A/N – Okay so this is my second fan-fiction and it begins in between "The Phenomenon" and "The Transfer". It is a definite Cartwills fanfic and I'm sorry to leave this first chapter on a bit of a cliff-hanger.
She needed to tell him; it was an absolute necessity that Karen tell Derek the one thing that could wreck their friendship: She loved him. Maybe it WAS the two Rum & Cokes that she had just finished, maybe it was even the romantic movie marathon that she and Ana had completed that day that had gotten into her head but if there was one thing that Karen felt she needed to do it was to look into Derek's sparkling Emerald eyes and say those words, those three little words that had so much power and so she left the money for her last drink on the counter and she ran out onto the street and dialled Derek's number. It went straight to voicemail.
'Damn it! Why does that always happen at the worst of times?' she thought to herself angrily before she spoke "Hi Derek, it's me, Karen, I just wanted to see if you were free to meet up but obviously your busy so call me when you're able to, okay, see you!"
'There that didn't sound too desperate did it?' she thought to herself as she stepped out onto the crossing at about 7pm at night. It seemed a perfectly safe to cross but little did Karen Cartwright, the shy soon to be Broadway star, know her life was about to change. What changed it? That was the exact moment when, just as she was half-way across the road, she saw the lights of a speeding car, she thought she'd have been able to get out of the way but at the speed of what seemed like a bullet, the car hit her before it was able to stop.
At that self-same moment in time Derek was having dinner with his good friend and colleague, Julia Houston, when he suddenly felt a chill; he shook it off but the sudden paleness to his face that came with it didn't go unnoticed.
"Are you alright, Derek? You just went awfully pale," Julia told him, the concern obvious in her voice.
"Yeah, do you mind if I just go and check my phone? I've had it turned off and I was expecting a call from Jerry Rand over Hit List," his voice shook as he said the sentence, something it never did, EVER! Although Julia didn't believe him, she gestured as if to say yes. He got up from the table and walked towards the bar, where he took his phone out of his pocket, proceeded to turn it on and dial for his voicemail.
"You have one message," he was told 'Yes, can you tell me what the bloody message is?" he thought to himself before playing Karen's message which somehow seemed to soothe the nerves he felt.
On impulse he dialled Karen's number and reached her voicemail, "Hey Karen, it's Derek. I'd love to meet up, just tell me when and where, darling," he said using his signature nickname for any woman. Little did he know; this was just the calm before the storm.
Only two minutes later Derek received a phone call from Ana, one of the principal actresses in Hit List and Karen's best friend and roommate "Ana, what a surprise, I wasn't expecting a call from you," he said, a breezy tone to his voice.
Ana took a second before she told her director the bad news that she'd only heard not one minute ago about his leading lady. "Derek, I… I don't quite know how to tell you this," she said as tears suddenly sprang to her eyes before she started blubbering in something that was unrecognizable to Derek.
"Calm down, Ana what is it?" he asked, hoping and praying that Karen was okay.
"I just got a phone call from the police; Karen was hit by a car!" Ana told him between sobs, her voice shaking with incredulity as she said the words.
The shock hit him like a bullet to the chest, "Is… is she alive?" he needed to know. Although he and Karen weren't exactly on the best of terms, he still loved her. No, he was still in love with her.
"She's alive, but barely, they're taking her to the medical centre at NYU," she told him. He had to see her, even if it meant he was going to have to say goodbye to those chocolate brown eyes that just made him melt every time he looked into them.
He said goodbye to Ana, promising to meet her at the hospital, and returned to his table to tell Julia the bad news.
"Derek, are you alright? You look as white as a sheet!" his friend told him, she was still concerned from earlier but now that concern had doubled itself. The Derek Wills she knew did NOT go pale after a phone call from one of his cast members.
"Karen's been hit by a car!" he said quite clearly on the brink of tears as relayed the news to the woman who had become one of his best friends over the past few months.
Julia called for a waiter and asked for the bill, before the two left the restaurant and hailed a cab. Once they were in the cab Derek lost control completely and began to cry uncontrollably. Julia had no idea what to do until they got to New York University's medical centre where the press were already stood, gasping for some news about Broadway's newest star's condition. Julia and Derek walked past and into the hospital where they were lead to a waiting room where they sat for at least an hour and a half.