Author's Note: I've referenced the "Lemon Drop Incident" throughout my other stories, and I thought maybe I should go into a little more detail about it. You don't need to have read my longer stories to appreciate this one, you just need a sense of humor. Be prepared to laugh, cry, worry about, and fall in love with some of these Space Academy students. I know I love them.

A special thanks to Emie Mac and ForeverWells for telling me I should do more Space Academy stories. This one's for you ladies!

I own nothing except the characters I've created. Also, I do this only for entertainment and stress relief purposes only; I make no money off it.

Part 1: Right Through Me

It took everything in Lance not to crack up as he watched his friends turn white in Space Marshall Graham's office. Hunk, Pidge, Keith, Sven—they had never been called in there before. They, along with Jeff, were the golden boys on their floor.

On the flip side, Lance had been in trouble plenty of times with Cliff and Aidan, and had seen his fair share of the inside of the Space Marshall's office, so this was nothing new.

"Keith Kogane. Sven Holgersson. Darrell Stoker. Tsuyoshi Garrett. Lance McClain." Graham imperceptibly shuddered on pronouncing Lance's name during the roll call; he'd barked it far too many times over the last five years. He was surprised that the cadet had even made the short list for this mission on account of his behavior. Then again, he was one of the best pilots Graham had ever seen. The F-11 Jetstar incident, while annoying, had solidified that fact.

"Space Marshall Graham, Sir." They each stood up and saluted, though Lance was rolling his eyes internally the entire time.

Once the Space Marshall sat down, the five cadets followed suit. "Gentlemen, as you are aware," he began, eyeing each of the cadets individually and settling his gaze on Lance in particular, "graduation is in less than four weeks."

"Yes, Sir," Keith answered stoically, his face impassive. His friends could tell that he was terrified.

"We are raising a space exploration mission to leave the day after graduation. Specifically, the team is meant to go to Arus, a small planet in the Azure Quadrant of the Denubian Galaxy. They have contacted the Alliance for help, as they have been under attack by King Zarkon of Planet Doom for many years now."

Sven, the navigator of the group, raised his eyebrows. "If Zarkon began attacking them that many years ago, then why are we sending help now? It doesn't make any sense."

Because High Command fought me tooth and nail, at every step of the way, before I finally got clearance. "That doesn't matter now. But we have reasons beyond simply helping Arus to send you all. The most powerful of which is that we believe they royal family has access to ancient weaponry that could help them win the war against Planet Doom." Graham shook his head. "Unfortunately, the planet is in no shape to use these weapons—most of its inhabitants have been murdered or enslaved, including their scientists and military."

"We believe that they have it? Or do they actually have it?" Lance asked in amusement. "With all due respect, Sir, I do not believe that a man of your caliber would send us on a wild goose chase if they didn't actually have a weapons system."

Graham sighed. Cadet McClain was obviously going to try his patience right up until the bitter end. "The Prime Minister and strategist of the Arusian castle—or, I should say, what's left of the Arusian castle—hinted that they have a weapons system that is so powerful, it could defeat the Doom empire. Yet no one has dared attempt to use it, not since the death of King Alfor and his scientists. The Arusian people have been unable to recover from the attacks, and the Prime Minister has decided that enough is enough."

"Well then." Pidge looked up. Though he was in their class, the boy genius was four years younger, seventeen years old to their twenty-one. Because of his age and his smarts, he too could crack comments the way Lance could, but was smooth enough to avoid disciplinary action. "They're a little slow. It's about time."

Graham nodded. "Indeed. The Prime Minister asked for a team of five, and through the investigative efforts of Lieutenants Brown and Stebbins, you five have been selected. Congratulations. You have exactly four weeks to tie up any loose ends and get your affairs in order before leaving for Arus." He stood and saluted. "You are all dismissed."

Walking out of the office left some of them even whiter than when they were when they first walked in. Particularly Sven. Lance looked over at his roommate and knew from the numb expression on his face exactly what was running through his mind: a certain systems analyst with chestnut-brown hair and black lips.

