She had been the last person to see anything that had gone down, and even when Poppy would've been enough to clarify everything about Carol's life, Carol wanted to hear it from the other woman. Poppy followed Carol as they made their way toward the back shed of Maria's home, finding the woman working on one of her planes. It was something that Maria had always told Poppy about when the two of them would talk, but there were some things that were going to have to be put off with everything going on with Carol.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Excuse me, I'm looking for Maria Rambeau," Carol spoke as she stood beside Poppy, both of them staring at Maria.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ But that was when Poppy realized that Maria's daughter, Monica, looked at them. The young girl began to climb out of the small plane as she glanced back to her mother, before back to the dark and light-haired women, "Auntie Carol? Auntie Poppy? Mom, it's Aunty Carol and Poppy!" Monica jumped out of the plane and rushed over to Carol, seeing as the young girl hadn't seen Carol since the accident and wrapped her into a tight embrace. "I knew it! Everyone said you were dead! But we knew they were lying!"

⠀⠀⠀⠀ Carol stared down at the young girl and Poppy watched as the expression on the young girl's face began to fade, "I'm not really who you think I am."

Carol and Maria stared at each other for a matter of moments, before it brought the entire group into the house. Poppy knew that it was going to be awkward between all of them when they introduced Carol back into their lives -- especially since Carol had been living as someone else. Poppy didn't know how to explain it to Maria and Monica, but she also didn't know how to explain it to anyone. It was difficult to explain to someone that the woman they saw in front of them had been taken by aliens and taught as one of their own. It didn't sound plausible.

So, as they all stood in the kitchen, with Maria and her daughter seated at a table, the dark-skinned woman stared at Carol. Poppy felt like one of the ghosts that she would see and she didn't know what it was that she could do in order to keep the conversation moving. She didn't know what she was going to do in order to get all of them talking to each other again, because it wasn't going to be easy. IT was going to be difficult as hell.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "That is the craziest shit I ever heard," Maria commented after Carol was done explaining everything that had happened to her since the last time they saw each other. Maria then motioned over to Poppy. "Just as crazy as the fact that Poppy can see and talk to ghosts, as well as age a hell of a lot slower than the rest of us."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Green transforming aliens?" Monica chimed in as she glanced at her mother, and then over to Poppy and Carol. "There's no such thing."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "You are absolutely right, young lady," Nick chimed in, which made Poppy look over to him and quirk an eyebrow. "There is no such thing. 'Cause if there were, we would want to keep that to ourselves."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Oh, Nick, cut the bullshit," Poppy said to him as she folded her arms over her chest. "If we wanted to keep that to ourselves, we wouldn't have brought Carol here and told her everything that we did."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "You don't believe me?" Carol asked the young girl, completely ignoring both of the others in the room as she pushed away from the counter. The blonde woman made her way over to the kettle on the stove and she pressed her hand against it, and then her hand began to glow. Monica pushed herself to her feet and made her way over to the counter as the kettle began to whistle.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "no way! That's so cool!" Monica exclaimed as she saw it, as Carol had a smile on her face.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Oh, she can do a lot more than make tea with those hands," Nick commented as he looked at the little girl. And as Poppy looked at Maria, she could tell that the woman was still creeped out and shocked with everything that she was learning.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Like what? Show us!" Monica replied as she looked at Carol.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Maybe later," Carol replied to her with a smile on her face, and then they all watched as the young girl jumped for a second as a large grin appeared on her face.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "I kept all your stuff. I'll go get it!" Monica spoke before rushing out of the kitchen and leaving all four of the adults in the room with each other.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ The three women all looked at each other for a moment, before Carol glanced over to Nick and gave him a nod, "You want to give her a hand with that?"

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Hmm?" Nick hummed as he pointed at himself, holding a glass of iced tea in his hand. But then he looked over all of the other women in the room, before making his way out of the room with his iced tea in hand.

