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“Remember why you're out there. And remember to come home.”
Eyes slowly peel open and Carol looks fixedly at the ceiling above her. A ceiling like any other; there, uninteresting, not ever thought of by the people that pass under it. A ceiling Carol never paid attention to though now wishes she had. She wants some part of her to know this ceiling well enough to be able to tell if she remembers the grooves in it or the way the sun bounces off of it in the early morning. It’s a ceiling and like any other, she didn’t pay it any mind.
Still, the heavy feeling perched in the center of her chest tells her that she should have .
She brings herself into a sitting position, pulling the Skrull device off of her head as she does so and setting it to the side. Her hands slide up her face on an inhale and then drop on her exhale to fall onto her raised knees. Her cheek follows after them and she lets her head rest as her eyes stare at the side of the couch she was just laying beside.
It’s been a month back on earth. Back home. In this house that suffocates her with all of its empty space. She turns her face into her arms and rubs her eyes against them. Another deep breath, she pushes herself off of the living room floor and takes a swaying stance onto her feet, the momentum of which she uses to lead her towards the kitchen. Her lazy amble ends near the island where her long forgotten, cold breakfast remains from the morning. She picks at the plate, snaps a piece of the bacon in two and puts the salty meat into her mouth. It’s gone in just a few bites. Carol checks off a mental list in her head.
Eat dinner: Done.
The rest of the plate gets scraped off into the garbage and the dish placed in the sink. Bracing herself against the countertop she makes a passing glance over the steadily growing pile of silverware and dishes. Where her eyes land next, they cannot easily shift away.
Against a window that displays expansive land cast in the gentle glow of the setting sun sit two chairs tucked neatly into a small table.
“That’s so cool!”
“Since it violates the predetermined rules of engagement.”
“Yup, big hero moment.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
Goose’s soft, chirping meow coaxes Carol back to the present. Her eyes blink and snap away from the table. “Hey, Goose,” she sighs and goes to fill up her food. “Sorry for the delay.” She pets the cat on her head once, twice, three times and then it comes to a rest on the soft fur.
It’s her and it’s Goose. It’s no one else. It’s happened all over again.
Returning to earth wasn’t meant to feel so much like being in space.
From the kitchen she moves to the front of the house. Her eyes scan the walls the same way they always do and try to pinpoint a section that jumps out at her as familiar. Nothing ever does. When she makes her way into the den she performs the same routine. Pictures of them and of her. Moments captured but falling upon a stranger’s eyes. Sometimes she can’t believe she ever smiled that big. If she’s capable of it now remains a mystery. Studying the photos has become a habit for her, if a day goes by when she doesn’t spend at least two hours mere centimeters away from the pictures in front of her she’ll feel off. Like she’s walked into a room without remembering why she did so in the first place - the absence of that knowledge would sit like a pit in the front of her brain until it spread and rotted the rest. Her life revolves around piecing together a life.
All the days and hours of dedication to these photos though have left her with questions. Now, as always, she looks at pictures of Monica. Of Monica and Maria. Of herself and Monica. Of all three of them and of each of them on their own. Never her and Maria alone. Not one outside of the photo that sat atop the piano and even that one felt…staged? Placed in a spot so frequently visited, easily viewed, and displaying an embrace between the two that was, for lack of a better term, boring.
Safe , springs into Carol’s mind but without having a reason for ‘why’ she forces herself to shake the thought off. Reworking the thought, Carol deems the choice of displayed photo ‘sensible.’ Losing someone as close to you as Carol was to Maria doesn’t invite the urge to cover your walls in painful memories and having the photo displayed in a place you’re always expecting it guarantees you’ll be less caught off guard by it. Sensible.
Carol still wonders…. Eyes trail towards the den’s door and at the stairs right across from it. A cavern opens up in her stomach and Carol lowers her eyes to the picture in front of her. Monica, maybe sixteen, holding up a peace sign and sitting behind the wheel of Maria’s car. Carol’s responding smile is small, unlike the amount of courage the picture offers her.
Upstairs, Monica’s room awaits her and Carol’s no stranger to entering. She likes to spend her time there guessing which items left behind in this house are remnants of an older, young-adult Monica, and which stretch all the way back to her childhood days. For instance, the stack of blank CDs not yet burned into mixes and the personal landline in her room, young adult. The Sesame Street blanket that Carol found tucked between her mattress and headboard and the purple boombox stored under her desk, childhood Monica.
The scattered books, however…. The tall NASA posters and space magazines littering the walls and placed neatly on shelves – anyone’s guess.
Carol sits on Monica’s bed and stares down at the bangle wrapped around her arm. She closes her eyes. “Alright, Monica,” she sighs, “I’m channeling all the ‘Monica please hear me’ energy I can. I’m sitting in your room, surrounded by your things. It’s Tuesday evening and the air is, you wanna guess? Humid,” Carol says with a smile. The bangle warms up around her arm. “C’mon, Trouble,” she whispers. “One…two…three…” Carol activates her powers but keeps her eyes screwed tight.
