Inside the castle, a lovely showerhead shut off. Humming to herself, the even more lovely Princess Allura grabbed for a towel and stepped gracefully out of the shower, preceeded by a rolling flood of steam so thick visibility in the spacious bathroom was suddenly reduced to six inches in any direction.

Elsewhere in the castle:

Pidge emerged from his room with a bad cowlick--if it can possibly be imagined--rubbed his eyes under his massive glasses and yawned. He was nearly bowled over by Hunk--who, with Lance, was just returning from the weight room they'd discovered the day before on the twenty-first floor or so of the new castle. The near impact with such a large object as Hunk snapped Pidge awake pretty quick; so he flung his Masters of the Universe towel over his shoulder and followed the other two with another mighty yawn.

At the other end of the hall, Sven--returning from his morning jog--and a groggy, pajama-clad Keith headed for the same place as the other three: the showers.

The five Space Explorers arrived at the door to the castle's communal bathroom together, entering in ranking order with Pidge bringing up the rear, yawning. They set down their clean clothes in neat, folded piles on the benches, removed the clothes they were already in and placed those in neat, folded piles next to the clean ones, and proceeded to the showers. All together, they turned on their showers--and got a most unpleasant surprise.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!! COLD!!!" screamed Pidge, and he did a frantic little dance.

The other four quickly turned their shower heads off. Frozen and quite perturbed, they were very awake now! Hunk had to turn Pidge's shower off for him, as he was too busy hopping around; and having done so the little guy made a mad dash for the warmth and safety of his beloved Masters of the Universe towel.

He was such a pathetic display, the other four took one look at him, exchanged glances, and knew full well what must be done.

Allura had received the call, and, ready for business, she entered the lounge only to find the five Space Explorers in a huddle.

"Um, hi, guys," she said, a little uncertainly. "You, uh, wanted to see me about something?"

Lance looked up. "Hey, princess!" he said over his shoulder. "Yeah, just one sec."

They whispered suspiciously for a few minutes more. Allura tapped her foot impatiently. She was the princess. She didn't have to take this! They should have been prepared. She wondered what they could possibly be talking about, and worrying. After all, they were probably talking about her. Just before she could work up the nerve to protest this treatment or storm out or ask what the heck was going on, the huddle broke up.

Hunk, Lance, Pidge and Sven shoved a very nervous Keith in her direction. "Wait, why do I have to tell her?" he protested. "The leader? Oh, fine! Jeez...I'm going already, stop pushing me!" Turning to Allura, he smiled sweetly. "Hi, princess. We, um, have something to...That is...uh..." He scratched his head.

Allura tapped her feet louder. Luckily, Lance stepped in to take over for Keith.

"Look, Allura," he said, "we have a bone to pick with you. 'Kay? You see, we have a little problem with the showers--"

"Oh!" Allura sighed in relief. "Well that's easily fixed. But you should really talk to Coran--"

"No! Jeez, princess--" Allura glared hard at Lance. "I mean, uh, what I meant was we aren't getting any hot water. I think--" Hunk coughed. "Okay, we think that the root of the problem is your shower habits."

Allura, shocked that they could make such an assumption, put her hands on her hips.

Lance started. "Now, wait a minute, Allura! Let me explain. You see, we believe that you may be taking too long and too hot of showers, thus leaving an insufficient amount of hot water--that is, leaving no hot water--for us. So, we have devised a list of possible solutions to this problem." He cleared his throat, raised a sheet of paper to eye-level, and began to read. "Number one: take shorter showers. Number two: take cooler showers. Number three: take shorter and cooler showers. Number four: shower after us. Number five: shower in the evening."

Here Lance paused and grinned mischievously.

"Or number six: shower with us."

The other four started. "Uh, I don't remember writing that one down," said Keith. Hunk rushed forward and yanked the paper out of Lance's hand, looking frantically for number six. He did find it, scribbled in a hurried chicken scratch under number five. He stared dumbly.

But to everyone's surprise, Allura's bitchy facade suddenly melted as the full impact of the Space Explorers' predicament finally sunk in. She pondered it for a long moment.

"Oh, my, you're right," she said at last. "I do take long, hot showers. Thank you for bring that to my attention. I promise it will be rectified immediately." And she left in a hurry.

"Are you sure that was one of our suggestions, Lance?" asked Keith. "No, do you think we got through to her?"

"Oh, sure," said Lance. "Hey, we'll have hot water tomorrow. I just know it." He paused. "You don't think I was too demanding in my approach, do you?"

"Of course not," said Sven, who until now had remained conveniently and contemplatively disconnected from the main action--as usual. "We're Space Explorers, and we need hot water!"

Everyone stared.

