A braided head peered over at her from behind a door. It was the youngest child, Nadia.
"Hey there," Pidge called to her, almost like she would have done to a wary, smaller alien creature.
"Hi," the creature replied, her braids swinging in the air as she waved. "I want to show you something."
Pidge blinked. "Me?"
'What could she possibly show me that'll be of interest to me?' Pidge asked in her mind, but stood up regardless. Maybe this was worth getting into.
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Pidge found herself being led into the room. It was small, but not in the uncomfortable way. It fit the word, "cozy", perfectly.
"Is-Is this your room?" she asked, to which the girl shrugged at.
"Every year, we change rooms," Nadia explained. "This year, I share this one with Uncle Lance."
"Change rooms?" Pidge asked, looking around at the wooden interior.
"I already told you, didn't I?" the smaller girl asked with a small smirk. "I thought you were the smart one in Voltron."
"Hey!" Pidge exclaimed, muttering under her breath, "We were all plenty smart..."
Maybe she was a bit smarter when it came to technology and all that, but the others didn't fall behind. Far from that. Shiro was a great leader, and he excelled in everything. Keith was an expert pilot, and later turned out to be the team leader they never knew they needed. Hunk was an incredible cook, and he was just as great at being a mechanic. Allura was, well, Allura. She was strong, independent, and more than just a princess. And Lance... Well, Lance definitely was anything but dumb. In the craziest battles, he remained calm, quickly changing into an almost different person. Pidge always thought that he would've been the leader if Voltron continued on while Keith became busy with the Galra.
Truthfully, it sort of looked like she was the worst one in the group...
"Auntie Pidge!" Nadia's voice cut through her thoughts, making her flinch in response. She looked down to see the young girl offering her an old-looking book.
"What is it?" Pidge asked, weighing the plain covered book on her hands.
"A book, duh," the girl drawled on, rolling her round eyes. "You're really making out to be so different from my imaginations. You even looked different in my earlier memories."
Pidge let out a hollow laugh. "Why? I guess I'm not as sharp as I once was, but you're just being mean."
"No." The girl shook her head. "Before, you looked like a real heroine. But now... you just look like a normal girl."
Although Pidge did feel bad about her words, she also felt like it was the truth. She was no longer a paladin. It's been years since the end of the great war, but she still found herself twisting and turning at night, thinking about the end of the universe - the death of all knowledge. Now... She was just a powerless girl. True, she was everything she once wanted to be - working in the garrison, helping out the universe one invention at a time, but...
"Yeah, I'm just a normal girl," Pidge agreed, and then grinned at the younger one. "But I'm way older than you, so show some respect!"
Then, the ex-paladin jumped down on the girl and began to tickle her, making the child laugh incessantly, squirming around in retaliation. "Mama! Mama! Auntie P-Pidge is attacking me!"
Caught in mid-laughter, Pidge and Nadia froze together as the door flung open. Pidge was expecting the girl's mother. Instead, a tall silhouette stood there against the light - a figure Pidge was well-acquainted with.
"Well," Lance said. "I definitely didn't think Nadia would open up to you this fast."
The girl scooted away from Pidge's arms, and glared at the air. "That's not fair! She tickled me first!"
Lance shrugged and came towards us, an amused smile on his face. For a weird second, Pidge thought he might actually join in the tickle fight, but that moment was soon gone. The man scratched at his head and said, "Dinner's almost ready."
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The food was delicious. In fact, Pidge could somehow taste flavors from long ago - on days when they were still travelling through dark space.
"Familiar?" Lance asked from across the table, taking big bites of the food.
Pidge nodded. "It reminds me of Voltron."
Lance smiled as he leaned back on his chair. "Hunk always made sure we all got a taste of home. Thinking back, I think you especially liked peanut butter."
Weirdly, she found her cheeks heating up. She mumbled, "That was years ago..."
Lance lifted his brows up. "So what? I like peanut butter! Although nothing can beat garlic knots."
"Oh, yeah!" She remembered. "Hunk used to complain about how much of those you asked him to cook for you!"
Then, Rachel, Lance's older sister, made a small sound from the side. "Listening to you both, I could almost imagine you were just talking about a short trip or something, and not about actual Voltron. You know, saving the whole universe and all?"
Lance and Pidge laughed. The blue-eyed boy said, "Yeah, I mean a lot of my memories are about the big battles and all, but most people don't understand that what really stick to you are those reaaallly long days and weeks and months of just travelling around, saving planets that need saving."
Pidge nodded, and then turned to Rachel. "I definitely can't forget all the silly things your brother did!"
"Wait-" Lance started, but Pidge had already began to tell story after story. Soon enough, the table was filled with laughter and sighs and groans. With a family so full like this, Pidge began to miss her own, wishing they could sit and eat together like this again. And at the back of her mind was another family - one that wasn't made from blood ties. Looking at Lance hiding his face under his arms in shame, she wondered when the paladins could come together again.
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That night, Pidge was about to succumb to an early sleep when the door to her guest room opened up. It might have been due to the senses she had honed when she was still a paladin, but she reacted almost instantaneously at the noise. Seeing her up from the bed with her hands up in a fighting stance, Nadia almost wanted to go back out.
"Oh! Oh, Nadia, it's just you!" Pidge immediately stopped her from leaving. "Sorry, I was half asleep, and uh-"
"Paladin stuff?" Nadia offered, to which Pidge shrugged at. "It's okay. I can just leave now if you're already going to sleep."
But then Pidge saw the object in the girl's hands. "That book! From earlier, right? I wasn't able to read it."
Nadia came back with a smile on her face. "Yes. Will you read it now?"
"Yeah, of course. I can't believe I forgot."
Then, they both climbed onto the bed, and Nadia held up the book so they could both read it. When Pidge opened it to the first page, she found herself looking at it in shock. It wasn't even a book. It was some sort of-
"Scrapbook?" Pidge asked.
Nadia only smiled, so she began to turn page after page. They were random stuff from magazines and newspaper clippings. But all of them featured the same topic: The paladins of Voltron.
Pidge was reading through an opinion article about whether Voltron should come back when Nadia interrupted. "Lance made that."
Hearing that, Pidge immediately stopped reading, and then looked for the byline in disbelief.
"No, dummy," Nadia said. "I meant Lance made that scrapbook, not that article. He has tons of those books lying around our room."
"Seriously?" Pidge asked, still in disbelief. Now that was something even more unbelievable to Pidge. "I never thought him to be so... sentimental."
Nadia smiled and then took the book away. "Maybe there's a lot of things you still don't know about my uncle."
And before Pidge could reply, the girl was already making her way out of the room. Nadia waved at her. "Goodnight!"
"... Goodnight," Pidge said to the empty room.