The bitter cold receded once they had gotten inside the caves, trailing the men in white cloaks as quickly as they could, given the depth of the snow. The walls were lit by small lanterns made of very thick glass, the glass giving the light at diffused glow. Now that they were within the caves, each of the men – there were around ten of them – put down the hoods of their cloaks and nodded their welcome to the Voltron Force and to Samantha.
A tall handsome young man with a shock of red hair stepped forward and bowed to all of them. "My name is Jael, and I am the leader of the Merionians. Welcome to planet Merion and thank you for coming to our aid."
It was Keith who stepped forward to shake Jael’s extended hand in his strong clasp. "I am Captain Keith and this is the rest of the Voltron Force. We are glad to be able to help, and thank you for warning us about Lotor’s plans."
Samantha had taken her own helmet off and presented each of the members of the Voltron Force to Jael. After she finished, Jael went to her and gave her a long, warm embrace. "I’m so glad you’ve returned to us safely, Samantha," he said. "I was so worried."
Lance watched Jael hug Sam, and he couldn’t deny the urge to punch out the young leader.
Keith, who was standing beside Lance, noted his murderous expression and held back a smile. Lance shot him a warning glance.
They followed the Merionians deeper into the labyrinth of the caverns lit occasionally by the thick glass lanterns, Samantha and Jael arm in arm leading the way in the dim light of the torches carried by the Jael himself and the other men ahead. The Princess was walking immediately behind them, followed by Hunk, then Pidge, then Lance and Keith bringing up the rear. Pidge moved to touch the cavern walls with his bare hands, and quickly pulled away at the heat.
"Yows!" he exclaimed. "It really is hot." He stuck his burned fingers inside his mouth. "How does this work? How do you live in here without setting this off ?"
Samantha stopped, walked back, and took a look at Pidge’s hand, swathing it with a soft cloth she got from within the pocket of her cloak. "Father thinks it has something to do with the chemical composition of our snow acting on the compounds in the rock. That way, the outermost layers are most unstable and the inner layers are safe for placing objects and shelves on," she explained. "As we go deeper into the caverns, the walls become relatively cooler, but they still provide us with enough warmth."
Lance frowned thoughtfully. "What do you do for water?"
"There’s an underground river that runs through the settlement and drains out at another entrance to the labyrinth," Jael replied. He turned to Pidge. "Are you all right? Can we move on?"
"Sure," Pidge said, raising his bandaged hand in a small salute.
The sound of voices and rushing water filtered through the narrow cavern walls, and all of them sensed that they were near the settlement within the caves. Jael alone was leading the way now with his torch, the other men having gone ahead when they stopped to look at Pidge’s burned hand. Samantha was walking side by side with Allura, Hunk with Pidge, and Lance and Keith remained at the end of the column.
Lance watched the graceful sway of Samantha’s hips as she walked ahead of them, a puzzled frown on his face. What had come over him earlier? He shook his head, as if to clear it, but he couldn’t deny how relieved he was that Jael and Sam were no longer walking arm in arm.
From the beginning, he had always known that Sam was not one of the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em girls he used to date back home, and he had always assigned the feeling to her being his best girl friend – his only close girl friend. Keith was right last night when he said that Samantha was the only woman outside of his three sisters, his grandmother, and, now, the Princess, whom he had allowed to be so close to him. He never really thought about it because she had always been such a permanent fixture in his life, their endless bickering, their propensity for getting into trouble, and their unspoken support and affection for one another. Somehow, she had always… fit. She had always belonged in his life that he took it for granted that he would ever have to face a life without her there.
Then she had gone. It had hurt him, but life went on. He never looked for her out of respect for her desire to live a life without any connection to her past. He understood that – after all, didn’t his mother… Suddenly realizing the direction of his thoughts, his puzzled expression hardened into a scowl. These were just Keith’s ludicrous ideas weaving into his brain again, and he didn’t like them at all.
The quick patter of footsteps distracted Lance from his thoughts. Looking towards the front of the column, he saw a young girl of about twelve carrying a baby girl with a shock of red hair of about a year old in her arms. The baby reached out to the Jael, gurgling delightedly.
"Brother Jael, they await you at the village – however, Jessamyn wanted to meet you ahead of the others," the young girl said, looking curiously at the members of the Voltron Force.
"You mean to say you wanted to see our guests before the others," Samantha told the young girl with a laugh, taking Jael’s torch from him and grinning fondly at the tight hug that the baby gave him once she had gotten into his arms. A gentle tug of Sam’s cloak by the young girl brought her attention back to her.
