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There's a calm quiet in the air when Carol touches down just outside of New Orleans. In this case, the ‘touches down’ would be pretty literal; she's been getting better at controlling the output of her tesseract fueled powers and only makes a small dent in the asphalt as she lands. To avoid any more surprises with the neighbors, she's taken to landing a considerable distance away from the Rambeau house and its neighbors.
As she walks, the mugginess of a typical summer evening in the big easy settles over her exposed skin. The sound of cicadas and distant splashes of water are a welcome background noise compared to the unnerving inaudible space she so frequently travels in. Most lights of the surrounding neighbors are off, which aligns with her Starforce uniform telling her the local time is approximately 10:39 pm. She'd feel bad about waking Maria up if she weren't certain that her excitement of seeing her for the first time in nearly a year would probably countermand it.
It’s been some time since Carol’s memories returned. All around it was a slow process, even slow to start thinking of herself as Carol Danvers rather than Vers but every time she talked to Maria again she would reference a memory and she would remember a bit more. She couldn’t always visit regularly, and Maria knew that, but Carol also knew that no amount of insistence on her part that it hadn’t been ‘that’ long would make the sad smile on her face disappear. But Carol could convince her in other ways.
When she reaches the porch, Carol takes a moment to look behind herself. White paint flakes off where she rests her hand on the column. Gravel roads stretch out as far as her eye can see, only stopped by the certainly ancient shrubbery which represents the boundaries between one property’s farmland and another. She didn’t get a good look as she walked up, but Carol’s certain all that surrounds them is green soybean pods and fluffy cotton buds. One would think there's not much to see with how dark it is, but being so far from any sort of light pollution allows the expansive sky to take the stage.
The typical smells of Louisiana have continued as she walked up, but now a new smell of baked and browned butter has joined the mix. Carol swears she’s eaten in the last four hours aboard her Quadjet but she really can’t resist Maria's sweets. She moves into the house, unsurprised by the open door and closes the screen behind herself. She pulls off her jacket and sets it on the coat rack, beeline-ing for the kitchen. There on the island she finds exactly what she was looking for--a plate covered by a kitchen towel that surely had what she was looking for.
As Carol flipped over the towel and reached for one another, the scent caught her by surprise. The cookies were there, yes, but another pleasant earthy smell was coming from the back. The secondary note was clearly the smell of smoke, but it was sweet like sap reminding Carol of summers on the property. Clearer than her thoughts had been in some time, she could practically taste roasted marshmallows in the backyard and feel her throat burn from stumbling over ‘white rabbit’ to get the fire’s smoke away from herself.
Letting the towel fall and the half eaten cookie stay on the counter, Carol movies through the house faster to get to the backdoor. It’s still so quiet, not even disturbed by any running machinery. The smokey smell only increases as she pushes the back door screen open and finds Maria nodded off, covered in a blanket in front of a dying down fire. Initially Carol worries it could have spiraled out of control, but Maria’s placed a cover over it. It seems all Carol had been smelling was due to her incredibly enhanced senses picking up on something long gone.
Brief heart attack over, she sighs as she walks down the back steps to join Maria. The blanket is big but due to her falling asleep it’s slipped off part of her shoulders. The place where it slips seems to be a perfect amount of room for Carol to wedge herself in—but she’s got something to take care of first.
A pile of wood sits nearby and Carol gathers four to form a little structure. Leaves on the ground work great at igniting the almost gone embers, and within a few minutes Carol’s proud to say she brings it back up to the fiery glory it was in before Marai let it die. As the fire bounces back, Carol watches Maria move around and bring a sleepy hand to rub at her eyes. Always a light sleeper, it’s no surprise that all the rustling that Carol’s been doing has woken her up.
She mumbles something incomprehensible before doing a slow blink up at her. “Hey there, Stranger.”
Her voice is still thick with sleep, and Carol could only hope to push down the adoration that swells within her chest. “Hey Baby.”
Maria sits up with a happy, sleepy smile gazing at the fire. “Could've sworn that died down a while ago.”
“Well, I can't have Ms. Rambeau freezing to death out here, she's real important to me.”
“Is she now,” Maria chuckles, snuggling back into her blanket and patting the space where it drapes off her. “Come here, I gotta figure out if I'm still dreaming.”
“On it.” Carol sets down the rest of the timber, brushing her hands off on her uniform to come sit next to her and wiggle her way underneath the blanket.
Maria smiles happily, head immediately nudging into the crook between her face and bosom. She's shockingly warm, warmer than the fire or any person Carol's come into contact with recently. She smells like the smoky sweet fire, chocolate baked goods with real butter, and nutty vanilla ish tonka beans. Really who is Carol fooling when her nose goes for her hair immediately, inhaling a year's worth of smells. Deeper down is the Cocoa butter leave-in conditioner Maria puts in before straightening her hair.
“I missed you, y'know.”
Maria hums, snuggling in more. “I’d hope so, it's been awhile.”
“Yeah but I really missed you. I felt it when I walked in, how the land around here's changed a bit, how there's different jackets hanging on coats in the house.”
For a small town like this things shouldn't change much, and they didn't, but leaving for months on end has left Carol with an uneasy feeling. It's unfair to expect anyone to stay the same when she herself leaves suddenly for long stretches of time. Sometimes she wonders if Maria waiting on her ever feels sisyphean in nature. Luckily, she's got a way of sweeping away Carol's worries in just a few words.
“But you came back. You always do, even when I thought you wouldn't. And I'm still here.”
Carol pulls back from her, looking down at Maria. Deep dark brown eyes adorned with thick eyelashes stare back at her, dark red tinged lips pouting in question up at her from the crook of her neck. Carol can't help herself as she leans down to pull her into a kiss, long and deep. Maria shudders against her body as if this one touch was too much for her to handle. Carol snakes a hand around her shoulders to pull her in closer, reaching up to cup her face with the other.
As expected Maria is hot and wet, lips fitting almost perfectly against her own. Carol should be resisting but the sweet taste of her mouth practically makes her feel delirious as the feeling in her gut spreads through her whole body. Someone like her shouldn't be allowed to hold someone so ethereal in her arms, yet here she is, and it's almost too much.
Carol pulls back from their embrace to get another look at her. Maria makes a content sound as she pulls away revealing hooded eyes. She finds herself at a loss for words once again, looking away as her face surrely flushes.
“How long do I have you for this time?”
“A week I'd say. Then I'm heading off to Aladna, a country supposedly covered almost entirely in water.”
Maria tilts her head. “Are you gonna swim the whole time? Or you gonna do your floating thing?”
“That's a good question, I'll update you when I come back.” Carol nods with mock seriousness.
“As long as you've dried yourself off before you come back in the house.”
Maria shifts herself around underneath the blanket, head falling back against Carol's neck. Her eyes flutter shut again as she lets out a happy noise.
“Back to cuddling again?”
“I only get you for a bit. I think this is completely fair.”
“Okay, for now it's whatever you want.”
“Good!”
Carol chuckles, nose pressing against Maria's head to inhale again. In the distance cicadas chirp and the summer breeze is rustling the oak trees on the property. Wind chimes can be heard oh so distantly, surely hung up in some odd places by Monica's deft little fingers, and the fire continues to crackle. Little sparks rise up from it into the sky, slowly fading into the distant fiery stars of the night. If these last few years have taught her anything, it's that even though the universe is far bigger than she can imagine, sometimes she's able to fit in her arms and wrap herself around her shoulders.