"Keith!" Keith turned his head to look at whoever had yelled his name, eyes wide from the surprise of the noise. Hunk was staring directly at him with a single eyebrow raised in expectancy. "I've been shouting your name for like five minutes, dude. Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah... Sorry..." Keith still sounded a million miles away but Hunk didn't try to push it. He was well aware that Keith could deal with his own emotions and usually refused help for that exact reason. Keith diverted his gaze to his lap and blinked a couple of times, trying to re-orientate himself. "What was I doing?" He asked aloud, earning another set of concerned eyes on him in the form of Shiro.

"You were staring into space," Shiro answered, raising his eyes and sitting down beside him on the sofa. "Are you feeling alright?" He pressed his large palm against Keith's forehead before retracting it a few seconds later. "You aren't hot."

"I'm fine. I think I just need to lay down for a bit."

With crinkled eyebrows, Keith pulled himself up onto his feet and raced out of the room.

-

Keith was pacing up and down the observation room, unsure of how he got there or what he was meant to be doing. All he knew was that he had been in there for at least an hour and all he had done was walk up and down aimlessly. Once he reached the north wall for the thousandth time, he paused to look out the window. They were surrounded by the beauty that was space and it never failed to amaze him. As a kid, he had always wanted to see the stars up close and there he was. He desperately wanted to contact his younger self and tell him that look, it is possible!

"Keith?" Keith twirled around to watch the green paladin walk into the room and cock their head to the side upon the sight of him. Keith glanced down at his feet, knowing that Keith was his name but the name of the other paladin had slipped off the edge of his tongue. Why couldn't he remember? "It's 3am."

"3am?" Keith blinked, diverting his gaze between the stars through the windows to the green paladin. Knowing he didn't want to worry anyone and simultaneously being terrified as to what was going on in his brain, he forced a smile. "Oh yeah, I- I couldn't sleep."

"Are you sure? You look... out of it."

"I'm fine. Why are you awake anyway?"

"I was working on something that might help us contact home. I know Lance is really homesick so I thought I'd make it as a present or something." Lance. Lance. Lance. Which one was Lance again? Oh yeah, blue paladin and his rival. There was no way Keith could forget him.

"That's really sweet."

The green paladin smiled and avoided Keith's gaze, a blush tinting their cheeks. "Don't tell anyone. I just know Hunk would tell Lance and Shiro would say I overwork or some shit. Allura and Coran already know because they were helping me." All those names... How could Keith not remember? 

"Cool."

"Yeah," The other let out a gentle sigh. "You should sleep."

"How about I'll sleep if you do?"

"Deal."

 -

"Keith, Hunk needs help!" Shiro yelled through the comms but Keith didn't seem to react straight away. There were three corridors in front of him but which one had Hunk gone down? He couldn't remember. Hunk was going to die because he couldn't remember. "Keith! Hurry up!"

Keith wasn't one to cry but he couldn't hold back the tears at that moment. He was so goddamn frustrated that he couldn't remember anything but he couldn't let the others find out in case they worried. On a whim, he rushed down the corridor in the middle, only to be greeted with even more shouting on the comms. "No, no! Hunk went left, Keith!"

He backed up with a shaky laugh before following the right corridor.

-

"What were you thinking?" Shiro- was this Shiro? Or was it Coran? Keith couldn't remember- shouted, standing up and hitting his hands against the desk. Keith hadn't seen him so angry and red-faced before so instinctively shrunk back into his chair. "Hunk is in a pod because you decided it was funny to make a joke of running down the corridor! I expect that from Lance but you? No, Keith. You know better than that."

Keith stared a hole into the table, chewing on his bottom lip so harshly that it was beginning to draw blood. "I'm sorry." He whispered, voice trembling much more than he had anticipated.

"Sorry doesn't heal Hunk, does it?"

"No..."

"Is everything okay?" Shiro's voice calmed down so much that it sounded as soft as a cloud, contrasting the venom it had held just moments previous. "This isn't like you. Is something going on?" Keith shook his head. "Then I'm disappointed in you."

