Keith's Knights: Part Two
Pidge's house was small but the perfect size for him. It had been cluttered with various gadgets and tools, and had been a nightmare to pack up, but Keith had rolled up his sleeves gamely and tackled the task like he did all others. They had been at it the entire day and their work was beginning to show. Keith thought that the empty walls and bookshelves were a little depressing and he had to turn his attention back to his packed box. Lance was somewhere watching the four boys who had come along for the day. Keith had his turn with them already and chasing after Ian, Ethan, Matt, and Jack for an hour had exhausted him more than a full day of packing did. At least Matt was quiet, preferring to be carried rather than run around with his cousin and his friends, but trying to stop Jack from climbing up a tree with one hand while making sure not to drop Matt had been one of Keith's many challenges that day. Hunk was in the basement putting away Pidge's tools, being the only one that Pidge trusted with the task. The man himself was in his bedroom, arranging his clothes in neatly labelled boxes that made Keith proud of him. In the meantime, Sven was out in the living room with Keith, wrestling a box closed.
"This was not my idea of a vacation," Sven remarked when the box popped open again.
Keith stood and held it closed so that Sven could seal it.
"Either you sweat it out with us or you go out with Romelle and the rest of them to shop."
"I'm here, aren't I?"
There was a loud clatter and they exchanged long-suffering glances before turning to the source of the sound. Ian and Ethan were hiding behind a stack of packed boxes and on the opposite side of where they stood was a fallen box. Sven had struck a bargain with Romelle that she would take the more active Jordan and he would deal with Ian for the day. He thought she'd agreed much too quickly but she must have known something he didn't because with the presence of Ethan and Jack, Ian was proving to be as much as a handful as his sister.
"What happened to the puzzle you were doing, Ian?" Sven asked.
"Dunno," Ian said with an innocent shrug.
"Ethan?"
"Dunno, Unka Sven."
"Lance, you're supposed to be watching them!" Keith yelled and prayed there had been nothing breakable in that box.
Lance came in, looking harried. Under one arm he had Jack and under the other Matty. They were both squirming and he grimaced when Matt landed a solid kick to his ribs. Both boys looked a little dirty and Keith guessed that they had somehow gotten out of the house and into the mud puddles in the backyard. Looking at Matt, Keith thought that the boy must have decided that being carried around was not as fun as getting himself dirty.
"I had something to take care of," he said tightly.
"LANCE!"
All three men winced as Pidge came storming into the living room. In one hand he had a broken datapad and in the other a sock filled with peanut butter.
"How did they do this?" Pidge asked, shaking the sock at them.
"Don't you appreciate the genius of it?" Sven tried.
"No!"
"Alright, alright," Keith said, picking up Ethan. "I think it's time to break for dinner. Where's Hunk?"
When it was silent, they could hear the muted banging coming from the basement. Keith wasn't sure whether he was going to laugh or cry when he realized that the box had hit the lock on the door when it had fallen. He keyed it open and stared up at a livid Hunk.
"Would dinner make you feel better?" Keith asked.
"Yes, it would," Hunk replied. "What are you doing to my son, Lance?"
Lance gratefully handed Matt to his father, kept a firm grip on Jack's hand, and turned to Keith.
"They fall asleep when they're full," he said wisely.
Lance had been right. They sat around the campfire Keith had built by the lake and the boys were all asleep on Pidge's sleeping bag nearby. They looked positively angelic by firelight with their rounded cheeks and peaceful faces, but none of their fathers believed that guise. Before he'd fallen asleep, Jack had nearly set the sleeping bag on fire by pushing it too close the fire as he was fascinated by it and wanted to be closer.
"If I were you, I'd make sure Jack stayed away from any more open flames," Sven said, laughing quietly.
"I try to keep him away from most things that can be turned into a weapon," Lance said, taking a swig of ale.
"We really should get a roundtable out here," Hunk remarked, smiling. "We're out here so often that we might as well."
"I don't think King Arthur and his knights did much drinking when they sat there," Keith said wryly, holding up his own full mug of ale.
