“The rest of your crew are either dead - like your captain - or they’ve joined us. You’re the last hold out, Lieutenant.” 
	He glared at her as she walked up to him, pulling her helmet off to let her moonlight-colored hair tumble free over the shoulders of her vac-suit. “If I weren’t chained to his wall…”
	“Oh yes, I’m sure you’d show me how a true Navy starman fights, etc. etc. At least try to be original, Lieutenant? And think for a moment or two: I’m offering you a great opportunity.”
	“You want the location of our base in this sector.”
	“Well, yes, but I also want you. Just you,” she booped the end of his nose, “not the knowledge in that pretty head of yours.”
	He struggled against his restraints, but he was held fast to the wall. “I don’t buy that.”
	She huffed in annoyance. “I make the same offer to every member of every Naval star-frigate I take down.”
	“Join you or die?”
	She shrugged. “It’s a better and quicker death than the Navy’ll give you if you go back. Think, Lieutenant: what’s the punishment for loss of cargo and ship?”
	The answer sprang to his mind: depending on the value of the cargo and ship, anywhere from 20 to 100 lashes. Most people passed out from pain at 10. The energy whip cauterized as it split flesh, but near 80 you’d still start to lose enough blood from having it boiled away by the heat that you’d fall into unconsciousness. And each open wound - no matter how short a time it was open - was a potential vector for disease to enter. Your back would take movements to heal while you were expected to continue your work, assuming you weren’t in the brig on half-rations (nowhere near enough calories to both sustain AND heal your body).
	He didn’t reply, but she smirked. She clearly knew the answer already. “Would you rather a slow, painful death or a nice quick one at the end of my blaster? Or, better still, join us? We don’t have the punishments the Galactic Navy has, and everyone gets a share.”
	“Of the loot you steal from honest, hard-working citizens,” he finished for her, since she seemed to be avoiding the truth.
	“Of what we take back from the mega-corps and mining orgs.” She folded her arms as she regarded him. “They’re as ruthless as the Navy, and even more powerful. They don’t just hurt those who enlist, either; the reach of their corruption is much, much farther.”
	His eyes darted away from hers.
	“Don’t want to face the truth?”
	“You think I don’t know that already? I’m an officer. I’ve gotten a glimpse or two into the backroom dealings.”
	“Then why not join me? I need a strong second-in-command. And as dashing as you do look in that uniform, I think you’d look much better without it.” 
	He shot her a look for that, and the smirk was unmistakable as her eyes trailed along his frame. “Sorry, did you say ‘second-in-command’ or ‘cabin boy’?”
	“Well, I said second, but if you really want…”
	“I don’t.”
	She dropped her teasing. “So what’s the problem? You know they get up to some shady schemes. Why not get back at them, make your own life easier, and the lives of those you care about as well? Many of my crew donate much of their shares to the needy and still live comfortably.”
	“It’s just…” He sighed and looked her in the eye. “I swore an oath.”
	Her crystalline eyes lit with understanding. Something of the swagger and smirk faded out of her face. “Rare to find a man understands the value of that nowadays. You truly would be a good second, I think. But let me ask you this, Lieutenant.” 
	She turned to walk away from him (giving him an admittedly-excellent view of her backside) as she spoke. “Say you and I made a promise. I promised that I would give you 500 credits every movement and, in return, you would do what I told you.”
	He snorted. “Navy starmen don’t make anywhere near 500 credits a movement.”
	She turned back to him. “That’s not the point. Pretend we’ve made such a deal. You spend a movement doing everything I tell you, executing it all flawlessly. I even tell you so, so there can be no doubt that you are doing a good job. But come the astral conflux, you do not get 500 credits. You get 250. The next movement is the same, only I give you 200 and a hearty pat on the back. The next movement you don’t get paid at all. Would you continue to work for me?”
	“I see what you’re doing,” he said instead.
	She didn’t respond to that. “It’s a contract between us, is it not? 500 credits for your good work and obeisance. You held up your end, but I have not held up mine. Is not the contract broken?”
	“It’s not the sa- …”
	“Is it not?” she snapped. “You promised the Navy loyalty, honor, and valor. They promised the same to you, to everyone. And your meager pay, of course. They’re still paying you your pittance, but are they making good on the rest? Did they promise you pain, suffering, and cruelty?”
	“The captain was a good man!”
	“As are you,” she replied. “But the Navy is not good. Not anymore.”
	He studied her for a moment. “Were… were you enlisted?”
	She hardened and the swagger came back. “You have a quintant to think about it, Lieutenant. Your contract is long broken. Do as your conscience dictates: a swift death or a long life?” She sauntered out of the hold.

	In the end, she was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He’d had a good man to serve under, but he’d seen too many commanders who weren’t good or were actively evil. Commanders who took advantage of their crew, who exploited “ignorant savages” on distant planets, who killed and maimed without remorse. And the Navy piled the medals on their chests and the braids on their shoulders.
	When she returned the next quintant, he pre-empted her question. “I will not be a cabin boy,” he told her. “And I will not give up the location of the base.”
	She cocked her head. “You think I mean to bomb it from orbit? I know there are civilians there.”
	“Then what?” he asked.
	“Infiltration. Swiping valuable treasure is nice in the short term, but nothing changes if I can’t get hard proof to topple the Admiralty.”
	He studied her for a long moment. “Why do you care?” he asked finally.
	She sighed. “My father was an admiral,” she told him, dropping her voice. “He… died. On what should have been a routine patrol. It was a formality; every member of the officer corps has to…”
	“…maintain a certain amount of flight hours per annum. Yes, I know.”
	“He was just filling out his hours. They said it was the wiring. A short somewhere.” She barked a laugh. “A short?! In a VX-23 Megathruster? Practically impossible.” She shook her head. “He died during the last Chair Vote.”
	He blinked and his mouth fell open. “Your father was Admiral Alfor?”
	“My Father should have been the head of the Admiralty,” she told him. “And he was killed, betrayed by his best friend, who wanted the power of that chair for himself. And he has it now, of course.”
	“Admiral Zarkon.”
	She nodded. “If my father had ascended, the Navy would still be a good, honorable institution. But now look at it: classist and sadistic, power-hungry and depraved. Killing Zarkon isn’t enough for me. Ohhhh, I want the bastard dead, but I need everyone to know what he did. I need everyone to see what happened, and I need to restore the Navy to what it should always have been. That’s how I honor and avenge my father. And I can’t do it from within the ranks, if for no other reason than that…”
	“Zarkon would watch you like a hawk,” he finished for her.
	“Exactly. So. Your decision, ‘cabin boy’?” She was trying to lighten the mood, but her eyes still shone with the fire of her rage.
	“I will join you.” As soon as he said it, the wall restraints loosened. He practically fell to the floor.
	“Take today and tomorrow off. Our chef, Hunk, will make sure you’re well-fed, and Pidge has already assigned you a room so you can rest. Lance will show you around when you’re ready. And after that, I expect you to be properly attired and at my door at dawn of the day cycle.”
	“Sure. One thing though.”
	“Hm?”
	“I don’t think I can pull off that outfit.” Not only was her vac-suit practically painted onto her, but she had long black boots over it that didn’t stop until halfway up her thighs.
	She laughed. “I don’t know, Cabin Boy, I think you’d look quite fetching. But no, I’m the only one who dresses like this. After all, I’m the captain; I need to make an entrance.”
	“Little worry about that.” He could still remember her striding down the flaming corridors of the frigate he’d been on, smoke swirling in her wake, eyes piercing under her helmet.
	She grinned. “Get yourself pulled back together, Lieutenant. You’re useless to me as you are right now.” 
	He watched her stride out of the brig.

	Captain Allura - as she finally introduced herself - was, hands down, the best officer he’d ever served under. Tough but fair, she ran a tight ship, and yet no one ever got worse treatment than occasionally being barked at. The crew were passionate about their mission, and damn good at their jobs. His room as her second-in-command was practically sumptuous - he’d thought his officer quarters on the frigate had been nice! - and though the officers maintained a proper level of distance and discipline, there was little indication that they lived vastly better than the crew.
	Everyone ate the same excellent meals provided by the seemingly-cowardly chef. (”Don’t let that fool you,” Lance had told him, “Hunk once ran into a burning galley to save three people and half our foodstuffs. He’d rather stay out of danger, but if he has to go in, he is ALL IN.”) The crew quarters he saw were heads and shoulders better than the Navy bunks, with only three or four people to a room instead of 10 or 12. Officers ate amongst the crew, who saluted upon first seeing a superior but then jovially offered a seat and chatted. 
	For now, though, Shiro ate with Allura, Pidge, and Lance. He discussed what he knew about the base - not just its location but also its security measures. Pidge - the resident information officer - typed down copious notes and made a hologram of the base’s layout. He corrected her where needed - “the family housing is here” - but she got it all pretty quickly. When they weren’t busy with that, Lance was explaining the day-to-day running of the ship, generally. 
	He was rarely alone with the captain, and she still insisted on calling him ‘Cabin Boy’ when they were. She also, at one point, slyly asked him if he’d rather have boots like hers than the short, below the knee ones that he and the other crew wore. “I still think you’d look great in them.” He’d laughed it off, but the purr in her voice stayed with him, and drifted through some of his dreams. 

	“Are you ready for tomorrow, Cabin Boy?”
	He turned and saluted the captain as she walked up behind him in the corridor. “Yes’m.”
	She smiled and nodded her head towards her quarters. “Come with me.”
	“Aye.” He fell in step with her. (Another great change from the Navy; he wasn’t expected to be a step or two behind a superior officer. It made communications quite difficult sometimes.)
	Her door opened for them and he heard the lock set after they entered. Her door always did that; as much as she trusted her crew, she wouldn’t keep her door unlocked. It was a one-way lock: anyone could exit, but no one could enter unless she was with them.
	“Are you sure you’re ready for tomorrow?” she asked him as she crossed to a cabinet. “I’m trusting you to lead these men on this mission.”
	“I’m ready.”
	She pulled out a bottle of Vorellian Brandy. “It’s espionage,” she said. She picked up a glass. “If you’re caught, it’s treason.” She poured some into the glass and held it out towards him. “And if you’re convicted of treason…”
	“I’ll hang. I know.” He normally declined the drinks she offered but given the topic at hand, he accepted it. “I’m ready. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure everyone who goes with me gets back out.” He sipped it; it was, of course, excellent brandy.
	“Including yourself.” She poured a glass for herself. “It’s good to have someone I can trust watching my back. I’d hate to lose you.”
	“About that.” He helped himself to a seat on the corner of her desk. “You trusted me with so much so quickly. I know you said I’d be second-in-command, but even so, there was no adjustment, no slow gaining of confidence, you just… made me an officer on the spot, with all that goes with that.”
	She smiled at him as she set the bottle down. “I told you in the brig: it’s a rare man still cares about the value of his oaths. That spoke well of you.” She sipped her drink. “I might have been more careful about you otherwise. But there was that and… well.” She leaned against the wall, swirling the brandy in her glass.
	“And what?” 
	“I just… felt like I could trust you.”
	He snorted. “You don’t even trust your own crew enough to leave your door unlocked.”
	“I know.” Her sip was less delicate this time. “But, you see, that’s why.” She raised her eyes to him. “I shouldn’t trust you, but I do.” 
	“I’m… honored. But why?”
	She shrugged and downed the rest of her brandy in one go. “I don’t know. Something about your… eyes? Your soul, maybe.” She pushed off the wall and set the glass down on her desk. She looked down at him from where she stood. “There’s something in you that I can feel within me. There’s something that…” She shook her head. “I can’t not trust you somehow. And that confuses me a little. Frightens me, even.”
	“Frightens?” He set his half-gone brandy down to stand. “Why does it frighten you?”
	“Because Zarkon was my father’s best friend. I called him my uncle. He and his family spent time with us, and we with them. They were like brothers, almost, despite being completely different races. And Zarkon still betrayed and murdered him.
	“I have to wonder if my father felt this way for Zarkon as I feel for you. A-about you,” she corrected. “This deep, unshakable trust. I have no reason to doubt you, but…”
	“But then Admiral Alfor had no reason to distrust Zarkon,” he finished. “I understand.”
	“Part of me hopes you won’t come back,” she said quietly. “So I don’t have to worry about you betraying me. But when I think of not having you here… it’s been nice to have you to rely on. The crew respect you. Pidge and Lance and Hunk adore you. You’ve lightened my workload and helped me get closer to avenging my father than I’ve ever been before. And I don’t know which is worse: you betraying me or you dying.”
	“Hey.” He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Captain, I swear to you that I will never betray you. It was hard for me to trust you at first, but I do now. You have my loyalty now, and you will never again lack for it.”
	She looked up into his eyes. It was as if their ranks fell away, and she was just someone in want of comfort and he was just someone who wanted to comfort her. She needed him, and he…
	He didn’t know which of them moved first. He was barely cognizant of anything that happened until they hit the far wall, her hands either side of his face to keep him still so she could kiss him deeper. He pinned her body between his and the wall, hands falling to those hips he’d watched sway past him so many times. The brandy was still rich on her tongue as she moaned against his mouth. Her hands fell down his back to just above his ass, and she pulled him against her demandingly.
[They make love – without using protection, without even discussing it, because they’re too caught up in each other. She teases him about being her “cabin boy,” but that quickly falls away – as does any rank. They’re “Takashi” and “Allura” in this moment, and they need each other in a way they’ve never needed anyone else.]
	“Mmm. I wish we didn’t have this mission tomorrow,” she murmured blissfully. “I’d keep you here all night.”
	“I can stay all night,” he said. “We just can’t keep doing this the whole time. There has to be some sleep.”
	“Once more? Just once more and then sleep.”
	He pushed himself away from her enough to see her smiling face. He pushed a sweat-damp tendril of moonlight out of her face. “Aye, aye, captain.”
~End of Chapter 1~
	Allura fumed at the rendezvous point. Near as she could tell, everything had gone off without a hitch. She had drawn fire and kept the base’s security busy with her “Castle” (as she had styled her ship – after all, what’s a Pirate Queen without her Castle?), allowing Shiro, Lance, and the others to sneak in. They couldn’t risk broadcasting the data, so they were supposed to download whatever they could find and get… here: a cluster of asteroids in a sparse and mined-out asteroid field. There wasn't a lot of traffic out this way, so they could see anyone who came near as clearly as if they were a bright light in the pitch dark. In a way, they would be.
	“Incoming.”
	She looked to the screen expectantly and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the small craft coming towards them, broadcasting their secret IFF codes. “Let’s collect them and get out of here,” she said. She left the bridge to head to the docking bay.
	She was anxious to see what they might have found. There was no guarantee that this base would have what she needed to bring down Zarkon, but there was nothing to say it wouldn’t either. They wouldn’t know until Pidge checked the download. 
	Her plan was to go to ground while they pored over the data. She was hoping to use that time to get even better acquainted with Shiro – Takashi now. If he was that good last night, think how much better he’ll be once he really knows how to get me going? She was looking forward to it. 
	It’d been so long since she’d had a partner. After Zarkon’s betrayal of her father, it was hard to let anyone close. She trusted her crew as much as she could, but there was still that last barrier that none of them had been able to hurdle. 
	Until Shiro, and the steady loyalty in his eyes. Even with his misgivings about the Navy’s dealings, he had stayed by them, bound by his oath. She had a feeling that it was her revelation about her past that had convinced him to change sides. Sure, he’d said he’d join her before, but with conditions; he joined her unreservedly after she’d told him. She thought it likely he would have claimed to be on her side just to find out what he could use to bring her down. 
	Not that it would have mattered for him. For all her vaunted talk about how much better it was to go pirate than stay true to the Navy, she knew that any former starman found aboard a pirate ship would be tried (and likely convicted) of treason. And that was after the requisite “interrogation” they’d have to undergo. He knew it, too. Even claiming that he’d been trying to bring her down wouldn’t have meant much to the Admiralty. It might save him from the gallows, if he could provide useful intel. Maybe.
	So for him to join whole-heartedly, knowing what awaited him if they were caught… to bring that same loyalty to her that he had sworn to the Galactic Navy…
	And then, last night. 
	She hadn’t made herself so vulnerable to someone in ages. There’d been plenty of people she’d lusted after, but it was a containable thing. She shrugged it off, maybe indulged in a fantasy of them once or twice when she was alone. But Shiro was different. She’d wanted him since she first saw him and winning him over to her side had transmuted normal lust into something else entirely.
	He was always there, always dependable. He’d taken to his duties quickly and helped her run the Castle the way she liked it. The desire for him deepened, sharpened, and still she had tried to contain it, because she didn’t want to be that dependent on someone else. She didn’t want to rely on anyone. She thought she’d learned her father’s lesson.
	She’d only intended to talk to him last night. She’d meant to ask him why he was so willing to risk his life on this mission he’d only recently converted to, but they’d gotten sidetracked and then the dam broke. 
	She could taste his desire on his lips as surely as the brandy, and knowing that it was reciprocated, that he wanted her as badly as she wanted him… 
	She snapped out of her memories as the craft came into dock. There’d be more time to talk – and hug and kiss and fuck him senseless – later. She left the control room as the doors closed and atmosphere was restored.
	“Did you get it?” she asked as she ran up to the craft. But then she stopped dead.
	Lance was the first one out, and he had a surly looking young man in a naval uniform by the arm.
	“Lance, ‘picking someone up’ isn’t supposed to be literal.”
	“Not my idea,” he told her. He shoved the dark-haired man ahead of him. 
	She expected surly resistance or defiance, as so many naval starmen gave her. But instead, this man – a corporal by the looks of it – ran up to her.
	“You have to save him.”
	“I have to do nothing of the sort,” she informed him icily. “And who is ‘him’?”
	But then she looked around. Everyone else had filed out of the stolen craft by now. Everyone except…
	“Lance, where is my first mate?” 
	He cleared his throat. “Captured.”
	“You have to save him,” the corporal repeated. 
	“Who are you?” she asked in irritation.
	“My name is Keith. I joined the Navy because of Shiro. He was like an older brother to me, and they’re going to KILL him.”
	“Lance, let’s get our new guest somewhere to stay, hm? As a guest. And then I want you to meet me on the bridge and explain.”
	“Aye, aye.” 
	She spun on her heel and left while she still felt somewhat steady. 
	Is this how my life is to be? she snarled mentally to… no one, anyone, whatever deity might be willing to listen to the maudlin voice in her head. Everyone I care for gets taken from me?
	Well, not this time. I am going to get him back. This will not stand. I will not allow it.

	“It started out fine. We got in, everything was going well, and then Shiro runs into him.” 
	Lance jerked his head towards their “guest,” who had refused to stay in his room and insisted on being here for the debriefing. Allura had finally allowed it because she was already angry enough and his constant screaming was giving her a headache. She shot Keith a glare that would hopefully keep him silent. He mirrored it right back to her.
	“Go on, Lance,” she said, turning her attention away from the corporal.
	“They were excited to see each other, and Shiro told Keith to come with us. I tried to suggest that might not be a good idea, but Shiro insisted. We split up according to the plan, so I was with the other group at that point. Keith went with Shiro.”
	She turned to Keith expectantly.
	“I didn’t know anything about your ‘plan,’” he said. “But Shiro didn’t know that they’d changed the access code for the door to the base’s central command. I didn’t know what the code was or even had been; they don’t tell us that sort of thing. He told the group to split up and try to find different ways to break in. There are a few different doors, but no windows. 
	“Shiro was trying to figure out the code when we got busted. We ran. He pushed me ahead, told me to find the rest of the group and warn them.” He looked down at his arms folded on the table. “That was the last I saw of him.”
	“You didn’t even get the main intel then,” she sighed.
	Lance shook his head. “My group got ours, so it might help in getting it out of other places we hit, but no one actually got into command to download the info there.”
	She was silent a long moment, head angry about the inability to get at the information she so badly wanted and heart sick at losing someone who could have been so much more than just a first mate to her. She took another steadying breath.
	“You all did the best you could.” She looked back to Keith. “What are you to Shiro?”
	“I told you; he’s been like a big brother to me. My dad’s dead, my mom’s long gone. Shiro was the only one I had left who ever looked out for me. He got me into the Navy, vouched for me when I screwed up. He always looked after me.”
	“He would have wanted you to be safe,” she said. She heard Shiro’s voice in her memory. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure everyone who goes with me gets back out.”
	“I guess.”
	“What did he tell you about us?”
	“Not much. We didn’t have a lot of time. He just said that he was with people now who were trying to fix everything that was wrong with the Navy. I was just glad to see him alive; I thought he was dead.” He fixed her with another glare. “After your ship attacked.”
	“The ship you are now a guest on, I might remind you. I can easily change your status and have you taken from that room you’re in and thrown in the brig. It’s slightly less comfortable.”
	He didn’t reply to that, just looked away as if the conversation bored him. Ugh, spare me the Navy’s macho detachment from things they find objectionable. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes.
	“Lance, give the information you got to Pidge.”
	“Already done, Captain.”
	“Good man.” Not that she’d expected any different. “Show the corporal around; provided he behaves, he’ll be our guest at least until we get Shiro back.”
	That got the surly young man’s attention again. “So you are going after him, then?”
	“Of course. He’s the best first mate I’ve ever had.” She heard Lance cough and shot him a warning look before returning her attention to Keith. “And, unlike the Navy, I am not okay with leaving people to die.” 
	He stood immediately. “Whatever it is, I want to help.”
	“We’ll see. If your help is needed, I’ll certainly put you to work. For now, we have more intel on base operations. That could be useful in getting Shiro back to us. Rest up. We’ll need to be at our best.”
	She left, already trying to work out a plan for retrieving her lost first mate. That lasted until she got back to her quarters. 
	Two brandy glasses still on the desk, one empty, the other half-drunk.
	Bedclothes still a mess, covers tossed aside, come stains and the occasional drops of blood from where she’d raked his back marring the sheets. 
	“Part of me hopes you won’t come back, so I don’t have to worry about you betraying me.”
	She sagged back against her door and gave up trying to hold back the tears. I didn’t mean it. That wasn’t entirely true, but she regretted saying it to him, regretted ever feeling that way at all, even if only a little. She regretted admitting it, as if bringing the words into the air had somehow made it come true.
	She gave herself time to cry, then pushed off the door. She changed the sheets and took a shower. She pulled on a clean nightgown and underwear. She washed the empty brandy glass, but when she reached for the one that had been Shiro’s, she found her hand hovering over it. Eventually she gave up and left it there. I’ll wash it when we get you back. 
	She turned off the lights and laid down. Her mind raced on thoughts of how to find Shiro and get him back, of what he might be suffering right now, of how soon they would find their excuse to hang him. I’m never going to get to sleep at this rate. 
	She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to be working on getting him back. But she knew she had to get some rest. She tried breathing exercises, but it felt more like, “Don’t think about these things,” than anything else. And, of course, trying not to think about rescuing Shiro just led her straight to thinking of nothing else.
	This calls for drastic measures.
	She rolled onto her back, calmed her breathing, and closed her eyes. She didn’t let herself get into the details of it, but just acknowledged that this scene in her mind was after Shiro was rescued, after he was back with them, when he was well and willing enough to rejoin her in her bed.
	Would it be as passionate and desperate as it had been the night before? Or maybe something slower, less-rushed? Shiro – Takashi – back with her, never to be separated again. They could take their time with no immediate mission hanging over them.
[Allura has a long, steamy masturbation session, thinking about being with the rescued Takashi.]
	She came over her hand and laid there, catching her breath. The room was still dark and she was still alone. The last thought she had before sleep finally took her was, I’ll need to change the sheets again.

	It was dark and he was alone.
	They had him in a prisoner’s suit, but he had no idea how’d wound up in it. 
	He’d been captured. They said they were taking him to the brig. And then there was blackness.
	And now here he was.
	The cell was small, but there was a hard slab to serve as a bed, a toilet & sink, and it was reasonably clean, near as he could tell. But no windows, nothing soft, nothing that could be broken or used as a weapon. He wasn’t even sure where the door was.
	This wasn’t standard procedure. At least, not as far as he knew.
	There was a sudden light, bright enough to hurt, and it blinded him before he could even get his arm up to block it. He heard the hush of a door sliding open.
	“Prisoner 117-9875.”
	“I assume you mean me since I’m the only one in here.”
	The voice didn’t sound amused. “You’ll come with us.”
	“How nice of you to give me a choice.”
	But there were strong arms on him, hauling him forward. His vision was still shit, so he went over what information he had. 
	Voice he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know everyone in uniform – how could he? Sounded… Galra, maybe? A lot of Galra had been promoted to officer ranks since Zarkon became Admiral. But they wouldn’t have an officer fetching prisoners out of cells. The voice had been muffled by something though – a mask?
	“Prisoner 117-9875.” Not standard MP designations. First three numbers were probably a facility code of some sort. Are there even 100 military prisons? Not that he was aware of. There were small holding facilities for transfer to a larger military prison complex. Maybe he was in one of those? But, again, the designation didn’t make sense.
	And “prisoner.” He should have been addressed as “Lieutenant Shirogane,” perhaps with a sneer or some light sarcasm because of his treasonous behavior, but he was still a lieutenant as far as they were concerned.
	The world was settling back to its proper colors and brightness settings as his eyes readjusted. Non-descript hallway, decently lit. No shadows or alcoves to hide in. No signs on the walls. Doors occasionally. No way of knowing if they were avenues of escape or just other cells.
	The person walking ahead of him as he was hauled along was covered head to toe in some sort of hooded robe. Archaic fashion choice. The two brutes who had hold of him were large Galra. I guess everyone has to start somewhere, even those of the Admiral’s same race. 
	They stopped at a door that looked no different to his eyes than any of the others. It slid open at a wave of the robed figure’s hand. Biometrics of some kind? But his analysis stopped when he saw what lay in the room ahead.
	A long table with thick metal cuffs built into it for wrists, ankles, neck, and waist. Masked surgeons and nurses. Bright overhead lights and a wheeled cart full of equipment.
	“What’s going on?” he asked.
	The Galra guards dragged him into the room. He twisted his arm out of their grips, surprise helping him win his way free. He bolted for the door, but the robed figure – wearing a strange mask – was still there. It held a hand out towards him. 
	Blinding purple, then darkness.
~End of Chapter 2~

	There was only one place Allura ever felt safe enough to hide out long term, so when she gave the order to “go to ground,” Lance just punched in the coordinates for Balmera V-95-VOX. He left to give Hunk the good news, then went to the “war room.” 
	Allura, Keith, and Pidge were already there. “Course laid in, Captain.”
	“Thank you, Lance.”
	He’d long since given up the dream of Allura looking his way, but it still made him feel good to hear her praise him. He worked hard to be a good bosun and he thought he was doing a pretty decent job. He might’ve signed on because of the pretty lady in charge, but he was proud of his work – of their work.
	And he wasn’t going to let the mullet ruin it. He cast a glare at the Navy man but settled in near the holo-map.
	“Am I correct in assuming, Keith, that they won’t keep him on that base?”
	He nodded. “No MP facilities there. And anyway, it’s already been compromised. They’re going to evac the base entirely.”
	“Where are the MP facilities then?” Pidge asked, hands hovering over her keyboard.
	Keith shrugged. “There’s a few of them. Largest would be Tadmor, but I don’t think they’d take him there.”
	“Why not?” Lance asked him.
	“There’s been a shift in the policy lately. They used to make a big deal out of every traitor, every pirate collaborator, but now?” He shook his head. “They just… disappear.”
	Lance looked over at Allura in time to see her pale. Yeah, as I thought. He’d been having a good time teasing the captain about her new first mate, but he’d begun to suspect that he might be more on the nose than originally thought. Shiro was super hot – you’d have to be blind (or Pidge) not to see it – and he’d never seen her rely on someone the same way she did with him. He didn’t know if they’d done anything about it yet, but Allura clearly had a thing for Shiro. 
	It stung a little, but Shiro was a good guy. Shiro was everything the Navy should be and wasn’t, in Lance’s mind. It was no wonder Allura was falling for him. He probably reminds her a lot of her dad: loyal, brave, honorable. If anyone was going to break down that wall she’d had up for so long, it’d be him.
	“That still doesn’t explain why not Tadmor,” Pidge said.
	“Too large, too visible,” Allura put in. “A larger facility like that would have rigorous intake procedures. If you want to make someone disappear, you spirit them away to somewhere small, somewhere entirely under your control. A busy man like Zarkon doesn’t have time to personally oversee a large installation.”
	“Okay, so we need a smaller facility.”
	“Keith,” Lance asked as an idea struck him, “do you know of any that shut down recently? If they’re going to make people disappear, why take them to an open facility at all?”
	“Good thought,” Allura said with a thin smile.
	Keith thought about that. “I mean, you have to understand, I’m just a corporal. They don’t tell us every time they close something. But I think I heard a rumor about Carand Iru shutting down?”
	“Pidge.”
	“On it, Captain.” Her fingers were already flying over her keyboard.
	Allura returned to pressing Keith. “What else do you know about they’re likely to do to him?”
	He shrugged. “If your father was an admiral like everyone says, you probably know more than I do.”
	“That was years ago and, as you’ve pointed out, things have changed.”
	“Everything else is just rumors. Everyone’s spooked by people straight up disappearing. Used to be you got something close to a fair trial if you were found aboard a pirate vessel. Then it became basically a rubber stamp on your way to the gallows, but now?” He shook his head. “The MPs take you and you’re never heard from again. 
	“Most people think you just go straight to the gallows now. Why bother with the expense of a trial that’s just for show, y’know? I’ve heard some guys say you’re given a choice to die or become some sort of super-spook for the Admiralty. And there’s the kooks who say there’s secret experiments going on and they use captured military prisoners – maybe even civilian prisoners – for test subjects. There’s all kinds of theories.”
	“Carand Iru shut down last year,” Pidge reported. “But there’s some inconsistencies here.”
	“What sort of inconsistencies?” Lance asked her.
	“Well, at the time it was shut down, it had a prisoner population of 2,347 and a staff of 541. But only 2,200 or so prisoners were relocated to other facilities, and only 530 staff. Could be some of the staff just quit, but…”
	“If you could quit being a prisoner, I’m sure a lot more people would.”
	“And it looks like it’s still taking in some deliveries. Not on the same scale as it used to, of course. And, weirdest of all,” she looked up from her screens, “the deliveries are classified.”
	“Why would they classify sheets and food and shit?”
	“They wouldn’t,” Keith muttered.
	“Good work, Pidge,” Allura said. “Start getting all the information you can dig up on that place.”
	“Getting there will be tough,” Keith warned. “Part of the reason it made such a good MP facility is that it’s hard to get in there without being seen. It’s on a moon that always faces the local star. No night. You have to come out into the light to get at the place, and then you’re easily picked off. There’s not much in the way of vegetation or water, either.”
	“We’ll figure out a way,” Lance told him. “It’s what we do.”
	“Indeed,” the captain agreed. “For now, we hide out while we formulate our plan. Odds are good we’ll only have one shot at this. We screw up, they move him somewhere even harder to find, or perhaps just kill him. We can’t let that happen. Dismissed.”
	Pidge stayed where she was, busy typing away. Allura paused by Lance’s shoulder to ask quietly, “See that Hunk sends some food in here for her?”
	“Of course.” 
	She patted his shoulder before she left. He followed her out the door, but then someone else wanted his attention.
	“Hey, so, what’s her deal?”
	Lance shot a withering look at their guest. “You already heard everything, it seems. Her dad was an admiral, Zarkon killed him…”
	“No, no, I got that part, but why does she give a damn about Shiro? He’s just some captured starman she was using to get info, right?”
	Lance stopped dead in the hallway. “She doesn’t ‘use’ people like that. Sure, she has kind of a harsh recruitment method, but she has to. She’s risking her life out here. And everyone who joins up gets treated well. 
	“She recruited Shiro because he was useful to her, sure, but can’t you tell she really cares about the guy? Hell, she cares about all of us. If I’d been captured instead of Shiro, she’d be trying to get me back, too.”
	Keith narrowed his eyes. “But she’s a pirate.”
	“Because she has to be.” He started walking again. “Because the Navy’s gone to shit, man. Haven’t you seen that?”
	He shrugged. “I was never all that impressed, but it was a steady job that’d let me fly.”
	“Oh, you’re a pilot? Well, anytime you want some tips, you just let me know. Just ‘cause I’m the bosun now doesn’t mean I can’t still thread the needle.”
	“Yeah, I’ll remember that,” he said flatly. 
	“Hey, when we get to the Balmera, I’ll race you! That’d be a fun way to blow off some steam.”
	“You like losing that much, do you?”
	Oh I don’t even think so, buddy. “I like making snotty Navy brats eat my dust.”
	“We’ll see who’s eating whose dust.”
	“You wanna bet on it, mullet?”
	“Name your terms, pretty boy.”
	“Loser does what the winner says for a full day and night. That’s 36 hours on this Balmera.”
	“You got it!”
	Lance grinned and shooed Keith towards their room. “Go on. If you want to rest up, now’s a good time. Pidge’s working, I have things to do, and Hunk’s going to be beside himself, so the room’ll be empty.” 
	Because of course Lance had put the “guest” in the same room with him and his buddies. They had an open bunk, and it meant they could all keep an eye on him, just in case. 
	“What do you mean about Hunk?” Keith asked curiously.
	Lance grinned. “He gets to see his girlfriend.”
	Keith stared at him. “A Balmeran? Aren’t they solid rock?”
	“Hey, I guess he likes to rock and roll, eh?”
	Keith rolled his eyes, proof that he had no appreciation for fine humor and classic wit. “Forget I asked. I don’t even want to know.”

