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It’s night time when she touches down. There aren’t many streetlights out here, and Maria’s house is completely dark, so Carol moves in shadows as she makes her way to the front door. She hesitates outside it, unsure whether she should knock, enter, or wait outside until a more decent hour.
She’s been alone for so long that she forgets what common courtesy looks like.
She decides to wait. Knocking or entering might scare Maria and Monica, and, while she’s confident she can survive any reaction Maria has, she doesn’t want to put them through that. So she settles down on the front porch.
It’s hours until sunrise. It’s been years since the last time she saw the sunrise, at least on Earth. She feels like she’s been sitting alone in the dark for so long, but it’s given her time to practice her patience.
She would sit out here forever if it meant she got to see them again.
She knows she’s taken a risk, coming here without any warning. She doesn’t know if they’ll be happy to see her; she was gone for so much longer than she expected to be. She wonders what Monica is like now that she’s a teenager.
She wonders if Maria will be alone.
They made no promises to each other when she’d left, not the first, involuntary time nor the second time when she’d made a choice to go. They had been together, truly together, for less than a year. It wasn’t even the longest relationship Carol has ever been in (at least, she’s pretty sure of that. Her memories from before her time with the Kree are still patchy).
She’d thought about Maria every day she was gone.
As the first rays of the sun peak over the horizon, Carol turns her head to face them, like a flower seeking out the warmth. She doesn’t get cold anymore the way she did when she was fully human, but there’s a coldness to space that is deeper than just temperature.
She rises to her feet when she begins to hear and see signs of life from inside the house, stiff from the hours of sitting still. She’s been nervous for weeks as she planned her return to Earth, but it peaks as she shakes out her arms and faces the front door again. This time she knocks.
Maria is wearing pajama bottoms and an Air Force t-shirt that Carol is almost one hundred percent sure was hers, and it makes her chest ache with something good. They stare at each other for a long time before Maria says, in a shaky voice, “Carol?”
“Hi.”
“Auntie Carol?” Monica’s voice is older now, and the girl who pops into view is nearly the same height as her mother, and now the ache in Carol’s chest is something different, something like grief for all the years she’s missed.
“Hey, Lieutenant Trouble,” she manages to say, but her voice comes out a little croaky.
Then Monica beams at her, and it’s the same smile as the kid in the photo Carol’s kept all these years, and she settles a little. “You’re back!” she exclaims, and she races over to give her a hug that Carol melts into.
“You’re back,” Maria echoes faintly.
“Is that okay?” Carol asks over Monica’s shoulder. She steels herself for the answer.
Maria gives her a small smile, the secret one that she used to give when they were in long meetings together, and Carol nearly collapses with relief. “Yes.”
Monica releases her and backs away. “Let me get your stuff,” she says. Unlike four years earlier, this time it sounds like an excuse to give Carol some time with Maria, and she’s grateful for it.
When Monica is out of earshot, Maria steps into Carol’s space. “How long are you back for?” The question is meant to sound offhand, Carol thinks, but it definitely doesn’t.
Carol shrugs. “I’m not sure. I… I’m going to talk to Fury about… staying around… for awhile.”
“What does that mean?” Maria asks suspiciously.
“I mean, I don’t want to go back up there.” She hasn’t admitted that out loud to anyone yet, and it feels freeing. “I’m sure I’m going to have to sometimes, but I don’t want to stay up there indefinitely anymore. Just for missions, in and out.”
Maria gives her a skeptical look. “Really?”
Carol shrugs. “I miss, um, Earth. And I might be… lonely up there.”
Maria softens at that. “You’re not off making tons of new intergalactic friends?” She sounds a little like she’s teasing, but Carol can’t be sure. She’s out of practice with parsing conversational nuance.
“A few,” she says. “But mostly I’m alone in a spaceship for weeks at a time. Can I have a hug?”
She doesn’t mean to ask that out loud, but Maria is standing so close, and she still smells so good, and Carol hasn’t touched another person in such a long time (except the brief hug Monica just gave her), and she especially hasn’t touched Maria in such a long time.
“Of course,” Maria sounds surprised, but she brings her arms up to wrap around Carol’s shoulders. Carol’s arms find their way to Maria’s waist, and then they’re hugging, and it feels like all the pieces have slotted together perfectly again.
And then Carol is crying, and she doesn’t even know how it started.
Maria doesn’t comment on the tears. She just brings one hand up to cradle the back of Carol’s head, and she pulls their bodies flush against one another. Carol leeches the warmth from her, feeling years of coldness evaporate from her bones.
They stay like that for a long time. Carol isn’t even sure exactly how long, but Maria’s shirt is wet when they separate, like Carol has been crying on it for a while. “Thanks,” she mumbles, a little embarrassed.
