I'm back! I might be a bit evil here, but if enough of you read/comment that you want the next part (focused back on Keith), I'll post it tonight. It's up to y'all! 😈 Thanks so much for reading, and enjoy!

-----

The two Alteans and remaining three Paladins had gathered in the command center, each staying quietly at their station. Lance constantly stared at Keith's and Shiro's chairs.

Lance would never tell the mullet boy, but he actually missed having someone to argue with.

Allura only stared out into space. Coran scanned over the control panels. Pidge glared at their computer screen like always. Hunk was passed out in his chair.

Allura had requested that everyone try connecting with the Red and Black Lions, even Coran. Everyone all knew Coran had failed a while back, and Red went searching for Keith on its own.

Keith was still the only one Black had ever admitted besides Shiro, except it acknowledged Allura better.

The only one Red showed least resentment towards was Lance. Which Lance thought was odd since he and Keith always fought. But Lance was also the only one that mentioned Keith...

Lance was tired of moping. He slammed his hands down on his chair, scaring everyone as they whirled around wide-eyed.

"We need to go find Keith," Lance barked. He was usually never this upset, not even towards Keith when they argued. Why did he care so much about the emo dropout now?

"Keith made it clear he wasn't coming back without Shiro and the new Red Paladin--" Pidge countered.

"Do you seriously think the Red Lion will accent anyone besides Keith?"

"Well, the Lions responded the most to you and Allura. Maybe you two need to just keep trying?" Hunk offered with a yawn.

"No," Lance snapped. "I'm not breaking my tie with Blue to form one with Red. It just doesn't make sense. We need Keith, with or without Shiro. One missing Paladin is enough."

Pidge looked at Lance slyly out of the corner of their glasses, but Lance ignored them.

"Seriously, the pod left days ago--"

"How long are your Earth days, again?" Allura asked, confused.

"One day is eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds," Pidge offered. "We measured seconds with your ticks a while back--"

"Can't you, like, track the pod down, Coran?" Lance interrupted impatiently.

"I can try," Coran muttered as he began pushing buttons and typing. "Ah! Thankfully it had traces of quintessential energy leftover. After the wormhole, it--"

"What, Coran?" Lance demanded.

"It went to Earth," Coran muttered staring at the screen before a new window popped up. "But it seems Shiro wasn't there, since the pod left again an Earth day later. It was detected around this planet, before we lost contact--"

"So it crashed?!" Hunk cried.

"We'll find out," Lance muttered. "Allura, please, can we go check it out?"

"This isn't the best plan, Lance. It could very well be a trap--"

"Doesn't matter," Lance growled. "We need Voltron, so we need Keith. If he hadn't found Shiro, we can still find him faster together."

Pidge stifled a giggle.

"Alright," Allura sighed. "I hope you're right, Lance."

Lance smirked. "I'm always right!"