Widow Sisters and Friends (Restoring Our Broken Hearts): Book 2

The Distance Between Two Hearts: Part 5

Summary: When SWORD asks for the Avengers' most powerful member for a highly dangerous mission, Carol naturally is the one selected to go. However, to her complete and utter surprise, she is paired with the one and only Monica Rambeau, and she has to rekindle old connections with one of the people that means the most to her while battling a completely unexpected yet sinister threat.

   "Wanna go get some brunch?" Carol hesitantly questioned out of the blue as they were changing their clothes and putting on the outfits for their covers. Monica glanced back at her swiftly, meeting those warm eyes that were so strangely clouded by trepidation and a hesitance that Monica was not sure she had ever seen in them.

Monica wasted no time in nodding in reply to the older woman. It had been the first real thing that Carol had said to her outside of a short reply to when Monica had greeted her upon getting up earlier. True to their covers, they purposefully slept far too long to try to portray that they were definitely just out of college and still had the leftover dredges of irresponsibility, so they were a little late for breakfast.

"Sure... We could go to that café across the street?" Monica suggested, and Carol nodded, immediately loosening with what could only be considered absolute relief as she finally offered a small smile.

At this point, Monica was not as angry as she had been the night before. Actually, at this point, given Carol's behavior, she was left with quite a bit of guilt plaguing her. As much as she was still hurt at Carol for all of the time that she had spent away and the fact that she had missed so much of her life, she was able to easily see that Carol still cared based on what happened the previous night.

However, despite the fact that Monica felt bad for making Carol so uncomfortable and unsure of herself when she knew now that Carol was hurting so deeply, Monica still found some amount of happiness in the conflict that had occurred between them.

It was not that she wanted to hurt Carol or anything like that. It was more that she was ecstatic to realize that Carol actually did still care and that she now had some idea of how Monica was feeling. Monica had been able to let out a piece of all of the negativity and pain that had been filling her for so long.

And it would take a long while to fix everything between them, but she had just the tiniest shred of hope right now that maybe it could eventually happen. Carol was trying hard, and now that she had an opportunity to sleep on it and leave yesterday behind, she could see that more clearly.

Even now by offering to go get brunch together, Carol was trying. Even though brunch came nowhere near close to making up for anything at all, Monica still found herself wanting to spend more time with Carol.

The sad fact was that she just needed her aunt. She had lost her mother, and Carol had been the other primary figure in her life that had taken care of her, and Carol was the only person that could fully understand the pain and sorrow she had gone through. Unfortunately, Carol was also one of the primary parts of said pain and sorrow, which made things exceedingly difficult for Monica.

Before long, Monica had donned her glasses and Carol had put on one of the hats Monica packed, and they were headed out of the inn to go to the café.

When they were downstairs, they were happily greeted by Abigail.

"Good morning-afternoonish, you two! Headed off for some hiking?" Abigail questioned cheerily, and Monica nodded to her with a chuckle.

"We're going to go get some brunch first, but we're probably heading out soon," Monica assured her, the half-truth flowing easily. Abigail flashed them a big smile and a thumbs-up.