Star-Crossed
Chapter 1 - Dreams
Tags: #Pre-Captain Marvel #Dreams #Soulmates
Everyone has dreams.
But Carol, she only dreams of one thing.
She sees a strange city, buried deep in the earth. There is something alien about this place. The people there are dressed in unusual clothes, never wearing colours other than greens, blues and blacks. Startlingly, the majority of them have blue skin. Sometimes she sees a temple-like structure bathed in sunlight, a gleaming star-like symbol embedded above a mountainous staircase. The glimpses of technology that she sees are sophisticated, more so than anything they have on Earth. They have massive spaceships capable of intergalactic travel, weapons that can manipulate gravity, holographic technology and cybernetic implantations designed to enhance their capabilities.
It's like something out of a wacky sci-fi movie her dad would watch when there was nothing better on TV.
Then there is him.
The man in her dreams.
Golden eyes. Sandy brown hair. Handsome. Serious - though he has a playful side of him that he conceals. Infuriatingly patient. Fearless. Kind.
He's always been the star of her dreams.
Sometimes he is training or teaching in a gym like facility with towering walls. Others, he is on a spacecraft with people clad similarly to him - his team, she has come to recognise them as. She sees him in otherworldly places, planets with orange oceans, abnormal forests and glowing cities. He travels often and Carol wishes these places were real so she could experience them herself.
Sometimes he climbs the staircase to the star temple. Those are the times it is most difficult to watch him. He stands on a hexagon shape on the floor. Blue, pulsing, snake-like wires materialise from it and slither around him, connecting to various parts of his body. His expression is often pained and fearful while he is hooked up to the strange device. It invokes a reaction so strong in Carol that she is jolted from her slumber, breathless and blood pumping.
She wants to rip the wires off of him but she has no corporal form in her dreams. She is an observer with no presence. She can't even hear what is being said. It is like the vacuum of space, quiet. Her only explanation for what is going on is through the visual clues that she sees.
It frustrates and upsets her that she cannot interact with this man. He is a stranger. A figment of her imagination. Yet he has always been with her and she yearns to reach out to him, to communicate with him, to let him know that he is not alone. It is an expression she sees far too often on his face. Carol has tried to lucid dream, for this is her mind and she should be able to control what happens, but nothing she does lets her governor what she sees. She only gets to watch. Silent and untouchable.
He feels like a friend. A friend she has grown up with, like characters in her favoritue books.
In her earliest dreams, he was a young child like her. As she aged, so did he. She remembers how he used to dress in very formal, high-class clothes with delicate details and embroidery. He was from a wealthy family, her younger self having likened him to a prince of a distant, yet to be discovered land. He lived in a lavishly adored penthouse with a beautiful balcony terrace that hung over the city below. It was filled with unusual plants and greenery and he had loved to spend his time there.
Nowadays, his clothes are less decorative and more casual, much like his new dwellings which are smaller and cosier. Although it wasn't clear in the short glimpses of his life that she saw each night, Carol reasoned that the changes were due to him moving out of his parents or guardian's home. He seemed to prefer a simpler life without the grandeur.
Her favourite thing to see him wear is his armour. It is black with green panels, an intricate star on the centre of his breastplate. He holds himself proudly, a straight posture and serious expression at all times. He is a warrior or a soldier. Skilled. Talented. Adored. People bow to him as he makes his way through the city streets and public transportation (he likes to travel in something that resembles the underground tube). He is a hero, she feels, a noble warrior hero who the people look up to.
Carol knows he has worked hard to build this adoration and respect. She has seen how his uniform changed throughout the years since he first dawned it when he was in his late teens. She knows he has clawed his way up the ranks of whatever organisation it is that he works for.
Perhaps it was silly, but she was proud of her dream warrior.
He may not be real, but she considered him a friend. A friend who was always there, even if he wasn't.
"Do you believe in life outside of Earth?"
Carol turns to Lawson, quirking an eyebrow. "What, like aliens?"
