[orientation part 1: season 5, episode 1]
*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*

Rose closed her eyes out of fear, too afraid to look up. Her life must be over. But nothing ended up attacking her. She opened one of her eyes slowly and breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Oh my god, you're humans," she exclaimed at the group in front of her, climbing to her feet. "Not roaches, oh I thought my life was over. This is the best news I've ever received. I'm so sorry for running into you all."

There were five people standing in front of her, three women and two men. They all looked completely bewildered like they were just in the middle of a conversation that she had interrupted. The girl in the middle clear her throat, she had her hand raised up at Rose. "Who are you?" she asked slowly, backing away from her.

"Oh, sorry, how rude of me," Rose said shaking her head. "I'm Rose Valia, I live here. Well, not here per-say, I don't live with the Roaches-" She looked up and noticed the apprehensive looks on their faces. "Wait, how did you guys get up here?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

The older man spoke up, "We were transported here, we were supposed to be at a diner."

Rose blinked, "Are you on drugs? I mean you have got to be on something, making up random words like that. Diner," she scoffed.

The group looked at her like she was speaking in a different language. "Are you sure she's not the one on drugs? I mean, the people here seem pretty, interesting," a young British woman spoke.

"Me? On drugs?" Rose shook her head vigorously. "Do I look like- whatever, never mind, believe what you want, I guess."

The younger, much taller man walked closer to Rose. "So since you live here, do you know how to get out of here?"

Rose shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine. I don't spend my free time running away from killer roaches. I'm not even supposed to but on this level. I just started running and ended up here. I was actually looking for my friend before I ran into you all."

"I thought you were running from the roaches?" the woman with the long braid asked.

"I was multitasking," Rose responded simply. She peered down at the ground, seeing something familiar. It was one of the small red flashes that Deke made. "Wait, I know this," she said picking it up hastily. She looked at the door in front of them. "Were you guys gonna go through here?" she asked them.

The older man nodded, "Yes, before you ran into us."

"Perfect, I'll come with," Rose decided. She figured that if she stuck with this group that one, it would be easy for them to fight the roaches. And two, they could possibly help her find Virgil and Deke, who was probably somewhere nearby since he had the flash laid out.

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea," the younger man said. "The last guy who was with us, kinda, kicked the can."

Rose tilted her head, "Well unlike him, whoever he was, I am still standing, and I'm very handy. I can help you navigate."

"Didn't you say you had no idea where you're going?" the first woman pointed out.

Rose's smile faltered, "Yes, yes. I did say that, but that's on this level. I can help with the rest of the lighthouse, I'm very well acquainted with the people here. I get this feeling that you guys aren't from around here, so you could use some connections."

The group turned to each other, whispering quietly so that Rose couldn't hear them. Rose wasn't entirely sure why they were so hesitant to trust her. Usually, the humans on the ship tend to stick together, but Rose thought there was something off about these people. They seemed to ask a lot of questions that they should know the answer to if they were passengers on the lighthouse.

The older man turned to Rose, "You got a weapon with you?" he asked slowly.

Rose blinked, "You think I'm authorized to carry around a weapon, Kasius would have my head on a stake," she whispered. "Besides, looks like that gun could do more damage than any weapon I could've grabbed," he said looking at the large laser gun in the younger man's hand.

"Fair enough," the older man said shrugging. "Yeah, sure, come along."

"Perfect," Rose said getting behind the group as they opened up the door. Rose peered from behind the group and saw a huge mountain of dead bodies. It looked like they had their life sucked out of them, starting with their faces. "Yuck!" she exclaimed kicking one of the bodies with her right foot. "That's definitely the roaches' work," she said looking down at the bite marks.

"Nothing," the woman with the brown hair spoke.

"Nothing alive," the woman with the braid said, correcting her.

Rose looked up from the bodies, "What are you guys looking for exactly?" she asked quietly.

"Our friend," the British woman said. "May. She arrived here with us, we just don't know where she ended up."

The name sounded familiar to Rose, but she wasn't sure where she had heard it. Before Rose could ask another question the older man spoke once again.

"Hey!" he said picking up a jacket that was next to some of the water tanks.

The woman with the braid ran over to him, "They didn't get to her, did they?" she asked, most likely referring to their friend May.

The older man shook his head, "May would've put up a fight," he explained.

