Remnants

Carol tapped her finger on her leg while staring out at space. LED lights lit up the spaceship console and blinked every so often. It was peaceful out here. Three months ago, Carol stopped the Kree from eradicating the remaining Skrulls. Now, they were searching space for a place to call their own. Carol was happy to help, but she was starting to miss Earth.

More flashes of her memories were slowly coming back to her, of the life she had before the crash. She remembered much more about her best friend and their life together, and she could remember her parents a little more. High school crushes, sports accidents, first time driving a car, and joining the army. She was remembering it all.

Except for one flash of long light brown hair glowing golden in the sunlight, big toothed grin, and hazel eyes. Every time the memory surfaced, Carol got a strange feeling in her chest. It felt heavy. It was driving her just as mad as when she would have flashes of Dr. Lawson. She knew this woman, how was the question, and why did her heart drop every time she saw the remnants of the memory?

Anytime the flash came, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She could almost feel the wind whipping and the smell of salt, they were on the beach, but when she tried to focus in on the woman it never worked fully. She made out some facial features but that was all.

Footsteps interrupted her thoughts. She recognized them as belonging to Talos almost immediately. He had a heavy walk that you tended to hear way before he arrived. "What's up, Talos?" She said right as he entered.

He rolled his eyes, "How did you know it was me?"

"Because I know everything. Obviously." Carol retorted with a smirk.

Talos pursed his mouth and gave her a pained expression. Walking over to the console, he fidgeted with some of the glowing buttons and touch screen pad. "How far away from CFR-700 are we?"

Carol frowned, she could feel the anxiety radiating off of him and empathized with him. The past few weeks, all the Skrulls were getting anxious to find a home. Morale was low since the last two planets with a good atmosphere and seemingly habitable lands ended up having hidden dangers that none of them would have expected. Both occasions, Carol managed to wrestle the dangerous creatures away from the Skrulls, but if she had tried to leave, they would have slaughtered the refugees. And so, the search continued.

Luckily, the Kree had not followed them so far. Carol hoped that damn AI was destroyed for good and the Kree could be free from its influence and change their ways, but that was way too good to be true.

She glanced at the coordinates on the console in front of her, "We're only about 14 hours away. You should spend some time with your family until then. I'll let you know if anything changes, I promise."

Talos seemed to relax and he smiled in appreciation, "Alright, thank you." He turned and walked away, leaving Carol alone again.

As much as she wanted the company, Carol thought it would be better for everyone if Talos relaxed more. She kicked her feet up on the side of the console and leaned back. It would still be hours before making any kind of contact with CFR-700, so she closed her eyes and let sleep take her.

"Come on! This way!"

"Slow down! God, you're not leading me to my death, are you?"

"Hmm, only one way to find out…"

Carol smiled and let herself be dragged off by this person she completely trusted. There was something over her eyes covering them completely, so a small part of her was a little anxious.

"Okay, you ready?"

She only nodded, and felt the person lift the piece of cloth off her eyes. At first she couldn't see anything with the bright sun shining into her eyes, but as they got adjusted, she gasped at the sight before her. She was on top of a cliff overlooking the beach and the sun was setting casting a beautiful orange color on everything.

She glanced over and saw a woman, her long brown hair was glowing golden around the edges as the sun hit her, her hazel eyes showing all the beautiful colors in them, and her mouth was in a huge open grin. There were light freckles over her nose and on her cheeks, but they were easy to miss with the woman's skin already being a darker shade.

Carol felt a hand wrap around her upper arm and hold tight as the woman came closer leaning her head against hers in a side hug. She leaned into the embrace and took in a deep breath, completely content to stay like this for a while.

A jerk startled Carol into the real world again. Her eyes felt a little groggy as they darted around finding the source of the motion. The ship had entered a field of asteroids, Carol grabbed the manual controls and quickly evaded a fast approaching rock, Talos rushed into the room with a few others and immediately began shouting out orders for people to take their stations. "Where did this field come from? It's not showing up on any of the radars!" He asked heatedly.

Carol checked the sensors and found he was right, they weren't popping up on any of them. That got Carol thinking. "Transferring controls over. I'm going out there," she hopped up from her seat and nodded once to Talos, trying to reassure him.

She stepped into the airlock and waited for the pressure to lift until it was safe to open it. She felt gravity flip on her and she used her powers to fly out into space. A particularly large asteroid was aimed at the ship, so she went up to push it away, but when her hands extended out they were met with nothing. The image of the asteroid flickered any time her hand passed through, but there was nothing actually there. This was a hologram field of asteroids. Carol's brow creased in confusion. What was it doing in the middle of nowhere in space?