He had never had much of a taste of ale but that did not mean he did not drink it when it was put into his hand. He looked around the fire at his friends, a small smile on his face. Sven had been the only one to leave Arus but he came back often enough so that they did not miss much out of each other's lives. Keith's growing family took up a lot of his time and he knew he took for granted the fact that Hunk did a lot of work in the castle and Lance was just down the hill in Voltronia. When they needed to get away, they usually visited each other and whenever there was wife trouble...well that went without saying. Lance seemed to be in trouble most of the time and it usually took having to dig through the castle's inventory for the good part of the day to find a present proportionate to the crime. Keith knew he'd become too comfortable thinking that they would always be there and to have Pidge leave was a reality check.
"You're gonna miss this, Pidge," he said, sliding a glance at his still diminutive friend.
"Maybe you'll be able to stop by the Garrison more often," Sven said. "I'll be there."
"Yeah, definitely," Pidge said brightly.
"And you'll come back here when you're in the quadrant, right?" Hunk asked.
"That goes without saying."
"Will you write?" Lance asked, half-serious.
The five men stared at each other and broke into laughter.
"It's not as if I'm going to another galaxy, you know," Pidge said, grinning widely.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow," Lance said.
"Besides, you're the first to leave," Hunk pointed out.
"No, he's not!" Sven exclaimed.
"Oh...uh..."
"First to leave in a while," Keith amended, exchanging a grin with Hunk.
"Anyway," Sven said, throwing them a look. "What kind of ship did they give you?"
"A revamped gunship," Pidge answered. "It'll be here tomorrow."
"I'm going to add a few extras," Hunk said. "Don't worry. We won't be sending you out there in a tin can with a side mounted laser rifle."
Pidge nodded. Lance poured more ale all around and talked of inconsequential things in that way that only friends can. Keith noticed that Lance was filling Pidge's mug with more frequency than the others and he arched an eyebrow at him. Lance just grinned and reached over to pour Keith another one. He then had to wonder how many times Lance had silently filled his mug. Judging by how sleepy he was getting, Lance had slipped him plenty.
"Relax, Great Ruler," Lance was saying confidently. "It's under control."
Keith looked at Pidge who was visibly swaying, his glasses on the tip of his nose and a goofy grin on his face. He felt a laugh threaten to erupt from his lips and he caught Sven's eye. Sven laughed outright and Keith joined him.
"What?" Hunk asked, still sober.
Lance poured him the last of the jug.
"You gotta catch up here, Hunk," he said, his heavy-lidded eyes even more so now. "Good thing I brought some more ale."
They got louder and a little bit more drunk, but fortunately, the boys did not wake up. So they sat around the fire, Keith with back turned to it so that he could put his feet in the water. Pidge went to sit next to him, doing the same. Lance, Sven, and Hunk started to sing a bawdy Arusian song, but in hushed voices after one of the sleeping children made a sound and scared them. Keith forgot that the next day he had to lead a ministerial roundtable concerning Arus' external trade, Lance forgot that Link told him to be home at midnight, Sven forgot that ale was a poor substitute for vodka, and Pidge forgot that he was leaving...at least for a little while. When the laughter died down and they settled into a comfortable silence, Keith saw Pidge look at each of them, his chocolate brown eyes suspiciously bright.
"Listen..thanks a lot for helping me out. I know it was tough with the kids and all. I mean all of you have families and I know you don't have a lot of time to yourselves...anyway, just thanks for spending that time with me."
"You're family, Pidge," Keith said.
"I know...but you know what I mean, Keith. I'm the only one without a wife or kids...I'm alone compared to you guys."
"Never," Sven said firmly.
"He's right," Hunk said. "We'll always be here for you, no matter where you end up. Space communication is only getting better and although I would be annoyed if you called me at three in the morning, I'll still sit down and listen to what you have to say."
Lance clapped him on the shoulder.
"Pidge, my boy, there is nowhere else I would rather be. I can't speak for the rest of them, but there's no way I would have let you go without a proper goodbye."
"Yeah, the party's going to be fun."
"Nah, that's an official goodbye," Hunk said, catching Lance's eye.