Things don’t feel different but maybe Monica also happened to be sitting on a bed somewhere with thick air and thicker silence.
Carol opens her eyes. Still home. Strange how that feels so disappointing.
The door to Monica’s room is closed gently. Carol rests the palm of her hands against the wood and her forehead follows suit. “Goodnight, Monica.” She always holds a bit of time for herself outside of Monica’s room. Whether it’s to catch her breath or to send a prayer, she can’t quite tell - it’s been so long since she did either - but tonight’s time feels heavy with avoidance as that room at the end of the hall begs for her attention. Carol doesn’t look in its direction even as the promise of questions answered pulls on her soul hard enough it gets her body to shift. Her head twitches in that direction and her eyes flutter with the threat of opening but she bears down. “I’m sorry,” she sends in that direction instead and shakes her head against the wood of Monica’s door. “I’m sorry,” she says again with a crack in her voice. “I’m sorry,” she says as she turns in the opposite direction and finds shelter inside the guest bedroom. Her bedroom.
Or so she’s led herself to believe.
. . .
Maria’s exhale is labored. “The cancer’s back. So, I need you to take care of Goose.”
“No.”
No.
“What do you mean ‘no?’”
Something else, for the love of God -
“No, I mean, you beat it once, you’ll beat it again.”
“Carol.”
Carol forces her eyes open and takes the device off of her head. She tosses it away from her, harder than she usually would and sits up off of the den floor. “Fucking useless piece of junk,” she groans into her hands as she scrubs them up and down her face. Then she lets them drop and she pushes herself onto her feet. “It’s useless. Without either of them it’s fucking useless ,” she says as she paces the length of the room. She scoffs, “I’m fucking use-…,” she trails off and comes to a halt, hands on her hips and head lowered to look at the floor. She prods her toes into the carpet. “Sorry,” she mumbles and tilts her head to the side just enough for the words to travel upwards.
A warm caress presses against the back of her legs and two wide eyes slink around her ankle to look up at her. Carol nods. Breakfast.
Carol’s chin rests in her hand as she stares out at the backyard from her spot at the table. Her fingers drum against the dark wood and she blows out a long breath. It’s a pretty day. Blue sky, gentle wind, green that stretches for miles. She thinks she should go outside soon. Maybe tomorrow. Or later this week. Once she finds a new memory, she’ll go outside. Once she can remember one new thing she can have that reward.
She picks the Skrull device up off of the table and gets down on the floor.
The weight of Monica, a child, feels natural in her arms. “Prepare for take-off, Lieutenant Trouble!”
“Pilot seat’s all yours!”
Carol watches Maria hold Monica against her hip and feels her lips pull into a smile. Maria wears one too as she kisses her ring and hands it to Monica. Maria’s mouth moves with words Carol cannot decipher. The memory tries to move on but Carol holds it still. She’s in range to hear Maria, she should be hearing her right now. Carol forces her eyes to train on her lips.
What did you say? What are you saying?
Her head hurts as she continues to hold the memory and rewind it to the part she needs. If she could get this…if she could just get this.
Maria’s lips move and Carol still can’t hear her, she can’t make out the movements. This is Monica’s memory that Carol happened to intrude on and her brain punishes her for it. How dare she try to take what isn’t hers.
What isn’t hers anymore.
Carol snatches the device off with closed eyes and throws it against the far wall. Her fingers rub at her temples and her breaths are sharp.
There has to be another way. If she could…find something different. Something stronger to activate what she knows is in there; Both the facts she’s been told and the hopes she has. Carol rests her mouth against her clasped hands. Her eyes trail up towards the ceiling.
She sighs.“Fine.” She breathes, “Fine.”
…
Carol’s fingers stretch out by her sides. Her thumb pushes against her knuckles until they pop and then go over them again just in case a particularly tough knuckle got stuck. She shakes her hands out and drags them down her jeans. Her hands move of their own accord and without pause. However, the one move she can't get them to accomplish is reaching for the doorknob.
Carol blows out a cheek-puffing breath and rubs a hand under her nose. “Come on, Danvers,” she tells herself. “Just you. All you.” Her eyebrows lower tightly over her eyes. “Pretty inconsiderate pep talk.” She looks away from the front of the door and down to the handle. “Okay.” She breathes in, closes her eyes and breathes out. “Okay.” With her eyes still shut, she reaches forward and turns the doorknob.
The wood cracks as the door finally separates from the frame. The sound makes Carol grimace, the moment now terrifying and real. The eggshells she’s forced herself on in this house, specifically this area, pierce into her skin as a final warning.
And yet, a foot steps forward. The floor on the other side of the barrier holds no shards.
When Carol’s eyes open they don’t land on a particular spot. Instantly, they’re scanning Maria’s room, every inch, every crevice, every speck of dust where it floats and where it lands. All of it, the aftermath of the life she knew everything about and remembered nothing of. Though, she hopes that’s about to change.
