Remnants

Six months passed since Talos, the refugee Skrull, and Carol landed on Dara. Things had quieted down quite a bit and the Skrull were starting to rebuild their lives. Carol felt a sense of pride that she could be part of helping the Skrull rebuild. But the longer she stayed, the more she felt that she was no longer needed.

Talos included her in many things, and she went on a few missions to find more Skrull refugees, but overall they were handling things fine without her. When she came to that realization, she had told Talos as much and at first he wanted Carol to stay longer, but eventually he saw her point. Unable to say goodbye, she told him she would be back to check on them and if he needed her at all, to use the communication system built into her suit. 

That was a few days ago now. It didn’t take her long to travel back to Earth thanks to her abilities. The first place she found herself was at Maria’s. It was evening and the sun was setting. She hoped her best friend would be home and not at work.

Outside the door, Carol hesitated to knock. Part of her was dreading seeing her best friend again because a whole year had passed since she told Maria and Monica that she’d be back before they knew it. Admittedly, she knew they probably understood that helping an alien race find a home world would take time but she still felt guilty.

She sighed and knocked three times. Might as well get this over with… she thought. No one came immediately to the door, but after a few moments of standing there awkwardly it swung open revealing a wide-eyed Maria. “Well, look what the flerken dragged in!”

Carol felt a huge grin erupt from her face at the sight of her best friend who luckily, seemed more surprised than anything to see her. “How is Goose?”

“Still a flerken, whatever that is exactly, but it’s with Fury. He’s taken on that responsibility.” Maria stood to the side letting Carol pass. The two made some small chat before settling down on the couch facing each other.

The blonde had her feet tucked on the couch and her arm on the back of the couch. Maria had a similar position as well. They laughed as they enjoyed a beer together. Maria had made sure to scold her best friend for her absence the last year.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! But I did promise to be back, didn’t I?” Carol quipped.

Maria rolled her eyes, “Okay next time we’ll have to make how long you’re going to be gone more clear.”

“Where’s Lieutenant Trouble?” Carol asked, realizing she hadn’t seen the young girl at all since she’d been back. Normally, the girl made her presence very known. Now, the house was quiet, save the two women talking and laughing together.

“She’s with her grandparents. They’ve been planning a trip to the beach, and I need to work, so I told them just to go ahead without me. Plus, now that you’re here it’s probably a good thing I didn’t go, or you’d send out a search party for us.” Maria laughed at the last part, and Carol feigned ignorance. “I would never do that!” The blonde had said.

Carol added a quick, “How is she?”

Nodding several times Maria answered. “She’s a rockstar. Misses you like hell,” at the last part Maria lightly punched Carol’s outstretched arm on the back of the couch.

They fell into a comfortable silence until Carol bit her bottom lip in deep thought. “Hey,” She started while setting her beer down. “You still have my things, right?”

Maria nodded, “Of course! Let me go get the box.” She stood and retreated up the stairs. It only took her a moment to come back down the steps and drop a cardboard box in front of Carol who started rummaging through it. “What are you looking for?”

“Pictures mostly. I’ve started having flashes of someone named Sam? She seems important.” Carol explained while going through some of the old pictures.

Her best friend’s eyes darted to the box and then to some of the pictures Carol was looking at. “Hmm, Sam… oh! Samantha Pierce! Yeah I remember her, I only met her once because you brought her to the party we had at the bar, but you talked about her sometimes. Hang on…” Maria grabbed a small book from the box that had even more pictures in it. She flipped through the pages with photographs placed in little sleeves until she found what she was searching for.

“Here! That’s you and Sam at the bar that night.” She handed Carol the book showing her the picture.

Carol was standing beside Sam, both women holding a beer, and both had a big toothy grin. Sam stood a few inches shorter. She flipped to the next page and found another picture of them, this one was taken right after the first with Carol and Sam facing each other in a fit of laughter. Sam’s face was wrinkled from smiling so big and her eyes were squinted in happiness. Carol saw herself equally as happy. She smiled down at the picture.

