"Tough luck for me if I wanted to use those," he says, eyeing the stones. "I'm pretty sure I don't love anyone. Wonder if resurrecting my father would count...?"

Gamora groans.

Initially, she'd had high hopes for the asgardian-looking fellow in the fancy duds who brought her back from the dead.

Then she'd seen that Thanos was with him.

But hey, she'd told herself, maybe he's being coerced somehow? Or tricked? Maybe he doesn't realize how astoundingly terrible my nemesis/captor/father-figure is?

Nope.

As the emperor begins to opine on the hypothetical benefits of necro-patricide, Gamora writes that notion off quite conclusively.

"Now Gamora, I'm going to let you loose." Thanos drops his concentration on the space gem, and the azure energy holding his daughter in place dissipates. "I expect you to behave yourself, understand?"

When she drops into a ready stance, and glances furtively from the emperor to the ocean surrounding the island, Thanos elaborates further.

"At this point I'm immune to anything short of god-killing weaponry. I have reason to believe that my friend Solekaran here is as well?" Thanos still doesn't know quite as much as he'd like to about the emperor's abilities, but supposes that's only fair considering how close to the vest he's kept his own power sources up until now. "You're on an uncharted planet, whose entire population answers to him. There are no interplanetary comms here, or vessels to hijack." Again, not something Thanos knows with absolute certainty, but it seems a plausible supposition given the tech level of the natives.

"In summary? There's nowhere to run, no way to call for reinforcements, and nobody you'd like to kill that you're capable of killing. If you want to make something of this new life that my friend has so graciously bestowed upon you, you'll have to stop sulking and use your words."

"Oh, I'm incapable of dying," Solekaran says cheerfully. "Could be worse, though! I'm trying to figure out a way to use some combination of my magic and Thanos's mysterious powers to solve the resource constraints problem so he doesn't ever feel the need to kill half the people in the universe again, because having half the people on my planet suddenly die and everyone else riot about it was really annoying and I do not ever want it to happen again. So if you have objections to that sort of thing, you're in luck. Comparatively speaking. You'd be better off if he'd landed on the planet of a magic emperor with resurrection powers who was opposed to half the people in the universe dying and was also a good person, but I'm not sure there are any of those around to land on."

"Why?"

Backing away. Shivering.

"Why bring me back? You've... I..."

Agitation. Confusion. Sensation of falling.

"There's nothing left for you to take."

"I wanted us to be a family again. That's all."

He extends his right hand towards her, palm up. Like he did on the day they first met. The day the the Chitauri scoured her homeworld.

"After the future of life itself, you were always the most important thing to me. After the universe was back in balance... you must have known I'd come back for you as soon as I could?"

"That's sick." Pause. "You're sick."

"Yes. We've established that I'm a sick, loveless monster who belongs in an uncharitable afterlife."

Thanos plods closer again. From her perspective, his massive outline eclipses the sunrise.

"But enough about me, Gamora. Outside of vindictiveness, fear and old grudges... what do you want for yourself?"

(Solekaran smiles wryly, glancing away. It's weird how he empathizes with both sides of this argument.)

Deep breath. Emotions. Rage on the surface, yes, but something below that worth reaching for.

It's not easy to get words out right now--without her steely fury propping up her syllables, they become shaky.

"What happened to Nebula? Where's my sister?"

"After you gave up the location of the soul gem, I ordered my technicians to reassemble Nebula." Thanos thinks back to those fateful hours, where the destiny of all life hung in the balance. So much happened so quickly. It's hard to keep all the threads straight in his memory. "Evidently, once her cybernetics were back online, she killed the technicians and then summoned your other friends to come and ambush me."

Bleak chuckle.

"It was a good ambush. They used the time gem as bait, and then hit me from every direction. If I'd had my wits about me at the time I might've seen it coming but obviously, after what I'd just had to do on Nidavellir, I was somewhat distraught." 

Solemn frown.

"I didn't kill her there on Titan. I don't think I killed any of your little space adventure friends, either, though I can't make any promises there given how kinetic the action got in some places."

Fond memories of throwing a moon at Tony Stark. 