"Well. That was sobering," Keith stammered as they headed back to the dorm. He laced his fingers behind his neck. "Oh, man, now I've gotta tell Morgan that I'm leaving for Arus the day after graduation. Cripes." He looked over at Hunk and Pidge. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, send out the search party."

Keith and his girlfriend, Morgan Feld, had only recently gotten back together after yet another drama- and scream-filled break-up. The two of them were toxic together, yet they just couldn't seem to stay away from each other. His friends and soon-to-be teammates were concerned about how well she was going to take this announcement. It just might push her over the edge.

"Dude, if she kills you," Hunk responded, "I'm gonna tell everybody it was your fault."

"Thanks, Hunk."

Trudging up the main staircase, they made their way to the third floor of their dormitory, feeling more adult than they had when they left. Sven headed straightaway to the room he shared with Lance and unlocked the door. He had to get changed and go. He needed to do something before he could face his girlfriend and tell her the news.

Lance waited outside the door for his roommate to change. When he finally exited, the quiet Norwegian rushed by him, head down. "Hey Sven," he called after him, "are you okay?"

His roommate shook his head. "Ikke," he answered.

"I don't speak Viking!"

Sven grumbled something in Norwegian under his breath. Lance was pretty sure he just swore at him. Deciding to ignore it, he trotted over to roommate. "Want some company?"

Sven shook his head, and Lance could see the intense pain in his slate-blue eyes, pain that radiated to the rest of his face. "Dude. This is about Len, isn't it?"

He nodded wordlessly.

"Are you gonna break up with her?" And if you do, then that was certainly a waste of five years of your life. Five years where you could've been closing the deal with every hot chick who had a thing for a guy with an accent, and instead you settled for one frickin' girl. Dummy.

"I'd rather not talk about it, Lance."

As Sven disappeared down the rear stairwell, Lance joined up with Pidge and Hunk. "Where'd Keith go?" he asked.

"I think he went back to the quad to wait for Morgan to get out of class—I guess he figured he'd be safer telling her the news in public," Hunk replied, not seeming to care too much. "Dude, I've got ten bucks on them breaking up when he tells her that he's goin' to Arus."

Pidge shrugged. "That's too easy, Tsuyoshi. Make it at least interesting. I'll put ten bucks on her telling him that he ruined her life."

"I'll put fifty on her swearing at him," Lance tossed out.

"Where are you gonna get fifty bucks?" Pidge cracked. "But anyway, that's way too easy. It's the amount of curse words that she says that you should really be putting money on. Put fifty on how many F-bombs she drops on him."

"Ooh, that's a good one," Hunk laughed. "Hey Pidge, are you gonna tell Chip the news, or what?"

The systems analyst nodded. "Well, I kinda have to. He is my twin, he's got a right to know." He closed his eyes. "He and Len are studying for our Extended Analysis final. Man, I wonder how she's gonna take the news. Probably as bad as Morgan."

"Maybe worse," Lance mused, shaking his head. He was worried. He'd watched his roommate storm off, and that probably wouldn't lead to anything good. "You should let Sven be the one to tell her, though. She deserves to hear it first from him."

Pidge sighed. "Yeah. I know." He shook his head. "Speaking of, did you see the look on Sven's face when Graham told us about Arus? He looked like he wanted to drop dead. Sure, Keith looked nervous, but Sven literally looked like he'd rather die than go without Len."

Lance exhaled. "Yeah. Well, this is about as much fun as I can take for one day. I'm gonna go visit with Cliff and Aidan."

"You're off to tell your partners in crime, eh?" Hunk teased.

"Yeah. And then I'm gonna bum a cigarette off of them. Right now, I think I need one." Turning his back on his new teammates, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his brown leather bomber jacket and headed off to find his two friends.

Useless. The meeting had been useless.