“Oh my God! My beer is everywhere!” Carol couldn’t believe Sam had actually tapped the top of her beer bottle with the bottom of hers causing the beer to foam up and explode out of the bottle. She started laughing at Sam trying to contain her giggles. The camera flashed.

“You should’ve seen your face!” Sam said in between laughter, her face was going red from it. “Please tell me you got that on camera!”

Maria took the photo out and waved it around getting it to develop faster. She glanced at it, “Damn! A second too late!”

Sam took the photo from her and examined it, squinting her eyes because it was not quite developed yet. “Aww, well I tried.” She gave Carol a sly grin and twisted her body back and forth innocently.

“You’re an asshole. I’m glad it wasn’t caught on camera!” Carol couldn’t help but laugh at the situation and playfully shove Sam’s shoulder.

As Carol stared down at the photo she touched her lips in thought, “I remember this day… it was your birthday and we went bowling after this too, right?”

Maria nodded and smiled in remembrance, “Yeah, one of the best birthdays ever. Besides busting my ass on the bowling aisle because we were all very drunk by that time. You had insisted that we do something extravagant because I told you birthdays were never a huge deal when I was little.”

Carol laughed, she knew that sounded exactly like something she’d do. “So… who is this Sam girl?”

Maria pursed her lips and shrugged her shoulders slightly, “Well, like I said that was the first day I ever met her. You came up to me and asked if you could bring a friend with you, and of course, I had no problem with it. You said you met her when you were younger and had recently reconnected, but that’s all you told me.”

The blonde nodded slowly and furrowed her brow trying to remember anything useful. It bugged her that she couldn’t remember, and the only reason it was eating away at her that much was because of the strange ache in her chest. It was different from seeing flashes of Dr. Lawson. She admired Lawson and felt a strong urge to figure out who she was because the Skrull had been after her as well, but it didn’t go beyond that. Whoever this Sam person was, it felt way more personal, she missed her.

“You okay?”

Carol blinked several times and nodded, “Oh yeah, just… thinking.”

Maria gave her a stern glare and crossed her arms. Carol knew that look. It was the look of a mother scolding or trying to get information out of a child. “You might be an all-powerful superhero now, but I still know you enough to know something is wrong.”

She sighed in mock annoyance then smiled, “Fine. It’s just so frustrating that I can’t remember everything about my life here. It’s coming back slowly, and I’ve noticed certain things will jog my memory, but…” Carol sighed deeply, she wasn’t sure how she could explain how any of it actually felt. If Sam was just a friend then why did she miss her so much? And why did she get butterflies in her stomach when a memory of her came to mind?

“I’m sorry, Carol. I know it must be pretty tough feeling in the dark about your own life.” Maria touched her shoulder in a reassuring gesture which she appreciated. “Wait. She’s not an alien like Mar-Vell, right? Because I don’t know if I can handle another situation like last year,” she joked, lightening the mood some.

Carol snickered, she highly doubted that was the case but then again she couldn’t be completely certain. She sarcastically said, “Can’t imagine why, we had fun last year! Real best friend bonding time. And you got to go to space, remember?”

Her best friend laughed for a moment and then seemed to have an epiphany. “You know what? Let’s find Samantha and you can ask her all the questions you want! You started remembering things when you came and found me, so maybe it’ll be the same.” She opened a drawer in a little stand by the couch and pulled out a phone book.

The amount of admiration Carol had for Maria increased tenfold, she was so lucky to have a best friend like her.

“Okay… well the good news is, I found a Samantha Pierce. The bad news is, there’s eighteen of them within a hundred mile radius. Let’s start calling.” Maria shrugged and picked up her long corded phone from the same table she pulled the phone book out of. “While I’m calling, check the web for any Samantha Pierce’s. It’ll take a minute to start up the computer and web, but then you should just be able to search it.”

Carol nodded and walked over to the huge computer, grimacing at the loud fan sounds and strange clicking noises coming from the inside. She still couldn’t believe how far behind technology on Earth was. And Maria had not been kidding when she said it could take a while to start up.

