Chapter 11: The Connection Part 2
Hi Everyone! First off, thank you, thank you, a hundred times, thank you for your patience, your support, your kind words and encouragement. You guys will never ever know what all of it means to me. Secondly, I apologize for the wait! Life has been crazy! Job changes, lay-offs and rehires, classes, battling depression and anxiety, etc. Thank you for hanging with me through it all. I love each and every one of you; my family
Peter Quill was awakened to the sounds of blaring alarms as the Terran doctor in the bed beside his Sister stopped breathing. Rocket sat bolt upright at the same time Peter did muttering a string of curses as he leapt out of the bed he had been sharing with Seven.
"Peter to Gamora, Doc here just flat-lined." He said into his comm watch as he squinted into the bright light that Rocket had just turned on. Rocket loaded a stimulant into his hypo-spray and injected it into the Terrans neck, dragging the cardiac cart over and charging the paddles. Gamora appeared a moment later, wide-eyed and wary as she took the paddles from Rocket.
"Set the charge to 120 and clear," She said, shocking Dr. Samson and waiting for any response to appear.
"Nothin', setting charge to 130," Rocket replied, adjusting the voltage and stepping back as Gamora shocked him again.
"Set to 140 and clear," She replied, shocking him once more.
"Nada. Call it, he's toast." Rocket said dispassionately, no love lost for the Terran Doctor.
"Time of Death, 0300 ho-" Gamora's voice came to a halt as she was shoved aside by Seven, who had dragged herself from her bed unbeknownst to her companions and stumbled forward to climb onto Dr. Samson's bed.
"Seven, lay back down honey." Peter came forward slowly, not wanting to frighten her and cause her to fall and injure herself further. Seven ignored him completely as she clambered onto the prone Doctors chest and tore his pajama top clean down the middle with her sharp nails.
"Seven…he's gone. You have to lay down, you're bleeding." Rocket insisted, coming forward and laying a hand on her shoulder gently. Seven ignored Rocket as well, closing her eyes momentarily in concentration as a radiant golden-white light emanated from her palms. Peter, Rocket, and Gamora were blown back suddenly by an unseen force as the light spread; encompassing Sevens small form, then moving to encompass Dr. Samson, and then the entire cargo bay/infirmary. The three Guardians were blinded as the phenomenon spread and engulfed them. By all rights, Peter knew he should be confused as fuck and possibly pissing himself scared, but instead he felt a sense of safety, warmth, and love the likes of which he had never felt before; it was like nothing he could describe. Rocket struggled to open his eyes and look at her, make sure that she was alright, that whatever was happening wasn't hurting her. He squinted hopelessly around him in the direction that he thought the bed was in, eyes watering in pain, corneas feeling like they were searing.
"Seven! Seven, where are you?" Rocket called, voice trembling with effort. What the flarging hell was happening to him? He crawled forward blindly hand over hand, every inch exhausting his strength. Gamora was swept further back until she felt the wall of the Milano's bulkhead flush against her back and the warmth and comfort of the light becoming nearly corporeal as it gently held her there in place. Peters throat constricted as he realized that he could feel something more beneath the current of golden energy, something that was love and fear and pain and need and strength; something, some feeling that was uniquely Seven. He felt her lifeforce surrounding him, wordlessly reassuring him that it was okay, that she wasn't going to hurt any of them, that she was trying to help, but that they couldn't interfere. The energy surged completely white and then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, and the Guardians were able to move again. Peter exhaled shakily as he squinted his eyes open, he and Rocket nearly colliding as they simultaneously lunged forward towards the Terran doctors' bed and the prone figure next to it on the floor.
"Oh…no," Peter knelt and picked Seven up gently, depositing her back onto the bio bed as Rocket scrambled for his tricorder once more.
"What the hell happened?" Gamora breathed, taking in the sight of a bloodied Seven, whose injuries seemed afflicted anew; her once black and grey shoulder length hair was now completely blanched white.
"I don't know, oh God I don't know. Rocket...?" Peter asked, agony clutching at his lungs as he peered down at her wasted form.
"I got a pulse, but its thready. Gamora, I need 20 cc's of Benjisidrine now." Gamora slapped the hypospray into his hand and replaced the oxygen mask on Sevens face, handing Peter a dermal regenerator and taking one herself.
"The fuck is that beeping noise?" Rocket asked over his shoulder as he injected Seven with a small dose of Lectrazine to stabilize her cardiovascular and renal systems.
"Oh my God," Gamora dropped the dermal regenerator in shock as she turned towards the offending noise, realizing that Dr. Samson was not only breathing once more, but his entire body was on the mend. Gamora yanked her tricorder from her belt and ran it over his body, activating the bio bed scanner so that it hissed back into place over his midsection.
