REVAMPED AS OF APRIL 2014

"I - I didn't sign up for anything like this, you know?"

Rob and Carmen were sitting in his living room, the coffee table littered with empty beer bottles. They'd both agreed they needed to take the edge off of the day they'd had, and both had downed a few before they'd gotten to this point in the conversation.

"But I guess it's just my luck. Just my rotten fucking luck," Rob chuckled drunkenly, shaking his head. "Every time I fall in love with someone, something has to go wrong. My girlfriend is sitting in a psych ward because she tried to off herself and there's nothing I can do."

"At least you still have a girlfriend," Carmen said, swirling the minimal contents of her own beer and staring into the bottle a little more intently than she needed to. Carmen was wearing her own jeans, but a sweatshirt borrowed from Rob as her clothes were still in her bag that she'd left in Mort's car. She realized that eventually, he'd probably come to her place to return it, and Carmen would have to deal with seeing again in whatever this situation they had was. "At least you know when she gets out, she's still gonna need you and want to be with you. I have nobody -"

"Don't say that," Rob said, reaching over and gently shoving Carmen's shoulder. "You have me. You've always had me..."

And in a sudden lapse of judgment, he leaned over and pressed his lips to Carmen's - for a few seconds, she returned the kiss, but then pushed him away with a confused expression. "Rob - you know we're no good together. You're just freaked out right now -"

"No - I know what I'm doing," he said drunkenly, leaning forward to try and kiss her again, only to have her lean out of the way not that she was a little more prepared. "You and I were always - just... you know... simple. I miss us. I miss things being simple."

"We were twenty-one, of course we were simple," Carmen groaned. "We didn't have lives yet - we had classes and Top Ramen and Budweiser. We had an apartment. We had hangovers. But now, you love Melanie, and... and I love Mort..." she continued with only a small betrayal of the sadness that it made her feel. "And just because you and I are in... really bad places right now..." she said, frowning with uncharacteristic difficulty at finding the words, "...doesn't mean that we throw away everything and go back to using us as a security blanket because we're scared. People miss simple because it's easy... but simple isn't always the same as what makes you happy."

Rob laughed, then groaned and buried his head in his hands, dropping his empty bottle to the floor with a clatter. "I'm an idiot. I'm such an idiot," he drawled, shaking his head. "You're always gonna matter to me, you know?"

"I know," Carmen said, her eyes growing slightly bleary as though she needed to sleep. "But you've got a new number one now. So do I - well, I did."

"You do," Rob agreed, looking up. "Whether you're together or not, you'll still do anything for him - he's your number one," he said with a sad smile. "I guess he lucked out and caught you at a time when you were ready -"

"But he isn't," Carmen shrugged. "And it - it sucks."

It sucks. That seemed to be the best possible summary of their situation at this point, as neither seemed to have anything else to say afterwards until both of them snoozed off on opposite ends of the couch. Carmen, however, was soon tossing and turning, muttering in a fitful, peaceless slumber.

"Mama - mama, I spilled my coke on my dress!"

The little girl, clad in a yellow dress now besmirched with a soda spill on the front of her skirt, ran up to her mother and tugged on the woman's arm. "I was just playin' with Theodore and the others and I stopped to take a drink n' they knocked it over, honest!"

"Carmen, baby," the beautiful woman said, crouching down and looking at the blemish on her daughter's dress, clicking her tongue and smoothing a hand over the little girl's pigtails, which were now riddled with tiny little ends of hair poking out along their length from having played with the boys all afternoon. "That'll come right out -"

Carmen was watching the scene from the outside - but she knew somehow that this was no coincidence. It was a memory. She walked closer and stared hard, eyeing both the young girl and her mother in disbelief.

"No, it won't! It's dirty!" younger Carmen yelped, gesturing with sticky hands that had obviously tried to clean up the coke spill to no avail.

"Don't let your father hear you cryin' like that, or Theodore and the boys are gonna get hell from your daddy - you know he don't like them pickin' on you," her mother chided lovingly. "Remember, just 'cause they done picked on you don't mean you need'a pick on them back." Carmen pouted, just as the young boys came running over.

