Author's Note: Ok, just so you know this chapter is the Exposition Chapter, so basically everything (more or less) is explained in this... YAY!
Gosh, this was hard to write!
And to think I was thinking of rewriting this whole fanfic (once I'm finished it of course)... 'rolls eyes'

Chapter 13

"And I'm her sister."

Jesse just sat there in stunned silence at the rather incredible story he just been told by Carmen. It seemed so unbelievable and yet, looking into the scared face of the young woman sitting opposite him at the dinning table, her hands wrapped tightly around her tea cup, so tightly that her knuckles were white.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked through heavy lips. His mind was still reeling from all that he had just been told.

"Because you have a right to know and…" more tears rolled down Carmen's cheeks "and I don't think I can stop her, not that I ever thought that I could before, but…" she took a deep breath.

"You've actually fallen in love with Jake now haven't you?" he guessed, running a hand through his hair. She nodded her head vigorously.

"And she furious with me because I have. It wasn't part of our plan, her plan. But I couldn't help it. He's the first person whose actually looked at me and seen only me. Not my sister. My beautiful, smart, powerful sister." A tear drop dropped into her tea.

"You do understand what would happen if her soul went into your body, don't you?" he asked her softly.

"I do now. I didn't before, but before I didn't question her. But now…" she looked at over at him desperately, "now, I don't want to lose my body. I don't want my soul to be shoved out of it to make room for her. I might not be as beautiful or as smart or as powerful a witch as her but I still want to live. I want to live and be with Jake. Even if the whole reason for meeting Jake was just so that I could get close to you and Suze." She shook her head, her pretty face filled with disgust and self-loathing.

"You love your sister very much, don't you?" he asked softly. Despite everything that this young woman had told him this night, he couldn't find it within himself to hate her. Even though she had done many things that were very similar to what Paul himself had done many years ago, he still found sympathy for this young woman.

"I do. I truly do. But I love Jake more. So much more. She may be my twin, but…" she trailed off and looked down into her tea cup.

"You don't want to die for her? That's fine, you have a right to live your life, and she has no right to say otherwise."

"Ha, you try telling her that! She just gets mad and starts summoning those evil dogs of hers."

He shook his head slightly.

"Seems like a great deal of hassle to go through, to simply come back to life." He muttered softly to himself then he snorted. "Like I'm one to talk."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Though," he looked at Carmen curiously. "Didn't your sister ever simply think to go and ask a mediator to do a Soul Transfer for her?" He said spat out the words 'soul transfer' with disgust.

Carmen looked at him confused.

"Um no. I don't think so. I mean, she might of but I doubt it. She very much likes to do these sorts of things by herself. Makes her feel more powerful and important, I guess." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Right. So how exactly is she going to do this? Her version of a Soul Transfer, exactly?"

"Um, I'm not entirely sure. I just know it needs me, obviously," she looked a little down but continued, "Um, a lot of spiritually empowered beings, ghost, I suppose and I don't know a power boost? Which I'm guessing would be meaning your baby." She cringed a little under Jesse's hard glare. So he's and Susannah's child was merely a power booster, wonderful. He thought darkly.

Just then there was a loud crashing sound from upstairs. Carmen looked at him, her face filled with terror.

"It's her. She is going to be so furious at me." She whispered softly, more tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Stay here." He ordered her softly. She simply nodded her head weakly in return as he moved out of the living room, towards the staircase. He wasn't really sure what he could actually do against a witch, a ghost witch at that, but…

"JESSE!"

He felt his heart almost stop at the sound of his name being half yelp, half shouted from upstairs.

He pounded up the stairs, three at a time to find Susannah, fighting against bedclothes in their room.

"Querida?'

"Ow. Hey. Help?" he moved to her side in an instant, helping her untangle herself from the bedclothes before taking her in his arms and pressing her against his chest, burying his face into her hair, breathing her in deeply.

"Ah, Jesse? You're kinda squashing me and the kid here." She squeaked and he quickly released her.

"Sorry. Querida?" he cupped his hands around her face gently, resting his forehead against hers. "Querida, where did you go? Where did the baby take you?"

"Ah, well that's kinda of a long story. But speaking of which, why were you downstairs?"

"Oh. Well you see I've been listening to a rather long story actually?"

She looked at him more than a little confused.

"Huh?"

Without bothering to explain, he placed an arm around her waist and guided her downstairs to the living room where Carmen still stood, looking nervously at them as they entered the room.

"Huh." Susannah said simply. He looked down at her and could see, clearly written all over her beautiful face that she was torn between the desire of hitting Carmen and not. He gently tighten his grip on her waist.

"So, I'm guessing you've heard a similar story as I have?" Jesse asked her gently, trying to get her to stop shooting daggers at the already traumatised young woman.

"Which would be?" he rolled his eyes at Susannah's cold ignorance.

"Carmen, would you mind greatly if you would retell your story once again? For Susannah?" Carmen shook her head and once more sat down in the seat she had been occupying before Susannah sudden return. Jesse pulled out a seat for Susannah who was still scowling darkly at the young woman sitting across from them. He rolled his eyes at her and motioned for Carmen to tell her story.

