Nights
Pidge leaned back from her computer and rubbed her eyes under her glasses. This latest addition to Green’s code was taking longer than she had anticipated, so it was late in their night aboard the castle ship. She knew that she probably should go to sleep.
Or…
Hunk had made a delicious snack using some tubers from Larasat and those were in the kitchen. She made to get up and head that way when a plate of the snacks appeared in front of her. Surprised, she looked up to see Matt holding the plate out to her with a grin. She grinned back, munching down on a tuber as he sat down next to her.
“What are you working on, Katie?”
“Upgrading Green,” she explained. “I want to add a boosting rocket, but I can’t figure out how to mount it without hindering Voltron.”
Matt nodded. “And Green is alright with this?”
A low purr sounded throughout the hangar and Pidge scoffed. “Of course she is – I wouldn’t do this without asking permission first.”
Another, lower, hum sounded and Green sent a mental image of the first time Pidge had opened up Green’s code to start modifying. Pidge twisted slightly to glare at the large cat. “That was one time!”
Matt laughed and Pidge reached over to punch him in the shoulder. “Rude. What are you even doing up this late?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “It still feels weird to be in the same place for this long.”
Pidge nodded. “Yeah, I bet.” She didn’t want him to dwell on that for long, though, so she quickly changed topics and brought up the time when their dad decided that he was going to upgrade their dishwasher manually. They laughed together and continued to reminisce until the morning.
Matt’s nightly visits became a regular thing. She was glad to have him back, and she knew that he was glad to be able to see her and Shiro again.
One night, Pidge wasn’t coding when Matt walked in. She had tried sleeping but gave up after about an hour and a half of the worst sleep she had ever gotten along with a lovely night terror to end her day on the worst note possible.
Curled in on herself and leaning against Green’s side as the lion surrounded her protectively, she didn’t notice that he had entered the hangar until Green shifted to allow him in. She knew who it was, but she couldn’t bring herself to greet him at all. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to need anything, he just sat next to her and looped an arm around her shoulders.
She waited a few minutes so that her voice wouldn’t shake, and then she started talking. She told him about the Garrison, and how hard she had worked to get in and fake her identity. About how lonely she had felt, and how she had despaired that she would never see him again. She told him about Voltron and how she hadn’t wanted to be a part of the team but then she did and while she knew that it was the right choice she still felt like she was betraying him by stopping her 24/7 hunt for clues. She told him how she missed being home and she missed their parents and she missed peanut butter, of all things. She told him how most of all she was scared that their mom didn’t know what was going on and how she would cope with losing her entire family.
In return, he told her about being captured and forced to fight in the arena. He told her about how he had been scared of Shiro in that moment of attack, before realizing that his friend was saving his life. He told her about the work camp, about the rebels that took him away. He told her about his training with those rebels and the subsequent life on the run. He told her about how he had to bury many of his friends in that cemetery that she had found, about how he had put the clues to find him in a last ditch hope that eventually his genius baby sister would find him.
They stayed together in the hangar until the morning, eventually falling asleep leaning against each other. It was the best sleep either had gotten in a very long time.