"Brain function, nervous system, cardiovascular, circulatory, renal, its all functioning normally now. The beeping noise is the bio bed registering his pulse and heart rhythm. Everything is back to normal, he's just asleep now." Gamora said in awe.
"The hell you mean? That Humie was dead not five minutes ago, you called it, he was worm food." Rocket said over his shoulder, not missing a beat as he worked to keep Seven alive and stabilized.
"I know that, but now he isn't. It was the light…. Seven brought him back. There is no other explanation, the light overtook this entire room and it brought him back to life, you felt its power." She said, staring at the female raccoonoid in amazement.
"Yeah, but look what it did to her? Look at all the…. all the blood and her hair." Peter gestured sadly, swiping at his face irritably as tears spilled down his face. He turned back towards Seven with the dermal regenerator in hand, slowly mending the wounds the way Rocket had shown him earlier.
"Well whatever the flarg she did to bring him back from the dead, it nearly killed her. She cannot do anything like that again until she regains her strength and her health, I'll be lucky if she makes it through the night now. Pete, I hate to say this but, I think we need to clamp some restraints on her to make sure she stays in bed and doesn't pull another lightshow." Rocket said uneasily.
"So we need to what, cuff her to the goddamn bed like some kind of criminal? Are you serious dude?" Peter asked incredulously.
"Look, I can't sedate her any further. I told you earlier that her system is already swimming with a mixed cocktail of analgesics and anesthetics that could take out Drax for a damned month at least. If she pulls another stunt like the one we just witnessed, she will die. We don't have many options here Quill." Rocket reasoned, attaching thick leather restraints to Sevens bio bed and gently strapping her down in three places, carefully avoiding the IV that was currently feeding her fluids.
"I wish Mantis were here, maybe she could've made her sleep like she used to do with Ego." Peter reasoned, sinking back into the chair he had previously fallen asleep in beside her bed.
"Yeah, well she aint here. No use wishing for her either, she decided to take a break from saving the universe remember?" Rocket asked bitterly, washing the blood off of his hands in the steel sink in the corner.
"Do not blame Mantis for this misfortune." The disembodied voice of Drax said stiffly, emanating from the comm on the wall.
"Drax, what the hell? You're supposed to be concentrating on flying the ship and watching Groot." Gamora scolded with a sigh.
"Groot is napping and we're traveling through dead space right now. I got bored, so I decided to eavesdrop." Drax said blandly.
"Yeah, well my mom used to say that when you eavesdrop, you never hear anything good about yourself." Peter replied, hitting the console on the wall and cutting the comm.
"I heard nothing bad about myself. Only Mantis," Drax reasoned as he seamlessly reconnected the comm once more. Peter rolled his eyes in exasperation and annoyance, snatching up a water ration pack and jabbing a straw into it, wishing it was something stronger.
"Yeah well just cause you have a crush on the bug lady don't mean the rest of us have to be okay with her abandoning the team." Rocket sniped, accepting two sandwiches that Gamora handed him from the refrigeration unit in the cargo bay and passing one to Peter, only just realizing that he hadn't eaten since at least twelve hours ago and he was suddenly starving.
"She did not abandon the team and I do not crush her, that would kill her you imbecile," Drax argued indignantly.
"Ugh. This again? Metaphor Dude, met-a-phor." Rocket growled through a mouthful of food.
"It's a stupid metaphor. And stop calling me dude." Drax said smugly.
"Oh I can call you something else if ya want," Rocket said assuredly with relish.
"Boys, can we not do this right now?" Peter asked sleepily as he rested his feet on the end of Sevens bed, eyeing the bio bed monitors warily.
"Yeah, alright." Rocket agreed, tossing his plate into the steel sink and sucking down the rest of his water in an effort to keep his mouth shut. Sometimes Drax could get on his last fucking nerve, especially when he was tired.
"Your Sister is alright then Quill?" Drax asked, changing the subject in his own effort to avoid pissing his friends off.
"Stable for now. I hope…. I hope she'll be okay." He replied, regarding the sight of her prone figure with a frown.
"You should sleep in your bed Peter; you won't get any rest in that chair. Rocket, the same goes for you. I can take over for a while." Gamora said, regarding them both with the sternest expression she could muster in hopes that it would convince them to get some actual rest.
"I'm not going anywhere space princess," Rocket replied, settling into the corner he had previously occupied on Sevens bio bed.
"I'm staying here too Gams. Although that was a nice ploy, trying to get me into bed and all." Peter quipped, ducking when she threw a wad of gauze bandaging at his head.
