Hunk and Pidge had already curled up on the cavern floor and were fast asleep, Hunk’s snores bouncing off the cavern walls. Keith had gone with Samantha and Jael to tour the settlement, to learn more about the settlement and to be consulted about other means of reinforcing the Merionians’ defense system.
Allura, who would have otherwise loved to learn more about another culture, had stayed and sat with her cloak wrapped around herself, leaning on one of the cavern walls, gazing pensively at one of the lanterns on one of the crevices. Jael had invited all of them to tour the caverns, but the thought that she would not be flying her Lion in the battle the next morning made her temporarily lose her appetite for anything but fuming. Besides, Keith hadn’t invited her to come either – for all she knew, she would merely be intruding upon his time with Samantha….
Lance sat beside her, studying her dejected pose and the restless look in her eyes.
"Hey, princess, don’t you think you should be trying to get some beauty sleep? You’re going to need a lot of energy for tomorrow," he teased her softly, causing her to look at him with a small smile. But her face remained troubled and his words lit a spark of fury in her sky-blue eyes.
"What for?" she said, almost bitterly, holding her cloak more tightly around her. "I’m not going to be doing any flying anyway. I guess I should even count myself lucky that Keith allowed me to join the raiding parties."
Lance leaned back on the rock and held back a grin at her seething indignation. Deep in the heart of the cavern system, the rocks in these area were warm, but not hot enough to cause burns. "You know, princess, just because Keith didn’t allow you to fly the Blue Lion tomorrow, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect your abilities as a pilot. He’s just trying to protect you," he said softly.
"Protect me," she choked out, standing up abruptly and pacing. "As if Nanny and Coran don’t do enough of that already! Why does he have to suddenly get the urge to play nursemaid? How many times do I have to remind all of you that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself?"
"It’s not that simple, and you know it, Princess," Lance said, following her pacing with his eyes. "You have to remember that while the rest of us may be expendable, you aren’t. And it’s a part of our duties, Keith’s most especially, is to make sure that you stay safe." He waited until her back was turned to him before he added under his breath, "And it would probably drive Keith insane if anything ever happened to you."
The Princess sat back down beside Lance again, blissfully unaware of what he had just said, her brow still furrowed in a troubled frown. "I guess I just can’t help but feel frustrated that he would rather have someone who has never flown my Lion before to fly it in battle tomorrow," she said, tears filling her eyes again. She hastily wiped them away with one hand. "I know she’s a better fighter than I can ever hope to be, and I know you guys think so, too, but… " she trailed off, cradling her face on her knees.
"It’s not like that at all, Princess, and you know it," Lance said, awkwardly patting her on the back. " Samantha will take good care of the Lion, don’t worry," Lance said reassuringly. "But damn, I wish she didn’t have to go either," he muttered under his breath.
Allura turned to him in surprise. "You’ve known her a long time. Did you and Sam – how did you call it – date back on Earth, too?" she asked hesitantly, watching the play of emotions on Lance’s face.
Lance laughed shortly. "No, no – Sam was my best friend. I saw… I mean, I see her like a sister," he explained absently, leaning back his head upon the two hands he had placed at his nape. "You only date girls whom you’re interested in a romantic way."
Lance’s words fell into a pool of silence that lengthened until Lance realized that the Princess hadn’t responded to his statement. He glanced at her, watching her smooth forehead furrow and the way she bit her lip as she mulled over what he had just said . "Princess?"
"You said… Keith and Samantha used to – date?" The princess’ troubled frown grew deeper and Lance, perceptive as always, could sense her tensing beside him, waiting for his reply.
"Yes – no… well, not really," Lance explained awkwardly. He blew out a short, exasperated breath. "I forced the two of them to go out on a date the first time," he said with a reminiscent smile. "Keith was becoming such a stick-in-the-mud because all he focused on was school, and I thought he needed some fun in his life, so I set him up with Sam. I thought that they would hit it off – and they did. They became really good friends, but I guess they never really saw each other in that way."
"Oh." It was one small word, but it spoke volumes to Lance as he saw Allura’s frown melt into a relieved smile and her body sag into a more relaxed pose. "How did you and Samantha meet?" she asked, turning back to him, blue eyes sparking with new interest.
