This is a chapter you asked for but it isn't the chapter you wanted. With that  cryptic message, onward we go!

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"Are the fries good? They look good. You should save me some. But wait, are fries really good if they aren't hot anymore? Maybe you shouldn't save me some fries. Wait, no save me some fries they look really good. Yeah, save me some fries."

Carter said nothing to Mason's tirade about fries since she sat alone at the restaurant bar and it would look strange for her to talk to thin air. It was the worst part about not having Donovan on a mission with her, she couldn't tell Mason to shut up and have it look like she talked to Donovan. Instead, she had to bear through Mason's inane thoughts, which he constantly felt like voicing. Directly into her ear.

"You know what, forget it. I'll just order something from the hotel once we're done."

That was it, Carter was going to strangle Mason. She might have thought this before but this time she was going to. He wouldn't shut. Up!

Finally, Mason quieted and Carter let out a breath, trying to release her irritation with him in the one action. Without Mason's chatter in her ear, the murmurs of conversations and low jazzy music filtered back in. The restaurant catered to a high-end clientele and the atmosphere was crowded with self-importance.

Among the finely dressed men and women, Carter looked out of place in her boots, jeans, leather jacket, and glasses. She looked like a biker turned librarian. But surrounded by New Yorkers, no one paid her any notice. Especially not the well-dressed man she glanced at from time to time.

"How are the appetizers?" Mason asked like he expected Carter to reply.

Before Carter could find a way to hide her lips and tell Mason to stuff it, the door to the restaurant opened. A family of three, husband and wife with a daughter, walked in and the hostess greeted them before guiding them to a table. Carter spared them a glance as they sat then started to look away but stopped.

She swallowed but it felt like the air in her throat had turned to concrete.

The woman at the table laughed and tucked a strand of hair out of her daughter's face. The girl shook her head but not in a way that said she was annoyed with the action. But more she was embarrassed by the easy affection.

Carter stared and couldn't stop staring. Everything in the restaurant faded from view, everything except the mother. It was her mother. Carter's mother...and her new family.

In the three years since Carter had seen her, she didn't look all that different. Except she looked truly happy. Her eyes glinted with a teasing light as she looked at her daughter.

Not daughter, stepdaughter. It was the only plausible explanation. The girl was thirteen at the most and was the spitting image of the father.

Carter's mother had a stepdaughter. A stepdaughter that she smiled at. Showed affection to. She had a daughter.

A twisting pain like a knife to the chest stabbed Carter. Her mother had a new daughter.

It felt impossible to process this, yet the information was right there. The family chatted back and forth, trying to decide what to eat like it was all normal like they'd done this very thing thousands of times. And they must have.

"Carter!"

Mason nearly blew Carter's eardrum out with his yelling, snapping Carter back into the present.

"What?" she snapped, drawing a curious gaze from the barman.

"Your target got the note from the waiter and is leaving, follow him!"

Carter stumbled up from her barstool. She headed for the door but paused briefly next to her mother's table. Her mother looked up and they locked eyes.

Hurt. Abandonment. Anger. Grief. It all slammed into Carter like she was a fourteen-year-old.

"Carter?" her mother breathed.

"Carter! MOVE!"

Carter forced her feet to carry her forward even when all she wanted to do was turn around, shake her mother, and demand why she wanted a daughter now and not seven years ago?

But she didn't. She kept walking until she entered the chaos of the New York City streets. Training kept her on the tail of her target. But as she walked the sidewalk felt uneven like she wasn't fully sure whether her foot would land on solid ground or sink through.

"Carter, what is going on?" Mason ordered.

"Nothing."

"That's not true," Mason said. "Tell me."

Carter didn't respond, she couldn't. Everything hurt. She felt like her heart bled from the inside. Over and over again she saw the way her mother had tucked the strands of hair out of the girl's face, smiling with true affection the whole time.

Carter followed her target but emotions clouded her mind so much that she didn't realize how obvious she was being. Not until she turned the corner and a pair of hands snatched her and slammed her against the side of the building.

"Why the hell are you following?" the man demanded.

The collision of her head and the building jolted Carter out of her thoughts. Her mission: tail and tag this man.

Though Carter could have taken out the man with a couple of swift moves, she held herself back. She was reeling and she played into that. Why not tell the truth. Or at least part of it.

