Greek:

We Can't Be Friends

A/N: Is anybody else frustrated by Casey and Cappie? I think that Casey should have tried harder to get Cappie back. Here's a little fluffy oneshot showing what I think should have happened in the closet. Following the oneshot is a preview for my new story, which is unrelated to this oneshot and starts after the finale.

Casey closed the closet door behind her and turned to face the bewildered blue eyes that found hers in the dim light of the closet.

"You've been avoiding me," she said, repeating what he had said to her the last time they were in here together. Casey watched the memory cross his face before he returned his gaze expectantly back to hers. She had come to tell him that she was in love with him but all she wanted to do was kiss him. She'd held herself back for too long, she thought, as she pushed herself forward, gripping his shoulders for support and pressing her mouth against his. All at once Cappie seemed to both respond and resist, his body stiffening and his lips pressing eagerly against hers.

Casey managed to get a couple of kisses in, before Cappie made up his mind to resist, his hands gripping her upper arms, pushing her away.

"What are you doing?" He asked, his voice rough and a bit breathless.

Casey sucked in air, knowing that she'd have to actually speak before she could kiss him again.

"Just wait. Something, something happened," she said, trying to organize her thoughts after that wonderfully disorienting kiss. "I almost died. Because of that manhole."

She paused to smile as Cappie snorted. "And, that's a funny word but almost dying in that manhole made me realize that I could die at anytime. I could slip in the shower and…I've been waiting all this time to feel the way with Max that I've always felt with you. And if it's the end of the world I want to be with you."

Casey felt her heart sink as she finished speaking and looked up into Cappie's face. When, back at the house, she imagined telling him how she felt, his face didn't look like this.

"Casey," he said, his grim tone confirming her suspicion, making her chest hurt. "Max is a great guy."

"I know. That's what makes this so hard," she confessed. "I don't want to hurt him."

"Then don't. Don't ruin things with Max because of some fleeting thought."

"This isn't some fleeting thought," she threw back, a hint of desperation leaking out into her voice. "This is what I really feel. I finally have some clarity."

"You think it's clarity but it's not. It's a post traumatic stress reaction and it will wear off, and you'll regret coming to see me tonight."

"No, I won't."

"You'll remember that I'm a childish, lazy, unreliable, unpredictable, unambitious frat guy, who let you down before and that's why we didn't work," he said, throwing at her all the reasons why she had kept them apart all these years.

The pain in her chest was almost unbearable now and as she bit back tears she couldn't think of anything to say but, "You don't even want to try?"

Casey watched a dozen emotions flicker in Cappie's blue eyes and Casey held her breath waiting for him to respond. The last emotion, something that looked like sadness, settled in his eyes and he looked down at her.

"The world isn't going to end tonight, okay?" He said, his gaze turning dismissive.

The blow hit Casey hard in the chest, her breath whooshing out of her lungs. She turned, her hand on the doorknob, ready to run but with a pausing realization she knew that she had nowhere to go. Whenever her life was in turmoil she ran to Cappie, even when she thought that she couldn't. She had accidentally forgot to call the auto club last week when the homecoming truck broke down and called him instead. But it wasn't an accident. She had been in trouble and she'd called the only person who was always there for her. When Evan cheated on her and Frannie convinced her that her social standing and chances of becoming ZBZ President were in danger, she ran to the place where she knew she could find him. On Myrtle Beach, when she thought she was floating alone in the vast ocean of indecision, she clung on to him.

"The world isn't going to end tonight," she said, turning to face him abruptly, having no choice but to talk through the tears that slid down her cheeks, "but my denying how I feel for you is. I've been miserable these past few weeks since we agreed to not be friends and, and I know it took me a long time to figure out why. I've been blind and stupid and afraid. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you push me away because you're afraid—"

"You said it yourself, Casey," he interrupted. "Max—"

"Forget about Max," she pleaded. "Max and I are done either way, Cap. I can't continue dating him when I know that I'm in love with you."

Cappie froze as he let her words sink in. His eyes were wide as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Cappie please," she whispered. Her heart was hammering in her chest; it was the only thing that she could hear besides Cappie's shallow breathing. She wasn't sure what she should do; she only knew that she couldn't give up on him so she did the only thing that she could think of.

Casey took two steps closing the distance between them, pressing her mouth to his once again. At first Cappie's lips were stiff but after a moment he kissed her back, allowing her to slip her tongue into his mouth. As Casey touched his tongue with hers she felt him shiver; his reaction fueling Casey's reactions. She pressed her body closer, her arms entwining around his neck. He didn't move his hands from his sides but he did groan, half pleasure, half pain, when Casey tilted her head to the side to deepen the kiss.

Finally out of breath Casey pulled back a few inches, her chest rising and falling against his.

"What does that tell you Cappie?" She asked.

"It tells me we can't be friends," he said, repeating the words she had said to him three weeks ago.

Casey looked up into his eyes, her mouth twitching into a small knowing smile. Cappie hadn't reacted like he wanted to be her friend.

"It tells me that we can't be anything but more than friends," Casey said.

Cappie searched Casey's eyes one last time before wrapping his arms around her.

"For once, Case, I think you're right," he said before pulling her against his chest and taking her breath away.

***

Take a Greek Peak at my new story:

Casey Cartwright felt a shiver creep up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She looked around at the people at her table. Everyone was talking, laughing. No one seemed to notice the warm night air change, a sudden mist floating around them. Casey turned in her chair to face the dance floor, her gaze drawn automatically to a pair of startlingly blue eyes. She gasped as she looked at the face of a man she hadn't seen in 8 years. He stood on the other side of the dance floor on an old rotting dock that jutted out into the lake, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black suit. The mist, picked up off the surface of the lake by the light breeze, swirled around him, making his features blurry.

