A/N: There aren't any flashbacks in this chapter, but they'll be present in other chapters. Stressed words and thoughts are in italics.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

OOOOOOOO

"Emily, who?" Derek asked his wife incredulously.

Derek shook his head in a vain attempt to bring himself back to rights. Casey had just dropped quite the bomb, and even though his mind was swimming he had to give it up to her: only his wife could say something so monumental in such a casual way. It was a gift, or depending on how one looked at it, a curse.

"How many Emily's do I know?"

"Um… zero." He couldn't understand the impatience in her voice, he really was quite stumped. "We knew an Emily once, but you can't possibly mean—

"I sure do," she confirmed, interrupting him. "I am going to meet Emily for a coffee date. It'll be fun," she said, with more enthusiasm than she truly felt.

"No; it won't. It'll be the opposite of fun. It'll be fun's cousin- no fun. It'll be—

"God!" she cried, interrupting him. "Could you at least let me explain before you get all indignant?"

"I am not being indignant! I just think that this plan of yours is completely unreasonable and quite stupid," he explained, crossing his arms over his chest huffily.

"Way to prove me wrong," she muttered sarcastically. "Jeez, you didn't even get this upset when I told you about kissing Sam."

Derek rolled his eyes. There had been no reason to get upset about that kiss; Casey had made her choice a long time ago. He knew that he had absolutely nothing to worry about where Sam was concerned. But this whole going to see Emily thing made him uneasy. In his opinion, nothing good could possibly come of it.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Look, maybe if I can get her to talk to me, I mean really talk to me, we can work our way back to being friends again."

She sounded so earnest—like she really thought it was possible—that Derek laughed outright at her naivety. Was she on crack?

"Are you serious?" He smirked. "Would you ever consider being friends with the woman who had repeatedly slept with you husband?" he questioned bluntly. Even saints weren't that forgiving.

"You were not her husband," she responded emphatically, seeming to have missed the whole point.

"Semantics," he said simply, brushing off the validity of her statement. "I might as well have been her husband. Our wedding was set to take place in less than a month; you know that I would've gone through with it if you had married Sam."

"You might not have," she insisted, but her words sounded weak even to her own ears.

"Trust me, I'd have done it, and out of pure spite too. And I would've made her miserable." There was a tiny bit of remorse in his voice, but only Casey's intimate knowledge of him made it recognizable.

"Hello? Married, not married, you made her miserable anyway. We"—she gestured between them—"made her miserable. She's just now starting to recover."

"That's all the more reason to leave her alone. Don't you think that we're probably the last two people that she wants to hang out with?"

If they had made her so miserable without even being in contact with her—and from what Casey had told him about Emily's marriage to Sam, he knew that they had—then why should they go seek her out? Derek didn't want to make things any worse.

"But she called me first?" Sure their encounter had been beyond awkward, but that didn't change the fact that Emily had called her first. That Emily had been the one to initiate contact had to count for something.

Derek sighed. "She wanted you to do her a favor. I don't think that she was extending an olive branch or an offer of friendship." He hated to sound harsh, but Casey was acting so thick; just because someone needed your help, it didn't necessarily mean that they liked you- she needed to understand that.

"Maybe not exactly, but—

"Why do you want to hang out with her anyway?" he asked, cutting in. "If you're that lonely why don't you call up one of your friends?"

She gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. "What friends?"

Derek had to resist the urge to roll his eyes again—even at her advanced age Casey was still a drama queen.

"You have friends."

"Nooo, you have friends."

Derek's popularity had waned considerably, but there was something about him-- his charm, wit, and startling good looks could still draw people to him. He may not have had a flock of buddies anymore and his harem may have disbanded, but there were still a few guys who were proud to claim him as a friend.

Casey had no such luck.

"I have coworkers who feel obligated to invite me to company outings. I have PTA mothers who treat me worse than the Harper Valley PTA treated that widow. I have obscure relatives who invite me to family functions whenever they want to seem rebellious or piss off their mothers. And now"—some of her bluster was starting to fade, and a new sadness was creeping into her voice—"I have people ushering their kids away from me like I have the plague."

