Hey everyone! This is my first ever Life with Derek fic and only the second fic I've ever written so please bare with me. This takes place right after Vacation with Derek. Please review and let me know what you think and if I should continue. I kind of ended it at an awkward spot, but I didn't really know where to cut it off and I didn't want to do the whole cliffhanger thing. Anyway... on to the story!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"So, what are you going to do?" Derek asked her and he stepped onto the porch and stood beside her.

The McDonald-Venturi family had just gotten back from their vacation at the Blue Heron Lodge. The week had passed by so quickly and so much had happened that Casey was still struggling to soak it all up.

"I don't know… every time I think I've made a decision, I think of 5 million reasons of why I should go the other way."

"Well, do you want to hear what I think?"

"Do I ever want to hear what you think?" Casey asked with an eye roll.

"Because I'm the best step brother ever, I'm going to ignore your condescending sarcasm and tell you anyway."

"Wow, you know what the word condescending means?" Casey quickly countered.

"Anyway… I think that you should go," Derek finished seriously.

Casey turned to look at Derek. She was surprised that he was so willingly giving her advice that she figured he was just trying to confuse her and make her second guess herself. But what she saw when she looked at him made those thoughts come to a halt. Derek was looking straight at her, and when his eyes found hers, Casey saw that look he got in his eyes right before or while he was doing something geniunely nice for her. Casey could count on one hand, okay maybe two she admitted to herself, how many times he had done something truly kind for her.

"You're serious," she said.

Derek sighed and almost looked pained to say was he was going to say next.

"It's just that… if it were me and someone gave me this huge chance with hockey, I would take it in a heartbeat… and I know that dance to you is what hockey is to me, so why shouldn't you go for it? Plus, you can go to school whenever, it'll always be there, but dance? You've got like maybe a couple more years before you get all old and wrinkly and no one will want to watch you dance."

"Haha, very funny."

"I'm just calling it how it is, Case."

"Whatever. Despite your attempt to make me feel bad about myself, you were surprisingly… helpful."

"I do what I can," Derek replied with a smug smirk.

Casey took one final look at the late night sky, pat Derek on the back, and made her way back inside to go to bed. She had a lot to think about, but she knew from the beginning what choice she would make and Derek had helped confirm that choice.

The next morning, when Casey made her way downstairs the family was unpacking the van and their suitcases. It had been too late to make any of the kids stay up to unpack the night before, and the George and Nora didn't want to deal with cranky kids at midnight. Instead, they were dealing with cranky kids at 11 in the morning.

"Look, the creature from the blue lagoon is finally up and can take my place!" Derek exclaimed as Casey made her way to the kitchen to grab some juice.

"Actually, I woke up before everyone and grabbed my suitcases from the car already. They're all unpacked and my laundry is even done… so it's all yours, Derek."

"Honey, then what have you been doing all morning?" Nora asked.

"I was making some phone calls and finalizing some plans."

At that, the whole family stopped in their tracks and looked at Casey with shocked expressions.

"What? No Casey meltdown? " Lizzie asked.

"Yeah, where's the flip charts and pros and cons lists?" Edwin added.

"I didn't need them. I decided I needed to make this decision levelheaded and maturely," Casey answered confidently.

"Um, okay… and that decision would be?" George finally asked.

"Well… I'm going to New York!" Casey shrieked excitedly.

Immediately, the house erupted in cheers and chaos as everyone jumped over luggage and bumped into each other on their way to hug Casey.

"Come on, Derek! Group hug!" Marti said.

"Guys, you know how I feel about hugs… I don't do them."

Casey broke away from the family and ran to Derek with open arms. Before Derek knew what was happening, Casey had jumped on him and had thrown her arms around his neck. Derek was too shocked to say or do anything, and Casey hung on tight. Before she let him go, she whispered a quiet "thank you" and lightly kissed his cheek. And then she ran away and went back to the family as if she hadn't just violated everyone of Derek's rules.

"What am I going to do without you?" Emily whined as she, Sam, Casey and Derek sat in a booth at Smelly Nelly's.

"Um, have a real social life?" Derek answered as he shoveled French fries into his mouth.

"De-rek! We're having a real conversation here, with actual emotions… something you would know nothing about… so butt out!" Casey scolded.

"Emily knows I'm kidding, don't you?" He winked at her.

Emily just gave him a knowing smile, followed by a stern look to appease the annoyed Casey that was glaring at her. Derek and Emily had mutually broken up a month prior, but seemed to have remained flirting buddies, much to Casey's dismay.

"Whatever, I'm going to the bathroom." Casey announced as she stood up. "Don't you there mess with my food when it gets here, Derek."

As soon as Casey left, Derek pulled out a large map, while Sam took out a small notebook and flipped it to a specific page.

"What are you guys doing?" Emily asked nervously.

"Planning our road trip," Derek answered as if was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sam, knowing that Derek's explanation was inadequate, took pity on Emily and proceeded to explain.