"Missed me," He said to her retreating form, causing Gamora to flip an obscene gesture in his direction as she exited the infirmary again. Peter smiled at the closed door that concealed Gamora from his sight a beat longer than he should have, and Rocket inwardly shook his head, wondering if he would soon be acting like a lovesick ass himself as he settled back against a spare pillow beside his new Mate.
"Hey Pete?" He asked suddenly as Quill dimmed the lighting again.
"Hmm?" He replied, settling into the chair again.
"Well, first off, why don't you roll the third bio bed out and not sleep in that tiny chair like a dufus," Rocket said, trying to break the ice in preparation for the shit he might catch for the actual request he wanted to make. Peter snorted at Rockets sensible suggestion, realizing how exhausted he must really be that he didn't think of that himself. He rolled the third bio bed next to Sevens, positioning it close enough that he could still keep an eye on the readings that he only half understood.
"And secondly?" Peter asked as he pulled off his jacket and rolled it into a makeshift pillow to cushion the pillow the bio bed came with. Rocket hesitated, feigning needing to adjust his own pillow in order to both stall and work up the nerve.
"Would you mind putting on your one of your tapes?" He asked nonchalantly as he adjusted the blanket covering Seven carefully.
"Oh…uh, yeah that would be great. I thought you hated my music." Peter said, surfing through the collection the ships computer projected in front of him.
"Well since you play it so much, its kinda grown on me I guess." Rocket confessed quietly with a shrug.
"Any requests?" Quill asked, motioning to the playlist before them.
"Maybe some Elvis or something. I don't know, whatever." Rocket shrugged noncommittally. Peter smirked in the dark and shook his head, switching on Suspicious Minds and laying back against his pillow. He closed his eyes and let the ping of the monitors on the bio beds blend in with the music and lull him to sleep. Rocket turned on his side to face Seven, knowing that sleep would continue to evade him until he was sure she was going to make it through the night and into the next day at the very least if even then.
"You scared the shit out of us earlier, you know that?" He whispered into her ear, studying the slow-healing wounds on her face and the now bright white hair framing it. Rockets night-vision was impeccable unlike his friends', so he could easily make out the details of her sleeping form in the dark and try to commit them to memory. As he reached out to grasp her hand, he had no idea where this longing feeling was coming from, but as he nuzzled closer to her in the dark and caught her scent he suddenly didn't care. Rocket caught himself watching the rise and fall of her chest as she inhaled and exhaled, felt the soft fur covering her small hand that fit into his almost as though it were made for it, and if he listened for it beneath the soft music playing and the ping and hum of the machines measuring her vitals and helping to keep her alive; he could hear her heartbeat too, matching the rhythm of his own thump for thump. Suspicious Minds ended and another familiar song began, the first tentative piano strokes making Rocket smile as he remembered singing the song to Groot a few months ago after he had a nightmare.
"It's a little bit funny…this feeling inside. I'm not one of those who can…easily hide. I don't have much money, but girl if I did, I'd buy a big house where we both could live. If I was a sculptor, but then again, no. Or a man who makes potions in a…traveling show. Oh I…. I know its not much, but it's the best I can do. My gift is my song and, this ones for you. And you can tell everybody, this is your song…. It may be quite simple…...but now that it's done. I hope you don't mind…...I hope you don't mind that I put down in words… How wonderful life is while you're in the world…..." He sang along note for note, a surprisingly good baritone floating off into the darkness to join the immortalized voice of a young Terran called Elton John. Nearby, Peters eyes snapped open and widened as he realized that Elton John wasn't singing a solo tonight and that Rocket, Fucking Rocket Raccoon, was singing some of the best goddamn karaoke that he had ever heard hands down. That sneaky fucker… Peter thought as Rocket continued onto the next verse, pitch for pitch, note for note. The little bastard had been hiding that talent from them for a long ass time. Peters eyes widened even further, and his mouth went dry as he realized that Rocket wasn't just singing along to the song for shits and giggles; Rocket was singing the song to Seven….
"…Anyway, the thing is… what I really mean…... Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen. And you can tell everybody this is your song. It may be quite simple but now that it's done…... I hope you don't mind; I hope you don't mind; that I put down in words…... How wonderful life is while you're in the world…. I hope you don't mind; I hope you don't mind; that I put down in words…. How wonderful life is while you're in the world…" Rocket finished softly, heart clenching painfully tight when her hitherto unresponsive fingers tightened around his own and her tail, her impossibly thick-furred and soft tail, came slowly from under the blanket to gently twine with his own.