Pidge has a twin sister named Katie and Lance keeps mixing them up
I hope you like the twist with this one! Canon verse, divergent. Pre-relationship.
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“So, Pidge,” Lance says with a calm completely absurd for the situation at hand, “you have a twin now.”
“I’m Katie,” Katie - the one wearing Pidge's casual outfit says. Oh boy was this awkward.
“It’s not like I meant for this to happen,” Pidge adds when Lance turns to the one wearing a dress, her shoulders slumping. “But yes.”
“This is awesome,” Matt adds from his seat on the couch, on the edge of his seat. “I have two genius sisters now.”
Katie, seated next to him, tears up. “But I’m a clone,” she says with a wobbly lip. “There’s just as good a chance I could hurt everyone like Shiro did. Who knows what kind of control Haggar still has on me.”
"We'll figure out something, I promise," Matt assures her, taking her shoulder and wrapping her in for a hug. "It's my turn to save you."
Lance locks his eyes onto Pidge, noting the way she clings a little too tightly to the skirt of her dress and how her gaze never drifts away from the sight of her brother holding a girl who both is and is not her. The unease is clear as she takes a small step backwards.
"Hey, this is great, isn't it?" Lance says, nudging Pidge's shoulder. If there was one thing he was decent at, it was diffusing tense situations. Pidge was in dire need of it now. "You were always complaining about not having enough time to get work done. We're gonna be set!"
Pidge is like a deer staring into the headlights of a car. "Yeah," she responds numbly, sparing the slightest of glances his way. "I'm gonna use the bathroom - was in that cryo-pod a long time."
She's gone before Lance can get another word in. He exchanges a worried glance with Matt, who holds Katie even closer, allowing her to cry her fill on his shoulder.
Lance catches up swiftly, a gift of his longer strides. "Pidge," he whispers gently, "Talk to me."
"What is there to talk about?" Pidge inhales, a clear attempt to hold back her own tears. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine about it," he tells her.
"I just spent the last year in a cryo-pod, Lance." Pidge's chest rises and falls rapidly and she breathes shorter and quicker as if to match it. "I lost a year of my life. My brother is holding the person who took my place and piloted my Lion - am I even the Green Paladin anymore?"
"The Green Lions knows, I bet she'll be thrilled to see you back," Lance assures her. Yet... in the back of his mind, Shiro's return plays like a horror movie. He prays it's different this time.
Pidge sniffles, breathing in deep. "I missed you," she cries, wrapping her arms around his torso and holding him tight. "I'm scared I'll lose you. I'm not the Pidge you spent the last year with."
"You're not going to 'lose me'," Lance assures her, hugging her back tightly. "You're Pidge and we still have all our memories from before you were captured. You and Katie are both my friends and that will never change. I swear."
He can tell she isn't yet convinced, the way she somehow manages to hold him even closer. Lance swears to himself that he will make this right. He'd asked Pidge to be his friend when they first became a simulator crew at the Galaxy Garrison, he wasn't about to take that back.
