This one is fairly short. It's more insight into Carter and leads into more important chapters.

On another note, much love to those who reviewed/subscribed! I can't say it enough but I really do appreciate it.

As per the usual, I do not own Supernatural

"They aren't bad, Tania. They're just...cursed," Carter shook her head, thinking about all the misfortune the Winchesters have faced.
"Don't tell me you're sleeping with one of them," Tania furrowed her eyebrow, Carter's eyes widening in shock.
"No!" she laughed, kicking her friend under the blanket they were sharing, across from each other on the couch, "What the hell makes you say that?"
"I don't know, you just seem so keen on defending them. I just figured you were getting a little something on the side," she shrugged.
"No..." Carter shook her head, her voice trailing off.

Tania observed the far-off look on Carter's face.

"What is it?" she asked, "Or should I say who?"

Carter sharply looked at Tania, who had a knowing smirk playing her lips.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Carter stuck her nose up in the air.
"Please, girl, I saw the way you were looking at him. I know that look," she haughtily settled back into the arm of the couch.

Carter felt her cheeks flush and she kicked her friend once more. It was hard for Carter to ignore the flaring feelings she had for Logan. He was the only boyfriend Carter ever had and the two had a strong relationship. Certainly nothing close to love but strong nonetheless.

"That ship has sailed," Carter shook her head, the blush fading from her cheeks.
"Oh I don't know. You never know what might happen," she insinuated, blocking Carter's next kick with a laugh as the front door opened and Logan strolled in carrying a pizza.

"Hey, hey, what's going on here?" Logan gave the girls a funny look.
"We were just talking," Carter chuckled, throwing the blanket off her body.
"And what, may I ask, were you talking about?" he suavely posed, tugging off his jacket.
"You," Tania answered before Carter could, in turn receiving a pointed look.
"Me?" Logan frowned, holding back a smile as Carter sauntered over to him.

"She's just being obnoxious. We were talking about the Winchesters."

It wasn't a lie, they had been talking about the two brothers. It just wasn't the whole truth.

"What kind of pizza did you get?" Carter tried opening the box but was denied when Logan snatched it out from under her hands.
"Ah, ah, ah. Wait your turn, missy. I've got to go get some plates," he faux chided, disappearing into the kitchen.

Carter rounded on her friend, "Tania, I could murder you!"

"I'm gonna go help him," she pointed to the kitchen door, and ran through it before carter could make good on her threat. Carter shook her head, hearing her phone ringing.

"H'lo?" she answered before looking at the caller I.D.
"Hey, it's me," Dean's voice came from the other line, "Are you ok?"
"We had a little run-in with some demons but we're safe now. Why are you calling? Don't tell me you have that little faith in me, Dean," she joked, balancing on the arm of the couch.

"You're sure you're ok? You don't need m—us to come out there?"
"No, I'm fine. We might be on a seal, though," she flipped the phone to the other ear, not hearing his near-slip-up "What's up, you sound pissed."

He sighed on the other end.

"Sam and I got a call a couple days ago...someone claiming to be John Winchester's son."
"Well is he telling the truth? Why would he call now?" Carter frowned.
"He checks out. It's even in my dad's journal...or was before the pages were ripped out. He said something was after his mom. Sam's all gung-ho about training him to hunt, ignoring everything I say. I don't like this, Carter."

"You sure have a funny way of telling me that you miss me," she tried lightening his mood.
"You're starting to sound like me."
"Proof that I spend too much time with you," she smirked, seeing Logan and Tania come back from the kitchen, plates of pizza in hand, "Listen, I gotta let you go."
"You'll call me if you get in trouble, right?" he asked again, making Carter chuckle.
"You'll be the first, Lancelot."
"Be careful, Carter," were his last words before he hung up.

After dinner, Tania crashed on the couch for an early night while Logan went to do the dishes and Carter swung herself on the porch swing, going over all of Logan's notes to figure out the seal. The wind began to pick up, kicking Carter's long brown hair in her face as she gazed up at the monstrous clouds drifting over the moon. Pulling her hair back into a long ponytail, she returned to her notes.

"Storm's brewin'," Carter looked up at the sound of Logan's voice, and then looked back at the ominous clouds.
"Looks like it," she agreed, dropping her gaze to bios of the victims. But she had a hard time focusing with Logan just standing there, clearly wanting to talk to her. Thing is, Carter didn't want to. She didn't want it to end up somewhere she'd rather not think about. She came here to hunt and that's it.

