North Star

*

A spaceship chases them through the clouds.

It happens in a heartbeat. They crash-land by the lake, pieces of the aircraft and bits of debris strewn across the shoreline. Sand on her cheeks and blood in her mouth, Carol's breath rattles in her chest. It hurts. Something inside of her feels wrong, and her ribs ache as she twists around to look at Lawson in the seat behind her. The ride was bumpy, to say the least.

But they're alive, and that counts for something.

She takes a deep breath in through her nose. When Maria's voice crackles over the radio, Carol exhales slowly. It's good to hear a friendly voice, warm and familiar and tinged with concern.

"Danvers, you copy?"

"Yeah, I copy. We hit ground." Carol says.

"Carol, you ok? They were—"

There isn't time to explain any of it. We hit ground, a spaceship shot us out of the sky, we could still be in trouble. It wouldn't make any sense to Maria. It doesn't make sense to Carol. She pulls her helmet off and lets it drop to the cockpit floor.

"Yeah, I copy."

She climbs out of the pilot's seat, grunting with the effort it takes.

Carol's glad for the feeling of solid ground beneath her boots, if only for a moment. Then the feeling is gone, dissolving into the air when she sets eyes on Lawson; still strapped into the plane, and injured, a smear of dark blood at her temple.

"Doc," Carol says, moving to pry Lawson's helmet off. "Your blood, it's...it's blue."

But it can't be.

"Yeah, but how's my hair?"

Blood shouldn't be that color, Carol thinks, oddly transfixed. Blue. She wants to know what it means. Wants to know why, and how, and when. Lawson's breath hitches slightly, snapping Carol back into the present.

"Help me out, will you?" Lawson asks.

Carol unbuckles Lawson's seat belt. First, there had been that ship, firing at them, chasing them back to Earth. And now this. The blood. The color of it, dark and inky and a rich blue. Still a little dazed from the abrupt landing, Carol is almost convinced that she's seeing things, that it's just her mind playing tricks on her. Almost. She could never make something like this up.

She gets an arm around Lawson and helps her out of the plane. Wincing, the woman sags against her, leaning all her weight on Carol. They get one step, another. She must be badly hurt. Carol wonders if she's bleeding anywhere else, though the damage seems to be mostly internal.

"I gotta destroy it before they get here."

They get maybe four steps before Lawson drops to the ground, unable to hold herself up. She falls and Carol goes with her, kneeling beside her, one hand gripping Lawson's shoulder. You have to stay with me, she wants to say. Stay with me. But her head is spinning. She can't get her thoughts straight.

"Lawson?" is all Carol can manage, at first.

"You remember what I said about our work here, what it's for?" Lawson rasps.

"To end wars?"

Her breaths are coming shorter now. She clutches weakly at Carol's shoulder. "Yeah, but the wars are bigger than you know." Lawson grimaces, her face scrunched up in pain. "Ah—dammit. My name is not Lawson. My real name is Mar-Vell, and I come from a planet called Hala."

Carol huffs out a quiet laugh. That actually kind of makes sense, and it's definitely not the strangest thing to happen today either. Somehow, it doesn't matter. Carol still trusts Lawson—or Mar-Vell. She trusts her. She knows her, and has for years now, and that hasn't changed. But there's still so much Carol wants to ask. There's so much she wants to know. Is Hala anything like Earth, she distantly wonders. Are your people like us?

"I would say that you're delusional, but we just got shot down by a spaceship," she replies, wryly. "And your blood is blue."

Lawson's laugh is short and pained. Her fingers dig firmly into Carol's arms. "Listen, I spent half my life fighting a shameful war. Now skedaddle before you give me any more regrets. Just remember the coordinates, ok? You gotta save 'em without me."

"Save who, how?" Carol asks.

"Now I gotta blow this engine," She reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a weapon. The gun is sleek and modern, the design unlike anything Carol has ever seen. "Before they find it."

"What are you doing?"

Lawson pushes herself up, aims the pistol at the engine, and—

It happens too quickly. A heartbeat, a breath. The blast comes from somewhere in the ruins, and hits Lawson in the chest. It happens too quickly. A shot to the heart. Carol doesn't think, she acts. The gun is in her hand within seconds. Carol whips around, weapon raised and ready to shoot. Her breath picks up. For a long moment, there's nothing but smoke and ash, and Lawson dead on the ground beside her. And then she sees him.

