"Sorry"

Keith turned to look behind him and bit his tongue when he saw Lance's eyes staring directly back at him.

"What?"

"Did you plan to get hit by James?"

Keith's eyebrows pinched and his eyes flicked between Lance's.

"I can tell that you have good reflexes and you already had a plan when it came to the orphanage"

Keith dropped his eyes to the book in Lance's hand.

"I'm not sure. I was mostly aiming to hurt him so I wasn't focusing on where his punches were coming from"

Lance sighed

"Keith.."

"I didn't know I would end up at the orphanage either, it just sort of happened"

Lance tilted his head slightly and studied Keith's face.

"Are you crying?"

Keith's eyes shot up and reached his fingers up to touch his cheek, they came back wet. He frowned and turned his face back towards the door. Lance reached up and played with Keith's hair. He rested his chin on Keith's shoulder and Keith's head leaned against Lance's.

__

"So who's the guy?"

"What?"

"You don't have to play dumb with me, I won't judge"

"I don't know what you're talking about"

Veronica pulled out her phone and after a couple moments she turned it to face Lance. Lance sighed.

"You snuck into my room?"

"You weren't home for ages and when I finally saw you at home you were practically cuddling with a guy"

"Let me see your phone"

She handed her phone over, rolling her eyes. Lance played around with it for a bit and turned it back to her. The picture was zoomed into Lance's left hand where there was a red bow on his finger. Veronica took her phone back and grinned.

"Got it, you two are cute together"

Lance huffed

"We're going to be out today"

"Anywhere special?"

Lance shrugged

"It is for him"

__

"Are they gonna react when they see your bruise?"

They were making their way towards the orphanage with their arms linked.

"Maybe, although it's been a while so I don't really know. I think some will find it normal so they won't really pay much attention to it"

"How long has James.."

"It's not just James"

Lance sighed and pushed stray strands of hair behind Keith's ear. Keith looked over at him.

"You need to take better care of yourself"

"Doesn't sound like I have much of a choice"

"That's because you don't"

Keith pulled his arm away and they entered the orphanage. There were a few kids sitting on the floor reading or playing with toys and there were toys sprawled around the room. One of the kids looked up when they heard the door open.

She jumped up quickly and and ran over.

"Keef!"

Keith glanced over and smiled when he saw the kid.

"Hey Sammy"

Sam and smiled, showing a hole in her mouth.

"Look Keef! I lost a toof!"

Keith crouched down

"Now how did that happen?"

"We were doing racing games by the lake and I crashed into a tree!"

"I'm surprised nothing else broke"

"I was stronger than the tree. When we were by the lake I found a rabbit hole and there was a lot of baby bunnies"

"You'll have to go show me that bunny hole one time"

Keith had only just stood up when another kid came running up to him.

"Keith! You're back!"

"I am"

"I can swim around the edge of the lake without stopping now"

"Wow, so you must be a fast swimmer then"

"The fastest. I'm probably even faster than you now, since you hardly go to the lake"

"Actually I went yesterday"

"I didn't see you"

"You were probably asleep"

"You went at night?! I thought you said it was dangerous?"

"Well Viv, that was for all the other kids"

"Hey! That's not fair!"

Keith grinned and ruffled up her hair, making her shriek.

"Next time you can clean up the lake"

"But I wasn't even here when you did that!"

"Has there been any rubbish down there lately?"

"Only on really windy days but we made it a challenge to see who could pick up the most, and I won!"

"You bet Axca? You really are fast"

Vivian tilted her head at Keith

"You didn't know?"

"Know what..?"

Lance looked up to see an older girl walk into the room and grin. She snuck around the walls of the room, watching Keith the whole time. Keith was still busy talking to the kid so he didn't notice. The girl made her way behind Keith and shot Lance a glance. He gave her a puzzled look and she grinned and moved a finger to her lips. The kid flicked her eyes past Keith shoulder and the older girl shook her head violently and made a frantic motion with her hand. Keith saw Vivian look past his shoulder and shifted his head.

"Who's the guy you brought"

"A friend"

The girl moved forward and latched onto Keith's neck. He stumbled forward but caught himself. An arm came past his line of sight but it wasn't for him. It was angled towards Vivian. She grinned and jumped up to hit it.

"Good job Viv"

Keith whipped his head behind him.

"Axca?"

Keith pulled the arms clasped together in front of his neck so that he could turn around. She was smiling but her smile faltered when Keith teared up and tears started spilling over the edge. She clicked her tongue and reached forward to wipe his tears. He buried his face into her neck and shook his head.

