Pidge

What I wouldn't give for a Calculus book.

I've been in the medwing for nearly a week and I'm afraid that my brain is turning into mush. I need a computer. I need to do something. The Princess tells me that I'm lucky that I can even breathe. She's right, of course, but that doesn't mean that's all I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

That sounds selfish and bratty of me. I'm not usually like this, but the stress is getting to me. My mom used to tell me that I was too young for this military life but I liked the excitement. If there was ever a time I wished I was a regular kid, going to school, worrying about asking a girl out, it's now. Because if I'd been sitting in class instead of in Green Lion, I wouldn't have almost died...

I never felt more helpless than I did when I was in Green Lion. I imagined that that was how the little beads in baby rattles felt when they were being shaken around. I heard my bones breaking. I heard my voice screaming. But I was far away. I didn't have an out of body experience or anything. I think that if I had seen what I looked like when that Ro-Beast was done, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I just detatched myself from what was happening. Went to my "happy place" so to speak. No, it wasn't in front of a computer. It was home.

Home was a place of rolling hills and singing birds. My father was a scientist and my mother was a military officer. They wanted to chart unexplored territory so my mother chose the remotest planet possible to be stationed on, but that didn't mean that they weren't searching for paradise. Captain Atalanta Nicholas was the commander of Jlarta Space Colony on Jlarta Four, the only habitable planet in a system of four planets orbiting a young sun. Jlarta was a lush forest world, with rich resources and was close to being called Eden Eight. For once in his life, my father had a creative streak and decided against it, choosing a name that meant "Heaven" in my mother's native language. He was the lead scientist, ecologist to be more precise. My older brother Chip and I grew up surrounded by peace and knowledge. I was happy.

Then Doom found us. Jlarta was destroyed. I lost my parents and my home. My life was changed forever.

Chip and I were found by an Alliance Rescue Force; they came one week too late. From a colony of five hundred, we were two of the fifty who survived. With them, Chip and I had buried the dead. We buried our own parents. Then we joined the Academy. There was nothing left for us to do. I met Hunk there when he was a teacher's assistant and we became good friends which led to our seamless partnership. And the rest is history.

After all that, I'm surprised that being a little shaken up is bothering me as much as it has. I saw the bloody face of my father, the burnt cinder that a Doom blaster made of my mother, so why should stepping close to death scare me so much when I've already looked it in the face?

Simple.

I want to live.

Arus is my home now and I have friends who would give their lives for me. I will be forever in Allura's debt because she saved me. Just like she is forever in Keith's debt because he saved her. As much as the Alliance likes to yak about how its troops are noble and courageous, it's hard to find troops who actually are like that. Those guys are few and far between. I never thought I would be on a team where there was nothing but.

Being in the Alliance Forces isn't so bad, but this isn't the life for me. I want to defeat Doom as much as the next guy, but I don't like fighting. I don't like having to snuff out a life. I want to help people with what I know and what I can build. I'm doing that here, with the shield and things like that, but I want to help all people. It's something I learned from my father.

And from Keith.

He does it by protecting them while I want to do it by creating things, but we have the same goal. God, I hope he comes out of this one alright. As if meeting his father again after all these years wasn't enough stress...but having his father try to kill him must have done a number on Keith's head. And then killing Niloc instead....Good Lord. But he's a strong man. Keith that is. I mean, I'm not saying he'll come out of this spic and span, but I think that he'll do alright. He's got us right?

There's a knock at my door and Hunk pops his head in through the doorway. He's waving some data pads at me.

"Some new shield calibrations I thought you might want to look at," he says.

I smile. At last. Something to break the monotony.

Math.