Leaping up, they grabbed Pidge--Lance at his head and Hunk at his feet--and waded in, tossing him far into the cold lake waters. He let out a yell that could have woken the dead...and woke the boys up. The excitement made them forget that they were in the pitch dark and they stood at the banks of the lake with their fathers and laughed with them as Pidge swam back, sputtering. Somehow his glasses had stayed on his nose and they moved out of the way as he splashed his way back up.
"I should have expected that but you distracted me with booze," he muttered, glaring at Lance and Hunk.
"You can't leave Arus without a dip in the lake with all your clothes on," Lance said, picking up Jack and daring Pidge to splash them both.
"You were the only one who hadn't gone through it," Hunk said with a shrug.
Squeezing out his clothes, Pidge sat closer to the fire and waited for them to gather around him. The boys had settled in with their fathers and Keith held Ethan close to him, watching the blue eyes disappear sleepily as soon as he was comfortable again. He looked up and saw Pidge watching him with something akin to wistfulness in his eyes.
"It must be nice to come home to a full house, huh?" he said. "I'll have to get used to living on a ship and not being able to just go to the castle or to one of your houses for dinner."
"There'll always be a home for you here," Keith said.
Pidge smiled at his former commander, then his gaze floated to the others, their faces flickering in and out of the shadows as the flames danced.
"Speech time," Lance said. "Go ahead, Pidge."
Standing up, Pidge cleared his throat.
"All of you managed to save and change my life in the first few years that we were together. I don't want to sound mushy or anything, but I don't want to leave without telling all of you just how much that meant to me. So...um...here goes.
"You were more than my commander and my friend, Keith...you showed me what it was to be an honorable person. Lance, you taught me how to laugh at any situation, to not be so serious all the time and to love life. Sven, from you I learned how to stay strong when it was hard to...a lot of the time. And Hunk...you showed me that it was okay to be smart and that it was okay to be different. You shared a lot of this experience with me and I'll never forget it," Pidge said, smiling. "I won't forget any of you...my brothers."
The other four were silent as he sat down, but Sven reached over and patted his back. Lance put an arm around his shoulder and gave him an awkward hug, but Hunk picked him up and squeezed him hard. Keith watched them all, saw the sadness in Pidge's eyes, and did not know what to say. Then, he remembered something. Lifting Ethan carefully and putting him back on the sleeping bag, Keith grabbed the sack that he'd picked up earlier that day.
"I was going to give this to you tomorrow, but I think it'd be better if I did it now," he said.
He reached it and tossed the items inside to the man they were meant for. The other four stared at the small metal object he'd give them and he held out his own, flicking the blade up for them to see what it was.
"Allura told me that we don't do knightings so I couldn't have each of you under a real sword to make you Knights of Arus, so I figured this would do," he said with a shrug, not wanting to make a big deal out of it.
Lance grinned, studied the detailing on the red handle while keeping Jack's curious hands away from it.
"This is great, Keith. I like the Lion head," he said.
"I don't know how any of us would ever forget what we went through, but I wanted to give you something more solid than your memory. Besides, it can also be used as a weapon," Keith explained.
"When you have to keep back your fans, just wave it at them, Pidge," Lance said. "I'm surprised you didn't have 'Knights of Keith' engraved on the handle."
"That's a little too hokey, even for me, Lance," Keith said dryly, knowing what was going to come out of Lance's mouth next.
"If you keep reading my mind, we're not going to have any fun here," Lance retorted.
Sven ran his thumb across the smooth handle, stopping at the silver Lion head screw. Hunk was studying the blade in the light, but Pidge...Pidge was staring at it in his cupped hands as if it held all the secrets of the universe. Keith had not wanted to make the gift a show stopper, but from the look on Pidge's face, it was just that. It was not as if he'd never gotten a gift before, but this night had become more than his goodbye party. It was like they were saying goodbye to the young men they had once been, the pilots, the explorers, the reckless soldiers...they were saying goodbye to their old lives and Pidge recognized that. So did Keith.
They looked at each other, understanding.
