[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Whilst placing a fanfiction into an exact place in Canon can sometimes be tricky – especially with such a well written series – I consider this to nestle somewhere between the events of seasons 4 and 5. That and/or to exist in one or many of potentially infinite alternate realities. That said, I hope you enjoy.]

Puzzled was an emotion that Lance was very familiar with. He was puzzled by the flavour of the smooth gelatinous green lump he was nibbling on, convincing himself it was simply a semi-solid handheld strawberry milkshake. He was puzzled by the political shake ups, shifting allegiances and games of musical lions that he and the others had been part of recently. He was puzzled that they had managed to find a few days of relative calm out among the stars, but thankful. He was still puzzled by who would be his rival now that Keith had decided to join a bunch of alien space ninjas. He was even puzzled if alien space ninja was almost cooler than the Blue Paladin of Voltron. Had Keith won...? Wait... is he the Red Paladin now? Do you name by suit or lion? Or both? Was he the Purple Paladin now...? Or The Right Hand Of Voltron...? That last one sounded pretty badass. Whatever. He would always be the sharpshooter, whatever colour or impressive title he eventually decided upon. What was currently puzzling Lance the most however, was the sight before him in the green hangar bay.

Draped, coiled, interfaced, cable tied, glued, stuck, soldered, spooled and hanging from the Green Lion were a maddening collection of wires, cables and fibre bundles of countless colours, configurations and states of either glowing or not glowing. Attached to each of them, an even more baffling array of devices, nick knacks, components and doohickys all whirring, buzzing, clicking and pinging. Lance felt a pang of sympathy as he looked to the Green Lion's expressionless yet to his mind at least somehow embarrassed face. Sat beside the great metal star beast, among a nexus of interconnected tech, their resident genius worked hurriedly away. Glancing between one of several screens, both physical and holographic, tapping on every kind of interface from a partially melted keyboard to a reverse engineered Galra Robot's head, Pidge was absorbed in her work.

Wandering over, still nibbling on the green goo ball (he couldn't remember if it was actually called an almost unpronounceable Altean word that somehow rhymed with both Orange and Purple or a juicy Gohraiohn. It may not have been either...) Lance let out an impressed whistle, rocking on the balls of his feet. Pidge continued to work silently. Lance let out another impressed whistle, this one louder and more insistent. No joy. As he began breathing in for the third, Pidge glared at the boy over the rim of her glasses.

"What?" She asked, with no attempt to conceal her irritation. Lance was almost as familiar with this look of disdain and impatience as he was with being puzzled. "What...?" She added, more insistent than before.

"What'cha doooooing...?" Lance glanced about the scene again, "Looks...interesting...?"

"You're bored, you can't get past level 27 of Killbot Phantasm and everyone else is busy." Pidge responded, returning to her work. "Well guess what, I'm busy as well, Lance. As for what I'm doing, right now I'm being distracted from very important calculations..."

Lance lowered himself to her, staring over one shoulder at what to him was utter gibberish on one of the monitors. He chewed loudly on the green goo ball, "Calculations for what...?" His goo muffled question came.

"Right now, I'm thinking about the necessary velocity for defenestration through Altean material..." Pidge grumbled, shoving Lance aside and double checking a second monitor.

"And that needs all this equipment...?" Lance teased, playing just a little extra dumb. "And it's really taken you most of the day...?" His second question came with a flurry of green goo crumbs.

Pidge paused, momentarily checking an often overlooked device. Her watch. He wasn't wrong, she'd been at this for at least 12 hours. It had only felt like two. Three tops. "Wow..." She breathed, "Not really relevant though... See, unlike you, when I get bored and restless I find myself a project. When you get bored and restless you just decide to bug people who are being productive..."

"Breaks improve my productivity..." Lance grinned, "That's why I take so many. When did you last have one?"

Pidge furrowed her brow, but before she could answer, her stomach did with a loud growl. "Ok, fine, I guess I'll just take a five minute break..."

"Thirty." Lance insisted.

"What!? No way, ten max!"

