Chapter Text
Lance was alone. It had been a few months since the Paladins of Voltron had to say goodbye to the castle of lions and head off, away from those memories, only holding on to the lions that they all piloted.
Lance was sitting in the red lion, longing for home ever since they got Shiro back, but he was nervous. He knew that the paladins were heading home. He knew he was going to see his family, but what would they think? He had been presumed dead all this time. He went missing and never returned, at least not until now.
He kept thinking of all that could go wrong when he got home until he stopped his lion. Stopped in the middle of space, looking down, tears forming in his eyes.
“Lance, a-are you okay?” Keith called out. The pilot of the black lion flew over to where Lance had stopped.
Keith placed on his helmet all the way and hopped out of the lion, slowly moving towards the Red Lion.
Heading inside he heard small cries and saw the familiar body curled up on his chair.
“Lance?” Keith was worried, distant and worried. This isn’t something he wanted to be. He wanted to be close and hold Lance and tell him everything was okay, but he didn’t. He didn’t even know what was going on.
“S-sorry. I really don’t mean to be like this. This is so out of character for me, it's just–” Lance cut himself off, actual tears streaming down his face.
Keith stood there in shock. He was used to the happy-go-lucky guy who always had a smile on his face, but instead, he wore a face of dread, a face of sadness, and Keith didn’t like that.
“What if I go home and they don’t even want to see me? I’ve been gone for too many years and they may not even remember me. I-I just disappeared without warning and that must be the most painful thing for my family.”
Keith sprung himself towards Lance and carefully wrapped his arms around him. Tears were sliding down his suit and landing onto the metal floor of the lion.
“I-I can’t do it, Keith,” Lance whimpered.
“Lance, I know you can, you’re the strongest guy I know and you have such a strong connection with your family. They miss you, I know it. They want to see you alive, they want to see you come home, scars and all.”
Keith’s words were comforting, soothing, everything that Lance wanted to hear. He was scared to go back home. It had been almost four years, four years that he’d been missing.
“Is it okay if we keep going?” Keith asked.
“Yeah, I want to go home,” Lance replied, holding onto Keith’s hand.
“Then let’s get going!” Keith and Lance both smiled. Before walking out of Lance’s lion to get to his own, Keith placed a small kiss onto the top of Lance’s head.
Lance smiled and got into his ready position to start flying.
All the paladins flew off, heading towards home.
~
July 28
A few short, but insanely long days later, they finally reached it. The overlooking view of home, somewhere where they had all longed to see.
“Are you all ready for this?” Keith asked, flying towards the blue and green land that they all called home.
“You know I am!” Pidge called out, smiling and sitting in her lion, Matt by her side. They were ready to go home.
“I can’t wait to have my moms food again and to see my sister! I’m so excited!” Hunk exclaimed.
“Shiro?” Keith asked.
“I’m going to go and see him. I need to see him. It’s been too long,” Shiro exclaimed.
“That’s good. You need to. It’s all you need to do,” Keith replied. “Lance? Are you ready?”
“I am. I really, really, am!” Lance’s voice seemed tense, but calm. Keith knew he was ready. He knew he was ready to go home.
“Then let’s go!” Keith finished, flying faster, all of the Paladins following behind.
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“This is Matt Holt, an ally of the Paladins of Voltron. We are landing near the Garrison base, please be warned,” Matt exclaimed. He had rewired some of Pidge’s lion so he could get in contact with the Garrison.
“Understood Mr. Holt, we will have a site prepared for you. Please land on Base C,” the Garrison worked responded.
All of the Paladins followed Keith over to Landing Base C and placed their lions down.
The first person out of their lion was Shiro, Keith, and Krolia. Keith wanting to immediately get Shiro to safety. The next two were Matt and Pidge, followed by Coran and Allura.
“We have to find Dad!” Pidge exclaimed.
“They probably already told him that we were here. Just give him a–”
“Matt! Katie!”
With Matt being interrupted, a familiar voice called out to them. It was Sam Holt.
“Dad!” Matt and Pidge ran over to their father and gave him a large hug.
At that exact moment, Lance got out of his Lion and witnessed a family reunion, or at least the half family reunion.
“Matt, Pidge, Sam, if you could please bring Shiro to a medical site, he needs it, badly,” Keith asked, more commanded, saying that as he walked over to Lance.
