We walked through the long hallways, following Vers who clearly knew where we had to go. She stopped in front of an elevator and pressed the button, the doors sliding open immediately because it was already on our floor. She and Fury walked in, but I stayed still, the familiar panic rising in my chest. Looking around for a staircase, I didn't find one so I turned back to the lift where they were still looking at me expectantly, waiting to get in.

'Right!', a light suddenly went on in Vers' head. She knew of my fear of elevators but the stress of the whole day probably made her forget for a second. 'Come on, it will be fine.' Grabbing my hand and gently pulling me in. My hand tightened around hers when it went down slowly and my heart pounded in my chest. I just stared at the numbers above the door that indicated which floor we were on and practically ran out when it opened at minus five.

Taking deep breaths to try and calm my heart down, Fury looked at me weirdly. 'What?', I asked him a little more hostile than intended.

'You are afraid of elevators?', he asked in disbelief. This man had probably rode more elevators in his life than he had walked stairs, so he had a hard time empathizing.

'No. I am afraid of small spaces I can't get out off.' It didn't only include the elevator, but it was the worst one. 'Everyone is afraid of something', I added when his expression didn't change.

'So you never use an elevator?'

'No. I always walk the stairs. You should try it sometimes.' Vers snickered at that. Fury looked offended but a little meow made him forget all his worries. A small ginger animal walked through the hall towards us. It looked up at Vers first, who halted to study it, like something in her mind recognized it, but walked over to Fury when it didn't get the attention it wanted.

'Oh my goodness. Look at you. Just look at you. Aren't you the cutest little thing.' The grown-up man had transformed into a little boy at the sight of the creature. He was petting it and stoking it while the beast just purred. I had no idea what animal that was, but it looked cute.

'What is that?' Fury looked at me with the same face he had a minute ago, filled with disbelief.

'This, is a cat', he explained, his hands still running all over the little beast's fur. 'Aren't you cute? And what's you name huh? What's your name?', turning over the little tag around the cat's neck, it read Goose. 'Goose! Cool name for a cool cat.'

'Fury', Vers' voice suddenly sounded from before us. Both of us looking up at her, even Goose turned its head, she nodded to the door she had stopped in front of.

'I'll be back', the man whispered to the cat. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the door, reading the label next to it 'Records'. Ah, so she hoped to find something about Lawson in records. Very smart.

Fury followed and when his eyes fell on the little scanner just like the one he had fooled before, his hand immediately went to his trouser pocket, getting the tape out again. 'Ah. Let me get my fingerprint out. Just let me unravel this puppy.'

Both Vers and I gazed at his hands while they worked and then to the handle of the door. Knowing what she was planning on doing, I joined in. Her photon blast blew out the lock first and my air slammed the doors open, all within a matter of seconds. Fury did not see that coming. He just stood there and stared at the doors for a minute, then back to us, with a look that said 'really?'

Vers, still looking at Fury, raised her right hand for me to high-five and I hit it with my left one, looking him dead in the eye as I did so.

'You sat there, and watched me play with tape', he held up the tape to emphasize his point, 'When all you had to do was-', he imitated Vers' movement with his right hand, meaning the use of her powers.

She smiled, clearly amused. 'We didn't want to steal your thunder.' I followed behind her as she walked in and gave Fury a teasing wink when I passed him.

One by one, the cheap lights in the room went on. It gave me an eerie feeling, like something bad was going to happen at any moment.

Vers didn't even wait until the last one was on, she stalked to the shelf with the letter 'L' on it and continued walking down until she had found the boxes with the name 'Lawson'. She gave one to Fury and one to me so she could take the content out of the one I was holding.

A happy surprised sound came out of her mouth when she unfolded a large paper. Standing next to her, my eyes scanned the paper and realized what it was. 'Lawson's plans for the light-speed engine', Vers worded my thoughts. My gaze fell onto a big stamp at the bottom of the paper and I pointed to it, alerting Vers of it. Project Terminated. 'I wonder why they terminated the project', she wondered.

'Uhm', Fury said, making me turn my head to where he was studying a book he found. 'Maybe because she's cuckoo', meaning she was crazy. But when he turned the book so Vers and I could see what it said, both of us froze.

'Kree glyphs?', Vers asked in disbelief as she grabbed the book and looked at me. I couldn't believe this. We were on a different planet, a long way from home and yet there it was, a book with Kree glyphs. Lawson wasn't crazy, she was Kree.

'Hmm?', Fury didn't seem to understand what we were talking about.

Turning my eyes away from the book, I explained to him, 'Lawson is not cuckoo. She's Kree.' His eyes widened a little, but shot to sadness quickly when he realized he had found more he needed to share.

