"Thank you so much, you two, you are lifesavers!"

Carmen Allen laughed dismissively at Melanie's overflowing gratitude for watching little Ryan. Truth be told, she loved the little boy - despite the fact that he was drawing dangerously near his terrible two's and well on his way to earning the title. Ryan was, after all, her godson.

"We're sorry to ask this of you guys while you're in the middle of moving," said Rob, Carmen's longtime best friend. It was strange at times now for Carmen to think that he was married to Melanie, the blonde-haired and blue-eyed sorority girl they'd roomed with in college - Carmen was surprised even more by how close she'd gotten to the other woman as well, considering how little she'd believed they had in common. But, given the events of recent years, a certain closeness was unavoidable, and more importantly, welcome in all of their lives. "It must be crazy -"

"It serves you right for waiting so long to move in together!" Melanie laughed, piping in while in the middle of playing with her son, having been separated from him for the entirety of one evening. It had Robert and Melanie's anniversary, so they'd asked Carmen and her fiancé, Mort Rainey, to watch their son for the evening.

Mort was probably most surprised of all - he had never honestly thought he'd be any good with children. The one time in the past he had even come close to being a father had ended… poorly, to say the least. But he no longer dwelled on that thought. That was a life before Carmen, another life entirely, and one he had no intentions of ever returning to.

"Thank you," Rob repeated for perhaps the fifth time that morning. "If there's anything we can do to repay you guys -"

"There is. Don't back out of being my best man," Mort chuckled, reaching out and giving the man a pat on the shoulder. "Because I literally have no one else."

"Thanks," Rob deadpanned. "Nice to know I'm appreciated."

"I do what I can," Mort shrugged.

It was strangely amazing, living such a normal life again - and Mort very rarely let the opportunity to muse over it pass him by. For the past eight months since running into Carmen again in the Park and finally rekindling their relationship - their engagement - he had enjoyed the low-key lifestyle he'd managed to procure. He had his home in Tashmore Lake and his flat in SoHo, he was able to write and sell perhaps more copies of his books than ever, and once Carmen was finally back in his life - back, without the shadow of John Shooter or any other past demons hovering over either of them - it seemed safe to say that things had simply fallen back into place.

Then, just a month ago while they were at Carmen's flat, sharing leftover pizza and looking for something to watch on TV, he had done it - he had asked her to move in with him. They'd been engaged for eight months now, after all, and it hardly seemed practical to live apart when they rarely spent nights away from one another anyway. It was practical. It was the most sensible thing for the two of them to do - and yet, Mort was beyond blown away when very casually, Carmen agreed.

So now, the living room was clean, tidy, and baby-proofed - but only because Carmen had insisted on shoving all of her boxes into the study and the bedroom to keep the area clear for Baby Ryan to play in when they watched him. Now that the place was baby-free, however, they were faced with the task of unpacking boxes. Thankfully, Carmen was not the type to hold on to too many things, so she came with a very minimal clutter factor - but the logistics of rearranging a home for one to become a home for two, especially a flat, were daunting nonetheless.

After an entire day of simply trying to figure out where to put things, Carmen was - as usual - the first to fall asleep. She'd tried to press Mort into simply calling it a day as well, but he insisted that since she had done the borne the brunt of watching Ryan, he could put in a little extra work unpacking.

It was while he was sitting the study, perusing some of the boxes of fiancée's things, that he noticed a notebook that looked a little bit like a diary. He didn't think Carmen the type. Glancing over his shoulder and holding his breath to make sure he could still hear the faint sound of her snoring from the bedroom, he pulled the notebook from the pile and flipped it open to a random page.

...of course I'm not going to do it, she thought, though even the thought felt weak and truncated in her mind as though it hardly served to convince itself. But she had to be convinced. That was the point. It would be insane to run guns a-blazing to unearth some kind of a secret - literally - on a man she honestly barely knew.

So why was she in the car in the dead of night, driving to his house?

Because Shooter told me to do it, she reasoned with herself. Shooter, who wasn't real. Shooter, who she had no reason to be seeing in her dreams at all, had told her to do it.