Lance, looking thoughtful as he took a seat on a nearby cargo barrel, responded; "Twenty!"

"Fifteen!"

"Ok, done." Lance smiled, plucking a second green goo ball from his jacket pocket. "Catch?"

Pidge stood, grasping the wobbling quasi-food in one hand before peeling off an almost invisible protective outer coating. "Not risking you hitting any of my equipment..."

"You mean, if you couldn't catch..." Lance's elbow gently prodded her side as she took a seat beside him.

Pidge ignored his goading, scrunching up the outer layer into a tight ball and eating it in one go. Tucking into the rest of her snack, she could feel the unmistakable surge of energy from a long needed meal. She hadn't realised it until now, but she hadn't exactly been thinking as clearly as she should have been.

"So...what is all this then...?" Lance enquired again, "Green need another tune up...?"

"More like, Green is a tuning fork..." Pidge was silent for a moment, trying to think of how to explain her experiment in layman's terms. Then trying to simplify that further for Lance. Eat more, painful explanations later, change the subject. "Did you bring this second Spapple for me...?"

"Spapple!" Lance cried out suddenly, "That's what we called them, Space Apple, Spapple! Man, that's been bugging me for a while..." Lance chuckled as he took another big bite from the quivering mass.

Pidge looked to the green goo, the Spapple, thankful for the silly name to accompany the pleasant taste. Anything to distract herself from whatever it really might have been. "Well...thanks..."

"Not a problem." Lance shrugged, "You never feed yourself mid-project..."

"Don't need a second Space Dad... Shiro has the position filled already."

"Well, how about just a friend looking out for you?"

"That's fine I guess..." Pidge smiled at the grinning idiot beside her. "So, what's got you distracted enough to pretend to be interested in what I'm doing...?"

"You shouldn't confuse a lack of understanding for a lack of interest, Pidge." Lance sighed, "Though I'm guessing it's the same as you. Things just keep getting more complicated. Soon as we think we've settled into a team, know who our enemies are, it's all just... Mixed up again..."

Pidge nodded, "This is why I prefer the relative simplicity of quantum mechanics..."

"Ha! Mechanics! I knew you were tuning up Green! Trust you to find yet another way to overclock an ancient part magic, part technology super weapon... How many upgrades is that now...?"

"You know what quantum mechanics are, Lance. To at least a D grade... You were glad to have even passed that test back at the Garrison..." Pidge shrugged, "You don't have to play extra dumb just to try and make me laugh..."

"Alright, but it's not like I could...shake out the difference between a Higgs Boson and a Superstring...?"

Pidge laughed slightly, more from surprise, "Lance, did you just try to tell a physics joke...?"

"Did I get it right...?" Lance turned away in very minor embarrassment, "Hunk insisted it was a pretty good one, I just had to take his word for it..."

"The joke is that according to Superstring theory there would essentially be no difference. Except the relative vibration, the shaking, along the superstring. In fact, there'd be no difference between anything really..."

Lance stared dumbfounded.

"I appreciated the joke. Or the effort at least." Pidge noticed her Spapple was growing ever smaller. "Quiznak..."

"Still hungry?" Lance dumped the remainder of his into her palm, "Couldn't take another bite..."

"You could have wiped it off first..."

"Relax! We won't be sharing spit, this one's just extra juicy..."

Pidge wasn't sure if that was better or worse, but carried on snacking regardless. "Do you really want to know what I'm doing, or am I just a distraction from something you're avoiding?"

"Both." Lance responded honestly. "Not really in the mood for Altean calisthenics... Or Coran's skin-tight workout gear... Or Coran's workout playlist... Or the weird smell of Coran's sweat to be honest..."

"That makes sense." Pidge nodded, Altean man-funk was something else. "So, what – if anything – do you know about quantum entanglement...?"

"Isn't that when molecules are best friends...?" Lance thought back to a rather patronising physics teacher who used that on him as a joke. Stupid the things that stick with you, right?

