REVAMPED AS OF APRIL 2014

Two months had passed since Sheriff Newsome's death – the final results of the investigation had concluded that his death was in fact a suicide, having discovered a note in his home. However, if they had hoped this meant the people in town could finally accept Mort back into the throng, so to speak, they were woefully mistaken. The suicide note from the Sheriff, as it turned out, had been a long, extensive manifesto of how the old man felt like a failure for his inability to catch Mort Rainey – and to the people of Tashmore Lake, that was still as good as murder.

The disappointment of the fact, however, was overshadowed by the fact that a rep from Penguin had given the okay on the first print run of a collection of Mort's short stories – his first comeback since his divorce. The ability to actually work again was only one of the good things to come out of being with Carmen.

"Come on, we have to celebrate!" Carmen said the instant Mort called her with the news. "At least let me have Rob and the girls over for a dinner. Something nice – it'll be fun!"

And so, Mort had found himself roped into dinner at Carmen's house, which admittedly was not too bad. If the people in town were extremely wary of Mort, the Carters and Rob had come to act like they had been friends with Mort all along as well. These group dinners were, admittedly, not something Mort was accustomed to, but he found that in the recent months since there had been no more John Shooter, and no more second Voice in his head, his life felt a lot less crowded - which meant that there was room for new people in it.

Much to Carmen's chagrin, the fact that her own friends had accepted Mort with open arms meant that they wanted very much to keep him in the loop about their circle of friends - tonight in particular, they had taken the liberty of bringing over a box of college photographs. They pulled out the photos of when they had all shared a flat in the city and lived off of Top Ramen and Bud Light. They only briefly flicked over the pages of an album which contained photos from the months Carmen and Rob had been a couple, including one from a college Halloween mixer where Carmen - donning a pixie cut - was dressed as a Vegas showgirl, getting a piggyback ride from Rob, who was dressed as a magician. Melanie was sitting on the ground and leaning against Rob's leg, dressed as a bunny.

The next photos were of Carmen through the door of the NYU computer labs, working on a spread for one of her journalism courses. Her hair an unnaturally bright shade of copper, twisted up into a bun and held in place by a pen as she stared intently at the computer screen. It was obviously dark out, which meant that it was either very early or very late, and she was clad in black sweats. Rob snidely pointed at that she looked a little bit like a Duracell battery.

"Can we stop talking about my bad dye job?" Carmen groaned, burying her face into a throw pillow as Andi held up the photo and the comments came on viciously from everyone else as well. She laughed and gave a piteous noise, shaking her head. "Next set of pictures! Come on -"

"Oh, I don't know, it's cute," Mort chuckled, picking up a photo that Chloe slid across the table to him. "The red is cute. Very Strawberry Shortcake."

Mort ducked as Carmen chucked a throw pillow in his direction, causing it to instead hit Rob, who was sitting in an armchair and sipping a beer. He held the bottle out of the way and avoided spilling, and pointed a finger jokingly at Carmen. "Hey – you are starting to get violent, Miss. Don't think that I've forgotten, you owe me. I'm the reason you and Mort first met! You're welcome."

"What?" Carmen asked in confusion, glancing over at Mort who could only shrug in response. "Rob, what are you talking about?"

"You don't remember? I used to be so into Mort Rainey's stuff when we were freshmen!" Rob said, gesturing wide with his arms. "I never mentioned it because I didn't want to be a creep, but – Mort, hey, I have always been a huge fan."

"Well, at least one of you reads my stuff, then," Mort chuckled, smirking in Carmen's direction, as even now, she had yet to read anything longer than Mort's shorter stories. "But, I hardly think that the fact that you were my fan is the reason she and I -"

"No, listen," Rob laughed, shaking his hand enthusiastically so he would be allowed to clarify. "Carmen, you remember where we worked when we first met? Freshman year at NYU?"

"The Dancing Crane, that cafe in Central Park, yeah," Carmen nodded. "We always worked weekends because no one else wanted to -"

"And one of those weekends, your boyfriend had a book signing on the veranda, remember? I was such a groupie back then, you reminded me about that several times," Rob said, raising his eyebrows and gesturing with his index finger. "I was so starstruck, I was lucky you were close by to cover for me because I couldn't even remember his order straight. I asked you to do me a solid and -"

"Oh god," Carmen said, her face dropping in realization. "Oh my god, no," she laughed, shaking her head in embarrassment. Mort looked between the pair in confusion - the two best friends seemed to have so many inside jokes, so many stories between them, that it was hard to keep track - and Rob decided it was finally time to end Mort's suspense.

