Gifts Part 6: Years 3236 to 3238

by JoAnn

See Part 0 for the Disclaimer and related information

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Year 3236

Be All You Can Be

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Snug in their temporary bolthole, the two pilots fling themselves out of their spacecraft and frantically start pulling out spare parts and repair kits.

*Bloody hells... At least we managed to get all of them... But now, our time frame to get into place just got severely shortened. Good thing Keith insisted on bringing enough parts with us to almost _make_ ourselves two new fighters...* A twinge in his Gift-sense suddenly spiking in warning has Lance turning and lunging at Keith. *NO!*

Clearing both of them with the momentum of his leap, he slams them into the opposite wall just bare seconds before the engine blows in Keith’s fighter. Lance manages to get his arms around Keith, protecting his head and back from the impact of their bodies against the unforgiving wall.

“Keith? Keith?! Are you all right?” Lance frantically pulls back a bit, now kneeling between Keith’s legs, so that he can see Keith’s eyes.

Blearily, Keith opens his eyes. “Yeah, I think so... I can feel and move everything, anyway...” He starts to shake his head, but stops at Lance’s glare.

“No. Don’t move your head yet... Does any of this hurt?” Lance carefully presses down Keith’s spine.

“No. Your turn.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t the one hitting the wall. And all the fragments went _that_ way...” But he abandons his protests at Keith’s lifted eyebrow.

Keith, too, carefully runs his hands down Lance’s spine, and checks his hands and arms. Voice soft and low, he murmurs, “No pain? Good... Everything seems fine here...”

With their physical bodies clearly fine, Lance collapses on top of Keith, clutching the warm, _alive_ body tight, even as he shakes. “What happened? Why the hell didn’t you realize your engine was going to blow?!?”

Keith hunches his shoulders, shaking as well, even as he wraps his arms around Lance, comforting. Thinking aloud, he absentmindedly strokes the body on top of him. “I thought we were in a safe place. Temporary, but still safe. My gift only helps when I think I’m in danger. And, it only works in regards to enemies. I don’t have any sort of future sense with objects. The buildup of gases that probably caused the engine to blow must have happened in battle, when I wouldn’t have heard the warning sounds... By the time we got here, it was probably past any warning signals. I’m lucky the ship didn’t blow on the way here...”

Lance glares into Keith’s eyes. “That’s not what I wanted to hear. I want to know that you can keep this from happening again.”

Keith just shrugs, helplessly. “Guess I’m going to have to depend on you.”

Startled, Lance’s eyes widen. Heat shoots throughout his body at those words, and, with the terror subsiding, he can’t quite keep his body from betraying him. Mortified, Lance turns a dull red and starts to pull away. *Damnit. Why is he the one guy I can’t read? I don’t know if he’s going to hit me or kiss me...*

Keith’s arms tighten in surprise. “Lance..?”

Mouth tight, Lance forces himself to look at Keith. *Is that hope in his eyes? Maybe I was right from the beginning...* “I’m sorry Keith. But... I’m... In love with you. And in lust with you.. “ Swallowing, Lance manages to continue. “Ever since I first saw you. Normally I can keep control of all of that, and keep it from bugging you...”

Keith’s arms tighten around Lance. “I’d really rather you didn’t keep it from me...” Moving in slowly, he presses a gentle kiss on Lance. Moving back, and letting Lance see him without barriers, Keith smiles slowly. “I love you too. In just that way.”

A beautiful smile lighting his face, Lance closes the distance between them.

They end up taking more time to repair their ships than they expected.

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Stretching, marveling at the ease in his body, Keith sighs softly as he settles himself into his fighter. A smile flashes on his face for a moment, then his face smoothes once more into its accustomed mask.

Without bothering to check, he blasts off, Lance’s fighter shadowing him, perfectly in sync.