Sven coughed. "Well, it would have sounded a lot less stupid if Keith had said it."

Until the only person who could possibly disrupt their drugged-like state of hot water-induced bliss--Allura--walked in.

"Hi, guys," she said, cheerful as always.

The five started at the sight of her. Allura smiled back, letting her gaze drop south for an ample enough second before reestablishing eye contact--only with a much bigger smile. Suddenly aware of his nakedness, Pidge yelped and hid behind Hunk. They all stared as Allura set a neat pile of clean, folded clothes on the bench next to theirs. They stared even harder as she began to unbutton her shirt. Jaws dropped all around--except Sven's, which was dropping inside.

At last Keith snapped back to his Space Explorer commander senses and realized that one of them should do, or at least say something about this, and that--being the leader--it might as well be him.

"Uh, Allura, can you stop, um, er...un-undressing for a moment." He remembered to breathe. "So, um, what are you doing here?"

"Taking a shower," she said. "Duh! See, I gave some thought to what you said to me yesterday, and I must say I'm terribly sorry. I had no idea I was using up all the hot water." She shrugged apologetically, then went back to the buttons. One of them was being particularly difficult, and her struggle with it captured Lance's attention.

"Yeah, okay," Keith said, "but why did you choose...number six?"

Hunk said to Lance accusingly: "I still say you wrote that one on there without consulting us, Lance--if you want to call that writing." He gave Lance a shove. But since Lance wasn't paying attention to anything other than Allura's button, Hunk nearly knocked him over.

Allura was avoiding contact. She began to fidget even more with the button, much to Lance's torturous delight. "Oh, that," she said to Keith. "Well, gee, I don't know. I guess... Well, I guess I just wanted to be like one of the guys, you know?"

"That's really touching, Allura," Keith said, "but...I don't think it's right for you to be showering WITH us. I mean, because you're a...um...you're not, uh..."

Hunk lost his patience completely. "Oh, come on, commander stutter bug," he yelled. "Just SAY it! Jeez... It's because you don't have a penis princess!"

Allura gasped.

Keith started. "Shut UP, Hunk! That's not it at all! GAWD! I wasn't going to say because she's a GIRL, Hunk. It's because she's a PRINCESS! Jesus..."

"Oops."

Keith sighed in utter exasperation.

Meanwhile, Allura had finally gotten that tricky button undone. "Well, I don't care!" she said with admirable determination and moved to the next one. Lance whimpered pathetically.

So Keith chose a different reproach. Why not make light of the subject?

"Come on, princess," he said with a little laugh. "You don't want to shower with us. We're vulgar pilots."

"Yeah," added Hunk, "and dirty."

"And horny!" said Lance, staring. When he realized what he had said he turned bright red. "Er, horny? I meant to say naughty--Damn! Dirty, yeah, that's it. We're dirty. Has anyone said that already?" Hunk raised his hand. "Shit--"

Pidge: "Oh, just drop it already!"

Again Keith sighed. "Seriously, Allura, it just isn't right. How can I emphasize that enough? You're the princess, for crying out loud. And--uh, I'm going to be honest with you--as much as I'd like to see you... Well, as much as I would enjoy..." At this rate he just knew Hunk was going to blow his whole point again, so he got focused and came right down to it. "As much as I'd love to shower with you, it isn't proper for a young woman in your position."

Lance chuckled pervertedly at 'position,' and received a sharp elbowing from Sven.

"Ow... Oh, hey, Sven!" Once again, Sven had been conveniently forgotten. "What's your opinion on all this."

"I'm not going to get involved," said Sven. "But if I may draw your attention to one thing: there are only five shower heads."

Hunk pushed Pidge out of the way and pointed innocently: "There's one open over here."

"No there isn't!" Pidge huffed back to his place. "I'm not DONE YET, Hunk!"

Allura bowed her head. "Well. I don't know what to say to that, Keith."

"You don't have to," said Keith. "I just thought--Uh, could you look up, make eye contact here? Jeez. Now, I was just trying to be honest, princess. There isn't one of us here who would want to pass up the opportunity to...well, see you...ahem, naked--So it wouldn't be fair--"

Allura's eyes got wide. "Even you, Keith?"

Keith blushed.

"Oh." Allura giggled, and whispered, albeit loud enough for everyone to hear: "I thought you were gay."

Lance started. "You too?"

"Look, you two, I'm not gay. Okay?" Keith threw his hands in the air. "Cripes! Why does everyone think I'm gay?"

"You mean you're not?" Lance asked, pointing. "Not even a little bi-curious? You know, most guys who are in denial don't even know it." Keith's ensuing glare could have killed. "You sure you're not in denial?"

"No, Lance, for the last time, I'm not gay."

Lance sighed and clucked his tongue disappointedly. That made everyone stare.

