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The McClain family are a tight-knit bunch, to put it lightly. They’re all highly dependent, tactile, empathetic people who thrive off of one another. They come to each other for help, they’re patient and supportive and they never tell lies - even when the truth is ugly. So when Lance announced that he had applied to the Garrison in secret and that they had accepted him, and that he intended to move to the middle of nowhere to undertake training to be a pilot, nobody knew what to think.
Ultimately, however, the only person whose opinion mattered to Lance was his Mama’s. With tears in her eyes, she took his face into her hands and kissed his forehead, like she used to when he was little. She knew he was too big for this little town, this little life. She gave Lance her blessing, but on the strict condition that he write to her once a week. “I mean it, mijo, no pretending you forgot or I’ll come out there myself to check on you.” Lance laughed and promised her that he would write every week, and he left home.
Lance is true to his word and writes to his mother every Tuesday. He tells her how classes are hard but also fun, how the stifling heat out here in the desert is nothing like back home, how he has a rivalry with this annoying kid with a mullet - who actually still has a mullet nowadays, Mama, I’m telling you, it’s downright unnatural -, and about his new friends.
He tells her about his best friend, Hunk, and how they snuck into the kitchens and baked cookies at 2am during their first week. The punishment was Hell; Iversion sentenced them to clean out the inside of the flight simulator and seriously, how many people puke in that per day? But it was so worth it, and the cookies are even better than Abuela’s. He tells her about Hunk’s sense of humour, and the loud laugh that makes people smile with him. He also tells her that his hugs are the only thing that helps him calm down when he’s feeling homesick.
He gets homesick a lot. He can’t tell his Mama about that, though, because she would think he regrets his decision to leave home, which he definitely doesn’t. This place may be tough but it’s also every secret dream he’s ever had. Still though, he misses the smell of spices when he walked in through the front door, the way someone always had to sleep on the couch because there were never enough beds for all the visiting relatives that used their house as a halfway house, and how nobody ever looked at him oddly when he laughed too loud or made a stupid joke - his family would laugh louder and make a worse joke.
After a few months, Lance has finally started to settle. He still gets homesick, but he very rarely cries. It’s become just another part of him, something he has to shoulder and ignore until he can’t any longer. He’s been moving up in the ranks, something to do with his rival, one of the best pilots ever seen at the Garrison, randomly deciding to drop out. Lance can’t understand what would possess a person to struggle through all of this pain-in-the-ass training, make it to the top of the class, where everyone has to recognise you’re the best, and then drop out before you can even reap a reward. Stupid, if you ask him. But no one did and it’s worked in his favour because suddenly, his dream of being a real-life fighter pilot is coming true.
That was a hard letter to write to his Mama. She could always hide her emotions from the plains of her face but never her eyes, and Lance knew she was terrified the moment he told her he was joining the Garrison. He didn’t want to upset her, so he avoided the confrontation and told her only briefly about how Keith dropped out so he was now in the top ranks - she knew what that would mean - and distracted her by talking about his new friend, Pidge. He tells her about how smart Pidge is, how he can do sums in his head without a calculator like Uncle Raoul can but on a completely different level.
He thinks that maybe if he can show her how excited he is, she won’t be too scared.
_________
Lance writes his letters on Tuesdays, and they get to Varadero on Fridays, sometimes Saturdays. The letters have known to be late occasionally, but nothing drastic. Still, Camila checks her mailbox first thing every Friday morning, before doing anything else.
When Lance first left, she would rush to the mailbox every morning, anxiety curling in her chest and sour in her mouth, but when she saw the letter, addressed to her in her son’s handwriting, she could breath easy. She would take a moment to just breathe before reading what Lance has been doing that week. As time has passed, however, getting Lance’s weekly letters has become something more fixed. Checking the mailbox first thing on a Friday has become almost a habit at this point.
This is why, when she checks the mailbox one Friday morning and nothing is there, she does not immediately worry. Truth be told, she had a very busy morning ahead of her and did not give Lance much thought at all. Her second youngest, Maria, had sprained her ankle playing football the day before. She had a lot on her mind.