	Stinging pain and he tried to crack his eyes open but the lights were bright.
	“Wake up!” Another lash of pain across his face.
	He grunted and tried to focus his vision. He was in the …operating room, for lack of a better term. Standing at the end of the table was a hooded figure. Not masked, but the hood fell forward far enough that he couldn’t make out a face. 
	“We have collected the necessary samples,” the voice said. “Analyzing them now.”
	“Good,” the figure at his feet said in a weathered voice. “But now it is time to get information. So, why don’t you make things easy on yourself and tell us where that ship went off to?”
	“Takashi Shirogane,” he told the figure. “Lieutenant. Juliet Kilo Zero Eight Zero Two Seven Niner.”
	They cackled. “You think to hide behind name, rank, and serial number? You’re no prisoner of war here, ‘lieutenant.’”
	And there was a sudden bolt of pain that arced through his body, and he clenched his teeth to keep from giving them the satisfaction of his scream. Whatever they’d used on him left a burning, metallic taste in his mouth that made him cough and wheeze.
	“What did the pirate want?”
	He panted until he had air enough to speak. He glared at the figure and said. “T-Takashi. Shirogane. Lieutenant. Juliet Kilo Zero Ei-…”
	Another shock. It didn’t feel like electricity – he’d been tased as a requirement to joining the Navy – but his body reacted to it as if it were: tensing and spasming, pain lighting from nerve to nerve, his senses hyper aware of the sensation. And then that taste of smoky, burnt blood on his tongue.
	“If you’re going to continue to be uncooperative, this will continue to go on. Do you understand that?”
	“I understand.”
	He could barely see the grim smile. “So, I’ll repeat: what was your mission objective?”
	He grinned. “Takashi Shirogane. Lieuten-…” They cut him off again.
	The figure cackled once more. “Keep interrogating him. Up the dosage if you have to.”
	“We have the analysis results.” 
	The figure wandered over to look at a screen. He couldn’t turn his head to see what they were looking at.
	“Excellent.” The hood turned back to him. “It turns out you are quite a specimen, ‘lieutenant.’ You will be useful to us yet.” They looked to someone who must’ve been standing behind him. “Forget about upping the dosage. Get what you can out of him, then return him to his cell. He’ll have to be prepped. In the meantime, send the results ahead to the Temple Lab. Orders for this prisoner come from me or Admiral Zarkon only. Is that understood?”
	He heard the sound of his captors snapping to attention. “Aye, aye!”
	“Good.” The figure returned to grinning at him. “Behave yourself and you’ll have a longer life than most others who come here.”
	He growled at them, but they paid him no mind. The door opened and shut behind them, and one of the masked ‘doctors’ came into view again. “Who is the pirate you turned traitor for?”
	He arched an eyebrow at them. You really don’t know what my answer to that will be?
	“Answer.”
	Okay then. “Takashi Shirogane. Lieutenant. Juliet Kilo - …”

	“Hunk!” Shay ran up to greet him and caught him up in a big hug. “It is so good you have returned to us!”
	“Heh, thanks. Um… can you loosen up a little?” he wheezed.
	“Oh, my apologies,” she said as she set him back down and loosened her grip. “I forgot myself in my joy to see you once more.”
	Hunk grinned and hoped he wasn’t blushing too badly. “It’s okay. I’m glad to see you, too, Shay. Here, I brought you some souvenirs.” He held out the box to her.
	“Oh! Thank you, Hunk!” She took the box and cradled it. “Follow; I have a new cave!” She led the way.
	“A new cave? What was wrong with the old one?”
	“Nothing was wrong with it, but this cave is my own. Only I reside there.”
	“Oh! You got your own place! Sweeeeet, can’t wait to see it!”
	“I look forward to examining the remembrances you have brought me.” She beamed ear (if that’s what they were) to ear. “I am so glad you have arrived now!”
	“Why’s that?”
	“I will explain in my cave. Over dinner. It will give us a topic on which to converse.”
	“Best accompaniment to any meal is good conversation,” he agreed. 
	Her cave was set up in a mountain with a good view of the sunrise, which didn’t surprise him. Dawn had always been her favorite time of day. However, that meant a bit of a climb to get up to it. Hunk was glad when he finally got to fall onto a cushion. 
	“It’s really nice! Love the decorating!” he gushed sincerely. She had a central cook fire (naturally) with large cushions set around it at a good distance, warm tapestries on the walls, and what looked like a separate nook in the back for a bedroom. There was a nice, geometrically-patterned curtain across the entryway there. She had shelves for her supplies at the back, as well as for a few books and painting supplies. He looked back over his shoulder and gasped. “Did you do this?”
	She had a large mural painted on the wall behind him: a view of the Balmera’s surface from the cave entrance. She blushed faintly and nodded. “Yes. I have been very careful and slow about it though. It is not yet finished.”
	“It’s lovely. Like you.”
	She beamed and sat the box he’d brought down near his cushion. “Will you help me prepare the dinner? You are such a wonderful cook.”
	He pushed himself back to his feet. “I’d be glad to! Maybe a little more cave root, some rock salt, and go a little easier on the bugs?” 
	“But the bugs are the best part.”
	“Well, at least wait to add them until closer to the end. They get rubbery if they’re overcooked.”
	He helped her cook the stew, cutting herbs and roots, chatting together as they made dinner. He loved spending time with her period, but especially like this. It felt like home. 
	The stew turned out better than ever – and Shay agreed, which was the best part – and he showed her the souvenirs he’d been able to gather from other places the Castle had been to. She cooed over and asked questions about each one, and that took up most of their dinner conversation.
	“Oh, but now it is late,” she said as she looked out at the darkening sky.
	“We’re hiding out for a bit,” he told her, standing to collect her empty bowl. “I don’t have to go anywhere just yet.”
	She brightened. “Truly? How long will your sky-vessel stay with us?”
	“A few days yet, at least,” he said. “Don’t know for sure though.” He set the bowls down near her wash tub. 
	She got to her feet as he turned back around. “Truly this is most wonderous timing!”
	“I’m glad, but you still haven’t explained why.” 
	She walked over and reached for his hands, which he was glad to give to her. “Hunk, you know that my heart is yours, do you not?”
	He blushed. Her archaic way of speaking always got to him. “I know. I love you, too, Shay.”
	“Our timing before has never before been this good. You are always gone so long.”
	“I’m sorry. I’d stay if I could. Or take you with me if your family wouldn’t flip out about it.”
	Her smile turned a bit sad. “You live a dangerous life on your sky-vessel, but you are helping people. I miss you when you are gone, but I am proud of your noble deeds. I would be glad to go with you, but Rax will not hear of it.”
	Hunk rolled his eyes. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions, but I can understand why they wouldn’t want you in danger.”
	“Perhaps we can leave them with little choice. But that will depend on how things go.”
	“How what things go?”
	Her smile brightened back to its usual full-on beam. “You are finally here during my softening!”
	“Your… what?” 
	“You know that we are silicon-based. Under normal circumstances, our skin and orifices are hardened for protection. But for all Balmerans above a certain age, softening occurs on a regular basis to allow for greater chance of proper procreation.”
	Hunk blinked and rubbed her hand in his. “You don’t feel softer.”
	“Oh, no, it is only the areas necessary for easy and comfortable procreative activities that soften. It lasts a few days and then we re-harden until the next softening period.”
	“So, you’re saying… you’re soft enough to have sex?”
	He had to admit, as much as he loved Shay, he’d been wondering how sex with her would go. She was rock, and the thought of the chafing alone was enough to turn his outtie into an innie, in a manner of speaking. He’d even been trying to think of some sort of ultra-protective (and cushioning) condom to try to get around the matter, but there wasn’t much time to work on that on the Castle (and he’d hate to try to explain to anyone else what it was). Hell, he hadn’t even been sure Balmerans reproduced sexually. 
	And that had been okay with him. He loved Shay, he loved her smile and the fierceness of her hope. She was like a shining light in the darkness of space, and he didn’t care that everyone else – especially Lance – teased him for it. He’d spend every hour of every day with Shay if he could, and even if none of those hours included sex, that would be fine with him.
	But… if sex was a thing that could happen…
	Shay nodded. “Yes, that is what I am saying. I understand if you do not wish to partake of such activity; I know that we are very, very different. I do not even know if procreation is possible. But I would like to experience a softening with you, if you are willing.”
	“I’m glad to try, sure.” 
	He’d never seen her smile so brightly. “Follow,” she said, as if he had a choice as she tugged him towards the curtained alcove. “I have many cushions and blankets. I hope you will be comfortable.”
	“I’m sure it’ll be great.”
	She wasn’t kidding either: when she pulled back the curtain and lit the sole sconce, the alcove revealed a huge pile of cushions in a rainbow of colors. Blankets of pale green and bright yellow were tossed here and there. “Wow, this looks really comfy!”
	“I find it so.” 
	He turned to sit on one of the large cushions and bent to get his boots off.
	“What are you doing?” she asked, sitting next to him and watching his hands with interest.
	“Oh, taking my boots off. I don’t want to track dirt in on your bed.”
	“Oh, so these are more of your clothing. I was unsure.”
	He chuckled. “Yeah, I’m soft pretty much everywhere, so I need the protection.”
	“I like your softness.” She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he nuzzled his cheek against her, despite how rough she was. It was sort of like a very inflexible cat’s tongue, or fine sandpaper, maybe. 
	“It’ll take me longer to get out of my clothes than it will you,” he said. “Sorry about that.” He set his boots just outside the alcove.
	“Get out of the clothes?” she repeated.
	“Well, yeah. I do have to take them off to have sex. Or… well, I guess I could just open the pants.”
	“Only the necessary areas are soft,” she reminded him. “You might want for more cushioning.”
	“Hmm. Can I see or, uh, feel which parts are soft?” he asked, blushing. “It might help me figure out what does and doesn’t need to come off.”
	She didn’t answer right away.
	“If you’re uncomfortable with that, it’s fine!” he tried to reassure her.
	“No, I do not mind you seeing or touching any part of me, but the nights carry a chill. Balmerans typically do not remove clothing unless we need to cool down, and I am not sure that will be necessary tonight.”
	“Well, I can keep you warm?” he offered, trying to channel his inner Lance.
	She smiled. “That is agreeable.” She stood to get her belt and oversized tunic off. 
[Hunk and Shay make love for the first time with a lot of occasional pauses to explain how Balmerans are different from humans.]
	It took him several long moments to catch his breath and withdraw from her. He fell back into a sitting position on the cushions. “Wow, Shay.”
	She turned over and sat opposite him. “I hope I have given you at least half the rapture you have provided for me.”
	“Ohhh yeah, very much so.”
	“I am glad for it. Shall we sleep now?”
	“Sure. I could use the rest.”
	“Will you stay with me tomorrow as well?”
	“Absolutely. And, uh, how much longer does this ‘softening’ go on?”
	“The rest of the week. It only just began yesterday.”
	He grinned. “Man, talk about good timing.”
~End of Chapter 3~

	Shiro was back in his cell when he awoke. He sat up with a groan and reached out to feel the aching parts of himself. He could trace jagged scars – like lightning bolts seared into his flesh – along his left side, and a large puncture wound up on his left bicep. Pain radiated from it like a pulsar, constant, unflinching – on, off, on, off. Every time the pain in his arm faded, he became aware of his headache, until the pain pulsar drowned it out. It was tolerable, but irritating, and he badly wished for painkillers.
	And clothes. It was cold in the cell. 
	He idly rubbed his ID tag on his left wrist as he walked around. Proof that he was a Navy man; if scanned, it would pull up his entire service record. It was the only proof he had left of his identity, of his existence as something other than “Prisoner 117-9875.”
	He closed his eyes and tried to remember the warmth of Allura’s bed, the tumbling fire of the brandy rushing through him, the heat the two of them had created and shared. He was so cold here. But at least he hadn’t given them anything. 
	He could still hear the echoes of his own screams. They added to his headache.
	The light came on, but his eyes were still closed. Allura’s helping me even when she’s not here. He wouldn’t be blinded this time. 
	The door opened. “Prisoner 117-…”
	“Lieutenant Shirogane,” he corrected. 
	“…9875,” they finished. “Come with us.”
	“Look, your mobile slabs of meat are going to drag me off anyway, so there’s no point in my pretending we’re just going for a stroll.”
	And, as predicted, the two hulking Galra brutes were back. He didn’t bother fighting. They went the same way down the same corridor, to the same door, where the same operating suite awaited. The brutes shoved him in there and the door shut – and doubtless locked – behind him. 
	Three people in surgical gear. He could take them. His mind almost automatically provided a sequence of events for him, and he didn’t even hesitate to put it into action. He charged the first “doctor” – whom he thought of as A, for ease of mental notation – back into the second (B) and then vaulted the operating table, putting some power behind his kick to the last doctor (C)’s face. 
	He grabbed the tray of surgical implements and flung them towards A & B, then spun to backhand C towards the wall. They hit with a loud thud and fell to the floor. 
	Shiro ducked as a scalpel appeared where his head had been, dodged around the table, and clotheslined B’s throat. They gasped and he grabbed them by their surgical gown, putting them between him and A as they fired what looked like a stun gun. B almost instantly became dead weight, and Shiro pushed them towards A now. 
	He grabbed another scalpel, dodged out of the way of B’s body pushed back in his direction, and went for A with this tiny knife. Fortunately for him, Dr. A didn’t seem to have much in the way of combat training. They blocked the first few stab attempts, but Shiro quickly switched to slicing. A couple of vicious gashes opened up on their arms distracted them enough that Shiro could get the scalpel in between A’s ribs and back out again. 
	A was still on their feet when he went to slit C’s throat. He heard a thud and saw A on the ground now, their own blood pooling around them. 
	He hurriedly helped himself to B’s clothes; it was a tight fit, but they had the least blood on them, so they’d have to do. He planted the scalpel into B’s heart to make sure they weren’t getting back up (at least, not any time soon). He pulled surgical gloves on over his ID code, then approached the door.
	The sensors there read B’s ident badge and opened for him. He strolled out as if he had every right to, walking down the hallway back the way he’d come. He kept his eyes open for anything that might look reliably like an exit and hoped his heartbeat wasn’t audible to Galra ears. It pounded in his own.
	But the hallway was just clean, sterile, and white, doors upon doors and no signs or any features at all, except… 
	Except for a fire alarm. It was up high – probably Galra high-five height – but even as underfed as he was, he could make that dunk in a game of pickup. He smacked it once to break the covering and jumped again to punch it. 
	Instantly, the hallway went red. Warnings were broadcast over the speakers, and Shiro watched people burst out of the rooms and start running. Rats abandoning a sinking ship. I just have to go with the flow. He followed them.
	He noticed none of these people looked like that masked and robed figure who always came to fetch him from his cell. None of them looked to be the two hulking brutes, either: they all looked like doctors or researchers. All the better. I don’t think any of these “rats” will recognize me. 
	He just had to get outside, get away, find a place to hunker down and get his bearings…
	A door slammed shut in front of him, cutting the hallway in two. Fire doors. Dammit. The other people trapped with him knocked and banged on the door, but Shiro just tried to find an override, a window, something, somewhere…
	“Tsk tsk.”
	There was that muffled, possibly-feminine voice again. He froze.
	“Three of my best researchers, Lieutenant. Just as well; as I’m sure you discovered, they’re useless in high pressure situations.” 
	He turned slowly, trying to look as confused as the other people.
	The figure was still masked, of course, and still in the standard-issue Admiralty vac-suit. They had two tall masked-and-robed attendants behind them. “Oh, don’t bother.” They held up a tracker that was blinking rapidly. “Even if you cover the ID tag, we can still find you.”
	The researchers began to edge away from him.
	I should have held onto that scalpel.
	They lowered the tracker. “But I am very impressed, Lieutenant. You’ve done a great job of demonstrating your suitability for my project.”
	One of the robed figures raised their hand towards him, palm out. 
	He grabbed a researcher and pulled them in front of him as the purple flash went off, making sure to avert his eyes. The researcher screamed and Shiro dropped them. 
	“Clever.” 
	The two robed figures turned and knocked out the remaining researchers, then simply turned back to him as impassively as if they were statues.
	“There, now you’re out of shields. You’ve nowhere to go, and you know how this ends. Come back peacefully and I’ll make sure we actually knock you out before we begin this time.”
	He made a great show of easing down. 
	The masked figure barely turned their head towards one of the robed attendants. As soon as he saw the hand begin to rise, he threw himself to the side and shoved his way into one of the rooms. No windows in here, but there was another door! He took it, and the next. One of them was a lab of some sort, and he grabbed a scalpel on his way through. I’ve got to cut the ID tag off. But right now he had to assume he was being pursued. He didn’t have the time to stop.
	He ran until there were no more doors other than ones back out to the hallway. When he poked his head out, he saw no one and nothing except the red flashing emergency lights. The fire doors weren’t shut in this part. He bolted.
	He slammed almost straight into the masked figure. 
	“I’m going to enjoy you,” they said as their hand came up. Purple light filled his eyes, and then darkness again.

	Honerva stretched as she walked into Admiralty House. Most other people would be intimidated coming here, but this had been her home for the last five years. She walked straight past the servants offering her tea or a bite to eat, cricking her neck a little as she looked over the information on her datapad. She hummed thoughtfully as she walked into the Admiral’s study.
	Of course, Zarkon was still working at this hour. She frowned at him as the door closed behind her. “Well.”
	He looked up. “Well, what?” he asked.
	“You gave me quite the lecture the other night about my long working hours, and here you are, still at your desk!” She huffed and folded her arms. “If I’d known that, I would have stayed at the lab to continue my fun.”
	“Your… fun?” He’d sounded confused before, but she heard the hint of a warning in his tone, like a distant thunderstorm.
	“Well, look!” She tossed the datapad onto his desk.
	Naturally he picked it up. She watched one eyebrow arch as he started swiping through the pictures. 
	“My latest research subject. Do you know he actually killed three of my best researchers and nearly made good his escape today?” She laughed. “Though Vorak’s clothes hardly fit him at all! This prisoner is in prime condition and Vorak… well, very much was not.”
	She watched Zarkon eyeing the photographs with growing disgust. “Is he naked in all of these?”
	“Of course. He gave us an excellent demonstration on his mental acuity today, but we also need to be sure he’s in good physical shape.” She let her voice drop to a purr. “He is quite the specimen, wouldn’t you say so, Admiral?”
	He growled, and it set the hairs on the back of her neck up on end. “I suppose so.”
	“I do think he’ll be more than suitable for my needs.”
	“Yes, very good.” He tossed the datapad back down with feigned disinterest. “But now that you’re home, I…”
	She snatched it up again, backing up to one particularly compelling photograph: the lieutenant on the table, unconscious, hands and ankles shackled, legs spread, head lolled to one side. Honerva licked her lips. “The musculature is exquisite.”
	Zarkon came around the desk. “You’re home now, so perhaps it is time to set your work aside.”
	She turned away, putting her back to him. “I can think of ever so many uses for a subject of this caliber…”
	“Honerva,” and his voice was a deep, threatening rumble that reverberated through her very bones. 
	She carried on as if she hadn’t heard the warning. “And, after all, someone will have to put him through his paces once we’ve finished. I am so looking forward to it.”
	The datapad was snatched from her hands and thrown against the wall ahead of her, and then she was picked up, spun around, and pulled in towards Zarkon’s chest. The floor dropped away and she couldn’t move, given how tightly he was holding her. There was no purchase, no escape. She couldn’t even cry out because his mouth had captured hers and his tongue was practically in her throat.
	When she could speak again, she managed to gasp, “Admiral!” but he just growled and practically dropped her to the floor. She cried out briefly – more in surprise than pain – before he turned her towards the desk and shoved her down towards it.
	“Maddening woman,” he growled, and she could feel her cunt throb. It only took one of his large, clawed hands to literally tear the vac suit open. Little more than a flick of a single claw sealed the doom of her underwear, and everything from her waist to her knees was exposed to him. “When I tell you the time for work is done, I mean it.”
	She shivered pleasantly at the power in his tone. “But, Admiral,” she protested, “my work has been so… exciting ever since we got this new prisoner…”
[Zarkon and Honerva have sex in his office. It takes several of her orgasms before he can safely and painlessly enter her because of the size difference. (Yes, this is actually important for you to know.) It comes out that Honerva was deliberately trying to make him jealous so he’d stop working and take her.]
He was still carrying her, and she didn’t know where he was moving her to until she was laid out on the couch in his office. 
	“You know, perhaps your new research subject will be good for both of us.”
	She laughed weakly. “He will be, for my project, at least. He is an excellent specimen, but only for the project.” She raised a hand to his face. “I have you for everything else I need.”
	He narrowed his eyes. To someone else, it might have looked like displeasure, but she could still see that dark spark in them. He was deeply pleased, and he proved it by bending to kiss her gently. 
	“Rest. I’ll have dinner brought in for you.”
	“And the maids.”
	“Of course.”
	There was a knock on the door. “Are you two quite done in there?” She recognized the voice of their son. “Father has a guest.”
	He stood, refastening his Admiralty uniform closed. “At this hour? Who?”
	“Prorok, Father.”
	He turned back to her. “Come to weasel some more, no doubt.” He picked up a throw blanket and draped it over her. “Rest, and perhaps you’ll get another reward later.”
	She smirked at him and sighed contentedly. Minor blemishes like that pirate raid aside, everything was going very, very well in her life.

	“One race! It was ONE RACE!” Lance protested.
	“Today,” Pidge answered. “You’ve lost the last four races, too.”
	“I am still a better pilot than that sullen mullet.”
	“Aaaaaaaaand you’re still on the hook for five days’ worth of doing whatever he says.” She peered out from around her screen to fix him with a Look. “Can’t you two think of something more interesting to bet?”
	“It’s a classic. You don’t mess with tradition.”
	She snorted. “Yes, you do. You do all the time!”
	“Well, I don’t on this.”
	“Yeah, okay, whatever.” But she frowned at the data on her screen. “I can get us to the moon undetected, but Keith’s right: getting in there is going to be the trick. We might have to wait until there’s another delivery.”
	“The captain will go nuts if we have to wait much longer.”
	“Hold on, I’ll try to see if I can fake a delivery that won’t make them suspicious.”
	“Man, I hope this works. We had a good thing with Shiro, y’know?”
	“I’m surprised you’re as gung ho about him as you are. He’s basically stealing your ‘conquest,’ isn’t he?”
	“Eh, I gave up on Allura a long time ago. ‘Sides, he’s hot. Take my word for it.”
	She rolled her eyes. “Just because I prefer women doesn’t mean I can’t tell he’s hot, Lance.”
	“But it’s not the same. You don’t have the same appreciation.”
	“Okay, so if I were to point out that Keith’s hot in that emo twink sort of way…?”
	“HE IS NOT!”
	She leaned around her screen so Lance could clearly see her smirk. “Then why are you getting red?”
	“IT’S OUTRAGE!”
	“Sure, Lance. Keep telling yourself that while you’re licking his boots for five days’ straight. Do a good job and maybe he’ll let you lick somethi- OW!” 
	She leaned down to rub her shin where Lance had kicked it.
	“NO FIGHTING IN MY GALLEY!” Hunk declared, bringing them each a plate of food. “Or I make you two wash the dishes so I can have more time with Shay.”
	“Eh, I’ll do it for you anyway, big guy,” Lance offered. “Who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
	“Aww, thanks, buddy!”
	“Ha!” Lance declared. “He didn’t deny it!”
	“No. Why would I? It’s true.”
	Pidge turned to look at Hunk. “Please don’t tell me you’re actually fucking the rock chick.”
	“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
	She groaned and looked back to her screen.
	“But what does that have to do with true love anyway?”
	“Nothing,” she admitted, “but you’ve got that waffy ‘just got laid’ look that Lance gets sometimes when he gets lucky in port.”
	“What do you mean ‘sometimes’?!” Lance hooted in (actual) outrage.
	“Look, I need to eat and work on this plan, so if you two want to compare your various sexual partners, do it somewhere else?” she asked.
	“Yeah, we should let her do her thing,” Hunk said. “Y’know, before the captain keelhauls us or something.”
	Lance picked up his plate. “Yeah, what is keelhauling, anyway?”
	“Something that I think might actually be worse in an ocean than it would be in space,” Hunk was saying as they walked off.
	Pidge thanked her lucky stars for peace and quiet and set in on her work… after she looked up ‘keelhauling.’
~End of Chapter 4~

	He’d lost track of time. It always took a few ticks to recognize whether he was in his cell or the operating room. Sometimes he was in neither, and that was when he knew he was dreaming. He thought he was dreaming. Some dreams were nicer than others. His grip on reality was slipping, the sleeping and waking worlds blurring together. Nowhere was safe, nowhere was home, nowhere… he was nowhere… He couldn’t anchor himself by where he was anymore. He had to anchor himself to where he was not. 
	He was not with her, in her quarters. She was not here with him, kissing him deeply, soft hands – softer than he’d thought for such a hard woman – sliding over his chest. She was so soft with him, not the iron maiden who ran her tight ship. He was not there with her to feel the softness of her breast or the steel of the muscles in her thighs beneath his hands.
	Here was pain. He’d never thought blood had much of a smell before, but it was thick in his nose now. The world existed in flashes. Oblivion and pain, like the pulsar on his arm, on and off, on and off.
	There, back there in his captain’s quarters, was pleasure. He should, by rights, be serving her, because of their ranks, because this was her ship and her bed that she was allowing him into, but she was so eager to [be with him].
	He screamed. He thought he was screaming. His voice sounded different, muffled, and he couldn’t get his mouth open enough because of the mask over his face, but his throat was raw and sore. He must be the one screaming. He thrashed until the drugs kicked in, and then he was paralyzed. Was his mouth still open in a now-soundless scream? His eyes could barely see the blade…
	Her hand pressed him down to her sheets and she pulled his legs up onto her shoulders. He couldn’t speak, could hardly move, because his whole being was centered on her. He couldn’t even warn her as…
	…blood sprayed over his vision and he couldn’t move and the drugs masked the pain but didn’t really take it away. It was there, lurking like that masked figure who oversaw everything. He’d come to think of them as The Witch, just to have a way to distinguish her from everyone else here. She could lay her hands on him and he could feel a creeping sense of wrong shoot through his veins.
	Not like her, whose every touch felt more right than the last. She fit against his body so perfectly, like being with and in her was exactly where he should be. Seeing her sprawled out beneath him, her hair splayed out along the pillows like feathery shafts of moonlight. Watching her arch as he entered her, groaning like his fucking her was the only relief for an ache she had long suffered. 
	He woke to pain in his cell. He tried to idly stroke the ID tag embedded in his skin, but there was no longer a right hand to do it. 
	He woke to pleasure in her bed. He had his arms around her as she sighed contentedly against his ear.
	He wasn’t sure which was waking and which was dreaming, and he didn’t want to be sure, because he had the unsettling feeling that his pirate queen was the dream now, and he didn’t want to face that. 
	The Witch and The Queen fought for his mind. 

	“Everything’s in place.”
	“It had better be,” she growled.
	Over a movement. Allura prayed Shiro was still alive. Her feelings for him aside, she had promised him a quick death instead of a torturous one. She knew it was silly of her, but she felt as if she’d broken her word.
	Her father had been betrayed. She wouldn’t be the one to do the betraying, dammit. She wouldn’t just leave Shiro to suffer.
	They’d left the Balmera with a new crew member: Hunk’s girlfriend, Shay. That had taken some convincing, especially since her brother was a protective sonuvabitch and twice as immovable as the rock he seemed to be made of. But the rest of her family had given Shay – and the entire crew – a warm send-off. Allura was glad for Hunk and tried to push away her jealousy.
	We’re coming for you, Shiro. Please, hang on. Please don’t be dead already.
	Her mind figured he was already gone. But her heart refused to believe that. She tried to harden herself to the possibility. In addition to getting Shiro out of this facility, they were going to try to get data out of there, too. If she couldn’t retrieve her first mate, at least she could get something useful. I’ll avenge you along with my father, if need be.
	Still, it was exhausting, constantly chastising herself for holding onto hope. To believe he was dead and yet pray that he wasn’t. It’d been a long time since her focus had been split like this.
	This is why I don’t let people in, dammit. But she hadn’t had a choice with him. Every fiber of her being said she could trust him, said she should trust him, and she had. And he had proven true. Still, it had been so long since she’d felt like this that she’d forgotten that it could hurt even when no one had meant it to. 
	She wanted to rebuild her wall. But she couldn’t do that until she knew for sure. She should shut Shiro out, keep him at bay because he was a distraction, because he caused her this pain. But she knew that, if she had the chance to be with him again, she’d take it. She’d leap for it, and she’d rather build her wall around the both of them than to be alone again. 
	“Tomorrow,” Pidge said. “We start at 0600.”
	“Meeting at 2000 tonight then,” she said. “To go over everything one last time. Then plenty of sleep for the mission teams.”
	“Aye.”
	She wasn’t sure what to do until then, so she left to go work out some of her frustration, to beat up training droids until she felt better.

	“She really cares for him, huh?” 
	“You sound surprised,” Lance said.
	Keith shot him a look. “Well, yeah. She’s a pirate.”
	“You think pirates don’t have feelings, mullet?”
	“I used to, I guess.” He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. They were in their shared room, a couple of vargas before the meeting. Hunk had moved out into a private room with his girlfriend and Pidge practically slept in her lab. Keith was sitting on his bunk and Lance was stretched out on what had been Hunk’s.
	“Yeah, well I guess Shiro was kind of the same way. But now you know better, yeah?”
	Keith shrugged. “About you guys, anyway.”
	They fell into silence. Keith studied Lance as best he could without appearing obvious about it. Lance was one of those guys who cared about what he looked like, and his hard work had clearly paid off. Keith couldn’t stop thinking of him as pretty, couldn’t stop imagining those long legs wrapped around his waist, couldn’t stop wondering how his voice would sound when he was…
	He cleared his throat and tried to change his mental subject before it became very obvious what he was thinking about.
	“You okay over there, mullet?”
	“My name is Keith.”
	“Yeah, but if you’re going to insist on calling me ‘pretty boy,’ I have to call you something in return.”
	Keith blinked. “What? When did I ever call you that?”
	Lance sat up and swung his legs over the side to face him. “Uhh, damn near all the time?”
	“I do not!”
	“Yeah, you do. Also, you’re blushing.”
	“I am not,” but he knew that one was a lie. He could feel the heat in his cheeks. He looked away and scowled, more at his own reaction than anything else.
	He caught movement in his peripheral vision; Lance was walking over towards him. Go away, go away. He became very aware of his own heartbeat.
	Lance did not go away. He stood next to where Keith sat and leaned against the top bunk. “Aw, mullet, do you like me?” When he refused to answer that, he chuckled. “Well, it’s understandable. I am irresistible, after all.”
	Keith rolled his eyes. You might be if you’d stop overselling yourself like that.
	“So, here’s what I don’t get.”
	“What.” It was supposed to be a question, but Keith clipped it, trying to radiate the “Go away and let my embarrassment cool off” feeling churning through him.
	“You won five quintants’ worth of me doing whatever you say. So why not use it?”
	“I…!” Keith shot to his feet and whirled to Lance in shock. “I wouldn’t do that! It wouldn’t be right to make someone… I mean… like that? That’s just… it’s not right!”
	Lance laughed. “Who was talking about sex? I was just saying you haven’t made me do anything yet. Like, no chores or anything.”
	Keith knew he was turning redder. “We’ve gotta get Shiro back. That’s more important. And you were the one who kept making that same bet.”
	“Tradition!” Lance declared loudly. “Does no one respect tradition anymore?!”
	“I’ll cash in later.”
	Lance was grinning. Keith could practically hear his own heartbeat. “Does that mean you’ll be sticking around then?”
	“Well, I can’t really do anything else, can I? If I try to go back, they’ll hang me. And this is where Shiro wants to be, so… yeah. I guess so.”
	“You got a thing for Shiro then?”
	“No, not like that!” Keith shuddered. “He’s like a big brother, that’s all. I trust him. If this is where he’s going to be, then this is the best place to be. He wouldn’t stick around just because he wants to bang the captain.”
	Lance snorted. “You want in on the pool for when they finally bang?”
	“Only if there’s a slot for ‘they already have.’”
	“Oh, please. You don’t know the captain. She doesn’t let people in easily.”
	“You don’t know Shiro,” Keith shot back. “She is exactly his type, and he’s good at achieving his goals.”
	“Okay, we do the pool by net shares, so how many you ponying up on your losing bet?”
	“‘Net shares’?” 
	“Yeah, lots of us send some of our shares back home to our families or donate them or whatever. So whatever’s left over after you do that is your net.”
	“Oh.” He considered that. “5 gross, then.”
	Lance whistled. “You sure about that?”
	“I’m very sure.” Keith locked his eyes with those pretty blue ones in his best challenge stare.
	One of those impressively-manicured eyebrows rose just a hair. “Okay then, pretty eyes.”
	Keith blinked out of his glare. “What?” Can he read my mind or something?
	“You heard me. If you don’t want me to call you ‘mullet,’ I gotta go with something else.”
	“Or you could just call me by my fucking name!”
	The grin was back. “You are so damn cute when you blush, do you know that?”
	“Shut up I am not and I’m not blushing.” He folded his arms and turned away.
	“But you aaaaaaaaarrre,” Lance sing-songed. “You are both cute and blushing, pretty-eyed mullet man.”
	“Ohmygodwillyoustop?” he groaned, dropping his head into his hands.
	He heard Lance snicker. “Nope!”
	He turned back to face him, ignoring the fact that Lance was right about the blush. “You’re giving me so much shit about this crush, but you’re calling me ‘pretty eyes’,” he pointed out.
	“You admitting you have a crush on me then?”
	“I’m admitting nothing.”
	“It kinda sounds like you’re saying you have a crush on me.”
	“I didn’t…”
	“It’s the smile, right? The smile always gets them.”
	“Your smile annoys the hell out of me.”
	“The flawless skin, then.”
	“You spend too much time in the bathroom.”
	“It clearly can’t be the hair because if you had any taste, you wouldn’t have a mullet.”
	“It’s not the hair!”
	“Then what is it?”
	“It’s…” He shut up when he saw Lance’s grin go wide. “Shit,” he realized. The fact that he’d been about to answer at all proved the pretty boy’s point. He thought Hunk could probably fry an egg on his face right about now.
	“You might as well tell me now.”
	“N-no.” He couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.
	After a tick or two of silence, Lance spoke up again. He’d expected him to sound smug, but instead, his tone was softly sincere. “You do have pretty eyes. And a mullet. That’s why I call you those things.”
	“Your eyes are prettier,” he muttered.
	“Oh, so it’s the eyes.” There was the lightest hint of teasing. Barely a hint.
	“And the legs.” Might as well admit it all. Get it out of the way. And then an idea hit him.
	“Oh, you’re a leg man, huh?”
	“I guess.” He looked back at Lance. “And, uh… you did say you’d do anything I wanted, right? I mean, for winning the bets?”
	He nodded. “Five quintants’ worth. You can take ‘em all at once or space ‘em out a quintant at a time.”
	“I’d like to cash one in now, then.”
	“Oh? What’d you have in mind, pretty eyes?”
	Keith let his eyes roam over Lance’s face. They were standing here facing each other; it’d be easy to fall into one right now. He licked his lips and pulled his gaze back up to those blue eyes he swore were the prettiest he’d ever seen. “Well, there is something I’d really, really like you to do.”
	Lance leaned in a little closer. “And what’s that?”
	Keith mimicked the movement, but made sure to keep his eyes on Lance’s. “I want… you to…”
	He couldn’t get another word out. Not because he’d forgotten what he’d been about to say but because his mouth was suddenly occupied. By Lance’s.
	His eyes widened briefly before he let them fall closed. He’d been worried Lance would be all brag, but if nothing else, he definitely knew how to kiss. One hand slid over his hip around to his back and pressed him close. 
	Keith responded by grabbing hold of Lance’s hips and pulling him in against him that last little distance. He deepened the kiss and felt Lance’s free hand comb into his hair.
	He let Lance end the kiss first; he’d started it after all. There was a smirk on those soft lips, but his eyes were just smiling. “That what you wanted?”
	“Actually, what I was going to say was that I wanted you to keep your mouth shut about my stupid crush on you,” Keith told him truthfully.
	“Oh.” And now, at last, it was Lance’s turn to blush.
	He decided not to be as mean-spirited. “But, you know, you can’t tell anyone else if you’re in here with me.”
	“That’s… true.” Lance seemed to still be worried about overstepping his bounds.
	“And also if your mouth is busy with other things.”
	Just like that, the worry was gone, and the smirking was back. “What other things?”
	“You actually gonna wait for me to say them this time?”
	“I dunno; my impulsiveness seems to have worked out pretty well for me so far.”
	“But this is what I won,” Keith pointed out.
	“Oh, fine. Just… one thing real quick?”
	“What’s that?”
	Lance jerked his head towards the door. “Let me go set the lock. Pidge isn’t likely to come back, before the meeting, but… just in case.”
	“Good thinking.” He let him go see to that while he started getting his uniform shirt off.
	“Oooh, do I get a show?” Lance asked when he turned back around.
	“I get one, too, I think,” Keith told him. 
	“We doing topless or full nude?”
	Keith rolled his eyes and walked over to him. He dropped his voice, just in case. “If you’re willing, I want to fuck you. And I don’t like having clothes on for it.”
	Lance blinked. “Wow, that escalated quickly.”
	Keith grinned and hoped it distracted from his blush. “Isn’t this what you were hinting at?”
	“Well, yeah, but you didn’t seem to want to go for it.”
	“I did say ‘if you’re willing.’ If you’re not, we’ll go as far as you want and then stop.”
	“Well, the captain can’t be the only one around here with a Navy boytoy.”
	“I’d like a clear answer,” Keith told him.
	“I am very willing,” he replied. He ran his hands over Keith’s shoulders and arms. “Especially if I get to see more of this.”
[Keith and Lance have sex. Lance is bi, as it turns out. They banter and tease each other until the sexual pleasure takes over too fully for that nonsense.]
	There was a dobosh or two of no more sound than the two of them breathing heavily, and then Keith heard the bunk shift behind him. Lance leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We can definitely do this again.”
	“Mmm, I’m glad.” He turned his face to his so he could get a somewhat sloppy kiss in on the lips.
	“Maybe even take turns?” 
	“Maaaaaybe. I do have five whole quintants’ worth of ordering you about to get through, after all.”
	“I swear I’m going to beat you at racing one day.”
	“I’m more than happy to have you keep trying.”
	They both laughed a little. And, honestly, as good as it was to get laid again, it was the laughter and the rivalry Keith liked best. It was fun, it was challenging, and it was something no port prostitute would give him.
	“We gotta get cleaned up,” Lance protested.
	“Right.” Keith pushed himself back up to stand. “So we can save Shiro.” He paused and looked back to Lance. “We have to sleep tonight.”
	“I know. We’ll do this again after we’ve got the first mate back.”
	Keith nodded. “Looking forward to it. And, Lance?”
	“Hm?”
	He smiled. “Thank you, pretty boy.”
	Lance smiled in return. “You’re welcome, mullet.”
~End of Chapter 5~

	“Excellent. At ease.”
	He snapped into At Ease position.
	Her voice chuckled warmly. “Good enough. Hold out your right arm.”
	He did so, palm up, fingers flat. She came over to inspect it. “Alloy intact, already cooling to the touch.” She wasn’t talking to him. “Energy signature diminished to normal range.” She stepped away. “Activate hand.”
	That was an order for him, and he obeyed it.
	She described the glow of his hand for her notes. “Deactivate. At ease.”
	He deactivated. He returned to At Ease position.
	Her mouth twisted wryly. “The conditioning is perhaps too effective. Subject is more like an automaton than a person at current. But this can be modified later. For now, it’s advisable to leave 117-9875 in this obedient state. Given his own mind, he can be …uncooperative.”
	He did not respond. She had not been talking to him.
	“Return to your cell. Rest and restore yourself. I will be presenting you to the Admiral tomorrow.”
	He walked out of the room, down the hallway, to his awaiting cell. The door shut behind him. He laid down on his bunk and closed his eyes. As ordered. 
	There was a flash behind his eyes, a face he felt he ought to know. He did not ponder on it; he had not been ordered to. He did not notice or care that his jumpsuit was soaked, that his face and his arms – especially his right – were splattered in blood. He must rest. He must obey.