There was a brief pause as the three women were in the kitchen before Carol walked around the counter and made her way to the chair that Monica had been sitting in. Carol and Maria stared at each other for a few seconds and Poppy looked between the two of them, knowing that they were going to have to talk about what had happened sooner or later. And Poppy was just glad that it was going to be sooner.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "You don't remember anything?" Maria questioned Carol, and the blonde-haired woman just tilted her head to the side.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "I see flashes," Carol answered her, and even if that wasn't directly answering the question with a yes or a no, it was something. "Little moments. But I can't tell what's real. If I could just piece together what happened that morning . . . maybe it'll all make sense."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ Maria clicked her tongue for a second, before nodding her head over to Poppy, "You know that you could've asked Poppy all of these questions and she would've been able to answer all of them for you."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Yes, she . does," Poppy jumped in as she stared between the two of them, before letting out a heavy sigh. "But Carol wanted to hear everything that she could from everyone. So, as soon as you tell her exactly what you know, she's going to be able to listen to what I have to say -- especially since I was the one flying with her that day."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ Maria glanced between the two women, and she could tell that neither of them had been able to discuss the relationship that they had forming. But, she was going to leave that as an issue for the two of them to solve on their own time. She inhaled deeply, before speaking again, "You woke me up banging on my door at dawn, with Poppy at your side. Your usual move. Back then, we had to get up so early. The Air Force still wasn't letting women fly combat, so testing Lawson's planes was our only shot at doing something that mattered. You wanted to race the base in your old Mustang and I wasn't about to argue, 'cause I knew my Camaro would dominate. But you cheated, took a shortcut."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Since when is a shortcut cheating?" Carol questioned her, and Poppy let out a low chuckle as she shook her head.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Since it violates the predetermined rule of engagement," Maria reminded her, but Carol just gave her a smile.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "I definitely don't remember those," Carol spoke and Poppy could only shake her head at the comments that the woman was making. They were things that Carol would've said back then, and it seemed as if that was something that hadn't changed.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Hmmm, of course, you don't," Maria reminded her, and that was when all of them began to laugh. It was only a few seconds of it, but when Maria got back on track, it was nothing but seriousness that was painted on her face. "When I got to the hangar, Lawson was agitated. She said she had lives to save. She was trying to take the Asis up herself, but both you and Poppy said that --"

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "That if there were lives at stake, I would fly the plane," Carol pieced together and Poppy nodded her head as she glanced at the two of them, and Carol looked over to Poppy. The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, before Carol turned her attention back to Maria.

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Yeah. Yep. Big hero moment," Maria replied to her as she nodded her head. "The kind of moment all of us had been waiting for. The doc was always unique. That's why we liked her. But now the two of you are saying she's from another planet."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ Carol had her lips pressed together as she stared at Maria, but she nodded her head, "I know this must be hard for you."

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Oh what? This part right here?" Maria questioned her, and Carol nodded her head as she looked at her. "No. No. Mmm-mmm. Oh, what's hard is losing my best friend and watching my other friend lose the woman that she --" For a second, Poppy was able to jump in and cut Maria off, giving her a look, which only confused Carol as she glanced between the two of them. Maria and Poppy stared at each other for a few seconds, before finishing off he sentence. "in a mission so secret they act like it didn't even happen. Hard, is knowing you were out there somewhere too damn stubborn to die. And now you come up in here after six years with your supercharged fire hands and you expect me to call you I don't even know what. Vers? Is that really who you are now?"

⠀⠀⠀⠀ It was easy for Poppy to see that Carol had begun to grow emotional with everything that was going on around her, but she was quick to attempt and swallow the tears before they even came out, "I don't know."

There was a brief pause as the two of them stared at each other before Monica yelled for them to come look at what she had dug up. Poppy hung back in the kitchen for a few seconds as Carol got up and made her way over to where Monica was in the dining room, pulling . out all of the things that they had kept of Carol's. Poppy and Maria looked at each other for a few seconds, before Maria was the next one to leave the kitchen.

The woman took a second to gather everything that she was thinking before she inhaled deeply. As soon as she stepped out of the kitchen, she watched as Carol was glancing down at all of the photos that they had taken together. Carol had picked up half of her dog tags and stared at it for a few seconds before her eyes caught sight of something. She held an image of both Poppy and Carol for a few seconds, and Carol glanced over her shoulder, which allowed Poppy to see what image she was holding. It was an image of Poppy pressing a kiss to Carol's cheek and Poppy forced a smile on her lips.

But then there was a knock on their door, and it wasn't who they thought it was on the other side. Which would leave Poppy to have to explain something else to Carol when the time came.

✶