Note: Unedited

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Long after everyone else had gone to sleep, Marisol was still up and at 'em. She'd tried convincing the others to stay up too, but they'd been adamant about getting some rest.

So, she spent her time in the galley, rifling through her cousin's cabinets and fridge. She had to constantly be doing something, to keep her mind going so all those unwanted memories were kept at bay.

In addition, she was worried that if she allowed herself to drift off for even a second, she would have another one of those god awful dreams. She really did not want to deal with those.

Her cousin had a surprising amount of Terran food, considering how difficult it was to find the stuff.

Not that she could complain much. Terran food was noticably better than any space food she'd eaten over the years.

Marisol found a loaf of bread in one of the cabinets, along with a toaster; she grinned to herself when she spotted the coffee pot at the end of the counter.

She found butter inside the fridge, setting it out with the bread and toaster. Then, she started her hunt for the coffee rounds, sugar, and cream.

Once she had everything laid out, she started the pot of coffee first then slipped two slices of bread in the toaster.

While she waited for her toast, Marisol slid around the dining table. She took a quick glance around, taking a moment to soak in the details of the room before closing her eyes.

It was a memory game she used to play with her pappa. The objective was to memorize their surroundings and call out as many details about the room as they could remember before the toast popped from the toaster.

"There's dishes in the sink," she said to herself quietly. "Six -- three blue plates, two bowls, and the spoon stuck to the plate furthest from the wall."

She scrunched her nose up in thought for a moment. "The magazine on the end of the dining table is torn on the edge. It's Xandarian. Can't read the title, it's stained on the front. Quill probably uses it as a make shift coaster. And --"

The toast popped out of the toaster, cutting her off. Marisol opened her eyes with a small huff. "Damn. Must be out of practice..."

She shrugged, moving to spread the butter over her toast after grabbing a knife from the cabinet.

Marisol poured herself a mug of coffee, adding two sugars and a cream; and as she munched on her toast she started walking around the ship to see what sort of shenanigans her cousin might've been up to, plate in one hand, mug in the other.

For the most part she didn't find anything all that interesting. Just a few pictures hanging on the wall.

Most of them were of Peter being a moron, making stupid faces at the camera. A few were of him and Yondu -- one even depicted a younger Peter learning to use a blaster, Yondu guiding his hands behind him.

Marisol grunted at the sight. "So much for taking him to his pappa."

She wasn't sure what it was, but something about the image made her heart burn. As if someone were squeezing it, crumbling it to dust.

It was difficult to put a name to the sensation. (Though feelings had never been her forte.) Annoyance, she figured.

Yondu clearly hadn't done what he'd been hired to do. He'd kept Peter instead of taking him to his father like he had been hired to do.

Marisol couldn't help thinking the abduction was a waste. If he wasn't going to do what he'd been told then he could have just left them alone. He could of brought them home.

Instead, he kidnapped them. He tore them away from their families -- and for what? Another addition to his little gang?

Her chest burned a little hotter, and Marisol emitted a growl from her throat. She smacked the picture of Yondu and her cousin off the wall with her coffee mug, the glass shattering as the frame hit the floor.

Sighing, she turned away, stepping over the spot where her drink had spilt. Once she was away from the pictures, Marisol took a few deep, calming breaths until the fire in her lungs died down.

She slumped against the wall, sliding down to sit on the dusty flooring as she finished her toast and downed the rest of her coffee.

The fire was replaced by smog, her mind slowly drifting to the empty halls around her. The silence was eerie.

Marisol pulled her legs up to her chest, her breathing becoming labored and shallow in spite of herself.

She closed her eyes, trying to think of a riddle she hadn't already answered a million times.

"You see a boat filled with people," she mumbled to herself, letting out a shaky breath. "It hasn't sunk, but when you look again you don't see a single person on the boat. Why?"

Marisol swallowed the lump forming in her throat, trying to focus all her energy on the riddle. But part of her still felt a foreboding darkness looming over her anyways.