"And they left the other bodies here-" the woman finished.

The first woman who spoke to Rose was examining the labels on the computer, "'Water Reclamation,'" she read aloud.

"You were right Jemma," the older man said.

"I figured it out using magic," the British woman named Jemma responded.

Jemma sounded strangely familiar as well, but she pushed that out of her mind. Rose now realized she had never asked any of them what their names were, but it was too late for that now. "You guys say these things like you haven't been here before."

"We haven't," the woman with the braid said.

"What-" Rose spluttered. "No, sorry, that's not possible-" she started but the group seemed to be distracted by the computer that just turned on.

Jemma and the other woman started to examine it. "I can try and find a layout and track May," the first woman spoke.

"It's in English," Jemma pointed out. "They're tracking debris fields called 'frozen oceans.'" She began to type on the computer more intensely. "They're collecting water from ice in space. This is a colony," she said turning back to the group.

"Colony," Rose shook her head. "A colony? No, you've got it all wrong. I was born here- this isn't some sort of experiment if that's what you're thinking-"

"Born here?" The older man questioned. "So you didn't come through a monolith."

"No," Rose said simply. "What the hell is a monolith?"

"It's something that can transport you through space," Jemma spoke quickly.

"So if they didn't get here through a monolith, maybe the base is close enough that you could travel from Earth and back," the older man suggested.

The younger man's head popped up, "And we can get home."

Rose was increasingly confused. These people were talking as if the surface was actually habitable for people to live on. The surface is where the blues sent them all to die, there was no way these people were from there. But the group kept on conversing like it was. How could they not know about the destruction of Earth? It was a tale told to every child to warn them about the dangers of messing with Kasius, or else they would be sentenced to the same fate that the elders faced.

"The Elders," Rose mumbled to herself. "The prophecy." Then it all clicked. Where she heard the name May and Jemma before, the discussion of Earth like it was still something that existed, the strange vocabulary they were using. "Oh my god, you guys are the S.H.I.E.L.D agents," she said loudly. "Phil Coulson, Alphonso Mackenzie, or Mack I guess, Daisy Johnson, Jemma Simmons, and Yo-Yo Rodriguez. And Melinda May, your friend, she's one as well. Virgil was right, you guys actually exist, I mean you're here right now. Man, I kinda feel bad for not believing him now. You guys are here to save us all."

There was a loud thud against the door, causing everyone to turn towards it. A group of Kasius's minions burst through the doors.

"Shit, the blues," Rose said quietly. She looked up to see Mack, the younger man punched one of them in the face. Which was the last thing she remembered before everything went dark.

---

Rose woke up in a jail cell rubbing her head vigorously. She heard the guards talking outside, something about the others not having their metrics. She looked around and saw Jemma and Coulson already awake, sitting up on the opposite side of the cell. "You guys wouldn't happen to have any metrics would you?" she asked holding out her forearm and showing them the shiny, black circle injected into her arm.

"No, what is that?" Jemma asked.

"Oh great," Rose said sighing. "They're not gonna be happy about that," she said gesturing to the guards outside.

Daisy began stirring next to Rose, she got up hurriedly and looked around the cell. "Mack? Yo-Yo?" she asked looking for the other two from their group.

Coulson and Jemma shook their heads. Daisy stood up marching up to the door. "No, no, that's not a good idea," Rose warned her quietly. But Daisy didn't listen.

"Hey!" she said banging on the door. "What are you gonna do with our friends!"

The guards looked at her intently, "Whatever we want," one said with a twisted smile on his face. "Experiment. They knew the rule, and they broke it."

"They're not gonna make it easy for you," Daisy retorted.

"No," The other guard said stepping forward. "They'll beg for their lives as you humans always do. I've done 22 rotations, and I have never observed anything else."

Rose desperately wanted to try and think of a plan to get them out of the prison, but whenever she tried to reason with the guards through the door. They just laughed at her and brushed off her pleas and walked away, laughing. Meanwhile, the other three were trying to make sense of everything that was happening.

"New theory," Coulson said to Jemma as Rose turned back around towards them.

"The Kree have been abducting humans to this outpost for years," Jemma explained.

"Running experiments?" Daisy questioned.

"Well, their genetic work in creating Inhumans is well-known. Maybe they're doing more of the same," Jemma suggested.