Sven had tried to get the Space Marshall to change his mind about the makeup of the space exploration team. "Morgan Feld is a better navigator than I am, Sir," he'd attempted to reason in privacy. "I don't see any sense in sending me on this mission when she is obviously the more skilled of the two of us."

But Graham had dismissed the thought entirely, replying that Morgan's relationship with Keith was just too unstable to rely on, and the mission was too important to be compromised or jeopardized. "Besides," he'd countered, "I chose this team with specific reasons in mind. I cannot make any substitutions without altering the team's framework."

Whatever that meant.

Now he stood in front of the academic building, shaking his head. The sun was bright, and it was a beautiful day. The weather had been like this every day since last weekend, when they celebrated his girlfriend's twenty-first birthday. They were both adults now, legally anyway, and Sven's thoughts returned to a decision he'd made earlier in the academic year. A decision he'd accidentally—and drunkenly—spilled to Jeff on the night of Morgan's twenty-first birthday.

He walked off campus and headed towards Fifth Avenue to finish what he'd started.

Lisa Kaga's head was buried in her textbook. She'd chosen to specialize in the often-overlooked subject of interplanetary relations, which she knew her roommate found to be nerdy, uncool, and boring—the exact opposite of exciting.

"Roommate," Ginger Ellington whined, "why are you studying now?"

"Um, because finals are coming up in three weeks? I'd like to pass so I can graduate." She rolled her eyes. "I know that when you specialize in piloting, you don't have to do a ton of studying to pass your exams, but I do."

"Sheesh. You sure are grumpy." Sitting on her bed, Ginger reached underneath and pulled out her bottle of Bombay Sapphire. It was almost brand-new, meaning that only one shot had been drunk out of it. "Some of this'll make you feel better. Promise."

Lisa scrunched up her face. "Ick. I don't know how you can drink that stuff. Do you like it so much because it's in your name? Gin? As in the first half of Ginger?"

"Hmm. Never thought about it that way." She shrugged. "Maybe." She twisted the cap off the bottle of gin and fished out the shotglass that Lance bought her for her twenty-first birthday. It was a plain glass with her name and the date of her big day engraved on it. "You sure I can't tempt you with some, Lis?"

Lisa shook her head. "Blech. Nope."

"Well then, I'll drink her share, Gin."

The two roommates looked up to see Morgan standing in their doorway, red-faced and teary-eyed. "You heard me, Blondie. Start pourin'."

"Oh, stars in heaven." Lisa closed her text and moved over to their friend, embracing her in a hug. Ginger, doing what she did best, poured two shotglasses of gin.

Morgan made her way over to the beds and collapsed onto Lisa's, flipping around so that her legs were up against the wall and her head was hanging upside-down off the bed. "Oh, Gin," she sighed, "if you think that dinky little shotglass is gonna cut it, you've got another thing coming. Where's the friggin' bottle? Lemme drink straight from that."

"Let me guess." Patiently, Lisa sat down on the bed next to Morgan. "You and Keith broke up again."

"For good." Morgan closed her eyes and let the pain wash over her. Ginger and Lisa were surprised she was taking the break-up this well; usually she was a hysterical mess whenever she and Keith were in the "off" part of their on-and-off relationship. "This time, it's for good."

"What happened this time?" Ginger asked, taking Morgan's hand and wrapping her fingers around the shotglass.

"Something I never saw coming." She didn't open her eyes. "Keith got his orders. He's headed for Arus after graduation. Ugh. I'm pretty sure I had an audience on the quad when I told him I hated him."

"Arus?" Lisa asked, ignoring her other statement about the audience on the quad. "What's on Arus? Why would he be going there?" A terrible feeling suddenly swept over her. "Who's going with him?"

Morgan cracked her eyes open. "Oh, that's the punchline of the joke, Lis. He's going with Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Sven." She swallowed. "Sven went to go tell Len a little while ago."

"Oh, cripes." Ginger slugged back her gin. "Len's gonna need a drink, too. And I don't think we've got enough shotglasses." She shot Morgan a shocked look. "Wait a second...did you say they were going with Hunk, Pidge, and Lance?"

