She was sitting in her alcove, happily thumping her foot to the music that filtered all throughout their family's ship. The ship itself was empty, bereft of the noise that came from so many bodies all in one place trying to figure out where they were going.

Oddly, Mantis wasn't frightened or busy wondering where the rest of the guardians were. She was in a state of blissful calm, letting herself 'feel' the music as Peter had once taught her to. One had to pay attention to the rhythm of the song, not simply the words that the singer was gifting you with, and not be afraid to get lost in the way that the entirety of the music made you feel.

The sheltered woman had questioned the possibility of 'getting lost' in the music before, but like with many questions that were near parroted from Drax, Peter had advised her not to take the phrases too literally and to enjoy herself in her own way.

In the middle of feeling her way through the song, in its final notes, Mantis felt warm breath tickle her ear. "What'a'ya doin' lady?"

Mantis whipped around, in time to bump noses with none other than Rocket. She stared eye-to-eye with the resident explosives expert, and was put off by the easy amusement in his gaze. This was the closest she'd ever been to Rocket in a way that wasn't hostile or uneasy. Generally, Mantis kept at a distance from the raccoon more than she did any of the rest of their friends, partially due to the need to preserve her hands in the event that she couldn't contain herself and not pet him, and partially due to reality unfolding for her. Mantis could feel her mind grasping at the concept that Rocket was not a puppy, or a pet of any kind – just as she was starting to grasp that she herself was no pet. Just as she was grasping how to 'feel' music.

It took time.

"I am listening." She replied shyly. The woman didn't know why she wasn't backing away from Rocket, with his sharp teeth and intense eyes just a hairbreadth away. But she felt no fear, only a lackadaisical curiosity as to why her teammate hadn't backed away either.

"Mind if I listen wit' ya?" He asked coolly, forgoing acknowledgement of the unusual closeness altogether. His smile was wide, but not threatening or angry or patronizing. It was warm and crisp, and reached his bronze eyes like he was happy to be near her.

Mantis felt her face heat up, but she returned the smile. "Of course. Please do."

Rocket stayed where he was, filling up her view without moving a muscle.

"Rocket?" Mantis's brows knitted in confusion and slight discomfort. She was only getting warmer.

"Mantis." He never called her by her given name, and while he'd never been so close and pleasant to her at the same time, Rocket had also never, ever initiated closeness like he was then. She could feel his breath on her face, and she could 'feel' him smiling against her –

"Mantis…"

"Mantis?"

"Mantis?!"

Mantis jolted on the slab of a cot, and conked her head against Peter's forehead. The Terran groaned, instantly pressing a hand to his head and rubbing fastidiously, and with a glance at him through screwed-up eyes, Mantis copied the motion.

"I am so sorry!" She apologized with a yelp, amid rubbing her forehead despite it not helping in the least.

"No, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you." Peter quit rubbing his head and Mantis did the same.

"I just wanted to tell you that we left Satno, and the scan-thing is done. All your vitals – and stuff are totally fine, except for your heartbeat which was a little fast. But that should wear off by tomorrow, since Gamora and Kraglin both think it's just the adrenaline rush from before passing through your system."

Mantis nodded. "That's good to know."

"Yeah! And, oh." The man gestured to Mantis's lower half, where her foot was bound in a dark blue and red cast of thistrik binds. "The muscles in your foot were torn up, but it was pretty mild. Kraglin bound it up for you, and you should be good as new in six standard weeks."

Mantis's feelers twitched. She bent her knee slightly, only to feel the unusual mass of her new cast slow her down quickly. The foot itself felt much better, cocooned as it was with lightweight binds, and she greatly preferred the bulky numbness to the searing pain from earlier.

Peter took her silence for disdain either way. "Hey, I know it sucks. But it's not so bad. I should tell you about the time my boots malfunctioned when I was twelve. I fell from the rafters on the Eclector and... well, I don't remember what happened, but Oblo told me that my head cracked open and I was leaking all over the place!"

Mantis gasped in horror. "Leaking?"

"Yeah, there was a lot of blood, all over the place…" Peter snickered fondly over the memory (or the idea of the memory), but he blanched at the look of pure terror on Mantis's face. "But I was fine! Totally fine! I was back to flying up in the rafters after just a couple days!"

Mantis was cleared to leave by Peter after he'd helped her get up from her cot and walk around the medbay for practice. It had taken more than a few tries for her to stand up on her own and walk with a comfortable, if not clearly limp, gait.

By the time she was ready to return to her room, many of the guardians were already asleep after licking their battle wounds. For once, the unit-based reward from their temporary pest control mission for the Satno people had been saved and stored for use on Xandar, where they would be making port for the first time since Mantis had joined them.

