Keith wanted to sing, to hum a savory melody that could drip off his tongue like warm honey, and float weightlessly into the numb ears of the boy before him. He yearned to pounce through the pod’s sealed door, and tear straight through the monstrous blue glass tinting the oozing gashes on his companions smooth skin. Lance’s body looked like a corpse. Shallow breaths fogged up the pod as his lax mouth formed a perfect O. If not for the crusted blood caked upon his hair and shoulders, Keith would have thought him to be a sleeping child, at peace with the world and content with the decisions he had made only hours prior. Keith’s heart moaned under the weight of agonizing guilt, and the piercing fantasies of “what if?” A new fluid ran dryly through his veins; the tempting desire to halt the pod’s healing process, simply to hold Lance’s battered being once more, and kiss the scars forming in his flesh as a sorrowful way to apologize for the things he failed to say. The very idea danced before him like a concubine. But alas, with the sturdy human hand of Shiro firmly at his shoulder, and the somber air of the room glueing his feet to the floor, Keith refused to budge. Instead, he recollected wistfully on all the errors of his ways, how each misstep he took led to this very moment, where time froze and the boy who made his heart leap was now struggling to keep the oxygen in his lungs. If only he could turn back the clock, and show Lance’s weakened soul just how much he was needed. If only he had thanked him for the being the only flower in a sea of weeds, and showed appreciation for the Lance’s luminescent glow of joy that, despite being forced, managed to shine through the depths of the shadows of war. If only he had asked more often, why Lance insisted on playing the part of the clown, and assured him that his worth was not an issue to be regarded as black and white; he was to be cherished. If only, when Lance had approached Keith privately, blatant desperation swimming in his ocean eyes, had he torn down the cement barrier between them, and told him without doubt that he was the glue that held the team together; irreplaceable, instead of saying such a disposable phrase as, “leave the math to Pidge”. If only, instead of leaving for a cause that was selfish and in vain, Keith had seen through Lance’s harrowing pain hidden in the jangling bags of his eyes. If only he had shown he cared. Fury bubbled in Keith’s empty stomach, rising up through his breast with the urgent feeling of queasiness following close behind. He was angry at himself, at his team, at the universe for punishing him with such a pitiful cowardice. His breath hitched, a single teared streaked down his face, carrying it with it a thousand rueful memories. His showed sorrow easily went unnoticed, Keith was too spiteful, too broken to care about covering his tracks. More important issues wracked his brain. Keith loved Lance, in the truest sense. He was the calm after the storm, the only one whose careful, affable words could penetrate the acres of towering shields he had set up so long ago. Even as Lance stood frozen in the pod; paralyzed and shivering as he succumbed to nightmares Keith could not even think to imagine; unknowing and innocent to the waves of hopeless affection rolling off his body in heaps. If only Keith had told him, instead of having to scream it from the inside of his mind.