you put your arms around

“I miss, um, Earth. And I might be… lonely up there.”Maria softens at that. “You’re not off making tons of new intergalactic friends?” She sounds a little like she’s teasing, but Carol can’t be sure. She’s out of practice with parsing conversational nuance.“A few,” she says. “But mostly I’m alone in a spaceship for weeks at a time. Can I have a hug?”She doesn’t mean to ask that out loud, but Maria is standing so close, and she still smells so good, and Carol hasn’t touched another person in such a long time (except the brief hug Monica just gave her), and she especially hasn’t touched Maria in such a long time.“Of course,” Maria sounds surprised, but she brings her arms up to wrap around Carol’s shoulders. Carol’s arms find their way to Maria’s waist, and then they’re hugging, and it feels like all the pieces have slotted together perfectly again.*In which Carol comes back to Earth, and to Maria and Monica.