Archive of Our Own ^beta

New Year’s Eve

-

Rambeau Residence

New Orleans, Louisiana

-

Carol finishes her cup of morning coffee while sitting on the porch swing, looking out over the trees. She turns to her faithful friend who is sitting beside her, finishing her own morning pick-me-up. Goose licks the last of the churu treat from her lips, and Carol smiles.

‘Ready to go, Goosie?’

They’ve got a lot of stops to make today.

Goose meows in agreement, and hops up onto her shoulder.

She also deigns to give Carol an affectionate headbutt, just as a flash of memory crosses Carol’s mind.

Standing on the roof of this very porch, a little girl’s hand clutched in hers, and the little girl’s other hand clutching her mom’s.

Her, Monica and Maria, looking up at the sky to watch the fireworks, Monica allowed to stay up way past her usual bedtime – and making it to midnight, despite yawns and near-misses, with stubborn determination and will.

Carol feels her smile turn a little sad, as a wave of grief, tinged with bitterness and regret, comes over her.

Goose headbutts her again. It’s a little stronger this time, a bit of tougher love from the flerken.

Carol takes a deep breath, then another, and reaches a hand up to stroke Goose’s fur.

She picks up the coffee cup, and heads inside to put it in the dishwasher.

-

Breakfast clean-up done, and having ensured Goose has plenty of her snacks stored inside her internal pocket dimension, lest the flerken eat something she shouldn’t later, Carol waits for her companion to hop onto her shoulder again, and then, she flies off.

-

SABER Station

Earth Orbit

-

When she lands on the station, Nick’s there to greet her and Goose with a smile – a genuine one that reminds Carol of the much younger, less scarred and (somewhat) less cynical and paranoid man he was when they became friends.

Goose hops onto his shoulder to greet him, and Carol finds herself smiling a little wider.

-

Carol is quiet and tucked away unobtrusively in a corner of the SABER canteen, as invisible as she can be, as Fury gives a speech honouring the SABER agents who have been injured or lost their lives in the line of duty in the last year.

Like Dag and Talia and many of Monica’s co-workers – Captain Rambeau was very well-liked – she raises her glass in a silent toast when a photo of Monica, dressed in her SABER uniform and helmet tucked under her arm, smiling professionally, comes up on the screen.

Like all the SABER agents, when Fury finishes his speech and raises his glass, she raises hers too.

The 30 flerkens in the canteen, which were all occupying laps or standing on shoulders or running around and darting between legs and climbing places where they shouldn’t be, all stop what they’re doing and raise their heads too, seeming solemn.

Dag and Talia glance at Carol when she starts singing along to the rendition of Auld Lang Syne that follows. Talia smiles as she keeps singing herself. Dag, in rather Asgardian fashion, gives a solemn nod and clinks his glass against hers, before raising his drink and sculling it, then holding up the empty glass and saying in a loud voice, to Monica!

-

Later, she, Nick, Dag and Talia sit in the office that Dag and Talia now share. There’s space in the office for one more desk – one more person – but the empty space hasn’t been reassigned yet.

(It won’t be, Carol knows.)

(It’s waiting for Monica to get back.)

(She’s not sure that Nick or Dag or Talia share her and Kamala’s faith, but…they want to.)

The four of them look at the photo of Monica that Talia pulled out of her desk drawer. This one is clearly Monica, not Captain Rambeau, and is a candid shot – she’s dressed in her SABER uniform, and clearly in the SABER canteen, but she’s laughing, posture relaxed, a half-eaten slice of pie in front of her.

As midnight ticks over on the clock on Dag’s desk, silently, as one, they raise their glasses.

Goose, sitting in Carol’s lap, and her two sons and one daughter who have claimed Nick, Dag and Talia’s laps all give one solemn meow in concert.

-

New Asgard

Norway, Earth

-

Carol flies right to the back door of New Asgard’s Royal Residence, Goose once more perched on her shoulder.

She knocks, and the door’s opened by Val, casually dressed but clearly in the middle of getting ready for New Asgard’s New Year’s Eve party.

(It’s an Earth tradition they’ve adopted, both because of its significance in their new home, and also because the party’s a great tourist drawcard.)

(Asgardians really do know how to party.)