She comes to the foot of Maria’s bed and spreads her fingers out over the layer of quilts and blankets that cover it. A smile springs to her face without thought. Whenever they got the chance to talk (few and far between) it became apparent that Maria never really minded the cold or being cold but Carol noted how she liked being cozy. Bundled up under something or another, intentionally lowering the temperature in a room just so she could hunker down under something. Carol’s hand grips the blanket now, tightens her fist around it and squeezes to the point that she knows would kill a being and then, all at once, releases and moves on. By a window, Maria has a wide, deep brown leather chair holding two items: a notebook with a pen tucked into the pages and a reading book. Carol lifts the reading book and turns it over to see its title.
The Price of Salt.
She does a quick flip of the pages, enjoying the sound of the paper fluttering under her thumb until one gets caught. The page is dogeared. The book, unfinished. Carol throws it back down on the chair and pushes past the sting in her eyes to find another area of the room to focus on.
The closet. There has to be something in the closet. Skeletons or other, whatever rests on the other side will only propel Carol forward in this ever developing journey. She crosses the room and places her hands on either handle of the wooden double doors and pulls them apart. The force of the pull slams the doors harshly into opposite walls and leaves Carol standing before a wall of clothes. Sweaters and jumpsuits, jeans and shirts, all worn and loved and covered in Maria. Carol’s breath hitches and, involuntarily, she takes a step back.
Coming into this room was a mistake.
There’s so much of her and she’s nowhere Carol can reach. The conflicting sentiments describe the same woman and the collision it causes in her head makes it feel like it may explode. As if trying to prevent that, Carol’s hands go to her head, heels press into her temples as a pained noise escapes past her lips. In turning away from the closet, her movement is so fast it kicks up the smallest of breezes. But, before she can get a foot in the direction of the door, she smells her.
Maria .
The scent, gentle. Coaxing. It turns her back around. Slowly, almost with hesitation, Carol’s hand reaches for a sweater, just her fingertips on the sleeve and she pulls it towards her. Her first inhale is like a breath…but the second, as she presses the fabric against her nose and her eyes flutter close, is a gasp, a suction as she pulls more of the garment against her and steps even further into the closet. Clothes press against her arms and as she sinks further, circle around her back. They hug her. Suffocate her. But Carol dashes away her need for oxygen the more Maria’s perfumes, both natural and purchased, consume her.
I know this. Carol turns in the clothes, getting happily tangled up in her. I know this. I know- Carol’s eyes shoot open. “I remember this. I remember-” She frantically starts to unravel herself from Maria’s clothes and tries to remember which way is forward and which way is back. “I can use this. Scents are useful!” She launches forward, unaware of the jolt that would send through the closet and a box comes tumbling down from a shelf up top but Carol still rushes out of the room and down the stairs to retrieve the Skrull device she had tossed aside earlier. Then, a mad dash back up and into the room and Carol yanks the same sweater off of its hangar and falls into a sitting position on the floor. “Okay.” She inhales at the collar. “Okay,” she says with a smile and lifts the device to put on her head. Her motion halts though when she sees what spills out of the box that fell. She recognizes the backs of photos.
The device is set to the side and instead Carol scoops up the pile and flips it upright to be met with the sight of Maria’s parents, sitting close on the front steps of their porch and laughing at some unknown joke. The sight of the two of them puts a smile on Carol’s face and briefly she wonders how they’re doing. What it’s like to live as a parent without your child.
Thoughts of Monica begin to flood her mind and she quickly tucks the photo into the back of the pile. Not that it’s helpful when the next picture is of Monica, grinning widely and toothlessly in her school outfit on what Carol assumes is picture day. Though her previous thoughts about the girl were weighed in sorrow, this image of a young Monica, a Monica that she knew, makes her burst out laughing. “Oh, Mon,” she chuckles, “you were proud of that smile, huh?” She brings the photo closer and shakes her head. “As you should’ve been.” She stares a little longer and then slowly tucks the photo into the back of the pile. The next one makes her heart leap for the sole reason that Maria is featured. The three of them together, Carol and Maria pressing kisses into Monica’s small cheeks as she giggled between them. Carol puts that photo to the side. It’s staying out with her.
The next one takes some time in getting Carol to have a reaction as it’s a group photo. A beach littered with people and the focus seemingly on a man she doesn’t recognize but she guesses must have been a friend of some sort when she finally finds Maria just slightly in the background; laid out on a blanket with a hand shielding her face from the sun as she looks over at the camera. Then, from behind her, Carol’s blonde head of hair popping up and flicking the cameraman off. The reason for that, also unknown. But Carol thinks it was warranted.
The same group of men are in the next photo with Carol and Maria in line. They’re all posing in idiotic ways which is the only reason Carol forces herself to remain logical when she sees a version of herself with an arm slung around Maria’s shoulders and her lips pressed to her cheek. It happens in the same photo where two of the men hold each other’s faces and pretend to lean in for a kiss. It happens in the same photo where one of the men is ripping his tank top clear down the middle. It happens in the same photo where Maria, though smiling and laughing, has her hand pushing against Carol’s chest. Still, Carol can’t take her eyes off of the captured moment. To know that her lips, the very ones she has now even through all the obstacles and uncertainties and pain, have pressed against Maria’s skin is a blessing. She’s grateful to know that some version of her had the opportunity, even if it was only once and for some stupid photo. Even if later it was passed off as a joke, at least she had the experience.