He started. "What? Hey, could you all stop staring at ME and start staring at the person this is really all about? Allura--"

"What?!" she snapped.

"You were undressing. Please continue."

Allura just ignored him. "I don't care if it isn't proper and if all of you get some kind of excitement out of showering with me. Don't you get it? I want to be part of the the team. I want to be part of the Voltron Force! I have to be prepared for things and specially trained, like you guys. One day I'm going to rule this planet, and... Well, what if one of you guys got hurt and-and couldn't fly the lion and form Voltron and save the planet and stuff--"

She forgot what she was going to say next because Sven was staring at her so intently. Soon, everyone was looking at him. Coran stepped in and went over to use the urinals. And Sven just ignored them, turned off his shower, toweled himself off and got dressed, and left seeming very cross.

"What got into him?" Pidge whispered to Hunk. Hunk shrugged.

"I read ahead in the script," Sven answered, stepping back into the room with his accent dropped. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my trailer."

"Oh, uh, Sven," Lance said. "Just don't do anything rash, buddy." Sven raised a questioning eyebrow. "You know, like kill yourself?"

Sven sighed. "Lance, why would I kill myself?"

"Oh, you know, when that fat bitch came on the screen and she was bitchin' and gripin' and I said, 'Over Sven's dead body, fat bitch'..." He scratched his head. "You're right. I don't know why you'd wanna kill yourself."

Sven rolled his eyes. "I'm leaving. Oh, and, Lance," he added, his tone dripping with overt and viscous sarcasm," thank you SO MUCH for reminded me EXACTLY what you said!" And with that he exited again.

"Wait a minute," said Allura. "'Fat bitch'? Did she happen to be dressed like a ceramic cookie jar and speak with a funny German accent?"

"Yeaaaah, that's her exactly!" said Lance.

"Nanny...She was bitching and griping?"

"Yep," said Lance. "I mean, YES! She threatened to--TO TAKE US OVER HER KNEE! It was horrific!"

Keith rolled his eyes. "Oh, come off it!"

"Hm," Allura said. "I'll have to have a talk with her."

She thought about that for a minute, and since it looked like a good thing to do, the others thought about it to. Coran washed his hands and mumbled something about the castle needing another bathroom before pushing out the door.

Then it occured to Lance, and he pointed to the vacant spot under a showerhead that once was occupied by Sven. "This one's open!"

"Hey, all right!" said Allura, and she continued to unbutton her shirt, once again gaining Lance's absolute undivided attention.

"No, wait a second, Allura," Keith said.

She stopped undressing, and Lance tried very hard to repress his growing anger towards Keith's efforts to deprive him of watching the lovely Allura undress.

"You say you want to join the Voltron Force, right?" Keith asked.

"Yes..."

"And, by any chance, is that what this whole thing is about? Do you think in order to be one of us you have to shower with us? 'Cause you don't."

"I guess it's kind of silly, isn't it?" Allura said, and blushed and giggled. "Boy, and to think I was actually going to take a shower with you guys. What was I thinking?" She smiled and shrugged, then started to button up the front of her shirt. Lance started. He looked dumbly at Allura, then Keith, then back at Allura, sputtering.

"Well, I'll be out of your way now." Allura gathered her clothes from the bench. "And thanks, Keith, for saving me from total embarassment," she added as she gave the Space Explorers commander a peck on the cheek.

Keith blushed.

Lance sputtered.

A big grin appeared on Hunk's face. "Whoo-hoo!"

"Shut up, Hunk!" Lance said, and gave him a dirty look. "You wanna encourage them?"

Allura waved to the bunch and left, and Lance continued to sputter after her. "Buh-buh-buh--Wait, Allura, come back! Please! Keith was just kidding--No. In fact, he was lying. You can stay! Please, PLEASE stay!" Of course, it was futile. He sighed. "Now why did you have to go and do that, Keith? We could have showered with Allura! It just isn't fair..."

Keith laid a hand on Lance's shoulder and gave it a little squeaze that felt rather awkward under the circumstances. "It was the right thing to do, Lance," he said. "I know that's a little hard for you to understand."

"Yeah." Lance put his hands on his hips. "What is it with you and doing the right thing, anyway?"

"Ahem," said Hunk. "I think the doing-the-right-thing thing applies to me. Keith's the one with the tacky punchlines."

"Oh yeah!" Lance turned to Keith. "So, what wise words do you have for this episode, Sensei?"

"Just that...WE'RE SPACE EXPLORERS, AND WE NEED HOT WATER!"

They all laughed heartily at that, and Lance said chuckling, "Sven was right. It's really not so stupid when Keith says it."

He thought about that for a moment--

"Nope. It's stupid."