Out of annoyance with Dean's behavior, Sam offered to take Carter to an informal dinner and then to a local bar where Dean would meet up with them. After much begging and pleading from Sam, Carter agreed only if he wasn't going to try hitting on her.
"I totally wish I had gone with you guys!" Carter laughed after Sam told her about Cole punching Dean in the face. Sam laughed with her and took another bite of his burger at the little joint.
"So," he started, sipping his soda after they had stopped laughing, "Why is it that you could see us as ghosts when Pamela couldn't?"
"She didn't spend five years in Hell, did she?" Carter said, playing with her straw, "She said it was the effects of being in the pit for so long. She said a part of me is still in the veil."
Sam studied her, sensing that she didn't believe what she was saying.
"You don't think so?" he voiced what he was thinking.
"I wasn't exactly a good little soul down there. I did a lot of exploring," she looked up at him.
"They let you walk around?" he shockingly asked.
"Not exactly. They would open your cell doors to taunt you, they never expected any of us to actually get up. So I did. I don't remember my last year in Hell. And something tells me I found some important information," she guessed.
"Why's that?" he mused.
"Well, the spirit thing and the whole sensing the supernatural I get. But being able to turn a demon's power back onto them just doesn't come with being in Hell. I mean, maybe if I had started to become a demon it would make sense," she explained.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked, losing what she was saying.
"Well, you know that demons are people who have just been deeply corrupted in Hell, right?" Sam nodded, "How do you think they are corrupted and forced to forget they were human?" she asked him.
He sat there a moment but then a look a comprehension dawned over him.
"They're forced to torture other souls," he said, thinking of Dean.
"Everybody, everybody cracks. For some it takes longer than others, but they always do," she lamented.
"You didn't, did you?" he wondered.
"I always had something to hold on to. I mean, I never thought I would ever escape but I knew they would open my cell again and I would be free to walk the quiet parts of Hell. Don't get me wrong, it sucked something awful, but to have that sense of hope saved me," she finished.
Sam nodded, "So you think that, in those parts you explored, you found some sort of script that taught you how do counter a demon's power?"
"I can't think of anything else it would be," she shrugged.
"Well, you did say you can't remember your last year. Maybe you did flip?" Sam suggested.
"Yeah...maybe," she muttered, unconvinced.
Sam took a peek at his watch and tossed some money in the center of the table.
"It's about nine, we should go meet Dean," he stood.
"Oh joy," Carter rolled her eyes, making Sam smile.
Sam drove Carter to a local pub by the name of Silver Spur where Dean was already ordering drinks for hoochie-looking women. Dean looked over at them with a pleased smile. Carter threw him bogus thumbs up and sat at nearby table. Sam followed suit while hanging his jacket over his chair.
"Can I get you two anything?" a woman wearing a tight black tank top and jeans asked.
"Yeah a beer and..." he said looking to Carter.
"An order of fries," she said not looking up from the little card that had a list of food.
The woman wrote down the order and strolled off. Sam laughed as Carter put the card back.
"What?" she innocently asked.
"We just ate," he reminded her with a kind smile.
"Bar food is so good, though!" she exclaimed.
"Not in my experience," Sam replied.
"You weren't drunk enough," she pointed at him, chewing on a straw.
Sam laughed, hearing the sound of pool rack being broken, and he turned to see a back room filled with pool tables and dart boards.
"What do you say we play a game of pool?" Sam offered, taking the beer from the waitress.
"Sure why not," Carter agreed, popping a couple fries in her mouth.
Carter took one end of the sapphire-felted table as Sam racked the balls at the other end.
"So are we going to play for money?" Sam asked, with a little smirk making Carter laugh.
"Sure. Twenty bucks sound fair?" Carter said.
"Sounds good to me, you break," he told her.
Carter lined herself up along the cue ball and prepared for her shot.
"You're left-handed?" Sam tried to distract her.
"Yep," she said, striking the cue ball which zoomed to the crowd of pool balls causing the nine, fourteen, and eleven balls to fall into separate pockets.
"Guess I'm stripes," she pointed out with a smirk as Sam bit his lip, getting a feeling that he just lost twenty bucks. She proceeded to make two excellently calculated bank shots until she put too much spin on the last one, ending her turn.
"Oh it's my turn," Sam feigned surprised.
"Yeah, I figured I'd give you a shot," she winked.
Sam went on a streak of five without managing to knock one of Carter's stripes in. Carter happily circled the table and directly shot another into a side pocket. Her last stripe would have to be a tricky bank shot off of one of Sam's and the wall to hit the corner pocket closest to her. As she lined up that shot, Sam hunched real close to her trying to distract her again. She could feel his breath on her neck as she hit the cue ball. It lamely rolled against the wall and stopped, causing her to laugh and slap Sam on the shoulder.
"You're such a punk," she chuckled.
"Hey, whatever it takes," he defended himself.
Carter had no need to mess up Sam, for in his attempt he knocked her last stripe into a pocket without hitting one of his and setting up a perfect shot for the eight ball.
Sam hung his head and Carter laughed quickly calling her shot and making it.
"Double or nothing?" she brightly asked, "You can break."
Sam shrugged as they played another game. This one ended up closer but finished when Sam scratched on his eight ball shot. He grudgingly handed over forty bucks to Carter as Dean ardently strode over.
"What are you doing?" he hotly asked Sam.
"She won, Dean, what am I supposed to do?" Sam coolly responded.
"You let her get forty bucks out of you? C'mon, Sammy, you're better than that! Play her again," he ordered.
"No way, Dean, I already lost forty. I'm not about to lose any more," Sam said.
Dean set his beer down and took the cue from his brother's hands.