Val smiles at her, and Carol leans over to kiss her cheek in greeting. Val squeezes her hands for a beat before letting go, then bows her head to Goose in a proper greeting. When Goose meows authoritatively, Val then gives her a scritch between the ears.

As Val heads back into her bedroom to finish getting ready – she is King, after all, and has to look the part tonight – Carol heads over to the kitchen to help herself to a snack, before plopping down on the couch and putting her feet up on the ottoman.

Goose vomits up one of her flerken snacks, tears open the vacuum-sealed packet with her tentacles and teeth, and digs in.

Carol points sternly at the back door, and Goose meows and glares at her, flicking her tail in a clear complaint, but complies. She cleans up the mess she made on the floor by grabbing a rag from Val’s laundry with her tentacles, dumps the dirty rag into the washing machine, and takes her very smelly snack outside to eat.

-

Carol smiles as she digs into the excellent roast that the Asgardians prepared over an open fire for their New Year’s Eve party.

Val is holding court and greeting people, as is her responsibility as King.

The good food, mead and ale are flowing, and the dancing has begun.

Humans, Asgardians, Skrulls and many other aliens who’d needed a home and been granted one by King Valkyrie and her people mingle and laugh and talk and eat and drink together.

It’s a good party.

Carol smiles a little wider as Axl Heimdellsson, with a Skrull kid on his back, runs past. They’re followed a second later by a Kree teenager about Axl’s age with another Skrull kid on her back, this one clutching a very precious stuffed toy.

The Kree girl’s name is Mar-Vell.

Named for the woman that some Kree consider the greatest and bravest of heroes.

Not every Kree had agreed with the Empire. Mar-Vell was one of few, but she was not alone.

Some Kree had taken their anger and their fear after the Annihilation, and found an outlet for it that was not fighting for control of their Empire, or looking to return to their days of ‘greatness’ and ever-expand the Empire, or seeking revenge on the Annihilator or the Skrulls.

Some had, in the days and months and weeks and years after their society’s utter collapse, decided that they could build a better society, if they tried.

(Carol, to her shame and regret and guilt…hadn’t known.)

(She hadn’t considered. Hadn’t thought.)

(Hadn’t paused to think before she acted, hadn’t thought to consider that not every Kree could be Yon-Rogg or Minn-Erva, that Mar-Vell might not have been alone in her beliefs and her values and her mission.)

(She hadn’t paused to really think. Hadn’t thought to see if she could find a Kree Resistance or a Kree Rebellion, or even another single solitary Kree in exile, trying to save people and help people, that she could join forces with and help, throw all the power she has behind them and their cause, work with them to take down the Supreme Intelligence and the Empire, so that something better could take its place.)

(She’d just destroyed the Supreme Intelligence, done something because she could, without thinking if she should, or if there was something else she should’ve done instead.)

After Mar-Vell’s mother had been executed by Dar-Benn for opposing her plans to take what they needed without a care for the lives that would be lost so the Kree could breathe again and end their drought and feel sunshine again…

…Mar-Vell’s father had taken his infant daughter and a single-man fighter leftover from the Kree Civil War, packed it with all he could fit inside, evaded Dar-Benn’s soldiers and run the blockade that Dar-Benn had established around Hala to quell the small but very determined uprising against her.

On the other side of the galaxy, in an anonymous space station that served as a waypoint and refuelling station for all sorts of travellers, he had completed the traditional Kree naming ceremony as best as he could alone, and named his daughter Mar-Vell.

Mar-Vell had been raised by her father in hiding, the two of them moving around frequently, keeping their heads down and eking out a living in the galaxy.

She was raised on stories of the Annihilation and what the Annihilator had done to them all, as well as the stories that’d filtered through the Kree Resistance about the first Mar-Vell.

But most of all, Mar-Vell was raised on stories about her mother and her courage and bravery and fight…

…even as her father taught her to hide that whenever needed, and to turn it towards building a good life for herself and those she loved, instead of some great noble cause, some great ideal.

Mar-Vell’s father didn’t want anything to do with Kree or Skrulls or the Annihilation or the Annihilator. He wanted to leave that all behind, by his own (eventual) admission.

