t w e n t y o n e ;

Raven and Roseanne left the fifth floor abandoned dorms, and spent the night on their floor's lounge. Roseanne did research on all the other Europa ships before theirs. There had been six previous to their mission's ship, Europa VII, and all of them had been used for the same unsuccessful expedition. Each and every ship had any sort of problem in which the entire crew ended up perishing. The most recent had happened eight years before Roseanne was even born. But they had started planning since then, to send a new group of elite space cadets to do their research for them or very likely die trying.

The very next Monday morning, the two wanted to tell their crew mates about their findings, but they also felt as though there was nothing they could to. Upon joining the Garden, the parents of the children were to sign documents in which they surrendered their child to the government, giving them authorization to do anything that was needed to them. Even after turning eighteen, which was the age of official adulthood, they were essentially property of the government in their country and could not make decisions for themselves. Everything they did, what they ate, what they wore. It was all decided by the Garden facility. Even if they didn't want to go on that space mission, they could not decline. They could not simply leave, as much as they may want to. But Roseanne thought that if her team mates knew about it, perhaps they could work together to make it a successful mission. Perhaps they could make sure that nothing could go wrong.

As they entered the physical training grounds for their morning session, which was their only session for the day now that they were in their final days at the Garden, Roseanne planned to wait until after practices to approach their instructor. It was Instructor Hemlock from the Province of Lumber. Recently he had been over the moon with joy at seeing a fellow member of his province on the team. He mentioned he regretted that Brown hadn't joined sooner, as he would have liked to teach him more about ax throwing tricks. The few things he had learned from iInstructor Hemlock though, he was definitely using against Raven. Many times during practices, Raven and Roseanne were nowhere near the ax targets and they'd see a runaway ax flying towards them. Raven glared in Cedar's direction, only to get back a half assed apology from his crew mate. 

Neither Instructor Hemlock nor Raven talked to Cedar about it, until there was a bloody accident. Which had specifically happened on the day she decided to talk to their instructor about the news regarding their mission. Cedar  had been flinging axes on one side of the training grounds when out of nowhere, Roseanne saw one flinging towards them. It was as if she had been frozen in place and she felt someone grab her arm, pulling her back and out of the way. In her place was Raven, who instinctively drew his left arm up as if to shield the blow. In a second, the ax sliced through his arm, severing it just under his elbow and there was a stream of tar colored blood that poured out. He dropped to his knees weakly and Roseanne started screaming frantically at the top of her lungs.

She normally had a phobia about seeing blood, but her adrenaline was pumping through her veins and the shock was so much that she didn't care in that moment. She dropped down to his side and touched around the stump of his severed arm as though to assess the damage with shaking hands. As she thought of what to do, Instructor Hemlock rushed over and took off his training jacket, using it to wrap Raven's arm in it. But he was losing so much blood that the jacket was quickly drenched. Ciel and Indy ran over next and the instructor asked them to carry their captain to the infirmary. He would need extensive medical care and would probably be in the hospital wing for the next few days, and that was considering there were only about two and a half more weeks until take off. 

With the boys carrying Raven away, Roseanne felt a surge of bravery, and got back on her feet. With her pink training clothes stained in black blood and the stench of iron on her, she marched over to Cedar and shoved her hands into his chest, taking him by surprise. Roseanne was usually the calm one in the group, the one most of the other members went to when they had a problem. It was rare when they would see her angry or upset. Despite not having a liking for Raven, Cedar did look like he felt bad about what happened.

At the moment, Ivory was nowhere to be found. She had likely ran after the boys to check on Raven. Roseanne thought she would deal with her after talking to Cedar. 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Roseanne accused, pink eyes full of anger as she was seething. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to take a swing at him, but she thought that was probably not the best thing to do--solving violence with more violence.

"It was an accident." Cedar attempted to defend himself.

But Roseanne refused to hear his excuses with a shake of her head. At the very least she thought he would come clean about it and apologize for being so petty. "Raven is our captain and you don't have to like him, but you owe him respect. You've been throwing axes at him all week, don't think we haven't noticed." As she said that, he made a face that said I don't know what you're talking about, but no actual words left his mouth. "Look, Raven isn't after Ivory, okay? He doesn't even find her remotely interesting. He's told me he thinks she's creepy and weird, especially when she's asking him dirty questions."

Cedar's hand balled up into a fist and he seemed to go red in the face with anger. But he still said nothing to her. One, because he respected her as the team's co-captain. And second, because his problem was with Raven. No matter what anyone said about him, he still wasn't going to change his mind. He thought that Ivory was a pure white little dove and that Raven was the evil black crow trying to corrupt her. 

With nothing more to say to him, Roseanne turned and stormed off in the direction of the infirmary.

-

When Roseanne got to the infirmary wing, Ivory was in the waiting area with tears streaming down her face. Ciel and Indy were close by, with worried looks on their faces. Roseanne went over to them first, to find out if they had any news. They told her that the doctors weren't telling them anything, but that they heard them talking whenever they passed by. From the information they gathered, he had lost a lot of blood and since they really didn't admit kids from Province of Mines too often into the Garden, there were no blood reserves for him. The doctors were going to ask the General Admin if it was even worth it to go out to his province and search for any donors. 