"You done snitched! I knew it!" the little boy lisped through his missing teeth. "I knew you would snitch!"

"I did not!" Carmen snapped back, stomping her foot. "You take that back, Theodore - Daddy!"

At the sound of the little girl's cry, a man a bit of a way off turned around, distracted from the conversation he was in. The man was clad in a plaid shirt, and wide-brimmed black hat. He chuckled fondly at his daughter and cupped a hand around his mouth so his voice would carry over to her. "Don't mind them boys, darlin' - c'mere, all of ya! Mister and Missus Haley want a photo of all of us..."

A photo. Carmen knew exactly which photo was being taken. She watched as all of the figures rushed over and assumed the same pose as she had seen. Her eyes rested on the wife, who had so lovingly tried to comfort the little girl form of Carmen, and a sense of recognition washed over her. Of course she recognized this woman. It was Arby Shooter. Barbara Allen Shooter.

Carmen felt a wrenching sensation in her gut as suddenly, the father in the scene turned and looked directly at her - the only person to even see her there. Suddenly, the surroundings were black except for the pair of them, and he disappeared, materializing right in front of her. Only now, his smile was no longer warm and loving, but threatening.

"Shooter."

"I don't trust Mister Rainey to keep his word," he said calmly. "I'm afraid I'll need to be makin' sure he don't touch anything of mine again..."

"Mort!" Carmen cried shrilly, sitting bolt upright and jolting Rob awake as well. He rubbed his eyes slightly and looked at her in confusion, shaking his head in hopes of an explanation. "Rob, something bad is going to happen to Mort -"

"Carmen, it's four in the morning -"

"Give me the car keys, I need to go," she said, holding her hand out in demand. "I need to leave, now, before it's too late -"

"No," Rob said sternly, but he still reached over to the coffee table between the bottles of beer from the previous night and picked up his car keys. At this point, he was in no position to dismiss Carmen's bad dreams - he was in no position to dismiss much of anything anymore. "If you're going to go out there, I'm going with you."

Still a mess, the pair got into the car and made the drive up to Tashmore Lake - Carmen's gaze out the windshield at the road ahead of them was intense and focused. She fidgeted in her seat - she tugged at her seatbelt like it was suffocating her, grasped the armrest so tightly that her knuckles went white. She drew her knees up to her chest - she put them down again. As they finally drew close to town, she looked at Rob and inhaled deeply.

"I don't know if I'm right... but if I am, and something goes on, stay in the car. No matter what," she directed. "Whatever you hear or see, just stay in the car. And if something bad happens to me -"

"What are you talking about?" Rob snapped, looking at his best friend so suddenly that it almost caused him to swerve off of the road. "What do you think -"

"If something bad happens to me," Carmen pressed on, not turning her head to look at Rob. "All I want from you is for you to promise Mort will get out safe. People in town are going to talk, but no matter what, you do what you need to do to clear Mort's name, okay?" Rob couldn't answer - he couldn't even understand what Carmen was saying, so the remainder of the drive up Lake Drive to Mort's house was silent. He cupped his hands over his face and exhaled, shutting his eyes as Carmen got out, while he stayed in the driver's seat as directed.

As Carmen made her way up the porch steps, she saw even in the early morning light that the door was open - she pushed it the rest of the way and walked inside, expecting to see Mort sitting or sleeping on his sofa. But he wasn't there. The house was completely silent. Was she too late?

"Mort?" she called out into the emptiness of the living room, receiving now response. "Mort, if you're here, answer me!"

There was silence still, and it was then that Carmen finally had a look around the room. Her eyes drifted to Mort's mantelpiece and she realized what she was looking at: a wide-brimmed black hat. It was Shooter's hat, the same one they had destroyed in the fireplace, and yet here it was. For the first time, she looked at it - really looked at it - and realized just how familiar it was. She ran her hands over it, and she simply stared. The first time she had laid hands on it, in practically this same spot, she had been disgusted by it. Now, there was something about it that seemed fascinating - hypnotic, even. She had seen the old thing crumble to ashes, and it came back.