Flying ahead, Carol scoped out the area. The hologram asteroids were passing through her body as she flew further into the field. What is that? A glimmer of light caught her eyes, curiosity got the better of her and as she got closer the surrounding asteroid field disappeared along with the illusion of endless space. In front of her was no longer asteroids, but a planet with blue, red, and green surfaces. She narrowed her eyes, there shouldn't be a planet out here but here one was hidden amongst the fake asteroid field. She flew closer making sure it would be safe for the ship to also fly closer.

When she was satisfied there wouldn't be any offensive action for approaching, Carol flew back to the ship and entered the airlock. She ran to the control room where Talos was looking anxious. "What the hell is going on out there?" He asked while eyeing the asteroids closely.

"They're fake. It must be some sort of defense system because there's a planet up ahead." She explained.

Talos shook his head, "But there shouldn't be a planet out here!"

"Well, there is. Don't you think it's worth looking into?" Carol raised her eyebrows and watched Talos' internal battle with investigating more or continuing on their path to CFR-700. "If this planet isn't on any maps or radars, it could be perfect for your people, Talos. I promised to help you and protect you while you searched for a home. Let me do that."

Finally, Talos sneered and turned to his men, "Let's prepare the defense systems but set a course to land on that planet," he turned back to Carol. "I hope you're right about this."

Carol nodded at him and watched the planet come into view once they were past the holograms of asteroids. They entered the atmosphere relatively smoothly, and they were met with no cannons or guns or energy beams, which was a good sign so far. The ship landed in a forest-like area. The trees here were beautiful and colorful, nothing like what was on Earth. On the ends of the branches were small lights that lit the area up. Talos and the rest of the Skrull looked out of the window in marvel.

The automated voice in the ship's system started running numbers, then said, "Air pollution clear, air: breathable. Planet water system, clear, water: safe. Atmosphere status: strong."

"You guys stay here, I'm going to go check things out. Keep the comms up and I'll let you know when it's safe." Carol told the Skrulls as she left the ship for the second time.

The ship had done an accurate air test because when she walked out of the ship the clear air hit her face and she was able to safely breathe it. She walked for a few minutes in a random direction just to scope it out more. This planet was beautiful, and no sign of any dangerous threats lurking, yet. There were a few animals scurrying through the trees but the scanner that Talos helped install on her suit was not picking up any threatening signatures from them. Some of them resembled squirrels and rabbits from Earth, in fact.

"Oh my God, it's a squirrel!" An excited voice said.

Carol looked around confused, she was the only one out here. Her scanners weren't picking up any other life forms other than the small creatures around her.

"Don't get too close. Those things can be vicious in the wild." Carol heard her own voice say. She turned around checking every direction to make sure she wasn't just hearing things.

"It's a squirrel," the woman's voice deadpanned. "Look at how handsome he is!"

Carol was suddenly back on Earth, in a park with a woman with brown hair wearing black skinny jeans, a dark blue plaid shirt, and blue converse shoes. Her face was blurry, but Carol watched her crouch down and pull out a notebook and pencil to start drawing the animal.

The blonde felt herself smile, and gaze at the crouched woman affectionately.

"Wow, only you would get a squirrel of all things to pose for you," Carol quipped. The woman looked back at her, her face still blurry, but Carol could almost feel the sly smile.

"He wouldn't be the only one." Carol felt her cheeks flush, "Now stop distracting me!" The other woman laughed. Carol bit back a sarcastic response, laughed, and continued to watch the squirrel. It was actually standing up on its hind legs sniffing the air and staring at the drawing woman.

After a few moments the squirrel ran away and the woman stood, showing Carol the drawing. "Got most of it before he left, what do you think?"

The drawing was actually quite impressive for just a minute or two worth of time. The woman was becoming quite good at impromptu sketches. She grinned a huge toothy grin as she showed Carol the picture.

"It's perfect."

Carol shook her head, it was another remnant of a memory. She felt a smile on her lips, the memory was a happy one just like the other had been, and it featured the same woman from before too.

"Lifeform detected-" the scanner on Carol's arm spoke suddenly breaking her thoughts and snapping her back to the new, and possibly hostile, planet.

She felt a cold object press to her back and she rolled her eyes. "Put your hands up! Who are you?" A voice behind her demanded.

Carol turned slowly while her hands were in the air, she'd comply until she found out who or what she was dealing with. Once she turned around she was staring into the face of a Skrull she didn't recognize. There were a few more surrounding her all of them holding energy guns. "You're Skrull? What are you doing here?"

He looked confused for a moment, "What do you mean? I'm asking the questions here, and you're in our home!"

"Home? Oh thank god!" She almost dropped her hands but put them back up quickly when they all growled at her. "No you don't understand, I came here with more of your people. With General Talos. We've been searching for a home for them."

"Talos? That's impossible. Talos would never trust someone like you. Groala, what's your status?" The leader of the group of Skrulls asked in his wrist communicator.

