She finds another note tucked away on her desk, similar to the one she received before:

          Don't trust him. Don't trust any of us.

          You might think he loves you now.

          He always smiles at the new ones most.

          But he'll grow bored with you in time.

          Escape, now, you won't get a better chance.

                                   (P.S. If you ask about any of this out loud, I will lie to your face)

...Trust isn't exactly what she's doing, except it is.

It isn't trust that he loves her - it's trust that he isn't going to carelessly discard or kill her.

It isn't trust that he'll always show her this affection - it's trust that affection won't pointlessly turn to violence as the rules changed on her.

It isn't trust that he won't get bored of her - it's trust that whether or not he gets bored of her, she has a use to him.

And as for escape? She has no where to go. She could disappear for sure, but if she leaves now, she'll have Thanos after her for her betrayal, as well as her father, and she doubts she could evade them both for long.

She wouldn't have expected her mysterious correspondent to do any different than lie. But she'll still watch her new 'siblings' closer. This note is as thoroughly destroyed as the first.

She gets some time to rest. Five hours, give or take.

Then a knock comes at her door.

"Behold." Gamora shoulders her way into the room with a tray of food balanced carelessly on one outstretched forearm. "The last time I dutifully convey refreshments directly to your domicile. Verily, it is the end of an era."

Grim laughs. "Quite the end. I do appreciate you looking after me."

"Of course. It's not like I have much else competing for my attention."

Cheerful shrug.

(said shrug nearly upends the tray, but she catches it)

"So, still want to visit the observation deck today?"

"Of course! Said I did, didn't I? Not likely to change my mind."

They take a lift up to the the gargantuan vessel's highest level: a series of maintenance tunnels carved into its armored hull.

Gamora leads the way her favorite cranny. They have to pass through a couple of heavily reinforced blast doors to get there--whoever built the Sanctuary II didn't take any chances as far as losing interior atmosphere pressure or artificial gravity to grievous hull damage went.

They arrive at a small semi-rectangular room wedged into a dead end. Transparent mega-polymer comprises the entire ceiling, and one of the sloped walls as well.

The room has several pillows scattered across its floor, and three differently-sized telescopes set up beside the wall.

She looks around the room, smiling quietly to herself, before drifting towards the transparent sloped wall to stare out.

"Beautiful right?"

She feels self-conscious.

When Gamora showed this little hideout to her sister Nebula, her sister had said it was stupid and boring.

Granted, they'd both been small children at the time. Gamora should have totally gotten over it by now.

(She kind of hasn't though)

"I come up here all the time. I, uh... guess you probably figured that out already..."

"Really beautiful," Grim agrees. "It's- peaceful. You could almost think you were the only person in the universe..."

Gamora crosses the room, stands beside Grim, and stares up at the stars.

She looks serene.

Grim turns her head very slightly, smiles again, and then looks back up to the stars, letting Gamora have her moment.

"You seem to fit in well, here." When she speaks up a few minutes later, her voice barely rises above a whisper and she keeps her eyes on the starscape. "I can understand why you prefer this, to where you were before."

"I barely remember the place I came from. I think I liked it there, but it's all gotten so hazy. I can't even remember my mother's face."

"I... kind of want to know a few more things about you. Stuff that Corvus didn't ask. But I completely understand if you're tired of answering questions?"

"I can't promise I'll answer," Grim says quietly, matching Gamora's volume. "But you're free to ask them. I suppose I'd want to know me better in your position too."

"So we're, like... assassins, right? We kill people. That is the thing that we're for?" Gamora bites her lip. "And I guess... I wanted to ask how you feel about that?"

She doesn't quite give Grim a chance to respond. There's a nervous energy to her as she breaches this topic. She begins to ramble.

"Proxima, for instance? She just Enjoys Hurting People. That's kind of her whole thing. Doesn't matter if it's a fight, or a silent take-down, or..."

Grim could probably cut Gamora off at any time but, if Grim doesn't, the green-skinned assassin continues.

"But Corvus? He doesn't get anything out of it really." Quick glance back the way they came. "But he doesn't dislike it either. It's like, he's totally indifferent to killing, and just wants to get the job done as expediently as possible..."

Now she gets to the part that's making her antsy. Her own feelings. Rarely discussed.

"I feel bad about it sometimes. When it's over, mostly? When I'm back here thinking it over. But when I'm out there in the field, when my blood's pumping and it's kill-or-be-killed... I like it. I like winning. If feels fantastic and..." she turns to face Grim, hoping for an answer to a query that she doesn't quite know how to enunciate. "...well, um... what about you?"

"Oh," she says very quietly when Gamora's finished speaking, looks down at her hands. "I-"

She takes a deep breath. "I've never stopped to think about it really. I- never-" Pauses, thinks about what Gamora's just told her, what she's just said. "I never let myself think of my marks as anything other than a target. I couldn't. If I had- it wouldn't have been good if I couldn't...separate it. And I've never given myself a chance to think about it. I couldn't risk not being able to shoot."

"I like succeeding. It feels...just. In that instant. Everything feels right. And I never let myself think about it beyond that."

"Sorry, I---" she turns back to the stars. "Sorry if asking you to think about it... screwed it up for you?"

She sounds genuinely sorry, but she also looks relieved. Relieved both by managing to say what she said, and by Grim's answer.

"No," she says quietly. "I-it's nice to- know. That someone else. Struggles." (She doesn't struggle, not exactly, but she thinks she could.)

Gamora starts to reach for Grim's hand but then... doesn't.

She crouches down beside one of the telescopes instead, and pivots it around to face the section of the starscape that Grim had been watching most closely earlier.

"Do you see any stars you remember? Anything you'd like to get a closer look at?"

She notices the move, but doesn't mention it. She smiles at the question, nods, and points a few of them out.

Stars!

Dwarf stars, giant stars, stellar nebulae!

As many stars as Grim wants to look at for as long as she cares to!

For a long while, she's quiet, staring out at the stars. Before broaching a topic she's been trying not to think about.

"I- is my...father still alive?" she's still staring out at the stars, seemingly impassive to her father's fate.

Gamora mirrors her sister's impassivity.

"Damien O'Reilly? I believe so. Corvus would know for sure."

"...Do you know if he put a price on my head, or would I have to ask Corvus for that information as well?"