Allura. Keith. Hunk. Shiro. Coran. Pidge. Allura. Keith. Hunk. Shiro. Coran. Pidge.

Lance repeated the names in his head as if it would make them any more real. He even had a minute sparkle of hope in his heart that it might summon one of his friends. At that moment, Lance would have done anything to see their faces again. Anything. Anything anything anything any-

"Lance, are you alright?" The voice seemed so distant that Lance couldn't tell who it was. His ears were ringing and his surroundings seemed too bright and high in contrast to look at.

He felt like he was dying. Was he dying? He didn't know.

Forcing himself up and breathing so quickly that he was lightheaded, Lance ran to the closest bathroom. He slammed the door behind him before covering his ears with his hands to drown out his own thoughts. The room was shrinking around him, each wall tip-toeing towards him until he felt he had to make himself as small as possible. He hadn't even noticed he was crying and screaming all at once; to his mum on the other side of the door, it sounded like he was hurt.

She panicked. She pushed the door open and tried to calm her son down with words but he didn't seem to hear her. He wasn't listening. Naive, his mum made the mistake of reaching for his hand. Needless to say, she never managed to grab it.

Too disorientated to trust his environment, Lance flailed his arms to get whatever- whoever - it was to give him space. In the process of doing so, Lance's hand smashed into his mum's stomach. Hard. She stumbled back and hugged herself, eyes wide. Her own breaths had become erratic as she realised she couldn't help Lance. She had to watch her own son suffer, helpless.

To both Lance and his mum, the next part was blurry. All they knew was that Lance's dad must have heard them and come running. Somehow, he had managed to calm them down which brings us to the next part of the story.

Sobbing into his chest, Lance's mum was clinging to his dad. After he gathered that Lance had hit his wife, a long, deep frown spread across his face. Meanwhile, Lance was sat on the sofa opposite them, eyes rimmed with enough red to make it look like poorly done stage make up.

"Lance, you can't keep this up any longer," Lance opened his mouth to catapult himself into an argument but held back when his dad continued. "We know this is hard for you too but you... hitting your mother is the last straw."

"I was- I didn't-" Lance tried but not even he could make sense of what happened in his head. The world had been so fuzzy and he had been petrified... he didn't even know what he was doing.

"We think it might be best if you were put in hospital. You just... You're not getting better and I'm worried you might lash out again."

Lance's brain couldn't comprehend words as tears filled his eyes. He could no longer say the heavy feeling in his chest was sadness: it had become numbness. How was he supposed to react when his parents wanted to throw him into an asylum? That wasn't supposed to happen to him. He was just a normal kid who had a normal childhood and was supposed to live a normal life. He didn't belong in an asylum... he belonged at home with his family and friends.

"It's for the best, okay? Who knows what could happen next. You might hurt yourself..."

Lance's heart begged him to argue. It begged him to shout and to scream- anything that might fix things. Despite that, his mind refused to cooperate. It told him that he had stooped too low. He had his own mum- the woman who had dedicated years of her life into looking after him- and that was enough of a reason for him to be locked up. The only words that could escape his mouth was a tiny, desperate, "I'm sorry."

-

Lance could hear his mum's sob through his parents' bedroom door. It was a sound so foreign and terrifying that it made him want to take back all those times he had cried to her. She cried loudly and without a single ounce of hope; something that was so uncharacteristic of the woman that had given Lance so much of his hope over the years. Tentatively, Lance stepped towards the door before pushing it open. Upon seeing his mum's tear-stained face and his dad's red-rimmed eyes, he found himself opening his mouth and closing it again. He wasn't sure what he was meant to say. Never had he put his parents through so much misery; not even when his parents found out how poor his performances were at the Garrison. "Lance..." His mum began but she wasn't able to say anything else as her words were morphed into a colossal sob.

"I'm so sorry, mamá and papá... for everything..." Lance murmured as tears trailed down his own cheeks. "I think..." The words were on the tip of his tongue; all he needed to do was force them out. Why was it so difficult? Why couldn't he speak all of a sudden? After a long, deep breath, Lance finally said, "I think I made Voltron up."

"Finally," It was his dad who was first to speak. He stood up as his bottom lip trembled and held out his arms. Lance didn't want a hug. He wanted- needed- space. "I thought we'd lost you."

"You'll never lose me." Lance felt like a kid again. He felt like the one who grazed his knee and cried loud enough that his parents had to be called and the whole playground heard him. He felt like the kid who had cried so hard on his first day of school that his mum had to sit by his side all day. He felt like the kid who had failed all of his flying simulations because he never took them seriously enough to pass. In reality, he was just a kid. Despite being on the cusp of eighteen years old, he was still a child. He hadn't had his first proper job, he hadn't had any proper relationships, he hadn't moved out of his family home... he was just a kid that didn't deserve to experience trauma.

"Are you ready to talk about what happened?"

