Memories

They awoke to the sound of crying.

Ear piercing, blood curdling crying.

Now, it wasn't that uncommon. Since Groot had begun regrowing, there had been a number of times that an infant's wails had woken them mid-sleep cycle. Once when he first became sentient and didn't recognize his surroundings and missed his friends. (He wasn't the only one crying that time), once when someone forgot to water him before bed and he felt he was going to dry out, a number of times for sickness, hunger, discomfort, and even just for need of company. But this time it was… Different.

This time, it was the sound of pain.

Peter arrived to the kitchen where Groot had been kept under a heat lamp first.

"Hey, buddy, hey, it's alright," He said softly, leaning in and reaching to pet Groot's soft, flexible sapwood.

Groot pushed at Peter's face, his tiny, infantile sobs continuing. Rocket came running up then, his pants on backwards and unzipped as he tried to pull them on in a rush, cursing the whole way.

"What's goin' on, is he hurt?" He said loudly, pushing Quill out of the way. He hopped onto a chair by the table, and Groot's tiny hands automatically latched themselves onto Rocket's fur, kneading and grasping to be pulled closer. Rocket obliged, reaching a hand out to pull the pot closer.

"Hey, hey, shhh, its okay." He soothed, his breath ragged as he petted the sprout's back.

"What is going on?" Drax said loudly as he walked into the room, his forceful steps contrasting greatly with the look of pure concern on his face. Gamora arrived then, too, and Peter may have commented on the appearance of her bosom clad in only a bra if he weren't so worried over the baby of the team.

"I don't know, I don't know," Rocket growled, obviously in a panic. "Shh, shh, Groot, calm down, it's okay, please, shhh…"

"Something's definitely wrong." Peter whispered, stepping back slowly to be at the same place as Gamora and Drax.

"Of course something is wrong," Drax boomed, not catching how Peter had deliberately changed the volume of his voice. "This tree is crying as my Kamaria did the night of her birth, loud and unrelenting."

Rocket shushed them loudly, holding his hand back to let them know it was them and not Groot he was trying to quiet.

"Okay, okay, that's fair." He mumbled to Groot as the infant's cries started to sound different. They were weaker. More desperate.

Rocket picked the pot up and hopped off the chair, Groot clinging desperately to the fur on his chest. The Raccoon began to quickly move towards his room.

"Where are you going?" Gamora said, just loud enough for Rocket to hear. "The sapling needs the artificial heat lamp to remain healthy."

Rocket didn't even turn around.

"Screw the lamp, he's comin' with me."

The rest of the crew heard the door slam shut followed by a series of loud hushing noises, and, eventually, a lack of plaintive cries. They remained quiet for nearly twenty minutes, simply staring at one another and whispering softly about possible causes.

"That could have been it, but the way he was crying was-"

Gamora was cut off by the slam of Rocket's door open, followed by the small mammal stepping out and dragging his hand across his face.

"What the He** was that?!" Peter whisper-shouted, hands on his hips in an attempt to appear intimidating enough to get the smaller to reveal the truth.

Rocket sighed.

"He's rememberin'."

After thirty solid seconds of questioning silence, he decided to continue.

"All that shi* they did to 'im on Halfworld… Everything he's been through… He'd forgotten it." He paused then, and offered a tiny smile to no one in particular. "I guessed he probably just, y'know, lost everything when he came back. No more 'a none 'a that. All clean. A new start. He recognized all of us, knew who I was… I thought that was enough 'n that nothin' else would come back to haunt him."

Drax broke in after Rocket's voice drifted away.

"But it did."

Rocket nodded twice, his eyes closed and lips pursed.

"It ain't like you'd think. He didn't get everything back at one time like some kinda weird revelation. He just… kinda started thinkin'. Dreamin' a little more than usual. And those da** memories took that as an excuse to come back." He paused again, and Peter almost cut in before he started to continue. "It's just a little right now. He don't got much to go on, but it's enough to scare 'im half to death. That much pain… That much grief's too much for a lil guy his age to handle. Heck, its too much for 'im to handle at full size."

Peter put a hand on Rocket's shoulder, and it was only then that he realized the small animal was crying.

"I know what it's like to have that mess of feeling built up in one tiny little body." He said, his voice one of despair long since gone.

Gamora's hand soon found it's way to Rocket's back as well.

"As do I."

Drax came and suddenly clapped both Gamora and Peter on the shoulders, causing them both to startle.

"I will crush whoever caused our friend pain." He growled, his eyes narrowed at an unseen enemy in the distance. Peter smiled a little and cut in.

"That's a little much, don't you thi-"

"Crush them."

Rocket gave a little smile at that, looking up with a slight sniffle.

"Yeah, I'm down with that. They deserve a beatin' from the likes of us."

Peter then gave Rocket's shoulder a little squeeze, an act of understanding that he remembered his grandfather giving him when they found out his mother was ill. Rocket tensed.

"We won't let it be like that again. You know that, right?" Rocket looked up at Quill as he spoke, the little motion barely giving him enough of a view to see Peter's lips moving. "We'll give him new memories to cover up those old ones. Good memories."

Rocket smiled.

"Yeah. We will."

And that was the last time that Groot slept on his own under his lamp, and the first time he stayed the night in Rocket's cabin, his pot resting by the Raccoon's bed and his little hand reached up to curl around Rocket's dangling finger. It was also the last time he would call those around him his partners.

It was the first he would call them his family.

A/N:

So this is the first of, hopefully, many little one shots centered around the Guardians becoming a family.

What happened on Halfworld is based mostly around Cyndi's series of Autistic!Groot fics, which I love greatly and recommend more than anything.

Be on the lookout for more, and please comment if you are so inclined! :)