She checks again on Saturday, sometime after making breakfast and bringing it up to Maria, who is bound to her bed. Checking the mailbox is something of an afterthought. There’s no letter, but that’s no reason to get worried. Letters have been late before.
She doesn’t check on Sunday. They don’t get mail on Sundays, and either way, Maria’s follow up doctor’s appointment is today.
On Monday, there is still no letter. Everything has finally settled down after the hectic weekend, and she’s on her way out the door to work when she sees the mailbox and realises that she still hasn’t gotten her letter from Lance. Maybe he didn’t get a chance to write one this week; he always sounds so busy, but that’s really unlike him. Camila doesn’t get cross very often, but she feels a hint of annoyance at Lance. Still, being late to write one letter after all these months isn’t that bad.
It’s when it gets to Friday again that she decides to call the Garrison. His letters have never been this late, and she’s worried he’s hurt himself and hasn’t been able to write. Maybe they could even put her through to him. She finds the number online, and waits impatiently, listening to the dial tone. She hears a pleasant voice ask how they can help her, and Camila explains that she has not heard from her son in two weeks, and this is extremely abnormal for her. The woman on the phone tells her not to worry, letters have known to be late. After calming Camila down, the woman asks her name, for the records. When Camila says “McClain”, the line goes silent. In a strained voice, the woman tells her she is going to put her on hold and find someone to speak to her. Camila has to be patched through to four different people before she finally gets a concrete answer about what is going on.
When she is told her son has gone missing, she freezes up. She doesn’t hear a word coming from the phone, but she thinks the person is still speaking. She thinks she might have dropped the phone from her ear. Dimly, she thinks that’s rude of her. She thinks she may be crying.
______
Lance has been having the best day of his life. He has spent the last seventeen years dreaming of being something more, leaving his town, actually mattering in the world. Now, finally, he has that chance. More than that, he was first! Pidge and Hunk are both smarter than him, Keith always did better than him, but the Blue Lion chose him to be its paladin.
He’s in space, which is another one of his dreams. He always wanted to be a pilot, and he knew he was going to have the chance one day if he kept up with the Garrison, but Lance has never been a patient man. This last hour, he’s gotten to show up his rival, impress his friends, go to space, and even met a beautiful alien princess. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this excited.
Once all of the initial excitement wears off, it takes Lance roughly three hours to realise what this means. He’d been shown to his room, and he’s laying on the bed basking in it all when it finally sinks in that if he’s in space, if he’s a paladin of Voltron, if he’s responsible for saving a universe he hadn’t even realised needed saving… Who knows when he’ll go home? What if he never gets to go home? Oh god, what if he dies out here in space and there’s no one to ever tell his family? Fuck, his family. He just disappeared. It’s Monday, he thinks. He’s supposed to write Mama her letter tomorrow. What is she going to think? She’ll be hysteric.
Lance is hysteric.
____
Lance still gets extremely homesick on the castle. So much so, he feels kind of alienated by it. Since Pidge found Matt, she’s been happier than ever - she never misses home. He doesn’t know much about what Shiro had at home, but he seems to have shouldered the responsibility of ‘hero of the Universe’ better than the rest of them. Keith definitely doesn’t miss home. He once told Lance that he has nothing to miss.
Hunk relates to Lance the most, but even he can’t fully understand him. Still, he helps in whatever ways he can. He still sits and talks about Earth with him for hours. He still gives the best hugs.
Surprisingly, Keith was the biggest help of all. They were just back from a mission on a planet that has a beach, a real beach. Well, the ‘sand’ was sort of like glass, and the ‘sea’ was kind of foamy, and purple, but still! He had been telling Keith about how like home it was, and how he wishes he could tell his Mama, and it all came spilling out of him.
Keith listened to him silently, head tilted, eyes trained on him. After Lance was finished, staring at the ground and letting tears drip, Keith suggested something to him.
So Lance still writes letters to his Mama every Tuesday. He tells her about all of the weird and wonderful things he sees out here, about the planets he visits, the people he saves. He tells her about how nervous he is with this responsibility, and how sometimes he feels like the odd man out, and that the team would be better off without him. He tells her about his teammates, and about Blue, and now Red, and about Keith.
He knows that she’s more than likely never going to read his letters, but it helps.