Silence lapsed into the room as Lance dropped his head to look down at his feet. Somehow, further tears were making a home in his tear ducts; it was a surprise he hadn't dehydrated himself by that point. He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right foot and vice versa. It was a nervous tic that his parents had never failed to miss. With the way they were looking at him with glossy, concerned eyes and identical raised eyebrows, it was clear that time wasn't an exception. "I- I still don't remember."

"Lance," His dad's voice was strained. It was obvious that he was drained from everything Lance had put him through since coming back home. "How can you not remember?" He leaned forward, eyes widening as they practically begged Lance to tell the truth. Little did he know, Lance was being honest. "You can't keep playing these games. This is serious... someone is dead and more people could die... we just need you to tell the truth."

"I am telling the truth..."

"You must remember something... please... talk to us... You can't go on hiding what happened forever."

"I'm not hiding it... I genuinely don't know. I'm sorry, alright? If I could remember, I'd tell you."

"Lance, stop it! You're upsetting your mother!" Sure enough, Lance's mum had hunched over and began crying into her hands again, unable to stop the floods of tears as much as she wanted to. She missed her hijo- the one that constantly wore a grand smile and goofed around all the time. She wanted him back.

"I can't help it! I'm telling the truth but no one trusts me enough to believe me!"

"Because there must be something! You must remember something! We lost you for an entire year and you come back all... all brainwashed!" Lance shrunk as his dad's voice rose, something both his parents noticed. The thought lingered in the back of their minds that maybe Lance had developed a fear of loud noises from the trauma but neither dared to ask. Instead, his dad lowered his volume enough to make him sound almost monotonous. "Something traumatic must have happened and I just don't understand how you can't remember? Do you think we're going to judge? We're not. We love you and we always will, no matter what you went through."

"Why can't you trust me?"

"I just can't!" The loud voice must have been almost subconscious because his dad was shouting again. It was loud enough to make the room feel like it was experiencing a minor earthquake. "I hope you know that your mum cries almost every night. She doesn't know where her loveable, funny boy went. All she wants is some closure about what happened to you... that's all. Stop lying to us. We don't know what you think you're trying to accomplish by lying."

Lance's bottom lip started to wobble as his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Then," His voice cracked and his breath hitched. "Then maybe I should go. I'm sorry I'm such a burden." Lance turned on his heel and stormed up the stairs before the sound of his bedroom door being slammed echoed around the house. After that, the house was flooded with silence. No one dared to say a word about what had happened.

-

"Lance, where are you going?" Lance's mum demanded as he walked into the kitchen with his old school rucksack on his back. It was blue in colour with nothing special about it apart from the little shark keyring hanging from the zip but it reminded his mum of another time- the time when Lance was happy.

Lance slowly turned his head to look at his mum, eyes thin and eyebrows furrowed before murmuring, "I told you, I'm leaving." As soon as the sentence was out in the open air, Lance's mum paled, looking like she was going to throw up there and then, in the middle of their kitchen. She stood up and tried to reach out for Lance's arm but he moved away before she could make contact.

"You can't run away like this..." Tears were filling Lance's mum's eyes but he tried his best to ignore them so he didn't have to make the exit harder for himself. All he wanted was to lift the burden from his parents' shoulders. He was sick of having to hear them cry over him every night. "We're sorry, alright? Your father didn't mean to shout."

"It's too late now. I get it, none of you trust me and you all think I'm insane. That's why I'm going. You know what? Maybe I can make it back to space." Lance let out a harsh laugh at his last line but it dissipated into the air fairly quickly. Lance really didn't know where he was going to go. He just wanted to get out. Part of him was wondering if he could get back into the Garrison with his old school ID (he'd found it in his wallet in his school bag) but he had probably been removed from the records. It was worth a try.

"Lance, I-" His mum tried but it was too late. Lance had already slammed the front door behind him and started to walk down the path.

Lance's mum threw the door back open and rushed down the drive in just her dressing gown, yelling an endless string of apologies at her son. The thin sole of her slipper wasn't enough to protect her feet from the pressure of the stones on the path but, still, she raced after him. She didn't stop until she found Lance standing in the middle of the field he had loved to play football in once upon a time. He was staring up at the sky with his eyes scrunched shut, two tiny marks on his cheeks glowing so lightly that his mum wasn't sure whether she was imagining it.

Just before Lance's mum was able to throw the gate open and grab her son to take him home, a giant lion bounded into view. It ran towards Lance, looking like it was about to crash into him but stopping and landing at the last moment. Lance looked just as shocked as his mum felt, his eyes wide and staring at the mechanical animal. Once it was sat down on the grass, Lance reached out and, although Lance's mum couldn't see from so far away, she knew his hand was trembling. Once he had made contact with its leg, the door fell open to reveal some stairs.

Frozen and speechless as a result of the shock, Lance's mum could only watch as Lance boarded the spaceship and shot back out up into the air. She rubbed her eyes with her fists but, sure enough, her son was gone.