After reading a few more pages - a few dozen more pages, really - Mort realized two things. The first thing was that this was the entirety of the ordeal with Shooter from Carmen's perspective - Carmen, who in the end ultimately learned that John Shooter had been her father, and quite nearly got herself killed for it. This was every detail of those dark few months that Mort had yet to understand, because he had no recollection or knowledge of much of it.

The second thing was that it was very good.

Mort remembered once, when they had been on a trip to Cape Cod, they had been sitting on the beach and Carmen had asked him if he thought that she could ever write something someday. He'd thought she'd just been being cute, being affectionate – and so, he'd given her a cute and affectionate answer. If he'd have known she was actually good, he would have given her and honest answer - yes. He read a little bit more and came only to feel stronger about his initial conclusion: the story was amazing. Raw, rightfully haphazard in some places, but amazing.

From this, Mort next realized that he himself had never committed the story of John Shooter to paper in its entirety. He'd tried from time to time, but always found the story incomplete and filled with holes, just like his memory. The holes, he realized, were filled by Carmen's account. As much as he hated to remember any of it, it made so much more sense when combined with Carmen's narration of the events.

And the idea hit him.

Almost as though possessed, he hurried over to the bedroom where Carmen was sleeping and shook her awake like he was a child rushing to tell a parent that it was Christmas Day. After groggily rubbing her eyes for a short period, she groaned and looked up at her fiancé questioningly.

"Is something on fire?"

"We should write this story together. This is it, this is my next project."

Carmen's eyes widened when they adjusted to the light and she realized that Mort was brandishing her journal - the brown, leather-covered notebook that she had started keeping for some time in the two years she spent away from Mort before stashing it away with every intention of never looking at it again. While obviously shocked at being woken so suddenly, she understood immediately what Mort meant when she said that they should write it together. She sat up in bed and raised her eyebrows.

"Are you - kidding me?"

She had never seen him this frenzied over a new idea - she'd seen him deep in thought, she'd seen him so intent on finishing that he tuned her out completely, but she'd never seen him like this.

"It's all here," Mort said, giving the journal a gentle shake. He realized now, however, that perhaps this wasn't something he should have wanted to make a project of. To him, sure, it was the past, but it was still very much Carmen's life. "I'm just - I'm asking you to let me use it. I've been hitting a dry spell lately and I think I could be on to something."

Carmen, for one, was completely dumbstruck by the proposal. They went to such pains to get past that part of their lives - the part that involved John Shooter - and yet Mort seemed so excited to relive it. A part of Carmen was afraid, admittedly, that there had to be something ominous about this, but the greater part realized that Mort valued closure. Closure mattered to him, and there was a difference between calling something over and truly having closure. She let out a small breath and nodded.

"If it helps, keep it," she said with a lopsided grin. "I haven't touched that thing in ages." Mort reached out and clasped his hands over hers.

"It's going to be big. It's going to be great," he said gently, leaning over and brushing his lips against her forehead.

"I believe you," Carmen laughed weakly. "Now - let me go to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"It's already the ninth," Carmen pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "You said we were going to Maine? For your mother's -"

"Retirement party. God, you're right," Mort groaned, running his hand over his forehead and through his hair. "We're leaving tomorrow morning for that."

"That's right," Carmen chuckled, shaking her head. "And I finally get the grand introduction. I can't believe you forgot -"

"I've had other things on my mind." And suddenly, Mort was smiling wolfishly, climbing onto the bed next to Carmen and ardently claiming her lips with his own. Carmen responded by laughing breathily and pulling him closer so that their bodies were pressed together, and she fluidly maneuvered her way on top of him so that her hands were resting on his abdomen.

He could definitely get used to this.

A/N's

Slow chapter, but things will pick up quickly! Next chapter, we meet Mort's mother and another new face who will play an important role in the story. If you're a new reader, I recommend you run back to my author page and read Just Over Your Shoulder before this one. This story may have some slightly dark content, and might contain much less fluff - depends on what I decide to add.

In any case, happy reading and cheers!