Nearly two years ago, Lance had gone on a solo diplomatic mission to a seemingly harmless planet, with the intention of recruiting them for the Coalition. It had been his first solo mission, and he had been so excited. He had researched and prepared and done everything he could to be ready to make the mission as smooth as possible, but had still been despairingly nervous despite his eagerness. It had honestly been kind of adorable for everyone else. No one doubted him – if anyone could get a planet to join the Coalition by themselves, it was Lance.
When he missed his first scheduled update, no one was worried. As meticulous as Lance tends to be, he often gets caught up on big projects and forgets to do things like sleep or eat. Missing one update wasn’t a huge deal.
When he missed his second update, everyone was a little wary, but they were so busy with other tasks and missions that they figured they could afford to give him the leniency of a couple missed checkpoints.
Upon Lance’s third missed update, everyone really started to freak out. At that point, it had been almost a whole day, and the mission really shouldn’t have taken more than a few vargas at most. It definitely should not be so harrowing and difficult that Lance wouldn’t even have a moment of free time to shoot the team a text, at the very least. And so the team had paused any other tasks, made their way to the bridge, and wormholed over to the Flxr planet to figure out what the hell had happened.
Numerous attempts at contact with the planet were ignored, and the team truly started to panic. Lance had not contacted them at all since he left, and now the planet he was supposed to be on was completely radio silent. They had descended on the planet in a fit of fear and fury, desperately hoping to find a sheepish Lance who had simply forgotten to check in. Instead, they were greeted with the smug royal family of the planet, boasting on how they had tricked the Blue Paladin, and he had been handed over to Zarkon in exchange for their guaranteed freedom, power, and status in the Empire.
Allura and Keith had slaughtered the royals where they stood. No one did anything to stop them.
For months after, the team had been a wreck. It was honestly like they didn’t know how to work with each other – they argued over every word and decision, screamed at each other for every little thing. They isolated themselves during every moment of free time. At the end, they were so broken and damaged that they very nearly called the whole thing off, too angry and miserable to be in the same room. Their reputation had taken a huge hit, so few people trusted them anymore, and they hadn’t completed a mission in months.
It had been the combined efforts of Matt and Coran that had brought them back together, actually. Coran started forcing them all into grief therapy – individually at first, then as a team. Matt had whipped them back into shape team-wise, reminding them how to trust and work with each other. Slowly but surely, they reformed themselves into a team. Although the pain of losing Lance had never lessened, it no longer threatened to tear them apart. They all learnt to live with the pain, to work with it.
That’s not to say they were perfect. They still didn’t work as well as they used to, they still didn’t spend as much time together as they once did. They were still family, but it often felt like they were no longer friends.
