(( ANGST WARNING!!!))

Keith's eyes struggled to open, feeling like they'd been cemented shut. His hands twitched, and the sound of a steady beeping noise could be heard behind him. Once his eyes were open, and his vision began coming into focus, he took notice of his surroundings.

The bright white light.

The steryl smell.

He was in the hospital. He sat up, looking around himself and beginning to breathe in a shallow fashion. Everything was coming back all at once, drowning him like a tidal wave.

" Woah, Keith, hey..." Someone squeezed his hand, and he looked to see Shiro sitting in the chair beside the hospital bed. Keith gulped, then made a confused expression at his brother. Shiro's entire right arm was bandaged up, and he was in a hospital gown as well.

" How? What? Where-" Keith talked rapidly, cutting himself off and feeling a panic attack setting in. There was so much that happened, and he could still hear the glass shattering in the back of his head, and his ears were ringing from the gunshots. He looked down at his hands, finding that they weren't stained with blood anymore.

" Lay back... calm down." Shiro told him, seeing Keith's heart monitor was going beserk to the side of the bed.

" No! Don't tell me to calm down! Where is everyone?! How are you alive right now?! Why are we not arrested?!" Keith panted and looked around, pupils shrinking to practical pinholes as he remembered it all.

Shiro looked to the side and down.

" I can explain everything." He said, and Keith felt tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

" Where's Lance?" He asked, and Shiro squeezed his little brother's hand more firmly. He clenched his jaw, squeezing his eyes shut.

" He's..." Shiro began.

Keith felt his eyes swelling with tears.

" In the other room."

Keith felt like someone knocked the wind out of him. So Lance had made it?! God! Shiro was going to give him a literal heart attack.

Keith tried to get out of bed, ripping out his IV and trying to lift his feet. The left one was especially heavy, and Keith realized there was a cast on it after he threw the blankets aside.

" Fuck! Find me some crutches! I need to see him!" Keith whined.

" Keith, Lance is in a coma." Shiro finally just came out and told him. Keith whipped his head around to face him. Tears dripped down his pale cheeks, and he clenched his fists. Blood dripped out of where he'd taken the IV out because of the tension, and Shiro got up to grab some gauze from one of the drawers. He pressed it on the vein, and Keith seemed to be in a trance.

Shiro looked down once more. He would have to tell him so much.

" You've been here for two days..." He said to the smaller male, and Keith stared off into space. " Your ankle was broken in the car crash."

" Tell me everything..." Keith whimpered, wiping away the tears from his cheeks hastily. Lance. That was all he could think about. He wanted to bound toward his boyfriend and tackle him in a hug, to take him home, to tell him he loved him.

Truthfully, Shiro wasn't sure if Ketih was capable of hearing the truth... but... he had the right to know. Where the hell did he start?

" What do you remember?" Shiro asked him, wanting to figure out everything first. Keith thought for a moment.

" L-Lance... James shot him... I killed James, called 911, then I stole a car and tried to get him to the hospital..." Keith smeared more tears away from his eyes, not wanting to let himself break down and sob. The impulse was there, as were the feelings, but he wasn't about to let the action take place. " I hit something... and that's all I know."

Shiro took a very deep breath, running his good arm through his hair.

" Adam got stabbed by Lotor... he was torturing him in the basement." The older brother began. Keith sat by with a hand over his mouth. He decided not to interrupt Shiro and save all of his comments for the end, at least for right then. He doubted that his decision to do so would hold true. " I told Matt and Hunk to find you and Lance, and take Adam to the hospital. Lotor wanted me to go into this room in the basement with him, and after I knew Matt and Hunk had Adam, I went in there with him."

Shiro really hoped this would all make sense.

" While I was down there fighting with him, Matt went out to look for you and Lance. He told me afterward. He found a blood trail and knew someone escaped. On the way out, Matt got shot, but he made it out. The three of them took my car and tried to get to the hospital, and on the way there they found your guys' car plowed into a lampost."

