Sometimes, when he and Carol were in the market, hidden away behind loose-fitting robes and thin disguises, he heard rumors of the Kree commander Yon-Rogg.

More often than not, it was the Skrulls who would go to market in whatever port they docked in. Per their biology, they were the best suited to stealth and disguises. He and Carol were stuck looking as they were, only capable of small superficial changes.

Carol hated being stuck on the ship, would always pace, curse, and when she caught his eye demand yet another sparring session. Sparring session, of course, meaning a chance to put another set of dents in him.

He never complained though, any moment spent with Carol was a moment to be cherished. He did wish sometimes that she'd take it a little easier. The muscle memory of Commander Yon-Rogg, expert in hand to hand combat, had never truly left him but the intuition behind much of it was gone and left him with many openings. That, or Carol was just better than she claimed and he was a little worse.

Sometimes, though, there would be some Terran good that Carol simply could not trust Soren to pick up for her, and she insisted on leaving the ship for at least one day. And, whenever Carol went anywhere, Yon-Rogg went with her. It was an unspoken truth, an elephant in the room as Carol liked to say, that Yon-Rogg was never to be left out of sight and that Carol served as his friend, protector, and keeper.

It stung, as always, but the Skrulls had their reasons. Yon-Rogg had once been an enemy, belonged to the Kree, and unlike Mar-Vell had given them neither a ship nor a Tesseract. The only thing he'd given them was his word and work ethic.

They'd never asked for either and after some time it'd dawned on him that they only tolerated him because what they really wanted was Carol Danvers. Carol Danvers, for whatever reason, would not aid them without him, and so on Mar-Vell's ship Yon-Rogg remained.

Neither guest nor prisoner.

Outside the empire's borders the locals usually made no effort to stem their hatred for the Kree. Kree were relentlessly mocked, spat upon, and their ancestors and precious blood cursed. They spoke of a war with Xandar, of the empire's conquests past the long held Kree borders, the Accusers who stood as judges of condemned worlds that dared defy the empire, and of Starforce and its well-known leaders. To be Kree, to these people, even a reformed one meant nothing. If they knew what Yon-Rogg was, they would dismember him and drink his blood as ambrosia.

Yon-Rogg wondered how he could ever have belonged to such a vile place.

Carol usually pushed him past this quickly, likely not wanting to taint his perception of his homeland any further than it already was.

Sometimes though, he caught whispers of Yon-Rogg.

Finally, on the way out of a Xandar port with Oreos, Cheezits, and M&Ms in tow, he worked up the nerve to ask her.

"Carol, what happened on that last mission?"

She spluttered, choked on the fist full of M&Ms she'd just gobbled up whole, and spent the next few seconds wheezing as she tried to regain her breath. Finally, gaping at him like a fish out of water, she asked, "What?"

"The last Starforce mission," he clarified slowly, watching her warily as she recovered herself, "The one where you remembered and I defected. What exactly happened?"

She rubbed a hand through golden hair, letting out an exhausted sigh, "That's a long and complicated story."

Yes, he imagined it was. That's where she had first crashed to Earth and met Fury. At first, she'd fought against the Skrulls and warned Fury of their danger. On the path to the truth, she and Fury had travelled to Mar-Vell's work site and had stumbled across not only Carol's true origins but also Monica and Maria. For a mission that had lasted only a few days, Carol had been remarkably efficient.

However, Yon-Rogg had no idea what he'd been doing the whole time.

He knew that he and Carol had been separated, she'd fallen to Earth without him, which was how she'd been able to recover her origins when he undoubtedly would have interfered to keep her in the empire's grasp. Eventually, at some point, he'd discovered she knew the truth and switched sides himself.

The details however had never been clear, and Carol never talked much about that part of the mission. It was if his defection from the empire, his finding her again on Earth, and his negotiating with the Skrulls was always taken for granted.

But if it was that easy wouldn't the Skrulls trust him a little more?

"Do you know what I was doing?" he finally asked.

She looked at him almost warily, as if waiting for him to ask something she knew he was going to one day, "Sitting on your ass in space, mostly. We commed a few times, I think I gave you a panic attack when you realized where I was and what I must have been doing."

"Yes, but…"

He didn't know how to say it.

This wasn't the first time he'd heard it in the market from sources other than Carol. Yon-Rogg, glorious Kree commander, hadn't defected, he'd died. Under threat of death, he'd taken his team down to Earth, attempting to recapture Carol and take her back to the intelligence. He'd failed, she'd murdered the entire team, and if people thought they saw his ghost running about with Skrulls then it was because Captain Marvel destroyed everything he was and had one of her Skrull friends parade the shell of him about to taunt the Kree.

He was the fool of the Kree empire.

Yon-Rogg didn't give much credence to gossip, he never had, but all the same he wondered when it had happened. When had Yon-Rogg decided enough was enough, that what he'd done was a mockery to Carol and all that she was? When did he decide that, instead of crawling away in shame from both Carol and the empire, he should own up to everything he'd done and face Carol? When did he say no to the AI, why hadn't it let the empire know, why did it make them think he was dead? More importantly, when did Carol forgive him for everything he'd done to her?

It sounded like it had all happened in a matter of days. Carol had always made it sound fast but... He hadn't imagined that everything in his life, the old Yon-Rogg's life, could have changed so quickly.

"Don't worry about it," Carol said with a shrug, "You're here now, you chose the side of the good, and the rest is history."

"Then why don't the Skrulls trust me?!" he snapped.

You could hear a pin drop.

She turned slowly back to him, eyes wide, and quietly she asked, "What did you say?"