It’s the memory she now wishes the most to unlock.
One more, she thinks as she pulls the device onto her lap. “Then back to work,” she mumbles and sends the beach photo to the back of the pile.
The next photo displays a different day. A different moment.
The next photo results in Carol dropping the entire pile and scrambling out of the room. She slams the door shut behind her and rushes down the hallway. The walls tilt around her and the floor tries to shake her off balance. She crashes into the wall at the end of the hall and staggers down the steps, nearly falling over as she hurries down, needing to escape this house. This barren, depressing, lying house.
Fresh air offers no comfort. It’s too dense, too wet, too reminiscent of the days she no longer has a claim on. This atmosphere isn't kind to her anymore and that's the very fucking reason she left it in the first place. So she aims to do it again. With her head tilted towards the sky and her fists clenched at her sides, Carol Danvers makes quick plans to leave Earth once more knowing full well that this time there is nothing, there is no one who can bring her back.
Carol looks to the sky and its endless blue broken up only by the scattered white of clouds. She waits for the sight to get closer. She waits to fly. She wants to fly, she needs to fly so why isn't she flying? What force greater than gravity bears down on her shoulders and deeper to her feet and latches her to this planet? What force is strong enough to send her instead to her knees, topple her forward so that her forehead connects with the grass?
Her body, defeated, lies down inhaling the dirt and the grass. She lies on the ground staring at the plains ahead of her. Something tickles her nose and drops off the tip and onto the grass below. Tears stick to blades like morning dew. Whatever strength that pushed her to get outside has been depleted. Here, she thinks, is where she’ll remain forever. Time enough will pass and all over again she’ll forget what life was left behind. Only instead of leaving it, she’ll become part of the Earth she used to exist within. The grass will grow over her, the dirt will bury her with time.
She’ll lie here until she dies. If death is even an option for her anymore. If it's not, she’ll feel cheated. If it is, she’ll wonder why it didn't come sooner.
The light of day dulls and the trees she stares at in the distance fade from green to black. Night falls and she still remains on the ground. How could she pick herself up? How could she go back inside after what she found? After what she now knows.
She closes her eyes.
Small, feather-like steps fall against her back and the owner of them starts to purr and knead the fabric of her clothes. Carol sighs, turns over slowly and Goose readjusts to sit on her stomach. She reaches out and gently removes the cat from her body, earning her an annoyed meow.
Carol’s eyes leave her cat and stare up at the house. Looming over her and taunting her with more secrets undiscovered within its walls. When the wind whips and the house creaks, Carol swears it sounds like laughter.
. . .
How she makes it back in the house is a mystery. She moves out of her body, letting some form of backup power take control while she roams in the space of her mind, trying to piece together when she ended up right here. Right in this hell of solitude.
The door at the end of the hall has been shut and Carol retreats to her room. She sheds herself of her clothes and, with them, the day. She tosses her jeans and shirt and underwear into a corner of the room that she vows to not visit. The fabric can stay there and rot for all she cares since it now carries a weight that not even she, The All-Mighty Captain Marvel, can withstand. She falls into bed and tries to close her eyes without seeing that photo.
She stares ahead at the wall but even then, with the darkness of the room reflecting what she sees behind her closed eyes, it’s there.
Her and Maria. Carol’s own arm outstretched to take the photo; to capture Maria’s arm around her shoulders and Maria’s hand caressing her jaw and Maria’s lips pressing against her own. And both of them, smiling. Smiling.
The sob that breaks out of Carol comes without warning. Her body shakes on her next inhale and the following sound echoes throughout the house.
She wanted that. She wants that.
Without knowing it, she had that. She had it. It was hers. She. Was. Hers.
Carol had Maria.
Carol has nothing.
. . .
Though she hoped it wouldn’t, morning came. Carol wakes up already wanting to go back to sleep. There is nothing about this new day that invites or excites her enough to push herself up and move forward. The information that she now knows feels like a rod plunged through her chest forcing her to stay in place. When Carol wakes up and realizes her head is too loud to let her sleep she does instead what only comes naturally and cries. Lying on her back with her hands covering her face, she cries. Cries until she sobs and sobs until she screams and it’s all she does for the entire day. Fluctuating between the three but never grabbing a moment of peace.
Even when she drifts off, exhausted from heartache, she dreams of a life she does not know and only knows it is a lie because she sees Monica as a teenager but made up of what Carol can parse together from pictures. Monica’s voice fluctuates and she sometimes looks five but in the next moment is seventeen. A whole life, a whole human she chose to miss out on. Monica, always joined by Maria. Maria who looks at her differently in dreams now and who invites Carol closer with her eyes but who disappears the second Carol’s close enough to lay her hands on her. Always just out of reach.
