REVAMPED AS OF APRIL 2014

Carmen adjusted the pencil skirt and sweater she had borrowed from Mel, which were a little more snug than she was used to. It had been so long since she'd dressed even remotely like she was going to be in the office, it felt almost surreal to be standing in the lobby of the executive center that housed A-List Magazine - she remembered when she and Rob first picked out this office space. They'd been together back then, and they were taking a crazy gamble which now, judging by the fact that they were still in the space, had paid off.

"Hi, Diane," she said, walking up to the desk of the receptionist of the several businesses that leased their office space here. "Mr. Wallace is expecting me in about fifteen minutes?"

"Of course, Miss Anderson - you're looking fresh. And you've lost weight!" the woman said, buzzing Carmen on upstairs. Carmen, of course, hadn't really gained or lost much weight at all - she was just wearing much tighter clothes than she usually did, because this was the way Mel wore them.

Carmen tapped her foot impatiently as she rode up the elevator to the ninth floor, the whole of which was being used by A-List. It admittedly felt strangely nice, the way all of her old co-workers greeted her as she arrived, like a returning hero. She made her way through the office space to the door to what had once been her office - the nameplate had changed now, indicating that it belonged to Robert Wallace. She drummed her knuckles on the door.

"Mister Wallace, your four-thirty is waiting!" she said in a sing-song voice. He opened his door and smirked, shaking his head.

"Early as always."

"Where's this fire?"

Rob shut the door behind Carmen as she entered and hesitated before turning around to face her. He walked silently to his desk. drummed his fingers for a moment. He reached into one of his desk drawers and pulled out a slip of paper. "I found this for you."

Carmen shakily walked over and accepted the piece of paper from him, staring down at the writing on it a set of digits. She frowned and looked up at him. "Rob, I have your phone number already," she laughed, rolling her eyes - Rob's expression, however, didn't shift to mirror hers because he knew very well that it was fake. He'd known her long enough to know when she was putting on a show, and right now, she might as well have been dressed in drag and clown makeup, because that was probably the most blatantly fake laugh he had ever heard.

"It's the one thing you weren't able to dig up - you were in too much of a rush to get yourself killed to finish looking," Rob continued. "So I figured I'd take care of it before you did something else that could put you in the hospital."

"Rob, no..."

"I just thought you'd be interested," Rob said. "The papers that I picked up from the hospital when you were in the accident- -"

"No!" Carmen said loudly, dropping the slip of paper onto the desk as thought it had burned her. This, she realized as she felt her breath catching in her throat, had the potential to be very disastrous. Rob knew more than he was supposed to, and knowing more than one ought to when it came to Mort Rainey or John Shooter had a way of becoming very ugly, very quickly. "No! Don't tell me you read those! No one was supposed to know what was on those papers, that wasn't for you to see!"

"I don't care if it wasn't for me to see - it mattered to you. So, it's important. It matters," Rob said. He crossed his arms over himself and raised his eyebrows. "Just hear me out. The phone number belongs to Timothy Haley - it belongs to the man who killed your John Shooter. This is what you've been working so hard to figure out ever since you had that weird dream. Haley's alive, he lives in Massachusetts - you can finally get your answers."

"I don't want to."

"What do you mean you don't want to?" Rob asked in outrage, picking up the slip of paper and shoving it back in Carmen's direction. "You came crying to me about this Shooter, you wanted to get to the bottom of this, and now you don't want to see it through?"

"I'm down the rabbithole, Rob, I don't know what any of this is anymore!" Carmen said throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I don't know if I want the answers anymore, Rob - I didn't ask for this."

"But you're in it, Carmen, and you can't just run in blind - I'm terrified for you," Rob said, shaking his head, finally grabbing Carmen's hand and finally shoving the slip of paper into her palm. "But as your friend, I'm more terrified of you not knowing what's coming and not being able to prepare yourself."

Carmen was still holding her breath as she looked down at the paper in her hand again. Was this breaking one of Shooter's rules? Would getting the answers she had to admit she wanted from Timothy Haley put Mort in danger?

It still all came down to Mort. She clenched her eyes shut for a moment and finally exhaled.

"Can I use the phone here?"

"That'd be best," Rob said, handing the handset over to Carmen. "It's a secure line, in case anything goes wrong.

Now committed, Carmen walked around to sit on Rob's chair, dialing the number on the slip of paper. This was it - Timothy Haley was one of the few people who could possibly know anything about the real John Shooter, one of the few people who could prove that this wasn't all something that had come to life in Mort's head. And yet, Carmen found it terrifying - what if the answers she got made everything worse? And once she had them, what could she even do?

