I shot up straight in bed, wide awake now. My dreams were haunted with nightmares again. Little flashes from Atera, my family dying. The events from yesterday must have triggered something in my brain, making me relive the worst day of my life. 

My heart was pounding and I was really sweaty, my breathing fast and hands trembling. Taking deep breaths to calm my racing heart down, the pictures kept playing in my mind. I buried my face in my hands, trying to push them out somehow.

I was disoriented and had forgotten where I was, so I jumped out of my skin when a quiet voice suddenly whispered in the dark room. 'Hey, are you okay?' It sounded very sleepy and for a second I was confused. I had never slept with someone through the night, I always woke up alone. 

My mind was racing with a million thoughts and I still didn't understand where I was, making me shy back from the hand that suddenly touched my back. 'Hey, it's me, you're okay.' The woman next to me sat up and removed my hands from my face, forcing me to look at her. 

She didn't need to ask what I had dreamed about. They were always the same. Seeing the emotions on my face, she pulled me into a tight hug as a way to calm me down. I didn't cry. I used to after I had nightmares, but now the tears never came anymore. Like my body was used to the horror. 

Carol whispered reassuring words in my ear and stroked my hair. Slowly, my heartrate went down and breathing became a little easier. 'Do you want to talk about it?', ducking her head a little to catch my gaze. I shook my head as an answer, which was all I had to do to make her let the subject go. This was one of the things she knew not to push me on. 'Okay', she smiled kindly. 'You want to try and get some more sleep? We still have..' she looked over at the alarm clock, 'two hours left.'

This time, I nodded, so she pulled me down, hugged me close and placed another kiss on my forehead. She knew exactly how to comfort me and my heart grew ten sizes.

This position was how we woke up two hours later, to the annoying sound of the alarm. I groaned, still tired, like the sleep hadn't had helped me at all, even though no more nightmares had followed in the last two hours. 

Carol, also clearly woken up by the alarm, laughed at me and tried to move to turn the thing off. But I wouldn't let her, the warmth of the covers and her body was too nice. 'Maybe if we ignore it, it will shut up and we can pretend it didn't go off', I mumbled into her neck. 

This earned me more laughs. 'I'm afraid it doesn't work like that.' She pried my arms from her body, followed by more groans from me and more laughs from her, and turned the alarm off. 

'This is weird', I whispered with a hoarse voice after I had caught her in my prison of limbs again. 

'Weird?', she asked almost offended, although a chuckle followed.

Lifting my head a little so I could look at her, I said 'I have never woken up with you before, remember? I always left to sleep alone.'

'Right. You're right, it's nice to wake up with you. Feels... less lonely.'

'It does', I agreed. 

We listened to the rest of the house waking up. Hearing showers run and people walking. But what really made both of us finally leave the bed, was the sound of brewing coffee and the smell that followed it. 

We got ready for a hard, tiring day. Our different colored suits were pulled of the hangers and on our bodies. It was weird how much a color change had changed the way I felt about the outfit. It was almost like it had never been Kree in the first place. 

Maria had prepared a delicious breakfast and the hot coffee felt amazing in my body, waking up every muscle. I definitely drank too much, so at one point, Carol cut off my supply, afraid I was overdosing on caffeine. Which, to be honest, I totally was.

We went over the plan one more time with everyone, making sure everybody knew what their jobs were. I was affected by the Skrull scientist who was prepared to sacrifice himself for the cause, simming Carol so he could stall Yon-Rogg and we could make an escape. I thanked him for his work on the plane, making it suitable for space. He just said he was honored to die for the cause, the war. 

We all climbed in the plane, which looked a lot more like a space ship now, Carol and Maria taking up the two front seats and Fury, Talos and me in the back. Fury was holding Goose, the cat still not letting us go anywhere without him.

'Passing five-zero-zero and climbing', Carol said from the front seat, focused on flying.

'You know, you really shouldn't have that thing on your lap', Talos spoke up, looking at the ginger cat. 

Fury wasn't impressed, just kept petting the animal that was purring loudly. 'Our little alliance with you is tenuous at best. And as long as he continues to freak you out', Fury picks up Goose and shoves him towards Talos' face. Talos jerks backward in his seat, clearly scared, 'like that, yeah I'm gonna keep giving him all the love and hugs he needs, right?', mumbling the last words to the cat.

Maria, following the conversation in the back, looked around her chair at Talos. 'Can I ask you something? Do you just turn into anything you want?' This was going to be interesting.

Talos shrugged like it was no big deal, but was actually bragging a little. 'Ah well, I have to see it first.'

'Can you all do it?'

'Physiologically, yeah. But it takes practice and, um, dare I say it, talent to do it well.' My little snort at his brag didn't go unnoticed by him.