"I'm sorry," she said, letting her overwhelmed emotions fill her voice. She pressed her fingers into the bridge of her nose. "I feel so stupid. I see her for the first time in three years and I lose my head and make an idiot of myself." She blinked, willing her eyes to fill. "I had to get out of there. Had to leave or I would have...I don't know."

The man stared at her, still cautious but less defensive. Carter continued, leaning her head back as if the man wasn't still gripping her arms.

"Why are families awful?" she asked. "She left and that was it but now, now she's a mom again, and what? I don't matter?"

She closed her eyes, slipping her fingers into her pocket as she did and removing a small listening device. She sniffed and lifted her head, meeting the man's eyes.

"Are you ever tired of things being so complicated?" she said, edging forward, keeping his gaze locked on hers.

He paused as if considering her words. In that moment of distraction, she tucked the device into his suit pocket.

"I'm sorry," Carter said, pulling back. "I didn't mean to startle you. I didn't know where I was going."

The man let go of her. "I apologize for being so rash."

Carter shrugged like almost being attacked wasn't a big deal. When she turned away from him, he spoke.

"I'm sorry about your mother. That's rough."

Carter stuffed her hands into her pockets. "Thanks. Have a nice night."

"You too."

They headed off in opposite directions, the man none the wiser.

"Okay," Mason said. "I hate to say this because complimenting people gives me acid reflux, but that was brilliant. I didn't know how you would pull it off but you did."

"Thanks," Carter murmured. "I'm going back to the hotel. Let the others know they can go break up a drug deal."

"Will do."

Carter cut her way through the streets, jostled by pedestrians yet feeling utterly alone. Her mind took her back to the restaurant, replaying every detail. None of it got easier to take the second time.

By the time Carter stepped into her hotel room, she felt raw. She sat down before her computer and fired it up. She knew she shouldn't but it didn't stop her. Using the FBI database, she searched her mother.

She found basic information, the man she'd married: Darrell Wainwright. The fact that he was divorced and had a daughter, Bridgette, who lived full time with her mother. Carter found that Darrell's previous wife had passed away three years ago. They had moved to New York around the same time. All of it filled the gaps in the story.

Carter leaned back in her chair, gazing out on the cityscape. Her mother must have married Darrell not thinking she was getting a full step-daughter. But only a year after the wedding had a full-time one.

Carter covered her mouth, trying to keep her emotions in check. Her mother didn't seem to mind having a daughter now. If the smiles and happy glint were any indications, she enjoyed it. Carter thought about Bridgette. She was blonde, blue-eyed, and pretty. At thirteen she'd worn a neat pair of slack and silk shirt with a Peter Pan collar. As a package, she presented a sweet, girlish persona. A persona Carter's mother held. One Carter didn't.

Carter jerked out of her chair and left the room. She knew where she was going, knew it was stupid to go there but had to do it.

It had been hours since Carter had been at the restaurant when the taxi deposited her outside a three-story walkup on the Upper Eastside. She stood on the sidewalk across from the house. Lights burned in the windows, giving a homey glow to the place. Shadows crossed curtained windows. A family getting settled for the night.

Hating herself for needing to do it, Carter crossed the road, climbed the steps, and rang the doorbell. She waited. Each second that passed, she told herself to leave, that she didn't need to be there, that she didn't need any of this. But her feet stayed planted.

Darrell opened the door. He was a decent-looking man in his late forties with a trimmed beard and grey eyes.

"Can I help you?" he asked, uncertain, taking in Carter's attire.

"Is Erica home?" Carter asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

"Yes..." Darrell looked ready to close the door on Carter.

"If you tell her that the girl from the restaurant is here, she'll come."

Carter said that but didn't know if it was true. Would her mother even care to see her?

"All right...give me a second."

Darrell shut the door and Carter waited, again wondering why she was here, why she was being stupid. When her mother appeared, Carter took a step back. Her mother looked cautious and nervous.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked.

Carter wanted to say no, she wanted to walk away but stepped inside. It was a simple foyer with a staircase curling up to the second story. Carter stood there not sure what to say and wanting to yell all at once. Before either of them could get a word out, Sofie came halfway down the stairs and leaned over the banister.

"Are you still planning to read with me tonight? We're right at the good part."

Despite being thirteen, Bridgette didn't seem at all self-conscious about reading aloud with her stepmother. In fact, from the eagerness in her eyes, she anticipated it.

"Of course," Carter's mother said, sending Bridgette a soft smile. "I'll be up soon."

