Though you might think this is a Carter focused chapter, it is in fact a Kennedy focused chapter. You're welcome to those of you who asked for this.

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The wind sweeping over the tops of the buildings was warm with just a hint of autumn on the horizon. Kennedy let the breeze swirl around her, feeling the change it spoke of. Technically summer, but no longer the summer of vacation.

It was the in-between time when classes were around the corner but not reached yet. It was a limbo that Kennedy felt annoyed by. Either be here or not, the wavering in between like a hesitant freshman bugged her. She wished time would make up its mind on what it was.

With her arms crossed, Kennedy took in a deep breath and let it out with a huff. True, time was making up its mind since she was leaving on the flight to California in an hour. But still, it had taken too many days of the in-between to get to this day. And as much as she felt she was sprinting towards the departure it had also felt like an eternity.

The door to the roof opened and Kennedy kept her current position, not even bothering to look at who had found her in a secluded spot. Besides, she didn't have to look, she knew. He had the uncanny ability of knowing where she was most of the time.

Kennedy wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. Shouldn't there be some mystery in a relationship? Though that felt like a stupid thought since knowing each other from birth made it nearly impossible to have mystery.

Harrison joined Kennedy and claimed the seat next to her. Even though she felt him look at her, he said nothing. After a second, he turned his face to the view and slouched in his chair. His presence somehow soothed and ticked Kennedy off. Maybe it was the lack of saying anything. Harrison in that sense did feel like a mystery to her.

She knew that her parents had a weird telepathy where neither of them needed to speak to understand each other. She didn't have that with Harrison. Not to the extent of her parents. Sure, if Harrison made a face or looked at something in a certain way she knew what he was thinking, but she couldn't crawl into his mind and know all that lived there.

She had known him all her life and hadn't registered the fact that he was in love with her like she was in love with him. Maybe the telepathy came with time. Though maybe not, she watched Uncle Link and Aunt Maddy, though they were as close as her own parents, they didn't have the telepathy thing. Maybe it was some weird skill her parents developed from being in the FBI. Who knew. Her parents were strange.

Her mother was the strangest.

"What are you thinking?" Harrison asked, cutting into Kennedy's inner monologue.

"My Mom's really strange."

"And that's new to you?"

Kennedy smiled but shook her head. "No. Just a constant reality." She uncrossed one arm to wave her hand, not sure what she was gesturing to. "Take this week. I've been packing the entire week and she's been totally chill. She's helped me. Made plans. Bought boxes. Even packed the moving truck with the movers."

Harrison made a sound of disappointment and shook his head. "It's terrible how strange your mother is, helping you and everything. I mean what is this world coming to!"

Kennedy sent him a flat look and Harrison responded with a toothy grin.

"I'm talking about the fact that she seems totally calm about her only, dear child leaving her and moving to the other side of the country."

"Did you want her to freak out?"

"No, because I know she will lose it when we are at the airport. She pretends she's fine now but in an hour we'll be standing before security and she will become unrecognizable, turning into a crying emotional mess. I know it and I'm dreading it."

"Yes, again how dare your mother care about you leaving. The audacity of parents these days caring. I mean I had to stop talking to my mom because she kept telling me all sorts of advice! I mean I'm seventeen, I know how the world works, stop bothering me, woman."

Kennedy leaned over and smacked Harrison's arm.

"You're supposed to be supportive," she said.

"And I will be when you start making sense."

"I am making sense."

"No, you aren't. You're saying that your mother is going to become emotional when you leave. What did you expect?"

Kennedy squirmed and scrunched up her face. "It just doesn't fit with Mom. I mean she's Mom."

At this, Harrison stared at her a look that told her how stupid those two sentences were. She waved away his look.

"You know what I mean. She's Carter Owens. I can count the amount of times I've seen her cry on one hand. It's not that she's hard or cold, it's just... well you go through the insane things she did and there's not a lot that can rattle her. And..." Kennedy shrugged, not sure what the end of the sentence was.

"And you're scared to see your Mom cry?" Harrison said.

Put in those words, it sounded idiotic to Kennedy. Her mother cried. She knew this. Okay, she assumed it. Again she'd rarely seen her mother ever cry. Even when Kennedy had been taken, her mother looked unnervingly composed rather than emotional.