She kept flashing back to her time with the scientist on Halfworld, the place she and Rocket had been experimented on.

There were times that she and Rocket weren't together. During those instances Marisol would be brought into a room -- nothing inside, not even so much as a bed to sleep on.

Everything in the room was pure white -- the walls, the floors. Even her clothes were void of any color.

The room didn't have any windows, and once the door had been closed it had been impossible to see it.

She'd always felt as if she were floating in the middle of nowhere, like empty space theory of nothing.

Her senses always got completely turned around too. She couldn't see, hear, taste, smell, or touch anything at all.

The lights above her were always positioned in such a way that they didn't make shadows.

Marisol had always easily lost track of time when she was in there because of this. She'd think whole months had gone by when it had only been an hour.

She could never tell what time it was. How many days had gone by.

When the scientist had come in to conduct his usual experiments, she'd get confused not even thirty minutes after he left, unable to recall if he'd come in five minutes before or a week previous.

All the surfaces were smooth, not a single edge jutting out from the walls. No bumps or holes in the floor.

There had never been any sound in the room either. Marisol often forgot what noise sounded like, and she'd always been baffled when she returned to her cage and heard Rocket speak again.

To eat she was only given small, tasteless, white grains. She ignored them more often than not.

She remembered her head feeling like it was going to explode. Sometimes, she'd be told Rocket was dead or had left Halfworld without her.

Marisol had tried not to believe it, especially since it was never true. But her mind became so warped in that room that she couldn't help but to think it was the truth at the time.

It was called White Torture, but Marisol had never figured out what the purpose of the torture was or how it fit together with the experiments. (She tried not to think about it too much.)

Marisol shook her head, forcing the memories to the back of her head, trying to focus on the riddle once again. "Not a single person," she mumbled. "Why?"

She ran her hands along the  rough ridges of the floor, reassuring herself that she could still feel something. "Why?" But she wasn't really asking the riddle any more.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because Marisol suddenly found herself amidst another terrifying dream.

She saw Groot's death again. The shield of burs he used to save everyone -- except for himself. His last words. "We are Groot."

Those six multicolored gems -- the Infinity Stones, Gamora had called them -- made another appearance. That wretched snap rang through Marisol's ears at deafening volumes.

She saw a few of the strangers again. The man dressed in the cloak was seen traveling to a little shack in the middle of nowhere, struggling to learn his magic. (Marisol guessed this was another vision out of chronological order.)

The spider boy was sitting inside a yellow school bus before swinging out the window to assist the man in red and yellow. (They were fighting a big ugly guy with grey skin and sharp teeth. Marisol guessed he was one of Thanos' goons.)

The scene switched again, to that undisclosed location where Peter had been aiming the blaster at Gamora in the previous dream.

Only this time Drax was at the center of attention. The place seemed a bit more in tact, though not by much.

Drax was standing before a pod as it touched down, glaring angrily at it. A few moments later and it was made clear why.

The pod's doors opened and two blue skinned beings stepped out into the open -- the one at the front was a Kree man, black lines trailing along his face.

Drax set his sights on the man, his face somehow becoming even more menacing and dangerous than before. He raised the knives he was clutching in each fist. "Ronan the Accuser!"

Ronan eyed Drax, a bored expression forming on his face, as if he were nothing more than an annoying gnat buzzing around. "You were the one that transmitted the message?"

"You killed my wife," Drax hissed. "You killed my daughter."

Ronan didn't even bother to respond. He simply turned away, heading back for the pod.

Drax let out a desperate shout of, "No!" Charging after Ronan, he swung one of his knives.

Ronan easily ducked, allowing the knife to swipe harmlessly over his head. He turned to the blue skinned woman, standing a few feet away, now. "Nebula, retrieve the Orb." She flew off in the pod at his order.

Meanwhile, Drax had taken another swing at Ronan; but the Accuser turned swiftly, shoving Drax back.

The Destroyer was not accepting defeat, though. He jumped to his feet as Ronan calmly approached, swinging his knives wildly.

