Disclaimers: I own nothing but the characters I made up on my own. Steph, Ranger and Morelli belongs to Janet Evanovich. I make no money on this.

Summary: At some point your life is a total mess, and you just want to get a fresh start.

Spoilers: I guess it's safest to say it's after LMT.

Rating: T

Prologue

I wasn't thinking. I couldn't have been, or else I wouldn't have been here now. I was sitting in my car, halfway to Washington D.C., and in the back I had Rex, my long beloved roomie, who also was a hamster.

At the time Rex was in my cookie jar, and beside him was a bag with some clothes and personal effects. What had I done?

Slowly it all came back to me. The stalker, the bomb and the fire.

I pulled the car over as the flashbacks brought back tears, fear and relief.

In the last two months I had a man stalking me. He had been one of my FTA's once a long time ago.

At first he seemed friendly enough, for a stalker. He left small presents like some flowers, doughnuts, chocolate or sweets and followed me in a low scale kind of a way.

After some time he put more pressure on me, and followed me everywhere I went. I started to be kind of tired of the whole thing, but he hadn't actually done anything to me, so I waited.

I waited until today. When I got home he had been in my apartment, waiting for me. He told me that he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I couldn't believe what was happening to me before I really knew what was going on, he was down on one knee, asking me to marry him.

Yes, he wanted me to marry him!

He wasn't the first stalker I had, but he was the first one to ask me to be his wife. I was shocked and said that I had to think about it. He left, and said he would return the next day.

Probably in shock I decided that I needed some space from my life. I packed some clothes and things that I didn't want to leave behind.

I was holding Rex in my hands, telling him that I would have to go on a little trip. I think he would have been very angry at me if I just left without saying why. After living with together for years, you start to depend on each other, you know?

Suddenly a bomb was thrown through the window of my apartment. I looked from the thing to my window and back again before it finally registered in my brain what it was; I got the hell out of that apartment.

I reached the safety of the hall near elevator and barely avoided the explosion; I decided to take the stairs. Yeah, I actually had read the warnings about taking the stairs if a fire starts.

In no time I was outside and in my car. I reached for my phone to call 911, but I couldn't find it. I had left it on my couch. Stupid, stupid, stupid Stephanie, I hit myself in my head.

Unexpectedly I felt something moving in my other hand. I looked down at Rex and I felt ten pounds fly off my shoulders.

"Oh, honey, everything is going to be all right, I promise!" This was about the time I stopped thinking I guess. And in one way or another I had managed to get myself half-way to Washington before starting to think again. Go figure!

I sat in the car besides a gas station, cars driving past.

I didn't know what to do. Some part of me wanted to go back to Trenton, but the other part told me that I needed to get some space from all this.

It was only three days ago that I had been engaged to Supercop, AKA Joe Morelli. Notice had been, past tense, no more. And last night I spent with Batman, AKA Ranger. What a mess.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

I took several days to get to Atlanta. Once in a while I stopped to get some sleep, and I bought a few news papers. I could have done the drive in two days, but I wanted and needed both the time and space.

From what I read, everybody believed that I had died in the fire with two of my neighbors and Rex. I felt sorry for my neighbors, but it wasn't my foul I convinced myself to believe.

I felt bad about not telling anybody that I was alive. But if I ever wanted to fix my life, I needed this. I needed a fresh start. And I needed it a long way from New Jersey. I had never been to Europe. Maybe that was the place to go from Atlanta?

Thanks to Lisa (Alfonsina del Mar) for editing!

Please R&R!

TBC…