"Okay."

Bridgette glanced at Carter but didn't comment on her presence before hurrying back upstairs. When Carter's mother focused on Carter the smile still hovered on her lips.

"Why?"

Gratefully, her mother didn't act like she didn't know what Carter was talking about. Erica shifted.

"Because I was ready this time," she said. "I like being a mother."

After all the grief and pain Carter had gone through, she thought she could handle the truth. But it still hit her in the chest. More than the words, it was the quiet certainty in her mother's voice that cut into Carter. She liked being a mother, just not to Carter.

Carter turned away and yanked open the door. She couldn't stand to be in that perfect home a second longer.

"Carter," her mother said. "Wait."

Carter paused on the top step but didn't turn around.

"I hope that you're doing well."

Carter closed her eyes, trying to rein in her emotions.

"I thought I told you not to lie to me."

When her mother didn't respond, Carter hurried down the steps. She heard the click of the door closing and knew her mother was drawing back into her happy, beautiful life, climbing the stairs to read aloud to her new daughter while the other disappeared into the shadows.

The image of her mother curled up on a bed with Bridgette nestled next to her broke Carter. She stumbled to a set of steps and sank down, burying her face in her hands, her breathing ragged.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. Carter was supposed to feel nothing, have no reaction to seeing her mother moving on. She was supposed to be detached, unaffected. She wasn't supposed to hurt. Not like when she was fourteen and watching her mother drive off in a taxi.

Someone dropped onto the step beside Carter. She knew that cologne. She didn't hesitate, she leaned into him.

Donovan held her close.

He didn't speak, didn't ask questions.

She knew he didn't have to, Mason might be aggravating but he wasn't an idiot. He'd heard everything she'd said to her target. He also knew family. And mostly he knew her.

When she'd cried herself out, she raised her head and Donovan kissed her tear-soaked cheeks.

"You're supposed to be in DC," she said.

He kissed her forehead. "That's what trains are for."

"Did Mason track me here?"

"No, I stopped back the hotel and saw what was on your computer." He paused. "I'm sorry, Carter."

She laid her head on his shoulder, comforted by the feel of him.

"I always thought if I ever saw her again, I would have the upper hand. I have an amazing job, a great fiancé, a good life. I'd look at her and tell her that I was happy and it was because she wasn't a part of it. I wasn't supposed to feel fourteen again and like I'd been replaced."

Donovan cupped her face. "No one can ever replace you, you hear?"

"Tell that to my mother."

"I will if you want me to."

Carter laughed, imagining Donovan doing just that. Donovan looked at her.

"I can't tell you not to feel what you're feeling. Abandonment hurts and I'm not sure it ever won't hurt. But like you said you have an amazing job, a dashingly good-looking fiancé, and a great life. And you have that not to spite your mother but despite losing your mother. Remember that."

Carter nodded and kissed Donovan, reinforcing his words.

She knew he was right, he usually was. If her mother hadn't left, Carter might have chosen to stay at Jefferson High School. She wouldn't have met Donovan and Link, wouldn't have been close with Maggie in the same way. So she had lost a mother but gained a new type of family.

She gazed up at Donovan, unable to imagine a world without him in it. Looking into his eyes, she felt protected, loved.

With him, she felt wanted.

"Dashingly good looking, you say?"

Donovan smiled. "Devilishly so."

She knew he was aware that she was changing the mood, but Carter realized that right then she didn't want to dwell on the loss but the gain.

"Let's go back to the hotel," she said, standing and weaving her fingers with Donovan's. "We do have to make a quick stop first though."

"We do?"

"Yeah," she said. "I owe Mason some fries." 

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Hi there Snickerdoodle!

Go ahead and leave all electronics, metal, money in the pin while you go through the metal detector, thank you. Or if you don't want to just leave your thoughts. 💭💬🗯

I know, I know. You wanted a chapter where Carter sees her mother and gets to rub it in her face that she's living a great life.

Sadly, life doesn't work that way. The ones who hurt you still have a pull and weight to them. It isn't easy to forgot and get over, sometimes it hurts knowing that they are happy and you're not part of their life. Abandonment cuts deep.

So I had to write what was true and not what you wanted. Sorry, not really sorry since I want to stay true to my character.

I honestly have no idea if you'll like or hate this chapter. Either way it is what it is.

Vote, comment, follow if you still have the presence of mind to do so.