Chapter 11: Dots adding up
The silence in the private medical suite was absolute, a vacuum that sucked the air from the room. The doctor’s polite smile faltered under the weight of it. He cleared his throat, tapping his datapad. “I’ll, ah, give you all some privacy. A nurse will be in shortly.”
He retreated, the door sighing shut behind him, leaving them in the sterile, over-bright quiet.
Miguel McClain’s face, initially slack with shock, darkened like a gathering storm. He looked from his unconscious daughter, pale against the white sheets, to the cluster of young men—his daughter’s teammates, her brothers in arms. The confusion in his eyes hardened into a hot, paternal fury.
“What,” he said, the word low and dangerous, “did he just say?”
Elena tried to shush him, her hand on his arm. “Miguel, not here—”
“Pregnancy?” Miguel’s voice cracked through the room, making Hunk flinch. He took a step toward the Paladins, his broad frame tense. “My daughter is pregnant?” He scanned their faces—Keith’s guarded expression, Hunk’s open-mouthed horror, the twins looking bewildered. “Which one of you? ¿Cuál de ustedes? Was it one of you? Tell me!”
“Mr. McClain, no,” Shiro said, stepping forward, his voice the calm, authoritative tone of the Black Paladin. It only seemed to incense Miguel further.
“Don’t you ‘Mr. McClain’ me! She lives up there with you! You’re all she sees! Did you take advantage? Did something happen on one of your missions?”
“Dad, stop!” Marco shouted, anger and embarrassment warring in his voice.
“We would never!” Hunk blurted out, his hands up. “Sir, I swear, we’re like family. It’s not like that.”
Keith’s jaw was clenched. “Lace is our teammate. Our friend. Nothing inappropriate ever happened. With any of us.”
The denials came in a frantic, overlapping chorus. The twins shook their heads violently. Pidge just stared at the floor, her mind clearly racing down a different, more logistical track.
Pidge just stared at the floor, her mind clearly racing down a different, more logistical track. The angry noise of the room seemed to recede around Shiro. His gaze was fixed on a scuff mark on the polished floor, but he wasn’t seeing it. He was seeing a different room, weeks ago, the castle’s kitchen glowing softly in the night-cycle.
A memory slotted into place with a cold, final click.
He saw himself, sleepless, padding towards the kitchen for water. The scene replayed with brutal new clarity: the soft, conspiratorial quiet that had hung in the air, the way it had shattered when he entered. Lace and Lotor, standing too close by the counter, bathed in the refrigerator’s pale light.
Their uniforms had been disheveled, hadn't they? Lace’s collar was skewed. Lotor’s usually pristine hair had a strand out of place. They had jumped apart with a speed that felt guilty, choreographed. Lotor had practically vaulted to the water station, his back unnaturally straight.
“Commander,” Lotor had said, his voice smooth but just a beat too fast.
Shiro had thought nothing of it then. Just two allies, tired, grabbing a late-night snack. He’d been preoccupied with his own ghosts. Now, the memory rewound, played again with horrible focus.
Abuelita Rosa’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts, sharp as a blade. “That one,” she said, her eyes locked on Shiro’s frozen face. “What’s with that face? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or you’ve just remembered one.”
All eyes turned to him. The heat of Miguel’s anger, the confusion of the others, the weight of Elena’s pleading silence—it all pressed down, demanding an answer. Shiro felt his jaw tighten. He didn’t want to be the one to say it. To give shape to the unspeakable.
“Shiro?” Keith prompted, his voice low.
The pressure in the room was a physical thing. Shiro took a slow breath, the sterile air burning his lungs. “There was… a night. A few weeks back. In the castle kitchen.” His words came out flat, detached. “I couldn’t sleep. Went to get water. Lace and Lotor were already there.”
He described it clinically, like a mission report. The odd tension. Their hurried separation. Lotor’s too-casual movement to the sink. “Lotor said, ‘Lace came to get something to eat. To… fill her up.’” Shiro repeated the words, hearing the double meaning only now. “I thought he meant food. Just a weird comment.”
He paused, seeing Lace’s furious blush in his mind’s eye. Her sharp elbow jab into Lotor’s side. “The way she reacted… it wasn’t about the food. I think I misunderstood.” He looked at the floor again, unable to meet their stares. “They were acting strange the whole time. Awkward. They ate leftovers in complete silence until I left.”
The new silence was different. It wasn’t shocked or angry. It was the terrible, hollow quiet of puzzle pieces fitting together to form a picture no one wanted to see. Miguel’s fury, once a wildfire, collapsed inward, replaced by a dawning, icy horror.
“Lotor,” Hunk whispered, the name sounding alien and poisonous in the quiet room.
Keith’s expression had shut down completely, a wall of pure tactical assessment. “The simulation failure,” he stated, his voice devoid of all emotion. “The one where their lions got tangled. The systems went down for ninety-seven seconds. Total sensory blackout for everyone else.”
Pidge finally looked up, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “Ninety-seven seconds is a lifetime in a high-stress, adrenaline-fueled scenario. Proximity. Disorientation. A break in protocol.” She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to.
Abuelita Rosa made a small, pained sound, crossing herself. Elena brought a trembling hand to her mouth, her eyes glistening as she looked at her sleeping daughter. Marco just looked lost, staring at his sister as if she’d been replaced by a stranger.
On the bed, Lace’s eyelids fluttered. A soft groan escaped her lips. The heart monitor beeped a slightly quicker rhythm. The collective attention of the room snapped toward her, a wave of fraught anticipation replacing the revelation’s grim aftermath.
She was coming back to a world that had fundamentally shifted, and the truth was now waiting for her, a live wire held by the people she loved most.