They have both been working late on Project Pegasus, by the time they get out the sky is dark and alight with stars. A shooting star streams across the sky, leaving a fleeting trail of dust in its wake. Carol looks back up at the vast darkness, trying not to let her mind wander to her otherworldly dreams.
"Yeah, like aliens," Lawson said.
"I think there's definitely life out there. I just don't think it'll be anything like what we imagine. No little green men with big black eyes and magic fingers."
Lawson laughs. "What do you think they'll look like?"
"No idea," Carol shrugs. She knows what she wants them to look like. "What about you?"
"I think they look exactly like us. Different biologies of course, but pretty similar aesthetically. Or at least, some of them would be."
Carol snorts. "The chances of that are next to none."
"Want to make a bet on that, Ace?"
They part ways, Lawson heading East while Carol heads North. It's about ten miles between the base and her apartment in town. It's a long and lonely drive. She blares her radio, singing atrociously along with the music. She is halfway through the forest road when she hears it. A deafening roar high above. Carol grinds her car to a stop, peering out of the front window just in time to see a blazing comet searing through the air. It crash landed a few yards away in the forest, its impact shaking the ground with an almighty boom.
Carol swives her car over to the edge of the road. She fumbles about to get her torch from her glove compartment before clamouring into the forest in search of the fallen star.
This is probably a bad idea, but she's curious and it is so close! She's never seen anything like that.
She stumbles through the forest, nearly tripping on jutting out roots and broken branches. She can hear a crackling of fire close by, the forest glowing in ambers and red, casting frightening shadows. Carol gasps when she finds the crash site. It is not what she was expecting.
Half buried in the dirt was a vessel of some kind, its silvery surface reflecting the flames around it. It is heavily damaged, its exterior dented and its small wings on fire. Carol creeps forward, thinking that she has never seen a plane like this before. The closer she gets, the more clear it becomes that she has seen something like this. But it wasn't real. It couldn't be real. In her dreams, this vessel is an escape pod, this specific make belonging to the one ship she sees all the time. His ship.
Carol shakes her head. She's being ridiculous. It couldn't possibly be. This had to be some kind of military project gone wrong. Some kind of new technology. It's a coincidence. Or perhaps she has remembered wrong.
A pained groan pulls her attention to the cockpit.
Carol hurries over to it, jumping and climbing over debris and fallen trunks. There is a man behind the glass of the cockpit, she can hardly see him through the heavily cracked glass and dirt smeared over it. She shouldn't know how to open it but she has seen this in her dreams and knows that there is a latch at the side that must be pulled up and twisted. The glass panel creaks and flips up, smoke billowing out from it, making her cough.
The man inside is wearing a green mask, his eyes are closed but he is panting heavily. There is blue liquid oozing from underneath his helmet. Carol tries to wake him but he doesn't respond. She grits her teeth and pulls him out of the cockpit, dragging him away from the fiery wreckage. It's just as well she did, for a moment later the vessel erupted in an explosion, metal fragments and glass flying through the air. Carol dives over the man's body, shielding him with her own.
"That was a close one," Carol whispers.
She turns her attention back to the unconscious man. Now that she has him lain before her, she can't help but notice that he is wearing that armour. Black and green with a silver star. Her heart jolts and she swallows hard. Hesitantly, Carol's fingers skim over the star on his chest. The same star that he wears. She glances up at his face, her fingers slowly slipping under the helmet. With trembling hands, she carefully removes the helmet.
It is him.
Her dream warrior hero.
But this isn't a dream and he is really here. She can feel the warmth of his body, hear his hard intakes of breath and smell smoke and ash that clings to him.
Carol gasps and scurries away from him. She wonders if this is a very vivid dream or if she has finally gone mad. Because this cannot be real. He cannot be here. He is not real. He is nothing but a neverending dream.
