Patchwork

"I just," Vers paused to let out a frustrated sigh, "I don't understand why I can't go with them. I hate to watch them go without me."

Vers's squad had been sent out on a training mission two days ago. She had been so excited when she found out about the mission, and was still angry about not being able to join her team.

"You may be strong and smart, but you lack discipline and training." Hoardak the training grounds weapons master had become a kind of mentor to her in recent days.

Vers had been surprised when Yon-Rogg told her that she would be receiving one-on-one weapons training when she first got here. She had assumed that she would be training to use her powers, but Yon-Rogg had insisted that her powers remain a secret from everyone.

"Your powers are unique and powerful, but before you can learn to control them you need to learn how to control yourself and how to fight without them." Yon-Rogg had lectured her about the importance of fighting hand to hand and being able to use a multitude of weapons, but Vers had zoned out a third of the way in.

"Focus!" The Kree weapon master scolded as he noticed her concentration wavering.

Hoardak was currently training her to use the standard issue energy pistol. The gun felt odd in her hand when she first picked it up, the feeling tugged on a memory but not hard enough to remember it.

"Widen your stance." Hoardak nudged her feet and adjusted her shoulders so she was standing properly.

"This gun has two settings. The low power is the stun setting and will take down anything smaller than a Korlaian. The high power setting is for damage and should only be used if absolutely necessary. You do not want that blood on your hands." The seriousness in the weapons master's voice made Vers pause for a moment and reevaluate him.

Hoardak was not a friendly looking man. The blue skinned Kree was a foot taller than her and build like Grock. He spoke with conviction and experience. Like he everything he taught he learned the hard way, which judging by the number of visible scars was not an unlikely scenario. But Vers knew better than to let appearances effect how she thought of someone.

Hoardak had shown her through their private training sessions that he was nothing but a big teddy bear on the inside. He had to look tough when teaching large numbers of recruits at the same time, but was gentler and more considerate in private.

"Now aim down the sights and line up the green dot with the back sight and where you want to fire at. Then squeeze the trigger, don't pull, exhale as you do. Let it surprise you. There won't be much recoil so it shouldn't be too difficult to hit the target if you do it right."

Vers followed his instructions and raised the pistol, leveling it with the target down range. She could see the concentric rings of the target and took aim at the center. She took a moment to steady herself before exhaling slowly as she squeezed the trigger.

Hoardak let out a low whistle as he looked down range at the target. "Dead center on your first shot, I don't know who you were before, but you definitely had some sort of weapons training."

"Maybe I got lucky." Vers said trying to brush off the compliment. It frustrated her to think about who she was before she came to Hala. There were times that the memories were so close, but would slip away before she could reach them.

"Vers, drop it!" Hoardak yelled in panic and Vers looked at the pistol still in her grip. There was energy surrounding her hands and starting to melt the hardened metal and she dropped the weapon at once.

Vers started to panic, she wasn't supposed to let anyone know about her powers.

"Yon-Rogg should have mentioned how easily distracted you can become. I knew your powers were strong if the Supreme Intelligence was the one to give them to you, but I never expected that." Hoardak sounded impressed as he crouched down to examine the melted gun, and Vers let out a small sigh of relief.

"Any longer you would have busted the battery cell and then there would have been a much bigger mess to clean up."

"Well," he said as he stood up, "if you had we wouldn't be the ones to clean it up." Vers chuckled lightly.

"Well at least now we know you can shoot, but how good are you at melee weapons?"

Vers ended up melting two knives, a sword, a bow staff, and a gravity gauntlet before Hoardak gave up and sent her back to her barracks before mumbling something about calling Po-Jo for tougher weapons.

---

"Carol, I know you. You're either going to do something stupid and get kicked out while I'm gone or throw yourself into work and not eat." Carol scoffed at her bestfriend trying to deny it, but she knew Maria, like always, was right.

Maria had planned this visit to her parents house in Louisiana months ago and Carol was fine with it. She could survive without her for a week. She wanted this opportunity away from Maria to get her head on straight and finally get this crush out of her head. 'Out of sight, out of mind' she kept telling herself as the days grew close and closer to it.

"I will not. I'm going to be just fine without you."

"Really?" Maria said skeptically with a raise of her eyebrows. "So what do you have planned? Anything special? Got a hot date or something." She pressed.

Carol winced internally, she hadn't been on a 'date' since she came to Pegasus. She had made the excuse of focusing on her career as her reason for not dating when Maria had brought up the subject the first time. She couldn't tell her the real reason, not without destroying their friendship or her career and she couldn't loose either.