"No. Because that would be stupid."

"It would."

At the complete lack of support, Kennedy scowled at Harrison, who looked unbothered by her annoyance.

"Support, remember?" she said.

"When logical, remember?"

They stared at each other until Kennedy broke away and crossed her arms, curling up her legs.

"It's weird."

"If you say so."

"If she gets emotional, I might."

"Yes, that would be disastrous, you having emotions. I can't even look at you just thinking about it."

"I don't want to be some crying mess at the airport. It's just college. I'm not going off to war or even to a different country."

"It's okay to cry."

"I know that. I just... I don't know."

The roof door opened and both Kennedy and Harrison turned in their seats to look. Carter poked her head out.

"Leaving in twenty, Cadet," she said, smiled then disappeared.

Harrison looked at Kennedy. "I can see why you're worried. She seems utterly distraught."

"She seems utterly distraught," Kennedy said in a mocking voice. "Just wait. At the airport, it's going to be awful."

Harrison nodded condescendingly. For his attitude, Kennedy punched his arm. He rubbed it while looking contrite. Which was the best he could do after mocking her for the last twenty minutes.

"Let's go," Harrison said. "I eagerly wait for this flood of tears that the strongest woman I've ever known will produce for the daughter she is sending into the great big world."

Apparently, she hadn't punched his arm hard enough.

"You know college is a great time to start new things. I think that includes a relationship. One you are not part of," Kennedy said.

Harrison shrugged. "Okay. But good luck finding someone who would put up with you. I only manage so well because of the whole, you know, lifetime of having to do it thing."

"I could find someone new," Kennedy said, indignant.

"Sure. He will just have to compete with me."

Stopping in their path to the door, Kennedy faced Harrison and crossed her arms.

"And how do you figure that?"

"You can stop dating me but I'm still your best friend, so your new guy would have to deal with the fact that I know you better. He would slowly resent how you have all these jokes with me and how you look at me with undying love in your eyes, even though you try to hide it. There would be no chance for him."

Kennedy narrowed her eyes, ridding them of all the love she could possibly be exuding from them.

"Is that so? What if we stop being friends?"

"How do you figure that will work? We're going to the same college, taking the same courses, and have six classes together. It seems unlikely that your annoyance over me mocking you will last long enough to kill the lifelong connection we have. I see you buckling to our natural way of life within a week."

"I'm more determined than that!"

"You might be but we're going to be a whole new place. I'm the only face you know. Instinct would tell you to make nice with me so you wouldn't be alone."

"You've been hanging out with your father too much."

Harrison grinned at her and Kennedy hated how she already felt her annoyance defusing. It was infuriating to have a level-headed boyfriend.

He kissed her nose. "See you've already forgiven me."

"I'm really thinking of breaking up with you."

Harrison reached for the door and opened it for her. "Okay. Let me know when you're serious about it and I'll naturally be brokenhearted and get my revenge by becoming even more fit than I am."

"Instead of getting hotter can you wallow in self-pity and get fat?"

"If you want."

"You're the best."

"I know."

Smiling at each other they slipped into the building and descended the stairs. In the hallway between their apartments, they split ways. Inside the apartment, Kennedy found her carry-on by the door. The small duffle bag was the only thing for her to take, the rest of her things in California already. Though nothing about the apartment had changed, Kennedy felt a strange disorientated feeling. It was still her home but she was no longer living there.

Carter walked into the living room, staring at her phone.

"Cadet, give your room one last look," she said. "I don't want to be making trips to the post office shipping you boxes." She looked up. "Then we'll leave, okay?"

Looking at her mother, who looked like it was any other day, Kennedy saw Harrison's view of it. This woman didn't get rattled by anything and no situation could cause her to get emotional if she didn't want it to.

"Are you going to miss me?" Kennedy asked.

"Of course, Cadet. The library your father turns your room into will make me miss you every time he leaves me for his books."

Her mother smiled at her and waved her hands toward Kennedy's room. "Now hustle. We have a plane waiting for you."

Her mother. Emotional. Maybe Kennedy shouldn't be going to Stanford because thinking that proved she was stupid.

