InsaneJournal

Kamala slowly drifted back into consciousness that morning of the fourteenth. It wasn’t too early in the day but it also wasn’t exactly sleeping in. She could have though, if she had actually stayed up last night past midnight. Most of the time that wasn’t a habit that her parents had encouraged but with it being her birthday and in the middle of August, and it obviously not being a school day the following day, the tradition went that Kamala would be allowed to stay up till at least midnight. And then before they could be sent off to bed, mother would whip out a cupcake she happened to be making secretly.

(Or so she thought. Kamala and Aamir always knew.)

The night before, though, she had gone to bed ahead of time. She knew Carol wouldn’t be against her staying up if she wanted but she was hit with that memory at that time and had excused herself to bed as soon as she could, saying she wanted to be up early for her birthday. And thankfully, sleep had come to her pretty quickly.

Now she was awake. On her birthday. She was eighteen and she actually felt… sad.

A knock on the door though had her shoving the covers off her head and calling out, “I’m up!”

Carol hadn’t thought much of Kamala calling it early the night before. They’d spent most of that weekend wrapped up in joint birthday festivities, and she could see Kamala was tired. She couldn’t blame her. Not everyone was a cosmic-charged battery or a god; people wore down, even (and maybe especially) after a buffet of a truly abominable amount of sugar.

Had she been able, she’d have let her sleep in later, too. Given they had mandated Defense training today, it was just before seven when she knocked on the door, chuckling at Kamala’s near-instant response. She turned the knob and came inside, balancing a plate full of breakfast food and a glass of orange juice in the other hand.

“Happy Birthday, kiddo. I made your favorites.” She crossed over to the bed, setting the orange juice on the nightstand before perching on the edge of the bed and holding the freshly cooked goods close to Kamala’s nose. “You gonna sit up and be human for me for a few minutes?”

Kamala had been rubbing the sleep out of her eyes when Carol came in, and when she approached, she lifted her head to look at the food then gave her a lazy response. “Yes. Yes, I will.” She pushed herself up then to a seated position first before climbing out of bed, indicating for Carol to stay right where she was as she ran off the bathroom to brush her teeth before coming back.

“This looks amazing, thank you!” She wasn’t sure if it was the tiredness still there or the memories plaguing her mind since last night but she tried her best to muster up the biggest smile for Carol before taking hold of a piece of toast.

In the past year, Carol liked to think she’d gotten to know Kamala pretty well. She knew her moods and her expressions – not that the kid was in any way adept at hiding how she was feeling. This was no exception to that rule. The smile was nice but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Hey, so,” she shifted over to sit beside Kamala in bed, legs crossing as she settled back against the headboard, “I know this day has to be tough.” She eyed Kamala softly but knowingly. It was no secret how close she was to her family, and Carol hated that she’d been taken from them. It let them be together and get to know each other, but it still took Kamala away from the only life she’d ever known. “And I can’t fix that, as much as I wish I could. But I love you, and Emme loves you, and all of us here love you. You’re a pretty big deal in my life. I hope you know that.”

Kamala’s chewing slowed a little as she listened to Carol. This wasn’t how it was like last year for her birthday. Then again, she had only been here for a month when that date came around and she was on the high of not only universe traveling but also the fact that she had gotten to meet so many Avengers in person that she had been dreaming of meeting before then. As days passed, she started missing her family more but as more days passed, she got into a routine of things here that she was able to keep herself busy.

The memories didn’t often come and hit her this hard. The last time they did was for Eid and her friends were able to keep her occupied enough to keep the homesickness at bay.

Today just felt different.

“Yeah, I know,” she said with a nod, once she was finished with her bite. “I love you both too. I’m okay. I swear.”

“You don’t have to be, is what I’m saying,” Carol told her gently. Trying to say badly, maybe, but the intention was there. “I’ve got you. You can be sad and I’ve still got you. We all have people we miss, and if you want, we can talk about them. I don’t ever want you feeling like you have to keep it to yourself because you’re afraid of hurting us.”

That wasn’t going to happen. Carol knew what place she held in Kamala’s life, and Kamala knew what place she held in Carol’s. This kid had changed her life here in Vallo in a big way, and she was grateful to the Khan family for Kamala’s very existence. There could never be any bad feelings interfering with that.

It became really hard to swallow anything down, even though she was having banana pancakes and she loved banana pancakes and she also loved Carol cooking for her. She just loved her a whole lot but she also really did miss her family. And there was now a damn lump in her throat and Kamala found herself reaching up and swiping at her eyes, as she said “No, no, I swear, I’m fine.”

Which didn’t have the same effect when she had legitimately started to cry right then.

“Oh, honey.” Carol wrapped her arms around Kamala and pulled her in close, still careful to make sure she didn’t jostle the plate of food in her lap. “I’ve got you.” She kissed Kamala’s temple, raising one hand to stroke over her hair. She didn’t say it’s okay because it wasn’t; being away from the people you loved would never feel okay. While she knew she couldn’t make Kamala’s pain go away, she could be there to help her ride out the big feelings as long as she needed.

Kamala held onto her, though with one hand, she carefully moved the plate to the side so she could get comfortable in the embrace. She let Carol hold her and rock her gently, as she took a few seconds to let it out.

Yes, it hurt. She missed the hell out of everyone. Ideally, she wanted them here, even if it might mean staying with her family and not with Carol. Selfishly, she’d want both. Unfortunately, Vallo didn’t always grant all the wishes you wanted, even if the small ones like I wish I had my computer was a request fulfilled almost right away. She didn’t regret having her computer here. As a matter of fact, it also had a lot of photos of home along with her YouTube videos and she was able to show both Carol and Emme months ago when it had shown up the first time.

After some seconds, her crying subsided but she didn’t pull away right away. She just wanted to stay in that hug for a little longer.