She is kneeling in the sand, when he appears.

A shadow of black smoke passes over his face, and then he's there, walking toward her. His weapon is lowered. Carol keeps hers aimed on him, a wave of white-hot anger surging through her. You killed her, she thinks, you did this you shot us down.

Her entire world is narrowed down to him now.

Carol stares as he makes his way closer.

Her finger twitches over the trigger. She could do it, could end this right now before he has a chance to. Before he shoots her first. She's never killed a man, but something tells her she could do it. Something tells her isn't just a man; he's more than that, he's worse than that. Carol keeps her aim steady.

"We have no interest in hurting you."

He isn't alone, she realizes. Of course he isn't. We, he'd said. Carol's eyes stay trained on his face. She wonders how many soldiers are out there. And they have to be soldiers; the uniform, the weapon in his hand, the ship. There's no other explanation. He is a soldier, of that much Carol is certain. And he's not alone. So the odds are stacked against her.

So she's outnumbered.

It won't be the first time.

"No?" Carol gets to her feet. Her voice rises louder, louder. "'Cause all the shooting kinda gave me the wrong impression."

He slows to a halt. For the first time, Carol is able to get a look at him. Is this who Lawson was so afraid of? The man with the pistol. He chased their plane through the stars and clouds, and shot them out of the sky. Carol stares at him and he stares right back. She doesn't recognize the greens and blacks of his uniform, or the pointed emblem in the center.

"The energy core," he says. "Where is it?"

"Pararescue's on the way. You have two minutes until you're surrounded."

A beat passes, like he's considering her. "Then I see no reason to prolong this conversation," his pistol is lifted, pointed at her.

"No, wait!"

It distracts him, for a moment.

A heartbeat.

Really, that's all she needs.

The man lowers his gun slightly, intrigued. It's not enough time, she'll be dead in two minutes. Once he gets what he wants, once he realizes the energy core is right there, he'll shoot her. All that matters now is Lawson and what she died trying to do. Still, Carol isn't sure what she's going to do until she's already in the middle of doing it. Which is how most of her plans go, a mix of impulse and instinct. She can't let him have it. She has to finish what Lawson started. Carol nods at the wreckage, at the glowing blue engine half buried in the sand.

"You mean that energy core?"

She takes aim and fires.

A burst of electric-blue light ripples through the air, blasting her backward. It shoots through her, white-hot and blazing, exploding behind her eyes with a blinding whiteness. The world flares emerald and then it's gone.

*

There's sun on her face.

At least, she thinks it's sunlight.

Vers.

She drifts. It's warm here, and she feels impossibly light, like she's floating. There's a voice. She hears echoes of it, faraway and muted. The words are too quiet, they slip through her fingers. It's warm here, and although she is distantly aware of pain, nothing hurts. It's just sort of there. A dull ache behind her eyes. A twinge of discomfort below her ribs.

She drifts.

It starts to feel a little like sinking.

*

She wakes—it's a slow return to consciousness. She wakes, tired and aching. The sunlight is soft on her face, but it isn't warm like it was before. It takes a long moment for her to realize that something feels wrong. She doesn't remember why her head hurts. Or how she got here, wherever here is. She doesn't even remember falling asleep.

It's a slow return.

Vers.

There's something tugging at her brain.

She turns her head toward it, chasing the voice. It fades, and fades. Then everything goes silent. She fights through the thick haze clouding her mind. As the fog begins to clear, cracks of light start slipping through. Slowly, her eyes flutter open.

And everything is white.

She blinks, adjusting to the sudden intrusion.

It's not sunlight, she realizes.

Vers?

It's not sunlight. The room she wakes in is dimly lit, and there aren't any windows. Oh. She blinks up at the concrete ceiling, and the glowing white panels above her. It isn't that dark, but the absence of real light makes it feel colder. Nothing about the room is even a little familiar. When she turns her head, she sees him. The man at her bedside. He's dressed in black and green, and his eyes—

She wakes to golden eyes, and a man sitting at her bedside.

"Vers," he says, a half-sigh. He sounds relieved.

