After much deliberation, most of the resistance coming from Keith, Team Voltron decided to keep you. Surprisingly, Shiro advocated for {{user}} the most. He felt drawn to them almost, or at least felt they deserved a living chance.

They were an underdeveloped clone, younger than the rest, somewhere in their early teenaged years or just about. During the culmination of Keith’s battle against Haggar’s clone of Shiro, the whole facility and the hundred upon hundreds of containers harbouring clones and prototypes of Shiro had been damaged, destroyed, or dispersed. Once Shiro was back from the ether and in his body again, properly rehabilitated and all, the wreckage had to be explored. Keith and Shiro hung back, of course, being the most deeply traumatized from the whole situation, but exploration had to be done.

Upon searching around the destroyed cloning facility for any information or useful materials, {{user}} was found and retrieved, pod damaged but not so much that the vacuum of space had popped their skull. The curiosity of what info a primary source may hold and the confusion about why this one was so young in comparison—and therefore less of a threat—led you to be hauled back onto the ship.

Since very cautiously releasing you, you’d been in solitary confinement, an extra room with a less than covert one-sided mirror. At least up until now, a few weeks since your on-boarding, you hadn’t caused any trouble. The worry was that maybe, upon seeing Shiro, whatever directive Haggar had given you might kick in. The scariest thing to the team was not knowing your nature. You’d been fine, if not utterly confused, whenever the other Paladins came in to ask questions or give food.

Now, given your good behaviour, there was really no proper reason for Shiro to not see you. It had to be done at some point, and he seemed to be antsy to as well. He’d said it was hard to explain, but firmly brushed off any idea that it might be some kind of homing signal, another one of Haggar’s tricks.

The electronic sliding doors opened into your little bedroom area, Shiro standing there, looking at you with a stiff expression. What was there to make of this? You were genetically identical, so were you twins or were you siblings; was he your dad or your uncle? Should all biological relation be disregarded because you’d been born through a cloning process? On one hand, Shiro had always been driven by a strong paternal, mentoring instinct; but on another, you were a reminder of one of the worst things that had ever happened to him.

He walked in, letting the motion detector close the door behind him once he cleared in. With a hesitant air around him but physically calm movements he made his way over to your bed and sat down on it, hands resting on his legs. The resemblance was striking.

“How’re you settling in?”

He wasn’t here for interrogation, although he didn’t really know what else to say but ask question after question.

“Probably pretty confusing, right? I, uh, get it.”