Carol let Kamala cry it out as long as she needed, keeping her close and making soft soothing noises while she held her. She hated seeing Kamala hurting, and she didn’t like having prodded it out of her. But she had known that face the moment she saw it. Kamala might have managed to suppress her feelings if she’d been allowed, but she needed to let it out. Carol was cut from the same cloth; she knew holding things in was never going to lead to good things.

“Love you, kid,” she murmured again. She would love her enough for all the missing Khans and then some, say it a thousand times more if it did any good. “Talk to me?”

Kamala had at least managed to calm herself down that she wasn’t crying anymore, and she straightened herself up at least, and pulled the plate of pancakes back on her lap. She didn’t eat it right away but took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was still thick with emotion.

“Mom always had traditions for mine and Aamir’s birthdays. It’s not something I necessarily want anyone else doing because it’s her thing. And yeah, I know, I’m sure there’s a version of me back home that she’s doing this for. I just– it feels kind of weird not having her be here doing it. Same with Dad.”

And heck, even her best friends, Nakia and Bruno, who would show up with balloons and cake in tow because she lamented one too many times about how her birthday didn’t fall on a school day so she couldn’t show up and find balloons in her locker or something. A bit of a ridiculous complaint, now that she thought of it, considering how she would do anything to have either of them here.

Carol wouldn’t have mentioned the ‘version of you back home’ in this situation. It could be a comfort sometimes, especially upon arrival, to make sure no one worried they had gone spontaneously missing from their home world. This was different. Even knowing there was a Kamala back home getting pampered by her parents when her eighteenth birthday rolled around didn’t make their absence in the here and now easy to take.

“I wouldn’t want to take on those traditions in her place. That’s not my goal here,” Carol assured her, still rubbing her shoulder soothingly. “But I don’t want to erase them by making our own traditions either. So, if there’s some way you want to blend them together, or just some way you want to honor them, we’ll do that.”

Kamala briefly reached up to swipe at one eye again to get rid of the remnants of tears left on that side. By now, she had considerably calmed down enough to give Carol a smile that did indeed reach her eyes. “You’re not going to be erasing anything. I don’t really mind either way. I guess I just got sad about it, which, yeah, I know, it’s okay to be sad about it. I just don’t want to continue to be sad about it.”

She sighed and turned back to her pancake, picking up a fork again to cut a piece of. “Yeah, I miss them, and I sometimes want to be back there but I’m pretty sure what I have here, I might not have back there, so that thought kind of just… makes things complicated. But there’s nothing really that I can do about it, so, I’m going to take a moment to be sad and then go forth and enjoy what I have here.”

“I swear you’re miles more emotionally mature than I am,” Carol chuckled, dropping another kiss on Kamala’s temple. To think the emotional mess of a person she was at eighteen had managed to be (mostly) professional as a first-year airman was borderline miraculous. There were times she still felt barely past that stage.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs caught her attention, and she flipped her watch to check the time. They still had a good half hour before they needed to get moving for their Defense workshop today. She knew Emme, the birthday nerd that she was, had wanted to join in the good mornings, too.

“Hey, gorgeous, all clear in here,” she called out.

Emmeline stuck her head in the doorway first, as if scoping out the scene. She had a party hat perched atop her dark hair. She gave Carol and Kamala a mischievous grin before she slid more fully into the room. In one hand, she had a wrapped present, and in the other…

“Happy Birthday!” She tossed a large handful of colorful confetti pieces up into the air. They fluttered down around all three of them, thankfully missing the food on Kamala’s plate.

“Don’t worry, I charmed them to disappear in a few minutes.”

She swooped in and simultaneously pressed a kiss to Kamala’s cheek, produced a sparkly birthday crown for her, and handed her the gift.

Kamala’s little smile now that she was past the crying phase grew even wider as her bed was suddenly filled with confetti, a gift, and both of her roommates – housemates? Whatever. “Oh, my god, you got me a crown. I’m going to wear this everywhere, maybe even to mine and Peter’s dinner!”

“You should,” Carol laughed. “Maybe Emme can charm it on for you so it’ll last you through Defense today. Still up for that?” She wasn’t pushing for Kamala to join – and she’d actually push the opposite, if pressed – but their beach workshop at Galdin Quay had landed on an unfortunate date, and attendance was mandatory for teams.

Kamala gave it a second to think about it. On one hand, there could be a lot of different things she could think of that would be more of a birthday treat for herself but then again… most of her friends would be at this thing, and it would be boring doing anything else if they weren’t with her. Plus, if she could keep the crown on her head charmed by Emme, then maybe she’d get more attention. She was a bit of a sucker for attention.

“Yeah, why not? I don’t want to do anything if it isn’t with you so, let’s go! After my pancakes though. I am not wasting any bite of this.”

Emme grinned delightedly. While she certainly wouldn’t blame Kamala for not wanting to come to the workshop, she was rather pleased at getting the opportunity to spend more time with the birthday girl. “You finish eating, and I’ll get to work on charming this for you. You’ll be the most fabulous person there, I guarantee it.”

“Fabulous is the word,” Carol agreed, pushing her feet out into her wife’s lap. She snagged the present Emme had brought in, dropped on the bed, and held it up. “You want to save this for after breakfast or pause for air there?”

“After breakfast,” Kamala said, holding up her plate. She was pretty damn hungry, but maybe that came with the whole superhero metabolism. Though she knew it wasn’t as fast as, say, Tommy’s. “How about I finish this, get dressed and all, bring the present downstairs with me and then we open it together before we go?”

“Sounds like the perfect plan,” Emme said with a nod. “Clearly you’re getting wiser already.”

Carol nodded her agreement. “Whatever you say goes, Ms. Marvel.”