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It happens around the time Maria turns fifty. Carol comes back just as often as she always has; she stays for just as long and smiles just as much. But there’s a hesitation in the way she opens doors or slides into bed. She opens her mouth and closes it again just as often as she speaks, which never really happened before.
Maria lets it go for a few visits before she finally snaps. It’s an unseasonably cool night; the humidity in the air is only a whisper, a kiss on her skin where usually there is a pool. Monica has long since moved out, living in DC and working her way toward S.H.I.E.L.D. Maria has gotten used to an empty house, but she feels the most relaxed and full when Carol comes back, when they can lie in a hammock or the back of Maria’s truck and Carol can tell her all about the stars. Maria doesn’t care if she’s lying through her teeth; she’s never cared, just as long as Carol keeps carrying her back into the house (because she’s always fallen asleep first).
Carol has been slow to follow her outside these past few days, preferring instead to watch through a window. After the third time calling her name, Maria hoofs it back to the house at a pace that always intimidates men.
“You coming, or what?”
“Hm?”
“Are you gonna join me outside or should I just curl up by myself?”
Carol blushes at that. “No, I’m coming,” she says, but she still doesn’t move.
Maria decides for her and steps into the house. “Where’s your head at, Danvers?”
“In the clouds,” she murmurs, her usual response. But it doesn’t carry the wonder it always has.
Maria rolls her eyes and grabs two beers from the fridge before leading Carol to the front of the house instead, their arms hanging in between them like they’re teenagers.
Hammocks and trucks are meant for relaxing but porches are where they always have their best talks.
Carol takes her beer with a murmur of thanks and places it immediately on the railing, far away from her fire hands. Maria sits in a rocking chair and waits. And watches.
“I was thinking, maybe next time I come back I could stay with Monica for a bit.”
It stings more than Maria was prepared for, hearing that. She bristles and she wants to bite back, but she knows there’s something else bubbling under Carol’s skin. She’ll come to Maria in time, if she can only wait.
“I’m not the Rambeau you should be talking to about that,” she says instead.
“You are, though,” Carol whispers. she sighs and plants herself in the rocking chair next to Maria’s, dropping her hand between them until Maria takes it. Carol smiles and kisses Maria’s knuckles, still staring absently at the sky. “You’re beautiful.”
“But...?”
“What?” Carol whips her head to the side and finds Maria’s eyes. “No way, there was no ‘but’. There’s never any ‘but’ with you.”
“Sounded like there was,” Maria teases, smiling.
“Okay, maybe,” Carol acquiesces. “But it’s me, the but is me and definitely not you; you’re perfect and eternally wonderful.”
“Carol.”
“What? I’m not lying.”
“I know.”
“I was just thinking,” she says, starting to rock slowly, “maybe it might be good to spend some time in DC. closer to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Monica, and I could check up on her friends because who knows who she’s hanging out with these days...”
“I see. And I would be...?”
“You can come with.”
“Oh, okay, I can come with to see my own daughter.”
“When you put it that way it sounds really bad.”
“I’m not taking it bad, I just want to understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Any ideas?”
“A few,” Maria nods, sipping her beer.
“More than me,” Carol scoffs.
“Well, that’s a lie. I just think you’re embarrassed to say what you’re feeling.”
“I don’t get embarrassed.”
“You do around me,” Maria pushes. “Does this have anything to do with the fact that Monica and all of her friends are in their thirties?”
Carol’s silence is more than enough of an answer.
“I don’t look like I belong with you anymore,” she eventually says. “I’ve been to so many planets and galaxies, met even more people. I don’t know if I’ll ever die.” Carol says it so casually, the way she says ‘hello’ or ‘I love you’. Maria can’t look at Carol these days without thinking of all the time they’re losing, but it hurts to hear it out loud.
“I could have a lot of lives,” Carol continues. “I will have a lot of lives; I’ll have to. But you—you can’t pick and choose,” she says, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “You’re stuck with me.”
“You’re goddamn right I stuck with you,” Maria immediately replies, “but I’m not stuck with you. If you hadn’t come back in ‘95 I’d be living a different life right now, probably with someone else. But that’s not where we ended up.” She stops rocking until Carol turns to look at her. As soon as she does, Maria smiles. “You think i’d be stupid enough to let you go twice?”
Carol grins until her eyes crinkle at the edges. More than a few tears spill out, and Maria finally gets up to wipe them away. “We should talk about this for real sometime soon,” she says. “But for now, can you tell me about those planets and galaxies?”
Carol carries her to the hammock this time, and kisses her all the way there.