Pidge smiled, "Kinda. It's more like they're identical twins, but only sort of... But what's important is that whatever happens to one particle of an entangled pair also happens to its twin instantly, regardless of distance. With the right equipment, it can be turned into a means of communication that has unlimited range, but only between two points."

"Still sounds pretty useful..." Lance was still thinking back to his physics teacher. He wondered if he might have had a better time of it with someone like Pidge. She could be incredibly patient with him. Sometimes.

"Useful is right, it's practically a necessity given the vast distances we have to talk over... It's possible to create an array of entangled pairs in a network some acting as relays, in fact most communication tech out here uses it to greater or lesser extents. Makes hacking Galra comm channels tricky sometimes." That beaming smile that only ever seemed to show up around technology lit up her face, her tone at once shifting from the matter of fact to the almost giddy, "That's why I was so excited to find that thing! A Programmable Particle Chamber!" She pointed to an item among her workspace, a glowing blue cylinder that until now Lance had assumed was just a cool lamp.

"Go on..." Lance couldn't deny it was...nice, to see her so animated. He wandered over to the lamp, the device, the thingy that Pidge was so excited about. He gently prodded it, feeling a slight warmth. "So what is it?"

"No touching! It's..." Pidge paused, trying to find a good example, "Like a radio. You can tune the frequency of the particle inside, allowing it to possibly entangle with other identically tuned particles! With the right frequency, we could attune ourselves into Galra communication lines and remain totally undetected! No need to decrypt a thing, no chance of detection, we'd just be treated as another part of their network... But there's way more we could do than that, we could possibly entangle with exceptionally distant points of the universe. In theory and if I was able to entangle with the right kind of tech, we could even communicate with Earth."

Lance frowned, the prospect of contacting Earth seemed almost too good to be true. "Wait though, if you're trying to tune this particle radio into a twin, somewhere, anywhere... Isn't that like searching for a needle in a haystack or like a whole field of haystacks...?"

"Yes exactly! But on a universal scale!" Pidge beamed, "That's before you even consider that the twinned particle might not be in a position to provide useful or recognisable feedback! But...I started thinking a little bit wider. And that's where Green comes in..."

"As a tuning fork...?" Lance was feeling puzzled again. Though, the more he watched Pidge's excitement grow, the less he seemed to care about that. He just smiled to himself instead as she continued.

"Right! A tuning fork and a broadcast tower! Green, like all the Lions, is made entirely of a Trans-Reality material, something that existed outside any one universe, that can even potentially travel between universes. So, by attempting as many methods as I can think of to route the signal through said material, with the various devices you see carefully placed upon my lab assistant." Pidge straightened her glasses with a smirk, "I can extend my search not simply to this reality but across multiple realities!! I'm not just searching one universe sized haystack, I'm searching multiple versions of the same haystack trying to find multiple examples of the same needle! It might even be possible to connect to several universes simultaneously assuming each has an exact replica of the first particle!"

Lance's brow furrowed even deeper as he tried to wrap his head around it all. "So, you're going to try and find a paired particle in another universe...? Why though...?"

"In theory, yes. As for why, I'm testing the upper limits of what's possible. Pushing new boundaries for it's own sake... What I do with the findings afterwards depends on exactly what I find... Besides, it's fun. Kinda." Pidge nodded to herself, satisfied and took the last gulp of her Spapple. "So far I've been trying with fairly common elements. Carbon, Hydrogen, you know, the stuff you'd find everywhere. I've had a few hits but nothing that couldn't be chalked up to simple background noise. I've been refining the search obviously, but... I'm not even sure if this is working or not... There's no way to know for sure until I find something..."

"Or someone..." Lance began to rub his chin thoughtfully, "If movies have taught me anything, it's that the first alternate universe you find usually is the evil mirror universe... I wonder what evil Pidge would look like...? Did you ever have a goth phase growing up...? I bet it'd look a lot like that..."

"That's a ridiculous idea...The goth phase I mean. Seriously, I'd melt if I wore all black..." Pidge paused, "As for the evil mirror universe... We did find ourselves in that reality where the Alteans were the bad guys... So your dumb theory might not be so dumb after all..."