But, as Mar-Vell (and eventually her father) told Carol…

…when the rumours reached the backwater moon they’d been living on, about the Annihilator restarting Hala’s sun and Dar-Benn dying in her revenge plot, having failed to save Hala and annihilated the Skrull refugees who’d set up on Tarnax and attacked Aladna – a peaceful and harmless world with no intergalactic ambitions save for maybe conquering the galactic music charts with their famed poetry, as Mar-Vell’s father had described them…

…Mar-Vell had gone behind her father’s back and very daringly (very teenager), found a way to contact Carol and did.

She’d had many questions.

Carol did her best to answer them – truly and completely – even through the pain and the guilt and the regret and with the weight of all her terrible mistakes and failures.

Eventually, she, Mar-Vell and her father had met in a neutral location, and talked. Broke bread together.

Carol had made her apologies, the ones she hadn’t quite realised until Mar-Vell had contacted her that she desperately needed to make, verbally and in-person (not just by trying to atone through her actions).

Mar-Vell had told her that she had just one wish. Just one thing she wanted, for herself and her beloved father.

A home.

(Hala wasn’t, and couldn’t ever be.)

That wish, Carol could grant. That, Carol could do for them.

She’d called Val, and King Valkyrie of Asgard granted Mar-Vell and her father a home in New Asgard.

Carol smiles a little wider as a group of little kids of all colours and numerous species clamours around Axl and Mar-Vell for their turn for a piggyback ride. The two teens laugh, and grab turkey legs from a passing server with great gratitude, scarf down the meat with the speed of teens from species who thoroughly out-eat humans, put the bones in the food waste bin and then resume giving out the promised rides.

She could give Mar-Vell her wish.

It doesn’t erase what she did.

(She can’t go back in time and fix it. That’s one thing she can’t do.)

But it’s something good that she can do, and did.

She’s trying to do better. She’s trying to avoid making those mistakes again. She’s trying her best to atone for them.

That’s all she can do.

She’s doing it.

And she’s got help.

Carol smiles as Val comes over – she’s definitely Val right now, not King of Asgard – and hands her a large flagon of ale.

They smile at each other and clink their glasses together for a toast.

-

(They don’t share a New Year’s kiss.)

(But later, after Carol’s had a short nap on the couch in Val’s house, just before she leaves, she leans over and presses a kiss to Val’s cheek, very close to the corner of her mouth, before they say goodbye.)

(Val smiles a little wider at her and squeezes her hand, holds on for a moment, before letting go and walking her out to the back door.)

-

Khan Residence

Jersey City, New Jersey

-

At the Khans’ NYE party, Carol smiles at Mrs Khan as the other woman shoves a platter covered in samosas and pakoras insistently at her, and takes one of each. That makes Mrs Khan smile wider at her, before she orders her husband to take the tray around to their guests, and bustles back to the kitchen to put together more food. Carol’s still learning – and tasting - her way around Pakistani cuisine, but she’s pretty sure she sees fixings for bun kebabs, given that Kamala explained them to her as basically hamburgers, but make ‘em Pakistani and better!

Carol eats her samosa and her pakora, before realising that she should probably go check on Goose to make sure that the flerken has done as she promised, and not stolen any of the Khans’ furnishings, belongings, or – most importantly – any of Mrs Khan’s cooking equipment and party supplies.

She finds that her faithful companion is draped across Bruno’s shoulders, stretched out and comfy. He and Kamala have their heads very close together as they stare at Kamala’s phone. Based on the snippets of conversation Carol can overhear – they’re not particularly quiet – they’re looking at photos texted to them by Kate Bishop of her NYE celebrations. Currently, they seem to be admiring the outfits of her friends who are LARPers – whatever that is – and…

…relaying nerdy jokes that Kate is being ordered to pass on to said friends?

Carol’s not completely sure, as she doesn’t know anywhere near as much about nerdy jokes – or nerdy things in general – as the two teenagers.

She smiles wryly.

She doesn’t know anyone who does out-nerd Kamala or Bruno, let alone the two of them together.

Carol’s smile softens further as Kamala declares something with great glee, giving her hair an exaggerated, silly little flip. Bruno looks at her and makes a dry retort that causes Kamala to poke him in the bicep while making a face at him. He looks incredulously at her again. Kamala grins impishly at him and says something that Carol’s sure is along the lines of you know I’m right, Bruno, and that you’re totally wrong, but don’t worry, I still love you! – she’s watched the Kamala-and-Bruno-show enough times to know how it goes - before he presses a kiss to the top of her head, making her smile at him, soft and sweet and slow, and reach out to take his hand. Hand-in-hand, they then return to their mile-a-minute chatter about…well, whatever nerdy stuff they were talking about.