Morgan grabbed the open bottle of gin and brought it to her lips. Miraculously, she didn't spill a drop, even though she was hanging upside-down. "Yup. They leave the day after graduation."

"Oh my God." Ginger grabbed the bottle from Morgan's mouth and poured herself another shot. "Ick. Now this has your germs on it, Feld."

"Shut up, Ellington."

Suddenly, their door flung open again, with a stricken-looking Cinda Kirigas standing in front of them. They had been expecting Lenora, not their Miran floormate. "Oh my God, Hunk's going to Arus!" she cried out, her eyes filled with tears. Her roommate, Kelly Asimov, was attempting to calm her down by rubbing her back, but it wasn't helping. "My other half is leaving me! Ginger! I need to get drunk!"

"Well, cripes, now I really don't have enough shotglasses," Ginger deadpanned. She took the still-full shotglass out of Morgan's hand and passed it over to their blue-skinned floormate. "And why do you girls always come to me when you wanna get drunk, anyway? Here, you can have this one. Morgan chose to drink directly outta the bottle."

"Ew," Kelly uttered, scrunching up her face. "Remind me not to drink any of that."

"Shut up, Asimov." Morgan shot her an upside-down dirty look. "The alcohol kills the germs, anyway."

Cinda threw back the gin and shook her head at the burn down her throat that followed. "Blech. That still doesn't make me feel better." She sighed, flopping down onto the bed on the other side of Morgan. "Oh, Hunk. My other half is leaving. Who am I gonna do engineering with now? The two of us were supposed to get stationed together, work together, and bounce ideas off each other for the rest of our careers! Our engineering duo will disappear!"

"Well, I just broke up with Keith again, so you can imagine how well it's going for me down here," Morgan shot out, raising her eyebrows. In her position, her eyebrows looked like they were pointing towards the floor.

Lisa sighed. "And let's not forget, at any moment now, we're gonna have a hysterical Lenora on our hands, too." She looked back over at the bottle of Bombay. "On second thought, maybe I should do a shot."

"That's only if you get your own glass," Ginger informed her. "I'm fresh out."

"I'm on it." Lisa opened the bottom drawer of her bureau and fished out two shotglasses. They were her twenty-first birthday gift from Clifford Jack and his roommate Aidan Dalloway. Come to think of it, she had slipped away from her friends during her birthday celebration to steal a birthday kiss from Aidan. She'd convinced herself that she didn't have any romantic feelings for him, it was only because she wanted to know what it felt like to kiss the best-looking guy on their floor. And Aidan, with his long blond hair, blue eyes and washboard abs, held that title. "Here. One for me and one for Len."

"Oof. Len's gonna be crushed," Kelly murmured, sitting down in Ginger's desk chair. "Speaking of which, I haven't heard any hysterics from the corner room yet. Do you think he told her, or do you think he tried to close the deal one more time before breaking up with her?"

"No way. Sven's not like that," Morgan countered. "He's a good guy. He is madly in love with that girl. And I would know—not only is Len my roommate, but I've spent more time in class with Sven than anyone else."

"Blech. Navigation's too math-heavy for me," Ginger replied. She looked down at her empty shotglass. "I think I need more gin."

"GINGER!" Lisa screeched. "How many shots does that make?"

"Relax. Only two." Ginger stuck her tongue out at her roommate as she refilled her shotglass. "This one makes three."

"This one makes you cut off."

Morgan sighed. She grabbed the Bombay away from Ginger and took another upside-down swig straight from the bottle. "See, that's the best part about drinking straight from the bottle. Not only is there a limitless supply, but there's no way of knowing for sure how much you've drunk." She wiped the excess dribble off her lips. "Oh, how I love being twenty-one and legal to drink in all fifty states."