"What are you talking about?" Derek's tone had softened considerably; the last thing he wanted was for her to start crying. It was hard enough seeing her cry when they were younger; now that they were married it was unbearable.

"Guess who I ran into at the grocery store the other day?

(…)

"Tinker." She answered her own question before Derek could even begin to fathom who she might have seen.

"Tinker…"

"Redhead, uptight, was obsessed with me for a good chunk of high school," she listed off things, trying to make his name ring a bell.

"Oh, oh. Well, what happened when you saw him?"

"I went over to him while he was looking at fruit, and said 'hi.' And that little… pipsqueak had the nerve to pretend that he didn't know who I was!"

Sometimes when Casey was mad it took everything in Derek to stop himself from laughing at the angry faces she made. This was definitely one of those times.

"Not all of us have the memory of an elephant, Case."

"Nothing about me resembles an elephant. And, besides, isn't that fish?"

"You eat fish for a better memory; elephants have a good memory."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm married to one." He really couldn't help it; she had set herself up for that one.

It would have been so easy to get sucked into a silly argument, but Casey refused to be sidetracked.

"I was trying to tell you about being offended."

"Well, by all means, continue." He wasn't really trying to be an ass; he just wanted to take her mind off of whatever was bothering her. "But, really, high school was like forever ago. Maybe he just didn't remember you."

"You don't follow someone around like a lovesick puppy for three years, begging for a pat on the head or a few kind words, and then forget they exist. He knew exactly who I was," she said, resolutely. "That's why he hustled his kids out of there so quick."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean?" Was her husband really that dense, or did he just want to hear her say the words? "Nobody wants their children around the woman who married her brother; I might confuse them, or worse- corrupt them." She swiped at her betraying eyes, wishing she had more control over her emotions.

All traces of humor were instantly wiped from Derek's face. With his newly flushed skin and clenched fists, he looked ready to kill.

"What exactly did he say to you?"

"Nothing; they hardly ever say anything to my face these days. But it was all there in his eyes—it's in everybody's eyes. You don't get it so bad"—her tone conveyed just how unfair she thought that was—"and maybe that's because people always liked you. But I was never popular."

"Casey—

"At least in high school I could think that people only disliked me for shallow, unimportant reasons. I could blame them. But now, now there is nobody to blame but myself. People think of me as some incestuous bitch- and really, are they wrong?"

"Yes!" he yelled adamantly. "They—

"No; they aren't. Think about it: I cheated on the sweetest guy in the world with my best friend's boyfriend. If that's not bitchy, what is?"

"Okay," he conceded. She did have a bit of a point. "But, that doesn't—

Casey was not about to be argued with. "And, okay, we don't share any blood, but I think of Edwin as my brother, so…I mean"—she shrugged her shoulders—"we're not exactly Cathy and Chris, but we are related."

"So, what, you think that if Emily is your friend again people will stop treating you like an 'incestuous bitch?'" he asked, finally getting to finish a thought.

"No. I think that if we're friends again, then maybe I'll stop feeling like an incestuous bitch." She ran a shaky hand through her hair. "I mean, I wake up some days, and I feel, well, bad." It was really as simple as that.

She stared at him searchingly. "Doesn't your conscious ever eat at you?"

Derek frowned. For years they had avoided digging too deep into their past, specifically the way they had left things with Sam and Emily, but Casey still should've known that, of course, his conscious ate at him. He had done all kinds of dirt- things that even Casey didn't know about. Emily hadn't been his true love—not even close—but she had been special to him. She had made him feel… well, it didn't matter; it wasn't like he could change any of it anyway.

"Nothing you do can change the past," he said, voicing his opinions.

"I know," she sighed, "but maybe I can make things better." She glanced at her watch then and was surprised to see how late it was. "Look, I've got to go. And, I am going," she declared, responding t the narrow eyed look he was sending her. "But, we can talk about this later." She blew him a kiss and turned to leave, but the sound of him clearing his throat stopped her.

"Yes?" She sounded extremely annoyed.

"I'm just curious- what in the world are the two of you going to talk about?"

She shrugged carelessly. "I don't know, and I don't really care. As long as I can hold her attention I'll be happy," she said honestly.

When Casey left, Derek was far from being reassured by her last words. All he could do now was hope that Emily had enough sense to stay away.

