Drunk Driving.
I do not own Life with Derek or any of these characters. This is purely for fun.
One-shot. When the consequences of drunk driving hit close to home, will Casey be there for Derek?
Edwin, Lizzie and Marti huddled at the top of the stairs intently listening to the conversation in the living room. Only 20 minutes ago the world had ended. A police officer had woken them all up with the news that Derek's car had crashed on the side of the main road and had burst into flames. Two boys had been rushed to hospital, badly injured, unidentifiable, with a slim chance of survival.
They had all thought that Derek had been safe asleep in his room, paying the punishment for failing Spanish once again. But one trip into his room by a screaming Marti, pushing the door open and throwing herself unto his bed, searching his messy covers, had confirmed that he wasn't there.
The car was gone too.
Casey was to stay with the kids while the police officer drove their parents to the hospital. George, shaking and wobbly, could not trust himself to drive. Nora had tears streaming down her cheeks for her oldest child and tried to hold all her children in her embrace, comforting both them and herself at the same time. Casey busied herself in the kitchen making batches of muffins, needing something else to occupy her mind. The kids retreated to his room, huddled together in his bed. This couldn't be happening.
Then Derek arrived.
Or staggered up the driveway was more like it. He had never been much of a crazy drunk, becoming rowdy or delirious or clumsy but he had had a lot to drink tonight. Yet, the sight of the police car, then the policeman and his parents leaving the house sobered him up fast.
"What happened?" he yelled more loudly than he intended.
George and Nora raised their heads, disbelieving but hopeful at the sound of his voice. It was unmistakably him. George rushed to hug him and Nora's screams brought the rest of the Mcdonald-Venturi household to the front steps.
"Derek, you're okay! We heard there had been a terrible accident with the car and that two boys had gone to the hospital. Obviously, there's been some sort of mistake." George was practically shouting at him in his relief, simultaneously addressing Derek and the policeman who stood confused watching the scene.
And, then, George's comments began to make sense.
"I snuck out and went to Erin's party. I knew we were too drunk to drive back so I told Ralph and Sam that we should walk home. It wasn't that far. They were sure that they could drive; they said they weren't that drunk. They wrestled the keys away from me and took off in the car."
Derek was sobbing by the end of his story. He fell to his knees and was enveloped in a hug by Marti and Edwin. No one needed to hear him connect the dots. The policeman asked a scared George for the names, addresses and phone numbers of the parents of the two boys. The officer rushed off, having to break the awful news, correctly this time, to two more sets of parents tonight. For them, there would be no reprieve.
It was four in the morning. George felt like he had been through every emotion in the space of five minutes. Yet the act of getting the boys' information to the policeman had cleared his head and brought the realization that thankfully though it wasn't his son in the hospital, two boys lay there battling for their lives.
His last act of naked emotion was to engulf his son in a big hug and tell him over and over again that he was proud of him. Then, resting on his lawyer's training, he attempted to rectify the emotional chaos that was his family.
"Everyone inside, now. Nora stay with the kids and make them breakfast, then I think that everyone should try to get back to sleep. I'm going to go to the hospital to stay with Sam and Ralph until their parents get there."
When George returned home after eight in the morning, he found Casey lying with her head on Nora's lap, both on the couch. The blinds were all drawn to keep the daylight away from his other children who were camped out with sleeping bags and blankets on the living room floor, Marti curling into Derek. They awoke at the sound of the front door opening.
Feeling like he was imposing the daylight on them despite their best efforts to shut it out, George told them what had happened at the hospital: that Ralph had died and Sam lay critically injured and badly burnt, still unrecognizable.
Three weeks had passed since the accident. They could all speak with some assuredness when they told each other that Sam would be okay. It would be a long, tough road ahead of him but the doctors were confident he would recover. Ralph's memorial service had come and gone as well as the end of the school year. Summer had begun, though it had lost its usual significance for the Mcdonald-Venturis.