'Well, she's dead.' If one single sentence could make my heart sink to the floor, this was it. All hope we had, the hope I was running on at the moment, flew away at those three words. To be totally honest, I wanted to give up there and then. I was tired, hungry, dirty, my head still hurt from the meeting with the wall I had on the Skrull ship and now our only lead was a dead end. Literally.

And I think Vers felt the exact same way, because her head snapped to Fury at his words. 'What?'

'She crashed the ASIS aircraft during an unauthorized test flight', her head ducked down and tears formed in her eyes as she stared down at the book in her hands, not seeing anything but not wanting to show Fury her weakness. Putting my hand on her shoulder, I gave it a little squeeze, telling her it was okay.

'Took a pilot down with her. That's why security here is so unfriendly. They are covering up a billion dollar mistake.' And as if those words weren't enough, he had another announcement. 'Oh, and your light-speed engine? Is toast', holding up a black-and-white picture that looked like a satellite image taken from above the crash. It was really bad. The circles in the sand around the plane told me that something had exploded, the blast waves leaving tracks behind.

Vers took the pictures and studied them, trying to see anything that could be a clue. 'When did this crash happen?' Her voice had trouble staying clear, the tears trying to shine through.

'Six years ago. 1989' Wait, six years? The dread in my stomach that had gone dormant a little came back to life. Something was very wrong here and the feeling that it had something to do with my blonde girlfriend got stronger and stronger.

'Who was the pilot?', I asked Fury, needing to know if my suspicions were right.

'Uhm, most of this thing's redacted, but there is a testimonial here from a Maria Rambeau. Last person to see them alive.' So not all hope was lost. Lawson may be gone, but we had a new lead. We had to talk to this Maria, maybe she could help us. A little hope came back to my heart.

I wanted to ask him more, but his pager buzzed and gained his attention. Glancing at it quickly, he looked back up at Vers, wanting to know if she was okay before he left to answer it. She nodded her head, so he left with the words that he would be back in a minute.

As soon as Fury was gone, she quickly took the testimonial and tried to find any more useful information. Flipping through the pages, her fingers suddenly came across a picture. Both she and I froze when we saw what it was.

Lawson stood in the foreground with Maria, shaking hands with a man. But that wasn't the most important thing. In the background, at the very right of the picture, stood the woman who was standing right next to me. My breath hitched in my throat. I had been right about her when she came to train with me six years ago. She had been in a government program. She had had training before. She was an Airforce pilot before they took her to Hala.

She was the pilot who 'died' six years ago in the crash. The Kree must have found her near-dead and took her with them. I still didn't know how she got her powers, but I guessed it had something to do with that light-speed engine.

My hands were shaking in anger. The Kree would never tell me where Vers came from, where they had found her. All information about her past had been locked away and they had told me they didn't know either. But they did. They had taken her from her home and lied to her for years. Taking advantage of her powers and making her believe she had no home, no life before Hala. Everything she had wished to know was all here, right in front of her.

She seemed lost in her own thoughts and I wouldn't be surprised if some memories suddenly clicked back into place. Releasing a shaking breath, she turned to me.

She was angry. Of course she was angry. She had every right to be angry with me. 'Did you know?', she asked calmly. In her eyes I could see that she wanted me to not know and it seemed like this was the only good news I could give her today.

'I didn't, I swear', I was holding back my own tears now. I felt her pain. The pain of living a lie for the past six years. I saw she believed me, but I wanted to make sure she was fully convinced. 'I am so, so sorry about what they did to you. The lies they told you. But I have never lied to you, and I never will. I don't understand how they could do that to you and we will make them pay for it, but right now, I need you to believe that I had nothing to do with this and I didn't know anything.'

My voice was shaking and I had trouble getting the words out. Angry tears streamed over my cheeks and if my words didn't convince her, those did. I almost never cried and I definitely couldn't force them. She knew my feelings were real.

'I know', she said softly when she pulled me towards her and wrapped her arms around me. Tightening my own around her waist, I held her as tightly as I could. Hoping to keep her from falling apart with my arms.

'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry', I whispered in her ear, repeating myself over and over again.

'I know. It's okay', She whispered back, rubbing my back trying to calm me down.

I don't know how this turned into her comforting me, but I just went with it, trying to prolong this moment as long as I could, knowing we would have to get back to the problems at hand when I let go.

~~~~~~~~

I wanted to stop this here, it felt like a good moment.

Aayala's little fear of elevator's comes from my own. Just like her, I am afraid of small spaces I can't get out of quickly and I wanted to show that Aayala isn't a fearless person at all, even if she acts like it.

I hope you enjoyed again!

(2148 words)