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THUS WITH A LASTING LEAGUE YOUR TOILS MAY CEASE

One moment, they're fighting Zarkon in the battle that is supposed to end all; the next, Shiro is sputtering for air, sinking down into a dark sea. His helmet covers his face, and slowly he begins to breath as he goes under and the panic sets in. [break][break]

In, out, he tells himself. [break][break]

In, out. [break][break]

In, out. [break][break]

His breaths are shallow, and Shiro doesn't make any attempt to move until he touches the bottom, the sky and stars a distant memory to the bottom of the ocean. He falls unconscious, worn by the stress of hundreds of fights, thousands of days, and millions of miles. The current carries him up to the surface, slowly washing him ashore. [break][break]

WHATEVER MEANS OF SAFETY CAN BE SOUGHT

The sunlight streams in through the front of his helmet, and Shiro wakes to a blinding sun and the sound of life. Surfing, swimming, laughter. He recognizes dimly the sound of cars as the reality of his situation sets in. Somehow, for whatever reason, he has ended up on earth again. He must've ended up in the ocean, and his suit probably saved his life. Right now, he was probably near a vacation spot or something, and he could make his way to a police station or something and catch his bearings. His suit. Shiro could call the other members of his team, or send out a distress signal or something. [break][break]

He tries. Nothing. [break][break]

Using what's probably the last of the power in his suit, he propels himself up in the air and towards the beach. People watch as he sets down, and he notices one of them make a call on a cellphone. A couple people ask him questions but for the most part let him be, oddly enough. He finds out why, though, when some people arrive in a car and ask him to come with them. Shiro complies; they don't look particularly shifty, and seem to be in a position of authority, so he sits down when the door is opened for him, but assesses them anyways. His suit still covers his arm, and none of them know about it, so he figures that he could probably dispatch all three of them within a minute and be out of the car before any alarms are sounded. [break][break]

They bring him to a simple office building, and as he follows them in and goes up the elevator, Shiro continues to make exit plans. But all the people around him seem to be fairly normal, just going about their day. When they get off, they bring him to a simple medical evaluation room and hand him a medical robe before asking him to put it on. [break][break]

"What about my suit?" [break][break]

You can keep it, they tell him, and return once he's changed into the medical gown, suit folded up on the examination table. [break][break]

As they stare at his arm, his mind harkens back to the last time he crash landed on earth and they strapped him down and sedated him, treating him like a specimen. Shiro's heart races and he inhales sharply as they bend down to touch it, but there seems to be no inclination to study it much or do anything about it. [break][break]

How did you lose your arm? they ask. What can your prosthetic do? [break][break]

"I don't know how I lost it, but the prosthetic isn't harmful. It's just an arm." It's best not to mention the fact that it can melt through metal to strangers who picked you up at the beach.[break][break]

After this, they look at him a little warily but continue with a standard medical evaluation. Shiro gets asked some more questions - about his name, age, skillset. Worried, he tells them that he used to teach Japanese to elementary schoolers, thinking it best to hide from these people. He isn't allowed to ask any questions of his own before they allow him to put his suit back on and take him to another building, a very grand and large apartment building. They bring him up to an apartment, stocked with the basics, and say that they'll be back in a few days to check on him. [break][break]

REST, DISPERSING, TRUST THEIR FATES TO FLIGHT

Shiro spends the few days asking around to the neighbors, who are of all manners of life and many are willing to answer his questions. He learns that he's on an island called Tomodachi (ironic, since Shiro has no friends there). It has no connection to any other realm, simply a depository of people, and that those people come from all sorts of universes and dimensions. People on the verge of death, or even dead, have been brought there. So maybe, just maybe, his friends will arrive. [break][break]

Maybe Matt will arrive. [break][break]

When the people (the glorified social workers, as Shiro learns) come back to check on him, they give him a job as a third grade teacher at the elementary school . It'll cover all his bills, but he has enough left over to buy things to get him situated comfortably in his new life. The first thing he buys is a smartphone, and looks up every single one of his teammates, any person he can think of from his universe. No one shows up. [break][break]

