Work Text:
The first year is the worst. It's barely 4 months since the accident and she doesn't even want to celebrate Christmas, but Monica is five and a half years old and she's not going to deprive her child of the celebration she deserves just because she's still grieving. They're both still grieving, honestly, but Monica approaches her grief with a positivity Maria hasn't managed to grasp onto yet. She says goodnight to Carol every night while looking at the stars and talks about her like she's still alive, like she's just out there trying to find her way back home and not dead, not gone, forever. If you asked Monica, it's just like Auntie Carol is on a very long deployment and Maria doesn't have the heart to correct her. (She talked to a therapist about it, once, but she assured her that Monica would be just fine, and allowing her to work through it would eventually let her process the truth more than forcing it on her.)
She puts the decorating off as long as possible, but when the first day of Monica's Christmas break from first grade comes and there's still no Christmas cheer in their house, she caves. She drags their boxes of decorations from the attic and Monica starts unpacking, laying out handmade decorations and garland and lights until she reaches the bottom of the box and starts pulling out exactly what Maria had been dreading.
The oversized Santa hat - Carol's - goes onto her head immediately, even though she has to hold it back with one hand to keep it from slipping down over her eyes as she digs for the last few items in the box. The first to come out is a picture of the three of them together in matching pajamas on Monica's second Christmas, fixed into a red and green frame made out of popsicle sticks that Monica made at daycare when she was three.
The next is the stockings.
A few flecks of stray glitter spill off the stockings as Monica unfolds them on the dining room table and the lump in Maria's throat grows so large she can barely swallow when she sees Carol's messy scrawl immortalized in hideous chunks of silver glitter. Her heart stutters in her chest, the pain as palpable and real as the moment she was told Carol's plane went down. She's not sure how long she stands there, staring, but Monica tugs at her hand and pulls her attention away from the painful memories on the table.
"Can we put the ornaments on the tree now, Mom?"
Maria blinks back the tears in her eyes, and nods. "Yeah. Yeah, we can."
---
Maria manages to survive decorating the tree despite the onslaught of memories from the past 9 years of decorating with Carol - from their tiny table top tree in the barracks to their first tree as a couple to their first with Monica - and all of the ornaments they'd bought together. She manages to only cry twice and hides it from Monica, not wanting her Christmas memories to be tainted by Maria's grief.
"Where are we going to hang the stockings this year?" Monica asks, looking around for a place in their new house that might be suitable.
"Well, we do have a fireplace this year," Maria says, gesturing at it. "Want to hang them there?"
"Yeah!"
"Alright, go get the hooks."
Monica darts back to the dining room table and is back before Maria can even register she's gone, holding three stocking hangers and their stockings.
"Mon," Maria says slowly, crouching down so she's on her level. "You know Auntie Carol's not going to be here this Christmas."
Monica nods, staring at the floor. "I know," she mumbles. "But we put her on the Christmas tree!"
"I know, baby. It's just..."
"And what if she does come back for Christmas? She'll be sad and think we forgot her."
"Monica..."
"Please, mama?" Monica asks, flashing the puppy dog eyes neither she nor Carol could ever resist.
Maria sighs, but stops fighting as she takes the three hooks and puts them on the mantle. She lifts Monica so she can hang the stockings, Carol and Maria flanking Monica's in the middle.
If she spends the rest of the evening after Monica's gone to bed with a drink in her hand and tears in her eyes, staring at Carol's stocking... well, there's no one there to prove it.
---
"I wrote Auntie Carol a letter," Monica says quietly as Maria tucks her into bed on Christmas Eve, just after they've finished watching A Christmas Carol and left out cookies and milk for Santa. "Do you think Santa could take it to her if we left that too?"
It takes every ounce of resolve that Maria has not to immediately burst into tears at her question. Instead, she hugs her close and nods. "I bet he could," she says, and wonders, as Monica hops out of bed to get the letter, if she should have asked Santa for a little of her daughter's optimism.
"Here," Monica says, placing the folded paper in Maria's hands. "Make sure he knows it's really important."
"I will, sweetie," Maria says, kissing her forehead as she tucks her back in. "Now get some sleep or Santa's never going to come."
"Okay. Love you, mom."
"I love you, too, kid."
Monica turns toward her window and smiles. "We love you too, Auntie Carol."
"Yeah, we sure do," Maria says, squeezing Monica's hand with a sad smile before headed back downstairs.
She settles back in on the couch, flipping through the channels and stopping on a syndicated rerun of Golden Girls while she waits on Monica to sleep so she can put out her gifts. During a commercial, she unfolds Monica's letter to Carol, taking a deep breath as she prepares herself to read whatever Monica has to say.
Merry Christmas Auntie Carol! Mama and I miss you a lot. I asked Santa if he could bring you back for Christmas, but Mama said you're flying and you can't come home. I told her you wouldn't leave us without saying goodbye, so you have to come back. I hope it's soon because Mama's sad without you here.
I love you,
Lt. Trouble
Maria laughs through her tears at the number of erased attempts at spelling lieutenant before giving up and abbreviating it. Her tears eventually fall onto the letter, and she wipes at her cheeks furiously, angry with herself for letting her pain show so much that Monica notices, angry with the world for ripping Carol away from her family, and angry that she can't even get the Air Force to give her any real answers about what happened to her.
Once her tears stop, she stands from the couch and drops the letter in Carol's stocking. She pulls a small velvet box - something she'd bought for Carol just a week before the accident - from the pocket of her sweatshirt and adds it to the stocking as well. She knows it's crazy, but she hopes against all hope that maybe, just maybe, Monica's right. Maybe by some miracle, Carol's out there, somewhere, waiting to get home to them.
----
Six Christmases later, as she watches Carol Danvers sprawled out on her living room floor in a worn out Santa hat, helping Monica assemble a Lego Space Shuttle set with a titanium ring on her left hand glinting in the lights from the Christmas tree, she learns to never doubt her daughter's optimism.