Unfortunately, the switch from energetic day to indolent night made Peter more than tired. He'd helped Mantis with a fond, friendly smile, but she could see how tired he was by the bags under his eyes and his slumped shoulders. She sent him away kindly, assuring him that she would be able to walk the short distance between the medical area and her room by herself.

Their leader lingered still, but agreed to go back to the Captain's Quarters, which lay in the opposite direction of where she slept after they'd stepped out into the hallway.

Mantis wobbled out of the doorframe, mouth drawn and feeling small. "P-Peter?"

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Um, where is Rocket?" She forced the words out, trying not to let her previous dream affect her as it had before. The imagery of it, and the feelings it wrought, had waxed and waned in the back of her mind like a moon's cycle.

Still, it was a good question, as the bug-like woman could remember him being in the medbay with her before she'd fallen asleep – giving her sideways glances yet turning away in a dismissive manner whenever she returned his gaze.

Peter rolled his eyes reflexively. "Oh. He's probably in the engine room. He's such a sensitive jerk, he's been complaining all day long since we left. Don't worry about 'im, he'll get over it."

While she was unsure of why Rocket was in such a sour mood (not that it was abnormal), Mantis was glad that the raccoon hadn't been seriously injured if he was able to retire to his room as well.

"Goodnight, Mantis. If you need something, just com one of us, 'kay?" Peter laid a hand on her shoulder and looked at her seriously, but returned to his warm, goofy self when she nodded.

"Okay!" She agreed. "Goodnight."

As she watched Peter walk down the hallway, Mantis ruminated on returning to her room as she should. It wouldn't do to tire herself out with walking on the very same day that she'd been injured, and if Peter or Drax or whomever were to come and check on her, whether she called for them or not, she ought to be in her room.

Peter turned a corner and was out of sight before the girl hobbled down the hallway, away from her room and toward the bridge. An increasingly oppressive feeling of guilt weighed her down along with her bulky cast, but Mantis could only stop along her path to fret so much. She was already 50 ft. away from where the steering and controls sat before she could change her mind for the fortieth time, and in that instant, she saw the familiar outline of Gamora at the control console.

While the most comfortable with Drax, Mantis was less frightened and more thankful that Gamora was the only person awake. She wasn't entirely sure why she felt the need to seek someone out for the uncomfortable feelings that curled around her heart and sent heated fluttering in her stomach. It was simply too difficult to keep it inside, especially when Mantis knew that she technically didn't have to keep her feelings to herself, even if they were scary. She'd considered her options beforehand with a hint of joy, as the knowledge that she could actually tell people if she had a problem and that they would not cast her aside for it was a special kind of wonderful.

The realization of it all was still in the back of her mind and was being blockaded – by what, Mantis couldn't say save for it having to do with how she didn't want to believe it. She didn't know what it would mean to feel this way herself, as she never had before, and the sheltered young woman's only point of reference for her feelings was Ego…

"Gamora." She called, unable to emerge on deck entirely.

The former assassin looked up, only to rear back slightly as Mantis's face came into view, while the rest of her figure was covered in dark shadow. Gamora had never found Mantis ugly or creepy (and treated the descriptors with as much contempt as was appropriate in order to get along with everyone else). Nevertheless, there was something unsettling about seeing the quieter woman, with her enormous black eyes that practically took up three-quarters of her thin face, gawking severely that made Gamora's breath hitch.

"Please, help me." Mantis whispered.

Gamora stood proximately, straight-backed and attentive. There was no one else close enough within the vicinity of both women, and yet her green-clad teammate was hiding like she might be ambushed if she wasn't concealed, which was a good enough cause for the green-woman to worry.

She hadn't gotten within speaking distance however, when Mantis burst in an emotional torrent of words and moans.

"When... Today, when we drove our enemies into the cave, I felt something inside and I did not know what to do." Mantis told Gamora, breathing quickly as if they were still in the heat of battle. "I thought that - that when we got back to the ship, that I would not feel it anymore."

Her lower lip quivered. "But it has taken hold of me all day."

Gamora blinked, stalled by the onslaught. "Hold… Hold on. Mantis, are you ill?"

"I thought the scanner didn't pick up any foreign bacteria in your system?" Gamora immediately pressed the back of her hand to Mantis's forehead, but she didn't rub harshly like Mantis thought she should.

Gamora herself had learned the gesture of touching a loved one's forehead to feel for excessive heat from Peter when she'd contracted Miscu Flu not four months back. She knew now that it was something that Terran mothers did when their children complained of being sick. "Yet you say that something has 'taken hold of you'?"

"I do not know for sure." Mantis confessed. "But... I think that what I am feeling is worse than if I was sick."

A/N: I don't know if anyone is actually reading these, but I hope you're enjoying yourselves.