There are always little ways homes are shaped by people who don’t live there, and no one can detect them except the person who’s the reason those things are there.
When Carol Danvers was growing up, the subtle, you-only-know-if-you-know specter of Maria Rambeau was everywhere.
During endless fights with her parents, there was the Labyrinth Betamax that Maria’s parents had found for her, and Carol’s faded Cosby Show shirt was one that Maria had left there after a sleepover long ago, and had since given up hope of getting back.
And Carol had known, was proud of - before the Kree took her, anyway - the ways that the imprint of her life was littered throughout Maria and Monica’s apartment.
She was shocked, however, to find - after the Kree took her, after she landed back on this planet that she didn’t remember but somehow knew so well - that the impression of Carol Danvers was still, after all this time, part of the bones of Maria’s new, isolated home.
There were still framed photos of her - the ones in the box Monica so joyfully dug out were more explicitly intimate, evidence of a whole life lived together, of family - scattered throughout the house. Her favorite was one in which she and Maria were both in uniform, Carol’s arm slung casually around Maria’s shoulders, confident gazes fixed through trademark sunglasses at the camera.
And there were more subtle things, still. Things that Carol didn’t remember - not exactly, not yet - but that Monica joyfully paraded her through the house reminding her of.
The somewhat bizarre animal-shaped cookie jar that she’d gotten Monica, apparently “for the specific purposes of having Mom catch us with our hands in the cookie jar.”
Monica’s Muppet Babies comforter, because “you always wanted me to know a classic when I saw one.”
The simple silver necklace that Maria couldn’t bear to wear anymore, but that was still on display in her room, because “Mom won’t talk about that one, but I know you gave it to her.”
The Monica necklace that Maria evidently still did wear, because “you went out and got it for her, like, the minute she told you she’d officially decided on my name.”
A life Carol couldn’t remember leading was scattered throughout this woman’s house, and for some reason, it didn’t feel… unsettling.
It felt, instead, like coming home.