"Oh, I’m sorry. Opal, meet our friends, the Voltron
Force from Planet Arus. Guys, this is Opal, Jael’s sister." Sam said. Opal
gave a small curtsy and smiled shyly at them, then hid behind Samantha’s
back. "And the baby is our Jessamyn."
"’Ammy, ‘Ammy!" the baby in Jael’s arms was wailing,
reaching out for Samantha. Sam handed Opal the torch and hurried to rescue
Jael from the little one’s flailing arms, reaching for the baby with a
loving coo in her voice.
Lance felt like he was punched in the stomach, and his entire world whirled off its orbit in that one moment as he watched the baby snuggle against Samantha’s warm, welcoming body. Did the baby just call Samantha her "Mommy"?
"Jess usually gets what she wants," he told the team, half apologetically. "I’ll go ahead to the village and prepare our guests’ quarters. Opal, please give the torch to one of our guests – we won’t need it. Please excuse us."
Opal handed the torch to Pidge, who had drawn nearer to Samantha to get a closer look at the baby, then picked up her skirts and followed Jael into the dark.
In the meantime, Jessamyn had snuggled into the crook of Samantha’s neck, gurgling happily. As they walked through the caves, Pidge walking right behind Samantha with Lance to light the way for the rest of them, the baby peered over Sam’s shoulders and regarded the new people with a mix of caution and curiosity. Lance saw that under the mop of red curls, the cherubic face had a pair of large, luminous silver gray eyes just like Samantha’s.
Samantha’s baby. He was too damned late. He was too late, and he felt a heavy weight settle upon his chest at the thought. The sight of her baby made it real to him, the clarity of what he had lost and what he had truly felt all along.
He had always taken for granted the fact that Samantha belonged with him, thinking that she would always be there, that there would always be time. When she left two years ago, he had been able to bury the feelings away in the thinking that he simply had another lapse of judgment, that things were better off without her there. But seeing her again brought back the feelings made much more powerful by absence, feelings which he had ignored because they had built little by little every year they had been together, but now almost drowning him in their intensity.
The feeling of loss twisted Lance’s stomach far more intensely than the first time she had gone, but he strove for a casual attitude as he walked nearer beside Sam.
"So, Sammy, whose baby is she?" Lance asked, hesitantly touching the soft silk of red curls on top of the baby’s head. The child looked at his outstretched hand suspiciously, her wide-eyed expression of alarm causing the others to laugh.
"Looks like your vaunted charm isn’t going to work on that particular woman!" Allura said over a chuckle, cooing at the baby over Lance’s shoulder. "Such a shame because she looks just like your type, Lance."
Sam kissed the top of Jessamyn’s head tenderly. "She’s Jael’s. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?" She carefully plucked the baby from her shoulder and held her out to Lance. "Do you want to hold her?"
The twisting sensation in Lance’s stomach intensified as he took the child into his arms. If I hadn’t been so stupid - she could have been mine. Jessamyn looked at his white face for a long moment, then sensing he needed some comfort, snuggled into the crook of his neck in a gesture of friendship. He held the child close and fought the urge to take Sam by the shoulders and shake her, blurting out instead, "Why didn’t you tell me that you had gotten married?"
"Married?" the rest of the team, Sam included, repeated the word in a shocked tone.
"Where in the world did you get that idea?" Samantha said on a shocked laugh.
Lance stiffened, holding the child in his arms protectively. "Are you trying to tell me that you and Jael had this baby without even getting married?"
Samantha was blushing, but she stood her ground in front of Lance, her eyes flashing silver fire. "Not that you have any business asking, Hawke, but for your information, Jael happens to be my cousin and he is happily married to a village girl named Ella," she ground out furiously. "Jessamyn is their baby and I am her godmother – and you should clean out your mind with bleach!" With that she moved off to the head of the line, leaving a vastly relieved Lance with Jessamyn in his arms.
"How do you feel?" Behind him, he felt Keith’s sympathetic hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t reply to the question. "I suppose you want some ketchup with that?" Keith asked, his voice ringing with amusement.
"With what?" Lance said, irritated by the twinkle in his friend’s eyes.
"Your foot."
Lance grit his teeth to keep from shouting. "Why does everyone think they’re such the wit today?" he said in a low voice, patting his hand on the baby’s back to soothe her. But he could feel the color rushing back into his cheeks, and the heavy weight on his chest suddenly lifted at Sam’s furious tirade. Her words had provided him with an almost physical relief.
Keith watched the play of emotions on Lance’s face and held back a chuckle. Instead, he moved to the front of the column beside Pidge, the amused smile lighting up his face hidden from Lance’s discomfited gaze.
A
Second Chance -- A Council of War
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