"Do you want some help?" he eventually asked, sliding over the pile of notes, to sit on the swing with her.
"Doesn't look like I have much of a choice," she smiled, taking the pile from him and placing her legs on his lap instead.
"Find anything worthwhile?"
"Not anything we don't already know," she leaned her head back against the chain with a sigh.

For a few moments, the two merely watched each other, then looked away with shy smiles.

"We could uh, go back into town tomorrow. Maybe try to find the demons?" he suggested.
"Yeah," Carter distractedly nodded.
"What's on your mind?" Logan asked, seeing her sidetracked.

"Have you ever come across a doppelganger in your hunts?" she asked him, looking back into his eyes.
"Like a type of doppelganger, like a shapeshifter?" he confusedly looked at her.
"No I mean like an actual doppelganger, a literal evil twin," something dawned on her as she scrambled through the notes, pulling out a small Bible.

"Son of a bitch," she shook her head after reading a few moments.
"What?"
"'To everything there is a season,'" she read.
"That's not Revelations, it's Ecclesiastes," Logan pointed out.

"But it's about the futility of life. Y'know everyone dies, why bother? And it's about opposites. Love, hate. Life, death. Don't you see? Doppelgangers are the embodiment of evil in hunters, the exact opposite. Instead of saving people—"

"They're killing them. Specifically the hunters," Logan concluded, understanding where Carter was coming from, "But when does the seal break? How do we know it isn't already broken?"

"The demons wouldn't have come after me like they did if it had already been broken," she slammed the book shut with a sigh.

A low rumble of thunder echoed across the sky and the rain soon followed. Carter didn't mind the rain, it had a calming effect for her. She felt triumphant, knowing what the demons were playing at by creating the doppelgangers. She felt like she could really stop this seal from being broken and without the Winchesters. She only wished she knew why they were after her.

"Does she always snore like that?" Carter chuckled at the sleeping Tania.
"That's quiet compared to her usual," he smiled, "Come on. There's a bed upstairs."
"I hope you mean two," she smirked, leading the way up.
"Can't blame a guy for trying, right?" he grinned, "This way."

Logan led them to the corner room with two twin beds pressed against opposing walls. With another childish smile, Logan left Carter to change into her pajamas. But she didn't really feel all that tired. A fact she attributed to staying up so late with the Winchesters. Funny how often she thought about them.

"You decent?" Logan came striding in, with a hand clamped over his eyes.
"Not that it would've stopped you anyway," she rolled her eyes, briefly giving him a onceover in his boxers and t-shirt.

Oh my, how the times have changed, she mused with a smile to herself. Uncovering his eyes he came jumping onto her bed making her laugh. He rolled onto his side as she leaned back into the little niche his legs and his torso made. She forgot what it was like to be with her friends, to be with Logan. It made her feel like a teenager again, like the way a girl her age should feel. No demons, no angels, no apocalypse. Even if it was just for that night, just those few hours.

"I swear, it's not funny. He nearly killed me," Carter laughed, telling Logan about Todd's over-the-top reaction when she saw she was back.
"It's a little funny," he chuckled, glancing at the clock.

Carter let out small yawn, shifting onto her stomach next to Logan who was lying on his back with his arms tucked under his head.

"What did you do...After I died?" she hesitantly asked him, curiosity getting the better of her.

He looked at her, his bright smile slowly fading.

"It was um...not, something I was prepared for...even though I knew about it," he managed to say with some difficulty. And then he rolled on his side, his body heat radiating off of him as he got that much closer to Carter.

"I cried," he confessed, with just a hint of a smile, "I cried like a baby over your body for...hours. Until your mom and Todd showed up. Even though we had said good bye and I knew you were going to die, I cried."

"You know that I tried to find you, after I was brought back," she admitted, reflecting on that very day, "Your face was the first one I thought of and I went to your house looking for you. I thought, 'my God, I've been given a second chance. I can finally live my life the way I'm supposed to.' But instead of you, I found an angel. An angel who told me that there was a reason for dragging me out of hell and that I couldn't just live life," she bitterly recalls.