When he goes to work, it's okay to work with children, unaffected by the horrors or scarring of war. They think his arm is cool, and keep telling him that he should be a superhero or something. Shiro tells them stories of Voltron, and one of the kids draws him their interpretation of it. It's by no means accurate (there are five lions stacked on top of each other, each painted a different jarring shade), but he hangs it on his fridge anyways. [break][break]

But they don't understand what he's been through, and even when he tries to sugarcoat it, occasionally a kid will still make a comment that should mean nothing but triggers something to him, and he has to have another teacher cover his class while he goes and works through it in the bathroom. His coworkers say that they get it, that anyone would feel that way, and their words always feel empty to him. Sometimes, on the street, he'll pass someone with purple skin and instinctively duck into the nearest shop to hide, or wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat and visions of the arena, but he'll try to shake it off and drown his fears, bury them deep within. [break][break]

IF IN THE MELANCHOLY SHADES BELOW

He's not sure if his mind is playing tricks on him, but one day Shiro sees what looks like Holt-hair get into a car behind the gym. They drive off before Shiro can run after them, and his searches that night come up fruitless. [break][break]

The next couple months, Shiro falls into a rut; teaching is only getting less and less fulfilling, and between his apartment and work, it feels like he's on a downward spiral on a path of no return. His panic attacks are more frequent, and when he goes to the psychiatrist to try to get some medication for it, they tell him he needs therapy. He goes for a couple sessions, before panicking and leaving in a hurry. It draws out too many painful memories, and Shiro has to push down the urge to hurt someone. His memories of beyond earth begin to lock themselves away again, save for a few choice happy ones with Voltron, his friends. [break][break]

Shiro begins to plan his everyday activities around avoiding people. He gets up at 3am to go on runs every morning, so as to be back at the apartment before the regular running people head out. Biking becomes his preferred method of transportation, and he takes every back alley possible to get to the school. It happens more often, waking up in the middle of the night with a yell, panicking a neighbor or two who come to check on him, cellphone flashlights lighting up the hallway. He used to keep a journal, to document various happenings throughout the day, but it becomes a place to document outpourings of self-loathing, every fear or what-if that occurs to Shiro. [break][break]

On a particularly good day, though, one of the first in the while, he signs up for a pass at a gym, figuring that he should stop making decisions around anxiety. It works, for a couple weeks. Shiro will make small talk with the person at the elliptical next to him, or spot someone doing weights, and he slowly tries to ease himself back into the world, even though he's alone. After entering the gym one day, though, he sees a poster for martial arts classes at the rec center with a Matt Holt, instructor, and Shiro turns tail and goes home, to lie down. He cries happily for what seems like the first time since the Kerberos mission was announced. [break][break]

THE FLAMES OF FRIENDS AND LOVERS CEASE TO GLOW

Suddenly, everything seems to fall into place. He checks the school records - Matt subs there sometimes - and the next time he comes in, Shiro's antsy for lunch to come already. The class will be out in the cafeteria, and he can go find Matt, or something, but Matt finds him first. He's waiting outside Shiro's classroom when he heads out, and there's not much of a pause before the reunion ensues. It's everything Shiro ever thought it would be, and more; because there are students milling around, and he never gets to live it down. [break][break]

He moves in with Matt after a bit; his apartment is large, and has room for more than just them. It's clear that he's got hope, and Shiro would like to think that he's got some of that too. He quits at the elementary school, too, and they start a flower shop/cafe. They call it Pawffee, and he enjoys spending his days snipping and arranging flowers, an endlessly calming activity made better by the company he's in. It's quiet, and while it's not the next big business (they could never expect it to become too huge, they sell flowers) it enjoys a following of regulars and friends alike, and they live comfortably.[break][break]

At some point, Shiro decides to make another go at the therapist's. It's difficult - of course it is - but he slowly goes through, trying to chip away every time at the knot that's always there in his stomach. But when it's hard, now, he's not alone; he has Matt, and he doesn't have to view the world with as much fear as before. [break][break]

YET MINE SHALL SACRED LAST; MINE, UNDECAYED

And as things settle into place, so do friends and companions, appearing and making their ways into Shiro's life. The island begins to become a place to call home, somewhere he might be okay staying awhile. While Earth will always be there, waiting, should an avenue ever open for returning, and the universe, which still needs them, he'd like to think, maybe it's not so bad to rest by the wayside.

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