Author's Note: I know, I know. This isn't my flashfic, or an update to one of the two unfinished multi chapters I have out there. It's a prologue for a new fic. Sorry. I suck like that. This is something I've wanted to do for a really long time though. I swear I'll actually finish this one.

So... enjoy the prologue?

Disclaimer: You know, after all this time I still don't have the rights to Life with Derek. I'm still hoping.

"It be so tragic if you left me alone

but left me no one to blame.

And don't it make you wonder what got us here?

The covers that we're under could disappear

Promises keep us in chains my dear."

Drake Bell

Fool The World

Prologue

Derek Venturi wishes he could make himself stop coming to this place. He doesn't know why he's here again, sitting in a dingy little motel room, waiting. He doesn't know why he's wasting a Saturday night on this, a Saturday night he could be using to find a real life. A life that's not about lies and sneaking and games and broken promises. He can't figure out why he does this to himself. He wishes he was strong enough to break away from her. Every time he shows up makes it less likely that he'll ever be able to escape this and he knows it. They aren't even doing it right, this affair thing. Not that there's a right way to have an affair, but really, Derek has seen enough Lifetime movies at 3am and overheard enough conversations in his life to know that this isn't how it normally works. He's pretty sure he should be some married guy, sneaking off with a girl ten years younger than him and promising to leave his wife for her. He's pretty sure he should have two kids he buys pity gifts for, and maybe a big SUV, oh and job that requires a suit. He doesn't have any of that. All he has is a hotel key and an overwhelming sense of frustration. He actually waits for her calls. He actually drops everything when his caller ID comes up "Casey." It's pathetic he knows it.

Somedays he feels like he is being punished for her mistakes. It isn't his fault she went and got married. It isn't his fault she wouldn't admit she needed him. That's what he thinks on good days. On bad days he wonders if he could have stopped her. He wonders if this isn't actually entirely his fault. It's a masochistic line of thought, one that tends to kick into high gear when he's drunk. He wonders what would have happened if he'd stood up at her wedding and just told her. He wonders what could have been if he'd maybe, punched out her then fiance, now husband. He wonders if she would have killed him for that. He wonders what stopped him from telling her before it got that far. It's not like he didn't have the opportunity. That's about when he normally decides he deserves this. He let her go years ago. He wasn't ready, and now it's too late. So, he thinks that maybe this half assed, sneaking around life is his punishment. He thinks that maybe this is all he gets and that all he will ever have are brief moments of happiness followed by weeks of total shit. When he gets to this point in his thoughts, he normally decides he's had enough to drink.

He always gets there first, he always has time to sit and wait for her, time to seriously considering going home. Doing the right thing. He never can though. It's funny because he knows it kills her too, he knows she feels terrible about the sneaking around and the lies, but when she walks through the door and her eyes met his, she glows. Every time. Her whole face lights up, and she beams at him, and God, no one else ever looks that happy to see him. It can't be wrong. It's too damn perfect to be wrong.

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