"Eighty bucks. I'll let you break," he sneered at Carter, who returned the favor.
"I wouldn't let—"
"Quiet, Sam, you had your chance. Let your big brother show you how it's done," he bragged.
Carter snorted and waited for Dean to finish racking the balls.
"You're going down, little girl," he taunted, removing the triangle.
Carter shrugged her shoulders as she pocketed three again on the break and continued to score three more. She composedly moved to her last ball next to Dean.
"Hmm, maybe I should miss this to give you some kind of chance," she pondered aloud, striking the cue and sinking her last solid, "Or not," she smirked.
Dean bunched his lips together and watched as she sunk the eight ball in her called pocket.
"Sam tried to warn you," she reminded him, holding out her hand for his eighty bucks.
He slammed it in her hand, "C'mon, Sam!"
Sam who had watched the match, thoroughly entertained, quickly stood up.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"We're leaving, I'm out of money!" he glared at Carter, who joyously counted her wad of bills.
The whole way back to the motel, Dean whined about how Carter must've cheated to make all those shots.
"It's called geometry, Dean, that's all pool is. And maybe a bit of physics but it's mostly geometry," Carter happily explained.
He grumbled and parked the car. As Carter got out of the car, she noticed Todd waiting by his Durango, visibly aggravated. Walking toward him, she saw the large form of Uriel suddenly disappear.
"You lying whore!" Todd bellowed.
Taken aback, Carter abruptly stopped, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me!"
Sam and Dean stood nearby.
"Let's go, Sam," Dean pressed.
"No, wait, Dean, he sounds pretty mad. You know what he did last time he was mad at her," Sam worriedly watched the other siblings argue.
"You killed him! You selfish bitch!" he accused, anger written in every fiber of his body.
Carter's body froze and it seemed to her that her heart stopped beating.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she played off, turning away from him.
He forcefully spun her back around.
"Don't lie! Uriel told me everything! You killed Dad!" he shouted.
"No, I didn't!" she shouted back.
"Then you had the demons do it for you! It's no different! Dad's dead! Rotting in Hell! You told me you were in Hell because you killed yourself! But you made a deal and you were dragged there by hell hounds!"
"Dad was a perverted asshole, Todd! He treated me like shit! He deserved to go to Hell!"
"Dad barely touched you!"
Carter pushed her brother into his car, "HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT! You heard him every day! I tried telling you and Mom! All you did was fucking ignore me and make excuses for that piece of shit!"
"Dad was good to us! He loved us!"
"You fucking bastard! YOU HEARD ME SCREAMING!" she cried.
"You ungrateful...Dad took care of us while Mom was gone!"
"You're a fucking brick wall Todd! I'm glad I made that deal! I'm GLAD he's rotting in Hell! You know, I even remember Alastair torturing that son of a bitch and thinking 'gee maybe it would be worth it to turn just so I could give that asshole the pain he caused me!' The only thing I regret is not including you in that deal!"
Todd unleashed a fistful of his fury into Carter's face, sending her crashing to the cold hard pavement. After the first punch, Todd viciously attacked his sister on the ground, repeatedly sending his foot into her stomach and throwing his fist in her face. The moment the Winchester's saw Todd strike his sister, they broke instantly in a sprint across the parking lot.
"Go. Back. To. Hell," he cruelly kicked her with each word.
Sam reached them first, tackling Todd to ground where Todd tried shaking him off. Dean knelt by Carter, who was unconscious and bleeding freely. He held her head up and she gave a violent cough, spewing blood from her mouth.
"Jesus, Carter," he said, vainly wiping the blood away.
Todd managed to kick Sam off of him and get in his car.
"If you ever try coming near Mom or me again, I'll kill you," he promised, screeching away from the motel.
Dean carefully picked up Carter and brought her into his and Sam's room, sitting her up on the bathroom counter as Sam retrieved her things from the now-abandoned room. Carter dazedly, leaned her head against the wall as Dean cleaned off her face and removed the useless stitches on her cheek. She gave another ugly cough and spit out more blood into the sink. Carter pressed her fingers in the side of her mouth and pulled them out to reveal there was a cut somewhere on the inside of her mouth. Dean glanced from the blood on her fingers to her awkwardly positioned right shoulder.
"You're shoulder's dislocated," was the first thing Dean had said to her and not what Carter had expected. Nevertheless, she cursed loudly, grabbing hold of Dean's hand as he prepared to pop it back.
"On three. One—" Dean pushed hard, popping it back in with a yelp of pain from Carter as Sam walked in, wincing.
"You...asshole," she panted, tightly clutching his shoulder with her uninjured arm. He smirked and reassuringly squeezed her thigh.
"Dean, we should take her to the hospital," Sam advised.
Carter shook her head, swallowing hard.
"I'll be ok," she stared at him through a black, swollen eye, "I'm sure."
Sam and Dean exchanged unmoved looks.
"You wrist looks swollen," Sam observed, lightly cradling her right wrist, "I think we have a sling and brace in the trunk."
He disappeared out of the bathroom. Carter's pale face grew warm with shame and she could feel the onslaught of coming tears. She didn't know what was worse: the fact that Todd still defended their father or that he had tried killing her. Carter's confusion and anxiety manifested itself in her throat, forcing her to jump off the counter and hurl into the toilet. Her entire body shook and her long brown hair was pulled back and held by Dean, who graciously handed her some mouthwash. After spitting a mix of blood and Listerine into the sink, Carter collapsed on the floor in a fit of tears, Dean silently shutting the door and sitting down with the distraught girl.
"Carter...I'm sorry," he whispered, wrapping his large arms around her, allowing the girl to cry loudly into his chest.