"I come from a family of witches. Twin witches to be exact. All the women on the maternal side of my family are twins and have at least some magic. In my sister and my case, the magic between us was not of equal portion. My sister is-was gifted greatly in the act of magic. I, not so much. I can barely make a teaspoon hover for more than a few seconds, while she could lift a whole apartment building without raising a sweat." She smiled a little grimly. "She could be a real brat about it too, that she was so powerful while I was so weak. Everyone in our family was so proud of her. Even our Dad and he doesn't even like this stuff. I used to think Mother bewitched him into marrying her; they are so different from each other, but anyway."

"About two years ago, there was an accident. We, my sister and I, were trying a new kind of spell. Well she was trying, I was just there acting as canon fodder. If something went wrong with her spells and thing got messy the blame would be simply placed on me. Anyways, the spell that she was trying cast was one to bring back the dead." She shrugged at the raised eyebrows being shot at her from her two listeners. "She killed our cat to practise on. Well, she said that she didn't kill him, but…" she shuddered. "Anyway, she was trying to bring his soul back to his body or maybe his ghost or whatever, but I don't know, but anyway something went wrong. We heard a whole lot of whispering and all this dark mist started to appear and it got really cold. I tried to tell her to stop what she was doing, that it was wrong and that only mediators had a right to do this sort of stuff, even though I'm pretty sure you guys don't. I mean, do what she was trying to do, right?" She looked between them, noting the somewhat sheepish and shame-face of Susannah and the blank look of Jesse. "Do you?" she asked startled.

"This is your story time, not ours." Suze growled impatiently.

"Right, sorry. Anyway, we kept going, trying to ignore the voices and the mist and the cold, but then…then there was this flash of really bright light... Don't pull faces that's just what happen." Suze ducked her head, once more looking a little ashamed.

"And the next thing I knew, our basement was completely gone, not to mention our house and my twin sister was dead."

"When did she come back to visit you as a ghost?" Suze asked softly.

"Oh, about a year ago now. She said that while she was in the in-between she had found a way for her to come back to life, but that I needed to help her do it." Carmen said sighing heavily.

"Without telling you what the actual cost of doing so would entitle til now, right?" Suze asked gently. She wanted to be mad. She really did. She wanted to hate this woman whose sister was threatening everything that she had worked so hard for, but she couldn't when the girl looked so defeated and grief-stricken as she did.

"I never wanted to hurt anyone. Never. I just wanted my twin back, so badly. And Mom said that everything would be fine. That everything would work out fine, I just needed to get into your family that was all." A tear rolled down Carmen cheek. "but I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just…" she shook her head.

"Do you love Jake?" Susannah asked unexpectedly. Carmen looked at her confused.

"Of course, but why has that got to do with any of this?"

"Well, because I think that in return he really, really loves you back. I mean, this was a guy who basically lived simply to eat, sleep and work so that he could have enough money to buy a car and that was basically his life. Now, he actually looks like he's actually alive and awake as to oppose to always sleepy." She smiled slightly, though Carmen didn't understand why but guessing from Jesse's rolling of the eyes it must have been an inside joke of sorts between them. She suddenly felt like an intruder, not that she wasn't one already but seeing them, seeing how they were with each other…

"I should probably get going. Jake might sleep like the dead but I think even he will notice that I've been gone a long time." She mumbled quickly. The couple opposite her nodded their heads, getting up as one as she did.

She fought back a small smile as she watched the way that Jesse was quietly trying to fuss over Suze as they walked to the door and her trying to swat him away with an amused but embarrassed sort of grin on her face.

"Goodbye." She mumbled as the door was open for her by Jesse.

"Bye. Oh wait a minute. What's her name? Your sister, I mean?" Suze asked rather urgently.

"Oh, um, I'm sorry. Clara is my sister's name."

"Ok thanks. And, um, this might sound really odd but do you have a photo of her by any chance?" Carmen tilted her head, looking at Suze with a confused expression. "So that we can summon her and kick her witchy-ghostly butt." Suze elaborated calmly while Carmen noted behind her Jesse rolling his eyes heavens ward with a somewhat pleading expression on his face. She fought back a grin again.

They really were such an odd couple and yet they work absolutely beautifully with each other. From the few months that she had known them, she could tell that their love was a true, pure thing.

She felt sure that there was something more to their story than that of which the rest family knew because the depth of the commitment and love that they had for each other went far deeper than any love she had ever seen before.

These two looked ready to die for each other without a second thought. She had the slightest of inkling that they already had.

She felt a another wave of guilt flood her.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, breaking up the silent squabbling going on between the couple, causing them to look at her in bewilderment, "for my part in all this."

"Every family member comes with some type of strings attached and with some sort of unusual background." Jesse soothed her gently. Suze gave a soft snort at this and Jesse simply rolled his eyes at her.

Carmen opened her mouth to question them on this before she quickly closed it again. It was none of her business and they had done so much for her by simply listening to her side of the story, even though she knew they had every right to hate for everything her sister had put them through. And going to put them through still, she thought dully, smiling sadly as she waved her hand in farewell to the odd couple as she hopped into her car and drove back to hers and Jake's little apartment.

Author's Note: Yeah, I know that this is a kinda odd chapter, but I really wanted to get all the exposition all out and out of the way, so that I can get back into the action of it all.
Anyways, I'm having Cee Cee and Adam's baby born in the next chapter (Finally!) and its going to be a girl (Sorry to all of you who wanted them to have a boy but I got a smattering of hands saying GIRL on the Meg Cabot Site, so yeah. I also have some names for her too. Three actually, but I would like a vote for them.
They are; Angelica, Stephanie or Tarina. Reveiw and let me know.
Thanks for reading.