	“Can you believe the fuckin’ Admiral himself is comin’ here? Mr. High-Turned-And-Fancy-To-Do himself?” The cook – he’d introduced himself as Sal – shook his head. “No wonder we had to have the special order come in. Well, you know where to dump it.” He waved his hand in one direction. “I gotta get ready.”
	Hunk shot a look back over his shoulder when Sal left and mouthed, “The Admiral?!”
	Allura walked out, peering around Hunk to make sure the cook was gone. She raised a finger to her lips – well, to her helmet. She was glad she’d worn it; it partially obscured her face, and if Zarkon was really coming today… Well, she wasn’t going to let him derail her plans.
	She waved Keith and the others up to join her from their hiding spot in the delivery ship. “Pidge,” she whispered.
	Pidge’s voice responded over the comms. “There’s a door to your right, near cold storage. Take that, then hang a left.”
	She set off for it, the others close behind. Hunk stayed to unload the boxes and buy time; he was their getaway vehicle. Lance was the pilot.
	Pidge led them through the hallways, told them when and where to stop, though she only had information on scheduled patrols of certain areas. Anyone just idly walking through could still catch them. At a T-junction, she said, “Team 2, head right, take the second door on the left. Team 1, go left.”
	She nodded to the second team as they broke off. They were here to collect data. That left her alone with Keith. She jerked her head towards the hallway, and he went out first. His vac-suit was Naval issue, so a quick glance at him if he were seen might not arouse as much suspicion. Thus, she let him take point.
	Pidge guided them, and they managed to avoid detection through most of the building. “This hallway has the designated prisoner cells,” she said.
	“I guess we just look in each one,” Keith muttered. But before they could put this plan into action, they saw a lone figure approaching one of the doors.
	He was tall, Galra, not one of the fuzzier ones. He was wearing a white labcoat, and he looked over his shoulder anxiously.
	Allura leaped out of their hiding spot and pushed him up against the wall with one hand. “What are you doing?” she snarled. He might be nearly half-again taller than she was, but her strength – spiked by adrenaline – was nothing to sneeze at. And her other hand was holding her blaster, pointed at his stomach. He wasn’t going anywhere.
	He seemed befuddled by her existence. “What are you doing?” he asked.
	“It’s him,” Keith said, looking into the cell through the viewscreen.
	Allura narrowed her eyes. “What have you done to this man?”
	“I have done nothing, personally. I am trying to free him, as I suspect you are?”
	“Why would you free him?” Keith demanded.
	“Because I know some of what they’ve done to him. I don’t know exactly what their intention is going forward, but I know enough to know that it won’t be good.”
	“Then how do we get him out?” Allura asked him.
	He nodded to his ident badge. “My partner has arranged clearance for me. My badge should open the cell.”
	“Or set off the alarms,” Keith added.
	“It should not.”
	Allura sighed. “Do you see any other way in?”
	“No,” Keith admitted.
	“Try the badge.” As Keith came over to grab it from the researcher, she snarled a warning at him. “If those alarms go off, I blast you first thing.”
	“I trust my partner.”
	Keith swiped the badge and the door opened. He burst into the room. “Shiro!” 
	Allura badly wanted to go in with him, but she had the researcher pinned. Still, she could listen.
	“Shiro?” Keith asked. “Why aren’t you responding?”
	“They have him conditioned,” the researcher said. “He will not respond to his name.”
	“What will he respond to?”
	“Let me try?” 
	She didn’t like it, but she let go of him, backing away but keeping the blaster trained on him. 
	He ducked into the room. “Prisoner 117-9875, you are to accompany us.”
	For the first time, Allura could see him. Some of his hair had gone white, there was a scar over the bridge of his nose, and damn near his entire right arm had been replaced with a prosthetic the likes of which she’d never seen before. He was in a prisoner jumpsuit that looked positively caked in dried blood. And he was staring straight ahead like a statue.
	“No,” he replied.
	“117-9875, you are to obey.”
	“I obey the Admiral and his Aide.”
	The researcher sighed. “I was afraid of this. Specific voice conditioning.”
	“We have to get him out of here some way!” Keith declared.
	“I have this.” The researcher pulled out an injection gun, loaded with a faint purple serum. “It should knock him out.”
	“I’m not letting you inject him with something,” Allura said.
	But then a loud cry of “HALT!” came from down the hallway. Allura swung her blaster in that direction and fired. The guard dropped, but not before the klaxons started screaming.
	“Quiznak.”
	“We’re out of options!” Keith said.
	“Fine, but you’re coming with us,” she told the researcher. “And if he dies, your death will not be pleasant.”
	“I can carry him,” was the only response.
	“Tranq him and let’s get out of here!” Keith shouted.
	Allura heard sounds behind her and ducked, pressing herself back against the wall and turning to fire in that direction. She heard the sound of a scuffle from inside the cell, a cry of pain from Keith, but then the researcher came out carrying an unconscious Shiro.
	“Are you alright?” she asked, firing.
	“A burn, it’s nothing,” Keith replied.
	“Follow me.”
	“We have a way out through the kitchens,” Allura told him.
	“The kitchens? Very well. This way then. Use my badge at that junction.”
	“GO!” Allura yelled. 
	Keith took point again, and Allura picked up the rear. At the junction, Keith swiped the badge in front of a sensor and it shut the hallway doors behind them. 
	“Destroy the panel,” the researcher said.
	She blasted it. 
	“That will buy us some time. We must hurry.”
	“What about your partner?” Keith asked.
	“I will need to rendezvous with him.”
	“Is it just the two of you?”
	“In this building, yes. But there are others who do not trust the Admiralty. Infiltration of this facility took time; I have only been here a matter of months.”
	“Why didn’t you free him sooner?”
	“Use my badge again here,” he replied instead. “My access to prisoner information was limited. Opportunities to break him out were scarce. But we had to move today, with the Admiral coming.”
	The doors shut, Allura blasted them, and then she took over point. “Pidge,” she said through her comms.
	“I’ve been listening. He should be Ulaz. And I think whoever his partner is, he’s been helping me get info. My programs have been digging up data unusually quickly for a secure facility like this. I think his partner’s feeding me the info.”
	“Is your partner some sort of hacker?” Keith asked.
	He smiled wryly. “He has skills in that area, yes, though he detests such old-fashioned terms. He prefers ‘computer security analyst.’”
	“I don’t care what he calls himself,” Pidge’s voice replied, “he’s good. I can’t say we can trust them 100% yet, but… they might be worth the risk.”
	“Noted,” Allura said. “We’re almost there. Keith, go ahead and make sure there’s no trouble to be cleared out in the kitchens.”
	“Aye aye.” He ran ahead.
	“Are you also opposed to the Admiralty?” Ulaz asked her.
	“That’s an understatement.”
	“You’ve every right not to trust me, but how do I know I can trust you? There are groups out there – such as the megacorps – who would love top secret Admiralty research for their own.”
	She stopped and spun to look at him. “My father was Admiral Alfor.”
	Ulaz’s eyes widened and then he nodded. “Very well. Lead on.”
	She snorted, but kept running. “Just like that?”
	“We know your father was killed by Admiral Zarkon. You are on a personal vendetta. Which leads me to believe you are here for personal reasons as well?”
	She wasn’t going to respond to that.
	The kitchens had been the scene of some chaos, but the dust seemed to have settled. The cook was out cold on the floor. The only problem was Hunk, Keith, and Team 2 staring down another (fuzzier) Galra. “One wrong move,” Keith warned.
	Their arrival was noticed. “Ulaz!” the other Galra said.
	“This is my partner, Thace,” Ulaz said. “He no doubt monitored my path and came to meet us here.”
	“You’re the one who was helping our hacker?” Allura asked.
	He nodded. “Your analyst does excellent work. My compliments.”
	“Alright, everyone in,” she ordered. “We’re getting out of here. Keith, go sit up front by Lance. Hunk, what are all these boxes still doing in here?”
	“Well, it’s all food and such,” Hunk pointed out. “No point wasting it on the Admiralty.”
	She grinned. “Fine.”
	He peered at Shiro in Ulaz’s arms. “Uh, is he okay?”
	“No,” she muttered. “But he will be. Ulaz, Thace, come with us.”
	Thace glanced at Ulaz, who nodded. “One tick, let me fry the main doors.” 
	Ulaz brought Shiro in. Allura sat on one of the benches in the truck and raised her hands. “Let me have him? Please?”
	Shiro was delivered carefully into her arms, legs draped across her lap. She frowned, finger-combing some of the now-white fringe out of his face. “I’m so sorry.”
	“Before we go,” Ulaz said, “We need to cut out his ID tag.”
	“OH SHIT I FORGOT,” Keith said. “I have one, too.”
	“We can get yours later,” Allura said. “We have to get his out right now. They know his number and will look to track it.”
	“I can do it,” Hunk said. He ran to grab a kitchen knife and a towel. “Hold his arm out for me.”
	She did as he said. Hunk made two quick vertical slices and then slid the knife in underneath the skin. He wedged out a bloodied chip and wrapped Shiro’s wrist with the towel. 
	“Give me the chip,” Thace said.
	“Gladly.” Hunk tossed it to him. “Ew.”
	Thace dropped it to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel with a hard stomp. “Let’s get out of here.” He ran into the back of the truck. 
	“Punch it, Lance!” Allura yelled as Hunk closed the loading doors.
	They fled.

	“How is he?” Thace asked.
	“Still asleep. I doubled the dose.” Ulaz sighed as he sank onto the bed. 
	Thace stopped pacing the length of the room to come and sit beside him. “And our… hosts?”
	“We are headed to some hiding spot. Alfor’s daughter is extremely concerned about the subject. It took much convincing to persuade her that he should be in locked room for the time being.”
	“You’re sure she’s Alfor’s daughter?” Thace asked.
	“As sure as I can be without running tests. She looks a great deal like the late admiral and she seems to be the appropriate age.”
	“We have no choice but to go along at the moment.” It was Thace’s turn to sigh. “You are too trusting sometimes.”
	“We are still in proximity to the subject. Though, given what little I’ve read, that may not be the best idea.”
	“We’re locked into this room,” he reminded Ulaz.
	He smirked over at him. “As if any lock could hold you.”
	“I did tell you their analyst was good, didn’t I?”
	“No one is as good as you.” Ulaz leaned in to nuzzle just under Thace’s jaw, reaching a hand around to scratch behind one of his ears. “I have missed you.”
	He sighed and let some of his anger out. “As I have you.” It’d been ages since they’d last been in the same place at the same time. Their duty to their cause always came first.
	He wrapped his arms around Ulaz and held him, letting him nuzzle and nip and snuggle up against him. 
	“At least we are not in a cell,” he murmured against his throat. “Locked in a room we may be, but it is a nice room.”
	“With a bed big enough for us both,” Thace said, because he knew that was where that line of thought was headed. He exhaled. “How long has it been?”
	“2 years, 3 months, 3 movements, and 4 quintants. Should I give you vargas, doboshes, and ticks while I’m at it?”
	Thace laughed. “You remember down to the tick?”
	“Well, no,” he admitted.
	Thace laughed again. “I love you.”
	Seeing Ulaz smile again, made it all worthwhile. His neutral expression tended to be very distant, almost stern, but when he smiled, when he was truly happy and at peace, it made Thace melt a little. “I love you, too.”
	It’d been so long since they’d last kissed that he felt he’d almost, almost forgotten the taste of his life partner’s lips. As if the memory had been teetering on the edge of falling off into a mental pit of oblivion, but now it had been pulled back from the brink. He nipped at Ulaz’s lower lip playfully, and won a soft growl of approval from him. 
	But Ulaz pulled away and frowned. “Should we really do this here?”
	“When will we next have the chance?” Thace countered. “I don’t want to wait another 2 years.”
	“And 3 months, 3 movements, and 4 quintants.”
	“Stop that and come here.” He pulled his love back in towards him before pulling them both back onto the bed. Not that it required much strength; Ulaz came along willingly, already meeting him for another kiss.
	He worked on getting the lab coat off, pushing it back off his shoulders. Ulaz was opening the Admiralty tech uniform he was wearing, nuzzling the revealed fur. Thace would have wanted to take his time, but they had no idea when they’d be interrupted again. Still, he couldn’t help running his hands over his lover’s body as the clothes came off, just to enjoy the feel of him beneath his hands once more.
	This wasn’t exactly how he’d hoped this reunion would go, but he’d take what he could get. The bed was far more comfortable than the back of the small craft he’d come down in, which is where he’d assumed they’d end up. And, right now, the only people who’d interrupt them didn’t seem the “shoot first” type. He shoved the ship’s other occupants from his mind and focused on Ulaz.
	Of course, Ulaz’s analytical mind rivaled even his own. “We’re… unprepared for this.”
	Thace sighed roughly, partly out of realization that he was right and partly out of exasperation. “You’re only thinking of one thing, aren’t you?”
	Ulaz was petting his chest softly. “I’ve dreamed of having you again, love.”
	He smiled. “As have I. But I have had a great many other dreams besides. Stand up, finish getting undressed.”
	“And if we are walked in on?” He was moving to do as suggested though.
	Thace stood as well. “Surely Alfor’s daughter is not so rude as that.”
	“Have you seen the others?” 
	“Well, they held me at blaster point, so… yes.”
	They both laughed at that. 
[Thace and Ulaz 69, with some mental commentary about the different clans they once hailed from. The Galra are a race of unified clans at this point, but “clan rivalry” sometimes comes up in friendly competitions, like sporting events and the like. Thace and Ulaz occasionally tease each other about their respective clans, but right now is for their reunion, since they’ve been so long separated by their separate missions. This part also makes it clear that they are truly life partners, devoted and committed to each other.]
	It always took him longer to get his breath back – his clan had been built for short bursts of speed, not marathons – but by the time he did, Ulaz had moved around so he could kiss his cheek and pull him over into a warm snuggle.
	Thace nuzzled Ulaz’s neck, nipping once at his throat, and then settled in. “We shouldn’t stay like this too long.”
	“I know.”
	Neither of them moved.

	Dreams.
	That face again.
	Another face from another past. 
	Another life.
	His arm hurt. Not that one, the other one.
	He was confused. Better not to think about it. The Admiral and his Aide would tell him what to do. Just do what they said. It was easier. No confusion.
	But there were always the dreams.
~End of Chapter 6~

	“How is he?”
	“Same as he was,” Keith reported glumly. He threw himself face down on his bunk. “Either he attacks or he just sits there blankly ‘awaiting orders.’”
	Lance came to sit on the edge of the bunk and rubbed Keith’s back. “We’ll get him back. Captain’ll figure it out. Or Pidge and Hunk will. Or… something.”
	Keith was quiet a long moment. “I’m angry.”
	“That’s understandable.”
	“And I kind of need to vent energy.”
	“Sparring or fucking?” Lance asked.
	Keith fell silent again. “Sparring first. Then fucking in the shower, and then back here.”
	Lance snorted. “You sure you got that much in you, pretty eyes?”
	Keith narrowed his eyes. “You want to throw that gauntlet down?”
	Lance grinned. “Already did.”
	Truth be told, it was an act, for both of them. Lance knew that. He didn’t know Keith that well yet, but he knew he cared about Shiro. They were both worried about that robot who looked like the good guy they knew. 
	Burning off some frustration sounded good, even if it was blatant escapism. They were taking the long way to another hideout, somewhere they’d have more time and privacy to deal with Shiro the way he was at the moment. There was not much anyone could do, so… yeah, sparring and fucking would be a good way to handle the pent-up helplessness. 
	Lance stood as Keith pushed himself up off the mattress. “Race you to the training deck?”

	Allura paced in her quarters, looking at the feed from the room they’d locked Shiro in. He was sitting, looking at a wall. He’d eat and drink, used the head, slept, all in accordance with some internal clock. And when he wasn’t doing any of those things, he sat and stared. It made her skin crawl.
	They’d detached the arm while he was unconscious. Pidge was studying it, and Hunk was trying to reverse engineer it. She felt awkward taking his arm from him, but it was quickly confirmed that it had offensive abilities. It was for the best, until they could get him back to normal. Hopefully Hunk would get a good replacement prosthetic for him soon, though they’d have to shoot him with a tranq dart to get it attached.
	“What did they do to you?” she whispered to the screen, frowning. 
	She turned away to look at the remaining brandy glass on her desk and sighed. Still half-drunk. Just like she sort of had Shiro back, but not really. 
	He wasn’t taking the painkillers they provided with the food, even though they’d cut his Navy ID out. It had to hurt at least a little, but he didn’t even acknowledge the bandage or the ache.
	They should have just killed you. It would have been a mercy compared to this. But trust Zarkon’s Admiralty to be anything but merciful. 
	The purpose of all of this worried her, too, but she was too distracted by having Shiro’s body here but none of his mind, his heart, his soul. All the more reason to go to the last place anyone should look to find him. She had resources there, contacts, ways to get information. She didn’t like what she’d almost certainly have to do to get it, but it’d be worth the schmoozing and play-acting if it would help Shiro.
	She wasn’t looking forward to seeing her old friend again.

[Okay this is where “the Lotorgy” happens: Lotor and all four of the ladies: Acxa, Ezor, Narti, and Zethrid. Side note: I am never writing an orgy again because the blocking is a nightmare. ANYWAY, the important bit is that Lotor and all four of them have these small black discs on their temples. Lotor spends a lot of time turning on and off the various discs with verbal commands so that one person’s feelings transmit (or not) to others. The discs are named after each person, so the commands tend to be like, “Transmit Zethrid to Ezor.”
Speaking of which, Acxa worries about Ezor because she’s getting Zethrid’s emotions transferred to her through the neural net of the discs and Zethrid likes things rougher than Ezor could probably take on her own. Acxa does, in fact, worry a little about whether or not the four of them are merely toys to Lotor, but seeing the care he takes with her and Narti when they’re both spent reassures her a little. He’s careful with them, laying them down, making sure they’re covered and comfortable and mutes their neural nets so they’re not overwhelmed with the others’ sensations.]
	The air was filled with heavy breathing and Ezor’s happy humming.
	“Thank you, all. I needed that,” Lotor said, catching his own breath. “All nets mute.”
	“I think I know what else we need,” Acxa spoke. When he turned his head to her, she waved her comtab. “I have a bath for five set up for us.”
	He grinned. “Clever girl. Though, that begs the question.” He pushed himself up to sit straight as he narrowed his eyes at her. “If you’re so clever and thoughtful, why have you not fulfilled the simple request I set you years ago?”
	Ezor huffed. “It’s like she’s a ghost!” she complained. Too worn out to stand yet, she gestured in the air as if explaining things to the ceiling. “She hasn’t left the estate since Dear Old Daddy died!”
	“She hasn’t left the house,” Zethrid murmured. “Our spies can’t even see her walking the grounds. We know she’s inside, we see her moving around, but…”
	“Well, then find a way in. It ought to be simple.” He was getting testy again.
	“I don’t even see what you want with her,” Zeth rumbled. If Acxa didn’t know her better, she’d swear she was pouting. “You’ve got all of us.”
	“Ohhh, don’t you ever,” Ezor giggled again lazily, fingers tracing shapes in the cum on her breasts.
	“Don’t you understand?” Acxa answered for him. “He can fuck us, but he can only marry her. It’s about social status.”
	“Exactly.” He stretched. “I need the doors she’ll open for me – for us. My father’s position as head of the Admiralty gets me in a great many places, but there are still gates that are locked to me, for the same reason. She redeems me, proves that I am not the corrupt power-monger my father is. To truly access the halls of power, I need Allura.”
	“We’ll get you your ‘princess,’” Zethrid promised grumpily.
	Lotor rose slowly to his feet, and Acxa’s blood ran cold. “You had better. The neural nets can transmit pain just as easily as pleasure.”
	She pushed herself up. “We will. As soon as we can walk again. And maybe after the bath?” She tried to sound coquettish, and deliberately rubbed herself between her legs. She watched his eyes dip to her hand at the motion.
	“True. I’ll see you all there. Don’t keep me waiting.” He grabbed a robe and headed out.
	Once the door shut behind him, they all exhaled heavily.
	“Please be careful, Zethrid,” Acxa said. “Just because you don’t mind getting whipped, doesn’t mean the rest of us like it. And he’ll transmit that to all of us.”
	“I kinda like being a sub,” Ezor admitted, pushing herself up into a sitting position, “but the actual whipping part I could do without.”
	“Yeah, I know,” Zeth said with a nod. “I don’t want you guys to get hurt ‘cause of me.”
	Acxa swung her legs over the bed and tried to stand. When she wobbled, Zeth reached out and caught her arm.
	“He was pretty hard on you; let me carry you to the bath.”
	She shook her head. “Narti…”
	“I got her.” Ezor bounced up and went to check on her, stroking her head and giving her a kiss. “You okay?”
	Narti just nodded.
	“You know he’s gonna want more fun in the bath.”
	“Bubble bath,” Acxa said. “Should be mostly handjobs and finger fucking.”
	Ezor sighed. “Come on, if we keep him waiting, it’ll be trouble.”
	Zethrid scooted over to the edge of the bed, still holding onto Acxa.
	“He [treated you roughly], too,” Acxa protested. “You don’t have to carry me.”
	“Eh, he’d have to go a lot harder than that to hurt me. Come here.” She picked her up, and Acxa relented, snuggling into Zethrid’s fur. 
	“We just going nakey?” Ezzy asked. “I mean, I don’t mind, but…”
	“No one but servants to see us. And it’ll give him a thrill,” Acxa pointed out.
	“You just don’t want Zethie to stop carrying you.”
	The so-named growled. “What Did I Tell You About That?”
	Ezzy batted her eyelashes, grinned, and cloaked herself. “Come on!” her seemingly-disembodied voice declared. The door looked like it opened by itself.
	Narti trundled by, still bundled up in the blanket.
	Acxa leaned up to kiss Zethrid’s cheek. “She’s just doing it to wind you up.”
	“It’s working.”
	“Let’s not keep Lord Lotor waiting any longer. Besides, the bath’ll be cold.”
	“Ugh. Now that’s an incentive.” Zethrid carried her towards the door.
	Acxa thought about things on the way there. They were supposed to befriend Admiral Alfor’s daughter, win her over, convince her to stop seeing Lotor as a childhood friend and more as an ideal marriage match – which he was, for anyone. She’d have to be an idiot not to see that, but Lotor knew Allura better than they did, and he was adamant she’d never marry purely for position or power. She needed to care for him. She hadn’t let him – or anyone – into the estate since her father’s death. His missives had all been ignored. The bond of childhood affection was not enough.
	They had to come up with something. Some way to get her out of her mourning and off the damn estate, or some way to get them into it.
	But now they were arriving in the bath, where Lotor was already lounging. Ezor was next to him, finger-combing his hair and giggling. Narti was seductively stepping out of her blanket to come join them. Showtime.
	It was wrong to think of it as a performance, because she enjoyed being fucked until the real world and all the worries and plans she had there fell away. But she was still tired, and she had her limits. Lotor was starting to push them.
	Once they got his little ‘princess’ for him, things would go back to normal.
	Now that’s an incentive, she thought.
~End of Chapter 7~

	The doors of the secret landing bay rumbled open to receive the Castle. Allura handled the descent into the underground cavern herself; it was night outside and dark within the landing bay, as she had shut off all but the most necessary landing lights. She didn’t want anything to give them away. This was critical.
	Once they’d landed, the doors began to close. Once completely shut, the illusion on them would re-activate and it would look and feel once more like untouched wilderness. As far as most people knew, this was Groggery Park, a bequest from one of Allura’s long-dead ancestors. It had wonderful hiking paths, gorgeous vistas to take in sunrises and sunsets, and a wildlife preserve. No one even suspected that it also hid this secret.
	The lights began to rise steadily once they were completely closed off from the outside world. But Allura was wasting no time. Once the ship had been properly landed, everyone sprang into action. There were teams to see to the maintenance, resupply, and refueling of the ship, but the most important thing was getting Shiro and the accompanying data they’d stolen off and into the estate. 
	Ulaz had tranq’ed him again. She sighed as his unconscious (but still bound) form was pushed past her on a hovergurney. “Load him up onto the transport,” she said unnecessarily, just to feel like she was slightly less helpless.
	“Pidge, Lance, Hunk, Keith, Thace, and Ulaz: you’re with me and Shiro. We’ll take the first transport to the estate. Everyone else, you know your jobs.”
	She hopped into the driver’s seat of the hovercraft. Lance slid in beside her. Keith was sticking close to Shiro, still glaring at the Galra defectors. She wasn’t going to dissuade him; they’d behaved themselves so far, and they’d helped get Shiro out, but her trust for them wasn’t 100% yet.
	Pidge curled up with her computer and Hunk sat next to Keith. “We’re all in,” he called.
	She revved the transport up and took off down the tunnel.
	The route to the estate was entirely subterranean, but Allura still didn’t feel safe. She tried not to look over her shoulder. She was bringing three people she barely knew into her home. She had no idea how Shiro would react when he awoke, or how they were going to fix him. Hopefully, that would be in the data they’d stolen.
	But she’d be secure here. The estate was a veritable fortress, overseen by sentry drones and one of the sharpest and most loyal men her father had ever known: Coran Hieronymous Wimbleton Smythe. He’d come up through the Navy ranks, predominantly through the nano-weaponry division. He had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of many mechanical systems; he was resourceful and disciplined; and even in his old age he retained many of his combat skills. Most importantly, he had been unfailingly, unflinchingly loyal to her father and her family. She suspected there was more than one reason for that, but she didn’t press. 
	Coran and Amue would protect and help them. She had to have faith in that.
	The trip was long, with several branches in the tunnel that led to traps for any possible infiltrators. There were also spots where the transport was picked up by machinery that would recognize only the proper vehicles, then carried lower or raised higher into the next track. To anyone trying to break in without registered transport, these paths were dead ends.
	The system had been designed ten thousand years ago (by an ancestor of Coran’s, no less) from when this estate had been the personal residence of Altean royalty. Monarchy was an outdated concept now, but sometimes it was hard not to be proud of the nobility in her past. She’d have given it all up to have her father back with her.
	For now, she was grateful for the paranoia of long-dead kings and queens. The estate was well-fortified, and the manor itself a veritable fortress. 
	When they finally reached the estate’s sub-basement, she wasn’t surprised to see someone waiting to greet them. But Keith freaked out.
	“What the hell is going on here?”
	“Well, I can’t say I expected that reaction.” It was said in her own voice, with her own reflections, and, apparently, from her own mouth. Though this version of her was rather more nicely attired, her hair in a loose, casual style instead of pulled back into a bun.
	“You get used to it,” Lance said. “Hey, Mu, what’s good?”
	The ‘other’ Allura smiled and, when she spoke, her voice was her own: a little deeper, a little more monotone, and with a slightly less royal accent. Also without contractions. “It is good to see you again, Lance, Hunk, Pidge. And, of course, welcome home, Princess.”
	Allura glared at her. “Stop that.”
	She raised her hand to her mouth as if she were embarrassed. “Forgive me. A slip of the tongue.”
	“You’re a robot, you can’t have a ‘slip of the tongue.’”
	“I am a sentient A.I. in a highly-advanced mechanical body. By Galactic Congressional standards, I am my own person. I do not see why I cannot have ‘a slip of the tongue.’”
	“So you have a robot twin?” Keith asked.
	Allura turned to him. “I have a ro- …a sentient A.I. in a highly-advanced mechanical body who can look and sound like me.” She turned back. “Amue, if you would?”
	Amue nodded and the body began to shift. Her features smoothed out into pearlescent white (and pupil-less) eyes, no nose, and thinner lips. Her skin became silver with only the faintest metallic sparkle to it. Her breasts disappeared, her hair shortened and darkened until it was a sleek short black, barely longer than the ear cones to help direct sound to her sensors. Amue was about Allura’s height normally, thinner, and… well, she was a robot. She was still wearing one of Allura’s dresses, which now hanged on her frame. “Forgive me, Allura; it is easier to simply put on one of your outfits than to generate them each time.”
	“That’s fine, Amue. At least someone’s getting some use out of them.”
	Amue smiled at Keith. “My primary mode is to act as a bodyguard for Allura. This means I can change what I look like in order to best provide for her defense, including shifting to take on her own appearance.”
	“As far as anyone knows,” Allura told him – and Thace & Ulaz, though she gave them a warning glare, “I am still living here, rejecting the outside world in my extreme grief over my father’s death. I do not leave the manor, not even to walk the grounds of the estate. Coran – my father’s closest friend – handles my correspondence, and I live here with him and the robot sentries.”
	“So if anyone does happen to peer in through a window, they see Amue and assume her to be you,” Ulaz summarized. “And no one would suspect that you are pirating your way through the galaxy.”
	Allura cleared her throat. “Not how I would choose to put it, but yes.” She looked back to Amue. “Is everything prepared?”
	She nodded. “Yes. Lance, Hunk, Pidge, your usual rooms have been made ready for you, with all of your usual accommodations. All crew rooms have been readied as requested. I have a room for Mr. Kogane and one for Mr… Thace and Mr. Ulaz?”
	“The ‘mister’ is unnecessary,” Ulaz said.
	“Thace is fine,” the so-named added.
	“And a cell for Lieutenant Shirogane.”
	“A cell?” Allura snapped coldly. “I told Coran to prepare a room.”
	Amue cleared her throat – a gesture done solely to seem more human. “Please, come and inspect the cell before you are angry? It is this way.”
	Allura stormed ahead of Amue in the direction she’d indicated and came upon a large rectangular area demarcated by barrier contacts. There was a comfortable looking bed, a sink, shower stall, toilet, mirror, a desk, chair, and even a datatab. There was even a thick plush carpet on the floor.
	“We have done what we can to ensure his comfort. The datatab is offline and cannot re-establish a link. It is solely for reading and playing pre-loaded games. The barrier will rise once he is inside, and there is a separate opaque barrier that will close around the toilet and shower area when he is using them. We also have cameras and sensors equipped. He can be watched at all vargas and should he attempt to hurt himself, someone else, or to try to disable the barrier, he will receive a paralyzing shock.”
	“What about food?” Keith asked. Allura hadn’t even thought the others would follow her, but of course they all had. 
	“I have a box of naval rations and another of water pouches for him, in addition to the water he can get from the sink,” Amue said. “I will bring them in for him after I transfer him to the bed, but before I activate the barrier. He will not lack for nourishment, only flavor.” She smiled in thin amusement at her own joke.
	“I’d still rather he was…” Allura began.
	“Forgive me, but from what you have told Coran and what he, thereafter, relayed to me, this man is currently a danger to you, perhaps to everyone here. This is safest. He will be comfortable. He will not want for anything except freedom.”
	“I don’t think he wants for much anyway,” Hunk murmured. “Not the way he is now.”
	Allura sighed. “Very well. I’m going to go speak to Coran. Amue, get Shiro settled and then show our new guests to their rooms. Everyone else, relax and settle in. We may be here a while.”
	She glanced at the cell again, but then turned on her heel and strode off. Coran would, doubtless, have a lot to say on the subject of her bringing a brainwashed Admiralty experiment here, no matter how handsome he may be or what a good officer he had been. He’d also have to fill her in on all the excuses he’d been giving on her behalf and what she should know and not know if she were going to finally break her years-long mourning period. 
	She wasn’t looking forward to any of this. But, as she watched Amue easily lift Shiro from the hovergurney and lay him gently onto the bed, she knew this was the best plan. For all of them.

	Pidge stretched as she came out of the shower. It was good to be planetside again. It was even better to be here. 
	Her room in the mansion was decorated the way she liked it: simple, almost spartan, but with lots of storage space, blackout curtains for when she wanted to sleep in (read: almost always), and the best wireless charging in the place. The bed was the most luxurious thing by far: black-and-green cotton sheets with a thread count so high it might as well be stratospheric, and a silk-covered down comforter (in a similar shade of green). The mattress and pillows were the perfect mix of support and softness, and it was all Pidge could do not to throw herself into them and never move again. 
	But she could sleep later. She swiped some of the fog away from the mirror and started combing out her hair. It wasn’t much longer than her ears, about the same length as Amue’s “natural” hair, come to think of it. She combed hers back to look like Amue’s style and chuckled, then shook her head, spraying water droplets everywhere, and giggled. Good enough. She went to slip her nightshirt on.
	There’d been a great dinner (as always!) but it was getting late now. Everyone else was going to bed, or at least to their rooms. Keith’s room was down the hall from Lance’s, so she wasn’t sure which room those two would end up in. Shay had come with the second transport, so surely she and Hunk were enjoying the accommodations by now. Thace & Ulaz had been given a room on the top floor so that, if they decided to escape, they’d have to get through all the rest of the crew to do it.
	But she knew Allura was worried about Shiro. They all were. Pidge felt bad for her.
	And then there was a chime at the door and she forgot all about the captain. “Come in!” she called, practically bouncing out of the en suite bathroom. She took a quick peek in the full-length mirror to make sure she looked okay, but… well, she looked like she’d just gotten out of the shower, which she had. It’d have to do.
	The door slid open and Amue, wearing a robe, walked in with a tray. “I have all your favorites here,” she said, setting the tray down on the desk as the door shut behind her. It didn’t escape Pidge’s notice that the privacy lock automatically engaged. “Though the hot cocoa is especially hot right now; well past human heat tolerances. Drinking it now would be unhealthy for you.”
	“What’s it at?” Pidge asked with a grin.
	“150 Celsius.”
	“Holy Marshak! Why would you bring me cocoa that hot?” 
	Amue grinned. “Well, I think we both know that it will be a while before you get around to drinking it. I wanted it to still be hot for you when we are finished.” She unfastened her robe and let it slide back off her shoulders, down her arms, and to the floor.
	Pidge sighed happily. There was little point in Amue wearing lace lingerie, but she did. For me. Just for me. She was in her own body, her own voice, her own everything (because, let’s face it, if she’d looked like the captain right now, there was no way this would happen). 
	Amue smiled at her reaction. “I got new gloves,” she said, holding out her hand. It looked the same as the rest of her body, but when Pidge reached her fingers out to stroke her palm, it was soft but sturdy. 
	“Wow. It’s like… like really silky human skin. Super well-moisturized.” She couldn’t stop petting Amue’s hand. “Technology is amazing.”
	Amue laughed. “You say that every time you visit.”
	“It’s still true. And you’re still amazing.” She couldn’t help blushing.
	Pidge wasn’t good with people except the crew… and Amue. Especially Amue. She got her jokes and references, understood her techno-babble, and enjoyed spending time with her. Pidge understood that most people found others physically attractive and wanted to have sex with them – like Keith and Lance, who seemed to bicker like spoiled brats when they weren’t screwing each other’s brains out – but it just didn’t work like that for her. She needed someone she connected with. She didn’t see the point (or feel anything) otherwise.
	She connected with Amue. 
	And Amue connected with her, leaning down just a little to kiss her. She’d worried, at first, that Amue was just with her because she was a servant, made to accommodate. But Amue had long since put those fears to rest. 
	Amue served Allura and Coran because they had won her loyalty and had never done anything to lose it. Amue made choices on a regular basis – such as when she’d called the captain “Princess” earlier, a nickname that usually only Coran could get away with – and she chose to be with her. (And chose to wear the lacy lingerie for her, too.)
	She also chose to call her “Katherine,” something Pidge wouldn’t have dared let anyone else outside her parents do. But when Amue did it, she didn’t mind. Hell, sometimes it was downright sexy.
	“I’ve missed you,” she breathed when Amue pulled away.
	“As I have you, Katherine.”
	Pidge grumbled but she knew she was blushing.
	Amue smiled, her face crinkling around her pupil-less eyes. “Do not pretend you do not like it.”
	“Shut up.” 
	And Amue did. But she also ran her hands through Pidge’s hair. She felt a warmth emanate from them, and asked, “Are you drying my hair for me?”
	“A little. I have seen what happens when you go to bed with wet hair.”
	Pidge couldn’t help snickering. “It’s not like I’m going to sleep right away.”
	“I should hope not. I have been looking forward to tonight ever since we got word.” She withdrew her hands and cocked her head to study her work. “So far so good. Is the rest of your hair dry?”
	Pidge rolled her eyes. “That is the cheesiest excuse to get into someone’s pants I’ve ever heard.”
	“You are not wearing pants.”
	“Oh stop pretending to be literal.”
[Pidge and Amue have sex in front of the mirror, because Amue wants Pidge to watch herself be pleasured. Amue, it turns out, does not have sexual organs – she’s not that kind of bot – but she enjoys Pidge’s pleasure.]
	“Well, it seems you liked that a lot.” Pidge let Amue pull the finger out of her mouth; she traced her lips with the wet fingertip before it disappeared completely.
	“You liked it, too?” she asked, getting more of her breath back.
	“Mmm, very much. I will replay this memory for myself after you leave.”
	“Good,” she replied. She didn’t need to look in the mirror to know she was smiling like an idiot.
[Some more naughty talk. ^_^]
	Amue laughed. “I promise. But do not forget about the cocoa. I know how much you enjoy it after a climax.”
	“Fuck the cocoa.”
~End of Chapter 8~

	Zarkon hadn’t been here much. Once, maybe twice before? There were holes in the roof that would have let broad shafts of sunlight in had the forest canopy not been so dense. As it was, there was just enough light to make the darkness seem that much darker. Ancient candelabras stood guard over the stone slab that served as an altar. The ornate carvings on it had mostly been worn away.
	He strode past her masked-and-robed minions, poring over old texts at the makeshift lab tables in the corners. He walked straight down the aisle towards the dais where his wife was standing with her back to him: robed, hood down, hands clenched into tight fists on the stone altar. She was trembling with anger.
	He marched up to her, laid his hand on her shoulder and took firm hold. “Come,” he commanded.
	She neither answered nor moved.
	“I have people to interrogate.” Interrogations always cheered her up. Especially if she got to take part in them. She had a marvelously inventive mind when it came to torture.
	“Then do so,” she said dismissively. 
	He growled, taking hold of both her shoulders to pull her around, forcing her to face him. “Not without you. It is your subject they lost. You will want to know what they have to say.”
	“Tell me later,” she barked. “I must figure out what to do, and the shadows say nothing to me.”
	He frowned. Honerva had always disregarded gods and religion, seeing them as obstacles to the facts to be found in science. But ever since she’d stumbled across this temple…
	“They are shadows,” he told her. “They say nothing to anyone. I am your husband, and I say you should come with me.”
	She wrenched herself from his grasp, possible only because he had let her. “I am your wife, and I say I will stay here.”
	“I only want to cheer you up. You’ve been out here for almost three quintants now.”
	“You wish to cheer me up? Find me my lost subject or else…” She stopped, and he saw a spark start in her eyes.
	“Or else…?” he prompted, interested in what had brought some life back into her.
	“Stay here with me,” she ordered, closing the distance between them to press her body against him. “Be with me.”
	He arched an eyebrow. “Here? Now?” He cared little for the masked henchmen, but she’d never been one for this sort of thing before. And the sudden shift was… strange.
	“You bade me ‘come,’ after all,” she pointed out with a purr.
	He exhaled roughly. “Not what I meant.”
	“This is what will cheer me up.” She ran her hand down to rub between his legs. “Especially this. Let me have my way this time, my love?”
	He snorted. “You always have your way; it is just that you prefer to make it seem as if it’s my idea and not yours.”
	“Just do what I ask this time? Please? I promise you will enjoy it.”
	“I always enjoy you.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek, and when he straightened, she was, somehow, the young woman he’d first seen all those years ago: so sweet in her enthusiasm to learn, so eager to push the boundaries if it meant new knowledge gained, so driven, so beautiful. She was his new bride all over again. A trick of what little light there is, he thought. The candles flickered, and he had the strangest feeling that they were laughing at him. But surely not.
[Okay so this is probably the creepiest sex scene I’ve ever written… and also one of the most plot relevant in the entire series. Honerva – Haggar, honestly – makes Zarkon take her on the altar of the Lady of Shadows. He protests that she hasn’t orgasmed yet, that she can’t take him like this, but something overrides his will – ZARKON’S will, and he is not a weak-willed man – and makes him do it anyway, even though it hurts her, even though she actually bleeds onto the altar from the act. He doesn’t understand, and even though there is pleasure, there is confusion as well as remorse that he hurt her. Hurting other people is fine; hurting his wife is not. But he actually cannot stop himself, even when he tries.]
	He enjoyed the release, but it felt empty somehow. It felt as if he were being made to enjoy his favorite meal instead of enjoying it on its own merits. But there was no one here but the two of them and her dutiful helpers. As he pulled out of her and reassembled himself, he saw they’d been watching. 
	She sat up and tugged her robe down over her legs. Just like that, she was, once more, his life partner of many years, the mother of his child, no longer the young bride of his memory. He felt disoriented.
	“Thank you, love. Go home. I will be there soon.” She reached over to pat his hand.
	He just nodded. “Hurry home to me.”
	“I shall.” She smiled.
	He walked out of the temple and back towards his ship, feeling as if he were stumbling through a fog. It was good, wasn’t it? He’d come, after all. She’d seemed to love it. It was good. It was fine. 
	She’d be home soon.