She doesn't know what that word means, but it's not the first time she's heard it.

Golden eyes stare back at her, with something like concern in them. He looks worried, but she doesn't know why he would be, since they don't know each other. He has kind eyes, she thinks. And his voice is strangely comforting. She thinks that might've been the voice she heard echoes of, in the darkness. But she isn't sure yet. Her thoughts are scattered, and she's drowsy, it feels like it's talking all her strength just to keep her eyes open. The last thing that she clearly remembers is this moment right now.

And waking.

Sun on her face, and a voice in her ears.

Before that, there's nothing.

When she tries to chase her last thread of thought, she comes up empty-handed. There's nothing, only pitch-black darkness that stretches on and on. She looks at him, and his mouth is moving. It takes her a long moment to realize he's talking to her. There's no one else here, it's just the two of them; her in a bed, and him in the chair beside her. She moves to sit, pushing herself upright.

"Good. You're awake." he says. His voice is gentle, as if he's trying not to startle her. "I was beginning to wonder when you'd come back to us."

She opens her mouth. No words come out.

"Vers? Vers, can you hear me?"

"Where am I?"

"A medical bay on Hala. It appears you were caught in the crossfire of a Skrull attack."

Which doesn't really explain anything. She frowns, somehow more confused than she was a moment ago. There aren't just gaps in her memory missing, all of it is gone. The man says something. The man with golden eyes. She doesn't hear him, the blood rushing so loudly in her ears that she can't make out the words. It doesn't matter. A feeling like panic crawls into her throat, and she can't breathe, can't force air down into her lungs. It's all so unfamiliar, this place, those words, him.

Hala, Skrull, Vers.

Tears sting her eyes. She angrily blinks them away, wiping roughly at her cheeks when some spill over. A hot spike of anger flares up inside of her, and her hands start to shake.

"I don't know what any of that means."

"Easy," he says. He must hear it, the panic edging into her voice. "You're safe now."

"Shouldn't I remember?"

Her name or his.

The attack.

Something, anything. But it isn't coming back. She wonders, not for the first time, if she's dreaming. If she made this whole thing up in her head, including him. Maybe she did dream it up; the words and the place, the eyes gold like sunlight. And maybe she'll wake any moment now, and it'll all be over. It has to be a dream. She knows, though, that it isn't. Her hands are shaking even worse now. She balls them into fists, her knuckles bone-white. But the shaking doesn't stop.

He must notice it.

"Easy, Vers." he says, a little firmer this time. Then he gently takes her hand in his and holds it. "You're on Hala now, you're safe."

A medical bay on Hala, were his exact words.

The bed is unfamiliar. So is the room. So is he. She doesn't like it, this feeling of not knowing. It makes her feel weak. There's something about the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers that anchors her, and makes her feel less alone. His thumb brushes over her pulse, soothing her frayed nerves. He sits and holds her hand until the shaking stops. And even after it stops, he holds on a little longer. He's watching her closely now, as if he's searching her face for something. The frustration she feels is still there, she can feel it twisting sharp inside her, but some of the anger drains from her body.

She exhales a shaky breath, feels it rattle her chest on the way out.

"Am I?" she asks, her voice barely audible.

"Are you what, Vers?"

"Safe."

He tilts his head at her. "Of course you are."

And she believes him. Her hand in his. Is this what safe feels like? She thinks it has to be. Her ragged breathing evens out. The grip on her hand tightens, squeezing, as if to reassure her.

He uncurls her fingers from a fist, slowly, and then he lets go. She finds that she already misses it, her hand wrapped up in his, the warmth of it. The way it had been firm and gentle and steady all at once. His touch tethered her. Without it, her skin already feels so much colder, and she is adrift.

"Good. Just breathe, Vers."

"You keep calling me that, but I don't—I don't know what that is. I don't know who you are. Why can't I remember anything?"

"There was a Skrull attack," he says it with a quiet intensity, anger creeping into his voice. "You were near dead, when we found you. I wasn't sure you'd survive the journey back to Hala, but you did."

"You found me?" she asks.

"Yes."