Get yourself someone who gets you.

Those words – Kamala’s – were new, to Carol.

But the sentiment wasn’t. Not at all.

(Maria grins at her as they walk out in their flight suits, to their jets. Carol grins back at her, and feels that rush and that competitiveness rise up in her like a song that thrums in her very blood.)

(‘Loser buys dinner?’)

(‘You’re on, Danvers.’)

(‘Higher, further, faster, baby!’)

(‘Higher, further, faster.')

(She and Val sit side-by-side on the cliffside in the very early hours of the morning, when New Asgard is silent, as the very first hints of dawn start to appear.)

(They don’t say anything.)

(They don’t need to.)

(They both raise their coffee mugs to fallen comrades. Fallen loves.)

The wave of melancholy that goes over Carol fades away into a wry, amused smile, as Kamala’s friends Nakia, Miguel and Zoe have come over and joined the conversation…

…and Carol’s fellow Marvel decides to quite literally drag her over to prove or punctuate or emphasise some kind of point to her friends.

Carol’s reaction definitely shows on her face.

That makes Zoe and Nakia exchange a knowing look over the top of Kamala’s head, even as the shorter girl smirks ridiculously and a little imperiously and drops an imaginary microphone to the ground. When Carol glances at Bruno and arches a brow at him knowingly, he just gives a little smile, a touch wry and a bit sheepish, and exasperated, amused and adoring, all at once.

Miguel smiles knowingly at Carol too, and offers her the plate of baklava fingers he’s holding.

She takes two.

 -

Standing on the edge of the roof of the Khans’ front porch, with a couple minutes to midnight and the fireworks, Carol looks over at the others up there with her.

Bruno, Kamala, Nakia, Miguel and Zoe are sitting on the roof in a line, in that order. The teens variously have their arms around each other or are clasping hands. Kamala’s head is resting against Bruno’s shoulder, and Nakia and Miguel are leaning their heads against each other’s.

Aamir and Tyesha are sticking their heads out of Kamala’s bedroom window. Aamir has an arm around his wife, but has gotten distracted yelling down at his parents about something. Tyesha has an indulgent wry smile on hr face, and exchanges a knowing look with Carol.

(The Kamala-and-Bruno show is very amusing. So is the Khan show, in general.)

Carol doesn’t think that this spot is where she wants to be when the clock strikes midnight; it’d be better to give the teen couples a smidgen more privacy, she thinks.

Aamir will be distracted by Tyesha.

Zoe is probably very used to being the fifth wheel by now, and…well, earlier, Carol had just so happened to glance at Miguel, who’d been looking at Nakia and Zoe talking, and something about the way he did it, the look on his face, as he looked at his girlfriend and his friend…

…it’d made Carol feel like she had to take a closer look. Try and be observant.

And then, in the middle of chatting to Kamala and her friends, she’d just realised. Just noticed.

(She’d been reminded of her teenage self, and the way she’d looked at her main track rival, whom she’d sort-of been friends with, in the way that two super-competitive teen girls who were at the same place, same time often, had a common interest and lived for beating the other across the finish line could be.)

Zoe’s not ready to share this part of herself yet.

(The world changed while she was away, Carol knows. Changed for the better. But there’s still a ways to go yet. Besides, maybe this is her being a little old-fashioned, a product of her time, but…she thinks that some things are yours. Just yours. Private. And up to you to share with who you want to, when you want to, and only with them and only then.)

And even when Zoe’s ready to share that with her friends, Carol doesn’t think she’ll share this particular bit, for obvious reasons.

Kamala is oblivious. Bruno hasn’t noticed yet.

Nakia doesn’t know.

But Miguel knows…and it doesn’t bother him.

Kamala has good friends. Good people around her, who love each other and care for each other and support each other, and help each other to do better, to do the best they can do, and the most good they can do.

Carol thinks that her teammate’s decided she should be adopted by her people too, hence the frequent invitations to dinner and the exceedingly insistent invitation to NYE.

It’s…it’s nice. Really, really nice.

She and Kamala and Monica are teammates. They’re The Marvels.

They’re there for each other…

…but there’s some things that you don’t want to be there for.

A little bit of privacy for some teens in love is needed, Carol thinks wryly.  

