Wow, just wow… so many new reviews, favourites and followers I'm just… in shock right now. I haven't been able to get online due to stupid college stuff so I got to read all the reviews at once and I have to say, thank you sooo much. I'm happy you like the story and I'm trying my best to update as soon as I have a second to spare and also trying my best to not screw the story up -.-'
Well, anyway, better get to it, right? Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 9
Everyone sat in silence. Dark thoughts clouded their minds as they stared at each other without a single thing to say. They didn't know what to do, waiting was not something they were used to and it bothered them. How could there be nothing for them to do? How could they be this useless when they had saved the universe just a few moments ago?
A foot tapped on the floor helplessly, Gamora sighed as the clock ticked, the only other sound in the entire ship. She closed her eyes tiredly and remembered what had happened just a few hours ago….
—"We need to get him to the Milano, NOW!" — she yelled as the joy left her and dread came after: he was alive, but barely and they needed to save him. For once, it was him the one that needed them completely and they were not going to fail him.
Drax grabbed the limp body carefully while Groot took care of Rocket, who could barely take his eyes off of his friend. He felt his body completely frozen from the pain deep within his chest: he knew Peter was alive, but for how long? Who could help them if they were in the other side of the damn universe and the healers were days away from there?
Gamora narrowed her eyes as she took care of any creature that tried to get to them. The sand seemed to become pavement as their strength grew and they started running towards the Milano. No one spoke as they took care of their own assignments, all trying to come together for a single human that was as pale as a sheet of paper.
They heard a scream from behind,, but neither turned around. They needed to get to the Milano, they needed to work hard so they could get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Gamora shoot another couple of guards, but never stopped. Another scream was heard, but they kept moving.
They moved in a single line, Drax in front of them, Groot in the middle and Gamora behind. Rocket closed his eyes as he placed his paws over them wondering how the hell did this happen, but he needed to recover, he needed to get his shit together and he knew it. He swallowed hard as he felt Groot's hands gently covering him from the cold weather outside and he smiled: if they were all trying to save Peter, then he was also going to do his part.
Finally, they got to the Milano, Drax rushing to the door before anyone could stop him. He placed Peter with all the care in the world on his own bed and stopped. He stared at the deadly looking human with grief on his mind as images of his deceased wife and daughter came alive to haunt him.
For a long time Drax had loved and had been happy. He had lived with care and joy with his wife and he thought it could never be anything better, but then came his daughter along: the joy of his life. She was a joyful creature that thought everything was beautiful, even the darkness of the night. She loved starring at other animals and had such a great heart that Drax almost wondered if she actually had a single drop of his personality in her. Yes, life was good, but like they say, you can't expect things to go straight all the time. And then came Thanos.
After that, his life had no meaning. His heart filled with pain and anger as he wished for everything to just die. He hated smiles, he hated love and friendship as everything reminded him of what he had lost. And soon he let the anger conquer his soul and he let it explode as only one thought got stuck in his mind: revenge.
Yes, he had done a lot of bad things that he knew he would have to live with for the rest of his life, but now he had a chance to redeem himself. He had learnt to trust again and the pieces of his broken heart had slowly started to mend. He felt better, not really 100% complete again, but he was on the way there and he had people around again, which made him even capable of smiling again.
But like they say: you can't expect things to go straight all the time and again he had taken things for granted and life had taken a hard punch to his gut as his best friend and captain lay still there making almost no attempt to breathe.
He wanted to punch himself, to yell and crash the creature that had done this to his friend. He hated the universe for the amount of hard passages he had to cross. Why some seemed to have joy all their lives was a mystery to him. Who chose who suffered and who enjoyed things to the fullest? Was it possible that this was just a random act? He sighed. He needed to focus on something else than Peter, get out of there and shoot something, because if he didn't, then he would be lost again.
While Drax placed Peter on his room, Groot carried Rocket to the main room. He didn't know what to do with the mammal, but what he didn't know was that he had already recovered from the shock and pain and was ready for action.
As soon as he dropped Rocket on a chair, he moved towards the pilot cabin and started the Milano. He narrowed his eyes in concentration as he began pushing different buttons that closed different doors, activated the engines and began rising the ship. He took a deep breath and glanced from the corner of his eye towards Groot, who seemed to be wondering if he should ask Rocket if he was okay or not. Rocket rolled his eyes and shook his head, but said nothing. Groot decided to make a mental note to ask about it later, but right now, there was work to be done.