Rose shook her head, "You do realize that you're not gonna figure out what's going on here if you don't ask."

"Well, you were busy with the Kree guards, so we were trying to go off of what limited information we had," Coulson replied.

"Yeah, and I'd rather ask when we are out of this cell," Daisy added standing up. "That's it. I'm getting us out of here."

Daisy didn't get a chance to do anything because the door swung open revealing another woman, and an additional Kree guard. "May," Coulson said quietly.

Rose looked past May to see a familiar figure standing behind her. "Deke, oh thank god!" She exclaimed.

Deke ran into the cell to meet her, "Rosie! You're here," he said quickly, bringing her into a side hug. "Rosie and friends, right. Hey buddy," he said loudly to Coulson. "Just go with it," he whispered to the rest of the group. "I've been looking everywhere for you guys. Man, what a mess back there, huh? These poor suckers," he let go of Rose and turned to the Kree guard. "Virgil -- you know, from R&R. He was trying to scam these guys out of some tokens. This one came running to me begging for help, the poor thing," he said gesturing to May, who was leaning against a wall for support. "When I get my hands on that no-good louse, he's gonna have some explaining to do. So where is Virgil, anyway?"

"He's dead," Coulson replied simply.

Rose blinked but didn't do anything as to not arise suspicion from the Kree guards. Deke had the same look on his face as Rose. "Good, good," Deke said, trying to keep calm. "Got what he deserved, then, didn't he, for trying to drag these poor transfers up from processing to the wet works just to steal their Metrics. And Rosie," he added pointing to his best friend. "She was trying to stop him from doing that and just got caught up in the middle of this whole ordeal."

Rose nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know Virgil, just always messing around," she said backing up Deke's story,

"But he's just Roach food now, right?" Deke said asking Coulson.

"Oh yeah," Coulson replied nonchalantly.

"One more vacancy, right?" Deke said.

Coulson nodded, "That's what I was gonna say."

"Guys what did I say about trusting Virgil," Deke stammered. "Huh? What did I say?"

"Don't trust Virgil," Jemma said quickly.

"Not to trust him," Daisy added.

"God, you repeated in back to me, and we said it back -- it was like a pass-and-catch thing," Deke turned to the Kree guard, Rose leaned closer to hear what he was saying. "Look, I really appreciate your help with these guys, but I can take them off your hands, and I'll slip you a few extra tokens for your trouble. Listen, I'll be, I'll be honest with you man to... more than man. If I can't get these guys back to processing at warp speed, I am gonna be in some pretty hot water. So I know it's not ideal, but," Deke looked back at the group and then at the guard again. "If you, If you come by the gallery for an hour or two. I'll make it worth your while, alright?"

The Kree guard thought on his offer, and the nodded. Deke turned back to the group, smiling. "All good gang!" he announced. "So, single file."

Rose instantly followed him out of the room and started to walk next to him.

"What the hell did you get yourself into," he whispered to her.

Rose huffed, "It's not my fault, you're the one who suggested we split up dumbass," she retorted.

"Yeah, but I wasn't the one who got caught and almost eaten by roaches," Deke pointed out.

"I took a lot of wrong turns, okay," she admitted quietly as they stopped in the middle of the hallway. "Won't happen right time."

"Did you know Virgil was killed?" he asked her as the others caught up with them.

Rose shook her head, "No, must've happened before I ran into them."

"Fine I'll ask them," Deke said turning around to the four that were trailing behind them. "What the hell happened to Virgil? The Roaches get him?"

"Sorry to say," Coulson responded. "Was he a friend?"

Rose and Deke exchanged glances, "Er, acquaintance," Deke answered. "He owed me a ton of tokens for this job?"

"Wait a job?" Rose asked, a little confused. "I thought we were just looking for him because he agreed to take you out on the trawler. Was this whole thing for a job?"

Deke shifted, "Yeah. He said he wanted to hide some people, and I thought if I told you the truth you wouldn't have come with."

"You're damn right I wouldn't have," Rose said shaking her head. "That shit's dangerous. I said I didn't want to be mixed up in that, again."

"Whatever it's in the past now right," Deke said continuing his story. "So I was hired to supply the Metrics and swap them out, but you guys don't even have Metrics, which means that I don't have the tokens to cover Virgil's end, so have fun," he said beginning to walk away from the group.

