Hi, fellow Daseyers!

I was missing our favorite stepcestuous "siblings," and decided I wanted to revisit the world I created for them in Hockey Girls and its sequels (Gael Trouble, Hey Baby, and Faulty Relations). This is a direct sequel to all of those stories, with one major exception: In Hey Baby, the newest family member is named either Adam or Amelia, depending on which chapter you read. In Faulty Relations, I didn't use the baby's name, but in this fic I'm going to. So I've lined us up better with canon by changing the baby's name to Simon, as we find out it is at the end of Vacation with Derek. I was tempted to go back and edit Hey Baby to reflect that, but I decided not to.

Also, assume that Facebook isn't as prevalent in this world as it is in ours. I enjoyed writing their friends' reactions to them dating, and realistically, everyone on Facebook would know about them the minute they changed their relationship status. But where's the fun in that? So you'll see a few of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) high school characters return in this fic. Who's a Dasey shipper and who's not? Place your bets now! (Just kidding.)

This fic is rated T, but thanks to the events of Faulty Relations, it might skew closer to M. Just a warning.

And one more thing: SusanMarieR was nice enough to make an ebook version of the Hockey Girls fics up to this point. If you'd like a copy, send her a LiveJournal message. You can find more information about it in my profile.

I think that's all the important stuff. Without further ado, here's Chapter 1. Hope you enjoy jumping back into my Hockey Girls world with me!

-Brandi

Disclaimer: I don't own Life with Derek, Queen's University, or any characters or settings I reference.

Chapter 1, Casey: A Farewell to Queen's

I stare out at the beautiful Queen's campus from our balcony, breathing in the warm spring air and feeling like I'm not ready to leave yet. Not that I can see much of campus, since this is only a third-story apartment, but I can see the quad where Derek and I sometimes have picnics. And the law building, where I spent many hours last semester pouring over the books in their spacious library, studying for my Essentials of Canadian Law seminar. And the road that leads to the Memorial Centre. And the bench where Sarah told me she and Joel were engaged.

Sarah and Joel both graduated this semester. I'll miss Sarah a lot next year; she's become my closest girlfriend at Queen's. But who knows, next year there will be a new crop of HGs and maybe one of them will fill that role.

And there are the girls in Dance Club. After much, much consideration, I finally decided to join Queen's dance team. The competitive team only holds auditions in September, so I'll have to wait until the fall to see if I can join them. Right now, I'm getting back into shape doing the intramural club. I take two lessons a week in modern dance, and the girls I dance with are really sweet and nice. We had our first recital in March, and I was just as nervous as Derek had been his first few weeks of hockey. I know there was no pressure; it was just for fun, but, well, I do like to do well. (I'm aware that this is an understatement.)

Derek was wonderful about it. He kept me sane that week. His hockey playoffs were over, and the Gaels had made a good showing, so he was happy to have the free time to devote to me. (Sounds selfish, I know, but he said it, and I believe him.) I think he was also really pumped about the idea of getting to be my "cheerleader" for a change. To this day he tells anyone who'll listen that his girlfriend's a dancer. I'm still waiting for him to show up with a homemade hoodie, though!

We'd both been so busy up until the recital. With all of the crazy events of the fall, and then us slowly trying to adjust to being a couple, hockey games and practices, me joining the Journal, and soon after, the dance club, Simon being born over winter break, school and all of the stress and homework that went with it …

We were totally ready to shut out the world and have some alone time. And even that got off to a rocky start. I love Derek so much, and now things are so great between us, that I can't believe that I almost threw it all away over one bad night.

That's not to say the last few months have been easy. They haven't. We still fight, we still disagree. Sometimes one of us will start to feel like it'd be easier to live together if we weren't together. Or that we're too young to be in such a serious relationship.

Can you tell that those worries are mostly me? They are. But Derek's unwavering trust and assurance in the importance of our relationship has made me trust it, too.

It's still scary sometimes. I didn't think it was possible to love somebody as much as I love Derek, and now that I have him, the slightest disturbance makes me feel like we'll be ripped apart.

It's not that I'm insecure. We've talked about the future. We want to get married. I want to marry him someday. But we've put each other through so much, sometimes I can't believe he's still next to me, holding my hand when things get tough.

Which brings me back to the warm spring day on the balcony. We're leaving for London in a little while, and we'll be there until hockey preseason starts in August. Queen's shuts off the water and power in the apartments for the summer unless the tenants are staying on campus. We didn't have any reason to stay, so it was best we moved back home temporarily. We'll be staying in Mom and George's old room in the basement. It will be strange to live back home with our parents, in the house where we grew up together. There are so many memories in that house.

There are a lot of memories in the Kingston apartment, too. I run my fingers along the balcony railing as I stare at the little square of concrete where we made love for the first time on that rain-soaked mattress.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Derek asks as he steps out into the sunlight, squinting at me in concern.

"I'm okay. Just thinking."

Derek comes up to me and places his hand over mine on the railing. "About?"

"I'm happy to be going home. I am. It's just …"

Derek, as usual, knows exactly what I'm trying to say. "We made a lot of memories here in the last year. It's going to be weird adjusting to a new life together." I nod, smiling at him. "But don't forget, it is only three months. We'll be back before we know it."

I sigh. I'm so used to living alone with Derek, where we can do whatever we want, when we want. We're suddenly going to be thrown into a house with six other people. People we love, but people we haven't lived with for the past eight months. It's going to be, well, interesting, to say the least.

I look around at the few plants that are left on the balcony. "What time is it?"

Derek checks his phone. "A little after nine, why?"

"We don't have to pick up Sam until ten. And it won't take long to get these plants and the rest of the luggage into the car …"

Derek catches on to my playful expression immediately. "So what you're saying is, we have almost an hour to kill."

"There are so many things we could do," I say, pretending to think. "We could go down and get one last slice of pizza from the dining hall. We could stop in the Cataraqui Centre one last time."

"Casey." Derek says my name with the hint of a warning tone, though I know he's just playing along. "We will not be alone together for the next ninety-one days. I've counted them. Ninety. One. Ninety-one!" His face contorts as he thinks, again, of the prospect of ninety-one sexless days. I've heard this from him many times, and it never fails to make me laugh at him. So much for 'it is only three months.' He counted the days, for crying out loud. It sounds like something I would do. (Okay, so I counted, too. But I'm not panicking about it like he is!)

"I think we need to give this balcony the proper goodbye, don't you?" I tease as I pull him toward the chaise lounge we set up a little closer to the wall of the apartment. It's lower than the railing and out of sight of anyone looking up or down at us. "Hm?"

Derek is too busy pulling off my "I Kissed a Gael and I Liked It" T-shirt to answer.