“Of course.” Maria takes a step back and drops her arms to her sides, and this is awkward. It’s so awkward. Carol isn’t sure what to do to fix it.
Then something brushes against her leg, and she jumps. Reflexively, she points a charged-up hand down at whatever it is.
There is an answering meow from the orange flerken at her feet.
“Goose!” she exclaims happily, powering down her hands and reaching down to lift him up and snuggle him. Goose squirms, but tolerates Carol kissing his furry head for a minute before jumping down from her arms. “How has he been?” she asks Maria, who is watching the exchange fondly.
“He hasn’t eaten anything or anyone that he wasn’t supposed to, so pretty good,” she answers. “He’s been sleeping in Monica’s bed every night. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve stayed up at night wondering if an alien cat was going to eat your kid before morning.”
Monica barrels back into the room, holding a box of Carol’s stuff. It’s like four years ago, when she pulled back Carol’s memories through the sheer force of her enthusiasm, except this time Carol remembers every moment they spent together last time, and every moment she spent missing them.
“Okay,” Maria says after a while, “it’s time to get ready for school.”
Monica gapes at her mother. “Mom! You can’t make me go to school when Auntie Carol is finally back! Who know how long it’ll be before I get to see her again.”
“Auntie Carol will be here when you get home from school.”
It’s not a question, but Carol answers it anyway. “I will,” she promises. “I have to go see Fury today, but I’ll be back before you get home.”
Monica puts up a fight, but she does eventually go to school. Once she’s gone, Carol asks Maria, “Do you have anywhere you have to be? Work, or… with someone?”
Maria levels her with that serious stare she uses when she thinks Carol is being an absolute idiot. “Is that your stupid ass way of asking me if I’m single?”
Carol can’t help it. The corner of her mouth twitches up into a smile, because Maria is still Maria, and Carol still loves her more than any other person on any planet in the universe. “Yes,” she says.
Maria rolls her eyes at Carol, teasing and affectionate. “I’m not seeing anyone, Carol. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to pick up right where we left off.”
“I don’t think I could if I wanted to,” Carol admits. “My memories still aren’t… they’re still not right. I’m missing a lot. I remember being with you, and I remember raising Monica, and I remember moments here and there, but not the whole picture.”
Maria goes soft, and she reaches out for Carol’s head as if without thinking. “Still?”
Carol nods, savors the moment that Maria’s fingers are playing with her hair before she yanks them away. “Everything after I was with the Kree is there. It’s pulling back the parts that they took away from me.”
Maria nods in understanding. “Is there anything I can do to help? Last time, it seemed to help when Monica went through the pictures with you.”
“Maybe,” Carol says. “It’s something for us to try later.”
They stand around for a minute, neither knowing what to say or how to end the interaction. Finally, Carol says, “I need to go see Fury. Can I… can I come back after I do?”
“Do you have anywhere else to go?” Maria asks knowingly, and Carol smiles ruefully in answer. “You already promised Monica you’d be here when she comes home. Don’t make me have to explain something for you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carol says and offers her a cheeky little salute.
*
To her surprise, it doesn’t take long to convince Fury that she needs to stay earthbound. He’s surprisingly sympathetic towards her, and she suspects he has plans for S.H.I.E.L.D. that he wants her to participate in. Which is okay. She can travel from Louisiana to Washington (or really anywhere else on Earth) in seconds. She doesn’t mind having a job.
After that, it doesn’t take as long as she expected to settle into a routine with Maria and Monica. Not quite like no time has passed, but with that feeling that she only vaguely remembers from their time together. Monica hadn’t known they were dating back then, Maria reminds her, so Carol won’t bring it up in front of her, but in hindsight, she had treated Monica like a daughter back then, and Monica had treated her like a mother.
Their dynamic is different now, but it’s also kind of the same. Her relationship with Maria is like that too. They’re not together, not officially or unofficially. They’re not physical with each other at all, except for the occasional hug and the more-than-occasional arm touches and hand squeezes.
But emotionally, Carol has fallen right back in love with her.
It comes to a head two months after Carol comes back, when it starts to become clear that she really isn’t leaving. Monica has just left for school, and Carol is cleaning up the breakfast dishes and humming to herself, some pop song that Monica had been playing earlier (her knowledge of Earth music is sorely lacking since she hasn’t spent more than a few days here in a decade). She has just stacked the last of the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when she turns to see Maria watching her, a smile on her face.
“What?” Carol smooths out her hair in case it’s sticking up funny.
“I missed you here.” It’s the first time she’s said it, although Carol has seen it in other ways. “I’ve missed you so much.”