"You better come see this, boss." Another voice across the comms said.

The lead Skrull nodded to his men and waved his gun to the side indicating for Carol to follow them. She did as he wanted her to do because she knew once they saw the other Skrull, everything would be solved. They walked back in the direction of the ship and Carol was relieved to see Talos talking with one of the Skrull apart of this new group.

"Are you Drago?" Talos said when he saw the leader approaching. "My name is Talos. You can let her go... she's been helping us, she's a friend." He nodded at Carol.

The one called Drago dropped his gun and glared at Carol still, but it seemed he wouldn't be shooting her for now. She relaxed and gave him an "I told you so" smirk. Talos and Drago clasped hands together.

"General Talos, the last I heard you were in search of the FTL engine. What happened?" Drago asked, while eyeing Carol and the ship they arrived on.

Talos shifted in his stance and glanced back at ship when slowly, one by one, some of the others were emerging from the hangar. His wife and daughter locked eyes with him and then his wife searched fearfully around them, unsure of if it was safe to come out. The general waved for them to come to his side. "Is there perhaps somewhere safe we can go to talk? We've been travelling for months."

Drago smiled at Talos' daughter then back up at Talos, "Of course. Follow me."

Carol could tell Talos felt a weight lifted off his shoulders at discovering his own people here on this planet. The local Skrull led them to their settlement that was basic in design, they clearly had not been here longer than a couple years. There were huts built at the base of rocky and hilly terrain. It took them awhile to track down into the territory, but once they did they convened at a large hut like structure built into the side of a hill.

It was mentioned the hut belonged to Drago, who had apparently found this planet and led a handful of refugees here with him. They all sat around Drago's table with his wife and his children were playing outside with Talos' daughter and the other children on the ship.

After Talos and Carol explained the situation about their meeting, Mar-Vell, failed attempts to settle anywhere, and discovering this planet, Drago seemed to trust them more.

"We've been searching everywhere…" Talos said emotionally after finishing his story.

"Your search is over. We call this planet Dara, it's got it's dangers, like any planet, but we've made it our home. It can be yours too."

"Yeah, quite a defense mechanism you've got." Carol stated referring to the asteroid field.

Drago tilted his head, "You mean the asteroids? Yes, it's kept us hidden for the most part. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to build any other defenses in the short time we've been here."

"We may be able to help with that. If we take some of the equipment from Mar-Vell's lab, we can build more defenses." Talos looked over to his 'science guy' for approval and received a nod from him.

Drago and Talos eagerly exchanged more ideas on how to better prepare themselves and rebuild a home for their people. They ate and drank together for hours, and when Carol had grown tired, she left the hut. Outside the children were still playing. They played a game with a table and a few balls, it seemed the goal was to get the balls in the other teams holes. Not unlike pool. Carol stared at the scene in front of her and had another memory come back to her.

Maria, Carol, a few of their friends from base, and a woman with brown hair were all sitting at a big table at Pancho's bar. They were celebrating Maria's birthday. Everyone already acted like fools because of the rounds of drinks they had. When Maria and another friend of hers by the name of Anthony challenged Carol and the brown haired woman next to her to a game of pool, her competitive side couldn't resist.

The rules were losers had to buy the winners another round of drinks along with bragging rights, of course.

"Sam and I are going to beat your asses, just wait!" Carol yelled over the music and watched as Maria tried to line up her shot.

"Pah! Put your money where your mouth is Danvers!" Maria laughed and hit two solid colors into the holes. She raised her hands in the air and did a little dance. "Don't be too scared now, Carol, we'll go easy on you two!" She taunted.

Carol grinned and glanced at the brown haired woman named Sam who rolled her eyes. "Oh we're screwed," Sam said and took a big gulp from her beer. "What have you gotten us into?"

"Oh relax! I'm a pool mastermind, okay?" Carol defended while grabbing a pool stick and readying herself.

Sam rolled her eyes, but had a smile on her lips still.

Carol was brought back to reality by Talos clapping a hand on her shoulder. "Carol! I cannot thank you enough for helping us get here."

"It was the least I could do, Talos." She said genuinely, although her mind was still lingering on the memory, and especially now because she knew the woman she kept seeing was named Sam.

"Will you stay for a while?" He finally asked.

Carol nodded, she would stay as long as she needed to, to reassure herself that they would be safe on this planet. It appeared to be promising enough, but just in case there was any lurking danger she'd stay a bit longer. "Yeah, of course I will. My job isn't done yet! Gotta make sure you don't get into any more trouble." She exclaimed while punching his shoulder lightly.

"What about Earth? Think it'll be safe enough without you?"

"I think they can manage without me for now. And I'll return eventually. One thing at a time though, Talos."