"Hey, wait, wait," Daisy said calling after him. "We need your help. We need to find our friends."

Rose sighed, "They're right. I kinda said I'd help them before we all got captured."

Deke looked at her incredulously. "What, no! Okay, their friends attacked a Kreeper. They're as good as gone."

Rose turned to look at the other four. Deke was right, Mack and Yo-Yo were definitely goners. "To be fair, I did say I'd help you before that happened, but I don't like to cross those, Kree as you call them, so I might have to back out on that offer of help. I'm sorry."

"Those blues are bred to kill," Deke added. "So you just, you make your peace with it."

"Listen," Coulson said to the two of them. "If you could just help us find them and then get to the spacecraft-"

Deke cut it, "To do what? The only pilot we knew was Virgil, may he rest in peace, apparently. So best of luck to all you guys, but mine's running out."

"You got a name?" Coulson asked Deke.

"Deke," he responded. "And this is," he pointed to Rose.

"Rose, we know," Coulson said. "Well, we just wanted pie, and now we don't know where we are or what's going on. Apparently Rose here knew exactly who we were, and so did Virgil. Now we finally have people who know what's going on, so you two are not walking away."

Deke looked down at Rose, "You know them?" he asked.

"Know of them," she responded quietly. "Long story, I'll explain later."

There was a loud scream from down the hall and everyone turned towards it. Jemma used this opportunity to steal the gravity contraption that Deke had stored in his belt and used it to pin him against the opposite wall. "Where's the Trawler?" she asked quickly.

"Why am I stuck up here and Rosie isn't?" he asked, his breath uneven.

"Because she's been relatively nice to us, and you haven't," Jemma answered. "Now I'll ask again, where's the Trawler?"

Deke took a deep breath in, "Take a lift down to level nine. You can't miss it," he instructed.

The other group started to talk amongst themselves, decided to divide up the work. Rose turned to Deke, "See, I would turn this into a whole lesson about being nice and helpful, and saving someone's skin that isn't your own. But I think you've learned that lesson already."

"Okay before give me a very deserved lecture on morality, you wanna let me down from here?" He asked.

"Yeah, sure," Rose responded.

"Not so fast," Coulson said strolling over to the two of them. "Got some questions for you two. What do the Kree want with us, Deke?"

Deke looked up at him, gravely. "All they ever want- submission."

Coulson looked over at Rose, "You can let him down now. I don't think he's going to run off with you here."

Rose tilted her head, "Yeah, you're probably right," she answered pulling the device off of Deke's chest as he fell to the ground.

"So why did the Kree build this place?" Coulson asked them.

"They didn't build the bunker," Rose answered. "Human's did."

"Why don't you know these things?" Deke asked Coulson. "Even in waste processing, they know the history," Deke paused. "You're not from processing, are you?"

"No," Coulson answered simply. "I was enjoying a meal, and then I was taken and zapped to this place. I'm from Earth."

Deke scoffed, "Yeah, well, that would be the one thing I do know, wing nut. But from where? What area?"

"Manitowoc, Wisconsin," Coulson said.

Deke stared straight into the man's eyes. "Are you high on something? Can I have some?" Deke asked him.

"See, I asked the same things, but I don't think they are," Rose told Deke. "I think they're telling the truth."

Coulson looked at her, "Wait, didn't you say you were born here?" he asked her.

"Yeah, Deke and I both were, why?" she asked.

"How long ago did they build this place?" Coulson asked them.

"Probably 90-some-odd years ago, minimum," Deke answered.

"No, no, like I said earlier that's impossible. The tech in here couldn't have been developed in the 20s," Coulson responded.

Rose them remember what she had realized earlier, what she was going to tell Deke about that group. But it already seemed like he had figured it out.

"Wait," he said slowly. "No Metrics, no scars, Wisconsin, pie. Rosie knowing of you." He started to connect it all together. "Tell me again about when you were taken."

"We were, we were sitting in our favorite diner just off Columbus Drive-" Coulson started but Deke cut him off.

"No not," Deke leaned in to hide from prying ears. "Not where, when. What year?"

Coulson looked like he had just realized something. "That monolith was different, wasn't it. We didn't travel through space."

"You traveled through time," Rose finished for him.

loving you's the anecdote,
golden ☼