----------------------------

Smiling, Lance settles deeper into his seat, a small part of his mind searching for the enemy ships he _knows_ are out there. *We spent way too much time back there.* His smile widens involuntarily. *Very, very pleasurably spent, but, we’re almost certainly going to pay...* Abruptly yanking his wandering attention back from the distracting memories, Lance spots a flicker of a disturbing signal at the edge of his sensor range.

Immediately shifting his ship toward the flicker, Lance absently notes that Keith’s fighter follows effortlessly.

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Keith’s face is lit with an unholy smile of pure joy. *Battle never felt this good before. It’s almost as good as the sex...* Twisting, turning, dancing through space, with Lance matching every move, they decimate the enemy ships before them. Feeling a thrum of joy down the connection he feels with Lance, Keith’s smile widens even further.

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*Wow. I never knew this was possible. We’re linked, really, truly linked... Bondmates... No wonder I could never find a description of it anywhere. There aren’t words to describe it...* Smiling maniacally, Lance can _feel_ the joy singing through Keith. *So that’s what he feels in battle... I always wondered...* Letting out a whoop that only he can hear, Lance sinks into the battle-dance, feeling Keith’s Warrior Gift reach out across their link to encompass him as well.

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Year 3236

Learning

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Two dark figures look at the sprawling metropolis before them in complete and shared disbelief. Shaking their heads, they exchange a look, and disappear.

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Back at their temporary base, Lance starts scrubbing off the black soot. “I thought we were supposed to destroy some sort of weapons base or lab. But, that --”

“That was just a city. I didn’t see _anything_ that looked like a lab. Or a weapon. At least, not by our standards.”

Pausing in his washing, Lance looks suspiciously at Keith. “You got an idea.”

“Sort of..”

“Spit it out already -- it’s probably good.”

Keith blushes.

Lance grins at him. *Who would have thought Keith could blush so easily...*

Keith rolls his eyes, but grins back. “All right. We got here a lot quicker than we calculated -- two months travel. And it’ll probably be quicker getting out of Drule space than it was getting in. We could just poke around for a bit now, since we have three years to finish the mission.”

Tilting a challenging look at Keith, Lance manages to keep his face properly appalled, though he can’t quite smother the laughter in his eyes. “_You_ just want to take this chance to satisfy your curiosity about Drulian society and history. Nevermind that we could just blow this place up and be back in Alliance space in time for holidays...” *Not that feels like the _right_ thing to do. Staying here feels right, oddly enough...*

Keith turns a look so innocent it can’t be believed on Lance. “ ‘Know your enemy’, Lance. What could be wrong with that?” *He’d be arguing a great deal more if he really thought we ought to blow the place and be done with it.*

Unable to hold onto his control, Lance laughs. “Right, Keith. Sure.” Then, his smile turns lecherous. “Sounds good to me -- two years away from nosy neighbors and interfering COs...”

Keith blushes but manages to grin wickedly back.

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Tiredly, Lance rubs his eyes. “C’mon Keith, give it up for tonight, will you?”

Hunched over the monitoring equipment, Keith waves his hand in negation. Answering back in broken Drule, Keith mutters, //Not yet. Catching class in session rare...//

Looking over his shoulder, Lance snorts, and answers in kind. //Helps only with understanding!// The teacher is drawing some arcane picture on the erasable screen in front of the classroom.

//I do.//

“What?” *How can he know what’s going on?*

Not moving his eyes from the screen, typing in the occasional notes, Keith shrugs. //Some lessons constant. Learned when much younger.// “In the Temple.”

Incredulously, Lance gapes at Keith. “You had lessons at _the Temple_?” *I knew you kept stuff back, but this? I _know_ you went to prep school. The only time you could have gotten Temple lessoning was before that -- and almost all children who get Temple teachings become Scholars or Priests...*

Keith hunches further, instinctively shutting the link between them at the first whipcrack of Lance’s hurt surprise.

“Keith -- I didn’t mean to--”

Waving a hand in reassurance, Keith opens the link up again, cautiously.