Casey rose silently from her chair, her eyes still locked with the man from her past. He had barely changed at all, she realized, as she moved slowly toward him. The white lamps lighting the lakeside swayed in the breeze and seemed to dim, the stars moving closer in the night sky. The music faded away until the only thing Casey could hear was the whistling of the wind, urging her to move forward. She was vaguely aware of Rusty and Jordan dancing and saw from her peripheral vision that they, like all the other dancers, had stopped to watch her.

Casey sighed with relief as she finally reached the dock and stepped onto it, the wood moist and springy beneath her bare feet. She reached out to him with a hand, the haze around her becoming thick and suffocating. She tried to call to him as the darkness swallowed her but no sound came out. Casey could only see his outline now as the night pressed on her skin. He took a step toward her and for a fleeting second she thought he would come to her but he only turned, his hands still in his pockets, and walked away into the mist.

Casey slowly opened her eyes and looked into the darkness that surrounded her. Before her eyes could adjust she felt warm air tickle her ear and was distantly aware of the light dusting of hair that covered the chest of the man pressed against her back as well as the swell of his erection against her thigh.

"You were moaning in your sleep," a husky voice said next to her ear. "Tell me what you were dreaming about."

Cappie, she thought as a hand snaked out of the dark to cup her naked breast. She felt a surge of heat between her legs and then felt it fade just as quickly as it had come.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," Casey said flatly, pulling herself up from the bed.

"Are you okay?"

Casey stepped into a pair of red lace panties and a crumpled pair of Levi's before turning to face Kale Turner, whom she could see was laying on his side, naked, his head propped up by his hand.

"Why?" Casey asked, pulling a red t-shirt over her head, "Something has to be wrong if I don't want to sleep with you?"

"Exactly," he said, a cocky grin spreading across his face.

"Well there's nothing wrong."

Casey felt Kale studying her face as she slipped on her beat up jogging sneakers. He knew she was lying, of course, and she was thankful that it was too dark for him to see her clearly. They'd reached that level of friendship where he could see the spasms of pain that occasionally flickered in her green eyes. Kale, along with his boss and her best friend, Ashleigh Howard, was one of the few people that knew her so well. But if he had guessed at the reason for her sudden solemn attitude he said nothing. That's what she loved most about Kale, he was the strong and silent type.

"Don't wait up," she said before closing her bedroom door behind her.

Casey grabbed her house keys out of the floral fruit bowl her mother had given her for Christmas three years ago, which sat on her kitchen counter and had never actually held any fruit, and stepped out of her cool, central air controlled house into the balmy New York evening. She looked to the left and to the right as she trotted down the steps of her Brooklyn townhouse. Her street was deserted, a row of street lamps showing her only the sleepy trees and the obscure shadows made by silent cars jammed into their tight spaces.

She felt something pull in her chest as she listened to her footsteps, the only sound to be heard at this time of night. She loved her neighborhood. Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn was clean, safe, and a great place to raise a family, she thought, repeating the words her real estate agent had told her the first time she had set foot into her 2,880 sq. foot brownstone in Carroll Gardens' historical district. All the houses in New York City's smallest historical district were built roughly around the mid to late 1800s and featured large front gardens, an unusual attribute for Brooklyn. Casey had been tired of her once posh SoHo apartment in Manhattan and had opted for a quiet neighborhood with a young, stylish yet unpretentious edge.

Four years ago, Casey had been ready to start a family but like all of her other relationships, her romance with Robert Morelli had cracked at the seams before they even had a chance to walk down the isle. The smart, charming, and unwittingly self-deprecating defense lawyer from Harvard had swept Casey off her feet only to leave her most nights to drown himself in the bottom of a whisky bottle. Casey smiled as she turned the corner and found herself staring down Smith Street, one of two central streets housing the otherwise residential neighborhood's cute boutiques, out of this world restaurants, and at least a dozen bars. After she and Rob had moved into the townhouse it became obvious to her that she couldn't spend her life picking him up off the floor of The Zombie Hut, the tiki hut themed bar she now stood in front of. Casey walked in, nodded to a couple of the faces that turned her way and sat down at the bar, ordering herself a lemon drop.

After kicking Rob out of her life, and changing her locks, Casey felt sure that Rob had been a very cheap imitation of someone she had lost a long time ago and that's why it hadn't worked out. Casey took a big gulp of her drink and tried to push the thought away, focusing instead on the man that lay alone in her bed right now.

Kale had stepped into her life just as Rob was finally stepping out. Ashleigh, always doing whatever she could to ease Casey's incessant sense of loneliness, had set them up on a blind date. Casey snorted at the thought, drawing her glass to her lips again. Kale, a former model and now Ashleigh's business manager, had girls climbing all over him and had only gone out with her at Ashleigh's request. He was tall and boyishly handsome, his dirty blond hair always impeccably cut and his shirts neatly pressed. He was a guy's guy and usually had a pretty model hanging on his arm. Casey attributed it to him having to prove his masculinity and heterosexuality in an industry controlled by women and homosexuals. But he was doing wonders for Ashleigh's upper east side boutique, Amp3, and he satisfied Casey in bed, asking very little of her, so she didn't care what his issues were. Casey sighed before draining the last of her drink. Who was she to point out Kale's issues when she was sitting at a bar at three in the morning, unable to sleep for fear that she'll dream of a man that she hadn't seen in eight plus years. A man she would surely see again in only two days time at her brother's wedding.