**Soooo... a lot of shit happened since the last time I updated this story... But long story short, I lost some family, I lost a friend, there were a couple of hospital/urgent care visits, a car with problems, famiy moved to Alaska, I moved a couple times, I got married, had a baby, lost Microsoft Office b/c Office 365 sucks (that said, I'm actually using WordPad rn and I hate it because it doesn't have friggin' spell check), aaaaaand... I have literally dozens of other stories that I get distracted with and only a couple of those are more fanfiction, so... I'm not making any promises as far as updates go. Someone messaged me recently asking me to continue this, I reread the fic, shoved my head back into the South Park tags on Tumblr, so there's that.**

By the time Carrie woke up, the morning light flooded the room and Kyle was nowhere to be found. She reached for her phone to check the time and found a paper towel folded underneath with a note written on it.

You were asleep by the time I was finished making food. My mom came to pick me up and I didn't want to wake you. Let me know how you're feeling when you wake up. -Kyle

She smirked and unlocked her phone, sending Kyle a quick text and telling him that she was feeling much better. She yawned and rolled to her back, closing her eyes again. When her phone pinged, she jumped. She squinted to read the text:

"What time do you want us to head over?"

Carrie furrowed her eyebrows, glancing up to check who it was. Upon reading that it was Jennifer, she grunted in response and replied, "I just woke up, but I'm good whenever." She let her phone plop down onto her chest as she stretched.

"Okay then. I'll drop by Kenny's and grab him real quick. Stan's already with me. I guess his dad came back home and his mom rose hell. He didn't get much sleep. He just doesn't want to be at home right now."

Carrie frowned. "He's welcome to nap here. You guys eat yet?" she sat up and walked down the stairs to her basement, hoping to dig for a fresh set of clothes.

"Stan says thank you. And, no, we haven't. We were thinking of stopping at McDonald's to grab some mcmuffins. You want anything?"

Carrie shrugged, "Sure, unless you guys want me to make something? I was going to offer fried egg sandwiches. Which... is... basically the same thing, when you look at it..." she pulled up a pair of sweatpants and pulled on an old, university sweatshirt.

"Lol whatever you want to do."

"How hungry are you? If you guys are hungry now, I can do lunch later." she shuffled back upstairs, preparing to clean up the kitchen from the night before.

"Sure, sounds good. We'll see you in a bit."

"See you then." Carrie furrowed her eyebrows, realizing that everything had been cleaned up. "Oh..." she hummed.

Conveniently, she received a response from Kyle, "That's good to hear. I cleaned up a little bit. Just the stuff from last night though."

"I see that, thank you." she answered and yawned, returning to the living room and folding up the blanket she had left on the couch. After she put the blanket away, she finished getting herself ready then sat down and started scrolling through her phone, waiting for company to arrive.

Five news updates, and plenty of random posts later, there was finally a knock on her door. She got up and answered the door, being greeted by Kenny and Stan, both of which looking exhausted, and Jenny, who held a large paper bag from McDonald's and looked apologetic, "Sorry if it seems early."

Carrie shook her head, "No, don't worry about it." she stepped aside and let them in, "Ken, do you need more sleep?"

"My folks were fighting last night, too." he grumbled, followed by a yawn, "I'll be fine." he exhaled.

"You sure?"

"I'm used to it." he said.

"Kenny, you should try and get some more sleep." Jennifer insisted. "After you guys eat?"

"I'll be fine." Kenny shrugged.

"I don't mind." Carrie said, "I mean- Stan's gonna nap, you might as well too."

"And you need the sleep. You worked kind of late last night, anyway, with your parents keeping you up on top of it." Jennifer insisted.

Stan nodded, agreeing with the girls.

Kenny watched the three of them, "Do I look that bad?"

"I mean- not as bad as Stan-" Carrie started, "But pretty close."

Kenny sighed, "Fine. That... doesn't actually sound too bad... But after we eat, though, right?"

"Right." Jennifer and Carrie agreed.

"Okay."

"We can eat in here if you want. Or we can eat in the kitchen, I really don't care."

Stan signed something after tapping Kenny's arm. Kenny nodded, "He says that he doesn't want to make a mess in your living room. So... Kitchen, I guess."

"Okay. That's fine." Carrie led them to the kitchen and let them sit at the table. Kenny looked up at the counter, "That's a lot of soup." he commented.

Carrie looked at the several cans that sat on the counter, the soup Kyle had brought over the night before. "Oh- I was home sick yesterday and I ran out of stuff to eat. I accidentally let that slip to Kyle and he... kinda bought me a bunch of soup and brought it over. He also brought me some tea and OJ." she explained.

"Huh..." Kenny hummed, shaking his head and digging into one of the bags and pulling out two breakfast sandwiches for himself.