'Can you turn into a cat?', Fury asked.

Talos looked at him confused. 'What's a cat?'

'What about a filing cabinet?', I asked. It earned me a chuckle from the two woman in front and a little laugh from Fury.

Talos looked at me like he wasn't sure I was sane. 'Why would I turn into a filing cabinet?'

Fury was quick to name another thing. 'A Venus Flytrap. I'll give you fifty dollars right now if you turn into a Venus Flytrap.' I laughed out loud at this, it was just too funny to picture him turning into a plant.

Talos didn't laugh, he just looked annoyed he was being played.

Carol's voice came from the front again, the little smile telling me she had listened to the whole conversation. 'Switching engines from Scramjet to fusion. Buckle up, folks.'

I was nervous, really nervous. We were in a plane not made for the pressure of space and anything that went along with that. It had engines not made for zero-G. The scientist who modified it didn't even know what state vectors were. There was a big chance this thing would fall apart before we even made the stars. 

The whole ship sped up ten times when Carol pushed a lever. It shook and cracked and we were all pushed into our chairs because of the speed. I closed my eyes at this point and my hands were clenching the seat. I had never been afraid of flying, but this was unsafe and untested in every way. 

Fury seemed to stress too, his voice strained. 'Hey. Is this normal, like space turbulence?', he shouted to the front.

'Pretty much', Carol's calm voice said back. But I knew she was lying. Both me and Talos looked at Fury and shook our heads, letting him know it was not normal. 

Finally, the plane quieted down and all of a sudden it was very quiet. Everyone was floating in the Zero-G environment, the only thing holding us to our chairs were the seatbelts. My hair was floating around my head, the purple locks falling into my vision. Little Goose had lost his footing on Fury's lap, the man sticking out an arm he could hold onto.

I had to admit, it felt really cool being weightless, but also weird, so we were all happy when Maria flipped a switch and we fell back on our butts in the chairs. Now I finally had time to look out the window. Space was different everywhere you went, believe it or not. Some galaxies had a more purple-ish glow, others green or even yellow, but this one was pure black. It was calming and peaceful, this new galaxy.

'Locking in on coordinate grid', I heard Carol say. Mar-Vell's lab was supposed to be here, but there was nothing. Just empty space. Was all this for nothing? Did we make a mistake in calculating the location? Were we too late?

'Where is it?', Maria said confused and worried. Talos and Fury got up from their seats, trying to get a closer look, so I quickly followed them, not wanting to miss anything. 

'It's here. It's gotta be here', Talos mumbled.

'Well, is it in front of all that nothing, or behind it?' Fury couldn't help but crack a joke, which maybe I would have laughed at if I wasn't so occupied with a sudden thought that run through my mind. 

I held out my left arm so I could look at my Com. Carol saw me move from the corner of her eye and realized what I was planning on doing. After a few swipes and tabs, the Holo on my hand showed the lab we were looking for, slowly appearing. Decloaking activated. Now everyone understood what I was doing and they all looked back out the window, waiting for it to appear. 

And after a couple of seconds, there it suddenly was, floating around in space. It was huge. Ugly, but huge. It was immediately clear this was built on Hala. The grey metal the same as the metal on most buildings in the Capital. I recognized the ship from my years in the Starforce. It was a Kree Imperial Cruiser, used for long journey's for longer periods of time. Carol and I shared a knowing look. This was what we had been looking for.

Fury and Maria had an amazed look on their face, never having seen such a big thing. Carol, Talos and I just smiled, knowing we were so close now.

Carol docked the ship onto the bigger one, on high alert in case there would be any hostile movement, but nothing happened. We all got out, but not before I gave Carol a little proud and happy squeeze in her shoulder, which she returned with a smile.

Talos lead us through the hallways of the dark ship, Goose trotting next to him. The fact that he was walking a few steps in front and seemed to know where he was going, only confirmed that he knew more than he let on. I had to watch his movements, still not trusting him fully. Who knows what could be waiting for us here. Maybe we were walking into a trap with our eyes wide open.

Carol thought this too, suddenly speeding up and making sure she stayed close to Talos, tailing him. I stayed with Fury and Maria. If anything were to go wrong, they had no way of protecting themselves. 

Doors opened to a bigger room and immediately, the blue glow present stood out. The hallways were yellow with a little green, but this room was blue. Following the light to its source, Carol and I saw the glowing cube at the same time. This must be the energy source from the plane, the one she thought she had blown up, the one she got her powers from. 

I followed behind as she walked to it, studying her reaction, which didn't really tell me anything. The blue light lit up her face, highlighting her moving eyes. 

'Is that it? The core?', Maria asked from next to me.

'In her notes, she called it the Tesseract.' Her hand moved up to take it out of the display, but my voice stopped her before she could.

