A/N: Couldn't sleep so i decided on being productiv. I had an idea like this a while back but my first draft back then sucked, so i decided to channel my insomnia tonight and see where it leads me now. I am not sure about the second chapter yet. I know where she'll stop in the third one though, but for the second I'm undecided. Lula or Lester come to mind, but... hm... not sure. I might probably go with some RangeMan though. I'm open for suggestions ...

I finally did it. I finally managed to get my apartment fully burnt down. Including the bathroom and its hideous tiles. Though, I myself couldn't take too much credit to be honest as it was more the work of my latest lunatic FTA who apparently might have been a tad too big for me to handle. But the money that would have been mine if I managed to capture him was too good to pass. It was like the carrot dangling in front of a rabbit. I should have known better.

Now I stood outside my building, surrounded my residents that watched the spectacle unfold in front of us together with me, the press, the firefighters and Morelli next to me. Morelli was his usual self – wild gestures, plenty of Italian yelling and the occasional "I told you so" thrown in. Some things in life just never change. I was holding Rex's in his aquarium in my hands and a handful of panties – the only two things I actually managed to save before the flames ate everything else.

Seeing my apartment in flames had good sides – as well as bad ones obviously. The good side was I would finally no longer have to look at these godawful tiles in my bathroom, and my kitchen would probably get an upgrade as well. The bad thing? I was sort of, very much homeless for a while. Of course, there were always my parents, but really… that wasn't an option for me. I was too old to move back to my parents and not dead enough yet to endure my mother's daily musings and speeches about me getting hopefully married eventually – preferably to Morelli – and start to pop out kids.

Morelli next to me let out a sigh. "Guess that means you are staying with me for a while." And then he walked towards his car. Guess I wasn't homeless any longer. Though I had hoped he would be a little more …enthusiastic.

I trotted after him, put Rex on my passenger seat and followed Morelli out of my parking lot and to his place, glad I didn't have to make the trip to my parents. I was sure come tomorrow morning my mother would have heard the newest story about me from several different sources in different versions. So no need to call them right now.

I got Rex settled in Morelli's kitchen and dumped my handbag that had been in my car while my apartment burned down on a stool. The few panties I had saved from the fire were put in Morelli's bedroom. It seemed silly, seeing that all I really had on me were the clothes I owned. Everything else had been reduced to ashes – well except for the handful of panties, but they could hardly be considered clothes.

Not surprisingly the fact that I was pretty much only owning panties now as clothing was all it took for Morelli to get into the mood. I was grateful for the distraction and felt like a butch for having such a thought. But when you place burns down you technically have other things in your mind that your boyfriend's libido. Well… not Morelli.

After four days with him I was going insane. If he wasn't lecturing me on how I should quit my job and marry him and become the Burg wife my mother wanted me to be, he expected sex. We had been staying at each other's places before, but usually was it only for a night after sex. We hadn't really tried living with each other, at least not recently. And while Joe seemed perfectly fine with this situation, I wasn't. I didn't want to spend my days hearing him nag about stuff I was set on doing. If I wanted that, I could have gone to my parents.

Housework was ok, but in general it was more than what I was used to. I never had realized that Morelli was a neat freak. While I didn't live in a dump, I also wouldn't have advised to try eating of my floors when my apartment had still been livable. Morelli was… different. And there was a moment several times where I wondered whether he didn't just see me as his maid who had way too much time on her hands due to a rather low-season in the bounty hunter business.

Also… sleeping in the same bed as him was not ideal. Turned out he took over almost his entire bed, forcing me almost out of bed several times the past few days. I haven't fallen out yet, but I guess it would only be a matter of time. And he hogged the sheets and comforter, leaving me freezing at night since he refused to turn on the heating, seeing it wasn't winter yet. Also… his mattress was kind of …through. It was too soft and probably could have done with being replaced with a new one. Most nights I either spent turning from side to side, hoping to find a way to fall asleep on his rather uncomfortable mattress. Or fight him for the covers. Or space.

One night I actually decide on trying the couch, having decided I needed a somewhat decent night of sleep. The next morning we had an argument about god knows what and I figured us living together wasn't working for either one. And maybe the relationship wasn't working for either of us anymore as well.

"It is a mattress, Cupcake," he said to.

"It actually is more than that. I mean, yeah, the mattress is a part of it and it is a question of comfort. But it's also about the covers and the space and … everything really. Maybe this isn't working for us."

"The living together?" he asked, moving closer. "I know a thing that works great for us…"

His smile indicated he was thinking about a bed right now, just in a different context than me. And that was something else. Sometimes it seemed as if Morelli was solving conflicts with sex. While in general that wasn't the worst of things for de-escalation it was also annoying at times. Because – and I couldn't believe I was saying this – but sometimes you had just to discuss stuff and solving it with sex was only postponing things.

"Not just the living but… everything. Us. Maybe we are just not working out," I clarified and saw him look at me confused. Guess he wasn't expecting me to break up. Especially not over something as trivial as sheets, covers, space in bed and mattresses.

So I took Rex and my handful of panties, along with the few items of clothing I either had bought by now or had collected from my parent's place and drove away.

This hadn't worked out. And maybe I needed a new plan. My parents surely weren't a plan. They were the very last option if all failed.

Let's hope it didn't come to that.