Title: One Revolution Around the Sun
Fandom: Life With Derek
Word Count: 1553
Disclaimer: I do not own Life With Derek or any of its characters. Blah, blah, blah.
Notes: So, the biggest thing I've noticed in Season 4 is that Casey and Emily have magically swapped personalities. I still love the both of them, but, come on. What the hell, LWD writers? This was loosely inspired by snappleducated's LWD fic A Garden for Wallflowers. Go read it – it's beautiful. This started as an Emily-centric thing about how Casey's changed, but then it turned into… this.
Emily knows she's not the best friend in the world – she can be shallow and she can be flakey. She puts boys before Casey, sometimes, and popularity before all else. She's better though, and she knows this, too.
When she was fifteen, she was vain. Now she's seventeen, and she's grown up.
She wishes she could say the same thing for Casey, except somewhere along the line, something happened and Casey turned into… her.
At fifteen, mind you. Not now. Never, ever now. Emily's got more sense than that, these days.
Derek notices it, too; she knows he has. Because if Emily is Casey's best friend, then Derek is even closer than that. Because they live in the same house. Because they've seen each other at their best and worst. Because they know each other inside and out.
Because Derek is in love with her, but Emily never thinks that, not even when she lies awake at night and wonders what if?
Casey's newfound mini-skirt fetish is the first clue. Emily herself had gone through a mini-skirt phase, before she'd started dating Sheldon and realized there was more to life than make up and cliques, but after being asked out one too many times for her legs and not for her personality, she'd gone back to jeans and dresses. Casey is newly single, so Emily can understand that maybe, just maybe, she wants a little attention so she can remember she's pretty.
(The Old Casey had never been worried about being pretty, and Emily had envied that, envied the girl who was gorgeous and independent and hadn't cared about anything more than being herself. Now Emily misses that, and hates Max for ruining someone who had been on top of her world even when she'd been at the bottom of theirs. Because Casey never used to care, and now all she did was just that.)
So Emily ignores the shortness of Casey's skirts, and the way she flips her hair more often, and makes sure to buy Casey tickets to Swan Lake for her birthday.
Then Truman happens.
Casey used to be sensible. She used to be self-respecting. She used to be…
Well, she used to be a lot of things.
Truman is disgusting; at least, Emily thinks so. So when he comes over at lunch with his smarmy smirk and his Derek-rip-off-strut, she makes sure he and Casey know it.
She figures Casey will agree. After all, she'd thought the guy was a creep for all of first semester.
Of course, Emily forgets just how close Derek is to being the center of Casey's universe.
Of course, Casey will settle for second best.
That seems to be all she thinks she's worthy of, these days.
(Emily hates Max.)
She makes out with Derek.
Just because.
And when Casey opens the door to the games closet, she prays for an epiphany, for Casey to freak out and tell her she's making a huge mistake because Derek is Derek and they'd already tried this once, hadn't they?
She wants lists and rants and ice cream and Casey's frazzled hair and Casey's worried bottom lip and Casey's bitten fingernails pressing into her upper arm when she drags her out of the closet mid-shriek.
Derek wants these things, too.
They aren't enough anymore, though.
Emily almost kills Truman when she finds out he'd kissed Vicky.
Derek is already figuring out ways to steal his car.
Casey cries, for days, and breaks even more than she had before and Emily hates boys for all they were worth, except for Derek, because Derek is the exception to everything and never tries to break Casey, just shakes her glass house a little and then stitches her back together when she needs it.
That's love, Emily knows.
Casey takes Truman back.
Derek asks Emily to be his girlfriend and standing right there, in the living room with Casey gawking at them, Emily says yes.
It's supposed to hurt.
Just because.
(and this isn't about Max or Truman or anyone anymore.)
Emily is smart and sensible. She knows a creep when she sees one, and she has more respect for herself than to cry when Derek breaks up with her. She'd been expecting it, anyways. They were going to different schools. It hadn't been love. It hadn't been anything.
It'd been an excuse. An intervention. Something.
