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Carol didn’t love him—not in the way she’d always known he’d wanted—but, for a while, he’d been the closest thing she’d had to a friend. Or, rather, the closest thing Vers had had to a friend.
But she’s not Vers anymore. She never had been.
Yon-Rogg’s betrayal still stings.
Carol wears the open wounds under all her armor, hidden to everyone but Maria.
She knows Maria doesn’t understand. Maria thinks she should have left Yon-Rogg in the past where he belongs. To Maria, Carol’s present—her future—doesn’t have any room for him.
Carol doesn’t necessarily disagree.
It’s just been harder than she’d expected to sever that limb. To take a friendship, a mentorship she’d once valued so highly and stuff it in the attic of her mind where it might wither and die.
It’s not as if it was all bad. In fact, it was mostly good. But it’d been built on a foundation of false pretense, deceptions, subtle manipulations. It had never been real, not like what she has with Maria and Monica.
Carol feels like she’s been robbed of something.
“You don’t need him,” Maria tells her one night, as they get ready for bed. She sighs and shakes her head. “I just can’t understand why you let him continue to have this hold on you.”
Carol pauses in turning down the bed, fingers stiffening around the scalloped edges of a pillowcase. “I—I don’t—”
Maria sighs, her expression softening with sympathy. She leans over and reaches out, slides her palm gently, carefully over Carol’s cheek. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you.”
Carol flicks her eyes away from Maria’s. “Do you think I still—that I’m not—”
Maria draws her hand away, slowly, fingers trailing along Carol’s jawline. “I know you had a connection with—with him,” and Carol can hear the tension threading itself though Maria’s voice as she says it, pulling the strings tight. She sighs again. “And I know it’s hard to just let that go… It’s not fair of me to be angry.”
“I’m with you,” Carol says, taking Maria’s hand in hers and cradling it between her palms. “I love you. You know that, right?”
Maria nods. “Of course I do. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard,” she says, lips twisting in the implication of a smile. “I lost so much time with you, time we could’ve spent building a life together. Raising Monica. But I know you lost something too. Sometimes I forget that part.”
Carol leans in and brushes a grateful kiss against the corner of Maria’s mouth. “Thank you,” she says.
“For what,” Maria mumbles, turning her head slightly so that their lips slide together.
Carol pauses, breaking the kiss. She keeps her eyes closed. When she finally opens them, she sees only Maria. No ghosts lurking in the corners, in the shadows, waiting for her to catch a glimpse of them before darting out of reach.
“For remembering,” she says, simply, kissing Maria again. She knows Maria will be able to read between the lines, in the margins. Maria has always been able to read her. “For being you. I love you.”
Maria laughs softly into Carol’s mouth. She slides cool palms over Carol’s cheeks and draws her into another kiss, bedding and pillows momentarily forgotten. “You’re sweet,” she says, her voice warm with laughter, with love. “And I love you too.”
Carol tugs Maria by the hand and the two of them fall together on the unmade bed, their fingers entwined.
Carol forgets all about her ghosts, at least for one night.