"Fuck, you're such a dick"

"I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd take it so bad"

She ran her fingers through his hair.

"I thought you had been taken"

Taken. It seemed like a normal conversation but the way he said it made it seem vile to Lance. Adopted seems way more friendly and welcoming. Keith rested his ear on her shoulder and looked up at her. He straightened his neck and stuck a hand into her spikey hair.

"Did you cut your hair?"

"Oh yeah, I dyed it too"

Keith frowned and turned his head around the room. Most of the kids had long hair but a few had very short hair, similar to Axca's. There were new scribbles on the walls and the carpet had been replaced too. There were beanbags now and there was so many drawing suck on the walls.

"So much has changed..."

Keith said, more to himself Axca scoffed which turned his attention back to her

"You've changed too you little baby emo boy. You get a new wardrobe or something"

Keith looked down

"Oh. These aren't mine. We jumped in the lake yesterday and I didn't go back to Shiro's so we went to Lance's instead. I was given some clothes because mine were drying"

"Cute"

"Fuck off"

She made a show of gasping and went over to Vivian. Her hands were laid on Sam and Vivian's shoulders.

"In front of our children"

They both grinned and Vivian covered her ears with her hands

"Naughty Keith"

Keith huffed

"Bet I can still race you to the lake"

"Yeah! Lake Day!"

Axca joined in and soon it was a pretty loud chant with all the kids waiting a go.

The noise brought a volunteer out of hiding. She made her way over to a grinning Keith.

"I didn't know you were coming back today"

Keith turned and smiled

"This is just a surprise visit, I'm not staying Razz"

"Well that's a relief"

"Hey!"

"Sounds like everyone wants to go to the lake. I gather you had something to do with it?"

The kids hushed and looked over at Razz. Keith looked over the sea of eyes bubbling in excitement and anticipation and then back to Razz.

"Looks like its your call"

She scoffed

"That's not fair. There's no way I can say no now"

"Does that mean yes?"

She sighed

"Sure. But no injuries. You're in charge Keith"

The kids rushed out of the room to go get ready and Razz walked over to Lance.

"I don't think I've met you before, are you new here?"

Lance looked over and shook his head.

"No I came here with Keith. I have to make sure he leaves and goes back to Shiro."

"Do you know how it's going with Shiro?"

"I don't know, I've been over once but Keith says he's better than the rest."

Razz nodded and looked over at Keith

"That's good"

Lance followed her gaze to Keith, where he was getting the kids ready with drink bottles and towels. Lance frowned slightly and turned back to her.

"Why does he say 'taken' instead of adopted?"

She sighed

"He has a pretty negative view on adoption. A couple foster homes were good at the start but then got worse and both he and the parents were begging for him to come back near the end. There was one that lasted a week. He was sent back and it was said that the foster parent wasn't as ready for kids as he thought. The longest one before Shiro was 8 months"

"Jeez"

He looked over to Axca who was hyping up the kids and watching over the ones ready to explode in excitement.

"What about Axca?"

Razz looked even more deflated than before.

"I think some of her opinion has come from Keith but otherwise she wouldn't know."

"When did she get here?"

"About a week before Keith did, 12-ish years ago"

"And she's never been adopted?"

"No, most families want younger kids. Especially if they already have kids. You can't have an older kid, the rolemodel, not get along with the younger kids. But then some of the older kids already in the family pick on our kids because they didn't grow up knowing each other and find them strange. That happened with Keith too"

"But he's so good with kids"

"These kids sure, because he can sympathise with them and he doesn't want them to go through what he had to, but older kids from other family's didn't really take a liking to him, so the parents sent him back even if they didn't want to"

Keith made his way over to the pair.

"Are you two coming"

"I'll come"

"I'm gonna stay here with the ones who don't want to get wet and also clean up"

"Have fun"

"Same to you"

Keith walked away with Lance trailing behind.

"Were you two talking about me?"

"Yeah how'd you know?"

"That's the only common ground you two have."

"I asked her why you said taken"

Keith scowled

"If everyone's ready we can leave now!"

__

Everything was going fine. The kids were playing in small groups and Keith sat on the dock with Lance or Axca sometimes splashing him or each other. So then why did it all start going downhill? Keith was happy watching over the kids, flicking between the groups. That was until Vivian's head dunked under the water.