Roseanne's heart dropped at the news because it meant they were seriously considering letting him die.Knowing the admins she wasn't sure what they would decide. They were just a bunch of smart kids, easily disposable. They had no reason to make the extra effort to save his life. Ciel mentioned that they were talking about him getting a metallic prosthetic arm to use after getting him the blood donations. But it was all talk until a decision could be made. 

Roseanne could feel her eyes filling up with tears and quickly starting to overflow. Raven was more than just a boy she was crushing on, he was her best friend. They did everything together. If she couldn't be with him anymore, then she didn't want to be in the Garden and she didn't want to go on that mission. Her heart was also instantly filled with hatred as she glanced across the room at the other girl sat in the waiting area. She balled her hands up into fists angrily and told the two boys she had been with, "This is all her fault too. I'm going to give her a piece of my mind. Hey--" She called the last part out to her loudly and she took a step in her direction. 

Ivory looked up from where she sat, but in a second, she could not move any more forward. There was a pair of arms around her waist, lifting her off the ground and keeping her from advancing. Roseanne turned and frantically started struggling against their hold and she saw that it was Indy who was doing that. "Indy, let me go! She gets away with everything because no one hold her accountable for what she does! Raven's in the hospital because of her. They're saying he might not make it because they don't want to go through the trouble of finding blood for him. They're going to let him die!" As she said this, the tears streamed down her face and she made sure she was being loud enough for Ivory to hear her. 

Ivory had no words as a response. 

Indy said calmly to his co-captain who was still struggling in his arms. "Its not worth it though. I don't think she ever thinks of anyone else but herself. Just calm down and we'll all find a solution to this problem together."

Roseanne struggled for a few more seconds until she just collapsed in his arms and started sobbing. Raven didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't his fault Ivory chose him as her target to mess with. Now he was in the hospital on the brink of life and death, and they weren't even allowed to see him. 

It was hours before the doctors came to them with any news, and even more hours before they gave their permission for one of them to go in and see him. The rest of the team had arrived later in the day to see if he was okay, and they all agreed that it was Roseanne who should see him. Ivory was against it, she wanted to be the one to go in. But Roseanne ignored her completely. Their instructors and even the admins had dropped by too. The admins were there likely to give their verdict on what they thought should be done to either let him die or save his life.

When the doctors came by to inform the team of Raven's condition, they mentioned what Ciel and Indy had overheard and told Roseanne. They said he lost a lot of blood and that they didn't have enough black blood in their blood bank reserves for him. They told the team that they could issue a mandate to have the people of his province donate their blood to them. But that would simply take too much time that they didn't have. Roseanne felt her heart drop at that. They had probably chosen to let him die and were breaking it to the team that they would be left without their captain. As tears began flowing from her eyes again, the doctor said something that caught all of them by surprise. 

He said that white blood was universal, that it could be used in the place of any other color blood. They had a little bit in their reserves too. The poorer provinces like Mines, Flowers, and Grains hardly ever had a chosen kid sent to the Garden. That meant that the blood bank at the garden had very little reserves of black, pink, and white blood. The doctor suggested that they could give him the reserves of black and white blood. Then they could send someone out to his province to retrieve blood donations from the population. They were probably proud to have one of their own sent to the garden after so many years, and chosen as captain of his expedition no less. The doctors and the admins didn't think his people would want that talent to go to waste. 

Ivory stepped forward, pushing the sleeve of her white training shirt past her elbows. "If you need any more blood while you collect donations from his province, you can take as much as he needs from me."

Cedar placed a hand on her arm as if to protest, but she moved her arm away from his hold. Roseanne thought that at least she seemed to care about Raven enough to help him.

The doctor nodded and asked for her to follow him down to the lab. They were going to take some blood for her to put away for later, in case he may need it. As they walked away, he mentioned to her that there was a chance Raven's body would reject the different colored blood at first. That's why he would need plenty of her blood to keep him alive while they got color matched blood from his province. Roseanne didn't care how it happened, all she wanted was for Raven to be okay.

-

wow its been a few days since i posted here. obviously this whole chapter is made up. cedar did not chop raven's arm off with an ax. this was merely all for drama reasons. happy thanksgiving to my fellow american readers! i am thankful for every single one of you. 

alsooo i kinda have to spend the holiday weekend quarantined, which really sucks. raven told me on tuesday night that he was having some flu like symptoms and that he was afraid it might be covid. so we called off work together because i started getting strange headaches last friday too and it went on until like sunday. and like this headache was sooo painful that i stayed in my bed all day friday after i got home from work. so we went to get tested together yesterday and we wont get our results until monday or tuesday. we are both pretty quiet and have like anxiety to talk to people so it was kind of difficult. but we pushed through bc we knew we had to get tested.

hopefully its nothing. but like raven never really gets sick, which is why i thought it was weird that he was suddenly with headaches, cough, and other symptoms. in the three years i've known him i dont think he's ever had a cold. maybe once. i have diabetes, so i catch a cold sooo quickly, twice a year sometimes. but he was freaking out bc he has a pretty strong immune system. 

anyway, have a great day everyone!

-clary