Chapter 10:

Friends

Cool air filtered all around the large room. The florescence lights in the ceiling were turned low, to help keep his patients calm. It was the busiest Dr. Adams had ever seen the sick bay at one time. He took a long sip off of his dark mint tea recounting the number of patients he had now. Alastair lay unconscious on bed six with head trauma falling on the floor. His nanomite reprogramming was in full swing. The same for his younger brother Anders on bed seven. They had been the easiest to stabilize.

In bed eight was a Krylonian woman that had just been rescued earlier that day, by Agent 12. She was caught in a crossfire, between Nova Corps and a group of underworld thugs. The hole in her chest had presented a little difficulty to patch up. Deadlights Society didn't have her name on file just yet. But they had pushed forward for her to have the nanomite modification. Dr. Adams of course did the modification with reprogrammed nanomites. In truth the only reason she was even on the ship, was because this was where she was recovering when Dr. Adams highjacked the Warship.

Rocket was laying in bed two in critical condition. The nub that use to be his right arm was packed tightly into a cryo tube while another arm was being fashioned for him. Dr. Adams assured him, that once the backup nanomites had been reprogrammed, they could get started on crafting him a new arm. Alicia lay on bed three. There was nothing physically wrong with her, she just wasn't responding to anything he did. She wouldn't eat, drink, talk, nothing. She just laid there with a glazed look in her eyes. Dr. Adams speculated that it may be a broken heart. Her father turned against her after everything Alicia had done. It was terrible.

In bed one was Aisha, she had suffered the worse of it. Artemis had turned her nanomites against her. They had caused a large amount of internal bleeding. It would have been an instantaneous death, if Artemis hadn't been distracted and released her before any further damage had been done. Still the damage had been severe. She was in critical condition, but only barely. Dr. Adams didn't foresee her living through the night. If she did however, her nanomites should be reprogrammed soon. Once they were back online, they could repair her.

"I am Groot..." A deep voice whispered from behind him.

Dr. Adams turned around startled, but softened into a smile. "Hello my friend. It's a sincere bummer that we weren't able to recover the stone, dude."

"I...am...groot..." Groot hung his head sadly.

"Don't blame yourself my friend, it happens. Now we need to put together a plan of attack. I guess for now we just try to build up our ranks and strike back before crap gets too much more out of hand." Dr. Adams smiled in spite of the fact.

"I...am Groot." The large tree stated rubbing the back of his neck.

"Sure, you don't have to be sick to be in here, man. Just, you know try to keep it down, while they're sleeping, alright big guy." Dr. Adams gave the huge tree a shoulder pat before walking towards his office.

Groot slowly and quietly walked around the room. His dark eyes taking in everything that he saw. There was a lot of stuff he didn't understand about this room, about the things going on in the galaxy. What he'd seen earlier with Artemis and the stone, it was a frightening thing to him. Could someone love another person to the point of forsaking others?

Groot looked down at the two brothers that he'd never met before. Why had Dr. Adams wanted them saved? He couldn't even venture a guess. They'd tried to kill his new ward, his friend, and himself. Were they not evil? Without knowing them, Groot could feel the good in them. They lay still sleeping on the cold medical room bed. Groot didn't understand why, he just wanted to help them. He wanted to help them all. But how? He closed his eyes and thought really hard. Flowers, roses starting sprouting all over his body. Big, beautiful roses of rainbow colors. It wasn't much, but it was a start. Gifts for his friends to help their speedy recovery.

One by one Groot pulled the flowers free from his body. He read the names on the charts. A warm orange rose for the young and fiery Anders. A cool blue rose for the level headed older brother Alastair. A salmon colored rose for the Krylonian girl, who Groot named Stormy because of her wind swept hair. A purple rose for Aisha, who had been so brave to stand up to her brother. A pink rose for his newest ward Alicia, because she beautiful and kind. And a red rose for his dearest friend Rocket. Could someone love another person to the point of forsaking others? Groot smiled as he looked at his dearest friend's sleeping face. The answer was yes.

Dr. Adams walked out of his office and looked around the room with a smile on his face. "Wow, doling out the love. I dig it man."

Groot smiled warmly and held out a yellow rose to Dr. Adams. "I am Groot."

"Thank you man, I love it...you know this is giving me a great idea. Maybe we can name our new group after these flowers, man. Like we can call ourselves the Flower children or Dolin' Out Some Love. You know something like that." Dr. Adams tugged on Groot's arm.

Groot shrugged and smiled. "I am...Groot!" Lightly patting the good doctor on his stomach with the back of his hand.

Dr. Adams agreed before smelling his flower. "Knights of the Rose huh? Not bad, not bad at all man. I can dig it."