Keith nervously paced outside of Lance's pod, going over Haggar's words in his head.

What did she mean by 'You may have saved him from me, but can you save him from himself'? It makes no sense. He gazed at Lance, whose face was peaceful, so unlike it had been earlier. I just want to know what she did to him. What could have broken him that much?

He clenched his fists as his eyes roamed over the burns that had almost finished healing. I swear that if I see her again, I'll make her pay for what she did to you, Lance, he promised. This is despicable, and nothing I could do to her would be satisfactory enough.

Just then, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see who it belonged to.

Shiro stood to his right, a sad smile on his face as he looked at Lance. "You're worried about him. I can tell." He glanced at Keith.

"Yeah."

Shiro's eyes were glazed over as he stared at the blue paladin. He winced and then swallowed, straightening his back in a way that signaled to Keith that he had been in the midst of an unpleasant memory. "I don't think Lance won't be in there that much longer, though," he continued. "H - his burns are nearly healed."

"That's good. But Shiro. . . . stop pretending like you're fine," Keith said. "I know you're not, okay?"

Shiro sighed. He didn't even try to deny it, because he knew Keith would keep on insisting otherwise.

"Listen, you don't have to be strong all the time. Sure, you're our leader, but you're also human, too." He glanced at his friend, his brother. "You can tell me if anything's bothering you, okay?"

"Only if I can do the same for you," Shiro replied. "You're just as bad as I am at sharing your feelings."

"But - !"

He paused when Shiro sent him a glare that he interpreted to mean, 'shut-up-and-listen-to-me'. It had a commanding presence that made Keith do exactly that.

"You know I'm right. You're too much like me, and I recognize that." The black paladin exhaled, a hint of sadness coloring his voice. "I know that this talk probably won't change your mind, nor will it change mine, and we'll still be bottling up our feelings for different reasons, but. . . ." His eyes softened. "I still want you - both of us in fact - to trust each other more. How about we start with your worries about a certain blue paladin?"

Keith laughed, but there was no happiness in his voice. "I have a whole list."

"And I have time."

So he began, telling how he had expected Haggar to be more diverse in her methods of torture, and the fact that she hadn't been - seeing as she had apparently only used lightning - instilled doubt in him.

"Not that I want him to be severely hurt, but it's just confusing," he confessed. Now that he had actually let himself talk to someone, it was all flowing out of him with abandon. "I'm just worried, because what if we're missing something? What if there's another problem that we can't see? What if we're not able to help him?"

He rubbed his temples, trying to suppress an oncoming headache. "I know that you're going to tell me to have faith in him, that he'll be fine, he's strong, and he can get through this, and I know he can, but I can't help worrying - "

"Breathe, Keith," Shiro said, taking him by the shoulders. "I get why you're worried so much, we all are, and I know that until he's back to normal, you won't be able to stop. But if this can give you some peace of mind, Lance won't have to go through this on his own. We will all be here supporting him, no matter what." Shiro gave Keith a gentle smile that he returned, albeit not without lingering sadness.

"Thanks, Shiro."

Suddenly, Pidge, Coran, Hunk, and Allura - whose shoulders were occupied by the mice - appeared in his peripheral vision, popping their heads around the doorway. Pidge was the first one to speak. "Has he woken up yet?"

Her question was answered as soon as it was spoken, because her eyes landed on Lance's prone form still in the cryo-pod. "Oh." She sighed. "I guess not."

She stepped out of the doorway, followed by the others, and made her way to stand beside Keith and Shiro. Disappointment, anxiousness and sadness all warred to show on her face. "How much longer does he have, Coran?"

The Altean examined the progress of Lance's burns as well as he could from the other side of a slightly tinted cover, and responded with the answer, "About ten doboshes."

The group immediately tensed, torn between the relief that he would be out soon and concern for what mental condition they would find him in.

Pidge fiddled with her glasses, pushing them up and down her face, trying not to think of every single thing that could go wrong. She was failing. Badly.