	After he left, Honerva threw herself off the altar and turned to look at what they had wrought. There was a strum of happiness through her, and she smiled as she looked down at her own blood and her husband’s seed upon the slab. Then she closed her eyes and spread her arms.
	“I offer this experience. I offer You pain and pleasure. I offer You life, current and future.”
	She opened her eyes and saw the mixture melt into the stone and vanish as if it had never been.
	“The Lady of Shadows is pleased.”
	She turned to her followers and grinned.
	“And now She will help us once more.”
	The candle flames seemed to dance in joy.

	Allura paced in front of the cell. “Shiro, please say something to me.”
	He did not respond, just sat on his bunk, staring straight ahead. Even if she positioned herself right in front of him on the other side of the energy field, he didn’t seem to see her. It was as if she were invisible.
	She’d spent the last two quintants trying everything she could think of. She’d tried to get through to him. Keith had tried to get through to him. Hunk, Lance, Pidge – anyone who’d known him at all had tried. Coran had brought up his Navy files and Amue had tried shifting herself to look like different people he might remember: past lovers, both male & female; instructors; family members. 
	It was Ulaz who had suggested non-visual memory retrieval methods. And now she was waiting on Coran to return.
	“Here we are,” he said, jogging up to her. “And you’re lucky we had an extra bottle of this!”
	“Extremely,” she sighed. She took the bottle and two glasses. “You’re sure it won’t shock me?”
	Amue nodded. “The field will recognize your bio-scan; you can pass in and out, but he cannot.”
	She exhaled and walked forward. While here at home, she didn’t wear her “pirate costume,” as she usually thought of it. But she was trying everything here, and this was how Shiro knew her best. 
	The field let her in, and that made him stand. “You can walk through the field.”
	They were the first words he’d said to her since they’d got him back. “Yes. You cannot.”
	He frowned and resumed his seat.
	She sighed and set the glasses and the bottle on the desk. “I’m worried about the mission you’ll be leading tomorrow,” she said. She couldn’t remember the exact words she’d used, but she tried to get as close to the gist as possible. She also tried to ignore the audience outside the cell. She tried to pretend they were alone together, as they had been that night.
	“I have not been ordered to lead a mission.”
	She opened the bottle of brandy and poured two glasses. “I’m worried I’ll lose someone. Including you. Especially you.”
	“I am expendable.”
	It took all her strength not to whirl on him, not to yell that he was NOT expendable, that no one on her crew was expendable, least of all him. As it was, she had to stop and close her eyes to calm herself down. “I… don’t agree with that,” she said at last. She set the bottle down and picked up the glasses, bringing one to him. “You are not expendable. Not to me.”
	He didn’t take the offered brandy glass. “Why?”
	She smiled at him hopefully, despite the way he ignored the drink. “Because I trust you. Even though I shouldn’t.” She turned and set the brandy glass back down, untouched, but tossed back some of hers. The same taste, the same burn. “Even though I’ve been so afraid of betrayal all these years. I don’t know why I trust you, and it frightens me that I do.”
	He did not respond.
	“It scares me because Zarkon,” the name drew his eyes to hers, “murdered my father, even though my father trusted him so much. They were best friends, and Zarkon had him killed.”
	“I am to obey the Admiral,” he said. “And his Aide.”
	“I’m not asking you to obey,” she said, before tossing back most of the rest of her brandy. She left just a little swirling around the base of the glass. “Just listen.”
	She walked forward, draped her arms over his shoulders and helped herself to a seat on his lap, straddling his legs. He didn’t move to embrace her. “I trust you, because something in your eyes, in your soul, perhaps, tells me to. I trust you because I can’t do otherwise. I trust you when I shouldn’t, and that lack of control scares me. It makes me a little afraid of you. But I am also being pulled into your orbit. 
	“You’re a black hole, Takashi.”
	He double-blinked at his name, but otherwise didn’t react.
	“You may be the death of me, but I cannot escape you. I trust you. And you swore to me that I need never question that trust. And I believed you. Do you remember what happened after that?”
	He didn’t answer.
	She took the last swig of brandy and held it in her mouth. She dropped the glass to his bunk and leaned forward. She pressed him towards her with one hand and kissed him hard. She closed her eyes and willed him to react, even a little, even just physiologically, to do something, anything. Prove to me you’re not a robot. Prove to me there’s still something of you in there.
	He opened his mouth. Just a little.
	She took the opening, letting brandy spill into his mouth and her tongue chase after it. He coughed a little against her lips, but she refused to let him go. She kissed him as if her life depended on it. Remember. Remember the taste of the brandy and the taste of my lips. Remember how we wanted each other. Do you remember wanting to be mine? Wanting me to be yours? Even if you don’t remember how it felt to be with me, do you remember that we were together? 
	At first, she wasn’t sure if he was kissing her back. But then his arms enfolded her. Well, his one arm. She felt tears spill down her cheeks, but she didn’t dare pull away. He was returning the kiss, letting his tongue slide along hers. He was holding onto her, holding her tight.
	She held on as long as she could, but she had to stop to let air and hope in. She opened her eyes as she pulled away from his lips. 
	“Allura,” he whispered, eyes still closed.
	“Takashi,” she replied quietly, running a hand through his hair.
	Then he opened his eyes. They were flat and emotionless. His arm dropped away from her. He had reverted to being this blank robot, awaiting instructions.
	She clambered off of him and retrieved the empty brandy glass.
	“Well, that almost worked,” Amue sighed.
	“That worked wonderfully,” Allura corrected, gathering up the brandy bottle. She carried it and her empty glass out with her.
	“But he went right back to being ‘Not There,’” Lance pointed out.
	Allura smiled at him, eyes still wet. “But he’s in there somewhere. And that means it’s just a question of how to get him out.”
~End of Chapter 9~

	“I guess you won the pool.” 
	They were heading back upstairs. The captain was pleased with her success, but she had proven that Keith was the winner of the betting pool: they had slept together before the mission. 
	Keith was grinning. “Told you. How soon is too soon to collect all my winnings from the rest of the crew?”
	Lance snorted. “I’m sure the word’ll spread pretty quickly. If you haven’t heard from people by the end of the movement, maybe hit them up. I can transfer my shares to you now, if you want.”
	Keith shrugged. “You don’t have to. I mean… you could pay another way if you want.”
	Lance arched an eyebrow. They’d run through all but one quintant from Keith’s previous winnings, and he was not complaining at all. But… this was different. He’d put up shares, not himself.
	On the other hand, not having to pony up the three net shares he’d bet would mean he could buy better presents for his nieces and nephews on their birthdays…
	“Your room or mine?” he asked, forcing one of his always-charming grins.
	“Yours is closer.”
	His grin got a little less forced at that. The idea that Keith was so impatient to be with him that he couldn’t wait a few extra ticks was a nice boost for his ego. And it wasn’t that he didn’t like sex with Keith; his pretty-eyed mullet man was damn good in the sack and only getting better as they got to know each other. Being ordered around was kind of hot, too, but it was getting a little old.
	Increasingly, Lance found himself thinking not of the sex itself but of the odd moment before or after or in between, like the time Keith had looked him in the eyes and demanded, “Kiss me,” in a hot, breathless whisper, and the soft little moan that had escaped the back of his throat when Lance had obeyed. Or the time he woke up to Keith just petting his skin, gazing at him softly. The look had vanished almost immediately when he realized Lance was awake, but he knew he hadn’t imagined it any more than he had imagined the gentle caresses on his arm and shoulder and back.
	Keith took the stairs up to the second story two at a time and barged straight into Lance’s room without waiting. So, of course, Lance deliberately took his time. By the time he got in there, Keith’s shirt and socks were off and he was halfway de-pants-ed. “Anxious, mullet?” He shut the door behind him.
	His answer came in the form of a searing kiss as he was pushed up against the door. “Maybe I feel like celebrating.”
	“Because you won the pool or because we know Shiro’s still in there somewhere?”
	“Both. Mostly the last one.” He was kissing his way down Lance’s neck, his hands running up under his shirt. 
	“So how long do I have to serve you to work off three net shares?” Lance asked.
	“Stop worrying about that and just get your clothes off already,” Keith growled against his throat.
	Whether he liked it or not, that sent a thrill through his body. Keith verged on feral sometimes, a heated hunger that was kind of scary to be on the other end of, but also amazingly sexy. It was focused and intense and it made Lance want to obey because he knew how good it would feel. Keith’s wild desires weren’t just for himself; he took pride in getting Lance off, always wanting to make him come harder and longer. And Lance sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him to knock that off.
	There was still a lingering discomfort about this in his mind, but Lance playfully shoved Keith away and grinned. “Can’t do that if you’re pawing at me,” he said before pulling his shirt off over his head. 
	By the time he was done undressing, Keith was naked, stretched out on Lance’s bed with his head propped up on the pillows. (Lance liked having a lot of pillows: some nights he needed firmer support and others he wanted to lay his head on a veritable marshmallow. It was important to have choice.) 
[Keith insists on oral sex. Lance starts in on that. And then…]
And that was when he began to realize what his problem was. Not sucking Keith off, because he’d done that a lot and had no problem with it. They’d been tested by the med systems, and since they were both clean and weren’t with other partners right now, Lance had no problem blowing him without a condom.
	It was the “why” of it. He wasn’t doing this because he wanted to or Keith wanted him to: he was doing it to pay off a debt. He was basically a whore turning tricks, paying off money owed by selling himself instead. Even if only to Keith.
	It hadn’t really bothered him before because, well, he’d kind of hoped it’d be the necessary excuse to get into Keith’s pants. He was still determined to beat Keith at racing – or anything else! – someday, but he sure didn’t mind having a justification to find out what the starman was like in bed. But that had been his idea; using sex to pay off the pool bet was Keith’s.
	Is this how Keith wants it? Sex because it’s owed, not because it’s wanted? 
	He wanted it, anyway. For example, he liked [doing this] because he could watch the distant, hot-headed emo twink melt. It was winning, in a way, and it was hot to watch Keith’s control dissolve away, especially knowing he was doing it.
	His mental attention flickered between Does this make me a whore? and Holy fuck he is too hot to be believed. It wasn’t like he was actually turning tricks. He wasn’t standing on street corners down on the docks flirting with starmen fresh off the ships, hoping to get a few free drinks and 50 credits for a varga. This was just Keith.
[Lance finishes what he started and mentally refers to Keith as his lover.]
	Lover.
	Maybe that was the problem?
	I don’t love Keith. And that rang true. He didn’t. He’d lied to himself a lot through the years; he knew when he was doing it by now. But just because he didn’t love Keith yet…
	But why would I love him? What do I know about him besides he’s close to Shiro, he’s a damnably good pilot, and he’s great in bed? 
	Nothing. And… he wanted to know. He wanted to know a lot more about Keith. He wanted more than just sex. This had the potential to be something, and he wanted to explore it.
	But Keith only seemed to be interested in fucking. Granted, he wasn’t fucking anyone else and he wanted to fuck Lance so much that he practically bolted in here and tore his own clothes off. But it was still just fucking. And always with these excuses to do it in the first place. 
	No more bets, he told himself. I’ll pay off what I owe, but after this, no more paying off bets in sex. You want my amazing oral talents, you earn them another way, buddy.
	“Lance?” Keith sat up. “Something wrong? Oh, let me get you a towel!” He rolled off the bed and padded towards the closet. By now he knew where Lance kept things.
	“Well, at least you have some consideration, mullet.”
	“What?”
	“You nearly took out my eye!”
	“Hey, you could have kept your mouth on me; I wouldn’t have complained.”
	“Oh, so now it’s my fault?”
	“Your fault I came that hard, sure.” Keith smirked as he offered the towel over.
	Lance snorted as he took it. “You’re damn straight it is.” 
	As soon as he lowered the towel, Keith swooped in and kissed him on the lips. “I’m not done celebrating yet,” he said after he pulled away. “Are you?”
	Lance smiled. “What’d you have in mind, pretty eyes?”

	“Wait, what’s this?” Pidge asked. She sent the info over to Thace’s screen. “Looks like coordinates, but that can’t be right.”
	They were in one of the many rooms in the mansion; this one was some sort of library or study or something? It had nice long tables to sit and work at (and, in Pidge’s case, scatter food wrappers and empty mugs of cocoa on). 
	Ulaz and Amue came in to check up on them now and then, but mostly it was Pidge and Thace, typing away and occasionally – like now – actually speaking.
	“Hm?” He cocked his head when he looked at it. “What would it be besides coordinates?”
	“I dunno, but I don’t turn up anything at those coordinates except empty forest on Drule.”
	“That is the planet the Admiralty is based on,” Thace pointed out. 
	“Yeah, but why would they care about this particular patch of forest?”
	“What’s the context?”
	“Hm. Good point. I’m just pulling raw data out from the info we got in Carand Iru. Let me find where it actually occurs…”
	“Got it.” Thace was faster than she was. Sometimes. Only sometimes. “They were sending samples there.”
	“Hidden lab,” they said at the same time. Pidge followed up, “Any from Shiro?”
	“Lots. In fact, I don’t see any 117-9875 samples going anywhere else except these coordinates.”
	“But they don’t come up in standard transmissions at all, not even the high-level ones,” she mused aloud. “These messages went through a different encryption. I mean, still easy enough to crack, of course.”
	She grinned at Thace and was a little surprised to see him smirking back at her. It was good to have someone around who knew what they were doing with this stuff. Amue could likely have done this, of course, but you’d have to introduce the proper programs and sub-routines into her programming, and she preferred to keep herself as close to her primary protection function as possible. “I’ll leave the hacking to you, my love,” she’d said. It still made Pidge warm to remember that.
	“Trace the message recipients and send them to me,” Thace said. “I can cross-reference them to the facility’s researchers and staff.”
	“Got it. Any luck with the info the captain wants?”
	He shook his head. “Carand Iru was singular of purpose. If she wants proof of Admiralty corruption, it’s not here. But certainly there’s plenty of proof of the illegal and immoral experiments conducted on military prisoners.”
	“That’s a good place to start, but it won’t be enough on its own,” Pidge sighed. “I’ll bet my last credit they’ve forged informed consent forms. At worst, it’ll look like they gave these people the choice between being prisoners and being experimental subjects. We need more.”
	“I know someone who might be able to help, but that would require me to be able to transmit.”
	“Yeaaaaah, I don’t know that the captain’s going to be on board with that just yet.”
	“You could do it. I could give you the necessary codes.”
	“I’ll think about it,” she hedged. She probably shouldn’t trust Thace yet, but it was hard not to. He and Ulaz had been a lot of help with Shiro and poring through all the data they’d swiped out of Carand Iru. Maybe once she gets her loverboy back…
	Well, okay, it wasn’t fair to characterize Shiro like that. Sure, turned out they were lovers – she’d already transferred the credits over to Keith for winning the pool – but he’d been a good first mate, a good officer. He earned the captain’s trust, and that was something no one else had done. And if anything had ever happened to Amue, Pidge figured she’d be pretty angry and distracted, too. 
	Allura had every right to be upset. Also, Shiro wasn’t just some tawdry “cabin boy” from some bad romance novel idea of what pirates were like. They all wanted him back.
	The important thing was, once Allura had Shiro back, maybe she’d be more amenable to the idea of “let’s let Thace send coded transmissions to some secret person we don’t know.”
	“I don’t blame you or the captain for not trusting me yet,” he said, typing away.
	“Do you and Ulaz trust us?” she asked conversationally.
	“To a certain degree. You’ve treated us well. The room is nice, if a bit stuffy sometimes.”
	“Yeah, up in the attic? I can imagine.”
	“It’s nice to be with him again, even if we’re in this sort of quasi-prisoner status.”
	“Why wouldn’t you two be together all the time?”
	“We’re not the only ones who don’t like what Admiral Zarkon is doing. His ascension to the Chair was meant to be a great day for the Galra. With our somewhat… checkered past, there are many who still have trouble accepting us. And I understand that. Having a Galra as one of the most powerful people in the galaxy was supposed to help. But… things are so much worse now. We understood too late that Zarkon is interested in his own power, not in helping anyone else. So, we’re doing what we can.”
	“To prove to people there are still ‘good’ Galra?”
	He looked at her from his screens. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
	She smiled and nodded, then went back to typing. “Message recipients for forest coordinates,” she said, sending him the info.
	“Thank you.” He paused. “When was the last time we ate?”
	As if on cue, Amue came in with a tray of sandwiches, some bowls of mixed vegetables, cocoa, and tea, as well as a large pastry. “You two missed lunch.” She set the tray down. “Help yourselves. Thace, Ulaz sent this for you.” She set the plate with the pastry on it next to him. “Hunk baked these for lunch and Ulaz thought you would enjoy it.”
	“Hey, how come I don’t get Hunk-made baked goods?!” She pouted at her girlfriend.
	“Because you are allergic to ceifa berries.” Amue came over to kiss the top of her head. “Eat something besides candy and cocoa. You need protein and carbohydrates in order to produce the necessary energy.”
	“I’m just sitting here typing,” she said, though she did reach for a sandwich.
	Amue leaned down to whisper, “You will need more energy for tonight.”
	Pidge blushed and took a big bite. Amue just chuckled and set the mug of cocoa down near her. “I added some nutrient milk to this.” Pidge frowned, but Amue just rolled her eyes. “It is good for you and if I had not told you it was in there, you likely would not know. Just drink it, please?”
	She swallowed her bite of sandwich. “FINE.”
	“Thank Ulaz and Hunk for me,” Thace said. “This is delicious!”
	“I will. But eat some sandwich, too. Ulaz has asked that I give you this message.” She cleared her throat and, when she spoke, she sounded almost exactly like Ulaz. “Eat your vegetables and you will be well rewarded.” She smiled.
	Thace frowned. “…I will, but please never do that again. It’s unsettling to hear his voice from someone who isn’t him.”
	“Sorry.” She was back in her own voice. “I thought relaying it in his own voice would provide extra incentive. I’ll leave you two to eat and type. Good luck. Maybe poke your heads out once in a while?”
	“I make no promises,” Thace said, already typing again.
	Pidge grinned. It was exactly what she’d been about to say.
~End of Chapter 10~

	“You should see this,” Pidge had said. She’d almost sounded like she was apologizing. 
	So, as Allura strode towards what had quickly become Hacker Central in her family home, she was preparing herself, trying to mentally and emotionally shore herself up for whatever this was. She assumed it had to do with Shiro. She still didn’t know exactly what had gone on in that place, but to turn such a thoughtful, noble man into little more than a blank slate awaiting orders, it had to have been horrible. 
	Without the brandy, she still couldn’t reach him. It was the taste, she thought. She’d tried kissing him without the brandy; he’d tensed a little but then eased back down into basically ignoring her presence (no matter how close she was to him at the time). She noticed that he’d finished off the brandy she’d deliberately left in his cell, but playing back the footage showed no difference. He had sniffed it, drank it, seemed to consider it, then set the glass back down and gone to bed.
	It was the one-two combo. Kissing + brandy = Shiro. But she could never get him for more than a few seconds. The most she’d gotten from him was a “keep trying” that sounded almost desperate. She was increasingly frustrated, on the verge of – and sometimes far past the boundary of – tears. 
	She hoped whatever it was Pidge thought she should see would help her get to him. She could put up with a lot if it meant freeing him from the prison of his own mind. It must be horrible.
	When she walked in, Pidge and Thace both shot her an apologetic look. “You’re not going to like this,” Pidge warned.
	“But we wouldn’t show you this if we didn’t think it necessary,” Thace finished. 
	“Just let me see.”
	Pidge dimmed the lights and started a video up on the large screen. This had been a sort of informal conference room once, so it was set up for this sort of thing. Her eyes widened almost instantly.
	Footage from inside Carand Iru. Words and numbers written in Galra in the time- and data-stamps. No sound. But, most importantly, Shiro on some sort of operating table. He was naked and restrained, but it didn’t stop him from fighting. They were trying to put a mask over his face, presumably to anesthetize him, and he was shaking his head violently back and forth. The… doctor? or whoever it was was pushing the mask against his face, and still he was fighting. But the end was inevitable.
	And while he was out, they hooked him up to all sorts of equipment she’d never seen before. Monitors on his brain and heart, but also some sort of pump in his chest. It seemed to be removing his blood for a bit and then sending it back in. As near as she could tell, it wasn’t adding or subtracting anything. Just running his blood through, like one of those old-fashioned dialysis machines. In addition to the blood study, there were numerous probes attached to his temples for reasons she could only guess had something to do with the brainwashing. 
	And then Shiro’s eyes flew open and he began thrashing. The needle came out of his chest and blood sprayed from the end of the pump hose. He broke through the right restraint, and apparently broke his wrist in doing so: bone spurted out of his skin sickeningly as more blood splashed across those nearby. But he didn’t seem to notice, just used his forearm to bash one of the alleged doctors across the face. He was screaming and fighting like a wild animal until someone pushed something very like a cattle prod against his left arm. He screamed again and went still. A few ticks passed, and they zapped him again. He twitched but didn’t move. They carried the unconscious researcher out.
	“By the Ancients…”
	“There’s more,” Thace said. The video skipped ahead.
	A new quintant – about a movement later – and Shiro was fighting again. He’d rubbed the skin on the bridge of his nose raw and bloody in his struggles against the mask. The scar… she thought. But still they got him down. She noticed the restraints had been doubled on his legs and left arm. But not on the right. His wrist had been cleaned up and put in a cast. Did they think that his right arm was less of a danger since he shattered his wrist like that?
	But then she found out why. 
	They cut into his arm a little above his elbow. It was a clean cut with one of the newest model laser bonesaws which cauterized the wound as it went. That didn’t make it any easier to watch. They very carefully put most of his right arm into a clear, see-through box, as if it were a trophy to be displayed on a mantle. 
	The video skipped ahead another few quintants. Shiro was awake and struggling as they slid the metal prosthetic up onto his arm. It went up farther than they’d cut, to help anchor it, she supposed. It was loose to begin with but then it tightened up and clamped down. And when it did, Shiro screamed for a long time and then passed out. They gathered around, getting vitals, poking the arm in various places.
	The video skipped ahead. It was a different room. The notes – which had said “Research Suite 113” before – now indicated that this was a training arena. The camera was behind Shiro as people – from the looks of it, other prisoners – charged him. They were all armed with various weapons.
	And none of that mattered.
	Shiro calmly, blankly slaughtered them all. The hand glowed and those he touched with it screamed, their skin smoking. He sliced right through melee weapons; his hand deflected laser blasts. He dropped each and every one of them and then returned to standing still, back to the camera, hand no longer glowing. Aside from the piles of dead prisoners and the blood dripping off of him, nothing had changed.
	“Stop,” she ordered, voice raspy. She cleared her throat and turned away as the video flicked off and the lights came back on. “Dear Goddess…” 
	“I’m sorry,” Pidge said. “But…”
	“No, you were right to show it to me. But don’t show it to anyone else. Not Coran or Amue, not Ulaz, and especially not Keith. NO ONE, do you understand?”
	They both replied in the affirmative.
	She cleared her throat again. “I’m… going to get some tea.” She was aware she was walking stiffly, but it was that or no walking at all right now. She was going to walk to the kitchen, make some tea, spike it with her favorite brandy, and try not to think about everything she’d just seen. She didn’t fancy her chances at that.
	It’s no wonder he’s buried so deep within himself. Look at what he has to hide from. And a lot of that he wouldn’t even remember, because of the anesthesia! Oh, Goddess, they… they turned him into a weapon. A good, noble man, broken down into a killing machine. 
	But it’s more than that, she remembered. They were studying him. Something about his blood in particular. His blood and his brain and his heart. Probably the three most important parts of someone. What were they looking for? Surely not some indication that he would willingly murder people like that. He would never.
	But she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t be sure. Her old demons whispered to her that she hadn’t really known Shiro before she took him into her bed. She’d gone along on instinct and blind faith (and perhaps a touch of horni- er, loneliness). She had trusted him too much, too soon, and look. This is the kind of man he could be.
	No. No, that just can’t be right. 
	Because you don’t want it to be true?
	Because it isn’t true. Shiro – Takashi isn’t like that. They did that to him. They tortured and broke him somehow and they remade him into that thing that sits in the cellar and responds only to a number. That wasn’t him on the video. That… that was like some sort of evil clone.
	But she worried. Zarkon had never seemed the type to murder a friend in cold blood, but he had. She now had undeniable footage of Shiro killing people as easily as breathing. Was he still someone she could trust? Was he still someone she should trust, if that sort of calm killer lay within him?
	First things first. She started the water going for her tea. Right now, the Shiro I know is the one laying within the murder machine. I have to get him back first, because I know I can’t trust ‘Prisoner 117-9875’. 
	She recalled the probes on his temples. Some sort of way to access his mind directly, then? 
	Time to get in touch with an old friend.

	Ulaz was surprised when Thace came into their room and just threw his arms around him, holding him tightly. “What’s wrong?” Ulaz asked.
	“Work,” was the only reply. And then, abruptly, Ulaz was released and, in fact, shoved to arms’ length as Thace glared at him. “How could you go into that place?! What if they caught you?! What if they did to you what they did to…?” His head dropped. 
	Ulaz tried, successfully, to pull Thace back into his embrace. “Everything we do is dangerous. The admiral is a dangerous man, and we’re trying to thwart his plans. Your work is just as dangerous as mine.”
	“That’s not true. Most of what I do is just… hacking.” 
	Ulaz’s eyebrows rose. Thace never called it that. “You do infiltration missions, too.”
	“Infiltrate to hack offline systems.”
	“You’re still putting yourself into a dangerous situation. And I worry about you every time you do. My point is that…”
	“I know what your point is.” Thace turned his head to speak against Ulaz’s throat. “And you’re right, but… can you just not be right for a little bit? Let me just be glad that you’re alive.”
	Ulaz smiled and gave his partner a squeeze. “I’m alive. You’re alive, and we’re here together, still working to undermine Zarkon, if not take him out permanently.”
	“Say the first part again.” Thace was sounding almost petulant.
	“I’m alive. I’m alive and I love you.” He nuzzled against Thace’s ear.
	His love exhaled and, after a few ticks, murmured, “You can keep doing that.”
	He responded by nipping lightly.
	“You can keep doing that, too.”
	He chuckled. 
	“I love hearing you laugh. Even just a little.” Thace started licking at his neck, short little laps of his rough tongue.
	“I love making you happy,” he replied. “And it sounds like you could use some of that about now.”
	“Yes.” Lap. “Please.” Lap. “I need to,” lap, “to just forget for a bit.”
	“Gladly.” More than gladly. Thace’s love for him awed him. He had never been the warmest of people; few others socialized with him. But Thace had befriended him, then taken him to his bed, then fallen in love with him. He still hadn’t admitted to Thace that he’d fallen for him the moment he saw him, and that much of his initial difficulties in carrying on a conversation had been out of shock that this gorgeous man sought him out to spend time with. It was too embarrassing to confess to, even now.
	He could have anyone and he wants me. He loves me.
	And while he was caught up in his blissful wonder at that, Thace was trying to get his shirt off over his head.
	He backed away to help, then set in on getting his love out of his own clothes, unbuttoning the shirt and kissing his way down the now-revealed fur. Short, soft fur… luxurious. That was the word. Ulaz luxuriated in Thace’s fur as he finished opening the shirt and moved on to the pants.
	As soon as he was able, he ran his hands down into his pants, sliding back around so he could palm handfuls of Thace’s ass. He kissed him as he did so, and was happy to feel Thace starting to react. He pulled him in tighter and rubbed his crotch against his. Thace pulled out of the kiss to breathe and work on getting Ulaz undressed.
	But he just continued to lazily push clothes away, to enjoy and savor the feel of him beneath his hands and in his arms. The resistance against Zarkon’s rule didn’t give them time to enjoy each other very often. Before now, it was mostly a stolen moment or two in the one night they had together before they were both sent out to their new missions. Now he could fall asleep next to Thace every night and wake to him every morning. He never wanted to leave.
	But Thace was impatient, wanting to get to that bliss that washed everything else away. Ulaz had no idea what he’d found out that had made him so uneasy, but he wouldn’t press. Thace would tell him if he could and if he wanted to. For now, he just had to take care of him.
[Ulaz making love to Thace so that Thace can forget whatever it is. Ulaz doesn’t know and doesn’t care; he just wants Thace to be happy.]
	Thace had joined the resistance before Ulaz. He knew everyone, was friends with them all. And, of all of these people of common cause and mutual interest, he’d chosen the gangly, awkward scientist. He chose him, he hungered for him, and he loved him. 
	I have to stop thinking about that, because it would make him come far too soon.
[More love-making. Ulaz is still awed by Thace, so much so that he often doesn’t know the words he wants. Basically Thace is to Ulaz what Allura is to Shiro: Ulaz is awed and impressed and so head-over-heels in love that he can’t even believe it, and he feels lucky to be with the person he loves so much.]

A stiff breeze could probably knock him over right now, but he just held onto his lover tightly and stayed where he was. Thace was still getting his breath back, when he wasn’t trying to nuzzle his way through Ulaz’s throat, apparently.
	“That was exactly what I needed. Thank you.”
	“Glad to be of service.”
	“Mmm, yeah. I can feel that.”
	Ulaz considered things. “Is this going to be one of those nights where once will not satisfy you?”
	“Most likely.”
	“Good to know. I like to be prepared.”