"Hello?"

Carmen could have sworn that her heart stopped when a man's voice on the other end answered - the hoarse voice of an old man. Had she dialed the wrong number? A strange feeling settled into her mind that she had heard this voice before.

"Hello?" she said quietly. "Mr. Haley?"

"Yes," he said suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"I need to ask you some questions. It's really important - I need to know what you know," Carmen said, trying to keep her voice form wavering. "About John Shooter."

"No." Haley said resolutely - immediately, as though she had just uttered a curse to him. "No, I'm sorry miss, but I don't know what you're talking about."

"Mister Haley, please," Carmen interrupted. "Please, you don't understand -"

"Are you a reporter? Or a detective?" he continued, his tone sharp and biting. "Because I've answered enough questions about John Shooter to last me a lifetime, and anything you want to know, I've already told someone else."

"Mr. Haley, wait, you don't understand!" Carmen said desperately. "My name's Carmen - Carmen Allen, I'm from New York, and this might be something very important."

"Miss Allen, is it?" he repeated. Suddenly, his voice turned cool, and he seemed strangely more willing to speak. Carmen found the sudden cooperation unsettling and was momentarily tempted to hang up - but she knew she couldn't. She had him where she wanted him, and if she didn't get the answers now, she might never get the chance again. "All right, Miss, since you seem concerned, I'll tell you what I can."

"Thank you," she said breathlessly. "Anything you can tell me - anything -"

"Since you called me, I'm sure you've heard the version of the story that everyone else knows," Timothy began carefully. At this point, Rob withdrew from the room quietly to allow Carmen to get her answers in peace - she was admittedly thankful for it, as having Rob around made this situation all the more uncomfortable.

"The papers said that you were brought to a mental institution," Carmen said carefully. "After - after what happened to your family. You had dreams too. Bad ones. The hallucinations -"

"They weren't hallucinations," Timothy said gravely. "They were real. It was because of her - she went insane, and that's why she did this to us. Shooter's wife Arby disappeared after what happened to him, got into all of the wrong things. Voodoo -"

"Voodoo, Mr. Haley?" Carmen asked skeptically, unable to help but interrupt. "As in, witch doctors, lucky rabbits' feet, magic potions - is that what you're trying to say?"

"Precisely," Haley said, without a hint of amusement in his voice. "After John was killed, she got desperate. Before she went and killed herself, she got one of those hokey old witch doctors to put a curse on anyone who stole something of her husband's - that's what happened to me. I didn't figure it out until it was too late."

"That's not possible," Carmen said, her hand that gripped the phone now clenched around it so tightly that her knuckles went white. "Mr. Haley, those things aren't real, you can't expect me to believe -"

"You don't believe in it?" he said - his voice was now slow and calculating, gauging Carmen's every reaction. "Neither did I at first. But then, I started hearing Shooter's voice, seeing his face - was like he followed me everywhere. He killed my family, I know he did. I saw all the signs" He took a deep heaving breath. "It wasn't until afterwards I learned that...it was all me."

"No..."

"Something the matter, Miss Allen?"

"Someone very dear to me... Someone I lo-" she cut herself off and cleared her throat. "A friend of mine, he's been seeing things. He's seen Shooter. All of these things have been happening to us, and I don't know why. Is it possible that perhaps Shooter didn't die that night...with the tractor? Could he have been alive? He could still be- -"

"No." He interrupted.

"But - -"

"It's not possible. Shooter is dead - I killed him. I saw when they pulled his body out from underneath that tractor," Haley snapped adamantly. Then, in a low, gravelly voice, he said, "You'd be wise keep away from your friend. He'll be putting a gun to his own head any time now, and he won't hesitate to put it to yours first. He's got something Shooter wants - and if you have something Shooter thinks is his, it's always gonna go the same way, Miss. Always."

"Mister Haley, what do you mean by -"

Carmen cursed loudly as she heard Timothy Haley hang up - she slammed the receiver down and buried her head in her hands. At that moment, Rob slowly pulled the door open, having been lingering outside until she finished. He glanced inside and cleared his throat.

"Carmen?" Rob asked. "Are you all right?"

"No," Carmen said. "Did you hear anything?"

"No," Rob replied. "I make a lot of confidential business calls - but I could see you slam that receiver down."

"If it's broken, I'll replace it."

"Actually, there's something else I want to ask of you," Rob said. "I have someone else here -"

"Oh, god, you have another appointment?" Carmen said, standing up in realization. "I'm so sorry -"

"No. I have someone here to see you..."

Rob opened the door the rest of the way and revealed that someone else had been standing next to him - someone else by the name of Mort Rainey. Carmen's eyes widened at the sight of him, clad in jeans and a rather threadbare sweater, and she looked at Rob questioningly.