-

"I'm disappointed in you." Keith let out a loud sob, burying his face into his hands. His head was pounding with the words dancing around his head to the saddest kind of song. He pulled his legs up onto the bed so he could hug them and hide his face in his knees.

He was scared. Terrified. Petrified, even. He had no idea what was going on in his head and why he was forgetting the people that had once meant the world to him. At first, their names had simply slipped his mind but, by that point, he couldn't even remember what they were like. He couldn't remember which ones he was closest to and which he may not have gotten along with. He couldn't remember anything.

Letting out another sob that seemed to resemble more of a wail, Keith scrunched his face up. Anyone would have thought he was rendered a mess by some sort of physical pain when, really, it was the emotional pain that was eating him alive.

A knock on the door made him lift his head up, rubbing furiously at his eyes to get any dregs of the tears to dissipate. The door was thrown open by a boy- what was his name... come on, Keith, he's your friend for fuck's sake! He was wearing a green jacket and had his his hands thrown nonchalantly in the pockets. His face was wearing a one-sided smile but it quickly vanished once his eyes laid upon Keith.

"Are you... crying?" He asked but Keith couldn't respond. He turned his head so the boy- whoever he was- couldn't see the tear tracks on his face or his red eyes. "Keith, what's going on? Are you hurt? It's just like you to hide an injury from-"

"I'm fine. Leave me alone, please." Keith's voice came out broken and fragile like a shattered piece of glass.

"No way. I know you think you're a lone wolf and can deal with everything on your own but you can't. I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on." The boy folded his arms to reinforce his words but that just elicited another cry from Keith.

"Get out, get out, get out!" He started to yell, standing up so he could shove the boy out of his room. 

"Hey! You can't just push-" The boy was cut off as Keith slammed his hand down on the button to close and lock the door. Once it was shut, Keith collapsed onto his knees and started to cry again.

Why couldn't he remember?

-

When Keith woke up, he panicked. He glanced around the room and had no idea where he was. His breaths picked up until they were irregular and his world was spinning from how lightheaded he had become. He pulled himself up onto his feet, wide eyes glancing around the unfamiliar room. A red and white jacket that felt oddly familiar was hung on one of the handles so he pulled it over his shoulders. He spent a few minutes trying to figure out the door before rushing out into the corridor. His hand found its way to his trouser pockets, settling on a knife he couldn't remember putting there but was glad he had it on him.

He was still hyperventilating by the time he reached what looked like a kitchen. Two boys he could have sworn he had never seen before were sat around the table, eating some green goo. "Keith!" The one in yellow spoke up with a small wave.

Keith stumbled backwards, holding up his knife in defence. "I don't know who that is but I need you to tell me where I am." He tried to make it sound like a threat but it came out weak and pathetic.

"What do you mean?"

"Where am I?!" Keith sounded even more desperate that time which, in conjunction with the tears trailing down his cheeks, elicited the two boys in front of him to exchange concerned looks. 

"You need to calm down, okay? I'm going to get Coran."

Coran. The name seemed so familiar but he couldn't remember. 

With that, the yellow one rushed out of the kitchen and left Keith alone with the one in the green jacket who was staring at him with raised eyebrows. "Keith, is this some sort of joke?"

"Who's Keith?"

The words seemed to hit the boy harder than Keith had anticipated because his face grew about a hundred shades whiter. His eyes widened and he stood up to approach Keith but backed off once Keith waved his knife around. "You're Keith. That's your name. Do you not remember?"

"No," Keith sobbed. "I don't remember anything."

"Okay, breathe with me for a moment." Tentatively, the boy started to deepen his breathing like he had once done to help Hunk with panic attacks. Keith didn't trust the boy one bit but decided to follow along anyway, desperate to get his headache to go away and remember. "You're on the Castle of Lions. Do you know what that is?" Keith shook his head slowly. "You're a paladin of Voltron. You're from earth and we came into space after saving Shiro."

"Shiro..?" The name felt heavy on Keith's tongue but why?