"We've got less than 8 weeks left with Casey, so we figured that we could kidnap her for a week and all of us could go on a road trip. It'll be our last big hoorah with her before she leaves".

Emily looked over at the Derek a little skeptically. Sure, they had all become really good friends, and Derek did do nice things for Casey from time to time, but he was actually actively planning a trip for her?

"Plus, it's an unsupervised road trip. Can you say partaay?" Derek added with a grin at Emily's look.

"That is so exciting! Where are we going?" Emily asked enthusiastically.

"Well, one of my uncles lives in Virginia and he owns a beach house down there. He always invites me to stay down there, but it was kind of pointless since I've only ever been to Virginia once. But now, I guess it came in handy finally," answered Sam.

"So now, we're just planning were we want to make stops and figuring out which places would be cool to visit," Derek added as he scanned the map.

"That is so awesome!" Emily concluded.

Casey made her way out of the bathroom, and Sam and Derek quickly put their planning tools away. Soon, Casey's turkey burger made it onto their table and Derek snatched a couple fries.

"De-rek! What did I tell you about touching my food!" Casey yelled.

"Actually, I believe you told me not to 'mess' with your food. I was not messing with it, I was simply appreciating its deliciousness."

Six pairs of eyes rolled at the same time, but Derek simply ignored them as he continued to blatantly steal fries from Casey's plate.

The night before the big trip, Casey was fast asleep as Derek was packing up the Prince.

"Here's Casey's stuff," Nora said as she came out to hand Derek the luggage. "Lizzie's packing up all her toiletries now."

"Thanks, Nora," Derek responded as he made room in the trunk for Casey's bags.

"You know, Derek, I think that it's really nice that you're doing this for her," Nora smiled as she watched him.

"I'm not doing this for her," Derek said nonchalantly.

"Of course not," Nora said as she turned around to walk back in the house. She smirked to herself and shook her head at his stubbornness.

"Caseeeyyyy!" Derek shouted as he ripped the covers off of her.

"What the—" Casey began.

"It's time to get up!"

Casey sat up feeling very disoriented. Why was Derek in her room waking her up at…what time was it anyway? She always woke up before Derek. She glanced at her clock, while Derek gathered clothes for her to wear.

"De-rek! It's 4 am! What the hell are you doing up? I don't even wake up this early!"

"Who said I went to sleep? Here, put these on."

Derek threw some clothes at a very confused Casey. She stared at the clothes on her lap as if they were foreign objects from another planet.

"Hellooo, is anybody there?" Derek asked as he waved a hand in front of her face. "We need to leave in like 5 minutes. I'll turn around while you get dressed."

Casey rose from the bed and stalked over to Derek in frustration.

"What on earth makes you think that I'm going anywhere with you at 4 in the morning?"

Derek turned around and stepped closer to her. Leaning in slightly, he looked deeply into her eyes.

"Do you trust me?" He asked quietly.

She stared into his and came to a horrific realization. Somehow through the years, she had come to trust her stepbrother way too. She full-heartedly trusted him with her life.

"Unfortunately," she answered gloomily.

"Why do I have to switch seats with Sam? That's ridiculous!" Casey yelled at Derek from the passenger's seat.

"Because women don't belong in the front seat… and you're horrible with maps!" Derek replied.

"I don't even know why you don't just use a GPS. Must be a caveman thing." Casey shook her head.

"Hey, so where are we stopping first?" Emily asked, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Niagara Falls," answered Sam as he pulled out his camera to the first official picture of the road trip. He pointed the camera at Derek and Casey and said, "smile!"

Both Casey and Derek turned at the red light and made faces at the camera. Soon the car was filled with the sounds of laughing, a camera clicking and the occasional "De-rek!"

As soon as they unlocked the door to their motel room, Emily pushed her way inside and ran to the bathroom.

"Geez, you about ran me over!" Derek yelled at the closed bathroom door.

"Well, maybe if you had stopped to let the girls go to the bathroom…" Sam countered.

"Sam's right. You didn't have to make us hold it for 2 hours," Casey added as she joined them. She hadn't been able to make it through check in… she barely even made it to the lobby bathroom.

"Just because girls have bladders the size of a needle doesn't mean we have to delay our trip," Derek replied.

Casey and Sam just rolled their eyes at him and tried to get settled into their room. The room was small, but big enough to hold two full size beds, two nightstands and dressers, and a medium sized TV.

"So how much time do we have to relax and get ready?" Emily asked as she emerged from the bathroom.

"Well, since we're running ahead of schedule…" Derek began, to which he received a round of annoyed "De-rek!"s

They didn't understand why they had to leave so early in the morning and why he was adamant that if the stopped at a rest stop so the girls could pee, their whole schedule would be off. But he was persistent that if they didn't go according to his plan that the whole trip would be ruined. Now, they realized, he had just wanted to make things unnecessarily difficult for his own amusement.

"Anyway, they don't illuminate the falls until 9 at night, so we should probably head out around 8 or so," Derek finally answered. "That gives us about 8 hours to just chill out."

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