	Amue helped her prepare, and she was grateful for it. While her bodyguard picked out the perfect dress for the weather and occasion, Allura went over things again in her mind.
	She’d called Lotor with a story about a friend who’d suffered an accident and was now “locked in” to their own mind. Of course, she’d had to do some small talk first, but the main story seemed to go off without a hitch; he’d expressed his sorrow and asked what he could do to help. She’d mentioned that “Auntie Honerva” – and it had almost made her sick to say it – might have something? She was a scientist, right? Or she had been? It’d been so long after all…
	Of course, Lotor had insisted on delivering his “help” in person. She’d agreed to tea on the veranda. It was a gorgeous day for it, thankfully; if they’d had to move inside, things might have been awkward. 
	She’d prepped everyone, of course. Most people had gone back to the ship, just to be safe. Thace and Pidge were back to holing up in their little ready room. Coran was keeping an eye on Shiro and Amue was shifted to be Coran. He’d protested this, of course, saying that he was more than capable of keeping her safe, despite his advancing years. Amue had simply reminded him that this was the first chance in years she’d had to fulfill her proper and primary function, and Coran had graciously backed down. After all, Lotor didn’t know she had a bodyguard. Allura would rather keep it that way.
	So it was that “Coran” led Lotor from the front gate to the veranda, where Allura was waiting in a long, sky-blue sundress and a white hat to shield her from the glare. There was a table cleared and waiting, short tablecloth ruffling in the light breeze. She stood from her seat when she saw them approach. 
	“Lotor,” she said, her smile unsteady. Fortunately, she didn’t have to fake that. She did make herself take a couple of steps towards him to hug him hello though. That was their traditional greeting, having grown up together, having been each other’s only true friends (rather than the awkward offspring of sycophantic parents). She didn’t want to hug him now, but she wanted him at ease.
	She didn’t know what Lotor knew or didn’t know about her father’s “accident.” He was often distant from his father, and he’d always seemed to prefer less direct methods than Zarkon. But it was exactly that slightly-sneakier nature that had her on edge. She should have been able to trust her oldest friend, but something made her wary. No matter what, he was still his father’s son.
	And I’m my father’s daughter. And I’m going to prove that to everyone.
	She settled herself down as she pulled away from the hug. “Please, do sit.”
	“Allura,” he said with a pleasant smile as he took a seat, “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again. And you look well.”
	“Thank you. You do also.” She sat down and beckoned; a servant drone came out with the tea tray. “Please, help yourself.”
	“Thank you.” He set about doing so, taking a mug of tea and a couple of the light lemon cookies offered. The servant drone served Allura directly, already knowing her preferences.
	“I truly am sorry it’s been so long. I know I owe you an apology and some sort of explanation…”
	“You owe me nothing,” he said. “Your father died. Of course it would hit you hard; I know how close you were to him.”
	“But, well, as Coran keeps pointing out, it’s been five years. And who knows if I would even be venturing out this much if it weren’t for my friend’s condition. Their parents are beside themselves, grasping at straws…” She sighed deliberately and looked back up at the mansion. “I chose to lock myself away; my friend didn’t get that choice.” She looked back to Lotor. “Thank you for offering your help. I didn’t know who else to turn to.”
	“You can always come to me for anything,” he said, reaching across the table to pat her hand as he sipped from his cup. “And this is excellent, by the way.”
	“Thank you. I made sure I’d have something decent to serve you.”
	He smiled. “The tea is lovely, but I came to see you again. Nothing else is as important to me as you are, Allura.”
	“That’s good to hear. Most people would have called a friendship off after five years of no contact. And that’s why I feel I owe you the explanation and most definitely the apology.” 
	“If you feel so strongly about it, I won’t dissuade you.”
	She made herself take a deep breath. “You know I’d lost Mother only a couple of years before Father’s…” murder, “accident. I was just starting to really get back to normal when that happened, and suddenly they were both gone. Father was… he was my whole world.” Her sniffle as she sucked in tears wasn’t entirely faked. “I didn’t know how to handle it.
	“I thought, of course, of calling you, but I… I couldn’t. It’s terrible of me to say, but I was bitter and envious. No matter how well you do or don’t get on with them, you still have your parents. Both of them. And I… I would get angry about it sometimes, as silly as that is to say.”
	“No, no, I completely understand,” he rushed to reassure her.
	“For the longest time, I was convinced that if I talked to you or invited you over that I would just end up alienating you. That I would drive you away without meaning to, and… well, I suppose I decided it would be better to just let things fade than to have things explode. I couldn’t handle that. I am so sorry.”
	“Apology accepted. And I am honored that, in your hour of need, you turned to me for help. I’ve missed you so, so much these last five years, Allura.”
	“Oh, don’t exaggerate,” she said. “I’m sure a handsome young man like you has plenty of distractions on offer.” She sipped her tea. It was delicious, but she badly wanted to spike it with something stiff if she was going to flirt and be friendly with the son of the man who’d murdered her father.
	He chuckled. “Distractions are all they are. They don’t have the depth of feeling and history behind them that our friendship has. You know how it is; people playing up to me because of who my father is. I miss the sincerity and truth that we had with one another. And besides: no one else in the galaxy could brighten my heart as you do.”
	Laying it on a bit thick now. But she smiled for him. “If you’re going to tease me, I’ll ask you to deliver this device of yours and leave,” she warned him. It was meant as playful, but honestly, she’d rather he just played delivery boy and took off again.
	“Well, let’s get that part out of the way, at least. Business before pleasure.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small case, opening it to show two small, smooth, black buttons. “These are the neural links I told you about. Let me show you how they work. Pick up one.”
	She did so, and he took the other, setting the case down. He pressed the disc to his temple, and it stayed there. “Go on; it doesn’t hurt.”
	She eyed the disc warily but went ahead and pressed it to her own temple. There was a slight tingle that ran through her whole body, and then nothing.
	“Now, I am an administrator of the neural network, so it will recognize me. Designate blank disc ‘Allura’.”
	As near as she could tell, nothing happened.
	“Send my transmissions to Allura.”
	She gasped. She could feel a… a layer of emotions that she knew weren’t hers, but somehow still… were? It was like they were overlaid on her own feelings, and they were warm towards her, concerned. “Are… are these your feelings?”
	He nodded. “For you, yes.”
	“You… care for me.”
	“That shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, surely?” he asked.
	“Does it only transmit feelings?”
	“Basically, yes, but it can transmit any of them. Mute Allura.” Lotor’s feelings disappeared, leaving her with just her own. “Happiness, sadness, pleasure, pain – all emotions and feelings. The medical uses alone would be staggering, but Mother insists they need more testing. I’m sure she’d be happy to find out if they’ve helped your friend.”
	“Send Lotor’s transmissions to me,” she said, testing it out.
	He laughed. “I told you, it only recognizes me. Well, and Mother and Father.”
	She frowned. “I won’t be able to help my friend much like this.”
	“I thought you could take me to them.”
	“No,” she said instantly. “Their parents are… worried about this getting out. You know how that goes. They came to me in confidence, and if you weren’t, well, you, I would never have broken it for anything. I have to be able to activate these neural links.”
	He cocked his head. “I thought you might say that. So, let me explain two things very quickly, and then I will present a proposal. Agreed?”
	She nodded.
	“The first is that this is untested, unapproved technology not yet on the open market. You know how scientists are about people finding and copying their work. Mother has only allowed family to be administrators for a reason. In truth, I didn’t even tell her I was bringing these to you today.”
	“We will keep it a secret,” she promised.
	He shook his head. “I’m not sure that will satisfy her. But let me get to my second point.” He reached across the table and took her hand in both of his. “I’ve missed you, Allura. You’ve been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and these last five years without you have… they’ve hurt. I’m more than a little afraid that I’ll give you these and you’ll disappear again. I know,” he said quickly, “it’s selfish and terrible of me to think like that, but after five years with not even a quick note from you, I don’t think my fears are entirely unfounded.
	“Were you anyone else, under any other circumstance, I would not dare be this brazen. But you were always a brazen thing yourself, if I recall. We’ve known each other all our lives, and I am too afraid of losing you again. So here is my proposal:
	“Marry me, Allura.”
	“What?” She could almost feel the color drain out of her face.
	“Not right away. I know you’re only just now coming back into the world, and it must be too loud and too bright for you still. I can guide you back into it, by your side, as your fiancé, if you’ll let me. Agree to marry me, and you will be as good as family; Mother can have few qualms about my making you an administrator then. And I will have a guarantee that this won’t be the last I ever see of you.
	“You know I care for you deeply, Allura; you just felt it. We were happy together our entire childhoods; let me make you happy for the rest of our lives as well.”
	She stared at him, feeling cold. She wanted to yank her hand away, throw the teacup into his face hard enough to make it shatter. But he did care for her. She wasn’t sure if it was love she had felt or not; she’d never been able to literally feel someone else’s feelings. But the warmth she had felt seemed genuine enough. 
	She didn’t love him, had never cared for him that way, and…
	…and Shiro was in her cellar, trapped within his own mind, unable to find a way out. She couldn’t keep kissing his mouth full of brandy just to get one or two words out of him. She’d said she’d save him, but she’d only got his body back. His mind was still in need of rescue.
	And these neural links were made by the same person who had done this to him in the first place. They were the best chance she had right now. 
	It occurred to her that it might be advantageous to be Lotor’s fiancée. She would have an excuse to visit Admiralty House, to poke around in Zarkon’s home. Assuming I don’t just launch myself at him screaming “murderer” the first time I see him.
	This gave her the best shot at saving Shiro and getting her the information she needed to bring down the monster who had destroyed her life. I can always come up with an excuse to break the engagement later, assuming Lotor doesn’t do it for me when I expose his parents’ despicable deeds.
	“This… this is all a bit sudden, but very well,” she agreed, resting her other hand over his. 
	He smiled in relief. “Thank you, Allura. I’ll take care of you and make you happy, I promise.”
	She nodded, still feeling cold, still forcing herself to smile. 
~End of Chapter 11~

	Allura didn’t even try the normal way of accessing the neural net with “Prisoner 117-9875.” She had Thace and Pidge poke at the discs Lotor gave her to figure out how they worked, and then set about her usual plan, but with this current “enhancement.”
	She tugged the long boots up over the thighs of her vac suit, brushed her hair, and grabbed the brandy. She pressed the blank disc against Shiro’s temple and designated it with his name, then straddled his lap. He was used to this by now, and was still looking through her instead of at her. “2-way link,” she said, following the protocols she’d been given. Lotor had specifically suggested this for her “friend.” Let’s hope this works. As usual, she tried to forget about her audience: Coran, Amue, Ulaz, and Keith this time.
	This time she held his head in place with both hands as she kissed him and let the brandy tumble into his mouth. She closed her eyes and just focused on getting through to him, on finding him and holding onto him and not letting go. 
	There was confusion coming from him, and it seemed to grow. There was warmth and fear and desperation and she was starting to lose track of whose emotions were whose now. A longing to reach out, to grab hold… Take my hand! and she wasn’t sure which of them said it. And even though her eyes were closed, it was like the world became too bright for a second, and everything that was real vanished into the light…
	When she could see again, it was …dark. But she could see the dark, somehow? It wasn’t natural, and she was just standing there. No prisoner, no cell, no bunk. No floor or walls or ceilings. 
	“I don’t know how you did it, but…”
	She turned to the familiar voice and smiled in relief. “Takashi,” she breathed. He looked just like she’d last seen him before his capture, in his uniform – the uniform of her crew, not the Navy – and when she threw herself into his arms, he caught and held her. “I’ve missed you.”
	“I’ve missed you, too, Captain.”
	“Please don’t. Not here.” She still wasn’t letting go of him.
	“Allura,” he whispered, and his voice was full of that warmth she’d heard in their night together. She wanted to cry, this was all so perfect. Except…
	“Where are we?” she asked, finally pulling away to look around at the darkness.
	“Um. I think we’re in my mind.” He sounded apologetic. “I have no idea how you’re here, but you are.”
	“Your mind?” She looked back to him. “I don’t understand.” 
	And that’s when she realized: he didn’t look exactly the same. He was in her crew uniform, but part of his hair was white, that scar was there on his nose, and… his arm. It was that same metal arm that he’d gotten in captivity, the one they were keeping locked away.
	“Why do you look like this?” she asked.
	He shrugged. “It’s… easier. Let me back up and explain.” He turned away from her and gestured to the darkness in front of him. But when she looked at it, she could see a wall now where there hadn’t been one before. It slowly became more solid, a wall of thick white blocks.
	“This wall is what keeps me and the Subject separate,” he said. “And it was quite a struggle to get it built.” As he spoke, she became aware of small stacks of blocks scattered around them here and there. “She tried to take over my whole mind. That’s what the Witch wanted. I put up walls, she’d break them down, she’d try to press forward, I’d push her back. This is the stalemate. Most of my consciousness belongs to the Subject. But behind this wall, it’s all me, same as I ever was. This is the part of me the Witch never got to touch. This was what I had to do in order to survive at all. It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing.
	“But she was also changing me. Changing my body. My full mind is always aware of the changes, just like I know that, out in the physical world, you’re sitting on my lap right now. And, let me tell you, I wish I were there to fully experience that.” He smiled just a little before continuing, “I tried to keep my mental projection of myself as I had been before I was captured but that began to conflict with my physical reality too much. It almost hurts to try to go against reality that hard. So, I accepted my physical reality.” He held his hands out, his left wrist now devoid of his ID tag, and his right arm now metal. “By not fighting it, I keep this portion of my mind safer. It’s the fighting that draws the Witch’s attention.”
	“By ‘the Witch,’ do you mean Honerva?”
	He shrugged. “I think so, but I’m not sure. I never heard a name or saw a face. I just started calling her ‘the Witch’ for lack of anything else to call her. Of course, the Subject,” he jutted his chin towards the wall and what lay on the other side of it, “calls her the Admiral’s Aide.”
	She nodded. “Most likely Honerva then. It’s a fitting epithet.”
	“So, how did you get here?”
	“Strangely enough, by using some of Honerva’s own technology. I managed to get my hands on these discs that act as neural links between people. That plus the brandy-kiss technique…”
	“I love that,” he murmured appreciatively.
	She grinned as she finished her sentence. “…allowed me to get here, though I’m still not really sure of the how of it all. I certainly didn’t expect to get into your mind. I just hoped for a transfer of feelings; that’s all the neural links can do normally.”
	“You’re anything but normal, Allura.” He reached out and took her hand. “I can feel it, here. You’re extraordinary.”
	She blushed. “You’re biased.”
	“I am, but I’m also not just saying that to be romantic. There is something about you that goes beyond normality. I’m not really sure what it is, and I don’t want to poke at it too much. I’m too glad to have you here.”
	She stepped back towards him. He dropped her hand so that he could slide his arms around her, and her eyes fell closed as they kissed. All the warmth and feeling she never got in her brandy-kisses with ‘the Subject’ was here, now, with Takashi. She couldn’t stop herself from moaning against his mouth.
	“I’d ask if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, but I can make a pretty good guess,” she heard his voice say. 
	“We’re still kissing – how can I hear you? How can I hear myself?”
	“Mindspace,” he reminded her, deepening the kiss. “Mmm, and you still taste like brandy.”
	“It’s interesting that you focused so much on that.”
	“Hey, I don’t get to have good brandy on a lieutenant’s salary. I’d never tasted anything like it…” He pulled away from her mouth to say with his own lips, “…and never known anyone like you.” He shrugged. “I guess they’re linked now: that night and the brandy. And I thought a lot about that night to try to keep myself anchored. You and that night and the brandy and the warmth and your bed… they’re what I used to first start separating myself from what she was doing to me.” He brushed some of her hair behind her ear. “If I’m saved, it’s because you helped me save me.”
	She shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”
	“You did so much,” he insisted. And though his mouth didn’t move, she heard, “And it’s been so long.” He winced and blushed. “Sorry. I’m not used to having to hold back my thoughts in here.”
	She beamed. “Don’t be sorry and don’t hold back.” 
[Making love in the mindspace is weird because they know exactly what the other is feeling, what the other wants and is thinking. She finds out that her biting her lip is one of his weaknesses… and he finds out one of hers. He tells her he’ll never leave her, and she can feel how true that is. And she so badly needed to hear that, because she’s so afraid of being alone, of having those she loves taken from her. But he swears that he won’t, and she knows it’s true, here inside his mind.]
 It felt like nothing she’d ever known, but even when she came down off her climax and out of the tide, there was still… something. Some thing there.
	“Do you feel this?” she asked. It shouldn’t have been necessary, here, but she still couldn’t quite believe it.
	He nodded. “There’s a …bond between us.”
	She snorted once and shook her head, still straddling his lap, with him still hard and full within her. “I never believed in destiny.”
	“I believed we made our own.”
	“Did we make this happen? This connection we seem to share?”
	“Maybe?”
	“We’re nothing alike.”
	“We’re not all that different.”
	She smiled and leaned down to kiss him. He rolled them over because she wanted him to and she pulled him closer. “It’s strange. A good strange.”
[More love-making, with more of their individual histories coming into play. She finds out about his ex-boyfriend and gets a little jealous, as irrational as it is, because of this BOND between them, because suddenly the very idea of him with someone else seems WRONG. But that is an ex, he’s over and done with, and Takashi loves her far more than he loved that long-ago boyfriend. Also, in the mindspace, things like “the male refractory period” do not exist. Because this isn’t really real.]
	It was desire and need and love and this bond between them all mixed up with his enjoyment of being fucked and hers of fucking him. An entire ocean of emotion swallowed her, and she went under for the third time. She never wanted to resurface.
	“But you have to,” he said in the aftermath of their joint climax.
	She had no recollection of moving up to be in his arms. She was just there, and he was holding her and pressing a kiss to her forehead. She remembered coming harder than she ever had and then suddenly she was here. She wasn’t about to complain. Reality was messy.
	“I have to what?” she pouted, snuggling in. She knew what he was going to say. She just didn’t want to hear it.
	“You have to go back. You can’t stay here.”
	“I know. I have to get you out of here. Back in proper charge of your body, so we can do this all in the real world.”
	He laughed warmly. “Well, maybe not all at once. And we’ll need proper lubrication, condoms – you realize we didn’t use any that night?”
	“I forgot,” she said sheepishly.
	“So did I.” He sounded apologetic again. “I was only thinking of you and how much I wanted you. I’m sorry.”
	“No harm, no foul. This time. But you’re right. Reality means rest breaks and lube and protection.”
	“Reality means snuggling,” he said. “And waking up next to you. Being with you day in and day out.”
	She kissed him. “I don’t want to leave. But I have to.”
	“Go on. You know how to find me now. We’ll figure it out.”
	She pushed herself up to look in his eyes. She opened her mouth to say what she was feeling, but he raised a finger to her lips.
	“I know. I can feel it. And you know I feel the same. But don’t say it yet. Not here. I want to hear it – really hear it – the first time.”
	She smiled. “I’ll tell you when we get you back. And we will. I promise.”
	“I know. I believe you.” 
	He faded away and, when she opened her eyes again, she was sitting on the Subject’s lap as he stared through her. She pushed herself away quickly, abruptly horrified by the sudden loss of Takashi and the return of… this. 
	She turned around. Coran, Amue, Ulaz, and Keith were standing there. “Nothing?” Keith guessed.
	“What do you mean?” she asked. She was keenly aware of the fact that she was in bad need of a change of underwear.
	“You were on Prisoner 117-9875’s lap for 36.2 seconds,” Amue told her.
	“That’s it?” She’d known time would be different but that different?!
	“How long did you think it was?” Ulaz asked.
	She shook her head. “Longer. A lot longer, but the important thing is I got to talk with Tak- …Shiro.” She smiled. “We’re on the right track.”

	Shiro – once again in his first mate’s uniform – walked up to the wall, staring at it. I built some of this, and some of it the Witch built. I don’t even know anymore which blocks are which. And I’m worried that if I take down one of mine, I’ll lose control. I won’t be able to keep the brainwashing out.
	It was like a tide beating against this dam he’d erected. The Witch wanted into this part of his mind, to have total control over him. He needed the wall to come down to take back the rest of his mind but if he – and Allura – didn’t do it the right way…
	He pounded his fist against the wall as he let out a frustrated cry. 
	His hand sank into the brick a little, as if it were made of spongy foam instead of concrete.
	He blinked and pulled his hand away. He looked at it – it was his right, of course, his dominant hand, and now made of metal. He touched the brick and it gave under his touch, springing back into shape again when he pulled away. The brick next to it was still hard, but the one on top of that one was spongy as well. He tried brick after brick, finding the ones that weren’t quite brick-like.
	He also tried touching with his left hand, the one that was and had always been his own. All the bricks were hard and solid.
	He looked at the accursed hand he’d been saddled with, the one he hadn’t wanted in real life OR in his mindscape. Then he looked back at the wall, and grinned.
~End of Chapter 12~

	He had something for her when she visited next. “I discovered this after you left last time.” She watched as Takashi’s right hand pushed on a brick in the wall and sank into it a little bit.
	“They’re spongey?” She reached a hand out to test on her own, but the wall felt hard and solid.
	Takashi shook his head. “Only some bricks, and only when I use my right hand.” He pushed on the same brick with his left and it didn’t give. “I think there’s something in the hand – the actual hand – that responds to the part of the wall that the Witch built.”
	She balked, remembering what she’d seen him do with that hand. “You want me to give the Subject that hand back?”
	He nodded. “And then come in here and help me. I think… I think I need you for it, too.”
	Her brow furrowed. “Why would you need me for this?”
	“I told you before, Allura, you’re special. I don’t think you could even be here if you weren’t. You said yourself these discs don’t work like this. You’re doing something, even if you don’t know you’re doing it.”
	She couldn’t prove or disprove that, couldn’t argue that point successfully, so she switched to a different one. “But I don’t have any idea what to do.”
	“Maybe you’ll figure it out. Maybe… maybe your being here will be enough.” He looked back to the wall. “For now, it’d be enough to wall up the Subject the way I’ve been walled up. Keep it trapped until we can get rid of it for good. The wall has to come down for me to get out, but if I take the wall down, the brainwashing might take me over.” He turned to smile at her. “I think the hand can help me tear down the wall, but I think you can save me from the flood.”
	“I don’t know. This is all conjecture…”
	He shook his head and reached out for her hands. She gave them to him, gladly. “Not entirely. I have this refuge in my own mind because of you. I focused on the feelings and sensations of our one night together – in the real world, anyway – and managed to save myself by using them as an anchor. Nothing else can get past the wall except you.” He squeezed her hands. “Maybe it’s a guess, but it’s an educated one. I’m not entirely without data on this.”
	She sighed. “I-if you want me here, I’ll be here. You know I will, but… I don’t like the idea of giving the arm back.”
	“I understand, and you were right to, eh, disarm it,” he joked with little mirth. “I wouldn’t suggest giving it back if I didn’t think it would help.”
	“Well,” she allowed, “he’d have to be tranq’d for us to reattach it, so…”
	“I have to be awake for this to work, Allura. The tranquilizer affects the entire mind – including me. Tranq it to return the arm, sure, but after that, we have to wait for it to wear off.”
	“You want him armed and conscious?”
	“I’m conscious now,” he pointed out.
	“But…” 
	Takashi frowned. “Allura, are… are you afraid of me?”
	“No.”
	“You are.”
	“No, I’m…”
	“I can feel it, remember?” His frown deepened. “Don’t lie to me.”
	She sighed. “I’m not afraid of you; I’m afraid of the Subject. I-I’ve seen what he’s done.”
	Takashi paled and pulled his hands from hers, turning away to walk to a chair that materialized just in time for him to fall into it. “I wish you hadn’t seen that. I wish I hadn’t done that. Well, that it hadn’t done that, but at the time it felt like me. It’s my body, that was my body and my face doing that, and I knew exactly what it was going to do next, not just because it’s my body and I could feel the muscles readying and synapses firing, but because… because if I had to kill a roomful of armed people coming at me, that’s what I’d do. 
	“I was trained by the Navy to fight, and I was taking judo since I was a kid. Ancient Earth martial art,” he explained before she could ask. She assumed he could either feel the question in her. “I can read a situation, figure out where and how to strike. Hell, I did it in that place; I killed three researchers trying to escape.”
	She shook her head. “That’s different. You were doing what you had to do…”
	“It’s the same,” he told her in no uncertain terms. “It’s that same planning, the same mental cataloguing of threats and resources. The Subject does it just like I do.” He was looking her dead in the eyes when he said, “I didn’t kill those prisoners, but I could have.”
	She didn’t answer right away. Even now, all these quintants later, she could still see it crystal clear in her mind: the ruthless efficiency, the cold calculation of how best to dispatch people. It still unsettled her, as did hearing Takashi insist that he could do that. She could still see the blood running down his body, dripping off his hands as he blankly surveyed the piles of the dead around him…
	She shook her head. “No.” She walked over, knelt before him in the chair so she could look up at him. “You could never be that.”
	“Allura…”
	“Yes, you can do that. But ability is not the same as choice. You wouldn’t have chosen to kill those people just because Honerva told you to. You wouldn’t kill someone you didn’t have to.”
	She reached up to take hold of his face, to hold him in place as she looked him in the eyes. “That. Wasn’t. YOU. You didn’t do that. I believe that. And you know I believe it.”
	He smiled faintly. “Yeah. I guess I do.” But confusion crossed his face again. “Allura…”
	“I’m fi-…”
	“You’re not fine.”
	She didn’t argue further. She could feel it rising within her. She released him and rose to her feet. “I have to go.”
	She broke the connection quickly, nearly fell off the Subject as she fled to the toilet in his cell. Behind her she could hear Amue’s voice asking after her in concern, but all she could focus on right now was heaving up breakfast.
	Hands pulled her hair away, holding it gently out of her face. “Are you ill?” 
	“I… I don’t think so. It’s just…” She threw up a little more and paused to catch her breath. “…I was in Shiro’s mind and thinking about… something unpleasant I saw. Feelings in there are so potent, I guess I made myself sick.”
	She moved to stand and Amue let go of her hair to help her. “You need some water. I doubt the brandy this early in the quintant was a good idea.”
	“Good point,” she chuckled weakly, letting her friend lead her out. Brandy kisses were still a necessary part of the key to her lover’s mind. “But I have to go back when I feel up to it. Shiro thinks he’s figured out a way to break out, but there’s still planning to be done.”
	“I have been meaning to ask what it feels like to be in the mind of another sentient being.”
	“It’s strange. A little disorienting, but it’s only because, like I said, all the emotions and feelings in there are so powerful. Your thoughts and feelings are all you really are in there, so they can be a little overwhelming sometimes.”
	“What were you thinking of that made you sick?”
	“I’d rather not say.” Amue was the only one who’d accept that without a fight.
	As it was, she frowned at her, but she did, in fact, back off. “Well, you had a heavy breakfast this morning, chased it with a good amount of alcohol, and then thought of unfortunate things while in a state where your thoughts and feelings were amplified. It is understandable it would have this sort of effect.” They headed upstairs. “I will get you something to settle your stomach. Rest for a bit, have a lighter lunch, and perhaps your next ‘visit’ will go smoother.”
	“Thank you, Amue. I suppose this isn’t all bad; it gives me time to think about what he suggested.” She paused only briefly before she said, “He thinks we need to give the Subject the arm back.”
	“The arm that is also a weapon of some sort?” she asked. She didn’t sound like she liked it any more than Allura did.
	“Yes. He believes there’s something about the arm that will help him break out. He’s in this condition because of Honerva, after all, and she is also responsible for that arm.”
	“I do not like it.”
	“I’m not sure I like it either. But I trust him.” She sighed. “Like I said, I can use this time to think about it.”
	“Please do consider carefully. But know that, whatever you choose, I will protect you.”
	“I’ve never doubted that. Thank you.”
	“Go up to your room,” Amue suggested. “I will bring up some medicine and lighter, non-alcoholic refreshments.”
	Allura couldn’t help chuckling a little. “Aye aye.”

	“I don’t like this.”
	There was a chorus of agreement.
	“We have to trust Shiro,” Allura insisted. 
	The Subject should be waking up soon. Allura prayed for the best. They’d given him the arm back; the sound it had made when it had reattached had made her stomach turn.
	Hunk had been studying it while it was off, but his report had generated more questions than answers. It had some sort of internal power source that Hunk couldn’t identify. It clearly had power, but he couldn’t identify what type. The structure of the arm itself was highly-advanced, but nothing he couldn’t figure out. (Allura would swear forever that Hunk’s engineering talents were wasted in the kitchen, but it was where he wanted to be, so she wouldn’t argue.) 
	Hunk had said he could make something that looked like the arm, but he didn’t think he could replicate it. Not without knowing how it was powered and by what. He’d said he could make a standard prosthetic that looked like this, but it wouldn’t have any of the offensive capabilities that he’d surmised were possible.
	Of course, he hadn’t seen the video. This arm was capable of so much more than increased strength, durability, and possible blasting (which was Hunk’s guess). When attached to Shiro, anyway, it was likely the deadliest thing Allura’d seen outside of nuclear fusion weapons.
	And they’d just given it back to him. To his body, anyway, and to the consciousness willing to wield it as horribly as Honerva and Zarkon could want.
	The Subject’s eyes opened. He tried to sit up and fell back to the cot. Allura – the only one in the cell with him, of course – moved to help him. Wanting to help him was automatic, but she also wanted him steady so she could re-enter his mind and get back to Takashi.
	He didn’t thank her for her aid. He just turned his head and looked at the reattached arm. He turned his hand over and back, clenched it into a fist and loosened it again, swung his arm a little to test the elbow’s range of motion.
	“You gave me my arm back.” 
	“Yes.” She was tense, watching for the first sign of attack.
	But that was it. No thanks or asking why. She got him sitting on the edge of the cot again.
	“You’re going to sit on me and kiss me again.”
	“Yes.” She was already turning towards the brandy. She didn’t like putting her back to him, even for a single tick, but she trusted Amue – and Coran and Keith and Pidge and Ulaz – to help her should he come at her.
	“I don’t understand the point of this. I will drink it without it being fed to me.”
	She almost said that wasn’t the point. But she didn’t want him to know or understand. “You know, you’ve gotten a lot more talkative.”
	“I am interested in your plans for me. And your face is one I seem to remember.”
	She whipped back around to him, holding the glass of brandy. “Really?” He remembers me? The Subject remembers me? Perhaps the wall isn’t as sturdy as we thought.
	“I don’t know where from. I would have said a dream before, but you seem to be real. But my interest does not mean I will take orders from you.”
	“No, of course not. You’ll only take orders from the Admiral and his Aide,” she repeated wryly.
	“Yes.”
	“Does that mean you won’t try to attack me?”
	“I will not attack unless ordered to or unless I have to defend myself.”
	She smiled. “You don’t want to defend yourself from my climbing on your lap and helping myself to your mouth?”
	He was quiet a moment. “I don’t consider that an attack.”
	“Does that mean you like it?”
	“It does me no harm.”
	She shrugged. “Good enough.” She straddled his lap again.
	He put his hands on her waist and she froze. She seemed hyper aware of the prosthetic, even though she couldn’t feel the metal through her vac suit. Just knowing it was there and it was touching her… “Why did you do that?” she asked him.
	“I don’t know. It seems like the thing to do.”
	She watched him for a moment, then poured the brandy into her mouth. And when she leaned forward, he met her. He didn’t just give way to her, he kissed her back, and it threw her for a moment. But she dropped the glass, took hold of his face, and closed her eyes to concentrate.
	She was back in the mindspace. “Takashi?”
	“I’m here.” She turned towards his voice; he was already dismantling the wall. 
	“You started. Is that why he’s acting so different?”
	He stopped what he was doing to look at her in surprise. “He is? Tell me how.”
	She explained his words and reactions, and Takashi grinned. “Good. It’s working.” He flexed his right hand and it glowed, just as it had in the video: that odd pink-purple. Then the glow faded. “It’s the energy source, I think.”
	She hurried over to the wall. “How can I help?” 
	“I’m not sure. Just… be here for now. In case something goes wrong.” He touched a brick and it was solid. He moved to a different brick and, when his hand touched it, it evaporated. “I’m not sure why it works on the Witch’s bricks, but it does.”
	Allura tried to peer through to the other side of the wall, but it was just darkness. “I hope this works.”
	“So do I.” Brick after brick evaporated. The odd thing was that the bricks he left behind stayed in place, even if there was nothing to support them, even if they should have toppled. 
	“Be careful,” she suggested. “Go slower.”
	“I want this wall gone,” he said, zapping away more bricks.
	“It can’t be entirely gone,” she reminded him. “Not until we figure out how to undo the brainwashing.”
	“Once her bricks are gone, I can put more of my own in. And then maybe I can push the wall forward, start to entrap the Subject instead of being the one who’s trapped.”
	She felt a vague sense of …wrong. “Takashi.”
	“I can get my mind back. And my body.”
	“Takashi, I think we need to…”
	“I won’t have to do what that Witch says ever again.”
	She looked to the other side of the wall. The darkness was still there, she could still see it even though she shouldn’t be able to. But it was starting to shift, almost to glow, like it was heating up. The darkness was turning purple…and getting lighter.
	“Takashi, stop!”
	“No more killing. No more innocent blood on my hands. I’m so close. I can feel it!”
	The Darkness on the other side of the wall was glowing brighter, going from pure purple towards that same pink-purple she’d seen his hand glow just now and in the video. Allura watched in horror.
	“Takashi!” 
	“This part of the wall is almost done!”
	The glow seemed to contract a little, and she got the strangest sense that it was drawing itself in in preparation to… pounce.
	“NO!” She threw up her hands and turned her head, squeezing her eyes closed, knowing her gesture was futile, almost childish. What will happen to me if I’m in here when the brainwashing takes over?! What will happen to Takashi?! We almost had him back, we were so close…
	“Allura? Are you doing this?”
	She opened her eyes warily and turned her head.
	There was a light blue… field around them, for lack of a better term. It looked like her ship’s particle barrier. And, most importantly, it was keeping the wave of pink-purple energy at bay. It pounded against the barrier like high tide crashing against a cliff face.
	“I… I guess I am? I don’t know how.” She still had her hands raised, palms out towards the break in the wall.
	“This is… amazing.” Takashi was turning around slowly to look at it all, then he stopped and smiled at her. “I knew you’d help.”
	She frowned at him. “You were taking the wall down too fast.”
	“Yeah, I-I’m sorry.” He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t like not being in control of myself, and I hate what that Witch has made me do. I just wanted it over with. I… I wasn’t thinking.”
	She returned her attention to the barrier she’d put up. “Hold on, I want to try something.” She had, instinctively, made it a dome over them. She tried expanding the dome and it responded.
	“Can you sort of flip the dome?” he asked.
	“That’s just what I was thinking.” She smiled and made the dome a wall, then curved the wall towards the foreign energy in Takashi’s brain. She wrapped the barrier around it and returned it to dome shape. “But I can’t get rid of it like this.”
	“You can trap it though.” He shook his head, smiling. “You’re incredible.”
	“I’d be more incredible if I knew how I was doing it.”
	“Shut up and take the compliment, captain.”
	She laughed. She tried to shrink the dome as much as she could, but… “I can’t get it to go any smaller.” She made it a bit bigger, just a little. “If I keep trying to make it smaller, it’s like it pushes back.”
	“Then don’t do it. I don’t want to risk you getting hurt somehow.”
	“Or it figuring out how to break free,” she agreed. Slowly she lowered her hands. The dome stayed in place. She turned to Takashi. “Does this mean you’re back in control?”
	He grinned. “Leave the mindspace and find out.”
	She refocused her attention, drawing away and back to herself. 
	His arms were wrapped around her, and he was kissing her deeply. She pulled her lips away, leaning back a little to open her eyes. “Takashi?” she asked.
	He smiled at her, a warm, soft, genuine smile. “What are your orders, captain?”
	She laughed and hugged him. He held her tight and she heard him take a deep breath.
	“Shiro, is that you?” Keith asked from behind her.
	“Amue,” she said before he could reply, “lower the containment field.” She let go and climbed off of his lap so he could stand.
	He wobbled a bit as he did so, and she threw her hands out to steady him. “Sorry, I think the tranq is still wearing off,” he said. But she watched him smile over at Keith. “Hey, buddy.”
	“Shiro, you scared the hell out of me.”
	“Scared the hell out of myself.”
	“Interesting,” Ulaz mused. “Can you tell me what happened in there?”
	“Upstairs,” Allura said. “Let’s let him sit and get some decent food in him.” 
	“I’ll go get Hunk to the kitchen!” Pidge said with a grin, darting out.
	“Anything that’s not naval rations would be amazing,” Takashi said.
	She conducted introductions as they headed upstairs. She let him walk on his own but stayed close, just in case. She showed him the way to the dining room and pulled out a chair for him. He sank into it with a sigh of… gratitude? Relief? It was a mix of both in his mind, along with happiness. She couldn’t help smiling.
	He started right in on the story of what had happened since his capture. Pidge and Lance came in near the beginning and then Hunk brought a “light snack” of an assortment of fresh baked goods, some crisps and savory dips, and offers of lemonade, tea, or coffee. The servant drones took care of drink orders as Hunk stayed to listen. Shiro paused his story only occasionally to pop some food in and give his thanks and compliments to the chef.
	Allura joined in when it came to the mindspace parts (though they both skipped over what they’d been up to that first time). Ulaz was especially interested in the wall and Allura’s barrier. “And you have no idea how you managed that?”
	She shook her head. “None whatsoever. I just wanted to protect us both.”
	He hummed thoughtfully. “And the energy of the brainwashing is now contained by your own field?”
	She nodded. “Seems so.”
	“How long is that going to hold though?” Pidge asked with an apologetic tone.
	“We can’t be sure,” Ulaz replied. “But it is holding now, yes?”
	It was Takashi’s turn to nod. “I can sort of feel it in there, if I think about it. But, yeah, so far at least, it’s holding fine.”
	“Is it because of those things?” Lance asked, pointing to his temple to indicate the neural link discs.
	“A fair guess,” Ulaz agreed.
	“So we should leave them on and connected,” Allura said. She felt Takashi’s agreement before he voiced it.
	“I agree. I’m not sure what would happen if we took the link down now. However it’s happening, Allura’s energy is keeping the brainwashing contained. I really, really don’t want to find out what happens if she shuts the link down.”
	Coran stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “I’m going to do some research, see if I can figure out how she’s doing this. I think I have a pretty good idea where to start.”
	“Thank you, Coran,” she said with a smile. “That could be very helpful.”
	“I wish we had more discs to study,” Pidge pouted. “I don’t really want to experiment on the ones you guys are using, especially given what might happen if something went wrong with them.”
	“I could always see if I can get more from Lotor, but I’d have to come up with an excuse as to why.”
	Ulaz shook his head. “You’ll make him suspicious.”
	Allura nodded but then she caught a whisper of something from Takashi. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and he seemed to be studying her in confusion. So she turned to look at him fully. “What?”
	“Your mood shifted when you mentioned Lotor.”
	She shrugged. “It’s complicated. He was my best friend my whole life and now I don’t even know if I can trust him. I feel sort of bad using him, but…”
	“You’re hiding something. Allura, I thought we could trust each other.”
	“I do trust you! I just… I’m not sure how to explain this.”
	“Keith,” he said, looking to his friend, “do you know what’s going on?”
	“She had to promise to marry Lotor in order to get the discs and the administrator privileges for them.”
	She jumped to her feet. “KEITH! H-how do you even know that?!”
	He shrugged. “Word gets around.”
	She looked to Amue immediately, but her bodyguard shook her head. “I have said nothing.”
	Pidge cleared her throat. “It’s not hard to hack the servant drones.”
	Allura groaned and fell back into her chair. “And people wondered why I never trusted my crew.”
	“Don’t change the subject.” That was Takashi, and though his tone was accusatory, there was a deep vein of hurt throbbing through him. “You said you’d marry,” someone else was what he wanted to say, she could feel it, “Lotor?”
	The betrayal ringing through him felt like a knife to her. “Only to get what I needed to help you. And… well, it might be a good way to get into Admiralty House for information. But I don’t love him, and I’ll break off the engagement once I’ve got what I need.”
	“It’s only for that? Not because…”
	“I don’t love him,” she repeated to him. More to the point, she now knew he didn’t love her. Not really. Because she knew what love felt like now, and though Lotor clearly did care for her, it wasn’t on the same level. It wasn’t anywhere near the same level. “I love you, Takashi.”
	That soothed him. She ignored everyone else around them and focused on him. The betrayal and jealousy faded and that sense of the bond between them returned, strong as ever. “I love you, too. And I know you love me; I can feel it. I think I could feel it even without these things. I’m sorry I reacted like that; I didn’t even think, it was just…”
	“I understand. If I heard you were engaged to someone, even for ulterior motives, I’d probably react the same way.” She turned back to the table. “There’s some sort of bond, some sort of connection between us. We discovered it the first time I went into the mindspace. It-it’s like destiny. I don’t know how to explain it better than that.”
	“I’m not sure if it even has to do with love. I think that happened on its own. Or maybe I just want to think that.” Takashi shrugged lightly and reached for another pastry. “But we were meant to be together, one way or another. It’s as obvious and as solid as the foundations of this place.”
	“The important part is the bit where you love her,” Keith said. Everyone else around the table nodded.
	She was blushing and she didn’t even have to look at Takashi to know he was, too. “Yeah, I do.”
	“And I love him,” she chimed in. “It’s impossible to deny when we can feel what the other’s feeling.”
	“It’s possible that that bond helped facilitate your entering of his mental space,” Ulaz mused. “But I think I agree with Shiro that there’s something more, something specific to Allura. The same something that allowed her to create and maintain that barrier.”
	“Well, I gotta start prep for dinner,” Hunk said as he pushed back his chair to stand. “Whatever’s going on, it’s awesome. Good to have you back, Shiro.”
	“Thanks, Hunk.” He reached over and patted Allura’s hand. “Can I have some time with Keith?”
	“Of course.” 
	He smiled and kissed her quickly, then rose to walk over to Keith. She noticed the first thing he did was hug the young man, who hugged him back in return. She could feel how much Shiro cared for him, and even that was deeper than the care she’d felt from Lotor.
	Everyone had duties to return to, and Allura wanted to work on her next move concerning her “engagement” and how soon she could break it – which meant getting herself into Admiralty House and keeping herself calm enough not to go for Zarkon’s throat the moment she saw him.
	She felt a reassurance from Takashi at that, as if he were saying, “I’ll help with that.” And she smiled. Her first mate was back. Takashi was back. And they were going to take down Zarkon.
	Together.