Carol jolts awake and she’s crying. She cries until she doesn’t. Until it’s late into the night, maybe even early morning, and she welcomes in anger. This time it’s different. The anger isn’t directed towards the Universe or the Kree or Skrulls. It’s not even directed towards herself . For what she knows as the first time, the anger is directed towards Maria. She glares at the ceiling and lets her breathing go unchecked as the rage brews.
How dare she.
The door to her room is nudged open and the action is followed immediately by one long, drawn out meow, halted only by Goose’s need to jump up on the bed. Then, she sits, watches Carol, and meows again. Carol doesn’t budge. Goose lets out a pleading mewl and walks up Carol’s legs and onto her stomach where she chooses to meow again. Carol’s eyes are stuck on the ceiling. Goose starts to knead her stomach, gentle and careful and meowing all the while and a tear slips down Carol’s cheek. A claw penetrates her skin and Carol jumps up, effectively throwing Goose off of her as she does it. “Oh my fucking God!” Clothes are snatched from her drawers and thrown on as she moves out of her room and down the stairs, Goose hot on her heels. She grabs Goose’s food from the kitchen and throws the open bag down, the meal spilling out of it and onto the floor. “You’re a goddamn alien and you haven’t figured out how to feed yourself?!” Goose ignores her and trots happily over to the food and the anger that simmered inside of her comes to a boil. “I didn’t even want you,” she screams at Goose. “I didn’t want the fucking cat , Maria!” She directs her yell upwards and tears out of the kitchen. “I didn’t want the cat ,” she repeats and storms up the steps so she stands at the end of the hall facing The Door. “But you swoooore, it would be just until Monica got back. You were so sure it would be until just then but you had no idea if that would happen. You couldn’t have known I would save her.” Carol scoffs, “I didn’t even save her! It was someone else! Not that, you know, you were around for that part of it.” She starts to pace, slowly in the small space between walls. “‘Just until Monica gets back,’” she mimics. “Well, I kept the cat. And Monica came back. But I still have the cat. You see the issue there, Maria? Your end of the deal-” Carol swats her hands together like she’s brushing off dirt. “But look at me!” She holds out her arms and turns. “Look at where I am! Back in the house. I came back, my promises all checked out.
“But what the hell did I come back to?!” Carol drops her arms and glares at the door. “Huh?! What,” she starts walking forward, “the hell is this? Home? You think this is home ?! Where are you? Where’s Monica? Where’s what’s mine?!” She stands in front of the door now, chest heaving and face red, being cooled only by the tears that barrel down her face. “Answer me, Maria,” she huffs at the door. “Answer me!” She emphasizes her demand with her hands slamming against the wood. “Answer me!” She slams them again. “Fucking talk to me, Maria,” she wails and this time when her hands connect to the wood they stay there and she falls forward against them. Her eyes squeeze shut and her breath hitches. “Please,” she whines. “Please talk to me, please, Maria.” She slides down the door until she’s on the floor curled up against it. “Please come back, I’m sorry. Please. I want to come home, Maria, please.” She drags in a breath. “I want to know…. I- You should’ve told me. You should’ve told me.” She turns her body so her back leans against the door. “I-I didn’t need to know everything. I don’t care about everything. I-.... I only wanted you, Maria.” Her face scrunches up and she brings her knees into her chest. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry. I would’ve wanted to know.” Carol wipes a hand under her eyes and lets out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why you kept that from me.” She presses the thumb of one hand into the palm of her other. “You shouldn’t have-” Her eyebrows lower and that boiling anger makes a quick return.
“This is your fault,” she laughs and turns to face the door again. “Do you know- If you had just said something, Maria, I would’ve been home, I would’ve let them die. I would have.” Overall, she can’t tell if the words are true but she knows they feel right in the moment. “I would have let the whole damn universe break apart if you had told me. I would’ve been standing right next to you when the damn sun exploded and I wouldn’t have let you go but you decided to be selfish and keep it to yourself. You decided to keep my life to yourself.” As Carol says the words the reality of them hits her and she laughs again as hands drag through her hair. “Oh my God. Oh my God, Maria. My life. It was my life and you- I deserved to know! I had every right to know. I was trying to figure out who the hell I was and you thought, ‘fuck it, it doesn’t really matter if Carol knows that the two of us were-....’” Carol stares forward. At a loss for the words that would come next because even now, she doesn’t know. Carol gets back on her feet.
Carol throws the door open and beelines for the pile of photos in front of the closet. She snatches up the one of her and Maria kissing Monica’s cheek, she picks up the beach photos and the one of her and Maria kissing. She shuffles through the collection pulling out every photo of herself she can get her hands on and faces the door again. She holds the photo of the three of them up first. “Mine,” she hisses and pulls out the next. “Mine,” she bites and produces another. “Mine,” she snaps and, with shaking hands, grabs the following one. She goes on like this until she gets through the entire stack and then throws them down on the bed. “So what else, my darling,” she mocks and starts looking around the room. “What else do you have hidden from me?” She pulls open drawers and opens up jewelry boxes. She goes into the adjoining bathroom and looks in cabinets. “What information about my life did you deem trivial enough to leave out during all these years?” Carol comes back into the bedroom and looks around more. Her eyes land on the leather chair again and the notebook that rests there. She rushes over and starts to sift through the pages. Most of it is uninteresting to Carol; phone notes and grocery lists and daily to-dos. Nothing of what Carol hopes to find. She tosses it aside and picks up The Price of Salt instead and opens to the front page and sees Maria’s handwriting.
