Unfortunately, scheduling problems and lack of ideas has left me with no other choice but to end this fan fiction. It's a sad day for me, but this is a decision that I felt had to be made. I want to thank all the loyal readers (you know who you are) for following ANWT for this long. I also appreciate all the feedback that I've received, good and bad alike, during the course of this fan fiction. Lastly, I could have never have done this without the help of 2 amazing friends. P.J., you are a God-send. Co-writing this fic together was a phenomenal experience that will always be remembered. Thanks for all your support, nagging, and friendship. I wouldn't have had it any other way. DrewH, without you, I would have gone crazy. Thanks for helping me keep my cool and giving me great story ideas in the process. And to all the readers, whoever and wherever you are, thanks for letting us turn your world. It's been a fun ride.

With that said, the ending will be posted in parts. Each part will be posted whenever I can get around to it, so please be patient. And now, part 1 of "A New World Turns: The Ending".

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Carly finds Brad an apartment to sub-lease at the Oakdale Towers. Brad nitpicks the place to death, until Carly finally shuts him up. She points out he was all for pushing her to "move on" when Jack left town. Now she's the one advising him to move on with his life. Brad reminds her they've never been friends. He's always been a pain in the ass, Carly admits. But he grew up a little while Jack was out of town, looking out for her and the kids the way he did. That makes him family. Rolling his eyes, Brad admits the fabulous apartment isn't that bad...all it needs is a recliner and a big screen tv to make it perfect. Carly says he might want to add a bed, unless he plans on unrolling a sleeping bag on the floor. And sleeping alone for the forseeable future.

Jack calls in a favor and gets access a copy of the OPD file on Carly's accident. Other than Katie, the OPD had no suspects. He's upset to find a report detailing the earlier vandalism on Carly's car that he knew nothing about. The detective's notes question if the incidents are related. Jack's face turns ashen and he storms out to his car. Pulling out his cell, he leaves an angry message---"you have a lot of explaining to do."

Jack remains silent during dinner, and after she sends the kids to do their homework, Carly asks what's bothering him. Calmly, Jack asks why she didn't tell him her car was vandalized. Carly shrugs her shoulders and reminds him he wasn't around. At the time, she wasn't even sure if he gave a damn about her. Kissing her, he tells her everything he's done, he's done for her.

A few days later, Carly takes Brad to the mall, to help him furnish his new apartment. While they shop, Brad notices Mac out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't say anything to Carly, but he makes an excuse and confronts Mac, thinking he's stalking Carly. Mac tells him he's an idiot, that he's picking up some equipment for the hockey team. Brad backs off, but he's still suspicious. Later, he plays the sympathy card and invites himself back to supper at Milltown, and takes Jack aside, volunteering to help him "knock some sense" into Mac, Snyder style. Parker walks by and overhears Jack thank him for watching out for Carly, but refuses to confront Mac. After Brad leaves, Jack insists on staying the night with his family---on the couch.

The next day, taping runs late at WOAK. Expecting his furniture, Brad asks Jimmy to wait for the delivery men. When he's finally done with work, Brad runs in to Carly in the parking lot. She chides him for acting like a kid at Christmas, anxious see the presents Santa's brought. Brad reminds her she had fun too---spending his money. Carly admits she did, and Brad invites her to be his first official houseguest...and help do all the "woman-y things" like arranging the furniture. She agrees. When they arrive, everything's been delivered but the bed. Brad thanks Jimmy, and he and Carly are soon engrossed in unpacking and rearranging the furniture.

When the kids arrive home from school, Jack is walking up the block to greet them. While JJ and Sage do their homework, Parker asks Jack if he had a talk with Mac. Jack denies it, and wonders why Parker's asking. Parker admits he overheard Brad accuse Mac of stalking Carly. And that while Carly befriended Mac at first, she grew uncomfortable around him, and he saw them arguing on the porch the last time Mac stopped by the house. Jack assures him there's nothing to worry about. Parker berates him for acting like it's no big deal. Maybe if Jack had been around to see it like Parker and Brad were, he'd think differently. Parker has a bad feeling about Mac---he thinks he's lying about something. And frankly, he thinks Jack's lying to him too.