"I got two sandwiches for everyone." Jennifer announced, handing Stan two sandwiches. He didn't seem to care to hear about Kyle.

"So Kyle was over yesterday?" Kenny asked, "How'd that go? Did he say anything?"

"Ken, that's not really our business." Jennifer nudged him. "She can hang out with him if she wants, we're not her boss."

Carrie pulled a glass from the cupboard, "He didn't really say anything about Stan, if that's what you're asking." she said, "And after I told him he was skinny, he said that he wasn't as skinny as you were, that's kind of the extent of it." she poured herself some orange juice. "I mean- he questioned his childhood, and said that it was only fair that he helped me if no one else is here to take care of me while I was sick- considering I backed up Stan at McDonald's the other day." she shrugged. "Aside from that, nothing really happened." she sat down at the table across from Kenny, right of Stan, left of Jennifer. "He just fed me soup and made me get more sleep."

They ate breakfast quietly, once they finished, Carrie showed the guys upstairs and let them take the guest room, and even offered her room to one of them, which they politely declined. Once they were left alone, Stan looked up at Kenny and signed.

"What? I just wanted to make sure he didn't say anything negative about you."

Stan rolled his eyes, signing again.

Kenny sighed, "Yeah... sorry if I seemed passive-aggressive..." he watched Stan sign again, "Yeah, I'll apologize to her, too. After we get some sleep..." he brushed his hair back. "Who's taking the bed? Or..."

Stan motioned and insisted that Kenny take it.

"You sure?"

Stan gave him a blank look and signed once again.

Kenny rolled his eyes, "Fair point, but you know-"

Stan signed once more, but aggressively this time.

"Okay! Okay!" Kenny chuckled, "Don't go blaming me for a stiff neck."

Stan smirked and rolled his eyes, planting a hand on Kenny's back and shoving him toward the bed. He sat down on the floor while Kenny laid on the bed. They were both snoring within seconds.

..xxXxx..

Carrie met with Jennifer in the kitchen, who had begun doodling in a sketchpad. "Well, that's a weird story opportunity that I need to not do..." she shook her head.

"What's that?" Jennifer asked.

"Oh- my guest room only has one bed and they declined sleeping in separate rooms." Carrie explained, "You read fanfiction?" she asked.

"Plent- oh." Jennifer chuckled, "The 'only one bed' trope." she shook her head, "No, whenever they spend the night at the same place, they share one room, but one of them will take the floor. Usually Stan."

"Yeah?"

Jennifer nodded, "Kenny doesn't really have much of a bed. It's basically an old, twin-size mattress sitting on the floor." she explained, "And Stan's bed is a full size on a boxspring and a frame, so when given the opportunity, Stan will let Kenny take the bed."

"Huh..." Carrie sat down, "That's nice of him."

Jennifer smiled, then the smile faded, "Hey, sorry about Kenny earlier, it wasn't fair to put you on the spot like that."

Carrie shook her head, "Don't worry about it. Drawback of a neutral party, I guess." she said. "Kyle almost did the same yesterday. I asked him why he was helping me and he responded by asking me why I helped Stan." she shrugged, "He... he was actually just trying to prove a point."

Jennifer looked up, "What kind of point?"

"Someone had to help." she said, "Since it was just me and him at the McDonald's when Bebe was saying all that shit about him, I backed him up because no one else was there to do it. You and Kenny were busy."

Jennifer nodded, "Right..." she continued doodling.

"And... since at the moment I'm kinda living by myself, no one else is here to help me if something happens, so Kyle took it upon himself to take care of me."

"Which I think was really nice of him." Jennifer added.

Carrie looked up at Jennifer. "So... what's your standpoint on all of this? I mean- I know you're on Stan's side, but..."

Jennifer shrugged, "It's a misunderstanding. Kyle's just too stubborn to listen."

Carrie thought for a while, "So... what exactly happened?"

Jennifer stopped doodling and looked up, "What do you know?"

"Well, you're saying it's all a misunderstanding. The most I heard is that Stan cheated on his girlfriend with Kyle's girlfriend at the time." Carrie said, "So... he didn't cheat? Or... what is all of that. Stan didn't exactly deny anything when we were at McDonald's, he... kinda just admit it like that was what happened."

Jennifer put her pen down, "Stan technically didn't cheat, Emily did." she started, "Emily was Kyle's girlfriend at the time, but she's also Kenny's cousin. The problem is, Emily has cheated on every guy she's ever dated. Kyle wasn't an exception. Emily was at Stan's place, Stan told Kyle to come over because he didn't want things to go wrong with Emily, and when Kyle got there, Emily kissed Stan. It just- It looked bad. Kyle didn't give Stan the chance to explain, he told Stan's girlfriend so she broke up with him, and Stan hasn't... he hasn't spoken since. I guess this was about a year ago... I hadn't moved here just yet. This is all what Kenny told me." she said, "He said that Stan basically vowed to not speak again until Kyle was finally willing to listen."