It came back for her.

Put it on...

Consumed by a sudden feeling - curiosity or something else, something deeper - she obliged, shakily raising the hat and placing it on her head.

"Atta girl," came a voice over her shoulder. Carmen turned around, and a strange blank smile crossed her face as she looked at the empty staircase.

Meanwhile, Mort was upstairs - he had fallen asleep next to the window in the attic, and was suddenly roused by the sound of a car approaching. It took him a short while to fully wake up, but when he did, he got up and crossed the room to look out the opposite side window. The silver Mercedes Benz that Rob had once loaned to Carmen was parked outside. Jarred, Mort walked over to the stairs and began walking down to the living room, only to find Carmen standing in his living room, already staring at the stairs as though she was waiting for him. But he didn't see a hat - he merely saw her reach up and adjust something as though she had something on her head.

"Carmen." He said firmly. She didn't budge. "What are you doing here?" He stopped in his tracks when he got a good look at her face - her eyes were glassy and unfocused, but a strange, eerie grin twisted her lips in a manner with which he was completely unfamiliar. He hesitated before taking a few more steps towards her. "Carmen?"

"I'm afraid she ain't here no more."

The voice came with movement of Carmen's lips, but the voice Mort heard wasn't hers. It wasn't even that of a woman - instead, he froze again upon realizing that when Carmen opened her mouth, he heard the voice of John Shooter.

"Let her go," Mort said shakily, unwilling to come closer, because if a fight ensued, he would have to hurt the woman he loved, which he knew he would be unable to do. "She doesn't have anything to do with your - your issue with me, Shooter!"

"She's got everything to do with us, Mister Rainey," Shooter snarled, causing Carmen's face to contort in fury. "Her and her friends. She ain't yours to take, and she wasn't theirs to give away. Y'think I don't know that you were plannin' on marrying her?"

"Let her go," Mort repeated in a low, vicious growl. "You can't have her—"

"Then take her back from me, Mister Rainey!" Shooter laughed mockingly. He walked over and knowingly opened the drawer of Mort's side table near the sofa, where he kept a gun for self-defense purposes. Only Carmen knew where Mort kept it, which meant the worst. Shooter had completely taken over her mind. The gun was placed on the ground and slid so that it stopped halfway between them. "All you gotta do is give Shooter the ol' shaft and you got her back." A nasty grin curled onto his lips, and Mort cringed at the taunt - the suggestion that he could actually shoot Carmen. Shooter continued laughing. "She's dyin' to tell you - that's why she came. She wanted you to know."

"Know…know what?" Mort asked - his voice shook, and his palms were already damp with sweat. "If you're just—"

"Ain't you ever heard it's wrong to marry a girl without her father's permission? I never gave you my daughter's hand," he said coldly, the expression on Carmen's face changing into an unnatural glare. "I had to teach you and those friends of hers a lesson because she ain't neither yours to take nor theirs to give away."

"What?" Mort snapped, "I don't what you're talking about. Your daughter? You—" Mort froze, then stared at Shooter, the shock and realization dawning coldly upon him. Shooter gave another hoot of cold, cruel laughter.

"My only daughter, Carmen Shooter. My only child," Shooter explained, and seeing Carmen's face smirk along with the taunting was painful, even if Mort knew it wasn't really her. "She knew this morning while you were in Boston but y'didn't give her a chance to tell ya."

"No." Mort said quietly. He had broken off their engagement when she had just found out about this? He felt his gut wrenching with guilt at the possibility that Carmen was gone, and the last memory she had of him was him giving up on her. His hands, balled into fists at his side, were now shaking. He clenched his eyes shut. "Let me talk to her," he demanded suddenly. "Let her talk to me, Shooter -"

"Mort?" said a quiet voice from somewhere far away - Carmen's voice, sounding like it was coming from somewhere above them. Like some kind of a spirit. "Mort, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"I don't need you to apologize," he said shortly. "I need you to tell me how to get you back. Where are you?"

