Hello everyone!

If you remember, Carter's mom died in childbirth with Carter, so the two have never met. After she passed, social workers were able to find John, and Carter went to live with him when she was two months old. This chapter kinda explains what Carter's mom's (Annmarie) family consisted of, and what her life was like. I wanted to show the possible relationships here, and how that could impact Carter's future. I hope you enjoy!

Ages:

Carter: 17

Dean: 30

Sam: 26

Takes place in season 5

Warnings: nothing

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, I'm just playing with the characters

Her heart pounded in her chest and shook her breathing. Fingertips smoothed down the edges of her wrinkled flannel and she took in a shaky breath. The quiet of the neighborhood around her swarmed in her ears. It was the middle of the day, April, and a weekday. The only people home were housewives with small kids and old people. A group of birds overhead fluttered from a nearby tree and took off towards the town's lake, just blocks away.

Driving through the town not long ago, Carter had noted how picturesque it was. The bottom half of a smaller lake poked into the town, and charming bed and breakfasts, restaurants, and cottages grew around it. Trimmed sidewalks you'd feel safe walking your kids down lined every single street on both sides, and visitors actually respected the "opposite side parking" signs. A small elementary school with "We Love Our Students!" posters sat near the center of town, flanked by an impressive playground. Surrounding all of this were little family homes, so perfect it looked fake.

And here she was, standing at the door of one of them. With two red rose bushes along the sidewalk, a power washed walkway, and a little gnome trio guarding the house. On the yellow front door was a springtime wreath, decorated with fake flowers and a "spring" wooden plague.

Carter tugged on her shirt again, cursing herself for only having a few shirts, all of which were dirty already. A small voice behind the door calling out pulled her head up, and the yellow door opened.

A small, elderly woman stood in front of her, a thin screen door separating them. She had a mop of white hair piled into a bun on top of her head, and knit eyebrows to match it. She looked like one of the cool grandmas, who played cribbage on weekends and gave candy to her grandkids. Someone who wore the latest fashions and actually liked the neighborhood kids.

"Can I help you?" A warm smile coated her face as she took in her visitor.

"Um," Carter stumbled, unsure of how to broach the topic. Instead, she decided the best place was to start with introductions, and let her name speak for itself. "I'm Carter. Carter Winchester."

The smile slipped from the woman's face. "Oh."

"I'm your granddaughter," she added, because the woman's expression tripped Carter.

The woman, Clara, looked her up and down, eyes roaming her whole body before checking the neighborhood behind her. Then again, she rested her brown eyes on the ones that matched her granddaughter's. "Maybe you should come in."

Carter was ushered into the house and led to the living room, passing through a hallway covered in pictures of a lanky blond girl and a chubby blond boy throughout the ages. Clara led her to the living room, which was completely devoid of pictures and instead was decorated in a beach theme. Dark blue couches, seashells on the mantel, and fake anchors on the walls. The kitchen connected to the room through an arched doorway, through which Carter could see a strainer full of dishes and empty ramen containers.

"So I guess you have some questions, huh?" Clara welcomed Carter to sit on the blue couch while she picked up stray magazines and the morning's coffee cup and breakfast plate. The dishes were purple, a color so stark in comparison to the rest of the room that it made Carter's eyes hurt.

"You could say that," Carter mumbled. Clara carried the dishes into the kitchen, and when she came out, she wouldn't look her granddaughter in the eyes. Carter had no idea where to start, she had so many questions. "Do you happen to have any pictures of my mom?"

She had never seen her mom before. Not a single picture of her landed in her father's hands, and so the woman had been a mystery. She often tried to pry information out of John, such as her hair color, if she was tall, if she was pretty. She got nothing. John remained as quiet on the topic as he could, saying only that he knew her for one night and he couldn't remember what she looked like. Whether that was a lie or not, Carter could never tell.

Clara nodded her head, mumbling, "Sure, sure, um let's see what I can get." She walked back out into the hallway full of pictures and pulled two off the wall. Handing them to Carter, she plopped down on the armchair, fussing with the pillow.

Taking the pictures into her hands, she gazed down at the blond girl, Annmarie. One picture was her high school graduation, and the other was her and the little blond boy also decorating the hall. A little brother, perhaps?

"Is this her brother?"

"Alex, yes. They were four years apart."

A hitch caught in her throat as she gazed down at her uncle, a thought that had never occurred to her. "I have an uncle? Where is he?" She turned to Clara, a hopeful gleam in her eye.

Clara refused to look at her. "He passed away not long after my Annie. Car accident."

As fast as she inflated, Carter now deflated, sinking deep into the blue couch. "Oh." Her eyes moved back to Annmarie, gazing over her every feature and flaw. Taking in the way she smiled, how she parted her hair, and how her eyes crinkled. The only feature that matched Carter's were the eyes. Brown, with deep creases whenever she smiled.

"What was she like?"

Clara sighed and got up, feet taking her to the mantle where she absentmindedly adjusted the shells. "Strong, I always envied that of her. She didn't care what anyone thought of her, she just did her own thing." She picked up a shell and rubbed off a fleck of dust with a frown. "Outgoing, too. Oh, she was at all the parties, all the bars. I could never keep her home long enough to say hi, let alone eat dinner together."

Carter gazed down at the high school picture as her grandmother talked, trying to imagine the blond girl going to parties and bars, hanging out until the early morning hours, barely seeing her family. Carter couldn't imagine spending that much time away from her family. She saw her family pretty much everyday, would spend hours upon hours with them sometimes.