"I called him to meet you here -"

"You called him!" Carmen said shrilly. Thankfully by now, many of the employees in the office had left - but still, she gave a huff and walked over, grabbing both men by their sleeves and pulling them inside, closing the door behind them. "So now all of a sudden, you and my boyfriend are all buddy-buddy -"

"No - I called him for you. Because I know you love him. You love him like I've never seen you love anybody," Rob said, and Mort noticed for the first time that there was a look of pain in the younger man's expression when he said this. "And as your friend, I can't let you throw away something that makes you happy just because you're scared - you're so used to your lovelife being a shitshow -"

"It is not a shitshow -"

"Don't kid yourself," Rob said, shaking his head. Mort suddenly felt very strange being in the room for this conversation and looked away awkwardly, shuffling his feet and hoping it would be over soon. "Even when you were with me, we were a shitshow, because you were too scared of getting close to anyone. You liked the arguments. You liked the fact that it could blow up in your face any minute and give you and excuse to leave. Before this guy, you were let down time after time and I stood by and let you do it - but I'm not going to stand by and let you go back to that if this guy is who makes you happy. So talk."

And with that, Rob walked off, shutting the door and leaving Carmen alone with Mort in his office. She crossed her arms, refusing to look at him. He, on the other hand, had spent the entire drive from Tashmore Lake working up the courage to have a conversation like this - it wasn't something he had done for a very long time, and he wasn't sure he was capable of it. But Rob Wallace - the man that Mort could tell plain as day still had feelings lingering for Carmen like Chinese takeout boxes sitting in the back of the fridge - had called him. Rather than being the shoulder to cry on, Rob had called Mort. That had to be something. This was something different than Mort had ever experienced, and he decided that something so new called for him to act new.

"You scared the shit out of me," Mort said, walking over and planting his hands firmly on Carmen's shoulders. "You disappeared, you don't answer your phone - I was scared that you'd died -"

"I thought that'd be a good thing, then I'd be exactly like Amy."

"Carmen," he said, giving her a gentle shake. "Where are you getting this from? I don't want you to be Amy. After what she did, why would I want another Amy in my life? I - I don't know what you want me to say -"

"I want you to say that I'm more than a replacement!"

"Who said you were a replacement?" Mort said, his face suddenly adopting an expression of anger. "Who told you that? Was it someone in town?"

"No - I..." Carmen said, shaking her head, her face suddenly filling with fear that Mort couldn't understand. What was she afraid of? Him?"No one said it to me," she said quickly. "I just - I asked a question, and you couldn't answer it. I don't know what else to think -"

"You don't seriously think that it's the same thing, do you?" Mort said, moving his hands up to cup Carmen's face so that she couldn't evade his gaze. "Carmen - it's different. It's two different things. I love you, and I trust you. I fell in love with Amy at a time where I believed in everything. I fell in love with you at a time I believed in nothing - it's different. It's so different, and I don't know how you can't tell how different it is. You changed everything, Carmen. You're the only one who came around and stayed because I was just enough."

"So you only love me because I fixed everything -"

"You fixed everything because I love you."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

"No," Mort said, shaking his head before resting his forehead against hers. "It's not the same. I don't know how to explain it, but it's not. I can't come up with the words, because lately, the words only come to me when you're around. I know you deserve an explanation. I know - but I'm not capable of giving it to you if you leave me alone like this. So.. just come home, okay? Come home, so I can find words that you might believe. Please."

Carmen inhaled sharply, clenching her eyes shut and realizing she was about to do something she hated doing - she was about to cry. She gulped hard, willing it to go away, only to find that it wouldn't. Melanie had been right, love wasn't as simple as Carmen thought. It was insane and overwhelming, but at the same time, it was fulfilling... it was irresistible.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Mort repeated in disbelief. "You - you're really going to -"

"I'll come back," Carmen nodded through tears. "I just - I'm gonna say bye to Rob, thank Mel and the girls. And I'll meet you at your place, okay?"

Mort stared for a moment and hesitated before leaning over and kissing Carmen's forehead. "I love you, babe," he said quietly. "I love you."

"I love you too," Carmen said with a quiet smile. Mort lingered for a moment, staring Carmen over - she looked different, not even in her own clothes - and inexplicably felt moved to hold her again, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He stayed that way just for a few seconds before pulling away and walking out the door. He backed away towards the door, opening it and finding Rob lingering outside. Mort paused awkwardly, cleared his throat, and nodded at the man.