Carol freezes.
I get why it’s your favorite. Don’t know if it’s because of the story or because of your unmanageable self obsession though.
P.S. That was a joke. I know it’s because of your unmanageable self obsession.
A small huff of laughter shoots out of Carol and while it’s not big it still feels overpowering. It’s the first bit of genuine joy she’s felt in a month. Maybe more. Maria left her a message. Maria’s read the book. In completion. But the dogeared page….
Carol flips to it now and her eyes are forced immediately to the one section of the page that’s underlined. The words are blurred out both by the tears in her eyes and the ones that land on the page. Carol falls onto the edge of the chair and tucks the book in against her chest. Again, she cries. Again, it’s for the world to hear.
Underlined perfectly without a bump, in a bold line that ensures the reader wouldn’t miss it.
“ Carol, I love you. ”
The underline is dated April 24, 2018. A year before Maria died.
“I love you,” Carol bellows. She only has the strength enough to say it once. She prays it was loud enough for Maria to hear.
. . .
Carol paces the length of the living room with the house phone pressed to her ear. Her hand moves nervously through her hair and wipes against her pants, over and back again. It’s been a few days. The house has been cleaned up, the photos reorganized and tucked away by her bed and Goose’s food picked up off of the floor (and Goose apologized to in depth). Maria’s drawers have been fixed to their proper state and The Price of Salt rests on Carol’s bedside table. She’s breathing a little easier.
Or she was. Until she decided to make a call.
There are other people on Earth who know her. Maybe none so much as Maria but there are still people. There are still other Rambeaus. In the hand holding the phone, she has the photo of Maria’s parents caught between two of her fingers.
The other end of the line picks up and a man’s voice comes through, “...Hello,” he asks and Carol hears a strain in his tone that tugs at her heart. How stupid of her. Calling from Maria’s line when Maria hasn’t been here in years. She quickly answers to try to remedy the situation.
“Hello! H-Hi, hi, Mr. Rambeau?”
“Yes?” There’s a note of confusion and then disappointment in not hearing his daughter’s voice.
“Hi, um, this is Carol. Carol Danvers, I was just-”
“Oh!” He laughs along with his exclamation. “Oh, oh, oh, well, hey! Hey, honey, how are you doing?”
“Hi,” she breathes, her whole body warming up at his kind and excited tone. “Hi, I’m okay, I’m doing alright.”
“You’re back!”
“Yes, sir, I’m back.”
“Alright now,” he chuckles. “Hey, Maria always said you would be. That child never been wrong a day in her life. Ha! Well, it’s good to hear your voice, baby girl. Real good, real good. We missed you, boy, I tell you. Don’t know how we…” he clears his throat, “how we got through that time when we just didn’t know. Never seen Maria like that before. Then you up and left again….”
“I know, I’m sorry-”
“Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean nothing by that, Carol, I’m sorry. You did what you had to do, I understand that. Now, knowing everything about people like you and all that stuff, shoot. You probably stopped some other crazy shit from getting down here so thank you!” He laughs again and Carol sinks onto the couch. “I’m just going on and on, I’m sorry. You called me! What can I do for you?” Carol’s hand tightens around the phone. “Carol, honey?.... Hello? Oh, hell,” he mumbles, “out here talking to myself. What’d I hit?”
“You didn’t-”
“Hello?”
“You didn’t hit anything, sir, sorry. I….” She leans back against the couch and raises a hand to her eyes. Before she can get a hold over it, she’s crying. “Monica’s gone.”
“Huh? What do you mean? We just got her back-”
“It’s my fault,” she whines. “I should’ve been the one to close it. She’s gone.”
“‘Close’…. She’s dead?”
For the first time Carol has to face the fact that she doesn’t know the answer to that question. “I don’t know.”
“Some more of that hero stuff?”
Carol nods. Then she sniffles out, “Yeah.”
“Mm. Then she’s alright. One thing about y’all over there, if it’s hero stuff you’ll be alright. Maybe a little too far, a little too hard to reach. But alright.” Carol’s bottom lip trembles. “Carol, it’s gonna be alright.” Carol leans forward, folding in on herself and cries hard into the receiver. Over the past few days she’s lost track of the tears she’s shed and she has made note that the crying never makes her feel better the way it usually would. She’ll cry for hours and still feel like she needs to have her chest ripped open and her heart torn out. Now, as she cries on the phone and with someone, finally someone , to hear her she starts to feel a release. “Oh, Carol, I’m so sorry.” It makes her cry harder hearing those words and not from her own mouth. Someone else senses her sorrow and the unbearing pain of it and feels sympathy. There is no expectation for her to prove herself as stronger than the next. She can be hurting and it won’t bring about the end of the world for her to dwell in it.