There were no thoughts, no strategies put into his attacks. Just senseless, clumsy strikes made through pure emotion.

This was most likely what allowed Ronan to block Drax's attacks with such a lack of effort.

He leaned away from the knives' blades, raising his hand once more to shove Drax across the yard; the Destroyer crashed into an electrical box a few feet away, shattering it on impact. 

Still, Drax came running back for more. With an angry yell, he charged Ronan, only for the Accuser to raise a hand and shove him back down once again before Drax even got near him.

Drax jumped up once more, swinging senselessly, Ronan blocking each of his attacks without so much as breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, Drax was getting beaten badly. 

He had already gained multiple cuts and bruises. Yet, his rage and adrenaline carried him forward, determined to avenge his wife and daughter -- or die trying it would seem.

Ronan grabbed Drax by the throat, as he sent out a surge of violent punches to his stomach. The Accuser lifted Drax into the air, flipping him onto the ground and pinning him there.

"I don't recall killing your family," Ronan told Drax, as if it hardly even mattered. He stood up, boring over the Destroyer as Drax slowly lost consciousness. "I doubt I'll remember killing you either."

In the next scene, Gamora and Thanos stood at the top of a mountain, the latter dragging the former to the edge by her arm. In one swift motion, Thanos tossed his daughter over the side.

Gamora let out a shrill shriek, which came to an abrupt stop as she smashed into the stone cold ground, green blood pouring from her wounds.

Marisol jumped awake just as Gamora's body made contact with the ground below.

She groaned, her head aching the slightest bit, eyes burning. The halls were still empty, and she couldn't hear anyone; so she wasn't sure how much time had passed.

But she was sure some time had, indeed, passed, because someone had placed a blanket over her shoulders and taken the plate and mug away -- she assumed they'd been brought back to the kitchen.

Marisol sighed, getting to her feet; she was careful not to drop the blanket as she retreated down the hall back to the galley.

She wasn't all that surprised to find Groot standing at the sink, washing her dishes for her. Out of everyone on the Milano, he was the most likely to preform such a kind hearted act.

Mari waved at him, letting the smallest of smiles creep on to her lips for just a moment. "Hola, mi dulce arbolito."

Groot turned to face her, giving her a small wave of his own. "I am Groot," he confirmed her suspicions about the dishes and blanket.

She nodded slowly, letting out a small yawn. "I thought so."

"I am Groot?" he said, asking if she was going to sleep in one of the beds.

"Probably not," she admitted.

"I am Groot," he expressed his worry.

She shook her head. "I'm fine." But she couldn't stop herself from thinking about her dreams. About his death...

For all she knew, this could be the last time she'd ever speak to him, the last time they'd spent any real time alone together. "Do you want to play some chess?"

It was something they did whenever Rocket was too busy fixing up his weapons and explosives, when it was just the two of them. They hadn't played a game in a long while.

He nodded only to frown a moment later. "I am Groot."

Mari snorted. "I know Quill doesn't have a chessboard. We'll have to make our own."

Groot nodded again. So, that's what they did. With one of the napkins, Mari drew the checkered pattern of the board; they used the silverware in place of the pieces.

The pair of them played for a few hours, silently enjoying each other's company until the others woke up. Marisol made sure to take in every detail of her friend. She got the feeling this would be the last time she'd see him in such a calm state for a while.

Bit of a shorter chapter. And a bit late...But I'm tired and I've had quite a long weekend with my grandmother visiting and subsequently causing issues on her last night here -- but let's not get into that now.

So, I to make it up to y'all here's a bit of trivia that -- hopefully -- you'll find interesting.

1. Marisol's original name was Mari Dubois, a shy french girl who moved to America to get away from the bullies at her school.

2. Marisol's second name was Marisol Heregreves, changed for an Umbrella Academy roleplay I had going with BiUnicornBrittany

3. Her powers and personality were developed through this rp, though in the UA world she is much nicer

4. She shares her last name with her face claim, Eiza González