"Here, I have the picture, hold on!" Rob said, reaching over and pulling out one of the yellow-gold Kodak envelopes of photos from their college years and sifting through until he found a pair of pictures in particular. The first was a picture of Rob, wearing a pair of glasses that Carmen still after all of these years was not sure even had lenses, smiling widely and giving a two-thumbs-up signal – sure enough there was Mort's head of hair in the background and his face only visible from the side as he sat at a table. Rob then switched to a second photo – Mort posing with Carmen and Rob graciously, as he surely had with many fans before.

"You remember?" Rob laughed, now holding the picture out to Mort. "Nah – I'm sure you don't, you've probably run into tons of fans that you don't even recognize. But you noticed Carmen taking the picture of you – and you said -"

"That you guys could have just asked, right," Mort nodded, chuckling vaguely as he stared down at the picture. "I – you know, I can't believe that was the two of you. What a -"

He looked up at Carmen, though, and saw that She didn't look quite as amused as everyone else was at this fascinating case of serendipity. Instead, her gaze was focused on the fourth person who has with them in the second picture.

Amy.

Back then, Amy and Mort had still been happy. At the time of the photograph, it had probably been when they were at their happiest - before they lost the baby. Mort had his hand warmly around his wife's waist, and Amy in turn was smiling brightly. It had been Amy, as it turned out, who had looped her arm through Carmen's and pulled her into the photograph. Now that he was looking at it, Mort had to admit that it was strange. Carmen and Amy, next to each other in the same photograph. It was strange to remember this Amy - the one who was warm and supportive of Mort's career, who helped him entertain his fans.

"Wow," Carmen said with a vague laugh, realizing that Mort was staring at her with concern. "That... is crazy."

"It's destiny," Mel spoke up with a grin. "It's the kind of stuff you only see in movies. All these little connections that you never even notice until everything's already fallen into place. It's like you guys were meant to meet -"

"Yeah, about four hair colors later," Andi pointed out with a grin.

"Destiny," Mel repeated insistently, a wide grin on her face. "I mean, look at Carmen - Rob, have you ever seen her like this? Not all - type-A and restless and always needing-"

"To tell everybody what to do all the time? She still does that to me," Rob smirked. "That's just how she shows you she's fond of you."

"Okay, you guys, this has been fun," Carmen interrupted, getting to her feet and making a slicing gesture with both hands to indicate that the conversation had come to a close. "But dinner's not over yet - this is Mort's celebration dinner, and I made a cake -"

"Babe, you really didn't have to do that," Mort said, feeling strangely bashful that Carmen had gone to the trouble of throwing him a dinner, troubling all of her friends because he honesty didn't have any. The closest he'd had to friends were Amy's brother and sister, who he sometimes played golf with years back - and obviously, they were no longer an option. "This is really -"

"A cake!" Mel said, laughing shrilly before she could help herself. "Oh my God, that's adorable!"

"Very domesticated - did you wear a little apron and everything?" Rob teased.

"It's cute!" Chloe chimed in, laughing uncontrollably as well. Carmen smirked and rolled her eyes a little, her cheeks reddening. "Mort Rainey, this one is wife material."

At that comment, the room went quiet - not uncomfortably so, but it was clear from the fact that Carmen and Mort made very sudden, unintended eye contact that marriage was a topic that had yet to come up... but had probably crossed their minds.

"That cake," Carmen laughed uncomfortably, rushing off to the kitchen. This, however, caused a mischievous grin to settle onto Mel Carter's face - Rob was the first to see it - and she got up, scooting closer to Mort. She didn't move quite as quickly as she would have a couple of months ago, with her growing bump getting in the way, but it wasn't too much of a hindrance yet.

"Saw that," Mel grinned. "The girls and I make a living on gossip, and we can spot something juicy from a mile away."

"You've thought about it," Andi said, leaning her elbows forward on her knees. Chloe smirked and crossed her legs, leaning back in her chair. Mort forgot how females friends were often like a pack of hyenas - it'd been years since he'd had to deal with them. He glanced, funnily enough, towards Rob, who shrugged and had no assistance to offer.