Maria had never really dated anyone since Carol had known her, but she had plenty of one night stands. It was the main reason that they drove separately to Pancho's and it killed her every time she drove away.

"Yeah, I got a hot date with my Mustang. Gonna give her some TLC, so she'll be ready to kick your sorry ass when you get back. Not that she needs it to beat your sorry excuse for a car." Carol tried to sound cool and casual, like she didn't just come up with it off the top of her head.

"Insult my car again and we'll see how well you fly with a black eye." Maria tried to look menacing as she spoke, but the grin on Carol's face told her it wasn't working.

"I am going to miss you." Carol admitted quietly and Maria looked stunned for a moment before Carol continued.

"I'm going to have to deal with the guys all on my own for an entire week, kill me now, and we are supposed to be getting those new recruits in a few days." Carol complained light heartedly, trying to steer the conversation away from the dangerous topic.

"Girl, you have been handedly those douche bags from day one, you got this."

"Yeah, you're right, but it's not going to be the same. Who is going to back up my awesome burns? Who is going to stop me from punching someone?" Carol pouted.

"A, you're burns aren't that good and I have to pick up the slack and B, me telling you not to punch someone has never stopped you before."

"That hurts Rambeau, that hurts." Carol griped the front of her own shirt, grasping at a nonexistent wound. Before Maria could make another snarky comment the alarm on her watch went off.

"You are the only person in existence that sets an alarm for when they have to leave."

"It's a long ass drive and I don't want to have to stop and get some dirty and cheap motel room. I've seen your appartment and that is enough for me."

"Hey!" Carol took offense at her bestfriends insult, but thought about it for a moment and then shrugged in agreement. She didn't spend a lot of time at her small one bedroom apartment, so it was usually a mess.

"Alright get out of here before you insult me anymore." Carol turned Maria towards her car and started to push her towards it.

"Damn Danvers, if you wanted me gone this badly all you had to do was ask."

"If only it were that easy." Carol muttered under her breath.

"Let me do one last check to make sure I have everything." Carol rolled her eyes and let out a loud groan.

"You've already checked it three times, you have everything. Now get going or all of your stupid planning will have been for nothing." Maria had always been one to double check or even triple check her work. It made her a great mechanic, but an anxiety ridden mess everywhere else.

"Alright, alright, I'm going." Maria conceded as she walked towards the old muscle car. She made it about half way before turning back to Carol.

"What if I, supposedly, told you that I didn't want to go?"

"I wouldn't believe you." Carol said slightly confused at Maria's words as slowly walked forward. There was a flicker of hope in her chest that she tried desperately to snuff out.

"You've been planning this for months, and have been talking to you parents every day for the past month. They are thrilled that you are going down to visit them, even if it's only for a few days."

Every time Carol had visited Maria's apartment after work, Maria would be on the phone with her mother. Maria would pass the phone to Carol after she set the take out on the kitchen table or dropped her work bag off by the door. Carol had a better relationship with a woman she's never even met, that with her own mother.

"Besides," Carol said with a shrug, "Mama Rambeau would come up here to kick your ass for flakeing out and then kick mine for not making you go."

"Scared of an old lady Danvers?" Maria joked.

"The woman that raised you? Hell yeah." Maria laughed at her best friend, and Carol tried to memorize the sight. This was going to be the longest they've gone without seeing one another since meeting.

"I'm going to miss you too." Maria admitted softly as she pulled the shorter woman into a tight hug, which Carol returns after a moment of hesitation.

"I knew you cared." Carol joked but she could feel her heart flutter and her cheeks start to redden at her words, thankful that Maria couldn't see her face.

"You are making leaving easier by the minute." Maria said as she almost hesitantly pulls back.

"I hate to watch you go." The words tumble of of Carol's mouth before she even realized she said them. Carol looked completely stunned by her own admission but Maria didn't even look phased.

"But I love to watch you leave." Maria said with a wink.

Carol blinked at her words. It took her a quick moment to realize that Maria didn't take her words seriously. Maria had thought that she was quoting one of the many terrible and over used pick up lines that guys had told them over the past year or so.

It had become an inside joke between them, using pick up lines on each other. Carol had accidentally started it after one night shortly after they had first met and had gotten drunk and had started to flirt with Maria. Maria had taken it as a joke and just laughed it off.

Carol let out a sigh of relief as Maria's watch alarm went off again, saving Carol from figuring out how to recover from her admission.

"Okay, time to get out of here, you are already twenty minutes behind your ridiculous schedule. Seriously who plans bathroom breaks?" Maria had planned her entire trip down to the minute and had been going over it constantly, so much so that even Carol had it memorized.

"Okay, okay, fine, I'm going." Maria slowly trudged towards her Camaro, dragging her feet slightly as she walked away from her bestfriend.

