𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 , guardians of the galaxy

𝟎𝟎𝟕.

"no!" he shouted out, before trembling another breath and screaming again. cassandra reached and placed the back of her hand over her lips, a sob rocking it's way out of her chest and escaping hoarsely from her throat.

"quill–"
"no!"

"quill."
peter desperately glanced back at the monitor, looking for something. he pulled wires from rocket's chest. "i'm not gonna lose him."
"he's gone." a gag and a sob mixed in cassandra's throat and escaped out of her chest, making her chest tremble as she coughed it out with her tears.

"i'm not letting him go!" peter shouted, before going back to desperately pushing down on rocket's chest, compressing it. cassandra let out another sob as branches landed on her shoulder. groot did nothing more than that, and he didn't need to. it was his way of showing support, when he probably had it much worse than cassandra in the moment.

suddenly– after an agonizing minute of peter's thick breaths and tear-less sobs mixing with the sharp ringing from the monitor that just kept screaming– a sharp gasp emitted from rocket and his eyes shot open. the text on the screen started whirring faster, and cassandra sharply inhaled, chest tightening. "the passkey's going through."

gamora turned and grabbed a pack, ripping open the bag and pulling the pack itself out, before placing it over rocket's chest and activating it. she moved at such a speed, that cassandra was beginning to believe that gamora had begun to care just as much as they did in the moment– even if she didn't know him, he still had a life, he was worthy of keeping that, gamora recognized that, and that enough proved that gamora, this gamora, was worthy of compassion. she was worthy of all the tender emotions and bittersweet feelings that the gamora they knew had worn on her sleeve, on her smile, in her hair, in her eyes.

peter pulled the oxygen mask from rocket's snout, him and cassandra both staring intensely down at rocket. soft breaths, struggled breaths, escaped rocket, and cassandra let out a sob– one that was both swimming in grief, but absolutely drowning in unbridled, overwhelming joy. he was okay.

peter laid a hand on rocket's chest. rocket looked up at him with those beady, tiny eyes. ".. quill?"

peter let out a sigh of relief, letting his arm gently rest on rocket's chest as he leaned forward and embraced rocket, and cassandra leaned forward, and she wrapped an arm around rocket's shoulder, letting her hand rest on his upper back. it felt nice to feel his fur under her fingers. groot leaned forward and joined the embrace.

".. where's nebula?" rocket asked as the three of them pulled away from him, even though none of them wanted to. if it was up to cassandra, she would've hugged him until he popped.

peter breathed. "she's.."
"because her code is on the comm behind you."

with that, peter, groot, and cassandra all slowly turned to look, and sure enough, nebula's code was flashing, accompanied by rhythmic beeping. "what?" peter whispered to himself, reaching up and pressing down. "nebula?"

"where are you!?" her voice suddenly emitted, and cassandra sighed to herself. "thank god!" her dad sighed, walking to the front of the table.

"we're here to get you out of here."

"out of where?" peter asked, breathlessly, groot following behind him slowly.

"out of the high evolutionary's ship."
"no, i got off the ship."

"wait," cassandra's brows furrowed. "so they're on the ship?"

"what!?" nebula huffed from the other end, and peter glanced back at cassandra, a look of confusion on his expression from her statement. ".. i don't know, are they?" he whispered to her, and cassandra shrugged. "where are you?" he asked.