"How long was it before you proposed last time?" Mel asked quietly, raising her eyebrows in expectation. Mort actually needed to take a minute to think, and it was surprising that the thought of thinking about 'last time' didn't bring about a feeling of anger. Or nausea. Once he realized the answer to Mel's question, he chuckled to himself, shaking his head and letting out a low whistle.

"About six months," he admitted with a nod. "Six months."

The girls and Rob looked between one another, and Mel's grin was incredibly triumphant. "Just food for thought," she chimed in brightly before Carmen walked back in with the chocolate cake topped with raspberries.

"Holy crap, that actually looks good," Rob laughed, earning a glare from Carmen as she put the cake down on the table.

"It does, I'm calling pregnant-lady dibs after the guest of honor," Mel said, slowly getting to her feet.

It had been a slight debacle, trying to figure out a workable sleeping arrangement when it was decided everyone - save for Mel, of course - probably didn't need to be driving back into the city so late. Carmen immediately offered the master bedroom to Melanie out of pregnancy-reverence. She had only recently furnished the bedroom upstairs with beds, and in all honesty, Carmen had grown so accustomed to sleeping on the sofa bed that she could hardly get a proper night's sleep upstairs anymore anyway. It became a toss-up as to who got the guest bedroom, and Rob deferred the accommodations to Chloe and Andi, who were used to being roommates anyway.

"I'll hate to see your separation anxiety when one of you gets married," he joked as they threw an extra pillow and blanket down from the top of the stairs for him to us as he slept in the armchair in the living room. That left Carmen with the sofa, and she suggested Mort stay over as well - mostly because it saved the awkwardness of the alternative. If Mort went home, he'd be leaving Rob and Carmen to sleep alone... together... in the same room. Even if Mort had strangely come to regard Rob as a friendly acquaintance - even an actual friend at this point - they weren't buddies to the point that he trusted the guy with his girlfriend. So, with Rob settled into an armchair on the opposite end of the room from the sofa bed, the lights in the cabin finally went out.

"Good night, Jim Bob!" Carmen called out with a laugh, to which Mel replied from upstairs, "Good night, John Boy!"

Rob shook his head with a laugh, pulling the blanket over his head. It was funny how it took years for it to happen, but it seemed that Carmen and Melanie had finally realized that they had enough in common to be friends. Actual friends.

Despite the awkward knowledge that Carmen's ex-boyfriend - sorry, best friend - was sleeping across the room from them, Mort managed to fall asleep with Carmen nestled comfortably in his arms. As he dozed off, he noticed that she smelled pleasantly like cocoa. Cinnamon. It was probably from baking the cake earlier in the evening, and as his eyes fell shut, he mused that she smelled pleasantly like home, whatever that meant.

It was old habit, however, that Mort rarely slept straight through the night - he had a strange habit lately of setting an alarm for halfway through his sleep. Just a precaution, he always told Carmen if she happened to be staying over and his alarm woke her. While there had been no incidents as of late, things just tended to happen when Mort slept too soundly. And Carmen had been, to Mort's immense relief, incredibly understanding. Most nights, if the alarm woke her as well, she would get up and take a walk with him, or watch asinine infomercials for a few minutes before he deigned it safe to go back to sleep.

When Mort woke up at about two in the morning now, however, he stirred and realized that Carmen wasn't laying in the spot she had been in when they'd fallen asleep - she wasn't on the sofa bed at all. He instinctively glanced across the room and saw that Rob was still in the armchair by the fireplace that Carmen never used. The guy snored. No wonder Carmen didn't last long with him. Mort got up as quietly as he could and walked towards the kitchen, where he saw the back door open. Pulling his glasses out the pocket of the sweater he'd fallen asleep in, he slid them onto his face and saw figure sitting outside by the water - Carmen's 'back yard' fed almost directly into the lake, and he saw her sitting with a blanket wrapped around her on the tiny rickety excuse for a dock that jutted just into the most shallow part of the lake.

"Sleepwalking?" he asked, walking up behind her. She gave a quiet laugh, but didn't turn around to face him - that was never a good sign. Concerned, he sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, gently coaxing her to face him.

"I need to tell you something," she said quietly, her voice sounding tired. Mort couldn't help but stiffen slightly. That was not a tone of voice he ever looked forward to hearing. There were a great deal of very unpleasant things it could mean - she was leaving him. She wanted space. She wanted to see other people -

"I made the cake from a box."

