THE LITTLE THINGS

AUTHOR'S NOTE/DISCLAIMER

This is a one-shot of something I came up with for a different reason that Casey didn't get along with Derek and may or may not lead to a bigger story. Deviates from "How I Met Your Stepbro". I use a couple of things mentioned in the song "Those Nights" by Skillet.

If you asked him, Derek Venturi wouldn't be able to tell you just why exactly his stepsister, Casey MacDonald, had completely freaked out when they had first met. Sure, yeah, he had been a total jerk, but their bickering had actually tapered off in the last year. Yet, through the years, there had been little things that made him think that she wasn't always talking to him but somebody else. Like the time during an argument she had unexpectedly started crying and then had said something about hating him being hurt. Or the time she had flipped when she had discovered a bruise from hockey on his arm. These weren't the only things that had tipped him off there was something that his stepsister wasn't telling him. For the first month after the MacDonald's had moved in, he had heard her sob in her bed every night. Then, there were her other actions. Like whenever he had had a particularly lousy day and was in an even worse mood than usual, he would catch her in the living room late at night, watching the t.v. with no sound on, or he'd blare his music through the house while people were trying to sleep and she wouldn't even say anything. He had asked Nora and Lizzie about it once, but they had each done the same thing---just shrugged and said that was just her way---although Nora had added that he could always talk to Casey if he chose to, something that had puzzled him even more. What had made her think that Casey's actions were an invitation to talk? And yet sometimes he wondered. There were a lot more little things that he had noticed Casey doing that had confused him, but he had never asked. Like leaving the last of the ice cream for him when he was stressed, or the strange, wistful looks he sometimes caught her shooting in his directions. But for the most part, he put these things out of his mind. If Casey wanted to be secretive, let her. Of course, the next time that he had a pretty bad day and was biting everybody's heads off, he waited until everyone was asleep and then went to the living room, where sure enough, Casey was watching the muted t.v. He came up beside her and sat next to her. They didn't say anything, just stared at the television set. Yeah, it was these little things that made him wonder about his stepsister, but he never asked.