Gamora shoot the last guard before she pivoted in her heels and moved to the cabin. She stopped for just a second and glanced at Peter, but she needed to know if Rocket was going to be able to fly on his own before she had a chance to go and see how her friend was doing.
It took her only a few seconds to realize Rocket was on his right mind and she smiled and nodded before turning towards Peter's room. She was afraid of what she might find in there, but she was the one that knew the most about wounds and how to treat them, so it was all on her to stable the guy and make it out of there alive.
The room was completely dark when she moved in and she slowly moved her right arm towards the light and switched it on. She swallowed hard as she saw the pain on Peter's features, but was glad to see he was still alive. She wanted to touch his hand, to let him know she was there and everything was going to be fine, but she had a lot of work to do and not much time to do so, so she decided to start as soon as possible and let the feelings lay back for a moment.
She asked Drax to take off his shirt, jacket and pants. They were all destroyed by now, so he simply ripped them off before he moved to the side and let her do the work.
Gamora's eyes run through his body as she could see a lot of injuries that she knew how to treat and others she would simply have to improvise on. She started with cleaning the bullet/laser hole on his left leg. The skin was burnt and torn in a lot of parts, so she had to scrape it off with a metallic device she took from the first aid kit Peter had on the Milano. She was glad he was not conscious for this part because she knew the pain from tearing flesh out of your body and she didn't wish it on anybody. She finished cleaning the tissue and began stitching the area, slowly but efficiently. She finished after more than 20 stitches and wrapped the clean injury with gauze.
She continued her assessment with careful eye as she cleaned the scratches he had all over his torso. She run her fingers over his chest as she tried to find any other hidden injury, but she knew she would have to use the digital body analyzer to know if he had internal injuries or not. Sweat moved its way from her brow to the corners of her face as she continued aiding her friend.
Rocket on the other part of the Milano had started the ship and shot a few guards. He was mad and wanted to destroy the building and everything behind, but he knew that Gamora was fixing Peter and the evasion moves from the ship were enough on her plate; she didn't need him to do circles around the building and other actions right now.
He flew out on space, avoiding every laser shot with barely an inch gap, but he managed to do so and soon they were out of atmosphere and safe, or as safe as they could be. He unbuckled his seat belt and hung his head low. He still needed to pull it together, but tonight, he was going to dread going to sleep for he knew he would have nightmares of this mission for a long time.
Gamora placed her hand over Peter's swollen wrist and bit her lip. It was not broken, but probably badly twisted. Peter was not going to like it.
She wrapped it and focused on the burnt on his right arm. Parts were still being affected by the acid and she quickly washed it off, careful so the acid would not touch any other part of his body while doing so. She examined the burnt areas with worry as she wondered how the hell was Peter's body going to deal with this. He was marked from a few battles, but this was too much even for Gamora's liking: they were third degree burns: the areas around the wound were swollen and red, the big open wound had yellow looking skin and it was bleeding a bit. She sighed, there wasn't much she could do about it, they could use some ointment she knew about, but it would only ease the pain; what Peter needed was medical help.
She placed the ointment over the wound and left the arm carefully on top of his torso. She would need to tell him not to move it much because it would be really painful and the skin was too destroyed to actually allow the muscles any protection. They would have to be careful and watch the wound for any infection, but he would live.
Soon, all that was left was his back. She didn't want to move him from fear of damaging him more, but the scrapes were easily seen on his back and she needed to clean them. She asked Drax to move Peter into a sitting position and as fast as she could, she cleaned every single scratch from the dirt and gauzed them before placing back on the bed. Smiling at her work she placed a hand over his bangs and watched his chest move up and down for a while before she decided he was going to be okay.
Stepping aside she allowed Drax to use the digital body analyzer hoping that there would not be any more wounds to deal with. Peter already was in a bad shape and he needed medical aid soon. She knew he could be stable, but this was Peter they were talking about and she knew that as soon as he woke up things would go down the drain for his own wellbeing.
Beep, beep…
She waited for the machine to do its work, but both creatures were tensed. Drax seemed to be wishing the machine would explode into little pieces, but it was doing its work, so they let it be. Finally, it stopped and a window popped on the screen that made both of them stare at each other with a raised eyebrow.
She shook her head to take the memories away. Yes, that had happened a few hours ago and Peter was still there, unconscious and bandaged. They were all sitting in the common room with nothing more to do but wait.
But there was a huge white elephant on the room no one wanted to speak off and this was the main reason as to why no one was actually speaking. The silence was growing painful with each passing minute and her headache was ripping her skull open as she wondered how they could not have seen it coming. They were supposed to be friends and somehow no one had even bothered to consider the obvious possibility that Peter Quill was hiding something.
