"The Prince! Lotor met with you every day for a long time before you sent me back to Earth, you were with him all the time! You would come back crying, you said he abused you! You really don't remember any of that?" Shiro asked, loudly.
...

You didn't know how to respond.

How would anyone respond to such a claim?

Especially when you didn't recall even a syllable of what he was saying.

You stared at Shiro with a different emotion now, fear. Pure fear.

"I-I don't..." you stuttered, standing dead still in the middle of the room. The area was so quiet, you could have heard someone breathe if you tried hard enough. Your eyes were blown wide and your pupils were small, looking to the ground and not even baring to look at anyone else.

"I had a concussion, I lost a few months of memory but I-I'm sure I would remember...." You attempted a reply, but you couldn't even form proper sentences. Words lumped up and hung in your throat, causing you to tune out sooner than you would ever want to.

"...What happened?" Keith asked lowly. His voice contained no obvious emotion, it was the basic definition of a question. Allura glanced at you curiously with a small, microscopic trace of worry. It took some internal screaming and a few tries, but you finally cleared your throat and looked up at your peers. All words had ghosted from your dry throat, leaving you an utter disaster in terms of English.

"I know you might not remember, Y/n, but tell us what you can. First off, explain how you got your concussion." Shiro cut in, simultaneously cutting the thickening tension in the air as well. You exhaled shakily, your entire being shuddering at his previous words. They played over and over again in your pounding mind.

'..you said he hurt you!'

"I can't tell you any longer how long ago it happened, but it was a few days, more or less. I suffered a severe concussion in the arena. A week or two ago at the very most. I was in the arena and the opponent threw me into the wall so hard that I had permanent memory loss. I can't remember a good portion of my time on that ship, and all will most likely remain that way until I have access to the right technology." You explained, and the Paladins glanced at you with an unrecognizable emotion. Whatever is was, it wasn't going to put you at ease anytime soon.

Allura hesitated, her hands folded nearly as her face leaned into them. The two men you knew best, unlike her, were staring at you without a returned gaze, silence still hanging in the questioning room like it was dangling from strings on the ceiling. The Princess continued looking into the wall before her, until she turned to you and spoke up.

"That leaves a very open and questionable period of the unknown, I must say. However, we may have a pod that we can modify to work with your current predicament. Pidge, is there anyway you can find a way to access someone's memories?" Allura asked, turning to the Green Paladin. She hesitated, thinking on it for a silent moment.

"I might have to implement some of the codes your Dad used, y'know, when he stored his memories within the ship. That's only if I can find any traces of the software used before you.. deleted him.. but it'll be up and running really quick if it's there. Like, I'm talking twenty minutes or less of work time."

"Any chance we have is worth taking. Let's get Y/n into a pod as soon as possible." Coran chirped. He turned, however, and noticed you shaking a bit more than you were before. Hunk helped you sit back down in the questioning chair, and you couldn't see his warm smile, for you were too busy staring in fear and worry at the ground below you.

"Are you going to search my whole life?" You asked nervously, your throat shaking. "Because I'd rather not talk about my.." You took a moment to force yourself to say it, the word you hated so much. "my Dad."

"Well, a lifetime investigation is the safest route. We don't have to talk about it afterwards, but it's better to-" Allura stopped herself, deciding to watch instead as Keith glared. His arms were folded as he leaned against the table, showing the most aggressive face of defense anyone had ever seen.

"Keith, would you like to say something?"

As you could clearly tell, a certain raven-haired Paladin wasn't having it. His eyebrows were pointing down into his nose at these people, who had the audacity to throw you into a machine after just an hour or two of knowing you. Not only was it rude, but it was an offense to you in his book. Shiro didn't get hooked up and have his personal memories rummaged through.

"You guys actually want to follow through with this?! Shiro could have had a night terror and thought it was real or something! We can't go throwing people into pods because they might be forgetting that they, a PRISONER, met an Alien Prince." Keith spat coldly. The whole team turned to him, thinking on his perspective, before he continued. "I don't even see why it's necessary. So what? If Lotor wants to come for her, we'll take him. There's a big chance that it's something she wouldn't want to remember anyway. Besides, Shiro didn't have the whole team rummaging through his head without any way to explain himself."

While he made some excellent points, he was almost obviously trying to stall for you.

"Keith, please calm yourself. We're better off safe than sorry, it is a risk worth taking. Now, Pidge and I will take Y/n to the pod chamber and complete the scans. You don't have to approve, but you must not interrupt." Allura stated, taking a strong grip of the reigns herself. She stood up, motioning for you and Pidge to follow. You turned to Shiro as you stood, who looked at you nervously before turning towards Allura and hesitating.

"If it was a trauma symptom that I got wrapped up in somehow, I'm sorry in advance for a wild goose chase. Sometimes I just can't help but imagine what it was like for you to.. to go through what I did.. especially when the Galra constantly getting smarter and stronger with every passing day." He looked to the ground, hanging his head before turning to follow Allura. The rest of the group caught up, Keith and Shiro on either sides of you.