"Yes, Shiro. You were close to him back on earth but he went missing. When we came into space, we met Allura and Coran, two Alteans and-" The boy cut himself off once a ginger-haired man walked into the kitchen with the yellow one. 

"Get away from me!" Keith yelled, falling back into his panicked state as he waved his knife around again. The fight component of his fight or flight response was cranked up to a million so he wasn't afraid to hurt anyone if it meant he could protect himself. For all he knew, he could have been kidnapped by the people around him and they may not have been his friends at all. He couldn't remember.

"We're your friends..." The one in the green jacket whispered, holding his hands up in defence. Keith diverted his gaze between them all before crying out again.

"I don't trust you. I don't know who any of you are so there's no way we're friends. You're lying to me."

"No, we're not. Please, Keith, put the knife down." Upon meeting the eyes of the one in the green jacket, Keith found himself cooperating. There was just something about the sea of blue that made him feel safe and like he could trust that one. His arm slowly fell down to his side and he let the boy pull the knife out of his grasp.

All of a sudden, Keith latched onto the boy, tears still trailing down his pale cheeks. "You have to help me. I can't remember anything. I don't know who you are. I don't know who I am. I don't know what's going on."

The boy hushed him, rubbing a hand against his back to help calm him down. "We're going to help you but you need to come with us."

Drained of all hope and will to fight, Keith nodded and followed.

Once they made it to the med-bay, Keith stayed silent as he was told to lay down on the bed. Coran started to explain something to him that went straight in one ear and out the other before injecting him with something. His eyelids began to get heavy as each of the other paladins and Coran watched him fall into a deep sleep.

Once they were sure he was unconscious, Coran wrapped his arms and legs in restraints just in case he woke up and panicked again.

-

"His brain appears to be functioning normally," Coran mumbled, eyes thin as they took in the information in front of him. Pidge was on their tip toes so they could peer over his shoulder. "I compared his brain to Lance's and Hunk's from when they were in the pods and it seems pretty similar."

"That's odd..." Pidge murmured. "If he has issues with his memory, it would typically be because of damage to certain parts of his brain like the hypothalamus or the neocortex."

"The... what?"

"The hypothalamus is involved in transferring short term memories into long term and is involved in spatial memory or something. It's also involved in other things like the release of hormones but yeah. The neocortex is involved in processing procedural memories."

"In English please?" Lance spoke up from where he had been standing beside Keith's sleeping body. He had his hand on top of Keith's, though everyone was too anxious to notice and point it out. 

"Keith's brain is fine so his memory loss can't have been caused by brain injury."

"Is that not like... the only way he can have memory loss?"

Pidge shrugged, turning their head to look at Keith and furrowing their eyebrows. "Could one of the aliens have cursed him or something?"

Coran twiddled his moustache. "Potentially. We did just visit the Teekar colony. They are known for doing magic but they wouldn't have done this to Keith unless he offended them or something."

Lance's eyes widened and he suddenly began to avoid Pidge and Coran's gazes as if they were the plague. 

"Lance," Pidge warned, noticing his odd behaviour almost immediately. "What do you know?"

"He yelled at one of them because they wouldn't leave me alone. They kept trying to hit on me. I didn't think anything of it because they ended up apologising and they gave us something."

"You took something from a Teekan?!" Coran spat out with eyes wider than a pair of saucers. His face paled a substantial amount and he began shaking his head over and over again. "Oh dear, this could be bad. Do you still have the gift?"

"Uh.. no? Keith took it and said he'd get rid of it."

"We need to find it and destroy it. If we can, this curse won't be permanent."

"But what if Keith got rid of it?!" Lance practically yelled whilst retracting his hand away from Keith. He was beginning to sweat profusely with the idea that it was his fault for not letting the weird alien creature hit on him. 

"Then... it's permanent."

-

"It was a red stone with a tiny bird engraved in it," Lance recalled, tipping the bin in Keith's room upside down. Nothing. "I only remember because Keith thought it was pretty but like.. in an ugly way." 