“Two hours later…” she muttered when the screen finally opened to a search bar. She awkwardly typed “SAMANTHA PIERCE” into the search bar and pressed the enter key.

The first result was of an Arts studio for all ages. She clicked on the blue link and waited, what felt like 10 solid minutes, for the web page to load up. Once it did, Carol saw the studio was a learning center for all things considered the arts. It offered voice lessons, music lessons, sculpting lessons, and painting/drawing lessons.

She scrolled down the page and noticed a little corner down at the bottom listed all the instructors. Bingo! Samantha Pierce was listed as the painting and drawing teacher. It had a blurry image of her next to her name. “Hey Maria, I think I’ve got something!” Carol called into the living room where Maria was still calling numbers.

The other woman came in and leaned over Carol’s shoulder to stare at the screen. “An art studio?”

“Look-“ Carol pointed to the name listed, “it’s Samantha Pierce, she’s an instructor here.”

“Well I’ll be damned… investing in a home computer wasn’t a total waste then,” Maria chuckled.

“This thing is too damn slow,” Carol waved her hand at the bulky machine, and Maria nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

Maria traced her finger over the screen where an address was listed, wrote it down on a sticky note, “That’s the address.”

Carol stared down at the note and read the address. She felt anxious about it now that she actually had a lead to potentially find Sam and being able to ask her questions about who she was to her. “Thanks, Maria. This means a lot.”

“Now, let’s grab food before I starve. There’s a local place that makes the best burger you’ve ever had.” Maria’s eyes got wider trying to emphasize how good the burgers were.

Carol agreed to go thinking it would be a good distraction for now. And spending time with Maria was always a blast, anyways. They took Maria’s camaro even though Carol insisted she could just fly both of them there. “That’s the ultimate cheat.” Maria had argued, so eventually Carol gave it up and let herself be driven like a barbaric. She made sure to tell Maria the barbaric part too, which earned her a death glare.

The local place Maria referred to was a hole-in-the-wall looking shack with a huge neon burger light over the door. Carol glanced at her friend skeptically, “This place? Really?”

“Yes really, these places are the best kind!” Maria exclaimed, “Just come on.” She chuckled at the face Carol made and got out of the car.

Reluctantly, Carol followed her friend inside and was pleasantly surprised that the inside was much cleaner than the outside. It was a seat yourself place, so Maria led Carol to a booth by the window. Shortly after they sat down the waitress came over and took their drink order and Maria went ahead with ordering two of their house special burgers.

“Less wait time.” She had reasoned, “And you’ll love it trust me!”

Carol chose to trust her friend on that one. She noticed out of the corner of her eye someone with long brown hair and a stature similar to Sam’s. Her head turned twice in a double take, but after closer examination, she realized it wasn’t the woman from her flashes.

The restaurant morphed before Carol’s eyes to a slightly different color and there were ghosts of people in booths that weren’t actually there. She furrowed her brow.

“God how many pancakes can you eat, woman?” Carol heard herself ask the person sitting across from her.

Sam’s face glanced up at her, “As many as you put in front of me.” She said with a wry smile. Carol really had no idea how she was as tiny as she was with an appetite like that. “Well stop staring at me, geez.”

“I can’t, I feel like I’m witnessing something groundbreaking here,” Carol quipped earning a glare from the other woman.

Sam wadded up her straw paper and threw it at Carol. It bounced off her arm and landed in her drink. “Hey!” She gave Sam a surprised face and couldn’t suppress her laughter as much as she tried.

“It’s what you deserve!”

“Ma’am?”

Carol noticed her food was now in front of her so she turned her head to the waitress who was waiting on something. “Sorry, what?”

“Did you need a refill on your drink?” She asked patiently while gesturing to Carol’s half empty glass.

“Oh! Yes, thank you.” Carol could almost still see the wadded up straw paper still in her drink, but she knew there was nothing actually there.