"Is that when she met my dad? At a bar?"

Putting the seashell down with a whump, Clara stiffened. "That's what she said."

When Clara neglected to continue, Carter asked, "What else did she say about him?"

She sighed and put her hands in her pockets, refusing to look at her granddaughter, and instead focused on the beach painting above the mantle. "She said she'd met the man of her dreams, and that to mark her words, she'd marry him. Of course, he left two days later, never returned her calls, and she found out she was pregnant weeks later with you. After that, she completely forgot about your father and focused solely on you."

"She was happy about me?"

"She had your name, nursery, and whole life planned out before the third trimester. She told everyone she knew about you, and couldn't wait to show you off."

Carter sat back in her seat, stunned. She had never imagined how her mother might feel about her. She always thought she was a burden, just an accidental life that screwed her mother up. Not just screwed her up, but that killed her. She never thought she could have been wanted so much.

How different would her life have been? If her mom hadn't died, if she never lived with her dad and Sam and Dean. She wouldn't be a hunter, wouldn't have even known monsters existed. What bliss that would be. She would have been raised by a single mother, would live in the small lake town with her grandmother nearby. There wouldn't be a need to travel around the country, so the same school district would see her through the years. She'd have made stable friendships, long lasting ones even. There'd be no doubt she'd go to college, graduate with debt but a great job ahead. Eventually she'd even start her own family, with her mother as the loving, spoiling grandmother just down the block.

It would be the white picket fence, apple pie everyday life.

But … then she never would have met Sam and Dean, and probably not even her dad. They were her family, the ones who would have risked their lives to save each other and the world. Sam and Dean were her best friends, people she could spend 24 hours with every day of the year. Sure, they got on each other's nerves, and sure she wanted to punch them sometimes, but at the end of the day they were her everything.

She could never give them up for anything, not even for a promise of apple pie life.

Waves crashing and a bell tolling sounded through the house, stirring both occupants of their actions. Carter looked up and watched the large wall clock chime 2:00 PM. Putting down another seashell and stiffening her back, Clara turned around and looked at her granddaughter for the first time that day. "It's time for you to go now, I have a meeting to get to." Her voice was crisp and cold, demanding no wiggle room.

Carter fumbled, the command pulling her off guard. "Oh, of course, right." She gently stacked the two picture frames on top of each other and stood up. "Maybe we could get together tomorrow? We could go out to dinner and get to know each other more. You could bring some more pictures too, I'd love to see more."

"No, I don't think so."

"What?" Carter's face froze.

Clara sighed and looked away from her granddaughter's surprised face. "Look, you seem like a nice kid and all, but this is where we stop. I loved my Annie, but when she told me she was pregnant, I was less than thrilled. I told her to get an abortion because she wasn't ready to be a mother, especially not with a deadbeat who left her."

"My dad was not a deadbeat," Carter warned with fire in her bite.

"Maybe not now, but back before Annie died, he would have been. With Annie out partying, and your father gone, I would've been left to parent you," Clara spit, knowing her words were cutting dead and hard. But she didn't care, not about her demeanor nor about the child in front of her. "But I already raised my kids, I didn't want to do it again, and I don't want to do it now."

Carter bit her lip and balled her fist, trying anything to stop her from hitting the woman in front of her, grandmother or not. "I'm not asking for a parent, I'm just looking for family."

Sighing, Clara turned around and reached into the end table by her chair. She dug around, seashells and sand falling out as she searched. Carter took that time to compose herself and wiped away any forming tears. Finally finding what she wanted, Clara stood up and hesitated before handing it to Carter.

The thick polaroid landed in her hands, the pregnant face of her mother shining back. Her large belly bulged in front of her, hands wrapping around it as she gazed lovingly at the camera. Blond hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she wore a Christmas sweater with workout shorts. In thick black marker on the bottom was written, "Annmarie, six months, December 1991."

"Keep it, she would want you to have it."

Carter gripped it in her hands, glad to finally have a little piece of her mother. In turn, she handed back the picture frames.

"I'll show you out," Clara said, ushering Carter out of the beach themed living room and through the picture framed hallway. The large front door opened and let the cool spring air into the tense house. Carter stepped towards the stoop, but stopped.

"Look, I'm sorry about your daughter," she turned to look Clara in the eyes. "And thank you for meeting me anyway. I'll be two towns over for a couple more days if you change your mind."

With that, Carter turned and walked away. Gripping her mother's picture, she strode down the sparkling walkway and past the gnome trio. The heavy yellow door slammed behind her without another word, the springtime wreath knocking against it helplessly. As she turned onto the sidewalk, the red rose bush snagged her dirty jeans, leaving behind a tiny bloody hole in her skin.

Walking back to her junker car, the image of her brothers came to mind. All her life, all she wanted was a perfect family, a whole family. A mom, a dad, siblings. In a happy home, in a happy town, with a happy life. Parents that loved each other, and worked normal jobs. Siblings that were actual siblings, not stand in parents.

She thought, if only she could meet her mom's family. Maybe there was a loving grandma and grandpa waiting for her. Maybe this connection was the missing piece. And with it, her whole family would be perfect.

But what she got was a dead mom, a dead alcoholic dad, brothers that told her what to do, and a grandma that hated her. Her circle was small, so small that she could fit everyone in the palm of her hand.

But hell what she wouldn't do for those few. That was the drawback, I guess.

She didn't have many people, but she had the best.

Thanks for reading! Reviews, favorites, and follows are greatly appreciated!

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