" Wait, what?" Keith cut in.

" You crashed right by the hospital. You weren't even a block away." Shiro told him, and Keith's heart rate was just beginning to return to 'normal.' It was still elevated, and sitting at a steady above average. " While all this was happening, Lotor was fighting with me. He wanted it to be some final clash to the death or something like that..." He trailed off.

" Is he gone?" Keith's eyebrows sank down and the anger was evident on his face.

Shiro nodded.

" Yeah... I barely got out of it, though."

Keith was just beginning to notice the bruises on Shiro's face, and the split lip he had. Right as he saw those, his eyes were yet again catching on the bandages, and on the arm that he hadn't seen his brother move at all.

" What did he do to you?" Keith lifted his hand, pointing to Shiro's arm. There was a heart monitor clamped onto one of his fingers still, and Shiro pulled the gauze back from Keith's arm.

" You see... the room he took me to... it was like a panic room. The whole room was rigged to blow, just in case he lost. He wanted to take me down with him, and he didn't care who all he hurt..." Shiro explained. " By the time I busted down the door to the room, it was ablaze. My arm took a lot of the heat. The fire spread to the rest of the mansion really quick after the explosion, and everyone was just scrambling to get out. I ran up the stairs and looked for any survivors... but I couldn't find anyone alive from our side in there."

" Who all died?" Keith choked up.

" Nyma and Rolo didn't make it. Neither did Kolivan or Ulaz. Slav was just showing up, and missed the whole thing, and Thace fought his way out. I heard from him later." Shiro said. " I was just seeing Slav in the driveway when I heard the sirens, and Slav and I had to hide in a bush. God, the guy never shuts up... we're lucky the cops didn't find us." Shiro's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as he thought about Slav.

" So... let me get this straight... you killed Lotor, but his whole mansion burned down afterward? How is this not getting traced back to us?" Keith asked.

" Most of the evidence was torched. My car was already gone by the time the cops got there. The police aren't asking many questions about us. They think Adam and Matt were random acts of violence because of Hunk's cover story, and Pidge fudged the license and registration on the car you stole." Shiro sighed.

Keith was back to thinking about Lance, just wondering what was going on in the other room. He needed to see him, but he knew that he needed to figure everything out first.

" Where is everyone now?" Keith stared into his brother's eyes, just trying to gauge his emotions.

" Adam is in a medically induced coma for now... Matt is recovering from the gunshot. I'm burned all on my right arm, and they almost had to amputate it. Hunk, Pidge, Romelle, Shay, and Kosmo are all fine. And Lance... I already told you..."

" Wait, why is Adam in a coma?" Keith asked.

" There was decreased blood flow to his brain. He was in a synoptic state, and they wanted to help him avoid seizures. I think the doctors were talking about bringing him out of the coma later today, based on his vitals." Shiro said.

" What about Lance?" Keith felt a few tears slipping from his eyes. He needed to see him, needed to hold his hand, needed him in general.

Shiro looked like he was about to say something really heavy.

" You see... Lance died on arrival to the hospital. He flatlined, but they managed to revive him before he could sustain any long term brain damage. He... he slipped into a coma from the blood loss and trauma. They're not sure when he'll wake up." Shiro put his face in his hand, trying to keep himself together.

Keith lost it and broke down.

" He died because of me!" He sobbed.

" He's not dead-"

" He was!" Keith cried into his hands, and there was an awkward knock on his door. Pidge walked in after Shiro gave permission to enter, and Keith pulled the shitty hospital blanket closer. He bawled into it uncontrollably. Why did he get to be okay and Lance didn't? Lance was a way better person. Lance was more considerate. Lance was-... everything.

" Keith, why would any of this be your fault?" Shiro asked him, tears in the corners of his eyes.

" I was the one who w-was supposed to die! James was aiming for me and he-" Keith cut himself off as tears got everywhere. He couldn't say it.

Lance had sacrificed himself.

" IDIOT!" Keith raised his voice, and it was cracking very audibly.