"Sing it, sister." Ginger sipped at her drink. She wouldn't say anything out loud, she didn't dare. Not when Morgan and Cinda were such an obvious hot mess, and certainly not when Lenora was about to come into the room with her whole world crashing down to her feet. After all, it wasn't like she and Lance had been exclusive with each other. So what if she loved him more than any other guy? She'd never told him that, and nobody knew about the "relationship" that they'd had since their first year at the Academy, either.

Suddenly, there was no more time to ponder over her feelings for Lance. The door opened again, revealing Lenora in the hallway, dressed in civilian clothes instead of her cadet uniform. As she stepped into the room and turned to close the door behind her, the girls could see the dried tear streaks along the side of her face.

"Wifey?" Morgan piped up, using her favorite pet name for her roommate. She lifted herself up from her inverted position and sat up. "Are you okay? Do you need alcohol? Ginger's pouring."

On cue, Ginger lifted up the more-than-half-empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire.

Lenora shook her head and sat down on Lisa's desk chair. "I can't drink."

"Oh, Hon, we know you're upset," Kelly cooed sympathetically, "but maybe if you had something to drink, it might help you get everything off your chest, and you'll feel better."

She gave another quick shake of her head. "I can't drink," she reiterated. "Because tonight Sven and I are taking my mother to the Russian Tea Room to tell her that we got engaged."

The dorm room erupted into screams. "Oh my God, we're having a wedding!" Lisa cried out. "The ring! Where's the ring?"

Lenora held out her left hand to show the girls her ring. There was no way they could afford a diamond, so they'd settled on purchasing plain platinum wedding bands. "Sven picked them out. We bought them on Fifth Avenue. That's where he proposed to me."

"Oh my God." Tears ran down Morgan's face. "I am so, so happy for you, Wifey. Where's that Viking of yours? I wanna congratulate him, too!"

"He's down the hall, telling the guys."

"Wait a second, I'll be right back."

Morgan shot up off the bed and darted down the hallway, where she found Sven hanging in his doorway, flanked by Keith and Jeff, telling Lance the news. From a distance, she could see the matching platinum band shining on his left hand. "VIKING!" she screeched, charging at him.

Sven turned his head, a shocked expression on his face as he saw Morgan coming at him. "Whoa!" he cried out, attempting to keep himself stable as she jumped into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, covering his face with tipsy kisses. "Herregud, Morgan, I didn't get this much of a response from Lenora when she said yes!"

"Dude," she told him breathlessly, "I am so freakin' excited for you two. Congratulations, Sven!"

With those words, she dropped her head onto his shoulder and began to sob as though her heart was breaking. Which, as they all knew, it was.

"Oh, Morgan." Without putting his fellow navigator down, he started towards the corner room down the hallway. She never looked up while he carried her. If she had, she would have noticed the stricken look on Keith's face as her broken heart burned through him.

Later that night, while most of the floor was studying—or, in the case of the newly-engaged couple, having a celebratory dinner at the Russian Tea Room—a meeting of the minds took place. Lance called Keith, Jeff, and Morgan met in his room. He sat on his bed, while Keith sat on his desk. Morgan sat on Sven's desk, staring across the room at her now-ex-boyfriend.

Jeff took his usual spot on the beanbag chair.

"So," Lance began, wishing he had either a cigarette or a drink in his hand, "I've called the three of you here because, as you know, I consider the Viking to be my best friend, and his girl like my sister."

"Wow, McClain. Don't let them hear you gettin' all sappy," Jeff shot from the beanbag chair.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Aki. So, as I was saying, I knew my Sis would eventually beat him into submission, and I wanted to give them an engagement present. I wanted them to spend their last month together in the same dorm room. We can do this the easy way, by Morgan moving in with me, or we can do this the hard way by flip-flopping roommates."

"What would the hard way involve?" Keith asked.

"The way I see it, Keith, you can move in with me—after all, since we're going to Arus together, we should probably hang together. That would leave the other half of Jeff's room open, and since Morgan and Jeff are amigos, they could move in without any problems."