“I feel so alone,” she cries. “I’m so lonely. And no one knows me and I don’t know me but Maria did. And I can’t remember anything about her or Monica or you.” She sighs and sniffles. “Although, I haven’t really tried to remember you, I’m sorry.”
He chuckles, “That’s alright, Carol.” She lets the sound of his laughter get her to smile. “You know, I can’t understand the memory stuff and how…how hard that all is. Couldn’t tell you step one on how to help with that. But I do have some experience in loneliness. Lost Maria’s mama not too long ago.”
“Oh my God,” Carol gasps. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”
“You’re alright, take it easy. I think…I think losing Maria just did something harsh to her. One of those things you get but you can’t explain, hm?”
Carol thinks of how it felt to lay in the grass a few days ago wishing for the world to swallow her up. She thinks if she knew it was possible she absolutely would have let it. “Mmhm.”
“So,” he sighs, “it gets lonely around the house. Things I used to do with her still hurt to do on my own. Rooms are too quiet, head’s too loud, bed’s too big. Then I let myself talk to her and feel good about it. Not sit in pity or think about how silly it was talking to myself, no, I talked to her . Sat with her again, laid down with her again. Let her in. It still gets tough, Carol, I’m not saying it’s a quick fix but letting her be part of me, it….” He blows out a breath. “You can’t tell me she’s not in the room right now.”
“Whenever I talk to Maria I get mad. Or, I don’t know…scared.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that'll happen.” Carol can hear him grinning through the phone. “But at least you're talking.” Carol feels a small smile spread across her face and she hums in appreciation for the sentiment. “Have you visited her yet?” Carol’s smile falls all at once and a dread pours over her like a slime: slow and thick and suffocating. “I know it's a lot. Not too fun.”
“I don't think…. I don't know if I ever-” She scoffs. “God, I wish Monica were here. Then at least I'd have, I don't know…someone else.”
“I’ll clear my calendar if you ask me nice.”
“You…. Really?”
“Not a question about it. I’ve been meaning to get over there myself. It’s been some time. Maybe ‘bout a month. I’ll come pick you up and we’ll do our thing.”
Carol’s voice sounds small when she says, “Okay.”
Maria’s dad hums understanding on the other end of the line. “I got you, Carol. Alright? I got you.” She nods and even though she knows he can’t see her she knows he can tell. “Maria knew you well, knew you best, but I know you, too. You’re as much mine as she was, you understand that?” She nods again. “Alright. Well, alright. I’ll call you when I’m heading over.”
“Okay.”
He laughs, “And I know you don’t know me all that well right now, so don’t worry about saying nothing back but I love you, baby. I’ll talk to you soon.” He stays on the line for a while after, sitting with Carol as she tries to catch her breath as she’s broken down in tears again. While she doesn’t manage to say the words back she does thank him, something he claims she never has to worry about doing.
. . .
A cool breeze passes through Carol’s hair and over the thin layers of wet lines that track down her face. She stands over Maria’s headstone with her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket and emptiness filling her to the brim. It’s been about an hour. No words have been said. Maria’s dad waits for her just out of earshot, completely patient and giving her the time she needs.
Carol inhales like she’s about to speak but then there’s nothing. Strangely, it feels like she’s waiting for Maria to break the silence. Stupidly, she thinks there’s a possibility she will.
Carol bites her lower lip and kicks at the grass underneath her. “I don’t know,” she mumbles. “I don’t know if this makes any sense. Talking like this but your dad said it helps and he seems like he knows a lot. Maybe he just makes it sound like that but whatever it is, it works.” She looks up at the stone and at the words on it and then away, shaking her head. “You-” She bites on her bottom lip again, tears at it until the pain forces her to stop. “I’ll tell you one thing, Maria, I’m not a fan of the afterlife scavenger hunt you’re sending me on.”
The Headstone proudly displays the words:
MARIA RAMBEAU
BELOVED DAUGHTER
CARING MOTHER
DEVOTED PARTNER
It’s the last line that has Carol out of sorts.
“The book and-and now this it’s so- Just when I want to be mad at you, when I feel like I deserve the right to be pissed about it all and everything, you have something like this. Something telling me what we meant to each other.” Carol sighs, “It makes me feel like my anger keeps running into brick walls.” She looks back down at the headstone. “And I know you did that shit on purpose,” she laughs; it's not malicious or harsh, there’s nothing bitter or biting in the sound of it. It’s a truly amused, even joyous laugh. Carol leans forward and stares directly at Maria’s name. “Well, nice try, Rambeau. But I’m still mad at you,” she whispers with a smile. “And don’t try to pull the ‘how can you be mad at a dead person’ card on me because I know for a fact you had six years of being peeved off with me.” She continues to smile and lets out a long calming sigh. “I probably won’t be mad at you for that long though.” She straightens up and sighs again and stares at the last line of the headstone. Fresh tears spring to her eyes and for the first time they don’t feel hot and angry or confused or grieving. “That you were, my love,” she says and presses her fingers to her lips then lays the same fingers on Maria’s headstone. “I’ll be back,” she promises and gives the stone one last soft tap before walking away.