A knock at the door interrupts them. It's Margo, accompanied by two cops. She tersely asks if Carly's home. Carly's still at work, Jack tells her. Margo shakes her head. Carly's not at WOAK. When Jack asks why Margo wants to know, she takes him aside and tells him 911 got a call half an hour ago from Oakdale Towers---Brad's been stabbed. He's been rushed to Memorial, and it doesn't look good. Jack asks what that has to do with Carly. Carly was seen entering the building with Brad, Margo answers. But no one saw her leave. And her purse was found at the scene. Jack pales---Carly's obviously been kidnapped. Margo hesitates--or she's the suspect in an attempted murder. Jack scoffs at the idea. Margo's serious. She mentions the fact Carly's been seen with Brad all around town lately. She was helping Brad set up residence, using his credit card and ordering furniture, including a bed. She even mentions Katie accused Carly and Brad of having an affair minutes after Jack left town. It wouldn't be the first time a lover's spat had ended in violence.

Jack tells Margo she's wrong...he and Carly are back together. Margo snidely reminds him it wouldn't be the first time Carly's deceived him. Jack snaps, reminding her Carly was nearly run down just a few weeks ago. Margo says it was probably just an accident, and Carly used it to drum up sympathy. Finally, Jack comes clean. The reason he suspects someone is after Carly, is because someone's after him. Right before Christmas, Jack went back undercover with the FBI after they informed him Ben Harris had been brutally attacked. An obituary of Joe Teague was left at the scene, along with an old newspaper article about Jack finding the evidence that linked Teague to the Milltown Church fire. The FBI has been investigating a white supremicist group headed by Joe Teague's son, Junior. Ben was put into protective custody, and the Bureau wanted to put him, Carly and the kids under protection too while they hunted Junior down. Jack refused, staged a break up, and left town to keep his family safe. Margo chastises him for not informing her--she could have at least placed the house under surveillance while Jack was out of town. Jack assures her he made his own arrangements before going undercover and trying to get information from one of Teague's old buddies about where Junior might hide out. He couldn't find out anything useful, and he came home after hearing about Carly's accident.

Margo puts out an APB on Carly's car, and Jack asks to be a part of the investigation. He calls the FBI, hoping they've had a break in finding Junior. Emma comes over to be with the kids, while Margo authorizes police protection for the house. Emma tries to reassure the kids, but Parker overhears the officers speculate that Carly's probably already dead. Convinced that Mac is behind Carly's disappearance, he sneaks out of the house with a baseball bat. While Parker hides in the bushes at Mac's house down the street, Carly wakes up in the dark, screaming, recalling finding Brad laying in a pool of his own blood.

Parker spies Mac sitting in his front room, in front of his laptop. When Mac leaves the room, he sneaks inside the house, and is shocked. There are candid pictures of his family hanging on the wall, along with schedules of their weekly activities written out. When he hears Mac returning, he waits by the door, and hits him in the back, knocking Mac to the floor. As the older man coughs up blood, Parker shouts he wants to know what Mac's done with Carly. Mac denies any involvement, and Parker hits him again. Parker shouts Brad was right, Mac is some stalker-pervert fixated on his mom. Slowly, Mac crawls into a corner as he coughs up blood. Parker raises his bat again, as Mac tries to calm him down. Mac understands that it looks bad, but he's not stalking anyone. He's been protecting them. Parker laughs at him--he's a cop's kid, he'd have known if they were under police protection. Understanding nothing he says will convince Parker, he offers up proof. The phone number of the man who hired him.

Emma panics, realizing Parker's taken off. The officers search the house and call Jack, who races home. The officers report they've searched the area, and Parker's bike is still in the garage. Jack tells them to keep searching and begs Emma not to worry before taking off again.

Parker tells Mac he's calling the police instead, and pulls out his cell phone. Hearing someone else enter the house and call out Mac's name, he hides by the door and raises his bat. Just as the person steps through the doorway, Mac yells at them to duck, and they roll to the floor as Parker swings and misses. Parker's ready to swing again, but stops cold when he realizes it's Jack. Parker tells him he's found Carly's kidnapper--Mac. Jack yells at him, asking what the hell he's doing running out on Emma in the middle of a crisis. Mac yells at him explain everything before Parker hits anyone else with the bat. Then Jack comes clean. Mac is ex-FBI, the first partner Jack had when he joined the Bureau. Parker was right, Jack lied when he left town---but it was to go undercover--and he only agreed knowing someone he trusted would be protecting his family. He got Mac the job at the rink, so he could have a way to keep an eye on them without scaring either Carly or them. Mac called him right after Carly's accident, and Jack decided to come home. Jack assures him there's no way Mac had anything to with Brad's stabbing or Carly's disappearance.