Derek still hides Casey's clothes, but only her skirts.
Emily stops acknowledging Truman.
Casey still can't get her priorities straight, and the day Emily comes over unannounced with a couple of chick flicks and finds Truman with his hand up her shirt, she decides enough is enough. This isn't love.
This isn't anything.
It isn't even just because.
It's just tearing Casey apart.
And Emily knows it tears Derek apart even more that he can't fix her.
So she will.
She asks Derek to lock her and Casey in the bathroom. He does.
"Why are you dating that scumbag?" she snaps, pacing. She already knows why, but she needs Casey to say it out loud. Casey is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring at Emily like she's never seen her before. "Honestly, Casey! You're so much better than this!"
"He's not that bad," Casey protests. She sounds so much meeker than she'd been two years ago. Than Emily knows she still is, on the inside. "I mean, sure, he's got his bad points, but doesn't everyone?"
"He cheated on you!" Emily hisses. "With Vicky!"
"Victoria," Casey says automatically, and gets that blank look on her face that Emily hates so much. Casey isn't blank. She's expressive and her mouth runs faster than anyone can keep up with. "And, we've moved past that. We're stronger as a couple, now."
"The hell you are," Emily says, scowling. "What is wrong with you? You used to freak out whenever someone so much as looked at you wrong, and now all of sudden it's okay if your boyfriend cheats on you? With your cousin, no less?"
"It's not that simple, Emily," Casey says, quietly. Her lower lip is trembling. Emily doesn't want tears – she wants a Casey freak out. A realization. She wants hair pulling and nail biting and lists written on the mirror in toothpaste, because that's Casey, crazy and offbeat and revolving around – "It's not as easy as it was with Sam and Max."
"Max messed you up," Emily says honestly. "Your self-esteem dropped the minute you guys started dating. You second guessed everything you did and changed just so you could fit into his picture perfect life. Then you guys broke up, and you went back to normal. But then… this…" Emily makes a face. "This… thing… shows up and suddenly you're missing half a brain. You don't get to tell me it isn't as simple as Max, because this has everything to do with Max."
"You've been hanging around Derek too much," Casey goes, staring at her hands. "But you're right. I'm different – maybe I'm not as much of a keener as before, and maybe I don't grade grub, but I'm still Casey."
"Casey wouldn't let a guy walk all over her self-respect," Emily tells her, because she needs to hear it. "Casey would've dumped Truman the second he kissed her cousin and never looked back."
They're quiet. Emily can hear Edwind and Lizzie coming up the stairs, can hear Derek ushering them away from the bathroom. Casey glances at the door when he says, "Spacey's having another breakdown, guys. I think we should evacuate the house" and starts to glare the way she used to.
Emily knows what she has to do.
"You're in love with Derek," she deadpans. "And that's what this is really about."
And when Casey doesn't scream, just bites her lip and keeps looking at the door, Emily knows they're finally moving forward.
Emily comes out of the bathroom half an hour later. Derek is leaning against the stairwell, frowning at Casey's door. He almost looks worried.
"You need to go in there," she says, holding the door open. Casey makes an unintelligible noise behind her. Derek jerks. She steps aside and holds her arm out theatrically. "And, just so you know, I plan on locking you guys in here together until some things get said."
He smirks, but not at her. When he passes though, their fingers brush, and she knows that is the only thank you he'll ever give her.
It's alright though.
It had always been alright.
Her school is a twenty minute drive away from theirs. She isn't far away at all, but she knows their visits to each other will be few and far in between, because life is horrible like that. She's okay, though.
Because Casey had thrown out all her mini-skirts.
Because Derek had maybe mourned the loss of them for three days straight and then gone and dyed all of her clothes blue.
Because when she'd woken up in the middle of the night their last day together and found them kissing in the kitchen, she hadn't felt her stomach turn.
Because this, Derek and Casey arguing but holding hands and Emily watching them from the sidelines just like always, is love.
And they finally, finally, finally know it too.