'What are you doing?' The thing looked seriously dangerous, who knows what would happen if she touched it.

Turning her head to me, her hand still hanging in the air, she answered me with a mischievous smile. 'Taking it out. We need to get it out before the Kree find it.' I wanted to say more, but she had already turned her head back to the cube, taking it out slowly. All carefulness disappeared when her whole body turned to us and flipped the glowing thing in the air like it was a ball, not an energy core that could destroy all of us. 

'Please don't do that', I begged her, afraid to see what was happening.

She laughed at my worry. 'You are forgetting that I basically am this thing. It couldn't hurt me.'

'Yes, but it could hurt me!'

'You make a good point', she lowered the core. I had used her care about my safety against her.

I let out a relieved sigh when she placed it in a little lunchbox that Maria held open. At least now she didn't touch it directly, that made me feel a little better.

We studied our surroundings, seeing lots of papers and also some weird things that didn't belong with a full-grown Kree scientist like Mar-Vell.

Maria was confused too, analyzing the stuff on the desk. 'Whoa. What was Lawson doing with all this kid stuff?'

Fury cleared his throat loudly, clearly meaning to get our attention. His eyes gestured to a steaming cup of coffee. I was immediately on high alert. A hot cup of coffee means somebody just made it, which means we are not alone like we thought we were.

'We're not alone', Maria also concluded.

Everyone jumped when Talos suddenly let out a long, loud howl. That is the only way I can describe the sound he just made. It was like a call for someone.

All my muscles tensed, ready for a fight, when the three doors on the opposite side of the room slid open. Skrulls poured out, all carefully peeking out first. Talos was only focused on one person, a female Skrull to his right. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. 'Talos!', relieved and happy to see him. If we had only found this lab now and were the first people to visit in six years, she had not seen him for at least that long.

Everything suddenly clicked for me. Why Talos wanted to find Lawson so badly and why he needed Carol's help for that. He didn't want the core and the power it held, he wanted to be with his wife. That was the main reason.

Carol realized that too when she saw them hug and reunite. 'He didn't come here for the Tesseract', she stated softly. I grabbed her hand, holding it tightly. The sight was beautiful. A man being reunited with his long-lost family. It got even better when the woman called a child over. The little girl maybe didn't even recognize her father anymore, after all these years.

'We didn't know what to do', Talos' wife spoke up. 'Mar-Vell warned us not to send a signal for any reason or the Kree would find us.' So Mar-Vell had helped all these people, rescued them and gave them a safe place to live. She had seen the wrongness of the war long ago. It must have sucked to pretend everything was right towards the Kree while knowing it wasn't.

'You did the right thing', Talos reassured her.

Suddenly, her eyes turned to me and Carol, seeing our suits. And even though they were in different colors, she could still make out the Kree design. It hurt to see her back away from us, scared simply because we were Kree. We had really messed it up. A week ago, I would have reveled at the fact that a Skrull was scared of me, but now I just felt ashamed. 

Carol let go of my hand and approached the fearful woman slowly, trying to show she was not a threat. 'I'm not gonna hurt you.' Her eyes were sad and filled with pain. She never meant to hurt innocent people. 'I'm so sorry. We didn't know', she gestured to me too.

Surprisingly, Talos was the one comforting her. 'Carol, this is war. My hands are filthy from it too. But we're here now. You found my family', he thanked her with a bow of his head, that she respectfully returned. 'This is just the beginning. There's thousands of us separated from each other, scattered throughout the galaxy.'

A little Skrull had found the courage to walk up to her, taking her hand and showing her to a pinball machine in the corner. I smiled at the adorable sight. 

The girl pointed to the high-score on the machine and then to herself, silently telling Carol she had done that. Fury followed the interaction with his eyes and came with a snarky remark of his own. 'If I played the same pinball machine for six years I'd have some high scores too.'

I elbowed him in his ribs, but nothing could ruin the content I was feeling right now. We had reunited Talos with his family and had found the Skrulls living here for six years, safe in Mar-Vell's lab. We had found the core before Yon-Rogg and his team could and everyone was still alive. Maybe this day wouldn't end so badly after all. 

But of course, I said that way too early, celebrating before we were even home. 

The door in the corner slid open and the smile on my face immediately disappeared and turned into an angry scowl. Yon-Rogg walked in front, carrying Goose by his scruff, who was meowing loudly. Like he could sense he was in the wrong hands.

The whole gang was complete when Minn-Erva, who gave me a dirty look, Korath, Att-Lass and beard-guy followed their leader. Behind them, some other Kree soldiers carrying big guns and body armor.

'Fraternizing with the enemy?'

~~~~~~~~

Whoops this turned into a long chapter, but I hope you liked it :)

Thanks for reading

(3127 words)