Parker apologizes to Mac, and Jack scolds him for taking matters into his own hands. As Jack arranges for a squad car to take Mac to the ER, he gets a call on his cell phone. The caller's voice is disguised, and he's told that if he wants the blonde returned safely, he'll come to where Joe Teague was murdered. Alone.

Carly explores the cabin she's being held in. To her horror, she realizes it's the same cabin she and Jack took refuge in after being trapped by Joe Teague in the tool shed and nearly freezing to death. Where Jack was stabbed and Teague was killed after fighting with Ben Harris. Carly desperately tries to escape, but the door is barred from the outside and all the windows are boarded over. Carly hears someone outside and tries to hide, hoping she can just rush out past them. She can't see the man's face, but he advises her not to run, and holds a gun out for her to see. Besides, her hero is on his way to rescue her---she wouldn't want to miss that. Carly tells the man he'd be better off leaving---Jack will kill him for taking her and killing his brother. The last he heard, Brad was hanging on in the ICU at Memorial. Then all he has to do is let her go, and he'll live, Carly tries to bargain. Jack needs to pay, the man tells her, turning around and introducing himself as Joe Teague Jr. Carly pales recognizing Jimmy, the intern from WOAK.

Joe/Jimmy tells her to scurry out from the corner she's hiding in. He's not going to hurt her---at least until Jack gets there. He laughs as Carly stays hidden, and tells her how fun it was being so close to her at WOAK, knowing he could just kill her anytime he wanted. It amused him to see her operate, bedding Brad while Jack-the-hero was out of town. And the way she tortured poor Katie made him hate Carly all the more. That's why he trashed her car---for Katie---but he also hoped to scare her enough to bring Jack back to town. It took nearly running her down to do that though. He could have played this out for months, but when Katie left town, it left him without someone to take the blame. So he stepped up his timetable. And when Brad asked him to let the furniture guys in and she showed up too---it was the perfect opportunity.

Carly and Joe/Jimmy hear a car pull up, and Carly makes a break for the door, screaming for Jack to stay away. Jimmy hits her, knocking her down, then grabs her up by the arm and hauls her out to the porch with him. Pointing his gun to her head, Jimmy tells Jack to toss away his gun, then kneel down. His dad would want his murderer to die on his knees. Jack wants Jimmy to let Carly drive away in his car first before he'll toss the gun. Carly's horrified and begs Jack not to agree---Jimmy's going to kill her either way. Jack tells her that's not true, Jimmy promised Carly wouldn't be harmed. Jimmy laughs...as long as Jack knows what a faithless bitch Carly was, sleeping with his brother, he'll let her go. He tells Jack to throw his gun away and walk away from the car. When Jack does, Jimmy drags Carly with him off the porch, and moves with her closer to the car. Eyes locked on her, Jack tells Carly he loves her.

When they get to the front of the car, Jimmy tosses Carly to the ground and shoots three rounds into Jack's chest. Carly scrambles for the car door as a shot rings out, dropping Jimmy to the ground. Screaming, Carly dashes over to Jack, begging him not to die as she presses her hand over his chest. Jack groans, and tells her not to worry, she's not getting rid of him that easily. Carly feels a solid mass, and realizes Jack's wearing a bulletproof vest. Suddenly she's aware of a handful of FBI agents swarming the scene, and realizes he had an entire squad backing him up. Relieved beyond belief, she smothers him with kisses. Jack groans in pain, and protests going to a hospital when one of the medics suggests it. Carly overrules him, and tells him she's putting her foot down. The sooner he's healed, the sooner they can get married. Jack laughs that he hasn't asked her yet. Carly tells him she's not waiting for him to ask, they're getting married exactly one week after he's discharged. No ifs, ands or butts about it. Laughing, Jack agrees---but he's not taking her name. Carly kisses him, and tells him to shut up.

TO BE CONTINUED....