She debates flying up onto the Khans’ roof proper or into the air for a better view, but before she can decide, Mrs Khan calls up at her, as Mr Khan waves exuberantly. They gesture at a spot on the front lawn, amongst the other partygoers, and next to them.

Carol blinks in surprise, before smiling, and hopping down off the porch roof – largely unnoticed by the teenagers and Aamir – and coming to stand next to Mr and Mrs Khan, just as the countdown begins.

-

As the fireworks go off, Carol looks down when she hears Mrs Khan say her name.

She blinks in surprise again.

From the edge of her peripheral vision, last she saw, Mr and Mrs Khan were sharing the traditional new year’s kiss.

(They are clearly still very in love and very happily married.)

Mrs Khan just smiles at her and holds up her arms.

Carol blinks in surprise again, but nods, and the other woman hugs her very tightly.

Thanks to her greatly-slowed ageing, she’s in fact slightly older than Mrs Khan, despite being physically about her son’s age.

But…

…it’s a very maternal hug.

Carol smiles over Mrs Khan’s shoulder, then looks up when a discreet, little Noor star catches her eye before darting upwards. Kamala grins down at her from the roof, nawwing and making a heart with her hands. Next to her, Bruno’s smiling that same wry, sheepish, exasperated, and extremely adoring smile he was earlier.

Carol smiles wider, as Mrs Khan lets go of her. Kamala’s mom bustles off to hug her friends, and once his wife is out of sight and earshot, Mr Khan winks at her, grinning, and pulls a Hostess Cherry Pie from his pocket and offers it to her.

She reaches out a hand to take it…

…but the Hostess Cherry Pie is snatched from Mr Khan’s hand by a leaping Goose, who runs off into the bushes with her prize. He startles and takes a hop backwards, not in a very coordinated fashion. Carol catches him by the shoulders and steadies him.

Well, thank God Goose did it in a way that an ordinary cat would, instead of using a tentacle, Carol thinks. Though, then again, maybe the tentacles could’ve gone unnoticed. Everyone is currently distracted by the fireworks and the beginnings of an impromptu dance party on the Khans’ lawn, as someone has started playing what Carol’s quite sure is a Bollywood hit on a speaker.

Mr Khan is now glancing between the bushes and her and his wife. He leans closer to Carol, shadowing his mouth like he is whispering, even though he speaks quite loudly.

‘…are they supposed to eat Hostess Cherry Pies? Muneeba is always saying that all the preservatives and colours are very bad for me; are they also very bad for Goose?’

Carol smiles wryly.

‘I’d like to see anyone stop her, Mr Khan.’

He glances at the bushes again, before looking at his wife once more, and grinning wider, nudging Carol with an elbow, and gesturing towards the bushes and then to Mrs Khan.

‘I think it would be a fair fight!’ Kamala’s dad pauses, rubbing his beard with a hand, grinning even wider. ‘Maybe we can sell tickets, no?’

-

New Year’s Day

-

Rambeau Residence

New Orleans, Louisiana

-

On New Year’s Day, Carol sits on the porch swing next to Goose, drinking her morning coffee, at a far later hour than usual.

Goose, meanwhile, has forgone her usual morning snack. In fact, she seems to have a bit of a stomach-ache.

(The toilet needed a flush, badly, when Carol got up this morning, being full of flerken vomit.)

Goose meows pitifully. Carol gives her faithful companion a scritch between the ears, but that’s all the sympathy Goosie is getting.

‘It’s your fault, you know. You shouldn’t have eaten that Hostess Cherry Pie.’

Goose meows in a way that sounds like regret. Carol wonders if flerkens can get hangovers.

(She can’t anymore, thankfully.)

(Besides, the Khans’ party was her last party of the night, and while you might be at risk of a food coma or a sugar high followed by the inevitable crash, there’s obviously no risk of intoxication at any of their gatherings.)

Carol gives Goose another scritch, and drains the last of her coffee.