Hunk just stared straight into the cryo-pod along with Coran, monitoring it for any fluctuations.

Shiro tapped a single finger by his side as he waited, trying to keep himself as patient as possible.

Keith fidgeted by moving his foot up and down rapidly as he stared at the ground with a look that could eventually have melted the metal.

And Allura tried to keep calm and composed by remaining perfectly still, but eventually gave up and swayed side to side slightly to distract herself.

Each and every single one of them just wanted to see what had become of their friend, and they were certainly not prepared for what would happen.

. . . .

The required time passed, and the turquoise-tinted covering receded, letting Lance fall out of the cryo-pod's cold embrace and into Hunk's arms.

Even though they had no idea what they were expecting when he woke up, it certainly wasn't what they got.

Lance pushed the yellow paladin away from him, a frantic and wild look in his blue eyes, and backed as far away from them as he could, hugging his knees to his chest.

This isn't real, the voice in his head told him, and he agreed.

Nothing's real, this isn't real, this isn't real! His mind was chaos, and his teammates' concerned yells and tries to comfort him fell on deaf ears.

They don't care about you, this is fake, another way for Haggar to torture you, a worse way! She'll give you hope and then steal it away from you like the witch she is. You don't want that, do you? So get her out.

His hands clawed at his skull as if trying to peel back the skin. "Sal de mi cabeza bruja!" Get out of my head! "Sal de mi cabeza get out of my head sal de mi cabeza - "

Then, in an instant, the world descended into the darkness.

. . . .

Hunk stood over Lance, panting, his eyes wide with fear. He dropped the syringe that he had used to administer the Altean sedative to Lance and collapsed beside him on his knees. "What. . . . happened?" He just looked dazed.

The rest of the room had no answer. They stood in a circle around them, completely stunned.

"W - was that a. . . . n - nervous breakdown?" Pidge stuttered hesitantly.

"I think so," said Shiro. His voice was grave, and even though there was a calm resolution to his stature, he was as white as a sheet. He had actually been afraid that Lance would hurt himself or someone else, and that's what scared him most.

"Is that. . . . common for humans?" Allura asked, her eyes still on Lance, watching for any movement.

Shiro swallowed the lump in his throat. "For those with high-stress lives, PTSD, anxiety or depression, I guess they could be. And trust me, I know." He could feel every eye in the room now trained on him, but he kept his to the floor where Lance lay. "My own weren't nearly as bad as that, though."

"If you're. . . . comfortable with telling us, what were they like, and how did you ward them off?" Allura asked him. Her voice was soft and gentle, but it still held curiosity.

Shiro just gave a bitter laugh at her question. "You don't 'ward them off' - you just put measures in place to help prevent them. They're not bugs that you can just shoo away or kill, Allura, things that will never be back to haunt you again. Oh no, they're always there, always threatening." He took a deep breath, noting how strange and slightly menacing his voice had become. "I - I'm sorry. I just. . . . find this a sensitive subject."

Keith lent him his support, saying, "No, Shiro. You shouldn't be sorry. We understand."

There was a collective agreement that was interrupted by Hunk, who seemed to be the most shaken. "B - but what could've caused that in Lance?" His voice wavered and he pushed himself from the floor, face plastered with uneasiness. "A nervous breakdown isn't like him. None of that was like him."

Pidge nudged him, and spoke what had been on her mind since Lance had opened his mouth. "You heard what he said, right? I've heard you speak Spanish sometimes to each other, which was what that was. So, what did he say? It could help us find out what caused this."

Hunk took a deep breath and shuddered. " 'Get out of my head, witch'. That's what he said, and repeated 'get out of my head' a few more times." His look of distress grew. "He's never said that before. What did Haggar do to him?"

No one had any answers for him. They all knew of his burns, but not how deeply she had scarred him mentally.

"Maybe after a period of rest, he'll be more able to talk to us," Allura advised, trying to keep rational. "The only thing we can do now is move him to a more comfortable place, and then discuss how to help him until he wakes up. Then we can put our ideas into action."

And so they did.