"I haven't seen Nebula since then. She could be alive or dead, roughly even odds either way."

"—what, you didn't leave your kids out of it?"

"As I told you before, the power I wield is a blunt instrument." Thanos regards the gauntlet on his left fist thoughtfully. "I'd certainly planned to make an exception, in the realignment, for myself and my children and for all others who had crucial roles to play in finding a more long-term solution to the universe's plight. I'd planned to retreat for a few days after fully assembling this cosmic power--to study it, acclimate to it--and then wield it with as much precision as possible."

His right hand traces the jagged edges of his splintered torso armor, recalling the blow that shattered it.

"But circumstances played out in a less accommodating fashion. Just moments after achieving the power to realign the cosmos, I found myself impaled upon the weapon of a vengeful god and beset upon from every side by superhuman adversaries. My time was short, my cognition was fading, I had a choice to make and nothing but sheer willpower to fall back on in making it."

Obviously, really. 'Kill Half of Everyone' will always be a simpler outcome to align than 'Kill Half of Everyone, except...'

"So no. I didn't have time to leave my children out of it. I didn't even have time to leave myself out of it."

"Huh."

He reflects on the picture painted by these words.

"...you know, I bet you'd get along with my father once he was done calling you an idiot."

Gamora finds the bright, open hilltop upon which she stands intensely disconcerting.

Give her a cramped spaceship, a crowded city or even a grimy prison any day over this.

She wants to duck behind something, or press her back up against a wall. She supposes, like everything else that's wrong with her, this is ultimately his fault. Thanos raised her as an assassin, and nothing frightens assassins more than a idyllic, open spaces.

"Y-you wanted to know what I want?" She's scrunched up, her elbows pressed tight against her ribs and her fingernails clinking intermittently against her teeth. She didn't even follow most of Solekaran and Thanos' most recent exchange, but she did glean that Nebula is no longer being tortured, so at least that's one small spot of comfort in this whole confusing mess. "You wanted to know what I--... I want to be left alone."

She looks from titan that killed her to tyrant who brought her back. "Please?"

...

...

"Of course. Take as much time as you need."

Aside, to Solekaran: "Please put her somewhere where she'll be safe."

He thinks about it for a few seconds, then opens a portal next to Gamora. On the other side is the village where Thanos first landed.

"There's this nice old lady I met yesterday, her name's Viasarae, I bet she'd be happy to help you out."

Gamora feels sick.

She always finds it disquieting to ask her adoptive father for things, when he says "no" she feels helpless but when he humors her requests it's somehow even worse.

She glares wordlessly at Solekaran, because she can't stand to meet eyes with Thanos again, and then ducks through the portal.

He closes it behind her.

Thanos has a Whole Lot Of Feelings.

He would like for Gamora to appreciate everything he's done for her or, failing that, at least appreciate what he's done for the universe.

He'd like it if she acknowledged how much he loved her. And he wished she'd accept that, somewhere deep beneath all the resentment, she cared about him too.

He wants to go and make all those things happen. Because that is his way, his default: when he wants something he simply Employs His Willpower and nothing can stand in his way for long.

...

Thanos sits down on the hill (in his usual spot, which by now has developed a significant indentation) and stares out across the sea.

"I don't blame her, you know. For anything." Thanos plucks a single blade of grass and holds it up so that the sun outlines its fibrous veins. "If I'd raised her better, she'd be more thoughtful. More grateful."

A breeze picks up. He tosses the grass blade up and watches it spiral away through the brisk ocean air. "I hope she can find solace in this place."

"Yeah, I hope so too."

For a few seconds, he stands silently, tracking the flight of that blade of grass.

Then: "Parenting can only do so much. I don't think there's anything my father could've done to make me less of a mess."

"Huh. I don't see how that word, mess, would apply to you?" Thanos glances over his shoulder, in Solekaran's direction. "You've cultivated immense power. You rule a whole planet, you keep its resources in balance, and its people obey you unquestioningly. If one of my children turned out like that, I'd be immensely proud."

"I murdered my father for his empire when I was sixteen and nearly destroyed it in the process. I've learned a lot since then but mostly by having to deal with the consequences of my own bad decisions."