Author's Note: So, I've been slacking. I know that the dasey revival is extremely important, but i've started school at ITT-tech and it's kind of taking up all of my time and energy. Yet at the same time, I find myself more motivated to write. I don't know what it is. Whatever.

I honestly just started writing this while in class one day, and decided to go with it. I had no idea what was going to happen, but now I think I've developed an idea of where to take it.
I hope you all enjoy it!

NOTICE: This may be a bit confusing! The page breaks (long lines) indicate the break settings AND points of view!! It's all in first person, but it's two different people narrating! I hope it's not too confusing! :-/ If it is, TELL ME!

Disclaimer: I don't own Life with Derek OR the Buffalo Sabres.

Summary: Is it just a coincidence that both Toronto and Buffalo have been nicknamed 'The Queen City'? Dasey. From one Queen City to another, with... love?

The Queen Cities

A Life with Derek Fanfiction

Chapter One: With Love

I can't do it. I can't.
Isn't this what I've always wanted?
Life away from him?
And now that it's happened, I just... I'd give anything for my old life.

Ten years.
Ten friggen years I've known him.
Four years living with him and four more years living within ten minutes of him.

Now I'm in Toronto and he's in the 'States playing hockey for the Buffalo Sabres.
(Is it just a coincidence that both Toronto and Buffalo have been nicknamed 'The Queen City'?)
I haven't seen him in a little over two years, with the exception of his games, which I've watched on T.V.
I haven't missed one yet.
I never used to like hockey. In fact, I hated it. But I also thought I hated him and that turned out to be completely and utterly false.

I don't know what to do! My life is spiraling downwards. I'm not happy and he is...
Which in turn makes me hurt even more.

Not only am I hurting, but I can't talk to anyone about it...
No one would understand... I'm not supposed to miss him this much. I'm not supposed to see him on television and wish he weren't so far away.
I'm supposed to feel bad for the people of Buffalo because they have to deal with his shenanigans, not feel envious of them because they're so much closer to him than I am.

I see articles about him and have to pool all of my self-control to not read them.

And do you know how hard it is to be one of the only people in the whole of Toronto that is not a Maple Leaf's fan? I may as well be committing treason!

It's torture. I watch the crowd go wild as he scores goal after goal and I see the fans with his name plastered on their backs and on signs. I see foolish girls with marriage proposals that will go unnoticed by him, but will always be fresh in my mind, 'Venture with me, Venturi?'; 'Marry Me, Triple D?' I laugh at first but my heart aches because I know that one day he will marry. It may not be one of the fans I see in the crowd, but some poor, ill-advised girl will become Mrs. Derek Venturi.

The worst of it is that I'll be invited to the wedding. It'll be mandatory that I not only go, but that I also help with the 'joyous occasion'.
I try not to think about it, though; for obvious reasons.

It's bad. Really bad. And I just... know... that if I don't see him soon, I'm going to go crazy. But at the same time, if I do see him... in person, something crazier could happen...

I'm going insane and no one knows it.
I play each game as if it were my last, which is why we always end up winning.

Everyone is envious of my 'skills' and my 'luxurious life' in general, but they wouldn't be so happy living my life if they knew the truth. I'm living in hell because the one person I care about most, the one person that I that couldn't stand for the longest time, is miles away and I haven't talked to her in over two years.

I never in a million years thought I'd miss her; at least not as much as I actually do.

The worst of it is, I have no none to talk to about it. I can't turn to any of my friends from back home, they wouldn't understand. And my new friends, well... I just have this new life and they know hardly anything about the old one.

Plus they're all so superficial (a word I learned from her, of course), so they'd probably just ask if she's hot and say that I must have done the 'horizontal mambo' with her a lot to make me miss any girl this much.

It doesn't help that I'm in the public's eye. 90% of the time. It wouldn't be very becoming of me as a 'celebrity' to blurt out my deepest feelings. It would definitely make it's way to the tabloids and become this huge scandal, 'Mystery Girl Holds Hockey Stud's Heart' or some shit like that.

Anyways, it's not like she feels the same way at all.
All the time I've known her, we've despised each other.

Don't fix something that's not broken, I guess...

I just need to stay away from her for as long as possible.
She probably doesn't even miss me.

"Derek Venturi?" I looked up to see a woman with blonde hair and a curvy figure who had obviously been the one trying to identify me.

The woman took my upward glance in her direction as an answer, "Dr. Miller will see you now; upstairs, first door on the right." She smiled and left the room.

I followed her directions and entered a room with a large leather couch, a desk with slightly balding, white haired man sitting behind it, and one bookshelf, that only had about five books on it.

"Mr. Venturi, please, take a seat." He nodded to the couch. I did as he said. "May I call you, Derek? Or do you prefer Mr. Venturi?" He smiled.

"Derek is fine." I said shortly. The place was making me so uncomfortable.

The man scribbled something on the paper in front of him.

"So, Derek. As this is your first time seeing me, I'd like to do a little evaluation," he started, pulling a sheet of paper out of a filing cabinet attached to his desk, "Please, take your time reading this list, and check off things that have happened to you in the past three months." He said, handing me the paper on a clipboard with a pen attached.

I scanned the paper and internally rolled my eyes. I knew this was a stupid idea.
I quickly went through and did as the doctor said as he scribbled more on his notepad. As I handed the paper back to him, he looked me over; probably assessing my mannerisms or some shit.

It took him a minute to 'calculate' my 'score' but soon he spoke, "According to this stress evaluation, you have come to see me at the right time. If you would have waited longer, you may have reached a breaking point and that could have lead you to make irrational decisions to which you would not regard the consequences."