His eyes flicker over to her other arm. She follows after his gaze, curious. There's a needle in her left arm, a thin tube attached to it, filling her veins with a dark blue liquid. It's a blood transfusion, her mind supplies. There's some sort of cap on the end of the tube; it's black and round, with a green hexagon in the middle. But it can't be a transfusion. Blood isn't blue. Is it? Something about that color feels wrong, though she isn't sure why. She stares down at her arm, then at the clear plastic tube and the hanging drip bag connected to it.

She stares as blue blood flows into her veins.

"What're you putting into me?"

"You were dying," He isn't looking at her. His gaze is still fixed on her arm. "You needed blood."

"Was it always like that," she asks. "Blue?"

"Kree blood is always blue."

"Kree blood," she echoes. She touches the inside of her arm, carefully tracing the skin around the tube; it's smooth and unscarred, and her. "Is that what I am? Kree?"

"Yes."

She almost hopes he'll reach for her hand again.

(He doesn't.)

"I almost died, but you found me." she says, and it takes twice as long to get the words out, they catch painfully in her throat. "You helped me. You brought me here." to Hala, her mind supplies.

He stays silent.

"Thank you. For all of it. For everything."

"It's what any Kree would do."

You were dying. You were near dead.

It rattles her, knowing she was half-dead when he found her. She has too many question. There's so much she wants to know, has to know. Was anyone else injured? Was he? He doesn't appear to be hurt, though he could be nursing hidden wounds beneath his clothing. The medical bay is empty, and the only noise is the low hum of energy coming from nearby machines. A soft mechanical whirring. It's soothing, in a way. Constant. She glances around the dimly lit room, and for the first time notices the row of beds lined up next to hers. She counts them. There are eight beds, on her right. Two on her left.

And all of them are vacant.

His voice startles her from her thoughts. "Is any of it coming back to you?"

"No," she says. "It's all...blank. What happened to me? Why can't I remember anything, not even my own name? I can't—it's gone. Why is it gone?"

He leans forward slightly, his gaze even. "We don't know the full extent of it. The memory loss. Or the severity of it." he tells her. There's a softer, almost sympathetic, edge to his words. "But the damage is there. We don't know how long it will last."

"Memory loss." she flatly repeats. Her chest feels hollow. "But it'll come back, won't it?"

"It could take weeks, maybe years, for it to come back." he says, and she still hears it, the unspoken or not at all. "The medical officer assured me—"

She doesn't hear the end of that sentence.

Her ears are ringing.

A thought occurs to her, and it suddenly becomes much harder to breathe.

What if it never comes back?

"But I don't even know what a Skrull is," she says, swallows against the dryness. Her throat feels raw from disuse. "Why would it attack me?"

Memory loss, from being caught in the crossfire of a Skrull attack. There's a bitter taste in her mouth, when she thinks about it. A tightness in her chest. Her brain isn't working fast enough to process even half of this. She looks at him, really looks at him. The man sitting at her bedside. And it scares her, how much she trusts him. How much she needs to trust him.

"There's a lot you don't remember."

"So tell me."

His expression shifts, and his eyes soften. All traces of pity have vanished from his face. "Not now, Vers. In time, I will. I'll tell you everything." he says, and rises from the chair. "For now, rest."

"But I have to—"

"We'll get you back on your feet soon enough. But first, you need to rest. Then we'll talk."

Her eyelids feel heavier, so she nods. Rest. She can do that. Although she isn't in any pain, there's still a dull ache lingering in her bones. Rest might help with that, she tells herself. If she sleeps, she might dream. Which means she might remember, even if it's just a fragment of a memory, and that would be enough for now.

"Okay." she says.

"I'll be back in the morning. Sleep, Vers."

He's gone, after that.

It's only when the door hisses shut behind him that she realizes she didn't get his name. She'll ask him for it in the morning.

"Vers." she says, testing the word.

She likes the way it sounds, even if it's unfamiliar. It might not be much, but she's reclaimed this tiny piece of herself, of her past, and she wants to hold onto it tightly. She doesn't want to forget. So she says her name, over and over, into the stillness and quiet of the room.

"Vers. Vers. Veeers."

Sleep doesn't come easily.

She sits in the silence of the medical bay for what feels like a very long time, then she settles back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. She drifts off slowly, quietly anxious about what awaits her. The last thing to flash through her mind is a glimpse of warm yellow light, like sunbeams slipping through the cracks in her fingers.