In her room, she paused in the center of it feeling that strange limbo sensation again. This was the room she'd grown up in. It was all familiar, even the mark on the wall where she'd been clumsy with a switchblade. It was the same but she felt different.

She wasn't the little girl who'd played on the floor, the girl who'd danced around listening to music, the teen who learned the correct way to attack her punching bag.

At eighteen, she was still a teen but she didn't feel the same.

"Cadet!" her father called out.

Kennedy shook herself from her thoughts and gazed around the room with a critical eye instead of a wistful one. Deciding she'd gotten everything she needed, she joined her parents in the living room. At the door, Donovan held Kennedy's duffle bag.

"Ready? he asked.

"Yup."

As she reached the door, her mother slung her arm across her shoulders as if it was just another outing for them. The casualness contrasted vastly to the Evans family as both Link and Maddy huddled around Harrison as if grasping for the last moments with him. Harrison met Kennedy's gaze and she could see him wanting to escape the tight embraces of both his parents.

Even as they all drove together to the airport, Kennedy felt the odd dichotomy as Link and Maddy talked of younger versions of Harrison and her parents chatted about the weather in California and the positives of living where it never got cold.

If a lifetime hadn't proven it, Kennedy would almost worry that her parents didn't care for her the way she thought. But the image of her parents breaking into the basement to get her would always live in her mind. They were just... not normal.

At the airport, Maddy did break down into tears as she hugged Harrison, who patted his mother's back while looking both exasperated and a little teary. Link hugged both his wife and Harrison, resting his cheek on his son's head.

Kennedy turned to her parents, who both were dry-eyed and looking calmly at her.

"You could have come with me to Stanford to get settled," Kennedy said. "I feel like that is a parental right."

Her parents exchanged a pointed look and Kennedy knew exactly what was coming. She wanted to punch her past self for her act of 'independence' which she now realized was stupidity.

Carter pulled out her phone and Kennedy rolled her eyes. Naturally, her mother would present the evidence for her.

"'Hello parents, this announcement is from Harrison and me informing you that we are capable adults who can get ourselves to college without the necessary help of you accompanying us to California. We will notify you when we have landed, arrived at the campus, our rooms, and will call to affirm that it is in fact us who have been sending the messages and not kidnappers throwing you off the trail. We ask that you respect our independence."

Kennedy wanted to kick her past self, hard. Really hard. What idiocy had led them to write and send that message? Of course, her parents, who had always supported her in creating her own path, would see it fine to send their teenage daughter to college without going with her.

"I did send that, didn't I?" she said.

"You did," her father said.

Kennedy nodded and sighed. Sometimes she thought she was the dumbest person in the world. This was one of those moments.

But if her parents had taught her anything, it was that she had to take responsibility for her actions and deal with the consequences of them.

"Okay," she said. "I guess this is goodbye then."

"Only until Thanksgiving break," her father said, hugging her and kissing her head.

"Yeah," her mother said, joining the hug. "We'll see you then. And you'll call us and ignore our many many texts asking you how your day was, what you're up to, and how everything is going. It will be great."

Kennedy pulled back to look at them. "I'll answer all your messages. I promise."

"It's okay if you don't," her father said. "We know college life is hectic. Just let us know you're alive every now and then."

"I will, I definitely will."

"Good." Carter squeezed Kennedy's cheeks and kissed one. "I love you. Be safe. Be smart. Be the daughter we raised."

"I will."

Harrison managed to extract himself from his parents' hold and nodded towards security. She didn't have to be a mind reader to know he was eager to separate himself from his parents. Kennedy took a step away from her parents. She could feel the love they had for her but there was not a tear in sight, only the same warm but composed expressions she'd seen her whole life.

"We love you," her father said.

"I know. I love you too."

They stayed in sight until Kennedy got past security and had to keep moving to get to her gate. Though she talked to Harrison throughout their wait, her mind felt strangely empty. It wasn't until they were in the plane and she was watching DC grow smaller below that reality hit her.

She was leaving her home. She was leaving her parents. Her parents who were the safety net in her life. She was on her own.

Kennedy twisted in her seat to Harrison, panic like a sledgehammer crashing into her.