He instantly jumped in and started swimming towards her, despite the protests from his friends. He was almost to her when his jeans caught on a rock. The water was clear enough that he saw her feet kicking wildly, trying to keep her head above the water. He put his arm out below her feet so that she had something to stand on and pushed up so that she could breathe. He swiped downwards with his other hand, failing to free his leg but succeeding in scraping his hand on a rock he didn't know was there. Instead of using his hands, he tried a different method. He wiggled his foot in all directions, kicked a rock a bit too hard and ripped the bottom of the jeans, but at least he could move now.

Keith swum up to the surface, and pulled Vivian towards him as he did. She clung to his neck and he held him to his chest. He slowly made his way towards the shore, taking gasping breaths the whole way.

Keith dropped on his knees and coughed until he could breathe again. He looked up to see her shaking and occasionally hiccuping. He understood the feeling too well. She fell onto his chest and he caught her. She sobbed into his shirt while he drew circles on her back. Her tears calmed down after a few minutes but she was still shaking.

"Are you okay?"

She wriggled out of his hold and started tearing up again. She made a sound like a wounded puppy.

"What about you? You got hurt helping me.."

"Hey. A graze isn't permanent. Dying is. I'll be fine"

He reached out and wiped the tears spilling from her face.

"Besides, I'd do it again if any of you were in trouble"

He got up to move but she clung to him again so he sat back down.

Axca saw Vivian's head pop out of the water  and looked down.

"Fuck"

She swum over to the dock and pushed herself up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not losing another family"

She sprinted off before Lance had a time to react. He pulled himself up and ran after Axca. He grabbed a near by towel and the hoodie Keith had left on the ground. Lance saw them get to the shore and slowed down, out of breath. Axca didn't slow down. Its didn't even look like she was tired, she just kept running. She got to the two and dropped to her knees.

"Are you two okay?"

Keith looked up to see Lance walking a bit away.

"Did you run all the way here?!"

"You got stuck under the water didn't you. I saw Vivian look down after she resurfaced."

She was still shaking and holding onto Keith and he had his uninjured arm wrapped around her, but she jumped slightly after hearing her name.

"I'm sorry.."

It was bearly above a whisper but both of them heard it. They exchanged a glance and looked down at her.

"Why?"

"It's my fault you were worrying"

Keith scoffed

"If we didn't worry it would just make us terrible friends"

"But you got hurt!"

Axca looked up at Keith but he was looking at Vivian.

"And I told you that I'm fine, it's just a graze"

"I wasn't talking about your hand.."

Keith frowned and turned away

"What happened?"

Vivian turned around with tear streaks down her face.

"He got caught on something but pushed me up while he figured it out. When he got up he was swimming slower than usual and collapsed coughing when we got to the shore. And then he made sure I was alright."

Axca looked up but Keith wouldn't look at her so she leaned over and flicked his forehead. His hand flew up as a reflex.

"You self sacrificing idiot"

He kept his mouth stubbornly closed but he was at least looking at her.

"Show me your hand"

He turned his hand over. She looked down and winced. Vivian peeked her head over but Axca covered her eyes.

"It's more than a graze Vivian. Don't look"

His entire palm was bleeding and it looked like he'd scraped most of his skin off. Axca clicked her tongue.

"Razz even said no injuries. I'm going to get a med kit. The three of you stay here"

Keith looked up and saw Lance standing behind her.

"Don't get it infected and don't let any of the young kids see that."

With that she ran off and scampered her way up the hill. Lance looked down and scrunched up his face.

"Gross. I brought a towel if either of you need it"

He offered it out and Vivian took it from him with a quiet 'Thank you'. Lance sighed and sat down, looking at Keith.

"Didn't I tell you before that you need to take better care of yourself?"

Keith scowled

"She needed help"

Lance looked over to see Vivian jump and hide her face in the towel. He sighed.

"That doesn't mean you had to get injured."

"It's not like I wanted to. But I got stuck."

"And you supposed to be a good swimmer?"

Keith scoffed and turned his attention to Vivian. Her hands gave off slight tremors every few seconds and her eyes were watching the water cautiously.

Axca ran down the hill and slid into Lance, making him jolt. She muttered a quick 'sorry', sat on the ground and turned Keith's hand around. His eyes jumped over to her as he drew in a sharp breath. She flicked her eyes up for a second before dropping them again. A drop of water fell onto his hand and he winced, grabbing her wrist. She looked up again and sighed.

"Keith. I have to clean it first."

"Yeah I know, I know."

He let go of her hand and shrugged

"Reflex"

He tried staying still as much as he could, so that he wouldn't disturb her too much.