Lance laid back and smiled fondly at the memories. "Our fathers have been friends from their own days at the Academy – Sam and her family also had a house at the Cape where my sisters and I spent the summer holidays. From the very beginning, it had always been Sam and I against my sisters, playing pranks, getting into trouble, looking for buried treasure…"
"The pair of you must have been quite a handful," Allura said with a chuckle.
"Oh, we were! Nana – my grandmother – always said that worrying about Sam and I took away ten years from her life," Lance said, chuckling softly as well. "Sam was unstoppable then, insisting that she could do everything I could do – and do most of those things better. She entered the Academy as part of the laterals class, unlike Keith, Sven, and me who studied there all our lives, but she still managed to graduate number 5 in our class," he grimaced. "It wasn’t any wonder that she and Keith got along so well… they were both single-mindedly determined to graduate well from the Academy."
Allura shifted position so that she would have a full view of Lance’s face. "You never told me about her," she said softly.
"I hadn’t seen her for two years until last night,"
Lance explained, a far-away look in his eyes. "She never went into the
service, left the Academy on the night of our graduation without telling
me where she was going." He shrugged. "There wasn’t much to tell then,
and there isn’t much to tell now."
"I can tell that she’s very important to you,"
she concluded sagely, leaning back on the rock and studying the softened
expression on Lance’s face. "I’ve never seen you look this way talking
about anyone –" Her face suddenly lit up in a wise little smile, pinning
him with her eyes. "You love her, don’t you?"
His mouth dropped in surprise and was about to deny what she had just said, then thought the better of it. He paused thoughtfully, scratching his head in boyish confusion. "Princess, I don’t know how to answer that," he finally admitted. "I didn’t know two years ago, that night before she left, and I don’t know now." He sighed again.
"What do you feel then?" she asked, then put her hand to her mouth with an embarrassed blush. "I’m sorry – I’m being nosy. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to."
Lance shook his head. "It’s okay, Princess – what’s a little nosiness between friends?" he said with a grin. "Just remember that you owe me a secret, too." He paused then suddenly smiled sheepishly. "I had five girlfriends back at the Academy – not counting all the girls I dated in between – but, the funny thing is, I never felt that any of them would always be there the way Sam was for me. I knew I could drop any of them and charm someone new – pardon the arrogance, Highness. But Sam, she was different. She knew me and she… I don’t know... she just…."
"Belonged?" Allura supplied wistfully, the pensive expression returning to her face.
Lance nodded, then chuckled dryly. "Turned out that I was wrong, though. She left," he said slowly. "You know, I never realized how much I missed her until I saw her again. And that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her as more than just her friend. It was like someone had stuck a missile down my throat when I thought she had gotten married to Jael." He grimaced, feeling disgruntled by what he was saying. "I must sound like a sap to you – this could ruin my reputation."
Allura laughed at the sudden change in mood. "Lance, with me, you no longer have a reputation to ruin. I’ve always known there was softy underneath that sarcasm of yours," she said with a grin, settling back against the rock and wrinkling her nose at him. She suddenly sobered. "I don’t think you were wrong about her, Lance," she said gently. "And it looks like Fate feels the same way, since she gave Sam back to you a second time."
He didn’t reply to that and merely stared up at the cavern ceiling as if there were something important there.
Allura regarded him with a thoughtful expression and decided to say her thought aloud. "Don’t you think that now you’ve been given another chance you should let her know how you really feel?"
Lance closed his eyes to avoid meeting the Princess’ frank blue gaze. "I don’t know if I can, Princess."
"Why not? The only way you’ll know if she could feel the same way about you is if you tell her that you’re in love with her."
He suddenly opened his eyes and met hers, and
Allura was startled to see that they were filled with a pain that she found
she couldn’t understand. "Because I’m afraid that she’ll just walk away
from me again."
"Are you sure what we’re doing is a good idea?" Keith asked as he , Lance, and Sven peered inside the glass doors of the apartment building where Lance had finally managed to track his mother down after five years of tracing her through her management service.