"What are we doing?!" she hissed at him.

Harrison looked at her unaffected. "Flying to California to go to college."

"No. I'm serious!" Kennedy said. But lowered her voice when people glanced around. "What are we doing? I don't know how to do laundry!"

"Yeah, you do. Your mother has made you do your own for the last two years."

"I don't know how to cook! I could starve on my own!"

"Again you do. Your father taught you."

"Cleaning. I can't clean anything."

"Your dad taught you that."

"What about cars. I don't know anything about cars."

"That's fine. You don't have one."

"But I could."

"Not unless your parents get you one."

"Okay but what about directions? I've only been to California a few times. How in the world am I supposed to know where I'm going?"

"Uh... phone."

"Oh. Right. But still! How could they just send me out on my own? I'm a kid! I'm only eighteen. Who sends their teenage daughter off on her own. They are completely irresponsible parents for doing that."

Instead of giving a quick response, Harrison leaned back, taking Kennedy in. After a second, he nodded his head slowly like he'd found a solution.

"Not going to lie, I didn't expect this from you. Your parents have prepared you for life so much I thought I'd be the one to have the meltdown at leaving."

Meltdown. That did explain all the illogical things she'd been spouting. As quickly as it had appeared, Kennedy felt the all-consuming panic recede.

"They've just been there always," she said, slowly. "Always."

"And they still are. Just on the other side of the country and a three-hour time difference."

"Not comforting."

"What if I remind you that if you needed them, they'd be there. And you aren't alone." Harrison cupped her face and kissed her. "I'm with you."

"You are."

The comfort of Harrison being by her side kept Kennedy calm as they finished the flight, traveled to the campus, lost their way, found their way, navigated the chaos of move-in day, and arrived at their dorms. In two different buildings, Kennedy let Harrison leave to locate his room. At the door to her new home, Kennedy took a breath, exhausted, overwhelmed, excited, and uncertain.

But when she opened the door and took a step inside, all those emotions evaporated. Sitting on her bed, her completely made bed, and standing by the window, observing the campus grounds were her parents.

"Hey, Cadet," Carter said, smiling.

Kennedy couldn't move her feet, couldn't even comprehend what was happening.

"What... How... Why... How?"

Her father turned away from the window, his hands behind his back like a military instructor.

"A private jet you don't have to wait for is faster than a normal airplane," he said.

"You have a private plane?!" Kennedy said, breaking out of her shock.

"No," her mother said. "But Clint's company does. We booked it a month ago."

"But... but why?"

"We had to check the security of this place. We weren't letting our daughter live somewhere unsafe."

"Besides," Donovan said. "You said you didn't want us flying with you. You never said anything about flying on our own and meeting you here." He pointed to her. "Loophole. Be more specific in your demands or else-"

Donovan stopped talking as Kennedy crashed into him with a hug. Tears rolled down her face as she buried her face in her father's shoulder. Her mother's warmth joined the embrace.

"I already missed you," Kennedy said, her voice muffled.

"We missed you too."

Kennedy tilted her head to see her mother's face and noticed tears on her cheeks.

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Dearest human being!

*hugs you so you can't run away*

I'm sorry if this chapter is lacking. Last weekend and this week I moved states and got settled into a new place and it was banana pants wild! So I wrote this without much thought and so I apologize is it's not up to my normal standard.

*lets go of you*

This is where you share your thoughts and reassure me. 💬💭🗯️

Something I did think interesting is Kennedy having a moment of realizing she wouldn't have her parents anymore.

I mean yes, they've raised her to be independent but there's still that safety of knowing they are there to fix anything. But in college it wouldn't be that way. Though she might be prepared it's still slightly terrifying.

I don't know, I just thought she had an interesting paradox. I bet a lot of people feel that way when leaving home for the first time.

Anywho! Hope you found it interesting or as least... something!

Okay then vote, comment, follow!

Shout out comments from Not Wanting To Go Home (Mason POV)

☺️💜

Haha I love the all caps enthusiasm

This could be stamped onto Mason's forehead 😂

So perfectly put for Carter and Mason

It was be odd, amusing and slightly insulting.

Kennedy and Harrison setting out for college.