"This is my fault - I let him in," Carmen said miserably. "I was so weak - I just - I came to tell you -"

"Tell the boy, Carmen," said Shooter, through Carmen's mouth. "There's a way - he just won't take it. Tell the boy. You listen to your daddy -"

"No!" Carmen said shrilly. "Don't -"

The eye's on Carmen's body suddenly glinted angrily. "Suit yourself, then." Shooter said. "If he don't save you, then this body is mine for good. And I'll never let up on him, darlin', you know that."

For a moment, Carmen's voice remained silent and Mort felt a sense of terror at the prospect that he was alone in a room with Shooter, who now had a real, physical body. However, in a quavering tone, Carmen suddenly began to speak again. "Mort, you have to kill me."

"No!" Mort said loudly. "I'm not going to -"

"Pick up the gun, Mort, it's the only way," she sobbed. Mort's eyes darted in shock to the gun sitting on the ground between himself and Carmen's body, and he shook his head slowly.

"No - no, I can't do that. It won't fix this!" Mort attempted to reason, his voice turning defensively into a disbelieving, sad excuse for a laugh. "He'll just find someone else, and then I won't have you -"

"I'm the last thing left," Carmen said miserably. "I'm the last thing to be returned to him, Mort - that was the deal. That was the deal my mother made, that he would only leave this earth after taking back everything that belonged to him, and I'm the last thing -"

"I'm not going to kill you," he said resolutely.

"I won't be able to stay long without my own body," Carmen said, somewhat sadly. "I can't stay much longer. You need to do it now."

"Make your choice, Mr. Rainey," Shooter said. "Are you going to save your woman's body, or her soul?"

"You'd do this to your own daughter?" Mort spat in disgust, his face contorted with fear and rage - again, there was no Voice to guide him this time. His head was silent, alone. He was completely alone.

"She's mine, I'll do with her as I please." Shooter said.

"Mort, please," Carmen's voice pleaded, her voice choked with desperate tears, her sobs like knives in Mort's heart. Unable to bear hearing it anymore - wanting desperately to give her the peace she wanted at the very least, Mort picked up the gun and pointed it at Carmen's body. He was going to get this over with. He was going to end it the way Carmen had wanted to, had striven to for months. What good was it leaving her to exist as only a shell for Shooter to live in? It was cruel. It was inhumane to let her go on like this. He was going to - but when it came time to move his finger on the trigger, he felt himself freeze. His hand shook, his knees knocked and he dropped his arms to his sides. "I – I can't! Carmen, I'm sorry, I can't-"

Suddenly, Mort felt as if someone had suddenly knocked the wind out of him. It was a feeling like losing consciousness or falling asleep, where everything suddenly faded to complete pitch black, and he was standing alone in the blackness. Then, suddenly, like a light growing and coming closer, something flitted closer and closer to him like a firefly. Then, in an eruption of noiseless bright light, everything around him was brilliantly illuminated, and there before him stood Carmen, staring at him tearfully. "Mort, please..." she begged, her expression overcome with sadness. "This is how it has to end - you have to do this!"

"I said we couldn't go through with the wedding, but I think you're jumping to conclusions if you think I can just kill you -"

"Mort, don't fight me on this," she sobbed, reaching out for him. He flinched when he realized that she could touch him - or at least, it felt like it. It felt like she was really holding his hands right now, and that was enough to break his strong front. He felt his shoulders shrug in resignation. "This is the only way," she repeated. "This is the only way to be free of Shooter and move on with your life. You, and Rob, and Melanie -"

"What about you? You're the one I care about," Mort said desperately. "You think me and Rob and Mel are just gonna move on and get over it without you? You think it's not gonna rip them to pieces? Me to pieces? I can face Shooter every day for the rest of my life if it means -"

Carmen's expression fell, and she looked down - the expression she always assumed when she was trying to plan something. She nodded to herself, and Mort saw her lips moving as though she was explaining something, but what the words were, he couldn't guess. Still holding her hands, he gave them a hopeless shake until she looked back up at him, her eyes suddenly soft and sad, full of tears. But, he realized, she was smiling - and that was what suddenly struck Mort as a sign that he should be very scared.