	It was almost weird to be in charge of his own body again. Everything was a minor celebration. He was the one walking around, he was the one eating, he was the one taking a piss. He wasn’t watching through the Subject’s eyes anymore. 
	Of course, that just made him more aware of the fact that it could all be taken away again if Allura’s barrier went down. He spent a while looking at himself in the mirror: the part of his hair that had gone white, the scar from struggling against the masks, the black disc pressed to his temple. He also caught himself staring at his right arm whenever he had a moment alone.
	Fortunately, there weren’t many of those. He caught up with Keith, got to know Thace and Ulaz a little, and was on the receiving end of a very stern interrogation from Amue. A lot of the crew were present for dinner and he had to tell a slightly punchier version of his story for them all: more drama, less trauma. 
	After dinner, he wasn’t sure where to go, so he headed for the basement stairs. Amue caught him en route.
	“Where are you going?” she asked.
	“To bed?”
	Amue arched an eyebrow. “You are not sleeping down there. This way.” She headed for stairs going up.
	“Oh, do I have a room?” he asked, hurrying to keep pace with her.
	She shot him a Look that he couldn’t understand. But instead of explaining, she said, “Allura wanted you to have a room when you arrived. She was quite upset that Coran and I had prepared the cell for you.”
	“Well, you did a great job, thank you.”
	She smiled a little. “You are thanking me for locking you up?”
	“Well, I meant more about your consideration in making sure I had some sort of comfort, but yeah, actually, I am glad I was locked up. Or, rather, that the Subject was.”
	“You are very adamant about that separation.”
	“Wouldn’t you be?” he asked.
	Her smile grew. “You know I am considered a ‘robot’?”
	He shrugged. “You’re sentient. Imagine you were trapped inside yourself while you watched your body hurt people you had no intention of hurting.”
	Her smile fell. “I do not imagine it would be pleasant. But I am surprised that you posed the question to me. Many would not bother.”
	“Should I not have?”
	“No, I am glad you did. But my warning from earlier stands: if you hurt Allura, I will not hesitate to subdue you, no matter what I must do to accomplish it.”
	“Yes, yes,” he said. “You’re like an over-protective sibling.”
	“An excellent way to think of me,” she told him.
	He chuckled. They were still walking. “Where the hell are we going?”
	“To where you will be sleeping. Eventually, I’m sure.”
	“Huh? What does that mean?”
	She stopped outside a set of double doors. “Here we are. I wish you a good night.” And she turned and left. 
	Shiro watched her walk off, then shrugged it off and opened one of the doors.
	This was luxurious: a large, four-poster bed with ethereal curtains draped around it. Elegant, antique furniture. The whole room was done in shades of white, pink and blue, but it was understated in its opulence. There was an en suite with a jacuzzi tub and a separate shower. A little nook for reading. This can’t be right.
	A noise drew his attention. He tracked it to a large cage filled with cute little houses and stairs and toys and four mice of different colors running around in it. “Oh, hey. I didn’t realize the room came with pets.” He smiled as he watched them romp about. “I wonder what your names are?”
	“Well, that one is Chulatt.” He looked up as Allura came in. “Then there’s Platt, Chuchule, and Plachu.” She shut the door behind her.
	“They’re adorable.”
	“They’ve grown so much since I was last home.” She walked up to the cage. “Amue’s taking good care of them. I miss them when I’m on the ship, but I don’t want to put them in danger.”
	“Just yourself.”	
	“Well, that’s unavoidable. So, tell me,” she looped her arms around his neck as she grinned, “how did you find your way to my room?”
	His eyebrows went up. “Oh, well that’d explain a lot. Amue showed me up here.”
	Allura laughed. “Sometimes she’s a little too good at looking out for me. But if you want your own room…”
	He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I didn’t say that.” And he leaned in to kiss her as emphasis.
	Thankfully, the Subject had never kissed Allura. Not really; it had allowed her to fill its mouth with brandy out of curiosity, but still it had made Shiro a little envious. Still, it had allowed them to communicate, and then, eventually, for Allura to join him in his mind. He couldn’t complain that much. But it was still nice to really kiss her again, to hold her in this real, physical realm.
	“You realize,” she said when her lips were free again, “that we’re back in reality again.”
	He nodded. “I was going to remind you of that. I will need to rest and recharge again.”
	“But that’s ideal snuggling time,” she replied. He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “And I am well-prepared for all other …realities of this situation.”
	He snorted. “I understand, captain,” he teased.
	“Good. I like a smart cabin boy.”
	“I’ve been back in my body for only a few vargas and we’re already back to that?!” But he wasn’t truly upset. He’d missed this.
	She giggled, withdrawing her hands from behind his neck to slide over his shoulders down to his chest. She pushed lightly, back towards her bed. “You like it.”
	“I like you teasing me.”
	“I think maybe you like the idea of being my cabin boy,” she purred. “Even if only here and now.” 
	The oddest sensation came over him. It was arousal, but not in the way he was used to – though that was starting to make itself known, too. “I… is this…? Are you…?”
	“Getting wet at the thought of ordering my cabin boy around?” she supplied for him. “Maybe a little.”
	“One time,” he allowed. “This one time.”
	“You’ll always be my first mate outside of this room,” she assured him. “Now, I believe my cabin boy is far too clothed for his duties.”
[They start out trying to roleplay The Captain and the Cabin Boy, but that quickly gets discarded because they’re just so happy to be together here in the real world. Because of the discs, they can still feel what the other’s feeling, still have some level of access to the other’s thoughts. But this is the real world. Condoms and lubrication become necessary again.]
He leaned down to kiss her as they easily fell in sync with each other.
	Who’d ever have guessed when I was chained to the wall in her brig that I’d be here, now, making love to her in her mansion? Who knew she’d love me and want me so much?
	He was deeply grateful all of a sudden: for her love, for her very existence, for his life and his freedom and the ability to be here with her. Together, they could do anything, and he knew it as certainly as he knew he loved her with his entire being.
	She took hold of his head again, holding him in place to deepen her kiss, and the connection between them… It didn’t just strengthen, it boldened, more emphasis, more… more real somehow. He could hear her thoughts now, not just feel her feelings, and they bubbled and spilled over him like a refreshing stream.
	I love you oh Takashi no one else has ever made me feel like this and not just the sex not just your body but you you all of you even the hand and it’s metal but it’s also you and I love you I trust you I need you and love you and where have you been all my life it’s good it’s so good how did I ever think anything else was as good as you and this and us I love being this close to you
	He couldn’t help but agree, his thoughts tangling with hers.
	My love Allura my only love I’ve never loved anyone as I have you no one else could ever be you and I need you and this and your love and my love oh I could never betray you I’d die rather than hurt you but I want to live here with you like this where we’re one in this strange way perfect way so perfect so good in every way that word could ever mean you and I and us and this and I love you so much
	The words started to fracture and fall away, eroded by the building ecstasy between them and there was just a sheer purity of emotion and sensation that he had never ever known before. He had to stop kissing her to breathe, but they locked eyes instead of lips, her hands still on his head, her legs wrapping around his waist. They were still inside and a part of each other when it happened this time, but it was his climax tipping her and he might have been worried about coming first if he hadn’t known with certainty that they would feed into each other like this again, that the world would be destroyed and rebuilt with the force of their love and he would fall down against her to be held as his body remembered how to work on its own again.
	“I’m going to like getting used to this,” she murmured.
	“I love you,” was all he could say, because it was all he could feel right now. 
	“And I love you. Shall we sleep?” The lights went out before he could answer. She exhaled. “It’s so good to have you here.”
	“Thank you for saving me, captain.”
	She laughed again. “Any time, cabin boy.” 
~End of Chapter 13~

	She hated this. 
	She hated everything about it and the closer she got to Admiralty House, the more her hate grew.
	“How is he?” she asked, rather than think about how badly she wanted to be anywhere but here.
	“Vital signs still good,” Pidge told her over the comms, “just like the last five times you’ve asked.”
	“I’m sorry.”
	“In as many minutes,” Pidge added.
	“Yes, thank you,” she replied shortly.
	They didn’t know if the discs had a range on them. They couldn’t risk bringing Shiro to Honerva’s home, but Allura needed to get this over with. The sooner she could get what she needed from her “future in-laws” the sooner they could be her ex future in-laws and she could be destroying Zarkon in every possible way.
	So, the only thing to do was tranq Shiro. He’d insisted on being put back in the cell for it, too. Ulaz was watching over him, making sure that he stayed unconscious but breathing. She’d lay a good amount of credits Keith was nearby also.
	She felt a hand take hers and smiled thinly over at Amue. She’d shifted to look like the most nondescript female Altean ever conceived – a neat trick, in Allura’s book – and was dressed as a very unremarkable lady’s maid. A new hire, all the more necessary due to the engagement. She squeezed Amue’s hand in thanks and tried to straighten out her expression as the gates of Admiralty House opened for them.
	She’d never liked Admiralty House, even before Zarkon moved in. She viewed it as too stuffy, too formal. Her father had told her it was only because she thought of it as the place for formal balls and receptions, which had been her only experience with the place. She remembered asking if they’d have to move there if he won the Head Admiral’s chair.
	“It’s an option, not a requirement,” he’d told her. “And I have no intention of moving. If I become Head Admiral, I’d probably use it as a work address more than anything else. Keep it as the place for all those fancy receptions you hate so much, and let this continue to be home.”
	And she’d smiled and hugged him and told him it was an excellent compromise.
	“I miss him so much sometimes,” she whispered quietly as their vehicle approached the mansion.
	“He’d be proud of what you’re doing,” Coran said from his driver’s seat. Trust him to know she was thinking of Father. “He might wish you weren’t pirating to do it, but he’d understand why.”
	She huffed but any response was forestalled by Amue. “Time to get into character, Princess.”
	She shot her ‘maid’ a glare for that. “Do not call me that around Lotor just because you think you can get away with it.”
	Amue smiled widely and said, in a suitably lower-class voice, “Yes, miss. Beggin’ your pardon.”
	Allura rolled her eyes but did take the time to get into character as they pulled up to the drive. Coran got out, in his impeccably-kept driver’s uniform, and came around to get the door for her. Naturally, as soon as her door opened, the door to the mansion opened as well, and Lotor walked out to come greet her.
	He was all gracious smiles for her as she alighted, this time in a crisp white blouse that was no doubt several deca-phoebs out of fashion and a very faintly shimmering blue skirt that went down to her ankles. She did notice his smile slipped when her maid came out of the car after her, but he righted it soon enough.
	“Doing everything properly, I see.”
	“Disappointed?” she asked as she came up to hug him hello.
	“A bit,” he admitted, “but mostly surprised.” He pulled away from the hug to look at her curiously. “You were never so fond of ceremony before.”
	“I was in need of a new maid and… well, I didn’t want to travel so far from the estate all alone.” She tried her best to look apologetic. “It’s the first time in ages I’ve been away from home, let alone off-world. I need to ease into things a bit. I’m sorry.”
	“There’s no need for apology. I want nothing but your happiness and comfort. Though, I am curious: did you know you’re still wearing a neural disc?”
	She blinked and raised her fingers to her temple as if she’d forgotten. “Oh, am I? I’m sorry, I’ve gotten so used to it, I just forgot.”
	He smiled. “No matter. Send my transmissions to Allura.” 
	She could feel his amusement and, again, that level of warmth and caring. So far, far below what Takashi feels for me. But she couldn’t claim he cared nothing at all for her. And, to be fair, she did still care for him on some level. An entire childhood spent together was hard to ignore. 
	“There’s a silver lining to your having forgotten,” he said. He offered her his arm and she accepted it as he escorted her inside. 
	“You’re wearing your own disc, too, then?”
	“I wear it most of the time. For Mother’s research and… well, I have my own uses for it as well. I typically keep it muted though. However, I’m happy to share my feelings with my betrothed.”
	“Our engagement must mean a lot to you.”
	He stopped in the foyer, turning to face her. “It means the world to me.” He took one hand and raised it to his lips. The link between them said he was telling the truth but there was something… more to it. A shadow cast, somehow, by the light of that truth. “As do you.” And that part was true as far as it went. Perhaps he’s fooling himself more than me, she thought. Maybe he thinks he’s in love with me when he’s really not?
	She wanted to believe that, to think the best of her former best friend.
	“Thank you, Lotor. Your friendship has always been important to me.”
	He straightened, frowning just a little. “We’re meant to be more than friends,” he reminded her.
	“I know, but I’m just now getting back to myself, in a sense. I’ve been living as a ghost for all this time, essentially.” She squeezed his hand. “You know that, if you were anyone else, I’d have smacked you for a proposal like that: so brazen and out of the blue.” She grinned at him.
	He laughed. “I’m still a bit surprised you didn’t!”
	She couldn’t help chuckling. “I didn’t because of our long history together, because of our friendship. That is the foundation that everything else between us is based on. I know that you want there to be more between us, and it’s not so hard to believe that there could be. But don’t devalue what we already have by comparing it to your hopes for the future.”
	He shook his head, smiling. “You’re still better than I am in every way. Of course. Of course our friendship is still important to me. Don’t ever think I meant anything else.”
	“I would never,” she assured him graciously.
	“Lunch should nearly be ready. I hope the dining room is suitable? The weather’s nice enough now, but there’s signs it could turn. I didn’t want to take the chance.”
	“The dining room will be fine,” she agreed, allowing him to resume escorting her. “Will your parents be joining us?” She should have called them ‘Uncle Zarkon’ and ‘Aunt Honerva.’ But she couldn’t. Squeezing out the latter had been hard enough the last time she’d had to do it. She could not make her throat force the words ‘Uncle Zarkon’ out of her mouth again. Not now. Not if she had a choice.
	“Unlikely. They’re both buried in work – Mother by choice, of course – but they send their regards. Father has suggested we set a date for a dinner together.”
	“Oh, is he in his study? We could pop in, give a quick hello? Surely that won’t be too much of a distraction?” 
	“No, he’s actually assisting Mother, I believe, but after that he’s got some sort of meeting on the local base.”
	“And she’s not working from home, is she?” She pushed herself to pout.
	“Sadly, no. They haven’t left the planet, but I have no idea where this new ‘lab’ of hers is.”
	In her ear, she could hear Pidge mutter, “I think we know exactly where it is.” Allura ignored that. She would have preferred Zarkon and Honerva be off-world, but at least they weren’t home. That was good enough for the time being.
	“Well, I suppose I’ll catch up with them another time. At a dinner sometime, as suggested.”
	“I’m sure they’d love that,” he said with smooth, bland civility. Having reached the dining room, he pulled out a chair for her. “For now, it seems I have you all to myself. I can hardly complain about that.”
	As soon as they were both seated, a small cadre of servants seemingly appeared from nowhere with place settings and wine and the first course. Amue had positioned herself behind and to one side of Allura’s chair, to act as the proper maid and chaperone she was supposed to be. Allura took it as a good sign that Lotor hadn’t even asked for her name. It meant that she was already beneath his notice as a person. So Allura wasn’t about to remind him that they were not, in fact, alone.
	As wine was poured and food was served, Lotor said, “You know, when you feel up to it, I have friends I’d love you to meet. I think you’ll get along well with them.”
	She smiled knowingly at him. “Friends meaning ‘former girlfriends’?”
	He laughed. “Jealous already?”
	“Oh no, but I don’t think you’d want me meeting other young, eligible men so soon after our engagement. Which means women, and, as I said last time, I’m sure you’ve had plenty of ‘distractions’ since we last spoke.”
	He narrowed his eyes as he smiled at her. “You see, after all this time, I’ve started to forget how very clever you are. Yes, alright, they are young women.”
	“And how many of them have you dated?”
	“You still sound like you’re jealous. None of them could hold a candle to you.”
	“Well, when I feel up to making new friends, I will let you know.” Her stomach chose that time to grumble, loudly. And there was no point wondering if he’d heard it because he laughed again.
	“Please, do eat!” he declared. “I learned long ago to never stand between you and what you wanted, and it seems you’re in sore need of food.”
	“I didn’t want to spoil my appetite,” she replied demurely, spooning up some of the soup laid out for her. She also studiously ignored Amue even though she could feel her bodyguard’s eyes drilling into the back of her head. Her friend knew she’d had a big breakfast specifically to avoid eating too much at lunch. What Amue didn’t know was that a good portion of that breakfast had come back up again later. I must be coming down with something. Maybe Lotor will get it, too. 
	Okay, now, that was just mean. She had no proof that he’d ever been a part of his father’s schemes. She resolved to be at least a little bit nicer. And whatever it was that was wrong with her, it wasn’t affecting her appetite at all; she felt ravenous and the soup smelled delicious.
	They had light chit-chat with the food and wine. It was easy to slip back into old jokes, to reminisce, to eat and enjoy her friend’s company. The courses were perfectly-prepared, if a bit boring; she’d gotten used to Hunk’s culinary creativity and his surprising pairings of foods. A light soup, an expertly-grilled trypke fish fillet and sautéed vegetables were all well and good – and very tasty – but it was nothing she couldn’t get at a thousand restaurants across the galaxy. She absolutely wasn’t surprised to hear Pidge requesting, on Hunk’s behalf, a rundown of the menu and her thoughts on it when she got back.
	“Oh, and just so you know, since you can’t ask, he’s still unconscious and still fine.”
	She smiled and sent a mental thanks along to Pidge, even if she couldn’t hear it.
	“The weather’s held up well,” she said as they neared the end of the main course. “Perhaps we could have dessert outside? Just for a little more fresh air? I had to spend so much time on the shuttle over and then in the car…”
	“As if there were anything I could refuse you.” He snapped and a servant appeared from the kitchen. “We’ll take dessert outside.” The servant bowed in quiet acknowledgement and made himself scarce again, all without Lotor so much as looking at him.
	He rose and came over to pull her chair out for her. “Shall we then?” he asked, offering her his arm once more.
	“Thank you.” She was all smiles as she took his arm again. 
	“Are you sure you’ll be able to eat dessert? You practically decimated lunch.”
	“It was excellent, and, as I said, I made sure not to spoil my appetite.”
	He frowned at her as he led her to the veranda. “You are taking care of yourself, aren’t you? Eating well and such? You know if you’re in any sort of financial trouble, you can always come to me.”
	She blinked and then shook her head. “No, no, I’m fine! Mother had some quite clever investments made, and there’s a family trust that’s in excellent shape.” And, of course, all the credits I’ve earned fencing pirated goods. “Honestly, I was just looking forward to this so much.”
	“You’d tell me though, wouldn’t you? If you were in trouble?”
	She smiled beatifically at him. “I would never hide anything from you.”
	“Amue’s on the move,” Pidge’s voice whispered at her. Which was good, because she had no idea if her ‘maid’ was still behind them or not. She was keeping her attention on her ‘fiancé’ and hopefully keeping his on her as well.
	It was a little overcast outside but the sun broke through the clouds occasionally. She could almost feel a storm coming, but it was distant still. They had time to enjoy the small lemon-and-berry tarts that the servants were bringing out, along with tea. 
	Allura waited until they were alone (and after she’d had two of the bite-sized tarts) to ask, “I know I’ve asked a lot of you already, but would it be possible to get two more of the discs?”
	“Two more?” he asked, setting his teacup down. “You’re not eating the discs, too, are you?”
	She laughed. “If I were, would I be wearing this one now? No, it’s just that we’re making good progress with my friend, but it’d be nice if I had one for her mother and father as well, so she can communicate with them directly.”
	“Ah. Yes, that’s an excellent point. I do still wish I knew this friend’s name, but,” he held up a hand to forestall her protest, “yes, I understand the desire for discretion. At least now I know it’s a female friend.”
	“Jealous?” she asked instantly, sipping her tea archly.
	He laughed. “Perhaps a bit.”
	“You know I’ve had girlfriends before.”
	“As I have had boyfriends, and yet that didn’t stop you from guessing I was introducing you to women earlier.”
	“You’ve had one male lover and he was more of a fling than a boyfriend, let’s be honest.”
	“My point stands.”
	“My question goes unanswered.”
	He chuckled. “Yes, I can get you two more. I’ll have them couriered over to the estate for you.”
	“Out of curiosity, what does your mother think you’re doing with them?”
	“Experimenting,” he replied.
	She arched an eyebrow.
	“Another tart?” he asked, picking one up and holding it out for her. Not going to answer, hm? She played along for now, but when she reached out to try to take the tart, he pulled it back. “Ah ah.”
	Oh, honestly. But she leaned forward and bit into it while he held it, dutifully playing the part of coquettish betrothed. Her lips grazed his fingers and she became immediately aware of an intense desire rushing through him. This was very close to the level of desire she felt from Takashi, and it created a surge of confused emotions in her. It was flattering that he wanted her so badly. If I didn’t have Takashi, would I entertain the notion of sleeping with him? She couldn’t be sure, because she did have Takashi, and she didn’t want anyone else ever again. But she could feel Lotor’s lust laid over her own unwillingness and… 
	…and I might be sick again. But she just smiled as she pulled away, licking her lips demurely.
	“I was about to say that I’m surprised your chaperone would let me get away with this, but she seems to have vanished.”
	Allura thought quickly as she chewed. “Well, as you said, I’m not usually so concerned with ‘propriety’. I told her beforehand that if I agreed to go outside with you, she should leave us our privacy.”
	He seemed to like that, if the feelings flooding the neural link were any indication. “So your mention of wanting to eat outside was a sign to her to make herself scarce?” When she nodded, he grinned. “And here I thought you still saw me as nothing more than a friend.”
	“Well, we are engaged, as you pointed out. And you are also handsome, as I have pointed out.” She made herself put a hand over his. “I agreed to marry you, and you should know by now that I don’t half-ass anything.”
	He set the remaining half-tart down to place his hand over hers. “I’m so glad to hear that you’re willing to put forth the effort. But I wouldn’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
	“I know.” She smiled at him and let the moment settle a bit before demanding, “Now give me the other half of that tart already.”
	He blinked and laughed.

	She didn’t dare ask anything until they were past the gates of Admiralty House. But once they shut behind the car, the first words out of her mouth were, “Mute neural net,” and the next one was, “Well?”
	“Thace was able to help me access Zarkon’s study,” Amue said. “I have downloaded some files, but I do not know if they will have anything useful.”
	“I’ve got some information from some of the other servants,” Coran put in, “about some of the people who come to visit Zarkon on a regular basis. I can look them up and get more data once we’re home.”
	“Was the food better than mine?” Hunk’s voice asked worriedly over the comms.
	She laughed. “It was excellent food, but nowhere near as good as yours,” she assured him.
	There was a sigh of relief before she heard Pidge shooing Hunk away. “Sorry about that; he gets so anxious. Anyway, given the information Thace got hacking the lock to Zarkon’s study, we should be able to access the files Amue got pretty easily. I’m working on a decrypting program now.”
	“And how is he?” Allura asked.
	Pidge’s smile was almost audible. “He’s fine.”

	“Well?” he asked as he walked into his personal suite. He didn’t live at Admiralty House, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some rooms set aside for his use.
	“She had some sort of communications device on her,” Acxa reported. “But I couldn’t decrypt the transmissions.”
	He frowned. “Probably whoever this ‘friend’ of hers is. I’ll have to press her for more information. Right now, it looks an awful lot like she knew exactly what to ask for. Mother would not be pleased to find out there’s a leak in her labs.”
	Acxa set her headset down on the desk. “Do you think she’s using you for the discs?”
	“Almost certainly.” He sighed heavily. “I would have preferred a more honest engagement, but so be it. We need to find out what she’s up to before she tries to back out.”
	“Blackmail her into going through with the marriage?” Acxa asked. 
	“You sound surprised.”
	She shrugged. “I thought you really cared for her.”
	He smirked and tipped her chin up so he could look her in the eyes. “You should know better than that by now. She’s a means to an end. A very attractive one, I’ll admit, but nothing more than that. Send my transmissions to Acxa.”
	He focused his mind on the sort of things he’d like to do right about now – to Allura or to Acxa, it didn’t matter. He was annoyed and frustrated and there was a convenient vehicle for venting some of that right here in front of him. He watched Acxa’s nostrils flare a little and murmured, “2-way link.”
	Her arousal was building but still tentative. She wasn’t sure what he was going to do, apparently, but she had …hopes. He grinned and pulled her in against him to kiss her hard, and all doubt vanished from her end of the link.
	She was wearing a short pencil skirt, appropriate for a secretary or personal assistant. But, as he slid his hand up between her thighs, she was not wearing any underwear beneath it – very, very inappropriate. And he loved that. Acxa was always so ready and willing to please; she might not be who he truly wanted right now, but when you were hungry, how could you turn down the meal presented to you?
[Acxa goes down on Lotor and Lotor forgets, for a moment, that it’s her and not Allura.]
	He focused in on her feelings over the link. “Still hot and wet for me, aren’t you?” She nodded and he grinned. “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet.” He thought back to Allura’s obvious scheming. “I’m not done with you at all.”
~End of Chapter 14~

	“Well?”
	Thace shook his head. “So far, everything’s above-board, but we’ve got a lot of documents to go through,” he told her. “Pidge and I are going as quickly as we can.”
	“We don’t want to miss anything,” she said.
	Allura sighed and looked to Hunk and Ulaz. “And you two?”
	“They’re fascinating pieces of technology,” Hunk said, looking up from one of the discs he was poking at.
	“And this scanner Pidge worked up has been very useful,” Ulaz said with a nod towards her. She tossed a thumbs up his way without otherwise taking her eyes off her screen. “But there’s something strange in here.”
	“I think its power source is the same as Shiro’s arm?” Hunk offered hesitantly. “But it’s more than just a power source. I don’t know, it’s… it enhances the tech somehow.”
	“I think that power source or enhancer or whatever it is also enables it to tap into a person’s mind in the first place.”
	Allura frowned a little, uncomfortably aware of the disc on her temple.
	“It’s possible that it’s responsible for the connection entirely,” Hunk mused. “And the discs are more like… receptors than anything else. End points for that link to route through.”
	Ulaz nodded thoughtfully. “A useful hypothesis.” He looked to Allura. “We may need to do more direct experiments with them. Your administrator privileges would be needed at that point.”
	“Just let me know what you need when you need it,” she said. “All of you. And if you come up with anything…”
	“We’ll let you know,” all four of them said in unison. Some laughter broke out at that.
	Allura smiled again. It was good to hear them laugh. But then her stomach roiled. “I’ll check back in later.” She tried not to run out.
	I’m getting sick of being sick. She barely made it to the nearest toilet in time. Afterwards, she looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look all that ill. She finger-combed her hair back out of her face, rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash, and then turned to the door with the intention of tracking down Coran.
	She nearly ran straight into Amue. “Oh! Sorry.”
	Amue didn’t move out of her way. “We need to talk.”
	“Is it important? I need to speak with Coran.”
	“Define ‘important.’”
	Allura sighed. “Can we discuss whatever it is while we walk?”
	Amue considered that and then backed up a little to allow her to leave the bathroom. “I am not sure you want me to, but very well.”
	“What do you mean by that? And where is Coran, do you know?” She headed out into the hallway.
	“In your father’s study. And I mean that the matter I have to discuss is both important and personal.”
	“Oh. Then I’d rather not discuss it in public, you’re correct.”
	Amue sighed in annoyance but kept stride with her. “It cannot be put off forever.”
	“I don’t think it’s fair of you to accuse me of ‘putting it off’ when I don’t even know what it is.”
	“Fair.” Amue tugged her to a stop at the foot of the stairs. “Then let me simply ask a question for you to think on when you have the time.”
	“Sure. What is it?” she asked curiously. She honestly couldn’t think of anything that was both important AND personal, except maybe her so-called ‘engagement’ to Lotor, which everyone knew about anyway.
	“When was the last time you bled?”
	She blinked. “The last time I bled?”
	“In accordance with your menstrual cycle,” Amue clarified.
	“Oh.” Allura laughed. “Honestly, I’ve been so distracted, I haven’t even thought about it.”
	Amue didn’t answer, just looked her in the eye for an uncomfortably long moment. “I am going to go put together some food for the tech room. None of them are going to eat at all at this rate.”
	She watched Amue leave for the kitchens, then shrugged and started upstairs. When was the last time? I don’t even think I remember. But why would she even a- …? 
	She stopped dead in the middle of the stairs.
	The first word that came to her was “impossible.” The second thought was a reminder that, actually, it wasn’t impossible at all. That had been… how many movements ago? Six? 
	She swallowed and shook her head. I can’t do anything about that right this second anyway. I’ll go talk to Coran first and then… figure this out. She didn’t want to go to a doctor or hospital; Lotor might find out. But the ship’s infirmary had a scanner. She’d come up with an excuse to head back there. I can always claim I just want to check in and make sure they haven’t blown my Castle up. It’d been a bit since she’d been aboard anyway.
	She shoved the thoughts away and knocked on the study door before letting herself in. “Coran?”
	He looked up from an old book he was reading – a very old book, printed on paper and bound in leather. “Oh, I see you’re still just barging in here,” he commented wryly.
	“Well, I never respected Father’s privacy while he was in here; why should I respect yours?” She grinned. “Are you still working on… whatever it is you think lets me trap Shiro’s brainwashing?”
	He nodded. “Yes. I gave my info from Lotor’s servants to Pidge for her to run with. I think she turned most of it over to Keith and Shiro, actually; they know Navy personnel better, after all.”
	“Yes, yes, that’s all well and good. What have you found?” She walked over and tried to peer at his book.
	“About what I expected to find: legends and folklore mostly. But this is interesting.” He set the book down on Father’s desk and flipped back a couple of pages, then cleared his throat to read aloud:
	“The princess of Altea’s devotion to the Goddess of the Universe was nothing but a boon to her people and to her bloodline. Thereafter, the royal bloodline has carried the Blessing of the Goddess as well as the white hair that marks them as Sacred.”
	Allura raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying it’s because I have some sort of holy power? Do you know me?”
	Coran shot her a withering look. “Don’t interrupt.” He resumed reading:
	“This Blessing gives the royal lineage a great and deep connection to light and life itself, granting them the power to channel and restore life energy. The magics they are capable of are…”
	“Okay, that’s enough. ‘Magic’? Really, Coran?”
	He huffed at her. “Yes, I know you think it’s all stuff and nonsense, but doesn’t it make sense? You are able to, on some level, channel and tap into quintessence,” he said, using the more modern term for it. “It would explain why you were able to do things the discs couldn’t – you did have your hands on Shiro’s temples after all – and why you could trap and contain the dark energy within him.”
	It was the word ‘temples’ that made her stop and think about it. “On the video…”
	“What video?”
	She shook her head. “There’s a video Pidge and Thace found; footage from the facility they were holding Shiro in. They had monitors on his heart and brain and probes on his temples. It looked like they were scanning his blood, but I assumed the probes had to do with the brainwashing.”
	“Hmm, it’s possible they did. But they might also have been…”
	“…studying his quintessence,” she finished for him. “There’s something Honerva specifically wanted about his quintessence.”
	“And if that has to do with the brainwashing,” he mused, “then it’s possible she found someway to turn his own life energy against him.”
	She frowned. “I don’t think that’s quite it. It’s more like… like she corrupted him somehow.”
	“Oh, that’d make sense!” Coran agreed. “She corrupted him and you cleansed him, in a sense.”
	“Not entirely, or else it wouldn’t still be in there.”
	“You swept up the pile of filth; we just have to figure out a way to dispose of it now.” He stroked his mustache in thought.
	“You might actually be onto something here, Coran. Would it be possible for you to forward all the stuff you dig up about the Goddess and Sacred bloodline to me?”
	“Of course.”
	“Excellent.” She was about to leave and then paused, turning back to him. “Coran…”
	“Hm?”
	She stopped when she realized she didn’t know how to phrase it without giving the game away. What am I supposed to say: ‘Do you suppose being pregnant – and therefore having another life inside me – would impact my ability to play with people’s life forces’? That would go over well. “Nothing. Well, not ‘nothing,’ but… I want to wait to read more of what you find. Possibly it will answer my question and, if not, at least we’ll both be better informed.”
	“If you ask me the question now, I can keep it in mind while I’m researching.”
	She shook her head. “I don’t want to distract you with an idle curiosity while you’re looking for stuff that might be important.”
	He shrugged. “If you insist. Let me know if you change your mind.”
	“I will.” She smiled. “Thank you.”
	But as she left, there was a small chime. She tapped up the alert on her bracelet, read the message, and groaned. Lotor wanted another meal with her – this time here at home, where she was most “comfortable.”
	She wanted to tell him no. As she headed back to the ship, she concocted a number of excuses, but none of them really held water. If she said she was ill, he’d want to come visit her – and possibly bring a doctor. She couldn’t beg off for ‘family obligations’ – she had none left, thanks to his father. Well, I have a cousin, still. I should probably check in with her, actually. I’m supposed to be coming back out into the world, after all. It might be nice to have Romelle as a barrier to Lotor and his ‘friends.’
	She ran through scenario after scenario as she took a transport back to the Castle, headed to the infirmary, and got into the scanner. She gave up as she walked back out and tapped out a “tomorrow at eleven?” reply before she looked at the results. 
	She forgot to breathe for a long moment.
	“Okay. Okay, first things first: get through lunch with Lotor tomorrow. I can’t break it off yet; who knows if we have the information we need? Besides, he only just gave me those discs a couple quintants ago. It’d be blatantly obvious I was playing him. If that got out, the gossip feeds would be full for movements, and that’s attention I don’t need. And then I can think about this.”
	“Think about what?”
	She whipped her head up and shooed the results screen away. “Takashi!” She smiled perhaps a touch too brightly.
	“You okay? What are you doing in the infirmary?” He was standing in the doorway, wearing some of her father’s old clothes: a soft gray t-shirt that was just a little too loose for him and black jeans that were just a little too tight.
	“I could ask you the same thing,” she pointed out.
	“Wellll, I’M in the infirmary because I wanted to discuss what I know about the Navy personnel who’ve been hanging around Admiralty House and the person I need to discuss them with is here. So now it’s your turn.”
	She shrugged. “I haven’t been feeling well lately. But that’s not what I have to think about.”
	“Alright, but my original question stands: are you okay?”
	“Nothing lethal or contagious,” she told him. “I just need to rest more.”
	He snorted. “As if you will. So what is it you have to think about?”
	“I have to have lunch with Lotor tomorrow. Here.”
	Takashi frowned and pushed off the doorframe to walk into the room proper. “You have to?”
	“I can’t come up with a good reason to turn him down. And until I know we have what we need, I need to keep stringing him along.”
	He sighed roughly. “There’s no reason for me to be there, is there?”
	She shook her head. “There’s every reason for you not to be there. Even if he doesn’t know what Honerva’s been up to with you,” she stepped over to him and slid her arms around his waist, “you’ll provide so much distraction for me that he’ll know instantly that I love you and not him.”
	He hugged her. “You’re better at staying on mission than that.”
	“Okay, well, how about, ‘if you’re there, my fiancé will dump me for you’?”
	He laughed and she basked in his amusement. “Fine, fine. I’ll stay out of sight.” He pulled away enough to look at her. “Though I don’t see why I can’t be a manservant or something. Amue got to be a maid!”
	She grinned at him. “Welll, you were supposed to be my cabin boy once upon a time.”
	“I’m not wearing the boots,” he told her.
	“If it’s up to me, you’re not wearing anything.”
	He leaned into her ear to whisper, “Aye aye, captain.” 
	A little thrill went through her, and she could feel it in him, as well. It wasn’t just the echo of her own delight; he liked taking orders from her. Like this, anyway. For all his protestations about being ‘cabin boy,’ part of him enjoyed serving her so… intimately. 
	“Then come with me to my quarters, cabin boy,” she told him. 
	This time I’m not getting distracted, she promised herself – and him. And, hey, they could use her actual cabin this time. She was getting excited just thinking about what fun they could have, but that stilled briefly when the door to her quarters opened.
	The half-drunk brandy was still on her desk. She could feel the question in him as he approached the glass. 
	“Yes, it’s the same one,” she said before he could voice it. “I… couldn’t bear to get rid of it. I told myself I’d wash it out when we got you back, but when we pulled you out of Carand Iru, you… weren’t you. And I just haven’t been back to the ship before now.”
	He picked it up, turning the glass to look at it from all angles.
	“It’s still safe to drink, though it’s been six weeks; it might have started to lose some of its flavor by now,” she said.
	He looked at her. “What does my captain say?”
	She smiled just a little. “Either you’ll earn your brandy – in which case, you should get the best – or you won’t. Leave it.”
	He set the glass back down then stood at attention.
	She laughed. “We don’t do that here, cabin boy.” She looked him up and down. “This isn’t what we wear here, either.”
	“Forgive me, ma’am, but you’re not in uniform either.” He nodded just a little at her sky blue sleeveless mock turtleneck and white slacks.
	“I’m the captain,” she reminded him. “Don’t get smart with me.” 
	“I’m sorry, captain.”
	She shook her head and tsked. “It simply won’t do. Take them off.”
[They finally successfully pull off The Captain and the Cabin Boy roleplay. Just one thing: Allura asks/orders him to take her against the wall. As is. No condom. He hesitates because of the lack of protection and she tries to hide her reasoning behind how badly she wants him, because they’re still connected through the discs. She doesn’t want him to know yet, when she’s still conflicted about it. He’s uncertain but he proceeds. And she can feel that uncertainty within him, so she orders him to set her down and she uses her mouth on him to finish him off instead. After his climax, he returns the favor (oral sex) so that she can get off, too.]
	His mind was full of a confusion, pride, and a grateful satisfaction. He kissed one of her thighs when he finished, and looked up at her.
	“You didn’t want to come in me,” she answered. “Not really. I didn’t want you to do something you weren’t wholly in favor of.”
	He sighed and pushed himself up to crawl up next to her. “I would love to come inside you, but… we should be careful, remember?”
	She exhaled. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
	“You’d get pregnant.”
	“Is that terrible?”
	He opened his mouth and then shut it again. “It’s… not ideal right now,” he said. “Especially while you have this ‘fiancé’ of yours.”
	“Oh, he’ll be gone long before that would be noticeable,” she promised. 
	“We’re doing a lot of dangerous things,” he pointed out.
	“Pretend we weren’t. What would you think?”
	He blinked and was quiet. She could feel emotions churning through him, and then he smiled at her. “I’d hope the kid’s as beautiful as you are.”
	She laughed. “You’re pretty handsome yourself, ‘cabin boy.’”
	“It would be a surprise, but I don’t think it’d be a bad one. I’m mostly just worried about you; being pregnant right now…”
	“Yes, yes, we’ve been over all of that. The important thing is, I could feel you worrying about it a little.” She tapped the disc on his temple. “If you weren’t 100% for it, I didn’t want to do it. Besides, you taste pretty good yourself.”
	“Oh, that’s a lie,” he said.
	“It is not!”
	“You taste better.”
	“Bias.”
	“Truth.”
	“You’re impossible,” she laughed as she snuggled in next to him. “And I love you.”
	“I love you, too.” He kissed her quickly. 

