t w o ;

Roseanne remembers the first time she joined group 12191 for their final years of practice together. This was the final group that would be composed of twelve members in total and would be selected to be a part of the most upcoming mission. The best of the best at the facility and of their generations. She had been fourth to be placed in this elite group. The other three before her had been Red of generation 2996, Cyan of generation 2998, and Orange of generation 2998. Red had been training alone for six months before Orange and Cyan joined her. She trained with them for another five months until Roseanne joined them.

The three thought it was weird that she had given herself a name when most of the kids and teens at the facility didn't have one. 

Roseanne always thought about that little boy she met when she was eight. She was twenty two when she joined the final group, just days before her twenty third birthday, and she still remembered that boy so clearly. He would have been eighteen now. It took some getting used to, but they started calling her Roseanne, and she gave them names of their own as well. Red, the only other girl in their group of four, became Scarlet. Orange became Seville like the seville oranges that came from Province of Harvest, and Cyan became Ciel like the skies above. They all liked their new names, especially since there were several other Reds, Oranges, and Cyans at the facility. But there was no other Scarlet, Seville, and Ciel there. 

The very first moment she laid her soft pink eyes on Ciel, she had fallen in love with him and thought he was handsome with his cyan colored hair, icy blue eyes, and tanned skin that made his hair and eye colors pop even more. But she could feel it from the start that he wasn't interested in her. They were only friends.

She got along really well with Scarlet, who claimed Roseanne as her best friend. They were the only two girls in the group at the moment and she finally had someone to relate to. 

Purple was the fifth to join their team just two months after pink, and the others urged Rosie to baptize their new member with a name before he could even get comfortable in their dorms. She went with Mauve which was pretty and it related to the color of his hair, a deep purple that matched his irises. Mauve immediately took a liking to Rosie and had even gone as far as to confessing his affections to her. But she was still hung up on Ciel and their relationship that would never be. She had politely rejected Mauve and things were awkward for a few weeks. But he was glad that she had been straightforward with him instead of stringing him along.

The day Raven joined their team, Roseanne felt a sense of happiness greater than anything else she had ever felt while being in The Garden. Her time with him as children had been brief, but she had to admit she always did miss that little boy who had given her a sense of identity. A name for herself that no one else had. He made her feel like she wasn't just another color, not just another pink at the training facility who could be easily disposable. They had been just finishing up their dinner for the afternoon and about to head back to their dorms for homework and training when one of the instructors walked in with a boy who had a familiar face. 

He was tall and handsome with jet black hair that was cut short and deep black irises. He wore a black uniform--black blazer with a white button up underneath, black tie, and black pants. All that matched his hair and his eyes. The other boys on the team had the same uniforms, but in their own colors. The girls whore the same, but with skirts instead of pants. With a hand on his shoulder, he announced to the waiting group. "This is Black of generation 2998. He will be a part of this group and accompany you on the mission in two more years." Looking to Ciel and Seville, he added, "Orange and Cyan might be familiar with him. They trained together as children, until we decided to divide their squad into two groups."

The other members nodded in agreement while Roseanne and Raven locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity. They realized they knew each other. 

But they didn't talk to each other for the first three months of their time together in the dorms or the training grounds. They would merely look at each other and only talk when they absolutely had to. They were both too shy to approach one another. Raven mostly kept to himself while Rosie spent most of her time with Scarlet and the other team members. 

It was three months after he joined the group that she approached him. One of their instructors had informed Roseanne that she was top pick to be the captain of the upcoming mission. But for that, she would need to get to know her crew and he had noticed that she hardly ever talked to Black. That meant that she had to sit down with each of them and get to know them better, fill out their personal profiles. Roseanne had gone to Scarlet, Ciel, Mauve, and Seville for that information first. The last one on her list was Raven. 

She didn't know how to approach him and just went for it one day. He had just been getting done with his jog when she walked up a bit awkwardly. He grabbed his black towel off the treadmill and placed it around his neck. There were beads of sweat running down his face and his black shirt was starting to stick to his skin from the perspiration. He was breathing a bit hard and there was a look of confusion and curiosity when she stepped in front of him to block his way unexpectedly. 

"Can I help you?" He asked her in something of a quiet voice. Raven didn't really talk to anyone in the group and the other boys were a bit resentful of that. 

They felt like maybe Raven thought he was too good for them since Ciel and Seville were from the same original group as him, but Raven had been moved to a more advanced group early on in their training. They didn't realize that it was really just in his nature to be soft spoken and quiet.