Carrie was silent for a while, "If... if you guys want, I can try talking to Kyle."

Jennifer scoffed with a smirk, "Good luck." she said, "Again, he's too stubborn to listen."

Carrie shrugged, "Again... I can try." she repeated. "What're you drawing anyway?"

"Eh..." Jennifer tilted her head, "Some sort of kraken... thing, I guess..." she said. The messy sketch had faint lines scribbled in random places, between the bolded outlines of a giant squid wrapped around a ship, rough, chaotic waves crashing against the hull and washing away debris that appeared to have fallen overboard.

Carrie studied the drawing for a while, "That looks like it would be a tattoo. That's really cool."

"Too messy to be a tattoo, I think." Jennifer hummed, "It'd look really hairy."

"Unless you did segmented shading in the sketch lines." Carrie suggested, "Make it look kind of like a mosaic." she said.

Jennifer nodded, "Okay, I can kind of see that. Or if I left the ink blue and don't do it in black." she said.

"That'd look cool." Carrie agreed.

..xxXxx..

After a couple hours of talking and drawing, Carrie and Jennifer were finally met with Stan who looked significantly more rested than he did when they arrived. He pulled out a DS after sitting down and powered it on.

"Where's Kenny? Still asleep?" Carrie asked.

Stan nodded, then he tapped the surface of the table in front of Jennifer, catching her attention. Once she looked up at him, he signed.

"Oh, do you have WiFi?" she translated.

"Uh, yeah, here..."

Stan passed her the DS and let her input the WiFi information. Once he got his DS back, he fired up a game

Jennifer heard the game's music and paused, "Did Kenny bring Platinum?" she asked.

Stan shrugged, his eyes focused on the screen.

Carrie looked at the screen, "Oh, hey, I have Diamond, too." she said, "What pokemon did you start with?"

Stan held up his index finger and opened the menu, going to his party and handing her the device.

She read off the names- Torterra, Togekiss, Luxray, Glaceon, Lucario, and Palkia. "Nice." she smiled and handed the game back to him, "Let me go grab mine." she hopped up and ran upstairs. On her way to her room, she stopped herself before the ran into Kenny.

Kenny rubbed his face, blinking slowly, "Carrie..." he grunted.

"Hey. Did you sleep okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, thank you." he said. "Um..." he started rubbing the back of his neck, "Look, sorry if I came off a little-"

"Dude, it's fine..." Carrie cut him off, "Jennifer explained what happened, I understand. Kyle almost did the same thing to me yesterday by asking why I helped Stan, but all he was trying to do was prove a point. Don't sweat it." she said.

Kenny gave her an unsure, apologetic half-smile. "Okay then..." he took a deep breath, watching her wander into her room and shove aside piles of papers on her desk. "Hey- I've been meaning to ask, when exactly is Trent getting back?" he asked.

Carrie paused, "Wednesday." she said, "Wednesday morning... The police are dropping him off here." she said, "I wish they'd just transfer him to actual jail..." She picked up a silver DS off her desk, running her thumb over the smooth surface.

"Transfer?" Kenny asked.

"He aged out of juvee..." she said, "He turned eighteen a few months ago, processing just took a long time. But now it's all officialized and he's coming home."

Kenny nodded, And... I thought he was supposed to get out... about four years ago, what happened?"

"He stabbed a guy with a spork." she said, "In a sort of vital area, so he almost killed him. It bought him more time."

Kenny shook his head. "Damn, okay..."

Carrie checked that the DS was off, then checked the cartridge to be sure it was even the correct game. "You play pokemon?" she asked.

Kenny smiled, "Yeah, I brought my DS in my bag. It's downstairs."

**I'll update this as often as I get to it. Again, literally dozens of other stories I get distracted with, plus with the new baby, I'm only typing to this now b/c my husband needs sleep for work so I have the night shift where I have literally nothing else to do while I let my daughter sleep. BY the WAY! I probably spent a couple hours researching the boys' fucking ages because it's never actually specified who's older than who other than Stan being older than Kyle. Here's how it is, Stan is the oldest, being born Oct. 19, 1991, then Kenny at Mar. 22, 1992, Kyle, May 26, 1992, then Cartman, Jul. 1, 1992. Again, WordPad doesn't have spell check, it's 4:20 AM for me right now, so I'm tired as fuck, and ran out of shits to give, but I do apologize for any spell checks, grammar errors and inconsistencies. I had to open a notepad and write down frickin' notes so I can keep track of this shit. Anyway, night guys, and stay awesome, folks!**

***Noticed that my copy and paste from wordpad left this in a weird format so I came back to edit***