. . .
Carol finds the Skrull device in Maria’s room about two and a half weeks later, having forgotten she left it abandoned after the photo box incident. She knows that the technology is nearly indestructible but some small part of her finds it shocking that it’s still intact as if it’s been decades since she saw it last. In some way it feels like that. Since her first visit to Maria’s grave, Carol’s gone back every day to talk to her and continues the conversations at home too; They’re almost never ending. The anger that was so heightened at the beginning has slowly started to dissipate the more time she spends sitting on the grass by Maria’s headstone. Still, some of it lingers and Carol doesn’t mind having it around, she thinks it’s good for her to acknowledge its existence. Carol talks to Maria’s dad almost daily. He wants to have her over at the end of the week for dinner and she didn’t hesitate a second before accepting the offer. It feels nice to have someone. Feels even nicer knowing that someone is a Rambeau.
Carol turns the device over in her hands and sits on the edge of the bed. She hasn’t tried in a while, kind of gave up on the whole thing. But now, remembering doesn’t really matter as much as her wanting to see Maria, alive and vibrant and moving around her. She slips the device on and lies down.
“Pilot seat’s all yours!”
Carol sees Monica’s sweet face and curious eyes looking up at her and all at once the scene shifts and she’s watching Maria carry her baby on her hip. She kisses the ring around her neck and hands it to Monica. Carol already expects the next shift but doesn’t expect where it lands her.
Carol’s looking at the same ring pinched between her fingers. She stands in front of a mirror in a bathroom she doesn’t recognize as she turns the piece of jewelry over and lets it slip onto the tip of her own finger before she nudges it back up and holds it between two fingers again.
“Carol! I’m ordering, what do you want?”
“Uh,” Carol shoves the ring into the pocket of her jeans and pulls a t-shirt over her head before she steps out of the bathroom and into an unrecognized living room. She sees Maria sprawled on the couch with a phone in her hand and a menu held out in front of her. “I don’t care, whatever you get.”
Maria looks over at her and shakes her head. “Uh-uh. Every time you do that you end up hating what I get and sit there and pout about being hungry.”
Carol rolls her eyes. “Not every time.”
“Often, then.”
Carol crosses the living room and goes to the kitchen, she pulls open the fridge and grabs two bottles of Coca-Cola. “Lo Mein then,” she calls to Maria as she looks for a bottle opener. Maria’s already started placing the order when Carol finds one and opens each bottle before tossing the caps in the sink. She sips from her own as she starts to leave the kitchen and head for Maria.
“Yes, that’s one chicken,” Maria looks at Carol with raised eyebrows and Carol nods, “Lo Mein. A Vegetable Chop Suey. White rice on the side…..” She accepts the cola from Carol.
“Egg rolls,” Carol whispers as Maria listens to the order being repeated to her. “Fresh egg rolls,” Carol repeats.
“Oh! And can I also do an order of your Freg- Sorry-” Carol’s head whips in Maria’s direction and Maria immediately holds up a hand to block the view. “ Fresh Egg Rolls. Yes.”
“Freg?” Carol asks and tries to get a look around Maria’s hand but Maria adjusts as Carol moves. “What’s ‘freg?’ Maria?” Carol pushes Maria’s hand down and fights back laughter at the sight of tears in Maria’s eyes. “Maria, I don’t want ‘freg.’ Tell them to take ‘freg’ off the order for me, huh?” Carol’s voice shakes with laughter and Maria squeezes her eyes shut. “Baby doll? Won’t you have them take ‘freg’ off for me. I don’t want any damn ‘freg.’”
“That’ll be all,” Maria’s voice cracks and Carol falls to her knees laughing. Maria quickly relays the address and hangs up the call. Carol’s already back on her feet and dodging a swat. Maria jumps up and Carol has only enough time to set her cola down before she has to take off down the hall with Maria hot on her heels. “Next time you’re doing the ordering!” Maria yells and Carol ducks into a bedroom. She makes to dash over the bed and back out of the room but Maria’s ten steps ahead of her thought process and cuts her off. She shoves Carol onto the mattress and Carol thinks she might die from how hard she’s laughing. “You can’t go one day without being a pain in my ass,” Maria chastises with fingers prodding in between Carol’s ribs and a grin on her face.
Carol shrieks with laughter and tears slide down her face.
Carol wakes up, fresh tears of her present self streaking down her cheeks as she jumps off of the bed and onto her feet. She pulls the device off of her head and stares down at it like it’s a pound of gold. “I remembered,” she whispers. “I…,” she laughs, “I remembered. I remembered,” she exclaims and throws her arms up, laughing all the while. “I-I remembered,” she says again and suddenly her knees feel weak and her legs start to shake. She lowers herself to the floor. “I remember,” she cries with a smile still on her face. “I remember,” she informs the person unseen but so inarguably present in the room. She doesn’t feel alone. This is not loneliness. “I’ll remember.” She swears by it.