This time, Lance has himself in hand, and just waits for an explanation.

//Later. Promise. Concentrate now...//

Sighing in exasperation, Lance shakes his head. Still, he quietly sets about getting ready for sleep, touching Keith lightly on the shoulder before he goes to bed.

----------------------------

Coiled together in their nest of blankets, Lance murmurs in Keith’s ear. “You owe me an explanation...”

Keith just shrugs uncomfortably. “It’s not much, really. I always wanted to go to the Temple -- all those books just waiting to be read, and those teachers with so much knowledge to share...”

Lance cuddles Keith closer, stroking him comfortingly.

Keith sighs, and sinks deeper in Lance’s embrace. “Books were my escape. I could get lost in the knowledge. It was a place where I didn’t have to worry about doing what anyone else wanted. If I wanted to know more, I turned the page. If I didn’t, I got another book. I guess I spent so much time in the Temple Library, the Elder Priest just automatically started teaching me. It was only for three years.”

Lance just shakes his head. *Only for three years? Prep school is only offered to fourteen year olds -- _prepared_ fourteen year olds... He must have been really, really young...* “How did you end up going to the Academy anyway?” *Maybe I’ll get a straight answer this time...* Hoping to relax Keith more, Lance carefully licks at a very sensitive spot on Keith’s neck.

“Mmmmm...” Keith purrs, arching his neck to allow Lance more access. His eyes slit shut, hiding his amusement at Lance’s tactics. *Well. It’s probably past time I explained this to him. He must really want to know, since he keeps asking...* “One of the Priests read me when I was ten, and told me I had the Warrior’s Gift and a danger-sense. Neither of those Gifts belong in the Temple, or in a scholar. When I looked at all the different ways to fight, flying suited me best...”

*Only Keith would research what branch of the military he wanted to go into before he even got into a prep school...* “You were going to the Temple, weren’t you.” *I wonder what it would have been like, if we met at the Temple...*

It’s not quite a question, and the words sends shivers down Keith’s back, spoken as they were against his skin. “Yes.” Twisting around impatiently, he catches Lance in a fierce kiss. Looking in deeply into Lance’s eyes, Keith smiles softly. “I miss the Temple. I miss how I fit in effortlessly. But if I had gone there, I would probably never have met you.”

Lance opens his mouth to protest this, to tell Keith about the prodding of his Sixth Sense until they first met -- but Keith decides to end the spoken part of their conversation. *Guess I should have tried somewhere other than his neck...*

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Curled even tighter together, exhausted, Lance mutters quietly. “I would have found you. No matter what path you took.”

Deep happiness welling silently from Keith surges through their link, to meet and mingle with answering happiness from Lance

Both sigh, and sink into sleep.

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Year 3238

A Matter of Interpretation

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Sighing, Keith stretches. //Right. What do we have so far?//

Lance snorts. “Nothing Hammond would accept.” //Though we’ve now got a nice working knowledge of the Drule language and some basics about their culture.// Groaning as he, too, stretches out, Lance sighs. //It doesn’t make sense.// “Unless whoever it was that linked this place with new weapons screwed up. _That_ would make sense. There’re no labs around here, and there isn’t even a small manufacturing plant. The only thing that’s here is that big arena, where they do some sort of stylized battle...” Lance pauses as he takes in Keith’s arrested look.

//We’re idiots.//

//Speak for yourself // Retorting reflexively, Lance can’t quite check himself.

Keith rolls his eyes. //It’s right there in front of us.// “Why is it a burst of communication that links this place with all the manufacturing of new weapons? It’s not a trade or a shipment of a prototype, but a _burst of communication_. The cause of the new weapons _is_ right here.”