There’s a vulnerability to the words, or maybe it’s the way Maria’s voice cracks a little bit when she says them, but it has Carol moving without conscious thought, until she’s right in front of Maria and taking her hands. “I’ve missed you too,” she says. She’s said it before, but that doesn’t change her sincerity.
Maria kisses her. It’s out of nowhere, and yet Carol is unsurprised. Maria’s hands are cupping her cheeks, and Carol’s find their way to Maria’s waist, and they just kiss for a long time.
It feels like coming home.
And it wakes up every memory of their life together that Carol had been fighting to find.
She sees it in flashes, overlaying this moment. Their first kiss, in the dark corner of a karaoke bar. Their first time, Maria leading her back to a dark house, Monica at her grandmother’s for the night. Undressing each other by moonlight, Carol’s lips finding every sensitive spot on Maria’s body. First orgasms. First post-coital cuddling. First morning after.
And then the seconds and the thirds and the fourths, until there are too many for Carol to keep track of, except to know that it had been real, and it had been theirs.
“I love you,” she says as they pull apart, because she had always wanted to say it and never worked up the courage to do it, and now she can’t wait another minute.
Maria touches her mouth, then licks her lips, dark eyes fixed on Carol. “You’re remembering?”
Carol nods, not looking away. “Everything.”
Maria nods too. She reaches out for Carol again, but only to hold her face. They stare at each other for a long time, but it never feels uncomfortable or scary. Only safe.
“I love you too,” Maria finally says, and Carol’s body lights up with feeling.
“Can we be together again?” she asks. Maria’s gaze is inscrutable, and Carol continues, “Properly, this time. Where we tell Monica, and I get to call you my girlfriend. We don’t have to worry about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell anymore.”
Maria strokes Carol’s cheek softly. “Yes,” she says, and Carol goes weak with relief.
“Yes?”
Maria nods solemnly. “Yes. To all of it.” Abruptly, she pulls Carol close for a hug. Carol will never get enough of her hugs. “I missed you,” Maria says again, so softly that Carol isn’t sure she’s meant to hear it.
“I love you,” she says in return, and when they pull apart, Maria’s eyes are damp.
Monica is, predictably, thrilled when they tell her. But she pulls Carol aside after dinner under the pretense of wanting to show her something outside. “Listen, Au—Carol.” They’re experimenting with dropping the “Auntie” part now that Carol is officially her mother’s girlfriend. Monica ignores her stumble and continues on. “Mom was a mess when you left. Both times, I guess, but more importantly the second time, because you chose to go. And she understood and all, and she tried to pretend she was all tough and stoic, but she was actually a wreck about it. And I know you’ve said you’re sticking around this time, and I believe you, but… I want to make sure you mean it, okay? She can’t take another broken heart, so if you’re going to hurt her, you can do it now and get out of here.”
She looks infinitely older than her fifteen years, and Carol feels another prickle of loss at the time she missed, but she is so proud of the woman Monica is becoming. She considers her words seriously before she responds. “I wish I could promise that I won’t ever hurt her,” she says. “But I can’t. No one knows how life is going to go, and I won’t lie to you and pretend I know exactly how our future is going to play out. But I want to be here. I want to stay. And I can promise you that, if I do have to leave at any point, I’m going to fight like hell to get back to her. And to you.”
She watches as Monica turns the words over for a while, before she nods. “I can accept that.”
Carol smiles at that. “Good. Because it’s important to me that I have your blessing, Lieutenant Trouble.”
Monica smiles back. “You do.”
They walk back into the house arm-in-arm, and Maria looks back and forth between them. “What was that about?” she asks, but Carol and Monica exchange a secret smile and refuse to answer.
Later, Maria invites Carol to bed with her. “Just to sleep,” she says, as if trying to stave off Carol’s excitement. “We are not doing… any of that with Monica in the house.”
They had done all “of that” with Monica in the house before, and Carol has a feeling they will again, but she has no desire for their first time in a decade to require them to be stealthy and quiet. The first time they’re together, she doesn’t want Maria to have to worry about the noise.
Besides, just the thought of holding Maria all night is enough for Carol. They lie on opposite sides of the bed for a few minutes, but it isn’t long before Carol is creeping closer, and Maria meets her in the middle. Carol wraps an arm around her, and Maria rests her head on Carol’s chest, and they breathe in the darkness together.
They whisper to each other about silly things, things that Carol now remembers from the first time, favorite TV shows and books and that one movie Maria made her sit through that nearly made her cry from boredom. And they laugh and kiss until they finally drift off.
Carol sleeps soundly for the first time in ten years.