I listened intently, but skeptically; I mean, I knew I was stressed, but close to a breaking point? Really? I don't think so.

"I'd like to start by asking, what made you come here in the first place, Derek?" The doctor folded his hands in front of him on his desk.

I cleared my throat, "Well, there is something that's been on my mind lately, and there's no one that I can really talk to about it. So I though, 'Hey! Why not go to someone who gets paid to listen?'"

He nodded, "That's what I am here for, but I assure you, the monetary reward is not what keeps me in this profession." He paused, jotting something down, "Tell me, Derek; what's on your mind?"

I took a deep breath, looked at the man, and came out with it, "I think I'm in love with my step-sister."

"I'm telling you, there is no way I'm going anywhere near that place."

"Come on, Casey! It's only two hours away! Plus, you love hockey! Heck, you love the team we're playing against." I recognized the distaste at the end of my friend's comment.

I rolled my eyes, "Yes. Which is exactly why it's very hard for me to say no right now, but it just has to be a no. I'm sorry, Mills." Milly is my best friend and colleague. We own our very own dance studio in Toronto; it took us a while but we made it happen.

"Ca-sey!" She whined, "This is a chance of a lifetime! It's the play-offs!"

I sighed, "But how much fun would we really have? I mean, you'd be there to root for the 'Leafs and I'd be there for the Sabres. We'd probably end up tearing each others' heads off." I reasoned.

"You honestly think that we'd do that to each other?" She responded.

"No." I paused and she smiled, "But I'm still not going."

She stomped her foot, "Whyyyyy!?" she held the last letter as if she were two years old again and asking her mother why she couldn't have that pony that she wanted oh, so much.

"I have my reasons. I just can't go, okay? Find someone else."

Case closed.

"How'd lunch with your mom go?" I looked up to see my teammate, the other Derek on the team, Derek Roy standing on the other side of the table. We were at a benefit dinner for the team. It kind of felt like High School all over again.

"What?" I responded.

"You said you were having lunch with your mom, today, D. How'd it go?" I remembered then that I had lied and told the team I was having lunch with my mom, who I rarely got to see(that being the the only truth of the situation). There was no way I could tell them I went to see a shrink.

"Oh, right. Fine." Truth was, I was in a haze. After my appointment with Dr. Miller, I was ready to crawl into a hole forever. Wasn't this therapy thing supposed to make you feel better about your life?

"Don't go into too much detail, now." His sarcasm was evident.

I laughed. "We just caught up. Nothing special. What d'ya want me to say, Roy?" I paused before quickly holding one hand to my chest and outstretched my other arm as if to grab an apple from a tree, "We enjoyed our time together, laughing and telling tales of joyous occasions that we've missed over the months we had not spoken!" I ranted in a mock-Shakespearean manner.

We laughed together and he tousled my hair a bit, "Tell your mom I said 'hey' next time she's here." He winked, jokingly.

I grimaced, "Shut up, man."

"I can't believe you've tricked me into coming with you."

"I hardly tricked you." Milly argued with me as she drove.

I gave her a look.

"Okay, so I tricked you." She relented, "But you're the one who wouldn't tell me your real reason for not wanting to come with me. I thought we were friends! You know you can tell me anything!"

I let out a laugh that came out a little more bitter than I expected. It's just, if she knew the real reason, she would be the one denying we ever interacted. Well, maybe i'm embellishing... but who's to say?

She shot me a hurt expression before reverting her attention back to the road.

"I didn't mean it like that, Mills. You know you're my best friend. There's just one thing that I can't tell you, and you shouldn't take offense to it, really. It's not just you I can't tell. I can't tell anyone." I looked out the window at the signs of the QEW as they passed.

Milly stayed silent for a while, she always did know when to give it a rest, and that time was obviously now.

After about an hour and a half of mostly silence, and some mindless chatter, Milly pulled off the highway and into a service station, "I'm just going to stop and use the washroom, Cay(her way of shortening my name. Apparently, she couldn't be bothered with the 's'). Do you need to 'freshen up'?"

I shook my head and she shrugged before strutting her way into the building.

I turned the radio station and, of course, the first thing I heard was his voice.

"-best and hopefully we'll play a well enough game."

"Oh, don't be modest, Venturi, you know you'll win, don't you?"

He laughed, oh, how I missed that laugh. I really should've changed the station, but my hands wouldn't move.

"Well, I mean. I don't know. It could go either way. We've got to just stick together and hope that our best is good enough."

Hockey players (and possibly all professional athletes) say the same thing when being interviewed pre-game, post-game or during intermission. They all end up saying that they're doing their best and they hope that it'll get them through. It's all relative and they do it to seem down to earth, but really, on the inside they've got to be telling themselves that they'll win. If they're seriously thinking that the game is 'up in the air' they'll lose for sure.

"Well, good luck tonight, and thanks for talking to us!"

"Thanks for having me."

"Derek Venturi of the Buffalo Sabres, everyone! Game five of the play-offs against the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7:30pm eastern! Thanks for listening, and now, here's the newest from Lady Gaga! She just never stops, does she?"

The music started just as Milly opened the door to get back into the car.

"Anything good on?" She smiled.

"Nah, nothing too interesting." I lied.

She took my lie as an answer and drove back onto the QEW. We were almost to the border, and from there? About twenty minutes to the HSBC arena, 'Home of the Buffalo Sabres'.

From one Queen City to another, with... love?

AN: By the way, Derek Roy is a real Buffalo Sabre. He's my favorite! :) Number Nine! Which incidentally is NOT my favorite number. haha