	“Pidge, I could kiss you.”
	“Amue would kick your ass, and so would Allura.”
	Shiro was watching through the servant drone’s “eyes” as Lotor bent over Allura’s hand to kiss it. They were out on the veranda again, and the light, pre-lunch refreshments were coming out.
	“Amue would kick my ass because I made Allura upset, not because she’s jealous,” he said, watching Lotor pull out Allura’s chair for her, making obsequious small talk. “You are wrapped around her little finger.”
	“That is not true,” Pidge said, turning bright red. “And my point stands.”
	“Relax, I’m not actually going to do it.”
	“Good. Now shut up and let me work.”
	“And you are totally wrapped around Amue’s little finger.”
	“As you are around Allura’s,” she shot back.
	“Yeah, but I admit it.” 
	Allura actually shot the servant drone a glare just then.
	“Uh… she can’t hear us, right?” he asked Pidge.
	“She can’t, but she’s onto our little spying rig, remember?” Pidge shrugged. “She probably figures someone is watching.”
	“Okay, just checking.” Allura could still feel his emotions, too. He could feel hers, at any rate; she was annoyed and a little disgusted. He tried to soothe her through their link.
	But it was hard because, dammit, he was annoyed and disgusted, too. He didn’t want Lotor here, he didn’t want Allura to flirt and smile at him. And he could feel that she cared for him. That was the worst part. Not because he thought she’d leave him for Lotor – he was secure in her feelings for him, especially after a few vargas spent “servicing” his “captain” in her quarters yesterday. 
	No, it angered him because she cared about her childhood friend, but she didn’t feel she could trust him. She should have been able to, she shouldn’t have had to even question it, but she did, and it made him angry and sad and… and he just wished it could be different for her. Instead of being honest with him and just being friends, she had to lie and pretend to be more than that.
	I’m here, he thought, and hoped that the feeling behind that would help.
	And she smiled at the servant drone, and a little drop of happiness rippled through her anxiety. 
	Shiro smiled back at the screen, even though she couldn’t see him.
	Allura and Lotor chatted, mostly small talk and some inside jokes. How does he not know when she’s faking her laughter? It was obvious to him, glaringly so. It grated on him to hear her pretend like that. But perhaps he knew and just didn’t care?
	Mostly, Shiro studied Lotor. This is the Witch’s son. It was strange to think of her even having a child, let alone one this pretty and charming. Oh sure, he practically radiated sleaze (to Shiro, anyway), but there was no denying that he was suave and damn attractive. If we’d met before Allura, and you tried to get me in bed, I’d probably have gone along with it. But once he’d met her, no one else could even come close. And now that Shiro’d been tortured and experimented on by this man’s mother, he wasn’t feeling particularly eager to hop into the sack with him regardless.
	The first course came out. Shiro took a bite of his sandwich while he watched them eat and listened to Allura flirt lightly while Lotor flirted heavily. 
	“So, did you miss me so terribly after only a few quintants?” she asked.
	“Of course I did! We have five years to catch up on, after all.”
	Stop trying to guilt her over that, asshole.
	“But I also wanted to …discuss something with you. I’m afraid it’s rather unpleasant. I’ll leave it up to you rather you’d like to deal with it now and get it over with or save it for later.”
	“Oh, please, let’s get it out of the way,” she insisted.
	Lotor glanced at the servant drone and leaned towards Allura. “I’m afraid your new maid may be a spy.”
	Allura straightened away from him in shock. “What makes you say that?”
	“Well, she apparently snuck into my father’s study when you were at lunch the other day.”
	“She what?” Her acting was a lot better than her fake-laughing, thankfully. “But why would she…? How could she even manage to…?”
	“She had some way to hack the lock on his door,” he told her. “The cameras caught her at it.”
	“Pidge…?” Shiro asked.
	“That’s a lie,” Thace answered quickly. “Of course we set the cameras to loop; she wasn’t ‘caught’ at anything.”
	But Allura wasn’t wearing a comms device at the moment. They had no way to let her know that. You know your crew better than this, Shiro thought.
	Allura shook her head. “No. I can’t believe that.”
	“It’s true.”
	It’s not. Well, it was, but he was trying to bluff the truth out of her. Or else he has some other way of knowing she did it. But Thace and Pidge are the best. If he had some way they didn’t know about, why didn’t he have security stop her?
	“Show me the security feeds and I’ll believe it.”
	“Allura, you have an important place in the galaxy. Your father and family were very well thought of. There’s a seat in the Galactic Congress you could easily claim if you wanted it. And you’ve made yourself mysterious. That’s going to attract the unsavory types. I would feel better if you let me find you a bodyguard.”
	“You think I am without security?” she asked.
	“No, you quite obviously have a lot of sentries here, but they’re just mindless robots. You need a person looking after you.”
	She smiled tightly. “What makes you think I don’t have one?”
	“Because they wouldn’t have allowed someone like that supposed ‘maid’ to slip into your retinue. Either you don’t have one or you don’t have a proper one.”
	“Lotor.” She put a hand over his. “I appreciate your concern, but I do not need you to look after me, nor to send me a nanny. I do still know how to vet servants.”
	He frowned at her. “You’re saying you trust a servant’s word over your fiancé’s.”
	“Lotor…”
	He pulled away from her. “You trust a stranger over your best friend.”
	She sighed. “I’ll fire her, if that will make you feel better.”
	“It will, but I want you to be safe.”
	“I am perfectly safe.”
	“Allura, is there some reason you won’t let me protect you?”
	“Because I am not in need of extra protection. You’re worrying over nothing!”
	“Then indulge me. Is it so terrible that I want you taken care of?”
	She sighed. “No, of course it’s not. But just because we are engaged does not mean…”
	“Unless,” he interrupted, “you wanted your maid to snoop around?”
	“Oh, by the Goddess,” she groaned, dropping her head into one hand. 
	“Was she acting under orders?”
	“She’s a maid, Lotor! I told you I arranged for her to give us some privacy!” She raised her head. “I would have thought that would please you!”
	“Being alone with you would please me,” he agreed, “but not if it means that some saboteur is free to work their evil.”
	“Oh, listen to you,” she huffed. “This isn’t one of the dramas we used to listen to!”
	“No, it’s real life, and you’re turning a willful blind eye to it.”
	The fight was escalating, and Shiro shifted in his seat. Just throw him out, he urged.
	“Lotor, perhaps you should leave until you’ve calmed down and we can speak reasonably about this.”
	“I am being reasonable. You’re the one who isn’t.”
	“Well then leave me to be irrational!” she declared. “Though, frankly, your treating me like a child is the only unreasonable thing going on.”
	“Oh no, I’m quite aware you’re not a child. But you have been out of the world for so long, you’ve clearly forgotten what it’s like.” He stood. “Perhaps you need a reminder.”
	“A reminder?” She snorted. “And how, pray tell, do you think to do that?”
	“Let me show you what the world can be like, my dear.” He narrowed his eyes. “Transmit file Z5 to Allura.”
	Allura screamed. 
	The sound went straight through Shiro; he was on his feet in an instant. He could feel her pain, but it was… dimmed somehow? She’s trying to keep it from me. She fell from her chair, balling herself up in her pretty sundress.
	“This is what the world is like,” he told her. “Pain caused for no reason. Pain caused because it can be, because someone has the power to.” He squatted down to where she was writhing in torment. “I would rather not have done this to you. But perhaps it’s better this way. As you’ve pointed out before, we don’t love each other. Perhaps this is more honest.”
	His grin was like a skull. “Marry me, obey me, and I could never cause you this sort of pain. Not ever. But if you’re going to continue to be stubborn, well…”
	Shiro was already out the door, ignoring Pidge’s protests, bolting for the veranda. Allura’s end of the link was alight with agony, and it made him ache, his brain screaming with it. He burst outside, rushing towards her. “Allura!”
	Lotor jumped to his feet and backed away. “Oh ho. Is this your ‘bodyguard’ then? Or is this your locked-in ‘friend’?”
	Shiro pulled her into his arms and glared at Lotor. “Stop this. If you cared for her, you couldn’t do this.”
	He snorted. “She and I have been through that. I’ve no doubt you heard some of it; apparently she has all kinds of sneaks working for her.”
	“STOP IT!” Shiro yelled.
	“N-no…” Allura said weakly. “S-Shiro, don’t…”
	“Ah, ‘Shiro’ is it?” Lotor grinned again. 
	He gently laid Allura back down and got to his feet, glaring at the man hurting his beloved. “Stop it NOW. Last chance.”
	Lotor snorted and shook his head. “Transmit file Z5 to Shiro.”
	Shiro stood there, glaring.
	Lotor blinked. “Transmit files Z1 through Z5 to SHIRO.”
	It was Shiro’s turn to grin. He began to advance.
	Lotor backed away. “Transmit Allura to Shiro.”
	“I can already feel what she’s feeling,” he said, hands balling into fists at his side. “As much as she’ll let me. You see, she actually doesn’t want someone she gives a damn about to hurt.”
	“She can’t interfere with the link! It’s impossible!”
	Shiro didn’t answer, just swung his right fist. The only thing holding him back was the knowledge that this hand could kill, that it had killed, and that he didn’t want it to. Not now. He knocked Lotor to the ground, blood spurting from his nose.
	“Send my transmissions to…”
	But he didn’t get any farther than that. Shiro reached down and ripped the disc off Lotor’s temple, then crushed it in his hand while looking the sonofabitch in the eye. The pain on Allura’s end of the link ended abruptly. 
	“You have ten seconds to get out of here and never come back,” Shiro told him. 
	“You’ll regret this.”
	“10.”
	Lotor scrambled to his feet, hand over his nose. “I’ll make sure of that.”
	“9.”
	He ran for the front gates. Shiro watched the security drones fall in behind him; someone must have activated them.
	He turned back to Allura; Amue was picking her up in her arms.
	“I’m fine,” Allura protested. “I can walk.”
	“But you don’t have to, and I won’t let you right now.”
	“Allura?” he asked as he came over.
	“Well, the engagement’s off.”
	“What I don’t understand is why his attempts to override my disc didn’t work?” he asked as he got the door for Amue so she could carry Allura back inside.
	Allura grinned weakly. “Because he assumed I assigned the disc the name ‘Shiro.’”
	Shiro blinked and grinned. “You named it ‘Takashi.’”
	She nodded.
	“Okay, enough,” Amue declared. “You’re going to lay down. I’ll have the rest of lunch sent up to you.”
	“I’m sorry,” he said to Allura. “I’m sorry your friend turned out to be like… that.”
	Allura sighed. “Thank you. I suppose I knew I couldn’t really trust him.”
	“Shiro, you can stay with her so long as you let her rest,” Amue insisted.
	“I’ll let her rest! And, frankly, I’d like to see you try to get me away from her right now.”
	Amue grinned. “Glad to hear it. Don’t worry, Princess, we’ll keep you updated on any data the techies get.”
	“Stop calling me that,” Allura growled.
	But Shiro couldn’t help smiling. “Ooh, I might like ‘princess’ even better than ‘captain.’”
	“Shut it, cabin boy,” she groused without much heat.
	He let his love for her fill the link, and beamed when he felt her love in return.

	“Ow!”
	“Stop whining,” she said to her son. “It’ll be good as new in no time if you stop fussing like a baby. Now tell me how this happened.”
	“My intended’s ‘friend’ is apparently her new bodyguard. And more than that, I think.” Lotor was unhappy, but then he always was when things didn’t go his way.
	“Ah, so the double-crosser was double-crossed,” she surmised.
	“Thank you, Mother; you know how I cherish your tender ministrations,” he shot back witheringly. He folded his arms as she dealt with his broken nose. “I’m not sure what’s going on there. She wanted the discs for a friend who was ‘locked-in,’ she said. He was wearing a disc, though she didn’t name it after his name. At least, not the name she called him. And he also had a metal arm.”
	She stopped working. “And what name did she call him?”
	“‘Shiro,’” he reported.
	She let that sink in, and then couldn’t help the grin that began to steal over her face. “I believe we can help one another here, my son.” 
~End of Chapter 15~

	It only took her a quintant to figure out what she wanted to do. It might have taken less time if there hadn’t been so many things to figure out. She had a whole list! But, in the end, she’d decided on a course of action for each item.
•	She’d sent a message to Romelle, who had responded promptly and agreed to lunch here on the estate. 
•	She’d talked with Thace about a contact he still had inside the Navy and approved his getting a message to her.
•	She’d read up on all the info Coran had given her and decided that, ridiculous or not, she likely did have “magic” of some sort. (She doubted it was truly “magic” so much as as-yet-sufficiently-explained science, but it was quicker to just call it “magic” and be done with it. And, truth be told, she kind of liked feeling like a magical princess. Her inner child thrilled at it.)
•	With that in mind (along with Ulaz and Hunk’s research), she’d decided a course of action regarding the trapped brainwashing inside Shiro’s head.
	And now there was just one item left on the list. The hardest one. She swallowed hard and sent a message to Takashi to join her in what had become their room, rather than just hers. When he had a free moment, of course. In the meantime, she went back to playing with her mice and chit-chatting with Romelle online, catching up on old times. Lotor had been her closest friend, but she and Romelle had always gotten on well. They just didn’t get to see each other much, was all.
	The messenger beeped as a new reply from Romelle came in:
[So, tell me about this hot studpuppy of yours?]
	Allura laughed. Of course as soon as she’d mentioned she had someone – who wasn’t Lotor, thank you very much – her cousin had pounced on it. It was nice to feel normal, just for a little bit. Not a pirate captain, not a “magical princess,” not the Admiral’s daughter, just Allura. Just Romelle’s long-lost cousin who apparently could find sexy guys despite staying in her manor for five years.
	She started typing a response.

	He glanced down as the message came in. 
	Keith sighed. “Let me guess: she’s asking for you?”
	Shiro looked up. “Yes, but when I have a minute. Right now, I don’t.” He put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
	“You can. I’m fine.”
	He wasn’t buying that. “Keith.”
	“Ugh, fine.” He pulled his knees up to his chest. 
	They were sitting on the bed in Keith’s room and, as usual, he was being stubborn about his feelings. But Shiro knew something was bugging him. And, judging by the times he’d seen it most clearly… “It has to do with Lance, right?”
	“Yeah.” He laid his chin on his knees and stared out at the room. He didn’t say more than that, but Shiro just waited. He’d get there eventually. And, as expected, it only took a dobosh or so before Keith asked, “How did you know? About Adam? I’m not even going to ask about Allura; I can’t begin to understand what’s going on there.”
	Shiro snorted. “That makes two of us.” When Keith turned to shoot him a quizzical look, he explained, “Hey, when I was a kid, I couldn’t have explained rainbows. They just were, and they were awesome. It’s kind of like that with Allura. Can’t explain it, but I’m happy it’s there. 
	“As for Adam, you might have to be more specific. Are you asking ‘how did I know I loved him’?”
	Keith started to nod, then caught himself. He turned his gaze back out to the room, but his cheeks were getting pink. “Or, y’know, how’d you at least know it wasn’t just a sex thing with you two? I mean, it doesn’t have to be love, necessarily.”
	“Ah, okay.” Shiro could see through that as easily as if it were a sparkling clean window. “Well, do you want more than just sex with Lance?”
	Keith started to protest. “I…!” But then he remembered and finished, “…already said this was about Lance, didn’t I? Fuck.” He sighed harshly. “Yeah, I think I do. Want more than just sex.”
	“Have you told him that?”
	“No. I’m not sure if he wants more than just sex. But sometimes we… we talk and hold each other and it’s… it’s nice. It’s nice to fall asleep next to him and wake up with him still there the next morning.”
	“Oh, so you’re already having the sex part,” Shiro confirmed.
	Keith’s face flamed. “Well, yeah. I felt kind of guilty about it at first ‘cause we were supposed to be finding you, but…”
	“Hey, you know I wouldn’t ever want to stand in the way of your happiness. Or of you getting laid with a decent guy. Besides, you still need downtime.”
	“Yeah. That’s kind of how it started: downtime. Downtime and stupid bets – that I won,” he added proudly, “and… and just sex for something to do. A way to kill time and not have to think or worry.”
	“But now it’s more than that?”
	“For me, anyway. I dunno about Lance. Sometimes I think he wants more and sometimes I think he doesn’t and I don’t know how to tell.”
	Shiro shook his head. “You can’t tell most of the time. People are all different. You have to ask. You have to bring it up and talk about it.”
	“But if he doesn’t want more…”
	“What would you say?” Shiro interrupted him. “When you go to talk to him about wanting more than sex? What, specifically, do you want?”
	“I dunno. More of the …of the holding, I guess? Find out what else he likes besides racing, bragging, and blowjobs?”
	Shiro cleared his throat. “Please don’t give me details?”
	“What? I just said blo-…”
	He cut that off quickly. Mental images I don’t need! You’re like a little brother to me! “What else would you like from him? Do you want to be exclusive?”
	“As in dating?” 
	Shiro nodded.
	“Yeah, I guess.”
	“You don’t want him being with anyone else, right?”
	“Right.”
	“Well, that sounds exclusive to me.”
	“But what if he doesn’t want to?”
	“That’s a risk you have to take. You’ve never been one to shy away from risks before.”
	“Yeah, but those risks are different.”
	Shiro put a hand on Keith’s back. “Rather a broken arm than a broken heart?”
	Keith just nodded and buried his face in his knees.
	“Hey.” Shiro scooted over so he could get his arm all the way around Keith in a half-hug. “You have to judge the risk, decide if it’s worth it. If you don’t speak up, you may not ever find out if Lance wants to date you, too. At best, you’re stuck waiting on him to bring it up. And he might be feeling the same way you are: convinced that you’re only in it for a good time and not looking for more. He might be just as scared as you are.”
	“I’m not scared,” Keith insisted, voice muffled by his legs.
	Oh, of course not. “If you want this badly enough, you have to say something about it.”
	He still hadn’t raised his head. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
	“Well.” Shiro thought for a moment. “Think about what you do know about him. What does he really like? And don’t you dare list another sex act.”
	He heard a light chuckle, but then Keith fell quiet. “He likes bragging about what a great pilot he is, even though I keep beating him in races.”
	“He likes competition,” Shiro summed up. “Okay. What else?”
	Another long pause. “His family. He has a big family and he’s always talking about them.”
	“Oh, that’s a good one. We can work with that.”
	Keith finally looked up at him. Shiro gave him a squeeze (well, half-squeeze) and they started kicking around ideas. It was good to feel normal for a bit. Not the first mate, not a lieutenant, not “Prisoner 117-9875,” just Shiro. Just Keith’s long-lost big brother figure who could give him advice on his love/sex life (hopefully without the details).

	He was apologizing as soon as the door opened. “Sorry about that; I was in the middle of something.”
	“It’s fine,” she said as the door shut behind him. “Our son has given me some very interesting news.”
	“Really?” Zarkon sat in his favorite chair. “That’s a first.”
	“Allura has my subject.”
	He blinked. “Allura? As in Alfor’s daughter? How? Why?!”
	“I think we’ve all been duped the last few years,” Honerva told him. “I could understand her contracting with someone to help him escape, but it wouldn’t explain how she even knew of him. Unless…”
	“Unless she’s the pirate he turned traitor for.” He’d read up on the man’s file while trying to find those responsible for his wife’s favorite research subject escaping. 
	Honerva nodded. “Furthermore, Lotor seems to think she’s fond of him. Perhaps even romantically so. I’m not sure about that point; he could just be upset that she’s broken off her engagement with him. But she referred to him as a friend.” And she was somehow able to keep the pain she was experiencing from passing through the link to him. Which ought to be impossible. But that was a subject for the Lady of Shadows, not for her husband. “And he came to her defense. They are, if nothing else, close allies.”
	Zarkon frowned. “He didn’t have security clearance high enough to give her any damaging information. But she – or someone she hired – was able to break him out of Carand Iru, which has extremely tight security.”
	“And she visited here not long ago. He believes she was spying while she was here, and might have had her ‘maid’ spy as well, though he has no direct proof of that. I tend to trust his suspicions though, especially when they’re backed by evidence that she had some sort of comms device on her during her visit.”
	His frown deepened. “She suspects I had something to do with her father’s ‘accident,’ no doubt. And she played up to Lotor to get access to Admiralty House.”
	“Yes. She’s turned out to be craftier than her father.”
	“Her public persona is still that of the grieving daughter,” he grumbled. “She’ll be hard to attack.”
	“Lotor’s already working on some proper character assassination. Let him do his work first. But I have reason to suspect this won’t be the last we’ve heard of her.”
	“Undoubtedly,” he agreed.

	He was apologizing as soon as the door opened. “Sorry about that; I was in the middle of something.”
	“It’s fine,” she said as the door shut behind him. She typed something and then shut down the screen. She rose and walked over to him. “Come sit; we have something to talk about.” She gestured to the small loveseat in her room, then hurried over to clear off the pile of books taking up one of the cushions.
	He smiled as he walked over to take the newly-revealed seat. “Good something or bad something?”
	“Good question,” she muttered. She came to sit next to him and reached out for his hands. He was glad to take hers in his own and she smiled nervously. He could almost taste her anxiety, like acid reflux. “I’ve thought a lot about how to say this. I’m not sure this is the ‘right’ way, but, here we go.” She cleared her throat. “Remember when we had sex in my cabin aboard the ship? The most recent time,” she clarified quickly.
	He grinned. “Of course I do. It was only a couple of quintants ago.”
	“Right, well… do you remember what we talked about afterwards? About the possibility of my getting pregnant?”
	His grin fell and he studied her. He watched her swallow hard and then he searched his memory almost frantically. The answer came to him almost immediately and he closed his eyes. “That first time,” he whispered.
	“Yes. Apparently. That’s what I was doing in the infirmary when you came looking for me. Getting a scan.”
	He opened his eyes again to look at her. “So you already knew you were pregnant. That’s why you didn’t have a problem with my not using protection.”
	She nodded. “Normally I would have been on contraceptives, but it’d been so long since I’d even given a damn about having a sexual partner…” She sighed. “Well, no excuse for it. I would have told you sooner, but I wanted to figure out how I felt about it before we had this talk. And before I tell you my thoughts, I’d like to hear yours.”
	He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay. You’re… wow. I guess repeating myself about how this is a bad time is pointless.” He looked down at their joined hands and tried to think about how he felt. 
	“I didn’t mean that you have to answer now. I know I just hit you with a lot. We have some time to decide, and you have time to think.” She squeezed his hands.
	He squeezed back and smiled uneasily back at her. “Thank you, I… I appreciate that. Not having to answer right now, that is. It’s… like you said, it’s a lot.” 
	“But, silver lining on the sex front, at least?”
	He gave a dry chuckle. “I suppose.”
	“And I know I hit with the hard punch first, but I do have something else to discuss.”
	“Oh?” He was ready to latch onto any distraction at this point. Just for a little bit. His head and heart were a swirl of conflicting emotions and thoughts about this whole ‘Allura’s carrying my child’ thing.
	“I might have an idea of what to do with the brainwashing. But I have to get back into your mindspace.”
	“Oh!” And a welcome distraction this was! “You think you can get rid of it?”
	“Maybe,” she stressed. “I’m willing to try if you are. And I even brought the brandy up.”
	“Not too much,” he warned her.
	She smiled as she stood to go get it. “Worrying over the baby?”
	“Well…” He was. Perhaps that says enough right there. “Maybe. If nothing else, I don’t want the decision made for us by circumstances we could have controlled.”
	She chuckled. “Well, I no longer have to try to get through another entire personality. Just a taste should suffice.” She took a quick swig straight from the bottle.
	Shiro shifted on the loveseat so that she could more easily straddle his lap. He welcomed her into his arms, holding her so she wouldn’t fall, and opened his mouth for her as soon as her lips pressed against his. Brandy on his tongue, her fingers on his temples, and a strange sense of the world …inverting, somehow.
	There were the remnants of the wall, and there was the barrier with the seething mass of purple and black thrashing within it. It felt strange to be here again, but Allura was right next to him. Though she’d been in comfy civilian clothes in the real world, here she was in her Pirate Queen get-up. He looked down at himself to find his First Mate’s uniform. This has become my default, I suppose. There were worse ways to think of himself, honestly.
	Allura approached the barrier, circling it as she studied it. She was murmuring, “Life force,” to herself over and over.
	He walked over to peer at the captured brainwashing energy. It felt like darkness made manifest: the apathetic oblivion of an eternal night. It made him uneasy, and he wanted to step away. 
	But Allura was next to him before he could. “Stand still,” she said as she placed a hand on his chest, over his heart. He did as she ordered, watching her. 
	She held her other hand out and laid it gently against the barrier shield. It seemed to ripple with her touch before stilling. She closed her eyes. 
	“So dark,” she whispered. “So cold. It… it feels like…” 
	She jerked her hand away from the shield so suddenly that he jumped.
	“Allura?” He pulled her towards him, away from the barrier.
	“I’m okay.” Her free hand dropped to her belly. “It’s okay.”
	“The… why wouldn’t it be? It can’t be that far along yet.”
	“Six movements or so,” she agreed. “But… it’s like the dark energy was reaching for it.” She cocked her head as she looked at the barrier and what it contained. “It wants life.”
	“It wants to kill the fetus?”
	“No,” she shook her head. “It doesn’t want death. It wants life. It wants the quintessence of a living being.” She looked to him. “That’s why Honerva was studying you before she undertook this. She wanted to see what your quintessence was like. What you had to… to offer.” She glanced back at the shield. “I’m glad you got that wall up in time. Without it…”
	He shuddered. “I’d rather not think about it.”
	“Nor would I.” She looked at him again, placed both hands on his chest and closed her eyes. “Let me just focus on you.” She sighed happily. “You’re so warm.”
	He laid his hands to rest on her hips and closed his eyes, too. He just wanted to feel close to her, but he’d forgotten that this was the mindspace. She was warm and he was warm and there was a calm excitement, like they were at the eye of a storm. Love and hope and peace; nervousness and fear and indecision. They were both all of these things at once now, so focused were they on each other.
	It was all a-jumble, so many emotions layering atop each other, jostling for the top spot. He opened his eyes, raised a hand to her chin to tilt her face up, and leaned in to kiss her, to try to focus on the love and let everything else fall away. He had to choose something: why not the best of them?
	She still tasted of brandy in his mind, and his mind revved on the associations. Brandy and passion and the confidence born of shared desire. This woman of smoke and firewater and longing had become real to him that night and now she was realer than ever, because now there were… complications.
	She’d said she knew her own thoughts but hadn’t shared them. She didn’t have to now; he could feel them. He still wasn’t sure what his own were but he was focusing on the love he had for her, that had not and could never diminish. She was real and she was here with him (even in this unreal place) and she loved him so fiercely that even she was bewildered by it and he knew exactly how that felt. 
	One of them deepened the kiss; it was hard to tell who. He remembered, with something akin to mischievous glee, when they had gone at it here in his mind, how strange and wonderful and exhilarating it had been to throw off the restraints of reality for a bit.
	He heard her thoughts say, “Fuck reality,” despite the fact that her tongue was in his mouth, and he felt her suit starting to disappear beneath his hands. They’d gotten distracted from their purpose, but he wasn’t going to protest. 
[Hey, time for more rampant mindspace sex!]
“Why do you like it so much when I come in you?”
	“It’s primal. It’s reckless and irresponsible and I love you why wouldn’t I want your child?”
	“Bad timing,” wandered through the air along with, “I love you, too.” He came, and it didn’t matter because this wasn’t real and she was already pregnant she was carrying his child already and she wanted to keep it no matter how hard it was going to be. She’d keep it regardless of what he said, but she wanted to know if he’d be a partner with her in raising it. She’d go it alone if she had to.
	“You will never be alone,” he whispered against her ear and in her heart.
	“It’s your turn,” she purred in response as joy and relief surged through her. 
[More rampant mindsex.]
[…] he was beginning to think that real sex was overrated, no, no, that was her thought, was it? Or his? He couldn’t tell. Did it matter?
	It mattered. Abruptly and suddenly, it mattered to him whose thought was whose, who was having what feelings when… 
	“Allura, drop out of mindspace,” he said, despite his mouthful.
	“No why this is so good right here we can do anything and everything and…”
	“Drop.”
	He opened his eyes and she was on his lap. He was hard in his pants and she was soaked through hers, but he kissed her again, softly. He picked her up and carried her to the bed to lay her down, then lowered himself to her to kiss her some more. 
	They still had a connection, because of the discs, but it wasn’t as intense, not as all-encompassing. 
[Intense make-outs with frank language about what they’d both like to do.]
	He could bask in the warmth of her love forever.
	She pushed him away so that she could sit up. He helped her get her shirt and bra off, then laid her back down so he could cover her skin in kisses (and occasional licks). She sighed and giggled and even squirmed when he found a ticklish spot. He only stopped when he had to because she was tugging his shirt up over his head and he had to help free himself.
	She rolled them over so she could run her hands over his chest. She loved touching him, the feel of his skin beneath her hands, the muscles beneath the skin, the blood that pumped from the heart that belonged to her now. He watched her luxuriate in caressing him, then closed his eyes as she leaned in to kiss him again.
	Every item of clothing removed was like a small celebration, a moment to treasure the revelation of bare skin to loving lips and enamored hands. Even when they got down to silky and wet panties and pre-cum-soaked boxer briefs, there was still the same chaste devotion shown, kisses rained down upon thighs and tummies.
[Real world love-making, slow, sensual, and sweet.]
Like the brandy, she was out of his league; this was an experience a Navy starman would never have had. 
	But he was so much more than that now.
	This was his reality now. 
	It wasn’t just mindless (or mindful) fucking. Even the first time, when they’d been swept away by it all, it hadn’t been, but this… this slow savoring of each other was a whole different type of intensity. His mind and heart were full of the experience of Allura and their love for each other. 
	His reality was Allura loving him, clinging to him and crying, “Takashi!”
	His reality was lying in their bed with her and listening to her breathing and pulse slowly relax as she played with his hair and giggled at his sloppy kisses on whatever patch of skin his lips could find.
	Mindsex was amazing and literally incredible, hot and wild. 
	But reality was so much better.
~End of Chapter 16~