Drax stared angrily at the table with Rocket, for once, completely silent by his side. Groot was on Rocket's other side and Gamora was right in front of him. Suddenly, Rocket sighed deeply and with his ears flat on his head he rested it on the table.
— "How the hell did we not see it?" — he asked the crowd.
— "We could not have seen it. It is an internal disease." — Drax replied, making Rocket snap his head back up.
— "I didn't mean it like that, you goofus." — he replied quickly — "I meant how were we so stupid to pass his symptoms!"
— "Maybe he has none."
— "Yeah right, like you get sick without feelin' like shit." —he spitted each word angrily —"The guy is a freakin' pulp right now and with a fever. And excuse me and my lack of Terran understandin' but what the fuck is pneumonia anyway?"
Gamora finally got out of her own thoughts at that question. Yes, the elephant was finally spotted and the issue could be dealt with, but the problem was none of them knew a thing about the disease.
They were from other planets, planets with other diseases and creatures, which made Peter the only one with knowledge about it. They had tried to contact someone about it, but the Nova Corp had no clue about what to do without a healer there. Technology was biting their asses hard.
All they knew was that it meant Peter was sick and had been for a long time. The fever should have appeared a couple of days ago, with headaches and a general problem with his wellbeing. How the disease progressed depended on how it was treated and right now, no one knew a single thing about how to proceed.
—"It's a Terran disease." — she replied tiredly. They had not rested since they had gotten into the Milano. She had washed herself and treated her injury in her arm, but apart from that, she had barely sat down or closed her eyes.
— "Yeah, we all know that!" — Rocket rolled his eyes. He was worried, they were all worried. — "But what is it."
— "All we know is that it progresses from a simple fever." — she whispered and everyone stayed quiet again. After a while she started talking again, but it was more of a statement to herself than the others — "He just never takes cares of himself… I should have seen it coming. We should have connected the dots… his moods were different, he barely listened to his music anymore…" —
—"…he stayed up a few nights a week too." — Drax added.
—"And barely ate a thing. Always sayin' it was disgustin' or some bull like that." — Rocket continued.
They all stared at each other. They had seen it coming; they just chose not to really act on it. It's not that they didn't care, but Peter… well Peter was Peter! He was always up to the beat and happy. He always cared about everyone else and often stayed late for duties no one else wanted to do, so… so sick just didn't fit him. And they had chosen to allow their brains to continue that magical idea that he would never get sick and now he was there, on his bed unconscious and barely hanging to life.
— "We cannot do much right now." — she stood up and turned towards Peter's room. —"For now, there shall always be someone with him. We need to address his injuries and wait for him to wake up so we can deal with the sickness and symptoms. I'll go first, then Rocket, Drax and finally Groot. If he wakes up, you get everyone there as soon as possible, we don't know what Peter might need."
— "And we kill him for not tellin' us he was sick." — Rocket muttered under his breath with a shake of his head.
— "He has not done anything to harm me… why would I want to kill him?" — Drax asked as he too stood up ready to do something.
— "No, no, no… okay, just hurt him a lil' bit."
—"You are a very interesting creature, my friend." — he replied before bowing his head and turning to leave.
Gamora smiled at Rocket and Groot, the last one barely glancing at her and took the opportunity to leave.
Rocket glanced at his friend, but decided not to ask anything. Groot was probably worried with everything that was going on and besides, he really wasn't feeling right to read in between Groot's words.
He stood up and patted his leg before moving to the pilot cabin and decided to do something with his time. He had a few hours before he was supposed to take care of Peter, so he might as well do something while he was awake and waiting.
Gamora opened the door to Peter's room and sat down right next to him. She placed a hand over his and her smile dropped. He was so still, so unlike Peter. She wanted him so badly to just open his eyes, smile and laugh at her concerns. She wanted to hear his voice and see those wonderful blue eyes filled with the dreams of a child she always liked.
How could they not see it? He was paler than usual, he was skinnier than usual…. They had done things so wrong that she didn't know if they could mend them.
She took his hand carefully for a couple of seconds before she left it back where it was and rested her back on the chair. She was going to stay with Peter tonight and hopefully he would soon wake up so they could deal with the guilt they had and with his own stupidity.
Soo… that's it. Tell me what you think of the chapter, if it was worth your time or not xd and I will try to have another chapter as soon as possible.
Thank you for everything! I'll see you soon.
