Author's Note: O.K., I have to say a few things before you read this.  There are spoilers if you haven't seen the movie!

#1 – When I went to see this movie – I rooted for Mort.  Psycho or not, it was hard for me not to.  O.K., he got a little bit scary when he was finally seen as "John Shooter" – but then at the end of the movie, he was just so happy and…I digress.  He was cute, I liked him, so on to other things.

#2 – I honestly started this fic as kind of a joke for myself.  You have to stretch things a bit in the fact that the police (who seemed pretty lazy to me anyway) never found the bodies.  Anyway, I wanted an excuse to write some fluff with Mort Rainey…however, in a matter of a day, I've actually really gotten into the inner/outer dialogue and think that this is something that's going to be more serious than I intended.

#3 – Please don't yell Mary Sue.  It is very hard to keep oneself out of a fic involving the likes of Mr. Depp.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't – ladies, insert yourself into the story and have a ball!  Heehee.

#4 – I've come to the conclusion that you need a key to understand what's going on here, so her it goes.  When Mort's thoughts are written in italics then they are his own innocent Mort Rainey thoughts.  When the thoughts are written in bold then they are "John Shooter's" thoughts.  When the thoughts are written in bold italics they belong to the part of Mort Rainey that knows everything that's going with both "Innocent Mort" and "John Shooter."  Have I confused you?  I hope not – if you've seen the movie, then all of that should make sense.  ***Any other characters' thoughts are in regular italics and will be by that character's name/dialogue to avoid confusion.

#5 – I don't flame you, so please don't flame me – it's just not nice.

#6 – I own nadda, zip, zero, other than my OCs.

O.K., all that aside, I give you chapter one.  Enjoy and please review!

***

Mort Rainey had disappeared from his home in the woods without anyone noticing – or perhaps caring.  Dave Newsome never found the truck in the lake and seemed a bit too lazy to bother digging up Mort's property…not that he would have found much so many months later.

"The Secret Window" had been fixed and republished and John Shooter appeared to be gone.  Strangely enough, the ending of Mort's story now seemed to ring true: he honestly couldn't remember what had happened to the four people he had murdered…not to mention his – no, Amy's dog.

Mort woke up one morning with a strong urge to leave the cabin and start his life over somewhere new.  He also had an intense dislike for the look, smell, and taste of corn.  The braces gone, and his outlook oddly optimistic, he packed up and moved out of state.  His savings account was more than enough for him to live off of for the rest of his years and he had decided that writing needed to sit on the back burner for a while…it seemed to make him – edgy.  There was also a part of his brain that was telling him to stay off of the public radar for a while, but he wasn't sure why.

As much as Mort seemed to revel in the solitude he had in his cabin, the thought of being cut off from society now made him feel uncomfortable.  He used to be a social creature before Amy had…no, those thoughts didn't enter his mind anymore – there was no reason for them to.  He hadn't heard from Amy in the longest time…not since the papers were signed – even then, he heard nothing.

He moved into a quiet suburban neighborhood and felt very at peace with himself.  He was congenial with the neighbors, and quite well liked.  He was happy enough doing renovations on the house he'd bought – it was quite the "fixer-upper."  He couldn't help but feel a bit odd when he walked through the house the first time and saw all of the needed repairs – the bathroom especially struck him…the mirror and shower door were shattered.  He took care of those repairs first and the eerie feeling left him.

In actuality, all of those events in Mort's life had happened almost two years ago, but again, his memories were blank of them.  The eerie feelings came now and again when he saw certain objects or heard a particular sound and every once in a great while, he would have flashes of things in his sleep that disturbed him, but nothing harsh enough to remember.  For the most part, Mort's life was peaceful and…good.