"...Excuse me?"

Carmen buried her face in her hands for a minute before looking up at Mort, realizing that once she had said what was bothering her, he was trying extremely hard not to laugh. Carmen shook her arm out from under the blanket and swatted Mort's shoulder. "It's not funny!" Carmen groaned, running her hand over her hair. "Everyone made a huge deal out of the fact that I made you a cake, because I literally could never make anything but macaroni and cheese from a box. Or a frozen lasagna," Carmen reasoned. "And all of a sudden, I make a cake, and everyone's losing it because I'm domesticated and wife material, and it came from a box -"

Mort couldn't help but laugh, wrapping his arms around the woman in front of him and pulling her closer in the crisp, cold air. She sighed, burying her head in his shoulder and tossing the blanket around him from the other side so that they were both covered. "Don't laugh," she groaned miserably.

"I'm sorry," Mort said, biting the inside of his cheek and trying to comply. "But tonight was great -"

"Lie."

"No, I'm serious," Mort chuckled, adjusting the blanket around them. "I can't remember the last time anyone did something like this for me. And the cake was good. It didn't taste like it came from a box at all. But -" he inhaled and pulled back slightly, looking Carmen in the eye. "It's not just the cake, is it?" Carmen sighed, resting her head on Mort's shoulder and looking out at the water before shaking her head gently. "The picture? Is it bothering you?" Mort asked knowingly.

"I know it shouldn't," Carmen replied. "It's just - it's weird. Knowing that there was a time in our lives where our paths crossed before, and we didn't remember it at all. We just passed each other by without noticing or caring... and I don't know. It's a little scary. What if the day comes if you and me are just... a picture in a box that's tucked away in a closet?" she rambled sleepily.

"That's not going to happen. We're never going to be just an old picture in a box," Mort assured, giving Carmen a squeeze around her shoulders. "The only things you pack away in a box are the past, and I - I never want you to just be my past. I know that much."

Carmen seemed to have no response to for this, instead nestling closer into Mort's side. He gave a small lopsided grin as he wrapped the blanket more tightly around them. "Have you ever watched the sun come up over the lake?"

"Not yet," Carmen answered.

"Let's do it, then," Mort suggested. "It's - it's gorgeous. Amazing."

"It's still going to be hours before sunrise," Carmen laughed, shaking her head. She moved to give Mort a playful shove, but when her gaze met his, she noticed an almost Cheshire Cat-esque grin on his face as he snaked a hand onto her waist.

"Well, then," he chuckled. "I wonder how we can pass the time."

Mort guided Carmen so that they were laying side by side on the dock, the large blanket wrapped around them so that they were laying on top of it, but also covered by it like a collapsed tent. Carmen laughed when she pulled back, brushing her nose against Mort's. "Are you serious, Mort? Outside? You seriously want to do this outside?" she laughed. Mort smirked and gave his eyebrows a joking jolt, just barely visible by the moonlight under the blanket. Carmen laughed, pulling Mort closer and resuming the kiss.

Carmen and Mort didn't manage to wake up in time for sunrise, as it turned out - early morning sun, still partly obstructed by the trees, hit Carmen's eyes when she poked her head out of the blankets first, followed by a disheveled Mort Rainey. Straightening out their clothes, they got to their feet and walked back over to the house. Carmen smirked bashfully when, as they walked into the kitchen through the back door, Andi and Chloe were already awake to greet them as they had already helped themselves to coffee.

"Ugh, get a room, you two," Chloe laughed, shaking her head and grabbing a pair of mugs from the dish rack to pour them coffee as well. "And Mort, your shirt's inside out by the way."

"I have a room - it just currently has a pregnant lady sleeping in it," Carmen chuckled and Mort looked down at his shirt, then removed his arm from Carmen's waist to grab the back of his shirt to find that the tag was in fact on the outside. Andi and Chloe looked like they were about to make more comments - the small twig sticking out of Carmen's hair would have been a prime target - before the door from the living room opened, and Mel and Rob walked in together. Everyone in the room shared a glance, and Rob looked directly at Carmen with an expression that suddenly was begging for her to distract everyone. But - Rob and Mel. Mel and Rob. Carmen had to pinch the inside of her wrist to keep from laughing.

"So, guys," Carmen spoke up, clapping her hands loudly. "Breakfast?"