OOOOOOOO

Emily slid into the seat across from Casey without offering up any kind of greeting and instead just stared at her foe expectantly.

Despite being a little unnerved by Emily's behavior, Casey decided to stick to her plan.

"I'm glad you came," she said cheerily.

"Yeah, well, I almost didn't."

Ouch.

Casey cleared her throat as if the simple act would clear away the tension in the air too.

"Umm… I was glad to hear that you and Sam are doing better." She looked directly at Emily then, hoping that her words might have brought a smile to her old friend's face, but as soon as she did she immediately knew that had been the wrong thing to say.

"How did you know that?" Emily asked accusingly.

"I spoke to Sam—

"What?"

"He called me the other day, and—

"Wait- what?!"

"He-wanted-to-thank-me-for-my-part-in-everything," she explained, rushing her words together quickly in hopes of getting everything out before Emily interrupted her again.

"This is just rich." A bitter laugh bubbled up from her throat. "I knew that's why you called me."

Casey's eyebrows rose in confusion, but Emily just rolled her eyes.

"Trust me, I am grateful for what you did, but if you think I'm going to kiss your ass or something—

"Emily," Casey said frantically, cutting in, "I swear that is not why I wanted you to come today. What I did for you that day doesn't even begin to make us square; I still owe you so much."

"You got that right," Emily mumbled.

Casey decided to pretend that she hadn't heard Emily. "I called you, cause… I, well, um…I thought maybe we could just hang out."

This time Emily's laugh was genuine. "Oh, okay." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Let me just go get my comb so we can braid each other's hair, then maybe we can play truth or dare."

"You didn't used to be so cynical," Casey said, her own anger beginning to seep into her voice.

"Yeah, well, you weren't always a slut," she shot back. Giving her a speculative look, Emily said, "or maybe you were- hell, who knows?"

Casey's first instinct was to defend herself, but the latter part of Emily's statement had her reconsidering. Emily's words had given her an idea.

"Maybe if we just talk to each other—

Emily's head was shaking before Casey could even finish her thought.

"Any talking we do will just end in an argument. You still push my buttons," she said honestly. "And, besides, there is nothing you could say that I would possibly be interested in hearing."

She had meant to deflate Casey's enthusiasm with her harsh words, but, if anything, Casey seemed to have perked up more.

"You're wrong," Casey said simply.

"Oh, really?"

Casey nodded. "There is one thing I can tell you that I'm sure you've always wanted to know."

"What?" she asked, taking the bait against her better judgment?

"I'll tell you about me and Derek."

"What's to know? You two lied, cheated, and now you're married. Big whoop."

"But don't you want to know everything?" Her tone was a little more desperate than she was comfortable with, but she was starting to get a little scared; Casey had been sure that Emily would be more receptive to the idea. "How it started? What really happened?"

"No. Why would I want to open old wounds?"

Casey refrained from stating her opinion that those wounds were anything but old, and instead said, "Aren't you curious? Haven't you ever wondered?"

"Have I ever wondered how my best friend could so royally screw me over? Sure. But that doesn't mean—

"Yes. You. Do." Casey responded before Emily could even voice her denial.

Emily wanted to instantly shoot her down, but nothing would come out of her mouth. Casey was right: Emily wondered about it everyday. She wondered how a world that had seemed so perfect could be turned upside down so quickly. But was her curiosity enough to keep her in the presence of Casey? And, besides, she and Sam were finally doing okay. Why delve into the past now?

Because, damnit, she wanted to know.

"Come on, Emily," Casey continued to push, "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, and all it'll cost you is a cup of coffee."

Emily was positive that it was probably going to cost her way more than that. She felt like she was making a deal with the devil, but the opportunity to know the whole truth about what had happened all those years ago was too tempting to pass up.

"Fine," she bit out. "I hate you,"—Casey flinched at the harshness of her tone—"but I'll stay."

TBC…

A/N: I realize that this may have been a bit odd, but I wrote it a certain way on purpose so that I could set up the story. Let me know how you think this story is shaping up. I used a total Dasey cliché in this (the FITA reference) but I always wanted to use it.

Reviews Are Always Welcome!