Chapter Text
Her dreams shifted in a kaleidoscope of colors. Black, Yellow, Red, Blue, Green. Voices that pooled and clouded in her mind-- muffled, indiscernible, as if she was hearing them through a door. Chill in her toes, her fingers, digging under her nails. Her lungs were icing over. There was an ache, a throbbing in the back of her head. A beep.
Suddenly, Pidge found herself falling.
She caught herself, with her knees and palms (something she was told not to do, what felt like eons ago.) A hand went up to her face, quickly, to feel the bridge of her nose for a pair of spectacles that didn’t exist in that moment. A deep breath, for good measure, to stop the ice from stealing her lungs and breathe life back into them. Warmth. She touched where her heart should be. Still beating.
She was alive.
She didn’t know why she was so surprised.
Even more surprising was that there was someone(s? plural?) speaking quickly to her, voice(s?) still hard to hear, still so muffled. Her head ached. Her everything ached. Why was she being shout at? Who was shouting at her, anyway?
Steady hands gripped her under her arms and suddenly she was slingshot back into reality at the touch. She kicked, tried to rip her arms away. There was a shout. More shouts. Her name. No, not her name, her persona’s name, the fake name, the person she was pretending to be--
“Katie!”
Like a light in the dark. She remembered to open her eyes.
… And something about the scene in front of her wasn’t quite right.
Katie- -Pidge Holt-- Gunderson was a smart girl. And she knew when things weren’t what they were supposed to be almost immediately. She could pull out a single strand of bad code from a program within seconds of scrutinizing for the problem. She knew when one of the teachers at the Garrison had made a small flub in their calculations in math, and she was quick to pipe up and correct them.
The analytical part, the science part, the parts that made the most sense to her were easy to fix. Simple. Almost too simple, she would sometimes think.
But math and science weren’t going to help her here.
Not when she wasn’t in the Garrison.
Not when six faces were staring at her expectantly and she only recognized two of them.
Not when one of those familiar faces called her by her real name, again, blue eyes wide and full of concern and something else she couldn’t quite figure out.
She inhaled, exhaled. Tremors forming in her hands. Tears pricked the back of her eyes, and she knew she wasn’t sad, but just frustrated. Infuriated. All directed at herself because she had no idea what the hell was going on.
“I need my glasses,” Pidge croaked out, finally, and she was shocked at the sound of her own voice. Like it was coming from someone that wasn’t her.
There was a tall, admittedly handsome guy with streaks of white in his hair, a scar on his face, a robotic arm-- he was holding out the rounded frames of her false-prescription lenses out to her. She took them from the stranger, and she scrutinized his face for a moment. She recognized him.
But it couldn’t be him, right?
He can’t be standing here if Dad and Matt aren’t, either.
Right?
She chalked it up to coincidence, hooking the frames across her face, despite not needing them to see. Pidge let her shoulders roll back, and she realized for the first time how… not clothed she was. She was wearing some white suit, free of imperfections, and she realized with horror that she could see the slightest curve in her chest, and her eyes shot up to meet Hunk and Lance’s, who were waiting for her to say something else, so expectantly.
The words she said next, none of the crew expected.
“I didn’t mean for you guys to find out. Ever.”
Pidge almost forgot the beautiful girl in front of her, whose gaze shifted from worry to confusion. She ran a hand through silvery curls, outstretching another to Pidge.
“Pidge, what ever do you mean?” There was a polite, regal way the girl spoke, and Pidge felt her mouth go dry.
“I-I…” the words died in her throat. She stared down the girl, shock and wonder taking every muscle in her body prisoner. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening.”
That much Pidge figured was true. She flickered her gaze amongst the group staring at her, horrified at the realization that she didn’t know. “I don’t… know who you people are. Mostly. I think. I’m sorry. I--”
Pidge was cut-off when Lance, someone she did know, suddenly gripped her shoulders, pulling her forward to scrutinize her face. There was something else in his eyes now, and Pidge felt all the guilt in her heart rise at the sight.
“Please tell me you’re joking. Like, this isn’t… this isn’t funny if you are.”
The boy in the red jacket, the one that Pidge almost didn’t notice, suddenly put an arm on Lance’s shoulder, tugging him back. “Lance.”
There was pain in the way he said his name, too, and Lance forgot about the grip he had on Pidge’s shoulders momentarily to turn and snap at the boy.
“Don’t act like you’re not freaking out either, man! Kat--Pidge doesn’t-- she’s--”
“Amnesiac.” The mustached man finished for him.
The word dropped like a weight, and for a moment, no one said anything.
Amnesiac.
Pidge ran a hand through her hair. Inhale, exhale.
“S-so,” she began slowly, which made six pairs of eyes turn to face her. She looked at each one expectantly, licking her lips before speaking.
“What’d I miss?”
She was reintroduced to the team she wasn’t familiar with.
Catching up wasn’t easy.
“What do you remember, exactly?” Hunk had asked, and Pidge bit her lip.
“Garrison. Flight training. We failed again.”
Hunk snorted. “Okay, that could be any week. Anything specific.”
“Yeah. You threw up.”
That earned a laugh from Lance, who, up until then, sat quietly, patiently. Which was weird and out of character for the usually flirtatious, crude boy she’s learned to come accustom to. Even weirder, every now and then one of the other people in the room would shoot him a look, and he’d shake his head, and she found herself intruding on a silent conversation she knew nothing about.
“At least that’s… kind of recent? Consensus?” Hunk voiced to the others in the room, and the girl--the one that (re)introduced herself as Princess Allura-- piped up next.
“It is fantastic to know she… probably didn’t lose much.”