He wished he could eat his own words, but then, he had been eating them for years. For years he'd endured suspicious glares, locked doors, eyes everywhere he went, and the occasional gun pointed at his back. Gods, if Carol had not been there when he woke up…

If Carol hadn't been there, he'd be trapped in this tiny ship of hateful strangers who would sooner eat him alive than accept his help. Some days he wondered why he even bothered, they seemed to think they'd be better off without him and if he wasn't allowed to touch anything then he agreed. Then he'd remember, Carol, Carol Danvers was the only thing that tied him to this universe at all.

But it'd been long enough, and he was so very tired, "They don't trust me, Carol. Talos, Soren, none of them trust me, they don't even like me. They barely tolerate my presence. What did I do to them—What didn't I offer them that you, that Mar-Vell, did?"

He rubbed a hand through his own hair, "Sometimes, it feels like he, like I, did nothing at all. Like I just walked onto this ship with you and made a home here. Carol, I have to know what happened."

She didn't say anything, didn't contradict him or confirm his words, instead, hastily, she said, "I'll talk to Talos."

As expected, Talos didn't like it.

"He's harmless," Carol said, and at the Skrull's flat look she amended, "He's mostly harmless, he's not going to hurt you."

"Until he remembers," Talos sneered, green fingers tapping impatiently on the wooden table in Fury's office, "Until he stops faking it."

He and the rest of the Skrulls had waited for Yon-Rogg to wake up, waited for Carol to give up on him and let him die already. They weren't exactly thrilled with how long it had taken or the fact that he'd woken up at all. They were less thrilled that, now that Carol declared him safe, she wanted to take him with them.

"He's not faking it," Carol insisted, "I know him—"

"If you knew him so well then how did he pull one over on you?" Talos asked, tilting his head and waiting for her to concede defeat.

That was one thing Yon-Rogg had gotten right about her, Vers, Carol, did not ever give in so easily.

Carol gritted her teeth, "It's… That's not the same thing and you know it. He's not lying, I know it, he honestly doesn't remember."

Whenever Yon-Rogg looked at her, before and after the reveal, there'd always been a certain spark in his golden eyes. Good or bad, gentle or furious, she'd always held his attention no matter what the circumstances were. She thought she'd imagined it sometimes, but when he looked at her the entire world narrowed down just to the two of them. When he looked up at her this time, it was only with polite interest, the edge of panicked confusion as he realized he had no idea where he was.

She was only interesting in that she was a person who could answer questions, not because she was Vers. For the first time, she could see a Yon-Rogg where Vers really did mean absolutely nothing to him.

For that terrible second, Carol had felt like a ghost.

Talos looked dubious but was willing to concede her point for argument's sake, "Fine, but what happens when he does?"

"Then I deal with it," Carol said, crossing her arms, equally unwilling to budge, "Look, we can't hand him over to the empire like this. He doesn't even remember what he did—"

"That doesn't mean he didn't do it," Talos said, waving his hand dismissively, "Carol, we're all culpable for our actions, even the ones we don't remember."

"By that argument we might as well cut off my head too!" Carol shot back, "If he's responsible for what he can't remember then I'm responsible for the shit I did when I was brainwashed!"

Talos pursed his lips, eyes narrowing, and finally came to the heart of the matter, "He's still not coming. If he's so harmless, have Fury babysit him."

Funny, Carol thought, Fury had offered the same argument except with the words "Let Talos babysit him". Nobody wanted Yon-Rogg around, and Carol didn't blame them, until a few hours before she hadn't wanted him around either.

But, priorities changed, and suddenly it felt like there was no choice but to drag Yon-Rogg along with her into the adventures as always. It felt, strangely enough, like the natural course of action.

"He's coming," Carol said, and then laid out her own ultimatum, "If he's not coming, then I'm not either."

The room fell deathly quiet. Finally, Talos said, "You don't mean that."

"I do mean it," Carol said.

"We need you," Talos said, "Without the Tesseract you are our only chance at finding a new home world. If you don't come, then we're stranded until the Kree come back to pick us off."

"I know you need me," Carol said, "That's why I'm coming."

"Don't you remember what he did to you?!" Talos balked.

"I remember what Yon-Rogg did to me," Carol said, hands fisting at her sides as she tried to fight off the glow and the fire, "This is not that Yon-Rogg, I won't abandon him."

It wasn't just that.

When he'd asked her who she was, who he himself was, and he'd looked up at her with wide golden eyes she'd seen an opportunity. She'd seen the chance she would never have again.

Carol would be what Yon-Rogg couldn't. She would be a genuine friend to him. She would never use him, never abuse him the way he did her, and when he remembered she'd look him in the eye and say, "See, asshole, it wasn't so hard now, was it?"

And finally, finally, he'd understand exactly what he'd done to her.

And until then, she could have Yon-Rogg, the Yon-Rogg she was supposed to have had in Hala, back again.

Talos could see he wasn't going to talk her out of it, Yon-Rogg was coming whether he liked it or not. So, he changed tactics, "And what if he remembers? What if he remembers everything, realizes you've made him a Skrull rebel like Mar-Vell, and he decides to finish us off once and for all on the slim chance the empire will take him back?"

"Then I deal with—"

"How?" Talos asked, "Do you kill him? Do you think you can? Because if you can, then you might as well get it over with and save us the trouble."

She didn't think much of her words at the time, thought they were just a small means to convince Talos, but she said them nonetheless, "He won't remember."

Somewhere, in the not so distant past, she imagined that Yon-Rogg must have said the same words to the Supremor.

Author's Note: I don't own Captain Marvel or the greater MCU.

Thanks to Vinelle for betaing the story.