"That's really nice of you, McClain," Morgan offered. "I'm cool with whatever you guys feel comfortable with." She shot Lance a crooked grin. "As long as you don't try to hook up with me in my sleep, of course." Then, with a sad smile pointed towards the floor, she added, "Then again, I am a free agent now. Let's do it the easy way. No sense in moving more people around than we need to."

Keith's jaw dropped open slightly, but he said nothing in reply.

Noting the expression on Keith's face, Lance wondered for a moment if that was the right way to go. Unfortunately, he didn't know what would be worse—Morgan moving in with him, or Morgan moving in with Keith's best friend. Either way would be a lose-lose scenario for Keith.

Jeff looked over at Keith from his spot on the beanbag chair. "She should move in with me," he decided. He then turned to look at his friend. "What do you say, Morganza? Wanna be my roommate?"

"I'll start moving my stuff now, Amigo."

"Cool. It's decided." Lance rubbed his hands together. "I'll start moving the Viking's stuff down to the corner room. There's more privacy over there than there is in the middle of the hallway."

Morgan nodded in agreement. "Got it."

As she moved down the hallway to start gathering up her things, she recruited Ginger, Lisa, Kelly and Cinda to help. Explaining the situation to them, it took no time to convince them to take a break from studying and help gather her stuff up to move into Jeff's room.

Crossing paths in the hallway—her arms full of Morgan's clothes, his arms full of Sven's books—Ginger shot Lance a dirty look. She was beyond annoyed that he still hadn't told her to her face that he was going to Arus.

"What's that for?" he asked in his obnoxiously charming way.

"You know what that's for," she responded coolly, moving away from him. "Were you even going to tell me that you were going to Arus, or were you just gonna let me find out through the communal grapevine?"

"Gingie, baby, I didn't even know you knew a word as big as communal, let alone how to properly use it in a sentence."

She chucked Morgan's shoe at him.

It took almost two hours, but the move went smoothly. Morgan waited at the top of the stairs for the lovebirds to return to the dorm. She couldn't wait to see the shocked expressions on their faces when they realized that they'd be living together until Sven left for Arus.

She heard them coming up the stairwell, their giggles punctuated by small kisses. Her Wifey looked beautiful in her strapless dress. The black bodice clung to her generous curves, and the cream-colored tulle skirt hit mid-calf to show off her black peep-toed heels. It was perfect for the Tea Room.

She cleared her throat.

That got their attention. "Hi, Wifey!" Lenora called up the stairwell, reaching for Sven's hand. "We're coming up."

"How's your mom? Is she excited about the engagement?"

"She is! I thought she would say we're too young, but she's excited. And she's doing great! Boy," she looked back at Sven, "if I look even half as good as my mother does when I'm her age, you'll be really lucky."

"I'm already lucky," he replied with so much sweetness in his voice, Morgan could've gotten a cavity.

"In any case," Morgan broke in, "we all got you an engagement gift. Some of us did more work than others, but the whole floor went in on it. Wanna see?"

Lenora's black lips parted in surprise. "You guys didn't have to do anything."

"No, we did. And trust me, you're gonna thank us when you see it."

Holding hands, the couple climbed up the last set of steps to the floor, and Morgan escorted them down to the corner room. She smiled as they took one look at the newly-decorated room and realized what their floormates had done for them. "But where are you gonna live?" Lenora asked.

"We played roommate roulette." Morgan grinned at her wryly. "Keith moved in with Lance, and I moved in with Jeff. If I couldn't have my Wifey, I'd go with the next best thing and have my Amigo."

From down the hall, Ginger watched as both Sven and Lenora embraced Morgan in thanks. Scrunching up her face, she returned to her own dorm room. Lisa was studying—That girl is aiming to be the top-ranked Interplanetary Relations specialist—and she knew there was still a mouthful of gin left in the bottle of Bombay. She jumped on her bed and thought about how angry she was at Lance as she took the last swallow.