	Keith was too hot, everything was too hot, and Lance felt like he was going to combust. But, frankly, he didn’t care right now. 
[Keith is going down on Lance.]
	Lance opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling as Keith’s mouth finished his work. He crawled up onto the bed beside him.
	“Well?” Lance asked, still getting his breath back, but already sure he knew the answer.
	“You won.”
	Lance sat bolt upright. “I did?! I mean, of course I did, but by how much?”
	Keith showed him his comtab: the stopwatch function read 15:23. Below that, in smaller font was the previous run’s time: 12:34.
	He thrust both hands into the air in triumph before dropping back to the bed. He left his arms up above his head like that. “THREE DOBOSHES!”
	“Almost three doboshes,” Keith corrected.
	“I lasted almost,” Lance let him have that; he could be a gracious winner, “three doboshes longer than you did!” The last of his strength felt like it had leaked out of him, and he was just bonelessly happy, stretched out across his bed. 
	Keith was still on his side, smiling at him. Lance could have basked in that smile forever. Shit, I have it so fucking bad. And then Keith laid down, cuddling up next to him and draping an arm over his chest.
	“I guess I just need you that much.”
	Lance blinked. That hadn’t sounded like a brag or a boast or even a thin excuse, though it was phrased like that last one. It wasn’t delivered with that off-the-cuff “I’m just saying the first thing that comes to mind,” manner Keith always had. And those pretty, pretty eyes of his were searching Lance’s face.
	Lance licked his lips, unsure of how to respond to this. Everything had started out normal: Keith had suggested the blowjob competition – “let’s see who can hold out the longest” – and Lance had risen to the bait if for no other reason than that he couldn’t resist Keith’s oral talents. He’d even volunteered to go first because he knew that, once Keith had sucked him off, he’d be useless at anything else for a long time.
	But now here was Keith saying something dangerously close to… Just because he likes fucking me, doesn’t mean there’s anything else. 
	So he tread carefully. He plastered on an admittedly-uneasy smile and teased, “I’m that irresistible, huh?”
	“To me you are.” That was getting closer to sounding like the Keith he knew, in tone if not content.
	Lance’s heart, which had been settling down after one of the best blowjobs of his life, started thudding again. He knew his mouth had fallen open, but he couldn’t think of words. All he could hear in his mind was what Keith had just said – “To me you are” – and those four words echoed through his whole being.
	“I got you something,” Keith said, pushing himself up. The movement brushed Keith’s erection against Lance’s leg, but he just recorded it as an unimportant event. Keith sounded nervous.
	KEITH. 
	Sounded nervous.
	He watched him climb off the bed. He pulled himself up so he was sitting upright, the better to watch Keith go to the bag he’d brought with him into the room. Lance hadn’t thought about it at the time; to be fair, “blowjob contest” was kind of a distracting thought.
	He fetched out a box about the size of a thin hardcover book, wrapped in scintillating blue paper. He carried it in both hands, then held it out to him. He looked nervous. Lance looked from his face down to the box and noticed Keith’s hands were trembling a little.
	He put his hands over Keith’s, holding them until they steadied, and looked up at him. “Thank you.”
	“Y-you don’t know what it is yet.”
	“But you got me something. Besides a mind-blowing orgasm.” They both chuckled a little. Lance let go of one hand to pat the bed next to him. “Come here.”
	Keith relinquished the box to him so he could climb back up onto the bed.
	Lance leaned over and kissed him, softly, the sort of kiss that was rare between them but that he always enjoyed. He lingered against his lips for as long as he could, but it was curiosity, not passion or sleep, that tore him away this time. 
	The box was heavier than he would have expected. He hefted it a couple of times, then raised it to his ear. “Well, it’s not ticking…”
	“It’s not a bomb!” Keith was sulking.
	“I’m sorry,” he said immediately, settling it on one leg. “I was just trying to lighten the mood.”
	“I… I don’t think I want the mood lightened,” he pouted. “I’m being serious here, Lance.”
	“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But, even without knowing what this is, I’m already surprised and really, really grateful. You got me something! And even got it wrapped!” He reached his hand over to take one of Keith’s so he could give it a squeeze. “This is…” He had to stop and clear his throat. “This is really nice of you.”
	Keith squeezed his hand back. “Open it,” he insisted.
	Regretfully, Lance pulled his hand away. Growing up, he’d always torn into wrapping paper, shredding it in the haste to get at what was inside. But Keith had picked out this paper for him. “I love the color.”
	“I noticed you liked blue.” He sounded sheepish, and when Lance glanced at him, he was starting to blush.
	“I do. It’s my favorite. Pink is nice, too,” he added, leaning in for a quick peck on the cheek before he returned to unwrapping.
	It was a lidded box, so he pulled the lid off and cocked his head. “What is this?” It nearly filled the box.
	“Pull it out and open it up.” 
	Well, there were hinges on one side, the side that didn’t look like shiny gold-colored metal. He pulled it up and it unfolded and his breath caught in his throat.
	It was a photo frame with three panels. In the first panel was a picture of his father; the last panel had a picture of his mother; and in between there was Lance and his siblings. They’d all been taken on the same day, at Veronica’s wedding. His parents had each posed in a dignified manner, but the center panel was the “outtake” of all of them – including the new bride – being giant goofballs and making faces.
	Lance felt his eyes well up. “How did you…?”
	“Your sister is very organized in her social media postings,” Keith said. He cleared his throat. “You mentioned one time that you kept meaning to get some photos framed, but there was always a distraction or something.”
	Lance looked to Keith. “You remembered that?”
	Keith nodded. “Yeah. I… I remembered.” He winced.
	Lance laughed a little, then set the photo frame reverently to the other side of him so that he could pull Keith in and hug the stuffing out of him. “Thank you so much,” he whispered fervently. “This is perfect.”
	Keith hugged him back and, after a moment, cleared his throat again and said, “I don’t… I don’t want this to be just sex. With us.”
	Lance pulled away, grabbed hold of his face, and looked him dead in the eye. “Keith, I’ve wanted you to be my boyfriend for a long time now.”
	Keith’s smile was sweetly surprised. “Really?”
	Lance couldn’t take it anymore. “Really.” And he pulled him into a kiss. He felt his tears of joy finally shake loose and run down his cheeks. 
	And then his tongue was in his mouth and he was pushing Lance back against the mattress and he remembered that Keith was still at least a little hard and he suddenly desperately wanted him, not just his bedmate and fuckbuddy but his boyfriend.
[Aaaaaaaaand they’re making love, but still trying to one up each other about who has the hotter/better boyfriend. Because these two always have to compete, dammit.]
	He was picking up speed. “I have to take every chance I can get with you before you realize…”
	“No!” He reached up and grabbed Keith’s head again, holding him so he could look him dead in the eye. “I love being with you, Keith. I am falling in love with you and I am not going to just throw you away, do you understand me?” 
	Now it was Keith’s eyes that were starting to get tear bright. 
	Lance continued, “You have me 110%, do you hear me?” Keith nodded. “You have me and I have you and we have each other. We are a team, in bed and out of it and in every single way there can be, and I am not going to let you down or leave you.”
	He kissed Keith hard again and felt his boyfriend’s tears against his cheeks now. He laid back down, pulling Keith with him as they kissed. 
[And they continue making love and holding each other and being happy to be boyfriends now.]

	“Don’t,” Takashi said. “Don’t do this if you’re not sure…”
	Allura looked down at him from her spot on his lap. “I think I can do it this time.”
	“I don’t want to risk you getting hurt. Either of you.”
	She smiled, her heart skipping a beat. Instead of reaching for the brandy, she leaned in and said, lips brushing his, “I love you.”
	“I love you, too.” He kissed her, and she focused on her fingertips on his temples, on finding and following that connection the discs facilitated between them.
	And they were back inside his mind again, back on the Subject’s side of the wall… back in front of the trapped Oblivion Beast what represented the brainwashing. There really wasn’t a better term for it; it was something she’d plucked out of Takashi’s mind, that it felt like the void of deep space given some sort of form: viscous, ooze-y form, but form nonetheless.
	“I know your quintessence so well, my love,” she said. “I know it inside and out by now. I no longer need to touch you as a way to delineate what’s you and what’s not. This thing, it… mimics you, somehow. But it is not you. It could never be you.”
	She put both her hands on the shield. “And it does not belong here.”
	The barrier she’d erected began to contract. 
	As before, the creature within fought back, pushing against the dome. 
	She increased the energy she was using. The shield sparked and crackled and then it began to sizzle. The Oblivion Beast let forth a soundless howl that was felt rather than heard: it jagged its way along your veins, stabbing like thousands of pins, and, next to her, she heard Takashi hiss in pain. She focused. She couldn’t let herself get distracted or this wouldn’t work.
	More energy still. There was quintessence all around her, seemingly boundless. She didn’t want to use it yet, because she knew it was his. She used her own. He’d suffered enough, was hurting now. But there was never a question that she had enough energy because she was surrounded by it, if she needed it.
	The creature thrashed and churned, pushing back against the walls closing in on it.
	“Don’t.”
	“I’m sorry, I know it hurts.”
	“No, not that. Use my energy for this.”
	“You’ve been through enough!” She wasn’t using her mouth to say the words. There was no point, and actually moving in any way aside from compressing the barrier seemed counterproductive.
	“Use. My Energy.”
	“I Won’t. Not unless I have to.”
	“YOU ARE CARRYING OUR CHILD!” The last two words echoed. “DON’T endanger it like this!”
	She supposed he was right. The fetus needed energy to grow. It wasn’t at a stage where it could create its own quintessence… yet. It needed hers.
	She drew from the wellspring around her instead. Takashi’s quintessence. It tasted like warm blackberry cobbler – what is that? I’ve never even heard of such a thing as a blackberry or a cobbler that wasn’t a shoemaker – and smelled like a sunny day in autumn with the crisp leaves and the chill wind – that’s not what autumn smells like here – and it wrapped her up in hot cider and chunky blankets and the steadying hand of purpose, duty, and sacrifice. It was clear and bright, an unwavering sense of Right and Wrong, the path well-lit ahead. 
	She wasn’t sure if the creature had stopped fighting or if its attempts at pushing back were simply no longer enough: the dome collapsed and winked out of existence, taking the last remnants of the brainwashing with it. 
	The bricks of the wall – many of them still just hovering in space – fell and disappeared.
	She opened her eyes.
	Takashi opened his.
	She pulled away a little, so she could focus on his face easier. She brushed her fingers through his hair lightly.
	He smiled at her, and her heart lifted.
	“It’s gone.” He laughed a little. “It’s just gone. I-I don’t know how to prove to you that I’m me and not The Subject, but…”
	“You don’t have to,” she said, hugging him as tight as she dared. “I can tell. You’re finally free.”
	He held her back, nuzzling his nose into her neck. 
	They stayed there like that for a long time, until her stomach grumbled. They both laughed and he picked her up, spun her around, and set her back on her feet. 
	“Let’s go,” he said. “I feel a bit peckish myself.”
	“You’re okay though? I mean, I know the brainwashing’s gone, but I’m not even sure how much of your energy I used; I just reached for it and took it and…”
	“I’m fine. Could use a snack. Maybe a nap.”
	“Those both sound really good.”
	He beamed. “Nap together?”
	“Yes, please. After some sehec and crasks. And maybe some fruetana. Oh, and what’s blackberry cobbler?”
	“Blackberry cobbler?” he asked. “It’s a dessert. Sort of like pie, but… not.”
	“I’m going to see if Coran can find a way to get us some. Or the ingredients for it, at least; I’m sure Hunk could make one.” She grabbed his hand and headed for the door.
	Takashi was pulled along with her. “I’m sure he could. But how do you even know about it?”
	“I’ll tell you while we eat!” she declared. “We’re only a few months out from autumn here, too. I can’t wait for you to experience the evening vraisuls!”
	“I’m looking forward to them.” He tugged back as she reached the door. She recognized it – barely – as an attempt to get her to stop. 
	She looked back at him, and he stepped forward to wrap her up in his arms. “I’m looking forward to a lot of things, not the least of which is spending the rest of our lives together.”
	She blinked, then felt her face heat. “Y-you…” She cleared her throat. “You’re awfully confident about that.”
	“Destiny, remember? And the discs,” he added.
	“We could die trying to take down Zarkon.”
	“I never said our lives would be long. Just that, however long they are, we’ll be together.”
	She couldn’t say he was wrong. She hugged him instead.
	“I want something to mark it,” he confessed. “Something done in front of everyone, so they all know.”
	“You want a ceremony. You want it official and declared.”
	“Don’t you?”
	“Yes, but we haven’t even told them…”
	“We have a lot to go over,” he said. “Not just the baby, but the brainwashing being gone, your being a magical princess…”
	“Stop that,” she demanded, despite not wanting him to at all.
	He knew it, of course, and knew how much she loved being called that. “…and that’s just on our end. Thace was going to contact that friend of his, you’ve been talking to your cousin…” He pulled away enough to look her in the eye. “We have a lot to go over.”
	Her stomach growled again. “Food and nap first. Then we’ll get everything sorted.”
	He nodded and smiled and kissed her nose. “Agreed.”
~End of Chapter 17~

	It was dead quiet after the announcement. Finally, someone asked a question. “How do you know?”
	He smiled. “I’ve had the misfortune of meeting him. It turns out that my darling fiancée was just using me to get at some confidential research of my mother’s. And when she’d gotten what she wanted from me, she sicced her most recent boytoy on me.” Lotor shook his head sadly. “We grew up together. I thought I could trust her. But I suppose you never really know anyone, do you?”
	Romelle frowned as the feeding frenzy truly began. She slipped out of the room and sent a message to Allura.

	It was dead quiet after the announcement. Finally, Pidge asked a question. “We’re happy about this, right?”
	Allura smiled. “We’re very happy about it.”
	And everyone erupted into cheers. Congratulatory shouts rang out. 
	“Please, settle down,” she said with a laugh. “And don’t you lot dare start a pool on the sex of the baby, for heavens’ sake!”
	“Too late!” There was another brief flurry as people called out their bets.
	When she could finally get her crew quieted down, she said, “The timing is less than great, I’ll admit. We have a lot going on right now. And that, more than anything else, is why I called this meeting. We need to make sure everyone’s on the same page. 
	“So, the baby announcement is out of the way. I’ve also managed to clear Shiro’s mind of the brainwashing; another bit of good news.” That spawned another cheer.
	“So he doesn’t have to wear the disc anymore?” Thace asked.
	“Correct,” Shiro said. “It’s actually offline right now. I… kind of like being able to feel what Allura’s feeling sometimes.”
	“Yeah, I’ll bet!” someone called out, and there was some laughter at that. 
	Allura cleared her throat, despite her red face. “How has the analysis of the discs been going?”
	Hunk and Ulaz shared a glance and then Hunk rose to his feet. “It’s… I mean, it’s very advanced tech, obviously, but that energy source is… strange. We can’t positively identify it but it… feels familiar? I know that’s not very scientific.”
	“I wonder if it’s quintessence,” Coran pondered aloud. “Life energy itself. It would explain why Allura was able to tap into it.”
	“What do you mean?” Ulaz asked.
	“Oh no,” Allura groaned.
	But before Coran could answer, Shiro said, “Allura’s magical.”
	She shot him a glare.
	There was some laughter, but Coran followed up with, “He’s essentially correct though,” and explained. 
	“So, because of some old fairy tale about your being blessed by a goddess, you think Lotor’s mom found a way to put actual life energy into her tech?” Pidge scoffed.
	“It would explain our nagging sense of familiarity with it,” Ulaz theorized.
	“It explains what Honerva was doing in that video you two found,” Allura said. For the sake of everyone else there, she explained, “We have footage of some of the experimentation done to Shiro while he was in Carand Iru.” She went over the relevant portions – the monitors on his temples, the blood. “It was his quintessence she cared about. Something specific about it made him valuable to her.”
	“The old stories have wisdom in them, if we can just understand their perspective,” Ulaz opined.
	“This is something I can do, and I’m trying to learn more about it. Because whatever Honerva’s up to, I might be the only one who can stop her.”
	“But if it’s life energy… wouldn’t that be bad for you?” Lance asked. “I mean, at any time, but especially now.”
	“We’re still doing research,” Coran said. 
	“And speaking of what Honerva and Zarkon are up to,” she said, turning to Thace, “any word from your friend?”
	“Ah, yes. She is an aide to Commander Ranveig.”
	“Ranveig?” Coran asked. “He’s been a pretty consistent visitor at Admiralty House, from what the servants said.”
	“And he’s a vicious son of a bitch,” Shiro put in. “Oversees weapons testing.”
	Thace nodded. “She said he was aware of the Carand Iru experiments; she’s heard him mention them in passing, though without going into detail about them. He is also living well above his means. At least, if you go by his stated salary.”
	“Bribes?” Allura asked.
	Thace nodded. “Most likely from weapons manufacturers. Combined with the clearly illegal experimentation going on in that facility and his reporting directly to Zarkon…”
	“It’ll be hard for him to say he didn’t know of and condone illegal and unethical behavior,” Allura continued with a grim smile. “We need more proof.”
	“She’s working on that,” he said. 
	“Excellent.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t expect Zarkon to go down without a fight. But…” Her comtab pinged. She pulled it up, read the message, and paled.
	“What is it?” Shiro asked, and she passed it to him.
	“What’s going on?” Keith wanted to know.
	Allura was just staring straight ahead as she heard Shiro relay the news to them. “Lotor’s saying that Allura has been stealing confidential research AND spending her ‘mourning period’ in private drug-fueled orgies.”
	Silence reigned again. “Wow,” someone said, stupefied.
	“The problem is he’s right on the first one, essentially,” Lance muttered. 
	“So he can add on all kinds of nonsense,” Keith finished, “because if the one’s true, the other one is, too, right?” He scowled.
	Allura sighed and sat. She’d been standing before the assembled crew all this time, and it felt like her strength had just been sucked out of her all of a sudden.
	“Apparently, I’M just the latest of her ‘boytoys,’” Shiro said. She didn’t need the discs to be active to feel the irritation radiating from him. “And Allura ‘sicced’ me on Lotor once she’d used him to get his mother’s research.”
	“Yeah, nevermind the fact he was using that research to cause her severe pain!” Pidge declared. 
	“Character assassination,” Amue said. “Because Zarkon couldn’t move against the grieving admiral’s daughter…”
	“…but he can against the hedonistic whore,” Allura finished for her. She sighed. “And this is just the beginning, I’m sure.”
	“You’ll have to go out and address this,” Amue told her. “I’ll start working on your speech.”
	She groaned louder. “I hate addressing press. But you’re right, I have to. Shiro, let me have that back; I need to respond to Romelle.” 
	He handed the comtab back to her.
	She rose from her chair. “For now, we have work to see to. Coran, find and train crewmembers to be proper servants. We’re going to get this place cleaned up and ready for entertaining. Thace, keep working with your friend – what did you say her name was?”
	“I didn’t. It’s Krolia,” he told her.
	“Fine, Krolia. Work with her on getting the proof we need. Sooner is better than later, but verified, hard evidence is better than shoddy ‘maybe’ stuff. They’re hitting us; we need to hit back hard. I want to end this with one punch.
	“Hunk, Pidge, I’d appreciate you taking some time to upgrade the security, inside and out. I want to make sure that we can be impenetrable if need be.”
	“Got it,” Hunk said. 
	“Ulaz, keep researching the discs. See if you can figure out how she got quintessence into them. I’ll forward you Coran’s quintessence research.”
	He nodded. “That would be much appreciated.”
	“I can find out what Lotor’s been up to,” Lance offered. “I’m sure his character’s not so squeaky clean.”
	“Anything you can dig up would be great,” she said.
	“No worries; I’ve got my sources.”
	“Meaning you have a huge family that spends way too much time on social media?” Keith asked.
	“Like I said: sources.”
	“Just be careful,” Allura told him. “I don’t want to endanger your family in this. And Shiro?”
	“Yes?”
	“You and I have to decide how we met. We have to counter Lotor’s narrative. On top of which, I won’t be able to hide my pregnancy forever.”
	He cleared his throat. “We have one more thing to mention to everyone before we break this party up.”
	“Hm? OH!” as she remembered. She plastered on a tight smile. “Seeing as how Shiro and I love each other and are going to have a child together and all that, we’ve decided to get married.”
	Dead quiet. And then…
	“Can you stop just whiplashing us like that?!” Pidge shrieked.
	“I AM GOING TO MAKE THE BEST CAKE EVER!” Hunk declared.
	“Obviously it won’t be right away; it’s too soon after my last ‘engagement.’”
	“Unless it’s a secret wedding now and a big fancy one later?” Lance offered.
	“TWO CAKES!” Hunk hooted.
	“We’ll figure that out,” Allura promised. “For now, we have work to do.”

	“I thought you needed her,” Acxa commented when Lotor was done dishing scandal. 
	“I needed her reputation,” he replied. He crossed to a sofa, sat down, and stretched his arms. “Now, I’ll see to it that she has none.”
	“I also thought,” she said, following to sit next to him, “that you weren’t going to do things like your father.”
	He snorted. “I’m not. Father would just have her killed. It’s so much more effective to assassinate a reputation.”
	“But surely you know he’ll go after her now? You’ve made her a target for him, and one he can more effectively take out.”
	He frowned. “Acxa, are you questioning me?”
	Her instinct was to back down, to assure him she wasn’t. But, instead, she answered truthfully. “Yes. Am I not allowed to try to understand? Am I not allowed to question you when I joined you in the first place because I thought you would make things better and instead you’re making them worse?”
	“How?” he demanded sharply. “The reputation of the Galra was never great; my father is the one making it worse. What am I doing that is so terrible as to be worse than murder and corruption?”
	“Admit it: you’re doing this because you’re angry at not getting what you wanted. You wanted her, not just her reputation, and finding out she played you – YOU, the great player himself! – has got you upset.” She scowled at him. “And because you’re so angry, you haven’t seen that you’re playing right into the stereotype people have been throwing in our faces for years: that because any part of us is Galra, that we’re untrustworthy, we’re backstabbers, we’re murderers and…”
	She didn’t even see it coming. There was just a sudden STING and she was on the floor. Her hand flew to her cheek.
	“The stereotype of the Galra is one of being dumb brutish thugs,” he told her as he rose to stand over her. “Frankly, I am elevating the race through my tactics. And I thought you understood: we must do whatever we can to get into positions of power. Once there – and only once I’m there – will I be able to make things better. I thought you knew that we must use all the means at our disposal to achieve this end.”
	“To get you what you want: power for yourself and your pretty little Altean trophy to get it for you,” she spat. 
	“Jealous? Acxa, that’s unlike you.”
	She barked a laugh as she got to her feet. “I’m surprised you recognize jealousy at all, given how blind you’ve been to it in your reactions to this.” She looked him dead in the eye. “Your childhood sweetheart has someone else, and she strung you along for his sake. She used you like you wanted to use her, and then dumped you like the garbage you always feared you were. Well, let me reassure you, ‘my lord’: you needn’t worry about whether or not you’re trash, because you just proved it to me and everyone else.”
	He grabbed her by her neck and lifted her off her feet. She couldn’t breathe, but she’d been counting on this sort of reaction: as he raised her off the ground, she swung her right foot and made good, solid connection with his groin.
	He dropped her as he doubled over, and she scrabbled for the door. He reached for her and got hold of her jacket; she struggled out of it and continued to run, out of the building, down the street. She clawed the disc off her temple and ran as hard as she could. She didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. She knew she was running for her life now, because she wasn’t worth half of what Allura was worth to him. He was willing to ruin her publicly so that she could be eliminated; he’d just kill her with barely a thought and call it a ‘shame’ to have to break one of his toys.
	The tears blurred her vision and stung her eyes, but she kept running. She couldn’t do anything else.

	“Crude but effective.” Zarkon tossed his comtab to the nightstand. “We’ll let this stew a bit before we move in.”
	“We can even make it look like an orgy gone wrong,” his wife mused. “For the extra humiliation. After we’re done with her, no one else would dare stand in our way.” 
	He sat in bed and watched her walk around their bedroom in her robe. He reached for the lamp. “We should go to sleep.”
	“So soon?” she asked. She came over to his side of the bed, hands untying her sash. “I thought we might…” she opened the robe and let it slide off of her, “celebrate.”
	He eyed her naked body. Oh, she was not the svelte little thing she had been in her youth; age and childbirth had taken their tolls. But she was still lovely to him, still desirable, and part of him would have been glad to have her.
	His mind wandered back to that time in the Temple – the last time they were together, in fact. He couldn’t get it out of his head. He hadn’t even tried to touch her since.
	“We’ll have a nice dinner tomorrow,” he offered.
	She tsked and climbed up onto the bed, straddling his legs and looping her arms around his neck. “My lord, my love, what troubles you? Am I so hideous to you now?”
	“Of course not.”
	“Then prove it to me,” she challenged.
	“Must I? Can you not simply believe me?”
	“Not on this.”
	He pushed her off him onto the bed beside him. “Another time.”
	“When?” she demanded.
	“Later.” He turned out the light.
	“Fine. I suppose if you will not satisfy me, I will turn to other methods.”
	“If you need to,” he replied, sliding down under the covers.
	“After all, there are my assistants.”
	He stilled. He’d thought she’d meant vibrators, toys, masturbation. “You wouldn’t.”
	“A woman has needs. I thought you shared them, once.”
	“I did. Do.”
	“You must be satisfying yours elsewhere then.”
	He sat up, turning over to roar at her, “I am not! How dare you accuse me of such?!”
	“If you do not want me, then it must be someone else! And if you’re screwing around, then why should I not do the same? Is our marriage not one of equals, after all?” she snarled back at him.
	“I am not cheating on you, and you would not dare cheat on me!”
	“I suggest you not test me on that, my lord.”
	He grabbed hold of her arms – his eyes adapted to the dark quicker than hers – and pinned her to the mattress, leaning over to growl at her. “You are mine. You swore to be mine for all the rest of our lives, and I will not let another touch you!”
	“You swore the same oath!”
	“I have been with no one but you! I want no one but you!”
	“You do not want me lately! So how can I trust you?” And even in the dark, he could see the tears well up in her eyes.
	“My love…” How do you not understand? How do you not hate me for hurting you and making you bleed? How do I know I can be trusted around you after what I did to you? 
	“Please,” she said softly. 
	He exhaled and pushed her away from him. She sniffled, but he was only doing it so he could more easily get to her legs. 
[Zarkon and Honerva – not Haggar – make love. He insists that she is his and he is hers. She agrees with both of those. He calls her a “maddening woman” again, this time for ever thinking that he would stop loving her. It’s sweet in a possessive sort of way, but we’ve seen that Honerva kind of digs that.]
	He retreated to his side, threw the covers back more, and laid back down. And, after a few doboshes, she came to him, cuddled up against him, and sighed happily. He pulled the covers over them both. He’d forgotten the Temple incident entirely now. His wife was here with him, and that was what was most important. 
	He fell asleep quickly with her beside him.
~End of Chapter 18~

	She felt like she was caught in a whirlwind, and even though she’d essentially invited it in through the front door, she still hadn’t been prepared.
	She hit back at Lotor with her own press conference, admitting that she’d agreed to marry him without realizing the depth of feelings she had for the man Coran had brought in to act as head of security as she readied herself to come back into the world. “I thought I loved Lotor, but I was fooling myself. I fooled both of us, I suppose. And when I tried to break things off with him, he attacked me. My head of security came in and threw him out. It’s unfortunate to lose a friend when I so badly need one, but his lies hurt me more.”
	She played up her apologies for “unwittingly duping” Lotor, but admitted that she’d fallen in love with the former Navy man who was protecting her. She categorically denied everything else, of course. She resisted some muckrakers’ questions about “Galra duplicity,” saying that she was unwilling to tar an entire race of people with the same brush, and portrayed Lotor sympathetically as a wounded man lashing out. She even defended him, and refused to speak any harsher of him than necessary to admit the sad truth.
	And then there were, of course, the requisite parties. Romelle attended every one of them, and made sure to bring friends from the Galactic Congress with her. She kept attention on Shiro to a minimum, and he played his part well, since it was basically, “Please, I’m in charge of her security; it’s my job to see her safe,” over and over again. She wined and dined the congresspeople, going on a full-scale charm offensive. She had to soft-pedal it though, make it seem like she was still uncertain of her place in things and just getting her feet under her once more. She couldn’t be too strident, too political; it was too soon for that. This was just saying hello, getting acquainted. It was frustrating, but necessary.
	She produced years’ worth of footage of “her” time alone in the house (Amue had a routine that she followed, the better to make her seem like the real Allura to anyone spying), to prove there had been no “drug-fueled orgies.” There were also the completely empty visitors’ logs. She had Pidge make sure that the cameras on the security gates could be hacked; in fact, Pidge leaked the info herself on a hacker’s forum. And, of course, the gates showed no activity until recently. 
	Lotor had told one truth and a lie, counting on the truth to make the lie seem true, but she was turning it against him: by disproving the lie, she cast doubt on the truth.
	Shiro’s record had to be doctored, of course, but that was where Thace and Pidge came in very handy. No one else from his ship was alive to gainsay him, after all; they had it that he transferred off and took early retirement before the ship was attacked by pirates. And not long after that, Coran recruited him for the head of security job.
	Lotor and his backers scoffed at her “lies,” but she just continued to bemoan the loss of a friend and talk about how difficult the last few years had been, how shattered she’d been and how grateful she was for Coran’s constant support and willingness to help her through the depths of her grief. There were some who still doubted her, but she came from good family of good reputation and everything seemed to point to her being exactly what she claimed: a grief-stricken daughter who got rushed into an engagement when she was just trying to come back out of her shell again, got in over her head when caught between two loves, and was attacked for it by someone who should have been her friend. She was winning back the sympathy that Lotor had tried to steal from her.
	And when she wasn’t entertaining, she was learning everything she could about the “magic” she apparently possessed. Hunk made sure she ate well and Amue and Shiro were adamant about her getting enough rest, but she still had to study and practice. 
	“This is interesting,” she said to Shiro over a blessedly quiet lunch. She was reading some of the research Coran had dug up.
	Shiro swallowed his mouthful and leaned over. “What is?”
	“Apparently, the Goddess of the Universe has multiple facets to her, but there are two main ones: the Lady of Light and the Lady of Shadows.” She looked up from her comtab. “She’s both good and evil. She’s not wholly either one.”
	“Like people then,” he commented.
	She nodded. “Yes. I guess I just thought she’d be good.” She tapped her spork against her chin in thought. “Though it makes sense; if Honerva is manipulating and corrupting quintessence, perhaps that’s more to do with the dark side of things. She’s using the same sort of magic, just a different facet of it.”
	“And that’s why you’re going to beat her,” Shiro said, voice ringing with faith. 
	“Sweet of you to say. I wish I shared your confidence.”
	He took her hand and squeezed it carefully. “You will. I know you will.”
	She leaned in to kiss him softly.
	“Eat!” Hunk’s voice declared. “You’re eating for two now, and I made that lunch specifically to keep you and the baby healthy!”
	“I’m eating!” she huffed. “You’re worse than Coran. Or Amue. Or Shiro, for that matter.”
	“Less complaining, more eating!” Hunk ordered. 
	Shiro just laughed. 

	“What do you mean ‘oh’?” Acxa looked between Ezor and Zethrid in confusion and dawning horror. She’d contacted them from an internet café, done what she could to scramble the IP, but not really caring if they traced it. They’d get here and she’d be long gone. She had to do it this way, even if she wanted to talk to them in person. Because she’d feared something exactly like this.
	They were friends, they’d been friends almost immediately, but they were still, as far as she knew, loyal to Lotor. They were still wearing the discs. She was afraid, but she had to try. And the idea that her fears were justified chilled her.
	“I don’t really care about that,” Zethrid said. “Snotty little rich bitch gonna get in our way, she’s going to regret it.”
	Ezor shrugged. “She’s just some spoiled little princess anyway. Who cares?”
	Acxa felt her shoulders slump. “He tried to kill me.”
	That made them pause, at least. They glanced between each other. “You shouldn’t have made him angry,” Ezor said sadly. “I’m sure he wouldn’t really have killed you.”
	“He might now though.” Zethrid didn’t sound happy. “Because you ran away.”
	Ezor perked up a little. “We’ll talk to him, convince him to take you ba-…”
	“I don’t want to come back!” Axca cried out. She glanced around the café and lowered her voice. “I want to help the Galra, not… not just continue to do what everyone thinks we’ve always done.” She pleaded with her friends, “Please, take the discs off and leave. All three of you. Get out of there before you do something to piss him off and he hurts you, too.”
	“We’ll think about it,” Zethrid said shortly. She moved to end the call.
	“Stay safe!” Ezor managed to pipe up before the screen went black.
	Axca leaned back in her chair and felt the tears well up. So I’m on my own. She closed down the com, gathered her things, grabbed a kava to go. She strolled out nonchalantly but tugged her hat down a little lower over her eyes, just in case. She headed for the underground, blending into the crowd. Everyone else had somewhere to go, somewhere to be. She just had to be alive and moving. For now, it was all she had. 
	She needed to do something. She considered her options on the ride, and by the time she got out, she had a plan. Well, maybe not a plan, but somewhere to start. It was better than nothing.

	“I’m worried about her,” Ezor said.
	“I’m worried about both of them,” Zethrid answered. 
	Lotor was in his study, despite the late hour. Narti had indicated she wanted to be alone. So that left the two of them. 
	“Axca and Narti?” Ezor asked. “Or Axca and Lotor?”
	“Narti can take care of herself.”
	That was answer enough. “So can Axca. So can Lotor.” Ezor sat on the bed and pulled her legs up to her chest. “Why are you worried about them?”
	“You said you’re worried about Axca, too!” Zethrid replied defensively.
	“You can just say it’s ‘cause you care about them.”
	“I didn’t say that,” she grumped, folding her arms and looking away.
	“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Ezor cocked her head. “You don’t always have to be this giant wall of… of toughness and strength.”
	“Someone has to be. And no one else can do it.”
	“You want to protect us. It’s sweet. You’re just a big ol’ softie, Zethie.”
	Her face snapped back to hers, glaring. “Don’t call me that.”
	Ezor giggled. “Why not? I like it. Zethie, Zethie, Zethie-poooooooo…”
	“Don’t,” Zethrid growled.
	“Ooooh, I like it when you growl.” It was true, too.
	“Why do you have to be so infuriating?!”
	“Why do you have to be so,” she lowered her voice, made it sound gruff, “tough and impenetrable?” She dropped the gruff tone. “You have soft fur and a soft heart…”
	“I do not.”
	“…and you’re pretty.”
	Zethrid paused. “You… think I’m pretty?”
	Ezor nodded. “Yes, I do. And I know you think you aren’t.” 
	Zethrid sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re prettier.”
	“Thank you! But I disagree. We’re all pretty. An equal amount of pretty, just in different ways.” She crawled over to wrap her arms around Zethrid and lay her head on her shoulder. “You have pretty eyes and pretty fur and I like it when you smile. Like really smile, not just grin ‘cause you’re gonna get to pound someone’s face in.”
	“Stop.”
	“Nope!” Ezor giggled and turned her head to kiss Zethie’s cheek. “It’s the truth, and you’re just going to have to put up with me saying it.”
	“I don’t have to put up with anything from you.” It sounded like a threat, but Ezor knew Zethrid well enough by now that she could tell it wasn’t really meant as one. She could juuuuust barely hear the amusement in her voice.
	“Yeah? Prove it,” she dropped her voice to a purring whisper, “Zethie-poo.”
	“THAT’S IT!” she roared as she stood up, throwing Ezor off of her. Zethrid whipped around once she was on her feet and almost literally pounced on her, pinning her to the mattress. “WHO’S ZETHIE-POO NOW?!”
	Ezor struggled ineffectually, for show. Poor little trapped mouse, can’t escape the hungry cat. She was playing her role well, she thought. “Still you!” she giggled though. “The One And Only Zethie-Poo!”
	Zethrid pulled her arms up above her head and pinned them both with a single hand. Ezor really did try to pull out of it, figuring that there might be a way to escape when there was only one hand holding her, but Zethrid’s grip was tight and strong. And then she grinned down at her.
	“You can’t escape,” she said. “And I’m going to make sure you don’t want to, either.”
[Zethrid and Ezor have… semi-rough sex? Ezor’s tied up for part of it, too. Zethrid keeps making sure that Ezor likes and consents to it, and Ezor affirms all of that and also says that Acxa and Narti go too easy on her, like she’s fragile and she might break. She says that if anyone could break her, it’d be Zethrid (or maybe Lotor) but that Zethrid doesn’t go too hard, that she does it Just Right. Zethrid is reassured… and also calls her “Ezzy” at one point, which Ezor finds adorable and Zethrid finds embarrassing.]
And then Zethrid’s hand took hold of her head, cradled it, but made sure she was looking nowhere but into her eyes. 
	“I love you.”
	“I… I love you, too.” 
	Zethrid kissed her hard again. Ezor caught her breath as Zethrid untied her. “You okay?”
	“Mmmm, better than okay. But my shoulders are a little sore.”
	“I’ll give you a massage after we shower.”
	“Together?” Ezor asked hopefully.
	“Of course. It’s your fault I’m all sweaty and sticky. I think you should help me clean up.”
	She giggled. “Glad to, Zethie.”
	“Don’t you dare.”
	“I’ll only call you that in private.”
	She grumbled, but Ezor caught her blushing. “Come on.” She picked Ezor up easily. “Let me take care of you, too.”
	She wrapped her arms around Zethie’s neck. “Gladly.” She giggled as she was carried into the bathroom. “This was fun, but… we never did figure out what to do about Axca.”
	“Nothing,” Zethrid said. “We haven’t been ordered to.”
	“We should tell Lotor she contacted us.”
	“Should we?” 
	Ezor’s eyebrows went up. 
	“He hasn’t asked us about it,” Zethrid said, setting Ezor carefully back on her feet. “And I don’t see why we should tell him. What good will it do? We don’t know where she was.” She leaned over to the shower controls, pushing buttons to get it started. “We shouldn’t help Axca. But we don’t have to get in her way either.”
	Ezor smiled. “I mentioned I love you, right?”
	Zethrid smiled back. A real, honest smile. “Shut up and get in the shower.”
~End of Chapter 19~