Interlude: Coming Home
Olivia Yearling remembered moving away from Arus and crying her eyes out almost the entire way to Earth. She’d been seven years old and had not wanted to leave the only place she had known as home. She didn’t want to leave the built-in playmates in her two cousins and the children of her parents’ closest friends and most of all, she did not want to leave Ethan.
The young Prince had taken firm root in her young heart and even after thirteen years, she was not so sure if she’d ever really uprooted him. It was ridiculous to still hang on to her first crush, and she didn’t dare tell anyone about it because she thought she would eventually get over it. Yet, every time they visited, or when he came over for dinner while still a cadet in the Academy, she found that she had difficulty breathing and though she was quiet by nature, she was practically rendered a mute whenever he was there. Seeing as he was a year younger than she was, she felt like an idiot and usually banged her head against a wall when he left. There was no shortage of women in his life and not once did he show any interest in her, though like all men, she knew he appreciated her beauty by the glint she saw in his eye whenever he looked at her.
With long chestnut brown hair, big green eyes, and peaches and cream skin, she had had her fair share of male attention—some she welcomed, some she didn’t, and most she didn’t notice. She hadn’t wasted away waiting for Ethan by any means, but she usually lost interest quickly because she found herself comparing any man she dated to him. It rankled her to no end that she could be so foolish about one man when she was normally so level-headed about everything else in her life. She’d been a stellar student—her nose was usually in a book—and she was working hard towards becoming a doctor. Her parents loved boasting about her accomplishments, despite her embarrassment, and Morgan and Matt usually teased her for being the perfect child.
Oh, if only they knew.
Staring out the window of their rooms, Olivia took in the rolling hills surrounding the castle and the sparkling lake below. Voltronia stretched out far where there used to be only farmland and she could not believe how much everything had changed since they had visited last. She’d already met Dr. Gorma, the son of the doctor that had delivered every child borne from the original Voltron Force and who had passed away around the same Coran had five years earlier. Dr. Gorma, the younger, was a pleasant faced bearded man who looked a lot like his father and told Olivia that the hold his family had on the medical bay was turning into tradition. He’d shown her around and she’d been thrilled to see that she would be working with the latest equipment and would not just be drawing blood and giving shots. Gorma would take her on as a real intern and she was ready for the challenge.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Gwen asked coming up behind Olivia. “We haven’t lived on Arus for a long time, but I still can’t help thinking of it as home.”
“Yes, it is,” Olivia said. “I suppose that’s why Lotor wants it so badly.”
Gwen’s expression sharpened. “He’s a crazed lunatic who doesn’t know when to stop. If the Voltron Force needs to defeat him again to get him to understand that he’ll never get his hands on this planet, so be it.
“I’m going to be very busy, aren’t I?” Olivia asked quietly.
Gwen ran her hand from the top of Olivia’s head to the end of her shiny hair. “I hope not, sweetheart.”
“What’ll you be doing, Mom? Dad’s probably never going to leave his tools and I’ll be on rotation. Are you going to be on duty in Castle Control?”
“No. Your Uncle Lance has something more interesting in store for me.”
“I hope it’s not something that will land you in jail.”
“That only happened once,” Gwen muttered. “Although, we’d probably get into the same kind of trouble with this newest assignment.”
Olivia merely nodded. There were a lot of things her parents and her siblings could not talk to her about because she was a civilian, and she’d gotten used to being out of the loop. It didn’t bother her because she usually had her face stuck in a book, studying.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said. “Do you want to come along?”
“I think I’ll finish unpacking,” Gwen said. “Your father won’t be much help there so I should do as much as I can before Lance drags me out.”
Olivia kissed her cheek and wound her way through the familiar corridors of the Castle of Lions to the sunny afternoon. She drew many admiring glances from the soldiers posted around the castle but she paid them little attention because she didn’t notice them. Lost in her thoughts, her feet unerringly made their way to the old willow but when she saw who was sitting there, she almost turned around. If Ethan hadn’t turned his head and spotted her, she could have gotten away with it, but he'd looked up from his sketchbook and the pencil he held stilled.
“Liv,” he said with a smile that drooped slightly at the corners.
“Hi, Ethan,” she said.
“I was wondering when you would see the light of day,” he said. “Dr. Gorma putting you to work already?”
“No, just unpacking.”
“How are the rooms?”
“They’re great…just great.”
He nodded and turned his gaze back out onto the lake. She glanced down at what he had been drawing and was surprised to see Voltron looking up at her from his page. She had expected the lake and the castle...but not scenes of war. Her heart clenching at the thought of her friends going off, her brother among them, she turned to go.
“You going for a walk?” he asked, not looking at her.
“Yes.”
“Mind if I join you?”
She actually did mind, but she nodded stiffly. He got to his feet in one fluid motion that she could not help envying, tucking his sketchbook under one arm, and he fell to step beside her, his hands clasped behind his back. They walked in silence and she began to relax in his presence.
Ethan knew Olivia well enough to know that she was not big on conversation and that was fine with him because he was tired of talking. All morning he’d listened to Bethie rail about their mother’s lack of sensitivity and hardhearted approach to anything under the soon. As soon as he managed to shake free of her, he’d run into his mother who had to know everything that Bethie said to him. He told her half which he decided would a fair way of dividing his loyalties between them. Gratefully, his father remained closemouthed about the situation and Ethan was not going to seek him out just to ask what he thought. He was sure his father was running the gauntlet between his mother and sister as well.