Maria was giving her a skeptical eye. She waited until the waitress was gone to ask, “Did you see another memory?”

She nodded and took a bite of her burger, “Yea- holy shit, you were right about this place!” Carol mumbled due to the burger still in her mouth.

Maria nodded and shot her an ‘I told you so’ look while she took a huge bite of her own burger. “What did I tell you?”

“Sorry I doubted you! Anyways, yes, I was remembering a time when Sam and I were somewhere sort of similar to this place…”

“So no clues?” Maria’s eyebrows turned upward.

Carol shook her head, “Other than if you consider her huge appetite for pancakes a clue, then no.” She sighed.

“Hey, I’m sure things will start making sense when you meet with her.” Maria placed a reassuring hand on her arm from across the table. Carol nodded hoping her friend was right.

Out of the corner of her eye, Carol saw a man dressed in all black and wearing a black fedora with sunglasses on… in a restaurant. He sat in a booth across on the other side of the room. The way he held the menu up to his face was also very peculiar. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he retreated further behind the menu.

Carol stood abruptly and walked over to him confidently. She snatched the menu away from his face, revealing none other than Nick Fury. “Fury. I see you haven’t gotten much better at the covert part of your job.”

Fury sighed in defeat and pursed his lips, “And neither have you.” He retorted. “Do you know how many people reported seeing a “strange glowing thing’ flying in the sky?”

She sat down opposite Fury and her eyes went to the right, “So?”

“So?” He repeated, “So that means my bosses sent me here to tell you to turn the light show off.”

“And here I thought you missed me,” she pouted. “How did your bosses even know it was me? Could’ve been anything!”

“There’s only one strange glowing flying thing that we know of,” he hesitated. “...There also might’ve been a very clear picture with you flying in it. Cameras these days are getting clearer and clearer.” The last part he muttered more to himself.

Carol shrugged, “What’s the problem?”

Fury took off his sunglasses revealing one eye to have a patch over it which Carol wrinkled her face at. Had Goose’s scratch really done that much damage to Fury’s eyes? “The problem is we don’t want a public panic that we have been visited by aliens.” He whispered the last part so no one in the restaurant would hear.

“Ah, don’t worry next time I’ll fly faster!” Carol jested, she enjoyed pushing Fury’s buttons. “Since your cover has been blown, come join us. We can catch up.”

Fury and Carol went back to the table with Maria who seemed amused at the whole situation after Fury explained why he was even there.

“Things have gotten real sensitive at S.H.I.E.L.D since the Skrull invaded. They’ve been on extra high alert. Mostly because when you and Talos left, there were a few of Talos’ soldiers left that we thought were dead. They banded together and starting infiltrating the higher ups to find information about us.” Fury explained.

“Do you know where they are? I can get them into contact with Talos and he’ll call them off.” Carol asked now in serious mode.

“Well that’s the problem, we don’t know who they have shapeshifted into,” Fury sighed and leaned forward on the table stealing a few fries from Carol’s plate. “By the way, if you’re back I assume that means you found them a home world?”

She narrowed her eyes at him threateningly and swatted his hand away. “Yes, they found a place to settle down. Somewhere safe. But if I can help you find these rogue Skrull, I’m sure I can convince them to leave and rejoin their people.”

Fury stood, “I’ll keep in touch then. Try to lay low, for my sake.” 

Carol grinned as Fury walked away. “By the way, I dig the patch.” Carol said while pointing to the eye patch over his eye.

Fury smirked confidently, “Everyone does.”

After the two women finished eating they went back to Maria’s house. Carol knew the art studio would be closed at this hour so Maria insisted she stay the night. She complied and put a few blankets on the couch to sleep on. It took a few minutes for her to shut her brain off because hearing that they left behind a few Skrull soldiers was an unpleasant feeling. Between the Skrull and potentially meeting Sam tomorrow, Carol was starting to get a tad worried. She sighed and turned to lay on her side hoping to get more comfortable. Eventually, sleep crept up and she closed her eyes.