His pained moan snaps her attention to his face. She realizes with unease that the blue liquid is oozing from a cut on his head. Its blood. His blood. Her eyes scan over his body, she can see more blue patches seeping through patches in his armour. He is injured - she's not sure how badly - and his wounds need tending to.
"Okay... okay," Carol said, taking in deep breaths. "Focus."
She reaches into her pocket for her cellphone and stops. If this isn't a dream... if this is real... then calling for help was probably the worst thing she could do. He clearly wasn't human. He was something else, especially if her dreams were anything to go by. He had crashed from the sky in a spaceship-like vehicle, wearing armour like nothing they had here on Earth and his blood was blue. In all her dreams, she had seen him piloting a ship through outer space and visiting exotic planets. He had to be an alien, it was the only explanation, as crazy as it seemed to her.
What would the authorities do with him if they got their hands on him? Help him? Maybe. Or maybe they would hand him over to the government who would do who only knows what with him. She couldn't imagine they would patch him up and let him go on his way. This was too big. Way too big. Best case scenario they would lock him up, question him and then study him like an animal. Worst case, his skin met with a scientist's curious dissection blade. She might be being unfair and jumping to all manners of conclusions fueled by cringy TV shows and conspiracy videos, but at least if she took him and helped him, she knew for a fact that he wouldn't be caged and experimented on.
She made a decision then, a stupid, reckless, ill-thought out decision. But one that she knew was right.
Carol took a deep breath, making a quick evaluation of the best way to move him. From on the ground, she wouldn't be able to get him into any kind of shoulder carry and he looked far too heavy for a blanket lift with her jacket. She decided that the best way was to slip her arms under his from behind and pull, letting her keep his head away from the ground. It was difficult navigating the dark forest, but thankfully she had left her car lights on and it provided a decent beacon. She was exhausted, sweating and panting by the time she got him up to her car.
In the distance, she could hear the faint wail of sirens.
"Sorry about this," Carol winced.
She popped open the trunk of her car and with a great deal of strain and huffing, managed to cramp him into it. She hoped she hadn't upset his wounds too much but at the moment she had to get him as far away from here as possible without drawing any unwanted attention to herself. He needed to remain hidden from any passing vehicles. She didn't fancy having to explain why there was an unconscious, blue-blooded alien knight in the back of her car.
Carol hopped into her the driver's seat and drove off. It didn't take her long to come to the security toll booth. She was still in government property and all personnel had to check in and out. Derrick, an older gentleman with grey hair and dark glasses, wobbled out of the booth and towards her car. Carol rolled down the window, offering him a friendly smile as she handed him her ID.
"You're working late tonight, Carol."
"Gotta pay the bills."
A thump from the trunk nearly made Carol wince. Derrick glanced up from inspecting her ID, looking about curiously.
"Did you hear something?" Derrick asked.
There was a temptation to say it was just the dead body in the boot of her car tumbling about, but she felt that might be playing a little too close to the truth. Derrick was used to her sense of humour, but right now, her nerves were on the verge of being fried. She just wanted to get home to safety as soon as she could.
Carol shook her head innocently. "Nope."
"Well, here you go," he handed her back her ID. "Safe travels."
"Cheers."
Carol drove off. She held her breath every time a car drove by or saw the flashing lights of emergency services. She had never felt more relieved than when she finally saw her house at the end of the street. No one had pulled her over. No helicopters had chased her down with spotlights while swat teams descended around her. She had actually pulled it off. Well, mostly. Now she just needed to get him into the house without being seen.
Of all the ways this night could have gone, this way was not on the list. An alien spaceship had crash-landed to Earth, containing not just any alien but the alien she had been dreaming about her entire life. Carol wasn't one to keep her feet on the ground, but thoughts of alien life forms were a little too high for her liking. There was life out there, it was impossible for there not to be. But the chances of Earth finding them and interacting with them were slim to impossible.
It turns out that she was wrong. Very wrong.
And now thanks to the hot alien shoved in the trunk of her car, she owed Lawson thirty bucks.