Sliding his gaze sideways, he took in Olivia’s perfect profile, her green eyes focused on something he could not see. That was how it usually was with Hunk and Gwen’s second daughter—she always seemed to be some place else. Dreamy was the word that was usually associated with her, as well as beautiful and intelligent. He was no fool and he knew the perfect woman when he saw her, but Olivia was just a friend and did not seem to think any more of him than that. But if she even hinted at the possibility…
Shaking his head, Ethan brought his thoughts back to Arus. This was Liv, not some co-ed from the Academy or village girl with hopes of social climbing. He smiled sardonically as he pondered the fact that he would not have to worry about Liv wanting a piece of the Royal pie…she probably wouldn’t know what that pie was even if it hit her in the face.
“How’s flying the Blue?” she asked in that quiet way she had.
“Like a dream,” he answered. “I’ve flown the newest, fastest, most maneuverable aircraft available to man, and nothing can compare to the Blue Lion.”
She smiled. “When I hear you and everyone else talk about the Lions, it almost makes me wish I’d learned how to fly.”
“You have better things to do with your hands.”
Ethan nearly tripped as he realized how his words may have sounded but Olivia did not seem to notice. If he’d looked closer, he would have seen the rosy flush on her cheeks, but he kept his eyes carefully averted and missed it completely.
“It’s good to be home,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Arus has changed so much since I lived here, but somehow…deep down…it’s the same.”
“There’s a reason why her sons and daughters give their lives to keep her safe,” Ethan said vaguely.
Olivia looked at him. “I suppose so.”
Pausing, Ethan reached down and plucked a wildflower. He handed it to her and she smiled, twirling it between long, slender fingers. Brow knitted, he reached out and grasped her hand in his, studying it as if it held the secrets of the universe. Olivia was so shocked that she froze at the touch.
“You have beautiful hands,” he said, his blue eyes going back up to her green ones. “A surgeon’s hands.”
She pulled her hand away and looked away. It was suddenly difficult for her to catch her breath and her steps speeded up of their own accord.
Ethan’s mouth fell open with surprise. He was no mind reader, but if he didn’t know any better, that might have been the hint of a possibility that he had just been thinking about.
“Thank you,” she said. “I should be getting back. My mom needs help unpacking and I told her I’d help.”
“Sure,” he said easily. “Liv…”
“Yes?”
“I’ll come see you later.”
“O-okay.”
She walked as quickly as she could without running and she could feel his eyes on the back of her head. She didn’t dare turn around. When she made it back to her family’s rooms, breathless, she realized that she was still clutching the flower he had given her.
Ethan thought about going to his father and picking his brain about women, but realized that might not be especially appropriate given the circumstances. He had an image of his father stringing him up by his toes in the middle of Castle Control and decided against it. There was one other person he could talk to, but that could easily go wrong as well.
Jack answered the door on the second chime, his eyes clear but his hair going every which way.
“Nap?” Ethan asked.
“Was,” Jack muttered, turning and going back into his room. “If you want to talk about Bethie, you can turn right around and walk out of here cause I don’t wanna hear about it anymore.”
“No, I don’t want to talk to you about Bethie.”
Jack visibly relaxed. He sat on the edge of his bed as Ethan took the desk chair. The room was a little spartan, but there were a few pictures tossed here and there. One that caught Ethan’s eye was Jack and Bethie at her eighteenth birthday. They were making faces at the camera, a sharp contrast to the finery they wore, but there was a freeness about them he knew that they would never have again. It made him a little sad.
“What’s up?” Jack asked, smoothing down his hair.
“Olivia didn’t leave a boyfriend on Earth, did she?”
Ethan didn’t even blink before he was on the ground his arm twisted on his back and Jack breathing down his neck.
“I guess that’s a no,” Ethan gasped. “Could you let up a little, Jack? I’m second to the throne you know…”
“Why do you wanna know?” Jack asked, more casually than his position warranted.
“Just curious…OW!”
Jack’s hold tightened on his arm. “Mmmm…well I like to keep curious men away from my cousin. There does tend to be a number of them around, you know. I can’t just let any old guy have a go at her.”
“I’m not just any old guy. I’m a Prince!” Ethan protested.
“I’ve met plenty idiot princes.”
“I’m your friend.”
His hold loosened…but not by much. “That’s true.”
“I like her, okay.”
“Like her or like her.”
“Are we in the Academy here?”
Tightened.
“OW! Okay, okay…like her.”
Jack let out a chuckle and finally let him up. He sat back down on his bed as if nothing had happened. Ethan noticed that his friend really did look tired and he started to ask if Jack had something on his mind, but before he could, Jack beamed a bright grin at him.
“That was the most fun I’ve had in days,” he confessed.
Ethan rubbed his shoulder and glared at him. “Glad I could help.”
”You realize, any move you make on Liv has to be with the intention of…you know.”
The blood drained from Ethan’s face. “Way to jump to consequences.”
“I’m glad we’re on the same page. Considering the relationship between her parents and your parents, as well as the fact that you’ve been friends since the day you were born, you can’t treat like you’ve treated your past girlfriends.”
“You sound like you’ve thought about this.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Not really. It’s just common sense.”
"And I've treated past girlfriends like a gentleman. I'm not a love 'em and leave 'em type. It's not like I left a string of broken hearts behind me, unlike yourself. I'd treat her right, Jack."
"I'm sure you would, Ethan," Jack said as if he were speaking to a five year old. "But do you usually run into your ex-girlfriends in a room filled with your family and friends, pretending that nothing had happened between the two of you? And Liv's not like other girls. She's always been more concerned with her books and school...she's got limited experience, is what I'm getting at. If you hurt her, you're gonna be bringing down a world of pain on your head. I'm telling you right now that I would cause a good part of it."
"Thanks a lot, Jack," Ethan said, his mood plummeting to the area around his boots.
“It's not a pretty picture, is it? So have I effectively talked you out of it?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Ethan walked out of Jack’s room, his shoulders slumped. Jack let out a snort of laughter and laid back down. He knew as well as Ethan that this was not over yet.