"Don't forget to water my plants." Maria called out when she reached her car.

"I know." Carol yelled back, she knew Maria was stalling but couldn't figure out why.

"And don't burn my appartment down."

"No promises, now get out of here!"

Maria held up her hands in surrender before getting into the driver's seat of the packed Camaro.

Carol heard the engine purr to life and watched as Maria started to pull away. She watched the Camaro until it was a speck in the distance. There was a growing feeling in her heart as she watched Maria drive off. It felt like something being stretched, and it grew tighter and tighter the farther Maria away.

"Come on Danvers, snap out of it." Carol scolded herself. "You have a week to get her out of your head. It's not going to happen."

No matter how many times she tried to snuff out or smother the small spark of hope she had, a small ember always remained.

---

Carol couldn't go back to sleep after the horrific nightmare she had. Watching Yon-Rogg talk so casually about slaughtering billions of innocent people to kill at most a few hundred Skrulls, was one of the worst things she had ever witnessed. Yon-Rogg A man she had thought of as a brother, that had trained her. But now she realized that he was shaping her into their perfect weapon.

The one problem about using a person as a weapon is their emotions. The Kree had tried to teach her to control her emotions, so she could be a better weapon. Their plan failed and now they had to face the weapon they created, and she almost felt sorry for them.

Carol looked over at the alarm clock sitting on Maria's nightstand and it read 5:13 A.M. Maria had mentioned that she would be up by six to get ready for work.

She carefully reached over the sleeping woman, giving her a light kiss on the forehead as she turned off the alarm. Carol gingerly got out of the bed, making sure she didn't disturb Maria. Maria deserved to sleep in a few extra minutes this morning, especially after helping Carol with her nightmare.

Carol slowly made her way down the stairs and towards the kitchen. She smiled at the high school level text books that were scattered across the dining room table. She entered the kitchen and her smile widened at the sight of the half finished dishes.

She took a moment to herself to soak in the feeling around her, the feeling of a well loved home, before getting to work.

-

Maria woke up slowly to small beams of light streaming through her bedroom window. She yawned before wrapping her blanket tighter around her as she snuggled back into her warm bed. She was almost asleep again when her eyes shot open in panic and she looked at the clock on he nightstand, it read 6:37 A.M.

"Oh shit, my alarm didn't go off!" She said as she scrambled out of bed quickly throwing on the closest pair of pants and quickly changing her shirt.She needed to make Monica breakfast before the school bus showed up at seven on the dot.

She stopped half way down the stairs, still tugging her shirt on, when she heard Monica's laugh coming from the kitchen and the events of the previous day came rushing back to her. Warmth blossomed in her chest when she heard Monica laugh again but this time it was joined by Carol's.

The smell of coffee and pancakes wafted from the kitchen as Maria reached the dining room. She smiled as she leaned on the doorframe that connected to the kitchen.

"And in comes Soren, steaming mad, so Talos shapeshifts into me. Which is really odd by the way." Carol laughs at her own story and is about to continue when she spots Maria in the doorway.

"Well goodmorning sleepy head."

"Yeah it seems that my alarm was turned off this morning." Maria said skeptically as she eyed a not so innocent looking Carol.

"I wonder how that happened." Maria could see Carol grin at her as she spoke into her coffee cup before taking a small sip.

"There's pancakes and hot coffee by the stove." Carol says with a wave of her hand and Maria spys a massive stack of misshapen pancakes.Maria slowly makes herself a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee, watching and listening to Carol finish telling her story to Monica.

Watching her tell the story, Maria could still see the Carol Danvers she knew and loved. Carol always animated the stories she told with wild hand movements. The smile on her face as she spoke wasn't as bright and shining as it used to be, but after last night's nightmar, Maria couldn't blame her. But it never left her face as she talked with Monica and grew ever everytime Monica giggled at her words.

Listening to the story was both amusing and heartbreaking. It wasn't a sad story at all, but it was a reminder that Carol was needed elsewhere and that this, the pancakes and coffee and stories of adventures and mishaps was only temporary. That Carol was going to be off somewhere else risking her life in the near future.

A loud honk from outside shook Maria from her thoughts.

"The bus!" Monica exclaimed as she ran and grabbed her backpack.

"Bye mom! Bye Auntie Carol!" She yelled as she raced out the front door.

"Bye sweety, love you!" Carol yell after her.

Maria eyed Carol hesitantly. Carol looked stunned by her own words for a moment before a wide grin broke out on her face.

"I hate to watch her go." Carol's voice was tight. Maria could see the shimmer of tears brimming in the blondes eyes.