She’s just gotten up to head inside to put her mug in the dishwasher when the quantum band on her wrist lights up…

…and then, there’s a flash of light, and Kamala, hair messy and wearing a ridiculous fluffy bathrobe, appears on the porch, her quantum band also glowing…

…and the two of them have about a second to stare at each other in confusion and concern and to each light up a fist, just in case…

…when…

…light overtakes Carol’s vision, and she sees – maybe – two quantum bands on one person’s wrists, a flash of that same person (in a superhero suit, a flash of white, a flash of red, maybe a flash of two binary stars picked out in gold?) and maybe, maybe, maybe, a flash of a very familiar (deeply loved, deeply missed) face, if she’s not imagining things…

…and almost projected above those images is Monica, lit up with bright white light, just like she was when…

…when space and time just sealed up around her, and Carol was left drifting alone in space when an instant ago, Monica had been just feet away from her and she’d been closing fast.

When they lost her.

And then, the light vanishes, and Monica is standing there, right in front of them, on the front porch. On her front porch.

Carol stares, and for a second, she doesn’t even dare to breathe.

Kamala’s voice breaks the silence.

‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Please be real, please be real, tell me you’re real!’

The teenager reaches out a hand as if she desperately wants to touch Monica, to check if she’s real, to check if she’s really there, and Monica just smiles and nods and looks like she might just be about to shed tears (of joy, of relief, because she’s so moved) and reaches out and takes Kamala’s hand.

‘I’m real, baby.’ She pauses. ‘I’m home. I made it home.’

‘I knew you could do it, I knew it, you’re fricking Captain Monica Rambeau!’

Kamala then says something that sounds like mashallah, and tackles Monica into a tight hug. Monica hugs her back, and in almost the same instant, Carol pulls them both into a hug.

Belatedly, she realises her cheeks are damp.

-

When they finally manage to let go of each other, Carol smiles at her niece, as Monica stares at her home with something that’s almost wonder, almost disbelief.

‘I’m home.’

Carol nudges Monica with an elbow, in a way that somehow makes her almost remember countless other lost moments (precious moments) in this house, on this porch, amongst these trees.

‘Of course you are.’ She smiles wider. ‘Always knew you could do it…’ She and Maria had believed, had said to each other so many times, that Monica could do anything she put her mind to, and would go higher, further, faster than they ever did. And she did. Carol’s smile turns softer, fonder, even as her tone turns teasing. ‘…Lieutenant Trouble.’

This time, the childhood nickname, the fond little tease, makes Monica smile a little wider at her.

‘Oh!’ Kamala makes a noise of realisation – very excited realisation – and they both turn around to look at her. There’s a fond little smile on Monica’s face. Carol feels a fond look settle on hers too. ‘Does this mean you guys can teach me how to fly now?’ She pauses, and clarifies unnecessarily, given that she’s pointing at Maria’s plane parked on the lawn, under a tarp. ‘A plane, not the cooler way.’ Kamala crosses her arms and makes a face. ‘Since I can’t fly and don’t have the potential to develop the ability to fly either, ‘cos that’s not how your powers or superpowers in general work, KK, you can’t just imagine yourself into developing the ability to fly, not even with your imagination, Kamala…’ Kamala says that obviously imitating Bruno and mutters under her breath. ‘…yeah, I know, Bruno, you did, like, all the SCIENCE!!! on me and I’m grateful you worked out how this all works, but it’s so unfair, right?’

Monica glances at Carol significantly.

It’s similar to the knowing look they exchanged on her ship, when, during a break between learning to cope with the entanglement of their powers, Kamala had told them her Origins Story, which prominently featured her best friend/guy-in-the-chair/the next Dr Bruce Banner, in her words.

Carol nods and smiles, leaning over to whisper in Monica’s ear, as Kamala goes on about how poetic it would be, how awesome it would be, if The Marvels could all just fly off into the sunset together…before scrunching up her face a little and musing out-loud if Bruno could build her a plane and concluding probably, if she can talk him into it.

‘You missed quite a bit.’ She pauses. ‘I’ll catch you up on the Kamala-and-Bruno show later.’

Monica smiles and laughs, nodding, before her expression turns a little serious. Turns into Captain Rambeau.

She pulls her keys from her pocket, and jingles them to get Kamala’s attention, before gesturing at the plane. For a moment, Monica smiles at the teenager.

‘We’ll give you lessons later, Kamala.’ She pauses, and her expression turns very serious. She gestures at the quantum bands, one on Carol’s wrist, one on Kamala’s. ‘But there’s a few things we need to talk about first.’ She pauses again. ‘You might want to call Bruno, and ask him to bring up everything he’s got on that mutation in your DNA he found.’