“Are you ready?” Keith asked, reaching for Lance’s hand.
“Yeah, I want to go home.” Lance intertwined his fingers with Keith’s as the two walked off to go and grab a bike.
Once the two had a bike, the two rode off. Lance’s home wasn’t too far off from the Garrison, but right now, it felt like an eternity.
Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s torso as they kept riding.
About ten minutes later, they reached the outside of Lance’s home. This was somewhere he hadn’t been in a while. It’s not like he didn’t see his family when he was at the Garrison, but he was dorming, so he didn’t really have a chance to go home often.
“Lance, you can do this. I know you can,” Keith said, comforting Lance.
“I know. I know I can do this,” Lance replied, letting go of the grip on Keith’s hand and walking towards the bright blue door.
Three times he knocked. Three times.
Lance saw the door handle turn, and heard screaming from inside, pattering feet, a dog barking, it sounded like home, but it didn’t feel like it yet.
Opening the door was an older woman, presumably Lance’s mother. She had tears streaming down her face. Lance ran towards her with open arms as she embraced him, holding him tight and not letting him go.
Coming towards the door was an older gentleman and two adults, looking a little older than Lance, his father, and his older brother and sister.
“¡Lance! ¡Mi hijo!” Lance’s dad called out, joining the hug, as well as his brother and sister.
“¡Mamá! ¡Papá!” Lance was crying. The tears were everywhere, his face bright red. “I’m home.”
“You are. You really are. Lance!”
“I brought someone with me too, I have others that I would like you to meet, but I have someone really important to me that you have to meet.” Lance dragged his family outside and signaled for Keith to walk over.
“Mamá, Papá, this is Keith, m-my boyfriend.” Lance was shaking, he gripped on to Keith’s hand, intertwining his fingers with Keith’s, holding him close.
“Keith, it’s very nice to meet you. We know a little about you from the good ol’ Garrison days, but now, now we finally get to meet you,” Lance’s dad said. “I’m Joseph, that wonderful woman there is Rosa, my wife, and behind us are two of Lance’s older siblings, Daniel and Veronica.”
“It’s very nice to meet all of you. It’s wonderful to meet all of you!” Keith was smiling ear to ear. He had never had someone accept him so quickly, but the McClain’s, they took him in right away.
“Everyone else is inside, there are a few people that we would like you to meet, and there’s something we’d like you to see,” Rosa said, dragging Lance and Keith into the house.
“Lance!” a voice called out. It was an older girl, probably no more than two years older than Lance.
“Cam! I missed you so much!” Lance cried.
“We missed you! We heard you went missing and broke, all of us,” she cried. The two embraced for a long time before letting go.
“There’s someone back at the Garrison that I’d like you to see, but we can do that later,” Lance finished and walked into the family room.
Sitting on the floor were piles and piles of bags and presents, lining the walls of the living room. Sitting in the middle of the room was a small table that had some cards on it, a picture of Lance, and Lance’s favorite dessert, one he had every year on his birthday, panetela.
“Mamá? What’s this?” Lance asked. He gripped Keith’s hand harder and his face started to burn a bright red, small tears forming in his tear ducts.
“We’ve been doing this every year, on your birthday. This is what we did,” Rosa exclaimed.
“We never wanted to give up on you, so this is what we did. Lance, this is the first birthday we’ve had with you in years,” Joseph cried. It was obvious how much he missed his son.
“It completely slipped my mind that today was the 28th, all I wanted was to go home, and I’ve never been happier to go home in my life.” Lance was full on crying.
Lance sat down around the small table sitting in the living room and opened up on of the cards. On the front, it said: Tío Lance . Reading from the card, a singular tear fell down and landed onto the blue paper below.
Lance opened up another card, still crying. All of them saying the same message, Lance, we miss you. Happy birthday. We hope you come home soon.
All of them relayed that same message or something along those lines. Lance set down the final card after opening them all, stood up, and walked over to his family who was huddled around him.
He opened up his arms, wide, and brought them all in. He was still crying and it was very apparent that the rest of the family was crying too.
Keith was sitting out though, he didn’t feel like he was meant to be there. He didn’t feel like he belonged, but as usual, Lance opened up his arms more and brought Keith in, bringing him close and thanking him.
As the family remained in the embrace, Keith whispered to him:
Happy Birthday, Lance. Happy Birthday.