Lance grinned triumphantly, "Feel free to call me a genius, Pidge. In fact, why not call a version of yourself out there and tell her version of Lance that he's a genius as well!"

Pidge paused. Gears turning. A sudden revelation. "Oh my... Lance! Lance, that's brilliant! Accidental brilliance it may be, but still!" Pidge leapt into her workstation, hammering out new and fresh ideas, "Alright, so if I had to pick a universal constant... Pi? Sure, try Pi..."

"Uh, Pidge...? What the heck did I just say...?"

"Contact a version of myself!" Pidge's smile was almost manic, her eyes lit up in joy, "The many worlds hypothesis states that there could easily be an infinite number of alternate realities. It stands to reason that in at least one of those infinite realities, I, or another version of me at least, has, will or even am currently conducting this same experiment! All I have to do is attune my particle to...well, something I would attune my particle to. In this case I'll try Pi up to 15 places, one for every year, and in theory..." She paused, "Well, in theory and given time, I might just find another version of myself doing the same thing! Assuming a universe that operates on similar physical laws... If Pi fails there's still the ..."

"Or the name of the first boy you had a crush on...?" Lance smirked. "Or your favourite flavour pie...?"

"Converted into a suitable cipher, maybe enigma, that could work as well..." Pidge responded absentmindedly, "Though it's hardly the first thing I'd think of... So probably not the first thing my alternate would think of... And it's not that kind of pi I'm talking about..." She drummed her fingers on the particle chamber, feeling a slight static discharge. She withdrew her fingers with a sharp motion.

"Ow!" Lance suddenly remarked.

"No, I'm ok actually..." Pidge corrected him, "Thanks for the concern though... Sorry to be rude, Lance, but I have a lot of new avenues to explore now... Do you think I could have some quiet...?"

Lance smiled at the hopeful eyes glancing in his direction, "Not a problem, Pidge. Maybe I'll be back in another few hours, assuming you miss another meal... Which you will."

"That's fine, you do that..." Pidge was almost back in full concentration mode, "Thanks, by the way for the suggestion." She added, "You can be pretty useful sometimes..."

"I'll take that as a compliment!" Lance called from the other side of the hanger bay, already making his way out. Then, clearer than the shout yet softer he added, "She just has no idea how cute she is when she geeks out..."

Pidge paused, turning back to him to demand an explanation but the Blue Paladin was already on the other side of the elevator doors. No time for his teasing though, work to be done.

* * * * * * * *

Pidge was growing impatient. There was no way of knowing for sure if anything she did was working. There was no point changing anything because perhaps what should be instant became significantly less so when factoring in multiple realities, the spaces between reality and the interaction of the entire process with a temperamental sentient magi-tech super weapon. Truth be told, there were simply too many variables to account for. She suddenly felt very much like the 20th century pioneers at SETI. All geared up to go, waiting for a signal. Just, waiting. The SETI program was now a historic footnote, and they never heard a peep for the best part of a century. At least, not as far as the public knew. In short, all she could do was wait, but that waiting may prove ultimately futile.

Looking hopelessly up to her Lion, she sighed, "Am I just wasting my time, girl...?"

The Green Lion's eyes lit up into a soothing glow, the war machine bowing its head slightly, yet avoiding disrupting any of the cables. Through their unspoken bond, Pidge could feel her response. Giving up was not in Pidge's nature.

"Ok, sure, giving up would suck... But maybe I just need to come at it from another angle again...? I bet you'd be happy to get those wires off, right...?"

The Green Lion's slight growl was one tinged with annoyance. Through their bond, the same response as before. Though there was also a faint admission that a few wires had become irritating. If a lion of Voltron can feel itchy, that might be the best way to describe the sensation.

"Ok then, how about I pack this up for the day, maybe try again tomorrow...?" Though even as Pidge asked that of her partner, a whine over the static brought her to attention. She snapped around to a screen, pulling up a second readout, checking a waveform graph, two graphs, each