"Okay, okay. Hopefully he kept it then... as a souvenir or some shit." Pidge responded, opening up some of Keith's draws on his bedside table.

"I don't think he'll appreciate us looking through all of his stuff."

"Well he's just going to have to deal with it because we are not losing him because he can't keep his temper in line."

"But it was my fault..." Lance murmured, getting down onto his knees. He peered under the bed just to find a bunch of empty space and darkness. "The alien was making me uncomfortable and he told them to fuck off."

"How nice of him. Now couldn't he have done it without the fighting?"

Lance went silent, knowing Pidge was right but, deep down, still thinking Keith's memory loss was on his shoulders.

It took them much longer than they had anticipated and they were on the verge of giving up when Pidge stumbled across a box that was hidden in the back of Keith's wardrobe. It was a plain, simple box that, when they pulled it out, they had thought was nothing. When they opened it up, both of them gasped: inside was a series of different stones and trinkets. They ranged in colour, from stones that glowed a deep red to dark grey ones. "Oh my God, Keith secretly collects things." Pidge snorted.

"Even I didn't see that coming... it's kind of cute though, isn't it?"

Pidge slapped Lance with their right hand, thinning their eyes to glare at him. "Stop thinking about your stupid crush and find the stone so we can fix Keith."

"It's not a-" Lance began to argue but swallowed it back once he realised the next part was all on him. All he needed to do was find the stupid stone that started all of Keith's pain. He sifted through the stones for a moment before pulling out the stone and holding it up into the air as if it was some sort of trophy. "It's this one."

-

"We can't just throw it away," Coran explained, fiddling with the culprit in his left hand. It was smooth on the surface with the exception of where the phoenix-esque bird had been carved into it. "We need to destroy it. The best way to do that is to burn it."

"I think we should use the red lion," Lance spoke up, a wide grin on his face. "That way Keith's lion can avenge Keith."

"Lance, your plans usually suck but I like this one." Pidge responded, holding out their hand to take the stone. "I'll take green and we can get rid of it on a planet and then Red can burn it in the pits of hell."

Both Pidge and Lance turned to Coran, expecting him to argue but the half smile on his face suggested that he liked their plan more than he was willing to admit.

-

"The stone is down. I repeat, the stone is down." Pidge said into the comms before pulling the controls in Green back so they could escape the scene.

Lance grinned as he flew Red forwards, hands tightly wrapped around the controls. "You ready, girl?" Red's loud roar was enough of a response for Lance to fly forward. Pidge watched with a front row seat as the lion opened his mouth wide and started to breathe enough fire to light up an entire planet for a month. The stone lit up almost immediately, the flames dancing in the air. The smoke emitted wasn't the usual grey but a bright, ominous red. Soon, all that was left was a pile of red ash.

-

When Keith came to, he tried to sit up but found he was being held down by something.He glanced around the room to see each paladin surrounding him with equally wide eyes and pale faces. "What?" He snapped, not liking all of the attention on him.

"How are you feeling?" Shiro asked, his usual dad-like tone laced in his voice.

"Fine?" Glancing down and realising he was strapped to a bed in the med-bay, he let his eyebrows furrow. "What happened? Why am I tied down here?"

"You lost your memory and went all psycho on us," Lance chipped in. "We saved the day... hopefully? Do you know my name?"

"How could I forget your name, Lance? You're annoying enough that I don't think I'd ever be able to forget you."

"Yup, he's back," Lance smiled as Coran stepped forward to undo the restraints around Keith's arms and legs. Once he was free, Keith sat up and rubbed his tired eyes. He stretched out his arms and legs- they were aching from being stuck in the same position for so long- and let out a satisfied sigh at the cracks they released. "Now can we talk about your little souvenir collection?"

It was Keith's turn to widen his eyes as he avoided Lance's gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, Keith! It's so cute that you, the literal edge-lord, collect stones!"

Keith folded his arms and turned his head away from all of his friends. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Shiro, I think Lance is having problems with his memory too."

Shiro snorted before murmuring, "He used to collect them on earth too."

"You traitor!"