"I understand," she said quietly. "Everything is going to be alright. This is what love is - and I'm glad I learned it before it was too late. When someone loves you, they will take any burden that you can't carry - and that's why I'm doing this."

"What are you saying?"

"Everything's going to be alright," she repeated quietly, kissing him gently. "We'll be alright." They stared silently into one another's eyes, tears welling in both. "Let me do this…" and without warning, the heavenly glow suddenly disappeared, giving way to dark, shaded atmosphere of Mort's living room once more.

Only Mort wasn't looking through his own eyes. It seemed as though he was a fly on the ceiling. He saw himself standing, holding the gun and pointing it at Shooter, and he suddenly realized what has happening but could do nothing about it.

"You know you ain't gonna shoot me, Mr. Rainey," Shooter laughed mockingly. But Mort saw his own face break into a smile, and he willed himself to try and get back into his own body before it was too late - before what he knew was going to happen.

"I ain't Mr. Rainey," said the voice from Mort's body - and Shooter inside Carmen's body showed obvious shock at the sound of Carmen's voice when Mort opened his mouth. From his place by the ceiling, Mort tried to scream, wanted so badly to, but couldn't. The two final words that came from the voice possessing Mort's body echoed eerily through the room:

"Bye, Daddy."

A gunshot rang clear, and suddenly, Mort felt himself being yanked downward, back into his own body. Upon what must have been impact, he staggered a bit and he noticed Carmen's body crumple to the ground, with blood blossoming rapidly onto her sweatshirt from a wound in her abdomen. There was a strange sound - like a man's scream disappearing like an echo into the distance, and there was a strange feeling that settled in the room - a lifting of weight. Shooter was gone. Carmen had been right that she was the final artifact of his to be returned to its rightful owner, and when no other possession bound him to his pursuit of what was his, John Shooter had no place any longer among them. Carmen was right - but Mort wished with every ounce of will he had that she hadn't been.

Recovering from the shock, Mort dropped the gun and ran to her, and cradled her head in his hands. He groped clumsily, attempting to stop the bleeding, but she shakily reached over, grabbing his hands and stopping him.

"Dying feels a little bit like falling... very slowly," Carmen said, a weak smile curling gently at the corners of her lips. "Use that in a book one day. I won't... say... you stole it," she attempted to joke. Mort shook his head desperately, and immediately turned to panic when Carmen gave a weak cough and a small trickle of blood left the corner of her lips.

"I - I'm so sorry," he stammered desperately, tears streaming down his face. "Come on, Carmen - Carmen, why did you -"

"You didn't do this," she said, still trying to smile as the light faded from her face. "You're - you're free Mort. This is what I wanted for you... I love you -"

"Don't you dare -"

"Don't make this goodbye hard, Mort," she said with another cough. "Please..."

There was another scream as Rob entered the doorway and he was immediately kneeling next to them. Carmen looked at him, her eyelids starting to grow heavy, but she managed to reach out for one of his hands. "Rob - remember - you promised -" Rob looked up at Mort, and Mort was able to piece together what was going on - Carmen had expected something bad to happen. She'd planned on it, and she'd made plans for how to get Mort off the hook for it.

"Carmen, why did you -"

"It's over now. Shooter's gone," she said, unable to grasp either of their hands any longer. "That's... what... matters..."

"I called the police when I heard screaming, they're on their way - Carmen?" Rob said, reaching out for her limp hand and shaking it pleadingly. "Carmen?!"

But she had fallen limp in Mort's arms, just as the sound of sirens approached from the distance.

A/N's

Worry not, this is not the end of the story. This is the point where I left it off before the revamp, and it will finally progress past this point. Stay tuned!

Cheers!