"Thank you," he said stiffly, reaching his hand out for a handshake - it seemed a good idea, anyway. Rob reached out and shook Mort's hand, nodding.

"Take care of her."

"Yeah. I will."

Mort hurried back down the stairs - he was crossing his fingers that he'd put the coins in the right parking meter - leaving Carmen still standing in Rob's office. Rob walked over and stood in front of her hesitantly, cocking his head to one side and waiting for some show of a reaction.

"I can't believe you did that," Carmen said, shaking her head. Her voice was quiet and tired - but not angry. "You called Mort to come out here."

"I told you," Rob shrugged, scratching the back of his neck. "When it comes to you, I can't help it."

Carmen launched herself forward and hugged Rob, giving a relieved sigh - and Rob knew, it was because this was the first time that he had ever made efforts to try and help Carmen stay with someone else, not break things off. "You're one hell of a best friend, Mister Wallace," Carmen chuckled, hugging him warmly. Rob smiled and returned the embrace with one arm.

"Someone needs to clean up after you."

Carmen laughed, pulling back and playfully swatting him on the arm. Rob rolled his eyes and laughed as well - Carmen was so petite that he couldn't even feign being hurt without laughing.

"Pizza at Umberto's before you head back to the boonies?" Rob asked hopefully, nodding towards the door. Carmen paused for a moment, considering whether or not she could spare the time, and nodded.

"One slice," she agreed. "And maybe another to-go."

It was already dark when Mort arrived back home in Tashmore Lake after traffic - he certainly didn't miss that about living close to the city. It was loud and stressful and exactly the reason he'd decided to fix up his parents' old vacation home in the mountains of Tashmore Lake. He hoped that Carmen didn't get stuck in the traffic for too long. He didn't like the idea of her being behind the wheel at all after the accident, but after a few months with the woman, he knew that the suggestion that she needed to be driven around would not be a welcome one.

He felt pretty good to be honest. It was nice, even if a little strange, that the subject of Amy was no longer an elephant in the room. Mort whistled pleasantly to himself - "Endless Love", because Carmen had pressed him to watch it with her while she had been stuck recovering in bed - as he made his was up the steps. He froze, however, when he saw a folded note taped onto his screen door. Hesitantly, he reached out and unfolded it. A clipping from the evening paper fell to the ground, and Mort crouched to pick it up. After a few seconds of squinting to see it in the dim porch lighting, he caved and opened his door, turning on the light in the living room.

He dropped the clipping back to the ground immediately upon reading the headline: Tashmore Lake Sheriff Found Dead. He looked back at the paper that the clipping had been folded into - in unfamiliar scrawl was written one phrase:

We knew it was you.

Mort let out an agonized noise - he couldn't have done it. He couldn't have. He entwined his fingers in his own hair, giving a mighty tug and pacing into the kitchen, opening the small cabinet atop the stove that he hadn't opened in almost a year. He'd done so well - a part of him didn't want to do this. But the bottle of Jack Daniels was the only thing that could clear his mind right now. He opened the bottle and took a mighty swig, throwing himself on the couch.

You're in trouble. You're in very big trouble.

"I was sleeping all night last night."

Sleeping? What's that over there on the mantelpiece, then?

Mort glanced over fearfully and was dumbstruck by the sight of another empty bottle of Jack Daniels - and a black wide-brimmed hat perched atop it. Had it been there before? He'd been drinking? He couldn't remember... he only remembered going to sleep. He remembered it being fitful, because he had gone to Carmen's house to try and talk to her and she hadn't been there, so he came home. He had decided to take a nap. That was all.

Did you do it?

"Do what?" Mort asked, shaking his head fervently. "Do what?!"

Drink the Jack? Kill the Sheriff?

"No..." Mort said, reflexively starting to rock back and forth where he sat. "No, no, I didn't... I didn't do any of it..."

Original A/N's

punkdpirate: Update come soon enough for ya? Haha. Well, We saw a little conversation over the phone between Mort and Carmen, but that didn't turn out very pleasant. When they meet in person, maybe you'll find things relatively better.

lordoftheringsfanficreader: Haha, Carmen makes an interesting drunk. I don't know if she'll be doing it again, though. Consider it one of your only chances to see Carmen letting loose.

over-dramatic-05: Gaaah! I forgot all about the white-after-Labor-Day rule! Haha. I'm not sure what the exact date is in my story right now, but I'm absolutely certain it's after Labor Day. Talk about faux pas, hehe.

Dawnie-7: Oh, yeah, Carmen can get very naughty, haha. You're taking good care of Jack, aren't you? haha.

Uh oh, SPAGHETTIOS! Somebody's died. I bet SOMEBODY can guess who it is!