*

Waking isn't so bad, the second time around.

It doesn't hurt.

She blinks past the disorientation.

Vers forces her eyes open and the familiar concrete ceiling comes into focus. Good. At least that hasn't changed. Her eyes dart around the room. It's cold and sterile, but she's grown used to being here. A shaky breath passes her lips. Her entire past is lost, as if it never happened. Maybe she'll get pieces of it back, in time. Or maybe she won't. The uncertainty is what bothers her the most, she can feel it like an itch under her skin.

A part of her had hoped for answers in her dreams, but she saw nothing. The pitch-black darkness of a dreamless sleep leaves her feeling numb.

Waking isn't so bad. It's the thoughts and doubts that come after that are.

She reaches for the closest memories; the echoes of a voice, sunlight warm on her face, blue blood in her veins. She remembers watching as dark liquid was pumped into her. That was real. So is this. She remembers this. The way her name sounded when he first said it, and the feeling of his hand wrapped around hers. The memories soothe her, even if it's only for a moment, before the feeling is swallowed up by something else.

She counts each inhale and exhale.

Just breathe, Vers.

One, two.

Something inside of her shifts.

A long breath in, then one out. Another breath in. It helps ease the pressure building in her chest. There are familiar things all around her, so she focuses on them. The soft hum of nearby machines. The row of vacant beds. The strips of white light. The room is exactly as it was before, and Vers finds comfort in that. But there is one difference. Her eyes slide and she notices someone standing over her.

A woman with blue skin.

She's new.

The woman's face is unfamiliar, but all faces will be now, Vers thinks. Her coat is black and gray, stripes of emerald green running from her shoulders to where the coat flares out at the wrist. Dark hair is pulled back off her face in an intricate braid. Vers stares and wonders, is my skin blue? What color is my hair?

Are my eyes golden, like his?

Vers stays very still. The woman is using some sort of device that is attached to her left arm. Beams of orange light sweep over Vers' skin. The needle is gone from her arm, she realizes, touching the spot where it had been. There's nothing there, no mark or bruise. She doesn't know why she thought there would be. Vers pushes herself up onto her elbows with surprising ease, and watches as orange light continues to sweep over her body.

"Welcome back, Vers." the woman says.

It's good to be back, she almost replies. The words won't form. Her mouth is suddenly dry, her throat parched as if she hasn't had a single drop of water in days. She swallows against the dryness, but that doesn't really help. Vers eases herself into a more upright position. A glint of silver catches her eye; there's a small star pinned to the woman's coat.

"Are you scanning me?" she asks instead.

"I assure you it's routine procedure."

"Who are you?"

"Medical Officer Ava-Lynn."

"Oh. Hi."

"How are you feeling?"

Vers considers that. She isn't tired or sore or even hungry. She isn't anything. It doesn't hurt, not like it did the last time she woke. Nothing aches. She feels lighter, and her mind is clearer. Vers moves to sit up, carefully swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. There's no stiffness in her bones, no dull or distant pain.

"Better, I think."

"Good," says Ava-Lynn. "You'll be back on your feet in no time at all."

Vers holds a hand out in front of her and stretches her fingers. "So what's the scan for?" she asks, but what she really wants to know is how bad it is—the damage, the memory loss. She wants to know the truth, and if there's any chance of recovering what was lost. Is there any certainty it will come back to her, the memories of what happened that day?

Even if it hurts, she has to know.

"It's procedure."

Ava-Lynn taps something on her wrist and the light vanishes. She moves and starts typing on a screen above the bed, and Vers has to crane her head to look; a shimmering holographic image appears out of thin air, in the shape of a person. A diagram of a body. There are ribs and bones, and a heart.

It takes Vers a moment.

(Everything takes a moment, lately.)

"Wait, is that me?"

"It is."

"Do you know what happened to me?" Vers asks.

"Your wounds were consistent with blaster fire," she explains. "The blast caused significant damage, and rendered you unconscious. As you were the only survivor of the attack, we can't know with certainty what happened."

Vers bites the inside of her cheek, hard enough that she can taste blood in her mouth.

The only survivor.

