”

That warm touch that he’d become all too familiar with, now wrapped around his waist.

“Is this okay?”

Fingers on his face, breath against his mouth, and lips so close he could almost taste them.

“Babe, you have to try this.”

That grin again, but no agitation accompanied it. Keith had thought that smile was cold, how hadn’t he realized it was as warm as the rest of him?

“Stop! You can’t be serious.”

Laughter, bright and overwhelming, and Keith was lost in, having no interest in being found.

“Oh God, don’t stop.”

Warm, warm, warm — that touch everywhere, and yet still not enough.

“I love you, idiot. Did you not realize that?”

Lance. Someone so ingrained in his mind, in his soul, that he never should’ve been able to forget him. And yet he did.

Lance, who’d been the one to bridge the gap between everyone, to bring them together and make them more than just a team — make them a family.

Lance, who Keith loved with his entire being, who he’d spent three long, precious years dating. Who he’d fought with, grown with, watching his body become more scarred throughout the years, watching as they fought and bled and faced the impossible and he never for a second lost his determination. Lance, who was always joking, always laughing, and there when Keith needed him.

And now, finally, Keith was here for him.

“Lance,” he whispered, his fingers tightening against the armor under his hand, and Lance’s eyes peeled open, staring at him blearily.

A ghost of a smile graced his lips.

“Didn’t think I’d see you here, babe,” he croaked. His lips were dry, chapped, and no doubt his throat was too. Their lions only had so many provisions, he must’ve gone through them all days ago. “Are you here to cart me off to heaven? I’m not surprised angels look like you.”

Tears rushed to Keith’s eyes, not falling by sheer force of will, and he shook his head, wanting to tug Lance into his body and hold him tight. He couldn’t, though. Lance was weak. He needed medical attention immediately, and Keith wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he hurt him further.

“No, Lance,” he said, forcing words through his mouth. Why did it feel so hard to speak? Why did he want to sob?

People weren’t meant to forget like this. They weren’t meant to lose their memories and emotions, this much love, only to have it forced back onto them in the span of a second.

“Hell, then?” Lance joked. God, even now. How did Keith get so lucky as to have him?

“No, Lance,” Keith repeated. “You’re alive. I remembered you.”

Some sort of realization sparked in Lance’s eyes. They narrowed, taking in Keith more intently, scanning him thoroughly.

“This better not be a joke,” Lance whispered. “Otherwise the universe is cruel.”

“It’s not a joke, Lance, I promise,” Keith said, scooting closer, as close as he could get. He was practically in Lance’s lap, still hovering over him, though. Not wanting to burden him with any of his weight. He cupped Lance’s face with his hands, and even through his gloves he felt warm. “Can you walk?”

Eyes widening, Lance reached out to him. His hand grasped onto Keith’s elbow, his grip much weaker than it should’ve been. “Fuck, you’re really here,” he said, gasping in a breath. “’M gonna need your help.”

Keith got to his knees, holding Lance securely as he helped him to stand. Almost all of Lance’s weight was leaned against him, and he was breathing heavier now.

Suddenly, Red seemed so far away. She was outside of Blue, past the mouth they’d have to squeeze through one by one and at the bottom of a tower of rubble. So Keith pulled Lance into the pilot’s seat, one leg propped against the wall-floor to keep them upright, with Lance resting on his lap. Lance groaned, leaning his head back against Keith’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe you remembered me,” he whispered.

“I can’t believe you turned out to be the sacrificing idiot,” Keith said back, without heat. Lance laughed weakly and Keith reached around him, gripping the unfamiliar patrols. “C’mon Blue,” he coaxed. “You can do it.”

For a moment, the lion was silent. Lance reached out and gripping the control with Keith, Keith’s other arm around his waist, and slowly, lights flickered on around them. A presence brushed against Keith’s mind, one he’d never felt outside of Voltron before.

“Good girl,” Lance murmured, and she roared, bursting to life. Suddenly, they were upright, and Blue was shaking off the debris surrounding her, the cockpit rumbling around them as she stood. The comms kicked in.

“Lance!” Hunk burst in immediately, the crackle of static warping his voice for a moment. “I remember you, oh my God!”

Pidge was in tears, her face already displayed on their screen as she clutched at her controls. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how — I can’t believe we forgot—”

Lance laughed, some of the color coming back to his skin. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s my fault you forgot, anyway.”

“I’m gonna come back for Red later,” Keith announced. “Getting Lance into a pod is our top priority right now.”

“Roger that,” said Shiro. “Coran, you copy?”

“A pod is already up and running,” Allura chimed in, her face appearing. “Lance, I’m so glad you’re okay. It hasn’t been long, has it?”

Lance shrugged, Keith feeling the movement against his chest. “A little more than a week, maybe,” he said. “You guys work fast.”

Keith hugged him just a little bit more securely, tucking his chin over his shoulder. The planet was disappearing behind them, and the castle was growing ever closer. Lance was finally home. Finally safe. And once he was well, Keith was going to give him the chewing out of his life. And then, of course, hug him for nine hours straight. Maybe more.

--

Despite the near week of malnourishment, Lance was only in his pod for a handful of hours. Keith had spent the first few sitting impatiently outside of it, but he’d eventually slinked off to a take a shower, so that the first thing Lance was greeted with wouldn’t be his sweaty, smelly boyfriend.

Instead, he stepped out of his shower and immediately bumped into a familiar chest, blinking water out of his eyes as he stared at Lance.

“Lance,” he said automatically. It was a name he’d known for years, and yet now it tasted both new and familiar on his tongue. Keith wanted to say it a thousand more times, just because he could. Just because there’d been a point in time when he hadn’t remembered it at all.

“Cariño,” Lance said, and he draped a towel around Keith’s head, as if Keith were the one who needed to be taken care of. Keith tripped into Lance’s arms, not caring that he was wet. Lance could deal with it. He hugged him as tightly as he’d wanted to hug him back on Blue, and Lance hugged him just as hard, all the strength back in his limbs, the color back in his skin.

“I missed you so much,” Keith murmured, as Lance trailed his hands up and down Keith’s back, tracing through the water droplets on his skin.

Lance scoffed, the sound full of affection. “Psh, you didn’t even remember me,” he joked.

“I missed you even when I couldn’t remember you,” Keith promised. “I could tell something was missing. I could tell my heart was broken.”

“Oh, Keith,” Lance whispered, his arms latching around Keith’s waist. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d never even know I was gone.”

“You’re incredibly brave,” Keith said. “And incredibly stupid.”

Lance’s laugh was soft, and he finally pulled away, just so he could brush his lips against Keith’s. “I’ll never break your heart again,” he murmured, his lips moving against Keith’s. “I promise.”