"Hey...so, our life skills instructor gave me a special assignment to get to know everyone on our team. If I could ask you a few questions..." She explained to him shyly, but with a polite smile.

He nodded in understanding. "Okay, yeah. Ask me anything." 

She asked him the basics first and then she got to the question about his hobbies. He didn't know what to say at first and seemed to think about it for more than a minute. 

"I guess I could say I like watching films on my free time, or reading books. They have these really ancient books that are really good, about wizards and stuff." He gave a small shrug of his shoulders like it wasn't really a big deal. Like he was just saying it to get it over with. 

She jotted down the response in her holo tablet and then scurried off to continue with her training for the day.

They spoke again a month later, when one of the units in the holo training rooms gave out. Mauve was from the Province of Technology and was teaching Roseanne how to restart the modem to re-establish a connection. As the expected captain of their expedition, she needed to learn about troubleshooting everything. 

They needed a pin to restart the modem manually and Raven always wore a special merit badge clipped to his uniform. She had asked if she could borrow it and he obliged, going beet red in the face when she unclipped the pin from his uniform blazer, standing so close to each other that they could feel each other's body heat. But when they fixed the problem and she tried to give him the pin back, he was gone. He had been excused from the class because he had already learned that information in one of his advanced classes, as their instructor informed the group.

She didn't speak to him again until six months after he had joined the team. Their instructor had informed the group of six that they had the weekend off to leave the training grounds. That was something that never happened, only once per year if they did exceedingly well in both their training and academics. The six members were overjoyed to be going out together and Scarlet mentioned something to the others at lunch. "I hear there's a carnival passing through and they're in Province of Grains right now. They're going to be there until Monday." Province of Grains was where whites lived and it was the province nearest to The Garden. "Since we have the weekend off, we should all go together." She grinned at the idea. The others nodded in agreement. 

"Yeah." Roseanne agreed with excitement. "We should let Raven know too."

Everyone at their table went silent. Their sixth crew mate was sitting alone at a table at the other end of the room. "I don't know. Maybe that won't be the best idea." Scarlet said, crinkling up her nose.

Seville immediately added. "He doesn't even talk to any of us. It might be awkward."

"Well that's why we should invite him." Roseanne insisted. When no one said anything, she continued. "We don't even really talk to him or know much about him. In a year and a half we're going to take off on a mission and spend the next eight years in a spaceship with him. We should get to know him now before things become any more awkward."

Without waiting for their response, she got up from her place at the table and walked over to him. He had been picking at his food every so often, and reading something on his holo-phone. He seemed to be immersed in it, but he was pulled from his thoughts when he heard her light foot steps coming towards him. He looked up at her and waited for her to speak. 

She offered him a warm smile. Balancing back and forth on the balls of her feet a bit shyly. "Our instructor said we can actually leave the training grounds for the weekend. So we thought we'd go to the carnival in the neighboring province. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come with us."

He looked behind her at the other four who were left at the table on the other side of the room. They didn't even look towards them. They merely continued eating their lunch and continued with the conversation they were having. Raven always had an uneasy feeling around them. He felt as though they didn't entirely like him, or more rather like they didn't feel like he was actually a part of their group. Like he didn't belong. The only one who ever tried to reach out to him was Roseanne. The others mostly acted like he wasn't even there half the time. 

He bit down on his lip nervously. "I'm not sure your friends would be very thrilled to have me there."

The boys dorms were on one side of the hall, while the girls were on the other side. Scarlet and Roseanne shared a room. While Ciel and Seville shared one room, and Mauve and Raven shared a room. But Mauve spent most of his free time with Ciel and Seville playing holo simulation games in which there was a zombie invasion or a chemical spill which caused a monster to come about on a spaceship. He only went into their shared room to go to sleep, and usually it was long after Raven had gone to bed.

She reassured him. "They'd love for you to come with us."

He smiled at her. "I guess I could come."

-

i know its a lot of filler right now, but i want to build a lot on what kind of relationship they have and what kind of people each member of the crew is. what the friendships are and the alliances with one another. 

the mission will come soon enough as well as what we are all familiar with about the impostors on board. 

just bear with me and give me some time to provide the exposition.

thank you all so much for reading and supporting this story. it means the entire world to me. now i'm going to watch "titanic" and then take a shower before going out with my crush. black/raven is inspired off him. red/scarlet, cyan/ciel, mauve/purple, and seville/orange are inspired by some of our other coworkers who we considered our friends until just recently.

-clary

-clary