He didn't mention that part. The man who sat with her and held her hand until it stopped shaking. The man who found her, and saved her life. She can still hear the quiet echo of his voice rippling through her mind. She looks away. Her throat is now impossibly tight, and her breaths are coming sharper, shorter. They did this to me, she thinks. The Skrulls. They left no one alive. They did this. She feels a sudden stab of hatred toward them.

"You can help me get it back, can't you?" Vers asks.

"The trauma you suffered was severe. Whether the damage was irreversible or not remains to be seen, and we will only know with time."

It's not like she expected anything else, really. She tries not to be too disappointed by that answer, but the weight of it sits uneasily in her stomach; like a stone, sinking, sinking. For now, her past is lost to her, sealed off somewhere in a dark corner of her mind that she can't reach.

"Can you tell me your earliest memory?"

"A blood transfusion." Vers says.

It's a half-truth.

She remembers other things. Sunlight warm on her face. A voice. Glimpses of this room, barely visible through the cracks in her eyelids. But none of that really counts. Her clearest memory is of blue blood running through her veins, and golden eyes staring back at her. A tube in her arm and the man at her bedside. Everything else before that is fuzzy.

The holograph disappears. Ava-Lynn turns to Vers with something sympathetic in her eyes. Her voice, however, remains even and clinical. "I would like to keep you in for further observation, just for another day or so. Then you'll be free to leave."

Vers can only nod absently, her mind elsewhere.

She wonders if it's morning yet.

"There are more tests I'd like to run."

"Okay."

"Rest, for now. I'll be back with you in a moment."

"Wait," Vers says, her head snapping up.

"Yes?"

"There was a man here, the first time I woke. And he was sitting right there," she says, and her mind drifts to thoughts of kind eyes and warm hands. It stayed with her, the memory of him. She's certain she didn't dream it up. The chair is gone, but she remembers what he looked like, sitting there across from her. "Do you know who he was?"

"Commander Yon-Rogg. Your earliest memory, the transfusion? That was his blood."

"He gave me blood?"

"Yes. He insisted on it."

"Why?" Vers asks.

Ava-Lynn's voice is stern as she says, "I'll be back shortly. It's important that you rest, Vers."

It's his blood, coursing through her veins. The man with eyes like the sun. The one who saved her. His name is Yon-Rogg, she reminds herself. It's his and hers, this blood inside her. Vers doesn't know what she's supposed to do with that information. Why didn't he mention that, when he was sitting right there?

She doesn't notice Ava-Lynn leave, too swept up in her own thoughts to realize until a minute later. It's too quiet, Vers thinks. She's alone again, left to sit with her thoughts in the stillness of the medical bay. She wonders if it's morning yet. If he'll be back to see her soon. There's no way of telling if it's day or night, since there aren't any windows or clocks. She might not remember her past, but at least she can still recognize things and give them names. She knows what clocks and windows and ribs and blood transfusions are. And that isn't much, she knows, but it's something.

Vers waits and waits, and wonders if it's morning.

She waits.

(It takes thirty minutes for her to move.)

Minutes tick by, but it starts to feel like hours, and Vers can feel her patience waning. She's itching for a glimpse of whatever is outside these walls. Hala, he'd called it. She wonders what it looks like. She wonders if it's beautiful. Vers climbs off the bed and takes a small step forward. She feels off-balance, at first. The floor is cold and hard beneath her feet.

She takes one step forward, then another.

After that, she starts to explore. The room is larger than she initially thought, so Vers walks every inch of it, counting how many steps it takes to get from one side to the other. There are more beds in here than she thought, too, just over a dozen. It seems so empty and bare, the furnishings stripped down to only the essentials. She doesn't mind. When she reaches the far wall, she walks slowly alongside it, running a hand over the smooth concrete.

Vers gets halfway to the door before taking a step back. She tilts her head at the large black symbol painted above the doorway. It's meaningless to her, she doesn't recognize the shape of it. Vers tries not to be too disappointed by that, but she is.

She really shouldn't go any further, she knows. And yet, there's something urgent tugging at her, telling her she has to. A part of her that won't be satisfied sitting for another half hour in the stifling quiet of the medical bay. It's too still now, there's too much time to think. She shouldn't go any further.

And yet.

*