Lotor sat in the bed alone as he waited for hunk to come back from their mission, he held a ring in his fingers with a soft gaze, he traced the gold band with the blue crystals on top with his thumb. He sighed, he couldn't believe it wasn't destroyed in the battle, the crystals must be Damn near indestructible.

"Hey we're back!" Hunk walked in taking his helmet off, Lotor was quick to hid the ring again as he looked at hunk.

"Update, druids are assholes and killed most of the blades of marmora, found Kolivan and Axca and krolia went with him to find more blades," he told Lotor with a heavy sigh and went for the snacks.

"Axca went to fight with the blades?" Lotor asked confused.

"They asked her too, good experience on the resume," he chuckled grabbing a bag of chips from the space mall.

Lotor nodded appreciatively to know what was going on again, he wished Lance would come talk to him.

"Not going to ask how Lance is doing?" Hunk asked seeing there was a lot on Lotors mind.

"Why? Is he hurt?" Lotor asked concerned immediately.

"Uh no no no, he's fine, you just usually ask about him every time I come down here," hunk pursed his lips.

"If something important happens you would tell me.." Lotor looked down as he touched his amputated arm gently, picking at the bandages a little.

"Hey don't pick," hunk slapped his hand away making Lotor jump.

"Your wounds are still pretty fresh, you've been close in infection a few times," he sighed and Lotor nodded but kept his hand on the edge of his amputate.

"Pidge is really excited on making a prosthetic, I'm sure she'll start with your arm since we can go off of shiros," hunk noticed but Lotor didn't move. Did he even hear him?

"Uh.. I'm going back up, send a mouse if you need help," hunk backed away awkwardly and saw Lotor lay back down with his back to the open hangar.

"Yikes," hunk sighed. It was depressing babysitting him.

—

"Maybe if we run this configuration," Shiro offered as he and Pidge were trying to get the lions up and running again soon as they've been flying on low but steady the next day.

"Still nothing, Allura try the sonic wave," Pidge looked at the blue lion with a sigh.

The blue lion charged up glowing for a moment but lost its charge and went back to nothing.

"Still not working," Allura sighed.

"It probably won't work again until our power cores are recharged," she crossed her arms a little with the two alteans behind her.

"Well our long range scanners still haven't detected any planets near by," Pidge told them disappointed. "No star system or nothing,"

"How long have we've been out here?" Lance was making little origami in his lion alone. They decided Romelle and Lance would fight to much so she stayed with Allura.

"Going on four movements,"

Everyone groaned loudly.

"How long is it going to take us to get to earth at this speed?" Lance put his head back.

"Didn't Pidge say 10 billion deca phobes?" Romelle asked.

"No I said 1 and a half years," Pidge told her flatly.

"Whoa whoa whoa there's a big discrepancy between 10 billion and one and a half earth years," hunk cut in wide eyes. "Which is it?"

"It's one and a half earth years!" Pidge snapped. "We've gone over this several times!"

"There may be a margin of error about a month depending on any time dilation we encounter," she explained quickly hoping this would be the last time she explained it.

"Look we knew this wasn't going to be an easy or quick voyage, but replacing the castle of lions is our top priority," Shiro spoke up as the voice of reason between everyone's tension.

"We just have to stay sharp and maintain discipline," Keith agreed. "We knew we'd be low on power when we started, we didn't plan on going through the galactic void but we'll get through it,"

"Don't worry guys we'll run into something eventually that'll turn this trip around," Lance leaned back in his chair with his arms behind his head.

"What makes you so sure?" Hunk hummed.

"If my experience has taught me anything, something will always come along to kill us," he told him in a way to optimistic tone.

"Before when I was one the run I was handcuffed half the time, so that had me focus a lot of my time trying to get them off," he beamed brightly but it felt sarcastically.

"And something tried to kill you?" Romelle raised a brow.

"You betcha! Almost dove into a star," Lance nodded.

Lotor smiled as he listened to lances voice, he made it sound like a fun wild ride, not them running from his father as the most wanted by the galra. The good old days.

__

"Hey Pidge, why is it so dark?" Lance watched out the window as hours went by and the stars seemed to be less and less.

"I can't be sure but my theory is that this area is surrounded by some kind of nebula that blocks out most of the light," Pidge explained looking around.

"So like black matter? I've heard about it," he tilted his head to the side as he started to try counting the stars he could see.

"That's not dark matter," she told him unamused.

"Also when it's this dark I guess it doesn't matter right guys?" Hunk teased as everyone cringed at the joke.

"This is why I ride with Lotor isn't it..." he pouted and Lotor shrugged.

"Don't think like that, but I think I might have an idea how to get the lions back to full power," Shiro nodded as Pidge looked up at him curiously.

"But you remember when we fought Zarkon and we were hit by that beam that drained all our quintessents?" He asked as everyone was invested hoping to get their power back.

"Yes, you were all completely incapacitated," Allura nodded.

"Right, but we managed to regenerate enough power to fight back," he agreed with a small smile.

"Yea we regenerated voltron ourselves," Keith remembered the battle.

"Exactly, I think that's how voltron is suppose work, since I... I disappeared... you've been relying on the castles crystal to keep the lions charged, but if you were a team of fully realized Paladins you wouldn't need it," Shiro leaned against pidges chair thinking about how he could help them now since he wasn't the leader anymore.

"Some of them aren't Paladins," Romelle hummed and Coran gave her a disapproving look.

"So we have to charge up with the power of friendship?" Lance rolled his eyes.

"I can't help but feel this is my fault, you were able to recharge voltron before, but since Lance came back and I joined..." Allura trailed off sadly.

"Oh yea cause the trust issues didn't just start when you kissed my boyfriend," Lance looked at his nailed unamused.

Shiro opened his mouth but closed it trying to think how to go about this. He pursed his lips shaking his head staying out of it.

"Lance I thought we were past that, I apologized," Allura gulped as she looked at him through the screen.

Lance folded more paper into origami with a small hum shaking his head letting her know she was not even close to being fully forgiven.

"I feel petty," he said finally with a shrug "I think it'll be entertaining for a while,"

Pidge covered her mouth trying to not laugh as everyone felt awkward at the tension.

"Are you done?" Keith asked flatly. A few more seconds passed as Lance thought about it.

"For now," he nodded.

"Being a Paladin takes training and trust, you all just haven't had time to focus on working on each other to find your balance in this configuration," Shiro sighed cutting through the tension.

"Well we got nothing but time now!" Pidge smiled.

"Hey Allura remember that time-" "Lance that's not funny!" Allura yelled wide eyes as he smiled satisfied.

"Lots and lots of time," Lance hummed shimmying his shoulders.