"We can't control what we fear, Shiro, but it's brave of you to admit that without having that faith in yourself. I'm proud of you, Takashi." You smiled.

He smiled back, but didn't say anything for the rest of the walk.

Besides that soft exchange, anyone there could easily testify that everyone was some sort of uncomfortable. Everything was happening too quickly for you to handle, new information, potential threats and plot twists being tossed carelessly onto your plate by the hour. No doubt that you joining this team could be a a threat to all who are a part of it, but you had to give yourself a chance before you gave up on her.

During the entire walk to who knows where, Keith looked at you; watched you. You looked at him in return, chatting awkwardly as butterflies aggressively swarmed in your churning gut. His face was a fine blend of fondness, agitation and fear from the situation playing out before his eyes, leaving you in a need to ease his tension, a task you had the power for.

He gave you a soft warning glare when you rose your hand up to touch his arm, but he completely untethered under your touch, letting all of his tension go in a deep exhale. His shoulders fell, his posture softened, and his expression lost it's intimidating stiffness.

"You don't have to defend me, Keith. You and I both trust these people, and know they would never try to hurt me with ill intention." You pursed your lips, trying to comfort him with the things that you could think off. His shoulders were pulled away from their tense spot by his ears as he turned to look at you, glancing to the side with annoyance.

"It's my job to defend now, and you're the one who seems to need it the most. I'll stop protecting you when you stop needing it." He grinned, folding his arms and you smiled at his teasing comment. He would walk this way through the rest of the corridors, but he looked a lot less angry and stressed than he did a mere few minutes ago.

You were led up to a room much higher and deeper into the castle, where you were eventually led into a room that sent a cold chill through your skeleton. A blank white room with a transparent blue wall was constructed, holding nothing save a stiff-looking couch and a coffin-like, human-sized pod that sat right in the middle of the separate room.

"It's an upgrade from the last cell, I'll give it that." You joked as a way to lighten the heavy tension in the air, in which everyone's silence afterward did not help.

All it took was for you to start looking at the cell more carefully. White walls with blue fluorescent wall lights in the high corners.

Quick, haunting flashbacks of horrifying pitch black and dull purple lights flickered before your eyes, but you cursed them away. That was the past, no matter what happened or if you remember it at all.

"Alright, everything should work great, but keep in mind that this is still relatively new to us. The last time we used this, it was on Sendak, and we didn't get a whole lot of useful information anyways." Pidge explained. The name she spoke must have been Galran, for it seemed awfully familiar to you. It was dancing on the tip of your tongue, but refusing to go down easy. You gave up trying to remember, since it wasn't the most important thing on your mind right now. As it shouldn't have been.

You were about to walk into the digital cell for your memory rummaging when Keith walked up to you, clearly trying to keep a faux calmness around you. His aura was dark and angry, and he sent that vibe flying your way with his words.

"You're really going to go in there?"

"I could be dangerous, Keith."

"I know you're not, you know that you're not going to hurt us-"

"None of us know that Keith, it'll only be until you all find out what you want to know. I'll see you again soon, and we can finally catch up." You smiled, resting a relaxed hand on his shoulder. He nodded, turning around and leaving before you entered the Altean cell. After a few awkward moments of you trying to open the pod, Pidge opened it for you, and you stared at it in awe as the blue glass material dissolved before your eyes.

"You can step into the testing pod, Y/N. This should only take a few vargas at most." Allura instructed politely beside Pidge, who was tapping away at the controls on the panel outside of the chamber. You nodded in their direction and at the other Paladins behind them, struggling a bit before stepping into the pod and falling into a deep, peaceful sleep.

The Paladins watched the consistent data pouring in, waiting for the memories to start broadcasting for all of these strangers (and not so new old friends) to see without a filter. Everyone but Coran turned to Allura so they could understand the translations of the Altean feedback, which was pouring in quickly.

"{Height}... {Weight}... it all seems normal."

"Are the memories in Altean? Does it translate her thoughts or something?" Hunk asked.

"No, Hunk. Her memories will take place as videography from her perspective in her first language. Oh, here comes the Galran Ship memory logs now."

...

Was that Y/n?

The visions passed by in blurs, mapping everything out as it composed thousands of hours worth of life from your perspective.

They say a woman in a flower-print dress turning a rope for you in the public yard of an apartment building.

They saw Shiro, young and high-fiving you as you walk out of an exam simulator at the Garrison. Some laugh as he teaches you what a high-five is.

They see Keith, throwing his fist into a familiar face on the roof of the Garrison. This one is faded, from tears, but the viewers don't know that for sure. Lance comes to your aid and it blurs again.

They see a man with pale lavender skin, white silky and pointy ears. He wears dark armor and soft blush as he sees her for the first time.

They watched as his hands went from passing food onto her plate into clasping a hand around hers, despite how much she tries to wriggle it out. He guides her to a room full of luxurious things, then leaves her to kneel on the edge of the bed and cry.

...

"Paladins... this has turned into something much worse than we may have originally anticipated."