“Probably didn’t lose much?” Shiro, as he said earlier, suddenly blurted. “She doesn’t remember the last year and a half of her life.”
Shiro glanced over at Pidge, a deep sadness in his eyes, and she wondered what he was thinking, what he wanted to say but didn’t. Instead, his gaze averted again, and he and the princess seemed to come to the same silent conclusion.
And they went on, telling her of what she’s missed.
A giant robot. A universe-saving robot called Voltron.
She piloted a lion. And she was good at it-- she’d have to meet this fabled Green Lion, as soon as she could.
She saved their lives.
She told everyone the truth about her identity.
There was an issue with wormholes, details would be filled in later.
And--
“You got hurt in the last battle. Really bad.” Lance said curtly, not looking up from his hands. “We put you in a stasis pod to, yanno, keep you alive.”
“Oh,” Pidge said, feeling her skin crawl.
For a moment, no one spoke again, and Pidge didn’t realize why until she saw their gazes break from staring expectantly at her, but to stare expectantly at Lance. As if he was leaving out a detail and no one on the team was going to have that.
If Lance noticed them staring at him, he pretended not to notice. A smile she knew too well formed on his face, and Lance stood up, stretching his arms out.
“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but this has been an incredibly dull process of recounting all my incredible victories to poor Pidge here. If you need me, I’ll be… around.”
And the boy disappeared from the room, and the looks on the remaining company’s faces shifted uncomfortably. Hunk stood up, gazing at Pidge for a second, smiling down at her.
“He’s really glad you’re okay. We all are. I’m gonna go chat with him if you guys don’t mind,” and with that Hunk hurried out too.
Pidge twiddled her thumbs, still quiet. Allura smiled, leaning across the table to grasp her hands. “I know this must be a lot to take in, Pidge.”
“Yeah. No kidding.” Pidge said, finally.
“If you need time to yourself…”
“I think I do, yeah.”
“... We can introduce you to your lion. And, ah, we’re all here to talk. If you have questions about anything you’re missing, or…”
Shiro cleared his throat then, giving Allura a hard gaze, a shake of his head. Allura frowned at him, then turned her gaze back to Pidge, forcing another smile.
“If you have questions about anything.”
“T-thank you, Princess. I think. I’m… just confused right now, I guess.”
“Which makes sense. It’s okay to feel confused.”
Nothing much was left to say, then. Pidge stood up, a hand rising to her chest, balling into a fist over her heart. She inhaled, exhaled.
“Yeah. Uh. So, what’s this lion you guys are talking about?”
-
Lance felt like shit for a lot of things.
Top of the list?
Doing a bad job of watching out for his teammates and letting one of them get shot. Shot so bad she had to be shoved into a stasis pod for a couple of agonizing weeks. Maybe not as agonizing or as terrifying as it was to hear Pidge cry out and see blood, a lot of blood, so much goddamn blood--
He leaned against a wall and squeezed his eyes shut to try and forget again. Her screams. His screams. How she seemed to crumble against him as he ran as fast as he could to get her out of battle and somewhere she’d be safe and not dying.
Pidge was so goddamn lucky she didn’t remember any of that. Lance knew he’d never forget it.
Which brings him to the second highest item on the list.
Not telling Pidge about, objectively, one of the most important things to happen to her in the year and a half she couldn’t remember: him. Her. Them.
It made his heart ache, but he’ll be damned if he announced it to her like that, in front of the team. No way in hell. The Pidge out there would laugh in his face if he said it.
“Puh-lease,” he could imagine the humor in her voice. “Like I’d ever date you.”
He retaliated against the snarky girl in his head.
“Well, tough luck, sister. ‘Cause you are.”
At least, that made him smile in the face of all this terrible shit. At least, joke-bickering with Katie “Pidge” Holt in his head made the reality of the situation less grave, less painful to stomach.
It was a lot of painful to stomach.
“Found ya,” Lance was shoved out of his thoughts by Hunk’s voice, eyes gazing down the hall to find the big guy strolling towards him, concern in his eye. “Didn’t think you’d run out of there so fast.”
“Really? Cause I thought I’d run out a lot faster. Like a racecar. Or a certain hedgehog we both know and love.” Lance tried his best to keep the sadness out of his voice, opting for a joke, opting to crack a smile on Hunk’s face.
Hunk wasn’t smiling, which just made Lance’s Great Day get all the better.
“Lance, be honest for a minute. Please.”
Why was he just so good at making Lance feel even more like a sorry heap of trash?
Lance let out a sigh, patiently waiting for Hunk to let him have it.
“You didn’t tell her.”
“I couldn’t. I mean, not there.”
“But you know… you have to tell her eventually. Or it’s going to suck a lot when she finds out.”
“Right, because it’s going to get way worse than it already is.” Lance almost spat out the last few words, and instantly regretted it, looking back over at Hunk. His brow was furrowed in concern. Lance cleared his throat. “I mean. This isn’t… the right time. She’s probably really scared, you know? Waking up and not knowing anything… I didn’t want to overwhelm her. A-and this isn’t about our relationship, man, this is about Pidge healing up and becoming Pidge again. It can wait.”
And Lance meant it, every last word. And although it hurt a lot to think it, Lance knew it was the right decision. He was making the right decision. Pidge had to come first. She always did.
Hunk fell silent, then, leaning in to squeeze Lance’s shoulder, a sad smile on his face.
“Okay. If you really think so. But just so we’re clear, pushing her away isn’t going to help anyone remember anything.”
Lance felt his heart catch in his chest, and he opened his mouth to respond yet no words escaped his lips. Another squeeze of his shoulder. Hunk began to walk away.
Why was he just so good at doing that?