It all just came pouring out of her like some kind of dam had broken. Since the day she's met Cas, Carter shoved all her precious memories from her childhood to the back of her mind so she couldn't dwell on the happiness she could've had. For months, all she could remember were the bad things...the terrible things that her father did.

Until Pamela's funeral, where she was suddenly reminded of the friends she grew up with in Richmond. Ever since then, those memories came in flashes as a constant reminder of what she gave up. Carter knew now why she was always so bitter with Sam and Dean. She was blaming them for her new "life", blaming them for dragging her along trying to stop the seals from being broken. She was angry because she could never come to grips with the fact that the life she knew wasn't her life anymore.

She might have said that she wanted nothing to come out of this hunt but that was a lie. Carter had to face this past in order to move on. She had to let herself live there for just a moment just to know what could have been.

"Do you...remember, what happened in hell?" he quietly asked.

"Most of it," she said, seeing him wince, "For some reason I can't remember the last few months. Some of it is coming back but nothing I can make heads or tails of. I remember looking for something...a lake of fire that gives off darkness," she shook her head, everything going fuzzy like it always does when she thinks about that lake.

"Any other deep, meaningful questions you'd like to ask?" she quipped with a smirk.
"Yeah, but uh, it's not really a question."
"What then?" she furrowed her eyebrows.
"I think I'm going to kiss you now," he said, bringing her face closer.

Her smile fell away and nerves got the better of her. With Logan's fingers gently pressing into her cheek, her breath grew shallow and she closed her eyes long before they're lips met. When they did, Carter couldn't bring herself to pull away. She was just kissing him, hand raking through his messy blonde hair, leaning into his firm body. His arm tightened around her body, pulling her firmly to his chest as his hand sent shivers down her spine. She was practically on top of him when she forced herself to stop, her heart racing from the small encounter and apparently so was Logan.

"W-we should go to bed," she suggested, warmth still flooding her face.
"Yeah. Yeah ok," he agreed with a nod, but then pulled her lips back down onto his.

This time Logan lifted Carter on top of him, her legs on either side of him. Their kiss this time around was more fervent, and the way Carter clutched his shirt was more urgent. His hands dropped down to her legs, squeezing her thighs. A small moan escaped her lips as Logan move from her mouth to a spot on her neck that made her stomach flip and her body shudder. Confidence swelled in Carter's chest and swept aside her previous nerves, letting her sink into the feelings Logan was creating. But almost as if shaking her back into reality, a large clap of thunder startled the girl senseless.

"Holy crap," she breathed, immediately on her feet, fingertips running over her swollen lips in shock.

It wasn't a good thing—or at least didn't feel like one to Carter. She didn't know what came over her. This isn't what she had in mind when she thought about facing her past. Kissing him like that...it shook her up, set her on edge.

Her heart was racing from the shock and the prospect of what almost happened, and she raked a shaky hand through her long brown hair at a loss for words.

"Carter, I'm sorry," Logan shook his head, sitting up not expecting that reaction from her.
"No, no, no. It's not...your fault," she looked frantic, trying to piece together her thoughts, "I just...I-I...I need to get out of here."

She pulled a pair of jeans over her sleeper shorts and tugged a jacket over her shoulders, ignoring Logan's calls of protest. Lost in a frenzy of thoughts, Carter swiped the keys from the counter and barreled out into the storm. The walls felt like they were closing in around her and she struggled to breathe in that tiny room. There was nowhere Carter had in mind when she drove back into town and not many places were even open yet at three in the morning. As a result, she ended up parking the SUV in a vacant lot near a ghostly playground and park.

Trying to regain control of her breathing, she sank her forehead into the steering wheel and listened to the howling wind, raging booms of thunder, and the hammering of rain on the roof of the car. Exactly what Carter was so freaked out about, she couldn't pinpoint. Maybe it was the undeniable feelings she still has for her childhood friend or maybe it was the thrilling close contact she never thought she would be able to handle. But that's exactly what happened. She had no problem engrossing herself in Logan because she didn't think once about the fear her father had instilled in her.

It was something unknown for her. She never thought she could do something like that without thinking about him. Things just happened so fast in that room that she simply wasn't ready for.

Heaving a great sigh, Carter leaned back into her seat and wiped away the anxious tears she had built up. If she had known coming to New Haven would've been this hard, she never would've come.