Lance glares at Keith. //Quit talking around the subject.// Inwardly, he grins. *If his classmates could see him like this, they wouldn’t believe it. Keith, talking too much?*

Keith blushes. //Sorry.// Taking a deep breath, Keith carefully looks his idea over for flaws. “I think it’s the people. They’re the dangerous ones, the ones that are coming up with all the ideas. Once they get an idea working in simulation, they send out plans to the next designated manufacturing plant, and the weapons actually get made and field tested...”

Lance stares off in the distance as he puts the pieces together. *Kami. It all fits...* Abruptly realizing the implications, he grows cold. //So we have to destroy this place? Kill these people?// Horror dawns as he thinks of all the babies that were born just during their observation, of the people they’ve seen who quite clearly couldn’t care less about the war.

Keith nods curtly. //It doesn’t feel right though.//

Lance agrees feelingly. //There must be another way...// “Besides, I really don’t think the Drules will take kindly to purposeful destruction of non-warriors...”

Nodding in agreement, Keith thinks for a moment, and then starts speaking slowly. “Our orders were to neutralize the source of the weapons. It didn’t say anything about the permanency of the neutralization...”

Lance smiles slowly. //Yesss... That we can do, easily.// “Just get the plans for the newest batch of weapons they’re coming up with...”

Keith flashes a triumphant grin back. //Yes...// “And bring them back with us. That’ll fulfill what they ordered us to do...”

Lance looks solemnly at him. //They’re not going to be pleased with us.// *Not that this is anything new...*

Keith’s lips twitch. //That’s okay.// “I think we’ll get reassigned, anyway.”

Lance glares at him. *What?* //Out with it.//

Keith grins suddenly once more. “Did you notice that all of the _live_ oddball fighter pilots ended up in one squadron?”

Lance starts to open his mouth in denial, and stops, eyes wide as he takes that in. “A test?”

//I think so.// “I think he did the same for Pidge and Hunk. They’re bondmates, they were sent off on a three year ‘away’ mission, and the data we got has their fingerprints all over it.”

Shaking his head at the implications, Lance looks at Keith. //What do you mean?// *This must be why he didn’t even consider the idea that the conclusion of the report was wrong...*

Keith shrugs uncomfortably. “It’s kinda hard to put into words. I’ve seen vids of them fighting --”

“You snooped through personnel files?”

//Well.// “I wanted to find out about the squadron I was assigned to..”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Do you ever do things by just asking people?” *I’m not even going to ask about why he was looking at _their_ files when they weren’t in his squadron...*

Keith gives him a startled look. “You mean, they’ll just tell you things?”

//Argh. Never mind.// *Just when I think I’ve civilized him...* Covering his eyes, Lance misses Keith’s smirk. “Just go on with the story.”

//Right.// “I’ve seen them fight, and I even met them once. The way the intelligence data was put together in the data disc we got feels like something they’d do. More complete and with more attention to minor details than other batches of data I’ve gotten...”

//Huh.// “And they’re under Hawkins, along with the amazons and that one with the Sight...” //I see what you mean.//

“I hope Hawkins is collecting all of us. I never met him, but the coincidence of us getting the information from Pidge and Hunk’s ‘mission’ as the basis behind our ‘mission’ is a bit too much for me to quite believe. Besides, I think fighting with Pidge and Hunk would be a joy.”

Lance can’t help it, he starts laughing. //You would see everything through that light...//

Turning wide innocent eyes on his bondmate, Keith prods Lance into further hilarity. //How else is there to see..?//

Snickers winding down, the two of them reluctantly turn to more immediate business. //So.// “How are we gonna get the plans and get out without them realizing we were after the plans in the first place?”

//Some sort of distraction...// Keith’s wandering gaze focuses on the Arena. //There.// “If we read the communications right, this place has the highest concentration of prisoners. It’d be a logical place to try for a break out...”

//Yeah.// “And the Drules will probably just shrug it off and wonder why the Alliance didn’t send people sooner....”


Any comments or suggestions for JoAnn should be sent through me with either the story title or JoAnn in the subject line. I'll forward them without peeking. Really I will.

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