After finally finding her current address, Lance had convinced his two roommates to ask for an off-campus pass on the excuse of going on a shopping trip for books, so that they could accompany him on the visit and be introduced to his famous mother. He had voraciously followed her career as an actress for five years, and, now that he was minutes away from seeing her again after all that time, he almost wanted to run away. His heart thudded in anticipation as he viewed the scene of their reunion inside his mind’s eye, his mother’s arms opening to welcome him and ask why he had waited so long to see her….
"Don’t worry, Keith,, she’ll be really glad to see me," Lance declared stoutly. "She just probably lost track of us because Dad had gotten reassigned several times after she went back to work." He gestured for his two friends to follow him into the building.
A security man approached them as they took their seats on couches in the waiting area of the lobby. "May I help you, young men?" he asked, looking over their Academy uniforms and assessing them to be harmless.
"We’re waiting for Ms. Elizabeth Hawke to come down," Lance said to the security man with a wide grin. "Will she be here soon?"
The security man grinned back at him. "As a matter of fact, Ms. Hawke just called down and asked me to find her a cab. She’ll most likely be down in a minute. Fans of hers, are you, boys? Going to ask her for an autograph?"
"No, I’m her son. My name’s Lance, and these are my friends, Keith and Sven," Lance chattered giddily, his mounting excitement making him restless. "We’ve all come from the Space Academy just to visit her."
The security man looked him over with a puzzled frown on his face. "Seems that Ms. Elizabeth is too young to have a boy your age," he muttered under his breath. "Never heard that she actually had any children."
At that moment, the elevator doors opened,
and an arrestingly beautiful woman emerged from it, gracefully striding
out towards the building doors. To Lance, she was older yet still heartbreakingly
familiar, with her delicately featured face and her chocolate-colored almond
eyes.
Unable to hold back any longer, he broke away
from his friends and rushed across the marble lobby to meet her, arms outstretched,
grinning with his joy. "Mother! It’s me, it’s Lance!" he cried, not noticing
that she had stopped in mid-stride and stood as still as a statue as soon
as she had seen him coming.
He halted in front of her, putting down his arms, eyes looking up at her with love shining from them. He didn’t hug her as he wanted to – he remembered that she didn’t like being hugged, and he wanted everything to be right, he wanted to be right to her. For a long moment, she stared down at him, taking in the sight of his Academy uniform and his eager smile. He waited restlessly and looked down uncertainly, suddenly sensing that there was something wrong.
All of a sudden, he felt a hand gingerly patting him on the head. "Oh, Henry, what an adorable little boy," she said in a brittle voice to the security man. She turned to Lance with a practiced smile pasted on her face. "Would you and your friends want to have an autograph?"
"Mom?" Lance persisted, looking back up at her to give him a better view of his face and feeling a surge of alarm at her words, more uncertain now. "Mother, don’t you remember me? It’s Alex."
She smiled coolly at him, removing her hand from his head. "I’m sure you must have me mistaken for someone else," she said flatly, taking a piece of paper from her purse and signing it for him. "I’ve never been married, and I have no children. Are those two boys your friends, too? And what did you say your name was again?"
Lance looked up at her in stunned disbelief, at the graceful motions of her white hands tipped with perfectly lacquered nails, and her delicately featured face, older than he remembered but still heartbreakingly beautiful. His father often told him that Lance had gotten her eyes, the shape of almonds and the color of dark-chocolate… and she didn’t remember him at all.
"It was nice of you all to see me," she said, walking past Lance with the practiced smile still in place, giving Keith’s head a ruffle as she passed him and Sven on the way out of the building, leaving only the familiar whiff of perfume hanging among them. Lance stared ashen-faced in the direction she had gone long after the cab had driven away, unaware that his two friends were already standing beside him.
Sven laid a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right, Lance?" he said softly, leading him back towards the couch. Lance nodded stiffly, refusing to be led and moving towards the lobby doors himself.
"You were right, Lance," Keith said softly, trying to cheer him up. "You mother is a babe."
Lance looked at him with eyes burning with
unshed tears. "You’re wrong, Keith," he said flatly, as they pushed through
the glass doors and back unto the cold, winter streets. "I don’t have a
mother."