'It should've been me... I wish it was me. I deserve it, and you didn't. Stupid Lance. Stupid! I wanna beat the shit out of you but also kiss you forever...' Keith thought to himself, his mind racing a mile a minute.

Pidge rubbed Keith's back and looked down at him.

" Unless you want nurses rushing in here, you need to stop screaming." Shiro sniffled, and Keith smothered himself with the blanket. He pulled Pidge into a hug, mainly because she was the closest human to him, and he needed comfort from anyone who was willing to give it.

Pidge wiped a couple tears from under her glasses and hugged him back.

" Someone find me some crutches... I'm going to see him." Keith choked out. His voice seemed to be broken or at least malfunctioning, and his face was red and irritated. There was a rather large scratch on his cheek from what must've been glass, and there was a small slit in his eyebrow.

Shiro knew that there was no way he could talk Keith out of it, and that was the worst part. His little brother needed rest, but judging from the heart monitor, if he didn't get to see Lance, he'd have a heart attack or worse.

" I'll go see if you're even allowed out of your room. Keith, you got banged up pretty bad." Pidge pulled back and said.

" What are you talking about? I'm A-okay, I'm 100%." Keith insisted, and Pidge and Shiro glanced to each other. She pulled Keith's gown down to expose his right shoulder, which had been cut up very badly from the windshield shattering in. It was bandaged up, but Pidge peeled it back to show him There was a long line of stitches, and Keith looked down at it with wide eyes. It was about two inches in the front, and four more long in the back. He didn't even feel it.

" I don't feel shit." He told them honestly.

" Well, you're also pumped full of morphine. Since you took out your IV, I'm guessing you'll start feeling it soon." Shiro shook his head, and Keith shot both of them looks.

" You don't understand, I have to see him..." He growled at them.

Pidge went into the hall and found a nurse, explaining the situation. After Keith was checked out by his doctor, they deemed that he was alright enough to leave his room. They were keeping him for observation of course, so he couldn't be discharged, but he was allowed free range.

Once Keith had his crutches, he was getting out of bed. He was definitely beginning to understand what they meant about the painkillers, because holy shit... his whole body felt like a truck had slammed into it. It felt like he'd been kicked down Mount Everest from the summit and tumbled to the bottom.

None of that mattered, though. Lance was the only one that made a tiny shred of a difference in anything at that point.

Keith looked down at the cast on his ankle, seeing that it had been signed by Pidge and Hunk, as well as Shiro. He was helped out of bed, leaning the crutches under his armpits and keeping his leg bent at the knee.

Could he handle it? Could he handle seeing Lance in the bed?

He was going to find it out, and even if he couldn't, he wouldn't let the bullet win.

Keith was about to leave the room, the door having been opened by Pidge, but he was greeted by Matt standing outside the doorway. He was startled, but got over it quickly. Matt was in a hospital gown, just like Shiro and himself.

" Shiro... they're going to wake him up." Matt came in.

Shiro's eyes widened, and he looked between Keith and his boyfriend. Keith nodded at Shiro, silently telling he and Pidge to go with Matt. He needed a minute alone with Lance anyways.

Keith crutched, and Shiro pointed to the room to the right.

" He's in there."

It was crushing, and Keith wondered if Earth's gravity was trying to squish him. He could feel his throat getting tighter, and his eyes beading around more with every crutch forward. He pushed Lance's hospital room door open, tears slipping down his cheeks.

" Babe..."

...

The doctors injected something into Adam's IV, and it began dripping in. He needed to be woken up.

Matt and Shiro sat by anxiously, Shiro taking Adam's hand as he waited. Matt was restless, and a minute or so went by before they got the results. However... it wasn't what anyone could've hoped for.

Adam's eyes struggled open, his far away vision blurred somewhat without his glasses. He then saw people standing over his bed and flinched back into the pillows.

" Adam, thank go-" Matt began to say. Adam seemed very confused and disoriented.

" Do I know you?"

(( Don't hate meeeee!))