Nora tried to keep the younger kids busy with the usual summer camps and activities. Among them, she realized, one could easily forget the tragic occurrence of the last weeks. Only the moods of her oldest children sought to remind her of how she had felt that night before Derek had come home and how she now thanked God for George and for all of their children everyday.
Derek had spent every day locked away in his room, blaming himself for the accident. He ate very little and while he entertained Marti, Edwin and Lizzie sometimes for short bursts of socialization, he remained detached. Casey, too, was morose and depressed, yet active, visiting Sam everyday and helping to organize Ralph's memorial service.
Casey and Derek pretty much ignored each other. Nora couldn't figure out the root of this. Derek had lost one of his best friends and another was gravely injured, unable to walk or talk and in the hospital. For Casey, Sam had been her first boyfriend. Nora had hoped that they would be able to set aside their differences and help each other through this hard time, but apparently they remained as divided as before.
Casey was thinking about Derek. She had been unable to speak to him in the last three weeks, because she did not know what to say. She wasn't sure where the accident left them. They had never established much basis to be nice to each other. Yet, the thought of him sitting alone in his room plagued by images of the accident and the loss of Ralph made her inconsolably sad.
Her visits with Sam served to remind her that if not for a smart choice, Derek could lay where he was now… or worse. Only when Sam finally opened his eyes and smiled at his parents as if to say that it was all right and that everything was okay now, did Casey realize that Derek needed the same assurance.
That night, knowing that he was not going to let her in if she knocked, Casey pushed open his door around midnight. He was lying on top of his covers, clad in only his boxers, obviously not asleep.
"What do you want?" He didn't sound annoyed, but inquisitive, as if he had been expecting her.
"Sam is awake. He smiled this morning. He's learning to communicate by blinking yes or no to questions. It'll take a couple of months and some plastic surgery but he will be fine." She was hesitant, speaking from her position by the door.
He sat up in bed. "That's good to hear. And, how are you?"
The question surprised her as well as the fact that he was now looking directly at her. His hair was a bit longer, but otherwise he looked the same, though she wasn't sure what she expected would have been different.
Without really thinking about it, she sat down on the edge of his bed. "I'm good, glad for Sam." Then she looked at him, "worried about you."
Empowered by his silence, she continued. "You can't blame yourself, Derek. You made the right decision, they made a bad one. It wasn't your fault. Go and see Sam sometime, I think that will help."
"I thought about you that night, Casey. How pissed you would be at me if I drove home drunk. I wasn't sure why you had that major impact on me but it told me to not drive home that night. See, you nag me even when you're not there."
He chuckled a bit and she realized that it was the first time she had heard him laugh in three weeks. He looked at her again.
"Stay with me?"
She nodded and was surprised to feel herself smiling. He lay back in bed and she made to follow, removing her sandals.
Casey could feel that the air between them had changed, that Derek had changed and so had she in the three weeks following the accident. She was simultaneously surprised and expectant when he wrapped his arms around her.
The house was quiet, she was sure that everyone was asleep. It was only them.
He whispered in her ear and she felt more than heard his words, "Life's too short. I feel like nothing I used to care about matters anymore. I have two thoughts in my head right now: your voice in my head the night of the accident and the feel of you in my arms. I can't believe that it took me losing my best friend to figure out what's important."
She understood. Since the accident she had realized how much she loved her new family, her life here, Derek. She had always felt like she was striving for perfection, which she thought would mean something to her and to everyone else. Then Ralph had died and Sam was striving to walk again, be normal. Funny how perfection became relative.
She turned to face him, still wrapped in his arms. "I still get panic attacks about the accident, thinking that you were in the car, dead or injured. I don't know what I would do."
"I'm still here." He reassured her, stroking her hair while other parts of his body also made clear his presence. "Always here."
Casey kissed him softly on the lips, then on both cheeks. Then Derek reclaimed her mouth, pulling her even closer.
They made love that night, the first time for both of them. A new beginning, always together.